Tiger Bay Blues (14 page)

When Pearl was awake, her eyes came brightly, vividly alive, at odds with the wreck of her body, as she gazed keenly around the room. Her uncles had spent a day moving the furniture around the tiny terraced house, turning the front parlour into a bedroom, and Judy sensed her grandmother’s anger and frustration both at the desecration of her ‘best room’ and with the body she could no longer control.

But most of the time she was too busy – and tired – to spend much time thinking. Washing, dressing and feeding her grandmother, who was loath to eat or drink – as if she actually wanted to hasten her end – took up every minute of the day. Including the ones she should have spent sleeping. The money from the Evanses had dwindled to a few shillings after she paid for the medicine the doctor prescribed and met his bills. And both she and her uncles knew that if it hadn’t been for the bookings Micah Holsten negotiated for the band every weekend, she wouldn’t have been able to pay the rent.

Her uncles’ wives did what they could: taking it in turns to look after one another’s children, so Judy could practise and sing with the band; making soups and stews that they brought round at meal-times, not only because Judy couldn’t spare the time to cook, but also because they knew she had no money for food.

A knock at the door echoed down the passage, which Judy found strange. Her uncles’ families, the neighbours and even the doctor walked straight in. It was common practice in the Bay. She lifted the light quilt to her grandmother’s chin, concealing her twitching hand beneath it in case someone wanted to see her, then went to the door.

A middle-aged, fair-haired, balding man stood on the step. He looked her up and down, and she instinctively clutched at the neck of her blouse.

‘Are you Judy Hamilton?’

‘And if I am?’ she answered abruptly.

‘I’m Joshua Hamilton. Your father.’

‘This room is hotter than a bread oven.’ Lloyd set his knife and fork down on the remains of his cold ham and wilted salad. Sali and Edyth were sitting opposite him. At his insistence, they were in the upstairs dining room of the Mermaid Hotel in Mumbles, one of the most fashionable and expensive hotels in the small seaside village outside Swansea.

‘We are in the coolest spot next to the window.’ Sali smiled at him, but Edyth continued to study a painting of a sailing ship on the wall above his head.

Lloyd had watched Edyth during the meal and was convinced she’d only swallowed a forkful of her prawn salad. Aware that her father was looking at her, she pushed the food aside on her plate and set down her own knife and fork. Lloyd refrained from making a comment. The forlorn hope he’d nurtured, that she would break her silence of the last few weeks towards him, had dissipated. Not only had she picked at her meal, she’d ignored all the remarks he’d made to her, and answered her mother’s gentle enquiries in monosyllables.

‘Can I bring you anything else, sir, madam, miss?’ The waitress moved behind Edyth’s chair, took her pencil from her pocket and held it over her notepad.

‘Would either of you like dessert or coffee?’ Lloyd asked.

‘I couldn’t eat another thing, thank you, the salads were very good.’ Sali smiled at the girl.

‘Nor I.’ Edyth spoke to the waitress, not her father.

‘Then it will just be the bill, please,’ Lloyd said.

‘I’ll make it up and bring it over, sir.’ The waitress walked over to the cashier, who was sitting at a desk by the door.

‘Well, darling, your accommodation is comfortable and, from the look of the girls we met when we carried your things into the dormitory, you’ll soon make plenty of friends. Take things slowly. I’m sure you’ll find your feet and settle down in no time. The views are so beautiful from your bedroom you might find it difficult to concentrate on studying but after all the times we’ve holidayed here, I think you’ve picked the right place … you know Swansea and the Mumbles well enough to find your way around, but as you’ve only ever been here for a few weeks at a time it’s new enough to be interesting. You’ll have lots of fine walks …’ Sali was conscious she was saying anything and everything that came into her head to fill the crushing silence that had fallen between father and daughter.

The last month had been unbearable. Lloyd had prided himself on being close to all his children, constantly telling them that whatever their problems, they could count on him to do all he could to help without being critical. But Edyth had refused to look at him or answer a single question he had put to her since the afternoon he had turned his back on her and Peter Slater, and walked out of the sitting room.

