Broken Rainbows

by Catrin Collier

  ‘I can’t sleep, and Mam’s bed is empty.’

  ‘She’ll be back soon.’ Reaching for the blanket folded on the brass log box, Megan wrapped it around her great-niece and began rocking the chair.

  ‘You’ve got your hands full.’

  ‘The way I like them filled.’ Megan returned his smile.

  ‘I hope everyone’s having a good time.’

  Megan thought of the excitement on Maisie’s and Liza’s faces as they’d left the house, and remembered her own girlhood. ‘I’m sure they are,’ she murmured, hugging Rachel closer.

  *……*……*

  ‘I think we should go straight home,’ Liza suggested primly, as Maurice led the way out of the Coronation ballroom.

  ‘We have to,’ Maurice agreed. ‘I’ve got to get back to the New Inn at twelve to pick up the CO.’

  ‘Come on, five minutes ain’t going to make no difference,’ Manny Rodriguez coaxed as he tightened his grip around Maisie’s waist.

  ‘You know what a stickler for punctuality the old man is.’

  ‘Tell you what, how about I take the girls home with you?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Colonel Ford gave me permission to take the ladies home in the car, but no one else.’

  ‘Who in hell is going to see us in this blackout?’ Manny demanded. ‘There isn’t even a moon. There and back. It’s not as if anyone else is about. You had to be the first to leave.’

  ‘So I could take Liza and Maisie home. I promised Nurse John that I’d …’

  ‘OK, Duval, keep your hair on. Where’s the car?’

  Maurice hesitated, relenting only when Liza’s small, cold hand slipped into his. ‘All right, just this once, but if the old man catches us …’

  ‘He won’t. God you’re a worrier, Duval.’ As soon as they reached the car, Manny opened the back door and pushed Maisie inside, following quickly before either of the girls could suggest that they sit together in the back.

  Maurice climbed into the front seat and hit the ignition. After flicking the switch that illuminated the single, heavily hooded headlight he set off cautiously into the darkness.

  ‘So, Maisie, we are going to be friends, aren’t we?’ Manny whispered close to her ear so neither Maurice nor Liza could overhear him above the noise of the engine.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said warily, moving as far from him as the seat would allow as he tried to slide his hand under her skirt.

  ‘How about me picking you up tomorrow evening around seven?’

  She clamped her hand firmly over his. ‘There’ll be none of that.’

  ‘Have a heart. I’m a lonely serviceman far from friends and home, and you’re a gorgeous girl …’

  ‘Once more and I’ll slap you.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ he repeated, peering through the gloom as Maurice changed gear in preparation for the steepest part of the hill. ‘You’ll meet me tomorrow? I’ve got a pass, and the money to take you wherever you want to go.’

  ‘I don’t like fast men.’ Maisie dug her nails into the back of his hand as his fingers strayed once more to her knee.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘You all right in the back?’ Maurice asked as he slowed to a crawl, looking for the entrance to the driveway to the house.

  ‘Fine, just hit my hand on something sharp.’

  ‘Check it out, will you? The old man …’

  ‘… won’t have my problems.’ Manny retreated to suck his wounds.

  ‘Here we are.’ Maurice turned the car into the drive and pulled up outside the front door.

  ‘Thank you for bringing us home.’ Liza fumbled for the door handle.

  ‘Give us two minutes, pal.’ Manny followed Maisie, who’d been quicker than Liza, out of the car.

  ‘Two minutes is all you’ve got,’ Maurice called back softly. Leaning across Liza he opened the door for her, starting back nervously when he accidentally brushed his arm against her breast. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised, glad of the darkness that concealed his burning cheeks.

  ‘That’s all right. You didn’t mean to do it.’

  ‘No.’ The silence closed in on them, tense and suffocating despite the chill in the air. He tried to distinguish Manny and Maisie’s shadows in the darkness that shrouded the front door, but it was impossible. They had merged into the grey-black mass of the house.

  ‘Thank you for coming to the dance with me.’

