All That Glitters, page 42
‘But he will live?’
Andrew thought he’d never seen such a mixture of guilt and misery on a face before. ‘He’ll live,’ he repeated as he left his chair. ‘But as you obviously aren’t convinced, you’d better come with me.’
‘Now?’
‘I can’t think of a better time if you’re going to sleep tonight. But I warn you, he’s not a pretty sight. Definitely a case of looking worse than he is.’
Haydn was in a single-bedded side ward. That in itself worried Eddie, as he could see a room lined with what seemed like dozens of beds up ahead. That had to mean Haydn’s condition was more serious than that of the other patients. A nurse who was sitting with him rose when Andrew entered. He picked up the chart at the foot of the bed and signalled for her to go outside.
‘A few minutes, Eddie,’ he said as he followed her out. ‘And be careful not to tire or upset him.’
Haydn was lying on his back. From what little that could be seen of his face beneath the copious layers of bandages, his eyes were closed. Eddie crept up to the chair.
‘Haydn?’
One red, swollen eye opened, then more slowly the other.
‘Haydn, I’m sorry …’
‘So am I, mate.’ The bandages moved slightly as Haydn attempted a smile, but he abandoned the gesture. It was too painful, even though the effect of the anaesthetic hadn’t quite worn off.
‘You see, I thought …’
‘I love Jane, not Jenny,’ Haydn mumbled through swollen lips.
‘I know that now. Andrew says you’re going to be all right.’
‘It’s useful having a doctor in the family.’ Haydn was having trouble focusing. Everything was blurred, including his brother; if he hadn’t known him better he would have said he was crying. ‘When I get out we’ll go to the New Inn, your treat. Me, you, Jenny and Jane. You’re a lucky sod, kid. You’ve a good career in the ring ahead of you, and a wife who loves you.’
‘You think so?’
‘She may not know it yet, but she will. People do funny things.’ Haydn’s voice grew faint. Eddie had to bend forward to catch what he was saying. ‘They conjure up a soul-mate and fit the first person who comes along into their idea of a dream lover. I tried to do it with Jane before I saw who she really was. I think Jenny did it with me after I went away. But I’m the dream and you’re real, Eddie … you’re real …’
‘That’s enough.’ Andrew walked into the room and replaced the charts. ‘It’s time the patient slept.’
‘See you, Eddie.’ Haydn’s eyes were already closing.
Eddie went into the corridor. He sank into the nearest chair and buried his face in his hands. He was still sitting there a few moments later when Andrew passed.
‘Come on, time we both went home. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘I could have killed him.’
‘You could have, but you didn’t. Try remembering that.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me calling so late, but I’ve come to see how Haydn is.’ Yesterday Jane had lived in this house, today she was hovering at the front door wondering what kind of reception she’d get, uncertain as to whether or not Haydn had told his family about the pin-up photographs – or even worse shown them.
‘He’s going to be all right,’ Phyllis said as she ushered her through to the kitchen.
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘We all have.’
‘And I’ve just left him.’
Jane only just managed to conceal her surprise at the sight of Eddie sitting at the table. After what Myra had said she’d expected him to be in jail.
‘Tea?’ Phyllis asked the room in general.
‘No thanks, I’m swimming in the stuff.’
‘Pity they don’t have beer on tap in the hospital.’ William winked at Jane.
‘You’ll have tea, won’t you?’ Phyllis asked Jane as she set the kettle on to boil.
‘No thank you. I only called to find out how Haydn is. First night in new digs, the landlady will be wondering where I am.’
‘You’ve found a good place?’ Phyllis pressed, hoping for the address.
‘It’s fine, and the landlady is really nice.’
‘And you’ll come and see us?’
‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Jane replied ambiguously.
‘If you’re set on going, I’ll walk you. I could do with a breath of fresh air,’ Evan offered.
‘No.’ Jane said quickly. ‘It’s not far, and I’ll enjoy five minutes’ peace and quiet. The Town Hall can get a bit hectic.’
