‘… has the most beautiful baby girl you’ve ever seen,’ Diana interrupted excitedly. ‘Just wait until you see Andrew. He’s the most besotted father in Ponty.’
‘I can imagine. I’m glad it’s worked out for those two. And Charlie’s married to Alma Moore. I don’t think any of us saw that coming.’
‘She’s good for him, and he’s been marvellous to Will and Eddie.’
‘That just about covers everyone except you.’ Megan turned her dark, perceptive eyes on her daughter. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me anything about yourself?’
‘I’m happy. Wyn Rees is a wonderful boss –’
‘So work’s fine. What about your free time?’ Megan interrupted.
‘That’s fine too.’
‘Really? What’s this I hear about you and Tony Ronconi?’
‘We’ve been seeing one another, but I told him tonight I don’t want to get engaged or married. Not now he’s joined up.’
‘You don’t love him?’
‘He’s going away. No one knows what’s going to happen, everything’s so unsettled.’
‘You’re not prepared to wait for him?’
‘It seems silly to get married to a man I might not see for years.’
Megan might have spent the last few years physically separated from her daughter, but she knew her, and knew her well. ‘So you quarrelled with Tony tonight?’
Before Diana had time to answer, the front door closed and William came whistling down the passage. He opened the door and stood rooted in the doorway.
‘Mam! How on earth did you get here?’
Megan rose unsteadily to her feet, and for the first time Diana realised just how frail her mother had become.
William dropped his hat on to the table and scooped Megan into his arms.
‘I had no idea you’d filled out so much.’ Megan began to cry, seeing a mirror image of her long-dead husband in her son, even down to the fate that was leading him to war.
‘Don’t cry, Mam,’ William consoled clumsily, knowing exactly what his mother was thinking. ‘You can’t keep a bad penny from turning up. I’ll be back,’ he promised recklessly. ‘I promise you, Mam, unlike Dad, I’ll be back.’
William reached out for the alarm clock that was shrilling and rattling in the biscuit tin next to his bed. He squinted through one eye as he silenced it; it was no use, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, let alone the clock. The blackout curtains with which Phyllis had covered every inch of window in the house cut out even the faintest glimmer of light but … as the alarm had only just sounded there was no harm in stealing
five
more minutes.
Pulling the bedclothes over his head, he snuggled into the pillow and closed his eyes. Friday morning! It wasn’t as bad as the outdoor market mornings of Wednesday and Saturday when the population of every surrounding valley poured into Pontypridd, but the butcher’s stall he ran for Charlie in the indoor market still had to be opened. He didn’t like Friday’s customers as much as his Saturday regulars. The only people who could afford to patronise the market twenty-four hours ahead of the Saturday-night knockdown bargain auction, when the remaining perishable goods were sold off by the traders for whatever they could get, were the crache. And serving the crache meant being careful. No calling any woman ‘love’ or man ‘mate’, not that there’d be many men shopping. It would be ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ and bowing and scraping, and he’d have to man the stall by himself because the shop would command all of Charlie and Alma’s time and attention. He’d be lucky if one of them would be able to spare ten minutes to bring across his midday dinner of meat-filled baps and tea.
He hadn’t realised how much he’d miss Eddie, especially in the shop, until after his cousin had gone. Butchering was hard, physical work, but when he had asked Charlie in the recruiting office how he expected Alma to manage both businesses without them, the Russian had muttered something about giving the market stallholder notice. Surely Charlie didn’t expect Alma to keep the shop going by herself with no help at all? Just humping the bins of kidneys, liver, tripe and offal Charlie had taken to buying from the slaughterhouse since meat rationing had been enforced, would be too much for her. And that was without the cooking, pressing and slicing.
Perhaps it might be as well if the army did turn Charlie down. It wasn’t as though he was desperately needed. There were enough single blokes to fight the war without dragging in the married men. But then how could he really regard himself as single, when there was Tina to consider?
‘Letter for you, Will,’ Evan shouted up the stairs.
Clutching his pyjamas close to his shivering body, William slid out of bed, hopping in a mockery of an Indian war dance as his bare feet hit the freezing linoleum. He opened his door, grateful for the warmth of the strip of jute carpeting on the landing and stairs.
‘It’s Ministry of War.’ Evan handed it over.
The door to the downstairs front room that had remained empty since Haydn had left, opened, and Megan stood in the doorway, wearing the old brown dressing gown William remembered from his childhood. He glanced at her as he slit the top of the envelope with his thumb.
‘Well?’ Megan demanded tensely.
‘They want me to report to training camp on Monday.’
‘This coming Monday?’
William nodded, avoiding his mother’s eye. ‘As I’ve only two working days left, I’d better let Charlie know before I set up the stall. He’s either going to have to find someone to take it over, or give it up before next Wednesday.’
‘Something wrong, Will?’
