The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still (26 page)

I kicked Raspiwtin’s knee. He winced. ‘Don’t get too cosy,’ I reminded him. ‘Now, suppose you pay for your supper by telling us the truth about who you are. The real story.’

‘I have told you the real story. My name is –’

‘Your name is Iolo Yefimovich Raspiwtin. We heard that bit.’

‘I was born in the district of Ponterwyd, overlooking the Nant-y-Moch River in 1931.’

‘I think you told us that last time.’ I said.

Raspiwtin ignored me. ‘My story really begins before that, many aeons ago, at the very dawn of time when there were just tribes wandering across the great empty savannahs; simple hairy folk who sought food and shelter and were spiritually at peace.’

‘I’m not sure you need to go back quite so far,’ I said. ‘Maybe you could skip forward a few million years to somewhere around 1931 or possibly later.’

Raspiwtin scowled at me. ‘I was a child of notable piety. Already in the womb, through careful listening, I learned the rudiments of the Lord’s Prayer. As an infant I developed calluses on my knees from praying, and it is said I put aside my nurse’s pap during Lent. I was brought up by my grandmother, who sent a few pennies every month to the Catholic church to help the orphanage in the Gilbert Islands. She wrote a letter to the Vatican describing my precocious piety, and, to our great astonishment, I was offered an apprenticeship at the age of twelve in the Vatican laundry, under the tutelage of Father Theophrastus.’

‘I think you told us about the laundry, too,’ I said.

‘Yes, but this is an important milestone in the development of my
apostasia
. You must understand, you see, the effect it had on my second day when I told the boys how I had been selected on account of my piety. “Oh really!” they laughed, “is that what you call it?” “Yes, yes,” I said and told them about the scholarly essay I had submitted. How their mocking laughter echoed through the laundry! How my ears burned! How my eyes stung with tears! Those wicked imps! They told me that the clerics never looked at the essay, only at the photo which accompanied it. “Don’t you see how pretty we all are?” they asked. “Didn’t you wonder why they wanted a photo of you in your swimming costume?” Oh, those wicked boys!’

‘I think he’s playing for time,’ said Calamity. ‘Maybe he thinks the cops are coming.’

‘He’ll lose his kneecaps if they do.’

Raspiwtin continued unabashed. ‘You asked me who I was. And what I have just laid out before you is a very, very small part of the story of what I am.’

‘OK, what are you doing in Aberystwyth?’

‘I was coming to that.’

‘It didn’t look like it.’

‘I told you I was here because of a Burmese girl.’

‘You told me about her, you said you were in love with her and she was murdered; this you found greatly upsetting. So much so that you burst into tears.’

‘These are very tender feelings.’

‘So is your kneecap. And by the way, I found a newspaper cutting with the same story, so I’m not convinced it really happened to you at all.’

He gave me an insouciant smile and continued. ‘After the tragedy in Burma I was recalled to Rome, where my tutor took me into the postroom. In there they had a pile of letters from kind old widows all over the world who sent us postal orders to help with the orphanages. We searched for one from my own grandmother in Ponterwyd, cashed it at the Vatican post office, and spent the night drinking and whoring on the proceeds. During that night Father Theophrastus instructed me in the terrible truths of this world.’

‘What does this have to do with anything?’ I asked.

‘Everything! You see, eventually I returned from this land of shadows . . .’

‘Does it have anything to do with the Zed Notice?’ asked Calamity.

He looked slightly taken aback. ‘You know about the Zed Notice?’ He paused, momentarily stuck for words. ‘That is nothing to worry about.’

‘Tell us what it is,’ I said, aiming the gun at his knee and squinting along the top of the barrel. ‘Then we’ll decide whether it’s anything to worry about.’

He made a dismissive gesture with his hands as if a Zed Notice was a parking ticket. ‘It’s just a piece of clerical work. For crimes of the level of Tower of Babel and above. Usually involves a simple razing of the town and then ploughing of the fields with salt. Tell me, have there been any deliveries of military-grade ploughs at the railway station that you know of?’

‘Not that I have been informed,’ I said.

‘That’s good,’ said Raspiwtin. ‘These things are hardly ever enacted. It’s when the ploughs turn up that you have to worry.’

‘I’ve got a great idea,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you tell us again, in simple terms, what you think you are doing in Aberystwyth.’

Raspiwtin paused and beamed at us like a stage conjurer preparing his pièce de résistance. ‘My goal in visiting Aberystwyth is nothing less than the emancipation of humanity from a prison it has been inhabiting, unaware, for ten thousand years.’

‘You should see the camera obscura while you are here as well,’ I said.

‘Ah, you scoff! Because you think I am just a dreamer, a . . . a visionary. While you, Mr Knight, you think you are a cynic whose heart is steeped in the dark milk of disillusion, or so you fancy. But, in truth, you are wrong on both counts. When I say I mean to be the instrument of humanity’s deliverance, I do not talk of some vague and abstract rarefied theoretical position but of things wholly definite and concrete. And you, dear Louie, are a stranger to the contents of your heart: it is not bitter gall that flows there, but love, yes! Love! Your heart is bruised but it is big, it contains multitudes, and it is for this reason alone that I have chosen you to aid me in my task.’ He put the cup down on the table. ‘Tell me, Louie, are you familiar with the Japanese word
koan
? It is the name of a type of conundrum upon which Zen monks meditate in order to achieve enlightenment. A well-known example is, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” During my early years I discovered a
koan
of my own, one that turned my world on its head. It concerned the atom-bomb raid on Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. Nagasaki was a Catholic city, you see, founded by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and home to sixty thousand Catholics, including many orders of Holy Sisters. I read an article in
Life
magazine once about the military chaplain on Tinian Island in the Marianas, from where the bombing raid took off. On the day of the mission he said a prayer for the success of the raid and blessed the crew. The target they were to aim for was the Urekami Catholic cathedral in the centre of Nagasaki. The effect on me of this
koan
was quite, quite shattering.’

