Such Sweet Sorrow (14 page)

‘Every chance I get.’ Disentangling her arms he turned away. His footsteps rang out into the darkness and she was left on her doorstep, cold and more alone than she’d ever felt in her life before.

Chapter Eight

‘I think that’s the cry you’ve been waiting for.’ Andrew stirred, and nudged Trevor’s foot as he forced himself out of the half-waking, half-dozing stupor in which he’d passed the night.

Trevor needed no spur to move. He was out of his chair before Andrew spoke, and halfway to the door when Mrs Ronconi shot out of the parlour where she’d finally been persuaded to retire in the early hours of the morning.

For once Trevor abandoned all courtesy. Pushing Mrs Ronconi aside, he bounded up the stairs two at a time. Bethan was waiting on the landing.

‘Are they …’

‘Your wife has something to show you.’ She pushed open the bedroom door. Picking up a bundle of soiled linen she walked slowly down the stairs.

‘You look exhausted,’ Andrew commiserated as he took the bundle from her.

‘I don’t know why, it was a textbook delivery. Although Laura isn’t very pleased.’

‘It’s a boy?’ Mr Ronconi enthused from the passage. ‘I knew it would be.’

‘I’ll stay and look after them,’ Mrs Ronconi announced from the stairs.

‘Looks like you’re redundant.’ Andrew went to the table and poured Bethan a cup of tea from the barely warm pot.

‘And you’ve got Trevor’s rounds to do as well as your own.’

‘The patients can wait until we’ve picked up Rachel and I’ve taken you both home.’

‘Andrew,’ Trevor shouted down the stairs. ‘Come and see him! He’s positively beautiful and perfect.’ Dashing down the stairs, he burst into the kitchen, picked Bethan up and swirled her around. ‘Thank you.’ He kissed her soundly on the lips.

‘If I’d known how you were going to pay my wife for her midwifery services I might not have allowed her to volunteer.’

‘Come on, Andrew.’ Trevor dragged him up the stairs.

‘Just for a minute, then I’d better go and keep the practice running.’

‘I’ll give you a hand.’

‘Absolutely not. Take a week off, you’re not indispensable yet.’

Bethan dumped the bedding in the wash-house before following Andrew and Trevor upstairs. Laura was sitting up in bed, exactly as she’d left her, a tired but triumphant smile on her face as she cradled her newborn son.

‘And here’s your godmother back to see you,’ she crooned as Bethan appeared behind Trevor, Andrew and her parents.

‘I’ll call in this evening to check on you.’

‘My husband’s a doctor, I have my mother who’s had more children than hot dinners to fuss over me, and you want to leave your own baby to check on me?’

‘He’s my handiwork, I don’t want him spoiled.’

‘Got a name for him?’ Andrew asked.

‘Angela Bethan,’ Laura chipped in quickly.

‘He’ll hate you for it when he’s older.’

‘I like John. It’s plain and simple and you can’t do anything to it,’ Trevor said.

‘With all due respect to Andrew, it’s a reasonable surname but a boring Christian name,’ Laura protested.

‘Time we left,’ Andrew turned to his wife.

‘See you later.’ Bethan kissed the baby on the head and Laura on the cheek. ‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ she said to Mrs Ronconi.

‘Anything special I should do?’

‘As Laura said, you’ve had more babies than any of us.’

‘But not recently.’

‘Nothing changes. Keep the baby warm, dry and fed and see the mother rests.’

Andrew went ahead of Bethan. He paused at the foot of the stairs to lift down their coats from the hooks behind the door. While he was patting his pockets in search of his keys, the postman pushed a bundle of letters through the letterbox. He picked them up, slipping one from the top of the pile to the bottom, but he wasn’t quite quick enough. Bethan had seen enough to work out that it was addressed to Trevor. She had also seen the address of the sender on the back. Ministry of War.

Harry Griffiths’ wife was short-tempered and difficult at the best of times, and on the rare occasions when Harry risked depression by contemplating his married life, he inevitably came to the conclusion that for him and the woman he’d married there had been no ‘best of times’. Even their courting had been conducted under the eagle eye of his future mother-in-law, who’d arranged a magnificent wedding as measured by the Pontypridd yardstick, only to put the finishing touches to the day by dispatching her daughter on honeymoon with the advice that the ‘private side of married life was disgusting, but a woman had to put up with it’, thus setting the scene for a disaster of titanic proportions.

