Past Remembering (29 page)

‘Then we’ll sell them, rent them out … who knows what’s going to happen after the war. I’m sick of that phrase. It’s as if everything’s been put on hold until then. Well I …’

‘And I had no idea you could be such a spitfire.’ He sat on the bed. ‘Come here?’ He held out his arms. She glared at him. He smiled.

‘I hate you, Wyn Rees. It’s impossible to have a really good row with a grinning fool who brings logic into an argument.’

‘Are you going to tell me what happened today?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I know you, what is it?’

She went to him, wrapped her arms around his chest and leaned against his shoulder. ‘I went for a walk up Shoni’s this morning before I went to Uncle Evan’s, and I met Ronnie. I talked to him, Wyn, really talked, the way I talk to you. After all, when you think about it, it isn’t that surprising. Maud was like a sister to me, we’re practically related.’

She felt his muscles tense beneath her fingers. ‘You like him?’

‘In the same way I like William, and there wouldn’t be any more to it than business if that’s what you’re worried about. Alma and I won’t even see him once he’s working in munitions. I just happen to think we could double our turnover and profits, if we took over the kitchen of his café.’

‘But you’re attracted to him?’

‘If I was normal, I might be,’ she replied honestly. ‘But I’m not normal, and I’m not likely to change.’

‘Not married to me, you’re not.’

‘It’s like you say it is with Erik. You’ve admitted that you want to spend time with him.’

‘I told you I walked away from Jacobsdal the other night.’

‘I didn’t ask you to.’

‘I made you a promise.’

‘I didn’t ask you to make that either. Wyn, being married doesn’t mean we can’t have other friends. If we try to live in each other’s pockets, we’ll drive one another mad.’

And if we don’t, we’ll risk growing apart and closer to someone else. He recognised the danger but the thought remained unspoken in his mind. It occurred to him it was the first time they’d been less than honest with one another.

‘Your mother’s right.’ He rose from the bed and pulled her to her feet. ‘We need a break. We’ve both been working too hard this past week. Put on your glad rags, I’ll take you out.’

‘To the chapel social? I’d sooner stay in and do the mending.’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of the New Inn for a drink. They serve travellers on Sundays. We’ll be travellers.’

‘I’ll get my comb and lipstick.’

‘Diana?’

She turned to look at him.

‘You’re right, I was letting my anger with Tony get in the way of common sense. If Ronnie and Alma can work out something, by all means expand the business with them.’

‘Thank you.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m not going to run off with Ronnie, you know.’

‘It’s not that I’m afraid of.’ He opened his wardrobe and flicked through his ties.

‘Then what?’

‘Myself. Sometimes I feel as though I’m hurtling through life on a rollercoaster just like the figure of eight in Barry. I’m speeding out of control and I can’t stop. I don’t have a clue where I’m going, and I’m afraid of dragging you down with me.’

‘Wyn …’

‘And then again, maybe I just need a break. Come on, woman, if we’re going, it’s time we went.’

‘Well, fancy meeting you here.’ Judy Crofter accosted Alexander Forbes as he waited on the Cardiff platform for the Pontypridd train to come in.

He glanced at her. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t imagine how he’d met her. She wouldn’t have looked out of place in station yard. Peroxide blonde hair, brassy and tawdry after Jenny’s long silver tresses, blue-eyed, brazen and forward.

‘I’m Judy Crofter,’ she introduced herself. ‘I live in Leyshon Street. You lodge with the Powells in Graig Avenue.’

‘That’s right.’ He raised his hat politely.

‘You probably don’t remember me. The last time we met there were loads of people around. It was the farewell party for William and Eddie Powell and the Ronconi boys.’

‘Of course,’ he answered politely, still unable to place her.

‘It’s been a lovely day, hasn’t it?’

‘So people have been telling me. I was indoors most of the afternoon, listening to an illustrated talk on the origins of the Celts in St John’s church hall.’

‘Poor you. I was in Roath Park, rowing on the lake with friends – lady friends,’ she added to emphasise that she was unattached. ‘Oh good, here comes the train. I do hope we get a seat, but with all these people trying to get on it looks as though we’re going to have to fight for one.’

He stepped forward and opened a carriage door, standing back so she could go ahead of him.

