Last Train to Gloryhole (18 page)

The bizarre synchronicity of the sight of the singer and the unmistakable sound of her voice pulsing at his ear-drums soon began causing his head to spin. ‘Ah! So amazing coincidences do happen, after all,’ he mumbled to himself quietly, sniggering a little, since, in truth, he realised that this one was, to a large extent, self-created. Chris leapt up from the bed and pressed his face against the window-pane, and watched as the sorely mis-matched pair approached the row of terraced houses by crossing over the little road-bridge that was built across the old railway-line, (but now traversed the cycle-way,) and, seconds later, opened, then closed behind them with a loud, right-rollicking clang, the iron-gate of the cottage contiguous to his own.

Chris stubbed out his stogie and rushed to the bathroom to fetch the step-ladder. Dragging it out into the hallway, and placing it firmly and squarely below the hatch to the attic, he leapt up it, unfastened the metal catch above his head, and nimbly climbed aloft, swiftly pulling the ladder up behind him, and was gone from sight within a matter of seconds. Once in the attic, Chris switched on the large torch which he kept hidden below some felt in the near corner, and silently edged his way towards the adjoining wall. From beside the brick-work he found that he could already make out the sound of two voices conversing in the house next-door, and this became much clearer once he had reached down and opened up a hinged panel at the base of the wall and expertly crawled his way through it.

Once inside the neighbouring loft, and torch-in-hand, Chris used his foot to edge a large bucket of sand close up next to an even larger one, whose weight already prevented the hatch from being forced open from below. Then he bent his body low and tore a strip of cellotape from the wooden floor, and, peering down through the hole beneath it, he found that he could easily make out a female form, standing before the mirror in the bathroom down below, and engaged in removing her make-up. And yes, he could easily tell that the girl beneath his gawping gaze was indeed the famous, local-born, singer that he had minutes earlier assumed she might be.

Chris was astounded. However, what he saw Carla do next, with a sharp dip of her dark, curly head, a sweep of a credit-card held in her right hand, and a grip on a thin plastic tube with her left, caused Chris to jump a fraction, and to tip over onto its side a square container filled with cannabis plants, which were already a few feet in height and almost ready for harvesting. With a measure of both luck and skill, Chrs just managed to save a second turned-up tray from crashing to the attic-floor, but the shock of the near-miss was enough to persuade him to make a swift exit, again through the gaping panel in the adjoining wall by which he had just arrived.

But, in turning, Chris suddenly found himself dazzled for a moment by the array of powerful lights which were both standing, and hanging down, but now seemed to be spinning all around him. He began feeling nauseous from breathing in the stale gas that filled the air, and which the rushing air-con. was desperately attempting to clear out through the corrugated, plastic pipe he had recently fitted into the roof. So, squinting uncontrollably, and making a huge effort to hold his breath, Chris ducked his head down, and squirmed back through the hinged-panel and returned once again to the safety of his own home. And, despite the sudden fit of panic that had overcome him while up aloft, he already felt he now had the bare bones of a new plan fomenting nicely within his sharp brain. And so, he told himself, mock-examinations, school generally, and especially the annoying business of Rhiannon Cook could easily wait until another time.

‘Well, as a family back in Penyard, we did have the one thing money couldn’t buy,’ Gwen told the woman shopkeeper, who, at six-feet, stood almost a foot taller than herself.

‘And what was that?’ Zeta asked her, holding a metal pot in one hand, and forcing one lever up, then a second lever down with the other hand.

‘Poverty,’ Gwen told her, then repeated the word much louder in a vain attempt to rise above the explosive, gushing noise which the quaint, hand-operated machine suddenly made, and which sounded to her very like a steam-train, and which continued for some considerable time, and, again like a steam-train, soon emitted a cloud of vapour that briefly shrouded the two middle-aged women from each other’s sight.

Mrs. Jones-the-Caff, as Zeta was known, shook with laughter at this typical example of Gwen’s dry humour, then pointed at the spillage of frothing cappucino from the cup she held in her hand, and, shaking her head from side to side by way of apology, proceeded to make her old friend a second cup. And so the loud, arcane process of coffee-production began all over again.

‘But now that my husband has just this week started working again, Zeta, at least I can afford to get you and me both a cup,’ Gwen told the proprietor. She turned and sat down at the table in the very first booth behind her and waited for Zeta to come over, when she was finished, and serve her. First cleaning assiduously the plastic-coated surface before her with a paper-tissue that she took from her pocket, Gwen stood the large, glass sugar-dispenser in the very middle of the table, and then very carefully placed the silver salt and pepper pots, and similarly the circular mustard and ketchup trays, at equi-distant and opposing right-angles from it, and then sat back so as to assess the effect created. Seemingly pleased with her effort, Gwen smiled broadly.

