The Heart of the Home
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Copyright
The Heart of the Home
Grace Thompson
One
Meriel watched with amusement as her father showed a prospective buyer around a newly offered property. The young couple seemed ill at ease, trying to appear knowledgeable and in control and her darling Dadda was flattering them on their perspicacity, appearing surprised at some of their comments as though none of their observations had occurred to him before.
She smiled as he described the very small kitchen as bijou and remembered asking him once what the word meant. ‘I’m not really sure,’ he had replied with a twinkling grin. ‘But it sounds good. If I’m pushed I say it’s like a small and perfect jewel. And,’ he added, ‘I always remind them that the kitchen, where all the caring is done, is the heart of the home. Although really, the heart of the home is love.’
With his well-practised charm and his genuine desire to help, he had the young couple sitting down discussing the way they would furnish the house within half an hour. He had even planned the garden for them. Walter John Evans, Estate Agent and Auctioneer, was a clever man who was definitely in the right job.
Meriel watched with some regret as the couple set off to discuss their choice with their families. She was twenty-two and so far there had been no sign of that special man with whom she could settle and make a home of her own. She was just too comfortable at home, working for her father in a job she loved. She hoped that the plan she was incubating, to move away and make a fresh start, would open up her life before it was too late.
She had lived all her life in the town of Barry on the South Wales coast. It had been a Mecca for holidaymakers for many years and was a perfect place to grow up. There were so many attractions beside one of the finest sandy beaches; she knew she would find it a wrench to leave but if one of the two interviews she had arranged ended with the offer of a job she would go. Although, she admitted, she was already reminding herself that she could always return. The door would always be open and her job there to come back to whenever she needed it.
A couple of days later she walked along a road on which large buildings rose high on one side, blocking out the weak November sun. She was looking for an hotel but from the neglected facades along the row she wasn’t very hopeful of it being a thing of beauty. There were one or two where some attempt had been made to brighten the property; fresh paint, windows open to the afternoon air and fresh net waving in the slight breeze from the sea. She guessed, from the indications on the front doors, that these had been converted into flats. When she saw Golden Acres, with its peeling gaudy-blue paint, the rotting wood on the windows, the fallen fences, her heart sank. This was not going to be easy to sell.
She had an appointment with the owner but as she was early she walked around to the back lane and examined the property by peering through the space that had once held a gate. As was often the case, it looked worse than the front, she thought with fading hope. As she turned to walk back, she heard voices interspersed with a woman’s tinkling laughter. A couple came out of the next gateway, arm in arm, and stopped to kiss passionately. Embarrassed, Meriel slipped into the garden of the property she was about to visit.
She heard the couple walk away, peeped out once and saw them embrace and kiss again. When she guessed they had reached the end of the lane she stepped out and almost knocked the woman off her feet. She wore no shoes, her tiny feet with their red varnished toenails looked incongruous, like those of a child. She hadn’t made a sound as she returned. The woman appeared to be in her thirties, very small but with a generous figure. Blonde hair fell in wild waves around her pretty face, her make-up was heavily applied and she carried her shoes by their three-inch heels.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Meriel said.
‘Had a good ol’ look, did you?’ the woman retorted, tapping the side of her nose, her bright red lips clammed tight with disapproval. ‘Hiding behind fences, listening to other people’s conversations, there’s a name for people like you! You should be ashamed.’
Taken aback, Meriel could only begin to protest. ‘I wasn’t—’
Without another word the woman walked up the path of the next door building and Meriel heard her slam the door.
Meriel composed herself with difficulty, angry at being unfairly accused of nosiness, or even voyeurism, and went around to the front where she was to meet the vendor. He turned out to be a very young man who looked hardly more than sixteen. He explained that he had inherited the house from his grandmother and wanted to raise as much money as he could from its sale, for when he was ready to buy a home of his own. ‘I don’t want the responsibility of it,’ he explained. ‘I rent two rooms in a house and someone to deal with the washing and all that, so I don’t want a place of my own yet. Certainly not a place this big!’
‘There are one or two nice pieces of furniture,’ Meriel noted as they walked through the sad rooms. ‘If you wish, we could add them to our next general sale.’
The boy nodded. ‘I don’t really care,’ he said. ‘I hardly knew her and I don’t feel the need to keep any mementoes.’
Meriel felt a pang of pity for the old lady, the grandmother he had hardly known. It made her all the more grateful for her parents and the happiness she had enjoyed. After giving an assessment of the price they might reasonably expect to achieve, she went into a phone box and reported back to her father.
‘Dadda, it’s a mess,’ she said. ‘But if someone was prepared to spend money and get the work done it would make three good flats.’ She told him what her valuation had been and asked him to come and confirm her estimate.
She decided she would go and sit in the car and fill in the rest of the details in her notebook while it was fresh in her mind, but as she left the phone box she bumped into the blonde woman again. She now wore a hooded coat over her suit and the high heels had been changed for some flat, brown wedge-heeled shoes but it was definitely the same woman.
