The Coward’s Tale

by Vanessa Gebbie

  Making the bread in their house in Plymouth Street Annie was, all those years ago, when her son had six minutes left only. Standing on a stool in the kitchen, reaching for the flour, they reckon, and her husband Evan coughing his guts out upstairs – but he still alive, just. And she thinking her Dai was at school, his dinnerpennies given in to the teacher, doing his sums to be a famous lawyer.

  But he was not at school. Oh no. Tucked their satchels they had, behind the railway brickwork, him and his friend Tommo Price, and only a shout or two away from his mother in her kitchen, if the wind is right, there’s the shame.

  And she with the flour over the table, and the water, and the flour over her hands, and the water over her hands, and the softness of the bread gathering together, and the smell of the yeast, making bread for her men, him only seven and his da who coughs under the blankets at night until Mrs Pym next door rolls over Mr Pym in her curlers and bangs the wall and cries, “Is there no sleep to be had?”

  See them now, the boys, Batty Annie’s Dai and his best friend Tommo Price, sitting on the rail near the tunnel, eating cherry pip sweeties bought with Tommo Price’s dinnerpennies, sticking their tongues out blood red down the middle. Their shoes fresh polished and shining like conkers for there was to be a singing for the real dead king at Ebenezer. Nice boys, both, in their school jumpers all tidy and straight. The one jumper machine-new and bought with money, the other made by Annie, full of love and knots.

  Five minutes to go and they reckon Annie was up to the elbows in flour, softness under her nails, gathering it all together and rolling it away with her palms. And Dai was talking about pennies. “I can squash the king, Tommo.”

  “No, you can’t . . .”

  “I can so, now then.”

  And Tommo was pushing him, “Nah, liar, you can’t so there . . .”

  “I can, so now . . .”

  And Dai poked Tommo in the side and he fell off his rail, laughing . . . then they were up and running, the pair of them, along the tracks, jumping the sleepers, hooooing like ghosts. Hooooooo into the mouth of the tunnel, and it just went hooooo back at them, stretching like a waking dragon.

  Four minutes and the coal train pulled out of Clydach, wheels spinning and sparking. With thirty trucks of steam coal. And the boys’ shirts were all untucked, and their socks were round their ankles, and their shoes were dusty, and Annie’s hair had fallen in her eyes and she brushed it away with the back of a hand, and there was a streak of flour over her forehead like a message.

  And her boy Dai had fallen on the stones, he’d hurt his knee all bleeding, his dinnerpennies fallen out of his pocket in the halflight. But he wouldn’t cry, oh no, with his da coughing at night and all and quite enough for his mam to be going on with thank you.

  “I can squash the king, I can . . .”

  But his best friend Tommo Price didn’t believe him. “I don’t believe you,” his best friend said, and oh, it mattered. Dai had his pennies in his hand now, off the ground where they were glinting.

  Three minutes and Dai, who had never squashed the king said, “The rails shift, see . . .” because he’d heard the big boys talking in the street . . . “The rails shift when the train’s coming, Tommo. Up and down they go. Put the penny there too soon, it falls off . . .” And he thought he sounded so knowledgeable. Like an engineer. “Have to wait, see. Have to wait ’til the train’s nearly there . . .”

  But Tommo Price said, “Nah. You’re scared . . . nah, the king won’t squash like that. He won’t.”

  They reckon it was two minutes when Annie saw Mrs Pym in the window opposite, waved, called her in to say sorry about the coughing with a cup of tea . . . a bit of hot water in the kettle and she put it on the gas, high. She could try Evan with one, give him two sugars for a treat. Went to the door in her pinny, stood talking . . . when her boy started his walk back into the tunnel.

  “I will do it, Tommo Price, you’ll see . . .”

  And Tommo Price put his hands on the brick wall and the bricks were trembling. “You will not . . .”

  And Annie said to Mrs Pym that she’d go up to fetch a cardigan in a minute. “Cold as the grave it is,” she said.

