Hearts of Gold (21 page)

‘I think I’ll settle for the suit. I’ve got to start saving …’

‘Why bother, love? If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that the rainy days are always here and now. Besides,’ Megan swirled the melting fat in the pan, ‘you’re only young once. Look as pretty as you can while you can. That’s my motto.’

‘I’ve nothing to show for my pay rise.’

‘You’ve a wardrobe full of clothes and God knows you needed them.’ Megan tipped the fish into the pan. ‘And the something’s not intended for you. I’ve two men’s suits upstairs. One’s your Eddie’s size and one your Haydn’s. They’re brand spanking new.

‘Six bob each.’

‘Six bob! Wilf Horton’s are ten and they’re second hand.’

‘Specials,’ Megan said airily.

‘Specials out the back door of the tailor’s warehouse?’ Bethan asked suspiciously.

‘Nothing like that.’

‘We don’t need handouts.’

‘Even if you did I haven’t any to give. Six bob includes my profit. When you’ve drunk your tea take a look at them.’ Megan turned the fish over carefully. ‘They’re in a brown paper sack in my bedroom behind the dressing table. The women’s suits are on top of the wardrobe.’

Bethan carried her empty cup into the washhouse bumping into William, who was washing under the cold tap.

‘Comes to something when a man can’t strip off in his own house,’ William complained.

‘Man! It’s not that long ago I helped your Mam bath you in that sink,’ Bethan retorted.

‘I can vouch for that,’ Megan joined in from the kitchen. ‘Will, when you’ve finished messing out there, take Bethan upstairs and show her where I keep the men’s suits.’

‘No peace for the wicked.’

‘Breakfast!’ Megan yelled in a voice loud enough to carry halfway down the street. Charlie came in from the garden where he’d been cleaning his shoes. He nodded in reply to Bethan’s quiet “hello” as he waited patiently for William to finish at the sink.

Bethan returned to the kitchen, where Diana and Sam, washed and dressed, were already sitting at the table helping themselves to fish and the bread that Megan was cutting and buttering at a rate of knots.

‘No breakfast for you, young man, until you dress,’ Megan said sharply as William walked in.

‘Nag nag nag.’ William planted a smacking kiss on Megan’s cheek. ‘She loves me really,’ he grinned at Bethan.

‘Do I now?’ Megan asked.

William led the way upstairs, lifting out the sack of men’s suits from behind Megan’s dressing table before disappearing into his box room. Bethan looked around. She could barely move for piles of boxes and cardboard suitcases. Placing the sack on the home made patchwork quilt that covered the bed, she opened it. It held two suits. A navy-blue, shot with a fine grey pin-stripe, and a plain mid-grey flannel. Both had waistcoats complete with watch pockets but the grey flannel was shorter in the leg than the pin-stripe so she presumed that was the one Megan intended for Eddie. She felt the cloth between her fingers. It was good lightweight wool although she didn’t know much about men’s clothes she could recognise quality when she saw it.

‘Smart, eh?’ William walked in behind her, his braces dangling down over his trousers his fingers busy as they tried to push his collar through the studs in the neck of his shirt.

‘Here, let me.’ Bethan knocked his hands aside and took over.

‘Ow! Your nails are long.’ He rubbed his chin ruefully. ‘Doctor into vicious women is he?’

‘Lay off.’

‘Lay off what?’ he enquired innocently.

‘You know what.’

‘If I did I wouldn’t ask.’

‘What do you think of these?’ she asked.

‘The suits?’

‘What else?’ she snapped irritably. ‘There are times when I could brain you, William Powell.’

‘Promises, promises,’ he sighed. ‘But going back to the suits.’ He picked up the grey one. ‘I liked them enough to buy two off Mam with the money I earned on the stalls last week.’

‘Then they’ll be all right for our Haydn and Eddie?’

‘I should cocoa. Here –’ he lifted one of the largest cardboard suitcases on to the bed and opened it. ‘Shirts, ties and socks, everything a young man about town could want to go with his new suit, and,’ he sidled up to her, ‘for you, madam, very cheap.’

‘When you’ve finished practising your sales patter, find me a shirt and tie to go with each of these. The socks I can manage myself.’

‘What size is Eddie?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘I wouldn’t have said he was a bull neck.’

‘It’s got worse since he started going down the gym.’

‘Haydn?’

