Finders and Keepers (27 page)

‘I can't wait for you to see the canvas I've prepared,' Harry said drily.

‘Neither can I.' Toby turned back to the first sketch Harry had made. ‘This has potential, but you need to see the scene through your own eyes, Harry. You understand what I'm saying?'

‘I think so.'

‘One more small thing.' Toby filched a pencil from his shirt pocket. ‘Here,' he stabbed at a clump of grass Harry had drawn in the bottom right-hand corner of one of the sketches. ‘Every leaf is lovingly pencilled in on the periphery and yet you've a blur in the centre. It's as though you want to draw the spectator's eyes away from the main theme because you're afraid of it.'

Harry considered the criticism for a moment. ‘You're probably right,' he said slowly. ‘I always feel daunted when I attempt to paint. Terrified that it's going to turn out a mess.'

‘We all make messes in the beginning. Even Frank did, and I've seen the canvases to prove it. The thing to remember is that they can always be cleaned off and reused, or painted over,' Toby grinned. ‘On the other hand, you could always move that clump of grass to the centre and make it the main theme of the painting.'

‘Now you're making fun of me.'

‘I'm not,' Toby protested. ‘There's nothing wrong with drawing a clump of grass if you can bring a fresh viewpoint and make others see it in an entirely new way.'

‘Philosophy of art? You just told me to be brave, bold, courageous and trust my own judgement more and listen to people less, including you.' Harry closed the sketchbook and returned it to the chair.

‘You make a good pupil, Harry.' Toby jabbed him playfully in his chest with his pencil before returning it to his pocket. ‘But don't expend all your concentration on insignificant details because you're afraid to face the blank page. In my experience artists who are terrified of messing up and making a mistake never get really started on their careers.'

‘You talking about art or my life?' Harry joked.

‘I don't know you well enough to talk about your life. But when it comes to art, my advice is: when you get up tomorrow morning, take a fresh canvas, sketch out what
you
see, start painting, and when you do, everything else will fall into place.'

‘You make it sound so easy.'

‘That, my friend, it isn't. What do you say we give the afters a miss, go in the bar and enjoy a pint or two of Mrs Edwards's excellent ale?'

‘Pint or two?' Harry grinned.

‘In your case. As you know, I am a man with a larger appetite.'

After Dr Adams had given them permission to visit the following morning, Toby and Harry shouted good morning to the duty nurse and headed for the cupboard where the gowns and masks were kept. They went up to the ward in the lift to receive the customary morning lecture from the ward sister about keeping their visits short and not upsetting her patients.

Harry left Toby outside his uncle's room and walked out on to his grandfather's balcony. Billy, looking as good as he had done the day before, closed his book. Harry noticed he'd moved on from J. K. Jerome and had started reading
The Great Gatsby,
one of the new books Joey had bought for him.

‘Harry, it is good of you to call in again today. Did you do any sketching yesterday?'

Harry sat next to his grandfather's bed. ‘Yes, and today I intend to start a watercolour. Toby Ross has been giving me some advice.' Harry looked out over the gardens. ‘Perhaps I should try to persuade the sister to allow me to bring my sketchbook and paints up here. This view is magnificent.'

‘It is,' Billy agreed. ‘But I doubt you'll sway her. I had a chat with your painter friend's uncle yesterday.'

‘Frank Ross? Isn't he very ill?'

‘He's better than he was earlier in the week,' Billy murmured, glancing at the sister's desk. ‘Doctor Adams and the nurses made a big fuss about his recovery, but there's no fooling him, or me, or indeed anyone in here. It's the nature of the disease for some days to be kinder than others.'

‘This from the man who hasn't been here a week. How are you really feeling?' Harry asked seriously.

‘Too happy for morbid talk. I told you I've said all I intend to on the subject. Life is for living, and in my book that means enjoying.'

‘How can you possibly enjoy yourself in here?' Harry knew his grandfather was trying to be positive, but he couldn't help feeling angry for him. It seemed so unfair that a man as well loved and respected as Billy should end his days incarcerated in Craig-y-Nos away from all his family and friends.

