Flame and Slag

by Ron Berry

  “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re only concerned with me making a living. You wouldn’t bother a monkey’s fuck if I was half-batchy so long as I made a living.”

  “Er, that isn’t a very original metaphor.”

  “It wouldn’t do for the men who come in here to be original.”

  Genial as PLJ in a heatwave, he remarked, “At least you’re the most offensive.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, suffering my own bluntness. “Now we’re discussing you as well as me.”

  “Mr Stevens, I’m here to help you, despite what you seem to think…”

  “And help yourself,” I said.

  “Perhaps a clerical training course. Will you…”

  I said, “Mr Harcourt…”

  “…write two thousand words for me? Any subject you like. Hand it in to Mr Oliver.”

  Desperately point-blank, I said, “Every fucker wants to be a literary giant. Teach a bloke to read and he’s the bloody Lord Muck of the holy word.”

  “You seem to have the old four-letter verb on the brain this morning,” he said, bland as Vick in a sore throat. “I’ll speak to Mr Oliver. You’ll want some privacy to write the essay. We’ll call it an essay. Write anything you wish.”

  I said, “You’re on the look-out for material. I’ve stopped being a man in your eyes.”

  “Good morning, Mr Stevens,” he said.

  The dandruffed instructor cleared elbow-room on a bench littered with broken light switches. “This will do fine,” he said, checking on his wristwatch. “You’re being allowed two hours. Let’s see, four sheets of foolscap, pen — here, borrow this one. Anything else you want? No. Right. What about tea-break? Wait, bring it over to my desk. Right?”

  “If you say so, Mr Oliver.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “This is Mr Harcourt’s responsibility. Education always begins upstairs after the second week, but you’re a special case; yes, for the next two hours,” — urgency brightening his light brown eyes as he strode away to Zangwill, who had jabbed a screwdriver into his chest, the small puncture blossoming a ragged red rosette on his white shirt.

  I used a couple of pages to show off, conjuring up twisty titles: PERSIFLAGE VIA JAY VAWN, MAMGU (grandmother) DAYS AND NIGHTS, FLOWERING DUFF, REQUIEM FOR MISS WILSON, CYNONS BY RANK AND DEFILE, THE GOB-WALL SHEIK, SILICOTIC FANCIER, THE ELLENITE TOW, CHAMT OF THE STALLED MECO, HERE-UNDER DAI HIMSELF, SYMPOSIUM ON CARBON, MOTION FOR SEVEN HAULIERS, CUTTING PWCINS UNDER MOUNT SION, MONOGRAPH ON CLOD, DUMP-END BLUES, ON THE TAMPER, THE ELLENIC CONCORDANCE, SOIREE BELOW THE AERIALS, GUMMING MASTER, OUVADE FOR GWALIA, THE MANAGERIAL TIC, SONGS FOR THE BARONESS, WEIGHBRIDGE TO DIGNITY, NINERS IN MY GROTTO.

  Here I stopped and went out to the breeze-block-built lavatory, a cadaverous long-shanks bloke named Tony Webber squatting like a coolie against the wall, cruel clockwork motions jerking him as he retched blood. I fetched Mr Oliver. Somebody else ran for the Centre doctor. Five minutes later they slid Tony Webber into an ambulance; that was the last we saw of him. I went back to showing off, cooking titles until tea-break.

  The instructor was standing behind me. “Making progress?” he said.

  I gave him the foolscap sheets. “Nothing special, Mr Oliver, but if I can stay the pace for the next hour something should come.” He was reading worriedly, wriggling his specked eyebrows. “Crystalline stuff,” I said, “like the Flying Roll crossed with the millennium’s diagnosis of tumult.”

  “Be careful, fella. We’ve seen some queer cases coming to this Centre. Now, take my advice; start all over again. I’ll scrap this lot. You can’t play silly-bees with Mr Harcourt. We’re here to find out what you can do, and then you’ll get the best training available over in the workshops. Don’t you want to be independent?”

  “Not if you are. So long, god, see you after tea-break,” I said.

  He stuttered, “Fella, hey-there-hey,” but I kept on walking.

  Mr Harcourt shot his cuffs and machine-gunned his Biro. “I recognize some of the mining jargon,” — his smile hanging like two minutes’ silence on Poppy Day. “But I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage most of the time. What does this mean: The Ellenic concordance? Ellenic and Ellenite. Explain the significance.”

