The Hopkins Conundrum

by Simon Edge

  BB

  Tim punches the air.

  “Game on!” he says to himself, and wishes he had someone to share the moment with. He’ll tell Alun Gwynne about it tomorrow, but somehow that’s not quite the same.

  Later, however, the email keeps him awake. It’s clearer than ever that he needs that last clinching element, the piece of treasure-hunting mumbo-jumbo from inside St Vowelless’s that will convince Barry it really is worth signing up to the scheme. Previously, it was just an indulgence of his own making, but now Brook himself is demanding it.

  “Can I make another suggestion, landlord?” says Alun Gwynne the next afternoon.

  “What’s that?”

  “It would make life a lot easier if you didn’t insist on seeing the inside of the place in person.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, this Holy Grail of yours. It’s made up, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s made up.”

  “So why don’t you make something up now? It’s not as if you’re really going to find pentagrams carved into the walls, or am I wrong? Just tell Barry Brook that you’ve found some fascinating detail.”

  “I’ve thought of that. But what if he comes over and wants to see it for himself? Anyway, I want to have things that visitors to the area can come and see for themselves.”

  “But look here. If the place is so hard to get into, you’re never going to be able to put it on your tourist trail, are you? The people that run the place will never stand for it. So you don’t actually need to find anything there, you see?”

  “I know, but…”

  “You just want to go inside, don’t you? Because you’ve stirred up your own curiosity for some made-up nonsense.”

  Alun Gwynne cackles, which leads to a lengthy coughing fit. At his feet, the slumbering Macca glances up to check his owner is all right. Once Tim has given Alun a glass of water and the spluttering has finished, the dog farts and goes back to sleep.

  The old boy is right, though, both about the curiosity and the possibility of making something up. Tim is aware that he is obsessing about minor details which he ought indeed to be capable of making up. Is he really worried about Barry Brook wanting to see the evidence for himself, and about disappointing marauding Grail Trailers? Or does he simply not have the imagination to invent something? That would be ridiculous: he has got this far on the basis of a creative imagination that would put most professional con artists to shame. He can surely come up with a Gothic detail or two.

  With that reassuring thought in his head, Tim goes to bed in a much more relaxed frame of mind and sleeps soundly.

  The next morning, with the sun remembering it’s meant to be early summer and attempting to make an appearance, he wakes up with a plan. He is going to write back to Barry Brook and tell him he has found the words “the treasure never eyesight got” scratched inside a pentagram on one of the ornamental steps leading up the hillside terrace. Alun Gwynne is right: it doesn’t matter what Tim invents, because neither Barry nor the hordes of tourists are ever going to get inside. And if that ever changes, he will just have to sneak in one night and try and carve the inscription himself. That’s the virtue of putting it in the garden, rather than in one of the turret bedrooms.

  He is certain this is the kind of killer detail that will ensure he has his man on the hook. Unfortunately, his laptop has other ideas. It makes the familiar chime and the screen lights up blue, but halfway through it changes its mind and goes black. Tim plugs it into the mains and hits restart, but that makes no difference, and after ten minutes of pressing, prodding and pleading, he snaps it shut.

  This is doubly frustrating, because he has the exact form of words in his head that he wants to write to Barry. After another diversion searching for a working biro, he jots his message on the back of an envelope and allows himself a pause to take stock. If only he had remembered to get some coffee in, now might be a good time for a cup.

  He glares out of the window, wondering why life is so determined to thwart him in everything he does. He has resolutely refused to ditch his museum-piece Nokia in favour of a smartphone, because he doesn’t see why he should pay a small fortune every month just to be chained to the internet. This is one of the few times he regrets it. He has no idea where you go to get a laptop repaired in this part of the world, but in any case that could take days – even if the machine can be fixed. By that stage Barry Brook may have written him off as a time-waster.

