Winners and Losers (52 page)

‘You humiliate us by forcing us to live in the cramped annexe, while you and a common collier lord it in the main house, and when your husband comes out of prison -'

‘That common collier is my brother-in-law and soon to be your colleague. As to Lloyd moving in, I haven't dared think that far ahead, Geraint. The annexe has four bedrooms, a bathroom, dining room, drawing room and kitchen, in my opinion, hardly cramped quarters. I think you are forgetting that Mansel and I decorated and prepared the annexe to be our home only six years ago. As for humiliating you, you haven't paid a single penny towards your own or mother's keep since you moved into Ynysangharad House on a “temporary basis” that has lasted over a year. Joey, however, has already offered to pay his keep from his wages.'

‘He wouldn't earn enough to pay his keep in a place like Ynysangharad House,' Geraint sneered.

‘Ten shillings a week is the going rate in the Rhondda for lodgings and that is what he will be paying. It will cover the cost of his food. Now if you'll excuse me, I don't want to keep Mr Richards waiting.'

‘If you two boys can tear yourself away from killing your men,' Mari shook her head at the lead soldiers scattered around the nursery fort, ‘I'll show you your bedrooms.'

‘Later, Mari.' Harry made a booming noise and knocked over another of Joey's officers.

‘Come on, Tiger, it is not polite to keep a lady waiting, or not do as she asks.' Joey picked him up and swung him on to his back.

Mari smiled, as Harry wrapped his small arms around Joey's neck. ‘You two are close.'

‘We're in the same gang,' Harry informed her seriously.

‘This will be your room until you decide whether or not you want to move into the nursery, Master Harry. It's next door to your mother's and there's a door between the rooms, so if you need her in the night you don't have to go out on the landing.'

Joey looked around the dressing room, then opened the connecting door and gazed at the master bedroom. He whistled appreciatively at the sight of the mahogany four-poster, matching wardrobes, dressing table, washstand and desk. Two upholstered chairs stood either side of a sofa table in front of a huge window that overlooked the gardens. A Persian rug covered most of the floor and white silk drapes on the bed and windows and a white silk bedcover lightened the impact of the furniture. ‘So this is how the other half live.'

‘It is a nice room,' Mari concurred, ‘and it's been crying out to be used since Mrs James' death. I'm glad that Miss Sali has decided to move in here. You're in the blue room.' She led the way along the landing and opened another door. ‘I hope it will do you.'

‘Do me?' Joey untangled Harry's arms from around his neck and dropped him on the bed. ‘It's bigger than the whole of the upstairs in my father's house in Tonypandy.'

‘I'm going to set the soldiers up for another game, Uncle Joey.' Harry jumped down from the bed and ran back down the landing.

‘Thank you.' Joey gave Mari one of his most charming smiles. ‘I'll feel like a prince sleeping in here.' The drapes at the window were blue, the bed wasn't a four-poster but the rest of the furniture was the same standard as that in the master bedroom, and there was a desk, table and chairs at the window. The toilet ware on the washstand was Doulton –he recognized it because his mother had loved good china and had frequently taken him around the china departments of big stores before he'd been old enough to protest.

‘The maid's unpacked your things and put them in the wardrobe. Your case has been taken to the box room.'

‘I could have done that,' Joey protested. ‘I'm not used to being waited on hand and foot.'

‘Get used to it,' Mari warned. ‘Because the last thing my staff, especially the younger maids, need is an over familiar member of the family when he's as young as you, and,' she gave him a stern look, ‘who can turn on the charm whenever he wants to.'

‘Sali's been talking to you.'

‘Miss Sali didn't have to say a word. Mrs Williams -'

‘Llan House, I forgot. You're sisters, aren't you?'

‘She said you were good-looking and personable, and she was right on both counts. She also said that you couldn't be trusted around pretty girls. Well, don't try any of your antics on any of my staff or Mr Horton's in the store. The first hint of any trouble and you'll be out and not even Miss Sali will be able to save you. You want to play with anyone,' she paused, as Harry called him again from the nursery, ‘I suggest you restrict yourself to playing soldiers with your nephew.'

