From Aberystwyth with Love

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘I have a caravan out at Ynyslas.’

  Meici nodded. ‘We live near Bwlchcrwys.’ He considered for a second and then said suddenly, ‘Guess how many games teachers there are in our family? Go on, guess.’

  I looked puzzled.

  ‘Four,’ said Meici with evident pride. ‘Three uncles and my grandad. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it?’

  ‘Weren’t you tempted yourself?’

  ‘No, not for me. We thought for a while my brother Esau might . . . he was born hairy, you see . . .’ A thought clouded his brow. ‘But I don’t want to talk about Esau.’ He turned round to Calamity in the back. ‘Did you bring any crayons?’

  I could sense her eyes narrowing.

  ‘What for?’ she said.

  ‘You might find it a bit boring watching me doing the old black magic. Thought maybe you could go outside and draw some nice pictures or something.’ He finished the last sandwich and handed me the Tupperware box. ‘Hold on to that, Lou, I’ll be needing it later.’ He licked the snail trails of grease that ran down the back of his hand.

  We drove over the brow of Penglais Hill, a flow of cars bumper to bumper headed past us on the right, into town. Some were going to work but their numbers had been swollen by those staying in caravans up and down the coast. Meici expounded on the subtle art of the spinning-wheel salesman. ‘The main drawback with wheels is they are traditional, see, so there aren’t many firms left that still make them and the ones that do take a lot of pride in their work. The stuff they make lasts a lifetime, but what’s the good of that? One month on the road and you would have saturated the market. This drawback is your opportunity, too. Delicate things they are, spinning wheels, that’s if you want to keep the yarn at its optimum, so they always need a little tinker under the hood. They could probably do it themselves, the dears, but it voids the warranty doesn’t it? That’s the trick, you see. Always sell the extended warranty, and all the other bits and bobs, the wheel is just the beginning.’ He looked over and asked, ‘Know what of?’

  ‘Er . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘Beginning of a beautiful relationship.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘They get to trust you like a son after a while so then you can start hitting them for stuff they don’t need, persuade them to have a service that isn’t necessary.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘Fiddle the log book, put it down for more spins than it’s had. Sometimes, if you’ve been with them for a few years, and they seldom change once they’ve got a relationship, they start asking you to fetch their pension. You can always skim some off that. “Oh it’s not as much as it used to be,” they say, and you sympathise: “Oh I know, it’s the economy, you see.” Stuff like that. Here listen—’

  Meici reached across and turned on the cassette player. A tape squeaked into life and a female voiceover chirruped in that bedtime story voice that all adult education audio tapes seem to have:

  Welcome to unit 5 of Selling Isn’t Telling, the pro-salesman’s guide to Ninja selling. In the last unit we discussed the key importance of the ‘close’ as the foundation of all successful sales pitches. Do you remember how novice salesman Frankie Marshall saw all his hard work go to waste because he was too shy to ask for the order? We learned that it often helps to memorise this lesson in the form of a little mnemonic, didn’t we? Did you do one? If you did, repeat your mnemonic now.

  Meici said, ‘Don’t sell like a girly, close that sale and close it early.’

  There, that was fun, wasn’t it?

  Meici turned to me. ‘Some of this stuff might be a bit advanced for you, Lou, but try and follow as best you can.’

  Today we will be looking at an advanced closing technique based on the trademark exit routine of the famous 1970s TV detective, Lieutenant Columbo. See how salesman Harry Pryce uses this technique to get his prospect to sign the order. But before we go on, did you spot the deliberate mistake I just made? [Pause.] That’s right, we never ask the prospect to sign the order, do we? What do we do instead?

  Meici answered almost before she had finished speaking. ‘Ask him to OK it.’ He switched off the tape. ‘We probably won’t need to do the Columbo today, Lou, I’ll stick to the basics so you don’t get confused. Just watch how I do it. And if there is anything you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask.’

  We passed Tre’r-ddôl and turned right and drove up a pot-holed road into a forestry commission plantation.

