Spoils of War (19 page)

‘You’re bloody thieves, that’s what you are. Over six pounds’ labour! The wife and me work from dawn to dusk for a month and don’t see anywhere near that kind of money.’

‘The wife and you aren’t skilled mechanics, Gwilym. A trained man and boy worked on your van for three days and nights, including Sunday and that’s double time. You were the one who told us it was a rush job.
“Couldn’t be without it for Wednesday market”
was what I believe you said on Sunday when the mechanic picked it up from your place.’

Seeing he was beaten, Gwilym eyed Ronnie sideways, then scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Tell you what, seeing as how it’s you, and you were so good about fixing it in time for tomorrow morning, how about I give you half a cow. I’ve got a bit of a thing going with the slaughterhouse and they’ll always kill the odd animal for me as a favour when I’ve a few unexpected bills to pay.’

‘We’re not into the black market, Gwilym.’

‘I’m not saying you are, but like everyone else, you’ve got family.’

‘Not one big enough to eat half a cow before it goes off.’

‘Make it a whole cow and you have a deal, Gwilym.’ William said suddenly.

‘Will …’

‘That’s daylight robbery!’ Gwilym exclaimed indignantly.

‘A whole cow or we keep the van.’ William deliberately refused to meet Ronnie’s eye. ‘And,’ he smiled, ‘not an odd cow either, Gwilym. One of your best beef bullocks will do.’

‘I can sell those for twenty-five guineas.’

‘In that case sell it and give us the money,’ Ronnie interrupted.

‘You have to be careful these days. There’s people watching all the time: Jealous buggers who won’t think twice about shopping a mate if there’s a reward in it for them.’

‘Exactly, and if we’re running the risk of getting caught we’ll need extra to cover that risk,’ William stated firmly.

‘You’ll not be wanting the head and the innards?’

‘The whole cow, Gwilym, or the deal’s off. How soon can you deliver?’

‘To here?’

‘The slaughterhouse. We’ll take it from there.’

‘They do their specials on Thursday night.’

‘In that case, I’ll expect to go to the slaughterhouse on Friday morning and arrange delivery of my meat.’

‘That’s a lot of meat. If you need any help to get it off your hands –’

‘No help, Gwilym. Here.’ William stepped forward and picked up the invoice. Unscrewing the cap from Ronnie’s pen he wrote,
Full payment to be received in cash by the first Saturday after the above date or van to be repossessed in lieu of payment.
‘There, that makes it nice and legal, now all you have to do is sign that and you can drive away.’

‘Bloody highway robbery, that’s what this is,’ Gwilym grumbled, but he took the pen.

‘We’ll still take cash on Saturday.’

‘Your cow will be there, first thing Friday morning but they’ll be wanting it out of the slaughterhouse quick. The meat inspector’s no fool and he never lets on when he’s coming.’

‘We’ll take it out, don’t worry. Ronnie, give the man his keys. Nice doing business with you, Gwilym.’ William offered his hand. Still grumbling the farmer hesitated before taking it and walking through the door.

William went to the window. Taking his handkerchief from his pocket he cleaned a small hole in the grimy glass and watched Gwilym drive away. ‘We’re going to do it, Ronnie. We’re going to catch up with all the bastards who’ve been sitting nice and safe and cosy in Pontypridd making a fortune on the black market while the Nazis have been using us as live targets. There may be quick money to be made during a war but there’s still some to be made in reconstruction. This is going even better than I thought it would.’

‘Better!’ Ronnie brushed the horsehair stuffing off his trousers that had leaked out of the chair he’d been sitting on, and joined William at the window. ‘What are we going to do with a whole cow including head and innards?’

‘Think about it, Ronnie. Who do we know who sells food and can cook it on the premises?’

‘The cafés and Alma, but the girls ran the café and restaurant legally during the war and Angelo hasn’t put a foot wrong since he’s come back. I’ll not have my brothers running the risk of prosecution just because you’ve done a dodgy deal, Will.’

‘I thought you’d opted out of running the cafés.’

‘I’m still head of the family. If Angelo takes any of your meat I’ll take a walk up to the police station myself.’

‘You weren’t so fussy in Italy .. .’

‘Because Italy was a bloody shambles. There weren’t any police to chase up black marketeers and even if there had been, there weren’t any prosecutors to prosecute. Haven’t you read the
Pontypridd Observer
since we’ve come back? At least half a dozen cases of black market dabblers are tried every week.’