‘Has someone sent you to spy on me?’ she demanded.
‘No, of course not. I’m an estate agent and valuer and I—’
‘Don’t talk rot. Whoever heard of a woman doing a job like that? You must think I’m stupid. Just clear off and mind your own business.’
Meriel opened her bag and handed her a card. ‘W J Evans is my father,’ she said, thankful she had been allowed to complete a sentence.
A man approached them and called, ‘Is anything wrong?’ He too had added an overcoat to his apparel but she recognized him as the man from the lane.
‘No. Go away you fool,’ the woman hissed.
Thankful to leave them behind, Meriel got into the car and drove away. What they had been doing that made them so aggressive she daren’t think. It was clearly something they didn’t want others to know.
The following day she went with her father to discuss selling the run-down property. They took a builder with them and met the owner there. Walter managed to arrange a sale between the two of them to the delight of the builder and the obvious relief of the owner. Meriel looked around anxiously as she passed the neighbouring house which appeared to be in a worse state than the one they had just sold, but was relieved to see no sign of the irate blonde or her boyfriend.
*
Meriel had a lot on her mind that day. She had arranged an interview for a job with an estate agent in a small town called Cwm Derw. Telling her parents she was intending to leave home was not going to be easy, she had tried to prepare them but they seemed unconvinced that she would actually go. She knew how hard it was for them to face but she knew she had to go before it was too late.
Walter watched her, aware of her dilemma but saying nothing. He loved working with his only child and he’d miss her dreadfully, but he knew he had to let her go without any arguments, so she knew she was loved but had her freedom. Love could so easily be used as a key with which to lock a door.
The following morning, Meriel said her piece then glanced at her father, saddened by his attempt to hide his disappointment. ‘But Dadda, it isn’t as though I’m going to the other side of the world,’ she said, touching his arm affectionately. ‘I just need to spread my wings for a while, get some fresh experience.’ Her parents still looked doubtful as she continued, ‘You and Mam have done a good job. You’ve prepared me, given me the confidence to move on, stand on my own feet. I’m so grateful for the wonderful start you’ve given me. No one could have had better parents than I’ve had.’
‘Yet you want to leave us,’ her mother said. ‘Why do you have to go? Isn’t the work with Dadda interesting enough for you?’
‘I don’t want to be stuck in a rut, Mam.’ Meriel turned to her father. ‘I’m not going far, Dadda. I’ve applied for a job not far away. It’s in a small town, and you and Mam can easily visit in a day. The few miles will be nothing in your smart new car,’ she said with a smile. They asked her where she was going but she refused to say. ‘I expect this will be the first of several interviews so I won’t tell you until I have the offer of a job. Right?’
She picked up her gloves and reached for her handbag. ‘Time I was leaving. I don’t want to be late for my interview or I won’t be leaving after all.’
‘Just don’t go too far or stay away too long. Promise?’ Walter handed her the keys of his Hillman Minx. ‘Take my car, it will get you there quicker.’
‘Your new car? Thanks, Dadda! That’s wonderful!’ she said in surprise, staring at the keys on her palm. She kissed them both, hugged her mother and hurried from the house. If her father were any kinder she’d burst into tears and cancel the whole idea of leaving.
‘Don’t forget, love,’ her father called, ‘this interview is for you to make up your mind about the job, as well as for them to decide whether or not you will suit them.’
She drove away from Barry, through the pretty villages in the Vale of Glamorgan without haste, passing Aberthaw, Boverton, St Donat’s, Southemdown, before she turned northward to Cwm Derw. She had allowed herself plenty of time, even without the newer, more powerful car. She drove through lanes that, even in the early winter of 1949, had a sort of beauty; soothing and restful. The colours were sombre, the autumn leaves now fallen and soggy on the ground, but she never found the wintertime melancholy, she looked upon it as the unwinding after a hectic summer, nature slumbering, a world at rest.
She was making a real change in her life; leaving the sales, auctions and estate management agency in which she had worked alongside her father since she had left school and going to a new position among strangers. In moments of panic she wondered why she was doing it, why she had felt the need for such a drastic change. But she knew that if she didn’t, she might stay there for too long, until it was impossible to get out of the rut, interesting though the rut might be.
She felt the need to add to her experiences before it was too late for her to leave. There weren’t many who would accept her. This interview was one of only two she had been offered and the other had made it clear she would remain in the office while men did the real work. Most estate agents still believed that the public looked with more confidence towards a man in the business of selling and auctioning property.
The first agency at which she had arranged an interview was in the High Street of Cwm Derw – Valley of Oaks, and she parked the car outside the post office and walked across. The name of the agency was Ace Estate Agency. The outside looked rather run-down, with chipped paint and shabby, ill-fitting blinds. Inside, a young man stood behind the counter, apparently staring through the window at nothing at all. Dreaming of home time, she thought with a cynical smile; like some of the people her father had interviewed to take her place over the past weeks.
