For an instant I stood transfixed by the enormity of what I had done, then Llunos gave me a thumbs-up sign and the spell broke; we rushed forward. A sheet of lightning lit up the valley and for a second the vast, metallic sheen of Nant-y-moch reservoir lay illuminated below us in such awesome majesty that we were all struck dumb. Then the flickering electric discharge from the clouds went out and darkness consumed the vista again. A darkness broken only by two spotlights slung beneath the Plexiglas nose of the plane which were trained on the surface of the water. I knew without needing to ask that Brainbocs had rigged them up after watching The Dambusters. They were to indicate the correct altitude for dropping the bomb. When the two lights merged on the surface of the water, the plane would be at the correct height and they could release the payload. They were now only yards apart, skimming across the surface of the reservoir, getting closer and closer, as Custard Pie levelled the plane for the final approach. The vast concrete wall of the dam loomed up ahead and Bombardier Llantrisant - her eyes buried in the bombsight — screamed out above the din.
'Six seconds! Five seconds! Four seconds!'
And Llunos and I stood in the entrance to the cockpit and exchanged glances of disbelief.
'Three seconds!'
Mrs Llantrisant's hand, oblivious to us and everything else except those twin pools of light on the surface of the lake which were now less than a second or two apart, moved forward to the lever which would release the bomb. The hour had come. We only needed to retard the moment of release by a second or so and the angle would be wrong, the bomb would drop harmlessly and sink.
'Two seconds!' Ma Llantrisant screeched. Custard Pie held the joystick steady in a grip of iron, just as he must have done so many times all those years ago in Patagonia; just as he must have done, in fact, on that infamous approach over the clouds above San Isadora when they dropped the bombs on to the orphanage. The twin pools of light converged and became one, the hand hovered over the lever, waiting to deal the final blow to Aberystwyth, that once-lovely town by the sea.
'One second' shouted Mrs Llantrisant and then in an orgasm of triumph, 'Go! Go! Go!' as Llunos and I shot our hands forward to hold the release lever and stop the bomb.
Chapter 24
THE POLICE HORSE stamps and whinnies as the wind driving in from the sea makes the windcheaters crackle like fireworks. Dogs howl and babies cry as the townspeople mill around the Cliff Railway base station, pushing in confusion and shoving to board the trains. 'Keep back, at the barrier!' the policeman shouts. 'Women and children first! Able-bodied men take the footpath! No season tickets!' Then a mighty lamentation goes up as the outriders rushing in from the outskirts bring their tales of the advancing wall of water. Tales of tree trunks being tossed about on the surface of the raging foam like matchsticks; of caravans shaken along like dice in a ludo cup; of trains being catapulted down the main street of Borth; of the apocalypse at Talybont, where the waters hit the mill wheel with such fury that the mill building itself had started to spin. Panic spreads and the police horses rear up, neighing in terror and foaming at the bridle as the funicular trains creak and groan under the strain. Each carriage is weighed down with a cargo that spills out of the windows like bunches of human grapes. Never in the entire history of funicular railways has there been such an imbalance between the up and down cars. The hawser joining the two counterbalancing carriages stretches thinner than piano wire and the rails glow so hot in the night that the people down the coast in Aberaeron think Jacob's Ladder has returned to Earth above Aberystwyth.
As the credits began to roll I followed Calamity out of the cinema, blinking into the bright afternoon sunshine.
'I don't know why we keep going to see it,' I laughed.
'It's rubbish!' Calamity agreed. We exchanged guilty glances — we both knew why we went: we loved it. The warm July wind blew a curtain of blonde hair across her face. The spiky hair was gone now, and the tomboy had given way to a burgeoning air of sophistication and self-possession. She punched me on the arm. 'I'd better get moving, don't want to keep him waiting.' I nodded and she strode off, adding, 'See you at the harbour!'
I looked at my watch; there was still just enough time for a coffee at Sospan's before the meeting at the harbour with the Vatican envoy. I ordered a cappuccino and carried it over to one of the new tables set before the kiosk. Above my head a seagull wheeled in a lazy arc before floating down to land on the railings. He was a big bird, old and fat, almost as big as a cat, and probably remembered the days when Sospan's was a little wooden booth that sold ice cream. I proffered a piece of almond biscotti but he seemed unimpressed. 'Yes, old bird,' I said, 'we all remember those days. But these plastic tables with the central parasols are an improvement, aren't they? Progress isn't always a bad thing.' In the old days, of course, there was no room for such frippery; there was just the ice-cream booth, a few yards of pavement and then the railings. But that was the old days. I wasn't sure whether they had moved the road back or extended the sea wall but the new Prom - or 'Esplanade', as we would have to learn to call it, was much wider and airier. Noddy had gone, too, but he wouldn't be missed. Cartoon characters had no place illuminating the espressos and ristrettos of Sospan's terrace cafe. Nor indeed at the 24-hour Moules Mariniиre booth which had replaced the Whelk Stall at the foot of Constitution Hill.
