Tiger Ragtime (44 page)

‘A made-up job?’ Lloyd asked.

‘No, Dad.’ Edyth stretched the truth. ‘My delivery boy Jamie is going to sea.’ Edyth knew it was no more than a vague hope on Jamie’s part the way shipping was. ‘In the meantime, Jamie can train David up to replace him, that way the transition will go smoothly.’

‘Where’s Judy tonight? Is she in the club?’ Sali asked.

‘No, Aled closed it for a week out of respect for Aiden, but he intends to reopen it next Tuesday.’ Edyth gave Micah a quick conscious look. ‘She’s gone out for dinner with a friend.’

*   *   *

‘This is just like old times,’ Judy said when Aled opened the door to her and showed her into the sitting room of his suite.

A table had been laid next to the window, a steaming trolley of hot chafing dishes pulled up alongside it. A waiter was standing in front of a stand holding a bucket of ice. He was uncorking a bottle of wine.

‘As soon as you have finished doing that, you can leave,’ Aled said abruptly. ‘We’ll serve ourselves.’

The waiter opened the wine, placed it in the bucket and retreated to the door. ‘Enjoy your meal, Mr James, Miss King.’

Aled took Judy’s coat and carried it into the bedroom.

She looked around and noticed a few small changes.

There was a selection of framed photographs among the litter of invitations on the mantelpiece. One of Freddie, Aled, and Aiden that had been taken the night the dub opened and another of Aled with a young attractive blonde.

‘Who is that?’ she asked, when Aled returned from the bedroom.

‘Councillor Harvill’s daughter. We’re going to be married.’

‘You’re what?’

‘Married,’ he repeated. ‘The councillor is a strong player in the Chamber of Commerce as well a member of various influential committees. Businesswise he can do me a lot of good.’

Judy’s legs buckled from under her and she sank down on the sofa.

‘Are you all right?’ He poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her. It slipped through her fingers and spilled on the carpet. ‘Leave it,’ he ordered when she stooped to mop it up. ‘Housekeeping will see to it.’

‘Sorry,’ she snapped. ‘My maid’s training is showing through. When will you marry …’ Judy pointed at the photograph.

‘Councillor Harvill’s daughter? Her name is Moira, by the way. Probably next spring. Her mother seems to think it’s the best time for a society wedding.’

Judy’s green eyes blazed as she looked at him. ‘I thought … I thought …’ She fell silent when she recalled her conversation with Edyth. She had admitted that Aled wasn’t the type of man to be faithful to any one woman. He had never promised her anything … so what right did she have to be angry with him because he was marrying someone else?

‘You didn’t think that you and I were going to have anything other than a good time together, did you, Judy?’ Aled chided. ‘Given your grandfather’s blood, you know I could never take you to a Chamber of Commerce or Council function. I need a wife who can help me get on and up in the world.’

‘I know what people think of my grandfather’s blood,’ she said acidly. ‘Thanks to your insistence on taking me to a department store in the middle of Cardiff, I know only too well what white people outside Butetown think of coloured people. I believe they place us slightly higher than dogs, but considerably lower than human. What I didn’t know was that you thought it was fine for us to be employed by you and, like Aiden, even die for you. To use us as bed mates to make love to, but never to be seen with in polite circles.’

‘Judy, it’s the way of the world; I live in it as best I can. We had fun. But it was never going to last, we both knew that …’ He tried to touch her and she moved away from him. ‘I take it there’ll be no romp in the bedroom tonight. I’d better telephone Anna Hughes and ask her to send up Gertie’s replacement. I hear she’s quite a pretty little redhead.’

‘You bastard.’ Judy brought her hand back and slapped him with full force across the face.

‘If you feel like that about me, Judy, forget your contract and working in the club. I won’t hold you to it. I’ll send the clothes I bought you to Edyth’s shop.’

‘Keep your bloody clothes.’ Forgetting her coat, Judy wrenched open the door and fled so Aled wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. It was just as well she didn’t look back at him or she would have seen the tears in his.

