Sian: A New Australian

by D. Luckett

  Sal or Madge went along with them, mostly, especially if the weather was fine. Da told them. ‘You just make sure your sister will be wearing white at her wedding.’ I didn’t know what he meant by that. On Sundays it was the same as before. They’d walk out and then Ellis would come to tea.

  ‘You’re off to Newport to buy the ring, I hear, Mr Williams,’ said Da, one Sunday at tea.

  Ellis swallowed the last bit of his Welsh cake, and nodded. ‘Yes. Tomorrow. Mr Jones has kindly given me the day off. I worked the extra time last week, see.’

  ‘And Olive says she must go with you,’ said Da.

  ‘That’s right, Mr Roberts. The ring must be made to fit her, you know.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Da. He half-closed his eyes. You could see him thinking. ‘Sarah –’

  ‘I can’t go with them, Da,’ said Sal, quickly. ‘You know I’ve got my choir rehearsal, and Mrs Thomas says if I miss one more, I won’t be singing at the eisteddfod.’

  ‘Margaret –’

  ‘Not me either, Da,’ said Madge. ‘There’s an arithmetic test at school and I have to pass it or I’ll be kept down. I’ve been studying all week. And Ceri’s the same.’

  Da looked out of the window. The sun was setting in mare’s-tail clouds. That meant rain was coming. He thought for a moment. Then: ‘Sian. I’m sure you’ll enjoy an outing. And you’re well ahead at school, Mr Hall tells me. You can go. Besides, you’re only a half-fare on the train.’

  Ellis looked at Olive, on the other side of the table. Olive gave just the littlest, tiniest nod. Ellis sat back in his chair and lifted his teacup again.

  So that was settled and I had never said a word.

  It took a long time to get to Newport, so we were up early. It was raining, so we needed an umbrella.

  Olive and I walked to the station in time to buy our tickets but when we got there we found that Ellis already had them and was waiting for us under his big black umbrella. Olive made to open her purse but Ellis told her not to be silly.

  The train chuffed in and stopped and the engine let off steam. We got on.

  I’d been on the train, oh, lots of times. Three or four, at least. I liked to stare out the window and watch the country go past. First there were long narrow villages in between the hills, one after another, all clustered around their pitheads, then the land got flatter and the fields wider.

  After that we started to pass houses, big ones, then little ones in strings, and shops and mills. I watched them all slide past, my nose pressed to the glass.

  I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to be a gooseberry. That was what Sal called it. I was there so that Olive and Ellis didn’t start kissing, because then Olive wouldn’t be able to wear white at her wedding.

  But they didn’t, so that was all right. And I had the whole day off school to go to Newport.

  So we came to Newport station. It was just before the pier, which went right out into the sea. There was a great big high street with two whole rows of shops – both sides of it. In our village there were only three shops in all – Thos. Tate Butcher, Evans the shop, and Powell the chemist. Here there were all sorts and one had a sign that said Hughes Jeweller and Goldsmith.

  Ellis opened the door for Olive and me and shook his umbrella out on the step before he came in. The door had a bell that rang when you opened it. Inside there were glass cases and in the glass cases – oh, my! A whole tray of brooches for a shawl. One was like a little cart, all silver with golden wheels, and it had a horse to draw it, black as coal, but shiny. In the centre of the wheel was a clear green stone. I stared at it. It was so beautiful.

  ‘Can I help you? … Sir,’ said the shop assistant. He left the ‘sir’ off until after he’d looked Ellis up and down. Ellis said that he wanted a wedding ring for the lady and the man congratulated them both. My, it took a long time. I went and looked at bracelets and necklaces but I kept coming back to the brooch with the golden wheels and the coal-black horse.

  Afterwards, when the ring Olive wanted had finally been chosen and packed up in a tiny box, Ellis bought us ices at a place on the pier and we looked at the boats while we ate.

  Ellis didn’t have an ice. He said they hurt his teeth. He had a cup of tea instead. After we’d sat for a while, he asked Olive: ‘Have you talked to her about it?’ and he nodded at the sea.

