A Shop in the High Street

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

  The paving on the promenade was little comfort, the residue of the hot sun was still warm to his feet. Everywhere was quiet and he found himself walking slowly so that his bare feet didn’t disturb the silence. The distant sea was hushed, the tall trees surrounding the cricket field were unmoving, the branches and leaves not relieving the silence by a whisper.

  The shop doorways issued forth familiar scents of previous meals, and where pavements had been washed, soap and warm sand added to the evocation of the past day, combining to give that unique perfume that in his mind was the pleasure beach in summer.

  If other people had chosen to seek a cool breeze, they were invisible in the utter blackness of the still night. A voice called ‘Good evening, Mr Jenkins,’ but although he answered, he had no idea of the identity of his unseen acquaintance.

  Edward walked across the sand, warm, dry and deep at first then hard and ridged by the outgoing tide, and blissfully cool. Reaching the water he waded out and stood enjoying the sensation of it, silky and cold against his legs.

  * * *

  Lewis saw Edward silhouetted against his car’s sidelights as he went to lean on the bonnet to wipe his feet.

  He walked closer before he recognised him, then laughed. “Been for a paddle, Edward?”

  “I couldn’t sleep and the thought of it was too tempting.”

  “Same for me. I walked around the headland. I’m tired now though and I bet I won’t be ready for the alarm in the morning.”

  They chatted for a few minutes, but they had little in common – Edward’s formality a stumbling block to Lewis’s idle chitchat – and soon went their different ways.

  * * *

  The following day was Wednesday and Edward closed at one o’clock. He went to find William Jones and met him near the almost derelict house where he had a room. He looked tidier and was wearing the clothes Edward had given him, although his hands were still ingrained with black dirt, and his skin retained an unhealthy pallor. There was a lacklustre look in his eyes. Neither the sun nor the joys of summer had touched him it seemed.

  Edward had found him a room with a widow, Catrin Gwilym, in Brown Street and they went there straight away. Edward had warned the woman that William was in need of comfort and care and after momentary hesitation, she invited them in. Leaving them to discuss terms, Edward went back to the shop and telephoned Sally.

  He hoped to talk to Megan but when she answered he was unable to think what to say. “I thought you and Rosemary were in Penarth,” he said.

  “You want to talk to Mummy?”

  “Well, yes, but—” He wanted to say he was glad to hear her voice, that he missed her, wanted to see her, but the phone had been abandoned, she had gone. It was obvious she was no longer interested in him. When Sally came to the phone he told her about Ryan calling on him for help.

  “I know you don’t want him back and I can understand that, but you did say you want to know how he is,” he told her.

  “And he’s all right? Recovered from the breakdown or whatever it was?”

  “He’s lost and doesn’t know what to do. I found him a job of sorts, and I wondered how you felt about my offering him the basement to live in? It’s completely separate from the shop and I wouldn’t see him. But at least you’d know he’s got somewhere to sleep. I don’t think your parents want him there any longer, do they?”

  “Why are you doing this, Edward?”

  “No reason, except that the place is there and he needs a base of some kind and you need to live without worrying about him.”

  “Thank you. You’re very understanding, Edward. I do feel responsible, as I told you before. You can’t just pack a few things in a suitcase and expect years of your life to go away, or pretend they didn’t happen. I still feel responsible for him. I’ll be relieved to know he’s safe.”

  “Can I talk to Megan again, please?”

  He prepared a few words. He wanted to see her and he wanted her to look at the basement and tell him what he needed to buy. Not much of a conversation opener, but it was as good a reason as any to see her again.

  The phone was picked up but as he took a deep breath to speak, Sally’s voice said, “Sorry, Edward. Megan seems to have gone out. Was it something important?”

  “No,” he said sadly. “Nothing important.”

  * * *

  The news that day had been about the latest robbery. This time, someone had been hurt. The hot weather had meant windows had been wide open and in a house close to the restaurant owned by Margaret and Islwyn, and not far from where Edward and Lewis had met, someone had disturbed an intruder and suffered a blow that had sent him reeling down the stairs. The man was in hospital with broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and head injuries.

  The police came to talk to Edward soon after – he had spoken to Sally and it was worrying to think they considered him capable of violence.

  “We have a report of you driving off around midnight, sir and the offence took place at that time.”

  Relieved, Edward explained about going to the beach, and meeting Lewis there. At least he had an alibi this time. He told them where he had been and exactly where he had parked and of the brief encounter with Lewis, another one seeking the cooling breezes of the sea.

  * * *

  Unfortunately, Lewis was so outraged by the suspicion falling on him yet again, he lied.

  “For heaven’s sake why are you wasting time questioning me?” he exclaimed. “At midnight I was where all innocent people should be, in bed! My bed!”

  “That isn’t what we understand, sir,” the patient policeman said. “According to your son-in-law you drove off somewhere at around midnight and didn’t return for more than an hour. Would you like to explain why you are lying to us, sir?”

  Lewis didn’t know that Charlie had already been questioned. He had corroborated a sleepless observer who had seen Lewis driving off just before midnight.