‘Leave the chair here, please,’ Harry said to the porter who had wheeled him to David’s bed.

‘Be back for you in two minutes or Sister will have my guts for garters.’ There wasn’t a trace of humour in the porter’s voice.

‘This is my brother-in-law,’ Harry pleaded, ‘give us ten.’

‘You can have as long as it takes Sister to get back from her meeting, not a second more,’ the porter said on his way out.

‘You’re going home?’ David asked Harry.

‘Back to Pontypridd for a couple of weeks until I get back to normal and then home to the farm. Remember we talked about that pub.’

‘I have some money saved but it’s not enough. Not even with what Aled gave me and I’m not sure I should keep it –’

‘Listen, David. I know Edyth means well in offering you a job but you don’t want to take it, do you?’

‘It smacks of charity.’

‘I’ve thought of a way for you to get that pub right away.’

‘I’m not taking anything from you.’

‘No gift, David. In fact, I’d be taking something from you. Mary loves the farm. I know she’d live out her life there if she could, but strictly speaking it’s not hers.’

‘As far as I’m concerned she can have it,’ David said carelessly.

‘If you sign over your share of the family farm to my trust it will release enough capital to buy you a pub. I’ve had nothing better to do than write to my solicitors when I was here and they sent me details of some of the properties that are for sale in Butetown. It’s a good time to buy now – the slump has forced prices down.’ He handed David a pile of estate agents’ brochures. ‘Take a look at them. I know you’ll need help to run it, but there are plenty of good men out of work, including Jed King, and if you’re not too proud I’ll send the accountant down from Gwilym James once a week to check you’re on the right track. But I warn you now, I’ll charge you the going rate for his services.’

‘I’d expect you to.’ David sat up and winced as he moved his back.

‘That’s the porter coming back for me.’ Harry grabbed David’s hand and shook it. ‘One more thing before I go, if you’re thinking of taking on a resident singer I know someone who might be in the market for a job.’

‘It’s good of you two to come and see me off.’ Harry grasped Edyth and Micah’s hands as Lloyd wheeled him to his car.

‘I wanted you to come to lunch,’ Edyth complained.

‘As soon as I’m up to it, we will, won’t we, Mary?’

Harry smiled at his wife.

‘I promise, Edyth.’ Mary couldn’t stop looking at Harry and smiling.

‘Just one thing, sis,’ Harry said casually. ‘I’ve had nothing to do this last week except catch up on paperwork. The Gwilym James charity fund has agreed to supply both Butetown’s Salvation Army soup kitchen and the Methodist Hall with fifty plain loaves a day. Can you bake that many?’

‘Oh no you don’t, Harry Evans. That’s charity …’

‘Yes it is,’ Harry agreed blithely. ‘Gwilym James has always given away five per cent of its profits to the poor. But if you can’t handle the contract, sis, we’ll have to find someone who can. And that will be a pity, because after tasting it, I’ve no doubt your bread is superior to everyone else’s.’

‘Harry …’

‘A yes or no will do. Take it or leave it. The contract is going begging. You have the capacity?’

‘Yes,’ Edyth answered, ‘of course I do.’

‘Then that’s settled. I’d hate the unemployed and the children on the Bay to settle for second-rate bread. No, Dad.’ He shook off his father’s helping hand, closed his hands around the arms of the wheelchair and levered himself upright. ‘I will get myself into the car under my own steam, thank you. I’ll tell my solicitor to put the contract in the post, Edie. It’s worth over fifty pounds a week. I know bread is plain goods and there’s not as much profit as pies and pasties but it should take your turnover back up to where it was when the builders were working on the Tiger Ragtime.’ Harry fell into the back of the car and sprawled out weakly on the back seat. Edyth reflected that it was just as well her mother had decided not to come to fetch him with her father and Mary. The way Harry was lying, there wouldn’t have been room for her.

‘Edie.’ Lloyd opened his arms.

