was poetic licence. What I really meant was: the low-lying featureless nighttime clouds saturated with oily moisture. But under those the inhabitants of Swansea did dance, and the music pulsed, throbbed and squealed and gained a momentum of its own, started to fit together, to become funky and nice, and feet on the pavement slabs moved faster, and hips gyrated in the style known as sensual, and bosoms and groins were thrust back and forth, and it was astounding to behold, incredible to witness, invigorating to describe, and that’s how it was, and this was the beginning of the chain reaction I mentioned. Before an hour had passed, Swansea had metamorphosed in a way that not even I might have anticipated. The effect was extreme.
“‘If this doesn’t summon Kelvin,’ I remarked, ‘then nothing will.’
“Catherine nodded. ‘You know something? I feel he’s on his way already. My guess is that tomorrow he’ll be back.’
“We joined the fun, drinking and dancing. The process was out of our hands now, beyond our control; the change was unstoppable and that’s the way I liked it. I fell asleep just before dawn on the beach, with a dune for a pillow. Sleeping on the beach in Swansea is unheard of – the place is just a venue for empty chip wrappers to blow along, isn’t it? I love chips but I loved the change more. When I awoke my head was light. I blinked in disbelief. The path parallel to the beach, where joggers and cyclists like to damage ankles and tyres, was shaded by palm trees. Where had those come from? Surfers rode giant clean waves, shark fins cleaved the blue water further out.
“I found Catherine rocking in a hammock with a caipirinha in her hand, her eyes inscrutable behind sunglasses. She sipped her fruity cocktail and smiled in languorous recognition. I noticed that she was wearing a sarong. I seemed to be the only person in Welsh trousers.
“‘This event defies logic. It’s too magical,’ I protested.
“‘What’s the trouble?’ she purred.
“‘Palm trees don’t spring up overnight, dirty seas don’t become clean in less than twelve hours, a whacking great Sugar Loaf mountain isn’t upthrust from the seabed quite so readily. I thought we might change the atmosphere of this town, not its actual landscape!”
“‘Just accept it for what it is,’ she answered.
“I didn’t find her attitude helpful, so I left her where she was, swinging in her sheen, and went off to find someone else I knew, anyone less susceptible to alchemy, more constant in behaviour, looks and odour, in short a Paddy Deluxe or Frothing Harris. But I failed. Everyone wore Hawaiian shirts, everyone had samba hips, there wasn’t a single example of Vitamin D deficiency to be found anywhere… I should have just gone with the flow, enjoyed it as a phenomenon, not worried about analysing it.
“But I’m a born worrier I guess and I kept fretting. I found myself a bench in Cwmdonkin Park and I tried to ignore the orchids and hummingbirds, and even the strange insects, until one landed on the back of my right hand and stung me. I swatted it with my left hand and it stung that one too. I don’t know what the insect was, nothing native to the temperate climes, that’s for sure, but since that moment my hands have occasionally swollen up to gross dimensions. It doesn’t happen too often, and they don’t stay swollen for more than an hour or so, but when they do swell up I swear I have the second biggest hands in existence. I won’t say anything about Prime Time Kenny, the man with the biggest hands. He doesn’t belong in this story.
“Anyway, I sat there for a long time, while the pseudo-tropical sun started to sink into the west, and then I felt a prickle on the nape of my neck, and I knew Kelvin was back. I looked up and there he was, ambling along the path, maybe twelve inches high with big ears and a bigger grin. He sat next to me and rolled a spliff and just for once I was stuck for words to say. Fortunately he broke the impasse with a simple observation:
“‘Rather seasonable weather for the time of year’.
“‘Indeed so,’ I said, ‘and quite contrary to normality. I’ve never known such a balmy afternoon at this latitude.’
‘“Climate is what you make it,’ he answered.
“I took issue with this statement. ‘No it’s not! Climate is the result of several factors outside human control. These factors include altitude, proximity to high mountains, average cloud cover, the thermohaline circulation of the ocean, solar heat absorption due to vegetation…’
“‘Climate change is within human control,’ he interrupted.
“I snorted in derision. ‘What do you know about humans? You’re just a toy, a piece of cloth cut and stitched in certain ways, with maybe an electromagnetic imprint of some kind to keep you going. I’m good friends with a former owner of yours, so watch your step!’
“Then I felt bad for having threatened him, but he didn’t seem offended and continued airily, ‘The human race has been altering the climate since the first outpouring of industrial pollution. A blind process… But I’m Kelvin and know everything about manipulation, what glove puppet doesn’t? You can’t expect to use us as playthings and keep us ignorant of the mechanics of control. We learn the hard way, with a hands-up approach! Have you any idea what it feels like to be tickled from the inside?’
“‘Actually I do, but let’s not go into that...’
“Kelvin leaned closer, ignited his spliff and blew the smoke out of the corner of his fabric mouth. ‘I’ll tell you my secret. None of the changes that upset you so much are real. Don’t you get it yet? I’ve turned the tables on you humans and played a grand joke. The palm trees and breakers, the toucans and jellyfish, the hotter sun and higher mountains... They are all puppets, puppets of my devising! Even the coconuts are puppets!’
“‘You mean that the azure sky and sweet zephyr...’
“‘Made from cloth... The hammocks and grass skirts, the cavaquinhos2 and caipirinhas, the papaya and caramba, the sunburn and heatstroke, the coral and pearls, all of it animated cloth!’
“‘What about the horrible sting on my hands?’
“‘Even that is a puppet – the pus in your wound is a puppet, the poisoning of your blood is a puppet, everything!’
“‘Are you generous or vindictive?’ I wondered.
“He blew a pungent smoke ring and explained his intentions. ‘Let me tell you something Catherine was never aware of. But before I do, allow me to say how much I dislike sentences that end with the word ‘of’. Like that one. And the one before. Anyway, when I was living with her, I moulted a lot, I’m made of cotton and I shed lots of fibres, including from my ears, fibres that became entangled with the fibres of the sofa, knotted to them until they were an integral part of the upholstery, and that’s where they remained. In other words, I left a portion of my hearing in Catherine’s house. Anything that was said near that sofa, I could hear, wherever in the world I was!’
“‘You eavesdropped on us!’ I cried.
“He shrugged. ‘I could hardly help it. There was no way of not listening. And I heard your plan to entice me back and decided to have a little fun of my own. I applied all my expertise at puppetry to trump you, to prove who the real genius is. I’m the one in control, my friend, not you. You got more than you bargained for but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Enjoy it. Why care if the Malibus and dusky maidens are puppets?’
“‘Why indeed?’ I
