Winners and Losers

by Catrin Collier

  ‘I couldn’t be more of a wife to you two hours from now than I am right this minute, Lloyd.’ She turned to face him.

  ‘No second thoughts.’

  ‘None. You?’ she questioned anxiously.

  ‘Absolutely not, although I still think this is a very one-sided relationship. You’ve given me far more than I’ll ever be able to give you.’

  ‘That’s nonsense and you know it.’ She opened her jewellery casket and lifted out the pair of gold earrings he had given her on her last birthday. ‘I bless the day I came to this house.’ She turned aside and a tear fell from her eye.

  He knelt in front of her. ‘You shouldn’t cry, not today.’

  ‘I wish ...’

  ‘What, sweetheart?’

  ‘That I’d never met Owen Bull, much less married him. But most of all I wish that we hadn’t had to wait for him to be hanged before we could marry. It’s as though our marriage will be rooted in tragedy. Blighted before it’s even begun.’

  ‘The only tragedy is that you were ever married to him in the first place. Come on, sweetheart, I told you weeks ago that part of your life is over.’

  ‘It’s been over for a long time and I still can’t believe my luck in finding you.’ She turned back to the mirror and wiped the tears from her eyes with an impractical lace-edged handkerchief she had chosen because it looked bridal. She rose to her feet. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Do you need to ask?’

  ‘More fit for a Saturday shopping trip to Cardiff than a wedding?’

  ‘You’re all the bride I want.’

  ‘If you two don’t hurry up, we’re going to hold the wedding without you,’ Joey shouted from downstairs.

  Lloyd released Sali, straightened his tie and went to the top of the stairs. ‘And who’s going to be the bridegroom? You?’

  ‘The woman isn’t born yet who’ll catch me.’ Joey whistled appreciatively when Sali joined Lloyd on the stairs. ‘On second thoughts ...’

  ‘Eyes off my wife.’

  ‘She’s not your wife yet, and she could change her mind on the way to the register office.’

  ‘There’s no chance of that happening.’ Sali walked down the stairs and saw Harry watching from the kitchen doorway. She held out her arms. ‘You going to give me away, Harry, like we talked about yesterday.’

  ‘Give you to Uncle Lloyd so he will be my daddy.’

  ‘You don’t really have to give your mam away.’ Lloyd swung the small boy on to his shoulders. ‘It’s like we said, you get to keep her. It’s just a ceremony.’

  ‘That isn’t going to take place if we miss the train and your appointment in the register office,’ Billy Evans said gruffly, nervous although he would have suffered torments rather than admit it. ‘Time we were on our way.’

  ‘You look very smart,’ Victor complimented Megan when she opened the kitchen door of the lodging house wearing her green dress and Sunday hat. He handed her a posy of white, hothouse rosebuds and ferns and pointed to his own buttonhole. ‘It wouldn’t be a proper wedding without flowers.’

  ‘Thank you, Victor, they’re gorgeous.’ She smelled the roses.

  ‘They’re forced, so there is no smell, and don’t thank me, they’re Lloyd and Sali’s only extravagance.’

  ‘As you see, I’m wearing the same old dress.’

  ‘I love your green dress.’

  ‘So do I, but all the same, I wish I’d been able to buy something new.’ She fetched her cloak. ‘I’m off now, Mrs Palmer, if that’s all right.’

  Joyce walked into the kitchen carrying a tray of dirty dishes and Victor lifted his cap to her.

  ‘Victor, all dressed up, I see.’ Joyce looked Megan over. ‘You look pretty, Megan, very bridesmaid-like. Enjoy yourselves. And don’t worry about hurrying back tonight, as long as Mr Evans is bringing you home, that is.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Palmer, I’ll be walking her home.’ Victor took Megan’s cloak and draped it over her shoulders. They walked up the lane into Dunraven Street. Alun Richards was standing, hands in pockets, talking to a dozen men in front of the ironmonger’s. He saw them and ducked inside.

  ‘Ignoring is better than spitting. Give me another month and I’ll have him bowing to you.’ Victor closed his hand around Megan’s. ‘You have any trouble with anyone last week?’

