Magda's Daughter (2 page)

‘Judging by the way she fusses over babies when they're brought into the shop, I predict she'll love them until they're old enough to answer back.'

‘I wish you two got along better.'

‘And I wish she'd stop bullying you,' he retorted.

‘It's not bullying. She simply pushes me to do my best so I can –'

‘Achieve your full potential,' he finished. ‘I've heard it all from her, sunshine. And it's more like your mother has manipulated you into living the life she wanted for herself before the war got in the way. Only you refuse to see it.'

‘My mother had a dreadful time before she came to Pontypridd. Seeing my father murdered when I was only three weeks old. Forced to work as a slave labourer for the Nazis. Trying to make a home for us in a Displaced Person's camp before she was able to get the papers she needed to come to Wales. And it hasn't been that easy since. Managing the shop and bringing me up single-handed. Always having to worry if there'd be enough money to pay our bills and educate me.'

‘Magda's tough and she does have her good points,' he conceded. ‘They say look at your girlfriend's mother and you see her in twenty years' time. I'll count myself a lucky man if you resemble Magda. But that only goes as far as resilience and looks,' he qualified.

‘That's not likely given our very different colourings.' She laid her hand over his. ‘Does that saying apply to men and their fathers?'

‘Not in my case, because I'm much better-looking than my father ever was.' Ned squeezed her fingers lightly, before lifting his hand and brushing his hair back from his forehead.

‘I'll tell him you said so.'

‘If you do, I'll say you made it up. Just look at this!' He braked as they hit a traffic jam on the Treforest Trading Estate. ‘You and your endless goodbyes. We've caught the five o'clock factory rush hour.'

‘I was ready to leave when I finished ironing my hair. You were the one who insisted on delaying.'

‘So I did.' He couldn't resist a smile. ‘Where do you want to go first – my parents' house or your mother's flat?'

‘My mother's, to drop off my things.'

‘You don't want my parents to see how much junk you've accumulated in Bristol.'

‘That's right.' Helena leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She couldn't stop thinking about the teaching post she'd been interviewed for. She'd longed to emulate her much-loved English teacher, Miss Addis, ever since she'd taken her first English lesson in the Girls' Grammar School after passing her eleven-plus. That examination had seemed an insurmountable obstacle at the time, and there'd been so many others since.

For over ten years she'd dreamed of realising her ambition to teach. She'd frequently pictured herself in the same classrooms she'd sat in as a pupil, inspiring a love of English literature and poetry in generations of young girls, just as her beloved mentor had done. But, despite Ned's optimism, she now felt she'd been over­ambitious, and should have set her sights on a lesser position in a primary school.

‘Are you going to stay in the car all night?'

Helena reluctantly abandoned her fantasy of a procession of highly-acclaimed female authors who'd returned to the Grammar School to thank her for her encouragement. She opened her eyes and discovered Ned had parked outside the cooked meat and pie shop that her mother managed.

Ned climbed out. ‘I'll carry your cases upstairs. We'll take the boxes of books and other things straight up to the new house to save me humping them twice.'

‘That's sensible.' Helena moved a box of long-playing records onto the driving seat, and reached for her handbag.

‘Hello, Magda, you spotted us.' Ned dutifully kissed Helena's mother's cheek, as she stepped out of the side door that led up to the flat above the shop.

‘I expected you two hours ago,' she reprimanded him.

‘We would have arrived at the crack of dawn if Helena hadn't got all maudlin. She had to say goodbye to every hole in the carpet and stain on the wall of …' he paused, only just stopping himself from saying ‘our', ‘her bed-sit.'

‘That's not true, Mama.' Helena hugged and kissed her mother.

‘It would be understandable. A part of your life is over. Your student days are behind you. Now you're a young lady who has to earn her own living.' Magda frowned at her daughter before returning her embrace. ‘Is that a skirt or a belt you are wearing?'

‘Mama, mini-skirts are fashionable.'

‘In my day a girl would have been horsewhipped for showing so much leg. A letter has arrived for you. From the council. It's on the sideboard,' she shouted after Helena when her daughter raced up the stairs.

