Pontypridd 07 - Spoils of War

by Catrin Collier

  ‘There’s a good stock of coal in the coal-house but it won’t last more than a week or two if you light all the fires every day and you won’t get a ration big enough to keep everything going. I suggest you keep the range in the kitchen alight and, as I said, use that as a living room and light the fires in whichever bedrooms you are using for no more than an hour or two every evening. The pantry’s stocked with enough food for a week and there’s soap, shampoo, toothpaste and brushes in the bathroom. I’ve tried to think of everything but that doesn’t mean I have. If there’s anything you need I’ll be in the shop.’

  Relinquishing her hand he reached out and gripped her shoulders. She was trembling and it wasn’t from cold. Instinctively he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. She tried to move away but his touch was so warm, so familiar she succumbed to temptation and rested her head on his shoulder.

  ‘I know I told you Masha would always come first, Alma, but please, believe me, I never thought I’d find her again.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve hurt you and Theo.’

  ‘Theo’s young, he accepts things easily and he’ll be fine as long as there’s enough people to love and look after him. It’s you I’m worried about, Charlie. You always want to do the right thing, putting everyone else first and yourself last. You have given Theo and me all we could possibly want. A nice flat to live in, more than enough money to buy whatever we need. Please, for your own sake, concentrate on Masha and Peter for a while.’ Pushing him away from her, somehow she found the strength to extricate herself from his arms. ‘Now, if you don’t mind I’ll leave you to look around by yourself. I’d rather not come here again.’

  ‘You don’t want to meet Masha?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘After she hears about you and realises how hard you worked on this house she may want to meet you – and Theo.’

  ‘You can bring Theo here, Charlie, but I’d prefer to stay away.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I don’t think you do. I don’t want to meet Masha because I rather suspect I’ll end up liking her and, given the circumstances, we can hardly be friends.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Unless you turn Muslim and set us up in a harem. That was a joke,’ she explained swiftly when he didn’t smile.

  ‘After Masha and Peter have settled I’d like to come back to work. I thought I could manage the Treforest shop.’

  ‘Or the Pontypridd one. I spend most of my time travelling between the others but we can sort out the details in a week or two.’

  ‘You won’t mind working with me?’

  ‘We’re working together now. You do the books.’

  ‘Hardly a full-time job.’ He watched her button her coat. ‘You know Andrew and Bethan are travelling with me?’

  ‘Bethan told me. I’m glad you’ll have company. It’s a long journey.’

  ‘I’ll be round before we go, to see Theo.’

  ‘He’ll look forward to whatever time you can spare. When Masha is with you, it won’t matter if it’s every day or not.’ Winding her scarf around her neck, she pulled on her gloves and adjusted her hat. ‘You will remember what I said about taking care of yourself,’ she pressed earnestly.

  ‘I will.’

  She turned her back on him and walked to the front door. He followed. Opening the inner door she slipped her hand into her pocket. ‘I almost forgot.’ Taking his hand she pressed her set of keys to the house into his palm and closed his fingers over them. ‘Bye, Charlie.’ Unable to bear the pain in his eyes she ran down the steps.

  He continued to stand in the porch watching, as she walked down the road. She didn’t see him looking after her – she didn’t have to. She knew he was there. She could sense his presence.

  He waited until she rounded the corner. Closing the door, he locked it. The house was ready, waiting expectantly – for what? Picking up his case, he looked up the stairs. Time to move in and begin a new life, or perhaps simply pick up the threads of an old one he had assumed had been broken for ever.

  Andrew drove slowly down Broadway. Seeing the sign for Myles’ Garage he slowed his car, turned right and parked on the forecourt. He must have passed the place hundreds of times without noticing it, but then no one he knew had owned it before. Opening his door, he stepped out and walked across a concrete parking area littered with cars in various stages of disrepair. A mechanic stood in front of the open bonnet of an Austin, cleaning a lump of metal with an oily rag, while two boys watched disinterestedly.

  ‘Mr Ronconi?’ he asked.

