Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  The small family gathering to celebrate both Rosemary’s birthday and the news about the adoption had grown so that Gladys’s garden held most of the family. She felt her heart swell with happiness as they arrived in twos and presented the baby with a gift before sitting, talking and laughing in the shade of the tall trees. This was how families ought to be, gathered together, sharing reminiscences and being happy. Ignoring Megan and Edward’s wishes, now the worry of Terrence’s interference was gone, she had employed Carl’s mother to help serve the food and she sat in a chair, with Arfon beside her, and beamed at the lovely scene before her.

  “Only four more to come,” she whispered to her husband. Viv Lewis appeared and asked if they needed anything, walk­ing towards them holding hands with Joan. They looked happy, Gladys grudgingly thought. Even though Viv was only a Lewis, he did care for Joan properly. She had unwillingly, but generously, invited Viv’s parents to join them, even though they were Lewises and not really family at all. They had yet to arrive. Typical of the Lewises not to know how to behave. Then she remembered that the other two yet to appear, were Sally and Sian. Sian arrived at the same time as Dora and Lewis. So where was Sally?

  Everyone was involved in conversation when Sally eventually came round the corner of the house and waved at her mother.

  “Sally, dear. You’re late.”

  “I had to wait for Ryan,” Sally explained, and Gladys was startled and reached for Arfon’s hand. “Ryan is coming here?”

  “Yes, mummy. He really is much better now and wants to see you all.”

  Ryan certainly looked well, Gladys thought, as her son-in-law came forward to kiss her and shake Arfon’s hand. “Well, Ryan, and how are you?” she asked stiffly.

  “I am well, thank you, Mother-in-law. You’re looking marvellous as always, and so are you, Father-in-law,” he added, before turning away and reaching for a drink.

  “He really is much better, Mummy,” Sally whispered.

  “Much better isn’t enough, dear. Don’t take him back, I beg you.”

  Ryan heard the whispered remarks and felt the anger, so difficult to control, rising to the surface. This had been a mistake. It was too soon to face them. He wondered whether he would escape before his temper erupted and ruined it all.

  He had managed for almost an hour when a chance remark by Sian to Dora Lewis, tipped his fragile balance. He was walking beside Sally to where Rosemary was being coaxed to show off her new walking skills, when Sian was heard to say, “But he can never be trusted. They always revert to type, Dora, there’s no denying that.”

  Ryan was unaware that the two women were talking about Terrence, and his attempt to squeeze money out of Edward, which was now common knowledge, after Gladys’s widespread boasting about how the Jenkinses – grand as they were – were no match for the Westons.

  “What are you saying?” Ryan demanded, standing in front of the two startled women. “How do you know whether I can be trusted? Experts on everything are you? You Westons have a lot to answer for, I’ll tell you that, you pompous, insensitive woman!”

  “Ryan, what on earth is wrong?” Sian stepped back and grasped Dora’s arm for comfort. “We weren’t discussing you.”

  “Don’t take me for a fool, Sian! Although how you, of all the damned Westons, have the affrontery to discuss my situation, with your husband living with another woman, I’ll never know. Brazen you are and you haven’t the right to preach to my wife about me or my marriage!”

  Everyone had fallen silent and it was Mrs Dreese, employed for the day in spite of Megan’s entreaties to keep the day a family affair, who calmed the situation down. She went into the sitting room and put a record on the turntable and hissed instructions to Edward and Arfon. “Start some dancing, make a bit of noise.”

  Her ruse worked, and within the length of the first dance tune, several couples were dancing on the lawn, and were being joined by others. Sian stood silent, still grasping Dora’s arm, her face pale with shock. Her son Jack left his wife and came over to her.

  “Mummy? May I have this dance?” A few minutes later, when a third record sent out its cheering melody, it was though nothing had happened.

