Wondering if something had happened between Ronnie and Alma, Tony tried to talk to her on his way out. But all he got for his trouble was a brusque, ‘How the hell should I know what’s going on with your brother?’
Ronnie saw his brothers out and pulled down the shutters. Alma finished the floor, and went to get her coat. Ronnie waylaid her on her way out.
‘I’d like to talk to you,’ he said quietly. She saw that he’d taken the chairs down from the table closest to the stove, and laid out two cups of coffee on it. A lump came to her throat. It was the sort of thing he’d done when they were getting to know one another, before she’d begun to go upstairs with him.
‘I have to go,’ she said tersely, biting her lower lip in an effort to stop herself from crying.
‘Please? Just for a few minutes,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll drive you home afterwards.’
The spectacle of sardonic, capable and confident Ronnie, her boss and lover, quietly and softly begging her to stay and talk to him was too much. She sank down on one of the chairs and opened her handbag, rummaging blindly for a handkerchief.
‘I wanted to tell you –’
‘You don’t have to tell me anything!’ she snapped bitterly.
‘But I want to, Alma. I owe you a great deal. And I know I’ve treated you very badly.’
‘If you know, then there’s no point in talking about it.’
He laid his hand gently on her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Alma.’ His voice was soft, sincere. ‘Very, very sorry. If I’d known that I was going to fall in love with Maud Powell ...’
‘Then you do love her?’
‘You were the one who told me, remember?’ he murmured wryly. ‘Alma, if I’d known that we were going to end up like this I wouldn’t have ... have ...’ he searched in vain for the word he wanted.
‘Wouldn’t have what, Ronnie?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Slept with me? Made me fall in love with you?’
He looked at her silently, recollecting the depth of his feelings for Maud. Knowing how devastated and broken he’d feel if it was Maud who was walking away from him.
‘I wanted you to know that the last thing I intended was for you to get hurt; that I’m grateful to you. I respect you. That if there’s anything you need, anything at all that I can do to help you, you only have to say the word, and I’ll –’
‘You’ll what, Ronnie?’ she cried acidly, ‘Wave your magic wand and transform me into unsoiled goods? Or would it soothe your conscience to give me money, and make me feel even more like a whore than I do already?’
‘What I also wanted to tell you, before you found out from someone else, is that Maud and I are to be married as soon as the ceremony can be arranged,’ he said quickly, glossing over Evan Powell’s refusal to give his permission. ‘I spoke to Maud tonight, asked her to marry me, and she said yes.’
Alma sat white-faced and very still, but said nothing.
‘As soon as we’re married, we’ll be leaving –’
‘Leaving Pontypridd?’
‘I’m taking her to Italy.’
‘In God’s name, why?’
When she’d screamed, ‘you love Maud Powell’ at Ronnie, she’d hoped against hope for a denial that she could believe. For twenty-four hours she’d lived on tenterhooks, hating herself for thinking that it could be worse. That Ronnie could have fallen in love with a girl who wasn’t out of reach in the TB ward of the Graig Hospital. She’d been prepared for Ronnie to ignore her, and moon around after his sick love, but the thought that he’d leave Pontypridd had never once crossed her mind. To lose him to a girl as young and as ill as Maud Powell was torture, but the realisation that she might never see him again was purgatory.
‘You’ll be back,’ she whispered, needing to believe it.
‘No.’ He looked her in the eye so there could be no misunderstanding between them. ‘I’m taking Maud to Italy in the hope that she’ll get well ...’
‘But she might not,’ Alma blurted out thoughtlessly, loathing herself afterwards.
‘And she might,’ he countered sternly. ‘Maud’s the reason I’m going, but I won’t be returning because I’ve burned my boats with my father. He won’t have me back here.’
‘But where will you go? What will you do?’
‘My grandfather has a farm. We’ll live on it.’
‘Ronnie, think about what you’re doing,’ she pleaded, forgetting her fury with him for an instant, knowing just how much the business and the café meant to him. ‘You only saw Maud Powell a few weeks ago. Your falling in love with her is like Tina falling in love with Clark Gable.’
