by Kit Habianic
‘Aw, boys—’ words failed him.
Red’s hands were trembling.
Dai noticed too, squeezed her shoulders. ‘Margaret Parry made the cake,’ he said. ‘An’ the boys had a whip-round, wanted to lay on a bit of a spread.’
It took an effort for Scrapper to steady his voice. ‘It’s a tidy spread. So what’ll you lot be having?’
Angela pushed past him. ‘Speeches before food, Simon.’
Eddie Hobnob busied himself at his kegs, his wife Chrissie loading tin mugs filled with cider onto trays. The boys had the eyes of ravenous beasts; they no more wanted speeches than Scrapper did. And Red looked horrified.
‘Listen, love,’ Dewi pulled Angela aside. ‘There’ll be a riot if this lot don’t get fed.’
Scrapper shot him a grateful look. ‘Food then speeches, Mam.’
Dewi bounded on stage. ‘Right, brothers and sisters. We’re here today to celebrate the marriage of Scrapper Jones and Helen Pritchard—’
A low murmur rose from the back of the room. Red went rigid. Her cheeks flushed pink. For an awful moment, Scrapper thought Captain Hook had turned up like the evil fairy at the christening, but he saw no one except his butties and their women. Nothing that ought to upset her.
‘—so let’s hear it for the beautiful bride and groom: to Scrapper and Helen.’
The boys cheered fit to raise the rafters.
‘Now Scrapper an’ Helen invite you all to tuck in.’
Pandemonium broke out. Their guests fell like pack animals on the sandwiches and sausage rolls. Scrapper wandered among them, a bowl in each hand, inviting the little ones to grab fistfuls of crisps. At last, everyone was seated, food piled on tin plates. Eddie kept pumping out his mugs of scrumpy. Steam hissed from the tea urns. Scrapper filled two plates and went to join Red, but Angela grabbed her arm and dragged her off to join the women. Red turned back to him, eyes frantic and pleading but Dai steered him towards the boys. Soon, Scrapper’s belly stretched tight with food and drink. He watched the women, Angela as chatty as Red was silent. A second miracle. That fit young girl with endless legs and mad red curls — that was his wife.
‘Another one bites the dust, eh, Scrap?’
It was Alun Probert. His nose had healed up tidy, although it angled east now, not due south. Something else had shifted in the kid since Port Talbot. Matt reckoned so and all. Went on and on about it at the stag do, threatened to open a sweepstake on changing Alun Wet-Ears’ nickname to Alun Black-Ice.
‘Invisible but treacherous, that kid, you mark my words.’
Dai passed Alun a scrumpy. ‘Best thing in the world, getting hitched,’ he said. ‘Next best, a babby. Wonder who’ll hear the patter of tiny feet first, Scrap; yous or us?’
‘You two go right ahead,’ Scrapper grinned. ‘We’re planning to put in some practice first.’
‘Good on you, Scrapper Jones,’ a voice cut in. ‘A regular seeing-to and a tenner a week off the DHSS—’
Scrapper scowled. ‘You’ve got some front, Matthew Cut-Price. Miss the wedding, bang on time for the food.’
‘Don’t be like that—’ Matt’s face was yellow, his skin waxy.
Despite the heat, he wore a peaked cap pulled low over the bridge of his nose. He twisted and untwisted his hands, pinched a hangnail between a shaking thumb and forefinger and tugged it. It came away, leaving a strip of raw flesh. He flicked the skin on the floor, did not lift his gaze.
‘I’m mortified, Scrap,’ he said at last.
The hat hid his eyes. Scrapper yanked it off his head, gasped. Matt’s left eye was half closed by a deep purple bruise.
Matt raised a shaking finger to his cheekbone. ‘The other fella’s none too pretty neither, mind.’
‘Who the hell done this?’ Dai demanded.
‘Fella didn’t give a name,’ Matt said. ‘Didn’t waste breath on niceties.’
Scrapper gawped at his butty. It didn’t make sense. Matt reckoned himself more a lover than a fighter, first sign of trouble he’d take shelter behind Dai or whatever other solid object came to hand.
Matt nailed his gaze to the floor. ‘I’m sorry, Scrap. I was out cold. Woke up in a ditch.’
He really did look a mess, hands bloodied and unsteady, denim jacket muddy and grass-stained. He peered at Scrapper with a pleading, bloodshot eye, like a puppy facing the business end of a slipper.
