‘Ridiculous!’ Meriel said at once. ‘He still thinks of me as a child.’
‘Not any more he doesn’t!’ Lucy was adamant.
Meriel laughed and shook her head but the thought remained with her for a long time. Teifion ashamed and wanting to make amends, and now Leo of all people noticing she was a woman. Whatever next?
Three
Lucy and Meriel allowed themselves one day off a week, to do whatever they wanted to. Meriel sometimes went home to see her parents, but Lucy usually travelled on buses, through the towns and villages within a few miles of Cwm Derw, wandering around, her mind on houses, her eyes glancing at any property bearing a ‘For Sale’ notice. These were usually home-made and she would often knock and introduce herself and occasionally find them a new client.
She also placed advertisements in shop windows and on village notice boards. She found when she went again these had usually been taken down even though she had paid the threepence a week for their display. George Dexter, she guessed, as she replaced them and requested they stayed.
Although she still lived at home, Lucy didn’t see much of her family. When she was not at the pictures or out with Meriel on trips looking for prospective clients she spent the evenings in her room, reading, or listening to her gramophone, which she had bought at a house sale she and Meriel had attended. She avoided the rest of the family, only going downstairs to make a cup of tea or cocoa.
It was a long time since she felt a part of the household, even her name was different from the others. She paid her weekly contribution by leaving the money on the mantelpiece where it would be picked up, presumably by her stepfather who managed the household’s expenses, some time when she was not there to see.
She scarcely remembered her father; her memories were not of a man, moving and talking and laughing, but as a white face on a white pillow, huge eyes that stared into space but seemed not to see. She had vague images of him lying in bed in the darkened front room, where the curtains were almost fully closed, covered except for his pale face, quiet and with an aura of sickness and indifference that discouraged her from staying with him.
She remembered most clearly the day he had died; the house hushed and darkened, whispering people coming and going, filling the house with mourners dressed in black, the house smelling of flowers and mothballs. She had been just seven when he died and her mother had hastily married Douglas Lloyd.
She and Douglas did not get along. He had walked into the house and had expected to take over the running of the place, be masterful. Her mother had loved it and Lucy had rebelled. Although until then a mild-mannered child, her protests were loud and distressing and completely unquenchable. After a while, with her mother and her new stepfather delighting in the prospect of a new child, she gave up trying and, left to her own devices, she had slipped out of the family circle, a lodger no one particularly wanted. Three babies arrived and Lucy felt like a complete outsider from the sound of her stepsister’s first cry. Three sisters and all too far away in age to be her friend, and to make things worse, she had been expected to look after them while her mother and stepfather went out most evenings.
She wasn’t resentful, she quite liked her three stepsisters, Dawn, Diana and Deborah, but she did feel sad and lonely in spite of the full household. Douglas, her stepfather, rarely spoke to her, calling her ‘the girl’ when he referred to her, which was rare. She stayed because there was nowhere else to go, her wage as a hairdresser was too small to allow her to rent a place of her own. Her one attempt to share, with Jennie James, had been a failure.
None of her stepsisters were married either. The devotion of her mother and the over-zealous protection of their father made it impossible for them to meet and make friends with people of their own age. Neither parent had felt so protective towards her and, although it had caused some dismay in the past, Lucy was now grateful for their indifference – which had given her freedom – of a sort.
The sad truth was that she longed for someone to share her life. Freedom was all very well, but it could mean loneliness as well. There was no one to whom she was number one, no one hugged her and talked to her about their intimate dreams and ambitions. She had dreams but they lacked excitement with no one to share them. Although she lived in a house with five other people and was never far away from another human being, she always saw herself as sitting outside a circle, looking in, invisible to the rest.
She still thought about Gerald Cook and wondered how they would be if they should meet again. Would he smile and show pleasure? Or back away, afraid of her expecting too much? Foolishly she sometimes practised how she would smile at him, act casually, walk on as though he was of no consequence to her, a person left far away in her past and almost forgotten. Then there were other moments when she imagined seeing him and running towards him to be swept up in his arms and… she fought away those dreams. They only led to greater loneliness. Even when they had been engaged, Gerald had never been demonstrative, more afraid of what people would think than willing to show his feelings.
She knew that she had been fortunate meeting Meriel and being offered a share of a new business which she was already enjoying more than anything else she had done. She had only one regret at becoming Meriel’s partner; it was now impossible for her to leave home and find a place of her own. Her income was seriously reduced and her savings were gone. She managed on the little she earned with her deliveries, although much of that was pooled with the small amount of commission they managed to collect.
As she walked towards the bus stop to return to Cwm Derw she thought again of Gerald, whom she had once dreamed of marrying and around whom her thoughts had once been centred to the exclusion of everything else. She no longer suffered the miseries of rejection, his interest had faded slowly and the realization he no longer wanted her had been less painful that it might otherwise have been. Her regrets were not for Gerald the man, but for what he had represented. She grieved for the home and children they might have had.
