Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  ‘Oh, God forgive me,’ murmured Harry.

  ‘What the hell,’ cried the landlord, Tim Crowley, rushing from behind the bar. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ he cried on seeing Harry. ‘Didn’t I tell you…’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Crowley…’

  ‘Sorry, be damned. Here, Mike, throw this bastard out…’

  ‘Mr Crowley, I promise I’ll go out quietly if only you’ll let me stay until this poor man comes to himself so as I can ask his forgiveness. You see…’

  The landlord and Mike hustled him out of the place. ‘You’re damned lucky I’m letting you go without paying for the breakages,’ said the landlord. ‘See him right away from the place, Mike, for I’ve got to get back behind the bar.’

  Mike stood in the doorway looking after Harry until he had stumped his way along the Glebeland. Then he went back to his duties in the bar.

  As he stumped along the Glebeland Harry considered various places where sinners were plentiful and convertible. He passed the Beehive, the Belle Vue, the Wyndham, and other pubs. He stopped outside the Lamb, and was about to go in when he remembered Gypsy Nell’s shawl, then he decided that he would straightway go up to Saran’s house and ask about the shawl.

  ‘Well, well, and what can you say you’ve been up to again?’ cried Saran as he appeared before her in the living room of her house. ‘You’re muck from head to foot. Sit there in the armchair, and take off that coat so as I can brush it.’

  ‘It’s nothing; what I…’

  ‘Let me have that coat,’ she insisted. He let her have it. ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Oh, it’s about a shawl.’

  ‘Shawl?’

  ‘Yes, Gypsy Nell’s…’

  ‘Oh, I remember; that shawl that was under your head the day you were brought here on the cart after the engine knocked you down. Yes, I washed it and put it away. So it belongs to that old creature.’

  ‘Now, Saran, don’t be nasty. We’re none of us so good as all that; and she, poor gel… well, let her alone, that’s all. She wants her shawl back, so if you’ll let me have it…’

  ‘I will, but not tonight. You’re not going down that place with any shawl at this time of night when it’s not safe for a regiment of soldiers to be there, let alone a man with only one leg. You shall have it to take down in the morning when it’s daylight and a bit safer to be about there. I shan’t forget, not if I live to be a hundred, that night when I had to go down there to tell you that the p’lice were after you, that night when you walked the mountains into the Rhondda.’

  Harry smiled sadly. ‘That was a long time ago, Saran.’

  ‘Oh, not so long. It’s them old whiskers of yours makes you think that. Why don’t you have ’em off?’

  ‘Why… well… oh, I don’t know. They – they helps to stop me thinking about women like – like I used to. No woman would look twice at me with these on. They laugh, and that’s what I’d rather ’em do. For there are times now… I haven’t got rid of the devil yet, Saran. I up and hit a poor man tonight, a poor man as was in his drink. I don’t know what God’ll think of me.’ He wept freely.

  ‘Here, have this cup of tea and a bit to eat.’

  He supped tea out of the saucer and went on tearfully bewailing his shortcomings. ‘Yes, I hit the poor chap for nothing, same as I hit your Glyn once. And I haven’t asked Glyn’s forgiveness for that, either. Where is Glyn?’

  ‘Away down the stone-coal district burying his brother Dai. Killed last Wednesday in the pit down there, he was. Didn’t you hear?’

  ‘Not a word. But that’s how it is, Saran. Today we’re…’

  ‘Come on, drink that cup of tea; and eat something as well.’

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘ISN’T HE LOVELY, GRANNY?’

  She had barely finished getting her own supply of children before they began getting theirs. ‘Isn’t he lovely, Granny?’ was a question she had by now heard more than once from daughters-in-law who, she thought, made a lot more fuss than they should about bringing their babies into the world. Her Hugh’s wife was bad enough, but Annie, her Benny’s wife, was enough to make a person swear. And Benny himself was almost as bad. Messing about the house instead of going to his work as he should have done. What did he want there? What could he do, anyway? There was the midwife – district nurse or something of the sort she called herself, Saran, who thought she was as good as any midwife, and then Benny insisted on having the doctor as well. And every time she went down into the kitchen to fetch something, Saran would find Benny out on the landing, or at the foot of the stairs, or walking from one corner to the other of the kitchen looking just like some of the men she had seen playing Hamlet and other nerve-racked parts in the theatre. ‘How is she now?’ he kept on asking. ‘Oh, she’s all right. Why don’t you go out for a walk?’

