Last Train to Gloryhole (70 page)

‘Girls?’ she asked, raising her brows mischievously.

‘Yes, girls,’ he retorted. He considered this for a moment. ‘And I’ve even told them so.’

‘That they were angels?’ asked Carla, beginning to understand. ‘Have you really, Jake?’

The boy nodded, then looked down at his foot. ‘But for some reason they never seem to think the same about me. You know, one day I intend to figure that out.’

Carla suddenly got this image of the boy doing it on a calculator, and so almost giggled and gave the game away. ‘So do you believe in love, Jake?’ she asked him, taking care not to make eye-contact.

‘Not now,’ he answered. ‘Definitely not any more.’

Carla could see that the boy had been deeply hurt by someone in his past. ‘Well, if you don’t believe in love, Jake, then - then why don’t you tell me what you do believe in,’ she asked him.

‘O.K., if you like,’ said Jake. He looked up and gazed into her eyes. ‘So I’ll do that, shall I?’ Carla nodded. The boy looked about him, then turned and stared out of the window that sat, uncurtained behind him. ‘See that pale sphere up there?’ he asked her, pointing into the distance.

‘I do,’ Carla answered, shifting her position on the floor a little, the better to see it. ‘The sun, you mean?’

‘Well, it’s the moon, actually,’ he told her. ‘I know it’s only the afternoon, but, trust me, that’s the moon.’ He chuckled. ‘If it were the sun then I doubt we could just stare straight at it, right?’

‘Yeah, I guess that’s true, Jake,’ she said. ‘Silly me. Now I can see clearly that
it is
the moon.’

‘And, do you know, Carla, that altogether twelve men have been there and walked across its stony surface?’ he told her.

‘Is that right?’ she asked him. ‘Twelve in total? Twelve Americans I guess, yeah?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘In pairs, of course - they all landed in pairs each time. The third guy didn’t get to land, you see.’

‘Do you mean the pair landed with the third man on each mission going round and round the moon waiting for them to fire off from the lunar surface and link up with him?’ she asked, smiling.

‘That’s right,’ said Jake, more than a little surprised that she knew this. ‘But do you want to know what one of the men said on his return?’ he asked.

‘Tell me,’ said Carla. ‘Because I think I can feel a song coming.’ She smiled at him, but noticed that he didn’t react to this jocular aside. No, he was gone - too far gone - Carla thought. Jake’s mind was transported in time and in space, and Carla could see this clearly happening.

‘Back then,’ Jake told the singer, ‘this one astronaut was said to have claimed he felt there had been a third man on the moon along with the two of them, when they were walking about there, you know, and doing their exploring and what-not.’

‘Did he really?’ asked Carla, tilting her head quizzically. ‘You know, I never heard about that.’

‘Well, he did,’ said Jake. ‘But of course he couldn’t say anthing about this while he was on the surface, when he and his suited and helmet-ed companion were bouncing around, doing what they had been commanded to do. You could be court-marshalled for less than that, I’m sure.’

‘Yes, I guess you could,’ said Carla. ‘But
you
believe him, don’t you, Jake?’ she asked.

‘Well, yes, I do, as a matter of fact,’ he replied, blinking, once again taken aback at how the famous singer he was conversing with could possibly know this.

‘And who do you think that man was?’ asked Carla. ‘Who do you think that had to be who was walking around with them in that dusty, crater-ed, dreadfully hostile world out there?’ She pointed up at the disc above his shoulder. ‘Tell me, Jake.’

‘
Tell
you?’ said Jake. ‘Well, you know, I’ve thought long and hard about who it might have been,’ he said, ‘even searched the internet for answers, but, do you know, I’m still clueless.’

Sensing her power over the boy, Carla got to her feet and walked across to him. She noticed that her head barely reached up to his chin ‘Think Jake!’ exclaimed Carla. ‘Think! Go on!’ Suddenly she reached out and gripped his hand in her own, and stared into his blinking eyes.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jake. ‘How
would
I know?’ He gazed into Carla’s eyes. ‘But - but I guess you do, don’t you?’ he said. The girl nodded and smiled sweetly at him. ‘Who was it, Carla?’ asked Jake, his mouth open, his eyes wide and burning. ‘You see, I’ve always wanted to know.’

‘It was Jesus,’ she told him.