She wondered vaguely if he had changed and whether he had found that special someone. Her communication with Gerald’s family had been reduced to a Christmas card but she knew that if she hadn’t sent one, they wouldn’t have bothered to send one to her. Best to let it go, she decided. It’s 1950 and it’s ‘off with the old’ even if there’s no ‘on with the new’.
She was walking along a country road and stopped suddenly, all thoughts of Gerald and his family fading as she saw a man struggling to erect a For Sale board. She pulled a leaflet from her bag, silently thanking Meriel’s father for providing them, and walked across to him.
The man was pleasant enough but he shook his head at the mention of business.
‘It’s the Lord’s day and not a time for talking about money matters,’ he said. He spoke kindly as though presuming she must have simply forgotten it was a Sunday. ‘I wouldn’t even be fixing this today if it hadn’t fallen. I worried it could have caused an accident, leaning out over the hedge.’
‘Can I call and see you tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘It’s just that we have a few people on our books looking for a house and we might be able to arrange a sale quite quickly.’
Though still polite, he raised a hand like a barrier to her words, and said, ‘Tomorrow, young lady, not on the Lord’s day.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him and replaced the leaflet in her bag. ‘May I come tomorrow morning and discuss ways we can help, and—?’
‘I will pleased to talk to you – tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ she said, backing away. She turned and smiled at him again before disappearing around the corner.
The man continued with his work. He was tall and alarmingly thin, dressed formally in a navy suit and white shirt. His neat collar and tie seemed too large for his skinny neck. On his head he wore a rather battered homburg, he was hardly dressed for fixing signs, Sunday or not. Lucy was grinning as she got on to the bus for Cwm Derw. He was an intriguing character with kindly blue eyes and an expre
ssion of resignation and tolerance as though the world had shown him its worst and he’d expected no less. She looked forward to the following day’s visit.
It was almost three o’clock and the weather had been overcast all day giving the impression it was later than it actually was. A chill March wind gusted occasionally cutting through her clothes. She didn’t go home; in spite of the gloom it was too early to incarcerate herself in her room. Instead she walked down the lane to Badgers Brook where she found Meriel and several friends enjoying tea and home-made biscuits, sitting around the log fire – a pleasant sight on such a dull afternoon.
To her surprise, she saw Teifion, standing near the window. He looked ill at ease and was obviously unwelcome. She presumed he had come to apologize to Meriel again, for the way he had abandoned her a long way from home. It was clear that Meriel did not intend to listen. He stood away from the others who seemed to have gathered closer together to isolate him further.
People immediately shuffled around to make room for her. Kitty Jennings, Meriel’s immediate neighbour, went to the kitchen and returned with a cup of tea, and a tin of biscuits was passed around. The conversation passed briefly to what Lucy had been doing but she didn’t mention the prospect she had half arranged for the following day. Teifion Dexter might be carrying a flag of truce but she didn’t trust him for a moment. ‘I’ve something exciting to tell you later,’ she whispered to Meriel.
Teifion watched as Meriel mouthed the words, ‘A prospect?’ Lucy nodded excitedly. ‘Never! Not on a Sunday?’
Teifion left soon after but Meriel didn’t get up and didn’t show him to the door. ‘He hadn’t been invited,’ she explained to Lucy, ‘he isn’t welcome and doesn’t deserve my usual politeness.’
‘Came to apologize – again – had he?’
‘I don’t know for certain, but from the little he said I think my father must have gone to see George Dexter. I didn’t want him to, but if it means he’ll leave us alone from now on I won’t complain.’
*
Teifion drove home with anger in his heart. He had left home because of the stupid way he had done what his father had asked of him, left his home and his job, and after all that, Meriel’s refusal to forgive him seemed unfair. His regrets were genuine and she ought to understand that.
Foolishly he had imagined being welcomed into the friendly group at Badgers Brook and being accepted for the way he had changed. After walking away from his home, family and his safe, secure occupation, he had felt a rosy glow, but Meriel’s attitude had washed that feeling away and left him feeling only humiliation and growing anger. He was sorry for what he had done, so how dare she behave so meanly.
He thought of the word ‘prospect’ that had passed between Lucy and Meriel and after a moment of hesitation, decided that if she wasn’t going to allow him the chance to apologize and try to explain, then it wouldn’t do any harm to please his father and take the client from them. After all, a prospect was just that, a possibility, until an agreement had been reached.
*
Meriel and Lucy opened the office the next morning and at ten o’clock Lucy set off by bus, leaving the car in case Meriel needed it, to find the man who had been so adamant that the Lord’s day was not a day for discussing business, hoping he would be willing to listen to her.
A few moments later, Teifion followed the bus by car, staying well back in case Lucy saw him, and catching up only when the bus had been lost to his sight for a while. He saw her hesitate beside a hedge with a home-made sign and walk up the path. He cruised past and parked close by. She came out about fifteen minutes later and Teifion saw she was smiling. He allowed a few minutes to pass then knocked on the door.
He would never again be persuaded to act as unkindly as before, his father’s hold over him had been broken that evening, but he wasn’t averse to stealing their sale. Hardly recognizable, but still deep within him was his need for his father’s approval.
