by Lloyd Jones
They all tittered dutifully.
‘Well, it’s like this,’ said Debbie, before taking a mouthful of water. Dr Jackson looked at her lips around the rim of the glass and created immediate video footage of a pleasing sexual act. He would edit the clip to his own advantage later. She continued:
‘He likes to sit in his room on his own, but he also likes a bit of company. We noticed one night that he always left his light on after everyone else had switched theirs off – it’s a trademark of his. He’s fine after one of us has gone to talk to him for a while and tucked him in. But he’ll put that light on and leave it on until someone’s called on him. It’s quite endearing, really.’
‘Quite a little character we have here. I’m told by Donovan that he believes he’s walked completely round Wales, and pigs might fly,’ said Dr Jackson superciliously.
‘Got anything against pigs?’ asked Donovan, who was irritated by Dr Jackson but could never fathom why. He was so unshakably certain about everything, he seemed to approach everyone as an imperial power might approach a tiny colony.
‘Absolutely hate them actually,’ said Dr Jackson, ‘they’re revolting and I’d quite happily erase them from the face of history. I was chased by one as a child.’
‘No point giving you one for Christmas then,’ said Donovan, with the slightest hint of malice in his voice.
‘This walk round Wales, it’s not completely impossible you know,’ said Debbie, defensively. ‘People do amazing things. And he does seem to know his country very well. Stranger things have happened.’
‘We’ll leave it at that,’ said Dr Jackson. ‘Miracles do happen, we’ve seen them before on this ward.’ Dr Jackson turned to Donovan and asked him for his impressions.
‘Really strange person, never met anyone quite like him before,’ Donovan answered. ‘He won’t wear new clothes – we took him shopping but he wouldn’t go anywhere near the proper shops. He dragged us into a charity shop. He’s formed a close friendship with Gwydion and also with Anna – seems very intense and we’ve got to keep an eye on that one. He pretends he has lots of money but he doesn’t have a credit card. Says he’s got plenty of friends, which probably means he hasn’t got any at all. Wants to get in touch with Esmie, whoever she may be.’
‘Righty-ho,’ said Dr Jackson. ‘I’ll have a look at him myself now. Thank you both for your help. Could you call him in now?’
They went back on the ward and told Mr Vogel the doctor was ready to see him.
But Mr Vogel didn’t like the idea at all.
‘Doctor?’ He was extremely suspicious. ‘What does he want with me? Are they going to operate again? I’m not going in. I can’t do it, I...’ he was in a terrible spin.
They calmed him, but it was no use. Wild horses wouldn’t drag him into the interview room. Dr Jackson had to go into the dayroom and sit in one of the twelve seats. They sat away from the rest whilst they chatted.
‘I just want to talk to you for a while,’ said Dr Jackson in his most calming voice. ‘Just a few minutes, after all, we want to get you out of here as soon as possible, don’t we?’
Mr Vogel gazed at him with his Are You Sure look.
‘Now I understand you call yourself Vogel, is that right?’ he asked gently. ‘Though you have another name too, a proper name. Would that be David Jones?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And which name would you like me to use in future?’ asked the doctor, looking at his watch.
‘You can call me Mr Vogel,’ he answered. ‘It started off as a bit of a joke, but it sort of stuck, and I’m so used to it now... it was the children on the ward you see.’
‘It was your nickname?’
‘Yes, at Gobowen. There was a German lady at the clinic and she said that I looked like a little bird because my legs were so spindly after being in bed for so long.’
‘And the German word for bird is vogel .’
‘That’s right. All the other children started calling me Vogel. That’s how nicknames come about. Funny isn’t it? And when I’m not feeling very great, not on top of the world, I tend to talk to Mr Vogel about the old days.’
‘Understand completely,’ said Dr Jackson, adding:
‘I’m told that you speak Welsh – can’t speak it fluently yet, but I’m trying, going to lessons and all that you understand,’ he said.
‘Yes, I speak Welsh,’ answered Vogel, who was beginning to warm to his subject.