‘You could go and see Haydn if you like. Visiting’s every Wednesday and Saturday, but if you time it when Andrew John is around, he’ll let you in for a few minutes.’
‘I won’t be able to visit. It’s just that the girls in the Town Hall were worried, so I said I’d come up and ask how he is. Everyone will be pleased to hear he’s going to be all right.’
‘He won’t be back on stage for a few weeks yet.’
‘Give him our best wishes.’
‘Our?’ Phyllis asked.
‘All the staff.’ Jane opened the door.
‘I’ll see you out.’ Phyllis walked Jane to the front steps.
‘And I’m for bed. Don’t stay up too late, you two.’ Evan closed the kitchen door behind him.
‘You all right, nipper?’ William asked as Eddie slumped over the table.
‘Would you be if you were me?’
‘There’s no permanent harm done.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Look on the bright side. While you carry on packing punches like that, the Nazis aren’t going to set their sights on Ponty.’
The kitchen was very still after everyone had gone. Eddie sat staring into space, trying not to think about what might have happened. It was no use. Every time he closed his eyes an image of Haydn lying lifeless and covered in blood amongst the debris of the shop window came to mind. Pacing to the range he saw a copy of the Pontypridd Observer on Evan’s chair. An advertisement on the front page caught his eye.
WELSH GUARDS
Volunteers required now for the WELSH GUARDS.
Age 20-35. Height 5ft 9ins or over.
Men can present themselves for enlistment at all Recruiting Centres.
Enquiries will be answered at all Police Stations.
Men registered to be called up under National Service, but not already called, may enlist now in the WELSH GUARDS.
Enlistment on normal engagement, or for the duration of war.
‘You can’t run from me. I’m your wife.’
He couldn’t run from Jenny while he stayed in Pontypridd, but there was one way of avoiding her, and all his problems, for the duration.
He opened the drawer in the huge old oak dresser that dominated the wall opposite the window and extracted a long, flat cardboard box. Inside he found what he was looking for: a pen, writing paper and envelopes.
*……*……*
‘What you doing?’
‘Getting clean clothes.’
‘What time is it?’ William tried to decipher the numbers on the clock without much success.
‘Too early to get up. Go back to sleep.’ Eddie found the bag he’d carried from the shop the night before and hadn’t unpacked. Backing softly out of the door he tiptoed downstairs. He washed, shaved and changed in the washhouse. Picking up his bag again, he realised that he’d find no use for half the things in it once he was in uniform. He took it into Haydn’s room, switched on the light and emptied it out on to the bed. He repacked his towel, shaving kit, Post Office book, boxing gloves and strip. He felt a momentary pang of regret for the match with the South African that he wouldn’t be fighting, but then, after what he’d done to his own brother he wasn’t sure he wanted to enter a ring ever again. A grim smile crossed his face as he realised the strange sentiments he was carrying to war.
He left before dawn. The things he’d left behind were in a neat pile on Haydn’s bed. Two of the letters he’d written were on the kitchen table, one addressed to Evan and the other to Charlie, William would take Charlie’s down. Another rested in his pocket. The hill was in darkness, but his eyes became accustomed to the blackout long before he reached Griffiths’ shop. He stopped and posted the envelope through the door. Walking on, he stood on the hill for a few moments looking down at the dark shapes of the Maritime and the workhouse.
He reached the station just as the first pale light of dawn touched the eastern sky.
‘You’re up and about early, Eddie,’ Dai Station commented as he walked into the booking hall.
‘Couldn’t sleep. When’s the Cardiff train due?’
‘Five minutes. Fight lined up?’
‘The biggest one of all mate,’ he answered before running up the steps to the platform.
‘You’re not going to get a better offer, boy.’
‘I know and I’m grateful.’
‘Think about it, Haydn. What else could you possibly do until your leg mends?’ Chuckles pressed insistently, very much on the producer’s side. He’d been responsible for inviting the producer down to see Haydn perform in Pontypridd, and the least he could do was ensure that the man succeeded in his aim of putting Haydn under contract, and incidentally compensating him for having to replace his leading man for the remainder of the Summer Variety run. There isn’t a show that will consider a leading man, or for that matter a chorus boy, with a broken leg and facial scars like yours.’
