Moonlight and Ashes (23 page)

‘That’s fer the animals in the winter,’ Gus informed him, and again they moved on to what Danny was soon to discover were two enormous pigsties.

As the huge pink animals came snuffling up to them he watched in fascination, and was deeply impressed when Gus reached across the wall to scratch one of them on the nose. In a far corner, another one was lying on her side in the dust whilst what appeared to be dozens of tiny piglets squealed and suckled at her, climbing over one another in their haste to feed.

‘What do they eat?’ Danny asked.

Gus chuckled. ‘Just about anyfin’ that stands still fer long enough,’ he told him. ‘Every night Mrs Thomas lumps all the leftover food into a huge pan an’ boils it down to make swill fer ’em. Yer should see ’em go at it when she tips it into the trough. You’d fink they hadn’t been fed fer bleedin’ months. I reckon they’d eat till they burst if you’d let ’em. Still, at least we’re sure they’ll be nice an’ fat fer Christmas.’

‘I should be back home wi’ me mam by then,’ Danny said wistfully, trying desperately hard not to think of the fate mapped out for the unfortunate animals.

Gus opened his mouth to tell him he didn’t think there’d be much chance of that, but then closed it abruptly. Danny was down in the dumps enough already without him adding to his worries. He eventually managed to persuade Danny to move on, and took him to see the cows, which were lined up in the milking shed ready to be milked.

‘Mrs Thomas will be out in a minute to see to ’em,’ Gus informed him. ‘
Derwen Deg
supplies most o’ the village wiv milk, an’ wiv what’s left over Mrs Thomas makes her own butter an’ cheese in the dairy over there. It’s good stuff, I don’t mind tellin’ yer.’ He rubbed his stomach and Danny found himself smiling. Soho Gus was certainly a character, there was no denying that. Next they came to an enormous orchard.

‘These trees were bowed down wiv the weight of apples an’ pears not so long ago.’ Gus stared up at the leafless trees and remembered. ‘I’m bloody glad they’ve all bin picked now, I don’t mind tellin’ yer. Mrs Thomas had me out here every single day fillin’ baskets full o’ the bleedin’ things. Most of ’em are wrapped in paper an’ stored in the farmhouse cellar now to see us through the winter.’

Back at home, with the strict food rationing, fruit had been a rare treat for Danny. He would have been only too glad of the chance to go fruit-picking but he didn’t want to offend his newfound friend by telling him so, so he merely nodded. Next, Danny showed him the chicken-houses.

‘That’s another o’ me jobs,’ he complained. ‘Every mornin’ I ’ave to crawl inside ’em an’ collect all the eggs. I sometimes fink that’s why the Thomases decided to take a lad instead of a girl, so as I could help out wiv all the jobs around the farm. Most o’ the farmers hereabouts do the same fing. Perhaps it’s just as well Sinclair got bullied into takin’ you on. Otherwise yer might have found yerself on a farm like me, bein’ used as a bleedin’ labourer.’ Despite what he was saying, there was a huge grin spread all across his face so Danny guessed that it probably wasn’t as bad here as Gus was making out. They walked on until they came to a large duckpond and there they sank down onto the damp grass.

For a while, a silence settled between them as they watched the ducks swimming around, and then Danny asked, ‘Do you miss your mam an’ dad, Gus?’

Gus shrugged. He could have told his friend that living here was like living in heaven compared to where he’d come from, but was too proud to do so. Instead he reluctantly admitted, ‘I miss me mam sometimes, but I never knew me dad. He pissed off when I was just a baby.’

‘Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?’

‘I do, but they’re both much older than me an’ they left ’ome years ago. I don’t rightly fink me mam even knows where they are now. Mind you, she don’t know where she is ’erself half the time. She’s usually too pissed.’

Danny’s eyes grew sympathetic. It didn’t sound as if Gus had been too happy at home, one way or another, but before he could comment on it, the other boy suddenly leaped up, anxious to change the topic of conversation.

‘Right then. That’s yer guided tour just about over fer now. What do yer wanna do next?’

Not knowing the district, Danny had absolutely no idea what to suggest. ‘You think of something,’ he urged Gus.

