Tall, good-looking and living a lifestyle that could bring him a jail sentence if he approached the wrong man, or was seen showing affection to one of his men friends in a private or public place. Which was why his relationships rarely lasted more than a week or two. It was simply too dangerous to risk anything approaching permanency lest the police notice and start following them. Some of the older constables, like Diana’s Uncle Huw Davies, were prone to turning a blind eye to discreet behaviour, but not the younger, keener ones. And then there had been the ultimatum from his father last night, which still burned, raw and painful in his mind.
‘You and Myrtle can stop pussyfooting around me, boy. I know I haven’t long to go. But I’m giving you fair warning. I’m not stupid. I know what you are, and you’re to put a stop to it right now. Do you hear me? Either you find yourself a girl and get married, or you lose the businesses. Because as sure as God made little apples, I won’t leave you the shops, the van or a penny piece until you change your ways. I won’t have mine or Myrtle’s name held up to mockery in this town a moment longer because of your filthy, unnatural habits.’
It wasn’t the first time his father had tried to lay down the law about the way he lived, and he didn’t doubt for a minute that his father was serious. But then, perhaps that was the best way things could work out for all of them. Myrtle would get the businesses and Diana to run them if he could keep her on that long. He would go into the army, and if this show was anything like the last one he’d get killed. And with his death everyone’s problems would be solved, especially his father’s. He’d have a heroic son he could be proud of for the first time in his life. The more he thought about the idea, and remembered his closest friend, and lover, who had gassed himself after being caught with a vicar in the park toilets, the more the solution appealed to him.
Tony Ronconi left the café after the midday rush and walked up High Street to Rees’s sweet shop. Relieved to find it empty apart from Diana, he produced a card that had circles of various sizes punched along its length. ‘Find your ring size,’ he ordered as he pushed it over the counter.
Diana’s eyes sparkled as she slipped the third finger of her left hand through the first hole.
‘I thought I’d go into the jeweller’s and see what they had.’
‘You’ve told your parents?’
‘Not yet. It might be better if we bought the ring first and present them with a fait accompli. It worked for Ronnie.’
‘It did?’ she asked sceptically.
‘I’m over twenty-one,’ he said airily with a certain amount of bravado.
‘It’s important for us to get your father and mother’s blessing.’
‘If it will make you feel better I’ll tell them tonight.’
‘Wait until tomorrow.’ She realised that the ring card and his promise to tell his parents was his way of assuring her that whatever happened between them that night was a prelude to marriage.
‘But why?’
‘Please, humour me,’ she smiled nervously. ‘And if you still want to, we’ll get engaged on Sunday.’
‘If I want to? Wild horses’ couldn’t stop me.’ He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one had sneaked into the shop while they’d been talking. As it was empty he leaned over the counter and kissed her.
‘We’ll have a party in the restaurant.’
‘What about the café?’
‘Angelo can run it.’
‘On his own?’
‘I have.’ There was an indignant tone in his voice that reminded her so much of his oldest brother Ronnie, she began to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You. I can see that I’m going to have to put my foot down from the outset. If I don’t, you’re likely to start trying to boss me around the way you do your brothers and sisters.’
‘They’re annoying, you’re not.’
‘Tina’s my best friend.’
‘Say that again and you’ll go down in my estimation.’ He looked down at the ring card. She’d pushed her finger through the middle hole. ‘If you’re sure that’s your right size I’ll get one.’
‘I’d prefer to choose my own.’
‘Trust me.’
‘I already do,’ she whispered, handing back the card as the door opened and a crowd of small children flooded into the shop.
William stared despondently at the teeming rain as he carried empty trays from the counter into the kitchen at the back of Charlie’s shop and stacked them next to the sink ready for washing. He usually looked forward to Thursday. It was half-day, the only day in the week he could count on getting off work early in the afternoon. Since the cinemas had reopened, he and Tina had taken to spending every Thursday afternoon curled up next to one another in the back row, arms and legs entwined as they watched the film, stealing kisses when the newsreels showed lines of goose-stepping Germans, Hitler meeting Mussolini, the crews of the
Exeter
and
Ajax
being cheered by London crowds, or the British Expeditionary Force landing in France.
