Tiger Bay Blues (38 page)

‘Judy, you’re a miracle-worker. Reverend Slater and I have been invited out to tea tomorrow but if the baker has something you fancy you can buy it for yourself, and for supper –’

‘I’ll find something in the Arab shop or the baker’s. Will a simple meal like cheese on toast or potted beef rolls do?’

‘Very nicely, I should think,’ Edyth said in relief. ‘First thing on Monday morning I’ll go shopping and you must come with me.’ She cut into the remaining half of her fish. The crisp golden batter concealed perfectly cooked, flaking white flesh. She’d had no idea how hungry she was until she’d started eating, but then, she’d spent more time talking than eating at her and Peter’s farewell lunch in her parents’ house.

‘What about the housework, Mrs Slater?’ Judy asked. ‘I won’t be able to do any if I go shopping with you on Monday.’

‘I haven’t even had time to start making the list of things that need doing in the house, Judy. But before I do anything else, I need to sort out a good grocer, greengrocer, butcher and baker, and as you’ve lived on the Bay, you’re the best person to advise me on that. It appears we already have a regular milkman, although I’d like the churn in the pantry to have a good scouring before it’s filled with fresh on Monday.’

‘I’ll do it tomorrow evening,’ Judy offered.

‘Don’t let Reverend Slater catch you.’ Edyth was ashamed of herself when she realised she was already planning to keep secrets from Peter.

‘I’ll go to early mass in the morning. That will leave me free to do some housework tomorrow evening when Reverend Slater is at Evensong.’

‘I remember your Uncle Jed saying at Bella’s wedding that your family are Catholic.’

‘That won’t be a problem, will it, Mrs Slater?’ Judy asked anxiously.

‘Not at all,’ Edyth reassured. ‘If I manage to organise regular deliveries of food, we can order in our goods every week and that will save time on shopping. When we come back on Monday, we’ll make a simple lunch and start on the hall. It’s the first place people see when they call here and I’m ashamed of the state of it.’

‘It is grubby,’ Judy agreed.

‘I’ll put an ironmonger on the list of places to visit. I’d better check the cleaning materials so I’ll know what to buy before we go.’ Edyth felt as though she were being crushed beneath the weight of tasks waiting to be done. But as there was nothing she could do about the house or the shopping until Monday morning, she cleared her mind of all practical considerations and thought of Judy.

She was finding the vicarage strange and uncomfortable after life at home and her brief holiday in the hotel. Judy must be finding it doubly so, especially in the light of Mrs Mack’s hostility towards her.

‘Micah – Mr Holsten – tells me you have an audition lined up, Judy?’

‘I do.’ Judy sprinkled more vinegar on her chips. ‘For a part in the chorus of a touring musical,
The Lady Does,
at the beginning of next month. But Mr Holsten, Uncle Jed, and the rest of the band have more faith in my talent than I do. I don’t for one minute expect to get it.’

‘You sing beautifully, and I wouldn’t tell you did if you didn’t.’

‘So do a hundred other girls.’

Edyth sensed that Judy meant ‘white girls’. ‘Mr Holsten told me you’d been turned down for a few jobs and why.’

Judy shrugged. ‘The first dozen rejections were the worst. I’m used to it now.’

‘You shouldn’t have to get used to it,’ Edyth protested.

Judy forked the last chip from her plate into her mouth. ‘Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can do about it, Mrs Slater. If make a fuss, I’ll never be given another audition, much less a job.’

‘You’re probably right, Judy, but injustice always makes me angry.’

‘So this is where you are hiding?’ Peter carried in his tray and looked disapprovingly from Edyth to Judy. ‘You didn’t eat in the dining room, Edyth?’

She knew it was a reprimand not a question. ‘I cleared the table when Judy went to fetch the fish and chips. It didn’t seem worth laying it again just for myself.’ She took his tray from him.

‘I’m going to bed. You haven’t forgotten that you’re running the Sunday school tomorrow, Edyth?’

‘No.’

‘I will look in on you about halfway through to check everything is all right. I won’t be able to stay, though. I promised to help the choirmaster audition new members in the vestry. He has a full programme scheduled for this winter. As well as the Christmas carol concerts, there’s the twelfth anniversary of Armistice Day. And there’s the inter-faith concerts you’ll be helping Micah organise.’ He went to the door. ‘You haven’t forgotten we’ve been invited to tea by the chairman of the church council and his wife?’

