Broken Rainbows (30 page)

‘And she did her damnedest to get him away from you, even after you were married.'

‘That's water under the bridge.'

‘You're more forgiving than I would be if she'd set her sights on Charlie.'

‘As if Charlie would even notice another woman making eyes at him,' Bethan laughed.

‘I also heard this morning that Kurt Schaffer moved in with Jenny a couple of days ago.'

‘He's lodging with her. I have the colonel and his staff lodging with me.'

‘That's what I told Mrs Lane, but she doesn't see it quite that way. If there is anything going on between Jenny and Kurt, I'm glad for her. She deserves some happiness after losing Eddie and then Alexander. I'm just trying to warn you that you'll both need to thicken your skins, because the gossips have their claws out.'

‘I know.'

‘They've had a go at you already?'

‘Mrs Richards. A full ten minutes on how Jenny's blackening my dead brother's name.'

‘That's sick.'

‘Jenny visited my father to tell him Kurt had moved in, before he had a chance to hear it from anyone else.'

‘Does he mind?'

‘No. But he is worried about her. Not because of what people are saying, heaven only knows there's been enough talk about him and Phyllis over the years. I think he actually admires her for not giving a damn about the gossips, but what does bother him is that she hasn't given herself any time to grieve for Alexander. She's desperately trying to carry on as though she's immune to emotion. And it is a pretence. When Eddie was killed she was shattered. If it hadn't been for the job in munitions I think she might have had a breakdown.'

‘Let's hope Kurt can help her come to terms with what happened to Eddie and Alexander. He seems a nice man.'

‘He is. My father asked her to bring him to meet us.' Bethan smiled wryly. ‘All we need to do now is silence the gossips. If only people would accept that Jenny has her own code of morals that don't quite coincide with everyone else's.'

‘Especially Mrs Llewellyn-Jones's?'

‘No one can measure up to her ideals. But as far as I know, Jenny was faithful to both Eddie and Alexander while they were alive, and there's not many women in the town who can say that.'

‘Bethan!'

‘It's true. Ask the chemist. The demand for laxatives and quack abortion remedies has rocketed since the Americans have been billeted here. Unfortunately so has the incidence of VD, and there's more than one wife praying for a quick leave soon. The parish guardians are already looking at ways to increase the number of places in the orphanages.'

‘I can't imagine any woman giving up a child.' Alma looked fondly at Theo.

‘I can if they're desperate enough.'

‘Talking about babies, I had a letter from Chuck's wife this morning. You can read it if you like. She said how glad she was that Chuck had someone like me to talk to while he was here, and she is praying that my Charlie will come home safely soon.'

‘That was nice of her.'

‘She also sent a box of sweets and clothes for Theo. I'll bring it up on Sunday so we can share it out. Do you think the Americans have gone into France?'

‘I don't know. But with Ronnie gone …'

‘It could be Italy?'

‘I really don't know, and it doesn't do any good to speculate. Whenever and wherever it happens we'll find out. Eventually,' she added drily.

Anthea left the house early on the appointed day. Fortunately, her mother was still too incensed by the presence of Negro troops in Pontypridd and the colonel's refusal to give her Richard Reide's address to pay much attention to her family.

‘Have a good time in Cardiff with Katherine,' Mrs Llewellyn-Jones muttered absently as she checked the minutes of the last WI meeting, clucking over the fact that they had run to two pages, despite paper shortages and the need to conserve resources.

Feeling like a criminal, Anthea ran from the house and walked quickly down the hill. Taking a detour through the park, she rejoined the main thoroughfare close to the bank. Breathing slowly and deeply in an attempt to steady her nerves, she looked around. Most of the people in town were already queuing in the shops or searching the market for bargains. When she was sure no one was watching her, she carried on up Taff Street and down Broadway.

Paint was peeling on the door, windows and fascia boards at the address Vera had given her. Filthy lace curtains hung lopsided at even filthier windows. As she walked up the steps she heard voices raised in anger. Knocking tentatively, she stepped back.

