Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  ‘Now, simmer down, Lewis, my boy,’ Saran told him, ‘for I’ve had quite enough of your grousing this morning. To hear you talk is enough to make anybody think that you’re keeping us all.’

  ‘Humph, if I didn’t do more towards the keeping of you than that little Charlie of yours does it would be God help the lot of you. And now he cuts in with them as are trying to rob me of my living.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort. If he didn’t stand up to bet on the twopenny bank, you know damned well that plenty of others would. So why not let him work for you, taking in the copper bets from the unemployed whilst you carry on in the enclosure taking the big money.’

  ‘Because I won’t on principle. If people want to bet, then let ’em pay to come and do it with the right people in the enclosure.’

  ‘How can the unemployed pay a shilling every night of the week to come there? And, remember, them as is unemployed likes to see the dogs running as well as them as is working and got money to pay their way into the enclosure.’

  ‘Dogs running, be damned,’ shouted Lewis. ‘Nobody wants to see the damned dogs run; people comes to bet, and that’s all. For all they’d care you could run the dogs through little tunnels out of sight…’

  ‘All right, stop shouting. I don’t want your uncle Harry to hear all this kind of talk in the state he is up there. And I won’t have you shouting at Charlie, either, because he tries to make a few shillings up on the twopenny bank…’

  ‘If I thought that he was standing up for you I’d…’

  ‘Yes, you’d do a lot, wouldn’t you? Now, go on about your business before Sherman’s runners will have picked up all there is to pick up down town. It’ll be Ossie that’ll have to wait for you, I’m thinking.’

  ‘Sherman’s runners won’t get my clients’ money…’

  ‘Jane,’ said Saran as she turned away from Lewis, ‘we’ll do the upstairs today instead of tomorrow, but not your uncle Harry’s room. I’ll do that myself…’

  ‘I’m going,’ said Lewis.

  ‘Yes, go. And after we’ve cleaned upstairs, Jane…’

  ‘I said I’m going,’ shouted Lewis.

  ‘Time you did,’ said his mother without looking at him. ‘We’ll rub a few towels through, Jane, then there’ll be less for… What do you want?’ she asked as Lewis brushed his fat sister aside and planted himself in front of his mother.

  ‘You know what,’ he said childishly.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he said, looking at her appealingly.

  ‘All right, good luck,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but I’m not having it flung at me like that. Say it tidy.’

  She smiled indulgently on the middle-aged bald-headed man who stood looking down at her with the eyes of the baby she had let draw milk from her for long after he had learnt to walk. Same Lewis, she now thought. ‘Good luck, Lewis bach.’

  ‘Now I’m OK,’ he said. ‘Here, Jane, here’s a tosharoon to buy yourself into the pictures with for a week or two,’ he cried as he tossed half a crown on to his fat sister’s lap.

  ‘And have it flung in my face after that I’ve had it,’ said Jane, but not before she had grasped the half-crown.

  ‘See that you keep that Ossie of yours up to scratch,’ was what he said as he was going out.

  ‘Here, what about mam?’ Jane called after him. ‘You haven’t given her anything.’

  Lewis stopped at the front door to laugh and say: ‘She’s got more dough than ever I’m likely to have.’

  ‘I’d like to know where it is, then,’ said Saran. ‘Go about your business, boy. The first race’ll be over before you get halfway around your… once he’s had his shout out, he’s as soft as the rest of you,’ said Saran to Jane as Lewis started hurrying down into town as fast as his perforated belly and other physical souvenirs of the war would allow. ‘Now, let’s get on with the upstairs before any of the others get back to hinder us. And not so much row, remember, Jane, for your uncle Harry’s none too well today again. My, but you was lucky to drop in to get that half-crown. You’ll have to fork out for yourself to the pitchers tonight. As good as gold, Lewis is…. No, not that bucket, it leaks. You’ll find a new one in the scullery. Yes, as good as gold he is. Your father gets his shilling out of him as reg’lar as clockwork every day; and Sam… where is Sam keeping himself these days, Jane? I haven’t seen him since Sunday.’

  ‘He’s up the outcrops after coal most days…’

  ‘Oh, is that where he’s been? Then I can expect him here to sell me a couple of bags. We’ll take Kate with us to the pitchers tonight; you can pay for her out of that half-crown.’

