Winners and Losers

by Catrin Collier

  After a scrap meal of bread, homemade apple jelly and margarine, eaten in strained silence, Billy and his sons left for the Empire. Sali watched them walk down the street, went back into the kitchen and stacked the dishes ready for when the fire would be lit. She glanced at the clock. It was half past one and the meeting wasn’t due to start until two o’clock, another half an hour. Her thoughts turned to Megan and Mrs Palmer –and Lena, lying cold and stiff in her coffin. She washed her hands and face, brushed her hair and pinned it into a chignon on the back of her head. Taking a pair of scissors from the drawer and a basket from the pantry, she went into the garden and spent ten minutes cutting a dozen of the finest rosebuds she could find.

  She arranged them in the basket, left the scissors in the basement, made her way to the lodging house and knocked at the back door. Mrs Palmer opened it.

  ‘I brought flowers for Lena.’ She lifted the basket.

  ‘They’re beautiful, Sali, and the first we’ve had.’ Joyce refrained from adding. ‘And the only ones we’re likely to have from the neighbours.’ In every other experience she’d had of sudden and unexpected death in the valleys, friends and neighbours had rallied around offering help. She was discovering just how different was the death of a suicide who’d worked in a houseful of policemen. ‘Would you like to take them through? Constable Davies is sitting with her. He hasn’t left her all morning.’

  ‘And Megan?’ After Megan’s shattering display of grief, Sali was almost too afraid to ask.

  ‘Megan’s seen Lena and paid her respects, but she insisted on working afterwards. I felt that I had no choice but to let her carry on. If you want to see her, I could call her.’

  ‘I’d rather not disturb her.’ Sali followed Mrs Palmer through the back porch. Joyce opened the door, then stood back and closed it as Sali stepped inside.

  Lena was lying in an open coffin supported on trestles. Her dark curls were brushed away from her face and she was covered to the chin by a white shroud. Sali forced herself to look at her face. Her eyes were closed and apart from the deathly white, bloodless colour of her skin she could have been asleep.

  ‘She looks peaceful, doesn’t she?’ Huw Davies rose from the wooden kitchen chair that had been placed next to the coffin.

  ‘Yes, she does. Please, don’t disturb yourself, Constable Davies. I only came to bring these.’ Sali looked around for somewhere to put the basket of flowers but the room was bare apart from the coffin, its stone walls whitewashed, the floor unadorned grey concrete.

  ‘Thank you, they are beautiful.’ Huw took the basket from her.

  ‘From Victor’s garden. I am so sorry, Constable Davies. I know how inadequate that sounds. If there is anything that I can do, I would consider it an honour to be asked.’

  ‘Find someone to bury her if you can, please, Mrs Evans. I know you offered to ask the ministers on the Distress Committee if they would. The Baptist minister heard what happened and called in, but only to tell Mrs Palmer that he wouldn’t bury Lena even if she’d been a regular worshipper at his chapel, and she wasn’t. I tried arguing with him, but he insisted that he has firm guidelines on dealing with suicides and he is not allowed to read the service over self-murderers.’

  Sali laid her hand lightly on Huw’s shoulder. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘I don’t care what kind of a priest you get. As long as it is someone who will talk about Lena, and how wonderful she was, and not about the way she died.’

  He turned back to Lena. There was a broken yet loving look in his eyes. Sali felt like an intruder as she stole quietly from the room.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Sali returned home but, unable to settle and knowing she wouldn’t until the men returned from their meeting, she left the house again and went to the soup kitchen. Father Kelly wasn’t expecting her but she hoped to find work there that would keep her from brooding over what was happening in the Empire.

  ‘Sali, it’s wonderful to see your beautiful face on this tragic day,’ Father Kelly greeted her. He set a chair for her in front of the table where he was chopping leeks, carrots and onions to put in the soup. ‘I called on Mrs Palmer before I came here to offer her and Constable Davies my condolences. I only just missed you but I did see the beautiful flowers you’d left.’ He lowered his voice lest any of his more conservative helpers overhear what he was about to say. ‘Constable Davies told me the Baptist minister’s opinion on self-murderers, so I said a few prayers over the poor girl’s coffin.’

