Winners and Losers

by Catrin Collier

  ‘My brother is married to your best friend. That makes us practically family. And it’s occurred to me that I know absolutely nothing about you.’

  ‘There isn’t much to know,’ she countered. ‘And my being Sali’s friend and you being Lloyd’s brother doesn’t make us related.’

  ‘You’re their children’s aunt and I’m their uncle.’

  ‘You’re a real one, I’m honorary.’

  He changed the subject abruptly. ‘When’s your next day off?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ She wasn’t sure why she was asking, when she’d already guessed the answer.

  ‘Because I’m going to take you out. I know you haven’t much chance of getting Sunday off and that’s my only free day but -’

  ‘I have no chance. It’s the family’s favourite day for entertaining and between their lunch and tea parties, and church for them and chapel for us servants, it’s the busiest day of the week.’ She was glad of an excuse to turn down his invitation, but she couldn’t understand why her heart was thundering loud enough for the waitress and their fellow customer to hear.

  ‘There’s always the evenings. The shop only opens late on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday.’

  ‘Thursday is my day off.’ She glanced at him, only to look away when she saw him staring intently at her.

  ‘Can’t you change it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m entitled to one and a half days off a week, not that I always take the half day,’ he continued. ‘But I can arrange for the assistant manager to cover for me next Thursday afternoon. The store doesn’t get busy until eight o’clock in the evening. We can go down to Pontypridd late morning, have lunch in the City Restaurant and catch a film in the Park Hall. They open every afternoon at three. I’ll take you back to Llan House by half past six and still be in time to oversee the rush. And then, unfortunately, it’s bedlam until we close at ten. And to think that I used to love Pandy Parade when I worked underground. It’s a different story now.’

  Thursday was the traditional pay night for the miners when, flush with the men’s wages, families embarked on their weekly shop. And, as practically the entire population of Tonypandy turned out, it had become known as ‘Pandy Parade’.

  ‘I’ve made arrangements for next Thursday.’

  ‘You’re going to see Sali.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Because I pay the children toffees to spy for me and they’ve told me that you always visit them on Thursday afternoons.’

  ‘I do other things as well.’ She suddenly realized that outside of Llan House, Sali’s family, chapel and her rare shopping trips, she had no life.

  ‘I’m sure that you haven’t made a single appointment next Thursday afternoon that can’t be rearranged or cancelled,’ he dismissed. ‘I’ll pick you up at Llan House after I’ve opened the store. Ten o’clock suit you?’

  ‘No, I meant it when I said I’ve made arrangements. I really do need to get a winter coat -’

  ‘Which, now that I know your size, I promise to organize for you,’ he interrupted.

  ‘I need to do some other shopping.’

  ‘Then we’ll meet at the railway station and get the half past ten train.’

  ‘You don’t understand the meaning of “no” do you?’ she demanded irritably.

  ‘Not when you say it, because I know you don’t really mean it. Admit it –you can’t wait to go out with me.’ He beamed at her.

  ‘That is nonsense.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask one of your other girls to go out with you?’ She wanted him to know that she was aware of his reputation.

  ‘Because I’m asking you,’ he persisted.

  ‘I’m not looking for a young man.’

  ‘I’m happy to hear it. Because you’ve just found one.’

  She was glad when the waitress interrupted them with the tea and cakes.

  ‘I’ve put two of all your favourites on the plate, Mr Evans. I know how you love our cream puffs and custard slices.’

  ‘You also know the way to a man’s heart, Ruby. These look delicious. Cream puff?’ He picked up one with his fork and spoon and held it over the plate Ruby had set in front of Rhian.

  ‘I really haven’t time.’ She rose to her feet.

  ‘It’s raining cats, dogs and elephants out there. You can’t go anywhere until it eases, so you may as well sit down, drink your tea and eat your cake.’

  ‘You always this bossy?’

  He continued to gaze unabashed into her eyes. ‘Only with difficult women.’

  She sat down and looked at the cake on her plate. ‘This is enormous.’ She picked up her knife and fork and poked at it.

  ‘You always visit Sali on your day off, don’t you?’

