The Quality of Love (15 page)

As they left the tram Gwyn pulled the paper out of his pocket again and ran a finger down the addresses listed on it.

‘Come on, cheer up; we'll start with the nearest one and that's in Maria Street.'

Even as they approached the terraced house they both knew it was out of the question. Several of the windows were boarded up and the glass in the front door had been smashed and the gaping hole was stuffed with a piece of sacking.

The next two on Gwyn's list were equally depressing. Sarah felt weary and Gwyn was growing increasingly frustrated, knowing that he had to be back at the office before one o'clock, and also that Sarah would have to collect her suitcases.

The last place they looked at was in Louisa Street. It was a three-storey terrace house and although it was almost next door to a pub called the Pembroke Arms it looked quite respectable. The windows were clean, there were net curtains at all of them, and although the front door needed painting the brass knocker and letter box were polished and shining.

The woman who opened the door was middle-aged and plump with dark hair combed back behind her ears. She was wearing a light blue dress with a print pinafore over it. ‘Have
you come about the rooms?' she asked in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

‘We have,' Gwyn said briskly. ‘Can we see them, please?'

‘Top floor at the back,' she told him, standing aside to let them come in. ‘Go on up. Bedroom and living room side by side; the kitchen and a lavatory are on the landing below and you share those with the two families on that floor.'

The rooms were small but clean and the narrow windows looked out on to the backs of the houses in the next street. In the smaller of the rooms there was a bed, a chest of drawers and a built-in cupboard across the alcove.

In the larger of the two rooms, there were cupboards on either side of the very small iron grate that had a tiled surround, a square wooden table with two chairs, and a sofa upholstered in brown Rexene underneath the window. A gas fire had been fitted into the small fireplace. The mottled grey lino was the same in both rooms and so, too, were the floral cretonne curtains that hung at the windows.

Sarah realised that although they were fortunate to have found somewhere that was at least clean it was nowhere near as well furnished or as comfortable as her home in Cyfartha Street had been. She tried to imagine what living here would be like and felt a shudder go through her.

‘Let's see what the kitchen is like,' Gwyn
muttered, squeezing her hand as he headed for the door.

It was downstairs on the landing below and so small that Sarah felt an overwhelming sense of dismay. Where would she put everything, she wondered, then realised that, at the moment, she had nothing at all to put anywhere. All she possessed were the clothes she stood up in and the things in her suitcases.

She choked back her tears as they went back up to the two poky little rooms. They were so cold and uninviting that she hoped Gwyn would say no to the idea of living there; if he did, though, then where would they go?

Gwyn looked at her questioningly. ‘Have you made up your mind? I've got to get back to work,' he reminded her. ‘I think we'd better take it as it's certainly the best we've seen.'

She nodded, afraid to speak in case he heard the fear and disappointment in her voice. She kept remembering the luxury of the hotel room where they had stayed together in Porthcawl; that was the sort of future she had dreamed of having with Gwyn, certainly not living together in a sordid attic in Tiger Bay. It might be only a couple of miles away from her old home and the centre of Cardiff, but it was like another world.

‘Come on then.' He took her hand again. ‘We'll go and tell the landlady and then you can come back to St Mary Street with me and collect your cases from the hotel. You'd probably better
get a taxicab to bring them back here because they'll be too heavy for you to carry from the Pier Head. You won't forget where you're living now, will you?' he teased. ‘It's in Louisa Street and it's two doors away from the Pembroke Castle. The landlady's name is Mrs Blackwood and remember you are signed in as Mrs Roberts,' he told her as they walked back to the Pier Head to catch a tram.

‘Why have you told her that? We're not married yet.'

He looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘If Mrs Blackwood knew that, then in all probability she wouldn't let us stay here. Even down here in Tiger Bay they set great store by a couple being married, you know,' he said wryly.

Sarah bit her lip and said nothing. Gwyn hadn't even said that he wanted to marry her, she thought miserably. What had suddenly happened to all the romance?

