Winners and Losers (6 page)

‘I'm sorry.' Sali wished she could think of something more comforting to say, but with her own marriage plans in hand, she felt anything else would sound sanctimonious.

He glanced at the clock. ‘Dad, Lloyd and Joey are late. As soon as I've drunk this I'll go and look for them.'

‘Give them another half hour. The boys next door told me that the police have been blocking Dunraven Street again. If your father and Lloyd did make it to the railway station along with the other union officials, they might not be able to get back.' Sali had become adept at concealing her fears for Lloyd and Mr Evans' safety. As strike leaders they were expected to act as mediators by the police, a position that put them in the firing line of both sides. Every time they left the house, she was terrified that she might never see either of them again.

‘And Joey?' Victor asked. ‘He went out a good half hour after them.'

Sali didn't answer. From the first week of the strike she had suspected that Joey was actually enjoying the excitement generated by the conflict. It gave him an excuse to disappear for hours at a time, and there were plenty of women in Tonypandy who were prepared to hide Joey Evans under their beds while swearing all shades of innocence to the police. And it took absolutely no imagination on her part to picture what Joey got up to with his saviours after the police moved on their search.

‘I'm fine, love.' Lloyd pulled his blood-stained handkerchief away from his cheekbone, and examined his face in the dressing-table mirror.

Ignoring his protestations, Sali left the bed, flung a woollen shawl over her flannel nightgown and poured cold water from the china pitcher into the bowl on the washstand. She tossed in a flannel and wrung it out. ‘Sit down.'

‘I'm fine.'

‘So you keep saying.'

‘You don't believe me?'

‘Sit down before you fall down.'

‘You know something, you've turned out bossy, Sali Jones.' Lloyd finally sat on the bed.

She pressed the flannel against a cut that had sliced his cheek. ‘You need someone to keep you in order. Was it a truncheon?' She fingered the wound to check its depth.

He took the flannel from her. ‘The police had every right to wade in given what they were facing. Someone started a rumour that management were bringing in blacklegs on the train, so the boys armed themselves with sticks and bucketfuls of stones.'

‘And the blacklegs?'

‘Never materialized, which makes me think management started the rumour, so everyone would go to the station and leave the side roads clear. It didn't help that some bright officer refused to allow us to see for ourselves when we tried to picket the station. And before you say anything, I wasn't the intended target for this.' He held the flannel over the cut. ‘Just the stupid bystander, fool enough to get between two angry people.'

‘Why do you always have to see both sides of every argument?' She helped him out of his jacket.

‘Because if I didn't, I'd be throwing stones along with the rest of the mob and then we'd not only lose the fight but deserve to. Sometimes I think the blockheads on both sides are more in control than the so-called leaders, and we'll remain, horns locked, in this strike for ever.' He changed the subject. ‘Victor said Megan's taken a job in Joyce Palmer's lodging house.'

‘He's not happy about it.' Sali sensed that Lloyd had mentioned Victor and Megan because he was tired of talking about a situation that was proving increasingly impossible to resolve.

‘So I gather.' Lloyd had left Victor and their father in the kitchen discussing the implications of Megan's new job.

‘I could go to Pontypridd tomorrow and ask the trustees of Gwilym James to give Megan a job in the department store.'

Sali's casual conversational tone didn't fool Lloyd. ‘When you told me that your great-aunt had left her entire estate and Gwilym James' department store in trust to Harry until his thirtieth birthday and that you and he could draw allowances until then, we agreed you would keep the money for Harry and yourself. You made a solemn promise that not one penny would come my way, or the way of my father and brothers. You assured me you'd give us no expensive presents, no help with the rent or food, or pay for anything other than Harry's education -'

‘I'm not talking about money. Just a job for Megan,' she remonstrated.

‘Which doesn't exist.'

‘Not at the moment, no,' she admitted reluctantly.

