Beggars and Choosers (32 page)

Lloyd poked at the icing with the end of his teaspoon. ‘It's not past salvaging. If you boil some water, I'll see what I can do.'

‘You can ice a cake?' she asked in astonishment.

‘Lloyd is a man of many talents. You should see his knitting and embroidery.'

‘Keep it up, Joey, and I'll be knitting socks from your intestines,' Lloyd threatened.

‘That's Dad coming in, I'm off to bed.' Joey rushed up the stairs as Billy Evans opened the door from the basement.

‘Joey?' Mr Evans asked, hearing a door slam upstairs.

‘Just gone to bed.' Victor finished his tea and stretched his arms above his head. ‘That meeting went on for ever. I think I'll go on up, too.'

‘I'll be right behind you.' His father looked at Lloyd and gave the first smile Sali had seen on his face. ‘You're icing a cake?'

‘An engineer can do many things,' Lloyd informed him gravely, pounding a wooden spoon in the bowl.

‘I'll take your word for it. I'm surprised to see you still up, Sali.'

‘I wouldn't be if the cake had gone right, Mr Evans. Would you like a piece of the “taster” I made?'

‘Keep it for my snap tin tomorrow. I wasn't expecting a Christmas cake this year,' he said. ‘But seeing as how you've gone to the trouble of making one, you may as well have the crib. You know where it is, Lloyd. See you in the morning.'

‘Why should I need a crib for the cake?' Sali whispered, as Mr Evans climbed the stairs.

‘It's a china one. My mother always put in the middle of the cake. Do me a favour,' Lloyd lifted an enamel jug from the cupboard, ‘fill this to the top with boiling water and make sure that it is boiling.'

Sali sat at the table, watching while Lloyd softened the icing with drops of boiling water and beat it to a fine paste. When he was finally happy with the mix and consistency, he dipped the longest, thickest carving knife he could find into the jug of hot water and after leaving it for a full minute, used it to spread the icing in a deep, smooth layer over the cake.

‘You make it look easy.'

‘It is easier and less messy than greasing some of the machinery we have underground.' He slipped the knife back into the jug. ‘You looking forward to Christmas Day?'

‘Apart from making the puddings and cakes, I haven't thought about it.'

‘Your father organised some memorable parties for the workers of the Watkin Jones Colliery in the Horse and Groom on the Graig Hill.' He mentioned her past life for the first time.

‘My father loved Christmas. We used to have wonderful parties at home when I was growing up.' She brushed aside a mist that clouded her eyes.

‘You're talking like a woman of ninety and you can't be much over twenty-five.'

‘Twenty-four,' she amended, ‘and sometimes I feel like a woman of ninety.'

‘I take it your husband didn't celebrate Christmas.'

‘Not outside the chapel,' she concurred abruptly, hoping to dissuade him from further probing.

‘You didn't enjoy the services?' he pressed.

‘As a fallen woman I wasn't allowed to attend services and as a bastard, Harry wasn't either.'

‘Then we'll have to make it up to both of you this year.'

‘Do atheists celebrate Christmas?' she questioned suspiciously.

‘No.' He stepped back and studied the cake as he put the finishing touches to the icing on the sides. ‘But as the Christians purloined the ancient heathen festival of Winter Solstice, which atheists are allowed to celebrate, I feel perfectly justified in enjoying Christmas Day. Have you bought Harry a present?'

‘Every time I take him into Pandy Square, he drags me over to the fancy goods shop to look at a toy horse and cart, so I bought one for him last week. I've also had our photograph taken and ordered enough copies to send to my brothers, sister and friends. Mrs Williams said she'd put them into her Christmas parcel to Mari, but I'm afraid they'll get bent.'

‘I'll take them to Pontypridd for you,' he offered.

‘I couldn't put you to any trouble.'

‘You wouldn't be. I've arranged to meet Mr Richards in his office on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the shares your father left me. And, as I have to go anyway, I thought I might as well make the trip on market day. You could come with me and pick up any last-minute bits and pieces we need for Christmas.'

She shook her head as she cleared away the bowl she'd used to mix the icing in.

‘You don't want to see your family?'

‘I'd give a great deal to see my brothers, sister and mother, but my uncle wouldn't allow me in the house, or them to talk to me. And much as I love and miss my Aunt Edyth, I'm too afraid of what my husband might do to her if he sees me in Pontypridd.' She filled the bowl with cold water and set it beside the sink ready for washing with the breakfast things in the morning.

‘You're living in a house full of men who can protect you, Sali.'

‘Not against my husband.' She shuddered involuntarily.

‘He can't make you go back to him.'

‘You have no idea what he's capable of.'

Whether or not she had reason to be terrified, he sensed that she was, and didn't repeat his offer to take her to Pontypridd. ‘Do you want me to take your letters and presents and give them to Mr Richards to pass on to your sister and brothers?'

