Their trip to the bioscope had been followed by a visit to a Swansea café for a fish and chip supper and more drinks in Swansea’s oldest pub, the Cross Keys. The fresh air had hit both girls when they’d taken the train back to Mumbles and, against Joey’s advice, Frank had insisted on buying a last drink for everyone in the nearest hotel to their lodgings, which the girls had been angling to visit all week because it was the best and most expensive in Mumbles.
‘They’re calling last orders,’ Frank said as a bell rang. ‘You two want a gin nightcap or something else?’
‘Any more gin and you’ll be wheeling me home.’ Susie grabbed the bar for support.
‘Last time I looked, you had legs not wheels under your skirt, Susie,’ Joey said with a straight face.
‘Eh?’ Susie tried and failed to focus on him.
‘Take no notice of Joe; he’s trying to be funny again.’ Effie tossed her head in the air. She was cross with Joe. They had spent almost the whole week together and apart from a couple of quick goodnight kisses, he hadn’t touched her. Whereas Susie had hit the jackpot with Frank, a working miner who lived with his widowed mother, and knowing Susie’s luck, one who’d welcome a daughter-in-law into her ready furnished home. It was Susie who’d suggested she unbutton Joe’s flies under cover of the table in the Grand to ‘get him going’. But all she had succeeded in doing was annoying him at the expense of bruised fingers.
The one thing she and Susie wholeheartedly agreed on was that they were sick and tired of service. They had scraped together every penny they could lay their hands on to holiday in Swansea because two chambermaids they knew had met a couple of miners there. They’d had a double wedding less than two months after they’d returned, and, like them, she wanted her own place, her own man and a wedding ring on her finger.
‘You girls find a table. Joe will give me a hand with the drinks.’ Frank waved his hand to attract the barman’s attention.
‘Get singles for the girls and put plenty of water in them,’ Joey advised. ‘Effie’s had enough to put her on her back as it is and I’m too tired to carry her to our lodgings.’
‘If you won’t spend all night with Effie, how about an hour?’ Frank cajoled. ‘Susie’s promised me an eyeful, but only if we’re in a bedroom.’
‘If you’ve seen one girl naked you’ve seen them all, unless she weighs over twenty stone,’ Joey replied flippantly.
Frank fell serious. ‘I’ve never seen one in the buff. Not off a picture postcard.’
Frank’s reply took Joey aback. ‘You have to be joking?’
‘It’s not that I haven’t done it, I have, plenty of times,’ Frank boasted. ‘But without somewhere to go, the girls won’t take more off than they have to.’
‘You’ve had girlfriends before Susie?’ Joey looked him in the eye. ‘The truth, Frank?’
‘Not before Susie,’ Frank muttered shamefaced.
‘And you used a French letter?’
‘A what?’
Joey had a sudden insight into how Lloyd and Victor must have felt when they’d tried to give him advice. ‘A French letter. You put it over the vital part before you go visiting the lady, if you get my meaning. And that way you’ll ensure there’ll be no little Franks to send Susie scurrying round to your door with a maintenance order nine months from now.’
‘The way she behaves when we’re alone, I wouldn’t mind if there was a baby,’ Frank declared recklessly. ‘It’s time I settled down and found a wife.’
‘There’s a lot more to marriage than taking a woman’s clothes off.’ Joey made a face as he saw the irony of him of all people lecturing someone on marriage.
‘I never thought any girl – decent girl that is – would behave like Susie. I could live with a lifetime of that every night.’
‘It doesn’t last beyond the honeymoon.’
‘I don’t believe you. If anything, she likes it more than me.’ Frank reddened when he realized what he’d said.
‘Frank,’ Joey shook his head, ‘you’re a lost cause.’
The barman leaned over the counter and whispered, ‘If you’re after French letters I can sell you a couple for five bob.’
‘How about it, Joe, want to go halves?’ Frank asked eagerly.
‘I have no use for one, mate.’
