‘That seems a strange way to live,’ he commented, ‘but I’m hardly qualified to pass judgement when I’ve no brothers and sisters.’
‘Given the families I know well, like my Uncle Joey and Auntie Rhea’s, and my Uncle Victor and Auntie Megan’s, I’d say it was normal. All my cousins fight and argue with one another.’
‘You should have put on your jacket.’ He held out his right hand. She took it and, to her dismay, he shook her hand. ‘Goodnight, Edyth. You’d better run back into the house before you catch cold.’
‘Will I see you tomorrow?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Mrs Hopkins asked me to administer the holy sacrament to her at her home. I could hardly refuse.’
‘The last time she had gout she didn’t leave her bedroom for six weeks,’ Edyth warned. ‘You could be visiting her for quite a while.’
‘Reverend Price suggested that I make an allowance for a daily visit to her in my diary when he asked me to call on her this morning. But it is convenient for us.’
‘It is,’ she agreed.
‘So, may I call and see you after I have visited her tomorrow?’
‘What time are you likely to be here?’
‘Around four o’clock?’
‘Just in time for tea?’ She made a mental resolution to bake another cake to replace the one they had eaten at supper.
‘That would be nice, thank you. I’ll see you then.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
He stepped smartly away from her. ‘They can see us from the house and the curtains are open.’
‘So?’ she challenged. ‘We’re courting, aren’t we?’
‘Not in public, Edyth.’
‘It’s dark.’
‘I’d prefer it to be darker still, and more private.’ He held her hand between his for a few seconds. ‘Until tomorrow.’
‘Until tomorrow,’ she repeated, then turned and raced back into the house.
Maggie was in the hall, ostensibly tidying the coat rack, but Edyth knew she’d been waiting for her.
‘You weren’t out there long,’ Maggie observed slyly. ‘Doesn’t the handsome curate go in for long goodnight kisses?’
‘When are you going to stop nosing into my private life?’ Edyth retrieved the jacket she’d hung on the hall stand when she’d come home from youth club and slipped it on. She went into the dining room, but only the cloth and napkins were left on the table.
‘You weren’t long.’ Sali stowed the silver cruet in the sideboard.
‘You were right; it is chilly out there. Is there anything I can do?’
‘No, everyone helped. Mari and the girls are already washing the dishes. But your father would like a word with you in his study – nothing bad,’ Sali reassured her when Edyth’s face fell. ‘You look tired. Why don’t you go on up to bed after you’ve seen him? I’ll call in to kiss you goodnight. Would you like a glass of hot milk?’
‘She’d prefer hot chocolate.’ Mari carried in a tray of clean silverware, set it on the sideboard and gathered the tablecloth and napkins into a bundle.
‘You’ll clean your teeth afterwards?’ Sali returned the candlesticks to the mantelpiece.
‘I’m not seven years old now, Mam,’ Edyth retorted.
‘More’s the pity. If you were, I wouldn’t be losing you to Swansea in September.’ Sali winced as a crash resounded from the kitchen. ‘I hope that’s a cup of tea plate and not one of the expensive serving dishes.’
‘Mam, Susie’s broken the meat plate and the butter dish,’ Maggie shouted gleefully.
‘Can I slap maddening Maggie? Please?’ Edyth begged.
‘Slapping her would only make her worse,’ Sali said philosophically.
‘Poor Susie probably feels dreadful. No one breaks dishes on purpose.’ Edyth lifted a rose bowl from the sideboard and set it in the centre of the table.
‘The number you’ve broken, you should know. I suppose it’s to be expected that one of your sisters would take over from where you left off, now you’ve outgrown your clumsy phase.’
‘Don’t tempt fate by talking too soon, Miss Sali,’ Mari warned. ‘Only this morning I –’
Edyth held her finger to her lips until Sali left for the kitchen.
‘It was such a pretty little china figurine,’ Mari said regretfully.
‘It was grotesque, Mari,’ Edyth contradicted. ‘Bella bought it for me when she was five years old and even she outgrew pink cupids and shepherdesses by the time she was six.’