  Not he; and when it was over, there he was acting soft enough to shame any mother, though his old softness seemed to please Annie, but there, she was as soft as he was.

  Three boys married already, and her only girl, Jane, wanting to get married to her Ossie. On and on about it. Wouldn’t listen to what Saran tried to tell her about all the work there was to do with all them boys about the house, half of whom were going to the pit and the other half to school. ‘So it’s a lot of work, Jane.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t as if I was going to live away; I’ll be near enough to help, won’t I? And Ossie’s sick of lodgings. If his mother hadn’t gone and got married again he wouldn’t have minded waiting a bit longer, but now…’

  ‘Oh, all right, we’ll see.’

  It wasn’t the work Saran minded, but the loss of Jane, whom she thought more of than she did of any of her boys. Still, being as she was set on getting married – and there was many a worse chap than Ossie, that she knew – then let her. She’d find her a little house close by, near enough to keep an eye on her, and also near enough to call her in on washing-days, and on Fridays to do the upstairs rooms. So the date of the wedding was fixed, and Saran saw to it that her Jane had as fine a wedding as either of the three boys had had. She rounded up every member of the family, and the only one outside the family honoured with an invitation to attend was old Marged, who had kept house for Glyn’s father, and then for Glyn and Dai. So Marged, who was now living on the parish and the few shillings she got going about doing a bit of washing, white-liming or papering for one or the other, was the only one outside the family invited by Saran to the wedding of her daughter Jane.

  All the family – well, except Saran’s brother Shoni, for nobody knew where he was, or whether he was alive or dead, though the navvy chap did say… but the navvy chap was drunk. Anyway, Shoni wasn’t at the wedding, but all the other members of the family were. The two uncles, Uncle Harry and Uncle Steppwr, were there, and only Saran knew the job she had to persuade Harry to be present. But she managed it. Then there was Glyn, of course, he gave his daughter away, for it was a proper wedding in the chapel.

  Then there were Benny, Annie, and their two children; and Hugh and his wife and their three children up from Senghenydd; then Sam and Kate and their baby – Kate was looking none too well, either. Then there was Saran’s favourite boy, Meurig, ‘Mad Meurig’, up from the Rhondda, where, so people whose business sometimes took them into the Rhondda said, he was carrying on fine, ‘same as that old uncle of his used to’. But Saran didn’t care what they said about him, she was as proud as could be to have him up for Jane’s wedding. Then there was Lewis, as mouthy as they’re made, still, not a bad boy to his mother when it came to the push; and Mervyn, and Idris, and Jim – she’d have to watch that cough of his, have to get another bottle of Scott’s Emulsion. Then the two youngest boys, Tom and Charlie; Tom worked carrying out for Davies the butcher in the evenings after school and all day Saturdays, and he was as proud of his ability to earn a shilling and a pound of sausage – which he only got when there was sausage left at closing-time – each week as were the boys in the pit of their ability to earn wages. So Tom and Charlie w
ere allowed to stay home from school on the day of Jane’s wedding.

  Saran saw to it that everything was done in style. Cabs to take the party to the chapel, and cabs to bring them back to the house again after the ceremony – and everyone wearing flowers from Gray’s the florist, who specialised in wreaths. And when they all got back from the chapel Saran made them all sit down whilst she and old Marged waited on them hand and foot. It so happened that the wedding took place on the very day that the Eight Hours Act for miners became operative, and it came up in conversation because Glyn told young Lewis that he was lucky to have a day off from the pit to attend his sister’s wedding.

  ‘Oh, I am, am I?’ said young Lewis to his father as cheeky as you like, and speaking with his mouth full of bread and roast pork. ‘Well, I shall be having a lot more time off now that the Eight Hours is law. And about time, too; time we had our share of daylight.’

  ‘You won’t get fat on daylight,’ said his father, who believed every word that the owners’ spokesmen had said and written about the effect the shorter working day would have on the industry. ‘More daylight – less wages,’ Glyn prophesied.

