Tiger Bay Blues (46 page)

‘I will try to clear this house tomorrow, Bishop.’ Now that Peter’s career was over, Edyth no longer felt any compunction to address the bishop as ‘Your Grace’, although she was tempted to call him something more derogatory after hearing Micah’s account of the ‘treatment’ the Church had insisted Peter undergo.

‘Thank you, Mrs Slater.’

Edyth watched the tea Judy had poured her grow cold on the table next to her. The visitors had started arriving at the vicarage before dawn. First reporters, then the police looking for Mrs Mack, who had disappeared after going to the police station, although she had managed to clear her room. But not of everything. Edyth had found the boxes of silverware that Bella and Toby had given her and Peter secreted beneath the housekeeper’s bed, and she dreaded to think what else the woman had stolen and taken – but she was too dispirited to look, much less make a formal complaint to the police.

Alice picked up the sandwiches and offered them around. The Bishop took another two, the Dean three, but Lloyd, Sali and Edyth all shook their heads.

‘I’ll telephone the firm Florence employed to look after her effects. I’m sure they’ll collect them all and put them back into storage until you, or Peter, decide what you want to do with them, dear.’

‘Thank you, Aunt Alice.’ Edyth was grateful for Alice Beynon’s tact. But once she left the vicarage she hoped that she’d never see another piece of Florence Slater’s furniture or silverware again.

‘I’ll get one of the Pontypridd firms to pick up your things, Edyth.’ Lloyd pulled his pipe from his pocket. ‘Fred Davies is usually very helpful. With luck we should have the house cleared by tomorrow evening.’ If looks could kill, the Bishop would have been lying stiff on the floor.

‘I think you should come home with us now, Edyth,’ Sali said. ‘Bring Judy with you. We can always use another maid …’

‘No, Mam. I know you and Dad mean well, but no.’ Edyth shook her head. ‘Micah said he’d try to arrange for me to visit Peter before they move him to Cardiff gaol tonight. I want to stay here in case he succeeds.’

‘But you and Judy will come home with us tomorrow?’ Sali looked anxiously at her daughter.

‘We’ll talk about it.’ Edyth glanced at the Bishop, who was contentedly munching his way through the sandwiches alongside the Dean. ‘At the moment I can’t think further than the next few hours.’

‘I understand, darling. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go in the kitchen and help Judy to make a start on packing things away.’

‘And I’ll pack Florence’s suitcase.’ Glad to leave the clerics, Alice followed Sali.

‘When you gentlemen have finished, I’ll show you out,’ Lloyd said pointedly when the Dean finished his tea and looked around as though he expected more.

‘Yes, well, we should be going. We’ll send an agent for the keys, Mrs Slater, or you can leave them with one of the church council members if you prefer.’

‘I’ll leave them with Mr Maldwyn Williams,’ Edyth answered.

‘That is satisfactory.’ The Bishop eased himself out of the chair. ‘Our commiserations, Mrs Slater.’

Lloyd walked to the door and held it open. The Bishop hovered in front of Edyth’s chair. When she made no attempt to shake his hand, he left with the Dean. Lloyd walked out with them and returned within minutes.

‘Bloody hypocrites,’ he swore. He looked down on Edyth, who had left her chair and was kneeling in front of the bookcase. ‘You’ll have plenty of willing hands to help you, my sweet. Mari and the maids can come down with us tomorrow.’

‘There’s no need, Dad.’ Edyth lifted a pile of books from a shelf. ‘There are so many people out of work on the Bay I can get all the help I need. Besides,’ she gave him a wry smile, ‘all of our wedding presents and most of my things are still packed. Peter wanted us to use his mother’s furniture, china and silverware. He was trying to recreate the rooms in the vicarage he’d grown up in.’

‘And you were happy to go along with that?’ Lloyd asked.

‘No, but it’s all academic now, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose it is. I’ll see if I can get Fred to bring down a van tomorrow, I doubt we’ll need a lorry. And then, my sweet, you can come home and forget about Tiger Bay.’

‘And do what, Dad?’ The one thing Edyth had found time to think about that morning, besides Peter, was her future. The rest of her life yawned in front of her and she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do with it.

