Limestone Man (6 page)

The idea scared him. But at once he was putting on his coat, calling down he'd be back soon. Slamming the front door.

Yes, he was going to see the whale. While the tide and the light allowed he was going to see the whale.

He even made up a song as he walked.

Dare not fail

To see the whale.

The whale that had been in the evening paper. It was a small whale, yet weighed an estimated ten tons. There it waited on the rocks at Caib Caves. Piebald, wedged in a crevice.

From the photograph Parry imagined a heap of melting ice, such as fishmongers tipped out in the evenings. To smoke in the gutters of The Caib, soon yellow with dogpiss.

Yes, he was going to see the whale. He must not fail. His very own whale. The certainty of it pumped out his chest and filled his belly. And Parry ran over the common. Beyond the district known as the West End.

Parry had expected throngs of people such as himself. Everyone would be eager and amazed, all come to gaze at the whale. The ten tons of whale calf, grey as ice, that now fumed in the gulches of The Caib.

But it was strange. There was no one. No one to tell him he had arrived at the right place.

Later, Parry had not been able to explain himself. When his parents asked, the coastguard and even the police enquired, he had shaken his head. Shaken his head and wept and kept silent. Why had he done it?

He couldn't answer why. There was the whale, as long as a bus. Or a rowing boat. A rotting hulk, a carcass. Of interest only to the gulls screaming overhead.

It was the gulls that showed the way. The gulls that pursued the whale
-
lice through the runnels on the whale corpse.

And the police told him it must have been you. Yes, you, son. Come on, boy. Parry must have done it because no one else was present. It had to have been him. No question.

But Parry hadn't answered. Merely sat before the inspector, the coastguard and his parents. And cried.

No, the boy couldn't remember. But it must have been him. Oh yes, it was him all right. The seventeen
-
year
-
old Parry who everyone said was old enough to know better. Who had taken his penknife out of his pocket. And carved his initials into the body of the whale.

Cut his own incredible initials into the velvet hull of the whale. The body of the leviathan, as one of the coastguards insisted on calling it.

Who else, the inspector asked, would have carved those letters in the whale flesh? RIP?

Bit of a giveaway, that, one of the policemen had smiled. Which had made Parry feel worse. Made Parry cry harder until his father had told him to shut up, he had cried enough.

Stop your sobbing, was the phrase.

III

Yeah, good song, thought Richard Ieuan Parry now, finishing his toast. Nothing had happened. No charges been brought.

Parry had not killed the creature. So he had submitted to the lecture. No one had even asked where the penknife had come from. Parry said he didn't own a knife.

The next week there was another story in the newspaper. The body of the Sowerby's beaked whale that had been washed up near Caib Caves had been towed off the rocks. And disposed of.

His mad period, as he might have described it. First of many. Yes, that had been a difficult year all round. And coming back to The Caib put everything into new perspective. Coming back was not easy.

But yes, maybe Parry had gone mad. For a while. Until it dawned on him that madness was allowable. That madness was part of the process. That going mad was necessary. Fail in that, fail in madness, he had considered, and there is the true failure of nerve.

Not that he'd been especially mad. Not a bit of it. But the incident on the water chute, coming so quickly after the whale business, had perplexed his parents.

It was early summer and the fairground had recently reopened. Parry had undergone two hours of maths tuition with Rosser, a young graduate.

Yes, maths tuition on top of the history, the geography, the bloody Chaucer. Parry had failed mathematics twice so far. This was his last chance.

Or so people said. Needed a grade six, just a six, everyone told him. All his friends had passed. Everyone else in the year had managed it.

Even the yobs and slobs with their mohicans, their mohawks, the teds in their drainpipes, the hippies, the mods and all the legions of the damned in their immaculate ties and blazers. They had all scraped at least a six. And so were embarked on the next stage of their lives. Were off and running.

All except Parry. All except Parry and the losers, the weirdos. And here he was with Roz Rosser, with his pebble lenses and lingering aftershock of TCP.

Normally, tuition took place at Rosser's. But that evening, it was inconvenient. So the lesson was held in Parry's front room. On the dinner table that smelled of lavender furniture polish. Or sea lavender, as his mother once insisted. It grows in the rocks, you know.

I'm starving, announced Rosser, after what felt like hours. Fancy some chips?

And they had somehow found themselves in the fairground. Sharing one of the measly portions from the Farmhouse Fry.

How about a ride? Rosser had then asked. Out of the blue. Yes, Rosser had suggested the idea. It must have been Rosser's idea. Because Parry never had any money of his own. So it was obviously Rosser's suggestion to try the water chute. But nothing at all had happened. Nothing at all.

Only that Rosser touched Parry's leg. Yes, Rosser had put out his hand and touched Parry's left leg. The inside of his leg. Rosser had put out his hand and left it on the inside of Parry's left leg.

Had left his hand there while there was screaming and laughter and the echoes of laughter. Laughter from the ghost train. Screaming from the waxworks. Screaming and laughter from everywhere else in the fairground, that mid May evening with the petrolblue sunset. And the swifts had come back. Returning that moment.

Because Rosser had been the older boy. Had been twenty
-
five at least. And that was what everyone was expecting anyway. Wasn't it all somehow falling into place?

Because when the water chute ride was over, why was Parry's headmaster waiting where the carriages pulled in?

