Beggars and Choosers

by Catrin Collier

  ‘But you are safe from him now.’

  ‘Only so long as he doesn’t find out where I am.’

  ‘And that brings us back to what happened last night.’

  ‘Can’t we just forget it?’ she pleaded. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘That’s where we might have a problem. I want it to happen again and I hoped you would too.’ He gripped her hands in his and looked deep into her eyes. ‘I love you, Sali...’

  ‘Love me?’ She sank back in the chair and stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘Why look so surprised? If what we did last night wasn’t love, then what was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she stammered, unable to think of anything other than his shattering announcement.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Do you still love Mansel James? Is that it?’

  ‘No. I hardly ever think of Mansel now except to wonder what happened to him,’ she said truthfully. ‘And although I made love to him, he never, ever made me feel the way you did last night.’

  ‘Never?’ He smiled.

  ‘I had no idea that it could be like that. My aunt once told me that the physical act between a man and a woman could be the most beautiful expression of love but I never believed her. Until now,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then you do love me?’

  ‘I’ve spent all day petrified that I’d have to leave here because you were disgusted with me.’

  ‘You have that low an opinion of yourself?’

  She summoned her courage. ‘I’m a whore who gave birth to a bastard –’

  He laid his finger over her lips. ‘You’re the woman I love.’

  ‘My uncle told me that I was unfit for decent society, including my own brothers, sister and mother. Owen married me for my money and kept me hidden in his house in Mill Street for the same reason. Then I come here and you accept me. I told your father what I’d done and he even allowed me to bring Harry into the house knowing he was illegitimate. I’ve met nothing but kindness from all of you…’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that you only feel gratitude towards me and my family?’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘I am grateful to all of you but even after last night I dare not love you. I’m a married woman, Lloyd. I promised Owen in chapel before God that I’d forsake all others ...’ A fragment of her father’s voice echoed from other, happier days in Danygraig House.

  A benevolent God would never frown on a man who allowed himself a few harmless indulgences after a hard day’s work, only warped and twisted ministers who misinterpreted his Gospels.

  In a single moment of revelation she realised she hadn’t lost her belief in God, only in her Uncle Morgan and Owen Bull’s brand of Methodism.

  ‘You want to remain married to a man who degraded you, beat you to a pulp and threatened to harm your son and your aunt?’

  ‘That’s the last thing I want to do!’

  ‘Then divorce Owen Bull and marry me.’

  ‘I can’t divorce Owen. If I even try, he’ll find out where we are and come after us.’

  ‘I can protect you.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours a day for the rest of our lives? And if I make love to you again, I could have another child ...’

  ‘Like last night, I’ll make sure that you don’t. Not until we’re ready.’

  ‘I won’t bring another bastard into the world, Lloyd.’

  He sank his face into his hands before looking at her again. ‘Everyone in Tonypandy thinks that you are a widow.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, mystified by his train of thought.

  ‘After Christmas I’ll take a day off work. We’ll dress in our best clothes, catch an early train to Cardiff and buy a wedding ring. When we return, we’ll tell everyone that we married there by special licence.’

  ‘Lie to everyone?’

  ‘It won’t entirely be a lie. We’ll see a solicitor, change your name to Evans by deed poll and I’ll make a will leaving everything I own to you. There’ll be enough to keep you and Harry if anything happens to me.’

  ‘If anyone from Pontypridd heard that I was married to you they’d think I’d committed bigamy. Besides your father knows I’m married. We’d be living in sin ...’

  ‘My father has even less respect for organised religion and preaching designed to keep the working classes in their place than I do. And, would us living without the blessing of a parson and a meaningless piece of paper be any worse than you living with the chapel’s blessing with Owen Bull?’

  ‘Nothing could be worse than life with Owen,’ she said vehemently.

  ‘So what is your solution? That we ignore what happened last night? Because I warn you now, Sali, I can’t, and I refuse even to try.’

  She glanced at the clock. ‘The others will be wondering where we are and the dishes aren’t even washed.’