  ‘The office.’ The older of the two boys pointed to a ramshackle shack that stood behind a couple of dilapidated petrol pumps. Home-made, spidery lettering on a wooden board that hadn’t even been cut straight, grandly proclaimed ‘OFFICE’. Andrew decided he could be forgiven for missing it. He knocked at the door and pushed it wide.

  ‘Ronnie?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘So this is your new business?’

  ‘Andrew, nice of you to call in. Grab a chair if you can find one that’s safe to sit on. Frankly, I’d rather you’d waited until Will and I had a chance to clean this place up before paying a call.’

  ‘It could do with some sorting.’

  ‘Not burning down, which some people have suggested? So, how can I help you? Your car needs servicing or, better still, you want to buy a new one, or a good second-hand one for Bethan?’ Ronnie glanced up from the stack of unpaid bills he’d been wading through. ‘Ianto wasn’t good on paperwork. It’s a miracle the audited accounts showed a profit …’ He studied Andrew’s face. ‘You haven’t come here to support the business, have you?’

  ‘Diana came round a couple of hours ago.’

  Ronnie left his chair and reached for his overcoat.

  ‘Ronnie, sit down.’

  ‘I have to see her.’

  ‘Please, sit down!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ronnie perched on the edge of the steel table and looked Andrew in the eye. ‘Whatever it is, tell me. I’d rather hear the truth than any number of “don’t worry, it will be all rights”. You know me. Know what I went through with Maud. Please …’

  ‘The absolute truth is, we don’t know exactly what Diana’s mental and physical condition is – yet. We called in a specialist. He examined her this afternoon but he says, and my father and I agree with him, that it’s too early to predict the full extent of the damage that has been done to her brain or if the damage that we can assess is permanent. What I can tell you is that she has lost some control over the left-hand side of her body.’

  ‘She’s paralysed.’

  ‘At this moment she has little control over the movement in her left arm and leg. But, as I said, it is far too soon to predict whether that condition is permanent or not.’

  Ronnie took a deep breath. ‘So she’s going to need a lot of help to adjust and someone to come in and run the house and look after Billy and Catrina. She may need a wheelchair – constant attention. I can cope with that.’ He reached for his cigarettes and pushed one into his mouth. ‘But that’s not all – I can see it in your face.’

  ‘She’s also lost her memory. It’s hardly surprising after a trauma like the one she sustained.’

  ‘She doesn’t know who she is?’

  ‘She hasn’t lost it completely.’

  ‘So, she does know who she is?’

  ‘She knows her name. She remembers Billy, her mother, me, Bethan – basically everyone including Wyn, but she thinks he’s still alive and she’s married to him. As far as my father and I can work out she’s stuck somewhere in 1940 or ‘41. She doesn’t even know the war is over.’

  ‘You haven’t told her?’

  ‘It’s not simply a question of filling in the blanks between what she can remember and the present, Ronnie. Should she suffer another shock on top of the last one – even mental as opposed to physical – she could regress, possibly into another coma. Frankly, the brain is the last great medical myst
ery. We can draw maps of the skull to indicate the exact areas responsible for specific functions. If a man sustains an injury to one part as opposed to another of the brain, we can predict with a certain amount of accuracy whether he’s going to be blind or lose control of his legs. But when it comes to the memory we haven’t a clue.’

  ‘So where do we go from here.’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘You’re the doctor, Andrew. You must have an opinion.’

  Andrew could only admire Ronnie’s self-control. If the situation had been reversed and it had been Bethan emerging from a seven-week coma, he suspected he’d be ranting like a lunatic.

  ‘Diana’s asking for Wyn and her mother.’

  ‘Her mother can visit. Wyn we can’t conjure up.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘And if I walk in?’

  ‘For obvious reasons we haven’t dared mention you. She may remember you coming back in 1941, she may even remember that Maud is dead but …’

  ‘She won’t remember we’re married.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Have you seen Megan?’

  ‘She told me where you were.’

  ‘She knows?’

  ‘As much as I’ve just told you.’

  ‘If Diana were Bethan, Andrew, what would you do?’

