The Emerald Valley (35 page)

‘This is your intruder, Mrs Milsom. Not much of a specimen, is he?'

The fat woman snorted, her sharp little eyes running curiously over Huw as he wriggled uncomfortably beneath her scrutiny.

‘I don't know you, do I?' she said accusingly after a moment.

Huw made no reply; on these occasions it was safer to remain silent and wait for an opportunity to escape.

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!' she went on. ‘This is private property, did you know that? A terrible fright you gave me.' Her lips tightened to give extra venom to her glare and then she turned to her employer. ‘I thought he was dead, Mr Porter, honest I did. I thought somebody had murdered him and put him in our coal-house!'

So this
was
Mr Porter, thought Huw. Why, oh why, had he stopped here last night? But really, there had been no choice. Everything had gone wrong …

‘Right, lad, you've got some questions to answer. Inside!' Mr Porter pushed him towards the kitchen door, but the fat woman stood her ground.

‘He can't come in here, Mr Porter, not like that. He's as black as a pot!'

‘That's what spending the night in a coal-house does for you.' Ralph Porter eyed the black face, hands and knees; then, as his glance reached the bare foot, he asked, ‘Where's your shoe, lad?'

Huw's eyes narrowed, lips tightened above his jutting chin, but he did not answer.

‘Hurt your foot, have you?' the man went on. ‘Well, at least I suppose that means you won't run away if I let go of you.' He released his hold on Huw's collar and Huw thought of making a dash for it, but realised the impossibility of such a course of action and stayed where he was.

‘All right, that's enough messing about. I want to know who you are.' The tone was so hard, so pitiless that Huw felt like crying again. No wonder ‘the woman'had made him sound like a bogey man; to those prissy girls he would probably be just that. But being yelled at and hauled about by angry adults was nothing new to Huw and he had no intention of giving in and telling where he had come from. If Mr Porter didn't know that, he couldn't send him back – could he? Huw sealed his lips.

At his continued silence a look of anger darkened Ralph Porter's face.

‘Come on – who?' he demanded again, and this time he caught the lobe of Huw's ear, twisting it between finger and thumb so that the boy squealed and twisted with it. But still he did not answer.

‘All right, if you won't tell me, then I shall take you to the police station,' Ralph Porter threatened.

Beneath the powdering, of black coal-dust Huw turned pale. If there was one thing he hated, it was the law.

‘Are you going to tell me or do I get out my car and take you to the police station?' Mr Porter repeated.

Huw's mind ran in desperate circles and then, suddenly, he was inspired.

‘I'm Billy Williams,' he supplied.

It was a song back home – ‘My name is Billy Williams and I come from Pontypridd' – but Ralph Porter wouldn't know that.

‘And what are you doing here, Billy Williams?'

Again inspiration struck. ‘I ran away from home.'

‘I see. And where's home?'

‘Ponty – Pontypridd,' said Huw, praying silently: ‘Let him say he'll send me back there!'

But there was no lightening of that thunderous expression.

‘Well, in that case it's the police station anyway, isn't it?'

Huw bit his lip. ‘Couldn't you just put me on the train?' he ventured.

Ralph Porter's eyes narrowed. ‘Now why should I do that? Why should you want me to?'

‘No reason,' Huw shrugged miserably. ‘Except I want to go home.'

‘And so you shall, but not at my expense. You haven't any money, I suppose?'

‘No.'

‘Did you rick your ankle trying to get into my house to steal some?'

‘No,
sir.
' Huw stared at him mutinously and Ralph Porter swivelled impatiently. ‘Come on then, let's get going. I've a day's work ahead of me and I won't have time for breakfast – thanks to you.'

Movement at the gate attracted their attention; it was the postman.

‘Morning, Mr Porter, sir. Morning, Mrs Milsom.' Then, as he noticed Huw, ‘Hey, what are you doing here, young feller-me-lad?'

Ralph Porter's brows beetled. ‘You know this boy?'

‘Know him? Oh ah, I know him. He's the lad what's staying with Amy Roberts up at Hope Terrace …'

‘Is he indeed!' Ralph Porter swung round angrily. ‘Is this true?'