  Ryan had returned to Sally’s side but he pushed her arm away as she tried to comfort him. He was terribly afraid he might strike her. Control was there, but he didn’t know how long he could hold it in place, here, surrounded by the Weston family. Losing his temper and hitting poor gentle Sally had originally put him in hospital and he was still unable to be trusted to go home. Glancing down at his wife now, a silly smile on her face as she pretended the incident hadn’t occurred, he wondered whether he wanted to go back to her, or if a solitary life would suit him better. It would certainly be less stressful than living with this nervous woman who looked at him as though he were a mass murderer.

  Why was he struggling to get strong enough to return to her, Megan and Joan, and the guesthouse that was no longer a home? To pretend that was what he wanted, that the achievement showed his success? It was a nonsense. Going back to the situation that had caused his breakdown in the first place was no longer important. Happy with the low-paid job Edward had found him, living in the flat in the basement of the sports shop, he had all he needed. Perhaps he’d ask Edward if he was allowed to get a dog.

  “What are you smiling at, Ryan?” Sally asked, trying in vain to hide her nervousness.

  “I’m going home,” he said. “I want to buy a dog.”

  Convinced that his illness was causing confusion and he was not aware of what he had said, she asked, “You said a dog, don’t you mean a newspaper or something?”

  “What are you talking about, you stupid woman? I said dog and dog I meant.” He put the glass down with a bang and hurried away from the puzzled looks of Sally and the rest. “Good riddance,” he muttered as he pushed past those still dancing to find Edward. “Good riddance.”

  * * *

  Mrs Dreese walked away from Arfon and Gladys’s party still smiling from the happy hours she had vicariously enjoyed, but as she approached her rooms her smile faded. Since being discovered with Bernard Gregory, their relationship had changed. It was as though the secretiveness had been the greater part of the attraction. Now that he could knock on the door and walk in without the subterfuge of the tap on the window and the hurriedly closed curtains, he no longer felt at ease. They had little to say to each other any more. It was as though, after all these months, they had gone back to being strangers. The irony of the reversal was difficult to understand. They had been polite strangers when they had first met, after he had pulled her from the path of a car one dark evening, then there had been the slow development of friendship and the relaxed, comfortable, easy companionship. To revert to behaving like strangers, so formal and polite, was heart-breaking. She braced herself to face the fact that they were finished, that she would have to get a decent job, somewhere better to live, find a life for herself and help Carl to find his way, too.

  Her brave decision to work to pay off her husband’s debts would have to be forgotten. At this moment, it was that which she found most distressing. She had let them both down.

  * * *

  Jennie thought she would enjoy working at Temptations. In the first week she began to get to know the regulars and, with Rhiannon to fill her in on their background, began quickly to feel a part of the place. She knew her successful beginning was due to Rhiannon’s kindness.

  “Thank you for being such a help,” she said one morning as they were opening up. “With you showing me how everything works and introducing me to the customers, I know I’m going to be happy here.”

  Carl was one of their first customers that day, buying a small box of chocolates.

  “Jennie? What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I’ll be taking over when Rhiannon leaves to have her baby,” she replied. “And what about you, have you found a job yet?”

  “There’s something in the offing, which I hope will work out,” he said and ther
e was a closed look on his face that discouraged further questions.

  “It looks as if my old shop is reopening,” she said, as she took the money for his purchase. “I wondered what it will be? If only I’d done what I wanted to do and not listened to Peter and his parents, I might still be there.”

  “Didn’t you intend to sell paint and paper then?” Rhiannon asked.

  Carl excused himself and left, as Jennie explained that her original idea was to make it into a gift shop selling unusual items so people would come there for birthday and Christmas presents. “I still regret not following my instincts and doing what I’d always wanted to do,” she said. “Although it was an out of the way spot, I believe that if I’d selected the right stock, people would have found me and come back again and again for things they wouldn’t find anywhere else.”

  “We sell small gifts, specially at Christmas, so perhaps you can use your ideas here,” Rhiannon said.

  “It won’t be mine though, will it?” Jennie said sadly.

