Pontypridd 05 - Such Sweet Sorrow

by Catrin Collier

  ‘You all right, William?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Ronconi, but I think this stain needs a little more cold water.’

  Leaning on the sink he breathed in deeply, as the old man left the wash-house. For some peculiar reason he felt as though he’d had a close call. As though Tina’s father had been able to read his thoughts – about the honeymoon.

  ‘You see, no people.’ Wyn jammed on the handbrake and reached in the back of the van for the two newspaper-wrapped parcels. Both were warm and appetisingly fragrant with the vinegary, mouth-watering smell of freshly-fried fish and chips.

  ‘It seems darker up here than it does in the town,’ Diana murmured. Wyn had driven up to the Common. Somewhere below them, unseen and unlit, Pontypridd was going about its blacked-out life, so very different from its late evening life of a year ago played out beneath ribbons of street and house lights.

  ‘This is what it must have been like for whoever dragged the standing stones and rocking stone up here.’ Wyn handed her one of the parcels. ‘Perhaps they waited until this time of night to sacrifice to their gods. Can’t you just imagine it? A circle of people holding flaming torches while the priest stretched the victim out on the rocking stone, lifted the knife …’

  ‘Andrew said the circle’s not old enough to be druidic.’

  ‘There goes another of my illusions about the town’s history.’

  ‘Even if it were true, people should have more sense than to creep around a deserted common in the middle of the night.’

  ‘You don’t like the dark?’

  ‘No.’ She shuddered despite the reassuring bulk of Wyn’s presence. ‘I feel that there’s a huge black hole watching and waiting to swallow us up down there. One turn of the wheel, and we’ll go crashing into it.’

  ‘Holes don’t watch and wait.’ He unwrapped his fish and chips and started eating. ‘But then, I like the dark. I always have. Mind you, I can’t remember being in anything quite this black since I used to hide in the coal hole when I was a kid.’

  ‘You hid in the coal hole? Whatever from?’

  ‘Myself, I think. I started crawling in there when my mother was dying. I tried to tell myself that everything would be all right as long as I stayed in there. That she’d get out of bed and come looking for me, and when she did, she’d be well, happy and smiling, which was how I wanted her to be. Stupid, really.’

  ‘That’s not stupid. When Will and I were small and my mother used to cry because my father wasn’t there, we made up a story about him. That he hadn’t been killed at all, but he’d lost his memory and when he remembered who he was he’d come back. One night my mother overheard us talking. The following morning she explained that his body had been accounted for and buried. That there was no hope, that all we had of our father, all we’d ever have, was his photograph. You were lucky.’ She peeled back the newspaper on her parcel of fish and chips. ‘At least you can remember your mother.’

  ‘Only to miss her all the more when she had gone.’

  ‘Mam says you can’t build your life around what might have been, just get on with what you’ve got.’

  ‘She’s right.’

  ‘Right, maybe, but it’s damned hard sometimes.’

  Knowing she was regretting the loss of Tony, he put his hand over hers. ‘I think I know how you feel.’

  ‘How can you?’ she burst out angrily. ‘I loved Tony. I’ll always love him, and now there’s nothing left. I can’t even dream about meeting someone else. Even if I could find a man who’d forgive me for what Ben Springer did, no man would want a woman who couldn’t stand him near her. And I can’t … I really can’t bear the thought of a man coming near me ever again …’

  Abandoning his fish and chips on the bench seat, he held her in his arms. Her chips had tumbled on to the seat between them; he could feel warm, sticky grease oozing through his trousers. ‘I know what it is to love someone and lose them, Diana. And I couldn’t even go to his funeral.’

  It was the first time Wyn had ever mentioned his private life to her. Struggling to regain control of her emotions, she drew the back of her hand across her eyes, wiping away her tears.

  ‘You remember the boy who gassed himself over in Pwllgwaun a month ago?’

  ‘It said in the Observer that he was depressed at being out of work.’

