Pontypridd 05 - Such Sweet Sorrow

by Catrin Collier

  ‘I think that’s why she’s asked. He’s been a lot quieter and easier to manage since last Sunday.’

  ‘You should tell him it’s going nowhere between us, Wyn.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth.’

  ‘I’m not so sure it is going nowhere between us, Diana,’ he countered quietly.

  ‘Come on …’

  ‘No, listen. I’ve been thinking. We get on incredibly well. You’ve already said you like me. Why shouldn’t we set up something more permanent than a business arrangement?’

  ‘A business arrangement suits me fine,’ she answered swiftly.

  ‘What I’m trying to say, and very badly, is that I trust you totally, Diana. And not only with the day-to-day running of the business. You’re very special. I’m fond of you and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather live with …’

  Doors banged upstairs and down in the theatre, and noise flooded the corridors as the audience spilled out into the foyer. ‘ … so why shouldn’t we get married,’ he blurted out abruptly.

  ‘You know why,’ she whispered, turning away from him.

  ‘Marriage to someone like me would be very different to marriage to Tony.’

  ‘Wyn …’

  ‘Please, just think about it.’

  ‘You sure you’re not asking me to marry you because your father’s threatening to cut you out of his will if you don’t silence the gossips by finding a wife?’ she challenged.

  ‘That is the one thing I am sure of. If anything happened to my father, Myrtle would hand over half of his estate whether I wanted it or not. I know my sister, she’d never be able to live with herself if she did otherwise. But to be honest, as far as I’m concerned she’s welcome to the shops. My mother had her own money and she left it in equal shares between Myrtle and me. It’s not a fortune, but it’s enough to set me up in a business of my own if ever I’ve a mind to try.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you done so?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t bring myself to leave Myrtle to cope on her own. My father’s difficult, but he is still my father, and Myrtle deserves a better life than the one he’s been giving her of late.’

  ‘Marrying me wouldn’t solve Myrtle’s problems, or yours.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to marry me to solve my problems, but because I thought we might be able to make one another happier than we are now. It doesn’t take much to see that you’re as miserable as sin, and with good reason, and I can’t bear the thought of carrying on the way I am now for the rest of my life. Always having to look over my shoulder, always having to be careful who I talk to in case it’s a policeman out to book me. I’m lonely, Diana. I’d like a home of my own, to live with someone I can talk to, someone I care for …’

  ‘While having someone to go out with like that boy you told me about?’

  ‘Not if we were married. There are other things in life besides sex,’ he argued with an honesty that startled Diana. ‘I’d try to be content with what we had. We’re good friends …’

  ‘There’s a world of difference between being good friends and living with someone.’

  ‘It was just a thought,’ he murmured apologetically, rebuffed by her refusal to even consider the idea.

  ‘And a sweet one. Thank you,’ she said firmly, wanting to put an end to the conversation.

  ‘You’ll think about it?’ He found it difficult to give up, even now.

  ‘It wouldn’t work, Wyn.’ She tried to deflate the fairy-tale world he’d dreamed up as gently as she could.

  ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’

  She pushed the last pile of coppers into a small paper bag and dropped it into the large canvas bag he was holding. ‘But I’d still like to be friends, good friends. And I’ll stand you a tea at Ronconi’s so you can meet our new lodgers.’

  ‘The conscientious objectors?’ he asked, accepting her change of subject – for the present.

  ‘You’ve heard?’

  ‘No one can sneeze in Pontypridd without your uncle knowing, and he was in here earlier buying his ration of pear drops.’

  ‘Good old Uncle Huw.’ She opened the door in the side of the kiosk as he pocketed the bag. The crowds had gone, the foyer was in darkness.

  ‘I’ll never get used to this absolute blackout,’ she said as he joined her on the step.

  ‘You will. It’s going to be here for some time.’

  ‘You think the war’s going to last more than a few months, too?’

  ‘I wish I could say otherwise.’ He turned up his collar and tucked the ends of his white scarf inside his coat.

  ‘Haven’t you read your blackout advice? You should leave those dangling, and pull your shirt tail out of your trousers.’

