Aberystwyth Mon Amour

'What is it?' I spoke to the top of her head.

'Something very, very special.'

'What?'

'Something you'd give your right arm for.'

'There's nothing I'd give my right arm for.'

'I bet you'd give it to marry Myfanwy.'

'No I wouldn't.'

'It's an essay.'

I breathed in sharply and Bianca giggled.

'Really?' I said cautiously. 'What sort of essay?'

'Ooh, just Dai Brainbocs's last essay.' She giggled again.

I pushed her away and looked into her face. 'What are you talking about?'

'Dai Brainbocs's last essay. You are looking for it, aren't you?'

'What makes you think that?'

'Myfanwy told me.'

I closed my eyes in pain.

'It's all right, I won't tell anyone.'

'She shouldn't have told you.'

'What do you expect, she's a big mouth.'

'There's no need for that.'

'I know you think the sun shines out of her backside, but she's not all sugar and spice you know.'

'I'm sure she's not. No one is.'

'So do you want it?'

I didn't answer for a while, just stared at her. 'Are you being serious? You know where Brainbocs's last essay is?'

She nodded. 'I know where there's a copy of it.'

'Where?'

'Pickel's got one.'

'Pickel?'

She nodded again.

'Lovespoon asked him just after Brainbocs died to design a safety box so good, no one in the world could open it, not even the person who made it. Pickel agreed to do it even though he said there wasn't a lock in the world he couldn't open. He said Lovespoon was a wanker. Lovespoon used the box to keep Brainbocs's original essay in — the one he told the papers he'd lost. Pickel took it out when he wasn't looking and made a copy. His insurance policy he called it.'

'Pickel told you this?'

'Yes.'

'How do you know he's not just making it up?'

'Why should he? Besides, I know where he hides it — in the belfry. I could get it, if you wanted.'

I held her head in my hands and stared into her eyes. 'Don't do anything until I've had a chance to think about it.'

The lightning was already flashing in the sky far out over the western horizon when I left for the Moulin that night. I was too late to get a good table and had to sit. right at the back with a very bad view of the stage. The showgirls didn't normally venture so far back and I was served by a plain Jane of a waitress in a simple black skirt and white blouse. I had to share the table with a group of men who looked like they had just been picked up off a desert island by the air-sea rescue helicopter. Their hair was wild and unkempt, their clothes torn and ragged. One of the men offered me his hand to shake and, not wishing to offend, I took it gingerly.

'Welcome, brother,' he croaked in the voice of a mariner who hasn't spoken to another soul for ten years. The rest of the group looked at me intently, their gazes playing over my face like searchlights.

'I'm not your brother.'

The man giggled in a way that made my flesh crawl and turned to his companions. 'He says he's not our brother!'

The rest of the group broke into hoarse, wheezing laughter.

The first man looked at me and said, 'I'm Brother Gilbert. This is Brother Frank, and this is Brother Bill. I'll introduce the rest of us later.'

'Don't bother.'

'Oh it's no bother. It's such a pleasure to have you join us. We have so much to talk about.'

My drink arrived and I drank it down in one and ordered another.

'I used to be a bank manager,' said Brother Gilbert. He grabbed my arm and added with a strange urgency, 'And Brother Bill used to be a Justice of the Peace. What do you think of that?'

'I thought you were all fishermen.'

They turned to each other and laughed again.

'We like that,' said Brother Gilbert. 'Fishermen. That's very funny!'

When the laughter died down Brother Gilbert turned to his brothers and said, 'I suppose in a way we are all hooked!' The laughter erupted once more.

I waited patiently, and then said, 'Do you come here a lot, then?'

'Oh yes, every day. Haven't you seen us?'

'No.'

'That explains it then.'

'Explains what?'

'Why you don't understand.'

They all stared at me with a wild glimmer of madness in their eyes, expectantly gauging the effect of Brother Gilbert's words on me. A showgirl passed through the tables halfway between our position and the front and for a moment I thought it was Myfanwy. I craned my neck for a better look.

'She's not here yet,' said Brother Gilbert knowingly.

'Who isn't?'

There was a split-second pause and then the brotherhood fell about laughing again. This time the laughter swept them away. Tears streamed down their cheeks and thighs were slapped. Whenever the laughter looked like petering out, one of the brotherhood would repeat the word 'who?' and it would start all over again.

'You all seem to have a very similar taste in humour.'

'That's because we're a fraternity.'

'We're five people with one mind,' added Brother Bill.

'Like a colony of ants, in a way,' explained Gilbert. 'We're united in suffering.'

'I'm sorry to hear it.'

'Oh no!' cried Gilbert, 'we don't need your sympathy; you're one of us now!'

That took me aback for a second. Again they stared at me like dogs outside a butcher's window display.

'Me? Why?'

Gilbert leaned closer and, as he did, the rest followed suit. His voice took on a cloying, conspiratorial air. 'You mean you don't know?'

I lowered my voice, 'No, what?'

'We're from Myfanwy Anonymous!'

The eyes of the brothers as they scrutinised my face were as wide as children's on bonfire night.

'We used to sit up the front like you,' said Brother Gilbert.

'But not any more,' added Brother Frank forlornly. 'That was a long time ago. Now it's someone else's turn.'

'Now we just sit here and wait for our turn in the sun again,' said Brother Bill.

'I've never heard of your organisation.'

'Not many people have,' hissed Gilbert excitedly, 'you can join if you like!'

'Why would I want to join a bunch of losers like you?'

The brotherhood looked at me sadly. Not with indignation, but with that infuriating understanding that holy men have for other people's human failings.

'Ah, Brother Louie, you're still in denial.'

'Don't give me your cheap armchair psychology,' I shouted.

'Please don't get annoyed,' said Bill. 'For a long time I was just like you.'

'Look, I'm not like you, OK? I'm a good friend of Myfanwy.' It sounded pathetic.

They exchanged glances with a mute understanding but said nothing.

'And don't look at me like that!' I had started to shout again, and to speak faster as if speed would somehow add the conviction that I now felt irresistibly seeping away. 'I'm not like you. This is all a mistake. I came late so there was no room at the front. That's why I'm sitting here; you watch, when she comes she'll come and talk to me!' I was staring around wildly now, almost challenging anyone in the brotherhood to contradict me. But all I met with was a bottomless well of compassion and understanding.

'It's all right, Louie, we understand.'

'No you don't.'

'Oh yes. It's all a mistake. Don't worry, there's no need to get upset.'

'I'm not upset!' And then aware of the passion in my voice I said again in a controlled tone, 'I'm not upset.'

'Of course. But there is one thing you should know. Myfanwy won't come back here to talk to you, the girls don't come back here.'

This time Brother Bill grabbed my arm with sudden urgency, 'But that doesn't mean you don't have a chance. Everyone has a chance.'

'Oh really!' I sneered. 'Is that what you think? Everyone has a chance, do they? Even old Brother what's-his-face over there drooling into his pint?'