Pontypridd 02 - One Blue Moon

by Catrin Collier

  Eddie was aware only of the darkness – and Jenny. The light from the lamps on the main road didn’t reach as far as the shadows of Factory Lane. Their beams shafted short, over streaks of navy blue, rain filled night air, lending a faint glow to the back of Jenny’s head. Her blonde hair shone like a strip of gold between her high forehead and her umbrella. If it hadn’t been for the long belted mac she was wearing, she could have taken her place amongst the angels in the illustrated Life of Jesus that Maud had won as a school prize. The book he would never have willingly opened if his Uncle John Joseph hadn’t thrown it contemptuously across the room, deploring it as ‘Popish’. He figured that anything that annoyed his uncle had to be worth looking at.

  ‘Do you know, you’re really pretty,’ he said impulsively.

  ‘Thank you.’ It wasn’t up to Clark Gable standard, but she knew it was the nearest Eddie would get to uttering poetry, and the most she could expect. He couldn’t stop looking at her. Her eyes were round, enormous, like those of a frightened rabbit. He fought the urge to put his arms around her, forcing himself to remember, not for the first time that evening, that she had been, and might be again, his brother’s girlfriend. But even as he reminded himself, he continued to stare at her, admiring the way her nose tilted up at the end, the rounded softness of her cheeks, the inviting pout of her lips, soft, luscious – just begging to be kissed.

  Something of his thoughts must have transmitted themselves to her, because before he realised she’d moved, she was standing on tiptoe before him. Lifting her chin, she kissed him gently on the spot where his mouth ended and his cheek began. The smell of her scent wafted into his nostrils. The proximity of her smooth skinned, curvaceous body was too much – too tempting. He didn’t even wait to glance behind him to ensure no one was watching, before sweeping her into his muscular arms.

  Pulling her close, he kissed her hard and brutally on the lips. His bruising, insensitive touch took her breath away. Eddie had none of Haydn’s finesse, or gentleness. His tongue invaded her mouth, exploring, probing, as he clamped his hand on the nape of her neck. Alarmed as much by her own feelings as by what Eddie was doing to her, she struggled to draw back. All she’d intended when she’d met Eddie in Mill Street was to be seen with him in the hope of making Haydn jealous. Perhaps exchange a highly public, flirtatious giggle with him, or a little light banter. She’d never intended things to go this far! But then she hadn’t bargained on Eddie. He’d always been so quiet in the presence of girls, she’d put it down to shyness and inexperience, never suspecting such a passive exterior could conceal so much inner passion. Or how she’d feel if such a passion was unleashed on her.

  She shifted position slightly, creating a small gap between them. It was just wide enough for him to manoeuvre his other hand inside her coat. Drunk with kisses, she failed to notice what he was doing until she shivered involuntarily at the cold touch of his fingers against the bare skin of her breast. She clamped her hand firmly over his.

  ‘You mustn’t!’ she commanded weakly.

  ‘Sorry,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Got a bit carried away there.’

  ‘So I see.’ Too embarrassed to meet his eyes she straightened her blouse and buttoned her coat. ‘I always thought you spent all your time in the gym, Eddie Powell,’ she said primly, striving to regain her composure. ‘Wherever did you learn to kiss like that?’

  He smiled, remembering one golden drunken afternoon spent in the bushes of Pontypridd Park with a willing, if expensive, chorus girl.

  ‘Just because I don’t wear my girlfriends on my arm like a badge, it doesn’t mean I’ve never had any,’ he said archly.

  ‘I’d better be going.’ She reached for the latch on the high wooden door.

  He laid his fingers over hers and pressed down hard. The door opened inwards, and he followed her into the small back yard. It was even darker than in the lane. Black as pitch. The only relief was the faint jet gleam of glass outlining the position of the storeroom window.

  ‘Just one more kiss,’ he begged, pushing her until she was pinned against the house door and could retreat no further. His mouth closed over hers again. She felt as though he was sucking the breath from her body. His hand once more gravitated to the contours of her breast beneath her coat. He squeezed it once, before lifting her skirt and invading her bloomers. The door opened inwards into the stockroom; she didn’t know how, only that she reeled blindly backwards through it, gasping for air, her nerve ends tingling, too stunned and shocked to take in the enormity of what Eddie was doing to her.

