The Quality of Love (25 page)

Her mother certainly seemed to have been impressed by Owen and seemed to have taken to him. She was constantly saying what a nice chap he was and frequently asked her how he was and seemed to be interested in anything she cared to tell her.

It was only a few months later when Lloyd came home from work, ashen-faced and shaking so much that they both thought he had been taken ill.

Lorna made him a cup of tea and insisted he sat down in front of the fire, but he pushed her aside.

‘Tea won't solve my problem,' he told her harshly. ‘In future we may not even be able to afford to drink tea,' he added gloomily.

‘What on earth are you on about? Don't tell me that there's going to be another General Strike; we're only just recovering and getting back on our feet from the last one.'

‘It's worse than that. I've been given the sack.'

They stared at him in disbelief. He'd never worked anywhere else except the few years when he'd been in the army. The moment he'd been demobbed he'd gone straight back there. His work record was exemplary; he was never late and never took a day off.

‘Thirty years of loyal service and they give me my cards without a word of warning,' he said bitterly.

‘There must be a reason,' Lorna protested.

‘They're cutting back. They said the older men in top jobs were too expensive to keep on. They got rid of three of us older ones and kept on the young lads we've trained up, who only earn half of what we do.'

‘Didn't any of the others have anything to say about it?' Lorna asked.

‘Plenty, but it did no good. We were all told that if someone had to go then this was the best way. Our families were all grown up so we weren't still struggling to make ends meet.'

‘Surely the younger men stood a better chance of getting taken on somewhere else, though?' Sarah frowned.

‘Watching their own backs, aren't they?' her father said bitterly. ‘Make too much of a fuss about us being sacked and their own jobs might be on the line. All these years I've done my best, ever since I joined the company, and this is how they treat me.'

‘So what are you going to do now?' Lorna asked in a bewildered voice. ‘You're not yet fifty, Lloyd, so you can't simply sit back and do nothing. You're far too young to retire so you'll have to try and find another job.'

‘I'll certainly do my best but the chances of finding one at my age is going to be difficult. I don't suppose for one minute I'll get another one as a manager. To think I kept everything in shipshape order all these years and now some half-trained youngster is stepping into
my shoes. Give him three months and without my guidance everything will be in utter chaos. It takes years of experience to run things there as efficiently as I did,' he said morosely.

‘Well, if you can't get a managerial position then you'll have to compromise and be prepared to take something else, I suppose,' Lorna sympathised.

‘All because of the damned miners coming out on strike,' Lloyd muttered gloomily.

‘If they'd treated them right in the first place, paid them a living wage and provided them with decent homes, then none of this would have happened,' Sarah opined.

‘Maybe with your education it would have been better if you'd put up for Parliament and helped to run the country instead of working where you are,' her father told her sourly.

Sarah felt stung by his words and was about to start arguing with him but her mother gave her a warning look.

Afterwards, Lorna said gently, ‘Don't start riling him, Sarah. He's depressed enough as it is. He's never been out of work in his life before and this is a terrible blow for him having to go on the dole. It's going to take a lot of persuading to get him to go and sign on because he'll feel it is such a disgrace having to do so.'

‘There's no disgrace at all about it. He's been paying in for it ever since he started work so it's his due.'

‘You know that and so do I but to him it
seems like a handout, a form of charity, and it will go against the grain for him to have to queue up to sign on each week, I can tell you.'

As the weeks passed and Lloyd had still not managed to find work, he grew more and more depressed. Even though she was handing over almost all of her wages Sarah knew that her mother was having a hard time keeping things going on these and her father's dole money.

At the end of twenty-six weeks they all knew that even this would stop and then things would be more difficult than ever. For a start they would be means tested and the very thought of that sent shudders through all of them.

‘We may as well not bother because they'll tell us that we have a daughter living at home who is working and, what's more, they'll tell us that we have plenty of furniture and other stuff that we can sell,' her father pointed out.

It made him all the more determined to find work. He'd long since given up looking for anything managerial, having faced so many rejections because of his age. By now he was ready to do almost anything rather than have to submit himself and his family to suffering the indignity of the Means Test.

From the very first he'd asked Sarah not to mention his dilemma to Owen because he felt so ashamed of their plight. Now, however, she was so worried that Owen sensed something was wrong.

When he asked her a direct question about why she was so quiet and evasive she had no alternative but to tell him the truth.

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' he said shaking his head in dismay. ‘As a matter of fact, I wondered if you were having trouble at home because of me. The fact that I've never been invited back again made me think that perhaps your parents disapproved of me.'

‘No, nothing at all like that. My mam thought you were lovely, in fact.' She smiled.

‘Well, that's good to hear.' He grinned. ‘What about your dad, does he think the same?'

She shrugged. ‘I have made a point of not mentioning your name lately because he is so indignant that he is out of work and blames the miners' strike for the fact that he is on the dole.'

‘How long has he been looking for work? You've never said a word and I thought we were friends,' he commented reprovingly.

‘His twenty-six weeks are almost up and that means the Means Test, if he is to get any more money and he and my mam are absolutely sick with worry at the thought of that.'

‘I'm sure they are,' Owen agreed quietly. ‘It must be terrible for a proud hard-working man like your father who has had a highly responsible job to be subjected to that sort of thing.'

Two days later, Owen handed her a form.

‘What's this?' Sarah asked, her voice tinged with alarm. ‘You're not giving me the sack I hope,' she added with a weak smile.

‘No, it's an application form for your father to fill out. I'm sure we can find him some sort of work here.'

‘Thank you.' Sarah bit her lip, not knowing quite what else to say because she wasn't at all sure how her father would react.