‘Your mother and Uncle Joey can find you a job in Gwilym James,’ Lloyd suggested. ‘It will probably mean starting at the bottom of the staff tree, the way your Uncle Joey did –’

‘No, Dad,’ she interrupted. ‘No family favours.’

‘There might be some way you could still go to college.’

‘No, there isn’t, Dad, and I won’t have any of your friends pulling strings for me either. No college will take a married woman. Besides, after the way I left Swansea, I doubt any of them will look at me. The principals do talk to one another, you know.’

‘No decision has to be made in a hurry, Edie. You’ll need time to get over this and put it behind you. And when you’ve succeeded, we’ll think of something. We always do.’

Lloyd helped Alice’s chauffeur carry Florence, who was still heavily sedated, downstairs. Alice piled rugs and pillows in the back seat of the car and made her sister as comfortable as she could, then closed the door on her. She hugged Edyth so hard she took her breath away.

‘Don’t become a stranger, Edyth, come and see me and stay as often as you can. We’ll have lots of fun together.’

‘I don’t think so, Aunt Alice. Not while Peter’s mother lives with you,’ Edyth replied with more honesty than tact.

‘Then we’ll meet in Swansea behind Flo’s back. Go and eat our way through the most expensive items on the lunch menu in the Mackworth.’

‘I’d like that.’ Edyth kissed the old woman’s cheek.

‘I have no one except you and Peter. Flo doesn’t count. And whatever Peter’s done and wherever they put him, he’ll always be my nephew …’ Alice blew her nose in the handkerchief Edyth handed her. ‘You’ll write?’

‘I promise, Aunt Alice.’

‘I know we haven’t known one another long, Edyth, but you’re like my own. I love you.’

‘I love you, too, Aunt Alice.’

Edyth waved until Alice’s car was no longer in sight then she returned to the house, where Judy and her father and mother were already hauling empty packing cases down from the attic.

Sali and Lloyd left at dusk. Edyth and Judy continued to fill tea chests with Peter’s and his mother’s things until well past their usual dinner-time. Realising they hadn’t eaten anything other than sandwiches all day, Edyth found her purse and asked Judy to fetch fish stew from Josefina’s. The girl hesitated for a moment.

‘If you don’t mind waiting, Mrs Slater, I’ll call in on my Uncle Jed on the way, to ask him if I can move back in with him tomorrow.’

‘There’s no need to do that, Judy.’ Edyth dropped a pile of old parish magazines that she had scavenged from Peter’s study next to the case she intended to pack Florence’s silverware into.

‘But you’ll be leaving here tomorrow.’

‘My parents said they’d take you. They can always do with extra help in the house.’

‘If that’s the case, why haven’t they already employed someone?’ Judy asked astutely.

‘Judy, please, let me think for a few days. It’s not just your future, it’s mine, too. To be honest, the last place I want to go is back to my parents’ house in Pontypridd. I can see it now; everyone in the town will shake their head, and mutter, “poor Edyth”, and behind my back point me out to their friends and whisper, “The second Evans girl. Did you know she married a vicar who fell in love with the local policeman?”’ Edyth began to laugh, and once she started she couldn’t stop.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Slater?’ Judy asked, concerned that Edyth was becoming hysterical.

‘Yes, Judy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. But put that way, it sounds so peculiar and – I can’t help it – funny.’

Judy was still out when the doorbell rang half an hour later. Concerned in case it might be the reporters her father had already sent away twice that day, Edyth crept quietly into Peter’s study and looked through the window. She had left the outside light burning. Beneath it stood a small boy dressed in ragged trousers and jersey. She walked briskly down the passage and opened the door.

‘Pastor gave me this, missus.’ He pulled a creased envelope from his pocket but he clung on to it. ‘He said I was only to give it to the lady who lived here, and I’d know her because she’s pretty with brown hair and big eyes like Claudette Colbert, is that you?’

‘From the description, I hope so.’ Edyth took the note and opened it.

‘Be in my cave at
2 a.m.’

‘He said you’d give me a penny, missus.’

She reached into her overall pocket and fingered the change she’d thrust into it after counting out the correct money to give Judy to buy the fish stew. Staring at the note, she absently handed the boy a silver threepenny bit.

