Pontypridd 02 - One Blue Moon

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Been busy gardening?’ Diana asked.

  ‘Got to do something to hide Trevor’s rows of vegetables.’ Laura glanced at the clock. It was a quarter-past seven. If Diana intended to go to work, she was late. An unheard-of phenomenon when there were forty girls for every job. Something was obviously very wrong, but Laura bided her time, carrying dishes to the washhouse, making a fresh pot of tea, all the while sneaking surreptitious glances at the bruises that Diana had insisted she’d picked up when stock had fallen on her in the shoe shop.

  She might have fooled the men, but not Laura, who’d done a stint on the casualty ward of the Royal Infirmary. She’d seen too many women and children who’d been battered by their drunken men folk. There was only one way that Diana could have acquired the long marks on her neck, and it wasn’t by falling stock. They were very obviously finger pressure marks, and by the width and length of them, they’d been caused by large hands. The huge, spreading bruise that was on the point of turning from deep purple to black on her chin looked as though it was the result of a blow from a fist. It must have been a heavy blow to have caused such damage, but Laura suspected that for every mark she could see there were probably ten more that she couldn’t.

  ‘Two sugars?’ Laura asked, deciding that if Diana hadn’t said anything by the time they were both sitting down, she would forget the training that had taught her to be tactful first and curious last, and bring the subject up herself.

  ‘Please.’

  Laura spooned sugar into both cups, stirred them, handed one to Diana and sat in the chair opposite her.

  ‘Skiving off today, are we?’ she questioned lightly.

  Diana was trembling too much to carry her cup to her mouth.

  ‘Trouble with Ben Springer?’ Laura asked intuitively. Diana put her head down and nodded dumbly. ‘If the stories I’ve heard are true, you’re not the first, love, and unfortunately you probably won’t be the last.’

  Laura laid her cup safely on the table, and reached across to take Diana’s from her shaking hands. ‘Did he do this?’ She put Diana’s cup down, before gently touching the cut on Diana’s forehead. Dissolving into sobs, Diana was incapable of answering. ‘Come on, love, did he hit you?’ Laura continued to probe. Alarmed by Diana’s silence, she laid her fingers under Diana’s chin and lifted her head so she could look into Diana’s eyes. ‘Did he rape you?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Yes!’ Diana’s confession was harsh, guttural.

  ‘You poor, poor love.’ Laura took her into her arms.

  ‘Laura, I didn’t know where to go, who to turn to,’ Diana sobbed, her hair falling over her face and getting in the way of her eyes and mouth. ‘He said, he said ... terrible things about me,’ she whimpered. ‘He said if I told anyone what had happened, they wouldn’t believe me. And now ... now I could have a baby. Couldn’t I?’ she demanded, willing Laura to say otherwise.

  ‘Not if Trevor and I have any say in the matter.’ Laura smoothed Diana’s hair back, away from her forehead. ‘It’ll be all right. You’ll see, we’ll sort it out, love. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, there’s pills you can take –’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Diana cried hysterically. ‘It can’t be sorted out. Not now. Not ever. What he did to me ... what he ... I’ll never be the same again. Never!’

  ‘Of course you will. You’re still the same person.’

  ‘No I’m not. You don’t know what it was like. You weren’t there. He ... he ...’ The horror flooded over her again with renewed vigour, sparing her none of the degrading, miserable details. ‘I just wish I was dead!’ she moaned with a fervour that sent a chill down Laura’s spine.

  ‘We’ll wait for Trevor,’ Laura said insistently, struggling to conceal her panic. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll help you. He’ll know what to do.’ Laura was never more grateful that she had a husband to turn to. One look at Diana made her realise that any husband who was prepared to act as a buffer between the world and his wife would do, but in finding one as kind, gentle, loving and understanding as Trevor, she’d struck gold.

  ‘Your breakfast is on the table,’ Elizabeth said coldly to Haydn as he walked into the kitchen from the washhouse.

  ‘I’m late,’ Haydn said shortly, stating the obvious. ‘I haven’t time to eat.’

