Haydn had to come! He simply had to! He’d been tired that afternoon. That was all. He’d been tired, and she’d been miserable at the thought of spending one more Saturday night alone. That was why they’d had that stupid row. He, like her, would have calmed down by now. He wouldn’t pass the shop, not without testing the latch to see if she’d left the door open. She wondered if it was one o’clock yet. She’d left her room at twelve. It seemed like she’d been sitting here for hours, but she’d spent enough early mornings waiting for Haydn in the storeroom to know that the passage of time could be deceptive. She’d probably only been here for half an hour, and if Haydn was loading scenery into the back of a van ...
Steps echoed along the pavement in front of the shop. She jerked upright and ran stiffly to the shop window, hovering just behind the counter. She saw the back of a constable’s broad figure, lamplight burnishing the buttons on the shoulders of his overcoat. Disconsolate, she checked the clock on the wall behind the counter. Its hands pointed to five to one. Haydn couldn’t be much longer now – unless he’d gone to the last-night party with the chorus girls. Jealousy began to bubble violently inside her as she returned to the storeroom. Curling her feet beneath her, she clutched the sack across her shoulders and waited, her stomach kneading itself into tight little knots that were half fear, half anticipation. What if – what if Haydn had thought she meant what she said? What if he’d taken her seriously? What if he never spoke to her again?
She’d been such a fool. She couldn’t survive without Haydn. If he came back she’d never allow her jealousy to surface so destructively again. Never speak sharply. Never ... Even as she made heady promises to herself, and to whatever peculiar deity she believed presided over lovers blighted by misery, her eyelids grew heavy. She curled herself tightly into the corner. The walls at her back and side were cold, but just about bearable. The sacking helped to insulate her from the brick’s freezing temperature.
Haydn dragged himself wearily up the hill. Every step took an enormous effort that drained his strength even further, but in spite of his exhaustion he was restless and on edge. His throat burned full of indigestible remorse. What insane impulse of self-destruction had led him to give Ambrose the wrong answer when he’d invited him to join the revue? He’d never get another offer like that. Not in a million years. He’d allowed his dislike of Ambrose and what he was to ruin his whole life.
How often had he told his sister Bethan that all he wanted was to go on stage? Now his bluff had been called. At the slightest suggestion that his lifelong ambition might be realised, he’d turned chicken and run. Flung an offer that any aspiring chorus boy in the country would have sold his soul to get, back in Ambrose’s indignant face. As Alice had said, if Ambrose or anyone else for that matter had made overtures to him, he could always have said no. He’d been a fool. A stupid fool. And for what? To turn up at the Town Hall again at eight o’clock on Monday morning to begin another fourteen-hour day. Three pounds a week Ambrose had offered! He could have lived like a king on two, and sent a pound home. Eight shillings more than he paid his mother now, and he wouldn’t have been eating any of her food. But it was too late. He’d seen the look on Ambrose’s face after he rejected the offer. If he went crawling back now Ambrose would kick him in the teeth, and quite rightly so. He’d been too stupid to recognise a golden egg when it had been laid in front of him.
He flung the cold cigarette butt that he held clamped between his lips to the ground. He was too upset and too angry to think any more about the implications of what he’d done. He paused to get his breath. Fury had turned his walk up the Graig hill into a run, and the Graig hill wasn’t built for speed. He looked around, taking his bearings. He was standing in the road in front of the fish shop. Opposite, a street lamp shed a benign yellow glow over the front of Griffiths’ shop, highlighting the displays of tins of tomatoes, polish and sardines. To the left he could see the sweets: as mouth-wateringly tormenting as they’d been during his childhood and, since the shop was closed, just as unattainable. Everlasting strips, Five Boys chocolate, pear drops – he remembered their sharp acidic taste and suddenly craved it. It was comforting to think of childhood. The only problems he’d had then were connected with money. Finding enough pennies to go to the Saturday morning rush in the White Palace, and to buy his liquorice sticks and ‘jelly comforters’. He’d had no regrets then, made no wrong decisions to beat himself over the head with. He hadn’t even really known Jenny.