  Her coat joined his on the floor. He lifted her pullover and with it her blouse and underclothes. She lay back on the boxes, where she had lain so many nights with Haydn, digging her fingernails into Eddie’s back as he caressed her breasts and nipples. His fingers were replaced by his lips as his hands delved into the soft, sensitive area between her thighs.

  He removed her bloomers and pulled her skirt to her waist but she was too far gone down the road of hunger and desire that he had aroused within her to protest. If they had been lying on the bandstand in Pontypridd Park, on view to the whole world, she wouldn’t have cared less. She was aware only of the sensations he engendered. The thrill, the excitement, of his lovemaking. The desires he had kindled. Of wanting him to touch her naked body. Again and again and again!

  He ran his hands up her sides from her thighs to her breasts and she tore her clothes off, over her head. She lay back on the boxes, stark naked before him, arms uplifted, legs spread wide, gratefully receiving the caresses and thrusts he bestowed on her, electric touches that obliterated everything, even thoughts of Haydn, from her mind.

  When it was over he did not linger long. She was aware of him moving swiftly away from her in the blackness, heard the whispers of cloth rustling, and knew that he was dressing. A cold draught blew across her exposed body, the latch slipped. She opened her eyes just in time to see his shadow disappearing out into the night. He didn’t even turn back to look at her. Didn’t say one single word – of endearment – of anything.

  An eternity passed during which she recalled Haydn’s tenderness, his gentle, sensuous touch, and his sweet, lingering kisses. He had always left her craving for more – much, much more. She’d always assumed that the ‘more’ would come with marriage.

  Eddie had left her feeling weak, battered and wasted, but to her horror she realised that Eddie had given her what her body had craved for, and never got from Haydn. Pure physical passion.

  But she loved Haydn. Didn’t she? Of course she did. She was sure of that much. But one thing was certain now: he wouldn’t want her. Not after this. She loved Haydn and had only wanted Eddie. Had wanted him enough to forget everything that Haydn had ever been to her.

  Only her ridiculous pride had prevented her from going to Haydn after that stupid quarrel. She had wanted to tell him she was sorry for precipitating the argument. She had longed for a chance to make it up to him. To make him forget that she could behave childishly, jealously, over nothing. Now she realised she would never do that. What had happened between her and Eddie would prevent her; would estrange her from Haydn once and for all.

  She began to pick up her clothes slowly, all the while shedding silent tears for what she had lost. A sweet first love that was now, irrevocably, consigned to her past.

  There were many rooms in the Unemployment Institute in Mill Street. Large workshops where unemployed boys and men could learn carpentry and cobbling. Smaller rooms which had been handed over to the more intellectual contingent, who used them as meeting places, to talk, play chess, and remodel the world – especially Wales – along fairer, more equal, and socialist if not communist-inspired lines.

  Unused to comfort in their homes, the members scarcely noticed the cold or discomfort in the rooms of the Institute. The furniture, if it could be graced with that name, was a motley collection of old chairs, sofas and scarred and broken tables that had been donated by those in the town rich enough to replace their belongings when
they wore out. A few pieces showed signs of clumsy, ineffectual attempts at renovation by the boys who frequented the carpentry workshops. Those with whole, unbroken springs tended to gravitate towards what was grandly referred to as the ‘Reading Room’, where most of the books read were borrowed from the Pontypridd Lending Library. All the Institute had on offer was a meagre, donated store of well-thumbed magazines, dog-eared copies of Dickens and a bound edition of the complete works of Karl Marx, presented courtesy of the Miners’ Union.

  As Ronnie walked purposefully through the front door in the hope of finding Evan, he heard the deep, melodious tones of a choir practising somewhere at the back of the building. The sweet sounds blended uneasily with the strident barking of a retired sergeant-major who was putting the younger element through their exercises in the gym, in the hope that the Institute team would win their next rugby match.

  ‘Seen Evan Powell?’ he asked a wizened old man whose arms were crammed with political pamphlets.

  ‘Chess room.’ The man pointed down a narrow passageway lit by a single, weak, unadorned light bulb. There was only one door at the end; once green, its paint was now dry and flaking. Half glazed with grimy, bubbled glass, it shed a brighter light into the corridor but no images of what lay within. Ronnie pushed it, and it juddered alarmingly over swollen floorboards.

