Beggars and Choosers (43 page)

‘It's not the chapel.'

‘What then?'

‘It's not easy to explain.'

‘Try.'

‘I'm not even sure I can explain it to myself, Lloyd. I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love another human being. You and Harry mean everything to me. And being accepted as your wife by your family is a wonderful bonus, but it's not just us, there's my father. I'm not even sure whether I believe in an afterlife or not, but I can't bear the thought of him looking down on me from somewhere and disapproving of what I've become. And there's my brothers and sister. I don't want them to be ashamed of me or think I've committed bigamy. But most of all, there's Owen and Uncle Morgan.'

‘For pity's sake, surely you don't give a damn what they think after what they did to you?'

‘I would hate for them to be able to say that they were right about me being a whore.'

‘I'll give you a month. One month, no more,' he said sternly.

‘And then what?'

‘I'll announce to the world that we're married and you'll just damn well have to go along with it.'

‘Or leave Tonypandy.'

For the first time in two weeks Lloyd and Sali went to bed in separate bedrooms, but Sali couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned to the accompaniment of Joey and Victor whispering in the attic above her. Long after they fell silent, she heard Mr Evans walk upstairs from the kitchen where they had left him reading. When she couldn't lie still a moment longer, she reached for the candle and box of matches on her bedside table. Slipping out from between the sheets she went to the door that connected the back of the house with the front, opened it as quietly as she could and lifted the latch on the single bedroom. She crept in and stole over to the narrow bed.

‘Sali?'

‘I couldn't sleep.'

Lloyd folded back the bedclothes so she could climb in. ‘Neither could I.'

She lay alongside him. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘We'll think of something.'

As he pulled her close to him, he didn't tell her that he had already decided on a course of action. He knew if he did, she would only worry and try to dissuade him from carrying it out. But now that he had made up his mind, he was determined to find Owen Bull and demand he divorce Sali. Because if that was the only way Sali would live openly with him as his wife, then that was the way it was going to have to be.

‘No one can keep a family on one shilling and ninepence a ton for mined lump coal. Not when a miner's gang can spend half a week shifting muck just to get at the coal in the first place,' Billy Evans said angrily. ‘It's scandalous. The Ely miners have every right to strike and Nantgwyn and Pandy are entitled to come out in sympathy with them.'

‘I still think they should have given management notice that they were about to strike, if only for the sake of the horses,' Victor interposed.

‘And that is why we are holding a strike ballot. You can vote whichever way you want,' Billy eyed all three of his sons, ‘but you know what I think.'

‘I never thought I'd see the day when we'd go against Mabon.' Joey spooned an extra helping of potato on to his plate.

‘He's lost his nerve and forgotten where he's come from,' his father said. ‘We have no choice but to back the Ely miners to the hilt. You can bet your last penny that if their management succeed in cutting their wages below the breadline now, our management will be doing it to us tomorrow.'

‘Of course they will,' Lloyd said quietly. ‘That's why it's so important we show a united front.' He pushed his plate aside. ‘I'm late.'

‘You've a union meeting again, tonight?' Sali questioned, wondering why he hadn't mentioned it until he'd bolted his dinner and was heading out through the door.

She knew the situation in the pit was serious and she admired him and his father for the stance they were taking, but even so, he had been unusually quiet and abstracted during the weeks since their return. He had spent every Friday and Saturday night in ‘special' union meetings his father didn't attend. He hadn't brought up the subject of them living openly together as man and wife once and she found his silence on the subject even more worrying than his constant arguments.

‘Can't be helped.' Lloyd hated lying to Sali. ‘If I'm going to get the quarter to four train, I'd best be off.'

Joey counted the jam-filled French pancakes on the plate Sali had set in front of his father. ‘Twelve,' he announced, ‘and as Sali and Harry only ever eat one each and Dad two, that leaves four each for us, Victor.'

‘Three.' Sali scooped two of the pancakes on to another plate. ‘I'll keep them in the pantry for Lloyd.' She gave Joey and Victor her most severe look. ‘And don't either of you two dare touch them.'

