Pontypridd 07 - Spoils of War

by Catrin Collier

  Looking back she wondered if she had been slightly drunk as that entire evening had taken on a surreal tinge, like a scene viewed through tinted glass. The sky had been too blue, the stars too bright, the shadows too purple – and there had been the sudden prospect of leaving Germany for ever – exciting and a little frightening. But then that had been something she and almost every other refugee had wanted to do since the Russians had invaded the eastern part of Germany. And not only the refugees. It was almost every German girl’s dream to hook an American or British serviceman. Even a Frenchman was better than the prospect of trying to find a husband among the broken spirited, cowed and beaten remnants of their own armies.

  Britain, America and France weren’t suffering under the heel of the conqueror, they were free, and there was more chance of finding happiness out of the mess that was defeated Germany. And as if the prospect of a glittering future in a foreign land wasn’t enough, there was Tony, dark, dashing and handsome in the sergeant’s uniform that had so upset her mother.

  The first time Grafin von Stettin had seen her sitting next to him in the garden of the billet where they both worked, she had screamed that she would sooner allow her daughter to be courted by a monkey than a non-commissioned officer. The second time, she had taken Gabrielle to one side and asked outright if Tony was a Jew. It had taken three months of coaxing on Gabrielle’s part before her mother would allow her to invite Tony to the shabby room they called home. And then, only after Tony’s fellow servicemen had confirmed that his family were important business people in Wales, who owned a chain of fine restaurants and hotels, a fact Tony had modestly endorsed when her mother had challenged him outright. Although, as befitting an unassuming man born to wealth and position he’d refused to elaborate or add to the information her mother had gleaned.

  And six months later, here she was, sitting in a dirty, cold, unheated train next to the man she had fallen in love with one magical summer night. Only Tony didn’t look in the least like the man who had kissed her then. He looked completely different from the dashing sergeant who had left her in Celle. Civilian clothes made him look smaller, shabbier somehow, and she couldn’t help noticing that his suit was creased, his overcoat stained with tea, and his shirt collar grubby. But then everyone on the trains and stations appeared filthy. They all looked as if they could do with a good wash because everything was covered with smuts. What had her mother called Wales – a ‘coal pot’. That was it. Like Silesia – a filthy area where coal was dug out of the ground and the dust filled the air, making everything dirty.

  ‘You warm enough?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Tony.’ She was freezing but even if she’d told him the truth there wouldn’t have been anything he could have done about it other than give her his own overcoat.

  ‘As soon as we get in I’ll make you something to eat in the café.’

  ‘Café? I thought you owned restaurants, hotels …’

  ‘We’re going to live above one of the cafés. I run it.’ Tony looked out of the window to avoid any more explanation. He recognised the houses behind the streetlights. They were coming into Treforest. Another ten minutes and they’d be at Pontypridd station. He hadn’t even asked Angelo to light the fire in the sitting room and bedroom. He and Gabrielle would have to sit in public in the café or the less congenial surroundings of the kitchen.

  ‘Everything is all right, isn’t it, Tony?’

  ‘Everything’s fine.’ He tried to smile at her as he lifted her case from the overhead rack. ‘The next stop is ours. If we move up to the door I’ll see if I can find a guard and make arrangements to have your trunk taken off the train.’

  ‘She’s just tired,’ Peter protested as Bethan tucked the sheets and blankets around Masha.

  ‘She needs to rest,’ Bethan replied.

  ‘I’ve brought you some food,’ Charlie murmured in Russian as he walked in with a tray set out with a bowl of bread, another of stew and a glass of water.

  ‘You want my mother to eat in here?’ Peter asked from the doorway.

  ‘Just for tonight because she is tired. Ours is downstairs. Will you join me?’

