Last Tango in Aberystwyth Read Free

image familiar from the photos of the Blitz – sides of houses torn away to reveal the contents, floor by floor, like dolls’ houses open to view.
    The city fathers from Dresden who came to advise on the rebuilding found little to advise upon. You call this a moonscape?they said. This is a walk in the park! Just do what we did in 1945. Gather together all the Old Master oil paintings with views of the town; all the watercolours and prints of the main civic buildings; all the etchings and lithographs and work from that; rebuild. Roll your sleeves up. Don’t dwell on it, move on. And so we did. In the absence of canvases by Canaletto and engravings by Dürer we resorted instead to something more modest: a nationwide appeal for old holiday snaps and postcards of Aberystwyth. Predictably it produced its fair share of pictures of the Sphinx and the leaning tower of Pisa because, as anyone who’s ever been stopped by a traffic cop knows, everyone’s a comedian these days. But the steady stream of ash-trays, salt and pepper shakers, and souvenir barometers with views of the town were enough to get us started.
    We were also helped enormously by the Bucket & Spade Aid concert put on by the end-of-the-pier performers. From all round the coasts of Britain they came – birdsong impressionists, organ-grinders, ventriloquists, stand-up comedians, skiffle practitioners – all joining in to raise funds under the slogan, ‘I say, I say, I say, my dog’s got no nose!’
    By the time I returned to the bus stop my partner Calamity Jane was there waiting for me. She was wearing a shiny black leather coat and a black beret and looked ready to assassinate someone. Not even seventeen and so well versed in the ways of the street, a girl who in many ways knew more about it than me, who always got to hear the word, whatever it was, long before I did and always paid a lot less for it. An hour late and holding a new camera with a strangely furtive air.
    â€˜Calamity!’
    â€˜Hiya! Where’ve you been?’
    â€˜Where have you been, more like, we’ve missed the bus.’
    â€˜I’ve been testing my new camera. Do you like it?’
    She pushed it towards me.
    â€˜Will it squirt water in my eye?’
    â€˜Nope.’
    â€˜Then I like it a lot better than the old one.’
    She grinned. No matter how hard she tried to act the wised-up bingo-hall hustler, the imp in her always bubbled through. I couldn’t resist smiling when I saw it. The sly cunning that mingled strangely with that charming innocence, the look of bright wonder and belief that the tarnished streets couldn’t cloud. That look in her eye that Eeyore said made putting on a silver star still worthwhile.
    We’d been partners now for three years, and I’d done my best to look out for her, to stand in for the father she didn’t have and keep her on the right track. It wasn’t always easy, as the newly acquired camera proved. The black market that sprang up in the aftermath of the flood had proved an irresistible lure to a girl like Calamity.
    I looked sceptically at the camera. ‘That looks like quite an expensive bit of machinery.’
    She gave it an appraising look. ‘From one of my debtors.’
    â€˜What do you need it for?’
    Calamity moved half a step closer and took a quick look up and down the Prom.
    â€˜I’m taking Aunt Minnies.’
    â€˜That’s good.’
    She nodded in agreement. ‘I think so too.’ She pointed the camera upwards. ‘It’s got an East German lens. They’re the best for this sort of thing.’
    â€˜Aunt Marjories, eh?’
    â€˜Minnies.’
    â€˜Aunt Minnies?’
    â€˜Yep.’
    â€˜I was just thinking we should probably get some more of those.’
    â€˜I’m going to put them on file.’
    â€˜You’re just dying for me to ask, aren’t you?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You know