Trevor looked to Bethan first. ‘I have a letter for you from Andrew. Don’t worry, he’s fine. Overworked maybe, but perfectly well.’
‘What’s it like over there?’ Tina asked.
‘Difficult.’ Trevor closed his eyes against images that would haunt him to the end of his days. Images he had no right to inflict on anyone who hadn’t been through the hell he had. ‘We’re retreating on every front.’ His words were short, clipped as he made an effort to produce a sanitised view of the war for his audience. ‘It’s orderly enough but we’re having to fight every step of the way. The Germans don’t let up for a minute. They’re hot on our heels however fast or far we run.’
‘And Eddie –’ Jenny’s question was interrupted by Tina and Megan.
‘And Will …’
‘And Tony and Angelo?’ Gina pleaded.
‘I heard before I left that the Welsh Guards are being used to fight the rearguard. But Tony will be home in a few days, he’ll tell you more. He’s been wounded.’
‘Is it serious?’ Laura asked anxiously.
Trevor shook his head. ‘I dug a bullet out of his shoulder. It’s not bad, but it was enough to get him a place on the medical transport I came home on. All the boys were fine when he left them. They gave Tony some letters.’ He pulled a small bundle of papers from his pocket and distributed them among Evan, Megan and Jenny. ‘And these are for you –’ he passed two battered and stained envelopes to Tina and one to Gina.
‘I’m sorry they’ve been through the mire.’
‘Like you, by the look of you.’ Laura couldn’t stop staring at her husband as though she found it difficult to accept that he was really home. He held out his hands to his son.
‘Oh no you don’t.’ Megan whisked John out of his reach. ‘Not until you’ve washed.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ He settled for tickling John under the chin.
‘If the Guards are fighting the rearguard action, they’ll be the last off the beaches,’ Evan said slowly, as he absorbed the full implications of Trevor’s revelation.
Trevor picked up his wineglass. ‘That’s if they get off at all.’ He looked around the table. ‘I’m sorry, but it might be as well if you all prepare yourselves for the possibility.’
The party broke up as soon as the cake and coffee had been served. Evan, Phyllis, Brian and Megan went across the road to Alma’s after first extracting a promise from Bethan to join them later. Clutching her letters, Tina made her way up Taff Street to the café. Jenny, Gina and Luke walked with her as far as the Tumble on their way up the Graig. Luke still had to move his few belongings from Evan’s house to Danycoedcae Road. Wyn and Diana left to open the theatre shop. Finally only Bethan remained.
‘I’ll give you two a lift home,’ she said as she buttoned on Rachel’s cardigan.
‘I’d appreciate that, Bethan, I’m whacked.’ Trevor’s eyes met hers and Bethan knew that he hadn’t told her all the news of Andrew, not yet.
‘I’ll make us some tea.’ Laura opened the car door and went into the house. As the front door swung wide Trevor saw the packing cases Mrs Ronconi had asked Fred Davies to deliver to Laura for safe keeping. Laura’s mother had insisted on splitting her ‘best’ china and linen between Laura’s house and her own in case of bombing, in the confident, if misplaced, belief that a device falling on Danycoedcae Road would leave Graig Street totally unscathed.
‘We’re moving?’ Trevor asked Bethan.
‘It’s a long story, Laura’ll tell you about it.’
‘You’re coming in, Bethan?’ Laura asked as she returned to the car to fetch John.
Bethan shook her head. ‘I have to pick up my father and the others and take them home. But if you’re willing, I’ll borrow your husband for five minutes.’
‘Ten if you like, as long as I can have him all to myself afterwards. But you’ll come tomorrow?’
‘I’ll telephone. I’ll manage the High Street café while Trevor’s on leave.’
‘I haven’t even asked how long you’ve got?’ Laura looked at Trevor.
‘Twenty-four hours. It’s all they could spare. They need every doctor they can get. The wounded haven’t stopped flooding in, and won’t for a while.’
‘I bet you’re hungry.’
‘And tired. I intend to spend every minute of my leave in bed. Sleeping,’ he added, reading the amused expression on Bethan’s and Laura’s faces.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised after Laura had taken John into the house. ‘I’m in such a state I’ve messed up your car. And unlike me, Andrew is always so particular …’
‘He’s staying, isn’t he?’ Bethan broke in abruptly.
