The rage seemed to have dissipated once he had confessed it had been the situation with Megan that had caused it. She watched him anxiously but he showed no sign of wanting to hit her again, although the calm expression in his eyes, the occasional smile, didn’t prevent her heart from racing with fear every time he came near her.
Sally’s most urgent desire was to prevent her twin girls becoming aware of the estrangement. For this reason, she rose early and left her bedroom door open. Ryan, with tacit agreement to keep the situation secret, would go into the bedroom for his clothes and leave his laundry in the basket near the bedroom window as he always did. If Megan was aware of an atmosphere in the house she did not mention it.
In fact, she and her twin hardly noticed their mother and father. Joan was involved in running the family’s wallpaper and paint shop with her husband Viv, and Megan was wrapped up in thoughts of the sports shop and Edward.
Besides, parents were a part of the scenery, not like friends whose every nuance of mood they registered. They were there, as they always were, whenever they were needed. As with most young people, their parents just existed on the periphery of their days. They had no reason to expect anything to change, and nothing happened to attract their attention to a serious rift.
Sally fussed over Megan as usual, and Megan ignored her concerns. Sally was anxious about the baby, anxious about future plans, of which Megan had none. She worried about her daughter’s health, and about what people were saying. And the effect of the pregnancy on her mother, Gladys, who had been so distressed by the announcement and was trying to be brave.
Megan did notice how little was said in the presence of her father and how careful her mother was to avoid discussing anything to do with the baby, but she presumed he was yet to forgive her.
“Daddy will come round, I know he will, fathers always do,” Megan said to her sister one day when they were sipping coffee in the office of Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint.
“He’ll have to!” Joan said sharply. “He can’t sulk and pretend it isn’t happening, for the rest of his life.”
The sisters were in the shop on a Sunday, while Viv and one of his assistants were sorting through some old stock with the intention of having a sale.
“I know the baby will change my life,” Megan told her, “but I also know that, in spite of the undisguised fact that I – one of the Weston Girls – should have succumbed to such terrible weakness, my family will be there with as much help as I need. And that includes Daddy, and you.”
“I was shocked at your stupidity, I’ll admit,” Joan said. “Especially with the awful Terrence Jenkins of all people. But, although I don’t want a child of my own, in a way I envy you.”
“Terrence isn’t so bad. I just can’t imagine being married to him. He’s weak and I could have persuaded him, but we were both glad to end it.”
“He will be registered as the father, won’t he?”
Megan grinned wickedly and whispered, “What if I put down ‘father unknown’?”
“You wouldn’t! People would presume you’re a tart! Unable to decide who was responsible!”
“No, I wouldn’t do that, but it’s a useful threat when Mummy starts fussing,” she smiled. “Has Daddy spoken to you about the baby yet?”
“No. I don’t think he will. Unless he changes his attitude when The Lump becomes a little person.”
“He will, won’t he?”
“Unlikely,” Joan said sadly. “He hasn’t forgiven me yet, for marrying Viv!”
* * *
Viv Lewis visited his father later that evening. In Rhiannon and Charlie’s house, opposite where his mother lived, Viv found Lewis sitting in the sparsely furnished front room listening to the radio. Lewis was so pleased to see his son, that Viv felt mean for not calling before.
“Sorry, Dad. I should have popped in before this, to see if you’re settled in all right. But with the shop all day and the books to do in the evening there isn’t much time.”
“Don’t worry, son. I’m all right and I know where to find you if I need you.”
“Fancy coming to the Griffiths’s? The Railwayman is closed, being a Sunday, but Hywel is usually stocked up in readiness. Basil and Frank and Ernie Griffiths were booked to break open the basement of the old draper’s shop this weekend. They’ll be full of what was found.”
“Yes, I’ll enjoy a chinwag.” Lewis took his jacket from the back of the chair and combed his hair. “That’s me ready.”
