The Coward’s Tale

by Vanessa Gebbie

  But Judah Jones has cleaned that window with his leaves every year for so long that the glass is as thin as a thought. The face of the man on the glass is as beautiful as a thought as well, every brushstroke. Every part of the painting transparent, delicate. Every flower, every stone on the hills. Light as a small shell on the beaches, the nail of a baby, the membrane inside the egg of a wren. So full of beauty in its transparency that Judah Jones is crying as he rubs his leaves over the body of his collier.

  Is he fading then, the collier in the window, so like Peter Edwards? Does Judah Jones see that and stop? Does he feel the tremble in the thinnest of glass? He does not. The leaves brought the man to life for little Meggie Jones and they will do so for Judah. They will.

  It is not long before the leaves are brittle and crumbling again, and they fall to the floor of the chapel in silver rain. The painting is so faint now that he can only see his man if he moves from side to side and catches the light exactly . . . and Judah wonders if this is the miracle starting, that there will be nothing before there is something . . . for now he can just see him, the hands of his collier square and strong, his feet bare on the grass, and the flowers of the Beacons that were bright with colour are now ghost flowers below two silver merlins tumbling in a silver sky.

  This very day something is happening as Judah always knew it would, and he shuts his eyes and brushes his man with silver leaves, and dreams of being held by those arms, just once.

  He shuts his eyes and runs his fingers down the arms of his collier, to feel the muscles of Peter Edwards taut under the skin. And the thighs, he feels them tremble as his own are trembling now. And he moves his fingers to the face, and feels the chin, the lips, the nose, the fluttering of closed eyelids, and back to the mouth, and Judah sighs, for the glass is warm at last, the lips have parted. He feels the beat of a pulse and the warmth of breath on his fingers. Then he opens his eyes.

  But there is only empty glass. There are no flowers, no trees, no merlins tumbling ghostly in a pale sky. No wild cherry trees on the hills. No cliffs of coal. No man.

  Judah puts his hand to the window and it is warm, as though it is fed with veins, unseen, running in spiders’ webs through the glass. He stands on his chair to put his face close to where his man was, to turn his head from side to side for there must be the shadow of a man, a trace of his breath in the chapel air, the indents made by a single hair imbedded in the window. But there is not. And Judah Jones rests his forehead against the window, where the face of the collier was . . . and he places his mouth so gently where the mouth of the collier was, but his lips meet only glass.

  He presses and presses, thinking maybe, deep in the layers, the man is there . . . but the window is no thicker than the membrane inside that wren’s egg. It can no longer bear the weight of a kiss. And it shatters.

  All that is left is a Window Cleaner called Judah Jones, standing on an old chair in an empty chapel, a window broken. The evening breeze lifting his hair, tender as breathing. He has not noticed yet, but his lip is cut, and down his chin is running a thin stream of blood, living, bright and perfect.

  Through the broken window all there is to see is the High Street, its tarmac and gutters, shop fronts and grey roofs. The people going home to their fires. And the cinema. A boy in glasses standing there, Laddy Merridew come down to talk to Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, looking up at the window and holding his breath. While on the steps of the cinema Ianto Jenkins himself is nodding and nodding.

  In the Park, on the Bench Dedicated to Miss Gwynneth Watkins

  The next day, in the afternoon, the cinema is closed while someone talks to the machinery, and the wind blows the beggar Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins up the High Street and down again, then all the way up the hill behind the shops to the park. He has his lunch in his pocket, lamb and beetroot on white, to eat later.

  There in the park is Laddy Merridew, sitting on Gwynneth Watkins again, his school satchel thrown open on the grass, his notebook and pencil forgotten on the seat. Laddy is hunched over, reading a letter that looks as though it has been taken out of its envelope, folded and unfolded and read a hundred times. He does not notice the beggar sitting down beside him on the bench, until Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins takes his sandwich out of his pocket and unwraps it. Laddy looks up, ‘Where did you come from, Mr Jenkins?’

  ‘Who knows? Now, you mean, or then?’

