‘So none of us will have to go into the homes?’ Liza crouched beside the bath and soaped Eddie who was splashing water into Rachel’s face.
‘No, Liza,’ Bethan said firmly. ‘That never was an option.’
‘But that woman …’
‘… doesn’t run my home or your lives.’ Bethan dabbed at Rachel’s face with a towel. ‘I can manage here. Why don’t you go and see what your sisters think of our plans?’
Chapter Two
As far back as she could remember, Bethan had hated the transition from the long, warm, sunlit days of summer to the gloomy mornings and evenings and uncertain weather of autumn; and she had liked the change even less since the imposition of blackout regulations. Rising in darkness, she dressed herself and Eddie by lamplight and was checking that Rachel had fastened the buttons on her pinafore dress correctly when she heard wheels crunching over the gravel drive below her bedroom window. Switching off the light, she pushed aside the curtain just as an enormous, canvas-sided truck backed in close to the house.
‘Mrs John?’
‘I see it, Maisie,’ she called back, wondering if this unexpected arrival was Mrs Llewellyn-Jones’s revenge for her insistence on keeping the Clark girls. Someone knocked on the front door, but refusing to hurry, she helped Rachel to negotiate the stairs while carrying Eddie on her arm.
Liza opened the door before she got there.
‘Ma’am.’ A redheaded boy who looked as though he should have had a school satchel instead of a gun slung over his shoulder, removed his cap.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, as Liza stepped aside.
‘Sorry to break in on you this early in the morning, ma’am. I’m Corporal Duval, Maurice Duval,’ he drawled in a lethargic voice that sounded as though it would take him a full day to complete a sentence. ‘We’ve come to move the colonel’s things in.’
‘Here?’
He pulled a paper from his pocket. ‘This is Ty Twyfe?’
‘I’ve never heard it pronounced quite that way before.’
‘Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to insult your house, but according to this you have five rooms set aside for the use of American military personnel?’ He glanced past her into the hall.
‘On the top floor.’
‘They said they were empty?’
‘They are.’
‘We have a truckload of supplies and furniture.’
‘It might be easier if you carry the smaller items up the back staircase. There’s a door that opens directly on to it at the side of the house. You have help?’
‘Yes, ma’am, there’s three of us.’
‘I’ll show them the way,’ Liza volunteered.
‘How many of you are moving in?’ Bethan asked as Liza exchanged her slippers for her boots.
‘Only four that I know of, ma’am. The colonel, his cook-and-batman, his aide, and me. I’m his driver.’
‘So you’ll be living here?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The boy grinned at Liza, who responded with a shy smile of her own.
Bethan’s heart sank as Liza closed the front door behind them. It had been hard enough to assume responsibility for the girls in a town denuded of young men. Almost any presentable man, in or out of uniform, was enough to turn most married as well as single women’s heads. She dreaded to think what an influx of Americans would do to Liza, Maisie – and Pontypridd.
‘Oh my God, will you look at what’s just stepped into Station Yard? I think I’m going to die!’ Turning from the counter of Ronconi’s café, Judy Crofter gazed, mesmerised by the sight of two men walking past the deserted taxi rank.
Tina Powell pushed a couple of cups of tea across the counter before glancing out of the window. ‘Have you never seen a man before?’
‘Not one who looks like either of those two.’
‘Come on, Tina. You’ve got to admit they’re a man-famished girl’s dream come true,’ Jenny Powell who worked with Judy in munitions chipped in from the corner table.
‘They’re not bad, but from what I can see, mostly uniform. I wonder where they got ones that look that good.’
‘Or shoulders that broad. That fair one looks like a young Leslie Howard.’ Jenny craned her neck in an attempt to see around the cocoa advertisement that blocked out most of the window. ‘Prepare to die, Judy. They’re coming this way.’
Handing Jenny her tea, Judy left hers on the counter and pulled up a stool just as the door opened.