‘So you'd have to invent one.' He unbuttoned his shirt. ‘No charity, Sali. I have my pride, and so do my father and brothers. It's bad enough watching you going cap in hand to the men who control Harry's trust fund for food for the soup kitchen.'

‘That's not charity. That's common sense and good business,' she countered indignantly. ‘Gwilym James would go bankrupt without the patronage of the colliers. And when this strike is over they'll remember who helped them when they most needed it.'

‘And if this strike lasts much longer, Gwilym James might just go bust along with all the other businesses who are giving credit to the colliers.' He winced as he rose from the bed.

‘Last time I spoke to Mr Richards,' Sali referred to the solicitor who advised her on business matters, ‘he said Gwilym James could hold out for years if it had to. In fact, just before the strike the trustees were looking to use the trust's reserves to invest and expand the business by opening new stores.'

‘In Tonypandy?' Lloyd enquired facetiously.

‘They were considering it.'

He tossed the flannel back into the bowl and took off his waistcoat and shirt. ‘Don't try and tell me it's still an option.'

‘Perhaps not at the moment ...' She saw him smile and lost her temper. ‘Be serious, Lloyd!'

‘I am, my love. But whatever you and the trustees decide to do with Harry's inheritance is none of my business.'

Hating the thought that her and Lloyd's marriage was dependent on Owen Bull's execution, she said, ‘Harry already looks on you as his father.'

‘All the more reason for me, my father and brothers,' he added uncompromisingly, ‘never to touch his money or ask him for any favours. And as for finding Megan a job, it's not only Victor and me who would think it smacks of charity. Megan would too, and before you say another word, you know it.'

Sali tossed her shawl over the footboard and slipped between the sheets. ‘You're a hard man, Lloyd Evans.'

‘You complaining?' He pulled his vest over his head, unbuckled his belt, dropped his trousers and drawers, and pulled them off together with his socks. Ignoring the cold, he folded them neatly on to a chair.

‘No, Lloyd, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about the strike and the effect it's having on the valley. Fights between colliers and the police and the army are bad enough, but it's worse when people who should be on the same side fight one another. Federation men and blacklegs –and what are blacklegs anyway? Only men so desperate to feed their families they take whatever paid work management offer. I've seen neighbours who'd do anything to help one another before the strike, brawling in the streets. We can just about manage with four lots of strike pay coming into the house and Victor's allotment and chickens, but there are others who can't. And I can't bear to see children go hungry.'

‘You know as well I do that a lot more children will go hungry and for longer if we don't get the owners to agree to pay colliery workers a decent wage. And that means paying miners for bringing slag out of the pits as well as coal.' He climbed into bed and lay beside her. ‘But the strike and all its problems will still be there tomorrow and as there's nothing we can do about it until then, I suggest we find something more pleasant to discuss.' He slipped the pearl buttons at the neck of her nightdress and kissed the sensitive skin at the base of her neck.

‘You know that I love you, Lloyd ...'

‘And I love you too, sweetheart.'

As she returned his embrace she wished she had the courage to tell him that it wasn't just the problems of the strike she had to contend with. Her monthly meetings with Harry's trustees had never been easy, principally because practically all the men who sat on the board didn't bother to conceal their contempt for Lloyd, his politics, or the lifestyle she had chosen for Harry and herself. But the last meeting had been even more strained than usual. Her brother Geraint had told her beforehand he considered it demeaning and disgraceful that she was allowing the heir to the Gwilym James fortune to live in a collier's house, associate with strikers and eat in a soup kitchen.

She had argued that Harry needed to see what life was like for ordinary people. But Geraint, who strongly disapproved of her association with Lloyd, had been angrier than she had ever seen him before. And she was terrified that he'd compromise her position with the trustees by voicing his opinions at a future meeting.

‘You're like a block of ice.' Lloyd wrapped his arms around her but he found it difficult to determine if he was warming or freezing her, or vice versa.

‘What are we going to do about Victor and Megan?'

‘My father and I will do what we can to make sure that everyone understands she's just a young girl trying to make a living.'

