Make Room for the Jester (21 page)

The new teacher to replace old Evans Thomas had arrived. He was all pallor and pimples, and it was obvious by the row he gave me for being late, by the way he escorted me personally to the Head for giving cheek that he was new to the game…. Mr Penry told him off in front of me for leaving Sixth Form Arts to their own devices, then ordered him back, gave me a smile as if in apology and asked me to sit down. In no time at all we were having one of his inquiries – one trap question after another, interrupted only by good advice about my choice of friends…. My friends, one in hospital with charred hands, the other God knew where, were all right, and I told him they were all right.

‘You have revealed considerable promise,’ he said. By now it was an insult. I wanted to say don’t you know a good memory when you see one, wanted to swear at him too, and hated myself because I hadn’t got the courage.

He gave up after break. I went back to the class: we had the new teacher again, and the carve-up was in full swing. I kept out of it until Goronwy Jones, always the boy for trouble, put his face close to mine and began to sing the one about my wandering boy. That did it. We fought on the desks, on the floor, out in the corridor. It took Mr Penry himself to part us. We had the cane and a lecture and were suspended for the rest of the day. So I arrived home at ten to twelve in time to catch Meira on her return from the station. She called me wicked, said it was all the bad company I’d been keeping, then added, ‘Making a spectacle of himself –
bowing
to all that crowd watching him come off the train with them little children – policeman guarding them and everything…’

‘He’s back?’ I cried. ‘Gladstone’s back?’ And the tears came just as freely as they had done for Rowland Williams.

‘Went to Chester,’ Walter told me.

‘My poor babies!’ Martha wailed at the door as she took another pound of sugar from someone full of questions and sympathy.

‘It’s a Roman town,’ Dora told me. ‘They had to build it to conquer Wales. Have a little bridge going over the street and everything.’

‘Like they were returned to me from the dead, Mrs bach,’ Martha was saying.

‘Had a lovely time,’ Mair said. ‘Real comic it was…’

Martha came back from the door and showered them all with kisses. ‘My little babies! All right now you’re with your mami, eh?’

‘All right before,’ Walter said.

 ‘When’s Gladstone coming back?’ Dora inquired.

Martha refused to look at me. ‘Oh – he’ll be back…’

‘Going to be a case?’ I said.

She shook her head, still avoiding my eyes. ‘It’s the police, see. Told them I didn’t want a case, though what he did was
cruel
– taking my babies. And he’s seventeen and everything…’

‘What’s he doing at the police station?’ I said.

‘Well,’ she said, reaching for a cigarette, ‘wants warning, doesn’t he? Wants teaching a lesson. Not right what he did…’

‘Keeping him there a long time,’ I said.

‘Super said to leave him cool his heels in a cell…’

She was all guilty about something, and I was
determined
to find out what it was. ‘He’ll be home tonight, then, will he?’

Martha jogged little Walter up and down on her knee. ‘Well – they got to decide, haven’t they?’

‘Decide what?’

‘What to do with him. It’s been all wrong, him at home with children and getting funny ideas. Reading and that all the time. Mrs Meirion-Pughe said it was all wrong.’

‘Did she?’ I said. ‘So what will they decide? Off to a school somewhere?’

Martha gave a loud, false laugh. ‘I told you – no case. I’m not bringing a case against my own. I just signed this paper…’

‘Paper? To say what?’

She held a finger to her lips and pointed at the children. ‘Well – so they can
decide
, that’s all. I mean – he might take them from me again. Might try…’

I wanted to say ‘while you’re boozing at the Harp’, but I couldn’t be cruel to Martha. She was too soft, too hopeless, too easy a target. ‘I’m going to see him,’ I said.

Martha opened her mouth wide. ‘S – E – A,’ she spelt out. Then she waved a finger up and down. ‘You know – waves…’

Horror chilled me. Gladstone going to sea – being shipped out! Oh, good God no, it wasn’t possible. Only in the olden days did they send you to sea….

‘Good place fixed for him,’ Martha went on. ‘I had to sign this paper because of his age, see. Super and
everybody
says it’ll do him good, make a man of him.’

I marched past her to the door, Walter and Mair tagging on and whooping after me. But they were soon back to the kitchen when Dora, high-pitched and incredulous, cried out, ‘Mami, you don’t mean Gladstone has to go to
sea
, do you?’ I didn’t wait to hear how Martha tackled that one.

Super Edwards himself came to the long counter in the police station. ‘Another one,’ he said as he buttoned up his jacket. ‘Just chased your pals away.’

