Black-eyed Devils by Catrin Collier

CHAPTER ONE
    â€˜Straight down to the picket line at the Glamorgan colliery and straight back, Amy. No stopping to talk to anyone.’ Mary Watkins warned her daughter.
    Amy’s blue eyes glittered with mischief. ‘It would be rude to ignore the neighbours if they talked to me, wouldn’t it, Mam?’
    Mary tried not to smile. ‘Don’t look at me as if you don’t know what I’m talking about, my girl. Stay away from the soldiers and police.’
    Amy wrinkled her nose. ‘You don’t have to tell me that. Father Kelly says the way the government is bringing them in, there’ll soon be more officers in Tonypandy than colliers. And, all the police do is watch the picket lines. You’d think they have better things to do. Like catch thieves.’
    â€˜The only places worth thieving from these days are the pawn shops. There are more goods behind their counters than in our houses.’ Mary poured cold tea from the teapot, through a strainer into an enamel jug. ‘Fill the men’s cans for me, love. I’ll prepare the tea leaves for drying so they can go in the oven when we light the fire tonight. It’ll be their third “brew”, but it’s all the tea we’ll have until the next strike pay.’
    Amy lifted down her father and brothers’ “snap” cans from the dresser. She filled them with cold tea and screwed on the tops. ‘Do you want me to take them anything besides this?’
    â€˜Like what? The hens haven’t laid today and the cupboards are empty.’ Mary tried not to sound bitter but she couldn’t hide her feelings. It was a woman’s job to keep her family clean, warm and fed. She hated not being able to put enough food in front of her husband and grown sons when they returned from their “shifts” on the picket. And, no matter how much she and Amy cut back on their share, there was never enough for the six year old twins. Sam and Luke’s eyes had grown large in their thin faces, and they hadn’t had the energy to go out to play after school for months.
    As a union man’s wife, Mary, had been one of the first women in the town to agree the strike was necessary. The miners had no choice but to withdraw their labour after management refused their request for a decent wage. But watching her children go hungry was almost more than she could bear.
    Amy smiled. ‘The cupboards aren’t empty.’
    â€˜What have you been up to?’ Mary was worried. Her eldest son, Jack, worked in the illegal drift mines the men had opened up on the mountain. Without the miners’ free ration of coal there was no fuel to heat water, houses or cook what little food they had. The men in the family insisted the coal that came out of the drifts was essential and worth the risk. But if Jack was caught, he would be fined. And a fine meant prison as they had no money.
    Amy opened the cupboard and lifted out a cake tin. She opened it and showed her mother the contents. ‘There are twelve here.’
    â€˜Welsh cakes? Wherever did you get them?’
    â€˜I helped make them in the soup kitchen this morning after I cleaned the vegetables. Mrs Evans persuaded Mr Hopkin Morgan the baker to donate the ingredients but he didn’t give her any dried fruit.’
    â€˜Not surprising the price, of it. It was good of him to give her the flour, sugar and margarine.’
    â€˜We mixed the donated eggs with milk and water. Mostly water, but Father Kelly’s housekeeper gave us the last of her home made jam to fill them. Mrs Evans insisted I take these for helping.’
    â€˜Leave them here,’ Mary said. ‘You know what your father is like. He won’t eat them in front of the other men and twelve cakes won’t give them a bite each. We’ll have one each tonight and keep the last four for the twins’ breakfast tomorrow.’
    Amy returned the tin to the cupboard and packed the cans