  * * *

  When the time drew near for Rhiannon, Charlie and Gwyn to return to their home across the street, Lewis watched Dora carefully. He wondered whether she would be upset, after seeing the house full, then slowly emptying again. She particularly loved having Gwyn there, and even though he only lived across the road she had enjoyed him being in the house, cooking his favourite meals and buying him the extra treats.

  Lewis had been helping Charlie with the most urgent decorating, and he and Dora had taken a few hours off to carry back some of the furniture. At last he collapsed into his favourite chair and said, “A thousand pounds for a cup of tea, Dora love,” he pleaded. “It’ll have to be an IOU, mind.”

  As they sat drinking tea, the silence of the house settling around them, he asked, “Are you going to be all right?”

  “What d’you mean all right?” Her blue eyes blazed. “Of course I’m all right!”

  “We’ll both miss the noisy lot, won’t we?”

  “There’s another noisy lot wanting a home, Lewis.” She looked at him, wondering how best to say what was in her mind. “Eleri and Basil have been given notice. They only have two weeks to get out of their flat and Basil hasn’t found anything they can afford. In desperation, he’s thinking of moving them all into the old shed place at the Griffiths’s place, where Frank and Ernie used to sleep.”

  “So that was what all this was about, getting me to mend the fences and put up a swing, setting the lawn where I wanted to grow potatoes next year.”

  “It would only be for a year, while they saved for a place of their own. Eleri could work in the evenings. We’d keep an eye on the boys, if you agree. Lovely boys they are.”

  “Noisy, demanding and we’d have no peace.”

  “Just for a year, Lewis. We could cope for a year couldn’t we?”

  “Have you told them?”

  “Of course not. I had to see how you felt first.”

  “Well ask them over for supper one night and we’ll put it to them.”

  “Worried sick, poor Basil is. Tomorrow night?”

  “Don’t I even get a few days to recover from that lot?” he sighed, waving an arm in the direction of their daughter’s family. But he was smiling and she hugged him.

  “We could go round tonight?” she coaxed.

  “Tomorrow they’ll all be at the Griffithses celebrating Joseph-Hywel’s fourth birthday, let’s tell them then.”

  “Ask them you mean, they might not like the idea.”

  “Fat chance of them turning down a chance of some of Dora Lewis’s Maldod, spoil them rotten you will. The problem won’t be will they come, but in persuading them to leave!”

  * * *

  In Temptations, when Rhiannon and Jennie were closing the shop for lunch, Rhiannon invited Jennie to go back with her.

  “For a bite to eat, a sandwich or a salad?”

  “Thank you, I’d love that.”

  “Our place is still a mess. Charlie is painting the new wall, so we’re still living with our Mam.”

  “What about looking at those old newspapers?” Jennie suggested. “If your Mam won’t mind.”

  In Dora’s kitchen, they found a plate of sandwiches and some small cakes. Rhiannon laughed. “Mam must have known! She and Dad have been home this morning, cleaning up for us after the painting, taking the furniture and boxes back. We’re moving back home at the weekend.”

  After they had eaten, they pulled out the box of old papers and began to browse through them, spreading them on the floor, commenting on the various discoveries. Small town news mostly, telling of fines for riding a bicycle without lights, not having a dog licence, poaching, causing an affray, house-breaking, drunk and disorderly.

  “Dull stuff really,” Rhiannon said. “They must have been kept for the references to this Molly Bondo woman, her name appears regularly and the pages are folded to show the cases involving her.”

  “I wonder who she was.”

  “Who she is, you mean,” Rhiannon said. “According to Dad, she’s still cause for gossip. She’s a prostitute,” she said in a whisper, even though there was no one else to hear. She delved deep in the box, turning the papers over with care. “There were a couple of photographs here too. I wonder – ah, here they are.” Pulling out a tattered envelope she slid out some faded sepia, and black and white photographs and handed them to Jennie. “Have a look through, while I make another cup of tea, then we’ll have to be going.”

  “Rhiannon!” Jennie gasped a few moments later. “I know these people! This is a photograph of Peter’s parents!”

