James Little opens the door to the pantry and takes in the half-rusted tins marked Tea, Coffee, Sugar and Flour on the middle shelf. It smells of mice in here. He puts down his bag on the kitchen floor and opens it, goes back to the pantry and pulls down the tin marked Tea. He takes the handleless mug off the mantelpiece in the kitchen, with its roll of pound notes. In the middle room, he opens the cupboard doors, and crouches down. More china, thin porcelain, white with yellow roses. A sewing box. And in the drawers, papers. Bills, certificates, all neat in a file, and envelopes, hundreds of the things, all used, the backs covered with wavy lines drawn in biro, pencil, sometimes both. He takes the sewing box and carries it through to the kitchen.
Later again, James Little is back out on Maerdy Street, the window of number eleven closed to just an inch or so from the top, as it was, the chopping block rolled back to its exact circle of moss by the tap, the iron gate closed behind him carefully and silently, the half-brick pushed back against the wall of the house, and he is off across the old coal tip to Adam’s Acre. Back to his shed, where he lights the lamp, changes back into his Wellington boots and his gardening coat, and hangs his bag on its hook.
And just as he is about to lock up, turn away and step carefully over the onion sets and rows of cabbages, back up to Christopher Terrace and home, he sees something glinting in the soil. Something between his last beans and his parsnips. He smiles and kneels on the earth, to dig with his fingers. Just a little, for it does not take much, to unearth a small spoon out of the soil, a silver spoon, which with a little wipe and a polish, will be perfect. He yawns, puts the spoon with a pile of others on a shelf in the shed, next to a bunch of dried rosemary, locks up and goes home to catch some sleep before Edith wakes.
But James Little is tired after a good night’s work, and does not see the door of number twenty-six opening, and the Deputy Librarian Philip ‘Factual’ Philips coming out into the morning. He has to catch the first bus to town to get the library tidy, for Mrs Cadwalladr the Librarian will be in at seven for a meeting. Factual Philips stands in his doorway and watches James Little yawning then disappearing round the back to number eighteen in his wellingtons and old gardening coat. And Factual squares his shoulders, checks his watch and frowns.
He is not the only one. There are others who notice James Little going late to Adam’s Acre, staying until last, not going home with the other gardeners.
‘Arrives just as I am packing up, he does, and sometimes there is no light at all to garden by.’
‘Must see in the dark.’
‘Maybe his mam was a cat, then?’
‘Nah, serious. Carries an old oil lamp. I’ve seen him, forgot some cut flowers for my Dorrie once, went back to fetch them. Saw him. Does his digging by lamplight.’
‘Doesn’t have a home to go to, maybe?’
And the milkman, who has his own allotment against the old wall, may join in here, ‘Oh yes, I see him now and again, going home in his wellingtons, five in the morning . . . strange, that . . .’
The Gas Meter Emptier’s Tale ii
Questions are asked, as questions will always be. And if they come to the ears of Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins the beggar, begging there on the steps of the cinema, he will wheel his arms and look up towards Adam’s Acre,
‘Listen with your ears, I have a story for them see, a story this time about thieving, about a piece of ground, about a child. But it is not what you think. And as always, stories need fuel they do, and I have not had a toffee for at least an hour.’
Two come forward with bags of toffees, and the beggar considers for a moment, his head on one side. ‘Best not disappoint, eh?’ And he takes two, and pushes them into his jacket pocket for later, and begins again.
‘Let me start with a question? What do you do if you have nothing, nothing at all. If you have a family to feed and no money to buy food?’
Someone shouts, ‘Get a job?’
And there is a laugh, ‘Right enough, you never worked a day in your life, mun.’
Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins smiles, ‘So, this is the story of James Little’s grandfather, Walter Little, who lost his twin brother William down Kindly Light pit. Both hewers together, they were indeed. And Walter with a broken wrist from tripping over one of his kiddie’s toys on the floor, so he missed going down on that day. Yes, Walter Little, a gentle man he was too. Lost that twin brother he named his own son for – and would not go down any pit after that accident, for real fear. I know what that is.
His son was William Little, called after the twin – but Walter never called him William again not to remind him too much of Kindly Light, but just Billy Little, instead.
Now Walter, Billy Little’s da, was perfectly capable of working, but there was no work, see, other than down the pit. And Walter Little had a wife and two more kiddies to feed, and another one coming soon and no money coming in to buy coal.
And this Billy Little too, Walter’s son – he was afraid of the pit as well, as children will be if they catch fear from their elders. Maybe he listened too often to one of the old spinster sisters, Gwynneth Watkins, who used to stand in her doorway yabbering, that old biddy Watkins who saw things in her tea leaves, and watched the way you walked for that told her your secrets. She watched Billy Little playing in the street, and she called him over, wagging her finger: “I see darkness for you, Billy Little. I see you in such a dark place, oh a dreadful dark place where you are alone and no one there to help you. Aww, do you hear the sounds, too? Listen, Billy Little, there are sounds echoing off the wet walls, and it is the shouts of others in the same place as you, and the terrible music of men crying in the dark.”
