A Silver Lining (8 page)

She stared at her eyes, rubbing the taut skin beneath them as though she could wipe away the dark shadows. Not wanting to get out her lipstick, in case Andrew noticed and made a comment about her ‘dressing up’ in the house, she bit her lips to make them redder, and patted her hair, which was neatly waved just the way her Aunt Megan had taught her to do it.

She hesitated, impulsively returned to the bedroom to put one more dab of essence of violets behind her ears, then went into the tiny kitchen to check on the meal.

The potato soup was simmering on the gas stove. It was so much easier to cook with gas. She felt guilty just thinking of her mother and all the women on the Graig who had to cope with temperamental coal-fired ovens.

The choice at home at this time of day would have been scorched or tepid soup. The only way to gently warm a saucepan was on the rack above the stove that was used for plates and dishes.

Tomorrow morning there’d be no oven to rake out or black lead, only the living-room fireplace to clean. The work in the flat was nothing compared to the work of keeping house in Graig Avenue. Perhaps that was part of the trouble. If she had more to do, she’d have less time to think. The only person other than Andrew and the doctors she’d talked to since leaving hospital was the flower seller. They had a telephone, but she knew no one in London except Andrew’s sister Fiona. No one in Pontypridd, apart from Andrew’s parents and Laura, had a telephone in the house.

She was afraid of Fiona’s sophistication, and she worried too much about the cost of the call to telephone Laura. Her only contact with her family was through the post, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to write about things that mattered, like the baby. Instead she filled the pages of her letters with questions about what they were doing, and descriptions of the park across the road. But then, considering the state of little Edmund, perhaps it was just as well that most of her family had proved poor correspondents, except of course her mother. And she gained as little information or comfort from her mother’s cold epistles as her mother probably did from her own unsatisfactory communications.

She opened the door of the oven to check on the dinner, then went through the menu in her mind. She’d made the dessert –’dessert’, not afters, she had to be careful not to revert to the vocabulary of her home because she sensed it annoyed Andrew – of apple jelly and cheese creams earlier, and they were now cooling on the marble slab in the pantry.

A perfect meal- and all of it copied from the
Complete Illustrated Cookery
that her brothers had saved up and bought for her from a
News of the World
offer. All she needed was someone to eat it. The clock chimed the quarter-hour and she shuddered. Andrew was coming home from the hospital later and later, and that was something else that had to be her fault. He couldn’t bear to watch her give Edmund his last feed.

He was right. She was being selfish in refusing to give up the baby. As he had said in an angry outburst before she had left the hospital, ‘How can people be expected to trust a doctor who’s produced a son like Edmund?’

Tears burned her eyes at the thought of handing her son over to strangers who wouldn’t recognise the difference between a cry that denoted a serious need, and one that didn’t. She stood staring at her wavering reflection in the uncurtained, blackened window, trying to remember all the arguments Andrew had put forward.

Every doctor who had seen Edmund, including Andrew, predicted an early death for the child. They said it was for the best; but none of their predictions had assuaged her guilt, or prevented her from loving the poor mite.

Dr Floyd had told her to forget the baby and concentrate on having another child. But how could she? Edmund was nearly two months old and Andrew still treated her as though she had the plague, sticking rigidly to his half of the bed, wearing pyjamas, when he had always slept naked. She knew that at the back of his mind, and hers, lay the thought that there was no guarantee that another baby would either help her to forget their first-born, or be any more whole and perfect than its brother.

She dried her tears and checked the clock again. Half past seven. If he didn’t come soon the meal would be spoiled. Perhaps he was already seeking solace in someone else’s arms. He was very good-looking, and used to girls flinging themselves at him the way they had in Pontypridd.

A sudden picture filled her mind of Andrew, his arms wrapped around a slim, blonde nurse.

‘Good evening.’

She started at the sound of his voice. ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away. I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said nervously, aware that she was saying too much, too quickly. ’The meal’s ready whenever you are.’ She hesitated, hoping he’d kiss her; even a meaningless touch on the cheek would be a step in the right direction.

‘I’ll wash my hands.’ The apologetic tone in her voice, her eagerness to please, set his teeth on edge. He fought the urge to lash out and shake her. Why didn’t she ask him where he’d been until now as any normal wife would do?

