‘No.’
‘Pity, we could walk to mass together.’
‘I could wait at the door.’
‘For two hours in Treforest? There’s nothing to do over there.’
‘It would be worth it for the walk back.’
‘I leave before seven in the morning so I can be back to open this place up for the Sunday dinner trade.’
‘I could pick you up.’
‘No,’ Gina looked across to where Tina was sitting, ‘don’t do that. I’ll meet you. Mountain end of Graig Avenue at ten to seven?’
‘Here, as you persist in hanging around my baby sister all night you may as well make yourself useful.’ Tina dumped a tray of dirty dishes into Luke’s arms.
‘Would you like me to carry them through to the kitchen?’
‘Yes please, Luke,’ Gina smiled broadly at Tina. ‘It’s my break time, I’ll make us both a cup of tea.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if Gina will ever grow up,’ Tina grumbled as she took Gina’s place behind the till.
‘I rather think she just has.’ Alexander put his hand in his pocket and pulled out half a crown with difficulty. He was beginning to wonder if his fingers would ever get back to normal after the battering they were being subjected to in the pit.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s obvious Luke is besotted with her.’
‘She’s a child.’
‘And how old were you when you started seeing your fiancé?’
‘Older than her.’ She took a shilling from a customer and dropped it into the till, ramming the drawer shut. She turned to Alexander. ‘And what’s your interest in all this?’
‘Friendship, and the glow I get from seeing young love.’
‘Really?’ she enquired sceptically.
‘And if I was entirely honest –’ he lifted her hand in his damaged paw and kissed the tips of her fingers – ‘the pleasure I get out of taking a certain young lady home.’
Tina glanced up at him, the caustic quip she was about to make dying in her throat when she saw the expression in his eyes. It wasn’t just his attractive face, or even the look he was sending her way, there was something between them. An empathy she didn’t want to examine too closely for William’s sake, because she was afraid it might be rooted in more than simply loneliness.
‘Hello, Auntie Megan.’
Megan whirled around to see Eddie standing in the Griffiths’ kitchen behind her.
‘Eddie?’
He swept her off her feet. ‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘It’s all the running up and down stairs I’ve done for the past couple of weeks letting people in and out of here.’
‘Seems like a bit of a mess from what I’ve heard.’ Dropping his kitbag to the floor he shoved it into a corner with the toe of his boot.
‘A right mess,’ Megan agreed, ‘and Jenny’s had nothing but an endless string of visitors since it happened. And the worst of them was Jenny’s mother’s sister. She was hysterical when she came in, and in a dead faint when she left.’
‘Dad said you’ve been doing everything here. Thank you.’
‘You’ve been home?’
‘I wasn’t sure where everyone would be,’ he lied.
‘Jenny wouldn’t leave here, even before her mother was brought back.’
‘Dad told me the funeral was today. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’
‘It went well. Jenny insisted on everything being done traditionally. I tried to keep the worst of the sightseers and gossips at bay, but it wasn’t easy. You know what Mrs Griffiths was like.’
‘Better than most,’ Eddie said, tight-lipped. ‘All I can say is that if Harry did kill her, I wouldn’t blame him one little bit. If ever a woman needed murdering it was her.’
‘You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’
‘If I can help Harry justify her death, I will.’
‘There’s a fair chance there won’t be any charges. At least that’s what Mr Spickett told Jenny tonight.’
‘Dad said Harry confessed?’
‘He has. But Huw says the only real evidence against him is his own testimony, and the doctor in the asylum says Harry’s had a complete breakdown. He’s not expected to leave the place for at least a year, if then.’
‘Anyone who confesses to murder without waiting to be charged has to be off his trolley.’
‘What am I thinking of? You must be starving …’
‘Phyllis cooked me a month’s rations.’
‘But you’ll want to see Jenny, not stand here gossiping with me.’
‘Is anyone with her?’ he asked swiftly.
