The Legacy (13 page)

Lizzie-Ann had decided to marry her young man with the limp. Evelyne made Jim feel welcome, even though it meant an extra mouth to feed in the house. He was good-hearted, and made Lizzie-Ann smile again. The wedding was a simple affair, and Lizzie-Ann wore the dress Evelyne had brought home from Cardiff. The couple had no honeymoon, they just took over the front room, and life went on as usual. At least the house (unlike so many others) throbbed with life now, a bit too much at times as they still had four lodgers. Lizzie-Ann dropped numerous hints about how awful it was that they could be so cramped while Doris Evans’ house stood empty. It had been more than six months since Doris had been buried, and still no word from Dr Collins.

Evelyne hurried home from the brick factory. It had been boiling hot in there, and working right next to the kilns made you sweat your guts out. She wanted a good wash before going up to the school. Already they called her a schoolmistress, although she wasn’t actually qualified, but she liked it and got on well with the two proper teachers.

Ben Rees was standing by the door, his bike propped up by the wall. He had one of the dreaded yellow telegrams in his hand.

‘No, Ben … Ah, don’t say it’s for us, no, please … no.’

Dicken was gone, and two days after the telegram arrived they got his last letter, telling them how well he was doing, and that he might make sergeant within the month.

Hugh seemed unable to take any more pain, his whole body sagged as if the wind had been punched from his huge frame. He still struggled up every morning and went off to work, but he was so silent, so empty, it was as if his soul had already slipped from his body.

As she had done all her life, Evelyne held the last tenuous threads of the family together. She had to keep on working, she had to keep going up to the school, but she no longer went to church, she couldn’t, and she didn’t care what wrath He sent down on her. How could there be a God who would take each and every one of her brothers, and leave them with nothing?

In August, one of the hottest Augusts ever, Evelyne prepared for another burning day in the factory. She noticed her Da had gone off to work without his tea caddie. She sighed, he’d be dying of thirst by twelve, she’d just have to be late. The sun blazed in the cloudless sky, birds sang, the grass smelt good and all over the hedgerows the flowers were blooming. The further up the mountain she walked the cleaner the air was. The raspberries hung thick and ripe, and she ate them as she walked, thinking that on the way back she would fill her skirt with them to make a tart.

She walked down the further slope of the mountain, crossed two streams and a field of cows. Her legs were getting tired, and she realized just how strong a man her father must be to take this long trek day in and day out. The winter months must have frozen him, the rain soaked him, and then he spent all those hours down the mine. When she reached the small pithead she asked for Hugh Jones, and was directed to a shaft at ground level. Black-faced men called ‘hello’, and five women sitting in the sun called to her and waved. This new mine took quite a few women at the pithead to sort the coal. They were as black as the menfolk, but they were laughing and joking and soaking up the sunshine.

Evelyne edged along the coal seam. She had to bend almost double, and the blackness was just as Mike had described, so thick she couldn’t even see a shadow. She called out, directing her voice towards the sound of hammering and the click-click-clicking of the pickaxes.

She passed two trams being pushed out by Dai Roberts, who grinned at her and said to keep on walking, and to watch her step as it sloped steeply. The air was getting so thick she was gasping for breath as she inched her way along the tunnel - her hands were her only guide.

‘Hugh Jones. Hugh Jones!’

She could barely draw breath and the blackness was so heavy she didn’t know whether to turn back or go on …

‘Hugh! Hugh Jones…’

As Evelyne turned a bend in the tunnel she saw her father, lit up by the flame of a single candle. His face was stricken, his eyes stared into the blackness as in a nightmare. Evelyne ran to him, knowing what must be in his mind, that he must have thought there was some other tragedy, could there be another? She was quick to shout that she’d brought his tea caddie.

Hugh held his blackened arms out to her and she clung to him. With barely enough air to keep the candle flame flickering, with no more than four feet of space to work in, the massive man had to hunch himself nearly double to chip away at the face.

Evelyne felt his powerful arms holding her as he had when she was a little girl. In the blackness the grief that filled both of them was released, and they cried together, their tears mingling with the coal dust that dominated their lives.