‘Dad.’ Edyth hugged and kissed her father, then Mary. ‘Look after Harry.’

‘And you look after David. You’re sure it won’t be too much for you having him recuperate with you next week,’ Mary asked.

‘Not at all, Harry tells me he’s so immersed in the pub he’s decided to buy, he’ll be no trouble at all,’ Edyth assured her.

Lloyd shook Micah’s hand. ‘Look after my most troublesome daughter for me?’

‘I will, sir,’ Micah assured him.

‘It’s Lloyd, not sir.’

Micah and Edyth stood in the car park of the Royal Infirmary and waved them off.

‘Back to the baker’s?’ Micah asked as Lloyd’s car disappeared from sight.

‘Please.’ Edyth climbed into the passenger seat of his van.

‘It seems to me that your brother has tried to put the whole of Tiger Bay to rights with his plotting while he was in hospital,’ Micah commented as he drove out on to the main road.

‘He takes after my mother in that respect. You should hear some of the stories my uncles Joey and Victor tell about her. It was my mother who persuaded my grandfather and uncles to sell some of the terrace houses they’d bought when miners’ wages were high, to buy my Uncle Victor his farm. And she persuaded the management of Gwilym James to give Uncle Joey a job when the pit wouldn’t take him back after the strike because of his union activities – although Harry has always said that Gwilym James got the best of that bargain. Uncle Joey is a born salesman.’

‘So, putting the world to rights is a family hobby.’ The traffic slowed and Micah rested his arm around her shoulders. ‘I only wish he could put your annulment to rights. I can’t wait for us to get married.’

‘I need to talk to you about that.’

‘Don’t tell me that Peter has changed his mind about giving you one?’ he said anxiously.

‘No.’ She took a deep breath and steeled herself for an explosion. ‘I received the papers from Peter weeks ago.’

He slammed on the brakes and pulled into the side of the road. ‘How many weeks ago?’

‘Eight … nine …’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’ He glared at her.

‘Micah, please don’t look at me like that. Nothing’s changed. I love you –’

‘Evidently not enough to marry me,’ he said curtly.

‘Not enough to subjugate my life to yours the way I did when I was married to Peter. I want to be your wife in every sense of the word, Micah. I want us to have a home and a sitting room where we can shut out the world if we want to, not a public room in the mission where sailors sit and sing and eat waffles and drink beer and aquavit all night. I want us to have children, who we can spend time teaching and watching grow …’

He started the engine and she fell silent. He drove directly to her shop and stopped outside.

‘Micah?’

He continued to look straight ahead out of the windscreen. She opened the van door and stepped out on to the pavement. He drove away before she had time to close it.

Chapter Twenty-three

‘It’s not the Ragtime, but it’s a nice little local,’ David said proudly to Harry. He looked expectantly at Judy and Edyth, obviously hoping that they’d heap more praise on the pub he’d bought.

‘It’s a very nice little local,’ Harry agreed. ‘Mary and I are most impressed.’

‘Or we will be when the builders have finished,’ Mary qualified. It had taken Harry days of coaxing, and several invitations from Edyth, to persuade Mary to make the trip down to the Bay to see David’s new home and business.

‘You made a wise choice and spent your money well.’ Harry lifted up his plate and passed it to Edyth. ‘I’ll have another slice of chicken pie, please. It’s very good. Did you make it, or Moody?’

‘Neither of us.’ Edyth cut into the hot pie. ‘Judy did.’

‘My congratulations to the chef. This is a very tasty lunch and just what we need on a foul Sunday like this.’

‘When I saw the weather this morning I wanted to catch the train down from Pontypridd. Harry wouldn’t hear of it. But I’m dreading the drive back. Harry isn’t that strong yet –’

‘Yes I am, Mary,’ Harry contradicted her. ‘And we will go back later this afternoon and back to the farm tomorrow.’

‘It’s a long drive to the farm. We could wait another day in Pontypridd,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Did you all hear that?’ Harry looked around the table. ‘My wife volunteering to stay in Pontypridd an extra day, rather than go back to the farm.’

