Past Remembering Read Online Free PDF

his jacket trying to remember if he’d tossed his keys into his kitbag when he’d packed, or slipped them into one of his many pockets. Balking at the idea of emptying his bag out on the pavement, he began searching for them in his uniform.
    A door opened in the wall of shops across the road. He turned as a low murmur of voices drifted out of Ronconi’s restaurant. It was way past normal opening hours and he could only wonder that Pontypridd had remained so unscathed by war and the presence of Hitler’s army camped across the Channel that people could think of holding a party.
    A couple drifted ghost-like out of the shadows and crossed the street. The man was swinging himself forward with the aid of a crutch, the woman walking at his side, their heads close together. The woman’s hair was drained grey by the moonlight, but Charlie didn’t need to exercise his imagination to picture the flame-coloured tints in her curls, or the depth of colour that glowed in her sea-green eyes. The couple paused in front of the fountain, the man balancing awkwardly while the woman embraced him. She murmured something too low for Charlie to catch, but the man’s voice was louder.
    ‘It happened a long time ago. We’re both different people now. Forget it, Alma.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Ronnie. So very sorry.’ Resting her hands on his shoulders she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
    Charlie’s back stiffened. Ronnie Ronconi back from Italy! He stepped out of the shadows.
    Alma looked up and saw him. ‘Charlie …’
    He sidestepped her embrace as she ran, arms outstretched towards him. ‘You haven’t introduced me to your friend,’ he said.
    ‘You remember, Ronnie.’ Alma hung back as Charlie ignored the hand Ronnie offered. Suddenly she realised how the scene must have looked. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Charlie hasn’t been home in over a year.’
    ‘Of course, you must have things to talk about. Congratulations on marrying Alma …’ A door opened and closed and Ronnie found himself talking to the empty street.
    *……*……*
    Cocooned in a soundproof studio, his thoughts concentrated on putting out a good show that would give the serving troops a taste of home and a momentary escape from the harsher realities of war, while observing the official line of ‘not too strong lest it bring on homesickness and undermine moral’ Haydn managed to push his anxieties about Jane to the back of his mind; but the minute transmission ceased and the door opened he heard it – the sickening roar of what sounded like thousands of planes flying overheard. Before he could speak, the guns opened up in a barrage that made speech unintelligible and thought impossible. With the whole building shuddering around him, he retreated into the booth with Joe, his sound engineer.
    ‘I don’t remember it being this noisy before,’ Joe complained.
    ‘Probably because it wasn’t.’ Hands shaking, Haydn pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Joe.
    ‘We can’t stay here. You game to make a run down to the basement?’
    ‘You go if you want to, I’m for home.’
    ‘Home! Don’t be an ass. You’ll never get there in one piece.’
    The tea lady burst through the door, dragging her trolley behind her. ‘It’s like bonfire night in the OK Corral out there,’ she announced cheerfully, as soon as the door shut out the din. ‘I’ve never seen anything like the size of the flares, and you should have heard the gun barrage -’
    ‘We did,’ Joe interrupted, instinctively ducking as the room shook and a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling. Missing his head by a few inches it landed on the floor, shattering into crumbs on the polished cork tiles.
    ‘Good, I thought I saw the tea trolley heading this way.’ A sub-editor from the newsroom joined them. ‘If I’d known it was this quiet in here I would have made a beeline for a studio when the sirens started.’
    ‘Any word on where they’re targeting yet?’ Haydn