worry, she’d not been touched by any of them.
‘Where you goin’? Evie?’
She kicked the door to behind her, shouting that she was going to Cardiff. Hugh kicked the door back open again, his temper rising. ‘Like hell you are, you stay out of this, you’ve done enough as it is.’
Evelyne was pulling clothes out of a drawer and throwing them on her bed. ‘It’s you who’s done it, Da, you, you’re power-mad since you got into that union. They hang him and they’ll hang an innocent man.’
As fast as Evelyne took out her clothes, Hugh stuffed them back in the drawers, his temper mounting, and he shouted that she was not to leave the house.
‘I was with him, Da, the night Willie was killed, I was with him, and I’m going to say so, he couldn’t have done it.’
Hugh pulled her roughly to him, his hand raised to strike her, and she stared at him, stony-faced. ‘Go on, hit me if it’ll make you feel better, I was with him but not in the way you think. God help me, I went up there to warn him.’
Hugh slumped down on to the bed. He couldn’t understand her. He shook his head and rumpled his hair. She still opened and closed the drawers, taking out what she needed. She brought a cardboard box out from under the bed.
‘Don’t get involved, gel, trust me, leave it be:. unless … does this lad take your fancy, is that it?’
Evelyne threw up her hands in despair. ‘No, I just know he didn’t do it, and I can’t live with myself knowing what I know … Oh, Da, I should have told you before, everything, but I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t.’
He patted the bed beside him and she sat close to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Slowly, piece by piece, she told him about the night in the boxing tent in Cardiff. The terrible humiliation she had suffered, the money she had taken from David, money she’d been so ashamed of, and at last her bitterness came to the surface. She made no sound, but he knew she was crying and he cradled her in his arms.
‘Being poor, Evie, is nothing to be. ashamed of, one does things in a life that’re much worse.’
She looked up into his sad face and asked if he was thinking of little Davey, and he nodded his head. He still held his big arm around her shoulders, but he stared vacantly ahead. After a moment he rose and walked to the window, drawing back the curtains to look out into the dark night.
‘I was quite a lad, you know, when I was a youngster. Easter fair was always a night out for the lads. She was telling fortunes in a small booth — not like they have now, it was decorated with painted canvas, sort of draped — and you paid a ha’penny for a palm reading. By God, Evie, she was a beauty, not like your ma, different, exciting to young bloods, and we was all after her. See, we couldn’t lay a finger on the local gels, not without their mothers coming around with their rolling pins … Anyways, I set out to capture the little dark-eyed wench, all the while cocksure of myself, telling the lads I’d have her. She said I was to come back at midnight, she’d leave the caravan door ajar. Well, I had my night with her, and the next day three of ‘em came prancing down the street, seems she wasn’t no ordinary gyppo, but one of high blood. They dragged me out and up to their fields and all of them set on me, even the old man threw in a few punches. I was handy with me fists so I gave as good as I got, but me pals hadda carry me home.
‘Next morning, black-eyed and aching all over, I made my way to the pithead, an’ she was there, waitin’ with a small bundle under her arm. Seemed the family threw her out, see, an’ there she was waitin’ for me with her bangles and beads and the little bundle tied up with string.’
Hugh turned from the dark window. He seemed heavy, sluggish, and eased his body down on to the bed and lay flat, his eyes closed. ‘Maybe if the lads hadn’t been gathered around I’d have acted different. I just laughed at her, Evie, told her to be on her way with the rest of her vermin.’
He leaned up on his elbow and fingered Evelyne’s slip which was lying across the bed. ‘Her eyes went black, like a cat’s, and she lifted her hand and gave me some kind of sign, she didn’t scream or shout, it was husky, her voice, that’s what made it worse, the strange softness of her words … She cursed me, Evie, said I’d have no sons to bury me.’ He put his arm across his face and his whole body shuddered as he wept, his voice muffled. ‘By Christ she was right, I’ve seen them buried. God help me, Evie, she was right.’
