Beggars and Choosers

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Mari has been with us since before I was born.’

  ‘Us, Sali?’ he said. ‘You forget yourself. I spoke to Owen after Evensong yesterday. He told me he had visited you. You are truly fortunate to have such a forgiving, Christian man for a husband. All he could talk about was your return to his house and the fold. Admirable sentiments from a man driven to drink by your behaviour.’

  Driven! Sali could not believe that she had heard her uncle correctly.

  ‘We had a full deacons’ meeting. Owen testified before God that he had visited a public house for the first time in his life and it was your recalcitrance that drove him there. You sinned and he paid for it. Yet, although that night cost him his brother’s life, he is prepared to forgive you and take you and the child back into his home.’ He leaned very close to her. ‘I was sorry to hear that his sister has taken the child and left. You do know where they are?’

  Tight-lipped, Sali shook her head.

  ‘You are not only defying your husband, Sali, but me, your senior male relative.’

  ‘I don’t know where they are.’

  ‘And I don’t believe you. But, I will leave you to your thoughts and conscience for twenty-four hours. Perhaps you will have an answer for me tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I cannot tell you what I don’t know.’

  ‘One more thing, Sali.’ He left his chair, glanced into the corridor and closed the door. ‘You are not thinking of leaving your husband, are you?’

  She curled into a ball and opened her mouth, preparing to scream if he touched her.

  ‘You have brought enough grief to your family without courting more dishonour and disgrace. Your mother and I would rather see you dead and in your coffin than living apart from your husband.’

  ‘You would prefer me to die than live?’

  ‘If you should leave your husband, yes. I now see and understand that Owen Bull has cause to be disturbed by your sinful arrogance and pride. Pray, Sali, pray to the Lord for guidance and humility. A wife’s happiness is only to be found in unquestioning obedience to her husband. I am sorry to see that you are taking so long to learn that simple lesson.’ He opened the door, placed his hat on his head and walked away.

  ‘I hear you couldn’t sleep last night, Mrs Bull.’ The sister bustled into Sali’s cubicle and ran her fingers over the window sill and locker, to check the ward maid’s work. She frowned disapprovingly when she saw the Pontypridd Observer folded on a stool next to the bed. ‘Where did– you get this? It’s against regulations for patients to read newspapers.’

  ‘I hardly looked at it.’ Not wanting to get the night nurse into trouble, Sali avoided answering the question.

  ‘Do you think you will sleep tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sali lied.

  ‘Good. Sit up and I’ll put down your pillows for the night.’ She adjusted the metal support frame in the bed head, lowered Sali’s pillows, retrieved the newspaper and switched off the light. ‘Sleep well. See you in the morning, Mrs Bull.’

  ‘Goodnight, Sister, and thank you.’ Sali stared blankly into the darkness. Soon, she would have to leave the infirmary and then what? She ached to be with her son. But, after Owen’s veiled threats she couldn’t go to Ynysangharad House. Her uncle, on his own admittance, would rather see her dead than living in Danygraig House and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, return to Owen Bull.

  She thought of Mansel and how he had disappeared without a word. It would take courage and money to build a new life for herself and her son. Much as she hated the thought of parting with it, she could pawn the engagement ring Mansel had given her. It might raise enough money to keep both of them until she could find work. As what? Even if she had completed her teaching certificate, no authority employed married women as teachers. And no respectable household would employ a woman who had left her husband, even as a skivvy. If she left Pontypridd she might be able to pass herself off as a widow ... But there was still Harry. How could she work and take care of him? She couldn’t abide the thought of him living with another woman now; if the arrangement were to become permanent she thought she would go mad.

  After tossing and turning on the hard narrow bed for hours she crept out of her cubicle and went to the bathroom. The duty nurse was slumped over the desk in the middle of the ward, her head resting on a book, sleeping. Sali read the clock on the wall. Four o’clock and she hadn’t closed her eyes. She was exhausted but she might never have another or better opportunity. She went to the bathroom and washed. Returning to her cubicle, she pulled the door until it was almost closed, then moving stealthily and silently, opened her locker.