‘Sixteen and a half.’

‘Two white linen shirts, four collars to match, one set sixteen, the other sixteen and a half, half a crown the lot and studs thrown in for free. You can’t do better than that.’ ‘You should be on the market full time instead of down the pit three days a week.’

‘I’m working on it. Socks,’ He tossed her a bundle. ‘Pure wool and only four pence a pair. How many would madam like?’

‘Four pairs,’ she pulled out two pairs of grey and two of navy.

‘Ties …’ he looked thoughtfully at the suits laid out on the bed, ‘what do you think? This red and blue stripe for the grey, the plain grey for the pin stripe. He held them up.

‘Looks good to me.’ She piled them on top of the shirts and socks.

‘Then I take it that Madam is satisfied.’ He left the bedroom and picked up his waistcoat and jacket from the bannisters.

‘Now look at you,’ she teased. ‘All done up like a dog’s dinner.’

‘Easter Rattle Fair.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Never know what a fellow like me might find down there.’

‘Stalls to put up?’

‘You don’t think I’d wear this,’ he shrugged his waistcoat over his shoulders, ‘to put up stalls do you? Besides, I did that last night. We didn’t finish till four, that’s why I slept in.’

‘Haydn and Eddie with you?’

‘And your father.’

‘So that’s why none of them stirred this morning.’

‘What time did cashmere coat bring you home last night?’ he asked pointedly. ‘It must have been late. We didn’t walk down the Graig hill until eleven.’

‘Late,’ she replied succinctly.

‘Be careful with that one, Beth.’ he warned, dropping his bantering tone. ‘He’s crache.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’m serious. Wouldn’t want to see you get hurt by the idle rich.’

‘He’s hardly idle, he’s a doctor.’

‘He seems to have all the time in the world to run around in that car of his.’

‘You look after your concerns, I’ll look after mine,’ she snapped.

‘Speaking of my concerns,’ he slipped his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, ‘you and Laura going to the fair?’

‘Yes,’ she answered warily, wondering what was coming next.

‘Anyone going with you?’

‘No one you’d be interested in.’

‘I was wondering if any of Laura’s sisters were going?’

‘Like Tina for instance?’ she asked shrewdly.

Tina was six months younger than William. They’d gone to school together and become far too friendly for Laura’s father and Ronnie’s peace of mind. So much so, that Signor Ronconi had expressly forbidden Tina to talk to William when her brothers weren’t around.

‘Maybe,’ he murmured casually.

‘And you say you’re worried about me getting hurt. You’re on a hiding to nothing there, William Powell.’

‘You know something I don’t?’

‘I know that nice Catholic girls don’t go out with chapel boys.’

‘Then I’ll become a Catholic,’ he said brightly.

‘Uncle John Joseph would stone you down the Graig hill let alone out of chapel if he heard you say that.’

‘He’s not my uncle, thank the Lord,’ William said irreverently. ‘And after yesterday’s uplifting experience I’m looking for a new place to spend my Sundays. I think I just might take a walk down Broadway to see what Father O’Rourke has to offer.’

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘Put a good word in for me with Tina, Beth, and I’ll stop annoying cashmere coat.’

‘You’re serious aren’t you?’

‘You serious about cashmere coat?’

‘That’s different.’

‘How?’

‘I’m older …’

‘Ho ho ho. Age has nothing to do with it, Granny. Bet you a pound that I catch Tina before you catch cashmere coat.’

‘Will you stop calling him that?’

‘I will, if you promise to talk to Tina.’

‘Like marries like, Will,’ she warned. ‘The Ronconi girls are all earmarked for nice Italian boys.’

‘I can be a nice Italian boy. Wanna hear me talk?’ he asked imitating Laura’s father’s accent.

‘I’m being serious.’

‘So am I.’ He picked up the bundle of clothes from the bed. ‘I know I can be a nice Italian boy, Beth. But be honest. Can you see yourself running a ladies’ committee for the “Miners’ Children’s Boot Fund” in a house on the Common?’

Before she had a chance to answer he turned his back on her and carried the clothes downstairs. There was no need for her to mull over what he’d said. Andrew’s declaration that he loved her had sent the same thoughts worming through her mind like maggots in a rotten apple. All William had succeeded in doing was stirring the whole mess up.

