Pontypridd 05 - Such Sweet Sorrow

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Please God, let it be soon,’ she whispered as she pressed her hand down on the damp mattress.

  ‘If we’re going to get up in the morning it’s time we went to bed.’ Gina had washed the cups Luke had used to make cocoa, and tidied the kitchen and the larder. Luke had banked down the fire, swept the hearth and clipped the fireguard on to the grate. There wasn’t anything left for either of them do, yet both of them were lingering, waiting for the other to make the first move.

  ‘I suppose it is.’ Luke averted his head lest she see his blushes as he rose from the chair where he’d been pretending to read last week’s Sunday Pictorial.

  ‘It feels as though nothing will ever be the same again in this house.’ Gina looked around the room, checking for the last time that she’d left nothing undone.

  ‘It will be when your parents come home again, you’ll see,’ he reassured her clumsily.

  ‘But when will that be?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you.’

  ‘And I wish we didn’t have to get up early tomorrow.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘Some honeymoon.’

  ‘Why don’t you go up first? I’ll follow in a little while,’ he suggested, in an attempt to avoid further embarrassment.

  ‘No.’ She reached out and took his hand in hers. ‘I don’t like rattling around in this big house by myself. Let’s go up together.’ She led the way. While she pulled the blackout in all the bedrooms, he opened the drawer she had stowed his clothes away in and removed his pyjamas.

  He went downstairs to the wash house and took his time over undressing and washing, but eventually he knew that if he delayed any longer she’d come down looking for him. Carrying his best clothes over his arm he slowly mounted the stairs.

  She was lying in the middle of the double bed. He sat on the edge, and kicked off his slippers. Folding back the blankets she switched off the light. He lay beside her, keeping his arms to his side lest he accidentally touch, and startle her.

  ‘It’s customary for the groom to kiss the bride,’ Gina murmured into the darkness.

  ‘You must be tired.’

  ‘Not that tired.’ She turned to face him. Wrapping her arms around his chest she dragged him into the middle of the bed.

  ‘I’m sorry, this just doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘If you kissed me it would be a start down the right road.’

  He reached out hesitantly. Holding her face in his hands, he kissed her on the lips.

  ‘You’re shivering, come here.’ She drew even closer to him. ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He felt her fingers moving over the front of his pyjama jacket, slipping the buttons from their loops, baring his chest.

  ‘I could take off my nightdress.’

  ‘Not just yet…’

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. ‘There’s only one thing I’m really frightened of.’

  ‘I told you I can sleep in the box room.’

  ‘That would only postpone things and make them worse because I’d have more time to worry. I’m absolutely terrified of doing something wrong. You will give me another chance, if I make a complete hash of this, won’t you?’

  He hesitated for a moment, then laughed out of sheer relief as he took her into his arms and kissed her again.

  Then suddenly neither of them was nervous or shivering, not even when her nightdress joined his pyjamas on the floor beside the bed.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘I’m beginning to understand the saying that you can get used to anything given time. It’s true even of café work,’ Bethan said to Megan as she slumped into a chair in her father’s kitchen. It was the end of a long, busy day in the High Street café, and for once she was only too glad to take her aunt and Phyllis up on their offer of tea and sympathy.

  ‘No matter what, I’ll never get used to this business of not knowing what’s happening to my own son.’ Megan handed Rachel over to Bethan and picked up the tea caddy. ‘Do you think they would have told us by now if the boys had been on the Lancastria?’

  ‘According to the papers all relatives of casualties have been informed.’

  ‘They also said there were twenty-seven thousand people on the ship.’ Megan tried, and failed, to visualise that many bodies, alive or dead.

  ‘I still think we would have heard if they’d been on board. Dad has to be right. The boys must have been taken prisoner.’

  ‘Almost everyone seems to have heard something except the relatives of the boys in the Guards. They keep saying POW lists are going to be posted soon. When is “soon”, that’s what I’d like to know?’

  ‘Soon is when the War Office decides.’ Bethan’s thoughts were with the casualty station in Dunkirk which must have been overrun by now.

