Tiger Ragtime (9 page)

‘I see.’ David cleared his throat.

‘Not what you expected?’ Jed asked.

‘Judy told me that shipping trade was down.’

‘I don’t know about down, it’s practically non-existent. And it’s hard to get a berth since they made us all register. You’ll actually be better off than me, because white British sailors get first chance of any jobs that are going, coloured British sailors second, although they’ve made everyone with coloured blood register as an alien irrespective of where they were born, and foreigners last.’

‘That’s hardly fair –’

Jed interrupted him. ‘Go to sea, boy, and you’ll find out that fair isn’t a word that’s understood any better on board ship than it is on land.’ He replaced his pipe in his shirt pocket. ‘Still want to go to sea?’

‘Yes,’ David replied stoutly, too proud to back down.

‘Come here at five o’clock tomorrow morning. That too early for you?’

‘We get up earlier on the farm.’

‘I’ll take you to Penniless Point. If any ships’ masters are looking for crew, they’ll go to the Cory’s building first. But I warn you, the only work that’s been on offer for the last six months is with the Irish shipping lines. Take coal out, bring potatoes in, which amounts to four or five days’ work at most, and without experience all you’ll get is your food and not much of that. But you’ll earn your ticket.’

‘That’s what I want.’

‘You won’t be classed higher than cabin boy, not without experience. And the Irish Sea can be rough, even in summer. Ever been seasick?’

‘No,’ David retorted swiftly.

‘Ever been to sea?’

‘Once.’

‘Where?’

‘On a ship from Swansea, around the Gower.’

Jed laughed. ‘A pleasure cruise.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll be letting yourself in for a bit more than pleasure on board a ship bound for Ireland, boy. But first you have to find someone who’s prepared to take you. And if you do, you’ll find out what going to sea means for yourself.’

‘That’s all I want, Mr King,’ David said soberly.

Jed laughed. ‘You’ve guts, boy, I’ll give you that much. But I’m not sure how far someone can travel on guts alone.’

Chapter Five

‘Do you have to go now, right this minute?’ Micah lay back on the make-shift bed in the cabin of the
Escape
and watched Edyth hook the welts of her stockings on to her suspender belt.

‘It’s six o’clock. By the time I get back to the shop, make tea for Judy and me – and you, if you’d like to stay – and clear up the last of the carnival debris, it will be bedtime.’

‘I suppose that’s a hint for me to move.’ Micah rolled over and leaned on his elbow.

‘Only if you want to walk me back to Bute Street.’

‘I wish I could stay the night with you in your bed –’

‘Stop right there.’ Edyth took her comb and lipstick from her handbag. ‘You promised earlier that you wouldn’t bring up that subject again until I was free.’

‘Sometimes I think you don’t want Peter to send those annulment papers.’

‘You promised.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’ He reluctantly sat up. ‘Will you be able to get away early any night this week?’

She threw his vest and shirt to him. ‘Most nights, I should think. I’ve nothing special on. But Judy has an audition tomorrow.’

‘That’s strange; she hasn’t mentioned it to me – or her uncles, that I know about. Is it in London?’ he asked hopefully.

‘The New Theatre.’

‘That explains why she hasn’t said anything. She’s had six call-backs for auditions there in the last three months and none have resulted in an engagement.’

‘Let’s hope this one will be different. Although I’m worried. I know it’s selfish of me to want to keep Judy working in the bakery when she’s so talented, but frankly I wouldn’t have been able to manage without her the last six months. I dread the thought of trying to replace her.’

‘The selfish works both ways. If you hadn’t offered Judy a job and a place to live she would have had to move away to London where there are live-in service jobs even for coloured girls.’ He finished buttoning his shirt and picked up his sock suspenders. ‘As for replacing her, you’ll have plenty of girls to choose from.’

‘But they won’t be Judy.’

‘If she’s in the New Theatre, she can carry on living with you, so you’ll still see her, unless you need her room for someone else.’

‘With four bedrooms above the shop, she’s more than welcome to stay.’ She watched him pull on his trousers and clip on his braces. ‘Come on, slowcoach, I thought it was women who were supposed to spend a long time dressing.’

‘Nagging me before we’re even married,’ he teased.

‘I’ll ignore that remark.’

‘If Judy does get that job in the New Theatre there’s no guarantee it will last more than a couple of weeks.’ He picked up the rest of his clothes. ‘Then she’ll be back to auditions again.’

‘I know.’

‘If it’s a temporary worker you need, you could do worse than ask one of her uncles to cover for her. I know all three are finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment.’

‘I can’t afford to pay anyone more than I’m paying Judy now,’ she warned.

‘A pittance is better than nothing. And the way this slump is beginning to bite, you could pay people in bread.’

She looked him in the eye. ‘Has Moody told you that I’ve had to cut back on production?’

