Lewis was talking to a young woman of about twenty, standing at the door of number six. She stopped, waiting for them to speak to her, but Lewis thanked the girl and came towards her carrying a brown paper bag containing white powder. “I’ve borrowed some washing powder to soak my socks overnight,” he explained.
“You don’t soak woollen socks,” Dora began.
“Lucky I asked Miss-her-over-by-there. I was going to boil them in the saucepan!” he said seriously. He opened his door and ushered her inside. All his movements were hasty. He wasn’t a man to sit idle, always rushing through his tasks and looking for something else to occupy himself.
The bed was neatly made and a small table was set ready for tea. He put a battered tin kettle on a gas ring to boil. He sniffed the bottle of milk doubtfully before pouring some of the liquid into two cups. Dora wished she had refused to come. It was so terribly sad. Not at all gratifying to see how useless he was. In a corner a few shirts, inexpertly ironed, hung on a chair. Lewis hurried to the solitary tap and, into a bowlful of cold water, put a pile of socks and what appeared to be a whole box of washing powder.
“Lewis,” Dora sighed. “You’d better come home.”
* * *
When the car was filled with his belongings and the rent had been paid, there was an argument about Lewis’s ration book, each woman insisting she was entitled to the full week’s supply, it being only Wednesday. Dora, with her quick anger, won the battle and snatched the book from the landlady’s hand without further words.
Rhiannon was home when they arrived and Dora was preemptory with her explanations. “Your father’s back, but only for as long as he behaves himself.”
With a wink at his daughter, Lewis carried his suitcase and a few carrier bags up to the bedroom he shared with Dora. In less than a minute they had been thrown down the stairs and a shrill voice from above, called: “The settee for you, Lewis Lewis – and if you start arguing I’ll boil your socks and give them to you for tea, with custard!”
Chapter Five
Lewis was restless. He was constantly watched by Dora and unable to spend an evening out of the house except when he went to The Railwayman’s with Viv and Lewis-boy, who didn’t really want him with them. When the weather allowed he spent the weekends working on the garden. He dug over the vegetable patch, trimmed the borders and cut back some overgrown shrubs, again watched by Dora who argued with everything he did, having made her own gardening plans for the following year. One late Saturday afternoon, Viv and Eleri were laughing at the pair of them tugging at a spade, each demanding possession of it.
“This is more like it, eh?” Viv chuckled. “I didn’t think I’d miss their arguments, but I have.”
Lewis stormed in and grabbed his coat and hat and they heard the car drive off. Dora came trotting into the kitchen, red-faced, demanding to know where he’d gone. Her answer came an hour later when Lewis returned and told them he had bought a radiogram set. “To keep you from under my feet!” he explained.
It was such a time of change that, each evening after supper the Lewis family sat around the table for longer than usual discussing their day. Viv was enjoying the position of manager of Weston’s even though he still found it difficult to fill his time constructively.
“I repaired a broken latch on the store room today,” he told them near the end of his second week.
“You shouldn’t let the staff see you doing things like that, son,” Lewis said. “You have a position to uphold.”
“I did it when we were closed for lunch,” Viv smiled.
Rhiannon announced that she was now on her own at Temptations, rearranging displays, ordering stock, deciding what they would sell. “And my first decision is to buy a few pieces of china to add to my displays,” she told them proudly. “Barry agrees,” she added, forestalling any doubts.
“China in a sweet shop?” Eleri queried.
“It’s for when rationing finally ends, see,” Rhiannon explained. “One of the reps showed me some illustrations of gifts they intend to offer. Cups and saucers, teapots and jugs, Easter eggs in season, all filled with good quality chocolates and sweets. Lovely they are.”
“I don’t think sweets will ever come off ration,” Viv said gloomily. “Taking a girl out and offering her half of a five boys bar isn’t the same as a box of chocolates somehow!”
