Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  ‘The week after next.’

  ‘Then I must try and go to see him. Where’s he been all these years, I wonder?’

  ‘I think he’s been in America. Well, I must be off.’

  ‘Yes, look after your work, my boy, for there’s little enough of it about. I don’t have to get up in the morning for anybody now.’

  ‘Isn’t Charlie working?’

  ‘There’s nobody working here – except Lewis, of course. He’s got his bit of business.’

  Benny grunted. There was little love lost between him and his brother Lewis, who had the trick of making his nose express his contempt for his eldest brother whenever they chanced to meet anywhere. Never spoke as they passed by, but Lewis’ nose moved in a way that left but little room for doubt in the eldest brother’s mind regarding his standing in the younger brother’s estimation.

  ‘Yes, I know he has,’ Benny said as he pulled on his new driving gloves. ‘I’ve seen him fairly often doing business, as you call it, on the street. It’s a wonder to me the police haven’t…’

  ‘Mind your own business, Benny,’ his mother told him.

  ‘Oh, all right. All the same, I think it’s a bit thick to drag a blind man into it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about, mam. He’s got Ossie hanging about the new urinal in Pontmorlais Square all day and every day taking slips for him.’

  ‘That’s where you’re making a mistake, Benny. Ossie takes no slips from anybody, though if you want to know the truth – though Ossie gets well paid for it – all he does is to hang about there so as Lewis can unload money and papers that Ossie brings straight up here to me.’

  ‘And risks imprisonment in doing so.’

  ‘He risks nothing, nobody working for Lewis has to risk anything, for the police… never mind, off you go to your work, Benny. You look after your own boys, and I’ll… how are they getting on at the college?’

  ‘They’re getting on all right.’

  ‘I’m glad of that. Tell ’em to come up and see me when they’re home next. Give my love to Annie.’

  ‘You didn’t mean that, Saran,’ said Harry after Benny had gone.

  ‘What didn’t I mean?’

  ‘That what you said about giving your love to Annie.’

  ‘P’raps I didn’t.’

  ‘You know you didn’t.’

  ‘All right, then, I didn’t. She’s a bit too much of it.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In every way – but don’t let’s bother about her.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Saran. Annie’s all right, and you know it. You listen too much to Jane, who is far from being fair to Annie.’

  ‘P’raps you’re right again. And Louis Calvert coming to act in the threeatre after all these years.’

  ‘Was that right what Benny said about Ossie being on the street for Lewis, Saran?’

  ‘What if it is?’

  ‘Well, it’s not right, that’s all.’

  ‘Harry, please don’t bother your head with matters of this sort. This is something between Ossie and Lewis, and my Lewis never in all his life done the dirty on anybody. Ossie’s got a houseful of children, and his bit of pension and what he gets for making a few baskets isn’t enough to keep that lot. So Lewis…’

  ‘Ossie must trust…’

  ‘Yes, I know he must; but when Lewis pays him well and looks after him, then I don’t see much harm in him trusting a bit in Lewis as well…’

  ‘But all this gambling, Saran.’

  ‘Well, in the pitchers, Harry, you can see the best in the land doing it on racecourses and in Monte Carlo and all sorts of places…’

  ‘Doing what?’ cried Glyn as he came in after having been to the Labour Exchange.

  ‘Gambling,’ said Harry.

  ‘Never gambled in my life,’ said Glyn.

  ‘You’ve done worse,’ said Saran.

  ‘If you mean the drop of drink, woman, then let me tell you that these boys of yours can drink their share. True, I drank a drop of beer when I was their age, but I used to work twelve hours a day, which is more than they do.’

  ‘Ay, you drank every night of the week because you had too much to do; and they drinks because they haven’t got anything at all to do, because they’re fed up.’

  ‘Where they get the money to get it with is what puzzles me. I expect it’s by gambling – and p’raps worse.’

  ‘Now, Glyn, don’t you try to say…’

  ‘Well, they’re out all hours of the night; a man can’t lock his door and go to his bed tidy as he should do. So they’re either whoring half the night…’

  ‘They calls it Love in the pitchers, Glyn,’ Saran informed him.

