“Oh yes, when necessary,” she said airily. “Although it’s Mam who’s the expert. She does work so perfect and so small you’d think it impossible for a pair of hands to have achieved it.”
“And where is the work room? Somewhere near the house where you live?”
Lucy pretended to release a stone from her shoes to give herself time to think and he shone his torch to help her find it. Teifion obviously came from a good background and perhaps if she admitted to the single room, cleaning for the Slades and the rest, he might fade from her life as suddenly as he had entered it, but she decided that it was fatal to try and hide the facts. It would only be days before he discovered them for himself anyway.
“I’m not a successful business woman, Teifion,” she said when they were walking again towards the bus stop. “I won’t be needing a bus to get me home, I live just around the corner, sharing one room with my Mam. Mam and me and a bag full of knitting needles and crotchet hooks are all the business we have.”
“Lucy! I’m impressed! If you really are expanding I wish you the very best of luck and,” he added, “I can probably help with a list of places where you might sell your accessories. What are you calling yourself by the way?”
“I hadn’t thought.” She was too relieved at the way he had reacted to her admission to worry over much about the name for the non-existent firm.
“Lucy’s Luxuries?” he said jokingly.
“I don’t think so. What about Extravaganzas in Lace?”
“Have you managed to keep yourselves with only the handwork, Lucy?” he asked.
They were standing near the bus stop, each wondering whether to continue towards Lucy’s home or part there; Teifion thinking with some longing of the nearby air-raid shelter where they could find solitude; Lucy wondering whether to avoid telling him the truth. Surely he wouldn’t be impressed if she admitted to being a skivvy for an unpleasant couple like the Slades? But her innate honesty made her say;
“A skivvy for two greedy, ungrateful boarding-house owners, that’s what I’ve been until yesterday when I left and decided to take a chance on the handwork we do.” She avoided giving him the details of her departure, best leave that for a later date, if there was to be one. She looked at him to see how the news had been met and he was holding back a laugh with great difficulty.
“Lucy, I have a confession to make. I’ve seen you several times and, well, I liked what I saw and wanted to get to know you. It was sheer luck that I spotted you going into Selwyns yesterday. I’ve been asking about you from various people and, well, I knew all about you. Where you live, about the way you care for your invalid mother. I didn’t know about the skivvying mind. You must tell me about that some time.”
Daringly, Lucy said, “Come and meet Mam and have a cup of tea.” To her dismay and embarrassment he shook his head. She had presumed too much, had been too forward. “Lucy, I can’t, not tonight. There’s my parents you see, they won’t go down into the shelter until I get home and—”
“It’s all right, you don’t have to explain.”
“Tomorrow?” he asked. “Tomorrow about seven? Will that be convenient?”
“Tomorrow at seven will be fine, and it’s room seven.”
He grinned at her, eyes crinkling behind the glinting glasses and said cheekily, “I know.”
Chapter Four
Gerry’s mother read the note that had been pushed through her door with dismay. Her sister was in prison again, up before the magistrate this morning having been found drunk and disorderly at a public house in the town centre. She’d have to abandon her plans to visit a friend in Cardiff to go and see if she could get Megan’s rented room, above the cooked meats shop, tidied and a meal prepared for her sister’s return. There was rarely a week passed without some trouble with Megan Moxon. The room would be a tip and only six days ago she had been around there to give it a good going over; she’d given the curtains a blow on the clothes line, upped the coconut matting and even washed under the edges of the lino. But Megan Moxon’s neglect could turn a room into a shambles in hours. She shuddered at the thought of what she’d find waiting for her.
Mrs Daniels lived just around the corner from Bread Street and rarely saw members of the Jenkins family except in church. But she knew that Gerry spent a lot of his time there. She didn’t see much of Gerry either! She had sensed that Gerry wanted to keep his social life apart from her and his home life. He came home to her neat little house for sleep and food but treated her more like a landlady than a mother.
At first this had hurt and offended her, but she invented a reason to sooth her disappointment. He wanted to get on and make something of himself and the small house in the small street where he had been brought up was something he wished to escape from and perhaps, eventually, pretend hadn’t happened. It would be different later on, when he had made his way, then he’d give her a home with him, he’d be good, she just knew it.
Her bank balance was dropping alarmingly with the money he begged and borrowed to buy clothes and support his social activities, but even that wasn’t a real worry. He would repay her. She imagined living in the big house he would one day own and being an important person in the town, like she had been when his father was alive; parties, dances and dinner parties, visits to friends’ houses. It had been grand and would be again. She just had to be patient.
She packed her basket with cleaning materials, knowing from past experience that there wouldn’t be any at her sister’s place. She picked up a loaf of bread that Dai Smoky had just delivered and a packet of biscuits. She’d buy the rest of what she needed on the way. She slammed the door behind her with some force, the only outward show of anger.
Having an aunt who was laughed at as the local drunk didn’t help Gerry to improve his standing in the community, she thought with a sigh, I can’t blame Gerry for wanting something better. She told herself this over and over again, pretending it didn’t hurt to be treated like some embarrassing secret. It was Meg who was the problem, not herself.
