The Emerald Valley (19 page)

The flat-iron she was using had gone cold and was no longer removing the creases from the pile of handkerchiefs and petticoats and pillow-cases stacked beside her on the kitchen table. With an effort she plonked it down on the grid of the gas stove, wrapped her iron-holder around the flat that was heating over the flame and changed them over. As she replaced the fresh iron on the table the holder slipped slightly so that her finger touched the hot surface and she gasped, setting it down and sticking her finger in her mouth to remove the sting. But the pain was enough to bring the quick tears to her eyes – tears that had seemed to be so close the surface this last week that they flowed over at every opportunity.

Stop it! Stop it! she ordered herself, but it was too late and she crumpled over the ironing board, her hand stuffed into her mouth.

Dear God, it was like living a nightmare. At times it seemed to her that she would wake from it and see Llew coming in through the door, smiling at her, taking her in his arms, saying, ‘You silly girl, Amy – you didn't really think I'd gone for good, did you?'

But almost at once the knowledge would come rushing in again, sharply fresh because of the respite. Llew would
not
come through the door. Llew was dead. She had seen him buried. And as the pain spread and grew, it merged once more into the all-consuming black hopelessness. She was alone for all time. Somehow she had to keep things going for the sake of the children when all she wanted to do was to bury herself deep as Llew was buried, away from the sympathy and the curiosity and the well-meaning offers of help. Somehow she had to go on living.

Naturally, there had been many offers of help – so many she had felt swamped by them. The neighbours had all been more than kind, but they were also embarrassed and their embarrassment created an awkwardness from which Amy could not wait to escape. Eddie, Llew's brother who had once owned part-shares in the business, had called on a number of occasions, but because of remembered differences between the brothers Amy felt less than comfortable with him too – she felt, stupidly perhaps, that he was constantly critical of everything with Llew's mark on it, and consequently she resented him. Then there was always Mam. She had taken the children for a day or two and had asked Amy for meals, but Amy did not want to eat any more than most of the time she wanted to talk. Sometimes she felt like pouring her heart out, it was true – going on and on about Llew and that last day and how she wished she could have it again, just once, so that she could tell him how sorry she was for being spoilt and pettish … put things right. But talking did no good. Maybe it eased the blackness inside her for just a little while, but it was still there – a thick impenetrable cloud wailing to stifle her again, so that after a while the words died in her throat and she would break off to stare, unseeing, into space.

To the best of her ability Amy had tried to hide these moods for the sake of the children, just as she tried to hide the shivering fits that overtook her from time to time … and the tears.

It was the shock, Mam said, and Amy was lucky not to have gone down with'flu. But like everything else, the explanation fell into the pool of blackness and sank like a stone. Words were just that – empty, meaningless, tiny rafts to cling to for a moment in the sea of grief but gone too soon, leaving her storm-tossed and rudderless.

Which were the worst? she wondered – the days, or the nights? During the days she wanted most of all to be left alone, but when night fell and she got her wish she found that unbearable too. Oh, the emptiness of the bed she had shared with Llew! How could she ever have luxuriated in being able to stretch out in it when he came late to bed? Now the expanse of it swamped her and she felt like drowning in it. And the quiet when the children were asleep was like the quiet of the grave.

This afternoon too, the house was quiet. Ruby Clark from next door had taken Maureen and Barbara down to the fete where Mam was going to look after them for the afternoon and when it was time for tea, Ruby would bring them back again. Left alone, Amy had decided to attack the pile of ironing which had collected in her laundry basket. But ‘attack'was the wrong word. She had no heart for it. Lifting the iron was an effort, laying a petticoat out on the table a chore that required more energy than she possessed.

I should be able to forget myself for a little while in sheer hard work, she thought, remembering how Mam at times of stress had been prone to taking down every curtain in the house and washing them with almost frightening thoroughness. But grief had not taken her that way. Instead she felt weak and useless and everything she did, she did in a dream.

Now, before the iron could go cold on her, she laid a pillow-case out on the ironing blanket and flicked cold water onto it from the bowl that stood at her elbow. This hot weather was all very well, but it did make the washing dry so rock-hard if you forgot to bring it in from the line in time. And this week, remembering washing was right at the end of Amy's list of priorities.

