Meg frowned. It was so unlike Evan she was about to ask what was so important and then thought better of it. He rarely took a day off and worked too hard in her opinion, with his double shifts, to make extra money, first for the children’s schooling and now for their emigration.
Evan spent the morning in bed, recovering. With the children out of the house Meg went to wake him. She stood smiling down at Evan and thought how lucky she was to have him. She would never love another man, and she was sure Evan would never love another woman. After eleven years of marriage they still found each other exciting. Slowly she pulled back the sheet and blankets, not to disturb him . . . yet. She slipped off her blouse and skirt and sat on the edge of the bed.
Later she lay by his side, her arms around him. ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you, Evan?’ she said softly.
He pulled her closer still, if that was possible. ‘Aye, love and I love you, more than you’ll ever know. I guess we’re two of the lucky ones.’ He paused. ‘Like my parents were I suppose. They seemed to have had a good life together. Not an easy one but a good one. In a way it was just as well they went together, though I wish it had been in twenty years time and not now. I’m going to miss them.’
‘I know, so shall I. They were pretty wonderful people. I only wish my parents had been so happy. But with a mother like mine how could any man have been happy? God, she told me that, after I was born, she permitted my father to “have his dirty way” as she put it, only once a month. If she wasn’t my mother I would dislike her intensely.’
Later Evan’s brothers arrived at the house.
‘William and I have learned some good news,’ said Evan. ‘At least, I suppose you could call it that if you think it took Dad and Mam’s deaths to bring it about.’ He paused. ‘The fact is, Dad had one of those life policy things that Meg was telling us about. Remember?’ They nodded. ‘It seems that Dad contacted some sort of office in Pontypridd. I understand he paid every week through the post office and well, it seems we are due to receive some money from them.’
‘How much?’ asked Albert. ‘Are we talking about a few pounds or more?’
‘Oh more, a lot more. Exactly how much we don’t know yet until we hear from them. But I think we can expect a few hundred at least.’
They gasped. A few hundred? That was a fortune! Eighty pounds would buy them a house, a few hundred . . . Good grief !
For Evan, it meant that they now had enough money to emigrate to America.
The following day Evan was up at four thirty. He lit the fire, put the kettle on and went into the kitchen to wash and shave in cold water. He shivered with the shock and quickly dried himself, rubbing his cheeks hard for warmth, then put his head out the back door to check the weather. It was bitterly cold. A cloudless night after the rain had resulted in a heavy hoar frost, bathing the back with a silver white, gleaming in the half moon now setting behind the hill. The moon would set soon and then it was going to be pitch dark before the dawn but for Evan it was going to be dark for a long time, for most of the winter in fact. A double shift today and most other days would mean being down in that hell hole of a mine for a least eighteen hours every day, longer by the time he had caught the lift to the surface. He shuddered again, but this time not with the cold, but with the thought of being entombed down there for so long. He remembered just before he and Meg had married. He had worked doublers all summer long, including Sundays. People spoke of it as the best summer in years, warm sunshine and balmy days with gentle breezes and picnics in the country – for some, but not for him.
This was his winter underground. When he got to America he would never go down a mine again, not as long as he lived. With a few sacrifices during these last few months, plus their savings and his father’s money he was sure they would be all right in America. While he sipped his tea and ate a dripping sandwich he thought about ‘sacrifices’. What the hell was there to sacrifice? He and Meg had talked about it without mentioning details because they knew there was little more they could give up. He looked at his sandwich in disgust. Christ, he was going to start on a double shift on bread and dripping. His stomach contracted and he had to force himself to chew and swallow. He knew he would be glad of it later.
He shrugged on his heavy work coat, put the sandwiches Meg had made the night before into his pocket and left. Huddled inside his jacket, shoulders hunched, he walked quickly in the direction of the mine, grunting good mornings to the other miners he met.
