‘It needs a woman’s touch. You can do whatever you like. I’ve quite a bit of money put away.’
‘There’s no sense in buying furniture now. There’ll be more choice after the war.’
‘Would you like tea?’
‘I’d like to thank you for my rings,’ she said boldly.
‘You did in the shop.’
‘I meant properly, with a kiss.’
His face turned crimson. He ran his finger around the inside of his collar in a futile attempt to loosen it as she reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe and kissed him, hard and inexpertly, on the mouth.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her face as scarlet as his when she finally stepped away.
‘Being married is going to take a lot of getting used to.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re nervous too?’ she blurted out.
‘I’ve lived alone for so long with no one to please except myself, I’m afraid I’ve grown selfish and sloppy in my ways. But I don’t understand why you should be worried. You kept house for years for your father and brother.’
‘It’s not housekeeping I’m nervous about.’ She pretended to study a religious picture of Moses parting the Red Sea that hung above the mantelpiece. ‘But of sleeping in the same bed with you.’
‘You don’t have to. There’s three bedrooms upstairs.’
‘I want to.’ She could feel her cheeks burning, but working with girls like Judy had taught her, if not to overcome embarrassment, at least to ignore it. ‘I have a confession to make. I’m very inexperienced about these things. You see, that’s the first time I’ve ever kissed a man. I mean really kissed -’
‘I know what you mean,’ he interrupted.
‘I feel strange. Apprehensive and excited all at once. The women in the factory talk about men and lovemaking all the time, the single girls as well as the married ones. Does that shock you?’
He thought back to some of the things he’d seen and heard the women do in station yard. ‘After more than twenty years on the beat in this town I think I’m shockproof’
‘It’s just that I thought if we could spend some time alone together, getting used to one another, it would make it easier for me on our wedding night.’
‘We could start with another kiss?’ he suggested, putting his arms around her. For all his high-minded opinion of Myrtle, it was as much as he could do to keep his hands clasped around her waist as her lips brushed against his. ‘Time we went to see your father.’
‘Can I come back here with you tomorrow night?’
‘You do, and you might find yourself honeymooning early.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
If he’d known what it had cost her to make that remark he might not have been quite so dismissive. ‘But I would.’ He went into the hall to fetch her coat ‘There’s a time and place for everything. I may be old-fashioned, but in my book, bed definitely comes after the wedding service.’
‘I need a hand in the kitchen,’ Megan said as Myrtle and Huw walked into the living room.
‘I’ll help,’ Diana followed her mother.
‘Me too,’ Myrtle offered.
‘Glad to see you’ve finally decided to come home,’ her father grumbled. ‘And before you start on the food, you can make me a cup of tea.’
‘Not before we all sit down, Dad.’
‘That’s all you know! You may as well move out and live in that factory of yours for all the attention you give your own father these days. I haven’t been strong enough to sit at the table for weeks. I’ll have mine on a tray over here.’
‘Then I’ll get your tray ready.’
‘And I’m supposed to talk to myself while you lock yourself up in the kitchen with Megan and Diana?’
‘Here, Mr Rees, I’ll keep you company.’
‘It’s kind of you to spare a sick, old man the time, Constable Davies,’ he griped in a martyred tone. ‘You got everything under control in the town?’
‘We’re trying, Mr Rees.’
‘Not hard enough, judging from all the reports of blackout crime in the Observer.’
Wyn retreated to the corner of the room, leaving Huw no option but to take the chair opposite the sofa his father was lying on.
‘I haven’t come here to talk about blackout crime, sir.’
‘No, you’ve come for tea. A bachelor is always looking for a free meal, and your sister’s not a bad cook. I’ll give her that. Better than Myrtle,’ he carped, hoping his daughter was listening.
‘I’ve come to tell you that Myrtle has agreed to be my wife.’ Huw had been practising the announcement all day. At their age, he felt that neither he nor Myrtle needed to ask anyone’s permission, and it was the most tactful way he could think of emphasising that fact to the old man.