  ‘I wish you’d move in with us, love,’ Evan said as he walked in from the wash-house and lifted down the chess set from a shelf in the alcove next to the stove. He and Alexander had fallen into the habit of playing a game every night after tea. ‘The place seems empty with Diana and Luke gone. You could have your old room back.’

  ‘I’ve put my name down to take evacuees, Dad. They’ll be arriving any day now.’

  ‘I suppose they will.’ He started as the key turned in the lock. They all looked expectantly to the door.

  Megan’s fingers were crossed, her eyes closed and her lips moving as if in prayer.

  ‘Luke!’ Evan greeted him in surprise. ‘We weren’t expecting you. Come in, sit down. How’s married life treating you?’

  ‘I came to see if Mrs Powell could go to the house.’

  ‘Something wrong?’ Alexander asked, glancing up from the chessboard he was setting out.

  ‘We’ve had a telegram. Mr Ronconi’s dead. Gina’s taken it hard. I said I’d go down and tell Laura and Tina. I don’t think Gina should be left alone while I’m gone.’

  ‘What on earth happened?’ Bethan asked, her blood running cold at the thought of Mr Ronconi dead, and Laura’s mother left alone with the unruly brood of young children.

  ‘A constable visited us, one I hadn’t seen before. He said they put all the internees on a ship called the Arandora Star. They intended to send them to Canada for the duration. The ship went down. Torpedoed somewhere off the coast of Ireland.’

  Megan put her head in her hands. ‘That poor, poor woman, and the girls. How much more can they take?’

  ‘Whatever’s sent,’ Evan said grimly, ‘because they’ve no choice but to take it. Bethan?’

  ‘I’ll drive you to Laura’s and we’ll go from there to pick up Tina.’

  ‘Phyllis and I will sit with Gina until you get back.’ Megan took the baby from Bethan.

  ‘Come on, Luke.’ Evan abandoned the chess game and rose to his feet. ‘You get back to your wife. She’ll need you now, more than ever. Bethan and I will tell the girls.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Laura stared disbelievingly at Huw Davies. ‘My father’s dead. We don’t get a body, there’ll be no funeral, no nothing?’

  ‘I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am, Mrs Lewis,’ Huw murmured sympathetically. ‘The sergeant is arranging travel passes for all of you to visit your mother.’

  ‘I don’t want a travel pass. I want my father!’

  ‘Tina, talk like that isn’t going to help.’ Father O’Donnelly rebuked her mildly. ‘You have to be strong, for your sisters, your mama, the little ones –’

  ‘Strong!’ She glared at him, eyes blazing. ‘That’s easy for you to say. How do you think I feel with Angelo and Mama God knows where, and Laura, Gina and I left to run everything by ourselves? And now Papa won’t even be coming home …’

  ‘Were there any others from Pontypridd on the ship?’ Laura asked.

  Huw nodded. ‘We were sent a list.’

  ‘The same one you used to arrest them?’

  ‘Tina, it’s not Constable’ Davies’s fault,’ Father O’Donnelly intervened again. He was bone weary, sick, tired, and despai
ring. This was the sixth house he’d visited to offer condolences and professional services, there were twelve more waiting, and he’d seen the same anger and bitterness in every one. A stony-hearted, arid bitterness that he had so far failed to ease for all his faith and prayers.

  ‘Four hundred and eighty-six Italians and a hundred and seventy-five Germans went down with the ship.’ Huw repeated the statistics bleakly in the hope that Laura, Tina and Gina would understand just how impossible it would be to locate one body amongst so many.

  ‘When will we be able to go and see Mama?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Huw promised.

  ‘Tell them to keep their travel warrants,’ Tina countered angrily. ‘We want nothing from a country that can kill our father, wound one brother and lose another.’

  ‘I think it’s more important you see your mama, Tina, than give way to sinful pride,’ Father O’Donnelly reproached.

  Huw stared at the ceiling, hoping that the girls wouldn’t find out that it wasn’t the government that was paying for the travel warrants, but the town’s businessmen who were wretchedly ashamed of the way the Italians had been treated.

