One Blue Moon (28 page)

‘Tell me, Mrs Ronconi,’ Ronnie sat on the bed next to her, ‘are we going to be very happy?’

‘Yes,’ she said decisively. ‘Most definitely yes.’ She lifted her hands to her head and began to fiddle with the veil.

‘Here, I’ll help you with that.’ He gently disentangled the lace and head-dress from her hair.

‘I hate to sound like a spoilsport, but I think you should get into bed. We’ve got a busy few days ahead of us. I don’t know why it should, but travelling wears you out. Particularly a journey as far as Italy.’

‘I don’t know about bed, but I think I would like to get out of this dress before I crease it any more than it is now.’

‘Do you want some help, or can you manage?’

‘I can manage,’ she said quickly, blushing at the implication of what he’d said. There were some aspects of marriage she was going to have difficulty growing accustomed to.

‘In that case I’ll go downstairs and get the dinner menus so we can order well in advance,’ he said tactfully, pulling his pocket watch out of his waistcoat. The chain felt strange, too light without the keys to the café and van that he’d handed over to Tony.

‘We’re eating dinner here?’

‘Evening dinner. Trevor and Laura paid for that too, and asked if we could have it in our room. Here –’ he carried her Gladstone over to the corner, ‘I’ll put your sponge-bag next to the sink.’

‘There’s a sink?’ she looked around blankly.

‘Behind the dressing screen.’ He pointed to a large silk-covered Edwardian screen in the corner. ‘Promise you won’t faint if I leave you alone.’

‘Promise.’

As soon as Ronnie left, Maud unbuttoned the row of mother-of-pearl buttons that fastened the front of the dress. Standing rather unsteadily next to the bed, she stepped out of the dress, found a clothes hanger in the wardrobe and hung the dress away, before going to the sink to clean her teeth and wash her face. Clinging to the sink for support, she reapplied her lipstick and powdered her nose. Then she looked in her Gladstone: the nightdress and jacket that Tina and Gina had given her was on top. She slipped them on over her underclothes, dabbed a generous amount of Evening in Paris on her throat and wrists, combed her hair, and checked her reflection in the mirror. Her face was ashen, but she knew that rouge would only make it look worse. Pinching her cheeks in an effort to impart some colour, she made her way back to the bed. She stared at it for a moment, smoothing the creases from where she’d lain. Then she looked around. There was a chair beneath the window that looked out over Taff Street. She sat in it, arranging the folds of the nightdress skirt gracefully round her thin legs. There was a knock at the door, and she shouted, ‘Come in’, expecting Ronnie, but it was the bellboy again.

‘Champagne, Madam, with Doctor and Mrs Lewis’s compliments. Where shall I put it?’

‘Where do you usually put it?’ Maud asked, trying to look as though this wasn’t the first time she’d been in a hotel room.

‘On the table, Madam.’ He carried the silver bucket over to a small table that stood in a corner close to her. Pulling the bottle from the bucket, he proceeded to open it.

‘Please don’t.’ Maud sat back in the chair and smiled. She had never been so happy. ‘I’d like to wait for my husband.’ The word had never sounded so sweet to her ears before.

‘Jenny, if you’re going home I’ll walk you,’ Eddie offered.

‘Haydn talked to me,’ she said miserably.

‘I know,’ Eddie replied abruptly. ‘He talked to me too,’ he almost added for the first time in three days, but thought better of it. ‘Look, it’s a fine, dry afternoon. If you don’t want to walk through the house and face everyone again, we could go over the back wall and across the Graig mountain.’ He made the suggestion as much for his own sake as hers. The idea of avoiding everyone, especially the Ronconi girls and Glan Richards, was extremely appealing in the light of the row between him and Haydn, which had now become far too public for comfort.

‘Would you help me over the wall?’ she asked, thinking of her best heeled shoes, and silk stockings.

‘Yes,’ he agreed flatly.

He lifted her unceremoniously on top of the wall, scrambled over it himself, then lifted her down the other side.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I realise that you and Haydn must have had a row ...’

‘We did,’ he said shortly, not wanting to talk about it. ‘But it doesn’t matter. Not now.’

‘Yes it does,’ she insisted, wallowing in self-pity. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to take me home that night, and I shouldn’t have ... shouldn’t have ...’ She ceased her stammering when she realised exactly what she had allowed Eddie to do to her, and only two nights ago. She lowered her crimson face and stared disconsolately at the ground.