  ‘You might be late, but you’ll soon be ill as well if you go working all day on that stall, and all night in that ... that place’ – Elizabeth never could bring herself to say the name of the Town Hall. In the chapel’s opinion, and hers, the theatre was synonymous with all the evils of Sodom and Gomorrah – ‘ ... with nothing inside you. Come on now, be sensible.’ She pushed towards him a bowl of thick, lumpy porridge surrounded by a moat of watery milk and topped by a gleaming cap of brown sugar.

  ‘I told you, I don’t want it,’ Haydn snapped with uncommon discourtesy, for him.

  ‘You’ll be passing out half-way through the morning,’ Elizabeth warned.

  ‘More like if I eat it I’ll be throwing up half-way down the Graig Hill,’ be retorted vehemently.

  ‘There’s no need to be vulgar.’

  ‘Throwing up is not vulgar.’

  Elizabeth didn’t know what to make of Haydn. She’d never seen him in such an aggressive mood. Deciding that it might be as well to divert his attention than argue any further about what was vulgar and what was not, she nodded towards the table.

  ‘A letter came for you,’ she said briefly.

  Haydn looked at it. He could count on one hand the number of letters he’d received in his life. Sitting down in his chair he picked it up, turning it over so he could read the postmark.

  ‘I didn’t know you were acquainted with anyone in Brighton,’ Elizabeth commented indifferently.

  ‘Neither did I.’

  She poured and set a cup of tea at his elbow. Hesitating for a moment, she debated whether or not to have one herself. Haydn rarely had more than one cup and there were at least three in the pot. Deciding it would be a shame to waste it, she eventually poured the second one of the morning for herself.

  Forgetting his earlier assertions, Haydn absently spooned a mouthful of porridge into his mouth before attacking the envelope with his thumbnail. He ripped it open awkwardly, tearing a corner off the letter in his eagerness to read the contents.

  ‘You should have used a knife,’ Elizabeth admonished. It was not in her nature to allow an opportunity for criticism to pass unnoticed.

  ‘Didn’t see one handy.’ Haydn picked up the corner and held it next to the torn sheet of paper.

  ‘Violet notepaper,’ his mother clucked disapprovingly. ‘A sign of poor taste.’

  Haydn didn’t hear her. He was already reading the letter.

  Dear Haydn,

  I don’t know if you remember me. I certainly remember you and the night we spent in the two-foot-nine after the show, when you and Alice entertained us all by singing ‘Heart and Soul’. I’m getting together a cast for a pantomime to be performed in one of the smaller Brighton theatres. A friend of mine is putting up the money and he’s given me carte blanche on the artistic side. I’ve already managed to book Alice Moore to play Cinderella, and when we talked about Buttons, she suggested contacting you.

  If – and it is an ‘if’ – the show’s a hit, we may tour the North with it in the New Year. I say ‘if’ because I don’t want to mislead you. All I’m offering is twelve weeks’ work initially, and that isn’t much to give up a steady job like yours for.

  I didn’t want to write to you care of the Town Hall in case the letter got lost, so Alice rang the pub and wheedled your address out of the barmaid. If you’re cross about it, be cross with us, not the barmaid. Alice can be very persuasive when she wants to be.

  Please give the offer some thought before turning it down as you did with Ambrose. It’s a break, as they say in this business. Not a grand break, but if you work at it, it could lead to something better. We start rehearsals Monday next. They last for four weeks, and we’re offering one poun
d ten shillings a week during rehearsals, rising to two pounds when we open. It’s not the three pounds a week Ambrose offered you but there’s no strings attached, of the kind that Ambrose dangled, I promise. You can live with my sister who lets out good theatrical digs at the above address. It’ll be ten shillings a week all found, and I promise you won’t find better or cheaper in Brighton. Not during the season, and if you’re careful you’ll still be able to help out at home. (Alice mentioned you had problems there.)

  Should your answer be no, would you please reply as I’ll have to cast around for someone to replace you. If you agree, please send a telegram, or better still turn up yourself, as soon as you can.

  yours, and best wishes,

  Patsy Duval

  P.S. Alice sends her special love, and wants me to say she hopes you’ll come.