  ‘What’s going to happen to the cafés if we all go to Birmingham?’ Gina asked, tearfully.

  ‘We’ll close them,’ Tina decided abruptly. ‘Let people get their tea elsewhere for a change.’

  ‘I doubt there’ll be a single café open in town or the Rhondda tomorrow,’ Father O’Donnelly said. ‘I just hope, and pray that all the Italian families can find it in their hearts to forgive those responsible for sinking the Arandora Star.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, Father,’ Laura said evenly. ‘It’s a lot to forgive, and I don’t just mean the Germans.’

  ‘Well I, for one, didn’t expect them to come back and carry on as though nothing had happened.’

  ‘What did you expect Laura, Tina and Gina to do then, Mrs Jones?’ Jenny added details of the small pile of items on the counter to Dai Station’s wife’s tab.

  I don’t know, but it’s peculiar to think Mr Ronconi’s gone, just like that. One minute he’s here, the next he’s taken away, and –’

  ‘It’s three weeks since the Arandora Star went down, Mrs Jones,’ Huw Davies addressed Dai Station’s wife as he walked into Griffiths’ shop. ‘I think it would be better for everyone concerned if we tried to stop talking about the tragedy. When all’s said and done, there’s nothing any of us can do to right a terrible wrong.’

  ‘You’re probably right, constable. If we stop talking about it, they might forget …’

  ‘Oh I don’t think they’re going to forget, Mrs Jones. Not in a million years.’ Huw slapped two shillings down on to the counter and nodded towards the cigarette shelf. Jenny took the money and handed him a packet of Players.

  ‘I noticed Tony Ronconi didn’t come back from Birmingham with the girls.’

  ‘Probably because he wanted to spend whatever leave he has with his mother.’

  ‘Say what you like,’ Mrs Richards chipped in, ‘those Italians know how to look after themselves. Tony Ronconi’s the only Welsh Guardsman to find his way back to Pontypridd.’

  ‘Because he was shot, Mrs Richards,’ Huw pointed out forcefully.

  ‘I don’t see our Glan home, or your Will if it comes to that.’

  ‘Or Tony’s brother Angelo?’

  The bell clanged and Bert Browne walked through the door. Jenny glanced up at the clock. ‘Second post is early today.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jenny.’ He held out a small yellow envelope. Jenny stared at it, but made no move to take it from him.

  ‘Look after the shop,’ Huw ordered Bert. Opening the door that connected with the living quarters he took the envelope from Bert, placed his strong hand on Jenny’s arm and led her out of the shop and up the stairs.

  ‘It’s Eddie, I know it’s Eddie.’ She touched the telegram in his hand.

  ‘You won’t know until you open it, girl, and the last thing you should do is read it in front of that audience.’ He walked her to the sofa in the living room and pushed her gently down on to the seat, laying the telegram in her lap.

  ‘Please, stay with me.’

  He stood and watched as she picked up the envelope and turned it over. She clung to a wild irrational thought that as long as the envelope remained closed, Eddie would be alive. She sat staring at it while seconds ticked past on the grandmother clock in the corner.

  ‘Do you want me to open it for you?’

  Without looking at Huw she pushed her thumb into the flap and tore at the paper. She stared down at the words, reading and rereading them without comprehension. Huw stepped forward and looked over her shoulder.

  DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU GUARDSMAN EDWARD JAMES POWELL HAS BEEN KILLED IN ACTION. ARMY COUNCIL DESIRE TO OFFER YOU THEIR SINCERE SYMPATHY (.) = UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR

  ‘I’m sorry, Huw.’ Huw turned to see Bert standing in the doorway. ‘I’ve sent the customers away and closed the shop. I have to be on my way.’

  ‘Of course, I’ll see you out.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ the postman apologised again as Huw walked him down the stairs. He held up a second telegram.

  ‘Will?’ Huw asked, his chest tight with grief.

  The postman nodded.

  ‘Anyone else I should know about?’

