Authors: Catrin Collier
‘Bethan, how wonderful to see you and the little angels,’ Andrew’s mother gushed, overdoing the welcome for the benefit of her guests. ‘And how kind of you to spare the time to visit us. I know how busy you must be with the evacuees and your nursing. Come in, sit down. May I hold the baby?’
Bethan dutifully handed Eddie over, wondering why everything her mother-in-law said to her always sounded insincere.
‘Tea?’ Her father-in law’s hand was on the bell ready to summon the maid. It would never have occurred to him to fetch the extra crockery himself.
‘No thank you, I’ve just had a cup.’ Bethan sat down with Rachel on her lap. The little girl who was at home enough in Phyllis and Evan’s back kitchen to crawl on to whoever’s lap happened to be the closest, invariably clung to Bethan during her visits to Andrew’s parents.
‘I came to tell you I’ve just had a letter from Andrew.’
‘How is he?’ his mother enquired swiftly, her eyes darkening in a genuine anxiety that made Bethan ashamed of her critical thoughts.
‘He says fine. He wanted me to thank you for your letters and all the things you sent him, and to tell you he can’t write as often as he’d like.’
‘We know that, the silly boy. He really is all right?’
‘Apart from boredom.’
‘I can understand that,’ Anthea drawled. ‘Andy was always so active – tennis, driving, swimming, riding – nothing was too much for him. You remember that time he borrowed a boat and we sailed from Mumbles Bay to Oxwich, Mummy? We went to a party afterwards at Penrice Manor and danced until dawn, and he still didn’t want to go to bed.’ She beamed at Bethan in an attempt to emphasise just how much fun she and Andrew had shared in his bachelor days. ‘It must be absolute hell for him to be holed up in a prison camp and not be able to move around. And it must be almost as unpleasant for you, Bethan, not knowing when, if ever, he’s coming home.’
‘The war won’t last for ever,’ Mrs John broke in sharply.
‘Of course not,’ Anthea conceded hastily, upset that Andrew’s mother had taken offence at a remark she’d directed at Bethan. ‘But it must be dreadful for him to be stuck in a cell, forced into idleness while others do the fighting, covering themselves with medals and glory that should have been his.’
‘I don’t think Andrew gave a thought to medals and glory when he signed up, and he has certainly served his country better than most,’ Dr John answered, before Bethan could. ‘It takes a special kind of courage to remain with the wounded in a field hospital, knowing that the enemy is about to overrun the area at any moment, and that you can’t even risk firing a shot in your own defence because in doing so, you’d be putting your patients in the front line.’
‘I couldn’t be prouder of Andrew.’ Bethan regretted the words the instant they were out of her mouth. All she’d succeeded in doing was sounding as pompous as Anthea was foolish.
‘We heard that you’ve gone back to work, Bethan?’
‘I’m afraid the medical board press-ganged her.’ Andrew’s father intervened again on her behalf. ‘The shortage of nurses in the town is absolutely desperate.’
‘Desperate enough to take on a new mother?’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones clucked disapprovingly. ‘I must say, national emergency or not, I can’t condone working wives let alone working mothers. I don’t know what the world is coming to when women abandon their homes and their children. It’s bad enough that our young men have to suffer all the privations of war without our children having to grow up without any semblance of family life.’
‘I have help in the house, and my family and friends are only too happy to take care of the children for me whenever I’m busy, Mrs Llewellyn-Jones.’ Bethan could have kicked herself for feeling the need to explain.
‘Really?’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones questioned sceptically. ‘And, as though nursing isn’t enough, you’ve taken in all those evacuees.’
‘I meant to thank you for billeting such a helpful girl with me.’ Bethan swallowed her pride and forced a smile. She’d learned from bitter experience that no one ever won an argument with Mrs Llewellyn-Jones. The woman had influence in every sphere of Pontypridd life, and never hesitated to make things difficult for people who crossed her. ‘I hardly know the evacuee children are in the house. Liza Clark takes care of them beautifully.’
‘Not your own I hope, dear. It wouldn’t do to have them picking up that dreadful accent.’ When Bethan didn’t answer, she continued: ‘I simply don’t know how you cope. It’s all very well the government telling us that we all have to do our bit, but they’re not the ones who have to give up their privacy and goodness only knows what else. I was just telling Dr and Mrs John that Mr Llewellyn-Jones and I have been forced to take in the headmaster of one of the evacuee schools. He’s no trouble really, except that the house doesn’t seem to be our own any more.’
