‘It’s from the Wild West?’
‘Oh yes. Last of the great outlaws.’
Calamity said, ‘Who?’
He tapped the picture with his index finger. This is Butch Cassidy, and this is the Sundance Kid. The woman is Sundance’s girlfriend, Etta Place. She and Sundance were travelling under the names Mr and Mrs Harry Place. Robert LeRoy Parker is Butch Cassidy – that’s his real name, although he often used the alias Santiago Ryan. DeYoung’s Studio, Lower Broadway, New York City. 1901. This is a famous picture, the one they took before catching the ship to Patagonia.’
Calamity tried to speak but her jaw was too far agape. I curled my index finger and held it gently under her chin, as if coaxing a bird to step on it, and slowly I closed her mouth.
‘Butch Cassidy!’ she gasped. ‘And Sundance!’
‘I thought they went to Bolivia. It was in the movie.’
‘That’s right,’ said Eeyore. ‘In the Hollywood version they go straight to Bolivia and within six months are dead in a blaze of gunfire. In real life they sailed to Buenos Aires on the SS
‘It’s the Pinkertons’ greatest unsolved case,’ said Calamity.
‘What’s unsolved? They died in the marketplace in Bolivia.’
‘The Pinkertons have never accepted that,’ said Eeyore. ‘They think the outlaws faked their own deaths so they could return unmolested to the States. For the Pinkertons the case is still open. But the real mystery is what happened to the girl, Etta Place. She disappears from the historical record not long after this was taken. No one knows what happened to her. Although they say she was carrying Sundance’s child.’
Calamity gulped the remains of her ice cream down in one. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Where to?’
The post office. I’ve got to fax them.’
‘Who?’
‘The Pinkertons.’
She strode off, fired with the conviction of youth. I made to follow her but Sospan called me back. He grabbed my forearm and leaned forward out of the box, looking up and down the Prom as if enemies were all around and the secret he was about to divulge was too precious to risk. ‘I know it’s probably not a good time, what with you worrying about Myfanwy and all that, but if you’re interested, I might be able to get a few tickets for
Chapter 5
TINKER, TAILOR, whalebone-corset maker, rich man, poor man, beggar man, rock maker, druid. They all used to turn up at the Moulin, the nightclub where Myfanwy used to sing; formerly in a basement, now at the end of the Pier; a dark, neon-blue dingle filled with cigarette smoke, whisky fumes, louche trollops in stovepipe hats, and libido on draft. It didn’t really matter what state in life you occupied, as long as you didn’t sit in the druids’ seats. They all came, and Myfanwy sang to them. And because the songs she sang weren’t rude ones, but nice popular anthems detailing the eternally recurring cycle of hearts won and hearts lost, even the ladies from the Sweet Jesus League against Turpitude could come. Just as soon as they had finished protesting outside and excoriating Myfanwy as a harlot straight from Babylon.
Tinker, tailor, seaside-rock maker, crazy golf pro, hobo, clock winder, beggar man, mayor. He came, too, and was humble enough to leave his chain at home. Flickering neon signs fizzed in the rain-drizzled streets: Eats, Whelks 24 hours, liquor and sadness.
Tinker, tailor, mason, Rotarian, hotelier, donkey man and hotdog seller, shepherd, nightwatchmen, and people who are just nobodies. They stand in Peacock’s with their bitter spouses discussing socks. Nobodies who sit on the Prom watching nothing. Did they ever expect it to be like this?
Tinker, gaoler, Soldier for Jesus, librarian, whelk catcher, beggar man, ex-con, bent cop. They all came. And while they danced, while the music played, they could forget for a while; take a trip to the washroom and wash their faces in a tributary of the Lethe. Tinker, tailor, mudlark, warlock, fisherman, stovepipe-hat stockist, effigy maker, gravedigger.
And the people on my client’s chair.
It was a private nursing home paid for by an anonymous benefactor. I didn’t know who; perhaps some high- ranking druid, an admirer from the days when she sang in the Moulin Club; or a member of the town council. For the first two months I had footed the bill but it wasn’t easy. No one ever got rich fighting crime, just ask Eeyore – a cop for thirty years before he became the donkey man; more collars than a Chinese laundry, and he ended up just as poor. Aberystwyth, queen among towns for irony; perhaps nothing was more so than this: that there was so little money to be made in law enforcement when there were so many villains, so many laws to be enforced.
It had been built as a seminary some time earlier in the century. One large grey three-storey block to which a reluctant architect had seemingly had his arm twisted into adding some decoration. He’d probably read all the latest architectural journals and wanted the purity and elegance of Bauhaus, dreamed of winning a major prize somewhere far away and prestigious. But the Church fathers – perhaps fearful of the warlike reputation of the townspeople – insisted on turrets and battlements. So he’d scribbled on a pointless turret, some arched windows and an oaken door studded with iron. Then he quit and caught the train to Shrewsbury. Now it sits serenely in a nice park at the top of a hill overlooking the town. Slate quarries and gorse towards the back, and a paddock of horses. Gorse is not a great thing to have in your garden; it seldom lifts the jaded heart. But every spring it burns with buds of yellow flame, and when you see the same fire reflected in the eyes of a mare aglow with pride for her foal you always wish you’d brought some sugar lumps along.
It was a good place to recuperate. The wind could be bad in winter. It could knock you off your feet sometimes, and rattle the windows so violently it made you stop your darning and turn round to stare anxiously at the panes. Sometimes it howled in a way that was unsettlingly human, as if the wind collected all the voices of wanderers who had been lost in its storms, and replayed them. But it wasn’t always like that, and in all seasons the view was wonderful. It gave you perspective. Instead of being witness to a myriad trivial heartaches and sorrows, betrayals and acts of meanness, you looked down and surveyed the broader sweep: the heroic little town thrust out into the bay, the sea slowly gnawing away at the edges like a mouse with a piece of cheese. From up here you could see the long, straight line of the Prom and the characteristic zig-zag at Castle Point like a cartoon lightning bolt; or, depending on your mood, the valedictory blip on the heart monitor of a man who has just died.
Myfanwy lay in bed, propped up on pillows, asleep. The watery winter sunlight made her cheeks glow like amber. She looked well. Someone had disfigured her chestnut tresses with two childish yellow ribbons. The sort they tie to oak trees when someone comes out of prison. They sat knotted on either side of her head in some strange insult. I knew she would have hated them. They were redundant: it was not possible for her hair to be a mess any more than a lion’s mane can be dishevelled. It was the same colour as the chestnuts in Elm Tree avenue.
Gently, I undid the ribbons and put them on the side table. She had been like this almost four months now. The doctors said there was nothing physically wrong as far as they could see. She just seemed happier asleep. In the moments when she woke up, she was often sullen, and withdrawn, cold almost, like a kid who ate a piece of pie baked by the Snow Queen. I wondered if she blamed me for what had happened in the summer; or resented me for bringing her back from the dream world. Or maybe it was the loss of her voice, her very essence, that had hit her hard. But she looked well today.
I listened to her breathe, watched the gentle rise and fall of the sheets. I smoothed them out and then ruffled them again. Listened to her breathe: like the sea on a windless day, slow and soft and pitched precisely on the threshold of audibility. I pressed the back of my hand to her cheek, like a mother checking the temperature of a pale child, like a boy stealing an apple. And then I leaned forward to kiss her cheek. Strange, the mild sensation of guilt that the motion evoked. As if standing over the sleeping form of one’s girlfriend was a forbidden pleasure. Myfanwy