‘You’ll miss it.’
‘I won’t.’
‘What won’t you do?’ Maggie appeared in the doorway.
‘Miss your snide remarks when you get struck by a lightning bolt of niceness.’ Without giving Maggie time to think of an apt rejoinder, Edyth walked along the passage to her father’s study. The door was open and he was sitting at his desk, an ash tray in front of him and the pipe he had recently taken to smoking instead of cigarettes in his hand.
He saw her and smiled. ‘You look exhausted, my sweet.’
Edyth returned his smile. Her mother was right, he wasn’t cross with her. Ever since she could remember he had called her mother, ‘sweetheart’ and she and her sisters ‘my sweet’, except when he was angry with them for breaking one of his few cardinal rules, all of which were centred around consideration and respect for others.
‘I feel tired. It’s probably down to the fresh air and long walk to Brew Falls this morning.’ She sat on the long sofa that faced his desk.
‘This courting business? Was it Peter Slater’s idea or yours?’
‘Peter’s, but to be honest, I’ve chased him – not too noticeably, I hope – since Belle’s wedding.’
‘I suppose a curate is not difficult to chase. Head for the church and he’ll turn up sooner or later, if he’s not already there.’ Lloyd packed a wedge of tobacco down in his pipe with the end of a pencil and lit it.
‘You knew I was chasing him?’ She had the grace to blush.
‘I’ve never known you to be so interested in church activities. You had me worried. I thought you’d been infected by a case of religion and were heading for a convent.’
‘I’m not Anglican nun material, Dad.’
‘I didn’t bring you up to be Church fodder, that’s for sure.’ He puffed his pipe slowly and she knew better than to hurry him. ‘You really love him?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘In that case I only have one more thing to say to you before closing the subject, until you or Peter bring it up again. If there should come a time when you feel that you have fallen out of love with him, promise me you will put an end to this formal courtship of his.’
‘I won’t need to, because I know that one day we’ll make the perfect married couple.’
‘Promise me?’ he reiterated solemnly.
She sensed that he wouldn’t be happy until she had given him her word. ‘I promise, but I do love him, Dad, and we will be happy together – you’ll see.’
‘I hope you’re right, Edie. Because I want nothing less for any of my girls.’ He left his desk, went to the sofa and offered her his hand. She took it, and allowed him to pull her to her feet.
‘Thank you, Daddy.’
‘You haven’t called me that in years.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘And why are you thanking me?’
‘For being you and not flying off the handle like so many fathers would have done at the prospect of losing a second daughter to marriage so soon after the first.’
‘I hope I won’t ever lose you, or any of the others. And you won’t be walking down the aisle for three years yet.’
She pushed her doubts about college to the back of her mind. ‘I’ll try to be a credit to you.’ She hugged him.
‘You already are Edie. But if you are determined to improve yourself in any way, you could try to be a little less accident-prone. I hate to see you hurt yourself.’
‘I’ve never broken a bone del
iberately, Dad.’
‘I know that, my sweet. Sleep well.’ He followed her into the hall and watched her walk up the stairs. He returned to his study. Sali was sitting on the sofa, waiting for him.
‘I saw Edyth hug you, so I take it that went all right.’
He shrugged. ‘Our talk went fine. As for her and the curate, time will tell. Is it so terrible of me to hope they won’t get married?’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘But you do know that the girls won’t allow you to pick their husbands for them, don’t you, darling?’
‘I know. But Edyth and Peter Slater are so …’ Maggie laughed in the kitchen and Lloyd realised that if he could hear her, she could hear him. He left the sofa and closed the door. ‘Mismatched,’ he declared quietly.
‘You can’t stop a girl from falling in love with a man, however unsuited they may be, any more than you can stop a starving miner from striking. If Peter should prove to be Edyth’s choice of husband, it’s out of our hands, Lloyd.’
‘Prove to be?’ he repeated. ‘Then you don’t give her your blessing, either?’
‘For all that she believes herself grown up, she is still very young.’
