Make Room for the Jester

by Stead Jones

  ‘Get out of my house!’ Mr Roberts cried. ‘Get out – you guttersnipe!’

  In the hush that followed, Eirlys reached for the milk jug from the table. She raised it up, then very slowly poured its contents over Mr Roberts’ bald head. ‘Nice and cooling, milk,’ she said. ‘Be in the shop, if you want me, Marian.’ Then she joined us at the door and ushered us out.

  ‘Quick,’ she said, ‘before he recovers. You’d like a ride down, wouldn’t you?’

  XI

  Eirlys brought the car to a screeching halt outside her shop. She switched off the engine and sat there tapping her hands lightly on the wheel. She seemed to be saying something under her breath.

  ‘Nine, ten,’ she said aloud. ‘No – it’s no good. I’ll have to have a fag.’

  She pulled the packet out of her handbag and lit one. Her hands were trembling, I noticed. ‘There’s nothing like a fag for bringing you round,’ she said, and held out the packet, offering us one. We both refused. ‘Nothing like a fag when you’ve just lost a good customer and made an enemy. But, boys bach, I couldn’t resist it. There was the milk jug, and there was that nasty little man’s head. I couldn’t resist it…’

  ‘No more than he deserved,’ Gladstone said from the back seat. ‘Nothing but a pig, that man…’

  ‘Pig is right, but his wife is – was – one of my best customers. Can’t keep customers if you pour milk over their husbands, can you?’ She looked quite serious for a moment, then slowly a smile grew. ‘Worth it, though. Oh, hell – it was worth it and no mistake.’

  ‘You’ll have all the ministers in town calling on you,’ Gladstone said.

  ‘Don’t forget the deacons,’ she said.

  ‘Queuing up at the door…’

  ‘And the police as well. The entire force. I’ll be put in jail, drummed out of Chapel, branded for life I shouldn’t wonder. But – still worth it, though.’

  She smelled nice, of scent and powder. There were tiny golden hairs along her round, smooth arms. She was like a doll, with her waves set and shining in her blonde hair, her frilly silk dress, her painted fingernails. I thought she was very beautiful, like the film stars were at the pictures, even if she wasn’t very slim like them.

  ‘You should have asked him if he took milk,’ Gladstone said.

  ‘Now, then,’ she said, arching her brows and opening wide her eyes, ‘perhaps he only took cream?’

  The little car shook with our laughter. Eirlys laughed so hard she had a coughing spell. ‘Bloody cigs,’ she said, ‘they’ll be the death of me yet.’ Then she turned to me. ‘Lew Morgan,’ she began, ‘I can guess what this one feels, but what about you? You look a proper dark horse.’

  I was shy. ‘Feel all right,’ was all I could say.

  She turned in her seat with a rustle of silk and looked at us both very steadily. ‘Ashton’s friends, eh? The whole town’s heard about you lot. You are his friends, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Gladstone replied, but stiffly.

  She nodded and was silent for a moment, examining us each in turn. There was nothing shy about Eirlys. ‘What’s he like, then?’ she asked. ‘All right, is he?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ Gladstone said, stiffly still. ‘It’s all over the town.’

  ‘That’s a shirty answer,’ Eirlys commented with a smile. ‘I’m not asking the town, though. I’m asking you.’

  ‘They’re all waiting for the worst to happen,’ Gladstone said heatedly. ‘It’s a disgrace, that’s what…’

  ‘It’s the Porthmawr hobby,’ she said. ‘They call it waiting for the fall.’ She flicked ash through the open window. ‘Don’t get me wrong, will you? I wasn’t asking about Ashton in order to tell his brother…’

  Gladstone looked very stubborn. I found myself wishing he was nicer to her, more polite. ‘If his brother wants to know…’ he began.

  ‘He can find out for himself,’ Eirlys finished it for him. ‘I know, I know…’

  ‘He can take him home and offer him some help…’

  ‘That’s right,’ Eirlys said, ‘but I’ve heard the world is littered with people who tried to help Ashton Vaughan. That’s the trouble with Porthmawr – there’s always some truth in what they say…’

  ‘Look,’ Gladstone said, ‘never mind what they say. He’s just a helpless, drunken man. He can’t help the way he is…’

  ‘I wonder,’ she said softly. ‘I wonder if anyone can…’

  ‘But he can’t,’ Gladstone insisted. ‘It’s – well, he can’t.’