  “I was just trying to stop you wasting more time on me,” Lewis excused. “I did go out, over the beach and I met Edward Jenkins there. He had a paddle, I went for a walk. Anything else you want to know?”

  “That’s all – for the moment,” Constable Gregory said.

  * * *

  After questioning Edward, the police still clung to the possibility that the two men were in collusion, sometimes working together, sometimes separately, to confuse alibis and eyewitnesses.

  Angrily, Lewis repeated his story, told them exactly what had happened, then went to complain to Dora that Charlie had ‘landed him in it’.

  * * *

  At Edward’s shop the police were interested in the basement exit. “Easy for you to go in and out at night without being seen,” the sergeant pondered.

  Edward sighed. “So why did I go out through the shop, get into the car and drive off? A car in the main road isn’t exactly a secret way of leaving, is it?”

  “There was a robbery at Montague Court while you were still living there, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes, and it was fully investigated. But like all the rest, no one was apprehended. When are you going to catch the man? He’s doing what he likes and making a laughing stock of you.”

  “How d’you know it’s a he?”

  “I don’t. It just simplifies any discussion if we give the thief one sex or the other.”

  Once they had finished with their questions, Edward left Mair in charge of the shop and went to see Frank Griffiths.

  The weather was still very warm, but Janet and Hywel were burning rubbish on a garden fire, watched from a safe distance by an interested Joseph-Hywel. The dogs were too lazy to bark, but the friendly goats called a welcome as Janet led him around the house to where Frank was sleeping in the porch.

  “I’d like the decorating finished in the basement,” Edward told him. “Then I want to see Basil about making a few pieces for the kitchen. A few shelves and a cupboard or two.”

  “Renting it out, are you?” Frank asked sleepily.

  “I need i
t ready for the weekend. Mr Fowler-Weston will be using it for a while.”

  “What? Him that hit his missus? What’re you helping him for?”

  “He’s ill,” Edward explained. He was uneasy with these people. They spoke their minds in a most disconcerting way.

  “I’d give him ‘ill’.” Hywel strolled up and joined in the conversation.

  Edward couldn’t tell them he was doing it to please Sally and through her, hopefully pleasing Megan.

  “Wants a good wallop himself, that’ll cure him,” Hywel said. “Me and my boys’ll be happy to oblige any time.” Then the two men listed the various punishments they’d hand out, while Edward stood in an embarrassed silence, and Janet smiled.

  “They’d love to think they were real villains,” she whispered. “But they don’t have the heart for it.”

  “I’ll come this evening, work through the night,” Frank eventually promised. “Me and our Ernie if he’s willing.”

  “I’ll ask our Basil about the shelves,” Janet added.

  Edward nodded, patted Joseph-Hywel’s head, gave him a shilling and made his escape.

  * * *

  William Jones soon settled into the house of Mrs Catrin Gwilym. She insisted on a twice-weekly bath and filled the tub herself to make sure he was using plenty of hot water, to which she added a good handful of washing soda and plenty of soap, only handing in clean clothes when she was sure he had soaked out the ingrained dirt. She gave him three good meals each day and in a week the difference was remarkable.

  Gradually he told her his story.

  “The business was failing even before my wife died,” he said as they sat companionably sipping their late night cocoa. “I took goods in exchange for debts too and that was a big mistake, landing me with stuff I couldn’t sell. I just didn’t care, you see. Once Mabel had gone, I couldn’t see why I was bothering.”

  “I didn’t let things go when I lost my dear husband, Mr Jones, I’d have thought I was letting him down,” Catrin said. “Mabel called me Willie,” William told her. “Except when she was mad at me then I had the full title. Will-i-am!” he smiled.

  “Then I’ll do the same,” she announced.

  When Edward called a couple of weeks after Catrin had taken the old man in, he found them working together in the small garden and chatting away like friends. He smiled as he left them. Sorting out other people’s problems was easy, but where was he to start on his own?

  Since the phonecall to discuss the basement as a possible home for Ryan he hadn’t heard from Sally and there had been no sign of a grateful Megan. Then one morning Sally called at the shop with some of Ryan’s clothes and personal items.

  Invited down to look at the small bedsit arrangement where Frank was fitting the shelves his brother had made, she thanked him again and told him how grateful she was for the trouble he was taking.

  As she left, he asked about Megan and Rosemary and had a proud grandmother’s report on the advanced behaviour of the small infant. She said nothing to offer hope that Megan would call. His grandfather had been wrong. Megan was waiting, hoping for Terrence to come back.

  While Frank was working in the basement, he often saw Mair and each time she appeared he dropped something, or stuttered or simply blushed. But gradually he began to get in a few pertinent questions about her boyfriend.

  “Seeing that Gareth Morgan tonight, then?” he asked when she brought him a cup of tea.

  “What’s it to you, Frank Griffiths?”

  “I wondered, like, if you’ll forget him and come to the pictures with me.”

