A Silver Lining (39 page)

They’d barely had time to take their first bite when there was an almighty hammering on the side door.

George Collins’s voice thundered through the letterbox. ‘I know you’re in there, you little slut! Open up or I’ll smash the door down.’

‘Quick!’ Alma grabbed Charlie’s hand.

‘What –’ he reluctantly abandoned his roll.

‘Don’t argue!’ she whispered urgently. ‘Eddie, give us a couple of minutes then open the door.’ She raced up the stairs pulling a bewildered Charlie in her wake.

Throwing open the living-room door they saw Vera clutching her dress to her naked body, and William hopping about ineffectually trying to extract one of the two legs he’d thrust into a single trouser leg.

‘Both of you, shut yourselves in the bathroom. Quick!’ Alma commanded. ‘And don’t forget to lock the door. Vera, leave your coat and hat, I’ll need them.’

William needed no second bidding. He grabbed his clothes, pulled Vera’s wrist and dragged her behind him.

Alma tossed Vera’s hat and coat on to the chair. The door burst open downstairs just as she threw her arms around Charlie’s neck. She kissed him soundly on the lips, expecting a hard dry response after the strained silence that had fallen between them since the weekend, but to her amazement he pressed her close, kissing her back.

Locked together in one another’s arms in the centre of the room they were barely conscious of the thunder of boots thumping up the stairs, accompanied by Eddie’s shouted protests.

‘There she is! Damned slut!’ George grabbed Alma’s shoulder and tore her away from Charlie, who retaliated by hitting him soundly on the jaw. George reeled backwards, looking in amazement from the coat on the settee to Alma’s red hair, to Charlie and back.

‘It was her, Mr Collins. I swear it. I saw her come in here,’ a small weasel-faced man protested as he hid behind Eddie’s broad shoulders.

‘What’s going on here?’ Charlie demanded sternly.

‘My wife. She came in here.’

‘The shop’s closed.’

‘I know, but she’s ... she ... she’s carrying on with that good-looking boy who works for you.’

‘She isn’t, Mr Collins,’ Eddie protested, the picture of absolute innocence, as he realised what Alma had done.

‘Not you ... the other one, what’s his name?’

‘If you mean William, he’s out on the meat van delivering to my boss’s shops in Cardiff. Has this man done any damage, Eddie?’

‘I think the lock’s broken on the door downstairs, sir,’ Eddie invented a humble subservience in honour of the occasion.

‘I’ll see it’s fixed, I’ll ...’ George’s eyes lit up as he spotted the hat and coat on the settee. ‘This is my wife’s coat,’ he crowed triumphantly.

‘It’s mine,’ Alma snatched it.

‘A likely story. Where did you buy it?’

‘In Cardiff, in Howell’s, not that it’s any of your business,’ she said haughtily, carrying it over to the window-seat.

‘Didn’t know shop-girls could afford to go to Howell’s,’ he commented snidely.

‘I bought it for her,’ Charlie said belligerently. ‘Now if you don’t mind, you’d better apologise and leave, before I call the police.’

‘I’m sorry, the lock –’

‘I’ll fix the lock and send you the bill. Eddie, see them out.’

Charlie and Alma sat side by side on the settee, listening as George Collins and the detective he’d hired went down the stairs. Eddie closed the door behind them and crept back up.

‘They walked off in the direction of the Fairfield.’

‘Go downstairs, stay in the shop and keep an eye open in case they come back. You’ve bolted both doors?’

Eddie nodded.

‘Alma and her mother will just have to use the shop door until I get a chance to fix the other one. Go on boy, take a look outside, then finish your rolls.’

A very sheepish William crept out of the bathroom in response to Charlie’s call. Charlie said nothing, simply sat and stared at him.

‘Charlie ...’ William began hesitantly.

‘Just get the young lady out of here while you still have a head on your shoulders, and you’d better get Eddie to help you, in case they’re still lurking around.’

‘I’ll go up the lane to the library, Mr Raschenko,’ Vera waved at him shyly from the landing. ‘George will never think of looking for me there.’

‘If I were you I’d think of sticking to the library from now on.’

Alma handed her the hat and coat. ‘You’ll need these.’

‘It’s not what you think,’ William explained, red-faced. ‘Vera and I are going away together ...’