‘That’s first class, my ticket’s third.’ She looked down the platform at the mob outside the third-class carriages. ‘But I doubt I’ll worm my way through that lot and keep my coat on my back, so I suppose I’d better upgrade my ticket.’

‘In that case, after you.’

Judy needed no second bidding. She climbed the step and he followed.

‘First is so much nicer.’ She settled back into the cushioned upholstery and rested her head on the snowy-white antimacassar, trying to look as though she was used to travelling that way. ‘I’m lucky to have a Sunday off,’ she chattered. ‘Working in munitions, we only get one off in seven.’

‘You’re in munitions? Then you know my landlord’s daughter-in-law, Jenny Griffiths? She started a couple of weeks ago.’

‘I showed her the ropes. The hours fagged her out. I think she found it tough going.’

‘It’s the same everywhere. The war goes badly, the government sets impossible production targets.’

‘Not that impossible. We do well on our section.’

‘I don’t doubt you do.’

‘Mind you, we’ve had to take on a couple of useless ones. The crache are the worst. Don’t know what graft is. But then by the look of you, you didn’t know what a pit was before the war?’

‘I was a curator in a museum.’

‘A museum. I’ve never been in one.’

‘Really?’

‘I know there’s one in Cardiff but I never had the urge to go. Until now, that is.’ After Jenny’s cool indifference, Judy’s crude flirtatiousness held a bizarre attraction. Alexander realised he’d always know exactly where he was with a girl like her. Whether he wanted to be there or not was another thing. She dug him in the ribs.

‘Here, you wouldn’t think of taking me to one, would you? I could probably do with educating.’

‘I’d be delighted,’ he murmured blandly, hoping she wouldn’t press him to a date.

‘You’ve got a really funny accent, where do you come from?’

‘The Home Counties. Near London,’ he added, seeing she didn’t have a clue where the Home Counties were.

‘Now London is one place I would like to go. You been there?’

‘Often.’

‘Tell me about it?’

‘The museums, the sights …’

‘The nightclubs. Is it true a girl can earn four times what they pay in munitions just serving cocktails?’

Alexander was glad when the familiar scenery of Pontypridd came into view. After helping Judy down from the train, he followed her to the ticket booth.

‘You going up to Graig Avenue?’

‘Yes,’ he answered reluctantly, unable to think of anywhere else he could call in on a Sunday night in Pontypridd.

‘I’m meeting someone,’ she answered, regretting the arrangement she had made to have supper with Dai Richards in Ronconi’s café. Alexander Forbes was not only crache, but good-looking. She’d heard the rumour that he was supposed to be carrying on with Jenny Powell, but if Jenny was stupid enough to keep him a secret from her friends, she couldn’t blame those same friends for treating him as fair game. ‘But I’m free tomorrow night. I always go for a drink in the White Hart after work, why don’t you join me?’

‘I won’t finish my shift until six.’

‘We’ll say seven, then?’

‘They don’t allow miners in working clothes in any of the pubs.’

‘In that case we’ll make it eight. That gives you plenty of time to go home and wash and change.’ She caught hold of his buttonhole, and gave him a sloppy wet kiss. ‘I believe in us war workers having fun. Don’t you?’

Despite her resolve to cool the situation between herself and Alexander, Jenny had sliced the cold chicken and made sandwiches. The trifle still stood untouched and tempting on the marble shelf in the pantry. She looked up at the clock. Apart from her brief outing earlier that morning to pick primroses for the table, she had been inside all day. Waiting. First for Ronnie, and now – hopefully – for Alexander.

She wasn’t at all sure that he’d try the stockroom door tonight, a whole week later than she’d suggested. He usually made a point of going out on his day off, and he had told Freda that he was going to be free today. Suspicious, or just tittle-tattling, Freda had passed the message on. The question was, would he bother to call in on her, even if he walked up the hill after blackout? After the way she had treated him the last time she’d seen him, she oscillated between doubt and certainty. She’d unlocked the door to the stockroom and sat at the window all afternoon, scanning old magazines, hoping to see him every time she looked up from a page.

Dusk was falling. Soon it would be time to close the blackout and then she’d have no way of knowing if Alexander had passed the shop without calling in, and with Mrs Evans across the road watching her every move she could hardly go out and accost him in the street.

