Such Sweet Sorrow (27 page)

He’d been such a fool. Far better to have kept on courting Jenny. But his father had been right: blinded by lust and her sweet, willing body he couldn’t wait to marry her – God knows why when she was already sleeping with him. What was that saying Mrs Richards was so fond of? ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.’ Well, repenting was certainly what he was doing now. And three days was nowhere near long enough to put the whole world to rights.

‘Can’t you sleep, Eddie?’

‘I feel as though I’m still travelling.’

‘What’s France like?’

‘Flat.’

‘No mountains at all?’

‘Not where we are. You can stand in a field and see for miles, rivers, trees, houses …’

‘I’d like to see it.’

‘Perhaps you will when the war is over.’

‘Are the French girls as exciting as everyone says they are?’ Her fingers moved lightly downwards from his chest, teasing, tickling, tantalising.

‘We don’t see many.’

‘Everyone says they flock around the British boys.’

‘Perhaps I just don’t look,’ he lied.

‘I know you. The day won’t dawn when you stop looking.’

‘Or you. There’s enough men left in Ponty. And there’ll soon be more now they’ve started using conscripts in the mines.’

‘There’s only one man for me.’

‘Is there?’

She wished she could shout back at him, ‘How can you say that?’ but the past lay too heavily between them. Would it always be there? Would she end up with the same kind of silent, sterile marriage as her parents? ‘Eddie, if there’s any way to prove to you how much I love you, just tell me and I’ll do it. Anything you want.’

Squashing out his cigarette he turned and grabbed her head between his hands. Lowering his face to hers he kissed her. It was easier to make love to Jenny than try and talk to her, particularly when they had so little time left.

It was just getting light when Luke, dressed in the Sunday suit he had bought for ten shillings on the second-hand stall in the market, sneaked out of the house and walked to the end of Graig Avenue. He could see a small pale figure standing at the beginning of the mountain path at the end of the terrace. Gina, dressed in her Sunday-best outfit of grey coat and hat.

‘You made it?’

‘You thought I wouldn’t get up?’

‘You have to get up early every other day of the week. Most people like a lie-in on Sundays. Where does everyone think you are?’

‘I told them I was going for a walk.’

‘Then Alexander will think you’re seeing me?’

‘What if he does?’

‘I don’t mind Alexander knowing, as long as it doesn’t get back to my father.’ She set off down the rough track that led over to Treforest. ‘Papa wouldn’t approve of my being so friendly with a boy at my age. I tried telling him and Mama that I’m grown up now, but they wouldn’t listen. It’s so unfair. Particularly when I consider that Mama was married at my age, and Maud Powell was only sixteen when she married my older brother Ronnie.’

‘I think sixteen is old enough to know what you want from life.’

‘You agree with me?’

He slipped his hand shyly into hers.

‘I can feel the calluses on your hands through my gloves.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What’s to be sorry about. It’s real work, man’s work. You should be proud of them.’ She grabbed his arm. Since the first night they’d met and he’d taken her home after Wyn’s accident, he’d walked her home every night; but the presence of her sister coupled with his shyness had kept him from doing more than holding her hand. He longed to kiss her, even at this unearthly hour of the morning, but uncertain how she’d react, he held back.

‘You could come to mass with me,’ Gina suggested.

‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured hesitantly.

‘Your father wouldn’t like it?’

‘From what little I know, I think your religion is at the opposite end of the spectrum to mine.’

‘Quakers believe in God, don’t they?’

‘Of course.’

‘And the saints?’

‘Not to worship.’

‘We don’t really worship them. But as they’re in heaven and closer to God than us, we light candles under their images when we want them to intercede for us.’

‘Intercede?’ He looked at her blankly.

‘We ask for their help when we want something.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘The war to end, so my brothers will come home and take over the cafés again so Tina and I can have the occasional night off.’ She looked up at him and smiled, ‘and the usual things every girl wants. A home, husband, children.’

