Pontypridd 01 - Hearts of Gold

by Catrin Collier

  She closed the office door behind her. The fire was smoking miserably behind its tarnished mesh guard. She unhooked the metal screen from the iron grate and tried to poke some life into the coals.

  The crust of small coal broke, revealing glowing embers beneath. She replaced the guard and kicked off her shoes, resting and warming her feet on the hearth kerb. The ward maid knocked the door and brought in her tea. For once it was fresh, not stewed.

  Revelling in the luxury of being able to put her feet up she leaned back on her chair and glanced up at the uncurtained windows. White streaks of rain were lashing down on the black glass. She felt warm, cosseted and comfortable, ensconced in an overworked nurse’s idea of heaven.

  After half an hour of writing, she left the office to check the ward. Everything had remained quiet, so she returned to the record cards. She was still sitting; pen in hand, cards on lap, in front of the fire when Andrew walked in.

  ‘She’s very weak.’ He shook the flat of his hand from side to side. ‘We’ll know one way or the other tomorrow.’

  ‘The birth was straightforward. No problems,’ she explained defensively. ‘When it happened it was so sudden …’

  ‘Believe me; she wouldn’t have lasted until I got here if you hadn’t done what you did.’ He untied the green gown he was wearing and pulled down the mask. ‘I’ll get rid of these. Want some tea?’

  ‘I ought to see to the patients.’ She rose stiffly from her chair, putting the record cards on to the desk.

  ‘There’s nothing for you to do.’ He pushed her back into her seat. ‘Sister Jenkins from upstairs is staying in the theatre with the patient. I thought it best not to move her for an hour or two. She’ll call if we’re needed. Tea?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes please.’ She sank back down and checked her watch. Half past three. Another three and a half hours before the night shift ended.

  Andrew returned. He was in shirt sleeves, his black tie hanging loose around his neck, his coat slung over one shoulder. ‘Obliging ward maids you have there. They said they’ll bring in fresh cups as soon as it’s made.’ He sat in the chair behind the desk and swung his feet on to the wall. Crossing his hands behind his head he closed his eyes and leaned back.

  The clean, sharp smell of male perspiration tinged with the heady scent of his cologne filled the warm office. Shy and a little embarrassed by the unaccustomed intimacy, Bethan returned to the record cards.

  The maid brought the tea with a quick curtsy and a shy glance at Andrew. He sat up leaning over the desk he lit a cigarette with a heavily engraved gold lighter. ‘Cigarette?’ He pushed his case and lighter towards Bethan.

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘I should have remembered. Sorry I took so long to get here.’ He inhaled deeply and blew long thin streams of smoke from his nostrils. ‘I was at the tennis club ball in the Park Hotel. The message bounced from home to the Park Hotel twice before the porter found me.’

  Bethan knew from his dress that he’d been at a formal “do”.’ There was no reason for her to be upset, but the thought of him laughing, dancing and talking to other girls hurt her with a pain that was almost physical.

  ‘I would have asked you to come with me, but you were on duty,’ he murmured as though reading her thoughts.

  ‘How did you know I was on duty?’ she broke in quickly. Too quickly. She could have kicked herself when she saw his wry smile of amusement.

  ‘I read the duty roster for this ward.’

  ‘You read the rosters?’

  ‘Among other things. You’re off on Wednesday and Thursday this week.’

  ‘Off the ward, but I still have to work for my certificate.’

  ‘All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.’

  ‘Possibly, but I’m not Jill.’ She paused as it hit home that the sour note in her voice sounded exactly like the one that dogged her mother’s speech.

  ‘Laura and Trevor spent their free day in Cardiff. I had hoped we could follow their example.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Window shop, see a film, eat. The things that normal people do outside of hospitals and infirmaries. Pick you up in Station Square at ten on Wednesday morning.’

  ‘I can’t afford the time.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ he said in exasperation. ʻThat’s why you’re given days off. To do nothing in particular. Even the hospital board recognises that you can’t work people like machines. Ten, Station Square?’