  A foul-smelling pall of cheap tobacco smoke hung thickly in a foggy atmosphere redolent with the unhealthy warmth of unwashed bodies packed into a confined space.

  ‘Shut that bleeding door.’ Ronnie recognised Viv Richards’ voice, but he couldn’t see him. He did as Viv asked, scanning the packed room for Evan Powell. He spotted him at last, at the far end of the room. If he’d been a fly he could have walked across the ceiling to get to Evan, but as it was, he stood little chance of reaching him without disturbing the entire room. So much for discretion! Every available inch of space was filled with broken chairs, men’s legs and bodies.

  Evan didn’t see Ronnie standing by the door. His attention was fixed on a chess set laid out on an upturned packing case between him and Charlie, but he was playing in a half-hearted, desultory fashion, preoccupied with thoughts of Maud.

  ‘And I tell you we can’t allow this man to hold a meeting in our Town Hall!’ A fist crashed noisily on a rickety table.

  ‘What do you want us to do then, Dai?’ Viv sniped. ‘Take over the Town Hall from the Council to keep him out?’

  ‘You’re worrying over nothing, Dai. Mosley won’t come to Ponty,’ a skeletally thin man shouted. ‘The councillors might be crache, but they know what’s what. I’ve heard tell if he wants the place, he’s going to have to pay ten times the going rate. That’ll be too much, even for the likes of him.’

  ‘Four times,’ a disembodied voice corrected. ‘Our May works in the council offices, and she’s had it from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘If the man wants to hold his meeting badly enough, he’ll pay the asking price whatever it is,’ Evan commented as he moved his rook forward two places to threaten Charlie’s queen.

  ‘I agree with Evan,’ Dai shouted angrily. ‘And what I’m saying is, when he comes we’ve got to do something about it.’

  ‘Like what?’ Viv demanded truculently. ‘What the hell do you expect the likes of us to do about a man like that?’

  ‘Infiltrate his meeting,’ Dai said darkly.

  ‘Be reasonable, man,’ Evan snapped. ‘You can’t infiltrate a public meeting.’

  ‘You can when you’re a marked man,’ Dai crowed, proud of the outlaw status that his active, paid-up membership of the Communist party conferred on him.

  ‘Here we go again,’ Viv moaned. ‘Communist goodies against Fascist baddies.’

  ‘The Communists are the only ones with the ideology, dedication and strength of purpose to oppose the Fascists. And Oswald Mosley,’ Dai lectured in soapbox mode, ‘is Mussolini and Hitler’s henchman. You heard the lady in the last meeting same as me. Mosley will heap the same indignities on British Jews as Hitler is heaping right now on the Jews in Germany.’

  ‘Since when have you worried about the Jews, Dai?’ Viv sneered.

  ‘They’re our brothers ...’ Dai began heavily.

  ‘They’re our rich bloody brothers if you ask me,’ Viv spat a gob of phlegm to the floor. ‘And they only help their own, never them that needs it like us. When did you last see a Jew with the arse hanging out of his pants like it hangs out of mine?’

  ‘That’s it, Viv, bring everything down to crude basics,’ Dai jeered. ‘People like you have sold the working classes down the river for years. As long as you’re comfortable, with enough in your pocket to put food on the table, a dress on your wife’s back, coal on the fire and a pint in your belly, you’re all right Jack and to hell with the rest of the world. If Hitler marched into Ponty right now and gave you a job, you’d shout “Sieg Heil” along with the rest of the poor deluded sods, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Too bloody right. And it’s not just jobs that Hitler’s giving out. I’ve heard he’s building houses, proper houses with electric light upstairs, and bathrooms for his workers. And that he intends for every man to have a car –’

  ‘Give over, Viv,’ Evan said calmly, trying to defuse the argument. ‘You sound like a Mosley pamphlet.’

  ‘It could happen here,’ Viv asserted defiantly. ‘It could. If enough men go to Mosley’s meetings, not to scoff but to listen, it could –’

  ‘But at what cost?’

  The voice was soft-spoken and quiet, but everyman in the room fell silent. It wasn’t often Charlie made his opinions known, but when he did, everyone listened.