  Haydn read the letter over slowly twice again, studying the enormous flourishing ‘D’ that dwarfed the remainder of Patsy’s signature. Irritated by his silence, Elizabeth left the table and began to fuss and fidget with the stove.

  ‘You’re now very late,’ she pointed out sourly.

  ‘The letter is from one of the head girls.’ Haydn smiled for the first time in days as he looked up at her.

  ‘A head girl, from a school?’ Elizabeth stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Not a school, a chorus,’ Haydn laughed.

  ‘I didn’t know they had such things.’ Elizabeth frowned, tight-lipped.

  ‘She’s offered me a job for the Christmas season. In pantomime, in Brighton.’ He was unable to conceal his glee.

  ‘Where did you say?’ she demanded coldly.

  ‘Brighton. She says I can lodge with her sister ...’

  ‘In what kind of a house? That’s what I’d like to know. Chorus girls,’ Elizabeth said scornfully, tossing her head as she picked up her cup and saucer.

  ‘Good theatrical digs, she says.’ Haydn was too excited to see or care about his mother’s disapproval. All he could think of was that he’d been offered a heaven-sent opportunity to leave all his problems behind him. His job! Jenny ... and her defection to Eddie. Thrusting the letter into his pocket, he left the table.

  ‘I’m going to Brighton,’ he announced decisively, forgetting his resolution to give up all stage and singing ambitions.

  ‘And how long exactly is this “job” of yours going to last?’ Elizabeth enquired icily. ‘You said Christmas pantomime. Are you going to give up steady work here on the promise of a pantomime?’

  ‘You don’t understand, Mam.’ Nothing could dampen Haydn’s spirits at that moment. Not even his mother. ‘It’s a break. It’ll lead to more work, and more. Two years and I’ll be on stage in the West End, three and I’ll be on the radio.’ He laced on his boots. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Elizabeth dismissed the idea in annoyance. ‘I just wonder what kind of a family I’ve brought up. Your father wasn’t reared decently or properly, so I suppose I should excuse his rag and boning on that basis, even if it does mean I can’t hold my head up straight in this town any more, but I reared you and Eddie differently. And look at the pair of you now, despite all my efforts, Eddie with all his insane ideas of making money from getting beaten to death in the boxing ring, and you wanting to go on stage. Why can’t either of you concentrate on something sensible? Something that will bring in a good living –’

  ‘It will bring in a good living,’ Haydn snapped, hating his mother for destroying his moment of excitement. ‘I’ll be able to send money home, at least as much as I’m contributing now. And you won’t have to feed me,’ he added sourly.

  ‘Well, all I can say is I hope that you’ve got enough money to get to Brighton, boy,’ Elizabeth retorted coolly. ‘Because if you haven’t, I haven’t any to give you. And that’s for sure.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘She’s looking better, don’t you think?’ Evan ventured apprehensively, seeking confirmation from Trevor as they stood on the steps of the isolation block in the Graig Hospital.

  ‘It’s called hope,’ Trevor smiled. ‘Ronnie’s given her something to look forward to. To be honest, I’m amazed. I never thought of him as the type to sweep a girl off her feet. Figuratively, that is,’ he added as he saw the irony in the idea of sweeping a consumptive off her feet when she was already lying in a hospital bed. ‘And then again, knowing Ronnie, I never imagined he’d fall in love with anyone. Like Laura I always assumed that any marriage he made would be a merger.’

  ‘I think Maud’s still reeling from the shock.’ If Evan could have afforded to send Maud to a kinder climate in the hope of effecting a cure without Ronnie coming into the equation, he would have. He had no doubts whatsoever about the depth or sincerity of Ronnie’s love for Maud: the man’s actions spoke volumes on that score. But Maud’s feelings for Ronnie were something else. She was so bound up in the hope of finding a cure and the excitement at actually travelling to a foreign country that she hadn’t given a single thought to marriage, or what it entailed, let alone what marriage to a man like Ronnie might mean.

  Trevor cleared his throat uneasily. ‘I’m sorry about what happened back there with Doctor John,’ he apologised. ‘I know you think he was being a bit hard on you.’

