The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still (14 page)

‘My informant was Doc Digwyl.’

He gave a fake laugh. ‘You’ll have to do better than that. Apart from the fact that Iestyn Probert never existed, I happen to know that the old doc would never tell you a damn thing about him if he did exist. He’s too busy moping about that woman who walked out on him.’ He threw a crust over his shoulder. ‘I also hear you’ve been friendly with Meici Jones, my new human cannonball. That has to stop, too.’

‘Why would you care about these people?’

‘If I told you that, you wouldn’t have to go round bothering them.’

‘So tell me.’

‘No need because you’re not going to go round bothering them anyway.’ He peeled a triangle of processed cheese and smeared it on a cream cracker. ‘Your food really stinks. Get some Stilton in next time.’

I said nothing but thought about ways to make him go; I let my gaze wander to the shovel lying discarded under the caravan. It wasn’t far away.

Preseli picked up a red triangle of paper napkin and dabbed his fat lips. ‘I don’t want you talking about me or my affairs to the doctor, butcher, baker or candlestick maker, or for that matter my human cannonball. Otherwise I might have to take that job away from him. He likes that job.’

‘None of that means a damn to me. I don’t care about Meici.’

‘So maybe I need to have a conversation with someone you do care about, that little girl for example, the one who works with you. I could give her to Ercwleff to play with; he likes little girls.’

Ercwleff smiled and chomped like the fat kid at your seventh birthday party.

‘I hear he likes rabbits, too.’

Ercwleff beamed. ‘I like rabbits.’

The mayor looked irritated.

‘Hugged one so hard it couldn’t breathe, is that right? Spent the rest of term in a dog kennel?’ It was my turn to smile, the smile of a man pulling the tiger’s tail.

‘That’s not a subject I care to have aired,’ said Preseli. ‘It’s painful for my brother.’

‘Those are the sorts of subject I make my living from.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ said Preseli with mounting anger. ‘You’re just too stupid. You’d think having your desk chopped up might be a clue, but it just wasn’t obvious enough for you.’

The breeze whispered past the caravans; the sun flashed on the chrome bumpers and aluminium trim of the caravan and the tubes of the deckchairs. It was beautiful. I kicked the picnic table and it slammed against the side of the caravan spilling sandwiches over the laps of them both. Preseli jumped up; Ercwleff bent down to retrieve the sandwich he had been eating. I picked up the shovel and brought the thin edge of the blade down the back of his skull. It sounded like a stonemason chiselling rock. Preseli stared at me in astonishment and fear as I raised the shovel again. Ercwleff was frozen on the ground, his rear end jutting like a badger in trousers.

‘That’s what will happen to you if you ever touch Calamity. Your tame bear won’t be enough to protect you. Now get out.’

The blow would have killed most men, but Ercwleff just looked drunk. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and Preseli helped him back to the car. As they drove off, he said through the window, ‘You’ve just started something you can’t finish.’

I knew he was right.

I put the door inside the caravan, removed my shoes and socks, and headed towards the sea. I climbed the mane of marram grass to the crest where the breeze was stronger and made the sharp stalks of grass quiver and spin; as I stumbled down the face of the dune the world became silent except for the soft pat of bare sole on hot, dry sand. And then I found a gap in the wall of dune and was assailed by the distant rumble of the sea. The tide was out, and the sea far off, separated by a long walk across ribbed sand that held quivering pools of hot, sparkling water. Across the sea, the peaceful town of Aberdovey glinted; little white specks signified houses like teeth in the smile of a cartoon giant. Five minutes by boat, but an hour or more by car or train. The estuarial waters moved back and forth, like waters to and from the heart. Glass flashed on the hillside, and the train to Pwllheli moved slowly across the green backdrop with the speed of a bubble rising in a glass of water or a satellite moving across the night sky. Given the choice, it was a wonder anybody opted for burial on land, dropped into a muddy hole, soil in your nostrils and worms in your mouth, to engage in decomposition, a word uncomfortably close to compost. In the sea, down on the ocean floor among impervious fish, you didn’t disintegrate into mulch for the garden, you were purified. You became part of the heartbeat that draws the waters back and forth; you dissolved into that main, the constantly self-renewing, gleaming, pulsing body of salty loveliness.

Chapter 9

Sospan ran
a damp cloth along the counter and talked of escape. I lifted my elbow to let the cloth pass. ‘Everything is prepared, ready for the moment should it ever come,’ he said. ‘An ice-cream van, anonymous and untraceable, secreted in a lock-up garage in Bow Street. Behind the row of council flats, with the red door. The key is hanging from a string taped to the water pipe at the rear. There is ice cream, money, food and clothing in the van. Enough to last a month or more.’

‘What are you expecting to happen? Armageddon?’

‘You mock, perhaps, but my family came to this country after the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. We lost a lot of customers during that dark period. An experience like that makes an impression that lasts for many generations. It’s like people who knew starvation during the war; they never forget it, do they? Always haunted by the fear that such a time might come again. They can’t even throw away a crumb of bread.’

‘Are you really worried you might be massacred in your beds?’

‘I worry about the unforeseen and make what allowances I can. No one knows what lies in store, no one can predict. The wise man prepares.’ He wrung out the cloth and put it away. He leaned forward onto the counter, supporting his face with his hands. ‘But to tell you the truth, physical escape is the easy part, isn’t it?’

‘What other types are there?’

‘I mean relocation of the physical body makes little difference if the soul is in prison, does it?’

‘I guess that’s true. Is your soul in prison?’

‘None of us are truly free. At least, not until we have slain the dragon that lives in all our hearts. You remember me mentioning a special ice cream to you before. The one I keep off-site. The ice-cream man’s Katabasis.’

