The Emerald Valley (4 page)

‘Mammy! Mammy!' Barbara's excited voice attracted Charlotte's attention and she looked up to see Barbara drop the blanket with which she had been covering her doll and start to run along the Rank. Following the child with her eyes, Charlotte saw a boyish-looking silhouette emerge from the path that led down between the gardens, a short cut from the valley below, ‘bingled' curls turned golden by the sun, a dress with a square-cut sailor collar and narrow pleated skirt – much too short to be decent, Charlotte thought, but she knew better than to say so. Amy, her younger daughter, had a tongue as sharp as a whiplash if you upset her and Charlotte had no desire to get on the wrong side of her this afternoon.

‘Look, Maureen, it's your Mammy!' she said, pointing while Maureen wriggled, stretching out chubby hands.

‘Da-da-da!'

‘No, not Da-da – Ma-ma!' Charlotte corrected.

Barbara had reached Amy now and was throwing herself at her mother's legs, but Charlotte saw Amy steer her skirt clear of the grubby hands. If Dolly had left one of her boys for the afternoon, she would have had him up in her arms by now, Charlotte thought, treating him to a real bear-hug. But Amy was a good mother in her own way, even if it was not Dolly's, and deep down Charlotte had some sympathy with her. Like Amy she had sometimes felt resentful that there should be nothing more to a woman's life than running a home and all its comforts for the benefit of a mostly ungrateful family.

‘Let's go and meet Mammy then, shall we?' Charlotte suggested and as they drew closer she called out, ‘There you are, then! They've been good girls, the two of them …'

Her voice trailed away. She could tell at a glance something was wrong with Amy.

‘What is it? What's the matter?' she asked sharply.

Amy looked down at Barbara, avoiding her eyes.

‘Oh … nothing.'

‘Something is,' Charlotte pressed her. ‘Come on – come in and have a cup of tea and tell me what it is.'

‘Nothing!' Amy repeated, the impatience in her tone giving the lie to the word as surely as the closed-in expression on her face.

‘All right, have it your way,' Charlotte sighed. ‘We'll have a cup of tea anyway.'

She turned and led the way back to No. 11, pushing open the door with a hand slightly puffed by the rheumatism that plagued her, worse some times than others. In the scullery the saucepans from dinner still stood draining beside the sink, washed but not dried – another concession to the grandchildren being here. However busy she had been when her own children were small, she would never have left the washing-up about until half-way through the afternoon. Then she had always wanted to be abreast if not ahead of herself. Now, it was different. Life was rushing past – she was fifty-one years old – and she wanted to take time to enjoy things while she could.

The kitchen led directly off the scullery, a crowded homely room furnished with a settle, straight-backed serviceable chairs and a square table covered by a red chenille cloth. Photographs hung on the walls now, more recent than those which decorated the piano in the front room, and photos that Charlotte liked to have around – Fred, the son who had been killed in the Great War, smiling gravely, head erect above the scratchy collar of his army uniform; Dolly and Amy in the figured silk bridesmaids'dresses they had worn for the rather grand wedding of their brother Jack, the schoolteacher who had married ‘up the scale'; and Jack himself – pictured with Stella, his bride and daughter of the manager of South Hill Pit – getting into the motor which had carried them from church to reception after the ceremony. Even now, five years later, Charlotte could still feel a thrill of pride remembering her Jack had been one of the first in Hillsbridge to have motors for his wedding instead of horses and traps, though at the time the glory had been slightly marred by the fear that she and James might let Jack down in front of his grand new relations.

This afternoon, however, Charlotte was not concerned with her gallery of photographs, however precious. She crossed the room to the fireplace, setting Maureen down on the bright rag rug, then stirring the coals and settling the kettle on the hob.

‘It won't take a tick to boil,' she said. ‘Is everything all right at the yard?'

‘Yes,' Amy said, but again she spoke too quickly and Charlotte knew she was hiding something. Oh well, give her time …

They chatted while they waited for the kettle to boil and Charlotte, who was a keen royalist and had kept a scrapbook on the royal family from the time she was a little girl, got out her latest cuttings to show Amy – the reports of the birth at 17 Bruton Street of a new princess, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York.