‘In fact I speak two minority languages quite well.’
‘Two?’
‘Yes, Welsh and English.’
Dr Jackson searched his mind and looked for the obvious catch.
‘Don’t quite get your drift,’ he said guardedly.
‘English as she is spoken, the King’s English is a minority language now. Your mother tongue is dying slowly. All the other types of world English, especially American English, Australian English and Indian English have taken over, they’ve superseded her – all the new words come from abroad now. BBC English will have gone in a century – you’ll hear a medley of estuary English, Americanese and strange regional accents, distorted by new immigrants. Ever thought of that? Ever thought what it’s going to sound like, living in Britain then?’
Dr Jackson looked a long hard look at him and finger-combed his lion’s mane of blond hair. He reminded Mr Vogel of someone else, someone from his past.
‘Surely you mean the Queen’s English,’ parried Dr Jackson.
‘No, it’s called the King’s English after the King James Bible, actually,’ said Mr Vogel. It was nice to know more about the English language than the English themselves sometimes – after all, they seemed to know a damn sight more about Wales than he did.
‘I see I’m going to enjoy talking to you,’ said Dr Jackson. ‘Will I be talking mainly to Mr Vogel or to Mr Jones?’
‘Both in equal measure,’ said Mr Vogel. ‘Incidentally, did you know that your name, with the ‘son’ at the end, shows that you’re from Scandinavian stock, and that your family lived north of a line between Chester and London?’
‘Fascinating,’ said Dr Jackson with a skipful of sarcasm, ‘it’s nice to know where we’re both coming from.’
‘Touché,’ answered Mr Vogel.
Later, when Donovan went to Mr Vogel’s room, the last to have its light on as usual, to tuck him in and say goodnight, Mr Vogel was reading.
Donovan bustled around him for a while, closing the curtains and tidying Mr Vogel’s clothes and desk, ready for lights out. Having finished, he slumped in the chair by Mr Vogel’s bed and watched him as his eyes flickered along the lines.
‘What are you reading?’ he asked.
‘The Mabinogi – Gwydion brought it for me. Told me a story about a lame ant yesterday, so I thought I’d catch up on all the old Welsh stories. Would you believe it, I’ve never read them.’
Donovan yawned and wondering if Debbie would be down the pub after work, waiting for him. ‘Did them at school, but I can’t remember a thing about them now. Which bit are you on?’
‘The bit about Pryderi and the pigs.’
‘That’s a strange coincidence,’ said Donovan, fighting another yawn and settling back in the chair. ‘Second time today that pigs have flown past the window.’
He closed his eyes and rooted about in his memory, trying to remember the Welsh word for pigs. After a while it came to him – moch.
‘Pryderi and the pigs – wasn’t that the story which explained all the places in Wales called Mochdre?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Go on, remind me of the story.’
Mr Vogel looked at him sideways from beneath his pool of light.
‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’
‘It was something to do with war, wasn’t it. That’s it, Gwydion the magician was trying to start a fight with the South Walians, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well go on then, remind me.’
Mr Vogel sighed,
closed his eyes, and went over the story.
Gwydion – the fictional Gwydion, not his new friend – indeed wanted to start a fight with the South, and he hit on a cunning plan.
Pryderi and his southerners had been given a strange and wonderful gift by the king of the otherworld – pigs.
Gwydion and his party of twelve northerners travelled to the court of the southerners pretending to be poets. They feasted, and Gwydion (who as well as being a magician was also the best storyteller in the land) entertained everyone with mind-boggling tales. Afterwards he asked for the pigs as a gift. But Pryderi wouldn’t consider it – the porkies had to stay put. So Gwydion came up with a ruse. Using the dark arts he created twelve splendid stallions and twelve elegant greyhounds, each of them with bridles and saddles and collars and leashes of gold. He offered them to Pryderi in return for the pigs. The deal was done; he was given the pigs and he started to herd them homewards; wherever they stayed overnight was subsequently called Mochdre (pig-town) or had ‘moch’ in its name. But Gwydion’s spell lasted for only a day: the stallions and the greyhounds dematerialized, and the southerners mustered their troops, ready for war.
