Past Remembering

by Catrin Collier

  It felt peculiar to be back home in the bedroom that had been his as a child, and even odder to share with Jane the bed that he and Eddie had slept in for all those years.

  ‘I’m not asleep,’ Jane murmured as Haydn stripped off the last of his clothes and crept in beside her.

  ‘You should be after that horrendous journey up from London. I need warming. I’d forgotten just how cold it is to wash in a washhouse, even in spring. I’m beginning to wonder how I stood it for all those years.’

  ‘Living in London has turned you soft. If you think your washhouse is cold, you should try a workhouse. It was never warm. Winter or summer it was always freezing inside those stone walls.’

  Leaving the bedside lamp Eddie had made out of an old wooden table leg burning, Haydn pulled Jane close, tangling his hands in folds of linen as he sought her skin. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A nightie. I borrowed one from Phyllis.’

  ‘You don’t wear them.’

  ‘I do when I sleep with you in your father’s house.’

  ‘No one is going to come in.’

  ‘I know, but it just doesn’t feel right to sleep naked when I’m not in my own home.’

  ‘You’re being silly.’ He tried to pull it off her, but she moved away from him.

  ‘How long have you known about the tour of the front?’

  ‘There’s been talk about it for a while. Are you going to help me with this?’ he demanded as he grappled with the pearl buttons on the high, Victorian neck of the gown.

  ‘How long is a while?’

  Giving up on the nightdress, he rolled on his back, crossed his arms beneath his head and stared at the ceiling. ‘A while is a while,’ he reiterated irritably. ‘I thought it was just talk until they finalised the itinerary last week.’

  ‘You could have mentioned it.’

  ‘Why? So we could quarrel like we are now? I knew you wouldn’t like the idea.’

  ‘I’m not angry about the tour, but I am furious that you didn’t see fit to tell me it was being arranged.’

  ‘I didn’t want to spoil what we had.’

  ‘It’s spoilt good and proper now, isn’t it? I thought we agreed to discuss everything when we married, and now I discover that you’ve been keeping something like this from me for heaven only knows how long. I just don’t feel I can trust you any more.’

  He turned on his side and faced her. ‘I swear to you, I was going to tell you the minute I knew for certain that the tour was definitely on. So many things could have happened to cancel it. An unexpected attack, a push, the brass closing off the area to all non-essential personnel. There was no point in upsetting you over nothing.’

  ‘Nothing…’

  ‘Jane, please,’ he reached out and stroked the side of her face with the tips of his fingers. ‘Don’t let’s argue. Not now.’

  ‘If not now, then when? You’ll be gone tomorrow.’

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when they pulled you and Anne out of that cellar alive,’ he murmured, clenching his fists against the images of the alternative that still haunted him. ‘Have you any idea what it was like for me, standing in the ruins of that block? No one, not even the wardens, thought that anyone could have possibly survived the blast that flattened our house.’

  ‘But Anne and I did survive and everyone knows that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. How about a compromise?’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll stay here until you finish the tour, then I’ll go back to London. You’ll need somewhere to live. I could find us rooms closer to the -’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted sharply.

  ‘Haydn …’

  ‘You weren’t the one who had to stand by and identify our neighbours as they pulled them out of the wreckage one by one, all the time expecting your body or Anne’s to be next. Don’t ask me to ever go through anything like that again. And if you’re angry with me because I’m leaving you in Pontypridd, then go ahead, be angry. I’d rather see you angry than dead.’

  ‘So you intend to leave me and Anne here for the duration, no matter what?’

  ‘The war won’t last for ever.’

  ‘I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that lately.’

  ‘Jane, it’s our last night together for a while. Don’t let’s waste it by quarrelling.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you kept something like the tour from me.’ She sat up in the bed, and for the first time he saw the tears on her cheeks – tears that belied her anger. He reached out to her.

  ‘I promise, I’ll come back every chance I get.’

  Anne stirred restlessly, crying out in her sleep. Jane left the bed and lifted her out of the cot.

