Spoils of War (39 page)

‘Not if you don’t want to.’

‘There’s Theo.’

‘If we do see one another, Alma, it can’t be alone, and not like this. I couldn’t trust myself …’ His breath caught in his throat and she realised that despite whatever comfort Masha could offer him, he was suffering just as much as she was.

‘Charlie.’ She went to him. Nestling her head between his shoulder blades, she wrapped her arms round his waist, pulling him tightly to her. ‘Please, kiss me.’

‘Alma …’

‘Please, it will be the very last time.’

He turned, and she was in his arms. Bending his head to hers he kissed her hard, lovingly and longingly.

‘I love you.’

‘And I will always love you, Charlie, even if we can only be business partners from now on.’

‘Please, don’t come to the door. I will lock it.’

She heard him walk down the stairs, heard him close the door but she didn’t see him in the street. A few seconds later she realised why. The letterbox clattered and there was a quiet rattle as first one key, then another was pushed through the flap.

She waited, straining her neck to catch a last glimpse of him as he walked round the corner towards Penuel Lane. She opened the window so she could hear his footsteps die away. Then there was only silence.

Hooking the guard in front of the fire she left the room and went into the bedroom they had shared. Opening the wardrobe that had been his, she lifted out the one personal thing he hadn’t taken – because she had hidden it. A black, heavy-knit Aran sweater.

Curling into a ball on the bed she hugged it close, breathing in his scent and thinking how very lucky she had been to have had him for a husband and the father of her son, if only for a little while.

Chapter Twenty

‘Did you like the film?’

‘The sword fights were all right but the rest was stupid.’

‘I’m beginning to think stupid is your favourite word.’

‘Well, it was stupid.’

‘Why?’ Liza asked Peter, as they walked slowly up the hill, side by side, eating chips from newspaper cones that she’d suggested they buy as an alternative to going to the café.

‘Because the pirate wanted the woman and didn’t take her. He was strong, he had lots of men, he should have carried her off.’

‘It was obvious that, much as she loved him, she didn’t go with him because she couldn’t leave her children.’

‘There were plenty of servants to care for them so they would have been happy without her. And her fat, stupid husband with the silly hair would have bought them everything they wanted.’

‘You’re missing the point. She wouldn’t have been happy without them.’

‘If I’d been the pirate I would have made her sail away with me.’

‘Then maybe it’s just as well you weren’t the pirate because you would have ended up with a miserable woman who spent all her time crying over her children.’

‘I would have made her stop.’

‘How? By beating her?’

‘Only weak and pathetic men hit women and children.’ There was an edge to his voice that suggested he wasn’t trotting out a platitude he’d heard somewhere but speaking from experience. He looked at the hill in front of them. ‘You live at the top of this?’

‘For the one or two nights a week I can come home.’

‘Do you have to live away from home when you want to become a nurse?’

‘Yes, it’s three years’ training and I’ve only been doing it for six months.’

He made a face. ‘Two and a half years is a long time. Why won’t they let you come home more than two days a week?’

‘It’s one mostly, and they won’t let me come home more often because I have to live in a nurses’ home at the hospital. Auntie Bethan says it soon goes, and she should know: she did her initial training in Cardiff then came back to the Graig to do midwifery.’

‘Are your sisters nurses too?’

‘No. Two of them, Polly and Nell, are still in school and live with Auntie Bethan. The third, the next one down from me, Mary, works for – a family in town,’ she explained hurriedly, not wanting to go into details about his father’s other wife. ‘She helps look after a home and a small boy so his mother can work in a shop.’

‘Everything is different here from what I am used to.’

‘Not bad different, I hope?’

‘Just different. That man yesterday in the café, he said he was your boyfriend.’

‘We’ve been going out together for nearly a year.’

‘And if I want to be your boyfriend?’

‘It’s better we’re just friends. You’re years younger than me, but I enjoyed tonight, the pictures, the ice cream …’

‘My father said I should pay for you. Why didn’t you let me?’

‘Your father is old-fashioned. These days most girls pay half when they go out with a boy because they don’t want to feel they owe the boy anything. Besides, since the war, most girls as well as boys work so they have their own money.’

‘Girls didn’t work in this country before the war?’

‘Those who could afford to stayed at home to help their mothers run the house.’

‘I’m glad you’re working and earn your own money because I want to save all I can of mine.’

‘What for?’

‘Mr Ronconi is prepared to pay me more money than most people earn in a day to work in his garage. That means he expects me to make a lot of money for him, but if I save enough to buy my own garage I will be able to keep everything I earn for myself.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re the oddest mixture, Peter. Sometimes you sound as though you’re sixty years old, and at other times six. I can’t make you out.’

