From Aberystwyth with Love an-5 Read online

  I grinned, it was impossible not to. If this was superseding the paradigm it was fun. ‘And then what happens?’

  ‘We bust her. We tell her we are detectives and threaten to nick her under the illegal spirits act or something. Then we offer to cut her a deal: we play the tape and ask her where it was made; if she co-operates we let her walk.’

  Our attention was distracted by a strange clumping sound in the stairwell. There were footsteps, then a clump, then more footsteps. We listened intently, holding our breath as the sound got closer and closer. Finally an old woman appeared in the doorway, leaning her weight on an aluminium walking stick. She wore a frock patterned with sunflowers, and apricot-coloured stockings; there were bandages on both her swollen ankles. She stopped, paused to catch her breath and said, ‘I’m Ffanci Llangollen.’

  Evening had fallen with a melancholy so soft one could almost hear a bugle playing in a distant shire. Fog wafted in from the bay, foreshortening visibility, muffling the stars; the sea became a millpond of grey-green milk. Sospan was starting to pack up. The blackboard on the counter listed the special as Fish Milt Sundae and it was evident that the original price had been rubbed out and replaced with another more tempting one. Ffanci clutched Calamity’s forearm to steady herself and stared at the kiosk with a look that suggested it had been years since she last treated herself to an ice cream; years during which, perhaps, she had assumed they were forbidden to people over the age of ten.

  ‘Three day-returns to the Promised Land,’ I said.

  Sospan pulled a wan face.

  ‘That’s a tall order, Mr Knight. Taller than usual.’

  ‘I thought it was your speciality.’

  ‘Tickets to paradise I dispense, not the Promised Land.’ He walked off to serve another customer as if the distinction was self-explanatory.

  ‘What did she look like?’ said Ffanci Llangollen. ‘The man at the police station told me it was you who found the hat.’

  I turned to stare at her. She had a soft face, a kind face, but one which was etched with the years of travelling and perhaps the strain of relighting a candle of hope every morning.

  ‘She had a blue pinafore dress,’ I said, ‘over a white blouse, her hair was auburn, I think, shoulder length . . .’

  ‘What about her eyes?’ said Ffanci impatiently.

  ‘I can’t remember the colour but they sparkled like . . . like . . .’

  ‘Mischievously, like an imp?’ said Ffanci, and without waiting for me to answer, said, ‘Yes, it’s her. I knew it. Finally, I can rest.’

  Sospan returned. ‘Is there a difference?’ I said to him.

  ‘Between what?’

  ‘Paradise and promised lands.’

  ‘There’s a world of difference. Promised lands are illusions, born of the failure to understand the central problem of the human condition, namely that dissatisfactions are not the result of physical geography but rather the geography of the soul. Paradise, on the other hand, is something we have lost, a happy dell from which we have been expelled, and to which we yearn to return.’

  ‘And your ice cream facilitates a temporary return to this lost paradise?’

  ‘Ice cream is the vehicle, but the true conduit is the vanilla. A remarkable product: an orchid containing in its flower both the male and female private parts, with a little vegetable curtain between them to prevent hanky-panky. Vanilla is from Tahiti which furnishes us with the one indisputable instance in the history of the world of men finding true paradise.’

  ‘In Tahiti?’

  ‘The vanilla-scented isle of dreams. The first European sailors to set foot there discovered it in a sea fog not dissimilar to the one we have here this evening. The scent of vanilla drifted to them through the fog, and they heard the sound of women singing. When the fog burned off the mariners found themselves in a bay more beautiful than any they had seen before: a lush golden-green perfumed paradise. All around them were little canoes in which stood maidens wearing petticoats of paper, playing songs on conches. Then, upon a hidden signal, they let their paper petticoats fall and revealed themselves to the men who all cheered. They spent the next month making love and all the girls wanted in return for their favours was a ship’s nail.’ Sospan paused in the action of serving the ice as if temporarily overpowered by anguish.

  ‘Maybe you should go there,’ said Calamity.

  ‘Alas, Calamity, my first loyalty is to my box.’

  ‘Have you never been tempted,’ I said, ‘to find a little maiden to play the conch to you?’

  Sospan looked thoughtful and a distant look entered his eyes. ‘There was a girl once . . . but it was not meant to be.’

  ‘But there are other girls,’ I said. ‘There are lots of nice girls in Aberystwyth.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. When a man takes the ice-cream orders, he shapes his entire life for better or ill, there is no turning back. I won’t pretend that I don’t occasionally dream of how it might have been; in autumn sometimes at the end of the season, when we take in the first delivery of coal for the coming winter, and the traffic at the kiosk drops off . . . I sometimes think how nice it would be to arrive home and . . . and . . . you know how it is when you open the door and smell that peculiar smell that belongs to a house wherein is found love? I sometimes picture her standing there, my girl, she kisses me and asks how my day at the box was. I kiss her back and bend down and sweep my little son into my arms and his little eyes sparkle because he loves me and especially loves my smell of vanilla.’

