Gathering his few belongings he slipped away unnoticed by anyone and walked towards the bus stop to start his journey to a lonely Christmas.
Jimmy saw a shed near the path he was taking across a field, and he pushed through the hedge and went inside. He was hungry and cold and wrapping the blankets around him, he searched in his bag for something to eat.
‘Clear off!’ a voice near him growled and he leapt up in alarm. There was no sign of anyone and he began to think of ghosts and monsters. The voice came again and this time, a man who had been sleeping in a corner wrapped in sacks, sat up. ‘Clear off!’ he repeated. ‘If the farmer saw you coming he’ll send us both on our way and I’ve slept here for a week.’ He looked at the bag. ‘Got any food?’
Jimmy offered him some biscuits. ‘You a tramp?’ he asked. The man crawled across and snatched the bag. ‘Go home, you stupid boy. Got a home, haven’t you?’ When Jimmy nodded, he said, ‘Thought so. Well, go on then. What are you doing out here disturbing the likes of me, eh? Go on, clear off!’
As Jimmy ran from the building, the man snatched the blankets from him. ‘You won’t need these, got plenty at home. Go on, clear off.’
Jimmy hurried away and, afraid to sit and eat the food he had left in case the tramp appeared or the farmer he’d warned him about, he went to the road and waited for a bus. He didn’t know which way he needed to go to reach the seaside but as soon as a bus appeared he got on. The pocket in which he’d put the money was empty. It must have fallen as he ran away from the tramp. ‘No bus fare, no bus ride,’ the conductor told him. ‘Sorry, son. Far from home, are you?’
‘No, not far,’ Jimmy said.
‘Best you get back there. It’s getting colder and you aren’t exactly well dressed, are you?’
At least he didn’t say they’d be worried, Jimmy thought with a sigh. He stopped and looked around him. He had to go back. There was no choice with the money gone and no blankets. He looked at the compass and tried to find a path or road that would take him north. If he could manage to find his way back, he’d make a shelter and stay at the mill. One day when he was old enough he’d live there and forget he ever had parents. That would please them. They can shout at each other all day, he thought, and they’ll be glad not to have me hanging around.
The police came several times and promised to do everything they could to find the boy. ‘How long has he been missing this time?’ the constable asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Netta wailed, glaring at her husband. ‘He was supposed to be looking after him and he didn’t know he wasn’t in his bed. Call yourself a father?’ she shouted at Walter.
‘Netta, make us all some tea,’ Valmai demanded imperiously. ‘Stop shouting at each other and think.’
China rattled and water was poured into the kettle but Netta’s hands were shaking and it was Eric who took over the task. ‘I’m not touching anything he’s made,’ Walter muttered. Netta threw a cushion at him and told him to get out. Walter looked threatening and began to rise out of the chair. Netta pushed him back and Valmai tried to hold them apart.
The constable took over. ‘Go now, and ask anyone you can think of to come and help,’ he told Walter. He coaxed him up out of his chair, handed him his coat and pushed him firmly out of the door. ‘Right. What next?’
‘Somebody should go and talk to the farmer. There are lots of barns and places where he might be.’
‘We’re already on to that,’ Constable Harvey assured her.
Netta shivered. ‘Oh, why did I walk out last night? Why did I leave him in the hands of that idle, useless husband of mine? I should have taken Jimmy and gone years ago. If anything’s happened to my boy, I’ll—’
‘Here, drink this, then we’ll ring the school again in case he got there late.’
The police had already arranged for the school to let them know if Jimmy turned up but the constable said nothing to Netta. Better give her that small hope for a while longer.
Unaware of the missing child, David was waiting for Sally outside her office. He linked arms and held her close. ‘Where first?’ he asked. ‘Cup of tea and a cake?’ Laughing happily they went into a smart café offering mince pies and Christmas cake and sat making plans for Christmas.
‘I know you’ll want to be with Valmai and Gwilym on Christmas Day – they’ll be feeling the absence of that son of theirs and Sadie will cheer them up. But what about Boxing Day? Mam would love it if you and Sadie came to us.’
