“No,” I answered.
Strange, those eyes. In repose one moment, wild with their inner madness the next.
“Good grief, man. And my Sam foreman puddler over at Blaina – next place to yours – Nantyglo, isn’t it?”
“Who told you that?” I asked, more interested.
“Never mind who told me. Strikes me I’m on the wrong chap – you’ve never seen the sky over Nanty and Blaina if you didn’t know my Sam. Best puddler-man the county ever had, was Sam. Marched with the men of the Eastern Valley when they went to hit up Newport. Reckon you know Abel Flannigan, Biddy’s boy?”
“Aye, I know Abel.”
“There’s bright. My Sam could give him a good two inches up and a foot sideways. Dear God, you never seen such a man for looks and fortifying. Aye! Topped six feet naked and as broad as a barrel, with a smell of caulking tar and tobacco about him, being of ships. Up Whitland way, you understand.”
“Look, Miss Effie,” I said. “I will tell my mam you called and you come back later, is it?”
“And me been waiting till the three women were out? Damned days I have waited. A monkey-tail had Sam, you see. Fine, fine, he looked – worked the big two-riggers down in Saundersfoot till he heard the iron call and made for Blaina. Eh, God!” She narrowed her eyes. “Shoulders on him like two bull heifers, eyes as black as coal and the grip of his arm could break a woman’s back. You seen such a man, Jethro Mortymer?”
“Not lately,” I said, pitying her. “You’ve been waiting till my women were out?”
“Never mind that now,” she replied. “Will you hear about Sam?”
“Aye,” I answered, eyeing her, and her voice went low and sweet:
“Well, outside my tumbledown I found him,” said she. “Nigh six years back, could be more. Drunk as a coot, he was – his friends forced it on him, see – down in that stinky old Black Boar tavern. So I came out with my barrow and wheeled him in – never had a man under a roof before – and I stripped him and washed him clean. Like a baby he was in that washing, my Sam, but I covered him well, mind, keeping it decent.”
“Go on,” I said, kinder, for she was with purity.
“Well, then I got him in the sheets, hit out my last little hen, made him hot broth and fed him like a mother – bellowing all through it, of course – but I got it down him.” She raised her face, screwing at her hands. “But there was only the one bed, see, and he was cold to shivering. So in with me quick beside him for thawing, it being winter. Was that improper?”
“No, Effie,” I said.
“Slept without a snore, he did, by here,” and she held her breast. “On here, you understand, where a man’s head should be? You ever slept that way, boy?”
“Not yet.”
A silence fell between us then and she lowered her head, picking at her ragged dress. I longed for my mother to come then. Thank God she did not.
“But … but men get drunk by night and come sober by morning,” she whispered. “And in dawn light Sam woke and parted my hair and looked me in the face. Just one look, mind, then up with him screaming – one jump to the door and through it streaming bedsheets, hollering blue murder down the village. Can you explain such behaviour, Jethro Mortymer?”
I shook my head, and she smiled wistful, head on one side. “Scared of females, perhaps – him being of ships and with men all his years, for these sailor men don’t know much about women, you see.” She smiled, straightening. “But he did not go for good, remember. I still have my Sam for lovering, remember. And at night I do know the heat and strength of him and his childer leaping within me, down by here,” and she held herself, smiling.
“Gone for good, then?” I asked.
“Good God, no. Do you think us women give up so easy? I tracked him. He sailed from Saundersfoot to Newport and unloaded himself for the Monmouthshire iron and legged it down to Blaina. But he opened his mouth in Black Boar tavern before he went, and I followed him to Blaina on foot. Aye, to Blaina town I went – barefoot, and I nailed him. ‘Sam Miller,’ I said, ‘you have shared a bed with this Effie. Would you put me to shame and leave me stranded? Make me decent, Sam Miller, lest you be judged for it.’” She grinned up at me with a naked mouth. “More than one way of hitting out hens, but it takes a woman to think of it. You interested?”
“And he married you?”
“Galloped to the altar, thinking me in child. Aye, decent! Damned good Welsh, that one; proud to lie with him. Pity such men die.”
