One Blue Moon (13 page)

Stung by the pathos of what she was doing to herself, Ronnie turned away. Maud painting her thin, sickly face for her first outing in weeks reminded him of an incident he’d witnessed as a child. The curtains had been drawn in the house next door to theirs. He’d asked his heavily pregnant mother if he should go next door and tell Mrs Brown that it was daytime. She’d warned him tersely not to go near the house. It was the lack of explanation that intrigued him: he’d sensed that something secret, something forbidden, was going on behind those closed drapes. When his mother had called him for dinner he’d scoffed it in record time. Then sneaking out into the deserted street, he’d crept up the short flight of steps to next door’s front door. The curtains were still drawn, but there was a crack at the side where they didn’t quite cover the edge of the bay. He’d crouched down and looked through the small gap. Mr Brown was lying on the table in the parlour. Mrs Brown was bending over him, tenderly washing a thick layer of coal dust from his grey, dead face.

He rubbed his eyes. Why had he thought of that incident now? He hadn’t called it to mind for years.

‘I’m ready.’

Maud had put away her lipstick and powder and closed her handbag. She was sitting forward on the edge of her chair, the grey cardigan round her shoulders. The air was sweet, redolent with essence of violets, but he noticed, thankfully, she’d decided against reddening her cheeks.

‘Your hat and coat by the front door?’

‘They are.’

‘Green coat, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she was surprised he’d remembered. ‘And the black tarn’s mine.’

He fetched them. She rose somewhat unsteadily from the chair. He caught her shoulder as she staggered. Slipping her arms quickly into the sleeves of her coat, he lowered her back into her chair.

‘Stay there for a minute,’ he ordered, unnerved by her fragility.

She looked down at her feet and saw the old slippers she’d inherited from Bethan. Tartan with red pom-poms, their ugliness hurt.

‘Shoes?’ Ronnie asked abruptly.

‘They’re in the washhouse on the shelf. Plain black with a bar.’

He found them and brought them out. Maud kicked off the slippers, but when she bent to do up the buckles, she almost fell head first on to the floor. Ronnie knelt and fastened the buckles for her. Embarrassed, she made a bad joke.

‘Does your girlfriend know you play Prince Charming with other girls?’ She didn’t dare mention Alma’s name.

‘You’re not a girl, you’re a baby,’ he contradicted her. ‘Right, blanket around your shoulders.’

‘Ronnie ...’

‘It’s not up for discussion. Either you do it or you don’t go. I’ve left an umbrella by the door. It’ll keep off the worst of the rain, but not all of it. Right, can you walk by yourself or do I carry you?’ he asked, looking at her critically.

‘I can walk,’ she asserted forcefully, swaying precariously. He put his arm round her waist and pulled her close to him, steadying her. ‘One slip and I’m carrying you.’

He helped her as far as the door, then opened his umbrella and gave it to her to hold. Stepping outside, he swung her up into his arms. ‘Don’t argue,’ he ordered, silencing her protests. ‘It’s too damned wet to hang around here quarrelling.’ He carried her down the steps and set her on her feet by the side of the van. Pulling open the door, he lifted her on to the bench seat inside. He ran around to his side of the van, took the starting handle from beneath his seat and swung the engine into life, before climbing in. ‘Right, first stop the café.’ He looked across at her and smiled. The smile froze on his lips. She was lying back against the seat, her thin face grey in the watery lamplight. Perhaps this had been a crazy idea after all. What right did he have to come in and sweep her off to the café for some social life just because her family had left her alone for the evening? Then he remembered what Trevor had said: this was her last year. She deserved every minute of animation and life he, or anyone else, could give her.

‘I would much rather have gone to the pictures,’ Diana moaned to Tina as they queued outside the Town Hall.

‘I would have gone with you if the boys hadn’t hogged the only decent talkie in town.’

‘It’s the pictures, for pity’s sake. Half the town would have been there, as well as my brother and Glan Richards. Just what are you afraid of?’

‘Being seen sitting too close to Will by someone who’d carry tales back to Papa or Ronnie.’

‘It’s not as if you don’t like my brother ...’