  ‘I don’t see why you can’t sell ice cream and have a family,’ said Calamity.

  Sospan looked flustered. ‘It’s not as simple as that, Calamity, it’s . . . hard to . . . one day you will understand.’

  ‘They also serve who only stand and scoop,’ I said in a lame attempt to lift his spirits. He did not answer, but stared into space wearing a pained expression.

  We stopped to watch as an old man glided past pushing someone in a wheelchair. The man was wearing mustard-coloured tartan drainpipe trousers, at half mast on his legs, and a moth-eaten rain-coloured frock coat. His hair was long and white and thin, turning up at the collar in untidy curls. It was Ephraim Barnaby V, the owner of the rock emporium. His son Gomer, sitting in the wheelchair, was in his late fifties, but he did not look like a man of that age. Instead he looked like a goblin foetus: ageless, shrivelled, skinny and bonier than a kipper.

  Ffanci Llangollen gasped and said in a fierce whisper, ‘It’s Gomer Barnaby! Went missing the same day as Gethsemane.’

  ‘Hasn’t spoken or walked since the day,’ said Sospan.

  Calamity and I turned to him, and, fancying himself in possession of privileged information, he warmed to his theme. ‘They found him wandering in a daze among the abandoned houses of Abercuawg, his wits all gone.’

  ‘They say he lost his teeth, too,’ I said.

  ‘All broken,’ said Sospan. ‘No one knows what happened, and he has never been able to say.’

  ‘I heard he saw a troll,’ said Calamity.

  Ephraim Barnaby wheeled his son past the children’s paddling pool and out on to the wooden jetty where the council posted the tide tables. He pushed to the very end and there they remained in poses of utter tranquillity, motionless as men turned to stone by sorcery.

  Sospan, mindful that this sudden image of unmerited suffering had thrown a shadow over the sacrament of vanilla-taking, spoke to break the spell. ‘So, are you going anywhere nice for your holidays?’

  ‘We may be going to Hughesovka,’ said Calamity.

  Sospan nodded as if pleased by our choice. ‘You must look up my cousin.’

  ‘It’s only a sort of long shot,’ I said. ‘We’re not really likely to be going.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time there, just so long as you don’t try and save money by purchasing the tickets from Mooncalf.’

  ‘Is that not a good idea?’ asked Calamity.

  ‘You know Mooncalf, he’ll have you on a si
de trip to Romania or something. My grandfather gave me two pieces of advice when he was on his deathbed. Always polish the heels as well as the toes, he said, and never delegate your travel arrangements to Mooncalf & Sons. I have followed both these injunctions to the letter all my life and I have never regretted it.’

  Calamity looked downcast. ‘I’m sure it’s OK now, Transylvania has changed a lot.’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ said Sospan.

  Ffanci Llangollen put her hand on my arm. ‘Mr Knight, won’t you tell me about the case you are investigating?’

  I wondered what to tell her.

  ‘I know you will deny you are on one, the policeman told me you wouldn’t say. He said you wouldn’t tell him but you might tell me. Won’t you tell me?’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said distantly, ‘it isn’t.’

  ‘I meant—’

  ‘I know what you meant.’

  ‘Let me talk to someone first, there’s someone I have to ask . . . Where can I find you?’

  ‘Either in the public shelter or on one of the benches near the bandstand. I sit there usually. I won’t go far, don’t worry.’ She turned to leave and, remembering something, took out a letter and gave it to me. ‘I found this on your mat downstairs. Hand-delivered.’

  We watched her amble slowly away into the fog. I opened the letter. It was from Meici Jones, an invitation to his birthday party the next day.

  Chapter 10

  Calamity sucked the dregs from her cornet, threw it in the bin, and then sucked the sweetness from her fingers. ‘Once upon a time in Abercuawg,’ she said, ‘there lived a balloon-folder called Alfred. He fancied two girls and because he couldn’t decide which one he liked best he courted them both. The girls were Ffanci Llangollen and her sister Mrs Mochdre. Then one day Ffanci Llangollen got pregnant and this helped the balloon-folder make up his mind. He proposed to Ffanci. Some time later, Gethsemane was born. When she reached the age of eight she went out one morning with her auntie, Mrs Mochdre, to buy a birthday present for her mum. After lunch they returned to Abercuawg and she went out to play and disappeared. Someone saw a local hoodlum called Goldilocks burying something in his garden that night and it turned out to be one of Gethsemane’s shoes. He was arrested and charged with murder. A week later Mrs Mochdre married the Witchfinder, a man she hated. On the same day that Gethsemane disappeared they found Gomer Barnaby, the heir to the Barnaby & Merlin rock fortune, wandering around in distress with all his teeth broken and behaving sort of cuckoo. He remained cuckoo for the rest of his life. A year later, someone sent a tape made at a séance in which Gethsemane allegedly turned up to wish her mum a happy birthday. Not long after that the spirit of Gethsemane turned up in Hughesovka. I guess I don’t need to go into the troll bride stuff?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘Thirty years later the town reappeared during a drought and two private detectives investigating a strange case of an imaginary friend in Hughesovka stumbled upon a girl who ran away leaving behind a hat with the name of Gethsemane Walters inside. There were some students painting nearby. Not long after that two of the students were found dead with all their teeth broken. The third is missing. Have I forgotten anything?’

