‘Sounds pretty, so there’s bound to be better views from the windows in the castle for Granddad to look at than there are from the Graig.’ Harry pushed his empty cup aside and leaned his elbows on the table. ‘I’ll drive to the valley tomorrow, find myself a room and try to see Doctor Adams right away. If he is willing to treat Granddad, I’ll ask him to show me the room where he will stay, and if it looks all right, I’ll telephone you and then you can bring him down.’
‘Train would be best,’ Victor said decisively. ‘We’ll book a private carriage so he can lie on the seats. But you’ll have to arrange transport from the local station, Harry. He may not be able to sit up in your car.’
‘The sanatorium should have an ambulance if we need one.’
‘Then it’s settled. We’ll wait for your telephone call, Harry.’ Victor stood.
‘Thank you, Harry.’ Joey also rose to his feet and slapped Harry on his back.
‘Yes, it’s good of you to offer to do this, Harry.’ Victor watched another tear escape from Megan’s eye and squeezed her hand.
‘I’ve a road map of South Wales that you can have.’ Lloyd stared ruefully at the boxes piled in the corner of the room. ‘That’s if I can find it.’
‘I’ll give you a hand to sort through the packing cases this evening.’ Sali handed her handkerchief to Bella, as the tears started to fall from her daughter’s eyes.
‘Best get an early start, Harry,’ Victor advised. ‘You know what cars are like. The minute you’re the maximum distance from the nearest garage, it will break down.’
‘Are you wishing that on me, Uncle Victor?’
‘It’s happened too often to me to wish it on anyone else. I’ve been to the Swansea Valley, and Megs is right – it is a beautiful place but the sheep outnumber the people a hundred to one, and there’s nothing there but isolated farms, scenery and the castle. It’s twenty-odd miles to Brecon, eighteen to Swansea and there are precious few shops in between. Take a good book if you’re intent on staying overnight.’
‘Do you think Harry really knows what TB is like?’ Victor asked when Lloyd walked him and Joey to the door.
‘If he doesn’t, he’s going to find out.’ Joey lifted his hat from the stand. ‘That was some homecoming party we gave him.’
‘We’ll have a party again some other time.’ Lloyd tried not to think when that might be.
‘Funny to think of little Harry all grown up,’ Joey reflected as they walked outside. ‘It only seems like the other day that he moved in with us in Tonypandy when Sali became our housekeeper.’
‘Some other day,’ Victor commented. ‘You looked in the mirror and counted your grey hairs lately, Joey?’
‘Ready?’ Joey opened the passenger doors of his car for Rhian when she brought out his three daughters and two sons.
‘I am.’ She turned to Sali and Megan. ‘See you all very soon.’
Victor opened the doors on the lorry and called impatiently, ‘The cows won’t milk themselves, boys, Megs.’
Megan hugged and kissed Sali, Rhian and the girls one last time. She was halfway to the lorry when she turned and ran back to Harry.
‘You will make sure that this place is right for Dad, won’t you, Harry?’
‘I promise, Aunty Megan.’ Harry picked up Glyn and encouraged him to wave goodbye along with the rest of his family.
Chapter Three
Mary lifted the final basket of eggs on to the back of the cart David had harnessed.
Dolly was the sole remaining mare in the stable that had once held two dozen riding, cart and shire horses. Knowing that Mary used Dolly to ferry the produce she kept from him, Bob the Gob had once demanded she send her to market. But even he had to admit that that at twenty-one, Dolly was too old to attract a bid from anyone other than the glue manufacturer, who never paid more than two shillings for an animal. So, he had grudgingly given in to Mary’s pleas that they be allowed to keep the horse. But only after reminding her that in return, he expected her to pay a proportion of their rent in hard cash. He also added that it could only be a matter of months before the mare died and she would be forced to give up her clandestine dealings.
Dolly was slow and arthritic but Mary dreaded losing her. She was their only means of transporting produce out of Bob’s clutches and, as with the ever-present threat of the workhouse, she refused to speculate about what would happen when the horse went.