‘The hardest thing about having children is allowing them make their own mistakes. It’s torture to stand by and watch, knowing they’re heading for disaster and won’t take a blind bit of notice of anything that’s said to them until it’s too late. And even if you try to warn them, they’ll take it the wrong way, clam up and probably never come to you with their problems again.’
‘It’s late, you’re maudlin.’ She left the sofa and went to him. ‘Let’s go to bed and leave Edyth and the curate to live their own lives.’ When Lloyd hesitated, she added, ‘They will anyway, with or without our blessing.’
‘You’re a wise woman in many ways, Sali Evans, but I sometimes wonder if the biggest mistake you made was to marry me. I see a streak of Joey’s wayward stubbornness in Edyth.’
‘Poor Joey. He’s the hard-working director of the largest and most successful chain of department stores in South Wales, a charitable pillar of the community, respectable married man and father of five, yet you and Victor still see him as your wild, womanising younger brother.’
Lloyd refused to be mollified. ‘He almost messed up his life.’
‘But thanks to Rhian, he didn’t, and Edyth won’t.’ Sali tried to inject more conviction than she felt into her voice in an effort to hide her own concern about Edyth’s choice of suitor.
But a frown furrowed her forehead when she knocked on Edyth’s door later and went in to kiss her daughter goodnight. Edyth was already asleep. The cup of chocolate Mari had brought her stood untouched, cooling on her bedside cabinet. Sali kissed Edyth’s forehead before removing the cup. She couldn’t help wishing that her daughter was a child again, with nothing more serious on her mind than the next picture she would draw and which frock to wear in the morning.
Chapter Six
Micah Holsten lowered his saxophone. ‘You sing like a lovesick angel, Judy. That is absolutely the best “Crying the Blues Away” I’ve heard, but,’ he glanced at his wristwatch, ‘I have to be at a meeting of the seaman’s relief committee in the Sailors’ Home in Stuart Street in ten minutes.’
‘Same time tomorrow, Micah?’ Jed asked.
‘It suits me if it suits everyone else. Let’s see if we can get a couple of these new numbers in when we play the White Hart on Saturday. It’s great playing in a different pub every weekend but we don’t want to stick to the same repertoire. The landlords may not have heard us before, but chances are the audience will have.’ He laid his saxophone gently in its case, closed it and opened the door of the room that served as a cloakroom to the Norwegian mission church during services, and Bute Street Blues Band rehearsal room during the week. A crowd of seamen, who’d been sitting on the stairs, applauded when he appeared. Micah bowed as if he were the conductor of a grand orchestra and held out his arm to his fellow band members.
‘I’ll walk you home, sunshine, and call in on Mam.’ Jed slipped his arm around Judy’s shoulders. ‘How’s she been lately?’
‘Suffering more than most of us in this heat, Uncle Jed.’ Judy picked up her handbag. ‘But, you know Gran, heat or no heat, she won’t stop cooking and cleaning. She’s on her feet from morning till night.’
‘You two all right for money?’
Judy knew what it had cost her uncle to ask her that question. With six growing children, a pregnant wife, no regular work and only his earnings from playing in the pubs and clubs during the last few weeks, he didn’t have enough coming in to keep his own family, let alone his niece and mother. And none of her other uncles was in a better position to help.
‘We managed before I lost my job. And I still have the five pounds that Mr Evans gave me to replace the frock that was ruined at that wedding. With what I’ve been making with the band and helping out two mornings a week peeling potatoes in the chip shop, we’re managing.’
‘You’re a good girl, Judy. You’ve looked after Mam better than most daughters, let alone granddaughters.’
‘What goes around comes around.’ She followed him out of the mission. ‘Gran didn’t have to keep me when Mam died and Dad went to sea and never came back.’
‘She didn’t, but you’ve long since paid back any dues you owed. Bye, Micah, Tony.’ Jed shouted his goodbyes to the rest of the band, Judy blew them kisses and they walked down the street.
‘I have never known a summer like this one. In Wales, that is.’ Jed took his handkerchief and mopped his face. ‘Crossing the equator, yes. Docking in Mombasa, yes. The Caribbean, yes. But Cardiff, never.’
