Past Remembering (31 page)

‘Going through accounts with Diana. She’s been here all afternoon and can verify that I’ve behaved myself’

‘Has he?’

‘I took out an hour to do the banking, so he could have danced the highland fling then, but while I’ve been here he didn’t put a foot to the floor.’

‘And don’t even think of doing so for at least a week,’ Gina ordered.

‘You sound like Bethan John.’

‘She called in to see me and Tina. You’d better follow her orders to the letter. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself in the Graig Hospital because neither Tina nor I can spare the time to look after you.’

‘Grown up bossy, haven’t we?’

‘I’ve no time for your sarcasm, Ronnie. Can you stay another ten minutes, Di, to dish this out and clear up after his lordship? I’d like to be home to wash Luke’s back before tea. He can’t reach all of it himself, and what he misses ends up on the bedclothes.’

‘In that case you’d better hurry.’

‘Thanks.’ She kissed Ronnie absently on the cheek and dashed out through the door.

Diana took the box into the pantry, lifted the lid and the straw that covered the saucepan hidden in its depths, and ladled half the stew it contained on to a shallow soup plate. Cutting four slices off a rather grey national loaf she found in the bread bin, she piled the plate and the bread onto a tray and carried it in to Ronnie. ‘You eating there or at the table?’

‘Here.’ He lifted the books and papers from his lap and dropped them to the floor. ‘Knowing Gina, she will have brought enough to feed an army. Why don’t you join me?’

‘I’ll have supper at home with Wyn.’

‘What time does he get in from the factory?’

‘Today, around six. I’m meeting him in the New Theatre shop.’

‘Then you’ve half an hour to spare.’

‘Just enough time to tidy up the pantry.’

‘It doesn’t need doing.’

‘That’s what you think.’

‘Sit and talk to me.’

‘We’ve talked all day.’

‘Only about business.’ He stuck a spoon into the stew. ‘You know, this has been the first good day I’ve had in a long time.’

She stacked the exercise books, papers and pencils neatly on the table. ‘I’ve enjoyed it too. Perhaps it’s because we’ve had something worthwhile to do.’

‘You don’t think it’s the company more than the work?’

‘Stop fishing for compliments.’ She went into the pantry, rearranged the hay around the saucepan, and replaced the lid on the box. He was right, the pantry didn’t need tidying, but she waited until his spoon stopped clinking in the bowl before emerging. He was sitting back in the chair, ashen with pain and exhaustion. ‘I’ll help you up the stairs.’

‘It’s all right. I promise to go as soon as you leave,’ he added in response to her sceptical look. ‘My leg aches too much to do otherwise. I thought nurses were kind women who soothed pain. Bethan’s brutal.’

‘Only with patients who don’t do as they’re told. You want tea?’

‘No thanks. I’ve drunk enough to float the navy today.’ He watched while she carried the tray into the washhouse. After soaking the dirty dishes in the sink, she returned to the kitchen and gathered her coat and bag from the chair. ‘You’ll be back tomorrow?’

‘If we work at the same pace as today we should have the final figures to show Alma. Is there anything you want me to bring?’

‘Just yourself.’

‘Ronnie …’

‘I know, friends.’ His face creased in pain as he moved his leg slightly. ‘But we’re friends who are playing with fire, Diana, admit it.’

‘So, Mrs Powell, do you come here every night after work?’ Alexander was acting the disinterested acquaintance for all he was worth. As Judy had reserved him a seat next to her, he had been forced to sit between her and Jenny; but although Judy was doing most of the talking, his attention had been riveted on Jenny, who persisted in ignoring him despite all the sly glances he sent her way.

‘I’ve only been working in the factory a week,’ she replied tersely.

‘But she’s getting really good at her job,’ Sally interrupted from across the table. She had no idea who Alexander was, other than the best-looking man she’d seen since the call-up had decimated the male population of the town, and that in itself was enough for her to want to get to know him better.

‘Is that right?’ He picked up his pint of beer and raised it to his lips.

