Pontypridd 07 - Spoils of War

by Catrin Collier

  ‘The war’s over …’

  ‘And some people will need time to forget. Personally, I can’t say as how I blame them.’

  ‘And I think it’s time that everyone in the family realised that this girl of Tony’s must love him very much.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Just look what she’s giving up to be with him. Her country, her family, friends, language – everything she knows to come here and make a new life among strangers. It won’t be easy for her.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder if the devil himself walked in here and asked to borrow a pan of hot coals, you’d believe he wanted them to make toast not roast sinners. You sure you’re not an angel come to earth by mistake, Gina?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Sitting on a stool she took the chocolate he’d mixed and steamed for her and stirred it. ‘I just think we should give Tony’s fiancée a chance.’

  ‘You know as well as I do there’s no way Mama will have her in the house.’

  ‘Yet – and while she’s changing her mind there’s no reason why the rest of us can’t welcome her to the family.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you walked down the Graig Hill in a snowstorm to scrub out the upstairs?’ When she didn’t answer him, he tackled her again. ‘If you’ve walked a mile in temperatures below freezing with your baby to get things ready for this girl, there’s no hope for you, Gina. You do know everyone regards you as the family doormat, don’t you?’

  ‘I wasn’t doing anything else this afternoon and she is going to be my sister-in-law.’

  ‘She’s going to be mine but you don’t see me reaching for the scrubbing brush.’

  ‘But you could,’ she smiled.

  ‘The hell I will.’

  ‘All of you have been so kind to Luke since we married – you and Tina and Ronnie and Diana and Mama …’

  ‘If you punched Luke between the eyes he’d think you were doing him a favour by swatting a louse off his eyebrow. He’s like you, Gina, a sweet kid who’s not quite of this world.’

  ‘Luke’s not a kid any more,’ she protested indignantly, ‘and neither am I. He’s twenty-two, which makes him only a year younger than you.’

  ‘That’s just years. Sometimes I feel like his grandfather – and yours.’

  ‘He’s been down the pit four years and it’s rough down there.’

  ‘And you’ve been married for four years and you’re so sweet and naive I wonder if you and Luke found this baby under a gooseberry bush.’

  ‘Angelo!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he grinned. ‘I’m just trying to tell you that this woman of Tony’s –’

  ‘Her name is Gabrielle.’

  ‘Is a refugee, so don’t go thinking that she’s giving up everything for Tony. Refugees have lost everything – home, country, belongings, the lot. She’ll not be like you or even think like you. She is going to be hard, mercenary, grabbing and bitter.’

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘You’re forgetting that Glan and I were in Germany when the war ended. Those last months when the Russians were closing in from the East and the French, British and Americans from just about every other direction, there were loads of homeless German girls who’d been bombed out or forced to flee from the Russians. They did everything they could to persuade us to take them to the American and British lines to escape the Russians.’

  ‘Really?’ Her eyes widened.

  ‘They were terrified of them.’

  ‘But the Russians were our allies.’

  ‘Raping, pillaging allies who didn’t much like what the Germans had done when they’d invaded their country. I probably shouldn’t say this to you, but most of those German girls would sell themselves for a loaf of bread and their younger sisters and grandmothers for a ticket out of Germany.’

  ‘Come on, Tony wants to marry Gabrielle. She has to be nice.’

  ‘And seeing as how she wants to marry Tony, as you put it, I’d say she has to be insane. He’s the most selfish one of the lot of us, and his temper’s worse than Ronnie’s ever was.’ He watched Gina finish her chocolate. ‘You’re still determined to go up and clean those rooms, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’d like them to look nice for the family’s sake, that’s all.’ She lifted two bulging shopping bags out from underneath the pram.

  ‘What have you got there?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘A few bits and pieces.’

  ‘Does Mama know what you’re up to.’

  ‘She knows I’m in town.’

  ‘And Luke?’

  ‘Luke knows what it is to come to a strange place where no one wants to talk to you. You wouldn’t believe how badly the miners treated him and the other Bevin boys when they first turned up to work in the pits.’