Mr Vogel looked round and thought Donovan had nodded off.
‘You asleep?’
‘No, just thinking. Great story.’
Donovan got to his feet, tucked in Mr Vogel’s bedspread, patted his shoulder and offered to turn out the light. Mr Vogel accepted.
‘Perhaps you should tell that story to Dr Jackson,’ said Donovan’s silhouette in the doorway.
‘He hates pigs and he doesn’t believe a word you’ve ever said.’ Mr Vogel was sitting on the ward, and he was feeling better.
He was eating again, and he was drinking Calypso by the boxful.
He drank some water and it tasted elemental, of mountains and minerals, melting snow and spent volcanic forces. He put it to one side – it was too early to touch such a simple power.
He breathed the air, feeling its invisible companionship, like a friend holding him up, supporting his weight in a moment of giddiness. The ground had new solidity under his feet, and he swayed less. His eyes cleared, slowly, and the green of his irises contrasted anew with the white of his corneas. His skin looked healthier, even his dandruff became less obvious. There was something else, too. He wanted to end his tall stories. He didn’t want to ornament his fable any longer.
‘For pity’s sake,’ he said to the mirror, during a long and carefully considered conversation with himself (a dialogue which was becoming calmer by the day).
For pity’s sake, he wanted to let go now. He didn’t want to fabricate any longer. He wanted to be himself, to enjoy the taste of water, the primacy of air.
He had hoarded enough stock now. Why conflate and distort, he asked himself, when the facts of his existence, pure and simple, were wonderful in themselves?
He had been in the wilderness for some time. Mr Vogel was beginning to merge with David Jones again. It was a good sign. He was never completely at ease when Mr Vogel went off into the woods and became feral; he never knew what Mr Vogel might do – he was capable of great emotional excesses, frightening in their intensity.
He sat quietly in the dayroom and started making a mental will. The time had come. He had already decided on a humanist funeral; now he started mulling over his choice of music, and poems and readings. He would have to have a piece of violin music for sure, but it most certainly wouldn’t be Abide With Me.
The Mendelssohn concerto, perhaps, for its delicacy, or the Elgar for its sheer romantic sentimentality; no, something simple perhaps... The Lark Ascending, that was it, something plaintive and relevant – The Lark Ascending would do fine.
There would have to be some Mahler. That was easy – the second movement of the Resurrection Symphony would be perfect. His friends would get the joke.
Something for Paddy – Tom Lehrer perhaps, something to amuse the rabble and to shock the chapel-goers; and then perhaps a good old standard blues number, something like Freight Train for his hobo friends...
The dinner trolley rolled in and Mr Vogel headed automatically for the dining room. It was amazing how quickly one slipped into the rhythm of the ward; food and pills marked time as well as any clock. He was ravenously hungry and ate one of the absent patients’ dinners as well as his own. Debbie patted him affectionately and said: ‘Well done Mr Vogel.’
He went back to his seat and waited for the pills trolley; it was like waiting for communion in church when he was a child. He’d soon turned his back on all that: he’d decided quickly that he couldn’t possibly believe in a god who was stupid, mad or evil enough to create a man like his father, who spreadeagled him on the kitchen table, like a frog for dissection, and showed his naked distortions to all who wished to see. Sometimes Mr Vogel was cruel to himself: he convinced himself that nature had distorted his mind and soul too. Like Anna, he had called into the void of his childhood and had heard no response. And he had another big problem with it all: Mr Vogel liked fair play, as all children and simple, innocent people do.
He liked everyone to have an equal chance. But religion never gave anyone an equal chance, because people had very different powers of belief. He had said that to Dr Jackson, who hated the primordial primitivism of pigs. Jackson went to the American Baptists in town because he liked to sing like crazy and speak in tongues and generally let it all hang out. He kept it very secret, but as he said to his wife, you had to let it out somehow. Primitive men did a spot of trepanning to release the spirits, and after all, in the lifespan of the universe man was only a few seconds away from woolly mammoths and cromlechs.