  Sali didn’t know much about the Catholic Church, but she did know that suicide was considered a mortal sin and Father Kelly, like the chapel ministers and church vicars, should have taken a hard line and refused to pray over Lena’s corpse. ‘Do you think there’s a chapel minister in Tonypandy who’ll conduct Lena’s funeral?’

  ‘In short, no. The deacons, the elders and the chapel councils are firm when it comes to matters of policy. They know right, they know wrong, and somewhere between the two they lose all humanity.’ He picked up a cloth and wiped his eyes, which Sali suspected were watering from more than just the onions. ‘Such a pretty young girl and such a tragic end. And to think she had her whole life ahead of her with Constable Davies. The poor girl must have been in absolute torment to do such a thing. If only she had reached out to someone who could have helped her. But as I said to Mrs Palmer and Megan Williams, they’re not to go blaming themselves. God alone knows what went through that tragic girl’s mind last night. And He acts in mysterious ways, but it’s not for us to question the Almighty. Mrs Palmer told me that the undertaker’s arranged for the funeral to take place outside the walls of Trealaw cemetery on Monday next. You and all your family will be attending?’

  ‘We will,’ Sali said decisively.

  ‘Good for you.’ He glanced at the sink where Mrs Gallivan and Mrs O’Casey were peeling potatoes. ‘I will be attending –but only as a friend you understand. I won’t be wearing my cassock, but you can tell Mrs Palmer and Constable Davies that I’ve prayed for guidance and if they want a friend –not a priest, you must make that point absolutely clear to both of them –just a friend to say a few words over Lena Jones’ coffin, they have one. There isn’t a parishioner, or a bishop, who can object to me doing that much. And if there is anyone else who wants to say a few words as well, then so much the better.’

  ‘Father Kelly ...’

  ‘And why would you be scuttling in here at that speed, young Sam Richards?’ Alun Richards’ eldest son had charged into the hall and skidded to a halt in front of the table. ‘Here.’ The priest handed him a slice of raw carrot. ‘But don’t go eating that straight away, or you’ll be choking.’

  Sam grabbed the carrot and held it in his hand. ‘The men have voted to go back to work.’

  A saucepan and a colander crashed down on to the wooden floor behind Sali and Father Kelly. Mrs Gallivan burst into tears.

  ‘You’re sure about this, boy?’ Father Kelly said solemnly.

  ‘The colliers started fighting each other in the theatre. The manager called in the police to throw them out and now they’re fighting all over Dunraven Street. It’s bedlam down there,’ Sam said cheerfully, relishing the importance of his position as harbinger of bad news. ‘The shopkeepers have pulled down the shutters they had fitted after the riots and closed up all their shops.’

  ‘Dear God, it’s over.’ Annie O’Leary took a chair and sat next to Sali. ‘It’s finally over.’ Only the night before Connie had confided that they only had two weeks’ credit left with their suppliers before the shop would have to be declared bankrupt.

  ‘You’re an educated man, Father, tell me what was it all for?’ Mrs Gallivan cried. ‘Everyone going hungry, women and children dying of starvation, men of broken heads. All this trouble and all this fighting. Men being gaoled and for what? Only for the miners to turn back now and take the crumbs they turned down ten months ago. We look like fools and not one collier’s family will be a penny better off.’

  ‘The men f
elt that they had to fight for better conditions and a wage to support their families with dignity, Mrs Gallivan,’ Father Kelly observed sadly.

  ‘They didn’t succeed,’ Mrs O’Casey said.

  ‘They didn’t know they were going to fail when they started out, and even if they had, I’ve a feeling that the best of them still would have tried. God willing, it will give them the experience and the courage to attempt to better their lot again some time in the future.’

  ‘So we can starve again?’ Mrs Gallivan returned.

  ‘There’s greater shame in accepting the injustices in life without protesting, Mrs Gallivan, than there is in trying and failing to alter them.’ Father Kelly untied the apron he was wearing. ‘Take over here for me please, Mrs Evans. It looks like I might be needed in Dunraven Street.’

  ‘Victor, I heard about the way the vote went and the trouble up at the Empire. Are you all right?’ Megan asked, when he called, as he had promised, at six o’clock.

