Authors: Catrin Collier
‘You’ll keep an eye on Jane for me, sis?’
‘Do you need to ask?’
‘It’s going to take some getting used to, just the two of us from now on.’ Haydn looked at the last photograph that had been taken of the four of them together. They were standing in the back garden the summer before Bethan had qualified as a nurse. She hadn’t met Andrew, he hadn’t left town to go on stage, Eddie had been on the dole, and Maud had still been in school. She saw what he was looking at and hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder.
‘Just make sure you take care of yourself.’
‘I’ll be fine, they never let entertainers go near the fighting in case we frighten the enemy away before the sappers get a chance to shoot them. But I am worried about Jane. She hates the idea of us being separated. I really don’t know how she’ll cope without me.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself that she won’t be able to manage. She’ll cope very well, just like the rest of us have had to.’ Bethan thought of Tina’s conversation and how it would probably shock her brother to the core to know exactly how the women left behind kept up their spirits.
‘You look a bit peaky, love,’ Megan said as Bethan drove her up to Tyfica Road. ‘Too much work too soon after having Eddie, if you ask me.’
‘I manage, and I’d probably manage better if people didn’t keep telling me how tired I looked.’
‘Like what people?’
‘Andrew’s mother for starters.’
‘How is she?’
‘Missing Andrew, but not much else judging by the table she keeps. Do me a favour, stop me now, before I say something I regret.’
‘If I were you I wouldn’t regret anything I’d say about that woman.’
‘She is my children’s grandmother.’
‘Poor children.’ Megan had even less reason to like Mrs John than Bethan. She hadn’t had as much as an acknowledging nod from her since she’d been released from prison.
‘How are Wyn and Diana?’ Bethan asked, deliberately changing the subject. ‘Diana hardly says a word these days.’
‘As you saw tonight, outwardly fine; inwardly I worry myself to death about them.’
‘Is there a problem?’
‘You tell me?’
‘As I said, Diana seems very quiet.’
‘Exactly. There’s nothing concrete that I can put my finger on. Of course Wyn’s father doesn’t help, miserable old soul that he is. Nothing that boy ever does is right where the old man is concerned. A couple of days ago he was nagging him to find real work instead of selling sweets. Now Wyn’s found a job in munitions, he’s telling him he won’t be able to cut it after years of serving behind the counter like a sissy.’
‘That can’t be very pleasant for Diana.’
‘As you noticed she doesn’t say much. Wyn couldn’t be kinder to her or Billy, but -’ she looked across at Bethan – ‘you think it was a marriage of convenience too, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know, Auntie Megan.’
‘Did you see the look on her face when Tina was talking about missing William?’
‘That’s just Tina. I think she succeeded in shocking Phyllis and Jane.’
‘What she said was right enough if you have a normal, healthy marriage. I wish I’d never got involved with the forty thieves, and I’m sorry I went to prison, but you can’t change the past. I did wrong and I paid for it. Unfortunately it wasn’t only me who did the paying, it was Diana too.’
‘Come on, no one could have been a better mother than you.’
‘When I was around.’ There was no trace of self-pity in Megan’s voice. ‘Most of the time I was just too damned busy trying to earn a living to talk to Will and Diana. It’s not easy bringing up a family without a father, but then you’re beginning to find that out.’
‘At least I’m not short of money and I know Andrew will be back, some day.’
‘I don’t suppose Diana ever went to you for advice when I was inside?’
‘When she and Maud came back to Pontypridd from Cardiff Infirmary, I was living in London.’
‘And your mother was still living with your father. I can imagine the way she treated Diana.’
‘When I eventually came home, Diana seemed all right. She obviously liked working for Wyn. If she was a bit quiet, it was no more than any of us with Will and Eddie in the house.’
‘I knew something was wrong when I was released, but I put it down to the quarrel she’d had with Tony Ronconi. William told me it was serious between them, but she insisted she didn’t want to wait for a husband who might never come back.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t love him.’
‘You think she loves Wyn?’
‘They seem very fond of one another.’
‘I’m fond of Tiddles the cat.’
Bethan burst out laughing. ‘I think Wyn stands a little higher in Diana’s estimation than Tiddles.’
‘Billy arriving six months after the wedding certainly set tongues wagging.’
‘People have said things to your face?’
‘Mrs Richards.’
‘She would.’