  ‘Probably on a par with the treatment meted out to the first British POWs to be sent to German farms.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. You understand why I want to welcome Gabrielle. As the café’s quiet why don’t you nip out and get a bunch of flowers? I know there’ll only be hot-house ones and they’re expensive but Luke and I will go halves with you. Then, when you come back, you can put Maggie in charge here and come up and give me a hand.’

  ‘You poor things you must be starving and freezing.’ Mrs Lane bustled down the passage as soon as she heard the key turn in the front door of the house in Tyfica Road. ‘I’ve got tea all ready and waiting in the kitchen. I laid the table in front of the stove. It’s nice and warm in there. It won’t take a moment to heat up the stew – beef stew,’ she gave Bethan a sly smile, suspecting that she too had benefitted from William’s foray into the black market, ‘and the kettle’s only just gone off the boil so you can have a cup in two ticks.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lane, that sounds just what Mr and Mrs Raschenko need.’ Andrew stepped into the hall and dropped Charlie’s overnight bag at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘It was good of you to wait. You must be anxious to get back to your husband and children,’ Bethan hinted tactfully.

  ‘Not that anxious. If there’s anything I can do, I’ll be only too happy to do it.’

  Bethan looked behind her and saw Charlie trying to help Masha from the car. Pushing him aside, Peter lifted Masha out, carrying her up the steps as if she weighed no more than a rag doll.

  ‘Perhaps you could run a bath for Mrs Raschenko,’ Bethan suggested, deciding it might be best to get Mrs Lane out of the way when Masha came into the house for the first time.

  ‘But her tea …’

  ‘She should eat it in bed.’

  ‘Of course, Dr John.’ Mrs Lane dragged her feet as she walked up the stairs in the hope of catching a glimpse of Mr Charlie’s ‘other’ wife, so she could be the first in the town to tell everyone what she looked like. But she was disappointed. Realising what she was doing, Bethan ran up the stairs behind her, hurrying her up.

  ‘You’ve aired the nightgown?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs John. And ironed and put away the new clothes Mrs Raschenko …’ she paused, ‘the other Mrs Raschenko gave me, in the wardrobe in the biggest bedroom. Oh, and Mrs Raschenko gave me some clothing coupons. I’ve put them in the top drawer of the dressing table. She thought as we weren’t sure of Mrs Raschenko and her son’s size they might want to choose their own clothes. Not that there’s that much in the shops. I was in Leslie’s last week –’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lane. I’ll take over from you in the bathroom as soon as I’ve turned down the bed.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, Mrs John.’

  ‘I’ll do it, Mrs Lane,’ Bethan said in her best no-nonsense nurse’s voice. ‘You’ll be in tomorrow?’

  ‘First thing, like the other Mrs Raschenko told me to.’

  ‘Perhaps for the time being we could call her Mrs Alma.’

  ‘Well, I’ve known her since she was Alma Moore …’ she began doubtfully.

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t think it was disrespectful.’ After checking the bedroom, Bethan went into the bathroom. Mrs L
ane had set the plug in the bath and hot water was gushing out of the tap with great clouds of steam. Taking a handful of precious bath salts from a jar Alma had hoarded through the war, Bethan scattered them thinly into the water. ‘Thank you for everything, Mrs Lane. I’d appreciate it if you’d tell Dr John the bath is ready on your way out. He’ll be in the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs John.’ To Mrs Lane’s acute disappointment all the bustle was over by the time she went downstairs. Hearing voices she knocked on the kitchen door, fully intending to walk in, but before she could open it, Andrew emerged.

  ‘Mrs John said to tell you everything’s ready upstairs and the bath is run.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lane. And everything looks wonderful in the kitchen. Mr Raschenko is very appreciative. Here, let me help you on with your coat.’

  After closing the front door behind Mrs Lane Andrew returned to the kitchen. Masha was lying back in a chair, white-faced and exhausted. Charlie was making tea and Peter was prowling around from kitchen to pantry, wash house and back, lifting up objects and examining them, prising lids from jars and sniffing the contents, opening pots and pans and fingering the insides. He reminded Andrew of a predatory beast investigating new quarters.

