From Aberystwyth with Love

called caawl. I am at my wit’s end, whatever shall we do?” What a completely brilliant and totally crazy idea! Who knows whether such a subterfuge could ever have hoped to work? But Fate was not kind to the ingenious Lara. Shortly after Vanya returned home Dame Fortune inserted another player into the scene: Laika, the first dog in space. Gethsemane was fascinated by Laika and spent entire days glued to the collective TV set. Laika, the sweet yapping mongrel, staring out at us from her goldfish-bowl helmet, her eyes bright pools of trust for the masters who had put her in this strange contraption, and who had only ever shown her kindness . . . Laika sitting wearing a soiled nappy stencilled with the motif of the glorious Soviet Space Command. But as you know, Laika died up there above the clouds. Of heat exhaustion, they said. When news of her death broke, Gethsemane was inconsolable, and Vanya, unable to take the tantrums of his daughter, hit the bottle. He took to beating his wife, perhaps in some deep dark recess of his heart he blamed her or suspected that she had – in some way he was unable to divine – been responsible for the terrible turn of events that had so ruined his happiness. One night, he hit his wife a little too hard and that was that. He found himself behind bars for murder and the girl was taken into care. There the truth slowly emerged. It would have been a trivial story but for a twist to the tale that assumed dimensions of State security. Laika, you see, had been recruited for her heroic role during the visit to our town of Premier Nikita Khrushchev. A stray was presented to Khrushchev during a visit to Hughesovka and he in turn presented it to the Space Programme. But it turned out that the puppy belonged to Gethsemane and had followed her from Wales by the same route; no doubt by following the scent. Imagine it! Laika, the national hero, the pride and joy of our nation and proof to the world of our technological and moral ascendancy over the United States, was not a Russian dog as we assumed, but was Welsh. The puppy of Clip the sheepdog, now housed in your museum on Terrace Road. For the sake of our national honour all traces of this fact were duly expunged from the historical record.’

‘What became of Gethsemane?’

‘I do not know. In the fifties, after they started emptying the camps, there were many people moving to and fro across our vast land; so many fates and tragedies. Who knows where she ended up? She may be dead but there is no reason to suppose it. I like to think she is still alive, that she journeyed along the same railway line to Vladivostok that her father took before her and that somewhere along the way, perhaps some insignificant wayside halt, she got off the train. Perhaps there she found a man and a home and had children of her own; perhaps there she found that most ardently coveted of treasures, human felicity.’

‘How did Natasha know I was travelling on the Orient Express with the photo?’

‘Mooncalf told us, of course. There is a substantial reward available for information leading to the acquisition of these photos. We do a lot of business with Mr Mooncalf. He is a great man.’

‘So people keep telling me. Why didn’t he try and steal it from me in Aberystwyth?’

‘Mr Mooncalf is an honest man, not a common thief!’

‘Why not simply wait until I arrived in Hughesovka and arrest me?’

Pyotr looked apologetic. ‘Call it bureaucratic inertia, if you like. These things have always been arranged this way. Reform is long overdue but who wants to throw thousands of honey-trappers out of work?’

Calamity took me into the gallery and showed me the exhibits. The room occupied the height of three ordinary floors and was open to the skylights high in the ceiling. It was like the nave of a vast cathedral, one in which the false god of Aberystwyth had been worshipped for a while before the people forsook the old ways. Most of the hall was in darkness, but occasional shafts of dawn light illuminated areas like sunlit clearings in a dark wood. Calamity led me to a tableau representing, according to the dusty sign, a typical Welsh serf’s dwelling from the 1950s. There was a hearthside and a false roof of low timbers. Two rocking chairs were drawn up before the fireside. There were brass fire-irons, a soot-blackened kettle and teapot complete with tea cosy. Next to the fireside was a pen for the livestock which, it was said, wintered in the same quarters. Another tableau entitled ‘Mysticism and Superstition’ detailed, through life-size waxwork figures, the three-way tug of love for the serf’s soul between the Church, the spiritualist and the dispenser of opiate for the masses in cornets, the ice-cream vendor. Next to this was a stack of framed photos recording the historic bank holiday food riots. Starving peasants dressed as Teddy boys fought with members of the local constabulary, using deckchairs as weapons. Calamity led me to a traditional Welsh dresser with a large cupboard.

