'What? How do you mean?'
'Well you were frightfully polite to him, you know. Took him very seriously.'
'Perhaps there was a touch of that.'
'I mean you don't want him coming through on the phone asking if he can discuss it with you. Find a way round your objections.'
'No, I don't, do I? My God.'
By now the car had started to crawl along beside the pavement. Again Alun peered through his window, then took a quick glance at the traffic ahead. He started to roll down the window with his left hand and arranged his right with the thumb and first two fingers extended and the other two clenched.
'That's English, what you've got there,' said Charlie quickly. 'Middle finger only for Americans.'
'Christ, you're right, thanks. Well... here we go.' Alun stuck his head and hand out of the opening and Charlie heard him bawl, 'Make it two thousand. The year two thousand. And fuck off.'
The car accelerated nimbly. By a blessed chance Charlie got another last sight of Pugh out of the back window, much reduced now from the comparative equanimity he had shown a minute before. What tale of this would he tell in Bethgelert?
'They do say fuck off in America, don't they?' asked Alun anxiously.
'I'm sure they understand it.'
'And it doesn't mean how's your father or anything?'
'Not that I know of, no.'
'I thought I'd better clinch it, you see. Sort of make assurance double sure.'
'Yes, I can't see him bothering you again.'
Alun laughed quietly for a short time, shaking his head in indulgent self-reproach. The driver, who had the collar of a tartan sports shirt turned down over that of his blue serge suit, spoke up.
'Trying to cadge a lift, was he, that bloke back there?'
'Roughly.'
'Funny-looking son of bloke. He reminded me - '
'Yes, well we can forget about him now and concentrate on getting to the Prince of Wales as fast as reasonable can.' Evidently Alun had no wish just then to pursue the special Welsh relationship with drivers of taxis as mentioned to Rhiannon. He lowered his voice and went on, 'Hey - timing really was important for that. A clear getaway afterwards. I got badly caught in Kilburn once telling a Bulgarian short-story writer, actually he _was__ trying to cadge a lift, anyway telling him to fuck off for two or three minutes while the chap driving the open car I was sitting in turned round in the cul-de-sac I hadn't noticed we were at the end of. Amazing how quickly the bloom fades on fuck off, you know. Say it a couple of times running and you've got out of it nearly all of what you're going to get.'
'And there's not a lot you can go to later,' said Charlie.
'Well exactly.'
'What really got you down about Pugh, made you dump him? One thing more than another. I mean apart from his interest in rugby. Of course he was unstoppably American, I do see.'
'He can't help that, love him. No, I could have taken that. Well, taken it more cheerfully than him being even more savagely Welsh. I've heard about those buggers in Pennsylvania. You know what they are, do you? Bloody Quakers. You're doing well if they let you smoke there. And you know what they get up to? Speaking Welsh. Talking Welsh to each other on purpose.'
'Yes, he talked some to me.'
'Well, there you are then,' said Alun, glaring indignantly at Charlie. 'How can you deal with a bastard like that?'
'I wonder you didn't give him the thumbs-down as soon as you heard where he was from, at that rate.'
'Oh, I couldn't have done that. That would have looked rude. And anyway at that stage I couldn't be sure he wasn't going to, I don't know, say fuck or something and show he was a human being. I think a drink's what I'd like now.'
They went through the hall of the Prince of Wales, which by some reactionary whim had ordinary carpets on the floor and pictures of recognizable scenes on the walls, up in the photograph-infested lift and into the glittering meanness of what was no doubt called a banqueting-room with slender, softly gleaming pillars. But, fair play, it had a bar in it, plus a table serving wine only, which kept a few unserious drinkers out of the road. One advantage of Charlie's trade, now only to be called that in a manner of speaking but for many years an accurate description, was that he tended to know waitresses. Off this one he got, well ahead of his turn, a whisky and water that would have struck some other men as a nice lunchtime session's worth, and quite surprised himself by finding how much he had needed it. Clutching its successor, he made his way straight towards Alun, who had pleaded for moral support in alien territory. The Cellan-Davieses were also close by, in fact Malcolm was in the middle of asking Alun a question.
'Called what again? Llywelyn what Pugh?'
'I'm not clear, Charlie heard it.'
'It sounded like Caswallon. '
'Oh, Caswallon,' said Malcolm, with a tremendous hissing scrape on the double L. 'Better known as Cassivellaunus. '
'Now you're talking,' said Gwen, nodding busily.
