Padding softly out the door and down the stairs he slid back the bolt on the front door, opened it and peered into Graig Street. Frost haloed the streetlamps, the chill air nipped at the bare skin on his chest but there wasn’t a sound or flicker of life to disturb the peaceful scene. He was about to close the door when he looked down.
‘Who was there?’ Tina asked, sitting up in bed as he trudged back up the stairs.
‘Tony’s kitbag. It crawled here all by itself by the look of it, but don’t worry, I invited it in. It’s safely bedded down on the sofa in the parlour.’
‘There must have been someone there.’
‘Possibly fairies.’
‘Shouldn’t you telephone the police?’
‘It can wait until morning.’ Pulling off his pyjamas he climbed back into bed.
‘Ow, you’re freezing!’
‘That’s the advantage you have over a barracks full of men. I can claim conjugal rights and demand you warm me up.’ Pulling her close, he unashamedly siphoned off her warmth into his own frozen body.
‘Will …’
‘I’ve never known a woman like you for talking at the most inopportune moments.’
‘All I did was say your name.’
‘But it wasn’t in a breathless, romantic way.’
‘The breathless romance can wait a minute. Do you think Diana’s going to be all right?’
‘She’d better be, because if she isn’t, I won’t wait for pneumonia or Ronnie to kill Tony, I’ll do it myself.’
‘Do you think Tony’s the reason why Ronnie’s opting out of running the cafés?’
‘I told you, Ronnie and I have been working on this business idea for months.’
‘But the cafés and restaurant were more Ronnie’s than anyone else’s in the family. He helped my father set them up. Opening the restaurant was his idea.’
‘You heard him, he said he was fed up with having to be polite and smile at people while serving up endless plates of beans and chips and cups of tea.’
‘He never did much smiling and no serving that I remember.’
‘He had to make sure you and the others bowed and scraped while you served. Now, before Ronnie and I find a new business and I work myself to the point of exhaustion in it, can I expend some of my surplus energy in a way we’ll both enjoy?’
Chapter Eight
Alma was ready waiting, muffled to her eyes against the cold in the doorway of the shop. Theo, wrapped in his winter coat, knitted hat, scarf and mittens, stood next to her, his small hand lost in hers, watching her face intently as she scanned the street for a sign of Charlie. Daily outings with Daddy had become part of Theo’s life since Charlie had moved out. Alma had explained his absence from their lives by stressing that although Daddy loved both of them very much, he was very tired and needed more rest than he could get living over the shop, so he had moved in with Uncle Evan and Auntie Phyllis for a while.
Theo hadn’t been unduly perturbed. Daddy was always tired, and his absence from the flat meant that he could go back to making as much noise as he liked. And the daily outings after school and at weekends with Daddy, or visits to his Uncle Evan’s house with Auntie Bethan in her car to see him, had become treats that he looked forward to. Sometimes Uncle Evan’s son, Brian, or Auntie Bethan’s children, Eddie and Rachel, were around for him to play with, and when they weren’t, Daddy was there to tell him stories about a strange country called Russia, stories that weren’t like any he’d ever been read from books.
‘Auntie’s Bethan’s car,’ he cried, at the exact moment Alma saw it. Jumping up and down, he pulled at Alma’s hand but she wouldn’t release him until Bethan had stopped at the kerb and turned off the engine.
‘Coming up to play with Eddie and Rachel, Theo?’ Bethan asked, opening the door.
‘Can I?’ Instinctively he turned to Alma, then realised his father had stepped out of the passenger seat. Knowing it was expected of him, he ran up and gave Charlie a cautious embrace that showed Alma just how far her son’s relationship with his father had progressed since Charlie had moved out of the flat.
‘You’re both welcome to come back with me. There’s a fire in the small sitting room, you can have it to yourselves.’
‘Thank you, but we have to see the house,’ Alma demurred.
‘I could run you up to Tyfica Road.’
Charlie shook his head as he helped Theo into the back of the car and Bethan didn’t press her invitation further.