  ‘No fear,’ Lewis said, ‘they can’t pay us less than they’re paying…. Oh, and you’ll have to watch yourself, too, from now on, our dad, for anyone staying in the pit after time will be summoned…’

  ‘Here,’ cried Meurig from where he sat near to where his mother stood carving off the leg of pork, ‘did I come up here all the way from the Rhondda to hear you chaps talk about work?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Saran. ‘Now, shut up, Lewis.’

  ‘Then let’s have some more of that pork,’ said Lewis.

  ‘I will after I’ve given everybody their first bit. Here’s yours, Harry; I know you like the fat.’

  It was a fine spread, and everyone did justice to it; even Harry, who might easily have turned out to be the wet blanket it was feared he would be, ate as hearty as anyone present, and did his best to appear jolly on tea out of respect for Saran; and, though with the air of a martyr, he even went into the front room with the men after the meal was over.

  ‘Glyn, you and Steppwr and the boys – but not you little ones – had better go into the front room for a bit whilst me and Marged and the gels clears up,’ said Saran. ‘You know where it is in there. But p’c you’d better stay in here with us, Harry?’

  ‘No, I’ll go on into the front room with ’em out of the way,’ said Harry, though knowing quite well what Saran meant by ‘it’, for ‘it’ meant drink.

  So the men adjourned to the front room, and the younger boys were given coppers and sent out of the house to play whilst their elders drank the health of the young couple, and whilst the women cleared up in the kitchen. In all there were seven men in the front room, but only three were fond of their drop of drink. The bridegroom was one, Glyn, his father-in-law, another, and Steppwr, of course. Harry, of course, strict TT; whilst the boys, Benny, Hugh, Sam and Meurig – which makes eight in all, not seven – were not any too keen on drink, though they were not averse to taking a drink when in company.

  ‘Sit down,’ Glyn told them as he went to the cupboard and brought to view a couple of bottles of port wine. ‘There’s beer for all as wants it, and there’s port for them as don’t; and for them as don’t want either, there’s a bottle of herb beer of your mother’s make. Now, what’ll you have?’ Some had beer, some had port, but Harry wouldn’t even touch the herb beer. Some smoked pipes, others cigarettes, Harry nothing at all.

  ‘So you and Jane are not going away anywhere?’ said Benny to the bridegroom.

  ‘No, he’s not so daft as you was,’ said Glyn. ‘What’s he want to go ’way for? Can’t he get everything in comfort here? Of course he can. Drink up, Ossie. Now, Steppwr, let’s hear from you.’ Steppwr played, with one eye on the sad-looking Harry, and when he had finished his selection of popular airs, Glyn wanted to know who was going to oblige with a song. ‘Well, if nobody cares to oblige, I’ll sing you one for a start.’ He sang. ‘Now, who’s going to oblige with the next song?’

  Meurig, who was beginning to feel bored, was fingering the pack of cards he always carried about with him: ‘What about a game of penny nap?’

  ‘Not damned likely,’ cried his father. ‘No gambling in my house. If I take a drop of drink I draws the line…. How is it that every time you come up home from the Rhondda you want to start gambling as soon as you come, Meurig?’

  ‘Well, I like a little gamble.’

  ‘Then you’re not having it here. Come on, you fellers, drink up. There’s plenty here. Come on, Ossie.’

  ‘Thanks. Now, I’ll sing a song if you like, but it’s only comic songs I know,’ said the bridegroom, who was warming up rapidly.

  ‘Order for a song,’ cried Glyn. Meurig sighed and went on fingering the pack of cards in his pockets as the bridegroom went on singing a song entitled ‘I Only Came Down for Nails’. Really funny, he was.

  ‘Not at all bad,’ said Benny patronisingly, and then went on to tell his uncle Steppwr that it was a pity he hadn’t learnt to play the concertina as well as Perci Honri, who had played in the theatre the week previous.

  ‘Your uncle can play better than Perci Honri or any other you ever heard,’ said Harry to the surprise of all present.

  ‘And what about Ossie’s singing?’ Glyn wanted to know. ‘I never thought I’d have a son-in-law as could sing a comic song as well as Ossie sang that last song. Know any more, Ossie?’

