Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  The pubs, which had opened at five that morning, as they did most mornings, to supply liveners to those badly in need of same, were already discharging into the gutters their first batch of drunks, those up-and-doing chaps who boasted that they were able to get drunk three times every holiday and twice every Sunday. It took some doing, getting drunk twice on a Sunday, for time was so limited, and a man had to bolt his beer in order to get his two drunks in, but on a holiday, or any weekday when the pit happened to be on stop or the furnaces were not going, a man could get his three drunks in comfortable without having to bolt his beer, for he had eighteen hours to do it in from when the pubs opened at five in the morning to when they closed at eleven at night; and the man who couldn’t get drunk three times in eighteen hours, ‘well, he’s not worth a damn’.

  The brothers, having completed their tour of inspection, were back in Pontmorlais, where they stood to watch broken-nosed Tom Duke and his Louisa, better known as ‘the Duchess’, coaxing their weather-beaten old Aunt Sally outfit on to its feet with the aid of string and a borrowed hammer. The brothers were only two of many who enjoyed watching and listening to the notorious pair, Tom Duke and his ‘Duchess’, when they turned show-people only on two holidays of the year, Whitsun and August Mondays; Tom worked as a carter for the rest of the year.

  He was an Englishman who had been left stranded in the district after the circus with which he had travelled around had left. He had been leading stake-driver and tent-packer; and whilst having an argument with one of the other circus workers he was hit in the face by a heavy stake swung carelessly by the other chap. He was in the infirmary when the circus packed up and moved on, and as nobody in that infirmary knew anything about nasal surgery Tom left there to talk through his nose with the minimum of intelligibility for the rest of his days. Being a strong fellow who was used to horses, he got himself a job as a carter and stayed on in the district where he met the loose and once lovely Louisa Westcott and married her. He was told enough, goodness knows, about Louisa, but marry her he did. There was only one black man in the district at the time, he came from God only knows where and got himself a job in the gasworks which few but he could or would do. Hard and dirty, it was, but the lone black man stuck it until it killed him. But that’s not the point. The point is that Tom Duke knew before he married Louisa that she had been guilty of consoling the black man in his loneliness. ‘Yes, a bloody black man,’ chaps told Tom. And yet he went and married her, though she was no longer lovely. They lived together after a fashion.

  And here they are cursing each other as they work on the erection of the Aunt Sally outfit, which eventually is declared open for business.

  ‘Now, where’s that box of cigars?’ cried Tom.

  Louisa handed him the box of three-a-penny cigars they had invested the last of their money in.

  ‘Good, now we can make a start.’ He and Louisa faced the world with three wooden balls in each hand. ‘Three balls a penny, three balls a penny,’ they shouted. ‘Every time you knock one of the old ladies down you get a cigar such as you’ve never had the pleasure of smoking before. So let ’em have it, gentlemen, for they have no friends or relations – ah, there’s another old lady on her back. Here you are, sir, the best cigar in town – give this gentleman fivepence change, Louisa….’

  They soon had an enthusiastic band of Aunt Sally slayers, Glyn and Dai amongst them, demanding penn’orths of ammunition. The brothers got one cheap cigar apiece in return for the energy and the shilling expended. Puffing at the cigars they promenaded the main street.

  ‘Well, what about that drink?’ Dai asked.

  ‘All right.’

  Into the crowded Black Cock they turned. Glyn pulled back as Dai was leading the way into the long bar, at the end of which the battle-scarred Harry was seated in the midst of admirers listening to Twm Steppwr playing ‘A Sailor Cut Down in his Prime’ on the concertina.

  ‘Here, let’s not go in there amongst that lot.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Dai.

  ‘Because if I do Harry’ll be bouncing pints out of me same as always. Come on, let’s go into the little room behind the bar.’

  ‘And miss the fun? Not I,’ said Dai, pushing his way into the bar.