‘Stop teasing Mary, Harry,’ Edyth reprimanded.

‘That’s right, gang up on me,’ Harry grumbled good-naturedly, heaping mashed potatoes next to the slice of pie Edyth had given him and smothering the lot with gravy. ‘Lennie, David, both of you are far too quiet. I need male support here. Where is Micah by the way, Edyth?’

‘He had to go back to Gdansk on family business. Something to do with his father’s estate,’ Judy answered, hoping to spare Edyth some pain. No one had seen Micah since the day he had brought Edyth back from the hospital. Not even Helga, although he’d sent his sister a note telling her where he was going and ordering her not to worry, ‘for the sake of his niece or nephew’. Judy suspected, but she didn’t know for certain, that he and Edyth had quarrelled. A temporary pastor had been assigned from Swansea but he wasn’t Micah and, on that basis alone, the locals had unanimously decided not to like him.

Harry lifted his glass of water. ‘To David’s pub, his life as a landlord, to wish him luck in finding good staff to run it and to the singer who’s agreed to bring in the customers.’

Edyth, Mary, Judy, Lennie, and David all lifted their glasses and drank.

‘If you don’t bring them pouring through the doors, Judy, nothing will,’ Lennie said, serious for once.

‘Is the band playing with you, Judy?’ Harry returned to his pie. ‘The Bute Street Blues is no more,’ Judy said. ‘Abdul Akbar – he played trumpet – has agreed to play the piano for me and Steve Chan has offered to play the drums. With Micah and two of my uncles away, and Jed working behind the bar for David, those two are all that’s left of the band, except me. But, to look on the positive side, my Aunt Bessie is behaving like the cat that has the cream. With my uncle in regular work and Jamie and Kristina both working for Edyth, she’s never been so well off. It’s the first time Uncle Tony and Uncle Ron’s families haven’t had to go to the tally man for a sub before their ship has come in.’

‘Have you thought what your opening song might be tomorrow, Judy?’ Harry sprinkled more salt on his potatoes.

‘“Dancing With Tears in my Eyes”.’

‘Good choice,’ Lennie concurred.

‘Who can that be at this time on a Sunday?’ Edyth said at a loud hammering on the door.

‘Someone who wants bread,’ Harry suggested.

‘They’ll be lucky. We sold out before midday yesterday.’

‘You’re still eating, I’ll go.’ Judy dropped her napkin on to her side plate and left the table.

‘Has Judy settled back to working here?’ Harry asked when he heard her running down the stairs.

‘Not really,’ Edyth replied honestly. ‘It must be hard serving people in a shop after receiving standing ovations in the New Theatre and starring in the Tiger Ragtime, and she still has the radio show to do. She might not realise it but I know her working here is only a stopgap until another impresario snaps her up.’

‘It can only be a matter of time.’ Lennie went to the window and looked outside.

‘I can’t understand Aled sacking me and Judy,’ David said heatedly. ‘It’s not as if either of us did anything –’ Voices resounded from downstairs. Judy’s high-pitched and furious intermingled with a man’s deeper, steadier tones. Edyth left her seat.

‘I’ll go down,’ Lennie volunteered.

‘This is my shop –’

‘It’s someone from the club,’ Lennie explained. ‘I know him.’

‘As I’m the man of the house, I should be going.’ David put down his knife and fork.

‘You have a back problem. Besides, the fact that Judy is arguing not fighting with whoever it is suggests he hasn’t a knife in his hand. That means that even I, a born coward, can see to it.’ Lennie left the room and walked down the stairs into the hall.

‘I don’t care what Mr Aled James said, you are not bringing any of those clothes over this doorstep,’ Judy shouted. ‘Not one, so you can put them all back in that van right now!’

Problem, Colin?’ Lennie asked.

