Hearts of Gold (15 page)

Her sister’s cold had worsened, settling into a hacking, feverish chest infection that Elizabeth had been forced to acknowledge, but even Maud’s illness couldn’t dampen Bethan’s excitement at the prospect of a day out with Andrew.

On Wednesday morning the routine update of patients’ notes and ward handover to the sister who was standing in for Squeers seemed to take forever.

It was a quarter-past eight before she reached Graig Avenue, tired and breathless from running all the way up the hill. Haydn had gone to work on Wilf’s stall in the market and her father and Eddie had walked down with him, hoping to pick up some work themselves. Her mother had cleared away the breakfast things, changed out of the overalls she wore in the house, ready to go shopping. After a stern injunction to Bethan to clear up any mess she made, Elizabeth left.

Bethan checked on Maud, who was still coughing in spite of Evan’s remedy. She returned to the kitchen to make a fresh pot of tea. While it was brewing she looked at the kitchen clock. Half-past eight. No one would be in before ten at the earliest.

She ran outside and unhooked the tin bath from the nail hammered into the garden wall. Her father and their lodger Alun bathed after every shift, out the back in summer and in the washhouse in winter. Eddie and Haydn bathed in the washhouse before bed on a Friday night but she and Maud weren’t so lucky.

Her mother frowned on them bathing, preferring them to wash in the privacy of their room where there was no risk of their father, the lodger or their brothers walking in on them.

She carried the bath into the washhouse, and wiped it over with the floor cloth before taking it into the kitchen. She stood it on the rag rug in front of the range. Lifting down the enamel jug from the shelf where Elizabeth kept her pots and pans she drew off hot water from the boiler, careful not to allow the level to get too low before topping it up. After she’d filled the bath with as much hot water as she dared, she tipped in a couple of jugfuls of cold.

She took Maud’s tea upstairs. Shivering in the freezing bedroom she tucked Maud in before returning to the kitchen with her scent, dressing gown and the flannel, towel and soap from their washstand.

Closing the curtains in case any of the Richards should happen to walk into their yard, she stripped off and poured a little of the essence of violets into the water. Two minutes later she was sitting in the tub, sponging her back, and revelling in the feel of the warm scented water trickling over her bare skin.

Forgetting that she only had a limited amount of time she decided to wash her hair. Ducking her head between her knees she soaked it before rubbing the bar of soap into a lather that covered her hands, and then her head. Luckily she’d left the enamel jug on the hearth, so all she had to do was refill it with the now cool water from the boiler to rinse off the suds. When it was squeaky clean, she wrapped it in the towel, closed her eyes and wriggled down as low as she could. When she opened her eyes again the water was cold, the hands on the clock pointed to twenty past nine and her fingers were as wrinkled as her mother’s scrubbing board.

Jumping up she pulled the towel from her hair and hastily rubbed herself as dry as she could in the soaking cloth.

Moving quickly she stepped out on to the rug and tied on her dressing gown. Her mother never lingered any longer in town than she had to, and if she came back and found out that the bath had been carried into the kitchen there’d be hell to pay.

Bethan emptied the bath with the jug. It was long slow work, particularly as she had to watch that she didn’t spill a drop of tell-tale water on the kitchen rugs. It was a quarter to ten before the bath water was low enough for her to grab hold of both handles and carry it out through the door.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She jumped, slopping a good pint of water on to the floor.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.’ Eddie walked into the kitchen. ‘Here, let me take the other handle. Haven’t you got enough sense to realise that you could do yourself a permanent injury trying to carry that out by yourself?’

‘I was trying to be quick before Mam comes back.’

‘I saw her going into Uncle Joe’s house as I crossed the Graig Mountain.’

‘Thank God for that.’

Eddie’s eyes were shining, his face blackened by a thick layer of coal dust.

‘What have you been doing?’ She didn’t need to ask. She already knew.

‘Getting coal.’

‘Off the wagons in the colliery sidings?’ she accused him heatedly.

‘Maud needs a fire in that bedroom. It’s freezing.’

‘You could cop a two pound fine for that. Gaol, because we couldn’t afford to pay.’

‘They’ll have to catch me. And before you ask, the coal’s already safe and sound in the shed along with what’s left of Dad’s ration. There’s no telling it apart, and as soon as I’ve given you a hand with this, I’ll lay a fire in your bedroom.’

