What if – what if – he was already there? She’d been behind the counter since a quarter to two so he couldn’t have passed her, not if he’d stayed at home to eat his own dinner. But then he could have avoided the hill altogether by walking along Leyshon Street and down the steps at the end into Graig Street. That’s if he really didn’t want to see her.
‘Come to take over so you can go down the café, love,’ her father said as he opened the door between the shop and the stairs, knocking her into the glass. ‘That’s a funny place to stand,’ he commented, setting down the News of the World he was carrying on the counter. ‘Haydn late, is he?’
‘He’s not coming, Dad.’
‘You two haven’t had a spat, have you?’
‘No,’ she lied quickly.
‘There’s not a blue moon tonight, is there?’
‘He’s staying home. Maud came back yesterday.’
‘So I heard.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Mrs Richards came in yesterday and told me. My heart goes out to Evan Powell. You do know Maud’s not expected to last long don’t you?’
‘Says who?’ Jenny demanded, her blood running cold.
‘Everyone, love. Come on, I don’t have to tell you what a killer consumption is.’
Jenny lowered her head so he wouldn’t see the tears, or the fear in her eyes. Five of her schoolfriends had died of it before they’d even tried their school-leaving exam.
‘That doesn’t mean they can’t do anything for Maud,’ she said defiantly.
‘No, it doesn’t. Look, why don’t you go on up and see her? Take her a couple of bars of chocolate, and one of those fruit cakes we had in from Hopkin Morgan yesterday.’
‘I don’t know, Dad,’ she murmured doubtfully.
‘Go on, love. If you can’t call there, no one can. You’re practically family.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ She opened the door between the shop and their living quarters. Harry watched her go and wisely said nothing. Lovers’ spats, quick to blow up, and just as quick to blow over if his experience with Megan was anything to go by. He gritted his teeth as he visualised Megan. Her absence from his daily life had left an aching void that nothing and no one could fill. And as he couldn’t count himself as family he didn’t even have visiting rights to see her in prison. He had to rely on William’s generosity; but the lad was good enough, allowing him every other monthly visit.
He sat and stared at the blank wall that faced the counter, reliving the past, seeing once again each and every nuance of expression flit across Megan’s face. Her quiet, knowing smile, her frowns of annoyance, beams of joy, the slight puckering of the top lip that meant she was bored. She never could keep any emotion from him. What wouldn’t he give for one of her hugs right now. Right this minute.
‘Wet enough for you?’ Tina asked Trevor as he walked into the café with an expression on his face that matched the weather.
‘Just about. Is Ronnie in the back?’
‘Where else on a Sunday afternoon. Laura with you?’
‘No.’
‘It was a bad row you had then?’
Trevor stopped dead in his tracks.
‘How do you know we quarrelled?’ he demanded.
‘Because it’s a wet Sunday afternoon and you’re here, not tucked up at home with her. Take your coat off, and go and sit in front of the fire in the back,’ she ordered, mothering him with the authority of her status as eldest sister-in-law. ‘I’ll bring you a hot Oxo.’
‘I’d prefer coffee.’
‘Oxo is better for you.’
‘Who’s the doctor here?’
‘Doctors know nothing. Here, dry yourself on this.’ She handed him a rough glass towel so he could dry his face. Pushing him into the back, she carried his coat into the kitchen and hung it next to the stove.
Ronnie, Haydn, William, Eddie, Tony, Angelo, Glan Richards and an assortment of boys from the Graig were sitting at two tables pulled close to the fire. They were playing brag. Small piles of farthings and halfpennies were heaped in front of them. They all knew they risked a fine or, on a magistrate’s off day, a couple of weeks’ imprisonment for playing cards for money in a public place, but with Tina, Gina, Alma and Diana watching the front they felt safe enough. Or at least, a whole lot more comfortable and safe than they would have done playing in the rain on a street corner, which was the only alternative to the café on a Sunday.
‘Seat, brother-in-law.’ Ronnie pushed a spare chair towards Trevor. Rubbing his hair with the towel, Trevor joined him. Tina breezed in carrying Trevor’s Oxo and slapped it down in front of him.
