All That Glitters (18 page)

‘Look, if you’re bothered about clothes,’ Diana said, suddenly sorry for the girl, ‘why don’t you borrow one of my summer dresses? I have two, and one of them matches your hat a treat. Then you can wash your clothes and we’ll hang them in the washhouse out of sight of Mrs Richards next door. If we leave the window open they should dry by tomorrow. Come on, we work all week, we’re entitled to a little fun.’

Jane thought for a moment. It wasn’t money that was holding her back. Thanks to the mending she could easily afford the couple of pence a cup of tea would cost in a café. It was simply fear of who she’d meet there. ‘What do you do, and who do you see in the café?’

‘We do absolutely nothing. That’s the whole point of having a day off. We drink tea. Talk. The Ronconi girls, Tina and Gina, always get the latest Hollywood magazines so everyone takes a look at those. The boys play cards …’

‘Cards! The comic in the Revue is always winning money from cards.’

‘Then he’s lucky. You’re more likely to lose money than make it.’

‘But if you know what you’re doing …’

‘My brother William thinks he’s an expert on cards, but I’ve yet to see the day he comes out on top from the card table. Right, the porridge is done.’ Diana lifted down two bowls from the dresser. ‘Porridge for you too, darling?’ She opened the door for Brian who was hammering on the panels with his small fists as he couldn’t quite reach the knob.

‘Yes.’ He put his finger in his mouth and stared at Jane.

‘Yes what?’ Diana asked.

‘Please and thank you.’ Dragging his teddy by the ear he climbed on to one of the chairs and sat at the table.

‘I see you dressed yourself this morning?’ Diana took his bowl and filled it at the range. As he began to eat she deftly undid and refastened his shirt, matching buttons to corresponding holes. Jane watched, feeling a pang of something she couldn’t quite quantify. Diana was only doing what she herself had done often enough for the babies in the Homes. But although she could remember doing it for others she had no recollection of anyone ever doing it for her.

She supposed that at one time or another someone must have. It would be marvellous if she could remember just one person – someone, anyone – she’d had a relationship with that had lasted more than a few weeks. Someone like Diana who’d dressed and fed her, lifted her on to chairs when she’d been too small to climb on them herself. Someone she could visit and discuss her problems with. Someone she could love the way Brian would come to love Phyllis and Diana. If there had been someone she wouldn’t be here, a paying lodger in a stranger’s house, living in fear of being dragged back to the workhouse – or Bletchetts’ – at any moment.

Chapter Ten

‘Well, that’s whipped up my appetite nicely, Haydn Powell,’ Babs cackled, attracting the attention of two black-garbed elderly spinsters who’d been walking along a path a few feet away from the copse. They stared disapprovingly as Babs and Haydn emerged from the bushes, their frowns escalating into ‘tuts’ as Babs dusted off the seat of Haydn’s trousers. Babs attempted to stare them out, and when that didn’t succeed in shifting them, she stuck out her tongue. If he’d been in any town other than Pontypridd, Haydn would have joined in and laughed the incident off along with Babs. As it was, he only hoped the women didn’t know him, his mother or his father. But it was a forlorn hope with the posters plastered with his and Babs’ photographs pasted all over town to advertise the Summer Variety.

As they walked through the park towards Taff Street, he cast his mind back to last autumn when he’d spent his days working on Wilf Horton’s stall, and his evenings as callboy, drudge and general dogsbody in the Town Hall; a position even lower down the theatrical social scale than usherette. He’d never managed to organise a free evening to take Jenny out, but even if he had, there’d never been any spare money to pay for one. And then, worse of all, he’d quarrelled with her. Before he’d left home he’d reached bleak, rock bottom. And yet here he was, two seasons later with everything – or almost everything – he had ever dreamed of.

He was on stage making a living as a singer – not quite up to West End standards, but a good living, way beyond anything he could have aspired to if he’d remained in Pontypridd. And if the impresarios and critics were to believed, the world was poised, waiting for him to take it by storm. National success was around the next corner. And although he might not have a regular sweetheart – he glanced at Babs; by no stretch of the imagination could he apply that word to her – that was his choice. He had all the women he could handle and more throwing themselves at him, not because of his looks and talent, but because the ratio of girls to men on variety tours favoured men, which meant that he’d often found himself with five and sometimes as many as ten willing and able paramours to choose from. As his father would have said, ‘He was in God’s pocket.’ So why had he felt so damned miserable ever since he’d come home?

‘More coffee?’

‘I couldn’t eat another thing.’ Babs lifted the damask napkin from her lap with an exaggerated flourish and blotted her lips, imprinting a vivid red mouth on the glossy, starched surface.

‘Really?’ Haydn arched his eyebrows as she tossed it over the crumbs of chocolate cake that littered her plate.

‘Really,’ she laughed.

‘Then I’ll walk you home.’

‘Must you?’ She opened her enormous handbag and pulled out a powder compact and lipstick. Screwing her mouth into a bow, she coated it liberally with Red Passion. ‘Do you know what I’d like to do? Spend this afternoon the way I used to spend Sunday afternoons when I was a kid.’