‘Good morning, ma’am.’ Kurt Schaffer tipped his hat to Tina, before looking to Jenny and Judy. ‘Ma’am. Ma’am.’
They had heard the accent before, but only in the pictures.
‘You’re American?’ Jenny stared him in the eye as she carried her tea to the counter and climbed on to a stool.
‘Guilty.’ He beamed at her as he studied her slim figure and cool, blonde features. The colonel’s directive was already proving difficult to obey. ‘Lieutenant Kurt Schaffer, US Army at your service.’
‘Isn’t that a German name?’ Judy demanded suspiciously, scanning the KEEP MUM, SHE’S NOT SO DUMB poster Tina had pasted on the kitchen door. Given the dearth of men in Pontypridd, it didn’t take much imagination to picture the handsome American as the blonde siren, and replace the crowd of infatuated servicemen with admiring women.
‘My German grandfather emigrated to the States in 1890. I hope that’s far back enough for you to think of me as one of the good guys.’
‘Just about. What can I get you?’ Tina enquired brusquely.
‘From where I’m standing I can think of a whole lot of things, ma’am.’
‘Can you now?’ Fully aware of the effect she was having on him, Jenny deliberately hitched her skirt higher as she crossed her legs.
‘Isn’t your friend coming in?’ Judy asked, watching the second officer, who was hovering outside the shop.
‘Tea, coffee, cocoa?’ Tina interrupted, giving Jenny a hard look.
‘At the moment I’d settle for information, ma’am. Can you point us in the direction of the Council Offices? I was there yesterday afternoon, but we came in from the other end of town this morning and I seem to have lost my bearings. I tried asking in the train station, but they weren’t at all helpful.’
‘Probably thought you were spies.’ Jenny smiled seductively.
‘Are you looking for anyone in particular?’ Tina picked up Jenny and Judy’s cups, wiped the counter beneath them, and replaced them closer to the edge, but neither girl took the hint and moved to a table.
‘The billeting officer, Mr Williams, and a -’ he reached into the top pocket of his shirt and pulled out a slip of paper – ‘Mrs Llewellyn-Jones? I can never remember which order to put those names.’
Taking no chances, Tina gave clear and precise instructions that would lead directly to the police station. She glared at Judy and Jenny, daring them to tell him otherwise as he opened the door.
‘The billeting officer?’ Jenny raised her eyebrows as she lifted her cup. ‘Does that mean Americans are moving into Pontypridd?’
He pointed to the poster behind her. ‘You guys have been in this war longer than us. What’s that saying you have? “Careless talk costs lives.”’
‘Is that a yes?’ Judy called after him as he stepped outside.
He flashed another smile. ‘That’s a maybe, or a maybe not, ma’am.’
‘Imagine a whole regiment like him in Ponty.’ Judy went to the window so she could watch them walk down the street.
‘I can imagine what the thought might do to the men at the front,’ Tina commented tartly.
‘Not all the women in Ponty are married or spoken for, Tina.’ Judy started guiltily when she saw Jenny walk back to the table. Jenny’s husband, Eddie Powell, had been killed at Dunkirk, but because Jenny never mentioned him, Judy generally forgot that he had ever existed until embarrassing occasions, like now.
‘It’s about time we had some fun in this town.’ Jenny sat down and stirred her tea.
‘T
hat depends on your definition of fun.’ Picking up an enamel bowl full of dirty dishes Tina pushed backwards through the swing door that led into the kitchen. Dumping the bowl in the stone sink she shouted to the cook to stop reading the paper and start washing. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before walking back out into the café. Just long enough to open the gold locket that hung around her neck and look at the smiling image of her husband, William. If a regiment had to be billeted in Pontypridd, why couldn’t the powers that be have chosen a Welsh one?
‘Why they had to inflict a regiment of Americans on a backwater like Pontypridd, or billet them in a household of women and children like yours, is beyond me,’ Dr John, Bethan’s father-in-law grumbled as she restocked her medical bag in the surgery.