She walked around to the front of the cart where David was sitting, reins in hand, Luke firmly tucked in between himself and Matthew.
‘There’s twelve dozen eggs, six pounds of butter, four cheeses, two dozen chickens and a dozen geese plucked and ready for the oven,’ she reminded him. ‘You’ll make sure that Miss Adams, not Cook – after the way she tried to cheat you last time – has first pick at Craig-y-Nos. And you’ll double-check everything Miss Adams takes and the money she pays you. Take whatever’s left to the Colonial Stores. With luck we should have at least ten pounds left after you’ve bought our goods.’
‘I can barter and look after money as well as you, Mary,’ he countered irritably.
‘Take care of Matthew and Luke. And only buy what we need; no sweets, no bargains, just flour, salt, tea, sugar, oats, chicken feed, soda and soap.’
‘I know what to get,’ he snarled. ‘Martha, where are you?’ he bellowed at the open back door of the house.
‘Coming.’ Martha ran out in her maid’s uniform.
‘You’ll be walking to Craig-y-Nos if you don’t climb on to the cart this minute.’
‘See you all at teatime. You’ll be hungry so I’ll make a stew,’ Mary shouted as David steered the cart through the arch.
She watched them leave before turning back to the farmyard. Ten gallons of milk – over and above what they were contracted to put out in the churns every morning to be picked up by the cart that went into Brecon – waited to be turned into butter and cheese in the dairy. All the churns needed to be scoured and cleaned ready for the evening milking, the cowsheds cleaned, the pigs fed, vegetables dug up for the stew, the sheep checked, and that was without the housework – and Bob Pritchard.
Sick to the pit of her stomach she put the chores in order of priority. Churns first; the longer they were left after they were emptied, the harder they were to scour. And she couldn’t take the risk of sending dirty milk to Brecon. The last thing she needed was the dairy withholding payment to the agent for sour milk.
Harry pushed his foot down on the accelerator and watched the needle on his speed dial creep from thirty to forty miles an hour. The sky had darkened; the air felt heavy and portended rain. Yet he was loath to waste any more time by stopping to put up the hood on his car after losing an hour changing his front tyre, which had punctured on the stony track of the Bwlch Mountain that separated the Rhondda and Afan Valleys.
He’d left Pontypridd after an early breakfast in the hope that he would reach the sanatorium before lunchtime and, with luck, arrange an appointment with Dr Adams for that day. But the puncture had delayed him and, suddenly hungry two hours later, he had broken his journey at a roadside pub outside Swansea and bought a pork pie, which he’d eaten in the car while travelling up the road that led into the Swansea Valley.
His Aunty Megan had been right. Once he’d left the industrial area that stretched as far as the small town of Pontardawe behind him, the upper valley was beautiful. But as his Uncle Victor had warned, it was also sparsely populated, except for sheep and cows. The few villages and hamlets he passed through were a fraction of the size of those in the Rhondda. He had seen several inns and pubs but only a couple of dozen shops – mainly grocers, seed merchants and butchers – and after comparatively bustling Pontardawe, most of those had been set up in the front rooms of terraced cottages. If he had passed a garage, he hadn’t spotted it, and although he’d been careful to fill his petrol tank and the two spare cans he carried in the boot, the supply wouldn’t last long with his tourer barely managing fifteen miles to the gallon.
He eased his foot off the accelerator and turned into the yard in front of the pub. To his relief a single petrol pump stood in a corner. He parked next to it and hit his horn. A short, stocky, dark-haired young man about his own age walked out of the barn built at right angles to the inn.
‘Nice tourer, sir,’ he said, brushing his hands together to rid them of sawdust.
Harry picked up the lilt of someone more accustomed to speaking Welsh than English. ‘Thank you.’
