R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (47 page)

'You knew about that?'

'Good God, of course I knew about it. Have you ever known anyone pull wool over my eyes?'

'No,' David said, grinning, 'I don't think I have. I turned him down, although I must say he made me a very generous offer.'

'I'm glad you showed that much sense. If you hadn't my little backstairs strategy would have gone for nothing. Have you got a minute or two?'

'Half an hour. The taxi is due here at eleven. Will you have a drink?'

'Not at this hour of the day.' He drifted over to the gramophone table, picked up the record Hoskins had left in the turntable, scanned the title, grimaced and put it down again. 'Funny thing, that,' he said, 'I got it into my head you'd welsh on us. Must be slipping.'

'You haven't exactly given me the impression you were over-concerned who stayed and who left. I'd come to believe you'd opted out.'

'Sidestepped that guerilla war you and Carter have been waging with Alcock? Well, you're right. It irritated me. I never thought Alcock was worth it. However, we owe the fellow one thing. He got Carter out of the way.'

'What are you driving at, Howarth?'

'What's in it for you – and the school. That's what I'm driving at. I know you and Carter formed an unholy alliance, and that annoyed me, for I never did trust the chap. He'd have let you down in the end, you know. If you had gone in with him you would have lived to regret it.'

'Is there much to regret at the moment?'

Howarth gave him one of his bleakest looks, of the kind he reserved for boys who shattered the silence of a classroom by dropping a desk-lid. 'The present has very little to do with it. This place has had bad men in the past. That sadist Wesker was one of them, if you believe everything Herries told you. But Herries pulled it up in no time at all and you could do the same if you had to. One thing is for sure. You wouldn't have had the chance if you had sunk every penny you possess in that venture with Carter. Why don't you look ahead a little? Alcock isn't forever. He's older than I am, and looks to me like a man who drives himself. Anything could happen in the next year or so and if it does, who will those fools on the Board look to for a rescue operation? Don't tell me you haven't thought of that.'

'Oh, I've thought of it, but I can't see myself sticking it indefinitely with Alcock breathing down my neck. He could easily stay on as long as Algy did.'

'I can promise you he won't,' Howarth said.

'How can you possibly say that? You're not in his confidence any more than I am.'

'I can promise it, none the less. I give him two years, probably less. How old will you be at, say, Christmas, 1932?'

'Thirty-six.'

'Just right. So my advice is to stick it out, and do what you can to chasten that damned Welsh pride of yours in the meantime. You and Carter and Gibbs, and even Barnaby, have all been behaving like Second Formers lately. I say nothing of Irvine. He was always poised for flight, with that flibbertigibbet wife of his.'

'Damn it, Howarth, you can't say we haven't been provoked.'

'Not madly provoked. Show me any job without stress. Pin pricks shouldn't induce hysteria in a man who stuck it out three years in the trenches. As to Alcock's ultimate impact on the school, I think it'll be negligible. A new head, who had his finger on the pulse of the place, could achieve a turnabout in a month.'

'Then secretly you've sided with us all the time?'

'As regards him? Up to a point. He's not interested in the school as a school, only as a source of power, and a stage for his ego. Somewhere to strut, like a ham actor. He'd behave in exactly the same way if you put him in charge of the regional gas board. That shows you how much degrees are worth. Most people, including parents still regard schoolmasters as desiccated imparters of fifth-hand information, but you know and I know that they're more than that if they're any good. What applies to one school doesn't necessarily apply to another. You wouldn't administer a Crown Colony the way you run the London County Council, would you? Besides, we've got something out of the silly ass. He's improved the fabric, and his window-dressing isn't so bad. We needed a spring clean and an academic hoist. And the numbers have remained fairly steady, haven't they?'

'The tone isn't the same and on your own admission that's what is important.'

'You can adjust a tone. Those new latrines of his will last us a generation. I wouldn't be talking this way if our waiting-list had suffered but it hasn't and it won't, until the blight sets in.'

'What blight?'

Howarth glared at him again. 'What blight? Great God, man, I thought you were a political animal! Can't you see where we're all heading?'

'You mean the Wall Street crash?'

