She wondered how her father would take the news. He was not really happy about her marriage to Charlie. She crossed her fingers and thought how wonderful it would be if the baby’s arrival brought her parents together again. Dora living across the road in what had been the family home, running the café and pretending she was happy. Her father living with them, also trying to pretend he was happy. How much simpler life would be if they were together. How wonderful it would be for Lewis to go back home and for her and Charlie and Gwyn to have the house to themselves, be a proper family before the baby arrived. She sighed. Every time her parents met, they seemed to spark each other off within minutes and part in anger.
She knew the present difficulties were mainly due to her mother – Dora, with her red hair, and the touchiness of temper that reputedly went with that wonderful colouring. Dad would go back, she was certain of that, if only her mother would forgive him and try to forget his past weaknesses. He might even manage to stay constant now his Nia was no longer alive. That he would not was her mother’s greatest fear, she knew that. Rhiannon sighed and began peeling potatoes for their main meal. Charlie and Gwyn finished at one-thirty on Saturdays.
Three rooms were now newly decorated and she was pleased with the appearance of her home. Having time off had unsettled her a little. She liked her job, but after being home for a week she had enjoyed not having to go out at a quarter to nine every morning, and not having to spend evenings and weekends rushing to do the routine chores of the house. Her hands were still, the potatoes neglected, as she stared out of the kitchen window and imagined being home all day, with a small baby to care for, and having time to sit and talk to Charlie and Gwyn. Be a proper housewife.
Her thoughts turned again to the problem of Lewis living with them. She loved her father and couldn’t bear the thought of him going back to live at The Firs, a rather drab boarding house, but she did wish he didn’t live with her and Charlie.
She saw the back gate begin to open and expecting to see her father, she turned away from the window to put a light under the kettle. He liked a cup of tea when he came in. She didn’t see an old, whiskered face peering in through the kitchen window, or see the oddly dressed figure scuttle away. She only caught the briefest glimpse of a black coat and a heavy black boot disappearing through the gate. She ran out but saw no one. It was probably a tramp, perhaps hoping to steal something he could sell. She shivered nervously and went back inside.
Lewis came in through the front door and they met in the passageway.
“Someone came into the garden just then,” Rhiannon said anxiously. “I thought it was you and put the kettle on and when I looked again he was disappearing through the gate.”
“Don’t worry, love. He probably mistook our gate for his own.” He went to where the kettle was singing and poured water on the tea leaves. He seemed unaware of her alarm.
“But Dad, with these robberies I was frightened.”
“Nonsense. There isn’t much to steal around here, love. Charlie home yet?”
“Not yet.” She was a bit upset at the casual way he had dealt with her fear. Charlie would have talked to her, reassured her. “I’ll lock that gate once they’re home. Keep it locked during the day. It’s best don’t you think?” Lewis didn’t reply. “I’d better get on with these potatoes,” she said. “Charlie and Gwyn won’t be long.”
“I want him to look at my car. It’s not pulling as it should.”
“Is it a big job? We’re going out on the bikes tomorrow.”
“Won’t take him long. He’ll have to do it tomorrow, I need it for Monday morning.”
Rhiannon felt unaccustomed anger towards her father. Once she wouldn’t have minded him demanding that Charlie did some repair on his car, but now it was a growing irritation: ‘I want him to look at my car’, not ‘I wonder if he would be kind enough…’ as it had once been.
She recognised with a shadow of dismay that the period when she accepted her father’s presence with equanimity was gone and resentment was starting to mark even ordinary things like asking Charlie to look at his car. How long before her resentment grew into open hostilities? And what then?
She knew that a part of the change in her attitude was the possibility of a baby. Although, even without that complication, offering him a home had only been a temporary plan. She and Charlie had hoped that her mother would have seen the difficulties approaching, and taken him back.
The earlier brief easing of the situation hadn’t lasted long. Within forty-eight hours Lewis had been back, having been thrown out by Dora yet again.
