Last Train to Gloryhole (61 page)

‘Oh, is that all?’ asked Anne, getting to her feet and mounting the stairs again. ‘They’re my boy’s, they are. There’s probably tons of them up there. He bought them in bulk months ago.’

‘But why would he have them, ma’am? That’s what I’d like to know,’ Sergeant Foley asked her.

‘Well, why does anybody have them?’ countered Anne, suddenly catching sight of her injured son standing just outside the open front-door, and watching him turn and run back down the footpath he had just arrived by. ‘To - to make bloody coffee, innit?’ she announced sarcastically, edging cunningly towards the front-door and then peering out.

‘What is it, Mrs. Cillick?’ asked Sergeant Foley, making his way down the stairs to join her.

‘Oh, I - I was just checking on those weeds I mentioned,’ she told him, shuffling from one foot to the other on the threshold, hoping to block the large man who approached from being able to stand alongside her, and, at the same time as her, watch Chris speeding down the road away in the direction of ‘
the ninety-nine steps
.’ ‘And don’t think It’s just my son, you know,’ she announced.

‘How do you mean?’ enquired Sergeant Foley, becoming more than a little intrigued, and squeezing up behind Anne, and seeking to follow her gaze down the hill, where now nothing and nobody could be seen moving or breathing.

Biting her lip nervously, Anne swiftly edged away from his bulky, uniformed torso, and bent over on the lawn to search for a weed or two that she could pull up in her hand and show him. ‘What I mean is, even my husband can’t get enough of it, you know,’ Anne told the sergeant, without turning. ‘He even has someone at work who grinds it for him, he told me.’

‘Grinds it for him!’ asked Foley, initially picturing in his mind’s eye a cannabis-grinder, but soon feeling strangely hot and flustered, as he stood at Anne’s front-door, staring down at the woman’s bent body, her tanned, exposed knees, and shapely buttocks, and trembling perceptibly. He felt queasy, then a thought hit him. ‘Oh, for the coffee, you mean?’ he said.

‘Of course, for coffee,’ said Anne, glancing back at the man, and, suddenly sensing her exposed position, swiftly straightening up her body and adjusting her skirt. ‘What on earth did you thnk I meant, officer? Cannabis? Or that damned marijuana, even?’ She glanced down just to check that her cleavage was also now suitably covered, but elected to fasten another blouse- button anyway. ‘You know, I’ll be honest with you, Sergeant Foley,’ Anne continued, far less inclined now to seek out the man’s gaze for fear she might discern that same look she saw for many years in her young husband’s eyes, but these days only seemed to see in Gareth’s. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, like Chris, my Drew has become totally addicted.’

‘What goes round the world but stays in a corner?’ was the riddle her Uncle Gary had posed, and left for Carla to try to resolve the night before he had set off with his second Mrs. Davies for his annual fortnight’s break at a small hotel in the west of Cornwall. Carla was determined to work it out by the time he returned, and spent days pondering the solution, until one morning, after hearing the letter-box rattle, she bent down and saw the bright, red-and-white postage-stamp, featuring a famous Welsh castle, to the top-right of her name and her father’s address, on the long, white envelope that lay on the mat. Carla smiled, emitted a quiet chuckle, and told herself that she would be sure to let her uncle know that she had found out the answer on the very next occasion he rang up to check how his ailing brother was faring.

Carla walked into the living-room, pulled back the curtains, and sat down on the sofa, so allowing the light from outside to illuminate the envelope’s contents. The letter that arrived for her was one of the first she had received since taking up residence at her father’s home in
Gloryhole
, and she was even more surprised that, far from having circled the globe to get there, it had barely travelled the length of the road outside her window; in fact, she mused, noting the outrageous lean on the tower of Caerphilly’s famous fortress, a costly postage-stamp was barely required, or a post-man even, as Jack Belt himself could have picked it up in his van, and delivered it through their front-door in less than five minutes flat.

Carla didn’t know who was behind the forthcoming gig at ‘
The Railway’
- a pub that she could only recall having been inside on one or two occasions, since, to her mind, it wasn’t the sort of place you would elect to visit if peace and quiet were what you were seeking. She noticed that the signature at the foot of the page was that of a certain Paddy Docherty, whom she knew managed the premises, and was an Irishman whom most local people spoke well of.