  ‘All right, funny one. Then p’raps you can tell me what they call this in the pictures,’ he said, throwing his now useless unemployment card and a form on to the table.

  ‘What are these?’

  ‘Well, you know everything…’

  ‘I’m asking you what they are, Glyn?’

  ‘It’s my no-good dole card, and a form to fill in for my old-age.’

  ‘I never dreamt you was as old as that. Are you as old as that?’

  ‘The man told me that I should have been on the old-age pension months ago, and that I’d be lucky if I didn’t have to pay back all the extra I’ve drawn since I was old enough for the old-age.’

  ‘Then you can tell him that he’d be luckier to get it. Yes, I expect you are old enough. How old is our Benny?’

  ‘I don’t know. Somewhere between forty and fifty, I expect.’

  ‘Don’t be… and yet he must be. Half a minute now. Isn’t Harry here as old as you?’

  Glyn looked across at his heavily whiskered brother-in-law who was sitting in the best chair in the house – the most comfortable chair, anyway – and he was always in it. ‘He’s years older than me, I expect,’ he sourly said.

  ‘I know I’m not,’ said Harry.

  ‘Anyway, I expect you’re old enough to draw the old-age if Glyn is,’ said Saran. ‘I must get Benny to look into this for me.’

  ‘And what about yourself?’ said Glyn.

  ‘I’m not near as old as you are. But I must get Benny to see about the forms for you and Harry at once.’

  ‘What about something to eat?’ said Glyn.

  She almost grieved herself until she was ill when she discovered that Harry could have been drawing old-age for about six months before he did. ‘Never mind,’ she said to Harry, ‘you’re all right now, now that you’re drawing old-age. None of ’em here can say they’re keeping you now – not that any of ’em have ever said it,’ she hastened to inform him.

  She went to the theatre to see the actor who had delighted her way back in the old days. ‘He’s an old man,’ was all she said to Jane on the way home from the theatre after she had seen Louis Calvert in a play she didn’t much care for. ‘Yes, an old man,’ she said again as they were all sitting down to a cup of tea in her house before separating for the night.

  ‘Who’s an old man?’ said Lewis, who was nursing his pain on the stool near the fire.

  ‘The man we’ve been to see in the threeatre tonight, Louis Calvert, a man I took most of you in the shawl to see act. I remember him in Proof – yes, that was easily his best part. Oh, he was lovely in that. Another cup of tea, Jane?’

  ‘No more for me, thank you, mam.’

  ‘I’ll have half a cup,’ said Sam’s wife.

  ‘They’re going to run a liberal candidate,’ cried Charlie as he rushed into the house. ‘And he’s one of our young liberal speakers. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Think of what?’ said Lewis.

  ‘“Think of what?”’ repeated Charlie. ‘Well, you’re a bright lot, you are. Perhaps none of you know that there’s going to be a general election?’

  ‘When haven’t there been elections?’ said his mother. ‘Nothing but elections since the war. Will you drink a cup of tea, Lewis?
’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ said Jane as her father walked in full of excitement also.

  ‘Your Ossie’s just gone up the road – you’ll catch him if you hurry,’ he told Jane, then he went on to ask: ‘What do you think?’

  Lewis groaned, rose from where he was sitting and said: ‘I’m off out.’

  ‘At this time of night?’ cried his father.

  ‘Shut up – get me my light overcoat and soft hat from the wardrobe, mam.’

  ‘Certainly, my boy.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned, here’s a time to go out, if you like,’ said Glyn as he heard the door slam behind Lewis. ‘Where’s Harry?’

  ‘In bed. What do you want him for?’ asked Saran.

  ‘I don’t want him, but I’ll have the armchair now that he’s out of it.’ He went and sat down in the armchair.

  ‘Did you see Sam anywhere?’ Sam’s wife asked him.

  ‘Sam, indeed. Yes, I’ve seen him; seen too much of him. Trying to dig up a communist candidate to fight our man, that’s…’

  ‘Who’s your man?’ Saran asked.

