Sinners and Shadows (12 page)

‘You promised you wouldn't tell anyone about this afternoon.'

‘That was before Mrs Hopkins saw us together.'

‘I wanted you to know that it's over between Geraint and me.'

‘Which one of you ended it?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘It does if he used and dropped you.'

‘All of a sudden you're concerned about me?' she said sulkily.

‘You're my cousin. That makes you family and I want to know if I have to beat him up.'

‘Don't put yourself to any trouble on my account, Joey Evans.' She ran off up the street and around to the back of the shop, leaving him angrier than ever with her – but most of all with Geraint Watkin Jones.

Joey returned home, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, banked down the fire for the night and filled the coalscuttle. Restless, he almost wished there was more work to keep him busy. But there was nothing else to be done because Betty had been keeping the house even more immaculate than usual in expectation of the imminent arrival of Megan's baby. He brewed a pot of tea, and it was only when he lifted a cup and saucer from the dresser that he realized he was spending a night alone for the first time in his life.

He poured his tea and sat at the table. The stillness and emptiness closed in on him, and his thoughts drifted back to his childhood. He saw his mother sitting in ‘her' chair next to the hearth, mending the family's shirts and trousers and smiling down at him while he played with his toys on the hearthrug. His father and Lloyd reading to him when he'd still been small enough to climb on to their laps, not fairy tales, but whole chunks of
Das Kapital.
His mother remonstrating with him and his brothers when they had burst in after school, and later the colliery, scavenging through her tins for cakes and biscuits because they could never wait more than a minute for their tea. Both his parents presiding over the table at meal times, trying to keep him, Lloyd and Victor in check as they teased one another.

The terrible time when ill-health and weakness had forced his mother to take to her bed and the meals he, his father and brothers had placed on trays and carried into the front parlour where his father had set up her bed. Meals they had carried out again untouched. The awful, strained atmosphere of his mother's funeral tea. And afterwards the rapid succession of housekeepers that his father had employed and fired before Sali had come to the house and eventually married Lloyd. And the future …

Joey tried to imagine himself sitting in his father's chair opposite Rhian twenty years from now, children lined up on the chairs between them.

He shuddered. He was not only tempting fate but wishing his father, if not dead, then certainly elsewhere and there was no way that he could ever fill his shoes. He finished his tea, dumped the tea leaves in the pigswill bin, rinsed his cup and saucer in cold water and picked up his jacket ready to go to bed.

He heard the crackle of paper and remembered the envelope Rhian had given him. He removed it from his inside pocket, opened it and withdrew a copy of the photograph he had begged her to give him the first day they had spent together. He smiled, realizing that he hadn't been the only one who thought it was time to move their relationship out of friendship and on to a more intimate footing.

Rhian looked beautiful, but also unattainable. He had the strangest feeling that he was looking at one of the picture postcards that could be bought in any newsagent's or stationer's of royalty or film stars. He had never loved anything or anyone as much as he loved her. But whether it was nervousness generated by Tonia's visit or Rhian's uneasiness about his past, he had the strangest premonition that she might never be entirely his.

The night after Tonia's visit proved a sleepless one. The days that followed were even worse. Every time someone knocked at his office door, fear crawled over Joey's skin, drying his mouth and generating a sour, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he steeled himself for another confrontation – with Tonia, or Connie if she'd discovered that her daughter had called on him late at night.

The one he dreaded most was Rhian. If Mrs Hopkins told anyone what she'd seen, he didn't doubt that the news would reach Mrs Williams. And given the housekeeper's fondness for Rhian and contempt for him, he suspected that she wouldn't waste any time in passing it on. He hated the thought of Rhian suspecting that he'd broken his promise to her the very day he'd made it.

He wrote to Rhian every night before he went to bed. He thanked her for the photograph, which he'd framed and placed on his bedside cabinet, just as he'd told her he would in January. He told her how much he loved her, how happy he was that she'd agreed to be his wife, and as the week progressed, outlined his thoughts and ideas for their wedding, honeymoon and future. But whenever he tried to broach the subject of Tonia's visit, he found it impossible to explain why he and his cousin were alone together in his house late at night, without breaking his promise to Tonia. And the mere fact of mentioning it without the explanation, made the visit sound as though they'd planned it.

