‘It won’t be drudgery if Luke and I are together.’
‘Laura?’ Mrs Ronconi looked to her eldest daughter. ‘You must have something to say about this?’
‘Only that they’re young, but it seems to me that everyone is having to grow up quickly these days, and,’ she smiled wryly, ‘to look on the practical side, miner or not, Luke has an extra pair of hands to help out in the cafés at the weekend.’
‘Of course I’d be glad to.’ Luke seized his chance to prove willing.
‘And you’ll talk to Father O’Donnelly about converting to the ‘one true faith?’’
‘I’ll talk to him, but I can’t promise anything, Mrs Ronconi,’ Luke replied, ignoring the pressure of Gina’s fingers on his arm.
‘At least you’re honest, Luke. I’ll give you that. I wish things were different, but as they’re not, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Presumably your father knows you better than anyone here. If he gives his permission, I’ll allow you to marry Gina.’ Mrs Ronconi turned to her daughter. ‘I’ll write and tell Papa about it tonight. I know it isn’t what he hoped for you, Gina, but it seems to me the best thing you girls can do is marry British nationals, and the sooner the better.’
‘It might be just as well if you and Gina live here after Mama and the children go, Luke,’ said Laura.
‘Tina had better move in with me as she’s supposed to be looking after me and the baby, and that way both houses will be occupied.’
‘That sounds like a good idea.’ Mrs Ronconi looked to Gina for approval.
‘I haven’t even got enough money saved for an engagement ring,’ Luke confessed.
‘Seems to me you don’t need one.’ Bethan handed Laura’s baby back to her. ‘And wedding rings, especially wartime nine-carat-gold patriotic ones, are somewhat cheaper than diamonds.’
‘As long as I marry Luke I don’t care if I have a curtain ring,’ Gina smiled, starry-eyed up at Luke.
‘Spoken like a true romantic,’ Laura said gravely. ‘Cling to it, little sister. Something tells me the Ronconis, along with all the other Italians in this country, are going to need every bit of romance and happiness they can get in the coming months.’
Bethan, Diana, and the three elder Ronconi girls scarcely had a minute to themselves during the next few days. In between helping Mrs Ronconi decide what should be shipped to the Midlands and what should be left behind, and the best and safest way to pack her cherished belongings for storage in her own, or Laura’s house or transit, they ran the cafés and restaurant, took turns in caring for the babies with Phyllis and Megan, registered to take evacuees from the bombing that was expected to start any day on London and the Home Counties, and arranged Gina’s wedding.
Despite all the bustle and activity, there was a peculiar atmosphere in the town. As though everyone was marking time, holding their breath, waiting for something huge and momentous to happen. Pontypridd had never been busier, the streets were packed throughout the day, and in the evenings it seemed as though the entire population of the surrounding valleys turned out to queue at the entrances to one or the other of the picture houses. The films were incidental: half the time no one registered what was showing, but everyone wanted to see the latest newsreels from Dunkirk in the desperate hope that they’d recognise a face amongst the thousands of men dug in on the shell-torn, bomb and bullet-swept beaches, or patiently wading out into the sea in orderly files; rifles held high above their heads as they waited up to their chests in water in the hope of finding a corner in one of the rescue boats. Occasionally there was a cry of recognition, and one or two lucky families left at the end of the evening, smiling, ecstatic in the knowledge that their husband, father, brother or son was safe and well – or at least had been when the newsreel was filmed. But there was still no official news of the whereabouts of the Welsh Guards, only rumours that escalated into the wilder realms of fantasy and fiction with every passing day.
Gina and Luke arranged their wedding for two o’clock on Thursday afternoon, early closing day in Pontypridd, so there’d be no problem with Wyn, Diana or Alma attending, and exactly one hour before Mrs Ronconi and the younger children were due to leave Pontypridd railway station on a special train bound for Birmingham.
Fred Davies had already been entrusted with the packing cases of clothes, and bare essentials of cutlery, crockery, cooking utensils, bedlinen and towels, which were all that Mrs Ronconi could bring herself to take to equip herself for her new life as the wife of an enemy alien.
She spent the last two days wandering from room to room in her home, picking up ornaments and putting them down again, taking photographs from frames and adding them to the growing bundle in the cardboard case in her handbag – and waiting for a letter from her husband that didn’t come.
‘We have to go,’ Laura urged impatiently as she stood in the kitchen doorway watching her mother pace uneasily between the letterbox and the parlour.
‘I have to say goodbye to the house. There’ll be no time to come back afterwards.’
‘I know, Mama, but everyone’s waiting. The taxi’s outside, and so is Bethan. We only have ten minutes to get to the Registry Office. You do want to see Gina get married, don’t you?’
‘Not this way. A girl’s wedding day is important. It should be one she’ll be proud to remember for the rest of her life, the church decked with flowers, a proper white dress that she can fold away for her own daughters, bridesmaids in long frocks, and her papa to give her away.’ Mrs Ronconi opened her handbag and rummaged in its depths for a handkerchief.