‘He’s so old and finicky,’ Anthea grumbled, giving Bethan the impression that she wouldn’t be complaining if he were young and handsome.
‘At least our headmaster is civilised,’ her mother chimed in. ‘I’ve heard down at the WVS that some of the evacuee children don’t even know how to eat. Would you believe that they’ve never held a knife and fork? Used to running wild all day and living off slices of bread and jam eaten in their fists in the street. And the diseases on the labels! Over half the children had impetigo, scabies, vermin, hair nits and I wouldn’t like to say what else,’ she whispered
sotto voce
to Mrs John.
‘Some of them, great big lumps of children too, even wet the bed. But then as a nurse, Bethan, you’re accustomed to dealing with the unpleasant side of life.’
‘That doesn’t mean I like it any more than you, Mrs Llewellyn-Jones. But thanks to the efforts of Dr Evans and Dr John -’
‘And the town’s nurses,’ her father-in-law interrupted, ‘all the evacuees are now guaranteed disease free.’
‘Disease free or not, they’re still nasty little savages who have no idea how to behave. All I can say is I’m glad not many people on the Common took them in. They’re rife down in town and Trallwn, and the number of criminal incidents involving them escalates every day. Things like playing ball in the street, which in my experience always ends in broken windows, and disturbing people by knocking on doors and running away. One of the teachers over at Maesycoed School told me that the situation there is quite impossible.’
‘It will quieten down now they’ve settled in,’ Bethan said in the hope that Mrs Llewellyn-Jones would change the subject.
‘Have you had much trouble with your four?’
‘Six actually; seven, if you include Liza Clark, but then as I said she’s a real help, and in answer to your question, no I haven’t had any trouble with them.’
‘Six as well as your own two, and decent help as impossible as it is to get today, whatever were you thinking of? Poor Andrew’s children will suffer so. And going out to work as well … Oh dear is that the time?’ she asked as a horn sounded outside. ‘It’s been wonderful, but we have to go. Hurry up Anthea, we can’t keep your father waiting. We promised to visit his mother, poor dear. All this war business is such an upset for her. It’s so difficult to get butter, ham and cheese these days. Dinner parties are becoming quite impossible, and her maid of ten years left her at a day’s notice to work in munitions. Have you any idea what they’re paying untrained girls in the factories? It will be the ruination of the working class, mark my words. They’ll be spending it all on drink, and cheap finery and …’
‘Be sure to give my regards to Andy the next time you write, Bethan,’ Anthea instructed as she followed her mother out of the French windows and across the lawn.
‘I will,’ Bethan agreed hollowly as she took the baby from her mother-in-law, who wanted to see her guests out. By the time she returned, Rachel had thawed enough to sit on her grandfather’s knee.
‘I do wish you’d bring the children up here one or two days a week, dear.’ Andrew’s mother rang the bell for the maid to clear the tea things. ‘We hardly see them. It would help you as you’re so busy, and we would get to know our own grandchildren.’
‘They’re a lot of work at this age,’ Bethan warned.
‘Don’t I know it. There’s barely fifteen months between Andrew and Fiona, and they were little monkeys.’
‘That was a long time ago,’ her husband reminded her.
‘It isn’t as though I haven’t any help. If they got too much for me, the maid could take them.’
Bethan thought of her father’s cosy back kitchen where Phyllis allowed the housework to pile up while she played with Rachel and her own small son, Brian, contrasting it with Andrew’s mother’s neat sterile kitchen that was geared for the maid’s convenience, not children’s.
‘I can manage, really, but if I ever need help, you’ll be the first I’ll call on. I’m sorry, I have to go. My father is coming up tonight. Charlie and Alma have been spending his leave with me, and I thought it might be fun to have a family get-together.’
‘You really do seem to be doing far too much, dear. You look exhausted.’
‘I’m fine, just missing Andrew.’
‘As I’m sure he’s missing you.’ Mrs John put her hand on Bethan’s arm and looked down at baby Eddie.
‘Just remember if there is anything …’
‘You could try praying for the war to end so Andrew can come home.’
