‘Does it work?’
‘Not often,’ Trevor replied brutally, his tongue loosened by brandy. ‘But then, she hasn’t much chance anyway.’ There was a peculiar expression on Ronnie’s face that Trevor couldn’t quite fathom. ‘I know Maud’s the same age as Gina, and that must cut deep, but the chances of anyone surviving tuberculosis as bad as she has it aren’t good,’ he murmured.
‘Then it’s not simply a question of money?’
Trevor was touched. Most people in Pontypridd looked only as far as the well-stocked shelves in the Italian-owned and run cafés, and the food that came out of the kitchens, and assumed that all the owners were millionaires. They didn’t realise just how small the profit margins were, or see the coal and electricity bills that had to be paid in order to keep the places warm and open all hours just to serve a cold bus driver and conductor a cup of tea at a thumping great loss. What little money the Ronconis had made they’d earned the hard way, and there were a lot of them to lay claim to it.
‘No, Ronnie,’ he said quietly, ‘it’s not simply a question of money, at least not the kind of money you’d find in this town.’
‘Explain that.’ Ronnie reached for the brandy again, pouring it out with an unsteady hand.
‘If she was the daughter of a rich man, a very rich man,’ Trevor qualified, ‘there are clinics in Switzerland, set high in the mountains. Fresh air, good diet centred around dairy foods might do the trick, and then again it might not. You could spend hundreds if not thousands of pounds looking for a cure for Maud Powell and still not find one.’
Ronnie stared at him. ‘How long do you think she’s got?’
‘If it doesn’t get any colder, and we get a good, early spring and a warm summer, she might live through this winter and see the next,’ he predicted harshly. ‘But I don’t believe she’ll see more than one more spring in. It’s a pity,’ he continued, unnerved by Ronnie’s silence. ‘She’s a pretty little thing, or she would be if she wasn’t ill. Her spirit and character remind me a lot of Bethan. Not her looks, of course, they couldn’t be more unalike.’
He lifted the bottle of brandy. It was empty. Ronnie took it from his hand and carried it out to the back. Trevor heard it smash as Ronnie threw it into the ash bin.
‘I’ll go down the café, hand over the keys to Tony, pick up another bottle and drop it in on the way back,’ Ronnie said.
‘How about we open that one too?’ Trevor suggested.
‘Developed a taste for it?’
‘Sometimes, just sometimes I hate my job!’ Trevor exclaimed savagely. ‘Every time I come across someone in Maud’s state I feel so bloody, pathetically useless,’ he explained in answer to Ronnie’s enquiring look.
‘You and me both, mate. You and me both,’ Ronnie replied as he walked unsteadily through the door.
Diana stood washed, hair pristinely waved and combed, and as neatly dressed as the combined contents of her own and Maud’s wardrobes would allow, on the doorstep of Springer’s shoe shop at precisely ten minutes to seven on Monday morning. Terrified of being late, she’d run the last two hundred yards down Taff Street. She felt breathless and, for all her show of bravado in front of the boys in Graig Avenue earlier that morning, apprehensive.
She tugged down the old school skirt that had been made when her figure was straighter and skinnier, removed the home-knitted, grey woollen glove from her right hand, and slipped her numb and frozen fingers beneath her coat. She pulled the edges of Maud’s white cotton blouse together, hoping it had somehow miraculously stretched since she had last looked at it in Maud’s dressing table mirror. It gaped a good half-inch across her bust, straining the buttonholes to their utmost. There was no getting away from the fact: Maud was at least four inches narrower across the chest than her, if not more. Perhaps if she stitched the plackets together it wouldn’t gape. On the other hand it might be better if she went to the post office and broke into the five pounds she’d saved. She’d get a good white blouse for half a crown in Leslie’s, only then she wouldn’t have five pounds any more, she’d have four pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence. And once she went down that road it would be easier to draw money out the next time she needed it – and the next; and before she knew it the five pounds would be four pounds, or even less.
