The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    ‘The sky’s always bluer when there are clouds,’ said Calamity.
    I didn’t answer but pondered the phenomenon. She was right; the surrounding sky was bluer because the clouds were brighter, as if illuminated from within.
    There was a bridge at the bottom made of slabs of slate laid on stones embedded in the stream. We crossed and climbed over a stile, then began to climb. From the train in the valley below the discoloration in the hillside had, indeed, looked a bit like a duck. But as we climbed towards it, the outline became less and less distinct. The path reached another stile which led onto a rough farm track and we proceeded up what was presumably the duck’s leg.
    ‘If you ever have some butter that you don’t want to melt,’ I said to Calamity as we climbed, ‘it might be a good idea to put it in that kid’s mouth.’
    ‘Either that or my fist, I can’t work out which would be best.’
    I laughed. ‘I’m just glad you didn’t do it there and then.’
    ‘Why do you think the aliens asked about Iestyn Probert?’
    I didn’t answer.
    ‘I know what you think. There are no aliens.’
    ‘Got it in one.’
    ‘How come they knew his address?’
    ‘Don’t you think it’s more likely that the farmer invented the whole story?’
    ‘Why would he do that?’
    ‘People are funny.’
    ‘All the same, don’t you think it’s odd? This Raspiwtin bloke has been looking all his life for Iestyn Probert, and then some aliens turn up looking for him, too.’
    ‘Odd, yes, but not uncanny. My guess is Raspiwtin’s story is largely fiction and he got the name from the newspaper on the way to the office.’
    ‘He said we’d find Iestyn’s old house by a duck’s bill in the hillside, so the story can’t be all fiction, can it, because we’ve found the duck.’
    ‘You think so? Looks more like a drake to me.’
    She paused and turned to me with a grin. ‘Do you think the duck stain might be deliberate as some sort of a sign to the flying saucers?’ asked Calamity.
    ‘No.’
    ‘It would make sense.’
    ‘In your universe perhaps.’
    ‘It happens a lot. Plenty of ancient monuments are laid out in ways that only make sense from the air. In South America there are loads.’
    I rolled my eyes.
    ‘Your mind is closed,’ said Calamity with amusing pomposity.
    ‘It’s not closed, it just has a strict door policy. I don’t admit riff-raff.’
    ‘UFOs aren’t riff-raff. Loads of people have seen them.’
    ‘Loads of people have seen something they personally weren’t able to identify.’
    ‘They can’t all be hallucinations.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I saw one in Pwllheli. Are you saying I didn’t?’
    ‘You saw a light in the sky; there are lots of things that cause lights in the sky. And because you had read about flying-saucer sightings recently, you interpreted it as one. Five hundred years ago you would have called it an angel or a wheel of fire.’
    Calamity made a raspberry sound and then we both suddenly stopped our ascent. The track we had been following ended abruptly in a flat section of ground cut into the hillside; it was overgrown with grass, brambles and gorse, but the rectangular outline signifying the foundations of a house were unmistakable. Lumps of masonry littered the brambles. Two rooms were still standing, open to the sky; slats of wood and bits of plaster lay entangled in the undergrowth like twigs in hair. Off to the right on a raised piece of ground there was a grave. Calamity walked over and knelt down. I joined her. Time and weather had effaced the writing on the simple stone which protruded from the turf like a tooth, but at the foot, encased in a clear plastic sandwich bag taped to the stone, there was a business card. Calamity took it out, read it and handed it up to me. It was for Jezebels, the nightclub at the caravan site. In colours of scarlet, mauve and black the silhouette of a lady in a stovepipe hat raised a leg clad in fishnet stockings; in the foreground