  ‘His father’s on the council, so they didn’t print the truth. The police caught him.’

  ‘Caught him?’

  ‘With another man.’

  She sat back, not knowing what to say. Although she was aware of the names Wyn was called, she had never really considered what being ‘a queer’ meant. In a few words he had painted a picture of his personal life which shocked her to the core. Not the fact that he had loved, or could love, another man, but the persecution that would follow if anyone in authority found out.

  ‘You really … loved him?’ It seemed odd to use the word in conjunction with two men.

  ‘I loved him,’ he reiterated bitterly. ‘Not that it did either of us any good.’

  ‘But you said he was with another man. If he loved you, why was he with someone else?’

  ‘It’s not as easy for us as it is for you. You meet a boy, you start courting, you go for walks in the park, sit side by side in the pictures, go to a café and no one will bat an eyelid. We have to sneak around in the hope that no one will notice us. The police stopped my van a couple of times when he was in it. They told his father, and he warned him to stay away from me. He threatened that if he didn’t, he’d make sure the police picked both of us up. That we’d be dragged through the courts. The last thing either of us could afford to risk was a prison sentence. Apart from what the scandal would do to our families, they don’t treat our kind very well behind bars.’

  ‘I didn’t realise, Wyn. I’m sorry …’

  ‘So am I. You’ve managed to spread your fish and chips all over me, and I can’t even see to scrape it up.’

  ‘You’ve got a torch?’

  ‘Front pocket. Make sure you hold the tissue paper over the lens.’

  It took five minutes to return all of Diana’s fish and chips to the newspaper. She used the time to regain control of her emotions. Wyn had made her realise just how selfish she was being. She wasn’t the only one with problems. Her mother couldn’t be finding the adjustment to freedom easy after years of harsh, regimented life in prison. William was leaving Pontypridd to go heavens only knew where, and having to abandon Tina. Wyn was living on a knife-edge of respectability, an edge he could tumble from at any moment. Her mother, Tina, Will, Wyn – they all had reason to be as miserable as her. Maybe she could help them if she stopped wallowing in her own misery.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you as much as I did about my friend.’ As soon as their meals were back on their laps Wyn switched off his torch.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘It’s not that. You’ve enough worries of your own without listening to mine. I don’t even know why I told you. I’ve never talked like this before to anyone who wasn’t … like me, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She gazed at his silhouette outlined against the half-moon. ‘I’d be happy to listen to your problems, any time. I can’t help, but after all you’ve done for me it would be nice to be able to do some small thing in return, if only listen.’

  ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Diana,’ he declared suddenly. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘You’d be all right. It’s me who would be broke and in the workhouse.’ She reached over and squeezed his hand. It was good to talk to and touch a man who would never want anything from her in return. Not in the sense that Tony and any other normal man would.

  ‘More jam roly-poly, William?’

  William shook his head as he scooped the last of the custard-coated roly-poly from his bowl. His stomach felt as though it was on the point of bursting, like a balloon pumped too full of air.

  ‘We’ve
all finished, Mama,’ Alfredo, the oldest and boldest of the younger Ronconis, ventured. ‘Please may we leave the table?’

  ‘And please may we listen to the radio?’ Theresa asked.

  ‘Not until the table’s cleared and the dishes washed,’ Mr Ronconi decreed.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, William?’ Mrs Ronconi asked.

  William shook his head again, not trusting himself to open his mouth in case he burped.

  ‘You can bring a pot into the parlour for us, Mama.’ Mr Ronconi rose from the table and felt in his pockets for his pipe. ‘It’s time William and I had a smoke.’

  ‘Thank you very much for the meal,’ William said politely as he eased himself out of his chair.

  ‘Come along, young man.’

  William looked helplessly after Tina, who had bolted through the wash-house door with a pile of dishes. Feeling like a sacrificial lamb, he followed Mr Ronconi from the passage into the front parlour.