Jenny didn’t answer him. Turning ostentatiously to the girl sitting behind her who was recounting the birth of her last child in colourful, graphic and, as far as Alexander was concerned, embarrassing detail, she appeared to develop a sudden and intense interest in maternity ward procedures.

‘I think I’ve had enough of sitting round here.’ Judy clutched Alexander’s arm. Brushing her face against the rough tweed of his jacket she deposited a thick smear of pink powder on his sleeve. ‘Do you feel like going to a café?’

‘I’ve already had my tea.’

‘Well none of us have eaten, have we, Jenny?’ She tapped Jenny on the shoulder to gain her attention.

‘I’d be quite happy to watch you eat.’ Alexander gave Jenny a hopeful smile as she turned her head.

Judy giggled as though he’d cracked an amusing joke. ‘Let’s go.’ She leaned over and scrabbled beneath the table for her handbag.

‘Mrs Powell?’ Alexander stood back and offered Jenny his arm.

‘No thank you.’ Ignoring him, she smiled as Judy surfaced, red-faced, and jealous-eyed. ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd.’

‘If you say so.’ Judy gloated visibly as she linked her arm into Alexander’s and shouted goodbye to her workmates.

Feeling as though he’d finally had his public slap in the face, Alexander was left with no choice other than to leave Jenny and escort Judy to the door.

Diana made her way down the hill, neither seeing nor acknowledging the greetings of her neighbours. Preoccupied with the expression on Ronnie’s face when he had told her they were playing with fire, she attempted to analyse her feelings for him. Used to Wyn’s quiet diffidence, and during their brief courtship, Tony’s somewhat erratic ardour, Ronnie’s soft-spoken, self-confidence unnerved her. Despite all that she had told him about herself, he seemed neither shocked nor disgusted. He hadn’t even unduly pitied her. Only persisted in trying to get to know her better.

She realised that the sensible thing for her own, Wyn’s and Billy’s sake was to avoid Ronnie as much as possible, given that they moved in the same confined circle of family and friends. But no matter how much she tried to justify her visits to him as duty calls on a sick friend, she knew Ronnie was right. They were playing with fire. A flame that could easily consume what was left of the unorthodox marriage she and Wyn had so naively and optimistically embarked on.

Before she reached the shop she resolved to tell Wyn exactly how she felt about Ronnie. But even as she walked through the door of the theatre she suspected that once she came face to face with her husband she would break the resolution, take the coward’s way out and say nothing.

If only Wyn would lose his temper and order her to stop seeing Ronnie, the decision would be taken out of her hands. But Wyn was not a man who lost his temper easily. He always looked at difficult situations reasonably and logically, seeing them from every perspective, and generally setting his own feelings aside in favour of others. But it wasn’t just Wyn. She didn’t want to stop seeing Ronnie. Not while he remained in Pontypridd. No matter that she had a husband and a son to consider, she could no more resist the lure of his company than a moth could resist the deadly attraction of the flame. Even though it meant, at the very least, a painful singeing of its wings.

*……*……*

‘Has Mr Rees been in yet?’ Diana asked Alice as she walked into the foyer of the New Theatre.

‘Been and gone, Mrs Rees, He said you weren’t to worry about putting the takings in the night safe, but to go straight home. He’d see to the banking and meet you back at the house later on.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Diana had to make an effort to keep her voice steady.

‘No, but he had a man with him. One of the foreigners from Jacobsdal. From the way they were talking I think they intended to go for a drink.’ Unable to look her employer in the eye, Alice began straightening the row of sweet boxes on the counter. Diana turned away, sensing a well-meant sympathy she could not take. ‘Do you want me to give him a message when he comes back, Mrs Rees?’

‘No, Alice. I’ll catch up with him later.’

Confused and inexplicably angry, Diana left the shop, but she didn’t walk on through town towards Tyfica Road. Instead she turned back up the Graig hill. If Wyn wanted to spend time with Erik in Jacobsdal, then there was nothing to stop her from spending time with Ronnie. She would clear his tea dishes, soak his washing and prepare his breakfast for the morning. The more she did for him, the less he’d have to do, the quicker he’d mend and the sooner they could make a start in the kitchen of his High Street shop. It made good sense – and it would have made even better if she’d believed that was her only motive for returning to Graig Street.