Scratching his head again, Gus stared thoughtfully off into the distance. ‘We’ll go for a walk up into the hills.’Ow do yer fancy that? There’s a crackin’ good view from the top o’ that one there, though I’ll warn yer, yer’ll know you’ve climbed it by the time yer get to the top.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Danny agreed equably and so they set off to explore.

The view from the top of the hill, when they finally reached it, was every bit as good as Gus had promised it would be, and Danny was open-mouthed as he looked around him.

‘You could think yer were on the top o’ the world here,’ he said in awe, for never in his life had he known that such wide-open spaces existed. To one side of them the sea stretched away into the distance, and on the other side lay the village nestled deep in the valley below, surrounded by mountains. It was a sight that Danny would never forget.

Far out at sea they could just see a huge ship on the horizon.

‘I bet that’s a warship headin’ fer somewhere,’ Gus muttered. ‘It’s too big to be a fishin’ boat, that’s a fact. An’ that’s something else we can do another day, come to think of it. I’ll take yer down to the harbour so yer can see the fishin’ boats. I dare say Lizzie might like to see ’em too.’ He kept his face turned away from his friend so that he wouldn’t see the flush that had risen in his cheeks at the mention of her name.

‘Not half she wouldn’t,’ Danny told him enthusiastically. ‘Trouble is, we start at the village school tomorrow an’ it will be dark by the time we’ve got home an’ had our teas.’

‘So, we’ll plan it fer next Saturday then, shall we?’

Again Danny nodded, before reluctantly following his friend back down the way they’d come. By then it was time to part and make their separate ways home for their dinner.

‘See yer later,’ Gus called cheerily across his shoulder, and feeling somewhat brighter than he had earlier in the day, Danny turned towards the path that would lead him to
Tremarfon
.

Once again Eric surprised him with a delicious meal. Today he’d cooked roast pork, and at first Danny’s stomach revolted as he thought about the fat pink pigs he had seen shuffling about in their sty. Back at home, meat had simply been something that you found in a butcher’s shop window, and he had never really given much thought as to where it actually came from. But then hunger took over, and with the help of Samson, to whom he managed to slip bits under the table when Eric wasn’t looking, he cleared his plate. An enormous apple pie followed the main course.

‘Did you cook this too?’ Danny asked admiringly as he shovelled it into his mouth.

‘No, I didn’t, actually,’ Eric admitted. ‘I’m fine at simple plain food but I couldn’t turn out anything like this. I bought it from Mrs Thomas, with whom your friend is staying, when I went to collect the milk this morning. What did you get up to?’

While they had a cup of tea, Danny launched into a description of the things he had seen and the walk up the hill.

‘I couldn’t see Lizzie though, ’cos Soho Gus told me that Mr and Mrs Evans would have taken her to church,’ he finished breathlessly, then as an afterthought he asked, ‘Do
you
ever go to church?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Eric said abruptly, and again Danny saw him stiffen and somehow he knew that their conversation was at an end.

Hastily scraping his chair back from the table, he asked, ‘Would yer like me to help wi’ the washin’-up?’ He was eager to make amends for whatever it was he’d said that had upset Eric, but the man shook his head.

‘No, I’ll leave them in soak until later. I have things to do now so I’ll get across to the outbuilding. I’m sure you can find something to do to amuse yourself until teatime.’

Danny’s heart sank into his boots. It looked like he was going to spend an afternoon alone, unless he called round for Soho Gus. He abandoned that idea almost immediately. The mood Eric was in, he didn’t really want to ask if he was allowed back out.

Eric snatched up some keys from the dresser and without so much as a backward glance, strode out of the kitchen.

Left to his own devices once more, Danny sighed and sank down into one of the fireside chairs. Samson immediately pottered up to him and placed his enormous head in Danny’s lap.

Danny absently fondled his ears as he stared into the flickering flames. He wondered what his mother would be doing and hoped that she was all right. Then his thoughts turned to Lizzie and a large lump formed in his throat. Until they’d come to Wales the twins had never been parted, and he missed her more than he could say. From the time when they had both taken their first faltering steps, within minutes of each other, Danny had assumed the role of Lizzie’s protector. Now suddenly he felt powerless, as if a part of him had been amputated. She would be back at the Evanses now. The urge came on him to go and see her, but then a picture of Eric’s stern face flashed before his eyes and he changed his mind. Slowly tears welled in his eyes and because there was no one there to see, but the cat and the dog, he let them roll down his cheeks unchecked.