  She stared into the fire, refusing to look at him. She was honest enough to admit to herself that she would rather go out with Andrew than any man she’d ever met. One evening in his company had been enough for her to “fall for him”, to use Laura’s language. But the sheer intensity of her feelings terrified her. He was a doctor. He was rich. He could have any girl he wanted – and probably had, she thought cynically.

  She realised already that she wanted him to regard her as something more than just a diversion from boredom, and she doubted that he’d see a nurse from the wrong side of the tracks as anything else. She also had a shrewd suspicion that one date with Andrew John could, if she wasn’t careful, make her reject out of hand anything less that other men had to offer.

  ‘I assure you, that although I’m a doctor and you’re a nurse, my intentions are strictly honourable.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘It’s more than just this doctor-nurse thing isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Is it Laura’s brother, or that porter? Because if it is I’ll bow out now.’

  ‘Nothing like that,’ she replied swiftly.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said decisively, sweeping her doubts to the back of her mind. ‘I’ll meet you in Station Square, only at twelve, not ten. I’m on nights again tomorrow and I’ll need a couple of hours sleep.’

  ‘Good,’ he smiled. ‘Now that’s settled I can go and check on my patient, with luck on my way home.’

  The money Bethan had saved for an overcoat for Eddie went on a green wool dress and a down payment on a new navy-blue coat at her Aunt Megan’s. She tried to justify the extravagance with the thought that there’d be extra money in her pay packet at the end of the week, but she still hid her new clothes from everyone except Maud.

  Her sister’s cold had worsened, settling into a hacking, feverish chest infection that Elizabeth had been forced to acknowledge, but even Maud’s illness couldn’t dampen Bethan’s excitement at the prospect of a day out with Andrew.

  On Wednesday morning the routine update of patients’ notes and ward handover to the sister who was standing in for Squeers seemed to take forever.

  It was a quarter-past eight before she reached Graig Avenue, tired and breathless from running all the way up the hill. Haydn had gone to work on Wilf’s stall in the market and her father and Eddie had walked down with him, hoping to pick up some work themselves. Her mother had cleared away the breakfast things, changed out of the overalls she wore in the house, ready to go shopping. After a stern injunction to Bethan to clear up any mess she made, Elizabeth left.

  Bethan checked on Maud, who was still coughing in spite of Evan’s remedy. She returned to the kitchen to make a fresh pot of tea. While it was brewing she looked at the kitchen clock. Half-past eight. No one would be in before ten at the earliest.

  She ran outside and unhooked the tin bath from the nail hammered into the garden wall. Her father and their lodger Alun bathed after every shift, out the back in summer and in the washhouse in winter. Eddie and Haydn bathed in the washhouse before bed on a Friday night but she and Maud weren’t so lucky.

  Her mother frowned on them bathing, preferring them to wash in the privacy of their room where there was no risk of their father, the lodger or their brothers walking in on them.

  She carried the bath into the washhouse, and wiped it over with the floor cloth before taking it into the kitchen. She stood it on the rag rug in front of the range. Lifting down the enamel jug from the shelf where Elizabeth kept her pots and pa
ns she drew off hot water from the boiler, careful not to allow the level to get too low before topping it up. After she’d filled the bath with as much hot water as she dared, she tipped in a couple of jugfuls of cold.

  She took Maud’s tea upstairs. Shivering in the freezing bedroom she tucked Maud in before returning to the kitchen with her scent, dressing gown and the flannel, towel and soap from their washstand.

  Closing the curtains in case any of the Richards should happen to walk into their yard, she stripped off and poured a little of the essence of violets into the water. Two minutes later she was sitting in the tub, sponging her back, and revelling in the feel of the warm scented water trickling over her bare skin.

  Forgetting that she only had a limited amount of time she decided to wash her hair. Ducking her head between her knees she soaked it before rubbing the bar of soap into a lather that covered her hands, and then her head. Luckily she’d left the enamel jug on the hearth, so all she had to do was refill it with the now cool water from the boiler to rinse off the suds. When it was squeaky clean, she wrapped it in the towel, closed her eyes and wriggled down as low as she could. When she opened her eyes again the water was cold, the hands on the clock pointed to twenty past nine and her fingers were as wrinkled as her mother’s scrubbing board.

