The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still

Chapter 18

The trees and grass glittered and dripped beneath a sky dyed a deep and perfect indigo. The morning glistened like a chick emerging from the fragments of its shell, its feathers still wet with albumen. It was how I felt too as I ate my boiled egg and drank the coffee that Calamity had made. She talked as I ate. ‘You were in the Giant’s Castle for two days.’

‘I thought the game was up when I saw Doc Digwyl.’

‘Eeyore went to fetch him. He said he was delighted and couldn’t wait to make you well again so he could shake your hand. “I want to shake the hand of my deliverer,” he said.’

‘What did I deliver him from?’

‘Servitude or something. He has had one of those conversions like the bloke on the road to Damascus. He said he’d been in prison all these years and you released him.’ She refilled my coffee.

‘And how did I do that?’

‘After the hypnotism, Mrs Bwlchgwallter went to stay with her sister –’

‘I know, and then she disappeared.’

‘Still hasn’t been found. Tore off all her clothes and ran into the woods, they say. She told her sister about Farmer Pugh murdering his own brother and burying him in Tregaron Bog. So the sister told the police and they started looking for the body. The doc saw them and thought you’d told them about his missing fiancée and they were looking for her. For a moment he panicked, but then he realised the prospect of being able to tell the truth brought him joy. It was a terrible weight off his mind, he said. He wrote a confession and was going to post it to the police. I don’t know whether he has or not.’

I spread butter over another piece of toast. It was hungry work being in the Giant’s Castle. ‘What else has happened?’

‘I had a brainwave about the missing tape. I worked out where Mrs Bwlchgwallter must have hidden it.’

I gave her an expectant look.

‘In the gingerbread alien. I went round to see, but the alien had been broken in half. I think someone beat us to it. There’s something else, but I’ll wait till you finish your breakfast.’

I could sense repressed excitement. ‘Just say what’s on your mind, Calamity. I can listen and eat at the same time.’

‘Not until you finish your breakfast.’

‘If you don’t tell me, I won’t finish.’ I put the egg-covered soldier down on my side plate.

‘OK,’ said Calamity. ‘I think I’ve found a way to get Meici to drop the charge.’

‘Get the mayor to lean on him.’

‘Right.’

‘But we don’t know how.’

‘I think we do. Iestyn has been spotted. He’s been seen up by his old house; lots of people have seen him. And there were reports of lights in the sky two nights ago up there. He’s up there, Louie. If we can find him he can tell us what happened to Skweeple after Preseli took him into custody. The boxing match is this afternoon. There’s still time.’

‘How on earth are we going to find him by this afternoon?’

‘We smoke him out. Iestyn is from the Denunciationists’ community, right? Ran away to become a mechanic. So we use bait. We use a piece of technology that no self-respecting Denunciationist could possibly resist. Something so wonderful it’s like pornography to him.’

‘And what’s that? The Devil’s Bridge train?’

‘Better than that. Sospan’s ice-cream van.’

I stared at her wide-eyed.

‘Remember you telling me he’s got an emergency van hidden away in Bow Street? We take that and drive up to where the sightings are and play the tune. What do you think?’

I grinned in delight. ‘I think it’s so daft it might even work.’ I paused and added, ‘As long as Sospan doesn’t mind.’

‘He doesn’t mind, as long as . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘He said as long as you don’t object to him writing about you and the Katabasis ice cream in the autumn issue of The Iceman Cometh.’

Half an hour later we were in Bow Street lifting the garage door. The concrete counterweight gave off a dull, scraping roar. Inside, the beast glimmered mystically in the dark like a fish in an enchanted pond. We reversed out of the garage and headed first for Clarach to fill up at the petrol station. As we did so, Calamity sitting beside me in the cab put a hand on my arm in surprise. Up ahead was a woman walking towards us, down the centre of the road. She wavered from side to side and had the air of a sleepwalker or someone in a trance. She was wearing a wedding dress that was muddy and torn. I stopped and we jumped out.

‘Chastity,’ Calamity cried and dodged into her path with arms outstretched to catch her. ‘What on earth has happened?’

Chastity struggled to speak through sobs. Her hair was wild like candy floss and a few tresses fell untidily from a broken hair slide into her face. She had lost her broken spectacles and stared at us myopically. She snivelled, and snot dribbled down over her top lip. I observed through eyes narrowed with scepticism, wondering if this was just more playacting. ‘Thanks for the cake,’ I said.