Sarah took the application form that Owen had given her home but she gave it to her mother, not her father.

‘I'm not at all sure how your dad will react over this, cariad,' Lorna said uneasily. ‘The mood he's in these days he might think you're interfering.'

‘That's utter rubbish. Surely he can't afford to turn down any help he gets.'

Her mother read the form through again, running her finger down the page to make sure she missed nothing out as she did so.

‘Who would he have to see if he completed this application form?' she asked frowning.

‘The general manager, of course,' Sarah told her.

‘Isn't that what that Owen Phillips is?' her mother asked in a puzzled voice.

‘Yes, Owen is the general manager.'

‘I don't think your dad would feel comfortable about having to do that at all. What's more to the point, he might regard it as charity if he was actually offered a job at Morgan's, and he would hate that,' her mother said worriedly.

‘Believe me, it wouldn't be charity; he'd have
to have the necessary qualifications,' Sarah told her quickly. ‘It was Owen's idea that he should fill in an application form.'

‘What on earth were you thinking of, telling Owen about our problems?' her mother exclaimed.

‘I hadn't told him about Dad losing his job, not until today,' Sarah defended herself.

‘Why tell him at all?' Lorna said indignantly.

‘I wouldn't have done so but he questioned me because he said I seemed to be troubled and he thought it might be because you two disapproved of me going out with him.'

‘What utter nonsense! I thought he was an extremely nice chap. You must invite him to come again soon; that is, once your dad is fixed up in a job,' she added hurriedly.

‘Well, what are we going to do about this application form? Are we going to give it to Dad to fill in or not?' Sarah challenged.

Neither of them was at all sure about what his reaction would be so they decided it might be best to leave it for another couple of days and see what developed. Lloyd was in a grim mood as it was and was constantly carping about the injustice of it all.

‘The miners have already taken pay cuts so why couldn't the bosses be satisfied with that? The men have to live, they have to feed their kids, and a chunk of their money goes back to the pit owners in the form of rent anyway.'

‘It's no good blaming the miners for the fact
that you've lost your job,' Lorna told him. ‘It's the company you worked for that's to blame. Mind you, most firms are penny pinching these days.'

‘Yes, so that the bosses can line their own pockets,' Lloyd retorted bitterly.

He constantly nagged Sarah that she should take these matters more seriously and that with her legal training she ought to be trying to do something about it.

‘If I start getting involved in politics then I might lose my job and that would mean we were both out of work and on the dole,' she pointed out. ‘Furthermore, as a woman with no dependants I probably wouldn't get any dole and even if I applied I would be told that I didn't have enough stamps on my card to be entitled to any.'

‘You've got an answer for everything,' he told her. ‘Wait until you're given your cards for no reason at all and see how you feel about things then.'

Sarah was on the point of telling him about the application form but her mother shook her head, warning her to say nothing.

They probably wouldn't have told him about it at all except that a couple of days later he came home from the dole office after going to sign on to say that they had told him that his dole money would cease forthwith.

‘The next step is that I have to appear before a tribunal and be means tested,' Lloyd told
them bitterly. ‘I suppose you know all about that,' he added sourly.

‘I should do, you've told us often enough,' Lorna sighed. ‘They will want to know all your personal details, like how much rent we pay and what our outgoings are and so on, I suppose,' she added worriedly.

‘We've been through the details all before and I don't want to talk about it again,' Lloyd said huffily. ‘Duw anwyl, how the devil do you think I will feel when I have to sit here watching you turn sheets to middle because we can't afford new ones and patching and darning my socks over and over again.'

‘As long as we have enough to eat and some coal to put on the fire to keep us warm and enable us to cook then we shouldn't grumble, I suppose,' Lorna said philosophically. ‘Think of those who have a young family to feed; how do you explain to kiddies that are crying with hunger that there's nothing in the cupboard for them?'

As far as Lloyd was concerned the fact that he was the one undergoing the indignity of being subjected to the Means Test was the last straw. He kept repeating that he was too young to be on the scrap heap, that he was fit and willing to work, and that he had years of valuable experience.

‘I'd sooner throw myself in front of a train than have to face this,' he declared angrily as he polished his shoes and smartened himself up ready for the interview.

‘There's no need for you to do either,' Sarah told him, ignoring her mother's warning look. ‘I've got a job application form here for you to fill in. Do that and I'm sure you'll get work of some sort, even if it is not quite the sort of job you want.'

Lloyd took the piece of paper from her, his face lighting up with relief; then he scowled darkly as soon as he saw the heading. Morgan Builders.

‘Have you been bleating about me being out of work to that fellow you brought here for tea?' he asked belligerently. ‘I don't want anyone making a job for me because they feel sorry for me, let me tell you. I'm not a charity case.'

‘Believe me, no one is going to give you a job at Morgan's unless there is a vacancy and you have the right qualifications or experience to fill it,' she told him crisply.

‘So even if I fill in the answers to all these damn questions it still won't mean that I've got a job?'

‘Not unless there is a vacancy for a man with your talents,' she agreed.

He studied the form more closely. ‘Probably a complete waste of time filling it in,' he said morosely.

‘If you don't try you'll never know,' Sarah told him as she turned and walked away. ‘If you're right and nothing comes of it, then at least you'll be able to tell me what a complete
waste of time it was,' she added as she reached the door.

‘I'm not at all sure you've done the right thing,' her mother whispered worriedly as she followed Sarah into the kitchen. ‘I saw the look on his face when he read through that form.'

‘It's too late to worry about it now and it is up to him whether he fills it in or not,' Sarah replied.

The next morning the completed form was alongside her plate on the breakfast table. She said nothing but slipped it inside her handbag to take in to work with her.