Bethan gripped hold of the bath handle. She was too ashamed to say any more. As the only one earning any real money she should have done something about the temperature in their bedroom before this. Spent the money she’d wasted on a new dress on coal. She’d been so wrapped up in Andrew and the row with her mother that she’d managed to forget Maud’s illness for hours at a time.

‘One – two – three, lift,’ Eddie ordered. Shuffling along, they carried the bath through the washhouse towards the back door.

‘You can’t step out here without slippers on.’ Eddie heaved her out of the way, stumbled and tipped the water all over the yard, soaking the flagstones.

‘That will never dry before Mam comes home,’ she wailed.

‘Then I’ll tell her I washed it down.’

‘She won’t believe that,’ Bethan rejoined crossly.

‘She will, if I tell her next door’s cat dragged a dead rabbit across it. Right, you go and dress and I’ll wash here,’ he ordered, embarrassed by the amount of cleavage she was showing.

She saw what he was looking at and pulled the edges of her dressing gown closer together. ‘I won’t be long.’ Grabbing the towel, her discarded clothes and her scent from the kitchen floor, she raced through the passage and up the stairs.

Maud was sleeping fitfully, her cheeks bright red, burning. If the fever didn’t break soon Bethan resolved to ask Andrew to call in and take a look at her.

Dressing as quietly as she could, she started with the silk camiknickers and petticoat that she hadn’t worn since she’d washed and aired them in her bedroom (Elizabeth had taken one look at the garments and refused to hang them on the airing rack in the kitchen).

She finished with the new green wool dress and plain black low heeled shoes. She looked herself over in the mirror, her thoughts an uneasy mixture of guilt over the new clothes and regret for her decidedly worn shoes, handbag and dated hat. All things considered, she didn’t look
too
awful. She screwed her eyes in an attempt to view her profile in the wardrobe mirror, and gave up when Maud tossed restlessly from her back on to her side.

Stealing out, she closed the bedroom door softly and shivered her way down the stairs and along the passage to the kitchen.

‘Want some tea, Beth?’ Eddie asked.

‘Not if I’ve got to make it.’

‘It’s all done.’ There was a hurt tone in his voice.

She pulled one of the kitchen chairs close to the range, unwrapped her hair and began to towel it dry.

‘Mam’ll go berserk when she finds out that you’ve gone to bed with wet hair.’

‘I’m not going to bed,’ she said, blessing Eddie’s lack of observation. Haydn would have spotted the new dress and smelled the scent by now.

‘Then where are you, going?’

‘To Cardiff.’

‘Cardiff’s even worse. Going out with wet hair, just after a bath? You out to catch pneumonia?’

‘You sound just like Mam.’

‘Does she know what you’re up to?’

‘No. And you’re not going to tell her. Are you?’ she asked anxiously.

‘What’s it worth?’

‘Sixpence.’

‘Make it another seven bob and you’re on.’

‘You little …’

‘I need the money.’

‘What for?’

He picked up the teapot from the range, took off the cosy and filled the cups he’d taken down from the dresser.

‘What for?’ She repeated, forgetting her hair for a moment.

‘Gloves,’ he answered reluctantly.

‘Boxing gloves?’

‘I’m good, Beth. I really am.’

‘I saw how good you were the other night.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ he broke in angrily. ‘That was the first time I’d ever climbed into a ring. I really am good; everyone in the gym says so. Once I get gloves I’ll go round the fairground booths. A few weeks of that and I’ll make enough to pay you back and chip in my corner here. Come on, Beth – a month at the most and I’ll give you a quid. I’d ask Dad but he’s never got any money, Haydn hasn’t been paid yet and Mam won’t give me a penny. You know what she is,’ he added acidly.

‘I haven’t got it to give to you.’

‘It’s like that, is it,’ he said sourly.

She opened her handbag. ‘I can give you half a crown now, and five bob on Friday when I’ve been paid.’

His face lit up. ‘If I put half a crown down today, George will hold them until Friday.’

‘George?’

‘It’s his gloves I’m buying. Beth, you’re a darling.’ He hugged her out of excitement, then, realising what he was doing he dropped his arms.

‘Fool, more like it.’ Her face fell, serious at the sight of one or two cuts and bruises that hadn’t quite healed. ‘Just don’t go getting yourself into a real mess, or I’ll never forgive myself.’

He grinned. ‘Me? I’m immortal, Beth, I thought you would have realised that by now.’

She tried to quell her misgivings. Eddie was entitled to his dreams. She’d found out long ago that they were the only thing that made the harsh reality of life on the Graig bearable.