  Glyn made his way along to the little room where he could sit and hear all that went on in the bar without being seen by Harry and the rest. And there he sat drinking ‘special’ at threepence a pint as he listened to Steppwr entertaining the company in the bar with those improvisations for which he was famous in a hundred townships of the five largest mining valleys. Glyn couldn’t refrain from smiling as he listened to the singer in the bar rendering his scandalous song-portraits, after each of which the company in the bar roared laughingly the seemingly innocent refrain:

  Did you ever see,

  Did you ever see,

  Did you ever see-ee

  Such a thing before?

  Then they listened for the next spicy verse; and how they relished his risky treatment of many absent and well-known characters; but there were many of those present who stopped laughing when this Welsh counterpart of François Villon completed his song-cycle dealing with absent ones and began looking around for subjects. By way of a start he fastened on the landlord’s huge belly and his lady’s spare frame and combined them in a manner so shocking as to cause even that hardboiled pair to protest and threaten to turn the singer out.

  ‘So let’s have less of that, please,’ said the irate landlady.

  ‘Oh, take your bloody gruel, woman,’ Harry shouted at her. ‘Take no bloody notice of her, Steppwr. Go on, let it rip.’

  Well, it was holiday time and everyone was spending freely, so the landlord and his lady ‘took their gruel’ and Steppwr’s jingling stream flowed on uninterrupted. There was a storm of applause when he at last sat down, and many there were who crowded towards him with tots, glasses, pints and quarts held out. ‘Here, take a swig out of this.’ And how sorry they all were when he announced that he was due to leave to keep his promise to play, sing and dance at the Blue Bell that afternoon.

  ‘Well, half a minute while I take my cap round,’ said Harry, glaring around. ‘Damn it all, isn’t he worth more than a sup of holiday beer? Of course he is; why, things would be as dead as mutton for us chaps as takes our drop of drink if it wasn’t for Steppwr and his sort. Too true it would. Some goes to the theatre, and many more goes to chapels to listen to people as are not half as well worth listening to as Steppwr is, and them people got to pay salty for listening.’ He placed a patronising hand on Steppwr’s shoulder. ‘Well, here’s our jester and musician, so let’s see what we can do for him. And none of your bloody ha’pennies, either.’

  He pushed the cap over the bar into the face of the landlord, who tossed sixpence into it. Next he held it before the landlady.

  ‘My husband’s given sixpence, hasn’t he?’ she cried.

  ‘But that’s not you; come on, fork out.’

  And fork out she had to before he would allow her to carry on serving the thirsty customers. Harry took the cap around, collecting, browbeating, and then returned to where Steppwr was seated.

  ‘Here you are, Steppwr,’ he said, emptying the money out of the cap into Steppwr’s cupped hands. ‘Mostly copper, worse luck, some of these chaps are afraid to part with a bit of silver.’

  ‘I’m satisfied, Harry.’

  ‘That’s not the thing; some of the bastards would have seen you go out without a copper. You could play, sing and dance till you dropped for some of ’em, and all you’d get from ’em would be the bottoms of their pints. Don’t I know the bastards.’

  ‘Yes, but we chaps got to work hard for our bits of silver,’ up and said one whose wife and her fancy lodger Steppwr had linked in a song in a way as left but little to the imagination.

  ‘And what the hell do you reckon Steppwr’s been doing for us?’ menacingly Harry asked. ‘Isn’t it work? Of course it is, you bloody melt. Maybe you think it’s easy? Right, I’ll tell yo
u what I’ll do. If you can play anything as’ll sound like a tune on his concertina, or make up two lines about anyone here in the bar, then I’ll stand drinks all round – and best beer at that. Come on, what about it?’ he growled, moving down on the chap with fists clenched.

  Goodness only knows what he’d have done to that poor chap had not his attention been diverted by a row in the jug-and-bottle, in the direction of which all eyes now turned, so the chap in danger from Harry seized the opportunity to sneak out of the pub and out of danger.

  ‘So this is where you are, you old cow, you,’ flat-nosed Tom Duke was shouting at someone in the jug-and-bottle. ‘Here, lapping it up as fast as I can shout it in, me out there shouting my lungs out. Get out to that stall, you drunken old sow, before I break…’

  ‘You’ll break nothing, you flat-nosed swine,’ Louisa was shouting. ‘If you dare raise your hand to me I’ll split you from ear to ear with this quart…’

  The landlord was on the spot shouting: ‘Now, come on, you two, out of it before I throw you out. I wanted my head tied for serving you,’ he told Louisa. ‘And see that neither of you ever comes anear my house again, always the same you two are. Every time I see that blasted Aunt Sally outfit of yours going up I know I’m in for trouble. Come on, out you go.’