He walked closer to the shop on his toes, taking care to keep his steps silent. Fumbling in his pocket he took out the last of the two cigarettes he’d bought earlier in the kiosk in the Town Hall. He struck a match and lit it before walking softly round to the back of the shop. Lifting the latch on the gate set into the wall of the yard he stepped up to the back door. Hand on the leaf of the latch he paused. What would he do if it was locked? She could be on the other side of the door, waiting, ready to laugh at him as the door failed to give. She might even wake her father, and what on earth could he say to Harry Griffiths if he were caught here, skulking like a burglar? Turning on his heel, he walked quickly away. Retracing his steps he continued his journey up the hill.
Still lying on the upturned crate with the sack wrapped round her, Jenny didn’t hear a sound. Head slumped forward she slept on, oblivious to everything. Even Haydn’s absence from her life.
Chapter Eight
‘You feeling any better this morning?’ Diana walked into Maud’s bedroom, set the tray she was carrying down on the empty half of the bed, and drew the curtains.
‘I feel fine,’ Maud lied.
‘You look better,’ Diana agreed. ‘But not better enough. You know what Doctor Lewis said last night. Plenty of rest and – ’
‘Good food, warmth and plenty of doing nothing. Come on, Di, don’t put me in a box before my time,’ Maud snapped, regaining, along with her strength, some of the rage against being singled out for tuberculosis.
‘I’m not putting you anywhere before your time,’ Diana retorted, her hackles rising at the hint of self-pity in Maud’s voice. Maud had tuberculosis, but tuberculosis could be fought, especially by people who had a family to look after them and a home to call their own. ‘Are you going to eat that salt fish I cooked with my own fair hand or not?’
‘I am,’ Maud took the cup of tea from the tray and placed it on the bedside cabinet, then picked up a slice of bread and butter and began to eat. ‘What’s everyone doing?’ she asked.
‘Seeing as how it’s ten o’clock, their usual Sunday morning business. The boys have gone rabbiting over the mountain with your father, Charlie and the dog. But knowing William and Eddie they’ll probably return via the coal tip in the Maritime.’
‘They can get done for that.’
‘They don’t need you to tell them that,’ Diana said crossly. Maud could be stupid at times. The boys would never risk going near the guarded dumps of the closed pits if it wasn’t for Maud. There’d been quite an argument over breakfast about whether enough coal could be spared to light a fire in Maud’s bedroom, or not. Elizabeth had insisted that they couldn’t afford it. Evan had said they had to, and Charlie hadn’t helped by offering to pay more for his board and lodging. Diana had seen William nod to Eddie across the table, and she knew precisely what that meant.
They intended to solve the problem in what was rapidly becoming a typical valley way: without any money changing hands.
‘Where’s Mam?’ Maud asked, wondering if Diana was snapping because her mother had upset her more than usual.
‘In chapel.’
‘So that’s how you managed to bring me breakfast in bed,’ she smiled, knowing her mother would never willingly have countenanced food, especially fish, being carried upstairs.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll air the bedroom well afterwards.’ Diana walked to the narrow sash window and looked down at the street. It was quiet. The children who were used to obeying their parents were in chapel, the others were up the mountain with
the men and the dogs.
‘Are you coming down today?’
‘You bet your life. I don’t intend to lie up here all day and play the invalid.’
‘I’ll bring you warm water to wash.’
‘Thanks Di,’ Maud said fondly as her cousin opened the door.
‘For what?’
‘For looking after me,’ she said huskily, her voice raw with the cold she’d picked up.
‘If I don’t, you’ll never get well enough for that trip to Spain we promised ourselves. Remember!’
They both laughed. Brought up on their Spanish-born grandmother’s tales of her homeland, when they were five they’d decided to go to Spain. William, Haydn and Eddie had teased them unmercifully about it at the time, telling them not to spend any of the pennies they scrounged on sweets, because they’d need them for their boat tickets.