‘Mr Maldwyn and Mrs Eirlys Williams.’ Edyth had made a point of memorising the name of every member of the church council. ‘Should we take anything?’

‘A bunch of flowers, perhaps?’

‘We have no garden. Is there somewhere where I can buy flowers on a Sunday?’ she asked Judy.

‘One of the greengrocers usually has a few bunches.’

Peter unbent enough to say, ‘Goodnight, Judy. Goodnight, Edyth.’ He didn’t add, ‘see you in the morning’, but Edyth felt that he was about to.

Edyth stacked the dishes on the table. ‘You can go on up, too, Judy. You’re sleeping on your feet.’

‘I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since I moved in with Uncle Jed. His youngest two wake every hour on the hour.’

‘I had a baby brother who did that for six months. I used to threaten to put his cot on the roof. Go on,’ she said kindly to Judy, ‘go on up. I hope you’ll be warm enough in that attic.’

‘I will be. I’ve never had a fire in my bedroom before. It will be a real luxury.’

‘If Mrs Mack gives you any trouble, my bedroom door is directly opposite the bottom of the upper staircase.’

‘She hasn’t said a word to me since I arrived, just sniffed a lot whenever I’m around.’ Judy left her chair. ‘Are you sure about this, Mrs Slater? I could wash the dishes. It won’t take me a minute.’

‘Or me, Judy, Goodnight.’

Judy went to the door, but she hesitated and turned back. ‘Thank you again for giving me this job, Mrs Slater. If you hadn’t, I would have had to leave the Bay. That’s if I’d found anything at all.’

‘I’ve a feeling it’s me who’s got the best end of the bargain, Judy. If I only had Mrs Mack to help me, I suspect that Reverend Slater and I would live in freezing cold squalor all winter. Sleep tight, see you in the morning.’

After Judy went to bed, Edyth squeezed a last cup of tea out of the pot, sat and looked at the dishes. She had two pounds and some coins in her purse and nothing else besides, except her savings. Her father might be an MP, but unlike most Members of Parliament he had no private means. His expenses were met from the funds of the mining unions and, knowing how little most of the members had to live on, he never spent a penny more than he absolutely had to. Most of the cost of her family’s day-to-day living was met by the salary her mother was paid for working in Gwilym James.

Lloyd Evans had been a miner himself before management had singled him out and sent him to study engineering in one of the ‘mining schools’ that had been set up in the South Wales Valleys; in his case, Treforest. His father had been a miner in the days when the work had still been well-paid and Billy Evans had invested every spare penny of his own and his sons’ money in houses that they had rented out. They had used the rents to buy even more houses and, when Billy died, the houses had been divided between Lloyd and his brothers. Victor’s share had bought him his farm, Joey still had some of his properties, although he had sold a few when he had purchased the house he lived in with his family in Pontypridd, and Lloyd had sold all of his and used the proceeds to buy the family home.

Harry might have inherited wealth – or rather would in five years when he reached his thirtieth birthday and his trust was dissolved – but her parents had been careful not to touch it. And her own savings were an accumulation of all her birthday and Christmas money, the percentage her parents had insisted she set aside from her weekly pocket money, and the money she had earned in the school holidays by cleaning the stockrooms and working in the staff canteen of Gwilym James.

All her parents had promised her and her sisters was an education that would enable them to earn a living that would hopefully keep them in the style in which they had been brought up. If she and Peter really were desperately short of money, and she couldn’t see how they could be because she was sure that Peter would be paid at least as much as the Reverend Price – and the Prices could afford to employ a tweenie – then she would have no choice other than to dip into her savings.

She had enough money to pay Judy’s wages for a couple of years, but there was still Mrs Mack. The woman was not only unfit for her job, she was ill-mannered and rude. Why wouldn’t Peter get rid of her?

With thoughts whirling senselessly and fruitlessly around her head, she finished her tea, left the table, ran a sink of hot water, washed their plates, knives and forks, and wiped down the work surfaces. Her temper flared again when she saw the dirt trapped in practically every dark corner. It was a disgrace, especially when she considered how short a time had elapsed since the renovations, and she wondered if Mrs Mack did anything besides sit next to the warm range, nursing her ‘medicine bottle’.