‘That’s just it. I like him, and Ronnie and Papa know it.’

‘And just what could they do to you if they did find out that you were going out with Will?’ Diana demanded testily, convinced that Tina was making a melodrama out of absolutely nothing.

‘Send me to Italy,’ Tina said flatly.

Diana stared at her incredulously. ‘They wouldn’t.’

‘They would,’ Tina assured her.

‘But you’ve never been there, it’d be ...’ The queue shuffled forward and Tina grabbed her arm and pulled her up the line. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’m serious,’ Tina whispered. ‘Didn’t Bethan ever tell you what Laura had to put up with when Papa found out about her and Trevor Lewis? My father wants – no,
expects –
all of us to marry Italians, or at the very least, Welsh Italians. I think secretly he still regards Laura’s marriage as a disgrace to the name of Ronconi, and he certainly doesn’t intend to stand by and do nothing while any of the rest of us dishonour it any more than Laura already has.’

‘But he seems to get on all right with Trevor Lewis,’ Diana protested, trying to recall the few times she’d seen Mr Ronconi senior and Doctor Lewis together.

‘Get on with has nothing to do with it. He
gets on
with Trevor, likes him even for being a doctor, and a Catholic. What he doesn’t like is Trevor being Irish/Welsh instead of Italian.’

‘But isn’t Ronnie keen on Alma Moore?’ Diana persisted.

‘Perhaps,’ Tina said darkly. ‘And then again perhaps not. Ronnie’s made sure that no one really knows, not even Alma. But believe you me, even if he is keen on Alma, “keen on” is nowhere near marrying.’ The queue surged forward again, and this time Diana pulled Tina on. ‘Ronnie’ll never marry a Welsh girl,’ Tina pronounced decisively. ‘Take my word for it, even if he loves Alma Moore, he’ll walk up the aisle with Papa’s choice. For the last four Mondays Mama’s invited Maria Pauli to tea. She was born in Wales, but Papa’s prepared to overlook that, as both her parents are from Bardi and like us they speak Italian at home. Her father has a café in Ferndale,’ she informed Diana matter-of-factly. ‘And I think both Papa and Mama are expecting Ronnie to succumb to her charms any day now. I overheard Papa tell Ronnie three times last week that a man should be married before his twenty-fifth birthday. Ronnie was twenty-seven last month.’

‘Does Alma know any of this?’ Diana demanded.

‘If she doesn’t she’s a fool,’ Tina said. ‘She’s been mooning around after Ronnie for years. If she can’t read the writing on the wall by now, she never will.’

Diana remembered the blatant adoration on Alma’s face every time she looked at Ronnie. ‘Knowing someone and being in love with them are two different things,’ she sighed theatrically, recalling the plot of a Claudette Colbert film she and Maud had seen in Cardiff. ‘I think when you love someone you can forgive them anything, and overlook everything.’

‘If Ronnie was anywhere near serious about her, he would have married her years ago,’ Tina said impatiently. ‘If you want my opinion, I think she’s just someone he’s passing the time of day with,’ she continued airily with all the worldliness of her sixteen years.

‘Well I’m sorry, but I think that’s a foul way for Ronnie to behave towards any girl, let alone one as nice as Alma.’

‘He wouldn’t go out with Alma if she wasn’t nice.’

‘I don’t think I like your brother very much!’ Diana pronounced resolutely, already half-way into weaving a tragic romance in which Alma was the wronged, doomed heroine.

‘All the years you’ve known him, and you’ve never come to that conclusion before? I’ll let you into a secret. I’ve never liked him,’ Tina grinned. ‘Two sixpences please,’ she said to the girl in the cashier’s kiosk, as they reached the box office.

‘I would have rather had four penny seats.’ Diana rummaged in her handbag for her purse. Tonight was a real extravagance. Tina had caught her at a low ebb when she’d come into the shop mid-morning. After four stern dressing-downs from Ben Springer, and three from his wife, she hadn’t needed much persuading to agree to an outing, although she knew perfectly well there was no way she could really afford it. Despite Ben Springer’s assertion that he’d review her pay at the end of the week, she knew now that she wouldn’t dare bring up the subject of her wages again. Not after seeing so many girls her age walking the shops in Taff Street every day in a last-ditch attempt to find local work before resorting to the domestic agencies that trained women for service in England.

