Beggars and Choosers (28 page)

‘It's nice of you to say so,' Sali murmured absently, scanning the crowds for a glimpse of Rhian's or her son's fair hair or a short stout woman who might be Mari's sister.

Megan headed for the back of the shop. ‘The dress lengths are behind the counter.'

The shop was packed with women of all shapes and sizes, but the only blonde head wasn't Rhian's and although there were numerous short, stout ladies, none bore the slightest resemblance to Mari. Sali continued to search the crowds pouring in and out of the shop as Megan wavered between blue woollen cloth and brown for her new winter dress.

‘You don't think the blue is too showy for chapel, do you?' she asked Sali.

‘Are you Methodist?' Sali asked.

‘Baptist.'

‘Of course!' Rhian went to chapel every Sunday, but was that because Owen had forced her to go? Mari was Methodist and so was her sister. Would she go to the Methodist chapel with Rhian?

‘Pardon?' Megan said bewildered.

‘Is there a Methodist chapel in Tonypandy?' Sali enquired urgently.

‘Yes.'

‘Would you show me where?'

‘On the way home. So what do you think, the blue or the brown wool for a winter dress?' Megan said impatiently.

Sali looked at both and knew which she'd prefer. ‘Blue,' she said, making the first decision, albeit for someone else, since she had left Danygraig House. But she couldn't help hoping that the Tonypandy Baptists had a kinder and more tolerant minister than her Uncle Morgan, who would have thought blue far too gaudy for the Lord's Day.

Sali went to bed disappointed on Saturday night. She slept fitfully, her dreams filled with images of her son screaming as Owen lunged over his cot, that terrible last night in Mill Street. Her son chattering happily and silently creeping into a corner the moment Owen opened the door, sitting on her lap learning his first words, banging a saucepan with a wooden spoon only to have the spoon snatched from his hand and brought sharply across his leg by Owen. And, worse of all, a new dream, of him dirty and neglected, being beaten by a strange woman and crying for her.

She rose early, dressed in her black suit, blouse, hat and coat, and walked down to the Methodist Church. She didn't dare join the congregation lest she recognise the Minister as an acquaintance of her uncle's. Instead she stood across the road, watching people dressed in their Sunday finery file in before the service. Although she was certain that neither Rhian nor Mari's sister was among them, she waited until they filed out.

She mingled with the crowds and spent the day walking from one end of Tonypandy to the other. Seeing people on the mountain, she walked up there and with her hat pulled low, covering her face, studied everyone she met, but she saw no one she knew. When darkness began to fall, she made her way back to the house, too tired and dejected to register anything except the aching void engendered by her son's absence.

On Monday morning she immersed herself in housework again and the week passed busily and quickly. When she wasn't washing, cleaning, scrubbing, dusting, ironing or sweeping, she studied the recipes in Mrs Evans's handwritten notebooks and tried to follow them, cooking meals the way she imagined Mrs Evans had. When the men went out for the evening she preserved vegetables and fruit, and made jams and pies from the produce Victor brought up from the garden and allotment. And all the while she waited for Saturday night and Sunday, the free time she could use to look for her son. When the third Sunday came and went, she gave herself one more week. If she didn't find Rhian, Mrs Williams or her son the following Sunday, she resolved to risk writing to her aunt to ask for the address.

Chapter Fifteen

‘I enjoyed that meal, Mrs Jones, thank you.' Mr Evans gave her his first and unexpected compliment on Saturday afternoon, as she cleared the remains of the vegetables and the chicken carcass from the kitchen table.

‘Victor's chicken was good.'

‘My wife used to say that the quality of the bird was as much down to the cooking as the way it had been reared and killed.'

‘Thank you.' She cleared the plates and set down an apple pie she had made from a bag of windfalls Victor had brought home.

‘No cream?' Joey asked plaintively.

‘I made custard sauce.' She lifted an enamel jug from the warming plate on the range. She had blended milk, eggs, sugar and almond essence using one of Mrs Evans's recipes.

