Hearts of Gold (51 page)
‘Working ourselves to the bone.’
‘So I see. Did I hear you say you wanted to go to Ronnie’s?’
Diana nodded.
Tenting his coat over Maud’s head, he walked out of station yard and crossed the road quickly, avoiding a milk cart laden with churns that came rattling down the Graig hill at full tilt. Sidestepping a couple of boys on delivery bicycles, he pushed through a gawping group of gossiping women, and into the café.
Struggling with the two gladstones, Diana failed to keep up with him. By the time she’d opened the café door, Tina Ronconi, Ronnie’s sister, had taken Maud from Wyn, uprooted two customers, stretched Maud out across their chairs and was bathing her temples with cold water.
Hot, steamy air, and mouthwatering warm aromas of freshly ground coffee and savoury frying blasted welcomingly into Diana’s face as she dropped her bags and closed the door. The interior of the café was dark, gloomy and blessedly, marvellously, familiar. A long mahogany counter dominated the left-hand side of the room, with matching shelves behind it, backed by an enormous mirror that reflected the rear of the huge mock-marble soda fountain, and stone lemon, lime and sarsaparilla cordial jars. A crammed conglomeration of glass sweet jars, open boxes of chocolate bars, carefully piles packets of cigarettes, cups, saucers and glass cases of iced and cream cakes filled every available inch of space on the wooden shelves.
She paused and listened for a moment, making out the distinctive voice of her old schoolfriend, Tony Ronconi, as it drifted noisily above the din of café conversation from behind the curtained doorway that led into the unseen recesses of the kitchen. All the tables she could see were taken. They were every Saturday morning, especially those around the stove that belched warmth into the ‘front’ room of the café. Through the arched alcove she could see a tram crew huddled round the open fire in the back area, shoes off, feet on fender drying their soaking socks.
‘I see you looked after Maud all right?’ Ronnie, the eldest and most cynical of the second generation of Ronconis, called from behind the counter where he was pouring six mugs of tea simultaneously.
‘I’d like to see you look after anyone where we’ve come from, Ronnie Ronconi,’ Diana scowled, moving the bags out of the doorway and closer to the chairs Maud was lying on.
‘Here,’ Ronnie pushed a cup of tea and the sugar shaker across the counter towards her. ‘Tony?’ he called out to the brother next in line to him, who was working in the kitchen. ‘Take over for me.’
‘Who’s going to do the vegetables for the dinners if I have to work behind the counter?’ Tony asked indignantly as he appeared from behind the curtain. ‘Angelo can’t. He’s still washing breakfast dishes. At half speed,’ he added. Noticing Diana for the first time, he smiled and nodded to her.
‘It’s only ten o’clock,’ Ronnie countered, quashing his brother’s complaints. ‘Papa and I used to get out seventy dinners in two and half hours on a Saturday in High Street with no help, and only an hour’s preparation. Time you learnt to do the same, my boy.’
Maud began to cough.
‘Prop her up, you stupid girls,’ Ronnie shouted at his sister and Diana. ‘Can’t you see she’s choking?’ Lifting himself on the flat of his hands he swung his long, lithe body easily over the high counter. He pushed his hand beneath Maud’s back and eased her into a sitting position. Startled by how light she was, he failed to stop the shock from registering on his face. He looked up. Diana was watching him. ‘I’ve seen more meat on picked chicken bones,’ he commented. ‘Didn’t they feed you in the Infirmary?’
‘Slops and leftovers, and not enough of those,’ Diana said harshly.
‘You back for the weekend, Diana?’ Tina asked brightly in a clumsy effort to lighten the atmosphere generated by Ronnie’s insensitive questioning.
‘No, back for good,’ Diana said flatly.
‘Job didn’t work out then?’ Tina asked.
‘They gave us all a medical yesterday. Afterwards they told Maud she was too ill to work. Swines handed over her wages along with her cards. I could hardly let her come home on her own.’