  ‘Indeed I’m not paying for her. Her husband isn’t blind and helpless like… Sam can go and get coal and sell it…’

  ‘Yes, and Ossie gets more out of Lewis than Sam gets by selling coal. But come on, gel, or we’ll never finish the upstairs.’

  Harry was as good as finished, any day, anybody could see that. He was stuck in bed all the time now, and Saran had to look after him as she would a baby. And she liked looking after him and mothering him, though he was a funny baby to look at with those matted whiskers of his.

  ‘Uncle Harry gets to look more like Karl Marx every day,’ laughed Sam one day as he came down into the living room after having been up to pay his respects to the old wreck upstairs.

  ‘Who is Karl Marx?’ Saran asked her Sam. ‘One of your communionist lot?’

  ‘He was,’ Sam said. ‘He wrote that Communist Manifesto that I lent to dad, and which he lost for me.’

  ‘I tell you I gave you the damned thing back that night I met you in the Black Lion after we’d been to hear Tom Mann speak in the Miners’ Hall,’ said Glyn. ‘And if you don’t believe me, you can ask Ossie…’

  ‘I don’t want to ask Ossie or anybody,’ said Sam, ‘for you never gave it me back, dad.’

  ‘Well, of all the…’

  ‘What kind of thing was it?’ asked Saran.

  ‘What?’ said Sam.

  ‘The thing you say your father lost.’

  ‘Thing. He’s talking about a book, woman.’

  ‘Oh, an old book. I thought you’d gone and lost something of value b’longing to him. How much was it, Sam?’

  ‘I had it for threepence off one of the comrades.’

  ‘Then tell the comrade to get you another,’ she said as she handed him a sixpence as his wife dropped in, looking awful bad, Saran thought.

  ‘Jane told me to ask you if you was going to the Palace tonight,’ she said. ‘Greta Garbo is there this week.’

  ‘Which of ’em is that?’ said Saran.

  ‘Why, Greta Garbo, of course. Her that was in…’

  ‘Never mind who she is, for I’m not going, anyway.’

  ‘But you haven’t been more’n a couple of times all this summer.’

  ‘I know I haven’t; neither am I going to go until your uncle Harry gets better than he is now.’

  And though Kate coaxed and coaxed, and though both she and Jane on their way to the Palace to see Greta Garbo that evening turned in to try and persuade Saran to accompany them, she refused to leave the house. ‘I’m going to sit with your uncle Harry,’ she told them. ‘So off you go.’ And off they went without her.

  What she could see in sitting up in the bedroom night after night with Uncle Harry was more than Jane or Kate could see, for there was Uncle Harry propped up in bed so as he could look out of the window, and Saran sitting in the chair re-footing socks and stockings and doing most of the talking. Harry kept on sighing as his eyes encountered what he saw to make him sigh through the window, and as he thought of all the things he had done during his life which he ought not to have done. Saran, who had never had much time to do any thinking about what she had done which she ought not to have done, kept on talking as Harry went on sighing. He sighed most heavily on towards the evenings when he could see through the window the score or so of ill-dressed youths who spent most of their time playing far
o for coppers on the piece of waste ground about fifty yards distant from the house, and when he looked beyond them to where the crowd of unemployed roared at the dogs from the twopenny bank of the Penydarren Park.

  ‘They’re still at it,’ he would sigh as his eye fell on the youths gambling.

  ‘Oh, those boys. Why bother your head about them? Do you know who I seen down town today?’

  ‘Yes, but the sin – and the waste. Awful it is, Saran.’

  ‘Awful, no, though p’raps it’s not right for ’em to be always playing cards out by there, but there isn’t a handful of copper among ’em all. So why worry? Yes, when I was down town today…’

  ‘There are the others now,’ sighed Harry as the crowd roared its encouragement to the dogs just slipped down in Penydarren Park.