‘You joining Megan and me this evening, Mrs Jones?' Victor asked.

‘If I may?'

‘We'd be glad to have you.'

‘What do you mean “we”?' Joey poured a lavish helping of sauce over the slice of pie his father had served him. ‘You will be spending most of the time in the Pandy with Lloyd.'

‘And where will you be, Joey?' his father enquired pointedly.

‘With them, of course.'

‘There's no “of course” about it,' his father muttered.

‘I've turned over a new leaf,' Joey protested, his face a study in innocence.

‘That's another lie you'll have to tell the priest about.' Mr Evans spooned the last of his pie into his mouth and left the table. ‘I am going into the middle room to read. Would you bring me my tea in there, Mrs Jones?'

‘Yes, Mr Evans.' Sali's heart lurched. Her month's trial was up in two days. What if Mr Evans were going to ask her leave? She looked to Victor and Joey. Both refused to meet her gaze and she couldn't look at Lloyd. She had avoided him since she had entered the house and all the more since her bruises had begun to fade.

While she warmed the teapot and waited for the water to boil she decided to ask Mr Evans if she could stay until Monday morning. That would give her one last opportunity to search through the crowds of the Pandy Parade and one more Sunday. After that she would have to find herself another position and begin looking all over again ...

‘If you take my father his tea, Mrs Jones, I'll pour ours,' Victor offered, as she spooned three sugars in to Mr Evans's tea and added milk.

‘Thank you.' She picked up the cup.

‘Aren't you going to pour one for yourself?' Joey asked, as she went to the door.

‘I'll have mine later.' She opened the door, closed it behind her and knocked on the door of the middle room.

‘Come in.' Mr Evans was reading in one of the easy chairs. ‘Thank you.' He took the tea. ‘Would you sit down for a moment, please, Mrs Jones?' He looked around. ‘This used to be a comfortable room, but it's too small for all this furniture. Perhaps we should move the table and chairs into the kitchen, relegate the kitchen table and chairs to the basement, and turn it into a small parlour. What do you think? Will this table and chairs stand kitchen use if we cover the table with oilcloth?'

‘It is not my place to say what you should do with your house, Mr Evans.'

‘You have been here a month.'

‘Not quite a month, Mr Evans,' she corrected. ‘I am still on trial.'

‘I thought it blatantly obvious after twenty-four hours that you were here to stay, girl.' He set his tea in the hearth next to him. ‘Or have you changed your mind about working for us?'

She stared at him in amazement. ‘Are you asking me to stay, Mr Evans?'

‘I am trying to, but you seem determined to misunderstand me.'

She imagined her son as she had in her nightmares. Dirty, unkempt, crying for her. ‘I am sorry, Mr Evans, but I can't stay with you.'

The clock ticked loudly into the silence.

‘Do you mind telling me why?' he enquired.

‘Because I lied to you, Mr Evans.' She forced herself to look directly into his eyes. ‘I am not a widow. I am married and I have a child.'

‘Oh hell,' Joey swore, as he heard his father shout. ‘I really thought he'd let this one stay.'

‘He will.' Victor set his mouth into a grim line and pushed his chair back from the table.

‘Wait.' Lloyd gripped his brother's arm to prevent him from leaving, although given Victor's extra height, build and strength, it was little more than a gesture.

‘I am not going to sit here doing nothing while our father sends the best housekeeper we can possibly hope to get packing from this house.'

‘He's calling for Joey.' Lloyd glared at his younger brother. ‘If you –'

‘I swear by all that's holy, I haven't touched her,' Joey interrupted earnestly. ‘Come on,' he looked from Lloyd to Victor. ‘The woman's bald and ugly.'

‘See what Dad wants,' Victor snapped. ‘Now, before I shave your head and reshape your face into something even a horse wouldn't look at.'