‘We would have all liked that, Mama, but it can’t be helped. There’s nothing we can do now except give Gina the best wedding we can under the circumstances.’
‘I suppose so.’ Mrs Ronconi called to the younger children. Laura had already lined them up in the kitchen for the inspection she knew her mother would want to give them. They were dressed in their best clothes, not just for the wedding, but also for the journey afterwards. Mrs Ronconi walked slowly in front of them, smoothing down their hair, tucking in shirts and blouses, wiping spots she insisted were jam off Alfredo’s face with her handkerchief, much to his disgust.
‘Right, you lot.’ Tina shepherded them to the door as soon as her mother reached the last in line. ‘Into the taxi and behave yourselves.’
‘It’s unlucky to get married on the thirteenth and a Thursday,’ Mrs Ronconi began for the tenth time that morning.
‘Don’t worry, Mama. In wartime everyone makes their own luck. Gina and Luke are in love, they’ll be happy together and that’s what’s important.’ Laura crossed her fingers beneath John’s shawl.
‘I hope so. If only I could be sure that I’m doing the right thing in letting Gina get married. She’s so young. Your papa would have known what to do. I wish I could have spoken with him …’
‘Mama, we really do have to go.’
‘Where’s Gina?’ Mrs Ronconi looked around for the bride.
‘Here, Mama.’ Gina walked down the stairs in a red costume she had bought in Leslie’s Stores. Apart from the shoes it was the only new thing she was wearing. She’d borrowed Laura’s best navy blue hat, blouse, handbag and gloves.
The sight of her daughter in her wedding finery jolted Mrs Ronconi out of her uncertainty. Whatever the outcome, the events of the next hour were inevitable. ‘You look very nice. Just make sure you take care of yourself when I’m not here to watch over you. Air your underclothes properly and eat plenty of –’
‘I’ll be fine, Mama. You’re not to worry about me. I’ll have Luke to look after me from now on. Are you sure you can manage without us in Birmingham?’
‘With Alfredo to do all the work, there’ll be nothing for me to do except turn into idle crache.’ Mrs Ronconi squared her ample shoulders and faced the door. ‘Come on, it’s time we went. Bethan is waiting for us outside in her car.’
Laura gave Gina a knowing wink before following her mother down the steps.
Luke sat nervously in the ante-room of the Registry Office sandwiched between Alexander and Evan, who’d had a devil of a time persuading the pit management to give them all a half a day off in the middle of the week.
In Luke’s hands was the envelope that had arrived in the post yesterday morning. He had tried to forget the letter it carried, a vitriolic, angry letter absolutely and expressly forbidding him to marry an enemy alien and a Catholic to boot. He had torn it up as soon as he had read it, flushing the pieces down the ty bach, before replacing it with another letter in his own hand giving him full permission to marry Miss Gina Ronconi, and wishing them both well. Suppressing his qualms, he had signed it with his father’s name.
Logic told him there was no way anyone in Pontypridd could possibly know the difference between his own rather immature, rounded script and his father’s more spidery hand, but at that moment logic had lost the battle against nervousness. He felt as though forgery was a sin every bit as unpardonably dreadful as murder. Then he turned and saw Gina walking through the door in her new red costume, clutching her bible which had been decorated with an early rose one of the girls had scavenged, and all his doubts faded. What if he had told one small lie? It was nothing set against Gina’s happiness, and there were a lot of miles between the valleys and Cornwall. Miles no one would be travelling until after the war was over.
For the first time he found himself wishing that the war would last until he was twenty-one. His father could say or do whatever he liked after 1943; once he was a man in law, words wouldn’t be able to hurt him or Gina. Just three more years. Then he considered just how many soldiers might die in that time and he was ashamed of himself.
Rising to his feet he took Gina’s hand, tentatively returned her smile, and led her through the open door.
‘You’ll write, Mama?’
‘I’ll write.’ Mrs Ronconi’s bottom lip trembled. ‘You three girls look after one another; and you –’ she kissed her new son-in-law on the cheek – ‘you take care of my girls. You’re the only man in the family able to do so now.’
‘I’ll take care of everything,’ he assured her solemnly.
‘Goodbye, Mama!’
The whistle blew and Laura, who couldn’t wait for the leave taking to be over, slammed the carriage door on her mother and brothers and sisters. Ordering Alfredo to keep everyone in the carriage, she stepped back.
Up and down the platform goodbyes were being shouted in a mixture of Italian, Welsh and English as other families leaned out of the windows of the train to catch a last glimpse of Pontypridd station. Some were trying to put a brave face on their deportation, but most of the women were in tears, and Laura burned with a white hot fury at the injustice of it all and her own impotence in the face of this mindless, heartless bureaucracy.
‘What’s Mrs Ronconi going to do in Birmingham?’ Alexander asked Evan as they leaned against the wall of the waiting room out of the way of the Ronconis’ farewells.
