The Emerald Valley (11 page)

‘Oh, I see! It's my fault now!' Guilt made her tone sharp. ‘You'll take the bread out of my family's mouths and it's all my doing!'

‘Yes.' He took off his shirt, tossing it over the back of a small cane chair. ‘Yes, if you want to see it like that. It's certainly your fault that we have to find a great deal more ready cash than we would otherwise.'

‘Well, well!' Amy stood up and the stool rocked on its three legs. ‘It's a good thing you've got someone to blame for turning blackleg, if you ask me.'

‘Be as nasty as you like, Amy. It doesn't alter facts.'

‘And the fact is you haven't forgiven me for driving your lorry.' She flounced to the bed, pulled back the bedspread and sat down. ‘Well, let me tell
you
something.
I
won't forgive
you
if you turn blackleg while my family and the friends and neighbours I grew up with are struggling for just a decent living wage – not half nor a quarter of what we take for granted. I mean it, Llew; I won't forgive you!'

Llew shrugged, sitting down on his side of the bed.

‘That's up to you. You've got two choices. Either you stick with me and let me do things my way – or you sink back to their level. It's up to you.'

‘Their level!' Amy was bolt upright again, furious now. ‘What do you mean,
their level
?'

‘I mean doing without the things you've come to take for granted – like nice clothes for yourself and the children, a bit of beef on the table instead of scrag-ends, this house even. You send the washing out to be done, and you look forward to the day when you can have somebody in to help clean the house, though it's not so long since you were in service yourself. You like those things and I don't see why you shouldn't have them. But don't be a hypocrite, Amy. Don't pretend you're taking them under protest!'

‘Oh!' She slid down, humping the clothes over her and turning her back on him. ‘Sometimes I hate you, Llew Roberts!'

‘I see,' he said, furious but controlled. They lay in silence for a moment, the air between them so cold it could have grown icicles. Then as the heat of her body next to his began to melt the ice a little the first teasing hint of desire crept in and he went on more softly, ‘I see – hate me do you?'

‘Yes.' She lay rigid. His hand slid over the curve of her arm, but she pretended not to notice.

‘Amy, you're the limit.' He was cajoling now – her aggression had fuelled his desire and turned his anger into indulgent amusement. ‘But I promise you something – you'll go far.'

‘Not at the expense of my family, I won't!'

‘We're your family now – Maureen and Barbara and me.'

She didn't answer, but neither did she move away as his hand moved round to cup her breast and his long body curled round the angry curve of her back.

‘You don't hate me, Amy.' He nibbled her ear. ‘You know I've done well. They could have done the same if they'd had the guts.'

She puckered her mouth. He was right, really. He had started with nothing, which just went to show what imagination and courage could achieve when they were coupled with sheer hard work. But imagination and self-belief were not gifts which were handed out to everybody. Good men, solid men like her father and brother Jim, would never have thought for a moment of stepping off the tramlines on which their lives ran.

‘What me? No – I'm a miner!' would be their reaction if someone suggested they branch out. What had her mother said when Llew had gone in for his second lorry? ‘It's a bit risky, isn't it?' They were trapped by the belief that the tried and trusted was safest and best, even if it was riddled with drawbacks. Risk and change were to be avoided at all costs. But all the same …

If everybody in Hillsbridge had started up a haulage business there would be no living in it for anybody, thought Amy. And why should Dad and Jim and all the others be penalised just because they were good, honest, hard-working men who asked for nothing more than enough money to make life a bit more pleasurable, and a little extra time to spend with their families?

‘Amy …' As Llew eased her over to face him, covering her lips with his, she softened momentarily. Then as his hands moved the length of her back, moulding her to him, she was aware of a flash of impatience. Men! Why did they think this could solve everything?

‘Llew …' she murmured.

‘Mm?' His lips were in her hair.

‘Promise me …'

‘Promise … promise what?'

‘That you won't blackleg …'

His reaction was immediate, pulling away from her and swearing.

‘Llew!' She followed him. ‘What did you do that for?'

He was as rigid now as she had been a few minutes earlier. ‘Why couldn't you leave it?'