  ‘I thought the children were your spies?’

  He ignored the gibe. ‘As she’s the ladies’ fashion buyer for all three Gwilym James stores, I’m surprised you didn’t ask her to set aside a coat for you.’

  ‘Every time I ask Sali to get me something from Gwilym James, she insists on giving it to me as a present.’

  ‘And you’re an independent lady who doesn’t like to receive presents?’

  ‘I love getting presents on Christmas and birthdays,’ she qualified.

  He quartered his cream puff. ‘So, what did Sali buy you for Christmas this year?’

  ‘A beautiful cream silk and lace evening dress.’

  ‘With a lace over-tunic and lace trimming at the neck and hem?’

  ‘Yes.’ She found it distinctly odd to be discussing clothes with a man.

  ‘I know the one, it’s stunning. I’ll have to take you somewhere where you can show it off.’

  ‘I won’t go out with you.’

  ‘How much do you want to bet you’ll change your mind?’

  She poured extra milk into her tea to cool it, finished her cake, delved into her mitten for her purse and extracted three pennies. ‘That’s one for the tea and two for the cake. Now, I really must go.’

  ‘The tea and cake are on me.’

  ‘I don’t accept refreshments from men.’

  ‘That sounds like one of the maxims Mrs Williams gives to the female staff in Llan House.’

  ‘I’ve heard her talking about you.’

  ‘And knowing her, saying nothing good.’ He left his chair and pushed the pennies back towards her. ‘You can pay next time.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time.’

  ‘There will be,’ he countered confidently. ‘I’ll wait for you outside the station from a quarter past ten on Thursday. I’ll let you know if I’ve tracked down a coat then.’

  ‘I won’t be there.’

  ‘Yes, you will, if only to find out about the coat.’ He stared at her shabby cloak. ‘I wish you’d let me know just how much you were in need of a new one before the sale started.’

  The following week had never dragged so much for Rhian. The more she tried to put all thoughts of Joey Evans from her mind, the more she found herself dwelling on his invitation to spend part of her day off with him. His image –handsome, smiling –rose unbidden at the oddest moments, especially when she was carrying out dreary tasks, like dusting, polishing or cleaning the silver.

  She didn’t dare tell Mrs Williams that he had asked her out. The housekeeper disapproved of the maids having boyfriends and it had taken a couple of years to work out that her attitude wasn’t down to an aversion to men, but annoyance at having to look for replacement staff whenever a servant left to marry.

  Mrs Williams gave Bronwen’s sweetheart of two years, shy, hardworking collier, Ianto Miles, a hard time whenever he walked Bronwen back to Llan House after her day off. But she felt that the housekeeper’s condemnation of poor Ianto would be nothing compared to the contempt that she would show Joey Evans, should he venture to the back door of Llan House.

  She normally looked forward to Thursday mornings, because she could lie in beyond her usua
l rising time of five o’clock. But for once she was awake before Mrs Williams tapped at the door of the attic room she shared with Bronwen. She lay back on her pillow and watched Bronwen strike a match, light a candle and leave their bed.

  ‘Water’s frozen again.’ Bronwen held the japanned metal jug upside down over the enamel basin.

  ‘Do me a favour?’ Rhian’s breath misted in the ice-cold air.

  ‘Bring up a jug of warm water for you when I come back after laying and lighting the fires?’ Bronwen guessed.

  ‘You’re an angel.’ Rhian’s nose stiffened from cold and she buried it back beneath the blankets. She carried out a swift mental check of her winter wardrobe, which didn’t take long. A dark blue knitted suit, a plain black woollen dress she kept for church, a grey skirt and sweater.

  It would have to be the blue suit with the grey sweater. Ignoring Bronwen’s return and the sound of her washing and dressing in the khaki overalls they wore to do the rough work first thing in the morning, she drifted back to sleep. When she next opened her eyes, Bronwen was changing into her grey housemaid’s dress, starched white cap and apron.

  ‘It’s seven o’clock. I’ve brought warm water up for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rhian sat up in the bed and shivered.

