The Old Devils Read online

  Malcolm jerked upright at the table. A great God-given flood of boredom and hatred went coursing through him. That, that stuff, fiddling about with stuff like that was not living, was not life, was nothing at all. Not after today's news. No indeed, poems were not made out of intentions. But perhaps they could come from hope.

  He made to tear up his manuscript, but held his hand at the thought of the hours that had gone into it, and the other thought that he would go back to it another day and transform it, make something wonderful of it. For now, he could not sit still. Yet-if he left the house now he would be much too early, or rather a good deal, a certain amount too early. Well, he could get off the bus at Beaufoy and walk the rest of the way. On more of the same reasoning he went and gave his shoes a thorough polish; not much point hereabouts, agreed, but virtuous.

  When he finally went out it was overcast with a bit of black, damp already, mild though, with a gentle breeze clearing the mist, typical Welsh weather. If you can see Cil Point it means rain later; if not, rain now. As he started down the hill he could see it, just, a dark-grey snout between the ranks of black slate roofs shining with moisture. Soon the bay began to open out below him, the sweep round to the west where coal had once been mined on the shore and inland along the coastal plain, and steel and tin-plate were still worked and oil refined, for the moment anyway, and behind all this, indistinct through the muck, the squarish mass of Mynydd Tywyll, second-highest peak in South Wales.

  It was mid-morning in the week, and yet the pavements were crowded with people darting in ·and out of shops or just strolling along like holiday-makers- here, in February? Children and dogs ran from side to side almost underfoot. Crossing the road was no joke with all the cars and the motor-cycles nipping about. There was a queue at the 24 stop but, even so, nothing showed for a long time. Staff shortages, they said, recruitment down since the automatic-payment system had meant good-bye to days of plenty, when the conductor fiddled half the fare-money on the out-of-town part of the route and handed over half of it, or nearly, to the driver when they got to the garage. To save going round the end of the queue, youngsters on their way to the opposite corner kept breaking through it, always as if by pre-arrangement just in front of Malcolm.

  The bus came. While he was climbing the litter-strewn steps his left ball gave a sharp twinge, on and off like a light-switch, then again after he had sat down. Nothing. Just one of the aches and pains that come and go. No significance. He would not always have taken such a summary line, in fact at one stage cancer of them, or one of them, had been among his leading special dreads, distinguished as it was by its very personal site and alleged virulence. There had even been the time when, after a day and most of a night of just about unremitting twinges on both sides, he had spent the dawn hours compiling in his head a draft list of books to take into hospital: mainly English poetry with one or two descriptive works about Wales, in English naturally. The following morning, by one of the most rapid and complete recoveries in medical history, the affection had vanished. So far so good, no further. But then he had read in the _Guardian__ that recent advances had put the survival rate for testicular tumours up to or above ninety per cent, and for the rest of that day he had felt twenty, thirty years younger, and something of that had never been quite lost.

  Re1lecting on this and related matters took him past his stop and almost into Dinedor itself. With an air of transparent innocence that luckily escaped remark he got off by Paolo's Trattoria. Just round the corner was the Bible, more' fully the Bible and Crown, the only pub of that name in the whole of Wales. According to local antiquarians the reference was to a Cavalier toast, though research had failed to come up with a date earlier than 1920, some time after it had become safe to proclaim loyalty to the King's party in any or all of his dominions, even this one.

  On the way in Malcolm's spirits lifted, as they always did at the prospect of an hour or more spent not thinking about being ill and things to do with being ill. It was still early, but not enough to notice.

  2

  'But uglier still is the hump that we get from not having enough to do. You know who said that?'

  'No.'

  'Kipling. Joseph Rudyard Kipling. He was usually right, you know. Had a way of being right. No use sitting about, he said, or frowsting by the fire with a book. Wonderful word, frowst, isn't it? Wonder what it comes from. Well anyway, the thing is, get out in the fresh air and take a bit of exercise. A brisk walk, two miles minimum, three preferab1e. No need for any of your sleeping pills after that. I haven't taken a sleeping pill since... Guess when I last took a sleeping pill.'

