Tiger Ragtime Read online

  David spotted Edyth as soon as he approached the park. She was still sitting next to her driver on her baker’s cart, shaking her head at a crowd of young children who had gathered around it, hands outstretched in hope of scavenging a cornet.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve given out all the biscuits. But if you come with your mother to pick up your bread on Monday morning, I’ll see if I can find you something.’ To emphasise her words she tipped her basket upside down and hoped that Moody had kept the cornets she had set aside for Ruth safe.

  David started towards her, but hesitated when he realised he didn’t know what to say to her or how he’d react if she mentioned his stay in hospital. In the event he needn’t have worried, she called out to him the moment she saw him.

  ‘David, how lovely to see you. I would kiss your cheek if you weren’t so smart and clean. The last thing I want to do is smear your clothes with make-up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’ His cheeks burned as he spoke.

  ‘Mary would, and she does your laundry.’ Edyth looked around. ‘Where are Harry, Mary, and the others?’

  ‘Somewhere behind me. I came on ahead to look after my sister and brothers …’ His voice tailed. He’d volunteered to look after them but he didn’t have a clue where any of them were.

  ‘There they are.’ She pointed to a spot inside the park. ‘I can see them sitting in front of the Bute Street Blues Band. The musicians couldn’t wait to get off the float. It was so cramped back there they could hardly breathe let alone play. Isn’t Judy a great singer?’

  ‘She is.’ He dutifully glanced at Judy, who was leading the band’s audience in a chorus of ‘Tiger Rag’.

  ‘Can I help you down?’ He held out his arms.

  ‘In a moment.’ Edyth turned to her driver. ‘Jamie, they’ll be announcing the winning floats any minute. As soon as they have, you can take the cart back to the shop and put the horses in the stable. Once they are bedded down, you’re free until you have to harness the cart at six o’clock on Monday morning.’

  ‘Can I wash off this muck and put on ordinary clothes?’

  He looked so miserable she laughed. ‘Something tells me you didn’t enjoy being part of the carnival.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ He had the grace to smile.

  ‘Sorry, but it would be bad form if you drove off before the judges announced the winners. It would look like we were throwing a tantrum because we didn’t expect to win.’

  ‘You’re bound to get first prize. You were easily the best float in the parade,’ David gushed.

  ‘Thank you, but I know we weren’t. The Noah’s ark was.’ Edyth smiled at her driver. ‘Five more minutes at the most. And thank you. Considering the amount of noise, you did a great job of managing the team.’

  ‘Stan and Olly are bomb-proof.’ Jamie flicked the reins lightly over the horses that had been named after Laurel and Hardy.

  A hush descended over the crowd. Edyth shaded her eyes against the sunlight and saw the Catholic priest, Father Reilly, climb on to a small platform that had been lashed together from odd bits of wood. Someone handed him a megaphone.

  ‘The standard of the floats this year was remarkably high. Well done, all those who participated in the carnival. We judges had a difficult decision to make and I know we’re not going to please everyone but here goes,’ he shouted.

  The priest was hemmed in by leaders of the various communities who had made their home in the Bay. Edyth recognised representatives from the Welsh Methodist and Baptist chapels, Hindu temple, Muslim mosque, Buddhist temple, Jewish synagogue, and Greek Orthodox Church as well as the Reverend Alan Spicer, who had succeeded her husband Peter Slater to the post of parish vicar of the Anglican Church in Wales. He saw Edyth watching and nodded to her. She nodded curtly back.

  Both the Reverend and his wife had been overtly friendly towards her, insisting that their housekeeper bought all their bread, biscuits and cakes at her baker’s. But Edyth’s experience with Peter was too recent and raw for her to accept sympathy. And it didn’t help that whenever the Reverend or Mrs Spicer singled her out, she felt that they were only doing so out of pity and their idea of Christian charity.

  Father Reilly raised his voice. ‘Third prize goes to the boxing club’s sweeps’ float.’

