Joey prised open his tin and kissed Sali’s cheek. ‘You little angel.’
‘You are not to eat one of those until after dinner,’ his father warned.
‘You sound just like Mam,’ Joey retorted without thinking.
‘Just doing what she’d want me to if she were here,’ Billy said evenly. ‘That’s Connie, Annie and Antonia.’ He left his chair as the front door opened.
‘I’ll get the dinner on the table.’
‘Need any help?’ Lloyd asked Sali.
‘She’ll get all the help she needs from us, Lloyd.’ Connie walked in, bringing a cold draught of air with her. ‘Thank you, Uncle Billy.’ She handed him her cape, hat and gloves.
‘You brought half the shop with you,’ he grumbled playfully, as she set an armful of packages on the sofa where Sali had been sitting.
‘Only what I couldn’t sell,’ she rejoined in the same mocking vein and Sali wondered if she’d ever feel at ease enough with Mr Evans to treat him in such a cavalier fashion. ‘Tonia?’ she called to her daughter, who came in from the hall with Annie.
Antonia was not as tall as Annie, but even at fifteen was more shapely, and although Sali had never met Connie’s estranged husband, the resemblance between mother and daughter was so striking she suspected that Mr George hadn’t bequeathed many of his features to his offspring.
‘Tonia, arrange the chocolates and candied fruits we’ve brought on the sideboard and,’ Connie frowned at Joey, ‘stay away from your second cousin once removed while you do it.’
‘Why doesn’t anyone trust me?’ Joey complained.
‘We do.’ Annie had already divested herself of her coat and was tying on an apron. ‘We just don’t trust you around young girls.’
‘Victor, Uncle Billy, Lloyd, look after Tonia and keep Joey under control,’ Connie ordered, before picking up two bags that Annie had left in the hall. ‘Shall we take that bottle of sherry and make a start in the kitchen, Sali?’
Connie complimented Sali on everything; the immaculate state of the kitchen, the table centre she had made from four red candles and a wreath she had woven from ivy, holly and pinecones, the saucepans full of prepared vegetables, the apple sauce, the goose, the chickens ... But no matter how hard Sali tried to accept Connie’s praise and enjoy the camaraderie of working with her and Annie to produce a good dinner, she couldn’t help feeling that something wasn’t quite right between her and the woman who had hired her.
‘I’ll call the men, shall I?’ Annie asked, when the meal was ten minutes away from perfection and Connie had set the last bowl of clear gravy soup on the table.
‘Please,’ Connie and Sali answered together.
‘I am sorry, Sali. I keep forgetting that this is now your kitchen,’ Connie apologised, in a tone that suggested it was anything but.
‘I am only the housekeeper.’ Sali knew and felt her lack of status keenly, but she resented the fact that Connie had found half a dozen occasions to remind her that she was merely a servant in the last half hour.
‘But a very well thought of housekeeper and employee.’ Connie emphasised the last word. ‘Gentlemen,’ she smiled, as they filed into the kitchen, ‘as you see, we’ve extended the table. Tonia, you sit between Uncle Billy and Victor. Annie, you sit between Uncle Billy and Lloyd. And I’ll sit between you and Sali, Lloyd. That way Harry can sit next to his mother.’
‘And where am I to sit?’ Joey demanded plaintively. ‘The coal cwtch or the ty bach?’
‘Either will do, Joey,’ Connie answered. ‘But before you go, make sure everyone has a full glass.’
While everyone laughed, Sali intercepted a look between Lloyd and Connie. Lloyd was angry, she was certain of it, and Connie defiant. As Connie sat down she laid her hand on Lloyd’s arm and he shook it off. Suddenly Sali knew exactly why Connie was behaving so strangely towards her. Somehow she had discovered that she and Lloyd had become lovers and she was jealous.
‘Today went better than I thought it would,’ Mr Evans acknowledged when Lloyd left the kitchen to collect coats for Connie, Annie and Antonia from the hall.
‘It’s been a good eating and drinking day.’ Joey cut himself a last slice of cold chicken before Sali cleared it away.
