Winners and Losers (37 page)

‘I'd like to save enough to pay Megan's father fifteen shillings a week so she can leave the lodging house.'

‘The strike can't go on much longer and then you can start earning your money a sensible way.'

‘Until the pits reopen, I'll make my money the only way I can.'

Sali grimaced as she filled a bowl with clean water. A cold spring had given way to a warm June and July, but nine months in there was still no sign of the strike breaking, and the soup kitchens were stretched to their utmost, supplying the most basic of rations to the miners' families. Nearly all the children she saw in Harry's school and on the streets were as thin-faced, pale and listless as their parents. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the miners couldn't hold out much longer, but despite the best efforts of the strike leaders, management categorically refused to make a single concession to their demands.

The kitchen door opened, and Mr Evans swung in on his crutches. ‘I thought I heard someone come in. You been fighting again, Victor?'

‘I earned another five pounds boxing. It's enough to pay Megan back what Joey and I owe her.'

‘Looks like it cost you that much in blood to get it,' Billy said caustically. ‘Make sure that your brother pays you back as soon as he can.'

‘How did the fitting for the artificial leg go?' Victor knew that he risked incurring his father's wrath for even asking.

‘All right.'

‘Lloyd said you'll have it next week.'

Mr Evans didn't answer Sali and she didn't press him. The men who visited him told him he looked well and congratulated him on making a remarkable recovery but she and his sons knew better. He spent most of his days and they suspected nights –sitting alone in his room, looking through the photograph albums his wife had compiled.

‘Who's after you now, boy?' Mr Evans asked Joey, as he dashed into the room, cap in hand, gasping for breath.

‘Lloyd sent me up to get Victor. There's serious trouble down at Ely pit in Penygraig. Hundreds of police are there, the boys are throwing stones at them and the engine house. It's turning really ugly ...' Joey fell silent, as a strange expression crossed his father's face.

‘What does Lloyd think that Victor can do?'

‘The men have a great deal of respect for Victor and his opinions, even more so since the trial.' Sali knew that Victor would never say anything about the authority he commanded with the strikers, so she said it for him. ‘They know Victor was innocent and that he stopped Luke Thomas from beating up Mr Adams.'

‘Are there blacklegs down there?' Billy looked to Joey.

‘So rumour has it, although Lloyd couldn't find anyone who'd actually seen them.'

‘I'll go with you.'

‘You -'

‘If Lloyd sent for Victor it has to be serious. Joey, run down to Connie's and ask her to send her delivery cart up here for me.'

‘Are you ...' Sali fell silent, as Victor frowned at her. There would undoubtedly be trouble and most probably fighting down at Penygraig, but it was also the first time that Billy Evans had shown any signs of animation since he'd left the hospital.

Chapter Nineteen

Sali sank down on her chair after the men left. She looked up at the clock. Another hour and it would be time to fetch Harry from school and go on to the soup kitchen. Since Lloyd's father had come home from the hospital, she had cut down on the number of hours she worked there, although the only one he would allow to help him wash, change and shave was Lloyd.

She stared at the fire. There was little point in lighting it as she usually did before she fetched Harry, because there was no way of knowing how long the men would be.

‘Hello, anyone in?' Megan walked into the kitchen.

‘You managed to get an hour off.'

‘Two. I overheard the police officers talking. They said that the strike was about to end ...'

‘That was premature: the strike committee agreed to hold another meeting with management next week, but as the owners are refusing to put anything new on the table I doubt that the men will decide to go back to work. Please sit down,' Sali invited. ‘I'm sorry, I haven't lit the fire. With the men on the picket lines, there's no point in doing it for a while, so I can't offer you tea, but I made some vinegar biscuits yesterday and as Joey says, there's plenty of water in the tap.'

‘I'm fine, I had a cup of tea and a slice of apple pie before I left Mrs Palmer's.' Megan saw the bowl of water and jar of goose grease on the table next to the sink. ‘Victor's been boxing again.'

‘I'm afraid so.' Sali tipped the water down the sink.

‘I wish he wouldn't.'

‘That makes two of us.'

‘Is he badly hurt?' Megan bit her lip anxiously.

‘He's been worse. Just a few small cuts on his face.'

‘One of the officers also said there's trouble at Ely Colliery,' Megan said warily. ‘I hope Victor hasn't gone down there.'

‘He left ten minutes ago. Lloyd was already there. He sent Joey up to get Victor to see if he could calm the men before trouble breaks out again. As usual, there are rumours of blacklegs. Mr Evans went with them.'

‘Is he well enough?'

‘No.' Sali didn't say any more. The picket lines were no place for an able-bodied man, let alone one in her father-in-law's condition, but she knew from past experience that voicing her concerns would only make her worry all the more. All she could do was concentrate on other things until the crisis was over.

‘Will it ever be over?'