‘That doesn’t mean we’re going to be one.’

‘You not me. I’ve two kids and a sick wife to think about. I’m having nothing to do with this.’

‘You’ll take half the profits.’

‘I’ll take no more than what it takes to clear Gwilym’s bill.’

‘Not even if I sell at double the price of the bill to Alma?’

‘Not even if you sell at ten times the price. But I warn you now, Will, Alma hasn’t got where she is by bucking the system. You start poking around in Gwilym and the slaughterhouse manager’s
“special business”,
and you’ll find yourself standing in the dock alongside them.’

Chapter Ten

‘My letter to the MP worked,’ Tony announced as he sat down to tea with Gina, Luke, Roberto and his mother. ‘He must have moved Gabrielle’s name up one of the lists because she’s arriving in London next Wednesday.’

His mother paled as she picked up a tureen from the table. ‘Mashed potato?’ She dolloped a large spoonful on Tony’s plate.

‘Did you hear what I said, Mama? Gabrielle –’

‘We all heard, Tony. Luke, take three sausages not two. You need your strength working down that pit.’

‘I’ll be going up to London to meet her.’

‘As long as you don’t expect any of us to go with you. We can’t afford train tickets let alone the waste of good working time.’ Mrs Ronconi forked three sausages on to Tony’s plate. ‘Pass Luke the gravy boat, Roberto.’

‘The wedding –’

‘I said I would arrange it and I will; a beautiful one you can be proud of. Do you know if she has a dress and a veil, or will we have to find one? Perhaps Laura’s would fit her. You poor girl,’ Mrs Ronconi looked down fondly on Gina, ‘getting married in that terrible registry office on the day I took the little ones to Birmingham. You had to make do with that awful costume.’

‘It wasn’t awful, Mama, it was new.’

‘Wartime!’ Mrs Ronconi scoffed. ‘Poor you and poor Tina. Both married in ordinary clothes in an office, not a church, and Tina without a soul from her family except you and Luke there. And now here I am arranging a beautiful wedding for a German. But you don’t have to remind me, Tony. I promised God, you and this German a beautiful wedding and you will have one. I only hope Diana’s head will mend in time for her to see it.’

Tony had the grace to stare down at his plate as Gina and Luke exchanged glances.

‘You’ll have to clean the rooms above the café, Tony,’ Gina murmured, in an attempt to fill the awkward silence that had fallen over the table.

‘I think the German can clean them herself. After all, she has them for nothing.’

Hoping for a favour, Tony allowed his mother’s disparaging observations to pass without comment for once. ‘Please, Mama, won’t you reconsider allowing Gabrielle to stay here?’

‘There’s no room. Roberto, stop poking at that cabbage. Eat it at once, before it gets cold.’

The entirely blameless Roberto stopped forking potatoes into his mouth and switched to cabbage.

‘There will be room if I move into the café,’ Tony persevered.

‘So, you want this German of yours to sleep with your brothers in Alfredo and Roberto’s room.’

‘Of course not, but Angelo could move out of the boxroom and in with them.’

‘I’m not asking Angelo to move anywhere.’

‘Then I will.’

‘What’s the difference between you or the German sleeping in the rooms above the café?’ his mother demanded fractiously.

‘I’ve told you, they’re not suitable.’

‘Not suitable!’ Mrs Ronconi left her chair and drew herself up to her full height of four feet ten inches. ‘They were suitable for our Tina and her William. Anyone would think this German of yours is Princess Elizabeth.’

‘All I’m asking is that you let her stay here for three weeks until the banns are read and we can get married.’ Pushing his chair back, Tony left the table. ‘But it appears that is too much to ask you to do for your new daughter-in-law.’

‘And where are you going in the middle of a meal?’

‘Down to the café.’

‘It is your day off. If you don’t rest or eat properly you will be ill again.’

‘I’ll have to do something with the rooms, seeing as how no one in the family will help me.’

‘Tony …’

‘Let him go, Gina. You have enough to do to see to your husband and your baby. Why should you run round for a woman who is too good to live in the rooms our Tina made into a home?’

‘Tell you what, Mama,’ Tony opened the door, ‘why don’t I move into them right away, seeing as how William and Tina have already moved out?’

‘Suit yourself. What do I care if you want to live in sin with a German. She is only a German. But there’ll be no big wedding if you do.’