‘A roomful. As I said, poor Jenny’s had nothing but people in and out since it happened. I’ve tried to keep to close friends and relatives, but it’s been difficult. Dying the way she did, I think more have come from curiosity than any desire to express their sympathy.’
‘If you mean that Mrs Griffiths wasn’t liked …’
‘Eddie, talk like that isn’t going to help Jenny.’
‘I see the shop’s still open.’
‘Your father found a reliable girl in Leyshon Street who was willing to take over at short notice. It’s doing better than it ever has.’
‘Moral is, to improve trade, stage a gruesome death on the premises. Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘Sick sense of humour.’
‘It seems to have got sicker since you’ve been in the army.’
‘You wait until you see the change in Will. Which reminds me –’ he pulled an envelope out of his inside pocket – ‘letter for you. I came via our home base camp.’
‘He’s all right?’
‘Fit as a fiddle, in all ways. You know Will.’
‘That’s why I can’t help worrying about him. But look,’ she untied the apron from her waist. ‘You really should be with Jenny.’
‘Dad’s waiting in the snug of the Morning Star for you.’
‘I’ll get rid of everyone.’
‘Do me a favour, don’t tell Jenny I’m here.’
‘But you are going to see her?’
‘Of course, but not with people around.’
‘And I’ll tell the girl to lock up downstairs. The shop can close early for once. I’m sorry you had to come home this way, Eddie, but it’s good to have you back.’
‘You are coming back tonight?’ Suddenly he was alarmed at the thought of being left alone with his wife.
‘There’s no point now you’re here. Besides, I’d like to see Diana before she goes up to the Cottage Hospital to visit Wyn, and it will be nice to sleep in my own bed instead of Harry’s box room for a change.’
‘Dad told me what happened to Diana and Wyn.’
‘It’s shaken her badly. But come on, boy, you’re holding me up. This is time you should be spending with your wife, not me.’ Picking up her apron, Megan left the room.
Eddie switched off the light and opened the curtains. He stood in front of the window staring out at the view of Factory Lane and the shadows of the coke works towers outlined against the rising moon. Behind him he could hear Megan ushering people out. She returned just once to remind him that there was a pot of stew in the oven that needed warming up.
‘You haven’t told Jenny I’m here?’
‘No, she thinks I’m just going home for an hour. See you tomorrow.’ She kissed him and left. The stairs creaked, the door closed and she was gone. He waited, half expecting Jenny to come and put the stew on the stove, but there wasn’t a sound in the flat. The bell rang downstairs. He heard a key turning; ‘the girl’, whoever she was, had locked up. He had no reason to delay any longer.
He walked along the passage to the living room. Megan had left the door open. The curtains were drawn and the room smelt stuffy, as though fresh air hadn’t blown through it for days. But then it wouldn’t have, he reflected. The curtains were always kept drawn in a house of death.
Jenny was sitting on the sofa, sunk deep in thought. His heart beat faster as it always did whenever he saw her silver blonde hair, slender figure and smooth white skin. She was motionless, so still he wondered if she was sleeping. Then she looked up and saw him.
‘Eddie?’ She whispered his name softly, as though she were afraid he was a dream that would dissolve at the slightest sound.
‘They gave me compassionate leave.’
‘Your father said he’d try, but I didn’t dare hope they’d let you come. Oh Eddie.’ She was off the sofa and in his arms in an instant. Burying her face in his shoulder she began to cry, quietly at first, then as her tears flowed freer her throat constricted with harsh, rasping sobs.
He held her and stroked her hair, his mind awash with conflicting emotions. This was the girl who had married him, loving his brother. A girl he had left after three days of bitter fighting and arguing. A girl he loved, but who he’d never dared speak to of love.
‘It’s all right, Jenny,’ he said wearily, leading her to the sofa. ‘It’s going to be all right.’
‘But Dad … Mam …’
‘I know.’
‘Eddie …’
‘Just cry it out. We’ll talk later.’
Her grip tightened around his chest. He could feel her heart beating against his, and something of the old familiar emotions stirred within him. This was what he’d been most afraid of. Falling prey again to feelings that were unrequited and he could no more control than he could his need to breathe.
