Broken Rainbows (24 page)

‘Don't look at me. Your sordid little affairs are your own concern.'

‘Just remember, Lieutenant, only a complete moron would cross a superior officer. And,' he ran his tongue over his lips, ‘when you succeed with the blonde with the big knockers, my camera is yours. I'll even market the product for you for a straight ten per cent. You could make a packet. I've cleaned up two hundred bucks on Anthea, but that blonde -' his eyes glittered in anticipation – ‘she's got a lot more, if you know what I mean?'

‘I know exactly what you mean. And forget the superior officer. I'm warning you, man to man, Reide. Stay away from Jenny Powell or I'll reshape your face.' Kurt walked to the door.

‘Is that a threat?'

‘A warning.'

‘First man to take the photographs wins the loot, Schaffer,' Reide called after him.

After she saw Haydn off at the station, Bethan felt as though she'd moved into a limbo where time no longer held any meaning. Minutes … hours … days … nights … passed in a blur, and all she could do was go through the motions of living, waiting and watching – waiting and watching – for news that she dreaded hearing and that might never come. In her bravest moments she tried to determine what she feared most: the rescue teams finding her father's body, or conceding defeat and sealing off the shaft.

Since Andrew's capture she had often likened herself to the tin man in
The Wizard of Oz
who had been searching for his heart. Now she felt like an ancient Greek who had come face to face with the Gorgon and been turned to stone.

Unable to think about anything other than her father, she stopped writing to Andrew without even realising it. She did only what she had to, driving from one patient to another, bandaging and cleaning wounds, cauterising ulcerated legs, delivering babies, laying out the dead, filling in endless forms, but she avoided calling into the café where she would see Tina. She didn't want to hear how Gina was coping, or run the risk of meeting Jenny or Mrs Richards and seeing her grief mirrored in their eyes.

Every time she drove up or down the Graig hill she made a detour along Albert Road so she could stop outside the gates of the Maritime Colliery, but one look at the grim-faced men moving around within the confines of the pithead was usually enough to make her drive on. She had to stop herself from telephoning Mr Williams as soon as she reached home at night, and on waking, first thing in the morning. If there was news, he had given her his solemn promise, she would be the first to know. But it was hard to simply wait, especially when she saw lines of strain and anguish etch daily deeper into Phyllis's face and Brian grow more and more withdrawn. They had told him that his daddy was ‘lost' underground, but he couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to go down and find him, or why he'd had to leave the familiar surroundings of Graig Avenue.

In an attempt to distract herself, she confided in Dr John, telling him about her mother's appropriation of her father's house. He made an appointment for her with his solicitor, but the old man only confirmed what Haydn had already been told, that the only way to get Phyllis back into Graig Avenue was to buy the house from her mother. After checking the funds in her own and Andrew's bank accounts she instructed him to make an offer, but she wasn't surprised when her mother didn't reply.

The telephone call she'd been dreading, yet longing for, finally came at three o'clock in the morning of the seventh day after the fall. She was in the study, reading, having given up on trying to sleep yet again. Charging barefoot into the hall she picked up the receiver.

‘Mrs John?'

‘Mr Williams?'

‘They've broken through …' he paused; it could have been no more than a few seconds but to her it was an eternity. ‘Your father is badly injured but alive. They're taking him to the Graig Hospital now.'

‘I'll be there.'

‘There's no visiting.'

‘I'm a nurse, Mr Williams.'

She dropped the receiver. Hearing a noise she looked up to see Phyllis and Jane standing on the staircase. Clinging to the banister for support, she whispered, ‘He's hurt but alive, Phyllis. He's alive.'

Dr John came looking for her as soon as he left the operating theatre. Sitting beside her on the bench in the corridor he took her hand.

‘I had to amputate his right arm. I had no choice, Bethan, the bones were crushed to pulp, but the good news is that there's no sign of infection or gangrene. He's a strong, essentially healthy man. If he hadn't been, I'd be telling you something different now. He'll need a lot of nursing care, but I think he'll live.'