  I sat there, my hands clasped tightly between my knees, not daring to join in. All I could see was Ashton’s face, and that mouth twisting….

  ‘I’m not trying to warn you off him,’ Eirlys went on. ‘My God – it isn’t up to me to warn anybody. And I’m no tale-carrier, either. You can bank on that. I was only wondering why he’d come back here all of a sudden.’

  Gladstone shrugged. ‘Why shouldn’t he come back? He belongs in Porthmawr. Maybe there was nowhere left for him to go.’ He drew breath in deeply then asked, ‘Doesn’t his brother mention him at all?’

  ‘Who’s being nosy now, then?’ she said. Then she shook her head slowly. ‘No – not so as you’d notice.’ She flicked her cigarette through the window. ‘Maybe that’s why I was asking…. Anyway, let’s get out. Bet you the news has reached town already. No police about, are there?’

  We got out of the car and stood with her by the shop window. ‘We’ll swear he made it up,’ Gladstone said with a grin. ‘Tell them you never poured milk…’

  ‘Hush,’ she said, ‘walls have ears.’ She opened the shop door. ‘Pop in and say hello when you’re passing,’ she said. ‘We’ll buy a gallon or so of milk and make a christening list. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ we said.

  ‘And if you run into any trouble, like – or if you want to tell me anything about our mutual interests – know what I mean? – well, pop in, like. All right?’

  We said all right and went down the street smiling.

  ‘She’s a case,’ I said.

  ‘Fine,’ he agreed. ‘Tell you what – Marius can’t be so bad if she goes with him.’ Then he stopped in the middle of Market Street and roared with laughter. ‘His shop,’ he said. ‘Roberts’ High-class Grocers. Did you see the milk run down his face?’

  We laughed so loud that one of the assistants came out of the shop and told us to move along.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Gladstone said, ‘we won’t be asked up there to tea again.’

  That night we gathered, the four of us, around the fire in Gladstone’s house. The children were in bed, but not yet asleep. Now and then there was a scream and a cry of ‘Glaadstoone’, but he didn’t go up to them.

  ‘Honestly,’ he said, ‘they’ve been the limit. I got home this evening and do you know what they were doing? They had poor old Walter standing there with his little thing in his hand, and they were making him wee into jam jars. Honestly, he was pale with it. Shouldn’t wonder if he doesn’t wet his bed for the next ten years.’

  ‘Doctors and nurses?’ Maxie inquired.

  ‘Playing public houses, they said. It’s that Dora. She starts them off. Look at this, will you?’ He handed me a crumpled page from an exercise book. ‘I find them all over the house.’

  I looked at the letter:

  My DEAR GLADSTON. AM leevin HOME sooN, Love from DORA xxxxx.

  ‘I used to do that,’ Dewi said, looking over my shoulder. ‘I used to write letters all the time. Just remembered that now. I used to want to leave home, too. Still do…’

  ‘Wants to join the Navy,’ Maxie explained. ‘Dewi wants to be a bloody captain…’

  ‘Do I bloody hell,’ Dewi said.

  ‘Language,’ Gladstone warned, taking the note from me.

  ‘I’ve found dozens of these, but when I ask her what’s the matter, all she says is Catherine…’

  ‘Who’s Catherine?’

  ‘Her friend,’ Gladstone said with a smil
e. ‘The one who isn’t there. She talks to Catherine all the time. Even in the lav. She says Catherine wants to go. Catherine’s an Asiatic Princess, I think. Dora’s the Lady in Waiting…’

  ‘Like the May Queen,’ Maxie put in.

  ‘Yes,’ Gladstone sighed, ‘like the May Queen. I wish I could take them all away. Somewhere nice. Somewhere we could be by ourselves.’ He looked around the kitchen. ‘Somewhere nice. The way I see it this place is a little house on a beach, where the sun is shining all the time, like it does in the South Seas, and where everything’s clean.’ He clasped his bony knees and stared into the fire. ‘One day we’ll go. Just wait…’

  We didn’t make any comment. This was private, what Gladstone was saying.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on suddenly, ‘I asked you over because we’ve got to plan a visit…’

  Dewi sat up, interested as a terrier promised a walk. ‘A job?’

  ‘A kind of a job.’