  ‘Well I for one don’t care what it bloody costs to put a wage packet in my pocket,’ Viv shouted furiously.

  ‘The Jews ...’ Dai began fervently.

  ‘To hell with the bloody Jews,’ Viv screamed.

  ‘They’re people,’ Dai yelled, rising to his feet. ‘Same as you and me.’

  ‘Let the buggers suffer.’

  ‘Jews this week, miners next, Welshmen the week after?’ Charlie looked steadily at Viv. ‘You’ve been lucky in this valley. So far you’ve only lost your jobs.’

  Charlie returned to his chessboard and made another move. He’d never spoken about his past. Not once, although plenty had tried to worm more out of him. He’d never volunteered anything other than the information that he came from Russia. And few apart from the well-read miners like Evan realised just how vast that country was.

  Taking advantage of the silence that followed Charlie’s speech, Ronnie steamrollered his way past Viv’s and Dai’s abandoned chairs towards Evan.

  ‘Mr Powell.’ He extended his hand first to Evan, then Charlie.

  ‘I’ve never seen you in here before, Ronnie.’ Evan pushed his chair away from the chest. ‘Your father sacked you?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Ronnie said gravely. ‘But then, although it says unemployed over the door there’s a fair few like you here Mr Powell, and Charlie, who work.’

  ‘Not nights in our own café.’ Charlie lifted his feet off the rungs of a stool, and thrust the stool at Ronnie. ‘Seat?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ronnie moved the stool between Evan and Charlie’s chairs. Evan looked drawn, preoccupied, and Ronnie put it down to concern over Maud. ‘I’ve been looking for you, Mr Powell,’ he began awkwardly.

  ‘Well now you’ve found me, boy, what do you intend to do with me?’ Evan asked, irked by the interruption of his game. Ronnie said the one thing guaranteed to gain Evan’s attention.

  ‘I’ve just seen Maud.’

  ‘You’ve seen her!’ The sun rose on the dour landscape of Evan’s face. ‘How is she? Was she conscious? Did she say anything? Could she talk? Is she better than she was this morning?’ The questions tumbled out faster than Ronnie could answer them.

  ‘She was conscious, she said she felt better, we talked for a little while, but she seemed tired. Very tired,’ Ronnie explained hesitancy.

  ‘Only tired?’ There was a look in Evan’
s eye that said he was still hoping for a miracle.

  ‘Well, she’s obviously very ill.’ Ronnie pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and offered them round.

  ‘They told us there was no visiting on the TB ward until Sunday. How did you manage to get in when you’re not even family?’ Evan asked suspiciously.

  ‘I had to deliver some eggs to the ward. A present from the Catholic Mothers’ Union.’ He’d told the lie so often he was beginning to believe it himself.

  ‘It was good of them to think of the girls,’ Evan commented sincerely, ‘and it was good of you to come looking for me.’

  ‘I really need to talk to you.’ Ronnie held his cigarette in the flame of the match Charlie had produced. ‘It’s to do with Maud and it’s important. Could we go somewhere private, Mr Powell? Perhaps the back bar of the Criterion, or the Hart?’

  ‘All right.’ Evan was intrigued, but he was not the kind of man to let his curiosity show. He pushed the wooden box that held the chess figures towards Charlie. ‘Coming, mate?’

  Charlie correctly read the uneasy expression on Ronnie’s face. ‘I promised Dai a game.’

  ‘Come over later and have a pint?’

  Charlie nodded as he began to reset the figures.

  It was still raining, but the fine drizzle had given way to a sudden torrential downpour.

  ‘Do you want to wait until it eases off?’ Ronnie asked, turning up the collar of his coat.

  ‘The one thing I’ve learned about Ponty is that you can wait for ever for that, boy. Tell me where you’re going and I’ll follow.’

  ‘The New Inn is the nearest.’

  ‘I’d be happier with the Criterion.’

  ‘Criterion it is. Come on, let’s make a dash for it.’

  Ronnie knew he’d been stupid when he saw the expression on Evan’s face as he carried the tray with two full pints and two whisky chasers over to their table. The beer would have been enough. Evan would have bought him another back and that would have been the end of it. Evan could probably just about afford to buy two beers. As it was, he had set a precedent Evan couldn’t afford to follow.