Miss Purdy's Class (22 page)

She felt him take her arm and let him steer her through the edge of the crowd, which was thinning and dispersing now, along the surrounding streets. She was filled with a prickly awareness of his closeness.

‘Were you part of the protest?’ she asked.

Daniel nodded curtly. ‘Fat lot of notice anyone takes. Even that Labour woman, Van der Elst . . .’

‘Who
is
Mrs Van der Elst?’ Gwen asked. They reached a quieter part of the street and Daniel let go of her arm. The warmth of his grip faded from her skin.

‘Oh, she’s a toff who’s got ideas about standing for the Labour Party – round here first thing, she was, with her car and her furs on. Giving out leaflets.’

‘Against the hanging?’

‘Against
all
hanging. Barbarism, that’s what it is. They wouldn’t listen. If they won’t listen to someone like that, what chance does the ordinary working man have to be heard?’

‘Well, yes,’ Gwen agreed. ‘I suppose that’s how things are.’

‘Things are as they are because we let them stay like it!’ he exploded. Apparently she had just said the one thing that was a red rag to Daniel. ‘We make the world – every one of us – by choosing to act or not act on what we see. It doesn’t just happen. We’re not puppets!’

‘I wasn’t saying I thought things
should
be like that,’ Gwen flared, annoyed at being misunderstood, at always being seen as someone who didn’t know anything. ‘I just meant that’s how they
are
. Exactly like you just said – with no justice for the right people. I don’t believe they should have hanged that nurse. It was wrong and terrible.’

Daniel was walking fast, hands thrust into his pockets. It suddenly occurred to Gwen that she had never seen him without the plaster cast on before. He moved so fast she had to trot sometimes to keep up.

‘Your leg’s better,’ she remarked.

‘Oh yes,’ he said carelessly. ‘Sound as a bell. I can get a bit of work now here and there.’

‘I still don’t understand what it is you do,’ she said, as they turned into the end of Canal Street. ‘Are you some sort of roving speaker?’

‘I work for the party and the movement, like I told you. I work as much as I can, in between, but I go wherever I’m needed. They say I’m a good speaker. I rally people, see – not just in the valleys – here, and wherever the work takes me. But I don’t like to stay away from Mam for too long. Her life’s been hard.’

Gwen was puzzled. Theresa Fernandez had sounded hard, bitter even about Daniel’s activities. Yet here was he speaking about her with such care, tenderness even.

‘Has it?’ she said.

Daniel stopped. They were only yards from the school gates and he looked down into her eyes.

‘You’ve no idea, have you? What it’s like?’

‘No,’ she agreed quietly, ‘but I want to learn.’

The look on his face dizzied her. His brown eyes stared hard into hers, not teasing now, but examining, challenging. She held his gaze, feeling it go right through her. Then he looked away. There were children coming in groups along the road. Gwen caught a glimpse of Alice Wilson moving along in her dreamy way. Why did she feel responsible now for these people? Really they were nothing to do with her.

‘Sunday,’ Daniel said abruptly. ‘We could go up to the hills. If you want to, that is.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do.’

Eighteen

‘How old are you, then?’ Daniel asked as they sat squeezed close together on the tram. Daniel was seated to Gwen’s right.

She laughed, taken aback by his directness. He was in a jaunty mood. She had already seen that when he wasn’t talking about politics he could be full of cheek and banter.

‘Twenty-one last October. And you?’

‘I’m twenty-six.’ He grinned and lit a cigarette, eyes full of laughter. ‘An old man compared to you.’

‘Oh, ancient!’ Gwen agreed.

They were squeezed onto the tram seat. Gwen had been excited and nervous all at once about spending the day with him. She thought it might be very awkward, conscious as she was of the contrast in their backgrounds, how different her life had been from his. But now they were together she found they talked more easily than she had expected. And to be going anywhere with Daniel felt like embarking on an adventure, as if his very presence made life exciting.

They met at the tram stop where she usually got off for school. She arrived at the stop first, and saw him walking up the road towards her with his muscular stride, his jacket over his shoulder in the sunshine, looking quite leisurely and different from how she had ever seen him before.

‘Morning, Miss Purdy!’ He smiled mischievously.

She tutted, but returned the smile. ‘I’m never called Miss Purdy on Sundays. It’s the rule.’