‘I’ve cleared it with the matron. You can stay with Wyn until eight. That’s an hour beyond normal visiting, so you’ll have to be quiet and not upset any of the other patients.’
‘I won’t,’ Diana assured Andrew’s father.
‘I’ll take you home afterwards …’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I have an ulterior motive. Andrew handed Mr Rees’s care over to me when he left and, well, to be perfectly honest the patient isn’t making the progress he should. I’d appreciate any help you can give me.’
‘Me? But I don’t know anything about nursing injuries like Wyn’s.’
‘I’m not asking you to nurse him, but tell me what you know about his likes and dislikes and the things that make life worthwhile for him. The only time he shows any signs of animation is when you’re here. The nurses can’t get a word out of him, he spends all day staring out of the window. He doesn’t read or talk to anyone, he won’t eat. He might be my patient, but if he’s going to recover from this it’s you, not me, who’s going to have to pinpoint the reason as to why he should make the effort.’
‘But last time I was here, you said his injuries were healing.’
‘Oh, physically he’s making reasonable progress. However, no matter how well he adapts to an artificial limb he’ll always walk with a pronounced limp, and unfortunately he knows it. But that accident did more than cripple him. It damaged his mind. He’s angry, with the kind of destructive anger that can worm into a man and destroy him if he’s not careful. I’ve seen it before with miners after pit accidents. Losing a limb makes some men, especially the younger ones, feel less than human. They’re labelled cripples and it’s as though the label detracts from their manhood. It takes a lot of courage to resume a normal life, or as near to one as they can manage, afterwards.’
‘But Wyn will be able to walk again?’ Diana asked anxiously.
‘First with crutches, then eventually with a stick, yes, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t. But it will take months, possibly as long as a year or two, and in the meantime he’ll have to undergo a slow, painful course of physiotherapy – a humiliating, dependent process for a proud man. Don’t forget he wanted to go into the army.’
‘He signed up for the Guards.’
‘Quite, and like most volunteers he probably had mixed feelings about going, and now it almost certainly won’t happen. He might even believe that he’s cheated death at the cost of becoming a cripple. To say he feels worthless is no exaggeration, and that coupled with the fact that he can’t even leave his bed to go to the bathroom at the moment without a nurse’s help, has turned him into an extremely withdrawn, resentful invalid.’ Dr John wasn’t telling Diana anything new. She had seen it for herself during the visiting hours that first Andrew, and then his father, had arranged for her over the month since the accident. But she hadn’t wanted to believe Wyn’s depressed state of mind was serious, or permanent. She still held herself responsible for the accident, and her guilt coupled with Wyn’s embittered frame of mind had made the past weeks extremely difficult. The last thing she remembered every night before she went to sleep was the look of pain and anguish that settled over Wyn’s face every time she caught him unawares. The first thing that came to mind every morning was the screech of brakes followed by the sight of Wyn’s horrific injuries in the puddle of torchlight.
‘You’ll remember what I said, and try to think of ways we can help him?’ Dr John led her out of the office to the door of Wyn’s private room.
‘I’ll try,’ she echoed, ‘I just wish there was something I could do that would make it all come right for him.’
‘That, young lady,’ he said drily, ‘is the something we doctors have been trying to find for the past two thousand years.’
Eddie’s shoulder was numb, his arm tingling with pins and needles.
‘Come on.’ He moved slightly, easing the weight of Jenny’s head higher up on to his chest. ‘It’s time you had tea.’
‘I don’t want to move, not yet.’
For the first time since he had walked into the room her voice was free from tears.
‘We can’t stay here all night.’ Gripping her by the shoulders he moved away and rose from the sofa.
‘No, but we could go to bed.’
‘Jenny …’
‘No, please Eddie. Just answer me one question. Did you read any of the letters I sent you?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of them?’
‘All of them,’ he repeated as he walked to the door that led to the kitchen.
