Broken Rainbows (42 page)

‘There are three bedrooms, two with double beds, one with singles and two living rooms. We could put Eddie and Theo into one bed, Rachel could have the other and there are couches for the Clark girls in the sun lounge. I can vouch for their comfort because I've slept on them myself.'

‘What do you think?' Alma turned to Charlie. ‘We have good staff, the business could run itself for a few days.'

‘Make it a week.' Andrew moved his chair so the waitress could pour his coffee.

‘What about petrol to get down there, and the practice?'

‘Leave the details to me, Bethan. What do you say, Charlie?'

‘If Alma wants.'

Bethan squeezed Alma's hand sympathetically beneath the tablecloth.

‘Alma wants.' Alma laid her free hand on top of her husband's. ‘Very much indeed.'

Constable Huw Davies helped his blind wife, Myrtle, to Bethan's table before waylaying Tina. ‘Waitress just told me there's a stray soldier downstairs …'

‘Will!' Before Huw could say another word Tina whipped off her apron and ran full pelt down the stairs.

‘William's back?' Andrew asked.

‘Tony,' Huw corrected.

‘Given the Ronconi temper, I wouldn't like to be in your shoes when Tina sees her brother not her husband waiting to greet her.'

‘Tony?' Tina looked a little uncertainly at the uniformed soldier with dark eyes and black curly hair sitting at the family table in front of the till.

‘I haven't changed that much, have I?' he asked, rising from his seat.

‘Of course not.' She hugged him then called to a waitress. ‘Eileen, tell Mrs Grenville Mr Tony Ronconi's here.'

‘Mrs Grenville? Mr Tony Ronconi?' Tony queried. ‘That's a bit formal, isn't it?'

‘Not with the staff. You home for good?'

‘I hope so.'

‘There's a wedding upstairs.'

‘I know, your mother-in-law's marrying some Yank or other.'

‘Not some Yank. Dino's nice. He gave me the chocolate and cigarettes I sent to Will, Ronnie and you.'

‘And what did you give him in return?'

‘One more remark like that and I'll be giving you a punch on the nose.'

‘I meant café favours.'

‘He's had the odd free coffee.' Tina examined her brother carefully, wondering if he'd been drinking. ‘Why don't you come upstairs?' she suggested, remembering the last time he'd been home on leave. Drunk and offensive, it had taken the combined efforts of William, Ronnie, Diana and herself to calm Tony, and the damage he'd done to his relationship with Ronnie in that one afternoon had never been repaired. ‘Nearly everyone's there,' she added persuasively, deciding that if he had hit the bottle he was less likely to create a scene in front of a gathering of their closest friends and family.

‘I don't want to break in on a party, besides I've ordered a meal to be served here.'

‘You can eat upstairs. No one will mind. I don't suppose you've heard anything of Will?'

‘Or Ronnie?' Gina asked eagerly as she joined them, momentarily forgetting the fight between Tony and Ronnie the last time he'd been home, in the excitement of seeing her brother again.

‘No. Mama wrote that they were in Italy. I've come from Celle.'

‘Mrs Powell?' a kitchen hand called to Tina from behind the counter. ‘They're asking upstairs if you want them to go round with the coffee pot a second time.'

‘No peace for the wicked. I'll be back in a minute.' Tina ran back up the stairs.

‘I take it Celle is in Germany.' Gina manoeuvred her swollen body into a chair beside Tony, drawing his attention to her advanced state of pregnancy.

‘You and Luke didn't waste any time.'

‘It's our first and we've been married five years.'

‘In that case you're slow, and yes, Celle is in Germany.'

‘I hope the bloody Krauts are suffering all the torments of hell,' Eileen cursed earnestly as she served Tony pie, vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy.

‘They're suffering.' Tony appreciated the irony in the waitress's outburst. He knew Eileen's family. Her father had remained in a protected job in the council offices for the duration. Her mother's war work had extended as far as a few voluntary hours for the WVS and her brother had wangled himself a safe position in an army supply office in Scotland. ‘Almost as much as the Italians in the valleys who lost half their families to internment and the other half to exile in Birmingham. Not to mention the ones like my father who were killed being shipped out of the country to prison camps in Australia and Canada.'

‘Well, it's no more than the Krauts deserve, I'm sure.' Eileen hesitated uncertainly, wondering why Tony was talking about his family in the same breath as the Germans.

‘You're sure? All their cities and towns are flattened. Three and a half million of their soldiers have been killed, along with three million civilians, they've no food, half of them have lost their homes, their industries are wrecked and to top it all their country's full of occupying troops telling them what they can and can't do.' He sliced through the pie and poked suspiciously at the filling.