‘We are not, William Powell,’ she countered indignantly.

‘Yes we are.’ He turned to her. ‘The baby –’

‘Is my husband’s,’ she said quickly. ‘Look William it was nice while it lasted, but I’m married to George.’

‘You said you loved me.’

‘I never did.’

‘Seems to me that young lady wants to have her cake, eat it and own the baker’s,’ Alma said as William followed her downstairs.

‘I’d better take you to Howell’s some time and buy you a hat and coat,’ Charlie said as the connecting door to the shop slammed shut.

‘I didn’t like the cloth or the style.’

‘How long has that been going on?’

‘I noticed it as soon as the shop opened. Probably it started some time before.’

He sat forward and rested his head in his hands. It would be so easy to reach out and touch her face as he’d done in Cardiff ... He stretched out his hands. She looked down at his fingers, heavily scared by thick, white, heat-puckered skin.

‘Alma I ...’ he left the seat and paced uneasily towards the window. ‘I’m sorry,’ he looked down into the street away from her.

‘It seems it’s my lot in life to fall in love with men who don’t love me,’ she said sadly. ‘First Ronnie, now you.’

‘Alma?’ he looked round. She’d already gone. He stared out of the window until he saw Vera teetering on high heels along the pavement on the other side of the road. Then he turned and followed Alma slowly down the stairs.

‘You should see the house. I never thought a daughter of mine would be living in a place like that. Phyllis was a bit upset of course, seeing all Rhiannon’s bits and pieces again, but it’s not as if we have anywhere for them, and our Bethan has really done them proud. Putting them in pride of place. It’s so big, and it has so much land besides the garden. Two huge fields, heaven only knows what they’re going to do with them. And although both of them seem a bit quiet, Andrew as well as Bethan, I think it might work out this time.’

‘I hope so,’ Charlie muttered mechanically.

Evan picked up his and Charlie’s glasses from the table in the back room of the Graig Hotel. ‘Same again?’

‘Yes, thanks.’ It was Charlie’s round, and the fact that Evan was buying the drinks spoke volumes about Charlie’s state of mind.

‘All right, mate. I’ve said nothing up until now. But I can’t stand it anymore. What’s up with you?’

Charlie took his fresh pint and sipped it. ‘Nothing.’

‘For once in my life things are working out the way I want them to. Bethan and Andrew are back together. I’m happy as a pig in muck living in sin with Phyllis and the boy. William’s had his wild streak curbed for a while, but you’re walking around as though the end of the world is in sight. What is it?’

Charlie looked around the room. Fortunately they were the only ones in it.

‘It’s that pretty redhead you’ve got working for you in the shop, isn’t it?’

Charlie looked at him, but didn’t answer.

‘Well it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Evan continued. ‘You make a stand against the gossips, you take her in, decorate a flat for her, give her a job, pay her debts ... No one keeps any secrets in this town,’ Evan said, in reply to the look of surprise on Charlie’s face. ‘You love her, don’t you?’

‘I’m in no position to love anyone.’

‘You’re a man, aren’t you?’

Charlie pushed his pint glass away from him. ‘Not much of one.’

‘My advice, whatever it’s worth, is to go and see her. Tell her what’s worrying you, it can’t be that bad. You only have one short life. No one knows how short. Perhaps it was the spell in prison that gave me the courage to live the way I want to –where are you going?’

‘I’m taking your advice.’

‘You’re going to see her now? At this hour?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I hope you sort it out,’ Evan said. He left his chair.

‘You leaving early too?’

‘I’ve a lot to go home to these days,’ Evan smiled. ‘There’s nothing like a cosy kitchen, the love of a good woman and a warm bed. Why don’t you try it, Charlie? Believe you me, it’s everything it’s cracked up to be.’

Evenings were lonely for Alma. Her mother, loath to break the habit of half a lifetime, when the cold and hunger of Morgan Street had driven her early to bed, still retired to her room before eight every evening, leaving Alma to her own devices. Alma had taken to spending most of her free time sitting alone in the living room above the shop, looking out of the window at the deserted street and listening to the radio.

The room was far more comfortable than the back kitchen of Morgan Street had ever been, even in her father’s day.

Light, airy, it was neatly, and thanks to some of the things Charlie had bought from Phyllis, better furnished than it would have been if they’d had to rely on their own poor sticks.

