‘I saw it. I saw it all. He was speeding recklessly, at least thirty miles an hour, and everyone knows the limit’s twenty in the blackout.’ A man pushed his way to the front of the rapidly thickening crowd.
‘Go into the theatre,’ the manager ordered briskly, ‘and telephone for a doctor before this fellow bleeds to death.’
A car door slammed and another torch shone down on them, this time covered with tissue paper.
‘It’s Wyn Rees,’ Dai spat out the name contemptuously. ‘I bet that’s the first time he’s been on top of a woman.’
‘We’ll have less of that,’ the manager said firmly.
‘But he ran out in front of me without warning. Everyone must have seen it. I didn’t stand a chance …’ Anthea Llewellyn-Jones, the bank manager’s daughter, appealed to the shadowy figures behind the torchlights.
‘I saw you speeding, girl. Just who in hell do you ARPs think you are? Requisitioning cars for your bloody war games and killing innocent pedestrians.’ The man was shouting at Anthea, but it was Dai who answered.
‘Trying to save the country and your bloody neck.’
‘Trying to add to your own self-importance, more like. When have either of you two ever driven a car before?’
‘All of you. Quiet!’ the manager ordered sternly. ‘There’s a badly injured man here.’
The shock of what had happened finally sank in. Diana tried to sit up. It was only then she realised what the weight on her legs was. ‘Wyn …’ she murmured weakly. ‘Wyn …’
‘Please, Miss Powell, try to stay still for both your sakes.’ The manager was rolling Wyn gently away from her. ‘The doctor will be here soon and then we’ll get you both into hospital.’
Harry Griffiths left the Queen’s early. George Collins was on a winning streak, and after he’d counted up his losses halfway through the evening and found they amounted to more than a pound, he threw in his cards and settled for half an hour of serious drinking.
All he could think about was seeing Megan again. There were so many things he wanted out of life: Megan; his wife out of his house; Eddie to start writing to Jenny; and above all happiness for everyone he cared for, principally Megan. And he couldn’t see his way clear to achieving any of them.
When he’d been young and penniless, he’d assumed money to be the panacea for all ills. Now, with the pits reopening and most of his customers settling their ‘tabs’ on a weekly rather than ‘catch can’ basis, the shop was doing better than it had done since his grandfather had set it up. And with luck, the reserves he was building would enable him to hold out through any damaging influences the war and rationing might have. But he had learned a long time ago that happiness depended on a lot more than a successful business or a bank account in credit. His shop was as secure as any in Pontypridd, he had a little money, and he was wretched; and what was worse, he had no one to blame for his misery other than himself.
He should have sent his wife packing years ago. The morning after his wedding, if he’d had any sense. Why hadn’t he?
The more he considered the question, the more an answer eluded him. It hadn’t been the advent of Jenny that had kept them together. His wife had been so appallingly ignorant she hadn’t even realised Jenny was on the way until she had been almost six months gone. Then what? No other woman to love until he had noticed Megan Powell? And Megan’s insistence, even after he’d taken to visiting her house three or four evenings a week, that she didn’t want a permanent relationship at the cost of breaking up his marriage?
He pushed his hands deeper into his pocket and carried on walking up Taff Street, seeking solutions to problems that were insoluble. He had to see Megan. It was no longer a wish, but a burning need, well worth risking Evan’s wrath and being thrown off his doorstep. He wondered if all that nonsense about sleeping with his wife had frightened her enough to grant him a divorce. The only thing he had enjoyed about the ridiculous scene between them that morning had been her mortification when she had realised he was staring at her corset. The thought of sharing a bed with her after all these years repulsed him, probably as much as the thought of rolling over to make room for him, did her.
It was still comparatively early, no more than a quarter-past ten if the clock in the Queen’s had been right. He would walk past the shop, carry on up the hill, confront Megan and tell her once and for all that no matter what, he intended to spend the rest of his life with her.
He heard the sound of women sobbing up ahead against a background of raised voices, saw flashes of torchlight, an unheard-of infringement of lighting regulations.
‘Who’s that?’ The torch shone full in his face, blinding him.
‘Harry Griffiths,’ he answered, recognising Huw Davies’s voice. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Wyn Rees and Diana Powell have just been run over.’
‘By a van that was doing over thirty, when regulations limit traffic to twenty miles an hour in the blackout. Dai Station was in it …’
‘Shut up,’ Huw interposed swiftly. ‘We could do with a hand, Harry.’
Harry stepped forward and saw Tina and Gina sitting either side of Diana on the kerb and Andrew John stooping over a figure laid out on the ground. Behind him Anthea Llewellyn-Jones was crying on Dai Station’s shoulder.
