Dora was sitting on an upturned log, leaning against the wall with Lewis on the floor beside her. She became more and more uncomfortable and he pulled her down beside him, their closeness a much needed comfort to them both.
“We don’t need this if anyone wants it,” Lewis said and a pair of hands grabbed the log, sat on it experimentally, groaned and threw it on the fire.
“Hey, you! That’s one of our best seats!” Hywel growled.
The flames, revived by the added fuel, began to lick their way around the log, the sound and the smell of burning wood filled the room.
“Sod it,” Hywel muttered, gesturing indifference with a waved arm, “our Frank can make some more over the weekend.”
“I heard that!” Frank retorted. “Happy Christmas to you an’ all!”
* * *
In the room above the living room where the wedding party continued noisily, Joseph-Hywel woke and listened intently. He was unable to work out from the sounds below, whether it was morning or still late evening. He felt at the bottom of his bed for the new cricket bat and ball given to him by Edward, and smiled happily.
He looked out of the window where the yard was lit with extra lights and with the glow from windows and door. It is morning, he decided. He could get up and play.
Stopping to put on slippers and a dressing gown he tiptoed down the stairs and through the kitchen, which was momentarily empty. He knew as soon as he went down that it was still night-time but now so wide awake he couldn’t resist going out and trying out the new gifts.
Joseph-Hywel tried several times to hit the ball, and each time he succeeded he was taken further away from the house and the lights as he retrieved it.
* * *
Caroline and Barry came in to recover from the coldness of the night, grateful for the overfilled house and its warmth. They pushed their way to the foot of the stairs where Barry released her hand while she went up to check on her son. The noise was deafening but it was stopped within the space of second by Caroline’s scream.
“Barry! Mam! Joseph isn’t here!”
Caroline stood with her hands over her face, her eyes huge with shock. Barry ran up to look in the bedrooms, unable to believe her. He came down with a face like a mask.
“She’s right, I’ve looked under the beds and in every cupboard.”
Lewis climbed over the stunned guests and took charge. “Dora, love, you stay with Janet, the rest of you come and look around. Don’t rush, we don’t want to frighten him. He probably isn’t far away. Call his name, softly mind; we don’t want him to think he’s heading for a telling-off, do we?”
What had moments ago been a group of inebriated, sleepy people, now galvanised into action. In twos and threes, Hywel, Barry and Caroline having already left, Lewis sent them all in every direction. Many, facing a walk home across the fields, were armed with torches. Others were carrying nothing more than a box of matches or a cigarette lighter.
Dora held the trembling Janet and spoke reassuringly to her. “Caroline has been up twice since he was put to bed. He’s been gone no time. He can’t have wandered far.”
“What if someone has taken him?”
“What a daft idea, Janet!” Dora forced herself to laugh. “More imagination than your Frank when he’s talking to the coppers you have!”
“Look at the goats,” Janet shouted to the last to leave. “We sold the young billies last week. He might have gone to look for them.”
Dora said nothing but she knew that was the first place Hywel had looked.
* * *
Joseph-Hywel searched for his ball which had vanished in the straggling grass and low bushes at the edge of the garden. He stepped out into the lane and knelt down, feeing about but failed to find the round shape for which his cold fingers were groping. He moved as he searched and when he stood up he was no longer sure which direction would take him back home. Running, aware of the chill of the night air and with fear in his heart, afraid now of the darkness, he stumbled along the icily cold, empty lane, heading towards town and away from the Griffiths’s house where searchers were spreading out and calling his name. Throwing aside his bat, he tucked his hands under his arms in an attempt to keep them warm, and thought of his safe, cosy bed.
* * *
Walking through the immediate garden and onto the lane, Edward and Megan turned to walk back across the lawn of the house but Megan stopped.
“I’m frightened, Edward. With Joseph-Hywel missing I need to ring home to make sure Rosemary is all right.”
Edward didn’t argue. They walked along the silent lane where the low path and high hedges brought heavy frosty air to settle. Edward put an arm around Megan to give her extra warmth. Rising up out of the lane they came to the first of the houses of the town. There on a corner was a telephone box.
Curled up inside the booth, the door propped open by an abandoned milk crate, and wrapping his dressing gown tightly around him, was Joseph-Hywel. He was shivering, his night clothing insufficient protection from the sharp winter’s night air.
At the corner, just yards away, Edward handed Megan a couple of coins but she shook her head. “I’m being silly aren’t I? Rosemary is perfectly safe at home with Mummy.” She began to turn back.
Edward pressed the coins into her hand. “We’re here now. You might as well ring.” He hugged her to show he understood and added, “If you don’t, then I will.”
“Oh Edward, you shouldn’t indulge me in my stupidity. Let’s go back to the party.”
* * *
The search continued, with Caroline and her family becoming more and more alarmed when the small cricket bat had been found by an exploring beam from a torch.
