A Silver Lining (3 page)

A day when she had been happy. Her wedding! Here, in London, away from family and friends –no, not all her friends. Laura and Trevor had stood behind them, happy honeymooners, married for almost two weeks.

She’d worn the indigo dress and dark green coat Andrew had insisted on buying her although it had taken almost every penny of his spare money.

‘I do.’ Andrew looking at her, love etched in his deep brown eyes. ‘That’s it, Mrs John. You’re not going to get away from me now. Not ever again.’

His lips warm, moist, closing over her own as he carried her over the doorstep of the beautiful, modern flat he’d rented.

Her protest. ‘We have to save ...’

‘For a rainy day? It’ll never get any wetter than it is now. Another year or two and we’ll be rolling in it. I’ll be a senior doctor, and you’ll be a mother.’

Her Aunt Megan had said the same thing. ‘The rainy day is now.’

But it hadn’t been. Not for Megan. The rain had turned into a cloudburst the day the police took her Aunt Megan away for handling stolen goods. Megan who had meant so much to her –the only woman apart from her dead grandmother who’d been kind to her when she was small –was serving ten years’ hard labour.

‘Mrs John? Mrs John? Bethan? Come on now. Wake up; it’s time to wake up.’

There was a baby crying. She could hear its wail: weak, resentful.

‘Mrs John? Bethan?’

Andrew’s voice, harsh and bitter. ‘Take it away before she sees it.’

‘It!’ Her baby? She made an effort, swam upwards towards the light. Fought to open her eyes. They hurt so. Every part of her hurt. She felt as though she’d been trampled on by an army of miners wearing hobnailed boots.

‘My baby?’

Andrew looked at her. Doctor Floyd stood next to him. Both had pulled down their masks, and both were wearing gowns.

‘You’re doing fine, Mrs John. We’ll just make you comfortable, then you can sleep.’ Lettie bustled around the bed.

‘My baby?’

Andrew turned away.

Doctor Floyd was kinder. ‘He has a few problems, Mrs John. Nothing for you to worry about. I’ve sent for a paediatrician. Don’t concern yourself. All that can be done for him will be. You have to concentrate on yourself. Get well and strong for your husband.’

She couldn’t see Andrew’s face. His back was still turned to her and he was looking out through the door.

The wail grew fainter. She closed her eyes. Don’t concern yourself? With her own baby?

It was all her fault. When Andrew had left her she’d tried to murder the poor mite even before it was born. But the drunken fall down the stone steps of the Graig Hospital hadn’t worked, nor had the brandy and boiling foot-bath. Not mercifully quickly they hadn’t.

Chapter Two

It was warm in the tailor’s shop despite the frost that iced the window panes. Warm, with the oppressive heat that only a paraffin stove in an ill-ventilated room emits.

Mary Morris nudged her neighbour and they both looked across the large central cutting table littered with cloth scraps, pins, chalk and wooden measuring poles, to where Alma Moore sat crouched over a treadle sewing machine.

Alma’s light auburn curls fell forward, covering most of her face, but what little skin could be seen was deathly pale. Her lips were as bloodless as her cheeks, and every minute or two her hands slipped beneath the bed of the sewing machine and the trouser leg she was stitching to clutch her abdomen.

‘What did I tell you?’ Mary whispered knowingly to Freda. ‘She’s in the family way. No doubt about it.’

‘Something wrong, Mary?’ Mostyn Goldman, the tailor who owned the shop, glanced up from the corner nearest to the stove where he was shaping felt pads on a dummy’s shoulders, a skilled task he never entrusted to any employee.

‘Nothing, Mr Goldman. Nothing at all,’ Mary answered innocently with a snide smile on her face, and a sly peep at Freda.

Alma had noticed the two women watching her and exchanging glances. Unnaturally high colour flooded into her cheeks as she rose hastily from her chair and dashed out of the workshop.

‘What’s up with her?’ Mostyn enquired sternly. The first rule on the list pinned above the door was that no one could leave the shop without asking his permission. It was a rule none of the women had dared flout before.

‘Up with her?’ Freda who was younger, sillier, and plainer than Mary, giggled archly.

‘If there is anything wrong with Alma she hasn’t told us about it, Mr Goldman,’ Mary chipped in, giving Freda a warning look.

‘Well, get on with your work,’ he ordered curtly. ‘Don’t turn every little thing into an excuse to down tools and gossip.’ He glared at George, his young nephew and apprentice, as well as the two women.

Mary and Freda bent their heads and carried on diligently with their buttonholing while George tailor-tacked a paper pattern on to a bed of cloth.

Mostyn laid down his shears, stretched his cramped fingers, and walked over to the window. The tailor’s shop was long and narrow with two windows, both small, set either end of the room. One overlooked Taff Street, hardly bustling, although most of the shops were open in the hope of attracting some Boxing Day trade; the other framed a dingy, high-walled, concreted back yard. Mostyn walked to the window that gave a view of the yard. He stared at the ragged planked door of the ty bach, the ‘little house’ that held the WC, watching for Alma to emerge. Despite the cold, beads of perspiration blossomed on her forehead, and her hand shook as she latched the door. He turned his back on the glass and glared at his workforce.