  He had said sufficient to unite man and wife.

  ‘The man must be mad, Tom,’ in the refined manner she could put on when it suited her. ‘Isn’t our money as good as the next man’s, and can’t a man and his wife have a word to say to each other without such as you intruding? It’s come to something, Tom.’ Then she exploded. ‘As if we didn’t remember him coming to the place with the tail of his shirt hanging out through the arse of his trousers, and her, the big-sorted bugger as she is, without a shift to her back. And that’s the sort as now tries to ride the high horse. Come, Tom, let’s clear out of the damned hole to where we’re welcome.’

  She led the way out and back to the stall with head in air, and it was not until they had been back at the stall some time did Tom realise that he had been sidetracked from his grievance by becoming Louisa’s silent ally during her handling of the landlord.

  Glyn, having had by this time nearly as much threepenny ‘special’ as he could carry and stand up, was leaving the Black Cock when he ran into Steppwr in the passageway, who was leaving to fulfil his afternoon engagement at the Blue Bell.

  ‘Wait. Now listen, Steppwr,’ Glyn began ponderously, ‘I want a word with you. Mary – you know Mary’s up at our house?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Yes, and the shildren. Nice little shildrens. Pity for them. Ay, indeed. But – but they’re all right up our house.’

  ‘Of course they are.’

  ‘Yes; and remember you call for them on your way home tonight…. But tidy, remember. Tidy, like me.’

  Steppwr laughed: ‘Oh, like you.’

  ‘What the hell are you laughing at?’

  ‘Nothing, your worship. S’long, Glyn.’

  Glyn stood swaying in the entrance watching Steppwr pushing along the street with his concertina under his arm. Lord, that ‘special’ must have been stronger than usual, stronger even than that Scotch ale he had been knocked over by that time. And all he’d had of it was three pints. Better take a walk to clear the head. But where? Then he thought of Saran. An awkward wench if ever there was one. Yet there were few smarter gels about. Still, she had walked off and left him standing like a fool in the middle of the road after he had taken her to chapel, which few chaps would have done after the way she had simpled him before those chaps in the taproom of the Black Cock on the Saturday evening. Yet… well, he’d give her another chance.

  He started off to fetch her out. As he crossed the little bridge over the stinking brook, which was almost dry and stinking worse than ever, he saw her with the old woman her mother sitting on the low wall in front of the house.

  ‘Oh, Glyn,’ cried the old woman as soon as she saw him coming. ‘Have you seen my John anywhere?’

  ‘No. Seen Harry, in the Black Cock he is.’

  ‘It’s not Harry, but his brother John that I’m worrying about. He hasn’t been home all night; and Sergeant Davies the bobby been here after him today again,’ she concluded tearfully.

  ‘Oh, stop snivelling,’ snapped Saran, who hadn’t as much as looked at Glyn standing within a few feet of her.

  ‘Though it’ll be just as bad if Harry finds him,’ the old woman moaned.

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t have stolen Harry’s money,’ said Glyn judicially. ‘Serve him right if…’

  ‘It wasn’t your money he took,’ Saran flamed out. ‘The best thing you can do is to keep your mouth shut and go back where you came from.’

  ‘And I can, plenty of welcome there.’

  ‘Then go.’

  ‘Now, you two; isn’t there enough old rows without you two rowing again?’

  ‘Oh, let her alone,’ said Glyn, trying to look dignified and hurt at the same time, but only succeeding in looking ridiculous. ‘That’s what a man gets when he comes tidy and with money in his pocket to ask her to go for a walk.’

  ‘Go and put your hat on and go, Saran,’ advised her mother.

  ‘What for? To be left standing outside one pub after another whilst he slips in for bolters, and then have to lug him home, p’raps. Not I. Look at him, he’s three parts drunk already.’

