Say Goodbye to the Boys

by Mari Stead Jones

Emlyn Morton had a natural politeness. He fussed around Amos and set aside a chair for him on the deck. ‘Wants to talk to me alone,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Go and help Mash catch tiddlers for the kids.’ The children, Mash too, were speckled with mud after stamping around the boat, but there was scarcely a spot on Emlyn, and he wasn’t even sweating.

  I peeled off my shirt, took my shoes and socks off and rolled my trousers up.

  ‘Aren’t your legs brown?’ Sian Thomas said admiringly. Mash was sweeping the muddy water with a net on a pole, and giving it his full concentration.

  ‘Hullo, Philip,’ he said, and I remembered as a boy feeling intimidated by his size, felt it now, too. But the children were chattering at me and so there I was knee deep in the river, flexing my toes in the soft mud, searching for flatfish.

  ‘Got one!’ Mash cried out, and he carefully removed a shrimp from the net and dropped it in Robert Owen’s jam jar. ‘Coppers asking me questions all the morning,’ he said. ‘How many fish we got now?’ I could see the thin line of the scar under his hair.

  Captain X came close to say, ‘Call me Captain X remember. Tell anybody it’s Cyril and I’ll kill you!’ Robert Owen said, ‘We saw you with that lady.’ A ventriloquist’s face, not a tremor from the lips. Down here, near the old boat, a kind of different world. But on deck the old man was still talking to Emlyn. ‘Copped another!’ Mash called out, and we all gathered around him to look.

  ‘Flying blind,’ Emlyn whispered his verdict. ‘Upside down in a cloud, poor old sod.’ Amos was asleep on the chair, his chin down on his chest, gold spectacles dangling free of his inflamed nose. ‘You’d expect that, wouldn’t you? The old blood not pumping to the brain like it should? Mrs MT! Well – I mean to say, we’ve always known she’s a bit grim, but she’s not that fucking grim, is she? You saw some pictures, honestly?’

  ‘A couple.’ I described them to him.

  He frowned deeply. ‘I never heard anything about her and Ridetski. I mean, I used to have a fair amount of short visits back here, and there was nobody chatting about it then. Mind you – there was a blackout, and all sorts of sporting activities went on in that.’ Emlyn with his smooth, boyish face, rounded and unmarked. The full mouth smiling, dismissing Amos’s great theories so lightly. ‘Look, what he’s doing, the old boy here, is making a real story about it all. Every time he comes out with something it’s got PLOT written all over it. Remember the description of the car full of money crashing into that field? And he wasn’t even there! Now on the strength of one snapshot he’s got Mrs MT dropping her knickers for Ridetski! Big affair going on. Well – I ask you. Out of character, isn’t it? And it all comes back to character in the end. What are you starting at?’

  ‘You,’ I said. ‘You’re a bloody genius.’

  ‘Please,’ he said, eyes closed, ‘Not too much praise. It’s a hot day and my brain cells get all excited.’

  ‘Just tell me who’s got the character, then.’

  He looked straight at me. ‘Not MT for a start. I mean, he’s all wind and piss, isn’t he? But George Garston could do it. He’s deep, old Garston.’ The old man grunted in his sleep and Emlyn drew closer, his knees pulled up under his chin. His hair was going, thinning all over the crown like Idwal’s. ‘My old boy could do it, too,’ he added lightly. ‘Idwal the Great...’

  I felt my breath catch in my throat. He’d always had this way of coming out with something that caught you unawares. Saying the unsayable.

  ‘Why not? You see, I’m a natural coward – OK? I mean, I’m really shit scared. No kidding. But Idwal’s got the guts. Enough for the two of us. And he was more than likely mixed up in all the business with the money from that car. Oh God, yes. The only trouble with Idwal is he boozed it all away. Booze and bints...’

  ‘Not your old man, Emlyn – Jesus...’

  ‘Well of course he was mixed up in it. Any old racket.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t start knocking anybody off, would he?’

  He pressed his mouth between his knees and blew his cheeks out. ‘Well – you asked for suspects and I was going through the list. Idwal’s got cancer, anyway.’