It was as much as Wyn could do to keep a straight face. Paralysed by shock, his father stared open-mouthed at Huw.
‘You want to marry Myrtle?’ he spluttered when he eventually found his voice. ‘Whatever for?’
‘Because I love her, she loves me, and we believe we can make one another happy.’
‘That’s ridiculous. You’re both far too old to get married.’
‘There’s an age limit?’ Huw smiled to lessen the sting in his words.
‘What do you think people are going to say? Myrtle’s a spinster. Always has been. The minister’s wife said she was born that way.’
‘So is every woman,’ Huw pointed out wryly.
Silence reigned, so strained, so dense, Wyn could hear his own pulse throbbing below his ear. All three men focused on the door to the kitchen where there was precious little rattling of cutlery and crockery, considering the women were supposed to be preparing tea.
‘We’ve fixed a date four weeks from now. I’m going to see the minister tomorrow. If the chapel can’t accommodate us, it will be a Register Office do.’
‘No daughter of mine is getting married in a Register Office.’
‘It was good enough for your son,’ Huw reminded mildly.
‘Had to be, didn’t it? That was a shotgun job. You should have heard what the minister and his wife had to say about my grandson appearing six months after they tied the knot.’
‘Nothing un-Christian, I hope,’ Huw commented gravely. ‘I’d like to set your mind at rest and tell you that I can provide for Myrtle. She’ll want for nothing, I promise you. I have my own house in Bonvilston Road. It’s not as good as this one, and it needs a bit doing to it, but it’s all mine. There’s no mortgage on it, and I’ve enough put away for Myrtle to do anything she wants, even exchange it for a bigger one elsewhere in the town if that’s what she decides. So, as you can see, we’ve nothing to wait for.’
‘Nothing! What about me?’ the old man demanded petulantly. ‘Who’s going to look after me in my old age if my own daughter abandons me? That’s what I’d like to know!’
‘Me, Mr Rees.’ Megan bustled in with a full tray, which she set on the table. ‘You’ll be pleased to know I made a cake in honour of the occasion.’
‘You knew about this?’
‘Hoped, more than knew. Isn’t it marvellous to have something worth celebrating in these dark days?’
For once the old man was completely at a loss for words.
Haydn was sitting listening to the radio, nursing his grievances and his daughter, who’d grown from a contented baby into a plump contented toddler during the nine months he’d been away, when the kitchen door opened and Jane walked in, pasty-faced and shivering.
‘I saw the suitcase in the bedroom. I had no idea you were coming home.’
‘I wanted to surprise you. I think I succeeded in surprising myself more,’ he replied coldly.
‘It’s bedtime, love,’ Evan nodded to Phyllis.
Phyllis leaped to her feet. ‘You’ll dampen down the stove, Jane?’ she asked as she followed Evan out.
‘I didn’t even know the tour was coming to an end.’ Tightening the belt on her dressing gown, Jane sank do
wn into the chair Evan had vacated.
‘Evidently,’ Haydn said drily.
‘I didn’t mean to drink so much …’
‘But you did.’
‘I was angry.’
He remembered the photographs, but he didn’t ask her to elaborate.
‘How long have you got?’
‘Seventy-two hours, and I’ve lost twelve of those already. It’s all I could wangle, and I doubt there’ll be any Christmas leave this year. We’ve too many shows to get out.’
‘I’ll ask my supervisor if I can have tomorrow afternoon and the day after off’
‘You’re not going into work tomorrow!’
‘I have to.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. The war effort won’t grind to a halt if you’re not there to polish the gun barrels, or whatever it is you do.’
‘I work on an assembly line. If I don’t turn up there’s no one to take my place.’
‘So?’
‘The fuse output will go down. They need every bomb they can get, and they’re no good without fuses. I put the detonators into them.’
‘I get three days and you tell me you can’t spare the same?’
