Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  ‘As you like about that.’

  ‘If I hadn’t asked you to get married…’

  ‘Nobody heard you, so don’t let that bother you. S’long.’

  ‘Wait. Now, Saran, simmer down so as we can talk sense. You don’t think Harry or Shoni will come back to this place again?’

  ‘If ever they do, then it’ll be after we’ve found a house of our own.’

  ‘If only I was sure of that I’d chance it.’

  ‘Oh, you’d chance it, would you? Here, if you’re wanting to get married, then only if you’re willing to live with my mother, who hasn’t got a soul to look to but me. Yes, I’m laying the law down now. Chance it, indeed.’

  ‘Now, don’t get nasty, Saran, for I was only thinking… but never mind. When shall we get married?’

  ‘As soon as you like if you’re willing to live with mother.’

  ‘Certainly I am. How about next Monday week?’

  ‘Yes, I think Mrs Cheshire’ll make me a dress ready by then; and I can give a week’s notice at the brickyard on Monday, though I could go on working there, for mam is still able to look to the house.’

  ‘When we’re married you’re not going anear the brickyard, for if I can’t keep my wife…’

  ‘All right, all right, I’m not all that struck on the brickyard.’

  Glyn clasped her to him and whispered: ‘Well, being as we’re going to get married so soon, how about…’

  ‘Stop it, can’t you see my mother in the doorway looking straight across here?’

  ‘Then let’s…’

  ‘And it would be just the same if she wasn’t. If you could keep from talking to me for nearly two years, surely you can wait another week before… stop it, I tell you.’

  He released her. ‘I was only teasing you,’ he said. ‘Will you tell your mother about us or….’

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell her, everything will be all right. I’m off in now. See you tomorrow night. S’long, Glyn.’

  ‘Good night.’

  It was Saturday afternoon, and Glyn and his brother Dai were hurrying along the underground roadway towards the pit bottom when they saw the gaffer discussing a Sunday repairing job with the deputy on the double parting.

  ‘Hadn’t you better tell him?’ said Dai.

  ‘You tell him for me. Go on, Dai.’

  ‘Hoy, gaffer,’ called Dai.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Me and Glyn won’t be here Monday.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s getting married.’

  ‘More damned fool him,’ said the gaffer.

  The brothers continued on their way towards the pit bottom.

  About the time they were on their way to the pit bottom Saran was standing in the line moving up to the pay office of the brickyard, where she was to draw her last week’s wages as a producer that day. When she got to the little window through which the eldest son of the boss was handing a pay envelope to each girl as she came up, she found that he had made up his mind to have his bit of fun before handing to her the pay envelope he held in his hand. He poked his head right through the little window-space and smiled up into her face.

  ‘Not until I wish you joy properly, Saran,’ said the young man, who often boasted that he had covered at least half the eighty girls his father employed.

  ‘Let’s have my money.’

  ‘Don’t be in a hurry, Saran, for this is our last goodbye, remember. I bet you’re looking forward to Monday night.’

  ‘Isn’t he a cough-drop?’ cried one of the girls, giggling.

  ‘Aren’t you looking forward to Monday night?’ he persisted.

  ‘And what if I am?’ said Saran.

  ‘Nothing; only this. If he happens to get too drunk to do his job properly, don’t forget to send for me, and I’ll be with you…’

  ‘Give the gel her money so as she can go, you damned young scamp as you are,’ shouted old Sophie Lewis from her place at the end of the line. ‘And if you really are hard up for somebody to go to bed with on Monday night, then come up and see me.’

  All the girls in the line laughed, for Sophie was the veteran brick handler, flat-footed, big-handed and ill-favoured generally, but the best friend to new hands as ever lived.

  ‘There’s your chance,’ said Saran as she snatched her pay envelope out of the hand of the boss’ son and moved off.

  ‘I’d rather go to jail,’ he laughed.

  Saran stopped just outside the gates and looked back into the yard where she had worked from the time she was little more than a child. She took it all in, the stacked bricks, the kilns, the tip of fresh clay, the coal for heating, the barrows and the rest. She tossed her hand-leathers into one of the barrows and hurried off, and as she walked she untied her red cloth hair-cover to allow her hair to hang free almost down to her waist. People who saw her wondered, a few thought she was drunk, for it was not considered decent for a brickyard girl to walk home from her work with her hair hanging down her back.

