Beggars and Choosers (39 page)

‘And I think some uncles need to learn there are things that shouldn't be said in front of children,' Sali countered, glaring at Joey as he walked into the kitchen.

‘A cart! Father Christmas brought me the cart! He knew I wanted it –'

‘Yes, darling.' Sali scooped Harry up and sat him on her lap. They were sitting in the parlour opening presents and listening to the strains of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing' being played by the Salvation Army band stationed on the corner of the street.

‘He left another parcel for you, Harry.' Joey handed him the paper, crayons and pencils that Lloyd had bought.

‘Let him enjoy the cart before he starts on that and the stocking. Another sherry, Sali? No need to ask if you want more beer, Joey. Refill everyone's glasses before you see to yourself.' Mr Evans sat in the chair next to the fire and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the grate. No one had mentioned the pullovers since Lloyd that morning, but Sali thought it significant that all four men were wearing them. Even Mr Evans had accepted the stocking she had filled for him and the tin of sweets she had made, and she had been overwhelmed by the jewellery casket and watch they had given her and even more touched when a casual remark of Joey's brought the realisation that no one other than Lloyd knew that they had once been hers.

Joey prised open his tin and kissed Sali's cheek. ‘You little angel.'

‘You are not to eat one of those until after dinner,' his father warned.

‘You sound just like Mam,' Joey retorted without thinking.

‘Just doing what she'd want me to if she were here,' Billy said evenly. ‘That's Connie, Annie and Antonia.' He left his chair as the front door opened.

‘I'll get the dinner on the table.'

‘Need any help?' Lloyd asked Sali.

‘She'll get all the help she needs from us, Lloyd.' Connie walked in, bringing a cold draught of air with her. ‘Thank you, Uncle Billy.' She handed him her cape, hat and gloves.

‘You brought half the shop with you,' he grumbled playfully, as she set an armful of packages on the sofa where Sali had been sitting.

‘Only what I couldn't sell,' she rejoined in the same mocking vein and Sali wondered if she'd ever feel at ease enough with Mr Evans to treat him in such a cavalier fashion. ‘Tonia?' she called to her daughter, who came in from the hall with Annie.

Antonia was not as tall as Annie, but even at fifteen was more shapely, and although Sali had never met Connie's estranged husband, the resemblance between mother and daughter was so striking she suspected that Mr George hadn't bequeathed many of his features to his offspring.

‘Tonia, arrange the chocolates and candied fruits we've brought on the sideboard and,' Connie frowned at Joey, ‘stay away from your second cousin once removed while you do it.'

‘Why doesn't anyone trust me?' Joey complained.

‘We do.' Annie had already divested herself of her coat and was tying on an apron. ‘We just don't trust you around young girls.'

‘Victor, Uncle Billy, Lloyd, look after Tonia and keep Joey under control,' Connie ordered, before picking up two bags that Annie had left in the hall. ‘Shall we take that bottle of sherry and make a start in the kitchen, Sali?'

Connie complimented Sali on everything; the immaculate state of the kitchen, the table centre she had made from four red candles and a wreath she had woven from ivy, holly and pinecones, the saucepans full of prepared vegetables, the apple sauce, the goose, the chickens ... But no matter how hard Sali tried to accept Connie's praise and enjoy the camaraderie of working with her and Annie to produce a good dinner, she couldn't help feeling that something wasn't quite right between her and the woman who had hired her.

‘I'll call the men, shall I?' Annie asked, when the meal was ten minutes away from perfection and Connie had set the last bowl of clear gravy soup on the table.

‘Please,' Connie and Sali answered together.

‘I am sorry, Sali. I keep forgetting that this is now your kitchen,' Connie apologised, in a tone that suggested it was anything but.

‘I am only the housekeeper.' Sali knew and felt her lack of status keenly, but she resented the fact that Connie had found half a dozen occasions to remind her that she was merely a servant in the last half hour.

‘But a very well thought of housekeeper and employee.' Connie emphasised the last word. ‘Gentlemen,' she smiled, as they filed into the kitchen, ‘as you see, we've extended the table. Tonia, you sit between Uncle Billy and Victor. Annie, you sit between Uncle Billy and Lloyd. And I'll sit between you and Sali, Lloyd. That way Harry can sit next to his mother.'

