One Blue Moon (3 page)

It was four o’clock in the afternoon before Elizabeth had organised Maud’s bedroom to her satisfaction. Spotlessly clean furniture had been dusted and polished unnecessarily. The immaculate linoleum had been scrubbed with a bucket of warm water, lye soap and a well-worn scrubbing brush. The fire had been laid, lit, and the grate cleaned and blackleaded – by Diana. As soon as she’d finished, Elizabeth propped the double mattress against the dressing-table stool in front of the flames for airing, and it was two hours to the minute before she allowed Diana to lift it back on to the bed. The sheets, blankets and pillowcases that Elizabeth had removed from her ottoman were carried downstairs and hung over the wooden airing rack and hoisted above the range for the same magical two hours before they too were allowed on the bed.

When the bed was finally made up to Elizabeth’s exacting requirements, she and Diana woke Maud from her unnaturally deep sleep and helped her upstairs. Elizabeth undressed her while Diana unpacked Maud’s bag. Diana’s own bag still stood ostentatiously alone and abandoned in the hall.

‘I suppose you’ll be wanting something to eat,’ Elizabeth muttered as she pulled the curtains against the light. Maud didn’t reply. Worn out, she was asleep again, curled comfortably into the depths of the great bed.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Diana answered curtly. She would have died rather than admit she was starving.

‘If you want a cup of tea, I’ll make you one,’ Elizabeth offered brusquely. The bread pudding was cooked, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of cutting into it before the men came home.

‘I’ll wash and change, and go into town.’ Diana glanced at the clock as they returned to the kitchen. ‘I need a job and the sooner I start looking, the sooner I’ll find one.’

‘There’s plenty of advertisements in the
Observer
for live-in kitchen and parlour maids in England,’ Elizabeth suggested in a marginally lighter tone. ‘There’s an agency opened in Mill Street. You can find out more there.’

‘One stint in the Infirmary was enough,’ Diana insisted. ‘I don’t intend to go back into service. Besides, I really would like to stay in Pontypridd close to Will.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Elizabeth recited in a schoolmarm voice. ‘I didn’t say too much in front of Maud because I didn’t want to risk upsetting her, but we’ve no room for you here. Your brother and your lodger Charlie are sharing the downstairs front room as it is. Haydn and Eddie are in one bedroom, your uncle and I in the other and there’s no way Maud can share a room in her condition. The box room as you well know isn’t even furnished, and we’ve no way of furnishing it. Not with the way things are at the moment.’

‘In that case I’d better see if I can find somewhere else.’ Diana concealed the pain of her aunt’s rejection beneath the facade of belligerent abrasiveness she had adopted as both shield and defence mechanism since the day her mother had been wrenched out of her life.

‘Your Uncle Huw is still living in Bonvilston Road,’ Elizabeth reminded her. Huw, Megan’s bachelor brother, was a policeman in the town and worked all kinds of unsocial shifts.

‘Perhaps I’ll go and see him. Is Will still working on Charlie’s stall?’

‘He was when he left this morning.’

‘As soon as I’ve washed I’ll go down and see him.’

‘I’ve cleaned all the bedrooms I intend to for today, and I’m certainly not going to traipse up and downstairs with any more buckets. If you want to wash you can use the washhouse. There’s no one to disturb you. You’ll find soap in the dish, and a towel on the top shelf.’

‘Thank you.’ Diana didn’t even attempt to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

It was a long, cold walk down the Graig hill, made all the more unbearable by a cordial greeting from the Reverend Mark Price and his pretty young wife, who assumed that Elizabeth would be ecstatic to have her daughter and niece back home again. Pulling the collar of her sodden red coat high around her ears, Diana struggled to make civil replies to their polite enquiries after her own and Maud’s health, before trekking on, past the rows of dripping stone cottages. The downpour turned into a drenching torrent. Twilight became a dark and early night, but sentiment took precedence over reason, and she paused for a few moments at the junction of Llantrisant Road and Leyshon Street.

