One Blue Moon (21 page)

‘It could happen here,’ Viv asserted defiantly. ‘It could. If enough men go to Mosley’s meetings, not to scoff but to listen, it could –’

‘But at what cost?’

The voice was soft-spoken and quiet, but everyman in the room fell silent. It wasn’t often Charlie made his opinions known, but when he did, everyone listened.

‘Well I for one don’t care what it bloody costs to put a wage packet in my pocket,’ Viv shouted furiously.

‘The Jews ...’ Dai began fervently.

‘To hell with the bloody Jews,’ Viv screamed.

‘They’re people,’ Dai yelled, rising to his feet. ‘Same as you and me.’

‘Let the buggers suffer.’

‘Jews this week, miners next, Welshmen the week after?’ Charlie looked steadily at Viv. ‘You’ve been lucky in this valley. So far you’ve only lost your jobs.’

Charlie returned to his chessboard and made another move. He’d never spoken about his past. Not once, although plenty had tried to worm more out of him. He’d never volunteered anything other than the information that he came from Russia. And few apart from the well-read miners like Evan realised just how vast that country was.

Taking advantage of the silence that followed Charlie’s speech, Ronnie steamrollered his way past Viv’s and Dai’s abandoned chairs towards Evan.

‘Mr Powell.’ He extended his hand first to Evan, then Charlie.

‘I’ve never seen you in here before, Ronnie.’ Evan pushed his chair away from the chest. ‘Your father sacked you?’

‘Not yet,’ Ronnie said gravely. ‘But then, although it says unemployed over the door there’s a fair few like you here Mr Powell, and Charlie, who work.’

‘Not nights in our own café.’ Charlie lifted his feet off the rungs of a stool, and thrust the stool at Ronnie. ‘Seat?’

‘Thanks.’ Ronnie moved the stool between Evan and Charlie’s chairs. Evan looked drawn, preoccupied, and Ronnie put it down to concern over Maud. ‘I’ve been looking for you, Mr Powell,’ he began awkwardly.

‘Well now you’ve found me, boy, what do you intend to do with me?’ Evan asked, irked by the interruption of his game. Ronnie said the one thing guaranteed to gain Evan’s attention.

‘I’ve just seen Maud.’

‘You’ve seen her!’ The sun rose on the dour landscape of Evan’s face. ‘How is she? Was she conscious? Did she say anything? Could she talk? Is she better than she was this morning?’ The questions tumbled out faster than Ronnie could answer them.

‘She was conscious, she said she felt better, we talked for a little while, but she seemed tired. Very tired,’ Ronnie explained hesitancy.

‘Only tired?’ There was a look in Evan’s eye that said he was still hoping for a miracle.

‘Well, she’s obviously very ill.’ Ronnie pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and offered them round.

‘They told us there was no visiting on the TB ward until Sunday. How did you manage to get in when you’re not even family?’ Evan asked suspiciously.

‘I had to deliver some eggs to the ward. A present from the Catholic Mothers’ Union.’ He’d told the lie so often he was beginning to believe it himself.

‘It was good of them to think of the girls,’ Evan commented sincerely, ‘and it was good of you to come looking for me.’

‘I really need to talk to you.’ Ronnie held his cigarette in the flame of the match Charlie had produced. ‘It’s to do with Maud and it’s important. Could we go somewhere private, Mr Powell? Perhaps the back bar of the Criterion, or the Hart?’

‘All right.’ Evan was intrigued, but he was not the kind of man to let his curiosity show. He pushed the wooden box that held the chess figures towards Charlie. ‘Coming, mate?’

Charlie correctly read the uneasy expression on Ronnie’s face. ‘I promised Dai a game.’

‘Come over later and have a pint?’

Charlie nodded as he began to reset the figures.

It was still raining, but the fine drizzle had given way to a sudden torrential downpour.

‘Do you want to wait until it eases off?’ Ronnie asked, turning up the collar of his coat.

‘The one thing I’ve learned about Ponty is that you can wait for ever for that, boy. Tell me where you’re going and I’ll follow.’

‘The New Inn is the nearest.’

‘I’d be happier with the Criterion.’

‘Criterion it is. Come on, let’s make a dash for it.’

Ronnie knew he’d been stupid when he saw the expression on Evan’s face as he carried the tray with two full pints and two whisky chasers over to their table. The beer would have been enough. Evan would have bought him another back and that would have been the end of it. Evan could probably just about afford to buy two beers. As it was, he had set a precedent Evan couldn’t afford to follow.