  ‘There’s no point when I’m wearing an overcoat.’ He led the way up to the crossroads on the Tumble. The sound of a man and woman arguing floated across from Station Yard.

  ‘Streetwalkers are hard at it tonight.’

  ‘I didn’t know young ladies knew such words.’

  ‘Who said I’m a young lady?’ Stepping off the pavement she walked confidently into the middle of the road.

  ‘Diana!’

  She froze at his cry. Turning her head she looked back, but all was pitch darkness. Something large and heavy bowled into her. She fell on to the road, hitting the crown of her head painfully on the kerb. A heavy weight pressed her on to the tarmac. The soft purr of an engine was close, too close. She could smell the petrol, see the outline of the single headlamp almost, but not quite, obliterated by the cardboard hood. She screamed as the white lines painted on the running boards loomed above her; there was a nauseating crunch that she knew – simply knew – was wheels crushing bone. The screech of brakes drowned out her cry. Then a terrible silence settled over the Tumble, broken seconds later by the reverberation of feet running towards her.

  ‘You all right?’ She recognised the voice of the manager of the New Theatre. A circle of torchlight shone down into her face. In a ridiculous moment of clarity she noticed that the lens wasn’t covered with tissue paper.

  ‘I think so,’ she stammered uncertainly.

  ‘Just lie still while I get help.’

  ‘But I’m all right.’ She moved her right leg gingerly, then her left. Apart from whatever was on top of them, they seemed fine.

  ‘You might be, Miss Powell, but the poor devil with you isn’t.’

  More running feet thundered over the pavement.

  ‘I saw it. I saw it all. He was speeding recklessly, at least thirty miles an hour, and everyone knows the limit’s twenty in the blackout.’ A man pushed his way to the front of the rapidly thickening crowd.

  ‘Go into the theatre,’ the manager ordered briskly, ‘and telephone for a doctor before this fellow bleeds to death.’

  A car door slammed and another torch shone down on them, this time covered with tissue paper.

  ‘It’s Wyn Rees,’ Dai spat out the name contemptuously. ‘I bet that’s the first time he’s been on top of a woman.’

  ‘We’ll have less of that,’ the manager said firmly.

  ‘But he ran out in front of me without warning. Everyone must have seen it. I didn’t stand a chance …’ Anthea Llewellyn-Jones, the bank manager’s daughter, appealed to the shadowy figures behind the torchlights.

  ‘I saw you speeding, girl. Just who in hell do you ARPs think you are? Requisitioning cars for your bloody war games and killing innocent pedestrians.’ The man was shouting at Anthea, but it was Dai who answered.

  ‘Trying to save the country and your bloody neck.’

  ‘Trying to add to your own self-importance, more like. When have either of you two ever driven a car before?’

  ‘All of you. Quiet!’ the manager ordered sternly. ‘There’s a badly injured man here.’

  The shock of what had happened finally sank in. Diana tried to sit up. It was only then she realised what the weight on her legs was. ‘Wyn …’ she murmured weakly. ‘Wyn …’ />
  ‘Please, Miss Powell, try to stay still for both your sakes.’ The manager was rolling Wyn gently away from her. ‘The doctor will be here soon and then we’ll get you both into hospital.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Harry Griffiths left the Queen’s early. George Collins was on a winning streak, and after he’d counted up his losses halfway through the evening and found they amounted to more than a pound, he threw in his cards and settled for half an hour of serious drinking.

  All he could think about was seeing Megan again. There were so many things he wanted out of life: Megan; his wife out of his house; Eddie to start writing to Jenny; and above all happiness for everyone he cared for, principally Megan. And he couldn’t see his way clear to achieving any of them.

  When he’d been young and penniless, he’d assumed money to be the panacea for all ills. Now, with the pits reopening and most of his customers settling their ‘tabs’ on a weekly rather than ‘catch can’ basis, the shop was doing better than it had done since his grandfather had set it up. And with luck, the reserves he was building would enable him to hold out through any damaging influences the war and rationing might have. But he had learned a long time ago that happiness depended on a lot more than a successful business or a bank account in credit. His shop was as secure as any in Pontypridd, he had a little money, and he was wretched; and what was worse, he had no one to blame for his misery other than himself.

