Authors: Catrin Collier
‘No, but if you’ve told him, you can tell me. I promise not to whisper a word, except to my mother.’ Diana was glad to have something other than her own problems to think about.
‘You won’t say anything to my father? You saw how he was tonight when he thought I was going out with the girls. I don’t know what he’d do if he knew I was seeing a man.’
‘What could he do?’ Diana asked practically.
‘Make life very difficult.’
‘Myrtle, you’re over thirty.’
‘Thirty-eight. ‘
‘Whatever, you’re a grown woman. You hold down a responsible, well-paid job.’
‘Which he hates because he thinks I should be looking after him.’
‘My mother’s glad to do it. It makes her feel she’s doing her bit. She’s nowhere near strong enough to work the hours you do in munitions, so freeing you makes her feel that she’s contributing to the war effort too. But going back to your father, don’t you think it’s time to tell him that you’re old enough to run your own life?’
‘He’d only get upset. He could even have a relapse.’
‘Haven’t you noticed he only has those when he doesn’t get his own way.’
‘I hate rows, and he wouldn’t approve.’
‘Of the man? Is it someone you’ve met in the factory?’
‘No.’
‘Who is it? I’m dying of curiosity, and if Wyn knows he’ll tell me if I ask.’
‘This is only the second time he’s asked me out. It’s probably nothing. Just friendship.’
‘But you like him and hope it’s more?’
‘Yes,’ Myrtle conceded.
‘Then tell.’
‘Promise not to laugh?’ Myrtle finally realised Diana wouldn’t give her any peace until she told her.
‘It’s someone funny?’
‘Your Uncle Huw.’
Diana stopped and stared at her in astonishment.
‘I knew you’d think it was funny.’
‘No I don’t. I think it’s wonderful for both of you. You’re absolutely perfect for one another. Uncle Huw is quiet, but persistent when it comes to getting his own way. He always used to get William and me to do what he wanted when we were children without us even realising it, and being a policeman he deals with troublesome people all the time, so your father would present no problem to him. The only surprise is why my mother or I didn’t think of matchmaking you two before.’
‘Then you’re not shocked?’
‘Shocked, of course not! Can I be matron of honour?’
‘I told you, this is only the second time he’s asked me out.’
‘Then have a good time, and insist he takes you to a café afterwards. He’s always in a good mood after he’s eaten. That’s when you can turn the conversation around to weddings.’
‘I’ll do no such thing. Can I ask you something?’ Myrtle began hesitantly.
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘Is it considered all right to kiss a man when you’re not married these days?’
‘You’ve never been out with anyone before?’
‘Not in a long time, and then only to a chapel social. I don’t know what to do. All the girls in the factory ever talk about is men, and they seem to think anything goes. But I’d hate for Huw to think I was fast.’
Diana remembered what Tina had said in Bethan’s, and could imagine exactly the sort of thing the girls in the factory were saying. ‘They’re probably just missing their husbands if they’re overseas.’
‘Most of the girls I work with aren’t married.’
‘I’m not at all sure I’m the one to advise you about this.’
‘I couldn’t ask anyone else.’
Diana thought back to her experience with Tony and Ben Springer. ‘If it seems right to you, do whatever you want. But don’t let a man force you into anything, Myrtle. No matter how much you think you like him.’
Anne started whimpering at the exact moment the hands on the alarm clock reached six o’clock. Jane didn’t need to switch on the light to check. The baby had established her routine and since arriving in Graig Avenue, she hadn’t deviated from it by one minute. Jane reached across to the cot and stroked Anne through the bars, but she knew she had only a moment’s grace. If Anne wasn’t picked up in the next five minutes she would start screaming, and if she didn’t get her downstairs and feed her, the noise would wake the entire household, which wouldn’t be fair on her father-in-law. It was the first free Sunday he had been given in months.
