Don’t Cry For Me Aberystwyth

Chapter 24

THE SNOW WAS falling thickly now, and softly; slowly transfiguring the sea front. It gathered silently on ledges; formed a little conical hat on the fibreglass boy soliciting for charity; and melted wetly on the black muzzle of Abishag. Her eyes shone, her flanks trembled with fear. No one had told her it would be like this. There was no riot at the stable the first time round in Bethlehem. Eeyore ran a comforting hand down her neck. Joe Winckelmann, wearing a dressing gown and a fedora hat, held the halter. Two police vans pulled up and officers piled out with truncheons gleaming and raised like kendo swords.

Calamity and I stood and watched the cops pile in. The snow formed leopard spots on the dark fabric of her parka.

‘So what did you need to see me about?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I was going to ask you to help me find a new assistant.’

Calamity’s face dropped. ‘An assistant?’

‘Yes, I thought you could ask around. You know, see if any of your friends want the job.’

‘Oh,’ said Calamity. ‘Sure.’ The stricken look on her face pierced my heart. ‘I’d be glad to help. Yes, of course. Sure.’

‘I’m going to need an extra pair of hands in the new year.

‘Yes.’

‘Especially with all the new responsibilities.’

‘Yes, you will—What new responsibilities?’

‘Oh, you know, being an associate partner of the Pinkertons and stuff. There’s bound to be more work, at least that’s what Joe Winckelmann says.’

Calamity looked at me in astonishment. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Joe Winckelmann, the guy from the Pinkertons. I would have asked you to help out, but it wouldn’t be fair. I know you’re probably snowed under—’

‘Louie?’

‘What?’

‘Louie!’

‘What?’

‘Is this a joke?’

‘Of course not.’

‘He’s here? In Aberystwyth?’

‘Yes. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’

‘It’s a joke, isn’t it?’

‘He’s over there, holding Abishag.’ I pointed and Joe Winckelmann waved.

Calamity stared, eyes wide with wonder and disbelief; she looked at him and looked at me.

‘I guess you were probably trying to keep it a surprise but—’ The rest of my words were lost as she lunged into me and threw her arms round me.

‘Oh, Louie.’ She squeezed the air out of me. ‘You pig. You absolutely horrible wonderful pig.’

I put my arms round her and let her squeeze and we rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet, oblivious of the world; it could wait. When she finally let go I took her over to meet Joe Winckelmann. He reached out and shook her hand.

Calamity opened her mouth to speak, but only a puff of air and a tiny hiss came out. She tried again twice more, but each time could manage only a laryngitic squeak.

‘She’s very pleased to meet you,’ I said.

‘We’re going back to the stable for a Christmas drink,’ said Eeyore. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Maybe later. There’s something I need to do first.’ I turned to leave, but Calamity touched my arm and walked over to the sea railings with me.

‘I’ve got something for you. Llunos gave it to me, I forgot about it.’ She reached into her coat pocket and took out a manila envelope. ‘It’s the trace on the phone call, remember? For the Queen of Denmark.’

Our eyes met in an unspoken understanding.

‘You haven’t opened it.’

No, I thought I’d let you do that.’

‘Sure, I can do that.’ I held the envelope gingerly, as if it was radioactive.

‘You know,’ said Calamity, ‘I quite liked having the Queen of Denmark around.’

‘Me too. She was a fine lady.’

‘It sort of brightened the day up a bit.’

‘It certainly did.’

‘It was like she was our friend.’

‘That’s exactly what I thought.’

‘And, you know, if she’s our friend it feels a bit wrong to trace the call; it’s like prying.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean.’

‘It’s silly, anyway, because it had to be her, really, didn’t it?’

‘Of course. As you said, no one would make such a thing up. And who else would have that kind of money?’

We both stared at the unopened envelope. I remembered the sign I had been considering for the office: Pandora Inc. And I recalled the look of baffled wonder on the face of a little boy in pyjamas, imprisoned in the reflex of a Christmas bauble. A child with the wisdom to accept the gifts that life offers and not enquire too closely; wisdom that the people in my client’s chair have lost.

‘You’re right: we shouldn’t pry.’ I said. ‘What’s the point? We know it was her, right?’

‘Absolutely.’

I put the envelope in my pocket. ‘No need to open it, then.’

The town hall clock struck eight. Calamity looked over in the vague direction of the sound. ‘Myfanwy will have reached Bow Street by now,’ she said.

‘I know.’