  On the other side of the valley, where the better road heads into the mountains of Snowdonia, he can make out a tour bus appearing and disappearing through an avenue of trees. It’s a brutal contrast to the narrow, deserted lane on their own side, which he can just see entering the village in the cleft of its deep hedgerows. That’s where Alun Gwynne lives, in a low pebbledash terrace built down from the road towards the river. He tries to remember if Alun has his own computer. It’s possible – and even if he hasn’t, he can surely introduce Tim to someone in the village who would let him send an email.

  He grabs a waterproof from the peg behind the door – he has learned from experience not to trust a rogue hour of sunshine – and stuffs the envelope with his scrawled message in his pocket. He feels as conspicuous as ever walking through the village, feeling unseen pairs of eyes following him around. He has imagined them watching him ever since he arrived here, and at first he brushed the thought away, telling himself that this is his own townie prejudice against small places, and everyone has much better things to do than sit around spying on him. He has almost convinced himself of this when Alun Gwynne will say, “I hear you’ve been to the supermarket, landlord” or “Did you enjoy your walk up the hill?” – which is enough to make him barricade himself indoors. Today, as ever, there is no one in view as he strolls past the net-curtained windows with their brass ornaments on the ledge, an odd form of ostentation which can only be for the benefit of passers-by.

  Alun’s cottage is the last in a row of three. This small terrace is as nondescript and unpicturesque as most of the rest of the village. Tim has never visited before, and only took imperfect notice early on when he asked the old boy out of politeness where he lived. The door is around the side, through a plain wrought-iron gate. A path of slate stepping stones leads across an unkempt lawn where the remains of the spring’s daffodils are drying up in sorry, wilted clumps. He is reassured he is in the right place by the large tin water bowl on the doorstep, which must be for Macca. He presses the doorbell, which chimes with horrible chirpiness.

  “Can I help you?”

  The woman on the doorstep is nicotine blonde, with heavy eyeliner and tight jeans. She could be seventy, but she’s looking good for it. She looks as if she has lived life more than most folk in these parts and still survived to tell the tale.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was looking for Alun Gwynne. I must have the wrong house. Is it the one at the other end?”

  “No, you’re in the right place. Come in a moment and I’ll give him a shout. He’s in the greenhouse with his dahlias.”

  Tim is stunned. Alun has never mentioned a wife. Or maybe he has and Tim wasn’t listening. But he just assumed. The guy has lonely old bachelor written all over him.

  “Alun! Mae dy ffrind yma i dy weld di. Landlord y Red Lion.”

  Tim hasn’t picked up much Welsh since his arrival, but the one thing he does know is that the language is spattered with random bits of English, giving you a brief window onto what is being talked about. Now he at least knows that he’s not paranoid, and everyone really does know who he is.

  Alun Gwynne appears in the doorway.

  “Well, landlord, this is a surprise! And an honour, if I may say. I see you’ve met my wife. Will you have a drink?”

  It’s not yet eleven o’clock, which is early even by Tim’s standards.

  “Well that’s very kind of you but…”

  “Cup of tea? Or we may
have some Nescafé if you prefer?”

  “Oh, I see. I’m all right, thanks.”

  He is gasping for a coffee, having run out again. But he hasn’t drunk instant for fifteen years and isn’t about to start now.

  He sits as bidden on the edge of a shiny leather-effect sofa and explains his mission to Alun Gwynne, who stares into mid-air for a few moments and then shakes his head.

  “I don’t have a computer, landlord. And I can’t think of anyone here who would want, er, that’s to say, who would be at home during the daytime, you see? And in the evening… well you have a pub to run, don’t you?”

  Tim is tempted to suggest leaving Alun Gwynne in charge, while he nips out to whichever villager will let him send the email, just to put the old bugger on the spot. He wants to force him to say what he was originally going to say before he stopped himself, that no one would want to help Tim out.

  But before he has a chance, Alun says: “You could try the library in town. They have machines for the public to use, I know that for a fact.”

  It’s an idea. And he can finally pick up some decent coffee from Morrisons while he’s there. He thanks Alun for the tip and makes his way back to the Red Lion to pick up his car keys.