“He died?”
“Like a dog – going in the carts to Monmouth. He marched with the men of the Eastern Valley, to Newport. And they shot him down on the steps of the Westgate and tied him, and put him in the carts for Monmouth trials.”
My heart was thumping now. Leaning, I gripped her wrist. “My brother was in those carts,” I whispered.
“O, aye,” said she. “That is why I am here. You got a sister-in-law here by the name of Mari?”
“Yes, yes!” I had hold of her now, drawing her up. “What of her?”
“And do you know a man called Idris Foreman, Blaenafon?”
“My father’s foreman, my brother’s friend. For God’s sake, woman, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Just this,” she said. “Iestyn, your brother, is dead.”
I heard her but faintly, as through the veil of years.
“Aye, dead,” she said. “He died with my Sam. Your brother, my Sam and Idris Foreman, Blaenafon. And a man called Shanco Mathews charged me to tell you. Four years I waited, starving in Nanty, and then the news came through, and Shanco told me. ‘Go back home to your county, Effie girl,’ he said. ‘And if ever you happen on people called Mortymer, you tell Jethro, the son, that his brother is dead,’ and he gave me two shillings to help on the journey. ‘Tell Jethro the son, but keep it from his women, for all three will go mad. As mad as you, Effie Downpillow,’ he said. You think me mad, Jethro Mortymer?”
“Sane as me,” I said, weeping.
“And I happened by here and Osian Hughes took me in. Saw you last Sunday near Chapel – you and three women, and I asked who you were. It is the Mortymers, Osian told me, him being sweet on your Morfydd.”
“Do you know how it happened?” I asked, broken.
“You know Griff and Owen Howells, the brothers?”
“Aye, I know them.”
“Well, Griff died, too, though Owen got clear – over in transportation, mind, like I hoped for my Sam,” and she sighed. “I knew the Howells boys – they were more than just twins – they shared the same plate, sparked the same women, drew the same breath, hand in hand in the womb. …”
“Tell me,” I said.
“Well, the redcoats crammed them in the carts for Monmouth, with Sam, your Iestyn and Idris in one and the Howells boys in the cart following – standing and singing along the road to Monmouth, but Griff Howells was silent, standing stone dead. It took half a mile of whispers and kisses, said Shanco, before Owen Howells screamed and went into bedlam for the death of his twin. Over the cart side he went, bringing down redcoats, and all twelve carts stopped because of the palaver, with muskets going and redcoats swiping at Owen who was mad losing Griff. And Idris Foreman slipped out in the commotion and dragged my Sam and your brother after him, and they dived like demons for the open country. But the soldiers came up and gave them a volley, and the only one who got clear was Shanco Mathews from a cart farther down.”
“They killed him?”
“The three of them. Idris, my Sam, your brother Iestyn.”
“And not so much as a word,” I said, thumping the chair.
“O, God,” said Effie. “Were they important?” She sighed. “If you happen on the Mortymers you tell the boy Jethro, said Shanco Mathews – leave it to young Jethro, for there’s a woman in that three who will march on Victoria.”
“Go now,” I said.
“Eh, so early – with the evening to myself? Now, listen, little man – have you heard about Sam, my man, Sam Miller?�
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I raised my eyes and she swam, distorting.
“Dear God,” said she. “You’ve never seen a man like my Sam for looks. Topped six feet naked, he did, and as broad as a barrel, with a smell of caulking-tar about him, being of ships … Jethro Mortymer, you are not listening!”
Through the door I went, swinging it shut. I walked, walked, praying for Mari. And the world was dark in a blustering wind, not a glimmer of light.
CHAPTER 21
BACK FROM Ponty, coal-grimed, sweaty, I broke it to Mari that night, and the face of Fate changed. For days I had gripped it to myself with love and duty tearing different ways. And I bided my time. Mam was over at Flannigan’s place for a tongue-pie with Biddy, Morfydd was out courting with Willie O’Hara. Out every night now, Morfydd – snatching at life, grasping every second in false laughter, and I longed to get her from Ponty. And Willie O’Hara was another worry with Morfydd in this mood. She had fallen before and she might fall again, and we had enough to contend with. And this Willie not so simple as he looked, according to Abel Flannigan – stretching more aprons in the northern shires than gentry ham teas and come down west to start it again.