  ‘Leave her, she’ll settle,’ he pleaded.

  ‘She’s really upset. First buried alive, now in a strange place, surrounded by strange people.’

  ‘They’re not strange, they’re my family,’ he remonstrated.

  ‘They are strange to her.’ She lifted Anne into the bed and laid her between them. The baby opened her mouth and screwed her face into an angry ball.

  ‘I’ll make her a bottle,’ Haydn offered.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ She picked up Anne as she left the bed.

  ‘Jane …’

  ‘I’ll bring her back when I’m sure she’ll settle. Otherwise she’ll keep you and your father awake, and you both have busy days tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll come down with you.’

  ‘There’s no point in both of us missing our sleep. I won’t be long.’

  She crept downstairs on bare feet, making up a bottle with as little noise and fuss as possible. As she sat in her father-in-law’s chair and fed her daughter, she thought of all the things she wanted to say to Haydn. How she knew he was thinking only of her and Anne, but how she couldn’t bear the thought of living without him. Perhaps he would agree to her moving into rooms in an area of London that hadn’t been as severely bombed as those around the river. It would mean more travelling time for him. Hopefully he would think that a small price to pay for them being together.

  But by the time she returned to the bedroom, it was too late. His breathing had steadied to the soft, even rhythm of sleep. Fuming because he’d fallen asleep on her, and with herself for starting an argument that had woken the baby, she returned Anne to her cot. When she finally crept back into bed she took off the nightdress, loosened the ugly bandages that strapped up her ribs, and tried curling around Haydn in the hope of waking him, but emotional and physical exhaustion had taken its toll. His sleep was too deep, too sound, for her to rouse him. As she shed tears of rage, frustration and fear for the future into the pillow, a feeling of desolation settled over her. A bleak, cold loneliness that she truly believed she had left behind her in the workhouse.

  Ronnie was only ten minutes behind Jenny. She heard the muted tapping of the rubber tip on his crutch as he limped down the pavement towards the shop door. Rushing to waylay him, she tripped over the blackout curtain and stumbled into his path.

  ‘I heard that women in Pontypridd were throwing themselves at men, but I never expected to see it for myself.’

  ‘Just putting out the rubbish,’ she mumbled breathlessly, hoping he wouldn’t notice that her hands were empty.

  ‘Couldn’t it wait until morning?’

  ‘The ash men always come early.’ She deliberately kicked one of the bins she’d carried out before she’d left for the party, pushing it along the pavement as though she were repositioning it.

  ‘If there’s any more, perhaps I could help.’

  ‘On crutches?’

  ‘I like to fool myself I’m not that incapacitated.’

  ‘You could come in for a cup of tea if you like. I always have one before I go to bed, and I’d appreciate the company.’

  ‘The question is, would your neighbours appreciate your company?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘They watch every move you make.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You don’t mind the gossip?’
/>
  ‘As they’re going to talk about me anyway, I may as well give them something worth tattling about.’

  Ronnie recalled Tina’s warnings, and couldn’t help feeling a sneaking admiration for Jenny’s attitude.

  ‘Tea would be nice, thank you. Although I’d better not stay too long.’ He looked across the road where he thought he saw Mrs Evans’s blackout curtain twitching. ‘We don’t want to keep your neighbours up.’

  ‘Please, come on through.’

  ‘You locking me in, or the world out?’ Ronnie asked as she slid bolt after bolt across the shop door.

  ‘Huw Davies advised me to increase security when rationing started. You wouldn’t believe what some foodstuffs fetch on the black market.’

  ‘Oh yes I would. But then you’re lucky to have rationing.’

  ‘Lucky!’

  ‘Try living in a country where the rich can buy anything they want, and do, while the poor watch their children starve.’

  ‘I see what you mean. I suppose fair shares for all is better, even if fair shares isn’t very much.’ She opened the door that led to the living quarters. ‘Pull the blackout, please. I’ve left a light burning at the top of the stairs.’