Stepping out of bed, she pulled on her dressing gown, tightened the belt, and carried Anne down to the back kitchen. Still half asleep, she made a fresh bottle, washed and changed Anne while it was cooling, then sat in the easy chair in front of the window that looked out on the tiny back yard. The house was quiet, peaceful. The rising sun created golden spots of light that played across the dark wood furniture and danced across the blackleaded grate, but all she could think about was how much longer it was going to be before Anne slept in. It didn’t have to be much longer: the way she felt at the moment, another hour would have been blissful.
The day ahead loomed full of people she liked, but would rather not be with, and things she didn’t want to do. Phyllis and Evan were kind to her, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to accept their company and hospitality graciously, when her every waking thought and most of her dreaming ones were centred around Haydn. She missed her husband so much, she physically ached for his presence and his touch. And since he had left she had been tormented with guilt over her resentment at his insistence on leaving her in his father’s house. She knew he had only been thinking of her and Anne, and their safety. She should have told him so, instead of arguing with him.
Had he forgiven her? He’d been gone over a week and all she’d received from him were two scribbled postcards to let her know that he’d moved in temporarily with one of the engineers until the tour began,
‘which will be any day now.’
The postcards were pre-war. Nothing was produced these days as glossy and extravagantly coloured as the prints of Broadcasting House he had sent her. She’d imagined him perched on the edge of a desk occupied by a glamorous secretary, brushing against her as he’d leaned over to filch them from her stationery tray. Perhaps he’d even scrawled them while the girl flirted with him.
She burned with resentment at the image she’d created. Jealousy was eating away at her peace of mind, and now it was threatening to spoil the small pleasures Phyllis had organised for the day. The vegetables for the dinner were already prepared, the apple pie for ‘afters’ made, Diana and Alma were eating with them, and Megan was coming for the afternoon as the minister and his wife had offered to sit with Wyn’s father. It had already been decided that if it was fine they would walk over the mountain after they’d eaten, perhaps coming back via the old reservoir tanks at the back of Graig Street. Evan had even sorted out a couple of old jam jars the night before, tying string around the necks so Brian could fish for tadpoles in their murky depths.
She sat back in the chair as Anne grew heavy in her arms, watching the baby’s eyelids flicker and her mouth relax. As soon as the bottle was empty she tucked her into her day cot. Moments before, she’d heard the plop of the Sunday newspaper falling through the letterbox. Putting the kettle back on to boil, she went to fetch the paper. After making a pot of tea, and pouring herself a cup, she curled into Evan’s chair again, and unfolded the wartime thinned pages of the
News of the World.
She started with a jolt and dropped her cup. It fell on to the tiled hearth and shattered, spraying tea over the rug and scattering shards of china on the tiles. Oblivious to the mess she continued to stare, mesmerized by the photograph on the front page. A beaming, happy Haydn, flanked by two girls, his arms around their shoulders, their lips glued to his cheeks. She recognised his companions. Ruth and Marilyn Simmonds, their blonde hair cascading in a perfect sweep of curls to their shoulders, their eyes turned to the camera, trim figures nestled as close to Haydn’s as they could possibly get without actually crawling into his clothes.
She glared at the caption.
HAYDN POWELL LEADS A BBC CONCERT PARTY ON A MORALE-BOOSTING TOUR OF THE FRONT. AND JUST LOOK AT THE MORALE HE’S TAKING WITH HIM TO CHEER OUR BOYS.
She scanned the rest of the page and thumbed through the paper. There was nothing else, not even a paragraph.
‘Jane? Are you all right? I heard a crash.’ Phyllis walked in, already washed and dressed, Brian following her, dragging his teddy bear by the ear.
‘My tea! I’m sorry. And china’s so difficult to replace these days.’ Jane leaped to her feet.
‘It’s nothing, as long as you haven’t hurt yourself.’ Phyllis rolled up the rug and carried it through the washhouse into the back yard. She shook the china fragments into the ashbin, then dumped the rug under the cold tap. Before she returned, Jane had fetched the bucket and floorcloth and was on her knees picking up the remains of the cup.
‘Has something happened?’ Phyllis asked, seeing tears in Jane’s eyes.
‘Nothing.’ Jane wrung the floorcloth out in the bucket before attacking a stubborn spot on a tile. ‘I’m sorry about the mess.’
