had rescued from the dustbin. It had become my oldest friend. Inside it was the meager suit I had worn to my first interview with Barker. Had it only been a week? Somehow, it seemed longer. I changed into my old clothes again. After wearing some of the finest apparel available in London, I saw that the suit looked shabby indeed, mere refuse for the stalls in Petticoat Lane. A pity. I would have liked to own a nice suit in which to be buried.
There was a knock at the door. I was so deep in thought I didn't notice, until it came again. It startled me. Nobody in this household knocked. Barker bellowed, Maccabee barged right in, and Dummolard never came upstairs. I got up and opened the door. It was Mac.
'Mr. Llewelyn, Mr. Barker requests that you join him in the basement.'
'The basement, did you say?'
'Yes, sir.' He bowed and left.
So, that was it, then. I was to be dismissed in the basement, unless he intended to shoot me instead. I would have preferred the office, where it all began, but the basement was as good a place to be sacked as any.
I went down the stairs and opened the door. In the middle of the room, Barker was seated at a small deal table of indeterminate age. The table was without benefit of a tablecloth but was covered with plates of bread, cheese, and a cold joint.
'Yes, sir?' I said. 'You wanted to see me?'
Barker got up and went through a door leading into the lumber room. 'Have a seat. I must say, you had me going,' he said, while I heard him rummaging about. 'I didn't quite know what to make of it. Then I remembered. Your wife passed away a year ago today, didn't she?'
'Yes, sir. How did you know?'
'I went to Oxford that second day, while you were cramming those first books. Interesting reading. Your files, I mean.' He came out again and put two pint glasses on the table. 'Why didn'tЧ My word, what are those rags you're wearing?'
I looked down at my suit. He was right. Compared to what I had been wearing the last week, they were rags. 'My suit, sir. The one you hired me in.'
Barker seemed a bit short-tempered, as I would expect him to be under the circumstances. 'I thought I told Mac to burn those. What are you wearing them for?'
'They seemed as good as any to be sacked in, sir.'
'Sacked? Who said anything about being sacked? Have I told you that you are sacked?'
'No, sir.' I watched him go back into the lumber room again.
'Your records at Oxford were rather vague. The charges were theft and assault, but the full particulars were mislaid. For a city the size of Oxford, I found the constabulary quite bucolic. The sentence seemed very stiff for such a small crime. According to the report, the total worth of the stolen property was exactly one sovereign. Here it is!' He came out with a small barrel, very dusty and cobwebby. 'Give me a hand here, lad.'
I held the barrel, while he pulled the peg and opened the spigot. A brown liquid filled the glass, producing a tan collar on top. It was porter. He transferred the tan froth to his mustache.
'Eminently drinkable,' he pronounced, and poured me a glass.
'What are we doing, sir?'
'That should be obvious. We are getting drunk and hearing the story of your life. Where was I? Yes. You are not the sort to suddenly refuse to do work that is required of you. Something of immense personal import to you made you leave the office suddenly. Obviously, something that happened before your employ, unless, of course, my numerous foibles finally grew to become too great. So, come, lad. Spill it. Confession is good for the soul.'
'But, sir,' I protested. 'I saw you sip at the stout at the pub the other day. It is evident that you dislike it.'
'There you go inferring again, without evidence, Llewelyn. What you have taken for dislike is in fact an overfondness. I could pour this stuff down my throat by the gallon, and did, in fact, during my wilder days. But now I must be abstemious, save upon an extraordinary occasion such as this. Tonight we shall drink ourselves into a stupor, and tomorrow morning conduct ourselves once more as sober men, and this occasion need never be discussed again. So tell it, man, and no blubbering. I can take anything but blubbering. Good porter, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir. Excellent.'
'Mac makes it himself. Never trust a butler that can't make first-rate spirits.'
'I shall remember that.' I was trying to put together all the disjointed thoughts in my head and to be coherent. This was a subject I had never spoken of with anyone before. I wanted to get it right.
'Well, sir, I first met my wifeЧ'
'No, no,' Barker broke in. 'You're making a hash of it already. Go back to the beginning, Thomas. Tell me about your family and your village.'
I took another sip of the porter, then a large gulp. I'd never had the luxury of being drunk in my entire life, but this seemed as good a time as any.
21
I was born in Cwmbran,in Gwent,sir, the sixth of nine children, and the fourth son. My father was a miner, and my mother took in wash to make ends meet, not that they ever did. We also had a grandfather living with us, my mum's dad, who was retired from the mines after a lifetime underground. He used to take us on long walks around the hills, as a means of coughing up fifty years' worth of coal dust from his lungs. His years in the hole were secondary in his mind, and in that of the town. He was primarily a bard. The townfolk were proud of old Ioan Llewelyn, for he'd won several eisteddfods, storytelling competitions, traveling as far as Cardiff. Granddad used to tell us children stories on our long walks, to entertain us and to keep his skills sharp, and so I grew up on the old tales of Pwyll and Math, and the brave queen, Rhiannon. The stories meant little to my brothers and sisters but were all the world to me. When I was younger, I was sure they were all true, as if they'd just happened. I trembled in terror at the thought of the dark underworld of Annwn more than any glimpse of Hell's fire and brimstone imparted to us children by our Methodist minister. But I was nothing special, just number six of the Llewelyn brood, destined for the coal mines, a family distinct only because my grandfather chose to spell the family name a little differently from the established and royal spelling.
'The first inkling that I was a little different from my family and friends occurred in my fifth year of schooling, when I began to set some of my grandfather's tales down in class for my teacher. Mr. Wynn was something of a hedge bard himself, and he was impressed more by my memory than my syntax. He pushed me to learn English as well as Welsh and drilled me in all the rules of grammar and punctuation. He also undertook to teach me elocution, an hour after school twice a week. In lieu of any payment, I furnished an introduction to my grandfather, and the two gentlemen who were my mentors became fast friends. Mr. Wynn himself set down all my grandfather's tales verbatim, and they were published in Cardiff shortly before Granddad passed away that year. By that time, everyone was convinced that my grandfather's 'gift' had been passed down to me.
'Under my tutor's encouragement, I entered a countywide eisteddfod when I was but twelve. I didn't win, of course, for who would have presented an award to little Number Six, the collier's boy? However, my tale did come to the attention of Lord Glendenning, who was most impressed to have a savant in his district. With Mr. Wynn's encouragement, His Lordship agreed to sponsor my education at a public school in Cardiff. I'll never forget the day I was seen off at our little station by my parents, in the best clothes cobbled together from the family's wardrobe.' I paused for a moment. 'Could I have a bit of that cheese, there?'
Barker cut a thick slice of Stilton for me and put it on a plate, along with some Huntly biscuits. I poured another glass from the cask. Storytelling is thirsty work.
'In my new school, I kept to myself as much as possible and strove to excel at my schoolwork. I had few friends, for I was a poor lad among all those rich merchants' sons. I did make one friend, though, an English lad named Bryan Pill. It was Pill who introduced me to English literature, which is to say, the modern literary journals: Blackwood's, Cassall's, Pearson's, and others. I became as much addicted to them as he. In my naivety, I began to send them odd pieces of prose, poetry, reviews, and the like. In their complete ignorance of the fact that I was but