‘You got the ring?’
‘I’m an arsewipe, Scrap’ Matt murmured. ‘I lost it.’
Scrapper felt the ground give beneath him. How could Matt lose the ring? Angela would skin him for this. Matt dipped his head, gave a loud sniff. Scrapper sighed. What point having a go at Matt, when his butty knew full well he’d screwed up royally.
‘Jesus, Matt. Explain yourself to my mam and my missus. They forgive you, you stay.’
He watched Matt slink across the hall, shoulders around his ears. A mocking cackle rose from the women’s side of the hall. Matt’s head hung lower. Finally, Angela handed him a plate and led him to the buffet.
Iwan was watching too, a look on his face that Scrapper couldn’t read.
‘Lost it,’ he murmured. ‘ D’you believe a word o’ that?’
‘My butty wouldn’t lie to me, Dad.’
‘You reckon? Things are getting tougher by the week and that one’s stone broke.’
‘He wouldn’t bloody steal from me, alright.’
A collier defended his butty, no matter what, as a matter of honour. No matter that his butty’s story was as lame as a three-legged pit pony. No matter that he no more believed Matt’s story than Iwan did.
***
He was half-asleep by the time Angela dragged Red into the middle of the room and waved at him to join them. The sun had moved beyond the windows and Angela had Dewi snap on the strip lights. Scrapper stumbled as he crossed the floor, half-dazzled. When he got there, Red leapt into his arms.
‘Sorry ’bout the ring bach,’ he murmured.
‘Sod the ring. Can we go?’
‘Go? But why?’
‘Get me out of here, I’ll let you do anything you want.’
He hugged her, puzzled. ‘But why? It’s our wedding, you daft ha’porth.’
‘Is time to cut the cake,’ Angela announced.
He laid his hands on Red’s. It took their four hands and plenty of welly to crack the knife through the icing. When it splintered, finally, everyone cheered.
Dewi raised his mug. ‘Here’s to the happy couple and a long and happy life together, Helen and Scrapper Jones.’
The toasts were drunk and speeches made, the cake sliced up and shared. Someone wired a tinny Walkman to the Stute’s outsized speakers. Red begged him to dance, but his belly was too full, his head too fogged.
The door creaked open and a small figure walked in, leaning on walking sticks. She wore a grass-green skirt suit, matching hat perched on her lacquered black up-do.
Margaret Parry returned Red’s kiss. ‘A ruddy shame Carol’s missing this.’
‘Too bad, yeah,’ Red smiled thinly. ‘She’d be having a blast.’
‘She’d feel proud of you, love. Glowing, you are. And so’s the fine young lad who tried to save my Gabriel—’
Scrapper’s stomach lurched. There it was, again. The torn, dead face. The helmet knocked backwards. Mrs P seemed to read his thoughts. She squeezed his hand.
‘Now’s not the time or place,’ she said. ‘But I’ll not forget what you done, Simon Jones. And you,’ she turned to Red. ‘Don’t you be hard on your mam. Your dad’s all she got.’
‘She chose him over me, Auntie Margaret.’
‘Aye, stick wi’ her man or do what everyone else wants? Peas in a ruddy pod, the pair o’ you.’
Red had no answer to that.
‘Tuck in, folks,’ Dewi lurched over, plate of cake slices unsteady in his hands. ‘As handsome as the woman who made it, this wedding cake.’
‘You can cut out your silver-tongue nonsense, Dewi Power,’ Mrs P said.
‘Trying; that’s the word. Speaking o’ which,’ Mrs P turned to Matt. ‘You’re not looking too clever, love. Been fighting lamp-posts, have we?’
‘Something like that,’ Matt mumbled.
‘You’re wasting away, bach,’ Mrs P said.
Scrapper grabbed two handfuls of Matt’s belly. ‘He’s been following the MacGregor Weight Loss Plan, Mrs P. Reckon we’ll get him down to a size ten?’
‘Well, ’e wasn’t bloody huge to begin with,’ Mrs P said. ‘You come round mine tomorrow, Matthew Price, I’ll fix you a nice Sunday lunch.’
‘Aw, you don’t—’
‘I’ll expect you at twelve-thirty sharp,’ Mrs P said. ‘Bring little Probert, an’ all. A crime, that bloody woman trying to starve the single boys back to work.’