‘Better be kind to him,’ she said in a loud voice to no one in particular. ‘Laura’s thrown him out.’
‘Dear sister performing true to form then?’ Ronnie queried as he laid out his cards. ‘Well you can’t say I didn’t warn you what she was like before the wedding.’
Acutely embarrassed, Trevor remained silent.
‘Anything else?’ Tina demanded.
‘This will do fine, thank you.’ Trevor picked up the cup. It was boiling hot, just what he needed to thaw out his white and frozen fingers.
William managed to catch Tina’s eye, as he scooped the winning hand. Shovelling the pile of copper from the table into his trouser pocket, he glanced around. ‘Anyone want anything?’ he asked as he left his chair.
‘I’ll have a glass of lemonade,’ Glan said. William followed Tina out through the door.
‘What time are you leaving tonight?’ he whispered as he leant over the counter.
‘Five. Gina and I are going up to see Maud with Diana.’
‘And when are you going to see me?’ he demanded.
‘You know it’s difficult.’
‘Difficult? It’s downright bloody impossible!’
‘Ssh, Ronnie might hear.’
‘What if he does?’ he demanded belligerently. ‘He can’t lock you up for ever.’
‘Only till I’m twenty-one,’ she said mournfully.
‘Look, how about the pictures tomorrow night? White Palace. Six o’clock.’
‘Tina, the back tables need clearing and wiping down.’ Ronnie appeared in the archway between the back and front rooms.
‘I’ll be there as soon as I’ve poured out Glan’s lemonade,’ she shouted irritably.
‘Alma or Gina can do that.’ He smiled at William. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked coldly.
‘Fine, Ronnie, what more could a man want than you supply here?’ William grinned cheekily. ‘Good food, good drink, good surroundings, a warm stove, and –’ he winked at Tina, much to Ronnie’s annoyance, ‘– beautiful waitresses.’
‘Just as long as you remember that the waitresses aren’t what’s on offer here,’ Ronnie said sharply.
‘As if I’d ever think that.’ William picked up the lemonade that Tina had just poured for Glan. ‘Cheers mate!’ He raised the glass to Ronnie as he returned to the back room.
‘It must be catching then,’ Gina whispered to Tina as Ronnie followed William.
‘What?’ Tina demanded angrily.
‘Rows. You told Diana about Jenny Griffiths?’
‘What about Jenny Griffiths?’ Diana enquired lazily from the corner next to the stove where she was studying magazine fashion plates with Alma.
‘She was in her Dad’s shop when Tina and I walked down the hill. We saw her through the window, so we called in and asked her to come down with us, but she wouldn’t.’
‘So?’ Diana waited for more.
‘So she must have had a row with your Haydn,’ Gina crowed.
‘Perhaps they just wanted to give one another a day off, for a change,’ Diana suggested disinterestedly.
‘You think so?’ Gina pressed.
‘I think it’s their business,’ Diana replied evenly.
The bell clanged and the café door opened again. Wyn Rees stood on the outside doormat, his coat clinging to his legs like a second, slippery skin. The torrential downpour that was flooding T
aff Street had soaked it as thoroughly as if it had just been pulled out of the washtub. He eased the coat off his back, shook himself and finally stepped inside, sliming the floor with a layer of mud from his boots as he did so.
‘You’re well and truly dripping, and filthy with it,’ Tina complained as he lifted off his hat, inadvertently pouring the water that had collected in the brim over the mud on the floor.
‘I’m afraid I am.’ He shrugged his well-muscled shoulders out of his damp jacket, exposing his fancy Sunday waistcoat and best trousers. ‘All right if I hang my jacket and coat here?’ he asked, holding them poised next to the rack.
‘Don’t see what else you can do with them. Just keep them as far away from the others as you can.’
‘Wyn?’ Diana left the back corner and the fashion plates, and walked to the counter. ‘Never seen you in here on a Sunday before.’
‘I don’t usually come,’ Wyn admitted diffidently.
‘I wanted to thank you for carrying Maud out of the station yesterday, only you didn’t stay around long enough.’
‘It was nothing,’ he said shyly.
