Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  “You can keep an eye on one of the lodgers,” he said confidentially. “Mrs Weston is nothing to me mind, but I do wonder about a man called Maxie Powell. He’s a labourer on one of the sites where I sometimes do a few days work. He was boasting one day that he intended to flatter her into accepting him as a permanent part of her life. He needs watching and I think she’d be better off having another woman in the place.”

  “I’ll go and see her. If she has a room vacant, I’ll take it, for a while anyway. I’ll quite enjoy being spoilt.”

  “And you’ll watch Maxie Powell?”

  “I’ll watch Maxie Powell,” she agreed.

  Jennie found the days at the beach selling seaside rock very boring. She knew she should put aside all thoughts of what might have been and forget the business she had begun and lost, but she was still very bitter. One morning, leaving the house early, she was more dejected than usual. She had signed the contracts for the sale of the house where she and Peter had begun their marriage with such hope and optimism. They hadn’t met for over a week; even the contracts had been signed separately, each going into the office when an appointment had been made and dealing with the simple action that was going to change everything so dramatically.

  One morning a few days after she had spoken to Carl, she was too early to catch the bus. The seaside shops and stalls and shows didn’t open until ten o’clock, there being few visitors to the beach before then. She turned down the road by the church and, after trying not to look, stopped and went across to her old shop. Something was happening. The window was covered with stuck-down newspapers, making it impossible for anyone to look inside. The glass door, too, was covered with hardboard and, even pressing her nose to the edge of the window, she couldn’t see anything of what was going on inside. She walked on and stopped at Temptations to talk to Rhiannon.

  “What’s happening to my old shop, do you know?” she asked as she went inside.

  Rhiannon put down the duster she was using and shook her head. “I haven’t heard any rumours. Is it re-let, then?”

  “Apparently. The windows are covered and something is going on. I wonder what kind of a shop it will be?”

  “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know,” Rhiannon promised. “How is the job at the rock shop making out? Interesting, is it?”

  “It was – for the first ten minutes!” Jennie sighed. “Can you imagine, everyone comes in and, as though they’re the first to think of such an audacious idea, decide to give some rock in the shape of a dummy, to their big brother, or their boss, or their grown-up son. Or rock in the shape of a fried breakfast to give their husbands after promising breakfast in bed. For a while I forced a laugh and declared that it would be such fun and how did they think of such a hilarious idea. Now I want to scream!”

  “Thank goodness we have more variety here in Temptations. I think I’d be screaming after a week of that.”

  “I’m looking for something else, but not over the beach. I think I’d rather sell second-hand socks to tramps.”

  “What about this place?” Rhiannon asked quietly.

  “Me manage Temptations? Of course, you will be leaving soon. But won’t Barry have someone in mind?”

  “I’ll have a word if you like, find out if he has offered the job to someone, but I don’t think he has.”

  “Thank you. I’d like to work here.”

  “You’d have to see Barry of course. But the wages aren’t bad­ enough for you to pay for a room and feed yourself.”

  “It’s Wednesday and, although the beach shops stay open, it’s my half day, so I’ll call and see him on my way home, shall I?”

  “Er, no, not on a Wednesday,” she said, unaware of any change. “Barry and Caroline consider that their special time and they don’t make any other arrangements. Come tomorrow morning on the way to work and I’ll try to make sure Barry’s here.”

  “Their special time? Barry Martin and Caroline? I thought they were separated?”

  “They are, but they’re working on it.”

  “Good luck to them,” Jennie said sadly. “All right, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  She hurried out wishing she and Peter were working on their disaster of a marriage. Mother-in-law trouble was often used as a basis for jokes but it wasn’t really funny. Not funny at all.

  * * *

  Instead of going to the bus stop, Jennie went to Glebe Lane to see Sally. There was a room vacant, but Jennie didn’t take it. There were a few days to go before she had to leave the house and it would have been a waste to pay rent unnecessarily.

