‘Not today, thanks.’ Alma Moore tucked her auburn curls beneath her home-knitted tam without relinquishing her hold on the cloth purse that contained her wages from both the tailor’s shop where she worked mornings, and the café where she waitressed most nights and weekends.
Once she’d secured her hair she thrust her purse deep into her pocket, burying it securely beneath her hand.
Nearly all the money she carried was earmarked for necessities – rent, coal, and paying something off the ‘tab’ on their endless bill in the corner shop. She knew if she spent the remainder on Christmas cheer for her mother and herself, there’d be nothing left for coals or food at the end of the week. But then – she gripped her purse so tightly that the edges of the coins cut into the palm of her hand – it was Christmas. And if she couldn’t treat her mother to a little luxury at Christmas, what did she have to look forward to?
Using her shoulder as a wedge, she nudged and jostled through the dense crowd until she reached an alleyway fringed by an overspill of stalls that led off Market Square. Two minutes later she was outside the old Town Hall that housed the indoor second-hand clothes market.
She forged ahead towards Horton’s stall.
‘Come for your mam’s coat?’ Seventeen-year-old Eddie Powell, resplendent in an almost-new blue serge suit that had been knocked down to him for two days’ work in lieu of wages, smiled at her. It was a smile she didn’t return. She couldn’t forget that it had been Eddie’s sixteen-year-old sister Maud who’d captured the heart and hand of Ronnie Ronconi, her ex-employer and ex-boyfriend of more than four years.
‘The coat, and-’ she pulled her purse from her pocket – ‘I was hoping you’d have a good woollen scarf to go with it. Real wool, mind. None of your cotton or rayon mixes.’
‘We’ve sets of matching gloves and scarves. All brand spanking new,’ Eddie suggested eagerly, scenting a sale in the air. ‘Boss bought them in as specials for Christmas. So many customers came asking he looked around for a supplier. We don’t get many second-hand accessories.’
He was proud of the ‘trade’ word he’d heard Wilf Horton mention and had never used himself before now. He picked up a woollen bundle from the top of an enormous, roughly crafted pine chest behind him. ‘Just feel the quality in this. Go on, feel.’
He thrust the grey cloth into Alma’s blue face. ‘It’s the best machine knit you’ll find anywhere,’ he continued, still imitating his boss’s sales patter. ‘A lot smoother than anything that comes off your mam’s needles, and pure wool. Soft wool,’ he said persuasively. ‘Not the scratchy kind that brings you up in red bumps.’
Alma reached out with chilled fingers and tentatively rubbed the cloth.
‘That’s a real crache scarf, just like the nobs on the Common wear.’ Eddie leaned over the counter and she jumped back warily as his mouth hovered close to hers.
‘You won’t find finer than that, not even in there.’ He pointed down the lane where the gleaming electric lights of the Co-op Arcade cast strange elongated patterns over the shiny black surfaces of the pavements behind the stalls. ‘Or even at Gwilym Evans’,’ he added recklessly, conjuring images of the silver and gold tinsel-bedecked windows of the most exclusive and expensive shop Pontypridd had to offer. ‘Go on, take it. Try it. Wrap it around your neck. Think what that will do for your mam on a cold winter’s night,’ he concluded on a hard-sale note, his mind fixed on the shilling bonus Mr Horton had promised him if the takings outside of what had been ‘put by’ on penny a week cards, topped fifteen pounds that day.
Alma didn’t need the sales pitch. She was already envisaging her mother wrapped snugly in the scarf and their old patched quilt, sitting next to the kitchen stove which was blasting out heat in imagination as it was never allowed to do in the cold reality of frugal coal rations. Her mother deserved warm clothes. Particularly on the four days a week she economised by not setting a match to the stove.
‘There’s gloves and hat to match. All the same quality.’ He rubbed his frozen hands together and danced a jig. Centre doorway might be a good spot from a trade point of view, but it played hell with his circulation.
Alma extricated a glove from the bundle Eddie pushed towards her. She pulled the woollen fingers, stretching them, looking for dropped stitches, signs of unfinished seams or loose knitting. There were none. Then she picked up the second glove.
‘This one is bigger than the other.’ She held up the offending garment. ‘And the wool is different. It’s coarser, greasier.’
