by Rosie Harris
The woman was still standing in the doorway, arms akimbo, surveying Fern and Wynne as though they were from another world.
‘Who the hell are these people?’ she asked, frowning. ‘I’ve never seen them in my life before.’
‘Well, you’ll be seeing plenty of them from now on; they’re my brother’s family; his widow Wynne and his daughter Fern. They’ll be staying here with us for a while.’
‘Your brother’s family!’ She breathed in deeply, seeming to grow larger by the minute. ‘Huh! You never told me you had a brother,’ she said suspiciously.
‘Well, I have – leastways, I did have. He was killed in a pit explosion a couple of weeks back.’
Bertha shrugged, staring at them, shaking her head from side to side in bewilderment.
While the argument between Bryson and Bertha continued Wynne and Fern hunched together by the range, holding out their hands to the glowing coals as they tried to get warm. They both felt tired and cold and Fern was already wishing they hadn’t come. She sensed that Bertha had taken a dislike to them and didn’t want them there and it seemed that in some strange way Bryson was revelling in their situation although she couldn’t understand why.
‘They can’t stay here,’ Bertha protested loudly, her huge bosom heaving in protest. ‘We haven’t any room for them.’
‘Then we’ll have to make room. After they’ve had a hot drink and something to eat they can sleep in our bed for tonight,’ Bryson told her. ‘Tomorrow we’ll sort things out. Now fetch out some bread and cheese or whatever there is in the pantry.’
‘Now? You expect me to put out food and make hot drinks at this time of night!’
Bryson ignored her protests and, after lighting another candle, began taking cups off the nearby shelf and putting them down on the table in a higgledy-piggledy pile.
‘Move, woman, you heard what I said, so find them something to eat and be quick about it,’ he ordered as Bertha remained standing there with her hands on her hips, looking aggressive.
‘Look, you don’t have to bother with any food, we’re really far too tired to eat,’ Wynne protested. ‘A hot drink would be nice, though,’ she added.
Bryson ignored her remark. ‘Food!’ he demanded, banging his fist on the table.
Bertha shrugged her massive shoulders and, after glaring at Wynne and Fern, lumbered over to a cupboard at the far end of the room and brought out half a loaf, a covered cheese dish and a jar of pickle. Making as much noise as possible she put these on the table alongside the assortment of chipped cups and saucers that Bryson had already placed there.
‘Is that all you can find for them to eat?’ Bryson frowned as he surveyed the table.
Out of politeness Fern did her best to eat the slice of bread that Bertha hacked off the loaf and covered with a scraping of margarine. There was no cheese; when Bryson lifted off the top of the cheese dish there were only a scattering of mouldy crumbs underneath it.
The tea was strong and the milk that Bertha had splashed into it floated on the top and was a rancid yellow colour.
In an attempt to distract her mind from what she was trying to eat and drink Fern stared round the gloomy, untidy kitchen. She found it hard to believe that her uncle lived in such squalor. When he’d called at their home in Blaenafon after the funeral he had appeared to be so well dressed that she thought he had made a success of his life in Cardiff, but now she was not so sure.
They were still sitting in flickering candlelight that cast ugly shadows on the drab walls and she wished he would light the gas mantle so that they could see each other better. When neither he nor Bertha made any attempt to do so she wondered if it was because they had no money for the meter.
Bryson looked so like her father that it made her heart ache. There the resemblance seemed to stop. Her father had been kind and courteous, but the way Bryson had spoken to Bertha had been harsh, almost contemptuous. It was almost as if he regarded her as his slave. Fern didn’t like the way he looked at her mother, either, or his tone when he’d greeted them.
Her head ached and she longed for sleep and as she swallowed down the last of the bread and scrape and took a mouthful of the strong tea she felt her stomach churning.
‘I need to go to the lavvy,’ she whispered to her mother.
‘Is the lavatory in the yard outside?’ Wynne asked looking across at Bertha.
