Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  ‘And I know who put Sergeant Daniels to watch my place,’ said the landlord after everybody with the exception of Harry and Steppwr had been cleared out of the place. ‘It’s that Lewis, the Black Lion, the… oh, there’s a dirty hound of a man, if ever there was one. And do you know what, Steppwr? I’ve known that place full on a Sunday – chapel-time at that – and I’ve never as much as opened my mouth to a soul. But he…’

  ‘Never mind him now,’ said his wife. ‘Let Harry and Steppwr and these helpers have a bit to eat so as they can go home to their beds.’

  ‘Ay, come on, boys. They can’t summon me for giving my friends and helpers a bit to eat. Now, eat hearty, Steppwr, for if ever a man earned a good meal, then you did tonight. Oh, there’s the suit; the wife brought it down to air, for I haven’t worn it since we buried the landlord of the Rose and Crown. And there’s one of my best shirts and collars to go with it. Yes, we’ll turn you out like a gentleman, Harry.’

  ‘Yes, he’ll be all right,’ said Steppwr. ‘All right except at the top and at the bottom.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked the landlord.

  ‘Well, look at those old slaps he’s wearing on his feet – and look at this cap. Spoil the look of your good clothes, they will.’

  ‘Of course they will,’ cried the landlord, rejoicing inwardly as he thought of the night’s takings, and disposed to be generous. ‘But we’ll soon fix him up. Where’s those ’lastic-side boots I had done up a week ago, missus; and that bowler hat of mine? Bring the two, the old one and the new one, and let’s see which fits him best.’ The new one fitted him best.

  Williams the undertaker was screwing the lid of the coffin down and the four chaps who were entrusted with the ticklish task of carrying it down that narrow awkward stairway under Glyn’s supervision were standing by in readiness; and it was a bit of a mess, for what with the two beds in the one room, and now the coffin, and Saran and her two babies still in the biggest of the two beds… Glyn wanted the coffin left downstairs, and then carry the old woman down into it, but Saran wouldn’t have that. Had the upstairs window been a bit bigger – oh, more than a bit – one of the chaps was thinking when suddenly a well-dressed man appeared in their midst.

  ‘Harry,’ cried Saran.

  ‘Wait a minute, Williams, before you screw her down. Just one look, if you please.’

  Williams let him have a look, after which he went to sit on the side of Saran’s bed near the head, where he buried his face in his hands and cried, but not loud. Saran was crying a little too. The four chaps waiting to carry the body downstairs took stock of Harry’s fine clothes and wondered where he had got them from before they started up-ending the coffin to get it downstairs. Saran didn’t look once the coffin passed her bed, neither did Harry, but if they had they would have seen their mother’s body up-ended, turned on its side and goodness knows what all before the chaps managed to get it downstairs and out of the house.

  ‘These houses weren’t built for people to die in,’ remarked Williams the undertaker to Glyn as he wiped his brow. ‘Neither are they fit for people to live in,’ he added. Glyn didn’t answer, for the reason that he could hardly trust himself to speak now that Harry had turned up. Fancy having to walk right through the town and all the way to Cefn – for he hadn’t been able to hire a hearse, much as Saran had pressed – right behind the body with Harry, of all people, at his side; and not knowing the minute the police would stop the funeral and take Harry right from his side. Where had he got that suit from? It was a better suit than he, Glyn, ever hoped to be able to wear, he was thinking as he and Harry fell in behind the body and four of the hundred and odd chaps as had turned up to the funeral took the first turn at carrying the old woman to her last resting-place, nearly four miles away. Anyway, she was only a handful. Glyn and Harry, being chief mourners, didn’t carry, just walked behind the coffin. A nice little funeral it was, though not what the neighbours considered was ‘a lovely funeral’, for as there was neither hearse nor wreaths of flowers it could not properly be described as ‘a lovely funeral’; besides, there was no choir of any sort to sing her on her way, and that again reduced it in importance as an event. Still, it was a nice little funeral for an old woman who was hardly known beyond the row in which she had lived.