  Saran lowered her knitting into her lap and said sharply: ‘Are you going to worry yourself into your grave over these things? Haven’t I told you until I’m sick of telling you that these things don’t matter much. If them poor boys down there – or them over in the Park – had anything better to do, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, and what seems to worry you all the time. Everybody can’t be like – well, like you, Harry. Having no work to go to, they drink what little they can get, play cards like those boys there, and go to the dogs like that lot shouting down there. And twice as many again as is there goes on Saturday nights to where they can stand to watch the boxing for sempence; for they feel they’ve got to have something to make ’em forget how useless they are to themselves and everybody else. Now, here’s these old boys of mine… but don’t you worry about ’em, Harry bach. You get better, that’s enough for you to do. And you are getting better, that’s easy to see. And when you’re better you’ll be able to go and see them as are dying to see you once more up in the workhouse. I sent the ’bacco and snuff like you said and I sent the Spanish black rock for old Charlie Rowlands. And that’s what I was going to tell you. I seen old Jerry Sullivan pulling the workhouse firewood trolley through the town today, and he told me that old Charlie Rowlands… do you feel like going to sleep?’

  ‘I do feel a bit sleepy, Saran.’

  ‘Then have your hot milk first, then I won’t have to wake you.’

  She made his hot milk and gave it to him out of the tablespoon, and after he’d drunk it all – every drop – he went to sleep like a baby, he did; and she tiptoed down the stairs to her other work.

  CHAPTER 18

  CARRYING ON

  Saran was telling her Jim about it when he was having a bit to eat soon after he had arrived home from where he was working up around Oxford to spend the August Bank Holiday with her; her Tom and his English wife and their children having decided to spend the August Bank Holiday with the English wife’s people somewhere in England that Saran knew nothing about. Still, she was thankful to have one of her exiled sons home with her, and as Sam’s boy and Jane’s two boys – for the Labour Exchange had sent another of Jane’s boys into training which had resulted in his getting a job in the place where the Murphy sets are made – were home as well, it wasn’t going to be such a bad holiday after all. And she was telling her Jim about it.

  ‘Yes, we’ve had another ’lection here since you was home Christmas. And four different lots trying for the seat that came to be empty because of that poor man Wallhead dying. Oh, Jim bach, you never seen such times. Meetings everywhere from morning to night. There was our Sam’s lot, the communionist…’

  ‘Oh, hell, communists, woman,’ cried Glyn. ‘I’m sick and tired…’

  ‘Well, our Sam’s lot, whatever you like to call ’em, had a man out this time. And so did your father’s lot…’

  ‘Ay, and we got him in,’ crowed Glyn, ‘though Sam and his lot…’

  ‘Then Benny’s lot had a man out, and Benny’s wife…’

  ‘Ay, she’s a nice bitch if you like,’ said Glyn. ‘Says she’s a national liberal, and yet she goes and supports a Lloyd George lib…’

  ‘Can’t the woman support who she likes?’ said Saran. ‘But never mind her for the time. How many lots is that I’ve said was standing?’

  ‘Three,’ said Jim, lighting a fag.

  ‘But there was four. Let’s see, now… oh, Jim, is it true that you’re thinking about getting married to a gel up there where you’re working?’

  ‘He’s got his own mind to please, haven’t he?’ said Glyn.

  ‘Who told you about it?’ Jim wanted to know.

  ‘Tom’s wife said in the letter to Jane…’

  ‘Oh, it’s her, is it?’

  ‘Then it’s true?’ said Saran.

  ‘What if it is, woman?’ growled Glyn.

  ‘Nothing – as long as I know, that’s all. I was telling you about the ’lection, Jim…’

  ‘He don’t want to hear about the election,’ growled Glyn, who was waiting to take Jim to where there was a better drop of beer to be had than could be had around Oxford – or anywhere in England.

  ‘Yes, I do want to hear about it,’ said Jim.

  ‘But it was all in the Merthyr Express that we sends you every week,’ Glyn reminded him.

  ‘Yes, but reading about it is not the same as…’

  ‘Your father’s in a hurry to take you out to spend your money on drink for him and that Ossie.’

  ‘You’re a bloody liar, woman.’

  ‘Then shut up until I’ve told the boy. What was that other lot that had a man out at the ’lection?’

  ‘Well, being as you seem to know all about it…’

  ‘I’m asking you what was the other lot with your lot, and Sam’s lot, and our Benny’s lot.’

  ‘The ILP, if you want to know.’