‘Survive for the duration, the same as the rest of us.’
‘I’m going to find it difficult to think of Luke as a married man. He should be still in school, not keeping a wife.’ Alexander watched Luke put his arm around Gina’s waist as the train chugged slowly down the tracks and around the bend that led towards Treforest and Cardiff.
‘He’s grown up fast in the last few weeks, and Gina’s the same age Maud was when she got married.’
‘Your youngest daughter?’
Evan nodded. ‘God alone knows what’s happening to her and her husband now Italy’s joined the Fascist cause. I can’t see Ronnie Ronconi fighting in the Italian army.’
‘Damn this bloody war.’
‘Well said, Alexander.’ Laura clutched John as she watched the last vestiges of smoke from the engine blow over the track.
‘What happens now?’ Alexander asked as he stood up and brushed the soot from the shoulders of his jacket.
‘We all go to the restaurant and eat,’ Laura said firmly. ‘I’ve ordered a lunch to be served in the upstairs function room. This might be a wartime wedding, but I won’t allow it to be a hole-in-the-corner affair.’
Laura had done her best. There were flowers on the table, the linen was spotless, the chicken dinner was excellent and the waitresses cheerful as they congratulated the happy couple. Alexander tried to sustain the party mood. At his most expansive and entertaining, he insisted on adding to the bottles of wine Wyn had provided in the hope that a little alcohol would lubricate the party, but every time a newsboy cried in the street someone left the table to see if the headlines were new.
Alma was beset by a peculiar mixture of gratefulness for the letter she had received from Charlie that morning, and guilt because her own husband was safe when the Powells and Ronconi girls didn’t even know where Eddie, William and the Ronconi boys were, so she concentrated all her attention on trying to cheer up Megan, Bethan, Jenny, Laura and Tina, but neither her own nor Wyn’s and Alexander’s well-intentioned efforts succeeded in driving the anxious look from the women’s eyes.
‘I should go and check the Tumble café,’ Tina said as soon as the plates had been cleared. It wasn’t the thought of the work that needed doing that motivated her to make a move, but an acute longing for William that worsened every time she saw Wyn put his arm around Diana, or Gina and Luke gaze into one another’s eyes.
‘The cook can manage for another half-hour.’ Laura signalled the departing waitress to bring the cake. A cake for which she had allowed the cook to squander half a week’s ration of butter and eggs.
‘What about the High Street café?’ Diana asked.
‘That’s staying closed today. I’ll take it over tomorrow. But for now let’s forget about the cafés and celebrate. Mr Powell, would you fill everyone’s glasses for the toast please?’
Evan picked up the bottle and walked around the table. A year ago he’d never have imagined Gina and Tina, who’d rarely had a thought before the war other than what film to see or what scent to buy, running the Ronconis’ cafés. So much had changed, and so many sacrifices were being made. Laura and Bethan pulling together without the support of their husbands, trying to keep one café open between them by sharing the workload and the care of their babies. Tina running the Tumble café, which had always been the roughest, by herself. Gina taking over the restaurant, and a married woman at sixteen. Alma keeping Charlie’s shop open with only a couple of young boys and an untrained workhouse girl to help her. Jenny living alone and managing Griffiths’ shop while her father languished in the asylum, making no discernible progress for all the doctors’ confident predictions that the depression that had clouded his brain would lift within a year.
‘That’s the cake,’ Laura announced as she heard a step on the stairs. ‘Now who wants coffee and who wants tea after the toast?’
‘I don’t know about you,’ Alexander whispered to Wyn, ‘but I wouldn’t mind raiding the wine cellar to see if there’s any bottles left.’
Laura cleared a place on the table for the cake. She turned her head to look for the waitress. Somehow John ended up alongside Rachel on Bethan’s lap as she ran headlong to the top of the stairs. Trevor stood there, hollow-eyed, exhausted, his uniform creased and filthy.
Laura flung herself into his arms, half-crying, half-laughing. The others looked on awkwardly. They would have left the room if Laura and Trevor hadn’t been blocking the only exit. Megan reached out and lifted one of the babies from Bethan’s lap, taking the opportunity to grip Bethan’s hand as she sat, white-faced, trying not to think the worst as she watched Laura and Trevor.
Wrapping his arm around Laura’s shoulders, Trevor stepped forward. ‘They told me downstairs that congratulations are in order.’ He managed a weary smile for Gina, as he held on to Laura’s hand on his arm. ‘You going to introduce me to this new brother-in-law of mine?’
‘Trevor, this is Luke.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Trevor extended his free hand. ‘We must have a talk some time. I can give you hints on how to handle the Ronconi women.’
Bethan couldn’t wait another moment. ‘Have you see Andrew and the boys?’ she begged.
‘Let the poor man get his breath. Sit down, Trevor.’ Evan pulled out a chair and took the wineglass Bethan hadn’t used. He tipped the last of the wine into it and handed it to Trevor.