  I said, “Am I on the couch now?”

  “Well, obviously, unless writers express themselves clearly they fail to communicate. This isn’t my language, nobody’s but your own I suspect, and I should say it promises very little for your success as a writer. It’s-um, clever-clever, copied from some style or other. Have you done any work for newspapers or magazines?”

  Scant raindrops began to peck at the window-panes, waxing to fat, slippery purrs that brought silvery-green tones into the room.

  “Aye, it’s clever-clever” I said

  “Ellenite, Ellenic, presumably Ellen. Is she…”

  “My wife.”

  “Do you want to be an office worker?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “You’re going to have a lonely time, my friend. Journalism?” — glancing up from his busy ball-point.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Do you want to be lonely?”

  “Is there any alternative?” I said.

  “You are suffering,” — the intonation of Egypt lost behind veils and muffled gong-beating in his voice. “Because you’re suffering you’ve created a barrier between yourself and society.”

  I said, “Against this place in particular.”

  “Yes, all right, as you say, against. And what happens if you fail to communicate? Does your wife have faith in you?”

  The rainstorm spun swiftly away and his eyes glinted flat as beads in a ju-ju above he held stillness of his body.

  I said, “Are you married?”

  “Answer my question. Drop the barrier for a moment.”

  “Faith?”

  “Does she have faith to prevent you from destroying your marriage? That’s what I mean.”

  I tried to declare myself truthfully, like salt disappearing in water. “I’m living with a kind of dying. When I win I’ll be reborn.”

  “Ha, death, rebirth! Most of us cannot afford to worry about dying and rebirth. Perhaps it’s easier for you to mystify the circumstances of your injury instead of facing up to reality. Are you, Mr Stevens?”

  I said, “Let’s define reality.”

  “Now you’re being facetious. This Government rehabilitation centre is real, yet you reject all it stands for after only two days. You’ll think differently after twelve weeks, plus a further six months’ vocational training.”

  He was becoming slightly bored, irritated, pushing his notepad out of alignment with his right hand, his ball-point clicking under his thumb. I waited on him, more against than bored, sullen with dread, the pen suddenly winnowing across the pad again. Sunshine starred the wet window-panes. Heavy machinery hummed down on the ground floor, marrying the dulled resonance of a trainee singing at the top of his voice.

  “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?” he said.

  “Regarding what?”

  “Yourself, man, the kind of work you feel capable of doing.”

  I said, “No, but listen; when you’re on the way out you might wonder what the hell you’ve been doing. Are we finished?”

  “For now, certainly. You aren’t prepared to co-operate. We shall be having another chat in a couple of weeks.”

  “So long, then,” I said.

  Early in July, on a thundery morning, the Centre manager cracked down with a ranty, Oscar-winning pep talk, Brigade of Guards or its near equivalent barking out of him, and then the Government wrote me off. Personally worse off than when I started in the Centre, physically and morally — if these are divisible. I’d lost more than a stone in weight, I found it difficult to speak to men unless they were colliers or colliery workers, Lydia and Elizabe
th were futureless shadows, and Ellen, dauntless Ellen, a great sad neutrality weighed between us. We forgot, changed, we confluenced on stale daily habits, the dribs and drabs of loss.

  12

  They (the invariably outer they) braced the high-pitched chapel roof with steel columns and cross-beams before demolishing the blue pennant stone frontage of Calvaria. Then they built the supermarket entrance, fashionably off-set, skewed inwards from the pavement, all-glass double doors swinging under two-toned pebble dashing. Mrs Cynon looked after the children while Ellen shopped for bargains on opening day. We quarrelled at breakfast, continuing over lunch, a money nag qualified by not having any. She borrowed two quid off Selina Cynon for this shopping festival.

  “We’ll have to pay it back next Friday when I get my dole,” I said.

  “I’ll pay it back when I start work. Selina happens to be my friend. Have you finished? I want to clear the table.”

  I said, “We still owe Tal Harding that fifty quid.”

  “Oh, hush up, misery. The back room’s waiting, although you should get some fresh air. You were stuck in there again all last night.”

  “Following your old man’s Account. He was madder than I am. As for Kate, selfish, sexy Kate, she really creased his guts the time she carried the baton in Daren Darkies jazz band. Aye, before you were born.”

  “Reesy, you’re not mad, just cranky like your cranky grandmother.”

