‘The tests will take time,’ Trevor admitted reluctantly. ‘There’s a waiting list for the X-ray machine, not to mention the ambulance we’d need to book to ferry her to the Cottage Hospital to carry out some procedures. It could take as long as two weeks, and really all we’d have in the end is a better picture of the parts of her lungs that are diseased. We know what’s wrong at the moment, we simply don’t know the extent. Two weeks can be a long time in the progression of a disease, and it’s more time than Ronnie needs to get her to Italy. The weather is better over there, even in winter. The mountain air might do the trick.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘After a few years in this place I’ve learned not to build up hope where there may be none,’ Trevor cautioned, ‘but I do know one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve worked here six years, and in all that time I’ve never known anyone to walk out of that TB ward. If you want my opinion, Mr Powell, I’ll give it to you, but I warn you, it’s not based on scientific knowledge or study. Occasionally miracles do happen, and if strength and determination can overcome illness, Ronnie has enough for the whole ward, let alone one slip of a girl like Maud. We haven’t anything better to offer her. Not really. Perhaps she’ll die more slowly in here than she would at home. But that’s all. She seems happy enough to go with Ronnie, and after what he’s told me, I have no doubt he’ll be ecstatic at the prospect of taking her. Let her go, Mr Powell. The worst that can happen is what would inevitably happen here.’
‘That’s more or less what I’ve been thinking.’ Evan drew his empty pipe out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. ‘I suppose I’d better go down the café and see if I can find your brother-in-law, and hope that something hasn’t happened to change his mind now that Maud’s set on going with him.’
‘He won’t have changed his mind, Mr Powell. And something tells me you won’t have to look very hard for him either,’ he grinned as he recognised Ronnie’s van waiting outside the gates in Courthouse Street. ‘Either Laura or Mrs Powell must have told him where you were.’
‘Thanks for everything you’ve done for us, Doctor Lewis,’ Evan said as he held out his calloused hand.
‘Don’t you think after all this you could bring yourself to call me Trevor?’
‘It wouldn’t be right,’ Evan said gravely. ‘Not a ragman and a doctor on first-name terms.’
‘Sorry, Mr Horton,’ Haydn apologised as he rushed up to the stall in the second-hand clothes market. The dealer had only recently moved there after a lifetime of trading out in the open.
‘I thought I could rely on you, boy,’ his boss complained in a hurt, petulant tone from behind an enormous bundle of woollen pullovers, clean, pressed and mended, that he was heaving out of a lock-up chest on to the stall. ‘You know I’m getting on, and can’t do things as quickly as I used to, yet you –’
‘Mr Horton I’m sorry, but I’ve had an offer,’ Haydn explained enigmatically, unable to contain his excitement.
‘Well I’ve made you an offer. To work,’ he grumbled testily. ‘You’d think you’d show some gratitude after all the years I’ve helped you.’
‘The offer is to play in a pantomime, in Brighton. I’ve a chance to work with professionals, in a real theatre. This could be the big break I’ve been looking for.’
‘Ay, ay, boy.’ Mr Horton began to arrange the pullovers in piles on the trestles. ‘I suppose it’s what you’ve been after for a while.’
He didn’t even try to hide his disappointment at the prospect of losing his assistant. ‘When will you be off?’
‘By Monday, if I can make it.’
‘That’s fine. Go ahead, leave me high and dry.’
‘No one’s leaving you high and dry, Mr Horton,’ Haydn countered. ‘There’s loads of boys would kill for a chance to work on this stall. My brother for one.’ He might never want to see or speak to Eddie again, but family finances were family finances, after all. And he couldn’t bear the thought of his parents going short when he could have done something to alleviate the situation.
‘Eddie, the boxer?’
‘I’ve only got one brother, and you know it,’ Haydn smiled.
‘Thought he was helping your father on the rag round.’
‘The round’s not going as well as it might. He could spare Wednesday, Friday and Saturday to work for you.’ Haydn kept his fingers crossed behind his back. The Wednesday and Friday wouldn’t be a problem, but he wasn’t too sure about the Saturday, traditionally the ragman’s busy day.
