The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still

‘I’ve been going to night school, you see. I didn’t understand these things before, I saw through a glass darkly, but now I see more clearly. This life in which we are separated from each other through the process of individuation is an illusion; the separation is the cause of all our distress and we are so blind we mistake it for truth; after death we dissolve back into the continuum and become one, and this is supposed to be the real mode of being. This is Nirvana.’

‘So you were leading us to Nirvana through the January snows?’

‘Not like that.’

‘How, then? I like my separateness; if you take it away you take away everything that I have.’

‘But that is where you err. You are what Nietzsche called the Theoretical Man. You think you can access the truths of this world through the application of reason and the intellect, but this is a false belief. You worship at the shrine of Apollo and privilege the outward appearance of form over the chthonic and inchoate forces that lurk beneath . . .’ He stopped as if overcome by the realisation that the task of explanation was hopeless.

I urged him to continue. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Go on.’ I could feel my limbs begin to shiver, and a strange confusion seeped into my brain, the same befuddlement I felt when I first drank cider in the afternoon as a teenager.

‘The truth is Dionysian, the truth of this world is suffering, which we deny out of terror that it will crush our hearts. You always stood snootily on the touchline during the games of rugby; you cloaked yourself in a post- Socratic disdain for the dark, destructive forces which we sought to channel; for beneath the surface of artifice we find the universal Will, the collective bosom of man at his most primal. Rugby was the road to immersion in this primeval oneness.’

‘Do you mean like in the bath after the game?’

‘Yes, sort of. This way we could transcend for a while our separation, our existential homelessness. This is tragedy in which lives the essence of existence. Tragos is the Greek for goat, it means “song of the goat”. In this respect the rugby team was the dithyramb through whose overwhelming ecstasy of music the principium individuationis was dissolved.’

‘These are just words you use to spell away the death of Marty.’

‘But don’t you see how the duality of life and death is an illusion? For both are parts of the Atman. It’s like Lord Krishna said to his disciple: “Arjuna, why do you mourn? For what purpose is this sorrowing and grieving? A true wise man mourns neither for the living nor for the dead. Never was there a time when I was not, nor thou, nor these men, nor will there ever be a time hereafter when we shall cease to be.” You should read your Bhagavad Gita, then you’d see.’

‘Thanks, I will.’

I dropped him off at the garage in Llanbadarn and carried on to the Prom, driven by some desire I could not account for to see the ocean. Perhaps it was the powerful, surging currents of dithyrambic wonder or maybe it was the dawning realisation that I was unwell. The befuddlement in my head was accompanied now by a headache and a racing heart.

I parked on the Prom and walked through the neon storm. I pulled my collar up against the flashing blue and pink, but it didn’t help; each raindrop carried within its silver orb a miniature simulacrum of the signs: Eats, Liquor, Motel, Big Chief, Pier, Whelks 24hrs, Toffee Apple, Oblivion. Neon is the ink of heartache scribbled on the night sky. The glowing cursive script of tawdriness, of the meretricious things that make up the landscape of the night wanderer. Every sign has one broken letter fizzing like the out-of-control synapses of the callers to a late-night radio show. Neon flashes in the dark alley, poor man’s lightning on the wet tarmac, it catches fire in the retinas of the cat curled beneath the fire escape. It seeps into your clothes, down your neck, into your eyes; it drenches you, turns your face orange and green; you try and brush it off, but it covers the hand you brush with. It’s cartoon colour that you can’t wash off. I no longer had the strength. I sat on a bench, my back to the iridescence, and stared at the blank wall of darkness beyond the railings, where the only light came from down the coast, across the water, the gentle stardust of Aberaeron and beyond.

The rain eased off and the wet scent of its passing filled the night. A man walking saw me and came over. It was Raspiwtin. He sat down. We turned to face each other, but it was as if we were both lost for words.

‘We’re almost there,’ he said at last. ‘I can feel his presence. He is close.’

‘Why do you seek Iestyn?’

He considered for a moment. ‘Tell me, Louie, did you contemplate the koan? About the bombing raid on Nagasaki?’

‘I did, but all I could see was the book of puzzles from which you cribbed it and made it your own. Just as you probably took the Burmese story from a newspaper and almost certainly never spent even so much as a day in the Vatican laundry.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘Everything you say sounds second-hand, like someone cobbling together a false biography.’

Raspiwtin turned and waved his finger at me. ‘Even if what you say were true, what would it matter? The koan is still true. Men think, because they have been taught to think it, that this is the way the world is and no other way is possible. But it is an illusion. It could disappear with the swiftness of a soap bubble bursting. All it takes would be the discovery of an alien species – a humanoid, seemingly not all that different from us. The realisation that we were not alone, that instead of being composed of numerous warring and bickering tribes, we were really and truly the brotherhood of man . . . Who, having gained such knowledge, could continue to regard another human being as his enemy? What would be the purpose of armies? Humanity would wake from its trance and on that morning nothing would ever be the same again. War would be over. This is the quest that brought me to Aberystwyth. One alien we know escaped from the crashed saucer in December 1965, unaccounted for. Where is he? Could he be alive? Even the skeleton would be enough. The physical, undeniable evidence that we are not alone.’

‘You don’t want much for your ?400, do you?’

He shrugged weakly and avoided my gaze.

‘Normally my clients want me to spy on an errant spouse. Or trace a missing shoe. Once I saved Aberystwyth.’

‘Now you can save Humanity.’

‘So that’s it? Four hundred pounds – including a down payment of two hundred which you seem to have forgotten about – and for that I find Iestyn Probert so he can tell you where to find the body of the alien, assuming it’s still here. And the shock revelation will cure humankind of its addiction to war. Millennia of barbarism wiped out in a trice?’

‘It’s easy to mock my plan, but in truth I think it is quite straightforward and possesses a good likelihood of success. You see, I don’t think humankind would have any other choice in the circumstances. The revelation would be overwhelming; they could not fail to feel a sudden upsurge of brotherhood. In your heart can you deny it?’

My head fell forward and I caught it in my palm.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Just feeling a little under the weather. It’s probably something I ate.’

‘You should get home out of the cold and damp.’ He stood up.

Just something I ate. The image of the wedding cake surrounded by dead wasps rose before my inner vision and that was followed, as I uttered up a silent cry, by another image: Meici in my office telling me about the plan to spring his mum from gaol using a poisoning idea devised by Erik XIV of Sweden. Dirty double-crosser . . .

Raspiwtin wished me good night and walked off towards the public shelter leading to South Road.

Ten minutes later another man appeared, walking inverted in the rain-glazed pavement. It was the mayor. He seemed pleased to see me.

‘Louie Knight!’ he cried. ‘Not out shooting people?’

I looked but didn’t have the strength to answer.

‘I must say, you don’t look all that well, you look a bit peaky. Maybe you should get yourself a new job; all this running around playing cops and robbers . . . it’s not good for a man of your age. You should get a nice desk job.’

‘I’ll look into it.’

‘I’ve been finding out about you. It seems you are lucky to earn enough in a month to pay the rent on that