Viv was aware that his handsome and charming father was subdued, despite his earlier reassurance. “Is everything okay, Dad?”
“Well, not really. Nothing serious,” he added as Viv looked startled. “We’ll talk about it on the way.”
Viv called ‘cheerio’ to Rhiannon, Charlie and Gwyn, but his father shook his head.
“They’re out on their bikes. Never in more than long enough to eat. I’m stuck here on my own for hours on end, and there’s your mother only a few yards away across the road on her own. It’s daft. That’s what it is. Daft. I can’t stay there,” Lewis said as they hurried through a clear, May evening to join their friends.
“Isn’t Rhiannon looking after you?”
“Rhiannon does all she can to make me comfortable, but it’s no use kidding myself, Viv, I’m in the way.”
“Have you talked to Mam?” Viv asked. “She might be reasonable now Nia Martin is no longer here to—” The pain on his father’s face at the mention of Nia stopped him.
“I’ve tried. But reasonable isn’t a word I’d use to describe your mother, much as I love her.”
“You love her? It isn’t because Nia died, and – Sorry,” he added quickly. “Forget I said it.”
“I don’t expect you to understand, I don’t know that I do! Although Nia was the one who made me happiest, I’ve never stopped loving your mother. But Dora’s such a prickly and hot-tempered woman that she’s hard to live with. Nia was quiet, calm and always loving and gentle. Two such different women and I’ve loved them both.”
“Try telling that to Mam,” Viv suggested softly.
“I’d have to tie her up and gag her first!”
“Now, now, our Dad. We’ll have none of that!” Viv teased. He smiled but he was thoughtful as they made their way across the fields. There had to be a way to get his parents back together, and reminding Dora that Rhiannon and Charlie didn’t want Lewis as a lodger, might be the best way.
“It won’t work,” Lewis said when Viv suggested it. “I’ve already tried; saw through me in a split second she did. Accused me straight off of moving in with them just so she’d take pity on them and have me back.”
“As if you’d be that devious,” Viv smiled.
“As if my Dora would be that easy to fool!” Lewis sighed. “She did give me a chance though, and typically I blew it.” He sighed again and added, “I wonder how long – if ever – before I get another?”
* * *
Edward and Megan met that evening after the restaurant’s dinner session was over and they went to the dark, dingy room behind the shop. A ladder had been brought and fixed in the opening the surveyor had disclosed in the floor, as the old wooden steps were unsafe. With a Tilley lamp and the aid of a powerful torch Edward carried some of the boxes up into the shop, and they began sorting through the contents.
It was a dismal collection of abandoned stock. Button hooks once used to fasten the line of buttons on gaiters and leggings. Hat pins no longer fashionable. Snap fasteners and hooks and eyes, sewn onto paper gone brittle with age. And box after box of buttons in every colour and size. Stiff, wing collars curled in their boxes, heavily starched, severely folded and looking lethal. Garters, and arm bands once used to hold sleeves back from the wrists. Dozens of socks, rotted and nibbled by vermin. They opened box after box and felt sad.
In larger boxes they discovered shirts no longer wearable, in styles that had gone out of fashion years before. They also found women’s skirts and blouses and wrapover aprons that
fell apart when lifted out of the box, waistcoats, trousers and even a few once smart jackets. There were lisle stockings chewed and discoloured. In a corner they found piles and piles of paper carrier bags, as dry and brittle as dead leaves.
“This isn’t just the stock of a draper,” Edward frowned. “I wonder where it came from?”
“It might have been a clothes shop before Mr Jones took over. Or he might have decided to change the business.”
“Whatever, there’s a lot of money gone to waste.”
When Edward moved the last of the boxes, a metal container was exposed. He carried it up the ladder to throw with the others and when Megan opened it she gave a cry of surprise. It was filled with money.
“Thank goodness it was in a metal box or there’d have been some very expensive mice nests under your floor!”
“We’ll have to find Mr Jones and return it,” Edward said.