‘What I do is important, Haydn.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Am I?’ She rose to her feet and went to the stove. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘I’d like to know what’s going on. I come home to find you working and frequenting pubs …’
‘Frequenting! I call in now and again with the girls after work.’
‘The same girls I saw Ronnie, Alexander and God only knows how many other men sniffing around.’
‘Ronnie’s my brother-in-law. I happen to work with him, and Alexander is -’
‘I know who Alexander is after. Ronnie told me. Jenny led Eddie a merry dance when he was alive, and nothing seems to have changed now he’s dead.’
‘She is a widow, Haydn.’
‘Is that what you’d like to be?’
‘Seems to me from what I read in the papers. I’m the abandoned wife.’
‘I didn’t abandon you, I brought you to my father’s house so you and our child would be safe and out of the blitz. You were the one who abandoned Anne so you could work. You leave her with Phyllis, get drunk -’ he stabbed his finger towards her – ‘and you accuse me of abandoning you? I really thought, really believed all this time that you were looking after our daughter …’
‘Phyllis cares for her beautifully.’
‘Is this your way of telling me that after the war is over you’d like to leave her with Phyllis?’
‘Don’t be absurd!
‘If you have anything like a conscience left, you can start exercising it right now. I’m your husband, the one you promised to obey, remember? And I expressly forbid you to go to work tomorrow.’
‘I’m going.’
‘I won’t allow it.’
‘How are you going to stop me. Haydn? Lock me in the bedroom?’ She walked over and looked down on the sleeping child in his arms. ‘It’s time she was in bed.’
‘How do you know? You’re not the one who usually puts her there.’
‘I’m tired, Haydn. I have a hangover, and I have to get up early in the morning. I’ve done all the arguing I’m going to for one day.’ Closing the flue on the stove and raking out the ashes she carried them through to the metal ashbin in the back yard then washed her hands in the washhouse. Standing in front of him, she held out her arms. ‘Can I have Anne, please?’
‘How can I trust you to look after her?’
‘I think I’ve done a better job than you for the last nine months, don’t you?’
He glared at her for a moment. She stooped down, and he reluctantly handed Anne over.
‘Good-night, Haydn.’
He heard her walking up the stairs, but he continued to sit and seethe, until sleep finally overcame him, and that’s where Jane found him in the morning. Stretched out in an easy chair, his feet propped up on a stool. She covered him with one of Phyllis’s knitted blankets, before cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair. Forgoing her usual morning tea, she closed the door quietly behind her and left the house.
‘Morning. Myrtle’s behind me,’ Wyn said, as he bumped into Huw in the black shadows that shrouded Tyfica Road.
‘I had to go to the station early, so I thought I’d walk round this way,’ Huw lied as he retreated to the foot of the steps to their house.
‘Bit of a detour, isn’t it? Still, I believe you, thousands wouldn’t. And in case you’re interested, my father’s still in shock. Forgive me for not hanging round but I’ll freeze to death if I don’t keep moving.’
‘It is nippy.’
‘Was that Wyn?’ Myrtle asked as she closed the door behind her.
‘He’s gone on ahead.’ Huw reached out, fumbled for her gloved hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.
‘What are you doing here? I know you’re not on nights this week.’
‘I thought we could make some plans. I have the day off so I could meet your train tonight, and take you to Ronconi’s for tea.’
‘I’d prefer to buy fish and chips and go back to your house. You didn’t have time to show me anything except the kitchen yesterday.’
‘In that case I’ll ask Megan along.’
‘She’ll think you’re afraid of me.’ Stopping on the corner of Tyfica Road and Gelliwastad Grove, she clamped her mittened hands on his shoulders, and pressed her mouth against his. He tasted of cold and tea. ‘There, I’ve finally done what I wanted to do all last night. That’s a thank-you for dealing so cleverly with my father. Now what about tonight?’
‘We’ll get fish and chips.’
‘Good. I’ll bring a tape measure. I bet the bedrooms could do with new curtains.’