  Laddy folds the letter up and stuffs it in its envelope, then back in his pocket. He does not answer the question. ‘I missed your story today. What was it?’ He picks up his notebook.

  ‘Nothing, Maggot. There wasn’t one. Nobody asked.’

  Laddy examines his hands carefully and bites a nail that has already been bitten well and truly. ‘My dad came to see me.’ Then he stops. ‘How come you live in the porch? I mean, why not live inside?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was wondering, how much it matters where you live, after all?’

  ‘Did your dad talk about things, then?’

  ‘No, not exactly. He drove all the way here after work, that was nice. I think he’d talked to Gran before I got there. Then he had to drive back. It’s a long way he came.’ He pats his pocket. ‘He left this when he went.’ Laddy is quiet for a while. ‘He’s leaving, Mr Jenkins – I mean, he’s going to live somewhere else. Manchester, I think. This letter is meant to explain but it doesn’t. He said he couldn’t explain, because he didn’t understand it all himself, and wasn’t going to make things up. He won’t lie to me, that’s what he says. Look . . .’, and he starts to pull the letter out of his pocket.

  Ianto Jenkins stops him. ‘No, Maggot. That’s private, it’s just for you, isn’t it?’

  There is silence for a while. A few leaves skitter over the grass, and Laddy pulls his coat round. Then, he clears his throat. ‘But I like it that he won’t make things up.’ He pushes his glasses back up his nose. ‘What about that window in the chapel?’

  The beggar nods. ‘Icarus Evans came this morning to board it up.’

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘Nothing much, I shouldn’t think.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ebenezer won’t be there for ever, Maggot.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I expect there are plans. They keep saying they are going to pull it down.’

  Laddy frowns, says nothing. Then, ‘You didn’t answer my question. Why do you stay out in the porch, Mr Jenkins? Why not live inside where it’s warmer?’

  ‘And darker. The dark still reminds me too much.’

  ‘What was it like down there, Mr Jenkins? You said you’d tell me, the other day. Can you remember?’

  ‘Oh Maggot. Can I remember? It is a better question to ask me if there is room for much else in my head sometimes. I remember it like it was yesterday – I remember him asking me too, over and over again, to tell him what it was like – the other Maggot, my brother, and I tried to tell him more than once. It wasn’t easy.’

  Laddy says nothing. So Ianto Jenkins clears his throat, hands Laddy Merridew a liquorish Catherine wheel and tries again to explain.

  ‘Like a great cathedral it was, Maggot, down there. But this was a cathedral with few lamps except what the men brought, and almost no windows.

  For there were windows, down there. Probably still are, too. There were the tunnel openings leading off every so often all blank and empty. Part of the wall and not part of it. Letting the outside be seen but not felt from inside, and letting the inside be seen and not felt from outside, and that is the strangest thing.

  There were pillars too, Maggot, down there, holding up the roof. Black and solid. And as I moved my lamp from side to side the light came back at me from the surfaces like so many black and blank mirrors until I was almost dazzled and Thomas Edwards laughed at me, I remember, “Ianto Jenkins, will you stop looking at the walls? You will be seeing the Devil himself . . .”

  But I had to keep looking. And listening, as well, for it was the noisiest place I had
been in my life. And each noise did not just come at you once, but twice, three times, echoes, echoes, see? Shouts, for the voices of the colliers never seemed to be just talking. The horses . . .

  Kindly Light was dark, it was indeed. It was full of things dreadful too – that first day I saw a horse fall as it strained to pull a load of coal to pit bottom, and it chose a place where the roadway was not level and the truck carried on and ran the poor horse down, breaking its back. I will not forget the screams then, believe me.

  But for all that, and it is a strange thing to say, now, it was the beauty of the place that rose up above the rest. There was no other word for it, Maggot, a deep, swelling, black as night beauty that was heavy as the whole world.

  The floor was dangerous though, and with dead Mr Ernest Ellis’s boots being too big I was always tripping up, until Mr Thomas Edwards my butty said I would be better off with no boots at all, but I was not having that. Mind you, Maggot, the floor of this great underground cathedral was pitted and running with water, and that water turned the lamplight into a great carpet of stars . . . but Mr Ellis’s boots saw off the water something wonderful.