  Jumping up she pulled the towel from her hair and hastily rubbed herself as dry as she could in the soaking cloth.

  Moving quickly she stepped out on to the rug and tied on her dressing gown. Her mother never lingered any longer in town than she had to, and if she came back and found out that the bath had been carried into the kitchen there’d be hell to pay.

  Bethan emptied the bath with the jug. It was long slow work, particularly as she had to watch that she didn’t spill a drop of tell-tale water on the kitchen rugs. It was a quarter to ten before the bath water was low enough for her to grab hold of both handles and carry it out through the door.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  She jumped, slopping a good pint of water on to the floor.

  ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.’ Eddie walked into the kitchen. ‘Here, let me take the other handle. Haven’t you got enough sense to realise that you could do yourself a permanent injury trying to carry that out by yourself?’

  ‘I was trying to be quick before Mam comes back.’

  ‘I saw her going into Uncle Joe’s house as I crossed the Graig Mountain.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  Eddie’s eyes were shining, his face blackened by a thick layer of coal dust.

  ‘What have you been doing?’ She didn’t need to ask. She already knew.

  ‘Getting coal.’

  ‘Off the wagons in the colliery sidings?’ she accused him heatedly.

  ‘Maud needs a fire in that bedroom. It’s freezing.’

  ‘You could cop a two pound fine for that. Gaol, because we couldn’t afford to pay.’

  ‘They’ll have to catch me. And before you ask, the coal’s already safe and sound in the shed along with what’s left of Dad’s ration. There’s no telling it apart, and as soon as I’ve given you a hand with this, I’ll lay a fire in your bedroom.’

  Bethan gripped hold of the bath handle. She was too ashamed to say any more. As the only one earning any real money she should have done something about the temperature in their bedroom before this. Spent the money she’d wasted on a new dress on coal. She’d been so wrapped up in Andrew and the row with her mother that she’d managed to forget Maud’s illness for hours at a time.

  ‘One – two – three, lift,’ Eddie ordered. Shuffling along, they carried the bath through the washhouse towards the back door.

  ‘You can’t step out here without slippers on.’ Eddie heaved her out of the way, stumbled and tipped the water all over the yard, soaking the flagstones.

  ‘That will never dry before Mam comes home,’ she wailed.

  ‘Then I’ll tell her I washed it down.’

  ‘She won’t believe that,’ Bethan rejoined crossly.

  ‘She will, if I tell her next door’s cat dragged a dead rabbit across it. Right, you go and dress and I’ll wash here,’ he ordered, embarrassed by the amount of cleavage she was showing.

  She saw what he was looking at and pulled the edges of her dressing gown closer together. ‘I won’t be long.’ Grabbing the towel, her discarded clothes and her scent from the kitchen floor, she raced through the passage and up the stairs.

  Maud was sleeping fitfully, her cheeks bright red, burning. If the fever didn’t break soon Bethan resolved to ask Andrew to call in and take a look at her.

  Dressing as quietly as she could, she started with the silk camiknickers and petticoat that she hadn’t worn since she’d washed and aired them in her bedroom (Elizabeth had taken one look at the garments and refused to hang them on the airing rack in the kitchen).

  She finished with the new green wool dress and plain black low heeled shoes. She looked herself over in the mirror, her thoughts an uneasy mixture of guilt over the new clothes and regret for her decidedly worn shoes, handbag and dated hat. All things considered, she didn’t look too awful. She screwed her eyes in an attempt to view her profile in the wardrobe mirror, and gave up when Maud tossed restlessly from her back on to her side.

  Stealing out, she closed the bedroom door softly and shivered her way down the stairs and along the passage to the kitchen.

  ‘Want some tea, Beth?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Not if I’ve got to make it.’

  ‘It’s all done.’ There was a hurt tone in his voice.

  She pulled one of the kitchen chairs close to the range, unwrapped her hair and began to towel it dry.