  A resounding cheer shattered the hush. Edyth applauded along with everyone else when the battered and retired boxer who ran the make-shift gym where the boys trained pushed the youngest member of his club towards the priest.

  The boy took the cup and, in response to a shout of, ‘Hold it up, so everyone can see it,’ waved it above his head, which led to an escalation of the cheering. It was several minutes before the priest could continue.

  ‘Second, Goldman’s Midas Touch.’

  Micah stepped past David, edged up to the cart and pitched his voice below the cheers. ‘They didn’t dare not give you a cup, lest you cut down on the giveaways at Christmas and Easter.’

  Edyth chose to ignore him. She nudged Jamie. ‘Go and get it.’

  Jamie stared at her in astonishment. ‘Me, Mrs Slater!’

  ‘You drove us, didn’t you?’

  Trying to look as though he wasn’t enjoying the attention, Jamie handed the reins over to Edyth, clambered down from the cart and went to accept the cup. When he raised it above his head, the applause and cheering was even louder than it had been for the boxing club.

  Edyth leaned towards Micah. ‘See what you get for giveaways.’

  ‘Cheers, cups, and giveaways don’t fill the till, pay the wages, or buy the flour,’ he muttered.

  ‘And the winner of this year’s carnival is …

  Silence reigned over the park once more.

  ‘Christina Street’s Noah’s ark.’

  The din that greeted the announcement was deafening. Micah made his way back to the band so they could play the winning floats out of the square. Edyth held out her hand and hauled Jamie back on to the cart.

  ‘Drive around twice with the other winning floats before you go back to the shop.’

  Jamie took the reins from her. He held them in one hand and set the cup on his head with the other. ‘Is there anything else you want me to do besides take care of the horses, Mrs Slater?’ he shouted above the noise as she prepared to jump down.

  ‘No, but thank you for asking. And don’t attempt to put the top and back on the cart. Wait until Moody and the boys can help you on Monday morning.’

  Micah and the rest of the band struck up ‘I’m Sitting on Top of the World’. David held out his arms to Edyth but she jumped clear of him, barely touching his fingers. ‘The greasepaint,’ she said by way of explanation.

  The breath caught in David’s throat and blood rushed to his cheeks. He felt more of a country bumpkin than ever when he was around Edyth and he knew it showed. ‘Jamie called you Mrs Slater. I thought you and Peter were divorced.’

  ‘Our marriage is being annulled but it isn’t yet. I’m waiting for him to sign and send me the papers.’

  ‘So you still use your married name?’

  ‘I moved to the Bay as Peter’s wife. He may have left me but we’re still legally married. I can’t pretend otherwise,’ she replied crisply.

  ‘He must have been mad,’ he blurted.

  ‘More like I was mad to marry him in the first place,’ she dismissed. ‘But it’s a lovely day. Do we have to talk about Peter?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He dared to look into her eyes. She smiled and he stared down at his boots.

  She saw his embarrassment and tried to ease it. ‘I know I should wait for you to ask, David, but do you want to dance?’

  ‘I’d love to.’ He offered her his arm. After glancing at her hand to make sure the greasepaint was dry, she took it just as the last cart disappeared up Bute Street and the band stopped playing.

  The vibrant echoes of Caribbean steel drums filled the air. Scores of youngsters, boys and girls, ran into the only clear area in the centre of the park, the pitch the judges had occupied. The
y began to leap and gyrate to the throbbing beat with an abandon David wished he could emulate. But the long weeks he had spent in hospital recuperating had stiffened his joints and sapped his self-confidence. He doubted that he could manage a waltz with his former skill, let alone his favourite Charleston. And, if this was a dance, it was wilder than anything Harry’s sisters had taught him.

  A slim, attractive girl with skin the colour of dark chocolate looped a blue silk scarf around Moody’s neck and roped him towards her. Reaching for his gold boater she placed it on her own head, and stood, legs apart, body pulsating, blowing him kisses.

  ‘Is that your baker?’ David asked Edyth.

  ‘It is,’ she confirmed. ‘I never knew he could dance like that.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Edyth concurred. ‘Shall we sit – or rather stand – this one out?’