After half an hour had passed without the child being found, Hywel ran to their nearest neighbour and telephoned for the police to come and help find him. When they knew a child was missing and that he was insufficiently dressed, they turned out at once. Off-duty men were informed and came willingly to help.
The activity increased as word passed around the nearby houses and Janet watched the clock anxiously, wondering how long the little boy could survive in such icy temperatures.
Caroline was silent, hardly hearing when someone spoke to her. Then when she and her mother found themselves alone she said quietly, “Do you think this is a warning? Is Joseph telling me not to marry his brother?”
“What a lot of nonsense, love. Can you imagine Joseph wishing anyone harm? Can you imagine him, the dear that he was, not wanting you and Barry to be happy?”
“I keep making promises to a God I’m not sure I really believe in, that if Joseph-Hywel returns safely, I’ll devote my whole life to him.”
Out of the corner of her eye Janet saw a movement as a group carrying torches and filling the night with excited cries, came towards the house. Quickly she said, “Don’t be too hasty with that promise.” Then as she became certain she went on, “What if your Barry is carrying him this very minute past the goat pen?”
A jubilant Barry was indeed carrying the little boy, surrounded by a happy crowd. He was cosily wrapped in Edward’s overcoat and chattering excitedly about the game of cricket he had played, confident and no longer feeling so cold. Fear had been driven out of his mind in an instant when he had seen Megan and Edward standing in the doorway of the telephone box and bending to pick him up.
A loud sobbing cry left Caroline’s lips as she saw the group and realised that her son was safe.
She and Barry took Joseph-Hywel up to bath him while Janet filled hot-water bottles and made a warming drink. Within an hour the party continued but with a greater enthusiasm as they celebrated the fact that a near disaster had been averted.
At three-thirty in the morning the hard-core guests were finally leaving. Helen’s mother had succumbed to the atmosphere of the evening and drunk too many offerings of port. She was lifted up out of her chair and helped home, and to her husband’s embarrassment, his pompous and disapproving wife was singing a well-known nursery rhyme
with words by Frank Griffiths.
Outside, someone made a jocular remark about the speed at which the wedding had been arranged and Ernie took offence. He and Frank piled into the man and Lewis and Edward, who were still relatively sober, tried to separate them.
Constable Gregory who was present, having come to escort his daughter home, decided at once to misunderstand the situation. He didn’t want to arrest Frank and Ernie for fighting. Not on Ernie’s wedding day. Instead, he threatened Lewis and Edward with arrest if they didn’t cease immediately. They turned to stare at him.
“God ’elp us, Edward,” Lewis said. “If they can’t get us one way they’ll get us another!”
He turned away and the man who began the fight called him an offensive name. Edward turned back to stop him as Lewis was about to land him a blow and they collided and fell to the ground.
“I didn’t see that,” the constable muttered, leading Mair away. “I never saw a thing.”
Edward was helped up by Megan and they wandered off. Dora offered her hand to Lewis but instead of rising, he pulled his wife down and kissed her. Later, hand in hand, they walked home through the lanes and across the frosty fields. From time to time they stopped and hugged each other. Dora knew this might be her last chance. She had to say the words that were so hard for her to admit. When they paused at the edge of the fields she turned to face him but lowered her head before muttering.
“Lewis, I have something to say.”
“Then I probably don’t want to hear it.”
“Perhaps not, but I’ll say it anyway.”
“Get it over with, then.” He was expecting her to tell him there was no chance of a reconciliation. Her words surprised him.
“Will you say that again, love?” he whispered.
“I find it hard to say, Lewis.”
“Try”
“I love you,” she whispered. “I want us to get back together.”
“Thank heaven for that,” he sighed. “And about time too you cantankerous woman you.”
They were laughing as they made their way back to Sophie Street.
* * *
On New Year’s Eve, Lewis and Dora stood at their bedroom window looking out at the scene below. On practically every doorstep people were standing, talking and laughing and looking up at the sky. Arthur Harvey, a plumber, who was dark haired and already very drunk, was first-footing – going into house after house to be the first visitor of the New Year; a dark-haired man to be first over the threshold was considered to bring luck for the coming year.
As the ships’ hooters continued to signal the start of 1956, a few cheers were heard. Then gradually the voices faded, doors closed, lights in the doorways and windows were extinguished. Across the road, Rhiannon and Charlie leaned out of their window, Gwyn visible beside them. They waved to Dora and Lewis in the house opposite, and blew kisses. Soon the lights were out in every dwelling except theirs. There was no traffic to disturb the stillness of the night. No voices calling. The brief celebration was over and silence fell like a soft mantle on the town of Pendragon Island. The light across the road snapped out and soon number seven Sophie Street was also in darkness.
ALSO OUT NOW
Sophie Street
The final instalment of Grace Thompson’s celebrated Pendragon Island sagas
Find out more
First published in Great Britain in 199 by Severn House Publishers
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 199 by Grace Thompson
The moral right of Grace Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910859605
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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A Shop in the High Street Page 24