The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth (24 page)

THE DONKEYS WERE tethered to the side of the kiosk but there was no Eeyore. Cadwaladr was there instead, putting nose bags on them. He told me that Eeyore had rushed off when he received word that Miss Muffet had turned up at the stable. She was a bit bedraggled and thinner, he said, and had lost an ear in a fight but otherwise she was OK. And best of all, she was with foal.

‘Never guess who else was here yesterday,’ Sospan said over his shoulder as he watched the fluted torrent of ice loop and twirl into the cone. I wondered what they put in it to make it so shiningly, translucently white, whiter even than Dulux gloss paint. Whiter than the smiles of the starlets in the What-the-Butler-Saw movie studios. It had to be a chemical, nothing natural ever looked so pure.

‘Surprise me then,’ I said.

‘Frankie Mephisto, the gangster. Came up to the kiosk cool as you like and ordered an ice. Said he’d been waiting twenty-five years for this moment. Dreaming of it every day.’

‘And I bet you gave him credit, didn’t you?’

Sospan looked a bit uncomfortable. ‘What would you have done?’

I bought an ice for Cadwaladr and went to lean against the railings and savour the bright windy day. For once I wanted to think about nothing. Nothing at all. Like a donkey with its face in the bag.

The stiff breeze raised goosebumps on the flesh of my arm and some quality in the glitter of light on the sea brought unbidden
the soft melancholy of summer afternoons in childhood. That moment when the heat loses its edge and with a stomach sick with ice cream, and hair lank with salt, you roll up wet trunks in a soggy, gritty towel and climb the steps home. At the top you always paused, like Lot’s wife, and something about the late afternoon light on the sea, whose shade of blue had inexplicably deepened, would catch at the heart and whisper of pleasures still to be sucked from the rind of the day. Perhaps that was how Brainbocs felt from that vantage point on the Prom. The day that still haunts him when he saw Myfanwy in the soft love-play of adolescence. Who could blame him if his heart had never recovered from the blow? There was a basic design flaw in the universe: God had ordered something strong and durable to create the human heart, like carbon fibre, or polypropylene, and they’d sent flesh by mistake. Just a mix-up in despatch. No one was to blame, could have happened to anybody.

Cadwaladr joined me and placed his elbows on the railing.

‘When are you going to tell me?’ I said.

‘Tell you what?’

‘Where Rimbaud went during his missing years.’

‘Didn’t I tell you that?’

‘No.’

He nodded and thought for a while. And then he said, ‘He went to see the widow. The widow of the man he slew in the ravine. Remember me telling you that story? That’s who he went to see. The guy’s widow.’

‘What for?’

‘Don’t know. These things happen that way sometimes.’

‘How did he know where to find her?’

‘I don’t suppose he did. But he had all the time in the world. Probably just wandered around for a while. Then one day he arrives in some dusty, sun-beaten one-horse town. The sort of place you might stop to get a glass of water but not much else. And maybe buy some feed for your animal. He left his mule with
the ostler and went for a walk and as he passed the town library a woman came out of the revolving door carrying some books under her arm. She dropped one and bent down to pick it up and, without thinking, so did Waldo. Their hands met on the book for a second and she pulled her hand back and Waldo picked up the book and handed it to her. It was a collection of poems by the French symbolist, Rimbaud. The lady took the book and at that moment Waldo, or Rimbaud as he was just about to become, looked up into her face and gasped. Her skin, he said, was the colour and sheen of a freshly opened bar of the finest Swiss milk chocolate; her eyes deeper and darker than a moonlit pool. Eyes so big and so pure and clear that you couldn’t look at them without wanting to swim in those depths and never return to the shore. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on, he said, the most beautiful woman it was possible for a mortal to lay eyes on: and, if that wasn’t enough, she spoke French. After she took the book from the thunderstruck Waldo she did a little curtsey and said, “
Merci
,
monsieur
.” And then she left and Waldo stood staring at the empty street for the next ten minutes. He sold his mule to the ostler, sold his saddle and the two little pouches of prospected gold and went to the inn. “How long you planning on staying?” they asked, and he said, “However long it takes.”