‘Yes?' A woman with her hair in curlers, and stockings rolled down around her ankles, wrenched open the door.

‘I'm calling on Vera.'

‘Calling!' The woman snorted in amusement. ‘Then you'd better come in, Your Ladyship.' She stepped back to allow Anthea to walk through. There was an overwhelming smell of damp washing, sour milk and cheap perfume. ‘The girls are downstairs,' the woman barked as Anthea glanced through an open door at a row of unmade beds.

She walked to the end of the passage and saw a flight of rickety wooden stairs leading down to a basement.

‘The door's straight in front of you at the bottom. You can't miss it.'

‘Thank you.' Anthea gripped the handrail as she entrusted her weight to the top stair. It creaked, protesting alarmingly, but held firm. The basement was dark and gloomy, the floor covered with cracked, blue and brown linoleum. She knocked on the door at the foot of the stairs. Wrapped in a flimsy rayon robe, cigarette in hand, Vera opened it.

‘I hope I'm not too early,' Anthea apologised.

‘You're on time. Got the money?' She opened the door wider, revealing a crumpled double bed, and a floor strewn with clothes.

‘Here.' Anthea delved in her handbag and handed over an envelope.

Vera flicked the top open and counted the notes before pocketing it. ‘Come on through to the kitchen. It's behind you. I've just made tea.'

‘I've had breakfast, thank you,' Anthea whispered hoarsely, suddenly terrified of what was about to happen.

‘Suit yourself.' Vera went to the stove. It was obvious that she wasn't wearing anything beneath the robe, and Anthea was shocked by a glimpse of bare, white thigh, dark pubic hair, and the tip of one breast. Vera wrapped the gown closer to her before retying the belt.

‘You look as if you haven't slept.'

‘I haven't,' Anthea confessed.

‘I was like that before my first.'

‘You've done this?'

‘Twice. Once after my old man threw me out, and once since. He already had his suspicions about our son. With good cause,' she admitted. ‘The old bugger couldn't get it up, much less father anything. Then he heard me being sick one morning and as we hadn't done it in months he knew it couldn't be his, so he threw me out of the house and kept the boy.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘What for? I'm better off without him. When I was with him I had no money other than what he gave me, which meant I had to do whatever he told me, including washing his dirty underclothes and cooking his tea. My sister was already living here. She got me a room and I've been as free as a bird ever since. I do what I like, see who I like, and bugger housework. I'm slave to no man. Most nights I eat out, I've got enough money to buy what I want when it's in the shops, and when it isn't, there's always a black-marketeer willing to trade favours with an independent working girl. So you see, Miss High-and-Mighty, I'm better off than you.'

‘You hear … I mean, I've heard such awful stories.'

‘Most of them put about by men who like to keep all the fallen women and unmarried mothers in the workhouse so they can spend all day, every day, scrubbing it clean. Think what that must save the parish on labour costs. Here -' she returned from the stove with two cups of strong tea and a couple of slices of heavily salted bread and dripping. ‘I know you're not hungry, but try to get it down you. You'll need your strength.'

‘Is it going to be very painful?'

‘It's no picnic.' Vera tipped a generous measure of whiskey into both cups.

As soon as Anthea tasted it she began to cry.

‘Hey, it's not that bad …'

‘It's not that. It's this.' Anthea pointed to the cup. ‘It's bourbon, the whiskey Richard used to drink.'

‘Oh God, not waterworks over that rat. He's gone and you're better off without him. Come on, a couple of hours from now and it will all be over. Where is that bloody woman?'

‘Language, Vera,' a sharp voice reprimanded from the door.

Anthea looked up and blanched. The nurse was a friend of her mother's and well known in the town before she had retired five or six years before. She wondered if she'd tell her mother she had seen her here … then she realised. She had been expecting a doctor, or a midwife who worked the slums, not this brisk, neat, little old lady who went to the same tea parties and fundraisers as her mother.

