Beggars and Choosers (38 page)

‘You are a lucky boy and from that cornet and comic, I can see that Uncle Victor has been spoiling you.' Sali opened her arms and Harry climbed into them.

‘Bring Harry to mass in the morning, Victor,' the priest suggested. ‘It's a special children's service and it wouldn't surprise me if a few toffees weren't handed out at the end. Tell your father I'll see him later in the County Club, Lloyd, and not to drink all the Christmas cheer before I get there.'

‘You look puzzled, Sali.' Victor took Harry's hand, as Sali set him on the floor.

‘I've never met a Catholic priest before.'

‘Father Kelly isn't typical.' Lloyd laughed again, as the priest whispered something in Joey's ear that made his younger brother turn crimson. ‘We had a right old sourpuss before he came here.'

‘We'
Victor repeated archly. ‘Who was it who said, “A lapsed Catholic is still a Catholic”?'

‘Probably Father Kelly in hope, after having one too many whiskies with our father in the County Club.'

‘He really drinks with your father?' Sali watched the priest work his way through the hall, smiling at the room in general as he slapped men on the back, shook hands with the women, and joked with the children.

‘They are close friends.'

‘He was wonderful to Mam when she was ill. He called every day to see her.' Victor steered them back towards the sweet stall.

‘You can't help liking the man even if you hate organised religion,' Lloyd agreed.

‘Do you think he meant what he said about me going to mass tonight?' Sali asked seriously.

‘You want to go to mass?' Lloyd couldn't have looked more disapproving if she'd suggested she crawl down a sewer.

‘I've never been in a Catholic Church. I'd like to see if they are any different to a chapel.'

‘They are,' Lloyd said shortly, ‘and Father Kelly will try to convert you.'

‘Like he's been trying to convert you and Dad for years,' Victor mocked, lifting Harry up so he could see the sweets on offer.

‘You don't know what you're getting yourself into,' Lloyd counselled. Sali watched Joey slip Harry a piece of fudge. ‘And priests like Father Kelly are the worst. They are so friendly, amusing and easy to get along with, they seduce people into believing that everyone in the church is just like them. A year from now, the powers in Rome will replace him with a surly old Jesuit, but by then you'll already be halfway to converting, and after that it will be all sin, hellfire, purgatory and damnation. You'll end up being so terrified of God and what heaven might do to you if you don't follow the church's doctrine to the letter, your life will be a total misery.'

‘Joey, Victor and Father Kelly don't seem to be living in misery,' she dared to point out.

‘Because they take what they want from the church and leave the rest.'

‘And you don't think I can do that?' she countered.

The last thing Lloyd wanted to do was undermine her newly acquired confidence. ‘You really want to go to vigil mass?'

‘I'd really like to,' she reiterated.

‘Then I'll come back from the club with Victor and Joey and look after Harry for you,' he relented.

‘You mean it?'

‘I have a feeling that I'll regret it,' he muttered, ‘but yes.'

Chapter Twenty

Sali was happy to walk home alone with Harry, but Lloyd and Victor wouldn't hear of it. They saw her safely to the door, and after promising to return at a quarter past eleven, left her.

Harry was so tired he fell asleep halfway through the first story she read him. After tucking him, Mr Bear and the penny whistle he had insisted on taking to bed with him, under the bedclothes, she went downstairs.

She found it strange to be celebrating Christmas again after three years of being forced to ignore it in Owen's house. The last time she had helped fill stockings had been the month before her father's death when she and Mari had drank half a bottle of sherry between them, while setting presents out under the tree in the drawing room for her family, and beneath the tree in the servants' hall for the staff. It was a ritual she had taken part in every year since she had been twelve years old. Mysteriously, two extra stockings had always appeared on Christmas morning, one for her on the string suspended beneath the drawing room mantelpiece and another for Mari on the brass rail of the iron fireplace in the servants' hall, both packed full of small luxuries courtesy of Father Christmas, whose handwriting bore a strong resemblance to her father's.

She labelled the tins of sweets she had made for Joey, Victor, Lloyd, Harry and Mr Evans, and set them together with the extra ones she had made for Rhian, Connie's family and Megan's beneath the tree. The men's stockings she filled with half ounces of tobacco, pipe cleaners, sticks of shaving soap, boot laces, almonds she had coated with sugar, apples, Spanish oranges and nuts she had bought from Connie. Harry's she filled with nuts, an orange, apple, liquorice root and a bar of Five Boy chocolate. The horse and cart she set unwrapped beneath the tree.

She carried in the Christmas cake, along with plates of iced cakes and biscuits she had baked, and bowls of nuts and fruit, and arranged them on the sideboard. With the gaslight hissing, the fire blazing in the grate, the curtains closed and a pan of sweet chestnuts Victor had brought home waiting to be roasted in the hearth, the room looked warm, inviting and Christmassy.

Not the lavish Christmas of Danygraig House that her father and Mari had orchestrated, she reflected without bitterness, but nevertheless Christmas. And perhaps one Harry would remember as the first he had ever celebrated.