‘This one’s on me,’ Tina insisted, pushing the change she’d received from half a crown into her handbag. ‘I’m rich. Ronnie actually paid me this week.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Diana scolded. ‘You can’t afford to treat me.’

‘Tell you what, you buy ice-cream wafers in the interval and we’ll call it quits.’

‘They’re only twopence ...’

‘And cornets are a penny. Look, we can swap over next time if it makes you feel any better. Give us a good excuse to go out together again.’ She ran up the steep flight of steps into the hall.

‘I don’t like owing money.’ Diana reluctantly returned her purse to her handbag. Like all people living close to the bone, she resented taking ‘charity’ from anyone.

Tina led the way down the long corridor to the usherette, who guided them to the rear of the stalls.

‘At least they’re right at the back,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We can put our seats up if we have to, and sit on them. Chewing gum?’ she flipped open a packet of P.K. and flicked one into Diana’s hand.

‘Did you pay for these?’ Diana asked.

‘They fell on the floor when I was opening a new box. Can’t sell spoiled goods to the customers,’ she grinned.

The orchestra began to tune up, scratchily and noisily. Diana settled back in her seat. The manager walked out in front of the curtain and held up his hand.

‘Oh-oh, here comes a programme change,’ Tina moaned. ‘What’s the betting that the leading lady and all the chorus girls are sick and they’re bringing on the Dan-y-Lan Coons instead?’

‘Ssh!’Diana hissed as heads turned towards them.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ the words fell unheard into the auditorium. He lifted the microphone stand towards him and tapped it. A hollow boom echoed around the theatre.

‘Something you ate, Dai,’ a wag shouted from the front row. A gale of laughter drowned out the manager’s words.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen ... Ladies and Gentlemen ...’ It took a full minute of stammering repetition for him to regain the attention of the restless audience. When hush finally descended he continued, ‘I regret to inform you ...’

‘Told you,’ Tina crowed.

‘Ssh!’ Diana commanded as she tried to listen.

‘ ... is ill. To take his place we have a local boy, who works here, and I want all of you to give him a chance,’ he shouted above the cat-calls and jeers. Someone offstage pushed Haydn in front of the curtain. He bowed quickly and dashed off, but not before the audience had dissolved into mirth at the costume he was wearing. A ruffled matador shirt strained tightly across his broad shoulders and gaped across his chest where the buttons refused to meet the buttonholes. A short cloak hung half-way up his back and a ridiculously small tricorn was perched on the crown of his head.

‘The hat looks like a pimple on a haystack,’ Tina giggled helplessly. ‘And I would have loved to see him in the trousers that went with that outfit. He looks like Gulliver dressed by the Lilliputians.’

Diana alone out of all the people packed into the auditorium kept a straight face.

‘I wonder what he’s going to do.’ Tina wiped tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘Something good, I hope,’ Diana murmured, crossing her fingers and hoping against hope that Haydn wasn’t about to make a fool of himself.

Chapter Twelve

When Haydn was told that the head chorus boy was sick, and was asked to stand in for him, his spirits soared. The head chorus boy had two duets with the head chorus girl, one of which contained three precious solo verses. He felt that the gods had smiled on him – forgiving him for rejecting Ambrose’s offer after all. Who knows, when the revue moved on he might be taken with it. To big cities – exotic places he’d only read about and heard of, never visited – Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol. Perhaps the biggest prize of all – London. But even as he built his towering, glittering castles of success in the air, the bombshell struck.

The manager had handed him the head boy’s costume, which was at least five inches too narrow and a good six inches too short for him, with the news that he was going to fill in for the newest and least important chorus boy in the line-up. His presence was only needed to even numbers up in the dance routines, and provide another male voice in the background. All of the boys in the chorus had been understudying the head boy and praying for this moment. He watched them practise the solo verses and fight over the role while he struggled into the matador’s shirt (he failed even to pull the satin trousers over his thighs). In vain he protested to the show’s director and the manager that he couldn’t dance.