Although she hadn’t played in public for almost a year, and her band was currently in Europe backing another singer, it took Carla just seconds to decide that she would most certainly grace the gig with her presence, at the very least, and that she wouldn’t ask for a penny as payment if she did play. This wasn’t just because it was billed as a charity-concert, but because it had been hastily put together as a sort of tribute to the singer Amy Winehouse, who had mysteriously died just a week or so before, and whom Carla had met on more than one occasion, and for whom she had tremendous respect, both as a fellow artist and as an inspiration to singers like herself and Adele, and Duffy, and Lily, and Marina, all of whom, strangely, she suddenly thought, smiling, either came from Wales, as she did, or had strong Welsh family-connections.

Carla left the letter on the table and got up and went into the kitchen to take a pair of her father’s trousers off the drying-rail. Pulling the zip up tightly, she then folded them very neatly and placed them in the airing-cupboard, in a way that she would never dream of doing with respect to her own clothes, but, because this was how her father had done it before she had arrived to help him, she now felt a sense of duty to carry out the exact same task on his behalf.

Carla suddenly paused, and then dashed over to the kitchen-table to scribble on a piece of scrap-paper a question that had just posed itself in her mind, in much the same way as she found a line of a song-lyric was apt to do on occasions. ‘What has two legs, no wings, but flies?’ she wrote down, giggling, then went upstairs to check on her father.

After tending to him, Carla decided to go and have forty-winks on her single-bed, and so, removing her slippers, and sipping some water from the tumbler she had brought upstairs with her, she turned away from her window, which looked out over
The Seven Arches,
and instead faced towards the wall, feeling sure that this would most likely speed up the intended process.

Soon Carla began to recall the day she had first arrived at this little, three-bedroomed cottage in the foothills of The Beacons
,
after having chosen to spend her first night back in Wales in a motel amongst the range’s peaks. On climbing the stairs that first time, she recalled, she hadn’t needed telling which bedroom her father had selected as hers, for, apart from the small, wooden-framed bed, the pale-blue quilt, and the double pillows that were there for necessity’s sake, on the wall alongside it, and that she now lay looking at, hung a large print of a stunning painting by the Dutch master Gerard Ter Borch entitled
‘Parental Admonition.’
I dare say my dad probably wished to convey to me something about my lifestyle in London, but felt he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, Carla had concluded with a wry smile at the time. But whether that were the case or not, regarding the painting now from her reclining position she concluded that it was certainly a very attractive picture to look at.

In the household scene depicted colourfully before her, Carla could see the stern father waving his finger reprovingly at the tall, slender figure of his daughter, whose tearful face is understandably hidden from sight. Her mother is simply seated at the father’s side, not even engaging her daughter with her gaze, plainly preferring to let the head-of-the-household, youthful though he appeared to be compared with herself, Carla thought, deal with whatever misdemeanour their troublesome offspring had got up to.

Despite the painting’s serious subject-matter, Carla had been so enchanted by the oyster-satin dress which the daughter wore that she had sought out and purchased in Cardiff a very similar one for herself, and it was this shiny, new purchase which now hung, loosely but elegantly, and still within its polythene covering, from a hanger inside her wardrobe. Carla felt that she simply couldn’t wait for the moment when she would get to wear it outside for the first time, and now, as she lay there, she began to consider that she might actually chance her arm by wearing it for the forthcoming charity-gig down the road at
‘The Railway.’

After her brief nap, Carla awoke with a sort of disconcerted feeling that she couldn’t seem able to explain. Then, sipping from her glass of water, and rising and kneeling on the duvet, she decided to study more closely the scene depicted in the painting on the wall across from her, and was soon shocked when she noticed in it something rather alarming. It seemed to her that, far from simply waving an admonishing finger at the young girl standing meekly before him, Carla could plainly see that the seated man’s hand contained a coin!

