Such Sweet Sorrow (6 page)

‘It’s not you …’ he faltered. ‘Everyone says the first time is difficult for a woman. I shouldn’t have rushed you … I should have –’

‘It’s not my first time,’ she confessed starkly. The words were finally out in the open between them. Relief washed over her. She’d said it. She’d finally said it! Tony knew. She didn’t have to conceal her secret from him any longer.

‘Not the first? I don’t understand. Who …’

She heard the anger in his voice and flinched as though he’d struck her. ‘I should have told you before.’

‘Did you love him?’ he demanded.

‘I hated him. I’ll always hate him.’

‘Then why?’

‘He raped me.’

‘Raped! Who?’

She raised her head and forced herself to look at him. Light shone dimly upwards from the floor, casting amber shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and eyes. ‘It happened when I worked for him.’

He knew it couldn’t be Wyn, and she’d only worked for one other man in Pontypridd. ‘Ben Springer. I’ll kill the bastard!’

‘Someone beat him up shortly afterwards. They made sure that Ben wouldn’t be able to do what he did to me, to any other girl.’

‘William?’

‘No. William never knew. You won’t tell him?’ she pleaded anxiously.

He shook his head, he couldn’t trust himself to answer her. All his life he’d dreamed of a sweet virginal bride. Now he couldn’t even bring himself to look at her. Just thinking about what had happened between them left a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘I’m sorry, I had no right to do this without telling you first. It’s just that I thought you’d realise before … before it happened.’ Words tumbled out one after another in an erratic flow. ‘And then it would be easier for us to talk about it. But it isn’t, is it? If anything, it’s worse.’ She waited for him to say something – to touch her. When he didn’t, she clutched the blanket to her chest, picked up her clothes from the chair and carried them downstairs to the washroom off the kitchen.

She dressed hurriedly in the dark and waited until she was fully clothed before flicking the light switch. Only then did she dare look in the mirror. Her face was pale, bloodless; her eyes dark, her hair ruffled. Taking a comb from her bag she tugged it mechanically through her curls, slipped on her coat and went to the front door. She looked back at the stairs, but Tony hadn’t followed her. She slammed the door, pressing her weight against it to make sure the lock had latched, before turning towards the white-tiled railway tunnel that marked the beginning of the Graig hill.

Tony sat in the bed for a long time after Diana left. He’d heard her go into the washroom, heard her open the front door and knew he ought to call down to her to wait for him to walk up the hill with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to go near her. How could he face her, knowing what he did about her now? And to think he’d actually considered marrying her.

He recalled Ben Springer’s obscenely fat body and clenched his fists. If the man had been in the room with him, he could have quite cheerfully pummelled him into jam and strangled what was left. Then he remembered the rumours that had circulated Pontypridd after Ben had been attacked. Stories to the effect that a doctor had been forced to remove the remains of Ben’s testicles after they’d been subjected to a thorough kicking. He’d asked his brother-in-law, Trevor Lewis about Ben’s injuries at the time, but Trevor had tersely reminded him that no doctor could discuss private matters involving a patient.

But if William hadn’t attacked Ben, who had? He swung his legs out of the bed and reached for his clothes, all excitement at his first sexual experience fading to a dull, embarrassing and humiliating ache. Someone had done the right thing in hurting Ben, but he wasn’t surprised that whoever the hero was, he hadn’t waited around to claim Diana as a prize, because whatever else, she certainly wasn’t fit to be the wife of any decent man, not now. Not after an experience like that.

Diana walked slowly up the hill, stopping every time she heard a footstep ring out into the darkness. Reason told her it wouldn’t be Tony’s, but reason didn’t prevent her from hoping. It was only when she reached the halfway point and followed the broken white line past the entrance to Factory Lane that she started to think through the full implications of what had happened. It was then she realised that even if Tony had run after her, there was nothing she could say or do to undo the damage to their relationship. The look in his eyes after she had told him that she had been raped had been condemnatory and final. He would never, never, smile at her again as he had done when she’d climbed the stairs to the bedroom. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever again. Any love he had felt for her had died the moment she’d told him he wasn’t the first man to touch her. And even if it hadn’t, it wouldn’t make any difference. How could it, when she’d been repelled and sickened by his touch? Why was the filthy act even called ‘making love’ when it involved so much pain and degradation for a woman? Were there any women who actually enjoyed it? Would she have been any different if Tony really had been the first?

