He had to be on that train.
He broke into a run.
The railway line lay in the cleft of the valley, so the way to the station was all downhill. Lev ran easily, taking long strides. He could see, over the rooftops, the lights of the station and, as he came closer, the smoke from the funnel of a train standing at the platform.
He ran across the square and into the booking hall. The hands of the big clock stood at one minute to six. He hurried to the ticket window and fished money from his pocket. “Ticket, please,” he said.
“Where would you like to go this evening?” the clerk said pleasantly.
Lev pointed urgently to the platform. “That train by there!”
“This train calls at Aberdare, Pontypridd-”
“Cardiff!” Lev glanced up and saw the minute hand click through its last segment and stop, trembling slightly, at the o’clock position.
“Single, or return?” said the clerk unhurriedly.
“Single, quickly!”
Lev heard the whistle. Desperately, he looked through the coins in his hand. He knew the fare-he had been to Cardiff twice in the last six months-and he put money on the counter.
The train began to move.
The clerk gave him his ticket.
Lev grabbed it and turned away.
“Don’t forget your change!” said the clerk.
Lev strode the few paces to the barrier. “Ticket, please,” said the collector, even though he had just watched Lev buy it.
Looking past the barrier, Lev saw the train gathering speed.
The collector punched his ticket and said: “Don’t you want your change?”
The door of the booking hall burst open and the Ponti brothers rushed in. “There you are!” Joey cried, and he rushed at Lev.
Lev surprised him by stepping toward him and punching him directly in the face. Joey was stopped in his tracks. Johnny crashed into his older brother’s back, and both fell to their knees.
Lev snatched his ticket from the collector and ran onto the platform. The train was moving quite fast. He ran alongside it for a moment. Suddenly a door opened, and Lev saw the friendly face of Billy-with-Jesus.
Billy shouted: “Jump!”
Lev leaped for the train and got one foot on the step. Billy grabbed his arm. They teetered for a moment as Lev tried desperately to haul himself aboard. Then Billy gave a heave and pulled Lev inside.
He sank gratefully into a seat.
Billy pulled the door shut and sat opposite him.
“Thank you,” Lev said.
“You cut it fine,” Billy said.
“I made it, though,” said Lev with a grin. “That’s all that counts.”
At Paddington Station next morning, Billy asked for directions to Aldgate. A friendly Londoner gave him a rapid stream of detailed instructions, every word of which he found completely incomprehensible. He thanked the man and walked out of the station.
He had never been to London but he knew that Paddington was in the west and poor people lived in the east, so he walked toward the midmorning sun. The city was even bigger than he had imagined, a great deal busier and more confusing than Cardiff, but he relished it: the noise, the rushing traffic, the crowds, and most of all the shops. He had not known there were so many shops in the world. How much was spent in London’s shops every day? he wondered. It must be thousands of pounds-maybe millions.
He felt a sense of freedom that was quite heady. No one here knew him. In Aberowen, or even on his occasional trips to Cardiff, he was always liable to be observed by friends or relations. In London he might walk along a street holding hands with a pretty girl and his parents would never find out. He had no intention of doing so, but the thought that he could-and the fact that there were so many pretty well-dressed girls walking around-was intoxicating.
After a while he saw a bus with “Aldgate” written on its front, and he jumped aboard. Ethel’s letter had mentioned Aldgate.
When he decoded her letter he had been very worried. Of course he could not discuss it with his parents. He had waited until they left for the evening service at the Bethesda Chapel-which he no longer attended-then he had written a note.
Dear Mam,
I am worried about our Eth and have gone to find her. Sorry to sneak off but I don’t want a row.
Your loving son,
Billy
As it was Sunday, he was already bathed and shaved and dressed in his best clothes. His suit was a shabby hand-me-down from his father, but he had a clean white shirt and a black knitted tie. He had dozed in the waiting room at Cardiff station and caught the milk train in the early hours of Monday morning.
The bus conductor alerted him when they reached Aldgate, and he got off. It was a poor neighborhood, with crumbling slum houses, street stalls selling secondhand clothes, and barefoot children playing in noisome stairwells. He did not know where Ethel lived-her letter had not given an address. His only clue was I work twelve hours a day in Mannie Litov’s sweatshop.
He looked forward to giving Eth all the news from Aberowen. She would know from the newspapers that the widows’ strike had failed. Billy seethed when he thought of it. The bosses were able to behave outrageously because they held all the cards. They owned the mines and the houses, and they acted as if they owned the people. Because of various complex franchise rules, most miners did not have the vote, so Aberowen’s member of Parliament was a Conservative who invariably sided with the company. Tommy Griffiths’s father said nothing would ever change without a revolution like the one they had had in France. Billy’s da said they needed a Labour government. Billy did not know who was right.
He went up to a friendly-looking young man and said: “Do you know the way to Mannie Litov’s place?”
The man replied in a language that sounded like Russian.
He tried again, and this time got an English speaker who had never heard of Mannie Litov. Aldgate was not like Aberowen, where everyone on the street would know the way to every place of business in town. Had he come this far-and spent all that money on his train ticket-for nothing?
He was not yet ready to give up. He scanned the busy street for British-looking people who seemed to be about some kind of business, carrying tools or pushing carts. He questioned five more people without success, then came across a window cleaner with a ladder.
“Mannie Litov’s?” the man repeated. He managed to say “Litov” without pronouncing the letter t, instead making a noise in his throat like a small cough. “Clouvin fectry?”
“Pardon me,” Billy said politely. “What was that again?”
“Clouvin fectry. Plice where vey mikes clouvin-jickits an trahsies an at.”
“Um… probably, yes,” Billy said, feeling desperate.
The window cleaner nodded. “Strite on, quote of a ma, do a rye, Ark Rav Rahd.”
“Straight on?” Billy replied. “Quarter of a mile?”
“Ass it, ven do a rye.”
“Turn right?”
“Ark Rav Rahd.”
“Ark Rav Road?”
“Carn miss it.”
The street name turned out to be Oak Grove Road. It had no grove of anything, let alone oaks. It was a narrow, winding lane of dilapidated brick buildings busy with people, horses, and handcarts. Two more inquiries brought Billy