  He should have sent his wife packing years ago. The morning after his wedding, if he’d had any sense. Why hadn’t he?

  The more he considered the question, the more an answer eluded him. It hadn’t been the advent of Jenny that had kept them together. His wife had been so appallingly ignorant she hadn’t even realised Jenny was on the way until she had been almost six months gone. Then what? No other woman to love until he had noticed Megan Powell? And Megan’s insistence, even after he’d taken to visiting her house three or four evenings a week, that she didn’t want a permanent relationship at the cost of breaking up his marriage?

  He pushed his hands deeper into his pocket and carried on walking up Taff Street, seeking solutions to problems that were insoluble. He had to see Megan. It was no longer a wish, but a burning need, well worth risking Evan’s wrath and being thrown off his doorstep. He wondered if all that nonsense about sleeping with his wife had frightened her enough to grant him a divorce. The only thing he had enjoyed about the ridiculous scene between them that morning had been her mortification when she had realised he was staring at her corset. The thought of sharing a bed with her after all these years repulsed him, probably as much as the thought of rolling over to make room for him, did her.

  It was still comparatively early, no more than a quarter-past ten if the clock in the Queen’s had been right. He would walk past the shop, carry on up the hill, confront Megan and tell her once and for all that no matter what, he intended to spend the rest of his life with her.

  He heard the sound of women sobbing up ahead against a background of raised voices, saw flashes of torchlight, an unheard-of infringement of lighting regulations.

  ‘Who’s that?’ The torch shone full in his face, blinding him.

  ‘Harry Griffiths,’ he answered, recognising Huw Davies’s voice. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Wyn Rees and Diana Powell have just been run over.’

  ‘By a van that was doing over thirty, when regulations limit traffic to twenty miles an hour in the blackout. Dai Station was in it …’

  ‘Shut up,’ Huw interposed swiftly. ‘We could do with a hand, Harry.’

  Harry stepped forward and saw Tina and Gina sitting either side of Diana on the kerb and Andrew John stooping over a figure laid out on the ground. Behind him Anthea Llewellyn-Jones was crying on Dai Station’s shoulder.

  ‘He can’t afford to wait for an ambulance. Constable Davies?’ Andrew rose to his feet and looked for Huw. Both Huw and the manager of the New Theatre stepped forward.

  ‘I’m carrying some splints and strapping, but not enough for injuries as extensive as these, and I dare not risk moving him until both legs are immobilised. Do you have any spare wood that I can use in the theatre?’

  ‘The shutter over the booking office is four feet long.’ The manager was already halfway to the foyer door.

  ‘Get it, and something to cut it up with, please. Constable, help the girls move Diana into the front seat of my car, she’s going to have to go to the hospital too.’

  ‘What about me?’ Anthea wailed. ‘I feel awful. I think I’m going to faint…’

  ‘Put her down before she falls down,’ Andrew ordered Dai brusquely.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Diana protested in a voice that was anything but, as the girls helped her to her feet.

  ‘Just do as you’re told, there’s a good girl,’ Andrew commanded.

  ‘I feel awful, Andrew,’ Andrea cried, imposing on an old courtship and a friendship between their respective parents.

  ‘Go home and take two aspirin.’

  ‘Here’s the board, and the fire axe.’ The manager rushed back carrying both.

  ‘Right, Harry over here. Need anyone else, Andrew?’ Huw asked.

  ‘We should manage it between the three of us.’

  Harry stepped closer, and blanched. Andrew had placed his torch on the road to throw the maximum light on to Wyn’s legs. Below Wyn’s knees both legs were bloodied and crushed. His trousers were torn, soaked in blood, and between the dark spreading stains Harry could see the white of splintered bones.

  ‘On the count of three,’ Andrew directed as soon as he had finished strapping Wyn’s legs to the rough boards Huw had chopped.