* * *
Barry Martin had made a few decisions while he was covering for Rhiannon in Temptations, the shop that had once been his mother’s and before that his grandmother’s and was now his. Apart from certain periods, the shop was fairly quiet. Rhiannon used the quiet spells to clean, but he did nothing but think. He looked back over the last couple of years and what he saw was a series of mistakes. He wondered how many of them he could put right.
He had put into motion the sale of the house on Chestnut Road. It was too large for just himself and there was no possibility of his wife, Caroline Griffiths, ever coming back to share it. He wouldn’t want to live there if she did. That was one move.
The second was to give up the factory job he had taken in the hope of saving his marriage. He hated it and would stay there only as long as it took him to start up again as a photographer. Selling the house would give him the capital to support himself while he built a business again. That and the profit from the sweet shop. That was two moves. Giving up a house in which he no longer felt comfortable and a job he hated - they were easy ones.
He felt quite light-headed at the methodical way in which he was dealing with all that was wrong in his unhappy life. His third move was a literal one. He would move back into the flat here, above Temptations.
His fourth move was not such an easy one. The decision was a shared one and he didn’t know whether the other party concerned would think it worth the effort.
Having married Caroline Griffiths when she was in despair, expecting the child of his brother who had been killed in a road accident, he now knew it had been doomed from the start. He hadn’t approached the marriage with any confidence, any hope of succeeding. He had felt the shadow of his handsome, light-hearted brother always at his side.
He believed Caroline had compared them and found him wanting.
Caroline had made him feel over-large and unattractive, dull and unimaginative, selfish and uncooperative. Thinking about it now, with time to go over it all in his mind, he realised that most of the negative thinking had been of his own making. He had entered the marriage expecting it to fail.
When the shop closed that Saturday at six o’clock he began sorting out the rooms above with the exciting feeling that he was rebuilding his life. Encouraged by his decisions, he decided to go over to the Griffiths’s the following day and start some rebuilding there too, in the house to which Caroline had returned and which she shared with her parents and brothers, plus cats, dogs, chickens and goats. He’d made a workbench for young Joseph, complete with a set of small tools. He’d take that over and… the success of his fourth move would be in the hands of the fates.
* * *
Edward had a room at Montague Court but Margaret was making it increasingly difficult for him to use it. Sharing out the furniture, most of which had been in the family for several generations, had been difficult. Knowing what he needed, Margaret made sure she claimed it before he could decide. Then making up his mind for him, she had filled his room with more and more of the items she didn’t need until he could hardly get inside.
Megan told him to telephone her and have a moan. “Better than bottling it up and trying to sleep with anger on your mind, Edward.” He thought it unlikely that he would, but they made an arrangement that he would allow the phone to ring three times and wait for her to ring back if she felt able to talk.
Amusing and childish, b
ut that was how Megan made him feel. A happy child.
He went home one night after taking Megan to the pictures and for a meal, and he couldn’t even get to his bed for the ‘clutter’. He rang Megan and she answered his ring almost immediately.
“Make a noise, move everything and bang it about,” she suggested.
He tried sleeping on the couch, but at five past one in the morning, he gave up trying, and began moving stuff out of his room. That it was late, and he was disturbing his sister and Islwyn didn’t bother him at all. In fact he enjoyed it and made as much noise as he could.
Margaret stormed out of her bedroom, hair in curlers, dressing gown half draped around her, eyes blazing with anger. “What a time to come in! You have no consideration for others, Edward. It’s after one o’clock!”
He had been home for more than two hours but he didn’t bother to explain. “What d’you expect me to do, sleep on the landing? What on earth have you done to my room?” he demanded.
“You should have been here to help. There’s a lot of sorting out to do. In case you’ve forgotten, brother dear, we’re having to move out!”