‘Ah well – I like breaking rules, see. Gwen though, isn’t it?’

Of course Lucy would always call her Miss Purdy, she realized, so Daniel barely even knew her name!

‘I think I can let you call me Gwen,’ she said, with a mock primness that seemed to amuse him.

They had a brief discussion about where to go. Sutton Park would have been nearer, but Daniel was determined to find hills.

‘Let’s get up high somewhere – have a good walk. You can’t breathe, sometimes, walled up in this place.’

‘You’d like it where I come from,’ she told him as they waited for the tram. ‘It’s at the edge of town and then you get out and there are beautiful hills and views. And the Malverns not far away – it’s lovely.’

‘Nothing like it.’ Standing beside him, she could sense once again the power which seemed to emanate from him. He looked at the sky. ‘Don’t think this is going to last, though.’

It was sunny, but clouds were piling up ahead of them. Gwen was glad she had put on practical clothes – slacks and flat walking shoes. By the time they were halfway down the Bristol Road, rain was spattering against the tram windows.

‘Soon be over,’ Daniel said, twisting round to wipe the steamy window. ‘It’s bright over there.’

Gwen didn’t care two hoots whether it rained or not. They’d make the best of it, whatever. It was being here that mattered. Being with him. A wave of panic went through her when she realized how strong this feeling was, but she pushed it away. Now was what was important. These moments and the day ahead of them. She would not think of anything else.

Each of them had a coat lying on their lap – Gwen’s blue macintosh and Daniel’s old jacket. She looked down at them, at Daniel’s right hand resting on the faded black serge. His fingers were strong and slender. She could feel the warmth of his leg beside hers, the press of his shoulder and arm. It was strange, she thought, what an incongruous-looking pair they were. Yet it felt right. It felt as if there was nowhere else she wanted to be . . . She pulled her thoughts together. Daniel might become a friend, that was all, and to him she was . . . What was she? A bit of female company to while away a Sunday afternoon with? Perhaps someone he could educate with his political views?

She had thought they might find conversation difficult, but instead it flowed easily. Surrounded by other passengers, they talked softly. Before they had got off the tram Daniel asked about her family and she told him, with a frankness that took her by surprise, about her parents and brothers and about her mother’s horror at the idea of her coming to teach in Birmingham. Daniel laughed at her descriptions.

‘She doesn’t want you mixing with the riff-raff then, is it?’

‘Mummy’s never been anywhere very much all her life. She was born in Hereford, hardly left there until they moved to Worcester, when she married Daddy. She never even seems to
want
to go anywhere.’

Daniel watched her face. ‘But you do?’

‘Oh yes. I mean, I’ve never been anywhere much, either. Not even to London or anything. I’d like to go
everywhere
!’

Daniel smiled at her fervour.

‘You seem to have been to so many more places than me,’ she said. ‘Wales, and here and . . .’

‘London,’ Daniel added. The tram slammed to a halt suddenly, making them all lurch to one side. Gwen was thrown against Daniel for a second.

‘Steady!’ he grasped her forearm for a moment, then released it.

‘You’ve been to London?’ She was talking quickly to cover how much his touch affected her. ‘Of course – you were at the college there!’

Daniel nodded. ‘I was – a few years back, for a while. Last time I went was on foot. Two years ago. Marched from the valleys. You’ve heard of the Hunger Marches, surely you have?’

He looked at her quizzically. While her ignorance of political matters had seemed at first to aggravate him, now he seemed to find her other-worldliness amusing.

‘I have heard of them!’ she protested. ‘And you were on them?’

‘On that one, I was.’

‘So you were all marching because . . .’ She dredged her memory. ‘Because there was no work?’

‘No work for some. And the Unemployment Bill – Slave Bill we call it – that the government saw fit to pass to starve and bully the miners who’ve already had their jobs stolen from them by fascist bosses and blacklegs. But it brought the people together.’ His voice began to rise with excitement. ‘They’re turning to the party now. They can see that the only way to victory is for the working class to unite, to overthrow the tyrannies of capitalism and fascism!’

A pale, middle-aged man turned his head and stared at Daniel in disgust. ‘Why don’t you shurrup, you silly bugger? Carrying on as if you’re on a bleeding soapbox.’

