Black-eyed Devils by Catrin Collier Page A

of cold tea into her basket.
    â€˜Straight down and back,’ her mother reminded. ‘And, when you go to the soup kitchen this afternoon, take the jug and the last shilling from the strike pay and get it filled. There’s no bread left so it will be just soup tonight.’ Mary drained the teapot into a bowl and tipped the tea leaves on to a sheet of newspaper she’d spread on a baking tray.
    â€˜Do you want me to get anything else while I’m in town, Mam?’ Amy picked up the cloak she shared with her mother. As hers was almost new, it had been one of the first things to be pawned when the men had come out on strike.
    â€˜I’ll have ten of everything they’re giving away free.’ The joke was used by every miner’s wife in the Rhondda. Amy didn’t find it funny.
    â€˜Won’t be long.’ Amy kissed her mother, walked down the passage opened the front door and left the house. Although it was late September, the winter rains had come early. Most of the women in the street were outside, scrubbing their front steps with stones and cold water because they couldn’t afford soap. Outdoors was wetter but no colder than their unheated stone houses.
    â€˜You going down the picket line, love?’ Anna Jenkins who lived opposite the Watkins’s asked Amy.
    â€˜Yes, Auntie Anna. I was about to call in and ask if you’d like me to take Uncle Gwilym’s tea down for him.’
    â€˜If you don’t mind, love. I’ve got his can ready and it will save me a walk. I promised to go to the soup kitchen early to organize things for Father Kelly. He called in to tell me that he has to go out on parish business. Come in.’
    Amy followed Anna into her house and up the stone flagged passage to the kitchen. It was as clean, bare and cold as her mother’s.
    Anna handed her the can. ‘Tell him I’m sorry I have nothing more to give him.’
    â€˜I will.’ Amy dropped it into her basket with the others.
    â€˜And mind how you go.’
    Amy had known Anna all her life. She was her mother’s closest friend and had moved to Tonypandy from Pontypridd the same time as her parents. ‘Mam’s given me the full lecture. No talking to soldiers or policemen.’
    â€˜Or blacklegs.’
    â€˜I won’t be seeing any. They hide behind the police line inside the colliery.’
    Anna lowered her voice as she followed Amy to the door. ‘My Gwilym’s heard different. Management’s been bringing them into the town for the last two weeks and hiding them among the soldiers in the lodging houses. It’s best you avoid all strange men, Amy.’
    â€˜I will. ‘Bye, Auntie Anna.’
    Anna watched Amy until she turned the corner. Despite the rain and short rations there was a spring in Amy’s step. She suddenly remembered what it felt like to be young. Not that she had ever been as pretty as Amy. Tall, slender with silver blonde hair and deep blue eyes, Amy had attracted admiring looks from men since her fifteenth birthday. When she’d caught her husband, Gwilym, watching Amy, he’d said, “Anna, I might be nearer fifty than forty years old, but I can still recognise beauty when I see it. And Amy has something of the same look about her that you had when I married you fifteen years ago.”
    Anna had been upset by the comparison. But she had been careful not to shed her tears in front of Gwilym.
    Father Kelly hailed Amy as soon as she stepped into Dunraven Street. The Catholic priest tugged at the sleeve of the young man with him and ran across the road to meet her. It took them a few minutes to avoid a procession of women who were carrying a rag and straw dummy of Arnold Craggs, one of the directors of the Glamorgan Colliery. The women were taking it in turns to whack the effigy with carpet beaters.
    â€˜Good day to you, Amy,’ the priest greeted her. ‘Hope the world is treating you and your family