I stayed, hand-in-hand, with Tom all day, waiting for the moment when, in his words, he would ‘breathe his last.’ He had insisted that I remain with him and ‘see it through,’ and I must say I felt privileged so to do. His daughter Carla had still not come home, but I knew that any attempt to ring her from there would have proved futile since the old man and I had already seen that her mobile-phone had been left lying on the table beside her bed. On a personal note, I was very sad that Carla was not there to assist her father at this time, to help, empathise with him, and love him. And yet I got the distinct impression from Tom that he knew full well that she would not be returning, and was looking to me to be the final companion that he conversed with in this life.

A loud bang sounded on the floor overhead. ‘Who’s that in your loft?’ I asked the old man.

Silence followed. Tom, seeming to apprehend my words more slowly than before, asked, ‘Did you hear someone, Dyl?’ I nodded. ‘Oh, then that’ll be the boy next door, that will,’ he told me. ‘Young Chris. He and my daughter have been storing their - their weed up there, see.’ He pointed to the end portion of a spliff in an ash-tray on his dressing-table. ‘You know, unless we want the two of them to come to serious harm, then I’m afraid you shall need to climb up there, Dyl, and clean out what the boy’s created.’

‘My son has a farm in your loft!’ I exclaimed.

‘Carla told me that Chris has been cultivating his plants up in the loft of this house for a lot longer than I have been living here,’ he told me. I shook my head in dismay at this news. ‘But on the other matter, I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Dyl.’

‘Mistaken! How do you mean? About what?’ I enquired.

‘I mean about you being the boy’s father,’ Tom replied. ‘Because I can assure you, Dyl, that you certainly aren’t that.’

‘Am I not!’ I ejaculated. ‘Then you - then I guess you must know who is then?’

The old man shook his head, smiled weakly, and stared up strangely into my eyes. ‘You and I share a name, I believe,’ he suddenly announced.

‘No, I don’t think - oh, you mean Thomas,’ I replied. ‘Yes, that’s my third Christian name as it goes,’ I told him. ‘So yes, we do share a name. But tell me, Tom,’ I enquired, ‘how on earth did you know that?’.

‘Will you clear the loft for me?’ the old man asked. I smiled, then nodded. ‘Then I think you’ll find that the step-ladder is currently downstairs somewhere, possibly in the kitchen. I guess you can probably dispose of the plants over the fence out back. But as for all the equipment, well -’

‘Don’t worry your head about that, my friend,’ I told him. ‘I’ll transport it all away in my van and later on take it to the dump. I will. I give you my word,’ I added. ‘Nobody will ever know a thing,’

His life’s work now accomplished, his long day done, Tom, who had once visualized a tranquil, rural idyll stretched out ahead of him, knew that his God had had other plans. And now that it was coming to an end, the man certainly wasn’t planning to fight it, fight against its dying light, as he recalled another Thomas had said, and many years before that man’s own young flame had been extinguished, in a way drowned, in a cold room in a street off East River, New York.

Fight it? Why? And with what? he mused. That was back then. Not any more. No, Tom accepted that his hour had come. And very soon now he realised that he would leave behind him the shell that was his frail, tortured body, and rise up to the ceiling of the room, formless and invisible, to gaze down upon his modest legacy, and the kind, undoubting man who had comforted him when he most needed it, and so helped him to step away.

The sudden tapping sound echoed round the house. ‘Tom - if you can hear me -’ I said. Tom could hear me clearly enough, I felt, but most likely found that he could no longer look up. ‘Hold on, brother,’ I told him. ‘It’s Carla!’ I said. ‘There is someone knocking at the door. I’ll just go down and let her in, O.K.? Just wait there now, old buddy.’

I rose from the bedside and let the old man’s thin, blue-veined hand fall onto the silky, cool eiderdown that otherwise completely covered him. I made my way downstairs and approached the front-door. Through the glass panel I could plainly see that there was no one standing outside, but noticed a small brown envelope lying on the mat. I picked it up and opened the flap.
‘Want her back live or in a box? Gonna cost you 500K in used or else too bad.’
the glued-on assortment of printed letters, that constituted the ransom-note, read.

