‘She gave you a hard luck story and you gave her a fiver?’ Haydn snarled contemptuously.
‘Not all of it.’ Eddie put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a two shilling piece.
‘That all you got left? Two bob?’
Eddie nodded pathetically.
‘Well I hope she bloody well earned every penny?’
‘Earned …’
‘Don’t be thick! You know what I mean. Did she earn it?’
Eddie recalled the afternoon. Daisy lying naked in the long grass. The flies crawling over his naked back as he thrust himself inside her …
A large, self-satisfied smirk crossed his face at the memory.
Mollified, Haydn calmed down. ‘What can I say except that thanks to you I won enough today to pay for both our suits. Good luck to you, boy.’ Haydn pulled another two pints from the stock on the bar towards them. ‘Five pounds is steep but Daisy comes expensive. Others have paid more. And when it comes to the things that matter, quality matters more than price. At least that’s what Dad always told me,’
Eddie pushed his cap to the back of his head, looked Haydn squarely in the eye and laughed for the first time that day. Haydn was right. When he came to think about it Daisy was quality. What she’d given him was priceless.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Has he taken her home yet?’ Dr John asked his wife as she switched off the light and drew back the curtains.
‘The garage doors are open and his car’s gone,’ she answered abruptly.
‘It’s easy to see what you think of that one,’ he commented, kicking off his slippers and climbing into bed.
‘I never said …’
‘That’s just it, Isabel,’ he observed evenly. ‘You never said. You don’t have to. After thirty-two years I know you better than to need words.’ He patted her arm as she sat beside him on the bed.
‘Oh, she’s a nice enough girl, I suppose,’ Isabel added in a tone that said she didn’t think so. ‘It’s just that …’
‘She isn’t good enough for Andrew?’ he interrupted.
‘You sound as though you’re making fun of me.’
‘Don’t be so sensitive, darling. I’m agreeing with you.’ He laid his head back on the pillow. The brandy, wine and champagne he’d drunk earlier blurred the fringes of his vision, so he closed his eyes. An image of Bethan came to mind. Dark, slim yet curvaceous – voluptuous – yes that was the word he was looking for – voluptuous – with deep smouldering eyes, and a wide, welcoming mouth. He rubbed his hands over his temples. He’d better watch himself. He was beginning to think like the gossip columnists in the Sunday People.
‘She’s a pretty girl,’ he chose his words carefully, ‘and I’m sure that’s all Andrew sees. A pretty girl to help him while away his idle hours. He’ll soon tire of her, dear, and then he’ll go looking for someone more like himself. Someone he can really talk to. Take my word for it. It will pass.’
‘Do you think so?’ It was a plea for reassurance.
‘I don’t know of a doctor who didn’t have a fling with a pretty nurse in his youth.’
‘Yourself included, I suppose.’
‘Present company excepted.’ He kissed her hand.
‘Liar,’ she said fondly.
‘Well if it’s any consolation I realised early on that despite her medical training she wouldn’t make a suitable wife, not for me, or any doctor thinking of career advancement. And given time, and Andrew’s ambition to become a fully-fledged surgeon, he’ll come to the same conclusion. That’s if he hasn’t already. Smart move of yours to invite the Llewellyn-Jones girl. They seemed to get on well together.’
‘Didn’t they?’ Isabel gloated. ‘But you’ll still talk to him?’
‘If I have to. But really, dear,’ he held back the bedclothes for her to climb into bed, ‘I don’t think it will come to that. He’s a sensible boy. Believe me, he’ll soon see the situation for himself.’
The following morning Maud was up early and in Megan’s house before eight.
‘You told your mother that you’re going rag picking with Diana?’ Megan asked as she slapped plates down on the table.
‘Not exactly,’ Maud admitted reluctantly.
‘I thought so. Then the pair of you,’ Megan looked from Maud to Diana, ‘mind that you come straight back here as soon as you’ve finished to have a bath in the washhouse. You’re going to need it after you’ve been in the rag picker’s yard all day,’ she warned Maud. ‘And remind me to go through your clothes before you go home. Your mother will go spare if she finds a single louse or flea on you. And God knows there are enough of both down Factory Lane.’
