Mouth dry with anticipation – and fear – she laid her hand on the banister rail in the hall and waited for him to walk down the curving staircase. The stress of the wakeful night was beginning to exact its toll. Her head was swimming, she felt giddy, faint, the hall around her taking on an unreal, almost surreal quality.
‘Rachel asleep?’ Andrew asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I suggest you make the most of it and catch up on some sleep yourself.’
‘I will later.’
‘Later she may be awake.’
‘As you’re always reminding me, I have help in the house. I’ll get Annie to take over if I’m tired.’ They went into the dining room. The maid came in from the kitchen and laid a dish of scrambled eggs and a loaded toast rack on the table. Bethan thanked her before turning to Andrew, who was already opening his letters. She lifted the teapot and poured herself a cup of tea. The maid had placed the coffee pot in front of Andrew, who preferred to drink coffee at breakfast.
‘Scrambled eggs?’ Seeing her looking at him, he pushed the chafing-dish towards her.
‘I’d rather you told me what the Ministry of War want with you and Trevor.’
‘What they want from everyone.’
‘You’ve been called up?’
‘Told to register. It doesn’t mean a thing.’
‘No? They’re just collecting names for the fun of it?’
‘They’re short of doctors. It’s my guess they’re checking on numbers, giving everyone of military age who’s registered with the BMA medicals, to clear us in case we’re needed at short notice some time in the future.’
‘When do they want you to register?’
‘Thursday.’
She rose abruptly and walked over to the window that overlooked the garden. It was the tail end of winter, but for once it wasn’t raining and the branches on the trees and shrubs bore the first tiny buds, evidence of the coming spring.
‘It doesn’t mean that I’ll have to go, darling.’ He was behind her, his hands locked around her waist, his chin buried in her hair. ‘You and Rachel are my whole world, I love you. The last thing I want to do is leave you.’
‘Until now, this whole stupid war has seemed unreal, like one of the games we played as children. Eddie, Haydn and now William and the Ronconi boys have been knocked out, so they have to disappear from the scene. The only casualties have been the ones we’ve read about in the Pontypridd Observer, like the poor woman who fell off a stepladder when she was hanging blackout curtains.’
‘Enough seamen have gone down with their ships to prove it’s real enough.’
‘And afterwards they’re just a list of names in the newspapers to everyone except those who know them. Our side sits in their camps in France and the Germans bomb them with leaflets, and we retaliate by bombing Germany with pieces of paper. The headlines tell us that ships have gone down, planes have crashed, we get given gas masks, ration books and endless lists of things to do, but nothing seems real to me except the boys going away, and now you.’ Her eyes were dark, frightened pools in her pale face. ‘I’m terrified none of you are ever going to come back. That you’re all going to disappear for ever.’
‘We’ll be back. We’ll all be back. That’s if I go at all.’
Rachel mewed softly in her sleep.
‘Here, let me.’ He lifted her out of her day cot. ‘Nothing will change. Whatever happens, I’ll go on loving you just the way I do now.’
‘How can you say that when we don’t even know how long this war is going to last? The men who marched away in 1914 came back in 1919 to a changed world. Five years will be a lifetime to Rachel, and will seem like a hundred to me if we’re forced to spend it apart. No one will be the same, or feel the same way …’
‘We will.’
‘I wish I could be as sure as you.’
‘Trust me.’
‘Promise me one thing,’ she demanded urgently.
‘What?’ he asked warily.
‘That you won’t go unless they make you.’
‘Beth …’
‘Promise me? I won’t be fobbed off. Please, Andrew.’
‘How can I when you’re asking for the impossible? I’m a doctor, I’ve taken a solemn oath to save lives.’
‘Even at the cost of destroying your own and mine? You’re no different to the boys,’ she continued, pain and exhaustion lending an uncharacteristic sharpness to her tongue. ‘You think this war will be all glory, medals and marching.’
‘No,’ he countered evenly. ‘I think there will be shooting, shelling, bombing, killing and maimed bodies that will need healing. And that’s what I’m trained to do.’
‘And your patients in Pontypridd?’