‘I’ve been asked to deliver these here, Lennie, but the lady won’t take them.’ The middle-aged van driver looked to Lennie for help.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Lennie said with a straight face. ‘A devout Christian like her wouldn’t take delivery of anything except a Bible on a Sunday.’

‘Sorry, madam.’ The man stepped back. ‘I should have thought Mr James gave me the job as an extra and as I’m busy early on Monday to late on Saturday I thought I’d get the job done now. But I can see it was a mistake. I’ll come back tomorrow evening. Say around seven.’

‘No, you will not. Not then and not ever.’ Judy glared at Lennie. ‘What did you tell him that for?’ she raged as the driver returned to his van. ‘Those are the clothes Aled James bought me, and I don’t want them. I’d feel as though –’

‘He was paying you off?’ As a crowd of children were collecting around the door Lennie closed it.

‘Exactly!’ She looked at him. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rant and rave at you. It’s not your fault that Aled James and … that he sacked me –’

‘And broke your heart. Just as you broke his.’ Lennie sat on the stairs.

‘I didn’t break Aled James’s heart,’ she said angrily. ‘He’s getting married.’

‘Who’s the lucky woman?’

‘Councillor Harvill’s daughter – Moira.’

Lennie laughed. ‘Councillor Harvill doesn’t have a daughter, but he does have a wife called Moira. She’s forty years younger than him, but they are legally married. I know because they recently celebrated their first anniversary at the club.’

‘Then Aled’s not marrying her?’

‘I think her husband might have something to say about it if he did. Not to mention the law. Last I heard it was illegal to have two husbands alive at the same time.’

‘Then why did Aled tell me that he was marrying her?’

‘Because he wanted to make you angry enough to leave him and never come back.’

‘Because he didn’t want me hanging around him or his club,’ she said bitterly.

‘You couldn’t be more wrong, Judy. I think letting you go was one of the hardest things Aled James has ever done. Not because you were a draw in the Ragtime, but because he loved – loves – you very much. But he’s terrified that if he allows you to stay with him he won’t be able to protect you.’

‘I don’t need protecting.’

‘Aled believes that everyone who works for him needs protecting,’ Lennie declared. ‘He’s even given me my very own toy soldier to walk me back and forth to the club. He might have won the battle but the turf war is far from over. And the more successful Aled is, the more enemies he will make – enemies who think they can pocket his profits if they get him out of the way.’

‘Then …’

‘I have to agree with Aled; in this case love isn’t enough. You’re better off working here and singing in David’s pub. There might not be room to put your name in lights over the door but you can still audition in the New Theatre. And who knows,’ he raised his eyebrows, ‘they may put on
Peter Pan
again.’

‘You think Aled loves me?’ she whispered.

‘Enough to let you go, Judy, and that’s a lot. I don’t think I could have done the same if I’d been in his shoes … Judy, where are going?’ Lennie shouted as she wrenched open the door and ran down the street.

‘To find out if what you said is true.’

Lennie smiled as he stood on the doorstep. He knew lovesick when he saw it and Judy had been singularly miserable that morning. Not at all the chirpy girl he had come to know and love – more than a little – when they had played together in the New Theatre. But for all of his well-intentioned motives he wasn’t sure that he’d done Judy any favours.

Ever since he’d heard a rumour via a waiter in the Windsor that Aled James had used and abandoned Judy King because of her West Indian blood, he’d felt that she deserved to know the truth. And, after watching Aled mope around the club ever since he had let Judy go, it hadn’t been difficult to work out that his employer was head over heels besotted with Judy.

Aled James loved Judy, possibly even as much as Judy loved him. But, he also knew that Aled’s fears for his employees’ safety were very real. And neither he nor the rest of the staff of the Ragtime were imagining the people who occasionally followed them home from work in the early hours.

Micah walked up to the front door and dropped the suitcase he was carrying on to the step but he held on to his bag. He looked at Judy’s back as she raced down Bute Street. ‘Is Judy practising for the ʼthirty-two Olympics in Los Angeles or has she just found out she’s been given an audition for the West End and she’s decided to run all the way to London?’