She had just finished the pillow-case when the front doorbell rang, making her sigh wearily. Who could it be this time? Someone who had noticed she was missing from the fete and had come to see if she was all right? Oh, why couldn't they understand she just wanted to be left alone!

She went along the cool dim hall, kicking the carpet ‘runner' into place as she went, and drew the bolts on the front door. Then her lips parted in a small ‘Oh!' of surprise.

Standing on the doorstep, his tall frame almost blotting out the sun, was Ralph Porter. As a concession to the warm afternoon, he had exchanged his leather jacket for an open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled back half-way to the elbows, but he was still wearing the flying boots and glancing past him Amy saw the bright red of the Morgan drawn up at the gate.

For a moment, grief forgotten, Amy felt nothing but the same acute embarrassment she had experienced on the afternoon she had run into him with the lorry. It might have happened across the great divide, in another lifetime, but the emotion she felt now was just the same, pure and unadulterated – the shame of a wilful child who has caused some catastrophe through disobedience.

Then the memory of their sharp disagreement joined the others and she drew herself up.

‘Yes?' she said shortly.

‘Mrs Roberts.' Those dark eyes were disconcerting in their directness. He was not angry now, yet he still conveyed the impression of power – and something else. Yes. Arrogance. That was it. He stood there on her doorstep and somehow managed to look as if he and not she were the owner.

‘Yes,' she said again. ‘What can I do for you?'

One eyebrow lifted in an expression of sardonic surprise.

‘I would hardly have thought you needed to ask that. I've been expecting to hear from you.'

‘You've been expecting …' She had begun to tremble, but she stared at him in disbelief. Surely he could not be referring to the accident? Surely not even
he
would come here knocking on her door to ask about repairs to a motor car with her husband not buried a week?

‘That's right. You caused considerable damage, which is going to cost in the region of £20 to repair. Your husband contacted me shortly after the incident and promised to put things right, but that's several weeks ago now and nothing has been done.' His tone was hard, totally emotionless and she gasped.

‘Well, of course it hasn't!'

The eyebrow lifted a fraction once again.

‘Really? Then it's as well I'm here, isn't it? I ought to warn you, Mrs Roberts, I could very well have put the matter in the hands of my solicitor, but initially I thought I would deal with it myself and save us both legal costs. Of course, if you're going to prove difficult …'

‘How could you?' she cried. ‘How can you be so callous?'

A muscle moved fractionally in his cheek above the dark moustache.

‘I'm sorry you see it that way, Mrs Roberts. I hardly see how you can expect to go haring around causing damage to other people's vehicles and not paying for it, no matter what your financial position. And I'm afraid that, insured or not, I intend to have you reimburse me. I would have preferred to discuss the matter with your husband, but …'

‘Oh, would you indeed?' she flared. ‘I doubt that. You think you can bully me, I dare say. Well, it's no more than I would have expected. Llew always said what you were. It's just that I would never have believed that
anyone
…'

‘I'm a businessman, Mrs Roberts. Sympathy is not an emotion in which I can afford to indulge. If you want to make a success of
your
business, you would do well to remember that and do the same.'

Her knuckles were white as she gripped the door frame for support, but for the moment her anger and sense of outrage were stifling all other emotions.

‘I will probably do that, Mr Porter. But I sincerely hope I never stoop to hounding the bereaved. My God, if Llew knew …' She broke off, fighting back the sudden rush of threatening tears and as her eyes swam she saw his face change.

‘What did you say?'

‘You'll get your money, Mr Porter,' she rushed on. ‘But if you need it so badly that you have to behave in this way, all I can say is I'm sorry for you. Llew might not have been as good a businessman as you. He didn't make provision for something like this – he didn't even leave a will. But he worked hard and he had standards. At least he could hold his head up without fear of being accused of grave-robbing.'

‘My God!' His voice was low, shocked. ‘You don't mean he's dead?'

In her throat hysterical laughter bubbled wildly and was suppressed. Ralph Porter, uncrowned king of Hillsbridge, pretending ignorance. Ludicrous – utterly ludicrous!