‘Don’t go walking up the Graig Hill, whatever you do, Charlie. I’ll pick you up when I drop Theo off. Seven all right?’
‘It’s fine by me,’ Alma answered.
Charlie nodded again as he waved goodbye to Theo.
‘You sure you’re up to walking to Tyfica Road?’ Alma searched Charlie’s face for signs of illness and fatigue, then realised with a jolt that he looked far fitter and healthier than when he’d left.
‘I’ve been walking over the mountain every day. Much further than from here to Tyfica Road.’
To her surprise he offered her his arm, she took it and they turned up Penuel Lane.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to buy the house so quickly.’
‘Mrs Harding couldn’t wait to get out of the place. With her husband dead and her son killed in the fall of Singapore all she could think about was making a new start in Cardiff with her daughter. I’ve put the house in your name. Spickett’s are seeing to the contracts and there’s some documents for you to sign but you can move in today if you want to.’
‘It will need furniture.’
‘Not much. Mrs Harding only took her personal things and a few bits and pieces that were of sentimental value, like her china cabinet, ornaments and pictures. Frankly I think the house looks better without them. Her taste isn’t exactly ours …’ She faltered, suddenly realising how inappropriate that sounded. There was no more ‘ours’. This was Charlie and Masha’s house, not hers – a house she would never live in. ‘What’s left are the basics,’ she continued quickly. ‘The floor tiles and lino are in good condition, the rugs are old, but there’s no holes in them, which is just as well as there’s no carpeting to be had for love nor money in Ponty at the moment. The curtains are old-fashioned plush, dark and gloomy, but they’ll do until better’s available. All four bedrooms, dining room, parlour, living room and kitchen are furnished, unfortunately in solid pieces that were built with durability not beauty in mind. But you’ll see for yourself in a minute.’
‘You paid her for them?’
‘One hundred pounds the lot. There’s no way you could furnish a house that size for so little these days and that’s supposing you could get the furniture. Even utility is strictly rationed to newly-married couples and we none of us come into that category. Mr Spickett set the price on the basis that there are one or two valuable pieces that would fetch a good price. I believe him. You know how empty the auction rooms are these days?’
‘No, I don’t. But then I’ve had you to shield me from practical things since I came back.’
They crossed Gelliwastad Road and began walking up the hill past Tyfica Crescent and into Tyfica Road.
‘This is it.’
‘It’s a fine big house, Alma.’
‘It won’t be very warm in there, but I’ve a fire burning at home. I thought we could look round and go back for tea.’
He nodded assent. She walked up the steps to the front door; taking the key from her pocket she pulled off her glove and slotted it in the door. She had been to the house a dozen times in the last couple of weeks, finalising plans and details about the furniture with Mrs Harding but now that Charlie was beside her, she felt strange, peculiar, almost as though she were a salesman selling it on to a third party.
‘It seems a good solid house.’ He glanced approvingly at the tiled porch, the inner door with its stained-glass panels, and the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling.
‘That’s what Ben Davies said.’
‘Do I know him?�
��
‘He’s a builder Mr Spickett recommended. I had a survey done, of course, but Mr Spickett said it was as well to call in a local builder. There are a few things that need doing but nothing urgent. A section of the dry stone wall in the garden needs rebuilding, there are a couple of loose tiles on the roof – you can see them if you stand on the back steps – and all the exterior woodwork, especially the windows, need repainting. But as Ben Davies said, that goes for just about all the outside woodwork in Pontypridd and it won’t be remedied until the paint shortage is over. He gave me an estimate of just under thirty pounds for the lot.’
‘You told him to go ahead with the work?’
‘When he can.’
‘Good.’ Charlie stepped into the front parlour.
‘I think this is a good-sized room.’
‘It makes a nice sitting room,’ Charlie agreed, frowning at the Victorian red plush sofa, chaise longue, easy chairs and matching curtains.
