‘You know Beth, looking after all the sick in the town, her evacuees, running errands for all and sundry.’
‘Anything not to think about Eddie, and now Maud,’ Megan frowned. ‘She heard from Andrew lately?’
‘She didn’t say.’
‘That means she hasn’t. Sometimes it feels as though letters are the scarcest commodities of all.’ It had been a month since Megan had heard from her son, William, who as far as she could make out was ‘somewhere in North Africa’. The closest she could get to him were the daily trips his wife, Tina, made from the Tumble café to see if her mother-in-law had received any news she hadn’t.
‘This is the best cawl I’ve ever eaten, Megan. Just what I needed.’ Wyn pushed back his chair and stretched his legs out to the fire.
‘It always tastes better after the second boil. There’s plenty more if you want another bowl.’
‘No thanks, I wouldn’t be able to move, let alone climb the stairs.’
‘Tea?’
‘I’ll give Diana a hand to bath the baby and put him to bed.’
‘Women’s work,’ his father sneered.
‘With this war keeping three-quarters of the men in the town away from home, it’s good to know there’s at least one poor mite in Pontypridd who knows who his father is,’ Megan countered briskly, in an attempt to let the old man know that Wyn wasn’t the only one who resented his constant carping.
Diana went to the cot and lifted out the boy they’d named William after her father who’d been killed in the Great War. ‘You take Billy.’ She handed him over to Wyn. ‘Put your feet up, Mam. I’ll do the dishes.’
‘What dishes?’ her mother scoffed as she cleared the table. ‘Two bowls and four bread plates. Go on, off with you, I’ll have the tea made by the time you’ve finished.’
Wyn followed Diana up the stairs. This was his favourite time of day. The only time he could be alone with his wife and baby when they were awake.
‘Did you really cope in the shops without me today?’ Diana asked.
‘Is that a “Can you cope without me tomorrow” question?’
‘Bethan thought it might be nice if Alma and Charlie could spend the whole of Charlie’s leave in her house to give Alma a break from caring for her mother. She’s also thinking of having a small “welcome home and goodbye again” party for Charlie tomorrow evening. If it comes off, we’re invited.’
‘I can just about manage the banking without you,’ he assured with mock gravity.
‘I won’t be needed after tomorrow. Charlie’s leaving on Saturday morning.’
‘They didn’t give him much time.’
‘That’s why Bethan thinks he and Alma should spend what little he has in peace and quiet.’ She sat on the edge of the bath and put the plug in the sink they used to wash the baby.
‘If it hadn’t been for that damned van mowing me down, I’d be where Charlie is now, and then I’d be doing something a sight more useful than running a sweet shop and a pie shop.’
She glanced at him as he sat on the linen bin, his stick resting against the wall, his wooden leg extended at an awkward angle. ‘It’s your father again, isn’t it, Wyn? How many times do I have to tell you not to listen to him, he’s …’
‘Right?’
‘We’ve been through all this before. You’re medically unfit. It’s a fact. I know it can’t be easy for you …’
‘Erik called into the shop this afternoon.’
‘What did he want?’ she asked uneasily as she turned on the taps.
‘To tell me they desperately need men in the munitions factory. Even one-legged cripples.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘That I’d think about it.’
‘And the shops?’
‘You could manage those if we took on an extra girl to cover the second house in the one in the cinema.’
‘It won’t be easy to find someone we can trust, not at wages we can afford. Tina told me they’re upping the pay to three pounds a week in the munitions factories, and that’s for untrained girls.’
‘Look at the shifts Myrtle’s working. Not everyone can cope with a hundred hours a week when there’s a push on. We’ll find someone. Perhaps a mother with children at school and a grandmother living close by who can look after them in the evening. I’ll start looking tomorrow.’
‘You’ve already made up your mind about this, haven’t you?’
‘I may have lost a leg, but there’s still plenty of things I could do that are a sight more important than running a damned sweet shop. I know better than anyone how unpleasant my father can be, but this time he’s hit the nail on the head. No man should be running a shop in wartime. I want to contribute more like your brother, and the Ronconi boys and Andrew John.’