Alexander sat opposite Judy in Ronconi’s café watching her shovel sausage and chips into her mouth in between high-pitched, noisy outbursts of hysterical laughter that he suspected were designed to draw attention to her and to them as a couple. He couldn’t help wondering how on earth he’d ended up with the woman. All he’d wanted was some company, preferably Jenny’s, and here he was with a girl he had absolutely nothing in common with, and who didn’t remotely interest him, listening to stories of how difficult it was to buy make-up, and how impossible it was to get perfume and how hard it was to sit still on a factory line filling powder caps all day.

‘So what about it?’

The sharp question intruded into his reflections.

‘What about it?’ Judy repeated, her mouth opening wide enough for him to see half-chewed lumps of sausage and chips wedged between her tongue and teeth.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ He pushed his chair as far from the table as the wall behind him would allow.

‘What we going to do now?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘We could go back to my place if you like?’

‘To meet your family?’ he asked warily.

‘My father’s worked nights for years. He lost a leg in an accident in the colliery, so they gave him a cushy job as a night watchman. My mother ran off before he even left the hospital. Can’t say I blame her, really. Watching a man take his leg off every night to go to bed must be a bit like living in a horror film. Don’t know how Diana Rees stands it … where was I?’

‘Your house,’ he reminded her.

‘Oh yes. All my brothers are in the army. So,’ she leaned over her plate to get closer to him, ‘we would be all alone.’

‘Apart from the neighbours and the twitching curtains.’

‘I don’t give a fig what the neighbours say.’

‘I’ve heard there’s a good film on in the White Palace.’

‘You want to go to the pictures?’

‘Why not?’

‘All right.’ She used her fingers to scoop the last few chips from the grainy soup of vinegar and salt on her plate, speared them on her fork and crammed them into her mouth. ‘If we hurry we might get all of the short and the first feature.’

He paid the bill while she took her hat and coat from the rack. As he handed the money over to Tina he wondered whether or not he dare try Jenny’s door again that night. This was one evening he really wished was over before it had begun.

‘I thought I heard someone down here.’ Ronnie limped down the stairs and stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching as Diana raked the ashes from the grate.

‘Thought I’d come back and clear up.’

‘There was nothing that couldn’t wait until morning.’

‘I know. It’s just that I had a spare couple of hours.’

‘I thought you were going home to have supper with your husband?’

‘He’s gone out with friends.’ Her lips closed into a serious line that warned Ronnie not to trespass further. He hobbled forward, crying out as his crutch slipped into a crack between the flagstones and his foot hit the floor.

‘You really should be in bed.’ She turned around, impatience giving way to concern as he sank on to the bottom step of the staircase.

‘I’m going.’

‘I’ll help you.’

‘Not for a minute you won’t.’

‘It’s really hurting, isn’t it?’

‘I have to admit. It’s burning like hell.’ He watched as she reached for her coat. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To telephone Bethan.’

‘You’re in a doctor’s house.’

‘So?’

‘The telephone’s behind you.’

She turned around sheepishly, staring in horror as she saw the blood-soaked cuff on his pyjama trouser leg. He looked down.

‘I guess that’s why it hurt.’

‘Stay there. I’ll phone, then I’ll help you up the stairs.’

‘This is one hell of a way to get a woman into my bedroom,’ he grinned through pain and gritted teeth. ‘But remind me to remember it. At least it works.’

Chapter Seventeen

When Britain declared war on Germany, Alexander had sincerely believed that it had taken more courage to stand back and proclaim himself a conscientious objector, than it would have to join the foolhardy idiots who had rushed to the nearest recruiting office. But as he sat next to Judy in the closeted darkness of the White Palace, he began to wonder how much longer his pacifist views could survive the war news.

Wavering film of exhausted British and Commonwealth troops retreating from Greece filled the screen, followed by blurred, hazy shots of Balkan forests and villages being overrun by German divisions. Carefully selected photographic images of the devastation wrought by the Luftwaffe’s blitz on London came next. Magnificent and historic buildings reduced to rubble provided a backdrop to cinematic portraits of ordinary men and women going about their daily tasks.