‘You want anything?’ Tina asked, tired of waiting for him to order.
‘Whatever it is it’ll have to be warm by the look of you. Tea?’ Diana asked.
‘Yes please. And something to eat. Whatever’s easiest for you,’ he said to Tina.
‘I can warm you up a dinner in the stove, or a pie in the steamer. Anything else and I’ll have to roust Ronnie out of the back.’
‘A dinner will do me fine. Thank you.’
‘If you sit next to the stove, I’ll bring your tea over.’ Diana pointed to the tables next to the stove in the front area.
‘Taken up waitressing, Diana?’ Tina whispered as Diana remained next to the counter waiting for her to produce Wyn’s tea.
‘If I’m going to work for Ronnie the sooner I start learning the ropes the better.’
‘You know he’s ... he’s ...’ Tina glanced around furtively. When she was sure no one could overhear them, she continued. ‘A queer,’ she blurted out.
‘That’s why I suggested he sit by the stove in here and not next to the fire in the back room with the boys. Will and Haydn can’t stand him, and Eddie’s always moaning that he shouldn’t be allowed in the gym.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Thanks for the tea. Give me a shout when the dinner’s ready,’ Diana said loudly, cutting Tina short as she took Wyn’s tea over to him.
‘You always go for long walks through mud on rainy Sundays?’ Diana asked tactlessly as she dumped Wyn’s tea down in front of him, slopping it in the saucer.
‘Only sometimes.’
She sat in the chair next to his. Alma had left the café for the kitchen, probably to see to Wyn’s dinner, and Gina had taken herself and her magazine over to the counter where she was whispering and giggling with her sister. ‘Something wrong then?’ she asked.
Wyn lifted his wet face to hers. ‘You don’t want to be burdened with my problems,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh I don’t know. They’re not my problems, so I won’t really feel burdened by them, not enough to cry about them any road. And you’ll feel better for talking about them, because by telling someone else your troubles you’ll have halved your load.’
‘Who says so?’
‘My mam for one.’
Diana looked at Wyn and remembered a time when Will had been railing against queers in general, and Wyn in particular, and her mother had looked at him and said, ‘Poor dab. You just remember, William Powell, there but for the grace of God goes you or any man. And the world would be a lot poorer place if there was no room for anyone who was a bit different.’
‘It’s my Dad,’ Wyn admitted. ‘We had a row.’
‘Before you had your Sunday dinner.’
‘You’ve got it in one.’
‘That’s bad luck. Before dinner I mean, but then most families row from time to time. You should have seen me and my mam.’
‘Really?’
‘At it hammer and tongs. Next door used to complain like anything.’
‘Dad and I have always had trouble getting on, and it’s grown a lot worse since Mam died.’
Diana looked at the thick mud on his shoes, and instinctively knew where he’d been.
‘You’ve been to the cemetery, haven’t you?’
‘Mam’s buried in Glyntaff. It’s not too far to walk ...’
‘On dry days.’
‘I know she’s not there,’ he smiled self-consciously. ‘Not really there, but it helps to go and talk to her as if she could hear me. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’
‘No,’ Diana said seriously. ‘Not in the slightest. Rhiannon Pugh used to spend a lot of time talking to her son and old man after they both got killed in a pit accident. It was only natural really, they were all she had. And it was my mam who suggested she do it. You see my dad got killed in the war before I was born. Mam used to keep two photographs of him, one in the kitchen and one next to her bed, and she used to talk to him every night before she went to sleep, and every morning before she got up. She said it was no different from when he was alive. He never used to listen to her then either. But it helped her to say what she had to say and to get it off her chest.’ She looked wryly at Wyn, ‘I’m sorry, I know I’m probably not making much sense. Will, that’s my brother, he’s always telling me off for gabbling. But what I mean is, Mam would have gone to a grave if she’d had one. But she didn’t, at least not here. And it’s not the same talking to a cenotaph. Although she used to go to the sunken garden in the park a lot. It helped war widows you know, having the Memorial Park dedicated to all those who were killed in the war.’
‘Your mother sounds a sensible woman. I was sorry when I heard what happened.’
