‘You do realise that is exactly what would have happened to you and Billy if Wyn hadn’t married you, and you’d had to go into the workhouse.’
‘My mother couldn’t have supported me, but my cousin Bethan would have taken me in. Tony knew that.’
‘Whichever way I look at it, he left you in a mess.’
‘Which Wyn got me out of.’
He threw his apple core into the centre of the pond. It sent ripples out in ever increasing circles to the shore, lapping in little wavelets against the watery crust of last winter’s debris.
‘And now you have a family, and a business?’
‘I’ve got it made,’ she concurred with a touch of bitterness.
‘Seems to me you’ve made the best of what you’ve got, and isn’t that all any of us can do?’
‘I suppose so. I’ve never talked to anyone about this except Wyn. It’s most peculiar, I feel as though I’ve known you all my life.’
‘You have.’
‘Not like this. I was only sixteen when Ben Springer raped me. Laura and Trevor were kind to me when I went to them for help, but I couldn’t talk to them about it, not really talk, the way we are now. Wyn knows because he found me wandering in Taff Street the night it happened. I was in too much of a state to go home. So he took me to his house, bandaged me up, gave me some of his sister’s clothes, and generally looked after me. That was over five years ago, and he’s carried on taking care of me ever since.’
‘Tony was a fool to let you walk away from him.’
‘He didn’t want me after I told him he wasn’t the first, and I couldn’t undo the past.’
‘It wasn’t your fault that you were raped.’
‘Try telling that to some of the men in this town.’
‘I think a lot of them are going to have their eyes opened by this war, particularly when the Germans invade.’
‘It’s hard to explain, but it’s something you can’t forget, or put behind you. I feel common, dirty …’
‘There’s no reason to. You’re still the same person you were before. And just because you’ve had two bad experiences it doesn’t mean your whole life is blighted. I knew a girl in Italy who was raped by a platoon of German soldiers. She joined the Resistance and at first all she wanted to do was kill every German she could get in her gun sights. But she changed.’
‘How?’
‘The usual story,’ he smiled. ‘She met a man and fell in love. They married.’
‘He married her after that?’
‘Why not? You of all people should know it wasn’t her fault.’
‘If they were married, he’d want to touch her. She’d have to sleep with him, let him …’ she shuddered and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against his chest. He bent his head and kissed her forehead. A light, gentle touch that sent shivers down her spine. His lips moved to hers, brushing against her mouth with a tenderness as delicate as it was fleeting. She leaned back weakly on her elbows. Ronnie was looking intently into her eyes.
‘Was that by nature of an experiment?’ she asked.
‘It felt more like the first thaw after a long winter to me.’
‘Ronnie …’
‘I know.’ He turned away from her, picked up a stone and skimmed it across the surface of the lake. They watched it bounce, once – twice – three times before it finally sank. ‘You’re married, my brother is the father of your son and …’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
He turned and gazed into her eyes. Deep brown eyes, as unlike Maud’s as it was possible to get, but they evoked the same passion. He knew exactly how he felt about her, because he had felt this way once before. And Tony had recognised it before he had.
Without thinking of the consequences he gathered Diana into his arms and kissed her again. Less tenderly and more passionately than before. She broke free, scrambled to her feet and ran down to the bank. He could hear her breath coming in quick short gasps as he stumbled awkwardly after her. Her eyes closed and she slipped, almost fainting as he rushed to catch her. Sliding his hand beneath her forehead, he held her until she stopped retching.
‘I’m sorry, I should have realised.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she gasped.
‘The last thing I want is to hurt you.’
She tried to back away.
‘I promise I won’t touch you again. Not that way. Here, you’re shivering.’ He went over to the tree, picked up his jacket and slipped it over her shoulders. ‘Did you ever think of talking this over with Trevor or Andrew John?’ he asked as they returned to the pram.
‘I couldn’t have.’
‘Diana, it’s no different to any other injury, like my leg. It won’t heal unless you treat it. I’m sure old Dr John or Dr Evans …’
‘Wouldn’t understand?’
‘You’re probably right,’ he acknowledged reluctantly.
‘And you’re forgetting one thing. There’s no point in healing this particular injury.’
‘Isn’t there?’ he asked quietly.
She picked up her cardigan. ‘I have to go. My uncle is expecting me for dinner.’
‘I’ll walk you up there.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘But I’d like to.’ He took the pram. ‘Come on, I’ll push it.’
‘On a crutch?’
‘I’ll invent a new step to accommodate it.’ He led the way, leaving her to collect the library book. She followed him over the grassy bank on to the track.
‘It’s been such a long winter I’d forgotten how much I love spring.’ He deliberately steered the conversation on to the impersonal.
‘It must be beautiful in Italy.’ She made a conscious effort to fall in with his mood.
‘Very.’ As he wove a tale for her about the Italian countryside, and the warm springs, hot summers, dry cool autumns and winters, she began to smile again. Once or twice she even laughed at his poor jokes. But all he could think of was her reaction when he had kissed her that second time, and he felt a murderous rage for the man who had raped her, for his brother who had used and abandoned her, and even for the man she had married. A man who for all his good intentions could never hope to give her anything like the life she deserved.