‘A silver joey! Thanks a million times over, missus.’

The boy ran off, leaving Edyth wondering what she’d done.

Chapter Twenty-four

It had finally stopped raining but the clouds obliterated the moon and stars. The only light came from the street lamps, but they failed to penetrate the thick mist that had fallen, heavy as smoke, over Tiger Bay.

Constables marched their beat, drunks lurched along the side streets, stray dogs fought in the gutters, and cats yowled, startling Edyth with their eerie cries, but she continued to walk quickly in the shadows of the high buildings of Bute Street. By moving swiftly and purposefully, and keeping her hat pulled low, she managed to reach the area where the small boats were berthed unchallenged.

Not knowing if the walkway was lit, she had dropped a small torch into her pocket and when she saw that the shore lights didn’t reach the water, she blessed her foresight. The boats all looked the same in the unrelieved darkness; black, shapeless, shadows. She shone the torch down at her feet and walked carefully, lifting the slim light to the hulls where the names were painted. Eventually she read
Escape
in faded, peeling letters.

The boat was in complete darkness. Her heart started pounding erratically again. The note she had received hadn’t been signed, but the boy said the Pastor had given it to him. She’d assumed Micah had sent it. What if he hadn’t? What if it had been sent by a murderer – Charlie even? No, not Charlie, he wouldn’t have known about the
Escape,
but then neither would anyone else, besides Micah.

Trying not to make a noise that would carry to the shore, she stole on to the deck. She shone the narrow light of the torch on the steps, and walked down to the cabin, closed her hand over the door handle and pushed.

The lamp had been lit, but she had seen no light because the portholes were covered with sheets of snug-fitting brown cardboard. And there, sitting on the couches, were Micah, a man she had never seen before, Peter, and the young constable.

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Peter, what happened?’

‘Some men don’t like people who are different. And the police needed punch bag practice.’ He fingered the cuts and bruises on his face before leaving his seat. She opened her arms and hugged him, holding him close.

‘Can we go now?’ the stranger asked Micah.

‘Yes.’ He looked at the young constable. ‘Not a sound when we go up on deck.’

The young man nodded agreement. He looked at Edyth and, for the first time since she’d met him, there was no hostility in his eyes. She offered him her hand and he shook it.

Micah led the way outside.

‘I thought you were being moved to Cardiff prison,’ Edyth said when she and Peter were alone.

‘I have no idea how Micah managed to arrange it, but he had the Black Maria that was taking us to the prison diverted down here. His friend has secured us berths on a ship bound for South America.’

‘You won’t be back.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘Not to go to gaol, Edyth.’

‘It’s a pity; you were a good vicar.’

‘Micah has given me some rather impressive ship’s chaplain’s papers. I didn’t dare ask where he got them from. But he warned me not to use them on the voyage out. You’re looking at Ordinary Seaman Griffiths.’

‘You’ll write?’

‘If and when he can, your friend Seaman Griffiths will. I’ve made arrangement for Micah to send annulment papers to the port. I’ll get them back to you as soon as I can.’

‘You’ll need money.’

‘Micah’s given us each five pounds and we’re working our passage.’

‘But your bank account –’

‘I’ve given Micah a paper signing it over to Mother. I’m sorry I can’t give you anything to show for our marriage, Edyth.’

‘You’ve given me a great deal, Peter, starting with wisdom.’ She forced a smile. ‘Doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible that’s worth more than gold, diamonds, and pearls?’

‘Peter?’ Micah hissed down from the deck.

Edyth kissed her husband lightly on the lips. ‘God speed.’

‘I loved you, Edyth Slater – Evans – in my fashion.’

‘I know.’

Peter climbed up on deck. Edyth was standing looking around the tiny cabin when Micah returned.

She looked at him. ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me until it’s over. We’re not out of stormy water yet. We have to row to the ship because we daren’t risk starting an engine in case it brings the customs’ officers and the coastguard down on us. The ship’s leaving at three. And the port police might come on-board if the officers in Maria Street get a message to them in time to inform them that they’ve lost their prisoners. If that happens we’re sunk, in every sense of the word. In fact, we may be better off at the bottom of the dock.’

‘Peter will go to gaol.’

