Pontypridd 01 - Hearts of Gold

by Catrin Collier

  Those who were close to her – Megan, her father, Laura, her brothers and Maud suspected that she was in love, but she continued to stop short of analysing her feelings. If anyone had tried to present her with the evidence she would have laughed.

  For quite apart from the social gulf, underlying the strong emotion she felt for him, was an inherent fear. She had seen first-hand the damage that love could cause. Her mother wielded the power it gave her like a lash, using it to strip her father of everything he valued and held dear, dignity, independence, even the small pleasures he tried to take in the simple everyday facets of life.

  She was aware that there were other kinds of relationship: those in which gentleness and consideration prevailed over the desire to subjugate. Some marriages were undoubtedly based on mutual understanding and affection. She only had to look as far as her father and compare the air of patient, resigned sadness he wore like the proverbial hair shirt whenever he was in her mother’s company, with the jolly exuberance of Laura’s father, who was always hugging and kissing his plump, happy wife.

  But until now she’d never considered such a partnership relevant to her. When she’d taken up nursing she’d mapped out her future in terms of a career where hard work and celibacy came before any thoughts of a personal life.

  There’d never been much time for boys. An occasional, unmemorable trip to the cinema in Cardiff with Laura and one or two of the porters from the Royal Infirmary. And before that outings with her brothers and William and Laura’s brothers. They’d gone out as a crowd, visiting the cinema when they had a few pennies to spare, and Pontypridd Park, Shoni’s pond or the Graig Mountain when they didn’t.

  Once, after she’d returned home from the Infirmary, she’d visited the White Palace with Glan. Neither had forgotten the evening but for different reasons. He, because he was continually nagging her to repeat the experience; she because the evening had ended with her slapping his face soundly when he’d tried to kiss her.

  Now … she wrapped her arm around Andrew’s and snuggled closer to him; now she actually liked being kissed.

  ‘We’re here.’

  Disorientated, she opened her eyes and looked around. She hadn’t known that the world could be so green. Even the air seemed green, filled with a clear jade light that danced off the thick, curling new leaves of trees and bushes.

  ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you.’ He turned off the car engine, opened the door stepped outside and walked around to her door. She stretched her cramped limbs and left the car, breathing in the cool spring air.

  ‘Over there, look.’

  A breath-taking view over a thickly wooded hillside swept down towards a wide flat grassed valley floor branded with a meandering snake of silver river. And beyond the river, towering green capped cliffs sheltered pale golden fringed sands fringed by crashing breakers.

  ‘You wanted the sea.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. It’s like it’s never been touched.’

  ‘Oh, but it has.’ He opened a low barred gate that she hadn’t noticed and beckoned her forward. She followed him up a narrow gravel path bordered by hedges of white blossomed May, or “bread and butter” trees as the children on the Graig called them, eating the leaves when they had nothing tastier to put into their mouths. Encroaching on the path were clumps of poppies. Andrew halted in front of a wooden door, bleached dry by the sun.

  ‘It’s not much,’ he smiled. ‘Just a wooden summer chalet, but I used to have great fun here when I was a kid.’ He produced a huge key from the top pocket of his blazer and unlocked the door. Pushing hard he scraped it over a flag stoned floor. ‘Faugh!’ He wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘I hate being the first one in after the winter.’

  She followed him into a small, pine-boarded kitchen.

  ‘Welcome to the John summer residence.’ He opened a casement window set over the sink. ‘It may look dirty, damp and musty now, but there’s nothing amiss that a good scrub and a summer’s warmth won’t cure. Do you like it?’

  ‘Like it? I love it.’ She looked around. A square pine table, four pine wheel back chairs round it, stood in the centre of the room.

  A pine dresser, its shelves bare, its cupboard doors closed, stood against the wall opposite the door. Brightly coloured rag rugs lay on the floor next to the door and in front of an old stone sink with a brass tap.

