officer in charge of the firing squad then approached, drew his pistol, and fired two shots point-blank into the boy’s forehead.
Then, at last, Owen Bevin died.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – Late July 1916
Ethel thought a lot about life and death after Billy went off to France. She knew she might never see him again. She was glad he had lost his virginity with Mildred. “I let your little brother have his wicked way with me,” Mildred had said lightheartedly after he left. “Sweet boy. Have you got any more like that down there in Wales?” But Ethel suspected Mildred’s feelings were not as superficial as she pretended, for in their nightly prayers Enid and Lillian now asked God to watch over Uncle Billy in France and bring him safely home again.
Lloyd developed a bad chest infection a few days later, and in an agony of desperation Ethel rocked him in her arms while he struggled to breathe. Fearing he might die, she bitterly regretted that her parents had never seen him. When he got better, she decided to take him to Aberowen.
She returned exactly two years after she had left. It was raining.
The place had not changed much, but it struck her as dismal. For the first twenty-one years of her life she had not seen it that way but now, after living in London, she noticed that Aberowen was all the same color. Everything was gray: the houses, the streets, the slag heaps, and the low rain clouds drifting disconsolately along the ridge of the mountain.
She felt tired as she emerged from the railway station in the middle of the afternoon. Taking a child of eighteen months on an all-day journey was hard work. Lloyd had been well-behaved, charming fellow passengers with his toothy grin. All the same he had to be fed in a rocking carriage, changed in a smelly toilet, and lulled to sleep when he became grizzly, and it was a strain with strangers looking on.
With Lloyd on her hip and a small suitcase in her hand, she set off across the station square and up the slope of Clive Street. Soon she was panting for breath. That was something else she had forgotten. London was mostly flat, but in Aberowen you could hardly go anywhere without walking up or down a steep hill.
She did not know what had happened here since she had left. Billy was her only source of news, and men were no good for gossip. No doubt she herself had been the main topic of conversation for some time. However, new scandals must have come along since.
Her return would be big news. Several women gave her frank stares as she walked up the street with her baby. She knew what they were thinking. Ethel Williams, believed she was better than us, coming back in an old brown dress with a toddler in her arms and no husband. Pride comes before a fall, they would say, their malice thinly disguised as pity.
She went to Wellington Row, but not to her parents’ house. Her father had told her never to come back. She had written to Tommy Griffiths’s mother, who was called Mrs. Griffiths Socialist on account of her husband’s fiery politics. (In the same street there was a Mrs. Griffiths Church.) The Griffithses were not chapelgoers, and they disapproved of Ethel’s father’s hard line. Ethel had put Tommy up for the night in London, and Mrs. Griffiths was happy to reciprocate. Tommy was an only child, so while he was in the army there was a spare bed.
Da and Mam did not know Ethel was coming.
Mrs. Griffiths welcomed Ethel warmly and cooed over Lloyd. She had had a daughter of Ethel’s age who had died of whooping cough-Ethel could just about remember her, a blond girl called Gwenny.
Ethel fed and changed Lloyd, then sat down in the kitchen for a cup of tea. Mrs. Griffiths noticed her wedding ring. “Married, is it?” she said.
“Widow,” Ethel said. “He died at Ypres.”
“Ah, pity.”
“He was a Mr. Williams, so I didn’t have to change my name.”
This story would go all around the town. Some would question whether there really had been a Mr. Williams and if he had actually married Ethel. It did not matter whether they believed her. A woman who pretended to be married was acceptable; a mother who admitted to being single was a brazen hussy. The people of Aberowen had their principles.
Mrs. Griffiths said: “When are you going to see your mam?”
Ethel did not know how her parents would react to her. They might throw her out again, they might forgive everything, or they might find some way of condemning her sin without banishing her from their sight. “I dunno,” she said. “I’m nervous.”
Mrs. Griffiths looked sympathetic. “Aye, well, your da can be a Tartar. He loves you, though.”
“People always think that. Your father loves you really, they say. But if he can throw me out of the house I don’t know why it’s called love.”
“People do things in haste, when their pride is hurt,” Mrs. Griffiths said soothingly. “Specially men.”
Ethel stood up. “Well, no point in putting it off, I suppose.” She scooped Lloyd up from the floor. “Come here, my lovely. Time you found out you’ve got grandparents.”
“Good luck,” said Mrs. Griffiths.
The Williams house was only a few doors away. Ethel was hoping her father would be out. That way she could at least have some time with her mother, who was less harsh.
She thought of knocking at the door, then decided that would be ridiculous, so she walked straight in.
She entered the kitchen where she had spent so many of her days. Neither of her parents was there, but Gramper was dozing in his chair. He opened his eyes, looked puzzled, then said warmly: “It’s our Eth!”
“Hello, Gramper.”
He stood up and came to her. He had become more frail: he leaned on the table just to cross the little room. He kissed her cheek and turned his attention to the baby. “Well, now, who is this?” he said with delight. “Could it be my first great-grandchild?”
“This is Lloyd,” said Ethel.
“What a fine name!”
Lloyd hid his face in Ethel’s shoulder. “He’s shy,” she said.
“Ah, he’s scared of the strange old man with the white mustache. He’ll get used to me. Sit down, my lovely, and tell me all about everything.”
“Where’s our mam?”
“Gone down the Co-op for a tin of jam.” The local grocery was a cooperative store, sharing profits among its customers. Such shops were popular in South Wales, although no one knew how to pronounce co-op, variations ranging from cop to quorp. “She’ll be back now in a minute.”
Ethel put Lloyd on the floor. He began to explore the room, going unsteadily from one handhold to the next, a bit like Gramper. Ethel talked about her job as manager of The Soldier’s Wife: working with the printer, distributing the bundles of newspapers, collecting unsold copies, getting people to place advertisements. Gramper wondered how she knew what to do, and she admitted that she and Maud just made it up as they went along. She found the printer difficult-he did not like taking instructions from women-but she was good at selling advertising space. While they talked, Gramper took off his watch chain and dangled it from his hand, not looking at Lloyd. The child stared at the bright chain, then reached for it. Gramper let him grab it. Soon Lloyd was leaning on Gramper’s knees for support while he investigated the watch.
Ethel felt strange in the old house. She had imagined it would be comfortably familiar, like a pair of boots that have taken the shape of the feet that have worn them for years. But in fact she was vaguely uneasy. It seemed more like the home of familiar old neighbors. She kept looking at the faded samplers with their tired biblical verses and wondering why her mother had not changed them in decades. She did not feel that this was her place.
“Have you heard anything from our Billy?” she asked Gramper.
“No, have you?”
“Not since he left for France.”
“I should think he’s in this big battle by the river Somme.”
“I hope not. They say it’s bad.”
“Aye, terrible, if you believe the rumors.”