‘He is a good strong boy,’ the dealer mused thoughtfully, ‘and with him around the stall, there’d be no problems with anyone trying to lift anything either. When did you say you were off?’ he asked Haydn sharply.
‘Monday, if I can make it.’
‘Right then, he can take over on Wednesday. Tell him to be here, quarter to seven. On the dot.’
‘He’ll be here,’ Haydn said, thinking that if his father couldn’t spare Eddie, there was always Diana. Three days a week at two bob a day – always supposing that Mr Horton would pay a mere girl the same as he now paid him – was as much as she was getting in the shoe shop, and he knew she was looking for a chance to leave Ben Springer.
‘That’s settled then,’ Mr Horton said resolutely. He hated any uncertainty especially where business was concerned. ‘Your brother will take over.’
‘He’ll be delighted to, Mr Horton.’
‘Come on then, boy, get busy. You’re late, remember. Tell you what, because you’ve been so good to me until today, how about you take your pick of whatever you fancy at the end of the day? Three-piece suit, with waistcoat, watch pocket, the works, sports jacket, trousers and a couple of shirts. Sort of bonus.’
‘That’s very good of you, Mr Horton.’
‘We can’t let a Welsh boy go up to the English in rags, can we? It’d be like letting down Wales. And then again, you’ve got to look smart on stage.’
Haydn didn’t have the heart to tell him that he would be wearing stage costumes. ‘Thanks very much, Mr Horton,’ he beamed. He would have a decent suit to travel in, and wear between shows. He still needed a suitcase, and the means to get him to Brighton, but he had two bob coming to him at the end of the day and a week’s extra wages due from the Town Hall, the week in hand he’d worked when he started there. Even after handing over his lodge to his mother, he’d still be left with fourteen and six. Not enough for the fare, but something would turn up. Perhaps Charlie knew of a meat lorry going that way.
He went to the chest and lifted out the pressed and folded trousers that Mr Horton always laid out at the bottom. When he carried them over to the stall he was whistling for the first time since he’d last spoken to Jenny.
‘I gave her two spoonfuls of laudanum.’
‘You what?’ Trevor stared in horror at his wife. ‘That’s a proscribed drug, it was locked in my cabinet.’
‘So? I know where you keep the key, and I unlocked it,’ Laura said defiantly. ‘Don’t be such a dyed-in-the-wool doctor, Trevor. I know as much about treating shock as you, and after a stint on the maternity ward I’ve probably had more experience of dealing with it. The girl was in a dreadful state. I wouldn’t have dosed her if there was any other option. She needed help and she couldn’t go to her aunt. Not with a story like that. You know what Bethan’s mother can be like.’
‘I know she was very good when Bethan was ill,’ Trevor affirmed euphemistically, careful not to say too much. Not even Laura knew the full extent of Bethan’s attempts to rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy.
‘Look, the girl’s ill. We’ve a spare bedroom. Can’t she stay here for a night or two until she sorts herself out?’
‘What about her family, Laura?’ Trevor demurred, wary of treading on anyone’s toes, especially the Powells with all that they had to contend with at the moment.
‘I sent little Gwynfor next door up to Graig Avenue with a note, telling Elizabeth that Diana has dela
yed shock and that she shouldn’t be moved for a day or two.’
‘I don’t know why you bother to consult me about anything,’ he said testily. ‘Seems to me you covered everything before even telling me about it.’
‘I didn’t cover everything,’ she said furiously. ‘I didn’t make allowances for a dense, unsympathetic, heartless fool of a husband.’ She wiped over a soup bowl with a clean tea towel and ladled out a bowlful of lamb stew, slamming it down on the table in front of him. Then she went to the breadboard that Angelo had shaped for her from a thick wedge of fresh pine, and sliced a chunk of coarse brown bread, practically throwing it at him.
‘Before you rant and rave at me, Laura, just remember that rape is a criminal offence,’ Trevor said in what Laura took to be a pompous tone. ‘Diana is the principal witness to a criminal act, and as a doctor I should report it.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Laura demanded hotly.
‘If you knew it, why didn’t you call the police?’
‘I’ll tell you why I didn’t call the police,’ Laura rounded on him like a cornered wildcat. ‘I didn’t call them because Ben Springer would deny the whole thing. He’d call Diana a whore. Say she’d wanted him to do all those despicable things that he did to her. That she enjoyed it.’