‘He can’t afford to wait for an ambulance. Constable Davies?’ Andrew rose to his feet and looked for Huw. Both Huw and the manager of the New Theatre stepped forward.
‘I’m carrying some splints and strapping, but not enough for injuries as extensive as these, and I dare not risk moving him until both legs are immobilised. Do you have any spare wood that I can use in the theatre?’
‘The shutter over the booking office is four feet long.’ The manager was already halfway to the foyer door.
‘Get it, and something to cut it up with, please. Constable, help the girls move Diana into the front seat of my car, she’s going to have to go to the hospital too.’
‘What about me?’ Anthea wailed. ‘I feel awful. I think I’m going to faint…’
‘Put her down before she falls down,’ Andrew ordered Dai brusquely.
‘I’m all right,’ Diana protested in a voice that was anything but, as the girls helped her to her feet.
‘Just do as you’re told, there’s a good girl,’ Andrew commanded.
‘I feel awful, Andrew,’ Andrea cried, imposing on an old courtship and a friendship between their respective parents.
‘Go home and take two aspirin.’
‘Here’s the board, and the fire axe.’ The manager rushed back carrying both.
‘Right, Harry over here. Need anyone else, Andrew?’ Huw asked.
‘We should manage it between the three of us.’
Harry stepped closer, and blanched. Andrew had placed his torch on the road to throw the maximum light on to Wyn’s legs. Below Wyn’s knees both legs were bloodied and crushed. His trousers were torn, soaked in blood, and between the dark spreading stains Harry could see the white of splintered bones.
‘On the count of three,’ Andrew directed as soon as he had finished strapping Wyn’s legs to the rough boards Huw had chopped.
They lifted Wyn slowly and carefully into the back of Andrew’s car. To his amazement Harry saw that Wyn’s eyes were open. He didn’t make a sound when they moved him, but his teeth showed white in the torchlight, and when he was finally propped on the back seat of Andrew’s car, blood ran from his lips where he had bitten through them.
‘I’ll go straight to the Cottage Hospital,’ Andrew looked to the theatre manager: ‘if you could telephone ahead and warn them I’m on my way, I’d be grateful. And tell them to get the operating theatre ready. I’ll need a scrub nurse and the X-ray machine, and you’d better ask them to call out my father. Diana’s going to need a check-up.’
‘Don’t worry about telling the families, I’ll see to it,’ Huw said. He closed the door gently on Wyn.
‘Be sure to tell Mam I’m fine,’ Diana called from inside the car.
‘And that she won’t be home until tomorrow,’ Andrew warned.
‘I’m going home, I could call in on the Powells, Huw,’ Harry volunteered.
‘There’s no need.’
‘It’s no trouble, and you’ll be busy with Wyn’s family. I’ve heard his father is in a bad way, and his sister already has a load on her shoulders without this.’
‘All right,’ Huw conceded, too preoccupied with the task in hand to think through the implications of Harry going to Evan’s house. ‘Perhaps you’ll take the boys up with you.’
‘I think we should walk Tina and Gina home, Constable Davies,’ Luke interrupted.
‘Good idea,’ Huw agreed, uncertain whether Tina and Gina were shocked or just appeared unnaturally pale in the torchlight.
Andrew started his engine, and Huw pushed the crowds back. Harry didn’t wait to see them off. He had his chance and he intended to make the most of it. He had a valid excuse to see Megan, and he was going with her brother’s blessing.
‘Wyn’s legs looked a real mess. Do you think they’ll be able to save them?’
‘Wyn’s Diana’s boss, the one you were telling me about earlier?’ Alexander asked, neatly sidestepping Tina’s question as he followed her into the café.
‘Yes. The manager of the New Theatre said he pushed Diana out of the way of the van. God knows what the ARP wardens think they’re doing commandeering trucks and careering round town like that. They could have killed Diana and Wyn.’
‘Don’t you read the papers, love?’ a tram conductor asked as he waited patiently to pay his bill. ‘Accidents have rocketed since they brought in the lighting regulations.’
‘That particular accident happens to be my best friend …’ Tina began, before succumbing to tears and fumbling blindly for the kitchen door. Gina intercepted her and soon both girls were sobbing. Luke took the money from the tram conductor and put it in the till.
‘Girls!’ Alfredo exclaimed in disgust as he stuck his head around the door. ‘For all the good you’re doing you may as well go home.’
‘Not until the café’s closed.’ Tina made an effort to pull herself together.
‘I can do it.’
‘You’re only twelve.’
‘And a boy, which makes me more sensible than either of you.’
‘We’ll all help,’ Luke offered. At that moment he would have walked on red hot coals if it meant he could stay with Gina for a little while longer.
‘Here’s the brush.’ Alfredo handed Alexander, who happened to be closest to him, a long-handled brush and pan. ‘You can start by sweeping under the tables.’