He wasn’t even sure whether Tina was angry with him after last night. They had parted so quickly, he hadn’t had time to ask her if she’d meet him. He didn’t even know if she had the afternoon off from the café. And because he wasn’t certain how much time he had left before he’d be sent his travelling orders, he wanted to take her somewhere more special than the back row of the Palladium or the Park cinema. He racked his brains trying to think of a place where they could be alone. If it had been summer, he could have taken her to Shoni’s pond, or the park. He might even have suggested it now, cold as it was, if this miserable downpour showed any signs of letting up.
‘You look as though you’ve found sixpence and lost a shilling, William,’ Alma commented as she carried another empty tray out of the shop for him to wash.
‘That’s just about how I feel.’
‘You’re sorry you joined up?’
‘It’s not that. It’s the weather. I’d like to go out this afternoon but there’s nowhere to go.’
‘How about the pictures?
It Happened One Night
is on in the Palladium. Charlie’s taking me.’
He wondered again if it was worth risking rebuff and asking Tina to go with him. Perhaps if he went to the café and found her there, she’d talk to him.
‘If you want to go now, I can finish up here,’ Alma offered generously.
‘You mean that?’
‘It’ll only take me as long as it will take Charlie to set up the market stall ready for the morning. As you’ll have no choice about putting in a full day there, make the most of the time you’ve got now. Go on, off with you.’ She glanced at his grubby apron and overall. ‘And if you’re seeing Tina, you’d better use our bathroom for a wash and brush-up. Only don’t pinch too much of Charlie’s cologne. He notices when it goes down too quickly.’
‘You’re a gem.’ He untied his apron and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Don’t let Charlie catch you doing that. Not with your reputation,’ she shouted as he took the stairs two at a time.
Ten minutes later, hair slicked back with a fingerful of Charlie’s pomade and smelling of a cologne that was too astringent for his taste, he hared out of the shop and down Taff Street. He felt even more confused as he went over the conversation he’d had with Tina the night before. Why would any girl want to get married but not engaged? It simply didn’t make sense. No sense at all.
‘You’ve finished early, even for a Thursday,’ Gina, Tina’s younger sister greeted him as he walked into the café.
‘The boss gave me time off for good behaviour. Tina around?’
‘In the kitchen. Angelo’s been burning toast, so she offered to show him how to make it.’
‘Is it safe to go in there?’
‘When is it ever safe to go near Tina?’ Tony shouted from the back room where he was clearing dirty plates.
William lifted the counter flap and pushed the swing door to the kitchen. Tina wasn’t showing Angelo anything. She was sitting immersed in a women’s magazine at the preparation table, a cup of tea and a doughnut in front of her.
‘I wondered if you’d like to go the pictures? Alma said they’re showing
It Happened One Night
in the Palladium.’
‘Seen it,’ she answered briefly.
‘I thought we could talk. We didn’t really settle anything last night.’
She looked at him over the rim of her cup, her eyes dark, reflective pools that gave no insight into her thoughts. ‘No, we didn’t, did we?’
‘Tina …’ he looked over to the corner next to the back door. Angelo was sitting on a stool, smoking a filched cigarette and smirking at every word they were saying.
‘Tell you what, why don’t we go to Cardiff?’
‘Cardiff!’
‘There’s a film on in the Capitol that I want to see. We can talk on the bus.’
‘All right,’ he agreed hastily, afraid to object in case she changed her mind. ‘Cardiff it is. Do you want to go home and change first?’
‘I’m not good enough for you and Cardiff?’ She was wearing a new, dark blue woollen dress that clung to her curves and highlighted a bluish tint in her black hair.
‘You’re good enough to go anywhere,’ he complimented, managing to forget Angelo’s presence for a moment. ‘Will Tony be able to spare you?’
‘After what he and Angelo did yesterday they have no choice. You should have heard Papa last night. Heaven only knows how we’re going to run the cafés without them. Useless as they are,’ she shouted, making sure that Angelo could hear her, ‘they do represent two extra pairs of hands.’ She picked up her teacup. ‘Give me five minutes to drink this and brush my hair and I’ll be with you.’