‘Can I see him?'

‘Only if the sister doesn't catch you, but there's little point. He's still under the anaesthetic.'

‘He really is going to be all right?'

‘As all right as anyone can be after a week trapped underground with a ton of rock on top of him. He was lucky that his head was free and the boy found the snap boxes. Clever lad, he fed him, rationing out the cold tea, but it was just as well the rescuers broke through when they did. It had all but gone.'

‘Boy?'

‘Luke Grenville. Isn't he the one married to Gina Ronconi?' He didn't wait for her to answer. ‘Well, she'll be happy. I've checked him over. Hardly a scratch on him. I want to keep him in at least until morning, but he insists on going home.'

‘Does Gina know he's alive?'

‘Not yet. Huw Davies is doing the rounds of the families, but Luke refused to allow him to go up Danycoedcae Road to tell her.'

‘What about the others … Alexander Forbes … Mr Richards …?'

‘Your father and Luke were the only survivors.'

‘Mrs John, I thought I heard your voice.' Luke padded towards them in a skimpy workhouse nightshirt that revealed the blackened bruises on his legs and arms.

‘Dr John just told me you saved my father's life, Luke. How can I begin to thank you?'

‘I wish I could have done the same for the others.'

‘It's a miracle you and Evan Powell survived, boy,' Dr John said gruffly.

‘Please, ask them if I can go home, Mrs John? You know me. You can see I'm all right.'

‘You're in shock …'

‘Supposing I keep an eye on him and check up on him every couple of hours,' Bethan suggested.

‘Haven't you got enough to do?'

‘Not until my father is discharged.'

Luke looked hopefully from the doctor to Bethan.

‘See if someone can find you something more substantial to wear, Luke. We'll set the whole town talking if I take you up the hill looking like that.'

While Luke dressed, Bethan stole into the cubicle next to the sister's office. Her father's face was ashen, bleached by the subdued lighting and the startling, pristine whiteness of the bedlinen. She laid her hand on his forehead noticing the traces of coal dust ingrained in the stubble on his chin and the lines of his face. Folding back the bedclothes she checked the cage that had been placed over his shoulder to take the weight of the blankets. Replacing it after she had noted the extent of the damage, she smoothed his hair away from his temples and bent her head to kiss him.

‘He's going to need a lot of care, Bethan, you do know that?'

‘And he's not going to make an easy patient.' She smiled awkwardly at Dr John. ‘He's used to getting his own way. Doing what he wants, being active.'

‘Take some time off.'

Squaring her shoulders, Bethan set her face, determined not to break down as she had the night David Ford had found her. ‘When he leaves here I might take you up on that offer.'

‘Not before?'

She shook her head.

‘Bethan …'

‘I'm all right. I'd better take Luke home. I'll see you in the surgery tomorrow.'

He watched her walk away. She had lost weight since the accident and she looked as though she hadn't slept in a month. He couldn't even write to Andrew to ask him to tell her to slow down. It would only make him worry all the more about what was happening back home. Possibly even drive him over the edge. There had been some disquieting reports about deaths in German POW camps. Quite understandably. He couldn't imagine being locked up as long as Andrew had been with no sign of a reprieve.

‘Thank you, Mrs John. I really appreciate you getting me out of there.'

‘I'm not sure I've done you a favour. You still look in shock to me. I could have brought Gina down to the hospital.'

‘I don't want anyone to tell her I'm all right except me. Have you seen her? How is she?'

‘How do you think? Upset. Bearing up because there was nothing else she could do.'

‘That's why I have to see her. To convince her that I really am all right. All I want is to be with her. Mr Williams has given me a few days off.'

‘That was big of him.' Bethan couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice.

‘It could be longer, I have to see Dr John at the end of the week.'

‘You're quite a hero, Luke.'

He clenched his fists. ‘I didn't do anything to save the others.'

‘Did they die in the fall?' She hated asking the question, but she had to know.