‘Because they’re fighting on our side?’ she suggested mildly, taking two crepe bandages out of a box before replacing it in the cupboard.
He gave her a wry smile. Relations between them had thawed into mutual respect since she had answered his plea to return to work after Eddie’s birth. The shortage of qualified and experienced nurses was acute, not only in the town but in the country, and her presence had considerably reduced the workload of the second district nurse and the only two doctors left in Pontypridd: himself and the elderly Dr Evans, who was well past retirement age.
‘They should house them in barracks. With most of our men in North Africa or the East there must be hundreds of empty camps.’
‘Obviously not enough.’
‘They’ll play havoc with the health of the women in the town,’ he prophesied grimly. ‘Be warned, two months from now we’ll be in the throes of an epidemic of venereal disease and cleaning up after double the number of botched, backstreet abortions.’
‘I hope not.’
‘It’s inevitable. Damned war. That case you referred from Station Terrace died last night.’
‘Oh, no!’ She dropped the box of dry dressings she’d been opening. ‘She had four children …’
‘And was three months pregnant with a husband who hadn’t been home in a year.’
‘What did you put on the death certificate?’
‘Septicaemia. But the neighbours know the truth. I think she must have asked half the women in the town for advice before going to the butcher who finished her off. I spoke to the sergeant last night. The police haven’t a clue who’s doing it. That makes nine cases this year.’
‘What’s happening to her children?’
‘Her sister’s taken them in, but she has five of her own so we know how long that will last. I hate this war.’
‘Don’t we all.’ She snapped her bag shut.
‘Heard from Andrew?’
‘Not for two weeks, but you know what prisoner-of-war mail is like.’
‘Unfortunately.’ He looked up at her as she went to the door. ‘We will win now that the Americans are finally here.’
‘Two minutes ago you were complaining about them.’
‘Only because they want to fight from Pontypridd instead of the continent.’ He flicked through the pile of paperwork on his desk. ‘The sooner the blighters get into Germany, free the prisoners and send them home, the sooner Andrew can shoulder some of this load. But they’d better hurry up. I’m not sure how much longer I can carry on working at this pace.’
‘The only question I’ve got, Bethan, is when can Mary start?’ Alma set a couple of enamel mugs on the scrub-down table in the kitchen at the back of her cooked meats and pie shop, and reached for the teapot.
‘Tomorrow soon enough for you?’
‘Wonderful. She’ll need a taxi to bring down her things. Tell her to book it. I’ll pay the driver when she gets here.’
‘I’ll drop her off before I start work, and as for things, a carrier bag will hold all her possessions with room to spare.’
‘You’re not the only one to have had a visit from Mrs Llewellyn-Jones. She came round here this morning.’
‘Don’t tell me she wanted to billet Americans on you too?’
‘She tried, but I wouldn’t have it. You know, she actually had the gall to suggest that a war widow, like me, should welcome the opportunity to have an American officer living in my home. I told her absolutely not, and reminded her that Charlie’s posted missing, not killed.’ She pushed the sugar bowl towards Bethan.
The Presumed dead that had been on the telegram still burned in Bethan’s mind. She knew it was useless to remind Alma that Charlie had been missing for over fourteen months. When a letter from the War Office had arrived the regulation three months to the day after the first telegram, to inform Alma that Charlie had been declared officially dead and she could wind up his affairs, she had burned it, and continued to talk about him and make plans for their future as though he was about to walk through the door at any moment.
‘So, Mrs Llewellyn-Jones went away disappointed for the second time in two days,’ she murmured, thinking of the argument she’d had with her over the Clark girls.
‘As disappointed as I could make her. Where does that woman get her cheek from? She told me that with a kitchen this size in the shop I didn’t need an upstairs living room or kitchen and it was my patriotic duty to turn them into bedrooms, then if you please, I could house two Americans. I told her all my rooms were earmarked – my living room for sitting in after a hard day’s work, one bedroom for the girl I intended to hire, the other for Theo and me, and my kitchen was staying exactly as it was.’ Alma looked to the playpen she’d set up in the corner next to the door that led into the shop, where Theodore, her nine-month-old son, a miniature version of Charlie, right down to his white-blond hair and deep blue eyes, was sitting contently playing with a wooden spoon and battered baking tin.