  Wary of losing her in the crowd, David covered the hand Edyth had hooked into his elbow with his own. But he couldn’t stop staring at the girl with the silk scarf. She was dressed modestly in a high-necked, calf-length, button-through cotton frock, yet her movements and the expression in her eyes exuded a sensuality that sent a peculiar thrill – half excitement, half fear – down his spine.

  He had been to dozens of dances since Mary had married Harry, but had seen no one move like that girl. Edyth and her four sisters were considered good dancers but their steps were refined in comparison to the coloured girl’s. It was the difference between the Valetta and the Indian war dances he had seen in the cowboy films Harry had taken the family to see in Pontardawe.

  He noticed that the girl’s movements were gradually being adopted by the people around her, including, to his astonishment, members of the Bute Street Blues Band. Even Micah, who was the pastor of a church. But unlike the chapel minister in the Swansea Valley, Micah obviously had no qualms about making a spectacle of himself. David stepped alongside Edyth, leaned against the railings and continued to watch the dancers. The drumming proved intoxicating. The raw sexuality of the girl’s movements both embarrassed and fascinated him, engendering feelings he would have found impossible to articulate.

  Despite his misgivings, he found himself tapping his feet and swaying to the rhythm, all the while beset by the oddest feeling that the dancers were simply creations of, and extensions of, the music. When it ceased they would disappear, fading into nothingness like the early-morning mist above the reservoir in the valley below his farm.

  The drumming slowed to a languorous conclusion. The beats grew fewer and softer until he couldn’t be certain the musicians were even hitting the skins. The dancers slowed and wiped the perspiration from their faces with coloured handkerchiefs. Micah left his partner and fell back alongside them.

  ‘Do you think it will take over from the tango?’ he asked.

  ‘Possibly, but I can’t see me adding it to my repertoire,’ Edyth replied.

  ‘Coward.’ He turned to David. ‘Enjoying the carnival?’ David nodded. The beat picked up again, as first one drummer then another and another began pounding their instruments.

  ‘I saw your feet tapping. Come on.’ Judy grabbed David’s hand and pulled him into the circle of dancers. David tried to protest but his voice was drowned by the music, and when he tried to retreat back to the railings, Judy grasped both his hands in hers so he couldn’t escape.

  He glanced around self-consciously. There were onlookers but they appeared to be more interested in chatting to one another than watching the dancers and the people around them were too engrossed in their own enjoyment to care about anyone else. Taking his cue from Judy he tried to follow her steps, and moments later he was waving his arms and leaping with the rest of them, stiffness forgotten, hypnotised by the drumming that seemed to be keyed to his heartbeat.

  The drummers quickened the pace, hitting their instruments louder and louder until they reached a fast-paced crescendo that ended abruptly. Silence reigned, so sudden and absolute it seemed incongruously deafening. David stepped away from Judy and staggered.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have remembered you’d been ill,’ Judy apologised.

  ‘I’m fine now.’ David only realised he’d snapped when Judy flinched.

  ‘You’re a good dancer,’ she complimented. ‘But I knew that the first time I saw you do the Charleston with Edyth at her sister’s wedding last year.’

  ‘Of course, you were in the band,’ he commented absently, looking around for Edyth. She was still standing talking to Micah. ‘Shall we join the others?’

  ‘If you like, although the Green Swing Band will be playing more conventional dance music in a moment.’

  ‘Harry and Mary are here somewhere. And I promised to keep an eye on my younger brothers and sister …’

  Judy recognised an excuse when she heard one but she had only been trying to be kind to David. She knew from a few things she’d overheard Edyth say to her brother Harry that David’s ‘accident’ hadn’t been entirely straightforward. And from the way David was watching Edyth it was obvious he had a crush on her. ‘Let’s ask Edyth and Mr Holsten if they’ve seen them. If they haven’t, I’ll help you to look for them.’

  ‘Gin and it.’ Aled set the third refill he’d bought Anna in front of her.

  ‘And the last this afternoon, or I’ll be sozzled.’