Lewis described the smaller and smaller villages where he was placing freezers as the new frozen foods became more popular. Dora added to the general chatter by explaining about the insurances she had signed up or paid out, and the cases she had lost. But Lewis-boy added little to these conversations.
Eleri still worked as an usherette in the picture house and was content to listen and be amused at the events filling the lives of other members of the family. Lewis-boy didn’t want to discuss work, even though he was employed by the same firm as his father. He had admitted to Eleri that he was under threat of the sack if he didn’t bring in more business. Eleri had confided this to Lewis, in the hope that he might help his eldest son.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Dad,” Lewis-boy said, when Lewis tried to give him some tips on fattening his order book.
“Listen to your dad, Lewis-boy,” Eleri pleaded. “You’re putting in the hours so you must be doing something wrong if you aren’t filling your order book.”
“You don’t understand! So stay with your little torch showing people to their seats and leave my job to me. Right!”
Eleri was shocked almost to tears. Anger flared on every face at the dinner table.
It was Dora who stood up and told Lewis-boy to leave the room. Something seemed to snap inside her and she began shouting at them all, accusing them of not caring about the Lewises being a family any more, demanding that they listen to her and show their love for each other. The ranting became more and more confused and when Lewis led her up to bed, they all knew that unless they were very careful, Dora would soon spiral into one of the bouts of depression that had so tainted their childhood.
Lewis came back down but said nothing about Dora’s outburst, attacking Lewis-boy instead. “I don’t know what’s got into the boy,” he said irritably.
“He’s tired, trying every way he knows to hang onto his job,” Eleri snuffled into her handkerchief. “Worried he is, he doesn’t mean to be rude.”
Viv said nothing. He knew that, like father like son, many of the hours when Lewis-boy was supposed to be working he was wasting time chatting with some of the prettier assistants, sometimes even taking them out to tea on their afternoons off.
Lewis-boy had always enjoyed the company of women, specially if they were open in their admiration of him. Even a simple knock-about game of tennis went better for him if there were women watching him play. Viv had long ago realised that Lewis-boy needed an admiring audience like a horse needed hay.
Although so very like their father in appearance Viv knew his brother didn’t have that special something which made women give their father admiring glances.
If only he would stop trying to be a copy of Lewis and allow his own personality to develop, he would probably be more successful, Viv thought. It wasn’t something he could say without offending so he watched, listened but continued to say nothing.
He did pause to wonder if Lewis-boy felt somehow that he would only measure up by, like his father, finding another woman. But no. Not with a wife as gentle and loving as Eleri. He wasn’t that much of a fool. He frowned as he remembered that Lewis-boy did go out every evening, long before it was time to go and meet Eleri from work. Sometimes he was at the pub, but not always. Was there more to his flirting than words and the innocent afternoon teas? He hoped not. Mam would kill him! And Eleri didn’t deserve it. He was staring at Eleri when he was jerked out of his reverie.
“There’s some post for you, Viv. From France,” Rhiannon said, jumping up to fetch it. There were two cards, and two letters, all from the Westons. A picture postcard from Jack was in French, but the saucy picture need
ed no translation. He hid that one quickly from his mother. One of the twins, Joan, had sent a polite card, the other, Megan, had written a long letter which Viv put aside to read later. The fourth item was from Arfon. The card was filled with tiny writing, which Viv read out. It was a thinly-veiled warning of the problems he would face if all was not well on their return. In tone it was a reminder of how much they – the Westons, were trusting him – a mere employee, and depending on him to keep everything safe and secure for their return.
“Pompous old ass! He even manages to make a speech when he sends a holiday postcard!” Viv laughed after reading it out in a good imitation of Arfon’s voice.
“What’s the letter, Viv?” Rhiannon asked.
“Isn’t that from France too?”
“Oh, nothing. Just – er just a few notes on things I mustn’t forget.”
“Like the colour of Megan’s eyes?” Lewis-boy whispered, glad that the spotlight was on his brother for a change.