‘I’ll do that. Thanks, Auntie Megan.’ Maud took the slice of bread Megan handed her and smeared butter over it.
‘We’d best get going,’ Diana said impatiently, walking past the table and grabbing a Welsh cake. ‘There’s always a huge queue on school holidays, and late comers get sent away.’
‘Mind you get Jim Rags to pay you two pence,’ Megan called after them as they went out through the front door. ‘He tried to fob Jinny Makey off with only a penny for a full day.’
‘We won’t take less than two pence, Mam. Promise. See you tonight.’
‘It doesn’t seem right, lying to everyone,’ Maud protested as they ran past the turning to Factory Lane and straight down Llantrisant Road towards town.
‘I told you. Mam wouldn’t let us go if we said where we were off to,’ Diana snapped impatiently. ‘And Mrs Jones will give us a free trip to Cardiff and half a crown each for helping her. That’s got to be better than two pence for a whole day sorting rags in the smelly sheds.’
‘Why doesn’t she take her own kids and save five bob?’ Maud asked suspiciously.
‘Too young to flutter their eyelashes at floor walkers and distract them,’ Diana informed her as she gave a laudable Mary Pickford impression.
‘You girls are late,’ Judy Jones complained as they ran breathlessly into the ticket office.
‘I know, I’m sorry. She …’ Diana pointed to Maud, ‘wanted a second breakfast.’
‘I’ve got the tickets,’ Betty Morgan called from the front of the queue at the ticket booth.
With the two women humping three large Gladstone bags between them, the four of them ran as fast as they could up the flight of steep stone steps, reaching the platform just as the guard was putting the whistle to his mouth.
‘Quick.’ Betty wrenched open the door to a third-class carriage and they all tumbled in, slamming it just as the whistle blew.
‘We’ll sort you out in Cardiff.’ Judy studied Maud from between narrowed eyes. ‘Has Diana told you what we’ll be doing?’
‘Not really,’ Maud answered, a little bewildered by the air of importance and urgency.
‘Perhaps it’s just as well,’ Betty smiled. ‘You can’t beat innocence.’
Maud had only ever been on a train to Cardiff twice in her life, both times when her father had been working a five-day week. Lucky enough to have a window seat she made the most of the special trip, sat back and watched the scenery glide past. The smoky, soot blackened yellow brick of the backs of terraced houses, the overgrown embankments, wildernesses of scrap iron in the merchants’ yards, the stations and the villages rolled past. Treforest, Taffs Well, Radyr and eventually Cardiff Queen’s Street then General.
‘Straight to the Ladies’ waiting room,’ Betty barked, gathering her bags together the minute the train stopped. Diana and Maud traipsed behind the women feeling a bit like chicks following two overblown hens.
‘Right, you know what to do Diana. Take Maud into the cubicle with you.’ Betty thrust her Gladstone bag into Diana’s hand as soon as they entered the toilets. Diana took it, pushed Maud into a cubicle, followed her, locked the door and opened the bag.
‘What’s in there?’ Maud asked.
‘Clothes. We can’t go like we are. Quick, get your dress off.’
While Maud was undressing Diana pulled out
two plain grey cloche hats, two matching grey woollen dresses, cable knit lisle stockings and two pairs of practical lace-up black shoes.
‘Daughters of the crache,’ she explained in a posh accent.
‘I didn’t know you could talk like that,’ Maud gasped.
‘Practice makes perfect,’ Diana said airily, very much the experienced tutor to Maud’s apprentice. ‘And if you can’t talk the same you’d best keep your mouth closed. Here, put this coat on, follow me and do whatever I do.’
Betty and Judy were in the Ladies’ waiting room when they finally emerged. Maud scarcely recognised them. Judy was wearing a thick layer of make-up, flared slacks and a white blouse ornamented by a royal blue and white name tag that sported the name “Miss Barker”. Underneath the name in smaller letters was the title “Window dresser”.
‘Howell’s,’ Diana explained briefly. Judy pulled on a calf length blue coat that buttoned to the neck, fastened it, and rolled her trouser legs up to her knees exposing flesh-coloured stockings.