Well, no question but that must be the pit, Kindly Light, mustn’t it? For the accident, it happened not long since. And Billy Little was at his wits’ end for his da and for himself. They must not go down the pit ever, must they? But they still needed coal, didn’t they? And no money coming in to buy it.
Well, where there’s a will there’s a way, as they say, and Walter Little got coal for his family as many did in those times, going out at night to take it from the drifts over the valley. Walter Little and his son Billy Little, both together, walking these streets at night, pushing the pram that carried all the family’s babies. Over to the other side of the river they went with many men and boys from the town, to the slopes of the place they still call the Black Mountain. They took lamps but kept them covered with rags so they would just shine a little on the ground so they might see what they were doing. And they dug out what coal they could from the old drift mines, and made new ones, the men of the town, at night. Their boys were not in their beds at all but helping their das, bringing out the coal on kitchen trays, and in saucepans, for their mams to ask them the next day what had they been doing with the pots then?
And what did they call this but dark gardening? When the word went out that there was a spot of dark gardening to be done tonight over the way, everyone knew what that meant and they just nodded and touched their fingers to their noses. Like this . . .’
And Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins will tap the side of his nose, and smile.
‘And when there was a moon they didn’t need their lamps at all to find the coal as it shone up at them out of the hillside, uncovered by the digging of rabbits and foxes. But then a moon was also a bad thing, for those who owned the hillsides paid men to keep watch over their land, their coal. Just you imagine the journey back to the town with that old pram, brimful of coal dug from the hillside with garden spades and trays from the kitchen, tucked in to sleep covered by an old blanket. Walter Little and his son Billy who had precious little to laugh about, finding a little as they walked home together through the empty streets. Enough coal to keep the range alight a few days, that is all, and look at the size of the whole mountain, look over there . . .’
The beggar will point and the cinemagoers may mutter that it is a fine world we live in if men can own whole mountains, but they stop when the story continues.
> ‘Then there was the night that finished it all, a night when the landowner’s bullyboys lay in wait in an alley, three of them, ready to teach those who steal a lesson. And who did they catch that night but Walter Little and Billy, pushing the pram together up that hill by there, going home to their beds.
“Well well, will you be looking here. Taking the baby out for a little air, are we?”
And they pushed Walter Little into the road, and one held the boy back while the others hit his da to the ground, Billy Little pulling at a jacket and shouting, “My da! Leave my da alone!” hoping someone would come out to help, but no one dared . . . until the man shut the boy’s mouth with his arm. And when Walter Little tried to get up with his fists ready, “Hit a little boy, would you?” they kicked him in the stomach with their boots until he retched and could not get up by himself any more, and tried to say something about three kids and a baby coming and no heat in the house, “and only a bit of spare coal no one will miss . . . ?” But they hauled him to standing and one held him against the alley wall while the others took turns until his face could not be recognised as a face.
“Can’t look after a baby like that now, can you? We’ll give the thing a little air . . .”
And then they took the pram full of coal and tipped it into the gutter. They pissed on the coal the three of them, and they broke the pram to pieces, the boy Billy Little shouting, “No! leave my da alone. Leave our pram alone. That’s my mam’s pram, that is . . .”
As they went, they shouted back to the boy, Billy Little, “You go off home to your mam, and tell her to come and fetch her thieving husband. She can heat her house with piss.”
And the lad went running to his mam, crying, “Mam, the pram is broke, and so is Da, and you must come . . .”
But you see, then there was no one to fetch anything for a while, while Walter Little was getting better from his beating. There was not enough to eat in the house, and it was always cold. Billy Little was the eldest of the children, and it was up to him to fetch, wasn’t it? Down the town to see if the shops had anything left at the end of the day and they almost never did, or there were other boys there before him, or there were fights over the stale bread, and the apples half-rotten. It was hard to walk back up the hill to the house with nothing in your stomach to help your legs, and to tell your mam, standing waiting with the young ones at her skirts, “I am sorry, Mam, I found nothing . . .”
And then the day came when Billy Little was walking back up that hill and he was not well at all, and sat down on the step of a house, feeling faint and sick to his stomach, his empty stomach. Where he was taken in and given a glass of milk and a biscuit, in a kitchen all warm, with a fire, full of the smell of cooking, and even that smell was more than they had at home.
While he was in that kitchen, someone came to the front door, and the lady with the biscuits left her kitchen to go to see who it was. There were voices in the hallway for a while, and a longer while. Billy Little had nothing to do but finish his biscuit and look round. On the kitchen shelf he saw a tin, its lid not quite on, the sort of tin his mam had, where she used to keep coins, when she had any. And he got up and looked in the tin and there were indeed coins there. And before Billy knew what his fingers were doing they were in the tin taking out a shilling and whisking it into his pocket. Easy. Not a thought. It was not Billy’s fault if the woman with the biscuits had the smells of cooking in the air when there were none at Billy Little’s house, and too many coins in her tin. Easy. “Look, Mam – found this in the gutter . . .”