‘You don’t have to dance, boy, just be there,’ the director boomed in his best Shakespearean voice.

‘You’ve seen the routine often enough, Haydn. It’s not much to ask,’ the manager snapped. Ice cold and paralysed with fear, Haydn watched while Dolly, a charming little teaser on stage and an absolute bitch off, executed a complicated tap step in the corridor.

‘Got it now?’ she asked briskly.

Haydn tried to copy her fancy footwork but his feet simply failed to respond to the directives he sent them. Tripping over his ankle, he fell flat on his face.

‘He’ll never do,’ Dolly complained loudly, making Haydn feel about two inches high. ‘He’s got two left feet.’

‘It’s only for tonight, darling,’ the director said soothingly. ‘Right, everybody ready?’

‘Just one more thing, hot shot,’ one of the boys whispered to Haydn as he followed them up the steps to the wings. ‘Don’t try to drown us out with your singing. We’ve all heard you backstage. You haven’t got a bad voice, for an amateur,’ he added deprecatingly. ‘But like all amateurs you obviously think the louder you sing, the better it is.’

‘Mime, sweetheart.’ Dolly pinched his arm viciously as she walked past him on her way to the stage. ‘Just open and shut your mouth like a goldfish, stand still and you can’t go wrong.’

‘I hope so,’ Haydn muttered fervently as he followed the others out on to the darkened, curtained stage. ‘I really hope so.’

‘You tired yet?’ Ronnie asked Maud solicitously as she sat in front of the fire in the back room of the café with Gina on one side, Angelo on the other and him opposite her.

‘A little,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘How about I make you one of Papa’s special ice creams to perk you up?’ Angelo offered. Tony had only just taught him how to make the raspberry delights, banana splits and knickerbocker glories that formed the backbone of Ronconi’s dessert menus, but so few customers could afford to order fancy ice creams that he grasped every opportunity to air his new-found skills.

‘No thank you,’ Maud smiled. Ronnie had whisked her off in such a rush she hadn’t even thought to bring her purse with her, and even if she had, she doubted she had enough to cover the sixpence that a knickerbocker glory cost. Besides, Tina had already given her a hot chocolate on the house.

‘Angelo will be so upset if you don’t let him make one of his ice creams,’ Ronnie coaxed. ‘Go on, be reckless for once. There’s nothing in this world like the taste of Ronconi’s ice cream smothered in raspberry sauce. ‘

‘I know, I’ve eaten it,’ Maud laughed.

‘Well then, you can eat one again.’ Ronnie nodded to Angelo. ‘Go and make her one,’ he ordered.

‘A very small one,’ Maud pleaded. ‘I really couldn’t eat a lot.’

‘And one for me, Angelo,’ Gina shouted. ‘An extremely large one. With nuts, and a cherry on top,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘No work, no eating,’ Ronnie said briskly. ‘Clear and clean down those tables.’ He pointed to four tables covered in cigarette ash and sandwich crumbs that the evening tram crews had just vacated. ‘When that’s done, you can finish for the day. I’ll take you home when I take Maud back.’

‘No peace for the wicked,’ Gina sighed as she rose reluctantly from the table.

‘Or the idle,’ Ronnie emphasised. ‘Alma, I’ll have a coffee,’ he shouted, clicking his fingers to gain her attention.

Alma was accustomed to Ronnie’s imperious ways, but familiarity with his behaviour didn’t make it any easier to bear. She marched furiously to the metal coffee jug which was kept on a low oil burner behind the counter. She poured out Ronnie’s coffee just the way he liked it, thick and strong, with no extra water. Adding three sugars and a dash of milk she stirred it, then carried it over to the table where he was sitting with Maud.