  ‘I enjoyed myself.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘It’s the first real dance I’ve gone to,’ Liza confided shyly.

  He reached out and touched her hand. ‘I don’t suppose …’

  ‘What?’ she asked, his diffidence lending her confidence.

  ‘That I could kiss you?’ he blurted out uneasily.

  ‘I haven’t had much practice at that sort of thing.’

  ‘Truth be told, neither have I. Have you got a boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither have I. A girlfriend I mean,’ he amended hastily as she smothered her laughter. Leaning forward, he gripped her arms, held her close and pressed his lips against hers for an embarrassing instant. ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider being my girl while we’re here?’ he asked as he released her.

  ‘What would that mean?’

  ‘Coming out with me once in a while. To dances. Perhaps the movies …’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Really. You mean it?’ He bent his head to hers again. The pressure of his lips was harder, more confident now; then he remembered the time. Releasing her abruptly he pressed the ignition. ‘The colonel’s going to be madder than hell if I don’t get back into town to pick him up in the next few minutes … begging your pardon, Liza.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ She swung her legs out of the car.

  ‘Manny?’ he hissed as Liza walked towards the house.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ Manny slammed the back doors and climbed into the front seat.

  ‘Goodnight, Maurice,’ Liza called as she opened the front door.

  ‘Goodnight, Liza.’ He reversed the car carefully, trying to recall the exact location of the trees and bushes that bordered the drive.

  ‘Looks like you got a bad case of the hots there, boy.’ Manny reached for his cigarettes, pushed two into his mouth and lit them.

  ‘Liza’s a nice girl.’

  ‘And may the good Lord protect me from nice girls. Me, I’m far from home and out for all I can get.’

  ‘With Maisie?’

  ‘Word is she’s got a kid and no wedding ring. She might be playing hard to get now, but she’ll come round. A girl like that knows the score, and that’s the sort I like.’

  ‘Who told you she has a kid?’ Maurice asked sharply as they headed back down the hill.

  ‘I heard. Man, the boys are right. The only thing cheap in Britain is the women.’

  ‘Maybe that was true back at base …’

  ‘Back at base nothing. A pair of nylons, a couple of cigarettes or a Baker’s chocolate bar, and they’re anyone’s.’ He handed Maurice a cigarette before leaning back in his seat. ‘It sure does feel like I’ve landed in a bargain-priced whorehouse, and as I don’t have my mother or the local priest peering over my shoulder, and money in my pockets for the first time in my life, I intend to make the most of my good fortune.’

  ‘What about the girls?’

  ‘I’m a democrat. I don’t mind sharing my pleasure with them.’

  ‘Maisie might have a kid, but she’s a decent girl.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘I know, I live in the same house as her.’

  ‘Have you asked her to drop her knickers?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Manny’s crude question shocked as well as disgusted him.

  ‘Buddy, are you slow. She’s had a taste of what a man can give, and she’s desperate for more. I can always tell.’

  ‘Horseshit.’

  ‘Well, one thing is certain: she won’t have to wait for you to make a move. D
ecent or not, Uncle Manny’ll put a smile on her face before long, never fear. Drop me’ off at Station Yard?’

  ‘You heard the doe’s lecture. You’ll get a dose.’

  ‘You know your trouble, Duval? You’ve seen so many propaganda films, you’re actually beginning to believe them.’

  Maurice set his mouth into a hard line as he dropped Manny off. Maisie might have a daughter and no husband but she was a kind, thoroughly nice girl who reminded him of his oldest, married sister. He wondered if he knew Liza well enough to ask her to warn Maisie that Manny was only out for what he could get.

  Chapter Five

  Jane waltzed around the ballroom in an aura of romance and excitement that blotted everyone and everything except Tomas D’Este from her mind. All she could see, all she could think of, was his heartbreakingly handsome face. She imagined herself back in his arms, dipping and swaying to the lilt of the music, his arm wrapped around her waist, the warmth of his hand radiating through the thin silk of her dress to the small of her back, the touch of his fingers as they held her own …

  She glanced up from beneath lowered lashes, starting in surprise when she saw Lieutenant Rivers staring back at her. She turned away disconcerted by the ridiculous feeling that he had read her thoughts.