  Peter spoke rapidly to his mother in Russian. As she answered, Bethan wished, and not for the first time, that she could understand what they were saying. The very few times she had heard Charlie speaking his native language he had made it sound soft, almost musical, just like Masha’s intonation. Peter’s Russian reminded her of the rattle of a machine-gun – loud, angry and terrifying. Charlie murmured something to Masha, smiled and left. Bethan helped her to spread a napkin over her nightdress and sheet.

  ‘I will sit with my mother while she eats.’

  Bethan nodded agreement. ‘Would you please tell her that my husband and I are leaving but we will be back tomorrow and if she feels in the slightest unwell, either I or my husband will come down to see her.’

  ‘She won’t need you, Mrs John.’

  ‘Your father has our telephone number.’

  Bethan walked downstairs to where Andrew was waiting in the hall. ‘Peter’s staying with his mother while she eats,’ she announced to Charlie.

  ‘You will be all right …’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Andrew. Do you think my son will knife me in the night?’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind,’ Andrew said flatly.

  ‘Bethan …’

  ‘You want me to call in on Alma, Charlie?’

  ‘I know you’ve had a long day but I would be grateful.’

  ‘I intended to, anyway. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s the train pulling in.’ Gina went to the window of the café. ‘They’ll be here any minute. Perhaps you should go and see if they need help with the luggage, Luke.’

  ‘Tony will have a porter bring it across.’ Angelo continued to polish the glasses behind the counter although he was as curious as Gina to see Tony’s fiancée.

  ‘I should go up and check the fires.’

  ‘Gina, it looks like a palace up there and you know it. Sit down and wait for them to come to us,’ Angelo ordered, spotting Tony’s dark figure at the foot of the steps that led up to the platform.

  ‘And here they are,’ Luke opened the door to a porter who was wheeling the most enormous wooden trunk.

  ‘Where do you want it, Angelo?’ he asked, heaving for breath.

  ‘Stick it in the corner of the kitchen. Will it go behind the counter?’

  ‘Just about.’ The porter heaved it round the corner and through the door that led into the kitchen.

  ‘Thanks, Dai.’

  ‘Don’t envy you trying to get that upstairs.’

  ‘When we try I’ll give you a shout.’

  ‘Shout all you like, I still won’t come.’ Dai pocketed the shilling Tony handed him.

  ‘Welcoming committee?’ Tony asked as he walked in, arm in arm with Gabrielle.

  ‘We thought we’d stop by to say hello.’ Gina smiled at the woman who was going to be her sister-in-law. ‘Hello, I’m Tony’s sister Gina.’

  ‘How do you do? I am Gabrielle von Stettin and I am pleased to meet you.’ Gabrielle’s handshake was firm, her returning smile cautious, but friendly.

  Gina studied her as Tony introduced her to Angelo and Luke. There seemed to be something old-fashioned about her manners. An excessive, almost formal, civility for someone who was about to join the family but then perhaps that was the German way. She couldn’t help thinking of the war as she watched her shake Angelo’s hand. This woman was one of the same people who had been trying to kill British soldiers, overrun the whole of Europe, make it bow to German supremacy …

  ‘Gina?’

  ‘Sorry, Angelo, I was miles away.’

  ‘I was telling Tony how hard you’ve been working on the rooms upstairs.’

  ‘Not that hard. Here, I’ll take you up, Gabrielle,’ she offered, stressing the last syllable of her name as Gabrielle herself had done when she’d introduced herself. As Gina led the way through the kitchen to th
e stairs, Tony was overwhelmed by the smell of beeswax polish and washing soda, and realised Angelo hadn’t exaggerated. His sister really had spent most of the day cleaning the rooms.

  ‘This is the living room, Gabrielle.’ Suddenly shy, Gina opened the door wide. A fire burned in the hearth, new covers had been slipped on to the cushions on the two easy chairs, the wooden arm rests gleamed, newly buffed and polished. A dark red chenille tablecloth had been thrown over the table to hide its scarred surface and a vase Tony didn’t recognise stood in the centre filled with greenhouse-forced daffodils.

  ‘The flowers are beautiful!’ Gabrielle exclaimed, walking into the room and smelling them.