‘He knew without needing to be told that the divine vision he’d seen on the library steps was the local French teacher so he signed up for some lessons. You will have guessed by now who the woman was: the widow of the dead soldier, of course. But it was quite a while before Rimbaud guessed and by that time it was too late. Her name was Isabella. I mean that’s what they all called her, I don’t know her real name. It’s not important. When she saw Rimbaud at her lesson the following week she thought it must have been a coincidence ordained by fate. A belief only further reinforced when she found out his name was Rimbaud. Well, he had to tell her something, didn’t he? But that’s my
favourite poet! she said in delight. How amazing, said Rimbaud, it was my mother’s favourite poet, that’s why she named me thus. And Isabella laughed. For the first time since the news of her husband’s death reached her, she laughed. Laughed with childish delight at the silly coincidence of their names. Perhaps if she had been a little better versed in the ways of the world she might have known that the likelihood of someone from Bala being named Rimbaud in honour of his mother’s favourite poet was not high. But she didn’t. Soon they were best of friends. And not long after that they were more than just good friends. So it is between a man and a woman the whole world over. And has been since this world was made. The townspeople were also pleased. Isabella was a popular girl and had shown the correct amount of piety that decorum demanded after the death of her brave husband. But life, as we all know, must go on and we must go on with it. They rejoiced when they saw the burgeoning relationship with the stranger in their midst. They could see he had brought joy back into her life, and laughter into the lonely home where the daughter, Carmencita, was growing up into a fine child. Before long, Rimbaud moved into the house and the little Carmencita began to call him “Dad” and the townspeople were doubly pleased. Because it is not right for a child to grow and not know a father. And, though he had slain her dad, it did not stop him loving her as if she were his own child. Rimbaud didn’t intend any of this. It just happened, like it could have happened to any of us. And when he found out the identity of the woman he had fallen in love with, what could he do? He tried to explain things to Isabella, he told her he was a Welshman, of the same blood that slew her husband, but she wouldn’t listen. Perhaps she should have taken the bit about the same blood more literally. “I don’t see a Welshman or a Patagonian, or a Spaniard, or a mestizo,” she told him. “Just another human being who has suffered, but whose heart is big.” And then she added, “You know, I think Salvador, my poor departed husband, would have liked you.”
That was a moot point, of course. But she seemed convinced of it. “Sometimes,” she added, “I can feel his presence, guiding me and telling me that you are a good man. When I get this feeling, it is never wrong.” Before long they were married and farming llamas and the wounds for both of them were healing fast. The man called Waldo had gone from this world and in his place was Rimbaud, a man who was nowhere but had come home. Together they set up a charitable trust in the name of her dead husband, Salvador. And, to his credit, Rimbaud worked tirelessly for the memory of the man he had savagely murdered. For the first time in his life Rimbaud was happy. He had a beautiful wife, an angel of a daughter, and a respected position in society because to the simple farmers who comprised the townsfolk he was the living embodiment of a Christian parable. The priest even alluded to it from the pulpit: the spirit of Jesus was walking among them in that town, he said, a town they had all wrongly supposed to be too humble and mean to be worth his notice. His spirit had walked among them and touched the hearts of two people who had been bitter foes and had now filled them both with love. And this bond of love between them was thus a symbol of reconciliation and His greater redemption.
Amor vincit omnia
. Love conquers all. And the good priest even went so far as to hope it would not be long before this blessed union was consummated with a child whom they could all love. And the congregation smiled and Isabella reached across and squeezed Rimbaud’s hand.’ Cadwaladr paused and spat on to the rocks below.

‘So how did it end?’

‘Novocaine. He needed some root canal treatment. Talked in his sleep.’