And see, it was not far from a lump of coal taken from a mountainside to a single coin taken from a tin, to more coins taken from tills and then whole purses taken from ladies’ handbags . . . and it was not far from purses taken from handbags to looking for windows left open and helping himself to things from houses. Small things at first, then bigger. And that’s what he did as he grew up, see. Then he was not looking for open windows but helping the windows to open, stealing silver and jewellery, and then it was not far to getting caught again and again, and then being sent away for it.
And of course, that spinster woman Gwynneth Watkins was right after all. For Billy Little was in prison. In a dark cell with wet walls, all on his own with no one to help, where he heard the shouts of men in the dark, and sometimes the dreadful sound of men crying at night. But it did not stop him, and after that he was in and out of prison like it was his own home, even when he had a child of his own later. That child is James Little, who now tends his allotment at night, and walks the streets in the early hours with a bag over his shoulder.
But it is a dreadful thing to know your father is a thief, and that is what the boy James Little had to grow up with. The taunts at school,
“My da is a minister,”
“My da is a fishmonger,”
“Your da is a thief . . .”
Taunts that followed him from boy to man, taunts he could not escape. Even when he is tending his allotment he hears, “Aww. Wonder where he found those plants . . . that spade . . . that wheelbarrow? That is James Little, the son of Billy Little, you know? Half his life in jail he spent, Billy did . . .”
And it is shame that started him tending his allotment at night, away from the taunts, and it is not surprising maybe, that even though James Little was trusted to collect the coins for the gas board for years and years, and was given a clock with a painted face as a thank you, there are still those who wonder. That wouldn’t be you, now would it . . . ?’
Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins will look round at the listeners, and the cinemagoers just shuffle their feet and will not reply.
The Gas Meter Emptier’s Tale iii
For a week, the morning meetings at the library have been somewhat problematic. Factual Philips is getting more and more tired thanks to his detective work, and he has tried to take the minutes whilst at the same time making notes about James Little on the back of the minute pad:
1. Time of comings and goings.
2. Make note of any changes of clothes.
3. What is in that bag?
4. *
There is a large star by ‘4’ and its creation was accompanied by a loud cough from the Librarian, who adjusted her bosom and announced the passing of an important initiative that boils down to putting the same books on different shelves. ‘Yes, and it was not minuted was it, Mr Philips? You look tired, Mr Philips?’
‘Nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t cure, Mrs Cadwalladr.’
But a good night’s sleep is not easy to come by. For Factual Philips has not been sleeping, but collecting facts. He catnaps now, sitting in his front window watching out for James Little, playing detective at last.
Factual Philips, Deputy Librarian Detective, writes notes about seeing James Little night after night leaving his house at midnight in his wellingtons, buttoning his gardening coat. They will all be clues, no doubt about that. Seeing him walk under the streetlights along Christopher Terrace to Adam’s Acre and cross the road, disappearing into the darkness of the allotments. Seeing a small light then, the oil lamp moving about, and around the light the small mysterious shadow of James Little.
Factual Philips, Deputy Librarian Detective, has seen the shadow work at his digging, weeding his ground, tying onions in bunches, picking apples. And sometimes it looks as though he is not only working his own allotment, but digging at others.
The Deputy Librarian Detective shakes his head. ‘Digging up their potatoes? Taking their beans, peas? Pulling up their onions for himself?’
And, then, at half past one in the morning, sharp, the lamp wavers along the rows and disappears.
‘Right, now he is in his shed . . .’ and Factual Philips watches the street then, to see if James Little comes home to Christopher Terrace, back to number eighteen. And yes, after a while, there he is, stepping over the other allotments on his way back to the street. And sometimes, he goes back to his house. But twice this week, Factual has seen him do things differently, and has m
ade a note of the occurrences in his notebook.
1. Wearing different clothes to the ones he went to his shed in. Different shoes.
2. Carries a bag over his shoulder.
For he sees James Little is wearing another jacket, dark, pulled tight round and buttoned. The collar up round his ears.
3. Suspicious garb.
No Wellington boots, now, but instead, a pair of black plimsolls. And over James Little’s shoulder is an old school satchel, looks like, and he does not go to his house except to blow a suspicious kiss at a window, walks to the end of the street and disappears.
Twice, Factual Philips sees this, and it is not right at all. The third time, the Detective is ready himself, in his coat, ready to leave the house. And he does, waits for James Little to walk away and when there is a safe distance, he follows. Across the old tip and along Maerdy Street, James Little’s plimsolls making no sound on the pavement, Factual Philips cursing under his breath and having to walk on tiptoe not to make a sound himself, keeping his distance, ready to duck against the wall if James Little turns round.
The first time, Factual sees James Little going down Garibaldi Street, looking round to check no one is watching and slipping down the alley behind Mrs Bennie Parrish’s house. And Factual knows that house is full of nice things, it has a piano, and photographs in silver frames as well as a lamp dressed like a Spanish Lady with gold earrings. Mr Bennie Parrish had money, oh yes. Factual knows this, he took enough books up for Mr Bennie when he was ill, didn’t he? And he had to eat slices of cake he didn’t like, while she watched, in that front room. Silver cake forks too. And a real painting above the fireplace.
The Coward’s Tale Page 22