‘Fat lot Andrew and Angelo Ronconi are contributing to the war effort stuck in a German prison camp.’
‘At least they tried,’ he asserted softly.
She forced herself to look at him. ‘I’m not stupid, Wyn. I know what Erik is, and I don’t mean a Polish refugee. If this arrangement between us isn’t working out for you, just say the word and my mother and I will take the baby back to my Uncle Evan’s house.’
‘Don’t you know that you and Billy are the two most important people in my life?’
‘But that’s why you want the job, isn’t it? To be near Erik?’
‘No. It’s to contribute more to the war effort than I’m doing now.’
‘It’s not Billy and myself I’m thinking about, but you. I know how unhappy you were before we married.’
‘And I’m unhappy now, because I don’t feel I’m pulling my weight. My sister works twelve-hour shifts in a factory doing a man’s job, and I’m playing at shop assistant and nursemaid.’ He undressed the baby on his lap, feeling all fingers and thumbs with such a tiny, wriggling mite.
‘If it will help, you could bring Erik home. I really wouldn’t mind.’
‘How can I bring him home with my father in the house?’
‘Perhaps we should try to find our own place?’
‘And then who would look after Dad? Let’s face it, Diana, he has us trapped.’
‘Not us, Wyn. Me. I’m the one with the baby. Your father is no real trouble to me or my mother except in the way he treats you. Why don’t you see Dr Evans tomorrow and ask him if there’s any medical reason why you shouldn’t register for war work, if that’s what you want to do? I think that’s a better way of going about things than trusting to Erik’s recommendation.’ After testing the water she took Billy from Wyn, lowered him into the sink and splashed him gently.
‘If I registered they could send me anywhere.’
‘That’s not likely when the factories are so desperate here. As you said, we can try to get another girl to help out in the shops. There may even be one in the workhouse. Maisie turned out well for Bethan.’
‘A workhouse girl would have to sleep somewhere, and there’s no room here.’ He held out a towel and she wrapped Billy in it. ‘If I do end up working with Erik it would be just friendship, nothing more, Diana, I swear it. I made you a promise when we married, and I’ve stuck to it. I won’t break it, or risk any scandal that will affect you or Billy.’
‘As if I could care less about gossip. I owe you everything. You’ve given me and Billy a home and a name. You’ve been a good friend when I needed one most. I just couldn’t bear to see you getting hurt, or worse still, being arrested and sent to prison.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be. And once I’m doing work I can be proud of, I’ll be a lot happier, you’ll see.’ He took Billy from her and carried him through to their bedroom.
She heard him talking to the baby as he wrestled with the nappy he’d never learned to fasten properly. She knew that a new job wouldn’t really solve anything for Wyn, because he wasn’t the only one who felt there was something missing from his life.
Outwardly she had everything a woman could want. A beautiful baby, a mother who took a
ll the domestic drudgery off her hands and a kind and thoughtful husband. She should be content, and generally was until she sensed Wyn’s restlessness, or intercepted a look between husband and wife like the one Charlie had given Alma that morning. A look that told her there was more. Much, much more than she could ever hope to find in marriage to a man like Wyn Rees, for all his gentle kindness.
‘Two cracked ribs, bit shaken, but otherwise she’s in one piece. The baby’s come through the experience with no ill-effects that I can see. We’ll keep them in overnight as a precautionary measure, but they’ll be able to go home first thing tomorrow.’ The doctor’s smile was genuine. It was the only good news he’d had to deliver all day.
‘We have no home left to go to,’ Haydn said drily. ‘That’s why I’d like to take my family to Wales tomorrow.’
‘If you can get the travel warrants, go ahead. We’ve strapped up your wife’s ribs. Provided she takes it easy and doesn’t do any heavy lifting she should be fine. In fact it would probably be better to get them into the country than a place in a temporary shelter here. Would you like to see them for a few minutes?’
‘Please.’ Haydn gathered his jacket from the corridor bench.
