A Million Tears (4 page)

When it was over I found Mam talking to aunt Maud and asked her if I could go home, as I was feeling ill.

‘I was going to send you home,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you something up when we get home. Go on, I’ll tell the vicar you won’t be here this afternoon. Off you go.’

When I got back I went to bed and tried to read. Quite soon my eyes began to ache and I gave up. I must have fallen asleep and did not hear the others returning. I woke sometime in the afternoon and realised nobody was in the house. I dozed, just below the surface of awareness, able to dream but controlling my thoughts at the same time. It was my favourite state, like just before falling asleep. As usual I dreamed I had made a fortune, though how I did so always seemed slightly different in different dreams, the details hazy. I never regretted leaving my dream world for the real one, which I saw as a challenge. It was my goal, the object of my existence.

I shook my head, no mean feat with it resting on a pillow. ‘Oh yes,’ I changed my mind. ‘Could I have the atlas please? Just to look at because my eyes ache if I read.’

‘I’ll bring it up but don’t go straining your eyesight mind you. If I think you are now, I’ll come and take it away.’

‘Okay Mam.’ I hid a smile. She often made threats but never carried them out, not even the mildest. Even so we never needed telling more than once . . . well, perhaps twice. With Da it was never, ever, more than once.

The door flew open. ‘Here’s your atlas,’ said Sian, throwing it onto the bed. ‘I can’t stop. I’m going to have tea with Uncle James.’ It took me a second or two to realise we did not have an Uncle James.

She grinned. ‘Mr Price. He told us to call him Uncle James. He’s going to build me a doll’s house. He said if we went over today we could talk about it. And he told Sion he had some, – what is it? Bamboo? – Something like that. So I must rush. Sion’s waiting for me.’ She slammed the door behind her, earning a rebuke from Mam, but still she slammed the front door. Sian was convinced doors only closed properly when slammed.

I picked up the atlas. It fell open at America. Uncle James . . . they were becoming very friendly. They were getting a doll’s house and I guessed the bamboo was for a kite. I decided to call on him as soon as I was better. There might be something he could get me, though I wasn’t sure. Apart from my books I had no other real interest.

I concentrated on the atlas, losing myself as I wandered across the American prairies.

The plate by the bed was empty now and when the door opened I thought it was Mam to take it away. Instead it was Da. He sat on the edge of the bed.

‘How’re you feeling son?’

‘I’m all right, Da. I’ll be up and about in no time.’ In those days concern over a simple cold was not unusual. Colds easily became pneumonia or pleurisy, or whatever it was called. To die was not uncommon from such illnesses, which was why Mam had sent me straight to bed.

‘Well, keep warm and if there’s anything you want just yell. Do you want any more soup? I can fetch it for you, if you like.’

‘No thanks, Da.’ I propped myself up against the pillows. ‘I was talking to Mam the other day about leaving here and going to some other country. Do you and Mam talk about it?’

‘Sometimes. Why do you ask?’

‘Don’t get me wrong but don’t you think there’s a chance of a better life somewhere else? I’ve read about America and Africa. It all sounds too good to be true. Is it? I mean, is it true?’ I paused and added hastily, ‘Da, I’m really grateful for all you and Mam are doing for me and I’m sure the twins’ll be grateful too when they understand better. But what’s going to happen? I go to school and I’ll work hard and try and make you proud of me. But what about you and Mam? What are you going to be doing? Working double shifts for the next ten years or so? Da, I know I’m only ten but I can see what it’s doing to you. I know how hard it must be and how tired you must be.’ I trailed off. I had never spoken to him like that before and I was unsure how he would react. I was taking advantage of not being well, hoping that instead of becoming angry he would talk. I wanted to persuade him to leave.

He was silent for a few seconds, looking at his hands, perhaps seeing the ingrained grime no amount of scrubbing would remove properly, or the calluses as hard as the lumps of coal they dug out of the ground.