Jenny had laid the table with her mother’s best white linen tablecloth, wedding present silverware, and porcelain that had lain untouched apart from yearly cleanings in the sideboard for over twenty years. She had pulled back all the curtains, opened the windows wide in the rooms she used, and had even walked up to Shoni’s early that morning to pick flowers to put on the table. Too late for the best of the bluebells, so she had settled on primroses. She was determined to give Ronnie the best meal he’d had since he had come home.
A little judicious black-market trading with half a dozen tins of fruit from the secret store her father had set aside for emergencies when war had been declared had procured a chicken from one of the farmers in Penycoedcae. She’d made roast as well as boiled potatoes, and stuffing from breadcrumbs and a spoonful of dried herbs. Because vegetables were only just coming into season she had settled on a bunch of early spring greens and carrots which were rubbery from winter storage. For afters she had made a trifle with stale sponge cake, tinned fruit, custard made of eggs and real milk and even a dollop of cream that she had coaxed out of George Collins in exchange for two more tins of her precious fruit.
She straightened the silver knives and forks that she had polished until she could see her face in them, glanced at the clock and went into her bedroom to check her hair and make-up. The lipstick was her last. Tomorrow she’d have to resort to beetroot juice unless Alexander could come up with something through his black-market contacts. Perhaps she shouldn’t close him out of her life altogether. There were so many things he managed to get that no one else could. Not just makeup, but stockings and, last Christmas, four dress lengths of material, two of good wool and two summer cottons. He’d insisted they had been pre-war, bank
ruptcy draper’s stock, but from her black-market dealings in the shop she knew just how much goods like that could fetch.
She stood back and checked her reflection in the mirror. Her powder was almost at an end, her stockings were her last pair of silk, the dress, a red crepe-de-Chine had been Eddie’s favourite, not that he’d ever actually said so, but she’d known he’d liked it from the way his eyes had lit up whenever she put it on, and underneath she was wearing the silk underclothes he had brought back on his last leave from France. Hopefully there would be an opportunity for Ronnie to admire them before he left.
The stage was set, the meal was ready, she looked as good as she could make herself, all she needed was her guest. She walked from the back bedroom to the front window. It was ten minutes past one. If he didn’t come soon the meal would be spoiled.
The street outside was crowded with people making their way home from chapel, but none resembled Ronnie. She stepped back just in case Alexander was around. She knew he’d called into the shop every evening on his way home from work last week, because he’d opened a ‘tab’ for the first time, presumably in the hope that Freda would clear all new credit accounts with her. But if he’d expected her to climb the hill to Graig Avenue to put a note in his jacket as she’d promised, he had another think coming.
She had a momentary panic. What if Ronnie had knocked the shop door and she hadn’t heard him – what if he didn’t come at all? Patting her hair to make sure it was still in the roll she had copied from a series of diagrams in Woman’s Weekly, she walked down the stairs and into the shop. She brought out the account books from under the counter. Sitting on the stool she provided for old ladies to rest themselves, she took a pencil from one of the card displays hanging behind the door and pretended to tot up figures. It was hopeless, the numbers danced before her eyes. If Ronnie didn’t arrive in the next few minutes the chicken would be burnt, or she’d have to take it out, and then it would grow cold and greasy. Where could he be? If there hadn’t been so many people on the hill she would have gone out and stood on the pavement to look for him.
She’d just decided to go upstairs and check the oven when a tap on the window startled her.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Ronnie apologised as she opened the door. ‘I met Diana over in Shoni’s and gave her a hand to push the pram up to Graig Avenue.’
‘You went to Shoni’s?’
‘I fancied a walk.’
‘Come in.’ She noticed Mrs Richards and Mrs Evans staring at her from across the road as she opened the door wider.
‘That’s a delicious smell. I hope you haven’t gone to too much trouble?’
‘Just a normal Sunday dinner.’
‘It’s a long time since I’ve had one of those. Tina warned me when I came back that even if the meat ration could be stretched once in a while, women are too busy to cook them any more.’
‘It will be some time before I’ll be able to do one again. I won’t get another free Sunday for seven weeks.’
Conscious of his difficulty climbing stairs, he hung back. She ran on ahead of him, swinging her hips, making her dress flare to her thighs just as she’d done before. Wondering if she was doing it deliberately, he struggled to ignore the effect the naked skin above her stocking tops was having on him, and followed her into the living room.
‘This looks very nice,’ he said, admiring the table.
‘I’ll just go and dish up the meal. There’s a bottle of sherry in the cupboard, perhaps you could pour us a drink.’
‘You’d like one?’
‘Please.’
He looked around the room, wondering again why he hadn’t made his excuses when she had invited him. If Jenny had asked him to dinner so she could talk about Eddie, he wasn’t at all sure he was prepared to listen. Particularly after seeing the effects a few drinks had on her earlier in the week.
‘Chicken?’ She proudly carried in the bird on an enormous platter, surrounded by roast potatoes and stuffing balls.
‘We could do wonders with a couple of chickens a week in the restaurant. Wherever did you get it?’
‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’
‘That seems to be everyone’s watchword these days.’
‘Will you carve?’ She handed him a newly sharpened knife. ‘I’ll bring in the vegetables and gravy, then we can start.’
He cut the legs off the bird and sliced the meat thinly, putting a selection of both white and dark meat on to their plates, less on his own than hers, realising that she’d probably have to live off the chicken for the rest of the week.
When she finally finished ferrying dishes, she sat opposite him at the table. Although her conversation was innocuous enough, all through the meal her foot found its way to his no matter which way he stretched his legs. He could smell her perfume, warm, heady, sensuous, more suited to evening than day wear, and he was overcome by a wave of nostalgia for the light, flowery cologne Maud had used. A fragrance similar to Diana’s.
‘I can’t remember the last time I had a meal like that.’ He sat back, deliberately moving his chair away from the table, and out of the reach of her legs.
‘There’s plenty more. You’ve eaten hardly any meat.’ She picked up a forkful and tried to put it on his plate.
‘I couldn’t.’
‘I hope you’ve left room for dessert.’
‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘It’s fresh trifle. Made with tinned peaches, real egg custard and real cream.’
‘I didn’t think it was possible to make a trifle in wartime.’
‘George Collins was feeling in a generous mood, so I took advantage.’
‘I’ll help you clear the dishes. By the time we’ve washed up I may have room for some.’
‘Men don’t wash up.’
‘Try telling that to my sisters. Come on, the sooner we start the sooner we’ll finish.’ And the sooner I can go, he thought to himself as he picked up his plate.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Did Ronnie tell you that he called into the shop to see me yesterday?’ Alma asked Diana as they sat on the mountain with Phyllis, Megan and Jane, watching Evan play football with Brian.
‘He mentioned that he wanted to talk to you about supplying the cafés.’
‘I thought you were working flat out,’ Megan commented.
‘I am, but I’ve been thinking of expansion for some time. Ronnie said the High Street café isn’t doing so well. He could keep on the tea, coffee and snacks side which are all prepared up front, and turn the kitchen over to us if we can find someone to run it.’
‘Like?’
‘Ronnie would do it, but as his leg is almost healed he hopes to go into munitions in the next week or two. He suggested you might take it on, Diana.’
‘He didn’t say anything about it to me today.’
‘It was only a suggestion, nothing’s definite yet. I said I’d talk to you.’
‘I’ve already got the shops and Billy.’
‘The shops don’t take up much time now you’ve got a girl in each of them, and I can look after Billy,’ Megan broke in. ‘I think it’s a good idea. The more you expand now, the more there’ll be for the boys to come home to at the end of the war,’ she enthused, thinking of William and hoping to see him as a fully-fledged partner in one of Charlie and Wyn’s shops.
‘How would Charlie take to going into partnership with Ronnie as well as Wyn?’ Diana reached out to catch the ball that Brian had kicked, before it hit the pram Billy and Anne were sleeping in.
‘He left the business in my hands. If it gives us another kitchen to work out of, I can’t see him objecting, can you?’
‘Not when he’s away and unable to make decisions himself,’ Jane chipped in brightly. ‘It seems to me that with the men gone we’ve just got to get on and make the best of our lives. We could waste years just sitting around waiting for them to come back.’
‘Any more?’ Ronnie asked as he plunged his arms to the elbo
ws in soapy water and felt around the bottom of the sink for stray knives and forks.
‘You’re a glutton for punishment.’ Jenny wiped the last saucepan and stacked it on a shelf.
‘I like things neat and tidy.’
‘So I see. Tea with your trifle?’
He glanced at the magnificent bowl laid out in solitary splendour on the marble cooling slab in the pantry. Jenny had even found a sprinkling of coconut to dust the cream whirls that decorated the top. ‘It looks too good to eat.’
‘Does it now?’ She brushed against him as she walked past and untied the apron from her waist. ‘Damn!’
‘Something the matter?’
‘The bow’s knotted.’
‘Here, turn around, and I’ll have a go.’ As he fiddled with the ribbons, she backed into him.
‘Give me some room, woman.’
‘You’re the first man who’s ever asked me to do that.’ She slipped off her shoe and ran her foot up the inside of his leg.
‘Don’t, I’m likely to fall over. I’ve only got one good leg, remember.’
She turned around to face him. ‘Then it might be an idea to rest it. My bedroom’s next door.’
He took a deep breath as he realised this was why he’d been wary of accepting her invitation. Even through all the table-talk about being brother and sister-in-law, the signals had been there. He’d just been too out of touch with courting practice, and too stupid to pick up on them. He debated whether to remind her he was Italian, and they liked sweet, modest girls who allowed them to do the chasing, but he had a feeling that under the circumstances she might not appreciate the joke, so he settled for a mild, ‘I’m not at all sure that’s a good idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d rather remain friends.’ He gave her the standard cliché as he succeeded in pulling the ribbons apart. After handing her the apron, he removed the tea towel he’d tucked into the waistband of his trousers before he’d washed the dishes.
‘What would be the harm in it? It’s not as though we’d be hurting anyone. I’m lonely, you’re lonely …’
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