by Annie Murray
There was a coldness in the way she spoke that made Gwen like her even less.
The day before the hanging Mr Lowry announced in assembly that school would be starting late the next morning. The streets would be cordoned off round the prison to keep the crowds away until the hanging was over.
Gwen did not sleep at all well that Wednesday night. First of all, when she came back from the bathroom before bed, she found Harold Purvis on the landing, blocking the way to her room. Gwen felt her pulse begin to speed up with alarm. She told herself not to be so silly. What could Harold Purvis do to her, with Ariadne just along the corridor? But he loomed over her, standing there in his suit, shiny with wear and his big black shoes. And she was already in her nightdress, dressing gown over the top with no underwear on and felt naked and very much at a disadvantage.
She folded her arms tightly, and in a sharp tone said, ‘Excuse me – could you please let me get to my room?’
Harold leaned against the wall, facing her, a half smile on his face. Gwen realized instinctively that he wasn’t actually going to do anything, but that he enjoyed the feeling of power he gained from tormenting her.
‘You look very nice,’ he said, in a snaky, repellent voice. ‘Very nice indeed.’
‘I’m waiting to get to bed,’ she said, more annoyed now than alarmed. ‘And I don’t like personal comments, thank you.’
‘Not even nice ones?’ He smiled suggestively.
Not from you, she wanted to say, but sensed that getting into that kind of banter with him would be to play his game. Instead, she stood her ground, staring back at him.
‘A man can’t resist the sight of a beautiful woman,’ he said softly.
‘No. Well, that’s obvious,’ she snapped, then lurched inwardly with alarm as Harold moved suddenly closer.
‘D’you think she’s really what I want?’ His breath stank of onions. ‘An old thing like her, when I can see you in front of me, day after day?’
Gwen froze. To her horror, she felt Harold Purvis’s hand slide round her left buttock, over the silky, peach-coloured dressing gown.
‘You’re much more my type,’ he whispered, dealing her another blast of onions.
‘Get off!’
She gave him a hard push, and Harold staggered backwards against the opposite wall.
‘Stuck-up little cow!’ she heard as she fled into her room and pushed the chair up against the door.
‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ she thought, sitting up shakily in bed. She didn’t want to turn off the light. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. All her senses were alert to what was going on outside her door. Once she was sure things had quietened down outside, she lay in the dark and tried to settle. But she felt humiliated and one nasty thought followed another. Once she’d managed to get her mind off Harold Purvis, the thought of Nurse Waddingham came to her, living through her last night. However must she feel? She imagined her with long, dark hair, sitting with her head lowered, tortured by the thought of her children, soon to be motherless, and of her own remaining hours before her thirty-six-year-old life was snuffed out.
The next morning Gwen picked at her breakfast, which was Ariadne’s porridge – not burnt for once, but still a strangely unpleasant consistency – and avoided looking at Harold Purvis. Ariadne smoked and avidly read bits of yesterday’s paper.
‘“Fiancé’s Suicide on Wedding Eve” – oh, what a shame. Found with his head in the gas oven . . . That’ll be money, won’t it?’ She lit another cigarette and turned the page.
‘Here we are . . . Protests outside the prison. That Mrs Van der Elst says she wants aeroplanes flying over, dropping leaflets protesting against capital punishment . . . First woman this century to be executed at Winson Green Prison.’
Gwen swallowed her last mouthful of porridge and fled. It was a relief to be out of the house. She got off the tram a stop early, making her way through the grey morning. There were a lot of people about, milling through the streets as she got closer to the prison, and an atmosphere of anticlimax. The hanging was already over. Following the crowds, she walked to the end of Villiers Street, where the main entrance to the prison loomed forbiddingly, like a dark castle. A row of policemen stood across the entrance and a large number of people were gathered round the gates. Gwen found herself being herded towards them, carried along by the press of people.
‘Why’s everyone going over there?’ she asked a woman whose face was alight with an eager expression.