  ‘No, but then I haven’t left the house, or wanted to,’ she added in reply to his searching look. ‘By the time we do the cleaning, cooking, serve the meals and sort out the laundry, we’re too tired to do anything except sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea, and sometimes making the tea requires too much effort. I take it we’re meeting the others at the station?’

  ‘We are. Have you spoken to Mrs Palmer about Christmas Day?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Victor, but I won’t be able to have Christmas dinner with you and your family. Mrs Palmer has been ordered to lay on a dinner with all the trimmings for the men. They’ve had their leave cancelled so they’ll be spending it here.’

  ‘Then the authorities are expecting more trouble,’ he mused.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Just talking to myself.’ He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a lace handkerchief. ‘A bridesmaid should have something new. Sorry I couldn’t run to anything more. But the only one who has bought anything new is Sali, and then only after Lloyd nagged her into it. The rest of us have made do with our best suits.’

  ‘The middle of a strike isn’t the greatest time to get married.’

  ‘Middle –I hope it’s near the end.’

  ‘Trying out the outfit you intend to wear in court, Victor? I can’t see the judge being impressed by a buttonhole,’ Luke Thomas shouted from across the road.

  Victor waved an acknowledgement but didn’t answer him.

  ‘You’ve had the date for your trial?’

  ‘March.’ He gave her a cautionary look. ‘It’s not something we want to talk about today.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘There’s Sali, Lloyd and the others. Let’s go into the station and get the tickets to save time.’

  ‘Victor,’ she laid her hand on his arm and held him back, ‘if you need money for the tickets –or for anything else today, I have some savings.’

  ‘So do we.’ He managed a smile. His father had warned him and Joey that morning that he’d emptied his bank account of what little was left in it, to pay for the train fare and buy a round of drinks after the wedding.

  ‘The bride and groom.’ Mr Richards left his chair and raised his glass to Lloyd and Sali. ‘May they enjoy many happy years together.’

  ‘The bride and groom.’ Mr Evans, Joey, Victor, Megan, Mari and Harry, at Victor’s instigation, rose to their feet to echo the toast.

  Sali gave Lloyd a self-conscious smile. She had told him so often she didn’t expect her brothers and sister to attend their wedding that she had almost begun to believe it. It was only when she had walked into the register office to see Mr Richards sitting next to Mari that she realized she hadn’t quite extinguished all hope they’d make the effort.

  She hadn’t known what to expect of a secular marriage ceremony but the registrar had injected a sense of occasion. And by determinedly ignoring her family’s absence and concentrating on Lloyd’s family and Mari and Mr Richards, the only two friends she had left from what she had begun to regard as her past life, she managed not to miss Geraint, Gareth and Llinos – too much.

  ‘That was a wonderful lunch, Mr Richards, thank you,’ Lloyd said when everyone sat down after finishing the champagne Mr Richards had insisted on buying to round off the ‘modest’ wedding breakfast he had provided.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Sali echoed.

  ‘Thank you, Mr and Mrs Evans, for allowing me to provide it.’ Mr Richards slipped his hand into his pocket. ‘I have something else.’ He pulled out an envelope. ‘Reservations for dinner and a room here tonight. The dinner can be served in your room, if you prefer.’

  ‘We couldn’t po
ssibly -’

  ‘Mr Evans, I have no family of my own and I have over the years flattered myself that Mrs Jones ... Mrs Evans,’ he corrected himself with a smile, ‘looks on me almost as a relation. Please, make an old man happy.’

  ‘It’s not that we don’t want to,’ Sali broke in, ‘it’s just that we have Harry -’

  ‘Who would love to spend an evening with his Auntie Megan and me, wouldn’t you, Harry?’ Victor interrupted. ‘We could play Blow Football.’

  ‘And draughts,’ Megan suggested, knowing that Daisy and Sam had taught him how to play the game before they had left.

  ‘Yippee!’

  ‘You won’t miss us, Harry?’ Sali asked.

  Harry shook his head and stared at a waitress who was carrying a cake into the room. A large, white-iced cake covered in sugar roses and green icing petals.

  ‘A wedding cake! Mr Richards you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Hardly a wedding cake, Mrs Evans, just one tier.’

  ‘I don’t even have my razor.’ Lloyd was still reluctant to accept Mr Richards’s generous offer.