  ‘As all right as most of the others.’ He stepped out of the shadows and she saw that he was sporting a fresh bruise on his cheek and his fists were raw and bloody. ‘No one’s badly hurt and the committee’s already contacting management to call off the strike. It’s my guess that they’ll need a couple of weeks’ grace to get the pits ready and then we’ll all be back to where we were a year ago,’ he added despondently.

  ‘Sit down. Can I get you tea?’

  ‘No, thank you, Megs. Mrs Palmer not around?’ He looked around the kitchen as he sat at the table.

  ‘She went up to help Mrs Morgan pack and bring her things down. Mrs Morgan is moving in, just for a few days, until ... until Lena’s funeral,’ she added, making a heroic effort to control herself.

  ‘As soon as I’m back in work, Megs, I want you out of here and living with us. I’ll be able to send your father his fifteen shillings a week.’

  ‘And pay the fine you’re likely to get for assaulting a police officer as well?’

  ‘If I can’t do the two, I’d rather go to prison than have you carry on living and working here.’

  ‘Mrs Palmer said now that the strike’s settled, it’ll only be a matter of time before they start moving the police out and the colliers back in here. And we’ve barely another year to go before my birthday.’ She fished the chain holding her engagement ring out of the bodice of her dress and held it out to remind him.

  ‘I wish it were tomorrow.’ He pulled her on to his lap and buried his face in her red curls. After the stench of sweat and blood in the Empire, she smelled fresh and clean of the garden scents he loved, lavender, rosemary and rose petals. Closing his eyes, he held her close.

  ‘Now that the strike is finally over, promise me you won’t box again?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Not after we go back to work, Megs.’

  ‘That’s not good enough, I want you to promise that you won’t, ever again.’ She pushed him back and tried to look at him.

  ‘I’ve a fight arranged next week.’

  ‘Victor ...’

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ He couldn’t meet her eye. ‘Some of the boys have cuts that need stitching. I’ll see you on Saturday.’

  ‘Jenkins and ...’

  ‘Johns, sir.’ Gwyn Jenkins and another local constable crossed Pandy Square and stood to attention in front of Sergeant Martin.

  ‘Do you know this person?’ The sergeant indicated a man snoring loudly in the gutter. Even from three feet away they could smell the stench of beer and vomit on his unwashed clothes.

  ‘Mark Hardy, sir,’ Gwyn revealed.

  ‘The man whose wife and children died, and whose other children were put in the workhouse?’

  ‘You know about that, sir?’ Gwyn asked.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised, constable, you’d be amazed at some of the things I know about the people in this town,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Does he live around here?’

  ‘The huts, sir.’

  ‘Do you know which one?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then take him home.’

  ‘You don’t want him arrested, sir?’

  ‘I think the man’s suffered enough, don’t you, Constable Jenkins?’

  Gwyn looked to his companion. ‘You heard the sergeant,’ he said, after Sergeant Martin walked away.

  ‘I heard him, but I don’t see him getting his hands dirty,’ Johns complained. ‘I’d as sooner touch a dead rat.’

  ‘There’s no use in whining.’ Gwyn bent down. ‘I’ll take his feet, you take his head.’

  ‘How come you get the end that’s not likely to leak or spurt? Look, he’s crawling with lice and fleas. God only knows when he last cut his hair and it’s alive ...’

  ‘Moan, moan, moan, that’s all you ever do, Johns,’ Gwyn interrupted.

  They lifted Mark Hardy gingerly, and stepping sideways, carried him to his front door. Kicking it open with his foot, Gwyn dropped Mark none too gently inside.

  ‘The Lord only knows where he’s getting the money to buy his drink, because he’s nothing left to sell.’ Gwyn looked round the bare hut, then down at Mark. ‘Sweet dreams, sunshine, because as sure as hell, your life is anything but.’

  Megan was almost too tired to think by the time she carried the last of the supper trays into the kitchen from the dining room. Mrs Palmer and Mrs Morgan were upstairs in her bedroom, clearing out Lena’s things. She had been sincere when she told them she preferred to work than face all the pretty clothes, shoes and small luxuries that Lena had bought herself with the first money she’d ever earned –and been so proud of.