‘There’s a pot upstairs under the bed, can’t she use that?’ Bertha asked.
Fern shuddered at the thought and shook her head.
‘Tell me where it is and I’ll take her,’ Wynne said quietly.
‘It’s out in the yard and you’ll have to take a candle with you,’ Bryson told them as he led them from the kitchen down a couple of stone steps into the scullery and unlocked the back door. ‘Mind the rats,’ he added as they went past him, ‘and you’d better shield the candle with one hand or it might blow out.’
Fern was shaking with fright and gave a small shriek when she heard a rustling as they pushed open the rickety door of the wooden building adjacent to the house.
The stench from the latrine was so overpowering that neither of them dared breath and it took all of their willpower not to rush back inside the house. When they did go back into the kitchen, they found Bertha had already gone back upstairs to bed and had taken the candle with her and Bryson was sitting in the dark. He had dragged the battered leather sofa as close to the fire as he could and was hunched on it with an old blanket round his shoulders and a couple of cushions behind him.
‘I’ll doss down here tonight and you two can share the bed with Bertha,’ he told them. ‘We’ll have to make some other arrangements tomorrow.’
‘We’ll sleep down here, Bryson, you go back up to your bed,’ Wynne told him. ‘Leave us the blanket.’
For a moment Fern was afraid he was going to argue and she silently prayed that he wouldn’t refuse to do as her mother suggested. The thought of sharing a bed with the huge black woman terrified her even though her mother would be there as well.
‘Probably suit Bertha better if we do that,’ Bryson admitted with a wry grin as he handed the blanket to Wynne. ‘Will you be warm enough with just that?’
‘We’ll manage,’ Wynne told him. ‘You get off to bed; you probably need your night’s sleep so that you are ready for work in the morning.’
Bryson seemed to be about to say something then changed his mind and left them to their own devices.
With only the light from the dying embers of the fire to see by they cuddled up to each other on the sofa and made themselves as comfortable as they could. They were both too tired to talk and so exhausted that in no time they were asleep and all the many questions that Fern wanted to ask her mother remained unasked.
When Fern woke, a grey light filled the room and for a moment she had a feeling of panic. She wondered where she was and why she was lying on an uncomfortable lumpy sofa with her mother’s arms round her instead of being stretched out in her own single bed.
‘Are you awake at last, cariad?’ her mother whispered. ‘Can you sit up for a minute? You’ve been lying on my arm all night and it’s cramped; it’s full of pins and needles.’
Fern struggled into an upright position, gazing at their squalid surroundings with growing distaste while her mother rubbed and flexed her arm to restore the circulation.
‘Do we have to stay here, Mam?’ she questioned in a tight voice. ‘It’s really horrible, isn’t it?’ She shuddered. ‘I do wish Dad hadn’t died and we could go back home.’
‘It’s not very nice, I agree with you there, cariad, but perhaps the rest of the place is better,’ Wynne said brightly. ‘This room certainly looks as though it could do with a good cleaning. Still, cariad, we haven’t much choice, now have we? We’ve only a few pounds left. I’m hoping that Bryson will let us stay here for a couple of weeks until I can manage to find a job, then as soon as I’ve saved a few bob, we’ll look for a nice tidy place somewhere else and move on.’
&n
bsp; ‘Do you think he will let us stay? I don’t think Bertha likes us; come to that, I don’t like her very much either.’
‘Her ways are probably different to ours but then, if she can adapt to living with Bryson, I’m sure we can fit in and live with her,’ Wynne said primly. ‘Remember that now and keep your thoughts to yourself and be as cooperative as you can, cariad,’ she cautioned.
‘I’m not sure Uncle Bryson wants us here either. Did you two have a row at some time?’
‘No, not exactly,’ Wynne said evasively. ‘There’s no call to start dragging the past up. Let sleeping dogs lie, I always say.’
‘I know that, Mam, but, the way he speaks to you and looks at you, I think it would be better if you told me about it.’