‘Here, Diana, take this to left luggage.’ Betty jammed her own, Judy’s and the girls’ clothes into one of the bags. Then she picked up one of the Gladstones, Judy the other. ‘Here we go, Maud, watch Diana, do everything she does, and don’t say a word unless you’re spoken to and then only “yes” or “no”. I don’t have to tell you that you’re not to tell a soul about this?’
‘Diana warned me’
‘Good. Here’s Diana. Hold her hand and walk behind us.’
Diana and Maud entered Howell’s behind Betty; they’d lost sight of Judy somewhere along the way. Betty made a direct beeline for the Ladies’ wear department.
‘Three floorwalkers, six assistants. The two either side of the shoe department will be going on eleven-fifteen tea break with the tallest of the floorwalkers,’ Betty whispered sotto voce to Diana.
‘Can I help you, madam?’ a black-skirted, white-bloused assistant enquired.
‘Yes, I want matching dresses for my daughters.’ Betty’s accent had also undergone a miraculous transformation. ‘Something in royal blue?’ she said loudly for the benefit of the assistants in the shoe department. ‘With matching gloves and shoes of course. It’s for a wedding. In London,’ she added proudly, if superfluously.
‘If, madam, would care to come this way.’
Betty followed her, and the girls followed Betty. By explaining fictitious trivial details in a loud voice, and by demanding that the dresses be matched exactly to shoes and hats, Betty succeeded in commanding the attention of three of the six assistants. Spot on eleven fifteen two of the remaining three assistants and the tallest of the floorwalkers went to tea. One minute after that the last assistant’s attention was taken up by another customer.
‘This won’t do. Won’t do at all,’ Betty said abrasively. Diana picked up on the prearranged cue. Turning abruptly she caught her elbow on the outstretched arm of a plaster tailor’s dummy that was modelling an outrageously expensive example of the latest sequinned evening fashions on a central display. The dummy rocked precariously on its perch. Diana screamed, so Maud screamed too.
The two floor walkers rushed to catch it, while Betty apologised to all and sundry. And during those few seconds Judy appeared, coatless, scarf covering her hair, brush and feather duster in one hand, bag in another. She walked behind the counter, opened the panel that led out to the windows and closed it behind her.
The first thing she did was kick off her shoes. Then, trousers flapping around her ankles, she commenced stripping all of the dummies in the window of their clothes, accessories and jewellery, taking the time to fold everything carefully and neatly into her enormous bag. By the time Betty had moved on to looking at cerise gowns as an alternative to blue for her daughters, she’d finished.
It was twenty nine minutes past eleven. One minute before the end of tea break for those off the floor.
‘Hey you,’ the senior floorwalker shouted as Judy closed the panel behind her.
‘Me?’ she asked calmly, valiantly suppressing her initial reaction to run.
‘Yes. Can you do something about this model?’ he asked, with a backward glance at Diana. ‘Customer knocked it over and damaged the sequins on the dress.’
Judy dropped her bag, walked over to the dummy and examined the cloth. Four of the sequins were bent; she succeeded in straightening them with her fingernail.
‘If you give me a hand to strip it I’ll take it up to repairs,’ she said abruptly.
‘Can you have it back by this afternoon?’
‘Yes. I should think so.’
He lifted down the dummy and between them they peeled off the gown and wrapped the naked plaster body in a sheet, lest it offend the delicate sensibilities of shoppers. Laying the evening gown on top of the clothes bulging out of her bag, Judy walked on into the men’s department. Removing a stack of pullovers, shirts and ties from the edge of the counter she tucked them under her arm and proceeded to the lift.
The lift attendant helpfully assisted her to stack her load behind the metal safety grille.
She got out at the third floor and went into the Ladies’ cloakroom.
Betty and the girls walked in a few minutes later.
While Judy was busy rolling her trouser legs, untying her scarf and donning her coat in one cubicle, the three of them crammed into another and split Judy’s haul between the two bags. Diana took one, pushed the other into Maud’s hand and led the way out of the cloakroom, and out of the store.
Maud had never been so frightened in her life.