‘Given the attitude of this family you can keep your bloody wedding.’

‘See what she is making you do. Swearing at your own mother – I told you that you can have a beautiful wedding and a place to live, Antonio,’ his mother called after him as he stormed through the door and down the passage. ‘I didn’t promise God anything about having Germans in my house. And I won’t. Not while I have breath in my body and strength in my arms to shut them out.’

‘Andrew, is that you?’ Bethan called from the kitchen as she heard the front door open and close.

‘You expecting anyone else at this time of night?’

Steeling herself for yet another bout of bickering and wounding remarks, she called back, ‘Of course not. I’ve kept your supper warm.’

‘What is it?’

‘Welsh rarebit.’

‘I’ve forgotten what meat tastes like.’

‘So have we all since the war started,’ she bit back more harshly than she’d intended.

He remained in the hall a moment longer than it took to divest himself of his coat, hat, gloves and scarf. Their lovemaking had become more intense and frequent since the disastrous dinner with David Ford but once they had their clothes on, the sniping began. Principally because he simply couldn’t stop thinking about her relationship with David and – he suspected – neither could she.

All reason dictated that she had every right to seek out and enjoy the company of a man who had proved such a good friend to her and their children through a difficult year of war. But reason couldn’t stop jealousy gnawing every time he caught sight of the colonel’s tall, slim uniformed figure walking purposefully along Taff Street. Or wanting to lash out every time one of their acquaintances made a snide comment along the lines of,
‘Saw your wife out walking in the park with that nice American colonel the other day, Dr John. Bet he sees you all right for a few parcels of tinned food.’
Or worse of all – remembered her laughter the day he had seen them walk out of the park gates together.

‘Sorry, I’m late.’ He would have kissed Bethan’s cheek when he entered the kitchen if she hadn’t been crouching over the stove. ‘I had a drink with Charlie,’ he added by way of an explanation.

She pushed her hands into a pair of oven mitts. ‘How is he?’ There was real concern in her voice as she removed the plate from the rack where it had been warming and laid it on the wooden tray she’d placed on the table in front of his chair.

He went to the sink to wash his hands. ‘Better than I’ve seen him in months. His wife – Russian wife,’ he amended, ‘is arriving in Tilbury next Wednesday.’

‘That is going to be hard on Alma.’

‘And you. He asked if you’d travel up with him to meet her. The Red Cross sent an extra travel warrant for him to take a friend. Apparently his wife is very weak and they thought he might need help with her on the journey.’

‘And he asked you, not me, if I would go with him?’

‘He’s going to ask you himself but first he wanted to know how I’d feel about you meeting Masha. After all, we’re Alma’s friends as much as his and he didn’t want to risk complicating our friendship.’

‘So, if you’d objected to my going to Tilbury with him he wouldn’t have asked me?’

‘It wasn’t like that, Bethan.’

‘It sounds like it to me. Dear God, we women ran things perfectly well without you men interfering all through the war and now you’re back, you’re deciding where we should go and who we should meet without consulting us. We’re not children or idiots.’

He finished drying his hands on the kitchen towel and pulled his chair out from the table. ‘I know you’re not,’ he agreed quietly.

‘So what did you tell him?’ she demanded in exasperation as he prodded the dried up cheese with his fork.

‘I told him I’d try to get some time off and go with you.’

‘A family outing! That’s all the woman needs – to be confronted with a mass of strangers when she arrives in a foreign country after travelling across Europe from a displaced persons’ camp.’

‘Two of us hardly constitutes a mass.’

‘And Charlie? She hasn’t seen him in sixteen years.’

‘I said I’d talk it over with you.’

‘No you didn’t,’ she challenged.

He laid down his knife and fork, ‘All right, I didn’t, but I didn’t think you’d be so opposed to my going with you.’

‘You did say Charlie has only one extra travel warrant.’

‘I could buy a ticket. Charlie’s a good friend, he needs help.’

‘And our loyalty to Alma?’

‘Apparently she’s being so civilised about Charlie’s other wife, he’s sure she wouldn’t mind us going up to London with him.’

‘You took Charlie’s word for it, or you stopped off on the way back and asked her?’

‘I took his word.’

‘I see.’

‘Bethan, I’ll go along with whatever you think best, but please, consider Charlie. He’s still weak. He may be taken ill – anything could happen between here and London. Even if the train’s on time and all the connections go smoothly it’s a twelve-hour journey. To go there and back in this freezing weather without taking a break is exhausting for a fit man, let alone someone like him.’