Since she’d qualified, her fantasies of Florence Nightingale nursing had been replaced by hazy, formless desires that somehow encompassed Andrew John. Haydn had hopes of a theatrical career that would sweep him from dogsbody in the Town Hall to success on the London stage. Her father dreamed of a workers’ uprising that would revolutionise the face of the Valleys. Maud had mapped out a future “rags to riches” plan for herself roughly based on the plot of Jane Eyre.

The only problem with Eddie’s dream was that it was easier to put into practice and far more dangerous than any of the others. But fear for Eddie’s health and life gave her no right to stop him from trying. For all she knew he might be the lucky one, the next Jimmy Wilde to come out of the Valleys with enough talent to earn himself a slice of the good life he craved for.

And even if he was on a hiding to nothing, who was she to stop him? Better for him to hold on to his dream, no matter how hopeless, than lose all hope for something beyond the grim reality of the present – like their mother. 

Chapter Seven

Andrew had parked his car and was sitting waiting for Bethan in the station yard car park. She saw him as soon as she emerged from under the railway bridge, her face flushed with the walk down the hill, her hat and new coat damp from the fine misty rain. She quickened her pace and ran towards him. He stepped out and opened the passenger door.

‘I’ll start the engine.’

‘I’m sorry, am I late?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘Not at all.’ He turned up the collar on his Burberry and closed the door for her. Taking the crank from under his seat, he paused for a moment to admire her long slim legs clad in shining, flesh coloured silk.

A few minutes later they were dodging brewery cars and grocers’ wagons on Broadway heading towards Treforest on the Cardiff Road.’

‘Well,’ he looked at her and smiled, ‘you have a whole day free, Cinderella, what would you like to do with it?’

‘Window shopping, the cinema, tea?’

‘Those were my suggestions.’

‘I haven’t any better ones.’

‘Lunch first? Or have you eaten?’

‘I haven’t eaten,’ she admitted.

‘Then lunch it is.’

He drove off the road in Taffs Well. Turning right he steered the car up a small country lane that meandered through the woods surrounding the romantic, fairy-tale Castell Coch.

‘Where are we going?’ Bethan demanded; a sharp edge of concern in her voice.

‘To have lunch.’

‘Up here?’ A chill prickled down her spine. Her mother’s frequent and disturbingly graphic warnings sprang to mind as she realised she was on her own, miles from anywhere with a man she scarcely knew.

‘Look on the back seat.’

She did, and saw the corner of a wickerwork hamper poking out from under a rug.

‘That’s lunch. I asked Cook to pack it for us. Now all we need is the right spot.’

He found it almost at the summit of the mountain. A narrow dirt track, its far end barred by a rotting wooden gate that looked as though it hadn’t been opened in years. He pulled to a halt and turned off the engine.

Evergreens and conifers hedged them on both sides, so closely that if they hadn’t travelled along the lane Bethan would have doubted its presence. The only open view was over the gate in front of them.

Andrew turned round and knelt on his seat. He handed her the blanket while he unbuckled the strap that secured the lid of the hamper.

‘It will soon be cold without the warmth of the engine so wrap the rug around yourself,’ he ordered briskly. ‘Now what have we here?’ He lifted out two steep-sided glass bowls topped with squares of gingham tied with string. He handed them to her, and took out two forks and a plate wrapped into a parcel of grease proof paper. ‘Brown bread, and lemon,’ he balanced the plate on the dashboard and gave her a fork. ‘And prawns in aspic.’ He took one of the bowls from her. ‘Try it.’ He removed the gingham and squeezed a slice of lemon liberally over the food. ‘It’s good. I know picnics should be held in summer, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to have one now. I love picnicking, brings back memories of childhood and all that.’

She took a wedge of lemon. Conscious of her vulnerability, she contrasted Andrew’s childhood memories with her own. The present fare couldn’t be further removed from the jam sandwiches wrapped in newspaper, a bowl of whatever wild berries were in season and the bottle of water that she and her brothers had devoured on the side of the Graig mountain when they were small.

Thrusting his fork into the aspic, Andrew began to eat. ‘Don’t you like prawns?’ he asked as she picked one out of the jelly and examined it closely.

‘This is the first time I’ve tried them.’ She put it into her mouth and began to chew. Her mouth was dry and she almost choked when she tried to swallow it.

‘They’re not unlike cockles. Fishy and salty with the taste of the sea.’

