A Shop in the High Street

by A Shop in the High Street (retail) (epub)

  He made himself a cup of tea which he took upstairs but for the rest of the night he remained awake, trying in vain to convince himself the sounds had once again been from the house next door.

  * * *

  In the property bought by Margaret and Islwyn, there was no sleep either. With floorboards replaced and some hope of getting the place decorated in time for their planned opening in September, they had stayed up all night painting walls. At five o’clock, when they were washing out paintbrushes and preparing to fall into bed for a few hours of sleep, they heard a sound that at first, they didn’t recognise. Then they knew it was water.

  The water tank in the roof space was old; they had been warned it would need replacing, but they had hoped it would last a few more months. When Islwyn took a torch and went to investigate he found that it had rusted through. Shutting off the water supply, they went to bed exhausted and dejected.

  Margaret didn’t sleep. She lay there mentally going over her accounts. At this rate they would run out of money long before they were ready to open. She had to raise more money.

  Waking Islwyn from sleep she said, “Issy, I’m frightened. We’re getting more and more into the red and without a hope of earning anything from this place for months. What are we going to do?”

  “Talk about it in the morning,” he mumbled.

  “I can’t sleep. I have to find a ray of hope.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said again. She shook him and insisted they talked about it there and then.

  “Can’t you see that everything is falling down around us? Almost literally?”

  His response was to turn away and cover his ears with the blankets.

  Margaret got up, switched on the light and pulled the bed covers onto the floor. “Now, Islwyn. We talk about it now!”

  He sat up and rubbed his face, trying to revive himself. “All right, you’ve ruined my hope of a few hours of sleep. What d’you want me to say? Don’t worry? Everything will be all right? Something will turn up?”

  “You could say you’ll get a job.”

  “I’m needed here.”

  “But we can’t survive without money. Will you get a job? For a few months, a year at the most. At least then we’ll have something to live on. I can oversee the work here.”

  “D’you want me to work in a fish and chip shop again, for a pittance? I can’t get a decent job. You know that. Not after the publicity the Weston family had after the collapse of the business. I was accused of theft if you remember.”

  “I remember,” she said coldly. “Theft and being too lazy to do what your father-in-law paid you to do.”

  “What d’you mean by that?”

  “Help us, Issy. I’ve never asked you for money. I don’t want to now, but things are getting out of hand. I think we’ll both have to find work. It will be hard to manage a job and oversee this, but I’ll do it. Issy, we’re in this together aren’t we? We have to do anything that’s necessary to make this succeed.”

  “All this is your brother’s fault. He’s landed on his feet, ask him for help.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Picking up the abandoned bedding, Islwyn marched into the bathroom and made himself comfortable in the bath. Margaret waited five minutes then turned on the taps. As she squealed with frustration, she heard a low chuckle from Islwyn as she remembered that the water supply had been turned off.

  * * *

  The following morning, Edward looked around the shop again, trying to convince himself he’d dreamed the whole thing, that nothing had happened during the night. For a while he was reassured but when he looked in the window, he saw that a display of sports socks had been moved. Instead of a dozen pairs, still in their box, tilted against the back of the window, the box had been removed and the socks had been attractively fanned out in a neat circle with a pair folded and shaped forming the rose-like centre.

  Mair came at nine and his mind was taken away from the curious events as he explained to her the intricacies of the till and the stock control system. She was quick to learn and as the door closed for the lunch hour and he handed her the keys he was convinced that she would cope well during the few hours he was away.

  With the disturbances of the night and the mystery of the meticulously arranged display of socks, plus the busy morning serving customers, and in between teaching Mair the ways he worked, he hadn’t given much thought to the hospital visit. It was lodged at the back of his mind as something rather terrifying that had to be faced. He couldn’t eat, but went instead to buy flowers, fruit and a large box of chocolates.

  He had thought about seeing Megan and being introduced to her daughter, but when it came to walking into the ward alongside all the young fathers, he knew he wasn’t prepared: all the young women in bed and in their night attire; all the husbands who would presume he was one of them; and worst of all, seeing Megan in bed, nursing her child, probably not even wearing a dressing gown. He wanted to flee.

  A glance at the men and the few women waiting for the sister to tell them it was time to go in, made him realise he was not the only one to be ill at ease. He tried to smile at one young man who looked little more than sixteen but to his great embarrassment he developed a nervous tic in his cheek and he hurriedly took out a handkerchief and pretended to blow his nose.

  As the doors to the ward opened, he didn’t have time to change his mind and leave; he was pushed in with the rest to be left standing in the doorway holding a box of chocolates, a huge basket of fruit and a bunch of flowers, looking helplessly around him. Megan’s arm waving from a corner galvanised him into action and he hurried towards her. Once he saw her, she became his goal, and he was oblivious to the rest.

  She was wearing a bed-jacket, her hair was neatly arranged and she looked utterly beautiful. Without needing words, he bent over and kissed her, then looked at the sleeping child, and on being given a nod of permission, he picked up the baby and held her. From then on everything was all right.

