Past Remembering (32 page)

‘Working in munitions is hard,’ Phyllis said doubtfully. ‘All the girls say so.’

‘That’s the letterbox.’ Evan went to the door and returned with the mail. ‘You sure you’re fit for work, Alexander?’ he asked as Alexander left the washhouse where he’d been cleaning his teeth.

‘I’m sure; just a bit bruised and stiff, that’s all.’

‘You didn’t get much sleep.’

‘I’ll catch up tonight.’

‘Then we’d better get a move on, or we’re going to miss the cage.’

‘I’m ready.’ Alexander took his snap box from the table and stowed it in his haversack before pulling his cap down low over his face. Both he and Evan knew the poor attempt at disguise wouldn’t stop him from being ribbed unmercifully by the other miners. Neither doubted for an instant that the story of his fall would have spread overnight from one end of the Graig to the other.

‘Here you are Jane, letter for you -’ Evan handed it over – ‘and a card for us, love, from Haydn.’ He handed it to Phyllis as he pecked her on the cheek before leading the way to the front door.

‘You sit and read your letter, Jane. I’ll see to the dishes,’ Phyllis offered, piling a tray with breakfast crockery and carrying it out to the washhouse.

Jane sat in Evan’s easy chair. Taking a knife from the drawer in the table, she opened the blue and white, airmail letter-envelope carefully, spread out the single sheet that did double duty and began to read.

Dear Jane, this is the first chance I’ve had to put pen to paper. We’ve been incredibly busy. You simply wouldn’t believe the hours of work we put in. Between travelling and showtimes, we’re sometimes on the go for twenty hours a day. It’s a nightmare just trying to make sure that we don’t lose anyone, or the staging, on the road. We don’t have scenery, it’s considered a luxury in a war zone. You’d be amazed by some of the places we’ve performed and slept in. But everyone is pulling together…

Jane’s imagination worked overtime imagining just what Haydn meant by ‘pulling together’.

…
and we’re surviving well. Some of the reporters and cameramen following the news from the front have taken a few shots of us entertaining the boys to send back home, but I don’t need to tell you the sort of pictures that are getting published, you must have seen them in the papers. But I do want you to know that I am missing and loving you and Anne more and more with every passing day. When I talk to the soldiers I realise how much we have to be grateful for. At least when this tour is over we’ll be together again, in Pontypridd, for a while. Some of the boys I’ve met haven’t been home since the war broke out. I hate these sheets, I’m running out of room …

Then you shouldn’t have written so big, she thought, angry with him for considering it necessary to stress that they would only be together in Pontypridd.

I hope you and Anne are well. I can’t wait to get back and see you both. Remember me to Dad, Phyllis and Brian. All my love as ever,

Your husband,

Haydn

‘Did he say anything about you working in munitions?’ Phyllis asked as she carried a tray of newly washed crockery and cutlery into the pantry.

‘He didn’t object to the idea.’ Jane omitted to tell Phyllis he didn’t object because she hadn’t told him.

‘I’m glad.’

‘And he asked to be remembered to you, Dad and Brian.’ Jane tucked the letter into her pinafore pocket.

‘I’ll go and strip the beds if you like, while you put the boiler on to start the washing.’

‘Coo-ee, Phyllis, Jane.’ The front door opened.

‘Not Mrs Richards,’ Jane groaned.

‘You didn’t expect her to stay away after last night’s happenings with Alexander, did you?’

‘Phyllis, have you heard the news? Isn’t it wonderful?’ Mrs Richards walked into the kitchen, and stood there, beaming as though she’d just won the Irish sweepstake.

‘What news?’ Jane asked, mystified.

‘About Russia. It’s just been on the wireless. Hitler’s invaded them, not us. My Viv says we’ll be all right now. The Germans will be too busy fighting the Communists to spare any troops to cross the Channel. Don’t you understand? Now Russia’s on our side we’re not on our own any more. We’re going to win the war, and it won’t be much longer before our Glan and your Dr John are home.’

‘I hope so,’ Phyllis breathed headily, thinking of Eddie and all the other boys who would never hear the news. ‘I really hope so.’

*……*……*

‘Well, you’re a dark horse, I must say,’ Maggie addressed Jenny as they walked down the platform to the cloakroom.