‘Barman owes me for a dinner he never paid for,’ Ronnie lied glibly, ‘so these are on the house.’

‘Cheers.’ Evan raised his glass to the bewildered barman.

Ronnie picked up his whisky glass, swirled it briskly in his hand and downed it in one. He sensed Evan’s attention fixed on him as he turned to his beer.

‘I’ve never seen you drink like that before,’ Evan commented as he sipped his own beer slowly.

‘I never have, but then I’ve never said anything like what I’m about to say before.’

‘About Maud?’

‘I love her, Mr Powell, and I want to marry her,’ he announced with devastating simplicity.

Maud had been shocked, but Evan was doubly so. He stared at Ronnie, his face showing absolute disbelief. ‘You what?’ he said incredulously.

‘I want to –’

Yes I heard you, boy,’ Evan said impatiently. ‘I just wasn’t sure I understood you. Maud’s practically on her deathbed and you come to me ...’

‘Please, Mr Powell. All I’m asking is that you hear me out.’

‘I’ve got one question before you say another word,’ Evan said sharply. ‘She’s barely sixteen, you’re twenty-seven. Exactly how long has this been going on?’

Ronnie almost blurted out ‘since last night’, then realised how that could be misconstrued.

‘Nothing’s been going on, Mr Powell,’ he stated firmly. ‘And without your permission, nothing will.’

‘I’m relieved to hear it.’

‘When I heard that Maud had been rushed into hospital this morning, I realised how much I loved her. I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d left it too late to tell her how I felt. So I talked to Trevor –’

‘Trevor Lewis, the doctor. About my daughter?’

‘Yes – no! Not about her,’ Ronnie explained hastily, realising the more he said, the more he was putting his foot in it. ‘I asked him about the treatments for lung disease. Her name was never mentioned between us,’ he lied. ‘Trevor told me about operations, cutting ribcages, deflating lungs – that sort of thing. I’ve lived in this town all my life, Mr Powell ...’

‘So have I,’ Evan pointed out drily. ‘And I think you’ll grant that my life’s been a little longer than yours.’

‘I know how many young girls die of TB,’ Ronnie continued unabashed. ‘Trevor admitted that the treatments don’t offer a lot of hope.’

‘You don’t have to spell out Maud’s mortality to me,’ Evan said fiercely, reaching for his whisky.

‘Then Trevor said something else. He said that sometimes the rich send their children to clinics in Switzerland, where they receive special treatment, breathe clean, fresh air and eat nothing but wholesome dairy food.’

‘Are you suggesting that if I had enough money to send Maud to Switzerland I would hold back? Do you think for one minute that Maud would be lying in the Central Homes if I had the money to keep her out of the place?’ Evan demanded heatedly. ‘Do you think the thought of sending her somewhere warm and healthy hasn’t crossed my mind?’

‘If it has, then you know there’s a chance for Maud in what I’m suggesting,’ Ronnie pleaded. ‘Neither I, nor my family, have the kind of money you need to send Maud to a Swiss clinic, but I could raise enough to pay for Maud’s and my own fare to my grandparents’ farm in Italy. The air is just as pure in northern Italy as it is in Switzerland. Probably better,’ he enthused with unintentional irony, ‘because there’s not so many consumptives breathing it. If you give Maud and me permission to marry, I’ll take her there straight after the ceremony.’

‘She can barely stand being carried downstairs and you want to drag her all the way to Italy!’

‘I’ve thought about it. She won’t be any worse off than she is lying in a hospital bed. I’ll ask Aldo – he has the café by the bridge –’ he explained superfluously: Evan had known Aldo since before Ronnie was born, ‘– to drive us to Cardiff in his car. That way we can get a through train to London. I’ll book a sleeper so Maud can lie down, then I’ll get a taxi to take us from the train to Tilbury docks. If I book a cabin on the boat, all Maud will have to do is rest and sleep until we reach Calais. There are plenty of trains with sleepers on crossing the continent ...’

‘Have you thought what that little lot is going to cost?’

‘Not as much as I have put away in the bank,’ Ronnie said with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘And once we’re there, there’ll be no problems. My grandmother and my aunt will take care of Maud, and I’ll be around to do any heavy work like lifting ...’

‘Have you discussed any of this with Maud?’ Evan questioned him bluntly.

Ronnie nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘What you’d expect someone as unselfish as her to say. She pointed out that if I married her, I might not have a wife for very long.’ Ronnie had weighed his words carefully before speaking. He knew he’d hit home when Evan didn’t come back with an immediate reply.

