Say Goodbye to the Boys by Mari Stead Jones Page B

remember going up and down like a yo–yo in that old lift – but I thought they’d done away with it too.’
    â€˜Second time someone’s broken into Lilian’s place,’ I said. ‘Maybe old man Ridetski’s come home.’
    â€˜Could be,’ he agreed, ‘but why pick on Miss Porterhouse?’ He said it to Mollie Ann Fruits, and she, in a voice that came from deep inside said, ‘It’s only the beginning – mark my words!’
    Outside in the sunshine Emlyn said, ‘We are going to give MT a lift? The Jazz Band.’
    â€˜Without me,’ I said promptly.
    â€˜I want us all in whites. Black bow tie. Dark specs. The wagon’s fixed. Mash on drums. Sid Bates’ll be on piano – I’ve fixed that as well. You on banjo.’
    â€˜Look, I’ve no strings on the fucking banjo,’ I said.
    â€˜All the fucking better for that,’ he went on smoothly. ‘I knew I could rely on you!’
    MT’s carnival and sports day were fixed for the Friday, and in spite of forecasts of depressions on the way, the days leading up to it blazed, each one hotter than the last.
    â€˜Oh – this old heat wave,’ Laura complained, ‘makes all them books sweat in the shop.’ But the whole town came out to rejoice in it, fan itself, and take the air and crowd the pubs. Talk of murders and inquests and funerals went by the board. Heat and sunshine’s deaths and dying antidote.
    I took Ceri out each day and to hell with working on the boat. The town council had officially boycotted the carnival and sports day, she told me. They had even tried, and failed, to secure a police ban on the procession because of the grave happenings in the town. The heat and the sunshine had met a barrier at the walls of the Council Chamber. To hell with grave happenings too, I thought. There was Ceri running out of the sea, Ceri smiling in the sun, Ceri’s voice in my head. I would have to work on keeping her away from David Garston who was sniffing around. It was she who told me that David had failed his exams. It was Amos Ellyott who told me that the police interviewed David every day, and were not happy with his story. But that wasn’t why Mash thumped him in the saloon bar of the King’s Arms. No one knew why he did it. David walked in. Mash threw a punch at him. And afterwards he couldn’t remember doing it.
    The depression arrived the morning of MT’s carnival. A boisterous wind sprang up from the estuary with havoc in mind, a startling dip in temperature, grey clouds obscuring the sun. It made the parade that was assembling in the yard of the Royal Hotel look even thinner that it was.
    â€˜Only three entries in the decorated bicycle class,’ MT said, ‘but never mind, never mind. It will look fine once we string along.’ He had decided to stick to the original route in spite of warnings about the wind on the promenade. The newer part of town first, then the old, up to the High Street and back to the Royal. ‘Look at the children,’ he cried out. ‘Aren’t they marvellous?’
    There were four shivering fairies, one with a broken wand; two little girls in Welsh costume who kept chasing their hats and three little boys dressed as ghosts. Numerous soldiers with sooty faces, twenty or more of whom it was difficult to say exactly what they were, and a little girl named Sian Thomas, not in fancy dress at all, who said she was the atomic bomb. Among the adults were John James as Mae West. Emlyn could remember him as Mae West in 1935, and at every subsequent carnival.
    â€˜A noble effort all round,’ MT declared. ‘Now – into line everybody.’
    Only three floats had assembled, two of them horse drawn because of the petrol rationing. On one of these were the Women’s Institute as ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’, crinolines billowing, wigs, and flower baskets. The other was a small