Chapter 45
It was an awful time. The rumours spread around the town like currency.
All those who worked in their section knew that Enid and Les had eyes for each other and it was like a judgement on them, or on Enid, at least. No one spoke about these rumours in front of Temperance, though, not even as a joke.
But a few days later a letter was published in the South Wales Echo under the pseudonym Disgusted Husband. The writer was condemning the way men working at the factory preyed on the women incessantly until they gave in, put their morals aside and let them have their way.
When Cora read it she knew that Temperance was the Disgusted Husband. Incessantly was his favourite word. She’d passed the newspaper over to her mother to read. ‘Look at this.’
Jane studied the letter and raised her eyebrows at Cora, obviously thinking the same thing. ‘It could be anyone,’ she said, trying to be fair, putting the paper down and sipping her tea, ‘but it’s Temperance, it is, no doubt about it. A man doesn’t like to think his wife is to blame.’
‘Makes a change,’ Cora said, ‘to have a husband blaming the men. It’s usually the other way around.’
Cora was staring at the picture of Temperance’s grandfather in his front room and coming to the conclusion she was going to give the anti-escape meetings up as a bad job because they had turned nasty now.
With Enid still in hospital, Temperance directed his raging fury towards the Germans.
‘If the bloody Nazis hadn’t started the war, there would have been no need for munitions and Enid would have stayed respectable and she’d never have gone to work in a factory and met Les.
I would rather she had divorced me than see her like this,’ he said.
Dio patted his friend on the shoulder. ‘I know. But these things happen.’
There was such understanding in his voice that Temperance looked at him in surprise. ‘Has Jane ever—?’
Cora glanced at her father – she almost laughed at the ludicrousness of the idea.
‘Jane? Good grief! No.’ Dio tried to be rational about it. ‘Be fair, man, she’s a different kettle of fish,’ he said.
Temperance sucked his cheeks in. ‘True enough,’ he conceded. ‘I worry she’ll see Les again.’
‘She’s not going to see him or anyone else, is she, that’s the whole point,’ Dio said soberly with a flash of dark humour.
Cora frowned at her father, and wondered if he’d gone too far with his plain speaking.
The tragedy was getting to all of them. Temperance had lost a great deal of his inherent optimism and belief in fair play since finding Enid in the car with Les. Now that he wasn’t energised by love, he was fuelled with anger instead.
It turned his weakness into strength.
‘When the escape happens, I’ll be ready,’ he said. ‘I swear on my mother’s grave I will get my revenge.’