‘Thank you.’ Ronnie had no intention of doing anything of the kind. Tina and Gina had meant well when they’d organised this supper so everyone who had loved Maud could mourn her passing, but it was proving pure purgatory. Facing Maud’s father and sister and receiving condolences stirred bitter, painful memories and a guilt that was never far below the surface. Not for the first time he wondered what was the point in carrying on, when all he loved and cared for was buried in the cemetery in Bardi, and he was responsible for putting it there.
‘She loved Italy, and we all knew how much you sacrificed to take her there,’ Bethan John, Maud’s sister murmured.
Ronnie nodded briefly before looking away.
‘Have you decided where you’re going to live?’ Bethan asked, sensing he couldn’t take much more sympathy.
‘I came in so late last night I slept on the floor of Tina’s living room, but I moved into Laura’s house today. From what Tina says she’ll be away for some time, and there’s no way the authorities will allow any house to stand empty with the demand for accommodation for evacuees and munitions workers, so it’s probably just as well I’m there to keep an eye on the place. Although in my opinion it’s Tina who should be living in Laura’s, not me, but she absolutely refuses to leave the café.’
‘She’s done wonders with those two rooms.’
‘Wonders or not, it’s hardly the sort of place a young girl should be living in alone.’
‘She’s not a young girl any more, Ronnie, she’s a married woman who has taken on responsibilities a lot of men would have run from.’
He looked over to the other side of the room where his younger sister, Gina was clinging to the arm of her husband Luke. ‘I’m going to need time to adjust to the idea of my two little sisters being married.’
‘They may be young, but they’ve got their heads screwed on and their priorities sorted,’ Evan observed.
‘And Luke’s been a great help. He puts in a full six-day week in the pit, and then spends his Sundays doing the heavy work in the cafés.’
‘I hope to take over some of that.’
‘Not before you’ve given yourself time to recover,’ Bethan warned, glancing at the crutch propped next to him. ‘Old Dr Evans told me you’d called into the surgery this morning. He was appalled at the state of the wounds in your legs. If you don’t rest and eat a lot better than you have been, you’ll run the risk of gangrene setting in.’
‘Nice to know my medical condition is being discussed in detail.’
‘Only by the staff in the surgery. Dr Evans has put you down for daily district nurse visits.’
‘And you’re the district nurse?’
‘Someone had to take the position.’
‘But you’ve got two babies.’
‘And help to look after them. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. There’s such a shortage of nurses, no one applied for the post, so they approached me. But I caution you now brother-in-law or not, I do a thorough job. I’ve seen your notes. You’re in a terrible state, and unless you do exactly what I tell you to, you’ll find yourself in hospital under the loving care of a ward sister who’ll make Hitler look like a fairy godmother.’
‘I’m beginning to regret coming home. Is that Diana over there?’ he asked, noticing a slight resemblance between the attractive young woman sitting next to Tina, and the young girl who had been Maud’s best friend as well as cousin.
‘You see a change?’
‘It’s incredible. Not just her appearance. She seems so confident and sophisticated. When I last saw her she was afraid to look me in the eye.’
‘Few people dared to in those days,’ Bethan reminded. ‘You had a ferocious temper, and a reputation for driving anyone who worked in the cafés to the point of exhaustion.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ His voice was flat, devoid of emotion, almost as though they were discussing someone else.
‘Ronnie, I’m sorry, I have to go.’ Alma Raschenko crossed the room, already wearing her hat and coat. ‘I just wanted to offer my condolences. Maud was a lovely girl. Everyone who knew her was fond of her.’
Ronnie averted his eyes as he murmured the inevitable ‘thank you’. Alma had not only worked for him when he’d run the Tumble café for his father, she’d also been his mistress until he’d fallen head over heels in love with Maud. The last time he had seen her she’d flung a coffee cup at his head, and screamed that she hated him and wished him and Maud dead. He wondered if she remembered the ugly scene. She’d had every right to be angry with him at the time. He only hoped she wasn’t going to dredge up the memory now. He couldn’t cope with his own guilt, let alone anyone else’s.