‘You’re right we’ll be with the Martins on Christmas Day and we’ve arranged something on Boxing Day – lunch with Amy and Rick,’ she said.
‘And what about Christmas Eve?’
Soon it was all arranged and Sally admitted to herself that the pleasure she displayed was really relief at not being in the house where Rhys might find her. ‘It will be perfect if I can manage to avoid seeing Rhys.’
Words that warmed David’s heart.
Gwilym was brought home by ambulance that afternoon and as the light began to fade and there was still no sign of Jimmy, Eric said, ‘Say what you like, Walter, but I’m going to find the boy. I know he’ll come if he sees me and I know the area where he’ll be hiding. I’ve told the police and they’ve searched several times but I know he’ll come out for me. He talked about going to the seaside. He told me he’d never been. Imagine that, Gwilym, eleven years old and the coast only a few miles away and Walter’s never taken him there.’
Walter began to bluster and threaten but with Constable Harvey following, Eric set off for the mill. Walter followed, resentment against Eric stronger than fear for the boy’s safety.
Before they reached the part of the path from where they had a first sight of the ruined building, Eric stopped and listened. ‘Can you hear something?’
Constable Harvey shook his head. He couldn’t hear anything except the wind in the trees.
‘I can hear the water. He’s got the wheel turning! Hurry, he’s sure to be still there.’
Harvey and Eric ran, with Walter struggling to catch up. Eric pointed towards the derelict room where he had often slept and they both called and listened. There was only the sound of the stream. Eric went to look at the wheel and there was Jimmy, half in the water, his face red with blood, his eyes closed. ‘Jimmy!’ Eric called, running down to him.
‘Why were you so long?’ Jimmy murmured.
He had been trying to release the wheel and his arm had caught in a split plank of wood. Eric eased him out of his coat and wrapped the boy in his own. Walter arrived as Eric stood in the stream, holding Jimmy in his arms. He angrily demanded that Eric came away and left him to help his son. He leaned over and began to pull Eric aside and the wheel moved, slightly, but threateningly.
The bank was slippery and was already marked where the boy had struggled as his sleeve had caught in the weak piece of wood. Eric pushed Walter away and Walter tried to respond by pushing him towards the water. Jimmy was in danger of falling into the stream, now deeper due to his efforts to clean it. Eric eased the boy up the slippery bank where willing hands lifted him to safety, then he turned and grabbed Walter by the scruff of his pants and the collar of his shirt and threw him in the deep water of the stream. He went back to Jimmy and said, ‘Sorry, son, but I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time.’
Jimmy’s eyes were closing and Eric called for the constable to help him. Together they carried Jimmy home with Walter behind, shivering, trying to hold back sobs of anguish. ‘Sorry, son,’ he was muttering. ‘Sorry.’
‘I knew you’d find me,’ he heard Jimmy say to Eric. ‘I knew you’d come.’
‘That was the worst thing of all, Jimmy knowing Eric would find him and not me,’ Walter told Netta later, but his anger against Eric hadn’t eased.
Chapter Twelve
JIMMY BECAME HYSTERICAL when Eric tried to carry him back into his own house and pleaded to go to Valmai and Gwilym. It was there that they waited for the doctor, while someone went to find Netta, who was preparing a meal for
him and filling hot water bottles to put in his bed.
There was no apparent injury except some grazing on his arm and the danger was mostly from the chill of lying half in half out of the icy-cold stream. Valmai made him comfortable on the couch beside a roaring fire, surrounded by cushions and covered in blankets. Netta sat beside him and a distressed Walter hovered around outside.
Two days later they were confident of his recovery and Netta went to the post office where, during the summer, the rooms above the shop were rented to visitors. It was agreed that she and Jimmy could stay there. She went back to Valmai and told Jimmy he needn’t go back to the house.
Making sure Walter wasn’t there, Netta went with Valmai to gather all she would need and during her search she found the rent book. She looked at it and gasped.
