The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth

by Malcolm Pryce

  I continued walking around castle point and chanced upon Lorelei sitting on one of the benches set into the wall below the war memorial. I said good evening and sat next to her. Her face was hard and shrivelled like last year’s conker, toughened by the vinegar of the years and the perennial diet of mockery and rejection. Poxcrop had said a nurse had been engaged for Myfanwy by whoever had kidnapped her, and that was good. But he had also said it was Frankie’s old consigliere and no one knew to this day who that was. But there was one source of information in this town, one oracle, that went back further even than the Orthopaedia Britannica. The girls who used to pull the tricks. No one, not even Meirion, knew more about the ancient criminal fraternities of Aberystwyth than Lorelei and so I asked about Frankie Mephisto and she seemed to recall the name from long, long ago. But since it’s thirsty work remembering that far back we went round the corner to the Castle pub and I bought her a pint of Guinness.

  ‘There was never such a thing in all the world as a good pimp,’ she said, ‘but Frankie Mephisto was worse than most.’

  She sat wedged into the corner next to the jukebox, her white jowls curving along the collar of her charity-shop coat, the line of bright red lipstick, only a lazy approximation of a mouth.

  ‘I didn’t know he had been a pimp.’

  ‘He won’t thank me for telling you. He’d prefer to be remembered as the train robber. But I remember what he did before that. He used to make his girls do tricks with men they didn’t want to go with. That was always the taboo, you see. The girl should always have a choice.’ She drank slowly from her glass, the foam adhering like a false moustache. ‘I see his sidekick is back in town, too. Using a different name naturally. But you can always tell.’

  ‘Who’s his sidekick?’

  ‘Eli Cloyce.’

  ‘You know the barrel-organ man?’

  ‘Long time ago. He used to be a burglar, stately homes and things. Did some work for Frankie. Went to prison for a while. Didn’t see him any more after that.’

  The pub began to fill. Townsfolk and students, and bands of kids who were too young to be there legally. Like newly emerged butterflies gathered on a branch, the teenage girls huddled in groups and discussed the myriad melodramas of their lives. I watched in fascination the strangely choreographed pantomime of cigarette smoking: eyes closed, smoke drawn in with a look of deep ecstasy, a pause, the head tilted back with feigned insouciance and the smoke expelled in a sort of world-weary sigh. All an elaborate assay on sophistication that revealed an innocence more fragile than a wren’s egg. Lorelei watched, but didn’t seem to see. Perhaps she had long ago lost the capacity to notice the teenage soap opera: the fighting and coupling and betrayals and heartbreak; the arguments that seem so vital but are so trivial; the livid declarations and the postmortems; the infidelities and tales of hearts given to the unworthy, taken back, then given again; perhaps she had gone beyond the ability to see the liaisons, affairs, betrayals, jealousies, threats, plots of vengeance, pregnancies and abortions, and tears, always tears … Which one of them would it be tonight? The pretty blonde girl, perhaps, leaning on the corner of the pool table? She was about sixteen, her hair jaggedly cropped and the mascara pasted on so thick – thicker than mascarpone cheese – it made her look like a blue panda. Her porcelain skin was still unblemished, like freshly fallen snow before the first tracks are made in it, but would soon turn to slush. And there are few things viler in the world than slush. The kohl was applied fiercely around the eyes, a wise precaution. There were so many heartaches lying in wait to wash it away, so many crises ready to send rivers of soot surging down and leave trails like the legs of a bird-eating spider. Tonight I felt sorry for her, and yet strangely loved her for all her woe to come, this girl whose freshly minted fate was already as old as time, annually reissued by the printing press of the years. None of it was her fault and yet there was no remedy … And then I realised it was Seren.

  Lorelei noticed my expression and followed my gaze.

  ‘It’s the girl from the Waifery,’ she said.

  ‘I heard she was missing.’

  She nodded. ‘Reckon I’d run away if I lived there too.’

  ‘Do you know Sister Cunégonde?’

  ‘Used to. Haven’t spoke to her for twenty years or so. Maybe more. The times I do see her she doesn’t see me. Or pretends not to.’

  ‘Do you know why she resents the girl?’

  ‘She resents everybody.’

  ‘I heard it was because folk think Seren is the illegitimate daughter of Meredith. I heard she used to be sweet on Meredith herself.’

  ‘That’s what they say. But it’s not true, just gossip.’

  ‘Sometimes gossip is true.’

  ‘Sometimes. But not in this case.’

  ‘You seem pretty sure.’

  ‘I used to know them well, when Cunégonde was crowned carnival queen; they were just kids, her and Meredith. Then something happened, the sort of thing that often does in situations like that. Cunégonde got pregnant. The Mother Superior at the time made her break if off with Meredith. He was devastated and I’m pretty sure he’s never been near another woman since.’

  ‘What happened to the baby?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  We spoke no more for a while, and then it occurred to me how it was she knew so much about Cunégonde. I turned to her and said, ‘You used to be Frankie’s moll, didn’t you?’