  One minute and the rails were singing. The train was coming and its sound filled the tunnel and Tommo could not see the boy for the sound and the dark and he shouted to his friend, “Come out . . .” But the tunnel was so full of the sound of the train, the grinding and rattling, the screeching and roaring, that his words were swallowed.’

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins will stop wheeling his arms and hug himself and he’ll look at his watch with no hands, tap it and hold it to his ear where it ticks and ticks like a death watch beetle and never tells him anything other than that. ‘And him only seven, mind . . .’

  Then the cinemagoers who have listened with their ears and their eyes – for they have followed the arms wheeling and the head rolling, and the eyes glancing up at the windows of the Savings Bank – want to finish the story.

  ‘Did he squash the king, bach, bless him?’

  ‘Aww, did they find the penny then?’

  But the storyteller is off now, back begging he is, as the two o’clock is coming out all smiles and toffees. But he is not finished, and will not be until he tells the other half of the story, about Tommo Price, who never believed what his friend told him.

  ‘You never told us about Tommo . . .’ And the cinemagoers look up at the window of the Savings Bank to see Tommo Price duck out of the way fast, maybe to pick up a dropped pencil. Maybe not. And the storyteller continues.

  ‘Listen with those ears then, if you still have them. And let them hear the story of Billy Price, Tommo Price’s grandfather. Let them hear the sound of his spade digging the back garden on a day off his work as a collier down Kindly Light pit, and the voice of the widow Ivy Jones next door coming over the wall, “Mr Price, can I have a word?” all formal and careful.

  And Billy Price leaning on his spade, glad of the rest, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, “Morning, Ivy. How’s this for a busman’s holiday? How’s that young son of yours?”

  “Not so young, Mr Price. Geraint is starting down Kindly Light Monday week.”

  “Is he now? Well. Make a fine collier too.”

  “I would be so grateful, Mr Price, if you would watch Geraint for me?”

  And Billy Price, who has a son of his own, and who knows Geraint is her only one, “I will, Mrs Jones. I will watch out for Geraint. Not that he’ll need it, mind. Safe as houses . . . don’t you worry . . .” and they talk for a while after, as well.

  Billy Price’s son was still at school – a clever boy too and not going to be a collier if his da could help it.

  But that Geraint Jones was the very same one that would be wed only a few years later to little Meggie, remember? That Billy Price was old enough indeed to be his own da. And he did watch for him as he promised his neighbour Ivy Jones, acted as Geraint Jones’s butty for a bit, then they were workmates, then friends, despite the years between. Worked alongside each other when they could, Billy Price like the father young Geraint Jones lost when he was a boy.

  Worked together, and died together, they reckon. On the day the mountain fell at Kindly Light, Billy Price and Geraint Jones were working on the level that disappeared, as though the mountain was closing up all our roadways, all our little animal tunnels. Their bodies were never found for all the searching. Ivy Jones, bless her, she had no Geraint brought back to her kitchen on a stretcher, like the other mams who lost sons. And Mrs Price, Billy’s wife, there was no man carried slow along the street for her, either.

  In the chapel by here, at the funeral later – some of those never found had coffins complete with their names. Inside, just a few lumps of coal wrapped in cloth to weigh them down. Geraint Jones and Billy Price had no coffins.

  And for Billy Price’s family, his wife, his son – there was no body found, so Billy Price may not be dead. His wife, Mrs Price, she would not go to the funeral at all. “Brin
g me his body. Then I will know.”

  It was a simple thing. He may have just gone, disappeared as some men do, or he may have been drunk under a hedge not knowing who he was, or the records may be wrong saying he was down the level that collapsed.

  And the Price son was the same. The son who was good at numbers, and would not be a collier at all, not if his da could help it – the son who would be Tommo Price’s own father, see? If there was no proof then there was no certainty – and maybe that was why he worked afterwards with numbers? Who is to say? And Tommo Price is no different. He has to have proof that things are what they are. Always has. Even when he was a small boy, he would never believe anything unless he could be shown.