Alec said Fe gave him hell if he was as much as ten minutes late. Instead, all he got was long suffering martyrdom wrapped in a coating of sugar-sweet brightness.

Why didn’t she shout at him? Reproach him for his failure to come to terms with their child’s disability?

Tantrums and screaming matches would be more honest than this ridiculous pretence of blissful domesticity. In the bathroom he washed his hands, deliberately replacing the immaculately folded towel at an angle. He picked up the tooth-powder and scrubbed his teeth, hoping to rid his mouth of the taste of the half a pint of beer and the cigar he’d spun out in the bar round the corner from the hospital. Only a few short weeks ago he’d rushed home at the end of every shift, literally counting the minutes until he could be with Bethan. Now he was the last out of the pub, staying on with the widowers and bachelors, who had no reason to leave until their clubs began to serve dinner.

If only she’d allow him to put the child elsewhere. The whole time he was home he was conscious that in the next room lay a mockery of humanity, a living reminder of his failure to look after her when she’d needed him most. If he hadn’t left her alone when he had, she wouldn’t have been working, and she wouldn’t have fallen down the stairs of the hospital. Complications might not have arisen in labour – why hadn’t he demanded a Caesarean earlier? He should have known her pains were more severe than normal labour pains from the outset. A Caesarean would have been better for Edmund. He would have been born perfect ...

He shut his mind against a heart-wrenching image of him and Bethan with a beautiful, flawless child. His superiors had sympathised, told him that Edmund’s condition was simply one of those medical ‘accidents’ that happened from time to time.

Oxygen starvation during a difficult delivery. No one’s fault. But cold, medical logic didn’t stop him looking for a scapegoat, or finding one in himself.

He left the bathroom. Bethan had served the soup. It was steaming in a tureen in the centre of the table.

‘Shall I dish out for you?’ she asked, instantly angry with herself for saying ‘dish out’ instead of serve.

‘I’ll do it myself,’ he said gruffly. Ladling the smallest possible portion on to his plate he sat down and began to eat. In silence. There didn’t seem to be any safe topic left for them to discuss. If he asked about her day he’d run the risk of her telling him, and he didn’t want to hear how she’d coped with their son. Not now. Not ever.

‘How nice of you to call, Mrs Lewis. Alma dear, it’s Mrs Lewis,’ Lena Moore called from the kitchen into the washhouse where Alma was leaning on the stone sink peeling potatoes.

‘I’ll be there now.’ Alma dropped her knife into the dirty water, went outside to rinse her hands under the tap, and returned to the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron as she walked.

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Laura?’ she asked, grateful that the oven was lit so she could offer. The coal stocks William had brought had lulled her mother into a false sense of security and she’d insisted on lighting the stove every day since Alma had come home from hospital.

‘That would be nice, thank you.’ Laura set her basket on the floor. ‘I’ve brought you some fruit from the market.’ She lifted half a dozen brown paper bags from the top of her basket and laid them on the table.

‘Thank you. That really is very good of you,’ Alma’s mother chattered gratefully. ‘As you well know, Alma isn’t up to carrying anything heavy like shopping yet, and I won’t be going into town until Mrs Lane takes me on Saturday morning.’ Lena picked up the kettle from the hearth and walked slowly but surely out into the yard. She filled it at the outside tap. Turning, she hesitated for a moment on the threshold of the washhouse.

The onset of her blindness had brought with it a heightened sensitivity to the atmosphere people carried with them and she sensed strain between her daughter and Laura.

‘I’ll do it, Alma,’ she murmured as Alma held out her hand to take the kettle when she finally returned to the kitchen. She picked up the iron hook they used to lift the hotplate and set the kettle to boil. ‘I’m sorry Mrs Lewis; I hope you’ll excuse me.’ She scooped her knitting from the table. ‘I was just on my way to see Mrs Lane next door. I promised to show her a cable stitch she needs to make up a sweater for her youngest.’

‘In that case I’ll see you next time Mrs Moore.’ Laura reached out and touched the old woman’s hand as she confidently walked the six paces along the passage to the front door.

