Free Broken Rainbows by Catrin Collier Page B

Alma’s voice at the intimation that Charlie could be dead. ‘He’s alive. I’m certain of it. I’d know if he’d been killed. I’d feel it, but just as I’m certain he’s alive, I also know that he’s suffering. How can I go to a party, knowing he is pain?’ Her eyes were dark, anguished.
    â€˜Because if you don’t, you’ll go mad sitting here thinking about him. Come on, Alma, Mary’s been working for you for over a month now. Theo loves her, she’s every bit as capable of looking after him as you are, and it’s not as though we’re going to the ends of the earth. The New Inn is less than five minutes’ walk away. If he wakes she can telephone reception, they’ll pass on a message.’
    â€˜I know.’ Alma glanced at her husband’s photograph on the mantelpiece. His presence was with her, so real, so tangible, she felt as though he were in the room with them. She could even smell the soap he used, the cologne he brushed through his thick white-blond hair …
    â€˜Then why don’t you get ready?’
    â€˜Because-’
    â€˜We’re all in the same boat, Alma,’ Jane asserted forcefully. ‘Bethan might know that Andrew is alive, but he’s still locked away for the duration, however long that will be. And although I know where Haydn is, most of the time,’ she qualified drily, ‘he’s only managed one three day leave in the last year and I have absolutely no idea when he’ll be home again. If we live like nuns until the end of the war we’ll go crazy, or even worse, forget how to have a good time and become as dull as ditchwater. We can’t stop living just because our husbands are away, and no one with any sense will think any the worse of us for going to a dance.’
    â€˜You really won’t take no for an answer, will you?’
    Bethan shook her head.
    â€˜I’ve ironed Mrs Raschenko’s green dress, Mrs John.’ Mary stood in the doorway, the long skirt of Alma’s one and only evening dress draped over her arm. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’
    â€˜Lay it on Mrs Raschenko’s bed, Mary. You don’t mind staying here on your own?’
    â€˜Of course not, Mrs John.’
    â€˜And you’ll telephone the New Inn the minute Theo wakes?’
    â€˜Yes, Mrs Raschenko, but you know he never does.’
    Jane looked at Alma. ‘What are you waiting for?’
    â€˜Have you heard about the new brand of knickers the Americans brought with them?’ Judy shrieked into Jenny’s ear as they stood back, buffet plates in hand watching the American forces’ band take their places on the podium. ‘One Yank and they’re down.’
    â€˜Did you make that up?’
    â€˜Overheard Alexander Forbes telling it to Ronnie in the café.’
    â€˜He would,’ Jenny murmured caustically. Alexander had watched her like a hawk for the last month. She had no doubt that he would have been standing behind her now if he had been able to get a ticket, but the invitations Lieutenant Schaffer had sent to the pits had been snapped up by the Pontypridd-born and -bred miners; none had found their way into the pockets of the conscientious objectors who’d been conscripted in from outside.
    She glanced around the room. The New Inn’s blue and silver ballroom was brighter and more crowded than she’d seen it since before the war. All the lamps had been lit in defiance of energy-saving directives, the walls were decked out in bunting and miniature Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes. The buffet table that stretched down the entire length of one wall groaned with mounds of delicacies that had long since disappeared from the shops in the town: iced cakes, jellies, sugared buns, buttered beef and ham sandwiches, cheese straws, as well as peculiar American dishes and punch bowls liberally decorated with fresh fruit, most of it out