Taking off her coat, the nurse handed it to Vera. ‘I want it hung away properly, on a hanger,' she ordered, glaring disapprovingly at the whiskey bottle. ‘You've brought the money, dear?'

‘I've given it to Vera.'

‘I'll take it before we start.' She held out her hand and Vera counted out ten five-pound notes before handing them over. ‘Right.' She pocketed them briskly.

‘Vera, sort out the bed and put the kettle on. Make sure it's full and take it to the boil.'

‘Yes, Nurse -'

‘No names,' she interrupted swiftly. ‘And if anyone asks, neither of you saw me. I wasn't here. Understand?'

‘What if this doesn't work?' Anthea asked.

‘It will work. It always does. Now go into the other room and strip off.'

‘You want me to take off all my clothes?' Anthea asked, horrified at the thought of undressing in front of the two women.

‘This baby has to come out the way it got in. If there's another way, I haven't heard of it.'

Anthea walked into Vera's bedroom. The bedclothes had been heaped on a chair and Vera was tucking rubber sheets over the mattress. Anthea started to fiddle with the buttons at the neck of her blouse.

‘Come on, I'll help you.'

‘No, it's all right, really,' Anthea demurred.

‘You haven't got anything I haven't, have you?'

The nurse bustled in with her bag. Opening it, she removed a tin and began placing instruments in it. She stood back, watching as Anthea removed the last of her clothes.

‘Lie down, dear.'

Humiliated and feeling totally vulnerable, Anthea did as she asked.

‘Take this -' the nurse handed Vera the tin – ‘and fill it with boiling water. Boiling, and to the brim, mind you.'

Vera left, closing the door behind her.

Anthea began to panic.

‘Deep breaths, dear. Slowly, one at a time. Breathe in, slowly, deeply, that's it. Now I need to examine you before we start. Just to check how far along you've gone.' To Anthea's mortification the nurse pinched her nipples between her finger and thumb. ‘Oh yes, you're well on the way aren't you, dear? Bend your knees and open your legs.'

Anthea closed her eyes as the nurse painfully probed and poked her. ‘Three months, I'd say. You agree?'

‘I didn't think it was that far.'

‘Take my word for it, dear. You are.'

The door opened and closed again, but Anthea kept her eyes shut.

‘That's it, fill it to the top, Vera. Now this is going to hurt, but it will soon be over.'

Anthea opened her eyes to see the old woman holding an enormous syringe. ‘Bend your knees and open your legs again, wider this time, dear.'

‘No!' Anthea turned on her side and buried her face in her hands.

‘Well, I've been paid, so I really don't care whether you go through with this or not. I'm asking for the last time. Do you want my help or not?'

Reluctantly Anthea did as she asked.

‘Now hold still. Completely still. Vera, lean on her shoulders, keep them down, there's a good girl.'

An agonising pain shot through Anthea's abdomen. She opened her mouth ready to scream.

‘The stick,' the nurse said urgently. ‘Give her the stick.'

A wooden rod was pushed between her teeth.

‘Bite down hard, dear.'

She heard Vera's voice: ‘Do as she says, it helps.'

She could feel the syringe, hard, icy cold, nosing inside her. Then the pain came again, racking, sharp, excruciating like nothing else she had ever experienced. She opened her mouth and the stick fell from her lips. A hand clamped over her teeth.

‘No noise, for God's sake. No screams. Keep it quiet. If anyone should hear we'll all be looking out from behind bars.'

It went on … and on … and on … until in the end she was pain. A single, total mass of pain from her breasts down, and it simply wouldn't stop.

Chapter Eighteen

The pain washed over Anthea in tides. Ebbing and flowing … ebbing and flowing … buffeting her like a piece of useless flotsam on the crest of a wave, before dragging her down to cold, grey, suffocating depths where an all-consuming agony blotted everything from sight, sound and mind. Everything except the stabbing hurt that was tearing her insides apart. And just when she thought she could bear it no longer, she floated upwards again. There was light, concerned faces, disconnected snatches of conversation that made little sense.