  And that rocked me, too. I had to look around, reach for the fags. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s in the stomach.’ The same direct statement. ‘I got him to the quack two weeks ago. It’s no joy, I think.’ He blew into his knees again. ‘Old Amos Ellyott says everything starts with a stolen payroll and a car on fire – and you can bet your boots Idwal would be in on that. Our old house was in the bank. He was flat broke. Skint. You’ll be looking at a picture of him next...’

  ‘Oh, hell – I’m sorry, Emlyn...’

  ‘That’s how it is.’ His mouth was tight and unsmiling. ‘Tough for him. Got a fag?’ I handed him one. ‘All right – he was in that business with MT and George Garston. No doubt about that. But – you can’t very well trot up to him and say, “Father, you haven’t by any chance been knocking off these women, have you?”’ He inhaled a lungful. ‘I mean to say. But – he could do it, old Idwal. He could do anything, that man. Nothing would surprise me. One time when I came home on leave – it was the first train in the morning. Pitch dark. I’d been travelling all the way from some bloody horrible place in Holland. Practically dead on arrival, I was. There was nobody on the platform, not even the guard. Then he comes out of the steam: Idwal the great. Nobody else. Just me and Idwal. And he comes up to me and he puts his arms around me, and he kisses me... actually kisses me...’ His eyes were bright and shining. Once more a great gulp of smoke. ‘Look Philip – let’s just keep Idwal’s state of health to ourselves, OK? Don’t tell Sherlock here, I mean – and for Christ’s sake don’t tell him anything else, either! He’s got it all cocked up as it is.’ He got to his feet and brushed down his flannels. ‘I think I’ll stretch my legs...’

  ‘Stop splashing me!’ Sian Thomas wailed from below.

  ‘We were having a great time, weren’t we? You and me celebrating life – in the happy ever after time, before everything went shitty. All those coppers chasing Mash. One of them’s been up there on the dunes all afternoon – did you see him? Maybe I shouldn’t have told that Inspector to go and kiss his arse this morning.’ He smiled down at me. ‘I was ever so polite about it, mind.’

  ‘I bet,’ I managed to say.

  He stared solemnly at Amos. ‘I think he’s got himself all tangled up with a car on fire and a vanishing payroll. Didn’t contradict him, mind. It’ll be someone connected with Lilian...’

  ‘Ridetski?’

  ‘Not a bad bet,’ he agreed. ‘Did you know the coppers have been interviewing some of the most respectable business men in town? Did you know they keep on calling Davy Garston in? Old Lilian – she had such a hell of a lot of visitors. No disrespect, but I dropped a real bollock when I got us going on that, didn’t I? Know what I want? A bit of ordinary living. I’ve told Percy Davies I’ll come into the office next Monday.’ He slapped his thigh. ‘I’ll take a stroll. You put the kettle on for tea. We’ll send old Mash up there with a cup for the Gestapo, OK?’

  Then Amos awoke. ‘Boys – I’m bursting!’ He tried to get up. ‘And I’m stuck! Quickly now – quickly! Give a hand. Oh hasten, hasten!’

  We grabbed an elbow each and carried him, bent as he was to the side of the boat. ‘I’ll just test the wind,’ Emlyn said, dabbing a finger against his tongue and holding it up.

  ‘Straighten me!’ the old man roared. Mash and the children stepped out from under the boat to watch. We tottered there as we pushed his knees down. ‘Hurry! Please! Hurry!’

  ‘All right – fire!’ Emlyn told him. ‘Come on – I’m not getting it out for you!’ Amos fumbled with his buttons. ‘What’s the matter – has it disappeared? Sian Thomas – close your eyes!’ We were just in time too. The old man shuddered and made ecstatic noises, and we held him t
here and bit back great gulps of laughter. Robert Owen and Captain X were so overcome they had to sit on the mud. Sian Thomas watched, wide eyed and with clinical detachment. She was holding Mash’s hand, and was spattered with mud.

  ‘I don’t think I need that walk now,’ Emlyn said.

  Afterwards we made tea, then Emlyn brought out his trumpet and played great, swinging versions of Welsh hymns that set the children jiving. He kept it going on the down slopes of the dunes too, until we reached the promenade where MT was waiting with a car to take Mash home. MT didn’t have much to say for himself, seemed preoccupied, and he drew away quickly with Amos Elloytt waving to us from the front seat.