  ‘She’s trying to be funny again,’ Glyn explained to the others. ‘My man’s Wallhead, and you know it. And here’s Sam, my own son, working like hell to bring a communist out against him. And here’s this feller,’ he went on, pointing the finger of scorn at Charlie, ‘helping Lloyd George…’

  ‘Isn’t he dead?’ said Saran.

  ‘Isn’t who dead?’

  ‘Lloyd George.’

  ‘Well, of all the women… what makes you think the man is dead?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t heard much talk about him for a long time now.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charlie, ‘so if people stop talking about a man, he’s dead, is he?’

  ‘Well, as good as dead,’ replied his mother. ‘And specially when he’s…’

  ‘Don’t bother with her, Charlie,’ advised his father. ‘But let me tell you, boy…’

  ‘Did you say that Sam had gone home?’ asked Sam’s wife.

  ‘I don’t know where he is, neither do I care a damn. I’ve finished with Sam.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll go,’ said Sam’s wife. ‘Good night all.’

  ‘Good night, my gel,’ said Saran.

  ‘And I’ve as good as finished with you, too, Charlie, after this,’ Glyn said. ‘To think that a boy of mine is going to support a man who is going to fight an election on money that he…’

  ‘Do you two want any food before I go up to bed?’ asked Saran.

  ‘Yes, I want some food,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Then come and get it – and you, Glyn. Will you finish off that bit of belly-pork we had for dinner?’ They said they would, so she put it before them and saw them started on their supper. ‘And no shouting after I’ve gone up to bed, remember,’ she warned them. ‘Harry isn’t sleeping any too well these nights.’

  ‘Harry, Harry,’ muttered Glyn as she went upstairs. ‘And if it isn’t Harry it’s Lewis that can’t sleep for the pain…. And I’ve had this pain in my side for years. A man won’t be able to speak above a whisper in his own house before long. But listen, Charlie – and you mark my words, for I’ve known Lloyd George longer than you have – knew him before you were born. He used to be all right when…’

  Saran evaded all the attempts of her menfolk to get her into the places where election meetings were held until eve-of-the-poll night, when her Charlie lured her into the Drill Hall, where the final rally of the liberal forces was being held, by telling her that she would hear Lloyd George himself speaking as plain as if she were in the same room as him. All that Charlie said about the Green Book and the Brown Book – and the far more wonder-working Yellow Book – went in through one ear and out through the other, but she was excited over the prospect of hearing Lloyd George speaking as plain as if she were in the same room as him. So she went, and so did Jane and Sam’s wife, and who should they see on the platform with the candidate and other big liberals of the district but Benny and that stuck-up Annie. Yes, there they were as large as life on the platform.

  ‘Humph, it’s a wonder she haven’t got them boys of hers with their plus fours on up there on the platform with her,’ said Jane.

  ‘Shut up,’ Saran told her. ‘Which is the candidate?’ she asked a man who was showing people to their seats.

  ‘The tall gentleman on the right of the chairman, madam,’ he said.

  ‘Looks a tidy man,’ said Saran to Jane and Sam’s wife. ‘Well, I hope the one that gets in will get the pits opened up again. Your father says that his lot will do that quickest, and Charlie says that this lot with their Yellow Book will do it quickest. Then Sam…’

  ‘Look, there’s our Charlie carrying more chairs on to the platform,’ said Jane.

  ‘So it is,’ said Saran. ‘He’ve worked night and day for this lot. But there, he always did think the world of Lloyd George…. What’s that thing they’re fixing in front?’

  ‘A loudspeaker, of course,’ said Jane. ‘Oh, look at him there on the platform talking to the candidate as large as life.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’ said Sam’s wife.

  ‘Why, that brother of Annie’s, him that was a conchie when the war was on. Just like his damned cheek, I think, to go and stick himself up in front of a crowd like this now that…’

  ‘Cheek? Nothing of the kind. Shut up,’ said Saran to Jane.

  ‘But he was a conchie, wasn’t he?’

  ‘And what if he was? Ain’t we all conchies now?’

  ‘I’m not, anyway.’

  ‘Well, I am – and you should be with Ossie like he… shut up so as we can hear what that man’s saying.’