‘Yes well, couldn’t be helped I suppose. She broke the law and ended up in clink. Although I still think the sentence she got was a bit much. And I do miss her. Like hell!’ she exclaimed feelingly.
‘I can see why.’ He tried to remember the Pontypridd Observer article he’d read on Megan Powell’s trial, but he couldn’t recall how long she’d been sent down for so he decided against reminding Diana that she was luckier than him, because at least she’d get her mother back some time, whereas he’d never see his again.
‘So you want another cup of tea with your dinner, or after?’ she asked.
He looked down at the table and realised that Alma had put his meal in front of him. Two thick slices of breast of lamb, four round ice cream scoops of mashed potato, four roast potatoes, two scoops of stuffing, a pile of mashed swede and sliced carrots, the whole covered with thick, piping hot gravy.
‘After, please,’ he said to Diana. ‘Thank you,’ he shouted to Alma, who’d retreated behind the counter. ‘This looks great.’
‘We don’t usually do dinners this late in the afternoon, but it should be all right. If you want more, just give me a shout.’
‘I’ll be doing fine if I manage to eat all this.’ He picked up his knife and fork and began.
‘If you’ve anything better to do I won’t keep you,’ he said between mouthfuls to Diana as he heard a loud burst of masculine laughter coming from the back room. A girl like Diana was bound to have a boy in tow, and the last thing he wanted was to have his quiet talk with Diana Powell misconstrued by an over-protective, jealous boyfriend.
‘I’ve nothing better to do,’ Diana replied.’ And I certainly don’t want to go and sit in the back with that noisy rabble,’ she shouted, trying to make herself heard above another deafening roar.
‘If you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure. My cousin Eddie says you train down the gym at the back of the Ruperra. You a boxer too?’
‘No, I’m not quick enough on my feet, but I play rugby now and then on a Saturday, when my father can spare me from the shop.’
‘Tell me, what’s it like running a sweet shop so close to the New Theatre? Do you get to meet the star
s?’
‘Once in a while.’
‘Bet they buy pound boxes of chocolates.’
‘Two-pound sometimes,’ he grinned. ‘Now it’s your turn. Tell me about Cardiff and the Royal Infirmary.’
Diana told him, and he listened and commiserated on the hardships she and her cousin Maud had endured at the hands of over-zealous supervisors; as they talked Wyn reflected that he had never found a woman so easy to get on with before, except of course his beloved mother. Not even his older sister Myrtle. He finished his dinner and persuaded Diana to let him buy her a tea and a slice of apple pie, scarcely daring to hope as they ate companionably together that this could be the beginning of a real friendship. He’d never experienced anything that remotely resembled a real, unselfish, disinterested friendship, outside of his family, in his entire life.
Chapter Ten
At five o’clock the rain turned to hailstones. Ronnie looked around: the café was relatively quiet, and in this weather nothing was likely to happen that Tony, Angelo and Alma couldn’t handle between them.
‘If you’re going to see Maud I’ll run you all up in the Trojan,’ he said to his sisters.
‘You’ll never get all of us in the Trojan,’ Haydn protested.
‘The back’s empty,’ Ronnie said carelessly. He felt most peculiar. A strange excitement was curling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to analyse the feeling, knowing it was in some way connected with the prospect of seeing Maud, and he wondered if he was turning into a ghoul like Mrs Richards, Glan’s mother, who made it her business to visit everyone on the Graig who was in the remotest danger of ‘passing on’, taking it upon herself to issue bulletins on the patient’s progress, or lack of it, right up until the day that Fred the dead, the undertaker, was called in.
Alma touched his arm and smiled at him, breaking into his reverie. ‘Are you going to be long?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Not long,’ he replied irritably, ignoring the touch of her hand as he reached over and took a box of best-quality chocolates from one of the shelves. She said nothing as she moved away, but his curt response hurt. She’d half hoped to be included in the small excursion. They could have driven back down the hill together after leaving everyone in Graig Avenue. Stopped off for a few moments somewhere quiet. It wouldn’t have had to be anywhere special. The car park of the closed White Hart provided privacy enough on a Sunday night.
Pontypridd 02 - One Blue Moon Page 12