‘It won’t be if you eat any more,’ his father warned. ‘You’ll burst.’
‘Victor will burst before me. You going to the County Club?’
‘No. I promised Father Kelly that I’d call in and sample the whisky his brother has sent him from Ireland. Goodnight, Connie, Annie, Antonia.’ He kissed each of them and then, to Connie and Sali’s amazement, kissed Sali. ‘You look about done in, girl, not that it’s surprising considering all the extra work you’ve been doing the past couple of weeks. Don’t wait up for us.’
‘I won’t.’
‘We could stay and do the dishes,’ Connie offered.
‘No, please, it won’t take me five minutes.’ Sali was polite but firm.
Joey looked to Victor. ‘Fancy a quick one down the Pandy?’
‘I’m off to Megan’s for supper.’
‘Any chance of me being made welcome?’
‘Not by me.’ What Victor hadn’t told anyone and Megan hadn’t told Sali, was that Megan’s uncle and his brothers had made arrangements to visit the Pandy on Christmas evening, and Megan was hoping to get the children to bed early so they could have an hour or two of rare privacy.
‘Well, I need a breath of fresh air after all that food.’
‘Fresh air, not more beer, Joey?’ Lloyd enquired archly, returning with an armful of coats and hats.
‘I’ll see the girls home,’ Joey offered.
‘It’s all right, I could do with a breath of fresh air too. Real fresh air, so you can escape into the Pandy on the way.’ Lloyd helped Annie on with her coat.
‘Shall I cut supper sandwiches?’ Sali asked.
‘If anyone can eat any more after what they’ve put away today, they have worms.’ Mr Evans slipped his pipe into his jacket pocket and went to the door. ‘Goodnight everyone, and don’t forget what I said about an early night, Sali.’
‘Goodnight, Sali, thank you for the dinner.’ Connie kissed Sali’s cheek.
‘Thank you for your help.’ Sali found it easier to return Annie and Antonia’s hugs than Connie’s embrace.
The house fell blissfully silent after everyone left. Relishing the peace, Sali cleared her mind of all coherent thought and washed the dishes, tidied the kitchen and despite Mr Evans’s injunction, cut a pile of pork and chicken sandwiches. Wrapping them in scalded clothes, she set them between plates in the pantry.
She swept the hearth, placed an unnecessary guard in front of the fire that had burnt too low to be a risk in the parlour and finally climbed the stairs. Harry was curled on his side around Mr Bear, the horse and cart, tin whistle, paper, crayons and pencils. The bar of chocolate lay on his pillow and Sali moved it on to a chair lest he roll on it during the night.
She washed, changed into her nightdress and slipped between the freezing cold sheets, but sleep eluded her. She preferred to lie back and watch her breath cloud the shadows in the icy room, because every time she closed her eyes, Connie’s beautiful face and elegantly dressed figure filled her mind. And now that she knew with a devastating certainty that the warmth of Connie’s smile and the love in her eyes were reserved for Lloyd, she felt her heart would break.
Just as she had begun to believe that she could be happy again, the future had been snatched from her. She failed to see how any man presented with a choice between her and her drab clothes and scarred body and the elegantly presented, witty, confident Connie, could fail to choose the latter.
Not that Lloyd even had to make a choice. Mansel had protested that he loved her just as Lloyd had done, but that hadn’t prevented him from making love to other women. And for all of Lloyd’s assurances that he wanted to live with her for the rest of his life, why should he settle for just her, when Connie was clearly prepared to offer him so much more?
‘I’ll take a quick look at the Christmas Eve trading figures before I leave, Connie,’ Lloyd informed her when they entered her house.
It was the first time Lloyd had told Connie that he was going to look at her books, without first asking her permission and the significance wasn’t lost on her. ‘Go on into the office. I’ll be with you in a minute.’ Refusing to meet Annie’s disapproving eye, Connie ran up the stairs ahead of her and Antonia and went into her bedroom. Closing the door, she unpinned her hair and brushed it out.
‘Mam?’ Antonia knocked and walked in.
‘It’s late, Tonia, you should be in bed.’
