The Emerald Valley (15 page)

‘That's mine!'

‘I know it is,' she said, irritated by his tone. ‘It was on the floor, that's all.'

‘And how did it get there?'

‘How should I know?' she returned, equalling his sharpness.

‘You know I don't like you looking at my letters.'

‘I wasn't going to look. I'm not the least bit interested in your letters,' she snapped back and all the antagonism was there again, just as it had been for almost a week now.

He is utterly unreasonable sometimes, thought Amy; though in her heart she knew his bad temper was the result of worry over the strike, it made no difference.

When he had left for the yard, the matter still rankled. It was true what she had said – she was not interested in his post. Most of it was connected with the business and she had no desire to see it. But there was no need for him to be so horrid and secretive; after all, she was his wife and this was 1926.

It was probably connected with some blackleg job he was taking on, she decided, and he knew that if she found out about it there would be more rows, more arguments.

‘Oh, blast the strike!' said Amy aloud. ‘The sooner it's over, the better I shall be pleased.'

And with a sigh she went on preparing breakfast for Maureen and Barbara.

As Llew unlocked the gates of the compound, he too was thinking about the strike and the effects it was having on their lives.

The letter which had caused the upheaval this morning had nothing to do with blackleg work, but he was doing it all the same and he did not much like it. Knowing how thoroughly Amy disapproved was bad enough; in addition Llew himself came from another mining area – the South Wales coalfield – and he could understand her feelings perfectly. Deep down he felt a heel himself, but he had no option. Sorry as he was for the miners, just though he felt their grievances to be, he simply could not afford to support them.

Who would it help, he asked himself, if he went bankrupt and had to lose his lorries? He had worked hard to build up the business, damned hard, and he could not stand by and see it all disintegrate, whatever the rights and wrongs of the miners' quarrel with the coal-owners.

And there was no doubt that working while others were on strike was paying off. You could argue the morals and ethics of it to your heart's content – the fact was that there was money to be made if you were prepared to work for it and it was against Llew's nature not to be so prepared. Long ago he had decided that he would be one of life's survivors. Not for him the endless round of back-breaking work to line someone else's pocket. Llew wanted more than that, for himself and for his family. He wanted money to buy them – and himself – a few luxuries and set them up in life. He wanted to be looked up to as being a little above the ordinary run-of-the-mill worker. And most of all he wanted to feel he had achieved something, built it up himself from nothing by his ingenuity, perseverance and sheer hard work. Geared up as he was to striving for that aim, it was more than he could bear to lose opportunities and let work pass him by.

In the yard the lorries stood silently waiting for him. Although not members of any union, Herbie Button and Ivor Burge were of mining stock and they felt as Amy did about strike-breaking. When he had first mentioned to them the loads he intended to carry for the Government they had reacted much as she had done, and he had not pressed them. He valued Herbie in particular as an employee, and he wanted relations between them to return to normal as soon as possible after the strike was over. Carrying loads of food and provisions and even animal feedstuffs as he was, there were usually plenty of willing hands to help him unload – troops, students and special constables. It was here in the yard that he missed Herbie most, for the older man had taken on responsibility for maintaining the lorries – something about which Llew had never been that knowledgeable – and running the long journeys they were undertaking now, it was imperative the vehicles were kept in good order. Besides that, he was experiencing problems with the new lorry, the one which Amy had driven into Ralph Porter's car; there was something underneath the front axle that was rubbing and he suspected it was plied out of true.

Today he had no loads to carry and Llew had decided he ought to do what he could to locate the trouble with the lorry and put it right. He crossed to the shed, pulled on a pair of overalls to protect his clothes from the worst of the grease and looked out the jack, blocks and a carry-all of tools. The sun was warm as he took them out into the yard, and it crossed his mind that if the weather held it would be that much harder for the strike to bite. A cold spell or even a few hard showers of rain and people would be crying out for coal to make up a nice blaze. But with the sun shining like this a fire could be banked in with small coals and kept low for days, needed only for cooking and boiling a kettle.

