‘I’ll drink to that.’ Evan made a wry face as the vodka disappeared down his throat.
Charlie put down his empty glass and picked up the bottle ready to refill his and Evan’s glass. William hung on to his tumbler as he walked over to Alma. ‘Am I allowed to kiss the boss’s wife goodbye?’
She hugged him. ‘You take care of yourself.’
‘I’m only going training. I’ll see you again before I get sent overseas.’
‘You can still take care.’
He turned to Charlie. His boss was only nine years older than him, but perhaps because he had been Evan’s friend first, he had always seemed older, more mature like his uncle. William held out his hand but Charlie ignored it. Lifting him off his feet he crushed him in a bear hug.
‘See you back at the house,’ Evan said as William turned away so no one would see the emotion mirrored on his face. William reached for Tina’s hand, calling a last goodbye as he led her out of the room and down the stairs.
‘Myrtle, I told you that we’d be eating at the party,’ Wyn admonished his sister when he saw the table in the parlour laid with enough sandwiches and slabs of cake to feed a dozen people.
‘I wasn’t sure how much you’d eat there.’ She turned to Diana, her soft, grey eyes clouded with resignation and exhaustion. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Diana pulled off her glove and shook Myrtle’s hand.
‘You should have laid this in the kitchen, Myrtle.’
‘Dad wouldn’t hear of it, and you know what he can be like.’
Wyn nodded grimly as he helped Diana off with her coat. ‘I suppose I’d better introduce you, but I warn you now, he can be difficult, and downright rude.’
‘It’s the pain,’ Myrtle apologised, with a readiness that revealed that she was accustomed to making excuses for her father. ‘He suffers constantly and it wears him down. It’s no wonder he gets cross occasionally.’
‘When doesn’t he get cross?’
‘Wyn!’ Myrtle reproached her brother with an expression that reminded Diana of a whipped puppy.
Diana followed Wyn into the middle room. The first thing that struck her was the smell. A dense, sickroom odour of medicines and liniment mixed with cabbage and stewed tea; stale scents that lingered, imprisoned in the atmosphere. It was difficult to resist the temptation to rush to the window, haul down the casement and allow in draughts of cool, fresh air.
‘Dad,’ Wyn led Diana to the bed pushed close to the fire. ‘This is Diana, who works in the High Street shop.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr Rees.’ Diana offered her hand to the withered figure sunk deep in immaculate, linen-sheathed pillows. She took the fleshless claw he presented, and shook it. His skin was sallow, yellowed by sickness and stretched as dry and lifeless as old parchment over his skull. But there was nothing frail or sick about his eyes. Dark, alive, they rolled in their sockets like cockroaches trapped in sour milk, absorbing every detail: her clothes, her hair, the expression on her face as she glanced at his son.
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet you after all this time. Tell me,’ he demanded in a high-pitched voice, ‘when’s the big day?’
‘Pardon?’ Diana blanched, wondering how this old man, locked up as he was in this sickroom, had heard about her and Tony Ronconi.
‘Dad!’ Wyn protested furiously.
‘I told you I wanted a daughter-in-law. Well, this one looks healthy enough. What are you waiting for, boy? Don’t tell me you haven’t asked her yet?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘It’s family business,’ his father contradicted sharply. ‘And if I’ve warned you once I’ve warned you a dozen times, I’ll disown you if you don’t marry, and soon. I’ll cut you out of my will, I’ll –’
Diana retreated to the parlour as the old man’s ravings grew louder and more insistent.
‘Please, sit down, make yourself at home,’ Myrtle gabbled red-faced, before running past her to help her brother try to quieten the old man. Diana hesitated for a moment, then closed the door. The last thing she wanted to do was eavesdrop on the ugly scene. The noise the old man was making filled the house. Feeling a certain sympathy for whoever lived next door, she crouched in front of the fire, picked up the poker and, without thinking, broke the crust of small coal that was keeping the fire in. Flames darted high, dancing up the chimney, reminding her of the fires she had stared into as a child on cold winter evenings. William and her sitting side by side, sharing their father’s easy chair as they had gazed at reddish-gold plumes and sparking fountains spurting between banks of glowing coals, seeing knights mounted on magnificent horses, towering castles, beautiful damsels in distress and evil, people munching dragons. The last image had been one of William’s inventions – she had always looked for the fairy-like and ethereal; he, the grotesque and evil.
So many dreams. Where had they all gone? Had William found his damsel in Tina? She hoped so, especially now when she knew she would never find her knight.