It was simple to break into savings, and an uphill struggle to replace them when you were earning reasonable money. Impossible on the pittance that Mr Springer was paying her. The five pounds was all the cushion she had against having to take live-in domestic work. It was enough money to keep her for ten weeks or more, and it could take that, or even longer, to find another job in Pontypridd if she lost this one. A new blouse would have to wait until Ronnie found her some part-time work. She’d sew up the placket on this one tonight. That would stop Ben Springer ogling her the way he had last Saturday.
The clock struck seven and still she waited in the cold, dark, inadequate shelter of Springer’s doorway. At least the rain had stopped, although a keen wind blew, freezing her ankles even through her thick lisle stockings. Heads down, coats buttoned to their chins, shop workers scurried around her. Shop doorways opened and closed, lights flickered on above counters. Gwilym Evans’ display windows grew brighter as the shop lights went on behind them. A brewer’s dray thundered down the street, pulling back sharply as a tram raced forward. She stamped her feet and swung her arms. Her coat still felt damp from the drenching it had got when she’d walked down the Graig hill to the café yesterday afternoon. She’d hung it in the passage overnight, but as the passage was never heated it was hardly surprising that it hadn’t dried out. But then, that was where the boys had hung theirs. Aunt Elizabeth might be a great believer in ‘airing’ but she obviously wasn’t a believer in drying wet coats, especially those belonging to lodgers.
‘Glad to see you on time.’ Ben Springer walked up to the door as the clock on St Catherine’s church spire struck a quarter-past seven, and just as the final vestiges of feeling were leaving Diana’s lips and nose.
‘Good morning, Mr Springer,’ she mumbled politely through chattering teeth.
‘I’d prefer “sir” if you don’t mind, Diana,’ he corrected her curtly. Unlocking the door, be preceded her into the shop and switched on the lights. ‘Hang your coat in the back, then you can start by picking up and putting away any stock that’s lying around. I’ll tell you where. Every box has its allotted place in this shop and it has to go there. If it doesn’t, we’ll soon be in a pretty pickle, ordering stock when it’s not needed, and running short of good selling lines. As soon as the general tidying’s done, I want every surface in the shop dusted and polished until you can see your face in them. You’ll find beeswax and dusters in the stockroom. When you’ve finished the polishing, you can do the floor. Well what are you waiting for, girl? Move!’
The stockroom door was in the centre of the back wall of the shop.
‘Light to the left of the door,’ he shouted as she went in.
She found the switch without any trouble. The room was really a narrow cupboard, running the entire length of the shop. It was about fourteen feet wide, but no more than five feet deep. Shoe boxes were stacked on foot-wide shelves from floor to ceiling. Bewildered by the vast array of boxes, she blinked dully, then after a few moments realised that the narrow wall on her far right sported a few hooks and two shelves that held cleaning materials and shoe polish. There was also a stiff broom, propped head upright in the corner.
‘What are you doing, girl?’ Ben appeared alongside her in the cramped doorway. ‘Come on, we haven’t got all day. Coat off, make a start.’ She took her coat off reluctantly, walked deep into the cupboard and hung it on one of the pegs.
‘Turn round,’ he barked. ‘Let’s see if you’ll do.’ She did as he asked. ‘Your shoes could be cleaner,’ he commented, studying the shabby navy lace-ups that she’d cleaned that morning.
‘I’m afraid there were a lot of puddles on the hill this morning after the rain, Mr Springer.’
/> ‘I would have thought it might have been possible for you to avoid at least some of them. There’s a rag, brushes and shoe cream behind the furniture polish, you’d better use it. But in future you’ll have to bring clean shoes with you. The one thing I will not abide in this shop is an assistant wearing dirty, shabby shoes.’
‘I only have the one pair,’ Diana confessed.
‘In that case I’ll have to give you a pair,’ he said irritably, rummaging through the boxes. ‘But I won’t allow you to take them out of the shop until they’re paid for.’
‘I don’t have the money –’
‘And I just told you that I can’t have an assistant in this shop with shabby shoes. Wear those in here and there’ll be no point in you cleaning the place. You’ll be tramping mud all over everything. Leave them with your coat.’
She slipped her shoes off obediently and stood them neatly beneath her coat. When she turned, Ben was watching her. He held out a pair of sturdy black lace-ups. Strong, unattractive walking shoes of the ilk that Diana instinctively knew Elizabeth would approve of, and Ben would have trouble selling.