  ‘I can do as well in the Carmarthen Stores as ever you’ll do in your shop, my gel,’ Saran was telling Benny’s wife, whose youngest she was nursing now that the clearing up was done. ‘It’s all very well for these shops b’longing to these old companies to come here and sell their old muck that isn’t…’

  ‘Well, what I buy there isn’t muck,’ Annie, Benny’s wife, up and said – for she wasn’t afraid of Saran if Sam’s wife was. ‘I get better butter from my shop than ever I got from the Carmarthen Stores.’

  ‘Yes, but what about their bacon?’ said Sam’s wife, supporting her mother-in-law. ‘I tried a pound the week before last, but Sam wouldn’t touch it, yet he enjoyed the bacon I got him from the Carmarthen Stores.’

  ‘Of course he would,’ said Saran. ‘All these multiply shops…’

  ‘You mean multiple,’ corrected Annie in a superior way.

  ‘Well, whatever they are they’re not worth dealing with, whether it’s food, clothes or anything else. Just because things are a little cheaper with ’em people rush there. And what do they get in the long run? Shoddy stuff, that’s what they get. Lizzie Jane Warde’s husband bought a suit of black cheap in that big new tailor’s shop next door to the post office, and in less than a year it was off his back. Now, Glyn bought a suit of black to follow his father in, long before we was married, that was. Paid four guineas to Evans the tailor for it, and he’s wearing the coat for work – wearing it now, after twenty years. Twenty years – what am I talking about? Why, Benny is…’

  ‘What about a song from one of you boys?’ Glyn cried. No response. ‘Well, what a damned lot of boys I’ve got. Then will one of you recite something? Oh, talking about reciting… come on, drink up. More like a funeral than a wedding. Yes, there was a reciter if you like. Wasn’t he, Steppwr?’

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘Old Davies, MA, who else? What if these boys had heard him recite that piece about the man and his dagger?’

  ‘Macbeth, was it?’ asked Benny.

  ‘P’raps it was; all I know is… where is the old chap now, Steppwr?’

  ‘He died in the workhouse.’

  ‘I closed his poor eyes for him,’ Harry roused himself to say. ‘It was shortly after I began visiting the poor chaps in the workhouse. He was lying next to poor Charlie Rowlands in the…’

  ‘Well I’ll have to be going,’ said Benny, rising to his feet.

  ‘What’s your hurry?’ his father wanted to know.

  ‘Who do you think I met th
e other day in the Rhondda, Uncle Harry?’ said Meurig. Benny sat down again.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know, my boy.’

  ‘Ned James.’

  ‘Ned James?’

  ‘Ay; him they used to call the Tylorstown Tiger.’

  ‘Oh, I think I know the man.’

  ‘Well, you should do. He was telling me about the time you and he fought on a Sunday morning on that piece of flat near the Rocking Stone on the mountain above Pontypridd. Said you was a hard nut to crack about that time, and that he had his work cut out to lick you…’

  ‘He never licked me, nor did any other…’

  ‘Well, that’s what he said.’

  ‘Then he’s a liar,’ roared Harry. ‘I licked every man they put up before me, as your uncle Steppwr that’s sitting there can tell you… but what am I talking about?’ he broke off to ask wildly, looking into the faces of each in turn. ‘No, it wasn’t me that fought him, or the others. It was the devil – the…’

  He turned and stumped his way out of the room and out of the house without as much as a word to Saran or any of the other women out in the kitchen.

  ‘Of course, you would put the fat in the fire,’ Glyn said to Meurig. ‘And after all the trouble your mother had to get him to come…’

  ‘And to tell lies,’ said Steppwr. ‘Harry was never once beaten by anybody all the time he was living down the Rhondda, so how could you say…’

  ‘Well, he was sitting there like a man in a trance, so I thought I’d try and wake him up. And I shall be in a trance if I stay here with you lot much longer, so I’ll clear out down as far as the Lucania for a game of snooker.’ He picked up his cap and walked out.

  ‘Oh, let him go,’ said Glyn. ‘Now, Ossie, what about another?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m going tonight again,’ concluded Saran.