Past Remembering (12 page)

‘It’s all right, you’re no different from William.’ She picked up the hooked metal bar that opened the hotplate, and put the kettle on to boil.

‘I’m not so helpless that I can’t make tea for myself, so don’t feel that you have to stay on my account. I know it probably upsets you to see me without Maud.’

‘No it doesn’t,’ she answered thoughtfully. ‘Because you married so quickly I have very few memories of you together.’

‘I suppose it was a rush wedding.’ He drifted into the comforting world of memory. It was easy to slip into the past in this house. His wedding breakfast had been held in the front parlour and, because of the confines of space, virtually every other room. He and Maud had sat here together. If only he could reach out and tear down the curtain of time they could be together again …

‘Do you want anything to eat? I brought up a couple of pasties.’

Jerked back to the present, he struggled to regain his composure. ‘Half a pasty might be nice. My appetite isn’t up to Pontypridd standards yet.’

‘I was hoping to catch you alone some time.’ She lifted down cups, saucers and a plate from the dresser.

‘It was good of Tina and Gina to organise that get together, but I was tired, and there were just too many people there.’

‘Have you thought what you’re going to do with yourself now?’

‘The munitions factory is desperate enough to take me on once my injuries have healed.’

‘Tina said you’d been shot.’

‘The Germans like to use non-Aryans for target practice.’ Something in his voice warned her not to trespass further.

‘As it looks like you’ve done more than your fair share towards the war effort, perhaps you should forget munitions and take things easy for a while, and then later on, when you’re up to it, you could go back to running the cafés?’

‘You might think that’s a good idea. I’m not too sure Tina and Gina would agree with you.’

‘They surprised everyone when they took over. Both of them have worked incredibly hard.’

‘You don’t have to tell me. I know exactly how much graft is involved in running a café.’

She leaned across him to reach the teapot, giving a small start as she glanced down and noticed his slippers.

‘I’m sorry, these are Eddie’s.’

‘I know. I should have expected it. Jenny told me she’d given his clothes to you. Both of us thought it was a good idea. Far better than lying mothballed in a wardrobe.’

‘I know he was more like a brother to you than a cousin.’

‘Just as Maud was more like a sister. We shared the same room when we worked in the Infirmary and I helped to look after her when we came home after she’d been taken ill, but we can’t go pussyfooting around their memories for the rest of our lives, Ronnie. Both of them would have hated the idea. They were real people, not saints to have their names whispered in reverence by the living.’

‘In the case of Eddie, a very real person.’

‘Uncle Evan used to dread the sight of my Uncle Huw in his police uniform. I wanted to see you to tell you that we all know how much you did for Maud. Did you know that we used to write to one another every week before the war broke out? Her letters were full of your life together. You made her so happy …’

‘Diana, please.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m being selfish. It’s just that ever since you told us she was dead, I’ve felt this need to talk about her. It must be painful for you, almost like reliving her death again for our benefit.’

‘It’s not that.’ He covered his mouth with his hand, but his eyes were anguished, full of pain and something else, something she couldn’t quite decipher.

‘Ronnie, what is it?’

‘You – Bethan – Evan – Pontypridd.’

‘I’m sorry …’

‘For Christ’s sake stop apologising. Don’t you understand that I can’t take any more of this “you saved Maud’s life by taking her to Italy”, “she had happy years she never would have had if you hadn’t married her”. If I don’t tell someone what really happened I’ll go mad.’

‘But … but … the tuberculosis returned,’ she stammered in bewilderment. ‘You said as much, and Andrew and Trevor warned us that it might …’

‘Forget the tea, Diana. Sit down, and then I’ll tell you exactly how good a husband I was to Maud.’

Chapter Seven

‘To think of an old married couple like us getting carried away like that,’ Alma murmured as she straightened her clothes.

‘Must be the sun.’ Charlie lay back, locked his hands beneath his head and stared up at the wispy clouds drifting above the trees. ‘There were times when I thought last winter was never going to end.’

‘It was a hard winter where you were?’

