Past Remembering

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Did he say anything about you working in munitions?’ Phyllis asked as she carried a tray of newly washed crockery and cutlery into the pantry.

  ‘He didn’t object to the idea.’ Jane omitted to tell Phyllis he didn’t object because she hadn’t told him.

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘And he asked to be remembered to you, Dad and Brian.’ Jane tucked the letter into her pinafore pocket.

  ‘I’ll go and strip the beds if you like, while you put the boiler on to start the washing.’

  ‘Coo-ee, Phyllis, Jane.’ The front door opened.

  ‘Not Mrs Richards,’ Jane groaned.

  ‘You didn’t expect her to stay away after last night’s happenings with Alexander, did you?’

  ‘Phyllis, have you heard the news? Isn’t it wonderful?’ Mrs Richards walked into the kitchen, and stood there, beaming as though she’d just won the Irish sweepstake.

  ‘What news?’ Jane asked, mystified.

  ‘About Russia. It’s just been on the wireless. Hitler’s invaded them, not us. My Viv says we’ll be all right now. The Germans will be too busy fighting the Communists to spare any troops to cross the Channel. Don’t you understand? Now Russia’s on our side we’re not on our own any more. We’re going to win the war, and it won’t be much longer before our Glan and your Dr John are home.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Phyllis breathed headily, thinking of Eddie and all the other boys who would never hear the news. ‘I really hope so.’

  *……*……*

  ‘Well, you’re a dark horse, I must say,’ Maggie addressed Jenny as they walked down the platform to the cloakroom.

  ‘I can hardly help it if a man falls off my drainpipe,’ Jenny bit back acidly.

  ‘If I’d known you had your eye on him, I would have left him alone.’ Judy paused, hoping Jenny would say more.

  ‘There’s nothing between Alexander Forbes and me.’

  ‘No?’ Sally enquired sceptically as she opened her locker.

  ‘No,’ Jenny said vehemently.

  ‘My brother was there when it happened. He said Alexander was lucky to get away with bruising, the height he fell. Rumour has it he won’t even have to take a day off work.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t you talk to him after it happened, Jenny?’ Judy enquired artfully.

  ‘I had no reason to.’ Jenny bent her head forward and ran her fingers through her hair, looking for stray hairclips.

  ‘Not even to present him with a bill for your drainpipe?’ Maggie and Sally laughed, glancing from Jenny to Judy as they walked through to the side of the cloakroom where their overalls were stored.

  ‘Diana, it’s good of you to take over here,’ Bethan greeted her cousin as she walked into Laura’s house.

  ‘Just thought I’d see how Ronnie is after last night.’

  ‘Much better. I think that rag in his leg must have been the reason why it didn’t heal. Scar tissue is forming already, and it looks as though he really is on the mend now. Want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Please.’ Diana took off her coat and hung it on the back of the door. ‘How was the man in the Albion?’

  ‘He died on the operating table in the Cottage.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I. It was such a senseless, stupid thing to happen. All the collieries are under such pressure to up production, safety measures are being thrown out of the window.’

  ‘You sound just like your father.’

  ‘With good reason. I worry about him working in the Maritime.’ Bethan poured out two cups of tea.

  ‘Want me to take one up to Ronnie?’

  ‘No.’ Bethan sat at the table. ‘He was sleeping when I left him.’

  ‘You gave him another pill?’

  ‘It’s the only way to keep him quiet. I saw Alexander in the Cottage last night. He was lucky to get away with just a few bruises. They didn’t keep him in.’

  ‘I went to the Morning Star after the landlord came here looking for you.’

  ‘So I gather. I called in Graig Avenue early this morning on the way down here.’

  ‘How did Uncle Evan take it?’

  ‘Much as I expected. He wasn’t shocked. Eddie’s dead, Jenny’s only twenty, she can’t spend the rest of her life mourning him.’

  ‘But it hasn’t been a year yet.’