Once Sali had told Mr Evans she was married, it was as if she had opened a floodgate. It all poured out, her father's death, Mansel's disappearance, her pregnancy and forced marriage to Owen Bull, the birth of her son, the beating that had ended with her being admitted to the infirmary, Owen's visit and his attempt to intimidate her by threatening not only her and her son, but also her aunt, her subsequent escape and her search in Tonypandy for her child. She told Mr Evans everything, except her name, the name of her husband and her most shameful secret, that her uncle had raped her. He listened in silence. When she finished speaking, she gripped the arms of her chair and levered herself to her feet.

‘I'll pack my things.'

‘Where will you go?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Joey?' He had to shout three times before his youngest son opened the door.

‘You called,' Joey asked warily.

‘We're looking for a maid in one of the big houses around here. Name of ...' Mr Evans looked to Sali.

‘Rhian,' Sali said, doubting that Rhian would have used her own surname.

‘There's one up at Llan House. The housekeeper, Mrs Williams, sent me packing when she saw me talking to her,' he added defensively. ‘She's a pretty little blonde, only fifteen, but I swear I haven't touched her.'

‘That has to be her,' Sali broke in excitedly.

‘Mrs Williams obviously knows you, Joey,' Mr Evans stated caustically. He looked at Sali. ‘I suggest you go up there now with Joey and Victor. When you've found your son, bring him back here.'

‘Here?'

‘Knowing you, I think I can safely say that your son will be reasonably well behaved, which is more than can be said for Joey. And I'd rather a housekeeper who knows how to cook and keep house with a son, than a childless one who doesn't. Joey, take Mrs Jones and Victor up to Llan House and find this pretty little blonde and when you do, keep your distance and let Mrs Jones do the talking.'

‘It's Sali, Mr Evans.' Sali looked up and saw Lloyd and Victor standing in the passage behind Joey. ‘I was Sali Watkin Jones.'

‘You really didn't recognise her?' Billy Evans asked Lloyd when they were assembling the brass bed in the master bedroom.

‘I would never have taken Sali Watkin Jones and Mrs Jones to be the same woman.' Lloyd pushed a brass bolt through the headboard.

‘What was she like when you knew her?'

Lloyd pushed a washer over the bolt and screwed on a nut. ‘I didn't know her. I knew her father because he was the hands-on manager of his own pit, but Miss Sali Watkin Jones didn't move in the same social circle as her father's deputy. Although I remember I did ask her to dance once, and she looked right through me as if I didn't exist.'

‘You said Harry Watkin Jones was a decent man.'

‘He was, but his decency didn't extend to allowing his daughter to hobnob with his employees. She was rich,' he said derisively, ‘pretty and rich with the kind of gloss that comes from having money and an indulgent father. But I'll give her this much, she wasn't brought up to be useless like most of her class. Before her father died, she was studying at Swansea Training College. The first thing her uncle did before selling the Watkin Jones Colliery was remove her from college to run her mother's house. No one felt too sorry for her then, because she was set to marry Gwilym James's heir, Mansel. They were distantly related in some way. Then, as you know from the newspaper reports, he disappeared on their wedding day.' Lloyd tightened the nut with a spanner. ‘But before that happened, I returned here and it's amazing how moving a few miles can give you an entirely different perspective on life. Pontypridd and its concerns could be on the other side of the moon for all that anyone in Tonypandy cares.'

‘From what she told me, she's had a rough time.'

‘I'd like to hear about it.'

‘Why?'

‘Because her father was good to me,' Lloyd said frankly. ‘And because by the look of her, I got more of his money after he died than she did.'

‘You again?' Mrs Williams gave Joey a disdainful glare as he stood on the doorstep of the back entrance to Llan House. ‘I told you to stop hanging round my maids.'

‘He brought me here, Mrs Williams.' Sali stepped out from behind him.

‘Miss Sali? My God, what have they done to you? Your hair! Your look half starved. Come in.' Mrs Williams opened the door. ‘If you can put up with the mess of the cook and the maids preparing dinner you can sit in the kitchen.' She eyed Joey. ‘You, wait here, and if any maid walks past, you will not say a word to them. You will not even look at them. You will do absolutely nothing. And if you even try, you'll have your backside warmed by my carpet beater.'