  ‘Mam’ll go berserk when she finds out that you’ve gone to bed with wet hair.’

  ‘I’m not going to bed,’ she said, blessing Eddie’s lack of observation. Haydn would have spotted the new dress and smelled the scent by now.

  ‘Then where are you, going?’

  ‘To Cardiff.’

  ‘Cardiff’s even worse. Going out with wet hair, just after a bath? You out to catch pneumonia?’

  ‘You sound just like Mam.’

  ‘Does she know what you’re up to?’

  ‘No. And you’re not going to tell her. Are you?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘What’s it worth?’

  ‘Sixpence.’

  ‘Make it another seven bob and you’re on.’

  ‘You little …’

  ‘I need the money.’

  ‘What for?’

  He picked up the teapot from the range, took off the cosy and filled the cups he’d taken down from the dresser.

  ‘What for?’ She repeated, forgetting her hair for a moment.

  ‘Gloves,’ he answered reluctantly.

  ‘Boxing gloves?’

  ‘I’m good, Beth. I really am.’

  ‘I saw how good you were the other night.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ he broke in angrily. ‘That was the first time I’d ever climbed into a ring. I really am good; everyone in the gym says so. Once I get gloves I’ll go round the fairground booths. A few weeks of that and I’ll make enough to pay you back and chip in my corner here. Come on, Beth – a month at the most and I’ll give you a quid. I’d ask Dad but he’s never got any money, Haydn hasn’t been paid yet and Mam won’t give me a penny. You know what she is,’ he added acidly.

  ‘I haven’t got it to give to you.’

  ‘It’s like that, is it,’ he said sourly.

  She opened her handbag. ‘I can give you half a crown now, and five bob on Friday when I’ve been paid.’

  His face lit up. ‘If I put half a crown down today, George will hold them until Friday.’

  ‘George?’

  ‘It’s his gloves I’m buying. Beth, you’re a darling.’ He hugged her out of excitement, then, realising what he was doing he dropped his arms.

  ‘Fool, more like it.’ Her face fell, serious at the sight of one or two cuts and bruises that hadn’t quite
healed. ‘Just don’t go getting yourself into a real mess, or I’ll never forgive myself.’

  He grinned. ‘Me? I’m immortal, Beth, I thought you would have realised that by now.’

  She tried to quell her misgivings. Eddie was entitled to his dreams. She’d found out long ago that they were the only thing that made the harsh reality of life on the Graig bearable.

  Since she’d qualified, her fantasies of Florence Nightingale nursing had been replaced by hazy, formless desires that somehow encompassed Andrew John. Haydn had hopes of a theatrical career that would sweep him from dogsbody in the Town Hall to success on the London stage. Her father dreamed of a workers’ uprising that would revolutionise the face of the Valleys. Maud had mapped out a future “rags to riches” plan for herself roughly based on the plot of Jane Eyre.

  The only problem with Eddie’s dream was that it was easier to put into practice and far more dangerous than any of the others. But fear for Eddie’s health and life gave her no right to stop him from trying. For all she knew he might be the lucky one, the next Jimmy Wilde to come out of the Valleys with enough talent to earn himself a slice of the good life he craved for.

  And even if he was on a hiding to nothing, who was she to stop him? Better for him to hold on to his dream, no matter how hopeless, than lose all hope for something beyond the grim reality of the present – like their mother.

  Chapter Seven

  Andrew had parked his car and was sitting waiting for Bethan in the station yard car park. She saw him as soon as she emerged from under the railway bridge, her face flushed with the walk down the hill, her hat and new coat damp from the fine misty rain. She quickened her pace and ran towards him. He stepped out and opened the passenger door.

  ‘I’ll start the engine.’

  ‘I’m sorry, am I late?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘Not at all.’ He turned up the collar on his Burberry and closed the door for her. Taking the crank from under his seat, he paused for a moment to admire her long slim legs clad in shining, flesh coloured silk.

  A few minutes later they were dodging brewery cars and grocers’ wagons on Broadway heading towards Treforest on the Cardiff Road.’