  ‘The national flower of Wales,’ Angelo said proudly.

  ‘It is a pity they have no perfume.’

  Gina took the remark personally as though she should have ensured better – and perfumed – flowers.

  ‘The bedroom is next door.’ Luke led the way.

  Tony sensed Gabrielle’s disappointment – and disgust – as they looked at the washstand with its chipped toilet set and cheap deal bedroom suite, so discoloured by age and mistreatment that no amount of polishing could disguise the abuse it had been subjected to by eleven Ronconi children.

  ‘It’s a start, Gabrielle,’ he ventured.

  ‘Am I going to live here?’

  ‘Until we are married, and then I’ll move in.’

  She turned and smiled at Gina. ‘Thank you for the flowers.’

  Upset by the lack of mention of the rooms, it was as much as Gina could do to mutter, ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Where are the bathroom and kitchen?’ Gabrielle asked Tony.

  ‘The toilet is outside and the kitchen is in the café.’

  ‘Tony, we should talk about this place. Perhaps we could sell it and buy something with better living accommodation.’

  ‘I’ll get your supper.’ Angelo ran down the stairs. Gina and Luke followed, leaving Tony to explain to his fiancée that the café wasn’t even his to sell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘What do you suggest I do while you talk to Alma – alone. Sit in the car and freeze? Or would you prefer me to disappear into thin air until such time you decide you’re ready for a lift home?’ Andrew negotiated the narrow bend out of Penuel Lane into Taff Street and pulled into the kerb outside Charlie’s shop.

  ‘I’m not expecting you to do anything, Andrew, but as you’re obviously niggly after your long day, it might be best if you go home.’

  ‘And if I do that, how are you going to get up Penycoedcae hill. Fly?’

  ‘Taxi.’

  ‘As if you’ll find one at this time of night.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have a swift half in the New Inn and be back here in a quarter of an hour. Will that be enough time for all the private, “women only” things you want to say to Alma?’

  Bethan didn’t answer him. Slamming the passenger door, she left the car and walked up to Alma’s door. He slid back the window.

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ he called after her.

  ‘I haven’t a stop watch.’

  ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘I am!’

  ‘If you’re not out, I’ll knock the door.’ Grinding the gears, he drove away.

  ‘I heard the car.’ Alma had appeared on her doorstep.

  ‘I should think just about the whole of Taff Street did the way Andrew’s driving, and you’re a fibber. You didn’t hear anything, you’ve been looking out the window for us.’

  ‘Guilty. I’ve got sandwiches, sherry and coffee all ready. Tell me,’ she demanded, before they even reached the top of the stairs, ‘what is Masha like?’

  ‘Tired, old, worn out before her time.’

  ‘Does she look like me?’

  Bethan waved her hand from side to side. ‘Difficult to say. Her eyes are the same colour.’

  ‘And her hair?’

  ‘Grey.’

  ‘You must have talked.’

  ‘She only speaks Russian.’

  ‘And Charlie? How did he look at her when they met? Could you tell if he still loves her? Is he moving in with her? Did he speak Russian to her? Of course, he must have if she doesn’t speak English. His son? What is his son like …?’

  ‘One question at a time,’ Bethan pleaded as she led the way into Alma’s living room. ‘You know Charlie far better than I do. I find it impossible to work out what he thinks about anything unless he tells me outright but he did ask me to call and see you now.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that?’

  ‘Would I do that to you?’ Bethan hugged her before sitting down.

  ‘Did he give you any messages for me?’ Alma poured two sherries and handed Bethan one.

  ‘He just said he’d be grateful if I called in on you.’

  ‘He knew I’d be worried about him travelling up to London and back without a break.’

  ‘Alma, I’ve been watching you and Charlie ever since he heard Masha was alive. Hasn’t it occurred to you that you’re being just a bit too calm and rational about his leaving? Haven’t you even thought of fighting back?’