  The day of days, and Saran and her mother ready dressed waiting for Glyn and his brother Dai to call for them. The registry office was at the bottom end of the town, and Saran, in the dress made for her by Mrs Cheshire, the dressmaker, thought she was going to create a sensation as she walked down through the main street to get married, but when Glyn came with his brother Dai to fetch her and her mother he put paid to all that by insisting that they walk down along the old tramroad, because he was too bashful or not enough of a man to face the people to be met with on the street.

  So along the mucky tramroad she had to follow him in her nice new dress, and Glyn was congratulating himself on having dodged those who lay in wait for young men on their way to be married when he was spotted by Ianto Roberts, who hurried to tell some other chaps, one of whom ran into the house to get a rope, with which they waited outside the registry office for Glyn and Dai and Saran and her mother to come out.

  A sour old man who filled his nostrils with ‘High Dry’ snuff soon married them and afterwards hurried them out to face Ianto Roberts and the other chaps who were holding the rope across the entrance to the office. Ianto and the other chaps wished them joy before Ianto cried; ‘Come on, fork out the price of some beer so as we can drink your health, Glyn.’ So Glyn forked out. Five shillings he handed to Ianto, who invited the young couple, Dai and Saran’s mother to come and have just one in the Three Salmon before proceeding home. Glyn’s mouth was dry, and he was also anxious to get somewhere under cover.

  ‘All right, just one.’

  Once inside the little back room of the Three Salmon Glyn was a different man. Out there on the street he had felt, so he now said, as though he were part of ‘a damned peeping-show’. Now…

  ‘And what are the ladies going to have? What’s the blushing bride and her mother going to have?’ Ianto Roberts wanted to know.

  A ginger beer apiece was all they would take, and they sat silent in a corner whilst the men settled down to business. How quick that first five shillings went on beer, but what was five shillingsworth when shared among so many? Not an eyeful apiece. So Glyn and Dai forked out another half-crown apiece for more beer, and that again was nearly all consumed when who should walk in but Twm Steppwr with his concertina.

  ‘Ah, now we’re right,’ cried Ianto, ‘now we can celebrate properly. Is there a drink left in that quart for Steppwr? No, I’m damned if there is. Here, what about some more beer, Glyn?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the now most jolly Glyn, tossing a gold coin on to the counter. ‘And we’ll have a song now that Steppwr’s with us.’

  Steppwr was over in the far corner wishing Saran joy. ‘I’d have been with you before this, but I’ve been over the Rhondda for the weekend, to see whether Harry was fixed up all right…’

  ‘And is he?’ asked the mother.

  ‘As right as rain.’

  ‘And what part of the Rhondda is he at?’ asked Saran.

  ‘He’s… he’s where he can be got at when he’s wanted.�
��

  ‘Is he working, and is he behaving himself down there?’

  ‘Come on and drink this, and then let’s have a tune and a song,’ said Ianto Roberts as he crossed over to where Steppwr was talking to the two women of the party. Steppwr took the pint and emptied it down his throat. ‘Damn, I wanted that,’ he said as he pushed his hands under the concertina straps and fingered the keys lovingly. ‘Well, what’ll you have?’ he asked. Anything, they weren’t particular. So he played, sang and danced as the other men drank, joked and laughed.

  ‘They’re spending fine,’ Saran whispered to her mother.

  ‘Now, I’ll sing you a song,’ shouted Glyn. ‘Can you play “Let Me Like a Soldier Fall”, Steppwr?’

  ‘He can play any damned thing,’ said Ianto.

  So Glyn sang that one for a start, and afterwards gave them ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’ as an encore, and as he sang he looked straight across to where Saran was sitting with her mother in the corner.

  ‘I wish to God he would take me home,’ Saran said in a whisper to her mother. Dai was now about to sing. ‘But by the look of things it’s me as’ll have to take him home.’