  ‘Very wasteful.’

  ‘I don’t usually. It must have been a momentary lapse.’

  ‘Because you were worried about putting the rubbish out?’

  ‘Possibly,’ she answered before she realised he’d seen through her ploy. She climbed the stairs and led the way into the living room. Unbuttoning her coat she tossed it on to the sofa.

  ‘Drink?’

  She turned around and froze. Alexander Forbes was standing in front of the fireplace, a bottle of wine in one hand, two glasses in the other.

  ‘There has to be an easier way of climbing stairs with a crutch, perhaps I should ask at the hospital …’ Ronnie walked through the door, and looked from Jenny’s flustered features to Alexander’s red face.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’ Leaning against the sofa, Ronnie extended his hand. ‘I’m Ronnie Ronconi.’

  ‘Alexander Forbes.’ Alexander set the glasses on the table and shook his hand briefly.

  ‘Oh yes, my father-in-law’s conscientious objector lodger. I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Unabashed by the strained atmosphere, and Jenny’s mounting fury, Ronnie limped over to an easy chair and sat down. ‘Two sugars in my tea please, Jenny, if you can spare it.’

  ‘I can spare it,’ she said, glad of an excuse to leave the room. ‘Alexander?’

  He looked down at the bottle he was holding. ‘My father sent me his last case of French burgundy so I could toast my birthday. I thought you might like to join me?’

  ‘Even better,’ Ronnie smiled. ‘If there’s something I really enjoy, it’s a good French wine.’

  Bethan took a blanket from Alma’s linen cupboard. Leaving the bedroom door open and a light burning next to the bed she retreated into the living room, wrapped herself in folds of Welsh flannel and curled up in Charlie’s chair. The air was chilly after the warmth of the day, but it would have been too much of an extravagance to have set a match to the fire laid in the grate.

  Opening her handbag she took out her pen, and looked around for a book to lean on. She found a large cookery tome. Smoothing out the blue and white sheet she’d bought in the post office, she unscrewed the top from her pen and wiped the excess ink from the nib with her handkerchief. She always kept her pen filled, because she was never sure when she’d be able to steal an odd moment to write to Andrew.

  As she sat, nib poised over the paper, she was aware of absolute silence. Even the street outside was still. It was almost like working the night shift in hospital again, only this time Andrew wouldn’t be walking in with a smile on his face and chocolates in his pocket.

  Dear Andrew,

  I had your letter today, and because it will probably take weeks for you to get this, I’d better remind you. It’s the one where you were annoyed with me because I hadn’t told you I was pregnant. I wasn’t trying to exclude you from my life, darling, just cope with day-to-day living, which isn’t easy without you. I took the children up to your parents’ house this afternoon to tell them that I’d heard from you. Mrs Llewellyn-Jones and Anthea were there. Anthea asked me to send ‘Andy’ her love. I’m only doing so because she has decided that men in POW camps can’t possibly be heroes, so I’m afraid you may have lost yourself a girlfriend there, but you can console yourself with the thought that you still have me and the children. Haydn brought Jane back today, she’s staying with Dad while Haydn goes on an ENSA tour of the front. Poor Jane, she doesn’t seem at all happy with the idea. Charlie’s home on leave, but like Haydn he has to go back tomorrow, so I’ll soon be surrounded by lonely wives again, not that we sit around miserably, there’s too much to do. I know it’s wrong of me, but I’m so jealous of Jane and Alma, it actually hurts. I’d give anything for just one night with you. Perhaps you could suggest instigating compassionate leave for POWs to your German commandant? You say you feel redundant, I’ll cure you of that the minute you get home. I’m writing a list of jobs that need doing around the house. It’s about a mile long and growing longer by the day. And of course, you’ll have a lot of catching up to do with the children, who kiss your photograph every night so they’ll know exactly who their daddy is when he walks through the door. Rachel holds up the frame for little Eddie now without me having to remind her. Our son is going to look exactly like you. He already has auburn hair, and his eyes have darkened to your exact shade. Instead of being angry, think how lucky we are: two beautiful children and the certain knowledge that we will be together again when this dreadful war is over.

