Angel on the Inside (31 page)

Trotting races, arts festivals, Breton bagpipers and invading Irish gamblers (horses plus the Irish equals gambling)? What was going on?

‘Have you thought of putting in for European City of Culture?' I asked.

‘Do you get a grant?' he came back like a whip.

‘I dunno, probably. I don't suppose you've got a room have you, with all this going on?'

‘No chance. Booked solid all this week.'

‘Oh, that's a bummer. I didn't much like the look of Lampeter.'

‘You've been to Lampeter?' The barman said it like he would say Samarkand or Timbuktu, but did so whilst handing over two glasses of wine and working the cash register and all of that in time to the music.

‘Didn't take my coat off; wasn't stopping.'

‘Sensible. You here for the kites, then?'

They had a kite flying festival as well? And then I remembered one of the signs I had seen.

‘That's right, the Red Kites.'

‘Famous for them, we are. From endangered species to most successful reintroduction to the wild, no question. So successful, the farmers'll be complaining they're taking the lambs soon; but you know what farmers are.'

I might have been a stranger in these parts, but I wasn't going to fall for that one.

‘Hey, don't knock the farmers, man. Foot and mouth, the Common Agricultural Policy, the bloody supermarkets controlling the prices ... I'm surprised you've got any farmers left. You should look after them before they become an endangered species.'

It wasn't that good a guess. I mean, this place was surrounded by hills and green stuff – there was nothing else for miles except countryside, which meant that the majority of his year-round customers, in the bar at least, were farmers.

I'd given the right answer.

The barman leaned forward and lowered his voice whilst pouring a pint of Guinness for someone.

‘We really are booked solid, but if you don't mind the home cooking, go and see Delith Williams just round the corner, house called Nodfa. She does bed and breakfast. Say John the Beer sent you.'

‘Thanks for the tip,' I said. Then I couldn't resist. ‘John the Beer?'

‘My name's John, and I serve the beer,' he said.

The man could speak three languages, serve 50 customers in a crowded bar without spilling a drop and still he had to deal with idiots like me. The man deserved a pay rise.

 

‘I don't normally do the bed and breakfast, Mr ...?'

‘Fitzroy.'

‘But if John the Beer told you, then they must certainly be full at The Talbot, and we'll just have to do what we can.'

‘You're too kind, Mrs Williams, but only if you're sure it's convenient. If it's not, I'll be out of your hair and try Lampeter, but only if I can have another piece of that ginger cake.'

Mrs Williams flapped at my protests with both hands and shushed away the very idea, then reached for the teapot again. The ginger cake wasn't half bad, but then I was starving.

‘There'll be no need to go all that way to the big towns if all you need is a bed with clean sheets.'

All that way? Lampeter was about 12 miles away, and it wasn't exactly Gotham City.

‘That'll do me. It's probably only the one night, and only
if you
promise
me it's not putting you out.'

It was going to be all right. I could tell from the way she sat back in her armchair and crossed her legs at the ankles.

‘Not at all. We've got the space, you see,' she explained, ‘now that my son has gone up to Jesus.'

That stopped my teacup halfway between saucer and mouth.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs Williams.'

She looked at me like John the Beer, as if Tregaron had been invaded by idiots.

‘Jesus College, Cambridge. He's studying anthropology. Not at the moment, of course; he's on his summer holidays in Fiji. It's his room you're having.'

I grinned inanely.

‘Must be a bright lad,' I said weakly, but I meant it. If he was studying anthropology, coming from Tregaron gave him a head start, and he was in Fiji, I was in Tregaron. Which one of us was the prime candidate for natural deselection?

‘Oh he is, and we're very proud of him. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you had a read of some of his books, and he's got his own television and videotape player in there too, so if you want to rent a video, just pop along to John Video and tell him you're staying at Nodfa. He knows us.'

‘John Video? That would be the chap who runs the local video rental shop, right?'

‘Yes. Of course.'

‘Who runs the garage?'

‘John Petrol runs the shop side, but if your want repairs …'

‘John Repairs?'

‘No, John Garage.'

‘Of course. What's the local butcher called?'

‘We've got two,' she said. Here it comes, I thought. ‘There's Ernest Smith and Frank Spurgeon. Why do you ask?'

‘Oh, it's just that I might need a bit of work on my car,' I fluffed, ‘and I thought about taking some Welsh lamb home with me.'

I better had buy some meat now. She'd probably check.

‘Well, I'm sure we can make you comfortable whilst you're here. There is one thing I've got to ask you, though, Mr Fitzroy, before I show you the room.'

‘Yes?'

‘How do you get on with cats?'

‘Excuse me?'

‘Cats. How do you get on with them?'

Was this a trick question? Some ancient Welsh superstition? I knew that the word ‘Welsh' came from the Saxons and it meant ‘strangers'. Did they have some strange rituals involving ...

No, that was crazy. I obviously didn't have a cat with me, so she was referring to one in the house, and I know my reaction to people who say ‘Oh, cats love me'. I knew Springsteen's reaction, too.

‘Fine and noble creatures,' I said, ‘that show grace and beauty and bring comfort to a lot of people. But they're not like dogs. Don't try and tell them what to do, like dogs. Cats are independent; tell them to do something and they just think “Why should I?”‘

I felt I was on firm ground there. After all, I knew a cat who would argue with a signpost.

‘The reason I ask, Mr Fitzroy,' said Mrs Williams, and she was actually wringing her hands, ‘is that the room you'll be having is my son John's ...'