  All the men were at least three parts drunk leaving the Three Salmon, and Saran suggested going back to the house the way they had come from there earlier in the day, along the old tramroad, but Glyn wanted to know what the hell was the matter with her, was she ashamed to let the whole town know that they were man and wife? She followed, walking arm in arm with her mother, her husband, as he swaggered through the main street with Dai on his left and Steppwr on his right, acknowledging congratulations and accepting invitations to wet the wedding, the bride and her mother waiting on the pavement outside the pubs they were pressed to enter. ‘If we go in with them the chances are that they’ll settle down again same as they did in the Three Salmon,’ said Saran as she waited outside pub after pub with her mother. By the time they reached the Lord Nelson the old woman could stand about no longer, so she went on home, where Marged had been waiting hours to serve at the modest feast she had helped to prepare for the party and a few selected neighbours. So Saran was left alone to pilot her husband home.

  He condescended to go home with her about two o’clock in the afternoon, at which time he was badly in need of her as helper. With an arm around her neck and his feet dragging he sang as she, smiling like a Cheshire cat to hide her annoyance, kept him on his feet along the short stretch from the Lord Nelson to the house.

  ‘Here we are, Marged,’ he cried.

  ‘About time, too. Here, lower him into this armchair, Saran. There you are…. Where did you leave young Dai?’

  ‘He’s toshing like hell f’pints in the Nelson. Have to wash him, I will, or he’ll lose all his money. He had two pounds – same as me – starting out this morning. Lose all… but not if I know it. After him soon’s I’ve had a bit of… here, what about a bit of food, Saran?’

  ‘Come on, look after your husband, gel,’ laughed a neighbour.

  They all sat down to belly-pork and other delicacies, of which Glyn ate a bellyful before he went back to the Lord Nelson to see how his brother and the others whom he had left there were getting on, so Saran saw no more of him that day. After a quiet tea with her mother and old Marged she went for a walk down the street and bought a nice pipe for her Glyn. It was seven o’clock in the evening when she returned home.

  ‘Hasn’t he come yet?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ said her mother.

  ‘You won’t see him until stop-tap,’ said Marged.

  ‘Then I think I may as well go to the threeatre. What about you two?’

  No, felt too tired, did the two old women, so off Saran went on her own, and she enjoyed herself grand, for it was The Moor of Venice that night, in which her favourite actor, Mr Cavendish, played the man who kills his wife on the bed, and by the time he smote himself Saran had ceased to think of her brand-new husband. But when the play was quite over and she was pulling her shawl over her shoulders she happened to notice her wedding ring. ‘Must be nearly stop-tap now,’ she murmured.

  She got home to find her mother alone.

  ‘Where’s Marged?’ she asked.

  ‘Gone this good bit.’

  ‘Glyn hasn’t come yet?’

  ‘No, but he can’t be long now, for it’s gone stop-tap,’ The old woman laughed. ‘P’raps he’s forgotten by now that he was married this morning, and gone to his old home as usual.’

  ‘Not him,’ said Saran confidently. ‘Any of those chitterlings left?’

  ‘In that plate on the shelf. There, right before your eyes, gel. Ah, well, I think I’ll go to my bed. Listen. Isn’t that him now?’

  Saran went and stood in the doorway to listen to a singer who was staggering along towards where she stood.

  I love my share of pleasure,

  And I’ll have it while I can.

  I love the honest woman

  That loves an honest man,

  he was singing.

  ‘Yes, that’s him,’ said Saran.

  ‘Seems happy enough.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not blackguardish in his drink like some are.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’m off to bed.’

  ‘See that I don’t oversleep in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll watch that; and mind you don’t leave his working-clothes or boots about the floor in case the rats come up from the brook same as they did that time they ate the tops of Harry’s boots – or was it Shoni’s – one of ’em, I know. Hang his clothes and boots on the line above the fireplace. We’ll be bound to get another dog. Good night.’

  Saran was watching the approaching singer, smiling fondly she was, as she stood framed in the doorway. When about ten yards distant from her the singer stopped and looked about as though trying to locate the house.

  ‘Here you are, you old silly,’ called Saran.

  He saw her, stumbled forward into her arms and clung to her.