She knew they couldn't have a white wedding and all the celebrations that usually took place but he could have taken her in his arms and asked her if she would marry him. As it was he was taking it for granted that she was prepared to simply move in with him and call herself Mrs Roberts.

‘What time will you be coming home?' Sarah asked anxiously as they alighted from the tram in St Mary Street. ‘Can't I wait for you so that we can go back together?'

‘No, you must go and collect your cases and
it is better if you go straight back with them,' he told her firmly. ‘Anyway, I don't know what time I will be finished. It depends what I have to do and where I have to go. I'll be home as soon as I can.'

‘So what do I do until then, simply sit and wait for you?' she asked sarcastically.

‘I'm afraid so; it's something you are going to have to get used to doing because most of the time I'll be at work and in my job, it's not regular hours. Anyway, it will give you plenty of time to catch up with your studying.'

‘You mean I might be there on my own in the evening?' she asked in dismay.

‘More than likely. If a story breaks and I am sent to cover it then I have to go, no matter what time of day or night it might be.'

‘This will be our first day in Louisa Street, though, so surely you could stay with me, just for once,' she pleaded.

‘I was lucky to get the morning off,' he reminded her. ‘You take your cases back, unpack them, and then go out and buy some food to last us for a few days. Have you got enough money to do that and to pay for the taxi?'

‘I think so, but I don't know where any of the shops are. Anyway, I'll be scared stiff wandering round those streets on my own,' she prevaricated, ‘and I don't even know what sort of food to buy because I don't know what you like.'

‘What about bread, milk and perhaps some
bacon and eggs or cheese or something like that? Buy whatever you would buy if you were at home.'

‘I never had to do any shopping when I lived at home; my mam always did it.'

‘Then you'd better start learning,' he told her grimly. ‘From now on you'll be doing the shopping, cooking and cleaning like a proper housewife, even if we aren't married.'

As Gwyn hurried off into the offices of the
Western Mail
Sarah stood on the pavement outside debating what to do. On impulse she walked across the road and wandered into the Royal Arcade. She had been able to leave her suitcases at the reception desk in the hotel that morning, and didn't have to be back to collect them just yet. She felt so disheartened by the way things were turning out that she went into a café and ordered a hot drink and a buttered bun in order to give herself time to think about the bleak future that lay ahead of her.

She wasn't sure that her love for Gwyn was strong enough to make such a tremendous sacrifice as all this was going to entail. She was being expected to change her entire way of life and she needed to talk to someone about it; the only person she could think of was her mother.

She was now six months pregnant; her morning sickness seemed to have stopped, and, with her mother's help, she could probably carry on at university right up until the baby was
born. Perhaps if they told her father that was what she wanted to do, then he would be more lenient.

Perhaps they could say that she was married. The only trouble was that her father would hate that because he didn't want her to have anything to do with Gwyn, so it might be better to say nothing and let people think whatever they wanted to.

Her father was always so concerned about what the neighbours might say about them that her mother rarely had anything to do with any of them so who was to know, or even to bother to check up?

It was now early afternoon. Her father would be at work and she was tempted to go and see her mother. If they could only talk things over she might be able to reason out what was the best thing to do to placate him so that it was possible for her to go back home again if she found life in Tiger Bay absolutely unbearable.

As she stood on the doorstep of her home in Cyfartha Street, Sarah felt as if she had been away for months, not merely one night. She slipped her hand through the letter box to find the key that always hung there, and then frowned in bewilderment. It wasn't there. She tried again, feeling carefully all round as far as her hand would stretch, but in vain.

Apprehensively, she raised the knocker and as the sound echoed hollowly, her fears increased: she'd been so sure that her mother would be there, she never went out at this time of the day.

Perhaps she wasn't feeling too well and was lying down resting. She banged again, more loudly this time and then bent down and called out through the letter box, ‘Mam, it's me, Sarah', in case her mother was there but had decided not to answer the door to callers.

