All That Glitters (27 page)

‘First thing in the morning, Eddie Powell? Ach y fi, for shame on you. You too, Jenny Griffiths,’ Mrs Richards scolded as she dumped her battered shopping basket on the counter.

‘It’s a good way to start the day, Mrs Richards,’ Eddie clasped Jenny hard before releasing her. ‘You should try it yourself some time.’

‘You keep away from me, young man,’ she shouted as he dived back over the counter. She picked up her basket and held it in front of her. ‘Do you hear me, you stay away or I’ll have Mr Richards after you.’

‘I’m terrified.’ He turned to Jenny. ‘See you later.’

‘And what do you think you’re doing, young lady?’ Mrs Richards demanded as Eddie rode away on his bicycle.

‘Serving you, Mrs Richards. Have you a list?’

‘List nothing. Look at you, going from one brother to another. Unnatural, I call it. And it will come to no good. You mark my words. No good at all.’

Chapter Fifteen

‘It’s good of you to offer me a lift down the hill.’ Haydn followed Andrew out of the house into the coach house that had been converted into a garage. ‘But really there’s no need, I can make my own way.’

‘No trouble, I have to go into town.’ Andrew opened the doors, pinned them back, unlocked the car and pulled out the crank.

‘I’ll do that.’

‘Be my guest.’ Andrew handed it over and sat in the driver’s seat.

‘I’m the one who should be thanking you,’ Andrew said as he negotiated out of the drive on to the narrow lane that led into Pontypridd.

‘What for?’

‘Not upsetting Bethan.’

Haydn slid back the window, pushed his hat to the back of his head, and rested his elbow on the sill. ‘The last thing I want is to upset Bethan, especially now with another baby on the way.’

‘And I’m grateful. I’m no Einstein, but it doesn’t take a lot of brains to work out that you didn’t walk all the way up Penycoedcae hill just to talk about the lodger.’

‘As long as Bethan thinks I did.’

‘I think you managed to convince her that you’re concerned about her and the baby.’

‘I am.’

‘I know I haven’t made a very good job of looking after your sister so far, but from now on I intend to take care of her. I love her, Haydn. Very much.’

Haydn had never felt easy in his sister’s husband’s company, but there was a quiet dignity in Andrew’s voice that commanded respect. ‘You’ve been through a rough time,’ he said awkwardly.

‘And it looks as though you’re going through one now.’

‘It’s nothing I won’t be able to work out for myself.’

‘Just answer one question,’ Andrew said, changing down a gear as the terraces of the Graig came into view. ‘Is Bethan likely to find out about whatever it is that’s troubling you?’

‘I hope not. Look, is there something I should know about Beth. Is she ill? Is it the baby?’

‘After Edmund, we’re both worried about this baby, and we’ll continue to worry until it’s born. But so far there’s been no signs to indicate that Bethan’s carrying anything other than a normal, healthy child.’

‘And Bethan?’

‘She’s not ill. Weak and tired, yes. She’s not resting properly. She hasn’t been strong for a while, and the events of last winter really pulled her down.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Calling in this morning and telling her you’re getting on with Phyllis helped. She worries about the family. Especially Maud in Italy.’

‘But there’s no need. Dad wrote and told me that when Trevor Lewis saw her last month the tuberculosis was no longer active.’

‘And he told Bethan the same thing when he came home, but telling Bethan is not the same as allowing her to see for herself. And I wouldn’t risk taking her to Italy, not in her condition. And then there’s Eddie …’

‘Eddie’s fighting fit.’

‘Fighting being the operative word while he insists on boxing. She’s terrified he’s going to get hurt.’

‘Eddie can look after himself.’

‘That’s what I keep telling her. And as if Maud and Eddie aren’t enough, there’s your parents. It’s not exactly a straightforward situation, although I agree with Bethan, things seem to have worked out for the best there. Neither one of them was happy when they were together.’

Haydn stared at him in amazement. ‘Aren’t you worried what people are saying?’

‘I’ve learned the hard way that the only thing to do with gossip is to ignore it. People can say what they like. My only concerns are the health and happiness of those close to me. Nothing else.’ He pulled up alongside the fountain. ‘This is as close as I’m going to get to the Town Hall on market day.’

‘Yes, of course. Thanks for the lift.’

‘Haydn,’ Andrew stopped him as he opened the door, ‘I meant what I said about being grateful for not bringing any problems to Bethan’s attention at the moment, but if you want someone to talk to, or if there’s anything … anything at all you think I can do to help you at any time I’d be honoured if you asked.’

‘Thank you for the offer, but there’s nothing.’