  ‘You’re very beautiful.’

  His voice grated harsh and discordant after Tomas D’Este’s musically accented tones.

  ‘I’m anything but beautiful. Small, mousy-haired, mousy-eyed, skinny.’

  ‘But what a mouse.’ His smile became a leer.

  ‘Will you be in Pontypridd long?’ she asked, taking refuge in commonplace enquiries.

  ‘Long enough to get to know you better.’

  She blushed, suddenly conscious of Bethan and Colonel Ford dancing behind them. ‘That kind of talk doesn’t impress me.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to. I confess, I’m smitten. You’ve bewitched me. I’m yours, body and soul.’

  ‘It’s more like you’re handing me a line.’

  ‘You already speak American?’

  ‘I don’t know what you have been told about Welsh women, Lieutenant Rivers, but we’re not that gullible.’

  ‘I’m not interested in Welsh women. Only you.’

  ‘You didn’t know I existed five minutes ago.’

  ‘I’ve always known you existed. I’ve been waiting all my life to meet you.’

  ‘Which Hollywood picture did you get that from?’

  ‘So beautiful and so hard-hearted.’

  ‘And what would your wife say if she could hear you now?’

  ‘I have no wife.’

  ‘I can understand why, if this is an example of your courting technique.’

  ‘How can you be so indifferent to the plight of a lonely man?’

  ‘Because I have a husband at the front.’ She moved back as he tried to pull her closer.

  ‘He’s in Africa?’

  ‘He was two weeks ago, but he’ll be home soon.’

  ‘I thought leave was hard to come by for your boys.’

  ‘Haydn is a singer, an entertainer with ENSA.’

  ‘I’ve heard of ENSA. An English officer warned us about the organisation in holding camp. Don’t the initials stand for “Every Night Something Awful”?’

  ‘Not the shows Haydn plays in.’

  ‘It was a gag.’ He breathed beer fumes over her as he bent his head closer to hers. ‘Not much of one, but I will try to do better next time.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time, Lieutenant Rivers.’

  ‘Oh, but I think there will, with me living in your sister-in-law’s house.’

  ‘I hardly see Bethan.’

  ‘You don’t get on with your family?’

  ‘Very well, but as we both work, neither of us has much time for visiting.’

  ‘You’re a nurse too?’

  ‘I’m in munitions.’

  ‘You work in a factory?’

  ‘That shocks you?’

  ‘It’s hard, manual work.’

  ‘But necessary, and one way I can help us to win this war.’

  ‘It’s a sad state of affairs when a ravishing girl like you has to slave away in a factory.’

  ‘There is a sad state of affairs in this country, Lieutenant Rivers. Haven’t you been here long enough to see it?’

  The dance ended. Slipping from his grasp, Jane applauded the band. She saw the frown on Bethan’s face, and knew that her sister-in-law had seen and understood exactly what the lieutenant had been trying to do, and judging by the amount of whispering going on at their table, so had Mrs John and Mrs Llewellyn-Jones.

  ‘It is time for you to practise your lovemaking techniques on some other girl, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Please call me George.’

  ‘Well, George, I think it might be as well if I pointed you in the direction of the unmarried ones. It might save you embarrassment as well as effort.’

  ‘As we’ve only just met, I’ll forgive you that. Love at first sight can rattle a girl, particularly when she’s married.’

  ‘I don’t believe in love at first sight, Lieutenant.’ Looking around she realised that they’d been left, marooned on the dance floor. Leaving him she began to walk back to their table.

  ‘I think you do, Mrs Powell.’ He grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Let me go! If I talk to you any longer, people will gossip.’

  ‘Not now the band is about to play again.’ He jerked her back into the centre of the floor as she continued to struggle to free herself. ‘Stop it, you’re making a scene.’ He glanced over his shoulder to see if the colonel was watching.