  ‘Anna Hughes, lose her head for gin?’ he questioned sceptically. ‘I don’t believe it. Remember that bottle we shared the night before I left?’ He pulled his chair close to hers and sipped his cognac.

  ‘We needed it after burying your mother that afternoon. Call me sentimental, but I put up a grave marker – nothing fancy, just a wooden cross with her name and date of death. I wasn’t sure of her date of birth.’

  ‘If ever I knew it, I can’t remember it.’

  She sat back and studied him. ‘Whatever you’ve been doing for the past fifteen years has agreed with you. You’re looking well.’

  ‘Thank you. I could say the same of you.’

  ‘So, what have you been doing?’ she asked directly when he didn’t volunteer any information.

  ‘Growing up, seeing the world, learning a few tricks,’ he replied casually.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here, there, and everywhere.’

  ‘America by the sound of you.’

  ‘For some of the time.’

  ‘You’re not going to give me any straight answers, are you?’ She took a packet of small cigars from her handbag and opened it.

  ‘Have one of mine, they’re Cuban.’ He slipped his hand inside his coat and pulled out a solid gold cigar case. He pressed the catch and it flew open to reveal a neat row of slim black cigars.

  She took one. ‘Nice case.’

  ‘Nothing but the best.’ There was no trace of irony in his voice.

  She rolled the cigar between her finger and thumb and sniffed it appreciatively. ‘So, at the risk of being ignored again, how long are you staying in Tiger Bay?’

  ‘That depends on whether or not I find the right business opportunity.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’m thinking of opening a nightclub.’

  ‘That costs money.’

  ‘Really?’ He smiled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘You always were a joker, Aled.’

  ‘How many clubs are there down here?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘How many can hold between two and three hundred people, put on musical shows with chorus girls, singers, and entertainment and offer gambling? Roulette wheels, blackjack, poker …’

  She burst out laughing. ‘It is a long time since you’ve been in the Bay. I can think of half-a-dozen cellars and small private bars where you can get a drink out of hours. The biggest casinos around here are still the open-air ones on the street corners, which the police blow the whistle on when the mood takes them. Some of the local bands play in the pubs and clubs, but dancing girls.’ She shook her head and smiled. ‘Where do you
think you’ve landed, Aled, Paris?’

  ‘Paris nightlife was probably dull before the Moulin Rouge opened. The right club could put Tiger Bay on the map, provided it was run by the right man. Where do you and your girls pick up most of your customers?’

  She drew on her cigar. ‘Same place your mother did when she was on the game: the street and the pubs that let us in. Although the bloody landlords take a cut. They demand a bob for every man they see us walking out of their door with. They keep a book and it’s pay up or get out the next time we try to work there. Friday and Saturday nights are our busiest. We all have our regulars but things aren’t what they were twenty or even ten years ago. Trade is bad, but enough crache have business that takes them in and out of the banks, shipping offices and coal exchange in Bute Street – and afterwards to my house for a little relaxation, to bring in a trickle of customers. And there are always the sailors – like yourself.’

  He knew she’d thrown out the last remark in the hope that he’d tell her more about what he’d been doing. ‘Any good buildings for sale, lease, or rent in Bute Street?’

  ‘One or two.’ She eyed him suspiciously. ‘What trade you aiming for in this club of yours, if it ever opens its doors?’

  ‘The idle and not-so-idle rich who like to drink out of hours and who don’t mind paying a premium for plush surroundings. Customers who want to be entertained by professional musical shows. Men who enjoy ogling pretty girls. The gamblers who enjoy a flutter on the horses, dogs, and roulette wheel. Plus serious card players in search of a straight game with high stakes.’

  ‘The first thing I learned when I moved to Tiger Bay is that there’s no such thing as a straight card game.’

  ‘I’ll invite you to play with me and my boys some time, Anna.’ Aled flicked the ash from his cigar into the tray on the table.

  ‘Your boys? You’re married.’

  It was his turn to laugh. ‘The ones I employ. They enjoy a game of strip poker.’