‘This is the dresser that Gethsemane stowed away in.’

‘How do you know?’

‘They found out when she went to the remote-viewing school.’

‘Do we know who it belonged to?’

She looked at me with excitement gleaming in her eyes. ‘Yes.’ She opened a drawer and took out a photo. ‘Mrs Mochdre,’ said Calamity. ‘It was her Welsh dresser.’ I turned my gaze from the picture and looked at Calamity and we stood in silence, both host to a slight tingling sensation that signalled the end of a long treasure hunt. ‘Her own sister,’ she added.

I made a clicking sound in my throat that signified bafflement at the cabbalistic ways of fate. I put the photo under my arm. ‘I guess we are allowed to keep it.’

Calamity carried on walking down the aisle with me following. The golden light grew stronger, mysterious objects glittered, it was as if we were walking into the belly of a mountain towards a dragon’s treasure. We reached the end of the aisle and entered a golden cavern containing a reconstruction of the Pier amusement arcade from the late 1950s. A shaft of light from a skylight above us danced on the polished chrome and shiny glass of the machines. There was a laughing policeman, a mechanical gypsy fortune-teller and a machine for recording your own voice and cutting a vinyl disc. Next to that was a bingo console. Ghostly voices echoed down the years. I recited, ‘Eyes down, look in . . . first on the red, it’s key of the door two and one, twenty-one. Next up it’s on the blue, droopy drawers or all the fours, forty-four! Remember, ladies and gentlemen, any row along the top or down the sides, or from corner to corner. Next up it’s on the white, ooh! Never been kissed, it’s sweet sixteen, one and six, sixteen. Following that, Kelly’s eye all on its own, number one!’

‘Bingo!’ shouted Calamity.

I smiled. ‘Sorry, chum, the authorities don’t seem to have acquired the prizes. No Roy Rogers hat for you.’

‘No, I mean bingo! As in, bingo!’

‘I know, but  . . .’

‘No, not bingo I’ve won a prize, but bingo! As in eureka!’

‘I don’t follow.’

Calamity put her hands on my forearm as if to make sure I was listening and then said slowly, ‘I’ve worked out the aural signature on the seance tape.’

‘You have?’

She twisted and pointed at the machine for cutting your own vinyl record. ‘Mrs Mochdre made a recording on that. Remember the maniacal laughter we heard in the background? It’s the laughing policeman. The ghoulish squeals are the seagulls. And the bit we thought was French, quelle ee something? It’s Kelly’s eye, the bingo call. On the morning before Gethsemane disappeared Mrs Mochdre took her to Aberystwyth to buy a birthday present for her mum. They could have gone to the Pier and made a recording. Then Mrs Mochdre kept it and played it secretly the following year at a seance.’

‘Or maybe she didn’t really play it at the seance, maybe there wasn’t a seance, she just made it up.’

‘That’s right. And remember Eeyore saying that he arrested Mrs Mochdre once for smashing up the new gypsy fortune-teller? Look! This one has been repaired.’ I looked and beheld. Calamity was right: the gypsy’s face had dents in it. Up in the sky above the museum a cloud moved, the shaft of light, refracted by the cloud, grew suddenly stronger. It illuminated Calamity’s face and made her glow like the icon of a saint. ‘It’s all here!’ she said with breathless excitement. ‘It all fits. Mrs Mochdre was jealous of her sister marrying the balloon-folder. Maybe she made the recording and then when Gethsemane disappeared kept hold of it. The following year she sends it to spite her.’

‘I can’t believe she would put Gethsemane in the cupboard and send her off to Hughesovka.’

‘It’s her cupboard.’

‘That doesn’t prove it was her who did it.’

‘No.’

‘Anyone could have done it.’

‘Yes, or she could just have been hiding in the dresser. All the same, it all points to Mrs Mochdre.’