All That Glitters, page 37
‘Back there? Eddie, don’t tell me you went down the gym the night after you got married?’
‘Got an important fight lined up in a month. And Jenny didn’t seem to mind.’ It was convenient to blame the row between himself and Jenny on her mother. Half-truths were easier to remember than outright lies, and he’d have suffered any torments gladly rather than tell Will or anyone else in his family what had really triggered the argument between himself and Jenny last night.
‘Is that what she told you? She didn’t mind? God, you’ve a lot to learn about women.’
‘I’ve got nothing to learn about my wife that you can tell me.’
‘Look mate, you’re gunning for the wrong enemy. I’m on your side. Cigarette?’ William held out the peace offering.
‘Everything would have been fine if it hadn’t been for her damned mother interfering.’
‘Pity you didn’t have the sense to pick an orphan like your brother.’
‘Who’s he added to his string now?’
‘Jane.’
‘Jane? In the house Jane?’
‘I don’t know of any other.’
‘She’s not Haydn’s type,’ Eddie declared emphatically, tightening his fists at the thought of Jenny wanting to kiss his brother barely an hour after she’d married him.
‘That’s what I’d have said, but you should have seen them together in Barry Island yesterday.’
‘You went to Barry Island?’
‘All of us. Your father and Phyllis as well.’
‘And you didn’t think to ask me?’
‘You expected us to knock you up from your wedding night in the New Inn to invite you to Barry Island?’
‘You could have.’ Eddie couldn’t help thinking that a trip to Barry Island would have been infinitely preferable to spending the day arguing with Jenny, and eating Mrs Griffiths’ Sunday dinner in the uncomfortably warm, oppressive atmosphere of the Griffiths’ living room. But then Haydn would have been there and, if William was to be believed, with Jane. But would he have stayed with Jane, if Jenny had been there? Questions seared through his mind, inflaming raw and bleeding jealousies. Did Jenny still love Haydn? Did Haydn love her? Had Haydn made love to her behind his back since he’d been home, despite all the denials?
‘What’s the New Inn like?’
William’s conversation maddened him like a nagging toothache.
‘You’ve been in there,’ he said.
‘Not to stay. I’ve never had the money.’
‘It’s like I expected it to be. Full of puffed-up flunkeys and overpriced drinks.’
‘Not a good idea of Beth and Cashmere Coat’s, then?’
‘Good enough. You sure about Haydn and Jane?’
‘They kept disappearing. It wasn’t so obvious on the beach because Jane can’t swim. Someone had to stay with her, and you know me and Di.’
‘Out with the ferries.’
‘Not quite that far. But when we got to the fair your father and Phyllis took Brian home early and Haydn told – didn’t ask, mark you – told us that he’d see us at the chip shop at dusk. Then off he marches arm in arm with Jane.’
‘You think it’s serious between them?’
‘How should I know? Haydn says not, but then you know your brother; since he’s come home he’s played his cards close to his chest.’
‘But you think there’s something in it?’
‘Diana saw him kissing her. What amazes me is that with all that delectable crumpet going begging in the Town Hall, he picks out a girl who looks like Olive Oyl. But then looks aren’t everything, or so all the old, ugly women keep telling me. Not every man can be as lucky as you with Jenny. Now there’s a looker for you.’
‘That’s my wife you’re talking about.’
‘As if I didn’t know. Between you and Haydn I never got a chance to put my oar in, not even in school. Not that I’d want to now,’ he added swiftly, realising what he was saying, and who he was saying it to. Marriage certainly did change a man, and not for the better if Eddie was anything to go by. A couple of days ago he could have said almost anything to him, and Eddie would have shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Now holding a conversation with him was like trying to walk on a carpet of eggs. ‘I know the first rule of self-preservation: married ladies are out of bounds.’
‘You didn’t think so last spring,’ Eddie reminded him acidly.
‘That particular married lady had a husband who was too old to appreciate her. You’re not old, you’re also handy with your fists and I’m an abject coward. I hereby declare that Jenny’s entirely yours, and I promise not to even cast as much as a glance in her direction. Look, we’ve got a couple of minutes to spare,’ he said as they drew close to Griffiths’ shop. ‘Why don’t you nip in and make it up with her?’
