Pontypridd 05 - Such Sweet Sorrow

by Catrin Collier

  ‘There’s no point in changing clothes from one week’s end to the next in the pit.’

  ‘But they’re filthy,’ he protested.

  ‘And whatever you’ll wear tomorrow will get just as filthy. Besides, as the saying goes, a good layer of dust holds the threads together. Hang them up there, underclothes as well.’

  ‘Don’t you ever wash them?’ Alexander was horrified at the thought of having to don dirty clothes in the morning.

  ‘On washday. Mondays the women throw them in the tub after they’ve done everything else.’

  Alexander scooped up his clothes between his wrists and carried them to the peg.

  ‘Ready for tea?’ Evan asked.

  ‘I’m not sure I can stay awake long enough.’

  ‘I suggest you make an effort. Without food, our tonnage will drop tomorrow.’

  ‘All set for a night on the town?’ Diana asked as the men emerged from the cold wash-house into the warm steamy atmosphere of the back kitchen.

  ‘I’m not even sure I’m up to climbing the stairs for a night in bed,’ Alexander complained, irritated because the grumbles he’d intended to sound light-hearted came out anything but.

  ‘That looks good, Mrs Powell,’ Luke enthused, as Phyllis lifted an enormous pan out of the oven. Thin slices of liver and onions continued to bubble in a rich, brown gravy as she set it on a wooden block on the table.

  ‘Nothing like a hard day’s work to give a man an appetite.’ Megan finished mashing the potatoes she’d carried into the pantry, out of Phyllis’s way.

  Evan took his customary place at the head of the table, smiling at Brian who was laying the miniature fork and spoon Diana had bought him end to end on his tray, playing trains. The new lodgers sat at the table and Megan began dishing out the meal.

  Ever since William had told Evan he’d joined up, he’d been dreading his nephew leaving. Last summer had been hectic with both his sons and William living at home. He was glad Megan was back, but despite all her efforts to be her old bright self, she couldn’t conceal the fact that prison had shattered her spirit, and William’s departure what was left of her heart. Diana had been totally preoccupied since she had broken off her courtship with Tony Ronconi, and the spring had promised to be a subdued one. But now things were different. Not that the lodgers could take the place of his sons and his nephew, far from it.

  Luke was quiet, and unsure of himself, Alexander had all the charm of the self-centred, flat-footed crache but they were people, and hopefully their companionship would go a little way towards filling the void left by the boys’ departure. And he still had a lot to be grateful for. He’d hung on to his own house, more by luck than judgement, during the depression; he was in work, and he was living with the woman he loved. It was a time to count his blessings. If only he could be sure that all the boys would survive the fighting, he would be almost happy.

  Harry’s wife had fled to town, and later her sister’s after the ugly scene in the stockroom; but whereas it had been easy for her to avoid Harry’s presence, she hadn’t been able to put his threats out of her mind for an instant. Just the thought of him, naked and hairy in her bed as he had been on their wedding night, was enough to make her physically ill. She spent the day quaking and nauseous, but as the clock ticked on and it drew closer to teatime she forced herself to leave the sanctuary of her sister’s kitchen and climb the Graig hill.

  She wished she could have told her sister about Harry’s insane outburst, but the idea of discussing the intimate details of married life with anyone sickened her. So it was with a rapidly beating heart and a cold clammy skin that she finally opened the side door that led directly into the family’s living quarters. She glanced into the shop. Jenny was behind the counter.

  ‘Have you seen your father?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s upstairs changing. He’s going out.’

  ‘But what about tea?’ Mrs Harry Griffiths, who prided herself on the perfection with which she executed her domestic duties, had for once bought the ingredients for a ready-made tea in town. Her carrier bag was packed with three ‘off the coupon’ meat pies, which meant that meat represented less than half of the filling, and it was anyone’s guess as to what the rest was. She’d also bought half a dozen baps, and a custard pie which had eaten heavily into their sugar ration. The guilt engendered by her rare extravagance was assuaged by the thought that Harry was solely responsible for her improvident expenditure. She wouldn’t have even gone to town that morning if he hadn’t driven her from the house.