‘Try these,’ he barked. Facing him, she crouched down so she wouldn’t expose any length of leg, slipped them on, and tied the laces. Unfortunately they fitted perfectly.
‘They’ll do.’ He peered at the side of the box. ‘Twenty-one shillings ...’
‘I haven’t any money, Mr Springer.’
‘Seeing as how you need them to work here, I’ll sell them to you for eighteen.’
‘I can’t afford that,’ she protested.
‘Course you can, girl. Sixpence a week.’
Diana’s heart sank to her boots. With her wages knocked down to five shillings and sixpence a week, she’d only have one and sixpence for herself. And knowing her aunt, she’d have to buy all her own soap, for washing her clothes as well as herself. By the time she bought bread for her lunch out of what was left over she wouldn’t be able to afford a Sunday cup of tea in Ronnie’s, let alone a weekly visit to the pictures.
‘Now let me see,’ Ben pondered slow-wittedly. ‘That’s sixpence a week for thirty-six weeks. I’ll just make out a card.’ He reached past her to where a stack of ‘tally’ cards was piled up and as he did so his hand brushed against her breast. She moved back quickly, unsure whether his touch was calculated or inadvertent.
‘Well now that I’ve provided you with shoes, you’ve no excuse to dally,’ he said, apparently unaware of her unease. ‘Come on, get a move on. There’s an apron next to the polish, you’d better make sure you keep your skirt clean.’
‘Yes, Mr Springer.’
‘I told you “sir” once. I’ll not remind you again.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She picked up the polish and a rag and left the stockroom for the front of the shop. She wasn’t sorry to move. She’d felt extremely uneasy, confined in such a small space with Ben Springer.
By half-past seven she’d polished every inch of dark oak wood that was on view. Her arm ached, and her fingers were bright red from the effort it had taken to keep a grip on the slimy rag. She paused for a moment, standing back to admire the long run of gleaming counter and dust-free edges of the shelves. Ben had even made her polish the two wooden shoe fitting stands.
‘The carpet now,’ he barked from the stool where he was counting change into the till, ‘and tomorrow you’d better work a lot faster. The till should be Brassoed every morning, but there’s no time for you to do it now.’
She was sweeping the last of the dust into a cracked and warped metal pan when the door opened and the first customer of the day walked in.
‘So this is what you’ve hired, Ben Springer?’ An extremely large lady dressed in a navy cape coat, which lay unflatteringly tight over her thick arms and wide shoulders, towered above Diana. Diana’s eyes were on a level with the woman’s ankles. Wreathed in rolls of flabby fat, they spilled over the top of her elaborately decorated, expensive leather court shoes. ‘Well, stand up, girl; let’s take a look at you!’
Diana rose slowly to her feet. The woman’s face was puffy, swollen by layers of fat that matched those on her ankles. Her small, greedy eyes darted unnervingly in deep sockets set beneath a low forehead, crowned by a navy felt Tyrolean hat held in place with two enormous, pearl-headed pins.
‘Do you think she’ll do, Beatrice?’ To Diana’s amazement her employer was suddenly transformed from shop owner, manager and bully to servile lackey.
‘I hope you ascertained that before you took her on.’
‘It’s not easy to find good help these days.’
‘As we’ve found out to our cost,’ Mrs Springer pronounced heavily. It was obvious from the curl of Beatrice Springer’s lower lip that Diana did not meet with her approval, but she was totally unprepared for her next question.
‘Is that rouge I see on your lips and cheeks, girl?’
‘No, Mrs Springer,’ Diana faltered, wondering if she should address her as ma’am, as she’d been taught to address the senior female staff in the Infirmary.
‘Hmm. Naturally florid complexion then.’ Beatrice Springer made it sound like a disease. ‘Turn around, girl.’
Feeling intimidated and humiliated, Diana did as Beatrice commanded.
‘Your blouse is tight.’
‘I’ve put on weight lately,’ Diana lied.
‘Comes of being unemployed and idle. Tell me – the truth, mind – when was the last full day of work that you put in?’