‘Not just him. All four of us. Aiding and abetting escaping prisoners is a serious crime.’

‘You’ve taken a terrible risk.’

‘I told you, Peter’s my friend, but I didn’t just do it for him. There is something you can do, if you want to help.’

‘Name it.’

‘My friend in the rowing boat and I will need an alibi. Take down the cardboard after we’ve gone and stay here. Move about in front of the portholes, make up the bed, fold the table away and rearrange the cushions. There are rugs and pillows under the seats. Put pillows in the bed to make it look as though two people are sleeping in it. If the porthole is uncovered, I doubt the police will try to get in to check if they see your head on the pillow. But just in case, throw the bolt across the door after I’m gone. If you hear someone outside, start talking and use that.’ He pointed to a wind-up gramophone. There was a record on the turntable. ‘Saxophone music,’ he explained.

‘And in the morning?’

‘I hope to be back by four. I’ll go ashore and watch the boat from there. I won’t return until it’s out of the Bay and I’m sure that Peter and the boy are safe. Our story is that my friend with the boat and I spent the night here drinking and playing chess.’ He took a wooden chess set from a cupboard and put it on the shelf that held the lamp. ‘My friend left before dawn; you stayed with me until morning. But I warn you, Edyth, giving me an alibi will cost you your reputation.’

‘I’ve lost that anyway.’

He pulled up the collar on his thick navy seaman’s coat and pulled his peaked cap low over his forehead. ‘See you later – if everything turns out to be plain sailing.’

After Micah left, Edyth followed every suggestion he’d made. She threw the bolt across the door, removed the cardboard from the portholes, turned up the lamp, folded down the table and rearranged the cushions into a surprisingly large double bed. It covered every inch of floor space in the cabin. The only way she could get to the shelf that held the spirit lamp, chess set and gramophone was by standing on the cushions.

She found sheets and pillowcases, as well as two blankets, folded beneath the couches. She rolled the rug to look like a body and placed it in the bed, pulling the sheet over and fluffing it out so the ‘head’ couldn’t be seen from any of the portholes. When she finished she glanced at her watch. It wasn’t even two o’clock and Micah had warned he wouldn’t return until four.

It was going to be a long two hours with nothing to do except wait – and worry. Determined to stay awake, she sat on the edge of the makeshift bed, but it was low and her calf muscles started aching. She lifted them up and rubbed them and, as she did so, she heard a noise. A creak that could have been a footstep on the planking.

The boat rocked.

Was it simply due to the natural movement of the sea or someone stepping on board?

Too nervous to start talking as Micah had advised, she kneeled on the bed and reached out to the gramophone. Her hand shook as she slid the switch on the turntable. It started rotating. Seeing that it was fully wound, she lifted the arm across the record and dropped the needle. The scratchy tones of a saxophone filled the cabin, blotting out all other sounds. In her present jittery mood it sounded like a discordant selection of notes. Anyone listening would know it was a record, but that didn’t matter if Micah intended whoever he suspected of spying on him, to think that he was otherwise engaged – with her.

She played the record twice more, winding the player each time in between. After the third time she lifted the arm, turned the head upside down and stopped the turntable. She listened intently but all she could hear was the usual sounds of the sea: water lapping at the side of the boat; ships’ sirens; sailors singing drunken dirges as they made their way back to their ships after a night in the dockland pubs.

Senses straining to their utmost, she kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed next to the rolled-up rug.

She woke with a start when she heard a quiet tap. When it sounded again she looked around in alarm. A white face peered through the porthole in front of her. She cried out before realising it was Micah. Her limbs unnaturally heavy with sleep, she stumbled from the bed and crashed into the door, hitting her arm painfully before pulling back the bolt.

‘I’m sorry –’

‘It’s all right, there’s no one about that I can see.’ Micah stepped inside and thrust the bolt back home.

She rubbed her eyes in an effort to focus. Whether it was lack of sleep or the paraffin fumes from the lamp, the cabin remained blurred. ‘What time is it?’

‘A quarter past four,’ Micah said shortly.

‘Then –’

‘The ship’s out of the Bay. Peter’s as safe as he can be on-board a vessel heading for the Americas.’