  ‘Dad and I have already eaten. He cooked bacon and egg.’

  ‘No doubt using up all our ration for the next month?’

  ‘He didn’t seem too worried,’ Jenny replied absently. She had pushed the beginnings of yet another letter to Eddie behind the cheese, out of sight of her mother’s probing eyes, but not out of mind. She was midway through a beautiful, touching sentence, half her own, and half culled from a romantic weepie she had seen in the White Palace. It would be the sentiment that would make her absent husband realise just how much she loved him. He’d come back, forgive her and they’d live happily ever after – if she could get the sentence down on paper before she forgot it.

  The door slammed and she heard her mother’s step on the stairs; she pulled out her writing pad and tried to visualise Eddie in her mind’s eye.

  ‘I’ve been wondering where you got to.’ Harry looked up from the table in the over-furnished and ornamented living room as his wife walked in.

  ‘Shopping.’ She carried the bag through to the kitchen.

  ‘You must have had a lot to buy, judging by the time you’ve taken.’

  ‘Is it any wonder I wanted to stay out after the way you behaved this morning?’

  ‘Did you buy some new underwear or nighties to excite me?’ he mocked.

  ‘You … you … beast!’ Fear surfaced through her anger. She crumpled on to the Rexine sofa and began to sob.

  Long since inured to her emotional outbursts, he looked at her coldly. ‘All you have to do is grant me a divorce.’

  ‘I’ll never be able to go to chapel, or hold my head up in this town again if I’m divorced.’

  ‘Then stay married to me. But I warn you now, I won’t let you get away with separate bedrooms any longer.’

  ‘But it’s not right. What you’re doing isn’t right. You’ll make me ill …’

  ‘We’ll find out just how ill tonight, won’t we?’ He left the table and went to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded, suddenly fearful that he was going to a solicitor.

  ‘To play cards in the Queen’s Hotel with George Collins. We arranged it when he delivered the dairy goods.’

  ‘Then you’ll be home late.’

  ‘Not that late. I suggest you wait up for me. It will save me the trouble of waking you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m up to this.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anyone for moaning like you, Alexander Forbes,’ Diana said as she walked down the Graig hill between him and Luke. Night had settled, dismal and drizzle laden over the streets. ‘Why don’t you take a leaf out of Luke’s book. If you can’t find something cheerful to say, don’t say anything at all.’

  They walked under the railway bridge, their footsteps echoing upwards to the massive steel girders that supported the tracks. Leaving the confines of the short tunnel for the open area of the Tumble, Diana crossed the road, opened the door to Ronconi’s café, pulled back the blackout curtain and fought her way inside.

  ‘Watch it,’ Gina called from behind the counter. ‘Dai Station has already been in here once tonight to give us a warning.’

  ‘So what’s new?’ Diana held the cloth back so Luke and Alexander could enter.

  ‘He said we allowed a chink of light to escape last night.’ Tina emerged from the back where she’d been eating her tea of beans on toast.

  ‘Gina, Tina, I’d like you to meet our new lodgers, Alexander Forbes, who’s feeling very so
rry for himself after his first day down the pit, and Luke Grenville.’

  ‘I would shake hands,’ Alexander said smoothly, ‘but they’re in no condition to be placed near a lady’s.’

  ‘I’ll vouch for that.’ Diana winked at him, smiling at Tina when she succeeded in bringing a sheepish look to his face.

  ‘You’re one of the conchies?’ Tina asked Alexander in a loud voice.

  ‘Tact’s never been Tina’s strong point,’ Diana commented as half a dozen men in the back room turned their heads to stare at the newcomers.

  ‘And it’s not likely to be now I’ve a restaurant to run. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.’

  ‘It can’t possibly have been any worse than mine,’ Gina remonstrated.

  ‘Don’t you believe it. How many covers has this place got? Fifty?’