‘She asked me why I let my daughter marry a queer. There, I’ve finally said the word.’
‘I always assumed it was just gossip.’
‘I hoped it was,’ Megan said as they turned the corner into Tyfica Road. ‘But after living with them, I know it isn’t. They’re more like older brother and younger sister than husband and wife, which means Billy’s father is someone else. What I’d like to know is; just why didn’t he marry my daughter?’
‘Enough of the reminiscences,’ Evan declared as Ronnie went to see if Tina and Jenny were ready to leave. ‘How are you really faring?’
Charlie shrugged his massive shoulders as he pushed a cigarette between his lips. ‘Better than you after the news you’ve had. I didn’t want to say too much in front of Haydn, because he was obviously devastated, but it must be hard, losing two children, especially ones like Maud and Eddie.’
Evan drew on his pipe, while his mind groped for words to answer Charlie.
‘I know it’s no help now, but it will get easier in time.’
‘I’m not so sure. I lost my brother in the last war and there isn’t a day that goes by without me feeling bloody angry about it. I still don’t know what that was all about and neither does anyone else. And just look at us now. Back where we were in 1916. Boys dying to satisfy the egos of politicians. Nothing changes.’
‘Believe me, when this war is over everyone will know what it was about,’ Charlie asserted quietly.
‘Then the stories in the press aren’t just propaganda?’
‘Hitler’s a maniac. He won’t be satisfied until he’s taken over the world, and made every non-Aryan a slave to his Reich.’
‘That helps,’ Evan reflected soberly. ‘I’d hate to think that Eddie died for nothing.’
‘Take a look at William and every other soldier who came back from France to fight on another front. They know what Eddie died for, and they won’t forget it.’
‘Do you think the Germans will invade?’
‘The only question is, why are they waiting?’
‘Then we’ll lose.’
‘Not without putting up a bloody good fight.’ Charlie slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an envelope. ‘This is for Alma. You have my will; perhaps you’ll be kind enough to give her this if anything happens.’
Evan took it and stowed it away in his own jacket. He knew Charlie too well to offer platitudes. ‘And don’t worry about Alma. We’ll be here to sort everything for her when her mother goes.’
‘I know you will. You’ve been a good friend.’ He pulled the cork from the vodka bottle as Alma walked in.
‘You two still at it?’
‘A man needs protection against the night air at this time of year, and Evan still has to walk down the hill.’
‘Evan will be rolling down Penycoedcae Hill if he has any more of that.’
Evan rose to his feet. ‘You take care.’
‘And you. I hear it’s tough in the pits these days.’
They looked at one another, a look more eloquent and intimate than any of the conversation they had shared.
As Charlie walked Evan, Ronnie and the girls to the lane, Alma cleared away the glasses and went up the stairs. She pulled the blackout in Bethan’s tiny sitting room, lit the lamp and put the bottle of vodka and a glass on the table, together with a cup of cocoa she’d made for herself . When she heard Charlie’s slow, steady tread on the stairs she sat in one of the chairs and waited.
‘It was good to see old friends.’
‘It was,’ she smiled, thinking of Tina’s conversation. Tomorrow she would be in Tina’s situation, but tonight she wouldn’t change place with any woman on earth.
He lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers.
‘You gave me good advice yesterday. No more talking, let’s go to bed.’
‘And make a lot of women jealous.’
‘Jealous?’
‘Tina was complaining how frustrated she felt with William away.’
‘She talked about that?’
‘You’d be surprised what we women talk about.’ She switched off the light and abandoned her cocoa as she followed him into the bedroom.
‘About this?’ he murmured after he’d undressed her and lifted her on to the bed.
‘Not this. This is just for memories, Charlie, yours and mine. And we have all night to make them.’
‘Mrs Moore died an hour ago,’ the relief nurse announced as she opened the door of Alma’s flat to Bethan. ‘She didn’t regain consciousness. I washed her and laid her out. I know I should have telephoned you, but I kept thinking of her daughter. Her husband told me this morning he has to go back tomorrow.’ She led the way up the stairs and opened the door to the bedroom.
Bethan looked at the old lady lying peacefully on the bed. ‘Did you phone the doctor?’
‘No, nor the undertaker. It can wait until morning, can’t it?’
‘Only if we lie about the time of death. And the doctor is bound to notice.’