She’d known it would hurt, and it did – more than she would have believed possible – but she couldn’t stop herself from looking down the narrow terraced road towards the tiny house that her parents had bought when they’d married. She and William had both been born there in the front bedroom, where, as her mother had told them with brimming eyes glittering with happy memories, they’d also been conceived. She’d never known her father. He’d died in the mud of the Western Front six months before she’d been born. Her mother had hung his photograph on the wall of the kitchen so she and William would at least know what he’d looked like, but the photograph had faded with time, until there was only a blurred face that looked remarkably like her Uncle Evan. Quiet, kind Uncle Evan who’d been led a dog’s life by Aunt Elizabeth for as long as she could remember.

Tears mingled with the rain on her cheeks as she stared at the house that had once been her home. She closed her eyes, wishing with all her might that she could walk down the street, turn the key that protruded from the lock, and enter the house. But then it wouldn’t be the same. She didn’t even know who lived there now. William had written to say that he and Charlie had taken the best of their mother’s furniture across town to their Uncle Huw’s before the bailiffs had moved in, but that was all. Perhaps it was just as well. If it was an old friend or a neighbour she’d have an excuse to call, and the sight of unfamiliar objects within the familiar walls would be more than she could bear right now. Even from where she stood she could see strange curtains hanging limply at the windows. Made of green and gold artificial silk, they sagged a little lopsidedly. The front door had been given a new coat of paint as well. A grim, unwelcoming shade of dark brown so different from the vibrant sapphire blue Will had painted it at her mother’s instigation.

‘Lost your way, Diana?’ Glan Richards, a porter in the Graig Hospital, and the next-door neighbour of her Uncle Evan and Aunt Elizabeth, stood before her.

‘Glan! How are you?’ she cried out eagerly, sentiment causing her to forget the antagonism that had once existed – and for all she knew, still did exist – between him and her brother.

‘Better than you by the look of it.’ He thumbed the lapel of the new raincoat that he’d bought in Leslie’s stores on a sixpence-a-week card. ‘Lost a bob and found a farthing?’

‘I’m great,’ she smiled through her tears. ‘It’s just this damned cold and wet.’

‘Back for the weekend?’

‘No, for good,’ she said, forgetting for an instant that she had nowhere to sleep that night.

‘Couldn’t stand the pace?’ he asked snidely.

‘No, the wages’ she said cuttingly. ‘I’ve had enough of hospital slave labour. I’m off to town to look for something better.’

‘If you find it, let me know. I’ve had about enough of hospital slave labour too, but then, whenever I’ve looked I’ve never found anything better. There’s a depression on, or so they tell me.’

‘Could be that you’re not looking in the right places, and then again could be that you haven’t the talent I’ve got on offer,’ she retorted, regaining some of her old spirit as she lifted the hem of her coat provocatively to her knees. ‘See you around.’

‘In the Palladium, six o’clock tonight?’ he asked hopefully.

‘With an old man like you?’ she laughed. ‘I’m kind to the elderly, but not that kind.’

‘Since when has twenty-two been old?’

‘Twenty-three,’ she corrected. ‘You’re four years older than Will and that makes you
ancient!’
She stuck her tongue out cheekily. ‘See you around, Granddad.’

Glan laughed in spite of the brush-off as she walked away. He’d forgotten what a Tartar Diana was. Life was certainly going to perk up with her living next door.

Chapter Three

‘I hate Saturdays,’ Tina moaned to her younger sister Gina who’d been ordered into the café by Ronnie to put in an hour’s practice in the cashier’s chair. ‘Here, move over.’ She nudged her sister from the edge of her seat, unlaced her shoes and rubbed her aching feet through her thick, cable-knit stockings. ‘And I hate waitressing,’ she added emphatically. She affected a whining voice: ‘“Miss, Miss, I ordered two teas, not coffee ... Miss there’s only butter on one side of this Chelsea. It costs a penny farthing you know ... ” Never mind that the lump of butter I slapped on the other side of the bun is big enough for four. Next week I’m sitting on the till, dear sister. It’s time you got blisters on your feet.’

‘I’m too young to wait tables,’ Gina said. ‘Too much exercise stunts growing bones.’

‘In that case you’ll grow into a ruddy giant.’

‘I’ll have none of that language in here, Tina,’ Ronnie reprimanded her. ‘And get your shoes on – sharpish. You’re putting the customers off their food.’