‘And my Aunt Edyth and Mari,' she added. ‘Yes please, Lloyd. But could you just leave them in his office and not tell him where they came from. And there is something else.' She pulled her purse from her skirt pocket. ‘If I give you the money, would you redeem something from Mr Goodman the pawnbroker for me?' She handed him the pawn ticket and twelve pounds.

‘You have twelve pounds when we're paying you ten shillings a week?'

‘Mr Goodman advanced me ten pounds when I pledged the engagement ring Mansel gave me. I thought I'd need that much to buy essentials and keep Harry and myself until I found a job, but as I was lucky enough to start working here the day I left the infirmary, I soon saved enough to replace what I spent.'

Lloyd recalled what Victor and Joey had said about the woman who had looked after Harry and her claim that Harry wasn't the only bastard fathered by Mansel James. ‘You want the ring back.'

‘Mr Goodman told me it was worth a great deal more than he advanced me.'

‘Then why not sell it?'

‘Mr Goodman said there is no call for expensive rings in Pontypridd and he couldn't make me a realistic offer. I know it probably sounds ridiculous but I have ambitions, not for me, but for Harry. And I hope that if I take the ring somewhere like Cardiff or even London, I might be able to raise enough to send him to a good school and possibly university when he is older.'

‘Harry's a bright boy and your ambitions for him aren't ridiculous, but aren't you afraid Mr Goodman will tell people that you have redeemed the ring.'

‘No. He was a friend of my father and he promised he wouldn't tell anyone he'd seen me. He even gave me my coat and valise, which my husband had pawned, and wouldn't take any money for them. He said he had made enough profit from my husband selling my things as it was. Will you get the ring for me?'

‘Yes.' He pocketed the notes. ‘We'd better find that crib before the icing sets rock hard on the cake.'

Chapter Seventeen

‘Are you absolutely certain that you want me to liquidise your shares in the Collieries Company, Mr Evans?' Mr Richards enquired tactfully. ‘The shares have accrued in value and are likely to go on doing so. A young man in your position –'

‘A young man in my position, Mr Richards, cannot continue to take dividends from a Collieries Company that is hell-bent on forcing men to work in filthy and dangerous conditions for less wages than they earned a year ago.'

Mr Richards coughed discreetly. ‘Mr Watkin Jones told me more than once that your political beliefs will be the death of you.'

‘If they are, Mr Richards, at least I'll die with my integrity intact.'

‘If you intend to invest the money elsewhere, I may be able to help you.'

‘It's already earmarked, Mr Richards.'

‘In that case, I will forward you a cheque as soon as I have sold your shares.'

‘No hurry, Mr Richards, sell any time you see fit, so long as it is within the next couple of months.' Lloyd left his chair. ‘If you'll excuse me, I have errands to run.'

‘Christmas shopping, Mr Evans?' Mr Richards walked out from behind his desk and shook Lloyd's hand. ‘May I extend the compliments of the season to you and your family.'

‘And I to you, Mr Richards,' Lloyd replied, aware that the solicitor was a bachelor with no living relatives.

‘Mr Evans?' Mr Richards's clerk called him back into the outer office, as Lloyd was leaving the building. ‘You have left a parcel.'

‘It isn't mine.' Lloyd shrugged on his overcoat and placed his hat on his head.

‘Are you sure? I thought you were carrying it when you came in.'

Lloyd looked at Mr Richards who was still standing in the doorway of his office. ‘I assure you I was not. Goodbye, Mr Richards.'

Lloyd left the solicitor's office and walked down the hill to Market Square. Every inch of space between the tarpaulin-covered stalls was crammed with shoppers, most of them hauling bags and baskets. As he forced his way through, he had difficulty standing his ground. Women jostled, pushed and pressed from all sides, fearful lest he grab a bargain before they had an opportunity to reject it; small children crawled beneath his feet and under the stalls looking for ‘pickings'. Older boys hung around, waiting for the stallholders to be distracted long enough for them to filch goods worth the risk of a few strokes of the birch. Vendors' cries filled the air, along with the rich, meaty odour of faggots and peas, and the sharp, vinegary tang of cockles. Only the men seemed to slouch aimlessly along, hands in pockets as they searched the stalls for gifts for their wives and sweethearts.

Buttoning his overcoat over his jacket, Lloyd kept a firm grip on the wallet in his pocket as he brushed past a quack selling ‘cure-all' powders from a basket slung around his neck. The story of a man having his cigarette case lifted by a pickpocket at one end of the market and sold back to him at the other might be apocryphal, but like all tales about Pontypridd market, it held a grain of truth and, he didn't want to lose Sali's money – or his own.