  “I’ll come back next week and see whether the room is still available,” she promised Sally.

  Waiting at the bus stop, guilty that she would be late opening the shop, the van she had sold to Carl approached and he stopped to give her a lift.

  “Thanks, Carl. I’m late. I’ve been to see about a room in Mrs Fowler-Weston’s house.”

  “Good.”

  “I haven’t taken it, but I think I will, next week when I have to leave the house.”

  They drove out of town and along the road towards the Pleasure Beach. A few coaches were pulling into the car parks and excited holiday-makers were spilling out, carrying picnic baskets, sunshades and towels wrapped like sausage rolls around swim suits. Before she got out of the van, Jennie asked, “Have you heard who’s taken the shop?”

  “Rumours flying,” he said, “everything from fish and chips to books to sweets to clothes. Look, I have to go, I’m blocking the road.” Waving cheerfully, he drove off and Jennie walked towards the shop planning her apologies.

  * * *

  Terrence had failed in his attempt to get Megan to part with some money. He knew Edward was the weak one but he didn’t seem able to get him on his own, and work on his anxiety. He would have to change his tack. Failing Edward and Megan, perhaps Megan’s grandmother might be persuaded if he threatened to publicise the fact that he was being denied access to his child? The local newspaper wouldn’t be interested in their petty squabbles, but Gladys might not know that. He set off optimistically to visit Arfon and Gladys’s large house, hoping to find Gladys on her own.

  As he touched the front gate he heard voices. Instead of knocking at the door he went round the side of the house and looked into the garden. Megan and her grandmother were laughing at the little girl as she kicked and struggled to roll over, on a fluffy white blanket spread on the lawn. In the shade of a tree, Edward and Arfon were smiling as they watched the scene. Terrence went back out to the pavement and waited.

  When Edward and Megan left he met them by accident, or so it seemed, and at once said apologetically, “Megan, I’m ashamed of myself. I don’t know what got into me. It was wicked, asking you for money. I would never do anything to hurt you. I won’t raise any objection if you and Edward want to adopt our daughter legally.” Megan thanked him rather grudgingly. “There is one thing,” he said, leaning over the pram where Rosemary was now sleeping. “I really do need a loan. I would appreciate you lending me a thousand pounds. I don’t want you to think my signing away my daughter is anything to do with this, but I am rather embarrassed financially at the moment and I’d be very glad of your help. It’s only temporary. You have my word on that.”

  Edward hesitated, frowning as he tried to think of the right words to use. Megan tightened her jaw, her eyes sparkled with irritability as she said, “No, Terrence! We don’t have any money for one thing, the business needs building up. For another, I wouldn’t give or lend you money if I were the owner of thousands.”

  “But—” Edward began.

  “Don’t think for a moment that Edward and I will feel sorry for you, and we won’t submit to blackmail.” She glared at him angrily. “So, there’s nothing more to discuss, is there? If you’ll give us your address, we’ll send the papers on when they arrive.”

  Terrence smiled. “Still the same old hard-faced bitch you always were, Megan. Really, cousin Edward, you have my sympathy. Well, perhaps I�
��ll be hard-faced too and forget my promise to sign away Rosalie, or move and forget to give you my address? You’ll have to wait a long time then, won’t you? Always worrying whether I’ll turn up and demand to see my child?”

  He hurried off and Megan and Edward walked home in silence.

  When Rosemary was in bed, Edward said, “Don’t you think that was unwise?”

  “No! and I don’t want to discuss it, Edward.” Her next outburst revealed to Edward how upset she really was. She pointed out that he didn’t even remember the baby’s name. “Rosalie. He called her Rosalie! Can you believe the man! The other day he didn’t correct me when I called her Dorothy. What does he care, apart from using her as an excuse to get money from us? He won’t succeed, I won’t let him use Rosemary this way and you shouldn’t consider it either.”

  Edward lay awake long into the night, wondering how real Terrence’s threat was and whether he should defy his wife and pay the man.