  ‘Mash is under doctor’s orders,’ Emlyn explained. ‘By the way – I won’t be around tonight, either. Got me a date. I’m taking Ceri Price to the pictures.’ Then he looked at me. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Press on regardless,’ I said, and cursed myself for minding, and walked home kicking at loose chippings on the pavement, talking to myself. Well, she had told me she was playing around, hadn’t she?

  I came face to face with Will Wilkins at the gate. He was wearing a blue apron under his coat and was heading back to his shop to cash up and sweep out. ‘Philip,’ he said, ‘just the man I wanted to see!’ His face was the texture of sweaty dough. I guessed he’d been chasing Laura around the kitchen again. He whipped a handkerchief from up his sleeve, held it under his nose and spoke through it. ‘Would it be convenient for me to ask for your stepmother’s hand in marriage?’ My day for surprises. I shouldn’t have laughed.

  XIV

  I decided on the George, a pub I usually avoided, for what looked like being a solitary Monday night. On the way there I saw Emlyn and Ceri moving with the queue into the Regal, and I never tasted the first pint, found myself chain-smoking, hating everybody. Especially the barmaid, in her apron, looking like she was made of starched white linen, dispensing the drinks, her thin nose registering disapproval at the speed at which I had emptied my glass. In the George you took your beer in sips, and watched the door furtively, and kept the windows shut in case the fresh air ruined the smell of disinfectant. There were warnings everywhere about spitting, gambling and singing being forbidden. But it was either the George or the Anchorage, and I felt safer from Amos here where beer was sinful, conversation mumbling about death.

  But I was wrong, of course. At half past eight he prodded the door open with his stick and came stumbling in. ‘Philip,’ he bellowed. ‘My God!’

  ‘No swearing if you please,’ the barmaid screeched in protest.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Philip?’ He went on, each word like a stabbing lance. ‘This place! Good God Almighty!’

  ‘Any more swearing and I send for the police!’ The barmaid warned him, and I was glad she’d said it because he now gave her his undivided attention.

  He propped his stick against the counter and planted his elbows on the bar and brought his hands together in a sharp crack that made her jump. ‘I am the police,’ he announced. ‘Have you ever been prosecuted for the supplying of despair, madam?’

  ‘I keep an orderly house. We don’t have no trouble here!’

  ‘You don’t keep anything here,’ Amos told her. ‘One neat gin and a beer for my colleague – poor, deluded boy who thought he could hide from me – and you have my permission to risk a fragrant smile.’

  But she was a tough old bird. ‘You’ve had enough. No drinks for you here. I’ve got the right, see. I know the law.’ She brought her thin, lethal nose within inches of his. ‘You clear off!’ she said, spit glistening on her lower lip.

  ‘I will not clear off!’ Amos replied. ‘Send for the forces, the magistrates and town clerks. I will not be ordered out while my money is on the table.’

  Not bad for a Monday night slanging match, I thought. Some of the customers who had been dying over their drinks were now sitting up and seemed almost lively. The old man had obviously toured the pubs in his search for me, and he was more than three sheets to the wind. I stood back and watched and listened, not without admiration, even though it was all childish and pointless. But now I had him for the rest of the night, and Amos Ellyott sober had to be suffered; Amos Ellyott drunk was not to be tolerated. I was about to go looking for the back door when a heavy voice from the corner threatened to put him out. ‘It’ll have to be the two of us,’ I told the room, and was appalled to realise that what I wanted this Monday night was a fight.

  Fortunately the only response to my remark came from Amos. ‘My dear boy,’ he said, turning his back on the barmaid, ‘thank you for that show of loyalty.’ And he held out a cold hand for me to grip. His rheumy eyes glistened. ‘Had Adolf Hitler succeeded in invading this country, rest assured that this dismal excuse for a public house would be the seat of the Gestapo.’

  ‘I think we should go to a pub, Mr Ellyott,’ I suggested.

  ‘Admirable, admirable,’ he replied in a choked voice. We headed for the door.

  ‘Good riddance to both of you!’ The barmaid was for having the last word. And as the old man appeared to be too overcome with emotion, or gin, I spoke for him. ‘You want to have your drains seen to. You’ve gassed those two in the corner.’

