Thicker Than Water

by Bethan Darwin

  “If we just dig deep enough?” Cassandra teases.

  “Something like that. So where did this idea of setting up in the Valleys come from? Did your family come from Wales originally?”

  “No, although that would have been neat wouldn’t it? Girl with Welsh roots rides back into town with a high falutin’ business plan to help her kinsmen and women back into work. Like something out of the movies. I’m actually Ukrainian originally. My parents were both very young when their families arrived in Hamilton, which is a big steel town, a city now, in fact, about an hour’s drive east of Toronto. There are lots of Ukrainian Canadians all over Canada and we have a history of marrying within our community. One of my grandfathers ran a small dry-cleaning shop – he did minor clothing alternations too – and did pretty well at it, even though he never really fully mastered English. In his eighties, before he died, he forgot whatever English he’d had and reverted to speaking only Ukrainian. He was lucky there is such a strong Ukrainian community – there were plenty of people who could speak to him.”

  “Can you speak Ukrainian?”

  “Very little, just enough to communicate with a grandfather suffering from dementia. Just enough to feel desperately sorry about Ukraine’s current political situation. I am glad for my grandfather that he is not around to have to see it.”

  “Is Taylor your married name? Doesn’t sound very Ukrainian?”

  “I’ve never been married. Not yet anyway. My family name is Sukmonowski. After 18 years of Fuckmonowski and Suckmycockski jokes I legally changed my name. Taylor was the name of the girl who bullied me most at High School. That really Fuckmonowski’d her off, I can tell you.”

  Gareth giggles, a little nervously.

  “There you go,” Cassandra throws up her arms in mock indignation. “My old name makes even fully grown lawyers titter. Anyway, I have no idea why I’m telling you all this. It’s not something I usually share with people I’ve just met.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gareth smiles, “legal privilege. I promise not to tell anyone your deep dark secret.”

  She summons the bill from the waiter.

  “Let me get it,” Gareth offers.

  “Not at all. You were all my guests. It’s my shout, I insist.”

  As she keys in her credit card number, she asks the waiter to organise a taxi to the station. They finish their coffee, promising each other heads of terms and fee quotes within the next 24 hours. When she leaves, she does not shake his hand but reaches her face to his cheek and instinctively he turns his face towards her and her kiss lands gently on the corner of his mouth. She breathes in sharply. They pull away, both a little startled. And then she’s gone.

  Gareth has to sit down suddenly then. He is not used to feeling this way at all. It is something he has not felt for almost twenty years. Attraction to someone other than his wife.

  Chapter 4

  August 1926

  Idris Maddox is at the top of Clydach Vale mountain, checking his rabbit traps. He doesn’t bother to look down at the pit heads standing idle or further away at the Institute, full of men sitting around reading books and newspapers or doing even more choir or band practice because there is nothing else to do.

  He focuses solely on his rabbit traps. He has them set up in a dozen or more places, spread far and wide over the mountain, carefully hidden behind tussocks of grass. He moves them often because rabbits aren’t as stupid as they look and eventually get wise, and also because men who stumble upon the location of his traps won’t think twice about taking his kill home to their hungry families.

  The first four traps he checks are empty but then he has a spate of good luck and by the time he has checked them all, he has seven fat rabbits to take home. His Mam will use some of them to make stews, with onions, potatoes and herbs from her garden. Some she will use to barter with the neighbours for eggs or a stringy chicken too old to lay. And some she will give away to families with nothing to put on their tables.

  It’s good he’s managed to trap as many rabbits as he has. It will put his mother in a better mood when he tells her his news. She’s not going to like what he has done but he’s made up his mind now and there’s no going back. He’s been delaying telling the family, knows they will be upset and angry with him, but he can’t put it off any longer. There are lots of things he has to do before he goes, not least of which is teaching his twin brother Tommy how to trap rabbits. That’s going to take some time. Tommy hates killing anything. Doesn’t mind eating it though.