‘I’m sorry you had to witness that.’ Wyn walked in, his face flushed from humiliation and the unnaturally high heat in the middle room. ‘It was a mistake to bring you here. Dad’s not himself…’
‘Really, it didn’t bother me,’ Diana broke in, wanting to save him embarrassment. ‘And I promise I won’t say a word, to anyone.’
‘Thank you.’ He pulled back one of the chairs from the table and sat close to where she was huddled on the hearthrug. ‘I’ve taken the coward’s way out and left Myrtle to it. She’s always been better than me at calming him down. She’ll join us when she can. In the meantime I think we should start.’
‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’
‘Myrtle will be offended if you don’t. Please,’ he pulled out a chair alongside his. ‘Tea?’ he picked up a potholder from the fireplace and lifted the kettle on to the fire.
‘Yes, please.’
‘Milk and two sugars?’
‘You remembered.’ She looked back to the fire, strangely reluctant to release the memories the flames evoked; almost as though the simple act of repeating a childhood pastime could roll back the years and restore the innocence and youth that Ben Springer had destroyed.
‘Looking for dragons?’
‘You know?’
‘When I was small I used to spend hours staring into the fire, imagining dragons living in the glowing caverns between the coals.’
‘And castles and beautiful ladies …’
‘And heroes in shining armour. So children aren’t that different after all?’
‘It doesn’t look like it.’
Myrtle must have boiled the kettle once already. It started hissing and Wyn reached for the teapot and caddy. Warming the pot with a splash of water that he poured into a slop bucket he spooned in tea-leaves and poured on the water. ‘To tell the truth, I’m glad in a way that you saw what you did. It’s going to make what I’m about to say easier. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a few days. It’s not a spur of the moment decision, I’ve been thinking about it for some time.’ He paused for a moment and she turned away, afraid that he was about to ask her to marry him. Much as she valued and respected Wyn as a friend and boss, and wanted marriage, and a normal life with a husband and children, she knew that she could never be happy with him. Quite aside from the gossip, after what he’d said about loving the boy from Pwllgwaun, she realised life with him would be anything but normal.
He took her hands into his. ‘I won’t be offended if you say no, or want time to think about it, but I’d like you to take over the running of the business. I’m all too aware that what I’m asking is no small thing.’
‘But why?’ The notion of him abandoning the shops shocked her even more than a marriage proposal would have done. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Join up.’
‘Wyn, how can you, your father needs you …’
‘My father needs nursing, and that’s woman’s work. There’s nothing I can do to help Myrtle on that score. You saw how he is with me. He hates me. I’ve always been a disappointment to him. I wish I could be the son he wanted, but I can’t and that’s an end to it. And no matter what I do, how much I try, all I ever succeed in doing is upsetting him. Every time I go near him he starts shouting, and it takes hours for Myrtle to calm him down. Please, Diana, just keep the shop running in the theatre with whatever stock you can get. The round will have to go, but since sugar’s been rationed I’ve practically nothing to sell anyway.’
‘What about the shop on the Graig hill?’
‘I’ll put it in the hands of a letting agency. I don’t think there’ll be any problem in renting it out. There’s no talk of vegetables being rationed and one or two of the market boys are looking to open up a greengrocer’s on the Graig. I know it means that you’ll be on your own, that you’ll have to make all the decisions about the shop and stocking it, and do the banking after you’ve taken your wages out of the takings, but I’ll increase your wages to match the responsibilities. What do you say?’
‘I think you’re mad to consider joining up.’
‘William and the Ronconi boys have.’
‘They’re mad too.’
‘Diana, this war isn’t going to last a few months, it’s going to last for years. I know nothing much is happening at the moment, but it soon will, and when it does, the army is going to need every man it can get.’
‘And because you’ve lost the person you loved, and you think no one else needs you, you’ve decided to be in the forefront when the killing starts?’ She looked up to see Myrtle standing in the doorway, a shocked expression on her tearstained face, a handkerchief clutched to her mouth.
‘I’ll be going whether you decide to run the business for me or not, Diana, and if you don’t, Myrtle may crack under the strain of trying to look after both my father and the shop.’
‘But you don’t have to go. You can wait until the call-up …’
‘As I said, I’ve been thinking about it for some time. I’m going to the recruiting office first thing in the morning, and I’d really appreciate an answer before I go. What is it to be?’
‘I’ll run your business,’ Diana said softly, but she was looking at Myrtle not at Wyn. If she had nothing to look forward to, Myrtle had even less. Besides, wasn’t Wyn offering her exactly what she needed? A business to throw all her energies into? If she could a run a shop successfully for him, one day she might be able to do it for herself.