  ‘It’s more important that we finish this discussion than wash the dishes. Do you really expect me to carry on living in this house, day after day, as if last night never happened?’

  ‘No,’ she answered quietly, so quietly, he wondered if she’d really spoken or he’d simply heard what he wanted her to say.

  ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Please, Lloyd, I need time to think about what you’ve said. Time to find out what I feel ... why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because you are becoming your own person and not a doormat.’ He raised her from the chair. ‘Come on, sweetheart, I’ll help you with the dishes, take you to the bazaar and walk you home. And,’ his smile broadened, ‘begin a courtship that will hopefully result in many, many repetitions of last night. After all your bedroom is next door to mine.’

  ‘I couldn’t ... your father ... your brothers ... it wouldn’t be right. It would be –’

  ‘Perfect,’ he contradicted, ‘if you’d allow me to make you my common-law wife.’

  She thought of her father and how shocked he would have been if he’d ever discovered that she could contemplate such a thing. ‘I’ll not live in sin with you, Lloyd.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to carry on sneaking around until you change your mind.’

  ‘I won’t change my mind.’

  He pulled her close and kissed her. A brutal savage kiss that made her head swim and weakened her limbs. As she reeled helplessly in his arms, he swept her off her feet. ‘Your room or mine?’

  ‘Lloyd ...’

  ‘Mine, I think.’

  ‘Do you think you could love me?’

  They were lying in Lloyd’s bed, Sali’s head resting on his chest, his hand stroking her hair.

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’

  ‘Enough to live with me openly?’

  She looked up at him. ‘If I did, that would make me what my uncle and Owen told me I was. A whore.’

  ‘It’s just a name, Sali.’

  ‘A name I don’t ever want associated with my father’s daughter.’

  ‘Given the circumstances, your father would have understood.’

  ‘Would he?’

  He stripped the bedclothes away and turned up the lamp. She didn’t make any attempt to cover herself and he smiled down at her. ‘I want your heart.’ He kissed her left breast.

  ‘You have it.’

  ‘And all of your mind that a lover has a right to lay claim to.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘And your body.’

  ‘You have that now.’ She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, but he drew back and kissed the flat of her stomach.

  ‘And I want to watch you grow big with my child, because he or she will carry our love into the future. I want to live with you day in, year out, until we grow old and grey together. And if the only way we can do that is in sin as you put it, then that’s the way it will have to be.’

  ‘No, Lloyd.’

  ‘I’ll wear you down,’ he threatened.

  ‘You can try, but you won’t succeed.’

  ‘This won’t be the last time we’ll lie like thi
s.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So we sneak around?’

  ‘I love you, Lloyd,’ she pleaded. ‘Isn’t that enough for the moment?’

  ‘It will have to be, if that’s all you’re prepared to give me, for the moment.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled her up. ‘Come on, woman, we have a bazaar to go to and a son to collect.’

  ‘A son!’

  ‘If it were up to me, I’d adopt Harry and make you both Evanses tomorrow.’

  She turned aside so he couldn’t see the expression in her eyes.

  ‘If you don’t want me to –’

  ‘If it were ever possible, you’d make a wonderful father.’

  ‘And Harry is a son any man would be proud to have.’

  ‘Please, Lloyd, whatever you do, don’t mention it to him. The only family life he has ever known has been here with your father, brothers and you. And he’s so close to all of you I’m afraid that if it came to an end he would –’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘If Owen finds us ...’

  ‘He won’t, Sali.’ He picked up her clothes and handed them to her, wishing he were as confident as he sounded. First Connie, now Sali, was he destined always to fall in love with women he couldn’t marry?

  ‘Tuppence, please.’

  ‘You look blue, Dai.’ Lloyd dropped two pennies into the hand of the man sitting behind the card table outside the entrance to the Catholic hall.

  ‘Underneath this coat I’m the colour of a baboon’s ... rear end,’ he amended hastily when he saw Sali. ‘Here’re your tickets, keep them to claim your free cup of tea, Lloyd.’