He fought his way through to the toy shop at the end of the arcade. Turning his back on the girls' side of the window with its rag, wooden and porcelain dolls, and dolls' houses and carriages, he looked to the boys' side. He had promised his father and brothers that he would buy a present for Harry, but the last thing he wanted to do was present him with a toy that would upstage the horse and cart Sali had bought.

As he gazed at the display of tin mechanical toys, spinning tops, iron-banded hoops, balls, stuffed toys, and lead soldiers and animals, he recalled the toys that had been consigned to the attic by his mother after Joey had finished playing with them. When Christmas was over he would go up, take stock and bring down one or two. Sali couldn't object to them ‘loaning' second-hand toys to her son, but that didn't solve his immediate dilemma. Then he saw the perfect gift for Harry. The child was always scribbling and drawing in the margins of old newspapers and odd bits of paper that were left in the kitchen. He would buy him a book of plain sheets of paper, wax crayons and pencils.

Carrying his parcel, he left the market, went to the pawnshop and joined the queue of women waiting to pledge their winter coats and wedding rings to buy extras for Christmas. When it was his turn, he handed a young boy the slip Sali had given him.

‘Redeeming?' the boy asked.

‘Yes.'

The boy passed the slip to a middle-aged man sitting at a desk. He looked up from the slip at Lloyd, then back to the slip. Leaving his chair, he signalled Lloyd to move along the counter. Opening a gate set at the end of the run, he beckoned him into a back room. Windowless, with three walls shelved from floor to ceiling and every one groaning with the weight of ticketed items, it was an Aladdin's cave of everyday and bizarre goods.

China ornaments, from cheap Staffordshire dogs to elegantly painted Royal Doulton lords and ladies, were ranged on the topmost shelves. Below them were layers of flat cutlery boxes stacked alongside piles of neatly folded damask and chenille tablecloths. Oil lamps, brass and wooden coal scuttles, sets of fire irons, brass, gilded and silver candlesticks, embroidered fire screens, framed oil paintings and prints of every description, stacks of wooden boxes that might have held anything, telescopes, books and expensive toys were heaped in separate compartments on the lower shelves. And on the floor were bins of umbrellas, and walking sticks.

The old man pushed the door until it was almost closed. The dim light that filtered in from the passage lent the room an eerie, mausoleum-like atmosphere and Lloyd wondered how many people had pawned goods and died before they could redeem them. Hundreds, judging by the dust that lay thick and undisturbed over some of the items.

‘You are?'

‘I take it you are Mr Goodman?' Lloyd replied without revealing his name.

‘Who gave you this?' Mr Goodman held up the slip.

‘A lady.' Lloyd opened his wallet and extracted the roll of banknotes Sali had given him.

‘Did she give you any means of identification?'

‘Other than that receipt, no.'

‘Then how do I know you haven't stolen the slip?' Mr Goodman crossed his arms across his chest, leaned against the shelves and studied Lloyd.

‘She trusted me to come here and redeem her ring; she also trusted me enough to tell me that Mr Goodman was a friend of her father's and that he returned her coat and valise without charge when she pawned the ring. She also said that he understood her situation enough not to tell anyone she had been in his shop.' He held out the roll of banknotes but the pawnbroker made no attempt to take them.

‘I know you. I met you once in Danygraig House. Didn't you work for her father?'

‘If I did, you'd know why I don't want to answer that question.'

Opening the door, Mr Goodman ushered Lloyd along a short passageway into an office set behind the storeroom. He unhooked an enormous bunch of keys from his belt and opened a safe. After poking through the boxes it contained, he found the envelope he wanted, removed the ring box and handed it to Lloyd.

‘Is that the ring?'

‘There's no point in me opening the box, because I've never seen it,' Lloyd answered. ‘And I will return it to her unopened; you have my word on it.'

‘Half hoop of matching diamonds.' Mr Goodman took it from Lloyd, opened it and nodded. ‘Expensive ring that. Tell her it's worth two thousand pounds to the right person and if she ever sells it, not to take a penny less than eighteen hundred.'

‘I'll tell her.'

‘Is she well?'

Lloyd saw concern in the man's face. ‘She is well and so is her son.'

‘I have an album of hers. I couldn't bring myself to strip the photographs from it.' He opened a cupboard, brought out a leather-bound photograph album and set it on a table. Lloyd ran his fingers over the ornately embossed cover.

‘That's real quality.' Mr Goodman turned the page to reveal a painted garland of ivy and pansies encircling the title
Our Poets.
Above it, in a firm upright hand Lloyd recognised as Harry Watkin Jones's, was an inscription:

‘To darling Sali on her sixteenth birthday from her father, that this book may “List the legends of our happy home. Linked as they come with every tender tie. Memorials dear of youth and infancy.”'

