‘Monday.’
‘I’m not doing anything. Fancy a walk on the mountain?’ His face fell when Antonia turned around and she, Rhian and Megan all burst out laughing. ‘Did I say something funny?’ he demanded indignantly.
‘Go for a walk on the mountain, in broad daylight, with you, Joey Evans?’ Rhian chortled.
‘And what’s wrong with that!’
‘Mrs Williams would stop my days off and lock me up in Llan House for a year if she knew that I was talking to you in a room crowded with respectable people.’
‘Old bat!’
‘Sensible lady,’ Rhian contradicted. ‘She includes a warning about you in her “Welcome to Llan House” talk that she gives every new maid. As she says, a girl would have to be eager to lose her reputation to go anywhere alone with you.’
‘Or insane,’ Tonia added.
‘Thank you very much.’ Joey picked up another sandwich and walked over to where his father and Victor were talking to Ned Morgan.
‘I heard the girls,’ Billy smiled.
‘You think they’re funny,’ Joey snapped, not amused by the joke at his expense.
‘You can’t say I didn’t warn you, son.’
Joey ducked behind Ned when Jane Edwards walked in. She looked around, saw him and stared. He turned his back to her, hoping she’d ignore him. ‘Perhaps you should have warned me sooner.’
‘And perhaps you should have listened to me sooner,’ Billy commented, seeing Jane looking in their direction.
Lloyd and Sali were curled together on a sofa set in front of the window of their hotel room. Lloyd had opened the curtains but although their room overlooked Taff Street and the thoroughfare was crowded with late-night shoppers hoping to pick up a bargain before the market closed at half past ten, neither of them were looking down at the street. Instead, they were gazing over the roof of the Park Hotel opposite and up at the clear dark night sky scattered with stars and a sliver of bright new moon.
‘Happy?’ Lloyd wrapped his arm around Sali’s shoulders and pulled her even closer.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘You?’
He picked up the bottle of claret that had arrived with the dinner –they had eaten in their room –and refilled both their glasses. ‘I have the moon and the stars to look at, and a beautiful wife dressed in a robe that I sincerely hope she’ll never wear when there are other men around.’
‘You think it’s too revealing.’
‘Not for me, but that silk is too thin to keep out the cold back home. Anywhere other than our bedroom that is.’ He slipped his hand inside her negligée and fondled her naked breast.
She kissed him.
‘And now a kiss! What more could a man ask for?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered seductively. ‘What more could a man ask for?’
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a tobacco tin. Knowing it was where he kept the French letters they used, she closed her fingers over it, took it from him and dropped it into the wastepaper basket beside the sofa.
‘I was hoping I was going to need that.’
‘You won’t, Lloyd. Not now, and not any more.’
‘We can’t possibly consider having a child. Not in the middle of a strike.’
‘Are you suggesting that we should wait until the colliery owners meet every one of your demands?’
‘They’d only do that in an ideal world and unfortunately the world we live in is anything but.’
‘Precisely,’ she said firmly. ‘We could wait until the end of our lives and never see an end to the trouble between the miners and the owners.’
‘But even so, this is not a good time to bring a child into the world, Sali,’ he warned.
‘Then when?’
‘I don’t know, when the strike is settled, when we’ve won better wages, better conditions, better housing ...’
‘Lloyd, I have a feeling that if we wait for the right time, it will never come. Harry will be five next year and five years is a big gap between brothers -’
‘Brother and sister,’ he broke in.
‘You want a daughter?’
‘Most definitely, after having two brothers. I even have a name picked out for her, Isabella Maria Evans after my mother. She never said, but I knew she always wanted a daughter.’
‘That’s a lovely name. I wish I’d known your mother.’
‘So do I.’ He swept her into his arms, carried her over to the bed, folded back the bedclothes and dropped her gently on the sheet. Untying the belt on her robe, he opened it. She lay naked, watching him undress.