  * * *

  In the Griffiths’s cottage, Caroline lay awake too, wondering where her life was taking her – if anywhere. She and Barry had stopped meeting regularly every Wednesday afternoon in the flat above Temptations, when, for a few hours they pretended to be a courting couple sneaking a few hours away from everything else to talk, and make love and dream of that wonderful future where everything was perfect. After so many false starts they were both hesitant about trying once more to make their difficult marriage work and Barry’s suggestion when he had met her to drive her home from work that afternoon, had thrown Caroline into confusion. He had begun by telling her about the possible applicant for the job of managing Temptations when Rhiannon left to have her baby.

  “Who is she?” Caroline asked. “Do I know her?”

  “She’s called Jennie Francis and she used to run the small paint, wallpaper and carpet shop near the church. Fancied herself as a rival to the Westons she did, for a while. Then something happened and she suddenly closed down. From what I’ve learned from Rhiannon, she and her husband have separated and their house is being sold. So,” he went on hesitantly, “this Jennie Francis needs accommodation as well as a job.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that,” Caroline said, “but I’ll ask around, see if there’s a suitable place near enough for her to get to the shop. That is, if she’s suitable.”

  “If she is, how d’you feel about her having the flat?”

  “You moving out, you mean?” Her heart began to race, but not with excitement at what he was certainly going to suggest, but dismay. “Where would you go?” she said, pretending to be stupid. “We’ve sold Chestnut Road and there’s hardly room for you over your showroom-cum-studio.”

  “We aren’t short of money. Isn’t it time we bought a house and began to make a home, for the three of us? Joseph-Hywel should have a brother or a sister before much longer, or he’ll be more like an uncle to the new arrival. Caroline, we’ve lived apart for so long, and we’re drifting further apart. Isn’t it time to try again, and this time with a determination to make it work?”

  She lay in her lonely bed, with the sound of trees murmuring outside the windows, her small son sleeping peacefully beside her. Joseph-Hywel would be four next month. Barry was right, if they were to give him brothers and sisters they shouldn’t wait much longer. But the thought of being a wife, twenty-four hours of every day, was not a prospect that excited her as it should. She tried to work out why this was so. She had been so comfortable living with her parents that, unlike many young women, she had never dreamed of marriage as a way of escaping. She had loved Joseph, Barry’s brother, completely and she would have travelled to any part of the world if he had wanted her to. Losing him while expecting his son, and before they were married, had numbed her senses. Marrying his brother had been a necessity and nothing to do with love at all. She had tried for a while to love Barry, but now, once more facing the prospect of living with him, sharing everything, being a loving wife and all that entailed, she knew it would be wrong. She felt tears trickle onto her pillow as she confessed silently that she didn’t even want to share her son. He was hers; hers and Joseph’s and, pretend as she might, that could never change. She would never love Barry in the way he deserved.

  She slept finally, having made the decision to tell Barry as soon as possible that it was over, she was staying with her parents, probably for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  Jennie arrived at Temptations the following morning with a couple of references, and she and Rhiannon waited in the shop for Barry to appear. They didn’t see Caroline walk up the back steps and go into the flat. But Rhiannon heard voices behind the door from the shop, and quickly realised that Caroline had called. As the voices became louder, she knew Barry and his wife were quarrelling. This was disturbing. Caroline was a quiet, gentle person and Rhiannon had never heard her raise her voice before. She wondered what had happened, and hoped that her curiosity would be satisfied. She had known Caroline and Barry a long time, knew of the problems they had encountered and wished them well, but she was human enough to want to know what had caused Caroline, the most peaceable of the Griffithses, to become angry enough to shout.

  When all had gone quiet, she waited, wondering whether to knock on the door to the flat to remind Barry of Jennie’s appointment, or to wait, in the hope he would remember and come down. She went into the small kitchen beyond the shop and made tea, giving a cup of tea and some biscuits to Jennie while she waited. “Is there a cup for me, Rhiannon?” a voice called, and Barry came through the shop door, from the street, not from the flat as she had expected. His rather pugnacious face was flushed, but his voice seemed calm as he asked, “Are you Miss Francis?”

