News of the wedding drifted through the town and the crowd outside the register office on the day was surprisingly large. Hywel had borrowed a suit that almost fitted him; Basil looked more lanky than ever in trousers too short. Viv was smartly dressed in a sports coat and greys in his role as best man and Jack Weston, wearing a neat suit and dazzling white shirt felt overdressed and conspicuous.
After the brief ceremony, Jack Weston drove the couple back to the Griffithses’ for the meal prepared by Janet and the bride.
The party began quietly as guests fingered the food, nervously watching Caroline and Barry, who both looked close to tears. Then Basil took out an accordion, pulled a few chords and the atmosphere lightened. It was almost midnight before Caroline and Barry set off across the fields for Chestnut Road, where they would live until Nia returned.
Rhiannon lived every moment of their wedding day with them, imagining the wedding couple setting out across the fields as man and wife. She pictured them gathering at the register office, following the ceremony that would take Barry away from her for ever. In her mind she heard the lively celebrations at the Griffithses’ old cottage. She knew Viv was there, and, at Basil’s request, had taken Eleri. Tomorrow they’d want to talk about it but she wouldn’t be able to cope with that. At nine o’clock, she went to The Firs to see her father.
Lewis was sitting in his room looking through some photographs Dora had thrown in a box with his ration book and a few forms he might need.
“Come in, love. On your own, are you?”
“Viv and Eleri are at the wedding.”
“What wedding?”
“Barry Martin and Caroline Griffiths,” she said, the words choking in her throat.
“I hadn’t heard. But it was Joseph she was marrying. Why Barry?”
Trying to talk casually, she explained about Barry gallantly deciding to give the baby Joseph’s name.
“For a while I thought you and Barry might have—”
“Yes, we might have, if it hadn’t been for you!”
“If he chucked you because of his mother and me, well, you haven’t missed much, love.”
“Mam said he could be my half-brother.” She whispered the hated words.
“Your mother said what? That’s rubbish. Joseph was ours. There’s no denying that. But after your mother and I married, Nia and I didn’t see each other for almost seven years.”
“It isn’t true?”
“Here, look at these if you don’t believe me.”
He handed her some photographs showing Joseph with Nia, looking very like her, and one of Nia with her husband Carl and a very young Barry. “Barry followed his father in looks and build. Joseph took after his mother. Just as well really, or we’d never have kept the secret all these years. If Joseph had turned out to be a replica of me like our poor Lewis-boy, there’d have been no way of holding the clucking tongues would there?”
Rhiannon walked home in despair. She had turned Barry away for no reason. Why hadn’t she been sensible and discussed it with him? That way the truth might have settled the matter. But no, she had to storm off, make hasty decisions in her confusion and panic and refuse to listen to even a phone call. She began to realise that she was more like her hot-headed mother than she had been willing to admit.
A few days later when Barry came to the shop to deliver some advertising leaflets, she told him the reason she had turned him down.
“What a mess,” he groaned. “I’m married to Caroline although we both know it can never lead to love. And you and I can never be together.”
“I should have told you.”
“I can hardly blame you for not discussing it. We’ve all had our lives ruined by too many secrets.” He frowned and added, “Talking about secrets, I’m wondering if my mother knows about the baby and my wedding?” He looked at her quizzically, waiting for her to say she and his mother were in touch.
“About the baby on the way, yes. She was told on the day of the funerals. But about you marrying Caroline, I don’t know. But I did have a card yesterday.” She handed him a view of Trafalgar Square and he read that his mother had found herself a flat and was working in a toy shop.
“You don’t have an address?” he asked. “I thought you and she might be in touch because of the shop.”
Rhiannon shook her head.
“Rhiannon, couldn’t we meet now and again, just to talk? Nothing more, I promise.”
Again she shook her head. “I don’t want us to end up like your mother and my father. Just think of the harm that little affair has caused.”
“The ripples have certainly spread wide, haven’t they?” he sighed.
* * *
In a small flat not far from Ealing Station, Nia was feeling more lonely than at any time in her life. She had always prided herself on not depending on anyone to make her content. But here, so far from everyone she knew and cared about, her attitude had changed and she admitted to herself that she was as vulnerable as everyone else. She had found a job in a toy shop and the owner was very kind, helping her to learn the trade, and she prided herself on this success but she wanted someone of her own. With her darling Joseph dead and Barry probably intending to marry Rhiannon, she desperately wanted someone to belong to. She wanted Lewis.
* * *
Caroline ran the house for Barry and waited every day to hear that her mother-in-law was coming home. What would she think of her new daughter-in-law? She didn’t think she’d be pleased. Each day she scrubbed and cleaned, and filled the pantry with food. At least Nia wouldn’t be able to criticize the way she had looked after things.
“I miss the wool shop, Mam,” she told her mother on one of her daily visits. “I knew every inch of stock and all the customers were friends.”
“Come home, love,” Janet said. “Come home, and once the baby’s born we’ll take care of him, me and your Dad, and you can go back to the shop. I know they want you back.”
