The Emerald Valley (52 page)

‘Yes – and your First-Class-Manager's. In fact, for a lad of your ability it might be worth your while to miss out the Second Class and go straight for the First. In that case, if you can fit it in with all the other studies, it might be an idea to learn something about surveying. That's something you can always practise.'

‘Yes, sir. And thank you.'

The manager was on his feet, the interview clearly at an end. Slightly dazed, Harry made his way out of the office. A pale sun was warming the rough-hewn lias stone of the row of cottages, the saw-pit shed and the frame house on the opposite side of the yard, and glancing dully off the grey slate roofs. Harry walked into the sunshine, his mind spinning.

He had asked for advice and had certainly got it – far more than he had bargained for. Under-Manager … Manager … it was beyond his wildest dreams, but when Adam had talked about it so matter-of-factly it all seemed possible. Anything seemed possible at this moment.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, letting his breath come out on a soft whistle.

It would mean a great deal of hard work, very little free time and the shelving, for the time being at any rate, of any political ambitions. But if at the end of it he could be manager of a colliery – well, wouldn't that be worth any sacrifice? People would have to stand still and listen to him then. He could do things his way.

He stopped for a moment, turning to look at the head-gear that towered majestically above the squat, dust-blackened colliery buildings, feeling the first stirrings of excitement. A colliery manager – responsible for the lives and livelihood of men like his father and his brother. Power undreamed of!

Yes, thought Harry. That's what I'm going to do and the rest will follow.

He stuck his hands into the pockets of his trousers and, still deep in thought, crossed the yard which might one day, he thought, be his domain.

Winter lingered and sometimes it seemed as if spring would never come. The wonderful summer was long forgotten now and the greyness had settled back around Hillsbridge … spreading, absorbing, tainting all it touched.

The sky was grey, heavy and laden, and the smoke from the pit chimneys rising into it was not black but merely another, darker, shade of grey. The batches, muddied by the persistent damp, had no shine of jet; the grass and bushes merged against them – a greenish grey, yes, but still predominantly grey; the ash and sycamore and beech trees raised bare arms as if to attract some attention to bring hope to their grey lives; the tall forked elms provided safe cover for the greyish nests of the rooks which cawed and grumbled as they swooped down to sit on the grey-painted railings that fringed the river. And the town itself was and always had been grey, every stone and slate – the church, the chapel, the shops, the pubs, even the magnificent Victoria Hall, home of dances and the billiard rooms, scene of the human lottery in 1918 when names had been drawn from a hat to send them to the hell that was France, which now looked out at the grey Cenotaph inscribed with the names of some of the men who had stood on the steps and heard their names called that day.

Grey, grey, all of it grey – and none of it greyer than the flatness Amy experienced each night when the end of the day meant the end of the panacea … work. From morning to night there was little time to think of anything else – unless it was how to keep home life for the children as normal as possible. But once they were in bed and an exhausted Amy turned out the lights, there was restlessness and regret. And sometimes, in the sharp, lonely wakefulness, the disturbing memory of the way Ralph Porter had made her feel during the short time they had been together.

She never saw him now – had not done so for months – and at first she had dreaded the imagined embarrassment of coming face to face with him again. But when he did not come to the office to settle the account – telephoning to suggest a more businesslike arrangement of payment by cheque through the post – she felt ridiculously cheated; and when one afternoon towards the end of February, his car had turned into the yard, all the emotions she had thought firmly under control surfaced once more.

‘Ralph – hello,' she said, composing herself with difficulty.

‘Hello, Amy.' His cool voice and frosty expression gave her an almost physical shock. ‘Can you spare me a few minutes?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘It's purely business,' he said, as if she needed reassurance. ‘I've come to tell you that I'm leaving Hillsbridge for a while.'

‘Oh, are you?' Ridiculously her heart had fallen away into a pit deep inside her.

