Miss Purdy's Class (43 page)

‘It’s so beautiful,’ Gwen said. They were both breathing heavily. ‘Did you come up here a lot?’

‘Oh yes.’ Daniel shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘With my pals – and Ann sometimes.’ He pointed ahead. ‘There’s a seam over the other side. We came up here, she and I, when the big strike was on – we’d dig out as much as we could carry and bundle it up in a sack for home. Ann was always strong. We never got caught – it was illegal, see. The pit owners thought they owned that as well.’ His voice was harsh and he seemed on edge, full of raw emotion. But at last he reached out and put his arm round her shoulders and kissed her, and they walked on further, still climbing.

When they reached the top of the rise the scenery opened out ahead of them, the peaks and shoulders of the hills all bathed in sunshine. It was one of the most beautiful places Gwen had ever seen.

‘Daniel.’ She had been wanting to ask him since the last time they were here but the right moment had never come. She could not forget the emotion in his voice when he had shouted after Hywel Jones that morning. ‘You said that your mother was sent to prison?’

Looking up, she saw Daniel’s jaw clench. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lit one.

‘What on earth happened? Why her?’

‘Oh, it was all a mistake,’ Daniel said furiously. ‘Whyever would our ma go to prison? They treated her like . . . like dirt.’

For a moment they walked in silence. She could feel the hot sun like a pressure on her face.

‘It was after our da died. Only a month or so. There was all sorts of trouble. Up until then there’d only been a handful of scab labour here in Aberglyn. But then it started. There are rules in the pit, see, always have been – about seniority, who works where. A pecking order, if you like. The management wouldn’t keep to it. This was in the spring of thirty-two. There was a protest and they locked them all out again. I wasn’t here then, not just as it started. I was at the college, see. Anyway, they started to bring in scab workers from round the valleys. Course they were starving, needed work like anyone else. You couldn’t blame them in a way.’

He paused to take a drag on the cigarette. ‘Most days there was a crowd out early, protesting behind the scabs when they came to the pit, shouting and that. This particular morning Lucy was ill with a fever. She wasn’t even two years old. Ma had been up half the night with her and she . . . well, she should’ve got someone else to get the doctor – Mary or Paul. But she wasn’t thinking straight. She was in such a state, I s’pose. Da’d died and she didn’t have the money to call the doctor out. I suppose she panicked and thought if she went to him . . . It was only just getting light and she went out with Lucy wrapped in a shawl. Course the streets were filling up and she got caught up in it. The police were waiting and there was a baton charge – all hell let loose. Ma was just at the edge of it, she said, but this policeman grabbed hold of her – arrested her and another woman who was nothing to do with it.

‘Ann and Mary were at home and they didn’t know what had happened for a time. It was the neighbours who saved us. The Prisoners’ Aid Society tried to take Lucy away from Ma – said she wasn’t a fit parent. They wouldn’t listen, she said. She tried to tell them her husband had died and all of it, but no one heard a word. She was issued a summons for unlawful assembly and they sent her to prison for two months in Cardiff . . .

‘Ann sent me a telegram and I came straight home. Everyone had banded together and offered to pay our rent. And they threatened to go and wreck the pit if Lucy was taken away. Mary and Ann got her back off the Prisoners’ Aid people and we all managed the best we could. There were enough of us old enough to manage. But we were all worried sick about Ma. She wasn’t considered a political prisoner, so they put her in the reception part, dishing out the rags of clothes they had. But she was in a state over Da. She’d lost him so sudden like, no warning. And she was worried about all of us. Pining really, she was, as well as torn apart with the injustice of why they put her there. And then she fell sick. She was so bad they had to release her to go to the hospital in Cardiff. We thought she was going to die in there. Ann went down once and managed to get in to see her. She was so delirious she didn’t know who Ann was . . .’

Daniel stopped talking abruptly and Gwen looked round at him, shocked to see he was fighting back tears. He ground his cigarette stub fiercely under his heel.

‘The worst thing was not being able to do anything. We were stuck. And the way people helped . . . There was a lady along the road, a Mrs Morgan. Her husband was dying then. Miner’s lung. Coughing and gasping all day long. She’d never been one to have much to do with us – chapel lady, and us being Catholics. But she came along every day after she heard, to see if we were managing, giving us a loaf she’d baked, or a pan of broth. And her hands were twisted and hurt her all the time. But she was like an angel to us, Mrs Morgan was. She died the next year after him, God rest them both.’

