Tiger Ragtime by Catrin Collier Page A

woman who lived more than sixty miles away.
    He strode purposefully from the window and lifted the suitcase Harry and Mary had bought him last Christmas from the cupboard next to the fireplace. Opening it out on the bed, he emptied a drawer in his chest and packed his cotton summer underclothes. Then he stood back and surveyed his wardrobe. He’d need his three good linen shirts, spare collars, ties, socks, sock suspenders, braces, sports coat, and thick cotton and woollen trousers, but he wouldn’t need the overalls he wore around the farm. Sweaters – would it be hot or cold on board ship? Deciding it could be either, depending on the destination, he folded three of the thickest ones Mary had knitted him on top of his shirts then threw in the wooden box that contained his bone collar studs, silver tiepins and cuff links.
    Boots? He packed his newest pair before dressing in the only suit that fitted him. A grey pinstripe he’d had tailored to replace the navy blue one he’d bought for Harry and Mary’s wedding and outgrown less than a year later.
    He pushed his ‘best’ gold cuff links that Harry’s parents and sisters had given him for his last birthday into his shirt cuffs, fastened his tie with the matching pin and took a last look around his bedroom. Books? He flicked through the selection on top of the cupboard. He hadn’t learned to read and write until he was fifteen and since then he’d developed a taste for adventure stories. But he’d read his small library three times over.
    There would be bookshops and libraries in Cardiff. He smiled at the thought. He’d never wanted to dot ornaments around his bedroom like his sister Martha. But there were a few things he couldn’t leave behind. One was his fountain pen, which he’d bought with the first money Harry had insisted he receive as ‘wages’ for running the farm, another was a framed photograph taken at Harry and Mary’s wedding.
    He had carved the frame himself and Harry had bought the glass for it. It was a formal, posed group photograph. Harry and Mary stood centre stage flanked by groomsmen, bridesmaids and all of Harry’s immediate family. And, to Harry’s right, he stood frozen in time next to Edyth.
    ‘You look smart,’ Mary commented when David joined her and Harry in the kitchen for breakfast. ‘You’ve decided to go to chapel with us this morning?’
    ‘No.’ David took his customary chair at the table and helped himself to two slices of bread.
    ‘There’s a girl in the valley you’re out to impress?’ Even as Harry said it, he knew it was a forlorn hope.
    ‘No.’ David looked around. ‘Where are the others?’
    ‘They finished breakfast half an hour ago. They’ve taken Ruth into the barn to look for eggs.’ Harry folded the copy of the South Wales Echo that he had bought at the station the day before and set it aside. ‘What was all that banging in your room earlier?’
    ‘Nothing.’ David spread butter on his bread.
    ‘Two eggs or three?’ Mary asked from the stove, where she was frying laver bread, bacon and sausages.
    David decided that as he had a long journey ahead of him and an uncertain reception the other end he may as well start with a good meal inside him. ‘Four.’
    ‘All that dancing yesterday has given you an appetite.’ Harry left his chair when the baby started crying. ‘He can’t possibly be hungry after you’ve just fed him, Mary, so I’ll see to him.’ He lifted Will from his day cot in the corner next to the range, laid him against his shoulder and rubbed his tiny back. The baby responded with an enormous burp and a watery smile.
    ‘Well done, young man,’ Harry smiled. ‘I’m getting good at this fathering lark.’
    ‘If you’re not going to chapel, Davy, where are you going?’ Mary transferred four slices of bacon, three sausages, and a large portion of fried laver bread mixed with oatmeal on to a plate and carried it over to her brother.
    ‘Cardiff.’ David reached for the