  ‘No,’ said Olive. ‘Not that. But I think –’

  ‘We should ask, you know,’ said Ellis. ‘I don’t like to think about what might happen if we … you know …’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  They looked at each other.

  Then Olive turned round and looked at me. ‘Sian, now, Ellis and I have been talking, and we think that when we’re married you should come and live with us. For a while, anyway. You’re a worry to your da. Ellis thinks you remind him of … well, of things, and it makes him sad.’

  ‘And angry,’ said Ellis. He shook his head. ‘It’s no good. No child should be held to account –’

  ‘Ellis,’ said Olive. She looked at him for a moment but he said no more. Then, to me: ‘I’ve always mothered you, I suppose. I might as well go on with it. And you know, if you lived with us, you could have a room all to yourself.’

  Well, how could I argue with that? A room, all to myself. A bed I didn’t have to share. Ceri kicked me black and blue and Sal snored.

  So of course I said yes, that would be fine. And then I thought: If I’m living with Olive and she’s like my mother, not my sister – now, what did that make Ellis?

  ‘Now,’ said Olive, ‘you must say nothing to Da about this when we get home, Sian.’

  That was easy. I already knew that sometimes it was best not to say anything to Da. But Olive went on: ‘We’ll have to work him around to it. And we’ll need some help.’

  We were climbing the hill from the station. It was still raining, soft and fine, falling like a drifting veil. I thought about who might help work Da around. But as soon as I thought about it, I knew.

  ‘Help from the others, you mean. Sal and Madge and Ceri.’ Yes. They’d want to help with it. If I wasn’t there, they’d have more room, too.

  ‘You’re a sharp one and no mistake, Sian. But don’t you say anything to Da. Not a word. You leave it to me.’

  I never knew what Olive said to the others. Probably it was after I was asleep. But they started getting Da around the very next day.

  ‘I can’t fit in that bed anymore,’ said Ceri. ‘There’s no room. You can’t turn over. You can’t move. Every time you move, you wake someone else up.’

  We were having breakfast. Da put jam on his toast, saying nothing.

  ‘You were kicking me again,’ said Sal. ‘All night it went on. I didn’t get a wink of sleep.’

  ‘Funny, that is! For someone who was awake you were snoring loud enough.’

  ‘Sian’s getting too big to sleep across the bottom of the bed but there’s no room going the other way.’

  ‘Olive will be moving out soon,’ said Da. ‘You can shift around then.’

  ‘It’ll still be two to a bed, won’t it?’ said Sal. ‘And no room for our things.’

  Da put sugar in his tea and stirred it. He didn’t say anything. Sal and Ceri sipped their tea and went quiet. And that was all, for just then.

  We went to school, those of us who were still going. Sal had a job making and mending for Mrs Jones who did laundry and mending in her own house. Miners are hard on clothes. Sal put three shillings a week into Da’s hand and had a whole shilling to spend on herself.

  I wished I could do that. My threepence had gone into the chapel poor box and now I didn’t have a book to write in or a pencil to write with. At school it was back to a slate for me, like being little again.

  At supper they started getting Da around again. Sal said that there was no room in the wardrobe for her new hat, so she’d had to hang it up on a hook and now it was all pulled out of shape. Ceri said she had to have somewhere to put her starched pinnies, didn’t she,
and that hat was the size of a cart’s wheel and Sal had no business …

  ‘Quiet,’ growled Da. ‘Be grateful to the Lord and the Union that you’ve a roof over your heads.’

  ‘We’re just getting too crowded, Da,’ said Olive.

  Da slammed the flat of his hand down on the table. Bang! We all jumped. The plates and cups rattled. ‘Not another word! I’ve had enough of this. No room for beds, no room for hats, indeed! Olive, you’re only encouraging them, and for shame, with you getting married soon and all. What will happen when you’ve children of your own? Will you help them talk back to their father, is it? I must have a word with Mr Williams about that. Warn him, like.’

  He scowled at her but Olive just picked up her cup, not turning a hair. She sipped and waited.

  We all waited.