“Don’t talk daft,” Viv laughed. “Old man Arfon wouldn’t let me get close enough to find out.”
Rhiannon looked at her brother, then shared a smile with Eleri. It seems that Viv was smitten, but if he had fallen for one of the Weston family, he was going to be unlucky in love, she was certain of that.
The following morning, when Rhiannon went to take her mother a cup of tea, knowing from previous experience Dora would wake with a bad headache, her mother’s bed was empty. An hour later Dora returned, having gone on a cycle ride to clear her head. All signs of the evening’s outburst had gone. Her mother was more cheerful than she had been for weeks. Rhiannon was worried, knowing it was almost certainly another symptom of her mother’s impending bout of depression.
* * *
Rhiannon was still shy when Barry Martin was in the shop. Although her confidence in the job had grown, she still felt very much a student when he watched her. Fumbling fingers and a telltale blush added to her confusion and she was afraid she would make a mistake in giving change and really embarrass herself. The reason for Barry’s occasional visits to Temptations was the flat above. Once the home of the Martin family, it was now only a series of store rooms where he kept his supplies and boxes of photographs. Several times a week, sometimes more than once in a day, he would walk through the shop, greet her briefly then go up the bare wooden stairs to retrieve something or add to the pile of work he was building.
On the penultimate day of Viv’s managership of Weston’s, less than two weeks since she had begun, Barry came in to find the shop unattended. Rhiannon scuttled down the stairs from the kitchen above with a tray of tea, he quickly halted her apology.
“I don’t come here to check up on you, Rhiannon. Please don’t think Mam doesn’t trust you,” he said. “I’m not making excuses to come and make sure you’re looking after the place properly. Mam’s pleased with you. It’s just that I haven’t got my premises sorted yet.”
“It’s an old garage, isn’t it?” Rhiannon said. “Will it be big enough for a studio and dark room and whatever?”
“I don’t need a lot of room for a studio, and the dark room can be even smaller. As for the ‘whatever’, that’ll have to wait!” He smiled.
“I thought you’d need room for displaying your work,” she said.
“I hope to, one day. Until then I have to advertise and hope my reputation builds by word of mouth.”
“I see.”
“It’s already growing. I’ve got four weddings booked for next month, a firm’s annual dinner and two Christmas parties wanting a photo grapher. But—”
“But it isn’t what you want. What would you really like to do?”
“Oh,nothing special. Weddings and Christmas parties will do for now.” He moved away hurriedly as if he regretting talking to her so freely. Rhiannon was hurt by his sudden departure. Did he consider her interest prying?
“Oh yes,” Viv said when she told him later, “Like me with them Westons. You can be thrown crumbs of kindness but you have to know your place, mind!”
The letter from Megan had puzzled him. It was more than a few crumbs of kindness. Megan had written as if she were a close friend. She said she had missed seeing him and was constantly wishing he was there, in France, making her holiday more enjoyable and memorable. He had admired her but there had never been a word or gesture to suggest she had even noticed, let alone shared his interest. It was all very odd.
“She wants something, boy,” was Joseph’s contribution to the enigma. “Bet you half a crown she wants something.” The pragmatic Viv sadly agreed.
The final day of his temporary managership did not go well. First of all there were the paint tins. The labels had fallen off in the dampness of the outer storeroom and although they were marked with a touch of the paint inside, two customers returned tins of the wrong colour.
The shop was busy with people deciding to re-decorate before the Christmas season and it was Viv who went to the storeroom and opened every tin and marked them with the appropriate colour. It was tedious work and when it was finished, he decided to go out for an early lunch and get himself cleaned up. At twelve forty-five, Arfon walked into the shop and asked where he was.
He looked at the ledgers and nodded approval of their neatness then glared angrily at the painstaking notes Viv had filled in against his minor errors. When Viv returned, long before the shop was due to reopen, Arfon was sitting at the desk with a face like thunder.