  ‘Bethan’s got everything ready for you upstairs,’ Andrew spoke directly to Masha, knowing Charlie would translate for him.

  She murmured something that sounded like a protest but Charlie calmed her.

  ‘I can carry her up if she’s tired,’ Andrew offered.

  ‘I brought her in, I’ll do it.’ Elbowing Charlie and Andrew aside, Peter swept his mother up in his arms in a proficient way that suggested he had done so many times before. Andrew opened the door and Peter carried her out of the room and up the stairs. Hearing water running and smelling the bath salts he walked straight into the bathroom where Bethan was laying out warm towels from the airing cupboard. Setting Masha into a wickerwork chair he looked around the room as Masha spoke rapidly in Russian. Bethan smiled at Masha, pointed to the towels, nightgown and dressing gown she had laid out, and turned to Peter.

  ‘Please, tell your mother if there’s anything else she needs I’ll be outside the door.’

  ‘There is one thing my mother and I would like to know, Mrs John. How many people besides yourself, your husband, the woman we saw and my father live in this house?’

  ‘This house is yours, Peter, yours and your mother’s. Dr John and I live a few miles away. The woman you saw will keep house and cook and clean for you as long as you want her to, but she only comes in during the day. She lives with her own family a short distance away.’

  ‘This is for my mother?’ His tone was incredulous.

  ‘Your father bought this house for your mother and you,’ she emphasised, stretching the truth because she knew Alma would have wished her to.

  ‘And my father. He lives here too?’

  ‘Why don’t you look at the bedrooms,’ she suggested, not knowing where Charlie had decided to live and deciding if Peter should hear it from anyone, it should be Charlie. ‘Your father thought your mother would like to have the largest because it has a fine view over the town and hills opposite but there are three others. I’m sure he would be happy to let you have whichever you want.’

  She waited while Peter translated her reply to his mother. ‘My mother finds it as difficult, as I do, to believe that my father owns this house.’

  ‘Your father has worked very hard to earn the money to buy it.’

  ‘Doing what, Mrs John?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll tell you everything in good time.’

  ‘The only rich people I’ve ever met are thieves.’

  ‘Your father is the most honest man I know,’ Bethan countered, finding it difficult to control her dislike of this blatantly hostile young man. ‘Can I do any more for your mother?’

  Turning to Masha he spoke rapidly in Russian. ‘She can manage. She doesn’t need to be bathed like a baby,’ he added churlishly.

  ‘I didn’t think she did, but I would appreciate it if you told her that I am a nurse and my husband is a doctor.’ Without waiting for his reply she left the bathroom and went out on to the landing. When he closed the door to the bathroom she beckoned him forward. ‘Perhaps you would like this bedroom. It looks out over the garden.’

  ‘Show me the room you have prepared for my mother.’

  She took him into the principal bedroom. He said nothing, but just like downstairs he paced from one end of the room to the other. Fingering the drapes and satin bedspread, opening the wardrobe doors, touching the new clothes with their labels still attached, clothes Bethan suspected had cost Alma a fortune either on the black market or in buying people’s clothing coupons. Nothing escaped his scrutiny – the perfume and box of face powder and lipstick on the dressing table, the Russian books and magazines on the bedside table, the prints on the wall. Finally he turned to her again.

  ‘There are more bedrooms?’

  She showed him the second and third bedroom and the boxroom. He walked into the boxroom and tested the thin camp bed.

  ‘This room used to be the maid’s – the maid of the last owner that is. It’s very small.’

  ‘It’s like a cell, Mrs John, and I’m used to cells.’

  ‘You want to sleep here?’

  ‘Yes. For the first time in my life I will have a cell of my own, one I won’t have to share with anyone.’ Finally removing his rucksack from his shoulders he laid it on the bed. Then kneeling carefully so as not to topple the lightweight bedframe he looked out of the window, down at the steps and the road beneath. Sensing she’d been dismissed, Bethan returned downstairs.

  Andrew and Charlie were in the kitchen, Andrew standing, smoking, watching while Charlie set out a tray for Masha.