  Ronnie came back a few days ago. It doesn’t matter how. Maud died eighteen months ago, and he had no way of telling us until now. Haydn was devastated when he came home to the news. It’s hard for both of us knowing there’s only the two of us left. But we have the comfort of knowing that Maud was loved and cared for to the last by Ronnie. So please, don’t be angry with me for not telling you about Eddie until he was born. Instead keep writing and praying that in a few months we’ll all be together. As you can see, although I’ve written as small as I possibly can, I’ve run out of paper. Take care of yourself, my darling, we all love and miss you.

  Bethan

  She sat back and read what she’d written. It was an odd mixture of reproach and love, not at all what she’d intended. His letter had made her angry, but not angry enough to take him to task for what he’d written.

  Her imagination had been working overtime since he’d been captured. She’d visualised cells, daily beatings and chains, and although he’d tried to reassure her on that score, she knew from his first letter, which had taken months to reach her, that the POWs weren’t being supplied with adequate food or warm clothes. Even when the situation had eased and the first Red Cross parcels had got through to the camps, he still lacked essentials. It all seemed so ridiculous. Andrew living in, at best discomfort, imprisoned and guarded by soldiers who wanted to destroy the whole of Britain, and couldn’t possibly care what happened to him, while she, who so desperately needed him, had to carry on bringing up their children alone until such time as he might be released. A day that seemed no nearer now than it had ten months ago.

  Sometimes, she couldn’t help the disloyal, unpatriotic thought from creeping into her head that perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible if Germany did invade and Britain lost the war. Not if it meant that Andrew could finally come back to her.

  ‘So how do you like working in the pit?’ Ronnie sat back, wine in hand, apparently oblivious to Alexander’s embarrassment.

  ‘It’s hard work but we all …’

  ‘Have to do our bit?’ Ronnie suggested. Feeling sorry for him, because Jenny was still visibly seething, he drained his glass. ‘Happy birthday and thank you for the wine, but I’d better be going.’

  Jenny didn’t bother with polite delaying tactics. She abandoned the glass she’d been nu
rsing and went to the door.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ronnie smiled at Alexander as he levered himself to his feet. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ Alexander said wryly.

  ‘Although I think it’s only fair to warn you that Mrs Evans across the road has suspicions. I’ve only been back two days but I’ve already heard rumours about a tall blond man sneaking around to the stockroom entrance of the shop at night.’

  ‘But you didn’t hear who it was?’

  ‘It was just idle gossip,’ Ronnie answered, avoiding Jenny’s question.

  ‘I gave Alexander a key in the hope that he’d attract less attention by slipping in the back way,’ Jenny explained.

  ‘If I’m ever ready for another relationship I’ll come to you for advice on how to conduct the courting, Jenny. Good-night, Alexander.’ He walked out on to the landing and hobbled awkwardly down the stairs. Jenny followed him.

  ‘I think I’d better go out the front way in case Mrs Evans doesn’t see me leaving by the side entrance. You do realise that if she misses me she won’t sleep a wink?’

  ‘Ronnie …’

  ‘Good luck to you.’ He bent his head and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Both of you,’ he smiled, as she began unbolting the door.

  ‘Alexander is only a friend, a casual friend,’ she declared emphatically as she returned his chaste kiss. ‘But thank you all the same for not being shocked.’

  ‘No one can live in the past, Jenny.’

  He mulled over his own words as he walked down the hill to Laura’s house. For the first time he realised the truth behind the trite phrase. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d been doing since Maud had died? Living in the past? A shadow of a man with no more substance than a spectre inhabiting a ghost world. Rightly or wrongly, he had made a decision when he had buried Maud. A decision to go on living without her. Perhaps it was time he took some of his own and Diana’s advice and started doing just that.