  * * *

  Megan’s grandparents, Gladys and Arfon Weston, came in about an hour after Edward. He stood at once, apologised for staying so long and prepared to leave. Megan placed a restraining hand on his arm and pleaded with the sister to be allowed an extra visitor for a little while.

  She proudly displayed the baby and shared a smile with Edward as she listened to their admiring comments.

  “Nothing of that awful Terrence Jenkins about him dear,” Gladys announced. “What a relief.” She suddenly realised that Edward was there, but unrepentant, she glared at Edward in defiance; if he thought she would apologise he’d wait a very long time. But Edward smiled disarmingly back. He had no objection to anyone airing their dislike of his cousin Terrence.

  The older couple didn’t stay long. Edward was surprised to find they were more uneasy than he had been. Gladys was close to tears and Megan knew that however she tried to hide it, her grandmother was embarrassed by the situation.

  Megan’s family trickled in a couple at a time and she realised that Gladys was organising a rota. Jack and Victoria came, Joan and Viv, Aunt Sian and Dora when the café closed. Her mother called each day and Edward, when he was allowed.

  One visitor was completely unexpected. She looked up as visitors began to walk through the ward to see her father looking down at the baby. Without addressing a word to him, she at once called for the nurse. Ryan didn’t say a single word as he was led away to be returned to hospital.

  * * *

  Sally went every day to see her daughter and grandchild but she didn’t visit her husband. Ryan, she had been told, had been readmitted to the mental hospital five miles away.

  “I have no intention of going to see him,” she told the doctor. “I have a guesthouse to run and I am preparing for when my daughter and granddaughter come home. These are my priorities.”

  Islwyn went to see his brother-in-law but he didn’t show sympathy. “You hit Sally? You deserve to be ill,” was his first comment. “Pity she didn’t swipe you back,
coward that you are, that would have cured you,” was his second.

  “She says she won’t have me back,” Ryan said sadly.

  “Won’t she? I could walk back into Trellis Road tomorrow if I wanted to. Sian would have me back, no question about that,” Islwyn boasted. With the situation at the restaurant so serious, he had briefly considered going back, but he told Ryan that everything was going well. And having boasted about how wonderful his own life was shaping, and adding to Ryan’s remorse and shame, he left.

  * * *

  At the Rose Tree Café, Sian and Dora were beginning to clear up, ready for closing. The door opened and Lewis came in.

  ”You’ll have to hurry, we’re shutting the door in fifteen minutes,” Dora remarked.

  Sian smiled at him and poured him a cup of tea. “There’s a scone or two if you’re hungry,” she said. She nudged Dora as he went to find a seat. “Don’t you ever smile and say an ordinary, ‘hello’ to the man?”

  “Of course I do. Sometimes,” Dora told her unrepentantly, but then she looked across and saw how Lewis’s shoulders were slumped and felt mean for her rudeness. “You’re right, Sian. I don’t have to be quite so unbearable. It’s become an unpleasant habit.” She went across with a tray on which she had placed scones, jam and a dish of clotted cream. “Have this on me, Lewis. You look as though you have had a bad day. The police haven’t bothered you again, have they?”

  “Yes. They were waiting when I went to the house at lunchtime.”

  “There must be some way to clear this up. Can I do anything?”

  “A sympathetic voice helps,” he said, flashing his wonderful smile, widening his dark eyes. “’Specially from you, love.”

  “You deserve at least that,” she surprised him by saying.

  His hand covered hers. “Thanks. I desperately need your support. I feel as though I’m afloat in a small boat on a wide empty sea, without a friend in the world.”

  “No women begging for a moment of your time?” Her voice hardened as she spoke. “Your charms fading then?”

  “No women. Dora, I’ll do anything if you’ll let me come home. Think of Rhiannon and Charlie if not of me. There’s a baby coming and they won’t want me hanging around, being in the way.”

  “It wouldn’t be the thought of disturbed nights with a baby crying every few hours?”

  “That too,” he admitted with a smile. “But the real reason is that I want to be home, with you.”

  “I’ll think about it when I believe you’re genuinely sorry for the misery you’ve caused me.”

  “For God’s sake, Dora! You’re like a prison warden, handing out promises of a shorter sentence if I can show proper remorse!”

  “It isn’t like that,” she protested, regretting her stupid and unkind words.

  “Number seven Sophie Street is where I belong, with you, in your bed.”

  “Eat your scones,” she said sharply, and returned to the kitchen.

  Leaving the uneaten scones, Lewis left the café, wanting retaliation and knowing there was only one way to get it. Another flirtation. A rumour that he was seeing another woman was the surest way to hurt Dora. But he’d be hurting himself more and all hope of returning home would be gone for ever.

  “From the way you’re scrubbing that draining board you’re upset,” Sian said to Dora a few minutes later.

  “He said I was like a prison warden, doling out punishments.”

  “And you think he might be right?” Sian asked.

  “I know he is, I treat his need for sex as though it’s a crime, pretending mine are non-existent. I won’t listen to his worries about Charlie, even though I know it’s based on concern for Rhiannon. But I can’t see a way of changing things without giving in completely and admitting that I want him back as much as he wants to come.”

  “What’s wrong with that for heaven’s sake? Admit it. Where’s the shame in being truthful about loving someone? You’re a grown woman, Dora, not a temperamental teenager in love for the first time.”