  ‘I think that covers everything. What’s our next move?’

  ‘We’ve got a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. In the morning we go to see the spiritualist and after that we do a tour of the rock foundry, see if we can talk to the typographer; they say he used to be in the Slaughterhouse Mob. Oh yeah, and we will need to pick up a present, maybe an Airfix model or something.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Meici Jones’s birthday,’ said Calamity.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be going to that . . .’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t like him.’

  ‘That’s not the point, this is business. I thought you could do some digging, you know, about the games teachers in his family.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘We’re supposed to be superseding the paradigm, remember? It would be unprofessional not to go.’

  I knew there must be a good answer to that but before I could think of it my father, Eeyore, appeared with the night mail. There was just one donkey for the last ride. The last traverse was the one that symbolically closed the shutters of the town: a gentle clip-clop of hooves that signalled the time had come to put empty milk bottles on the step, release cats for their night’s mischief, and double-bolt the door against the hobgoblins of the coming dark.

  ‘We’re going to see Vlad the Impaler,’ said Calamity. ‘We’ll probably come back with a couple of tooth marks in our necks.’

  ‘Dad doesn’t believe in nonsense like that.’

  ‘I wish I didn’t, son, I wish I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh, Dad!’

  Eeyore looked sombre. ‘Vlad the Impaler is no friend of those who ply the ancient trade of the seaside donkey.’ His gaze became distant, but focussed as if remembering an ancient wrong done to the men of the donkeys by the old Romanian prince.

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Calamity.

  ‘It’s just make-believe, isn’t it?’ I said.

  Eeyore shook his head sadly. ‘There is nothing make-believe about the evil he did to poor Brother Hans.’ He stopped and pursed his brow as if even over the distance of five centuries the wound was still tender. We paused.

  Sospan was so gripped that he was leaning as far out of his box as he could without actually falling. He bored his gaze into the silent Eeyore. ‘What did he do?’ he spluttered.

  Eeyore adopted the attitude of a story-teller who had been waiting for the prompt. ‘Despite what some people will tell you, Vlad the Impaler was a real historical figure. A tyrannical prince who ruled in Walachia in the fifteenth century. Dracula was one of his nicknames, it means devil or dragon. The stuff about vampires is nonsense, of course . . .’

  Sospan looked disappointed.

  ‘Probably an embroidered folk memory of his bloodthirsty exploits. He used to dip his bread in his victim’s blood which may account for the blood-drinking stories. And there are lots of bats in that region of Walachia and Transylvania, and they carry rabies. It’s not unknown for someone bitten and infected with rabies to run mad and even try to bite someone else, so you can see how easily the idea could have originated.’

  ‘And sticking stakes in the heart could have come from the impaling,’ added Calamity knowledgeably.

  ‘I thought you said they stuck them up the “you know what”,’ I said.

  Calamity turned expectantly to Eeyore.

  ‘Oh, they stuck them in all sorts of places,’ he said. ‘Regions of the body that it really wouldn’t do for me to mention. In fact, given the lateness of the hour . . .’ He raised an arm in a theatrical gesture towards the foggy coast in which the setting sun appeared diffused and vague, more as a bloodstain than a disk. ‘I really shouldn’t even be telling it now.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Sospan, ‘tell us about Brother Hans. I’ll give you a free ice cream.’ I expected Eeyore to dismiss the offer, but surprisingly he didn’t. Sospan prepared a ninety-nine and handed it to Eeyore. It looked a bit smaller than the normal ones. ‘Don’t tell anyone, mind,’ he said.