‘And where am I to sit?' Joey demanded plaintively. ‘The coal cwtch or the
ty bach?'

‘Either will do, Joey,' Connie answered. ‘But before you go, make sure everyone has a full glass.'

While everyone laughed, Sali intercepted a look between Lloyd and Connie. Lloyd was angry, she was certain of it, and Connie defiant. As Connie sat down she laid her hand on Lloyd's arm and he shook it off. Suddenly Sali knew exactly why Connie was behaving so strangely towards her. Somehow she had discovered that she and Lloyd had become lovers and she was jealous.

‘Today went better than I thought it would,' Mr Evans acknowledged when Lloyd left the kitchen to collect coats for Connie, Annie and Antonia from the hall.

‘It's been a good eating and drinking day.' Joey cut himself a last slice of cold chicken before Sali cleared it away.

‘It won't be if you eat any more,' his father warned. ‘You'll burst.'

‘Victor will burst before me. You going to the County Club?'

‘No. I promised Father Kelly that I'd call in and sample the whisky his brother has sent him from Ireland. Goodnight, Connie, Annie, Antonia.' He kissed each of them and then, to Connie and Sali's amazement, kissed Sali. ‘You look about done in, girl, not that it's surprising considering all the extra work you've been doing the past couple of weeks. Don't wait up for us.'

‘I won't.'

‘We could stay and do the dishes,' Connie offered.

‘No, please, it won't take me five minutes.' Sali was polite but firm.

Joey looked to Victor. ‘Fancy a quick one down the Pandy?'

‘I'm off to Megan's for supper.'

‘Any chance of me being made welcome?'

‘Not by me.' What Victor hadn't told anyone and Megan hadn't told Sali, was that Megan's uncle and his brothers had made arrangements to visit the Pandy on Christmas evening, and Megan was hoping to get the children to bed early so they could have an hour or two of rare privacy.

‘Well, I need a breath of fresh air after all that food.'

‘Fresh air, not more beer, Joey?' Lloyd enquired archly, returning with an armful of coats and hats.

‘I'll see the girls home,' Joey offered.

‘It's all right, I could do with a breath of fresh air too. Real fresh air, so you can escape into the Pandy on the way.' Lloyd helped Annie on with her coat.

‘Shall I cut supper sandwiches?' Sali asked.

‘If anyone can eat any more after what they've put away today, they have worms.' Mr Evans slipped his pipe into his jacket pocket and went to the door. ‘Goodnight everyone, and don't forget what I said about an early night, Sali.'

‘Goodnight, Sali, thank you for the dinner.' Connie kissed Sali's cheek.

‘Thank you for your help.' Sali found it easier to return Annie and Antonia's hugs than Connie's embrace.

The house fell blissfully silent after everyone left. Relishing the peace, Sali cleared her mind of all coherent thought and washed the dishes, tidied the kitchen and despite Mr Evans's injunction, cut a pile of pork and chicken sandwiches. Wrapping them in scalded clothes, she set them between plates in the pantry.

She swept the hearth, placed an unnecessary guard in front of the fire that had burnt too low to be a risk in the parlour and finally climbed the stairs. Harry was curled on his side around Mr Bear, the horse and cart, tin whistle, paper, crayons and pencils. The bar of chocolate lay on his pillow and Sali moved it on to a chair lest he roll on it during the night.

She washed, changed into her nightdress and slipped between the freezing cold sheets, but sleep eluded her. She preferred to lie back and watch her breath cloud the shadows in the icy room, because every time she closed her eyes, Connie's beautiful face and elegantly dressed figure filled her mind. And now that she knew with a devastating certainty that the warmth of Connie's smile and the love in her eyes were reserved for Lloyd, she felt her heart would break.

Just as she had begun to believe that she could be happy again, the future had been snatched from her. She failed to see how any man presented with a choice between her and her drab clothes and scarred body and the elegantly presented, witty, confident Connie, could fail to choose the latter.

Not that Lloyd even had to make a choice. Mansel had protested that he loved her just as Lloyd had done, but that hadn't prevented him from making love to other women. And for all of Lloyd's assurances that he wanted to live with her for the rest of his life, why should he settle for just her, when Connie was clearly prepared to offer him so much more?