‘No,’ he said abruptly, dismissing the thought: it was one he’d already considered – and rejected. ‘I’ve known Maud Powell all my life. It just took you to make me see her in a different light, sooner rather than later. I’m sorry, Alma –’ he reached out and took her hand in his, ‘– I’ve made my choice. And my only regret is that I’ve caused you pain. But I promise, I’ll talk to Tony, make sure you always have a job here, and in the new place. That if you want or need anything he’ll help you out. I’d like to think that you and I could still be friends –’
‘Friends!’ She snatched her hand away, and stood up. ‘Friends! Ronnie, you want it all don’t you? A sweet, virginal, dying wife and my blessing. Well you damned well can’t have it. You’re nothing but a selfish swine, Ronnie Ronconi. You used me ...’
‘I never meant to,’ he protested.
‘And you think, because you didn’t mean to it will all come right. Well, it won’t. I hate you! Hate you!’ She swept her hand across the table, sending the coffee cups flying. They shattered against the wall and sent rivulets of coffee shooting over the floor and clean tables. ‘I wish you and her dead! I wish ... I wish I’d never set eyes on you or your bloody café.’ She ran to the door and wrestled with the lock. Ronnie wisely decided against following her. Eventually she managed to wrench the door open. He watched her go with mixed feelings of shame, weariness, and relief that it was finally all over between them.
Chapter Twenty-two
For the second night running Ronnie didn’t sleep. He worked vigorously until two in the morning. The place had never been so clean. Relishing the peace and quiet, he scrubbed the kitchen tables, sink, walls and floor. The mindless labour left him free to take stock and think. He’d accomplished a great deal in one day. He’d proposed to Maud, and been accepted. He’d broken the news to his father and Alma, and suffered the worst of their rages. All that remained was to see Evan Powell again and persuade him to let Maud go. Then he could take her out of the Central Homes, marry her – and leave. It was simple. All he had to do was concentrate his energies on convincing Evan that it was the only thing to do – for Maud’s sake.
When the entire café was spotless and fragrant with the smell of bleach and polish he put on his coat. He was half-way out of the door when he realised that the early hours of the morning was not the best time to make a social call.
He took off his coat and went to the big cupboard in the kitchen. Ignoring the bottles, he pulled out the ledgers and account books from the top shelf, set a kettle of water on the range to boil and made a jug of coffee. Taking the jug and the books over to the table in front of the door, he sat down and began to study. Unlike his father, he’d always been meticulous about figures: he knew to the last penny what had to be spent setting up the new restaurant, and what amount would be needed to keep it going through the first lean months when he doubted they’d cover costs. He pored over the bank books and ledgers, working-out his figures carefully, checking and double-checking every balance.
He couldn’t have picked a worse time to leave the business. Investing in any new venture was inevitably expensive; in a smart new restaurant, doubly so. After his father’s lifetime of hard work and the thirteen years that he’d put into the business, they had a surplus of just two hundred pounds that wasn’t earmarked for the new place. Deciding he couldn’t take it all, he settled on half. Picking up the cheq
uebook he wrote out a cheque to cash. By the time he’d paid for the tickets to Bardi there wouldn’t be a great deal left to begin a new life, but whatever there was would have to do. He tore the cheque out of the book, and penned a note detailing all his calculations for Tony’s benefit. He smiled as he wrote. He wasn’t the only one in the family who’d be getting his own way. Tony wouldn’t be going into the priesthood after all. He felt sorry for Angelo, Alfredo and Robert. One of them would now undoubtedly be earmarked to bear the brunt of their father’s religious ambitions.
The hands on the clock pointed to five-thirty as he locked the cupboard door on the books. He walked into the café and looked around. He’d been fifteen, Angelo’s age now, when his father had borrowed money from his uncle and bought the place. Papa would never have done it if he hadn’t persuaded him.
He’d spent his first full year out of school in their café in High Street, and twelve years here. He’d never known any other working life. What if his father was right? What if he couldn’t adapt to farming? Pushing the unpleasant thought from his mind he opened the front door and pulled up the shutters. The sky was just beginning to lighten, there were no clouds. Perhaps it wouldn’t rain today. He hoped so. Somehow it seemed like a good omen.