  She stared at him for a moment, taking in the long, lean length of him, the rather appealing blue eyes and the poor attempt at a Mexican moustache. For a long moment, hope swelled in Frank’s chest. She was going to say yes! He was going to have a date! Then she spoke.

  “Get lost!”

  Philosophically, Frank went back to his work. He didn’t want to get married anyway. He was too comfortable with his mam and dad. But the lie was wearing thin and he remembered admitting to Edward that it was a sad pretence, to cover up the thought that no one would have him.

  * * *

  At the restaurant things were beginning to look hopeful. Margaret couldn’t tackle too varied a menu or a large number of diners yet, but by preparing carefully, she managed to fill the place twice each evening, and with occasional help – poorly paid and illegally employed – they were at last beginning to believe it would succeed.

  Margaret worked from six each morning, providing lunches and dinners, ending her day at midnight. Islwyn rose at the same time and worked, albeit reluctantly, throughout the lunches and dinners. He also dealt with the ordering, going to the market each morning to buy fresh vegetables, fish and fruit. He hated it.

  As the restaurant increased its popularity, the more dictatorial Margaret became towards him. He was slow, he was thick and he was often in the way. She was used to working alongside Edward, who knew the routine so well they hardly needed to speak. Besides having minimal experience of how to wait on table, or how a busy kitchen was run, Islwyn was resentful of being told what to do. As business grew, so her hope of their continuing partnership faded. She had to get some experienced help or she would find herself on her own.

  * * *

  Lewis and Edward were still under suspicion, even though the police seemed to have no direct evidence against them. They were questioned several times, presumably in the hope of catching them out in either a lie, or with a detail that would lead them to a result. Half of the eyewitnesses were certain they had seen Lewis, the rest equally sure that the person seen running from the scene was Edward.

  Instead of being angry with Charlie, Lewis discussed the situation one evening as he was going over the dates on which he was suspected of burglary, trying to remember something that would clear him.

  “If I could prove I was far away during one or two of the break-ins, then there wouldn’t be much point in them trying to charge me with the rest,” he sighed, “but my appointment book isn’t that specific and nothing I’ve written sparks off any memories to help me.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Edward Jenkins? It has to be a time when neither of you could be guilty, remember. The theory is that the two of you work together, or in partnership.”

  “If I’m seen talking to Edward the police will only think we’re arranging another crime!”

  “Then meet at the pub. That wouldn’t be suspicious, would it?”

  “Grandad,” Gwyn began; he was still unsure of Lewis and although asked to do so, didn’t find it easy to call him Grandad. The light of battle appeared in Lewis’s eyes every time he said the word. Grandma Dora said it was because he was afraid of getting old.

  “What is is, son?” Lewis asked. “Want some sweet samples do you?”

  “Please!” Gwyn replied enthusiastically. “But I was going to tell you that one of those dates,” he pointed with a grease­ stained finger, “that one, was when you and Mr Jenkins were near the news cameras. You remember,” he went on as Lewis frowned in concentration, “the night you saw the department store burning. I cut the pictures out of the paper and tried to spot you among the crowd but it was too small and spotty to see. There might be a picture of you in the newspaper office mightn’t there? If there is, it should clear you.”

  Lewis took the pictures from Gwyn’s scrapbook, told Gwyn he was a wonder and went to find Edward Jenkins.

  “It’s worth trying,” Edward said. “And if I could only find out who said good evening to me on the night we went to the beach, there’d be enough to stop them blaming us and to go out looking for the real thief.”

  The police promised to look into it and came back later to say that they were indeed on the photographs. Constable Gregory had also found a man who had frequently dined at Montague Court, who swore he had seen Edward that very hot night. He’d been pulling on his socks and he had poken to him.

  Lewis bought a new saddlebag for Gwyn as a reward, and Edward
gave him a pair of roller skates.

  * * *

  Edward was light-hearted, knowing that the suspicion, how­ ever ridiculous, had been lifted, and when he opened the door of the basement to show Ryan his new home he felt like celebrating. But not with Ryan, whom he disliked and mistrusted. The only reason he was helping the man was to impress Megan.

  His obvious good spirits were reflected on Ryan who hated the thought of living in someone else’s basement but knew it was better than staying under sufferance with in-laws Gladys and Arfon, who hardly spoke a word to him, their animosity apparent in every look.

  He responded cheerfully to Edward’s smiling welcome and was still smiling when Edward ran up the stairs to the kitchen of the shop. Then the smile froze as the bolts were thrown across from above. It was a serious reminder of how close he had come to prison. Fraud and robbery when he worked for Arfon, and now injuring Sally in frustration and temper. He opened the door into the garden and didn’t think he would ever be able to live there with it closed.

  * * *

  Edward was cleaning the window area ready for a fresh display of football and rugby equipment early in November when he saw Megan walking along the pavement with Rosemary propped up against pillows in her pram. He went out and shyly asked how they were.

  “As you see us, Edward,” she replied briskly. “Rosemary is growing and thriving and already beginning to raise her head and see what sort of world she has been born into.”