She picked up her canes and tapped across the hall to join the women.
Scrapper frowned at Matt, questioning. His butty’s hwyl had deserted him altogether if the promise of food failed to raise a smile. Matt wasn’t his usual chesty self, despite the women forgiving him, despite the boys cracking jokes about the state of his face. There was something shifty about him, something more than guilt about losing the ring. He cornered Matt, tried to ask him, but Matt ducked beneath his arm and slunk away.
In any case, Red wanted his attention. He flung his arms around her, planted a kiss on her forehead. The heat of her body burned through the thin lace dress. She tugged at his earring with her teeth, firing a depth-charge in the pit of his stomach.
‘Easy, Red,’ he whispered. You know that drives me nuts.’
‘C’mon, Scrap. Let’s make it an early night.’
— 4 —
Gwyn breathed in the heady scent of may thorn. It was shaping up to be a fine evening, his laburnum dripping golden chains on the lawn. His borders blazed yellow and orange, late tulips clashing with early carnations. He straightened his back, shouldered his hoe, took stock of his labour. A hard day’s weeding and pruning and tilling of soil. Made a damn good job of it. He returned his tools to the shed, each piece in its rightful place, and was about to close the door when he spotted the deckchairs piled at the back. Used for high days and holidays, those deckchairs. A rotten shame to save them for best, when it was warm enough and enough daylight left to sit outdoors for another hour. Why not? He dragged one of the chairs out to the patio, placed it facing away from the house to give a clear view to the top of the garden, to the tangle of honeysuckle and clematis that hid the stumps of the apple trees that he tore down when they moved in.
Birdsong shrilled in the fields beyond. He slipped off his wellies, padded into the kitchen to fetch a bevvy. What the hell. He’d earned it. It was a struggle to open the tab, a fiddly business with thumb and finger. Carol was somewhere upstairs, slow to get started on his tea. The house was big and empty since the girl left. Evenings stretched long silences. He pushed the thought away; a lovely evening, his daughter and his wife be damned.
He wrestled the tab open at last. Lager fizz soaked his fingers. Barely half made it into the glass. Better half than none. He took a long, cool slurp and carried the glass outside, sat down, beer in hand, feeling a touch light-headed. It passed soon enough. A fine day. A tidy view. It took little things to lift the spirits.
A robin hopped from branch to branch in the hornbeam hedge. It tilted its head to look at him. Territorial little bastards, robins. Hostile black-bead eyes. He’d had a gutsful of hostility, lately. He flapped his arms, watched the bird flutter down onto the path, then vanish.
He sensed something move on the other side of the hedge. Eddie Hobson, no doubt, or worse, Chrissie, Eddie’s sullen piece of a wife.
‘Aye-aye,’ he announced his presence.
‘Evening, Gwyn Pritchard,’ Eddie’s horse-like face peered over the hedge.
Gwyn raised his glass. ‘You’ll be in on Monday, then?’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘The judges said, didn’t they; strike’s illegal.’
Eddie snorted. ‘Can’t wait to hear you tell that to the lads.’
‘Christ, Eddie. We’re not in the lodge. Strike’s got nothing to do with overmen.’
‘That’s as maybe, but a picket line is a picket line.’
‘Come off it, man. We got to respect the law.’
Eddie leaned into the hedge, fists gripping tufts of hornbeam. When he spoke, Gwyn caught a waft of cider.
‘When the ruling class wields the law to break a working man, the law becomes an ass, Gwyn Pritchard.’
‘Ed-WARD!’
A woman’s voice cut through the air. Chrissie Hobson, lungs like the pit claxon. Horse-face Eddie ducked down behind the hedge and vanished indoors.
‘Edward Hobson – what did we agree about talking to that scab?’ Chrissie’s voice was slurred. She’d been on the sauce, too, from the sound of her.
Eddie’s voice floated out of the kitchen. ‘You got to feel sorry for him, all the same. Think what he missed today. There’s nothing left for him here, whatever way this ends.’
The door closed, but Chrissie’s reply came loud and clear. ‘He got no one to blame but himself.’