‘We haven’t seen many new ones in the valley, not since Madame Patti passed on. Back then we used to get the lot in here. Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes – you name it, we saw and serviced it. That’s why my father opened this workshop, to sort out the toffs’ cars.’ Suddenly remembering he was there to serve, he went to the pump. ‘Do you want petrol, sir?’
‘I most certainly do. Fill her up, please.’ Harry left his car and stretched his cramped legs and arms. ‘Am I on the right road for Craig-y-Nos?’
The man stepped away from him. ‘You going to the sanatorium, sir?’
‘As a visitor. But if the treatment they offer is as good as my family have heard, and the doctor in charge will take him, my grandfather may become a patient.’
‘They say it’s the best in Britain for lung disease, sir, but we locals don’t go near the place if we can help it.’
‘That’s understandable. Is it close?’
‘About four miles up the valley. You can’t miss it. It’s a huge place on the right-hand side of the road.’ He eased the nozzle from the tank. ‘That will be a shilling and a penny halfpenny, sir.’
Harry dug his hand in his pocket, pulled out a fistful of change and handed over two sixpences and two pennies. ‘I’m glad there’s a garage close by.’
‘Only one between Swansea and Brecon, sir,’ the man announced proudly.
‘Do you do repairs as well as servicing?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He put his hand in his pocket, checked the coins he drew out and handed Harry a halfpenny change.
‘In that case, could you put a new tyre on my spare wheel, please? There’s no point in trying to repair it,’ Harry warned when the mechanic examined the tyre bolted to the side of the Crossley. ‘It’s ripped to pieces.’
‘I can see that, sir. I have a tyre that size, but it will take me an hour or more to put it on your wheel and it will cost you sixpence for my time and four and fourpence for the tyre.’
Harry unfastened the wheel and rolled it towards him. ‘I’ll pick it up later.’ He extended his hand. ‘Harry Evans.’
‘Alfred Edwards, sir. Everyone calls me Alf.’ He wiped his hand again on the back of his trousers before shaking Harry’s hand. ‘I served a full mechanic’s apprenticeship and I’ve run the garage single-handedly since my father passed on last year, so if you need anything doing to your Crossley while you’re in the valley, I promise you now, I’ll do a first-class job.’
‘That’s reassuring to know.’
‘There’s not been much call for car servicing since Madame Patti’s time because no one other than the doctor can afford one. And although he sends his ambulance down here, as well as his and his daughter’s cars, I spend most of my time making furniture.’
‘You’re a carpenter as well?’ Harry asked.
‘Not a proper time-served one like my grandfather was, but he taught me a bit. I’m not saying what I make would please the crache, but it seems to suit the farmers round here.’
Harry looked across at the ivy-clad walls of the old pub. ‘You live here?’
‘My mother’s the licensee.’
Harry almost asked if she rented out rooms, then remembered he was still four miles from the castle and there might be something closer. He slipped his hand into his pocket.
‘You can pay me when you pick up the wheel, sir.’
‘Let’s hope I don’t have another flat. If I do, I’ll be the footsore one walking back.’
‘It’s only four miles, sir.’
‘You’re obviously more used to walking than I am.’ Harry had never regarded anything above a mile as a stroll. Reflecting how lifestyles influenced attitudes, he climbed into the driving seat, fired the ignition, waved his hand and drove back on to the road.
When he left the last house in Abercrave behind him, grassy, rolling hills, speckled with sheep and an occasional hill farm, rose on his left. On his right, the road sloped gently down to the wooded banks of a river. He followed the twists and turns that led through the few houses that were Penycae. Shortly afterwards, a high wall of dressed stone appeared on his right and above it loomed the towers of Craig-y-Nos.
His parents had taken him and his sisters on holidays around Wales that invariably included visits to castles. For a small country it had a lot to offer: massive grey stone Norman edifices such as Caerphilly and Oystermouth, which remained impressive even in roofless dereliction; smaller fort types like Carreg Cennen and Pennard perched on the tops of hills that afforded sweeping views of the surrounding countryside; whimsical concoctions along the lines of Cardiff and Castell Coch, both raised on Norman foundations with so little regard for the original buildings that it was impossible to see beyond the fairytale visions of William Burgess and the Marquis of Bute’s fanciful reworkings.