Diana was standing on the stairs already dressed for work, her hair neatly waved, a touch of lipstick heightening the colour of her mouth.
‘Monday,’ he answered briefly. ‘The Ronconi boys will probably be going the same time.’ He kissed his mother’s crinkled cheek. ‘We’ll have a couple of days together, Mam.’
‘Yes.’ She tried to smile at him before returning to her room, but the smile didn’t touch the frost blighting her eyes.
William climbed back up the stairs. Three days! So much to do in such a short space of time. Tina had wanted an engagement party; it would have to be held on Sunday, or left until his embarkation leave. Seven weeks from now he could be facing the German guns on the French borders, but before then he’d have to face something far worse – Tina’s father.
He bundled his clothes under his arm and carried them down to the wash-house. Suddenly the familiar routine was filled with poignancy. He sensed his whole world closing in around him. Ahead loomed another. A strange, alien environment full of foreboding and menace. Would he have killed his first man two months from now?
He pushed open the door to the kitchen, appreciating the warmth that flowed towards him. Phyllis was cutting bread on the table and his uncle was heaping small coal on the fire to bank down the flames.
‘The good thing is, they’re not giving you any time to change your mind,’ Evan commented, sensing something of the unease William was feeling.
‘Probably afraid to in case I do a runner.’
‘Best not try that, boy. I haven’t heard that they’re shooting deserters yet, like they did in the last one, but I’ve no doubt they’ll start if they think they’re losing too many.’
‘Salt fish and bread and butter?’ Phyllis asked as she went to the frying pan to turn the fish over.
‘Not this morning, thanks. I haven’t time if I’m going to tell Charlie I’m leaving before I open up the stall.’
‘You’re not going to be any use to your customers or Charlie on an empty stomach,’ Evan warned, ‘and Charlie’s entitled to his last two days’ work out of you.’
‘Small piece then, please, Phyllis.’ William glanced at the clock as he walked into the wash-house. Five o’clock. The stall should be opened at six, and it would take him an extra quarter of an hour on top of the usual half to walk down the hill and give Charlie the news.
Tomorrow he would work on the stall from six in the morning to seven at night. It could be worse. The council had cut the town’s traders’ opening hours at the beginning of the war. Before, he’d been lucky to finish before eleven on a Saturday. The only time he’d really have to say goodbye to Tina was Sunday, and he wanted to spend some time with his mother.
‘Watch you pull the curtain over the door before you go out the back,’ Phyllis shouted as he pressed down the latch.
‘I have, but you think Dai Station would have better things to do than creep along back lanes watching people go to their ty bachs. This warden business has given every dirty old man in Ponty an excuse to turn peeping Tom.’
Phyllis carried on cutting and buttering bread as Diana walked in, Megan following soon after. The morning rush in the house was eased by the tradition of the women washing and dressing in their bedrooms, the men in the wash-house.
‘What can I do?’ Megan asked.
‘Sit down and have breakfast,’ Phyllis suggested shyly.
‘No fear. I’ve never been waited on hand and foot in my life, and I’ve no intention of turning into idle crache now. If I’m going to live here, I’ll pull my weight.’
‘You will, soon as we’ve got this lot off to work,’ Phyllis promised, conscious that as Evan’s sister-in-law, Megan had more right to be in Evan’s house than she did.
The door banged open and William, washed, shaved and dressed in record time, walked into the kitchen as Diana walked out.
‘Problems?’ Phyllis whispered as she glanced after Diana.
‘Probably upset at the thought of Tony getting a letter.’ William picked up a piece of bread from his plate, pushed the slice of fish Phyllis had dished out on top, folded it over and crammed it into his mouth. ‘You’d better get used to long faces,’ he mumbled after swallowing the first mouthful. ‘Ponty will soon be filled with girls mourning the loss of the handsomest man in town.’
‘Girls?’ Megan repeated. ‘I thought you were as good as engaged to Tina?’
‘That doesn’t mean that the others can’t view male perfection and dream.’
‘Sit down to eat, boy.’
‘I will now.’ He dropped his bulging sandwich on to his plate, stood behind the table and bent his knees, lowering his head so he could see his face in the mirror set over the fireplace. Buttoning on his collar, he pulled his tie around his neck.
‘Here, let me.’ Megan had to reach up to knot it.
‘My little mother.’ He patted her on the head.
‘Less of that. You’re not too old to have the back of my hand across your backside.’
‘Really?’ He picked his mother up with one hand, almost dropping her when he realised how thin she was beneath her oversized winter-weight skirt and pullover.
‘Bye, Mam.’ Diana returned to the kitchen and picked up her bag.
‘Not without breakfast,’ Phyllis pleaded.
‘Wyn’s coming up this morning to go through the ration books again. He always orders breakfast for both of us to be brought over from the café across the road.’
