Miss Purdy's Class (31 page)

‘Wales. Brechfa . . .’ John spat the word out with loathing. ‘Christ, what a hellhole. Nothing there – not even a fucking pub for miles. Slavery, that’s what it is. Dawn till dusk they had us slaving with a pick and fucking shovel. And for what? I’ll have ’em for it one day – you’ll see. Last time I take anything off of anyone. I’m never going back down that Labour Exchange. I’m my own man from now on – no dole, no fucking nothing off of none of ’em . . .’

After a certain point every evening, Christie would say, ‘Joey – get to sleep now.’

And as if Christie was his father, Joey, usually tired by then, would settle on the floor and close his eyes while the adult voices murmured on around him and their shadows moved on the walls.

One night Joey woke to the sound of the front door shuddering open and low voices. There was only the barest glow from the fire and he could hear Micky’s laboured breathing across the room. Joey lay with his heart pounding. No one came in through the front! They had no way of locking the door but it was so swollen and stiff that it was hard to get open in any case. Whoever had come in was now struggling to shut it again. He heard a bang, followed by a giggle, and whispering outside the door. The tiles in the hall clattered and he heard, ‘Ssssh, you’re enough to wake the dead so ye are!’ in a fierce whisper.

Joey sat up. Inside him a struggle was going on. He should just lie down. He didn’t want to know who it was or what was going on. He knew already though, really, that it was Siobhan. She’d been on the booze earlier, had been carrying on, loudly and nastily and Christie had begged her not to leave the house. ‘Don’t do it!’ he’d pleaded, trying to restrain her. ‘Oh God, Siobhan, don’t do this to yourself!’ Joey knew all right. Like going home. Like Mom. Yet he was drawn up and out of bed and couldn’t stop himself, as if he was being pulled by a magnet like the one Miss Purdy showed them at school. He thought no one else was awake.

Barefoot, he felt his way across the room and took the door handle in both hands, hearing the rusty rasp of the catch turning. The door squeaked open. He heard someone stir behind him.

‘Siobhan?’ Christie’s voice was thick with sleep. ‘Is that you?’

Without answering, Joey slipped out, closing the door out of habit. It shut with a loud click.

The floor was rough and cold against his feet. He felt his way along the knobbly wallpaper in the hall. Already he could hear sounds he recognized. They drew him, numbed, chill inside, along the hall. He clenched his jaws tightly together in the darkness, barely even feeling the sharp edge of a tile cutting into his foot. They couldn’t hear him coming over their own noise. Joey stood at the door of the scullery, forcing himself to listen to the woman’s mewling sounds, the man’s grunting.

A light appeared behind him. There was a rattle of the tiles. Joey stood holding tightly to the doorframe, aware that someone was beside him, and then the candlelight fell on the pair coupling up against the sink, Siobhan’s legs spread each side of the man, her head back against the wall, long hair hanging.

Joey didn’t notice Christie moving. He seemed to be upon them in an instant, without a word, banging the candle on the shelf next to the sink, locking his arm round the man’s neck and yanking him off. Joey caught a glimpse of a bullish, drunken face.

‘What the fuck . . .?’ Three slurred words before Christie punched him with all his force in the face.

‘You filthy bastard!’ Christie hurled a blow into the great belly. ‘You stinking scum – get your hands off my sister!’ He delivered another body blow, then another to the head until the man sank with a groan onto his back, flies gaping.

Dazed, Siobhan lowered herself off the edge of the sink.

‘Christie . . . oh, for the love of God, what’ve you done?’ She was wailing, swaying. Joey could see she was very drunk, her eyelids drooping, voice thick and slurred. ‘Why d’you have to come interfering? Why can’t you just leave me be?’ She sagged to the floor, sobbing. ‘He was giving me a baby. They killed my baby, my little baby . . .’ She folded her arms tight to her and rocked back and forth, weeping in agony. ‘Oh God, Christie, why did I let them do it? His little soul’s hovering round me, in torment . . . I’m a murderer . . . and I can never make him rest . . . I want his soul to be at rest . . . I want to die, Christie . . . just let me die . . .’

Christie sank to his knees, gathering her into his arms. ‘Oh God, Shiv . . . Oh Lord Christ, don’t do this . . .’