Rhian sent back gentle, loving letters that always began
‘My dearest darling Joey'
and ended
‘all my love now and for ever'.
In between she agreed to all the practical suggestions he made for turning his father's rarely used middle parlour into their private sitting room, and organizing a small reception after their wedding in the Catholic Hall because his father's house wouldn't be large enough to accommodate all the friends he'd like to invite.

When she wrote that she couldn't wait to honeymoon in his aunt's farm cottage in Port Eynon on the Gower because she had never seen the sea, he realized that despite what Sali had told him about Rhian's past, he had given very little thought to the kind of life she'd led before she'd begun work in Llan House. He began both to long for and dread her next day off. When Tuesday finally arrived, he rose earlier than usual. After lighting the fire and tidying the house, he dressed in his best suit and set out for Llan House.

Feeling guilty, although he couldn't quantify why, and wanting his relationship with Rhian to begin, as he intended it to continue, in complete honesty, he rehearsed various speeches in his mind as he walked.

There was the ostensibly casual approach: ‘Guess what, Rhian? When I got home last Tuesday, Tonia was waiting for me … No, I've absolutely no idea why she was there. She ran off before she explained.'

The solemn declaration: ‘Tonia came to see me last Tuesday night and Mrs Hopkins saw us together … No, of course we weren't doing anything but, well, I saw her doing something with someone. I can't say what, or who the person was.'

He could try to be direct: ‘Has anyone said anything to you about Tonia and me?' which would undoubtedly make her suspicious and lead her to ask all sorts of questions he couldn't answer, which in turn would make him sound guiltier than ever.

‘Talking to yourself now, Joey Evans.' Mrs Williams's voice shattered his concentration. Obviously he had spoken aloud. But had he said anything incriminating? Adopting what he trusted was an innocent expression, he raised his trilby and managed a ‘good morning' when she caught up with him at the gates of Llan House.

‘That's the first sign, you know.'

‘First sign of what, Mrs Williams?' Joey was too shaken to try to make sense of what she was saying.

‘Madness, or so they say.' She handed him a basket loaded with sodden, newspaper-wrapped parcels. ‘I've been to the fishmonger's. I always go down at the start of the season to pick out the best of the salmon. If I ask them to send up a couple they always give the boy the small ones no one else wants, and Mr Larch enjoys a thick-cut, broiled cutlet in shrimp sauce.'

‘That's tradesmen for you.' Joey automatically repeated the standard Tonypandy housewife's lament. ‘How are you, Mrs Williams, and how is Rhian?' He tried to sound as if he were merely making conversation.

‘I'm as fit as a flea. Rhian is as crazy as a collier after he's downed twelve pints in the Pandy. If she weren't, she wouldn't have agreed to marry you. But then, there's no accounting for taste. Her head's been in the clouds all week, and it's infectious. All the maids can think about is white lace, satin, orange blossom and wedding marches. I've had to warn all of them twice this week about dusting in the corners of rooms.' She opened the kitchen door and breezed in. ‘Put the basket on the table. Do you want a cup of tea?'

‘No, thank you.' Joey did as she ordered before removing his hat. Cook nodded to him as she checked the cabbage Mair was shredding. There was no sign of Rhian or Bronwen.

‘Take a seat. I'll tell Rhian you're here.' Mrs Williams disappeared through the door that led to the back staircase. Joey sat in the housekeeper's easy chair at the side of the range and waited in trepidation. It was no use reminding himself that he had nothing to feel guilty about. He simply did. And with nothing else to occupy his mind, he began counting the minute lines off the railway-sized clock that dominated the room.

Rhian knows that Tonia and I were alone in my house and she believes the worse: she does, she doesn't, she does, she doesn't …

*……*……*

Rhian secured Julia's hat with a jet-headed hatpin, stood back and surveyed her handiwork.

‘It's kind of you to spare the time to do my hair on your day off,' Julia said gratefully. ‘I know you can't wait to see your Mr Evans.'