As Alexander closed his hand over the handle, two blisters burst, soaking the wood with blood. He had a sudden longing for his cramped, dusty office in the museum; the quiet, if dull routine of academic life, and polite, deferential people who didn’t have the warped sense of humour of the working classes.
‘It’s good of you to call, Evan, seeing as how I’m under house arrest.’
‘I wouldn’t call confining you to your house at night, house arrest.’
‘No? Then what would you call it?’ Charlie turned off the light and opened the door wide to admit Evan.
‘The government being over-cautious about spies,’ Evan suggested mildly as he followed Charlie up the stairs and into his living room.
‘Did you come into town just to see me?’
‘I’ve just been to a lecture in the Institute on the Jewish situation in Nazi Germany.’
‘Is it any worse than the Russian situation in Wales?’
‘Everyone there agreed that the restrictions on people like you should be lifted.’
‘Drink?’ Charlie opened the sideboard and brought out the vodka bottle.
‘A small one, please.’ Evan looked around. ‘Where’s Alma?’
‘Gone to bed to escape my boorishness.’
‘I was going to ask how the interview went with the recruiting office, but I think I already know.’
‘They don’t want me in their army, but maybe they will find me special duties. Like sweeping their floors, or cleaning their latrines.’
‘They didn’t say that.’ Evan took the half-tumblerful of vodka Charlie offered him.
‘Not exactly. They won’t make me a soldier but they’ll use me as a spy once they are sure of my loyalties.’
‘They didn’t say that either.’
‘Not in so many words, but it was obvious. How many countries have you lived in? How many ports have you docked in? How many languages do you speak?’
‘Just out of interest, how many do you speak?’
‘Now you’re an undercover agent too?’
‘Even an uneducated miner like me can see that a man who speaks Russian and English has got to be an asset to the war effort.’
‘Particularly when you remember that the Russians marched hand in glove with the Germans into Poland.’
‘I can’t see the Fascists bedding down with Communists for the duration.’
‘That’s what I told them.’
‘But they want to use you as an interpreter?’
‘You know I was a seaman?’
‘I knew you jumped ship in Cardiff. I presumed you were a seaman not a passenger.’
‘I worked on Russian ships and later German ones, mainly the Baltic and the North Sea routes. Like every other sailor I learned the rudiments of as many languages as I could. It was either that, or risk not getting a berth.’
‘But you don’t want to work as an interpreter?’
‘It’s not what I volunteered for. I want to be an ordinary soldier, like Will and Eddie.’
‘The government are utilising people to the best of their abilities, which is why Haydn’s been drafted to ENSA and set to work on the radio. It would be a criminal waste to relegate someone with his stage experience and singing voice to the ranks.’
‘A waste – that’s what they said. “It would be a waste, to put someone with your linguistic ability and knowledge of foreign ports in the ranks, Mr Raschenko.”’
‘Then it looks as though they have something more than interpreting in mind,’ Evan said shrewdly.
‘As long as it remains between me and you, Evan, I think so.’
Evan pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered Charlie one.
‘I don’t mind taking my chances as a foot soldier, but this is something different.’
‘You’re worried about Alma?’
‘You’ve been a good friend, Evan. You’ve taken me as I am, never asked any questions. There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me. I have another wife.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m living with one woman and married to another.’
‘But I didn’t want to leave my first wife. She disappeared. In fact my whole village vanished while I was away one day. I came back to find the houses flattened and the people gone. Officials said they had been resettled in the East. That’s your Communism for you. When I asked too many questions I was arrested and sent to a labour camp. I escaped and became a seaman. For years I continued to look for someone … anyone from my village but I never found a single person. And now Alma is afraid that if I go to fight in this war I’ll find my wife again and forget about her.’ Charlie picked up the vodka bottle and refilled both their glasses, to the brim this time, emptying the bottle. ‘That’s why I wanted to join the ranks. What they want is something else.’
‘You think they’ll send you behind enemy lines?’
‘If you were in charge, what would you do with a Russian who speaks German, Polish, Finnish, Norwegian and English?’
‘Send him behind enemy lines. But you have a right to refuse, Charlie. This isn’t Russia …’
‘And have the finger of suspicion pointed at me more than it already is? No, my friend,’ he shook his head. ‘I’ll do what they want me to.’
‘And Alma?’
‘You’ll look after her?’
‘The best I can. You have my word on that.’
‘I promised her I’d come back. But that was when I thought I’d be an ordinary soldier.’
‘Charlie …’
‘Please,’ he lifted his vodka glass. ‘Just look after her. That’s all I ask.’
It was then Evan realised it was already arranged. Charlie had made his choice. ‘When are you going?’