‘Just think,’ she said, ‘nine months from today there could be four of us.’
‘I’m not at all sure about this, Sali.’ Peeling off the last of his clothes, he lay beside her.
‘Don’t you remember what you said the second time we made love. We were in your bedroom.’ She took his hand and laid it on her left breast. ‘You told me that you wanted my heart, my body, my mind –but most of all you wanted to watch me grow big with your child, because he or she would carry our love into the future.’ She moved both his hands to the flat of her stomach and held them there.
‘You remember?’
‘I remember everything you say to me.’
‘Everything?’ He caressed her breasts with the back of his fingers.
‘The first time you told me that you loved me, you also said that you wanted to live with me day in, year out, until we grew old and grey together.’
‘To me, you’ll always look the same as you do now.’
‘I love you, Lloyd, and I want to have sons just like you. Tall, intelligent, bold men with your vision and spirit.’
‘And their mother’s kindness.’
When he entered her, he knew she was right. There would never be a more perfect time for them to have a child. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to give him or her much in the way of material possessions, or even security, but they would be able to give love. He only hoped it would prove riches enough.
‘It’s bl-’ Ned looked at his wife and realized she was listening in on his conversation, ‘blasted disgraceful. Tom and Dai Hayward were up in court yesterday and both of them were fined fifteen pounds. The judge said if they couldn’t pay, as if he didn’t know that money’s rarer than unicorns in this valley, they’d have to go to prison for three months. And that was just for trying to protect women and children when the police charged a crowd with batons.’
‘They called it assault,’ Victor said evenly. ‘And Dai and Tom both admitted that their pockets were full of stones.’
‘Assault as opposed to intimidation,’ Billy said thoughtfully.
‘The sentences they’re handing out to strikers are disgraceful,’ Ned reiterated. ‘You, Joey and Luke could be fined twenty pounds or more and if you can’t pay, you could be sent down for as much as three or four months with hard labour.’
‘We don’t know anything for sure yet, Ned, and we won’t until the boys’ case comes up.’ Billy handed his empty cup to Connie who was collecting them. ‘Now, how about changing the subject. This is supposed to be a happy occasion.’
Victor looked across the kitchen to where Megan was talking to a group of women, Betty Morgan among them. He caught her eye and raised his eyebrows. Excusing herself she walked over to him.
‘I have to go down the garden to feed the dogs and lock up the chickens. Do you and Harry want to come?’
‘I’d like to. I’ll ask Harry.’
‘Get your coats. It’s going to be cold down there. I’ll wait for you in the basement.’ He picked up the candle he’d lit with a newspaper spill, opened the door to the basement and slipped out.
‘Harry, Uncle Victor’s feeding the dogs. Do you want to come?’
Harry looked up sleepily at Megan from Rhian’s arms and shook his head.
‘He’s fine with me, Megan,’ Rhian assured her. ‘I don’t see much of him so I’m making the most of this cuddle.’
Megan fetched
her cloak from the passage and followed Victor out through the door. The steps were shrouded in darkness, but she could see a candle flickering below her. Victor was standing at the old kitchen table surrounded by tins and bowls.
‘Harry didn’t want to come?’
‘He was too comfortable on Rhian’s lap. Another five minutes and I think he’ll be fast asleep. Do you think anyone noticed us sneaking off?’
‘What if they did? We’re engaged and as such, allowed to do some courting in peace. Did Mrs Morgan say anything to you?’ He opened the tin in which he kept the stale bread Sali baked hard for the dogs.
‘Nothing horrible.’
‘But nothing nice either,’ he guessed.
‘She didn’t cut me.’
‘She wouldn’t dare in this house.’ Victor pounded the bread with a hammer and broke it into small pieces.
‘You must be finding it hard to feed the dogs these days.’
‘Like us they’re on half rations.’ Victor opened a second tin that held boiled slaughterhouse scraps. After mixing them together with the bread in two bowls he opened the back door. ‘You don’t have to come, it’s cold out here.’