  After the bitter cold darkness of Trinity Street, Sali found the blazing gaslights, noisy crowd, heat and mingling odours of tea, coffee, toffee apples, egg sandwiches and sweat overwhelming. Lloyd pushed ahead through the crowd but she hung back, surveying the room. Trestle tables had been set up and decorated with garlands of ivy, sprigs of holly, tinsel, and red, green and yellow painted paper friezes. Makeshift poles made from broom handles had been slung above them to support homemade banners and she realised there was little difference between a Catholic and Methodist bazaar. They both had the same kinds of stalls.

  White Elephant, Homemade Cakes, Good Used Ladies’ Clothes, New Knitted Goods, Ornamental Bric-a-Brac, Household Goods, Toys, Books, Jams, Jellies and Chutneys, Jewels – intrigued by the thought of jewels in a Tonypandy bazaar, she stepped close to the table to see rows of necklaces and bracelets strung from cheap glass beads interspersed with pieces of old-fashioned, tarnished paste.

  ‘See a wedding ring you like?’ Lloyd whispered in her ear.

  ‘Ssh, someone will hear.’

  ‘Good God! There’s Joey.’ Lloyd burst out laughing at the sight of his youngest brother in a white baker’s hat and apron, standing behind a stall labelled ‘Mouthwatering Homemade Sweets’.

  ‘The sweets are sticky,’ Joey snapped, as they approached.

  Sali saw that it wasn’t just the apron that had amused Lloyd. A sour-faced, middle-aged woman, who looked as though she was about to burst out of her corsets at any moment, was standing alongside Joey.

  ‘And there’s me thinking that miracles never happen in Tonypandy. Joey and Victor warned me that you’d be putting in an appearance, Lloyd, but I didn’t believe them for a minute.’ Father Kelly gripped Lloyd’s shoulder and pumped his hand enthusiastically up and down. ‘Doesn’t Joey look grand in that outfit?’ He pushed his hand into his pocket. ‘I’ll have a pennyworth of that coconut ice there please, Joey.’

  Joey ceased scowling at Lloyd long enough to pick up a paper cornet.

  ‘Not with your fingers.’ The woman beside Joey rapped his knuckles with a silver spoon before handing him a pair of sugar tongs.

  ‘I see you’ve your helper well under control, Miss Phillips.’

  ‘I try, Father,’ she sighed with a martyred air. ‘But like all men, he’s more thumbs than fingers and has trouble remembering the rules of basic hygiene.’

  ‘Wasn’t it kind of Miss Phillips to offer to man the sweet stall with Joey when Mrs Kavanagh said she couldn’t manage without Katie’s help with the refreshments.’ Father Kelly took a penny from his cassock pocket and handed it to Joey in return for the paper cone. ‘Mrs Kavanagh’s a dab hand at making the tea, coffee and lemonade, and little Katie is so light on her feet, she scurries around those tables like a wee fairy. No one’s had to wait more than five minutes for a cup of tea since she took over the tables.’ Father Kelly beamed at Sali. ‘And you must be the new housekeeper? Victor and Joey keep singing your praises. I gather you are also the mother of the beautiful boy Victor is carrying around so proudly. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. Mrs Jones, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’ Sali couldn’t help smiling as she shook the hand of the short, fat priest. He not only looked genuinely pleased to meet her, his eyes twinkled with a glint of boyish mischief that reminded her of Geraint and Gareth.

  ‘Last I saw of them, they were both waiting outside Father Christmas’ grotto. I don’t know who was the more excited, Victor or young Harry.’ He waved towards a stage at the end of the room. Curtains had been drawn across it and an inexpertly painted cardboard sign proclaiming ‘Father Christmas One Penny’ pinned to the folds. ‘It’s a long queue, but I’m sure they’ll be along soon.’ He solemnly presented Sali with the paper cornet. ‘That’s for bringing a stray sheep back to my fold, even if it is only to the hall for the one night. I know how hard you must have worked to get Lloyd here.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly –’

  ‘Sure you could. And it’s by way of a bribe. Victor and Joey say you’re a fabulous cook and poor old parish priests like myself always welcome an invitation to a home-cooked meal. Even if we do have to eat it with Marxists.’

