Beggars and Choosers (29 page)

‘That wasn't very nice,' Victor addressed the older boy.

‘He deserved it,' the boy chanted.

‘Why?' Victor enquired.

‘Because he did.'

Disregarding her clothes, Sali knelt in the dust beside the child on the ground. ‘Harry,' she whispered, using her private name for the boy Owen had registered as Isaac and refused to have baptised.

The child looked back at her.

‘Harry,' she repeated softly. ‘Don't you remember me?'

He flung his thin arms around her neck and hugged her so tight, she never thought he'd let go.

Victor crouched on his haunches beside the boy who had knocked Harry down. ‘Where does he live?' he pointed to Harry who'd buried his face in Sali's shoulder and locked his arms around her neck.

‘With me, my mam and the lodger.'

‘And where's that?' Victor persevered.

‘By there.' The boy pointed to a door in the terrace behind them.

‘Can you take us to see your mam?'

‘For a penny.' Unabashed, the boy opened his hand and waited. Against his better judgement, Victor dropped two halfpennies into his palm.

The boy ran ahead of them. ‘Mam,' he wailed. He opened the front door and charged down a passage into a kitchen.

‘You little swine, you don't give me a bloody minute's peace.' The woman reached for a greasy frying pan as Joey, Victor and Sali filed in behind the boy. ‘Who the hell are you? And what do you think you're doing with that boy?' she demanded of Sali.

‘He's my son.' The woman looked vaguely familiar and Sali was sure she had seen her before, but couldn't recall where. Grimy, slovenly, she could have been any age between twenty and forty, and she might have once been pretty. But her black hair was dull and matted, tied back from her bloated, red-veined face with a piece of string. Her grey overalls were stretched to seam-bursting point over a bulging pregnancy, her coarse black stockings rolled down around her ankles and her feet encased in a tattered pair of men's boots. She stank of tobacco, stale beer and sweat, and when she scratched her forearms, Sali saw the red welts of fleabites.

‘So that's why he's wrapped around you. Little bugger never touches me, even when I try to kiss him goodnight.' She glanced from Sali to Joey and Victor who had stationed themselves in front of the door. ‘And I suppose now, after all I've done for him, you bloody well want him back.'

Appalled by the woman's language, her dirty, dishevelled state, and the filthy kitchen, Sali nodded.

‘I didn't take him in just for the five bob a week Mrs Williams promised me and I haven't had for the last two weeks. I took one look at him and I had to take him. Well, didn't I?' she challenged when Sali didn't comment. ‘Look at them. My Aled might be three years older and bigger, but they are two peas in a pod. It's obvious the same bastard fathered both.' Sali was only aware of her son's arms tightening around her neck as Victor guided her to a wooden chair.

‘You must have worked in Gwilym bloody James's as well.' Oblivious to the effect she was having on Sali, the woman continued in a strained attempt at a ‘posh' accent. ‘“I'd appreciate it if you would give me some help with the orders.” Orders be damned,' she swore, reverting to her Valleys accent. ‘Less than a month after I started working in the store, Mr butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, Mansel James, had me flat on my back and my knickers off. And I was untouched before he had me. Untouched and stupid. Some girls from round here have had fifty guineas from toffs in Cardiff for what he took from me. All he gave me was ten quid and a few small presents.' She sank down on a chair next to Sali and leaned her elbows on the table, which was covered with sheets of newspaper and potato peelings. ‘There's no need to look so bloody shocked,' she said to Victor and Joey. ‘By the look of you, and especially you,' she jabbed a grimy finger in the direction of Joey's chest, ‘you both know bloody well what I'm talking about.'

‘Mr James raped you?' Sali didn't want to believe it, but she couldn't stop looking at the woman's child. Just like her own son, he resembled Mansel in every way. Blond hair, blue eyes, slim hands with tapering fingers ...'

‘A man like Mansel James doesn't have to force himself on a girl. We're dull enough to queue up for his favours. And from that stupid look on your face I bet you did it willingly and for nothing. That makes you a bigger bloody fool than me. But I don't doubt you got some expensive clothes out of him. I'll give him that much, he never stinted on anything I wanted from the store.'

Sali blanched as she remembered Mansel's drawer. His explanation for the clothes it contained.