Maud was up, washed, dressed and sitting downstairs by the time Elizabeth returned from chapel. Diana had washed the breakfast dishes, including the ones she’d taken up to the bedroom. She’d also opened Maud’s bedroom window, sprinkled precious drops of essence of violets in the air to disguise the smell of fish, and made the bed. And in an effort to please Elizabeth she had the dinner well under way. The potatoes for boiling were peeled, ready in a saucepan of water. She’d cleaned out the two beef hearts and breast of lamb that William had brought home from the stall the night before, stuffed them and put them in the oven, along with a generous portion of second-quality dripping from Elizabeth’s pot, and was now cleaning carrots and swedes to go with them.
‘Girls,’ Elizabeth nodded briefly as she came in. ‘Are you well enough to be sitting up, Maud?’
‘I think so, Mam,’ Maud replied.
‘Either you are, or you’re not,’ Elizabeth countered briskly.
‘I don’t want to stay in bed all day,’ Maud retorted.
‘I’ll have none of that tone in this house. What you want, or don’t want, is immaterial where your health is concerned.’ Elizabeth sounded every inch the schoolmarm she’d once been. ‘You heard Doctor Lewis last night same as I did. Rest, warmth plenty of good food ...’
‘I’m hardly running a marathon sitting here!’ Maud exclaimed indignantly.
‘No, but you’re exposing yourself to draughts as Diana walks back and fore to the pantry.’ She looked suspiciously at Maud’s hair, clean and fluffed out. The fair curls shone like a halo around her thin, pale face and deep blue eyes. ‘You’ve washed your hair, haven’t you?’ she asked accusingly.
‘It needed it.’
‘Not in your condition it didn’t.’
‘I helped her dry it right away, Aunt Elizabeth,’ Diana interrupted, forcing her aunt to acknowledge her presence for the first time since she’d entered the room. ‘And I’ve all of the dinner under way,’ she added, hoping to deflect Elizabeth’s attention. ‘It should be ready by half-past one. That is when you eat on a Sunday, isn’t it?’
‘It is. I’ve tried to ensure that this family keeps normal hours,’ Elizabeth sniffed, debating whether to make a deprecating comment on the hours Diana was brought up to keep by her jailbird mother.
‘The hearts are in and roasting ...’ Diana began defensively.
‘Have you basted them well?’ Elizabeth opened the oven door and lifted the lids of the two roasting pans sitting on the shelf.
‘I think so, Aunt Elizabeth.’
‘Think so! What’s got into you girls? What have they been teaching you in that hospital? Don’t either of you give straight answers to straight questions any more? I think’, she pronounced decisively, that I’d better see what you’ve done for myself.’ With a martyred sigh Elizabeth took down the rag-stuffed stocking potholders and lifted first one pan then the other on to the iron top of the stove. She removed their lids, and poked at the meat. She knew, and Diana knew, there was more than enough fat in the pan, but that didn’t prevent her from lifting down her fat jar and adding another dollop to both pans. She turned the potatoes that were sizzling nicely in the molten dripping at the side of the meat. ‘Don’t you think you put them in a little early?’ she criticized.
‘They always seem to take hours to brown,’ Diana protested, biting back the urge to scream at her aunt.
‘They will if you don’t baste them regularly.’ Elizabeth took a wooden spoon from the kitchen table drawer, and began to spoon fat from the base of the pans over the contents.
‘I can do that,’ Diana said mutinously.
‘And what are we having for dessert, young lady?’ Elizabeth enquired, ignoring Diana’s offer.
‘Dessert?’ Diana looked blankly at her aunt.
‘Afters,’ Maud supplied helpfully.
‘You know I hate that word, Maud.’
‘Diana and I are both used to hospital language, Mam.’
‘Then it’s as well you both left when you did.’
‘I was going to make an apple crumble with some of the apples from the sack at the back of the pantry,’ Diana said, wondering if her aunt would find fault with the suggestion.
‘They’re windfalls, so be careful to cut out all the bruised bits or the whole crumble will taste rotten, and that would be a waste of good sugar, fat and flour, not to mention apples,’ Elizabeth warned.
‘I do know how to cut up apples,’ Diana said testily.
‘You’re just like your mother, Diana. She never would take telling either.’
Diana didn’t trust herself to answer.
‘You’ll find custard powder at the back of the top shelf in the pantry,’ Elizabeth continued. ‘Right-hand side, next to the tins. And in this house it’s made with half milk, half water.’ She pulled on her gloves.