‘I’ll be in the stockroom if anyone wants me.’ Mostyn Goldman never allowed customers into the tailor’s shop itself, so all fitting was done in a cubicle that fronted the storeroom where he kept his bales of cloth. The communal stock and fitting-room door was barely four feet away from the shop, and well within earshot.

He walked on to the landing, but instead of opening the fitting-room door, he tiptoed lightly down the bare wooden stairs along the stone-flagged passageway that ran the length of the building and into the yard where Alma was washing under the outside tap.

She had screwed her handkerchief into a ball and was rubbing it over her forehead.

Sorry, Mr Goldman,’ she said contritely as soon as she saw him. ‘It’s just that I felt so awful. I had to-’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ He peered suspiciously into her face.

‘It must be something I ate,’ she replied, clinging to the tap for support. ‘Yesterday. You know what Christmas is like. Too much rich food,’ she began, remembering the ridiculously large bundle of meat Charlie had handed her in exchange for her four pence. There had been two thick pork, not lamb, chops in the bag, as well as half a pound of sausages and a slice of liver. If her mother hadn’t been so excited at the prospect of cooking real meat for once instead of tripe and scraps, she would have kept them and thrown them back in Charlie’s face.

Living hand to mouth had made her overly sensitive to anything that smacked of charity.

Mostyn Goldman eyed Alma’s slender figure critically. He was past fifty, a grandfather with a wife who’d long since run to fat, but he could still remember the times when his wife, pale and trembling, had run to the ty bach as a result of eating too much rich food. He had three strapping sons to show for her upsets, but they had all been born safely within wedlock, unlike any brat Alma Moore would carry. And the last thing he was prepared to risk was a scandal that might affect his depression-depleted business with the upright chapel and churchgoing citizens of Pontypridd’s elite, or ‘crache’, as they were known in the town.

‘You’d better go home,’ he ordered abruptly realising that he’d been staring at her.

‘There’s no need, Mr Goldman,’ Alma protested, thinking of her outstanding tab in the corner shop.

‘You can’t work the way you are. I won’t run the risk of anyone vomiting in the workroom with all that expensive cloth lying about. Besides ...’ he looked pointedly at her cold, clammy hands,’ ... you’ll more than likely stain any cloth you work on with your sweat.’

‘Then I’ll come in same time tomorrow, Mr Goldman,’ she broke in as a ghastly suspicion formed in her mind.

‘I’m sure I’ll be right as rain after a lie down,’ she added as convincingly as she could. She hesitated as she counted off the chimes on the church clock. It was only ten o’clock. Mostyn Goldman wouldn’t pay her for four hours’ work when she had barely completed two.

‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you for some time.’ Mostyn stepped back out of the yard into the marginally less freezing air in the passage. Averting his eyes he evinced a sudden interest in a block of peeling plaster on the wall. ‘What with the slump, the crache patronising the big tailors in Cardiff who can afford to undercut small operatives like me because they buy their cloth in bulk, and even the town’s businessmen making a good suit last two years instead of one, trade’s not been what it was.’

‘But the depression can’t last for ever, Mr Goldman.’ A chill rivulet of fear ran down Alma’s spine. Losing her credit in the corner shop would be devastating; losing a vital chunk of her weekly wage, catastrophic.

‘Business doesn’t warrant our present level of staffing,’ he proclaimed pompously. ‘I’ve been meaning to lay someone off, and it makes sense to lay off the part-timer.’

He thrust his hand into his trouser pocket. ‘When business picks up, I’ll let you know.’

‘Mr Goldman?’ She searched her mind feverishly for something to make him change his mind, but no phrases came. ‘Please, Mr Goldman,’ she repeated lamely.

‘Here. That’s a full week’s wage.’ He grasped her fingers and dropped two half-crowns into her palm. ‘I know you’ve only done two and a half days with it being Christmas, but we’ll call the extra a bonus, shall we?’ He smiled without meeting her panic-stricken gaze.

‘Mr Goldman?’

‘Take care of yourself, Alma. You haven’t left anything upstairs, have you?’

‘No, but Mr Goldman...’

‘In that case there’s no need for you to come up again.’

‘You’ll let me know?’

‘Know?’ he repeated blankly, pausing for a moment with one foot on the bottom stair.

‘When the work picks up?’

‘Of course.’

His heavy tread thundered overhead as she reached for her threadbare navy blue mac, thrust her arms into the sleeves and fumbled in the pocket for her comb. She rarely carried any money to work; there was no need when she lived only ten minutes’ walk away. But she had money now. She opened her hand and stared at the half-crowns.

She could pay off the grocer’s bill, but then what would she do for rent next week? It would be a struggle to make ends meet on the seven shillings she earned in Ronconi’s working Saturdays, Sundays, and five nights.

The Ronconis were opening a new café soon and she had been promised a full-time job there, but would it come soon enough to keep her and her mother out of debt, and more important still, out of the workhouse?

Damn Mostyn Goldman and his cold-blooded talk of staffing levels! Fury coursed fiercely through her as she walked towards the front door for the last time. She slammed it behind her, her mouth acrid with the taste of unshed tears. The gossips were busy shredding her reputation, she’d lost her job, and she couldn’t even see a way to fight back.