‘My father and old Dr Evans will be here to see to them. Beth, don’t ask me to opt for an easy war when so many others can’t. God only knows none of us want it, and I have more reason than most to stay, but now that it’s here we all have to do our bit.’
‘In case people like Dai Station sneer?’ she mocked.
He looked down at his daughter sleeping peacefully in his arms. ‘No. So I can look her in the eye and tell her I took my chances along with everyone else.’
William was almost at Temple Chapel when he remembered he’d promised Jenny he’d call into the shop to pick up a letter for Eddie. He checked the time on his watch and raced back up the hill, panting for breath as he opened the door.
‘I thought you’d forgotten.’ Jenny took the envelope from the shelf where she’d stowed it next to the cigarettes and tobacco.
‘I almost did. No time to stop.’
‘William –’ she walked around the counter and opened the door for him – ‘you will remember to tell whoever takes the letter that I miss Eddie?’
He looked at her. Pretty, blonde and scheming, in his opinion she’d only begun to behave the way a wife should after Eddie had left. He held up the letter. ‘You’ve told him in here?’
She nodded. ‘But you could try reinforcing it. After the way I behaved, I need all the help I can get.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘Tell him to try and get leave soon. I couldn’t bear it if he didn’t come home next time. I have to see him, William. I need to set things straight between us to make up for all the awful things I did.’
‘I’ll try to find the right messenger, but you know what Eddie can be like.’
She bit her lip as he wrenched open the door with one hand and stuffed her letter into his inside pocket with the other. Knowing what Eddie was like and how much she’d hurt him didn’t stop her from hoping for the impossible.
Diana was in the back of the shop when William came running in. Holding back her tears, she hugged him.
‘You’ll take care of Mam?’
‘You don’t have to ask that.’
‘No.’ He checked his watch again: he had five minutes at most. Why did he always leave the most important things until there was no time to deal with them? ‘You and Wyn – is it serious?’
‘I work for him, we’re good friends. You know I like him,’ she added, ‘and you don’t have to tell me what you think of him, I already know.’
‘You won’t do anything stupid?’
‘With Wyn? What exactly do you mean, Will?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I doubt that I’ll do anything quite as stupid as join the Guards – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Come back safe.’
‘I intend to. I have to go.’
‘And remember your promise to write,’ she called after him as he ran down the hill. ‘Whatever else you do, don’t forget to write.’
‘Does that go for me too?’ Wyn was behind her.
‘Why do men always feel the need to dress up in their best clothes to join up?’ she asked tearfully as she eyed his suit.
‘Perhaps in the hope of impressing enough to be made officers.’
‘I heard you have to be English to be one of those.’ She returned to the counter, trying to pretend she didn’t care that he was leaving too. ‘When are you going?’
‘About a week, according to the recruiting officer.’
‘Told your father?’
‘Last night when I came back from taking you home. He was still awake. I told him you’ll be running everything and that you can be trusted.’
‘And he approved?’
‘Of you, yes. I think he’d like you for a daughter-in-law,’ he said lightly, turning his father’s obsession into a joke. ‘Well, I can’t stand here chatting all day, I have a shop to let with an agent, a round to do, and warnings to give out that I won’t be around with the van again after this week.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose … no, never mind. Sorry I spoke.’
‘Don’t suppose what?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’ll brain you if you don’t finish what you’ve started.’
‘There’s a special showing in the New Theatre tonight for the Troop Comforts Fund. It’s
Marie Antoinette
with Tyrone Power and Norma Shearer. The management insists on everyone being seated before it starts. I thought we could shut the shop early and go and see it.’
‘And I could give you a hand to cope with the interval rush, and afterwards to close the shop?’
‘I did say forget it.’
‘It’s just what I need to help me forget Will going away.’
‘You mean it?’ He stared at her in astonishment.
She nodded. ‘I’ll be down straight after I close this place.’
‘You’re not just doing this because my father wants us to get married?’
‘I’m doing it because I want to see
Marie Antoinette
, and apart from Will and my uncles, you’re the only man in Pontypridd who doesn’t make me feel sick. And I happen to like your company, I always have. Are those enough reasons for you?’
He tipped his hat. ‘See you later.’