‘This husband of yours? You have anyone in mind?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’

She stood in front of him. The sky had lightened to a cold grey, casting her in a silvery glow. He had never seen her looking so beautiful, or so remote. Standing on her toes she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, hurriedly and inexpertly. By the time he’d plucked up courage to put his arms around her, she had walked on. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever kissed anyone.’

‘Me too,’ he confessed.

‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘No.’

‘Me neither. You’re not supposed to eat before mass. I could mitch off for once and cook us both breakfast in the café in High Street. Papa doesn’t open it on Sunday mornings.’

‘Won’t that get you into terrible trouble?’

‘Only if Papa finds out. You’re not going to tell him, are you?’

He shook his head.

‘Come on then. We can cut down here to Graig Street. Just duck if you see Laura looking out through her window. Not that she’d tell on me, but she wouldn’t half give me a lecture.’

Tina finished serving breakfast to a crew from the railway station in the Tumble café and returned to the counter. Trade hadn’t diminished since the advent of the war, but the amount the customers were prepared to spend had. Times were still hard, and more people called in for tea and biscuits and tea and bread and butter than cooked meals or breakfast. So much so, she was beginning to wonder if it was worth paying a cook’s wages every day. It had been different when Angelo had been doing the cooking. Family never took a full wage out of the business.

Business? She was actually thinking about business for the first time in her life. And she’d shouted at the staff in the Taff Street place she’d taken over from Laura. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up grumpy and miserable like Tony and Ronnie, and then no one would go near her.

Looking around to check no one needed her, or was likely to for a few minutes, she opened her handbag and slid out a bundle of letters tied in blue ribbon. Every one that Will had sent her since he had left. Twenty eight days, and twenty-eight envelopes. She opened the one at the top of the pile, the one that had come second post yesterday. Hopefully there would be another waiting for her when she got home after midday mass.

She glanced up at the clock. Another two hours before she could reasonably expect Gina to take over from her. Opening the envelope she spread the letter on the counter and began to read.

Dear Tina,

Not my dear Tina, or Darling Tina! She always wrote ‘my dear William’ or ‘Darling’ hoping he’d take the hint, but he hadn’t so far.

I am well, I hope you are well.

He might have been writing to a maiden aunt.

As I wrote yesterday they are keeping us very busy. Nothing but square bashing and drills, so we will probably all be half the size we were, and worn out by the time they finish with us.

Not much has happened to write about. Tony perseveres with the cook. As I wrote to you, we play cards with him nearly every night, and he has lost so much money to us he’s paying us in kind. Last night it was three bacon sandwiches. The bacon was destined for the officers’ mess, so it was really good. We are hoping to have a pass to go into the nearest town this weekend. Angelo is trying to find himself a girl, although Tony and I have warned him no girl is going to look twice at him. You should see him in his short back and sides military haircut. And he hasn’t learnt to wear his uniform properly, but at least he has learnt to polish his buttons without getting polish all over his tunic. Two weeks to go and we should get embarkation leave. I must go now, there’s another card game starting and Tony and Angelo (and me) are hoping for more sandwiches.

Best wishes

William

‘Miss! Miss!’

She looked up from the page.

‘Any chance of two teas and two slices of bread pudding?’

‘Milk and sugar in the teas?’ she asked.

‘Yes, please.’

She set about serving the man and his wife, all the while thinking of William and the letters he wrote. How could a man kiss a woman the way he had her before he’d left, and then write a letter so totally bereft of emotion? She carried the teas and the thick glutinous slices of pudding to the table and returned to the counter. Folding the letter she stuffed it back into the envelope. Not even a cross at the foot of the page to denote a kiss. Not a single mention of love from beginning to end. Where did that leave her? Or him? Had he taken up with a camp follower? Was it only Angelo and Tony who were out looking for girls? Or had he joined them? Only four weeks ago they’d got engaged and it already felt like four years since she’d seen him.

‘Breakfast?’

Eddie, who’d only fallen asleep as dawn broke, opened one eye to see Jenny, still in her nightdress, standing next to the bed with a tray in her hands.

‘I’ve raided the shop. There’s eggs, toast, sausages – tinned, I’m afraid – and jam. And tea of course.’