In spite of Amy's accident the lorry still looked good, the paintwork gleaming like new in the sunshine, and Llew felt the same thrill of pride as he always experienced when looking at it. If I never own another thing, I shall always feel proud that I was able to get myself a brand-new lorry, he thought. But perfect as it looked, there was damage somewhere and it had to be put right.

He dropped to his hand and knees, trying to peer up underneath the front offside of the lorry, but he was unable to get close enough or at the right angle to really see anything. Better have the wheel off, he decided, loosening the nuts and positioning the jack beneath it. As he settled the chocks beneath the axle he noticed the ground was not quite level – the dry weather seemed to have accentuated the uneven surface of the yard. But Llew decided it was safe enough. To move it now would mean putting the wheel back on again and re-positioning everything … and wherever he moved to would probably be just as bad. He adjusted the chocks and the jack, put his tools within easy reach and slid carefully under the lorry. In the complete shadow it was dark and chill, the ground strikingly cold to his back through shirt and overalls.

I ought to get something to lie on, Llew thought.

He moved sideways to wriggle out again and as he did so he was suddenly horrifying aware of the lorry moving above him. He froze, sweat breaking out all over his body. My God – wasn't it safe? He had never thought …

Let me get out of here! Llew thought in panic. Let me get out! He moved again, lengthways, inching his legs out into the warm sunshine, fear trapping the breath in his lungs and making the blood sing in his ears. A little more … a little more … careful now … careful … !

He heard the creak, loud as thunder, not only in his ears but all around him. He heard it with every sweating pore and froze again, knowing somehow even as he did so that it was no good. In a split second's sheer terror his dilated eyes saw too clearly exactly what was going to happen and Llew knew with absolute certainty that he was going to die.

‘Amy! My God!' he cried, but it was a scream of silence.

And then, next moment, the world caved in around him.

It was mid-morning and Amy was getting the girls ready to go shopping. They sat side by side on the kitchen table, protesting mildly while Amy scrubbed their faces, hands and knees with a wet flannel and combed the tangles out of their curls.

‘Mammy, can we go for a walk up the New Road to the echo?' Barbara asked.

The flat valley road to South Compton provided a pleasant riverside walk in summer and some way along it there was a wooden bridge over a spring crevice in the hillside from which a shouted ‘Hello!' carried across the meadows, bounced off the five stone arches that carried the railway embankment and echoed satisfyingly round the valley. The girls loved to be taken up the New Road, which they had been told their father had had a hand in building, and particularly they loved the echo. Even Maureen, though she could not yet really talk, could usually be persuaded to shout ‘Da!' loudly enough to set the air singing in response.

But this morning Amy did not feel like walking along to the echo. She was too preoccupied with the state of affairs between herself and Llew.

It could not go on, she thought. This morning's fresh flurry of bad-tempered words had made her realise that. The strike could drag out for weeks yet and she had no wish to go on living in this minefield of resentment and anger. She was not used to it – she and Llew had always been happy until now, with quarrels quickly forgotten. Besides, it was a most uncomfortable state of affairs and if there was one thing Amy hated it was discomfort. But this morning it was more than that. This morning she had the distinctly panicky feeling that if they did not bring an end to their differences, something really dreadful was going to happen. Why she felt this she had no idea. There was no rhyme or reason in it. But she felt it so strongly that it frightened her.

‘Can we go to the echo, Mammy?' Barbara pressed her and Amy made up her mind.

‘Not this morning. I want to call in at the yard and see Daddy. And by the time we've done that and the shopping, it will be time to come home and get your dinner.'

Barbara whined a bit and Amy decided a spot of bribery would not come amiss.

‘If you're good, you shall have some chocolate drops.'

Barbara's eyes widened. Chocolate drops only came from the pocket of Uncle Ted when he visited them, or on very special occasions. They would be worth missing the echo for!