  We went out on a flood of words from the barmaid, the old man chuckling. At the door the fog met us like a wall.

  The fog was a Maelgwyn wonder, something that recurred in conversation and stories over the years. Some of them had punctuated my childhood and I had forgotten until that night how they filled the streets of the town, how dense they were. They occurred always in high summer. They lasted a few days – although I remembered my father saying that one of them, in 1896, had stayed down for a fortnight. Ten miles outside the town, a few thousand feet up in the air, the sun would be shining. They were phenomena peculiar to Maelgwyn and they were a visitation from on high of course. And a bad omen.

  ‘Can’t see a bloody thing,’ Amos said.

  ‘So stop walking up my leg,’ I said. ‘And look – just for one night I don’t want to talk about murders and I don’t want any more theories – all right?’

  ‘I am no longer at the theory stage,’ he snapped back. Then he discovered that he was not wearing his glasses. We had not reached the porch of the King’s Arms. ‘I’ve got to have them. I’m blind without them. Were they on my nose in that dreadful pub?’ I told him I couldn’t remember if they were or not, but one thing’s for sure, if we went back there it would be a lynching party. I called for drinks at the bar of the King’s Arms, but he went on moaning about his glasses.

  ‘Go back home and have a look,’ I told him, ‘I’ll wait for you here.’

  He rapped his stick against the bar. ‘Would you have me expire in that filthy fog out there? Would you?’ All the saloon bar sitting up, silent, and watchful. Drink your poison, I said and let’s go. ‘No need for you to sound so petulant,’ he replied. Outside the fog had thickened. We stumbled along in the general direction of the promenade. The braying sirens from the ships in the estuary were muffled but somehow more urgent. People came up to us out of the fog, then vanished. And Amos talked. ‘George Garston, the one party in this case who remains a complete puzzle. It is my belief that it was he who fired those shots when we were investigating the Tower.’

  A man came out of the fog. Seeing us, he changed course, but I glimpsed the outline of his face. Idwal Morton? It was. Bareheaded, great dome of a forehead. There was no mistaking him. Sick man in the fog.

  I followed Amos up the creaking staircase to his rooms. He reached for his key above the door and pushed it into the lock, and it wouldn’t turn. He gave the knob a twist, the door opened and I felt the hairs rise on the back of my hands. He switched on the light. Chairs overturned. Cushions on the floor, papers from the bureau scattered everywhere, his books swept off the shelves. The door to the bedroom was wide open, mattress
and blankets in an untidy heap on the floor. I looked at him, and he was smiling.

  ‘She worked it out that it was I who sent her the photograph,’ he said. Then he knelt and pushed a strip of carpet back into place. If I had one photograph, then I must have more...’

  ‘You knew this was going to happen,’ I said. ‘That’s why you made me come back with you.’ He took his glasses from an inside pocket and waved them at me.

  ‘You’re a deceitful old sod! What have you proved, anyway? Only that she wants the pictures.’

  He glared at me. ‘Now I have her on the run, don’t you see? Depths to Mrs Edmunds – depths so clearly absent in her husband. She is about to break. Don’t be sentimental, Philip. She is quite prepared to let her spouse take the blame.’ He stopped short there, as if something else had occurred to him. He was staring into the bedroom. Slowly he heaved himself to his feet. Stick pointing, he shuffled across the room to the bedroom door. A singing sound from the electric lightbulb above my head. He groped along the wall for the switch. The light came on. Fog at the window open wide. I stood behind him in the doorway. ‘It’s the way the mattress is lying,’ he whispered, fear now in his voice. He took two strides forward and pushed at the blankets with the end of his stick. And she was there.

  Her hands up as if she was holding the knitting needles. Her glasses dangling from one ear across her chin. Blood on the lenses, her skin dark as blood. There had been something tight around her long neck, something that had bitten deep into the flesh. A sound from her, a pocket of air escaping.

  ‘Downstairs. The basement flat. Telephone.’ Amos’s voice across a great, echoing and empty wasteland. The broken stillness of her. I saw him search for a pulse beat in the throat. ‘Phone the Inspector,’ he said, ‘never mind the ambulance.’