Make Room for the Jester by Stead Jones

Author:Stead Jones [Stead Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908069580
Publisher: Parthian Books
Published: 2011-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

XIII

‘I’ll go and wet my feet, kid,’ Ashton said as he rolled his trousers up to his bony knees. ‘By God, I’m dry all over. Drier than the Sahara.’

It was a hot day. In fact, the four days that Ashton had been without a drink had all been hot and thirsty. We watched him as he made his way down to the sea, stepping gingerly on the pebbles, still wearing his jacket and his hat.

‘Pathetic, isn’t he?’ Gladstone remarked. ‘Poor old soak. I wonder how long he’ll last.’

‘If I was him I’d be off to the Harp or somewhere,’ Dewi said. ‘He looks worse without having a drink…’

‘He’s got the shakes all right,’ Gladstone agreed. His attitude towards Ashton had changed since our visit to the Point. He criticised him now as freely as the rest of us, although he insisted that we had to be kind and help him all we could. ‘You never know,’ he said, ‘if we can get him to go back it might sort him out…’

‘Have you had a word with him?’ I asked.

‘A lot of words. Lew. It’s going to be a slow job.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I was telling Marius yesterday – you can’t rush him. He’s made up his mind nobody wants him, that’s all.’

Gladstone had gone up to the Point every day since our visit. He never told us why Marius wanted to see him, but it wasn’t too difficult to guess. Our job, Gladstone said, was to persuade Ashton that it was time he went home. ‘Get the poor old thing back where he belongs. Shouldn’t be living where he is, anyway. He’s a Vaughan. Wasn’t brought up like that…’

We had nothing from Gladstone now except the Vaughans. They had become the most important people alive; the world revolved around them. It was the Vaughans against the town, and the town was wrong, had been wrong all the time. What if we had been caught up on the Hill, then? he asked. Where would we have finished up? In the police station, that’s where, with Super Edwards flapping a charge sheet long as your arm in our faces…. Oh, no, Marius had proved himself a gentleman with us. Although we had burst in on him like that, broken his frame and all, he had let us go. And not only that: he had been nice to us as well, even told us about himself, spoken to us as if we were somebody…. The town was wrong, that’s all there was to it. All the town was interested in was knocking people down. Set them up – knock them down. One of their habits was destroying. Nobody had to be different, that was the trouble. They couldn’t bear that. And the Vaughans – well, they were different, weren’t they? And not just different, either – nobler, somehow. Why, there was even something noble about Ashton, poor old hopeless Ashton. They had style, both of them…. And whatever they did, whether it was wrong or what, they looked the town and the world squarely in the face.

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