Evan left his chair and drew Bethan aside. ‘I wrote to Haydn after work, but someone will have to tell your mother.’
‘I went to see her this afternoon. I thought the news of Ronnie’s return would soon travel up from the café to the Rhondda and better she hear it from me than someone else.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She knows that I visit you and Phyllis, so she wouldn’t let me into Uncle Joseph’s house. I told her on the doorstep. It wasn’t pleasant.’
‘I’m sorry, Beth. I should have done it myself.’
‘If she wouldn’t let me over the doorstep what makes you think she would have let you into the street?’
He tried to smile at her poor joke and failed. He had thought nothing could compare with the pain of losing his son Eddie at Dunkirk. He’d been wrong. When he’d come home from work to find Ronnie sitting in his back kitchen with the news that Maud had died a year and a half ago he felt as though someone had physically wrenched the heart from his body. All that time when he had believed Maud was, if not entirely safe, because of the war, then at least well and happy with her husband, she’d been dead. Even now he was conscious of Bethan watching him with a professional eye. He gripped her hand briefly before leaving her to join Phyllis, his common-law wife.
Ronnie was still talking to Alma, so Bethan went to find Tina and Diana. She had never needed their company more. Maud’s death had been a wretched shock; her mother’s response to the news even more so. She could still hear the bitter angry words Elizabeth Powell had flung after her as she’d fled to her car.
‘“As ye sow so shall ye reap.” When I married your father I took the Devil into my bed. I tried to fight his sinful ways, to bring my children to the paths of righteousness, but I failed. And how I failed. Maud’s lung sickness was just one manifestation of the birthright of evil your father bestowed on all of you. Maud deserved to die for living out her life in a land of papists and heathens, just as Eddie deserved to die by the sword for seeking violence in the boxing ring. Your time will come, my girl. As will Haydn’s. Mark my words. I know both of you consort with the Satan who spawned you. You sit at his table with his whore, you recognise his bastard, but God sees. He’ll punish you by damning you to hell, along with Maud and Eddie. And perhaps then, when you’re all writhing in the eternal fires, I’ll finally get some peace.’
‘Good God, Charlie? Is it you?’ the stationmaster asked, as a broad-built, stocky figure with pale hair that gleamed silver in the blackout, stepped closer to the puddle of torchlight he was using to read tickets.
‘It is,’ Charlie Raschenko replied flatly in his guttural Russian accent, as he shouldered his kitbag.
‘So they finally gave you leave?’
‘A few days,’ Charlie replied noncommittally as he retrieved his rail pass and stowed it in his breast pocket. Closing his ears against the guard’s whistle that was signalling the train to move out, he turned and negotiated the wide stone flight of steps that led from the platform of Pontypridd Station into station yard. Standing in the light of a half-moon that seemed unnaturally bright after months of winter blackout, he breathed in the cool, night air and looked out over the Tumble.
The scene before him had remained wonderfully, absurdly unchanged in a world gone mad. Like a reassuring glimpse of normality
after a horrific nightmare. The darkened silhouette of the last bus rattling out of the old tram road towards Broadway; a flash of light from the doorway of Ronconi’s café opposite as someone lifted the blackout curtain too wide; the high-pitched cry of Joey Rees the retired boxer, calling ‘Echo’ as he left the White Hart in an attempt to sell his last copies of the wartime-thinned pages of the Cardiff evening paper.
Turning away from the women touting for trade behind him, he closed his eyes and gripped the cord of his kitbag until it cut into the palm of his hand. He was home! For the first time in thirteen months, one week, three days and nine hours his wife was within reach, and he was determined that for the next seventy-two hours they would forget there was a war. And afterwards – best not to think about afterwards.