‘… something's wrong …'

‘… of course something's wrong, you stupid girl. She's further along than she told me …'

‘… can't you do something …'

‘… now it's started it will have to run its course …'

‘… how much longer …'

‘… how much longer … how long … how long …' the words tumbled through Anthea's head. A cool hand pressed down on her face.

‘Push! When you feel a pain, push!'

There's pain all the time.
She tried to speak but the words remained imprisoned in her mind.

‘You've got to do more to help yourself.'

Anthea summoned the last of her strength and tried to do as they asked. A scream filled the air. Shrill, racking, the bestial cry of animal suffering.

‘… someone must have heard that …'

‘… I have to go …'

‘… you can't leave her like that …'

‘…I've done all I can …'

‘There has to be something more you can do. There has to be …'

‘Get me some more hot water, I'll take a look.'

This time it didn't matter that she was naked, her legs splayed wide apart.

‘… get her walking, it will speed things up …'

‘… don't leave… you leave and I'll call an ambulance …'

‘… you wouldn't dare …'

Strong hands locked behind Anthea's back and lifted her from the bed.

‘Try and walk around, dear. Once you're on your feet the pain will stop. Come along now.'

Wanting the pain to stop Anthea tried to obey. Arms supported her as she walked every step of the way to Cardiff and back. And when she reeled, no longer able to put one foot in front of the other, they laid her back on the bed.

The voice again, husky with fear.

‘There's nothing for it but to try another syringe.'

‘That was a good movie.' Kurt Schaffer folded Jenny's hand into the crook of his elbow as they stood outside the White Palace.

‘You like weepies?'

‘Yeah, sure, why not? Although that guy was a total dimwit. Not seeing that his girl had taken to the streets. I mean, what kind of an idiot was he?'

‘So you think he shouldn't have taken her back?'

‘Nope, he should have taken the girl away from his family, and interfering women, and as far from Waterloo Bridge as possible. Then married her.'

‘She was a streetwalker.'

‘Hardly her fault if she couldn't support herself any other way.'

‘Are you serious, Kurt?'

‘Sure. Hell I'd forgive a looker like her anything, even murder. And pinches,' he added as Jenny caught his finger between her nails.

‘You can make eyes at any women you want, when you're not with me.'

‘Goddammit, she was on a cinema screen. Now, landlady, how about a little supper?'

‘You're prepared to face Tina?'

‘I called in there earlier with an olive branch. We're the best of friends.'

‘Really?' she enquired sceptically.

‘Really. Besides, there isn't anywhere else to eat at this time of night.'

‘She won't have food, only tea, coffee and cocoa.'

‘And national loaf. I sure could go a bundle on a slice of wood and sawdust topped with fish oil margarine.'

Tina insisted they sit at a table in the far corner of the back room. When she served them, Jenny understood why. As well as coffee, Tina produced sandwiches, real sandwiches made with white bread, butter and Spam.

‘Where on earth did you get these?' she demanded after Tina ordered the cook to cover for her, poured herself a tea and joined them.

‘Ask no questions and I'll tell you no lies.'

Picking up a sandwich Jenny opened it. ‘It's not just the meat and butter, it's this bread! It's so soft and white.'

‘Why should the Yanks have all the good rations?'

‘Why indeed?' Kurt winked at Tina.

‘Don't tell me you're doing business with the Americans after all you've said about them?'

‘Some of them aren't so bad. Especially the ones who provide me with chocolate bars and cigarettes that I can send to Will.'

‘I see.' Jenny looked at Kurt.

‘There's a way to every British woman's heart if only you know how to find it.'

