From Aberystwyth with Love

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘As winter approached its end they informed me they had an escape plan and I was invited to go along. Even then I was too ignorant to understand their scheme, to understand what evil, what horror these men had planned in their wicked hearts. We climbed over the wire in May at the first hint of spring. Escape was virtually impossible and successful escape, almost unknown. It is so far – thousands of square miles of empty tundra where even the wolves struggle to survive. There is no food and finding fuel is difficult. The local people if they catch you will turn you in. In the past it was not so; in the time of the Czars, there was a tradition that they would leave milk and bread out on the doorstep overnight to help escaping prisoners, because Siberia has always been the land of exile. But under Stalin those who aided or gave you succour would end up in a camp themselves; even for failing to report having seen you was enough to get them a ten-year stretch. The task was truly hopeless. But some there were who preferred to die trying rather than serve their twenty-five years of hell. Many were the times during that journey when it seemed that Death had finally come for me and each time some miracle intervention by my two companions stepped in to snatch me from the edge of the precipice. Each time they saved me, my love for them grew deeper. We crossed a frozen river and the ice cracked beneath us and I fell in; those two men, those two evil merciless murderers, both risked their lives to save mine. Then later we were attacked by wolves and this time I was surely done for, but my two friends fought them off with fire. Another time we were attacked by a bear and they drove the bear off with rocks. Thus in the company of these two scoundrels I crossed the vast frozen wastes of that land and also traversed the inner continent of the human heart. There I discovered the darkest wisdom ever to be found in such a vessel, far down in the deepest, dimmest cistern of the heart where only lunatics visit. I began that spring the journey that would bring me here to the Promenade in Aberystwyth, I discovered the terrible wisdom and became the most celebrated, most famous cartographer of the human heart, second only to the woman whose fate haunted me the whole time, the mother forced to abandon her suckling child and entrain for Siberia.’ His voice acquired a croak and we could tell without looking that his face was creased with pain. ‘Perhaps I shall not finish this story tonight.’

  Ffanci put her arm round him and reassured him. We left the shelter and walked slowly along the Prom, taking turns to drink from the bottle. At the Pier Vanya suggested we go dancing. I expected the doorman at the Pier to create difficulties with regard to Ffanci but it appeared that Uncle Vanya had already befriended this man during his short stay in town. ‘He is a great bear of a man,’ explained Uncle Vanya, ‘and so am I. We have an understanding.’ We walked down the carpeted corridor with windows overlooking the blackness of the sea, towards the dark smoky cavern at the end. Disco balls twirled and threw flashes of light on to the corners and niches where couples hid. A man in a penguin suit holding a small flashlight showed us to a table near the back. The tables were set in a circle around an empty dance floor; it was not yet midnight, still early. Some druid wise guys were seated near the front with young girls eager to make an impression sharing their table. Here and there, dotted around, there were members of the cast of North Road, the grim ritual of determined drinking saying more eloquently than words that being a soap star was not much of a career to aspire to. Here and there too were waiters and chefs from the hotels’ grills, dressed up as far as their meagre wages would permit; and there were a few isolated souls, men drinking alone in a way that suggested they could no longer remember a time when that had not been the case.

  I took Uncle Vanya aside and suggested it might be kinder not to bring up the reason for his being in Aberystwyth, about the quest. He agreed and went to the floor to dance alone, completely oblivious to the impression he made. Ffanci ordered a brandy and Coke and said, ‘There used to be proper dancing when I was young. Waltzing and things.’

  ‘I hear you used to be quite a famous singer.’

  ‘Oh yes, back in the forties. Skegness, Scarborough, Weston-super-Mare, I did them all, all the lovely old piers, the lovely old songs . . .’ She began to sing in a frail soft descant:

  It’s a lovely day tomorrow

  Tomorrow is a lovely day

  Come and feast your tear-dimmed eyes

  On tomorrow’s clear blue skies . . .

  The words faded out.

  I said, ‘After that you became the schoolteacher?’

  ‘It was just a little school I ran for a while . . . all the children, I loved them all. But after Gethsemane was . . . after she went away, they stopped coming to my school. I had to close. Then I went on my travels. When it rains I wonder if she is getting wet. When I’m cold I wonder if she is cold too. When I buy new shoes I wonder what sort of shoes she wears. Sometimes I get a new dress from the charity shop and I wonder what sort of pretty dresses she likes to wear.’ She turned to look at me. ‘I’ve spoken to Llunos. The girl they found by the lake wasn’t Gethsemane, it was an actress. Some students paid her as part of a rag stunt.’