  'No idea.'

  '1949. That's when I last took a sleeping pill .1949. Morning, Malcolm. Another early bird.'

  'Morning, Garth. Morning, Charlie. Now what can I get you?'

  The two had nearly full glasses and declined, but the offer was standard arrivals' etiquette. Malcolm went and got himself a half of Troeth bitter at the hatch in the corridor,' the nearest place. During his absence, Garth Pumphrey let Charlie Norris know more about the benefits of exercise and the dispensability of sleeping pills. Charlie followed Garth's talk with only half his attention, if that, but he found it comforting. He knew that nothing Garth said would surprise him, and as he felt at the moment, which was very much how he felt every morning of his life at this hour, even a pleasant surprise, whatever that might be, would have been better postponed. He flinched a little when Malcolm reappeared more abruptly than he had bargained for.

  'Ah, here we are,' said Garth cordially, holding out an arm by way of showing Malcolm to the chair at his side. 'There. I've been treating young Charlie to a highly authoritative lecture on the subject of health, physical and mental. My number one rule is never sit over a meal. Breakfast least of all. '

  It was amazing, thought Malcolm to himself, how invariably and completely he forgot Garth when looking forward to or otherwise weighing up a visit to the Bible. Forgetting things like that was probably one of Nature's ways of seeing to it that life carried on. Like the maternal instinct.

  'Of course, you know Angharad says I'm turning into a real old health bore - a notorious pitfall of age, she says.' In the ensuing silence Garth took a good pull at his drink, which looked like a rather heavy vin rosé but was really gin and Angostura. Then he shaped up to Malcolm in a businesslike way. 'You were quite a performer in days gone by, Malcolm, weren't you? Sorry, with the old racquet. Oh, I was saying earlier, I remember the way you used to bash that ball. Give it a devil of a pasting, you would. That serve of yours. Famous. Deservedly so.'

  'Many years ago now, Garth.'

  'Not so many as the world goes in our time. November 1971, that's when the old place finally closed its doors.' Garth referred to the Dinedor Squash Racquets Club, of which all three had been members since youth. 'The end of an era. You know you and I had a game in the last week very nearly. I took a proper clobbering as usual. You were really seeing them that evening. Then we had a drink after with poor Roger Andrews. Do you remember?'

  'Yes,' said Malcolm, though he had forgotten that part, and Charlie nodded to show that he was still in the conversation.

  'He seemed so full of life that time. And then what could it have been, six weeks after we started coming in here, eight at the outside, off he goes. Like that. Sitting just where you are now, Charlie.'

  Malcolm remembered that part all right. So did Charlie.

  Roger Andrews had been nothing out of the way, a building contractor of no more than average corruption, not even much of a good fellow, but his fatal collapse in the so-called saloon lounge of the Bible had had a durable effect, confirming the tendency of a group of ex-members of the defunct squash club to drop in regularly midday and in the early evening. Over the years the room had become a kind of relic or descendant of that club, its walls hung with inherited photographs of forgotten champions, teams, presentations, dinners, its tables bearing a couple of ugly old ashtrays that had escaped being sold or stolen when the effects of t
he DSRC were disposed of. The habitués had even acquired something of a prescriptive right to keep out intruders. The landlord of the Bible made no objection, in fact it suited him well enough to have up to a dozen or so comparatively well-behaved drinkers perpetually occupying the least convenient and agreeable corner of his premises. From time to time the old boys complained among themselves about the discomfort, but there they were, the dump was almost next door to the Club building, which was what had drawn them there in the first place, and in winter the genial host actually let them have the benefit of a small electric fire at no extra charge.

  After a moment of reverie or premeditation Garth Pumphrey again turned his face on Malcolm, a dark serious lined face with a hint of subdued passion, an actor's face some might have called it. 'What exercise do you take these days, Malcolm?' he asked.

  'Just about zero, I'm afraid.'

  'Just about zero? A fellow of your physique. A natural athlete like you. Dear, dear.'

