She shook her head vigorously. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Then, we’ll have to make sure you don’t. Come on, Di.’ He left his seat and helped her out of her chair. ‘The others will be wondering what’s become of us, and if I don’t get you back in the kitchen for tea, Andrew’s going to batter down that door to get at you. Oh, and by the way, your mother has insisted we have separate bedrooms until you do remember me.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Which is such a pity. I don’t know if you’ll take my word for it, but the one thing we are really good at is making love. You used to insist on practising every chance we got.’
‘That was good.’ Peter laid a neat pile of coins on top of the bill, stacked his cup, saucer and plate and leaned over the table closer to Liza. ‘And if I hadn’t come, you would have slept and not eaten and gone straight to the ward.’
‘Yes, and I’ll probably curse you at the end of my shift when I’m worn out, but right now, thank you, Peter.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have to go.’
‘I’ll walk you back.’ He held out his hand, and this time she took it.
‘Can’t I come to your room, even for a moment?’
‘Girls have been thrown out the Infirmary for less.’
‘But I want to kiss you.’
‘In broad daylight?’
‘If I can’t see you later, yes, in broad daylight.’
As they reached the gates of the hostel she took him to the side, into the shrubbery. As soon as the bushes screened them, he closed his hands round her waist and, almost lifting her off her feet, kissed her.
‘You’ll be my girl?’ he asked when he released her. ‘You’ll be my girl, Liza?’
It was almost a command. She thought about Angelo and the well-meaning lecture Bethan had given her about Peter’s peculiar upbringing and how he had no experience of normal, family life and relationships with women. But the more she considered it, the more she realised that she’d meant every word she’d said. There was simply no decision for her to make.
‘I can’t be your girl until I tell Angelo that I can’t go out with him any more.’
Wrapping his arms round her, he pulled her close. ‘And then you’ll marry me?’
‘Not until I finish my training.’
‘And if I can’t wait that long?’
‘Peter, I hardly know you,’ she murmured, using Bethan’s argument. He continued to gaze into her eyes. ‘Your mother was right,’ she whispered. ‘You do only have to look into someone’s eyes to know that you love them.’
‘I hear you won’t have a job for too much longer, Dino.’ Andrew couldn’t hide his delight at the thought, and Bethan knew he was anticipating David’s imminent departure.
‘Not after what these two uncovered.’ He nodded to William, who’d left his seat at the table to give Ronnie a hand to help Diana through the door.
‘You told her?’ Andrew looked to Ronnie.
‘Yes,’ Diana answered, ‘and as you see, Dr John, I’ve survived the experience.’
‘Did you find everything you were looking for in the scrap yard, Dino?’ Ronnie asked, eyeing the children who were busy playing with Megan’s animal-shaped iced biscuits – but, he suspected, still listening in on the conversation.
‘Our men are still out. We called for reinforcements, they’re starting again at first light, but the colonel seems to think we’re well on the way to recovering a good third of our missing property.’
‘Who would have thought that Glan and Alfredo had it in them?’
‘That’s my brother you’re talking about, Will,’ said Tina.
‘Ours, Tina, but that doesn’t make him any the less guilty.’ Ronnie helped Diana into a chair. ‘Sorry to have to tell you this, love, but it appears that my brother Alfredo is something of a wide boy.’
‘What’s going to happen to him?’ Megan asked.
‘We’ll work something out,’ Dino said airily.
‘I seem to remember occasions when you weren’t that far off being a wide boy, Will, or you.’ Diana looked at Ronnie.
‘We’re both as respectable as they come these days,’ Will protested.
‘I’ve been out of it that long?’
‘I keep them respectable.’ Tina picked up the teapot. ‘You two want tea?’
‘Please.’ Ronnie grabbed Billy, who’d just received Megan’s permission to leave the table, and tickled him.
‘Don’t, Daddy. Mam – tell him.’
‘Tell him what, darling?’ She took Catrina, who’d held out her arms to be picked up as soon as she sat at the table.