  The shops opened early on a Monday morning and none earlier than the pawnbroker. She had seen the queues of women, waiting to pawn their wedding rings so they could buy food for the week after their husbands had drunk away their wages on Saturday night. All she had to do was dress, leave the hospital, get the money, catch the train to Tonypandy and look for her son – and make sure that no one followed her who would carry news of her movements back to Owen, her uncle, or, the one person in the world who would be most hurt by her disappearance, Aunt Edyth.

  She lifted out the underclothes, woollen smock and canvas overall that had been stripped from her when she had been admitted and the ward maids had since washed and ironed. Below them was the brown paper parcel that Rhian had put on the stretcher when they had carried her from Mill Street. She struggled to untie the string and the paper crackled alarmingly as she unfolded it. She lifted out her skirt and probed the waistband beneath the button. It was still there, securely sewn into the band. She looked around for something she could use to unpick the stitches. Settling on a hook from her corset, she ripped at the thread until the ring Mansel had given her tumbled into her hand.

  The gold and diamonds shone, even in the muted light that came through the crack in the door. She lifted the half circle of diamonds to her lips, kissed it, and closed her fingers tightly around it. If ... if only ...

  No! She couldn’t afford to think about Mansel, not now. She had to move forward, not dwell on the past, for her son’s sake. If only she knew how he was coping, living with strangers. Mari had said the woman her sister had found was kind and had a boy of her own, but she was bound to be kinder to her own child than Harry. And what if he didn’t like living with them, or preferred living with them to living with her? Given the miserable life they’d had with Owen, she couldn’t imagine a worse home than Mill Street.

  She opened her hand. She had clutched the ring so hard, it left an impression in the palm of her hand. It was the last link to her past and it was going to be difficult to let it go, but pawning it was the only option left to her if she was going to forge a future away from Owen Bull. Setting the ring on her locker, she stripped off the bed jacket and nightdress her aunt had given her and dressed in her underclothes. This was no time to daydream. She had to escape from the infirmary, find a job, make a home and get her son back.

  She dressed hurriedly in her underclothes, corset, stockings and the black suit that was now far too big for her. After lacing on the boots that had been parcelled up with the suit, she looked down on the sum total of her worldly possessions. One Welsh flannel smock, one pair of heavily repaired, rough working boots that Owen had given her and a canvas khaki overall. Her aunt had brought in what she regarded as the absolute essentials for a lady: three silk and lace nightdresses, two bed jackets, three sets of fine lace and silk underclothes, a dozen lace and muslin handkerchiefs, a toothbrush, soap and bottle of lavender water. She didn’t have a hat, coat, gloves, towel or even a hairbrush, but then, she reflected philosophically, she had so little hair it didn’t need brushing.

  Discarding the clothes Owen had given her, she wrapped her aunt’s gifts in the brown paper, picked up the parcel and holding her breath, tentatively opened the door. The ward was in silence, the nurse still asleep. Walking on tiptoe and sticking close to the side of the corridor, she crept to the door that connected the ward to the rest of the hospi
tal. Opening it just wide enough to slip out, she found herself on a landing. Gripping a wooden rail for support, she began the descent to ground level.

  The sky was just beginning to lighten but not enough to dispel the shadows that shrouded the grim, grey stone buildings. After the overheated atmosphere of the ward the fresh autumn morning seemed bitter. Moving in the coal-black gloom that shrouded the foot of the high walls surrounding the infirmary, she stole to the side gate and found it locked. She continued to walk around, close to the wall, until she reached the Porter’s Lodge at the front entrance. A light shone from the window and she heard voices. Two men were standing in the doorway engrossed in conversation, but a small gate set beside the main gates was open.