‘Then try these.’ Eddie reached behind him and withdrew a pair of gloves from another bundle.
‘They’re two right gloves.’ Costly experience had taught Alma every trick the market boys with their second-quality wares had to offer.
‘How about this set, then?’ Undeterred, Eddie opened the chest and produced a new pack from its depths. Hat, scarf and gloves were stitched together with huge tacking stitches in thick brown twine. Alma carefully loosened the threads and went through each piece. She put the hat and gloves to one side but held up the scarf.
‘Dropped stitch in this.’
‘Then swap it with the other one.’ Eddie’s patience was wearing thin; he’d just caught sight of his boss eyeing him suspiciously from the other side of the stall in a way he wouldn’t have if Alma had been old, or ugly.
‘Colour’s not the same.’
‘Tell you what.’ Eddie glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. ‘I’ll knock it down to you at a special price.’
‘What kind of special price?’
‘For you, two bob the lot. Hat, scarf and gloves.’
‘Two bob!’ Alma tossed the bundle aside in disgust. ‘It’s not worth that. Besides ...’ she dangled the promise of extra trade. ‘It wouldn’t leave me enough to pick up the coat I’ve put by, or buy the jumper my mam needs.’
‘You’ve come for your coat, Alma?’ Wilf pushed Eddie out of his way. ‘Mrs Edwards needs seeing to, boy,’ he ordered brusquely. ‘She’s after a suit for her son, and she wants you to try the jacket to check the size.’
‘Right away, Mr Horton.’ Eddie wasn’t sorry to leave Alma. She might be a looker, but she was nineteen; far too old for him, and boy, was she fussy! No wonder Ronnie had taken off for Italy with Maud.
‘You looking for something besides your coat, Alma?’ Wilf lifted the tips of his fingers to his wrinkled, red veined face, and blew on them.
‘I’d like to buy my mother a scarf, gloves, and if I’ve enough money left over, a jumper, Mr Horton.’
‘Right, let’s see what I can do for you.’ He bent beneath the counter and rummaged among the boxes under the trestles.
‘I’d like the jumper to be the same quality as this, please.’ Alma held up the only perfect scarf Eddie had shown her.
‘You know what to look for. This suit you?’ He held up a mass of purple, green and red wool. ‘Colours ran in the dye batch, but they didn’t affect the quality. It’s lamb’s wool like the scarf. I’ll be with you now, Edith!’ he shouted to a woman who was pushing a man’s shirt under his nose.
‘I want it for a present, Mr Horton,’ Alma retorted icily.
‘That’s what I thought. It’s warm and your mam wouldn’t know the difference,’ he said bluntly, too preoccupied with the buying potential of the customers pressing around his stall to concern himself with Alma’s sensitivity.
‘My mother might be blind, Mr Horton, but that doesn’t mean I’d allow her to walk around looking like something the cat dragged in.’
‘Suit yourself. That one I can do for one and six. Perfect like this –’ he tossed an emerald green pullover at her – ‘I can’t do for less than five bob, and then I’d be robbing myself. Got your card for the coat?’ Wilf turned his back on Alma and took the shirt from Edith. ‘A shilling to you, love, and seeing as how it’s Christmas I’ll throw in a hanky for free. How’s that for a bargain?’
‘I’ll take it, Wilf.’ The woman opened her purse as Wilf
threw the shirt and handkerchief at Eddie to be wrapped in newspaper.
Mesmerised, Alma stared at the jumper. It was such a deep, beautiful green. A jumper like that could make even the old black serge skirt she was wearing look good. She brushed her hand lightly against the surface; it was softer than any wool she’d ever touched. But five shillings!
Reluctantly she dropped the jumper on to the counter, and picked up the one that looked as if it had been attacked by a colour-blind artist. Wilf Horton was right: the colouring hadn’t affected the quality. She pulled her card out of her pocket and looked at it. Not that she needed to. She knew exactly how much she owed.
‘Coat was ten bob, less ...’ Wilf took Alma’s card and peered short-sightedly at the numbers scrawled on it. ‘Fifteen weeks at sixpence a week. That leaves half a crown Alma. What do you want to do about the jumper?’
Alma heard the clock on St Catherine’s strike the half hour. Tina Ronconi was covering a double station of tables in the café, but Tina wouldn’t be able to do that for long. Christmas Eve was always busy, and she still had to buy the other things on her list. She clutched the scarf and fingered the multi-coloured pullover.