‘You can’t be serious?’ Elizabeth questioned Evan sharply as he heaved himself out of bed before her for the first time in years, and pulled his trousers on over the long johns he’d slept in.
‘You got any better ideas, woman?’ he countered angrily.
‘But Maud’s sick. She’s ...’
‘Dying!’ Evan supplied succinctly. ‘I’m going down Trevor Lewis’s straight after breakfast, and I’m going to ask him to let me see Maud. If she loves Ronnie as much as he seems to love her, we’ll get her out of that place today. Then we’ll see about arranging a wedding.’
‘But she’s a child!’ Elizabeth protested strongly. ‘She can’t possibly know what she wants, not at her age ...’
‘She’s going to be a dead child very soon if something isn’t done,’ Evan stated bluntly. ‘Ronnie’s offered her a chance. Not much of one, but a chance, and if it’s what Maud wants I’m not going to stand in her way.’
‘Have you thought to ask what the Ronconis have to say about all this?’
‘Knowing the Ronconis, they’ll have enough to say, and all of it loud,’ Evan replied sternly. ‘I’ve told you what I’m going to do, Elizabeth. It’s not up for discussion. If Maud wants to marry Ronnie Ronconi, then the sooner it’s done and they’re on their way to Italy the better.’
Diana heard her uncle leave his bedroom and go downstairs. She glanced at the hands on the battered, painted tin alarm clock on her chest of drawers. They pointed to twenty-past five; usually only her aunt was up at this hour. She pulled the bedclothes over her shoulder and explored her wakening body. Every bit of her was sore and aching, as though she’d been pushed through a crushing mill. She lay there, reliving last night’s nightmare, watching the minutes tick slowly, inexorably past.
She heard her aunt leave her bed, pour water into her basin and wash. There were creaks and groans as Elizabeth walked over the bedroom floor. The wardrobe door opened and closed. Water ran as her aunt emptied her basin into the slop jar. The protest of bedsprings as the bedclothes were pulled back. She listened, but failed to hear Haydn’s and Eddie’s voices. They must have been out late, or had a pint too many, to sleep in until now.
The hands crept round to a quarter to six. Normally she would have been out of bed and dressed. Time to make a move. She sat up stiffly, thrusting her legs out from under the bedclothes. The last thing she wanted to do was excite her aunt’s, or anyone else’s, suspicions by doing anything out of the ordinary. Her handbag was on the chest of drawers, propped up against the toilet set Will had brought from their Uncle Huw’s house. She looked at it in disgust. She had stuffed the five pounds Ben had given her into it last night. Five pounds! Ten weeks’ rent and subsistence money. Would she be able to find a job in that time? Would she be able to walk around the town, holding her head up, after what Ben had done to her? What if anyone besides Wyn found out, or guessed ...
Elizabeth’s heavy step crossed the landing. She rapped her knuckles hard on the boys’ door. ‘Six o’clock,’ she called briskly. ‘Time you were up.’ A muffled reply came from the room.
‘Diana!’ she shouted coldly without troubling herself to take another step along the landing.
‘I’m dressing, aunt,’ Diana lied, struggling to her feet. Needles of pain pierced her entire body, bringing with them a tidal wave of shame. She bent double and buried her head in her hands. When the spasm passed, she clung to the chest and peered into the small mirror that her brother had brought along with the toilet set. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. There were enormous black shadows beneath them, and a plethora of red marks around her neck. Bruises were turning from red to black on her cheeks. There were bound to be questions. She’d just have to dream up some lie as an explanation.
She washed dully, mechanically, trying not to look down at her body, but as she rubbed her flannel over the flat of her stomach a ghastly thought crossed her mind. What if Ben had made her pregnant? What if his child was already forming inside her?
Revolted by the idea, she fell back on the bed. That would really be the ultimate horror. Just the thought of being pregnant disgusted her – but Ben ...
‘Diana!’ her aunt called irritably up the stairs. Gulping in a great draught of air, she pulled herself together, finished washing, dressed and made her way unsteadily down the stairs, clinging to the banisters for support. Charlie, Eddie and William were sitting at the table. She thought it strange that she hadn’t heard Eddie go downstairs, but she was in no mood to question him. They, like her, all seemed subdued.