‘It must be wonderful to travel,’ Judy said wistfully.
‘If you want to do it, sunshine, nothing can stop you. But a word of advice: try to do it first class. A seaman sees very little beyond a port. Some are smaller than others, some are dirtier, but most of them are much of a muchness.’
‘First class costs money.’
‘No one can go anywhere, first or third class, without a ship. If this Depression bites any harder, they may as well close the docks because nothing will be sailing in or out of Cardiff. There’s no point in shipping coal when no one has the money to pay for it.’
They crossed the road and skirted a crowd of boys playing football with a tin can. They were in no hurry and neither were their friends and neighbours who were out taking the early evening air. Jed and Judy walked slowly through the network of terraces and side streets, exchanging gossip, admiring new babies and making preposterous plans for the band which they both knew would never happen. But that didn’t stop them from trying to outdo one another.
‘One day we’ll play the Waldorf Hotel in New York,’ Jed declared. He knew a man who had worked there as a bellboy and waxed lyrical about its luxurious rooms.
‘And the Ritz in London.’
‘The Moulin Rouge in Paris,’ Jed rejoined swiftly as if they were playing a game of snap.
‘The Casino in Monte Carlo.’
‘The Coliseum in Rome.’
‘Bands don’t play there,’ Judy countered. ‘Only gladiators, and they fought there hundreds of years ago.’
‘We’ll travel back in time,’ Jed continued.
‘And play for the Roman emperors,’ Judy laughed. ‘It’s good to have dreams.’ She turned the key that was always left in the lock of Pearl King’s front door, and walked in.
Jed frowned. ‘Mam should be sitting out on the step on a nice evening like this.’
‘She said it was too hot.’ Pearl and Judy’s next-door neighbour, Mrs Francis, had carried out her kitchen chair and was sitting chatting to Mrs Hawkins, who lived on the other side of her, while darning her sons’ and husband’s socks.
Judy walked down the passage and called out, ‘Gran?’
Jed followed and saw Judy run to his mother, who was lying slumped on the kitchen floor.
Peter slipped a key from the enormous bunch he had been wrestling
with into the lock of the door of the church hall, and turned it.
‘At last, the right one.’ He withdrew it and tested the door by putting the weight of his shoulder against it.
‘It was a good rehearsal tonight.’ Edyth waited for him to finish checking the hall was secure. ‘You’ve succeeded in firing the children’s imaginations. Did you hear them practising their “giant” voices? I can’t wait to see their finished papier-mâché Goliath head.’
‘I caught a glimpse of their drawings for a flannel-covered whale. No seamstress could create anything so elaborate.’ He pocketed the keys. ‘You’ve done a good job of writing the play, Edyth. It’s brought the story to life. Every member of the group has identified with David, which is what I was hoping would happen.’
‘It’s easy to work with children when they’re enthusiastic.’
‘Do you think they’ll be ready to perform it before you leave for college?’
‘I don’t see why not if all the rehearsals go as well as tonight.’ She took the arm he offered her. ‘Provided that is, if Goliath is ever finished. He’s taking an awful lot of newspaper.’
‘I can’t believe the summer is almost over.’ He raised his hat to a passing schoolteacher.
‘In less than three weeks I’ll be setting off for Swansea.’
‘Are you looking forward to it?’ He stopped suddenly and looked back at the hall.
‘I checked all the windows, twice,’ she assured him. ‘And yes, I am looking forward to going to college,’ she answered, hoping he’d drop the subject. In fact she wasn’t looking forward to leaving him behind in Pontypridd, and she was also beginning to wish that she’d never promised her father that she would go to college if she matriculated.
‘But you’re just a little apprehensive?’ he ventured.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s how I felt before going to Lampeter. It’s nerve-racking to go to a strange town when you know no one there and haven’t a clue what to expect.’ He stopped at the kerb to allow an empty coal cart, drawn by a tired old horse, to pass.
Tiger Bay Blues Page 10