  She went into the back porch and pushed open the storeroom door. Huw Davies was still holding vigil over Lena’s coffin. She had to call his name three times before he answered, and even then he refused her offer of tea and sandwiches, just as he had refused all of Mrs Palmer’s offers of food and drink throughout the day.

  She returned to the kitchen, scraped and stacked the dishes, and filled the enamel bowl in the sink with hot water from the kettle on the stove. Yawning, she reached for the box of soda crystals on the window sill and sprinkled a handful into the washing-up water. She found it difficult to keep her eyes open, and realized that in spite of her grief and misery, she was so exhausted she would sleep. And that meant she wouldn’t be able to think about Lena –Victor’s boxing –or anything else for that matter.

  She kept moving, afraid that if she stopped, she’d fall asleep where she stood. She hadn’t stopped working all day except for brief snatched meals, when she, Mrs Palmer and Betty Morgan had sat around the kitchen table, poking at the food Mrs Palmer had put on their plates, unable to eat for thinking about Lena, lying in her coffin in the room behind them.

  Scraping all the leftover food on to one plate, she opened the back door, stepped outside and lifted the lid on the pigswill bin. As she leaned over the bin she thought she saw a shadow move alongside the wall of the ty bach behind her. She whirled around, and a sharp blow to her temple caught her off guard.

  Crimson fireworks burst into the darkness. She opened her mouth intending to scream, but a hand clamped over it. She fought with every ounce of her strength, but a heavy weight on her back pushed her slowly, relentlessly to her knees. Hands closed around her neck, squeezing the air from her windpipe.

  The fireworks faded, she had to fight for every breath, a grey mist clouded her eyes yet she was aware of a hand moving over the back of her legs, lifting her skirts and petticoats. She kicked wildly, hoping to topple the bin, to make a noise. But her feet hit thin air.

  She heard the sound of her clothes tearing. A cold draught blew over her naked flesh. Hands plundered the secret places of her body. She dug her nails into the arm around her neck. Bit down on the hand in her mouth ...

  There was a moment’s respite as her attacker moved. Her head hurt unbearably, but she forced herself to turn –just in time to see the lid of the bin hurtling down towards her in the light that pierced the darkness from the open doorway. It was thrust over her fac
e, and she was sent reeling and twirling into a black void.

  Huw Davies stroked Lena’s face tenderly with his fingertips, willing her deep brown eyes to open and gaze back into his. But they remained closed, and it was then, when she continued to lie, cold and unresponsive, that the realization finally came to him that he hadn’t spent the day sitting with Lena, but the shell she had occupied. Bone weary, he sat back on his chair. When he moved, the candle Mrs Palmer had brought in when it had begun to get dark, flickered, and the white walls of the storeroom swayed alarmingly inwards.

  Light-headed and suddenly, desperately thirsty, he left the chair, and because his legs had gone numb, stumbled towards the door. Fighting the peculiarly disabling sensation of pins and needles, he wrenched it open and lurched into the back porch. The back door was wedged open, by something lying half in, and half out of the open doorway.

  He stooped down. A naked woman was spread on her back, her skin startlingly white in contrast to the red scratches that marred her skin and dark pools of blood congealed around her breasts and thighs. Her clothes had been torn from her and shreds of cloth, spattered with blood, littered the porch and backyard. Her face and neck were hidden beneath the circular lid of a metal bin.

  Heart thundering, nauseous, he murmured, ‘Please God, not again,’ as he cautiously lifted the lid. Her face was a swollen mess, her lips bloody, her eyes closed, and there was a deep cut across her neck that looked as though a cord had been tightened around it, but there was no mistaking the rich, red-gold curls. Her lips parted and she moaned.

  Uttering a fervent, ‘Thank you, God,’ he stripped off his tunic, covered as much of her as he could, scrambled to his feet and ran through the kitchen, shouting for Mrs Palmer.

  Betty Morgan carried a tray of tea into Joyce Palmer’s sitting room. Huw Davies was sitting on the sofa besides Lloyd Evans, both staring down at their boots, each sunk deep in their own thoughts. Sergeant Martin stood in front of the empty fireplace looking at Victor, who was leaning against the wall beside the curtained window. His back was turned to them, and he didn’t turn his head when Betty entered.