‘I’ll wait for you in the café.’
‘Tea?’ Tony asked as William lifted the flap and pulled a stool close to the counter.
‘Yes please.’ William debated whether to mention Diana’s revelation and decided against it. He had enough problems of his own without delving into his sister’s and Tony’s affairs. Besides, Diana might see sense yet and tell Tony she was too young to get married.
‘Tina said it would be all right for me to take her to Cardiff.’
‘She did, did she?’
‘Is it?’ He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered Tony one.
‘I suppose so.’
‘You in the dog-house over yesterday?’ William eyed him carefully, wondering if Tony was being offhand because Tina had told him that he had asked her to marry him.
‘Papa shouted a lot, but then he always does when we do anything that upsets his neat, orderly world. Sometimes I think he’d prefer it if we were made of dough so he could mould us how he wants, and then stand us in a row ready to do his bidding.’
‘It won’t be easy for the girls to run this place without you and Angelo.’
‘Don’t you start. What about you?’
‘Neither Uncle Evan nor Diana were over the moon at the thought of me in uniform, but then it’s my life.’
‘That’s what Angelo and I tried to tell Papa last night,’ Tony commiserated. ‘We couldn’t even talk to Mama. All she did was cry, in between threatening to go down the recruiting office and tell whoever’s in charge that Angelo’s only seventeen.’
‘Will she?’ William asked, worried because he had vouched for Angelo’s age.
‘She changed her mind after Angelo pointed out that if she did, he’d only have to go later without us.’
‘Happy families.’
‘Sometimes I think it would have been easier to have been born an orphan.’
‘It’s not as though we’ll be away that long.’
‘Didn’t you read the Observer this week? Article there reckons the war will last three years.’
‘Three years!’ William tried to imagine three years away from Pontypridd, three long years without Tina. He couldn’t. It stretched before him, an unimaginable time span.
‘Of course it may not last quite that long.’ Tony didn’t sound at all convincing.
‘You beginning to wish that you hadn’t joined up?’
‘Are you?’ Tony answered flatly, turning the question on him.
‘No,’ William asserted too insistently. ‘Besides, what’s done is done.’
‘I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that today. Is Charlie sorry he went with us?’
‘You know Charlie, he never says a word about anything important.’
‘You think they’ll take him after that second interview next week?’
‘I don’t know.’ William’s attention focused on Tina who had finally emerged from the kitchen. She was wearing her best coat and hat, had put on pink lipstick, dabbed powder on her nose, and he could smell the ‘essence of violets’ scent she was wearing from where he was sitting. Surely she wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble if she intended to turn down his offer of an engagement ring.
It was cold and wet waiting for the Cardiff bus on Broadway. William tried to huddle under Tina’s umbrella but even that turned into further cause for argument. When he angled it to suit his six-foot-three frame, the wind and rain blew under the cover and soaked Tina’s hat and hair, and if she put it at a comfortable level for herself, the spokes stuck into his chin or eyes. Both of them were glad when the bus finally came.
‘Upstairs, front seat?’ He ran up the narrow metal staircase ahead of her so she couldn’t accuse him of trying to look up her skirt, and he remembered to stand back so she could take her favourite inside seat. ‘You thought any more about last night?’ he asked as he dug into his pocket for money to pay the conductor.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to get engaged?’ he whispered, afraid of being overheard by the other passengers.
‘I told you I want to marry you.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘If you don’t want to marry me, you don’t have to,’ she snapped tartly.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I could be away for years.’
‘At last, a man who’s finally prepared to admit that this war is going to last longer than six months.’
‘No one knows how long it’s going to last,’ he retorted irritably.
‘If I’m prepared to marry you and wait as long as it takes for you to come home, you should be grateful, and not insist on a stupid engagement. A half-measure that’s neither one thing nor the other.’
‘You been talking to Diana?’
‘No, why?’
‘Nothing. It’s just that I’d rather you were free while you waited.’
‘Because of what happened to your father?’
‘Yes.’ There was a pathetic look on his face that tore at her heartstrings. She simply couldn’t bring herself to compound his misery a moment longer.