Past Remembering

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Wanted! It was an impossible dream. We both knew a baby could kill her. Andrew and Trevor warned me before we left here, the doctors in Italy told her as well, but once it happened she wouldn’t do anything about it, or allow anyone to help her. A combination of cold, hunger and the filthy conditions we were living in proved too much. The tuberculosis flared up again. I took her back down to my grandfather’s house, but it was too late. She died two days after we reached there.’

  ‘Ronnie, you can’t blame yourself for that, it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘No? Then whose fault was it? I was the one who took her to Italy. We became fugitives to save my hide …’

  ‘And hers? How long do you think she would have lasted in an internment camp?’

  ‘I got her pregnant,’ he stated bitterly.

  ‘What did you do after she died?’ she questioned, not knowing how else to respond to his self-recriminations.

  ‘Buried her in the cemetery in Bardi before returning to the hills.’

  ‘To fight?’ she asked, thinking of his wounds.

  ‘Fight?’ he sneered derisively. ‘What with? Ploughs and hoes? After the battles in Greece last winter some of us took it in turns to guide people through the mountains into Switzerland. Downed Allied pilots, Communists, Jews, intellectuals, anyone who was trying to flee Mussolini’s particular brand of Fascism. I got out with a group of pilots, and as you can see, here I am, safe and sound.’

  The anguish in Ronnie’s eyes was almost more than Diana could bear. She put her hands over his in an attempt to still his trembling. Despite the fire and the warmth of the room he was as cold as a corpse.

  ‘Maud’s death wasn’t your fault, Ronnie.’

  ‘I knew how ill she was. I should never have touched her.’

  ‘She loved you very much.’ Diana desperately wanted to offer consolation, but she had never been more conscious of her ignorance of passionate love or physical desire. ‘I can understand why Maud wanted to carry your child,’ she comforted him clumsily. ‘Somehow, in the middle of all this mess of war and killing, babies are more important than ever.’

  ‘You sound just like her.’

  ‘Is that surprising when we practically grew up together?’

  ‘I know what you’re trying to do, and I thank you for it. It helps to know that you don’t blame me, but I’ll never forgive myself.’

  ‘And how do you think Maud would feel about that?’

  ‘Have you ever seen anyone die of tuberculosis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course, you worked in Cardiff Infirmary with Maud so you must have.’ He tossed his cigarette into the fire. ‘It’s horrible – the blood, the mess …’

  She crouched down beside him and looked up into his eyes. ‘Do you think for one minute Maud would want you to remember her that way? What about the happy Maud who wrote to us sitting outside your grandfather’s house in the warm Italian summers? The Maud who helped your aunt to plant begonias in the garden, the almost healthy Maud, Trevor and Laura saw when they visited you the summer after you left here? You gave her those extra years, Ronnie. Happy years. Dwell on them, not on her dying.’

  ‘I only wish I could.’

  ‘You have to, for her sake as well as yours.’

  ‘There is no “her sake” any more, she’s dead.’

  ‘You can wallow in self-pity if you want to, Ronnie, but if you do, you won’t be the only one to suffer. You don’t have exclusive rights on Maud’s life, she’s a part of me, and all the other people who knew and loved her. Don’t tarnish our memories by killing her a second time. And you will if you persist in dwelling on her death to the exclusion of her life. I loved Eddie and Maud,’ she asserted fiercely, ‘and I’m going to tell Bethan’s children about the uncle and aunt they’ll never know. Not as names they have to whisper in case someone starts crying, but as warm, funny, loving people who enriched all our lives.’

  ‘And you don’t want a killjoy sitting in the corner reminding them of the cruel realities of life?’

  ‘Exactly,’ she rejoined bluntly, ‘You’re not just Maud’s husband, you’re Bethan and Haydn’s brother-in-law. Maud left you two nieces and a nephew. So, are you going to help Bethan, Haydn and the rest of us keep Maud and Eddie’s memory alive for them?’ Her question echoed against the ticking of the clock.

  ‘You don’t understand. How could you?’

  ‘I understand that while Maud lived, you loved and cared for her. You’ve nothing to feel guilty about, Ronnie. Only sadness that we’ve all lost her.’