‘I remember.’

‘This ice cream facilitates escape via the inner route. Not the road of the flesh, across mountain ranges and deserts, but a journey of the spirit, inward and downward.’

‘It sounds . . . interesting.’

‘There is nothing quite like it. I can let you have a scoop if you like, by appointment of course.’

‘Perhaps not today.’

‘Most people who take it describe a vision of a journey into a giant’s castle, I don’t know why.’

‘Aren’t you tempted to take it yourself?’

‘I did once, many years ago, when I was young and frightened and going through a period of great emotional turmoil. I too sought the way of the giant’s castle. What happened? A curious thing. I met a lady at the door to the castle who sent me back. She said, “No, Sospan, you are not ready for the way of the giant’s castle, this route is barred to you. We have other things in mind. You must return to the surface, return to Aberystwyth. There, on that frontier between the world of flesh and that kingdom of salt beyond the Prom, ruled over by my cousin Pluto, you must pitch your tent, a little wooden pillbox. From there you shall cast forth your wares, principally cold sticky sweetmeats perfumed with vanilla, emblem of paradise and the Lotus Isles, and with this will you ensnare the hearts of men and make them whole with your ministry of love. And for those whose wounds are too grievous, that cannot so easily be remedied, you will send them here to the Giant’s Castle, and we will minister to their heart’s ache.” So I came back.’

‘What was it called again?’

‘Katabasis. £1.25 a scoop. By appointment only.’

‘Do you get a flake?’

‘It can be arranged, but I consider it gilding the lily. It’s got green ripple.’

A new customer arrived and Sospan changed the subject. ‘Mr Raspiwtin! Lovely evening.’

Raspiwtin gave me a sheepish nod and ordered a choc ice.

‘Mr Raspiwtin was explaining earlier today that the world is an illusion.’

‘If it is, it’s a convincing one,’ I said.

‘Every day we have to invent it afresh,’ said Sospan. ‘That’s what you said, isn’t it? Every morning when you awake you groan in torment.’

Raspiwtin’s voice took on a wistful tone. ‘Ah yes! How I crave that exquisite annihilation of the ego we call sleep. But I wake instead and begin once more the terrible Sisyphean labour of fabricating a universe. But once, many years ago, I saw the world as it really was. A series of mornings lasting perhaps a year or more when the trick by which one resurrects the façade failed and my soul was naked before the darkness as a tortoise who has lost his shell. I shudder still to recall it, although, truth be told, it was principally that experience that brought me to these shores, and to this fine meeting with a hero such as you, Mr Sospan.’

‘I think you may be overstating it a bit there,’ said Sospan, turning aside the extravagant compliment. ‘Me a hero?’

‘Not at all! I look at you opening your kiosk every day, feeding the insatiable maw; like a fat sow you parade your teats to the biting snouts of your litter; you suffer in silence, performing the essential sacrament of your trade. The day wanes and you close. The sun sets and you are miserable once more, you who were formerly so glorious are now dross; pathetic. A contemptible jester, nothing more. But for a while – temporarily, yes; provisionally, indeed; fragmentarily, of course! – for a while you created your own meaning. You transcended your fate. You were a hero. Truly you, Mr Sospan, are an Absurd man.’ Raspiwtin made a small flourish with the choc ice and walked off chuckling with the light heart of a man who believes himself to be on the verge of discovering the truth that eluded him all his life.

A squeal erupted from the beach. It was Chastity running across the sands, chased by a man in a space cadet’s outfit. ‘No, Meici, no,’ she squealed in mock terror. Two young lovers playing the game that all young lovers play in the days before their minds are informed of what their hearts have decided. Too early to acknowledge their love, they express it obliquely through rough-and-tumble games that serve as disguised caresses. The sight was as familiar on this beach as a dog stealing a toddler’s ice cream, but it had more poignancy here because the two actors, Meici and Chastity, would no doubt be appalled if you had made explicit to them the truths embodied in their chase. Chastity was a hopeless runner, and Meici, though not much better, gained on her easily. When she reached the water’s edge she found, like many people before her, that her fleeing feet had betrayed her; there was nowhere left to run. She stopped and huddled; Meici caught up and stopped, unsure what to do next. ‘No, Meici,’ she squealed. As if remembering the rest of the role, Meici grabbed her and began to tickle her. ‘No, no, no, stop it, no, don’t hit me,’ she squealed in play, unaware, as were we all, that one day she would say it in truth.

The Pier began to blink with light; to ping and ding and tinkle; to emit the hot smell of scorched ozone, which mingled on the night breeze with the heavier reek of fried onion and grease-encrusted hot-dog van. Under the Pier, hidden in the gloomy forest of ironmongery, roosting starlings emitted a collective mutter. I walked up the Prom in search of Raspiwtin and found him playing crazy golf. Of all the rituals of the seaside holiday it must be the emptiest. It isn’t crazy; not really. Despite the discordant primary colours painted on the concrete, it isn’t zany or madcap or subversive or anarchic; it doesn’t encroach upon the line separating genius and madness. It is simply dull. The grass is made of cement, which gives no purchase to the ball, and therefore it is impossible to aim with any precision. The ritual survives for one reason only: in our hearts we notice a subtle resonance with our own fates. We too careen around a concrete rink for a while, ping from side to side across a garishly painted world the colours of which betoken fake joys, driven by insane forces, subject to incomprehensible laws and rules in which merit plays no part; eventually, once chance and Brownian motion have exhausted all other possibilities, we drop into a hole and have to hand our putter back to a bearded loon in a kiosk. He ticks a cheap pink scorecard. There is no bar afterwards.

Raspiwtin bent over his putter and lined up his shot with needless precision.