‘They're calling her Elizabeth,' Charlotte said. ‘Isn't that a lovely name? Though it's after her mother, of course.'

Amy smiled inattentively and Charlotte tried another tack.

‘I don't like the sound of what's going on at the pits,' she said conversationally as she poured boiling water into her brown earthenware pot. ‘From what our Harry was saying, it wouldn't surprise me if there was another strike.'

‘Oh, Harry – what does he know about it?' Amy asked, dismissing her younger brother. ‘I should think that after what happened in 1921, anyone with any sense would have realised strikes do more harm than good. Look at all the men who have never been able to get work since – our dad for one. Though of course it did make some pull themselves up by their boot-strings – Llew for one …'

Her voice wobbled suddenly and looking at her Charlotte saw that her eyes were shining with what looked suspiciously like tears.

‘Amy, for goodness' sake, what's the matter?' she asked impatiently.

For a moment longer Amy looked at her blankly, but Charlotte was certain there was something bottled up behind those defences. And sure enough a second later her lips began to tremble.

‘Oh, Mam … it's the lorry … Llew …'

Charlotte went cold. ‘Do you mean there's been an accident?'

‘Yes, but …' She broke off, seeing her mother's expression. ‘Oh, not that sort of accident. Not Llew. Me.'

‘You?'

‘Yes.'

And then it was tumbling out and Charlotte stood with thumbs in the tie of her floral print cross-over apron, listening in sheer disbelief.

‘Whatever is Llew going to say?' she asked when Amy had finished.

‘I don't know!' Amy wept. ‘What am I going to do, Mam? He'll be furious!'

‘And rightly so,' Charlotte chided her. ‘You could have killed somebody. Or been killed yourself. I thought you had more sense, Amy. And as for running into Ralph Porter … well, that just puts the tin lid on it.'

‘I know.' Amy pressed her knuckles into her mouth. ‘I've never seen anybody so cross. Why of all the people in Hillsbridge did it have to be him?'

‘Well, there's nothing for it, you'll just have to own up to Llew about what's happened,' Charlotte advised. ‘Where's the lorry now – still in Porter's Hill?'

‘No. Herbie Button fetched it back for me. But it's got an awful dent, Mam …'

‘Oh, my Lord!' Charlotte said, suppressing a vision of Amy being thrown out into the street. Oh well, she and the children could always come home here if the worst came to the worst …

‘Amy …' she began, but a creaking sound made them both stop short, looking anxiously towards the door that, cupboard-like, concealed the stairs.

‘Dad's coming down!' Amy said in a panicky voice. ‘Oh Mam, I don't want him to know!'

‘All right,' Charlotte said softly, then, louder, ‘Well, that's about the size of it, Amy. She's due in the summer and they reckon it could be twins!'

The door opened and James appeared. A small-built man who had been a collier all his working life, he now looked older than his fifty-eight years. His hair, once fair, was now white and sparse, his body, arms and hands blue-veined with the coal-dust, and his shoulders rounded protectively around the chest that was so often racked with that rasping, phlegmy cough that came in time to anyone who worked long enough in narrow seams breathing in black air.

But in spite of losing his health, a mate or two and finally his livelihood in the coalfield, James had retained that easygoing acceptance of his lot that seemed a characteristic of many of the men who worked the Somerset seams.

‘Worse things happen at sea,' was his favourite saying whenever trouble struck. ‘Worse things happen at sea, Lotty,' he would say, his mild blue eyes staring into space as if gazing as an impassive observer on those things which were so much worse than anything he was called upon to face.

Sometimes his calm acceptance had comforted Charlotte, sometimes baffled and often irritated her. But let James once lose his temper and you knew about it. Just a handful of times in her married life she had seen him aroused and it was not an experience she wished to repeat.

Now, realising that Amy was anxious her father should not get to hear of her folly, Charlotte took over with an ease born of long habit.

‘Well, well, you're awake then. You smelt the teapot, I reckon.' She winked at Amy. ‘Your Dad's been having his afternoon “snooge”.'

‘Hello, Dad,' Amy said without surprise. ‘Afternoon snooges'had been the order of the day for as long as she could remember. Once they had been confined to Sunday afternoons – a special weekend treat when James retreated to bed for a couple of hours with a cup of tea and the
News of the World.
Now that he no longer worked, the ‘snooge'had encroached onto the week as well.