‘Then why didn’t you answer them?’
‘You’ve no idea what it’s like in the army. They keep you busy from dawn to dusk. There’s no time for anything except spit, polish and parade grounds.’
‘Don’t give me that, Eddie. William’s in the army and he writes to Tina every day.’
‘She gives you his letters to read?’
‘Of course not, but she talks about what’s in them when she calls in here, generally finishing every sentence with, “but you’d know that anyway, Jenny, Eddie would have told you about it”.’
‘If I didn’t write, it was because I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I poured my heart out to you.’
Turning his back on her he went into the kitchen. Pulling the blackout, switching the light on, getting the stew out of the oven, putting it on the hob and lighting the gas gave him something to do. He was glad of an excuse to look anywhere but at her.
‘Aren’t you going to say something?’
‘Like what? Ask if you’re still sorry you married the wrong brother?’
‘Eddie, I thought we had settled all that. Haydn’s married to Jane, we’re married …’
‘But you still would have preferred to have been Haydn’s wife?’
‘At one time, perhaps,’ she said slowly, admitting to no more than he already knew. ‘Not any more.’
She moved towards him, but he still refused to face her. Resting her head against his back she stroked his arms through the rough khaki sleeves of his tunic. ‘I’ve grown up a lot since you’ve left, Eddie. I love you. The only thing I really regret is not finding out just how much until after you’d gone.’ She waited for him to react in some way. If only he’d say something – anything. ‘This material is horribly itchy, as bad as Welsh flannel, how do you stand it?’ It was an absurd question, but she couldn’t bear the silence between them a moment longer.
‘I wear a shirt underneath.’
She stood on tiptoe. Her breasts brushed against his arm as she kissed the side of his cheek – all she could reach. She had never failed to arouse him with her kisses, but for the first time since she had undressed for him in Shoni’s woods last summer, she wasn’t sure how he’d react to her lovemaking. When he didn’t push her away, she reached around and began unfastening the buttons on his uniform. He grabbed her hands, clutching them in a vice-like grip.
‘Eddie …’
‘If we’re going to do this, I want to do it properly, in a bed, and for the right reasons.’
‘Like I love you and I’m your wife?’
‘You sure about that first bit?’
‘I’m sure, although it’s hard being married to a man who’s never once said he loves me.’
Closing her eyes she buried her face in the back of his tunic, certain that she’d lost any chance she’d ever had of him returning to her. Then suddenly, without warning, he spun round and swung her into his arms.
‘My bedroom, you remember where it is?’
‘I remember leaving my suitcase there the day after we married, and picking it up later.’
‘This time you’ll stay?’
‘Only for a while, Jenny,’ he breathed as he kissed her neck. ‘It can only be for a while.’
‘You’ve done all the banking?’
‘I put every night’s takings in the night safe, as soon as I’ve locked the kiosk.’
‘My sister said you’d been up to see her. You’ve even persuaded my father to move into the parlour.’
‘My uncle’s carried his bed in there. Being able to close the door on his sickroom is easier for Myrtle. It gives her a little time to herself.’
‘I don’t know how you did it. Myrtle and I have been trying to get him to move out of that middle room for years.’
‘I told him the draught from the doors constantly opening and closing was affecting his arthritis.’
‘I wish I’d thought of that.’
‘The shop’s doing well, and now that rationing’s settled down we seem to have hit roughly the same level of trade every week. Myrtle said the takings aren’t far off what they were before the war.’
‘The fruiterers paying the rent on the shop in High Street?’
Diana swallowed hard and forced herself to look at him.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘They never moved in there, but I saw the agent this morning. He’s doing his best to let it.’
‘I bet he is.’
‘It’s a difficult time, Wyn. With most of the men being away, trade is down …’
‘You don’t have to remind me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I most probably would have been with them by now.’ His mouth settled into a grim line.
‘Are you in much pain?’ she asked gently – too gently.
‘As the doctor says, it’s something I’ll have to learn to put up with,’ he snapped.