‘Good news?' Ned asked, knowing how much Helena's heart was set on the post she'd applied for.

‘I think you should wait for Helena to tell you.'

‘You opened the letter?' Ned hoped to embarrass Magda. One of the few things Helena was prepared to argue with Magda about was her mother's insistence on opening all the mail addressed to her daughter.

‘A mother's right,' she snapped. ‘Is that all you're bringing in?' She watched Ned lift two suitcases out of the car and set them on the pavement.

‘We decided to take Helena's books and other things straight up to the new house in Graigwen.'

‘I suppose that's sensible,' Magda said in a tone that was a sharp reminder of all the evenings Ned had spent during the Christmas and Easter holidays listening to his future mother-in-law argue as to why he and Helena should postpone their wedding for two years.

Ned could remember all Magda's reasons: setting up home was expensive – it would take at least that long to save the money they'd need to buy essentials; Helena was too young to go straight from college into married life; he'd need time to adjust to working as a GP without the distraction of a wife and, most annoying of all, if he took weekly instruction from Father O'Brien for two years he wouldn't have any qualms about making the commitment to convert to Catholicism.

Hampered by the suitcases, Ned followed Magda up the stairs. Helena was standing in the middle of the room holding the letter.

‘You've read it?' Magda asked.

‘So have you.'

Ned refrained from cheering when he detected reproach in Helena's voice.

‘A mother's right,' Magda repeated.

‘You always say that, but the letter was personal, addressed to me,' Helena emphasized.

‘If you haven't got the job, you can always apply for something else,' Ned cut in. He couldn't bear to wait a moment longer to find out if Helena had been successful.

‘I've got it.' Helena eyed Ned. ‘Your father …'

‘Has absolutely no influence with the governors of the Girls' Grammar School,' he interrupted, knowing what she was about to ask. ‘But you're an ex-pupil. Everyone who has had anything to do with the school knows you and what you're capable of. You did this one all by yourself, sunshine.'

‘The headmistress and governors know an intelligent girl when they see one. A girl who will work hard and take her work very seriously.' Magda opened the sideboard door and took out a tray of tiny glasses and a bottle. ‘A drink to celebrate.' She poured three minute measures of Polish vodka, and lifted one to the framed photograph on the wall. A prettier, younger version of herself, holding a bouquet of roses, stood arm in arm with a young, fair-haired man. She was wearing a long white dress, he a well-tailored dark suit, white shirt, collar and tie. Behind them a distinctive redbrick church loomed over a graveyard. ‘Your papa is looking down on us, Helena. He is very proud of you and what you have accomplished.'

Helena raised her glass to the photograph, wishing yet again that she had one memory of the man who had fathered her.

Ned took the glass Magda offered him. ‘To the best English teacher the Girls' Grammar School will ever have.'

‘To Helena Janek, BA and teacher,' Magda toasted formally and proudly.

‘Soon to be Helena John.' Ned slipped his arm around Helena's shoulders. ‘Congratulations, sunshine.'

Magda touched her glass to Helena's. ‘To your future. May you always be as blessed as you are today. And now we must lay the table. I invited your mother and father to supper, Eddie. They'll be here in an hour and I haven't even mixed the dough for the pierogi. I thought I'd stuff them with raspberries and strawberries. They were very good on the market today.'

Helena gave Ned a sympathetic smile. Named and christened Edward after his mother's brother, who had been killed fighting in the war, he had been called Eddie for the first eighteen years of his life by his family and everyone in Pontypridd. But as soon as he left his home town for BristolUniversity he changed it to Ned. Even his parents had capitulated and accepted the change he had engineered, but Magda stubbornly clung to Eddie.

‘I'll put Helena's suitcases in her bedroom.' Ned replaced his glass on the tray.

‘No, you will not, young man.' Magda wagged her finger at him. ‘You will leave them outside the door because it is not proper for a man to go into a young girl's bedroom. And, after you've left them, you will come back here, extend the table and slot in the extra leaf. We'll need it. Mrs Raschenko will be here as well.'