She gasped softly. ‘Oh dear, you’re angry with me, aren’t you? I knew you would be. I said to Meici you’d be upset about the cake.’

‘Not at all, it was very nice. It was kind of you to think of me.’

‘Everything has turned out horrible. Everyone has been complaining; they’ve all been sick. I told Meici we should have bought a cake from a shop, but he said he knew how to make one. Damn and bother.’

‘You mean,’ said Calamity with eyes widening in surprise, ‘everyone else was sick too?’

Chastity nodded and squeezed her eyes tight shut as more tears threatened to brim over. ‘He ran out of sultanas so he used some shellfish he found. I’m so sorry.’

Calamity turned green at the thought.

‘Where is your aunt?’ I asked.

‘She’s gone home to Shawbury. She was very unhappy about me marrying Meici.’

‘Where is Meici now?’ I asked.

She wrung her hands. ‘I don’t know. For two days he was sick and all the while he was so upset about you; after you shook his hand like that he cried and said you were the best friend he had ever had. Yesterday he called the mayor and said he didn’t want to lie any more and send you to prison. The truth is, he doesn’t know who shot him, he didn’t see. The mayor was really angry. He said he would fire Meici from the human-cannonball job. So last night Meici drove up to see him; he took his human-cannonball uniform to hand back, he was going to quit. But he hasn’t come home.’

We put Chastity in the cab, squeezed in between me and Calamity. Each time I changed gear my hand rustled past the muddy silken cloth of her wedding dress. We turned the van round and headed for Capel Bangor. Before we could make the long cross-country trek to Ystumtuen we had to head south first, to Ystrad Meurig, where the mayor lived. It was probably the only time an ice-cream van ventured so far into those badlands.

The house stood at the interstice of dry-stone walls which held the hill in a net of rock. With its neat white-washed walls the place looked like a piece of cotton wool caught in a spider’s web. The hills had the dry, faded green that betokened a wiry coarseness of grass in the deep country, one that paralleled the lives of those who walked across it. It was a world where compassion was atrophied by the bitter wind that never seemed to stop keening. The lane to the farm narrowed to a single track and dropped beneath the level of the fields till it was almost a groove; on either side, spiky yellow grass scratched against the sides of the van, and above our head curious sheep looked down imperiously from behind wire fences. We drove over a cattle grid and onto the muddy expanse of cleared ground before the house. Away to the right at the foot of a stone wall Ercwleff was digging.

We made Chastity stay in the van, got out and walked over to him. He seemed not to have heard the van arrive and carried on digging, oblivious. A pile of clothes lay at his feet.

We coughed and he stopped and turned.

‘Hello Louie and Miss Calamity,’ he said. He looked pleased to see us.

‘Hi Ercwleff, are you having fun?’ I asked.

He grinned.

‘Not chopping desks up today?’

‘That was a good game, wasn’t it?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I really enjoyed it, didn’t I, Calamity?’

‘You sure did. I’m really sorry I missed that game.’

‘We’re playing a hiding game today,’ said Ercwleff.

‘Wow!’ said Calamity. ‘You’re so lucky. You’re burying clothes.’

Ercwleff made an enthusiastic hurr-hurr sound. He pushed the pile at his feet into the hole. As it tumbled in we saw that it was a human-cannonball outfit, together with a white, blood-stained shirt. ‘Meici had a nosebleed,’ said Ercwleff, ‘and ruined Preseli’s shirt.’

‘Where is Meici?’ I asked.

‘He’s sleeping. Preseli has taken him to the lake where we took the angel.’

‘Do you remember the angel, Ercwleff?’ asked Calamity. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Yes, Preseli brought him here and let me play with him . . . but he went to sleep.’

‘When do you expect your brother back?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. It’s a long way to the lake. It’s up at Cader Idris. They are going to send a car for me later for the boxing match. We’ve got a special plan to win, but you mustn’t tell anyone because it’s a secret.’

‘Oh, we won’t,’ said Calamity, ‘we cross our hearts and hope to die, if we tell a lie.’

‘I mustn’t hit him. Preseli says if I don’t fight I will win. Do you want to play the hiding game?’

‘No, we . . . er . . . have to go now. We need to borrow the shirt.’

Ercwleff’s brow clouded. He looked confused.

‘Your brother asked us to fetch it,’ I said. ‘He changed his mind about the hiding game.’

‘Yes,’ said Calamity. ‘He’s got a new game now, he said the hiding game is boring. And he told us to get the shirt and give you some ice cream.’

At the phrase ice cream his eyes lit up.