  ‘Not yet, but they’re still coming in. The first POW lists have been posted. Dr John’s on them, Angelo Ronconi and Glan Richards too.’

  Huw knew he should have given thanks for small mercies, but he couldn’t, not with Jenny sitting upstairs and his sister waiting in Graig Avenue for the bombshell that was going to shatter her life.

  *……*……*

  For weeks after the POW lists had been posted and the trickle of men from Dunkirk had dried up, Huw Davies timed his beat so he would be within hailing distance of the railway station every time a train chugged into Pontypridd; especially the early morning milk and late evening trains.

  Everyone in the police station knew what Huw was doing, but the sergeant refrained from passing comment. There was no point in telling Huw it was over when it was common knowledge that the war in Europe was finished. The men who weren’t dead, and hadn’t been lucky enough to climb aboard a rescue boat, were all heading for prison camps under German armed guard.

  The whole civilian population of Britain was making an all-out effort to put the tragedy of Dunkirk behind them and prepare for the invasion that was expected any day. Everyone that is except those like Huw, and the Powell and Ronconi families, who couldn’t bring themselves to look to the future because the pull of the past and their grief was too strong.

  Instead of immersing himself in sandbags and ARP duty, Huw continued to haunt the railway station, and the sergeant couldn’t find it in his heart to blame him. Not when he saw the wretched, anguished expression in Evan, Megan and Diana Powell’s eyes, and the swift disintegration of Jenny Powell’s and Tina Ronconi’s youth and beauty, or the long-suffering look on the faces of women like Bethan Powell who had been doubly hit, by the death of a brother and the loss of a husband she had no idea when, if ever, she’d see again.

  What was cruellest of all, was the way in which the families the sergeant had known and lived among for so many years had lost their men. One day they’d marched away to war, then came letters and finally a small yellow envelope, then nothing. No body – no funeral – no mourning – no absolute, conclusive certainty; only vague rumours of men who had served in the last war and been pronounced dead to reappear months, sometimes years later. Rumours the women repeated and tried to believe, because that was all they had left.

  But when Megan dared to say to her brother that she didn’t believe William was dead, Huw told her sternly that mistakes didn’t happen; not in this war when communications were so much more advanced than they had been the last time round and identification disks were made of sterner stuff than the pressed, varnished cardboard he had worn in the trenches.

 
But for all the lectures Huw delivered to his sister, and the long, mutually supportive conversations he had with Wyn Rees who was doing his best to comfort his wife and mother-in-law, Huw’s step still turned towards the Tumble whenever he heard a train rattling into town.

  Somewhere deep inside him lay the same small germ of futile hope that kept the Powell family going through bleak days and sleepless nights. A desperate belief that, one day, his nephew and Eddie would return.

  It was darkest between the hours of three and four in the morning: the time Huw reserved for checking under the railway bridge that marked the beginning of the Graig hill so he could listen to the engine of the milk train rattle in on the tracks overhead.

  It had been over three weeks since the telegrams had arrived with news of William’s and Eddie’s deaths, and Huw still couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the boys every waking moment. The second he opened his eyes in the morning, he remembered, and grief, like a lump of stone, dogged every step he took during the days that followed. And for all his protestations to the contrary, deep down he knew he was no nearer to accepting the news than his sister, Diana and Tina, or Evan, Jenny and Bethan were to accepting the idea that Eddie and William had gone.

  Huw wanted to make them understand that they would never see the boys again, but it was an impossible task when he himself expected to see Eddie and William’s faces around every corner in the town.

  He left the shelter of the short tunnel and glanced to the left. A shadow moved out from the black hole that concealed the wide, stone flight of steps that led to the platforms. A tall figure moved out of the gloom into station yard, the inevitable khaki battledress picked out in the moonlight.

  Huw moved closer, expecting to see one of the wounded survivors from Dunkirk home on a twenty-four- hour pass. Then he stood and stared, and stared again.

  ‘Will … Is it really you, boy?’ he whispered, half expecting the apparition to fade like a ghost.

  ‘Can’t keep a bad penny from turning up, Uncle Huw, thought you would have learned that by now.’