‘Language!’ Ronnie reprimanded. ‘If you were my sister I’d drag you into the kitchen and scrub your mouth out with washing soda.’
‘Then it’s just as well I’m not your sister.’
‘One more word from you, young lady, and I’ll put you outside the door.’
Diana fell silent. Although Ronnie was eleven years older than her, and more her brother’s friend than hers, she knew him well enough. He wasn’t one for making idle threats, and she was too worried about Maud to risk being parted from her now, when they were so close to home.
‘They only told Maud to leave yesterday?’ Ronnie demanded incredulously as he brushed Maud’s fair curls away from her face with a gesture that was uncommonly tender, for him.
‘It was as much as they could do to let us sleep in our beds in the hostel last night. New girls took over from us today.’
‘Maud didn’t get like this in a day or two, I know.’
‘She never was very strong,’ Diana insisted defensively. ‘And as soon as the weather turned really cold, she got worse.’
‘Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,’ Maud murmured, consciousness coinciding with yet another coughing fit.
‘See what you get for trying to talk?’ Ronnie unpinned the corners of the tea towel he was wearing round his waist and flung it at Tony. ‘I’m going to get the Trojan out of the White Hart yard. You’ll have to hurry the dishes and do the vegetables as well Angelo,’ he ordered his fifteen-year-old brother, who was peeking out from behind the kitchen curtain to find out what all the commotion was about.
‘I was going to the penny rush in the White Palace. Why should I do Tony’s jobs as well as my own?’ he complained.
‘Because Tony’s needed behind the counter, and because I’m telling you to,’ Ronnie said forcefully.
‘Well I’m not doing the cooking as well.’ Angelo slammed the pile of tea plates he was holding on to the counter. ‘And that’s final.’
‘I wouldn’t trust you to,’ Ronnie rejoined.
‘Then who is?’ Angelo demanded.
‘Tina, and before you say another word, think of Tony. He’ll have to manage both the counter and the tables for half an hour.’
‘But Ronnie, you promised I could go to the penny rush this week. You promised.’
‘Just stop your griping and get on with it, will you? It’s time all three of you learned to cope on your own for five minutes.’
‘Ronnie...’
‘One more word out of you, Angelo, and you’ll be working every night next week.’ He looked at the girls. ‘When you hear the horn, get Maud ready. I’ll come in and carry her outside.’
‘Thanks, Ronnie.’ Diana was grateful to him for not making her beg for the lift. She finally picked up her tea from the counter and sugared it.
‘There’s no need to thank me. I owe Will a favour. And you,’ he glared at Tina. ‘Take a good look at these two and think twice before you try to nag Papa or me into letting you leave home again.’
‘See what you’ve done, Diana,’ Tina hissed as Ronnie went out. ‘Now they’ll never let any of us leave home.’
‘Except to visit our grandmother in the back end of Italy,’ Angelo crowed. He’d never had any desire to leave Pontypridd.
‘Don’t you dare go rubbing it in, Angelo Ronconi,’ Tina snapped.
‘Leaving home’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Is it kid?’ Diana helped Maud to sit up while looking around for Wyn. She wanted to thank him. The first familiar face in Pontypridd had shown her that she no longer had to shoulder the problem of Maud’s illness alone. But she couldn’t see him anywhere.
Maud closed her eyes again, too weak even to voice agreement with Diana. At that moment she would have given every penny that she’d managed to save since September to turn the clock back two years. She wanted to be fourteen again. Curled up in her big, warm, comfortable, flannel-sheeted double bed, a stone footwarmer at her feet, and her big sister Bethan to soothe and cuddle her. But Bethan wasn’t home, and before she’d be allowed go to bed she’d have to face her mother. One glance at the apprehension on Diana’s face was enough to tell her that she wasn’t the only one dreading the encounter.
The
HEARTS OF GOLD
series
by
Catrin Collier
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