  Uncertain how to take the priest’s sense of humour and his references to Marxism, and confused by Lloyd’s smiles, Sali was too bemused to do anything other than take the cornet.

  ‘You matchmaking Joey with Miss Phillips then, Father?’ Lloyd asked dryly.

  The priest stood back and watched them as they served customers. ‘Joey could do worse. She’s amassed a tidy bit teaching over the years, or so I’ve been told. And she’s a fine steady woman; an older head might curb some of his wild ways. Now, will you look at that?’ The priest shook his head as Joey winked at a well-endowed girl with curly hair who was clearing teacups from the long tables set in front of the stage. ‘Something tells me that boy will be saying more than a few paternosters and Hail Mary’s when he confesses what he’s thinking right this minute about pretty little Katie Kavanagh. Poor Miss Phillips, I think I’ll give up matchmaking. There are too many disappointments in it.’

  ‘A lot more water will flow down the River Rhondda before Joey walks up the aisle with a girl, Father.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ The priest looked Lloyd up and down, ‘But there’s Victor and you to go first. It’s a sin for fine young men like you two not to be married. You have no right to be enjoying life the footloose way you do. Every man needs a bit of misery with which to contrast his happiness and who better to give it to him than a nagging wife?’

  ‘Not all wives nag.’ Lloyd glanced slyly at Sali.

  ‘Your mother didn’t, to be sure, but then she was a saint. So, should I be dusting the marriage service off for you just yet?’

  ‘If I find a woman who’ll have me, and that is an “if”, Father, we won’t be marrying in church.’

  ‘You and your heathen Marxist services.’

  ‘You know full well there’s no such thing.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt that your father is writing one this very minute. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you coming to vigil mass tonight? The singing will improve no end if you add your fine voice to the choir.’

  ‘You don’t suppose right, Father.’

  ‘What about you, Mrs Jones?’

  ‘I’m not a Catholic, Father Kelly.’

&nb
sp; ‘Don’t let that be stopping you. God welcomes everyone in his house even, as I keep telling Lloyd here and his father, heathens. Vigil mass is a nice service, and the singing will be something special, although it would be better with Lloyd. So if you could coax him to change his mind, I’d be grateful.’

  ‘Do you allow just anyone to worship at your church, Father?’ Sali asked in bewilderment.

  ‘Anyone who knocks the door and wants to come in. On two legs that is. We had a dog once, but it bit the organist.’

  ‘Obviously a Calvinist Methodist dog come up from Trinity church to spy,’ Lloyd remarked.

  ‘Why the confusion, Mrs Jones?’ asked the priest. ‘Doesn’t our Bible teach us that God has a forgiving nature? I’d welcome the devil himself to a service if I thought I had the faintest chance of converting him.’

  ‘Mrs Jones is used to Methodist ways, Father Kelly,’ Lloyd explained.

  ‘Methodists. Ah now, there’s a big word.’ The priest rolled his eyes and looked heavenwards. ‘God in his wisdom has made us practically neighbours in this street and I understand his purpose. We all have to be taught to love our fellow man. And I have learned to forgive the Methodists many things, but not their policy on drink. God would never have created fine whisky if he didn’t intend for us to taste a drop or two once in a while. And here comes your boy, Mrs Jones.’ He waved at Harry who was sitting on Victor’s shoulders clutching a paper cornet and a folded comic under his arm. ‘Did you see Father Christmas, Harry?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry grinned from ear to ear as he unfolded his fist. ‘And look what he gave me, Mam.’ He proudly showed her a penny whistle.

  ‘You are a lucky boy and from that cornet and comic, I can see that Uncle Victor has been spoiling you.’ Sali opened her arms and Harry climbed into them.

  ‘Bring Harry to mass in the morning, Victor,’ the priest suggested. ‘It’s a special children’s service and it wouldn’t surprise me if a few toffees weren’t handed out at the end. Tell your father I’ll see him later in the County Club, Lloyd, and not to drink all the Christmas cheer before I get there.’