  Front-line Ellen Stevens, wearing her best dress, necklace, earrings, lipstick, and we had a full pantry of cut-price food. Our Lydia gabbled little mother sentiments to a doll coaxed out of Percy; Elizabeth sat in a high chair delivered after dark by a member of the Women’s Guild at the behest of Mrs Cynon. We were poor, but nowhere near the prewar standard of poverty in Daren. Poverty succoured by Sunday pie-in-the-sky in Calvaria Chapel. Ten thronged chapels and one church in Daren during the Hungry Thirties.

  “When you’ve finished,” she insisted impatiently, posed with her fist on her hip like Pilate’s wife watching him make a mutt of himself.

  I went into the back room, my cwtch of rebirth where I tried not to shrivel, John Vaughan’s number seven exercise-book still unopened on the couch, and in number six, his auto-comments on marriage and poverty:

  Times have altered beyond. Beyond dreams. Us men who have seen two wars have also seen many inventions, motor cars, aeroplanes, atomic bombs, cinemas, wireless & television & even plastic shoes. Once we all ate the same food. Not any more. Once a man & wife lived on £21/1/6 per week. Without option we were limited to table, chairs, bed, wooden settle, chest of drawers, candles, the Bible, 6d a pint beer & 4d for ten Cinderellas. Never again. Warm woollen clothes are not a God-send any more. Good leather boots to last five years & Melton serge a lifetime. Large loaf 3½d.