I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘Can I have a word with Gladstone, please?’

The Super had only recently finished his tea. He brushed his moustache and sucked at his teeth while he pondered my request. ‘Been a
lot
of trouble, you lads,’ he sighed. ‘All summer. Got away with a lot. Know that, don’t you?’ I nodded. ‘That one in there’s got off
very lucky
. Should have had the stick across his backside. Know
that
, don’t you?’ I had to nod in case he wouldn’t let me in to
see Gladstone. ‘He’s daft, that one. Keeps on asking me what
books
I’ve read!’ The Super pawed his face. ‘But daft or not – what’s got my goat is he’s not even
sorry
for all the trouble he’s caused. He’s
enjoying
himself in there! What’s a bright boy like you want to talk to
him
for?’

He went on like that for ten minutes, and I nodded and said yessir. Then, quite unexpectedly, he raised the hinged part of the counter. ‘Five minutes is all you’ve got,’ he said, and he led me through his office to a large, bare room that smelled of disinfectant. ‘Sit on that side of the table,’ he ordered. ‘Remember this is a
special
privilege I’m giving.’ Then he went out leaving the door open.

When he returned with Gladstone, I stood up. ‘Down!’ barked the Super. ‘Here’s your friend.’ He motioned Gladstone to the chair across the table from me. ‘I’ll be in my office, listening to every word,’ he added. ‘No
monkey
business
, don’t forget.’ Then he turned and looked at Gladstone and laughed.

‘Very nice of you to come, Lew,’ Gladstone said in a very affected accent. ‘Why don’t you sit down yourself, Super – and have a good
discussion
with us?’

The Super went out saying, ‘Had enough of you and your bloody discussions.’

‘Did you get my note, Lew?’ Gladstone said, winking at me. The Super turned quickly and came back and leaned against the doorpost. ‘I tied it to the pigeon’s leg and told the bird to fly straight to Lew Morgan’s palatial residence on Lower Hill….’

Give over clowning, I was going to say, but the Super broke in with, ‘What pigeon? What note’s that?’

‘Well, of course,’ Gladstone went on, still keeping up his
affected accent, ‘is it not a well-known fact that in each cell there has to be a bird? I said
pigeon
, but perhaps it was a starling, or a robin – it doesn’t really matter – a bird to carry a message to a friend. Why – even in the Old Testament…’

‘Oh, God!’ said the Super.

‘All I wanted was the pills,’ Gladstone went on. ‘Did you bring them, Lew?’

‘What pills?’ the Super roared at me. ‘You’ve not brought this daft bugger any pills, have you?’

I shook my head. Why did Gladstone have to be like this? Why couldn’t he be serious?

‘I’m not having you doing away with yourself in my cells,’ the Super said. ‘Now you watch out, boy – I’ve had enough of your funny business.’ The Super went out, banging the door shut behind him, then remembered and pushed it open again.

‘No time for clowning,’ I said.

Gladstone swept the long hair clear of his forehead. ‘A debatable point, Lew. But when you are a failure, and you’re about to be deported – what else can you do?’

‘Change your voice,’ I said. ‘You’re only talking to me…’

His face split into a broad grin. ‘But I’ve been to England, Lew – for the first time in my life, and by courtesy of the London, Midland and Scottish railway in one of their most luxurious cattle trucks. You know how you’re supposed to talk when you’ve been to England, don’t you? Well – I’ve been.’

I was annoyed with him now. ‘Give over,’ I said sharply. ‘What did you want to go for, anyway?’

‘To see foreign parts, Lew,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘To taste strange air. To give the little ones a treat…’

‘In a cattle truck,’ I said.

He was surprised at my tone. ‘Well – truthfully it wasn’t a cattle truck. It was a guard’s van with no guard. I only said cattle truck because it sounded more adventurous. It was a guard’s van on a long goods train, and the damn thing went non-stop all the way to Chester. Something mysterious there, Lew.’ He pointed a finger at me. ‘Why should a goods train leave Wales at five on a Saturday morning and go non-stop to Chester? Intrigue somewhere, Lew bach. Who knows how many political prisoners were being shipped out from their native land in those cattle trucks?’

Impatiently I pushed my chair back. ‘Be serious,’ I said, ‘we’ve all been worried about you…’

For a brief moment his face became grave, then the smile was back again. ‘Been serious all summer, me,’ he said, back again with that ridiculous accent. ‘I’m a failure, old chap. I’ve even become an Anglicised Welshman after two days! Can’t fail more than that, can you?’