  ‘That was a wicked thing to do,’ I said.

  Ffanci made a half smile that seemed to dismiss the significance of the event when set against the broader canvas of her life. ‘I suppose they thought it was funny . . . How could they have known what I . . . They wouldn’t know. They are so young.’

  A waiter brought two more drinks and Ffanci moved her hand holding her drink in time to the music with the simple side-to-side movement of a puppet.

  ‘Is it true you and your sister were courted by the same man?’

  ‘It wasn’t . . . Alfred wasn’t like that, I don’t care if he was just a balloon-folder, he had dignity. All the girls were sweet on him. Including my sister, but he never requited it, that was just her jealous imaginings. He used to drive the tram for a while, when balloon-folding times were lean. I know what they say, that I . . . you know . . . when I fell pregnant, those gossips said I did it on purpose to trap him. It’s not true. I would never have dreamed of doing such a terrible thing, it just happened the normal way these things do. He loved me, you see. That’s what my sister could never forgive. I don’t blame her for that, we’re all human and jealousy is as human an emotion as love in a way, isn’t it? You can’t stop yourself sometimes, I know that. But you have to make the best of it, don’t you? We all do. Why she had to go and marry that Witchfinder, I really don’t know. It’s not like she didn’t have suitors. And she had made it quite plain she couldn’t abide the chap. Then she goes and does that. It’s almost as if she did it to spite me, to punish me the only way she could, by punishing herself.’

  A body came between Ffanci and the glittering ceiling lights and a shadow passed over her face. I looked up. It was Arianwen. I stood up, she stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek. She whispered something into my ear but I couldn’t hear what she said in the noise. I bent down over Ffanci Llangollen and pointed to Vanya. ‘That man there is my client,’ I said. ‘You can ask him about Gethsemane. I wasn’t going to tell you; I wanted to protect you, but I realise I don’t have the right.’

  Arianwen and I left by the exit at the back and emerged on to the iron walkway that led out to sea and ended in an iron precipice where the end of the Pier had long ago been blown away. Flashing coloured bulbs lit up her face and cast it again into darkness.

  ‘You are so amazing,’ she said. ‘You returned the tape and the stamps.’

  ‘Think nothing of it.’

  ‘Wasn’t it dangerous? Meici Jones must be in with some bad people.’

  ‘It wasn’t dangerous.’

  ‘He’s been following me. Or at least I think it’s him. Someone is anyway.’

  There was silence for a while except for the sigh of the surf on the rocks twenty feet below us. We stood separated and joined by an unresolved tension.

  ‘Why don’t you like me?’ she said.

  ‘What makes you think I don’t?’

  ‘You’re not interested, I can tell. They tell me you
used to go out with Myfanwy.’

  I said nothing but flinched softly in the dark.

  ‘She’s in Switzerland, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you miss her a lot?’

  ‘I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.’

  ‘That’s lovely. I wish you’d say that about me.’

  ‘It’s Bogart, In a Lonely Place.’

  ‘It’s still lovely. They say she isn’t coming back.’

  This time she felt me flinch.

  I said, ‘I don’t care what people say. They don’t know anything.’

  ‘Yes, people always say horrible things, they pretend they want the best for you but really they want bad things to happen to you so they won’t feel so upset about their own lives.’

  We returned to the disco but Vanya and Ffanci had left. We walked out too. ‘Will you walk me to the cab rank?’ she asked and then suddenly her face flashed with scorn. ‘Well of all the . . . You see! I told you he was following me.’ I followed the direction of her gaze and saw Meici Jones standing next to the hamburger van.

  ‘Go and make him leave me alone, Louie. Please, he gives me the creeps.’

  I strode across to Meici Jones. His face was a sea of desolation.

  ‘You’re a dirty double-crosser!’ he cried. ‘I ought to smash your face.’

  ‘Don’t bother, it’s not worth the effort.’

  ‘I saw her first.’

  ‘We were only talking. Other people are allowed to hold conversations.’

  ‘You must think I’m stupid.’

  ‘I do actually.’