  ‘No more boats,’ Maxie said. ‘My dad will kill me.’

  ‘No boats,’ Gladstone said.

  ‘There’s plenty of lead piping in that house on Bridge Street,’ Dewi said. ‘Mind you, it’s not so clever with the light nights and that, but if we don’t move in quick someone else will…’

  ‘No lead piping,’ Gladstone said.

  ‘But we’re going to pay a visit somewhere?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’ll buy,’ I said. ‘Where then?’

  ‘The Point…’

  ‘Oh, good God!’ I said.

  ‘Never, man,’ Dewi joined in. ‘Them dogs…’

  ‘We’re going to take a look at Marius Vaughan’s house,’ Gladstone declared flatly.

  Oh, no, I thought. It’s the wrong thing to do, I felt it instinctively. But Dewi was suddenly converted to the idea, wanted to go there and then. Maxie was still saying his father would kill him.

  ‘They were telling me,’ he added in his slow fashion, ‘about some boys that went to have a look at the Point one night. He caught them – and you know what he did? Took them in the house and made them bend over and gave them the cane across the ass. Never got the police or nothing. Just did that…’

  ‘Jack Bach’s brother,’ Dewi said. ‘Said it hurt like hell…’

  ‘And there’s dogs,’ Maxie went on.

  Gladstone shook his head. ‘There was a dog. It died last winter. Postman told me…’

  ‘What are we going for?’ I asked him, trying to catch his eye.

  He ruffled my hair. ‘Just a visit. A tour of inspection, you might call it…’

  ‘But why?’

  He was looking directly at me now, speaking to me as if in a private language. ‘I’m curious. I’d go alone – only having you with me might be handy. Lookouts and that. But I want to see. I – I can’t explain, Lew, but I want to see what it’s like…’

  ‘Bloody great big house, our Tada says,’ Dewi broke in. ‘Great big rooms and that…’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ Gladstone said. ‘Saw it from a boat when we were out after mackerel.’ He stretched his arms high above his head. ‘I want to see how the other brother’s going on,’ he added.

  ‘Ashton asked you?’

  ‘No – nothing like that. He did say tonight that he bet his brother was having something nice for supper – not chips from the shop. That’s what set me thinking. No, Lew, this is for myself…’

  ‘To spy around?’

  ‘Have a look, that’s all,’ Gladstone said. ‘Are you game?’

  I hesitated. It wouldn’t work out, I knew – couldn’t possibly work out. But I said all right.

  ‘Dewi?’

  ‘Draw one of your plans,’ Dewi said.

  ‘Maxie? Coming?’

  Maxie was occupied with another worry. ‘You know,’ he said slowly, ‘when you rub yourself and that – is it right that you’ll go blind?’

  Dewi laughed. ‘Only three hundred times you’ve got and that’s a fact. You’re getting near it, so watch out.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ Gladstone broke in. ‘Are you coming or not?’

  Maxie nodded. ‘My dad will kill me, though,’ he said.

  Gladstone got up and stretched himself. ‘All right, then. We’ll try it tomorrow night.’ He looked hard at me, his face very pale and serious. ‘I’ve got to know, Lew, haven’t I?’

  Know what? I thought. There didn’t seem to be any reason that I could see for taking a chance with Marius Vaughan, but I said yes just the same.

  We didn’t go the next night, however. There was a thunderstorm in the afternoon and rain heavy enough to wash all of Porthmawr into the ocean. Lower Hill was flooded, as usual, and I helped Meira bail out. Even the lav in our yard rose like a fountain.

  We didn’t go on the following night, either – although it was a fine, warm one, after a fine, warm day. That night Ashton Vaughan went missing, and we had to comb the town for him. Up to us, Gladstone said: we couldn’t go to the police. But we didn’t find him until the following afternoon. He was sleeping it off in one of the railway carriages on the sidings. There was an empty bottle of gin next to him on the seat.

  Gladstone went to work on him straight away, but it was a long time before he opened his eyes. At first I thought he was dead; he was so still there on the seat, the skin falling away from his nose leaving a line of white bone. But it was all lines, that face, as if it had been pinched and pressed and twisted, God knew by what. ‘Best bloody advert I ever saw for Temperance,’ Dewi remarked. ‘Want to prop him up next to the pulpit – the pubs will be out of business in no time.’

