Winners and Losers by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online Page B

Palmer was a tall, thin woman, who wore her hair pinned back in a severe bun. It had changed colour, from a rich brown to white overnight when her husband and five young sons had been killed in the Wattstown colliery disaster five years before, along with a hundred and fourteen other mineworkers. With few savings and a widow’s pension that didn’t cover the rent of her colliery owned house, Joyce had taken the position of lodging house landlady two days after their funeral. She had a reputation for plain speaking and most of her neighbours were wary of her, despite the fact that if anyone was in real need, Joyce was always the first on the doorstep.
    When the miners withdrew their labour, the colliery company that owned the house gave the tenants notice to clear their rooms for police officers. Joyce’s neighbours had expected her to leave along with the colliers, but she stayed. She knew that most people condemned her for her stance, but she was too busy catering to the needs of her new lodgers for the gossips’ attitude to concern her.
    â€˜Can I help you, Megan?’ Joyce asked with the air of a woman who had a great deal to do and a shortage of time to do it in.
    â€˜This is my father, Ianto Williams, Mrs Palmer. Dad, this is Mrs Palmer who runs this lodging house.’ Megan took a deep breath and crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘I’d like to apply for the job advertised in the window if it’s still open, Mrs Palmer.’
    â€˜You want to work for me?’ If Joyce was surprised, she concealed it well.
    â€˜Yes, please, Mrs Palmer.’
    â€˜Then you had better come in.’ Joyce opened the door wider. Ianto removed his cap and preceded Megan into a hall that smelled of washing soda and beeswax polish. A gleaming oak staircase led to the upper floors, the wood either side of a narrow strip of jute carpeting, buffed to the same shine as the banister and dado that separated the brown varnished paper on the lower wall from the dark green plaster above it. The black and white floor tiles were spotless, but Megan couldn’t help noticing there wasn’t a plant, picture or even a coat rack to add a personal touch. Masculine voices echoed from a room on their right.
    â€˜The lodgers’ sitting room,’ Joyce informed them. ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment, the doctor is examining the officers who have been injured. I must check that he has everything he needs.’ She knocked the door, went into the room and emerged a minute later. ‘They know where I’ll be if I’m needed. We’ll talk in my room.’
    Megan had never seen a room as crowded with furniture as Joyce Palmer’s sitting room. An enormous Welsh dresser filled one wall. Its open shelves displayed a blue and white painted ironware dinner service with tureens large enough to cater for twenty. Ranged in front of the dishes were Joyce’s family photographs and an assortment of cheap chalk and glass ornaments, the sort of knick-knacks children won at fairgrounds and gave to their mothers as gifts.
    A large square table, covered by a dark green, fringed chenille cloth, dominated the centre of the room. It held a pink pressed-glass bowl filled with wrinkled winter apples. Eight, high-backed oak chairs were pushed tight beneath the table. A rexine-covered sofa and two matching chairs were grouped around a cast-iron, tiled hearth, its fire banked high with small coal. A glossy-leaved aspidistra stood on a small hexagonal table in front of a window hung with crisply laundered white net.
    Joyce pulled a pair of green and gold brocade curtains across the nets. ‘Sit down.’
    Ianto took one of the two easy chairs and Megan perched on the edge of the sofa, facing the fire and revelling in its warmth after the damp, freezing night air.
    â€˜What wages are you offering, Mrs Palmer?’ Ianto questioned briskly, when Joyce sat in the chair opposite his.
    â€˜First things