Yes, why was the headmaster waiting for Rosser? Immediately the carriage door was opened? Like police on a tip
-
off, Parry thought now. Nothing happened, Rosser had protested immediately. As if he was waiting to make his protest. As if he understood such a denial would be expected of him.

Nothing happened, added Parry, as if he sensed such a rejection was his due. His right.

But poor Rosser, thought Parry now. Whatever he had hoped or planned to do. Rosser who had touched his left leg. And allowed his hand to rest there. For a moment. An instant, a shaming eternity. But hardly a moment.

To be greeted by his headmaster in hat and mackintosh. Under that May sunset. With the head of English also there. In Nescafé
-
coloured trousers.

FIVE

I

The town had been quiet but not silent. There was a sound Parry recognised from the past. Some old muezzin of the back streets, voice cracked and plaintive.

Parry hadn't heard such a voice for years. He thought the tribe extinct. But here was the voice once again, the voice that called for iron. Old iron. And once again it called. A voice in the acid mist that rolled over the coast. Eerie in the saturating fog.

Iron. Old iron. Out of season that voice. And out of time. But there it was again. Rasping like a jay.

Yet, there was music in that voice. A rusty desperation. And maybe, not so desperate. The voice of a back
-
street singer, restoring the world to order. A singer who sang of what he knew and understood. Grief in that melody. Ancient resignation.

Parry had listened, head cocked, but the voice never came again. It had vanished utterly.

II

Who is the patron saint of lost causes? asked Parry.

Search me, said Mina.

Saint Jude, said Parry. Lost causes and grievous situations.

Please don't say it, said Mina.

Say what?

‘Hey Jude', that's what, said Mina.

Am I so predictable?

Collars up, the couple walked seawards through the mist. They turned in at the entrance of Clwb y Môr.

Haven't been in here for ages, said Mina. Thought it was all shut up. Talking of lost causes.

Parry smiled at the young woman behind the bar.

I know you, he said. You're John Vine's daughter. I've known you since you were kneehigh to a great green cricket.

And you're Parry, replied Nia Vine. Always Parry. Never your first name. Which is Richard. So I know about you too. You've just opened that new shop in Caib Street. What's it called now?

Tesco, said Parry.

Something …
peculiar
.

I'll say, said Mina.

Oh yes,
Badfinger
, said Nia Vine. Terrible name for a shop. I'll give it three months.

As long as that?

I was being kind, said Nia. You're in a dead spot.

Called The Caib, said Parry. The only way for a new business to work here is giving away free drinks.

It was 9pm. Parry had come to Clwb y Môr because of the poster he had been asked to display in
Badfinger.
This proclaimed that if you could ask for your first drink in ‘the language' then that drink was free.

Now Parry tested himself. He found Nia Vine as good as her word. There was a crowd at the counter who might not have been renowned for their linguistic abilities.

Admire the spirit, said Parry. You remind me of myself.

Australia lost its allure has it?

Everyone comes home, said Parry. Eventually. It's one of the golden rules of business. Of life. But yes, I know what you're taking on.

Which is? asked Nia.

Apathy. Alienation. Despair. Dandruff. Put them together and it's quite a challenge.

Sounds tough.

Missionary work usually is.

Found yourself in missionary positions before now? asked Nia.

Had my moments, said Parry. He looked around. But my problem has never been too much space. Now at
Badfinger,
we could do with some of the room here. Anyone helping you out?

Nia shrugged. The committee are good people. But they're getting on.

Parry gestured to the woman at his side. This is Mina, he explained. She keeps the off
-
licence next to
Badfinger.

Basement Booze,
added Mina as an explanation. Parry had shown Mina the poster about free drinks and she had laughed and said if they were that desperate for custom, then fine. As long as the Queen's English was still allowed.

And Mina's named after a poet, said Parry.

So you keep telling me, said Mina.

A pretty peculiar poet, too, he said.

Oh yes?

But quite a role model.

III

While they were waiting for the drinks, Parry said he'd go off exploring.

The corridor to the toilets was a municipal cream. There were three different rooms, all with smashed locks. These held nothing but broken tables and chairs and two ancient fruit machines. At the far end of the corridor was a larger space with a stage, and a sign that said ‘to the dressing rooms'. On stage were papier
-
mâché segments of a model whale, painted grey and blue.

Next, Parry climbed the stairs. In an empty bar, he found a crate of Schweppes' mixers, a medical skeleton, a book titled
Hymnau Calfinaidd
, and an album by Showaddywaddy,
The Arista Singles Volume One.

The damp was worse up here. The paint on two walls behind the counter had disintegrated into dust. Above a chapel harmonium a tendril of ivy lay under a broken pane. There was another flight of stairs, leading up.

The noise from the bar below was filtering upstairs, but Parry thought he heard someone else in the room he had left. He paused and walked back, looking around. But saw no one.

Exactly as I thought, he announced returning to the front bar.

Any hope for us? smiled Nia. And looked expectant. As if Parry might know what he was talking about.

Of course, Parry said. Turn it all into apartments. Perfect sea view. In fact, so perfect that the sea's coming through your excuse for a roof. Who owns this place?

Not sure, said Nia. The committee administers everything. There's a chair, and a treasurer. But the vultures are massing.

Stick in there, kid, said Mina, taking an interest. Who opens up for you?

I do, said Nia.