  ‘And you’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘At the fountain of love.’

  ‘That is not funny, and you don’t understand Pontypridd. Two dances with the same man are enough for gossips to have the couple walking down the aisle, or in my case, committing adultery.’

  ‘Now that’s an idea. With your husband away you need someone to practise on. I am healthy, ready, willing and … ouch!’

  Stamping on his foot a second time, Jane turned on her heel and collided with Tomas D’Este and Chuck Reynolds.

  ‘We were coming to rescue you, but it doesn’t look as though you need our help.’ Tomas took her hand for the foxtrot as the major clamped his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder and steered him towards the door.

  ‘A little late, but thank you anyway,’ she replied heatedly.

  ‘George Rivers isn’t a bad fellow. Just young and let loose away from home for the first time in his life.’

  ‘And drunk.’

  ‘I’m not making excuses, but it’s not been easy for us. One minute we were home with our families, the next, shipped across the Atlantic into a strange country with even stranger customs, and thrown into the society of a lot of pretty women with hardly a man in sight. It’s enough to turn the head of even the most sensible guy.’

  ‘Most of the pretty women in this room have husbands, Captain D’Este.’

  ‘And most of the servicemen have wives, Mrs Powell, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.’

  ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t,’ she allowed grudgingly.

  ‘Is your husband at the front?’

  ‘With ENSA. I hate this damned war!’ She had never meant it more or missed Haydn so much. She longed for peace so she could become a part of his everyday life again; from the moment of waking in the morning to sleeping at night. To live like the families in the children’s stories she read to Anne. To enjoy simple things like shared meals and outings, to go shopping with Anne tucked into her pushchair and Haydn at her side. And she couldn’t help feeling that if it wasn’t for the war she would be doing just that, instead of dancing with dangerously attractive strangers and listening to crazy protestations of instant love from the likes of George Rivers.

  ‘Do you always look as though you’re ready to kill someone? … No you don’t, you can smile.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she conceded, blushing at the
memory of her earlier thoughts about D’Este.

  ‘You can’t have been married long.’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘You must have been a child bride.’

  ‘Hardly, I have a two-year-old daughter.’

  ‘It must be difficult to bring her up on your own.’

  ‘I live with my father-in-law and his wife. I wouldn’t be able to work and look after Anne without their help. Are you married, Captain D’Este?’ She willed him to say yes, feeling that if he was, it would somehow cancel out her attraction to him.

  ‘I’ve been too poverty-stricken and too busy studying to think of a wife.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll find one here?’

  ‘My family has other ideas. They are very traditional. I have been betrothed … engaged to my cousin since we were children.’

  ‘An arranged marriage?’

  ‘It is difficult to explain to someone who is not accustomed to our ways. We don’t see it as “arranged”. We have the same philosophy towards life and respect one another.’

  ‘And love?’

  ‘My mother didn’t see my father until their wedding day. It was the perfect marriage of convenience: he had the money, she the aristocratic Spanish blood. They were forced to leave everything they owned in Cuba in 1934 when Antonio de Guiteras was hunted down and murdered by the military. They had supported him and his ideals of political freedom and democracy and if they hadn’t fled to America we would all have been arrested and possibly murdered too. Especially me. Antonio was a close family friend and I was named Tomas Antonio de Guiteras D’Este after him. When we set foot in America we had only the clothes on our backs, but my mother insisted that as we were all alive and healthy she had riches. I think that if my father had been killed like Antonio, she would have lain down and died alongside him, so perhaps you can forgive me for thinking, like them, that love is something that comes after marriage.’

  ‘Perhaps they were just lucky.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It must be wonderful to have seen so many different countries. I’d love to travel.’

  ‘I think travel in the comfort of a cruise ship’s stateroom must be a very different affair to fleeing as a refugee, or being shipped out as a soldier in cattle quarters, and that is the only travelling I’ve ever done.’

  ‘But you have seen America and Cuba.’