‘I’ll walk down with you to the station in the morning and wave you off.’
‘No,’ William protested. ‘I’d rather say goodbye to you tonight.’
‘I’d settle for that, if I could think of somewhere private we could spend a couple of hours together.’ Tina shivered as they made their way across the deserted Tumble.
‘Cold?’ He put his arm around her and turned up the collar on her coat.
‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘Come on, Will, there has to be somewhere we can go. Can’t you smuggle me into your house?’
‘My mother would have a fit.’
‘It looked like she, along with your uncle and Phyllis were settling into Charlie’s for the evening.’
‘Don’t you believe it. They won’t be far behind us. Phyllis won’t let Brian stay up late, and they’ve Bethan’s baby to look after as well, remember?’
‘And Angelo is sleeping in the café,’ she grumbled, looking back under the railway bridge at the shadow that was all that could be seen of the Tumble café. ‘But,’ she hooked her arm into his, ‘if we call in to see how Laura is doing, we might find out how long Mama and Papa are likely to be.’
‘Tony and all the others will be in your house.’
‘Sometimes I think you don’t want to be alone with me.’
‘If by that you mean I’m likely to lose my head, I’ll agree with you.’
‘The same way you lost it with Vera Collins?’
‘You promised you’d never mention her name again.’
‘I hate to think of you and her …’
‘It meant nothing.’ Drawing her close, he kissed her lightly, gently, as though she were so delicate that even the simple act of placing his lips on hers might hurt her. ‘Not like you and me,’ he whispered as he hugged her shoulders and carried on walking.
‘You’re a funny boy, William Powell.’
‘For getting engaged to you?’
‘That’s just one reason. Look, there’s two flashes of white running boards parked outside Laura’s house. That means Andrew’s still there. Let’s walk up and find out if I’m an auntie.’
‘You like babies?’
‘I hope I’ll like mine better than I’ve liked my brothers and sisters, but I must admit even most of them were all right until they started to talk and were able to answer back.’ She tapped quietly on Laura’s door before tentatively opening it. ‘Anyone around?’
‘In the kitchen,’ came an answering masculine cry.
‘You too.’ She pushed William ahead of her.
‘Not likely.’
‘Laura won’t be having the baby in the kitchen, stupid. Go on.’
William reluctantly walked down the passage and into the tiny kitchen. Mrs Ronconi was scrubbing the top of the already immaculate range with a blackleading brush. Mr Ronconi, Andrew and Trevor were sitting around the table, an untouched bottle of brandy and four glasses laid out in front of them.
‘If you’ve come to toast the baby’s health you’re in for a long wait,’ Trevor greeted them dolefully. ‘Bethan says it could be hours yet.’
‘Trust Laura to rush off and break up my engagement party for nothing,’ Tina complained.
‘The poor girl is having a dreadful time,’ Mrs Ronconi countered resentfully, ‘and all you can do is think of yourself.’
‘Tina was joking, Mama,’ Mr Ronconi cut in, all too aware of his wife’s ability to create a three-act drama out of a small crisis, let alone a birth. ‘Here,’ he handed Tina a bunch of keys. ‘These are Laura’s keys to all three cafés. You’d better keep them if you’re going to take over the Taff Street place tomorrow. In by six to supervise the pastrycook, and open by eight, mind you,’ he ordered. ‘And a good night’s sleep first, which means you take her straight home, young man.’
‘I will, Mr Ronconi.’
‘Don’t worry about a thing, Papa. And I’ll help Tony to put the little ones to bed.’
‘Check they wash behind their ears, clean their teeth and …’
‘Don’t worry, Mama,’ Tina kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘Tony and I will see to everything between us.
Give Laura my love, and tell her I’ll call in on my way to work tomorrow.’
‘If you do, you may find all of us in bed with exhaustion,’ Trevor griped.
‘One thing’s certain: Laura couldn’t look any worse than you.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you,’ her mother disputed. ‘Men, they always get off lightly, they –’
‘Don’t worry, I think both father and mother will survive the experience,’ Andrew reassured her.
Hearing a sound upstairs, William backed down the passageway. Tina followed. She couldn’t wait to leave. She had a key to the café in High Street and it was only five minutes down the road. William couldn’t possibly object to stopping off there to make sure the premises were locked properly, could he?
The flat above the grocer’s shop on the corner of the Graig hill and Factory Lane was shrouded in silence, just as it was every Sunday evening. Jenny’s mother had returned from chapel and gone to bed early, not that she ever went late, and her father was drinking illicitly in the Morning Star next door, as he did every Sunday night. Even before the war the landlord had kept the back door open for regulars.