‘I'll take a quick look at the Christmas Eve trading figures before I leave, Connie,' Lloyd informed her when they entered her house.

It was the first time Lloyd had told Connie that he was going to look at her books, without first asking her permission and the significance wasn't lost on her. ‘Go on into the office. I'll be with you in a minute.' Refusing to meet Annie's disapproving eye, Connie ran up the stairs ahead of her and Antonia and went into her bedroom. Closing the door, she unpinned her hair and brushed it out.

‘Mam?' Antonia knocked and walked in.

‘It's late, Tonia, you should be in bed.'

‘Why don't you want me to be friends with Joey?' Antonia asked plaintively, sitting on the bed. ‘Everyone makes jokes about him being a bit of a Don Juan when it comes to girls, but you are serious about not wanting me to see him, aren't you?'

‘When you are older you will discover that some men are best avoided,' Connie snapped cryptically, ‘and cousin Joseph is one of them.'

‘He's funny and good-looking –'

‘And an out-and-out womaniser, just like your father. Surely even you have heard that he has a girl in every street in Tonypandy and two in the longer ones. Now, go to bed.'

Her mother rarely shouted at her, but when she did, Antonia knew it was time to retreat. Connie heard her slam her bedroom door, but was too preoccupied by thoughts of Lloyd to consider Antonia's feelings.

She unbuttoned the jacket of the green wool bespoke suit she was wearing and hung it away. The skirt she folded over a chair. She gazed at herself in the mirror for a moment and decided that if she removed her petticoats it would make her intention to seduce Lloyd too obvious. Besides, given his ridiculous insistence that it was over between them, she shouldn't fling herself at him. Men liked uncertainty and the thrill of the chase and if, no, not if,
when
he declared his love for her – again – he would help her out of her underclothes just as he had done on so many occasions in the past.

She slipped on a dark blue silk wrapper trimmed with bands of hand-worked ecru lace, fluffed out her hair, pinched the skin over her cheekbones into a becoming flush and puffed vanilla-scented powder on her nose and above the V of her breasts. When she reached for the blue glass and silver scent bottle on her dressing table she caught sight of Annie watching her in the mirror.

‘It's not going to work, Connie.'

Moving slowly and deliberately, Connie unscrewed the top from the bottle, pulled out the rubber stopper and sprinkled French perfume over her neck, breasts and hands. Slipping her feet into a pair of heeled, backless Berlin-worked slippers she swept past Annie and out of the door.

Connie had expected to find Lloyd pacing restlessly around the office as he had done the night he had arrived to tell her that he wouldn't be seeing her privately again. She suppressed a small smile of triumph when she recollected that night. He had been so adamant that there could be nothing more between them and here he was, a couple of days later, alone and waiting for her to join him.

‘Sorry I kept you waiting, darling.' She closed the door and reached for the key to lock it.

‘There's no need to do that, Connie.'

‘Darling, you look cross.'

‘Possibly because I am.' There was restrained anger in his calm admission. She chose to ignore it.

‘I have a present for you.' She went to the desk, opened a drawer and extracted a small flat box. She held it out to him, but he didn't attempt to take it. ‘Aren't you going to open it?'

‘Not until you tell me why you went to such pains to conceal our relationship from my family for thirteen years, only to flirt outrageously with me in front of them two days after I tell you that it's over between us.'

‘I didn't –'

‘Like you didn't go out of your way to belittle Sali?' His eyes were cold.

‘Please, open your present,' she pleaded.

‘You first.' He removed a box from his pocket and laid it on to the desk.

‘How kind,' Connie prattled nervously, in a vain attempt to pretend that everything was fine between them. She picked up the box and opened the lid. ‘How pretty.' She lifted out a gold and blue enamelled lady's fob watch. ‘I must thank you properly for it.' She stepped towards him and he stepped back.

‘Open it, Connie.'

She pressed the button at the top and the front flew open. The face of the watch was embellished with a butterfly.

‘How lovely –'

‘Read the inscription, Connie.'

‘“A memory of yesterday's pleasures.”' The smile faded from her face.