Tina watched them as she ate a sandwich. She wouldn't have taken the chocolate if Kurt hadn't insisted that he was serious about Jenny, very serious, and he'd appreciate any advice she could give him on persuading Jenny to marry him. She began to wonder what exactly it was that Jenny had to make every man who spent any time with her fall head over heels in love.

They were still sitting at the table eating when the door opened and a party of six Negro soldiers walked in.

‘No peace for the wicked.' Tina left her chair.

‘Stay there, I'll put them out for you.'

‘What?' Jenny glared at him as he left his seat.

‘You'll do no such thing, Kurt.' Tina stepped in front of him.

‘But they're black.'

‘So?'

‘Don't you understand? Blacks don't go to the same places as white people.'

‘They do in Pontypridd.' Turning to the counter, Tina shouted down to the cook, ‘I'll come and give you a hand.'

‘Are there any other troops in here?' Kurt asked, trying to look past Tina into the front room.

‘No, but it wouldn't make any difference if there were.'

‘It would, Tina. It would make a great deal of difference to Southerners. If you must throw your café open to both races, take my advice: keep one room for blacks, the other for whites.'

‘You're being quite ridiculous,' Tina said heatedly, putting on her best smile as she went to the counter. ‘You gentlemen all right?'

‘Yes, ma'am,' a burly sergeant answered warily, as he reached into his pocket for money to pay for their coffees.

‘That's all right, Sergeant, first cup is on me. Least I can do for men who've come to help us win this war.'

Kurt returned to the table and put his head in his hands.

‘What's the matter?' Jenny asked indignantly.

‘You and Tina. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing,' he muttered. ‘No idea at all.'

Jenny and Kurt were still arguing about racial segregation when they left the café an hour later. Unaccustomed to such attention or freedom in their own country, the coloured soldiers had repaid Tina's hospitality by regaling the late-night stragglers in the café with tales of life in the American Southern States from the black point of view. Starting with their great-grandparents' memories of slavery. Jenny had listened, fascinated, but she couldn't help noticing that as soon as Kurt stepped out from the back room, they had all jumped smartly to attention, and although she couldn't swear to it, she thought she saw fear in their eyes.

Kurt had acknowledged their salute and walked out, Jenny had followed, and that's when the argument had started.

‘Tina's right. You are being ridiculous. They're no different from us.'

‘They're a different colour.'

‘So? What would you do if Britain passed a law forbidding all blond men from going into pubs?'

‘I don't disagree with your reasoning. All I'm saying is that some white Americans won't see it that way.'

‘Then they're fools.'

‘Maybe. But they're troublesome fools.'

‘And you'll let them create trouble?'

‘It's not a question of letting them.'

‘You're an officer …'

‘Who can't be everywhere at once. All I'm saying is that if Tina's not careful she's going to get that place smashed up.'

‘Then the American army will have to pay for the smashing.'

‘And the locals who get hurt?' He took Jenny's arm as they crossed the road into Station Yard, where he had parked his Jeep. Noticing a woman weaving her way unsteadily towards them, he veered sharply to the left to avoid her. ‘The tarts in this town can't hold their drink,' he muttered, as she swayed and fell in front of the wall that separated the yard from the pavement.

‘We can't leave her there.'

‘The police will pick her up. Jenny, you've looked for enough trouble for one night.'

The moon broke out from behind a cloud as Jenny bent over the body slumped on the ground. ‘Her legs are covered in blood. She's hurt, Kurt. Oh my God, look who it is!'

‘Hey, you!' Kurt called to a porter who had come out of the booking office to see what the commotion was about. ‘Call an ambulance.'

‘And the duty nurse,' Jenny cried. ‘Quick as you can.'

‘I don't want that woman near my daughter.' Mrs Llewellyn-Jones's high-pitched, hysterical tones reverberated down the corridor of the infirmary wing of the Graig Hospital.

‘If Bethan hadn't got to Anthea when she did, your daughter would be in the mortuary, not a hospital bed,' Dr John informed her brusquely.