‘What’s been and gone is best left alone,’ Wynne told her and from her decisive tone Fern knew better than to pursue the matter.
‘Perhaps we should get up now, have a wash and tidy ourselves before Bryson and Bertha come down,’ her mother said briskly. ‘I’ll have a look in the scullery and see if there is any soap and a towel out there that we can use.’
The scullery was cold and even danker than the kitchen. The towel hanging there was thin and grubby. Fern washed her hands and face in a bowl of cold water and used a corner of the towel to dry herself, and Wynne did the same.
They had just opened one of their suitcases to find some clean underclothes when Bryson appeared and Wynne hastily closed the lid again.
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked, yawning and scratching his chest as if he was only half awake.
‘We managed,’ Wynne told him stiffly.
‘You’d have been a lot more comfortable if you’d gone up and slept in my bed,’ he smirked.
When Wynne didn’t answer he went over and stirred the fire to life and pushed the kettle into place. ‘You’ll probably feel better after a cuppa,’ he commented.
‘Are you off to work now, Uncle Bryson?’ Fern asked, giving him a bright smile.
‘Fern, that’s enough! What have I told you about asking questions?’ Wynne said reprovingly. ‘Why don’t you take the cups we used last night through to the scullery and wash them up, cariad, while I have a quiet word with your uncle?’
As she did as she’d been told, Fern could hear them talking but they kept their voices so low that, even though she strained her ears to find out what was being said, she was unable to do so.
When she came back into the kitchen with the clean cups she noticed that Bryson was looking rather smug and her mother was tight-lipped. Bertha had joined them and instead of the jazzy dressing gown she’d been wearing the night before she was in a bright orange dress and was wearing a band of the same colour round her head like a small turban.
There was no milk for their tea and Bertha hacked some slices off the loaf they’d had the night before and scraped the remains of the margarine on it.
‘Bryson picks up his dole money tomorrow but this is all we have until then,’ Bertha commented as she began to clear away. ‘That’s unless you can let us have some money to help out until then,’ she said looking meaningfully at Wynne.
‘I have every intention of paying my way,’ Wynne told her forcibly. In fact, that’s something I want to discuss with Bryson. I’m hoping he will say we can stay here for a short while until I find work and that he can tell me the best way to go about finding a job.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Bertha’s huge bosom shook like a giant blancmange as she rocked with laughter. ‘You want him tell you how to find work; he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Lives on his wits, does Bryson,’ she added spitefully. ‘He’s even managed to dodge being called up for the army by claiming that he has a dodgy back because he has flat feet.’
‘That’s enough from you. I keep you in food and clothes and I’ve been doing so for years now,’ Bryson scowled, ‘so keep your opinions to yourself.’
‘As for staying here,’ Bertha went on in a loud voice, drowning out his words, ‘heaven help you. We have only this room and our bedroom; the rest of the house is let out. He might be able to persuade the landlord to rent us an extra room, and then you could have a bedroom. The back attic has just come empty but the landlord will want to see the colour of your money up front, especially if he knows you are anything to do with us.’
Wynne looked questioningly at Bryson. ‘Could you look into it?’ she asked when he remained silent. ‘That’s, of course, if you don’t mind us living here for the time being and sharing your living quarters with you.’
Chapter Six
Settling into Bryson’s place was not easy for Fern and Wynne but the squalor of where they were being forced to live faded into insignificance when set against the many other obstacles they had to overcome during their first weeks in Angelina Street.
It was almost Easter and Fern dreaded the fact that in a few more weeks, once the holiday was over, she would have to go to school. So far she hadn’t got to know anyone who would be attending the nearby school in Eleanor Street and Bertha seemed to take a special delight in telling her what little ruffians her schoolmates would be, especially the boys.
Wynne tried to console her and make the best of the situation by telling her that there were bound to be some nice girls there as well, and they’d befriend her.