  “That’s strange. They must know this Molly Bondo, but I bet they keep that quiet!” she laughed.

  “Can I borrow these?” Jennie asked. “I’ll ask Peter if he knows anything about them. If I see him,” she added, with a sigh.

  “There’s no chance of you two patching things up then?”

  “Not when he does everything his mother tells him, there’s not! I’d be a fool to settle for that, wouldn’t I?”

  “Why not phone him at the office? You could ask him to meet you and look at the photographs,” Rhiannon suggested.

  “I might.” She packed the papers carefully back into their box. “Now we’d better open up. Typical if Barry decides to come on the one day we’re late back!” She put the photographs into her handbag, debating in her mind whether or not it was worth phoning Peter. If she did ask to meet him he’d be sure to make her angry by having to check with Mam first.

  * * *

  Barry was pleased with the first of his bird studies and taking the photographs of the fighting cats as well as the ones taken with his shutter-release method, he went to show Caroline.

  “Barry, they’re excellent!” she gasped. “You have a real talent for seeing the right moment to take the picture. They look almost as though they’re moving. You’ve found something you could develop into a profitable line. Calendars and birthday cards perhaps? Even a book.”

  Her enthusiasm was so enormous and so unexpected, he spoke almost without a thought and asked, “Will you come back and help me? Give up your job in the wool shop and be my partner?” He was smiling excitedly at his impulsive question, but the smile faded as he saw from her expression that the answer was going to be no.

  * * *

  The news of an engagement spread quickly, as Mair and Frank told their friends. The announcement was met sometimes with humour and sometimes with disbelief. Sympathy for Mair was a regular utterance, as was the conviction that neither Mair as his wife, nor PC Gregory as his father-in-law, would stop Frank’s regular court appearances for fighting and poaching. There was constant discussion of how soon Mair’s father would move away from the embarrassment, or even emigrate.

  In the usual way, news of the engagement party at the Griffithses spread without the need for invitations. The television and any piece of furniture not needed as either seat or table, was taken out of the small living-room and stacked in the shed. Hywel and Frank made s
ure that there was plenty of wood for a fire, which was to be lit outside for baking potatoes which they dug from Farmer Booker’s fields. Janet made food, helped by her silent daughter.

  “You’d better have a bit of a chat to Frank,” Janet said to a startled Hywel.

  “What about? Not the birds and bees, Janet? The boy knows more than I do. He should be talking to me!”

  “About responsibility, and all that. You know,” Janet coaxed. But Hywel had another subject he felt he ought to discuss.

  “Frank,” Hywel began, wondering how to broach the subject of Mair and her baby, “I don’t want to spoil things, boy, but this baby, sure are you, that it’s yours?” He watched as his son continued to push and pull the saw through the lengths of wood as though he hadn’t spoken. “Sorry, son. It isn’t my business. But there’s soon it happened. One minute it was that Carl bloke she was seeing and the next there you are, smiling like a couple of kids, saying you’re getting married and having a child. I only wondered, like.”

  “I know it isn’t mine, Dad,” Frank said, when he had thrown yet another log on the growing pile. “I guessed almost as soon as she told me, but I went on acting pleased, like.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “How else would I find a girl like Mair and persuade her to marry me.”

  Hywel was so upset by the plaintive, yet casually spoken words, that he couldn’t speak for a long, long time. There was a hint of tears on the grizzled and bearded face when he told Janet later what their son had said. “God love ’im, Janet. I’m telling you, if that girl causes him grief I’ll kill her.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think she will,” Janet said comfortingly. “I’ve talked to her and she is genuinely fond of our Frank. We have to support them and hope for the best.”

  It was a day for surprises for Janet and Hywel. When Caroline and her mother had finished preparing food for the people they expected, Janet told her about Frank’s revelation. “It seems to be the pattern around here,” Janet smiled. “Even those high and mighty Westons have had the same. Megan marrying that Edward Jenkins and her with a child belonging to someone else. Then there’s you and Barry, now our Frank.”