  ‘So, I’m dying to know: are you going to meet Joey Evans at the station this morning, or not?’ Bronwen brushed out her hair and twisted it into a knot she secured with hairpins.

  ‘Probably,’ Rhian conceded, ‘but only to see if he’s found me a coat.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. He is very good-looking.’ Bronwen pushed in the last hairpin and reached for her maid’s cap.

  ‘You’re so besotted with Ianto, I’m surprised you noticed.’

  ‘Being besotted with Ianto doesn’t stop me from looking around at what else is on offer.’

  ‘Joey Evans is on offer to any girl who’ll go out with him,’ Rhian pronounced, hoping Bronwen knew more gossip about him than she’d told her.

  ‘Did I ever mention that he went out with my sister Ruby?’

  ‘No. Which one is Ruby?’ Bronwen had five sisters and Rhian hadn’t met them often enough to sort one from the other.

  ‘She’s two years older than me. You must have seen her in chapel. She’s the only one of us who doesn’t have brown hair and brown eyes. My father still jokes she’s the milkman’s daughter.’

  ‘Is she the pretty one with dark hair and blue eyes?’

  ‘Depends on what you call pretty. She has my gran’s Irish looks,’ Bronwen said dismissively. ‘Anyway, she only went out with Joey a few times but that didn’t stop her from mooning over him for months afterwards. She even went to the library and took out a book of Lord Byron’s poetry because it had a colour plate of a portrait of him in the front. She tore it out. Luckily for her the librarian didn’t notice.’

  ‘Why Lord Byron?’ Rhian asked, mystified.

  ‘Because Joey Evans is the spitting image of him. If you don’t believe me, look at the collected works of Lord Byron the next time you dust the library. It has the same picture inside as the one Ruby stole.’

  ‘What happened between him and your sister?’ Rhian tried to sound casual.

  ‘He brought her home one Saturday night after taking her to the Empire Theatre, thanked her for a nice evening, kissed her goodnight, and the next day she saw him walking out with Anwen Stephens. She got no sympathy from any of us. As my mother said at the time, “More fool her for going out with a Don Juan in the first place.”’ Bronwen squinted into the tiny scrap of brown-spotted mirror that was all the new mistress would allow in the attic on the grounds that the old cracked cheval mirror encouraged vanity. ‘Well, that’s me done and ready to lay the breakfast table. The washstand is all yours.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Trembling in anticipation of the cold, Rhian gingerly stepped out of bed on to the wooden floorboards.

  ‘You going down to do Miss Julia’s hair before breakfast?’

  ‘Don’t I always?’ Rhian rinsed out the tin basin with cold water and tipped it into the slop bucket, before filling it with the jug of warm that Bronwen had brought up.

  ‘Yes, but I still think it’s a bit much of her to expect you to dress her hair on your day off.’

  ‘I don’t mind, Miss Julia’s good to me.’ Rhian unbuttoned her nightdress, pulled it down to her waist and soaped her flannel.

  ‘That’s the mistress shouting, I hope it’s at the master and not for me.’ Bronwen slipped on her apron and tied the strings as she ran down the stairs.

  Rhian washed and dried herself before sprinkling lavender-scented talcum powder and cologne over her skin. She opened the chest at the foot of the bed where she kept her underclothes and stared down at the neat pile of winter-weight woollen vests, bust-shapers and drawers. Her summer-weight, embroidered and lace-trimmed Nainsook underclothes were so much prettier. But then who would see them, or know she was wearing them?

  Deciding that she would, she went for the pretty set and began to dress.

  Rhian set her candle on the window ledge of the first-floor landing on the back staircase and knocked on the door that connected the servants’ quarters with the family’s at the front of the house. When there was no reply she opened the door and blinked against the glare of the electric lights Mr Larch had recently installed in the ‘upstairs’ rooms. The passage was deserted, but Mrs Larch’s rebuff, cold and clear, echoed from behind her dressing-room door.

  ‘I’m dressing, Edward. I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  Rhian waited until she heard the master’s bedroom door close before blowing out the candle, and walking along the corridor to the opposite end of the landing. She tapped softly and it was flung wide. Julia Larch, her master’s 27-year-old daughter, grabbed her hand and pulled her inside her room.