I walked back to the office and stopped to speak to a man by the bandstand. The man wore a distinctive black leather coat. It was Caleb. He turned to face me and gave a slight nod.

‘That’s a nice coat,’ I said.

‘Yes. I got it in the war. It’s German. Real leather.’ He rubbed the lapel appreciatively between finger and thumb.

I said, ‘I think I understand it all now: about a man, a woman and a stolen coat. I understand how long ago a group of men played cards and conceived a terrible crime; one so shocking it made the priest go mad. I understand why all their names were on a list left in the pocket of a coat. And I understand why a man met a woman in the reading room of the library and went across the street with her to a cheap hotel. And in the morning this woman stole the man’s coat and with it the list of names. She sold it to a soldier and that man was you. And when a while later some spooks turned up asking about the coat, this woman, who it turns out was Mrs Llantrisant, sent her lover to get the coat back and he stole it from you as you lay wounded in hospital. That thief became the celebrated Hoffmann.

‘Over the years, many men have searched for the list. Some have sought the woman who stole the coat; and they have taken the path of genealogy; because she was, it seems, the granddaughter of the Sundance Kid. Others have sought the man called Hoffmann, and their quest led through the dark, sequestered vales of physiognomy. Because he was, it seems, defined by that tantalising, insubstantial horizontal crease in his face which generations of school children have been informed was a smile. All the people – be they wayfarers on the high road of genealogy, or pilgrims on the low road of physiognomy – have reached journey’s end in the chimerical town called Aberystwyth. And there they have all come to a sticky end at the hands of two men who were guardians of the secret; men called Erw and the Pieman. Oh yes, I understand it all now, except two things. What was the crime? And if Hoffmann stole your coat, how come you’re still wearing it?’

Caleb nodded like a schoolteacher pleased with my progress. He looked down at Tiresias, who appeared to be listening intently; as if I had put my finger on the two aspects of the case that had always puzzled him.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘there were two names on the list that shouldn’t have been there, two men who had no business being in that weekly card game. One was General Llanbadarn; and the other was Sánchez, the bandit leader.’

‘Llanbadarn was playing cards on the eve of battle with the enemy?’

‘Yes. Llanbadarn had four of a kind; Sánchez had a straight flush. Sánchez would raise and Llanbadarn would see him and that old pot just got bigger and bigger. Sánchez put his boots on the table, and Llanbadarn his shirt. Then came Sánchez’s hat and Llanbadarn’s Sam Browne. After that they bet the dog, the mistress and the locket containing a picture of dear old Mama. Llanbadarn bet the farm; and Sánchez raised him with a gold mine. Eventually they had nothing left in the world to bid with, and that’s when Llanbadarn played the big one, the ultimate stake; perhaps the greatest since the gods on Mount Olympus played dice with human destiny.’

‘What was it?’

‘He bet the 32nd Airborne.’

I gasped, and stumbled against the railings. ‘He bet his own troops?’

‘Yes. Agreed to send them into an ambush.’

‘And you were one of them?’

‘Yes. I was there.’

I paused to reflect. ‘I can understand why the military would want to keep it secret, but why should you?’

‘Because of what we did when we found out.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘General Sánchez was kind enough to tell us. After the battle the son-of-a-bitch sent us a message via the secret passage.’ He shook his head as he relived the horror of it. ‘The crazy bastard told us about the card game! You can imagine how we felt. We weren’t bad men; we were just like everyone else out there. Good boys, mostly; lost in something we didn’t understand. That day we had been twisted beyond the limits of endurance. We saw our comrades slaughtered by an enemy blessed by an uncanny fore-knowledge of our battle-plan, who seemed to anticipate our every move. It was as if they knew we were coming, we said. And of course they did.’ He reflected for a moment and grasped his head in anguish. ‘If only that damned stupid angel hadn’t turned up again.’

‘So your terrible sin has something to do with the angel, but you will never say what because of your vow.’

Caleb took a folded newspaper from inside his coat. It was the late edition, carrying a report of Erw Watcyns’s death. ‘It doesn’t matter any more. He was the last one. They are all dead now; only me left . . . me and Tiresias.’ He hesitated and looked down at Tiresias, who seemed to nod in encouragement. Caleb said, ‘We nailed her to the church door.’

I groaned. ‘But it wasn’t a real angel, just a girl in fancy dress.’

‘Yes, we could see that the second time round.’

‘Did she die?’

‘No, but she was never the same again. It was Miss Evangeline, the old woman up at the nursing home. She was General Llanbadarn’s niece.’