For a split second Gwen thought Daniel was going to get up and punch the man, but instead he lowered his head, hands clenched into fists. She could feel the tension in him, his whole being seemed to throb with feeling beside her.

‘They’re all blind,’ he said, through his teeth. ‘Been duped, all of them. But they’ll see. One day they’ll all see.’

By the time the tram reached the terminus at Rednal, the sun was out again and the grass sparkled with raindrops. They climbed down and Daniel turned, with sudden gallantry, which took her by surprise, and took her hand. But then he said, ‘Right – let’s go!’ Seeming released, he set off at such a pace that Gwen had to run after him.

‘I can’t keep up, not this fast!’ she panted.

‘Sorry.’ He was relaxed again now and gave an easy grin, slowing his stride.

They climbed to the spot where they could look across the vista of the surrounding counties.

‘Home’s over there somewhere.’ Gwen pointed.

‘And mine’s over there . . .’ He turned further west.

‘Is Wales still home then?’

‘Oh yes. It is really. Even though Ma’s here. She wanted to be away and I don’t blame her. Not after everything she was put through there. But my heart’s in the valleys. That’s where my people are.’

As they began to walk the paths, between trees and bracken awakening from its winter brown, she asked Daniel to tell her about his home, hoping it would shed some light on him and on his mother’s past. She was intrigued by Theresa Fernandez, by the gentle, almost passive exterior, which seemed to conceal something steely underneath that she was at pains not to show.

He described Aberglyn, the narrow, sloping streets following the contours of the valley, the houses shoulder to shoulder and the colours of the hills behind as the seasons passed and as he spoke she could see what he was describing, how in childhood he woke often to the sound of men’s boots clumping along the morning streets when it was still dark, all moving quietly to the pit train, which took them to the colliery at the head of the valley, and how he knew that soon it would be his life also, like his father’s.

‘Except it hasn’t turned out like that.’ It was sunny again now, and they were walking along a shining sward of green. Gwen unbuttoned her cardigan.

‘But your father was Spanish – he didn’t grow up in the valleys.’

‘No – he started off in the steelworks. 1907 they were brought over – he was twenty. Came over on a ship to Cardiff and then they sent them to Dowlais . . .’

Gwen frowned. ‘But why did they come from Spain?’

‘Dowlais Iron Company owned one of the Spanish iron ore companies from some way back. So –’ his tone became hard – ‘true capitalists, they thought they could bring cheap Spanish labour into Wales and undercut wage rates, and that Spanish workers would toe the line . . . Our da worked there for a time. The heat in there – phew! It was terrible! So bad their clothes were smouldering. Had to throw buckets of water over each other. He left after a bit and went to Aberglyn down the pit, became a collier. That’s where he met Ma.’

They walked, staring at their feet, the worn path edged with sodden grass. To Gwen’s surprise, Daniel chuckled suddenly.

‘They made a street in Dowlais for the Spaniards – Alphonso Street. Da said it gave them the shock of their lives – a quiet Welsh town and suddenly there’s him and the others with their garlic, playing music on a Sunday and being Catholics with their strange ways and that. I s’pose they didn’t know what’d hit them to begin with! Course, there were Italians in the towns too – same with them really. Our da played the accordion – it was the one thing he brought over with him.’

‘Can you play it?’

‘No, I never got the hang of it. Our Paul’s the one – he can squeeze some tunes out of it when he puts his mind to it. He’s got the touch with it, and Ma likes to hear it.’

‘So . . .’ she asked hesitantly, ‘your father died young, didn’t he?’ Theresa had told her this, but she wanted to hear Daniel’s account of what had happened.

‘Dead at forty-three. Heart gave out. He was a strong man, you could see that to look at him. But he was working every spare moment for the federation, the movement, the action committees. Some weeks he hardly slept, barely ate. Ma was forever keeping on, but he wouldn’t listen. “What choice is there?” he’d say. “Our energy and determination is the only thing we have left.” Everyone came to him – knocked on the door with all their troubles. It was the big strike, did it, made him see what the bosses were capable of. Changed him. He was never the same after . . .’

Gwen was only dimly aware, as they walked on, of heavy grey clouds covering the sky again and in a few moments the rain started to come down, slanting across the side of the hill.