  The sun is starting to sink down into the valley by the time Idris turns into the terraced street where he and his parents live, the bag of rabbits over his shoulder getting heavy and uncomfortable. He enters the very last house in a row of identical houses, slings the bag on the kitchen table, and walks straight out the back where he knows he will find his mother, Gwen, tending to her garden.

  He stands by the back gate for a while and watches her work, crouched down next to a bed of carrots, weeding with great determination. The garden is narrow, like all the other gardens in the street, but this particular street backs onto the mountain and over the years his mother has stealthily extended her garden beyond its fences and over onto the mountain itself. Every available inch of space is used to grow food. There are pots everywhere stacked carefully to provide greater growing space and beans and peas are planted along the fences. In the stolen mountain sections of her garden Gwen grows potatoes, carrots and onions.

  The only flowers she grows are round the privy, five or six different colours of rose that she has trained to grow right over the roof. Gwen says it’s the only place she ever gets five minutes sit down to herself so it might as well look pretty and smell as good as it can.

  She senses she is being watched, straightens up and turns to smile at him, her hand immediately going to the small of her back to knead her tired muscles.

  “How did you get on?”

  “Seven big ’uns waiting for you on the kitchen table. You’ll be making stew all day tomorrow.”

  Gwen smiles in pleasure and relief.

  “Good boy. Will you help me with this weeding?”

  Idris groans. “Mam! You know how much I hate gardening.”

  “Of course. You tell me on a daily basis. But someone’s got to do it. Come on now – hard work never killed anyone.”

  For once, Idris doesn’t complain further and kneels down next to his mother.

  “What are you trying to do boy? Climb into my lap? Go and work over there a bit, I’ve done most of this.”

  “I need to talk to you, Mam.”

  Gwen goes immediately still, steels herself for a few seconds, then asks, “What have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything Mam. For once. No soapboxes, no fighting, and no chance of getting drunk when no one’s had any money since the strike to eat, let alone go drinking.”

  “So what is it then?”

  “I’m moving away.”

  “What do you mean moving away? Where is there to move to? You moving in with Tommy and Maggie? ”

  “Canada, Mam. I’m going to Canada.”

  “You’re teasing me now, aren’t you? This is some sort of joke – isn’t it?”

  “No Mam, I’m dead serious. I’m leaving as soon as I can – in a couple of weeks. Canadian department of colonisation says it needs people to move to Canada. Farmers, miners, domestic workers – as many people as possible. It’s a big country to fill and not many people in it. Chap from the Canadian government says there’s plenty of work for everyone.”

  “And how are you planning on paying your fare?”

  “Something called the Empire Settlement Act means I’ll get over half of it paid for me, rest I’ve just about got saved. So long as I leave as soon as possible.”

  There are tears in Gwen’s eyes as it starts to sink in that her son is not teasing. Not teasing at all.

  “Have you told Tommy? Or your Dad?”

  “No, Mam, just you so far.”

 
“Why do you want to go Idris? What is there in Canada for you that you can’t get here?” Gwen knows the answer to this question but asks it anyway.

  “Mam, the strike achieved nothing. Absolutely nothing. A general strike that lasted all of a fortnight. Took just 10 days for the TUC to sell us miners down the river. You know as well as I do that just about every family in these valleys has been starved to breaking point. No one wants to have to rely on soup kitchens any more. The miners have no choice but to go back to work – for less money and longer hours. They’ve started going back already. They’ll all be back before Christmas, I wager. I don’t blame them for that but I can’t do it. I won’t. I refuse to work for the owners again and I can’t live here and watch Tommy and Dada go back to work neither. I don’t have any choice.”

  Gwen’s head is bent now, tears dripping into her lap, her shoulders shaking slightly. She knows her son, better than he knows himself. She knows he is telling the truth and that he can’t go back to work and she also knows that the trickle of miners returning to work will soon be a flood. She wipes her tears away fiercely, lifts her head high to face her boy.