‘It’s easily cleaned.’
Jane threw the cloth over the remaining puddle of spilt tea in the hearth and mopped it up. ‘I’ll wash out the rug and put it on the line.’
‘Now it’s soaking, it can be left until tomorrow.’ Phyllis went to the cupboard in the washhouse. ‘I’ve seven others. When I was expecting Brian I had nothing else to do except make them. It’s all right, I’ll empty the bucket.’ Phyllis took it from her. ‘I’d love a cup of tea if there’s any more in the pot.’
Jane took down two fresh cups. She laid out the paper on the table and stared at the photograph as she poured the tea. All she could think of was the swift way Haydn had dumped her in Pontypridd so he could go on this tour. Well, two could play at that game. He had a life of his own. Now, thanks to his desertion, so did she.
She went to the pantry and brought out the jug of milk. Filling Brian’s cup she handed it to him.
‘There’s a good photograph of Haydn on the front page of the paper,’ she announced as Phyllis returned.
Phyllis walked to the table and looked. ‘Are they twins?’
‘Sisters. Pretty, aren’t they? I’ve met them.’ What Jane didn’t say was that she’d met them at a BBC party when she’d been seven months pregnant and felt as graceful as an elephant, and both girls had flirted with Haydn for all they were worth.
‘Don’t the reporters know he’s married?’ Phyllis eyed Jane cautiously.
‘Haydn would tell them if they asked, but kisses don’t mean anything in the circles he moves in. You know showbusiness people. It’s always “darling” and hugs and kisses all round.’
‘Are you really all right, love? I’m not sure how I’d react if I saw a picture of Evan being kissed by two girls like these on the front page of the Sunday paper.’
‘Perfectly,’ Jane gave her a cold, brittle smile. ‘I’ve been thinking, my ribs feel so much better, I’d like to go down the Labour Exchange tomorrow. It will take them at least a week or two to process my application to work in munitions, and by then I’ll be perfectly fit.’
‘You want to go because of this?’ Phyllis folded the paper away, clearing the table for breakfast.
‘Of course not. But as Haydn’s doing his bit, I feel I have to do mine.’
Diana walked slowly along the track that led to Shoni’s pond. She had to watch her step because the pram wheels kept sinking to the hubs in the black silt that had blown from the colliery trams and slag heaps on to the path, but the inconvenience was amply compensated by the solitude and the weather. It was a beautiful, clear day. The trees had unfurled their leaves, the only clouds in the sky were as delicate and flimsy as lace, the birds were singing, and, best of all, she had nothing to do until midday when she’d promised to visit her uncle’s house.
Wanting some time to herself after the upset of Tony’s return, she’d called in Alma’s on her way through town, and, under the pretext of taking Billy for an airing, had made arrangements to meet her in Graig Avenue instead of walking up the hill with her as they’d agreed earlier in the week.
After Alma’s she had gone to the park, but it had been crowded with women in summer dresses and men in Sunday suits and uniforms, most of them neighbours and acquaintances. They had stopped, looked into the pram and made the usual bland, customary remarks, but after the scene in the café she couldn’t help feeling that as soon as she left them they’d begun whispering about her. So after ten increasingly uncomfortable minutes, she had headed up Graig hill, and deciding it was too early to go and sit in her uncle’s house, had turned into the lane opposite the Graig Hotel that led to Shoni’s pond.
It was hot, heavy work pushing the coach pram along the unmade road, and by the time the lake came into view, she was ready for a rest. Checking Billy, who slept through practically anything in the morning, she pulled the insect netting over the pram and moved into the shade of a beech tree. Spreading her cardigan over last year’s leaves, she sat down. She had come prepared. Two ready-made bottles and a couple of clean nappies were tucked into the foot of the pram. No one was going to want anything from her for at least two hours. Feeling guilty at having left her mother with all the work of her father-in-law’s Sunday dinner, she delved under the pram covers and removed the copy of
Rebecca
that had taken six weeks of waiting to get from the central lending library.