The stock caricature was of the white-coated, indomitable, cheery, Cockney milkman who refused to allow Hitler to disrupt his routine, even when he was reduced to leaving milk on doorsteps that had no house behind them. Shops without windows, roofs or doors, that bore hastily chalked signs: ‘More open than usual.’

‘They always save the good news until last,’ Judy whispered as the face of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, filled the screen followed by pictures of what was left of the aircraft that had carried him from Germany to Scotland, ostensibly to bring an important message to the Duke of Hamilton. Whatever the contents of the secret missive, they obviously weren’t significant enough to bring the war to an end, Alexander reflected grimly, as Hess faded from view.

A rousing cheer rocked the hall as the German battleship,
Bismarck,
smoke pouring from her decks, slowly sank beneath turbulent waves. The commentary filled the silence that followed. ‘The Nazis labelled her unsinkable …’

Alexander scarcely heard a word. The expression in the eyes of the defeated troops retreating from Greece haunted him. He was educated, intelligent, yet he had fooled himself into thinking that he could contribute to the war effort by mining coal. What was the point, when Britain might not even exist as Great Britain a few months from now?

How much longer before the coal he dug was shipped to the Greater Reich? What would the Germans call the country after they invaded? The province of Britain? The British territories of Greater Germany?

‘You can always come back to my house afterwards,’ Judy whispered, bending her head close to his. He could smell the sharp acid tang of her perspiration and the unappealing scent of her vinegary breath. It was easier to pretend he hadn’t heard her than formulate an answer.

The crowing cockerel signalled the end of the news, and he settled back to watch the main feature. Half-way through the film he realised he hadn’t heard any of the dialogue or taken in a single frame. All he could see was his own face in the queue of defeated men patiently shuffling towards the coast of Greece. Perhaps it was time to bury principles forged in a time when people could afford to think for themselves, and join in the defence of his country while something still remained to defend.

‘Actually you may have done yourself a favour.’ Bethan lifted the final layer of dressings from Ronnie’s leg, and cleaned away the mass of clots and pus. ‘Looks like the bang you gave it brought the infection to a head. This blood is fresh.’ She held up a pad of cotton wool stained bright red, as proof. ‘Clean and uncontaminated.’

‘Now you tell me bleeding is good,’ he complained.

‘And here we have the reason why it took so long to heal.’ Using a pair of tweezers she pulled a crumpled piece of blackened linen from the mess on the bandages. ‘Who cleaned this for you after you were shot?’

‘The fellows with me.’

‘And what did they use?’

‘Torn-up handkerchiefs.’

‘First rule of nursing: count the instruments and dressings you push into a wound. They left one in your leg. Doesn’t it feel any easier?’

‘To be honest, at the moment I would prefer you to amputate it than clean it.’

‘That’s a bit drastic. Stay there.’ She scooped the soiled dressings into one of her bowls. ‘Exactly there,’ she warned as she went to the door, ‘and I’ll prepare a poultice to put on it.’

‘Damn, and I was hoping to go dancing.’ He lay back on the pillows, his pyjamas rolled above his knee, his leg exposed in all its torn and bloody glory on a thick wedge composed of newspaper and four of Laura’s oldest towels.

‘Good job you came back and found him when you did,’ Bethan said to Diana as she joined her in the kitchen.

‘He’s going to be all right?’

‘Now. There was a piece of dressing in the wound. From the mess, I think an abscess formed around it. Now it’s finally broken, his leg will probably heal, and not before time. I’ve cleaned the worst away. Once I’ve sterilised and packed the wound he should begin to recover. But if he’d been left in those bandages overnight, there’s no telling what might have happened. If blood poisoning had set in he’d have been in a pretty pickle.’ She scrubbed her hands in the washhouse before going into the pantry and fetching a bag of oatmeal and a small saucepan.

‘You’re making porridge?’