  It was a relief to hear Dewi say that. Now and then he came out with something that surprised you, made you look twice at him. I laughed, but Gladstone showed a grim and angry face.

  Ashton Vaughan came round. We helped him with his boots and got him looking fairly presentable, then we took him along the back streets to his room.

  ‘Better have an aspirin,’ Gladstone suggested.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Ashton groaned. ‘Not enough in the wide world for a head like mine,’ he said. ‘Look at my hands.’ They were shaking badly. ‘I’m a sick man – that’s what I am. I’m a very sick man.’

  Dewi said what I wanted to say. ‘Why not pack in the drink, then?’

  There was a silence you could have touched after that, then Gladstone started giving Dewi what for. ‘No right to be saying that,’ he said. ‘You ought to be ashamed…’

  ‘I still think he wants to give up the drink,’ Dewi went on. ‘It’s no use crying when you’re killing yourself, is it?’

  ‘There’s reasons for everything…’

  ‘No!’ Ashton cried, in a voice so loud that I jumped. ‘No! He’s right! He’s dead right. The drink’s killing me. I’m telling you, the drink’s killing me!’ I forced myself to look at him. His eyes were bloodshot and full of tears. ‘I know what I’m doing to myself…. Boys, I know!’ His shaking hands punched the air. ‘Last night I had them. I had the visions, I tell you. All the crawling, slimy, filthy things you ever saw – all spewed up from the swamps of hell itself. And they were coming for me – coming for my throat!’ He raised his hands as if to ward them off. ‘Crawling out of the dark, coming for me… you see them and you don’t see them… come and go, like that… but you can hear them all the time, purring like cats, see… and you try to get your hands on them, but they slide away, twist out of your fingers…. Oh, lads bach, they were after me!’

  ‘Who were?’ Maxie croaked. He was wide-eyed and all set to make for the door.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Gladstone ordered, giving Dewi a sharp, reproving look. ‘It’s all right, Mr Vaughan. There’s no need to worry any more. Daylight now, and we’re with you.’

  Ashton lay back on his bed. ‘They were there, though, kid. Saw them. Had to fight them off all night…’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Gladstone said. ‘You were ill…’

  Ashton heaved himself on his feet again and raised one arm and pointed it at the window. ‘By th
e Lord Jesus Christ I swear – not another drop!’ he cried. ‘It’s a disease, I’ve got. The doctors said it was a disease. I need help, help. I’m desperate!’ He was using a preacher’s singsong voice now. ‘A desperate man, I am. I need help. Help. But where will it come from, tell me that…? I’ve got to stop the drink! I’ve got to stop the drink!’ He still stood there, still pointing, long after he had stopped speaking – and that made it an act, nothing but a piece of acting.

  Gladstone touched his arm gently and made him sit down again, but he went on babbling and crying for help, and saying he had no one, no one in the world, and vowing all the time never to touch another drop. Then, suddenly, he was on his feet again. ‘Find his picture for me,’ he cried. ‘Find me Jupiter’s picture.’

  Gladstone knelt and searched under the bed and handed him the photograph.

  ‘My brother Jupiter,’ Ashton cried, ‘oh, my brother Jupiter, will you never die?’ He clutched the picture to his chest. ‘Why does the beautiful have to die?’ he asked in a hollow voice. ‘Tell me that. Tell me that, for Christ’s sake.’ He lay back on the bed, Gladstone helping him to swing his legs up. ‘Jupiter, Jupiter, why did you have to die? Can anybody answer me that?’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘Come on,’ Gladstone whispered to us. ‘Let’s be going. He wants to be by himself.’ From the door I watched him cover Ashton with a blanket. Ashton never said a word, just lay there, eyes tightly shut, clasping the photo.

  Outside, in the street, Gladstone started on Dewi straight away. ‘What were you thinking of – talking like that to him…’

  ‘He’s in a hell of a state,’ Dewi said calmly. ‘He wants to give up drinking – quick…’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ Gladstone began. ‘You don’t know anything about it. You don’t know what it’s like…’

  ‘Listen,’ Dewi said.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Gladstone was really worked up. ‘I’m just about fed up with these people who know the answers to everything…. Give up drinking? Easy as that? What do you know about it?’

  ‘Don’t keep on asking me that,’ Dewi said, less calm now. ‘There’s something about that man – I don’t know.’