Not wanting to give herself too much time to think about Lloyd or build up hopes that his appeal would be successful when it might fail, Sali immersed herself in work. She contacted Mr Richards every day to check on the progress of the appeal that he was working on with Geoffrey Francis. She taught Harry and the sons and daughters of the estate workers Mr Jenkins had rounded up for his ‘class' in the mornings. She fed and played with Bella and Harry, spent three afternoons in the shop meeting manufacturers' representatives and discussing policy and shop fittings for the new Tonypandy store with Mr Horton. She visited Mason and Hardy's in Cardiff, and approved of the buy-out, which was ratified by the trustees.

She also made daily duty visits to her mother, always before Geraint came home, and rarely saw her brother outside of the store. The running of the house she left entirely to Mari, who saw that apart from the meals, which were delivered from the kitchen in the main house, the annexe and its occupants were regarded as entirely separate from the main household. She paid a short visit to Gareth and Llinos when they came home from school for the Christmas holidays and, mindful of the staff's workload during the holidays, invited them and Geraint to Christmas dinner, which turned out to be a subdued affair, in sharp contrast to the two Christmases she had enjoyed with the Evanses. And a week after Christmas, she left Bella and Harry with Mari, and she and Joey set off to make their first visit to Cardiff prison.

Sali crept close to Joey and took his arm, as they joined the crowd waiting outside the jail. It was a grey day and the wind whipped icy needles of sleet beneath their umbrella no matter how close to their heads Joey held it. She turned up the collar of her coat, pulled her hat down and glanced at the people around them. One young woman was barefoot, the child she was carrying wrapped in a tattered blanket.

Joey put his hand in his pocket and slipped something into the woman's hand. Sali pretended she hadn't seen him. The one thing she had learned about all the Evans was they hated to be thought of as soft touches and although Joey had a pound a week left over from his wages, she knew he was saving as much of it as he could. Most of their tenants were so deep in debt after the strike that their rents were slow in coming in and Joey was acutely aware that even when Lloyd, Victor and his father were released, he was the only one with a job.

After an interminable ten minutes, locks were drawn back and they all filed through a small door set in the high gates, into an open inner yard. Two warders stood behind a table and searched all the bags and parcels the visitors had brought in for the prisoners. After the food and books she had brought for Lloyd, Victor and Mr Evans had been confiscated for distribution ‘at the governor's discretion', she was separated from Joey, taken through a door into a side room in the main building and patted down by a female warder before being allowed back into the main corridor.

Joey joined her at the door to the room set aside for visits.

A warder held the door open and chanted, ‘Sit at a table as soon as you are inside, no touching the prisoners, no handing any objects whatsoever to the prisoners. Sit at a table ...'

‘They only sit four,' Joey whispered, when they were inside. ‘Take those two in the corner.' Joey sat across the aisle from Sali on one of the rough wooden benches set either side of the heavily scarred deal tables. The first thing that struck both of them was the lack of oxygen in the air, and the smell. A foul overpowering stench of unwashed bodies, clothes worn too long, faeces and urine.

Whispers occasionally broke the silence as they waited and, after another ten long minutes, the convicts eventually began to file in.

Sali covered her mouth with her hand when she saw Lloyd. His head had been shaved and his cheeks were covered in dark stubble the same length as his hair. As he moved towards her she saw that he had lost an alarming amount of weight. Victor who walked behind him didn't look any better, but her father-in-law was obviously very ill. Hunched and grey, he tottered and stumbled towards them like an old man, and she felt that he had aged ten years in a month. He started to cough when he and Victor sat at Joey's table, and his breath was harsh, grating as he drew in the foul stinking air.

‘Don't be fooled by the uniform, Sali. Underneath these imposing clothes, I'm the same old me,' Lloyd joked as he sat opposite her.

‘You look ...' Words failed her.

‘Like a convict?'

‘Lloyd ...'

‘If you don't keep a sense of humour in here, you'll go insane. How are Harry and Bella?'