  And I can tell you this, as well. When Tommo Price was small, a year or two before the death of Annie’s son, mind, his grandmother, old Mrs Price, she died herself. Still asking for the body of her husband Billy, too. And there she was, all laid out in her coffin on the table in the front room, her mouth held shut with a black ribbon tied below her chin. And young Tommo – her grandson, only five – he waited until the talking stopped, the watchers gone for their supper, and he crept in with two small glass marbles in his pockets. Pushed those marbles one after the other right up his grandmother’s nose, then stood back waiting for her to sit up, and sneeze, and for the marbles to knock on the tabletop. But she never did.’

  And the cinemagoers walk away slowly, shaking their heads.

  The Clerk’s Tale iii

  The wind can be in any direction it likes and old Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins in khaki will always be begging on the steps of the cinema. ‘Film good, was it? And the toffees? Oh that I had the teeth for a Callard and Bowser, now.’

  Mrs Prinny Ellis who takes the ticket money brings him a sandwich with beetroot. A Welshcake. Yesterday’s paper. ‘He has no bones, Ianto Passchendaele hasn’t, mind, or he’d be stiff. No bones under them trousers . . .’

  Tommo Price can see Ianto Jenkins from his window at the Savings Bank like God above who can do nothing once he’s let his creation loose. He watches when people come out of the midday showing and stand with the beggar for aeons with him wheeling his arms and tapping his watch, and Tommo turns away and goes back to his ledgers. He drinks his tea from a thick cup and he fixes his eyes on his ledgers where the numbers stay still and solid and if he concentrates hard he only half-hears his name,

  ‘Tommo Price it was. Tommo Price . . .’

  Tommo passes Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins later on his way home from the Savings Bank and sometimes if he has the devil on his shoulder, Ianto Jenkins waves a penny at him and hooooooos like the wind. Or a train.

  ‘Annie’s son’s in the chimney again, Tommo?’

  But of course there are no boys in chimneys, or in tunnels, and Tommo Price goes home to his wife Sarah Price, who makes white fish for tea with white buttered bread and serves it silent. Lardy-faced, she is, and secrets slide from her like dropped bullseyes on a frozen puddle.

  ‘Aww. Off to Annie’s now, is it? There’s a shame the fish is eaten all.’

  ‘Shame indeed . . .’

  ‘You can tell me what she says, Tommo. I wouldn’t breathe . . .’

  ‘Indeed you wouldn’t, my love . . .’

  Every evening after tea Tommo Price goes up through the Brychan to the old coal line, to Batty Annie’s hut, just to make sure. Even when he is tired to the grave, like tonight, with watching the figures on the paper, and watching Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins on the cinema steps, looking up and watching him in return. Tommo Price pulls his jacket round as he walks past the houses, past Laddy Merridew sitting on the front step of his gran’s, biting his nails.

  Tonight the wind is blowing from the east and Tommo thinks to go straight to the tunnel where Annie will be as sure as eggs with her net. And she is not. It is past seven and the light is fading, and the tunnel is hoooooing soft and in waves.

  For a bit Tommo waits there, because she will come stumbling along any minute with her net. And he thinks of Annie there, waiting. The Annie who held him tighter once than his own mam, and stroked and stroked his school jumper and left little dabs of bread flour and soft dough clinging to the wool and said it was not his fault.

  But tonight, this very night, she doesn’t come with her net. Tommo walks along the tracks to her linesman’s hut and taps. ‘Annie?’

  ‘Aww, Tommo, there’s a thing and I’m not very well . . .’

  And she is lying in the corner in her donkey jacket, not in the bed Tommo brought in pieces up the hill and nailed together again. Not under the blankets from his own cupboard.

  ‘Where’s the coal, Annie? I will make you a nice fire, now, and some black tea with sugar.’

  ‘Will you fetch my boy, Tommo? I can hear him.’

  And Tommo gets Batty Annie onto the bed in her coat. He makes up the fire, small, and sets the kettle on the coals, sighs and takes the shrimping net from up against the wall. Out he goes to the tunnel but he stands in the entrance out of the smell of piss and counts to one hundred swinging the net like a pendulum. And he goes back to the hut.

  ‘Where is he, my boy?’

  ‘Here, Annie, in the net . . .’