There was no point in even thinking about it, not when tonight’s experience had only served to confirm her suspicions that she’d be repulsed by the touch of any and every man. Ben Springer had marked her as irretrievably as if he’d branded her. She was not only soiled goods, she was damaged. She loved Tony with all her heart and soul, as much as she was capable of loving any man, yet loving him was not enough. She hadn’t been able to bear his nakedness near her own. Kisses exchanged in the comparative safety of a public place, like the street after dark, had been endurable. But only because there was no risk of anything more intimate happening.

After what Ben and Tony had done, no other man would want her, which was probably just as well now she’d found out she couldn’t be a wife in every sense of the word. Poor Tony! She’d hurt him so much, simply by falling in love with him. He deserved better than her. Hopefully when he left Pontypridd he’d be able to put her and this dreadful night behind him. But where did that leave her? What did she have to look forward to? A spinsterish old age, a dried-up aunthood to William’s and her cousins’ future children.

She stared down at the white line on the kerb wishing she had the courage to end it. There was no point in living any longer. She had hurt the one man she loved, brought shame on her family by allowing Ben Springer to do what he had to her. She wasn’t even a proper woman. Women made men happy, including the ones who could be bought in station yard, and she couldn’t even offer her man that much.

‘Diana or Will?’ Evan Powell opened the kitchen door as Diana stepped into the passage, barely giving her time to pull the blackout curtain.

She dried her tears in the thick, heavy material Evan’s common-law wife, Phyllis, had bought to shroud the doors and windows, and called back, ‘It’s Diana.’

‘You all right?’ he asked, picking up on the tremor in her voice.

‘Fine.’

‘You don’t sound it.’

‘I’m just cold, it’s freezing outside.’

‘Is Will with you?’

‘No, he went into Cardiff with Tina.’

‘You didn’t walk up the hill by yourself in the blackout?’

‘Tony brought me home,’ she lied quickly.

‘You look half frozen. Come into the kitchen and get warm.’

‘I’d rather go straight to bed if you don’t mind, Uncle Evan. I’m tired, and Friday’s always a long day.’

‘Have a cup of tea first.’

‘No, really.’

‘Come on.’

Her uncle wasn’t usually so persistent. She straightened her skirt as she walked down the stone-flagged passage, wondering if her uncle and Phyllis would guess what had happened to her. But then why should they? No one had guessed what Ben Springer had done to her, and she had been in much more of a state then. Evan was holding the door open. Heat laden with wholesome cooking smells blasted towards her, warm and comforting, and there sitting in an easy chair next to the hearth, was a small, thin woman with a careworn face, who looked smaller, older and more shrunken than she had done behind the distancing barrier of prison screens.

The glossy, curly hair Diana remembered so well was dry and wiry; more grey than black when viewed close up. The hands that had been soft and cared for were gnarled and scarred by deep cuts. But it was still her mother.

‘Mam!’ Diana flew across the kitchen. ‘I thought you had years more to do.’ She hugged her mother, unable to stop the flood of tears she’d held in check since she’d left Tony.

‘Time off for good behaviour,’ Megan replied in a hoarse, cracked voice. ‘Come on now, girl, don’t cry.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me Mam was coming home?’ Diana demanded of her uncle.

‘Because I didn’t want any fuss,’ Megan answered for him. ‘There’ve been so many conflicting reports going around the prison since the war started: first that they were thinking of releasing people from sentences that didn’t involve violence, then they weren’t. I didn’t know whether I had grounds for hope or not until last night when I found that I was going to be one of the lucky ones.’

‘I can’t believe you’re actually here.’ Diana was holding on to her mother as though she was afraid she’d disappear at any moment.

‘Stand back and let me take a good look at you. It’s a real treat to see people without bars between me and them.’ Megan looked Diana up and down.

‘You’ve grown up,’ she declared, stifling a sharp pang of regret that she hadn’t been around to witness the event.

‘Will’s going to be so surprised when he finds you here.’

‘So I gather,’ Megan said acidly. ‘I hear he’s joined the Welsh Guards.’

‘With Glan next door and the Ronconi boys.’