‘I know.’ Haydn shifted restlessly on his bed. Six days in hospital was six days too long. He was stiff, irritable and bored witless. Not one of his letters to Jane had been answered. On reflection – and he’d had a lot of time for reflection – he didn’t blame her for not writing after some of the things he’d said. It was just that he couldn’t stop hoping that she’d take pity on him in his present state. The other girls had. He’d been showered with chocolates, magazines and kisses from the chorus and every usherette except the one he wanted to see. But it wasn’t just Jane. It was the war. Eddie had joined up and William and Charlie were both talking about volunteering. And all he was capable of doing, all he’d been offered was...
‘It’ll practically be your own radio show, son,’ the producer said persuasively. ‘There’ll be others, of course. Four singers in all, two men and two girls, but you’ll be the linchpin and I’ll personally see to it that you’re given a free hand. You’ll have a secretary to sift through the requests from the troops, but you can pick and choose your songs from whatever comes in, and perform and arrange them any way you like as long as you keep the audience happy. And from what I saw of you on stage, that seems to be second nature.’
‘We’ve talked to the doctor. He’s agreed that you can leave with us tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ Haydn looked at Chuckles in disbelief.
‘He said there shouldn’t be a problem, provided you carry on your treatment in London. You’ll get the best possible doctor, help with dressing -’
‘But we have to leave in an hour,’ the producer interrupted, checking his watch.
‘If I agree to go with you, there’s one thing I want you to know …’
‘That you intend to join up as soon as you’re back in one piece? Don’t look so surprised,’ the producer said irritably. ‘It’s what everyone is threatening to do these days. But don’t worry, boy. You won’t be needed. By the time that leg heals it’ll all be over.’
‘There’s also someone I’d like to see before I go,’ Haydn looked at the clock. Eight! Jane would be in the Town Hall. He wouldn’t even be able to climb the stairs with the plaster cast.
‘We have to get back to London before morning, and that means leaving as soon as we’ve eaten. I’ve no time to waste shilly-shallying.’
Haydn looked up to Andrew in the doorway.
‘I can pack your things and bring them here.’
‘Sounds like a conspiracy.’
‘I can’t see you getting a better offer in your present state of health.’
‘Have I got time to dress?’
‘You can have as long as it takes us to dine in the New Inn. Well pick you up afterwards. Don’t worry about accommodation or anything. Everything will be sorted for you, including a doctor to keep an eye on those cuts and that leg.’
Andrew brought not only Haydn’s case but also the entire family. Suddenly there seemed to be no time left for anything. Diana and Phyllis sat ripping the seam open on the right leg of a pair of his trousers. William ate the last of the chocolates the Variety girls had sent in to save him the trouble, and Evan, Bethan and Phyllis tried to ask sensible questions about the job, but didn’t get very far because Haydn was too abstracted to listen to what anyone was saying. Knowing that there was absolutely no chance of Jane walking in still didn’t stop him from hoping.
‘They’ve just pulled up outside,’ Andrew pushed a wheelchair into the room. ‘Right, if you ladies leave, we’ll get what’s left of his trousers on, then you can say goodbye.’
Diana, Phyllis and Bethan left. William and Evan helped him on with his clothes; Andrew handed him his hat.
‘This,’ Andrew produced a letter from the pocket of his white coat, ‘is for your new doctor.’
‘Thanks, not just for this but for everything.’ William and his father had gone out into the corridor. He could hear Diana and Bethan laughing at something William had said. ‘I have one more favour to ask.’
‘Ask away.’
‘You remember what I said that morning you gave me a lift?’
‘About Jane?’
‘Will you see she gets these?’ He thrust a note he’d managed to scribble in the bathroom and a small box into Andrew’s hand. ‘I told her if she doesn’t want to keep the ring she can give it back to you.’
‘You want me to send it on?’
