Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  “Us,” she said quietly. “It was to provide for us.” She brought out a couple of rashers of bacon and put them under the grill. The eggs were waiting for the pan to heat. “So we sell the house?”

  “It would have been different if we’d had children. You should have had a child.”

  “Yes, that would have made a difference, wouldn’t it? I’d be having to face looking after myself and the child, while earning my living! Your mother would still have persuaded you to leave me. Don’t try to tell me different. All this is her doing. Sell the house, Peter. Let’s end it thoroughly, shall we?”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “Ask your mother you mean!” When she turned to look at him he was gone.

  * * *

  Rhiannon was closing the shop at lunchtime a week or so later, when Mair Gregory ran in.

  “Rhiannon, can you wait while I buy some chocolates? Dairy Box, I think.” Smiling, Rhiannon put down the key and prepared to serve her. Mair could easily have bought chocolates on High Street, and she was grateful to her for coming down to buy at Temptations.

  “Special occasion?” she asked.

  “Only pictures, but in Cardiff and with – guess who?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve finally said yes to poor Frank Griffiths? He’s been trying to get a date with you for months.”

  “No fear. I’m going out with the gorgeous Carl Rees, him that worked in the carpet shop, remember?”

  “Then don’t buy chocolates, you’ll spoil his surprise.”

  “You mean he’s already got some? Great! Perhaps I’ll get some peppermints then, in case we get close.” She winked and clicked her tongue. “Not a word, mind. We want to keep it a secret for a while.”

  “What d’you know about him, Mair? He seems to be a bit of a mystery man.”

  “And all the better for that. Every boy I go out with I’ve known all my life. I know them all down to their last pimple! It’s like going out with one of the family. Been brought up together we have, and with a full knowledge of all the family secrets. Small town stuff. Boring.”

  “I found Charlie, and I didn’t know enough about him to find him boring,” Rhiannon said.

  “Well that’s hardly surprising! Been away in prison hadn’t he? He can hardly have… Sorry Rhiannon, I shouldn’t have said that. Me and my big mouth. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Mair. As you say, small town, no secrets.”

  Rhiannon had learnt a little more about Carl by talking to Jennie, but not enough to satisfy her curiosity. Why should his date with Mair have to be in secret? It was intriguing. Surely she owed it to her friend Mair to find out more, she thought, to ease the guilt of blatant nosiness.

  She saw Jennie approaching later that day and, dashing into the back room to put the kettle on, persuaded her to stay for a cup of tea.

  “I was sorry to hear that you’ve closed the shop,” she began, “but there wasn’t much hope down there out of the main shopping area, was there? Try again, will you? When there’s a better spot?”

  “This is a long way from the shops too, yet Temptations seems to do well enough. Why is that, d’you think?” Jennie asked.

  “Sweets don’t take up as much room as carpets and the other stuff you sold. I can carry a great number of lines. And there’s the loyalty of customers. They got into the habit of coming here while sweets were rationed and they still make their way here whenever they can. Besides,” she added, glancing at Jennie apologetically, “in your case, my brother Viv has got most of the town’s business. There wasn’t much left for you, was there?”

  “I don’t intend to sell carpets again, nor paint and wallpaper. What do you think of starting an interior design business?”

  “Wrong town! Do it yourself and put the sideboard over the mistakes is more the way of my friends. Frank Griffiths is good at decorating, mind. Really neat with wallpaper, but I doubt whether many people would pay you to let you choose what he puts up.”

  “Carl Rees is good at those things too. I wonder what he’ll do now? Not that he did much work for me, but he did get other work while fitting the few carpets I managed to sell.”

  “Carpentry, I heard. Any good, is he?”

  “Apparently he went to college to do furniture design, but his father died and he had to leave. Money difficulties I suspect. Pity. I think he might have had a successful career. He’s still a bit resentful about his lost chances.”

  “He’s taking a friend of mine to the pictures tonight.”