‘We drew lots. He was caught with the short straw. One of the bachelors offered to take his place, but he wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘He wouldn’t have.’ There was bitterness as well as resignation in her voice.
‘I’m sorry, Beth, but none of us felt we could just abandon the wounded. Someone had to stay in Dunkirk …’
‘And it had to be Andrew.’
‘Here,’ he pulled a creased scrap of paper out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. ‘I wish you’d come in.’
‘You want me to eat into your precious leave minutes? If it was Andrew who was home I’d be telling Laura to get lost.’
‘Beth …’
‘Leave me in peace to read my husband’s letter, and remind Laura not to set foot in the café until you’ve gone.’
Bethan laid the letter on the front seat after Trevor left the car. She turned her head to check that Rachel was still sleeping peacefully in the cot on the back seat. Driving slowly and steadily she made her way back through Taff Street and up on to the Common. She didn’t go straight to Andrew’s parents’ house but parked on the bluff overlooking the town. It was only after she’d checked on Rachel a second time that she unfolded the scrap of paper Trevor had given her. There was no envelope.
Darling Beth,
I’m sorry this is so short, but Trevor’s convoy moves out in five minutes.
I love you and Rachel, and always will. One day we’ll be together again. I have to believe that, it’s all I have to live for. I’ll write the very first minute I can.
Don’t worry about me, even the Germans need doctors.
Your loving husband Andrew
She crouched over the steering wheel, clinging to the note as though it were a lifeline. He was alive, and hopefully he’d stay that way. She tried not to think how long it would be before she’d see him again, or what the Germans would do when they overran the medical post he was working in.
He was alive!
She laid her hands over her abdomen. One day they’d be together again – all four of them – and it was her job to look after their children, and wait for that day to come.
‘I thought I’d feel completely different once we were married, but I feel the same as I did yesterday. Don’t you?’ Gina asked Luke as she shut the door on the bedroom she’d shared with her sisters and walked down the landing to the box room.
‘I don’t feel married after that Registry Office ceremony, if that’s what you mean. I’m sorry, it was all a bit impersonal. I know you would have liked a white wedding with all the trimmings.’
‘I couldn’t have had that and a Quaker for a bridegroom, and as I didn’t want anyone else, I realised from the start that it would have to be a Registry Office or living in sin. But I’m still amazed after what you told me about your father that he gave you permission to marry me.’
‘It was the letter I wrote.’ He stepped past her and examined the tiny box room. Anything other than meet her steady gaze. He never had been very good at lying. She retraced her steps along the landing and opened another door.
‘And this is my parents’ bedroom.’ She glanced down the stairs. Luke’s case was still standing where he’d dropped it, by the front door. They’d been in the house two hours, and as yet they hadn’t even decided which bedroom they were going to occupy.
‘I don’t think it would be right for us to sleep in here,’ he said, as he looked at the stripped mattress and dark heavy furniture.
‘I agree, I’d never feel comfortable in Mama and Papa’s room, but you saw the room I shared with my sisters. There’s precious little space between the two double beds.’
‘That leaves your brothers’ room and the box room.’ He moved clumsily backwards, stepping down from her parents’ bedroom on to the landing. ‘If you like, I could sleep in the box room until you get used to the idea of being married,’ he offered nervously, remembering her reaction the time he had lost his head in the High Street café.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Feeling as apprehensive as she sensed he was, she opened the door to her brothers’ bedroom. ‘The decision’s made, then. I’ll make up this bed.’ She went to the wardrobe. ‘If you carry your case up I’ll hang your clothes away, and I’ll move mine in here too. At least they left the room clean and tidy.’
‘Do you want some help?’
‘No, but I’d love a cup of tea afterwards, and if you feel like spoiling me you could make some toast.’
He went downstairs, trying to remind himself that this was his home now, and would be until he and Gina could afford a place of their own. Taking his marriage certificate from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he read it again in an effort to convince himself it was real.
‘Do me a favour Alexander?’
‘For you, Tina, anything.’ After the traumatic day, Alexander’s light-hearted comment fell flat.
‘Drop a note into Laura’s house on your way up the hill.’
‘I thought you’d moved in there?’
‘I’m exhausted. If I don’t sleep here tonight I’ll never get up for the early-shift tram crews in the morning.’
‘This has nothing to do with Dr Lewis arriving home unexpectedly?’ he asked perceptively.