  'Ex-natural athlete. I'm not going to start going on cross-country runs at my age.'

  'I should hope not indeed, it's altogether too late for that.' Garth whistled breathily to himself and moved his hand crabwise along the table' in front of him. Then he said, 'Do you find you fancy your food all right? I hope you don't mind me asking, we're all old friends here.'

  Charlie thought a distinction could be drawn between Garth's boasting about his own insides if he had to and his involvement with others', but he was not the man to put it into words. His second large Scotch and dry ginger was beginning to get to him and already he could turn his head without thinking it over first. Soon it might cease to be one of those days that made you sorry to be alive.

  'No, that's all right, Garth,' Malcolm was saying gamely. 'No, my-trouble's all the other way. Keeping myself down to size.'

  'Good, good.' Garth's small figure was huddled up in the cracked rexine chair, turned away from Charlie. He smiled and nodded. 'And, er... ' His eyebrows were raised.

  In a flash Malcolm knew or as good as knew that the next second Garth was going to ask him about his bowel movements. He felt he would do, must do, anything at all to prevent that, and mentioned what he had not even considered mentioning, not there, not yet, not until he had hugged it to himself as long as he could. 'Alun and Rhiannon are moving down here in a couple of months,' he said quickly. 'Coming back to Wales to live.'

  That did the trick. It took quite some time for Garth's incredulity to be mollified, likewise his craving for information. When that was done he explained that, what with being stuck out at Cape1 Mererid and so on, he had not known the couple in early years, but had met Alun many times on trips to these parts and anyway, he finished strongly, 'the bloke is a national figure, let's face it.'

  'You face it,' said Charlie, who had reasons of his own to feel less than overjoyed at Malcolm's news. 'I realize he's on television quite a lot, though we don't usually get it in Wales, and when anyone wants a colourful kind of stage- Taffy view on this and that then of course they go to him. With a bit of eloquent sob-stuff thrown in at Christmas or when it's dogs or the poor. He's the up-market media Welshman. Fine. I can take him in that role, just about. But as for Alun Weaver the writer, especially the poet... I'm sorry.'

  'Well, I'm no literary critic,' announced Garth. 'I'm just going by the general acclaim. I'm told they think highly of him in America. But we've got a writer here now.'

  'Oh, no,' said Malcolm, embarrassed. 'Not in that sense.

  Well, what can I say? It's true that a lot of his work falls under Brydan's shadow, but I see nothing very shameful in that. And there's more than that in it. I'm not saying he didn't get quite a bit from Brydan, but they were also both drawing on a common stock to rather different effect. Something like that.'

  Charlie said with a bland look, 'Everything you say may well be true - it cuts no ice with me. Brydan, Alun, you can stick the lot. Take it away. Forget it.'

  'Oh, Charlie,' Garth pleaded. 'Not Brydan. Not _Tales from the Undergrowth__. Known and loved all over the world as it is.'

  'That in particular. Write about your own people by all means, don't be soft on them, turn them into figures of fun if you must, but don't patronize them, don't sell them short and above all don't lay them out on display like quaint objects in a souvenir shop.'

  'I didn't realize you felt that strongly,' said Malcolm after a silence.

  'I don't, I don't feel strongly at all. Not my field. But I do think if a chap decides to make a living out of being Welsh he'd better do it in a show on the telly. Which I think Alun realizes part of the time.'

  'Oh dear.' Malcolm too seemed quite cast down. 'And you see that in the poetry, in Brydan's poetry too, do you?'

  'Yes I do. What's that stuff about, er, the man in the mask and the man in the iron street. All he'd done was juggle two phrases about and had the Americans going on about childlike Welsh vision. Stark too it was, boyo. It's not serious enough, that kind of thing.'

  Malcolm set about considering the justice of parts of this in his conscientious way. Soon Garth, who bad been looking anxiously from face to face, made a permission-to speak noise. Charlie nodded encouragingly at him.

  'I was just going to say, what about, what about her? I have met her, of course I have, but I think only the once and long ago.'