  Eeyore took a lick and resumed his tale. ‘This Vlad the Impaler, you see, was an astonishingly bloodthirsty prince. He was crazy about impaling. He did it by the thousands. One time he impaled twenty thousand peasants and soldiers and sat down among the forest of pales to eat his dinner. On another occasion an invading Turkish sultan marched his army into a narrow gorge filled with thousands of rotting corpses impaled there. They had been there for months and blackbirds were nesting in the ribcages. The sultan was so appalled and dismayed that he took his army straight back to Constantinople. Vlad was truly wicked. He impaled everybody: mothers nursing infants, old men and children, he even impaled sucklings on to their mothers’ breasts. Others he boiled alive, or skinned alive, or disembowelled. If he
needed to send a dispatch detailing the progress of a war he would send off bags filled with ears and noses. He even nailed one man’s hat to his head. All these tales were recorded in the monasteries, you see, and this is where Brother Hans, who has since become the Patron Saint of Seaside Donkeys, comes into the story. It so happened that there were three monks of the Benedictine order: Brother Michael, Brother Jacob and Brother Hans – who was their porter. For some reason or other they were forced into exile and crossed the Danube into Walachia. They found asylum in a Franciscan monastery at Tîrgoviste, which happened to be just down the road from Vlad the Impaler’s palace. One day, purely by chance, they ran into Vlad and he invited them back to the palace. The funny thing was, although he was infamous throughout the land for performing these unspeakable cruelties, he was also at heart a religious man and was deeply concerned about the prospects for his eternal soul. So he questioned the monks. First he asked Brother Michael whether it would be possible for him, in spite of everything that he had done, to attain salvation. Brother Michael was only too keenly aware of the fate that automatically befell anyone who upset the prince. Who would tell the truth to such a monster? So Brother Michael said, “But of course you can attain salvation. The Lord is infinitely merciful and I can see no reason why you should not be forgiven.” That was all right, as far as it went, but Vlad was no fool, he knew well it would take a brave or foolhardy man to insult him. So he put the same question to Brother Jacob and got a similar reply. Finally he asked Brother Hans what he thought. This man was made of sterner stuff than his two companions and he told him straight. “Are you nuts?” he said. “You haven’t got a hope of salvation, you are the most evil, cruel, bloodthirsty tyrant who ever lived; you are so terrible that probably even the Devil won’t want you, so much innocent blood have you shed.” And he stopped and added, “I know you will stick me on one of your pales for this, but if that is to be my fate I ask that you do me the honour of letting me finish my tale before you kill me.” And Vlad the Impaler said, “Say your piece to the end, I won’t cut off a syllable and will lay no hand of violence to your person until you have done.” Whereupon Brother Hans gave old Vlad the Impaler an ear-bashing the like of which it is utterly certain no one else in all his life had the temerity to address to him. “You,” he said, “are the most unspeakable, cruel, barbarous, bloodthirsty, inhuman, tyrannical monster who ever defiled the sweet face of the earth. You bathe in the blood of innocents, of children and their mothers, of old and young, none of whom ever did you harm. Heaven stops its nose at your works. What right do you take to impale mothers heavy with children in their bellies, and to stick your wicked spikes through them? Answer me, I demand it of you!” And Vlad the Impaler was so astonished to hear these words, curses such as no man had ever dared utter in his presence, that he answered him. He told him, “It is not mere wanton delight in the pain and suffering that causes me to do these things, although I do admit that there are few things I enjoy more in life than to sit down and dine in a field filled with the impaled bodies of my enemies and to watch my friends the blackbirds eat their dinner at the same time, pecking the weeping eyes from the sockets. It is not mere lust and joy for its own sake but a matter of practical politics. Just as the farmer who clears weeds from his land must also take great care to pull up the roots or assuredly the weeds will return, so I, the Prince, must kill the children of my enemies or they will surely return one day to avenge themselves upon the cruel tyrant who delivered their mothers and fathers to such a wretched death.” On hearing this, Brother Hans cried out, “You fool! You madman! How can you even imagine for a second that the Lord will forgive you? He will condemn you without mercy to a life of everlasting torment, a thousand times crueller than the torments you have inflicted on your victims in this life.” At that point, Vlad could take it no more. He lunged out and grabbed the monk and threw him to the floor. In a bloodthirsty rage more terrible than any of the courtiers had ever seen before, he jumped on to the monk and stabbed him to death with a series of frenzied knife blows to the head. Before long the floor was slippery with the monk’s spilled blood, and Vlad the Impaler lay exhausted in a heap upon the now-dead body of Brother Hans. Vlad dragged himself up to his feet, paused to reflect, and repented his quick anger. Because in so doing he had cheated himself of his one great pleasure in life: the opportunity to impale an enemy. And it was at this point, as he stood there panting above the corpse of noble Brother Hans, that he committed the crime for which he will never be forgiven, the one that will stain the clay until Judgment Day long after the blood of all the other impaled victims has been washed away by the tears and rain. He looked around wildly, mad for something to impale. And that was when his eyes lighted on Brother Hans’s only possession. His donkey.’