‘Laura ...’
‘Don’t you Laura me. You know this town as well as I do. You tell me, what chance would a young girl like Diana have against one of the commercial fathers of this town? For God’s sake Trevor, her mother’s in jail, she lives on the Graig, people talk. And what’s the betting that when they do, all that business with Bethan will get dragged up all over again? And for what? For Ben Springer to get off scot-free and Diana to have what little remains of her reputation ruined.’
‘Her uncle’s a policeman –’
‘A nice enough constable who has absolutely no clout when faced with the Ben Springers of this world, and you know it.’
A few months of marriage had accustomed Trevor to being on the receiving end of the rough edge of Laura’s tongue, but this was somehow different. Here was an anger and emotion he hadn’t seen in Laura before.
‘I’m sorry Laura, I suppose I didn’t think it through, and then again I didn’t realise you’d taken this so hard,’ he murmured, leaving the table and reaching out to her.
‘You’d have taken it just as hard if you’d heard her.’ Laura didn’t try to stem the tears that were pouring down her cheeks. ‘He did disgusting, revolting things to her, Trevor. You, thank God, probably aren’t capable of imagining what. And then, when he’d finished, he wrapped her, half-naked, in her coat and put her out on the street. After pushing a five-pound note into her pocket,’ she seethed. ‘Wyn Rees stopped her from tearing it up.’
‘Wyn ...’
‘Yes, queer Wyn,’ Laura said shortly. ‘He found her, and took her home with him. Made her some tea, let her have a bath in his house, and gave her his sister’s clothes to wear home.’
‘Good for Wyn,’ Trevor said in amazement.
‘You will let her stay here a couple of days?’
‘If you think it will help,’ he said resignedly,
‘And you won’t go to the police?’
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Though pity help me if any of this gets as far as Doctor John’s ears.’
‘It won’t,’ she assured him. ‘Thank you. I do love you, you know. I don’t mean to fly off the handle.’
‘I know.’ Sitting on a chair, he pulled her down on to his lap and kissed her. Diana’s story still fresh in her mind, she shook her head and moved away.
‘Not now, love. I’m still too angry.’
‘With me?’
‘Not you. Never with you. Well not seriously,’ she qualified. ‘Just all the Ben Springers of this world who think that women are there to be used, at their convenience.’
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Tony confronted Ronnie as he walked into the café at six o’clock on Saturday night. ‘We’ve been rushed off our feet all day. Angelo couldn’t manage the cooking. I had to take Gina off the till and put her out back, and that meant I had to cover the till as well as the counter. Tina didn’t have any help with the waitressing, and we got behind ...’
‘If I were you I’d think about taking Maria out of school,’ Ronnie said placidly. ‘She’s not doing anything constructive there, and with the new place opening in a couple of months, the sooner she starts learning the trade the better.’
‘But she’s only thirteen. You know Papa likes us all to stay on in school until we’re fourteen. He says –’
‘Papa more or less yanked me out of school when I was twelve, and I didn’t visit the place very often before that.’
‘That’s not what Papa told me. He said you wouldn’t stay in school even when he sent you.’
‘I wouldn’t go because I knew Papa needed me in the business. You lot ate more than the profits of the High Street place every week,’ Ronnie informed him drily. ‘And don’t go thinking that it’s easier now because we’ve got two places and another one opening soon. The overheads will be higher, as well as the profits, and there’ll still be eleven Ronconi mouths to feed, even with me and Laura gone.’
Tony stared in amazement as, instead of going into the kitchen and changing out of his smart street jacket, Ronnie walked behind the counter, helped himself to a cup, and filled it with coffee. He looked around the café as he picked it up. ‘Despite all your moaning you must have managed to keep everything under control, little brother,’ he commented lightly. ‘The place is still standing, and it seems quiet enough now.’
‘Just when I’m due to finish for the day,’ Tony griped.
‘Shutting up shop early?’ Ronnie enquired airily.
‘Now you’re back, I’m off to the pictures.’
‘I’m not back.’ Ronnie finished his coffee, and poured himself another.
‘But you’re here,’ Tony protested.