  Her heart played a staccato drumbeat as she made a dash, but she didn’t dare start breathing again until she left Courthouse Street and reached the white-tiled tunnel beneath the railway bridge. A train thundered overhead and she instinctively clapped her hands over her ears. A man stopped and stared at her. Acutely aware of her shorn head and lack of hat, coat and gloves, she put her head down and made her way into Taff Street. People were already walking around the town and, just as she remembered, there was a queue of women outside the pawnbroker’s. A fat, middle-aged woman eyed her curiously as she joined them, and she tried to cover her bruised and scabbed face with her fingers.

  ‘You look cold, love.’

  ‘I am,’ Sali acknowledged cautiously, too afraid not to answer lest she draw even more attention to herself.

  ‘Take this, I’m popping it anyway and you may as well make use of it before I do.’ The woman handed her a shawl.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sali took it, and draped it over her head, hiding most of her face.

  ‘Beat you about, did he?’ The woman didn’t wait for Sali to answer. ‘Brutes, that’s what men are. All men,’ she added. ‘Damned brutes. You take my Alf. He can’t have a pint without knocking me about afterwards. Not that he ever sticks to a pint, mind.’

  Sali crept between the woman and the shop window. The woman carried on talking regardless and Sali was grateful. By holding the interest of the others in the queue, she drew attention away from her.

  The shop opened and the queue shuffled forward. She deliberately hung back, waiting until the shop was empty. It was going to be difficult enough to face Mr Goodman, who had been a friend of her father, without having an audience watching her pawn the only valuable she owned.

  ‘Can I help you, Miss ... Miss Watkin Jones ... Mrs Bull, is it you?’ Mr Goodman peered uncertainly at her. When she nodded, he ran around the counter and pulled up a chair for her. ‘Please, sit down.’

  ‘I am fine, thank you, Mr Goodman.’ Sali felt tears forming in her eyes. It was hateful to think that she was incapable of controlling her own emotions, especially when someone was showing her kindness.

  ‘You don’t look fine, Mrs Bull. I heard you were in the infirmary. When did you get out? Does –’

  She cut him short. ‘Could you advance me some money on this, please?’ She handed him the ring she had clutched in her hand since she had left the hospital.

  He held it to the light, before reaching for his jeweller’s eyeglass. ‘This is a very valuable ring, but I couldn’t give you anywhere near its worth. There is no call in Pontypridd for anything like this. If you didn’t redeem it, I’d never sell it.’

  ‘I will redeem it the moment I can afford to. And I wouldn’t want its full value. Could you advance me ...’ She thought rapidly. She didn’t even know what Rhian was paying the family who were looking after her son but she guessed it couldn’t be less than five shillings a week and she’d have to reimburse her for what she had already paid out. And she might not find work straight away and she’d have to pay for respectable lodgings because she couldn’t possibly take the child to a slum, and there was food and train fare and she’d have to buy a hat, coat, and clothes for Harry ... ‘Ten pounds?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘That is a lot of money.’

  ‘I know, but you said yourself that the ring is worth more. And could you please hold it for me for six months?’

  ‘I think I could manage that. You know I charge two shillings in the pound a week interest?’

  ‘Two shillings ... but that would be a pound a week, Mr Goodman. I could never earn that much money to repay you.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Mrs Bull, out of respect for your father, I will advance you ten pounds and charge you two pounds interest for the six months. If you redeem it before, it will still be two pounds, but I think that is fair, don’t you?’

  ‘More than fair, Mr Goodman, I’ll take it, and thank you.’

  He opened the safe, removed a velvet-lined box and laid the ring inside. After locking the safe he went to a clothes rack. ‘As a bonus I can let you have a coat and,’ he lifted down a valise, ‘this.’ He handed her the case and a black coat. A broad-brimmed black hat was pinned to the front of it, and a black muffler and gloves hung from the pockets. He added a black shawl that was folded on a shelf. She recognised them. They were all her possessions. ‘Mr Bull brought them in a few years ago. It was a straight sale. A bad investment on my part.’ He shrugged. ‘My customers prefer more showy clothes.’

  ‘I can’t possible take all this,’ she protested.

  Ignoring her assertion, he lifted a tray of wedding rings on the counter. ‘You’ll also need one of these.’