Huw's eyes fell away and the finger and thumb grabbed his ear lobe again, twisting it to make Huw look up at him.

‘Is this true, I said?'

‘Yes,' Huw whispered.

‘Why did you lie to me, then?' Voice, louder than ever, tweak sharper.
‘Why?'

And Huw cracked.

‘Because I
have
run away. Because I want to go home. I don't want to live with her! I want to go back to Ponty – back to my mates. But I hurt my foot and I couldn't walk.'

‘He's the lad whose mother died,' the postman supplied, glad to be able to show his superior knowledge. ‘Amy Roberts has given him a home. You should be ashamed of yourself, my lad, running off and causing all this trouble after all she's been an'gone an' done for you!' he said to Huw.

Ralph Porter muttered what sounded to Huw a little like: ‘Amy Roberts! I might have known!' Then he caught Huw's shoulder roughly and began bundling him across the path to where a red three-wheeler car stood in the drive.

‘Right, lad, in! And if Mrs Roberts has any sense, when I get you home she'll give me leave to tan your hide more soundly than it's been tanned for years!'

Amy discovered Huw was missing when she went to wake him. At first she had stood in the doorway, staring in disbelief at the neatly-made bed with only the top cover rumpled down. Huw making his bed like that? Unheard of! Since he had come here she had insisted he did it himself, but unless she ran behind him it was always a higgledy-piggledy mess.

Then it occurred to her to wonder where Huw was. Not downstairs, certainly, since she had just come up from having her own breakfast. A small alarm bell sounded in her head and she checked her own bedroom and the girls'room.

‘Have you seen Huw this morning?' she asked Barbara, who was sitting up in bed dressing Greta, her doll. Barbara shook her head and Amy hurried downstairs again. The toilet door was wide open – clearly he was not there. With growing alarm she looked into the front room which was also empty.

‘Huw!' she called ‘Huw – where are you?'

But the house was quiet. And then she noticed that the back door had been unlocked.

At once she became very worried indeed. For some reason it never occurred to her that Huw might have gone out for an early morning walk; she knew with a certainty that defied explanation that he had run away.

The certainty did not stop her checking the outhouses, though. She sped around them and then looked up and down the road, fighting a rising sense of panic. What next? She
had
to find him. She couldn't go to the minister's wife and admit that after all the fuss she had made to get him, she had just lost him. But where would he go, a boy of eight? He didn't know Hillsbridge well – only the main ways where she had taken him. What would he be looking for? Freedom? Or something more … ?

She stood in the midst of the morning clutter in the kitchen chewing her lips. Silly boy! Why had he done it? She had known he was unhappy, but that was only to be expected and she had tried so hard to make him feel at home. Not that that would be enough, of course. For a child who had lost his mother, how could it be? But she had made up her mind to do her best, first by gaining his confidence while she provided for his everyday needs, and later perhaps being able to give him the love and care he would have missed if he had had to go into a home.

As she stood undecided about the best course of action, Amy heard a car in the road outside – unusual at this time of the morning – and a few moments later there came a knocking at the front door.

Amy went cold. Too many shocks in too short a space of time had sapped her natural resilience. What had happened now? Please God Huw was all right! If he wasn't she would never forgive herself.

She hurried to open the door. The first thing she saw was Ralph Porter's bulk and she took an involuntary step backwards. Then she noticed the small figure at his side – shrinking back, looking as if he wished he could become invisible.

‘Oh Huw, thank goodness!' she burst out.

‘He does belong here, then?' Ralph Porter's tone was heavy with irony.

‘Yes – yes, but how … ?'

‘He spent the night in my coal-house. Apparently he was trying to get back to Pontypridd, but he damaged his ankle.'

‘Oh yes – oh Huw! Your poor ankle! How did it happen? What did you do?'

‘If you're going to conduct an inquest I shall leave you to it,' Ralph Porter said sarcastically. ‘Some of us have work to do. But I suggest a good hiding might be in order.'

Amy got hold of Huw and pulled him in through the doorway, planting herself between man and boy as if she expected a physical attack at any moment.

‘I don't think that will be necessary,' she said stiffly.