  The roof down there was low and frowning – so low that Thomas Edwards had to bend and hunch forwards to walk down the tunnels for he was too tall, his lamp sent shadows flying along the walls – and sometimes, he knocked his hat on the roof and it fell forward over his eyes and there was such a roaring then. Oh and I learned some choice words in those few days.

  I said all this and I asked my brother the other Maggot if he could see it all in his own head now I had tried to draw it for him, but all I got was a snore in return.

  In the dark with the rain beating against the bedroom window it was hard to stop thoughts . . . they are like the wild ponies on the hills. I carried on thinking about cathedrals and the sound of singing from the tunnels as Da said it would be, but always above the singing and shouting there was the creaking of the wood lining the tunnel walls and now and again a loud crack as one piece of wood protested against the weight of the mountain. As I would do. I had not expected that.

  And also there were shouts and yells from far away, and the sound of picks and hammers and drilling, and the trundling of the trucks on the rails. And above all these sounds there was another that I heard, insistent, and high, the hiss and thud, the beat of the great engines, or there again, it may just have been the mountain breathing.

  And the smells down there too . . . well, that was not really like the great cathedral above, there was the stink of the horses and there was coal dust and not just the dust on the pews and the prayer books. That dust does not have to be dampened before it is safe, does it? And in the above ground cathedral there is never the smell of pigs, just faint . . . so you lifted your nose to it and snuffled like the pigs themselves – then it was gone.’

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins stops, as Laddy Merridew has fallen asleep, his head on the beggar’s shoulder.

  ‘Ah, but I must be losing my touch.’ He puts a hand on Laddy’s shoulder, to wake him. ‘I sent you to sleep.’

  The boy shakes his head, slowly. ‘No, I don’t think so . . . I didn’t sleep much last night. I was worrying.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. I was worrying that people lie all the time. But you don’t, at least, I don’t think.’

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  There is a pause, as if Laddy is not sure, after all. ‘You were talking about Ebenezer Chapel?’

  ‘No.’ Ianto Jenkins stands up and looks down over the town.

  Laddy stretches. ‘What will happen if it is pulled down? It’s your home, Mr Jenkins.’

  ‘Only for a while.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Who knows? Who knows, indeed.’

  Laddy Merridew picks up his schoolbag, pats his pocket to make sure his letter is still there. ‘Maybe see you tomorrow, then.’ He starts to walk away, then turns to wave, but Ianto Jenkins has already gone.

  The Clerk’s Tale i

  When the wind is in the east, coming just steady over the coal tips, the tunnel near the Brychan sings like an empty pop bottle. The sound bells about the soot and bricks as if it’s caught in the throat of a Dowlais tenor, coaldust and all, then it spills out and flows down the valley to the town. It settles in the alleys between the houses, seeps through the gaps in the windows; a hooooooing that has children crying there’s ghosts in the chimney.

  Then Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, in khaki, will stop his begging on the steps of the cinema and lifts a finger into the air, like he’s conducting. And he will look up at the windows of the Savings Bank, waiting for Tommo Price to move. And Batty Annie, her hair like string, leaves the door of the old linesman’s hut swinging on its one hinge, and stumbles, bent, along the tracks in her slippers waving a shrimping net that’s full of nothing but holes. She’s fetching her son home. ‘Wait for me, Lovely Boy?’

  If the wind is stronger, it will set the big old iron rocking horse going on its tarmac square in the park above the High Street, and it squeaks, squeaks, squeaks like there’s a football team of little lads astride, some standing. The swings on their brown chains swing with no hands to push. Back, forth. Squeak, squeak. And sheets of newspaper will blow across the streets, swirling with bus tickets and sweet wrappers, piling against the doors of Ebenezer Chapel to make work for no minister now, just the beggar who will have to bend his old bones to pick them all up.