‘You think he’ll need a doctor?’

‘He’ll need a friend more, which is why I thought both of us should go. If you don’t want to, I will, and if you do, the two of us might be more help to him and his wife. If you’re worried about Alma, and I can see why you should be, then perhaps you could talk over the situation with her.’

‘I already have.’

‘Then why are we arguing?’

Ignoring his question, she poured herself a cup of tea and sat opposite him at the table. ‘Alma asked me to help Charlie, and I told her I would, but only if it didn’t affect our friendship.’

‘Then you will go to London with him?’

‘Yes, as he wants me to. Will you?’

‘If you have no objection, and I can persuade my father and old Dr Evans to look after things here.’

‘I’ll tell Alma I’m going with him tomorrow.’ Bethan reached for the cigarettes in her apron pocket.

‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke so much.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of the Reinkoff report. He believes it is one of the causes of cancer.’

‘So it’s all right for you to smoke and not me?’

‘I don’t smoke anywhere near as much as you. And I don’t smoke American cigarettes.’

‘They’re so much stronger than British? Or is it the person who gives them to me that you object to?’ Bethan lit her cigarette and drew on it defiantly as he pushed his meal aside. ‘If it’s dried up it’s your fault.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Do you want tea?’

‘Please.’

He wanted to reach across the table, grasp her hand and force her to look at him – really look at him – the way she used to before the war – and David Ford had driven them apart. Instead he took the tea she offered and stirred it.

‘The main reason I’m late is Charlie started talking about the camps, the war, Alma and his Russian wife. And once he started I didn’t want to stop him. You know how reticent he’s been.’

‘What did he say about his first wife?’

‘That’s difficult.’

‘Because he asked you not to tell anyone?’

‘No, because he feels that he’s only just recovering emotionally after his experience in the camps. The one thing he is certain of is that his first wife has more right and claim to him as a husband than Alma.’

‘Alma would agree with him there.’

‘Really?’ He stared at her in amazement.

‘Alma feels that as he told her about Masha before they married, and warned her that Masha would have first claim if she ever turned up, she has nothing to complain about.’

‘But surely Alma didn’t think this Masha was still alive?’

‘I rather think events have proved there was no way of anyone knowing that, one way or the other.’ Gearing her cup and saucer into the sink, she picked up his plate. Taking his knife, she scraped off the cheese into the pigs swill bin.

‘What did you do today?’

‘I went to town and queued for three hours to get our groceries and an hour and a half to get our ration of fruit. No doubt you heard I also ran into David Ford.’

‘As a matter of fact I did. You two seem to “run into” one another quite often.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That Pontypridd is a small town,’ he replied, deciding she could take his comment anyway she wanted.

‘It’s all the smaller for people like Mrs Richards and her daughter. I doubt they wasted any time in telling you that David and I went to Ronconi’s together. If you’d rather I didn’t see him, why don’t you come right out and say it, Andrew.’

‘So you can play the injured, indignant wife? He’s your friend …’

‘Shouldn’t that be “our”, considering he’s had dinner with us.’

‘Beth …’

‘I’m too tired to argue, Andrew. The children will be up early, I’m going to bed.’

Stifling the urge to call out
‘What’s happening to us?’
he watched her walk out of the room and listened as she ran lightly up the stairs. Moving from the table he sat in the comfortable chair in front of the range, leaned back and gazed up blindly at the ceiling. His head was still swimming from the after-effects of too much brandy and beer on an empty stomach. It wasn’t the right time to think about anything serious, certainly not Bethan and their problems, but he couldn’t help himself.

The only time they ever talked rationally and seriously was when they discussed other people’s problems. As soon as they touched on their own situation, reason gave way to a ludicrous game of one-upmanship played out at the expense of their marriage.

Where did they go from here? Carry on as they were ‘for the sake of the children’, rubbing along as best they could until they ended up like most of the
‘respectable’
middle-class couples who formed the backbone of the town, polite and deferential to one another in public, and barely communicating in private.

He could go upstairs now, climb into bed beside her – even make love – for want of a better word because for all its intensity, their physical relationship had lost something. Perhaps a sense of themselves as people who truly cared for one another; all technique and no emotion like a Beethoven concerto played on a pianolo.