‘If I remember right it wasn’t only you that made the moves.’ He was walking along the mountainside aimlessly, not really knowing, or caring, what direction he was heading in.

‘Do you think Haydn is going away because of me?’ she ventured.

‘Don’t kid or flatter yourself. Haydn’s going away because that’s what Haydn wants to do. You don’t come into it. He’s been mooning after a career on stage for years, you should know that.’

‘Then you think he’d go, even if we were still going strong?’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said with more conviction than he felt.

‘But to do it now this way, with no warning ...’

‘Now is when he had the offer,’ Eddie pointed out logically. But Jenny didn’t want logic. She wanted Haydn to suffer, just as she was suffering. ‘It’s probably all for the best,’ Eddie continued practically. ‘If you and he had still been together, he might have felt that he shouldn’t go, but he probably would have just the same. This way he can start off on the stage without feeling guilty about anything.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘It’s just that ... that ...’

‘Look, Jenny,’ Eddie said brusquely. ‘I know you feel bad at the moment, but you’re not the only one. I feel terrible too, and we can’t undo what’s done. Perhaps we could go out together one night. A walk maybe, or to the park.’ He deliberately steered clear of anything that cost money. It would be a while before he paid Charlie back for his share of the clock.

‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. All she knew was she wanted Haydn. And she’d never have him again.

‘You know I like you,’ Eddie persisted.

‘I know,’ she said miserably. ‘The problem is, at the moment I don’t like myself very much. I wouldn’t be fit company for anyone.’

‘As you please,’ he said gruffly. He wasn’t one to beg or chase a girl. ‘Let me know if you change your mind.’

It was quiet in the New Inn. Quiet and peaceful. Maud had drunk a glass of Champagne before her dinner, one with it, and one afterwards. And that, along with the potent cough mixture Trevor had prescribed for her had made her ridiculously happy, lightheaded, and pleased with herself. The remains of the meal had been cleared away, and she’d had her bath. Dressed in her brand new nightdress (this time without her underclothes) she was half lying, half sitting in bed sipping the fourth glass of champagne that Ronnie had poured for her.

He was sitting in a chair that he’d pulled against the bed so he could be close to her. His jacket was in the wardrobe. He’d unbuttoned his waistcoat, and taken off his starched collar. His tie was hanging loosely around his neck and she could see the paisley pattern on his braces. She’d never seen Ronnie without a collar and tie on before, and the state of his undress carried with it an air of intimacy and excitement. Although as she’d seen her father and brothers without their collars on often enough, she couldn’t have explained the peculiar feeling.

‘Eight o’clock,’ he murmured, putting the tickets he’d been studying back into his wallet. ‘I asked them to give us a call at five so it’s probably a good idea for you to get to sleep.’

‘Not you?’

‘I thought I might go for a walk.’

‘To the café?’ she enquired intuitively. ‘On your honeymoon night? Don’t you think everyone will think it a little strange, or worse still, me boring?’

‘You boring? Never.’ He picked up her hand from the bedcover and kissed her palm. ‘I just feel restless.’ He rose from the chair and stretched theatrically.

‘I’ve got a cure for restlessness. Come here,’ she demanded, patting the bed beside her.

‘I will later. There’s a couple of things I ought to talk over with Tony ...’

‘You did nothing but talk things over with Tony in Laura’s,’ she insisted. ‘Come here!’

‘I can see you’re going to be a bully.’ He sat beside her on the bed and cradled her in his arms.

‘Laura said I should start as I mean to go on.’

‘Laura! My God, you haven’t been taking advice from my sister, have you?’ he exclaimed in mock horror.

‘How long did you say it’s going to take us to get to Bardi?’ Maud asked, wrapping her arms round his waist. Now she had him, she had no intention of letting him go.

‘Tomorrow night, we’ll be in London. Tuesday morning in France, then we have two days and nights on the train.’

‘Then shouldn’t we make the most of the time we have now?’

‘Maud, you’re ill.’

‘Not that ill. Please, come to bed.’ He could feel her trembling. Not just her hands, but her whole body.

‘I’ll have a bath, then I’ll be back.’ He opened his case and took out his sponge-bag, a bundle of clothes, and the packet Trevor had given him’.