  The room looked and smelt differently from any he had been in before. He sensed that he had stepped not only into another culture, but into Italy itself. The pictures on the wall were a mixture of turn-of-the-century sepia tinted photographs and highly-coloured landscapes captured in vivid primary colours and shades of light that spoke of warmer summers than Pontypridd with its damp, cool climate would ever know. As he studied them, his cousin Maud’s letters came to mind and he realised that the pictures had been hung to remind the Ronconis of the sunny land they had left behind.

  The furniture was highly polished mahogany of a quality found in any comparatively well-heeled Pontypridd home, but the ornaments and china were not. Standing on the round table that dominated the centre of the room was a plaster cast Madonna, dressed in a gown that matched the brilliant blue sky in the paintings on the walls. She was holding a plump toddler wearing a sleepy, contented expression that reminded William of Brian. There were framed texts on the wall in Italian that he couldn’t read, and a large glass case that held many photographs of small black haired girls and boys with enormous rounded dark eyes. The boys were dressed in sober suits with white shirts and ties, the girls in multi-layered, white lace communion dresses. He thought he recognised a diminutive Tina amongst them, but he couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Sit down.’ Mr Ronconi offered him a seat opposite his, next to the fire that flamed high, but which the temperature in the room suggested had been lit only a short time before.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Cigarette?’ William sat forward to offer Mr Ronconi his packet. The older man set his pipe on the mantelpiece and took one. Rolling it between his fingers he sniffed at the tobacco as though he disapproved of the brand.

  ‘Tina said you wanted to speak to me?’ Mr Ronconi moved on abruptly from polite preliminaries.

  Glad to be finally confronted by what he had come to do, William nodded before lighting Mr Ronconi’s cigarette then his own.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He leaned back in the chair and desperately tried to look at ease. ‘I’d like to get engaged to Tina.’

  ‘So she tells me.’

  William shifted uneasily on his seat, uncertain whether Mr Ronconi expected him to continue or not. The seconds ticked on into a full minute that he counted off on the mantel clock.

  ‘I overheard Tina telling her mother that you’ve bought her a ring.’

  ‘Tina saw one she liked in Cardiff. An old one.’ ‘Old’ sounded better than second-hand, and not as pretentious as antique. ‘I was afraid it would be sold if I didn’t get it for her there and then.’

  ‘You could have put a deposit on it.’

  ‘It might have been sold by mistake, and if someone else had bought it we might never have found another that Tina liked as much …’ William’s voice trailed away. He was conscious of gabbling about trivia.

  ‘Sure of yourself, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not at all, sir.’

  ‘Tell me then, what are you going to do with the ring if I don’t give Tina permission to get engaged to you?’

  ‘Give her the ring as a present. It doesn’t have to be worn on the third finger of her left hand.’

  ‘And if I refuse to allow her to see you again?’

  ‘I’ll live in hope that you change your mind before the war is over.’

  ‘So, you intend to wait until the war is over before marrying my daughter?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘That will give you plenty of time to take instruction. You do intend to convert to the one true faith?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Catholicism, sir? I haven’t given it much thought.’

  ‘I’ve had one son married in a heathen Church. I’m not about to allow a second child of mine to make the same mistake.’

  ‘As you say sir, I’ve plenty of time to take instruction,’ William echoed, feeling that conversion was a small price to pay for Tina.

  Mr Ronconi puffed on his cigarette without making any further comment.

  ‘I know everything’s unsettled at the moment, sir, but that’s why Tina and I want to get engaged, so we both have something to look forward to at the end of the war.’ He looked expectantly at Mr Ronconi and when no reply was forthcoming, he said the first thing that came into his head. ‘If Charlie’s shops are still open at the end of the war, he’ll give me my old job back …’

  ‘And if they’re not?’ Mr Ronconi broke in swiftly.

  ‘I’ll go back down the pit.’ William concealed one hand beneath the other and crossed his fingers. A pithead was one place he was certain he never wanted to see again from the bottom of a shaft. ‘I earn good money now,’ he insisted, anxious to prove himself a dependable prospect. ‘And I’ve saved some. More than enough to buy furniture and set up a home.’