‘Making mud pies?’ he enquired sardonically.

‘No,’ she countered touchily. ‘My sister and I would help our mum clear the table and wash the dishes …’

‘I’ll ask if you can help out in the kitchen, shall I?’

‘If you’d let me finish, I was going to say, then we’d all go to bed with a book.’

‘The same bed?’

‘Of course not. My sister and I in our bed, my mum in hers. But then I can’t say whether she took a book, or not. You see my dad would be there, waiting for her between the sheets.’

‘Then it’s a fair bet she didn’t do much reading.’

‘Well, I did.’

‘What were your favourites?’

‘Fairy tales, especially “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty”. That’s why I prefer working in Christmas panto to Summer Variety.’

‘Perhaps we ought to get Norman to put in a couple of panto sketches so you can play Cinderella.’ He signalled to the waiter.

‘To Helen’s Prince Charming? No thanks.’

‘Forget Prince Charming. I’ll play Buttons. Cinders does get to kiss Buttons.’

‘I’d much rather kiss you off than on stage,’ she remarked loudly as the waiter arrived. Haydn extracted a pound note from his wallet, tucked it into the bill and replaced it on the salver.

‘You’re not really going to walk me back to those awful lodgings, are you?’

‘Really.’ He rose to his feet.

‘But why …’

‘Because my family want to see something of me. Next week between day rehearsals and twice-nightly performances of Revue, not to mention matinées, I won’t have a minute to see anyone.’

‘I’ve a good idea,’ she enthused as the waiter returned with the change and their coats. ‘Why don’t I go home with you? You could introduce me to your family and -’ she was interrupted mid-sentence by the waiter helping her on with her coat.

‘Absolutely not.’ Picking up his change minus a tip, he took her arm and frogmarched her out of the hotel.

‘Why?’ she asked as they crossed Mill Street.

‘I told you. Because I have a family who would like to see something of me. They weren’t very happy with me eating out today, as it is. Sunday dinner is quite a tradition in Wales.’

‘I think you won’t take me home because you’re ashamed of me.’

‘I won’t take you home because if I did, you wouldn’t get a minute’s peace. My cousin and brother would be panting after you, my little brother would want you to sing him nursery rhymes. My girl cousin and the lodger would pump you mercilessly about make-up and clothes and my father would ask if we’ve fixed a date.’

‘I could cope with that.’

‘I couldn’t.’

He looked down at her as they crossed the street where the road narrowed in front of the New Theatre. The bright sunlight highlighted her lurid red lips and the blue greasepaint she’d smeared across her eyelids, making them shine like new paint. He knew his father would be horrified at the thought of any son of his courting a girl like Babs, not because of the way she looked, but because of the way she thought: nothing beyond the latest fashion in dresses, the latest vogue in make-up, in eating out, in entertainment.

‘If I don’t see you this afternoon, when will I see you?’

‘Tomorrow’s rehearsals.’

‘But what about tonight? It’s Sunday. You know how much I hate Sunday nights in a strange town.’

‘Don’t we all, but it goes with the territory. Just one more small price that has to be paid for stardom.’

‘If you say so,’ she replied, momentarily mollified by his use of the word ‘stardom’.

‘Who’s in digs with you?’ He knew, but it was still a ten-minute walk to her lodgings.

‘Helen, Gill and Christine.’

‘Digs good?’

‘All right, I suppose, although I’m used to better. The landlady’s a Welsh dragon, but as Christine said, at least it’s clean.’

‘Christine would say that.’

‘If you ask me, I’d give up cleanliness any time for a bit of fun, even if it did come coated in dirt.’ She dug him hard in the ribs and cackled again. He gritted his teeth, smiled hollowly, and quickened his pace.

‘No breakfast for those who don’t get up until dinner time, and that includes you, Eddie Powell.’ Diana hit her cousin with a tea towel as he attempted to step past her into the pantry to get at the cake and biscuit tins.

‘Come on, Di.’

‘Come on nothing. You can wait until dinner’s on the table, and while we’re on the subject, you and William had better turn up with shirts on your back for once. Have you met the new lady lodger? Diana nodded to the corner, where Jane sat, still busy with her mending.’

Eddie looked at her. ‘No pasties today?’

Jane dropped her needle in surprise.

‘I didn’t know …’

‘Neither did I.’ He walked across the room, pulling his braces up over his vest. ‘I’m Eddie, the handsomest man in this house.’

‘You hope,’ William burst through the door. ‘Diana, where’s my clean shirt?’

‘In the wardrobe where it should be. Have you met Jane?’

‘No. So you’re Phyllis’s friend?’

Jane tucked her needle into her mending and rose from her chair to shake William’s hand.

‘Looks like you came to live here just in time. They obviously didn’t believe in feeding people where you’ve come from.’

‘Well that’s not surprising …’

‘I really did enjoy those pasties, what do you put in them?’ Jane broke in hurriedly, terrified Eddie was on the verge of saying something about her workhouse clothes.

‘Mostly dog meat,’ William answered.

