lie down however hard Mari brushed it, and the square shape that his mouth took on with his strange laughter, and his body ached with the pity of it.
Work. Nick knew where he would try first.
He had often thought of Amy Lovell and the great, quiet house in Bruton Street where the servants padded to and fro and where there was not a wrinkle or stain in the soft, shining expanse of luxury.
He would write to the Honourable Amalia Lovell, and ask her politely if there might still be some work for him on her family estate. Nick bent his head at the thought of sitting down to the letter, but the pang passed quickly enough. Swallowed pride wasn’t all that palatable, he thought, but he was getting more than used to the taste.
There was a chance, of course, that Amy Lovell would have forgotten all about him. But somehow, recalling her still face and the hurt in her eyes when he had refused her help, Nick didn’t think she would have forgotten. And if Amy Lovell couldn’t, or wouldn’t help him — well, then, he would try the Midlands, where light industries were burgeoning, or he would try the car manufacturers. He would go anywhere, except to London. There were enough men from the valleys in London already, walking the streets in search of something they could do.
So the decision that wasn’t really a decision at all was made, but Nick went on sitting with his back against the outcrop of rock. As the light changed the blue sky faded to pearl grey with a rim of pink softening the hills to the west. Nick kept his eyes on the horizon, never glancing at the black smudges of houses and workings in the darkening valley.
It was completely dark when he stood up stiffly and began the scramble down to Nantlas. As he passed along the terraces most of the lights were already out, and his own house was black and silent when he reached it. The thin curtains were drawn tight across the upstairs window.
Nick let himself in and crossed the back kitchen, sniffing the familiar scent of carbolic soap and brass polish with the knowledge that he would have to leave this and everything he cared about. The realization gave him a moment of sharp physical pain.
He trod softly up the stairs and pushed open the bedroom door.
In the dimness he saw that Mari had taken Dickon into bed with her. Her arms were wrapped protectively round the boy, who was restless in his sleep. His bottle of medicine, a patent tonic, stood with its spoon on the table by the alarm clock. Slowly, Nick turned away.
He stopped at Dickon’s doorway and lay down on the child’s bed, too frozen even to take off his clothes. This is how a marriage ends, then, Nick thought. In the dark, cold and silent.
In the morning, as soon as it was light and before Mari and Dickon were awake, he sat down at the kitchen table and wrote to Amy Lovell.
*
Amy found the letter in her pigeonhole at the hostel, forwarded with the rest of her mail from Bruton Street. It was the end of a night shift and she was yawning and looking forward to tea and toast in the nurses’ canteen before going upstairs to sleep.
She recognized the strong black handwriting at once.
Nick’s request was straightforward. If there was still a job on her family estate, as she had once mentioned, he would be grateful for it now. Yours, Nick Penry. Amy folded up the single sheet of paper, wondering. The hauteur with which Nick had rejected her offer in the first place still stung. It must have been hard for him to come back and ask, after that. But Amy had heard enough from Bethan about the way things were in Nantlas to be able to guess why he had had to do it.
Instead of going up to her room Amy went to the telephone in the common room and, after a short delay, she was put through to Chance. She could see her father’s irritable frown as he answered her.
‘The labourers on the estate are Mackintosh’s business. I won’t interfere with that.’ Mackintosh was the estate manager.
‘This man saved the life of a friend of mine, once,’ Amy said. ‘He’s my friend too, in a way. Could you make an exception with Mr Mackintosh, just once?’
‘It sounds very unsuitable.’ Gerald was stiff. ‘And we have enough trouble finding work for our own people nowadays.’
‘Please.’
Her father loved her, awkwardly and mutely, Amy knew that. At length, shaming her a little and masking his capitulation with gruffness, Gerald said, ‘All right. I’ll speak to Mackintosh. If he has anything, your friend will be offered it. Don’t ask me to do anything of the kind ever again, because I won’t.’
‘No, I won’t ask again.’
A week later, a letter in a crested envelope arrived for Nick. The brief, uncordial missive under the heading ‘The Estates Office, Chance’ stated that at his lordship’s direction, and subject to a satisfactory trial, the post of under gardener on the estate would be offered to N. Penry at a wage of twenty-eight shillings a week. If Penry would present himself to Mr Mackintosh at the above address as soon as possible he would receive his directions. Accommodation would be provided on the estate.
Nick looked down at the thick paper, the neatly typed words. He was thinking about Amy Lovell and the smooth machinery she must have set in motion. So much for a naïve, impulsive, pretty girl to be able to do so easily.
Without speaking, Nick gave the letter to Mari. She was sitting in the chair by the range with Dickon on her lap. His head was resting on her shoulder, and Nick saw the sharp chain of bones running from the nape of his neck.
Mari read the letter and stared at Nick over Dickon’s crest of hair.
‘At his lordship’s direction? How?’
Nick had never told her about Bruton Street, or the girl. The gulf between that polished place, he had reasoned, and the things that Mari had to make do with was cruelly wide enough without pointing it up further.
‘Does it matter? The job’s on offer. It’s the wages that count. Not over-generous, but there you are.’
‘It’s twenty-eight shillings more than we’re getting now.’
‘Exactly. I’ll be able to send you almost all of it.’
Mari’s eyes were fixed on him. Instead of the relief she had expected to feel she was cold, and suddenly vulnerable.
‘You’re going to go, then?’ she whispered.
Nick was cold, too. Leaving Nantlas. Leaving the Fed. He could do that, even though it would hurt. But to leave Dickon. And to leave Mari. Even though the love had gone, and all the warmth and softness and the sweet smell of her with it, Nick didn’t know how he would live without her.
‘Of course I’m going. Isn’t that what you wanted?’ He was adding up swiftly in his head. ‘Ask the doctor in Cardiff if you can pay him weekly. With not having me to feed, and even with the extra bits of good food for Dickon, you should be able to manage.’
‘You’ll need to eat.’
‘I expect there’ll be plenty of rabbits on his lordship’s acres.’ Nick smiled slightly. Rabbits were as scarce as tigers in the valleys nowadays.
‘It says here as soon as possible.’
‘It won’t take me long to get myself ready.’
There was a moment when either of them might have said something else. Might have changed everything. Dickon rolled his head against his mother’s shoulder and moaned fretfully. The silence spread between the three of them, unbroken.
‘I’ll go down and see the Committee,’ Nick said at last. ‘I’ll need to do a bit of explaining about resigning the secretaryship.’ He had done the voluntary and important job for years, and it was hard not to feel like a renegade now.
‘Yes. You should do that,’ was all Mari said.
They hardly spoke again for the single day that it took Nick to prepare himself. He knew that the other stalwarts he had worked with thought