‘I’d like some fresh air. It was stuffy upstairs.’ She followed him. Most of the chickens were already in the coop. While Victor fed the dogs, she went into their run and coaxed the remaining two inside before latching the door.
‘We haven’t had any trouble with foxes for a while, but I still like to secure them at night.’ Victor wrapped his arm around her waist. ‘It’s a lovely night.’
‘With a new moon and thousands of stars to look down and bless your brother’s wedding night.’
‘That sounds more pagan than chapel.’
‘It probably is.’
He kissed her. ‘Do you want to go back upstairs?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Today’s been marvellous but -’
‘We haven’t had a minute to ourselves,’ he finished for her.
‘Is that selfish of me?’
‘If it is, it’s selfish of me too.’
‘It will be even colder up the mountain but we could go for a walk.’
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and fished out a key.
‘What’s that?’
‘The key to our first home, if you want it to be. Lloyd has agreed to give us next door in exchange for one of the houses our father bought. I realize you know the place inside out, and some windows and the front door are boarded because we used them to repair the damage the police did to our house, but I thought we could look it over. If you want to live in it when we’re married I could start doing a few things. I have time to spare at the moment and two years will soon pass -’
‘I’d love to look it over with you, Victor,’ she said quietly, thinking of all the Saturday afternoons they could work on it together –and the furnished bedrooms where they wouldn’t be disturbed.
‘Now?’ He gave her a searching look.
‘Yes, please.’
‘I’ll go back and fetch the candle.’
‘Hello, Joey, how are you keeping?’ Jane Edwards asked loudly as she joined him at the sink, where he was stacking plates.
‘I’m fine, thank you, Jane. And you?’ he answered equally loudly, giving her a warning glance.
‘That’s a nasty cut you’ve got under your eye. How did you get it?’
‘I had an encounter with a vicious dog, no, come to think of it now, it was a bitch.’ His father had carried a pile of coats in from the parlour and Connie, Annie, Antonia and Rhian were dressing to leave. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Jane, I have to say goodbye to our guests.’ He turned away, pretending that he hadn’t seen her mouthing, ‘I’m sorry, come round later.’
‘Joey, as I’m more than twice your age and your cousin, you may give me a goodbye kiss,’ Connie offered him her cheek. ‘But as Annie, Tonia and Rhian are single and have reputations to think of, you’d best keep your distance.’
‘That joke has worn thin. I was about to offer to walk you home.’
‘All of us?’ Connie asked suspiciously.
‘Yes,’ he answered in exasperation.
‘In that case, we’ll walk you back to Llan House first, Rhian, then Joey can walk us home,’ Connie said decisively. ‘But you take my arm there and back, Joey.’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Joey said gloomily. He helped Rhian and Tonia on with their coats, then went to fetch his own.
His father followed him into the hall. ‘You really are serious about turning over a new leaf?’
‘I said I was last night.’
‘In my experience, saying and doing have been two very different things with you in the past.’ Billy kissed Connie, Antonia, Annie and Rhian as they passed him in the passage. ‘Goodnight, ladies, see you all tomorrow.’
‘Don’t worry about Joey, Mr Evans,’ Annie called back, ‘we’ll keep him in order.’
‘When I left this house, I thought I’d never want to come back because it would spoil my happy memories to see it empty and neglected. It’s funny to think that in less than two years we could be living here and making a whole lot of new –and even happier memories.’ Megan ran her hand over the dusty surface of the Welsh dresser in the cold, abandoned kitchen.
‘Nice funny, I hope,’ Victor said. ‘If you like, I could build cupboards in the alcoves next to the fireplace as I’ve done in our house, and we’ll need new kitchen chairs. The one your uncle used is fine, but I’d like to replace the benches. They’re not very comfortable for visitors.’
‘The children used to complain about them.’
‘And the garden’s not as big as my father’s.’
