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here, is there? Just old rubbish gathering dust. I have to come up here now and then, to make sure everything’s all right, but there’s nothing worth taking is there?’ The poor man now, the blind beggar.
    â€˜Then why don’t you give it away?’ Emlyn asked him.
    Garston avoided the question. ‘Get Marshall to tell his father I am waiting for news of the car.’
    Mash hadn’t been listening. ‘Tell him what?’ he said, then walked over to examine one of the shops, peering through the shutters.
    George Garston drew closer to us. ‘I hear he’s in a bad way,’ he whispered, jerking a long, black thumbnail in Mash’s direction.
    â€˜You hear wrong,’ Emlyn said.
    â€˜But – a bullet in his head, that’s what I heard...’
    â€˜Bullshit.’ Emlyn’s voice quiet but hard.
    â€˜Well – it’s only what I heard. His father’s very worried.’
    â€˜You’re thinking of someone else,’ Emlyn said. Then, in a voice that was tight and harsh, firing off each phrase, ‘Mash is all right. Cured. Nothing wrong with him at all. Just stories they push around the town. Got that?’ He waited for Garston to nod. ‘It’s just gossip, a bit like your David.’
    â€˜What d’you mean, my David?’ Garston snapped.
    â€˜Well, that’s only gossip too, about him drinking every night in the King’s Arms.’
    â€˜You are mistaken!’ Real anger in Garston’s voice. ‘Every night he’s at home preparing for the exams. You are mistaken.’
    â€˜Like you about Marshall Edmunds?’ Emlyn suggested, and he gave me the nudge and called Mash over and left George Garston with his empire.
    Outside the Hall in the sunshine Emlyn said, ‘Fancy me telling tales like some old woman.’ I was third man where Emlyn and Mash were concerned: always had been. Emlyn cheerfully referred to Mash as an old nut case, but no one else was allowed to do so. Not even me. ‘Now what shall we do tonight?’ And we looked at Mash and laughed.
    But Mash went every night for a week and I had occasion to fling Emlyn’s words in his face. Until, out of the blue, came Dawn and Shirley, on holiday from an insurance office in Liverpool and looking for a good time. Emlyn and I took them out most afternoons and every night, and work on the Ariadne , still propped in the mud, went slowly.
    â€˜Mind you,’ Emlyn said from a reclining position on the Ariadne’s deck, ‘we’ll have to set to. Soon as these two dollies go home.’ We lay there on the top deck. Emlyn inhaled deeply. ‘My God, doesn’t this old river pong? Two lungfulls and you’ve got typhoid.’ He leaned over on one elbow. ‘Tell you what though, I wish we could find a couple of rich dollies, who’d look after us!’
    â€˜We’re all right for the time being,’ I said. ‘Everything’s for the time being.’
    Mash bellowed from below. ‘Is there only me working?’ A few minutes later he appeared, such enormous shoulders, such a small head by comparison. In order to cover the scar Mrs Edmunds had insisted that he let his hair grow, and now it was thick and curly. He had tar on his face, on his chest, on his arms, as he swung over the side and came towards us we could see the harbour mud had given him a pair of black socks and we laughed. He crouched in front of us, frowning, his mouth in a pout. A boy’s face still.
    â€˜You’re doing a great job, Mash boy,’ Emlyn told him. ‘Just you take a breather.’
    Emlyn began to sing to himself as he lay back taking in the sun. Usually Mash could never resist joining in, but that day he was silent, staring blankly into the distance. I wondered what he was thinking; how he thought. Then suddenly, as if he had made up his mind about something, he crawled over and knelt between us. ‘I want to ask