‘Are you serious?’ Jane didn’t think about what she was saying, all she knew was she had to keep talking, and not allow Eddie to get a word in edgeways until she’d had a chance to speak to him privately. Then, somehow she’d have to convince him that he couldn’t mention her and the workhouse in the same breath, for Phyllis and Evan’s sake as much as her own.

‘Excuse my brother, he’s an idiot with a weird sense of humour.’ Diana turned towards William, fists raised.

‘This I got to watch, might pick up some pointers from Diana.’ Eddie threw himself into the chair opposite Jane.

‘Come on then, sis.’ William put up his fists and bounced around the few square feet that wasn’t covered by furniture.

‘Now, what does Charlie put in his pastries?’ Diana asked.

‘Best meat … Talking of which,’ William dodged past her towards the stove, ‘what have you done with that round of beef I brought back last night?’

‘Cooked it, what did you expect me to do?’

‘Burn it like you usually do.’ William opened the stove and lifted the lid from the pot.

‘Where’s Evan and Phyllis?’ Eddie asked.

‘Taken Brian and the dog over Shoni’s for a walk to work up an appetite for dinner.’ Diana punched her brother’s arm as he picked up a basting ladle.

Uncertain whether the argument between brother and sister was serious, Jane was glad when Eddie left his seat and went into the washhouse. Waiting until the other two were engrossed in yet another sharp exchange of words, she followed him into the yard, where he was cleaning his boots.

‘Please, don’t say anything to anyone about the clothes I was wearing when you first saw me?’

‘You ashamed of them?’

‘Wouldn’t anyone be?’

‘That depends on what they were in the workhouse for.’

‘Ssh,’ she looked over her shoulder to check if Diana or William had followed them outside. ‘It’s not just me, it’s Phyllis and Evan. They know all about me, I thought it only fair to tell them everything before they took me in, but if either of them knew that someone had seen me walking around the town in that uniform …’

‘What’s the matter? You run away, or something?’

The voices were suddenly stilled in the kitchen. Disturbed by the silence, Jane crept to the window. Diana was alone. William had obviously gone in search of the elusive shirt.

‘Well, did you?’ he repeated.

 ‘If I did, Phyllis and Evan know about it.’

‘You actually escaped from that place.’ He let out a long low whistle. ‘What did you do? Climb the walls?’

‘Not exactly. Someone took me out and I ran away from them.’

‘Who took you out?’

‘Phyllis asked me not to talk about it.’

He pushed the brush he’d been using to apply the polish back into a battered wooden box, and pulled out a larger, buffing brush. ‘That seems a bit dull to me, considering I know half the story already.’

‘If I tell you, win you promise not to tell anyone else?’

‘I’m not likely to do that when it could get my own father into trouble with the law. He’s had enough of that already.’

‘I was working as a skivvy in a dosshouse over in Trallwn.’

‘Bletchetts?’

She nodded.

‘No wonder you scarpered. Now that’s one woman who really does buy dog meat. Rumour has it she feeds it to her husband as well as the lodgers. Tell me, what did she feed you on?’

‘Nothing. But then I wasn’t there very long.’

‘You know,’ he looked at her with a new respect, ‘you haven’t done half bad for yourself, all things considered. You’re a damned sight better off now than you were last Monday morning when you were standing in town with nothing to your name except a workhouse dress and one and elevenpence.’

‘I couldn’t have done anything without Mr Horton’s, and your parents’ help.’

‘Phyllis is not my mother.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just that I knew Phyllis before I knew anyone else here. She was my first real friend. That may not sound much to you, I’m sure you know lots of people, but where I’ve come from, people aren’t always nice to one another. Phyllis was. She knew one of the nurses and used to get a bit extra now and again. Fruit even sometimes, and she always shared it with me although I didn’t have anything to share with her in return. And now, well, seeing her with your father, I can’t help thinking how right they look together.’

Eddie stopped brushing his shoes and considered what she’d said. Jane was right. His father and Phyllis were a couple. A middle-aged, happy couple. They were always smiling at one another. And looking back he couldn’t remember a single happy, secret smile that his father had shared with his mother. When they’d been together they had looked like misery and martyrdom personified. But right or not, there was still one question that needed answering.

‘How come you ended up in the workhouse in the first place?’

He lacked the courage to ask outright if she’d been an ‘unmarried’ like Phyllis.

‘I was born there. When I was sixteen I had to leave the Children’s Homes. When they couldn’t find a job for me I was sent back.’

‘That must have been rotten.’

‘Once you got used to the routine, it wasn’t so bad. Not as good as living here, of course, but nowhere near as bad as the dosshouse’

‘That I can believe.’

‘So you won’t tell anyone where I’ve come from?’

‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

‘Thanks, Eddie. I’m really grateful.’

‘On one condition.’ He wasn’t always sensitive to the situation of others, but something in her story had touched a chord. It was nothing she’d said, more what she’d left unsaid. He’d heard enough about the workhouse to know the people of the Graig didn’t fear it without good cause. ‘That you come out with us this afternoon. Diana’s coming, and we generally have a good time. Seems to me you could do with one of those.’