The Emerald Valley (51 page)

Her heart lurched and suddenly she felt as if she had gone hollow inside. From the moment she saw him on the doorstep she had known why he was here, of course – and known too what she must say to him. She had been over and over it since Arthur Clarence had told her it would be impossible for her to adopt Huw legally – the one thing which she had thought would give him stability and free her to live her own life without worrying about the effect this might have on him. But knowing what you had to do and actually doing it were two entirely different things. Believing you were right did not make it any easier.

‘Well?' Ralph was looking at her quizzically. ‘How about dinner again one evening? Or would you rather go out somewhere? I know how you love riding in the car.'

She took a deep breath. ‘No, Ralph, I can't.'

His eyes narrowed – the only betrayal of any emotion. ‘Well! You said that as though you meant it.'

‘I do mean it. I can't go out with you again – not for a while, anyway. I did enjoy myself the other evening, but it would be better not to do it again.'

‘May I ask why?'

She glanced towards the door and lowered her voice. ‘Because of Huw.'

‘The boy?'

‘Yes. I had terrible problems with him after last time.' She went on to outline what had happened and Ralph's face grew grim.

‘I could have told you that you would have trouble with that one. Why did you take him on?'

Her lips tightened. ‘I think that's my business.'

‘Ouch!' He smiled ruefully but it did not reach his eyes. ‘All right, I concede it's your business as to why you took him on. But surely you don't propose to let him rule your life? He needs taking in hand.'

‘He needs love and security and I should be failing if I didn't give him that. Right now he sees you as a threat. Oh, don't you see, Ralph, he's had a terrible time! He lost his mother, his home, his friends. Now he's afraid of losing me.'

‘That's ridiculous!'

‘You know that and so do I. But Huw doesn't and it will take time and patience to make him understand.'

‘And in the meantime you intend to deny yourself any life of your own?'

‘I have a life!' she said hotly. ‘I have a very full life.'

‘So you've decided to turn me down and tell me you're not going to see me any more!'

‘I can't, Ralph. I can't!'

‘Because of a child!'

The hardness in his voice frightened her. It was always there just beneath the surface – that cold, biting edge that made him totally different from Llew. Llew had been enthusiastic and emotional, quarrelsome sometimes, yet sentimental enough to be swayed by her and she had always felt she could get him to see her point of view. Ralph … Ralph was a man who would hate to be beaten, he would make a fierce enemy and a poor loser. She wanted him – yes, even now, although he frightened her a little, something basic and primeval about him called to her in a way she scarcely understood. But most of all she wanted Llew – his tenderness and understanding. She had hurt him, hurt him so much by her taunts during those last days before he died and now she would never be able to make it up to him, tell him she had not meant what she said. Would she have been able to hurt Ralph in that way? She doubted it. And to give in to him now, to give into her own compelling desire for him, would be one last betrayal of Llew.

‘It's not just because of Huw,' she said softly, ‘it's because of me as well. It's too soon, Ralph.'

‘You're afraid of what people might say?'

‘No!' She hesitated, then admitted, ‘Well, perhaps that too. They might see it as a slur on Llew and I wouldn't want that. Oh, I know it would be me they'd be talking about and calling names, but that's not what I would mind. It would be the reflection on Llew – the suggestion that I couldn't have cared much for him. They would pity him, don't you see? I don't want that; I want them to remember him as a man worthy of his wife mourning for him. And me … well, I couldn't feel right about it, not on any account. So that's why I can't see you any more.'

‘I see.' He moved abruptly. ‘It seems you have made up your mind.'

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘Don't be afraid.' That hard edge was there again. ‘Being
afraid
doesn't suit you. You're at your best with all guns blazing, Amy.'

She was unsure quite how to take that and as she stood looking at him quizzically, he moved away towards the door.

‘Well, that's it then, isn't it?'

She nodded. Her throat was full suddenly and she couldn't speak.

‘Don't go!' she wanted to say, but knew she must not. As she watched him walk away down the path the tears welled into her eyes, but she brushed them away impatiently.

Don't be such a fool! It's the best thing. Everything you said to him was no more than the truth. It
is
bad for Huw and it is too soon to be seen with another man.

Then why, oh why, do I feel as if the bottom has fallen out of my world all over again?

She closed the door, blinked hard and blew her nose. In the living-room Huw glanced up from his postcards.

‘Who was that?'

‘Oh, just someone to see me,' she said casually, mastering the threatening tremble in her voice. But Huw was already engrossed in his postcards once more. It was all right – the danger had passed – he didn't know who it was.

Amy went back into the kitchen and got on with her ironing.

Although it was a relief that the strike was at last over, with Christmas and the New Year behind him Harry was aware of a sense of anti-climax.

At least so long as the strike had lasted there had been something to work for, a sense of purpose overriding everything he did. Now he was back in his job underground – one of the lucky ones – but he was no longer satisfied with that. Carting coal was back-breaking work, but like the rest of the family he was fit enough to cope without too much trouble and though he emerged from the pit each night physically tired, he had enough energy left to feel frustration and something like anger.

The return to work had been on surrender terms – the men were worse off now than they had been when they first went out on strike eight long months ago – and the despair in their eyes made Harry fearful for the future. He had been so determined to do something – anything – to further the cause, but like the others he had achieved nothing and sometimes he wondered if he ever would.

Perhaps Mam had been right to try to steer him away from the pits, he thought. Perhaps he could leave and make a life elsewhere. But somehow, deep down, he knew that was not the answer.

He still wanted to help men like his father and how could he ever do that if he left the pits? But by the same token, what could he do if he remained where he was? He was such a small cog in the great wheels, a nonentity – who would ever take notice of him and what he said?