That would be John Anthropologist.

‘... and John has had this cat since he was a little boy. We call him Tom Sean Catty.' She waited for a response to that, but I didn't get it.

‘I know,' I said. ‘The cat likes using John's room when he's away at college. That's it, isn't it?'

Mrs Williams looked truly pained, her face creased with anguish.

‘Not so much uses … Mr Fitzroy, can I be blunt? Are you
frightened
of cats?'

‘I don't think so. Should I be?'

‘Of this one, yes. I know of grown men – big men – who are scared of Tom Sean, with good reason. You see, Tom Sean's a one-person cat. He likes – he loves – our John, always has. He's putty in John's hands he is. But John's the only person in the world he likes. He absolutely hates everybody else in the world.'

So the cat liked one person, eh? I'd call that weakness. Maybe he wasn't that hard.

‘I'll just pretend he's not there. That way, he can't take me for a threat,' I reassured her.

‘Well, if you're sure …'

‘Trust me, Tom Sean Catty holds no terrors for me.'

‘In that case, would you mind going upstairs first?'

I said I would but I needed to get my bag out of my car first, which wouldn't take me a second as it was parked in the official town car park across the road, which was no more than 50 feet from the back doors and beer garden of The Talbot. (The car park was nearly empty. The road junctions were double-parked. Go figure.)

While I was at the Freelander, I took the pair of yellow leather gardening gloves that Amy keeps as part of her tool kit in case of a breakdown and slipped them inside my jacket. Actually, they were Amy's entire tool kit, as she had pre-sprayed some oil on them and the plan was that when the Automobile Association man (or whoever it was she phoned) turned up, she'd be wearing them and would swear that she'd tried just about everything.

I had insisted that Mrs Williams let me go to the room alone. If he wasn't there, I would call her. Second door on the left at the top of the stairs. Yes, I thought I could find that. I'd found Wales, hadn't I?

Going up the stairs, I slipped on the gloves and unzipped my hold-all and rooted around until I found the T-shirt I'd worn the day before, pulling it to the top of the bag so I could get at it. Then I opened the second door on the left and marched in.

He was lying on the bed, and God, he was big.

 

‘Are you all right, Mr Fitzroy?'

‘Fine, Mrs Williams. Come in.'

She opened the door about two inches, checked, and then entered.

‘I heard the growling,' she said.

That had been mostly me. Tom had be mostly hissing.

‘Was he ...?'

‘Tom's gone out,' I said, indicating the window, which I had left open. Well, it wasn't cold and it wasn't raining that much.

‘He didn't give you any trouble?'

‘No, we just got to know each other. I don't think he liked me, so he went out.'

She looked.

‘I'll make your bed up,' she said quickly, obviously hoping I hadn't noticed the fine covering of long ginger hair in a circular patch on the eiderdown.

‘Oh, there's no need to do that now,' I said generously, gazing out of the window. Below me was their tiny back garden, and down to the left, a metal coal bunker on which rested the remains of my shredded T-shirt. It hadn't been a favourite.

‘I'll give you a key for tonight, as I don't expect you to be staying in.' She said it like there was no choice in the matter. ‘I have a meeting of the Merched y Wawr to go to.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘Daughters of the Dawn – you'd call it a Women's Institute sort of thing.'

‘And Mr Williams?'

‘Oh, he doesn't go. He'll be in for his tea and then out himself. He's one of the stewards at the races, which start tomorrow, and they'll be setting up the railway tonight.'

She was stripping the covers off the bed as she spoke, and I gave the bookshelves and her son's CD collection the once over. It was exactly what you would expect from a male first year student; he had left all his
Harry Potter
books, his Terry Pratchetts and a handful of serial-killer thrillers at home in case anyone thought him uncool, along with all his Manic Street Preachers CDs in case anyone thought him too Welsh. Surprisingly, given the spotless nature of the rest of the house, there was a thin film of dust on the shelves. Tom Sean Catty had obviously not wanted his large, ginger-haired rump to be disturbed.

Speaking of which, I suddenly noticed a slim volume on the top shelf of the bookcase, and one of the few books in what I presumed was Welsh, though it could have been Patagonian for all I knew. It was called
Twm Sion Cati
. I brandished it at Mrs Williams.

‘Is this Tom Sean Catty?'

‘Oh yes. Of course the book is about the hero, not my John's cat. We just called him that because it was John's favourite when he was a boy. Very famous, Twm Sion Cati was; a bit of a Welsh Robin Hood, except he was a poet too. Something of a highwayman – there's lots of stories about him – who hid a cave in the hills until he was pardoned for his crimes by Queen Elizabeth. The first Queen Elizabeth, that would be.'

‘Right ... naturally. Listen, Mrs Williams, I'll take that key, because I want to have a look around whilst it's still light and I need to put petrol in the car.'

‘Don't forget to ask for John Petrol, and tell him you're staying at Nodfa. He'll do you a good deal.'

‘I don't think you can get a discount on petrol, Mrs Williams,' I said, perhaps just a little too patronisingly, as I followed her down the stairs.

‘Well if you want to pay the price it says on the pumps, go ahead, but everybody here knows that's three pence higher this week because of the visitors coming in for the races.'

‘Well, thanks for that, I'll certainly remember to mention your name.'

Maybe being in with the locals had some advantages after all.

‘Did you say Mr Williams would be setting up a railway this evening?' I asked as she handed me a front door key on a key ring to which was attached a small ingot of slate.