All That Glitters (34 page)

‘Not necessarily. If Eddie really loves her perhaps it will be all right between them,’ Jane said, wondering what Haydn had meant by ‘bad for him’.

‘You think she’ll change because Eddie loves her?’

‘Yes. Not that I know very much about it, but if anyone loved me I’d try very hard to become whatever they wanted me to.’

‘I’ll give you a piece of sound advice. Don’t change for any man. None of us are worth it, and you’re just fine the way you are.’

‘No I’m not. I’m skinny and ugly, and an orphan and no one will ever want me,’ she said seriously, neither soliciting nor receiving sympathy for what she saw as a plain statement of fact.

‘We want you. In fact I heard my father say this morning after you left the house that he didn’t know what we were going to do without you. I think he has it in mind to ask Diana if she’d mind you moving into her room so Brian can have his back. That way you can stay until I leave, then you can have the lodger’s room.’

‘Your father really said that?’

‘Yes, but don’t go letting on that I told you.’

‘I promise I won’t.’

‘I’m sorry I was foul to you when you came in.’

‘Sometimes it helps to shout at someone.’

‘You never do it.’

‘No,’ she smiled grimly. ‘But I’ve often been the one shouted at. You get used to it after a while.’

‘You did have a rough time before you came here, didn’t you?’

‘Not that bad. If it will help, I could ask Des to make you a cup of tea or coffee.’

‘You really going to get the girls ice cream?’

‘Yes.’ She jumped to her feet, realising they would probably have given up on her by now.

‘I’d like a cold orange juice. Do you think you could manage that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get yourself one while you’re at it, and come back here and drink it with me?’

‘If there’s time.’

‘I wanted you to be the first to know.’

Haydn struggled to focus in the strong light of the back kitchen after the darkness that had shrouded the hill.

‘The first to know what, Eddie?’ he slurred, staggering on his feet. Two shows, not much in the way of food, plus a long discussion with a visiting producer who worked for the BBC, and who thanks to Jane’s warning was leaving Pontypridd reasonably impressed with Haydn’s talents, plus several beers followed by brandy chasers and a long warm walk up the hill didn’t make for coherent thinking.

‘Jenny and I went to see the vicar of St John’s this evening.’

‘Tony Pierce?’

‘St John’s is Jenny’s church. He’s calling the banns next week. We’re getting married next month.’

‘You know what you’re doing?’

‘You saying I don’t?’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’ Haydn swerved and fell into a chair.

‘Jenny …’

‘Jenny’s your girl, Eddie. You’re welcome to her.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Absolutely nothing. There’s nothing between Jenny and me. There was, but it’s over.’

‘You’re drunk.’

‘Guilty,’ Haydn agreed amiably.

‘Just as long as you continue to remember that it is over between you and Jenny.’

‘Why wouldn’t I, when I’ve got the pick of the chorus to choose from. Ripe, luscious pieces, just begging for it.’

‘You disgust me,’ Eddie said abruptly as he left his chair and walked out of the room.

‘That’s all right,’ Haydn called after him. ‘I disgust myself. So at least we’re agreed on one thing.’

The weeks before the wedding passed in a blur for Jenny. She felt as though she’d climbed aboard a runaway bus. Against all logic she still expected Haydn to step out in front of her at any and every turn, and carry her off to some quiet, peaceful paradise where they could make love all day long and not trouble themselves with the boring, mundane trappings of life like houses, furniture, clothes and food. Every night she went to bed and pictured the miracle that would save her, and every morning she woke only to be dragged into town, and occasionally Cardiff by her mother to purchase things for her ‘bottom drawer’, every item of which was designed to show the Powells that their Eddie was marrying way above his station into a very superior family indeed. And when she wasn’t in town with her mother, or having her wedding dress fitted in Gwilym Evans’, Eddie walked her to the woods behind Shoni’s and the place that had become special to them. Once there she closed her eyes, imagined the past year away and relived the time when the copse had been hers and Haydn’s.

Eddie made love with open eyes but she kept hers closed, fantasising that it was Haydn touching her, Haydn who whispered her name, Haydn who’d be waiting at the altar when she finally wore the long white satin frock that had become her mother’s one obsession. Day after day dawned, passed, and little that was real permeated her trance. She shopped, made love to Eddie, served behind the counter, all actions blurring into one. Nothing she did touched her, except late at night after Eddie brought her home. Then she hid in the shop and waited for Haydn to walk up the hill with Jane. It was only then, when she saw them together, that she felt something. An acute pain that wrought an almost unendurable anguish.

