Such Sweet Sorrow by Catrin Collier Page A

of pork Mrs Ronconi had bought for the occasion. Aware of the sacrifice of the family’s ration coupons in his honour, William took as sparing a portion of the meat as Mrs Ronconi would allow.
    Used to the banter around his uncle’s table, he found the silence imposed at mealtimes by Tina’s father, disconcerting.
    ‘More mashed potatoes, William?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ he replied politely, choking on nerves and a dry throat.
    ‘Mama’s mashed potatoes are very special.’ Tina handed the dish down the table with a sickly sweet smile. He obediently heaped spoonfuls he didn’t want on to his plate.
    ‘Gravy?’
    He could quite cheerfully have taken the jug from Tina and poured it over her head.
    ‘No, thank you.’
    ‘You can’t eat potatoes dry.’ Theresa took the jug from Tina and splashed gravy on his plate until it overflowed on to his trousers. ‘I am sorry, I’ll mop it up.’
    ‘I’ll do it.’ Tina ran out of the back kitchen into the wash-house and fetched a tea towel.
    ‘Tina!’ Mr Ronconi’s warning voice boomed before her hand touched William’s trousers.
    ‘I’ll do it.’ William took the towel from Tina, laid it over the puddle of gravy on his lap and hobbled out to the stone sink. He ran the tap and dabbed at the stain, wondering what he was doing in the Ronconis’, apart from getting thoroughly embarrassed. He should have kissed Tina goodbye and cleared off to the Guards, then when the war was over he could have come back and married her. Just like that. No poncing about with permission and family inspections. Just a quick ceremony in a registry office and a long honeymoon.
    ‘You all right, William?’
    ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Ronconi, but I think this stain needs a little more cold water.’
    Leaning on the sink he breathed in deeply, as the old man left the wash-house. For some peculiar reason he felt as though he’d had a close call. As though Tina’s father had been able to read his thoughts – about the honeymoon.
    ‘You see, no people.’ Wyn jammed on the handbrake and reached in the back of the van for the two newspaper-wrapped parcels. Both were warm and appetisingly fragrant with the vinegary, mouth-watering smell of freshly-fried fish and chips.
    ‘It seems darker up here than it does in the town,’ Diana murmured. Wyn had driven up to the Common. Somewhere below them, unseen and unlit, Pontypridd was going about its blacked-out life, so very different from its late evening life of a year ago played out beneath ribbons of street and house lights.
    ‘This is what it must have been like for whoever dragged the standing stones and rocking stone up here.’ Wyn handed her one of the parcels. ‘Perhaps they waited until this time of night to sacrifice to their gods. Can’t you just imagine it? A circle of people holding flaming torches while the priest stretched the victim out on the rocking stone, lifted the knife …’
    ‘Andrew said the circle’s not old enough to be druidic.’
    ‘There goes another of my illusions about the town’s history.’
    ‘Even if it were true, people should have more sense than to creep around a deserted common in the middle of the night.’
    ‘You don’t like the dark?’
    ‘No.’ She shuddered despite the reassuring bulk of Wyn’s presence. ‘I feel that there’s a huge black hole watching and waiting to swallow us up down there. One turn of the wheel, and we’ll go crashing into it.’
    ‘Holes don’t watch and wait.’ He unwrapped his fish and chips and started eating. ‘But then, I like the dark. I always have. Mind you, I can’t remember being in anything quite this black since I used to hide in the coal hole when I was a kid.’
    ‘You hid in the coal hole? Whatever from?’
    ‘Myself, I think. I started crawling in there when my mother was dying. I tried to tell myself that everything would be all right as long as I stayed in there. That she’d get out of bed and come looking for me, and when she did, she’d be