“I can’t. I owe it to Barry to stay, at least until his mother comes back. He’s done so much for me.”
“Ask him. It might be what he wants too. There are times when honesty is the only way forward,” Janet said.
“Another of your mother-in-law’s wise sayings?” Caroline teased.
“Yes, of course. But seriously, you should ask him. He might be as glad to get back to his life as you’ll be.”
“Divorce you mean? You wouldn’t mind?” She and Barry had intended this, but Caroline had not wanted to discuss it with her parents as early as this.
“Never been a divorce in the family so far as I know, but eventually yes, why not? At least you won’t have to wait seven years now. The war changed all that.”
In the room that had been Caroline’s bedroom, Basil was repairing the chest of drawers he had bought back from Eleri. With no flat to furnish, she had told him she had no need of it. Basil had decided to clean it up and give it to her anyway. There must be space in the Lewises’ house for a small item like this and it was rather pretty.
He had rubbed it down with sandpaper and now was taking out each drawer, intending to paint it white and decorate it with flower transfers. Slightly embarrassed by this rather feminine occupation, he kept the door firmly locked.
One drawer refused to open and he took out the one underneath it and looked up to see what was holding it. An envelope was jammed between the drawer and the frame and he spent several minutes taking it out intact. Spidery handwriting gave the addressee as Arfon Weston, but the address was not the Weston’s house, but a small one not far from the Lewises’ in Sophie Street. In his ponderous way, Basil tucked the letter in his pocket to read later. Telling Eleri about his find would be an excuse to call and see her.
* * *
Rhiannon was making a success of the shop. Although rationing continued, her friendly manner and the good and varied stock at Temptations meant people walked the extra distance from the main road to use their coupons with her. She had also more than doubled her selection of greeti
ngs cards. A rep had called uninvited and shown her his range. Finding a space on the counter for a shallow box, she had agreed to give it a try.
“I’ll call again in a month, Miss Lewis.” Henry Harris left her his card and the impression that he was a man similar to her father, an expert salesman who used charm like a tool of his particular trade.
Girls who worked in shops had difficulty getting their own shopping done as the hours in most shops were the same. Rhiannon was aware of this and stayed open an extra few minutes most days so they could finish at half-past five and still buy their requirements on the way home. Word of this spread and the last half hour of the day was always busier than the first.
The display of china had grown, and she was careful to include a selection of lower priced ornaments as well as more expensive ones, so her window was inspiration for birthday presents. The small items she stocked for the convenience of her customers, like string, luggage labels, ceiling wax, stationery and pencils, meant that some came for these items and stayed to buy sweets.
“Once rationing ends I think we’ll do well, Mam,” she told Dora one evening in late April.
“Don’t you get fed up of working at the shop, helping out here and never going out?” her mother asked. “When did you last have some fun, love?”
“I don’t do much here any more,” Rhiannon said, smiling at Eleri. “You two manage most of it before I get home.”
“Mam’s right though,” Eleri said. “you should be having some fun.”
“You and me both,” Rhiannon sighed.
Rhiannon and Dora were worried about Eleri. The sparkle had gone from her, yet she didn’t discuss Lewis-boy or appear to grieve in the normal way. She filled her day with household chores and even spent a little time in the garden that was desperately in need of attention. But she never went out with friends, refusing all Rhiannon’s attempts to persuade her. “Basil told me he has a couple of bicycles for sale. D’you fancy joining the Sunday Club?” she asked then, with little hope.
“Going off for the day with the crowd on bikes?”
“Why not? They take a packed lunch and buy tea somewhere and get back in the early evening. Go on, let’s try it.”
“Ask Viv, he might join with you,” Dora suggested and to Rhiannon’s surprise and Dora’s relief, both Eleri and Viv agreed.
Basil wanted three pounds each for the old bicycles, but for Viv he found a slightly better one for which he charged six.
“Where do you get all this stuff, Basil?” Eleri asked. “Isn’t there anything you’re asked for that you can’t get?”
He looked her up and down in a suggestive manner and winked. “I’ll answer that later on, right?”
“But how do you get what people ask you for?” Eleri insisted, trying to ignore the funny feeling his looks were creating.
“Whatever it is that someone wants, there’s one standing idle somewhere, abandoned by its owner and begging for someone like me to come along and make an offer. I keep my eyes open and remember what I see and where, and I match owner to buyer and rake in a bit of profit. I buy and sell but don’t need to keep stock. The whole town of Pendragon Island is my warehouse.”
On the first Sunday that they joined the cycling club they realised why Viv had been so keen to come. Joan and Megan Weston were there, wearing the shortest shorts they had ever seen, and riding brand new blue and white bicycles. These had been bought by their doting grandmother. Jack Weston came on a machine that was far less grand, to keep an eye on the Weston girls on instructions from that same doting grandmother.
Basil surprised them by turning up on a smart racing bike which he had borrowed from a friend, “to see if I like it,” he explained. With his skinny frame and long legs, Eleri whispered to Rhiannon that he looked like a figure made from pipe cleaners.