‘Bit of both, I think. You going or coming?’ Lennie asked.

‘Coming in, if Edyth will see me.’

‘Don’t tell me that you two have been quarrelling as well.’

‘As well? Who else …?’

‘It’s a long story.’ Lennie grinned.

‘You can’t quarrel with someone who doesn’t speak to you.’

‘I don’t know Edyth that well but she doesn’t strike me as the sulky sort,’ Lennie observed.

‘She isn’t, I am.’ Micah walked into the hall and closed the door behind him. He heard Harry and David talking upstairs. ‘She has visitors?’

‘A room full.’

‘Is the kitchen in the bakery empty?’

‘As far as I know,’ Lennie answered.

‘Do me a favour – ask Edyth to come down and see me, please.’

‘I can but ask.’ Lennie ran up the stairs as fast as his short fat legs would carry him.

Unsure of the reception Edyth would give him, Micah left his suitcase in the hall and carried his bag through to the kitchen. Hungry, he’d half hoped to find a pastie, pie, or sausage roll, or at the very least a bread roll, but it was spotless, pristine, and empty.

He sat on a chair, but he didn’t have to wait long. Edyth opened the door so hard it bounced back on its hinges and hit her on the nose.

‘Clumsy to the end.’

‘If you’ve come to carp –’

‘I came to see if you want a lodger.’ He lifted his bag on to a chair. ‘I’ve taken Helga’s advice and given up my job in the mission. I went back to Gdansk and collected my papers from the hospital there. It took some wrangling but the Royal Infirmary has agreed that I can finish my doctor’s training here in Wales. I won’t get much in the way of pay for a year, and the most I can pay you is fifteen shillings a week.’ He finally met her steady gaze. ‘You did say that you have two spare rooms.’

‘One, David’s moved in. The builders are working on the pub he’s bought and it won’t be ready for at least a month.’

‘I don’t care if it’s the smallest box-room.’

‘The answer is no, Micah, you cannot have my spare room, I need it for guests. But,’ her tawny eyes glinted with mischief, ‘if you’re prepared to share with me, that’s different.’

‘Only after we’re married.’

‘Can’t we practise first?’

‘That’s my Edyth – shameless.’

‘And very much in love,’ she whispered before kissing him.

Judy reached the club as the van driver was ferrying all her clothes back into her dressing room. She pushed past him and went into the bar. Half-a-dozen brawny men were lounging around a table drinking pints of beer. Freddie was behind the counter, serving them.

‘Boss is in his office,’ he said when he saw her.

‘Thank you,’ she called before charging down the corridor. She thrust open the door. Aled was sitting behind his desk.

‘Are you clearing my dressing room to make room for a new singer?’ she demanded.

‘What if I am?’

‘I want to apply for the job.’

‘I’m not auditioning previous applicants.’

‘I never applied.’

‘But I let you go, remember?’

‘And I was fool enough to believe what you said. Do you still want a singer?’ she repeated.

‘I sent you the clothes –’

‘And I sent them back.’

‘They don’t fit anyone else. All the singers I auditioned last week are twice your size.’

‘All the more reason to take me back.’

‘Just as a singer …’

‘No.’

‘Judy, I don’t know how to live any way except the way I have done since I was a child – fighting the world and everyone in it for a living. After meeting Harry, Edyth, you, I know life can be different – but not for me. I’m so used to living on the borders of the law I make enemies on both sides. Gangsters, police, politicians –’

‘You love me. Go on, deny it.’ she dared.

‘I may love you, but I couldn’t protect you or David or Harry. When I think that my own brother nearly died for what I did …’

‘But he didn’t.’ She sat in front of him on the desk and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘I love you.’

‘I should send you away.’

‘Even if you arranged to have me shanghaied and put on a slow boat to China I’d find my way back to you, my darling man.’

Freddie crept up to the open office door. He saw Aled and Judy locked in one another’s arms and closed the door softly so as not to disturb them.