  ‘Why don’t you men stay here and have another drink, while Megan and I walk over to Gwilym James and pick up what we’ll need for tonight,’ Sali suggested.

  ‘Is that what my life’s going to be from now on?’ Lloyd joked. ‘Abandoned to sit and drink with the men while my wife goes shopping?’

  ‘If that’s an example of married life, I’m all for it.’ Joey winked at the waitress who was cutting the cake.

  ‘You’ll be lucky to find a girl who’ll have you,’ his father said acidly. ‘Right, what’s everyone drinking. This round is on me.’ He stood in front of Mr Richards, daring him to say otherwise.

  Megan followed Sali in bewilderment as she went from department to department in Gwilym James. First the cosmetics, where she bought a cut-throat razor, shaving mug, soap, toothbrushes, tooth powder and soap, then they moved on to household linens where she bought flannels and a pair of towels. Finally they ended up in the ladieswear department where Sali asked to see a selection of lingerie.

  ‘Just look at this silk and lace!’ Megan exclaimed. ‘It’s beautiful.’ She picked up a chemise only to drop it when she saw the price tag. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Sali,’ she whispered, ‘but how on earth can you afford to buy anything here?’

  ‘As we’re going to be sisters-in-law, I’ll tell you, but not here.’ Sali picked up the chemise and held it in front of Megan. ‘This looks your size, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly -’

  ‘It’s traditional for the bride to buy the bridesmaid a present. Gold or silver jewellery usually, but if you’d prefer oyster satin and coffee-coloured lace, it’s yours.’

  ‘I’d love it, but -’

  ‘Good, that’s settled.’ Sali turned to the assistant. ‘I’ll take the chemise, nightdress, drawers and petticoat please, Miss Rowe. Would you please parcel up the chemise separately, charge everything to my account and arrange for them to be sent downstairs. I’ll pick up everything in ten minutes or so.’

  Sali led Megan out of the shop and across the road. She stopped in front of the toyshop and looked at a miniature brewery wagon complete with two horses and dozen metal barrels. Pushing open the door, she went inside.

  ‘Mrs Jones,’ the manager abandoned the man and woman he was serving and went to Sali, ‘how can I help you?’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Thomas, I am sure that your assistant can see to me.’ Sali smiled at a young and diffident boy. ‘I’ve come to buy the brewery wagon.’

  ‘The one Master Harry likes so much.’

  ‘And has been in here a dozen times to look at.’

  ‘He’s going to have a happy Christmas, Mrs Jones.’ The boy pushed aside the wooden door at the back of the window display and lifted it from the window.

  ‘Could I have that wagon as well?’ Sali pointed to a smaller, one-horse coal wagon, complete with tiny lumps of coal.

  ‘My pleasure, Mrs Jones.’

  A few minutes later, Sali took Megan into the tearooms in the arcade. Handing their coats and parcels to the girl who showed them to their table, they sat down and Sali ordered tea and cakes for two.

  ‘I owe you an explanation,’ Sali said in response to the bemused expression on Megan’s face.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.’

  ‘I want to tell you. I was born Sali Watkin Jones, My father owned collieries.’

  ‘You’re rich?’

  ‘Was.’ Sali picked up the china teapot the waitress set on the table and poured out two cups of tea. ‘But not any more.’

  ‘But the clothes, this tea?’ Megan asked in surprise.

  ‘You must promise me something, Megan, what I tell you now must remain a secret as far as anyone outside the family is concerned. Especially in Tonypandy.’

  Megan looked at the serious expression on Sali’s face. ‘I promise.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘We know that Lloyd and Sali planned a quiet wedding, but the neighbours wanted to do something for them so we organized a surprise party. I hope you don’t mind, Uncle Billy.’ Connie met her uncle at the kitchen door when he returned from Pontypridd.

  Billy glanced into his kitchen. There were so many people crammed into the room; he couldn’t have walked across it. ‘It’s you who’s had the surprise. Lloyd and Sali are staying in Pontypridd tonight.’ A lump rose in his throat when he saw the table. Connie had covered it with her best tablecloth and, judging by the various patterns on the plates set on it, everyone had contributed something. Food had never been as scarce as it was at that moment in the valley, yet the table was groaning with more than Connie, Annie and Tonia could have possibly carried up from the shop. And everyone in the street was there, as well as some of his friends and Sali’s young sister-in-law, Owen Bull’s half-sister, Rhian, who had suffered as much from Owen’s cruelty as Sali. Rhian had fled from her brother’s house the same time as Sali and found herself a job in Tonypandy as a parlour maid in Llan House.