Harry’s wedding night had been the first and last that he’d shared a bed with his wife, and the one and only time his wife had permitted him to lay his hands on her. He had left the honeymoon hotel in Porthcawl for the debt-ridden shop he had inherited from his father, tired, and aching from sleeping on the floor. But their initial catastrophic encounter had resulted in the single saving grace of his marriage: his daughter Jenny. He’d done his best to stop his wife from priming Jenny in the art of frigidity, but when Jenny’s husband, Eddie, had returned to his father’s house the day after their wedding he had seen his own frustrations mirrored in Eddie’s anger, and he’d been deeply saddened by the thought of history repeating itself. But the final blow had fallen a few days later when Eddie had left Pontypridd to join the Guards, amidst a welter of scandalous rumours about Jenny and Eddie’s brother, Haydn.

He’d tried to discuss Eddie’s abrupt departure with Jenny without success. It pained him to stand impotently by and watch his beloved daughter move between the shop and the flat upstairs, rarely going out, and then only as far as the post office to forward the latest in a flow of letters that, to his knowledge, hadn’t elicited a single reply. But Eddie’s protracted silence didn’t stop him from standing at the window of his shop every morning at about the time the postman climbed the hill, to watch and wait for an envelope that might – just might – bring a smile to Jenny’s face.

Bert Browne pushed open the shop door, setting the bell clanging. Still puffing, he dumped his sack on the floor and handed over a small pile of buff envelopes.

‘Three today, Harry.’

‘Bills by the look of them.’ Harry pushed them aside in disgust.

‘You know what Percy said in the Observer last week. Patriots pay their bills promptly to aid the war effort.’

‘I can’t see how paying George Collins for his cheese before I need to will help anything besides George’s bank balance. Ten Woodbines?’ he asked as Bert dug in his pocket.

‘I need something to keep me going.’ Bert glanced slyly at Harry. ‘Heard Megan Powell is out?’ he asked, feigning a casual air as Harry turned to the tobacco shelf. It had been common knowledge on the Graig that Harry’s feet had been ‘under Megan’s table’ for years before she’d been sent down. And no one had thought any the less of him for it, except the strict chapel goers. Everyone knew Harry’s wife wouldn’t give him his dues, courtesy of old Mrs Evans whose bedroom window faced the single-bedded box room Harry slept in alone.

‘Megan has years more to do.’ Harry’s hand shook as he scooped the coins Bert had laid on the counter into the wooden drawer that served as a till.

‘Police sergeant told me they’re letting out all the non-violent convicts to make room for the Nazis. As long as they lock up Mosley and all those like him, that’s what I say. Mind you I feel sorry for Megan. Saw her in town yesterday with her brother-in-law. She’s not what she was, but then what can you expect after years of hard labour? Shame,’ he shook his head as he balanced a Woodbine on his lower lip. ‘She was a pretty little thing. I remember turning green at the gills when I heard William Powell had snapped her up. Lucky sod, he might not have had her for long, but then a year spent with a woman like Megan would give a man more to crow about than twenty with some I could name, including my own missus.’

‘What’s all this about Megan Powell?’ Harry’s wife – slim, blonde, better-looking and better-dressed than any woman had a right to be at her age and at that time in the morning – stood glowering in the doorway that separated the shop from the stairs that led up to the living quarters.

‘They let her out because of the war.’ Bert opened the shop door, setting the bell ringing again. ‘Well, must be off. See you, Harry, Mrs Griffiths.’ He touched his cap.

Harry turned his back on his wife and fiddled with the boxes of sweets laid out in the window while the silence between them grew more and more ominous. His wife was the first to break.

‘If you think I’ll stand idly by and let you take up where you left off with that woman, Harry Griffiths, you’re making a big mistake.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ he growled. ‘Our Jenny’s upstairs.’

‘She’s married, she knows what men are like. Driven by what’s between their legs the same as alley cats. After every woman who lifts her skirt –’

‘I’ll not have you talking that way about Megan Powell,’ he broke in harshly.

‘Why? Because you’re one of the pack who lifted her skirt?’ she taunted. ‘You didn’t think you were the only one, did you? I’ve seen her stop on the hill and talk to a dozen men, one after the other …’

‘Talk, and only talk. Because unlike you she’s a pleasant friendly soul who thinks the best of everyone.’

‘You expect me and every other decent woman on the Graig to think the best of her? To turn a blind eye when she’s moved in with that brother-in-law of hers who’s living in sin with the mother of his bastard? Like everyone else I’m wondering if she takes turns with Phyllis Harry, or if they sleep three in a bed.’ She stepped back as Harry moved swiftly from behind the counter.