  ‘I think it’s a bit hard to tell a father he’s going to kill his daughter if he takes her out of a hospital’s care,’ Evan agreed drily.

  ‘He advised you as he thought best,’ Trevor murmured, torn between the loyalty due to his immediate superior, and his personal feelings.

  ‘Yes, well, it makes no difference in the long run,’ Evan asserted philosophically. ‘When it comes down to it, what Maud wants and what’s best for her are the only things that matter.’

  ‘Then you are going to take her out tomorrow.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I’ll see Ronnie, and check if that suits him. He’s the one who seems to think there’s no problem with arranging weddings and journeys at short notice.’

  ‘Knowing what Ronnie’s like once he’s made up his mind to do something, he’ll make sure there’re no problems.’

  Trevor walked alongside Evan as he crossed the female exercise yard. Evan had been kicking his heels in the hospital for two long hours, barely ten minutes of which he’d actually spent with Maud. Trevor had warned him before they’d got there that Doctor John never came in before nine in the morning. It was probably just as well, because Trevor had had to draw on every ounce of influence to which his status as junior doctor entitled him, to get Evan a brief interview with Maud. Doctor John’s disapproval of any break in the routine of visiting hours would have been all that the sister needed to turf Evan out.

  Mind already made up about what he intended to do, Evan had then sat outside the sister’s office for over an hour and a half, rehearsing again and again what he intended to say to Doctor John. In the event, he didn’t have an opportunity to say half of it: his interview with the senior doctor lasted less than five minutes. Evan had never met Bethan’s father-in-law before, but from a few hints that Bethan had dropped he’d had a shrewd suspicion that he wouldn’t like the man. Now that the meeting had finally taken place, his suspicions had hardened into certainty.

  Evan paused to allow a crocodile of pregnant girls and women to pass. Dressed in identical drab, grey flannel work dresses, each carried a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush as they walked in single file towards the door that led into the main kitchens and dining room.

  ‘You know, I’ve lived on the Graig all my life, and this is the first time I’ve been within these walls. I suppose I just never had reason to come before, not even when Bethan worked here.’

  ‘Count yourself fortunate,’ Trevor said feelingly. ‘My grandfather died in the workhouse in Cardiff. My mother took me to see him there just before he died. She really felt the disgrace of it all, but she had to put him there. My father had just been killed, and she was hard pressed to keep a roof over our heads, let alone his.’

  ‘Then you
understand why I’ve tried to steer clear of the place. Why I tried to keep Maud out of here.’

  ‘Only too well.’

  The last of the girls disappeared through the high, green-painted wooden doors, and they walked on. As they turned the corner Evan caught sight of a group of men in the yard behind the kitchens. They all had axes, and were chopping logs into fire-sized sticks under the supervision of a white-coated overseer.

  ‘Don’t believe in leaving anyone idle, do you?’ Evan murmured.

  ‘They’re casuals who’ve opted to stay in another day. No work, no food,’ Trevor explained uneasily, as he saw the supervisor berate a man for tardiness. The man was moving so slowly, the chances were that he was ill, but Trevor didn’t dare interfere with the running of the workhouse. As Doctor John frequently said to him, ‘If the man’s ill, we’ll find out soon enough. They’ll bring him before us, tomorrow, or the day after.’ Valuing his job, Trevor hadn’t replied that tomorrow or the next day might exacerbate the man’s condition – if he lived that long.

  ‘I know why your boss is so set against me moving Maud out of here, but you haven’t given me your opinion,’ Evan said suddenly.

  ‘I’m only a junior doctor ...’ Trevor began apologetically.

  ‘You’re qualified, and some would say a new degree is better than an old one.’

  ‘And there’s those who say experience counts for everything. Have you asked Andrew to come down and take a look at her?’

  ‘I’ve thought of it,’ Evan admitted. ‘But with Bethan expecting, it didn’t seem right to drag them all that way. Come on, tell me Doctor Lewis, what do you think? I promise I won’t hold you to anything afterwards. Do you agree with Doctor John? Should Maud stay here until you’ve completed all your tests?’