‘For the coffee, and to say goodbye. I told you last night, I’ve left the business. By the way, I’ve written out some notes for you on the new place. And I’ve balanced the accounts.’
‘You’re not coming in tomorrow?’ Tony stared at his brother in disbelief.
‘I most definitely am not coming in tomorrow,’ Ronnie smiled. He pulled his watch chain out of his pocket and flicked through the fobs. ‘This is now yours.’ He extracted the key to the cupboard.
‘There you are: official boss badge. You’re in charge now, boy. Supremo! This is what you’ve been waiting for all your life.’
‘Ronnie, I can’t take over,’ Tony remonstrated. ‘I don’t know enough.’
‘If you don’t, you’ve no one to blame but yourself. You’ve been under my feet for eighteen years. Is it my fault that you didn’t keep your eyes and ears open?’
‘But there’s the new restaurant!’
‘I’ve left you a challenge. If I were you I’d try to enlist Laura’s help. For a woman, she’s smart,’ he teased. ‘If you’re pushed, I suggest you put Papa in here with Angelo, and let Tina manage High Street. That’ll leave you free to run the new restaurant.’
‘Ronnie!’ Tony was talking to the counter. His brother had picked up his cup and taken it into the back room where Tina and Gina were clearing tables. Although it was after six o’clock on a Saturday neither of them had even attempted to leave. Tony felt that not only the fabric of his family but the routine of the café was falling apart.
‘Is Alma coming in?’ Tony interrupted Ronnie, as his brother hugged the girls, wrapping his arms around their shoulders.
‘How should I know? It’s up to the man in charge to know what shifts his waitresses are working.’
‘Ronnie, please ...’
Thrusting his fingers into his top pocket, Ronnie pulled out a packet of cigarettes and extended it to Tony. Tony nearly fell over: it was the first time Ronnie had recognised that he smoked, let alone offered him a cigarette.
‘Now look,’ Ronnie smiled pati
ently, ‘it’s really very simple. Give the customers what they want, keep them happy, treat Alma well, and mind you enter up the takings in the ledger every night. You leave it even one night and you’re in dire trouble. You always think you’ll remember the figures, but you don’t. And that’s the voice of experience talking.’
Tony tried to take in what Ronnie was saying, but he couldn’t. He found it impossible to believe that Ronnie was really leaving. Ronnie who’d always been there when he’d needed him. Whenever there’d been trouble in school, or with friends, it had always been Ronnie who’d sorted it out for him. Ronnie, never Papa or Mama, because unlike their parents, Ronnie understood the Welsh systems and way of life, and he’d been the first Ronconi to cut the path and smooth the way for the others in the family.
‘You’ll remember to do all that?’ Ronnie asked, sensing that Tony’s attention had wandered.
‘I think so,’ Tony mumbled.
‘You do know, don’t you, that Papa doesn’t understand the first thing about book-keeping?’ Only his imminent departure from Wales could have wrested such a disloyal statement from Ronnie. ‘If you get stuck, you could always write to me in Italy, but the Italian post isn’t that reliable, or so Mama’s always said.’
‘Mama said you’re marrying Maud Powell and taking her to Bardi. Is that right?’ Tony finally ventured.
‘That’s right.’ Ronnie winked at Tina and Gina, who were still hovering close. ‘At four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.’
‘On a Sunday? But Father O’Kelly –’
‘We’re marrying in St John’s.’
‘St John’s! Ronnie, that’s Church of Wales!’
‘The Reverend Price did mention it,’ Ronnie said flatly.
‘But why?’ Tony demanded urgently.
‘Because I didn’t want Father O’Kelly to make a lot of fuss.’
‘Not the church,’ Tony dismissed irritably. ‘Why marry Maud Powell and all? Papa said –’
‘Please don’t tell me. I’ve a feeling that the saying “Least said soonest mended” should be applied to Papa and me at the moment. He made his views clear last night, and I don’t blame him for them. If any of you want to come to the wedding, you’ll be very welcome. Just don’t expect any more than a short ceremony, that’s all. And if you don’t turn up, I’ll understand why. And as Maud and I are leaving Ponty at six o’clock on Monday morning, if you’re not coming, I’ll say my goodbyes now.’
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