  “Really? I didn’t think he bothered with women. Between you and me, I’d always thought him too mean.”

  * * *

  Mair was a bit puzzled by the arrangement to meet Carl on the six-thirty bus into Cardiff, but she thought it was probably because of the weather. January wasn’t the month to be standing around waiting for someone, after all. He jumped on several stops after her and, as she had already paid her fare, bought his ticket and placed it carefully in his wallet. She handed him hers and said, “I suppose you might as well keep it. We will be travelling home together.”

  “Maybe not,” Carl said. “Best if you hold on to it. I have to go and see someone later, but I’ll see you onto the bus.”

  “Thanks,” she said sarcastically. Some date this was turning out to be. And there was no sign of the chocolates Rhiannon said he’d bought! He found seats in the back row of the cinema, and that was encouraging, but he did nothing more than lean over to take one of the peppermints she offered.

  In spite of the disappointments, she agreed to see him again later that week. The secretive arrangements were rather intriguing and he was good-looking.

  “Meet me at the telephone box at the corner of Trap Lane,” he said, as she climbed onto the bus. “Seven on Friday. Okay?”

  Once the bus was out of sight Carl stood and waited for the next one. Better that they didn’t travel together more than he could help. The fewer people who knew, the better. He stamped his feet against the icy cold coming up from the pavement and wondered whether Mair had done what he asked and told no one of their date.

  * * *

  “First on a bus heading out of town, then in a quiet corner on a dark evening. Is he ashamed of me do you think?” Mair asked Rhiannon, when she went down to report on her night out.

  “A bit shy more like. Perhaps he hasn’t been out with many girls. Anyway, meeting on a bus wasn’t exactly hiding you, was it?”

  “No, but he made it look as though we had met by accident. ‘Hi,’ he said, as though it was a complete surprise. Talk about acting! And sitting in the back row at the pictures wasn’t romantic, just another way to avoid being seen.”

  “No hand holding then?”

  “Only to pinch my peppermints.” Mair laughed. “I’m meeting him again on Friday, mind. I must be mad.”

  “Where to this time?”

  “Corner of Trap Lane, after dark!”

  * * *

  By the middle of February, Mair and Carl had dated a dozen times and every time, they went to places where no one would recognise them. She was developing a strong attraction for him and their tentative relationship began to grow into something approaching affection or even the beginnings of love, yet she still knew very little about him.

  “It isn’t that he won’t answer questions. He does. But he never seems to tell me anything,” she admitted to Rhiannon one lunchtime.

  “You do try to get him talking about himself?” Rhiannon asked. “It’s easy to ask about family and friends at least, isn’t it?”

  “Somehow he manages to twist the questions so the words he uses seem like an explanation, but aren’t really an answer to what I asked.” She sighed. “Then I start to feel embarrassed at my nosiness and shut up.”

  * * *

  Sally Weston was one of Gladys and Arfon Weston’s twin daughters. Like her twin sister Sian, she no longer had her husband living with her. Ryan lived in a basement flat below the sports shop owned by Edward Jenkins. Both sisters had been s
upposedly happily married, but a disaster in the firm of Westons Wallpaper and Paint had caused such a furore that the dust had still to settle. Sian’s husband, Islwyn, had left her to live with Margaret Jenkins, and Sally’s husband, Ryan, had suffered a serious breakdown which had resulted in him hitting his wife. Both men had been directors of the family business until it almost failed for lack of effort on their part.

  Sally’s daughter Joan, was married to Viv Lewis and ran the family business. Her other daughter, Megan, still lived at home with her baby, Rosemary, but would soon be marrying Edward Jenkins and going to live with him in the flat above his sports shop. Then Sally would be completely alone.

  The thought frightened her. Keeping a guesthouse meant strangers being there every night and some made her nervous. Jeremy Mullen-Thomas for one.