‘How much for everything?’ She comforted herself with the thought that it cost nothing to ask.
‘This pullover, the scarf, hat and gloves?’
‘The lot.’
‘You broken a set there?’ Wilf looked suspiciously at the garments she was holding.
‘The gloves that went with this scarf were odd.’
‘Call it five bob with what you owe on the coat.’
‘I don’t want charity,’ Alma snapped, pride stinging.
Wilf sighed. You just couldn’t win with some people. It was open knowledge in the town that Alma Moore and her mother had lived hand-to-mouth since Ronnie Ronconi had left Pontypridd for Italy. Alma couldn’t even afford bargain prices, but she wasn’t past holding up business to haggle, and now, when he was offering her goods at a loss just to get rid of her, she wouldn’t take them.
‘That’s my price, take it or leave it.’
‘She’ll take it. And the green jumper.’
Alma whirled round to see Bobby Thomas, who collected her rent, holding a ten-bob note high in his hand. Hot, rum-laden breath wafted into her face as she nodded briefly before turning back to Wilf. Anxious to avoid a scene she pulled out her purse. ‘I’ll take everything except the green jumper, Mr Horton,’ she said hastily, fear of Bobby and the propositions he’d put to her every rent day since Ronnie had left making her reckless. She dug into her purse and produced a couple of two shilling pieces, and four joeys.
‘Eddie, wrap for the lady!’ Wilf ordered.
‘And the green jumper.’
Wilf looked from Bobby to Alma, wondering if Alma had found herself a new fancy man. If so, the few people who bothered to talk to her now would soon stop. Bobby Thomas had a wife born and bred in East Street, who was five months gone in the family way.
‘Thank you Mr Horton. Hope your wife likes the jumper, Bobby,’ Alma said loudly for Wilf Horton’s benefit as she walked away from the stall. She pretended not to hear Bobby calling out, asking her to wait. The last thing she needed was to get involved in a conversation with a drunk on the market. With Ronnie gone from Pontypridd people were saying enough about her as it was.
Trying to concentrate on the task in hand, Alma fought her way from the clothes to the butcher’s market. Her mother had scraped together the ingredients for a cake weeks ago, but they hadn’t been able to run to what was needed for a pudding. There was no way she could afford a chicken, and now that Ronnie had left she wouldn’t be getting one as a Christmas bonus as she had done in previous years. Christmas! Her mother was looking forward to it because it was the only day of the year Alma didn’t have to work, but what was the point in celebrating when they couldn’t even afford to buy themselves a decent Christmas dinner?
Clutching the carrier bag Eddie had given her in one hand, and fingering her lighter, slimmer purse with the other, she pictured the coins in her mind’s eye. Sixpence for a tree. That had to be bought no matter what, and sweets to hang among the old paper decorations, made and carefully treasured from year to year. It didn’t matter that her mother couldn’t see the tree; she would be able to smell it. She wondered how many boiled sweets she would get from Mrs Walker’s stall for sixpence. Then there was fruit. Two of those bright paper-wrapped oranges, two apples and some nuts: that would be at least another four pence. She was already into next week’s rent money, and that was without meat.
‘Bag of ends for four pence! Come on Missus, just what you need for Boxing Day when your old man is growling with his belly stretched by Christmas dinner.’ William Powell, Maud Powell’s cousin – Alma felt surrounded by Powells, she couldn’t seem to get away from them no matter which way she turned – was standing on a box behind Charlie the Russian’s butcher’s stall.
‘How about it, Alma?’ he shouted. ‘Bag of ends for four pence?’
‘What’s in it?’ she demanded sceptically.
William balanced the bag precariously on his outstretched palm and peered theatrically inside. ‘Now what do I see?’ he mused in a loud voice as he gathered a hushed crowd around the stall. ‘I see two neck of lamb chops ...’ he looked up and beamed at a plump, toothless old woman who’d pushed her way to the front, ‘a pair of sweetbreads. Just what you need to get yourself going, eh, Mrs Jones?’ he winked impudently, a dark curl falling low over his forehead.
‘Come home with me and I’ll show you what I need to get myself going, Willie Powell!’ she chuckled throatily.