Siobhan was crying, but it was the sound of Christie’s distraught sobs that drove Joey back, away from them. He flung himself out through the back door, slamming it with every ounce of strength he had in him. The sharp stones on the path bit into his feet as he stormed along, and he didn’t care, welcomed the feeling, the hurt. He wanted to do it to himself, for it to hurt more and more. Stamping his feet down, yelping, his body started jerking and he couldn’t work out for a moment what was happening to him as his sobs began to release themselves. He limped out through the gate into the street, barely able to see because of the darkness and his tears. He stumbled along the middle of the road with no thought to where he was going or where he would end up. The very air he breathed hurt him. He was lost in it, blind to anything round him.

He didn’t know how long the voice had been calling to him. Only when it came close and he heard running feet, did it penetrate through to him.

‘Joey, Joey – where’re you off to?’

And he was lifted up into Christie’s strong arms and held close and tight.

‘There now, little fellow . . . It’s all right now.’ Christie’s hand stroked his thin back, cradling, soothing him. Joey let out a wail from the depths of himself and for the first time in the years he could remember he cried in someone’s arms until he could cry no more.

Twenty-Seven

‘Comrades, we know Mosley’s thugs are attacking Jews in the East End – attacking innocent working men like ourselves!’

Daniel stood on the platform at the front of the dingy hall, his sleeves rolled up. Behind him was a huge red banner with a black hammer and sickle blazing in the middle.

‘We’ve seen the fascists holding their rallies – even lording it in the Albert Hall! We’ve seen Oswald Mosley in our own city, in the Bull Ring, spreading his poison to infect the minds of those who know no better . . . But we’ve also seen our people silence their foul fascist rhetoric in Tonypandy last week. What was Mosley’s slogan? “Blackshirt Policy Alone Can Save the Coalfields”? And what did our members do? Drowned them out by singing the “Red Flag”, that’s what!’

There was a brief outbreak of clapping and cheering. As Daniel spoke, he paced back and forth, emphasizing phrases with a clenched fist. His speech was reaching its climax.

‘The fascists are capitalists to the core. If anyone knows that, it is the people of my home, the miners of the South Wales valleys! I’ve seen it, brothers, and I’ve seen the way we fight it, by the protest of working men. By our dignity and our passion in the struggle!’

Gwen looked round at the people close to her. They were all listening intently. A young man sat along the row from her, his eyes fixed on Daniel, bright with passion.

‘Capitalist oppression and despair is bleeding its way across Europe and it is we – us! – you and me, brothers, whose glorious duty it is to stem the tide of this oppression. We’ve fought against it – we all know that. We’ve broken up their meetings and rallies. We’ve stopped them using our halls and meeting places.’

Daniel leaned towards the audience and wagged his finger. ‘Oh yes – make no mistake. The capitalists, the police and the fascists are all hand in glove in the valleys, while they destroy our unions and throw anyone who gainsays them in jail to rot! They victimize our workers and slash our wages to starvation levels. But we shall not be beaten! We shall fight it! We shall come together in unity in the struggle. And together, through the strength and solidarity of our party, we’ll see a new dawn for our people. We
shall
bring about the revolution!’

Daniel finished with one hand clenched high in the air. The room erupted into clapping and cheering and most of the audience got to their feet. Daniel stood, looking solemn, dignified, nodding in acknowledgement.

Gwen jumped up as well, full of pride. And soon this meeting would be over and she could be alone with him and in his arms! Looking across the hall, she caught sight of Esther Lane standing at the end of the front row and this dented her happiness. Esther was wearing an extraordinary green dress and leading the ovation to Daniel, clapping her hands high in the air. Gwen had noticed that, over the past weeks while she had been going to meetings with Daniel, Esther was almost always there, no matter in what part of the city the meeting was held. Every time she saw Esther she felt a pang of panic, of jealousy. It was so clear that Esther was infatuated with Daniel, and she was such a handsome, stormy-looking woman, strong and passionate like him, and so committed to the party. How could he not be interested in Esther? Daniel always denied it, though, and spoke of Esther with a kind of amused detachment.