‘To stop.’
‘Do you want him to?’ She smiled as Ronnie swung Billy down on to his foot and lifted him back up to table level.
‘Sometimes.’ Billy started laughing again.
‘You look exhausted, Di.’ Ronnie set Billy down on the floor. ‘You could have your tea in bed.’
‘That would be a good idea,’ Andrew concurred drily, ‘if you were going to stay the night.’
‘You will let me?’ Diana begged.
‘You can’t be thinking of taking her back to that hospital?’ Megan protested. ‘The poor girl needs rest and a fat lot she’ll get there with that dragon witch stomping around.’
‘I should have known better than to think you’d let her leave once she came over the doorstep. All right, if she goes to bed right this minute and you promise to telephone me the second there’s any change or if she gets ill, feverish or faints …’
‘None of which I intend doing,’ Diana maintained.
‘I promise,’ Ronnie interrupted.
‘Then she can stay. Just for tonight. I’ll be round first thing in the morning.’
‘Not to take her back.’
‘One thing at a time, Megan. I’ll only let her stay now if Bethan sees her safely between the sheets.’
‘Bully,’ Diana grumbled, but both Ronnie and Andrew noticed she didn’t need any further coaxing to leave her chair.
‘Read us a story, Mam?’ Billy pleaded.
‘Not Mam, Daddy,’ Ronnie said firmly, ‘and it’s too early. How about we go in the parlour and finish our game of tiddlywinks first?’
‘Catrina’s thrown the counters everywhere.’
‘Then we’ll have to pick them up, won’t we, young man?’
‘And Catrina won’t be playing with you, because she’s coming to her Auntie Tina, aren’t you poppet, and we’re going to look at a picture book.’
‘I forgot, you haven’t been in this house before.’
‘I haven’t?’ Diana looked at Bethan and they both burst out laughing.
‘This is the bedroom your mother made up for you.’
‘It’s lovely.’ Diana ran her hands over the beechwood suite. ‘Is this new?’
‘Dino had the money and the contacts to buy it. The bathroom’s next door. You can have a bath if you like. Andrew and I aren’t in a hurry and I’ll stay here, so you can shout if you need me. Look, your mother’s bought you a new nightdress and – trust Ronnie.’
‘What?’ Diana looked at the book Bethan had picked up.
‘Some bedtime reading. It’s a photograph album.’ Bethan opened it; the first picture was of Ronnie and Diana on their wedding day. ‘You’ve got quite a husband, Diana.’
‘It’s a pity I can’t remember being married to him. He says we were happy.’
‘You were, blissfully. And if he has his way I’ve a feeling you soon will be again.’
‘I’m sorry about this weekend,’ Andrew apologised as they closed the door of the children’s bedroom after reading Rachel and Eddie two more stories than they’d originally been promised and conceding Polly and Nell an extra half-hour reading time.
‘Can’t be helped. Patients, especially my cousin, come first.’
‘That’s the problem, Beth, with all our relatives and friends, three-quarters of the population of this town come before us.’ He opened the door to the small sitting room next to the bedroom and started in surpris
e.
‘I asked Nessie to light a fire in here before she left for her father’s house.’
‘And the sandwiches and brandy?’
‘Nessie made the sandwiches. I’ve been hoarding a tin of American ham Dino gave me for months, and I cadged the brandy off your father.’
‘Grown-up time.’
‘Our time. The children are in bed; the girls won’t disturb us unless there’s an earthquake. I’ve told Nessie she can stay home until Monday morning. It’s not the chalet on the Gower, Andrew, but we are together and I thought that we might try to pretend.’
‘Drink?’ He held up the brandy.
‘A small one.’
‘Did something happen that I missed?’ he asked as he wrestled with the cork.
‘I told David Ford I wouldn’t be around town to bump into him any more.’
‘And you told me there wasn’t anything between you.’
