Mr Vogel
Page 37
As rivulets of icy water ran like an electric shock down his spine, Mr Vogel made a pact to go around Wales in the boat with Gwydion. He grabbed an old green hat from the hat stand: a hat with a black band and a shiny rim; it had lain there for as long as anyone could remember. He shook a cobweb off it and banged it on the doorframe to dust it, then put it on his head at a rakish angle. He took an old umbrella with a duck-head handle, which had also lain in the hat-stand since time began, and handed it to Gwydion.
It would be a very fine adventure. They were ready for the real thing now.
CODA
YOU MAY like to know that Mr Vogel ended his long relationship with whisky on February 29th, 2000.
Gwydion is the keeper of the door: if Mr Vogel ever needs him he can find him in the fan of yellow light shining outside the off-licence and video store.
The tamarisk tree in Mr Vogel’s garden has prospered and its branches shade him from the sun, like an umbrella.
Mr Vogel often visits Gwydion and the Gang. And this is the gift they have given him. Every time he steps into the light of the wrecker’s lantern then moves back to safety again, he can walk entirely around Wales in three steps.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jan Morris, Iain Sinclair, Don Waine, Rob Owen, Brynley Jenkins, Hamish and Jude, Will Atkins, Dafydd Jones, Morus Jones, Erika Woods, John Tanner, the Welsh Books Council, my friends in Llanfairfechan and beyond, and both branches of my family. I would also like to thank the many people I met on my walk around Wales, for their company. Special thanks to Don Waine, for providing some of the ideas in this book, and to John Spink, whose initial review on behalf of the Welsh Books Council saved Mr Vogel from the bin.
Acknowledgement is due to the following for permission to reprint work in this novel:
Wales: Epic Views of a Small Country by Jan Morris, 1998, © Jan Morris, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; A History of Wales by John Davies, 1993, © John Davies, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; Journey Through Wales: The Description of Wales, by Gerald of Wales, Trans. © Lewis Thorpe, 1978, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; Piers Ploughman, by William Langland, © J.F. Goodridge, 1956, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; Michael Farraday in Wales, Dafydd Tomos (ed), reproduced by permission of by Gwasg Gee; History of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, trans © Lewis Thorpe, 1966, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; Magic & Mystery in Tibet, by Alexandra David Neel, reproduced by permission of Souvenir Press; My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Across Europe, by Nicholas Crane, © Nicholas Crane, 1997, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; This is My Life by Agnes Hunt, reprinted in 1965 by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd, reproduced by permission of Derwen College.
The author would particularly like to acknowledge the use he made of the following volumes:
The Bone-Setters of Anglesey, a lecture delivered by W. Hywel Jones at the Anglesey Antiquarian Society and Field Club’s annual general meeting at Amlwch on May 3, 1980, published in the 1981 transactions; The Life of Sir Robert Jones Frederick Watson, published by the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital NHS Trust; A Book of Traveller’s Tales, ed. Eric Newby, published by Picador; Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, Mark Abley, published by William Heinemann; Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages, Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine, published by Oxford University Press; Revd John Parker’s Tour of Wales and its Churches, Edgar W, Parry, published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch; Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit, published by Verso; The Pioneer Ramblers 1850-1940, David Hollett, published by the North Wales Area Ramblers’ Association; Healing & Hope: 100 Years of ‘The Orthopaedic’, Marie Carter, published by the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic & District Hospital NHS Trust; Landor’s Tower, by Iain Sinclair, published by Granta; Don Quixote, by Cervantes, published by Penguin; A Tour in Wales, Thomas Pennant, abridged by David Kirk, published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch; Selected Letters of Leo Tolstoy, published by Macmillan.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; the publisher and the author regret any omissions, and will be pleased to rectify them in future editions.