a Peter Jaspert for myself, and I can’t sit about here or at Chance for ever. The question is, what could I do? I’m not any use for anything.’
‘That doesn’t sound very much like you,’ Richard said gently. ‘It’s your life to live, isn’t it? Not anyone else’s.’
Lady Lovell’s prayers had evidently been answered. The morning of Isabel’s wedding was bright, and frosty clear. When Bethan got up she went straight to the window. The pavements were shiny wet, but the sky was the translucent pearly white that would later turn to icy blue. The bare plane trees were motionless. There was no wind, either.
‘Let’s hope it’s the same there,’ Bethan murmured. She looked at the cheap alarm clock beside her bed and saw that there were a few minutes to spare. A quick note dashed off to Mam wouldn’t be quite the same thing as Bethan being there herself, but at least they would know that she was thinking of them.
All ready here, at last [she wrote]. The coming and going, you wouldn’t believe it. Thirty people here for dinner last night, and that just a small party of family to meet Mr Jaspert. Miss Isabel stayed in her room. She is as lovely and calm in the middle of it all as I would have expected her to be. My poor Amy is going to miss her, I know that much. I wish I could have been there with you, Mam, to see Nannon and Gwyn today, but I know you’ll all understand. They would have given me time if I’d asked, I’m sure of that, but with having had my two weeks and with Amy needing me, I felt I should stay here with them. But just the same I will be thinking of you at home.
How sad it is that the minister has gone from Nantlas. I would have liked to think of Nannon walking up to the Chapel in her white dress, on Dad’s arm, and everyone coming out on their steps to wave, like they used to. It’s not so easy to imagine the Ferndale registry.
I wonder what you’re doing this minute, Mam? Perhaps you’re sitting by the range with Nannon, brushing her hair. Or no, most likely you’re making the sandwiches. Is the Hall up at the Welfare all decorated with streamers, like they used to do it? At least you’ve got Dad there to help you. Did he understand about the money I sent? I don’t need it for anything here. I wish it could have been more, and of course Nannon should have a reception on her wedding day as fine as anyone in Nantlas. I know how hard it is when there isn’t the work. I’m sure that things will have to get better soon. Pits can’t stay closed for always, can they? I hope Nannon found the bit of money useful too. I’d have got her a present of course, but if she’s going to be living with Gwyn’s family for a bit perhaps she’d rather have it to spend on herself, instead of pots or blankets. Think of my little sister being married. How glad you must be that Gwyn’s in the Co-op and not down the pit. He may be a bit old for her, but he’s a good, kind man and I’m sure he’ll make Nannon happy. I’ll be thinking of you all day, you especially, Mam.
It’s fine and clear here, and I pray it is in Nantlas too.
God BLESS you all, your loving BETHAN.
Bethan folded her letter and put it into the envelope. There would be just enough time to run out to the post with it before going down to Amy.
Mari Penry sat back on her heels and stared at the sullen grate. They had let the fire in the range go out to save coal, and now she couldn’t get it going again with the dusty slack left in the bucket.
‘Are you cold, Dickon?’ she asked the child. He didn’t answer, nor did she expect him to, but she always made sure to include him in everything. Dickon was sitting in his usual place, close to the range in the little low chair that Nick had made for him. Mari pulled her own thin cardigan closer around her and went to feel his hands. The fingers were cold, but his stomach under the layers of woollens was warm enough.
‘Well then,’ she said, hugging him. ‘We’ll wait till your dad comes back, and then we’ll go up to the wedding party and leave the stupid old fire, shall we?’
Dickon looked up at her, and rewarded her with one of his rare smiles that broke his round, solemn face into sudden affection.
‘That’s my boy,’ Mari said. She went through into the front parlour to look out of the window for Nick. It was even colder in here, with a dampness that seemed to cling to the walls and the few pieces of furniture. Mari pulled the lace curtain at the window aside and peered out.
Half a dozen children were playing chasing games from one side of the road to the other, and at the corner a knot of men in scarves and collars turned up against the cold were talking together. There was no sign of Nick in either direction. Mari sighed and straightened the curtain again. She would have liked to make a pot of tea, but without the fire she couldn’t boil the kettle.
‘Mari? You there?’ The back kitchen door banged. Nick must have come the other way, down the back entry. She ran through into the kitchen. Nick had picked Dickon up out of his chair and was swinging him up and down. Dickon was chuckling and pulling at his father’s hair.
‘I thought you’d left home, you’ve been gone so long.’
Gently Nick lowered the boy back into his seat. Dickon’s eyes followed him as he moved around the room.
‘Left home? Hardly,’ Nick said, with the bitterness that rarely faded out of his voice nowadays. He looked around, frowning. ‘It’s too cold in here for Dickon.’
‘I couldn’t get the fire going again, with that.’ Mari pointed to the bucket. ‘He’s all right, under his clothes.’
‘I got half a sack of good stuff. I’ll have the place warm in ten minutes. And I called in at the Co-op. Gwyn Jones is off, of course, but they let me have a loaf and some other bits for now.’
Nick had been up at the shut-down No. 2 pit, picking over the slag heap for lumps of coal. Mr Peris didn’t allow scavenging, as he called it, around his pits but the managers often turned a blind eye. Half the men of Nantlas were out of work now that the second pit was closed, and for many of them it was the only way of keeping their families warm.
Mari watched him busying himself over the fire.
‘I thought we could leave it,’ she said. ‘As we’re going up to the Welfare later.’
Nick shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten that.’
‘You would forget, wouldn’t you? Anything nice that happens, for once? All you can remember is meetings, and committees, and the Federation. Why can’t you leave it? You aren’t even a miner any more, are you?’
Nick seemed not to hear her. He put a match to a tight coil of newspaper, and a yellow tongue of flame shot upwards. Dickon crooned with pleasure at the sight of it.
‘Nick? Please, Nick.’ Mari’s shoulders hunched up, and she didn’t even try to blink the tears out of her eyes. ‘What’s happened to everything?’
Carefully Nick smoothed a sheet of newspaper across the front of the grate and shut the oven doors on it to hold it in place. Behind it the fire flickered up and began to crackle cheerfully. Only when he was sure that it had caught properly did he turn round to Mari.
‘You know what’s happened,’ he said. ‘And you know why. There’s no work for me, or for most of the men in this valley. We’ve eighteen shillings a week to live on, after the rent. The only hope for change in this industry is the lads themselves. We’ve got to win worker control some day, Mari, and the only way to do that is to go on fighting, through all the meetings and committees, as you call them, or starve to death first.’
‘Starve to death, then,’ Mari said, ‘For all the good any of you are doing.’
Nick’s arm shot out and he pulled her around so quickly that her head jerked backwards. ‘Never say that. Never, do you hear?’ Then he saw the tracks of tears on her cheeks, and remembered how rosy her cheeks had been when they were first married. Instead of shaking her, as he had almost done, he pulled her roughly to him. Her head fitted gratefully into the hollow of his shoulder and he kissed her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I told you what it was going to be like, that first day down at Barry Island,