A voice intruded on my thoughts and I looked up to see Llunos, now Commissioner, walk up to my table. He took a seat and gave his order to the waitress.
'Skinny double decaf' latte please.' He looked at me. 'Afternoon!'
I nodded. 'How's the new police station coming along?' 'Almost finished. Still a few teething problems with the central locking for the cells; and the mural, what a pain that is!' He rolled his eyes. 'Should have been finished by now. But he's flattened the perspective too much for my liking; the bit where the ocean divides.'
'You wouldn't want it too photographic, though.' 'That's what he says. He says he's done it deliberately to compress the narrative focus. I mean, that's all very well, but to Joe Bloggs it just looks like a mistake. We'll get there eventually.'
The waitress brought the coffee and Llunos took a thirsty gulp that left his mouth edged with foam.
We sat in silence for a while like a couple of Darby and Joans and enjoyed the shimmering tranquillity of the afternoon. Llunos was in no hurry to return to work, and I could afford to relax. Calamity took care of the day-to-day stuff and she was a lot better at it than I had been. It was only a matter of time before she took over entirely. I watched Llunos from the corner of my eye and felt an upsurge of warmth towards him. It had been a long journey that we had undertaken together but we had emerged as firm friends. Sospan, moving among the tables near the cafe, raised a hand in greeting and I smiled. He was a busy man these days, checking on his chain of bistros, or meeting with EU officials to discuss grants. We seldom saw much of him. There was still so much to do.
From where I was sitting I could see a tattered poster of Myfanwy Montez, the Legendary Welsh Chanteuse, still pasted to the wall of the old Bandstand. It made me think of that peculiar blemish in the new tarmac down at the harbour and Father Renaldo who had come to see it.
* * *
Llunos interrupted my reverie again. 'It's been a rum two years hasn't it?'
I grinned. 'You can say that again.'
'Do you think Brainbocs intended to sell the movie rights like that?'
I shook my head. 'I think he was just lucky. The newspaper serialisation rights were always part of the plan. But not Hollywood.'
Llunos wiped away the beard of milk with the back of his hand.
'I hear one of the dealers in Cardiff has bought the original essay. Half a million pound.'
'Lot of money for a schoolboy's homework.'
'Bloody madness. I mean, how do you know it's real?'
I allowed myself a secretive smile. Llunos wasn't wrong, but strangely this time, after all the red herrings and false trails, I suspected that the real essay had
surfaced. In fact, I was willing to bet on it. 'I think this time it could be for real.'
He looked at me sceptically. 'You think so?'
'I've got this funny feeling.'
He snorted. 'Fake Brainbocs essays coming out of the woodwork for months. What's different about this one?'
I reached into my trouser pocket and handed him the letter that had arrived for me last month from Argentina. It was from Myfanwy and inside there was a photograph of her taken after one of the concerts at the Estada della Caeriog.
The policeman examined it. 'Brainbocs looks well.'
'Yes. That's what the Florida sunshine does for you. He went there to get his leg straightened by one of those fancy Miami surgeons.'
'And who's this in the big hat?'
'Ma Brainbocs. Looks quite the part doesn't she?'
He let the photo fall to his lap and looked at me. 'I don't see that this proves anything.'
'Look at Myfanwy.'
He peered once more at the picture and then looked up. 'What about her?'
'Notice anything different?'
'Seems the same as ever.'
I chuckled and Llunos started to get irritated. 'What are you driving at?'
I pointed at the picture of Myfanwy pasted to the Bandstand wall. Though old and faded, it was still recognisable. It contained a detail that was missing from the photo in the letter. But you needed sharp eyes to see it.
'Do you remember where Brainbocs said he'd hidden the essay?' I prompted.