One eyebrow lifted. ‘Really? A boy who causes this much trouble should be made to understand that it doesn't pay. If I had charge of him, I think I could guarantee he wouldn't try it again.'

Amy made no answer. She was thinking she could well understand any boy running away repeatedly if he was in the charge of Ralph Porter.

‘Well, thank you for bringing him home, anyway,' she said stiffly, and Huw could sense the antagonism between them. ‘I'm very grateful.'

‘Not at all,' he said with an ironic smile.

When he had gone, Amy turned to Huw. ‘Oh Huw, why did you do it? I was so worried about you! Aren't you happy here?' Her voice was anxious, tearful almost and it took Huw by surprise; he had expected her to be mad.

‘I wanted to go home,' he said.

‘Oh, Huw!' Her face crumpled softly. ‘Huw, dear, you can't. There's nobody there any more.'

‘My friends.'

‘But they wouldn't be able to look after you, and if there's nobody to look after you it would mean being taken into some kind of institution. Don't you understand?'

‘I wouldn't care,' he said stubbornly, ‘as long as I was home.'

‘Oh Huw, you would! You wouldn't have a room of your own and you'd have to share everything with the other boys, even those you disliked. You wouldn't be able to come and go as you pleased and the food wouldn't be very nice. And there would be nobody to care for you specially. No one. That's what would be worst of all.'

He said nothing and she smiled sadly.

‘And if you were to run away they would probably beat you when they got you back, like Mr Porter wanted to.'

His head drooped. He ached all over, his foot throbbed and he was very hungry.

‘Come on inside, Huw.' She put an arm around his shoulders in spite of the coal-dust, helping him into the kitchen. ‘You'd better have a wash.'

Hated words … but somehow this morning they sounded less threatening – there was a comfortable, familiar ring to them. She drew water in a bowl at the sink and sat him down on the edge of the table as she did the girls, washing his face, hands and legs with soap and flannel.

‘You'll have to go into the tub after breakfast, but for now we'll make it a lick and a promise. Oh Huw, your hands and knees! They're covered in gravel rash! And your ankle … !'

She bathed the grazes in disinfectant water. In some places the dirt had got in and Huw winced as she sponged it out. Then she covered the raw places with lint and sticky tape and put a bandage around his ankle.

‘Where's your sandal?' she asked.

‘I don't know. Somewhere down in the lane. I lost it.'

‘Well, I certainly hope it turns up. New sandals are an expensive item. We shall have to go that way and look for it.' But there was only anxiety in her tone, not reproach, and he felt the first stab of guilt.

‘I'll go and look for it,' he offered.

‘Not on that ankle, you won't.' But she didn't say she would be afraid to let him out of her sight again and for that he was grateful.

Should he say he was sorry? But in his short life Huw had never apologised to anyone and he couldn't begin now. Only as he looked at her, he felt the beginnings of something like warmth instead of the usual rush of hatred.

‘Sit up then, Huw, and I'll make you some breakfast. I expect you're hungry, aren't you?' she said now. As the smell of bacon filled the kitchen a few moments later, Huw laid his head on his arms on the table and fell fast asleep.

Relentlessly the days marched on through autumn towards winter and still the strike dragged on. Rumours of this settlement and that were rife, but the blue and silver days of September became the glorious red-browns of October and nothing had changed, except that belts were tighter and hearts heavier.

As if it believed that such a summer as this had been would never come again, the whole of nature strained back to hold onto it. The trees in the rectory garden clung desperately to their leaves instead of shedding them early to form a russet carpet on the pavement they overhung. Along the ridge of batches above the railway line, the firs and pines stood green and bushy against the deep blue of the sky; a haze of flies still hung over the steeply sloping fields made marshy by springs that burst from the depths of the hillsides and trickled over the stones and mud patches towards the much depleted river.

But when at last the first nip in the air hardened to a bite, folk who had been hungry all summer found that they were now cold as well. In the mornings and evenings the smell of woodsmoke mingled with the seasonal aroma of bonfires as fires were kindled and stoked on what sticks the lads had been able to bring in from the woods; and men began sneaking to the batches after dark to pick coal and bring it home in sacks and home-made trucks.