‘Here you go, love,’ said Zeta, sitting down opposite her friend, a striped tea-towel draped over her shoulder, and placing Gwen’s cup of cappucino on the table in front of her and the second one before herself. ‘You don’t mind if I join you, do you, pet? It’s nice to take a break sometimes, isn’t it? Normally at this time of the day, I’m run off my feet. But it’s raining, see.’

Zeta took the sugar-dispenser from the middle of the table and poured about a spoonful of sugar from it into her cup. Then, suddenly noticing the strange, elaborate shape which all the condiments had been arranged into, she decided to place the tall glass item back precisely where she had found it, in the very centre of the wagon-wheel shaped framework. ‘Say, do you remember when we used to live in the same street together back in Penyard, Gwen?’ Zeta asked her brunch companion. ‘Six of us lot in an end-of-terrace we called ‘
Casa Mea
,’ and you and your parents - Patrick and Doris was it? - in a two-up-two-down only a few doors away.’

‘And you were just a year ahead of me in the Catholic Junior School,’ said Gwen, ‘but later on I remember you left long before I did from
Bishop Hedley
.’

‘That’s because I was never as clever as you, though, was I Gwen?’ Zeta told her old school-friend, smiling. ‘And I already knew I was always going to work in the caff eventually. Though you stayed on to do your A-levels, didn’t you?’

‘I did, Zet,’ Gwen told her friend. ‘Altogether I took History Welsh, and Geography. And it was History that I went on and got my degree in at Abertstwyth. And, do you know, in my final year I got to stay with three other girls in the prettiest little cottage you ever saw right down by the sea.’

‘Aw, there’s lovely,’ said Zeta, recalling the sand-and-pebble beach she had played on when, as a child, she had stayed at the same resort with a group of other families of Italian descent. ‘Why History, then, Gwen?’ asked Zeta. ‘Did you always like old things, then?’ She suddenly dipped her head and winced. ‘Sorry, pet, I’ve just remembered how your last husband was quite a few years older than you, wasn’t he?’ However hard she tried, Zeta fell about giggling.

Gwen inhaled deeply, taking exception to this witless comment about her first marriage, but decided that she wasn’t going to show it; after all, she hadn’t so far been asked to pay for the two cappucinos she had ordered. No, she decided she would endeavour to maintain her dignity, and carry on regardless. ‘Well it might have been all the castles that won me over in the very beginning, I think,’ said Gwen, answering the original question Zeta had posed her.

‘Oh, I see. Well, I can easily believe that,’ said Zeta. ‘There’s some lovely castles in Wales, aren’t there?’ A short pause ensued while Zeta pulled her tights up, one leg at a time. ‘Say, Gwen, do you remember how we used to go to the
Castle Cinema
on a Saturday afternoon?’ she continued. ‘And how they always seemed to cram us all together in the front two rows. Do you remember? Why was that, do you think?’

Gwen stared straight at her, and suddenly recalled the reason why Zeta had left
Bishop Hedley
a very long time before she had. She bent her head and sipped from the frothy, chocolate-speckled cup, still seething with anger from her earlier observation, but allowing the other woman to take the discussion on further again if she felt so inclined.

‘Tell me - does History still interest you, then, Gwen?’ enquired Zeta. ‘Henry-the-Eighth and all that.’

‘Yes, it does, Zet,’ Gwen replied. ‘Though I can’t stand all that later, Tudor and Stuart, la-de-da, costume-drama crap, if I’m honest with you.’

Zeta’s jaw fell open. ‘Tudor and Stuart!’ she repeated. She was suddenly mystified as to why the woman sitting opposite her had just mentioned the names of the homosexual couple who had been in for ice-cream sundaes less than an hour before she herself had walked in.

‘Six wives, indeed,’ Gwen went on.

‘Oh, I know. That’s not normal, is it?’ said Zeta, wondering if the most famous of the Henrys might have been a Mormon.

‘And the willful destruction of all those beautiful Catholic churches and monasteries.’

‘And wasn’t he married to a nice Catholic woman at the time, too?’ enquired Zeta. ‘Although I heard he was cheating on her something rotten by all accounts.’

‘That Catherine of Aragon, well, she should have, er -’

‘Cut his balls off, right?’ snapped back Zeta. ‘Because I know I would have done.’