  They lifted Wyn slowly and carefully into the back of Andrew’s car. To his amazement Harry saw that Wyn’s eyes were open. He didn’t make a sound when they moved him, but his teeth showed white in the torchlight, and when he was finally propped on the back seat of Andrew’s car, blood ran from his lips where he had bitten through them.

  ‘I’ll go straight to the Cottage Hospital,’ Andrew looked to the theatre manager: ‘if you could telephone ahead and warn them I’m on my way, I’d be grateful. And tell them to get the operating theatre ready. I’ll need a scrub nurse and the X-ray machine, and you’d better ask them to call out my father. Diana’s going to need a check-up.’

  ‘Don’t worry about telling the families, I’ll see to it,’ Huw said. He closed the door gently on Wyn.

  ‘Be sure to tell Mam I’m fine,’ Diana called from inside the car.

  ‘And that she won’t be home until tomorrow,’ Andrew warned.

  ‘I’m going home, I could call in on the Powells, Huw,’ Harry volunteered.

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, and you’ll be busy with Wyn’s family. I’ve heard his father is in a bad way, and his sister already has a load on her shoulders without this.’

  ‘All right,’ Huw conceded, too preoccupied with the task in hand to think through the implications of Harry going to Evan’s house. ‘Perhaps you’ll take the boys up with you.’

  ‘I think we should walk Tina and Gina home, Constable Davies,’ Luke interrupted.

  ‘Good idea,’ Huw agreed, uncertain whether Tina and Gina were shocked or just appeared unnaturally pale in the torchlight.

  Andrew started his engine, and Huw pushed the crowds back. Harry didn’t wait to see them off. He had his chance and he intended to make the most of it. He had a valid excuse to see Megan, and he was going with her brother’s blessing.

  ‘Wyn’s legs looked a real mess. Do you think they’ll be able to save them?’

  ‘Wyn’s Diana’s boss, the one you were telling me about earlier?’ Alexander asked, neatly sidestepping Tina’s question as he followed her into the café.

  ‘Yes. The manager of the New Theatre said he pushed Diana out of the way of the van. God knows what the ARP wardens think they’re doing commandeering trucks and careering round town like that. They could have killed Diana and Wyn.’r />
  ‘Don’t you read the papers, love?’ a tram conductor asked as he waited patiently to pay his bill. ‘Accidents have rocketed since they brought in the lighting regulations.’

  ‘That particular accident happens to be my best friend …’ Tina began, before succumbing to tears and fumbling blindly for the kitchen door. Gina intercepted her and soon both girls were sobbing. Luke took the money from the tram conductor and put it in the till.

  ‘Girls!’ Alfredo exclaimed in disgust as he stuck his head around the door. ‘For all the good you’re doing you may as well go home.’

  ‘Not until the café’s closed.’ Tina made an effort to pull herself together.

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘You’re only twelve.’

  ‘And a boy, which makes me more sensible than either of you.’

  ‘We’ll all help,’ Luke offered. At that moment he would have walked on red hot coals if it meant he could stay with Gina for a little while longer.

  ‘Here’s the brush.’ Alfredo handed Alexander, who happened to be closest to him, a long-handled brush and pan. ‘You can start by sweeping under the tables.’

  As Alexander closed his hand over the handle, two blisters burst, soaking the wood with blood. He had a sudden longing for his cramped, dusty office in the museum; the quiet, if dull routine of academic life, and polite, deferential people who didn’t have the warped sense of humour of the working classes.

  ‘It’s good of you to call, Evan, seeing as how I’m under house arrest.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call confining you to your house at night, house arrest.’

  ‘No? Then what would you call it?’ Charlie turned off the light and opened the door wide to admit Evan.

  ‘The government being over-cautious about spies,’ Evan suggested mildly as he followed Charlie up the stairs and into his living room.

  ‘Did you come into town just to see me?’

  ‘I’ve just been to a lecture in the Institute on the Jewish situation in Nazi Germany.’

  ‘Is it any worse than the Russian situation in Wales?’

  ‘Everyone there agreed that the restrictions on people like you should be lifted.’