‘Sit down,’ Alma invited as the door closed. She indicated the most comfortable chair, the rickety wooden upright that sported a home-made cushion padded with old shredded stockings.

‘You’re not overdoing it, are you?’ Laura asked critically, looking Alma over with a professional eye. ‘You have to remember that you only came out of hospital three days ago.’

‘I’m fine,’ Alma snapped.

Laura sat down and stared at the kettle hissing on the stove.

‘I’m feeling fine,’ Alma repeated, conscious of having spoken sharply.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

Alma poured a little hot water into the teapot, swirled it round and took it into the washhouse to empty it down the sink. Busying herself on her return, she refused to meet Laura’s searching looks. She spooned tea into the pot, filled it and took two cups and saucers from the dresser.

‘I’ve just come from the new café,’ Laura volunteered.

‘When will it be opening?’

‘The way it’s looking now the builders will be working there for at least another month.’

‘Ronnie promised me a full-time job there when it opened. Head waitress.’ Alma felt as though she was demeaning herself by begging for a position.

‘There will be a job of one sort or another for you as long as the Ronconis run cafés,’ Laura promised quietly.

‘I was hoping there would, but after ... well after what happened that night with Mary and Freda I wasn’t too sure.’ Alma’s voice trailed away as she poured the tea. It was difficult to look Laura in the eye.

‘Alma ...’

‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you,’ Alma interrupted. Thrusting her hand into the pocket of her skirt she pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Laura.

‘What’s this?’ Laura unfolded it.

‘A list of everything I owe you for the bills you’ve paid and the money you gave my mother when I was in hospital. I make it two pounds seventeen and eight pence.’

Laura glanced down at the list. Alma had left out nothing. Four weeks’ rent at nine shillings a week, two hundredweight of coal, four weeks’ groceries from the corner shop. Even the fruit and chocolates Tina had taken into hospital had been added to the list.

‘Look Alma –’

‘No, you look!’ Alma’s green eyes blazed fiercely in the thin light that filtered into the room from the back yard. ‘They’re my bills. Mine and my mother’s. Have you any idea how it makes me feel to have you pay them?’

‘Alma, we employ you. We’re your friends,’ Laura protested.

‘Friend or not I intend to pay you back. Every penny,’ she mumbled.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Yes I do,’ Alma countered, swallowing her tears.

‘Alma, no matter how good you think you feel now, you’re still recovering from a serious operation. You need to give yourself time. You’re not fit for work.’

‘If Tony’ll have me I intend to go back tonight.’

‘Alma please ...’

‘This –’ Alma opened a drawer in the table and lifted out a small cloth purse. She emptied it and coins fell into a noisy heap on the table next to Laura. They represented the sum total of her and her mother’s savings. All the pennies her mother had scrimped from the ‘insurance’ money Laura had given her –’is the first instalment on what I owe.’

‘I can’t leave you penniless.’

‘We can get credit in the shop at the end of the street until Saturday. And I can start back to work tonight. Can’t I?’ Alma’s face was a study in determination and defiance.

Laura made no move to pick up the money.

‘I can have my job back, can’t I?’ Alma repeated, raising her eyes.

‘We had to do some reorganising after you left,’ Laura murmured evasively. ‘We don’t need anyone out front any more, but Tony really could do with some help in the kitchen. If you take the job it’ll be at a higher hourly rate because there won’t be any tips.’

‘I’m a waitress, not a kitchen hand.’

‘It will only be for a short while.’

‘You’re afraid someone else will make a scene, like Mary and Freda?’

‘There’s no sense in meeting trouble half-way.’

‘But you’re still prepared to employ me?’ Alma’s heart pounded erratically. Laura couldn’t let her go. She just couldn’t...

‘Speaking as a nurse, I’d rather you didn’t go back for at least another week.’

‘My mother and I need the money.’

‘Alma please. Let us help you. You’ve worked for us for a long time. I thought we were friends.’

‘I won’t take charity.’

‘If you won’t take help from us, you and your mother are going to end up in the workhouse,’ Laura stated bluntly.

‘If we do end up there it won’t be for the want of me trying to find work.’