Now it was Evelyne’s turn to hold her father gently, wipe his tear-stained face. She said that maybe it was fate, fate that made her cross the path of the gypsies.
‘I’ll leave for Cardiff on the first train, Da, all right?’
**
The mist clung to the top of the mountain, the grey rain drizzled, making grey, cobbled streets shine. As Evelyne turned at the corner to wave to Hugh at the bedroom window, he felt a terrible sense of loss, as if he would never see her again.
Evelyne passed three women standing at the water taps. They turned their backs to her and whispered. Evelyne held her head high and walked on.
‘You’ll not be teaching my kids, Evelyne Jones, you dirty gyppo lover.’
A group of men leaving their house for the early shift called to her and raised their fists. ‘You should know better, Evelyne Jones. Our lads not good enough for you, eh?’
Their laughter echoed down the wet street, and she hunched her shoulders as if to defend herself from their malice. She crossed the street so she wouldn’t have to face another group of women who stood waiting for the post office to open. They, too, stared at her then turned and whispered to each other. She gave them a frosty smile and almost bumped into Lizzie-Ann dragging the two kids and a pramful of laundry.
Evelyne stopped, and Lizzie-Ann had the grace to blush — she had, after all, thrown a clod of earth at Evelyne the night before. ‘Well, where you off to at this hour, thought a woman of leisure like you would have a lie- in of a wet morning?’
Evelyne murmured that she was on her way to Cardiff.
‘Going to see your boyfriend, are you? Better make it fast before they hang him.’
Evelyne looked into Lizzie-Ann’s face. Her hair hung in rat’s tails, her coat was’ stained, her legs bare and her shoes so worn that her heels, red and raw, were showing. ‘That’s right, go on, take a good look at me, Evelyne Jones, nothing a few pounds wouldn’t put right, but then you’re such a tight bitch, you’d not a give a beggar a farthing.’
Evelyne banged her cardboard box on top of the pram and pulled Lizzie-Ann to her by the lapels of her coat.
‘What have I ever done to you, Lizzie-Ann, to make you talk like this? Tell me now, I don’t deserve it and you know it.’
Lizzie-Ann pushed Evelyne away, her voice rising hysterically.
‘You’ve always been too good, haven’t you? You give me a roof over me head but begrudge a shilling for food, you’re a hard one, Evelyne Jones, you always were …’
Evelyne felt sick. She couldn’t fight Lizzie-Ann, there. was nothing to say. She picked up her cardboard box and turned away.
‘Don’t you turn your back on me, Evelyne … Evelyne… Evie!’
There was such desperation in Lizzie-Ann’s voice, it made Evelyne turn. Old before her years, beaten, roughened, the prettiest girl in the village had gone, and in the big, pansy eyes was a terrible, heartbreaking desperation. For a fleeting moment Evelyne wanted to hold her, but the accusing voice persisted, ‘Where you going? Cardiff is it? Oh, well, all right for some, go on, there’ll be more than one person pleased. You should stay there, your poor Da can’t get up the courage to tell you he wants to get married, go on, you won’t be missed.’
A few of the women joined in, chipping in their farthing’s-worth.
Evelyne was already walking away, knowing Lizzie-Ann was trailing behind.
‘Take the deeds to Doris’ house, take them, just like you took everything, without a thank you.’
Head high, she strode off, clutching her cardboard box in front of her. Lizzie-Ann broke down, propping her swollen, sagging body against a filthy brick wall. She cried out, but her voice was distorted with tears, ‘Oh, I wanted to go to London … oh God, I wanted to go to London.’
***
Somewhere out of the past Evelyne heard the soft, sweet voice of her mother repeating, ‘Get out of the valley, Evie, don’t let it drag you down,’ well, she would get out, and she would never come back, there was nothing left for her here.
As she paid for her ticket, her mouth trembled, and she had to bite her lip until it bled to stop herself from