'A well-known beauty spot,' he said, snorting at the stupidity of such a hiding place and looking at me for support; all he saw was a big wide grin. His brow screwed up and I grinned wider and wider as he looked at the picture in his hand and at the picture on the Bandstand and then finally, the penny dropping so loudly it almost frightened away the seagull, he cried out: 'My God!' And then, running his hand through his hair in disbelief, 'My God!'
He looked up, eyes shining and I nodded encouragement at him. 'The mole!' he cried. 'It's gone! Myfanwy's mole has gone!'
He stared at me open-mouthed as saliva dribbled down his chin, and I held my breath watching the cogs whirr and the truth slowly come to light.
'Well bugger me!' His face was one of pure astonishment. 'He hid the fucking essay in a micro-dot!'
I laughed. 'The cheeky bastard!'
'All that time we were checking out the picnic spots and lovers' leaps and things!'
'I must have walked past that fucking micro-dot photo booth at the museum a hundred times. And never even considered it.'
'And all the time,' said Llunos, 'the answer was staring us in the face.'
And so we both laughed. What else was there to do? Brainbocs hadn't just outwitted us, he had waltzed around us and danced the Charleston on our heads. The essay had been in front of us all along — right under Myfanwy's nose. And we sat in the Moulin every night staring at it, and never knew. Llunos looked at me and I returned the gaze and we both burst out laughing again.
I left him still laughing into his latte and made a leisurely stroll along the Esplanade to my appointment. Father Renaldo had flown all the way from Rome and I didn't want to keep him waiting. It was a beautiful day and as I passed the audacious architectural hybrid of Edwardian ironwork and swooping Perspex that was the new Pier I struggled with the tumult of emotion in my breast. It was at moments like this that I continually returned to the same question: did it really happen the way I think it did? That night two years ago aboard a plane where a terrible secret was born? The secret that joins with unbreakable glue Llunos and me in friendship but about which, paradoxically, neither of us dare speak? Did it really happen the way I think it did? 'Five seconds! Four seconds! Three seconds!' the bombardier had shouted as lightning forked off the wing and the shining waters of Nant-y-moch loomed up before us in the Plexiglas nose. 'Two seconds, one second! Go! Go! Go!' And in that second our hands shot forward to stop the release of the bomb and save the Town. Yet as they did, they came together with a touch as soft as the beating of butterfly wings and there was that hesitancy - I'm sure it was there and that we both felt it — that strange feeling almost of telepathy between us as we became aware of the god-like power that had been given to us in that twinkling of an eye. We looked at each other and saw in a moment of shared vision the unleashed fury of the waters racing down Great Darkgate Street; saw the proud white horses of the waves crashing their hooves down on to the fudge shops and the slate paperweight shops; saw the windows of the Moulin explode and the tea-cosy shops on Harbour Row washed into the sea; we saw the end of the amusement arcades and toffee-apple dens. And in that scintilla of time we thought of everything that had been, and of all the things that might be, or might not be, and that look passed between us, and we sort of said 'fuck it' and withdrew our hands. And the bomb fell. It's a scene you won't find in the movie.
I'll never be certain. The world is full of mysteries. No trace of the Ark has been found, for example, if you discount the odd bits of gopher wood that wash up now and again. And then there is this other matter. The blemish that keeps appearing in the tarmac down at the harbour and which Meirion has called municipal stigmata. This is the fourth time they've laid down a new surface — those pragmatic bare-torsoed men from the Council with their cauldron of bubbling tar and stripy canvas hut. And once again it has appeared; as if the blood that was spilled that night had contained photographic fixative. Normally I would have no trouble dismissing the whole affair as the prattle of superstitious fools. And I certainly don't believe in ghosts; I even told her that, damn it! But as I push my way impatiently past the pilgrims and stalls selling relics, as I take my place among the ranks of the credulous and stare down at the stain in the tarmac, I have to wonder. Because no matter how hard I try, there are two things I find impossible to deny: the mark really is on the exact spot where Bianca died. And if you screw your eyes up tight you really can make out the outline of a girl in a basque wearing a stovepipe hat.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
After a brief career as the world's worst aluminium salesman, Malcolm Pryce worked as an advertising copywriter, in London and later in Singapore. During this time he created campaigns for the famous Singapore Girl, and also wrote tourist promotional advertising for the former headhunting tribes of Borneo — a group of people he describes as the most civilised clients he ever dealt with. In August 1998 he quit his job, booked a passage on a cargo ship bound for South America, and set to work writing Aberystwyth Mon Amour. The first draft was completed somewhere off the coast of Guyana. He now lives in Bangkok.
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