  ‘All the comforts of home.’ He turned on the tap, nothing happened. ‘Well almost, water’s still turned off.’ He crouched beneath the sink and twisted the stopcock. ‘My mother bought the rugs at a church sale of work. She used to enjoy shopping for this place when we were small.’

  ‘The “we” being you and your sister?’

  He nodded.

  She knew from hospital gossip that he had a married sister a couple of years older than himself. But this was the first time he’d mentioned her.

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you the rest. Not that it’s much.’ He walked out of the kitchen into the gloom of an inner hallway. There was no window. From the light that filtered in from the kitchen she could see that the wood planking walls were painted cream. There were four doors. Three led into good-sized double bedrooms with large windows overlooking the woods. Two contained sets of twin beds, the third a double. The bedsteads were plain unvarnished pine, with mattresses wrapped in rubber sheeting to protect them from the damp. The wall and floors were of stripped pine planking, the furniture pine, chests of drawers and ottomans, no wardrobes. And like the kitchen and hall, all the rooms had a pervasive, thick musty atmosphere of neglect and disuse.

  ‘My father got a local chap to cover this area in when he bought the place. Must be over twenty years ago.’ He opened the fourth door. An overpowering dry warmth wafted out to greet them. ‘It used to be a veranda, but he had the walls planked and put in windows. The door from here to the garden stuck three or four years ago, and I never bothered to plane it. If you want to get out in a hurry you have to use the windows.’

  ‘Sitting here must be like sitting in a goldfish bowl in the woods.’

  He laughed. ‘I suppose it is. The best view is down this end.’ He walked past the two large picture windows that framed the woods, turned left around what had been the corner of the house and paused before a massive window that looked out over the headland towards the bay.

  ‘Three Cliffs’,’ he said as proudly as if he were showing her a painting. ‘The finest view on Gower.’

  ‘It’s wonderful.’

  ‘Isn’t it just? Here, help me pull off these dust sheets, I don’t know why I bothered to lay them out last autumn, there’s so much glass here the damp disappears as soon as the sun shines.’

  They uncovered a rattan three-piece suite with cushions, upholstered in thick, faded but serviceable green linen. She pressed down on one with her hand. It was quite dry.

  He sank down on a chair, and pulled her on to his lap. ‘I’d forgotten how much I love this place. Strange, I used to spend more weekends here when I was living in London than I do now. Get the train from Paddington to Pontypridd on a Friday night. Borrow one of my father’s cars, motor down eat supper here, and stay until Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘You used to come down here a lot?’ She left his lap and stood in front of the window, a maggot of jealousy worming away inside her at the thought of all the girls he must have brought here. Girls like Anthea Llewellyn-Jones who would have been only too happy to go away with him for a weekend.

  ‘Every time my tutors threatened to kick me out for not doing enough studying. This became my work base. The family gave up on it years ago. I don’t think my parents have been here more than once or twice in the last five years. Sometimes they lend it out to friends. Fanny …’

  ‘Fanny?’ she turned, to face him.

  ‘My sister,’ he explained. ‘Her name’s Fiona but I call her Fanny mainly because she hates it. She loathes this place. No hot and cold running water, no bathroom. Only an old thunder box out back.’

  She remained silent, angry with her
self for falling prey to jealousy. He hadn’t made her any promises. She had no right to question him about the women in his past.

  He left the chair and joined her at the window. ‘Would you like a walk? It’s too late to go to the beach; it’s a lot further than it looks. But we could walk across there.’ He pointed to some grey stonework barely visible through the trees on the hillside. ‘Those are the ruins of an old Norman Castle. If you won’t let me play at harems with you, then perhaps I can persuade you to play at knights and ladies.’

  ‘Are you sure the beach is too far?’

  ‘We’ll come here early on your next day off.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘I thought you wanted to go to the Rattle Fair?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then it’ll have to wait until the next one.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’ He unlatched the windows and threw them wide. ‘Come on, if we leave everything open this place will air out by the time we get back, then I’ll make you tea. ‘Totally from tins,’ he said gleefully as if it would be a great treat.