‘They don’t look like cockles.’ She extricated another from its bed of aspic. ‘They look … they look naked,’ she blurted out, without thinking what she was saying.

‘Naked?’ He lifted his left eyebrow.

She blushed. ‘It’s just that they’re so pink.’

He burst out laughing. ‘What it is to have the mind of a child.’

‘I haven’t …’

‘I’m sorry.’ He held up his hand in front of her. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Glass of wine?’

‘Wine?’

‘It’s probably not as cold as it should be.’ He leaned close to her and she backed away, hitting her spine painfully on the door handle. Sliding his hand under her seat he pulled out a green bottle wrapped in a wet towel. ʻThere are a couple of glasses and a corkscrew in the glove compartment.’

‘Do you always think of everything?’ She handed him the corkscrew and held on to the glasses.

‘Only where picnics are concerned.’ He finished forking the prawns into his mouth, tossed the bowl into the back seat, and jammed the bottle between his knees. It was open in a minute. The wine was clear, sparkling, unlike anything she’d drunk before.

‘If you finish the prawns, we can move on to the next course.’ He pulled open the door of the glove compartment, and placed the bottle and glasses on it. Then he produced two large plates individually wrapped in damp muslin and thick folds of greaseproof paper.

Uncovering hers, she discovered slices of cold chicken breast, lean ham and neatly turned out moulds of potato salad, grated carrot and rice. She tried her best to eat, but could barely manage a quarter of what was on her plate. Even his food emphasised the difference between them. When she organised a picnic, the best she could manage was bread and dripping, brawn, sliced cold heart and dry bread. For the first time she found herself wondering what his home was like. He’d casually mentioned “Cook.”

There would undoubtedly be other servants – kitchen and parlour maids, the sort of position Maud would apply for when she left school, and count herself lucky to get. A daily “skivvy” for the heavy work. Someone like her Aunt Megan. An odd-job man cum gardener, young like Eddie … or an unemployed miner like her father.

‘And here we have the
piece de resistance.
’ Andrew held a glass preserving bottle in front of her. ‘It looks disgusting I grant you,’ he said, struggling with the top. ‘But looks can deceive.’

‘Preserved fruit salad,’ Bethan ventured staring at the mishmash of pale fleshy bits floating in murky liquor.

‘My father’s idea of a winter fruit salad.’ He wrenched open the lid and decanted the contents into two china bowls decorated with red and burgundy coloured cherries. Bethan tentatively dipped her spoon into the mess, extracted a piece of soggy, colour-bled strawberry and put it into her mouth.

‘What is it?’ she gasped.

‘Summer fruits in Jamaican rum.’ He spooned a generous portion into his mouth. ‘My father’s favourite dessert. And the only thing in the house made entirely by him. As the season progresses he puts a couple of pounds of every fruit that ripens in the garden into a huge earthenware pot that he inherited from his father, covering it with rum as he goes along. By the time winter sets in, the pot is full enough to keep his after dinner conversations genial until the next lot is ready.’

She felt as though her mouth was on fire, but for politeness’ sake she dipped her spoon into the mess again. This time she found a cherry.

‘There are oranges in here,’ she said in surprise. ‘Surely you don’t grow those in your garden.

‘Only in my father’s imagination. Here.’ He refilled her wine glass.

‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’ She wouldn’t have asked the question if the mixture of rum and wine hadn’t already gone to her head.

‘No,’ he replied quietly. ‘Just trying to get you to relax a little. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s been quite as nervous or suspicious of me before.’

She took the glass and stared into it.

‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked.

‘It’s better than the fruit salad.’

He picked up the bowl from her, and winding down his window tipped the contents outside. She sat back in her seat and looked over the gate down into the valley below. She followed the course of the river Taff as it wound between patchwork fields, wooded copses and narrow threads of stone houses.

‘I hope the rain stops when we get to Cardiff,’ she said for the sake of saying something.

‘It won’t make any difference to us if it does. The arcades are best for window shopping, and I’ll try and find a film with plenty of sun in it. It’ll be black and white sun of course,’ he said earnestly.

She smiled.

‘That’s better. Here, let’s finish this.’ As he emptied the last of the wine into their glasses, his hand accidentally brushed against her arm. She jumped as though she’d been scalded. ‘I didn’t bring you here to have my evil way with you,’ he said quietly, gazing into her eyes.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She was close to tears.

‘You really are in a state, aren’t you? Here – ’ he wedged the bottle of wine in the hamper and handed her his handkerchief.

