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to him?’ he enquired tersely. ‘I could take you over if you like.’
    Jenny looked at the others seated at Haydn’s table. The Johns, Andrew and Bethan, Dr Trevor Lewis and his wife Laura, Eddie’s father Evan, Phyllis Harry, Diana, William, Charlie and his wife Alma – there were too many people. She wanted to meet Haydn Powell again, more than she wanted anything else in life, but not now, not like this. She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to break in on a family party.’ When she saw Haydn again she intended there to be only the two of them, so she could tell him all the things she’d dreamed of and stored in her memory through the long winter months that had frozen her emotions as well as her body. ‘I’m here with my mother and my aunt and uncle,’ she explained. ‘It’s my aunt’s birthday. Why don’t you come and meet them? Then, after we’ve eaten, if you want to and the band’s playing, I’ll go to the ballroom with you.’
    ‘For the last waltz?’
    She found it difficult to look at anyone except Haydn. Her heart was pounding so erratically it was a wonder Eddie couldn’t hear it. Six months of absence hadn’t diminished her feelings for Haydn in the slightest. One look had been enough for her to know that she still loved him, and would always love him. But after that last awful row she also knew he wouldn’t come to her. She’d have to be the one to make the first move. And what better way than on his brother’s arm? Jealousy just might be the way to accomplish what loving endearments couldn’t.
    ‘Tell you what, Eddie,’ she touched his arm gently, her breath blowing warm as she whispered in his ear. ‘As you asked nicely I’ll give you all the waltzes. Including the last.’
    Eddie glowed with pleasure as he walked her to her table before returning to his own. Haydn might be the big success on stage, with a whole revue of gorgeous showgirls waiting in the wings, but he could still show big brother a thing or two when it came to picking the cream of the Pontypridd girls.
    *……*……*
    Jane’s Sunday afternoon was a marathon of drudgery. In between peeling potatoes and scraping and boiling tripe for a supper that was served to the lodgers in the upstairs dining room, necessitating several trips up and down stairs with heavy trays, she cleared up messes of spilt beer in the bar, washed glasses, boiled dishcloths and cleaned out the stove chimney to prevent any more soot falling into the tripe.
    Going into the bar was the worst. It soon became evident that the men knew she wasn’t wearing underclothes. She turned more than once to catch one of them lifting the back hem of her skirt with the poker from the bar-room fire. Temper rising, she emptied a bucket of slop water she’d used to mop beer dregs over one persistent lecher, earning herself a tongue lashing from Mrs Bletchett with the promise of more to come.
    At midnight she was still on her feet washing glasses in the kitchen. Mrs Bletchett’s final order to her husband before retiring for the night had been to make sure that ‘the girl’ cleaned both the bar and the kitchen before going to bed. Although Jane heard her she didn’t dare set foot in the bar. Mr Bletchett was still there, talking to the man who’d lifted her skirt.
    She felt spent and weary enough to cry. Exhausted and ravenously hungry, she bitterly regretted not taking Eira Williams’s advice. Life in the workhouse had been grim, but not as grim as this. In the institutions she had been able to cling to a routine of sorts. Regular mealtimes with food of indifferent quality and varying quantity, but nevertheless food. And although she had served both tea and supper to the lodgers, there had been no mention of her eating anything; nor had there been any leftovers for her to scavenge.
    At one o’clock when she could find nothing more to do in the kitchen she steeled herself and pushed open the connecting door to the bar. Mr Bletchett was sitting alone