‘Had a warning phone call from Cardiff station. They’re all bloody conchies.’ Dai Station cleared his throat and aimed a stream of spittle at the feet of a small group of men who’d stepped off the incoming Cardiff train. The leading man paused, watching and waiting to see where the missive landed before walking on. Tall, with light brown hair and better-dressed than his companions, he had an air of culture and quality that Dai had taken instant exception to. ‘Come here hoping to hide away from guns, bullets and Hitler in our valleys, have you?’ Dai spat again, with better aim this time. ‘Bloody cowards, the lot of you. You’re not welcome here, so you may as well crawl back into whatever hole you slithered out of!’ he exclaimed, in a voice loud enough to carry to everyone standing on the platform.
‘I wonder if he’s got calluses hidden under those kid gloves?’ A porter drew alongside Dai and kicked one of the pigskin cases the man was holding.
‘Not likely. Idle bloody sods like these have never got their hands dirty in their lives. Have they, conchie?’ Dai hurled the last word like a missile. Elbowing his way aggressively forward he stopped only when he stood nose to nose with the man. The rest of the group shrank back, but not him. He stood his ground, looking down his long, thin nose at Dai’s squat figure.
‘He’s going to get them dirty now, Dai, so why don’t you layoff and leave the man in peace.’ Huw Davies pushed his constable’s helmet to the back of his head and stared coolly at Dai and the group of belligerent porters who had gathered behind him. Despite the presence of a policeman, the grumbling escalated. Wearing a slightly abstracted look, deliberately designed to lull would-be troublemakers into a false sense of security, Huw folded his arms and listened intently, picking up on every insulting phrase.
‘Scum of the earth …’
‘Won’t last half a day down the pit …’
‘No decent lodging house in Ponty will take them in …’
‘Too bloody cowardly to stand and fight like our boys …’
It was as much as Huw could do to keep his mouth shut. The only contribution that particular porter had made to the war effort had been illegal food hoarding as much as he could get away with.
‘Taking jobs from them that need them …’
The last comment was one too many, even for Huw.
‘The jobs are only for the duration, Dai. Same time the miners who’ve joined up will serve. Now go about your business, there’s good boys, before I have to arrest you for disturbing the peace.’
‘You’re taking their part against us?’ Dai demanded truculently.
‘I’m paid to keep trouble off the streets and the railway station, Dai. Now, I suggest you carry on and do your job so I can do mine, and that means leaving these gentlemen be.’
Setting a course straight through the knot formed by Dai and the porters, he walked towards the conscientious objectors. His sergeant had told him what to look for, but he couldn’t have missed them if he’d tried. They stood out like sore thumbs. The one Dai had spat at was better turned out than any of the crache on the Common, and that alone was enough to make him a curiosity in Pontypridd. Camel-hair coat, soft felt trilby, kid gloves, matching leather suitcases – Huw knew instinctively that the inside pocket of the three piece pinstripe suit the man was wearing would hold a gold monogrammed, solid silver cigarette case and lighter. But the conscripts behind him seemed to be cut from a rougher, more serviceable cloth. Most were wearing caps, even the minority who were dressed in ill-fitting suits; and there was a sprinkling of collarless shirts and cheap jackets that were too thin for the time of year. They looked like, and may have been for all he knew, farm labourers. One way and another if they learned to keep their heads down they’d survive. It was the man in the kid gloves he felt sorriest for because crache ways and soft hands were the first things to be crushed underground, and the crushing inevitably proved an agonisingly slow and painful process.
‘I take it you’re here to work in the pits?’
‘Alexander Forbes.’ The elegant man pulled off his right glove and held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, constable.’
‘Wish I could say the same,’ Huw replied as he shook the man’s hand.
‘We’ve been sent here by the Ministry of Labour.’ Alexander looked Huw in the eye without flinching. His voice was cultured, educated, just as Huw had suspected it would be. His eyes were grey, and as he lifted his trilby in deference to Huw’s status, Huw noticed that his hair was well cut and lightly pomaded, confirming his view that the man was crache all right.
‘There are twelve of us.’
‘I’m here to take you to the police station so you can get sorted with billets and work.’
‘Will we be starting today?’ one of the other men asked.