Their embittered and prolonged quarrel had affected the entire household. Edyth had continued to speak to the rest of the family, but had restricted her conversation to the absolutely essential. And not even Mari had been able to coax her to acknowledge Lloyd’s presence.

Sali knew Edyth was in touch with Peter because letters arrived for her every day bearing Cardiff postmarks. But Edyth hadn’t volunteered any information about the contents and Sali felt too dispirited to enquire. Meals, once the highlight of family life, had become torture. Edyth poked at the food on her plate, barely eating a mouthful before making her excuses and leaving the room. And neither Sali nor Lloyd wanted to escalate the tension by forcing her to stay.

Using the excuse that she was studying in preparation for college, Edyth had become uncharacteristically solitary, shutting herself up for hours in her bedroom, all the while growing thinner and paler as the heat wave continued into late summer, browning the countryside, triggering a nationwide drought and draining the energy of everyone forced to venture out of doors.

Desperate, Sali had turned to Lloyd’s brothers and their wives for help. But although Victor and Megan and their four boys, and Joey and Rhian and their five children had visited them more often than usual, they had no more success than she, Mari, the girls and Glyn had in drawing Edyth out of the shell she had retreated into.

Joey hadn’t needed to warn her or Lloyd that even if they succeeded in getting Edyth to college, they wouldn’t be able to force her to stay there, much less study, and Sali suspected that Edyth might be planning to deliberately flunk her exams at the end of her first term.

Lloyd checked the bill the waitress presented to him, paid it and added a ten per cent tip. He left his seat, shrugged on the linen jacket he had hung on the back of his chair and glanced at his watch.

‘The Cardiff train will be leaving Swansea station in half an hour. I’ll go downstairs and ask the receptionist to order us a taxi.’

Sali nodded. After he left, she took Edyth’s handbag from the floor and handed it to her. ‘You have enough money, darling?’

‘I also have my bank book. If I need more, I will draw some out. There’s no need for you to send me any.’ Edyth picked up her straw hat from the empty chair next to her and jammed it on her head.

‘You will look after yourself?’

‘You don’t have to worry about me, Mam.’

‘Please, won’t you at least say goodbye to your father?’ Sali pleaded.

Tight-lipped, Edyth shook her head. ‘He knows how I feel. I have nothing more to say to him.’

‘You’re breaking his heart –’

‘If you’re going to catch your train, you should go.’ Edyth led the way out of the room and ran down the stairs. The taxi had arrived and Lloyd was outside, holding the door open. He made one final attempt to talk to Edyth.

‘We can catch a later train, if you’d like us to drive you up to Townhill and drop you outside the college, Edie.’

Edyth didn’t answer him. She hugged and kissed Sali and, ignoring Lloyd, walked swiftly across the road. Seconds later her slight figure was lost in the crowds walking beneath the shade of the trees opposite. Lloyd continued to stand and stare, as though he were searching for a glimpse of her.

Sali touched his arm. ‘The sooner we go, the earlier the train we’ll catch.’

Lloyd leaned forward and spoke to the driver through the cab window. ‘The railway station, please.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Sali stepped into the cab, Lloyd followed and Sali reached for his hand.

‘I didn’t think we’d succeed in getting her here. At least we achieved that much,’ she consoled.

‘The question is whether she will stay,’ he said disconsolately. ‘Sweetheart, I have a feeling we have a long three years ahead of us, and I am not at all sure that our Edyth will have a teaching certificate at the end of it.’

After checking there was no train in sight, Edyth crossed the tracks of the Mumbles railway that followed the curve of the bay and looked down at the beach. Small boys and girls were playing hide and seek amongst the rows of small boats and sailing dinghies that had been dragged above the tide-line. In the distance on the far left, she could see the silhouettes of the tall cranes and hoists of Swansea docks. To her right, Mumbles Head stretched out to sea. The lighthouse perched on the furthermost point reminded her of a long white finger, its glass nail pointing upwards to a cloudless, sun-baked sky.

Gulls screeched, a singularly mournful sound, as they swooped low over the breaking waves in search of prey. The tide was incoming, swirling fast, carrying a crust of seaweed, driftwood and shells that crowds of young boys, armed with nets and buckets, paddled through in search of fishy treasures. Edyth imagined a young Peter among them and, for some unaccountable reason, the image brought tears to her eyes.