Her mouth was dry, her hands wet and clammy where they gripped the bag. Every murmur of conversation, every glance that came her way from a floorwalker or assistant sent her heart into palpitations.
Smiling at the doorman Diana walked confidently out on to the street. Two minutes later Maud joined her.
‘Tea in Lyon’s, I think. Shopping is so tiring,’ Diana said loudly for the benefit of the doorman in her “posh” accent.
‘Sweets from a baby,’ Betty laughed later over a cup of tea in the station buffet. ‘Here’s your half-crowns, girls.’
‘And here’s these,’ Diana put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a dozen costume rings.
Maud stared at them in disbelief. ‘Where did you get those?’
‘I tried one on,’ Diana said.
‘Just one,’ Maud repeated dully, ‘I know, I saw you.’
‘Sweets from a baby.’ Diana’s laugh joined Betty’s.
‘And crache clothes for us.’ Judy touched her cup to Maud’s. ‘Congratulations on joining the forties. You’re just the type of new blood we need.’
‘The forties?’ Maud echoed in bewilderment.
‘Forty thieves, clot.’ Diana put her arm around Maud’s shoulders. ‘Or should I say forty-one.’
The weeks that followed her first visit to Andrew’s rooms were idyllic for Bethan. She used some of the money Andrew’d given her to clear her debts with her aunt and loan Eddie a float to tide him over. Even after a wild spending spree in Megan’s she still had thirty two pounds to hide in the bottom of her jewellery box. Her father seemed happier than he’d been for weeks. And when he took to wearing his best suit, polishing his shoes and stepping out in the evenings via Rhiannon’s house, she assumed that he was putting his winnings to good use in the Graig Hotel. She was glad for him. He deserved a few pints after the gloom of a winter spent on short-time work.
Eddie bought himself a new and better pair of gloves and practically moved into the gym at the back of the Ruperra Hotel on Berw Road.
No one was more delighted than her when Joey Rees fixed it so Eddie got a job as dogsbody and late night general cleaner for a bob a night and his gym fees. Elizabeth was quick to point out that six shillings a week wasn’t enough to keep a baby, let alone a grown man, but Eddie, flush with new found confidence after winning his fight and laying Daisy, wasn’t to be easily put down. Not even by his mother. He threw his first week’s money on the table and tol
d her to keep it. He still had his days free to put up market stalls, work in the brewery and, best of all, run for the bookies who were only too keen to employ him now they knew he could take care of himself and their cash.
Haydn began leaving for work early in the afternoon. Bethan found out why when she saw him serving in Harry Griffiths’ shop beside a proud and blushing Jenny one afternoon. Maud’s cough disappeared, just as Andrew had promised it would, and, happy and healthy, Maud took to spending all her free time with Diana. At weekends they became inseparable, and Maud slept over at Megan’s most Friday and Saturday nights with her cousin, chiefly because she enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere but also because the distance made it impossible for her mother to monitor her movements.
Elizabeth continued to moan, but her moans were always easier to bear in the warm weather when everyone found it simpler to get out of the house.
With her family as happy as they could be, and spring gliding into a full blown, warm, beautiful summer, Bethan and Andrew found the time and the passion to create wonderful, exquisite moments that would last both of them a lifetime. They spent every minute when they weren’t actually sleeping, or working, together. And occasionally they even managed to contrive to spend some of their working time in one another’s arms.
They touched fingers as they passed in the corridor. They stole moments from meal breaks and met in deserted side wards and corridors. Whenever Squeers set Bethan menial duties in the linen cupboards or sluice rooms she ran along quickly with a light step, a delicious sense of expectancy buoying her spirits in the hope that he’d be there, waiting to drag her into a secluded corner and steal a kiss. She only had to catch sight of him across the yard or in a corridor for her limbs to grow liquid with longing. And throughout each and every long, hard working hour there was the prospect of the evening and weekly day off that lay ahead.
Glittering golden times that more than compensated for the slights and indignities she suffered at Squeers’ hands.
Sometimes Trevor and Laura joined them on their outings but more often than not they were alone, not simply because Laura and Bethan’s days off rarely coincided. Each of them valued the moments they spent with their partner too much to share them, even with close friends.
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