‘I'll see that he behaves, Mrs Williams.'

‘You do that.' Mrs Williams looked Victor up and down. ‘You're not like him, are you?'

‘No, Mrs Williams.'

‘I don't know why I believe you, but I do. Come on, Miss Sali, we've got a bit to catch up on.'

Rhian dropped the knife she was using to peel potatoes and looked at Sali with terrified eyes. ‘Owen ...'

‘Doesn't know where we are. I'm hiding from him too, Rhian,' Sali assured her swiftly.

Rhian gripped the back of a chair to steady herself. ‘He really doesn't know where I am?'

‘No, Rhian. I've come for Harry, I mean Isaac.'

‘Sit down, Miss Sali.' Mrs Williams pushed a chair beneath her. ‘Your boy is with a girl who used to work here before courting ruin in Pontypridd.'

‘Is he in Tonypandy?' Sali asked impatiently.

‘Clydach.' Mrs Williams opened a drawer in a dresser and removed a notebook and pencil. ‘I'll write down the address for you.'

‘I owe you money.'

‘If you owe anything, you owe it to my sister not me. Rhian came with enough to pay for the boy's keep.'

‘Have you heard how my aunt and Mari are?'

‘Your aunt is not so bad, considering what she's been through. Do you know your uncle sacked Mari?'

‘He told me he intended to.'

‘There's no need to look so tragic. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her. She landed right on her feet. She's companion and nurse to Mrs Gwilym James, now. Will you write to them?'

‘Perhaps,' Sali replied guardedly. ‘Will you tell them that I was here and I am well and thinking of them?'

‘You don't want to give me your address?'

Sali shook her head. ‘I'd rather not.'

‘Might be as well, not that I'd tell anyone any more than I'll tell a soul where this one is.' She pointed to Rhian. ‘No girl should live in fear as she does.'

Sali embraced Rhian and she sensed that her sister-in-law was having as much trouble holding back her tears as she was. ‘I looked for you on the Pandy Parade and on Sundays around the chapels.'

‘I've been too afraid to go out.'

‘There's a provision shop, in Tonypandy, Rodney's, you can't miss it. If you ever need me, go there, tell them who you are and they'll give you my address. Take care of yourself.' She squeezed Rhian's hand.

‘Reunions are all very well, Mrs Williams, but I've a dinner to get on the table.'

‘Sorry, Cook.' Rhian picked up the knife from the floor. ‘Give Isaac my love. See you, Sali?'

Sali went to the door wondering if she would ever see Rhian again.

After they had finished assembling the bed and making it, Billy Evans laid a fire in the master bedroom.

‘To air it, because the room's not been used for so long,' he explained defensively to Lloyd, who was stunned by his father's decision to make over his mother's bedroom to the housekeeper. ‘The boy's two and a half. He should be sleeping in his own space, not with his mother.'

‘You think he should sleep in the box room?'

‘Perhaps not his first night here, but soon.' Billy ignited the paper he'd set beneath the wood and coal, and watched the flames curl upwards. ‘Give me a hand to clear the dressing table and wardrobe of your mother's things.'

‘Where do you want to put them?' Lloyd asked, dreading the thought of handling his mother's personal possessions.

‘There are two trunks in the attic, I'll get them.' His father went out on the landing and opened the hatch in the ceiling.

‘They'll get damp in the attic,' Lloyd warned.

‘They are not going in the attic.' Billy stood on a chair and lifted down the first trunk. ‘We'll put them in a corner of my bedroom in the old parlour.'

Dusk was falling when Joey, Victor and Sali reached ‘Bush Houses', two rows of small terraces set in the middle of a sea of colliery waste in Clydach Vale. A gang of children of varying ages and sizes were playing in the thick black dust between them. Two of the smallest had gleaming blond hair, but one was taller and heavier than the other. As Sali watched, the bigger of the two pushed the other one over, face down into the dirt. The child didn't cry, simply sat up, and with his bottom lips trembling, stared defiantly at his attacker.