Fall of Giants

After a while he saw a bus with “Aldgate” written on its front, and he jumped aboard. Ethel’s letter had mentioned Aldgate.

When he decoded her letter he had been very worried. Of course he could not discuss it with his parents. He had waited until they left for the evening service at the Bethesda Chapel-which he no longer attended-then he had written a note.

Dear Mam,

I am worried about our Eth and have gone to find her. Sorry to sneak off but I don’t want a row.

Your loving son,

Billy

As it was Sunday, he was already bathed and shaved and dressed in his best clothes. His suit was a shabby hand-me-down from his father, but he had a clean white shirt and a black knitted tie. He had dozed in the waiting room at Cardiff station and caught the milk train in the early hours of Monday morning.

The bus conductor alerted him when they reached Aldgate, and he got off. It was a poor neighborhood, with crumbling slum houses, street stalls selling secondhand clothes, and barefoot children playing in noisome stairwells. He did not know where Ethel lived-her letter had not given an address. His only clue was I work twelve hours a day in Mannie Litov’s sweatshop.

He looked forward to giving Eth all the news from Aberowen. She would know from the newspapers that the widows’ strike had failed. Billy seethed when he thought of it. The bosses were able to behave outrageously because they held all the cards. They owned the mines and the houses, and they acted as if they owned the people. Because of various complex franchise rules, most miners did not have the vote, so Aberowen’s member of Parliament was a Conservative who invariably sided with the company. Tommy Griffiths’s father said nothing would ever change without a revolution like the one they had had in France. Billy’s da said they needed a Labour government. Billy did not know who was right.

He went up to a friendly-looking young man and said: “Do you know the way to Mannie Litov’s place?”

The man replied in a language that sounded like Russian.

He tried again, and this time got an English speaker who had never heard of Mannie Litov. Aldgate was not like Aberowen, where everyone on the street would know the way to every place of business in town. Had he come this far-and spent all that money on his train ticket-for nothing?

He was not yet ready to give up. He scanned the busy street for British-looking people who seemed to be about some kind of business, carrying tools or pushing carts. He questioned five more people without success, then came across a window cleaner with a ladder.

“Mannie Litov’s?” the man repeated. He managed to say “Litov” without pronouncing the letter t, instead making a noise in his throat like a small cough. “Clouvin fectry?”

“Pardon me,” Billy said politely. “What was that again?”

“Clouvin fectry. Plice where vey mikes clouvin-jickits an trahsies an at.”

“Um… probably, yes,” Billy said, feeling desperate.

The window cleaner nodded. “Strite on, quote of a ma, do a rye, Ark Rav Rahd.”

“Straight on?” Billy replied. “Quarter of a mile?”

“Ass it, ven do a rye.”

“Turn right?”

“Ark Rav Rahd.”

“Ark Rav Road?”

“Carn miss it.”

The street name turned out to be Oak Grove Road. It had no grove of anything, let alone oaks. It was a narrow, winding lane of dilapidated brick buildings busy with people, horses, and handcarts. Two more inquiries brought Billy to a house squashed between the Dog and Duck pub and a boarded-up shop called Lippmann’s. The front door stood open. Billy climbed the stairs to the top floor, where he found himself in a room with about twenty women sewing British army uniforms.

They continued working, operating their treadles, taking no apparent notice of him, until eventually one said: “Come in, love, we won’t eat you-although, come to think of it, I might try a little taste.” They all cackled with laughter.

“I’m looking for Ethel Williams,” he said.

“She’s not here,” the woman said.

“Why not?” he said anxiously. “Is she ill?”

“What business is it of yours?” The woman got up from her machine. “I’m Mildred-who are you?”

Billy stared at her. She was pretty even though she had buckteeth. She wore bright red lipstick, and fair curls poked out from under her hat. She was wrapped in a thick, shapeless gray coat but, despite that, he could see the sway of her hips as she walked toward him. He was too taken with her to speak.

She said: “You’re not the bastard who put her up the duff then scarpered, are you?”

Billy found his voice. “I’m her brother.”

“Oh!” she said. “Fucking hell, are you Billy?”

Billy’s jaw dropped. He had never heard a woman use that word.

She scrutinized him with a fearless gaze. “You are her brother, I can see it, though you look older than sixteen.” Her tone softened in a way that made him feel warm inside. “You’ve got the same dark eyes and curly hair.”

“Where can I find her?” he said.

She gave him a challenging look. “I happen to know that she doesn’t want her family to find out where she’s living.”