  Bread tasting delicious after a week but not any more. I could go on & on but only fools deny progress. We ourselves were making steady progress for all our poverty. When there were only two wirelesses in Daren we had the third. Kate brought it home in a pram belonging to one of the Miskin girls. “Where did you get that article from, Kate?” I said. She replied, “Only 2/6 a week, we’ll go without pictures on Saturday nights.” As if we went every weekend to Daren Gaiety when the basics of food, rent & clothes swallowed every penny of our finances. I was not even on piece-work in Caib at the time, being repairing by night after chronic ill health made me give up my stall in the Four Feet. For years & years this bad chest of mine. Night shift often meant low health & poverty. Mostly strong men worked days regular year in & year out. Either strong or well-in with officials & this went against the grain with me in my position of Lodge treasurer. Night shift suited all right as our committee meetings finished by nine o’clock. Therefore I could be down the pit without rushing by half-past ten. “Where is your cheque book?” she used to persist whenever we were at rock bottom. “It is not MINE, woman, as you know full well. Do you expect me to rob my fellow workers?” but principle shed off Kate like water off a duck’s back. In a way I was glad when she went to Queen’s Street, Portsmouth, as then I did not have to carry the double responsibility of Lodge funds & her temptation. Regarding Daren Cottage Hospital cheque book it never left Councillor Dewi Benjamin’s possession during the eleven years he was Hospital Committee Hon Sec till he died in the back lane behind Regent Street. I was forced to resign, no alternative the way he utilized public funds. Sheer greediness. Gambling & drinking together with my wife’s so-called friend brought about the man’s downfall, Miss Edna Miskin herself with Dewi Ben in the lane when his heart collapsed. My wife’s personal friend, that girl Edna, I am sorry to confess. We all live in ignorance at some time or other, whether working class or middle or high class or royal blood. For instance I felt proud we were doing good work with Caib Inst. bringing concerts, dance bands & putting on social occasions for everybody’s benefit. Of little interest to me personally speaking but seeing your fellow men & their families enjoying themselves gave us cause for pride. Genuine pride. The community spirit. Marvellous in those days although I myself followed old Twm Cynon’s proverb, WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS ’TIS FOLLY TO BE WISE. We lived, from hand to mouth, my wife Kate robbing Peter to pay Paul every Friday. Why did she do it? Lack of principle. Nothing would stop her galivanting, growing younger instead of older & there was I cutting pwcins in Caib, happy in my ignorance I swear while the house belonging to Joseph Gibby on whist drive nights no better than a red lamp. Llew Hopkins included. Even a hippety-hop like him. Girls would not look twice at Llew due to his legs. “What are you going to do about it?” says Kate on the morning I came home at 3 a.m. when Mog Mason broke his ribs. Mog passed unconscious in a pocket of gas while ripping top standing on a full tram of muck. Fell across the rails, poor old Mog, night shift for 23 years. I rode with him in the ambulance, wiping blood from his mouth. Home by the short cut afterwards, longing for a cup of tea & expecting welcome from Kate, company for sleeping with on a bitter January night. Ignorance & innocence must be closely related. My ignorance on this cold crucial morning, her mystery man skelping his get-away out through the front door while I was untying my bootlaces in the kitchen. The gall, sheer gall. “What are you going to do about it?” she wanted to know, standing there in a mauve pais brand new to me & unpaid for as I discovered later. “Go on, raise your fist! Let me tell you, John Vaughan, it will be the sorriest thing you have ever done in all your born days!” She reminded me of her father Mike Minty coming out from WAUN ARMS with a load on. Dangerous as a mad dog. I slapped her bare neck with my muffler all soaked from Mog’s haemorrhage. It was the blood frightened her, nothing else. She used up two buckets of hot water. I had to rebuild the fire & wait another hour & a half before bathing myself, her drying careless as a cat in front of the fire. It took me three years to learn his name, Mansel Rimmer whose father Jake lived tally with Mansel’s mother Mari Samuels until they both passed away from smallpox in 1927. Previous to this Jake Rimmer lodged with my mother while they were sinking Caib. Although wanting to kill Mansel I realized it would not cure Kate. She scrubbed my back in front of the fire as if her conscience was perfectly clear. Also cooked my rasher & fried bread. Around 6 a.m. we went to bed, Kate first to warm the blankets. She was like that. Few men on nights would have their beds warmed ready for them unless the wife was too lazy to get up & make breakfast. How do you contend with a woman who cannot cry? I never once saw Kate weeping tears. One winter she had a bout of ’flu very bad. Myself I sat under a towel sniffing Friar’s Balsam, bronchitis as usual. She fell right downstairs, banged her head, boiled some water & condensed milk & climbed back upstairs. Nothing else in the house but tinned milk & water. All without saying a word or begging for help. Brass, a woman of brass. Her father Mike had it in him as well. The same kind of attitude impossible to touch this side of the grave. Hard as brass itself. Fearing nothing alive on two legs. To my mind she joined the Pentecostals for fun, which is the same as saying religion is made for those who are deprived of fun. Personally I had Lodge busine
ss to keep me fully occupied & when jazz bands became popular I seconded the motion to allow Daren Darkies to train upstairs in the institute during wet weather. We won first prize in Swansea carnival, the shout going up on Singleton Park as DAREN DARKIES competed in their black & white outfits, bazookas & drums all paid for by raffles & street collections, my own wife leading the parade like a trotting pony. She threw the baton highest, old Soldier Perkins her great trainer who himself lost his kneecap with the South Wales Borders on the Western Front. Late that night fireworks spouted all over the sky, then Kate suggested sharing a bottle of White Horse with her under some evergreen bushes. Celebrate success in private. A warm summer night as I well recall, everybody happy whether losers or winners, children asleep on the grass. “Who bought this, the Darkies committee?” me asking in all innocence. “Pub in town,” she said. “Pinched from behind the counter when his back was turned. Pass it over, I’m dry as a bone. How do I look as a darky girl?” It takes a lifetime to learn that confession is best, only I cannot remember my answer. Kate! Kate! Kate! Why? Why? Why? Deserting me when all I wanted was to make her contented. I felt prouder of Kate than of myself.

  “You marvel, you breathless wonder, you Daren flame-thrower,” I said, the smell of Singleton Park evergreens in my nostrils, whisky tingling my throat, fireworks coruscating against the summer stars, the customary gymnast toppling round and round on high goalposts, and Kate Vaughan recumbent under the bushes, violet-eyed Eve, charcoaled Ethiopian from Thelma Street offering Sioni-boy her bounty.

  Glancing up, I saw Ike Pomeroy leaning out of a bedroom window, directly above his wife almost edibly sun-suited in cherry red, bow-legged Atlanta supine on a white rubber airbed on the lawn. It was Saturday afternoon, every television set in the street showing the gritty-eyed heroes and heroines of Wimbledon.

  We’re all different, I thought. Different humans all over the place. It’s bloody agony.

  Mrs Thorpe was in the garden behind the bungalow, sunny mistress of her ethos plot, her arms, legs and centre parting tanned olive brown. The gladioli spired and flagged like standstill coloured flames, bees tippling amongst the sweetpeas, the moist black earth fading to dark, crimpy grey where she had hoed between rows of lettuces, dwarf beans, radishes, carrots.