  ‘Lives with her son, she does,’ said Meici, ‘although he’s not around much, thank God. He deals in rare stamps and coins and things, so he travels a lot. Good job, too, he’s the sort of guy who reads the small print on behalf of his mam. Her granddaughter lives there, too, lovely girl she is, only seventeen and never been kissed. Well, that’s what she says, but who knows with kids these days?’ He turned to Calamity. ‘I’spect you’ve got a boyfriend, have you?’

  ‘Not until she’s twenty-one,’ I said quickly, to spare Calamity, or at least stop her saying something that might get us thrown out of the car.

  ‘Lot of guys my age wouldn’t stand a chance with a looker like her,’ said Meici, ‘but I been working on Arianwen for a while now, using the old black magic. Wheels in motion, if you see what I mean.’

  He turned and gave me his inscrutable look, the one that said, ‘Strangle me.’

  ‘Is there something wrong with her eyesight?’ said Calamity.

  Meici thought about his answer. ‘Not that I’m aware. Although you could say she only has eyes for me.’ The road narrowed to a single track without tarmac and the car began to bounce violently; we lurched from side to side. Meici chuckled and continued, oblivious to the bumps. ‘Yeah, you could say she was my girl in a way but don’t tell anyone in case it gets back to my mam. I sent her a dress last week, really nice one, it was – from the catalogue. I had to wait for the postman at the end of the lane so mam wouldn’t find out. It’s got polka dots on it, they’re supposed to be the best, but when you look at them closely you’ll see that they are really tomatoes. That’s called an optician’s illusion. She’ll be wearing it today so you’ll be able to see it for yourself.’ He pulled over to the side of the road and parked, saying, ‘What time is it, Lou?’

  ‘Just after ten.’

  ‘Wrong! It’s black magic time. Pass me the sandwich box.’ He took out a comb and dipped it in the grease lying at the bottom of the Tupperware container, and then combed his hair, leaning sideways to check it in the rear-view mirror. After that he took out a bottle of perfume from the seat pocket and sprayed it on liberally. ‘This stuff’s really good, it’s got a special ingredient from a place called Provence, that’s in France. They know how to charm the ladies over there. Ooh la la! and that, I’ve been reading about it.’

  It was the sort of cottage where they kept a cage in the back room with a boy called Hansel in it, sticking gnawed chicken bones through the bars every time the woman went to check. The roof was slate that gleamed with damp, even though the heatwave continued unabated; houses like this have their own micro-climate of grey mist that hangs permanently above the roof. A blackbird in the undergrowth a few feet away stopped hunting for a grub and looked up. He followed us with his cold dark eyes, scrutinising us with the intensity of the inhabitants of Mexican border towns peering at strangers riding into town in the spaghetti westerns.

  ‘Cooey!’ shouted Meici. ‘Mrs Eglwys Fach! Are you there?’

  Mrs Eglwys Fach came out of the front door and did a little pantomime of surprise and joy commingled, ending in her two hands coming together in front of her face, as if the Lord had answered her prayers, even though she should take the lion’s share of the credit since it was her, and not the Lord, who made the phone call to Meici. She was bent forward slightly at the waist, wore a black wool cardigan over a drab grey skirt that reached to the ground. Her hair was tucked into a white bonnet and she had the sort of sweet and spite
-free face that belonged on the lid of a confectionery box. Some people wear a lifetime’s accumulated care and resentment when they get old but Mrs Eglwys Fach was clearly one of those who maintained the belief that for all the bad things life was still a gift for which she gave thanks every day. Meici introduced us and she clasped her hands even tighter at the unexpected treat, since now she would be given the opportunity to make four cups of tea instead of two. She hobbled up to Calamity and peered at her in wonder. ‘What a sweet little girl!’ she cried. In this remote dingle on the dark side of Talybont you could be forgiven for thinking she was sizing Calamity up for the cauldron, but with Mrs Eglwys Fach you could tell it was the simple goodness of her heart pouring out even if it was guaranteed to infuriate any self-respecting teenager. Calamity bore it with the patient restraint of a policeman’s horse being offered sugar lumps while on duty.