The war was over, and home-made paper chains were strung across the streets, trestle tables were erected on the cobbles and from God knew where came buns, cakes, biscuits and lemonade for the kids.

There was hardly a family in the village that had not lost a loved one in the mines or in the mighty war that had raged across the Channel. Now the lads who had survived were coming home, and their families went crazy. They sang in the streets, they belted out the old tunes on the piano and they held hands and sang ‘God Save the King …’

Evelyne rushed around handing out cakes, and handmade crackers with no bang! in the middle, but containing little gifts made by some of the old women for the children. It was a wonderful day, and everyone crowded into Mrs Morgan’s to drink her home-brewed wine.

Evelyne was standing well to the back of the crowd as the home-brewed wine took effect, and the singing reached a raucous level … Evelyne left the stuffy house. Some older women, well inebriated, grouped on a corner, looked at her with pitying faces as she walked on up the cobbled street.

‘Ah, poor thing, she’ll never get herself a lad now, left it too late … or maybe with her being so tall she’ll get one who’s injured, disabled, you never know.’

Evelyne Jones was twenty-one, that was all, but her eyes mirrored the anguish she had experienced. Hugh Jones could see her striding up the hill, her lean, tough body, high cheekbones and flame red hair, her strong legs like an athlete’s … he closed his eyes, dear God, how he wished she was one of his boys come home.

Lizzie-Ann could have given herself a miscarriage, she ran so fast. The thick bundle of letters all addressed to Evelyne Jones was in a brown paper parcel, and she had to sign for them at the post office. She signed after a hell of a row with Ben Rees, who was livid because he hadn’t had a chance to snoop through them. He’d dropped his bike in fury - that bloody girl was always a little bugger, and her with another kid on the way when she was no better than one herself. Ben picked up his red bike and threatened to strangle Alfred Moggs’ illegitimate grandson, half coloured he was, with black, curly hair. The little bugger had already let the air out of Ben’s tyres once this morning.

Evelyne took the thick brown envelope with the red line across it and started to open it, with the entire class of nosy children peering through the glass door, the headmistress looking on, and Lizzie-Ann gasping. Before Evelyne had a chance to examine the contents, Lizzie-Ann’s waters broke, and the children sniggered that she’d wet herself. The headmistress, a flat-footed woman in her late sixties, took over the class while Evelyne ran for Doc Clock.

The Doctor now had the only privately owned motor vehicle in the village. This was patted, polished, and sat in by the Doc but in the driver’s seat he was absolutely hopeless. More than once he had been found still sitting in the car as it teetered on the edge of a ditch, his face concerned and puzzled, his specs dangling from one ear.

‘Christ almighty, there’s something wrong with it again, it turned right when I wanted to go left.’

Doc Clock arrived just in time as Lizzie-Ann gave birth in the school kitchen. He shouted that it was a boy, but when he put his glasses on he realized it was a girl.

‘No, it’s a girl, it’s a girl.’

Lizzie-Ann, sweating and exhausted, screamed.

‘Oh, Christ Almighty, I haven’t got twins, have I?’

Evelyne held her hand and stroked her head, saying it was all right, it was just the one.

The Doc huffed and puffed and dropped them all home. The trip in his car made Lizzie-Ann forget the letters for a moment, but she was soon reminded when Evelyne eventually opened the package and gasped, then fainted, out cold, in the kitchen.

Doris Evans had named Evelyne Jones as her heir, leaving her the little four-roomed house, which no one had realized she’d owned outright, and two hundred pounds. The news went round faster than Mrs Morgan’s radio could have blasted it. In the first version, Evelyne had had a heart attack and a daughter at the same time, but eventually the news filtered through that she had received a legacy.

When it got straightened out and the story told in the right order, there was a strange calm. The villagers whispered, spread the story from house to house, pub to pub. Suddenly the Jones family’s cramped house had an aura to it. Evelyne Jones had a legacy and overnight, out of the blue, the tall schoolmistress became extremely eligible. She had money, she owned Doris Evans’ house, actually owned it. She was now a woman of property -more than the village realized, because Doris had not only left Evelyne her house in the village, but also her half-share in the Cardiff house. There were, of course, the gossips in the washhouses that said no good would come of it, but they all secretly wished they had been a little more friendly to poor old Doris.