  “But I am. Don’t you see? I’ve always loved Lewis, he is my first time.”

  “I thought I loved Islwyn, but in a mundane way, accepting that this was my situation, my life, rather than some deep, overwhelming passion. I was married and it’s usual for people in my position to stay that way.”

  “Nothing more than that?”

  Shaking her head sadly, Sian said, “Nothing more than that. And now I’m free of him. Islwyn walking out after admitting to a long-standing affair with Margaret Jenkins snapped some­ thing in my head. Yet you had the same treatment from Lewis and want him back. How different we are, Dora. Although,” she smiled, “if my Islwyn was as devastatingly handsome as your Lewis is, I might have a different story to tell!”

  When Sian reached home that evening she was surprised to see her husband standing outside her front door. “Islwyn?” she said enquiringly.

  “I thought you might not know that Ryan is in the mental hospital.”

  “I know, Sally phoned me. He hit her, did you know that?”

  “It’s unforgivable, isn’t it? Quiet, gentle Sally. What a shameful way for a man to behave.”

  “Shameful. Two fine men we chose for husbands, Sally and I. You cheated on the family and then on me; Ryan happily letting Sally do all the work while he watched, then hitting her.”

  “I didn’t come to quarrel, I thought we should talk about what we can do.”

  “What are you talking about? There is no we, Islwyn. Go back to your mistress. We’re well shot of the pair of you.” She went inside and slammed the door. Sian stood there for a while trying to analyse her feelings and was relieved to realise that what she had said to Dora was correct: she felt nothing but relief that he was gone.

  * * *

  In a futile effort to make amends, Dora knocked on Rhiannon and Charlie’s door and handed the few scones they’d had left to a delighted Gwyn. “Perhaps you and your granddad might like to come to Sunday tea?” she suggested. “Then your dad and Rhiannon could do something on their own.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “Mums and dads like to do that sometimes.”

  Although she waited and waited, there was no word from Lewis to say he would come.

  * * *

  Edward continued to visit Megan in hospital. He went every afternoon and the rest of her family went each evening. The first embarrassment did not return and he now marched into the ward and up to her bed with eyes shining with pleasure at seeing her. He held the baby and they discussed her progress like proud parents.

  Two days before she was due home, Edward had gone to find a vase for the flowers he had brought and a nurse remarked loudly, “How many husbands have you got?”

  “None,” Megan replied. She hadn’t pretended at any time through her pregnancy and she wasn’t going to start now.

  “Well there’s another proud father asking to see you,” the nurse told her. “He’s tall, slim and elegant. Very handsome and by the look of him, he’s not short of a bob or two. Ring any bells?”

  Megan pulled a face; she knew who it was all right. But why had he come? Surely not to claim his child?

  Terrence Jenkins came into the ward smiling widely, armed with flowers and chocolates and a very large teddy bear.

  Edward stood in the doorway and felt his happiness drain away. His cousin had come to claim his child. Not wanting to embarrass Megan he decided to slip away without saying goodbye. This was why she had refused to discuss their future wasn’t it? She had been waiting, hoping, that Terrence would come back to her. He didn’t wait to see Megan’s reaction.

  “Hello Terrence. What do you want?” she asked ungraciously.

  “Congratulations.” He thrust the flowers at her and she handed them to a nurse.

  “Give these to someone without any, will you please?”

  He gave her the chocolates and she threw them onto the side table without a glance. The teddy bear he placed on the edge of the cot. She took it off and warned
him that it could easily frighten the child.

  “I came to see the child as soon as Grandfather told me he was born,” he said.

  “He, is a she! Well, now you’ve seen her, would you kindly go, Terrence. I’m very tired and not up to visitors.”

  He protested, tried to charm her, but eventually left. When he had gone she looked around for Edward and was told he had gone a few minutes before.

  Chapter Nine

  Megan was saddened by the absence of Edward but told her mother it was what she had expected.

  “I was right to ask him to wait before discussing our future,” she said to Sally when, after ten days, she was allowed home with her baby. “I tried to warn him that once the child was a reality instead of a dream, he would change his mind about wanting me and Rosemary in his life.”

  “I’m surprised,” Sally told her. “I thought he would stay. From how you described his face when he held her that first day, I gathered he was enchanted. His absence isn’t anything to do with his cousin Terrence turning up, is it?”

  “I don’t see how it can be. He knows I have no feeling for Terrence. He was the big mistake of my life. Although,” she added, smiling down at her sleeping child, “I can hardly consider it a mistake now, can I? I have a lovely daughter and I couldn’t be more pleased about that. Look at her, Mummy. She’s so beautiful. I don’t regret Rosemary for a moment.”

  “You don’t mind the gossip?” Sally asked.

  “That’s hardly new for me is it? Remember how often Joan and I were criticised for our behaviour, and called ‘Those Weston Girls’?”

  “This is different.”

  “But bearable, Mummy.”

  Terrence called at the house a few minutes later, as Megan was helping her mother by making pastry for the evening meal of steak and kidney pie, to which her mother added grated courgettes and an eggcupful of beer.