  ‘I’m nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Go and put your hat on and go when he asks you,’ ordered the mother who had never known of a brickyard gel when ‘fetched’ by her young chap to refuse to go with him just because he had had a little drink.

  Saran looked Glyn over and afterwards stipulated: ‘Well, I don’t mind going with him if he has a good sluish under the tap and a strong cup of tea after to…’

  ‘I’ll see you in hell before…’

  ‘Now, Glyn bach, go on and swill your face under the tap – just to please her, that’s all. Here’s a towel – put your coat there on the wall. I’ll have a cup of tea ready by the time you’ve swilled.’

  ‘Well, being as you… but she needn’t damned well think that she can bounce me into…’

  ‘Certainly not, my boy. Go now,’ said Saran’s mother.

  But it was Saran that picked up his coat and brushed it long and lovingly whilst he was having a most sobering and refreshing sluish under the one water tap which served the twelve houses, and which was fastened to the wall somewhere about the middle of the row, opposite the one small ashpit and three closets which were shared by the twelve families.

  On returning to the house Glyn was made by Saran to drink two large cups of strong tea before she helped him on with his coat. Then they went out to town together.

  ‘Remember, if you see John, tell him whatever he does, to keep out of Harry’s way,’ Saran’s mother called after them.

  ‘Where are we going to?’ asked Glyn, as the sound of what the famous Cyfarthfa Brass Band was playing up in the Park where the Sports were about to begin was heard by them.

  ‘What say if we go to the Big Field Sports?’

  ‘As you like.’

  He bought tickets for the best part of the field, where he parked her on the grass to watch the sports whilst he dodged from one marquee to the other drinking beer and talking about how much work he could do and how much coal he had turned out in this working-place and that to chaps similarly disposed. Now and then he’d think of Saran sitting out there on the grass, and when he did he’d struggle with others for lemonade and sandwiches, thick ones, which Saran devoured with relish. Four sandwiches and two bottles of lemonade she had in all whilst watching the foot racing, pony racing and cycle racing, the latter by far the most exciting, Saran and the rest of those watching thought. There were world champions in the Penydarren Park riding cycles both single and tandem that day – and everybody said that the Cyfarthfa Band played lovely.

  Glyn managed to get back to where she was seated as the final of the pony race was being run, and in
an attempt to delude her into thinking that it was the sport he had mainly been interested in during the afternoon, he started shouting encouragement, to whom or what he knew not, as the ponies ridden by almost fleshless riders flashed by.

  ‘It’ll be time to go to the threeatre after we’ve had a cup of tea,’ said Saran as they were leaving the sports-field.

  ‘The theatre? Again?’

  ‘Yes, can’t miss tonight, for it’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin tonight, got real bloodhounds, the checker told me. And we’ll have to be there early to get a seat tonight.’

  ‘Oh, let’s go down the fairground instead?’

  ‘We could take a stroll down there after the threeatre, p’raps. Now, come on, be fair, Glyn. I sat up there all the afternoon by myself whilst you hopped from one marquee to the other meeting your pals and drinking with ’em. And if we don’t go to the threeatre it’ll be the same tonight, only it’s from pub to pub you’ll be hopping whilst I cool my heels on the pavement. Now, you know I’m not agen you having a drop of drink, but there’s a limit, you know.’

  ‘But I don’t like old plays, gel; and you know none of the chaps ever go there. Women and kids, that’s all.’

  ‘Is it, indeed, then how was it that I seen dozens of chaps there on Saturday night?’ she lied. ‘In any case, it’ll be better than sticking yourself in a pub all this night again. And there’s nothing to stop you going to get a drink between the acts.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  After more strong tea at Saran’s place they walked across to the little wooden structure dignified by the name of theatre, before the entrance of which a crowd was gathered.

  ‘There, didn’t I tell you?’ growled Glyn. ‘All women and kids, not a man among ’em.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there is,’ insisted Saran, pointing to two youths about fourteen years old. ‘Look at those two chaps. Where are you going?’ she asked as he moved away from the theatre down to the corner where stood a shop, Tom Hall’s, which was doing a roaring trade in nuts, oranges and sweets.