The Evans Country

By KINGSLEY AMIS

I

Aberdarey : the Main Square

By the new Boots', a tool-chest with flagpoles Glued on, and flanges, and a dirty great Baronial doorway, and things like portholes, Evans met Mrs. Pryce on their first date.

Beau Nash House, that sells Clothes for Gentle- men,

Jacobethan, every beam nailed on tight—

Real wood, though, mind you—was in full view when, Lunching at the Three Lamps, she said all right.

And he dropped her beside the grimy hunk Of castle, that with luck might one day fall On to the Evening Post, the time they slunk Back from that lousy weekend in Porthcawl.

The journal of some bunch of architects Named this the worst town centre they could find; But how disparage what so well reflects Permanent tendencies of heart and mind?

All love demands a witness: something 'there' Which it yet makes part of itself. These two Might find Carlton House Terrace, St. Mark's Square, A bit on the grand side. What about you?

11 Langwcll `Now then, what are you up to, Dai?' `Having a little bonfire, pet.'

Bowed down under a sack, With steps deliberate and sly, His deacon's lace full of regret, Evans went out the back.

Where no bugger could overlook He dumped into a blackened bin Sheaves of photogravure, Now and then an ill-printed book, Letters in female hands : the thin Detritus of amour.

Paraffin-heightened flames made ash

Of Lorraine Burnett in 3-D And /'m counting the days And the head girl took ofl her sash And Naturist and can we be

Together for always?

He piped an eye—only the smoke— Then left that cooling hecatomb And dashed up to his den,

Where the real hot stuff was. A bloke Can't give any old tripe house-room: Style's something else again.

III Pendydd

Love is like butter, Evans mused, and stuck The last pat on his toast. Breakfast in bed At the Red Dragon—when Miss Protheroe, Wearing her weekday suit, had caught the train Back home, or rather to her place of work, United Mutual Trust—encouraged thought,

And so did the try-asking-me-then look

The bird who fetched the food had given him. Scrub that for now. Love is like butter. It Costs money but, fair play, not all that much, However hard you go at it there's more, Though to have nothing else would turn you up (Like those two fellows on that raft,* was it'?), Nothing spreads thinner when you're running

short; Natural? Well, yes and no. Better than guns, And—never mind what the heart experts say— Let's face it, bloody good for you. Dead odd The two things should turn out so much alike, He thought, ringing the bell for more of both.

IV Brynbwrla Love's domain, supernal Zion, How thy rampart gleams with light, Beacon to the wayworn pilgrim Stoutly faring through the night I Some, their eyes on heavenly mansions, Tread the road their fathers trod, Others, whom the Foe bath blinded, Far asunder stray from God.

And still others—take old Evans—

Anchor on their jack instead; Zion, pro- or non- or anti-, Never got them out of bed.

Light's abode? There lies the chapel, Flat and black against the sky. Tall hotels ablaze with neon Magnetise the sons of Dai.

V Welch Ferry, west side The narrow channel where the tankers crawl And void their cargo into the pipelines, Encloses, with the railway track that runs Down to the tinplate works, a chunk of hill, And here sometimes a pony browses.

Above, on the side furthest from the town, Beneath the ridge long shorn of pit-prop timber, A shooting-brake, a 1960 Humber, Sometimes pulls in among the gorse, unseen: Evans is careful with his courting.

Last night, leaving Miss Pugh to powder her Nose in the back, he got out for a stroll, And noticed—right enough his head was full Of oh, you know I do and are you sure? And darling, please and you're the sweetest—

That all the smog had lifted, and more stars Than he knew what to do with filled the sky, And lighted lighthouse, civic centre, quay, Chimneys, the pony's pasture, cooling-towers; `Looks beautiful tonight,' he muttered, Then raised his voice 'Eurwen, get moving, do. You think I want to hang round here all night? Free over the weekend, are you? I'm not; I'm boozing with the boys on Saturday, Sunday's the club. . . . All right, then—never.'

Dinghy, actually. Evans is thinking of an episode in The Bombard Story (Penguin edition,