‘Yes, I'm going to Gloucester. You remember that my sister was there at the New Year? When I went up to collect her, I realised the possibilities the place offered and I intend to set up a depot with a view to expanding my foreign contacts, import and export.'

‘Oh – I never thought of Gloucester as a port,' she said.

‘It's on the mouth of the Severn and I've had the opportunity of taking a lease on a property right on the docks. It should make an excellent timber yard.'

‘I see.' But she did not; she could think of nothing but; ‘Ralph is going away!' Though she had no intention of letting him know that.

‘I'm putting in a manager to run the business here for the time being,' Ralph went on, ‘so you need not have any worries on that score. In fact, I should like to arrange a long-term contract for your lorry to continue working for us. A year, I thought, if that's agreeable to you?'

‘Yes, of course …'

‘I have the papers here; I thought it would be a good idea for us to get things on an official basis before I go. I don't know how available I shall be afterwards.'

‘You'd like to tie it up now?'

‘That's the general idea. Now, if I tell you a little about the arrangements I've made for my absence …'

As they talked business, Amy fought to keep her mind on the subject in hand. But she was still uncomfortably aware of him, uncomfortably conscious of knowing how it felt to be in his arms. It was no basis for a professional relationship. Perhaps it was just as well he was going away.

The discussion over and the relevant papers signed, he rose with an air of finality.

‘Right. It seems there's nothing left then but for me to thank you for the way your firm has been handling my loads and hope that everything continues to run smoothly.'

‘I see no reason why it should not,' she replied.

‘No, neither do I. By the time I come back, Amy, it wouldn't surprise me if you have a fleet of half-a-dozen lorries and so much business that my account is very small fry indeed. Your husband would be proud of you.'

There was something in his tone she did not understand, but she had no time to ponder it.

‘Goodbye, Amy.'

‘Goodbye, Ralph. Good luck with your new venture – though I'm sure you won't need it!'

He smiled briefly; the twist of his mouth wrenched at her heart.

‘One always needs a little luck. A lot of enterprise, a lot of imagination, a lot of determination and nerve. But a little luck too. Without that, the rest can all be undermined. Now … I'll be going. I have a great deal to do and
I'm
sure you have too …'

She nodded. ‘Always.'

In the doorway he turned back suddenly. ‘Oh, just one more thing before I go – I thought you might like to have this.'

He took a small box from his pocket and handed it to her. Mystified, she opened it, then caught her breath.

Her engagement ring – the ring she had sold to the jeweller in order to pay off her debt to him!

‘My ring!' Startled, confused, she looked up at him, but his face was expressionless, giving nothing away.

‘It came into my possession and I thought you would like it back.'

‘Oh!' A dozen questions were occurring to her – how had he known it was hers, to begin with? But the way in which he had given it to her forbade her asking and she said inadequately, ‘Thank you.'

‘That's all right. As long as you're pleased.' He did not add that he had hoped to return it to her under happier circumstances, yet instinctively she knew this was the case – and knew, too, that by choosing this moment when intimacy was at its lowest, he was in effect terminating the relationship that might have existed between them.

Sadness at the finality of it obliterated the joy she would otherwise have felt at having her precious ring returned, and as she watched him walk away across the yard the emptiness was yawning in her again – that inescapable sense of loss which had nothing to do with logical thought.

‘Oh Ralph! Oh Llew!' she whispered and the tears gathered thickly at the back of her throat.

At the end of February Ivor Burge came to see Amy to tell her he was now fit to resume work, and she was left with no alternative but to tell Cliff Button she no longer needed him.

On the one hand she was sorry to have to do it – since her pep-talk Cliff had really put his nose to the grindstone and given her no further cause for complaint. But she never felt totally at ease when telling him what to do. Cliff had been his own boss for too long to be happy talking orders and she also suspected he might try to take advantage of his brother's newly elevated position the moment her back was turned.