‘I’ll look round for something to put over those marks.’ Alma pointed to some lighter squares in the yellow wallpaper where Mrs Harding’s pictures had hung. ‘The dining room is through here.’ She led Charlie back into the hall and through the door opposite, into a room filled with a heavy mahogany dining table, eight chairs, two carvers and a massive sideboard.
‘As you said, good-sized rooms.’
‘This is a smaller, everyday sitting room.’ She walked down the passage and opened a door to the right of the staircase. ‘It also leads to the kitchen and wash house. The furniture is a bit shabby.’ Alma could have kicked herself. Why was she apologising for the sagging, faded chintz sofa and chairs when she was talking to her own husband?
‘Good range,’ Charlie commented approvingly, walking through to the kitchen that he suspected had been, and would make, more of a living room than any of the other three rooms they had just walked through. He opened the door of the vast stove with its fireplace, water boiler, oven and hotplates.
‘Mrs Harding left a gas cooker and electric clothes boiler in the wash house. Also all her everyday dishes and cutlery and enough linen to furnish the bedrooms.’
Charlie walked through to the wash house and garden. When he returned Alma took him upstairs. The principal bedroom was furnished with an enormous Victorian suite in an even darker mahogany than the dining room. Gentleman’s and lady’s wardrobes towered either side of the bed. A massive dressing table with double the normal complement of clothes and trinket drawers stood in front of the bay window, blocking out most of the light. A tallboy and two chests of drawers placed either side of the high bed-frame swallowed up what little room remained. The two secondary bedrooms were much the same, only their suites were marginally smaller – and lighter, in oak and walnut.
‘No washstands,’ Charlie commented.
‘There’s a bathroom.’ Alma showed him a white-tiled room far too large for the plain white three-piece suite it held. The bath was boxed in mahogany panels and mahogany dados ran round the room. ‘Towels in the airing cupboard, here. I’ve had them all washed.’ She showed him a stack of white towels. ‘As you see, old-fashioned but serviceable.’
‘It’s comfortable and clean.’
‘The boxroom was the maid’s room.’ Returning to the landing, she opened the door on a room seven feet by five, built over the hall. A narrow iron bedstead ran beneath the window. A broom handle jammed up close to the ceiling held half a dozen rusting wire coat hangers. A tiny, iron-framed travelling washstand, with waste bowl and water jug neatly shelved beneath an earthen basin with a plug, filled the rest of the space.
‘The maid wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom?’
‘Mrs Harding made a point of telling me she was relegated to the outside ty bach and had to bring her washing water up from the kitchen and carry her slops down.’ She closed the door on the room. ‘What do you think?’
‘You’d have to be hard to please to find fault with a house this size.’
‘Then you think Masha will like it?’
‘Bethan told you the woman is Masha?’
‘She didn’t have to, Charlie. She told me you wanted to talk. It’s the first time since you left. I assumed you’d heard from her.’
‘I have.’
‘If you’ve seen all you want to here, let’s talk in the flat. I left the fire burning. Tea’s all laid.’
‘Alma …’
‘In the flat, Charlie.’ She preceded him down the stairs. ‘We’ll talk about it there.’
‘We moved one of the beds into the parlour for you, Tony. We thought you’d be more comfortable downstairs.’ Mrs Ronconi hovered in the passage as Angelo helped Tony out of the taxi and into the family home in Danycoedcae Road.
‘I would have been fine upstairs, Mama,’ Tony snapped. At a warning glance from Angelo, he stooped to embrace her. ‘Really, Mama, I am fine,’ he reiterated in softer tones. ‘It’s just that after having the nurses and sister in the Graig Hospital hovering over me day and night for nearly three weeks I can’t stand anyone fussing.’
‘You never could when you were little. But you nearly died –’
‘And Dr John told us he’s made a full recovery, Mama,’ Angelo broke in firmly. ‘Another week’s rest and he’ll be as fit as a fiddle.’