Leaning back against the tree, she opened the book, folded the slip of newspaper she had been using as a marker into the front cover and lost herself in the Cinderella world of a bystander who could only look on, never participate, in the wealth and riches of Monte Carlo society.
That was when Ronnie saw her. On his way from the top end of the lake he paused on the bank, and looked down to see a girl in a flowered blue and white dress with a straw hat on her head, totally engrossed in the book on her lap.
Smiling to himself at the peaceful scene in a world at war, he continued to limp along the path that bordered the bank. When he reached the half-way point he saw the pram. The girl lifted her head to turn a page and he realised it was Diana. He waved and she waved back.
‘Enjoying the weather?’ he asked as he drew alongside her.
‘It’s glorious. Tina thrown you out of the café already?’
‘She shooed me out when she came back from seeing Will off at the station yesterday. I think she wanted something to take her mind off him.’
‘That’s hard on you when you built up the business.’
‘Not really. To be honest I was just as happy to get out of there as Tina seemed to be to get back. I’d forgotten how tedious café work can be, especially after spending the last five years working on a farm, albeit a poverty-stricken one.’
‘Won’t you go back to running the cafés after the war?’
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow, let alone that far ahead.’
‘I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me, it must be hard to plan for the future without Maud.’
‘No harder than it is for anyone else in these unsettled times. At least Maud and I had five uninterrupted years. Tina and William will be lucky to spend the odd week together until the war is over.’
‘But on the bright side, there’s not much danger of them quarrelling.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. They came pretty close to it once or twice that I could hear.’
He took off his jacket, cleared an area of sticks and the worst of the leaves and spread it out. ‘Mind if I sit with you for a while? I keep making the mistake of thinking this leg of mine is better than it is, and I walked much further than I intended. It was the pond bringing back so many childhood memories. Fishing for tiddlers and tadpoles …’
‘… picnics of jam sandwiches and lighting bonfires to roast potatoes.’
‘Not when I was around.’
‘No, not with you,’ she agreed. ‘You were so much older than the rest of us, you seemed like a grown-up. And an angry one at that. As I said before, we were all terrified of you.’
‘I’m not that much older than you,’ he protested.
‘Ten years was an enormous gap when we were kids. Somehow it doesn’t seem so big now.’
‘Another twenty years and you’ll catch up with me, thirty and you’ll be older,’ he teased.
‘Apple?’ She reached into the pram and brought out a couple.
‘Can you spare it?’
‘Wyn’s cousin has a farm in Ynysybwl. These are the last of his winter store. They’re wrinkled, but still good. If we don’t eat them now they’ll start going off.’
‘Thank you.’ He bit down into it, savouring the sweetness. It had been a long time since he had eaten fresh fruit.
‘What you did with Tony the other day -’
‘Was what any older brother would have done to keep a younger one in check. I’m only sorry you were around when he got ugly drunk.’
‘I dread to think what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.’
‘You would have knocked him out. A push of the little finger would have been enough. He wanted to apologise to you the following morning, but I wouldn’t let him. I thought it better that he leave town. Tony can be thoughtless and quick-tempered, but he’s not all bad when he’s sober … but then you’d know that.’
‘I should never have gone out with him.’
‘He should never have treated you the way he did.’
‘He told you about it?’
He nodded. ‘But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone else.’
‘Half the town suspects the truth. Wyn and I knew it would be that way when we married.’
‘Didn’t you ever think of letting Tony know about the baby?’
‘I had no reason to. He didn’t seduce me, I wanted to make love to him,’ she said flatly. ‘I… I had my reasons.’
‘Tony told me you’d been raped before you started courting him.’
‘He did?’ She turned aside and stared down at a clump of bluebells at her feet. The blue petals had withered, giving way to the green seed pods. ‘It’s not easy to explain, but after what happened I wanted to find out if I could be married. It sounds stupid now, but it never occurred to me that I could get pregnant. But I’m not sorry I had Billy.’ She raised her head defiantly. ‘He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and Wyn and I intend to do all we can to give him a good start in life.’