I returned to the office and found Calamity who had been to Gabriel’s, the gents’ outfitters in Portland Street. Gabriel’s was old school and specialised in serving gentlemen who like to keep abreast of fashion, as long as it was the fashion of fifty years
ago. They were not cheap and they were not quick and nothing was off the peg. Even the handkerchiefs were bespoke. But, interestingly, they kept detailed records of their customers; normally they would have been too discreet to divulge particulars to a stranger. But a case in which one of their coats might help a man recover a lost memory was different. They were quite helpful, even intrigued, when Calamity explained the purpose of her visit. From her description they thought the coat sounded like the one they made for Dr Galbraith from the Clinic for Women’s Problems on Laura Place. The poor doctor had been found dead recently; cause of death an excess of fluid on the lungs.

‘What sort of fluid?’ I asked.

‘Seawater.’

‘Hmmm. That’s quite a common cause of death round here.’

‘Found on Aberdovey beach, body been in the water two or three days.’

‘OK.’

‘I also tried the Enoc Enocs Foundation but all their records were destroyed in a fire about five years ago.’

‘You’ve been busy.’

‘There was one other thing I found out.’ She looked hesitant.

‘Go on.’

‘It’s a bit … er … sort of … I don’t know how to say it. I followed a hunch.’

‘Nothing wrong with that. Where did it take you?’

‘I was thinking about the lawn out at the Waifery, the one where the grass won’t grow. I had a chat with the grass seed expert at the Farmers’ Co-op. He said that, according to the Borth Birdwatcher’s Society, birds won’t sing there either.’

‘Really!’

‘He seems pretty sure it’s something to do with metal deposits in the soil.’

‘Either that or it’s cursed.’

‘I tried to find out when the pond was filled in and it seems
to have been about the time of the Great Cliff Railway Robbery. And I thought, if you buried some loot in the pond that would count as a metal deposit wouldn’t it?’

‘It would. That’s quite an intriguing thought.’

‘Especially as they seem to have acquired a new roof for the Waifery around the same time. Anyway, I sort of borrowed one of those five-pound notes in the petty cash and paid Poxcrop to go and have a dig.’

‘You borrowed it?’

‘He’s given us a receipt.’

‘That’s all right then. And what did we get for our five pounds? The long lost buried Cliff Railway loot?’

Calamity shook her head. ‘No, something else. It’s better if I show you.’ She walked across to her old school PE bag and unzipped it. Then she took out a skull. ‘I think it might be a monkey,’ she said.

I sat in the corner of the Castle pub next to the switched-off fire and sipped my pint. The lounge bar had a sad, mid-afternoon emptiness. Just me, two students playing pool, and an old man making his pint last all day. The door swung open with a faint squeal and Llunos stood framed in the doorway surveying the room. There wasn’t much to survey and within a second and a half his eyes lighted on me. It was one of those moments – we hadn’t spoken since the men in white hats argument a week ago. When I telephoned him he had been gruff but listened. I told him about Bassett and he said he would bring him in for questioning along with Professor Haywire. He made a slight jerk of his head, walked over. He pointed at my glass, took my answer for granted, and went to order two pints. When he returned, I said I was sorry about the argument and he said, ‘I was out of line, too.’

‘No you weren’t. Everything you said was true – about the white hats and all that.’

‘You were just sticking up for Calamity. I saw that afterwards. I wouldn’t have respected you if you hadn’t of stuck up for her.’ He took a drink and said, ‘Syracuse wasn’t a bent cop like Calamity thinks. You have to understand how it was in those days.’

‘Of course.’

‘The Squire was a powerful man. Syracuse was just a nobody.’

‘I can see that.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. I don’t know the truth of it myself. I just know after thirty years doing this job that no matter what you do, right or wrong, no one gives you any credit for it. It’s always wrong. You let a guy go, you’re too soft. You give him a slap, you’re too brutal.’ He sneered. ‘These people don’t know what brutality is. They should try doing my job for a month, then they’d know. Most of the time we’re just trying to sort things out. Ask your dad. He’ll know what I’m talking about.’

‘What you said on the stairs when you left – it sounded like you knew all along.’