Setting his sights on Taff Street, he pushed his cap to the back of his head and headed for the gap in the low, red-brick wall that marked the boundary of the yard. Listening warily for traffic, he stepped off the pavement on to the road. As he kicked a ball of paper from his path, the fishy, vinegary smell of cockles wafted to his nostrils, bringing with it a flood of nostalgia for the old, uneventful, pre-war Pontypridd days.
It was a Wednesday – market day – and if he knew the locals, not even a war would be allowed to interrupt Pontypridd market. Although it was late, he heard footsteps echoing along the street, and laughter, the deep resonant tones of a man’s voice joined by high-pitched feminine giggles. He drew his breath in sharply before remembering where he was. No one other than the Germans had laughed in the country he had just left since the autumn of 1939, but then he’d forgotten that the war that had annihilated freedom in most of Europe and rained devastation on London and the Home Counties, where he was theoretically stationed, had brought munitions factories and work to the Welsh valleys; an employment that was finally putting an end to the deprivation of the depression.
The clock on St Catherine’s church struck the hour as he passed Rivelin’s and crossed the road from Woolworth’s to the New Inn. His step quickened as he hurried past the entrance to Market Square, heading for the fountain and the shop with the comfortable flat above. Would Alma be sitting in the living room listening to the radio? Or would she be in bed? He only hoped that Alma’s mother hadn’t changed her lifetime habit of early nights. He had been dreaming about this homecoming for months, and couldn’t bear the thought of anyone, not even his mother-in-law, witnessing his first moments with his wife.
He and Alma had what was left of tonight. And tomorrow? It was half-day. Alma had written to tell him that she had taken on four assistants since he’d left to join the army. He hadn’t understood why she’d needed so many for just one cooked meat and pie shop when meat was so heavily rationed, but surely the paid help would be able to manage the business between them tomorrow. Thursday morning had never been a busy one, which was why he’d urged his CO to include a Thursday in his leave pass.
He slowed his step when he saw the Gothic outline of the Victorian fountain gleaming palely ahead. Stepping on to the plinth surrounding it, he swung his bag from his shoulder and leaned against the stonework, staring up at the blacked-out windows of the shop and the flat above.
He would have given a great deal to have been allowed a glimpse beyond the curtains before he walked in. Perhaps if he crept up the stairs quietly? He patted his jacket trying to remember if he’d tossed his keys into his kitbag when he’d packed, or slipped them into one of his many pockets. Balking at the idea of emptying his bag out on the pavement, he began searching for them in his uniform.
A door opened in the wall of shops across the road. He turned as a low murmur of voices drifted out of Ronconi’s restaurant. It was way past normal opening hours and he could only wonder that Pontypridd had remained so unscathed by war and the presence of Hitler’s army camped across the Channel that people could think of holding a party.
A couple drifted ghost-like out of the shadows and crossed the street. The man was swinging himself forward with the aid of a crutch, the woman walking at his side, their heads close together. The woman’s hair was drained grey by the moonlight, but Charlie didn’t need to exercise his imagination to picture the flame-coloured tints in her curls, or the depth of colour that glowed in her sea-green eyes. The couple paused in front of the fountain, the man balancing awkwardly while the woman embraced him. She murmured something too low for Charlie to catch, but the man’s voice was louder.
‘It happened a long time ago. We’re both different people now. Forget it, Alma.’
‘I’m sorry, Ronnie. So very sorry.’ Resting her hands on his shoulders she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
Charlie’s back stiffened. Ronnie Ronconi back from Italy! He stepped out of the shadows.
Alma looked up and saw him. ‘Charlie …’
He sidestepped her embrace as she ran, arms outstretched towards him. ‘You haven’t introduced me to your friend,’ he said.
‘You remember, Ronnie.’ Alma hung back as Charlie ignored the hand Ronnie offered. Suddenly she realised how the scene must have looked. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Charlie hasn’t been home in over a year.’
‘Of course, you must have things to talk about. Congratulations on marrying Alma …’ A door opened and closed and Ronnie found himself talking to the empty street.