A few minutes later Islwyn joined them, dressed in slacks and a jumper, his hair neatly combed. He was still embarrassed at showing they slept together. Everyone knew it but displaying it so blatantly was something he couldn’t manage.
“What sort of woman has Megan become,” Margaret went on. “Staying out half the night and her carrying a bastard.”
“Don’t you dare talk about Megan like that!”
“Oh,” Margaret said softly, “getting fond, are we? Well don’t get too optimistic, she’ll soon discover what a wimp you really are.”
“That was a bit much, Margaret,” Islwyn muttered.
After a brief, one-sided row, Edward being silenced at the abuse of Megan, Margaret went back to the bedroom followed by Islwyn. After a few moments Edward heard an argument taking place.
Margaret was always in a worse than usual mood when she was tired. He silently wished Islwyn luck for the following day.
A week later he did it again. Noisily dragging chairs and tables around. Then after making sure he had woken them and caused as much annoyance as he could, he went and slept on the couch.
Chapter Six
Rhiannon and Gwyn prepared to cycle to the pebbly beach and the park beyond, at two o’clock on Sunday. The weather was overcast but with the air warm and cloud lifting, there was the promise of a breakthrough into a sunny day. Charlie had agreed, willingly, to look at Lewis’s car, although Rhiannon had been less than pleased.
“Can’t it wait, Dad?” she pleaded as she packed bats and balls and the last of the small picnic into her saddle bag and fastened the straps. “Gwyn’s so disappointed not to have his father along. They climb trees and jump about in streams, explore the woods and look for foxes dens, you know what boys like. It isn’t the same for him without Charlie.”
“Oh, come on, love. One afternoon won’t hurt him. He works with his dad and spends most of his time at home, he’ll be glad to get away from him.”
“No, Dad. He won’t!” She patted the dog, whose eyes showed disbelief at not being included on their excursion, and gave her a biscuit which Polly refused to eat on principle.
With her mind on the selfish attitude of her father, she rode for a while with hardly a word to Gwyn.
“Didn’t you want to come, Rhiannon?” he asked. “We’ll stay home if you like?”
“I want to go, I’ve been looking forward to it, but I wish your dad was with us, that’s all.” She smiled and added, “Lucky I am to have you. I’d be on my own otherwise, wouldn’t I?”
Cheered by the assurance that she really wanted to be with him, Gwyn challenged her to a race.
They waited until they reached the country roads, where the sharp bends made extra fun and there was little traffic to concern them, then they increased speed.
For a while Rhiannon concentrated on winning but then she relaxed a little and enjoyed the simple pleasure of speed with no effort as she coasted down a steep, winding hill to where she knew there would be a glimpse of the sea. Even without Charlie this was good. Gwyn raced on, his feet peddling so fast they were a blur. He disappeared around a bend in the lane then she saw him waving at her from the top of the next hill and waved back. He was standing beside his bike and leaning it against himself; he waved again, this time with both arms and she smiled. He was boasting at how much better he was than she.
Rhiannon knew the road well and remembered how it snaked around in a tight bend then travelled close to a small stream at the bottom of the hill. Gwyn was now out of sight, lost in the line of tall trees that sheltered the fields above. Increasing her own speed, she smiled as she thought how she would surprise him by how fast she’d catch up. A sharp turn left and she would have to begin the long climb to join him.
To help her up the approaching hill she peddled as fast as she could and enjoyed the sensation of the wind brushing past and enticing her long hair out into a trail behind her.
Because of the baffle effect of the trees and the bend in the lane, she didn’t hear the van. As she turned left, riding wide to make the most of the last of the downhill run, she suddenly faced it. The driver turned into the hedge on his left and she sailed past with inches to spare, lost control and went down the bank and into the stream.
Suddenly slowed by the deep water she was tipped off and thrown into the chill mud at the furthest edge. She wasn’t hurt apart from a scratch on both arms from the smaller branches of the roadside trees. Although the shock of the cold water made her gasp it had also softened the fall.