‘Nothing,’ she bit back sharply. Trevor’s arrival had intensified her longing for William into an acute yearning that bordered on pain, but she had no intention of admitting or discussing her heartache with Alexander.
‘What about your things? I could go up there and bring them down for you?’
‘No, I’ll go up tomorrow morning after the cook comes in. In fact, thinking about it, it would make sense for me to move in here rather than with Laura. Sooner or later John’s going to reach that horrible crying, teething stage. At least here I can be sure of getting some rest in between opening hours.’
‘There’s a flat upstairs?’
‘A couple of rooms. They’re a bit shabby. I don’t suppose you’re any good at decorating?’
‘I’ve never tried, but I’m willing to give it a go. How hard can it be?’
‘Alexander?’ Ieuan, the miner who worked with Evan, called out from the back room. ‘Fancy a game of cards?’
‘Why not?’ Alexander raised his eyebrows in surprise as he picked up his tea.
‘Watch it, you’re in danger of becoming accepted around here,’ Tina mocked.
‘I can just see the headlines in next week’s Pontypridd
Observer
: ‘Conchie makes inroads into town’s society’.’
She forced a smile as she turned to the kitchen and shouted to the cook to take over for ten minutes. Lighting a candle she walked upstairs. She pulled the blackout and examined the two cheerless rooms. There was no electricity in the upstairs of the building, but she could manage without. The walls were damp, the paint peeling, the floors filthy, but wallpaper and paint could still be bought on Ponty market, and she wasn’t afraid of hard work. What furniture there was, she’d probably have to pay to have carted away, but there were plenty of pieces in Danycoedcae Road that wouldn’t be missed. She could bring down one of the double beds to replace the creaking, single, iron bedstead; a dressing table and a toilet set for washing, the small wardrobe from Ronnie’s room, a rug – she and Laura had found three rolled up in the attic. Ones that her mother had replaced but never thrown out because she’d thought them ‘too good’ so had consigned them to cold and damp as a way of preserving them.
She walked along the dusty landing and opened the door to the second room. At the beginning of the war it had been filled with tins and boxes, but rationing had put paid to stockpiling. A couple of easy chairs from the middle room at home, another rug, a table, and perhaps an electric fire for the winter and she’d be self-sufficient, reasonably comfortable, and out of Laura’s way whenever Trevor came home on leave. The only wonder was she hadn’t thought of furnishing the rooms before.
Trying not to think how happy she and William could be here once she’d effected the transformation if he ever came home again – she returned to the room with the bed, sat on the mattress and pulled the envelope Trevor had given her out of her pocket. The writing on the outside wasn’t Will’s. Someone, probably Trevor, had put the pieces of paper Tony had given him into envelopes. It was no more than a scrap, a single page torn from a notebook and scribbled in pencil:
I’ll be home even if I have to swim the Channel. Wait for me. Love you always. Will.
The two rooms weren’t much, but she was determined to turn them into a home of sorts. Was it tempting fate to hope that some day she and William would be together again?
‘Please God, let it be soon,’ she whispered as she pressed her hand down on the damp mattress.
‘If we’re going to get up in the morning it’s time we went to bed.’ Gina had washed the cups Luke had used to make cocoa, and tidied the kitchen and the larder. Luke had banked down the fire, swept the hearth and clipped the fireguard on to the grate. There wasn’t anything left for either of them do, yet both of them were lingering, waiting for the other to make the first move.
‘I suppose it is.’ Luke averted his head lest she see his blushes as he rose from the chair where he’d been pretending to read last week’s
Sunday Pictorial
.
‘It feels as though nothing will ever be the same again in this house.’ Gina looked around the room, checking for the last time that she’d left nothing undone.
‘It will be when your parents come home again, you’ll see,’ he reassured her clumsily.
‘But when will that be?’
‘I wish I could tell you.’
‘And I wish we didn’t have to get up early tomorrow.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘Some honeymoon.’
‘Why don’t you go up first? I’ll follow in a little while,’ he suggested, in an attempt to avoid further embarrassment.
‘No.’ She reached out and took his hand in hers. ‘I don’t like rattling around in this big house by myself. Let’s go up together.’ She led the way. While she pulled the blackout in all the bedrooms, he opened the drawer she had stowed his clothes away in and removed his pyjamas.