‘As if we would,' Joey smiled innocently.

Billy closed the kitchen door behind him and followed Lloyd into the hall. ‘Would you like me to go to this meeting with you?'

‘No. And there's no guarantee it's going to be any more successful than the last few.'

‘If it is, be careful,' Billy warned earnestly, ‘and not just for your own sake.'

‘I will.' Lloyd slipped on his coat, set his trilby on his head, wound his muffler around his neck and picked up his leather gloves.

‘If you call into the County Club on the way back, I'll buy you a pint.' His father opened the front door for him.

‘I'll try to get back before ten, but don't worry if I'm late. I can take care of myself.'

‘I sincerely hope you're right,' Billy muttered under his breath as he watched him walk away.

Lloyd made his way directly to Connie's. He was about to break his promise to Sali that he would never see Connie alone again, but he'd had an idea earlier that day. One he hoped would finally put an end to his weekend ‘meetings'. Uncertain of the reception he'd receive, he pushed open the shop door and went to the counter where Annie and three young boys were serving a small queue of customers.

Annie muttered, ‘Excuse me, for just a moment,' to the woman she was serving and called out, ‘Can I help you, Lloyd?'

Lloyd had expected hostility, but was taken aback by the venom in Annie's voice. ‘I need to see Connie on family business. It's urgent.'

‘Privately?' she barked.

‘It would be best,' he replied, conscious that everyone in the shop had fallen silent.

Annie opened the door that led to the office and stockrooms and returned almost immediately. She opened the counter. ‘Mrs Rodney will see you.' When they were alone in the passage, she pushed her face very close to his. ‘If you're thinking of asking Connie to go back to you, don't,' she advised sharply. ‘She doesn't need you. She's happier without you than she ever was with you. And I intend to see it remains that way. All you've ever brought her is misery.'

‘I only want information, Annie. One minute of Connie's time, that's all.'

‘You expect me to believe you?'

‘It's the truth,' he assured her.

She hesitated and then moved aside. He went to the office door and knocked.

‘Come in.' Connie was sitting in the chair behind the desk, cool, composed and fashionably and elegantly dressed as usual, in an embroidered russet, lambswool gown. ‘Lloyd, this is a surprise.' She saw Annie hovering in the open doorway. ‘Is there anything else, Annie?'

‘No,' Annie conceded mutinously.

‘Then would you mind returning to the shop? The boys' service tends to be sloppy if they know no one is watching them.'

Lloyd removed his hat and closed the door.

‘What can I do for you?' Connie appeared indifferent to his presence but Lloyd knew better. She was toying nervously with a pencil, running her fingers along the length of it, from one end to the other.

‘Do you remember the last night we talked?'

‘I doubt I could forget it,' she answered dryly.

‘You said you'd spoken to people in Pontypridd about Sali and her husband. You mentioned he was living in a pub. Can you remember the name of the place?'

She stared at him. ‘You are going to look for him?'

‘Can you remember the name of the pub?' he reiterated.

‘The Horse and Groom. It's at the bottom of the Graig Hill. Handy for the railway station but I wouldn't venture far up the hill if I were you. The miners who live on the Graig are rumoured to be a particularly rough breed.'

‘Thank you, Connie.' He replaced his hat.

‘You aren't going to kill him, are you, Lloyd?'

‘That's not my intention,' he replied evenly.

‘You really love her, don't you?'

He turned back from the door to face her. ‘With all my heart and soul.'

‘In that case, for what it's worth, I wish you – and her – well.'

‘After the way we parted, that's worth a great deal, Connie. Thank you.'

‘Send Annie in on your way out.' She set the pencil on the desk and picked up a pen.

Lloyd checked his pocket watch as he left the shop. If he was going to make the train to Pontypridd he was going to have to run to the station.

‘What did he want?' Annie's voice was full of contempt.

‘Just the name of a pub in Pontypridd.' Connie took a deep breath and faced Annie. ‘Seeing him again didn't hurt at all.'