‘Don't let it worry you, missus,' Cliff said when she broke the news to him. ‘I was glad to help you out when you needed me, but I've been thinking of setting up on my own account again for some time now. I reckon that if I was to take my car to Bath, get it properly licensed and all, I could do a roaring trade. There's more call for taxis in towns.'

‘I'm sure you're right,' Amy said and thought: What is it I do to my drivers? Cliff would be the second to leave the district after departing from her employ, for Ollie Griffin, she had heard, had gone off to London – ‘looking to see if the streets are paved with gold', Herbie had said and Amy had been relieved to hear it. She was still embarrassed by what had happened at Christmas – outraged, yes, but embarrassed too – and had had the unpleasant feeling that he would tell everyone he met about how he had tried to compromise Mrs Roberts, probably adding a few embellishments of his own to the tale into the bargain.

But now he was gone and Amy hoped he never came back. The city could swallow him whole and she would only heave a sigh of relief. But Cliff was a different kettle of fish.

‘If ever you want to come back, just let Herbie know,' she told him now. ‘I know I'm not in a position to keep you on at the moment, but who knows what the future will bring?'

‘Right you are, Mrs Roberts, And I'll say just one thing – it hasn't been half as bad working for a woman as I expected,' Cliff said.

Amy knew that from him this was praise indeed.

Winter crept towards spring on muddy, leaden feet. The wind was still biting, the sky grey and cold and last year's dead leaves blew about in forlorn drifts beneath trees that bore the first brave spears of palest green. But in the front gardens of the houses along Greenslade Terrace snowdrops clustered, purest white against the brown, and the crocuses made cushions of gay purple and yellow.

Spring should be a season of hope, Charlotte thought, but somehow this year was not and the lowering sky and bone-chilling cold seemed to reflect her mood of depression and anxiety.

I'm getting older, Charlotte told herself. I feel the cold more.

And because I'm uncomfortable, I look on the black side of things and worry more.

But that was not the whole story and she knew it. The worries were real enough – and there were too many of them to brush aside lightly.

With the exception of Jack, each one of her children was causing her moments of anxiety at least, and some of the problems were enough to constitute a nagging ache in her heart.

Naturally, of course, she was concerned about Amy. Charlotte had never agreed with what she was doing, either with the business or about the boy Huw – ‘she's made a rod for her own back there' she said to James more than once.

‘She had to do what she thought was right,' James replied, ‘and she'll make a fine lad of him yet. She's a winner, our Amy.'

But it was more than he could say when Charlotte's worrying turned to Harry. Placid as he was, even James had his reservations about the wisdom of what Harry was doing. Studying already for his Deputy's Certificate and him still dragging putts of coal – ‘It don't seem natural,' his father said. ‘It's all very well wanting to get on, but why can't he do it quiet-like, the same as our Jim's a-doin'of?'

Charlotte said nothing to that. In her opinion ‘getting on quiet-like' would take Jim precisely nowhere. She was pleased and proud of Harry's ambition and what worried her more was his involvement with the Labour Party. She had never trusted politics or politicians … with the exception, of course, of Mr Lloyd George whom she idolised – and she was unable to escape from the nagging certainty that somehow, sometime, the Labour Pary would use Harry and then cast him aside, or even get him involved in something crooked or deceitful and leave him to carry home the can. No, Charlotte didn't like it, nor did she like the way he seemed able to think of nothing else. All very well to be ambitious at rising seventeen, but Harry was obsessed and no good would come of it, she thought gloomily.

The progression of thought led her on to Jim, whom James had held up as an example of the way Harry ought to be shaping his life.

Heaven forbid! thought Charlotte. She knew he and Sarah lived in fear of his losing his job at the pit – with all the unemployment, he would never get another – and recently Charlotte had noticed he was developing a cough. Surely he was too young yet to be succumbing to the lung disease? It was just a winter cough, for sure. But it niggled away at the back of her mind anyway, a harbinger of winters yet to come.