  As she was being carried through Pontmorlais Square Harry happened to raise his head – and who do you think? Standing in the middle of the square was Sergeant Davies and the young policeman whom Harry had flattened out in the Owen Glyndwr that time.

  ‘That chap walking next to the coffin looks something like that Harry,’ said the young policeman to his superior. ‘But it can’t be him, dressed as well as that.’

  ‘It’s Harry right enough,’ said Sergeant Davies quietly, looking after the procession. The young policeman closed his mouth with a snap, put his chin-strap tidy and was about to make a dash for Harry. ‘Wait, don’t be in a hurry,’ said the sergeant. ‘We’ll have him, but not before he’s on his way back. Let the funeral go on some little distance, then we’ll follow on.’

  And that’s how it was, and Harry knew that it was so as he walked the miles to Cefn behind his mother. Anyway, he was allowed by Sergeant Davies to pay his respects properly to his old mother before Sergeant Davies and the young policeman who had it in for Harry stopped him as he was coming back out through the cemetery gates. And even then they didn’t make an old show of him, for Sergeant Davies was a decent man who had known Harry’s mother since he was a boy, so he just said: ‘Hullo, Harry. Come on in the Cefn Hotel and have a drink, will you?’ And in Harry went, into a back room with the two policemen. ‘Well?’ he said. Sergeant Davies called drinks, but the landlord wouldn’t let him pay for them. ‘No, you’re having them with me,’ he said. After they had finished their drinks Harry said to the two policemen: ‘Well, I’ve had the sugar, eh, Sergeant, and I’m to have the shite when you get me into the cell, I suppose. Well, you can do what you bloody well like with me now that I’ve been let follow the old woman without shaming her.’

  ‘You needn’t be afraid of that, Harry.’

  ‘I’m not afraid. No bloody fear; if I’m to have a poultice in the cell, then I can take it.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be spared that if you go quietly with us. I suppose you know that we could have had you without walking these miles for you, know that we could have taken you out of the funeral as it was passing through Pontmorlais Square?’

  ‘Yes, I thought you saw me; I won’t forget you for that, Sergeant. Well, I’m ready…. Oh, these clothes don’t belong to me, so if you’ll let me change into my old ones as we’re passing by where Steppwr lodges he’ll be able to take them back to the Rhondda to the man as was good enough to lend me them.’

  The sergeant was agreeable, and after he had changed into his old clothes Harry was taken to the police station, and the following day he was committed to the Assizes, and everybody said that he was lucky to get off with only twelve months’ hard labour; most people expected that he would have had more than that for flattening out a bobby and a bartender, and robbing the beer and whisky, to say nothing of the breakages and the flying kick in the arse he gave the landlord. Anyway, twelve months was all he got.

  CHAPTER 7

  A NICE BROTHER-IN-LAW HE IS

  Though she was still washing her latest baby every morning, it was only on Sunday mornings that Saran washed her three babies in the tub before the fire. She had at last succeeded in weaning the eldest, and it was high time she did, for he was walking as straight as a line by now, and when he sucked at her he certainly made her supply of milk, and she had a good supply of splendid milk, but he made it look small, so it was time she weaned him. And by the look of him on the Sunday morning it was high time she bathed him as well. But there, he was running and crawling about all over the place….

  Glyn was dressing to go up as far as his old home to see his brother Dai, as he did most Sunday mornings.

  ‘About time our Harry was out of jail, isn’t it?
’ said Saran as she lifted a dripping baby out of the tub and proceeded to dry it.

  ‘He is out – this good while,’ snapped Glyn, who hadn’t by a long way got over Saturday night’s booze-up.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Steppwr.’

  ‘Hm, the time’s not gone; p’raps he got time off for good conduct.’

  ‘Good conduct? Him?’ Glyn laughed sneeringly.

  ‘You never know… keep still,’ she told the squirming baby on her lap. Then to Glyn: ‘Anyway, you might have told me that he was out.’

  ‘Why should I bother my head about the swine?’

  ‘Well, he’s my brother; and your brother-in-law, isn’t he?’