‘Yes!’ said Calamity pointing. ‘It’s an ice-cream van.’

Ercwleff looked in wonder.

‘Have you seen one before?’

‘No.’

‘Listen!’ said Calamity. She darted off back to the van and climbed in the cab. A moment later the ice-cream tune started playing, tinny and anaemic, but still the only sound for miles around except the occasional bleating of sheep.

Ercwleff gasped. He looked at me; I nodded encouragement. He ran up to the van. I picked up the blood-stained shirt.

We left Chastity with Calamity’s auntie in Capel Bangor and drove up into the wilds of Ystumtuen. The hills, worn smooth by the wind, have the knobbled surface of dough and are smudged with conifers that were planted long ago to replace the forests denuded by the First World War. In their shadow lie the remains of lead mines abandoned after there was no longer any need for bullets and church roofs.

The grass coating of the hills is torn and scuffed, like old shoes, and the crofts and farmsteads are tenanted by sheep and brambles. The Mr Whippy song rang out across the hills, causing the sheep to temporarily abandon the urgent business of their lives. Even the birds stopped calling and listened for a while. We pulled into a passing place on the road overlooking the valley in which Iestyn’s house was situated and waited. Sheep bleated, the wind sighed, and Mr Whippy tinkled cheerily. And then the miracle happened. A man appeared from out of the woods, walking towards the van with a rapt expression as if indeed Calamity had been right; no man from the Denunciationists’ community could possibly withstand the lure of this symbol of forbidden technological fruit. It was Jhoe. He was Iestyn Probert. And I had never seen him look more grokked.

Ercwleff and Herod Jenkins walked round the ring, arms raised, wearing silk dressing gowns; a cassette player played the ‘Dambusters March’; the crowd roared. The ref drew the two fighters into the centre of the ring, holding each by the wrist. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of Aberystwyth,’ he began. ‘It behooves me now in accordance with the powers invested in me to present two new aspirants to that most sacred of offices – Mayor of Aberystwyth.’

The crowd cheered. I scanned the ranks of people, mostly the usual familiar faces of the burghers of Aberystwyth, in holiday mood. But interspersed among them were faces I did not recognise: hardened, tough-looking types from the farms in the hinterlands. They looked like hired men, hired for a purpose that almost certainly wasn’t good. Were they the mayor’s men? Here to cause trouble? They made me uneasy. The people on either side of them looked intimidated.

The ref continued his speech. ‘In performing this duty I am mindful of the centuries of tradition that weigh down upon me; countless generations of men before me have stood on this spot and presided over the sacred rite by which we elect our mayors.’ The crowd grew restless and called for the fight to begin. ‘Other lesser, meaner, towns,’ the ref continued, ‘prefer the lowly ballot box, but as you all know, a ballot is no measure of a man’s true worth, whereas no one can fake the test of mettle that derives from the crucible of the boxing ring.’

The contestants slipped off their dressing gowns. Herod Jenkins flexed his biceps and splayed his back to the cheering crowd. The ref recited the thesaurus: ‘All the way from Talybont, the tracksuited Torquemada, scourge of our school days and mocker of our manhood . . .’ Boos rang out and doughnuts rained down on the canvas. It all unfolded as it had done in my dream of the Giant’s Castle: ‘. . . the goofing, suet-souled, swede-faced, Über-dumpling . . . Ercwleff!’

The bell dinged and the fight began. Herod Jenkins stepped forward, punched Ercwleff on the nose. He didn’t follow up with a second blow, but stopped and looked puzzled. Why didn’t Ercwleff attempt to fight back? The pause lengthened, the crowd grew restless; slowly, Ercwleff turned his other cheek and presented it to his opponent. The crowd gasped, and a strange thing happened: men and women began to cross themselves. Whispers passed through the assembled ranks like a breeze through ears of corn. ‘He turned the other cheek!’ they said. ‘Holy Lamb of God, he turned the other cheek!’ At various points in the crowd the people who stood in the vicinity of the hired tough guys began to drop to one knee in a clumsy pantomime of a people struck by the presence of the Holy Spirit. They had the demeanour of players following a script, but not one they liked.