‘How can I not enjoy myself?' Billy turned Harry's question back on him. ‘I have this beautiful garden to look at, books to read, all the tobacco I can smoke, a brandy at bedtime, your visits to look forward to, and more food brought to me in a day than most people see in a week. Not to mention an endless supply of strawberries. So,' he changed the subject, ‘did you see that family of children you told me about when you were sketching?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you'll see them again today?'

‘Probably.'

Harry's offhand tone didn't fool his grandfather. ‘I know you, Harry; you're already involved with them, aren't you?'

‘No, I'm not, and I shouldn't have told you about them,' Harry said guiltily, realizing he'd burdened his grandfather with problems that weren't even his to adopt.

‘Why not?' Billy Evans looked at him over the rim of his reading glasses.

‘You're ill.'

‘I won't argue with you there, boy, but my brain still works, and it's obvious from the way you've been talking about them that you'd like to help them.'

‘I don't know why.'

‘I do,' Billy answered. ‘I don't know anything about the problems the people who work on the land are facing right now, but I do know about poverty, especially the kind that forces a man to forgo all thoughts of educating his children and put them out to work almost as soon as they can walk. Miners and farmers are both victims of this class war. Both work for the benefit of capitalists, who exploit them mercilessly in the name of profit. Given the way you've been brought up, you're incapable of turning your back on anyone in trouble. And from what you've told me, they are in trouble.'

‘They can't even read and write,' Harry murmured unthinkingly.

‘Well, that's one thing you can help them with for a start,' Billy smiled.

‘I was thinking of going down to Pontardawe to buy some readers, slates and pencils for them.'

‘Don't!'

Harry looked at his grandfather in confusion. ‘But you just said that I should try to help them.'

‘Whatever you do, make it seem as though you're not doing them any favours. Charity is hard for anyone to take, doubly so when it's desperately needed.'

‘But how am I going to teach them to read without readers?'

‘That expensive education the trustees paid for has addled your brains.' Billy picked up his tobacco pouch and began to fill his pipe. ‘Don't you remember your mother and Lloyd taking you to the library in Tonypandy when they ran classes for the miners and their families who hadn't had an education? You learned to read alongside some of them.'

‘They used newspapers,' Harry murmured, recalling the middle-aged and old men and women who had sat learning their letters with him.

‘All you need to start are newspapers, pencils and scrap paper. And if they offer you anything in exchange – a meal, eggs, vegetables – take it. The less obliged you make them feel, the more chance you have of making friends with them.'

‘You're right, as usual,' Harry conceded.

‘As you insist on staying here most of the time, it will give you something to do besides drink beer in the evenings.' Billy pushed his pipe between his teeth and lit it. He took a long pull. ‘There's nothing like a pipe. They give out free cigarettes a dozen times a day because they're supposed to disinfect the lungs in a way a pipe can't, but I don't believe it.'

‘Mr Evans?' The sister had left her desk and was standing in the doorway.

‘Coming, Sister.' Harry left his chair. ‘Uncle Joey and Victor will be here to see you tomorrow, and Doctor Adams said one visit a day is more than you should get so I have been warned to stay away in the morning.'

‘Not Lloyd?' Billy looked keenly at Harry.

‘As you are only allowed two visitors at a time, they drew straws; he picked the short one.'

‘Edyth is all right, isn't she?'

‘We've told you she is.' Harry was instantly alert.

‘I can't forget her scream or those thuds.'

‘Given the practice she's had over the years, Edyth knows exactly how to fall without inflicting too much damage on herself. Not that she always succeeds. You only have to look at her arm to see that. But as the doctor said, it's a clean break, and on the mend.' Harry could feel his face burning. He never had been very good at lying. ‘Shall I send everyone your love when I telephone Dad tonight?' he asked, changing the subject.

