The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth (8 page)

‘Big job for one man,’ I said.

‘That’s how I like it. Takes me all year. By the time I finish one end it’s time to start again. A lot of people don’t like the sound of that. They disdain it, say it reminds them of that Greek fellah, the one who had to roll the stone up the hill for eternity. To me it means a job for life, nothing wrong with that.’

We said we could see his point.

‘And then there’s the people you get to meet,’ he added. ‘That’s another thing I like about the job.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought you would meet many people doing this.’

‘I don’t. Not a soul. That’s fine by me.’

Cadwaladr reached a point in the sound that look indistinguishable to us from every other point and decided it was time to change direction again.

‘Heading for the Loothouse,’ he said. ‘Can’t go directly because of the sandbanks.’

‘When the tide goes out you can walk across,’ said Calamity.

‘Wrong,’ said Cadwaladr. ‘You can only walk halfway across. Then you stand there and sink in the quicksand.’

‘I bet I wouldn’t,’ said Calamity with the wisdom of youth.

‘Don’t ever try it,’ said Cadwaladr sternly. ‘You sink in and it congeals round your leg like quick-drying cement. The more you struggle the deeper in you go. Then all you can do is wait for the tide to come in and finish you off. But you don’t have to wait long—’

‘I know,’ said Calamity, ‘it’s faster than a galloping horse.’

‘I don’t think it’s that fast, but it’s certainly faster than you can walk, but it’s also sneaky. Does a pincer movement, creeps round you in channels and fills in the bits ahead first. So by the time you notice the tide is coming in, you’re done for.’

The new course he had chosen brought us up to the jetty. We climbed out and helped him stow the creosote in the shed and then sat to watch the sun set. Cadwaladr took out a pipe, filled it slowly and began to puff in contentment.

‘I s’pose you heard about Myfanwy?’ I said.

He nodded gravely.

‘There was a veteran wandering around that day. The one they keep mentioning on the radio.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Cadwaladr with a testy edge to his voice.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You don’t know it was the same one.’

‘We think it is.’

‘Us fellahs get blamed for everything. You’re supposed to be my friend but you’re just like the rest of them: if there’s a crime done and a veteran is in the vicinity then folk automatically point the finger at him.’

‘We’re not accusing him or anything. But he talked to her, see?’ I handed him the photo. ‘He might be able to give us some information, might have seen something. The only problem is, if he’s on the run he’s not going to talk to the police, but he might be willing to talk to you.’

Cadwaladr handed the photo back having scarcely looked at it. ‘I don’t recognise him. He’s not from round here.’

‘He had a tattoo on his arm,’ said Calamity. ‘It said “Deeper than the love”.’

‘We don’t know for sure if that is true,’ I said.

‘Yes we do.’

‘It’s possible the soldier had a tattoo,’ I insisted. ‘But it’s also possible I just dreamed it.’

Calamity pulled a face at me.

Cadwaladr scraped a match along the head of a bolt sunk into the timber of the jetty and relit his pipe. ‘That would be Rimbaud. He has that tattoo. Rimbaud would never hurt Myfanwy.’

‘We believe you.’

‘What did he do wrong?’ said Calamity

‘He didn’t do anything wrong, it was the policeman who drew first blood.’

‘No, but why are they after him?’

‘They want to question him in connection with the one crime they can never forgive: minding his own business. He was just walking through Glanwern or one of those towns, probably going back to Bala to see his mam, and then some hick cop sees him and thinks, Oh aye, what’s this? Minding his own business, is he? What’s he mean by that, then? Sounds a bit suspicious, if you ask me. So the cop tries to run him in, but it takes more than some big-bellied flatfoot who sits on his arse all day swatting flies and signing speeding tickets to take down a man like Rimbaud. He might not look like much but inside he has the heart of a warrior. So he says, No, I don’t want to go to the police station. I’ve done nothing wrong, and he declines the offer. Two hours later the big-belly wakes up with a sore head and radios for reinforcements. They spend a week tracking Rimbaud through the Forestry Commission land. A place where Rimbaud is in his element, of course. Probably they would have given up before long, but then Rimbaud makes it personal. He sets some man-traps, sharpened stakes, and smears them with his – I don’t know how to say this in front of a child – but, you know in Patagonia we
used to poison the spikes of the traps by using our own pollution. Old Big-belly got an infected wound on his foot.’