‘Slave driver.’ Her voice pitched high as her temper flared. ‘I must have walked twenty miles today around these tables ...’

‘And you can walk twenty more. With your shoes on,’ he added loudly, slapping the ice cream and coffee she’d ordered on to the marble-topped section of the counter. ‘Serve these. After you’ve washed your hands.’

‘He’s getting far too big for his boots,’ Tina hissed at her sister as she laced her shoes back on and fired mutinous glances in Ronnie’s direction. ‘Sometimes I think he’s in training to become another Papa.’

‘He’s ten times worse than Papa ever was,’ Gina answered, smiling as one of the market boys approached the till with a sixpence in his hand. ‘Mama can always soften Papa.’

‘It’ll take a blue moon for a woman to want to stand close enough to Ronnie to soften him.’

‘Tina!’ Ronnie snarled.

‘I’m going. I’m going,’ she shouted irritably. Pushing her way around the counter she threw back the curtain and stormed into the kitchen, where she washed her hands with as much fuss and splashing of water as she could manage.

A pretty girl with unfashionably long fair hair and soft grey eyes opened the café door, folded her umbrella, shook the rain from her coat and walked up to the counter.

‘Seen Haydn Powell, Ronnie?’ she asked quietly as she looked shyly around the room.

‘No, but he’ll be here in –’ Ronnie glanced at the clock ‘– five minutes. Usual?’

‘Yes please.’ She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a well-worn leather purse. ‘And ...’ she peered through the steamed-up glass on the cases that held the cakes. ‘One of those custard slices, please Ronnie, and a ...’

‘Knife and two plates. I know,’ he grumbled good-naturedly. ‘With customers like you and Haydn Powell I’ll be in the bankruptcy court next week.’

‘Better half a sale than none. Leastways, that’s what’s my dad always says.’

‘Your father has a thriving shop and the whole of the Graig to sell to.’

‘And you have an enormous café and the whole of the town to peddle to,’ she smiled. She pulled a chair out from a table crammed into a corner between the counter and the till. It was the only free table in the café but precious few meals were being eaten. A couple of customers had plates in front of them that held buns, cold pancakes or sandwiches, but most were nursing tepid cups of tea or Oxo.

‘Here you are. One tea, one iced custard slice, a knife and two plates.’ Ronnie left the counter and laid them on her table himself. ‘How’s that for service?’

‘Wonderful.’ She smiled at Gina. ‘Does he do this for all the girls?’

‘Only other people’s girlfriends,’ Gina said mildly. ‘That way he knows he can stay safely married to Papa and the business.’

‘Time you started bagging some of that change in the till, Gina,’ Ronnie ordered.

‘You know I hate doing that. My fingers get filthy and my nails break ...’

‘Gina!’ Ronnie warned in a voice that was used to being obeyed.

‘People are saying that you’re thinking of opening another café in that vacant shop opposite the fountain,’ Jenny interrupted tactfully.

‘Are they now?’ Ronnie murmured as he returned behind the counter.

‘Well are you?’

‘Better go and ask whoever told you. Seems they know more about my business than I do.’

‘Make way for two drowned rats,’ William shouted as he and Haydn burst, dripping and cold, into the café.

‘Hello sweetheart,’ Haydn ruffled Jenny’s curls with a damp hand.

‘I’ve got us a custard slice,’ she beamed, her face lighting up.

‘Can I take your order?’ Tina sidled close to William, pouted her well-formed lips, hitched her skirt up slightly, and stood in what she hoped was a fair imitation of the Jean Harlow pose.

‘Two teas, is it?’ Ronnie shouted from behind the counter.

‘And a couple of Welsh cakes,’ William replied, winking at Tina. ‘I’m starving.’

‘Aren’t you always?’ Haydn commented scathingly.

‘I haven’t a Jenny to take my mind off food.’ William stared at Tina. ‘Corner of Griffiths’ shop, ten o’clock tonight,’ he whispered teasingly. ‘I’ll walk you home if you spend the evening with Jenny. Sorry I can’t make it any earlier, but you know the market on Saturday nights.’