‘Because I don't want you to do it, Llew.'

‘What you want doesn't come into it, Amy. I'll do what I have to.'

‘Llew …'

‘I mean it, Amy. I'll do what I must – for all of us, whether you like it or not. I have too much at stake to do otherwise.'

‘Llew …' She put her arms around him now, frightened suddenly by the turn this quarrel was taking. Rights and wrongs, what did it matter as long as she and Llew could be together and the children got a good start in life? She laid her face against his shoulder, but he made no move. ‘Llew – please …'

She was begging him now to forget their differences and make love to her as he had wanted a few moments ago. But he misunderstood her.

‘For goodness'sake, shut up about it, Amy. I've told you what I intend to do and I'm not going over it any more. I'm tired. So just let me go to sleep, will you?'

His tone was so hard, so cold that it distanced her all over again. She removed her face from his shoulder as if it was burning her, a sense of rejection and injustice lending venom to her tongue.

‘All right, go to sleep if you can – though I couldn't with a thing like that on my conscience. Not that you've got one, have you? You're too selfish and greedy. And don't kid yourself you're doing it for us, either. It's for you and you'd do it anyway, so don't tar
us
with your dirt!'

He did not move, just asked coldly, ‘Are you going to keep this up, Amy? Because if so …'

‘Yes – what?'

‘If so, I'm going downstairs to sleep on the sofa. I told you, I'm tired …'

‘Oh, stay where you are. I shan't say another word,' she flung at him, adding under her breath, ‘Perhaps not ever.'

But he did not reply and to her fury she heard his breathing become deeper and more rhythmic a few minutes later. He had gone to sleep and it was the first time since they had been married that he had done so without kissing her good night.

‘Never let the sun go down on your anger,' Charlotte had always said and Amy had tried to live by that. If they had an argument – and heaven only knew there were plenty of those – Amy always tried to see that it was made up before going to sleep. Realising that this time she had failed brought a knot of tears to her throat and at the same time reinforced her sense of anger and injustice.

‘I'm certainly not going to cry over the likes of him!' she told herself severely. And although it was a long while before she too was able to fall asleep, Amy – always as stubborn as she was mercurial – kept to her word.

‘Harry, Harry – are you awake?'

Charlotte put her head around the bedroom door and Harry gave up his half-hearted attempts at pretence and pushed back the covers from his face.

Strange – he would have thought after all the mornings when he had had to drag himself out of bed at the crack of dawn to stumble down the hill to Middle Pit, the lie-ins that this enforced break permitted might have seemed something of a luxury. But no, he hadn't really enjoyed them. The last two mornings since the start of the strike he had woken just as early as usual, lain for a while tossing and turning bad-temperedly because he felt cheated at not making the most of the rare opportunity to sleep late, eventually dozing off again for a while and finally waking with a thick head. And this morning had been as bad in its way. He had managed to sleep a little later, it was true, but then had been woken by somebody knocking at the back door and the bellowing voice of Dolly's husband, Victor, in the kitchen below.

Harry had huffed with irritation and pulled the clothes up over his head. Why the heck did Victor have to have such a loud voice? He was the gentlest of men, kind to Dolly, patient with the children and totally at home among the green, growing things in Captain's Fish's garden where he planted and transplanted, dug, hoed and pruned with all the quiet love of a real countryman. But his voice was like a foghorn. The shells that had shocked and damaged his nervous system in the trenches of France had also impaired his hearing, Dolly explained, but even understanding, Harry found it hard to be tolerant. He longed to tell Victor to keep his voice down, but Charlotte had forbidden him to mention the subject, saying that if anyone told him about it, it would have to be Dolly.

‘Harry!' Charlotte said again and the undertone of anxiety in her voice made him raise himself on one elbow. He had not been worried by the sound of Victor's voice – pushing his bicycle up the hill on his way to work at Captain Fish's, Victor had to pass by the entrance to the Rank, so it was not unusual for him to call in with a message from Dolly, or to pick up or deliver some parcel which was being passed between mother and daughter. Now, however, the alarm system that had been working a little too efficiently for comfort since James's ‘bad turn'began sending sharp shocks through Harry's veins and brought him wide-awake.