  If he heard her he gave no sign of it.

  ‘Would you like that tea, now?’

  He didn’t even look at her. Instead he remained hunched in his chair staring into the fire.

  She sat with him while the clock ticked on. After a while she doubted that he even knew she was there. ‘Ronnie, if there’s ever anything I can do?’

  He shook his head. She picked up her bag and left, closing the front door quietly.

  He heard her leave. The kitchen closed into silence once again. It was then that he felt a tear roll down his cheek. It was followed by another and another, the first tears he’d shed in eighteen numb, arid months.

  As he lifted his hand to wipe them away a racking sob tore through his emaciated body. The paroxysm of emotion carried in its intensity some of the guilt and anguish that had tormented him since Maud’s death. But even when he was done, too spent and exhausted even to weep, he wasn’t sure whether he’d been crying for Maud, or for himself.

  ‘I don’t know how Liza and Maisie do it,’ Phyllis commented as she admired the array of sandwiches and cakes they had set out on the table in Bethan’s dining room, a room that had only been opened up twice since Andrew had left home.

  ‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ Bethan confessed as she made space on the table for the curried corned beef balls and dripping cake Phyllis had brought. ‘Neither do I. I just hand over the ration cards and let them get on with it.’

  ‘I only hope you’ve got some food left for the rest of the week.’

  Maisie came in and took Phyllis’s coat, too conscious of her status as maid to do any more than answer Phyllis’s polite enquiries after her and her daughter’s health, although they had once lived in the same street.

  ‘Have you invited anyone else, love?’ Evan followed Megan and Diana, who carried Billy in her arms, from the hall as Brian scampered off to join the evacuees.

  ‘Tina, Jenny and Ronnie. They’re coming up together after Jenny has closed the shop.’

  ‘And Wyn’s sorry, but as we’ve only just moved Alice from the High Street to the New Theatre shop he wants to give her a hand to open up, but he’ll be along later,’ Diana apologised.

  ‘I asked Charlie if there was anyone else he wanted to see, but as tonight’s his last night I think we’re probably overwhelming enough as it is.’

  ‘Speak of the Devil and he appears,’ Megan announced as Charlie walked down the stairs with Alma.

  ‘Thought we heard voices.’ Alma kissed the women while Charlie lifted Evan off his feet in a bear hug.

  ‘I slipped a couple of bottles of beer I’ve been saving into Andrew’s study,’ Evan said with a smile. ‘Why don’t we go and sample them while the women sort out the food?’

  ‘Here, take this with you.’ Bethan cradled Eddie in one arm as she took a half-empty bottle from the sideboard and handed it to her father. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, it’s brandy. I know you prefer vodka.’ She brought out another two bottles, home-made, elderberry wine this time. The bell rang shrilly as she placed them on the table. ‘That’s too early for the girls.’ Bethan glanced up at the clock.

  ‘You on duty?’ Megan asked.

  ‘The relief’s on until midnight, but as she’s sitting with Mrs Moore I said I’d cover for emergencies.’ She followed Maisie into the outer hall and cried out in surprise. ‘You’re the last people I expected to see!’

  ‘We took a taxi up from the station. Ther
e was no one in Graig Avenue, but Mrs Richards told us that Dad, Phyllis, Diana and Megan had got into your car …’

  ‘Nosy old so-and-so.’

  ‘So here we are.’ Haydn put an arm around a reluctant Jane and ushered her forward.

  Bethan opened the door into the main hall. ‘Dad, you’re never going to believe in a hundred years who’s here.’

  ‘Tony’s written. He’s coming home soon,’ Gina announced as she walked into the Tumble café with Luke. She looked past Ronnie to the kitchen. ‘Tina with the cook?’

  ‘Gone up to Jenny’s. I hope to get a taxi and pick them up there. My leg isn’t up to walking that far yet.’

  ‘You’ll be damned lucky to get a wheelbarrow, let alone a taxi. Haven’t you heard petrol’s rationed?’

  ‘Your language is appalling,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘You going to stand by and let him talk to your wife like that?’ Gina demanded of Luke.

  ‘I’d rather get to know your brother before I try coming between the two of you.’