‘No.’
‘This is one time you shouldn’t dig your heels in. Go on, Eddie, it’ll blight your day if you don’t. I’ll wait for you.’
‘You really think I should?’ Eddie slowed his step.
‘If I had a wife like Jenny, and we’d quarrelled, I’d be crawling back on my hands and knees, begging forgiveness.’
‘Even if it wasn’t your fault?’
‘What’s fault got to do with anything when the stake is sleeping in her bed as opposed to mine?’ William leaned against the wall of the small shop opposite Griffiths’ and lit a cigarette, watching as Eddie crossed the road and walked round to the side door in the yard.
Eddie tried the storeroom door; it was open. Had Harry left it open, or had Jenny come down last night and opened it, hoping he’d come back? He stole through the shop and crept quietly up the stairs. Jenny’s bedroom was closed. He turned the knob and went in. She was lying curled on her side, her face wet with tears, her blonde hair spread out in a silken spray on the pillow next to her.
‘Jenny?’ he whispered. ‘Jenny …’
Her eyes flickered open, heavy and hazy with sleep. She looked at Eddie for only a moment before closing them again, but her mouth curved upwards into a lazy, loving smile. ‘Haydn …’
‘It’s your husband, not your lover!’
‘Eddie! Oh my God, Eddie!’
‘What’s going on here!’ Mrs Griffiths slammed open the bedroom door, her face shiny with cold cream, iron curlers in her hair. ‘I thought you left last night. If you’ve come back to hurt my daughter …’
‘Hurt her!’ White shock paled Eddie’s face as he started to laugh. ‘She’s not worth bloodying my fists.’
‘Eddie!’
William heard Jenny’s hysterical screaming as Eddie latched the yard door behind him.
‘What happened?’ he asked, running to catch up as his cousin walked on down the hill. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he murmured, chilled by the bleak look on Eddie’s face. ‘I should have kept my mouth shut. I was only trying to help …’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Eddie said in a cold, dead voice. ‘It really doesn’t. Nothing matters any more.’
Charlie was waiting for them outside the slaughterhouse on Broadway, a side of beef balanced on his broad shoulders. ‘You’re late.’
‘Lazybones here wanted to stay in bed and cuddle his wife.’ William explained, glancing sideways at Eddie.
‘There’s two pigs ready gutted waiting to be carried to the shop.’
‘We’re there.’
‘Thanks.’ Eddie murmured as they walked through the huge double doors.
‘For what?’
‘Not letting on to Charlie where I slept last night. Not that he won’t latch on soon enough.’
‘Think nothing of it, mate. After all, it’s not as if it’s permanent. Is it?’ he dared to ask as Eddie moved on ahead of him.
Alma had already lit the stoves, so all that had to be done when they arrived at the shop was the cutting and preparing of the carcasses into joints ready for cooking. Eddie set to work, but he did so mechanically, preoccupied with thoughts of Jenny and Haydn. He allowed the oven doors to swing wide as he lifted the heavy roasting and baking trays in and out of the stoves, and much to Alma’s annoyance he also poured away the water the hams had boiled in, and drained the fat instead of keeping it for her to use in making pork pies. Both of them were glad when six o’clock finally came and he left her to carry on with baking the pies, pasties and croquettes while he opened up the shop for the early customers. Even then, every time the bell rang he looked up fearfully, half expecting, half hoping to see Jenny in the doorway. Wondering what he would say to her if she did actually materialise.
The early trickle thickened to a mid-morning rush, but Jenny still hadn’t put in an appearance by midday when Charlie and William came in from the slaughterhouse.
In silence he toyed with the meat baps Alma had cut for him, pretending to read the paper so he didn’t have to contribute to Charlie and William’s discussion on the war news and who in the town was likely to get called up first, or see the looks Alma and Charlie exchanged when they thought no one was looking; looks that reminded him of just how close a man and a woman could be. He wondered what Jenny was thinking now. Was she too afraid to confront him? Probably. And then again even if she did come, what could she possibly say that he’d listen to? What excuse could she have for refusing to make love to him in the night and calling him by his brother’s name, in her bedroom the following morning?