‘What does the tattoo mean?’ asked Calamity.

‘It’s a quote from Remarque, the chap who wrote
All Quiet on the Western Front
. “Deeper than the love between two lovers.” Remarque saw the true essence of warfare, you see.’

We waited for him to continue but he didn’t. Cadwaladr knew a lot of things but sometimes getting it out of him was like waiting for the ketchup to ooze out of a new bottle.

‘Have you ever thought,’ he said at last, ‘what a strange thing it is for a man to go and die for his country? To give up his life like that? A young man who has just discovered girls and liquor? Why would he do such a thing? For what? A life is all we have. You’d think he wouldn’t sacrifice it for anything. And yet he goes to fight in some godforsaken place like Patagonia. Why?’

‘You tell us, Cadwaladr,’ I said. ‘You were there.’

He nodded with a puzzled look as if this last fact was a new discovery for him. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I was there.’

We waited again while he cogitated. Then he looked round at me and said, almost urgently, ‘But tell me why you think he does it.’

‘Glory,’ I offered.

‘Yes, that’s right. He does it in exchange for something that doesn’t exist.’ He spat into the water. ‘Glory. The biggest lie of all. A will-o’-the-wisp, fool’s gold.’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s why he goes there. Not why he stays. Two things make him stay. Shame and love. When a soldier arrives at the Front, what does he see? Glory? Of course not. He sees charnel. He sees a man eating corned beef from a tin next to a corpse upon whose eyes a rat is feeding. And in that moment he is faced with a choice. To run, or stay and become complicit in the crime of concealment. Because these things are kept hidden from the people back home. They are too much, they are such that no human being should have to witness them. And in not speaking out against them, in
staying and sharing the tin of corned beef, he becomes one of the damned and shares their shame. And the other reason he stays is love: the love he bears for his brothers in arms. That was the quote, you see: “Deeper than the love between two lovers.” You remember me telling you about Waldo? Poor Waldo who killed the man in the dust of the ravine and dipped his arms in his blood while the man begged for deliverance for the sake of his daughter, Carmencita, who was but a child and should not have to face the world as an orphan? And Waldo laughed even though he knew the armistice had been signed a week? This Waldo was Rimbaud. After the war he went away for ten years. No one saw him, no one knew where he went. And then one day he reappeared in the lanes of Wales. His name was now Rimbaud, he said. And he had seen the true meaning of suffering and been purified by his vision. I tell you, every man who fought in that conflict came back with an albatross around his neck. Rimbaud returned with a flock.’

He paused and his spirit slowly returned to Ynyslas from the frost-blasted killing fields of South America. ‘Even so, he would never hurt Myfanwy. I’ll look out for him, but he’s probably miles away by now.’ He stood up and began to untie the boat. The conversation was over for today.

There was a note from Sister Cunégonde taped to the door of my caravan when I got back that night. She asked me to drop by when I had a moment and I went round next morning. The girl who opened the front door to me curtseyed before offering to take my hat.

‘Good morning, sir,’ she said in what struck me as register slightly louder than necessary. She lowered her voice and whispered, ‘Seren asked me to ask you not to grass her up to Cunybongy about the other day,’ and then louder again: ‘This way, sir.’

She led me along a corridor, through the assembly hall, into another corridor and then through the door marked ‘Staff Only’.
It led on to a small oval lawn surrounded by flower beds and rockeries and a privet hedge on the farther side that had an arch cut into it. The lawn was a failure: the grass refusing to grow and leaving a bald spot like a potato in a threadbare sock. The girl led me round and through the arch in the privet. We found ourselves in a vegetable garden and up ahead Sister Cunégonde was in the act of placing a wellington boot on to a spade and turning over the soil. She looked up and smiled.