‘Isn’t it strange,’ said Mr Vogel to the person next to him, who happened to be Sylvia the Hoover, ‘that the very people who mock the old gods are the same people who sit in stone huts and sing hymns to the spirits. Plus ça change, don’t you think Sylvia?’
Sylvia asked him if they could go to Downing Street, since time was getting short.
Mr Vogel looked at the group, sitting quietly, all with their own little preoccupations, like himself. They were a strange bunch. The human genome had spent a day on the piss when it created this lot.
He continued making his will. He would have to include Myfanwy, and a bit of harp music from Llio Rhydderch, and perhaps that plaintive little song by Meinir Gwilym. As for money... well, he simply didn’t have any to leave. He lived in a council flat, and he’d never had a proper job. He’d put chains on wash-basin plugs at the day centre, but after a while they’d told him not to go again. It was his own fault – he’d simply gone missing too often. He couldn’t help it, somehow. And sometimes he’d been drunk, and they didn’t like that either.
Mr Vogel sat outside the unit in clear, cool sunshine, wrapped up in a coat which smelt reassuringly of peat – it belonged to one of the staff members, who had taken pity on Mr Vogel. He and Gwydion daydreamed together about the end of their perfect mission: the end of the walk around Wales. By now their friendship had settled and hardened like cement. It was a strange alliance, certainly, but then again, most friendships are. Gwydion had talked of friendship in terms of longitude and latitude.
‘All those segments created by Mercator, vacuums waiting to be filled by explorers – we’re like that too, divided up into empty bits, all of them waiting to be mapped and recorded. That’s where our friends live – in the empty bits between the lines. They help us to map our contours. Don’t you think so, Mr Vogel?’
They decided, after much consideration, to finish the walk around Wales in two stages on the same day: at Nab’s Head in Pembrokeshire in the morning and at the little church of St Beuno’s in Pistyll in the afternoon. It was their tribute to the north-south divide, to the duality of Wales, and the duality in Mr Vogel. It would have been convenient and logical to end at St David’s, at the end of the southern pilgrims’ trail, but since they were both pagans they paid tribute to their ancestors by ending at Nab’s Head, a perfect example of a Mesolithic fort above the sea. Mr
Vogel would tell his friends that he’d found an Iron Age spear-head nearby, though it was probably a finial from an iron railing, not the real thing at all. Still, pretending had been good enough until now; only certain people got to see the real thing anyway. Gwydion had told him about the Bedeilhac caves in France with their prehistoric paintings.
‘It’s a sham, what they show you,’ he told Mr Vogel. ‘They make copies of the paintings and mouldings so that people can see them – most of the real stuff was done in recesses and crannies at the back of the cave. They were not for public consumption – they were for a select few to see and experience.’
One of Mr Vogel’s acquaintances had gone on holiday for a week on the Gower and had spent a futile day looking for the famous cave at Paviland, home of the Red Lady.
Perhaps it’s best to make it all up, thought Mr Vogel, safe in his slippers.
Some people – no, perhaps many people – could walk around Wales for a hundred years without seeing anything of interest; zilch, just a boring and repetitive shoreline.
But through other people’s eye they could see all the glories they might have missed.
When he was an old man (not so far away, he thought) he could sit by the fire and remember. He would be tempted to embroider, he knew that. Slowly but certainly small details and fictions would be added. If he reached a hundred the tale would be magnificent, epic, superhuman. He would have created his own myth. It was the way of mankind, especially the Celt.
Matthew Arnold had said of the Celts that they were hopeless at the big picture, at making a constructed whole, but very good at the small detail; they had been expert at illustrating the capitals and rubrics on their beautiful manuscripts, but they had been unable to construe an empirical whole.
Back on the ward, Mr Vogel continued to think about the walk around Wales.
‘Damn it all,’ he said to Sylvia, ‘the walk has a completeness about it. A symmetry – don’t you think?’
She sidled away to do some hoovering.