‘Do you mean that?' Annie walked around the desk and crouched beside Connie's chair.

Connie struggled to formulate her thoughts. ‘But it does feel strange to know that I was deluding myself all those years. I really believed I loved him and now all of a sudden I discover I didn't. In a way that's even worse than losing him. It's having to face all that waste – of evenings, energy, passion – of realising that all the time I was clinging to something completely worthless, we could have been together.' She framed Annie's face with her hands and looked deep into her green eyes. ‘I love you.'

‘And I love you,' Annie cried in relief. ‘More than I can ever prove.'

Connie kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Nothing and no one will ever come between us again, Annie. I swear to you. Nothing.'

Lloyd opened the carriage door and stepped down on to Pontypridd station. Checking his cigarette supplies, he called over one of the platform boys and bought a packet of Golden Dawn and a box of matches, before showing his ticket to the collector and running down the steps into station yard. Shaking his head at the cab drivers touting for trade, he left the station behind him and strode on to the Tumble. The square was heaving with people, brakes, wagonettes and the sleekly built carriages of the crache. Elegantly dressed women in fashionable, feather-trimmed picture hats and long woollen coats walked alongside colliers' wives sporting their husbands' flat caps and carrying their babies Welsh fashion, in large checked woollen shawls, tightly wrapped around both of them to leave one hand free to carry their shopping.

Children ran in and out of the traffic, playing chase and hide and seek, and colliers on early shift who had already washed and changed into their suits, caps and bowlers, were filing into the White Hart, Clarence, Criterion and Victoria pubs that lined the square.

Lloyd pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and checked the time. It wasn't yet five o'clock. Succumbing to impulse, he jumped on a tram that was heading down Taff Street. He hadn't intended to call on Mr Richards and wasn't sure what he would say to the solicitor if he agreed to see him. But Sali would be grateful for any news of her family, almost as grateful as Mrs James and Mr Richards would be for news of her and Harry.

‘Mr Evans, this is a surprise.' Mr Richards left his chair as his clerk showed Lloyd into his private office. ‘You did get that cheque I sent you?'

‘Weeks ago, thank you, Mr Richards.'

‘Please sit down.'

Lloyd shook the solicitor's hand and sat in the chair in front of his desk.

‘I hope you invested the money wisely. It was quite a considerable sum.'

‘I bought half a street of tenanted houses in Tonypandy,' Lloyd revealed.

‘That will provide you with a good steady income.' Mr Richards nodded approvingly.

‘My father has always invested in property. He bought his first houses with a view to providing my brothers and me with our own homes when we married but he now has enough properties to give him a pension when he retires.'

‘How are Mrs Bull and the boy?' Mr Richards enquired keenly.

‘They are well.'

‘You told her you were coming here today to see me?'

‘No, Mr Richards, I didn't.' Lloyd shifted uneasily in his chair, unable to meet the man's eyes.

‘I sense that something isn't quite right. If she needs anything, anything at all. Money ...'

‘No, it's not that, Mr Richards. I came ... to be truthful I came here on impulse.'

‘From Tonypandy to Pontypridd on impulse? I never took you to be an impetuous man, Mr Evans.'

‘The impulse landed me here, my reason for coming to Pontypridd was more considered. I am concerned about Sali because she is still terrified of her husband.'

‘With good reason, Mr Evans. Are you aware that he has been looking for her?'

‘No, but surely he wouldn't expect her and the boy to return to him? Not after all this time.'

‘That is precisely what he does expect, Mr Evans.' Mr Richards reached into one of his desk drawers and produced a yellowed copy of the
Pontypridd Observer.
He opened it out, folded back the centre section and pointed to an article.

Lloyd read it.

Owen Bull
...
Christmas Eve
...
drunk and disorderly
...
disturbing the peace
...
looking for his wife and son.

‘I heard that Sali's husband had lost everything he owned. Yet here it says that his solicitor agreed to pay fifty pounds in fines.'