  ‘Tina has some money of her own too.’ The old man glowered at him as though he suspected William of having designs on it.

  ‘She told me, sir, but I think it’s a husband’s place to support his wife.’

  ‘Do you, now?’

  ‘It’s not as though we’re too young to know what we’re doing. We’re both over twenty-one –’

  ‘Only just,’ Mr Ronconi snapped.

  ‘I promise you, sir, I’ll do everything in my power to make Tina happy.’

  ‘You could start by getting killed.’

  ‘Pardon?’ William blinked, uncertain whether Mr Ronconi was joking, or not.

  ‘You’ve joined up. Soldiers get killed.’

  ‘Not me,’ William protested indignantly.

  ‘That’s just what Tony and Angelo are saying. It makes me wonder if you boys know what you’ve got yourselves into.’

  ‘We’ll take care of one another.’ Anxious to get back to the topic of Tina, William risked pushing his case again. ‘Sir, about Tina and me …’

  ‘As she insists she can’t live without you, I suppose I’d better let you get engaged.’

  ‘Thank you very much, sir.’

  ‘We’ll have a party in the Taff Street café on Sunday. It can be a goodbye party for the boys as well.’

  ‘That’s very generous, sir, thank you,’ William enthused, scarcely daring to believe he’d met with so little opposition.

  ‘Don’t thank me too much; a lot can happen in a war, boy.’

  ‘I hope you’re not banking on me not coming back?’ William smiled anxiously.

  ‘I might be, and then again, with all the hotheads out of the way, the steady fellows who think and test the water before they jump in with both feet will be left with a clear field. Your going away will give Tina time to reflect, and who knows –’ Mr Ronconi tossed the end of the cigarette into the fire and reached up for his pipe – ‘she may do better for herself yet. Particularly as you won’t be around to interfere.’

  ‘Time to take you home.’ Wyn screwed the paper that had been wrapped around the fish and chips into a ball and flicked it into the back of the van.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go?’

  ‘I’m fed up with pitying glances and silenc
es whenever I walk into a room.’

  ‘Once Tony has gone it’ll soon be forgotten.’

  ‘By everyone except me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m the one who should apologise. I’m turning into a right Minnie moaner. You deserve a medal, and not just for buying me supper.’

  He started the engine and inched back to where he thought the road might be, eventually picking it up from the markings the council had painted down the middle of all the roads when the blackout regulations had been enforced. Peering through the windscreen at the faint glow that escaped the cardboard hood over the single headlamp, he followed the line down the hill, over the new bridge that flanked the arched old bridge that had become Pontypridd’s landmark, and up Taff Street. As he drew alongside the New Inn a policeman stepped in front of the van. Wyn slammed on the brakes and Diana was thrown forward, banging her head against the windscreen.

  ‘Bloody fool,’ Wyn shouted angrily. ‘You all right?’ he asked Diana anxiously, ignoring the constable who was hammering on the door.

  ‘I think so,’ Diana replied in a dazed voice.

  Wyn wrenched down his window. ‘You could have killed her,’ he shouted furiously.

  ‘Her?’ The policeman shone a torch inside the car.

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘Diana, Diana Powell,’ she answered faintly.

  ‘I hope you had a good reason to stop us?’ Wyn demanded indignantly, knowing full well why the rookie had picked on his van. The arrogant young constable had taken exception to him one night when they’d both been training in the gym and hadn’t missed an opportunity to harass and belittle him since.

  ‘I thought you were showing too much light.’

  ‘I had the covers checked in the garage on Broadway. If there’s anything wrong I’ll go back to them.’

  ‘No, now that you’ve stopped I can see they’re fine.’

  ‘Problems?’

  Diana recognised the deep baritone of the oldest constable in Pontypridd, her mother’s brother, Huw.