Earlier in the evening she had gone for a solitary walk in the park, where the sight of the courting couples had depressed her even more. A library book was lying open on her lap, but even that irritated her. She didn’t want to read about Lucy Manet’s happiness with her husband in
A Tale of Two Cities.
Besides, the book conjured up images of the film, and now she had the time and money enough to go to the cinema she resented having to sit there listening to the muffled giggles of the couples in the back row.

The whole world seemed to be pairing off, with the sole exception of her.

She heard a key turn in the lock of the shop door below her. Craning her neck, she saw the crown of Charlie’s blond head disappearing inside. He must have forgotten something. She glanced up at the chiming clock he had hung on the wall for her mother.

Ten-thirty: she had to be up again in a few hours. She should have gone to bed hours ago instead of listening to the concert of Noel Coward songs.

As she left her seat she heard Charlie’s footsteps on the landing outside the room.

‘Charlie, have you forgotten something?’ she asked as she opened the door.

‘No. I saw you sitting at the window, so I thought I’d call in.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea, or cocoa?’ she enquired remembering her manners.

‘No.’ He twisted the brim of his hat in his hand. ‘I just want to talk to you.’

‘About the shop?’

‘No, about what you said today.’

‘I spoke out of turn. I’m sorry, it was just the excitement of seeing George Collins come charging after William.’

‘You weren’t talking out of turn. Not after what .happened in Cardiff.’

‘I wondered if you remembered.’

‘I was drunk, but not that drunk.’ He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets as though he couldn’t trust himself to keep them off her.

‘I know you don’t love me. Do you want me to leave here, not work for you anymore? Is that it?’ she sat down abruptly, hoping with all her heart that he wouldn’t give her notice. She was afraid of losing her job, but not as afraid of losing all contact with him. Of walking out of the shop and never, ever seeing him again.

‘It’s nothing to do with work,’ he said impatiently. He went to the window and looked down at the fountain. ‘I like you very much, Alma, you must realise that.’

‘Like,’ she echoed dismally.

‘If it were possible, I’d say love. I wish I could marry you –but I already have a wife.’

The silence in the room was deafening. Alma felt as though the air was whirling around her, closing in, crushing.

He turned to face her. Leaning against the wall, he crossed his arms. ‘I’m here because I want to explain, but now I’m not sure where to start. In the beginning, when I first saw you, I tried to tell myself that I felt sorry for you. That I wanted to help you because you reminded me so much of Masha ...’

‘Your wife?’ She asked him in a small voice.

‘Yes.’ He resumed his study of the fountain. ‘She looked a lot like you, tall, slender with pale skin, red hair and green eyes. But that’s not why I wanted you to work for me. I know you’re a special woman, Alma, a woman who deserves better than a man who looks at you and sees another.’

‘Is that what you do, Charlie?’

‘My name isn’t Charlie,’ he said harshly. ’It’s Feodor, Feodor Raschenko.’

‘If you love your Masha so much, why aren’t you with her?’ she was trembling, almost too afraid to listen to his answer, but she had to ask the question.

‘I’m not with her because I have no idea where she is.’

‘She left you?’

‘Not willingly.’

Now he’d begun, he wanted to talk, to unburden himself of the events that had irrevocably changed his life, making every day a marathon in which the twin hurdles of loneliness and painful memories had to be overcome.

‘I grew up in a small village near Moscow. Just distance enough to make it the country, but near enough to travel there in a day. That was the problem. It was a beautiful place. People used to say so all the time, but when you live somewhere you take it for granted. Forget its beauty as well as its faults.’

‘I suppose you do,’ Alma interposed, thinking of her house in Morgan Street. How she had looked on it as home for years, not realising just how uncomfortable a place it was until she’d been able to contrast it with this flat.

He hesitated for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was harsh, rasping. ‘The party leaders found out about it, saw it and wanted it. They moved everyone out.’

‘Moved?’ she looked at him uncomprehendingly.

‘They wanted dachas, summer houses. The peasants were in the way. I lived in a house that had been my father’s and his father’s before him. It had been built by a Raschenko four hundred years ago. But none of that mattered. Not to them. And they had the power and the control.’ He clenched his jaw and she noticed a small pulse on his temple throbbing.