From Aberystwyth with Love (14 page)

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 side 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.