  They took it in turns to visit the outhouse before they left. He apologised for the primitive facilities. She said nothing, wondering if he realised that the only house that could boast a bathroom on the Graig was that of the Leyshons.

  She enjoyed the walk. It blew away cobwebs accumulated during a winter spent working in the hospital, and she even managed to forget the events of chapel that morning in the novelty of the cliff top scenery. Until that moment the sea had meant either Barry Island or Porthcawl; built-up resorts with rows of stiff wooden chalets, bathing huts, funfairs and railway stations large enough to accommodate the thousands of day trippers that swarmed down on them from the coal mining valleys. This charming unspoilt bay set in a wilderness of green pastures and trees entranced her, and although Andrew assured her that there were other chalets close by, she refused to look at their red and grey roofs, preferring to cling to her first impression of total and absolute solitude.

  When they returned after an hour’s hard walking her feet were blistered from her new shoes, but the air in the chalet was definitely fresher. She sat at the table while Andrew ran the water, first washing out then filling a kettle he produced from the walk in pantry.

  ‘Last one to leave before winter sets in makes sure there’s a fire laid for spring. Not that it always burns.’ Using his cigarette lighter he lit a ball of newspaper and pushed it into a pile of logs in the grate which was set beneath a chimney, the only stone-built part of the chalet.

  The paper smouldered reluctantly, then just when Andrew decided to pull out the fire and re-lay it, it burst into flames. He hung the kettle on a chain over the fire.

  ‘Now, like the three men in a boat we have to pretend that we really don’t want tea. Then the kettle will boil, which is more than it will do if we watch it. Let’s see, what have we here?’ He left the fireplace and walked into the pantry. ‘Tinned fruit, tinned sardines, and,’ he frowned as he held up a jar filled with dark greenish liquid and some very dubious-looking solids. ‘What do you think? Pickled gherkins or medical specimen?’

  ‘Specimen.’

  ‘You could be right. The last time I came here I was studying for my finals.’

  ‘All of a sudden I don’t feel very hungry.’

  ‘Coward. How about we settle for tea and I buy you fish and chips on the way home?’

  ‘It’s Sunday.’

  ‘So it is. Oh well, we’ll have to make do with what’s in the car.’

  ‘You brought a hamper? I thought you only decided to come here when we were in Penycoedcae.’

  ‘You know me and picnics. I like them even on slag heaps. If you use the water to wash a couple of plates and glasses Iʼll bring it in.’

  ‘What about tea?’

  ‘Why drink tea when we can have wine?’

  He went to the car while she rummaged through the dresser. She came across a set of thick blue and white clay pottery plates, cups and saucers, and a tray of bone-handled knives and forks. The glasses she found on a high shelf in the pantry, along with a stack of tea towels, tablecloths and enamel bowls. By the time she’d washed some dishes he’d rifled through the hamper, laid the cloth and set out a plate of rolls filled with ham and cheese, a bowl of fresh fruit and opened the bottle of wine.

  ‘If we fill our plates we could take this through to the veranda,’ he suggested.

  They ate and drank sitting side by side on the rattan couch, watching the flaming ball of the dying sun sink slowly over the horizon.

  ‘How would you like to retire here with me? We could grow old together, watching sunsets, drinking wine. …’

  ‘Without work there wouldn’t be any money to pay for wine.’

  ‘Always the practical one.’ He took the wine gently from her hand and set it on the floor next to her feet. Then he leaned over and kissed her. She responded, slipping her hands beneath his jacket, running her fingers over the smooth silk of his shirt.

  ‘If we’re going to do this we may as well do it in comfort.’ He undid his tie, took off his jacket, unbuttoned his braces and flung them on to one of the chairs. Then he kicked off his shoes without undoing the laces. ‘Come here, woman,’ he commanded, pulling her down alongside him, until they both lay full length on the couch.