‘God rest ye merry gentlewoman,' Victor said, as he and Joey walked into the parlour to find Sali curled on the sofa in the parlour, reading a copy of
Nicholas Nickelby
that she had borrowed from Mr Evans's bookcase.

‘Everything looks great, Sali.' Joey reached for an iced cake.

‘Before you fill yourself up on sweets, I cut pork sandwiches. They're under a plate in the pantry along with a dish of apple sauce.' Sali marked her page with a small drawing of Harry's, and closed the book.

‘Food after, not before mass.' Victor took the cake from Joey and replaced it on the plate. ‘I promised Connie, Annie and Tonia that we'd pick them up on the way.'

‘We bought beer, sherry and whisky so we can offer callers a drink. The bottles are on the floor at the back of the pantry. Is Harry asleep?' Lloyd came in and sat in one of the easy chairs.

‘Yes, and he was so exhausted he shouldn't wake unless he has one of his nightmares.' Sali returned the book to the shelf. ‘I'll just get my coat and hat, and I'll be with you, Victor.'

Mr Evans opened the door of his bedroom as she went into the hall. ‘Victor says you're going to mass with him and Joey.'

‘If that's all right with you, Mr Evans,' she replied warily, mindful of his reaction to the pullovers earlier.

‘It's nothing to do with me where you go in your own time, but as you're intent on visiting a Papist church you'd better have this.' He thrust a finely crocheted silk shawl at her. ‘It used to be my wife's. She kept it for best and in case you didn't know, Catholic women cover their heads in church.'

‘Mr Evans –'

‘You'd better go or you'll be late.'

He went into the kitchen and closed the door before she could thank him, but she felt that she was beginning to understand him. The shawl was an apology, a gesture as big as the man, and she wondered why he found it so difficult to accept gratitude for his kindness.

The service, as Father Kelly had promised, was beautiful. The church was smaller than any chapel she had been in, but the organ would have graced a far larger building. The singing was melodic, the priest's lavishly embroidered robes, the sweet cloying smell of incense and Latin mass exotic after the spartan services of Penuel Chapel. But the thing that impressed her the most was the size of the congregation. The church may have been less than a quarter of the size of the average chapel, but long after every seat was taken, men filed in and stood in the aisles and the back of the church, respectfully removing their caps and making the sign of the cross as they faced the

altar. She found it strange that she had never questioned just how many people in Pontypridd and Swansea were Catholic.

Irish lilts mixed with musical Spanish tones and the more familiar pitches of Welsh and English voices as the congregation made their responses. And all around her, people knelt, prayed and sang as if they were actually enjoying the service.

Instead of a sermon, Father Kelly delivered a light, humorous lecture on families and the meaning of Christmas, and when he ended with a couple of lines penned by the poet Thomas Tusser – ‘“At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year,” and remember that's your priest ordering you to do just that' – laughter rippled through the worshippers, something she could never imagine happening in any chapel she had ever visited.

A crib flanking the altar and a beautifully painted plaster model of a blue-robed Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus made it easy for her to pray. But it was a nebulous kind of prayer, directed at a deity far removed from the stern, tyrannical God of her Uncle Morgan's sermons.

She found herself picturing a benign, caring being with a twinkle in his eyes and a sense of humour that matched Father Kelly's, and she prayed that he would take care of her father's soul, bless Mansel wherever he was, and keep her son, all of her family, her aunt, Rhian, Mr Richards, the entire Evans family and herself safe. She didn't allow herself to think from who or what. If God was all-seeing and omnipotent, she didn't need to, and there were people she wanted to block from her thoughts on this holiest of nights. And finally, she asked that he take care of Mrs Evans in heaven and bless her too.

‘You will come in for a cup of Christmas cheer?' Connie asked. They were walking down Dunraven Street at a brisk pace to keep out the cold.

‘When have you ever known me refuse a cup of cheer, Connie?' Joey replied. They stopped outside her door.

‘You, never, but I was asking Victor and Mrs Jones.'

‘Not me?'

‘I'm not surprised to see you've been practising a pathetic look, given what I've heard about you lately. Come on,' she relented, unlocking the door and leading the way upstairs. She had left the gaslight on low in her drawing room and when she turned it up, Sali saw that the room was furnished in solidly crafted mahogany pieces fashioned in a simple Regency style. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in blue double cloth, woven in a William Morris pattern, and there was a warm inviting scent in the air Sali recognised as mulled wine.

‘My grandmother's recipe,' Connie revealed, ladling out glassfuls. She hesitated for a split second when she came to her daughter, then gave her half a glass. ‘To all of us.' She gave a brittle smile and raised her glass. ‘A happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 1910.'

‘To us,' they echoed.

When Annie and Antonia brought out plates of ham and chicken sandwiches and apple turnovers, Connie drew Sali aside.

‘The boys and Mr Evans tell me you have settled in remarkably well.'

‘They are very kind,' Sali answered uneasily, wondering what Connie would think of her, if she knew exactly how ‘kind' she had allowed Lloyd to be.