Jack Weston watched the way Viv continually changed places to be as near to the girls as he could and on the way home he said, “Don’t get any ideas about Joan or Megan, mate. The family would chop you up and feed you to the birds if they thought you were getting hopeful about either of those two.
“What are you talking about?” Viv demanded. “I am allowed to talk to them I suppose? This is a social club! If they’re so selective they shouldn’t have joined.”
“Talk to them yes. Get ideas, no. Nothing to me, Viv, just a friendly warning.”
“What’s brought this on? Has anything been said?”
“Nothing.”
“Then pipe down.” Moving up through the gears, Viv rode outside the group of cycles and took the lead.
Within minutes, Jack joined him. “Sorry, I just thought you were heading for deep water that’s all.”
“I can swim very well, thanks!” Viv signalled for a left-hand turn and the snaking double column followed the curve down a lane which led to a thatched tea room where they all dismounted. In the crush finding seats, Megan whispered to Viv, “What did Jack want?”
“Tried to warn me off. We’ll have to be a bit careful, until we’re ready to tell everyone.”
They had been meeting for the past few weeks. Brief, unsatisfactory meetings, when Megan managed a rare escape from her twin sister. They held hands but had not yet kissed.
Basil sat between Eleri and Rhiannon and during the meal he told them about the envelope he had found. “It was in the chest of drawers I got for you so it’s yours, by right. I haven’t opened it, thought you’ll like to do that, Eleri. I’ll bring it over one evening,” he promised. No sense showing them now, even though it was in his jacket pocket. Silly to waste the opportunity to call and see Eleri.
Basil called at the Lewises’ house an hour before Eleri was due to leave for work the following evening and offered to walk with her. Before they left he took out the envelope which he still hadn’t examined. The address was clear enough but when Viv smoothed the faded envelope they saw in the top, left corner the words, “To be opened after my death”.
“Perhaps we should take this to the police or a solicitor,” Viv said.
“Not bloody likely. There could be some money in it!” Carefully easing away the flap, Basil took out the folded letter and read,
‘I, Daniel Sharp, of Longman’s cottages, Sophie Street, Pendragon Island, freely admit being responsible for the fire that damaged the warehouse and shop of Arfon Weston. The affore mentioned Arfon Weston received insurance payment and for my part in it I was given twenty-five pounds to repay my debts.’
The letter went on to give dates and what part he and Arfon had played in the fire. A diagram showed where the fire was started with a clear explanation of exactly how. The confession ended with Daniel Sharp saying he couldn’t go to his maker with his conscience so heavily loaded.
“Bloody ’ell,” Basil gasped. “Did I say there might be money in it!”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Viv said.
“I can offer to sell it.”
“That’s blackmail!” Eleri gasped. “Don’t get involved, Basil, please.”
“Offering to sell an old letter with historical value, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Please, Basil.” Eleri touched his arm. “It’s wrong.”
“Wrong to set fire to your own place and claim on the insurance. That’s arson,” he replied, his eyes gleaming. “Come on, Viv, we’ll see Eleri safe to work then go and see your boss, eh?”
“Please be careful, both of you.” Eleri said.
She clearly didn’t approve and Basil turned to her and asked, “Worried about me are you? Really worried? Like you care?”
“Of course I care, silly fool that you are, you need a keeper.”
“You offering?” he asked with a wink. “Come on, I’ll be late for work.”
Basil’s face was a picture of happy disbelief.
“D’you think she really does care, Viv?” he asked after leaving Eleri at the cinema.
“I think she might. More fool her! Lewis-boy hurt her badly, him being found with Joan and Megan. I think she’d ap
preciate someone to fuss over her.”
“Tomorrow, I’m going to get a job,” Basil announced.
“Never!”
“Yes, I’m getting a job. But first, let’s show this to old man Weston.”
“Talking about jobs… I might lose mine over this if it turns out to be some sort of joke. Employers don’t like their workers to blab.”
“We’ll forget it if you like?”
“No damned fear, boy!”
* * *
Arfon Weston was not pleased at being disturbed. When Victoria announced the visitors he told her to tell them they must come another time. He had guests for dinner and having one of his employees calling was an irritation. They heard him telling Victoria off for her incompetence in not getting rid of them.
“We’ll wait till he can see us,” Viv said. “Sorry if it gets you a row.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m leaving at the end of next week. Got a job in a shop.”
“Good on you.”
They waited with growing excitement. Basil was powerful with the thought that Eleri might care for him and Viv was glowing with the prospect of seeing old man Weston grovel.
They were shown into a room which was obviously Arfon’s study. Books lined the walls and a fire glowed in the grate. Arfon stood in front of the fire and demanded to know why they’d had the audacity to disturb him.
Basil opened the letter and read it out. “Here, let me see that!” Arfon demanded, holding out his hand.
Basil danced gleefully away, hiding the offending letter behind his back. “No fear. With a fire so handy and your reputation for arson? I’m not TWP, man.”
“It’s nonsense, and if you think you’ll get money out of me then you’re sadly mistaken.”
Corner of a Small Town Page 15