‘We want to read the death notice!’ the woman said avidly. Gwen found her excitement repugnant. The crowd was under control, but the force of it was still alarming. Gwen was knocked from behind so that her hat was pushed right down over her eyes.
Oh, I’ve had enough of this, she thought, shoving it back so she could see and trying to push her way towards the edge. There was a lamp post out to the right of the entrance and she headed for that.
‘Here you go.’ A policeman stood aside to let her through as she forced her way out, and stood beside the lamp post to get her breath back, looking back at the prison.
‘Come to join the baying crowd, have you?’
She turned, thinking for a split second that she had mistaken that voice, or dreamt it, but found herself staring up into Daniel’s challenging smile. He looked exactly as he always did: shirtsleeves, no collar and bareheaded today, a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. He was holding in front of him several copies of the Daily Worker. Immediately she was aware of a new sense of life, as if a light had gone on.
‘You’re back!’
She felt foolish then, as if she had let him know she had been waiting, and it was only in that moment she realized how much she had been doing just that and the realization made her blush.
‘I’m back,’ Daniel agreed. He took a last drag on his cigarette and threw it down. She wasn’t aware of having seen him smoke before. Edwin didn’t approve of tobacco, she thought, seeing Daniel crush the stub on the cobbles with his heel. ‘Who told you I was away? You been round to find me?’
‘No!’ she said quickly, resenting his assumption that she would come trotting round to find him. But then she saw from his eyes that he was teasing. ‘Lucy told me. She said you were at the trial in Cardiff.’
Daniel’s face darkened. ‘Trial’s not the word,’ he said contemptuously. ‘But yes – I was there.’ He glanced round. ‘Let’s get away from here. Too late now. The woman’s dead. We can’t bring her back. And no one’s buying these.’ He rolled up the Daily Workers and put them in the bag, slung over his shoulder. ‘All too keen on baying for blood.’
She felt him take her arm and let him steer her through the edge of the crowd, which was thinning and dispersing now, along the surrounding streets. She was filled with a prickly awareness of his closeness.
‘Were you part of the protest?’ she asked.
Daniel nodded curtly. ‘Fat lot of notice anyone takes. Even that Labour woman, Van der Elst . . .’
‘Who is Mrs Van der Elst?’ Gwen asked. They reached a quieter part of the street and Daniel let go of her arm. The warmth of his grip faded from her skin.
‘Oh, she’s a toff who’s got ideas about standing for the Labour Party – round here first thing, she was, with her car and her furs on. Giving out leaflets.’
‘Against the hanging?’
‘Against all hanging. Barbarism, that’s what it is. They wouldn’t listen. If they won’t listen to someone like that, what chance does the ordinary working man have to be heard?’
‘Well, yes,’ Gwen agreed. ‘I suppose that’s how things are.’
‘Things are as they are because we let them stay like it!’ he exploded. Apparently she had just said the one thing that was a red rag to Daniel. ‘We make the world – every one of us – by choosing to act or not act on what we see. It doesn’t just happen. We’re not puppets!’
‘I wasn’t saying I thought things should be like that,’ Gwen flared, annoyed at being misunderstood, at always b
eing seen as someone who didn’t know anything. ‘I just meant that’s how they are. Exactly like you just said – with no justice for the right people. I don’t believe they should have hanged that nurse. It was wrong and terrible.’
Daniel was walking fast, hands thrust into his pockets. It suddenly occurred to Gwen that she had never seen him without the plaster cast on before. He moved so fast she had to trot sometimes to keep up.
‘Your leg’s better,’ she remarked.
‘Oh yes,’ he said carelessly. ‘Sound as a bell. I can get a bit of work now here and there.’
‘I still don’t understand what it is you do,’ she said, as they turned into the end of Canal Street. ‘Are you some sort of roving speaker?’
‘I work for the party and the movement, like I told you. I work as much as I can, in between, but I go wherever I’m needed. They say I’m a good speaker. I rally people, see – not just in the valleys – here, and wherever the work takes me. But I don’t like to stay away from Mam for too long. Her life’s been hard.’