  Over the past hour my spirits had sunk lower and lower and I no longer had the energy for pretence. I turned to go and said, ‘Just leave her alone, OK? She wants me to tell you, she’s not interested in you. She never was and she never will be. So forget it and scram.’ I was ashamed of how good it felt. It was like pulling the legs off a spider.

  ‘You’re a dirty double-crosser!’ he cried again.

  I looked round. ‘What are you so upset about? Why don’t you play the Glad Game? I’m sad that Arianwen is talking to Louie but I’m glad for her because he’s better looking than me and I’m a creep.’

  ‘Just you wait! I’ll get you!’

  ‘What are you going to do? Smother me in the night like you did to Esau?’

  For a second he wore the expression of a fawn startled by a noise in the undergrowth. And then a different expression, one of astonished revelation, crept across his face. It was a vile sight. I realised with a sick feeling in my stomach that he had never known, had never suspected the reason why his mother hated him. He gasped twice, choked once, spluttered once, and then clutched at his heart with hands contorted to talons. He spun round and fell to the floor and lay there convulsing in pain. People crowded round him and I told the bouncer to call an ambulance. Arianwen stood next to me resting her head on my shoulder as we waited for the medics to arrive. It wasn’t long. We watched them load Meici into the back of the ambulance. He had an oxygen mask strapped on and his two eyes bulged on either side with hatred or heartbreak; two eyes that were trained the entire time on Arianwen. Then they closed the doors.

  The next afternoon an anonymous package was delivered to the office. It was addressed to ‘Louee the dirty double-crosser’ and contained the broken shards of an Airfix model and the charred remains of a correspondence course, The Old Black Magic.

  Chapter 15

  Two days later, as I drove through Borth at lunchtime, I saw Mrs Mochdre waiting at the bus stop. I stopped and offered her a lift. She hesitated, torn between the agony of putting herself in my debt and the equal displeasure of waiting for a bus. She got in, squirmed in the seat and grimaced an expression of gratitude. I drove off.

  ‘I heard an interesting thing the other day,’ I said with a false note of cheeriness in my voice. ‘About you and your sister Ffanci Llangollen.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Mrs Mochdre peered up at the clear blue sky and claimed to see a cloud. ‘Looks like it might be changing, finally. It will be nice for the garden, bit of rain . . . I expect.’ She sounded unsure and continued watching the sky with a mixture of anxiety and distrust as if the vagaries of summer weather were designed to spite her personally.

  I said, ‘I heard you and your sister used to court the same man.’

  Her face froze but it was difficult to see whether at the impropriety of the suggestion or because of the tender memory I had brutally dragged up.

  ‘I don’t know where you heard—’

  ‘He was the balloon-folder, wasn’t he? He couldn’t choose between you and then whoops-a-daisy! Ffanci Llangollen gets pregnant.’

  Mrs Mochdre stared fixedly ahead, glaring.

  ‘Some people might think there was something a bit quick and convenient about it, almost as if the chap was being given a helping hand to make up his mind.’ I peered across at her, she kept her head fixed staring forward, wearing a face of stone. ‘Perhaps if she wasn’t the prettiest—’

  ‘My sister was always the pretty one—’

  ‘Well sometimes it’s not about that, is it? Not always. Maybe if he liked the pretty one but there was something about her elder sister that was . . . was . . . deeper, something he liked and satisfied him and touched him deep down in his soul, well, I can see how the elder one, even if she wasn’t the pretty one, in fact especially if she wasn’t . . . She knew she wouldn’t get many offers in her life, while all through her teens and early twenties she sees the boys rolling up at the door courting her sister and never one for her and all along she has to wear that face of bright airy joy and pretend she is just happy for her fortunate sister . . . that could get a bit wearing after a while. In a situation like that I could see how the elder one might feel aggrieved . . . might feel as if the chap was a worthless chap after—’

  ‘Don’t you ever say a word against Alfred Walters! Do you hear? Don’t you ever!’

  I was stung into silence by the venom of her response. If I was a cop this would be the point where I smiled inwardly and thought, ‘Gotcha! I’ve found the button to press.’ But I didn’t feel like that. I wasn’t a cop, and I never wanted to be. I never wanted to feel triumphant at a moment like this. I said no more and we drove on in awkward silence. Mrs Mochdre had pressed her knuckle into her mouth and remained staring fixedly at the sky. As we drove up towards Commins Coch I shot a glance across. Her eyes were wet. She saw my look and said, ‘Some busybodies oughtn’t to poke their noses into things they don’t understand.’

