Shoes for Anthony (5 page)

‘He was sticking up for me,' said Ade, leaning in to take a look. ‘Gwyn Williams punched me first. Look …' He stuck an index finger up his nostril, pulled it out and showed Bethan. There was blood on the end of it.

‘You shouldn't hang round him,' Bethan answered. ‘You know what he's like.'

‘Is Ant going to die?'

‘No,' said Bethan, putting an arm round me to support me. ‘Few bruises. Sit on the kerb, Ant. Let me have a look at you.'

She picked up the gas mask box she'd dropped on the flagstone and clicked the hinge in its centre. Pulling out a small pink handkerchief, she spat on it and rubbed at my eyebrow. ‘Got coal dust in that cut,' she said, frowning. ‘I can't take my eye off you for a minute, can I?' She smiled and I felt a familiar warmth course through me. I wanted to fold into her, but I didn't want to make a soft show in front of the other Scott Street boys. I sat on my hands and raised my knees upwards. My left wellington had come off in the scuffle and my bare foot was covered in grey muck.

‘Here y'aar,' said Bronwyn, handing me my lost boot. ‘Does your face hurt?' She stared down at me.

I shook my head. I was lying and everyone knew it, but Treherbert boys didn't moan and I wasn't about to start.

‘There,' said Bethan, giving me a short tap on my knee. ‘That's the best I can do out here. Let's get you home and I can tidy you up proper.'

She reached down, took my hand in hers and pulled me up from the kerb.

‘Thanks, Ant,' said Ade, with a small nod and a manly pat to my back. ‘I owe you one. He fought Gwyn Williams off me!' he shouted to the kids still clustering round. ‘Did you see him? Did you see?'

I pulled my wellington back on and let Bethan steer me homewards. My head was hung low, despite the cries of my heroics scattering behind me. I had fought Gwyn Williams and lost. Again.

‘Look at you,' Bethan said, stuffing the bloodied hanky back into her gas mask box. ‘Fighting again. Father won't be pleased. If that eye comes up with a shiner, there'll be no hiding it from him.'

‘I'm already in trouble with Father,' I said, rubbing blood from my nose with the back of my hand. ‘I went underground. I'll get a leathering for it when he gets back.'

‘Sorry?' said Bethan, stopping in her tracks and staring at me. ‘You went underground? How did you manage that?'

‘Alf Davies took me. And then he asked me to say hello to you.'

‘Bloody cheek!' Bethan rolled her eyes and gave a long sigh. ‘Alf Davies. You stay away from Alf Davies. He's a bad influence. Took you underground? Of all the irresponsible …'

I looked up at her, my eyes brimming with tears. I'd managed not to cry in front of the others, but now, as our front door loomed, I felt the weight of the trouble I was in.

‘Shall I tell you something to cheer you up? It's secret, mind, so no blabbing,' said Bethan, fixing me with her green eyes.

‘What secret?' I said, rubbing at my eye with my sleeve.

She leant down and held her mouth close to my ear. ‘The Americans are coming.' She straightened and shot me a wink.

‘Where?' I said, looking up at her. ‘To here? To Treherbert?'

‘Maybe,' she said, hooking her gas mask box back into the crook of her left elbow. ‘They're coming to Porthcawl and then they'll be stationed all over. We were told today. They're being billeted. But it's top secret, mind. So no loose lips.'

‘Why are they coming? Are the Germans invading Wales?'

‘Hope not!' snorted Bethan, pushing open our front door. ‘Can you imagine Emrys if he was ever face-to-face with an actual German? He'd eat him. Eat him all up!' She dropped her gas mask box over the banister and grabbed me suddenly about my waist and shook me. ‘Eat him up! Eat him up!'

‘Get off!' I laughed, trying to push her off.

Bethan stood back up and put her hands on her hips. ‘You're a good boy, Ant. Looking after Ade.' She stared down at me, smiling, and ran her fingers through my fringe. ‘Don't worry about Father. I'll tell Mam.'

‘That you, Ant?' came a call from the kitchen. ‘I want that tub out!'

‘It's me too, Mam!' Bethan shouted out. ‘I'll get out of my uniform and come help! Come on,' she added, looking back down at me. ‘I'll lend a hand. And leave telling what happened to me. You'll get flustered and it'll come out wrong. Go get the tub. I'll start the water.'

She kicked off her shoes, pulled on her slippers and headed up the stairs.