‘What's up, Mam?' he asked.

‘It's our Dolly. She's not well,' Charlotte said.

‘Our Dolly?' Harry repeated, surprised. Dolly was as strong as a little horse – he could hardly remember her having a day's illness in her life.

‘She's sick and bad, Victor says, been up half the night with it.

He didn't like leaving her with the babies, only he had to go to work.'

‘I don't see why,' Harry muttered.

‘Well, because she's not fit to cope, of course!' Charlotte said impatiently.

‘I didn't meant that,' Harry wriggled the pillow into a more comfortable position. ‘I mean I don't see why he has to go to work with a General Strike on.'

‘It doesn't affect him, that's why.' Charlotte, who never had much patience with industrial action – or rather, as she saw it,
in
-action– spoke sharply. ‘No, I thought you could pop up there, Harry, and see if there's anything you can do to help.'

Harry's heart sank. He had planned a quiet morning with his pigeons and the prospect of entertaining and possibly even looking after two rumbustious toddlers did not appeal to him in the least.

‘But there's nothing I could do …' he began.

‘Rubbish!' Charlotte said shortly. ‘You've had it too easy, my lad, being the youngest in the family. Everybody's always waited on you, that's the trouble.' She crossed to the window, pulling the curtains so that the early May sunshine came streaming in. ‘I think I've got a bottle of medicine in the cupboard that might do her good – the stuff the doctor gave me when I had the gastric 'flu last year. You know I'm not a one for taking medicines, but I thought it might come in useful. And I'd like you to take it up to her.'

‘All right … all right …' Harry said hastily.

‘Get up then and I'll make you a cup of tea.'

‘All right,' he said again.

When she had gone he got up, pulled on a shirt and his second-best trousers and padded down the stairs in his stockinged feet.

James was lying in his made-up bed on the sofa, still wheezing when he moved, and Harry muttered a greeting as he hurried through.

‘What about your tea?' Charlotte called after him.

‘Can't I have it out in the yard? It's a lovely morning.'

‘You cannot! I never heard of such a thing. You come back in here and have it – and a bit of toast too, or you'll be feeling faint.'

He did as he was told, gobbled the toast and gulped the tea quickly in order to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere in the kitchen. Perhaps going up to Dolly's would have its advantages after all, he thought. He need not stay long and afterwards he could have a bit of time to himself.

Almost as he thought it, the mantelpiece clock began to chime and he glanced up at it. Eight o'clock.

‘That clock's five minutes slow.' said Charlotte. ‘I think you ought to be getting on, Harry.'

He took his jacket from behind the door and she stood waiting, the medicine bottle wrapped in a paper bag in her hand.

‘Tell our Dolly I'm sorry I haven't got anything nice to send her. But I don't suppose she'd be feeling up to it anyway. And Harry … do see what you can do to help her, there's a good boy.'

Thankfully Harry escaped from the house, feeling guilty at the sense of relief that enveloped him. But at least he was glad to be able to help Dolly. She was a good sort with her easygoing way and ready smile, and the fact that she had already grown up and left home to go into service before he was born lent her an added glamour in his eyes.

Whistling, he turned the corner of the Rank and started down the hill. There was a girl in front of him – a girl carrying a satchel and a tennis racket and wearing the uniform of the Higher Elementary School at High Compton, but he scarcely noticed. He was still too deep in thought about Mam and Dad and Dolly. Down the hill he went, past the cottages where the gardens were already beginning to blaze with early summer colour, past the place where the spring water ran in a steady inviting stream from the wall that shored up the gardens of the big houses on the other side of the road. By the time he reached the foot of the hill where Stanley Bristow had had his livery stables and where the forge still shod horses, he had almost caught up with the girl, but he still spared her scarcely a glance. Then as she drew level with the side door of the George and stepped off the pavement to cross the forecourt, he suddenly saw her trip and go sprawling. Books spilled from her open satchel, the tennis racket flew from her hand. For a moment she lay in an inelegant heap, then struggled quickly to her feet, looking around in embarrassment and trying to recover the scattered books.