She made an effort to block out the raucous sounds of laughter and noise around her and concentrate on the natural beauty of the bay: the water that sucked and gurgled like a living being through the pebbles on the tide-line; the frothing of the dirty, grey foam, flecked with blacker streaks of coal dust, that topped the breakers dissolving on the shore; the peculiar tracks made by crabs scuttling sideways over compacted, wet sand.

She stepped down on the rocks, spread her handkerchief on an outcrop and perched on it before opening her handbag and drawing out the letter she had received that morning. She had read it so often she could have quoted it line for line, but that didn’t deter her from reading it again.

My dearest Edyth,

I do hope you are well and in better spirits than when you wrote your last letter. Unfortunately, Reverend Richards continues in poor health and is unable to perform his ecclesiastical, administrative, or pastoral duties. At the Bishop’s suggestion, and in the absence of close family and friends, I have taken it upon myself to speak to his doctor. He believes Reverend Richards’s illness owes as much to his depressed spirits as a physical cause. The poor man lost heart when his wife died suddenly following a seizure before Christmas, and I only have to think of the effect that our present separation is having on my state of mind to understand a little of what he is suffering.

Aside from weakness, loss of appetite, and trembling in his limbs, Reverend Richards has no medical condition his doctor can diagnose, but he is lethargic and has little interest in parish affairs, his parishioners or indeed life.

The Bishop visited us yesterday. He spent the entire afternoon here, first talking to Reverend Richards, and then myself, before joining both of us for tea in the vicarage. As
I have told you in my previous letters, our housekeeper’s culinary skills rival those of Mrs Price.

She smiled at the reference that no one not acquainted with Reverend and Mrs Price would understand. It added an intimacy to her relationship with Peter. Already they shared secrets.

The Bishop is arranging for the Reverend Richards to be taken to a retreat on Monday week. There, he will be cared for by a professional nurse employed by the Church. The Bishop and
I prayed that care, rest and good food will restore him to his previous robust health, but given that Reverend Richards is sixty-four, the Bishop thinks it best to retire him now, so the years left to him can be spent in well-earned rest and quiet contemplation.

This leaves the church with the problem of what to do with the Butetown parish. The Bishop told me that he was impressed with what
I have achieved in the few short weeks since he appointed me curate here. I have resurrected the youth and temperance clubs and enrolled over twenty members in each. I have held an inaugural meeting of a drama group, although the people who turned up were more interested in music than theatre. I also arranged a picnic for the younger parishioners with the help of a few of the mothers and a local fruit merchant who loaned us his lorry to take the children to Leckwith Hill.

However, despite this progress, the Bishop warned me that he will not countenance placing this particular parish in a bachelor’s keeping, however enthusiastic or dedicated the incumbent.

He enquired after you. I hope you don’t mind but I confided in him and told him of your father’s opposition to our marriage. The Bishop kindly volunteered to approach your parents on our behalf. He thought a direct appeal might persuade Mr Evans to reconsider. I thanked him for his offer, but asked him not to do anything until I had written to you. Perhaps if you showed this letter to your parents they might consent to discuss the matter with us again, in the presence of the Bishop? Believe me, the Bishop is only thinking of our future and welfare.

Please, dearest, write to me by return to let me know your thoughts.

God keep and bless you,

I am, and will always remain,

Your Peter Slater

Edyth returned the letter to its envelope, replaced it in her handbag and glanced at her wristwatch. Hopefully, her parents had reached the station in time to catch the six-thirty train. If they had missed it, there was another at seven-thirty and again at eight-thirty. To be on the safe side, she had decided that she should catch the eight-thirty. That gave her plenty of time to walk down towards the university buildings on the Mumbles Road, take the turning that led up the hill to the village of Uplands from where she could make her way through Cwmdonkin Park to the college.

All she had to do was order a taxi to meet her outside the gates at a quarter to eight, and the bursar would do that for her, after she had related the story she had prepared. She would ask for a driver who would be prepared to carry her luggage to the car and also on to the train.