When nothing happened, when no footsteps came hurrying along the passage, she felt tears pricking at her eyes. This was the last straw; she'd counted on her mam being there for her.

Slowly she retraced her footsteps to the tram stop in Crwys Road. She daren't hang about;
time was passing and she had to collect her cases and take them back to Louisa Street.

She wished she'd had a paper and pencil so that she could have left a note for her mother telling her where she was living. Then the thought that her father might have found it before her mother did made her realise that it was just as well that she hadn't.

It was almost three o'clock by the time she reached the hotel and Sarah worried that Gwyn might arrive back at Louisa Street before she did.

The minute the taxicab drew up in Louisa Street Mrs Blackwood was on the doorstep to see what was happening.

‘Oh, it's you is it,' she commented as Sarah stepped out of the cab and stood on the pavement waiting for the driver to hand out her suitcases.

‘You'd better carry those suitcases up to her room for her, they're far too heavy for her to carry in her state,' Mrs Blackwood told the driver when he put them down on the pavement and made to get back into the cab.

‘It's the top floor, she'll show you. Go on then,' she gave Sarah a prod, ‘lead the way; I'll stay here and make sure none of the little tykes round here touch your cab,' she told the driver.

When the cab driver left Sarah hastily began to unpack her clothes and stow them away, hoping to be finished before Gwyn arrived home. It wasn't until she heard him walk in
that she realised she'd done no shopping and there was nothing at all to eat. She hadn't even been down into the kitchen and so she had no idea if there was even enough tea to make him a drink.

Guiltily she flung herself into his arms, hugging him and kissing him because she felt so relieved to see him.

‘Is this the sort of greeting I can expect every night?' he asked teasingly as he returned her hugs and kisses.

‘Only when things go wrong,' she said smiling. ‘I don't know where the time has gone but I haven't done any shopping.'

He pulled a face. ‘That's too bad because I only had time for a snack at lunchtime and now I'm starving hungry. Perhaps we'd better go and see what we can get before the shops shut.'

There were still shops open in George Street and James Street so they bought enough groceries to last them for several days.

‘It's too late to start cooking, so why don't we buy some fish and chips?' he suggested.

Gwyn waited until they had finished their supper before asking Sarah if she had cleaned out the cupboards that were theirs in the kitchen.

She looked at him blankly. ‘What cupboards?'

‘Well, there must be some place down there that is for our stuff,' he pointed out. ‘Come on, let's go and look. There's probably no one there now because it's so late.'

‘Then how will we know which is ours?'

‘I don't know.' He shrugged. ‘If we can't work it out then we'll go down and ask Mrs Blackwood. We should have done so this morning, I suppose.'

The kitchen was so small that Sarah didn't think it was possible for there to be any space for their things but, to her surprise, they found there was a cupboard with ‘Top Room' scrawled on it. Inside were cups and saucers, dishes, a couple of jugs, a basin, two saucepans and a frying pan. There was also an open-top wooden box containing an assortment of cutlery.

‘Well, there you are,' Gwyn smiled, ‘everything you are likely to need and plenty of space for all the things we bought tonight. I'll bring them down and you can put them away.'

‘Do you think they will be safe? There are two other families sharing this kitchen, remember.'

‘We'll have to wait and see, won't we? Anyway, while you are doing that I'm off back to my lodgings to fetch my things.'

‘Oh, Gwyn,' her face fell, ‘don't leave me here on my own. Can't I come with you?'

‘I think it best if I go on my own. It'll be cheaper, and I won't be all that long. If you've finished unpacking those suitcases then I'll take them with me to bring my stuff back,' he told her as he gave her a brief kiss.

Sarah's first attempts at cooking the following night were a disaster. The potatoes boiled dry, the chops were charcoal-black on the outside
but red raw in the middle, and they'd stuck to the bottom of the frying pan so that when she tried to get them out they were in pieces.