The bell rang cheerfully as she opened the door and at once the young man came out of his daydream and smiled at her.
‘My name is Meriel Evans, I have an appointment to see Mr Dexter.’ She spoke sharply, and hoped her interview wasn’t with this uninteresting and obviously bored young man.
‘That will be my father, George Dexter,’ the young man said. ‘I’m Teifion Dexter. I’ll go and fetch him.’
Meriel sat down near the counter and looked around the walls – where photographs of farms and houses were interspersed with a few posters, old and new, giving details of properties offered for sale. From what she could see the office wasn’t a busy one. What would she do all day? She couldn’t imagine standing staring into space waiting for the doorbell to ring as Teifion Dexter had been doing. She reminded herself of her father’s last words. ‘Remember this is for you to make up your mind about the job, as well as for them to decide whether or not you will suit them.’
George Dexter came in and stared at her for a long time. Meriel stared boldly back. He was rather heavily built and he wore an expensive suit and shirt, both of which seemed a little too small. His greying hair was slicked back with Brylcreem and a thin moustache decorated his upper lip. There were several rings on his hands and a gold watch was just visible on his wrist. She immediately had visions of him standing in the street, with an open suitcase in front of him, selling illegal items while looking out for a policeman. A spiv, no doubt about it, her mam would say.
She was ushered into a back room and when she had eased off her coat, George Dexter asked her a few questions which he had written on a piece of paper.
‘So,’ he said when the list of questions was finished, ‘you know the business well, having worked with your father since school.’
‘Before that really. Every Saturday and during school holidays I helped out with filing and typing letters and so on. I also attended many farm and house auctions, and my valuations are almost always in line with his.’
‘And you’re sure you’ll be happy living away from home?’
‘I am twenty-two,’ she said mildly.
‘Have you arranged accommodation?’
‘No point until I know if I have the job, whether I suit you – and the position you offer suits me.’ She looked at him wryly. ‘It has to be what we both want, doesn’t it?’
George stared at her. She sounded as though she might be a bit ‘chopsy’, this one.
‘I don’t imagine it will be difficult to find a temporary place while I look around for something permanent,’ she told him. ‘Should we decide we suit each other.’
‘Evans,’ he mused. ‘It’s not an uncommon name, would I know your father?’
‘Walter Evans,’ she said, ‘we live in Barry.’ She was surprised at the odd smile that creased his face and the sharpened light in his dark eyes.
‘Does he know where you have applied for work?’
‘Not yet. Until I have something permanent it seems pointless to discuss it.’
‘I would like to offer you the position,’ he said, offering his hand across the desk.
‘Thank you, as long as we understand I’m not a filing clerk without a thought in my head we’ll get along fine. And from the look of the over-stuffed shelves, I would want to rearrange some of the files and remove some of the oldest to somewhere less visible. It doesn’t give a good impression to a client, seeing untidiness, does it?’
Definitely chopsy, he thought. This could be fun.
‘Would you like me to help find a room?’ he asked.
‘I’d
prefer to do that myself, but thank you.’
That sharpness was there: so far but no further, over-confident without a doubt. She was better by far than the others he had interviewed and if she did her job well and was polite with clients, he didn’t think an occasional sharp remark would bother him. He pictured Walter Evans’s face when his daughter told him who was to be her new boss. This was really too good an opportunity to miss. His dark eyes glittered with amusement but also with malice. For a while at least, a reliable assistant would give him more time to enjoy himself with Frieda; his son Teifion sadly lacked the necessary flair. Who knows, someone as stroppy as Meriel Evans might even defy her father’s inevitable protests, and stay.
After the details were discussed, and he had agreed to pay her a pound more than he had intended, she left the office, and returned to where Teifion was writing something in a ledger. She waited until he put down his pen and said, ‘It seems that you have a new assistant.’
‘Good. I’m sure we’ll work together happily.’ He held out his hand and she shook it. He held hers for a fraction longer than necessary, and said, ‘There’s a modest bed and breakfast not far away. It’s run by Elsie and Ed Connors. You might find it suitable while you’re looking for something better.’
So, Meriel thought, he had been listening to what had been said. She thanked him and left.
The bed and breakfast he mentioned was not far from where she had left her father’s Hillman Minx, in a quiet road behind the post office. As she knocked on the front door, she looked around at the neat and well-kept front. Inside was the same. Clean and comfortable. It was Ed Connors who showed her the room and he explained that his wife was unwell and needed a lot of rest. ‘But when you come to stay she’ll be here to meet you, she likes to introduce herself to our guests,’ he told her.
She took the room which looked out onto the quiet street. She didn’t want to get involved in renting something more permanent until she had been at the Dexter’s agency for a month or so. No point settling in before she was sure she wanted to stay in this small town.
The Heart of the Home Page 1