‘You say one more word about Megan Powell and I’ll hit you into the middle of next week, woman,’ he warned grimly, as he stood in front of her with a look on his face that sent her reeling back into the door.

‘I’m your wife,’ she shouted defiantly. ‘I have a right –’

‘A wife has every right. You, being no wife, have none. I suggest you remember that.’

‘I’ll leave you.’

‘I’ll give you a hundred quid to see you on your way.’

‘After I suffered all the agonies of hell to give you a daughter. Not to mention the best years of my life …’

‘If it had been up to you, Jenny wouldn’t have been born. You’ve given me nothing, woman. Nothing except heartache and frustration!’ Lip quivering, she stared at him for a moment before bursting into tears and running up the stairs.

‘Wrong time of the month, Harry?’

The colour drained from Harry’s face as he turned to see Huw Davies standing in the shop.

‘Sorry, didn’t hear the bell,’ Harry muttered, as he moved back behind the counter.

‘Ten Players, please.’ Huw pulled a shilling from his uniform pocket.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘Long enough.’ Huw pocketed his cigarettes and his change. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Harry. I’ve nothing against you personally, but Megan’s my sister. She’s been through a rough time, and it’s not going to get any easier with her boy leaving today to join the Guards. The last thing she needs right now is trouble.’

‘She won’t get it from me.’

‘Just see that she doesn’t, Harry. Because if she does, you’ll have me as well as your wife on your back.’

William opened his wardrobe door and checked its contents for what he sternly told himself had to be the last time if he was going to make the train. It was ridiculously full, as though he and Eddie were still living at home. Eddie’s best suit hung next to his. The light grey flannels, boiled shirts and coats they’d worn to work in Charlie’s shop had been pushed to the end of the rail. Shirts, ties, socks, underwear – Eddie had taken two changes of clothes with him and he’d written to tell William not to bring any clothes at all. That the army liked to set their mark on recruits by dressing them in khaki from the skin out, and as there was precious little free time, there was no point in wasting a second of it by changing into civvies when no one else bothered.

He closed the door and checked his bag. Shaving gear, towel, brush, comb, cologne – he lifted the bottle out – was there any point in taking it when he wouldn’t be seeing Tina?

‘William?’ Megan tapped the door. ‘You won’t have time for breakfast if you don’t hurry.’

‘I know.’ He glanced into the bag before shutting it. What he hadn’t packed he’d have to buy, beg or borrow. Opening the door he gave his mother a wry smile. ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

‘To go again. Only it will be to France next time.’

‘Mam, how many times do I have to tell you I’ll be all right?’

‘I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,’ she asserted illogically as she dammed the flood of tears pouring down her cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘I only came to give you this.’ She thrust a small parcel into his hands. ‘It’s your father’s cigarette case. They sent it to me along with the letters I’d written him. God knows what it’s made of, it certainly isn’t silver, but he must have got someone to decorate the front for him. He couldn’t have done it himself. He was never useful with his hands.’

‘Like me.’ William opened the small box and looked down at the flat, battered metal case.

‘Just as well you have the same name. There’ll be no mistaking the owner if you lose it.’

William traced his fingers over the lines that had been hammered into the smooth surface. WILLIAM POWELL, and beneath it, Verdun 1916. He flicked the catch. ‘There’s cigarettes in it.’

‘It’s safe to smoke them, they’re not left over from your father. I got your Uncle Evan to buy them for you yesterday.’

He pushed the case into the pocket of the sports coat he was wearing.

‘You’ll take good care of it?’

Both of them knew it wasn’t the case she was referring to. ‘I promise,’ he agreed solemnly.

‘I won’t come down to the station, if you don’t mind.’

‘I don’t mind. In fact, I’d prefer it.’

‘Well, breakfast isn’t going to wait for ever. You coming, or what?’

‘Or what?’ He picked up his bag, wishing that the next hour was over so the goodbyes were only a memory.

Bethan tucked Rachel into her day cot and carried it into the dining room. The maid had laid the table for breakfast, although she couldn’t possibly have known whether they’d be back or not. She found what she was looking for amongst the mail laid on a salver next to Andrew’s plate. She picked it up and put it down again. She could hear the sound of water running overhead: Andrew was having a bath before doing his rounds. She went into the kitchen and washed her hands and face, checking the progress of breakfast and leaving only when she heard Andrew’s footstep on the landing.