‘And if it wasn't for her, Anthea would have married your son years ago.'

‘Can we see her?' Anthea's father was as dazed and devastated as his wife, but mercifully calmer.

‘There's no point. She's sleeping off the anaesthetic.'

‘I want to see her. Just for a moment,' he pleaded.

‘I'm her mother. If anyone should see her, I should.'

‘You can both see her,' Dr John capitulated, ‘but you will have to be very, very quiet. Anthea needs to rest. The slightest disturbance is likely to upset her.'

Mr Llewellyn-Jones took his wife's hand as Dr John led them down the corridor away from the bench where Bethan had joined Jenny, Kurt Schaffer and Huw Davies. The constable had set his helmet aside, but his pencil and notebook were out, and he was obviously there in his official capacity.

‘Is she going to be all right?' Jenny asked Bethan anxiously.

‘She'll live, thanks to you two finding her when you did,' Bethan answered briefly, unwilling to disclose any more information about a patient.

‘Thank God for that,' Kurt murmured, watching the Llewellyn-Joneses disappearing around the corner of the corridor. ‘You look exhausted, Nurse John. I could give you a lift home.'

‘That's kind of you, Lieutenant Schaffer, but I have my car.'

‘In that case, if you don't need us any more, Constable Davies, I'll take Mrs Powell home.'

‘Take care, both of you.' Bethan kissed Jenny's cheek and shook Kurt's hand before he led her away.

‘When can we talk to Anthea?' Huw asked, putting away his notebook.

‘That's for Dr John to say, but probably not for a couple of days.'

‘How many cases does this make this year?'

‘More than I care to think about. You really have no idea who's doing this?'

‘None. We've been looking for leads since the first woman died nearly five years ago, but between you and me, we're no further forward now, than when we started. Nobody will talk to us. Not even the women who've ended up in here. They're too terrified of someone or something to tell us anything.'

‘Can you blame them when they know you're going to arrest them?'

‘I don't make the laws, Bethan, only enforce them.'

‘I'm sorry, Uncle Huw. It's just so unfair. No woman would consider an abortion unless she was desperate. And then, after suffering all the pain and agony that goes with it, to face prosecution and jail.'

‘That lieutenant is right, love. You do look exhausted.'

‘I am. I'll go home as soon as I've sorted the paperwork with Dr John. Are you going to prosecute Anthea?'

‘Not my decision, love.' Picking up his helmet he pushed it down firmly on to his bald head. ‘You're sure she is going to live?'

‘Unless there's unforeseen complications. But what I didn't tell Kurt and Jenny was that Dr John had to perform a hysterectomy.'

‘Then she'll never have children?'

‘He had no choice. The abortionist ruptured her uterus. If we hadn't removed it, we would have lost her.'

‘Poor kid. I wouldn't like to be the one to tell her that when she does come round. Look after yourself, Bethan.'

‘I will.' Pulling off her cap and operating gown she went into the deserted office. Sinking down on to a chair she closed her eyes and tried to forget Anthea's pale and pain-racked face.

‘Someone must have attacked her!' Mrs Llewellyn-Jones's hysteria escalated into a frenzy of denial as she refused to believe what Dr John was telling her.

‘I'm sorry, Dorothy,' he countered, ‘but it's better you know the facts now, before Anthea comes round, so you can adjust to them. Then you can help her come to terms with what's happened.'

‘But how can you be sure?' Anthea's father seemed to have aged twenty years in just a few hours.

‘All the signs were there. They're unmistakable. I don't want to go into graphic details, but I can tell you that her uterus was ruptured when someone tried to perform an illegal abortion on her. There's no doubt about it. I've no idea how far advanced her pregnancy was, but from the damage inflicted I'd say three to four months. I had no choice but to perform a complete hysterectomy. She'll live, but she's very weak, and she'll be that way for some time. She's lost a great deal of blood, but with care and rest she should make a full recovery.'