‘Half a crown for one?’ Frank added two shillings and sixpence to the coins he’d placed on the bar to pay for the round.
‘Three bob,’ the barman snapped.
‘That’s a tanner over the odds.’ Joey eyed the barman sternly. ‘You’re making a tanner profit as it is.’
‘All right, half a crown.’ The barman thrust his hand under the counter and handed Frank a small packet.
‘This is no use without the room,’ Frank murmured mournfully, pushing the packet into his trouser pocket.
‘You can have our room for one hour,’ Joey capitulated. ‘But not one minute longer. I’ll go for a walk.’
‘You’ll take Effie?’
‘That I draw the line at, but I will see her back to the lodging house. She can go to the girls’ room.’
‘Susie did say that Effie’s been wondering if there’s something wrong with you,’ Frank ventured.
‘A lot,’ Joey replied with mock seriousness. ‘But nothing that I want to go into. The sooner we get these drinks into the girls the sooner you can get started on the Susie road to heaven.’
Effie watched Frank and Susie run into the house and up the stairs. She closed the porch door behind her and joined Joey on the doorstep. ‘You’re not coming in?’ She moved in front of him, hoping he’d kiss her.
‘Not yet.’
‘You going somewhere?’
‘For a walk.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘I wouldn’t be good company.’
‘You don’t like me, do you?’ Effie wailed, the combination of gin and rejection making her tearful.
‘You’re a great girl, Effie, just not my type,’ Joey answered evasively.
‘I have the same as every other girl and plenty of it. And I know how to use it. I’m not shy about coming forward.’
‘You proved that tonight in the Grand Hotel.’
‘Not that you took advantage of me.’ She swayed drunkenly. He grabbed her when she fell backwards into the door. She caught his hand and clamped it on one of the breasts spilling out of her low-cut blouse.
‘No, Effie.’ Joey withdrew his hand as if it had been scalded.
‘Why not?’ she demanded belligerently.
‘Because, although I like you, I don’t want you that way. Can’t we just be friends?’
‘You’re married, aren’t you?’ She peered up at him through red-veined eyes. ‘No, you’re not,’ she frowned as the fug of alcohol lifted slightly from her mind. ‘The married ones can’t wait to pull a girl’s drawers down.’
Joey knew it was irrational for a man who had been drunk more times than he could count in his life to be revolted by the sight of an inebriated woman, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling disgusted. Or sickened by her crude language and manners, which were so different from Rhian’s.
‘So, if you’re not married, what’s wrong with you?’ she demanded when he stepped away from her.
He said the first thing that came into his mind. ‘I have a disease.’
‘A disease.’ She slurred the syllables. ‘You mean … Susie! Joe’s diseased. I kissed him! I could have caught it!’ She barged back through the door and charged up the stairs.
Reflecting that it was just as well that Effie and Susie were leaving first thing in the morning, Joey thrust his hands into his pockets and walked down Mumbles Road.
Music drifted from the Pavilion where Tom Owen’s Pierrots played Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and twice nightly. When he drew nearer he recognized the chorus of ‘Rule Britannia’ being belted out by the audience as well as the players. He crossed the road and headed for the beach. Lighting a cigarette, he sat on the sea wall and allowed
his mind to drift over the past week.
He should never have become involved with Susie, Effie and Frank. He should have stuck to his original plan, remained aloof and holidayed in solitary misery. Eaten all his meals alone, drunk alone, visited the theatre alone and … what? Played the part he was playing now. That of voyeur? A man who spent all his time watching others, because he no longer had a private life.
He looked over the sands towards the sea. The beach was full of shadowy figures merging, separating and melting into the darkness. He could hear the quick short gasps of heavy breaths intermingling with lighter ones. The rustle of linen and cotton accompanied by soft mews of discomfort and pain that he attributed to seaweed and sand after Frank’s confession in the Mermaid. A slap rent the air followed by a masculine cry of pain.
A female voice distracted him. ‘All on your own?’