  His body, hard, unyielding, pushed her into the soft cushions at her back. He kissed and caressed her, embracing her body with his own, arousing the slow-burning passion that he had carefully nurtured in her since the night she had first trusted him enough to return his kiss.

  His hand sought her breast, stroking its contours through the thin material of her dress, awakening sensations that were new and wholly strange to her. Face burning; she clung tightly to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, hoping that he’d stop. Kissing she enjoyed, but she wasn’t ready for anything more. Not yet. Not now. And when she felt his fingers fumble at the buttons on her bodice she clamped her hands over his.

  His eyes, dark, serious, stared intently into hers, ‘Darling,’ he pleaded. ‘Just this. I promise you, it will go no further.’

  He kissed her again but she froze, tensing her muscles until her entire body was rigid. Too embarrassed and ashamed to look at him she kept her eyes tightly closed, furious with herself for failing to control the tears that welled beneath her eyelids.

  ‘Bethan, what’s wrong?’ he demanded.

  When she didn’t reply he swung his legs to the floor and reached for his jacket. Searching through the pockets he extracted his cigarettes and lighter. ‘I knew there was something on your mind when I picked you up. Is it something I’ve done?’ he asked, cursing himself for losing control. He didn’t want their relationship to end. Not this way. Besides, he should have known better. The first thing he’d discovered as a probing adolescent was that there were no girls so moral as those brought up in the ways of the Welsh chapels.

  ‘It’s not you. It’s me.’ Clinging to him she buried her head in his shoulder.

  He lit his cigarette, pulled a table with an ashtray closer to the sofa and inhaled deeply. ‘Are you fed up with me?’ he asked simply.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well that’s a relief.’ He leaned against the cushions. ‘Look,’ he waved the cigarette he was holding towards the window, ‘the sun’s shining, spring’s here, you have me. Now what can be dreadful enough to spoil all that?’

  ‘If you’d been there this morning you’d know,’ she retorted vehemently, frightened by his questions. That the thought she didn’t care about him should even cross his mind. … ‘But as you’re not chapel you can’t even begin to imagine it.’

  ‘Imagine what?’

  ‘The stoning.’

  ‘Stoning?’ A frown appeared between his eyebrows. ‘Stoning out of unmarried pregnant women?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ve heard of it happening in chapels in the Rhondda. But surely to God it doesn’t go on today. And on the Graig o
f all places?’

  She blurted out everything. John Joseph’s triumph in condemning Phyllis from the pulpit. The way he and the deacons had rounded on Phyllis as she’d fought to get out of the building. The women spitting, the stone being thrown. He listened in silence, holding her, stroking her hair away from her face, and when she finally ceased talking, he kissed away the tears that fell despite her efforts to contain them. Tears of sympathy for Phyllis and rage against her uncle.

  ‘You poor, poor darling.’ He pulled her head on to his shoulder.

  Wrapping her arms around his chest, she was acutely aware of his heart beating beneath her hand.

  ‘This minister, he’s your uncle?’ he murmured, breaking the silence when he had to move to stub out his cigarette.

  ‘Yes,’

  ‘Good God, no wonder you’re mixed up. But you’re a nurse, sweetheart, and half a midwife to boot. Surely I don’t need to tell you what causes pregnancy.’ He smiled, shaking his head as she blushed. ‘Darling, I respect you, and I love you.’ He was as surprised by his spontaneous declaration as her, but he continued, not wanting to think too hard about the implications of what he’d said. Not yet. ‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t be spending as much time with you as I am, and the last thing I’m going to do is leave you alone and pregnant to face a chapel full of monsters. Bethan,’ he lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. ‘I care about you. I’ll never do anything to hurt you. You must believe that. The problem is, you’re beautiful, extremely desirable and I’m weak. But I promise you now, I’ll never be weak enough to forget myself, never.’

  She tightened her arms, holding him close with every ounce of strength she possessed.

  The only sound in the room was their soft, rhythmic breathing. The peace was absolute, the air warm from the sun’s rays beating on the windows.