‘Willie! Willie! I’m not sure you know me well enough to call me Willie ...’
‘Get on with it,’ a man shouted impatiently.
‘On with what, Ianto? Courting May Jones here?’ He held up his hand to silence the raucous crowd. ‘The remainder of what’s in this bag, is a ... a ...’ he opened his dark brown eyes wide as he scanned his expectant audience. ‘Mystery,’ he hissed in a stage whisper. ‘And one that will only be solved after you’ve dug in your pockets.’
Alma opened her purse. She wasn’t going to get cheaper this side of the nine o’clock bell, and she couldn’t wait.
‘I’ll take a bag, please, Charlie.’ She thrust a three penny bit and a penny at William’s boss, a stocky, broad built, muscular man with white-blond hair and possibly the palest skin in the valleys. She’d always thought of Charlie as tall, but now, seeing him standing next to William she realised that he was a good three or four inches shorter than William’s six feet two.
He picked up a bag from the back of the row laid out on the slab behind him. ‘Keep it separate from the rest of your shopping. The blood will stain everything it touches,’ he warned in a guttural accent that sounded exotic to ears accustomed to the Welsh lilt. ‘And Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas to you, Charlie.’
‘Catch!’
A soft parcel wrapped in newspaper flew through the air, landing on top of the bag Charlie had given her. She peeled back a corner of the paper and saw shining green wool. ‘Happy Christmas, Alma.’ Bobby Thomas was already out of reach, separated from her by the mass of bargain hunters homing in on the offer on Charlie’s stall. ‘I’ll be around to pick up my present in the New Year,’ he leered over the heads of the crowd.
‘I don’t want this ...’
It was too late. Bobby had his back to her and was halfway through the door. She’d never catch up with him now. A sick feeling stole over her as she stared at the parcel. She could throw it away, but if she did it would only get picked up by someone who might or might not keep it. And if they didn’t, where would they take it? To the police station? Without a name or address, the constables wouldn’t be able to return it to Bobby. She could take it back to Wilf Horton but there was no guarantee that he’d be seeing Bobby either. Either way it was doubtful Bobby Thomas would get to hear of her gesture, and come next rent day he’d turn up on her doorstep to
claim the ‘present’ he expected in return.
She’d begun to dread rent days since Ronnie had left. Bobby had taken to lingering in their kitchen, making lewd suggestions, and when she’d threatened to report him to her landlord he’d pointed out that he was the one with position and standing in the town, not her.
Rage at the gossips who’d destroyed her reputation vied with an anger directed against Bobby as she thrust the parcel under her arm and struggled out of the crowd into the haberdashery, toy and sweet market.
‘Christmas bag do you, Alma?’ Mrs Walker asked, as Alma hesitated before her stall.
‘How much?’
‘Three pence for two giant coconut ice sticks, a bag of toffee scrapings, assortment of boiled sweets and liquorice laces. Sixpence for a bigger helping of everything except the coconut ice sticks, plus four chocolates.’
Alma’s mouth watered at the prospect of chocolates, but she remembered the extravagance Bobby had driven her into at Horton’s stall. ‘Three penny bag, please.’
‘Seeing as how it’s you, and Christmas, I’ll do the sixpenny offer for five pence,’ Mrs Walker offered temptingly.
Alma hesitated. It was Christmas Eve. Perhaps a customer would leave a tip. One of the bus crew perhaps ...’I’ll take it,’ she answered impulsively. ‘Thank you Mrs Walker, and a Merry Christmas.’
‘And a Merry Christmas to you, dear. Remember me to your mother.’ She handed over a paper cone of confectionery.
Pushing the sweets deep into the carrier bag of clothes, Alma turned on her heel and elbowed her way to the fruit market. Picking a stall that sold Christmas trees as well as fruit, she negotiated the price for the lot down to nine pence. If she didn’t spend another penny, she’d be able to pay the rent – just. She blanched at the thought of the grocer’s bill they’d run up in Hopkins’ corner shop. If she didn’t settle something off it soon, they’d lose their credit. She really needed a Christmas tip. St Catherine’s clock struck again as she left the indoor market for Taff Street. She’d better get a move on or there’d be no Christmas tips to pick up.
Pontypridd 02 - One Blue Moon Page 39