‘I think Alexander died yesterday. Mr Richards the day before. I'm not too sure about the exact time, it was difficult to tell what day it was. I had the foreman's watch, but when I slept I lost all track. I couldn't tell if it was day or night. And when the batteries failed in the last of the lamps it was hopeless. Only four of us survived the fall, and apart from me they were all badly injured. I tried to do what I could, but I couldn't even dig the others out. They were trapped under the rocks and I was afraid that if I tried to free them, the whole lot would come tumbling down on top of us.' Guilt, raw, choking, lay behind his simple explanation.

‘I can't even begin to imagine what it was like down there. Not knowing whether you would be rescued or not. It says a great deal that you found the strength and courage to save my father.'

‘And myself,' he added drily.

‘You can't take the blame because you survived and the others didn't.'

‘No, but I don't have to feel good about it either. If you want to talk about heroes, talk about Alexander. He was crushed from the waist down. An intelligent, educated man like him must have known it was hopeless from the start, yet he kept us all going. Talking, making suggestions about rationing out the food in the snap boxes. Even cracking jokes.'

They passed the shadowy figures of the first miners going out on early morning shift as they turned the corner into Danycoedcae Road. Turning off the ignition, she pulled on the handbrake.

‘Would you mind coming in with me, Mrs John?' he asked diffidently. ‘I didn't like to tell Dr John, but Gina could be having a baby. She's not sure yet, or at least she wasn't a week ago. I don't want to risk her getting upset. My mother lost her third when her brother was killed in a farm accident, and the midwife put that down to shock.'

‘Would you like me to go in first?'

‘What do you think?'

‘How about we go in together?'

Gina's cries of relief and joy were still ringing in Bethan's ears when she left Danycoedcae Road ten minutes later. She had two more calls to make before returning to her own house and she hoped that Phyllis would forgive her the delay. Heading back down Llantrisant Road she turned right into Graig Avenue, spotting the gleam of the white flashes on Huw Davies's helmet and armbands as she drove up the road. When he heard the engine of her car, he stopped. She parked outside her old house, and opened the door.

‘Is that you, Bethan?'

‘Have you been to see my mother, Uncle Huw?'

‘Not yet. I've only just left Mrs Richards.'

‘Is she all right?'

‘No, but I left Mrs Morris and Mrs Evans with her. They both know what she's going through, having lost their own husbands.'

‘Then I suppose it's up to me to call on Mam. Do you want to come with me?'

‘After what she did to Phyllis and you? Try and stop me.'

Bethan ran up the steps and knocked on the door. She knocked half-a-dozen times, but it was Huw's cry of ‘Police' that finally prompted Elizabeth to leave her bed and walk down the stairs.

‘Who is it?' she called from behind the closed door.

‘Huw Davies, Elizabeth.' He placed a reassuring hand on Bethan's shoulder. ‘We have news about Evan.'

‘Who's we?'

‘Bethan is with me.'

Drawing the bolt, she switched off the light, opened the door and peered out at them.

‘Dad's alive, Mam, but he's injured. He's going to need a lot of nursing. You'll need us to give you a hand to pack up the things in the parlour and move a bed in there.'

‘I enjoyed that,' Huw said as Elizabeth closed the door on them.

‘I didn't.' Bethan had hoped that her mother would invite them in. But she hadn't. Merely told them that she'd be returning to her Uncle John Joseph's house in Tonypandy by midday and they could move Evan in then. Bethan hadn't told her that it would be weeks before Evan could leave the Graig Hospital. Elizabeth had shut the door without giving her a chance to say any more.

‘Have you been to see Jenny?' she asked.

‘No. Should I?'

‘There was something going on between her and Alexander Forbes. Phyllis said he wanted to marry her.'

‘Poor Jenny,' Huw mused, remembering the day he'd read her the telegram telling her that Eddie had been killed. There were times when he hated his job. Jenny would be his sixth call that night. Could he really go through another four?

‘I'll tell her.' Bethan opened her car door.

‘You don't have to. It's my job.'

‘I know I don't have to, Uncle Huw, but I feel I should.'

‘Bethan …'