I asked the buyer to put together a trousseau as a surprise for you. There's everything you need and all in silk and lace. Drawers, petticoats, stockings, bust shapers, chemises
...

‘Little wonder he disappeared.' The woman rummaged in her overall pocket and pulled out a clay pipe. ‘That aunt of his must have got tired of coughing up. One of the supervisors told me that his solicitor was paying out child maintenance payments to another girl before he had me. When he dropped me because he wanted to start courting some rich girl who'd taken his fancy, I threatened to go to a magistrate unless he gave me ten quid to keep quiet. Bloody fool that I was, I would have gone for a lot more if I'd known I was having him.' She clipped her son around the ear.

‘We need the boy's things,' Victor said forcefully, as Sali paled.

‘What bloody things?' the woman challenged. ‘He's wearing my Aled's clothes because nothing he came with fits him any more. He's put on that much weight since I've been feeding him. And I'm owed a month's money and another instead of notice. He's cost me –'

‘Give her two pounds.' Easing her son's legs away from her pocket, Sali extricated her purse and handed it to Victor.

Victor took the purse. ‘I think a pound –'

‘Please, just give it to her.' Needing to get out of the house, and quickly, Sali braced herself to bear Harry's weight.

‘Give the boy to me.' Joey opened his arms.

Sali shook her head.

‘Then I'll go and find a brake to take us home.'

‘He's filthy, there are nits crawling in his hair and he probably has fleas as well. The rags he's wearing aren't fit to use as floor cloths, he's barefoot and his legs and feet have been cut to ribbons.'

Sali bit her lips as she opened her coat and cushioned the child against her to protect him from the jolting of the carriage that had been especially designed to cope with the Rhondda's steep hills. He snuggled in closer and she wrapped her coat around his frozen, shivering body.

‘We've a fine comb at home that gets rid of nits and their eggs, a bath will drown the fleas and we'll buy him clothes and boots.' Victor patted her arm awkwardly. He was accustomed to seeing half-starved, barefoot urchins in rags, but he sensed that it wasn't only her son's bedraggled and filthy appearance that had upset Sali. The two boys had borne an uncanny resemblance, and the knowledge that she hadn't been the only woman seduced by Mansel James had clearly come as a shock.

‘We can't take him into Pandy. Not the way he is.'

‘First things first,' Victor said calmly. ‘We'll get him home so you can bath him, get rid of those nits and fleas, give him a good meal and pack him off to bed. Joey and me will see to everything else. Now what's this little fellow's name?' he asked as the boy finally lifted his head from Sali's shoulder and stared at him through enormous blue eyes.

‘Harry,' Sali said decisively. ‘Harry Glyndwr Jones. I named him after my father.'

‘I am very pleased to meet you, Harry Glyndwr.' Victor shook the boy's filthy hand as if he were an adult and an equal. ‘Do you think you will like living with us?'

‘I live with Victor and Joey too, Harry,' Sali murmured, as the boy buried his head in her shoulder again.

‘So, as well as getting your mam back you will acquire four uncles.' Joey sounded more cheerful than he felt.

‘Uncle Iestyn?' Harry looked up at his mother.

‘He's gone, Harry,' Sali said gently.

‘I'm your Uncle Joey, and if you are a good boy for your mam tonight, I'll buy you a bag of sweets. Do you like gobstoppers?'

Ignoring Joey's question, Harry burrowed under Sali's coat. But then Sali reflected, he'd never heard the words ‘sweets' or ‘gobstoppers' in Mill Street, and if there had been money for treats in Bush Houses, she doubted any had come Harry's way.

They entered the house through the basement. As soon as Joey lit the gas lamp, Sali stood Harry next to the bath, filled buckets with water and put them on the range to boil. Victor ran upstairs and returned with a tape measure, nit comb, towel and Joey's smallest shirt, which was twice as long as Harry.

‘It will do until Joey and I get back.' He folded it over the bar in front of the range to air. ‘If you hold Harry, Mrs Jones, Joey and I can measure him.' Victor spread a sheet of newspaper on the floor. ‘Can you stand on this, Harry?'

Harry stepped on to the sheet of newspaper without once looking away from his mother. Victor drew around his feet and carefully cut out his footprints while Joey combed his hair, cleaning the comb in between combings with newspaper that he tossed into the fire.