  ‘Take it easy, very easy. In my opinion, and it is only an opinion, I think Megan should go in first but not until tomorrow and then only once or twice a week. Give Diana a month or two –’

  ‘Month!’

  ‘The one thing I can confidently predict is that her recovery is going to be painfully slow. Apart from the missing years there’s the loss of limb control. She needs rehabilitation, exercises, help and tests to determine if the left-hand side of her body is going to be permanently affected.’

  ‘What’s Megan going to tell her when she goes in? That Wyn is working late and can’t come and see her?’

  ‘No, of course not. But I don’t think we can plan what Megan’s going to say until we know what kind of questions Diana’s going to ask. And Megan won’t be able to see Diana alone. All visits will be carefully monitored by doctors.’

  ‘You’ll keep the dragon witch at bay?’

  ‘That I can promise you.’ Andrew smiled at Ronnie’s description of the ward sister.

  ‘And Billy?’

  ‘You know the dragon witch’s opinion on child visitors.’

  ‘Germ-laden insects to be squashed.’

  ‘There’s another aspect. If Diana thinks Billy’s a baby we can hardly take a five-year-old in to see her.’

  ‘Will could go in, tell her he’s on leave.’

  ‘One at a time, Ronnie.’

  ‘And in the meantime I have to sit back and do nothing.’

  ‘For a few days at least,’ Andrew concurred.

  ‘That is going to be hard.’

  ‘If I come up with a cast-iron way for you to see Diana, without her seeing you, I’ll take you in. But I won’t risk a setback, not even for your peace of mind.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to.’

  ‘I know it’s going to be difficult for you, but we have to think of Diana and put her first, and the good news is she’s finally out of the coma.’

  ‘She will remember, though, Andrew, in time? She will remember me, our marriage, Catrina?’

  Andrew forced himself to meet Ronnie’s searching gaze. ‘The absolute truth, Ronnie. I simply don’t know. I only wish I did.’

  ‘One, I’m not working for any man who talks to me the way you just did, and two, I’ve been hired as a waitress not a bloody cleaner!’ Maggie Evans was shouting at Tony but she was playing for all she was worth to an attentive audience of customers.

  ‘One, I don’t know how you’re used to behaving but I’ll have no swearing in here, especially from staff and women, and two, you’ve been hired to work in the café,’ Tony responded firmly. ‘And the rooms upstairs are part of the café.’

  ‘I’ve never seen any customers walk up there.’

  Determined to stand his ground, Tony dropped the towel he’d been using to polish the steamer, walked out from behind the counter and confronted Maggie. She was thirty-eight, a lot older than most of the young girls the Ronconis usually employed as waitresses, and three years in munitions, two of them as a line supervisor, had given her an air of authority that intimidated a lot of people. Including him – although he would have been loath to admit it. ‘I’ve taken over the running of this café,’ he began heavily.

  ‘You’ve been here five bl … minutes.’

  Encouraged by her last-minute concession to his admonishment about swearing, he continued, ‘I ran this place before the war. I’m doing it again now and I’m ordering you to go upstairs and clean those rooms. Thoroughly,’ he added emphatically.

  She hesitated and for about thirty seconds he thought she was going to capitulate. Instead, she pulled at the bow that fastened her apron and yanked it from her waist. ‘Stuff your café! Stuff your rooms! Stuff your job! And stuff your orders!’

  Scarcely believing what she’d said or the way she’d said it, he looked around. A couple of bus crews sitting close to the fire in the back were sniggering. At him! Losing his temper, he bellowed, ‘Out!’

  ‘I’m going down the restaurant. Mr Angelo knows how to treat people who work for him. No wonder the rest of your family hate your guts. Bloody Nazi lover! You even behave like Hitler. Well, I’m no Eva Braun or Nazi minion … ’

  ‘Don’t think for one minute that Angelo will take you on in the restaurant after I’ve fired you.’

  ‘You’ve fired no one, Mr High-and-Mighty bloody Tony Ronconi. I quit.’ Pushing him aside she snatched her handbag from beneath the counter and stalked out of the door to the accompaniment of a smattering of applause, catcalls and whistles from the customers.