She went out the back. The morning air was cold and fresh, even in the shelter of the small back yard. She used the ty bach, and washed her hands and cleaned her teeth in the washhouse.
‘No breakfast today?’ her aunt asked suspiciously as Diana laid her hand on the knob of the door between kitchen and passage.
‘Not this morning, thank you aunt,’ Diana mumbled meekly.
‘Christ, what happened to you?’ Will demanded, looking at his sister for the first time that morning, and seeing her bruises.
‘A pile of boxes fell on top of me in the stockroom yesterday,’ Diana lied quickly.
‘Then I’ll go down that shop and give Ben Springer a piece of my mind. He’s obviously working you too hard. You look terrible,’ Will said solicitously.
‘Don’t bother,’ Diana insisted hastily. ‘It was my fault, really. I tripped as I came down off the ladder. I’m going to call in and see Laura on the way into town. Just to check I haven’t broken anything.’
‘If you’re not well you can’t work, sis,’ Will said firmly.
‘I’m all right.’
‘You don’t look all right to me.’
‘I told you, I’ll check with Laura before I go in.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ she agreed irritably.
‘You turn up late again today and you’re likely to lose your job,’ Elizabeth carped.
‘I’ll walk down with you, sis.’ Will gave his aunt a telling look as he rose from the table, leaving his breakfast half-eaten in front of him.
‘If you’re going now, you can open up, Will,’ Charlie threw the keys of the stall at him. ‘I’ll go to the slaughterhouse and pick up another lamb.’
‘And I’ve business to attend to this morning, as well,’ Evan announced, walking in through the door in his best suit.
‘I thought you left half an hour ago,’ Elizabeth commented.
‘I went upstairs to change after I washed.’
‘So I see,’ Elizabeth frowned disapprovingly.
‘Do you want to come with me? If you do you might be able to talk to Maud yourself.’
‘You going to see Maud?’ Eddie asked eagerly.
‘No he’s not
,’ Elizabeth dismissed coldly. ‘He’s only going to try. And unlike him I haven’t a morning to waste on a fool’s errand.’ Picking up the coal bucket, she walked out to the coalhouse.
‘I’ll walk down as far as Laura and Trevor’s with you, Diana,’ Evan said flatly, ignoring Elizabeth’s comments. He looked at Eddie. ‘Get the horse and cart out of the yard.’ He tossed him his last sixpence. ‘Can you do Cilfynydd on your own?’
‘Of course. Have you got any pennies for the rags?’
‘I forgot.’
‘But it’s Saturday.’
Evan brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his coat. ‘You’re going to have to make do with the sweets and bits and pieces we’ve got,’ he asserted brusquely.
‘Here.’ Knowing how important pennies were on Saturdays, Charlie dug into his pocket and studied his change. ‘There’s two bob’s worth of coppers there.’
‘I’ll pay you back tonight, Charlie,’ Evan said stiffly.
‘Fine.’ Charlie pushed a whole round of black pudding into his mouth.
‘Has anyone called Haydn?’ Elizabeth asked as she walked back in with the bucket full of small coals.
‘I’ll call him on the way out. Ready Diana?’
Elizabeth washed her hands and began to clear the table. She heard Evan shout up to Haydn, and Haydn called back. She re-laid a place at the table and pulled the letter that had come for him that morning out of her apron pocket. It was postmarked Brighton. She wondered just who Haydn knew in that town.
‘You got time for a cuppa?’ Laura asked Diana, as Evan and Trevor left the house.
‘Yes.’ Diana sat in Trevor’s easy chair next to the stove. It faced the small window that overlooked the tiny paved back yard. Hemmed in by the washhouse wall on one side and the five-foot wall that separated Laura’s yard from next door’s on the other, the window did little to brighten the atmosphere of the gloomy kitchen, but like an imaginatively painted scene it lent an impression of what nature could do if it was given half a chance. At the end of the short, dark tunnel of walls there was a square of brilliant sunshine filled with a shiny-leaved, evergreen bush.
Pontypridd 02 - One Blue Moon Page 29