‘Look at this! Walter hasn’t been paying the rent! I’ve left the money out every week and he hasn’t been paying it. We’re in serious arrears, Valmai, and unless I can find the money we’ll lose the house.’ As she had been at work all day, she had been leaving the money in the book for Walter to give to the collector. Whatever he’d been doing with the weekly amount, it hadn’t paid their rent. ‘I can’t pay this off and rent the room for Jimmy and me. Oh, Valmai, what shall we do? I can’t go back to how it was. Jimmy wouldn’t cope and he doesn’t deserve it.’
‘Lock the doors so Walter can’t go back in, and stay with us until everything is sorted. It’ll be a squash but Jimmy won’t mind that and Rhys has gone back to Bristol.’
‘What about Gwilym?’
‘As long as he has privacy when he needs it he’ll be happy to have you and Jimmy staying with us.’
Walter had stayed with friends, Roy and Mildred, for two nights but knew he had to go back to the house. He had a little money, enough to get some food, and there was fuel for the fire. He’d be all right until Netta relented and came home.
It was a shock to find it locked. The back door for which he had a key had been bolted inside. He couldn’t get in and at once he became angry. Locked out of his own home? How dare she?
He went back to the friends where he had stayed, expecting sympathy and perhaps help breaking into his house but instead Roy and his wife both shook their heads.
‘Sorry, Walter, but we are on Netta’s side in this. You’ve treated her and Jimmy disgracefully. We feel sorry for Netta, supporting you in idleness and putting up with your treatment of her and your son. Sort yourself out, man. We can’t help you.’
Walter walked away, his shoulders drooped in embarrassment. They were only saying what he knew was true. Every time he thought of Jimmy he felt a swell of shame. He’d been selfish and ill-tempered and he cringed as he thought of all the months he had sat there allowing Netta to earn the money, some of which he had wasted on eating in cafés, drinking at the pub, even treating strangers, just for company with people who, for the price of a pint, would offer false sympathy and assure him he was justified in not accepting a job he didn’t want. Netta paid for everything. He had money in his pockets, more than he’d needed, so why work? But he had to do something. He couldn’t cope without Netta and Jimmy.
His immediate problem was where he could live until he had sorted his life out. He went to the boarding house and the first person he saw was Eric. ‘This is your fault,’ he shouted. ‘Stealing my son’s affections and who knows what besides. I ought to have the police on you.’
The landlady came out and ushered him away. ‘Sorry I am, but Christmas or not there’s no room here for the likes of you, Walter Prosser.’
Walter walked away, still shouting at Eric even after the landlady closed the door.
‘I’ll find somewhere better than that place. I don’t want to share a roof with you, Eric Thomas.’
But where? He wasn’t going to sleep at the mill like Eric had done on occasions. He wasn’t a useless layabout who was content to live like a tramp! ‘Useless layabout’ were the words that he repeated in his mind and as he walked the street the rhythm matched his stride. That’s what I am, he admitted bitterly. I got away with it for too long. How can I start again? And where can I stay tonight?
Feeling sorry for himself, he turned without thinking along the path leading to the mill. When he realized where he was going he turned and almost ran back to the street. Not that! Never would he sink that low. He went back to the road and looked at shop windows where advertisements were placed.
He found a small house advertising bed and breakfast and although they weren’t happy to have a visitor staying over the Christmas period, he took out some money and they grudgingly agreed to rent him a room only. No food. He went to the shops and, spending as little as possible, bought what he thought he would need for the few days he intended staying there.
He took out his wallet and counted the notes. If he put what he had left into the rent book it might just be enough to avoid serious trouble. Paying for the room hadn’t left much in his pocket though.
He’d been stupid, keeping back the rent just to show off to his friends, bringing out notes and joking about how well he managed without working, with a wife to look after him. Telling them they were fools. They had laughed, thought him an amusing fellow, but they were at home with their families now, whereas he had been left with nothing and when he’d complained, there had been no sympathy for him, only derisive comments. After Christmas, he’d persuade Netta to let him go home. What he had to do was get work and pay the rest of the debt as fast as he could.