  “I’d get a move on though,” Alun calls after him. “The traffic can be murder down there at lunchtimes.”

  Tim must be adjusting to rural life. When he first came here, he thought it was hilarious that the large village down the valley calls itself a city, owing to the little cathedral which is also (proudly) the smallest in Wales. But now, as he joins the snarl of traffic curling through the centre and scouts for a space in the pay-and-display, it really does seem like a seething metropolis. What is happening to him?

  The library is little more than a room at the back of the Tourist Information. They don’t really have any books or do any of the other traditional library stuff, like telling people to shut up, but you do get fifteen minutes of free log-on time. Tim has to wait for a pair of muscular Poles in track-suits to finish using the only two computers, so he kills time running his eye over the second-hand DVD shelf, with its array of kids’ films and thrillers that almost certainly never made it to actual cinemas. Above the shelf, there’s a notice-board with flyers for Pilates classes, Boxercise and aquarobics, and Tim is about to turn away to see if the Poles have been timed out yet, when he glimpses a familiar-looking word semi-obscured under a notice for the Bowling Club junior league. Could it be…? He lifts the Bowling Club notice away, and yes, it really could! It’s a flyer for a lecture about the poem, his poem, and its connection to the local landscape. But the main thing is the venue. It’s in the college itself, St Vowelless’s, and while it would normally be just his luck if the event turned out to be last week, it isn’t, it’s next week.

  Nadine would say it’s a sign that all this is meant to be and Project Barry Brook is destined for success, which of course is bollocks of the first order, just like anything else Nadine has ever uttered. But that being said, the discovery feels highly auspicious. Tim may as well go and check the place out. His email about the inscription on the staircase can be a fallback Plan B if all else fails.

  Forgetting about the computers – the Poles still haven’t finished – he steps out of the library to find it is drizzling. But instead of grousing, he finds himself applauding his own forethought in wearing his jacket. Is this what it is like to be a glass-half-full person? He could grow to like it. He is in such a good mood that he almost goes to buy himself a celebratory pint in the pub across the road. After all, it’s nearly lunchtime. Then it occurs to him that if he is going to sit in an empty bar subsidising a beleaguered landlord’s profits, it may as well be his own. In any case, he is mindful of Alun Gwynne’s warning about the hellish traffic.

  North Wales, 1875

  The old Welshman in the gatehouse tipped his cap as Hopkins and Splaine, his companion on today’s lottery walk, made their way out of the college and into the lane.

  “Good morning, Ieuan,” said Hopkins, shivering in the December chill and hunching himself under his muffler. His breath steamed in the air.

  “Morning Father, morning Father,” said the old man, once for each of them.

  “What did you call him?” whispered Splaine when they were out of earshot.

  “Ieuan. It’s his name.”

  “His name is Yayan? Really? And that’s Welsh? Honestly, it sounds more heathen than Christian.”

  “It means John. Is that Christian enough for you?”

  “Good heavens! How on earth can they mangle John into Yayan?”

  He was actually spluttering, Hopkins observed to himself. Splaine spluttered. Such linguistic serendipity could not be entirely accidental. Could it?

  “No wonder they have it as their private tongue,” his companion was saying. “No one else in their right mind would bother to learn it.”

  “I have bothered to learn it,” countered Hopkins. “And you expect them to learn our language, and to know how to pronounce though, through, rough, cough, thought and bough. If theirs is impossible, what is ours?”

  Splaine laughed.

  “I should remember never to argue with you, Hopkins. You always win.” He clapped him on the shoulder as they reached the valley road. “Now which way shall we go? North or south?”

  Hopkins glowed in the compliment. He knew he should not take pride in it, but it was true, he was good in argument. In fact his brain felt more alive than he could remember, fizzing and frothing with phrases for his poem. As they headed south towards the village, ideas continued to search for matches in sound and tonal shape, and the serendipity of the spluttering Splaine was a mark of how well they were finding them. Now they turned east on to a farm track up the little hill behind the college. He liked to think of it as a forehead facing down the valley towards the sea, suspended in eternal contemplation. Nowadays his own brow wrinkled with the pleasant burden of creative endeavour. His companions on these walks must doubtless be puzzled to find him quieter than usual.