‘People of Aberystwyth,’ the ref said, ‘we find ourselves in the presence of a miracle. Witness the shining example that has been set to us. This day marks a new departure for our beloved town, a new opportunity.’ Silence descended. ‘Today it is given to us to turn our backs on the curse of violence and take a different road, the one that leads towards the sunlit uplands. Today we have the chance to elect, not a fighter, but a man of peace. A lamb of God, not a lion. You all saw just now how pure and gentle was his heart – so much so that he forbore to raise his hand in violence but offered instead his other cheek in accordance with the example given to us in the blessed beatitudes of the Lord. In recommending Ercwleff to you I ask you to recall to mind the words of our Lord. For did he not say, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it”? As it was in Judaea, so let it be on the Prom. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new mayor of Aberystwyth, the loser who by losing wins, the man with the lion’s strength but the lamb’s heart, Er-cooooooooooo-leff!’

The crowd cheered but the celebration was short-lived, cut short by an astonishing sight: the appearance of a wild, haggard woman, naked except for the twigs and leaves that were matted into her unkempt hair. ‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Stop this at once!’ It was Mrs Bwlchgwallter, former lead singer of the Ginger Nutjobs, and one-time paragon of Welsh gingerbread-baking. She pointed at Ercwleff. ‘This man is not fit to be mayor of Aberystwyth.’ The crowd turned reluctantly towards her, anger beginning to well up at the unwanted interruption. Someone threw a doughnut at her. Voices cried out to disparage her.

‘Go away!’

‘Put some clothes on.’

‘Mind your own business!’

Mrs Bwlchgwallter’s eyes glittered with insanity, or fury, or both. ‘I will not be silent,’ she cried. ‘I will not stand by and watch the name of my beloved town sullied by the election of a degenerate mayor. This man is sin-blackened, more steeped in obliquity than any of you can imagine. This man has committed a crime of such baseness that the Lord will never forgive us if we elect him to the highest office in our town.’ The crowd grew quiet, the imprecations grew fewer as the people harkened to what she had to say. ‘I tell you he has committed an act abominated by all civilised peoples. He has defiled an angel!’

The crowd looked aghast.

‘The angel’s name was Skweeple. The poor little mite was visiting our world and was involved in a car accident. This information was given to me by Farmer Pugh under hypnosis. Iestyn Probert took Skweeple to Doc Digwyl’s. Then the mayor came and arrested the little angel and took him away. He left him with Ercwleff guarding him and Ercwleff used a tin opener to get his little silver suit off.’ She paused. The people in the crowd looked at her in horror. ‘And then he violated him! He used him cruelly after the fashion of the men of Sodom!’

Anger and disappointment swept through the crowd. ‘No!’ they cried. ‘No!’ But it was not a ‘no’ of disbelief but one of dismay and dejection of spirit. Ercwleff looked queasy, aware perhaps that it was still not too late for the police to come and take him away; the ref was robbed of the power of speech. I caught sight of Raspiwtin in the crowd; he saw me and, remembering the outstanding debt he owed me, turned to escape. On finding his way blocked, he pointed at me and cried out, ‘Seize that man! He is a fugitive from the law. Wanted for the attempted murder of Meici Jones!’ Voices in the crowd joined in the call: ‘It’s Louie Knight, the fugitive!’ Hands reached out to grab me. I was manhandled forward and pushed up into the ring. People began to boo and a doughnut flew past my ear. I was still holding the blood-covered shirt. I found myself face to face with Herod Jenkins. He looked at me, as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

‘I need to talk to them,’ I said. ‘I need to speak. They must listen.’

Herod considered for a brief moment, perhaps remembering the kindness I had recently done him during the storm. He nodded. He stepped forward, twisted the microphone out of the ref’s hand and pushed him roughly aside. He addressed the crowd and waved a hand over their heads. ‘Everybody shut up, now!’ he cried. ‘Shut up the lot of you or you will have me to deal with, and you know what that means.’ Evidently they did and the Prom became as silent as a church. ‘You all know me as a plain-dealing man. You all know me to be a man of few words, but the words I utter I weigh carefully first. Is there anyone here who would dispute that?’ There wasn’t. ‘You all know I have had my differences with Louie Knight over the years. For most of those years you could have said he was my enemy; certainly there was no love lost between us. So when I say to you I know this man, you can bet your bottom dollar I know what I am talking about. Is there anyone who disagrees with me on that?’ There was no one. ‘And so I can tell you, Louie Knight is not a murderer. He is not a fugitive. He is a good and noble man who spends his life fighting for justice on your behalf. Is this how you thank him? You turn against him the moment some villain makes an accusation? Well, in this town, for all its faults, we do not condemn a man without first hearing what he has to say for himself. Louie is going to speak and you lot are damn well going to listen and if I catch anyone not listening I will give him a belting so hard he will wake up in the middle of next week.’ He handed me the mike.