‘He didn’t have to.’ He finished lacing his shoes and rose to his feet. ‘I walk around the Bay. I see the women shopping, and the men hanging around street corners. And I’ve not heard the sound of any spare coins jangling lately.’ He lifted the cushions back to the sides of the boat and heaved the table between them. ‘How much have you had to cut back?’

‘Ten per cent on bread, forty on cakes and biscuits.’

‘Can the bakery survive a lower turnover?’ He flicked a comb through his hair, and dropped his boater on his head.

‘Just about.’

‘You are managing?’ he asked seriously.

‘For now. It’s not just me; all the shopkeepers in Bute Street are complaining that trade’s down.’

He slipped his arms around her shoulders. ‘You will tell me if you need help?’

‘What would you do?’ she asked. ‘Order all the Norwegian sailors who visit your mission to buy their bread from me when you deliver your Sunday sermon?’

‘I have a little money saved …’

‘I don’t know much about accounting but I do know that you’ll lose money if you try to prop up a business that has more going out than coming in. Things aren’t that bad, Micah – yet,’ she qualified. ‘Hopefully the ships will start sailing again soon and then trade is bound to pick up.’

He decided not to tell her that all the shipping agents and bankers he had spoken to in the past few weeks were predicting the opposite. ‘What time is Judy’s audition tomorrow?’

‘Four o’clock. Want to come round for tea about five?’

‘As she’s only in the New Theatre, I’d prefer a picnic here. Less likelihood of being disturbed. Then I’ll walk you home and Judy can tell us whether or not she’s been successful.’

‘In that case I’ll make a special supper for the three of us and we can offer Judy our congratulations or sympathies, whichever is appropriate.’

‘Sounds perfect. I’ll even call in and walk you down here.’ He dropped a kiss on her forehead before opening the door of the cabin.

‘So you’re going to Penniless Point with Uncle Jed tomorrow?’ Judy said to David when he escorted her back to Edyth’s bakery. She had wanted to walk back alone, but over protective as always, her uncle had insisted that someone take her and as David was anxious to see Edyth, he was the obvious choice.

‘He seems to think I’ll get a job.’

‘Not a paying one.’ She reinforced Jed’s warning.

‘My keep would be a start and I can work up from there.’

‘Like my uncles?’ She couldn’t resist reminding him that they were out of work.

‘It’s different for them.’

‘Because they’re coloured.’

‘Jed told me about having to register as aliens although they were born on the Bay. But I didn’t mean that,’ he said swiftly. ‘They have families to support; I have only myself to look after so I don’t need as much money.’ He stopped in front of the baker’s shop.

‘We use the back door when the shop’s not open.’ Judy led the way around to the yard. Edyth and Micah were standing, locked in one another’s arms, oblivious to everything outside of one another.

David cried out.

Judy turned and saw a look of pure anguish on his face before he raced back down the alley into Bute Street.

When Edyth heard David cry out, she turned and saw him and Judy standing at the entrance to the yard. She pushed Micah away and tried to follow David when he ran off but Micah held her fast. She fought to free herself.

‘Let me go,’ she shouted.

‘If anyone should go after him, it should be me.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Edyth continued to struggle.

‘Your brother telephoned after you left, Edyth,’ Judy explained. ‘He asked me to pick David up at the station. He wants to be a sailor.’ After the way David had snapped at her since he’d arrived, Judy wasn’t sure whether to go after him or not.

‘David doesn’t want to be a sailor.’ Edyth finally wrenched free from Micah’s grip. ‘He’s in the Bay because of me.’

‘He’s staying with Helga.’ Judy dashed after Edyth when she darted into the street but Micah was quicker. He reached Bute Street before Judy. Edyth was standing on the pavement looking up and down the road. A tram hurtled around the corner and passed a procession of white-garbed Sunday school children from the Catholic Church. A donkey cart loaded with fresh fish meandered slowly up from the direction of the docks. Several groups of people stood gossiping but there was no sign of David.

Micah touched Edyth’s arm. ‘Did you hear? Judy said David’s lodging with my sister.’

‘Do you think he’d head back to Helga’s?’ Edyth’s eyes were dark with concern.

He frowned. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me about you and David?’

‘There is no me and David,’ she countered touchily. ‘Not as far as I’m concerned.’

‘But David thinks otherwise?’ he guessed.

‘I have to find him, Micah,’ she insisted. ‘After seeing us together like that, he could do something stupid.’

‘Aren’t you being rather melodramatic?’

‘I wish I was.’ Finally giving up on David, she faced Micah. ‘The night I married Peter, David tried to kill himself by jumping off the Old Bridge in Pontypridd. He almost succeeded.’

‘I thought he was trying to rescue a dog.’

‘That was a story Harry and my father concocted with a police constable, so David wouldn’t be charged with attempted suicide,’ she explained. ‘If he’d been found guilty he could have been sent to gaol.’

‘Did you know that David was in love with you when you married Peter?’