  “Mrs Francis, yes,” she said, taking his proffered hand.

  Barry asked few questions, his mind seemed elsewhere, but he quickly learnt of her circumstances either from Jennie herself or from what he remembered Rhiannon explaining previously. After ten minutes, he had offered Jennie the job and had also told her that if she could wait a month, the flat might also be available.

  Pleased for Jennie, but saddened at the knowledge that the shop she had been so happy to manage was hers no longer, Rhiannon told Barry that she would like to work two more weeks, one on her own, as usual, and the second beside Jennie, so she could explain how everything was run. Still distracted Barry appeared only to half listen to her suggestion.

  Jennie explained that she had a couple of weeks before vacating her house but an arrangement was being considered for her to live in a guesthouse after that. “A month’s time would be fine,” she told Barry. “If I could see the place fairly soon, so I can plan what I need to bring?”

  “Rhiannon will deal with that,” Barry said gruffly, as he left the shop, leaving the tea Rhiannon had poured untouched. What had happened? Perhaps she and Charlie could take Gwyn for a walk with the dog on Sunday and visit the Griffithses. Nosy maybe, but there was also a reason: Caroline would need a friend and, Rhiannon, in spite of enjoying gossip, was well able to keep confidences.

  * * *

  Mair went to work as usual and hoped that Frank would call, but for the next two days she didn’t see him. He was there, but although he watched her as she walked to and from work, he made sure he wasn’t seen. He wanted to see whether she and Carl met. On the second evening he was watching the cottage when he saw PC Gregory emerge, wheeling his bicycle as though setting off for a nightshift. As before, Frank followed and, as before, he went into the house where Carl rented a room, and slipped in through the french windows.

  Frank waited for an hour, but there was no sign of Gregory leaving. He had learnt from various sources that Carl rented a bedsit and that his mother lived in the same house, but with her own rooms. He had also learnt that the rooms visited by Mair’s father were those of a Mrs Dreese who worked for Gladys and Arfon Weston. The woman had obviously chosen ground-floor rooms, so she could entertain without anyone being any the wiser. Well just let old Gregory start getting all uppity about
him and Mair and he’d remind him of this address!

  He went around and knocked on the front door, then hid, as Carl opened the door and looked at the empty step and the shadowy garden.

  “If that’s you, Mair, go away,” he hissed. “You and I have nothing to say to each other, don’t you understand?”

  “It isn’t Mair, it’s me,” Frank said, seconds before his fist contacted with Carl’s face. He hurried home, rubbing his painful knuckles but smiling at the peaceable feeling in his heart. “Pretty boy no longer,” he gloated.

  He walked through the fields and lanes knowing he wouldn’t sleep and wondering what he should do about Mair. His dream was still there, he and Mair married, and a child on the way, but would she still marry him after his unexplained disappearance? How could he tell her the reason was that he was checking up on her father? Why hadn’t he forgotten about PC Gregory until he and Mair had told everyone they were engaged? Made everything official. He would never have known about her visit to Carl and some things were better not known. Why hadn’t he thought about things properly instead of going hell bent on finding out what her father was up to? How did he get in such a mess when everything was about to be perfect? Everyone else seemed to sort their life out with ease, but for Frank Griffiths, nothing went right. Still pondering the imponderable mysteries of life, he went home.

  Janet almost tripped over him the following morning as she went out to open up the goats’ and chickens’ shed. He was sprawled across the back porch, fast asleep, his hand wrapped in brown paper soaked in vinegar.

  “Our Frank’s here. Been fighting again, by the look of him. Nothing ever changes,” she called back to Hywel.

  * * *

  Jennie and Peter met a few evenings after she had accepted the job in Temptations. Foolishly, she thought he would be pleased and she went to his parents house to tell him.