She was surprised to see Gwyn running through the water to help her even before she had recovered from the shock sufficiently to stand up.
“Are you all right? Oh, heck! You’re bleeding! Our Dad’ll kill me if you’re harmed. I was trying to warn you. Didn’t you see me waving?”
She began to laugh then. “Waving?” she giggled. “Of course I did. I just waved back.” It was all so funny that it was some time before she realised that a man was standing on the other bank, watching them.
“The van driver,” Gwyn whispered, gesturing with his thumb.
Still laughing, Rhiannon stood up and, recognising Arfon Weston, her brother Viv’s father-in-law, she quickly assured him she was unhurt.
Arfon’s wife, Gladys was in the passenger seat of the van and her most urgent worry was embarrassment at being seen in the unsuitable vehicle. And, by one of the common Lewises. As the head of the Weston family they had a position to keep and this awful van was not designed to impress. She urged Arfon to hurry home and get her out of it before anyone else saw her.
“We can’t drive off and leave them,” he protested mildly.
“Look at the girl,” she hissed, nodding a head towards Rhiannon who was trying to rescue her bicycle with Gwyn’s help. “I knew we shouldn’t have allowed our granddaughter to marry one of the Lewises! Can’t you take me home first, Arfon?”
“No, love, I can’t. What’s wrong with being seen in the van anyway? It’s ours and fully paid for!”
“If you don’t know, dear,” she sighed, “I won’t try to tell you.” Arfon looked at the bedraggled Rhiannon and began to chuckle.
In his loud, rather pompous voice he called, “I think I should give you a lift home, young lady,” he said. “For one thing, you can’t go wherever it was you were going, looking like that.” Rhiannon looked down at the once white blouse, the neat blue shorts and the sandals that were now thickly spread with mud. It was so funny she laughed again and this time a relieved Gwyn joined in.
Gladys groaned in what she hoped was a ladylike manner and accepted the inevitable. With the Lewises involved, everyone would know she had driven around the countryside in a van!
* * *
It was her father who saw Rhiannon first. He gave a shout of alarm as Arfon and Gwyn lifted their bicycles out of his van.
“They’ve had an accident!�
� he shouted and Charlie threw down the spanner he was holding and ran to where a still laughing Rhiannon, unrecognisable at first, was walking towards them. At once, Lewis began accusing Charlie of not looking after her as they ran to see what had happened. He tried to edge Charlie out of the way and get to Rhiannon first, but Charlie ignored the mud and hugged her, speaking softly, anxious for her not to be involved in an inquest until she was bathed and warm and fed.
After Rhiannon’s arm had been looked at and she had assured them it was nothing worse than a scratch, Arfon offered an apology and prepared to leave. Gladys looked pained and enbarrassed, having tried and failed to stay out of sight, as they drove away.
Lewis’s demands to know what had happened had finally been quashed by Charlie’s terse “Shut up, Lewis! Let’s get her inside and make sure she’s all right. Shall we?”
Outraged and offended, Lewis had left them and run to knock on the door of number seven.
His anger as he told Dora what happened didn’t receive the reaction he expected. “He doesn’t look after her. That’s the truth of it!” he almost shouted, expecting Dora to agree.
Scrabbling for her coat, a comfort rather than a need, Dora said, “You’ve got the fault for this Lewis! Doing something to your car wasn’t he? Something you could have done yourself and then Charlie would have been with them!” She pushed him out of the way and ran across to see her daughter. Lewis began to follow her but stopped and sat in his chair beside Dora’s fire instead. He wasn’t wanted. What a bloody life.
He made himself a cup of tea then sat staring into the fire, poking it occasionally, adding more coal, pushing a few sticks into the parts where ash had collected, concentrating on the simple and unnecessary tasks as if his mind were empty of thought. But behind the handsome dark eyes with their blank expression, he was feeling mean.
A Shop in the High Street Page 10