‘I can hardly help it if a man falls off my drainpipe,’ Jenny bit back acidly.

‘If I’d known you had your eye on him, I would have left him alone.’ Judy paused, hoping Jenny would say more.

‘There’s nothing between Alexander Forbes and me.’

‘No?’ Sally enquired sceptically as she opened her locker.

‘No,’ Jenny said vehemently.

‘My brother was there when it happened. He said Alexander was lucky to get away with bruising, the height he fell. Rumour has it he won’t even have to take a day off work.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Didn’t you talk to him after it happened, Jenny?’ Judy enquired artfully.

‘I had no reason to.’ Jenny bent her head forward and ran her fingers through her hair, looking for stray hairclips.

‘Not even to present him with a bill for your drainpipe?’ Maggie and Sally laughed, glancing from Jenny to Judy as they walked through to the side of the cloakroom where their overalls were stored.

‘Diana, it’s good of you to take over here,’ Bethan greeted her cousin as she walked into Laura’s house.

‘Just thought I’d see how Ronnie is after last night.’

‘Much better. I think that rag in his leg must have been the reason why it didn’t heal. Scar tissue is forming already, and it looks as though he really is on the mend now. Want a cup of tea?’

‘Please.’ Diana took off her coat and hung it on the back of the door. ‘How was the man in the Albion?’

‘He died on the operating table in the Cottage.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I. It was such a senseless, stupid thing to happen. All the collieries are under such pressure to up production, safety measures are being thrown out of the window.’

‘You sound just like your father.’

‘With good reason. I worry about him working in the Maritime.’ Bethan poured out two cups of tea.

‘Want me to take one up to Ronnie?’

‘No.’ Bethan sat at the table. ‘He was sleeping when I left him.’

‘You gave him another pill?’

‘It’s the only way to keep him quiet. I saw Alexander in the Cottage last night. He was lucky to get away with just a few bruises. They didn’t keep him in.’

‘I went to the Morning Star after the landlord came here looking for you.’

‘So I gather. I called in Graig Avenue early this morning on the way down here.’

‘How did Uncle Evan take it?’

‘Much as I expected. He wasn’t shocked. Eddie’s dead, Jenny’s only twenty, she can’t spend the rest of her life mourning him.’

‘But it hasn’t been a year yet.’

‘I know, but my sympathies lie with her. Time seems to lose all meaning in a war. A day – a week – a year – what’s the difference when the Germans could invade tomorrow, or a bomb could drop on the factories and blow us all to kingdom come? The only thing that seems important is what’s happening right this minute.’

‘There has to be more to life than that, even in wartime.’

‘Does there?’ Bethan asked seriously. ‘I’m not so sure. Think about it, all we have is the here and now. The past is gone, we can’t be sure there’s going to be a tomorrow, so why shouldn’t people live each moment as though it’s going to be their last?’

‘Because if there’s a tomorrow we’ll all be racked with guilt.’

‘So, if it comes, we’ll worry about it then.’

‘How does this live for today and hang tomorrow philosophy fit in with Andrew being stuck in a camp?’

‘It doesn’t. I had a letter from him this morning.’ Bethan pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her uniform pocket. ‘He finally got the letter in which I’d told him that I had taken on the job of district nurse, and he’s raging mad. I didn’t think he could get any angrier than when he found out I’d kept my pregnancy from him. I was wrong.’

Not knowing what to say, Diana remained silent.

‘I’ve been telling myself that I have to make allowances for him because he feels left out. That he’s having a worse war than any of us because he’s been forced into a corner where he can’t even fight back, or defend himself, but …’ Her voice tailed away as she reached for her cigarettes.

‘He’s angry with you, so you’re angry with him?’ Diana suggested.

‘I can’t forgive him for being his usual selfish self and refusing to see life from any point of view other than his own. Even he should realise that winning this war takes precedence over everything else. That ending this mess so boys no longer have to die, and he and all the other POWs can come home, has to be more important than whether Maisie or I give Eddie his bottle. Damn, I didn’t mean to cry on your shoulder.’

‘You’re not crying.’

‘No, but I feel like screaming. Why did I have to marry a short-sighted, selfish, crache officer?’

‘That’s a bit hard on Andrew, but if it will make you feel better, go ahead and scream. I don’t mind.’