  ‘Wise man.’ Ronnie couldn’t help thinking that Gina and Luke looked more like a couple of schoolchildren than husband and wife. He reached for the cups. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Seeing as how you’re serving, yes please. I don’t suppose you’ve got any teacakes left?’ she asked, as she leaned over the counter and poked around the empty glass cake-stands.

  ‘You suppose right.’

  ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘You’ve just eaten a huge tea,’ Luke pointed out mildly.

  ‘I’m still hungry.’ Lifting the flap on the counter she went foraging.

  ‘So when is Tony coming?’ Ronnie asked, as he turned the tap on the tea urn.

  ‘A week tomorrow. Can he stay with you in Laura’s? I’d offer, but one of my evacuees’ husbands is coming down on embarkation leave and her children will have to move out of her bedroom so he can move in. We won’t have a spare bed or room in the house.’

  ‘He’ll probably appreciate the peace in Graig Street.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad that’s settled. It’s not that I don’t want to see him, it’s just that our house is bedlam with all the evacuees squashed in.’

  ‘Does Mama know you’ve taken them in?’ As a concession to Luke’s status as family, Ronnie produced the sugar shaker.

  ‘She was the one who suggested we put them up. Her landlady in Birmingham has been good to her, and Mama thought it might be a way of putting something back into the system.’ Gina discovered a scraping of margarine in an end of greaseproof paper and spread it on the last slice of bread in the bread box. ‘Looks like you’re going to have plenty of company working in munitions.’

  ‘I know Jenny Powell’s starting in the factory on Monday.’ He watched Gina carefully to see if the mention of Jenny’s name would spark the same reaction in her as it had in Tina.

  ‘And not only Jenny. Wyn Rees too.’

  ‘Queer Wyn?’

  ‘You’d better not let his wife catch you saying that.’

  ‘Wyn Rees, married? Come on, not even I’ve been away that long.’

  ‘And the father of a bouncing baby boy,’ she crowed, delighting in passing on news he hadn’t yet heard.

  ‘Good God, some woman well and truly caught him.’

  ‘He and Diana seem very happy.’

  ‘Diana? Not Diana Powell.’ He stopped polishing the pie steamer and stared at her in disbelief.

  ‘She’s Rees now.’

  ‘I thought she worked for him.’

  ‘She used to before they got married.’

  ‘But she brought some food up to the house today. She never said a word. I had absolutely no idea she was married. She didn’t write to Maud about it.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have been able to. It happened after the war broke out and the mail was stopped. Haven’t you got anything else around here that’s edible? I’m never going to last until closing time without eating something, and we haven’t any coupons left for sweets.’

  Without thinking what he was doing, Ronnie reached under the counter and handed her a stick of coconut ice Tina had been saving for Bethan’s little girl.

  ‘Thanks Ronnie, you’re a gem. Hadn’t you better start thinking about getting ready?’

  He went into the back and slipped off the khaki jacket that he’d found in one of the kitchen cupboards. He simply couldn’t believe it! Diana Powell married to queer Wyn and the mother of a baby. Why hadn’t she told him? Was she so naive she didn’t know what Wyn was? Had she assumed he’d known about her marriage, or was she so ashamed of her husband she didn’t want to talk about him? She wasn’t that different from Maud, and despite Gina’s assertion he found it difficult to believe that any girl, let alone one like Diana Powell, could be happy married to a man like Wyn Rees.

  ‘Why is it, that every time we have a family get-together the women end up sitting in one room and the men in another?’ Megan complained as Bethan topped up their glasses.

  ‘I’ve no idea, but I agree it always happens that way.’ Bethan cuddled a sleepy Rachel, who’d been allowed to stay up for the occasion. The sound of splashes and shrieks of childish laughter echoed down the stairs as Liza and Maisie bathed the younger children and put them to bed.

  ‘It’s probably something to do with primitive tribal instincts,’ Tina declared authoritatively. ‘Like having to prove how much drink they can take while boasting about their prowess between the sheets.’

  ‘Tina!’ Jenny pretended to be shocked.