Evan went straight to number three shaft and crowded into the lift with the others. When they stepped onto the open cage the old man told them to mind their hands and with his usual cry of ‘Hell first stop,’ they descended. Evan craned his neck for a last glimpse of the stars, pinpricks of light against the black sky. He hated going down, where there was insufficient air, where the sweat never dried on your back and where the dust settled into everything, filling every hole in his body starting with his nostrils. Some of the men lit the lamps on the front of their helmets, the flickering yellow flame giving their faces a ghostly appearance. With a bone-jarring jerk the lift stopped: they cursed the lift attendant fluently while they stepped off the platform and let those going off shift climb on. There were no greetings, no laughter; this was a place to work and eke out a livelihood, a place hated and feared by the men. This was the place where they toiled to help Victoria’s England in its great industrial revolution, creating massive wealth but not sharing in it.
Evan walked away, along one of the mine’s many branches that followed the seams of coal. The farther from the entrance he went the muggier it became and sweat soon formed on his forehead. He was weary before he started, with a tiredness which came from the spirit. He followed the bright rail tracks as they sloped gently down, gradually becoming steeper. He was thankful there were no ponies in his part of the mine. He hated the sight of the ponies, blind from being so long in the dark.
Every few yards an oil lamp flickered, throwing shadows across the walls of the tunnel. As he trudged along heavy boots echoed in the quiet.
He felt a vibration through his feet and stepped off the track, pressing himself against the side. A few moments later a half dozen empty trucks, with the lone brakeman on the last one, rattled into view. Seeing him, the brakeman slowed and Evan jumped on board, nodding his thanks. Over the next four hundred yards the train of trucks picked up a dozen men. It rounded the last bend, screeched to a halt and the men jumped off, forming themselves into small groups to start digging at the coalface.
It was like a scene from Dante’s Hell, half naked men swinging pick axes, using shovels and, where the seam narrowed too much, crawling on their hands and knees to chip at the chunks of coal, pushing them back where one of the others would carry it to the trucks.
Evan put his mind into a kind of stupor, not thinking about the work but dreaming. One day, he thought to himself, I shall tell Dai how I dream. He thinks he’s the only one, sitting with his atlas on his knees, in a land of his own. He does not, he cannot, know I am there as well, away from this hell, in a world of sunshine and light. He does not realise why I could never condemn him to a life down here, where he would surely go without an education. Evan shook his head. That was the dream before America – Dai a doctor or solicitor. Now the dream included them all. America. Evan shuddered. It had taken little Sian’s death to convince them they should go. God, how often had he and Meg discussed it? Meg, my strength, my love. We’ll have that life we talked of so often, I promise you.
He hacked at the coal with a pick, sweat pouring down his body, making rivulets of white which quickly covered over with dust to be washed away again. All around him men laboured silently, their breath needed for work, none to spare to talk. Besides, the shift overseer would have been on them like a ton of bricks if they slackened. The poor bastard was hated by them all, irrationally really, because he was given a quota by the engineers, and it was the overseer who had to ensure the men achieved it. Sometimes it was not difficult but at other times, like now, they had to work extra hard. The only respite came when the trucks were winched along the track, but even that was only for a few minutes because the next one was already empty and waiting to be brought down. Time was non-existent, life a limbo of sweat, aching muscles and continual thudding as the picks and shovels dug deep into the soft seam.
A whistle blew and with a sigh the men threw down their tools and moved into the main shaft from the short, narrow holes where they were digging. They sat down, opened their sandwiches and with coal black hands picked out the white bread, eating the dust along with the food. Normally they would have brought bottles of cold tea or water but here there was a small run of water which soaked through the ground into a natural catchment area and then escaped through the tunnel. By the time it filtered through the overhead rock it was as clean as anyone could wish and, more importantly, cold.