He brushed against her and she jumped back. ‘You’re freezing cold and …’ She reached out and felt his woollen coat, ‘soaking wet.’

‘I tried to keep the boat steady at the foot of the rope ladder they lowered from the seaward side of the deck. Peter slipped and accidentally kicked me into the water.’

‘You’d better get those clothes off or you’ll get pneumonia. That was what you told me, and I only walked down here in the rain. I didn’t swim here.’

‘You’re right. I’d like to leave them on deck but that would only give notice that I wasn’t here all night, to anyone checking my movements.’ He opened a small door; behind it yawned the space where the engine had been. He pulled out a pair of patched trousers and a crumpled shirt. ‘My ship repairing clothes, the only others I have on board,’ he informed her apologetically.

‘You’d better put the wet ones in there. You don’t want to soak the bed.’

‘You sound as though you are used to giving orders.’

‘With three younger sisters and a younger brother, I try, but I’m not always obeyed.’ She sat on the bed and turned her back to him.

He lowered the wick on the spirit lamp, casting the cabin in shadow. ‘It’s freezing in here,’ he complained. ‘Why didn’t you light the brazier?’

‘Because I was too worried to be cold.’

‘You can turn around now.’ He was standing, shivering in the ragged trousers and shirt. He picked up the clothes he had dropped to the floor and tossed them into the old engine housing. They landed with a squelch.

‘Expensive night. They were an almost new pair of shoes,’ he grumbled.

‘Expensive in more ways than one. Peter told me that you had given him and the boy five pounds each. But you must have paid out a lot more to buy their passage and false papers.’

‘He told you about that?’ He sat on the bed behind her. She could feel the cold emanating from his back.

‘How much does he owe you?’

‘The kind of favours money can’t buy. It’s the way life works on the docks.’ He climbed under the blankets but he was still shivering. ‘It’s times like this that I wish I’d stayed in the Caribbean.’

‘You’ve travelled?’

‘Not as much as I’d like. You look ridiculous perched on the edge there. You’re like a gull on a rock without the aptitude for balance. You may as well lie down. We can keep the fake me between us, if you’re afraid I’ll pounce on you. But I warn you, I’m too exhausted to do much in that line.’ He patted the rolled-up rug.

She moved back into the space where she’d been sleeping when he’d arrived.

‘I’m sorry I woke you.’

‘I’m sorry I slept. I didn’t mean to.’

‘You’ve had a hard couple of days, Edyth, and tomorrow – or rather later today – won’t be any different. I’ve a feeling that the police will be asking us a lot of questions about Peter’s disappearance.’ He stretched out, pulled the rolled-up rug closer to himself to give her more room, and turned to face her. ‘So, we may as well sleep while we can.’ He took off his glasses and laid them beneath his pillow.

‘Have you any other spare clothes here?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll set the whole of the Bay talking if you go to the mission dressed like that in the morning. People will think you’ve gone on the tramp.’

‘Can’t be helped,’ he said carelessly.

‘Yes it can. I’ll go to the mission for you and ask your sister to give me some of your clothes.’

‘You really are keen to lose what little is left of your reputation, aren’t you?’

‘You know something, Micah, I’ve gone past caring, and it’s a wonderful feeling to be totally free and not have to worry about what people are thinking or saying about me.’

He leaned back on the pillow and stretched out his arm. ‘Sorry, did I hit you?’

‘You did. You’re so cold you can crawl into my space and steal my body heat if you like.’

‘I’m too uncomfortable to turn down that offer.’ He sat up, shook out the rug and spread it over both of them. ‘Goodnight, or rather good morning, Mrs Slater.’

‘I think I’ll revert to Edyth Evans.’

‘In that case, goodnight, Edyth.’

She closed her eyes. What could have been a minute or an hour later, he rolled closer to her and slipped his arm around her waist. Three-quarters asleep, the only thing that registered was the cold, and she snuggled up to him as she would have to Bella or one of her other sisters if they had been as icy.

Only he wasn’t Bella or one of the others, and the next thing she knew, his mouth was pressed over hers and he was kissing her with a passion and urgency that sent the blood coursing headily around her veins.

His hands sought her skin beneath her clothes. He caressed her thighs above her stocking tops, her breasts through layers of clothes …

She moved away from him.