  She told none of her fears to her daughter. Nothing must spoil Megan and Rosemary’s chance of a good life and Edward would look after them both, she was certain of that. He adored them and already thought of himself as Rosemary’s father. It was Wednesday and half-day closing for the shops in Pendragon Island, so she finished her preparations for the evening meal for the seven house guests and went to the sports shop to talk to her daughter. It was very cold and Sally put on a coat with a fur collar to keep out the chill wind that was blowing in from the sea. The coat was seeing her through the third winter and she thought sadly of how old it was. Until the collapse of the firm, she would never had started a second winter wearing the same coat as the previous one.

  “Mummy!” Megan greeted her with obvious relief. “Just in time. Darling Rosemary is very unhappy this morning. Would you walk her for ten minutes while Edward and I complete the order forms?”

  “That would be a help, Sally,” Edward said. He had decided long ago not to call her mother-in-law. “We’re out of skipping ropes and the school children seem to have the skipping craze again. Whip and top too. It’s early this year, they usually start those things when it gets warmer, not in cold weather like this.” Sally took the little girl down the road and into the park where the air seemed even colder; with the trees holding down the frost from the previous night. A few children were playing chase and shouting excitedly. On their way back to school and enjoying the last moments of freedom, she guessed, and smiled.

  When she returned to the shop, Edward was serving a last customer and the door was already showing the ‘closed’ notice. “Come up to the flat and have a bowl of soup and some sandwiches,” he said.

  “Thanks. I came to discuss the wedding guest list if this is a convenient time,” Sally explained.

  “Do you agree to Megan’s father giving her away?” Edward asked, when they had eaten.

  “I don’t know,” Sally said, glancing down at the floor as though she might see Ryan in the flat two floors below. “Does he want to?”

  “Well, not so far,” Edward admitted. “But there’s time for him to reconsider.”

  “I see.” Sally frowned. “But if he isn’t happy about it – might he not be difficult?”

  “You are all right about him being there, aren’t you? Neither Megan nor I want you to be unhappy on our special day, do we, darling?” Edward smiled at Megan looking for agreement.

  “I think he should be there if he wants to be, but we shouldn’t try to persuade him.” Sally’s heart was racing at the thought of the violence her husband had shown her. Could they risk him ruining Megan’s wedding day?

  Edward thought of his most recent attempt to persuade Ryan to be with his daughter. He had become upset, and had stood, clenching and unclenching his fists in an alarming manner, before announcing angrily that he didn’t want to be there to see his daughter display her disgrace to the whole town. Edward decided there was nothing to be gained by him reporting that little scene to either Sally or Megan, so he said nothing.

  Sally went home wondering if she would ever be able to trust Ryan again or whether she now had to face living alone for the rest of her life. She thought the latter was the most likely. The last time she had seen Ryan he seemed as resentful as ever, looking at her with such hatred in his eyes that it had chilled her blood.

  She stepped into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, intending to sit for half an hour and read, to take her mind away from Ryan and the problems he had brought her. A sound startled her and she went through to the hall, wondering if one of her guests had arrived early. Usually they didn’t come until evening, but on occasions one of them, Max Powell, who was a stationery salesman, called to pick up stock delivered for him. “Mr Powell, is that you?” she called. She heard footsteps crossing the landing after a top-floor door closed and her heart sank. It sounded like Jeremy Pullen-Thomas. Where had he got a key? Or had she left the door unlocked?

  “I’m glad I caught you,” he said, as he ran lightly down the stairs. “I wanted a word before the others return.”

  “How did you get in, Mr Pullen-Thomas?” she asked stiffly. “You know the house isn’t open to guests during the day except by express agreement.”

  “I got it from old Maxie Powell. He was coming back to collect a delivery, so I asked him to lend it to me. Not a problem, is it?” He was a tall, slim, elegantly dressed forty-year-old and very confident of his appeal to women. Something about him reminded her of Lewis Lewis at his most charming.

  “I told him you wouldn’t mind,” he said, “and promised I’d return it to you as soon as you came in.”