‘I know what you mean son and I suppose one of the reasons Mam and me are doing what we are doing for you is because we know you appreciate it. If we thought you were ungrateful then perhaps we’d send you down the mine like the rest of the kids. And don’t forget that may still happen. We don’t know how much it will all cost yet, not until we try it. And how will we pay for Sion?’ He shrugged. ‘And don’t you get me wrong. We aren’t asking for gratitude. You are the way you are and Mam and me are the way we are. Together we make a family which, I hope, cares for one another.’ He paused. ‘I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. Except maybe we feel your education is as important to us as it is to you, and that it’s worth trying for. So why don’t we get that over with first and then think of a future somewhere else? At least, see, we know the system here. If you can get to school and down the valley then you’ve a chance of getting to university, like Mam explained it to you. I know you’ll still need a scholarship and all but there’s a chance for you, son; a chance I never had.’ He smiled. ‘Your Mam would have done better if she had been a boy. As it is . . . and she taught me the importance of schooling. It’s a chance not only for you but for us too. Why,’ his eyes glowed, ‘you could even become a doctor. Mam said and she should know. Just think of that Dai. A doctor in the family. Why, Granddad and Grandma will be tickled pink, look you.’

‘I know, Da,’ I interrupted, ‘but Mam could teach us for a year or two,’ the words came in a rush. I had thought of it so often. ‘And by then we could be established in a new place, where there’d be a school and college. Look at America. They’ve got colleges there. It said so in that book Mam brought home. I wouldn’t lose any time that mattered and if I had to stay an extra year or two, well,’ I shrugged, ‘it won’t matter, see?’

He leaned forward and ruffled my hair. ‘Aye, Dai, I do see. And look you, I’ll give it some thought. But I don’t think it’s possible just yet. Don’t forget that all the money we saved for school will be used. Then what? How will we pay for it in America? It isn’t as simple as you think. I know,’ he held up his hand to forestall my interruption, ‘the amount of money paid in the mines there. But I hear things are worse there than they are here for safety and unions and things like that. So things aren’t all greener over there, or whatever that saying of your Mam’s is.’

‘The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the hill,’ I quoted.

‘Exactly. Look you, Mam and me do talk about it sometimes like I said and I think hard about it. I’ll think some more but I don’t know . . .’ he trailed off.

After he went downstairs I picked up the atlas again and compared South Africa with America. I had thought of Australia at one time but for some reason I forget now, I had discounted it. No, it had to be Africa or America and I knew which had my vote, if we ever got as far as voting on it. I paused. Maybe Da would go but Mam put so much store by our education she would probably be the stumbling block. My heart sank. Mam was a formidable person if you tried to get her to change her mind.

I heard Sion and Sian arriving downstairs, from the way the door slammed Sian was obviously last. I could hear their excited chatter and then they came bounding up the stairs. The door flew open and they burst into the room, talking at the same time.

‘He’s really very nice,’ said Sian solemnly. ‘I mean, not just because he’s going to make me a doll’s house. He just is. Do you know he cooks his own biscuits? And they’re very nice too.’

‘Yeah, I had four of them,’ said Sion proudly, grinning at the memory.

‘Yes, the piggy. He would have taken a fifth if I hadn’t kicked him.’ Coming from Sian that was about the funniest thing I had heard in a long time. It probably meant she could eat no more and so Sion was not allowed to either.

‘Huh, you didn’t do so badly,’ said Sion more or less confirming what I thought.

After I sneezed a few more times they left. Not so much from an understanding of spreading germs as a desire to go and play a while longer before bed. I felt a bit lonely by myself but soon Mam came up with the supper. There was boiled cabbage, green beans and potatoes from the allotment. We had our main Sunday meal in the evening, not at midday, because Mam had more time to cook, as she never went to evening chapel. Prayers twice a day was sufficient for her.

On Monday morning I felt better, which would mean I had to go to school the next day. I thought idly about pretending to be worse than I actually was but then remembered the last time. Mam had fed me a dose of cod liver oil every hour until I announced I was much better. ‘I thought so,’ had been her reply.