Gina was busy clearing the tables, and Angelo hadn’t yet returned from the kitchen with the ice creams, so Ronnie and Maud were alone. A warm wave of sympathy washed over Alma as she looked at Maud. The young girl was sitting, head in hands, slumped over the table, her face pale with exhaustion, her lips bloodless. The thin veneer of cheap lipstick had worn off on the warm rim of her cup of chocolate. She seemed to be listening intently to something Ronnie was saying. Alma looked instinctively from Maud to Ronnie, and all her feelings of sympathy were washed away on a floodtide of acutely painful suspicion.

For the first time since she’d known him, Ronnie had lowered the defensive shield of cynicism he habitually used to camouflage his finer feelings. His eyes were naked, mirroring his thoughts. And she didn’t like what she saw in them. Not one little bit.

A benign expression softened his features as he gazed at Maud. He was speaking too low for Alma to catch his words, but judging from the lack of response from Maud he wasn’t telling her anything of vital importance. Only his eyes betrayed his feelings: speaking with an eloquence she had never suspected him of possessing.

‘Your coffee, Ronnie,’ she said spikily, slamming the cup on to the table and slopping the hot liquid into the saucer.

‘Remind me to give you a refresher course in waitressing some time, Alma,’ he reprimanded her icily.

She glared at him as she walked away.

‘Two knickerbocker glories,’ Angelo announced grandly, bearing his creations proudly into the back room of the café. Pink and white scoops of ice cream were piled high in silver fluted goblets, the whole creation topped with whirls of whipped cream, glazed with rivulets of raspberry sauce and sprinkled with fine layers of crumbs of toasted nuts.

‘Not bad,’ Gina said condescendingly as she walked over to the table. ‘Not bad at all. Not as perfectly symmetrical as Ronnie’s or Tony’s, of course. But passable.’

‘What do you mean not as symmetrical as Ronnie’s or Tony’s?’ Angelo demanded touchily.

‘Well there’s more nuts on this side than the other,’ she teased. ‘And the sauce?’ she raised her eyebrows. ‘You really should have put on more sauce.’

Ronnie stared at the creations critically. ‘Did you put sauce in the bottom of the dish?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ Angelo answered belligerently.

‘And half-way up?’

Angelo stuttered, then faltered.

‘You left it out!’ Ronnie exclaimed. ‘What on earth do you expect it to taste like with no sauce running through the lower scoops of ice cream and chopped tinned fruit? Really, Angelo ...’

‘I put a double helping on the top,’ Angelo protested strongly.

‘It should have gone under the cream, Angelo, not on top,’ Ronnie said heavily. ‘You sour the taste of the cream by putting it on top …’

‘It’s delicious,’ Maud interrupted, scooping a spoonful into her mouth. ‘Absolutely delicious,’ she smiled at Angelo.

‘Thank you for saying so,’ Angelo replied sullenly, glaring at Ronnie.

‘Each to their own,’ Alma interposed from the front of the café. ‘Just because you and your father have done it one way for years, Ronnie, it doesn’t mean that it’s the right way.’

Ronnie stared at the counter, ignoring her comments. ‘Couldn’t that do with a wipe-down, Alma?’ he said curtly.

She picked up a cloth and did as he asked, burning with indignation and damning him for trying to keep her out of his public life. But despite her anger she sensed he was slipping through her fingers: she felt as though she were trying with her bare hands to stem water that was pouring from a fall. Ronnie was leaving her, and she didn’t know how to hold him.

She only knew that she couldn’t imagine living any kind of a life without him.

‘Well, boyo.’ The director of the show, a fat, cigar-smoking lecher who dived into the chorus girls’ dressing room on each and every pretext, eyed Haydn over the top of his rimless spectacles. ‘That was a bloody disaster, wasn’t it?’

Haydn stared down at his feet, encased like bursting chrysalides in a pair of varnished leather tap shoes that he had borrowed from the show’s dresser. They were two sizes too small for him, and he could already feel the raw skin and blisters that had formed on his heels and toes after only an hour of wear.

‘It was,’ he acknowledged miserably. Pressing the front of one shoe against the back of the other, he kicked it off. A blissful, soothing feeling of ease and comfort seeped up through his body, to be superseded moments later by intense, mind-blowing, agonising pain as his battered feet stung alarmingly back to life.