When the bath water was ready, Sali mixed in cold and stripped Harry. She cried out softly when she saw the cuts and bruises on his thin body.

‘They'll soon heal,' Joey said.

‘How do you know?'

‘Because you looked a damned sight worse when you turned up here.'

‘Language,' Victor reprimanded sharply, nodding to Harry. ‘He's probably heard enough foul words in Bush Houses to last him a lifetime.' He picked up the tape measure, the notes he had made of the boy's measurements and Harry's paper footprints. ‘We won't be long, Mrs Jones. Hang your coat and jacket close to the range and have a piece of soft soap ready to pick up any fleas you've caught from the boy. They'll be easy enough to see. They always jump towards heat.'

‘Thank you, Victor. I couldn't have managed without your and Joey's help. And my name is Sali.'

‘We won't be long, Sali,' Joey smiled.

‘She didn't say that
you
could call her Sali,' Victor chafed as he opened the back door.

‘Can I call you Sali, Mrs Jones?' Joey gave her his most charming smile.

‘Of course, Joey, and thank you. I wouldn't have known how to get rid of those nits.'

‘I've had a lot of practice on Victor's head over the years,' he joked before Victor pulled him out of the door.

Sali wrapped Harry in the shirt and a clean dry towel and sat him next to the range while she scrubbed out the bath. She opened the oven door and burnt the newspaper they hadn't used. After feeling in the pockets of Harry's rags and finding only sticks and stones, she added them to the flames. Then she checked her clothes and herself carefully, combing through her short hair with the fine comb to check that she hadn't picked up any nits. Only when she was absolutely certain that both of them were clean and free from vermin, did she lift Harry into her arms.

‘I expect you are hungry.'

The child nodded. Clean, dressed in the white shirt, his blond hair shining under the gas lamp, he bore little resemblance to the ragged urchin she had brought into the basement barely an hour before. She carried him up into the kitchen. Lloyd and Mr Evans were sitting at the table reading, and she had the uneasy feeling that they had been waiting for her.

‘So this is your boy.' Billy Evans closed his book and eyed Harry, who shrank back against Sali.

‘Harry Glyndwr Jones.' She set him down on a chair at the table. ‘Say hello, Harry.'

Harry said a quiet ‘hello'.

‘As you're going to live in this house, I'm Uncle Billy and this is Uncle Lloyd,' Mr Evans informed him gruffly.

‘I'd like to make Harry something to eat if that is all right with you, Mr Evans? And I have to pay for his keep, so could you please reduce my wages to ten shillings a week?'

‘We'll talk about it, Mrs Jones.' Billy read the tell-tale signs of early malnutrition in the boy's swollen stomach, pasty face and thin cheeks. ‘You can give the boy whatever he wants, but as it doesn't look like he's seen too many square meals lately, I'd stick to plain food for a couple of days, if I were you. Just until his stomach gets used to eating again and then he can have the same as us. My wife used to swear by watered milk, porridge with plenty of brown sugar, soups, custards and bread and butter to tempt the boys' appetites when they were ill as children.'

‘Then I'll make him porridge, Mr Evans.'

‘I've sorted the master bedroom upstairs and lit a fire for you. I don't doubt the boy will want to cling to you for a few days but if I were you, I'd put him the box room as soon as he'll go there. He's already a bit big to sleep with his mother.'

‘Thank –'

‘I'm off to the County Club now.' Red-faced, Billy reached over Sali and Harry to lift his cap and coat from the hook on the back of the door. Harry dived under the table, clearly terrified.

‘It's all right, Harry.' Sali crawled after him. ‘It is all right. No one is going to hurt you here.'

‘Tomorrow, you move that coat rack into the hall, Lloyd.' Setting his mouth into a grim line, Billy tossed Lloyd his coat and trilby before leaving.

‘I am sorry.' Sali emerged from under the table with Harry and set him back on the chair.

‘Harry,' Lloyd looked into the child's eyes, ‘your mother is right. No one will hurt you here.'

‘I am sorry,' Sali repeated.

‘There is nothing to be sorry for, Mrs Jones.'

‘I didn't even thank your father properly for giving me the master bedroom and lighting a fire.'