The old devils: a novel (9 page)

'Is she like that all the time now, did you gather?' asked Alun as he and Rhiannon were undressing in the little guest bedroom. 'Malcolm said something.'

'Quite a lot of it, evidently, but I think some of it tonight was the excitement of seeing us.'

'Seeing you, more like. She's never had much time for me.' He stood on one leg and shook the other with tremendous force to rid it of that pan of his trousers. 'I can't think why not.'

Rhiannon got into bed and started on the considerable routine necessary to shape her pillow correctly. 'She was sober when she arrived.'

'Yeah, well when you're knocking it back like that all day every day you get a sort of float, or do I mean balance. You only need a bit of topping-up and you're off, gone. A plateau.'

'Poor little thing.'

'Poor little thing be buggered,' said Alun musically, also getting into bed. He turned the light out, lay down and put his arms round Rhiannon as he did every night, or rather every night he was there, with her. 'We're the poor little things having to take it. And poor old Percy's the poorest littlest thing of the lot.'

'I think he can handle her. No, I meant it means she must have some idea of what she's like. She stayed sober all day because she wanted to be in a good state to meet me, her old friend. Means she must know she normally gets into bad states. Mustn't she?'

'She mayor may not know but she obviously doesn't bloody care or she wouldn't get into them.'

'I don't suppose she can help it much, it's a bit late for that.'

'If she can help it once she can help it again.' Alun worked his way through an intensive spell of sniffing, throat-clearing and grunting. When he had finished he said,

'Old Gwen hadn't been exactly short-changing herself either, had she?'

'No. Far from it. She didn't use to do that. She's a bit different all round, I thought.'

'Well, speaking from the old lofty pinnacle, I imagine decades of piss-artistry can't help leaving their mark on the character. Christ Almighty, what son of lot have we got ourselves into? Well, should be fun. Of a kind, at least. One thing about you, sweetheart, you're never going to be any trouble that way. Or any other way. It's a marvellous thing. To know that.'

After a minute or two he pulled his arms back and turned away over on to his side of the bed. That was not what he did every night.

3

A few days later Cambria Television made arrangements to record an interview with Alun at the Weavers' rented house in Pedwarsaint, the suburbanized former fishing village in or near which they hoped to settle down. From the vanished quay the smacks had gone out in numbers for the oysters in the bend stretching over to Courcey Island on the east side, and sold their product from Bristol to Barnstaple until overfishing and industrial pollution wiped out the beds before the Great War. A marina stood there now, completed only the previous year, the resort of owners of medium-grade casinos or smallish chains of coin-op laundrettes from Birmingham and points north who came in at the weekends down the
MS-M4
or, increasingly, by air taxi to the strip at Swanset on Courcey. And of course, where not so long ago it had been hake and chips, bottled cockles, pork pies and pints of Troeth bitter, these days it was cannelloni, paella, stifado, cans of Foster's, bottles of Rioja and - of course

- large Courvoisiers and long panatellas, just like everywhere else. Barring perhaps the oyster details for their elegiac potential, none of this would have been worth a second thought to Alun, certainly not today. He was charged up by the television presence, more by the simple expectation of appearing in front of its cameras than by having pulled off any sort of coup in securing a spot, even the lead spot, on
The Week in Wales.
Necessary, though. Perhaps on reconsideration not insignificant after all. He had done England, got out of it what there was for him to get out of it; he could never have hoped to be omnipresent there. In Wales he could, or was going to have a bloody good try.

The house belonged to a remarkably opulent official in a local housing department, at present holidaying with his wife in the Caribbean, a man whose future acquaintance could not, given reasonable luck, be a bad thing. Nor could being filmed in as sumptuous drawing-room, as far as the
hoi polloi
went, at least. Any lefty sticklers who might find a bit too much silver, glass and teak on display there would be placated, when the future-plans question came, by talk of a swift removal to a modest place of one's own and a single half-amused glance about. At this stage he had not yet fully worked out minor finesses like that, but he was a great believer in thinking as far as possible round any subject beforehand.