She looked into his eyes and saw that he was hungry for news of the children and, if anything, was missing her even more than she was him. But then she could immerse herself in the children and work, whereas he ... she didn't want to begin to imagine what his days were like within these grim, grey walls.

She forced an insincere smile, and realized he had seen right through it. ‘They're both fine. Bella can roll around the floor of the nursery now, and Harry is enjoying his lessons with his new friends.' Unable to keep up the pretence, she fell serious. ‘I'm so sorry, Lloyd, I didn't know what to do after the trial. Then I read the minutes of the trustees' meetings I had missed and saw a chance for Joey. I moved because I thought it solved a lot of problems. Joey has a job with prospects. I don't have to worry about money, the house, shopping or even the children. If we'd stayed in Tonypandy ...'

‘You don't have to apologize, Sali.' He clasped his hands together to remind himself not to touch her. ‘I'm proud of you for not sitting back and crying, which is what most women would have done if their husbands had been locked up. I got your letter and I wholeheartedly approve of every decision you made, especially kicking Geraint out of the main part of Ynysangharad House. I agree that you can't abandon your mother but you've been feather-bedding him for far too long.'

‘You don't mind? I thought you'd be furious.'

‘Our marriage is a partnership, sweetheart. I know I can be stubborn to the point of pig-headedness at times, but I am proud of you and the way you've dealt with the strike, the trial and now this.' He looked at their miserable surroundings. ‘I wish I could have written to tell you just how proud of you I am, but there's a stupid rule, no letters for the first month. You made all the right decisions, Sali, especially for the children and Joey. I saw the letter he wrote to Victor. He's enjoying his new job.'

‘I don't know what kind of collier he was, but he's a superb salesman. Mr Horton said Gwilym James's china sales have doubled since he put him in the department. As soon as the Tonypandy store opens he'll be going up there as assistant manager.'

‘I read your letter and Joey's, so I know what you are doing with yourselves. But how are you, Sali? Really?' he said earnestly.

‘Missing you, grateful at the end of every day because it's one day less that we have to spend apart.' She stretched her hand towards him. A warder shouted at her and she withdrew it. ‘I see Mr Richards every day. He and Geoffrey Francis are working hard on your appeal ...'

‘I know. Geoffrey Francis is allowed to visit us.'

‘Lloyd ...'

‘No lying, Sali, and no false hope, please. We've always been truthful with one another, don't change that now.'

‘You were wrong about the men not daring to support you. You may not have seen them but thousands of colliers gathered outside the court in Cardiff to protest after you were sentenced. And there have been demonstrations all over the Rhondda at your imprisonment. All the unions are agitating for your release. Mabon has asked questions about your sentences in Parliament and they are allowing your appeal without costs. Every Labour politician, and even some Liberals are saying how unjust your sentences are. The unions have offered to support us -'

‘You said no,' he broke in.

‘I told them that Joey and I are earning enough to keep the children and ourselves. Working in the business gives me something to do and it stops me from thinking about you every single minute of the day.' She saw a warder glance at his pocket watch. They were running out of time. ‘Mr Richards has done all he can to find Megan. We haven't found her. But tell Victor we are still looking and haven't given up hope. Your father is ill.' She eyed Mr Evans in concern, as he burst into another coughing fit.

‘He's spent most of his time since we've been here in the infirmary. He only left there today because he wanted to see you and Joey, and by the look of him he'll be back there tomorrow.'

‘Lloyd, what is hard labour?' she asked quietly.

‘Work, no different to any other,' he said lightly. ‘Let's not talk about me, or politics or the appeal, let's talk about you and the children. I want to know every tiny little thing that you do, starting with when you get up in the morning.'

So she sat and wove him a tale of their days in Ynysangharad House and pretended not to see the pain and despair in his eyes, as she described a family life he was no longer part of.

‘How is Lloyd?' Joey asked, when he and Sali were in the train on their way back to Pontypridd.

‘He didn't want to talk about much except the children and me. I could see that he is worried about your father. That cough of his sounds dreadful.'