‘The sister will show you the way. Good luck, to you and your family, young man.’
Haydn followed the sister down the stairs into a gloomy, windowless basement.
‘We try to keep as many of our short-stay patients in the cellars as we can, it saves on evacuation time,’ she explained.
Jane was lying on a bed at the end of a very long row of camp beds. There was a canvas cot at her side but she’d lifted the baby in with her, and was feeding her from a bottle when Haydn arrived. He’d stayed with Jane while they’d cleaned her and Anne up at the first-aid post, travelled with her to hospital, but he was still shocked at her ashen complexion and the dark shadows beneath her eyes.
‘My milk’s dried up,’ she explained.
‘A few days’ rest and it will come back.’
‘That’s what the sister said. Only by then Anne probably won’t want me to feed her any more.’ A tear rolled down her cheek, and Haydn reached for his handkerchief.
‘She’ll want you,’ he reassured her awkwardly, conscious of the other patients’ eyes fixed in their direction.
‘I’m not crying about that, but what you said. You’re determined to send us to Wales, aren’t you?’
‘Not send, take. I called into the studio when the doctor was checking you over. I have tomorrow off. I don’t have to be back until late Saturday.’
‘And that’s supposed to make it all right?’
‘Jane, please.’ He looked around for a chair. There wasn’t one so he crouched awkwardly beside the iron bedstead. ‘We were lucky once, don’t tempt fate a second time. I didn’t want to tell you until it was all organised, but it looks as though we wouldn’t have been together much longer anyway. My producer has arranged a tour of the fronts so we can broadcast a series of shows from the serving troops. You and Anne couldn’t have come with me, and I wouldn’t have been happy leaving you on your own in London.’
‘But I’m supposed to be happy with you going to the front?’ Her eyes widened in a mixture of fear and indignation.
‘The fronts I’ll be visiting will be nowhere near the fighting. Nothing’s going to happen to me.’
‘And what am I supposed to do back in Pontypridd?’
‘Look after Anne.’
‘For how long, Haydn? How long are we going to have to live without you?’
‘Only Hitler can answer that question, love. It’s the same for everyone. Please, can’t you see I’m doing this for you and Anne?’
‘You’re doing it for yourself. Hiving us off so you won’t have to worry about us.’
‘Hey, whatever happened to the independent girl I married?’
‘It’s easy to be independent when you’ve no one to care about. Now I have you, I can’t bear the thought of losing you.’
‘And I wouldn’t want to go on living without you, which is why I have to get you out of London. But it’s Pontypridd you’re going to, not China. You’ll have my father and Phyllis and Bethan …’
‘And Eddie’s widow to remind me I could lose you.’ She concentrated all her attention on Anne, refusing to look into his eyes.
He tried one last time. ‘Think of my sister. Andrew’s in a prison camp in Germany, she knows she won’t see him until the end of the war – whenever that will be. And Jenny will never see Eddie walking through the door again.’
‘At least she can get on with her life.’ Jane regretted the words the instant they were out of her mouth, but once said, they couldn’t be retracted.
He rose from his knees, kissed her on the cheek and stroked the baby’s head. ‘You’re tired, get some sleep. Don’t worry about clothes, or replacing the baby’s things. I’ve organised the essentials, and anything I haven’t got, you can pick up in Pontypridd. I’ll be here first thing in the morning to take you to my father’s house.’
She watched him walk down the ward, wishing she could turn the clock back just twenty-four hours. Couldn’t he understand just how terrified she was of losing him? Because, apart from Anne, he was all the family she’d ever had.
Constable Huw Davies walked along Tyfica Road, one of the most select and salubrious streets in Pontypridd, hardly the place to find trouble, even at four-thirty in the morning. But he wasn’t looking for trouble. He lit a match and checked his watch – any minute now. Then he heard the sound he’d been waiting for. The light tap of footsteps walking towards him in the darkness.
‘Careful, Miss Rees. You’ve plenty of time. Go slowly and you won’t risk tripping up in the blackout.’