“Where have you been?” Arfon demanded. You weren’t here to lock up the shop. Gallivanting in time paid for by me, were you?”
Viv was normally a quiet young man who backed away from even the slightest confrontation, but he was bruised and aching from heaving paint tins around in a confined space, there was paint on his overalls which he would have to pay to replace, as well as on his best shoes. And he hadn’t had anything to eat. Without a word he walked towards the paint store and gestured for Arfon Weston to follow him.
“That’s where I spent most of the morning. Cleaning up those cheap and nasty tins your son-in-law bought. I’ve moved every one of them at least three times, as well as opening each one, checking the contents and marking them. Seventeen are rusted through and leaking. I’m stiff and tired and hungry and my gallivanting as you call it was to go home and get myself cleaned up so I wouldn’t frighten away your customers, sir.”
“We shouldn’t have bought that paint, should we?” Arfon said, backing down. He didn’t know how to deal with Viv in this mood.
“It’s been more trouble than it’s worth, sir.”
“Who bought it?”
“Ryan.”
“Mr Fowler,” Arfon corrected automatically, but the correction wasn’t echoed by Viv. “I’ll have a word with him.”
“Best if it’s all taken to the rubbish dump if you ask me.”
“Apart from that there were mistakes made. The cut wallpaper, for example.” If Arfon expected Viv to apologise he was wrong.
“It was sold the following day. I only wrote it in the book so you wouldn’t think I was keeping anything from you.”
“Er-well done, Viv. Well done.” Arfon patted Viv’s shoulder and, smiling affably, went out.
“I’ll get the sack for sure,” Viv muttered to himself. “When he thinks about what I said to him he’ll say I’m impertinent and tell me to go.” But Ryan Fowler and Islwyn Heath returned to work on the following Monday with nothing more to Viv than a nod.
* * *
Lewis still slept on the couch. He had tried without success to convince Dora she needed him near in case she had one of her panic attacks when woken by a nightmare, but she refused. He made a joke of it to the family and dared them to mention it outside the home. Rhiannon had long been the first to rise each morning but these days, she came down to find her father up and dressed, the fire lit and the kettle simmering ready for a first cup of tea.
On the Monday after the Westons’ return from France, Lewis greeted his daughter then announced that he was going for a
walk.
“This early, Dad? It’s only just six o’clock and so dark it might as well be the wartime blackout.”
“Tell the true, love, I’m damned stiff after sleeping on that couch. Six feet tall I am and that couch is five feet two. How can she do this to me, eh?”
“She’ll come round. Talk the birds from the trees you can.”
“I’ve tried every trick I know apart from faking a heart attack, but she just glares, and you know how your mother can glare!
He put on his heavy coat and, slipping a torch into his pocket, went out of the house. But he didn’t walk far. He went to where he had parked the car and drove up to Nia’s house on Chestnut Road. He wasn’t very optimistic about seeing her, but if he could attract her attention before Barry and Joseph were awake, she might come down and talk to him, even if it was only to tell him to be quiet! As he approached her house he mentally counted the number of times he had tried to see her. Twenty? Thirty? Wherever he went, however he pleaded, apart from those stolen minutes in the shop, Nia wouldn’t talk to him. It couldn’t be over. Lewis would not believe that. Not after all these years. Unconsciously, he began to pout. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t treat him like this.
Like some cartoon lothario, he picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them at her window, which was partly open. All he achieved after six attempts, was a brief glimpse of her dressing-gowned figure as she closed the window with a bang and drew the curtains tightly shut. With disappointment tinged with anger, he drove back home for breakfast.
A boy was standing in the gutter where he usually parked the car. A paperboy. He was rearranging his papers having dropped them dodging a lively dog. Irritation growing, Lewis drove the car until it almost touched the boy then tooted his horn loudly. Getting out of the car, he proceeded to tell the boy off for blocking the road.
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