‘Promise you won’t go to the café?’

With his collar hanging over the back of his chair and his coat in the wardrobe, the question was faintly ridiculous. ‘What café?’ he asked blankly.

It had been years since Ronnie had worn anything in bed. As a child he had worn woollen night shirts that his mother had stitched from the back and front of his grandfather’s worn-out working shirts, but worried about Maud’s sensitivity he had bought a brand new pair of pyjamas for himself in Cardiff along with the wedding ring.

When he returned to the bedroom, all the lights were out except the electric lights either side of the bed.

‘I’ll set the alarm clock that the boys gave us.’

‘You’ve asked them to call us,’ she reminded.

‘So I did.’ He dumped his sponge-bag and clothes on the chair, then closed the door and turned the key. ‘Just in case someone mixes up our room with theirs in the dark,’ he murmured.

It was ridiculous. He was behaving as if he was the inexperienced virgin, not Maud. All the women he’d known, all the evenings he and Alma had spent upstairs in the café, and he was the nervous one. He laughed suddenly, without warning.

‘What’s funny?’ she asked.

‘I was just wondering why I feel nervous, then I realised it’s because I’ve never gone to bed with my wife before.’

Remembering Alma, and all the rumours Tina had spread about Ronnie’s love life, Maud remained tactfully silent. He climbed into the bed, moving between the sheets until he lay alongside her. Sliding his arm beneath her shoulders, he pulled her head down on to his chest.

‘I love you, Mrs Ronconi,’ he murmured softly, ruffling her hair as he wrapped his other arm around her. She crept as close to him as she could. He could feel her skin scorching his beneath the thin layer of silk that she was wearing. He fought to keep control of himself, but innocently, apparently oblivious to the havoc she was creating within him, she snuggled close, clinging to him like a limpet.

‘I never did like sleeping alone,’ she murmured. ‘It’s good to know I won’t have to again.’

‘Oh yes? And how many other men have you slept with?’ he teased.

‘No men, silly. Only Bethan. I missed her when she went away.’

‘You’ll see her tomorrow,’ he said without thinking, unintentionally spoiling the surprise he’d meant to give her.

‘See her?’ Maud asked excitedly.

‘Trevor telephoned Andrew and arranged for him to pick us up from the train.’

‘Did I ever tell you you’re wonderful?’

‘I already know, thank you. Tell me again and I might get big-headed.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

‘For what?’

‘For dragging you away from your family and your cafés. I don’t think your mother will ever forgive me.’

‘Mama’s forgiven you already.’

‘Be honest, you would never even have thought of returning to Italy if it wasn’t for me.’

‘Yes I would,’ he lied stoutly.

‘Tony told me about your plans for the new restaurant, and the cafés, and how they’ll find it impossible to manage without you.’

‘No one’s indispensable. And it’s just as well we’re leaving, because if we stayed you’d find out what a dreadful whiner and complainer Tony is.’ He hugged her tight. There didn’t seem to be any flesh on her bones at all.

‘Ronnie I’m sorry ...’

‘Will you stop apologising?’ He kissed her forehead.

‘I know I’m not very beautiful ...’

‘What are you on about?’

‘I’m skinny and white, and ill, but I promise you, it won’t always be this way. Would it help if I took my nightdress off?’ she blurted out shyly, finally finding the courage to say what was uppermost in her mind.

‘We’ve got a long journey tomorrow.’ She was so frail he was truly terrified of hurting her, despite Trevor’s approval.

‘You married me,’ she protested. ‘I think I’m entitled to find out what being married really means. Laura said –’

‘Laura always has said rather too much.’

She kissed him on the cheek, mindful of what Trevor had told her about passing tuberculosis on by mouth contact. Then she moved away from him and took off her jacket. He pulled her gently back down beside him.

‘How about we take time to get to know one another first?’ he murmured. Slowly, ever so slowly, he ran his fingers lightly down her arms. He was able to circle even her upper arms with his thumb and forefinger. Her bones felt so thin, so fragile, he was afraid that if he grasped her too firmly, he’d snap them.

Just as slowly, but more timidly, she responded. Somehow the buttons on his pyjama jacket came undone, and he rolled on to his side, pulling her down beside him, carefully keeping his weight on the bed, lest he crush her.

She kissed his bare chest, running her fingers through the thick mat of black curly hair on his chest and arms.