I immediately opened the door and stepped out into the glaring southern sun. I noticed Jack Belt’s old, green van trundling down the hill in the direction of the
Blue Pool,
but, apart from that, I could see nobody about. Someone must have come here on foot, I told himself, and is probably right this minute scuttling away across the viaduct. And so I rushed out onto the road and made my way down onto the old railway-halt, and then turned and walked back under the road-bridge to see what I could make out on the surface of the old track that spanned
The Seven Arches
and ran away from me towards the east. I could see that there wasn’t a soul upon it, not even a solitary cyclist traversing
The Taff Trail
in either direction. But low in the distant sky beside the castle I saw the sphere of the full moon gleaming dimly down at me through a thin veil of clouds.

I felt I had no choice but to retrace my steps and go back. But when I returned to the front of the terraced house called
Coral
I noticed that the door was now wide open, and that the breeze, which now swept in from outside, and down the hallway to the kitchen and out through the open back-door, had toppled over a pot of dry flowers onto the carpet. I picked them up and replaced them in the pot, then saw a woman’s skirted legs coming down the stairs to greet me, and naturally thought it must be Carla.

‘Thank God you’ve come,’ I bellowed. ‘He needs you now more than ever.’

But instead a voice I knew so well said, ‘The old man’s gone, Dyl. He has passed away.’

‘Anne!’ I exclaimed. ‘What are you -’

‘You and I have an awful lot to do now, you know,’ she told me

‘Yes, I dare say,’ I said, climbing the stairs, and joining her. Then I remembered something. ‘But before we call a doctor I think we first need to clear out the loft.’

‘Yes, we’ll certainly need to do that, I know,’ she replied, biting her lip. ‘I was up there earlier on, and it’s very like something out of
‘Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves.’
I smiled back and nodded. ‘But you know first we will have to dress the body.’

For a moment I considered this. ‘Like - like the miners’ wives used to do, you mean,’ I said, ‘when their menfolk got killed down the pit?’

‘And as they did again when we were young in Aberfan, Dyl. Do you remember? But, thankfully, it’s a task I’ve done many times before in
The Willows,
so don’t concern yourself. Say - why don’t you go and bring the step-ladder and a torch up here, and I’ll go down and boil a kettle. You won’t need to go back into him, Dyl. I’ve just done everything that was needed doing.’

‘Anne, you’re as wonderfully kind as you always were,’ I told her, almost tearfully.

Ignoring my comment, and looking down at the cloth she held, she continued, ‘And if Carla gets back, then leave her to me, will you? It’s bound to be a terrible shock for the girl. But somehow, Dyl, I don’t believe she’s going to be coming back any time soon. What do you think?’

In the northern sky slate-grey clouds stacked, then shifted on the serrated, mountainous horizon. By this time the moon was long gone from sight, and the early evening breeze swirled noisily, cantering like a pony across the cobble-stone yard that lay just in front of the farm. Jack’s van was back and was the only vehicle that was parked out front, Volver’s Audi and his new four-by-four sitting snugly, and well hidden away, in the double-garage round the back.

The door of the farmhouse opened and out walked Jack, dipping his head as he walked, to count all the notes he had just been given, and then folding them in two so that they would slide easily into his front trouser-pocket where he buried them. Slidng the side-door of his iconic, green camper-van closed, he climbed into the driving-seat and drove away down the narrow track towards the main road, where, at the junction, a small, wooden sign on a post, bearing just a white-painted arrow and the words
Cwm Scwt,
were all there was to inform any passing motorist that a building of any kind, much less a farm, nestled there among the hillside’s trees.

The falsetto voice of Leone Lewis soon called out Jack Belt’s name, and the front-door of the farm-house opened a second time, but by now the man she sought was long gone. ‘Oh, fuck!’ Leone cursed, looking out, fixing a small paper-bag between her teeth so that she could tie a shame-saving knot in the satin robe she was barely wearing. Taking the bag in her hand again, she said, ‘He forgot to take his drugs with him, the old twat.’

‘Jack doesn’t do drugs,’ called a voice from behind her that was Steffan’s. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘Oh, well. Do
you
want them?’ she asked, turning.

‘What the fuck
are
they?’

‘Viagara,’ she replied.

‘What are you doing giving him them for?’ bellowed Volver, suddenly appearing on the door-step beside her, and grabbing her by the arm. ‘Jack doesn’t need those, you air-head. He lives in an isolated house on his own.’

‘Then all the more reason,’ she answered. ‘Look - the man’s hardly a pensioner, is he?’

‘Jack’s seventy if he’s a day,’ said Volver. ‘Jeez! What are you like girl, eh?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she told him. ‘Look - I’m sorry, O.K.? How was I to know, babe?’