‘A week might not be enough …’
‘It’ll be enough, Mama.’ Angelo steered his brother into the parlour. The three-piece-suite had been pushed against the wall to make room for a single bed. In between the bed and an easy chair, Mrs Ronconi had set out a small round table with bowls of winter apples, boiled sweets and home-made toffee. The Pontypridd Observer lay neatly folded under a small pile of books from the library.
‘Roberto chose the novels.’ Angelo drew Tony’s attention to the books. ‘He thought you might like to read to pass the time.’
‘That was thoughtful of him.’
‘And I’ve lit a fire in this room every day for a week so it should be well aired.’
‘It’s all very nice, Mama.’
‘You go and see to Gina and your new granddaughter, Mama,’ Angelo suggested tactfully. ‘I need to talk to Tony about the business.’
‘Yes – yes, Angelo, you do that. But I think everything you and Ronnie have decided is fair. Tony, I hope you’ll think it’s fair …’
‘Mama,’ Angelo prompted patiently.
‘I must see to Gina. But you two will want tea.’
‘We’ll come into the kitchen for it when we’re ready, Mama. In the meantime I have something stronger that might be more to Tony’s taste.’
‘He’s been ill, Angelo. He nearly died …’
‘Mama, please go and see Gina.’
‘Your new niece, Tony, she’s beautiful,’ Mrs Ronconi enthused while still blocking the doorway. ‘Luke and Gina named her Alice, after Luke’s mother. You wait until you see her. She’s just like Catrina was at that age. They could be twins.’
‘Tony and I’ll come in the kitchen later, Mama. You can show her to him then.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, I’d better go to see to Gina.’
Angelo closed the door as his mother walked down the passage to the kitchen. ‘Right, first things first. Mama’s been arranging and rearranging this room for over a week, ever since Andrew John mentioned that you might be discharged. That coal fire,’ he pointed to the grate, ‘represents half the family’s coal ration, including Luke’s free allocation for working in the pit. After today, I suggest you tell Mama that you don’t need a fire lit in here because you’ll be happier sitting in the kitchen with the rest of the family.’
‘I didn’t ask for a fire.’
‘No, but you know what Mama is like when one of us is ill. And the fruit and sweets on that table may not look much to you after living off loot in Germany but it represents Mama and Roberto’s entire month’s ration, so go easy.’
‘It’s bad enough having Ronnie play the big brother, I’ll be damned if I’ll put up with it from a kid four years younger than me.’
‘As I’ve been running things for the last eight months I suggest you shut up and listen. About the business – Ronnie, Gina, Tina, Alfredo and I discussed it …’
‘And surprise, surprise, decided to cut me out.’
‘We hoped you’d run the Tumble café.’
‘And the rooms above it?’
‘Tina and Will are moving out, so you and this German girl of yours – if you insist on marrying her – can have them.’
‘I would have preferred the restaurant.’
‘As it’s the bigger of the two places it seemed sensible for me to oversee the kitchen and tables and Alfredo the shop side of that business.’
‘It’s the better of the two.’
‘It has no accommodation above it.’
‘I don’t think Gabrielle will be happy living over a café. She’s used to better. She was brought up in a castle …’
‘In which case she should have found herself a prince with more in his back pocket.’
Tony glanced round the parlour. ‘We could move in here.’
‘With Gina, Luke and now a new baby taking up two rooms, and Mama, Roberto, Alfredo and I filling up every other inch of space?’
‘There’s four bedrooms.’
‘Three and a boxroom. If this girl of yours is too grand to live above a café I can hardly see her being happy with a six-foot-square boxroom, unless you expect Gina, Luke and the baby, Alfredo, Roberto and me or Mama to move in there.’
‘We could move a double bed in here.’
‘And if you sleep in here where would you live?’
‘The kitchen with the rest of the family.’
‘You’d ask Mama to share her kitchen with a German?’
‘She shares it with Gina.’
‘Gina’s her daughter, your girl is one of the master race responsible for fifty-five million deaths in Europe in the last six years, including Papa’s.’
‘She’s a wonderful girl. Everyone loves her …’
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