  Sometimes it was an effort to hold onto these snatches of silent sound. It was not just that they might soar away before he could get them down, but also that there were so many of them, far too many to fit into the few lines the Rector had indicated. And at the moment, cramping them up was a cruel waste. This was all about spreading long-folded wings.

  He had his first line: On Saturday sailed from Bremen. Happily, America had the exact same rhythm as on Saturday. So it would be America outward bound, ti-tum-ti-ti-tum-ti-tum. But there was an ugly elision between those first two words, and it was in danger of sounding like America routward. A solution might be to turn America into American. It wasn’t grammar – but if the whole thing were made into an adjective, and joined up with hyphens to show what he was doing, to become American-outward-bound, he could get away with it.

  Of course, a rhythm like that was unsustainable. What would set this ode apart would be its willingness to engage theologically, to grapple with questions of awe-inspiring complexity, and for that purpose an altogether more sophisticated scheme was required. His trump card, he decided, would be to play with the pace of each stanza by varying the lines within it, not just a little but enormously. Those lines would steadily lengthen as the stanza became more contemplative, but they would still be bound together by a rhyme scheme that would tie the first line to the last. Bremen: stamen, lemon, day-men, pay men, maim in, tame in… It wouldn’t be easy. But at least with lengthening the lines, the occasional imperfection would be far enough from its pair not to jar too much.

  An envelope arrived on Christmas Eve in his mother’s careful, sloping hand, and he was pleased to see that it was stuffed with newspaper cuttings. His pleasure waned when he saw that one of them was a duplicate, and she had omitted to send the most important article. He made time to write back immediately, asking her to check for it, because he would need the details it contained for hi
s crescendo. There had been something about a brave sailor going down on a rope to try and save a child, or was it a woman, and the awful things that had ensued. Perhaps his memory was enough. Handy and brave … from the rigging to save … handy and brave … pitched to his death at a blow … see him for hours … di-dah di-di-dah … swinging to and fro … and the something something, dah-di-di dah-dow … no, that wasn’t it, there must be a C rhyme as well as an A and a B … in the burl and the swirl of the wave. Yes, once he had the rhyme scheme as a skeleton, he could flesh out the longer lines at his leisure.

  Christmas was always a time of mixed emotions. The midnight Mass was his favourite moment of the year, when he felt only pity for those who would never experience the intensity of the religious life for themselves. But on the twenty-fifth, he naturally pined a little for his family, as he was sure everyone in their little community did for theirs, only it was always the great unspoken, there being a tacit understanding that one shouldn’t bring the mood down by dwelling publicly on such matters. It made him melancholy to think of all the rest of them back at Oak Hill – not quite all of them, because Arthur and Cyril were married now and Milicent was in a convent – but it would be a cheerful gathering, with a walk on the Heath after lunch and then charades or some other game. It was strange not to be a part of that, to know that he never would be again, and it didn’t become any less strange as the years passed. Not that their own day at the college was entirely without jollity. There was a second glass of wine with dinner, and afterwards a spelling bee. Hopkins came within sight of winning, but was felled at the last by allegiance (odd – he had always put an extra i, as in allies, and but for this game he might have gone on doing it for the rest of his life). It was a maddening error, not just for the losing to Clarke; the five-shilling prize would also have done very nicely for a volume of Welsh poetry to aid the process of composition. His vow of poverty had seemed a trivial concern when he first set out on this journey: he would be fed, clothed and roofed, often in splendid surroundings, so what more could he need? He had not foreseen what it would be like not to be able to buy stamps for letters, or books. He could and did appeal to his mother, but it was like being caught in permanent childhood, all the more frustrating when he was the eldest.