‘And the priest went mad.’

‘Yes. He knew her, you see, from back home. A lovely girl, she was; sixteen years old, sweet as candy, always a bright smile for everyone. She’d won the Borth Carnival Queen and then someone had got her up the duff. The social services took away the kid and her uncle shipped her off to Patagonia out of harm’s way. The priest was supposed to keep an eye on her. When we grabbed her, he tried to intervene. We tied him down and made him watch.’

‘Why didn’t she tell you who she was?’

‘She did. She screamed, “No, no, please don’t, please don’t! There’s been a mistake, I’m not an angel. I’m Evangeline, General Llanbadarn’s niece. Please don’t, please don’t! I’m not an angel, I’m the General’s niece.” And the priest looked on in horror and heard what we said next and lost his wits.’

‘What did you say?’

‘We said, “Yes, we know.”’

He spoke no more for a while, just stood there still holding my arm, as if only the touch of another mortal could save him from the abyss.

I said, ‘Who killed Clip?’

He hunched himself deeper into his old leather coat as the snow fell more thickly, and said, ‘The peasants. They watched it happen, you see. And then the little goat girl said her angel had stopped appearing to her. It reeked of opportunism to me, but you could hardly tell the peasants that. Word got round that the Welsh gringos had killed the little girl’s angel. It was a hearts-and-minds disaster. Someone poisoned his sausages.’ He shook his head in sad disbelief, as if that was the real tragedy. Perhaps it was.

‘You know, sometimes when I wander this Prom late at night, when the drunks have all gone home and the only sound is the rasp of the sea on the shingle and Tiresias’s breathing, sometimes I think I can hear the sound of that dog barking.’

‘I met a girl whose father killed himself because of that dog’s smile. The taxidermist.’

Caleb nodded wistfully. ‘Yes, that is something else that will for ever lie heavy on my conscience. It was me who killed him.’

‘I thought he hanged himself from Trefechan Bridge.’

‘He did. But why? What made him do it? I made him do it. I met him in the cinema queue, you see. He told me all about himself. How his heart and indeed his whole life had been broken by that extraordinary expression on the dog’s muzzle. “How on earth was it achieved?” he asked me. And in one of those stupid moments one regrets for the rest of one’s life I told him.’

‘About . . . about the . . . secret passage?’

‘El pasadizo secreto. You should have seen his face. I will never forget it.’

He laughed without mirth and began to move away, then stopped and turned. ‘As for this coat you see me wearing, it’s simple. Hoffmann took the wrong one. I wasn’t wearing it that day. I keep it for best, you see.’

We locked gazes, perhaps simultaneously amazed at how a simple mishap like that could have affected the destiny of so many people.

‘You seem . . . wistful,’ said Caleb.

‘No, I’m just a bit surprised. It seems to me that, despite having become the greatest spy enigma of the Cold War, Hoffmann’s role in all this was rather minor.’

‘That’s right. Very minor.’

‘He wasn’t present at the Mission House siege?’

‘No.’

‘And he wasn’t connected to you at all?’

‘No, he was just the man Mrs Llantrisant sent to get the coat back. Could have been anyone. Tiresias and I often comment on the irony of it.’

‘Just a gofer.’

‘Or maybe the errand boy of destiny.’ At the sound of the word his gaze clouded. ‘I hear you were with Miss Evangeline when she died.’

I nodded.

‘Did . . . Did she say anything about . . . you know . . . it?’

‘Yes. Her last words were, “Tell Caleb Penpegws I forgive him.”’

He didn’t take his gaze from me, but I could tell as the words sank in that he was no longer thinking of me. His features slowly lit up and then he grinned and looked down at the mouse.

‘Hear that, Tiresias? Did you hear that? She forgave us!’ He reached out and shook my hand. ‘You’re a good man, Mr Knight, a truly good man. A Merry Christmas to you.’

He walked off down the Prom humming ‘The First Noel’; and it seemed to me that Tiresias bobbed his head in time to the beat. As I turned my steps to follow, a Black Maria drove past and for the briefest of seconds I fancied I glimpsed Tadpole’s face pressed against the grille of the back window, looking at me; her fist digging into her eye, her mouth a twisted figure of eight on its side. Tadpole permanently on the road to Calvary.

