frivolous.’
‘It’s perfect.’
‘Don’t tease me.’
‘I’m not. You have every detail right. The thermos flask should always be tartan, the tea should be stewed and the plates bright yellow plastic. Sandwiches can be jam or on special occasions you can use that paste they sell in little glass jars, the one that smells like the harbour and has the texture of wet newspaper.’
‘I don’t know that one.’
‘They grind it up from the bits of the fish the glue factory rejects.’
For a while everything was still save the soft movements of our jaws, the quivering grass and the shadow of a cloud drifting across the lawn. The cloud revealed the sun and the heightened brightness caused an instant upsurge in my breast. A rowing team from the local boys’ school slid past.
‘Tell me about being a private eye.’
I leant back and spoke to the sky. ‘You get hit on the head a lot; it’s boring; there’s no money. Clients walk into my office clutching the pieces of their lives like the fragments of a broken vase. They expect me to fix it, but normally I can’t. This is usually their first introduction to the strange notion that the world is unfair. They think that by paying for a few hours of my time they will be able to buy some sort of redress; the amount they pay me is trivial, I can barely survive on it, but to the people who sit in my client’s chair it’s a fortune they resent parting with. Sometimes they want me to make everything all right, but most of the time they don’t even want that; they just want the world to take cognizance, they want to tell someone about the bad thing that has happened to them. They always think they are the first person since the Garden of Eden to have a bad thing happen to them.’
‘What’s the point of telling you if you can’t fix it?’
‘Telling me is the point. It’s like telling tales to a teacher at school. They say, look what happened to me, that’s not right. And I agree, yeah, that’s not right. But in my heart I think, so what? These things happen. There’s no reason for it, no intent, the universe didn’t set out to upset you; but neither did it set out not to; it doesn’t greatly care. The universe is like the rest of us, it just gets on with the business of whatever it is it does, slowly winding down, I guess, increasing entropy, and it just so happens that your suffering is a side-effect of that process, like the squeak of a rocking chair. They want me to oil the universe.’
‘I don’t see what satisfaction there is in just telling.’
‘It’s the most fundamental human need of all, the act of bearing witness. Think of all the people in history who have been massacred. The bad guys drive into the village and round everybody up. They load them onto the back of a truck. They drive off into the forest and stop at a clearing. The villagers are forced to dig graves. They do it because they know there is no redemption. They listen to the scrape of the shovel on dirt, the birds calling in the woods, then straighten up at last from the digging, aware of the puzzling paradox that they are proud of having done a good job of the hole, and then the crack of rifle shots sends the startled birds flapping into the air. What is the last thing the poor victims think before tumbling down? They hope someone from the village escaped and will tell the world what happened. Even though that knowledge, that acknowledgement, won’t make any difference to them, won’t save them and won’t make their deaths easier, it is still the last hope. They couldn’t bear for the world to never hear of it, the terrible way they died.’
‘So are you a Christian?’
‘No, but I admire Christ. Even though he did his best to put me out of a job.’
A park keeper walked past. Miaow reached into her handbag, took out a camera and rushed over to the man. He took the camera and peered through the viewfinder. Miaow sat down again but this time nestled her head onto my shoulder and we both squinted into the blue sky. The man clicked the shutter and brought the camera back, but, seeing or sensing that now was not the time for Miaow to move from her position, head pressed to mine, he bent down shyly and put the camera on the tartan rug. It was like watching someone place an offering at a shrine. It was a simple Instamatic camera, without adjustments except for the shutter press. But this meant that, paradoxically, it was the acme of the camera-maker’s art, because the inevitable fuzziness of the image would perfectly mimic the effects of memory.
‘What brought you to Aberystwyth?’ I asked.
‘Do I need a reason?’
‘No.’
‘I told you, I’m studying.’
‘I thought you might be looking for Iestyn Probert.’
‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘I found your card in the ruins of Iestyn’s house. You’d written “Ask for Miaow” on it.’
‘Someone else must have done it, not me. It could have been anyone, couldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose it could.’
It was evening by the time we got back to Aberystwyth. It had grown chilly and the streets were empty, the damp tarmac gleaming beneath the street lights. We walked along Terrace Road towards the sea, without thinking about it. The same invisible force that sucked the water back from the land pulled at us too. The sound of a public speaker drifted over from the Prom, getting louder as we walked. Miaow slipped her hand in mine. On the Prom the emptiness became less stark, couples walked past holding hands, and a group was gathered round a man on a small raised platform who was addressing them with a microphone. He was short and squat with arms that seemed disproportionately long for his torso. A quiver ran involuntarily through my loins, it was Herod Jenkins, my old school games teacher. Miaow turned sharply.
‘Louie, what is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re squeezing my hand so hard . . .’
‘It’s Herod Jenkins, he used to teach me games.’
‘He can’t hurt you now, silly.’
‘I know, I know. It’s . . . it’s like a dog that was beaten once long ago who sees his old master in the street again. Even if he saw his old master in a coffin being lowered into the ground he would still tremble. It’s involuntary.’
His words reached us; he was talking about the New Sparta he would build in the ruins of Aberystwyth once elected. Did we need one? The original Sparta didn’t sound very attractive.
Miaow frowned, sensing that something about the mood had changed, as if it was our wedding day and someone had reported seeing the Ancient Mariner at the bar. I turned and smiled. ‘On our first day at big school he gave us a talk about how it was going to be. He called us all milksops and pansies and told us we had had it too good for too long but things were going to change. He offered us a choice: shape up or ship out. We were eleven.’
‘They always make that speech, Louie.’
‘On that first day at school he said there would be no more free rides, those who lagged behind would be left behind. One boy put his hand up to ask if this applied to him because he suffered from asthma. He said he had a note from his mum.’ I peered into her eyes as if my words contained an urgent revelation. ‘Herod pretended to be sympathetic and related a story of his time as a prisoner of war in Patagonia. He told how one morning the commandant called the prisoners together and appealed to them for help. He said a number of llamas had died in the night and they didn’t have enough to pull the plough so they were appealing for volunteers. He said it would be a great help to them and also a nice day out on the farm, but if they didn’t fancy it or were too busy he would understand and would make sure the table-tennis room was left open back at the camp for them to amuse themselves.
‘ “You, boy, no talking at the back!” Herod called out to me; heads turned to look.
‘ “If you’ve got something to say,” he said, “perhaps you’d like to share it with the rest of us.”
‘ “Mr Jenkins, I just wanted to ask, in this New Sparta you describe, will there be room for everyone, the weak as well as the strong?”
‘He peered at me over the heads of the throng. People began to mutter, as if my question had chimed with their own misgivings. Herod Jenkins raised his arm and swung it across, appealing for calm. He paused for effect, then said, “There is no such thing as weakness.” The muttering started again. “Weakness is a state of mind, born of sloth and idleness. Those who truly want to be strong will be strong. And those who can’t be bothered, who prefer to sit on their backsides and shirk their duty, they will be weak. But it is their choice.”