  ‘Ay, worse luck, and a nice brother-in-law he is.’

  ‘He’s as good as your brother-in-law, that Steppwr, any day.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t have to pay to bury Steppwr’s mother.’

  ‘No; but you had to pay to bury Steppwr’s wife and children.’

  ‘Is that any bloody business of yours?’

  ‘It is when you talk about burying my mother; though you didn’t go short of beer to pay for her coffin. It was me and the children had to go short to pay that off…. And let me tell you now. If you play the same trick another Saturday that you did yesterday again, then you’ll find me over at the Nelson, or whatever pub you’re in, showing you up before everybody…’

  ‘Just you bloody well try it on, that’s all.’

  ‘All right, we’ll see. If you don’t come home next Saturday with a bit of money for me so as I can go and do my bit of shopping like other women, you’ll find me there at your side. What’s good…’

  ‘Oh, go to hell.’

  ‘Go to hell yourself.’

  Glyn stood over her with his fists clenched. ‘Here, do you want what Tommy Ward next door gave that mouthy bitch of his yesterday for coming to fetch him away from the Black Cock?’

  ‘I’d like to see you try it on.’

  ‘I will if you don’t shut up.’

  ‘I’ll shut up when you take to come home decent on a Saturday with the money that you give to the landlady of the Black Cock – Fanny fine-talk – and to Watkins the Nelson, the fat swine as he is. You go to them before you wash the dirt of the pit off yourself. Oh, you must pay off your score there; but as for me and the children…’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I won’t shut up.’

  ‘Won’t you.’ He let go at her and knocked her off the three-cornered stool on to the floor, and she with a baby on her lap at the time, but she managed when falling to save the baby from being hurt, though that one and the other two started crying like anything. ‘Hush, will you?’ she screamed at them as she came up with the poker out of the fender in her right hand. ‘Glyn, would you like to see me hanged?’ she said in a tone that reminded him of Harry. But he had a thick head, and she had not got him a drink of beer in as she should have done, and the damned kids were enough to…

  ‘Ay, hanged, or drowned, or any damned thing, you mouthy…’

  ‘Then hit me again. Come on, hit me again; I haven’t got the baby in my arms now. So why don’t you hit me?’ she screamed, raising the poker to strike.

  He fled, and lucky it was for him, and her, that he did, for if ever she was her brother Harry’s sister, then it was that Sunday morning. After he had run out of the house she went on to finish washing the babies, and whilst she was doing so she thought of the first cause of the row which had almost had serious consequences. Why couldn’t he come on a Saturday with his money and give her her share of it so as she could get the few things and afterwards have her little bit of pleasure? No, he must go and sit in his pit clothes drinking until she was forced to go across to the pub and as good as beg for what was her due. Well, whatever the consequences, she’d have no more of it. Any other night he could stay in the pub undisturbed by her, but in future, on Saturdays, pay days, he’d come home with his pay and wash himself and then, if he wanted to, go and get drunk decent in his evening clothes – but not before she had had what was her due. And if ever he as much raised his hand to her again – well, it would be God help him.

  ‘Ann Thomas; but she’s off her head, I tell you,’ Glyn was saying to Dai, his brother, who had declared that he was going to marry old Thomas Thomas’ only child. ‘By God, you’re running into trouble with a vengeance.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind. Ann’s all right; it’s only when she has those old fits. Dr Biddle reckons she’ll be as right as rain once she’s married.’

  ‘Like hell she will. Still, you know your own business best. Humph, married. I wouldn’t care who had two wives as long as I didn’t have one.’

  ‘Oh, another row, eh? Well, I told you to go home and wash…’

  ‘Huh, you’re a nice one to talk.’

  ‘Am I? Anyway, when I’m married I’ll take my pay and share it with my wife before paying best part of it away to publicans.’

  ‘We’ll see. What do you think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She got the poker to brain me this morning.’

  ‘Oh; but what had you done to her?’

  ‘Gave her a bit of a flip, that’s all.’

  ‘Hm, it won’t pay you to flip her, Glyn. Come on, let’s go back down to her.’