  ‘Oh, my lovely gel,’ he oozed wetly.

  ‘Come on in so as I can shut the door,’ she said.

  The hooters had started blaring their message at five o’clock regardless of the feelings of the scores of thousands they were calling to their work in pit, works, foundry and brickyard. Caring nothing for the joys and sorrows of those whom they roused each morning, the hooters shrieked loud and long the call to work. It was the same call, though the notes varied from the powerful bass note of the Dowlais works hooter to the sweeter tenor note of the Field pit hooter. When they all startled the district for the first time each morning at five o’clock, thousands of women would swivel out of their beds, slip something on and hurry down to living rooms to make things nice and cosy, or as cosy as things could be made, before they went upstairs again to timidly shake their breadwinners awake. And from five to seven o’clock each morning the hooters kept blaring at intervals of fifteen minutes. ‘Come on, hurry up, hurry up,’ they kept on blaring.

  For many years those hooters had hurried Saran to the brickyard, but their reign of tyranny was at last over as far as she was personally concerned, though they still had, through the man who had undertaken to be her breadwinner, a firm hold on her. So at five o’clock in the morning following her wedding day they made her rise from her place in the bed at Glyn’s side, slip on a petticoat and hurry downstairs, where she soon got the place ready for her man.

  ‘Glyn,’ she called, standing at the side of the bed looking down on him. ‘Come on, Glyn, it’s nearly quarter past five. Come on, wake up.’

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, at first as though he were looking at a complete stranger, and later resentfully. Then he looked up at the ceiling as he began moving his tongue about in his head and champing his jawbones in an effort to loosen his sticky mouth, and sat up in bed with his head in his hands.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll go to the pit today,’ he said after a while, lying back in the bed again.

  Saran had expected him t
o say that. ‘Oh, and after I’ve been down and got everything ready. Come on, Glyn; you know how people will talk a lot of old nonsense if you stay away from the pit today. So come on downstairs and see how you feel after you’ve had a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘Tea, be damned.’ He sat up in bed again. ‘Any beer in the house?’

  ‘No; if I’d known…’

  ‘Then is there any vinegar here?’

  ‘What do you want vinegar for?’

  ‘I’m asking if there’s any here.’

  ‘Yes, there’s a pint of vinegar in the pantry, Saran,’ her mother called from her bed.

  Glyn got up and made a livener of vinegar and water. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said after he had swallowed about a pint of the biting mixture. Then as he started to dress for work: ‘In future, see that you have a drop of beer in ready for mornings after holidays, and never forget that I expect my pint of beer to be ready for me on the table every night when I get home from work.’

  ‘All right,’ said Saran, handing him his things. She had her own views about beer in the mornings, but she also had more sense than to argue the point with a man when getting him off to work. ‘Remember, whatever he says, a man is always right – in the morning,’ her mother had often told her. Saran remembered, and soon Glyn went off cheerfully to his work, and after he had gone Saran sat down and breakfasted in leisurely fashion, and whilst at breakfast she thought of those girls then on their way to the brickyard, and to think of them made her feel ever so happy. She took a cup of tea up to her mother as she was going back to her bed for a long sleep, a longer sleep than she had ever had on a working day. She lay in bed thinking of her Glyn earning ever so much money in the pit, and it was of that she was thinking when sleep overtook her.

  But on that day Glyn earned not a penny for himself or his Saran. Not him, though he had descended the pit intending to work like blazes, as he usually did. When he got to the lamp-station below ground he was annoyed to find that his brother Dai was not among those assembled there awaiting the deputy’s ‘all clear’. Dai’s absence caused him to suffer additional leg-pulling during the short wait for the deputy, and when he arrived and learnt that Dai had not turned up he managed to raise another laugh by saying: ‘Let’s see, was it you or Dai went and got married yesterday?’ Glyn pushed by him with the laughter of his workmates ringing in his ears. ‘This bloody getting married,’ he was muttering as he turned into his working-place. Soon he was, but for a gauze-like singlet, stripped to the waist and shedding all discomfiture and a deal of sweat in the hard-end of his working-place, the end where the air was none too much or too good. He was hewing away when he heard a shout from the working-place above.