‘I can’t see either of them making a fuss under the circumstances, can you?’
‘Let’s hope not.’ Bethan looked up at the clock. ‘Why don’t you go home, I’ll sort everything out in the morning.’
‘Do you think Mrs Raschenko will forgive us?’ the nurse asked as she went into the hall to fetch her coat.
‘With luck she’ll never know.’ Bethan opened her bag and took out one of the blue and white folding, pre-printed letters she used to write to Andrew. Corpse-sitting was a lonely task, especially at night, and after today she had a lot to tell him.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone on about missing William the way I did,’ Tina apologised to Jenny as they walked down the hill ahead of Ronnie and Evan.
‘Why not? I’ve been married. I know what it’s like to live in an empty house and long for my husband to come home. I’m tired of people avoiding any mention of men when I’m around.’
‘I don’t know how you stand it. At least I’ve got William’s leaves, always supposing he’s ever going to get any more, to look forward to. You know Eddie’s never coming back. I couldn’t bear it if it was Will.’
‘Sometimes, even now, I can’t quite believe it. I think it’s because we only really lived together for a couple of days on his last leave. Even after William told me he saw him being killed, I only felt it was true for a day or two. Then, after William went back it was just like before. I’ve never told anyone this, but I’ve actually picked up a pen a couple of times to write to Eddie.’
‘What’s so odd about that? When I close the café at night and start clearing up, I talk to Will for hours.’
‘Then I’m not a candidate for Hensol Castle?’
‘No more than I am.’
They slowed their steps as they reached the junction of Llantrisant Road and Graig Avenue. Tina turned her head. ‘I can’t even see Ronnie behind us.’
‘He did tell us not to wait for him if we were in a hurry.’
‘Which we are.’ Tina quickened her step.
‘You’re lucky to have a brother like him,’ Jenny said with all the wistful naivety of an only child.
‘You can have him. I’ve four others and they’re all the same, even the little ones. Bossy, overbearing, typical Italian males who believe themselves so vastly superior to women it gives them the right to dictate the way their sisters live, even when they’ve left home to marry.’
‘You don’t really mean that?’
‘Don’t I? Ronnie’s a worse tyrant than Papa ever was. When he lived at home he was always reminding us that he was the eldest by six years, and he believed that endowed him with the God-given right to stop me and Gina from doing any and everything we enjoyed, like dancing, or seeing boys. He said he would never have let me marry Will if he’d been home, and he meant it.’
‘He won’t stop you from going to the pictures tomorrow?’
‘Let him try. Gina’s offered to look after the café if Ronnie can’t.’
‘Then I’ll come down and pick you up, same as usual?’
‘Of course.’ Tina halted outside the Morning Star next door to Jenny’s shop.
‘You sure you’ll be all right walking the rest of the way down the hill by yourself?’
‘You seen any men left in the town fit enough to jump out and attack me?’
‘Don’t joke about it.’
‘I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.’ Tina pushed her hands into her pocket and walked on briskly. Soon her slight figure was swallowed by the blackout.
Jenny turned the corner into Factory Lane, opened the high door set in the wall and fumbled her way across the tiny yard to the back door. Her parents had always used the side gate after hours, and she continued to do so, although it would have been more convenient to use the shop door that fronted Llantrisant Road. The stockroom was in darkness. Locking the door she thrust the bolts across it, and felt her way into the shop. Opening the blackout she scanned the deserted road wondering how much longer it would be before Ronnie passed that way. Not long, unless he had called into Evan’s for tea. Perhaps it was worth waiting just a little while.
It felt peculiar to be back home in the bedroom that had been his as a child, and even odder to share with Jane the bed that he and Eddie had slept in for all those years.
‘I’m not asleep,’ Jane murmured as Haydn stripped off the last of his clothes and crept in beside her.
‘You should be after that horrendous journey up from London. I need warming. I’d forgotten just how cold it is to wash in a washhouse, even in spring. I’m beginning to wonder how I stood it for all those years.’
‘Living in London has turned you soft. If you think your washhouse is cold, you should try a workhouse. It was never warm. Winter or summer it was always freezing inside those stone walls.’
Leaving the bedside lamp Eddie had made out of an old wooden table leg burning, Haydn pulled Jane close, tangling his hands in folds of linen as he sought her skin. ‘What’s this?’