  She narrowed her eyes at the memory and said, ‘How did you know?’

  I told her about the photo that had lain all these years in the vault of Meredith’s heart, a cracked and faded photo of a carnival queen and a young hoodlum called Frankie Mephisto with a girl on his arm who had struck me as vaguely familiar. And now I knew, thirty years on, I was sitting next to her.

  She nodded. ‘I was his girl for a while, before he got tired of me. I knew them all. Cloyce, Frankie, Cunégonde …’

  ‘Do you know who the consigliere was?’

  ‘Of course.’ She took a last sip of her drink and said, ‘Mooncalf.’

  I lifted the ragged curtain aside and looked out. The aluminium window frame was cold and dripped condensation. The sky was translucent indigo like an insect’s eye. Away towards Dovey Junction the milk train bellowed, but outside there was no other sign of life. I was sitting at the caravan table where I must have fallen asleep last night. I was still in my clothes; my head throbbed and there was a tender lump on the side of my head. I tried to touch it but I couldn’t raise my hand. It wouldn’t move further than six inches from the table. I looked down and focused on a pair of handcuffs attaching my wrist to the leg of the table. The knuckles of my hand were raw in the way they get sometimes when you’ve hit someone. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs and started to piece together the jigsaw of fragmented recollection. The image of the face I had punched took form. It was a policeman. And these were his cuffs. A policeman with a friend’s face: Llunos. Oh God.

  The events of the night before started filtering back to me. After I left the pub I had driven over to Clarach to kill Mooncalf. It was a bad thing to do, I knew, because I was over the limit. There was no doubt in my mind about the deed, the only uncertainty was about how slowly he should die. When I got there I found I couldn’t do it. He was already dead. Some men in a black Morris Minor, like the one Frankie Mephisto drives, had driven up earlier and torched his trailer. It was still smouldering. Llunos was there and he told me to go home and wait. We disagreed about that; he insisted, we disagreed some more, and the exchange got quite heated. We really couldn’t find any common ground so I took a swing at him and he hit me with his truncheon.

  After a while I gradually became aware of something scotch-taped to my shoe. It was an envelope. I bent down and retrieved it and found a key inside and a short note from Llunos. It said, ‘There’s no need to explain.’

  I brewed a cup of tea amid a fume of camping gas and took it out to the dunes and sat watching the stars retreat and the windows across the w
ater in Aberdovey begin to gleam with pale gold. A car arrived. Eeyore got out and struggled up the sand to join me, his progress made difficult by the tumbling sand and by something heavy he was delivering. I’d had it on order for a while now, and finally here it was. My cross.

  I held out my hand to help him and he sat beside me. ‘Don’t jump the gun, son,’ he said. ‘Just listen to what I have to say.’

  I didn’t jump the gun.

  ‘There was a lot of embalming fluid under the van,’ he said, unaware of the irony. ‘It all went up. And in that shed at the back, where he kept the dog … the one that was always whining … they found the charred remains. Only it wasn’t a dog. It was … it was … a person. A girl. Chained up.’

  I nodded. It was probably OK to jump the gun now. ‘It’s Myfanwy.’

  ‘We don’t know that, son, we don’t know that. It’s probably someone else.’

  ‘It’s Myfanwy. Mooncalf was the nurse.’

  ‘We don’t know that …’

  ‘It was her and she was crying; they thought she was a dog.’

  ‘We don’t know that, we don’t know that, son, it’s too early to … they’re doing tests … on … on …’

  Now it was Eeyore who whined like a chained-up dog, his voice began to rise and rise, getting squeakier like an adolescent boy.

  ‘It could be … could be … anyone … in fact, I’m sure it’s not …’

  ‘I threw her a bone.’

  His voice rose up the scale and disappeared in a final squeak, like a protesting teddy bear. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s OK, Dad, it’s OK.’ I put my arm round his shoulders and drew his head on to my chest. He was weeping and I hugged him to comfort him, and told him it was OK, everything was going to be all right, the way he used to do to me when I was small. It’s OK, everything will be all right. Everything is just fine now.

  I felt strangely calm. My fear had gone. Myfanwy was dead.

  Chapter 18

  I DROVE ROUND FOR most of the day, listening to a tape of Myfanwy – Live at the Moulin. I didn’t expect to find Gabriel Bassett but late in the afternoon, and much to my surprise, I did. He was leaning on the railings, looking out to sea. I parked some distance away and crept towards him as quietly as a cat stalking a bird. He looked round and registered my approach and then made the subtle sideways glance of a man checking his escape route. Some instinct told him he was in trouble. Maybe he was clairvoyant. Or maybe it was the look on my face. Most of us have never seen the look in the eyes of a man who wants to kill us, but we would probably recognise it, if we did.

  I rested my arms on the railing next to him and followed his gaze out to sea. I could hear the soft glug of a man swallowing in fear. I reached across and gathered the fabric of his Gabriel’s coat in my fist, and inserted an arm inside his and locked him in place so there was no chance of him making that escape.

  ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ I said.

  He swallowed again, and nodded. ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘Take a good look. It’s the last one you’re going to see.’

  ‘I … I … don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘No one’s that stupid. Least of all you. Choose a stone.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Down there on the beach, pick a stone. A man who is about to have his skull stoved in like a boiled egg at least has the right to choose the spoon.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘It’s too late for that, Eli. Too late.’

  ‘My name’s not Eli. I keep telling people. But they won’t listen. It’s so galling.’

  ‘I understand. It’s not a problem. Let’s go for a walk.’

  I pulled him away from the railing and dragged him along the Prom.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to see Llunos. He’s better at asking questions than me. He’s got a cleaner paid for out of the rates to mop up the blood. You can start talking now, if you like.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know.’ I pulled him closer, tightened my grip and turned my face towards his. So close the white bristles above his ear were scratching the end of my nose. ‘You could tell me what the fuck you are doing in my life.’

  ‘I was scared of ghosts.’

  ‘Lots of people are.’

  ‘Always have been.’

  ‘That’s tough. You’re going to be one soon.’

  ‘I loved the monkey.’

  ‘Of course you did, she’s a sweet little thing. I’ll make sure she finds a good home. Testing cosmetics for a lab somewhere. You know that one where they pour shampoo into their eyes all day long to see how long it takes for them to get cancer. She’d be good at that.’

  ‘Frankie was going to tell her what happened to Mr Bojangles. It would have broken her heart.’

  ‘He’s a wicked man is Frankie.’

  ‘When I met Cleopatra she kept asking about her son, so I went back to the Enoc Enocs Foundation and looked into the records. It was all there: experimental subject made to fear flowers, sold to Kousin Kevin’s Komedy Kamp, died of heart attack at Shrewsbury Flower Show. I couldn’t tell her that. She was all I had in the world. So I torched their records room. Told her he was still studying at Timbuktu. Then, one day, Frankie’s boys came to see me and said they had a job for me. I didn’t know what they were talking about – this amnesia, it’s genuine. They had that dictionary with them and told me to find the word “no”. Well, of course, I couldn’t, could I? They’d cut the bloody thing out. They said it was an easy job for a man of my talents. A stately home blag. They wanted me to steal the Nanteos Cup. But still I told them they’d got the wrong man. My name was Bassett not Eli. So then a few weeks later Frankie came round. He had a glass case under his arm – Mr Bojangles stuffed. He found it in the natural history section of Shrewsbury library. I still insisted I didn’t know who he was. Really I didn’t. But he wasn’t having any of it, and the funny thing was, even though I didn’t know him, there was something about him, something that said here was a figure from my past. That night I dreamed about him, and it all started coming back. How I used to do some work for him, as a cat burglar, specialist stately home blags. How we’d done time together in Shrewsbury prison. How I got into a spot of bother there with one of the other inmates and Frankie helped me out. That was his style, you see. Help someone out and hold it in reserve for the day he would come and call in the favour. And, just to make sure, he would take out some insurance against the intermittence of memory. Human gratitude was a feeble thing he would say. Straw in the wind. That’s why he spent all the time looking for the skeleton in your cupboard. I guess that’s how he found out about Mr Bojangles. I was with him the day Myfanwy sang to us and he had his epiphany. Even tough old Frankie Mephisto was touched. From that moment he could think of nothing but the day he was released and came to Aberystwyth to hear her sing at the bandstand. Of course, then she got sick. Frankie didn’t like that. After all those years of waiting it struck him suspiciously like someone was taking the piss. And no one does that to Frankie Mephisto. Not even God. He demanded to know what was wrong with her and they told him what folk in Aberystwyth were saying, that her illness might have something to do with what Brainbocs did. And then, by coincidence, Brainbocs turned up in prison. Frankie summoned the boy and gave him an ultimatum. He said, since you’re the one who made her sick, you had better find a way to make her well again. That is, if you don’t want to spend your days here as someone’s girlfriend. Brainbocs said it would take a miracle to save her and Frankie said, so make one. Then they gave him a chamber pot and locked him in the tower. That’s how he came up with the idea about the dinosaurs. When Frankie’s boys approached me I said, “What about the ghost?” In the old days we always had a ghost-layer as part of the team. They gave me a lot of money, expenses, and said sort it out yourself. So I went to see a medium and she got in touch with the ghost
. The ghost said she’d stop haunting if the police reopened the case. Well, you need fresh evidence for that, don’t you? That’s why I approached you. But then you showed me the ghost was a fake. That’s why I didn’t need to come round with the money. I can still give it to you if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘And you stole the cup?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We stopped across the road from the public shelter and Bassett said, ‘Do you mind if I take a wee?’

  I looked at him, my face clouded with suspicion.

  ‘Please. I’m getting old. I find it difficult to …’

  Still arm-in-arm I walked him across the crossing to the shelter. Outside, we stopped. ‘I’ll be right outside. Before you go in, tell me what you were going to do with the cup.’