Pontypridd 07 - Spoils of War

by Catrin Collier

  Allowing his son’s sniping to pass without comment, Charlie took the tray and carried it into the wash house. Returning to the table he was surprised to see Peter helping himself to the stew. After his refusal to eat anything from the hamper in the train he’d begun to wonder if the boy was prepared to starve himself as a matter of pride.

  Sitting opposite Peter, Charlie began to eat. The stew was good and the quality of meat better than he’d tasted in years but he couldn’t help contrasting it with Alma’s. She had a way with herbs, of adding sprinklings of flavourings that most housewives didn’t think of. Probably tips learned during her childhood and adolescence when her widowed mother didn’t have the money to buy good-quality food. He could recall sage, mint, dill and thyme growing in the pots she kept on the kitchen windowsill, but there were probably others. In comparison, Mrs Lane’s stew was bland and tasteless.

  He broke his bread carefully into four symmetrical pieces, then poured himself a glass of water, all the while taking sly glances at Peter, who was eating as though he hadn’t seen food in a month.

  ‘We should talk tomorrow,’ he suggested, realising that Peter wouldn’t speak again until spoken to.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Now you’re here, you have to do something.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ The boy pushed his bowl away and glared at Charlie.

  ‘School – work – something.’

  ‘What do you do?’ Peter crossed his arms and stared belligerently.

  ‘Work in a shop – a cooked meat and pie shop. I could find you something there or in the kitchens where they make the pies.’

  ‘Women’s work,’ Peter dismissed scornfully.

  ‘There must be something you want to do. You speak so many languages, perhaps you should study.’

  ‘I was a Kapo in the Portland Cement factory at Auschwitz.’ When Peter saw Charlie wince at the word ‘Kapo’ he allowed himself a small smile of triumph. He had finally succeeded in hurting this apparently imperturbable man. ‘They gave me a whip.’

  ‘I do know how the Germans treated Kapos and how they ordered the Kapos to treat their fellow prisoners. I’m surprised they considered you old enough for the responsibility.’

  ‘I told them I was twenty.’

  ‘And they believed you?’

  ‘I was bigger than most of the men and being a Kapo meant I could make things easier for my mother.’

  ‘Well, there are no openings for Kapos with whips in Pontypridd. So, you’ll have to think of something else.’

  ‘You’re a rich man, you can keep me.’

  ‘What gave you the idea I was rich?’

  ‘This house. Bethan John said you bought it for my mother and me. And now all this food.’

  ‘This stew was made with meat a friend donated,’ Charlie informed him, twisting the truth about William and the black market meat. ‘Don’t think we’ll be eating like this every day. There’s food rationing in this country. And this house took ten years’ savings.’

  ‘Money you earned working in a shop?’ Peter asked contemptuously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I won’t work in a shop.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to find you something else.’

  ‘I’ll find my own work and my own way of making money.’ Lifting his foot on to the chair next to him he pulled a stiletto from the back of the heel of his shoe. As Charlie watched, he drew his thumb down the edge of the long blade. A thin red line opened up and blood welled out. He sucked it from his hand, all the while staring into Charlie’s eyes.

  ‘If your own work and way of making money involves stealing or knifing people you’ll end up in prison.’

  ‘I’ve heard about British prisons. They are like Russian rest homes.’

  ‘Possibly, but for you prison won’t be the end of it. You will be sent back.’

  ‘To Russia?’

  For the first time Charlie saw a trace of fear in the boy’s eyes. ‘I doubt any other country will have you.’

  ‘But you’re here.’

  ‘And I had to sign a document stating I’d guarantee you and your mother’s good behaviour and ensure that you both observed the laws of the land which basically means you forgetting everything you’ve learned about life in the camps. You give the police reason to think you’re a criminal or a danger to others and they’ll lock you up, then deport you.’

  ‘And my mother. If that happened? If I was deported, you’d look after her?’

  ‘I’d prefer to do it with your help.’

  Peter returned his knife to his boot, concealing the handle beneath his trouser turn-up. Sitting back at the table, he picked up his spoon and proceeded to finish what was left of his stew.