‘Constable Davies, how kind,’ a disembodied voice floated back, ‘but I’m sure I’m putting you out. You don’t have to walk me to the station every morning, you know.’
‘It’s part of my beat. Besides, you can never be too sure who you’ll run into in the blackout.’
‘Wyn’s offered to walk me, but I won’t let him. It’s bad enough I have to get up at this hour in the morning, without disturbing the whole household. He and Diana don’t get much sleep as it is.’
‘How is the baby?’ Huw asked, although he already knew the answer to his question. He made a point of calling in to see his sister, Megan, at least once a day.
‘He’s fine, thank you.’
‘And your father?’
‘Much the same.’ She lowered her voice although the street was silent and deserted. ‘To be truthful, as difficult as ever.’
He laughed, before apologising. ‘I’m sorry, it’s only funny when you don’t have to live with someone like him.’
‘I’m all right because working the shifts I do, I hardly ever see him. Sometimes I feel very selfish taking this job in munitions.’
‘Selfish? Working the hours and the way you do in that factory?’
‘It’s hard work, but the girls are friendly and everyone’s given set tasks, so in a way it’s much easier than staying home with Dad. A meal break in the factory is just that. A break. No one’s going to ask me to get a cup of tea, or run upstairs … I’m sorry, I should never have said that. I sound so ungrateful. My father’s been good to me and Wyn.’
Huw grunted. He knew exactly how good a father Wyn Rees senior had been to his son and daughter. Most men of his means were kinder to their kitchen skivvies.
‘I wouldn’t have taken the job if Megan and Diana hadn’t insisted they could cope without me.’
‘My sister can cope with anything,’ Huw observed wryly.
‘And it’s always been poor Wyn who’s borne the brunt of my father’s temper.’
‘I’ve noticed.’
‘It’s the pain. He has to take it out on someone.’ She excused her father’s behaviour out of habit, because he never apologised for it himself. ‘Although he hasn’t gone on at Wyn quite so much since Billy was born.’
‘He’s a bonny baby.’<
br />
‘Isn’t he?’ she enthused. ‘I never thought there’d be any babies in our house. It’s wonderful being an auntie and Diana’s so generous. She lets me monopolise his waking time when I’m home …’ Her voice tailed away as she realised she was gushing.
‘It’s nice being an uncle too. I try to forget the “great”.’
‘You don’t look like a great-uncle.’ She was glad the blackout hid her face. She could feel her cheeks burning. What had she been thinking of? The comment could so easily be misconstrued as a compliment, and as her father would have undoubtedly pointed out, Huw Davies’s connection to her was hardly close enough for such familiarity.
They crossed Gelliwastad Road and walked down Church Street into Market Square in silence, she, squirming because she believed she’d embarrassed him by having been too personal, he, desperately searching for something to say. Myrtle was thirty-eight years old to his forty-five, and at times like this he wished he had the impetuosity and confidence of his nephew William. In the last year he and Myrtle had witnessed half the young people in their respective circles of friends and relations rush into war marriages, but he still lacked the courage to ask her to share his life and the house he’d inherited from his father in Bonvilston Road. Even now, when she worked in a factory full of what her father referred to as ‘common tarts’ she had retained her middle-class reserve, a reserve he felt put her way out of the reach of an ordinary working-class man like himself.
‘Myrtle, what a time to get up in the morning, eh?’ Judy Crofter, a blonde maneater from Leyshon Street, accosted them in Station Yard. Huw would have known her voice anywhere, and he thought her a most unsuitable acquaintance for a refined lady like Myrtle.
‘You get used to it like everything else, Judy.’
‘Myrtle, over here,’ another voice called.
‘I’ll leave you now.’ The milling crowd of women was too much for him, even when he was wearing his uniform.
‘Thank you for walking me down, Constable Davies.’
Huw straightened his helmet and beat a hasty retreat. Judy’s shrill tones followed him.
‘Seems to me we’re going to be hearing wedding bells soon, eh,’ her cackle echoed around the yard.
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