‘The decorated pages have poetry written on them as well as portraits of poets and paintings of their birthplaces and flowers. There's Byron, Dickens and Shakespeare as well as Walter Scott. That quote is one of his. It's full of family portraits.' Mr Goodman closed the book and kept his hand on the cover as if it would be sacrilege for either of them to look at the photographs.

Lloyd realised that the old man must have studied the book in detail. ‘May I redeem it?'

‘No, but you can give it to her from me.'

‘Then it will be your Christmas present to her, Mr Goodman, not my family's.'

‘There is something else.' The pawnbroker turned back to the safe and lifted out a wooden box. ‘It was empty when it was brought in. But her initials are on it and when her silver bracelet watch came in, I put it inside.'

Lloyd ran his fingers over the mahogany box inlaid with gold letters,
SWJ.

Like the album, it was beautifully crafted. He opened the box and looked at the watch. ‘May I buy the two please?'

‘That will be two pounds for the box and another two for the watch. Will you tell her the album is from me?'

‘I will, Mr Goodman.'

‘And there's no charge for the ring. I forgot that I owed her father twelve pounds when she came in to pawn it. As I can't pay him, it's only fair she collects his debt.'

‘She hates taking charity, Mr Goodman.'

‘You calling me a liar?'

‘No, Mr Goodman.'

‘She really is all right?'

‘Yes.'

‘And her boy?'

‘They are both fine,' Lloyd reassured him for the second time. ‘In good health, content and safe with people who care for them.'

‘Glad to hear it.' He took the four pound notes Lloyd handed him. ‘I'll wrap these for you. And you don't have to worry, I won't tell anyone about her or that you came and took these things away.'

‘You have nothing else of hers?'

The old pawnbroker shook his head. ‘But if anything I recognise does come in, I'll set it aside, you can count on that. I owed her father a great deal.'

‘So did I, Mr Goodman. And thank you.'

Lloyd went from the pawnshop to the best goldsmith Pontypridd had to offer. Even if he hadn't arranged to visit Mr Richards he would have found another pretext to travel to the town. It had become an annual pre-Christmas pilgrimage for him since the year he had first made love to Connie. If he had bought an expensive gift for a woman in a Tonypandy shop, it would have set the entire valley gossiping and speculating about the identity of the object of his affections. As he was a comparative stranger in Pontypridd, his personal life excited little interest.

He spent a few moments looking at the goods on display in the wire-caged window. There was a pretty art nouveau gold brooch that she might like, or a collection of thin, silver bracelets, a pair of earrings set with moonstones ... Every year he bought Connie a piece of jewellery and every year she assiduously wore whatever it was until he replaced it with another. Then presumably she set the original aside in her jewellery box. It all seemed rather wasteful and pointless, just like the collection of gold and silver cufflinks and tiepins she had given him over the years.

Then he saw it. There was no mistaking the message it carried, if he had the courage to give it to her. Deciding he did, he reached for his wallet and walked through the door.

Lloyd checked his parcels and mentally ran through a list of his purchases as he left the jewellers. He had gifts for Connie, Harry and Sali. He had ordered three best quality linen shirts for his father and brothers in the haberdasher's in Tonypandy. He had asked Connie to deliver extra tobacco, a luxury box of chocolates and an assortment of sugar mice and other novelties for the family, and to bill it to his private account. He had left her to choose the novelties because she knew better than him what his mother had ordered to make their Christmases so perfect and this year was going to be a hard one for all of them, but especially his father.

Heading for the station, he made his way back through the town. He was just stepping through the entrance to the booking hall when someone called his name. He looked around and seeing no one he walked on.

‘Mr Evans.' Mr Richards pulled down the window of a carriage. ‘If you wouldn't mind catching a later train, there is someone who would like to talk to you.'

‘There is no use in you denying it, Mr Evans.' Mr Richards gazed steadily at Lloyd, who was sitting opposite him in Mrs James's carriage. ‘You were the only visitor to my office today. That is how I know it was you who left the parcel and letters from Mrs Bull.'

‘You know Mrs Bull's present situation?'

‘I know she is afraid of her husband.'

‘Then you understand why she asked me to leave the parcel anonymously and not tell anyone in Pontypridd where she is.' Lloyd off-loaded his purchases on to the leather-upholstered seat beside him.

‘Mrs James and I both understand why she does not wish to tell us where she is. But you have seen her. You must have,' he continued when Lloyd didn't answer, ‘for her to have given you the parcel.'

‘I have seen her,' Lloyd conceded.

‘And if you have seen her, you must have also formed an impression as to how she is.'

‘She and her son are well, content, safe and looked after.'

‘All I am asking, Mr Evans, is that you ease an old lady's mind. Mrs James worries constantly about Mrs Bull and the boy.' He glanced out of the window as the driver negotiated the gates to the drive of Ynysangharad House. ‘Will you meet with her?'