‘Would you want to move the dogs and the chickens from your father’s house?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t given it much thought, but I suppose I could keep chickens in both gardens. We could certainly use the eggs. And unless Lloyd wants to take over our garden, I could grow vegetables in both. I’ve no money now, but as soon as the strike is settled we can start thinking about wallpaper and paint. Lloyd, Joey and my father will give me a hand to redecorate the place and there’s bound to be other furniture that you want. I could knock a few things together until we’ve saved enough to buy new. And then there are the bedrooms. Grown-up bedroom suites aren’t suitable for children,’ he said mischievously.
She bit her lip and turned aside.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know.’ She hated lying to Victor, but she’d had a premonition. And although she couldn’t have quantified how she knew, she felt they would never live in the house.
‘Why won’t you tell me?’
She turned back to him and tried to smile. ‘It’s silly superstition but I don’t want to make too many plans or look too far ahead.’
‘Because of your father?’
‘Probably.’
‘He can’t stop us marrying when you are of age.’
‘I know.’ She wrapped her arms around him. ‘Kiss me?’
He sensed that she was afraid. Bending his head to hers, he kissed her, then opened his watch and held it to the candle. ‘Half past ten. Time I walked you back to Mrs Palmer’s.’
‘It’s been a lovely day, Victor. Thank you.’ She followed him down the basement stairs and out through the door with a heavy heart. She knew she’d hurt him by refusing to discuss the changes he wanted to make to the place. But she had never been so certain of anything as she was that all his plans would come to nothing. There was no point in them even talking about the house. Not when they would never live in it or taste the happiness it promised.
‘I’ll walk Megan to the lodging house, then I’ll come back and put Harry to bed,’ Victor said to his father when they returned to the kitchen to find him sitting reading the paper at the table, and Harry curled up, fast asleep on one of the easy chairs.
Billy looked at them over the top of the paper. ‘There’s no need to rush back. I’ll take him up.’
‘
Don’t you want to call in the County Club?’ Victor asked.
‘There’s plenty of time. It never closes before twelve and Joey will be back long before then.’
‘Unless he persuades one of the girls to take a detour with him.’
‘There’s no chance of that happening with Connie in charge, or either of the girls agreeing to go anywhere with him after the way they spoke to him tonight.’
‘Goodnight, Mr Evans.’ Megan kissed his cheek.
‘Goodnight, Megan, don’t go working too hard in that lodging house. We’ll see you tomorrow evening?’
‘Yes.’ Megan blew a kiss in Harry’s direction and followed Victor into the street. Betty Morgan was on her doorstep shaking her doormat.
‘You two sneaked off early.’
‘We have to do our courting some time, Mrs Morgan,’ Victor answered.
‘You cheeky blighter, Victor Evans.’
‘At least she’s acknowledging us now,’ Victor laughed, as they headed up the street.
‘I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.’
He walked Megan down the hill and to the back door. ‘Pick you up at five tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you want to come in for tea?’
He shook his head. ‘Despite what my father said, he can’t wait to get to the County Club and someone has to stay in the house with Harry.’
‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she smiled, trying to hide her disappointment.
Instead of walking back up the hill, Victor headed into Pandy Square. He found Luke Thomas and half a dozen of his cronies drinking dark pints of mild beer in the back bar of the Pandy.
‘Our man won today, so it’s drinks all round.’ Luke held up a full glass to show Victor. ‘You been thinking about what I said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you heard what happened to Tom and Dai, Victor?’ Luke’s friend Guto Price joined them.
‘I should think everyone in Pandy has by now,’ Victor replied.
‘Reckon you, and Luke here, could be fined double what they got and if you can’t pay, you could go down for three or four months.’
‘Proper bloody Job’s comforter, aren’t you, Guto?’ Luke took Victor by the elbow. ‘So what’s it to be?’
‘When’s the next bout?’
‘Wednesday afternoon. Dai will be glad to hear that you’re stepping in.’
Winners and Losers Page 24
