‘Didn’t Jesus also say something about worrying about the living, not the dead?’
‘He said the Lord our God is a God of the living, not the dead. But we are not Gods. You presume too much.’
‘You twist my words; what do you want?’
Glyn held the Bible up between his palms as if drawing inspiration from it. ‘You heard that Herod Jenkins is standing for mayor?’
‘Yes.’
‘A monster.’
‘So don’t vote for him. Vote for Ercwleff. One of God’s children, your ideal candidate.’
‘He’s a simpleton. A choice between a fool and a monster is no choice. We need a proper candidate, the town needs a proper candidate.’ He deliberated for a few seconds. ‘We want you to stand.’
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. ‘That’s absurd.’
‘Why is it absurd?’
‘I have no interest in politics.’
‘That is a recommendation.’
‘I already have a job.’
‘It need only be for a year.’
‘There are hundreds of reasons. I don’t want to.’
‘No doubt, but sometimes our desires and our duty do not coincide and in such cases a man, a real man, knows which is more important.’
‘I couldn’t do the human cannonball bit. I’m too tall.’
‘You think Ercwleff is doing it himself? We can supply a surrogate; that part is easy.’
‘And what about the fist fight in the pub car park?’
‘Ercwleff is going to take a dive in the fifth. That makes Herod the winner; you only have him to beat. Think of it! Think how old he is now, while you are young and in your prime.’
‘He would tear me limb from limb. Age has nothing to do with it; he’s my former games teacher. It doesn’t matter how old or frail or infirm he is, he will always be tougher than the boys he taught. That’s how it works. I would rather fight an anaconda.’
‘Do me a favour, Louie, think about it. For Marty . . . no, not for Marty, for Aberystwyth; do it for your beloved town.’
‘It’s not my beloved town. Where do you get that idea from?’
Glyn put the Bible up to his chin and pondered.
‘Anyway, what’s wrong with Ercwleff for mayor?’
He tried a different tack. ‘Have you never wondered why Preseli wants to elect his idiot brother as mayor?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what answer did you arrive at?’
‘None.’
‘He’s doing it to pay us back. For the humiliations they suffered as children. When Ercwleff was born, his father was too drunk to help and his mother sent Preseli to fetch the doctor. He was drunk, too, so drunk he could hardly see. He used the coal tongs as forceps and deformed Ercwleff’s skull. The mother died, but not before naming him Ercwleff and making Preseli promise to watch over him all his life. Preseli promised her he would, and throughout school he was his brother’s protector. They had a school rabbit and one day Ercwleff accidentally broke its neck, he wouldn’t stop hugging it, you see; even as a kid he was very strong. They made him spend the rest of the term in a dog kennel at the back of the class. Imagine the mockery. You know how cruel children can be – they discovered a wonderful trick for making Ercwleff cry. All they had to do was say the police were coming to take him away. The threat must have seemed very real to him because even by the age of nine or ten he had seen two uncles and a cousin depart the district in this manner. They teased Ercwleff relentlessly, and Preseli would get into fights protecting him; but he always seemed to be the one who got blamed for starting the trouble. You know what teachers are like in situations like that: they assume as a matter of routine that the boy from the bad family started the trouble. Such ignorant, unthinking dolts . . . so blinded by their own prejudice . . . They don’t see how by singling the child out, and treating him as a black-hearted good-for-nothing, they create the very thing they condemn. When the four o’clock bell rings, the teacher has forgotten all about the casually dispensed retribution earlier in the day, but the child remembers. Nothing festers in the heart more than such injustice meted out by adults, those towering figures who are forever declaiming their own moral infallibility. Yes, the child remembers.’
‘How did Preseli get to be mayor?’
‘After National Service he went abroad and was away for a long time. He came back a different man; educated, worldly, sophisticated to a certain degree; and he had money. Joined the police out at Ystrad Meurig. He did quite well, made a name for himself clearing up crimes, usually by fitting people up. Then his career got a boost for catching the gang that robbed the Coliseum cinema; went into politics. No one knows where he went when he was abroad; he just incubated his revenge.’
‘So this is it? His revenge? He comes back like some Welsh Heathcliff and makes Ercwleff mayor?’
‘That is my opinion, yes. This way he pays back all the teachers who punished him and all the kids who mocked his brother.’
I cast a glance at Glyn, who stared straight ahead, out to sea. He talked of adults declaiming their own moral infallibility, but I never met a man more richly deserving of that description than him. I stood up. ‘A man who hugs a rabbit to death would make a pretty good mayor.’
‘Nothing’s ever serious for you, is it?’
‘Ercwleff would make a better mayor than me.’
He stood up and faced me, placing himself between me and the sun. ‘For sure. They say he saw an angel once, so he’s got the right connections. All I can say is, it must have been a pretty bloody stupid angel. Just think about it, that’s all I ask. Think about it.’
He strode off into the grey wall of sky, dwarfed by the borderless expanse. The intensity of purpose was painful to behold; he was like a needle in the celestial sewing machine, darting here and there, up and down the town, leaving incomprehensible tracks sewn into the ground.
There was a fair being set up on the Prom at the junction with Terrace Road, as part of the mayoral election. The human-cannonball barrel, resembling the scarlet horn of a mythical beast, was anchored in front of the bandstand and pointed towards Constitution Hill; the catching net was just before the shelter by the wishing well. The other stalls consisted of a tombola and white elephant, Punch and Judy, and a permanent donkey-ride base. Meici Jones was striding around with his head held high, his bearing almost military. He chatted with holidaymakers in a manner which even at a distance struck one as expansive; a girl accompanied him and occasionally handed him leaflets which he signed and passed out to onlookers.
When Meici spotted me, he broke away and marched over.
‘Louie, excellent of you to come,’ he snapped in the manner of one who has just inherited the Prom and decided to open it to the public. He grabbed my hand and pumped it.
‘You got the job then? Congratulations.’
‘Thank you, Louie. Your support means a lot to me.’
‘When’s your first flight?’
‘Mission, Lou’, we call them missions. I’m still training at the moment, down on the recreation field at Plas Crug. I hope to be operational in about three weeks. Come, you must meet Chastity.’ He grabbed my tricep and propelled me across to meet the girl.
She looked about nineteen or twenty and wore a knitted two-piece mouse-coloured outfit and had a supernumerary arm, about the size of a wooden spoon. Meici excused himself to go off and sign autographs and discuss ballistics with some tourists. Chastity watched him go with a longing that suggested he was going off to battle.
‘Isn’t he amazing?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there’s no one quite like Meici.’
‘I’ve always wanted to fly, ever since I was a little girl.’