He couldn’t hold back his tears then, as if a well of tension was waiting to be released, even though he was embarrassed by his emotion. It did not last long, but she held him until he was quieter, her forehead pressed into his shoulder as she stroked his back.

‘My love,’ she said, as he quietened. ‘Dear one – you’re so tender-hearted.’

‘I just want things to be right.’ He looked out over her shoulder, reaching up to wipe his cheeks again. ‘For everyone. For our people not to suffer so much . . .’

Thirty-Nine

They were back in Aberglyn by the late afternoon, the grey walls of the town bathed in mellow sunlight. There were some people about and one or two greeted Daniel. They passed the Bethel chapel and a few poor-looking shops with very little to be seen inside them. Then they saw a queue of people waiting outside a door, and across the road a man sat at a small table talking to a couple of others.

‘Labour Exchange.’ Daniel nodded at the queue. ‘It’s pay day. There’ll’ve been a queue right along the road earlier on.’ He then nodded at the man at the table. ‘Uncle Anthony was there this morning.’

The NUWM offices were straight across the road from the Labour Exchange and Gwen knew that their officials gave advice to the unemployed workers collecting dole, or being refused it.

‘He doesn’t get paid for doing it, does he?’ Gwen asked, watching one of the men standing in front of the table, talking emphatically to the NUWM official seated behind it.

‘No, no,’ Daniel said. ‘People pay in a contribution every week . . .’

The official suddenly caught sight of him and waved. ‘Hello there, Daniel!’

Daniel waved back. ‘Hello, Mr Gallacher!’

‘Coming to the meeting tonight with your uncle, are you?’

‘I’ll be there!’ Daniel said.

Everyone was looking at them by now and one or two more called out greetings. They walked along to the main square, then round by the back roads towards Shân and Anthony’s house. They walked side by side, but without touching. Gwen was conscious of feeling watched all the time. This was a small community and anyone different attracted interest.

Shân was at the stove cooking when they got back. She smiled wearily. Billy had not had a good day, she confided quietly to them both. He had not been feeling too well, his stomach upset. He was having a lie down when they came in and he looked up, unsmiling and said a curt hello. But Gwen couldn’t help feeling also that their presence was upsetting for Billy. When would he ever be able to walk out over the mountain with a girl? Or work or give his energy properly to the party? It wrung her heart to see him lying there with all his young energy frustrated, such a cruel sight after the day she and Daniel had spent.

Anthony was sitting by the back door on a stool, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, intent on his copy of the
Daily Worker
. He looked up long enough to nod at them and say, ‘Coming tonight, boyo?’

Daniel, downing a long drink of water, nodded.

Gwen waited to be asked as well, but it became clear that this was considered men’s work. She felt hurt and indignant for a moment. Wasn’t she a comrade as well and a member of the party? She didn’t seem to be considered worth asking to the meeting and she would have liked to see the NUWM in action.

I’m not going to beg, though
, she thought proudly.
And anyway – I’ll stay in with Shân and Billy, poor things.

Everyone seemed tired at the tea table and they ate mostly in silence. The evening had grown close and muggy, as if a storm was gathering. Billy seemed to liven up a little with food and company. As soon as they’d finished the stew, which seemed to consist mainly of potatoes plus additions from Theresa’s parcel, Anthony stood up and picked up his cap from the sill.

‘Best be off, Daniel.’

‘See you later.’ Daniel got up and Gwen struggled once more not to feel affronted by her exclusion.

She helped Shân clear up the dishes and afterwards they sat by the hearth with Billy, playing dominoes and drinking tea. It seemed to cheer him up and Gwen realized that he enjoyed her company. He was especially animated when she asked him about his reading and he showed her his copies of his favourites: Dickens, Jack London and Elizabeth Gaskell’s
Mary Barton
.

‘I wish we had a proper library here like in Tredegar,’ he said wistfully. ‘It’s not often I get hold of a new book and I like it better than reading the papers, see. You get into the story and it carries you along . . .’

‘I’ll see if I can send you some,’ Gwen said, ‘when we get back home.’