‘I pronounce that they be man and wife together.’

The Reverend Tony Pierce, resplendent in white surplice over black cassock had said the words. Jenny was wearing the frock and holding the flowers her mother had taken such pains over. Eddie’s plain gold band was on her finger – the band Haydn had handed him – the band Haydn had touched. Diana, her only bridesmaid, helped her with her veil. She turned to face the church full of people. Her family and Eddie’s in the front pews. Everyone except his mother, who had refused to come, paving the way for Phyllis to attend, leaving those few people who hadn’t suspected the relationship between Evan and Phyllis in no doubt of the state of adultery and sin they were living in. Jenny forced her lips into a smile, a spurious imitation that actually hurt the muscles in her face. The organ began to play, Eddie took her arm, led her down the steps and to the left into the vestry, Diana, Haydn, her parents and Evan and Phyllis trailing behind. People were smiling and nodding – her uncles and aunts, her cousins, the customers from the shop – but all she could see was the look on Haydn’s face as he had handed his brother the ring. It had been a look of pity. The same look she remembered him bestowing on William when his dog had died all those years ago. Haydn might have loved her once, but if he had, one thing was clear: he didn’t love her any more and now it was too late.

‘Even nervous brides have to sign the register.’ Someone pushed a pen into her hand and she signed because there was nothing else to do. Eddie, his father and hers had preceded her. A joke was made, everyone laughed. Diana kissed her, Evan kissed her, even Haydn brushed his lips briefly against her cheek, making her aware of Eddie’s grip tightening on her arm.

Back down the aisle, the organ still resounding to the rafters. Outside the church, standing in the porch while William took a photograph with a borrowed camera. Down the steps at the side of the church, into the hall below, where her mother had arranged for a wedding breakfast to be laid out.

‘Stop right there, both of you. Turn around. Perfect.’ Andrew John took a photograph. ‘If the rest of you stand behind Eddie and Jenny, I’ll take another.’

She continued to smile vacuously as Andrew used up all the film in his camera.

There was a gramophone. It played dance tunes after the meal of sandwiches, cake and salad had been eaten. She and Eddie danced, but not for long.

‘Bride and groom ready?’ Andrew John was there again, looking incredibly handsome in a tailored suit that fitted far better than Eddie’s off-the-peg ensemble bought for the occasion. It was the first he had owned that hadn’t belonged to someone else before him.

‘Dr Lewis said we could change in his house, remember?’

She looked blankly at Eddie.

‘You do want to go on honeymoon?’

Everyone laughed again.

She obediently followed Eddie through the door and over the road to Trevor and Laura Lewis’s house where Eddie changed in the spare bedroom. She was led into Laura and Trevor’s bedroom and fussed over by Laura and Diana, They squirted lavish applications of Evening in Paris and talcum powder over her, exclaiming with delight at the tailored pale grey costume her mother had sniffed at because the colour wouldn’t stand up to everyday wear. Then back over the road to stand in front of the church while relatives showered them with confetti.

More kisses for the bride. Evan, Trevor, her father, William – in a daze she went to Haydn. Eddie, no longer at her side, was kissing Bethan and Diana goodbye. Oblivious to William’s close proximity, she grasped Haydn and kissed him, pushing him around the corner of the porch, out of sight of most of the guests. She refused to release him, even when he tried to thrust her away.

‘Jenny?’ Eddie stepped past an embarrassed William, gripped her neck and yanked her away from Haydn with a force that stung. He frogmarched her to Andrew John’s car and pushed her unceremoniously into the back.

‘Sure you haven’t married the wrong Powell?’ he hissed in her ear.

She stared at him blankly, uncomprehendingly, as the car careered down the hill and drew up outside the New Inn.

‘Good luck, and enjoy your honeymoon.’ Unaware that anything was wrong, Andrew lifted the two small suitcases out of his boot and handed them to a porter who had walked down the steps to meet them.

‘Why don’t you come in and have a drink with us?’ Jenny pleaded, suddenly nervous at the thought of being alone with this strange, dark and glowering Eddie.

