Aberystwyth Mon Amour

'No, Johnny, I wasn't. I wasn't there.'

'Don't you think I have the right to be angry?'

Cadwaladr answered. 'Yes, Johnny, you have a right to be angry. We all know that. But this man is a guest. He isn't the one responsible for your pain.'

'Tell him the story, Johnny.'

'And us too; tell us about Rio Caeriog.'

'Yes tell it, Johnny!'

Johnny sat back and resumed his story in a calmer voice. 'I'll tell you how we got there; General Prhys made us march those hundred miles disguised as United Nations peace-keepers. He gave us all a tin of blue paint and made us paint our helmets. That's how we did it.'

I whistled, not sure whether I was supposed to be impressed or shocked. Then there was a pause, and as the fire died down to a glow, and with the far-off lights of Aberdovey gleaming behind him, Johnny told the story of Rio Caeriog.

'When we got to San Isadora we billeted and went to the cantina. A young private by the name of Pantycelyn was chosen to play the card game. There was nothing special about him. He was like most of the other kids there. Young and frightened and wishing he could go back to his parents' farm in the shadow of Cader Idris. But he was chosen.' Johhny paused. 'Or maybe he was chosen because he was sober and reliable. The sort of person who could be trusted not to get the watches mixed up. Because everyone had Rolexes in those days, cheap from the PX store.' He stopped again and sighed sadly. 'Yes maybe that was why they chose him.' Johnny stopped and took a sip from his can. 'Do they tell you any of this in your books?'

'Yes, this much I have heard.'

He nodded. 'Everything went well at first. Losing the watch was easy - the only hard part was not making it look too obvious. As soon as they won the Rolex, the bandits rode out of town, shooting their pistols in the air as they went. A Rolex watch was worth ten years' salary in those parts. Then after the game Pantycelyn went to join the rest of the platoon. They were listening to the radio in the front bar. It was the semi-final of the Copa Americana and Brazil were playing Argentina. The entire town was there. When the kid walked in, something funny happened. The radio reception went haywire. The peasants hooted and threw enchiladas at him. And the kid starts to get scared. He realises that he must have got the watches mixed up. The bandits had got the genuine Rolex and he was wearing a radio beacon on his wrist with a Lancaster bomber heading directly for him. So he tries to get the thing off, but he's so clumsy in his terror that he breaks the catch. Well, as you know, a Rolex is made to last: try as he might he can't get the damned watch off. So his mates take him outside to work out what to do. There's about an hour to go and everyone is getting jumpy. Someone suggests to the kid he does the noble thing and get on a mule and ride out of town for five miles. And, of course, he's getting really jittery now and says, "Fuck off, why don't you all ride out of town on a mule?" And they say, "So we can save all these innocent people here," and he says, "Do I give a fuck? I'm dead anyway." So then the medic pipes up and says, "Why don't we amputate his arm?" This strikes everybody as a good idea, except Pantycelyn who's now only too pleased to ride out of town for five miles, in fact, he's begging to do it. But no one trusts him. So he makes a break for it, and they chase after him. All around the town he runs, with the platoon on his trail. Eventually they catch him. They hold him down, give him a shot of morphine, and amputate the arm — just below the elbow. Then they strap the arm to a mule and fire a gun behind it. Wham! The mule covers the first mile in less than a minute. Leaving Pantycelyn to sleep off his anaesthetic they go back into the cantina. Soon they hear the far-off drone of the bomber approaching above the clouds. By now it's the last five minutes of the game and Argentina are one-nil up. The peasants are on the edge of their seats. They're all betting like crazy on the outcome and the tables are all piled high with money. Well, what do you know! As soon as the soldiers walk in, the radio goes haywire again. Turns out it's just something to do with the radio waves reflecting off the helmets. It means they cut the kid's arm off for nothing. Of course, they're pretty upset, but they agree among themselves not to tell the kid when he wakes up. After all, if there was nothing wrong with the watch on the arm they amputated, then the bandits must have taken the one with the radio transmitter all along. So as the sound of the plane gets louder, everyone goes outside to watch the fireworks. And from the roof of the cantina they watch as the bomber drops 14,0001bs of high explosive and phosphorus on to the orphanage. It seems the bandit had donated the watch to the one of the holy sisters. Twenty-seven children killed. Within hours every hoe, axe, hammer and shovel for two hundred square miles was raised against us. As we started our retreat, the rain came and washed the blue paint off our helmets.'

After he finished, I didn't know what to say. No one did. There was silence for a long while and then one by one people stood up and drifted away. I thanked the veterans for their hospitality and rose to my feet. As I left, Johnny the storyteller gave me a sort of salute of farewell. At the same time, a branch on the fire cracked in the heat sending a flare up that illuminated the whole of one side of his body. And then I knew why of all the assembled people that night, only he could have told me the true story of Rio Caeriog. His left arm was missing below the elbow.

When I got back to the caravan, the one that had been welded together from two crash write-offs and couldn't be traced, the one that couldn't be seen from the road and about which not even the caretaker knew anything, I found a police car parked outside.

Chapter 18

'YOU THINK I didn't know about this crappy caravan? I

could have picked you up any time I wanted.'

I put a plastic mug filled with instant soup down in front of Llunos. It seemed like years since I had done the same for Myfanwy. But it was just over a week. The ludo set was still out on the table.

'So why didn't you?'

He ran a pudgy hand through his hair. He looked as if he hadn't slept for a week; and there was something else about him: the air of weary self-assurance was gone. Now he just seemed weary. He looked at me as if appealing for help. 'I don't think I'll have a job by the end of the week.'

I blinked.

'There's a new commissioner of police.'

'Anyone I know?'

'Herod Jenkins.'

'The games teacher?'

'Yes.'

'Fuck.'

'Soon you won't be able to sneeze in this town without a note from your Mam.'

I topped up the mugs of soup with rum.

'The man's a nutcase.'

Llunos gave me a 'tell me about it' look. He pulled out a bag from under his chair and slid it across the table to me. It was a child's school satchel.

'We took this from Brainbocs's house just after he disappeared.'

I looked at the policeman and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat as if he couldn't believe what he was doing. He was helping me.

'It's no fucking use so don't get all excited.'

I undid the buckles and opened the satchel. There were four objects inside and I laid them side by side next to the ludo set: a field guide to edible mushrooms; Job Gorseinon's Roses of Charon; an invoice from Dai the Custard Pie's fancy-dress basement; and, perhaps most curiously of all, a nineteenth-century nautical primer: Corruption of the Deep: The Captain's Guide to Last Rites and Burials at Sea.

I picked each one up in turn, examined it briefly and then put it down in its original place.

No one spoke.

Llunos stood up to leave. 'I told you it wouldn't help.'

I followed him to the door and for a while we stood there facing each other awkwardly on the step. It was as if the components of our universe had shifted like fragments in a kaleidoscope and we now found ourselves fighting on the same,side. He stuck out his hand and we shook.