  ‘Would you like to go out tomorrow, take a look at the town, perhaps buy some clothes for yourself?’

  ‘I’m going out tonight.’

  ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

  ‘No.’ Cleaning the last vestiges of stew from his bowl with a piece of bread, Peter pushed it to one side; Charlie picked up the dirty dishes and carried them into the wash house.

  ‘Would you like some tea? I can make it Russian style,’ Charlie offered when he returned.

  ‘Have you got vodka?’

  ‘No,’ Charlie lied.

  ‘Then I don’t want anything. I am going to see my mother.’ Leaving the table, he ran upstairs. Charlie waited until he heard Masha’s bedroom door close then he went into the hall, picked up the telephone receiver, and dialled the number of Pontypridd police station.

  ‘Did you have enough time to say all you wanted to Alma?’ Andrew enquired a little shame-faced, as he pulled up outside Charlie’s shop to see Bethan waiting in the doorway.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied frostily. ‘Did you enjoy your swift half in the New Inn?’

  ‘Not really. Bethan …’

  ‘Andrew, I’m exhausted, do you mind if we just go up to Graig Avenue, pick up the children and go straight home?’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘That’s what I want,’ she echoed dismally as he drove up Taff Street.

  ‘Hello. How’s the baby?’ Liza kissed Gina’s cheek as she bumped into her and Luke leaving the café.

  ‘The baby’s fine, Liza.’ Gina managed a small smile. ‘It’s nice to see you. Angelo didn’t mention that you had a day off.’

  ‘It’s tomorrow, but I thought I’d catch the last bus up tonight and surprise Angelo.’

  ‘He could do with some cheering up,’ Luke said, as an angry argument resounded from the kitchen.

  ‘Angelo and Tony?’

  ‘Like cat and dog. But as Angelo’s in charge for the rest of the night, Maggie’s serving, so if you want anything, ask her. I have to get Luke home. He’s on early shift in the morning.’

  ‘Luke is not a baby to be “got” anywhere,’ Luke protested, his nerves, like Gina’s, stretched to breaking point by the tension generated from Gabrielle’s arrival.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Tony’s German fiancée has arrived, but don’t worry, she’s upstairs and not likely to come down again tonight, so you should be safe enough. See you, Liza.’ Gina closed the café door behind her.

  ‘Any chance of a coffee, Maggie?’ Liza asked as she sat at the family table.

  ‘For you, love? Anything.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you want to tell me what’s going on?’ Liza winced as Tony’s shouting escalated to a new high.

  ‘Boyfriend’s privilege, love, but if I were you I’d think long and hard about carrying on courting Angelo.’

  ‘Angelo’s a nice boy,’ Liza smiled, thinking Maggie was pulling her leg.

  ‘He’s a lovely boy and a darling, but he’s got a swine of a brother.’

  ‘Now that Tony’s running this place, Angelo doesn’t have to come up here again and the chances are they won’t see that much of one another.’

  ‘Now that Tony’s running this place none of us have to come up here again,’
Maggie muttered darkly, ‘and I’ve a feeling that goes twice over for the customers. You mark my words, Liza. Lord Tony Ronconi’s grand ideas will drive people away and close this place in a fortnight. I only hope he doesn’t bankrupt the restaurant while he’s doing it.’

  ‘Mother, do you have everything you need?’ Peter asked Masha, who lay propped up on pillows in bed, looking through one of the Russian magazines she had found on her bedside table.

  ‘Everything I could possibly want and more, thank you, Pasha.’

  He slipped on his short blue workman’s jacket and matching cap – the only coat and cap he possessed. ‘If you don’t need me, I will take a look around the town.’

  ‘Pasha, you’re not used to towns. It’s late. You’re tired …’

  ‘The boy will be fine, Masha. Let him go.’ Charlie walked in carrying two cups of tea with sugar lumps in the saucers. ‘Pontypridd’s a quiet place. It’s not as if he wants to explore the middle of Moscow.’