*
When Lucy learned from Meriel a couple of days later that the sale had been given to Ace, George Dexter’s agency, she was angry. ‘If you go and talk to him, reminding him that he broke his word, and that’s a kind of dishonesty, we might still retrieve it,’ Meriel said. ‘Surely that’s worse than discussing business on a Sunday?’
Lucy went there straight away, leaving Meriel in the office, and knocked loudly on the door. When the door opened she faced a small, red-haired woman.
It took some persuading to be allowed inside but eventually the woman told her the reason her husband had changed his mind was because the second caller had explained that besides being an estate agent, his father was also an experienced auctioneer.
‘My partner has been dealing with auctions for several years,’ Lucy assured her. ‘She has had training in all aspects of the property business. But why do you want to auction the property? There’s a risk we might not reach the valuation we agree on.’
‘It’s all the stuff in the shed,’ the woman explained. She led Lucy through the house and opened the door of a large brick building. ‘My husband is often given things to sell to raise money for our church and he’s been neglectful and allowed it to build up.’
That was an understatement, Lucy thought, as she gazed at the jumble of furniture, toys and odds-and-ends that were stacked untidily.
‘If you will allow us to sort through and label everything, maybe discard a few things, clean and repair others, I’m sure we could make quite a few extra pounds for your church with this.’
‘Really? The other man, Mr – er—’ she queried.
‘Mr Dexter?’ Lucy offered.
‘Yes, that was his name. Mr Teifion Dexter. He thought it best to empty the shed and discard the items to make the property more attractive.’
‘Did he! And of course he offered to dispose of them for you.‘
‘Well, yes.’
‘He’d sell it and keep the money he raised.’ Lucy said no more but her words were convincing because she believed them to be true. With the larger auctions Dexter’s could have added the best of the furniture, and many of the oddments would also have found buyers.
‘I’ll talk to my husband when he gets home,’ the woman promised.
Lucy thanked her, gave her their business card and left with her fingers crossed.
‘There were all sorts of things in that shed.’ she told Meriel when she got back to the office. ‘Besides furniture, there were boxes of china, toys and even a hair drier, would you believe.’
‘A hair drier?’
‘And other things connected with hairdressing.’
‘You’d be able to value that stuff. I do hope they give us a chance to go through it all, goodness knows what we’ll find. Enough to make them a bit more money for certain. Just imagine, our first auction! It’s so exciting.’
‘I might buy the drier myself,’ Lucy said thoughtfully.
‘What on earth for? You aren’t thinking of leaving me, are you?’ Meriel was alarmed.
‘Not leave, but if I used the back room, I might be able to earn more money than I do making deliveries and I could do the office work in between customers.’ She laughed. ‘Very popular we’ll be, first stealing work from Dexter’s and then me taking clients from Jennie James’s hairdresser’s shop!’
‘We are rather desperate,’ Meriel admitted. ‘There isn’t really enough work to go round, but I don’t intend to give up.’
‘Let’s see what we find in the shed,’ Lucy replied. She frowned as she thought about it. ‘Sets and cutting only, no perms, that wouldn’t be too difficult to organize – if we get the drier, and if it works.’
It was Lucy who saw the man they now knew as Mr William Roberts-Price, when he called to tell them they would be dealing with the house sale.
‘I had a word with the young man at Dexter’s, and his father, and I’m satisfied that they were in the wrong trying to cheat you out of my sale and also that I was wrong to be so easily convinced.’ He sat at the desk opposite Lucy
and they were filling out the details, with Lucy making a list of things she needed to do when he broke off in the middle of a sentence and started over her shoulder. She turned and saw he was staring at Meriel. ‘Oh, I don’t think you’ve met my partner,’ she said, curious at his nervous stuttering as she introduced Meriel. He seemed anxious to leave, and the information was quickly taken and he hurried from the office with hardly another glance at Meriel who had come to stand beside Lucy at the desk.
‘Strange man,’ Lucy said.
Meriel shrugged. ‘So long as he allows us to act for him I don’t care, do you?’
‘He changed as soon as he saw you, Meriel. I wonder why?’
‘Oh, perhaps I remind him of someone. I certainly don’t know him.’
They began at once to make the initial preparations for the house sale. A letter was delivered by a rather dowdy young woman who looked about twenty, later that afternoon, telling them they could clear the contents of the shed the following day.
‘Wonderful,’ Meriel said. ‘But how are we to man the office and go to the shed to clear the junk? That job will need both of us.’
Kitty Jennings, Meriel’s neighbour at Badgers Brook, offered a solution. That evening, when they talked about the problem they faced she at once offered to sit there and take messages. ‘Bob will come as well and between us we should be able to cope,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Bit of fun it’ll be, won’t it, Bob, love?’ And so it was arranged.
Early the following morning, with Lucy driving and armed with notepads, pencils, measuring tape, dusters and polishing cloths, they set off. The house appeared to be empty and after knocking a few times they opened the door and went inside. Everything was neat and clean but rather sparse. The furniture was functional, mostly built-in wardrobes and cupboards, which on examination contained only a few clothes and those were very old-fashioned. There were very few ornaments, and no personal items in sight.
The Heart of the Home Page 6