‘Tina, those back tables need clearing, and wiping down,’ Ronnie directed. He was too far away to hear what William was saying but he knew William – and Tina. They’d had a soft spot for one another ever since they’d been classmates in Maesycoed primary school. A soft spot that had led his father to decree that Tina could only talk to William in the presence of himself or one of her grown-up brothers. It was a rule that Tina made a point of breaking wherever and whenever she could.

Ronnie watched as Tina reluctantly dragged herself off to the back of the café. They stared belligerently at one another through the thick, smoky atmosphere as she began to heap dirty dishes into a pile. Finally her temper flared up again, to the delight of all the customers except William.

‘I
am
eighteen,’ she snapped.

‘And when you’re twenty-one you can do as you like,’ Ronnie said softly. ‘Until then you do as Papa and I say.’

Ronnie took his duties as older brother seriously, very seriously indeed. It had hurt when his father had blamed his lax attitude for Laura finding time to fall in love with an Irish Catholic doctor, as opposed to the nice Italian boy he’d wanted for his eldest daughter. Trevor had eventually gained acceptance, but not before Papa Ronconi had told his other five daughters, including little Theresa who was barely eight years of age, that when the time came they would be introduced to nice Italian or Italian Welsh boys who met with
his
approval. Apart from William’s wholly Welsh antecedents, there were other drawbacks. His wheeler-dealing, both on and off the market, coupled with the receiving charge that had led to his mother’s imprisonment, had given him a not entirely undeserved shady reputation. And Ronnie, who’d always had a discreet eye for the ladies, was beginning to see a far more reckless philanderer than himself in William, that made him all the more determined to keep William as far away from Tina as possible.

‘Bad luck about your sister, Haydn, I’m sorry,’ Ronnie sympathised.

‘Bethan?’ Haydn asked quickly, wondering what gossip had found its way to the café via the maids who worked for Doctor John senior, Andrew’s father, in his house on the Common. It still grieved him that the Johns had found out about Bethan and Andrew’s marriage (via the telephone) before any of her own family.

‘Not Bethan, Maud,’ Ronnie corrected. ‘I’m sorry, I thought someone would have gone to the market to tell you. She came in this morning on the Cardiff train.’

‘Maud’s home?’ Haydn asked in bewilderment.

‘She’s ill,’ Tina announced thoughtlessly, relishing the importance that the imparting of the news gave her. ‘She collapsed in the station. Wyn Rees carried her over here, then Ronnie had to drive her and Diana home.’

‘Diana’s home too?’ William interrupted.

‘They’ve left the Infirmary. Maud was told she was too ill to work ...’

‘Tina, you’d better finish clearing those tables before they’re needed for another customer,’ Ronnie broke in, silencing her. He poured himself a tea and looked around the café. Seeing no one clamouring for anything, he shouted to Tony, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, to take over the counter, then carried his tea to Haydn and William’s table.

‘I thought you would have heard,’ he explained as he sat down. ‘Half of Pontypridd saw Maud being carried out of the station.’

‘It obviously wasn’t the same half that’s been hanging around Charlie’s meat stall all day,’ William said caustically.

‘Or Horton’s second-hand stall.’ Haydn cupped his hands tightly around his tea. ‘What’s wrong with Maud?’ he asked Ronnie.

‘I took her to Trevor’s. He had a quick look at her before I drove her and Diana up to Graig Avenue,’ Ronnie murmured, wanting to delay the moment when he’d have to tell Haydn the truth. Then he looked into Haydn’s eyes and saw that he already knew. ‘It’s TB,’ he admitted bluntly, not knowing how else to phrase it. ‘Your mother and Diana were putting her to bed when I left.’

Haydn didn’t say anything, but his hand shook as he reached for the sugar bowl. Jenny fumbled for his other hand beneath the tablecloth. There were tears in the corners of her eyes.

‘How’s Diana?’ William demanded.

‘Diana’s Diana,’ Ronnie replied. ‘Cheeky as ever.’

‘Did she say if she’s staying?’

‘She said she had no intention of going back.’

‘Then she’s going to need a job.’

‘And a place to live.’ Diana closed the door behind her and shrugged her arms out of her sodden coat.

‘Long time no see, sis,’ William said unemotionally, moving his chair so she could fit another one in beside him.

‘My gain, your loss,’ she sang out as she hung her coat and scarf on the hat stand behind the till.