‘I’m sorry –’
‘For pity’s sake stop saying sorry! What do you have to be sorry about?’
‘If I had seen that car, you wouldn’t have jumped in its path to push me out of the way, and then none of this would have happened.’
‘If it’s anyone’s fault it’s Anthea Llewellyn-Jones’s and Dai Station’s,’ he said, softening his tone a little. ‘And please stop crying. You know how I hate to see you cry.’
She opened her handbag and rummaged in its depths for a handkerchief.
‘Here,’ he pulled open the door of his locker and extracted one of the freshly laundered handkerchiefs Myrtle had brought in the last time she’d visited. ‘I’ve never known you to have a handkerchief at any crisis point in your life.’
‘As soon as you leave here, I’ll look for another job.’
‘Why?’ he demanded furiously.
‘Because there’s only one shop now. You can manage that on your own, you won’t need me.’
‘Take a good look, Diana. I can’t even walk to the bathroom unaided. Haven’t you noticed I’m a cripple now?’
‘I saw Dr John, he says you’ll soon be up and about.’
‘On crutches. For pity’s sake how do you think I’m going to run a shop when I can’t even stand like a man?’
‘You won’t be on crutches for ever.’
‘Oh yes, I forgot, the great aim is a stick, isn’t it? If you think I’m going to serve behind a counter –’
‘Why shouldn’t you serve behind a counter?’ she interrupted, finally beginning to lose patience with him.
‘I was going to say “only to have every customer point at me and regard me as a freak” if you’d let me finish.’
‘You served behind a counter often enough before.’
‘I wasn’t a cripple before.’
‘So you’re going to allow this accident to ruin your life?’
‘There’s no “allow” about it. It has.’
A nurse came to the door and he realised he’d been shouting.
‘Can I get you anything, Mr Rees?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ he answered in a subdued voice.
‘If you could keep it down. Some of the other patients are trying to sleep.’ She gave Diana a hard look.
‘I think it’s time I went.’ Diana rose and picked up her handbag.
‘If you like I could get you a wheelchair so you could accompany your lady friend to the door, Mr Rees?’
He stared at the nurse as though she was insane.
‘You did well in the chair earlier.’
‘I’d rather not put on a display right now, if you don’t mind.’
Diana looked despairingly at him, then walked slowly to the door. ‘I’ll see you again on Wednesday, Wyn.’
‘If you bring the books in, I’ll go through them.’
She gripped the door frame as a sudden giddy spell weakened her legs. Wyn either didn’t see her reel, or chose to ignore it. As soon as she recovered she walked away, not knowing what else she could do or say. For the first time since she’d struck up a friendship with Wyn, he’d retreated into a shell she simply couldn’t break through. Dr John was wrong. If Wyn was going to make a recovery, it wouldn’t be down to anything she did. Not while he chose to close her out of his life like this.
‘That has to be the best ever.’ Jenny ran her fingers through the thick mat of curling hair on Eddie’s chest.
‘Oh, I don’t know –’ he leaned over the edge of the bed and rummaged through the pockets of his uniform until he found his cigarettes and matches – ‘there have been one or two other occasions I can think of.’
‘Eddie Powell!’ She picked up a pillow and hit him on the head with it. Then she looked around. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Oh God, Auntie Megan’s stew.’ He shot out of bed and into the kitchen. Without stopping to switch on the light, he picked up the pan, dropping it almost immediately into the sink.
‘You clown, you’ve burnt your hands, haven’t you?’ Without waiting for an answer Jenny turned on the tap, grabbed his hands and pushed them under the running water. ‘There goes a week’s meat ration,’ she said as hissing water splashed back at them from the burning pan.
‘I have some money. Knowing Ponty, there has to be a black market. I’ll talk to the people in the slaughterhouse on Monday morning.’
‘I wish we could go away, if only for a few days.’ She clung to his naked back, running her hands down to his thighs.
‘I have to report back on Tuesday night.’
‘Eddie, that gives us no time!’