‘Esther’s all right. She’s a good party worker – one of the best.’ He didn’t seem to think of her in any other terms, but Gwen was never comfortable when Esther was around. All she knew was that she wanted to learn to share Daniel’s passion, that same commitment to the party. Nothing else now seemed to matter except this life – and Daniel.

Gwen waited patiently, as she always did at these meetings, for Daniel to deal with all the people who wanted to speak to him. She exchanged a few words with people she knew, then sat quietly at the side of the hall with her bag and watched. Though trying not to think about it, she was conscious all the time of where Esther was in the room. The vivid green dress stood out among all the drab clothes of the men as she worked her way over to Daniel. Gwen saw them laughing together.

He may be laughing with you
, she thought,
but he’s coming home with me.

She looked down into her lap, at the skirt of her pretty blue frock.
I’m jealous
, she realized. She’d never been jealous before. Never with Edwin. It was a bitter, fearful emotion, which shamed her. She looked up again to see Esther lean forward to say something, then languidly kiss Daniel on the cheek. The sight filled Gwen with outrage. Who did Esther think she was? But Daniel was already trying to move away and, as he did so, his eyes met Gwen’s. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement that she was waiting.

‘I’m going to be off now,’ she heard him say. He strode towards her and she got up to meet him . . . ‘Sorry about all that. The comrades always have a lot they want to say. Did you meet some of them?’

They went out into the street and Daniel immediately put his arm round her shoulder. At last, they could be close, she thought. But his mind was still very much on the meeting.

‘I could feel them tonight – feel the energy,’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s not always like that. We recruited two new members as well.’

‘That’s marvellous,’ Gwen enthused. She had yet to join the party herself, and Daniel was working on her. She knew she would, soon, and wasn’t sure exactly why she was hesitating. It was something to do with the shift in her life, stepping over a line away from the past. Joining the party seemed to be a symbol of that.

Daniel talked excitedly as they walked across town in the mild evening. His body felt taut and almost explosive with energy beside her. They were the only ones waiting at the tram stop. Daniel gave his habitual look around to see if he was being followed. Then he turned and took her in his arms, but she was still sore over Esther.

‘Why does she kiss you?’

‘Esther? Oh,’ he said dismissively, ‘she’s just one of those people who carry on like that. Doesn’t mean anything – forget it.’ Hs gaze was burning into her. ‘You’re so damn lovely.’

At the feel of his hands on her back, his lips on hers, desire coursed through her. For these past few weeks she and Daniel had spent so much time together – at meetings and afterwards, talking, kissing in the dark. Every time they met felt more charged and when they were apart she struggled to think about anything except him and being with him again.

They sat close together on the tram out to Hands-worth. At the end of May Gwen had moved out of the Soho Road house, parting with a genuinely tearful Ariadne, and had moved into the room she was renting from Millie and Lance in Broughton Road. Daniel stayed on beyond his own stop to see her home. As soon as they’d turned into the road with its big, respectable villas, Daniel stopped her again, kissing her hard and hungrily.

He drew back suddenly, his expression taut. ‘God, girl – I want to have you.’

She stared at him, longing and frightened at once.

‘I’ve never . . . I was brought up to believe it was wrong . . . You know – if you’re not married.’

Daniel stroked her back. ‘I know. We all were. Church and all that. And bourgeois morality. Anything they could do to control the passions in us.’ He looked down at her intensely. ‘But we can be as free with our bodies as we can with our minds. Truly free. You needn’t . . . You know – there needn’t be a child from it. I’ve got something to stop it.’

Gwen felt herself blush all over at the intimacy of what he was saying. She had only the haziest notion of what he was talking about.

‘I do love you . . .’ she faltered.

Daniel ran his hands down her sides, then pressed her close to him so that she could not mistake how much he wanted her. He reached round and pulled the bow undone so her hair fell in waves round her cheeks.

‘Don’t make me wait any longer.’

She looked up at him. ‘How can we? Where can we go?’

‘The park? It’s not far.’

She thought about the dark park gates, the damp grass. It didn’t seem right.

Daniel sensed her hesitation.

‘What about your room? You said it was at the back.’

Her heart beat faster. How awful, sneaking a man into Millie and Lance’s! But she knew she would – she had to. For all her misgivings she ached to lie with Daniel.