‘Thank you.’ He struggled to sit up. The bedclothes fell back, and a cold draught blew across his shoulders.

‘If you clear the clock away I’ll put the tray down on the bedside table, and get back into bed.’

He did as she asked, conscious that when she climbed in beside him she left her nightdress on.

‘Here put the tray between us, and I’ll feed you.’

‘No one’s done that since I was a baby,’ he laughed.

‘Open your mouth.’ She spooned egg into it. ‘Good?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Do you realise this is the first time I’ve cooked for you?’

‘I hope I survive the experience.’

‘I’m a good cook,’ she informed him gravely.

‘Let’s hope we have the time one day for you to prove it to me.’

‘It is going to be all right between us from now on, isn’t it, Eddie?’

‘Do you want it to be all right because I’m all you’ve got left?’ he asked, looking into her eyes.

‘You mean because my mother’s dead and my father’s …’

‘Ill,’ he said for her. He saw the pain in her eyes, but some devil in him prompted him to press her. ‘What happens when I go back?’

‘I’ll run the shop, write to you, hoping I’ll get an answer. Wait for you to get leave, and …’

‘Go out once in a while to meet people?’

‘Hope that I have a baby to keep me in at nights.’

‘A baby!’

‘You don’t want children?’

‘Now doesn’t seem a good time to have them. Not with a war on.’

‘There’s never been a good time to have a baby.’

‘I’d like to wait until I’m in a steady job and we have our own place.’

‘This is our place. My father always said he’d leave it to me. And if they do let him out next year, he’s not going to be able to run the shop and look after himself, so he’s going to have to live with us. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘At the moment I have nothing to mind about.’

‘You’d better eat that before it gets cold.’ She sat up and tugged her nightdress over her head, pulling the sheet up so it covered her breasts. ‘Ever since you joined up I’ve dreamed of your first leave, but I· never imagined it quite like this.’

‘How was it different?’ he asked, buttering a piece of toast and loading it with egg before pushing it into his mouth.

‘You were different. More trusting, more loving I suppose. I should have known I didn’t deserve it. Not after the way I treated you.’

‘Jenny …’

‘No, please let me finish. I’ve seen what bottling things up can do to a marriage. I’d rather have everything out in the open now, even if it means losing you, than go on the way I was, not knowing one way or another. I was a fool, Eddie. I fell in love with Haydn when I was thirteen, and carried on being in love, not with him, but the idea of him. Then there was you, and one thing you have to believe – no one, and I mean no one, not even Haydn ever made me feel the way you do. You’re the only man I’ve ever made love to, the only man I want in my bed. Eddie, how much plainer can I make it?’ Her blue eyes blazed in anger. She looked as though she were about to hit him.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before.’

‘How?’

‘Angry. It suits you.’

‘Damn you, Eddie, do you have to joke about everything?’

He scooped more egg on to his toast.

‘Eddie, either you tell me what you’re thinking or get out of my bed this minute.’

He looked up at her, realising that she was deadly serious. ‘Then you do love me?’

‘I’ve been trying to tell you that one way or another since you left. The question is, do you love me?’

He picked up the tray and returned it to the bedside table.

‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’

‘I’ll go along with that.’

‘What?’

‘What you just said.’

‘I asked if you loved me?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Eddie … say it. Just this once, please say it?’

Grabbing her, he kissed her.

‘You taste of tea, cigarettes and egg,’ she gasped when he allowed her to come up for air.

‘And you taste of toothpaste and smell of Pear’s soap.’

‘You still haven’t said it.’

‘I love you, Mrs Powell. Just don’t expect me to say it all that often.’

‘Just once a day for the rest of our lives.’

‘I won’t be here.’

‘You can write.’

‘Not that. Not with the officers reading every bloody word when they censor my letters.’ He tossed the bedclothes aside and leaned on his arm looking down at her.

‘We can work out a code.’

‘Like?’

‘Just two words, for ever?’

‘For ever.’ He gazed into her eyes as he caressed her. For the first time in his married life he was about to make love not have sex with his wife. And at that moment that was just how long he wanted his marriage to last – for ever.