***
It took one snippy comment to ruin a perfect day. Gwyn downed his lager in a gulp, folded the deckchair and slung it into the shed. He headed indoors, legs wobbly. And no wonder. He was ravenous. But the kitchen was still empty, Carol nowhere to be seen. His tea nowhere to be seen. Lazier by the day, his wife. He paused, listened. Was that her voice in the front room? She was tittle-tattling on the phone to her sister in Wolverhampton, no doubt. He stomped into the hall, pulled up outside the living room. Not one voice, but two. His wife had company. They’d had no company in months. He paused his hand on the door knob. It had better not be the girl. He’d made himself clear. The girl wasn’t welcome. Not if she came crawling back. No welcome for the girl, as long as she was with that boy. He put his ear against the door. A woman’s voice, not the girl’s. A jab of disappointment. He paused, brushed mucky hands on mucky trousers and swung open the door.
A tiny figure sat parked in his armchair, a pair of walking sticks hooked over the arm. Despite the heat, she was bundled up in a suit and coat, a hat the colour of bile perched on her head. All the rage in the Fifties, those hats. It made him think of the time when the lodge hired charabancs to take the whole village to the Festival of Britain. His mam and her friends piled into the back of the coach, all dressed for best in their little hats, flasks of sherry passed round surreptitious, their gossip louder and more lurid by the mile.
It was Margaret Parry. Gabe’s widow. The last person he’d expect in his house. Carol sat in her armchair, face pale, eyes bright with tears. Margaret bloody Parry; what the hell had she said to upset his wife?
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said at last. ‘Gabe was—’
‘Save it,’ Margaret grabbed her walking-sticks. A frail figure, she cut, the weight fallen off her since Christmas. ‘Like I said, Carol. You’re welcome at mine any time.’
She patted Carol on the shoulder, pushed past Gwyn and hobbled into the hall. He followed, still at a loss.
She opened the door, turned to face him. ‘You reckon you’re the big man round by ’ere, Gwyn Pritchard, but someone got to set you straight—’
‘Spare me the homily.’
Margaret laughed. ‘I remember you as a snotty-nose kid. Acting the big I am cuts no ice wi’ me. You want to sell this community down the river? Fine. But don’t you care what this is doin’ to your daughter – and worse, to your wife?’
He gripped the door, itching to kick the interfering little woman down the steps. ‘Appreciate your concern, Margaret Parry. But you got no business with my wife. As for the girl, she’s dead to us.’
Her hand paused on his arm. Liver-spotted, that hand. A tremor to it.
‘You’ll make a bitter, lonely old m
an. Terrible, it is, to be alone.’
He swatted her hand away. ‘I’ll do just fine.’
***
Gwyn found Carol slumped in her armchair, dabbing her nose with a grubby tissue.
‘Well,’ he demanded.
‘You bastard.’
‘What now, woman?’
‘Helen. She got married.’
‘She what?’
‘Got married. This morning. Without her mam. There’s a party down the Stute, half the bloody village there. But not the bride’s parents.’
‘You’re not going.’
Carol laughed a hacking laugh. ‘Oh, aye, there’d be one hell of a welcome down the Stute for a scab’s missus.’
‘Don’t call—’
‘It’s what I am, Gwyn. Thanks to you.’
The last straw, that. He grabbed his coat, stuffed his feet into his boots and hurried outside, almost slamming the door off its hinges. He set off up the hill at a trot. There’d be no one to trouble him up The Mountain Ash. No hostile stares. No gossiping neighbours. No widows to rub his face in it. No wife with accusing eyes.
— 5 —
Helen hovered in the doorway of the Stute, feeling like a spare cog at her own wedding. She waited for Scrapper to say his goodbyes, slid Angela’s too-big wedding ring around the base of her thumb. The plates of food were empty, vats of home-brew scrumpy drunk dry. Scrapper had wandered off again. At last, he reappeared, only for Dewi Power to ambush him again. It had been a long afternoon with the union wives. She had no idea what to say to these women. Luckily Angela, tipsy with relief that the wedding had gone ahead with only minor disasters, talked for both of them.
Darkness was falling. The women lolled on the shabby velour banquettes like big cats unwinding after a hard day’s hunt. They batted jokes between each other, smoked roll-ups and shared the last of the sandwiches. Were these the battle-axe women who blanked her mam in the Co-op? An uncomfortable thought. She willed Scrapper to hurry.
The door swung open. ‘Well fancy seeing Helen Pritchard in the Stute,’ Debbie Power smirked. ‘Just cos Scrapper’s dumb enough to marry you, you reckon you belong here?’