Chapter Ten

After William clattered downstairs Bethan picked up the box from the top of the wardrobe. Inside were two ladies’ costumes, one bottle green coarse linen, the other light blue wool. Both were styled along the same lines, with close fitting jackets and long, narrow skirts. Closing the bedroom door she tried on the green linen. Skilfully cut, fully lined in silk, it might have been tailored for her. She turned around slowly in front of the dressing table mirror whilst doing some rapid calculations in her head.

The boys’ clothes came to fifteen shillings and ten pence. Even allowing for Megan’s prices the costume would be at least another ten shillings. Twenty five shillings and ten pence, and she barely had fifteen shillings in her purse to last her until pay day … and she really needed a hat.

‘Mam sent me up to see if you needed help.’ Diana walked in, still chewing a mouthful of bread and butter. ‘Ooh that does look good on you. It’s only seven and six too.’

‘How does your mother manage to keep her prices down?’

‘He who asks no questions gets told no lies.’

‘I really need a hat to go with it,’ Bethan murmured more to herself than Diana.

‘They’re over here.’ Diana produced a hat box from under the bed. Lifting out one hat after another she shook a plain black felt with a small brim from the pile. ‘This looks good and it will go with practically anything.’

‘It will, won’t it,’ Bethan agreed, perching it on the front of her head.

‘And, it’s only two bob, making nine and six in total, and here’s the silk blouse Mam was talking about.’ She produced yet another package from under the bed and handed Bethan a blouse. ‘Pure silk, hand-embroidered collar and only nine pence.’

Bethan fingered the silk. It felt cool, luxurious. The kind of blouse the crache would wear. If she didn’t get it now, at this price, she never would. She was earning good money. If she didn’t buy any more for a while … the excuses whirled around her head as she wrestled with her conscience. Finally she decided, she took the hat from her head and unbuttoned the jacket.

‘Keeping it then?’ Diana asked.

‘We’ll see.’ She folded the costume carefully and laid the hat and blouse on top of it before slipping her dress back on. When she turned round Diana had already replaced the hat box under the bed. She helped tidy away the shirts, ties and socks while Diana packed away the blue costume. Then both of them lifted the suitcase off the bed, smoothed over the counterpane and checked the room before going downstairs.

‘All right, love?’ Megan was clearing the table when Bethan and Diana returned to the kitchen. Charlie and Sam were sitting like a pair of bookends in the easy chairs either side of the fire, but William was still eating.

‘I think so,’ Bethan replied doubtfully, still trying to work out what her “tab” stood at.

‘You out to give your boys a good Easter treat?’ Megan nodded at the clothes that William had heaped on the dresser.

‘And myself if I can run to it,’ Bethan said wryly, holding up the hat, blouse and costume.

‘Nine shillings for the three. And with the discount on the boys’ stuff we’ll call it twenty-five bob.’

‘I make it more than that,’ Bethan insisted.

‘I make my profit. Besides, customers like you save me a lot. You buying in bulk means I’ve less stock sitting around gathering dust and losing money.’ Megan pulled a black card-covered exercise book out of the drawer in her dresser.

‘I owe you three pounds at the moment.’

‘Two pounds ten, love, you paid me ten bob last week, and with today’s little lot it comes to …’ Megan scribbled a few figures in the margin of her book and bit her bottom lip in concentration.

‘Three pounds five shillings,’ Bethan interrupted.

‘Spot on, love,’ Megan agreed.

‘I can give you ten bob now …’

‘Don’t you go leaving yourself short. Not on Rattle Fair day.’

‘She doesn’t need money. She’s got her fancy man to treat her,’ William winked as he ate his breakfast.

Bethan glared at him and he burped loudly.

‘Piggylope,’ Diana remonstrated from the scullery where she was rinsing dishes in the stone sink.

‘William picked up his plate and carried it out. ‘Miss starched knickers,’ he whispered into Diana’s ear.

‘Mam! William said a naughty word,’ Diana protested.

‘Here’s the ten bob.’ Bethan took advantage of the altercation between her cousins to push the note on to Megan.

‘You sure you’re not making yourself short now?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘William, wrap and carry those suits up to Graig Avenue for Bethan.’

‘Aw, Mam, I promised to meet the boys …’

‘The boys can wait,’ Megan said.