She dabbed at her eyes with it. It smelt of fresh air and new starch.

‘Would you like anything else?’

She shook her head.

‘In that case I’ll pack up and weʼll go.’

He folded the dirty plates and crockery into a cloth, then drained his wine glass and laid it on top before closing the lid.

‘I won’t be a minute.’ He picked up the starting handle.

‘Andrew, I’m sorry. Really sorry,’ she said with difficulty.

‘For what?’ he smiled, ‘Being a nice girl?’

He glanced at her frequently as they continued their journey. She sat perched on the edge of her seat smiling tautly with her mouth but not her eyes, very obviously what his mother called “sitting on pins”.

He recalled the first time he’d seen her tall, slim figure striding briskly along the hospital corridors. Even the convent veil that covered her hair, and her pale complexion drained by overwork and the drab surroundings, had failed to detract from her exotic Mediterranean beauty. Then she’d turned, and a single glimpse of her magnificent dark eyes had been enough to make him forget his current girlfriend and offer to cover for his father on any maternity ward emergencies.

At the hospital ball he’d seen the humour and intelligence that lurked beneath the surface of basic insecurity and the evening at the circus had shown him how very different she was from the self-assured, middle-class, somewhat selfish and often mindless girls he’d known in London.

When he’d moved to Pontypridd to join his father he’d assumed that he would follow the carefree path of many and varied girlfriends and happy off-duty hours spent in search of the good times that he’d had in London. But he’d reckoned without the effects of the economic slump. The dour grey stone buildings and air of grim poverty that clung to streets in the town soon came to epitomise the word “depression” for him.

“Good times” in Pontypridd were few and far between, even for the young. Survival, not fun, was the major concern and preoccupation. He knew from something Laura had said that Bethan’s father was on short time and her brother out of work. That made Bethan with her regular job the family breadwinner. So he put her serious outlook down to too much responsibility too soon. And that made him want to introduce some harmless frivolity into her life. If anyone needed it, she did. Every time he looked at the patients in the maternity ward he saw her as she might be ten years from now. Married to an unemployed miner. Her slim, lithe figure bloated from bad food and constant childbearing, her pale, delicate skin chapped, roughened and reddened by cold weather and even colder water and a life lived out in a smoky back kitchen. The prospect saddened him. He liked her, felt sorry for her, and at the same time longed to protect her from the miserable effects of the soul destroying poverty that ultimately crushed most women of her class.

Part of her attraction lay in her vulnerability. As an incurable romantic her plight brought out the Sir Galahad in him that his mother had nurtured with frequent readings of Arthurian stories.

But he recognised that his romantic feelings for Bethan were just that – romantic. And he knew from previous liaisons just how transient romanticism could be. As his father light heartedly but frequently pointed out, it was one thing to court a girl, quite another to marry her, and he was astute enough to realise that whatever happened between him and Bethan probably wouldn’t last very long, simply because she didn’t fit into his world any more than he fitted into hers.

He’d never known anyone like her. Unlike any other girl he’d gone out with, she was working-class and, despite her diffidence, possessed a mind of her own. The differences between them were far greater than the common threads that bound their complementary professions but if anything the disparities made him more interested in her as a person. Or at least that was what he tried to tell himself. He’d never been quite so confused about what he felt for a girl before. Wary of the stage and film stereotype of the caddish middle-class male who deliberately sets out to seduce the poor working-class girl, he decided that for once he would be the perfect gentleman, opting for platonic friendship in the true tradition of Sir Galahad.

So with a sharp pang of regret he pushed from his mind all thoughts of enjoying the kind of sensual and easy physical relationship with her that his looks, carefree manner and open purse had brought him with the London ladies.

Not for one minute did he consider that he wouldn’t have thought her friendship worth cultivating if she’d been fat, frumpish or looked other than she did. His paternalistic desire to give her and incidentally himself, the elusive good time closed his mind to everything except the kindness he sincerely believed he was bestowing on her.

He parked the car close to Queen Street station, and from there they walked to the shopping centre. Bethan had often spent afternoons in Cardiff with Laura when they’d been at the Royal Infirmary, but Andrew stopped to browse in small out of the way shops she never knew existed. Second hand bookshops crammed to the ceilings with musty, leather bound volumes, and framed prints; galleries, that displayed black framed oils and watercolours on crooked walls above rickety staircases. And antique shops, as different from Arthur Faller’s pawnbroker’s shop in Pontypridd as chalk from cheese.