‘A nightie. I borrowed one from Phyllis.’
‘You don’t wear them.’
‘I do when I sleep with you in your father’s house.’
‘No one is going to come in.’
‘I know, but it just doesn’t feel right to sleep naked when I’m not in my own home.’
‘You’re being silly.’ He tried to pull it off her, but she moved away from him.
‘How long have you known about the tour of the front?’
‘There’s been talk about it for a while. Are you going to help me with this?’ he demanded as he grappled with the pearl buttons on the high, Victorian neck of the gown.
‘How long is a while?’
Giving up on the nightdress, he rolled on his back, crossed his arms beneath his head and stared at the ceiling. ‘A while is a while,’ he reiterated irritably. ‘I thought it was just talk until they finalised the itinerary last week.’
‘You could have mentioned it.’
‘Why? So we could quarrel like we are now? I knew you wouldn’t like the idea.’
‘I’m not angry about the tour, but I am furious that you didn’t see fit to tell me it was being arranged.’
‘I didn’t want to spoil what we had.’
‘It’s spoilt good and proper now, isn’t it? I thought we agreed to discuss everything when we married, and now I discover that you’ve been keeping something like this from me for heaven only knows how long. I just don’t feel I can trust you any more.’
He turned on his side and faced her. ‘I swear to you, I was going to tell you the minute I knew for certain that the tour was definitely on. So many things could have happened to cancel it. An unexpected attack, a push, the brass closing off the area to all non-essential personnel. There was no point in upsetting you over nothing.’
‘Nothing…’
‘Jane, please,’ he reached out and stroked the side of her face with the tips of his fingers. ‘Don’t let’s argue. Not now.’
‘If not now, then when? You’ll be gone tomorrow.’
‘I couldn’t believe it when they pulled you and Anne out of that cellar alive,’ he murmured, clenching his fists against the images of the alternative that still haunted him. ‘Have you any idea what it was like for me, standing in the ruins of that block? No one, not even the wardens, thought that anyone could have possibly survived the blast that flattened our house.’
‘But Anne and I did survive and everyone knows that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. How about a compromise?’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll stay here until you finish the tour, then I’ll go back to London. You’ll need somewhere to live. I could find us rooms closer to the -’
‘No,’ he interrupted sharply.
‘Haydn …’
‘You weren’t the one who had to stand by and identify our neighbours as they pulled them out of the wreckage one by one, all the time expecting your body or Anne’s to be next. Don’t ask me to ever go through anything like that again. And if you’re angry with me because I’m leaving you in Pontypridd, then go ahead, be angry. I’d rather see you angry than dead.’
‘So you intend to leave me and Anne here for the duration, no matter what?’
‘The war won’t last for ever.’
‘I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that lately.’
‘Jane, it’s our last night together for a while. Don’t let’s waste it by quarrelling.’
‘I still can’t believe you kept something like the tour from me.’ She sat up in the bed, and for the first time he saw the tears on her cheeks – tears that belied her anger. He reached out to her.
‘I promise, I’ll come back every chance I get.’
Anne stirred restlessly, crying out in her sleep. Jane left the bed and lifted her out of the cot.
‘Leave her, she’ll settle,’ he pleaded.
‘She’s really upset. First buried alive, now in a strange place, surrounded by strange people.’
‘They’re not strange, they’re my family,’ he remonstrated.
‘They are strange to her.’ She lifted Anne into the bed and laid her between them. The baby opened her mouth and screwed her face into an angry ball.
‘I’ll make her a bottle,’ Haydn offered.
‘I’ll do it.’ She picked up Anne as she left the bed.
‘Jane …’
‘I’ll bring her back when I’m sure she’ll settle. Otherwise she’ll keep you and your father awake, and you both have busy days tomorrow.’
‘I’ll come down with you.’
‘There’s no point in both of us missing our sleep. I won’t be long.’
She crept downstairs on bare feet, making up a bottle with as little noise and fuss as possible. As she sat in her father-in-law’s chair and fed her daughter, she thought of all the things she wanted to say to Haydn. How she knew he was thinking only of her and Anne, but how she couldn’t bear the thought of living without him. Perhaps he would agree to her moving into rooms in an area of London that hadn’t been as severely bombed as those around the river. It would mean more travelling time for him. Hopefully he would think that a small price to pay for them being together.