‘Didn’t expect to see you back in here today.’ Tina paused in between clearing tables. ‘How’s Maud?’

‘In bed asleep when I left.’

‘Best place for her,’ Ronnie said authoritatively.

Diana went to the counter. ‘I’ll have a tea and a hot pie, please Tony,’ she said. He poured the tea and gave it to her.

‘I’ll bring the pie when it’s ready,’ he smiled.

‘Surely you’re going to stay with us, Diana,’ Haydn said as she moved a chair between him and William.

‘Your mother says there’s no room.’

At the mention of Elizabeth everyone fell silent. Haydn could almost taste the air of oppression his mother carried with her whenever she walked into a room.

‘If Maud is ill you can’t share with her, that’s for certain.’ Haydn replaced his cup on his saucer. ‘But there’s always the box room. We can squeeze a single bed in there – just.’

‘But there is no single bed,’ Diana protested feebly, not wanting to tell her brother and Haydn about Elizabeth’s decisive pronouncement on her presence in the house.

‘You took your furniture over to your Uncle Huw’s, Will. Was there a bed?’ Haydn asked.

‘Five.’ William finished his tea. ‘Three single and two doubles. I saved all of Mam’s bedroom suites, bedding, rugs and china, as well as all the downstairs furniture. Uncle Huw threatened to hold an auction there when I left.’

‘That’s settled then.’ Haydn rose from his seat and reached for his coat and muffler. ‘Soon as you finish on the stall you can go over and get whatever Diana needs to furnish the box room. Dad can take it up on the horse and cart.’

‘Your father and Eddie will be calling in here before they finish for the day,’ Ronnie shouted above the hissing of the steamer. ‘They’re bringing my flour over from the canal wharf.’

‘In that case nothing could be simpler. You stay and wait for them, Di,’ Haydn suggested, ‘then you can go over to Bonvilston Road, pick out whatever you want, and they can take it up.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier if I just moved in with Uncle Huw for a bit?’ Diana pleaded.

Haydn looked at her and instinctively knew where the problem lay.

‘Not with Will living the other end of town. It would look funny.’

‘Come on, Di, you don’t need me to tell you what a tip Uncle Huw’s house is. I don’t think he’s cleaned it since the Great War,’ William said drily.

‘Open horse and cart isn’t ideal in this weather,’ Ronnie commented practically. ‘The Trojan’s empty at the moment. There’s more than enough room for a bed and bedding in the back.’

Diana squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Aunt Elizabeth isn’t expecting me back,’ she said slowly.

‘Dad’s got a tarpaulin,’ Haydn said tactfully. ‘And the yard doesn’t close until late on a Saturday, so he won’t be in a hurry to take the horse and cart back. Best to leave it to him.’ Everyone took that to mean leaving Elizabeth to him, not the moving of the furniture.

‘If he needs a hand between six and seven, come and get me,’ Will offered. ‘There’s usually a slack time then. It picks up around eight o’clock, because people know Charlie cuts the price of any joints that are left, rather than see them get knocked down in the nine o’clock bell when the leftovers are auctioned. But if it’s not between six and seven, it’ll have to wait until after nine.’

‘I doubt there’ll be anything that Dad and Eddie won’t be able to handle between them.’ Haydn squeezed Jenny’s hand and whispered in her ear. She smiled and clung to him.

‘Walk me over to the Town Hall?’ he asked her.

‘It’s a hard life being a callboy,’ Will joked. ‘Nothing but pretty chorus girls, chocolates and nips of whisky backstage.’

‘I’d swap jobs with you any day!’

‘Need muscles to hump meat around, not pretty-boy looks,’ Will teased, flexing his biceps and wrapping his arm round his sister. ‘See you later, sis.’

‘Thanks, Will. Haydn.’ She wiped her eyes hoping that everyone would think she was still rubbing raindrops from her face.

‘One pie.’ Tony laid it on the table in front of her.

‘Before you go,’ she called out to William, Jenny and Haydn as they opened the door. ‘Any of you know of a job that’s going?’

‘No, but I’ll keep an eye open,’ Haydn shouted as he left.

‘Two, even,’ Will grinned as he followed Haydn.