‘Oh, my God!’ exclaimed Carla, jumping to the floor and nimbly dragging her bed further from the wall so that she could study the painting even more intently. ‘Parental Admonition - my arse!’ she told herself. ‘It’s nothing but a - a common brothel - that’s what this supposed family- household actually is. And the older lady sipping from a glass of wine, and sitting, eyes down, alongside the seated man, far from being the girl’s mother, is - is nothing other than ‘the Madame’ of the sordid establishment!’ Carla moved to the side and stared at the print from a different perspective. ‘And, of course, the man sitting in the seat and gesticulating at the poor girl, far from being her father, is nothing but a common patron of the gaudy boudoir, clearly attempting, with his proffered coin, to purchase for himself the female’s services.’ Carla smiled at the budget trousers and the horrid, sagging socks that the young man was wearing, now feeling sure that they alone went most of the way to confirming her fresh assessment.

Carla opened the door of her wardrobe so as to gaze at the oyster-satin dress that she had purchased at a leading department-store, and straightaway realised that she now viewed it in a completely different light. She quickly reached in, and, elbows pumping, deposited the covered dress much farther back on the sliding-rail, burying it deeply behind all manner of older, cheaper garments. ‘There’s just no way I’m going to be wearing that on the night,’ she told herself. ‘No - it’ll have to be jeans and a t-shirt once again, I’m afraid, and the punters will just have to put up with it. And, yes, I’m quite sure that Amy herself would very much approve of that decision.’

The burly police-officer flashed down the saloon-car and pulled up just behind it. He applied the hand-brake and then spoke into his radio. ‘Hello Control! Hello! Doris! Yeah, Llew here. O.K., I’ll shout then. I’ve just stopped a black Maestro on the main road south of Merthyr, love!’

‘What do you mean black?’ the middle-aged, male driver suddenly bellowed over his shoulder at the constable parked behind him, whom he could easily hear. ‘Do I look black to you?’

Having checked that he was wearing his hat, and that his tazer-gun was fixed securely on his belt, the police-officer got out of his car and approached the door of the obliquely parked-up Maestro. He soon noticed that, far from being worried about the situation, the driver seemed to be smiling away, and singing along to the music that was playing on his car-stereo system.

‘Do you think you could turn off the engine, Sir,’ Constable Llewellyn asked. The engine-noise ceased as the driver obliged. ‘Say - what’s your name, chap?’

‘Frank Sinatra,’ the man replied, with a loud belch.

‘Frank -’ The burly police-officer shook his head briefly, leaned closer, and sniffed the man’s breath. ‘Say - have you been drinking, Sir?’

‘I’ve had a few,’ the driver replied, a starry glint in his eye.

‘Mm, I thought so,’ said the constable, nodding.

‘But, there again, too few to mention.’

‘I think I’ll be the judge of that, Sir.’ the officer replied, pausing to think for a moment. ‘Oh, I see, I see. But please don’t start singing it again, Sir,’ the officer warned him. ‘Just hand me the keys, would you. And kindly stay in the car, if you don’t mind. You see, I like to do it my way.’

The man began to sing once again, only this time at the top of his voice. ‘I’ll do it my way!’

‘Christ! I said no singing, Sir! Do as I say, please, or you’ll certainly have regrets when we get down the station.’ The officer adroitly slipped a white tube into the driver’s mouth and ordered him to blow. ‘Harder, harder, harder!’ he commanded at increasing volume. ‘Right, that’s enough.’ He flicked the tube onto the ground and studied the reading. ‘One-two-three,’ the officer told the man.

‘Four, five, six,’ the man replied, chuckling, ‘I remember I did a test like this to get in the navy one time. You know the kind of thing. They say ‘rum,’ and you say ‘breakfast.’ Right, officer - can I go now, please?’ He made a sudden grab for the keys but failed, as Llewellyn closed his massive fist around them.

‘Tough titty, Carlos. The motor is coming with us,’ the constable told him. ‘And you’re under arrest, by the way.’ Llew unclipped a set of handcuffs from his belt and began to secure the driver in the front.

‘Wait! Wait - damn you! I’ve got a question,’ said the driver.

‘Fire away,’ said the officer.

The man belched again. ‘Say - why are you calling me Carlos?’

‘Why? Well, think about it for a minute,’ said the constable, flashing his newly acquired set of keys at him and smiling. He then tightened up the cuffs and opened the man’s car-door.

‘Oh, I get it now,’ said the man, putting a leg out.

‘Oh, you get it now, do you?’ asked the constable, helping the driver to climb out of the car.