Free Past Remembering by Catrin Collier Page B

favourite time of day. The only time he could be alone with his wife and baby when they were awake.
    ‘Did you really cope in the shops without me today?’ Diana asked.
    ‘Is that a “Can you cope without me tomorrow” question?’
    ‘Bethan thought it might be nice if Alma and Charlie could spend the whole of Charlie’s leave in her house to give Alma a break from caring for her mother. She’s also thinking of having a small “welcome home and goodbye again” party for Charlie tomorrow evening. If it comes off, we’re invited.’
    ‘I can just about manage the banking without you,’ he assured with mock gravity.
    ‘I won’t be needed after tomorrow. Charlie’s leaving on Saturday morning.’
    ‘They didn’t give him much time.’
    ‘That’s why Bethan thinks he and Alma should spend what little he has in peace and quiet.’ She sat on the edge of the bath and put the plug in the sink they used to wash the baby.
    ‘If it hadn’t been for that damned van mowing me down, I’d be where Charlie is now, and then I’d be doing something a sight more useful than running a sweet shop and a pie shop.’
    She glanced at him as he sat on the linen bin, his stick resting against the wall, his wooden leg extended at an awkward angle. ‘It’s your father again, isn’t it, Wyn? How many times do I have to tell you not to listen to him, he’s …’
    ‘Right?’
    ‘We’ve been through all this before. You’re medically unfit. It’s a fact. I know it can’t be easy for you …’
    ‘Erik called into the shop this afternoon.’
    ‘What did he want?’ she asked uneasily as she turned on the taps.
    ‘To tell me they desperately need men in the munitions factory. Even one-legged cripples.’
    ‘And what did you say?’
    ‘That I’d think about it.’
    ‘And the shops?’
    ‘You could manage those if we took on an extra girl to cover the second house in the one in the cinema.’
    ‘It won’t be easy to find someone we can trust, not at wages we can afford. Tina told me they’re upping the pay to three pounds a week in the munitions factories, and that’s for untrained girls.’
    ‘Look at the shifts Myrtle’s working. Not everyone can cope with a hundred hours a week when there’s a push on. We’ll find someone. Perhaps a mother with children at school and a grandmother living close by who can look after them in the evening. I’ll start looking tomorrow.’
    ‘You’ve already made up your mind about this, haven’t you?’
    ‘I may have lost a leg, but there’s still plenty of things I could do that are a sight more important than running a damned sweet shop. I know better than anyone how unpleasant my father can be, but this time he’s hit the nail on the head. No man should be running a shop in wartime. I want to contribute more like your brother, and the Ronconi boys and Andrew John.’
    ‘Fat lot Andrew and Angelo Ronconi are contributing to the war effort stuck in a German prison camp.’
    ‘At least they tried,’ he asserted softly.
    She forced herself to look at him. ‘I’m not stupid, Wyn. I know what Erik is, and I don’t mean a Polish refugee. If this arrangement between us isn’t working out for you, just say the word and my mother and I will take the baby back to my Uncle Evan’s house.’
    ‘Don’t you know that you and Billy are the two most important people in my life?’
    ‘But that’s why you want the job, isn’t it? To be near Erik?’
    ‘No. It’s to contribute more to the war effort than I’m doing now.’
    ‘It’s not Billy and myself I’m thinking about, but you. I know how unhappy you were before we married.’
    ‘And I’m unhappy now, because I don’t feel I’m pulling my weight. My sister works twelve-hour shifts in a factory doing a man’s job, and I’m playing at shop assistant and nursemaid.’ He undressed the baby on his lap, feeling all fingers and thumbs with such a tiny, wriggling mite.
    ‘If it will help, you could bring Erik home.