  ‘If you think I’m going to knuckle under to her…’

  ‘Who’s talking about knuckling under? I’m going down to invite her to my wedding, Ann’s anxious for her to be there. And Ann’s father wants Steppwr there with his concertina. Yes, Ann’s father’s lashing out, I tell you. There’ll be plenty of everything there.’

  ‘Well, he can afford it.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go and put things right with Saran.’

  Steppwr was trying to persuade Harry to accompany him back to their native place from the Rhondda Valley, where Harry had gone directly he was released from prison after doing his twelve months. ‘Come on back with me for a few days, man,’ Steppwr was urging.

  ‘I tell you, no; I’ve finished with that damned place for good. A man can’t move up there for p’licemen and chapel people. No, give me the Rhondda before it any day, for here in the Rhondda a man can have a bit of fun now and then without being sent to jail by the p’lice or to hell by the preachers. This place is rougher, livelier than ever our town was, Steppwr. Here you’ve got two strings of growing townships in which there’s any God’s amount of money being earned – not by me, for I don’t hold with too much work – and spent, and it can be picked up easier here than in any place I know. I get twice as much for licking a man here as I used to get in the old…’

  ‘And still you’re always like myself, without two ha’pennies to rub together. All right, Harry, you can have the Rhondda, I’m off back to Merthyr; and it’ll be a long time before you see me over this way again.’

  ‘Oh, damn, don’t say that, Steppwr, for you know how much I banks on seeing you now and then.’

  ‘Yes; but you don’t think that p’raps there’s somebody in Merthyr as would like to have a squint at you now and then.’

  ‘Who the hell wants to see me?’

  ‘Your Saran for one; she was asking about you the day before I left Merthyr to come down here; said I was to remember her to you.’

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you?’

  ‘Because you stops a man’s mouth with beer before he can speak, and you see that it’s kept stopped and – well, then it’s forgotten.’

  ‘Saran’s not so bad. How many kids did you say she had?’

  ‘Three, or is it four? It’s either three or four.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a look at our Saran again, for she’s…’

  ‘Then come. Listen; her Glyn’s brother Dai is getting married tomorrow to Thomas Thomas the joiner’s daughter…’

  ‘What, Ann Fits, as we used to call her?’

  ‘That’s her, but she don’t have fits like she used to. There’ll be plenty to go at the wedding, for old Thomas Thomas isn’t without money. So
we’ll have a good spree and you’ll see all the old pals, and…’

  So they went up to Merthyr to the wedding, to which nobody other than Steppwr had invited Harry, but Harry wasn’t in the habit of waiting for invitations. As soon as they arrived in Merthyr, by train this time, they made a point of calling to see Saran before going on to where the wedding feast was prepared. They found Saran helping her Glyn, who was to act as best man for his brother, to get a stiff collar fixed around his neck, for Thomas Thomas had insisted that the wedding should be solemnised in the chapel, and that being so Glyn wanted to look his best walking into the chapel with his brother, and in order to look his best a man had to have a stiff collar and a sham front on.

  And that’s what he with Saran’s help was trying to get on when Harry and Steppwr, dressed little better than tramps, burst in upon them.

  ‘Mind you don’t bloody well choke him, Saran,’ roared Harry in a way that frightened the babies and started them off crying. ‘Lord, how many have you got?’ he went on to ask as Saran ran to greet him, leaving the end of Glyn’s collar to fly back as far away from the stud as ever. ‘Well,’ said Harry as he looked with a savage sort of pride on his sister, ‘I must say that married life seems to be agreeing with you. But what in the name of God have you been doing to this chap of yours? Like a razor, isn’t he, Steppwr?’

  ‘Never mind what I’m like,’ snapped Glyn, struggling with the collar. ‘Saran, are you going to give me a hand with this or…’

  ‘Ay, go and dress him, Saran,’ Harry told her. ‘We’re going as far as the Nelson to see a few of the chaps, but we’ll be seeing you at the wedding. S’long for now.’

  ‘Who asked him to the wedding, I should like to know?’ Glyn cried.