‘I love you.’

‘No you don’t, you’ve just met me.’

‘My mother told me one day I would look into a girl’s eyes and recognise in that one single moment I’d met the person I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. It happened last night. I want to marry you.’

‘No one gets married just like that and especially not at sixteen.’

‘I’d be happy just to sleep with you but my father said most people here only do that after they’re married.’

‘He’s right.’

‘He also said I should take things slowly. One kiss on the cheek tonight and only if you let me. He didn’t want any complaints from Mrs John.’

‘Then I’ll have to make sure you behave like a gentleman, won’t I? This is Auntie Bethan’s house.’ She turned off the lane into the driveway.

He peered ahead. ‘I don’t see a house.’

‘It’s best seen from the front. Here, I’ll show you.’ She led him round the curving drive until they stood in front of the three-storeyed villa. ‘Would you like to come in?’

‘No, I want to go home and make sure my mother is resting. She’s not very strong.’ He looked up at the house, outlined in the moonlight. ‘How many people live here?’

‘Dr and Mrs John, their two children, my sisters, me when I’m home and the maid.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s enough.’

‘It’s as big as a hotel I saw in Germany. Doesn’t anyone live in small houses in Pontypridd?’

‘Plenty of people. Didn’t you see the two-bedroomed terraces when we walked up the hill?’

‘No, because I was looking at you. Can I have my one kiss?’

‘Boys don’t usually ask.’

‘My father said I was only to kiss you if you let me. How am I supposed to find out if you’ll let me, if I don’t ask?’

‘Peter …’

‘Don’t laugh at me!’

‘Who’s laughing?’ Standing on tiptoe she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. A second later his hands locked round her waist like a vice, his tongue was in her mouth and she was fighting for air.

‘My God!’ she gasped, when he finally released her. ‘Where did you learn to kiss like that?’

‘I didn’t learn, it came from my love for you. I told you one day we’ll be married. Look into my eyes the next time you see me, then you’ll know it too. Good night, Liza.’

‘Good night, Peter.’

‘Call me Pasha,’ he whispered back from the gate. ‘Like my mother. That will bring us nearer to being husband and wife.’

‘So,’ Mrs Ronconi looked over her reading glasses at Gabrielle, ‘you love my son Tony.’

‘Yes, Mrs Ronconi,’ Gabrielle acknowledged.

‘Even now, when he’s in jail for attacking a man?’

‘He only hit him because he called me a Nazi – and – and because we’d quarrelled,’ she admitted in a smaller voice.

‘You quarrelled with him because he told you a pack of lies.’

‘Perhaps I misunderstood him.’

‘Angelo told me that you expected a big hotel and a lot of restaurants. Did you make that up, or Tony?’

‘My English has improved since I met Tony. Perhaps I didn’t quite grasp what he was trying to tell me when we were in Germany,’ she answered, bending the truth.

‘But you don’t like the rooms above the café?’

‘The rooms above the café are very comfortable.’ Gabrielle glanced around the homely kitchen, with its patchwork cushion covers and home-made rag rugs, and realised that if anything, the living room above the café was better-furnished than Mrs Ronconi’s home. ‘I was tired after the journey, there were so many people around. I didn’t know what I was saying. The rooms are much better than the one room in Celle my mother and I have lived in since we lost our house in Prussia.’

‘House … but your family had a castle, so Tony said. Or was that another of his lies?’

‘No, that’s not a lie. We did own a castle, an old one. It wasn’t in very good condition – part of it was little more than ruins – and the Russians have it now. But my past is behind me, Mrs Ronconi. I came to this country to marry Tony and work hard beside him to build a life for both of us – together. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because of all the terrible things the Germans did during the war but I thought – I hoped – that …’

‘We’d forget.’

‘No, not forget. To forget would be to deny that all the people who have been killed in the war had lived. No …’ Gabrielle struggled to find the right words. ‘To accept me for who I am,’ she said slowly. ‘To realise that not all German people are bad.’

‘You know Tony was very ill when he came home?’

‘He wrote that he had pneumonia.’

‘I promised God that if he recovered I would give him – and you – a big white church wedding.’

‘We would be happier with a small one,’ Gabrielle ventured, hoping not to offend her prospective mother-in-law.

‘Do you have a wedding dress?’

‘I have an elegant brown costume.’

‘You girls and your costumes. You are just like my Gina and Tina – they married during the war and both in costumes.’

‘I think a marriage is more important than a wedding, Mrs Ronconi, and I will do everything in my power to make your Tony happy.’

‘That’s a lot more than he deserves.’