'Among other things. The 'thirties are going to be a bloody difficult time for all of us, especially for places like this, that aren't buttressed by inherited wealth and a snob reputation. By this time next year numbers will have fallen by ten per cent. And by the year after that by thirty per cent. Many of the parents we rely on won't have the cash to keep boys here, and as soon as the barometer falls Alcock will go, you see if I'm not right.'

It was a point of view, and one he had never thought about, perhaps because his continual collisions with Alcock had obscured what was happening outside, where the unemployment figures were mounting month by month, a minority government was running the country, and a gale was blowing through the treasuries of the world. He wondered if Howarth's prophecies were relevant and decided that they were. Alcock was not a man who was equal to a challenge of that kind. He was too dedicated to rule of thumb, too self-assured, too set in his ways. He said, 'What was that you said about your backstairs strategy, Howarth?'

'Oh, that?' He gave one of his thin smiles. 'That was masterly, though I do say it myself. Did you wonder where Carter got that private loan he talked about? It was from me. I advanced him three thousand, at a rate of interest he wouldn't get from any bank in the land. Almost interest free, you could say.'

'You did that? To prevent him roping me in?'

'Why not? I can afford it, as you well know. Buying the man off seemed the best way to go about it, although I misjudged him in one respect. I didn't really suppose he would offer to take you in on equal terms. I suppose even Carter has his own interpretation of the word “loyalty". Well, I'm not here to apologise for it. Go off and enjoy yourself over Christmas. I daresay you'll find things seething in the Valleys, and come back here with a crated guillotine. That could lead to another display of fireworks, I suppose, but I never minded fireworks, providing a professional was lighting the fuses.' He nodded and stalked off, Grace appeared from the bedroom, saying, 'Will you fasten the straps, Daddy? The trunk is too full for me to manage,' and he said, absently, 'Yes, dear, right away. Go down and watch for the taxi. We've cut it fine if we're after that eleven-thirty train.'

1

H
OWARTH WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE MOOD OF THE VALLEYS. David could not recall a time when there had been no talk of militant action and when the names of families drawing royalties from deep and dangerous seams were mentioned without a curse. But now, with a sense of crisis that recalled the long dragging strike of 1925/6, the mood of the mining communities was one of blazing anger and frustration. 'A Socialist government is in, isn't it? A Socialist Prime Minister has plumped his arse down in Number Ten, hasn't he, boyo? Then why the hell doesn't he do something about unemployment and nationalise the whole bloody industry?' All the miners he met, including his brothers-in-law, Ewart and Bryn, talked this way, rejecting the argument that MacDonald was only holding on to power by the skin of his teeth, and could do little without Liberal support. For years now they had seen their own salvation in Labour's promise that the industry would be taken over by the government, and the fact that Ramsay's victory, in the spring of 1929, had not achieved this by December, implied that they were going to be betrayed yet again.

Some of the older men, pillars of the local constituency parties since pre-war days, were already toying with Communism, and a majority of the youngsters were casting around for Communist candidates, swearing that nothing would improve until capitalism was confronted with the demand of a majority to wrest power from the hands of the few.

He was able, nowadays, to regard pit politics objectively, and it struck him at once that the miners were being unfair to men like MacDonald, Snowden and Jimmy Thomas, the jovial ex-railwayman. Against every forecast, and with the minimum funds at their disposal, they had emerged from the last
general election as the majority party. It seemed to David uncharacteristic of the long-suffering Welsh to expect an instant solution of tormented domestic problems in the face of international depression. Local Labour stalwarts were fighting back, however, and he attended one of their meetings, addressed by a fiery Doncaster speaker, called Routledge, whose co-speaker was a young woman, a lucid platform speaker and clearly a person of education. Enquiries established that she was an Economics graduate, with an Honours degree gained in Manchester.

