store and the far-off hum of the ocean beyond the dunes. The rain had stopped. It was cold and damp inside the caravan, but the camping-gas heater soon filled the interior with a cosy yellow warmth. The lamps sighed as they burned. Myfanwy sat at the horse-shoe arrangement of seats at the end, rested her elbows on the Formica table- top and buried her head wearily in her hands. I made two cups of packet soup in the kitchenette, poured a shot of rum into each, and took them over to the table. Myfanwy had found the ludo and was setting out the counters.
'Suppose you tell me about Brainbocs.'
She rolled the dice. Four and a five; you needed a six to start.
'What do you mean?'
I rolled a six and a one, and set off on my journey around the board. How many other people, honeymooners and young families, had made the same journey as the rain swept in from the sea and pounded on the plywood roof of their shoebox on wheels? Families who had driven for two or three hours, stopping occasionally for puking children, to this world of gorse and marram grass, dunes and bingo and fish and chips.
'Your cousin's dead, Myfanwy. Don't you think it's time to stop playing games?'
She picked up the dice and shook. They made a hollow clip-clopping sound inside the cup.
'I'm not playing games.'
'You haven't been straight with me.' Clip-clop, four and three.
'I've told you everything I know.' Double six. 'Oooh!'
I put my hand palm down on the counters before she could move them.
'You didn't tell me you and Brainbocs were lovers.'
It caught her by surprise and she bit her lip. 'We weren't.'
'That's not what I hear.'
'Well whoever told you that was a liar. We weren't lovers. I mean we didn't you know ... do it.'
'What did you do?'
'Nothing. Honest.'
'Why don't you tell me about it?'
'It's not like you think.'
'You don't know what I think.'
'We weren't lovers, he just had this thing about me. All through school he'd had a thing about me; a lot of boys did. It's not a crime.'
'No,' I said gently, 'but a crime has been committed, and now you have to be straight with me.'
Clip-clop, double five. She paused. 'It started just after I took the job at the Moulin - when he found out about it he was really upset. He came down one night but they wouldn't let him in. So he waited outside. I left that night with a gentleman and I saw Brainbocs just as I got into the car. He was standing in the doorway of Army Surplice and staring like he'd seen a ghost. The next night he was there again. And the next. It came to be a pattern: he'd come down and try to get in, they wouldn't let him, and then he'd spend the rest of the evening standing outside. At first the bouncers tried to frighten him away. But he didn't seem to care. I think he knew there wasn't much they could do to a poor lame boy. When it rained he stood there in the rain, soaked and not even shivering. Eventually the boss asked me to go and speak to him. So I did.'
'When did all this happen?'
The Legendary Welsh Chanteuse stuck her tongue into one cheek like a schoolgirl doing a hard sum.
'It started last autumn. At Christmas be stopped coming. Then at Easter he ... he died.'
I nodded and wondered at the casual precision with which she recited the dates. Wasn't it all a bit late in the day for a revelation such as this?
'So what happened when they sent you out to speak to him?'
'He said, 'Myfanwy, please don't do this.' I said, 'Do what?' (like I didn't know); and he said, 'Work in this establishment.' Just like that, 'Work in this establishment', like he was straight out of
'And then what?'
She sighed and lowered her eyes back to the board. 'So I said, 'What do you want?' And he didn't really say anything for a long time. He just kept looking at me like he wanted me to know but didn't want to say it. So I said it again, 'What do you want? I've got to go back to work.' And then it started to rain and I told him again I really had to go back inside. And then he put his hand on my arm. A hand like a girl's and he said, 'Myfanwy, I love you.' Just like that, and I laughed. And then when I saw the look on his face, I sort of stopped laughing. He looked like . . .' The words trailed off. Myfanwy's jaw moved silently as she struggled to find an expression appropriate for the abyss of misery to which her careless laugh had condemned the lame, unworldly scholar. But she couldn't. There was no experience in her carefree life to match his despair. How did I know? I, who had never met Brainbocs, and had never observed the scene in the rain outside the Moulin Goch? Oh, I knew. I just knew.
'Anyway,' she said finally, 'he looked really hurt.'
Clip-clop, one and five.
'And he asked me if he could buy me an ice cream the next day after he finished school. At first I said no. And then he pleaded and still I said no. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I just knew that if I said yes, that look in his eyes, I just knew it would come to no good. Then Mr Jenkins appeared in the doorway across the road and tapped his watch. I said again that I had to go. And again he begged me to have an ice cream with him. And then something awful happened.'
She looked up from the board and straight at me.
'Yes?'
'He started unbuckling that metal thing he has on his leg. The what's-it-called?'
'Calliper?'
'And I said, 'Dai what are you doing?' And he said he was going on his knees!'
I shook my head in sympathy at the sad scene.
'So of course I agreed to have an ice cream. But only on condition, I said, that he never came waiting outside the Club like this again and that he didn't go round telling everyone he was my boyfriend, just because I had an ice cream with him.'
'Did he agree?'
'Yes. Next day I met him at Sospan's, but it was a cold day and so we went to the Seaside Rock Cafe and over a plate of humbug rock he proposed. He asked me to marry him. I told him not to be so stupid. And he said, 'It's my leg isn't it?' I said, 'No, of course not.' And then he said something strange. He said, 'Myfanwy, what is the one thing you want more than anything in this world?' And I said 'Nothing.' But he wouldn't listen. He said there must be something I wanted. He said I must have a dream. I said no. And he said everybody, even a beggar, has a dream. But again I said no. And he went all quiet. Paid for the rock and left. That was in November, and weeks went by and I never saw him. Then as I left the Club on Christmas Eve, there he was again standing in the doorway as the snow fell. And do you know what?'
I raised my eyebrows.
'He had one of my school essays with him. From long ago. I hadn't a clue where he got it. It was about how it had been my dream to sing in the opera in Patagonia, and how I would give my hand in marriage to the man who made my dream come true. I'd forgotten I'd written it. And he held it under my nose and said, 'See, you have a dream!' And I laughed sarcastically and said, 'No, David, I had a dream. I don't have a dream any more. Now I'm just a Moulin girl with no time for dreams.' Then he said, 'One day I will make your dream come true, and then you will marry me.' I was going to laugh but the look in his eyes . . . well I knew I shouldn't. So I just stared at him. And then he walked away. That was the last I saw of him. Limping off into the snow on Christmas Eve. Then a few weeks later a package arrived for me. There was no letter, just the essay. All about Cantref-y-Gwaelod; I didn't even bother reading it. Then one day I read that he'd been killed.'
'And what did you do with the essay?'
'I gave it to Evans the Boot.'
*
It was sometime between two and three when I pulled up outside the Orthopaedic Boot store on Canticle Street. I was dog-tired and made only the vaguest attempt at parking straight before climbing the sad wooden stairs to my office. It was like climbing Everest. I didn't bother changing, just collapsed on to the bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was asleep and as soon as that happened the phone rang.