‘It is good of you to allow me to live here, in your home, but I don’t expect you to keep me. I could pay for my food and rent. I have some money that I saved from the wages I earned working for the British Army in Germany. Or, if you have any work that I can do in return for my room and board I would be happy to do it. I can cook, clean, type and keep books and until I marry Tony I would like to do something.’

‘And after you marry Tony?’

‘I will help my husband in whatever he wants to do.’

The door opened and Angelo walked in.

‘Hello.’ He looked from his mother to Gabrielle, surprised to see them sitting together in the kitchen. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Luke and Gina are in their parlour. Roberto’s upstairs. He’s supposed to be having an early night but knowing him he’ll have his nose in a book. And we’re here. Where’s Alfredo?’

‘Staying in the café.’

‘Weren’t you supposed to be going out with Liza?’

‘I tried telephoning her from the café. Bethan said she’d gone to the pictures with a friend so I thought I’d come up here and see how you two are getting on.’

‘Gabrielle’s been telling me a bit about herself. Did you know she could type, keep books, cook and clean?’

‘No I didn’t.’ He sat at the table and took a wizened winter apple from the bowl in the centre.

‘I thought maybe you could find her something to do in the restaurant.’

‘With Tony in jail we can do with all the help we can get.’

‘What if someone calls me a Nazi again?’

‘We keep our tempers and get someone else to serve them.’

‘You would really let me work for you?’

‘We’re so short-staffed I’d take on a two-headed monkey if it could work the till. Do you understand our money?’

‘Yes, I helped out in the NAAFI.’

‘Be up early; we’ll get you started on the counter before I go up to Spickett’s to see if there’s any chance of getting Tony out.’

‘You think Tony could be released?’ she asked excitedly.

‘Ronnie – that’s my eldest brother, you haven’t met him – seems to think there’s a possibility.’

‘And if he comes out we can go to the priest and set the date for our wedding?’

‘You still want to marry him?’ Angelo asked in surprise.

‘Of course. Tony is the only reason I came to this country. I love him,’ she added firmly, ‘very much indeed.’

‘You didn’t telephone,’ Bethan reprimanded as Liza walked into the kitchen.

‘Peter walked me all the way home, Auntie Beth.’

‘Did he behave himself?’ Andrew knocked the ashes from his pipe on the side of the stove.

‘Like a gentleman.’ Liza smiled. ‘I think his father gave him a lecture before we went out. He even asked permission to kiss me good night.’

‘You let him!’

‘His father told him he could expect a kiss on the cheek, Auntie Beth,’ Liza answered, stretching the truth.’

‘Angelo’s a nice boy.’

‘So is Peter.’

‘He hasn’t been brought up like you.’

‘From what little he’s said about himself I don’t think he’s been brought up like anyone I know, but he means well and he’s good and kind at heart.’

‘Liza …’

‘I like him, Auntie Beth.’

‘If you two ladies are going to argue, I’m going to bed.’ Andrew left his chair.

‘Haven’t you got anything to say about this?’

‘Plenty, Beth, but nothing Liza will want to hear or take any notice of. Just promise me one thing, Liza, don’t rush into anything you may regret later.’

‘I won’t, Uncle Andrew, and thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me, I’m leaving you to face Bethan alone. If that isn’t cowardly behaviour, I don’t know what is.’

‘Liza, Peter’s sixteen, you’re nineteen …’ Bethan began as Andrew left the room.

‘And I’ve only met him twice but …’ She took Andrew’s chair and looked across at her adoptive mother. ‘It’s what I was talking about this morning. Imagining that when I fell in love it would be momentous, huge, like Cinderella at the ball.’

‘And it’s like that with Peter?’

‘Something happened between us the first moment we looked at one another.’

‘But Liza, he doesn’t care about anything or anyone.’

‘That’s not true. He loves his mother very much.’

‘Only because she looked after him when he was a baby and he couldn’t look after himself.’

‘It’s more than that. He thinks he has to act tough because that’s what was expected of him when he was growing up. Once he settles down here and gets used to this country he’ll change.’

‘You really believe that?’

‘I had tea with Peter and his parents. Peter may not show what he feels but he listens to everything his father tells him and follows his advice.’

‘Like the kiss.’

‘Like the kiss,’ Liza laughed.

‘But you will remember your promise to Andrew?’

‘Of course, and as you reminded me, Peter is only sixteen. We have all the time in the world to get to know one another.’

‘And Angelo?’

‘You were right, I was asking you all those questions this morning because I already knew that Angelo wasn’t the one for me.’

‘Poor Angelo.’

‘He’ll find someone else, Auntie Beth. No one dies of a broken heart these days, and it would have been far worse for him if I had married him out of habit.’