Hot from labour I came to the back and leaned against the shed, wiping with a sweat rag, cooling off in the shade when I heard Mari singing. She was flapping around the kitchen with her pots and pans and Richard and her son Jonathon were hammering something out at the front, shouting and playing. I listened. I am not one for singing, but being Welsh I am in love with the throat and its wondrous noises, and I stood there in sadness listening to Mari. Beautifully she sang in the minor key, tuning in to the great Welsh hymns. Is there a voice in the world more lovely than that of a woman working, unsuspecting? Thin is the note, plaintive, trembling wobbly to the lifting of pans and stoopings, snatching at breath. Closing my eyes I leaned and listened, and Mari’s voice drifted out to me on the heat-laden air with its message of the moors and mountains of Mother Wales and her muted sadness. In the knowledge of God we sing, with words that spring from the Books of the Testaments; rising from the great believers, from the organ lofts of those who have clutched at glory, in praise of Him. The voices of sopranos are of the alders where streams are leaping, each silver leaf rimmed with the autumn stain. Welsh tenors, to me, are the tree’s upper branches, but the bole beneath gnarled as a fist, clenched for the singer’s hook of manhood. Bass comes as roots to me; of grovelling limbs sapbound in darkness, splitting forth in thunder from the belted bellies of men defiant.
The soul of Wales is the throat of its people.
Mari now. Had to tell her somehow. And her song stopped dead at the sight of my shadow, flung into crippledom over the flags. Heard her step then, saw her eyes.
“Mari,” I said.
Beautiful, those eyes.
“You frightened me.”
“I am sorry,” I said.
Just stood there watching her, and she smiled and shrugged and turned to go.
“No, Mari, wait,” I said, and reached out, taking her hand and drawing her closer. My throat was dust-dry, the lump rising, and I took a deep breath.
Out with it, no other way. Better do it quick as a smack in the face.
“Iestyn is dead.”
She smiled faintly. “I know,” she said.
The hammering of the boys drifted between us in Jonathon’s treble shrieks of joy as Richard got a hammer to something, thudding away, thudding … and sunlight flashed from the green of the fields, and the wind was sudden cool to my face.
“I know,” she repeated. “O, poor Jethro.”
I waited disbelieving, but knowing the truth of it in her eyes. And she looked past me towards the field, lips moving, then lowered her face.
“How did you learn, Jethro?”
“From Effie Downpillow three days back – come back from Monmouthshire, and told by a friend to bring me the news. But you …? Who told you?”
She clasped her hands, her face was in repose.
“Tomos Traherne,” she said. “When he called at Christmas years back.”
“Tomos?”
“Came special to break the news.”
“But Mam and Morfydd – do they know, too?”
“To tell you is my duty, said Tomos Traherne, let them live in the paradise of hope. So much can happen in a seven year transportation, people can die. And the wound comes shallow with the passing of time. No, Jethro, they do not know.”
“But Tomos’s duty was to them, too – to me, his brother!”
“Four years of your life you have not mourned him dead,” she replied. “Most of the men in the carts got seven years transportation – I will run your poor mother to six and a half, said Tomos – no point in taking all she has left.” She turned to me. “Who is the Effie woman?”
“A little iron-rag – been down here a week – saw her in Chapel last Sunday evening? She is living over at Osian Hughes Bayleaves.”
“O, aye,” she said, remembering. “Has Effie a tongue?”
“Two feet of it, and addled in the head.”
“But she called here with you alone?”
“Three days back while the rest of the family were out.”
“Addled, perhaps,” she replied, “but I doubt if she will talk – she was brainy enough to pick her time. Still, I will speak to her.”
“And you know how he died.”