Haydn shook his head. ‘If there’s no letter, just write and tell me what she said.’
‘I’ll do that. And Haydn,’ Andrew offered his hand as William wheeled him out. ‘Good luck. I hope it works out for you.’
‘For him!’ William exclaimed indignantly. ‘Why shouldn’t it? He’s going to have a cosy studio to sit in, girls flocking around him, not to mention money in his pocket. It’s the poor Taffs like me and Charlie who’ll be left with all the dirty work in this man’s war.’
‘That’s because poor Taffs like you were born without brains.’
‘Talk to you at the end of the war, mate, about who’s got brains.’
Haydn forced a laugh. They were his family, the people he cared for most, only this time it wasn’t he who was leaving them. Next time he came home they wouldn’t be here. First Eddie, soon William and, he looked at Andrew and Bethan, eventually, even the men who had a lot to stay for.
‘Be seeing you.’
‘That a cue for a song?’ Diana asked.
Everyone laughed.
‘Not this time,’ Haydn called back as William wheeled him to the waiting Bentley. ‘But maybe next.’
Andrew handed the box and the letter to Jane at the stage door. He didn’t have time to stay, and she didn’t have time to say more than ‘Thank you.’ She put the box into her pocket, opened the envelope and walked slowly up the stairs, reading it as she went.
Dear Jane,
I’m sorry I had to leave before seeing you. I love you, and I want to marry you. I understand now that it’s not for me to forgive you, but for you to forgive me. I hope you can.
Please write. Phyllis will have my address.
All my love, now and for ever,
Haydn
Chapter Twenty-six
‘I hate it when the autumn run ends and the pantomime starts. It’s the first sign winter’s arrived.’
‘Never mind the birds migrating, the panto’s started,’ Avril laughed.
‘Birds? What birds do we see in here?’ Ann asked. She moved out of the office as Arthur grated back the bolts on the door. ‘That’s the end of peace and quiet. Last performance of any show always brings them out in droves.’
Jane picked up her programmes and followed Ann into the auditorium. Two theatrical seasons had come and gone since she had bulldozed Joe Evans into giving her a job, and with it her diffidence. She took her station at the back of the auditorium every bit as confident as Ann and Avril, selling programmes, directing people to their seats, giving out change, tearing up ticket stubs. It was second nature to her now. Soon it would be Christmas and a New Year and a new decade, 1940 and still no sign of the war abating.
The orchestra’s discordant tune-up notes melted into the opening bars of the overture. The lights faded, darkness closed around her, just like the very first time she had visited the theatre with the orphanage. There was the same sense of expectancy – of something about to happen – of people holding their breath. The curtains began to rise, slowly, infinitely slowly, and there it was. A moonlit garden, but not the one Haydn had danced in the first time she’d seen him on stage.
A man and a girl emerged from the wings, singing, they waltzed to centre stage. But the man was short and dark, not tall and fair, and although he sang well, he didn’t sing as well as Haydn. Time had moved on to a different garden and a different hero.
Angry because she’d allowed herself to think, and remember, she moved back behind the last row. The problem was, everything always came back to Haydn. The wonderful times she’d spent in Barry and Shoni’s, and the most miserable, when she’d swallowed her pride and gone to see him at the hospital only to discover he’d left the night before. Until that moment she hadn’t really believed there would be a time when he wouldn’t be there. And Dr John hadn’t helped by giving her that expensive ring and the letter. She’d kept the letter, slept with it under her pillow every night since he’d given it to her eight weeks ago, but she’d given the ring back to Dr John. If it had been a cheap one she might have been tempted – but it hadn’t.
She promised herself that if Haydn wrote again she’d answer him. But days turned into weeks and nothing had arrived, although he knew she could be contacted through the theatre. Once or twice she’d picked up a pen, but every time she looked at a blank sheet of paper she saw his face, dark and angry as it had been when he’d flung the photographs at her. In the end it had been easier to allow time to pass and do nothing. Easier – except at times like this when the darkness of the theatre closed around her, affording privacy to think, and remember – things that were better forgotten.