‘You must have known, Mr Porter,' she threw at him. ‘You were afraid, I suppose, that with Llew gone you wouldn't be paid. Well, you need not worry. You'll get your twenty pounds, I'll see to that. Now get off my doorstep. Go on!
Get out!
'

Then, as the tears welled up once more, she caught at the door, slamming it shut. But as she leaned against it, his arrogant face seemed to mock her still and she crumpled, her fingers drawing long, painful streaks down the wood panels.

‘Beast! Beast!' she sobbed – hatred, humiliation and grief all merging, blurring and then exploding so that she seemed on fire with them.

And then, as grief predominated and the tears drenched her cheeks: ‘Oh, Llew – Llew! Why did you have to die! Oh, Llew …'

On the pavement outside, Ralph Porter stood for a moment looking back at the house.

Dead – Llew Roberts? He had been a healthy young man when he had come to see Ralph a few weeks ago. A little too plausible for Ralph Porter's taste, perhaps, but no one ever died of being too plausible. What had happened? Something, obviously, during the time that he, Ralph, had been in Sweden arranging new timber contracts. But what?

As always when faced with an awkward situation, Ralph Porter took refuge in the aggression that was barely hidden beneath the shallow layer of seeming indifference.

How the hell was I supposed to know anyway? he asked himself.

And turning, he climbed into the driver's seat of the red three-wheeled Morgan.

At the football field the spirit of the Labour Party Fete was being revived for many by a quick half-pint of best bitter in the small marquee known on site as ‘the beer tent'. During the afternoon the ladies had refreshed themselves with cups of hot weak tea, scones and fairy cakes, and the children had all been given a free ‘treat'. Now it was the turn of the men to absent themselves in shifts from the proceedings. The fun of the motor-cycle six-a-side football match was over and dancing had begun, but few of them liked dancing – not until it was dark enough to waltz their partners under the trees for a quick kiss and cuddle, anyway.

Just inside the flap of the tent, Harry Hall was downing his beer with one eye trained to look out for his mother. She would be going soon, he guessed – Ruby Clark had taken Barbara and Maureen home and with nothing now to keep her Charlotte's thoughts would be turning to James, left at home on the sofa that comprised his world these days. He could have waited until he had seen her disappear out of the gate before he began drinking in earnest, Harry supposed, for though she knew he did it Charlotte did not really approve.

But Harry had been unable to stifle the fear that his mother might ask him to accompany either her or the children – or even walk up to Dolly's to see how she was feeling. Charlotte knew now that Dolly was expecting again and privately was not too pleased about it.

‘You'd think they'd have had more sense – at least until the boys are a bit less of a handful,' Harry had overheard her say to James. ‘There's no need for it now, like there was in our day.'

But Harry knew her irritability stemmed from concern – Dolly looked so pale and puffy even
he
was anxious about her – and he was becoming used to Charlotte's exhortations to ‘take this up to our Dolly, there's a good boy'. Usually he did not mind. The long days of the strike were dragging by and it sometimes seemed to him that life would be composed for evermore of days spent chewing the penny gobstoppers on sticks that were having to take the place of the cigarettes they could no longer afford, and nights of dodging the law to pick coal on the slag-heaps, or batches as they were known locally.

Today however he did not want to be despatched to check on either Amy or Dolly. He was far too keen to have his half-pint of beer in the small marquee within earshot of the men who were trying to set the world – and the mining industry – to rights. From his vantage point just inside the flap he listened, and tried to see if the dignitaries were imbibing in the beer tent too. Tom Heron was here, certainly, his slightly tremulous Somerset-cultivated tones carrying above the buzz of genuine dialect. Tom was a ‘townie' who had made the coalfield his career, and he had had the good sense to adapt the way he spoke in order to gain the confidence of Hillsbridge working folk. In the early years he had lived in terror of being found out and the habit of taking out every word and looking at it was responsible for the slight hesitancy that was apparent now, even though his mode on speech was now second nature. Yes, Tom was there right enough, his glass being topped up again and again as he held forth on the rights of the miners' case; and so was Eddie Roberts, Amy's brother-in-law and another mustard-keen member of the local Labour Party. But of Owen Wynn-Jones and George Young, there was no sign.