  Stunned, Tony stood in the middle of the front room of the café. Fortunately the midday rush was over. But there’d soon be a spate of afternoon shoppers wanting tea, coffee and snacks, and after that the post-work, pre-theatre and picture crowds. Maggie had covered the two till late-night-closing shift, hours that few women were prepared to work, especially women who could be trusted to man the till without dipping their fingers into it. What did he do for staff now?

  Opening the swing door that led into the kitchen he saw the cook reading the paper, and the boy who helped him flicking through a comic. The sight irritated him, but after the spat with Maggie he was more cautious. ‘Watch the front for me for ten minutes?’ he asked the cook.

  The cook folded his paper and walked out. As soon as he’d taken the station behind the till, Tony ran upstairs. For the first time he was beginning to understand why Ronnie and Tina had given up the café so easily. It demanded total commitment from half-past five in the morning, when the first buses began ferrying early shift workers to the mines and factories, until half-past twelve at night when the late-night bus crews called in for their post-shift tea and toast. Without his brothers or sisters to help on a regular basis, as they had done before the war, he’d be behind the counter for the best part of nineteen hours a day except for the odd day when he could persuade Angelo or Alfredo to give him a break. And Gabrielle – what would she be doing while he was working? Sitting upstairs in the dismal rooms he’d be lucky to see for a couple of hours’ sleeping time?

  He pushed open the doors to the two rooms Tina had set out as sitting and bedroom. Small, poky, dark, furnished in cast-offs from his mother’s house, they looked sad and dingy to him. How would they look to Gabrielle, who’d regaled him with stories of the magnificently furnished castle she and her mother had been forced to leave behind in East Prussia, with its fourteen bedrooms, six sitting rooms, bathrooms tiled in Italian marble and acres of formal gardens? How could he offer her two first-floor rooms, a kitchen shared with a café and an outside ty bach housed in a rickety wooden shed?

  ‘Hiding?’

  He turned to see Angelo climbing the stairs behind him. />
  ‘Just looking to see what, if anything, can be done to make these rooms more comfortable.’

  ‘And the café?’

  ‘The cook’s watching the till. He knows where I am if he needs me.’

  ‘I’ve brought you another waitress.’

  ‘You’ve not taken Maggie on in the restaurant after I fired her?’

  ‘Too true, I have. Grafters like her are hard to come by and her version is she walked out before she was sacked.’

  ‘She refused –’

  ‘To clean up here. We employ her as a waitress, Tony.’

  ‘Exactly. We employ her and she talked to me as though I was dirt.’

  ‘Maggie’s not daft. It’s all over town that you’re marrying a German girl. She probably realised you’d be bringing her here and she wanted to make it clear that she’s not prepared to clean for her.’

  ‘Gabrielle wouldn’t want her to once she arrived.’

  ‘You sure of that?’ Angelo leaned against the banister.

  ‘I’m sure that a decent girl like Gabrielle wouldn’t want anything to do with a common-as-muck woman like Maggie.’

  Angelo shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Tony.’

  ‘The war happened to me.’

  ‘The war happened to all of us,’ Angelo pointed out mildly. ‘You don’t see Ronnie and me putting on airs and graces with the staff.’

  ‘I can do without a bloody lecture from you. I run this place, you run the restaurant. That was the deal, wasn’t it?’ he demanded belligerently.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Then I’d appreciate you backing me when I sack a woman for giving me a mouthful.’

  ‘As you said, Tony, you run this place, we run the restaurant, that means we each run our own staff.’

  ‘You won’t sack her?’

  ‘No.’ Angelo stepped on to the stairs. ‘Oh, that waitress I brought up has already started work. We only took her on in the restaurant last week but she’s quick, clean and prepared to do the late shift, so she should suit you.’

  ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘Should do. She’s from Leyshon Street – Judy Crofter.’

  ‘I don’t want her.’

  ‘Yes, you do. After Maggie told the entire staff of the restaurant about the argument you two had, Judy was the only one prepared to come up here and the only one who volunteered to work until midnight.’