The nearest street lamp was some distance away but even in the darkness he recognized the cheap scent and direct approach of a professional. ‘Waiting for someone,’ he answered.
‘I can keep you company until she comes.’ She leaned on the wall next to him.
He almost told her he had a disease until he thought of an even better excuse that would keep not only her, but any other watching professional, at bay. ‘You’re the wrong sex, love.’
‘I should have known, you pretty ones are always bloody pansies.’ She flounced off.
He jumped down from the wall, and walked further up the beach towards a rotting wooden breakwater. The sands had given way to a pebbled foreshore and he stood listening, mesmerized by the sound of the waves sucking in and out of the stones. The moon hung low, an enormous silver-gold orb suspended above a streak of black horizon; its broken reflection dancing and shimmering on the navy-blue surface of the sea.
A party of noisy drunks stumbled along the pavement behind him, singing.
Rule, Britannia!
Britannia, rule the waves.
Britons never never never shall be slaves.
Damned war or ‘damned capitalist war’, as his father would say. ‘A war engineered by brainless aristocrats, speculators and arms manufacturers out to make a fortune from young men’s blood and wrecked lives.’ But then his father was steeped in the rhetoric of workers’ rights.
He had talked to enough people besides Frank in the last week to realize that young men were answering Kitchener’s call because war offered adventure, escape and a chance to cover themselves with glory, as well as an opportunity to abdicate all personal responsibility and the dreary routine of everyday life. He had no doubt that was why Frank wanted to join up, and probably would, if Susie didn’t stick her claws into him first.
The thought occurred to him that if he enlisted he wouldn’t have to make another decision for himself until the peace treaties were signed. He wouldn’t have to go back to Tonypandy, or sit in the store every day, or come to terms with the fact that Rhian was living and working across the road from him – and sleeping in Edward Larch’s bed.
The last few weeks without her had been torture and proof that he was finding it impossible to distance himself emotionally from her. Perhaps it would be less painful if they were separated by hundreds of miles. And it would be so simple. All he’d have to do was pay his bill in his lodgings in the morning, cut his holiday short by a week and head for Pontypridd and the Drill Hall where they recruited soldiers.
It was a tempting prospect. Mulling it over, he walked down a slipway to the beach and headed for the sea.
Sali left the breakfast table and walked into the library where she spent most of her mornings answering correspondence and studying buyers’ catalogues. She picked up the post that Mari had placed on her desk and flicked through the letters. She recognized Rhian’s writing on an envelope, but the postmark, Brighton, surprised her. With some trepidation she slit it open.
Dear Sali,
This is a hard letter to write, but I wanted to explain why I couldn’t marry Joey. I will understand if you don’t want to see me again and I am sorry to have put you to all the trouble of organizing a wedding for nothing, but after seeing Tonia in Joey’s arms I couldn’t stop picturing him with other girls. You know what he’s been like …
‘I know,’ Sali murmured feelingly, thinking of all the times that she had lectured Joey on his behaviour.
… and I was afraid that if I did marry him I’d turn into a nagging, jealous wife who wouldn’t allow her husband out of her sight. That I’d end up spending as much time in the store as him, watching his every move and suspicious about every woman he spoke to.
Holding the letter, Sali walked to the window. She understood exactly how Rhian felt. When Lloyd had been given the post of colliery manager, his father had told him that he’d inherited all the brains in the family. Lloyd had replied that if that was right, then Victor had been given all the strength and practical ability, and Joey enough charisma and looks not to need anything else. Everyone had laughed at the time; now it didn’t seem so amusing.
She picked up the letter again.
When I ran away from Joey’s office I hid behind Mr Larch’s office. He found me and I have become his mistress. I don’t love him and he doesn’t love me, but he is kind. I am going to manage a shop for him. It is a sort of business arrangement. I made it when I thought that Tonia was having Joey’s baby and I didn’t really know what I was doing but that is not Mr Larch’s fault, it’s mine.