‘Dig and ye shall find!’ she said.

‘That’s the motto of my profession too.’

‘Thank you for taking the trouble to come.’

‘No trouble, it was on my way.’

‘I don’t think so, not unless you were going to Machynlleth. Your office is in Canticle Street isn’t it?’

‘Used to be, we’ve moved to Stryd-y-Popty.’

‘Lucky old Poptys!’ said Sister Cunégonde. She was short and plump with fine white hair tucked into her wimple. Her smile was warm – the sort that went with the job. ‘I’m making a lawn as a control experiment. I s’pose you noticed the sorry excuse for a lawn over there under the common room window – I don’t know how many times I’ve reseeded it.’

‘It’s probably the salt in the environment.’

‘That’s what I said to the chap at the Farmers’ Co-op in Chalybeate Street. He said the grass they sell is a special saltresistant strain, they thrive on it. He said the problem is my soil. Well, we’ll see, won’t we? I’m going to try his seeds one more time. If they grow here but not over there then I’ll accept the problem is my soil. What do you think?’

‘I’d say it was something to do with the soil, local conditions and all that. What do the people in the village say?’

‘They say it’s haunted! But what do you expect? They’re from Borth. It used to be a pond once.’

‘Sister Cunégonde, don’t take offence, but you didn’t invite me over to talk about gardening, did you?’

She let out a breath of air in a gentle puff.

‘I should have guessed you’d see through me. Can we go to my office?’

Sister Cunégonde rested her elbows on the desk and made a steeple of her fingers. I stared past her shoulder through the schoolroom windows – the type you open with a hooked pole.

‘We have a girl here who has been sick for a while – German measles. She’s back in the dorm now and she says her locket has been stolen. Her name is Myfanwy Pritchard. Do you see what I am getting at?’

‘You think it’s her locket we found during the search?’

‘I’m very sorry to even mention it to you at a time like this. Lord knows what you must be going through.’

‘It’s not a problem, just tell me what’s on your mind.’

‘She claims Seren stole it.’

‘And then planted it on the dunes?’

She looked at me and squirmed. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘So she could pretend to find it.’

‘Maybe she didn’t have to pretend.’

‘Any other girl and I might believe it. But not Seren. She did it to draw attention to herself. She’s that sort of girl.’

‘What sort is that?’

‘A show-off. She doesn’t get on too well with the other girls, doesn’t fit in. She lives in her own little dream world. She tells everyone she’s a foundling.’

‘And she’s not?’

‘She was brought here by the social services. It’s hardly the same thing is it?’

I agreed that it wasn’t.

‘Do you think I should tell the police? I really don’t want to have a load of policemen walking around the grounds, it’s bad enough having an incident like this on our doorstep, exciting the
girls. I told them you were from the gas board, I hope you don’t mind. Goodness knows what they would do if they knew you were a private investigator. Do you think there will be a lot of trouble?’

‘Not too much,’ I said. ‘She’ll have to go to prison of course—’

Sister Cunégonde gasped.

‘With a good lawyer she should be out in ten to fifteen. They may have to close the school down as well – probably put you all in the stocks.’

Her face relaxed into a smile. ‘Oh I see, you’re pulling my leg. You don’t think it’s the end of the world, then?’

‘I’ve come across worse cases of wickedness. Have you spoken to Seren?’

‘Yes, she denies it, of course, but she’s not a very good liar.’

‘Leave it with me,’ I said as I prepared to leave. ‘I know Llunos, I’ll clear it with him.’

As I stepped off the bus outside Aberystwyth railway station a paperboy moved out of the shadows and took up a position to my left. As I walked he kept step.

‘I’m not looking for a paper, thanks.’