  ‘But he’s not used to being out on his own.’

  ‘Nothing will happen to him. Here,’ Charlie set the tea down on the bedside cabinet, put his hand in his pocket and pulled out two half-crowns.

  ‘I don’t want your money.’ Peter backed towards the door.

  ‘And I’m not giving it to you. Only lending it until you find work. You can’t do anything in this or any other town without money.’

  ‘The shops are open?’

  ‘No, but there are bars that serve beer. You’ll recognise them by the signs over the door and the noise inside.’

  ‘Do they serve vodka too?’ Peter demanded truculently.

  ‘You have to be eighteen before they’ll serve you beer or vodka. But you can buy an orange juice or lemonade.’

  ‘I don’t drink children’s slops. And I won’t have any trouble convincing anyone I’m eighteen.’

  Recognising the futility of argument Charlie didn’t try to contradict him. ‘You’ll also find cafés that serve coffee, tea and food. But neither the bars nor the cafés give anything away without money.’

  Peter reluctantly stepped forward and took the coins Charlie offered.

  ‘Just so you know, that’s about a day’s pay. There’s a key to the front door in the top drawer of the small chest in the hall. Take it; I don’t want you waking your mother when you come in.’

  ‘You’re staying here, in this house, with us?’ Peter squared up to his father.

  ‘That is up to your mother.’

  Peter hesitated for a fraction of a second and for the first time Charlie caught a glimpse of how thin his son’s veneer of bravado really was. He had done a good job of convincing Andrew, Bethan and him that he was a dangerous thug, and perhaps he had been – in the camps. But the camps were a closed domain. Peter had been born into them, grown to manhood – of sorts – in them but he clearly had no idea of the world outside. Charlie had a feeling that tonight would not only be his first taste of Pontypridd but his first taste of freedom. The first time he would walk down a street in an ordinary town as an ordinary person.

  Feeling sorry for the boy Charlie was prompted to repeat his offer. ‘If you’re tired, Peter, I would be happy to show you round tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m not tired.’ Turning on his heel, Peter ran down the stairs. Charlie heard him opening and shutting the drawer in the hall, then the front door closed.

  ‘He will be all right, Feo?’ Masha asked anxiously.

  Charlie thought of the telephone call he had made earlier. ‘Yes, Masha, he will be fine. Nothing can happen to him here.’ Pulling a button-back Victorian chair up to the bed, he sat on it, wishing the seat was higher and it wasn’t quite so small and dainty. ‘Are you too tired to talk?’

  ‘No, but after sixteen years, Feo, I should warn you that I have a lot of things to say.’

  ‘We both have a lot of things to say.’ He handed her the tea he had made for her.

  ‘Where shall we begin, Feo?’

  ‘How about me saying “welcome home, Masha”?’ he smiled.

  Peter had always prided himself on his sense of direction. He had often boasted that if he were sent to a new camp, within a few hours he would have orientated himself not only within the camp but outside it. Instinctively, he sensed which was south, north, east and west, even on a cloudy moonless night. Besides, tonight he had taken the precaution of looking out of his bedroom window and studying the town spread out in the valley below. He had noted a ribbon of lights shining marginally brighter than the ones on the periphery. All he had to do was walk down the steps on to the street – he remembered to turn back when he was on the pavement and take a good look at the house, memorising the distinctive stained glass in the front door. Then with his heart beating more erratically than it had done since the Americans had arrived in Buchenwald and announced all the inmates were free, he set his face to the town.

  The street was silent; no one stirred, no noise came from behind the closed doors. Silent people living silent lives so as not to disturb their neighbours, he decided scornfully, hating them because like his father they didn’t appreciate how well-off they were.

  Turning left, he crossed the road and turned right down a hill, constantly bearing in mind that he needed to head straight ahead from the house. Ignoring turnings to the left, he halted at a crossroads at the bottom of the hill. A huge church loomed on his right, larger than any he had ever seen, and he recalled someone telling him that religion wasn’t outlawed in Britain. On the opposite side of the road was a lane, dark and narrow. The sort of place thieves would hide out in. Deciding to explore it, he closed his hand round the knife he had transferred to his pocket and walked on, emerging in what he suspected was the main street of the town.