‘Of course, and tell him to ask Joey and Victor to bring any books they no longer want. Not just for me, but the other patients here. Some of those miners I told you about are down to re-reading books for the tenth time. I know you brought a load yesterday, but tell the boys we can use every copy they can spare.'

‘Anything in particular?'

‘The lighter and more entertaining the better.'

‘I've a couple of books of short stories back at the inn you can have.'

‘You have finished with them?'

‘Yes,' Harry nodded.

‘Then give them to the boys when they come to see me tomorrow.'

Harry turned to the sister. ‘That takes us up to the two minutes you allowed for our goodbyes, I believe, Sister.' He winked at her, waved to his grandfather and, to his disappointment, left the sanatorium without seeing Diana Adams.

Harry dropped Toby, who hadn't finished adding gold touches to his Grail painting, back at the inn, then he drove on down the valley. He bought newspapers, pencils and a couple of notebooks in Pontardawe. Heading back towards the Ellis Estate, he saw Mary and David wheeling barrows along the road. Both were loaded well past the point of stability, heaped high and overflowing with sheep fleeces. He stopped the car but they ignored him and carried on pushing.

‘Why don't you put those in the back of the car, so I can take them to the farm for you?' he shouted after them.

‘We're almost home,' David snarled.

‘No, you're not; you're over a mile away.'

Mary dropped the handles of her barrow and brushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘They're dirty, Mr Evans.'

‘I've waterproofs in the back. We can spread those over the seats and pile the fleeces on to it.' He left the car and opened the boot. ‘Come on, you've enough to do without making extra work for yourselves.' As soon as he finished covering as much of the leather seats as he could, he took her barrow from her and wheeled it back to his car.

Mary appealed to David, who remained standing, sullenly, in front of his loaded barrow. ‘This is only the first load; it will take us all day to ferry the lot from the pen to the farm, and that won't leave us any time for milking or our other chores.'

David rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, smudging more dirt over his chin and cheeks. ‘All right, if you want to let him tell us what to do, go ahead.'

‘I'm not telling you what to do, David. Only trying to help.' Harry flinched when he lifted a surprisingly heavy load from the barrow and dumped it on the waterproofs.

‘If you really want to help, there are another half-a-dozen loads like this back in the pen.' Capitulating, David finally turned around and wheeled his barrow alongside Mary's.

‘Then we'll go back for them after we've dropped this lot off at the farm.' Harry brushed his hands against the back of his flannel trousers. They felt gritty, greasy and grimy, an odd sensation that was entirely new to him.

‘And the barrows?' David reminded him. ‘I'll not leave them on this road for anyone to pick up.'

Both barrows were rusting, with squeaky, wonky wheels. They looked as though they were about to fall apart and Harry doubted that any self-respecting scrap merchant would take them. But given Dolly's injury, he suspected they were the only means of carting goods the Ellises had left. ‘We'll balance them on top of the fleeces. You two are so thin you'll both squeeze into the front seat.'

‘As long as we don't leave them.' David began to unload his barrow.

Harry glanced from the boy to Mary. They were both filthy, which was hardly surprising considering what they'd been doing, but he also noticed black shadows below their eyes that had nothing to do with dirt. ‘Why don't you sit in the car, Mary?' he suggested. ‘David and I can see to this.'

‘Thank you.' She was so exhausted she took Harry's advice without further argument.

Harry finished unloading Mary's barrow and helped David to heap the fleeces from his into his car. Afterwards, it took both of them ten minutes to lift the unwieldy barrows on top of the load and secure them, using fleeces as wedges and seat protectors. With the Crossley piled high, Harry climbed into the driving seat.

Mary stepped out so David could sit between her and Harry.

‘Your horse is no better?' Harry asked David, after he'd pressed the ignition.

‘What's it to you?' David retorted.

‘I can see you're both on your knees. It must be difficult to run a farm without transport.'

Mary closed her eyes and leaned against the door. ‘Mr Evans is right, David, we can't go on like this.'

‘So how is Dolly?' Harry persevered.

‘Still lame,' David answered grudgingly.

‘Have you called a vet?'