‘Now don’t start, just let me say something to you, I love you more than my own life, an’ I can’t stand to see you wastin’ yourself, sitting up here every night, goin’ up to the school every day, gettin’ more an’ more like an old maid, like Doris.’
Evelyne shrugged, tossed her hair and said, tight-lipped, that he had no need to worry, she wouldn’t be going up to the school much longer, they were replacing her with a proper teacher. As soon as he had left Evelyne felt dreadful. She loved him so much. Why hadn’t she talked with him like they used to, why had she shut him out lately? She picked up the paper and looked at the photograph, his stern face glaring into the camera. She kissed the photo and took some scissors out of a drawer.
As she snipped around the photo she couldn’t help but notice the lead article on the next page, ‘Police investigate two revenge murders’.
She carried the paper over to the lamp and sat down. The article stated that the two boys had been found with their throats slit open, their hands tied behind their backs. At first, they believed the motive had been robbery, but then a third boy had given himself up to the local constabulary. He admitted that he and his friends had made advances to a gypsy girl and one of the gypsy men, Freedom Stubbs, had warned them that they would take their revenge. The article requested anyone knowing of Freedom Stubbs’ whereabouts to come forward.
From then on Evelyne kept every article she found, carefully hidden in her bedroom. She never mentioned the article to her father, not that she saw that much of him to talk to. He spent most evenings in a room above the pub holding meetings for the local miners. Evelyne worked at the school during the day and studied for her examinations in the evenings. Hugh no longer even needed her to help out at the meetings, taking notes and writing letters and so forth. Gladys Turtle had taken over that side of things.
‘No need for you to interrupt your studies, love.’
‘I don’t mind, Da, really I don’t.’
‘Well, lass, as a matter o’ fact we’ve got a sort of committee secretary, Gladys Turtle, from Lower North Road, nice woman, a widow.’
Although slighdy put out, Evelyne said nothing. She watched from her window as Hugh met up with the ‘merry widow’, as Gladys was known in the village. Not diat she was particularly merry, just that she had over-indulged in the sweet sherry at her late husband’s funeral and passed out. She was a small, neat, white-haired woman with a shelf-like bosom, and a habit of wearing crocheted flowers on her hats or pinned to her coat collar.
Gladys had found a new lease on her boring, mundane life, working with Hugh. She had always had an eye for him, even when he was a youngster, but of course he would never have looked at her — she was no beauty like his Mary. Gladys reckoned that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and she cooked stews and casseroles for Hugh to take home in small pots. He would sneak into the house with them, as if embarrassed, and Evelyne would watch him heating them up. Then he would wink at her and wolf the food down.
Gladys had passed by earlier, walking with Hugh — he always took her home after meetings. ‘I’ve just walked our Gladys back, do you fancy one of her scones?’
Shaking her head, Evelyne closed her books.
‘She’s got a young nephew staying, nice young fella, Willie, looking for work like the rest of us. He had a good job over at Glamorgan, beats me why he gave it up. Word is, he may have got a young girl in the family way.’
Hugh coughed and stuck his finger down his starched collar.
‘I was wonderin’, like, maybe as she’s so nice with all these scones and stews, perhaps it would be neighbourly like if we had her and this young Willie come to tea Sunday?’
‘Why not, if that is what you would like, Da?’
He stood up, beaming, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
‘Ay, it is, good, well, I’ll leave it with you, shall I?’
Evelyne collected their supper from the fish and chip shop, and carried it home wrapped in newspaper. As she left the shop she bumped into Gladys, and cordially invited her and her nephew to tea on Sunday. ‘Oh, that’s lovely, I’ll look forward to it.’ Not wanting Evelyne to see that she also frequented the fish and chip shop, Gladys waited until Evelyne had walked the length of the street before she went in. From behind the counter the sweating Nellie gave her a toothless smile.
‘Eh, she’s a right stuck-up one, that, ever since she got that wireless, come with her legacy … two cod, Gladys, is it?’
As she unwrapped the fish and chips a grease-stained headline caught Evelyne’s eye, ‘Third Murder Victim’. She pulled at the paper, spilling chips on the table.
‘Police step up their search for Freedom Stubbs. They now believe the murders to be revenge killings, all committed by the same hand. Each victim has died in the same circumstances, their hands tied behind their backs and their throats slit. In each killing it seems the murderer knew where his victim lived and worked.’
Sunday was chapel day which meant choir practice, and Hugh went off in his Sunday suit, leaving Evelyne to prepare tea for Gladys and Willie. She baked some scones and, of course, just when she would have liked them to be the best batch she had ever made, they went flat and hard as a rock. Then she slipped down to the newspaper shop to buy a Sunday paper.
Walking back, searching through the paper to see if there was any more news of the murders, she passed a poster advertising the Easter fair. As usual the gypsies would set up their fair on the mountainside. It was always a big occasion, and being a Bank Holiday the men had an extra day off work. There would be coconut shies, hoop-la, and sometimes they built a giant see-saw for the children.
Evelyne stopped. There was a small item on the second page which simply stated that the police were no further along with their investigation. She hurried on, then stopped again. Even from the street she could smell her bread burning. She ran in with a scream of fury, but it was burnt to a cinder. As she opened the windows to get rid of the terrible smell, she saw Hugh outside with a group of miners on their way back from choir practice.
There was a hell of a row going on, Hugh standing in the centre of the crowd thumping his fist in his palm. The men were shaking their fists at him, all shouting at once.
‘You bastard, Hugh Jones, we go out on strike you tell me who’s gonna feed my ten kids.’
Hugh shouted back and waved his arms, ‘We’ll all chip in, if we don’t stand united then we fall. You said yerself, mun, you not got enough money to feed yer babies now, an’ yer workin’, don’t you understand that’s what we’re striking for, a living wage, mun! We strike!’
Some of them started to walk home, and Evelyne was about to turn back to her studies when she saw a figure on the edge of the crowd around Hugh. It was Freedom Stubbs, large as life, leaning against the wall with a half-smile on his face. Evelyne clapped her hand over her mouth and turned away from the window.
‘Oh, God, it couldn’t be him, not here, not in our village.’
When she looked again he had gone, as if he had vanished into thin air.
‘Evie! Evie! Is tea ready, they’ll be here by half past three lass, and the table’s not laid.’
She ran downstairs to the kitchen where Hugh was already shaking out a clean tablecloth.
‘Da, the gypsy fair, they’re not setting it up yet, are they?’
Hugh reached down the best crockery. ‘Oh, they start early for Easter, lovey. It’s their big time. An’ then they’ll be arranging a fight as usual, Devil’s Rock.’
There was a tap on the door, and Hugh gave Evelyne a startled look.
‘They’re here early, are we all set?’
Before Evelyne had time to answer he was opening the front door and ushering Gladys along the passage.