  ‘You look pretty. I love that suit on you and your hair is perfect.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Julia.’ Rhian slipped off her cloak.

  All the staff liked Miss Julia. She was kind, considerate and had a quiet, diffident manner that prompted even Meriel, who was more easily riled than most cooks (and there wasn’t one in the Rhondda who had the reputation of being easy-going), to work harder whenever she asked her do anything. But none of the servants was closer to her, or adored her more, than Rhian.

  Rhian had come to Llan House shortly after her fifteenth birthday. When Julia had discovered that she was bright, intelligent and had received virtually no schooling she offered to lend her books. Julia’s passion for history, art, archaeology, geography and romance had become Rhian’s, and although they both observed the social mores of mistress and maid in public, they had grown close enough to adopt a familiarity in private that was rare between a servant and a member of her employer’s family.

  ‘You going anywhere special today, Miss Julia?’ Rhian picked up a silver-backed hairbrush from the dressing table.

  Julia made a face. ‘Shopping in Pontypridd with my stepmother. She thinks there’s a better class of people there than in Tonypandy.’ She sat on her stool and deliberately turned away from the mirror.

  Julia had no illusions about her appearance. At five feet ten inches she towered above every girl she knew, and most men. Thin, angular, with straight red hair, hazel eyes, large hands and feet, and a face so long that the girls at her school had nicknamed her Dobbin, she’d never considered herself even passably attractive. But the little self-esteem her mother had nurtured throughout her childhood had been completely eroded by her stepmother, Mabel, who never missed an opportunity to make a disparaging remark about her plain looks and lack of grace and personality. The remarks hurt more than Julia would have admitted to anyone, even her adored father, whom she had never entirely forgiven for marrying a shrewish, avaricious and snobbish woman less than three months after her beloved mother’s death.

  ‘I wish I had hair as thick and straight as yours. It never tangles or frizzes, just stays put when you pin it.’ Rhian brushed it out, caught the end and twisted it
into a neat knot on the crown of Julia’s head.

  ‘You wouldn’t like the colour.’ Julia picked up her hairpin box.

  ‘I think it’s lovely.’

  ‘I don’t. I’d give anything to have blonde curls and big blue eyes like you.’

  ‘And be a maid?’ When Julia didn’t answer, she added, ‘Mrs Williams says we always want what we can’t have. Pass me a pin, please.’

  ‘Have you decided whether or not to meet Mr Evans today?’ Rhian and Julia had no secrets from one another and Rhian had told her about Joey’s offer to get her a coat and his invitation to spend the afternoon with him.

  ‘I still haven’t made up my mind.’

  ‘You only have a couple of hours left.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m dreading tonight. Mrs Larch has invited thirty people for a New Year supper.’ Ignoring the fact that Julia was two years younger than her, Mabel Larch had demanded that both her stepchildren address her as ‘Mother’, with the result that Julia and her brother Gerald avoided calling her anything to her face and ‘Mrs Larch’ when they had to resort to naming her.

  ‘With thirty people coming, there’s bound to be someone nice you can talk to,’ Rhian reassured.

  ‘Is there?’ Julia enquired sceptically. ‘I scanned the guest list. I scarcely know any of them. And,’ she wrinkled her nose, ‘I doubt my father and brother do either.’

  ‘You never know, one of them might be an explorer or archaeologist who can’t wait to tell you about his latest find.’ The authors who had fired Rhian’s imagination the most were Rider Haggard and Kipling.

  ‘Can you see Mrs Larch inviting an explorer into her drawing room? She’d be terrified that he’d bring a pet lion cub or wear muddy boots.’

  ‘Real explorers would do both.’ Rhian looked at Julia and they burst into giggles.

  ‘It would be wonderful if an Allen Quartermain did walk into our drawing room tonight, but even if by some miracle he did, he wouldn’t want to talk to me.’ Julia fingered the gold locket around her neck that held a photograph of her mother.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Rhian slipped the last pin into the knot. She leaned forward, studied Julia’s reflection in the mirror and teased a light fringe out on to her forehead.