Guilt was still balanced against resentment and self-pity. He patted the wallet in his pocket. He’d need to spend a little more. After all, he had to eat. And he wanted a drink and the company that went with it. That wasn’t unreasonable. Netta couldn’t expect him to stay in that room and not see another soul all over Christmas. Convincing himself he was justified, he took two pounds more from the wallet.
Christmas came and went but it lacked the usual joyful feeling: Walter alone in his room, listening to the sounds of laughter and the tempting smell of food, thinking of Netta sharing the days with Valmai and Gwilym. He walked past the house several times and saw Jimmy with Sally and Sadie, who called laden with gifts and good wishes. To his annoyance, Eric stayed on Christmas Day and again on Boxing day. Several friends called to wish them well and Netta and Jimmy paid visits to others.
All the time Netta was trying to decide what to do. She needed to provide a home, a proper home, for herself and Jimmy. But how, if they lost the house?
For Sally Christmas was happier than she’d hoped. Visiting Valmai and sharing part of the day with Netta and Jimmy and Eric made it a party, much enjoyed by Sadie, although as Sally was aware of underlying tension, guessing the reason, she didn’t stay as long as planned. She had been constantly watching the door, afraid of Walter appearing and causing trouble, or Rhys coming back and having to stay with him for a while for Sadie’s sake. But there was no sign of either. She almost ran in relief as she finally left the house.
Rhys should at least have been honest enough to tell her the truth, not leave her hanging on hoping for some miraculous return to how they had been. Even little Samuel, born in such tragic circumstances, had been unwanted by him. He must have been horrified, wondering how to tell his new love how Samuel had been conceived. No wonder he’d muttered anxiously about the possibility of an abortion. Now, it was all heartbreakingly obvious.
She wondered if he would ever return to Tre Melin or would just visit his parents briefly, after dark, afraid she’d demand repayment of the money she had given him over all these months.
David’s mother had welcomed her to tea on Christmas Eve and there were gifts under the tree for herself and Sadie. Mrs Gorse had gone to a lot of trouble to make them feel at home, cooking and setting the table with as much decoration and sparkle as it would hold and still leave room for them to eat. David went with her to Amy and Rick’s on Boxing Day and they went for a walk several times during the holiday weekend. Every time she returned home though, there was a fear that
Rhys would be waiting for her. What would she say? Would he tell her the truth at last? Or would her instinct to cut him out of her life make her close the door against him again?
A note pushed through Valmai’s door a few days after Christmas was addressed to Netta. While Jimmy was with Gwilym and Eric in the workshop, she showed Valmai.
‘Walter’s gone,’ she said, her voice emotional as she handed Valmai the note. ‘He doesn’t say where, just that a part of the arrears has been paid and he’ll send the rest as soon as he finds a job. He hopes Jimmy and I will go back home.’
‘I’m pleased, Netta. You need to go back. It’s your home and all your things are there and for Jimmy’s sake I hope you can stay.’
‘But where’s Walter? What’ll happen to him? I know he was making us unhappy but I feel like I’ve abandoned him.’
‘I’ll ask around. He won’t have gone far,’ Valmai promised. ‘Now, what about us going in and lighting the fire and making sure the place is cosy again.’
‘And tidy! That would be a change.’
Together they cleaned the neglected house and lit the fire and soon the place looked like it always had, until Walter had lost his job and willingly given up hope of another.
‘That factory closing, that’s what changed him,’ Valmai said. ‘It changed the lives of everyone who worked there.’
‘It wasn’t only the closing of the factory that changed him,’ Netta said. ‘He used that for an excuse to settle into a life of idleness, with failure an excuse for bad temper and irritability. It’s every man’s dream, not having to work.’
‘Not every man. Most of the men found other work and were thankful to start earning again.’
‘Him and that David Gorse, they’ve been happy to waste their days.’
Facing the World Page 24