  ‘I know, but my sympathies lie with her. Time seems to lose all meaning in a war. A day – a week – a year – what’s the difference when the Germans could invade tomorrow, or a bomb could drop on the factories and blow us all to kingdom come? The only thing that seems important is what’s happening right this minute.’

  ‘There has to be more to life than that, even in wartime.’

  ‘Does there?’ Bethan asked seriously. ‘I’m not so sure. Think about it, all we have is the here and now. The past is gone, we can’t be sure there’s going to be a tomorrow, so why shouldn’t people live each moment as though it’s going to be their last?’

  ‘Because if there’s a tomorrow we’ll all be racked with guilt.’

  ‘So, if it comes, we’ll worry about it then.’

  ‘How does this live for today and hang tomorrow philosophy fit in with Andrew being stuck in a camp?’

  ‘It doesn’t. I had a letter from him this morning.’ Bethan pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her uniform pocket. ‘He finally got the letter in which I’d told him that I had taken on the job of district nurse, and he’s raging mad. I didn’t think he could get any angrier than when he found out I’d kept my pregnancy from him. I was wrong.’

  Not knowing what to say, Diana remained silent.

  ‘I’ve been telling myself that I have to make allowances for him because he feels left out. That he’s having a worse war than any of us because he’s been forced into a corner where he can’t even fight back, or defend himself, but …’ Her voice tailed away as she reached for her cigarettes.

  ‘He’s angry with you, so you’re angry with him?’ Diana suggested.

  ‘I can’t forgive him for being his usual selfish self and refusing to see life from any point of view other than his own. Even he should realise that winning this war takes precedence over everything else. That ending this mess so boys no longer have to die, and he and all the other POWs can come home, has to be more important than whether Maisie or I give Eddie his bottle. Damn, I didn’t mean to cry on your shoulder.’

  ‘You’re not crying.’

  ‘No, but I feel like screaming. Why did I have to marry a short-sighted, selfish, crache officer?’

  ‘That’s a bit hard on Andrew, but if it will make you feel better, go ahead and scream. I don’t mind.’

  ‘I’d only succeed in waking Ronnie.’ Bethan opened her handbag and rummaged fruitlessly in its depths. ‘You got a light?’

  ‘Here.’ Diana found the silver lighter Wyn had given her for Christmas and lit Bethan’s cigarette.

  ‘Truth be told,’ Bethan continued ruefully as she inhaled deeply, ‘my marriage was never made in heaven.’

  ‘You and Andrew were happy,’ Diana protested.

  ‘Before he went away, we were happier than we’d ever been, but I can’t help wondering if it was because we knew we’d soon part.’

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say.’

  ‘Is it? I’ve thought of nothing else since he left, especially when I was pregnant. I wouldn’t be without the children, or him, not now, but I can’t help wondering what it will be like for us when he eventually does come home. He’ll want me to give up work, stop driving his car, running the house the way I want to …’

  ‘Sounds to me as though you’re more worried about giving up your independence than your marriage.’

  ‘It’s the same thing. Andrew will want to put me back into an apron and turn me into a housewife again.’

  ‘Not once you explain you want to carry on working.’

  ‘You think he’ll listen? Believe me, Diana you have no idea how lucky you are to be
married to a man like Wyn who genuinely doesn’t feel threatened by his wife working.’

  ‘He’s not the only one. Charlie -’

  ‘Charlie didn’t mind Alma working alongside him in the shop. But he was annoyed when he found out that she had expanded the business without telling him, and he and Alma are closer than any other married couple I know.’

  ‘He got over it.’

  ‘Did he? When he came home on that last leave Alma told me he seemed like a stranger.’

  ‘And you feel you don’t know Andrew any more?’ Diana asked astutely.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if I ever did. I realised when I married him that his mother had spoiled him. That we were from different worlds. That he’d always had exactly what he wanted without ever having to work or fight for it. It must have been hard for him to lose his freedom and the luxuries he’d always taken for granted at the same time.’