Evan ate just two sandwiches, knowing the danger of cramp if he took too many at one time. While he sat there, still half lost in his thoughts, he looked at the other miners. Between young Raymond, only fourteen years old, and old Clifford at fifty-eight, they spanned three generations. Three generations who had been treated like animals, worked like slaves with no hope of the system ever changing. The whistle blew; with an inward groan he started working again, lifting, swinging, dropping and levering his pick into the coal, gnawing at the small area assigned to him. His mind was in neutral or away with Meg, or off to America, or back again to Meg, or with the boys as they made good in college in America. It was funny, wasn’t it, how his dream had already changed from school in Pontypridd to college in America . . . and back to a warm, cosy evening with Meg, always Meg and their love. It sustained him as he dug into the never-ending seam of coal, the monotony going on for ever . . . until the next whistle, a life time away.
And so it went on . . . and on. Evan worked double shifts six days of the week but Meg insisted he take Sundays off to regain his strength. Sometimes he did, but more often than not he would work a single shift, which let him have the evening at home.
He had no time for the committee and could not care less what was going to happen now. He had laid the groundwork, and now it was left to his brother and friends to sort matters out. William was already a member, so all was going according to plan.
Meg wanted to find a job even if it meant scrubbing floors. She would do anything rather than see Evan work so hard. Evan was adamant. She was not to take a job. The reason was not male pride but because he felt that Meg was better employed amassing information about the best way to get to America. What was the difference in cost if they went from, say, London or Liverpool? Where was it best to land? What part of the States would give them the best opportunities? Meg was kept busy between trips to the new public library in Pontypridd and borrowing books from her school teacher friends.
The new school would be ready about the second week in February. It would be better than the old place, with no chance of a repetition of the accident which had killed the children. A commemorative plaque was to be placed over the main entrance, listing the names of those who had died. Evan was glad he was leaving the area. He could not bear the thought of seeing Sian’s name every time he walked into the school, and he hated the thought of Sion and Dai seeing it there every day. No, it was better for them all to get away, to leave the sad memories behind and take the happy ones with them.
Christmas Eve was a Friday night and Evan had finished his double shift. He was not working Christmas day nor Boxing day, the latter at the insistence of Meg. He came out of the lift into the cold night air, the sweat drying on him instantly, causing him to shiver. By the time he reached the gate it was snowing, the flakes wafting gently down with no wind driving them. As he trudged homewards they intensified, and soon the visibility was only a matter of yards. Near to home he passed a neighbour he could not recognise and exchanged a ‘Merry Christmas’ with him. The streets and houses were already covered in a white mantle, his feet crunching the snow as he walked. Evan found his spirits lightening as he opened the door. For the first time he was looking forward to the holiday, albeit with mixed feelings. This would be the first Christmas without Sian and his parents.
12
Christmas had been and gone and the new year had followed quickly. The snow, once a pleasing background to the festivities, had now become a dangerous nuisance. Trudging through the drifts meant leaving home earlier to get to work on time, arriving wet and cold, and returning home even more tired, if that was possible, after sliding and cursing up the slippery road. The Taff had also flooded, but down near Pontypridd, causing damage to low-lying houses and shops. The snow turned to sleet, the sleet to rain and melted into ugly lumps of blackened slush and ice. Paths were worn and walking became easier. Only the children regretted the change in the weather.
It was a Sunday evening in February and they were gathered together to discuss the move to America in some detail.
‘There are three places to sail from,’ Megan began, ‘Southampton, Tilbury and Cardiff. Not Liverpool as I originally thought. Though the fare is slightly cheaper from Southampton by the time we get there and stay in a hotel and so on it’ll be more expensive than going from Cardiff. So I think Cardiff is the cheapest by about ten pounds.’
‘Ten pounds,’ Sion whistled, an impressed expression on his face, though he had no real understanding of the value of money yet. Even so, he expressed what Evan thought.
‘This is a new route and the ships don’t sail as often as they do from the other two places. In fact, there’s only one sailing a month. The one in March is due on the fifteenth. There was still room yesterday, according to the booking agent.’