‘I’d only succeed in waking Ronnie.’ Bethan opened her handbag and rummaged fruitlessly in its depths. ‘You got a light?’

‘Here.’ Diana found the silver lighter Wyn had given her for Christmas and lit Bethan’s cigarette.

‘Truth be told,’ Bethan continued ruefully as she inhaled deeply, ‘my marriage was never made in heaven.’

‘You and Andrew were happy,’ Diana protested.

‘Before he went away, we were happier than we’d ever been, but I can’t help wondering if it was because we knew we’d soon part.’

‘That’s an awful thing to say.’

‘Is it? I’ve thought of nothing else since he left, especially when I was pregnant. I wouldn’t be without the children, or him, not now, but I can’t help wondering what it will be like for us when he eventually does come home. He’ll want me to give up work, stop driving his car, running the house the way I want to …’

‘Sounds to me as though you’re more worried about giving up your independence than your marriage.’

‘It’s the same thing. Andrew will want to put me back into an apron and turn me into a housewife again.’

‘Not once you explain you want to carry on working.’

‘You think he’ll listen? Believe me, Diana you have no idea how lucky you are to be married to a man like Wyn who genuinely doesn’t feel threatened by his wife working.’

‘He’s not the only one. Charlie -’

‘Charlie didn’t mind Alma working alongside him in the shop. But he was annoyed when he found out that she had expanded the business without telling him, and he and Alma are closer than any other married couple I know.’

‘He got over it.’

‘Did he? When he came home on that last leave Alma told me he seemed like a stranger.’

‘And you feel you don’t know Andrew any more?’ Diana asked astutely.

‘Sometimes I wonder if I ever did. I realised when I married him that his mother had spoiled him. That we were from different worlds. That he’d always had exactly what he wanted without ever having to work or fight for it. It must have been hard for him to lose his freedom and the luxuries he’d always taken for granted at the same time.’

‘Are you saying that because you’re more used to hardship, it would have been better if the Germans had put you, not Andrew, into that camp?’

‘I’d probably cope better than he seems to be doing from his letters,’ she said caustically. ‘What really concerns me, is that when I call in on most soldiers’ wives all they can talk about is the good times they shared with their husbands. Their wedding day, or this trip or that trip. All I remember are the arguments. Like when Andrew ran out on me before we were married, leaving me pregnant, not that he knew I was having his baby because I was too proud and stubborn to tell him. And afterwards, when we were married in London, trying and failing to live with him and running back here.’

‘But he came after you. He bought you the house.’

‘And perhaps that’s when the trouble really started. I look back on those days, and all I can recall is both of us trying too hard. Too afraid to say what we really meant or felt in case it upset or hurt the other. Please, shut me up. I’m not making any sense.’

Diana considered what was happening in her own marriage. The strained politeness that was developing between her and Wyn at the expense of honesty. ‘You’re making sense,’ she acknowledged ruefully.

‘You really think so? I’ve been wondering if I’m going mad.’

‘Only as mad as the rest of us.’

Bethan took Andrew’s letter from her pocket, screwed it into a ball and threw it on the fire. ‘It will be a good few weeks before I write to him again.’

‘Beth …’

‘What’s worse – no letters at all, or angry ones? After today I know which I’d prefer.’

Evan stood outside Griffiths’ shop and looked up. The blackout blinds were drawn at least an hour before it was strictly necessary. The shop door was locked. He rapped his knuckles hard on the door. Twice more brought a ‘We’re closed.’

‘It’s Evan, Jenny,’ he shouted back.

There was no reply but he heard her footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and he walked inside.

‘Come up,’ she invited politely. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Not for me thanks, love. I’ve just eaten. I thought you’d like to know that Alexander is fine, he went to work today.’

‘It’s good of you to call and let me know.’

‘If you’d like to see him you could come up the house with me now.’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Look, love,’ he faced her as she stood with her back to the counter. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but Alexander must think a lot of you to risk his neck the way he did.’

‘I never asked him to fall in love with me,’ she blurted out uneasily. Ashamed and embarrassed she averted her head as the tears began to fall from her eyes.

He put his arms around her. ‘I know you didn’t, but it’s only natural. You’re a young, attractive girl, and you’re single. We all knew it would only be a matter of time before some man would start paying attention to you.’