  “What did you want to see me about that was so urgent?”

  “There’s going to be a few changes. I thought you’d like to know,” he said, casually leaning across the lower banisters and smiling at her.

  “Changes?” she asked.

  “Yes, Max and I will be changing rooms. I’ll be on the second floor instead of the top. Don’t worry, we’ll deal with it ourselves, you needn’t be involved.”

  Jeremy Pullen-Thomas seemed so certain that everyone would do as he wished, that his presence had begun to frighten her. If she allowed it, he would be taking over completely. He had already persuaded the others to ask for an earlier evening meal, and he had arranged for morning tea to be provided on a rota organised by himself – the occupant of each room taking it in turns to go to her kitchen and attend to the task. She hadn’t been consulted until it was too late, and everyone was thanking her for being so thoughtful.

  “No, Mr Pullen-Thomas, I don’t think that will be convenient. The rooms are different sizes and prices. I will decide who uses which one and I thank you to leave the running of the house to me.”

  “But we both agree,” he said, surprise darkening his eyes in a way that reminded Sally of the approach of one of Ryan’s rages. Afraid but determined, she said firmly, “And I disagree. And while we’re on the subject of who uses which room, I would like you to vacate yours by the morning. I don’t want you here after tonight.”

  “But I usually stay two nights every week. It’s a regular arrangement. Look here, if any of the others have complained—”

  “I’ll have your account ready for you at breakfast time,” Sally said, as she returned to the kitchen. She had to face the fact that she would be doing this for many years and she would be on her own. She had to be strong, and only have people staying about whom she was completely happy. Max Powell was no trouble and no threat. She would tell him tonight that if he wanted the smaller, less expensive room in future he only had to ask. With a sigh of relief, feeling ridiculously pleased with herself, she began to think about the meal.

  Megan would be pleased that Pullen-Thomas would not be back, she hadn’t liked the man either. Feeling stronger and more in control, she began to hum a tune as she worked.

  Sally went out again later that day, this time to see her sister, Sian.

  “The wedding,” she explained. “What are we doing about food?”

  “Mother wants Montague Court. Can you imagine the fun there’d be with Edward’s sister Margaret, like a wicked fairy at the feast? No, I think both Edward and Megan want a q
uiet affair and it will probably be Gomer Hall again.”

  “Poor Mummy,” Sally said. “She’ll probably cry.” They both laughed at the thought of telling Gladys that her last hope of a grand wedding was going to be quashed.

  “I’m glad Megan and Edward are getting married,” Sally said. “Plans for a new one helps to take my mind off the remnants of mine.”

  “And mine.” Sian sighed. “Thank goodness we won’t be celebrating at Montague Court! Talk about a pantomime! Besides Edward’s ugly sister, my one-time husband would be there, as Buttons, playing a waiter.”

  “Sorry, Sian, for the moment I was so wrapped up in my own mess, I’d forgotten yours.”

  “At least the youngsters seem happy.”

  “I thought we were,” Sally reminded her with another deep sigh.

  “Habit, that’s what it had become. And enough money to help us pretend: It was little more than that,” Sian said with a sigh that matched her sister’s.

  * * *

  Gladys Weston told her husband that she would have to swallow her pride and ask Victoria’s mother to come and help in the house. “I can’t do it all, Arfon, dear. Not after being used to having a servant.”

  “No, Gladys. You mustn’t ask Mrs Collins to clean for you, it wouldn’t be right. Jack would be furious if we had his wife’s mother working for us. Good heavens, woman, can’t you see that?”

  “I do see that, but I’ve been trying for weeks to find someone, and all the young girls want better pay and not much work. I don’t know whether you realise it, Arfon Weston, but running a house is hard work!”

  “I’ll ask Viv. See if he knows someone.” He knew it wouldn’t be easy, Gladys had a reputation for squeezing the last ounce of effort from anyone she employed.