‘I don't see how we can hold out much longer. The union's paid out so much in strike money it's virtually bankrupt, and without the ten shillings a week it pays every striker, no one would eat. Lloyd and his father are talking to management, that's all management ever do –talk. But,' Sali smiled determinedly as she took the chair opposite Megan's, ‘as we can't do a thing about it, let's forget the strike. It's a lovely day, the sun is shining and I'm only sorry that Victor isn't here to enjoy it with you. I wish I could tell you when he'll be back, but your guess is as good as mine.'

‘You walking over to get Harry from school?'

‘Much to his annoyance. He insists he's old enough to walk there and back by himself, but I don't agree. He can do it next term when he's five and not before.'

‘If you don't mind, I'll go with you. I could do with some fresh air. How are you keeping?' Megan nodded to Sali's thickening waistline.

‘Fine. I'd be happier if Lloyd, his brothers and his father wouldn't fuss over me quite so much. They won't let me lift a coal bucket or carry a tray, although I keep telling them I'm having a baby, not dying on my feet.'

‘Think about it, Sali, the last baby to be born in this house was Joey. They're probably scared witless in case the midwife doesn't arrive in time and they have to do something.'

‘I wish you were still living next door,' Sali said sincerely. ‘It would be good to have another woman to talk to whenever I feel like a chat. But then, when you're twenty-one -'

‘Please, don't say anything,' Megan interrupted uneasily, her blood running cold. ‘I don't want to tempt fate.'

‘I can understand that after waiting so long to marry Lloyd. Sometimes, even now, I find it difficult to believe that we really are married.'

‘And happy despite the strike?' Megan asked a little wistfully.

‘Most definitely. I'll comb my hair and then we'll have a wander in Dunraven Street. We can window shop before we go to the school.'

‘Sounds good to me.' Megan knew Sali was as worried as her about what was happening in Penygraig. Window shopping wasn't the best way to pass the time, but it was cheap, and there was a chance that they might meet someone who could take their minds off whatever was happening outside the Ely Colliery for a few minutes.

‘The Evanses know how to pick their women,' Luke Thomas commented enviously to Alun Richards, as they leaned again the wall of Alun's house in Pandy Square in the company of half a dozen other strikers who had nothing better to do than watch the world go by.

‘They certainly do.' Alun stared at the inch or so of leg Megan was showing above her ankle. ‘Good-looking, the pair of them.'

Megan and Sali continued to stroll arm in arm across the square, oblivious to the glances they were attracting from admiring men and other women. Dressed in a two-year-old, green sprigged cotton summer dress, which looked new because she'd had so few chances to wear it, her mass of red curls loosely wound on top of her head, Megan glowed, a picture of health in comparison to the pale-faced, haggard women around her. The lightweight, beige linen maternity suit Sali had bought in Gwilym James, because none of her ordinary clothes fitted her, was elegant and looked expensive. Its box jacket hid her burgeoning figure, and like Megan she positively shone with health and happiness. They stopped, still arm in arm, to speak to Betty Morgan, who was leaving the lodging house.

‘Those women ought to be shot. All three of them,' Mark Hardy growled from the doorway of his hut where he wasted most of his days, sitting staring into space. ‘Standing there fat, healthy and dressed to the nines, flaunting themselves while others starve.'

‘I'm the last person to put in a good word for Megan Williams or Betty Morgan. Any woman who earns her bread by working for the enemy gets nothing but contempt from me.' Alun spat on the pavement to emphasize his disgust. ‘But whatever else you want to say about Sali Evans, the Evanses are living off strike pay, same as the rest of us.'

‘Not the same as the rest of us at all,' Mark Hardy snarled viciously. ‘They get four lots of pay and they've a garden big enough to keep chickens and grow vegetables in. They're not much worse off than when they were in work.'

‘Fair's fair. Victor Evans gives away what he can to the soup kitchen. And before he was dragged into court and the police started watching him too closely for him to risk working in the drifts, he often used to slip the missus the odd bucket of coal.' Alun spoke up in Victor's defence.

‘Maybe a couple of buckets of nicked coal and a handful of vegetables to the soup kitchen makes him all right in your book but not mine.' Mark scowled. ‘Just look at those three.' He focused on Sali, Megan and Betty again. ‘They may as well stand there and shout, “We're all right and to hell with the rest of the world.”'

‘Like us, Mark, they're just trying to survive,' one of the other miners pointed out mildly.

‘Survive! Victor Evans' girl has a job where she can eat herself silly skivvying for bloody coppers and it shows. Tell me truthfully, have you seen any other women in this town lately with curves like her and Lloyd Evans' wife? And Betty Morgan's been looking healthier since she started working in Palmer's lodging house. Bloody Ned Morgan ...'

‘No speaking ill of the dead,' Alun warned. He looked closely at Mark. If he hadn't known any better he would have said he was drunk. But Mark only got a couple of shillings a week from the distress fund and the half a jug of soup and few slices of bread a day that Father Kelly sent over from the soup kitchen because Mark was too proud to eat in the hall.

‘Ned, Billy and Lloyd Evans started this strike -'

‘With our backing,' Luke reminded. ‘We had a free and democratic vote, remember?'

‘No, I bloody well don't.'