‘Serve them bloody well right. If you ask me, Tony -'

‘No one is asking you, Eileen,' Tina broke in abruptly as she returned to the table. ‘And I'll have no swearing in here. It's time you helped upstairs. Just one more thing,' she added as the girl walked away. ‘It's Mr Ronconi, to you.'

‘Mr Ronconi!' Tony made a face at his sister. ‘Not even
Mr Tony Ronconi
as it was earlier. Thank you for the elevation from the ranks, sister. What have I done to deserve it?'

‘Nothing – yet.'

‘Is there room for me at home?'

‘Of course,' Gina broke in eagerly. ‘The evacuees left months ago, Mama, Alfredo and Roberto came home from Birmingham last March. Maria, Theresa and Stephania stayed there with their husbands, which was hard on Mama but Angelo's back.'

‘I heard. Where is he?'

‘Running the Tumble café with Alfredo.'

‘Alfredo's a kid.'

‘Eighteen,' Tina corrected.

‘You moved out of the rooms above the Tumble café, Tina?'

‘No.'

‘But you will be moving out when Will comes home?'

‘First Gina and Luke, then Angelo, now you. Those rooms are my home and I'm hanging on to them.'

‘Accommodation is a problem in the town,' Gina revealed.

‘So I gathered from the conversation on the train as I came down.'

‘You'll be all right at home. There's a bed in Alfredo and Roberto's room.'

‘What about the boxroom?'

‘Angelo grabbed it.'

‘Then he can ungrab it. Where are you and Luke living?'

‘We have the parlour and one of the bedrooms. We've been looking for our own place but it's hopeless. He'll be so glad to see you, Tony. I'll go upstairs and get him.'

‘What about Laura and Trevor's house in Graig Street?' Tony asked, enquiring about their oldest sister's home as Gina left.

‘Diana's living there with her children and it's a tossup who'll be back first, Laura and Trevor from the hospital he's been stationed in at Portsmouth, or Ronnie. And there's no way that place is big enough for two couples and three children.'

‘Well, one thing's certain. Big brother won't stand for me moving in with his wife.'

‘Why are you so interested in getting your own place anyway?' Tina asked irritably. ‘Now that the war's over, and you're home for good, you've plenty of time to get yourself sorted.'

‘I want to sort myself out now, along with who is getting what part of the business. What's in this pie? No, don't tell me, I've a feeling I don't want to know.'

‘Ronnie will decide who's going to run the cafés when he comes home.'

‘Who made him Chief?'

‘Mama after Papa died. Given there are eleven of us, Tony, there's no way we can all work in the business. With only three cafés …'

‘I thought Ronnie went into some sort of partnership with Alma and Diana.'

‘Diana went into business with Alma in the shop she inherited from her first husband. That's her son Billy's inheritance and nothing to do with us.'

‘They used our High Street café as an extra kitchen.'

‘They're still using it and they pay us rent, which I sent with what else could be spared to Mama and the younger ones in Birmingham. How else do you think they lived?'

‘So what are you saying, Tina? That now I'm home for good I'm out of the business I ran before the war when Ronnie swanned off to Italy.'

‘Of course not. Ronnie -'

‘Ronnie hates my guts. If it was down to him I'd be put out on the streets without a penny.'

‘Now you're being melodramatic as well as stupid,' Tina said uneasily. ‘Tony, you should be upstairs meeting old friends not discussing things that need thrashing out at a family conference.'

‘And if I'm not around for the family conference?'

‘You're family, you'll be consulted,' she bit back crossly.

‘Are you still running things, or has Angelo taken over?'

‘Angelo's managing the café on the Tumble. I'm running this place. Gina -'

‘Should be out of it, given the state of her.'

‘She helped manage this place until two months ago.'

‘You girls have husbands to keep you.'

‘And because we have husbands you think we should move over and make room for you?'

‘The war's won. A woman's place is in the home.'

‘And if the woman doesn't think so?'

‘I'll talk to you after Will comes home.'

‘Will's my husband, not my master.'

‘Tina, don't you see you won't be needed? Angelo and I as good as ran the cafés before the war.'

‘Papa was in charge then and you know it. We all helped.'

‘It's time to break up the inheritance, Tina.'

‘Says who?'

‘Me. The cafés and this restaurant are a family business.'

‘Exactly, and we're family.'

‘Whose family? You're a Powell, Laura's a Lewis, Gina's a Grenville. You should look to your husbands to keep you as the younger girls in Birmingham have done, and just as my wife will be looking to me.'

‘You're married?' Tina stared at him incredulously.

‘I will be as soon as it can be arranged.'

‘Do we know her?'

‘I doubt it.' He looked his sister squarely in the eye so there could be no mistake. ‘She's German.'

The
HEARTS OF GOLD
series
by
Catrin Collier

  
  

  
  

  

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