‘Thanks for the thought, but Bethan gets very tired in this heat. I’d like to take her home.’

‘Thank you.’ Eddie held out his hand.

‘For what?’ Andrew asked, taken aback by the gesture after all the antagonism Eddie had shown towards him.

‘For this.’ Eddie looked up at the New Inn. ‘And for driving us down in the car.’

‘Least I could do for a brother-in-law.’

They both stood and watched Andrew drive away, then, with a sinking heart, Jenny followed Eddie up the steps and into the hotel.

‘It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, I feel stuffed full and I haven’t got to be in work for a couple of hours.’

‘Lucky you,’ William and Diana grumbled as they passed Haydn on their way out of the church hall.

‘I assumed you both had the day off.’

‘Wyn’s sister is looking after the shop for me,’ Diana explained, ‘but I promised I’d be back as soon as I could. She hates leaving Wyn’s father for any length of time.’

‘And Charlie wants to get back from the stall to Alma. The shop’s busier than the stall now on a Saturday. Eddie certainly knows what day to get married on,’ William complained as he followed his sister down the hill.

‘Which leaves us.’ Haydn offered his arm to Jane. ‘Want to go for a walk before the matinée?’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Shoni’s?’

‘I’ve never been there.’

‘In that case it’s time you saw it.’

‘I will have time to go back to Graig Avenue and change out of this frock afterwards?’

‘Of course. I’ve got to change myself.’

‘But you don’t have to be in the Town Hall until half an hour after me.’

‘I promise to give you plenty of time.’

They walked slowly up the hill, Jane carrying her straw hat. Her hair had finally begun to grow, and although to her chagrin it was as straight as rats’ tails and much the same colour, Diana had succeeded in coaxing it into fairly respectable waves in honour of the occasion.

‘It’s odd to think of Eddie living in Griffiths’ shop.’ Haydn said half to himself as they passed the corner of Factory Lane. ‘When we were kids, we used to dream of living in a shop. All the sweets you could eat, biting off the corners of the bread, cutting slices of cheese whenever you wanted to. We used to think Jenny was the luckiest girl in school.’

‘I think she’s lucky now. Your brother obviously cares for her very much.’

It was on the tip of Haydn’s tongue to ask if Jane thought Jenny cared for Eddie, but he didn’t. Only he, William and Eddie knew what had happened, and it was best left that way. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to destroy Jane’s romantic illusions.

‘I doubt he would have married her quite so quickly if he’d known there was a shortage of places to rent. I’ve a feeling Jenny’s mother doesn’t relish the idea of him moving into her house.’

‘They’ll soon find somewhere. Jenny told me she’s put their name down with every landlord in Pontypridd, and with the war on, men are going away, and some wives back to their mothers.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Although it still doesn’t feel very much like war to me. If it wasn’t for the newspaper headlines, and the evacuees coming into town, I wouldn’t believe it.’

They left Llantrisant Road and walked up the lane.

‘It’s pretty here. You’d never guess you were so near houses. It’s like real countryside.’

‘Like Church Village?’

‘A bit. Although the fields there are more orderly, if you know what I mean.’

‘Regimented?’

‘Was that a scream?’

‘It’s coming from the direction of the pond. Kids are probably swimming there. Pity I didn’t think. We could have gone home and brought our bathers.’

‘It’s the girls.’ Jane put her hand over her mouth as she glimpsed three of the Variety chorus diving into the water from the bank, stark naked.

Haydn burst out laughing. ‘There’s no need to run away. I’m sure none of them has got anything you haven’t.’

‘All the same, I’d rather not view what they’ve got in your company.’

‘Come on, you’ve been working in the Town Hall for a while. You should have learned by now that chorus girls aren’t normal. They’re used to men looking at their bodies, and they think nothing of flaunting them.’

‘But those aren’t Revue girls, they’re Variety girls.’

‘It doesn’t make much difference; today’s Variety girl is only a poorer version of tomorrow’s Revue girl,’ he murmured, quoting one of Rusty’s favourite maxims.

‘Isn’t that the mouse of an usherette with Haydn?’

‘If you ask me she’s not all that mousy,’ Babs said angrily, eyeing the new green frock and waves set in Jane’s glossy brown hair.