Wynne had her own battles to fight. Although the war wasn’t yet over and women were still being employed by many of the factories, they all knew that their jobs wouldn’t last once the men started coming home from the Front. Even though it cost less to employ a woman than a man, most companies still felt obliged to honour their promises to the men that their jobs would be there waiting for them when they did come home.
Wynne had found work at Currans’ – a factory where they had been working flat out all through the war years producing ammunitions. Now there were lots of rumours going around that very soon they would be reverting to their normal production lines which consisted mainly of tin ware; pots and pans for domestic use and metal utensils for business outlets.
Wynne hated it there. The noise, the smell and the heat made her head ache and her stomach churn. Added to which she disliked the raucous laughter and rough talk that went on all around her. The working day was long and arduous and when she returned home to Angelina Street at the end of her shift she felt almost too tired to eat.
All she really wanted to do was to take refuge in the small top-floor bedroom she’d been able to rent for herself and Fern. It took a tremendous effort to force herself to go down into the room they shared with Bertha and Bryson and to sit down to the meal that Bertha had prepared.
Throughout her working day Wynne worried about Fern. The women she worked with were very rough and so different from those they’d known when they’d lived in Blaenafon that she found it difficult to talk to them.
Wynne knew that Fern disliked Bertha and that as soon as she’d finished the tasks that Bertha had set her she was off out, roaming the dockside streets of Tiger Bay on her own. Wynne was always anxious about who Fern was with and what she was doing.
When they returned to their room at night and Fern talked about what she’d been doing during the day, Wynne often felt so alarmed by what Fern told her about some of the people she met and talked to that she would have given anything to pack up their few belongings and return home to the quiet respectability of the Valleys.
The biggest worry of all was the thought of Fern starting school. There were times when Wynne was tempted to say there was no need for her to do so. She would be fourteen next January and that meant she would be able to leave school and go to work. It seemed senseless to start at a new school for the matter of a few months.
Yet, if she kept her at home and the school board man managed to track them down, they’d probably both find themselves in trouble. She knew so little about the ramifications of such matters and how they got to know if a child was playing truant from school that she was afraid to take the risk.
Fern tried to reassure her mother, but on the
first day of the new term she was feeling so nervous that she could hardly stop herself shaking as she walked in through the gates at Eleanor Street School and made her way to her appointed classroom.
Although she had met the headmaster and been told that her teacher was called Miss Woodman, she had no idea what to expect.
Miss Woodman was a small, thin woman about the same age as her mother who wore her hair screwed in a topknot and had a pair of pince-nez perched on her rather bony nose. She didn’t seem to be at all the sort of person to teach a class of thirteen-year-olds, especially some of the boys who appeared to be twice her size and towered over her.
After waiting by Miss Woodman’s desk for what seemed an eternity, Fern was told to go and sit at the end of the front row. As she took her place she was conscious of the many eyes fixed on her and the tittering and whispers that were going on behind her back. These stopped when Miss Woodman rapped on her desk with a ruler and called the class to order, but the chatter started up again every time her back was turned while she wrote something on the blackboard. This was when Fern found herself bombarded with small hard wads of screwed-up paper that hit the back of her neck with a sharp sting. Or when a hand would reach out and tug at her hair or give her a nasty pinch to the top of her arms.
She tried to ignore these taunts and was surprised that it was happening in the top class at school. She’d expected curious questions about where she’d been living and what school she’d attended before coming to Cardiff, but not childish pranks of this sort.
When they went out into the playground at break time, most of the girls ignored her but one or two started jibing at her, calling her Fatty Fern, laughing about her clothes and commenting on her hair. Then some of them started sneering about how hard she’d been working in class that morning in order to get into Miss Woodman’s good books.
When she ignored them and went to walk away, Fern found her way barred by a group of boys. Egged on by the girls they started to jostle her and push her around.
Determined not to show how scared she was, she backed away only to trip over an outstretched boot and end up sprawled on the ground while they cheered and laughed.
