‘Are you on holiday?’ I asked.
‘Yes, we’re from Shawbury in Shropshire; I’m here for the summer with my aunt. We’re staying at the caravan park in Clarach, do you know it?’
‘Clarach, yes . . . an interesting place.’
‘I think it’s dreamy.’ She was young but had a quality that made her seem much older, as if she had spent the past hundred years imprisoned in an enchanted wood; maybe it was the clothes – the knitted suit, the fawn socks and sensible, round-toed brown leather shoes – it all evoked a claustrophobic, walled-in upbringing. You could trace the hand of someone much older directing events. If you asked her the name of a pop star you knew she would cite enthusiastically an old crooner – Sinatra or Dean Martin – derived from a stack of worn LPs that her auntie played on Sunday evenings after church.
‘Some people find Clarach a bit quiet,’ I said.
‘Aunt Marjorie and I chose it for precisely that reason. The doctors told her to go somewhere quiet for her nerves. She has terrible problems with her nerves. I had to give up learning the harp because of them.’
‘In which case I would say she has made an excellent choice in Clarach. There isn’t a single incident mentioned in the records dating back to 1734 of a visitor to Clarach getting overexcited.’
Chastity’s eyes flashed. ‘Goodness!’ She reached into a pocket in her cardigan and pulled out a notepad and pen. ‘I must make a note of that. Aunt Marjorie will be pleased. I forget so easily, you see.’ She opened the notebook with her right hand and pulled the cap off her pen with the little wooden-spoon arm and held it in her little hand like a lobster pincer and wrote, ‘Records date back 1734 no overexcite’.
‘What exactly is wrong with her nerves?’
‘We don’t know. Fuss upsets her. That’s why we had to get out of Shawbury. It wasn’t easy finding somewhere with less fuss than Shawbury.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘It was my job, really; that’s why I’m glad to have the facts at my disposal. The one about 1734 is excellent.’
‘I can give you some more if you like. Before the last Ice Age, Clarach was the gateway to the legendary kingdom of Cantref-y-Gwaelod, which now lies sunken beneath the waters of Cardigan Bay.’
Chastity opened her mouth in goldfish-like wonder. ‘A sunken kingdom! How thrilling!’
‘According to popular belief, you can hear the bells of Cantref-y-Gwaelod ringing out on moonlit nights, although perhaps you had better not tell your auntie that.’
‘No, no, I won’t; she’d be a bag of nerves if she found out there was a sunken kingdom on her doorstep, ringing bells at all hours.’
‘But that’s ancient history; it’s very quiet now. Archaeologists tell us that the Pleistocene age is the last recorded instance of there being more than five people on the beach at Clarach at the same time.’
‘Golly!’
‘Have you walked the other way, to Borth?’
‘Not yet, but we are planning to. There’s just so much to do. Meici says he will show us the way if he can get some time off from flight school.’
‘It’s not really hard, you just follow the path up the coast.’
‘I’d feel safer if Meici was with us, we might fall among thieves.’ Chastity’s gaze flicked away, over my shoulder. ‘He looks so strong in his space suit, it must be wonderful to fly through the air like that.’
‘The journeys are quite short, though.’
‘I’ve never met anyone like Meici before. He’s the only person I know who has read Pollyanna more times than me. I’ve read it fifteen and I’m going to start again in August. Have you read it?’
‘I think I saw the movie with Hayley Mills.’
‘The book is better. Hayley Mills is too pretty, she would have had lots of friends and nice things in school. I never did. Meici and I play the Glad Game sometimes. He’s much better at it than me, though. Yesterday he said he was sad that he had no friends at school but he was glad because it meant he knew what it must have been like for me.’
‘That’s very touching.’ I noticed Meici had stopped signing autographs and was staring at me with what appeared to be irritation.
‘Yes he’s wonderful. You must be very proud to have him as a friend. He’s so philosophical. He told me yesterday that when he’s flying and looking down on the people on the Prom, they all look so tiny, like ants, and he says all our problems look tiny too.’
I said goodbye and as I wandered off I was aware of Meici watching me through narrowed eyes.
We drove out to Borth against the incoming tide of lunch-time traffic. Huw Pugh, the farmer who claimed to have witnessed the alien visitation, lived out at Ynys Greigiog, along the shores of the estuary. You could get there directly by going inland, but to drive that way without making a needless detour through Borth would be to display the wrong attitude to life, the attitude evinced by those who are too busy to stop and admire the view, unaware that this is largely what life is for. It’s just a simple road, ruler straight for 3 miles, between the railway line and the shore, parallel to each; a few shops; a railway station whose primitive simplicity evokes those halts in the Wild West where the gunslingers wait three days for the train and shoot the only man to step off the train. The road and houses, beads on a string, are a single thread thinner than a tripwire. Borth is a cheerful haven of demotic pleasure. The land between the railway and the sea is scrub, like a tramp’s coat – weather-stained and trimmed at the cuffs with marram grass. In winter everything is closed and the shutters squeak. But in summer, everything is bright, silver and blue. Dark spots dance before your eyes from the endless brightness. It is a vinyl-scented trove of rubber rings, spade, buckets and mats. The eyes ache from squinting and the distant roar of the churning water has the effect of muffling all sound, near or far. Sand gets in your eyes and between your teeth; in the milk and the butter, in your bed and in your toothpaste. And every evening, inflatable rubber dinghies wildly unsuited to the sea transport children like little Hansels and Gretels over the horizon to Greenland.
Mrs Pugh opened the door to the farmhouse and feigned delight. She looked like a mouse in a bonnet. We told her we were old friends of Farmer Pugh and had come to offer our sympathy following his recent close encounter of the third kind. She led us into the kitchen where she put the kettle on and then took us upstairs. Huw Pugh lay beached on the big pillows of a big bed. The room had bare stone walls and funereal black oak furniture. He stared at the ceiling with the intensity of an Old Testament prophet.
‘I’ve got someone to see you,’ said Mrs Pugh. ‘Isn’t that nice, an old friend from long ago.’ She made a few cosmetic changes to the arrangement of the bedclothes and then hobbled past us out of the room.
There was a pause. We stood in the doorway, hesitant to enter the room of a stranger. He moved his head and stared at us, narrowing his eyes as he tried to focus.
‘Rhys? Is it you?’
We shuffled our feet.
‘No, no, it can’t be . . .’
‘Good afternoon, Huw,’ I said.
‘Rhys? No . . . it’s . . . it’s not possible. Not after all these years, not after all that’s been said.’
I looked at Calamity. Her face blazed with silent imperative, urging me to act the rôle of the mysterious Rhys.
‘Nothing’s impossible, Huw, for a man whose heart is strong.’
‘But . . . you . . . oh dear Lord! Come closer!’
I walked over to the bed. ‘You’re looking well, Huw.’
He continued to stare at the ceiling, but reached out with his hand and grabbed my sleeve. ‘Promise me you’ll do it quickly . . . no . . . no . . . I have no right to ask such a thing; did I promise an easy deliverance to our sweet brother? No. But at least show me mercy, permit me to say one small prayer first. Just the one to the Lord Jesus.’