‘Last Friday,’ Diana protested spiritedly. ‘I’ve only just left the Infirmary in Cardiff. I was working as a ward maid –’
‘You don’t have to tell me any more,’ Mrs Springer cut her short. ‘When my husband told me that he’d taken on a new girl, I made it my business to find out all I could about you. Diana Powell, isn’t it? From Leyshon Street?’
‘I live with my uncle and aunt now in Graig Avenue.’
‘And I know why.’ She glared at Diana. ‘Take after your mother?’
Diana felt silent. Experience had taught her that it was the best thing to do whenever anyone brought up the subject of her mother.
‘Just as long as you know that I’ll be watching you.’ Mrs Springer crossed her stubby arms across her ample bosom. ‘And to let you know that we – that’s both me and Mr Springer – will be a great deal more fussy about someone who works for us than a supervisor in an Infirmary who hasn’t got their own place and their own trade to worry about. So before you do anything else, I suggest you sweep out the shop again. There’s dust in the corners. Mr Springer, being a man, may not always notice sloppy, half-hearted cleaning, but I warn you I always do.’
‘Yes, Mrs Springer. Diana sank to her knees again, wondering if there was a chance that Ronnie would open his restaurant before she answered either of the Springers back. Or if she’d soon find herself unemployed again.
Chapter Eleven
‘Hey listen to this, Haydn, Maud,’ Eddie held up the copy of the Pontypridd Observer that he had found folded behind the cushion of Evan’s chair and read out:
‘“Do the general public realise the skill, patience and practice necessary to perfect an act like that presented by Mr Willi Pantzer and his wonderful troupe of performing midgets at the New Town Hall, Pontypridd next week? We think not. Willi Pantzer is a lifelong vaudeville artist, he and his little men have been together many years, and his search for midgets is never ending.” What do you think, Haydn? Worth shrinking for, eh? He may even offer you a contract,’ Eddie mocked.
Haydn had burned in a fever of ambition ever since he had turned down Ambrose’s offer to join his revue, and Jenny’s absence from his life hadn’t helped one bit. He’d bored William, Eddie, Maud and Diana to screaming pitch with extrapolations of ‘might have beens’ until Eddie was ready to seize any opportunity to get his own back.
‘Don’t be cruel, Eddie,’ Maud said primly from the depths of her mother’s chair. Her bedroom and the easy chairs in the kitchen still encompassed her entire world. But lik
e wishful children, her family clung to the entirely irrational hope that the excitement of Christmas, followed by a warm spring, would bring a visible improvement to her health.
‘I’m not being cruel,’ Eddie insisted, a mischievous glint in his eyes. ‘Who knows where an opportunity like this could lead?’ He rustled the paper ostentatiously and continued to read. ‘“His present company includes midgets of all nationalities,” – there’s your big chance now, Haydn,’ he suggested gravely. ‘He may not have a Welsh one.’
Haydn picked up the cat that was sleeping peacefully on one of the wooden chairs and threw it at him.
‘Haydn, you’ll hurt it!’ Maud protested, as the cat sank its claws into Eddie’s trouser legs and scrammed him.
‘Ow!’ Eddie screeched, as the cat fled. Undeterred, he carried on reading. ‘“A great little artiste is Willi Pantzer. He creates most of the comedy and enacts the role of Jack Dempsey in the boxing ring” – Hey do you think you could put a word in for me? This could be the start of a whole new career.’
‘Only if you allow me to chop your legs off,’ Haydn said viciously, furious with Eddie for daring to joke about feelings that were painfully tender.
‘I’m sorry for getting your hopes up, Haydn; they wouldn’t want you after all. Listen to this: “Willi Pantzer’s troupe are all modest, genial little fellows.” That leaves all bad-tempered growly bears like you out. “Mr Willi Pantzer is an athlete, boxer and wrestler and in addition he models in papier mâché, wonderful little dolls he uses in the Pantzer Trot.” What do you say Will? Worth going to see, just for the dolls?’
‘Eddie if you don’t shut up, I’ll shut you up,’ Maud threatened as a thunderous look crossed Haydn’s face.
They all fell silent. None of the boys smiled at her ridiculous outburst. Maud’s ill-health hung, a dark and gloomy portent of the inevitability of death, over the entire household.
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