The nagging ache in her stomach getting stronger and more unbearable with each passing minute, she stumbled along the icy pavement. The sound of tapping fingers on glass rattled above her. She looked up. Freda and Mary were watching her from the window. She longed to wipe the smug expression off both their faces. They had never liked her. A horrible suspicion crossed her mind. Had they said something about her to Mr Goldman? Mary had been trying to get her niece a job in the sweatshop for years and Mr Goldman’s reasoning about the effects of the depression didn’t hold water when she remembered that orders fell off every year around Christmas time.

Mary wiggled her fingers and Alma saw red. Resorting to sheer childishness she stuck her tongue out.

Mary and Freda finally withdrew from the window, and she walked away, dragging one foot in front of the other, the unremitting pain making her dizzy and faint. Gathering the remains of her strength she headed towards the grey concrete and red-brick YMCA building intending to cut up the side-street alongside it on to Gelliwastad Road, and through the network of alleyways and terraces behind it to Morgan Street.

A horde of boys dressed in rugby strip and boots donated by the town’s chamber of trade thundered down the stone steps of the building, charged across the road and around the corner past the old bridge, heading for the park gates.

Of course! Boxing Day rugby match! She rested for a moment, allowing them to pass. William Powell waved to her as he ran alongside his cousin Eddie. William thickset, heavier than Eddie, but both of them tall and good-looking, with black hair and brown eyes; and behind them sixteen-year-old Angelo Ronconi, swarthy with flashing dark eyes, curly hair, and olive skin that instantly, and painfully, reminded her of his brother, Ronnie.

The overcast sky, the frosted grey pavement, the ring of boot studs on concrete as the boys dashed past in their white strip swirled around her. She made a conscious effort and took a deep breath. Her lungs craved oxygen but there wasn’t any in the air. Only pain –thick red pain.

‘Are you all right, Miss Moore?’

She focused on the startlingly white blond hair and deep blue eyes of Charlie.

‘Quite well, thank you,’ she answered stiffly, swaying on her feet.

‘You don’t look well to me.’ He caught her elbow in the palm of his hand.

‘Don’t you dare touch me!’

The stream of boys slowed their pace. Some were staring but suddenly she didn’t give a toss about them –or anyone. Everyone in the town thought the worst of her, so what did it matter how she behaved?

‘I was only trying to help,’ he complained mildly.

‘I’ve seen how you try to help,’ she countered acidly. ‘When I buy four pennyworth of meat from a butcher I expect just that. Not a charity hand-out that’s more than any normal family can eat in a month of Sundays.’

‘But Miss Moore ...’

She didn’t wait to hear what the ‘but’ was. Wrenching her elbow out of his supporting hold she strode round the corner and up the hill. Sustained by anger she managed to ignore her pain until she turned into a small grimy street hemmed in on both sides by narrow terraced cottages. Morgan Street –home. An inviting image of her bed hovered tantalisingly in her mind. At that moment all she wanted was to lie down and close her eyes against the world, but even as the desire formulated itself her fingers closed around the unaccustomed weight of the two half-crowns in her pocket. There was something she had to do first, before she lost, or was tempted to spend, her unaccustomed riches.

She halted outside the first stone house in the terrace. Inside, a table had been pushed close to the sooty window of the front parlour. Dusty packets of tea, dried peas, sugar, and four small pyramids of tins were displayed against a background of deep blue sugar paper. Two of the tins contained luxurious corned beef; the others held the more everyday tomatoes, beans and sardines.

At the very front, within easy view of even the smallest child, lay a large open cardboard box jammed with wooden twigs of liquorice chews, farthing ‘dabs’, halfpenny everlasting strips, toffee and coconut scrapings, and sherbet screws.

Pushing open the warped wooden door she walked over the uneven flags of the passage and turned into the front room shop that was dominated by a rough, waist-high counter. There was room enough –just –to stand in front of and study the goods ranged on the shelves behind.

‘Don’t normally see you in here at this time of day, Alma.’ Edna Hopkins wrapped a wafer-thin slice of cheese she had just cut for Lillian Bartlett, the only other customer in the shop.

‘Come to settle our tab, Mrs Hopkins.’ Alma looked round for something to lean against. There was nothing but the wall behind the door.

‘Well that’s welcome news.’ Edna lifted a child’s red covered exercise book from the deep wooden tray that served as a till. ‘I wish all our customers were as prompt.’

She gave Mrs Bartlett a sideways glance. ‘Three and six, I think.’ Alma took the two half-crowns from her pocket and pushed them over the counter.

‘Come into a fortune, Alma?’ Lillian Bartlett joked as Mrs Hopkins pencilled a large cross over the page and extracted the change from her box.

‘Hardly,’ Alma closed her eyes for a moment as another pain gripped her abdomen.

‘You look peaky, love. Are you all right?’

‘No. I think I’ve eaten something.’

‘Always the same at Christmas,’ Edna interrupted as she replaced the red book. ‘Stuff ourselves silly with things we can’t afford the rest of the year only to suffer for it for days afterwards.’