  Batty Annie listens. ‘He is not there, Tommo. You don’t have him, you don’t, my Lovely Boy . . .’

  So Tommo Price who is tired from his day bent over his ledgers, and his white fish and his white wife and finding Batty Annie ill . . . he goes back to the tunnel. And it’s not like going back to stand in the tunnel with a net, but it’s like going back to look for the penny like he did, over and over and not finding it, and kicking the stones around and piling them against the bricks, and clearing the ground to the mud and finding nothing at all. Because there was nothing to find. And he knew it. All it ever was, was a boy who never squashed the king, killed by a train.

  Tommo stands inside the tunnel and listens to the hoooing and does not lift the net. But he goes back tired to the hut, holding the net like Annie does. Clasping it to his breast. ‘Here he is, Annie.’

  But she turns her face to the wall.

  He’s back in the tunnel, inside this time, inside the sound of the wind, inside the throat. There are blacknesses in the dark. And like he does for Annie, Tommo begins to scritch the net across the roof where the blacknesses are. Scritch scritch, and the old soot and the brickdust falls onto his face – for this time he is looking up.

  And he can smell the piss in the tunnel, and the damp and the dark, which smells like metal.

  The dark smells like metal. Like the warm damp fingers of a boy who’s been clutching his dinnerpennies, hard. And it smells of sugar. Of cherry pips. And Tommo can taste cherry pips on his tongue like he hasn’t for years, and knows that if he stuck his tongue out it would be red down the middle. And the soot and dust falls like black rain in the dark, a black rain that falls into the net and is heavier than dust.

  Tommo feels in the net and finds that which is not dust. He holds it up in the halflight, sees the face, and the face is flat, and he cries. He pushes it deep in his suit pocket and he cries. He scritches the net across the roof, fills the holes with darkness and the smell of pennies, and he cries.

  Then Tommo Price holds his best friend to his breast, keeping the net shut against the closing night. But there’s a moon up there, and it shines steady and unblinking down on the town and on Tommo Price taking Dai along the old coal line, home to Annie.

  Tommo takes the net to the linesman’s hut, straight to the hearth, and holds it out, right where the thin smoke is rising, right under the chimney, and he takes his hand away and shakes it, shakes it.

  Then he takes the penny from his pocket and closes Annie’s fingers round but he can’t find the words to go with it. And she puts the penny to her cheek, soft as a kiss, and closes her eyes.

  Tommo takes the white porcelain cup from the basket and fills it from the outside tap that rattles and chugs against the wall of the hut. He gives Annie to drink a little, slowly, holding the cup to her lips
like it was a chalice. He takes a sip himself, then, knowing what he will see reflected in the water, he sits by the warm, leans forward, holds the cup out under the chimney and waits for the kettle to boil.

  In the Porch of Ebenezer Chapel

  There is no Laddy Merridew for a few days. No toffees, or Spanish Catherine wheels, with or without the jelly bits.

  When Ianto Jenkins does see Laddy, it is in the High Street, outside the library. Laddy Merridew is leaning against the library wall, surrounded by other lads. They are talking, he is not. He looks up as Ianto comes by to check the bus times and the beggar raises a hand, but the boy looks away as the lads’ laughter rings against the air, ‘Stinker’s friend. Stinker’s friend.’

  Later, the boy is alone, still leaning against the wall, and when Ianto says hello he does not answer.

  Later, Laddy Merridew comes to the chapel porch between showings, and finds the beggar winding his watch. He stands on the steps, biting his nails, saying nothing, until Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins inspects the watch and says, ‘Must be almost time.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Got no hands, that watch.’

  The beggar considers for a moment. ‘And who says a watch needs hands? It’s still working, inside.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. It’s daft.’

  ‘Oh I see.’

  ‘Everything is just your old stories. Nothing you say is true.’

  The beggar takes off his cap and scratches his head. ‘Why do you think that, Maggot?’

  Laddy Merridew doesn’t reply. He glowers at Ianto. ‘I’m fed up of people lying to me.’ He shifts his bones. Then he says, ‘I am not Maggot either. I am Laddy. Not Maggot. But . . .’