‘They probably could.’
‘And new wallpaper and eiderdowns?’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘I can’t wait to move in.’ She clung even more tightly to his arm. ‘We are going to be so happy.’
‘I don’t see how I could be any happier than I am now, love,’ he declared as he patted her hand, feeling the outline of his mother’s ring through the thick woollen cloth.
‘Girls, what do you think? Myrtle’s not only got an engagement ring, she’s actually getting married,’ Judy announced to the packed carriage as the train drew out of Pontypridd.
‘You lucky thing,’ Maggie congratulated her enviously. Huw Davies might be ginger and balding, but he was a policeman with a respectable job and a steady wage that wasn’t dependent on war production. In two years she’d be thirty-eight, the same age as Myrtle, and she’d give her eye teeth for a man ten years older than Huw, with half of his assets. Almost any man had to be a better prospect than being left on the shelf.
‘Can we all come to the wedding?’ Sally asked.
‘You expect them to close down the factory for the occasion?’ Jenny offered her cigarettes around.
‘We’ve got to do something, we can’t just ignore an occasion like this.’
‘How about a bachelor party in the White Hart?’ Jane suggested coolly, still smarting from Haydn’s outrage.
‘Women don’t have bachelor parties,’ Judy informed her tartly.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Jenny broke in. ‘If men can take their mates down to the pub the night before they get married, I see no reason why women can’t do the same.’
‘I’m not sure I want a party …’ Myrtle began tentatively, imagining her father and the minister’s reaction to the idea.
‘Nonsense,’ Jenny retorted. ‘We can’t all come to the wedding, so when would we give you your presents, if not at a bachelor party?’
‘I suppose we could rent one of the upstairs rooms in the Hart,’ Sally said doubtfully.
‘Rent an upstairs room and hide away. Whatever for?’ Jenny rejected the idea scornfully. ‘We’ll take over the back bar like we always do. Just give us the date, Myrtle and I’ll arran
ge everything.’
‘We haven’t fixed it yet.’
‘When you do, let me know and we’ll give you a send-off to remember.’
‘Sounds to me as though it’s likely to be one the whole town will remember,’ Maggie murmured, wishing that this particular party could be hers.
Ronnie swung the circular sheet of metal over the mould. Centring it on the press, he nodded to Wyn, who pulled a lever down sharply.
‘One more perfect bomb casing,’ Ronnie announced as Wyn released the clamp. ‘We make a good team.’ He lifted the shell, giving it a cursory inspection before depositing it carefully in a large wire basket that had been emptied three times already since they had come on shift.
‘I’ve really tried to hate you, do you know that?’
‘The same goes for you. Let’s face it, Wyn, basically we’re good blokes, and neither of us particularly enjoys fighting.’ The whistle blew for break and he looked across the factory floor through the small window that overlooked the assembly area where the conveyor belts were grinding to a halt.
He followed Wyn from the shop floor into the corridor that led to the canteen. Caught in the flow of women, they found themselves behind Judy Crofter, Sally and Jane.
‘He said he’d be in the Hart again tonight,’ Judy insisted, oblivious to everyone around her except Sally.
‘If Alexander Forbes is in the Hart tonight, it won’t be to look at you,’ Sally dismissed coolly. ‘If eyes were teeth, he’d have crunched Jenny Powell into little pieces last night. I’ve never seen a man with such a bad case of lust as him.’
‘Everyone knows Jenny’s so bloody hoity-toity, she won’t have him. What he needs is another evening with me.’
‘You’d have to tie him down first,’ Sally sniggered.
‘You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face tomorrow. I’ll catch him and get him to the altar before Myrtle lands Huw Davies, you’ll see.’
‘Get a move on,’ a voice shouted from the back of the queue. ‘At this rate, the whistle will blow for the next section’s tea before we’re served.’
The girls moved on, and Ronnie caught up with Wyn.
‘Is your sister marrying Huw Davies?’
Past Remembering Page 38