  ‘I’m sure Lloyd and Sali would have been delighted.’ Joey realized that for once his father was lost for words. ‘But they’ve been given a night in the New Inn as a wedding present so you’ll have to make do with us. These pasties look delicious.’

  ‘They’ll keep until tomorrow, when we have a welcome home party.’ Connie’s assistant, Annie, knocked Joey’s hand aside as he reached for one.

  ‘The sandwiches won’t.’ Connie picked up a plate and offered it to Megan and Victor, who came in carrying Harry.

  ‘Great idea, Annie.’ Joey snaffled two sandwiches before Connie had a chance to pass the plate on to Betty Morgan. ‘Everyone can forget chapel and church for once and we’ll have another party tomorrow night.’

  ‘I suppose we could go to morning service only,’ Betty said doubtfully.

  ‘You’re risking going to hell, Betty,’ Billy taunted.

  ‘But only for a visit,’ Ned chimed in. ‘Billy and I will be there for the duration.’

  ‘You two will choke on your blasphemy one day.’ Betty took the sandwiches and joined a group of women who’d appointed themselves tea makers.

  ‘Hello, Mr Evans, Joey, Victor, Megan.’ Rhian opened her arms to Harry, who was fighting his way through a forest of adult legs to get to her. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the wedding but there was a lunch party up at Llan House and the mistress cancelled my day off.’

  ‘We heard that the officers from the Somersets had been invited to hobnob with the crache,’ Ned commented sourly. ‘What did you serve them?’

  ‘You don’t want to know, Ned.’ Billy bit into a sandwich and discovered to his amazement that it was tinned ham. ‘Whatever it was, I bet it wasn’t a patch on this feast.’

  ‘I brought a small present for Sali and Lloyd.’ Rhian opened her bag, removed a box and set it on the mantelpiece.

  ‘As it seems that we’re having another party tomorrow in chapel time, you�
��re more than welcome to come back and give it to them then. That way you can see their faces when they open it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Evans, I’ll do that.’ Rhian opened her bag wide when Harry finally reached her. ‘If you put your hand in there, you’ll find a paper bag and there might be something in it for you.’

  ‘A gingerbread man! Thank you, Auntie Rhian.’ Harry climbed on to her lap, kissed her cheek and proceeded to pull the ‘eye’ currants from the biscuit.

  ‘So, tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself, besides serving army officers posh lunches?’ Joey perched on the arm of the easy chair Rhian was sitting in and beamed at her. Blonde, blue-eyed and extremely pretty, Rhian had just turned sixteen. She was also the kind of ‘nice’ girl his father couldn’t possibly object to him seeing.

  ‘Just work.’ Rhian took a sandwich from the plate Megan handed her. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Work as in, sit down and drink cups of tea in between answering the door to visitors and serving them cucumber sandwiches?’ Joey suggested.

  ‘Joey obviously thinks that we domestics can get away with doing as little as he does when he works.’ Megan countered Joey’s mocking remark with one of her own. ‘I never get a minute to myself and the lodging house is nowhere near as big as Llan House.’

  ‘There’s a lot more of us in Llan House to do the work,’ Rhian said.

  ‘I bet you’re still up at six and don’t go to bed much before eleven.’

  ‘We’ll have to start campaigning for the eight-hour day for shop workers and domestic workers next,’ Billy said seriously.

  ‘Hello, Rhian, Joey.’ Connie’s dark-haired daughter, Antonia, pulled up a kitchen chair and joined them.

  ‘And hello, Cousin Tonia. You two do know one another?’ Joey admired Antonia’s perfect classical features and dark, Latin looks before glancing back at Rhian. He found it impossible to decide which girl was the prettiest.

  ‘Of course we do.’ At her mother’s prompting, Antonia took a plate of sardine sandwiches and offered them around.

  ‘So when is your next day off, Rhian?’ Joey asked, taking advantage of Antonia’s absence.