  ‘… where he is addressing an eve-of-the-poll rally in support of his son, Major Gwilym Lloyd George. (Applause)… his speech is being relayed from there to all the constituencies in Wales where a liberal candidate is fighting. In less than two minutes from now we shall have the pleasure of listening to the voice of our Leader, the greatest Welshman…’

  ‘Like hell he is,’ from somewhere at the back.

  ‘Order, order,’ roars the crowd.

  ‘Sir,’ says the chairman patiently, ‘we can agree to differ in terms more in keeping…’

  He breaks off as a signal from a man standing on the left of the stage is followed by a sound similar to the sound of the tipping of coal from trams on to the screen which separates the large from the small.

  ‘Now, silence, please,’ cries the chairman, who sits down and turns a hopeful face in the direction of the loudspeaker from which the sounds are issuing. Every member of the huge audience also looks hopefully, many reverently, a few adoringly, and one – the interrupter at the back of the hall – cynically in the direction of the loudspeaker, which for a considerable time gave out what was taken by those prepared to give the apparatus the benefit of the doubt – as the applause of the enthusiastic thousands gathered to listen to the Leader in person at that very moment in faraway Pembrokeshire. Then those with the sharpest ears were able to pick up a word every now and then, words which came as the words of one who was being buried alive after having been half strangled. Again and again the sound accepted as applause crackled and crashed into the eardrums of the defenceless audience, as the chairman – like the good chairman he was – smiled encouragingly at the loudspeaker and nodded his head as though he could hear perfectly every word of a most interesting speech. But, as the liberals present had been told often enough by their socialist opponents, you can’t fool all the people all the time; and though the chairman did his best to convey to the audience the impression that the speech was coming through OK – he even said ‘Hear, hear’ each time anything remotely resembling the sound of a voice emerged from the crash and crackle – the light-minded and least attentive section of the huge audience began laughing and jeering, gave the show the bird, as the saying is.

  And after about ten more minutes of crackling and crashing the gallant chairman had to admit defe
at. He stood up after he had had a word with one of the Marconi squad which had previously relayed the Leader without a hitch from ever so many places to ever so many more places, and he explained to the audience, did the chairman, that atmospheric disturbances along the Pembrokeshire coast and around Swansea Bay and points east had combined with other things to prevent that huge audience from hearing our Leader’s speech. But he was pleased to say, there were several excellent speakers, including the candidate himself (loud applause), who would fire the last shots in what had been a wonderful campaign, a campaign from which Liberalism would, he felt certain, emerge victorious.

  ‘What a bloody hope,’ shouted the interrupter at the back, laughing cynically.

  ‘Order, order. Turn him out. Did you ever hear such language? One of those old communists, I expect. And listen to him laughing.’

  Stewards hurried to where the man was in the grip of uncontrollable laughter, and started hustling him towards the exit.

  ‘All right, I’m going,’ he told the stewards, brushing their hands away as he walked towards the exit steps, and everyone thought he was gone, and the chairman was on the point of calling upon one of the many excellent speakers on the platform, when the interrupter reappeared on top of the first short flight of exit steps and shouted over the heads of those in the audience at those on the platform: ‘Homes for heroes, wasn’t that it? Then where the hell’s mine? That’s what I want to know, where the hell’s mine? Ask Dai Diddleum that. And ask him how he’d like to be unemployed since 1921 same as…’

  By this time the policeman stationed at the entrance to our Drill Hall had rushed down the stone steps to help the stewards who had made a beeline for the interrupter from all parts of the hall; and this time, thank goodness, he had to go up them steps and out of the hall quicker than any man ever had to, and the policeman wanted to take his name and address, but the chief steward said: ‘Never mind, now that he’s gone.’

  So the chairman was at last able to call on the first of the many excellent speakers he had there on the platform with him, and it was a lady speaker he called upon, a lady speaker who, after she had told the audience what a fine man their candidate was, went on to say that it was all very well for the socialists to talk about the boss class, but what about those members of the boss class that were standing as socialist candidates in different parts of the country? And how could they call themselves socialists when they were worth millions and wore diamonds at receptions, and had town and country houses such as those in which…