  When he hears the hooing of the tunnel, Tommo Price, wearing a suit, looks out of his window at the Savings Bank, as if instead of the High Street he can see all the way to the Brychan on the very edge of town, as if he can see Batty Annie bent into the wind, disappearing behind the houses on her way up the old coal line on her way to the tunnel, ‘Wait for me, Lovely Boy.’

  Tommo will shake his head before going back to his ledgers. And the figures on the paper will be blown about as he watches. Tommo will push his chair back, call across to Matty Harris, Deputy Manager, that he has to go out. Matty Harris will nod slowly and carry on pulling a thread from his sleeve as he talks to Maggie from The Cat on the telephone one last time, ‘I just wanted to hear it from you, Maggie . . .’

  By the time Tommo gets to the tunnel, Annie will be inside, her slippers soft on the moss and stones. He’ll breathe shallow at the stink of piss. He will see nothing at all as the light is gone, taken by the wind. He will feel it, cold on his face, as he hunches his shoulders, coughs. ‘Annie? Come away now . . .’

  Tommo will hear her breathing, sharp, each intake like a sob. He’ll hear the scritching of her net against the bricks, a scuttle of tiny claws, the damp velvet dark pressing on his ears. And the sound. The hooooing of the wind, louder now. And if Tommo puts his hand on the wall, presses his fingers into the grease and soot, he can feel the wall trembling, still. As if the coal train is coming. ‘Annie? I will make you a cup of black tea with sugar?’

  Slowly, Tommo’s eyes will find Annie, just a shape in the darkness. She will come to Tommo like a bat, holding out the shrimping net, ‘Aww, Tommo, can you reach up by there? Just there. I can see him, Tommo . . .’ And he will hold her hand and scritch the net across the roof of the tunnel. The dirt will fall onto Annie’s upturned face, her threadbare donkey jacket. Dirt, soot, brickdust will all collect in Tommo’s hair for he does not look up, oh no.

  Maybe the wind will die down a little. The air in the tunnel will settle. Tommo will feel it, the air, it prickles, and the hairs on his neck rise to meet it. ‘Come on, love?’

  They’ll walk back to her hut, Tommo’s arm round her shoulders. Annie will have both hands on the net like twin crabs, holding it to her heart.

  And when they reach the hut, she will go straight to the little fire just alive in the hearth. She will take the net from her breast, holding it closed with one hand. She will hold it out until it is right where the smoke is rising, right under the chimney open to the sky, and she will take her hand away, shake it, shake it. She wil
l sit on the stool by the warm, and smile. ‘My boy’s in the chimney, Tommo, fetch the cup of water.’

  And Tommo fetches the thin white porcelain cup from the basket in the corner and fills it with water from the outside tap that rattles and chugs against the wall. And he gives it to Annie, not to drink, not at all; but to hold under the chimney for a mirror.

  ‘Is it going to be a moon tonight, Tommo? Will I see my boy?’

  Always happens, it does, regular as the clock on the Town Hall sticking at ten past the hour because of a nail. Then, Tommo Price, in his suit, walks back down the hill to the Savings Bank, brushing the dirt from his hair, and leaves Annie talking to her chimney.

  He passes by the steps of the cinema under posters with red lips, nods at Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, the beggar older than the century, and chucks him a penny.

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins picks the penny out of his cap, holds it right up to his nose and squints at the head on the penny to see if it’s a king. It isn’t, none of those around now. Only a queen.

  He shakes that penny at Tommo like it’s a fist because he remembers the day Batty Annie’s living son went to play Squash the King in the railway tunnel, skipping school with a friend who didn’t believe it could be done, and the tunnel still alive and yawning.

  The Clerk’s Tale ii

  For a coin or a toffee, Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins will sell his soul again and tell it to the cinemagoers, counting Annie’s son out like he’s done a thousand times, wheeling his arms like the true Juggernaut and tapping the face of a watch that has no hands . . .

  ‘Listen with your ears. I have a story for them, see? About Batty Annie who lives in the linesman’s hut up on the old coal line. And her living son, Dai, only seven years old, mind, back then. And his best friend, a young lad called Tommo Price, a man now – who still does not believe anything he is told, unless he sees it for himself.