Free Winners and Losers by Catrin Collier Page A

people who should be on the same side fight one another. Federation men and blacklegs –and what are blacklegs anyway? Only men so desperate to feed their families they take whatever paid work management offer. I’ve seen neighbours who’d do anything to help one another before the strike, brawling in the streets. We can just about manage with four lots of strike pay coming into the house and Victor’s allotment and chickens, but there are others who can’t. And I can’t bear to see children go hungry.’
    â€˜You know as well I do that a lot more children will go hungry and for longer if we don’t get the owners to agree to pay colliery workers a decent wage. And that means paying miners for bringing slag out of the pits as well as coal.’ He climbed into bed and lay beside her. ‘But the strike and all its problems will still be there tomorrow and as there’s nothing we can do about it until then, I suggest we find something more pleasant to discuss.’ He slipped the pearl buttons at the neck of her nightdress and kissed the sensitive skin at the base of her neck.
    â€˜You know that I love you, Lloyd ...’
    â€˜And I love you too, sweetheart.’
    As she returned his embrace she wished she had the courage to tell him that it wasn’t just the problems of the strike she had to contend with. Her monthly meetings with Harry’s trustees had never been easy, principally because practically all the men who sat on the board didn’t bother to conceal their contempt for Lloyd, his politics, or the lifestyle she had chosen for Harry and herself. But the last meeting had been even more strained than usual. Her brother Geraint had told her beforehand he considered it demeaning and disgraceful that she was allowing the heir to the Gwilym James fortune to live in a collier’s house, associate with strikers and eat in a soup kitchen.
    She had argued that Harry needed to see what life was like for ordinary people. But Geraint, who strongly disapproved of her association with Lloyd, had been angrier than she had ever seen him before. And she was terrified that he’d compromise her position with the trustees by voicing his opinions at a future meeting.
    â€˜You’re like a block of ice.’ Lloyd wrapped his arms around her but he found it difficult to determine if he was warming or freezing her, or vice versa.
    â€˜What are we going to do about Victor and Megan?’
    â€˜My father and I will do what we can to make sure that everyone understands she’s just a young girl trying to make a living.’
    â€˜I hope you succeed.’
    â€˜So do I, sweetheart, but not many people are thinking rationally these days. And I’m not just talking about the miners.’
    â€˜I wish ...’
    â€˜What?’ He blew out the candle.
    â€˜A quiet life for all of us,’ she said fervently.
    â€˜You’d get bored.’
    â€˜I could take a boring life right now, Lloyd.’
    â€˜I’ll remind you of that fifty years from now,’ he laughed.
    It was on the tip of her tongue to reply that she hoped he would be around to do just that but she was afraid to tempt fate.
    The temperature in the kitchen had dropped below freezing because the fire had been raked from the stove after Sali had put Harry to bed, yet Victor and his father still sat, shivering on the easy chairs either side of the hearth.
    â€˜If anyone around here dares to say a word to me or Megan about her working in Mrs Palmer’s lodging house, I’ll tell them to mind their own business,’ Victor said decisively.
    Billy Evans suppressed a smile. ‘Mind your own business’ was the strongest reprimand he’d ever heard Victor use to a female neighbour and then only under extreme provocation. ‘Given the way most people feel about the police, you’re going to be telling a lot of people to do just that.’
    Victor’s face fell.