‘What about your life here?’ Evan asked finally. ‘Your family, your business. You’re in the middle of opening up another café, aren’t you?’

‘A restaurant.’ Even now Ronnie couldn’t allow the slip to pass. ‘But there’s nothing here that means as much to me as Maud’s life,’ he said gravely.

‘Does she love you?’ Evan asked shrewdly.

‘At the moment she’s too ill to know what she wants.’

Evan finished his pint and picked up his and Ronnie’s empty glasses. He went to the bar and brought back refills. He was too preoccupied to think of whisky chasers, Ronnie noticed thankfully.

‘Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,’ Evan murmured as he sat down again. ‘You’re telling me that you’ve never courted, and if I’m guessing correctly, never even kissed my daughter.’

‘That’s right.’

Evan held up his hand to silence Ronnie. ‘Yet you say you love her enough to give up everything you have, even your family, to take her half-way round the world in the hope of finding a cure for her.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What does your father think of all this?’

‘He doesn’t know about it. Yet,’ Ronnie stressed. ‘But he will before the night’s out,’ he finished confidently. He shook two cigarettes out of his packet and handed one to Evan. He looked at the older man, seeking either approbation or blunt dismissal, but Evan’s face remained composed, impassive. It was impossible to read what he was thinking in the set of his features, or the expression in his eyes.

‘To get down to practicalities, what are you going to live on? You’ve said you have money, but however much you’ve got put away, I’ll warrant you’d run out sooner rather than later, and you can’t expect your family here to keep you when you no longer work in the café.’

‘My grandfather has a farm. It supported my father and his brothers while they were growing up. It’s still supporting him, my grandmother and my aunt, and once I start working there, I’m sure I’ll be able to bring in enough extra to support Maud, and me.’

‘I suppose your father left Italy to get away from the good living that the farm brought in,’ Evan murmured caustically.

‘It’ll be enough,’ Ronnie said calmly, refusing to allow Evan to rile him. ‘As I said, there’s only my grandparents and my father’s sister living there. There’s no able-bodied man around the place, I’m sure they’ll welcome me with open arms.’

‘You’re sure? You don’t really know?’ Evan guessed.

‘They’re my family. They’ll welcome me.’

‘And Maud?’

‘She’ll be my wife, and that will make her family too.’

‘You’ve already more or less admitted she doesn’t love you.’

‘Maud has agreed to go with me,’ Ronnie pleaded. ‘All we need is your permission to marry.’

‘In a Catholic church?’

Ronnie looked Evan squarely in the eye. ‘No. Maud’s not a Catholic and there isn’t time enough for a conversion.’

‘But if she lives you’ll want her to convert?’

‘I couldn’t give a hang what she is!’ Ronnie exclaimed in exasperation. ‘She can be a Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist, anything as long as she’s alive. All I want for Maud is what she wants for herself. And a quick wedding,’ he added firmly, ‘so we can leave early next week. I don’t think Maud should be left in that ward a minute longer than necessary.’

‘Banns have to be called wherever you get married. Even a Registry Office. And that takes three weeks ...’

‘An exception can be made if the bride is ill. I talked to the Reverend Price about it this evening, after I saw Maud.’

‘You’re Catholic, Maud’s Chapel and you went to an Anglican priest?’ Evan smiled for the first time that evening.

‘I wanted advice and I could hardly go to Father O’Kelly or John Joseph Bull. Both of them would have come up with a million obstacles to put in the way of things.’

‘I suppose they would have. To you it’s all so simple, isn’t it? You totally disregard Maud’s illness, marry her and carry her off to the hills of Italy where you hope, against all medical advice, for a miraculous recovery.’

‘Isn’t that all Maud’s got left?’ Ronnie said earnestly. ‘Hope? Please Mr Powell, I’m begging you, let me marry her. This could be Maud’s only chance of living ...’

‘That’s just what I am thinking of, Ronnie. Maud’s life, or rather, what she’s got left of it. Let’s not mince words,’ he said bleakly, looking at Ronnie over the rim of his glass. ‘Maud’s dying.’ It hurt him almost as much to say those two words as it hurt Ronnie to hear them. ‘She’s dying and you want me to allow you to drag her across Europe on a wild-goose chase, that will inevitably end the same way it would if she stayed here. The difference being that if she died here she’d have her family and friends around her, while if she died in Italy ...’