‘Poultice for his leg. The doctors don’t agree with half the nurses’ practices, but with the shortage of medical supplies, beggars can’t be choosers, and it works as well as mercury salts without the expense, not to mention the risks of skin irritation. Once I’ve packed and dressed the wound, I’ll give him something to make him sleep. You can go home if you like.’

‘Thanks.’ Unable to think of a single reason why she should stay, Diana reached for her coat.

‘Ronnie said you’ve been here most of the day?’

‘Going over books and figures.’

‘Then you, Wyn and Alma are making him a partner in your business?’ The telephone rang. ‘You or Ronnie expecting a call?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Then watch this for me will you.’ Bethan handed the oatmeal and water over to Diana. ‘I left this number at home. Looks like I might be needed elsewhere.’

Bethan returned just as Diana took the simmering oatmeal from the stove.

‘There’s been an accident in the Albion. A miner’s had his arm torn off, and he’s still trapped in machinery.’

‘You go, Beth, I’ll see to Ronnie.’

‘You sure? I could be gone for hours.’

‘I just pack the wound with this?’

‘Irrigate it first with iodine. I left a bottle on the dresser upstairs. Dilute it twenty parts to boiled water. And don’t forget to cool the poultice before you use it. A burn on that leg would just about finish off Ronnie.’ Bethan put on her cape.

‘Won’t you need the things upstairs?’

‘They’ve always got first-aid kits in the collieries. It’s more important I get there quickly. If you get stuck, call the relief nurse.’

‘I’ll manage.’ Diana only just succeeded in suppressing a small smile as she walked up the stairs.

‘You sure you won’t come in?’

‘Quite sure, thank you.’ Alexander laid his hands over Judy’s and lifted them from his shoulders. Tipping his hat he turned and walked back up Leyshon Street towards the Graig Hotel. He hesitated on the corner. Once he was certain the streets were empty he turned back down the hill. He could have found his way to the back stockroom door of Griffiths’ shop blindfolded, let alone on a moonless, blackout night. Five minutes later he was trying the door. It was locked. He knocked softly, but there was no answering sound from upstairs.

Cursing under his breath, he lobbed a stone at the window. He needed to know exactly why Jenny had pushed him into leaving the Hart with Judy. If she wanted to use Judy as a blind to fool other people, he wouldn’t be happy about it, but at least he would understand her behaviour. If she’d made up her mind to have nothing more to do with him, he wanted to know about it. Now!

The stone rattled against the glass and fell back into the yard without provoking a response. He looked up at her bedroom window. He had two options. He could either walk around to the front of the shop and bang on her door until she answered, waking the entire neighbourhood in the process, or he could climb the drainpipe in the hope that he’d be able to raise the sash on her window high enough for him to crawl inside.

Testing the drainpipe to see if it would bear his weight, he began to climb.

‘Comfortable?’

‘Let’s say you’re less experienced but gentler than Bethan.’

‘That’s a backhanded compliment if ever I heard one.’ Diana opened a safety pin and pushed the point carefully through the surface layers of the bandage. Fastening it, she stood back and surveyed her handiwork. ‘The pill Bethan left is next to the glass of water.’

‘What is it?’ Ronnie questioned suspiciously, picking it up and holding it between thumb and forefinger.

‘Bethan said it will kill the pain.’

‘And me probably for the next twenty-four hours.’

‘We have to make you rest somehow.’ She gathered the bowls, spare gauze and iodine.

‘You’re going?’

‘I have to. Wyn and my mother will be wondering if I’ve eloped.’

‘That could be arranged.’

She saw the look in his eyes and the quip she had been about to toss back at him remained unspoken.

‘Good God, what’s that!’ he exclaimed at the hammering on the door.

‘At a guess I’d say someone trying to get in.’ Diana ran down the stairs and opened it to find the landlord of the Morning Star on the doorstep.

‘You’re not Nurse John,’ he complained looking past her.

‘She had to go up to the Albion. Is something wrong?’

‘Alexander Forbes has fallen from the roof of Griffiths’ shop. We tried telephoning the doctor from the pub, but he’s out on a call, then someone said they’d seen Nurse John’s car outside here.’

