Tinker, tailor, seaside-rock maker, crazy golf pro, hobo, clock winder, beggar man, mayor. He came, too, and was humble enough to leave his chain at home. Flickering neon signs fizzed in the rain-drizzled streets: Eats, Whelks 24 hours, liquor and sadness.
Tinker, tailor, mason, Rotarian, hotelier, donkey man and hotdog seller, shepherd, nightwatchmen, and people who are just nobodies. They stand in Peacock’s with their bitter spouses discussing socks. Nobodies who sit on the Prom watching nothing. Did they ever expect it to be like this?
Tinker, gaoler, Soldier for Jesus, librarian, whelk catcher, beggar man, ex-con, bent cop. They all came. And while they danced, while the music played, they could forget for a while; take a trip to the washroom and wash their faces in a tributary of the Lethe. Tinker, tailor, mudlark, warlock, fisherman, stovepipe-hat stockist, effigy maker, gravedigger.
And the people on my client’s chair.
It was a private nursing home paid for by an anonymous benefactor. I didn’t know who; perhaps some high-ranking druid, an admirer from the days when she sang in the Moulin Club; or a member of the town council. For the first two months I had footed the bill but it wasn’t easy. No one ever got rich fighting crime, just ask Eeyore – a cop for thirty years before he became the donkey man; more collars than a Chinese laundry, and he ended up just as poor. Aberystwyth, queen among towns for irony; perhaps nothing was more so than this: that there was so little money to be made in law enforcement when there were so many villains, so many laws to be enforced.
It had been built as a seminary some time earlier in the century. One large grey three-storey block to which a reluctant architect had seemingly had his arm twisted into adding some decoration. He’d probably read all the latest architectural journals and wanted the purity and elegance of Bauhaus, dreamed of winning a major prize somewhere far away and prestigious. But the Church fathers – perhaps fearful of the warlike reputation of the townspeople – insisted on turrets and battlements. So he’d scribbled on a pointless turret, some arched windows and an oaken door studded with iron. Then he quit and caught the train to Shrewsbury. Now it sits serenely in a nice park at the top of a hill overlooking the town. Slate quarries and gorse towards the back, and a paddock of horses. Gorse is not a great thing to have in your garden; it seldom lifts the jaded heart. But every spring it burns with buds of yellow flame, and when you see the same fire reflected in the eyes of a mare aglow with pride for her foal you always wish you’d brought some sugar lumps along.
It was a good place to recuperate. The wind could be bad in winter. It could knock you off your feet sometimes, and rattle the windows so violently it made you stop your darning and turn round to stare anxiously at the panes. Sometimes it howled in a way that was unsettlingly human, as if the wind collected all the voices of wanderers who had been lost in its storms, and replayed them. But it wasn’t always like that, and in all seasons the view was wonderful. It gave you perspective. Instead of being witness to a myriad trivial heartaches and sorrows, betrayals and acts of meanness, you looked down and surveyed the broader sweep: the heroic little town thrust out into the bay, the sea slowly gnawing away at the edges like a mouse with a piece of cheese. From up here you could see the long, straight line of the Prom and the characteristic zig-zag at Castle Point like a cartoon lightning bolt; or, depending on your mood, the valedictory blip on the heart monitor of a man who has just died.
Myfanwy lay in bed, propped up on pillows, asleep. The watery winter sunlight made her cheeks glow like amber. She looked well. Someone had disfigured her chestnut tresses with two childish yellow ribbons. The sort they tie to oak trees when someone comes out of prison. They sat knotted on either side of her head in some strange insult. I knew she would have hated them. They were redundant: it was not possible for her hair to be a mess any more than a lion’s mane can be dishevelled. It was the same colour as the chestnuts in Elm Tree avenue.
Gently, I undid the ribbons and put them on the side table. She had been like this almost four months now. The doctors said there was nothing physically wrong as far as they could see. She just seemed happier asleep. In the moments when she woke up, she was often sullen, and withdrawn, cold almost, like a kid who ate a piece of pie baked by the Snow Queen. I wondered if she blamed me for what had happened in the summer; or resented me for bringing her back from the dream world. Or maybe it was the loss of her voice, her very essence, that had hit her hard. But she looked well today.
I listened to her breathe, watched the gentle rise and fall of the sheets. I smoothed them out and then ruffled them again. Listened to her breathe: like the sea on a windless day, slow and soft and pitched precisely on the threshold of audibility. I pressed the back of my hand to her cheek, like a mother checking the temperature of a pale child, like a boy stealing an apple. And then I leaned forward to kiss her cheek. Strange, the mild sensation of guilt that the motion evoked. As if standing over the sleeping form of one’s girlfriend was a forbidden pleasure. Myfanwy would not have begrudged a kiss, I knew. But all the same . . . Maybe it is the vulnerability that is revealed in a sleeping form. It makes you feel like a peeping Tom, his eye to the keyhole, watching two lovers at play in a walled garden. And you know the slightest noise, such as the crack of a twig underfoot, will reveal your presence and destroy their joy; sully it with the pall of having been observed.
I leaned forward to kiss her cheek below the ear.
‘Hello, Louie.’ A voice crashed through the serenity like a felled tree. ‘She looks lovely, don’t you think?’
I jerked round to face the intruder. It was a nurse, with a fat boyish face, standing stiffly and shapelessly in a white pinafore dress. The dress was too tight; the buttons strained and divided her torso into segments like a giant millipede. Damp patches of sweat darkened the fabric of her blouse under her arms. Her hair was straw-coloured and cropped in a way that suggested a pair of kitchen scissors and a head bent over a bowl on a kitchen table, a bowl which on other occasions would be used to soak feet.
‘I made her look nice. I knew you would come today.’
I smiled uncertainly.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
‘Er . . .’
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to pretend. My name’s Glenys. We were in the same class in school.’
‘Oh . . . I . . .’
‘You don’t remember, I can see it in your face. Please don’t pretend.’
‘It was so long ago.’
‘Yes. It doesn’t matter. You needn’t worry about me. Why should you? You’ve come to see Myfanwy. She’s much better. Would you like me to wake her?’
‘No, please. Don’t wake her.’
She needlessly plumped up the pillow. ‘The ribbons are mine, I wore them for my second baptism. I knew you would like them. Are you sure you don’t want me to wake her?’
‘Yes. I’m quite happy sitting here.’
‘It’s ever so easy. You just put your hand over her mouth and hold her nose. She wakes up in a jiffy. I do it with all the patients. You’re looking well.’
‘Thanks. You too.’
‘I’ve put on weight, specially round the knees.’ She looked down and my gaze followed of its own accord. She was wearing tan woollen tights on legs without shape, the tights wrinkled at the fat ankles. Below them were black sensible shoes with scuff marks on the toes. ‘It’s all this running around after the invalids, you see. They treat me like a bloody servant. My legs were my best feature in school.’ She began to smooth down the bed and apply herself to tidying chores. I wished she would leave.