‘I’ll buy something in town as well, if you don’t mind, Phyllis.’ William abandoned the remains of his fish.
‘If you haven’t time to eat here, you won’t have time to eat in town,’ Phyllis protested.
‘I’ll pick up a pie and eat it as I go. Bye Mam, see you tonight.’ William bent his head and kissed his mother before diving into the wash-house to scrub his teeth with salt.
‘Do me a favour?’ Phyllis asked as she followed him out of the wash-house and down the passage.
‘For you, anything!’
‘Phone Bethan from Charlie’s to let her know your mam is home.’
‘Will do,’ he replied absently.
‘Try to remember. You’ve a lot on your mind.’
‘None of it comes before Mam,’ he called back as he ran down the steps.
‘You didn’t expect to go so soon, did you?’ Diana asked William as he caught up with her.
‘No.’
‘Mam’s not saying much, but she’s taken it hard. You should have written to tell her you were thinking of joining up,’ she reproached him.
‘I was going to. I never thought they’d release her so early.’
‘Just as well they did. If they hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had a chance to see you before you go.’
‘Leave off, Di,’ he snapped, guilt making him irritable.
‘Admit it,’ she pressed. ‘You never gave a thought as to how she’d take to seeing you in uniform.’
‘So, tell me what I can do about it now?’ he demanded testily.
‘You can make an effort to be more thoughtful in future.’
‘A guardsman’s mother’s allowance isn’t up to a wife’s, but it’s better than nothing and I’ll send Mam more when I can.’
‘It’s not money she needs. I can keep her on what I earn.’ She tried to forget Wyn’s warning about the shop closing.
‘Don’t shut me out, Di. I know I won’t be here, but I’d still like to contribute my bit.’
‘You will,’ she retorted acidly. ‘I know Mam. She won’t be able to stop worrying about you.’
‘For pity’s sake, I feel guilty enough as it is without you rubbing it in.’
‘I know,’ she capitulated, ashamed of herself for taking her misery over Tony’s rejection out on her brother.
‘Then stop harping on.’
‘Write, Will,’ she pleaded. ‘Every chance you get.’
‘I promise,’ he murmured.
‘See that you do. Food, rest and a quiet life without worrying about you for once, might make a difference.’
‘I hope so. Every time I look at her I get the urge to kill the bastards in that jail.’
‘Talk like that isn’t going to help Mam.’
‘But punching a few warders might make me feel better.’
‘Just as regular letters from you will make Mam feel better. What about Tina?’ she asked, changing the subject because it was too painful to dwell on her mother’s frail state of health.
‘Bought her an engagement ring yesterday.’
‘I told Mam you might,’ she smiled. ‘You talked to her father yet?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Expecting the same kind of trouble he gave Trevor Lewis when he married Laura, and Ronnie when he wanted to marry our Maud?’ She couldn’t help wondering how the senior Ronconis would have taken the news if there had been two, not one engagement planned.
‘Possibly,’ he answered evasively. ‘What about you and Tony?’
‘There is no Tony and me. I broke off with him last night,’ she revealed flatly.
‘But why? I thought …’
‘We decided with the war and everything it wasn’t going to work out for us.’
‘Are you sure? Look, what I said yesterday about you and Tony being too young, well, maybe I was being a bit hard. You don’t have to get married, you could get engaged like Tina and me …’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Look, I know Dad died in the last war, but everyone says it’s going to be different this time. There are so many other fronts, and at the moment the boats and planes are bearing the brunt of the action. And I think they’ll go on doing so. The soldiers won’t get the hammering they did in the trenches in 1916.’
‘Why? Because General Powell says so?’
‘Diana, talk to Tony again, or let me –’
‘No! Absolutely not. I forbid you to say a word to Tony, or anyone. This is my business not yours.’
‘But you’re miserable. I can see it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Not now, or ever. Got to go, Wyn’s in ahead of me again.’
William couldn’t stop thinking about Tony and Diana as he carried on walking down the hill. All summer it had been Tina and him, Tony and Diana. They’d spent a lot of time together, mainly in the café because Tony and Tina hadn’t been able to leave it for any length of time, but when they had managed to get away, they’d gone for walks in the park, or over Shoni’s, and once they’d even managed a trip to the pictures. The thought of Tony and Diana’s relationship ending cast a blight over his engagement to Tina.
He paused on the Tumble. Despite Diana’s edict and the urgent need to see Charlie, he turned his steps towards the café. After fighting his way through the blackout curtain, he found Tony pouring out a trayful of teas for a tram crew. He waited until Tony had taken them through to the back room before tackling him, and when he did he saw the same miserable expression on his friend’s face that his sister had been wearing.
‘Did you get your orders?’
‘Angelo brought the letter down with him. I sent him over the station to check the timetable. There’s a train leaving just after seven on Monday morning that will get us to the camp on time.’