  ‘Masha’s having a bath. She’s tired, Charlie, and I think she should have a medical check-up but not until she’s settled in.’

  He nodded. ‘Thank you, Bethan.’

  ‘If there’s anything else we can do –’

  ‘Especially with Peter,’ Andrew broke in undiplomatically.

  ‘You don’t like my son?’

  ‘Charlie …’

  Bethan had almost forgotten Charlie’s smile. Just like spring sun touching a withered winter landscape it illuminated his entire face. ‘I rather think this son of mine is beyond our help, don’t you?’

  ‘I think he’s behaving the way he is because he’s unsure of himself,’ Bethan suggested, choosing her words carefully. ‘Everything’s strange. He needs time to adjust.’

  ‘I wish I could agree with you. But he doesn’t understand your concept of “strange” because his whole life has been strange. Can you imagine moving from one camp to another, one children’s institute to another and always having to fight to ensure your place in the pecking order? That boy probably learned to raise his fists and punch, and punch hard, in a camp nursery.’

  ‘He survived and that has to be to his credit, Charlie.’

  ‘Yes, Andrew, he survived and he looked after his mother. I doubt she’d be here now if it wasn’t for him.’

  ‘And now he has you,’ Bethan said encouragingly.

  ‘He hates me.’

  ‘You’re his father. He’ll change now he has you to guide and help him.’

  ‘No he won’t, Bethan. Andrew said it all. He’s a survivor but he’s also a thug. I may not have brought him up but I’ve been in the camps, I know him and I understand him. If either of you show him the slightest kindness he’ll take it as a sign of weakness. Please, remember I said that and warn everyone he’s likely to meet. I’ll do what I can but I doubt I’ll be able to influence him.’

  ‘He does love his mother,’ Bethan broke in swiftly.

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie mused. ‘That I believe, but then she looked out for him and protected him when he was a helpless baby. I think he cares for her only because the situation is now reversed.’

  ‘And from a sense of duty,’ Andrew suggested.

  ‘He doesn’
t know the meaning of the word.’

  ‘Masha has memories of her life with you. Perhaps she’ll be able to help Peter to adjust to a normal life.’ Andrew finished his tea and placed his cup on the table. ‘You can help her, Charlie, and through her, the boy.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Andrew.’

  ‘So do I because I’m not sure that Pontypridd is ready for Peter Raschenko as he is.’

  Gabrielle shivered as she stole closer to Tony, who was sitting in the corner seat of the train. All she could think about, all she could hear, were her mother’s interminable warnings ringing through her mind. She knew she had hurt her in wanting to leave Germany after they had lost everything, but she had tried to make her mother understand she loved Tony and could only see a future for herself with him, and that meant moving to his country. But instead of accepting that her daughter loved Tony, Grafin von Stettin had done everything she could to try to dissuade her from going to him.

  Her mother had constantly reminded her that life in Britain would be strange, every person she met hostile, and although she hated to acknowledge that her mother had been right, so far she had seen nothing to prove otherwise. London could have been anyone of the dozen German cities she had visited since the end of the war. Blanket-bombed into rubble that even looters and scavengers could no longer be bothered to comb through.

  And London had been only the beginning. As far as she had been able to make out from the streets and houses visible from the train before daylight had faded, Britain was a poor country. Strips of small, mean houses, so different from the big, airy apartment blocks with neat tiers of balconies that she’d been used to, and everything needed cleaning, tidying, painting and rebuilding – so much rebuilding. She clutched Tony’s hand tighter as she gazed up into his face. Had she done the right thing in leaving Germany and coming here? It had seemed the only thing to do when he had asked her to marry him but that night in the park had been so wonderful – and now – now he looked so different out of uniform.

  She closed her eyes and relived the most romantic night of her life. A band had been playing in the pavilion, couples had danced on the paved area in the centre of the lawns, all the men were in uniform – British – American – French. There had been wine – so much wine brought by the French soldiers and the Americans had brought food hampers from their PX. She and Tony had waltzed and afterwards he had led her away from the lights into the shadows. Not too far – she would never go out of sight or earshot of other people with any man – and after kissing her very lightly on the mouth he had proposed.