‘There wasn’t, Andrew. And now there never will be.’
‘And you’re sorry.’
‘You told me before we married that you’d had – and I mean literally – other girls.’
‘One staff nurse who was so large she was known as Two-Ton Tompkins. I got drunk at a party and she took advantage, pinning me down so she could have her evil way with me before I could put up an effective resistance. Another, I’m ashamed to say, was one of my professor’s wives, who, unfortunately for him, poor soul, had an insatiable appetite for her husband’s male students. I was weak and frustrated but it was a cold and embarrassing experience.’
‘Were there more?’
‘A few passing encounters.’
‘Is that your way of telling me they didn’t mean anything.’
‘It was sex. Which is rarely pure and never simple. You know boys, Beth, or you should. You were fighting them off when I met you. The first Pontypridd hospital ball I went to I watched you tip a glass of orange juice over Glan Richards to cool his ardour.’
‘That was an accident.’
‘Neither he nor I believed you.’
‘Whether you did or didn’t, it’s the truth.’
He sat down and took out his pipe but made no attempt to fill it. She sat on the floor in front of the fire and leaned back against his legs.
‘But you wanted to sleep with those women.’
‘Apart from Two-Ton Tompkins, I thought so at the time.’
‘And since you married me? The truth, Andrew. Have you ever looked at another woman and thought, yes, I’d like to know what she looks like naked, smell her perfume, find out how she makes love?’
‘Beth, why are you asking me this?’
‘Because I want to know.’
‘I admit, occasionally I fantasise. I’m no different to any other man in that respect.’
‘Would it surprise you to know that women do it too. Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, David Niven …’
‘David Ford?’
‘If we hadn’t married or had the children, I might have been tempted to have had a fling with him. But the one thing I’ve discovered in the last few years is that you can’t live your life backwards. You were the first and you’re still the only man I’ve ever slept with. For five and a half years I missed you and sometimes – just occasionally during that time and before, if I’m totally honest – I wondered what it would be like to sleep with another man. To be truthful, I still do but that doesn’t mean I want to or will. Because I know it would hurt you and the guilt would destroy me and what’s left of our marriage.’
‘So you’d sleep with David Ford if you could manage it without hurting me or feeling guilty?’
‘You’ve missed the point. I would have had an affair with him if there hadn’t been a you and the children but there is a you and the children. I’ve been selfish, Andrew. Most days during the war I was so damned tired after nursing all day, coming home and spending time with the children and doing everything else that needed to be done, fantasising about making love was the last thing on my mind. But if I needed someone to talk to – always late at night or early in the morning because that was the only time I had – David was around, making tea. Like me, drinking anything non-alcoholic to keep himself awake so he could finish his paperwork just as I was trying to finish mine. And I think one of the reasons I wanted to keep on seeing him was because he reminded me of those times when I felt important. I was doing a job, a responsible job, then, bam, you come home, I lose the job, my feelings of importance, we have a brief honeymoon …’
‘And it’s back to the grind. No wonder you fantasise.’
‘We’re going to have to learn to be selfish, you and I.’ She unfastened her blouse and slipped it from her shoulders. ‘This rug is thick and the fire is warm.’ Reaching up, she unbuttoned his fly.
‘Is the door locked?’
‘Yes, and it’s going to be locked at least two evenings a week from now on.’
‘Beth,’ he gripped her hand as she slipped his belt from its loop, ‘am I second-best?’
‘Never,’ she lied. She lay back, pulling him towards her. ‘We have a lot of work to do, you and I, but if we try very hard perhaps we can transform some of it into pleasure.’
‘I love you, Beth.’
‘And I love you, Andrew. No more jealousy?’
‘That, my love, is one thing I can’t promise you.’
Chapter Twenty-three
‘They’ve come to say good night.’ Holding Billy and Catrina’s hands firmly so they wouldn’t jump on the bed, Ronnie led them to Diana’s bedside. Setting aside the photograph album she’d been studying, Diana held out her arms as Ronnie lifted them one at a time to kiss her.