‘She left half an hour ago. Is Alexander badly hurt?’

‘I don’t know. I left the women fussing over him. You’d better come,’ he said, adopting the premise that a nurse’s cousin was better than nothing.

‘I’ll just tell Mr Ronconi where I’m going, then I’ll be with you.’

She ran back up the stairs to Ronnie’s room, leaving the landlord to ponder on the events of the night. He decided that the Powells were quite a family. Between their lodger falling off the roof of their daughter-in-law’s house – and there was only one thing a man would climb on a widow’s roof for – and Diana Rees, Powell that was, in the bedroom of the recently widowed Ronnie Ronconi, the gossips’ tongues would be wagging for years. This was one night that was going to go down in Graig history.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ Wyn opened the kitchen door as Diana walked through the porch into the hall.

‘If you let me in, I’ll tell you.’

‘Here, you’re shivering. You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘I’m not, but everyone else is.’

Megan was sitting, tense and poised on the edge of her seat in front of the fire.

‘You all right, Diana?’ she asked anxiously.

‘I’m fine, Mam.’

‘Then I’ll go to bed.’

‘No don’t, at least not until I’ve told you what happened.’

‘We were worried sick,’ Wyn said. ‘Alice said you came down the shop, and she gave you my message …’

‘Yes, and I decided to go back up and spend an hour clearing Ronnie’s kitchen. Bethan ordered him to rest because his leg wasn’t healing, so we worked on figures for the shop all day.’ She took the tea Megan handed her and recounted in as few words as possible the trauma of Ronnie’s leg and Alexander falling from the back of Jenny’s shop: ‘… the landlord of the Morning Star said it was the roof, but it wasn’t. Alexander only got as far as Jenny’s bedroom windowsill.’

‘It would have been better if it had been the roof,’ Megan observed cuttingly. ‘That way he might have saved her reputation by pleading cat burglary as a defence.’

‘Did you see Jenny?’ Wyn asked.

‘She came out to see what all the commotion was about. Once she realised Alexander had only bruised his back, she was furious. He pulled the drainpipe from her wall. It looked a right mess even in torchlight.’

‘Poor Jenny.’

‘Poor Alexander,’ Diana responded. ‘He got no sympathy at all.’

‘Nor should he,’ Megan said harshly. ‘What did he think he was doing bothering a young widow?’

‘Rumour has it he’s been getting some encouragement,’ Wyn commented quietly.

‘If he had, she would have opened the door to him.’

‘They could have had a row,’ Diana suggested.

‘No doubt the gossips will have the whole story sorted by tomorrow.’ Megan left her chair. ‘You sure Ronnie is going to be all right?’

‘Bethan seemed to think so, but I’d better go back up there tomorrow to check if he needs any more help.’

‘Well I’m for bed.’ Megan went to the door.

‘I’m sorry I worried you, but I thought I should stay with Jenny until they took Alexander away in the ambulance.’

‘As long as you know this husband of yours was half out of his mind. He was just about to go down the police station to post you missing. Good night, both.’

‘Good night, Mam. You wouldn’t really have gone to the police station, would you?’ Diana turned to Wyn as her mother closed the door behind her.

‘Not without trying Ronnie’s first.’

‘Me being in Ronnie’s is no different to you being in Jacobsdal.’

‘I know.’ He picked up her empty cup. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get to bed too. Early start tomorrow.’

She took the cup from him and carried it into the kitchen. ‘Did you have a good evening with Erik?’

‘He beat me at chess, and I lost ten shillings at cards.’

‘Expensive night.’

‘You know me and cards, I’ll get my revenge. What about you?’

‘As you heard, I had a busy evening.’

‘The afternoon you spent with Ronnie must have been quiet.’

‘It was.’ She looked at him. ‘What are we going to do, Wyn?’

‘Go to bed before we both fall asleep on our feet.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘Go on as we are. What else can we do?’

‘Don’t you think next week is a bit soon, Jane?’ Evan asked, as he picked up his snap box from the table.

‘No. The doctor says my ribs are as strong as they’ve ever been.’