‘Freezing,’ he replied shortly. Reaching out he picked a long stem of grass and pushed it into his mouth. Below them the stream frothed and gurgled into the top end of Shoni’s pond. Dragonflies hovered low over the water. The croaking of a frog joined in with the birdsong. He felt contented and at peace with himself, Alma, and the world, for the first time since he had come home. But it couldn’t last. This evening there would be other people; afterwards just one final night together. The talking that had to be done had to be done now, or not at all. And he still had to make amends for the harsh things he had said when he had arrived.

‘This High Street shop of yours, it’s doing well?’

‘It averages ten pounds a week clear profit after all the overheads have been accounted for,’ she said proudly.

‘That much?’

‘Of course it’s split between us and Wyn and Diana.’

‘If you too can increase production enough to supply more shops, perhaps you should go ahead and open up in Treforest as well as Rhydyfelin. If they show a profit, you could use our savings to give you the capital you’ll need to open more. There’s Cilfynydd, Ynysybwl and the valleys. Cardiff even, if you feel like venturing that far.’

‘You trust me with your savings?’

‘Our savings. If you can trade successfully during wartime with all the restrictions imposed by rationing, you’ll do even better in peacetime.’

‘And if the Germans invade?’

‘Not even the Nazis can shut a country down. Look at France. The people there still have to buy food.’

‘You were the one who thought I had enough to do with running one shop.’

‘You seem to have a good partner in Wyn.’

‘It’s not Wyn who has the business head. It’s Diana.’

‘Diana? But she has a baby.’

‘Having a baby doesn’t affect a woman’s brain. She was the one who did all the costings and kept an eye on the stock for the first couple of months the shop opened, but if you think we mere females can handle it, we’ll expand.’

He sat up and looked at her. His heart skipped a beat just as it had the first time he had gazed into her sea-green eyes. It wasn’t just the after-effects of separation or the uncertainty of war. He knew he would feel this way about her until the day he died. ‘I’m beginning to think you can handle anything you want, Mrs Raschenko.’

‘The only thing I want to handle right now is you, Feodor,’ she addressed him by his Russian name before returning his kiss.

There were many things that needed to be resolved between them, but time was so short, so precious, she felt they couldn’t afford to waste a single minute – not in talk.

The clock ticked like a metronome into the stillness of Laura’s kitchen. Ronnie filched a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt. It was empty. Before he could reach for his jacket and the packet he had bought in Jenny’s shop, Diana opened her handbag and offered him one of hers.

‘Since when have you smoked?’

‘Since the retreat from France.’ She leaned forward and lit her cigarette on the match he struck.

‘Poor Eddie.’

‘From what William said, it was quick. He never knew what hit him. As Uncle Evan said, there are worse ways to die.’ She looked into his troubled eyes, willing him to start telling her about Maud, but he continued to sit, white-faced, shivering, staring into the fire. A barely recognisable shell of the handsome, cynical Ronnie Ronconi who had swept Maud off to Italy before the war.

Summoning all her patience she forced herself to remain still and wait for him to begin. It wasn’t easy. Like Bethan, Tina, Alma and all the women she knew, since war had been declared she lived out her days in an escalating sense of urgency, trying to cram more and more into every minute. Sometimes she felt as though she was chained to a treadmill that she had to keep turning at all costs, because if she stopped, she’d have time to think about what she was doing and then she might fall apart.

Her son – the single most important being in her world – spent more of his waking hours with her mother than he did with her. Anything extra like this time with Ronnie ate into the precious minutes she set aside for him.

‘When the war broke out and Italy remained neutral we seemed to have no other option but to lie low and sit it out,’ he began hesitantly. ‘Apart from worrying about everyone here, I can’t pretend I was devastated at the thought of not being able to do more. Maud had always come first with me, and what was happening in Britain and the rest of Europe seemed remote from our life on my grandfather’s farm. Then, when Mussolini ordered the registration and call-up of all men of military age, Maud and I left my grandfather’s house. I was damned if I was going to fight for the Fascists and there was no way I was going to leave her. And, Maud was British,’ his mouth twisted wryly. ‘In Fascist Italy
she
was the enemy alien. So, rather than wait for the government officials to come and get me and intern her, we went up into the hills.’

