MORNING SERIAL

“THAT soul balm of Caney’s is wearing off,” said Uncle Edwin.

“Caney should have doubled the dose,” said Gomer, “but he said it was a tricky mixture. Misery, said Caney, who is a fair hand with an axiom when he tries, has been our favourite tipple for so long it will take a thousand years of experiment with applied gladness to dispel the flavour.”

Uncle Edwin was pointing again. His eye had the aptitude of hawks for singling out significant figures in crowds. “Isn’t that Caney the Cure over there now, Gomer? He’s waving at you.”

A man with the hair style of Lloyd George at his bushiest was making his way towards us, holding aloft a stick carved like a totem pole. He had prodded a few voters with this stick to get them out of the way and a few of these people were following Caney with angry faces and telling him to be careful. Caney was gasping and agitated.

“What is it, Mr Caney?” asked Gomer.

“The stuff I gave you for Coleman.”

“The balm,” said four or five voices.

A grimace flashed across the face of Caney the Cure of which we could all taste the unhappiness.

“Balm, balm,” he said, as if trying to reassemble the fragments of a dream that had that very instant been kicked to death. “I’ll tell you about that. The stuff I gave to Coleman wasn’t the soul balm after all.”

A wreath of grave expressions formed around Caney and the deep, cautionary voices of the Meadow Prospect group rolled out like drums: “Buck up, Caney.” “Have a care there, Kitchener.” “This is no talk for a magician.”

Caney chuckled but there was no hint of amusement or flippancy in it. We could see that Caney meant this chuckle to be symbolic, a hint that this kind of idiot laughter was the last kiss and farewell of the tragic impulse, that all things, death, love, the senseless plume of space and stars, would all at last come to rest in some kind of cut-rate giggle.

“My wife made a mistake with the gummed label on the bottle. We have a lot of labels and my wife does a lot with the gum because my tongue tickles. She’s a fine woman, my wife, but the taste of gum makes her giddy.”

> Gazooka by Gwyn Thomas is published by Parthian at £9. parthianbooks.com

CONTINUES TOMORROW