‘Oh, would you?’ Billy lit up.

‘Don’t go giving Gwen trouble now, Billy,’ Shân said, but Gwen could see she was delighted.

‘Would you write me a letter now and then? Only I get ever so bored and fed up sitting here. I’d like to hear from you.’

He asked so sweetly that Gwen could only say yes. She liked him, as well as feeling so sorry for what had happened to him.

‘Will you write back?’ she asked. ‘If it’s not too much trouble?’

‘
Trouble!
’ He beamed. ‘It’d be . . .
magnificent
!’

The evening passed companionably, though Gwen sensed at times that Shân seemed distant, as if she had something on her mind. She felt like asking if everything was all right, but as things were so obviously difficult all the time it seemed a foolish question and presumptuous of her to ask it, so she kept quiet.

‘Well,’ Shân said at last, yawning and stretching. She had put her shawl on now the evening was a little cooler. ‘We’d better get you to bed, Billy.’

‘Let me help.’ Gwen stood up.

‘All I need is a hand to the bed,’ Billy said hastily. ‘I can do the rest for myself, ta.’

Between them, the two women helped Billy manoeuvre over to the bed from his chair, his arms over their shoulders. Gwen felt the strength of them, the potential power in his upper body, and it made more poignant the dragging uselessness of his legs. With dignity he removed his arms, not wanting to be helped a moment longer than was necessary. There was a light sheen of perspiration on his face and she saw that the exertion of getting to bed had cost him more effort than she’d realized.

‘Goodnight then,’ he said, smiling.

‘Those men won’t be back for a while yet.’ Shân stood with her at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded, looking very tired. ‘You know what they’re like. Might as well get some rest.’

‘Goodnight.’ Gwen felt she would like to kiss the woman’s cheek, but Shân was not a demonstrative person and Gwen wasn’t sure it would be welcome.

She was turning to go up the stairs when Shân, in a lowered voice, called her back. Gwen went to her. In the dim light she saw a tight, anxious expression in the woman’s eyes. Her arms were clenched tight across her chest. She seemed to be deciding whether to speak.

‘Gwen . . .’ She paused again, seeming to struggle for the right words. ‘Has Daniel . . . has he told you anything much about himself?’

Gwen thought about that morning on the mountain, his tears. She had never felt closer to anyone than she had to Daniel that day.

‘Yes!’ She knew she sounded defensive, and she felt it. Of course she knew Daniel! They had shared so much, and he had told her some of the most painful memories of his life. Why did everyone feel they had to interfere?

‘Why?’ Gwen was polite, but she knew there was still a challenge in her voice. ‘Is there something I should be told?’

Shân shook her head slowly. ‘No, it’s all right, Gwen
fach
.’ She spoke in a conciliatory way. ‘Don’t you worry. I was only wondering. You know what boys can be like – never open their mouths to tell you a thing. You go up and get a good night’s sleep.’

As she undressed upstairs, Gwen realized it had begun to rain. There was a low growl of thunder somewhere in the distance. The men would get wet walking home from the meeting, she thought. She felt glum. She would have liked to see Daniel before going to bed. But she comforted herself with the thought of spending more time with him tomorrow.

There was a bowl and pitcher of water in the room this time, so she washed her face in the candlelight before she got into bed. All the fresh air and activity of the day had tired her and she felt drowsy already. Blowing the candle out she settled down, falling asleep almost instantly.

The next thing she heard was a great crash of sound. Her heart was beating fast, startled at being woken so abruptly. She got out of bed, moved the curtain aside and opened the window, feeling cool air on her face. There was nothing to see, the only sound the hard, steady fall of rain. Moments later there was a flash of white and the street was lit up for a second. Then came another wrench of thunder, then hard rainfall. She heard running feet and men’s voices. Even at that distance she could recognize the timbre of Daniel’s voice. He and his uncle were hurrying back from the meeting. She heard them reach the house and go inside. Immediately she wanted to go and see Daniel, have a goodnight cuddle. If she waited, maybe she could catch him on his own.

She pulled her cardigan on and stood by the window, enjoying the sounds of the storm. Before long she heard Anthony’s lumbering tread on the stairs and the bedroom door across from hers open and close. Gwen dared herself to go down. The house was so small – surely they’d hear every sound she made!