‘I can't,' Rhian confessed. ‘This last week has felt more like seven years than seven days. Mrs Williams didn't send me into town on a single errand all week.'

‘So you couldn't even see him for a few minutes,' Julia sympathized.

‘He's written to me every day.'

‘It must be wonderful to be in love,' Julia murmured pensively.

‘It will happen to you one day, you'll see.' When she managed to set her doubts about Joey's faithfulness from her mind, Rhian was ecstatically happy and wanted everyone to be in the same blissful state.

‘People like me don't fall in love.'

‘Yes, they do, and you never know, it could be today. You look wonderful, all bubbly and cheerful as if you're going to a party. Are you sure you're only attending a suffrage committee meeting?'

‘Promise you won't tell a soul?' Julia was bursting to tell someone about her plan to invite Geraint Watkin Jones to go to a meeting with her. And Rhian was the obvious choice. The more distant she'd grown from her father and brother, the closer she'd become to the maid.

‘Not if it's one of your secrets, Miss Julia,' Rhian assured her.

‘I'm going to see someone.'

‘A man someone?'

‘It's nothing, not yet.' Julia hesitated.

‘But it could be,' Rhian broke in eagerly.

‘That's my father calling.' Glad of the interruption that she sensed had come just in time to stop her from making a fool of herself, Julia left the stool. There was nothing between her and Geraint Watkin Jones and, given his good looks and her plain ones, there was never likely to be, other than in her dreams. ‘I'm taking the carriage to Pontypridd and dropping Father off at his office on the way.' She grabbed Rhian's hand. ‘Tell me everything that happens today.'

‘I will.' As keen as Julia for the day to start, Rhian forced herself to walk calmly to the end of the corridor to the servants' staircase, then charged up to the attic as fast as she could, to fetch her coat.

‘You never consider anyone other than yourself, Julia,' Mabel Larch rebuked her stepdaughter. ‘I believe you only volunteered to help Miss Bedford with the correspondence of the Women's Suffrage Society because it would give you an excuse not to attend my coffee morning.'

‘I didn't realize the dates clashed when I agreed to the arrangements.' Julia was unable to look either Mabel or her father in the eye.

‘It is most unbecoming for an unmarried woman of your age to involve herself in the Suffrage Society. Sensible men abhor feminists and consider them to be laughing stocks.'

‘I disagree,' Mabel.' Edward folded his copy of
The Times
and tucked it under his arm. ‘In fact, I'd go so far as to say that sensible men admire and respect women as intellectual beings and have sympathy with the cause. Some even attend their meetings.'

‘But no woman of social consequence in the Rhondda would dream of demeaning herself by attending,' Mabel maintained resolutely. ‘Mrs Hodges and Mrs Hadley abhor the Suffrage Society and despair of the way it encourages women to neglect their domestic duties and renounce their femininity in favour of unbecoming masculine pursuits. And both ladies have promised to attend this morning. Think how it will look when you will not be here to greet them, Julia, They will assume that you have no respect for me as your stepmother, or desire to offer them the courtesy that is due to them as our friends and neighbours. They will take your absence as a personal affront.'

‘This is your coffee morning, not Julia's, Mabel. Arranged by you to impress people neither I nor Julia wish to become better acquainted with,' Edward interposed.

‘Mrs Hodges and Mrs Hadley are highly respected ladies –'

‘Not by me, Mabel.' He shrugged on his overcoat. ‘You've ordered the carriage, Julia?'

‘Yes, Father.' Julia's hands shook as she buttoned on her gloves. She would never have lied to her stepmother about assisting the headmistress of Pontypridd Intermediate Girls' School with the secretarial duties of the Women's Suffrage Society if her stepmother and the headmistress moved in the same circles. But they didn't. Miss Bedford was a passionate advocacy of feminism and Mabel had no interest in anything or anyone outside of the social circle she was aspiring to penetrate.

Julia tried to console herself with the thought that she hadn't entirely told an untruth. Her offer to help with the correspondence had been accepted and she was meeting Miss Bedford and the other ladies at five o'clock that afternoon.