‘But there is something you can do for me,’ Andrew smiled wryly. ‘Get me four tickets for Saturday’s show. The last performance. A box if you can. I’ll pay you.’ He put his hand in his pocket.

‘Pay me if I can arrange it. Last nights are usually packed.’ Haydn couldn’t resist a dig, after all Andrew’s talk about looking after Bethan. ‘Thinking of organising a boys’ night out?’

‘Anything but. I’d like to take Bethan, Trevor and Laura. We haven’t seen a lot of them since they’ve come back from Italy.’

‘You two would take your wives to a Revue?’

‘Why not? Bethan would watch anything as long as you were in it, and you know Laura. She might be a Lewis by marriage, but she’s a Ronconi by birth and they’re game for anything. Besides-’ Andrew pointed at a poster on a pillar at the market entrance – ‘it says there that the displays are tastefully arranged.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘It’s there in black and white. Look, provided you manage the tickets, how about coming out with us for a few drinks and a supper after the show?’

‘I’d like to, but it will be the last night.’

‘Of course, how stupid of me. Theatrical tradition and all that. Well if you can’t manage the tickets we’ll see you on Sunday.’

‘You will?’

‘Bethan’s birthday. The family are coming up for lunch, and Charlie, Alma, Trevor and Laura. They did tell you?’

‘Yes,’ Haydn lied, wondering if anyone would have got around to mentioning it if he hadn’t called at Bethan’s.

‘Can I take a break today, Mr Horton?’ Jane asked as she checked the time on the clock on the end of the wall of the market. Judy and Mandy had told her they would be in the New Inn from one o’clock on, and she had promised she’d try to meet them there. If Mr Horton didn’t let her go, she’d have to wait until she went into work at four o’clock to see the photographs and pick up her second five-pound note. The money worried her more than the photographs. She wasn’t at all convinced that she was going to see it.

Wilf Horton looked around the hall. Trade had been brisk that morning, although it was now beginning to ease off. Whether his and the other traders’ good fortune was due to the school holidays or the warm summer weather that had encouraged people to make a day of it, or whether times were really getting better and the economy of the town was picking up after the depression, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t want to analyse the cause too closely in case the upturn in customers and profit didn’t last.

‘I suppose this is as quiet as it’s going to get. Half-hour, that’s all, mind.’

‘Thank you, Mr Horton.’ Clutching her handkerchief in her pocket, which now contained a five-pound note as well as her precious hoard of coppers and silver, Jane raced out through the door and around the corner to the New Inn, to find Judy and Mandy waiting for her at the table she had begun to think of as theirs.

‘Almost given you up,’ Mandy said as Jane sat down breathlessly.

‘I can’t stop for long.’

‘Is that because it’s your turn to pay?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Take no notice of her, she’s just teasing,’ Judy chipped in.

‘No really, it is my turn.’

‘Well you’d better take this then, if you’re paying.’ Judy pushed an envelope across the table. ‘Your money’s in there as well as the photographs.’

Jane opened it carefully. A five-pound note was tucked into the top of a large brown cardboard folder.

‘For God’s sake hide it under the tablecloth.’ Mandy eyed the matrons who were sipping tea and eating cucumber sandwiches around them.

Jane picked up the first photograph and almost fell off her chair.

‘Hard to recognise yourself, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve seen them?’

‘Merv was that chuffed, he couldn’t wait to show us.’

‘That’s the trouble with the camera, it puts pounds on,’ Judy grumbled. ‘Skinny little things like you always come out better than the well-blessed like me. But even Merv said he was staggered with the way your top storey developed. His very words.’

Jane flicked through the photographs. There were twelve in all. Half a dozen taken with her naked back to the camera, long strands of black hair streaming over her shoulder and lightly grazing her naked buttocks, as she peeked coyly at a point somewhere to the left of the lens; and six front view, where the only thing fastened was the collar and tie around her neck. The sides of the shirt draped wide to expose her chest, the tie falling midway between her naked breasts, the crook of the hockey stick angled carefully to conceal the flesh-tinted patch glued between her thighs.

‘Merv will make a tidy sum out of those.’

‘Oh by the way, he asked if you’d pose for him again,’ Judy mentioned casually. ‘He said all you have to do is call into his studio to fix a day, but a Tuesday afternoon would be best. I thought somewhere around two would give you enough time before the theatre opens, but then you can always sort that side of it out with him yourself.’

‘I’m not sure I’d want to do anything like this again,’ Jane said doubtfully, staring at the photographs. At first glance it didn’t look much like her, but then someone who took the trouble to study the features would recognise her, even beneath the wig.