Gwen was puzzled. Theresa Fernandez had sounded hard, bitter even about Daniel’s activities. Yet here was he speaking about her with such care, tenderness even.
‘Has it?’ she said.
Daniel stopped. They were only yards from the school gates and he looked down into her eyes.
‘You’ve no idea, have you? What it’s like?’
‘No,’ she agreed quietly, ‘but I want to learn.’
The look on his face dizzied her. His brown eyes stared hard into hers, not teasing now, but examining, challenging. She held his gaze, feeling it go right through her. Then he looked away. There were children coming in groups along the road. Gwen caught a glimpse of Alice Wilson moving along in her dreamy way. Why did she feel responsible now for these people? Really they were nothing to do with her.
‘Sunday,’ Daniel said abruptly. ‘We could go up to the hills. If you want to, that is.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do.’
Eighteen
‘How old are you, then?’ Daniel asked as they sat squeezed close together on the tram. Daniel was seated to Gwen’s right.
She laughed, taken aback by his directness. He was in a jaunty mood. She had already seen that when he wasn’t talking about politics he could be full of cheek and banter.
‘Twenty-one last October. And you?’
‘I’m twenty-six.’ He grinned and lit a cigarette, eyes full of laughter. ‘An old man compared to you.’
‘Oh, ancient!’ Gwen agreed.
They were squeezed onto the tram seat. Gwen had been excited and nervous all at once about spending the day with him. She thought it might be very awkward, conscious as she was of the contrast in their backgrounds, how different her life had been from his. But now they were together she found they talked more easily than she had expected. And to be going anywhere with Daniel felt like embarking on an adventure, as if his very presence made life exciting.
They met at the tram stop where she usually got off for school. She arrived at the stop first, and saw him walking up the road towards her with his muscular stride, his jacket over his shoulder in the sunshine, looking quite leisurely and different from how she had ever seen him before.
‘Morning, Miss Purdy!’ He smiled mischievously.
She tutted, but returned the smile. ‘I’m never called Miss Purdy on Sundays. It’s the rule.’
‘Ah well – I like breaking rules, see. Gwen though, isn’t it?’
Of course Lucy would always call her Miss Purdy, she realized, so Daniel barely even knew her name!
‘I think I can let you call me Gwen,’ she said, with a mock primness that seemed to amuse him.
They had a brief discussion about where to go. Sutton Park would have been nearer, but Daniel was determined to find hills.
‘Let’s get up high somewhere – have a good walk. You can’t breathe, sometimes, walled up in this place.’
‘You’d like it where I come from,’ she told him as they waited for the tram. ‘It’s at the edge of town and then you get out and there are beautiful hills and views. And the Malverns not far away – it’s lovely.’
‘Nothing like it.’ Standing beside him, she could sense once again the power which seemed to emanate from him. He looked at the sky. ‘Don’t think this is going to last, though.’
It was sunny, but clouds were piling up ahead of them. Gwen was glad she had put on practical clothes – slacks and flat walking shoes. By the time they were halfway down the Bristol Road, rain was spattering against the tram windows.
‘Soon be over,’ Daniel said, twisting round to wipe the steamy window. ‘It’s bright over there.’
Gwen didn’t care two hoots whether it rained or not. They’d make the best of it, whatever. It was being here that mattered. Being with him. A wave of panic went through her when she realized how strong this feeling was, but she pushed it away. Now was what was important. These moments and the day ahead of them. She would not think of anything else.
Each of them had a coat lying on their lap – Gwen’s blue macintosh and Daniel’s old jacket. She looked down at them, at Daniel’s right hand resting on the faded black serge. His fingers were strong and slender. She could feel the warmth of his leg beside hers, the press of his shoulder and arm. It was strange, she thought, what an incongruous-looking pair they were. Yet it felt right. It felt as if there was nowhere else she wanted to be . . . She pulled her thoughts together. Daniel might become a friend, that was all, and to him she was . . . What was she? A bit of female company to while away a Sunday afternoon with? Perhaps someone he could educate with his political views?