  ‘Sixty-two,’ Gina interposed swiftly.

  ‘The Taff Street place has two hundred.’

  ‘A hundred and twenty of which are shut off upstairs for functions,’ Gina bit back. ‘And you close the doors down there at six o’clock.’

  ‘But we sell cakes, and I have to manage the main confectionery kitchen …’

  ‘But you have a chef you can rely on to work unsupervised …’

  ‘Happy families,’ Diana said to the two men. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have asked you.’ Gina flashed a smile at Luke that turned the whole of him, especially his knees, to jelly. He had never seen a girl as exotic, dark and beautiful as Gina outside of a book illustration.

  ‘Tea, coffee, hot chocolate?’ she prompted.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘All three?’ she smiled in amusement.

  ‘Tea please,’ he stammered awkwardly.

  ‘Sugar and milk. We have to put the sugar as well as the milk in now that it’s rationed,’ she explained.

  ‘Two sugars and milk please.’

  ‘You’ll get one sugar and like it,’ Tina told him as she asserted her authority over her younger sister.

  ‘I’ll have a tea too please, Tina.’ Diana opened her purse.

  ‘Please, let me get them.’ Alexander pushed his sore and swollen hand into his pocket and attempted to close his fingers over the change nestling in the bottom.

  ‘Tea for you?’ Gina asked, taking one look at Alexander’s expensive clothes and unshaven face, and deciding she didn’t like what she saw.

  ‘I’ll have a coffee please.’ He gave her the benefit of his most devastating smile, but to no avail.

  ‘We’ll sit in the front, Gina.’ Diana and Alexander walked over to a table set in the corner behind the door away from the draughts, but Luke lingered at the counter studying everything so he could write to his younger brothers and sisters about the novelties in his new life. He had never been in a café before for the simple reason that even if his strict Quaker father had approved of his children visiting such places, there weren’t any within walking distance of the tiny hamlet they lived in.

  By Pontypridd standards the second-largest café the Ronconi family owned and ran in the town was average, by Cardiff standards it was poky and rudimentary, but to Luke’s naive eye it was an awesome wonderland.

  The long side wall was mirrored and shelved, the space in the centre dominated by an enormous mock marble fountain. Even now after rationing had begun to bite, the shelves were crammed with confectionery, more dummy than real, but all wrapped in glittering swaths of silver and coloured paper. The aromas of coffee, hot chocolate, tea and raspberry ice-cream sauce vied for supremacy in the warm, smoky atmosphere, with the splendidly appetising fragrance of coffee winning by a margin.

  ‘Would you like anything with your tea?’ Gina asked Luke, as Tina took the coffee and two teas from the counter to join Diana and Alexander at their table.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he faltered.

  ‘The cakes aren’t up to our usual standard.’ She gestured to the glass stand where a few tired-looking pastries were set amongst an array of cinnamon-dusted custard tarts, ‘but we have some biscuits, and there’s a couple of teacakes in the kitchen that I can toast for you if you’re hungry.’

  ‘I’ve just eaten an enormous meal.’ He’d consumed double the amount his mother could afford to feed him at home, and it hadn’t just been the liver casserole, mashed potatoes and vegetables. There had been an enormous rice pudding afterwards, rich and creamy, sprinkled with nutmeg, and made with scrapings from the butter dish and the top of the milk; luxurious touches Phyllis had warned everyone to make the most of, because they weren’t going to last.

  ‘You’re lodging with the Powells?’

  Lost in admiration of the dark velvet of her eyes, it was as much as he could do to nod assent.

  ‘Then you’ll be all right for food. Evan and Phyllis believe in setting a good table, unlike some around here I could mention.’

  ‘You know the Powells?’

  ‘Diana’s a good friend, her brother Will is engaged to my sister, Tina. That’s her, sitting next to your friend, Alexander.’

  ‘Alexander’s not really my friend. I never saw him before yesterday.’

  ‘But you’re both conchies.’

  ‘Yes,’ he conceded as he stirred the tea she put in front of him.