There was no word from David in the lawyer’s letter, just a stiff, formal note from the doctor thanking Evelyne for coping with all the arrangements for Doris’ funeral, and that was all.

Lizzie-Ann had cried and Rosie had howled, though not really understanding why everyone in the house was so emotional. Evelyne insisted they move into Doris’ house. There was no question of rent, it would be theirs for as long as they wanted it.

She stood and watched the couple running in and out of each room, hugging each other, then they would kiss Evelyne and thank her for the thousandth time. Evelyne took very little from the house, just Doris’ books and pens, a silver-framed photo of Doris and Walter on their wedding day, and two pairs of linen sheets and pillow-cases, a set for her own small bed and another for her father’s.

Evelyne’s first purchase with her legacy was a wireless, which was installed in the kitchen. Hugh moaned and muttered that he wouldn’t go near the infernal noise machine. The house was quiet now, no lodgers. Evelyne and her father were alone, and spent long evenings sitting by the blazing fire. He still rose before dawn to go to the mines, and she still prepared his tea caddy and sandwiches. Evelyne couldn’t help but smile as Hugh rushed in from work and turned on the wireless. He listened intendy and would talk back to the speakers. On one occasion when she was late home from school she found him standing, fist clenched, shouting back at the radio that the man was talking rubbish, let him spend some time down the mines before making these rules and regulations. Unemployment was out of control, the blasted politicians were talking out of their arses.

Hugh was so irate that Evelyne thought he would put his fist through her precious radio, but he grabbed up his cap to go out. If no other bugger in the village was going to stand up for his rights, then he would. Three sons lost in the war, and for what? He banged out of the house and marched to the pithead.

The Old Lion roared, and the men listened. It was as if new life had been breathed into him. Meetings were held in their front room. The radio became a focal point for many of the meetings, the men clustered around listening, listening to their fate, but until now not actually going out and doing anything about it… until now they hadn’t had a leader. Hugh Jones had become that leader, and his new-found energy gave him back the respect he had lost.

The men listened to him, and gradually his work with the union became a full-time occupation. He was at the pitheads, he was in the managers’ office, discussing safety precautions, he popped up everywhere, he was unstoppable. The men began to turn to him with their problems, their insurance claims, and he turned no one away. The house throbbed with life, and Hugh would stand with his back to the fire, testing out his speeches on his daughter.

Evelyne appeared contented, often at her father’s side handing out leaflets. She, too, got up on the small platform and spoke for women’s rights in the brick factory, the bakeries, even for the women working in the mines. They wanted better conditions, overtime, holiday pay, insurance. She worked all day at school and at night she would read, discussing the campaign with her father. They became close, a unit. After church the pair would hold meetings, gathered in the small church hall. It was after one of these that Hugh stood and looked up at the mountains, then turned to his daughter and held out his hand.

‘It’s a fair day, we’ll walk awhile.’

They walked in silence, the climb taking their breath away. They climbed higher and higher until eventually they sat, side by side, looking down into the valley. Hugh had never been a great man with words, not intimate words, and Evelyne could tell by the way he kept on coughing and starting to speak, then closing his mouth tightly, that he wanted to talk but just couldn’t get around to it.

Evelyne lay back in the warm sun. She could smell the sweet, fresh grass. Hugh lay down beside her, coughed a few more times and then leant on his elbow and looked into her face. He loved her passionately, and he wished he could find the right words to tell her so. Hugh had never referred to Evelyne’s legacy, never asked her what she intended doing with it. He looked down at her face, framed by the thick red hair coiled in braids and clipped tightly to her head. He had not seen her with her hair loose for a long time. With his big, rough hand he gently traced her chin, her cheekbones. She kept her eyes closed, not ever having had such a quiet, intimate moment with her father before. Almost afraid to open her eyes in case the moment slipped away, she kissed his hand softly.