I tried to explain my reasons for the decisions I’ve made to Joey. He thinks Mr Larch took advantage of me. But he didn’t, Sali. I promise you, he didn’t. What happened is, if anything, more my fault than his.
Thank you for everything you have done for me. I will always love and be grateful to you. Kiss the children for me and tell them whatever you think best. I won’t try to see any of you again. Please tell Lloyd, Victor, Megan and Joey’s dad as much of this as you think they should know and please, please, be kind to Joey. He needs all the love and support that you can give him.
Thank you for being such a good friend. Love and kisses to you and the children,
Rhian
Sali stared out into the rose garden but all she could see was Rhian’s face, pale and serious, as she must have looked when she’d penned the letter, which was as selfless and caring as she.
‘Rhian,’ she murmured softly. ‘What have you done?’
‘Your cab is waiting, sir.’
Geraint nodded to the doorman of the New Inn Hotel in Pontypridd, stepped down on to the pavement and spoke to the driver who was holding the cab door.
‘The Drill Hall on Broadway.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The driver closed the door, slipped the car into gear and pulled away.
They drove slowly down the main road that led from Pontypridd to Cardiff but long before they reached the Drill Hall they passed an enormous queue of men that snaked along the pavement facing the direction of the hall. They were all waiting, some more patiently than others. Geraint was amazed to see boys who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years of age standing next to grizzled pensioners who looked well past the enlistment ceiling of forty-four.
He left the cab, told the driver to wait and after a brief, ‘Excuse me,’ to no one in particular, pushed past the line of men to the door of the hall.
A non-commissioned officer stepped smartly in front of him. ‘You will have to join the queue, sir.’
Geraint gave the recruiting sergeant a withering look. ‘Major Smythe-Davies is expecting me.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’ The sergeant saluted. ‘Inside, sir, second door on the left.’
Geraint went ahead and tapped the open door. He’d never met Paul Smythe-Davies but he had been at school with his brother John, and a chance meeting in the ‘Gentlemen’s Only’ bar in the New Inn with John the night before had resulted in this interview.
A thin man looked up from a desk smothered with papers. ‘Yes?’ he barked impatiently.
‘Watkin Jones, your brother’s school chum
.’
‘Oh yes, he mentioned you to me this morning. I told my orderly to give you a bell in the New Inn. Glad to see you could make it.’
‘It’s good of you to see me at such short notice, Major Smythe-Davies.’
‘Not at all.’ The major left his office and looked down the corridor to the rooms where the recruiting officers were sifting through and swearing in the new recruits. ‘What price this?’ He pointed with his pen at the men queuing out of the door. ‘Kitchener will soon have his hundred thousand volunteers. But between you and me, I think he’s going to need a lot more. I spoke to my CO about you this morning on the blower. You can have a commission, as a second lieutenant, effective immediately.’
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Geraint said sincerely.
‘You won’t be thanking me when you’re doing your basic training. Those sergeants can be swines, and they like nothing better than giving officers stick while they have the chance.’
‘So when do I leave?’
‘Eight o’clock train tomorrow morning, start training the day after.’ The major opened a drawer in his desk and extracted an envelope. ‘Travel orders. You’ll need a uniform and other things. I’ve put my tailor’s card in there. He’s a good chap and as reasonable as any of them. But he doesn’t press his bills as hard as some,’ he added in a whisper.
‘That was thoughtful, thank you again.’
‘Please stop thanking me, old boy; we need all the good chaps we can get in the regiment. Rumour has it we’ll be in France next month. You’ll be joining us there as soon as you’re ready.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’ After weeks of travelling with Julia, Geraint was hungry for masculine company. ‘If you can get away, I’d like to buy you lunch.’
‘No chance, old man, up to my eyes in it. Next time perhaps.’ The major slapped Geraint’s shoulder and they stepped outside his office. Geraint started and retreated. Joey Evans stood in the corridor in front of a desk, the pen in his hand poised above a sheaf of papers.
Sinners and Shadows Page 30