‘I don’t half miss her, Samson,’ he muttered miserably. The dog nuzzled his hand and gazed up at him from sympathetic eyes as if he could understand the child’s loneliness.

 

‘Will you
please
come away from that window, Lizziebright, and stop scratching your head now. Whatever is the matter with you,
bach
?’

Lizzie started guiltily and edged towards the table in the centre of the room. They had just had a delicious Sunday roast and Mrs Evans was none too pleased with her for leaving most of it.

Mr Evans hadn’t done too good a job of clearing his plate either, Lizzie had noticed. He had the most terrible cough, and after a while of sitting at the table he had excused himself and buried his head in the Sunday newspaper.

Crossing to Lizzie, Mrs Evans untied the pretty red bow from the child’s hair and let it tumble in all its glory across her shoulders. ‘Let’s be looking at what’s making you scratch,’ she said as she parted the hair into sections. After a few seconds she let out a whoop of dismay. ‘It’s just as I thought, Father!’ she exclaimed. ‘The little one has headlice, and it doesn’t take two guesses as to where she got
them
from. I bet she picked them up from that lad from London that her brother has been knocking around with. By all the saints, the lad looks as if a dip in the bath would do him the world of good, so it does. That Gwyneth Thomas should be ashamed of herself.’

‘Now then, Mother,’ her husband said softly. ‘There’s no saying that that’s where the child picked them up. She could have had them when she arrived.’

‘
I did not!
’ Lizzie spat indignantly. ‘My mam used to go through mine an’ Danny’s hair with a nit-comb every Friday after our baths.’

It was the most that the little girl had said all in one go since her arrival, and the couple gaped at her, until Blodwyn pulled herself together and exclaimed, ‘Then I must have been right, mustn’t I now! Anyway, wherever they came from, they most certainly
are
there now and so we will have to get rid of them. At the moment there only seem to be the odd one or two, but they hatch out very quickly so we have to act quickly.’

Lizzie recalled a schoolfriend who had caught nits as they called them, back in Coventry. After the shame of being singled out by the ‘nit nurse’, who was a regular visitor to the school, she had been sent home, only to return the very next day looking like a shorn lamb. Her mother had placed a pudding basin on her head and then cut all the way around it to make her infestation easier to deal with. The other children had mocked her and called her ‘Nitty’, which had reduced the poor child to tears every playtime and dinnertime until her hair began to grow again. Lizzie wondered if the same fate was about to befall her.

‘Me mam won’t like it if you chop all me hair off,’ she declared as she began to edge towards the door. As comprehension dawned on Blodwyn’s face she smiled broadly. ‘Why,
bach
- whatever gave you the idea that was my intention? It would be a crime to chop off your crowning glory, so it would. No, no. What I have in mind is much less dramatic, though no doubt you’ll end up with a sore scalp by the time I’m done. We’re going to wash it in carbolic soap and then comb every single one of the little menaces out with a nit-comb.’

Deciding that this sounded like the lesser of two evils, Lizzie relaxed a little and watched as Mrs Evans placed two large pans and a kettle full of water to boil on the hob.

Almost two hours later, Blodwyn beamed with satisfaction. ‘That should do it,’ she declared. ‘I doubt there’s anything left living in there now.’

Lizzie didn’t doubt her for a second. Her scalp felt as if it was on fire, and the smell of the carbolic was making her eyes sting. She was amazed that
she
had survived - let alone any of her unwelcome visitors.

Throwing the last bowl of water down the sink, Mrs Evans told her, ‘Sit by the fire,
bach
. You hair will dry in no time, so it will, and then we’ll put it into plaits and it will be a picture come morning.’

Lizzie obediently sank down onto the hearthrug. Mr Evans winked at her from behind his paper and once again her eyes turned to the little leaded window. Why hadn’t Danny come to see her today, she wondered. And what was he doing now?

As if reading her thoughts, Mrs Evans filled a glass with buttermilk and called her to the table. ‘Get that down you now,
bach
. I’m determined to put a bit of meat on your bones. I can’t have the children at school calling my Megan Skinny Ribs, now can . . .’

To Lizzie’s amazement, Mrs Evans suddenly clapped her hand across her mouth and hurried from the room, her eyes brimming with tears.