‘There’s a problem?’

‘I can’t help worrying about what might happen if someone who knew me saw these. It’s not as if I’m moving on like you. I live in this town.’

‘Who are you afraid of?’

‘Well, there’s my landlady and her family …’

‘Haydn Powell’s family! From the way he behaves they haven’t got much to shout about,’ Judy countered scathingly.

‘And there’s the people in work.’

‘The manager and stuffed-shirt Evans. They wouldn’t notice it was you if you signed your name and sent them complimentary copies,’ Mandy consoled her. ‘Look, love, like we said, these are probably going to be sold in Cardiff, not around here.’

‘At least you haven’t got a family,’ Judy said shortly. ‘My old man threw me out when he bought a packet and saw his own daughter in the altogether. Filthy old bugger, what did he expect when he kept me and my mother so short we couldn’t make ends meet.’

‘What’s done is done,’ Mandy said briskly. ‘What can’t be altered isn’t worth fretting over. Spend your tenner, have a good time, and move on. Life’s for living, not brooding.’

‘It’s also for working, and if I’m going to put this money in the Post Office before going back to the stall I’d better be on my way.’ Jane pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket and undid the knot. Counting out three shillings from her sewing money she left it on the table.

‘I didn’t mean it about paying,’ Mandy said, embarrassed that Jane had taken her hints so literally.

‘I know, but I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t keep my end up.’

‘As you insist, but how about having lunch with us tomorrow? Our treat.’

‘Can’t.’ Judy opened her enormous handbag and fished around for her cigarettes. ‘We’re rehearsing with the new singer, Haydn’s replacement, remember.’

‘You know Haydn’s staying on here in Variety while we go to the Empire in Swansea next week?’

‘Someone told me.’

‘Roll on, that’s what I say. Swansea’s much livelier than this place. You can always find a sailor on leave, just hanging about waiting to give a girl a good time.’

Jane left the table.

‘Remember Merv’s message. Try and call in and confirm the arrangements with him. Before Saturday if you can.’

‘You that desperate for two quid?’ Mandy asked after Jane had run off clutching her photographs and handkerchief.

‘Every little helps. Besides, I like to think we’ve given the girl a leg up in the profession, as well as lining our own pockets. She has real talent.’

‘Perhaps more than us,’ Mandy said thoughtfully, remembering Merv’s reaction to Jane’s photographs, and the way Haydn Powell had been avoiding her and Rusty while still finding time to give Jane dancing lessons and walk her home.

The hall was crowded and noisy. Deafened by loud voices, and reeling from the heat that emanated from hundreds of closely packed bodies, Jenny stood at the top of the stairs and peered through the doors at the rope and canvas ring that had been set up in the centre of the hall she knew only as a roller-skating rink. For all her five feet eight inches she felt small and insignificant, cast adrift in a sea of towering, excited, red-faced masculinity. Clouds of beer and smoke-laden breath drifted over her as she stood on her toes and searched the crowd for a glimpse of William Powell. Eddie had assured her that his cousin would look out for her, but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘So you did come. I was hoping you’d have more sense.’

‘Hello, Mr Rees,’ Jenny murmured uncertainly.

‘Stand back here, out of the way,’ he ordered, pushing her unceremoniously towards the cloakroom doors. ‘You may as well know first as last, I hold no truck with women near the ring. They’re nothing but a bloody nuisance, and if I had my way you’d be back home in your mam’s kitchen where you belong. But it’s Eddie who’s the important one here today. He’s the only one I’m concerned about.’

‘But you told him I could come, Mr Rees.’

‘Only because I could see that the bloody fool was set on you being here. If I’d said no, there’s no telling what he might have done. Thrown the match, like as not, worrying where you were and what you were up to with that brother of his.’

‘There’s nothing between Haydn and me,’ she protested, lowering her voice. Joey Rees’s shouting had attracted the attention of half the men standing around them.

‘That’s not what I’ve heard. Well as soon as William Powell gets here, you go off with him. Evan’s already here and between them they’ll see that you behave yourself. And make sure you stay with them. There’s a good few exhibition fights before Eddie’s, but I’m telling you now, I’ll tolerate no women in my dressing room.’

‘Your dressing room, Joey?’ Eddie ran up the stairs dressed in the grey sports coat he’d worn the day before. He winked at Jenny as William came up to him.

‘As long as I’m your trainer, I run your dressing room, and I say no women,’ Joey ordered. ‘I told you when you started in this business that they take the blood away from where it’s needed to win fights.’