‘You going out, Mam?’ there was a hint of relief in Maud’s voice.
‘Seeing as how Diana’s here to help with the cooking, I’ll walk back down the hill and check your Uncle John Joseph is all right.’
‘I thought he was moving to the Rhondda,’ Maud said.
‘He is, next week. But that’s all the more reason for me to go down there now. I’ve been working there day and night for the past two weeks, emptying and cleaning the house out for the next minister. You’ve no idea how much rubbish your Aunt Hetty accumulated. God rest her soul,’ Elizabeth added, remembering that it wasn’t done to speak ill of the dead.
Diana fell into Elizabeth’s chair as soon as Elizabeth shut the front door behind her. She looked across at Maud and smiled. ‘If we were back in the hospital, I’d suggest tipping one of the porters to get us a bottle of stout.’
‘Mam would die at the very thought of her daughter knocking back beer at home.’
‘Chance and money would be a fine thing,’ Diana said sourly.
‘Never mind, how about a cup of tea?’
Maud smiled at her. ‘It’ll do until we can afford Champagne.’
‘Roll on next week,’ Diana laughed.
The front door opened and closed.
‘The boys,’ Diana said excitedly.
‘They’d come the back way,’ Maud pointed out. ‘More likely Mam forgot something.’
‘Hello, it’s me,’ a familiar drawl echoed down the passage.
‘Ronnie?’ Maud made a face at Diana. ‘What on earth does he want?’ she hissed, keeping her voice low and resenting the intrusion.
‘Taxi fare for taking us home yesterday?’ Diana suggested.
Ronnie opened the kitchen door and walked in.
‘All alone?’ he asked.
‘We did invite Clark Gable and Robert Donat to call in, but they were busy. Said they had more interesting things to do on a Sunday morning than watch a girl slave over housework.’ Diana picked up an enamel bowl from the kitchen table and resumed peeling carrots.
‘Do you want to see the boys?’ Maud asked.
‘Not particularly. Is there any tea going?’ Ronnie pulled a chair out from under the table, sat on it, and propped his long legs up on the rail in front of the stove. He glanced across at Maud. She looked very d
ifferent from the girl he had carried into his van yesterday. Her face sparkled with animation despite her emaciated appearance. Her hair shone pale yellow, the same glowing shade as the early daffodils that bloomed for St David’s day, and her eyes were blue, so blue they reminded him of the eyes on his little sister Theresa’s china doll. Even the vivid colour of her crimson thick-knit woollen suit went some way to disguising her deathly pallor and skeletal figure.
‘You’re looking a bit more human,’ he said flippantly, conscious that he’d been staring at her.
‘Thought I was on the way out yesterday, did you?’
‘No,’ he replied slowly. ‘But I didn’t expect to see you sitting up in a chair today.’
Diana lifted the cover on the hotplate and set the kettle, which had been warming on the hearth, to boil.
‘Take sugar and milk?’ she asked curtly, annoyed with herself for forgetting the manners her mother had drilled into her since childhood, and Ronnie for asking for tea before it had been offered.
‘Three sugars and a quarter of an inch of milk.’
‘If you’re that finicky, you can measure it yourself.’ She carried the milk jug out of the pantry and set it on the table. Pouring half the contents into a china bowl she picked up an egg and a cupful of flour, and tossed them in on top of the milk.
‘Good heavens, don’t tell me they taught you to cook in that place as well?’ Ronnie laughed as she set about the mixture with a fork. ‘I thought I’d never see the day.’
‘There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Ronnie Ronconi,’ Diana said brusquely.
‘Apron too,’ he mocked. ‘I take my hat off to them, you really do look the part of the little housewife.’
‘Becomes me, doesn’t it?’ Half flirting, half hoping to annoy, she twirled around in front of him.
‘Depends on what you consider becoming,’ he said cryptically.
‘Did you call in for anything special?’ Maud interrupted, tired of listening to their banter.
‘Oh yes.’ His attention was distracted by Diana, who was spooning tea into the warm teapot. ‘No more than four in a pot that size, you stupid girl,’ he admonished. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
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