Now he set out to ingratiate himself with the crew, but circumspectly, not in the style which had been good enough for Emrys on the train. He sensed that a little went a long way with this sort of youngster, especially a little of anything that could be described, however unjustly, as Welsh flannel, Taff bullshit, etc. Having done what he could in this out-of-the-way mode he turned his attention to the interviewer, a fair young man in a wine-coloured jacket who had nothing discoverably Welsh about him and who let it be known, with enviable speed and clarity, that this morning's task was no more than the sort of thing he was prepared to go through with while waiting briefly for a proper job a long way away. In other circumstances Alun would have sorted him out in five seconds flat, but as it was he concentrated on pretending not to have noticed and on not trying to make the young shit like him - that had to come naturally or not at all.

The interview went well enough. Alun soon saw the fellow had no particular approach, was in the manner of such fellows merely concerned to establish his superiority to the overall run of the play. So the angle to go for had to be knowing a lot, seeing a lot, caring a lot but only in unpredictable ways, or ways that could be passed off as unpredictable. It was not an occasion for pulling out the stops, but near the end, after magnanimously letting pass a touch of ignorance about the Attlee governments' policies for industry in South Wales, Alun took the chance of getting into his stride rather.

'It's all too easy for an exile come home to stay where he lands up, to cultivate his garden and never look over the hedge, to become something of a vegetable himself. That won't do for me, I'm afraid. I'll be going out, out in search of Wales, looking at things, looking at people. A small private voyage of discovery. I'm sure I'll find plenty of changes, for the worse, for the better, but there are some places where change can never reach ... '

He went on to list, rather fancifully, perhaps, a few of that kind. In the normal way he forgot everything he had said in a broadcast as soon as it was finished, and good riddance - remembering might interfere with spontaneity next time. But now for once some of it stuck. Cultivating his garden he could dismiss right off, as anyone might who— was as keen as he on what you could get up to indoors. In search of Wales, on the other hand, sounded distinctly good, might become
In Search of Wales
one day; it was a pity that old Brynford had done those programmes so recently. Meanwhile, the pursuit of a nebulous project of this sort would be just the thing for getting him out of untimely invitations and the like, and also covering any sudden disappearances he might feel impelled to make.

When Rhiannon came into the drawing-room after the TV lot had gone, she found him full of enthusiasm for his new scheme, full of ideas too: trips to Courcey Island, to Carmarthen, to Merthyr Dafydd, to Brecon; visits to metal works at Port Holder and Caerhays; rounds of the pubs in Harriston, in Cwmgwyrdd, in Bargemants Row; a pilgrimage and a piss-up in Birdarthur, where Brydan had settled after his last trip to America. As he talked, she moved here and there round the room in an unsettling-way. 'What are you doing? he broke off to ask.

'Nothing. I’m listening. I was just making sure everything is all right.’

'What? How do you mean all right?’

'Just nothing’s been broken or anything like that.’

'Don’t fuss’ he said, but not sharply . 'You tip-toe round this place as if you’re afraid to chip a bloody saucer. These blokes are very professional, you couldn’t tell they’d been here if you didn’t know.’

'All right, but I am afraid to chip a bloody saucer, and so should you be. People get attached to their things. Anyway, how did it go?'

'Uh?
Oh.’
He tossed his head, indicating that the presumably meant interview was nothing, no trouble, of no significance, already forgotten but satisfactory. 'I was thinking, I thought I might look in at the Glendower for lunch, you know, toe in the water kind of thing. See if it’s any good. Why don’t you ... ‘

'There's this cleaner turning up, and then Rosemary’s train gets in at 2.40,' said Rhiannon, naming their younger, unmarried daughter. Rosemary was taking a long weekend off from St John's College, Oxford, where she was reading law, to come and help her mother look at houses round about. 'Be a bit of a rush.'

'Oh God, four to one again. Still, it's only for a couple of days, I agree.'

'Come on, let's hear it.'

'I told you before and don't pretend you don't know perfectly bloody well in the first place. Any man in the company of two women is outnumbered four to one however amiable they may be. By definition.'

'So when it's just you and me I outnumber you two to one, is that right?'

'Affirmative. And it's not twice two when there are two of you. I mean if we had Frances on the party it would be nine to one. What they call a square law.'

'You will have your little joke, won't you,
was?
And I'll go along and glad to as long as we all know it's a joke. You outnumbered. That'll be the day.'