She crossed her fingers, and tried to concentrate on a beauty problem page specifically aimed at munitions workers. There was nothing in it about hair. All week she had struggled to keep every single strand under the unbecoming dust cap. She pulled a lock forward and examined it closely. Was it her imagination, or was it already turning green? What if it did? Not even Alexander would want her then. Perhaps after the way she’d treated him, he wouldn’t want her at all. And then how would she feel? With hardly any men in town, it would be too bad to be rejected by the two most eligible bachelors on the Graig.

People came and went. Chapelgoers on their way to Temple, churchgoers on their way to evensong in St John’s, a few salvationists to the citadel. Dai Richards swaggered past in his conscripted brother’s best suit and a red and green striped tie, most unsuitable for chapel. She wouldn’t even have noticed Dai before the war. He was only seventeen. Four years younger than her, practically a baby. But with most of the young men gone, there were plenty of women who would settle for an evening with him. Had she stooped that low?

When she could no longer see the pavement, she drew the blackout and switched on the radio. There was a concert from the troops. The first song was ‘Somewhere in France with you’. Tears began to fall from her eyes again. Tears for Eddie, for the miserable mess they had made of their marriage, a mess she entirely blamed on herself. More tears at the injustice of being widowed at twenty-one … of self-pity … of loneliness …

She heard a step on the stair. She turned to the door just as Alexander opened it. He leaned against the post. ‘I was passing so I tried the stockroom door. It was open. I hoped you’d left it open for me.’

‘I did.’ Heart thumping, she left the sofa and went to him.

He put his arms around her. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for two weeks. God how I’ve missed you!’ Tossing his hat on to a chair he swung her off her feet, running his hand up her skirt.

‘You’ve only just walked in.’ She laughed out of sheer joy and the relief of knowing she was still wanted.

‘It’s all right, I locked the door behind me. No one can get in to disturb us.’ Picking her up, he carried her into the bedroom, threw her down on to the mattress and sat beside her, setting to work on the row of pearls on the front of her dress.

‘You saw your parents?’ she asked incongruously as he eased her dress back from her shoulders.

‘I’ll tell you about them later. You wore these, just on the off chance I’d call in?’ He fingered her silk underwear and gartered stockings.

‘Of course,’ she lied.

‘After the way you tried to shut me out I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me again.’

‘Of course I want to see you,’ she breathed headily, as he slid his hands beneath the legs of the knickers. ‘But please be careful, this is my last pair of stockings.’

‘Not any more.’

‘You brought me stockings?’

‘And a few other things.’ He sat up and took off his jacket. ‘I didn’t know if I was going to see you, so I left them in Graig Avenue.’

‘I’ve a few surprises for you too,’ she murmured, as he bent over her again.

‘Like?’

‘A special meal.’

‘Jenny …’

‘Later, Alex … later.’

‘This is brilliant.’ Alexander scooped the last spoonful of trifle into his mouth, settled back on the pillows and beamed at her.

‘You’ve no idea of the trouble I went to make it.’

‘I can guess. How about giving me the key back?’

‘I can’t, I had to give it to Freda.’ It was tucked away in the top drawer of the sideboard. Incensed by Ronnie’s rejection, she still wasn’t sure what she wanted, but she knew what she didn’t; and that was a return to the straitjacket of marriage she had found herself trapped in with Eddie.

‘You’ll get another one cut?’

‘When I get the chance.’

‘If you’re busy I can do it.’

‘I’ll get around to it.’

‘When?’

‘Please, Alex, don’t push me.’

‘I need to know where I am with you. I did some thinking when I was away. I’m not getting any younger. It’s time I settled down.’

‘How can we in wartime?’

‘It’s quite simple. In view of my atheism, and your widowhood, we go to a registry office, take out a marriage licence, sign it in the presence of witnesses and set up home together.’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’m beginning to feel like something you keep on the side to amuse yourself with. Like a man with a mistress, only you’re the man and I’m the mistress. We don’t share anything except sex.’

‘And that is wonderful.’ She crept closer to him and took the bowl from his fingers. ‘Or don’t you think so?’

‘Yes I think so, but there has to be more to life. A home, children …’

‘Children! How can anyone even think of bringing a child into a world at war?’