  Ribbons of shops stretched either side of him on both sides of the road as far as he could see. Most were closed, their doors locked and canopies folded back. A crowd of about a dozen boys stood grouped around an elaborately-carved stone fountain on his left. They were laughing and joking, making a lot of useless noise. Clutching his concealed knife he stared at them, daring them to approach him. They glanced at him, then turned away, carrying on as if he wasn’t there.

  Relaxing his hold on his knife, he pulled his cap down further on his head, shading his eyes with the peak. The larger, more imposing shops seemed to loom ahead on his right. He set off that way, walking slowly, looking in windows as he passed. None had their lights on. Someone – had it been Dr John or his father? – had said something about fuel restrictions being in force, but occasionally a streetlight shone close enough to a display window to illuminate the wares. One window was filled with pianos, another with hats and umbrellas, the next with shoes – he stood, gazing for five full minutes at a time. He had never seen such luxuries, so many clothes. He walked on down the street in bewildered wonderment, so engrossed he didn’t notice the man walking just as leisurely as himself, twenty paces behind.

  A burly man, older than his father, in a uniform with a helmet that he would have recognised from the photographs of Britain he’d studied so avidly in the displaced persons’ camp when he’d first been told that his father was prepared to offer his mother – and him – a home.

  ‘Feodor, we both know what happened to me in the last sixteen years. I don’t want to talk about it.’ Taking his big hand into her small one, Masha kissed the tips of his fingers. ‘But you – you have changed so much.’

  ‘You expected me to still look eighteen?’

  ‘We weren’t allowed to take anything from the house – not even a photograph. At first – in Stalingrad – all I had to treasure of yours were my memories. Then, as Pasha grew older and began to look more and more like you, I could see you in him, as you were that last time when you kissed me goodbye and set off to get the cot. I no longer had to close my eyes to see you in my mind. I only had to look at Pasha. So, to me, you were always young unchanging – the boy I fell in love with …’

  ‘And now my hair is silver, my face wrinkled, my strength half of wh
at it was.’

  ‘You were in a camp too.’

  ‘They told you about that?’

  ‘And that you had made a life for yourself here before the war. Tell me about that, Feo. How did you get enough money to buy this great big house?’

  ‘I set up shops. Cooked meat and pie shops.’

  ‘You have more than one?’

  ‘Twelve –’

  ‘Then you can find a job for Pasha,’ she broke in eagerly.

  ‘I have already offered. He doesn’t want one.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what he wants, Feo. I’m worried about him. He has done things – things that may have been necessary in the camps,’ she qualified carefully, refusing to be disloyal to her son. ‘But he knows nothing of life. Ordinary life, like it was for us when we were growing up and first married.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about Pasha, or look after him any more, Masha. He may not know what he wants – yet. But I will take care of him, whether he wants me to or not.’

  ‘He gets into fights.’

  ‘All boys of his age do. It’s not serious.’

  ‘It is when Pasha fights. He has killed and not just once, Feo. He knifed a man because he refused to put me on the list of prisoners to be transferred from Auschwitz when the Russian army was about to overrun the camp. Then when we arrived in Buchenwald –’

  ‘Everyone kills in a war, and life in the camps is a kind of war,’ Charlie interrupted, preferring not to hear about the things his son had done to ensure his mother’s and his own survival, before he’d had time to complete his own judgement of the boy. ‘With us to help him, he’ll get used to life on the outside.’

  ‘I do hope you are right, Feo. He is so like you and not just in the way he looks. He has your heart, your soul, your goodness, please give him a chance …’

  ‘Have I changed so much, Masha, that you think you have to plead with me to love our son the way a father should?’

  ‘You were my husband,’ she touched his fingers, ‘but I was taken from a boy. Now I see a man.’

  ‘And you are disappointed.’

  ‘Not disappointed, shy. Which is stupid for a woman my age. I have to tell you something, Feo –’