William and Charlie finished their meal and left to do the rounds in the new van. The day lagged on, the piles of meat and cooked pies diminished and there was still no sign of Jenny. But he couldn’t stop looking out for her, right up until the moment Alma pushed the bolts home on the door.
Whatever problems he’d faced before, he’d tackled them square on, settling most of them with his fists. But this was one situation he couldn’t fight his way out of. He could hardly punch Jenny – or for that matter her mother – on the nose. Neither could he help thinking of Harry Griffiths and the miserable celibate life he led under his own roof. Well, he’d show Jenny. He’d told her he wasn’t like her father. If she was giving what was his by right to Haydn, then he’d just have to find someone else. Someone who could remember his name, and wasn’t too particular about wedding rings.
By the time everything in the shop had been washed down and cleaned ready for the morning he’d thought of a hundred and one excuses for not going up the Graig hill and confronting his wife. He’d said all that he had to say. There was nothing for him there. He’d already packed and taken everything that was his out of Jenny’s bedroom. She wouldn’t be expecting him. And then again maybe she didn’t even want him any more. Maybe she was with Haydn right now – making love this very minute? Then he realised he was being irrational. How could she be, when Haydn was on stage in the Town Hall?
Nor would Phyllis be expecting him. After all, hadn’t his father told him to make amends with Jenny? He’d left the house that morning before Phyllis had come downstairs, and he doubted that either his father or William would tell her he’d been there. That left the gym. His training was more important than ever now. It offered a way out from Pontypridd, and away from Jenny. He could buy himself tea in a café – not Ronconi’s, William or Diana might be there – but one of the others. Egg and chips was filling and cheap enough. And after his training and a few pints he’d go home – to Graig Avenue. If Jenny had gone looking for him there, Phyllis or his father would know about it, and if she hadn’t, he would shrug his shoulders and say he hadn’t expected her. That way he’d save face. That was the most important thing of all at the moment: impressing on everyone that what had gone wrong wasn’t his fault, that it was a case of wife turned brother’s whore. More than any man except a saint like Harry Griffiths could possibly put up with.
*……*……*
‘I saw you skulking in the bushes with your little usherette.’ Babs propped herself in the open doorway of Haydn’s dressing room.
‘We weren’t skulking, we were walking.’ Haydn stared at her in the mirror as he continued to smooth greasepaint on to his face.
‘She’s a bit of a come-down for a man like you, after what you’ve been used to.’
‘I’d say I was going up in the world.’
‘With a plain Jane like that?’
‘Who was it said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”?’
‘A woman who had nothing going for her.’
‘We are feeling more than usually bitchy today, aren’t we?’
‘You’re not even going to deny it, are you?’
He turned sideways on his chair and faced her. He loathed scenes, particularly the hysterical, emotional traumas Babs was adept at engineering, but this was one row he was going to have to suffer sooner or later. And with yesterday fresh in his mind, he decided it may as well be sooner, for both his own and Jane’s sake.
‘What I do, and the friends I choose to do it with are no concern of yours, Babs.’
‘Friends! Is that what you are with that little nobody?’
‘Lay off the hair shirt, it doesn’t suit you. It was good between us while it lasted. Let’s leave it at that.’ He was conscious of using the same hackneyed lines he’d spoken to Rusty. Was that a sign that he was now more a native of the theatrical world than the normal? What would come next? Speaking only scripted lines? Hugs and kisses all round, and calling everyone ‘Sweetheart’ or ‘Darling’, like Chuckles did when he couldn’t remember their names?
‘That wasn’t what you said to me that first afternoon after rehearsals, or the Sunday you dragged me into the bushes in the park.’
‘We lunched in the New Inn.’
‘After you got what you wanted. I haven’t forgotten it, even if you have. If you felt then that it had been “good between us while it lasted” why did you take my knickers off?’