  ‘Ay, that’s the other lot, Jim. The ILP – good speakers they had. There was one man with long hair – but he wasn’t the candidate, Champion Stephen was the candidate…’

  ‘Champion Stephen be damned. Campbell Stephen, woman.’

  ‘I knew it was something like that. Then there was S. O. Davies, your father’s man; and Wal Hannington, he was our Sam’s man. A man from London he was. Then there was our Benny’s man…. What was his name, Glyn?’

  ‘John Victor Evans. I’m off out for a walk.’

  ‘Sit down, and I’ll take a stroll with you after I’ve had a bit of a spell here with mam,’ said Jim.

  ‘You should have met him as he stepped off the bus, Glyn, and then you could have taken him straight to the pub.’

  ‘Look here, woman…’

  ‘You and your “woman”! Can’t you say anything else but…?’

  ‘Go on telling me about the election,’ suggested Jim.

  ‘There’s not much to tell. I went with Jane and Sam’s wife to some of the meetings, for there was women speaking at most of ’em, but it was our Sam’s lot had the one that capped the lot. An old woman… what was her name again, Glyn?’

  ‘Mrs Despard, do you mean?’

  ‘Ay, that’s the one; nearly a hundred years old, our Sam says she is. They was holding her up by the arms, like the Bible says Moses was held, when she was speaking from the top of a chair in the open air down by the public buildings. And didn’t she go for your father’s lot. Then there was that other woman that spoke for your lot, Glyn, the one wearing a cloak like some of the women that used to come to the threeatre.’

  ‘Mrs Bruce Glasier.’

  ‘That’s her. And there were young women, too. That Jenny Lee, and ever so many more.’

  ‘And who did you vote for, mam?’ Jim asked.

  ‘None of ’em, my boy.’

  ‘Now, what do you think of that, Jim?’ asked Glyn, expressing his utter lack of comprehension of a woman who, when given the chance to, failed to exercise a hard-won right. ‘Here’s a woman who hasn’t got sense enough to use her vote, yet to hear her talk you’d think she knew everything.’

  ‘I know enough to suit me,’ said Saran. ‘Anyway, who was I to vote for? I heard the four of ’em, and each one warned me that if I voted for either of th
e other three, that it would be all up on me. So it was three to one against me whichever way I voted.’

  ‘More bookies’ talk,’ growled Glyn. ‘Come on, Jim, let’s go.’

  ‘Sit down, Jim,’ said Saran. ‘Your father thinks I’m nothing more than a damned fool when it comes to voting, but I’ve seen a lot of voting in my time. I remember Pritchard Morgan and D. A. Thomas when they was in their prime, and I heard talk of the things they was going to do then. Ay, and I heard talk of the things Keir Hardie was going to do for us when he came down here from Scotland. He was a nice man; and so was the man Wallhead who came after him. And now Wallhead is gone again; all them men are gone. I’ve seen ’em come and go, same as I’ve seen people that used to go to the British Schools here made into lords and ladies, and they’re gone, too. I’ve heard your father and you boys talk about this miners’ leader and that, and what they had done and were going to do; but all the same I had to beg my way through the ’98 strike, and I’d be on my backside now like most other people around here if I hadn’t had sense enough to look after the bit that came my way during the war. I’ve come a long way – in my old backhanded way – to where we are today. I’ve lived under the old Queen and a couple of kings since her time, and under God only knows how many governments of all sorts. And here we are. Your father with his “woman” this and “woman” that tries to make me out a damned fool – but I’ve learnt something. And if I couldn’t do better than some of the… hullo, Jane… oh, here’s Ossie, your father’s boozing-pal, come to fetch you, Jim…’

  ‘Never mind about boozing-pal,’ cried Ossie. ‘I’ve got a bet with your Sam, and you’re the one to settle it. He reckons that your Benny is gone fifty, and I…’

  ‘Benny’s not fifty until next birthday,’ said Saran.

  ‘Then I’ve won,’ said Ossie.

  ‘Half a minute,’ said Glyn, ‘I’m not so sure. Benny was born on the twenty-fourth of November, eighteen…’

  ‘I know when he was born,’ said Saran, ‘and I know that he’s not fifty until next birthday.’