‘I didn’t encourage him, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t even know he liked me until I read the note he left before he jumped off the bridge. For pity’s sake, he’s Mary’s brother, Harry’s brother-in-law. That practically makes him my brother too. We – my sisters and me, that is – thought of him as just that. We used to tease him the way we tease Harry.’ She glanced up and down the street again. ‘I won’t be able to live with myself if David does something stupid again.’

‘Go to Helga’s house with Judy and wait for David there,’ Micah ordered abruptly.

‘Where are you going?’ Edyth shouted after him as he ran down the street.

‘The dock,’ he called back.

‘Pastor Holsten’s right. David will probably go back to his sister’s house.’ Judy took Edyth’s arm.

‘Damn! Damn! Damn! And Vladivostok!’

As ‘damn’ was the strongest swear word Judy had heard Edyth use, and ‘Vladivostok’ Edyth’s substitute for a more conventional curse, Judy realised how upset she was. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find David. He was so full of himself and sure of finding a berth out of the Bay, I can’t see him hurting himself.’

‘You heard what I said to Micah?’ Edyth looked at her friend.

‘I heard, but I’ll keep it to myself.’

‘I know you will. I only hope you’re right about David not hurting himself.’

Judy linked her arm into Edyth’s. ‘I bet we’ll find him sitting at the table in Helga’s back kitchen, drinking tea and eating pickled herrings, Norwegian cheese, and rye bread with her other lodgers. And listening to their tall stories about life at sea.’

Gertie was generally happy with life and especially happy with the money she was making. Even after she paid Anna three pounds to cover rent, food and household expenses, she still made five times as much as she could have expected to earn if she had gone into service. But being the youngest and newest resident in Anna’s house did have its drawbacks. She was always the one sent on errands, especially on Sunday afternoons, when most of her ‘regulars’ were with their wives, children, extended families, and friends.

Anna and Colleen had regular bachelor clients who visited them at that time, but she and the rest of the girls weren’t so lucky. Unless a ship came in, and not many had berthed on a Sunday even when the docks had been busy, they generally spent the day visiting their families – if they were allowed to step over the threshold of the family home – or reading or playing cards with Anna and Colleen’s children.

Still in her dressing gown at mid-afternoon, Gertie was lying on her bed immersed in a Mills and Boon romance she had borrowed from Boots’ lending library, when one of the children discovered they had run out of sugar. Despite the fact that she didn’t want tea, Gertie found herself unanimously ‘volunteered’ to go to the shop. Annoyed at having to dress, she opened her wardrobe and, remembering that it was Sunday, chose a relatively sober outfit.

Hot, bothered and put out at being picked on by the others, she left Abdul’s corner shop with a pound of sugar and a chocolate bar she had bought on impulse. Abdul’s was one of the few shops open in the Bay on a Sunday because he was a Muslim who ignored both the Christian calendar and the Sunday opening laws. She was heading back to the house when a good-looking young man hurtled around the corner ahead of her. Never one to let an opportunity slip by, she shouted, ‘Want a good time?’

David halted and looked back at her. He recognised Gertie as the girl he had seen with the man who resembled Harry. Only this time, she was wearing a dress that wasn’t transparent, although the hemline was just as short and the neckline as low.

Harry had warned him about the ‘good-time girls’ on the docks and told him to steer clear of them because all they wanted from men was money, and they were prone to work with roughnecks who would beat up and rob an unsuspecting customer for as little as sixpence. Even worse, they carried horrible diseases. But this girl was young, had a good figure, and although her features were too strong to be considered pretty, she looked too clean to be carrying a disease.

Having gained David’s attention, Gertie gave him her toothy, professional smile. ‘My house is just around the corner. Five bob will buy you an hour of paradise.’

‘I haven’t got five bob.’ It was the truth. Judy had insisted that David pay Helga a week’s lodging in advance, which had come to seventeen shillings and sixpence and she had then made him lock his nine remaining pounds together with his bank book into his suitcase, which had left him with a few coins that amounted to a little over half a crown.

‘How much have you got?’ Gertie asked.

Used to haggling with the livestock buyers in Brecon cattle market, David answered, ‘A shilling.’

‘I never go below two bob.’

He fingered the coins in his pocket. ‘What would I get for my two bob?’

Gertie lifted the hem of her dress a few inches. Her Sunday best was more subdued than the clothes she wore during the week, but David caught a glimpse of white thigh above the silk welts of her best pair of white stockings, bright green, diamante-studded garters and vivid green silk French knickers. His cheeks burned at the glimpse of flesh.

‘All right, two bob,’ he said recklessly.

‘Show us the colour of your money.’ She held out her hand.

He shook his head. ‘You could run off with it.’

‘Two bob when we get to my room. And if you haven’t got it, I’ll call the others and they’ll throw you out.’

‘What others?’ He recalled Harry’s warning about loose women’s violent and thieving accomplices.