  ‘It’s true. Haven’t you ever eavesdropped on their conversation? It’s always about who was falling down drunk, and the smile they put on their wife’s face, or if they haven’t got a wife, someone else’s wife. Mind you -’ she dipped the edge of one of Maisie’s vinegar and oatmeal biscuits into her wine then nibbled it – ‘after nine months without William, I’d give a year’s sugar and sweet ration for a chance to have one of those smiles. Look at us.’ She glanced around the table. ‘Eight women and only five men next door, and one of those isn’t attached. So four of us are going to be sleeping in cold, lonely beds tonight.’

  ‘Only the lucky ones who aren’t working,’ Bethan broke in.

  ‘And the ones without children,’ Phyllis contended. ‘Brian’s at that irritating age when he sees monsters in the dark, but only in his own room. The last three weeks I’ve woken up beside him to find that Evan has retreated into his bed in the box room.’

  ‘I hope Billy won’t go through that phase.’

  ‘He will,’ Megan warned. ‘You don’t know what a disturbed night is yet.’

  ‘And bang goes any chance of having fun with Wyn in the mornings.’ Tina picked up a Welsh cake.

  ‘You’re going to be the size of a house if you eat any more,’ Jenny warned.

  ‘What does it matter when there’s no one to see me naked?’

  ‘Apart from Phyllis and Diana, we’ll all be in the same boat tomorrow,’ Jane contributed shyly, beginning to understand just why Haydn had insisted on bringing her back to Pontypridd. It was going to be easier to face separation with his family and friends around.

  ‘I wish I knew how the men managed,’ Tina persisted. ‘Knowing William, I bet he’s found a knocking shop somewhere in Africa that sells Welsh beer.’

  ‘A knocking shop?’ Jane asked in bewilderment.

  ‘Station yard,’ Megan supplied. ‘And when I last heard, my son was too busy fighting to look for girls.’

  ‘Is it true they put something in their tea to dampen the urge?’ Tina mused. ‘I must admit I prefer that idea to belly dancers eager to satisfy their every whim.’

  ‘Ask Charlie,’ Bethan suggested. ‘He’s a serving soldier, he might know.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Alma laughed.

  ‘Oh, oh, we know what that laugh means, and boy am I jealous. Well if Charlie doesn’t know, perhaps you could write to Andrew and ask him, Beth? He’s a doctor and an officer, so he might have been ordered to solve the problem. After all he’s in the w
orst position of all. Locked up in a camp full of men. He must be as frustrated as I am.’

  ‘From what he says in his letters the POWs are too cold and hungry to worry about that kind of frustration. And as there’s a shortage of basic supplies, I doubt they have anything extra to put in their tea.’

  ‘From what Eddie was like on his last leave, I don’t believe they use anything,’ Jenny said.

  ‘And I don’t believe I’m hearing this conversation.’

  ‘Come on, Mam,’ Tina addressed her mother-in-law; ‘I bet this is no different from the way you felt during the last war?’

  ‘No,’ Megan smiled, ‘it isn’t. Apart from the fact that once my Will went he never came back.’

  ‘What we need is an army camp somewhere near here.’

  ‘In Pontypridd? What for, to save us from the Home Guard?’ Bethan lifted Rachel against her shoulder and reached for the bottle to replenish their glasses.

  ‘Hitler’s henchmen when they get here.’

  ‘They’ve got to get through an awful lot of other places first, and even if there was one, there’d be no guarantee that William would be stationed here,’ Jenny pointed out.

  ‘What you need are cold showers, and plenty of exercise,’ Megan joked.

  ‘Come on, I can’t be the only one who feels this way?’ Tina looked around the table.

  ‘No you aren’t,’ Jenny agreed.

  ‘But you are the only one who talks about it all the time.’ Bethan glanced at Diana, who had hardly said a word since Tina had steered the conversation on to sex.

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to settle for Errol Flynn in the White Palace like all the other abandoned wives. Anyone want to come?’

  ‘I will,’ Jenny offered. ‘It might be the last time I’ll be able to for a while, now I’m going into munitions.’

  ‘You’re going to work in a factory?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I want to do my bit.’

  ‘It’s good money too,’ Tina chipped in. ‘If I didn’t have the café to run, I’d be with you like a shot.’

  ‘Are they taking anyone?’

  ‘Absolutely anyone they can get. They’re desperate. You thinking of applying, Jane?’