Such Sweet Sorrow by Catrin Collier

bringing a rationing that threatened to bankrupt him if he didn’t diversify into something else – and soon.
    The question was, what to sell that wasn’t rationed? It was a problem that was beginning to preoccupy not only him, but every trader in Pontypridd. He glanced at the half-empty boxes that were left. He may as well go up to the shop in High Street now, and check on what remained rather than leave it until the morning.
    After locking the kiosk he walked around the corner to the Old Tram Road where he had parked his van. Was there really any point in shuttling stock between the two shops? Perhaps it would be as well to wait until one or the other ran out, and close that one first. Then, with only one shop to run, there was nothing to stop him handing it over to Diana’s care and joining up. The thought was an attractive one. Life with his increasingly cantankerous father and put-upon sister was no picnic, and he’d have the dubious consolation of doing something for his country if he was in the army. But he had the niggling feeling that army life would be even worse than civilian for a man like him.
    Straining his eyes into the darkness, he drove the short distance to High Street. Why did night always bring memories of his friend who had gassed himself? Was death like this, a conscious darkness? Or did suicides writhe in a specially constructed, torturous hell reserved for self-murderers as the officiating minister at the funeral had assured the mourners? He didn’t want to believe it. His friend had encountered enough of a hell on earth from his unforgiving father and the people of Pontypridd without burning after death. If there was a God, and sometimes he wondered, wherever his lover was, he’d be at peace.
    He pulled up outside the shop in High Street, left the van, and unlocked the door. To his amazement, light flooded out when he pushed back the curtain.
    ‘Diana?’ he called out uncertainly as he pulled-the curtain swiftly over the door. He stepped inside looking for signs of a burglary.
    ‘I’m here, Wyn.’
    He looked over the counter, watching as she struggled to her feet.
    ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’
    ‘Nothing.’ Averting her eyes, she went to the stockroom to get her coat.
    He glanced at the floor where she’d been sitting and saw the pastie and book. ‘It didn’t work out between you and Tony, then?’
    She left the stockroom in tears. He embraced her clumsily, pulling her head down on to his chest. ‘It’s not the end of the world. You’ve been through worse than this and survived. Come on, you’re frozen stiff. Put your coat on and I’ll take you home.’
    ‘No!’ she protested forcefully, between harsh, rasping sobs.
    ‘You can’t sleep here, you’ll catch your death of cold.’ Taking her coat from her, he wrapped it around her shoulders. Forgetting the stock he’d intended to ferry down to the other shop he led her to the door.
    ‘I won’t go home …’
    ‘I’ll take you somewhere else.’
    ‘I’m not going to your house.’
    ‘No.’ He smiled at the thought of what his father might say if he brought Diana in her present state into the house. ‘We’re going for a drive to give you a chance to pull yourself together, then I’m going to buy you supper.’
    ‘I can’t go anywhere looking like this.’ She rubbed her eyes with a grubby handkerchief she’d found in her coat pocket.
    ‘You can eat fish and chips in the van.’ He switched off the light and opened the door. ‘And I’m not taking no for an answer.’
    The silence was intense enough to send buzzing noises through William’s head. Mr Ronconi sat at the head of the table; Mrs Ronconi closest to the range so she could serve everyone with ease. William had been placed at her right hand, Tina on her father’s left, and in between five pairs of round, black eyes stared solemnly over the edge of the table scrutinising William, while everyone crunched on the crackling of the leg