‘Hello, Amy.' He fastened the neck of his vest and straightened his braces. ‘Everything all right?'

Charlotte saw her swallow her tears.

‘Yes, Dad, fine. I've just come for the children …'

Charlotte poured the tea and fetched a biscuit each for Barbara and Maureen. They chatted on for a while, discussing everything from the strike threat that was hanging over the coalfield to the latest gossip, but Charlotte could see that Amy was still very worried in spite of the brave face she was putting on, so she collected the children's things together earlier than usual and settled Barbara in the wedge seat on Maureen's pram.

‘I think I'll be going, Mam. By the time I get home …'

‘Yes, all right.' Charlotte kissed the children and managed to whisper in Amy's ear: ‘Just own up, Amy, it's the best way.'

But the smile Amy gave her in return was wan, and as she watched her push the pram along the Rank Charlotte shook her head sadly.

Amy had wanted to tell her, just as she had always wanted to tell her mother of her troubles ever since she was a little girl. But in those days they had been mostly molehills masquerading as mountains and Charlotte had more often than not been able to suggest a way of putting things right.

Now it was not that easy any more. They really were mountains and Charlotte had no ready answers to the problems her children brought her.

‘They've grown up now and will just have to sort it out for themselves,' she told herself as Amy reached the corner of the Rank and turned to wave. ‘There's nothing I can do now.'

And with a sigh that summed up the helpless frustration of a woman used to making things happen she turned and went back into the house to pour another cup of tea for James and herself.

When at last the children were tucked up in bed and asleep, Amy Roberts lit a cigarette and took it through into the front room of her home.

Llew disliked her smoking – not only did he think it was a most unladylike habit, he didn't care for the smell of tobacco either, so she tried to keep it out of his way as far as possible. Not that she smoked a great deal anyway, just at times of stress or if she wanted something to help her to relax, and tonight without a doubt she needed a prop to help her get up the courage to face him with the news of what she had done to his lorry when he returned home. And there were two advantages to having that much-needed cigarette in the front room – firstly the smell of smoke would be less noticeable when he came in and would not put him off the cold meat and baked potato supper she had ready for him, and secondly if she stood by the window that overlooked the road, she would get early warning of his arrival.

Amy took an ashtray over and set it in the cream-painted wooden window sill, then leaned over to open the window and let some fresh air into the room. Strange how quickly it could begin to get musty at this time of year. She used the front room a good deal more than her mother had ever used the one at Greenslade Terrace, lighting a fire at least once or twice a week in winter and opening it up every day in summer, for she had always hated the feeling of any room in a house being a mausoleum. Nevertheless the stiff, rather formal furniture which she and Llew had bought secondhand because it was all they could afford, gave a ‘best room'impression and there was a darkening of the wall around the window that looked and smelled suspiciously like damp.

‘It's that paeony bush doing it,' Charlotte had told her when she had mentioned the damp patch. ‘It's right against the wall and that's something that's often a nuisance. You want to get Llew to dig it out.'

‘I suppose so,' Amy had replied doubtfully, but she hadn't mentioned it to Llew. She loved the paeony bush with its luxuriant leaves and huge pink flowers – it had been one of the first things to attract her when Llew had taken her to look at the house. Standing on the pavement outside, holding tightly to his hand and trying not to display too much of the excitement that was bubbling inside her in case any of the neighbours might be peeping out from behind their curtains, she had gazed in wonder at the square grey house, made angular by the jutting porch on one corner, with the fancy-patterned, green-painted gables and the oblong-shaped front room window with the paeony-bush beneath.

Hope Terrace, Llew had told her it was called when he had first suggested they should look at the house, and she had expected it to be almost identical to Greenslade Terrace. But it was much grander. Set on the main Frome road where the hill levelled out to run almost flat, a mile out of the centre of Hillsbridge, it gave the impression of being ‘open', with a garden back and front, and the houses were clearly much larger than those in Greenslade Terrace. Best of all, the house they were looking at was an end one, so that the nearest neighbour on one side was the width of a drive away, and to Amy that lent it a very special air of distinction.