  ‘Fighting who, Beth? The man I love, or a woman who on your own admittance is “tired, old, and worn-out before her time”.’

  ‘Charlie’s given her the house; he’s prepared to support her. After sixteen years apart I can’t see that she has the right to demand any more from him. From what you’ve told me, he was eighteen and Masha seventeen when they were separated. That’s barely out of childhood. I remember that age. You think you know what you want but you haven’t a clue what life is about.’

  ‘How old were you when you met Andrew?’

  ‘Nineteen, which proves my point. I thought I couldn’t live without him but I managed very well for six years. Charlie was twenty-eight when he married you. He was a man, not a boy, and you’ve only got to look at him whenever your name is mentioned. He loves you, Alma, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘And you don’t think he loves Masha?’

  Bethan fell silent as she recalled that first look between them on the quayside. Was it possible for a man to love two women at the same time? ‘I can’t read his mind. If you want to know who he loves more, Masha or you, you’ll have to ask him.’

  ‘Is that what you think I should do?’

  ‘I think you should demand that he stay with you and Theo. You’ve made it too easy for him to leave. It occurred to me tonight when I was showing his son around the house …’

  ‘Peter. What is he like, Beth?’

  ‘An absolute monster.’ Bethan saw the look of confusion on Alma’s face. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that but even Charlie agreed with Andrew when he warned the boy was trouble. He’s aggressive, rude, made absolutely no effort to hide his hatred of Charlie …’

  ‘How can he possibly hate Charlie? He’s his father!’

  ‘He’s very attached to his mother. I’m guessing that he blames Charlie for deserting her before he was born.’

  ‘But Charlie didn’t walk away from her willingly. Hasn’t anyone told him what happened?’

  ‘Believe you me, there’s no telling that boy anything. But I shouldn’t be talking about him like this. As far as looks go, be warned, he’s a mirror image of Charlie when he first came to Pontypridd. Line him, Theo and Charlie up and they could be the same person at different ages.’

  ‘Poor Charlie, having to cope with a difficult son on top of everything else.’ Alma sat at the table and picked up her sherry.

  ‘Poor Alma, more like.’

  ‘Beth, I know you’re only thinking of me and Theo, but please, don’t suggest I complicate the situation by making demands of Charlie that he won’t be able to meet. Things are difficult enough for him as it is. I know it must have been hard for you and Andrew to see him with another woman …’

  ‘Dear God! You are the most unselfish person I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Try and put yourself in my place, Beth. What would you do
if Andrew had another wife?’

  ‘Put the flags out and give her a month’s rations to take him away.’

  ‘You would not.’ Alma laughed as she brushed a tear from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Try me. Find a woman who claims to have married him before me, and I’ll pack his bag for him.’

  ‘Things still difficult between you two?’

  ‘Impossible. ‘

  ‘I asked you earlier what you’d do if you were me, I know what I’d do if I were you. Hold on to Andrew with everything I have.’

  Bethan glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go, Andrew only gave me fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been keeping you talking when you must be exhausted from travelling.’

  ‘I’ll be down tomorrow for a longer chat.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’ As Bethan ran down the stairs she couldn’t help thinking of her instinctive reply to Alma’s advice, one that fortunately had gone no further than being phrased in her own mind. She didn’t want to hold on to Andrew with everything she had, because she no longer loved him. It was as simple and final as that.

  Charlie picked up one of the bowls Mrs Lane had set out on the kitchen table and ladled stew into it. Taking a piece of the bread she had cut and laid out on the breadboard, he placed it on a side plate next to the bowl. He looked up as his son walked into the room carrying Masha’s tray.

  ‘Would you like me to serve you some stew?’

  ‘No.’ Peter set the tray on the table. Half of one slice of bread had gone and about a quarter of the stew.

  ‘Your mother didn’t eat very much.’

  ‘We didn’t get this much food in any of the camps in a week. It’s going to take her time to learn to live off the fat of the land.’