The answer came to him one day when a new deputy – or ‘examiner', as they were known locally – came to work at Middle Pit. Frank Horler was a Purldown lad who had spent all his working life out in the Duchy mines, but Harry knew him slightly through the pigeon fanciers'circles and had never thought of him as being particularly bright. Solid, yes. A good worker, yes. But hardly brainy. And he was not that much older than Harry either – at least twenty-one, of course, otherwise he could not have taken his ticket – but a young man compared with most of the examiners Harry had known during his time underground.

As Harry listened to his drawling voice and watched the slow, deliberate way he went about his tasks, he found himself itching with impatience. Later, as Frank Horler aired his less-than-scintillating views on the politics of Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour Party, Harry thought: Good grief, I'm brighter than he is! If he can be an examiner, why can't I?

He turned over the idea as he dragged his putt of coal along the narrow roadways, his knees scraping over the shining black-sprinkled ground, ducking his head to avoid an overhang here and there.

An examiner! If he was an examiner, it would be the first step towards respect and recognition. And it would be reflected in his paypacket, too. But how to set about it? Harry disliked the idea of talking it over with Frank or any of his workmates. It would seem presumptuous, he thought, and he could almost hear the comments his enquiry would arouse:

‘Oh – thinks'e's too good for us, s'know.'

‘You – an examiner, Harry? You bain't hardly out o'your napkins!'

No, Harry decided there was only one person to talk to, and that was Adam Barker, the manager. He might put him down, too, but at least his mates would not be there to see it.

It took all of Harry's courage to knock on the manager's door the following afternoon. An interview had been requested and granted. Now when he found himself face to face with the the small, compact man with the leathery lined face, dressed as was his wont in the highly unsuitable garb of tweed jacket and plus-fours, Harry found his nerve almost failing him.

‘Right, lad, what was it you wanted to see me about?' Adam Barker was known not to suffer fools gladly and Harry pulled himself together.

‘I want to study for my Examiner's Ticket and I need your advice on how to go about it.'

‘That's putting the cart before the horse, isn't it?' Adam barked.

‘What do you mean?' He had already succeeded in taking the wind out of Harry's sails.

‘Surely the question you should have come here to ask me is whether or not I think you're up to
taking
your Examiner's Ticket?'

‘I'm sure I could do the job,' Harry said stoutly. ‘I have no intention of staying a carting boy all my life.'

‘That's unlikely, anyway. Carting will be done away with when the Guss Committee reports, I shouldn't be surprised. Never mind that hardly any of those shouting about it have the first idea what they're on about. It's a matter where heart, not head, rules. What do you think about it, Hall?'

Inwardly Harry winced. He had taken the device too much for granted to resent it greatly, and he knew well enough the arguments in its favour. Seams here in Somerset were thin, roadways too small for tubs. If other, more expensive methods of getting the coal away were forced upon the owners and the pits therefore became uneconomic, jobs would be lost. But the Miners'Association had taken up the emotive contraption as their
cause célèbre
, the symbol of their oppression. Harry was in a cleft stick and he knew it.

‘The guss and crook will go eventually – it's bound to,' he said now, ‘What we have to do is hope it's not outlawed until something has been found to replace it – something that will work as well here as in other coalfields.'

Adam Barker raised an eyebrow. ‘And what do you think that might be?'

Harry considered. ‘Some kind of low contraption on wheels, maybe. Though I'm not sure how well wheels would run on the uneven ground. A band conveyor would be better, if there was room for it.'

‘Hmm.' Adam Barker was looking at him with new interest. He was not used to carting boys coming into his office and talking with such intelligence and foresight. ‘So you want to take a step up in the world, do you?' he said, bringing the conversation back to Harry's own future.

‘Yes, I do. But I don't know how to set about it.'

‘How old are you?'

‘Sixteen. Going on seventeen.'

‘Too young to sit the exam for another four years or so,' the manager commented. ‘When you're eighteen or nineteen, you could start Examiners'classes up at the Higher Elementary School. You know about those classes, do you?'

‘Not really,' Harry admitted.

‘They're run a couple of times a week and you learn all you need to know. But as I say, there is no point in starting them for another year or so. What's your general education like?'

‘I went to the Board School,' Harry said defensively.

‘And left as soon as you could, no doubt? Well, if you want my advice as to how to get on, I'll give it to you. Go back to school!'

‘Leave the pit, you mean?' Harry asked, aghast.

‘No – go to night school – Evening Continuation Classes. You can take instruction in general subjects – arithmetic, English, drawing, geography – and get a certificate at the end of it. Anything you learn will stand you in good stead for when you're old enough to go to mining classes.'

‘You think so?' This was not quite what Harry had had in mind.

‘That's my advice, for what it's worth. And if you have the time, you could go to first-aid classes too. The St John Ambulance Brigade run them and a certificate in first aid is always an asset to anyone going underground. I tell you this: if I'm appointing an examiner and one of the candidates can do first aid, he's always my choice.'

‘Has Frank Horler got first aid?' Harry asked.

‘He has indeed and he did a fine job when a man was injured by a roof fall at his last pit.' He looked sharply at Harry. ‘Your eyesight and hearing are good, I take it?'

‘Yes – of course …' Harry looked puzzled.

‘There's a stringent test for eyesight and hearing,' the manager explained. ‘You have to be able to see well enough to read percentages of fire-damp, and hear well enough to be aware of any roof movements … timber cracking and the like. But I don't envisage any problems for you there. You're young and healthy – and you're a likely lad; I'm only surprised that you haven't come to my attention before this.'

‘Well, thank you …' Harry was flushing with pleasure.

‘A likely lad,' Adam Barker said again. ‘Work hard, Hall, and I see no reason why you should not set your sights higher than examiner. Think of working towards your Second-Class Certificate of Competency.'

‘You mean … an under-manager's ticket?' Harry could hardly believe his ears.