‘You joined the Resistance?’

‘That’s a rather grand name for a rag-tag collection of men and women whose only thought was to get out of the war and into some peace and quiet. Don’t forget Mussolini didn’t even declare war on the Allies until after Dunkirk, and by then Maud had been dead for seven months.’ He drew heavily on his cigarette as he continued to stare into the fire. ‘After the depression Wales was in bad shape, Italy even worse. Do you know Mussolini’s soldiers were marched barefoot into Greece? The Italian army has no money for boots, let alone guns. The country’s bankrupt. Everything is in short supply – food, clothes, money. Government troops could at least live off the land because there were enough of them to terrorise the farmers into handing over what little they’d hidden to feed their families. Anti-Fascists like us simply starved. That winter of ‘39 was damned cold, and we had to keep moving to stay one step ahead of the police and the army. We took refuge in caves and shepherds’ huts, and when there were none, we made shelters out of turf and whatever wood was to hand. At night a few of us would go down into the valleys to scavenge for food. Sometimes we struck lucky, sometimes we stole. I’m not proud of it, there wasn’t enough for the peasants, they couldn’t really spare any for us, but no matter how bad things were, Maud never complained, not once. All the time I thought I was being so damned careful, but as it turned out I wasn’t careful enough. I got Maud pregnant.’

‘She told me in her letters that she wanted your child.’

‘Wanted! It was an impossible dream. We both knew a baby could kill her. Andrew and Trevor warned me before we left here, the doctors in Italy told her as well, but once it happened she wouldn’t do anything about it, or allow anyone to help her. A combination of cold, hunger and the filthy conditions we were living in proved too much. The tuberculosis flared up again. I took her back down to my grandfather’s house, but it was too late. She died two days after we reached there.’

‘Ronnie, you can’t blame yourself for that, it wasn’t your fault.’

‘No? Then whose fault was it? I was the one who took her to Italy. We became fugitives to save my hide …’

‘And hers? How long do you think she would have lasted in an internment camp?’

‘I got her pregnant,’ he stated bitterly.

‘What did you do after she died?’ she questioned, not knowing how else to respond to his self-recriminations.

‘Buried her in the cemetery in Bardi before returning to the hills.’

‘To fight?’ she asked, thinking of his wounds.

‘Fight?’ he sneered derisively. ‘What with? Ploughs and hoes? After the battles in Greece last winter some of us took it in turns to guide people through the mountains into Switzerland. Downed Allied pilots, Communists, Jews, intellectuals, anyone who was trying to flee Mussolini’s particular brand of Fascism. I got out with a group of pilots, and as you can see, here I am, safe and sound.’

The anguish in Ronnie’s eyes was almost more than Diana could bear. She put her hands over his in an attempt to still his trembling. Despite the fire and the warmth of the room he was as cold as a corpse.

‘Maud’s death wasn’t your fault, Ronnie.’

‘I knew how ill she was. I should never have touched her.’

‘She loved you very much.’ Diana desperately wanted to offer consolation, but she had never been more conscious of her ignorance of passionate love or physical desire. ‘I can understand why Maud wanted to carry your child,’ she comforted him clumsily. ‘Somehow, in the middle of all this mess of war and killing, babies are more important than ever.’

‘You sound just like her.’

‘Is that surprising when we practically grew up together?’

‘I know what you’re trying to do, and I thank you for it. It helps to know that you don’t blame me, but I’ll never forgive myself.’

‘And how do you think Maud would feel about that?’

‘Have you ever seen anyone die of tuberculosis?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course, you worked in Cardiff Infirmary with Maud so you must have.’ He tossed his cigarette into the fire. ‘It’s horrible – the blood, the mess …’

She crouched down beside him and looked up into his eyes. ‘Do you think for one minute Maud would want you to remember her that way? What about the happy Maud who wrote to us sitting outside your grandfather’s house in the warm Italian summers? The Maud who helped your aunt to plant begonias in the garden, the almost healthy Maud, Trevor and Laura saw when they visited you the summer after you left here? You gave her those extra years, Ronnie. Happy years. Dwell on them, not on her dying.’