  'Well, what about her?' said Charlie. 'Just a very pleasant - '

  'Rhiannon Rhys, as she was when I first met her,' said Malcolm fluently, raising himself in his seat like a panellist answering a question from the audience, 'was one of the most stunning-looking girls I've ever seen in my life. Tall, fair, graceful, beautiful complexion, grey eyes with just a hint of blue. An English rose, really. And a lovely nature - modest, unassuming. She made no attempt to be the centre of attraction, but she was, in any company. No, I haven't seen her for a long time either, and she may look a bit different now, but there are some things that don't change, not in thirty years. I'm glad she's coming back to Wales.'

  Malcolm believed that he had on the whole said this in a conversational, down-to-earth way. Garth paid close attention. Charlie drained his glass for the second time, sucking fiercely to get the last couple of drops.

  'Well, er,' said Garth, 'that sounds absolutely marvellous. Thank you, Malcolm. I'll look forward to renewing my acquaintance with, with Mrs Weaver.'

  Before he had finished Charlie was urging Malcolm to have a real drink, assuring him that what he had before him was piss and getting up from the table. This was not as straightforward a procedure as might be thought, in view of the table itself and his chair and their respective legs, and his own bulk and state. On the way out of the room he gave a muffled cry of shock when the side of his heel bumped against the door-frame. By standing quite still for a moment and concentrating, however, he successfully avoided the hazard in the passage floor where for some years most of a tile had been missing. His shoulder grazed but did not dislodge a framed photograph on the wall showing a row of men in hats standing outside a thatched cottage in Ireland or some such place.

  As he waited at the hatch for Doris to finish giving change for a couple of twenty-pound notes in the bar, Charlie thought about Malcolm's speech just now. Almost every phrase in it had been all right in itself, would have been, at least, if said in a different voice or eked out with a few oaths or perhaps seen written. It was the way the silly sod had looked and sounded so pleased with himself for having had no false shame about coming out with it that was what had called for a frantic personal exit headfirst through the closed window or, more prosaically, overturning the table in his lap. And that clear holy-man's gaze...

  Doris ambled along and Charlie ordered a large pink gin, mentioning Garth's name, and three large Scotches and water. Down went one of the Scotches in its entirety while Doris was ringing up and right away the old feather duster twirled at the back of his throat and he was coughing his heart to bits, right there at maximum first go, roaring, bellowing like an imitation, in a crouch with his fists shoved into hi
s guts, tears pawing down his face. A silence fell widely round him. When he tried to look he thought he saw somebody, several people, hobbledehoys, leaning over the bar· to peer. Doris gave him a glass of water and he sipped and breathed, then drank. With a great exhalation he straightened up and mopped his eyes, feeling now quite proud of himself, as if his well-known toughness and grit had got him through another testing external assault.

  He had not yet touched the tray of drinks when the door banged at the end of the passage and a large lumpish figure creaked towards him through the gloom, recognizable after a moment as Peter Thomas, runner-up in the open tournament of the DSRC a couple of times in the 1940S but more of a golf man. Neither one nor the other these days, of course.

  'Hallo, Peter. Early for you.'

  'No, not really. Yes, I'll have a gin and slimline tonic.'

  If Charlie Norris had ever been thought of as big and fat and red-faced, and some such description was hard to avoid, a revision of terminology might have been called for at the sight of his friend. Charlie's backside pushed the tail of his tweed jacket into two divergent halves, true, and his paunch forced the waistband of his trousers half-way down to his crotch, but Peter could have given him a couple of stone and still been the heftier, not so obviously from front or back where the cut of his suit tended to camouflage him, but to be seen in anything like profile as even thicker through than wide. And Charlie's cheeks and forehead were no more than ruddy compared with Peter's rich colouring. Their faces in general were different: Charlie's round and pug-nosed, with the look of a battered schoolboy, Peter's fine-featured, almost distinguished between the bulges and pouches. At the moment Charlie was smiling, Peter not.

  'Well, how are you today?' asked Charlie. A duff question on second thoughts.

  'How do you think? But as you see I can get out of the house. Who's in there?'