I said nothing but flinched softly in the dark.
‘She’s in Switzerland, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you miss her a lot?’
‘I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.’
‘That’s lovely. I wish you’d say that about me.’
‘It’s Bogart,
‘It’s still lovely. They say she isn’t coming back.’
This time she felt me flinch.
I said, ‘I don’t care what people say. They don’t know anything.’
‘Yes, people always say horrible things, they pretend they want the best for you but really they want bad things to happen to you so they won’t feel so upset about their own lives.’
We returned to the disco but Vanya and Ffanci had left. We walked out too. ‘Will you walk me to the cab rank?’ she asked and then suddenly her face flashed with scorn. ‘Well of all the . . . You see! I told you he was following me.’ I followed the direction of her gaze and saw Meici Jones standing next to the hamburger van.
‘Go and make him leave me alone, Louie. Please, he gives me the creeps.’
I strode across to Meici Jones. His face was a sea of desolation.
‘You’re a dirty double-crosser!’ he cried. ‘I ought to smash your face.’
‘Don’t bother, it’s not worth the effort.’
‘I saw her first.’
‘We were only talking. Other people are allowed to hold conversations.’
‘You must think I’m stupid.’
‘I do actually.’
Over the past hour my spirits had sunk lower and lower and I no longer had the energy for pretence. I turned to go and said, ‘Just leave her alone, OK? She wants me to tell you, she’s not interested in you. She never was and she never will be. So forget it and scram.’ I was ashamed of how good it felt. It was like pulling the legs off a spider.
‘You’re a dirty double-crosser!’ he cried again.
I looked round. ‘What are you so upset about? Why don’t you play the Glad Game? I’m sad that Arianwen is talking to Louie but I’m glad for her because he’s better looking than me and I’m a creep.’
‘Just you wait! I’ll get you!’
‘What are you going to do? Smother me in the night like you did to Esau?’
For a second he wore the expression of a fawn startled by a noise in the undergrowth. And then a different expression, one of astonished revelation, crept across his face. It was a vile sight. I realised with a sick feeling in my stomach that he had never known, had never suspected the reason why his mother hated him. He gasped twice, choked once, spluttered once, and then clutched at his heart with hands contorted to talons. He spun round and fell to the floor and lay there convulsing in pain. People crowded round him and I told the bouncer to call an ambulance. Arianwen stood next to me resting her head on my shoulder as we waited for the medics to arrive. It wasn’t long. We watched them load Meici into the back of the ambulance. He had an oxygen mask strapped on and his two eyes bulged on either side with hatred or heartbreak; two eyes that were trained the entire time on Arianwen. Then they closed the doors.
The next afternoon an anonymous package was delivered to the office. It was addressed to ‘Louee the dirty double-crosser’ and contained the broken shards of an Airfix model and the charred remains of a correspondence course,
Chapter 15
Two days later, as I drove through Borth at lunchtime, I saw Mrs Mochdre waiting at the bus stop. I stopped and offered her a lift. She hesitated, torn between the agony of putting herself in my debt and the equal displeasure of waiting for a bus. She got in, squirmed in the seat and grimaced an expression of gratitude. I drove off.
‘I heard an interesting thing the other day,’ I said with a false note of cheeriness in my voice. ‘About you and your sister Ffanci Llangollen.’
‘Oh yes?’ Mrs Mochdre peered up at the clear blue sky and claimed to see a cloud. ‘Looks like it might be changing, finally. It will be nice for the garden, bit of rain . . . I expect.’ She sounded unsure and continued watching the sky with a mixture of anxiety and distrust as if the vagaries of summer weather were designed to spite her personally.
I said, ‘I heard you and your sister used to court the same man.’
Her face froze but it was difficult to see whether at the impropriety of the suggestion or because of the tender memory I had brutally dragged up.
‘I don’t know where you heard—’
‘He was the balloon-folder, wasn’t he? He couldn’t choose between you and then whoops-a-daisy! Ffanci Llangollen gets pregnant.’
Mrs Mochdre stared fixedly ahead, glaring.
‘Some people might think there was something a bit quick and convenient about it, almost as if the chap was being given a helping hand to make up his mind.’ I peered across at her, she kept her head fixed staring forward, wearing a face of stone. ‘Perhaps if she wasn’t the prettiest—’
‘My sister was always the pretty one—’
‘Well sometimes it’s not about that, is it? Not always. Maybe if he liked the pretty one but there was something about her elder sister that was . . . was . . . deeper, something he liked and satisfied him and touched him deep down in his soul, well, I can see how the elder one, even if she wasn’t the pretty one, in fact especially if she wasn’t . . . She knew she wouldn’t get many offers in her life, while all through her teens and early twenties she sees the boys rolling up at the door courting her sister and never one for her and all along she has to wear that face of bright airy joy and pretend she is just happy for her fortunate sister . . . that could get a bit wearing after a while. In a situation like that I could see how the elder one might feel aggrieved . . . might feel as if the chap was a worthless chap after—’
‘Don’t you ever say a word against Alfred Walters! Do you hear? Don’t you ever!’
I was stung into silence by the venom of her response. If I was a cop this would be the point where I smiled inwardly and thought, ‘Gotcha! I’ve found the button to press.’ But I didn’t feel like that. I wasn’t a cop, and I never wanted to be. I never wanted to feel triumphant at a moment like this. I said no more and we drove on in awkward silence. Mrs Mochdre had pressed her knuckle into her mouth and remained staring fixedly at the sky. As we drove up towards Commins Coch I shot a glance across. Her eyes were wet. She saw my look and said, ‘Some busybodies oughtn’t to poke their noses into things they don’t understand.’
There was a man and a dog sitting side by side on the beach, facing the waves. I went to join them. It was Uncle Vanya and Clip the stuffed sheepdog from the museum on Terrace Road. The sky was filled with shredded cloud; a strong breeze churned the sea to foam, the surface dancing with seams of gold in the bright late-afternoon light. The breeze was scented with vanilla and stewed tea, and seaweed and vodka. An empty bottle lay at Vanya’s feet and a half-full one stood erect between the paws of Clip. Vanya’s hair was wet.
‘My friend Clip has been explaining everything to me,’ said Vanya. ‘I understand it all now. I see what a terrible waste my life has been. Clip doesn’t say much but the things he says strike home.’
‘Isn’t he cold without his glass case?’
‘Sometimes, Louie, your comments perplex me.’
‘Why did you steal him from the museum?’
‘He wanted to come, I didn’t steal him.’
‘Why is your hair wet? Have you been for a swim?’
‘The man who owns the rock foundry, the one whose son is in a wheelchair, I helped him.’
‘Was he in trouble?’
‘He fetched an ice cream for his son and while he was away the boy dragged himself out of the chair and down the steps to the beach. He crawled on his belly into the sea.’
‘You saved him?’