She received a good, if ironic hand from the men when she sat down, after talking for twenty minutes on the Labour government's present difficulties, and when the meeting dissolved into a dozen argumentative groups, and tea was served by the women workers, Ewart, the husband of his sister Gwynneth, offered to introduce him. Routledge, the Doncaster man, had spoken at previous meetings in the area, and Ewart knew him well. The girl, he said, was travelling about to gain experience for a bid at the next election, and her name was Forster, Christine Forster, a Yorkshire lass well in with the party executive. 'Not that I give her a dog's chance wherever she stands,' Edward added. 'She's sharp enough, and can talk the hind legs off a donkey, but why waste deposits on a lass at places where even a man like Routledge couldn't dent the Tory majority?'

He introduced Davy, using the reverent voice the uneducated miner habitually reserves for someone wearing an educational halo. 'My wife's brother, Davy Powlett-Jones – schoolmaster he is, at a big college, in England. But he hasn't forgotten where he comes from, have you, boyo?' After which, slapping David's shoulder, moved off and joined the group surrounding Routledge.

Ewart's implied dismissal of her was not lost upon Miss Forster, who smiled and said, 'Your brother-in-law is very proud of you, Mr Powlett-Jones, but he doesn't give a slice of streaky bacon for my chance of getting elected. Neither does anyone else in the Valleys.'

She looked far more personable down here on floor level, away from the yellow glare of the footlight bulbs. She had thick brown hair, lighter than Beth's, sharp green eyes and an exceptionally clear complexion, as fresh and pleasing as a flower. She had a long, thinnish nose, that some would have said spoiled her looks, but David decided suited her figure, the exact opposite to Beth's figure, he found himself thinking, with no well-defined curves but long, elegant legs. Her accent was what these people would call 'posh', but he could
detect a trace of Yorkshire in the broad vowels and clipped consonants. She seemed to know what she was about, and had come to terms with the prejudice against all women candidates among constituency workers.

She said, politely, 'A college, he said. What kind of college, Mr Powlett-Jones?' and he replied, smiling, 'Every school bar a red brick council school is a “college” to Ewart. He has the Celt's veneration of all educational establishments. My place isn't much to write home about, a small public school, called Bamfylde.'

'Bamfylde? In North Devon?'

'Why, yes. You've actually heard of it?'

'Heard of it? I've visited it! One Sports Day, several years ago, when I was still at school myself. One of my cousins went there. His name was Ridgeway, my mother's sister's eldest boy.'

'The Ridgeway who was there in 1925. A tall boy? A first-class miler?'

'He did win the mile that year.'

'But of course I know him. He was head boy of my house, just before I took over. He put up a first-rate show the night we had a bad fire, and helped me get the boys out. I'm delighted to meet you, Miss Forster. How and where is he? I don't think I've had word of him since he left. That would be in 1926,' and as he spoke he realised why the girl's strong features had seemed familiar as she had advanced downstage to speak. With so many faces imprinted in the memory, however, it was difficult to compare one with another when a coincidence like this occurred. Now that he had a chance to look at her closely he could see a resemblance to Ridgeway's bone structure, particularly as regards the nose and jaw.

'I believe he's in tea-planting in Malaya,' she said, 'but I can't be sure. We've lost touch lately. All the other members of the family are true-blue Tories, so I'm cut off from family chit-chat. A case of “Turn-Christine's-face-to-the-wall", you could say.'

He laughed, liking her wry sense of humour, and remembering how it would have appealed to Beth. Whenever he met a young woman he caught himself comparing her to Beth, and measuring her by Beth's standards. It was morbid, he supposed, after four-and-a-half years, but there it was, an instinctive reflex that time was transforming into a habit.

He said, offering her sugar, 'I think it's encouraging, a person like you, with a good degree, coming over to us,' but she replied, 'Nonsense! No one who thinks and observes, could do anything else in present circumstances. The
majority of my University set vote Labour, and two are nursing constituencies in the North. I took my time waking up to what was going on. Five years ago I was a snooty little bitch from a
nouveau riche
family, who regarded myself as a cut above most folk.'

'I can't believe it, but what changed you?'

'The General Strike. That was in my second year at Manchester and Manchester is a good place to see what goes on below stairs. Almost as good as here. The textile industry up there is in a terrible way, and unemployment is even higher than in the north-east. But I suppose Bamfylde is true blue, isn't it?'