‘I hope you succeed.'

‘So do I, sweetheart, but not many people are thinking rationally these days. And I'm not just talking about the miners.'

‘I wish ...'

‘What?' He blew out the candle.

‘A quiet life for all of us,' she said fervently.

‘You'd get bored.'

‘I could take a boring life right now, Lloyd.'

‘I'll remind you of that fifty years from now,' he laughed.

It was on the tip of her tongue to reply that she hoped he would be around to do just that but she was afraid to tempt fate.

The temperature in the kitchen had dropped below freezing because the fire had been raked from the stove after Sali had put Harry to bed, yet Victor and his father still sat, shivering on the easy chairs either side of the hearth.

‘If anyone around here dares to say a word to me or Megan about her working in Mrs Palmer's lodging house, I'll tell them to mind their own business,' Victor said decisively.

Billy Evans suppressed a smile. ‘Mind your own business' was the strongest reprimand he'd ever heard Victor use to a female neighbour and then only under extreme provocation. ‘Given the way most people feel about the police, you're going to be telling a lot of people to do just that.'

Victor's face fell. ‘It's not what they'll say to me but to Megan that concerns me. Now that her uncle and his brothers have gone, she has no family left to turn to.'

‘Seeing as you want to make her family, she has you, me, your brothers and Sali,' his father reminded. ‘But from what I've seen of her, like most women she's too soft-hearted and sensitive for her own good. She'll need to develop a deaf ear and a skin like your blacksmith's apron now she's taken that job with Joyce, and someone,' Billy looked meaningfully at his son, ‘should tell her to do just that. The best thing she can do to the gossips who'll have a go at her for taking the job is ignore them.' He pulled his empty pipe from his pocket and studied it thoughtfully.

‘You've seen how the police lash out and beat anyone who gets in their way. She'll be living in the same house as them.'

‘They'll hardly turn on a young girl who's cleaning up after them and cooking their meals.' Billy watched Victor pale at the thought of Megan skivvying for the men who had been brought in to break the strike. ‘There are no bruises on Joyce Palmer that I've seen.'

‘Mrs Palmer is a middle-aged women.'

‘And Megan is an attractive young girl. Are you afraid that a good-looking young copper will turn her head?' There was an edge to Billy's flippant remark. He knew that Victor was serious about marrying Megan, but he wasn't sure just how serious nineteen-year-old Megan was about Victor. Especially now when she was about to move into a houseful of young men who were earning good wages and could shower her with gifts and regale her with tales of life in the big cities and towns outside Wales.

‘No,' Victor said. ‘I love her and she loves me. And if it wasn't for her father, we'd have been engaged last Christmas and married last spring. But given the way the police behave, I'm not sure they'll treat her with respect -'

‘Because she's a collier's niece.'

‘Exactly,' Victor concurred. ‘There's no way that Lloyd would let Sali work in that house.'

‘There isn't, but then Lloyd will soon be in a position to marry Sali. Do you two intend to get married when Megan is twenty-one?'

‘We've talked about it. But given her father's attitude that's all we can do –talk,' Victor divulged miserably.

‘You're both very young.'

‘Mam was seventeen and you twenty when you married. I'm twenty-five and before the strike I was earning good money.'

‘Are you trying to tell me that you've changed the way you feel about the strike?'

‘No, it's like you and Lloyd say, we're fighting for a living wage for all the colliery workers. I'd be a fool not to support you.'

‘You've never been that interested in the union.'

‘Only because you, Lloyd and the other leaders are doing a better job of organizing the workers and negotiating with management than I could ever hope to. You and Lloyd have always been the thinkers in the family, Dad.' Victor shifted uneasily in his chair. He wasn't used to discussing his feelings with anyone, not even his father, only Megan. ‘Give me Megan for a wife and in time, God willing, a family, a job that pays a living wage, a couple of good dogs, some chickens, a garden to put them in and grow some vegetables and I'll be a happy man.'