  “You’ll tell your father tonight then?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “And Tommy?”

  “Going to tell them both at the same time. Maggie too. They come here for their tea on Wednesdays.

  “It’s going to break your brother’s heart, you know?”

  “Tommy’ll be fine. He’s got Maggie. They’ll be starting a family of their own any time soon. He’s not going to be lonely.”

  *

  As anticipated, Thomas Maddox grows angry when his son tells him his news.

  “How dare you Idris! How dare you! Make a decision of this sort without regard to me and your mother.”

  “Dada, I’m 21. Tommy’s been married over a year. I’m not a boy anymore.”

  His father doesn’t have a lot to say to that. At 21 he’d been married himself, with Idris and Tommy on the way.

  “Cambrian miners don’t run away from our battles, son. We stand together, shoulder to shoulder. That’s what we did in 1910, even after Churchill sent the troops in, and that’s what we’ll do now.”

  “The miners went back to work in 1911 Dada and that’s what they’ll do this time too.”

  “But we’re your family, Idris. You know no one in Canada. Nobody.”

  “Just like you knew nobody when you set out from north Wales and walked all the way south to find work in the pits. You’ve been telling us that story since we were tiny – how you walked thirty miles or more a day, knocking on doors on the way, offering to milk cows or patch fences in return for a meal and a bed for the night. And you did find work, and you met Mam, had me and Tommy, made a life. I’m going to do what you did. Put one foot in front of the other till they lead me somewhere.”

  Thomas Maddox says nothing for a while. Eventually, in a tired voice, he says, “We’re going to struggle without the rabbits.”

  “I’m going to teach Tommy how to do it. It’s not difficult.”

  “Tommy, try and talk some sense into your brother will you? He can’t desert his family like this.”

  “He’s not deserting anyone. He’s making a choice. He’s a grown man. I’m going to miss him every day he’s gone but I’m not going to stop him from leaving. I respect his decisions.” Tommy’s voice is wobbly with emotion. He doesn’t want his brother to go, but he also knows things will be easier when he has gone. And it won’t be so difficult going back to work if Idris isn’t here to see.

  *

  Idris knows that Maggie will find a way to talk to him alone. He doesn’t expect that it will be at the top of the mountain, even though she knows all his favourite places up there. He had expected it to be somewhere safe, probably at his mother’s house. Her creeping out to sit next to him while he has a cigarette after tea, some excuse about putting peelings in the compost or putting ash from the fire in the ash bins. But here she is, broad as daylight, striding towards him over the tussocky grass of Clydach Vale mountain. He enjoys watching her walk, her long strides, tall and strong legged. Tommy and he were fifteen before they grew taller than Maggie. Before they could beat her in an arm wrestle.

  “You don’t have to go,” is the first thing she says to him. She’s angry with him and Idris can feel it, like heat rising from her body. Her cheeks are pink from the climb and her dark brown hair is loose around her shoulders.

  “I do Maggie. I do. “

  “Not because of me you don’t.”

  “I’m not going because of you.”

  “That’s how it feels.”

  “You are one of the few things that could keep me here. Despite being married to my brother. Despite having to see you every day playing happy families.”

  “We are a happy family. I wouldn’t have married him if that wasn’t the case.”

  “Really Mags, when you couldn’t choose between us for the longest time? When you can’t tell us apart in the dark.”

  “I can tell you apart. Eyes open or eyes shut I can tell you apart. You might look exactly the same but you smell differently and you think differently and you kiss differently.”

  “Kiss differently? Is that what we’re calling it now?”

  “There’s no need to be uncouth, Idris. Since I married Tommy there’s not even been kissing with you.”

  “And don’t I know it. Not with you and not with anyone else either. You know what Maggie? I’m starting to think it was a good thing this strike was a failure because it’s giving me the kick up the arse I needed to move thousands of miles away. Where no one knows I’ve been in love with my brother’s wife since I was a little boy.”

