The child stared back at her. It was impossible to tell how much he understood.
‘Is he talking much yet?’ she asked Mari.
‘In his way.’ Mari smiled calmly. Nick had already walked past, down to the end of the room where the men were standing in a group at the foot of the stage steps. ‘I will. Thank you,’ she said. Someone was holding a plate out to her. She wasn’t exactly ravenous, they had eaten something before coming out just so that they wouldn’t look too hungry, but paste sandwiches, and cake, were almost forgotten luxuries. Mari took a sandwich and broke it carefully in half for Dickon.
When the food was all gone, and the room was full of a warm, satisfied buzz, Nannon’s father pushed through the crowd and went up on to the stage. The bride, pink-faced, with her husband beside her, stood just below. William Jones held his arms up.
‘Friends. Neighbours and friends. I’m not going to ask you to stop in your enjoyment for too long. Just to join with me in drinking the health of Nannon and Gwyn, and wishing them everything for the future. And in remembering the friends who can’t be with us tonight. My eldest daughter, Bethan. And my boy David, in London too, looking for work. Two boys from the other side of our new family as well, Gareth and Glyn, trying their luck in the Midlands. May they be lucky, and may we start to have some luck here too. Here’s to some better times for all of us. Cheers, now.’
He raised his pint glass, his red face glowing, and tipped his head back to it. There was an uproar of cheering and clapping and stamping on the wooden floorboards before he held up his hand again.
‘Oh yes. One last thing. We’ve got a new big man with us tonight.’
Faces were turning in the crowd, and heads craning. Mari realized with a sudden sinking fear that they were looking at Nick.
‘We’ve just heard now, elected Secretary of the Rhondda Branch of the SWMF. Nick Penry, a good Nantlas boy if ever there was one. Give him a clap now, for all his hard work in the past, and to come.’
Mari listened to the clapping, frozen.
It was an important post, although an honorary one. It meant that Nick would be working at a level in the Federation that represented all the pit lodges in the Rhondda valleys. Beyond that it would give him a voice at the top level, on the main South Wales executive. Mari knew that it was the beginning of real power for him, the beginning of real influence, in the world that he cared about. Nick was a Communist because its importance confronted him every day of his life.
And yet, he had never even mentioned to her the possibility of his election. Had they already drifted so far apart that he was sure of her disapproval, certain that she would not put her support behind him?
Mari was proud of him still, but she had lost the ability to tell him so. Just as Nick in his turn seemed to have lost the ability to sympathize with her fears and anxieties.
Mari bit her lips and looked across the room at him.
‘Speech! Speech!’ Nick was being pushed up on to the stage. She watched him, thinking how much at ease he looked on the platform. He wasn’t red-faced and awkward like William Jones, nor was he over-confident and strident. He was just Nick himself, and he smiled down at them as though they were all old and well-loved friends.
‘I don’t want to make a speech …’
‘Shame! Shame!’
‘Let the man speak, will you?’
‘… and neither do you want to hear one. I just want to say thank you for voting me into a position where I might be able to join in helping us, and the industry, back up off our knees.’
‘That’s it, Nick boy. You tell ‘em.’
‘I’m glad that Nannon and Gwyn Jones have given us something to celebrate together, tonight. This is all we’ve got left now, isn’t it? Staying together, all of us, whether it’s this village, or the Rhondda, or South Wales, or the whole community of miners all over the country. And what’s more …’
The room was quiet now. Everyone was watching Nick.
‘… that’s the only thing that really matters. So long as we’re together, so long as every one of us in this room, and in every pit and Welfare Hall across the country, believes that miners and not millionaires should run our pits, well then, we can win. Then our children can go to school in boots again, and our wives can go out to buy food for our families.’
There was a moment of complete silence before the clapping and cheering broke out again.
Oh yes, Nick, you believe it, Mari thought. It’s all you care about, except perhaps for Dickon. And standing up there, somehow you can make everyone else believe whatever you want. You’ve got a talent, sure enough. And you’re not the kind of man to waste a talent, are you?
The room was full of the warmth of friendliness. Mari lifted her head, watching her husband.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I told you I wasn’t going to make a speech. Let’s get on now and dance and sing, and forget everything for a few hours. We’re here to celebrate a wedding, aren’t we? I hope you’ll be very happy, Nannon and Gwyn. I hope you’ll be as happy as Mari and I have been.’
Nick had ducked down from the stage and was pushing his way through the crowd. She saw his head, taller than the others, looking around for her. In Mari’s arms Dickon said ‘Da’ in a pleased voice and held out his arms to him. When Nick reached her side Mari said, without looking at him,
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Would you have wanted to know?’ As he always did, Nick met a challenge with a challenge.
‘Husbands and wives usually mention these things to each other. You make me feel like a stranger, Nick. And why wish that on Nannon and Gwyn? I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to enjoy our kind of happiness.’
‘You still make me happy, Mari,’ he said softly. He put his arms around her and Dickon, and forced her to look up so that he could see her face. ‘I’m sorry if I can’t do the same for you. I’m still the man you married, you know. Just the same.’
Regardless of the crowd around them he kissed her, warm against her cold cheek. ‘I could prove it to you, if you’d only let me. Come on, dance with me. At least then I can hold you close and still look decent.’
‘What about Dickon?’
‘Give him to your mam to hold, for God’s sake. Just this once.’
The band was assembled on the stage, and after the tootlings as they tuned up they swept into a waltz. Couples stepped out on to the creaky floor. Amongst the replete pink faces and careful best clothes there was an atmosphere of revelry almost forgotten in Nantlas.
‘Why do you blame me,’ Nick whispered, ‘for trying to make it possible for nights like this to happen every week?’
‘I don’t blame you, my love.’
Mari carried Dickon over to her mother. The child allowed himself to be handed over uncomplainingly, but he never took his eyes off his parents.
‘That’s better,’ Nick said. ‘And now, may I have the pleasure?’ He looked proud, and happier than she had seen him for a long, long time.
Mari saw his arms held out to her, and she smiled. Her eyes met Nick’s and she caught his happiness. Suddenly, surprisingly, she felt like a young girl again. Their quarrel was all forgotten. The music lifted her spirits higher and she stood for a second swaying in time to it. Then Nick’s arms came around her and they were off across the splintery wooden floor.
Mari tilted her head back so that she could look at him. Nick saw a flush of colour in her cheeks, and a light in her face that turned her back into the pretty, merry Mari he had married. He held her tighter and they spun in the dance together.
‘Nick?’ she whispered.