He felt conscience-stricken and ashamed. What could he say to her? That he’d been bored and she’d been an attractive diversion? That Rusty wasn’t enough for him? That he’d wanted to show off his collection of girls to the town? Every one of those replies would have held a certain amount of truth.
‘What was I to you?’ Cold anger was now liberally laced with tears of righteous indignation. ‘If you’d left me for Helen I wouldn’t have liked it, but I could have consoled myself with the thought that she had longer legs, bigger tits, a nicer bum and glossier hair than me. But Jane …’
‘We’re friends, not lovers. Perhaps I’m tired of playing around, Babs. Have you thought of that?’
‘Tired of playing around? Tired of sleeping around, you mean! Not you, Haydn. I may be a chorus girl, I may make my living out of showing off as much of my body as the Lord Chamberlain will allow, but please, give me credit for some intelligence. I’ve slept with you. Night after night for six weeks. And here …’
‘Keep your voice down,’ he pleaded, sensing an unnatural silence outside the door.
‘Why the hell should I when you’re spinning me lies? Me, who’s given you everything a girl has to give, and now when I could be carrying your baby …’ She slumped dramatically to the floor and burst into noisy, theatrical wails.
He stared at her in horror, remembering his father; his parents’ sterile marriage.
‘That’s shut you up, hasn’t it? What have you got to say about “it was good while it lasted” now?’
‘Are you pregnant?’ His voice was leaden.
‘Serve you bloody well right if I am.’
‘Babs …’
‘I’m not some stupid country bumpkin. I know enough to make you pay all right. Every last penny it’s going to cost me to raise your bastard, and every penny I would have earned on stage while I’m carrying it. I’ve got talent. Ask around, everyone says so. I was destined for great things before this happened. Chuckles wanted me for the West End. And now it’s all gone out of the window …’
The tears came again. He shut the door, and held her in his arms. All the while he stroked her hair, and murmured trite, meaningless reassurances, he breathed in the smell of her powder and the harsh, astringent scent she was wearing and wondered how he could have been so stupid as to fall for the oldest trick in the book.
‘Five-minute call for Mr Powell! Five-minute call for Mr Haydn Powell! Five-minute call for Miss Bradley!’
He looked into the mirror, seeing Babs and himself – together. Her greasepaint smeared on to his costume shirt; his rouge was smudged. He had to repair his make-up, tell her to do the same. Then they had to go out on stage. Smile. Perform. Put on a show. Afterwards they’d have to talk, and make decisions. What was the worst possible scenario? That he’d marry her and live out the rest of his life in some crazy theatrical production of her making, where there’d be no audience other than themselves. He shuddered at the thought.
‘Haydn …’
She was calmer. But he wasn’t egotistical enough to believe that it was anything he’d done. The five-minute call had a sobering effect on every professional.
‘We have to get ready.’
‘And after the show?’
‘We’ll talk.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
She left, he returned to his make-up mirror and set about layering on the gloss. And the worst that could happen if he refused to marry her? She would take him to court and sue him for maintenance for herself and the child. He’d have to economise, set aside a portion of whatever he earned each week for his baby. His son – or daughter! He suddenly saw beyond the concept to the being he had unwittingly created. A child he had given the worst possible start in life. A mother he didn’t even like, let alone love.
‘Well?’ Jenny looked apprehensively at her father as he walked into the shop and shook the rain from his coat.
‘Five bob a week.’
‘You managed to knock Mrs Edwards down, then?’
‘It wasn’t difficult. She was just trying it on.’ He opened the door into the hallway, slid his soaking umbrella into the stand, and hung his hat and coat on the end hook, away from all the others. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. Rain had begun to teem down late that afternoon at a rate that made up for the six-week drought, and showed no sign of abating. Puddles had collected in the potholes on the hill and Harry’s shoes and socks were completely sodden. ‘You can move in right away. Her son leaves on the early train tomorrow for Cardiff. She said you can bring your own furniture, but as the place is furnished already I thought you’d probably want to leave it for a while.’