‘I’m surprised she didn’t suggest that the three of you should share.’
‘She did. She even hinted that live-in help would prove to be an ideal chaperon for me and these officers, and silence tongues before they wagged, but I pointed out that if Charlie is being held prisoner by the Germans, he will need peace, quiet and his own bedroom to rest in when he’s released.’
‘I wish I’d thought of that one.’
‘She has only billeted this colonel on you, hasn’t she?’
‘And his aide, his cook and his driver.’
‘Bethan, how could you! You’re too soft for your own good. Seven evacuees if you include Lisa, Maisie’s daughter and now four Yanks.’
‘It’s Andrew’s fault for buying a house that size.’
‘It’s yours for not using the word “no” more often.’
‘It’s difficult, Mrs Llewellyn-Jones is Andrew’s mother’s best friend.’
‘That’s no excuse for allowing her to treat your house like a hostel for every waif and stray who wanders into the town.’
‘You’re probably right.’ Bethan glanced at the clock. ‘What do you want me to tell Mary about the job?’
‘That it’s hard work. She’ll start at six every morning and probably won’t stop or get much in the way of a break until the shop closes at six at night. Sunday and one half-day off a week. I’ll pay her a pound a week while she’s on a two-week trial, and put it up to thirty shillings if she can cope, but warn her that I’m looking for a general worker who could find herself cleaning the flat one day, working in the shop the next, and looking after the baby once I’m satisfied he’s happy with her.’
‘I think you’ll find her only too glad to do anything that will enable her to stay close to her sisters.’
‘You’re determined to keep the others?’
‘Yes. I saw the matron in the Central Homes before I came here. She’s agreed to take Liza on as a ward maid in maternity, so there’s really only the two younger ones. And I’ve already made an appointment to see the Parish Guardians to ask if they can stay with me, at least until the end of the war.’
‘I’d be happy to pay half their keep.’
‘I can manage.’
‘I know you can, but if we take joint responsibilit
y for them, then it’s the two of us against the old bag. Given the respectability of Andrew’s surname and the money the shops are bringing in, the parish can hardly object to our keeping the Clark girls, no matter what Mrs Llewellyn-Jones says. We could even go for formal adoption.’
‘The war won’t last for ever and things are bound to change when the men come home. They may not be happy at us taking on a family of orphaned girls.’
‘I know Charlie won’t mind. Will Andrew?’
‘As I’ve already gone ahead and done it, he’s got little choice in the matter.’
‘You can always blame it on Mrs Llewellyn-Jones. After all, she billeted the Clark girls on you in the first place.’ Alma reached for the teapot. ‘Want a refill?’
‘Much as I’d like to, if I don’t start my rounds I won’t finish before midnight.’ Bethan rose from her chair. ‘See you on Sunday?’
‘Unless I get a better offer.’
‘From an American?’ Bethan joked.
Alma looked to her son again. ‘A homecoming,’ she said softly, so softly Bethan couldn’t be quite sure she’d heard her correctly.
‘Thank you for sending me to the police station, ma’am. They were most helpful.’ Kurt Schaffer smiled at Tina as he stood before the counter of Ronconi’s café.
‘I thought they would be. What can I get you?’
‘Coffee would be good.’ Slipping his hand into his pocket he pulled out a notebook. ‘I was hoping to find the other ladies here.’
‘They work, like everyone else around here.’ Tina filled a cup and slammed it down in front of him. ‘That’ll be sixpence.’
He took half a crown from his pocket and handed it to her.
‘Any chance of cream or sugar?’
‘Cream exists only in the imagination and memory. You can have milk, but I warn you now, it’s household.’
Broken Rainbows Page 3