The tin tub hung on the outside wall in the back garden. It was bigger than I was, and I always had to carry it with the top end hooked over my head. Being the youngest, it was my job to get it in front of the fire and filled with water so that Father, Alwyn and my other brother Emrys could get washed when they came back from the pit. If they had to wait around, I'd catch it.

I flipped the tub over onto the rug in front of the hearth. Mam tipped more coal onto the fire from the scuttle, a grand clatter followed by a blast of heat, and then placed the coal soap, the bar that was only for Father and the boys, into the bottom of the tin bath. ‘Get a lick on,' she said, wiping her hands on the bottom of her housecoat. ‘They'll be here any minute.'

I ran through to the kitchen, almost bumping into Bethan. She was carrying the first of the large pots of water that had been boiling on the stove. ‘Look out, Ant!' she yelled, lifting the pot above my head. I took a tea cloth from the front of the stove, doubled it over and lifted the second pan of hot water, taking care not to spill any. It took four pans to get the water to a reasonable level, with one pan of cold so that Father wouldn't have to wait for it to cool down before he could get in.

Mam stood, hand on hip by the parlour window, gazing out. ‘Have you got something you want to tell me, Anthony?' she said, not looking at me.

I shot a glance towards Bethan. ‘It's all right,' she mouthed.

‘I went underground, Mam,' I said, my voice soft and quiet. ‘Father wasn't pleased.'

‘No. I expect not. I'm not pleased, either,' she said. ‘That Alf Davies is reckless. An idiot. The best favour you can ever do yourself is to pick out the idiots and steer well clear of them. Do you understand, Ant?'

‘Yes, Mam,' I said, leaning against the arm of Father's chair. ‘Will I get a leathering?'

She turned and looked at me, her eyes resigned to the inevitable. She gave a small sigh. ‘Probably. I'll do my best.'

My heart sank. Mam could never bear to see us beaten, but Father said it was the only way we'd learn. You got his belt over your upturned palm five times. There was no escaping it. It hurt like hell.

‘Here they come!' Mam said, as miners began pouring past the parlour window. ‘Paper down!'

Bethan grabbed yesterday's paper and began laying out the double sheets, creating a temporary bridge from tub to door. Two sheets were laid next to the paper trail, small islands for Alwyn and Emrys, who would have to stand, waiting for their turn in the tub. All eyes on the parlour door and then in they came, three great, blackened men, the smell of coal dust filling the air. Helmets were tossed in my direction, Davy lamps lined up, clothes peeled off to be surgically removed to the back room washtub by Mam, every day the same, the household moving as one slick machine until Father was in the tub and my two elder brothers were standing in their long johns.

But today's routine was to be different.

‘Hand out, Anthony,' said Father, pulling his belt out from his trousers.

‘It wasn't his fault, Davey,' said Mam, stepping towards me. ‘It's Alf Davies'. He took him down.'

‘Hand out.'

I let my arm drift upwards and span my palm to face the ceiling. Mam turned away, her hand resting on the mantelpiece behind me, and Bethan cast her eyes towards the floor. I looked up into Father's face, stern, furrowed. There was no animosity. We'd just get this done. I braced. His arm went up, and down it came, the bent-over leather thwacking onto my skin. I winced. Four more times, the only noise in the room the leather slicing through the air, biting into my flesh, and short, tiny grunts from Father. I didn't look down at my hand. Instead, I focused on Father's face. No pleasure lay there, and for all the times I'd had this done, I was always left with the overwhelming sense that I had hurt him, not the other way round. It was the disappointment I couldn't bear. That was the real wound.

As the last blow sounded, Mam's shoulders relaxed. ‘Get him something cold, Bethan,' she said, quietly.

My hand burned, prickly and painful red welts swelling across my palm, and as Father turned away, I cradled it and blew into it.

‘No more going underground,' he said, quietly, as he pulled his clothes off. ‘No matter who offers to take you down. Now come and shake my hand.'

I held out my good hand and he took it, a shake, a small firm nod, and he was back to taking his pit clothes off.

‘What's the matter with your eye?' said Alwyn, casting me a glance as Father lowered himself into the tub. ‘You been in a fight with another girl?'

Emrys snorted. ‘Fighting and sneaking underground? Christ, man, you know how to get yourself in trouble, innit?'