  “Come sit down with me, Idris.”

  Without discussing it, they walk across to a spot they used to go to a lot when they were younger. A heap of rocks, some of them flat. The rocks provide protection from the wind and some privacy. They sit down next to each other, close enough to touch.

  First Maggie lets her knee rest against his and then she reaches over and rests her hand on the back of Idris’ neck. He tries to move away at first but eventually relaxes. After a little while, she starts to rub his neck ever so gently.

  “Can you be persuaded to stay?’

  “No.”

  “Please, I really don’t want you to go. Nothing will ever be the same again without you.”

  “I don’t want things to be the same.”

  “Then in that case, I have a favour to ask. A big one.”

  Idris says nothing, waits for her to continue.

  “Tommy can’t make babies.”

  “Don’t talk rubbish. How can you know that? You’ve not been married long. Give the man a chance.”

  “He can’t Idris.” She pauses, not wanting to hurt Idris with the detail but needing to say it anyway. “We’ve been trying hard – ever since the wedding – and nothing has happened.”

  Idris flinches. “And what has this got to do with me?”

  “I need you to lie with me Idris. I want a baby. But that’s not going to happen with Tommy and a baby from you will look just like a baby from him.”

  “Are you insane Maggie! I can’t do that to Tommy! He’s my brother.”

  “That’s precisely why I am asking you. Please Idris. For me and Tommy. And your Mam and Dad. In a couple of weeks you’ll be gone. It’s now or never. No one will ever know. It’s not as if it’s something you’ve not done before.”

  “I don’t know Maggie. It was different before you married Tommy. Before then we knew you went with both of us but we never talked about it, never even mentioned it. I told you if you married him all of that between you and me would have to stop. And it did. You’re my sister-in-law now, Maggie, and it’s just wrong.”

  Maggie gets up and kneels in front of Idris, holding his hands in both hers so that he can’t get up and stride away.

  “Do you know how hard it was to choose between you?” she asks.

  “Wouldn’t k
now,” Idris says gruffly. “I didn’t get to do the choosing. You were the one got to do that.”

  “I didn’t want to have to choose. I loved you both. You were the one that turned it into a contest.”

  “I didn’t turn it into any contest, Maggie, and you know it. I said you needed to pick one of us. So that the other one could try and find someone else and have a proper life. It was fine for you, of course, you always had one of us at your side. But it wasn’t fine for whichever one of us wasn’t with you. We didn’t have you and we didn’t have each other either. We might not have talked about it, but it was killing us both. And you picked Tommy – the nicer, gentler, one – not me, and there it is.”

  “It wasn’t as simple as that, Idris Maddox, and you know it. Tommy didn’t give me an ultimatum and tell me I needed to pick – he said he loved me and worshipped me and asked me to marry him so that he could look after me till the day he died. And I knew he meant every word of it and that I’d always be top of the list as far as Tommy is concerned. I picked the one who asked me to marry him rather than tell me I needed to make a choice between you. You have an anger in you Idris, a restlessness, that appeals to me because I recognise a little of it in myself. It’s that fire in your belly that has made you so forceful in your support for this strike. It’s what drives you out of the house to traipse around this mountain all hours of the day and night. But it doesn’t make for a calm marriage. Tommy’s steady and he’ll keep me steady too.”

  “Then you picked the right one for you, didn’t you Maggie? And the brother you picked should be the father of your babies.”

  “I did make the right choice Idris but I miss you so much it can floor me sometimes, like I’ve been barged over with longing for you. I sleep every night next to someone who looks just like you, is every bit as beautiful as you, but he doesn’t do things like you did them and that just makes me miss you more.”

  Idris looks at Maggie kneeling in front of him, holding on tightly to his hands. He misses her and he wants her and he hates her all at the same time.

  “What makes you think that if Tommy can’t make babies, I can?”