  Mrs Eglwys Fach led us into the kitchen. It was the same room I had sat in the previous evening looking at the stamps. Meici walked over to the wall and dragged the spinning wheel out.

  ‘I just don’t understand it,’ said Mrs Eglwys Fach. ‘It was working fine on Saturday and then this morning when I tried it, it just sort of seized up. Jammed it was, the beggar!’

  Meici gave the wheel a gentle push with his index finger, but it didn’t move. He put on an expression of deep concern. ‘Ooh, dear, dear!’ he said. ‘Dear oh dear. Doesn’t look good.’

  Mrs Eglwys Fach bit her lip.

  ‘You haven’t spilled any glue on it or anything, have you?’ said Meici.

  ‘Ooh no,’ she said. ‘I would never do that.’

  Meici probed and checked and tapped and accompanied it all with strange unvocalised noises, grunts from the time before man invented speech but which communicated in a language available to us all that Mrs Eglwys Fach’s spinning wheel was buggered. He stood up wearily, rubbing the small of his back with one hand, and returned to the table with a look of grave sorrow on his face.

  ‘I’m not sure what’s made it stop like that,’ he began. ‘But it looks to me like you’ll need a new wheel.’

  ‘Rhun says it might just be swollen because of the damp.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Meici with barely concealed contempt for the opinions of a layman. ‘It’s not water in the wheel. In fact, it doesn’t look mechanical at all. Could someone have put a spell on you?’

  Mrs Eglwys Fach put her hand to her mouth and considered the suggestion. ‘Of course it’s possible, but I’m usually very careful – I’ve always made a point of putting a little protective spell on all my wheels.’

  ‘Is there someone who might know the structure of the spell? They’re easy enough to crack if someone knows the structure.’

  ‘I don’t see how they can know, I make all my own charms. And I don’t let anyone watch.’

  ‘What about the birds? Do you trust them? They can spy through the window, you know. There’s no point going to all the trouble of making new charms if the birds are snitching on you.’

  ‘The wrens and the thrushes are OK, but I will admit I’ve had one or two problems with the blackbirds—’

  There was a sharp fluttering at the window; we all turned and saw a whirl of feathers and flash of hastily departing bird.

  ‘Caught in the act,’ said Meici with the air of one having his professional diagnosis confirmed by events.

  ‘Oh dearie me,’ said Mrs Eglwys Fach feeling betrayed. ‘They are beggars, those birds. Last week they stole some things from Arianwen’s dressing table.’

  ‘You need to teach them a lesson,’ said Meici. ‘What you have to do is find the nest, and then when the bird is not looking you swap her eggs for turtle eggs.’

  ‘Where would I get turtle eggs from?’

  ‘Exchange & Mart,’ said Meici.

  ‘Does it stop them stealing?’ said Mrs Eglwys Fach.

  ‘Not exactly, but you get a bird who spends a month hatching her eggs and a turtle comes out; you never get any more trouble out of her after that.’

  ‘It sounds a bit mean,’ said Mrs Eglwys Fach.

  ‘And stealing things from your dressing table and snitching on you to the witches isn’t?’ said Meici. ‘Point is, some of these new wheels are a lot more resistant to the old ways. These new carbon fibre ones, for example, you’d have a hell of a job putting a spell on one of those.’

  ‘Are they expensive?’

  ‘In the long run, if you factor in the cost of the days lost to bad spells and stuff, they can work out cheaper.’ Meici took out a pocket calculator and started punching in random figures. Mrs Eglwys Fach watched, fascinated. Meici murmured to himself with evident satisfaction, the figures were looking good. He stopped and looked up, shoving the calculator over towards her. ‘There you go. That’s five grand I’ve saved you.’

  She took out her reading specs and bent over the calculator. She leant back and said, ‘My, my!’ And then a thought clouded her brow. ‘But they have fewer spokes those carbon-fibre ones, don’t they?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Meici. ‘Stronger material, greater rigidity, fewer spokes—’

  ‘Hmm, but does that mean you don’t get that wagon-wheel effect you see in the old westerns where the wheels seem to be spinning backwards? I like that bit.’