*……*……*
Cocooned in a soundproof studio, his thoughts concentrated on putting out a good show that would give the serving troops a taste of home and a momentary escape from the harsher realities of war, while observing the official line of ‘not too strong lest it bring on homesickness and undermine moral’ Haydn managed to push his anxieties about Jane to the back of his mind; but the minute transmission ceased and the door opened he heard it – the sickening roar of what sounded like thousands of planes flying overheard. Before he could speak, the guns opened up in a barrage that made speech unintelligible and thought impossible. With the whole building shuddering around him, he retreated into the booth with Joe, his sound engineer.
‘I don’t remember it being this noisy before,’ Joe complained.
‘Probably because it wasn’t.’ Hands shaking, Haydn pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Joe.
‘We can’t stay here. You game to make a run down to the basement?’
‘You go if you want to, I’m for home.’
‘Home! Don’t be an ass. You’ll never get there in one piece.’
The tea lady burst through the door, dragging her trolley behind her. ‘It’s like bonfire night in the OK Corral out there,’ she announced cheerfully, as soon as the door shut out the din. ‘I’ve never seen anything like the size of the flares, and you should have heard the gun barrage -’
‘We did,’ Joe interrupted, instinctively ducking as the room shook and a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling. Missing his head by a few inches it landed on the floor, shattering into crumbs on the polished cork tiles.
‘Good, I thought I saw the tea trolley heading this way.’ A sub-editor from the newsroom joined them. ‘If I’d known it was this quiet in here I would have made a beeline for a studio when the sirens started.’
‘Any word on where they’re targeting yet?’ Haydn asked as the tea lady started filling cups from a lukewarm teapot.
‘We’ve had the first unofficial estimates. It looks as though there’s at least five hundred and fifty enemy planes up there, so you tell me, where aren’t they targeting?’ The news hound turned Haydn’s question back on him.
‘The river? The East End?’
‘That’s a fair guess. They always come a cropper.’
‘Come on, Haydn, you know it’s too early to say for certain.’ Joe took his arm. ‘Let’s go down to the basement and sit it out. I know where we can find a bottle of whisky.’
‘I’d rather try to get home.’
‘You got a death wish?’ the sub-editor enquired tactlessly as he picked up his tea and left.
‘It’s not far,’ Haydn protested to Joe,
as soon as the door closed and he could be heard.
‘Far enough for you to get blown to bits on the streets? And how do you expect me to explain that to a nice, sensible girl like Jane? “Sorry, love, but he insisted on viewing the blitz first hand?”’
‘But she could be …’
‘In the cellar, tucked up fast asleep with the baby.’
It was Joe’s voice, calm, matter-of-fact, that finally broke Haydn’s resolve to tear out of the building right then and there.
‘You really think she will be all right?’
‘As all right as anyone can be in this God-forsaken city tonight. Come on, let’s find that whisky, go downstairs, and get plastered. At least we’ve a bloody good excuse this time.’
‘She’s still awake …’ Mrs Lane faltered when she saw a man walking up the stairs behind Alma. ‘Oh it’s you, Mr Charlie,’ she stammered in relief, embarrassment scorching her cheeks. But then, it was hardly her fault for thinking the worst. Not when Ronnie Ronconi was back and everyone was waiting to see if he and Alma would pick up where they had left off, now that poor Maud was dead and Charlie away soldiering. And it wasn’t just Alma. It was practically all the young women in town. Munitions money had given them the wherewithal to visit pubs – and drink. An unheard-of phenomenon before the war. Morality was being flung out of the window as all the unmarried girls and half the married ones used the war, their husbands’ absence, and loneliness as an excuse to comfort any and every soldier who passed through Pontypridd.
‘Mrs Lane.’ Charlie touched his cap-as he swung his kitbag down on to the landing.
‘Thank you for sitting with Mam. I’ll go in and see to her now.’ Alma pushed past Mrs Lane and went into her mother’s room, closing the door behind her.
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