I looked out at the crowd and saw Calamity with Jhoe at the front. She gave me a thumbs-up sign, and something in her expression told me plainly that this was not the time for mealy-mouthed sentiments nor Socratic appeals to reason. This was the time for the tactics of the demagogue and the fire-breathing preacher. I thrust my hand into the air holding up the blood-stained clothing. ‘People of Aberystwyth!’ I cried. ‘Hear my words and weep! Meici Jones lies dead!’ Gasps. ‘Our human cannonball lies now in the dust, slain, but not by my hand, for I never raised a hand in anger to Meici. His flightless wings are now broken and forever glued to the unforgiving paving slab. No more will he soar into the blue sky with our dreams on his back, no more will he gild the mountain tops with his golden sandals! No more will he gather the clouds in his arms and bring their softness down to our hard Prom. Weep for him, I say!’

‘Who?’ they cried. ‘Who did this to Meici?’

I silenced them with an imperiously upraised hand. ‘Oh no! Do not ask me that. Do not force me to break your hearts anew. You are only men. The flesh of a man’s heart was never made to withstand such a cruel blow as that.’ My eyes met Calamity’s again and she made an O of her thumb and index finger and gently raised it to convey her appreciation of my performance. Encouraged, I continued.

‘Tell us!’ they cried. ‘We demand to know who took our Meici!’

‘I cannot say, nay I will not! The man who did this is a man dear to your hearts. A darling of Aberystwyth. Is it right that I turn him away from the doorstep of your bosom? Is it right that I set you upon him in this frenzied hour? Is it meet that you would pluck out his beard and dash his brains against the rocks beneath the pier?’

‘Yes,’ they cried. ‘Yes!’ And from the left, at the front, the man from the twenty-four-hour sweet shop shouted, ‘Be he my own grandfather I will dash him!’

The anguish was etched deep into their faces, the pain of losing Meici too great to bear, even though up until this moment not one of them had liked him.

I told them once more that I could never tell them the identity of Meici’s murderer, and then I told them. Words heard on a school trip to watch a Shakespeare play many years ago came to me across the years. ‘The man whose purple hands still reek and smoke with Meici’s blood is none other than our former mayor! But an hour ago he wore this shirt and would have buried it too if we had not stopped him. Look at it! See the crimson drops that Meici spilt! The man who did this was Preseli Watkins.’ Gasps of horror and disbelief rang out. ‘I would never have harmed a hair of Meici’s head. It’s true we had our disagreements, we didn’t always see eye to eye.’ I paused. The crowd gazed at me, mesmerised, hanging on every syllable. I remembered Meici and felt for the first time the true anguish and injustice of his death. ‘Meici did not have many friends, but he chose me to be one. He regarded me as a brother and no man can give a more precious gift than that. It may be that I did not appreciate it . . .’

One or two cries of ‘No’ rose from the assembled crowd.

‘Yes, yes, I confess it freely. If I have committed any crime, it is simply this: that I did not love him as he deserved. I don’t ask you to believe this, I ask only that you fetch the police so I may tell them what I know.’

Whispers ran through the crowd: ‘I think Louie has been much wronged in this matter.’ ‘It’s true,’ another said. ‘Louie would never hurt Meici, they were old friends.’ ‘He loved him like a brother, did you hear that? How then could he have attacked him?’

‘Please!’ I called out. ‘Call them now, bring the police here to this spot and deliver me into their keeping. That’s all I ask!’ A muttering realisation passed through the crowd; they acted as one, like a shoal of fish, and turned towards Raspiwtin with fury in their hearts. Fear appeared in his countenance, the fear not just of the cornered beast but of the man of the world who knows, and has probably seen, how terrible the rage of a mob can be once its collective heart has been stirred to vengeance. But Raspiwtin had the cunning of a cornered beast. A moment passed, only a fraction of a second but one of those rare splinters of time that are drawn out far longer for those who participate in the drama of the moment; his fate hung precariously in the balance as the mob bent on mischief turned towards him. He pointed at me and shouted, ‘Let us have Louie Knight for our mayor!’ The suggestion fell like a flaming match onto dry bracken in a parched summer. The passion of the mob switched direction again. The chant ‘Louie for Mayor’ tore through the ranks of people and, with each iteration it gained in volume. ‘Louie for Mayor! Louie for Mayor!’ I raised a voice in protest, but the torrent of their desire could not be dammed. My pleas went unheard, and so, swept forward on the irresistible tide of history, I became mayor of Aberystwyth.