‘Why don’t you want me to be friends with Joey?’ Antonia asked plaintively, sitting on the bed. ‘Everyone makes jokes about him being a bit of a Don Juan when it comes to girls, but you are serious about not wanting me to see him, aren’t you?’
‘When you are older you will discover that some men are best avoided,’ Connie snapped cryptically, ‘and cousin Joseph is one of them.’
‘He’s funny and good-looking –’
‘And an out-and-out womaniser, just like your father. Surely even you have heard that he has a girl in every street in Tonypandy and two in the longer ones. Now, go to bed.’
Her mother rarely shouted at her, but when she did, Antonia knew it was time to retreat. Connie heard her slam her bedroom door, but was too preoccupied by thoughts of Lloyd to consider Antonia’s feelings.
She unbuttoned the jacket of the green wool bespoke suit she was wearing and hung it away. The skirt she folded over a chair. She gazed at herself in the mirror for a moment and decided that if she removed her petticoats it would make her intention to seduce Lloyd too obvious. Besides, given his ridiculous insistence that it was over between them, she shouldn’t fling herself at him. Men liked uncertainty and the thrill of the chase and if, no, not if, when he declared his love for her – again – he would help her out of her underclothes just as he had done on so many occasions in the past.
She slipped on a dark blue silk wrapper trimmed with bands of hand-worked ecru lace, fluffed out her hair, pinched the skin over her cheekbones into a becoming flush and puffed vanilla-scented powder on her nose and above the V of her breasts. When she reached for the blue glass and silver scent bottle on her dressing table she caught sight of Annie watching her in the mirror.
‘It’s not going to work, Connie.’
Moving slowly and deliberately, Connie unscrewed the top from the bottle, pulled out the rubber stopper and sprinkled French perfume over her neck, breasts and hands. Slipping her feet into a pair of heeled, backless Berlin-worked slippers she swept past Annie and out of the door.
Connie had expected to find Lloyd pacing restlessly around the office as he had done the night he had arrived to tell her that he wouldn’t be seeing her privately again. She suppressed a small smile of triumph when she recollected that night. He had been so adamant that there could be nothing more between them and here he was, a couple of days later, alone and waiting for her to join him.
‘Sorry I kept you waiting, darling.’ She closed the door and reached for the key to lock it.
‘There’s no need to do that, Connie.’
‘Darling, you look cross.’
‘Possibly because I am.’ There was restrained anger in his calm admission. She chose to ignore it.
‘I have a present for you.’ She went to the desk, opened a drawer and extracted a small flat box. She held it out to him, but he didn’t attempt to take it. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
‘Not until you tell me why you went to such pains to conceal our relationship from my family for thirteen years, only to flirt outrageously with me in front of them two days after I tell you that it’s over between us.’
‘I didn’t –’
‘Like you didn’t go out of your way to belittle Sali?’ His eyes were cold.
‘Please, open your present,’ she pleaded.
‘You first.’ He removed a box from his pocket and laid it on to the desk.
‘How kind,’ Connie prattled nervously, in a vain attempt to pretend that everything was fine between them. She picked up the box and opened the lid. ‘How pretty.’ She lifted out a gold and blue enamelled lady’s fob watch. ‘I must thank you properly for it.’ She stepped towards him and he stepped back.
‘Open it, Connie.’
She pressed the button at the top and the front flew open. The face of the watch was embellished with a butterfly.
‘How lovely –’
‘Read the inscription, Connie.’
‘“A memory of yesterday’s pleasures.”’ The smile faded from her face.
‘That is John Donne; the line below is mine.’
Her voice wavered as she read, ‘“Thank you for allowing me to say goodbye.’”
‘It appears I was premature in my gratitude. But it is goodbye, Connie. Make no mistake about it. I won’t be coming back, not again.’ He picked up his hat from the desk.
An icy claw of fear closed over her heart, constricting her lungs and making it impossible for her to breathe. She fell back on to the sofa, fighting for air, as the room swung giddily around her.
‘Do you want me to call Annie?’
‘You can’t possibly mean it, Lloyd,’ she said finally. ‘Not after everything we have been to one another.’