  She glanced down at her bare hand. Owen hadn’t returned her ring, which he had torn from her finger the night Iestyn died. ‘How much are they, Mr Goodman?’

  ‘Call it an extra bonus for the business I have transacted with your husband over the years.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly –’

  ‘I don’t offer all my customers a bonus.’ He wrote out a ticket, counted ten, one-pound notes and laid the wedding ring on top of the pile. He pushed it towards her, walked around the counter and held out the coat. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, took the ring, ticket and money and secreted the notes in one of her gloves. ‘There’s a mirror behind you,’ he said, as she picked up the hat.

  Sali pulled the brim low over her face, wound the muffler around her mouth and pushed the shawl into the valise. It was then that she realised there were clothes already in the case.

  ‘I couldn’t sell those either,’ he lied.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Goodman. You have been very kind.’

  ‘Good luck, Mrs Bull.’ He opened the door for her.

  Sali hesitated. ‘If Mr Bull or anyone else should come in asking for me ...’

  ‘I never saw you. And if you want to redeem your ring by post, just send me the ticket and I’ll forward it to wherever you are, by registered post.’

  ‘Thank you again, Mr Goodman.’ She held out her hand and he shook it.

  He stood back watching her as she crossed the road. When she disappeared from sight he opened the safe again. Taking an envelope he pushed the ring box into it and wrote the ticket number he had given Sali on the outside followed by ‘Property of Sali Watkin Jones – to be returned to claimant without charge.’

  Sali Watkin Jones, as was, might be too proud to take charity but if anything should happen to him he didn’t want his heirs profiting from the daughter of the only man in Pontypridd who had extended a hand of friendship and offered help to a penniless Russian Jewish refugee when he had come to the town in search of work and a new life.

  Sali left the pawnbroker’s and walked towards the imposing red-brick facade of Pontypridd Railway Station. Keeping her head down, she entered the ticket office. There was a short queue in front of the circular counter and as she waited her turn she saw two of her uncle’s chapel congregation. Turning her back, she pretended she hadn’t seen them.

  ‘Where to?’ Tomas’s brother asked through the cubbyhole window without recognising her.

  ‘Cardiff, please.’

  ‘Return?’

  ‘One way.’ She opened her purse. ‘Third class, please.’


  Taking her ticket and her change, she thrust both into her pocket and ran up the steps to the platform. After showing her ticket to the official manning the gate at the top, she walked through. The Cardiff train was standing alongside the platform. She walked to the end of the train, deliberately holding back until the guard moved forward with his flag. As he lifted his whistle to his lips, she stepped into the last carriage. It was empty. Heart pounding, she sat in a corner seat opposite the window and next to the corridor clutching her valise. Pulling the brim of her hat down low, she glanced towards the window when they drew into the first station after Pontypridd, Treforest. She shrank back as bowler-hatted men in suits walked past her carriage towards the first-class cars. Two workmen joined her and she stared down at her bag, not daring to raise her eyes again until they drew into Cardiff.

  She left the train, walked into St Mary’s Street and stopped at the first draper’s she came to. She bought two pairs of stockings and almost bought an identical khaki canvas overall to the one Owen had given her. Then she realised she didn’t have to wear Owen’s choice of clothes – not any more. Feeling defiant and immoral, she bought a pretty navy-blue cotton overall patterned with white daisies. Before she left the shop, she removed her hat and draped her shawl over her head, covering as much of her face as she could.

  She found a stationer’s and bought a packet of envelopes, a cheap writing pad, a bottle of ink and a pen. She picked up a stamp at the Post Office, and went into a temperance café. After ordering a cup of tea and a plain bun, she opened the writing pad, unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped the nib of the pen into it and began to write quickly, without allow herself time to think about what she was saying.

  Dear, dear Aunt Edyth,

  I can’t thank you enough for all your kindnesses. I hope you understand why I can’t live with you and why I had to leave without saying goodbye. I will try to write to you to let you know how I am.

  Please don’t look for me and please try to do something for Mari. Uncle Morgan told me that he sacked her for visiting me in hospital.