  ‘Two of my brothers joined up with Diana’s brother. Strange, isn’t it?’ She stopped to take money off a tram crew who were leaving. ‘They leave, then you come into Ponty.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why people hate us, they think we’re trying to take their place.’

  ‘Who says anyone hates you?’

  ‘There were men at the station …’

  ‘The railway station?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t want to take any notice of anything they say.’

  ‘But they’re right. We are here because we refused to fight.’

  ‘I don’t see any of them in khaki.’

  ‘But they’ve probably registered for the army.’

  ‘And they’ll fill their pants if they get called up.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sorry, crudeness comes when you’ve been brought up with brothers like mine. If you don’t mind me asking, why did you register as a conscientious objector?’

  ‘Because it was what my father wanted.’

  ‘And you always do what your father wants?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he asked as though it had never occurred to him to hold, or voice, an opinion of his own.

  ‘When I have no strong feelings one way or the other.’

  ‘And if you do have strong feelings?’

  ‘I don’t tell Papa what I’ve been up to. Why didn’t your father want you to join the army?’

  ‘We’re Quakers.’

  ‘Don’t they wear funny hats?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘You must have worked before you came here,’ she probed.

  ‘Weaving baskets in between helping out on the land. The farmer my father works for didn’t mind me assisting at busy times, like harvest, but he wouldn’t put me on the books because he had no real call for me. When we were told to register, I had to tell them I was unemployed.’

  ‘Times have been hard for everyone,’ she commiserated. ‘You think you’re going to like the pit?’

  ‘As Mr Powell says, it’s work.’

  ‘And Pontypridd?’ she asked archly.

  ‘From what I’ve seen so far it seems like a very nice town,’ he answered without taking his eyes off her.

  Gina’s laugh, light, silvery, echoed across the café.

  ‘Little sister’s flirting,’ Tina commented acidly.

  ‘With Luke?’ Diana looked up in surprise. ‘He’s just a boy.’

  ‘Which suits her, seeing as how she’s just a girl, and a lucky one at that. As he’s just got here he won’t be going anywhere.’

  Diana glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Time I was off.’

  ‘You’re not staying?’ Alexander asked, disappointment evident in
his voice.

  ‘I promised my boss I’d help him close up the sweet shop in the New Theatre.’

  ‘You’ll be back?’

  ‘Later perhaps. See you later, Tina.’

  ‘Do I detect romance in the air?’ Alexander asked as Diana disappeared behind the curtain.

  ‘Romance?’

  ‘Diana and her boss?’

  Tina burst out laughing. ‘You’ve picked the wrong pair there.’

  ‘He’s married?’

  ‘Of the other persuasion. “One of those”, as my mother would whisper. A queer,’ she explained as the expression on his face remained bemused.

  ‘Then Diana’s not going out with anyone?’

  ‘She was courting my brother, Tony, but they quarrelled before he went away. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was just wondering. She’s a pretty girl.’

  ‘And you’re thinking of making a move in that direction?’

  ‘I think I have enough to get used to at the moment without adding any more complications to my life.’

  ‘It’s obvious you’re not used to hard work,’ she said bluntly as she looked down at his hands.

  ‘I was working in a museum. It’s closed for the duration.’

  ‘What did you do, in the museum I mean?’

  ‘Arrange displays, study artefacts and documents as they came in and categorise them for the archives.’

  ‘It sounds like thrilling work.’

  ‘I enjoyed it.’ He ignored the sarcasm.

  ‘Well, much as I’d like to, I can’t sit here all night. I have a sister to supervise, and a café to run.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  She looked down at his raw and bleeding hands. ‘You could wash the dishcloths out in washing soda.’

  The answering expression on his face was so peculiar, she burst out laughing again. ‘I was joking.’ She walked to the counter. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Myrtle’s asking if you can come to tea again on Sunday?’

  ‘Won’t that rather reinforce the wrong impression we’ve given your father?’ Diana asked Wyn as she helped him bag the copper he’d taken.