‘I’ll carry them, Mrs Powell.’ Charlie lifted his boots from the hearth and took off his slippers. ‘I want to see Mr Powell about some business. That’s if you don’t mind walking with me, Nurse Powell?’ He looked at Bethan.

‘Of course not.’ Bethan took the sheet of brown paper William handed her and laid the boys’ clothes in the middle of it.’

‘Here, love, I’ve a carrier bag for your suit.’ Megan produced a brown paper and string bag from behind one of the easy chairs. ‘See you later at the fair?’

‘I expect so,’ Bethan finished tying the parcel and folded the costume and hat inside the bag.

Charlie left his chair and took the parcel from the dresser. He waited quietly for Bethan to precede him. She led the way out through the front door. The street was teeming with people; children playing with sticks, stones and empty jam jars in the gutter, their parents gossiping in doorways. One or two of the women had carried chairs and bowls on to the pavement and were peeling vegetables and keeping up with the gossip at the same time.

‘Mrs Morgan,’ Charlie tipped his hat to Megan’s immediate neighbour as he shut the door.

‘That’s a big parcel you have there, Charlie. Megan doing business even on Easter Monday?’

‘Not really, Mrs Morgan,’ he answered evasively. ‘Mrs Jones?’ He removed his hat as they passed another neighbour. To every other adult on the Graig, Mrs Morgan was Betty, Mrs Jones, Judy, but Bethan had noticed that Charlie addressed everyone, even Megan, formally. It was as though he wanted to maintain the barriers that he’d erected between himself and those he’d chosen to live among.

Walking side by side, the parcel swinging heavily in Charlie’s hand between them, they turned the corner of Leyshon Street and made their way towards the Graig Hotel.

Bethan glanced up Walter’s Row to Phillips Street. The curtains were still drawn in number one. Her heart went out to Phyllis.

Charlie stopped and looked at her. Flustered, she moved on, and they covered the distance between Walter’s Row and the vicarage on the corner of Graig Avenue in silence. If the lack of conversation bothered Charlie he showed no sign of it, but Bethan felt she had to say something. Finally she resorted to an inane,

‘The weather’s quite nice today isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed flatly.

She made no further attempt to talk. Half way up Graig Avenue they met the vicar of St John’s and his young and extremely pretty wife clutching his arm as she teetered along the rough road on heels that were too high for safety.

‘Wonderful Easter weather, Bethan, Charlie,’ he greeted them as his wife smiled warmly.

‘It makes a welcome change after the winter,’ Bethan agreed.

‘We’ve just called in on Mrs Pugh and Miss Phyllis Harry,’ he said with a significant look at Charlie. ‘They’re very grateful for your efforts on their behalf, Charlie. And your support, Bethan,’ he added as an afterthought.

Bethan looked at Charlie, wondering what his “efforts” might be.

‘It’s Mrs Powell you should be thanking,’ he mumbled.

‘We’ll call in later to thank her, never fear. But the assistance Mrs Powell has given Miss Harry in her hour of need in no way depreciates the value of what you’ve done for the unfortunate household. As a vicar of the Church I know how scarce real Christian charity is in cases like Miss Harry’s. The ladies would like to see you so they can thank you in person. Will you promise to call in on them?’

Charlie nodded but said nothing.

‘And both Miss Harry and Mrs Pugh are grateful for your kind wishes, Bethan.’

‘I didn’t think they knew I’d called.’

‘They knew,’ the vicar said drily. ‘In a week or two when things are quieter I’m sure they’ll welcome another visit.’

‘I’ll make a point of calling in.’

‘Good. See you both at the Rattle Fair.’ He tipped his hat and he and his wife went on their way.

Charlie crossed the road and Bethan had difficulty keeping up with him, but he hung back when they reached her house. She ran up the steps to the front door, turned the key and shouted for her father. Evan opened the kitchen door and ushered Charlie through the passage, parcel and all. The front parlour door, usually kept firmly closed, was open. Bethan glanced into the room that Haydn and Eddie referred to as “the holy of holies”.

Her mother had taken the dust sheets off the Rexine-covered suite and was busy straightening and dusting the ornaments on the mantelpiece. A sure sign that Uncle John Joseph and Aunt Hetty were going to visit.

‘Where are the boys?’ Bethan asked.

‘Out the back with Maud,’ Elizabeth replied tersely. ‘Are you here to help or just passing through?’

‘I’m meeting Laura in half an hour.’