‘Leave him be, you two,' said Bethan, handing me a small, wet rag. ‘He was sticking up for Ade. Got punched by Gwyn Williams. That boy's a thug.'

‘Then bloody punch the bugger back!' said Alwyn, reaching on top of the mantelpiece for a pair of cigarettes. ‘That's how a boy becomes a man.'

‘He's only eleven,' said Bethan. ‘He's got plenty of time to be a boy yet.'

‘He'd have done well to remember that this morning. Come b'here, Ant,' said Father, gesturing towards the front end of the tub.

I went and stood in front of him, my hand wrapped in the cold cloth. Father had one foot in his hands and was working the coal dust out from between his toes. ‘Did he hurt you?' he asked.

‘He did, Father,' I replied.

‘And did you hurt him?'

‘I did, Father.'

‘Well, then. You're all even. Boys will take tumbles and knock heads and tangle fists. It's what boys do. But always shake the hand of the man you've tangled with, especially if you were the better man.'

‘I wasn't the better man, Father. He beat me. He was too big for me.'

‘Did you stand back up and accept it?'

I nodded. ‘But I didn't shake his hand, though. He ran off.'

‘That wasn't right of him. Always do what is right rather than what is popular, Anthony, and you will never fail. Something you forgot to do this morning.'

‘Load of bloody rubbish,' grumbled Alwyn behind me, striking a match against the mantel stone. ‘If I was you, I'd jump him up the back alley. Right when he wasn't expecting it.'

‘Don't give him ideas,' said Emrys, taking one lit cigarette from his brother's mouth. ‘He's already obsessed with those gangster films. What's that film you keep talking about?'

‘
Double Indemnity
,' I said. ‘It's dead good.'

‘Hang on,' said Mam, laying out three piles of clean clothes. ‘How have you seen that? That's not a film for children.'

‘They all creep in the side door on a Wednesday, Mam. It's when Gwennie Morgan is ushering. Wednesdays are when the magazines come into the post office. She just sits reading them.' Emrys took a long drag of his cigarette. ‘What's it about again, Ant?'

‘It's about a woman who's up to no good with a man called Neff, who isn't her husband,' I said, passing a towel to Father.

‘Oh,
duw
,' mumbled Mam. ‘I don't want to hear this already.'

‘Keep going,' said Alwyn, nodding. ‘This sounds like my sort of film.'

‘She comes up with a scam to kill her husband so she can get double money, and Neff says he'll help her do it after she kisses him.'

‘So she has to kiss him to get his help?' said Alwyn, with a wry smile. ‘I'd get on with this Neff. Smart fella.'

‘Ade said this is how all boys get in trouble and we should all make a pact that we would never kiss a girl. So we did.'

‘Smart lad is Ade.' Emrys grinned.

‘You're never going to kiss a girl, Ant?' said Bethan, from the kitchen. ‘You might regret that!'

‘Anyway, it all went wrong. And Neff killed the husband, then pretended to be the husband. Then the lady kissed another man, and Neff's boss, who was called Keyes and was, like, the detective boss at the insurance firm, smelled a rat, and that's how the whole thing came undone. So at the end, the lady shot Neff and then Neff shot the lady and she died and then he died and that was it. Bozo and Ade were a bit bored, and Fez said it didn't have enough shooting in it. I thought it was all right.'

‘That woman sounds a right kettle of fish,' said Mam, passing Father his clean shirt. ‘Kissing all sorts and going round shooting people. What a do. And pretending to be someone you're not! The devil of it.'

‘I'd never die for a woman,' said Alwyn, climbing into the tin bath for his turn. ‘Especially not Gwennie Morgan.'

‘Not since she knocked you back, anyhow,' said Emrys, blowing a plume of smoke from the side of his mouth.

‘That was only because her father doesn't like me since I punched that lad from Tonypandy. Don't know why, mind. Bastard had it coming.'

‘You broke that boy's jaw, Alwyn,' said Father, in his sterner tone. ‘And that was after you already had him beat. If you learned to control that temper of yours, you'd present a better prospect.'

Alwyn scowled into the darkening tub water and silence fell in the room. Emrys picked a speck of tobacco from his tongue while Mam set to work on the black spot on her son's back. The burn in my hand was deepening, but it wasn't too bad. I'd had worse. I unwrapped the cloth and had a look at it. Skin not broken. It would smart for a day and that would be that. I shifted the cloth so that a fresh, cold bit was lying against the welts.