‘Well?’ the director urged. ‘Do you mind telling me why you didn’t do as you were told? Hell’s bells, man, you only had to stand at the back of the stage and let the girls dance around you. A tailor’s dummy could have done as much. What are you? An imbecile?’

Too mortified to attempt an explanation, Haydn remained silent while the director’s face turned purple with rage. He could have protested that the other members of the chorus had, for reasons of their own, resented his presence on stage and set out to deliberately make things difficult for him, but the director wasn’t in a listening mood.

He’d begun the routine well enough, standing on the chalk marks that the director had drawn for him at the very back of stage left, only to be sent flying by Tom, the youngest and greenest of the chorus boys, who was ecstatic at his elevation to the third row. Mesmerised by the lights, the colour, the music, the movement, but most of all by the dark void that hid the audience, he hadn’t even seen Tom coming. It was as if the boy had materialised out of nowhere. Unable to prevent himself from stumbling forward, Haydn found himself centre stage, blocking everyone’s path. His size hadn’t helped. He’d felt like a huge, clumsy giant in a light, flitting fairyland. Stepping back quickly he’d knocked Dolly flying. Totally disorientated, he then committed the cardinal sin of continuing to move forwards not backwards, fouling the movements of the newly elevated head chorus boy Sean, an Irish lad, who had, as the director put it, ‘a beautiful turn of step’. His step was anything but beautiful after Haydn had lumbered in front of him. It had been up to Dolly to rescue what was left of the number. Pushing Sean forward and Haydn backwards, she’d managed to retrieve centre stage for herself and Sean, earning herself a cheer from the restless first-house audience, whose gales of laughter at Haydn’s antics had unnerved him all the more.

Mortified, Haydn had remained glued to the backdrop until the time came for the chorus to sing. Feeling that this at least was something he could do well, he ignored Sean’s advice to mime the words, and added his deep, rich baritone to the chorus’s efforts. Riding high on a crest of emotion and music, a good minute passed before he became aware of his fellow performers.

Dolly and Sean were both firing furious glares his way, interspersing them with the bright, brittle, artificial stage smiles they reserved for the audience. He paused, faltered, listened for the first time to the others and in a single, tingling moment of utter embarrassment and mortification, realised he’d been singing in the wrong key.

‘Ah manager, there you are.’ The director waylaid the manager as he walked towards them in his boiled shirt, black bow tie and evening suit. ‘I was just telling this boy that we’ll have to drop one and a half couples from the chorus for the next house,’ he said bitterly. ‘Needs must,’ he boomed as he flicked a disparaging glance at Haydn. ‘After all we can’t really call
this –’
he jabbed his forefinger painfully into Haydn’s arm, ‘– half of any couple.’

‘The others might be safer without his presence on stage,’ the manager agreed drily.

‘A whole lot safer,’ the director concurred sharply.

‘Do you really need to drop one and a half couples?’ the manager ventured. ‘Why not put Dolly and her partner centre stage and allow the others to dance around them?’

‘Good idea, old man! Good idea, I’ll get the boys and girls together to talk about it.’ He immediately banged on the door of the girls’ dressing room. ‘Girlies!’ he shouted in a sickly voice, his small piggy eyes gleaming at the thought of catching a glimpse of one of them in a state of semi-undress.

‘We’ll be out in a minute,’ Dolly’s nasal voice echoed through the door.

The manager was fond of Haydn. He’d watched him grow in confidence and competence during the months that he’d worked in the Town Hall, and he’d already marked him down for promotion to assistant manager when George Bassett, the old man who held the post at present, retired. But he was also aware of what a fiasco like this could do to the Town Hall’s and his reputation when the story got back to the booking agents in London. With the coal pits closed and money a scarce commodity in the valleys, it had become almost impossible to induce good quality acts to visit South Wales. And the few people who still had money in Pontypridd wouldn’t patronise shows that weren’t top drawer. Every week he and the manager of the New Theatre fought for better shows and a bigger share of diminishing audiences. And it wasn’t just the New Theatre. Since the talkies had hit town, they’d had the cinemas to contend with as well.