Despite herself, Gwen found herself chuckling at Zeta’s response. ‘I was going to say - she should have refused to divorce the man. It was anathema to all Catholics, after all. But he probably would have chopped her head off anyway, if she hadn’t done what he’d demanded. You see, the man was a sexist pig, to be quite blunt, Zeta. Forcing a poor Catholic woman to do what the Pope says she’s not supposed to do, indeed. Why. that’s utterly disgusting, right?’

‘Aye, the dirty old bugger!’ ejaculated Zeta, misinterpreting her comment spectacularly. ‘My Mario wouldn’t dare go round there even if I’d just got out the bath. Would yours, Gwen?’

‘Get divorced, I’m talking about,’ said Gwen, suddenly apprehending what the pickled brain belonging to the gauche, brunette woman seated across from her was thinking.

‘Oh, I see, of course,’ stammered Zeta. ‘The ginger bugger! I could never stand him, myself. I don’t know why they spent so much time teaching us about him, do you? Six wives, indeed. Spanish and German and English and God knows what else. And what didn’t he like about Italian women? That’s what I want to know. Couldn’t the man have squeezed in a cuddly, brown-eyed, bambina? And I’m sure
she’d
have given him a son. Seven’s a lucky number, after all.’

By now Gwen felt she had had just about enough of this senseless confab with her childhood friend. She remembered now why it was she normally went to
Zanelli’s
for coffee when she found herself in town, and a sudden shower upset her plans. But the beverage before her was still too hot for her to finish just yet, so she decided to bite her tongue and make just one more effort. ‘To be honest, Zeta,’ she said, ‘these days I find I’m only really interested in Arthur.’

Zeta stared at her, plainly confused. ‘Oh, you mean
King Arthur!
For a second then, I thought you meant -’

‘Look, Zeta, the man was never a king, O.K.?’ retorted Gwen, feeling herself getting angrier by the minute. ‘He was a chief. Not a king - a chief.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, pet,’ retorted Zeta, feeling embarrassed and not knowing what else to say. .

‘Arthur’s the greatest leader we ever had here in Wales. He was born here, remember, and, though some will no doubt say different, he is still living here with us today.’

‘In Merthyr!’ ejaculated Zeta, licking her lips nervously. ‘Surely not, pet.’

‘No, no – up in Pant,’ Gwen told her.

‘Pant! Where you live! He’s living in Pant, is he?’ Zeta enquired, her hand shooting up to her mouth. ‘Well, I never.’

‘Until the day that he finally emerges, that is, to lead us bravely on the field once more.’

‘In the
Rugby World Cup
, do you mean?’ said Zeta, picking up the sugar-dispenser, cleaning its surface with her tea-towel, and putting it back nearer the edge of the table.

‘Zeta! What on earth do you think you’re doing, love?’ Gwen screamed. ‘He’s
living
in there!’

Terrified, the shopkeeper stared, wide-eyed, at her petite friend. ‘Who - pet?’ she enquired. ‘You’re not - surely you’re not telling me that King Arthur is stuck inside one of my -’

Gwen suddenly reached over and snatched the dispenser out of Zeta’s hands, and placed it back in the very centre of her defensive arrangement. Zeta was at a complete loss about what to do, so, reluctantly she got to her feet, and edged away from the table. ‘Look, I’d better be getting on with my job, Gwen,’ she told her old friend, without looking back. ‘But it’s been really lovely seeing you again after all this time. In fact, now I think of it, I don’t believe I’ve seen you since that night we went to the
Ex-Club
with all the girls for that show. Wasn’t your ex-husband performing that night? Dick, is it? What was it he did again, pet? Stand-up comedy, was it?’

‘He was a bingo-caller,’ Gwen retorted, frowning.

‘No, I mean that particular night, pet,’ Zeta continued. ‘I know he used to call out numbers during the week, but on that particular Saturday night we all went there together for something else, didn’t we? Another kind of show entirely, I’m sure. What was it he did when he wasn’t doing the bingo and robbing all the customers, pet? Do you remember? ‘Cause I’m damned if I can.’

By now Gwen was raging. She stood up and walked towards the door, turning back only to leave her empty cup on the counter. ‘Zeta Carini, I haven’t got a bloody clue what the hell you’re talking about,’ she bawled. ‘I can’t remember ever going anywhere with you on any evening, as it goes. And why on earth
would I
, for heaven’s sake? This is about the closest we’ve ever been since we lived a few doors apart up in Corporation Road.’