‘I suppose you’ll be out all day?’

‘Probably.’

‘You won’t be back for dinner or high tea?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t know what your Uncle and aunt are going to say about that,’ she pronounced stiffly.

‘I’ll see them another time.’

‘When, that’s what I’d like to know?’ Elizabeth called after her as she walked away. ‘You haven’t a minute to spare for your family these days.’

‘Sorry, Mam,’ Bethan said automatically. She wasn’t in the least bit sorry. As a child she’d loathed holiday tea times when her uncle and aunt came to visit. Her mother always forced her father to wear a collar, and the whole family to sit stiffly upright around the kitchen table taking small bites and chewing quietly.

If anyone dared deviate from Elizabeth’s idea of correct behaviour they received the full force of the cutting edge of her tongue in front of Uncle John Joseph, who could never resist putting his oar in, belittling the culprit further. And after tea the entire family “retired” (John Joseph’s expression) to the front parlour to listen to his diatribes on how the advent of the wireless set and the cinema had caused the downfall of morality and religion in Welsh society.

As a small child Bethan had confused her great uncle with the devil and Sundays spent in the front parlour with hell. Looking back, it was an understandable mistake for a child to make. John Joseph’s entire conversation had always revolved around sin and the threat of eternal damnation, and his tall, thin, sardonic figure presiding over the gloomy gatherings in the front parlour wasn’t that far removed from the traditional warning posters of hell.

She was looking forward to her day out at the Rattle Fair with Laura, Andrew and Trevor, but if there’d been no Andrew or Rattle Fair, a brisk walk through the fresh young nettles that grew in wild abandon on the north side of Shoni’s pond would have been infinitely preferable to the afternoon’s entertainment mapped out by her mother.

She tried to creep into the kitchen, pick up the parcel and tiptoe out through the washhouse door without disturbing her father and Charlie. But her father was watching for her. Interrupting his conversation with Charlie he looked up quizzically as she reached for the parcel.

‘Auntie Megan found a suit for Eddie,’ she explained.

‘And you bought it for him?’

‘It’s on trial. To see if it fits.’

‘And if it does?’

‘Auntie Megan will put it on her book. It’s very cheap …’

‘When you say Megan’s book, you mean the one you’ve opened with her?’

‘Eddie’s been promised three mornings’ work in the brewery yard next week. He’ll soon pay for it himself.’

A sharp frown creased Evan’s forehead. He was sitting hunched forward, leaning towards the range, his shoulders rounded like those of an old man. There were faint touches of grey in the roots of the black hair at his temples, grey that Bethan hadn’t noticed before. If Charlie hadn’t been in the room she would have attempted to kiss and caress the frown away.

She’d tried to help, and only succeeded in hurting his pride even more than her mother did with her constant nagging.

‘Do you really think the union is strong enough to make these demands, Mr Powell?’ Charlie asked, breaking the tense silence in the room.

Evan looked away from Bethan and turned to Charlie. ‘The strength of the union is not the issue. The demands have to be made. If they’re not, we’ll none of us have jobs to go to.’

Bethan listened to them for a moment, and when she was certain that her father’s attention was firmly fixed on what Charlie was saying she took the parcel and went through to the back yard.

Sunshine blinded her after the gloom of the house. Narrowing her eyes she saw Maud and Haydn sitting on the top step talking to Glan over the wall that separated the two backs.

‘Enjoy your morning walk?’ Haydn asked.

‘Yes. Here’s something for you and Eddie.’

‘Something for me?’ Eddie shouted from the fenced-off upper yard where he was filling the lurcher’s water bowl. ‘What is it? Something nice, I hope.’

‘Got something nice for me, Beth?’ Glan leered.

‘Eddie’s cheerful today,’ Bethan observed, deliberately ignoring Glan.

‘For a change.’ Maud looked slyly at Haydn.

Haydn took the parcel from Bethan and fought with the knot on the string. He unfolded the brown paper and lifted out the grey suit that was on top.

‘We supposed to just take these off you, Beth?’

‘Auntie Megan had them in last night. They were too good a bargain to miss so I took them on spec, hoping they’d fit.’

‘This for me?’ Haydn asked, holding up the grey.

‘No, the stripe. And I got you a few other things while I was at it.’

‘Lucky sods,’ Glan muttered enviously, peering over the wall at the contents of the parcel.