‘Lots of people died, not just Catholics.’

‘Of course, all civilian deaths were equally regrettable. And yet . . . surely if such a thing is possible, this is even more insane? Bombing ourselves? What greater insanity can be conceived of than this, that the priest blesses the mission that goes to bomb his own cathedral? I pondered this riddle for many years.’ He stood up. ‘And now I must leave it for you to ponder. Thank you for the excellent meal. It has all been charming.’

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I need to make some phone calls; I’ll be back in a short while.’

‘No, you won’t,’ I said, ‘because you won’t be going anywhere.’

‘I really do have to go.’

‘I’ll shoot your knees out.’

He smiled and opened the door. ‘No, you won’t. You’re too kind, Mr Knight. Any fool can see that.’

He was right. He walked out. Leaving just a scent of Parma Violets like a mauve ghost.

Chapter 15

The next
morning there was a beautiful dawn. This was often the way: the gods played games with us. Under such a burning sky, pink and crimson, who could be unhappy? Even a condemned man waking on the morning of his execution to a sky like this would take extra care over the brushing of his teeth. Was it George Orwell who described a condemned man stepping aside to avoid a puddle on his way to the gallows?

I left Miaow still sleeping and drove at first light out to Penparcau to pick up Calamity. She was already standing on the pavement outside her auntie’s house, yawning like a hippo. We drove to Ginger Nutters in Bridge Street and retraced our steps down the side alley to the back door. This time the TV was switched off. Mrs Bwlchgwallter was gone, but otherwise upstairs was the same as we had left it: the gingerbread alien, the brimming chamber pot, the room airless and smelling rank. We opened a few drawers, looked under a few cushions, but did so in a manner that said we thought the task of finding the tape was futile. As futile, perhaps, as our next mission: to go and see Meici and appeal to his better nature.

‘Thing is,’ said Calamity, ‘if the portable tape recorder was in her handbag, then so is the tape, and she probably has her handbag with her.’

‘Maybe she hid the tape.’

‘If she did, it could be anywhere. It doesn’t have to be here.’

I nodded.

‘I wonder what the farmer said under hypnosis that made her scream.’

We gave up and drove to Machynlleth to kill time and to eat breakfast somewhere I was less likely to be recognised. We read the paper and drank coffee, and when it was coming up to 10.00 we drove to the caravan park at Clarach. Chastity was sitting on a kitchen stool at the water’s edge. The day was starting to get hot. She had a forlorn air, her feet dangling in the bright water that reached her chair on each successive inflow. I coughed and she turned and looked up, squinting. Her spectacles were broken, and repaired with Sellotape; her left eye was half-closed, swollen and a mixture of yellow, green and mauve.

‘Do you know the land where the lemon tree flowers?’ she asked.

‘All we’ve got is rhubarb. What happened to your eye?’

‘I . . . I fell.’

‘Really? How?’

‘You know, I just fell . . . into a door.’

‘Meici did it to you, didn’t he?’

She pretended to be indignant. ‘No! Of course not. Meici would never do a thing like that.’

‘Yes, he would.’

‘You don’t know him, he’s under so much strain with this new job. It was an accident. He just . . .’

‘He just punched you in the eye. That’s the sort of guy he is.’

‘Don’t you dare say anything bad about Meici, don’t you dare!’

Calamity knelt down and put her arm around Chastity’s shoulders. ‘We don’t want to upset you, we’re your friends . . .’

‘No, you’re not. Meici said you would say bad things about him. He was right. I hate you both. I thought you were nice, but you’re not. You’re a murderer, Louie Knight, I saw you on the TV. Murderer!’ She hid her face in her hands and wept. But it was the fake dry sobbing of a child throwing a tantrum. I waited until she stopped and peeked from behind her hands. She raised her face, sniffing inauthentically.

‘Is he here?’

‘Who?’

‘Meici.’

‘No,’ she said, but her eyes betrayed her, darting for a fraction of a second towards the caravans parked on the grassy verge overlooking the beach.

I turned to look. ‘Which one is it? The blue one?’

‘No, I said he’s not here.’

‘You might as well say –’

Calamity nudged my arm. Meici Jones appeared walking down the road carrying a pint of milk. He entered one of the caravans. We followed.

He was standing in the kitchen area, reading a copy of the
Daily Mirror
propped up on the cooker while eating baked beans from a tin with a fork. When he saw us, he looked frightened.

‘Hi Meici,’ I said.

‘Hi Louie,’ he said with forced joviality. ‘How are things?’

‘Oh, not bad. How are the beans?’

He looked at them as if the answer to the question required deliberation. He became lost in thought. ‘Good,’ he said distantly. ‘The beans are good, Lou.’

‘You’ll be getting married soon.’