'Oh now now girl, easy by there,
cariad,'
he said, taking it off wicked of course but getting something out of it at the same time, or fancying so. 'No ruffled feathers now.'

He put his arms round her.

'Relax, boyo,' she said.

The family car was Japanese and why not? - Alun would tacitly claim a special Welsh exemption from any lingering sense of duty to drive an 'English' model. It had been brought down from London earlier that week by a minor character from his publishers, minimal in fact and male too, thus rating no more than a gulped-down whisky before being packed off to the station. Today Alun took it into town and parked it in a building contractor's yard just behind Broad Street. A long-nosed man in a yellow helmet came out of a shed as if to order him away, but Alun's face with the distinctive quiff was well enough known to be familiar even when not actually recognized, and a clap on the shoulder and a bellowed but unintelligible greeting did the rest.

The state of play in the grill at the Glendower, half full or more on a weekday lunchtime earlyish, suggested that the concern was doing well enough. It was a big part of Alun's stock-in-trade to seem to know things like what sort of people were sitting at the tables, but he would have tried not to be challenged on this lot. Part of it was that nobody dressed properly any more. Another part was that it was no longer just the young who were too young to be distinguished between. He cast his eye round the room. Tradesmen, he said firmly to himself. Housewives. When he had hung about for a minute or two without anyone coming near him or even looking up, he made for the door, noticing on the way that an attempt, pretty pathetic but not on that account less offensive to respectable sentiment, had been made to give the place a Nineties or Edwardian look with plush, iron, brass, wall-mirrors and long white aprons on the waiters. An ancient map of South Wales (c.
1980) hung between the windows.

Upstairs in what was called the cocktail bar there was more of the same: sepia photographs of archaic worthies on the mauve-papered walls and a barman in a striped waistcoat with brass buttons, and not only that. In fact he looked like the sort of girl who might be cast as Toby Belch in a women's-college production of
Twelfth
Night.
An older man on the other side of the counter was talking seriously to him, a man with very neat wavy grey hair, a slim figure and uncommonly white whites to his eyes, and in other ways showing himself to be no exception to a rule of Alun's that men over fifty who took care of themselves were not to be trusted. This one was readily placeable as Victor Norris and he turned and so introduced himself with impressive speed, going on with more of the same to order Alun a drink. Then he did a buttering-up job on Alun that was a good deal more efficient than might have been expected in a restaurant in a provincial town, even a Welsh one. When it seemed to be over Alun said, 'Expecting Char1ie in, are you?'

Victor scratched the side of his neck, bending his hand back to do so further than some men might, and glanced at the grandfather clock that clunked near by. 'If he's coming he should be here any minute.'

'He told me he usually turns up midday.'

'Yes, he feels at home here. Which is nice for everyone.' 'I should have thought he felt at home in most places with a licence.'

'M'm.' Victor smiled with closed lips. 'Of course he is very outgoing. But behind that, oh dear, there's a very different kind of person. You wouldn't - you haven't seen that.'

'What haven't I seen?' asked Alun, who had found himself beginning to come round fast after the soft-soap session. 'I have known him for quite a few years, actually.'

'Oh, indeed you have, he often speaks of you. But that poor man my brother is vulnerable to all sorts of pressures and more than a lot of people he needs a settled, undisturbed kind of existence. I dare say you think that sounds silly but it's true.'

'Really.'

'Yes really.' At this point Victor took a silent message from somebody in the doorway, doubtless the friend one heard about, and in a flash his manner changed from faint menace all the way back to full warmth. 'No rest for the wicked. Super to have met you - Alun. Oh you are lunching? :Do you like scallops?'

When Alun had said truthfully that he did, Victor held his hand out palm foremost, interdicting further speech, and strode rather mannishly away. Back at the bar Alun got another drink but had his money refused, and his respect for Victor' went up another notch. Time was getting on, however. He looked round as he had downstairs: more tradesmen and housewives, a fairly unselfconscious sample. Just as he was starting to contemplate listlessly a solo lunch with perhaps bits of Victor thrown in, Charlie appeared. He was followed by someone who at first looked to Alun like an incredibly offensive but all too believable caricature of Peter Thomas aged about eighty-five and weighing half a ton. At a second glance he saw that it was Peter Thomas.