Amy finished dressing Maureen and put her in her pram so that she could not crawl about and get herself dirty again. Then she tidied her own hair at the mirror and touched her lips with colour, thankful that nature had given her the kind of looks that stayed good without much effort.

So many girls she had known who had been pretty, or presentable at the very least, had slipped into being downright plain since they had married and had children and Amy thought a good deal of this had to do with the fact that they no longer had time to spend on themselves. Well, she did not intend to let that happen to her – neither was she going to get fat as some of them did, from eating all the wrong things that were cheap as well as filling. How could you expect your husband to stay interested if you were a pasty, shapeless lump? You couldn't. At least Llew was still interested, still teased and flattered her and made love to her as if he fancied her, not just as though she was a convenient body to fumble with in the dark. Though it was more than a week since he had made love to her now, she remembered, and the thought was a sudden ache of longing inside her. She could not remember their being this way before, not ever, with this distance between them, preventing them from touching even; realising this frightened her again and confirmed her in the decision to go to the yard and try to put things right.

Gathering her things together, she eased the pram out of the door and closed it behind her. Barbara, always a chatterbox, kept up an incessant stream of questions and comments as they started down the hill and Amy answered her in slightly preoccupied fashion.

There was a strange atmosphere hanging over the streets – a little like a bank holiday, but without the effervescent fizz of joy and fun. A group of miners were squatting together under the chestnut tree that overhung the pavement at the cross-roads, caps pushed to the backs of their heads, Woodbines or home-rolled cigarettes sticking to their lower lips, but their faces wore resigned expressions and their eyes stared into space. ‘We've seen it all before,' those expressions seemed to say and they lowered Amy's spirits by another notch. At the doors of one or two houses, other men were squatting on the front steps or lounging against the door-posts with the same air of aimlessness, and Amy wondered how they would survive a long strike. They simply were not used to so much leisure. For them the unwritten law of life was work and more work and it took an earthquake, in the form of this forced hiatus, to stop them. But they would not enjoy the respite; they might join the football matches or billiards contests – their opponents the police drafted in to keep the peace – but only the very youngest of them would revel in the situation. The rest would be painfully aware of the consequences of a long stoppage and the hardship it would bring. For they knew that all the fervour in the world would not tip the scales in their balance – no, not even with right on their side. The balances were too heavily weighted for the employers, the coal-owners, the ‘haves'of this world.

I'm almost one of those now, thought Amy. Is that why I've been taking it out soon Llew – because I realise I'm halfway to being on the other side of the fence now and I feel guilty about it? But would I honestly change back? Would I have my husband squatting at the door watching the world go by and only hoping vainly for a better future? Would I change places with the women going to shop this morning with almost-empty purses to look for something cheap and cheerful to fill their family's hungry bellies?

With her handbag bumping comfortably on the handles of the pram to remind her she had enough to spend, if not a fortune, Amy knew she would not and knowing this made her a little ashamed. It was easy to get on her high horse when it was not up to her to decide to keep the lorry wheels turning. In a brief, enlightening moment Amy realised that she wanted to ‘have her cake and eat it too', as Mam would have put it – to reap the financial benefits of working while others were on strike, yet salve her social conscience at the same time by objecting to it.

Yes, if she was honest with herself, she had been rather unfair to Llew and now she was tingling with a sense of urgent need to put things right.

As they neared the opening to Porter's Hill Barbara ran on and turned into it, but Amy called her back.

‘Not that way, Babs.'

‘But we're going to see Daddy.'

‘Yes, but we'll go the road way,' Amy told her, privately cursing herself for a coward. It would be quicker to go down Porter's Hill – but she didn't want to risk seeing Ralph Porter. The very thought of it made her quake inwardly. He's probably working somewhere, she told herself, but that was not enough to convince her. After all, he had been driving up the hill on that fateful day when she had taken the lorry down and besides, his house overlooked the road. He might be in his study and look out and see her. Perhaps he might call out and inform her again that it was a private road. She wouldn't put it past him …