‘Give up,’ I said. ‘Talk properly…’

‘Been in England so long I’ve forgotten all my Welsh.’

‘Jesus!’ I said angrily. ‘Twll tîn bob Sais…’

‘Exactly, old chap! That’s just it.’ His eyes sparkled even in that dim light. ‘That’s the whole trouble. You say to yourself where can I escape to, assuming that I want to escape? And the only answer is England! The other side of the dyke!’ He clapped his hands loudly above the table. The Super appeared in the doorway and glared at us, then retired again. ‘I’m a failure,’ Gladstone went on, lowering his voice a little, ‘because I picked the wrong train and the wrong time of year. Now, if it had been spring I might have made something of it – but not in the wet and the cold.
And there’s these trains – why isn’t there a train leaving Porthmawr station and going non-stop to Paris, say? Or, better still, a non-stopper to the Mediterranean, or the Nile, or Samarkand…? Is that a place, Lew – Samarkand?’

I kicked the table leg. ‘You’re mocking me, that’s what…’

‘No, Lew!’ he said earnestly. ‘That’s not true. I’m just telling you that if you want to escape you
have
to go to England, and that’s the snag. When I realised what I’d done to those little children, I practically
gave
us up to the police.’ Then, all too briefly for my liking, he was very serious, ‘I could have gone on, but I hadn’t anywhere in mind – except here.’

‘But you’re
letting
them send you to sea,’ I cried out angrily.

‘Tomorrow,’ he admitted, the smile back on his face. ‘The Super’s coming with me. He wanted to beat me this afternoon, but the Rev A. H. Jones wouldn’t let him. Oh, they had a long chat about my future – public enemy number one, that’s me – and they were on the phone and all sorts. Now it’s all fixed. I’m off on the South America run with Captain Jenkins – he’s a Bible puncher too – and Martha has signed the paper to let me go…’

‘But you don’t want to go,’ I protested.

He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say that…’

‘You’re giving in to them, letting them do what they want!’ I was angry with him again, angrier still because he was smiling. ‘You won’t, will you? You’ll clear off in Liverpool?’ He shook his head decisively. ‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why?’

He placed his hands very carefully on the table, fingers pointed as if he was going to play the piano. ‘Lew,’ he said
slowly, ‘if I skip out,
they’ll
be the winners.’ I was baffled, and he could see it, too. ‘Besides,’ he added gently, ‘I’m ready for something new. Buenos Aires – might be all right, Lew. Yes – let’s say I’m ready for something new…’

The heavy silence that followed was broken by the scrape of the Super’s chair. I opened my mouth to speak, but Gladstone pulled a book out of his pocket and waved me silent with it. ‘I want you to have this, Lew,’ he said. ‘Found it in a railway carriage in Chester. Never knew such books existed… I’ve been wasting my time, really have.’

I took the book and read out the title. ‘
Salammbo
by Gustave Flaubert…’

The Super came in, but Gladstone went on talking. ‘Some of the pages are missing – but you’ll be shaken, Lew. I’ve never read anything like it…. I’ll have to get on to these Frenchmen, and no mistake. Pity I can’t read the language – you lose things in translation – but that might come, don’t you think so, Super?’

‘You’ve had long enough,’ the Super said to me.

‘Let him stay,’ said Gladstone. ‘The Super’s got a nice place here, Lew. First time I’ve ever had a room of my very own.’

‘Out,’ the Super said to me. ‘Come on.’ He looked down at Gladstone. ‘Oh – you’re going to be sorted out, boy bach! You’d better get all the rest you can – get all your talking done, too. Captain Jenkins won’t give you any time for talk…’

‘How terribly Victorian,’ Gladstone said in his affected voice. The veins bunched up on the Super’s brow.

‘Out!’ he said again, then added with a laugh, ‘say
goodbye
to your friend.’

My throat was dry. I couldn’t get a word out.

‘
Au revoir
, Super,’ Gladstone said. ‘Lew – kiss the little ones for me. Kiss old Martha too – if you like. Tell them I’ll be home by Christmas, all bronzed and smelling of foreign parts. It’ll be a Friday night, Lew. On the last stopper – the 8.23. You be there.’ He held out his hand. I felt very shy as I took it. ‘And, Lew,’ he added, ‘many thanks for the file and the cold chisel…’

‘Out!’ the Super roared, and I marched past his pointing arm. In the office I heard Gladstone start up again. ‘Super,’ he was saying, ‘how do you stand under the
Habeas Corpus
Act in my case?’