  ‘Are you saying that because you’re more used to hardship, it would have been better if the Germans had put you, not Andrew, into that camp?’

  ‘I’d probably cope better than he seems to be doing from his letters,’ she said caustically. ‘What really concerns me, is that when I call in on most soldiers’ wives all they can talk about is the good times they shared with their husbands. Their wedding day, or this trip or that trip. All I remember are the arguments. Like when Andrew ran out on me before we were married, leaving me pregnant, not that he knew I was having his baby because I was too proud and stubborn to tell him. And afterwards, when we were married in London, trying and failing to live with him and running back here.’

  ‘But he came after you. He bought you the house.’

  ‘And perhaps that’s when the trouble really started. I look back on those days, and all I can recall is both of us trying too hard. Too afraid to say what we really meant or felt in case it upset or hurt the other. Please, shut me up. I’m not making any sense.’

  Diana considered what was happening in her own marriage. The strained politeness that was developing between her and Wyn at the expense of honesty. ‘You’re making sense,’ she acknowledged ruefully.

  ‘You really think so? I’ve been wondering if I’m going mad.’

  ‘Only as mad as the rest of us.’

  Bethan took Andrew’s letter from her pocket, screwed it into a ball and threw it on the fire. ‘It will be a good few weeks before I write to him again.’

  ‘Beth …’

  ‘What’s worse – no letters at all, or angry ones? After today I know which I’d prefer.’

  Evan stood outside Griffiths’ shop and looked up. The blackout blinds were drawn at least an hour before it was strictly necessary. The shop door was locked. He rapped his knuckles hard on the door. Twice more brought a ‘We’re closed.’

  ‘It’s Evan, Jenny,’ he shouted back.

  There was no reply but he heard her footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and he walked inside.

  ‘Come up,’ she invited politely. ‘Would you like some tea?’

  ‘Not for me thanks, love. I’ve just eaten. I thought you’d like to know that Alexander is fine, he went to work today.’

  ‘It’s good of you to call and let me know.’

  ‘If you’d like to see him you could come up the house with me now.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

  ‘Look, love,’ he faced her as she stood with her back to the counter. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but Alexander must think a lot of you to risk his neck the way he did.’

  ‘I never asked him to fall in love with me,’ she blurted out uneasily. Ashamed and embarrassed she averted her head as the tears began to fall from her eyes.

  He put his arms around her. ‘I know you didn’t, but it’s only natural. You’re a young, attractive girl, and you’re single. We all knew it would only be a matter of time before some man would start paying attention to you.’

  ‘All I want is to be left alone.’

  ‘You can’t stay alone for ever. You and Eddie -’ he took a deep breath after saying his son’s name – ‘well it wasn’t all roses between you, I know that. Don’t try to live in the past, Jenny. If you do you’ll have a miserable life.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘About you and Alexander? No, love. Why should I?’

  ‘But Eddie …’

  ‘If Eddie had been the one who’d survived, I would be giving him the same advice. You loved him while he was alive.’

  ‘I … I …’

  ‘Let’s say the best way you could,’ he interrupted tactfully, ‘and now it’s time to move on.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘I’d better be going. You sure you’ve got no message for Alexander?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Your mother is dead, your father is in hospital and not likely to come out for some time. Please, you’re as much my daughter as Eddie was my son. Don’t stay in every evening when you’ve a family to visit. Come and see us?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You sure I can’t give Alexander a message?’

  ‘Just that I’m trying to make a life for myself, and between work and the shop there’s not much time left.’

  ‘You have to have some fun.’

  ‘I need time.’

  ‘You’ll talk to Alexander soon?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ It wasn’t much of a concession, but it was all Evan could get. ‘Mr Powell?’ He stopped and turned around. ‘Thank you for what you said about Eddie.’

  ‘I was his father. I know exactly how difficult it was to get on with him.’

  ‘But I didn’t help matters.’