‘Forty-eight hours is normal, a pass like this, unheard of except in special circumstances.’
‘But we’re only just …’
‘Getting to know one another?’ He turned around and cupped her breasts with his wet hands. She stood there, trembling as his fingers roused her nipples while his eyes appraised every inch of her body. ‘Don’t you think I feel the same way?’ He slid his hands downwards between her thighs.
‘I hate this war.’ She pressed herself against him, kissing the back of his neck so he couldn’t read the unspoken question in her eyes. ‘What did you want to go and join up for?’
‘There’s a lot will agree with you on that. But if we go back to bed for ten minutes I’ll guarantee you’ll forget about the war.’
‘Promise?’ She stepped towards the door and switched off the light.
‘Why don’t you come and see?’
Dr John led Diana to a chair in the foyer of the hospital and made her sit down while he fetched his car.
‘Are you feeling ill?’ he asked, as he helped her down the steps, ‘or was it just the hard time our patient gave you?’
‘You were listening?’
‘The whole ward was. You know I’m not sure you gave yourself a chance to get over that concussion. A bang on the head can be quite a serious thing and my wife said you were back in the shop within three days of the accident.’
‘Someone had to run Wyn’s business.’
‘Better the place stay closed than you risk your health.’ He squinted at her through the darkness as he started the engine. ‘You haven’t been getting any headaches? Seeing flashes of lights that aren’t there?’
‘No.’
‘Nausea?’
‘I have been feeling sick lately,’ she admitted.
‘Just sick? No headaches?’ he repeated.
‘No headaches.’
‘If you don’t feel better soon, come and see me or Dr Evans in the surgery.’
‘I will, but it’s probably just running the shop for Wyn. I open it first thing in the morning and it has to be kept open until the interval in the second house of the cinema. By the time I get home it seems too late for tea.’
‘I’m not surprised, eating late at night is no good to you. Stays on the stomach and gives you nightmares. Can’t you get Myrtle Rees to take over to give you a meal break?’
‘I don’t like to bother her. She has Wyn’s father to look after.’
‘An hour out of the house would do her good, and it certainly wouldn’t harm Mr Rees. Do you want me to ask her for you?’
‘No, there’s no need, thank you, Dr John. I’ll ask her myself.’
‘Be sure you do, because I’ll be seeing her some time this week, and if you haven’t talked to her, I will. The last thing that boy in there needs is to start worrying about how he’s going to replace you if you fall ill.’
The only light in the bedroom was the glow of Eddie’s cigarette as it arced from his mouth to the ashtray on the floor. Jenny was asleep, her head on his shoulder, her arm tightly wrapped around his waist. Her naked body was warm, comforting and sensuous against his bare skin, but he couldn’t help thinking that nothing had changed. The sex between them had been bloody marvellous, it always had been. When it came to lovemaking Jenny always had been game for anything. He’d met French whores who were more inhibited. But then, there’d never been any shortage of girls willing to take their clothes off for him. He wanted more, much, much more from his wife.
Physically he knew Jenny: every curve of her body, the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair, the lilt in her voice, the way she smiled – in fact everything about her except her thoughts. Some of her letters had been too gushing, too glib as though she’d copied them from a book. He’d even dreamt up a title: ‘Letters to cheer a serving soldier’. The problem was he wanted to believe what she had written, that she
was
missing him, that she
did
love him, that there was a wonderful life waiting for them at the end of the war.
He felt for the packet of cigarettes on the bedside table and tipped them forward. Extracting one, he lit it one handed on the dog-end that still burned in his mouth. Exchanging them, he stubbed the spent cigarette in the ashtray and continued to smoke blindly, mechanically without enjoyment.
Two more days, and nights. Tuesday would be taken up with travelling back. Tomorrow he wanted to see his sister Bethan, and he’d promised William that he’d look up Tina and give her a letter from him, one that hadn’t been read by a censor. And he had to talk to his father and pretend that everything was fine, even when it wasn’t. His father had enough problems without worrying about him.