‘I think we’re all doing enough of that already. The problem is, no one up there seems to be listening. They must be all out on tea-break,’ her father-in-law observed irreverently as he reached for the brandy bottle.
Diana climbed the Graig hill to Laura’s house in Graig Street swinging a brown paper and string carrier bag in each hand. One held meat, the other cooked savouries from the shop Alma and Wyn had opened at the bottom of the hill. Even with the café supplies to fall back on, she suspected that Ronnie’s sudden arrival without ration cards had put a strain on Tina’s housekeeping, and as the food in the bags hadn’t been earmarked for anyone, no one would miss what she’d taken except Wyn and Alma when they counted up their profits at the end of the month. She knew, since she’d taken over the books when Alma’s mother had fallen ill, that the shop could easily withstand the small gift.
She nodded to Mrs Richards who was heading into town, and walked on determinedly, pretending not to see her signalling to her to stop. She was enjoying her solitude far too much to indulge her old neighbour’s fondness for tittle-tattle. After a morning spent helping Wyn interview Vera Collins’s sister, Harriet, and checking and banking the takings in Alma’s shops as well as Wyn’s, before the three o’clock bank closing, and then putting her weekly order into Jenny’s shop and sitting with Alma’s mother to give the relief nurse time to pick up her own rations, she felt she’d earned half an hour’s peace. Usually the only thing she had to look forward to that wasn’t work, was bathing Billy at the end of the day, and Wyn and her mother’s company, but tonight was going to be different. Tonight there was Bethan’s party. An occasion she was looking forward to with mixed feelings, because every gathering emphasised the empty chairs. William’s, Haydn’s, Eddie’s, Andrew’s – she knew she should be grateful that she had Wyn. Or did she?
Her marriage had given her material comfort, but not the security she craved. She couldn’t help wondering how long the quiet, safe world she and Wyn had built for themselves and Billy could last. Wyn’s mention of Erik and his determination to work with him in the munitions factory had continued to prey on her mind, feeding an ominous sense of impending disaster. Their marriage had been built on a web of lies, not to each other, but to everyone connected with them, making her feel like a conspirator – a criminal who was about to be caught and punished. But where and how – the workhouse?
She shivered as she passed the high grey walls, superstitiously crossing the road to escape their shadow. Instead of dwelling on all the things that could go wrong, she tried to concentrate on all the things that were right: like the complete honesty that marked her relationship with Wyn, and the pleasure Billy’s arrival had given both of them. She and Wyn had made such plans. Opening a bank account in Billy’s name, an embryonic nest egg, so that unlike her and her brother, William, he would be able to stay on in grammar school until matriculation. Wyn had already decided he was so bright, intelligent and forward for his age he was bound to pass the entrance examination. During one rash flight of fancy, Wyn had even mentioned college and university. She imagined Billy grown up, passing through college gates, something tall and imposing like the ones she’d seen in
Goodbye Mr Chips.
A dark, attractive, young man – everyone complimented her on him inheriting her colouring, but then they didn’t know the truth.
She turned left, crossing a triangular patch of grass to the pavement outside Laura’s house. She turned the key and stepped inside, walking straight down the stone-flagged passage into the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry, I thought you’d be at the café,’ she apologised, as she crashed into Ronnie’s outstretched legs.
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’ He looked as though he’d been sleeping. His black hair was ruffled, his eyes heavy, the dark shadows beneath them more prominent than when she had last seen him in the restaurant. It was obvious he hadn’t expected to be disturbed. When he’d lived in Pontypridd she had never seen him in anything less formal than a jacket, collar and tie; now he was in shirt-sleeves and braces, his collar hanging loose from one stud. He shifted the stool he’d rested his feet on so she could edge her way around him. ‘But seeing as how you’re here, you can make me a cup of tea.’
‘You haven’t changed a bit, but I warn you now, everyone else around here has.’
‘So I’ve noticed. The women aren’t anywhere near as obliging as when I left.’
‘If by that you mean we can’t be bullied into waiting hand and foot on you men any more, we can’t spare the time.’ She opened the door to the pantry and unpacked the food she had brought. When she’d finished she returned to the kitchen, lifted the kettle from the range, and went into the washhouse to fill it.
‘You don’t have to make tea,’ he murmured, half apologising. ‘I’m so used to teasing my sisters, I can’t get out of the habit.’