‘I only wish I could.’

‘You have to, for her sake as well as yours.’

‘There is no “her sake” any more, she’s dead.’

‘You can wallow in self-pity if you want to, Ronnie, but if you do, you won’t be the only one to suffer. You don’t have exclusive rights on Maud’s life, she’s a part of me, and all the other people who knew and loved her. Don’t tarnish our memories by killing her a second time. And you will if you persist in dwelling on her death to the exclusion of her life. I loved Eddie and Maud,’ she asserted fiercely, ‘and I’m going to tell Bethan’s children about the uncle and aunt they’ll never know. Not as names they have to whisper in case someone starts crying, but as warm, funny, loving people who enriched all our lives.’

‘And you don’t want a killjoy sitting in the corner reminding them of the cruel realities of life?’

‘Exactly,’ she rejoined bluntly, ‘You’re not just Maud’s husband, you’re Bethan and Haydn’s brother-in-law. Maud left you two nieces and a nephew. So, are you going to help Bethan, Haydn and the rest of us keep Maud and Eddie’s memory alive for them?’ Her question echoed against the ticking of the clock.

‘You don’t understand. How could you?’

‘I understand that while Maud lived, you loved and cared for her. You’ve nothing to feel guilty about, Ronnie. Only sadness that we’ve all lost her.’

If he heard her he gave no sign of it.

‘Would you like that tea, now?’

He didn’t even look at her. Instead he remained hunched in his chair staring into the fire.

She sat with him while the clock ticked on. After a while she doubted that he even knew she was there. ‘Ronnie, if there’s ever anything I can do?’

He shook his head. She picked up her bag and left, closing the front door quietly.

He heard her leave. The kitchen closed into silence once again. It was then that he felt a tear roll down his cheek. It was followed by another and another, the first tears he’d shed in eighteen numb, arid months.

As he lifted his hand to wipe them away a racking sob tore through his emaciated body. The paroxysm of emotion carried in its intensity some of the guilt and anguish that had tormented him since Maud’s death. But even when he was done, too spent and exhausted even to weep, he wasn’t sure whether he’d been crying for Maud, or for himself.

‘I don’t know how Liza and Maisie do it,’ Phyllis commented as she admired the array of sandwiches and cakes they had set out on the table in Bethan’s dining room, a room that had only been opened up twice since Andrew had left home.

‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ Bethan confessed as she made space on the table for the curried corned beef balls and dripping cake Phyllis had brought. ‘Neither do I. I just hand over the ration cards and let them get on with it.’

‘I only hope you’ve got some food left for the rest of the week.’

Maisie came in and took Phyllis’s coat, too conscious of her status as maid to do any more than answer Phyllis’s polite enquiries after her and her daughter’s health, although they had once lived in the same street.

‘Have you invited anyone else, love?’ Evan followed Megan and Diana, who carried Billy in her arms, from the hall as Brian scampered off to join the evacuees.

‘Tina, Jenny and Ronnie. They’re coming up together after Jenny has closed the shop.’

‘And Wyn’s sorry, but as we’ve only just moved Alice from the High Street to the New Theatre shop he wants to give her a hand to open up, but he’ll be along later,’ Diana apologised.

‘I asked Charlie if there was anyone else he wanted to see, but as tonight’s his last night I think we’re probably overwhelming enough as it is.’

‘Speak of the Devil and he appears,’ Megan announced as Charlie walked down the stairs with Alma.

‘Thought we heard voices.’ Alma kissed the women while Charlie lifted Evan off his feet in a bear hug.

‘I slipped a couple of bottles of beer I’ve been saving into Andrew’s study,’ Evan said with a smile. ‘Why don’t we go and sample them while the women sort out the food?’

‘Here, take this with you.’ Bethan cradled Eddie in one arm as she took a half-empty bottle from the sideboard and handed it to her father. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, it’s brandy. I know you prefer vodka.’ She brought out another two bottles, home-made, elderberry wine this time. The bell rang shrilly as she placed them on the table. ‘That’s too early for the girls.’ Bethan glanced up at the clock.