Megan looked at him and burst out laughing. “Frank and Ernie will be furious!”
Edward smiled. “I think it best we don’t tell them. They’d never forget how close they were to a fortune. It would ruin their lives. There must be at least five hundred pounds there.”
When they counted it, there was five hundred and sixty-two pounds and ten shillings.
“Sorry Edward, but we must tell Frank and Ernie. I just have to see their faces when they realise what they missed! Besides, they might know where the retired draper is living.”
“Ah, and now comes the problem,” Edward sighed. “Where on earth do we start looking for a Mr William Jones?”
“Post office?” Megan suggested. “He’s probably drawing a pension.”
“And how many William Joneses do we have to interview before finding the right one?”
Megan tilted her head in that fascinating way and asked, “How many buttons are there in these boxes?”
Chapter Four
Barry Martin sat in the silence of the late Sunday evening, staring out of the window to a garden he could no longer see. The house was so silent he wished the radio was playing but he couldn’t make the effort needed to turn it on.
The house in Chestnut Road had seen many changes since his mother Nia had moved out of the flat above her sweet shop in Sophie Street, and brought them here. Then the house had been filled with noise and music and laughter - especially laughter, he remembered sadly. Joseph, his prankster of a brother had seen to that.
Friends called and were made welcome, Nia sang as she worked in the house and the garden, the house had a heart and was filled with contentment. When first his brother Joseph and then his mother had died, the house had died a little too.
During the on-off marriage to Caroline Griffiths the place had begun to revive a little; there was a sensation of a living, breathing home. The little boy, Joseph-Hywel, was not yet three and if he and Caroline had stayed together, things would have continued to improve. But Caroline couldn’t live with him, and had returned to the Griffiths’ inconvenient, over-crowded cottage, preferring its many disadvantages to this modern, well-furnished house with him in it. He missed them, but in a perverse way didn’t want them back. They demanded too much of him.
If Caroline had accepted what he was, had helped him to achieve his ambitions it would have been all right, but she wanted him to give up on the business he was building, give more time to her and little Joseph. If she’d trusted him, given him more time…
He had started a photographic business which had been beginning to show promise of success, but he had given it up in an effort to make his doomed marriage work and play the part of a devoted husband. To please her he had taken a job he hated, in a plastics factory, but Caroline had still left him and now he had nothing but an empty house redolent with ghostly echoes of happier days.
Not even that, he reminded himself; the atmosphere was no longer a happy one. There was an unnerving melancholy about the empty rooms. Shadows leaned towards him, whispers filled the air, the fire failed to warm the hollow spaces. Small, ordinary sounds were alien, threatening.
Barry shrank away from the blank window and looked around the shadowy room. In a rare moment of sensitivity he knew the house didn’t want him there. It needed children, the chaos and clutter of family life. He didn’t want to spend another night in the place. It was dead to him, his ghosts had fled and the house was silently awaiting new beginnings.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered to the walls, “I’m putting the house on the market.” He was relieved to have made the decision, and went straight away to the desk that had been his father’s and wrote to Caroline, telling her of it. He assured her that, as his wife and the mother of his dead brother’s child, she would receive half the money.
He started to go up the stairs but stopped halfway up. The shadows were oppressive, the emptiness reminding him he was an unwelcome presence. He went back down and slept on the couch and dreamed of Caroline.
* * *
Caroline was lying on her bed listening to the laughter from below as Lewis, Viv, and her brothers Frank and Ernie and her parents talked over the events of their day. She had read stories to Joseph until he’d been ready to sleep but instead of going back down, she had stayed with her son, unable to disguise her unhappiness and join in the noisy good-natured bantering.
In her melancholic mood she had been saddened rather than amused by the story of the abandoned stock in the old draper’s shop. A failed business – almost as sad as a failed marriage. And, she reminded herself guiltily, because of her, Barry had suffered both.