  Meici scoffed at the naïvety of her question. ‘But of course you get it! Don’t you see? Fewer spokes, lighter weight, less drag, you can go fast as you like!’

  Mrs Eglwys Fach quivered with an excitement that was almost carnal, all common sense had departed and in her eyes there burned the fierce gleam of a woman now picturing herself cutting a dash and inviting all the envious scorn of her neighbours as she sat at the helm of a new carbon-fibre wheel. In such a mood she would have signed away the deeds to the cottage. Meici studiously filled out the order adding in every conceivable extra, including anti-spell coating which I’m sure he had implied was rendered unnecessary by the advanced technology of the design.

  Calamity whispered, ‘You go outside and create a diversion, I’ll get the tape.’

  ‘Why don’t you go out and create the diversion?’ I hissed back. She gave me an impatient look and Meici looked up to see what the problem was.

  Calamity said, ‘No, Louie, I think I’ll sit here for a while, I’m feeling a little faint from the heat. You go out and take the air.’

  I walked outside and heard a voice singing, a young girl’s voice. I followed the sound into the thin grey miasma that passed for summer in this dingle and walked round to the back of the cottage. The girl was sitting on the edge of a well washing her hair in a wooden pail. For a while she continued, unaware of being observed. She was bent forward over the bucket, wringing her hair, which the wetness had rendered dark and colourless. Soap suds glistened. She continued singing and I coughed politely. She started and looked up.

  ‘I’m with the spinning-wheel man,’ I said politely.

  ‘I know, I saw you arrive. I’ve seen you before somewhere, too, but I can’t remember where.’

  ‘Perhaps in church,’ I said.

  ‘Definitely not there.’ She picked up a towel and began to dry her hair. Colour emerged from the dark mass, like flowers appearing in the undergrowth of a gloomy wood: russets, mahogany, rosewood, copper. Then she swept the hair up into a white turban of towel.

  ‘If you were looking for the outhouse it’s through the kitchen.’

  ‘I just came for a walk. My name’s Louie.’

  ‘Arianwen. It was so nice of you to come, grandmother is lost without her wheel.’

  ‘It looks like she’s going to need a new one.’

  ‘Can’t you fix it?’

  ‘No, we think someone must have put a spell on it, probably in league with the birds.’

  She giggled. ‘I don’t believe in spells.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  ‘If you ask me, someone spilled some glue on it.’

  ‘But who would do a thing like that?’

  ‘I don’t know, an intruder I
expect; definitely a very wicked person.’ She let her gaze linger on me for a second that might have been a hint of forbidden knowledge or simply the absence of guile. ‘You’re quite good-looking for a spinning-wheel salesman.’

  ‘No one’s ever said that to me before.’

  ‘That’s if you really are a spinning-wheel salesman.’

  ‘What else could I be?’

  ‘I think you are a rogue.’

  ‘I could be both.’

  ‘We get quite a few salesmen pass this way and you’re not like the usual ones. They’re always so corny: “My word, how pretty you are! Here, try this stovepipe hat on. Wow! Just look at that, have you ever thought about starring in the Butlies?” ’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘You know, the “What the butler saw” flicks.’

  ‘I didn’t know they were called Butlies.’

  ‘Just shows you’re not a real spinning-wheel salesman, then, doesn’t it?’ She emptied the pail down the drain next to the kitchen wall. ‘And besides, you don’t smell of air freshener.’ She slung the pail down next to the drain, straightened up and smiled. ‘I bet he told you I was seventeen and never been kissed, too.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘It’s because he heard the line in a song once. I’m twenty-one, in case you were wondering, and I’ve been kissed by three different boys, although I’ve never gone further than that, well not much.’

  ‘It’s never a good idea to rush these things.’

  She feigned disappointment. ‘Oh you’re not much fun, are you? You sound like my grandmother.’

  ‘One thing you learn in life is almost everything your grandmother told you when you were young, and which you thought at the time was just the lunacy of old age, is actually true.’

  Meici Jones appeared round the corner of the cottage, holding a stovepipe hat. He gave me the black look of a man who finds another trespassing on his territory. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I just came for a walk.’