She had thought they might find conversation difficult, but instead it flowed easily. Surrounded by other passengers, they talked softly. Before they had got off the tram Daniel asked about her family and she told him, with a frankness that took her by surprise, about her parents and brothers and about her mother’s horror at the idea of her coming to teach in Birmingham. Daniel laughed at her descriptions.
‘She doesn’t want you mixing with the riff-raff then, is it?’
‘Mummy’s never been anywhere very much all her life. She was born in Hereford, hardly left there until they moved to Worcester, when she married Daddy. She never even seems to want to go anywhere.’
Daniel watched her face. ‘But you do?’
‘Oh yes. I mean, I’ve never been anywhere much, either. Not even to London or anything. I’d like to go everywhere!’
Daniel smiled at her fervour.
‘You seem to have been to so many more places than me,’ she said. ‘Wales, and here and . . .’
‘London,’ Daniel added. The tram slammed to a halt suddenly, making them all lurch to one side. Gwen was thrown against Daniel for a second.
‘Steady!’ he grasped her forearm for a moment, then released it.
‘You’ve been to London?’ She was talking quickly to cover how much his touch affected her. ‘Of course – you were at the college there!’
Daniel nodded. ‘I was – a few years back, for a while. Last time I went was on foot. Two years ago. Marched from the valleys. You’ve heard of the Hunger Marches, surely you have?’
He looked at her quizzically. While her ignorance of political matters had seemed at first to aggravate him, now he seemed to find her other-worldliness amusing.
‘I have heard of them!’ she protested. ‘And you were on them?’
‘On that one, I was.’
‘So you were all marching because . . .’ She dredged her memory. ‘Because there was no work?’
‘No work for some. And the Unemployment Bill – Slave Bill we call it – that the government saw fit to pass to starve and bully the miners who’ve already had their jobs stolen from them by fascist bosses and blacklegs. But it brought the people together.’ His voice began to rise with excitement. ‘They’re turning to the party now. They can see that the only way to victory is for the working class to unite, to overthrow the tyrannies
of capitalism and fascism!’
A pale, middle-aged man turned his head and stared at Daniel in disgust. ‘Why don’t you shurrup, you silly bugger? Carrying on as if you’re on a bleeding soapbox.’
For a split second Gwen thought Daniel was going to get up and punch the man, but instead he lowered his head, hands clenched into fists. She could feel the tension in him, his whole being seemed to throb with feeling beside her.
‘They’re all blind,’ he said, through his teeth. ‘Been duped, all of them. But they’ll see. One day they’ll all see.’
By the time the tram reached the terminus at Rednal, the sun was out again and the grass sparkled with raindrops. They climbed down and Daniel turned, with sudden gallantry, which took her by surprise, and took her hand. But then he said, ‘Right – let’s go!’ Seeming released, he set off at such a pace that Gwen had to run after him.
‘I can’t keep up, not this fast!’ she panted.
‘Sorry.’ He was relaxed again now and gave an easy grin, slowing his stride.
They climbed to the spot where they could look across the vista of the surrounding counties.
‘Home’s over there somewhere.’ Gwen pointed.
‘And mine’s over there . . .’ He turned further west.
‘Is Wales still home then?’
‘Oh yes. It is really. Even though Ma’s here. She wanted to be away and I don’t blame her. Not after everything she was put through there. But my heart’s in the valleys. That’s where my people are.’
As they began to walk the paths, between trees and bracken awakening from its winter brown, she asked Daniel to tell her about his home, hoping it would shed some light on him and on his mother’s past. She was intrigued by Theresa Fernandez, by the gentle, almost passive exterior, which seemed to conceal something steely underneath that she was at pains not to show.
He described Aberglyn, the narrow, sloping streets following the contours of the valley, the houses shoulder to shoulder and the colours of the hills behind as the seasons passed and as he spoke she could see what he was describing, how in childhood he woke often to the sound of men’s boots clumping along the morning streets when it was still dark, all moving quietly to the pit train, which took them to the colliery at the head of the valley, and how he knew that soon it would be his life also, like his father’s.