  Da buttered bread and then looked up at us. ‘All right. I know there’s still going to be four of you in that room but there’s no helping that. You’ll just have to put up with it. There’s nothing else to be done.’

  Olive’s eyes slid sideways to Sal. I knew that look. It said, you start.

  ‘Oh, but Da …’ Sal started.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Olive, cutting her off before she could get going properly. ‘Da’s right. If there’s nothing to be done about it, then there’s nothing to be done. If there was a way, why …’ She stopped for a moment and blinked, as if she was surprised. Then she went on: ‘No. No, it’s not worth thinking about.’

  ‘What isn’t worth thinking about?’ asked Madge.

  ‘Oh, a thought that popped into my head,’ said Olive. ‘But it’s nothing. It’s nonsense. Forget I ever said anything.’

  ‘What thought? What did you think of?’ asked Sal.

  Olive only shook her head.

  Da eyed her. He was in a mood to be contrary by now, and that was what Olive wanted. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Da, it’s nothing. Forget I said it.’

  ‘Answer me. What were you thinking?’

  ‘Nothing, Da.’

  ‘Don’t tell me nothing. You said you were thinking of something. What?’

  ‘Well, it’s only that Ellis … Mr Williams and I … saw a nice little place, fully furnished, not too dear, just up on Ffronion Street the other day and it’s got two upstairs rooms. Two rooms, and us …’ She looked down.

  ‘Needing only one,’ said Da. ‘When you’re married.’

  ‘Well, yes. So there’s space. I’ve always looked after Sian and she’s a bother to you and getting big, and all. But of course, Mr Williams would never agree to it.’

  ‘Oh, wouldn’t he? Well, I suppose he’s got the right not to.’ But Da wasn’t happy about agreeing with Olive, you could see.

  ‘Of course he has,’ said Olive. ‘See. It was silly of me, thinking of that. I told you. Sian will just have to stay here. Madge, when I’ve gone it’ll be up to you to make sure she gets washed and dressed and off to school, proper.’

  ‘What? Me? Why do I have to –’

  ‘Well, I can’t do it, can I?’ said Olive. ‘I’ll be off married, and Mr Williams would never –’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ asked Madge.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly. I can’t do that.’

  And that was when Da’s contrariness took hold of him. He hadn’t liked agreeing with Olive, so now he disagreed, because it suited him better. ‘Why can’t you?’ asked Da. ‘The worst he can say is no, isn’t it?’ He looked around the table. ‘And when he does say no, that’s the end of it. None of you can say it was me being unfair, then. It might stop your quarrelling. I can hope, can’t I, see?’

  And that was how we worked Da around. Clever, wasn’t it?

  Of course Ellis said yes, and Da could look as black as he liked about it. He’d said it was all right, hadn’t he?

  c

  It was a lovely wedding. Everyone said so. The sun came out, for a while anyway, and Olive had a white dress with lace. I helped to sew the lace on. It was a pity that it was already October, so there were only a few flowers but there was a big tea at the house, with a proper wedding cake and sweet buns and ham sandwiches.

  Afterwards Ellis and Olive went off to their new house. I was to give them two days alone, said Da, before I moved over there. Most of my things were already gone though. I couldn’t wait to have a bed all to myself. And it wasn’t far away from the rest of the family. The boys were down the hill and Caradog Street was just the other side of the marketplace.

  Ellis had three days off. For his honeymoon, they said. So they were married on the Saturday and on the Tuesday I went to their house to live.

  It was only a small house, in the middle of a terrace, and smaller than the house in Caradog Street, but I had a place for all my things. I could put them where I liked. I could even leave them out, if I wanted to, and not have to put them carefully away all the time in case someone trod on them.

  Olive came up to tuck me in and put out the light and there I was with a whole room to myself.

  When I got back from school the next day Olive was in the kitchen making a jam tart for supper. Ellis came in after me. He was wearing his good suit and an overcoat. It was getting cold already. Soon it would be winter again.

  I wondered where he’d been. His feet were wet but it had stopped raining before school got out, so he must have been out for a while.

  When he’d wiped his boots, he came into the kitchen, where it was warm from the stove. Olive just looked at him.