I drove slowly through the streets of a deserted town; up a hill peopled only by ghosts. I didn’t need to speed; I knew sooner or later I would overtake the bus. It could be at Taliesin or Machynlleth, it made no difference. I listened to carols from London on the radio; and turned the wipers to a higher setting as the snow grew heavier and heavier the further I drove inland. There’s something so soothing about the hum of wipers in the night. And the songs of choirboys in a distant cathedral, wrapped in golden light, filled with wonder . . . smocks of scarlet and white. The cold stone nave filled with the sweetness that Antonini Stradivarius found a way to capture in a box of wood. His secret, his genius, to use timber that grew with immemorial slowness and thereby distilled the silence of a dark alpine forest: falling feathers of snow; drooping, thick, heavy doorsteps of snow; the hoot of an owl; the thin bleat of a posthorn as a vehicle with big wooden wheels struggled through the growing drifts; because no mission is more urgent than the one to get the messages of human warmth across the silent, frozen world. Just after Rhydypennau the eyes of a fox glittered at the roadside, greener than a brook.

I intercepted the bus just before Tre’r-ddol, and flagged it down.

‘This had better be good,’ said the driver.

Myfanwy was sitting on the front seat near the driver. She had one small suitcase. Her face was puffed and swollen as if she had been crying. Sitting next to her was an old woman. Something in the complicity of their attitude suggested the woman had been interrupted in the act of comforting Myfanwy.

‘I told you not to try and stop me,’ she said.

‘I know you did, but I’m here anyway. I’ve come to fetch you.’

‘It’s too late.’

‘No it isn’t. It’s never too late.’

‘You said if you love someone, let them go.’

‘That’s right, I did. But I’ve been doing some thinking about that, and it seems to me there are two schools of thought. One you find in gift shops, written on trinkets adorned with pink hearts, on little notebooks and diaries and teddies and stuff; it says, “If you love them, let them go.” And then there’s the other school of thought, the Louie Knight school, which says, “If you love someone, don’t let them go.” The first one is fine if you live in a gift shop or if your supply of happiness on this earth is as plentiful and uninterrupted as the gas that comes through the mains. But if you’re like me and you find that most of the time the gas is cut off, you can’t afford to be so prodigal.’ I picked up her case. ‘You’re coming with me.’

‘Why should I?’

‘What do you mean, “why”?’

‘Why? Why?’

‘Why? God, I don’t know, dammit Myfanwy. Because . . . because . . . my life is nothing without you, and if you go now I will die like a dog in a marketplace in an unknown town and strangers will spit on my corpse and throw rocks on my grave. That’s why.’

Myfanwy stared at me in wonder.

‘And also because you are a silly goose.’

The old lady nudged Myfanwy and said, ‘Well, go on then, you silly girl. What more do you want? Jam on it?’

The caravan looked like an iced bun. Thick snow was piled up on the roof, on the step, even on the crappy vinyl washing line that strung the caravan to a crooked pole. A faint breeze stirred the falling flakes and made them dance, made the sky tingle. The Lyons Maid sign outside the shop swung silently; the only sound was the crunch of our footsteps. Everything shone or glistened; all the grey and drabness had been erased; the sharp edges, the junk and bric-a-brac, milk bottles and gas canisters, TV aerials and dustbins, had all been softened and cushioned; the contours of the world rounded and worn away as the falling snow veiled the earth and revealed the deeper contours of the heart. All gone, invisibly mended; even the defiling plod of Tadpole’s hoofprints across the roof of my home. The caravan park had been glazed with crystal.

Myfanwy climbed out of the car and raised her face to the dark sky, the edge of her cheek gilded by the strange milky efflorescence that filled the world. I opened up the caravan and conducted her inside. I lit the soft yellow lamps; rummaged around and found rum, mince pies and Ludo; and set them on the table. I walked back outside to the bins and threw away the envelope containing the wire trace on the Queen of Denmark.

I’ll find out soon enough. One fine day, when I take that slow boat to Ultima Thule; in springtime, when the golden light returns, and the thaw begins. I can see it so clearly. The sea is darker than a bluebottle’s eye; the timbers creak and groan; the sails tug and the rigging sings in the breeze. Off the starboard bow we see land, empty except for the crocuses and lichen and wild seabirds. A single polar bear emerges from the long winter hibernation with that puzzled look on his face, the one that says, ‘My, oh, my! That must have been some night I had last autumn.’ I turn and offer some smoked seal to the Inuit pilot and say, ‘Tell me, fellah, what’s the name of this beautiful place?’

And he says, ‘My people call this place Louie Knight Sound.’