‘Goodbye, Connie.’ He walked to the door.
‘She is married. As married as I am. She can’t give you a settled home and family any more than I can. And she’s running from her husband. I talked to people in Pontypridd when I went there to buy your present. Sali Watkin Jones is married to a butcher called Bull –’
‘You asked questions about Sali in Pontypridd!’ He whirled around and faced her. She had seen him angry, but never like this. The savagery of his naked rage petrified her.
‘I wanted to find out if she’d told me the truth about herself, and she hadn’t, Lloyd,’ she babbled. ‘Her husband is a respectable man –’
‘A respectable man who beat her to a pulp.’
‘She was carrying a bastard when she married him. Did she tell you that?’ she taunted.
‘Who exactly did you talk to?’
‘People.’
‘What people, Connie?’
She shrugged. ‘Just in the shops. I don’t know who they were. They said her father had spoiled her. That she’d never had to lift a finger in her life. She was engaged to marry a rich man who ran off and left her for another woman on their wedding day. And Mr Bull had taken pity on her and married her, only for her to present him with a bastard six months later.’ Lloyd was watching her intently but when he didn’t interrupt, she continued out of sheer nervousness as much as in the hope that she might turn him against Sali.
‘They said she was too proud to serve in her husband’s shop and after robbing him blind and pushing his idiot brother down the stairs and killing him when he tried to stop her from leaving with the money she had stolen, she ran off with her baby and her husband’s sister. Her husband has lost everything, his shop, his business, and it’s all her fault. He’s been reduced to working for another butcher and renting a room in a pub.’
‘Did you tell anyone where Sali was?’
‘No one asked.’
‘Did you tell them, Connie?’ For the first time since she had entered the office, he raised his voice loud enough for Antonia and Annie to hear upstairs.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘No? Or you don’t think so? Which is it?’
‘I don’t think so. I had no reason to. I only wanted to find out what people thought of her, Lloyd,’ she wheedled, making one last attempt to win him over. ‘Let’s face it, what do we know about Sali Jones? Only what she told us. I know you admired her father, but you said yourself, you didn’t move in the same circles as her. Why can’t you see that she’s no good?’
‘Read that last line on the watch again, Connie, and try to live up to it. And a word of warning, if you ev
er talk to anyone about Sali again, here or in Pontypridd or for that matter anywhere, or try to hurt her in any way, I’ll make you sorry that you ever mentioned her name.’
‘Lloyd –’
‘I’m doing what I should have done years ago, Connie.’ He opened the door.
‘You can’t marry Sali until she gets a divorce. And I could divorce Albert. All you have to do is ask me.’
‘A boy begged you to do that years ago. You said then that it wouldn’t work, and you were right. If there was ever anything between us, it’s long since burnt out.’
‘We love one another, Lloyd,’ she cried desperately.
‘No, we don’t, Connie. We never did. We lusted but we never loved. Do you think love would have degenerated into this?’
‘I won’t let you go.’ She left the couch and threw herself between him and the door.
‘If you really loved me you would do just that. In a few short days Sali has taught me that much. Love is about sacrifice and wanting the best for your lover. Please, leave us both with a little dignity, and don’t,’ he gave her a fixed look, ‘ever demean Sali, or try to come between me and her again.’ He saw himself out of the house.
Emotionally exhausted, Lloyd walked, oblivious to the families making their way home after visiting relatives, the drunks staggering between pubs, the gangs of boys gathered around the gas lamps playing cards and marbles and their lookouts keeping a watchful eye for policemen who prosecuted anyone caught gambling in the street.
He passed shop windows, stepping in and out of pools of light shed by the gas lamps, without even realising they were there. Connie’s face, contorted, ugly in jealousy, filled his mind.
He stood in the square and gazed through the windows of the Pandy watching the men drinking at the bar. Joey was standing with Megan’s uncle and brothers at the end nearest the till, pint in hand, chatting to the barmaid.
He remained there motionless for what might have been five minutes or an hour. Only when he was completely calm and in control did he turn towards home – and Sali.
Beggars and Choosers Page 36