  There was a man and a dog sitting side by side on the beach, facing the waves. I went to join them. It was Uncle Vanya and Clip the stuffed sheepdog from the museum on Terrace Road. The sky was filled with shredded cloud; a strong breeze churned the sea to foam, the surface dancing with seams of gold in the bright late-afternoon light. The breeze was scented with vanilla and stewed tea, and seaweed and vodka. An empty bottle lay at Vanya’s feet and a half-full one stood erect between the paws of Clip. Vanya’s hair was wet.

  ‘My friend Clip has been explaining everything to me,’ said Vanya. ‘I understand it all now. I see what a terrible waste my life has been. Clip doesn’t say much but the things he says strike home.’

  ‘Isn’t he cold without his glass case?’

  ‘Sometimes, Louie, your comments perplex me.’

  ‘Why did you steal him from the museum?’

  ‘He wanted to come, I didn’t steal him.’

  ‘Why is your hair wet? Have you been for a swim?’

  ‘The man who owns the rock foundry, the one whose son is in a wheelchair, I helped him.’

  ‘Was he in trouble?’

  ‘He fetched an ice cream for his son and while he was away the boy dragged himself out of the chair and down the steps to the beach. He crawled on his belly into the sea.’

  ‘You saved him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a great thing that you did.’ />
  ‘Mr Barnaby gave me something very precious as a reward: a phial of his panacea Ampersandium. Would you like some? I poured it into the vodka. It makes the taste of life less bitter on the tongue.’ Vanya passed the bottle across. I took a small drink to be sociable, but I could see this afternoon he was far advanced along a road that I had no wish to take myself, the one that always ends in tears. ‘We must drink, my friend, because it may be we will not meet again for a long time.’

  ‘Are you going away?’

  ‘Yes, I have an urgent journey to undertake.’

  ‘The case isn’t closed yet.’

  ‘It is for me. I will send you another sock as an indication of my complete satisfaction with the services you have rendered.’

  ‘I don’t need any more socks, the first one was enough. I would prefer you to stick around until I can finish the case. It’s still full of mysteries.’

  ‘But I am the client and I have learned enough to satisfy me.’

  ‘What have you learned?’

  ‘Under the searching and intelligent gaze of Clip, all mysteries have evaporated.’

  I said, ‘You talk of leaving and we still have not found out what happened to Gethsemane.’

  ‘The answer to the mystery is to be found in the Museum Of Our Forefathers’ Suffering in Hughesovka. It took dear Clip to make this apparent to me. As soon as I saw him I knew the truth: it was never intended that my life would end with the happy consummation I sought. Some men are born broken, never to be fixed. The moral of my tale is contained in the dark wisdom of the camps.’

  ‘What happened after you escaped with Ivan and Yuri? You never finished that story.’

  ‘I am finishing it now, on this beach with the help of Wise Clip who has been kind enough to corroborate for me the essential truth it contains.’ He put the bottle to his mouth and threw his head back as if gravity unaided was too slow a method of bringing the drink into his gullet. ‘At some point during our terrible journey,’ he said, ‘I sprained my ankle and could not walk. Ivan and Yuri took it in turns to carry me. This piece of bad luck put an intolerable strain upon our fellowship. My two friends began to quarrel and then one night there was a terrible fight and Ivan slew Yuri. I will never forget how the blood stained the moonlit snow. I said that we should bury him as best we could, but Ivan was indignant and said, “Why on earth would we want to do that?” I said, “Because it is the Christian thing to do.” He scoffed. “You don’t want to bury him?” I said. And he said, “Why waste good meat?” It took me a while to understand his meaning. “Surely,” I said in horror, “you do not mean to eat him?” “Of course I do,” he answered. “If we do not we will surely die.” “But he’s your friend,” I said. “There is no way I would ever eat Yuri.” Ivan laughed in a way that chilled the marrow, a laugh that would have shamed even Satan, and said, “You won’t eat Yuri? Now that, my friend, is ironic.” ’ Uncle Vanya stopped sadly and made a small wave of his hand, a gesture that somehow was meant to sum up the contingencies of fate. ‘This is the dark wisdom of the camps. There is only one way two men can escape and hope to survive. They must invite along a third man, preferably a chubby one, who does not yet know the dark wisdom of the camps.’ He emptied the vodka bottle and reached into a bag lying next to Clip and pulled out a third.