‘Auntie Alma is coming?' Helena beamed. Alma Raschenko – a widow who owned a chain of cooked meat and pie shops that existed on the high streets of every town and village in South Wales – was not only her mother's employer but also a close friend and her godmother. As Magda frequently said, she was the nearest person they had to a relative.

‘Helena, you arrange the flowers and check the silver is clean while Eddie sorts the table. I'll see to the food.'

Ned gave Helena a surreptitious wink before picking up the suitcases. Happy, as her momentous news finally begin to sink in, she kissed him.

‘Helena, we have work to do,' Magda rebuked. ‘The time for kissing will be after the wedding. There are too many things to do first.'

‘I've made the most important arrangements, Magda.' Ned couldn't resist irritating his future mother-in-law. ‘Train tickets to Venice and two weeks in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal.'

‘I was talking about the hundred and one things that need doing
before
the ceremony. The cake, the reception, the food for the guests, the dresses for your sisters and the other bridesmaids, the flowers, Helena's gown …'

‘Has it come?' Helena asked.

‘It's in your room, which is why I wouldn't let Eddie go in there.' Magda lowered her voice and pointed to Ned, who'd returned to the living room and was opening the dining table ready to insert the extra leaf. ‘You can see it after you've arranged the flowers and I've finished making the pierogi.'

‘It's beautiful, Helena. You'll be a fairytale bride,' Alma Raschenko predicted when Magda proudly showed off the wedding dress and lace veil that had been made for her daughter.

The minute they'd finished eating Magda's excellent supper, Helena, Alma and Ned's mother, Bethan, had left Ned and his father, and closeted themselves in Helena's bedroom to admire the gown, tiara and wedding finery Magda had bought.

‘Won't she just.' Magda lifted the crystal-ornamented bodice of the white silk gown so the beads caught the light.

‘Now,' Alma smiled conspiratorially, ‘what about your trousseau, Helena? Have you bought your lingerie?'

‘We're going to Cardiff on Thursday after I've closed the shop for half-day.' Magda looked as excited as if she were about to buy her own trousseau.

‘Why don't I meet you there? We'll make a day of it,' Alma suggested. ‘You'll have to come too, Beth, to make sure that your future daughter-in-law doesn't skimp on lace negligees, silk knickers, and French perfume.'

‘I do have a budget,' Helena warned, knowing how embarrassingly generous her future mother-in-law and godmother could be when it came to presents.

‘That's why we need to come, to make sure you exceed it. And we'll lunch in The Angel, my treat. It's ages since I've given myself a day off from the business. You might be Magda's daughter, but, having two boys, I like to think that a little bit of you belongs to me.' Alma hugged Helena. ‘The girl I always wanted and never had.'

‘The best godmother ever,' Helena said sincerely.

‘The best godmother you could have had to spoil you,' Magda amended. ‘Whenever I wouldn't give you something when you were little, you used to pout and say, “I'll ask Auntie Alma instead.”'

Their laughter echoed down the passage to the living room where Ned and his father, Andrew, were sitting at the table nursing two small brandies.

‘Your mother is in her element helping to organise the wedding.' Andrew heaped a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. ‘Much as she didn't approve of Rachel's choice of a fiancé, she was disappointed when your sister broke off her engagement.'

‘Rachel's very young.'

Andrew suppressed a smile. ‘I wouldn't let Rachel catch you saying that. She would take it as an insult coming from a brother two years younger than her.'

‘I feel older.'

‘I hope so, given the responsibility you're about to take on.' Andrew eyed his son. ‘Nervous?'

‘Not about the wedding or the responsibility. Helena's the most mature person I know.' Even if he had been nervous, his father was the last person Ned would confide in. Andrew John had always seemed a remote figure to his eldest son, possibly because he had spent the first five years of Ned's life – the war years – in a German POW camp. By the time Andrew returned, Ned had forged such a strong bond with his mother that he'd regarded his father as an interloper. When his eldest sister Rachel had enthusiastically assumed the role of ‘Daddy's girl', Ned had been only too happy to relinquish his share of their father's attention to her.