“Yes, I know. And I am proud. Hitting it out in the carts for Monmouth, that is how he died, and best that way. For men like Iestyn were not born for the cage. No lash would drive him, no cruelties break him. Men like Iestyn are victors, not beggars – better he should stand in the light of the Father than scratch out a living in this pig of a place, as we. Can you imagine him landed with the troubles of Rebecca? ’Becca and her children, one to each village?” and she laughed deep in memory, her eyes alive. “He would rally them together for a march on London, and die there instead. No, Jethro, better this way.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Perhaps? I know it. Fighters are the Mortymers, and I am glad the blood is in my son. But it do not make for peace, Jethro. Remember it. It only breaks hearts. You stopping fighting one day?”
“Soon,” I said.
She sighed deep. “Well, I am not begging you like I begged of my Iestyn. God help your woman, that is all I say.” She walked to the end of the wall and leaned against it, her back towards me.
“Poor Jethro,” she said, and reached out her hand. “A little pig, I am, forgetting you. Is it sad with you to tears, now you have lost your brother?”
I did not reply. Later, ashamed, I remembered only that she was near to me, that she was free, that she could be mine. For the wind hit between us then in a sweep from the fields and my arms reached out and caught her against me and my lips sought her lips in the yard between us. Empty that yard, could have been miles.
“You love him still, don’t you, Mari,” I whispered.
“Yes, I love him,” and she turned to me again. “Still decent people about, isn’t it – with you loving me?”
“Aye, I love you. You guessed?”
“Years back, Jethro. Years. …” Her eyes moved over my face.
No heat in me, as for Jane at Black Boar; no longing that springs from the surge of manhood, no aches, no fires I felt. Just empty for her as a cask is emptied of wine. Desolate as I turned away to the wall. Eyes closed, not trusting myself, I thought she had gone, but I heard her breathing beside me.
“Jethro, not yet,” she said.
I kept the yard between us, because of her eyes, and she gripped my hand, smiled, and went from me, closing the kitchen door.
I do not know how long I stood there. The boys came scampering round the back and they gripped my legs, swinging themselves around me and Jonathon leaped against me till I lifted him, kissing his face, setting him quiet, for I had not kissed him before. A joy rose high in me when I should have been grieving, and I kissed him again. Great the strength in me as I reached down and hooked Richard
up beside him, and stood there holding the pair of them, one in each arm to the wide-flung door.
“Jethro!” said Mari.
CHAPTER 22
TOMOS TRAHERNE came back to Cae White in June.
No Tom the Faith, this one, creeping in as a mouse. He came demanding, in a trap with a little brown pony, all polish and jingles, trotting down the road from Carmarthen, sending satans belly-sliding over the hedges at the sight of him sitting there with the reins in his hand and his big Bible beside him. Coffin black, enormous he sat, gowned and collared, his spade beard trembling in the fervour of his love, but not with the love of God. He came for the love of Mam.
“Tomos!”
Mam shoved pretty fast for the creaking joints of middle age – arms out, skirts billowing, thumping down the path to the trap and not even giving him time to get down. Up on the step she went and straight into his hug. And they sat, the pair of them, motionless in the clear summer air, and then he kissed her face.
“One less in the family or I’m mistaken,” said Morfydd. “And her bouncing me about Willie O’Hara.”
“God bless him for coming back,” whispered Mari.
“She has always loved him – even when Dada was alive,” I said.
“No doubt,” said Morfydd. “This will settle Tom Griffiths and Waldo Bailiff. Hairpins falling, lovers calling – eh, just look at that!”
“Inside quick, it is not decent watching,” said Mari, and swept us all in with her skirts. But I went to the window and watched them from there: speaking no words by the look of them, with Mam only up to his shoulder, gripping his arm down the path to the house, and Tomos smiling down. I will always remember how I saw them, walking down the path with the trap behind them, enwrapped in the love and respect that leaps from old friendship. We waited pent, the three of us, holding the boys steady from confusion as the door opened and they stood there hand in hand.
“He has come back,” said Mam, her eyes bright. “The day he said he would, to the very hour.”
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