She was exhausted when she finished. She left the kitchen and checked that all the fires had been banked down for the night, and the fireguards hooked in front of the grates in the downstairs rooms before going upstairs.

The door to Peter’s single front bedroom was closed. She went to the bathroom, washed, dressed in her negligée set and walked along the landing. She tapped Peter’s door softly. When there was no reply she turned the handle. Then she knew for certain that he’d locked himself in – and her out.

Edyth rose at seven the next morning. She’d expected to be the first one up in the house, but when she went downstairs, she discovered Judy had seen to all the fires, laid the breakfast, filled the kettle and set it on the range to boil. She had also left a note on the kitchen table to say she was going shopping after attending early mass but expected to be back around quarter past eight.

Edyth made tea, intending to carry a cup up to Peter in bed, but when she went into the hall she saw that his study door was open and he was at his desk.

He looked up at her. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning, Peter.’ As his door was open she went in and laid his tea on his desk.

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes. Would you like breakfast?’ It was only after she asked that she realised there wasn’t any.

‘I never eat breakfast before morning service on a Sunday.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘Please.’

‘In that case I’ll leave Judy a note and tell her to have it ready for us.’

‘Did I tell you that Mrs Mack has asked for every Sunday off? I told her that would be all right as there is no housework to be done on Sundays.’

‘Except the fires, and Judy has already seen to those,’ she reminded him.

‘You don’t mind?’

‘About Mrs Mack, no. I only wish the woman would stay away permanently.’ When Peter didn’t comment, she said, ‘What have you taken for your text today?’

‘“Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.”’

‘I’m looking forward to hearing it.’ She didn’t have the courage to ask him if it was a reference to her attitude towards Mrs Mack.

Throughout the service Edyth was conscious of the attention she was attracting among the congregation. Afterwards, there were so many people to meet, hands to shake and pleasantries to exchange, it was closer to lunch than breakfast time when she and Peter finally managed to return to the vicarage.

After Peter had eaten the salmon bagels Judy had prepared, he went to his study. Edyth sneaked off to the kitchen with Judy, where they checked the pantry and started a list of everything that had to be done to bring it up to her standard of cleanliness, or rather Mari’s, which Edyth regarded as normal.

Fortunately Peter liked both the salt fish stew and bread Judy had bought from the Jewish baker and, by the time Edyth left for Sunday school, she was marginally happier and less irritable than she had been the day before. After writing lists with Judy and finding it somewhat satisfying to place things in order of priority, she began to formulate a mental list of what she considered to be the most serious problems between Peter and herself.

She had to find a way to make him talk to her and tell her why he wouldn’t sleep with her. And, on a more practical note, she had to sort out a budget for housekeeping – and persuade him to sack Mrs Mack.

She was mulling over the approaches she might use to prompt him into discussing their love life – or rather lack of it – when she walked back into the church for Sunday school. A sea of small faces turned to look at her. Most of the teachers had already collected their groups and sat them in their pews.

A few of the younger children were enthusiastically swapping wax crayons and drawing pictures of what looked like Joseph’s coat of many colours, some of the older ones were studiously reading texts, but there was a group of about half a dozen women and ten or so children hanging back behind the door. Edyth looked around. No one was making an effort to approach them. As Peter had placed her in charge of the school, she assumed the responsibility.

She noticed that although all the women were soberly dressed, everyone had dyed hair, some peroxide blonde, some blue-black, but the woman standing slightly to the front had red hair bordering on crimson. She was of middle height, thick-set and tough-looking. But it wasn’t until Edyth was standing in front of her that she recognised her as Anna Hughes.

Two small girls clung to her skirts. They were clean and neatly dressed in matching long-sleeved white woollen frocks, and white socks. Their mousy brown hair had been braided into plaits, fastened with large white bows, and their shoes were patent leather.

‘Can I help you?’ Edyth said. Close up she could see that the women’s faces had been scrubbed clean, but there were traces of eyeblack around the eyebrows and lashes, and their noses and lips were shiny with the residue of the cream they had used to remove their makeup.