  He patted his top pocket. ‘Second class inners,’ he said. ‘But it’s a cabin …’

  Olive glanced at me. ‘Little pitchers,’ she said.

  I knew what that meant. I wasn’t supposed to be told something. But what? What was a second-class inner? Something for you to wear? And what was a cabin? Wasn’t that something that Americans had, built out of logs? Were we moving again, then?

  But I knew it wouldn’t be any use asking. They wouldn’t tell me. We had our supper – that jam tart was lovely – and then I went up to bed. Ellis came in to say goodnight and Olive tucked me in. When she had, Ellis brought a little box out of his pocket.

  ‘I had to go to Newport, Sian,’ he said, and he glanced at Olive. ‘Just for some things. But I stopped in … in one of the shops. I thought you might like this.’ And he held out the box to me. ‘Call it a late birthday present,’ he said.

  Oh! It was the horse and cart brooch. I stared at it for ever so long. I forget what I said but Ellis looked pleased and Olive smiled too, and I pinned it to my pillow so that it would be the first thing I saw when I woke in the morning.

  I wore it every Sunday to go to chapel after that and I’ve still got it.

  So the days went on. I went to school and came home. The weather got colder and it started to get dark earlier. It was often too wet to go for a Sunday walk into the hills but anyway the flowers were gone and the only birds left were crows and rooks. Well, and the robins. At least robins are cheerful, and they don’t caw at you.

  It was the time of year when it was getting dark not long after school. I got home, cold and wet, just as the rain was turning to sleet. Olive was in the kitchen. Ellis was still at work. He’d be there until it got quite dark, rain or no rain.

  Olive looked up from the stove when I came in. She was stirring soup. Cawl, it was, with dumplings. Olive was a good cook. It smelled lovely.

  ‘Sian,’ she said, and paused. I sniffed at the soup again. Olive saw and said, ‘Wait for your supper.’ Then, ‘Now, Sian.’ She paused again, as if she wasn’t sure how to go on. She cleared her throat, put the spoon down, and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Mr Williams and I didn’t have a proper honeymoon, you know, only three days that man Jones would give him and only then if he worked Saturdays for months. Hard as flint, Jones is. That’s what you get, working for wages as a journeyman …’

  She stopped. Sometimes Olive would start arguing with herself, sort of. I waited for her to get on with saying whatever she was trying to say.

  S
he turned back to the stove, not looking at me. ‘Well. Anyway, Mr Williams and I were thinking of taking a little sea voyage. As time to ourselves, like.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘But I … I can’t live here on my own while you’re away.’ And as I said that, I thought, please don’t say I have to go back to Caradog Street. Back to not having a room, not even a bed of my own. And not to Da and his stick and his belt again. And thinking of Da, ‘Have you asked Da about this?’ I asked. ‘Only the others won’t like it, you know.’

  ‘No. But Da doesn’t have to know until the last moment, or them either. But as for you, Sian, I think you’ll have to come with us. Ellis … that is, Mr Williams … says you’re no trouble and he’s grown fond of you.’

  Well, that was a new thing. Me not being trouble, that is. ‘Go for a voyage on a ship?’ I asked. ‘Would I have to get off school?’

  Olive looked into the soup pot and picked up her spoon again. She tasted and then put in more salt. ‘Yes. It could be a holiday for you, too.’

  I’d never been on a ship but I’d seen them. If you went to the end of the hills and looked out you could see all the way to the sea and the ships far out on the grey water.

  ‘When are we going?’ I asked, and then I knew that I wanted to go. Perhaps I could write a composition for Mr Hall about it.

  ‘Oh, in a week. We’ll need to pack our things. But here it is – you mustn’t tell Da or the others.’

  ‘You’ll have to work him around to it, you mean,’ I said. ‘Like working him around to me living with you.’

  ‘Well, like that, but not quite. This time, we don’t want to tell anyone. It’ll have to be our secret. Just ours. You mustn’t tell anyone, or they might stop us from going.’

  Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Or they’d want to come too. So I did as Olive said. I didn’t say anything to anyone.