‘I thought he’d have more sense after what happened to your father.’

‘This war will be a very different affair to the last one, Megan.’ Evan’s attempt at reassurance failed miserably.

‘It’s a war,’ Megan asserted flatly, ‘and that means boys will get killed.’

‘Not ours.’

‘Let’s pray you’re right.’ She turned back to Diana, taking her hands into hers. ‘Come on then, tell me what you’ve been doing, without a warder listening in on us for once?’

Diana looked down at the skin on her mother’s fingers: it felt as though she were holding twigs covered in sandpaper.

‘Tea first.’ Phyllis poured out two cups and pushed one towards Diana, and one towards Megan.

‘As it looks as though these two are settling in for a night’s gossip, I think we’d better go to bed and leave them to it, love.’ Evan put his arm around Phyllis’s shoulders.

‘Please don’t go on my account, Evan,’ Megan pleaded. ‘You’re making me feel as though I’m throwing you out of your own kitchen.’

‘I’ve work in the morning and young Brian will be up early to keep Phyllis busy. We’ll talk tomorrow night.’ Evan led Phyllis towards the door. ‘But I’d like to say, welcome home, Megan. It’s good to have you back.’

‘I’ll only stay as long as it takes me to get my own home together again, Evan.’

‘Your home is here, with your children and us,’ he contradicted firmly. He’d only recognised Megan when he had walked in after work because of her resemblance to her mother. Her weight had practically halved in prison, and the harsh treatment had aged her twenty years. He’d always been fond of Megan, and after his brother’s death he had found it easy to transfer the affection he’d felt for his brother to his brother’s family.

‘We’ll see, but in the meantime thank you for looking after Will and Diana for me.’

‘Didn’t they tell you, they’ve been looking after me,’ he winked as he followed Phyllis through the door and up the stairs.

‘Are you really all right, Mam?’ Diana asked as she moved her chair closer to her mother’s.

‘Just a bit giddy, that’s all. It’s been a big day. I still can’t believe I’m sitting here, in Uncle Evan’s back kitchen and not behind a mesh screen in prison. It’s so good to be able to touch you after all this time.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Diana leaned forward and impulsively hugged and kissed her mother.

‘Get on with you.’ Megan pushed her daughter away because she was dangerously close to tears. ‘I’ve a lot to catch up on, so it seems. Elizabeth leaving Evan, and Phyllis moving in. I never thought he’d find the courage to live openly with her, although I suspected that something was going on there for years.’

‘Isn’t it marvellous? They’re so happy together.’

‘God knows Evan deserves as much happiness as he can get after suffering Elizabeth’s wifely ministrations for over twenty years. And speaking of husbands and wives, he tells me you and Will are both courting strong,’ she added artfully.

‘I think Will was hoping to buy Tina a ring this afternoon.’ Diana tried to deflect her mother’s interest from her affairs to her brother’s.

‘It’s serious between them, then?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then why in hell did the fool go and join up?’ Megan spooned sugar into the tea Phyllis had poured. ‘You think they’ll get married?’

‘I don’t know, what with the war and everything –’

‘Damned war!’ Megan cursed angrily.

‘One good thing has come out of it.’

‘It has?’

‘You’re home.’

‘And all the boys have gone or are going. Evan told me Eddie’s been in the Guards for months. Signed up a couple of days after marrying Jenny Griffiths. Something happen there I should know about?’

‘None of us knows what really happened between Eddie and Jenny, other than he seemed to want to get out of Pontypridd in a hurry. But Will and the Ronconi boys signed up in the Guards because of Eddie. They’re hoping to be able to serve with him.’

‘And Haydn’s in ENSA.’ Megan switched the conversation to Evan’s oldest son. ‘Singing for his country and married. I noticed that Evan couldn’t stop talking about her, as opposed to his other daughter-in-law.’

‘Jane’s a sweet little thing, you’ll like her.’

‘An orphan, Phyllis said.’

‘She might be an orphan, but she’s got enough gumption in her to stand up to Haydn.’

‘Good. Apart from Evan, the men in this family always have had too much of their own way.’

‘I can’t see Tina letting Will get away with anything.’

‘And Maud’s still well and happy in Italy, and Bethan …’ Megan began, referring to Evan’s eldest daughter who’d married the local doctor.