But even his architecturally-untrained eye could see that Craig-y-Nos wasn’t old, not in castle terms.
Half was early Victorian Gothic, its towers – one boasting a clock – capped by pyramids. The other half was turreted, and the two styles sat somewhat uneasily together. Yet there was no denying it was imposing, its four-storeyed façade as solid and substantial as that of an English mansion.
He drove into the walled courtyard and switched off his engine. In front of the castle was an elaborate fountain in the shape of a wading bird perched on four gilded fish, forlorn and covered in green slime. He climbed out of the car and ascended a short flight of steps to the main door, rang the bell pull and listened as it clanged into the silence.
He was debating whether or not to pull it again when the door opened. A blonde girl, who would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been scowling, looked suspiciously at him. She was wearing a doctor’s white coat over a plain black dress, and had a cotton mask pulled down around her neck. ‘Can I help you?’
Harry removed his hat. He had expected a uniformed nurse or porter, not a slim young girl with a stern expression. Disconcerted by her icy stare he muttered, ‘I hope so.’
‘This is a sanatorium. You are risking infection simply by standing there.’
‘I’ve brought my grandfather’s clinical notes. Doctor Williams from Tonypandy recommended this place to my family. He has spoken on the telephone to Doctor George Adams.’ Harry hoped the name would get him further than the doorstep.
‘If you’ll follow me to the waiting room, I’ll see if Doctor Adams is expecting you.’
‘I’m not sure he is, but I’d be very grateful if he could spare me a few minutes.’
She showed Harry into a stone cell set to the left of and just behind the front door. Bare and devoid of chairs, it was a tiny anteroom to a lavatory. The air had been warm and heavy outside the building; inside it was freezing. Harry was rubbing his hands together to keep his circulation flowing when the blonde girl returned.
‘Doctor Adams is extremely busy, but he is prepared to offer you five minutes.’
Harry followed her up a second short flight of steps, across a corridor and into an office-cum-drawing room. A desk and filing cabinets had been placed in front of the window but there were also paintings on the walls and chintz-covered easy chairs and sofas grouped around a fireplace filled with a summer arrangement of dried flowers.
‘Mr Evans?’ A thin, balding ma
n left the chair behind the desk and approached him, but didn’t offer his hand.
‘Doctor Adams?’ Harry dropped the hand he had extended when the doctor made no effort to shake it.
‘I spend my days caring for highly infectious patients, Mr Evans. We have many rules; the one most strictly enforced is to keep all physical contact to an absolute minimum, especially with those who are healthy, yet reckless enough to visit here. Take a seat.’ Dr Adams indicated a chair set in front of his desk before returning to his own. ‘I have spoken to Doctor Williams. He said you’d be bringing Mr William Evans’s clinical notes?’
‘I have them here.’ Harry handed over the envelope he had picked up from Dr Williams’s surgery that morning. He sat in silence while Dr Adams studied them.
‘You and your family do realize that Mr Evans’s condition is terminal?’ The doctor set the notes on his desk and looked Harry in the eye.
Harry felt as though he were condemning his grandfather to death. ‘Yes.’
‘Clinically we can do little for him.’
‘Doctor Williams warned us of that,’ Harry said seriously. ‘But he also said that you might be able to make him more comfortable. We were all with him when he haemorrhaged so we know how ill he is. But we also know how over-crowded the isolation ward in the Graig Infirmary is and how over-worked the staff are there. They can do nothing for him. We had hoped to look after my grandfather ourselves. When Doctor Williams said that wasn’t possible, my uncle asked him to recommend a good hospital or sanatorium. He told us that Craig-y-Nos offered the best care in Britain for patients suffering from lung disease.’
Finders and Keepers Page 5