‘Daddy reads stories faster than you,’ Billy complained. ‘And he tries to leave out bits.’
‘And he goes to sleep and snores.’
‘I didn’t tonight, Catrina,’ Ronnie protested mildly.
‘You do most nights.’ Billy crossed his arms mutinously.
‘I’ll take over.’
‘Not for a week or two you won’t. Right you two snitching little menaces, you’ve had your kiss and cuddle, off you go to your own room. Granny is waiting.’ Ronnie hugged them before they scampered down the landing to where Megan was standing with hot-water bottles tucked under her arm.
‘Time to sleep, sweetheart.’ He smoothed the hair away from Diana’s forehead and dropped a kiss on the scar on her temple.
Diana stared up at him; he seemed so tall, so strong and so incongruous and out of place in the intimate setting of her bedroom, she couldn’t begin to imagine living in the same house as him, let alone lying beside him every night. ‘Where are you sleeping?’
‘The boxroom. If I wasn’t, I think Andrew would fly down Penycoedcae Hill and drag you back into the Graig Hospital even at this time of night.’
‘But we can talk for a while.’
‘Andrew warned us that you’ve had more than enough excitement for one day. Besides, much as I hate to admit it, you look exhausted.’
‘That’s because I can’t stop thinking about all the things you haven’t told me.’
‘Di, the only thing you have to worry about is getting better.’
‘I won’t sleep until I get a few more answers.’
He hesitated for a moment. ‘All right, you can have ten minutes.’ She winced as he sat at the foot of the bed. ‘Oh God! I hurt you!’
‘No. It was only a shooting pain in my arm; I get them once in a while. We don’t live here, do we?’
‘No. We moved into Laura’s house after we married and you carried on living there while I was in the army but we can’t go back there. Laura and Trevor will be home soon and the children need to be looked after …’
‘I’ll soon be able to do that.’
‘Not yet. I’ve talked to your mother and Dino, and although they’re practically honeymooners they insist they’re happy for us to stay here until you’re on your feet. They must really enjoy having the children to put up with me living here as well but then they�
��re nice people.’
‘So we’re going to stay here?’
‘Only until you’re well enough to move out. I’ve been on the lookout for a house to buy but I admit I haven’t put much effort into hunting one down because I wanted you to choose it with me.’
‘We have enough money to buy a house?’
‘For anything you want – within reason.’
‘Something close to here. I wouldn’t like to move too far away from my mother.’
‘I’ll start knocking doors in the street tomorrow to see if I can persuade someone to move out.’ He glanced down at the album. ‘Bethan had a word with me about that.’
‘We looked so happy.’
‘We are so happy.’
‘I can’t –’
He laid his finger over her lips. ‘‘‘Remember.’’ Stop saying that. You should be happy now. What more could a woman want than flowers, chocolates, a doting mother, beautiful children, caring friends and family and an extremely loving husband – or one who will be when he gets the chance to show it.’
‘It must be just as odd for you, having a wife who can’t remember marrying you.’
‘I’m so grateful that I still have you, I couldn’t care less whether all the pieces in your brain are working or not.’ Reaching out he ran his fingers lightly along the contour of her face from her eye to her jaw. She clamped her hand over his. ‘That feels familiar.’
‘I promise you, there will be all sorts of other things that will seem familiar too.’
‘Such as?’
‘It’s easier to show you.’ Kicking off his shoes, he moved up the bed and lay on top of the bedclothes next to her. Sliding his arm beneath her, he pillowed her head on his shoulder. ‘You’re trembling. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here, I’m going too quickly.’ He moved to sit up.
‘Please, don’t …’
‘Di, it’s obvious you’re uncomfortable with me.’
‘I’m not used to having strange men in my bed.’
‘I thought you might remember – there’s that word again and now it’s me who’s using it.’
‘What sort of things did we do when we were married?’
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