Sian made jokes about me being lazy, spending my life in bed, and missing school. I just scowled because they were exactly the words I had used a few months earlier when the twins had been down with flu. Sian had been a terrible patient, always demanding something, from a drink, a pencil or her potty emptied. When we were ill, we were not allowed out to the back toilet. Instead we used the chamber pot as Sian insisted on calling it when she learned those were the “posh” words for it.

I read for a while and must have dozed. The next thing I knew was Mam bringing in some broth. As she handed it to me the bells started ringing. We looked at each other, puzzled for a few seconds. The bells only rang on Sundays and . . . and ‘Oh God, no,’ said Mam, the blood draining from her face, leaving it chalk white.

We waited for the siren from the mine, telling us there had been an accident. It was a strict community rule. The bells only rang on Sundays. There was something wrong though. We usually heard the siren first and then the bells. Where was the siren? Perhaps there had not been an accident after all, but then what? The vicar knew better than to ring them for any other reason. Any other reason . . .

The street was filling with people stumbling hastily from their homes. Night shift miners were wiping the sleep from their eyes, women were drying hands, tying scarves around their heads or struggling into coats. Nobody moved. The villagers were like statues, standing looking at each other, wondering. Then Mam pushed past me and headed for the chapel. The villagers started walking in the same direction. God help the vicar if the bells had been sounded for no good reason.

God help him perhaps, but there was not a person there who did not hope and pray it was only a stupid mistake. There would be harsh words spoken but they would be an outlet for the real, deep-rooted fear the noise created.

Around the corner, where the street ended, by the road to the river, people stopped to look down the valley towards the mine. The fires were still throwing their heat, their smoke and their orange flame into the sky. It looked peaceful. The heavy morning rain had abated and now a steady wind blew down the valley, the clouds occasionally breaking up and shafts of sunlight streaming through. The scene was firmly implanted in my mind. A woman standing next to me pointed. ‘Look,’ she yelled, above the noise of the bells.

I could see nothing. Just the black slag on the other side, gleaming from the rain. Then, with a sickening feeling I knew why the bells were ringing. Somebody screamed the words.

‘Where’s the school? Where’s it gone?’

From where we stood looking across the valley it was usually possible to see the school, the caretaker’s house and a few sheds higher up dotted around some allotments. Now there was virtually nothing. The black mass of slag had slid across the allotments and swept like a towering wave over the school, burying it up to the roof. The caretaker’s house was only partly buried, the school wall helping to hold the slag back.

As one, the people of the village began running along the road going for the footbridge over the Taff. I ran directly down to the river, keeping away from the crowd, aware they would slow me down.

I could hear the screams and yells from behind. People shouting the names of their children. Gareth, Llewelyn, Gwyneth, Myvanwi, Allan, Huw, Beatrice . . . the names flashed through my mind, forced there by the screams of the grown-ups. Above them all came Sion and Sian: Sion and Sian. ‘God please. God please. Not my little brother and sister. Please. Not Sion and Sian. I’ll go to chapel God, honest I will. Every Sunday God, only please spare them, ‘Please.’ I screamed the last word aloud.

I reached the riverbank. A few others were following; grown-ups, miners. I was winded but I still ran. Some of the men passed me. I recognised Mr Williams from two doors down. He had three children at the school, all younger than me. I was just behind when we got to where we collected coal. There were stepping stones a short distance further but nobody bothered with them. I could hear others behind splashing through the dirty, cold river. In the middle the water reached my waist and many of the men waded past. Hughes the shop, the owner of the village’s small general store, forced his short plump body along, gasping for breath, tears streaming down his face.

I was almost at the school and by now hundreds of people from the nearest villages were pouring down the hill, still a couple of hundred yards away, slowing as they reached the bottleneck created by the bridge. The effort of running and my concentration to cross the river had prevented me from looking closely at what I had expected. Expected? My imagination, even coupled with the distant sighting had not prepared me for the sheer, mind bending horror of what was before us.