‘Knowing my uncle and cousins as well as I do, I think it more likely that you are a born diplomat.' Connie handed Sali a plate.

‘They are easy to work for and very appreciative,' Sali replied warily, wondering where the conversation was going.

‘You don't find any of them easier to get on with than the others?' Connie fished blatantly.

‘Not especially.' Sali was having difficulty keeping her voice steady.

‘Three young men and a widower, alone in the house with a young widow.' Connie arched her eyebrows.

‘Have you forgotten what I told you of my situation?' Sali whispered.

‘No, but no one in Tonypandy knows your real situation except me.'

‘And Mr Evans and Lloyd,' Sali revealed.

‘Oh yes, Lloyd did mention that you'd told Mr Evans and he'd passed the information to the boys.' Connie hoped she'd given Sali the impression that she and Lloyd were
very
close.

‘I had to when Mr Evans told me that I could bring Harry into the house.'

‘You and your son are both happy there?'

‘We consider ourselves fortunate. In return for my services, we have a comfortable home. If you'll excuse me, I am very tired and I have the dinner to cook tomorrow.'

‘Annie, Tonia and I will be up straight after mass to help you cook it.' Connie forced another insincere smile.

‘You don't have to leave because I am tired,' Sali said to Victor as he picked up his coat and cap.

‘It's been a long day for all of us. Joey!' He called his brother, who was engrossed in conversation with Antonia, to heel as if he were one of his dogs. ‘See you tomorrow, Connie, Annie, Tonia. Thank you for the sandwiches and the wine.' He kissed their cheeks in turn.

‘I'll see you out.' As Connie waved goodbye to them and turned to walk back up the stairs, she found her path blocked by Annie. ‘I thought you were a ghost,' she complained.

‘Not a ghost. More like a cautionary devil. What are you doing?'

‘Nothing.' Connie tried to walk past her, but Annie stood her ground. ‘I must see to Tonia.'

‘Tonia's getting ready for bed. You can't seriously believe for one minute that you are going to get Lloyd Evans to come back to you by making that poor girl feel more wretched and guilty than she already does.'

Connie sank down on the bottom stair and Annie sat beside her.

‘You told me that you thought you were losing Lloyd before he went to Pontypridd and that was almost ten years ago.'

‘I know,' Connie murmured.

‘You also told me that Sali Jones was hiding from her husband.'

‘She is.'

‘Then don't you think that she and Lloyd have enough problems, without you adding to them by trying to hang on to him when your relationship has run its course?'

‘What you say always makes sense, Annie.'

‘But you don't want to hear it?'

‘Not this time.'

‘You'll end up making a fool of yourself.'

‘I know.' Connie rose to her feet. ‘Will you mind?'

‘I won't, but you will,' Annie warned and followed her up the stairs.

‘So did Father Kelly convert you?' Lloyd asked as he walked into the kitchen on Christmas morning to find Sali and Harry sitting at the table eating porridge.

‘You're wearing the pullover –'

‘My mother knitted for me. My father told us that you made them up. He gave them to us last night after you went to bed. Thank you for going to all that trouble. We, all of us, appreciate it.'

‘It was no trouble. And the service was beautiful, but no, Father Kelly didn't convert me.' She left the table and picked up the bacon and sausages she had placed on plates, ready to be cooked.

‘Finish your porridge. I'll have some tea and wait for the others. And you can trust me to pour it myself.' He pushed her hand away as she reached for the teapot but before he poured his tea, he opened the cupboard and removed a brown paper package. ‘My father and brothers asked me to buy something,' he looked at Harry, ‘to give to Father Christmas for you.'

‘Mam says Father Christmas only brings presents for children, not grown-ups,' Harry informed him gravely.

‘And your mam is quite right.' Lloyd sat next to Sali and poured his tea. ‘But when I was looking for something for your mam, I met a man who knows her and he asked me to give her this from him. It's not really a present,' he said to Sali, ‘just something you lost and he thought you'd like to have back.'

Sali untied the string, folded back the paper and stared at her photograph album. ‘Mr Goodman had this.' She opened it and ran her fingers over her father's inscription on the flyleaf.

‘You did say that he told you a certain person was a good customer.'

‘Look, Harry,' she opened the first page, ‘that's your grandfather.'

‘Can I see him?'

‘Only his photograph. He's in heaven.' She turned to Lloyd. ‘I'll never be able to thank you enough.'

‘I'm just the delivery boy. If you want to thank anyone, it should be Mr Goodman.'

‘But I never would have had it back if you hadn't gone there to redeem my ring.' She kissed his cheek.

‘You've no need to thank me any more than I have to thank you for my pullover. Now, hurry up and finish your porridge. I hear Joey and Victor stirring and you know what they are like first thing in the morning.'

‘Greedy gutses.'

Sali stared at Harry in horror. ‘Where did you hear that?'

‘It's what Uncle Joey called Uncle Victor yesterday when he ate four cakes in one go in the bazaar.'

Lloyd struggled to keep a straight face. ‘There are some things uncles say that shouldn't be repeated to mothers, Harry.'