‘You were told about it. Everyone in the pit was.' Arguments had become Luke's lifeblood since the strike had started, the one occupation open to him that actually taxed his brain.

‘I never voted to strike.'

‘That's democracy for you, Mark,' Alun said calmly. ‘The majority not the minority get their way.'

‘And did the men who voted for the strike know that it was going to mean women and children starving to death?' Mark trembled with suppressed emotion.

One or two of the men exchanged embarrassed glances and drifted away from the group. Everyone felt intensely sorry for Mark and what had happened to his wife and children, but that hadn't stopped them from apportioning some of the blame for their deaths on his pride and stubborn refusal to ask for help before it was too late.

‘Deserve to be shot, the bloody lot of them,' Mark muttered. ‘All the Evanses, and their women and Betty Morgan, deserve to be shot and if there was a God that's what he'd do, shoot the lot of them. But then perhaps shooting's too quick ...'

‘Mark, man, you're upset, you don't know what you're saying.' Luke walked towards him.

‘You stay away from me, Luke Thomas. You're as bad as the rest of them. Deserve to be shot ...' Mark went into his hut and banged the door so hard the remaining men standing around Alun's house thought it would fall off its hinges.

‘Silly sod's gone off his rocker,' Luke declared.

‘Can you blame him?' Alun asked. ‘Wife and two kids dead from starvation, all his other kids in the workhouse and, as he hasn't the means to keep them, there's no prospect of him getting them out. When he went up there yesterday to try to see them he discovered the oldest girl had been sent into service. They wouldn't even tell him where. Said she had a better chance of a new life if she made a clean break from her old one.'

‘That's hard,' Luke commiserated.

‘It is. She's only eleven.' Alun glanced at Megan again. She lifted her skirt as she stepped around a steaming pile of horse manure behind the brewery cart. Her shapely ankle and slim leg brought his wife's sagging body and thinning hair to mind.

‘You looking at what I'm looking at?' Luke asked.

‘Just can't take your eyes off them, can you?' Alun said.

‘Some men are born lucky, and I'd say none are luckier than Lloyd and Victor Evans. Just the sight of those two women is enough to make me want to follow them home and forget my missus.'

‘Careful I don't tell her that,' Alun laughed.

‘Tell who what?' Beryl demanded, leaving the house.

‘Just men's talk, my darling,' Alun answered flippantly.

‘You can go in there,' Beryl pointed into the house, ‘and look after the twins while I go down to Rodney's to see how much food ten bob can buy this week.'

Sali and Megan picked up Harry from school, and walked towards the town centre and Mrs Palmer's lodging house. After leaving Megan at the back door, Sali carried on to the soup kitchen where Father Kelly was telling bad jokes and being more determinedly cheerful than usual, in an ineffectual attempt to make everyone forget what was going on outside the Ely Colliery in Penygraig. She was glad when their first customers came in and she, Father Kelly and their helpers were kept too busy serving food to make any extraneous conversation.

After Father Kelly saw the last people out of the hall at seven o'clock, he closed the doors, drew Sali aside and handed her the keys.

‘You want me to lock up for you?'

‘If you'd be so kind.' He picked up his hat.

‘You're going to Penygraig?'

‘Someone has to mediate between the hotheads. From what I've seen, there are men on both sides determined to get stupider and more pig-headed with every passing day. Now don't you go trying to clear everything up here, in your condition, it can wait until morning.'

‘Looks like Mrs Gallivan and Mrs O'Casey have everything in hand.' Sali drew his attention to their two hardest working volunteers.

‘They're both fine charitable women and God loves them for it. I'll see you here tomorrow afternoon, Sali, but only if it's convenient for you.'

Sali blanched at his inference that it might not be convenient. Every time there was fighting at a pithead, Lloyd, or one of his family, seemed to get injured. She looked at a picture of the Virgin Mary in the corner of the hall and uttered a wish, which became a prayer, that this time, all four men would escape without a scratch.

She and Harry returned to an empty house at half past seven. Hoping that at least one of the men would return home in time to eat supper, she put a match to the fire, set the vegetable stew she had prepared earlier on to boil, and heated water to wash Harry. At half past eight Harry fell asleep on her lap, unable to stay awake even to hear her read him his favourite chapter of
Treasure Island.
She carried him up to bed, slipped him between the sheets, drew the curtains in his tiny bedroom, returned downstairs –and waited.

She banked up the fire with small coal that smouldered more than burned, but it was enough to keep the stew warm. Setting
Treasure Island
aside, she went into the parlour and looked along the bookshelves for something to read. Knowing she would find it almost impossible to concentrate, she picked out one of her favourites, Dickens'
A Tale of Two Cities.
Curling up on an easy chair, she opened it at the first page, but it was hopeless.

She sat staring at the clock, watching the hands crawl round from nine to ten to eleven o'clock. Unable to sit still a moment longer, she went to the front door and opened it. Betty Morgan was sitting on a kitchen chair she'd set in her open doorway. She was knitting but Sali noticed that her attention was focused on the street, not the fine white wool in her hands.