  ‘It wasn’t you who killed him, love. A German bullet did. And don’t you ever forget it.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘You sure you should be doing that?’ Diana asked as she walked into the kitchen of the Ronconis’ High Street café to find Ronnie pushing a huge, old-fashioned, scrub-down table against the wall.

  ‘Dr Evans gave me a clean bill of health this morning. Where are the baking tins?’

  ‘There were so many, Alma talked George Collins into dropping them off for us later in his van.’

  He leaned against the table and surveyed the kitchen, which was as clean as three days of scrubbing could make it. ‘How many is “so many”?’

  ‘About fifty, all that Alma could spare.’

  ‘And if they’re not enough?’

  ‘They’ll have to be. Haven’t you heard …’

  ‘… there’s a war on?’ he chanted. ‘I’ve picked up on the rumour.’

  ‘You can’t get tins, saucepans or metal kitchen utensils for love or money these days. They’re all being melted down into Spitfires.’ She looked around at the sacks of flour, Alma’s spare meat cutter, the mixing bowls and the implements that had been part of the café kitchen’s original equipment. ‘Alma’s taken on a fourteen-year-old boy to help in her shop and sending her chief cook up here.’

  ‘Good, because along with the all-clear this morning, I had a starting date.’

  ‘For munitions?’

  ‘Monday.’

  Diana pretended to study the dismal view out of the high, narrow window in the hope that he wouldn’t read the expression on her face. Ronnie had become far too adept at sensing her moods during the weeks she had helped Bethan to nurse him and taken over the running of Laura’s house. And while she had grown closer to Ronnie, she had drifted further and further from Wyn, scarcely seeing her husband for more than a few minutes late at night when he came home from Jacobsdal, or horribly early in the morning before he left for the factory.

  Ronnie stepped behind her and closed the communicating door between the café and the kitchen.

  ‘I’m going to miss seeing you every day.’

  ‘And I’m going to miss you.’ She forced a smile.

  ‘I’ve done about as much as I can here. What say you we mitch off and spend the afternoon in Shoni’s?’

  ‘I can’t afford the time.’

  �
��Come on, I bet you don’t get many invitations like that?’

  ‘The last one was when I was in junior school.’

  ‘We’ll celebrate me being able to walk without a stick by paddling in the lake. We could even take some food and a bottle of pop, and have a picnic.’

  ‘And pretend we’re six years old?’

  ‘No.’ He lifted her hand, unfolded her fingers and kissed her palm. ‘If you were six years old I wouldn’t be asking you.’

  ‘It’s certainly a glorious day.’

  ‘And I bet it’s the last one we’ll see this summer. Autumn is around the corner.’

  ‘You’re a pessimist; there’ll be a few more sunny days before winter sets in.’

  ‘For you perhaps, but not for me. I’ll be locked inside the factory six days a week, that’s why I was hoping to get some fresh air now.’

  ‘All right, you can stop nagging, I’ll go,’ she capitulated.

  ‘I’ll get my jacket.’

  ‘I’m not walking there with you. I’ll meet you later by the pond.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘No it’s not. Can you imagine what Mrs Evans will say if she sees us walking down Pit Road together in broad daylight? And once she spreads the news, Mrs Richards will have us in the middle of a torrid affair that will relegate Tony’s outburst to the shade.’

  ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’

  ‘Not that particular one.’

  ‘I still don’t see why you can’t walk up the hill with me after you sat with me in Laura’s house, day after day.’

  ‘You needed nursing, you were ill.’

  ‘Not that ill.’

  ‘That’s debatable.’

  ‘If we don’t stop arguing we’ll never get there. When and where do you want to meet?’

  ‘The top end of the lake in an hour.’

  ‘Make it an hour and a half?’

  She knew he wanted her to ask why he needed the extra half an hour, so she didn’t. ‘Fine, that will give me time to check the shops.’

  The deafening clatter of picks and shovels dwindled to a few ragged tappings as the whistle sounded. A hush descended over the close, fetid darkness of the coal face, as men downed their tools, stretched their aching muscles and reached for the snap boxes that held their cold dinners.