When the house fell silent she went down and made a cup of tea. She opened the back door and stood for a long time staring out into the darkness as Barry had done, her thoughts winging across the night sky.
* * *
Edward was getting into his car in the car park of Montague Court in the afternoon following the weekend discovery of the money in the basement of his shop. He intended going to the police in the hope of finding the owner of the five hundred plus pounds, and was irritated when a voice hailed him. He didn’t have much time before his evening duties began. He turned to see Mr Leigh Grant approaching. Hoping that the man’s visit meant he was about to close the deal on the purchase of Montague Court he went forward with a hand outstretched.
“What the ’ell’s the matter with that sister of yours?” Leigh Grant demanded.
“Margaret?” Edward frowned.
“She’s the only one you’ve got isn’t she? Thank goodness too. You wouldn’t want a whole tribe of ’em!”
“What is the matter?” Edward asked, leading the man towards the main door.
“Today, my solicitor had this.”
‘This’ was a letter and Edward read it with growing alarm. Margaret had stated that the price of the house had increased by a thousand pounds.
“I don’t understand. She said nothing of this to me and I certainly wouldn’t have agreed. Come with me will you? We can get this sorted straight away.”
Muttering about the uselessness of women in business and the irritations of the same, Leigh followed Edward through the main door, along the passage and into the kitchen where Margaret and Islwyn were preparing sandwiches and arranging small cakes on plates ready for afternoon tea.
“This won’t do, Margaret,” Edward said striding towards her. “You can’t do this!”
“I already have, Edward,” she replied with a smile. She didn’t look at him and neither did she stop setting out the small cakes.
“But we have an agreement for Mr Grant to buy the house. At the price stated.” He didn’t know how to deal with Margaret at the best of times and this could turn out to be the worst of times, with a heavy bridging loan to consider.
Mr Grant stepped forward and edged Edward out of the way. He caught hold of Margaret’s arm and turned her to face him. “What the ’ell’s going on? You either want to sell the house or you don’t. You’re wasting my valuable time. D’you realise that?”
“I saw another agent, this time in Cardiff,” she exp
lained, “and they said the place was being sold too cheaply. I informed Oakland Estate Agency and demanded they adjusted the price accordingly.”
“You can’t do this,” Edward said weakly. “We gave our word.”
“Nothing is signed.”
“But I’ve spent money and I’ll make damned sure everyone knows about your dishonest ways. You’ll never sell.”
Margaret looked at Edward then, and smiled. “Now wouldn’t that be a pity?”
“I’ll offer one hundred and fifty more and if you don’t sign contracts today the deal is off.” Leigh Grant strode off and at the door, he stopped and waved Edward to join him.
“I mean it. I can’t waste any more time on this.”
“I’ll do everything I can, Mr Grant. I want this sorted too.”
It was nearly too late now to go to the police regarding the money. He wasn’t in the mood to start on the preparations for the evening meal. He returned to where Margaret was now slicing cucumber and tomatoes to garnish the sandwiches, and spoke to her calmly.
“Margaret. You have to sell. I will never change my mind about leaving here. You might wait months and then get a much lower sum. Whatever you plan to do once this is sold, you need as much money as possible to make a start, don’t you?”
“I’ll discuss it with Issy,” she said.
Holding back on the need to argue and show his frustration, Edward looked at the vegetables waiting his attention and the fish under its cover that needed boning and cleaning. He couldn’t face it. Not after this.
“Great,” he said with a grim smile. “Then I’ll leave you in peace to talk it over with Issy. I’m going out!”
“But Edward! It’s your turn to deal with this!” She spread her arms to encompass the work that needed urgent attention.
“Not tonight it isn’t, and I dare say I’ll be less and less reliable until the contract is signed.” He walked over to the car. If he was lucky, the police station wouldn’t be busy and someone would be willing to listen to his story. The old draper’s shop had more interest to him than the work at Montague Court.
A Shop in the High Street Page 6