She boasted of his fine career to the few friends she had and gave extravagant explanations of why she rarely saw him since he had given up a wonderful career in banking to help a family in difficulties as his “war effort”. She did wonder idly how helping in a small town bakery was helping him to get on but decided that, having no education herself, she simply didn’t understand. Now, as she climbed the stairs to her sister’s room she mused grimly that if she had her way, she’d abandon her “family”, too!
* * *
Gerry Daniels settled into his work helping in the bakehouse with apparent enthusiasm and was soon organising the rest of the work-force with the ease of an expert. To Bessie he deferred, knowing that there he would get no co-operation if he wanted to change things, but to Fanny and Ivor he was like a new boss with whom they had to ingratiate themselves. To Ivor in particular Gerry was a subject of much admiration. Gerry flattered him, told him he was smarter than others had guessed and this had made the slow thinking man Gerry’s adoring slave.
With Ivor’s willing assistance, Gerry found a couple of hours during the afternoons to continue his dalliance with two of his women friends. Marigold, he avoided. He would set off with Ivor after lunch and they would walk towards the small park in the centre of the town. There he and Ivor would part; Ivor to go and stand at the school gates and watch for the children to come out to play, and Gerry to visit some of his friends.
It was Gilly who became aware of it first. She had caught sight of him on two occasions wandering down the hill to where a young war-widow by the name of Maisie Boxmoor lived. She was returning home with the meat ration she had been sent to collect, but Gilly had waited until he came out almost two hours later.
Watching him for several days she found he had a routine of visits, sometimes taking flowers and other times a small box of chocolates. Young as she was, there was no doubt in her mind what he was visiting for. And there’s Mam thinking he was her special person, someone who had gi
ven up a career in banking just to help her out. Give him more time for women more like!
She sighed with impatience as she saw her mother greeting him on his return, making him a cup of tea and insisting he rested a while, looking at him with adoring eyes, thinking he was her own. Gilly knew she had to tell her mother but how? Slowly, she decided, and leaving the worst ’til last, that’s how.
Defying her mother’s defensive anger, Gilly began the slow revelation of Gerry’s uselessness by pointing out that since Gerry had arrived and been put on the pay-roll they all had to work longer hours.
“Come on, girl,” Fanny said angrily, “give him a chance. Only here five minutes and you expecting him to do our work as well as his own?”
“You didn’t have to knock up the heavy dough or get the loaves in and out of the oven when Granfer was working, stretching up to the top oven where you can hardly see! And Auntie Bessie didn’t have to drag the bags of flour from the store-room because someone had forgotten to barrow the sacks of flour across from the store-room to the loft! It’s no good, Mam, he’s lazy. And where d’you think he’s off to when he goes out every afternoon?”
She could have bitten her tongue off, wished she hadn’t been driven by anger to say more than she’d intended, but the look on Mam’s face, so stubborn and closed up, had given her tongue a mind of its own. She looked at her mother’s anger rising as she digested what her daughter had said and read the innuendo in the words. Gilly’s heart sank. That had hardly been telling her slowly and leaving the worst till last, had it? But she needn’t have worried. Whatever Fanny thought he was doing, it wasn’t visiting other women.
“I know all about his afternoons,” she snapped to Gilly’s alarm. “Up to the park he goes, him and Ivor both. To watch the bowling for an hour or two, that’s where he goes and who can blame him? He can’t dedicate every hour to our business, now can he? Needs a bit of fresh air for heaven’s sake.”
“So do you, Mam, but does he ask you to go?”
“Busy in the shop I am. Me and your Auntie Bessie, we aren’t free. But—” she defended before Gilly could protest, “we don’t start as early as your Uncle Gerry.” Changing the subject abruptly Fanny went on, “And what have you been doing these past afternoons? There’s the bedrooms needing the sight of a mop and a touch of polish, and the stairs so dusty it’s a disgrace. Get on with your work and let others see to theirs, that’s best for you my girl!”
It was hopeless, Mam wouldn’t listen to any complaint about him. She put down the meat for her mother to unpack and place in the meat-safe. “I’m going upstairs to talk to Granfer.”
To Granfer she couldn’t tell of her suspicions either. She had been warned about upsetting him. Being stuck up there all those stairs away from the hub of things, that was bad enough. But to know there was something not right with the business and him unable to sort it, well that would have made him ill, she could see that.
“What’s new then, Gilly?” he asked when she went into his bedroom with the cup of tea Mam had asked her to take.
“This tea isn’t for sure, Granfer. By the time I get up here, walking slow so as not to spill half of it, it’s as chilled as yesterdays leftovers.”
She watched as he sipped the tea, smiling at her over the rim of the cup with eyes that still twinkled merrily. It wouldn’t harm him if she just talked about Gerry, would it?
“Granfer, I don’t like Gerry being here.”
“Neither do I,” he whispered back as if the walls were taking notes to be handed to his daughters. “Lazy sod. Always was and there’s me, for the purpose, stuck here without a say in what goes on. Took his chance he did, knowing the boys couldn’t argue and I’d be out-voted. Surprised your Auntie Bessie agreed, mind. She hasn’t got much look to him.”
“There didn’t seem to be anyone else to help.”
“I bet he doesn’t help more than he has to to keep your daft mother sweet.”
“He organises the rest of us to do more, that’s how he helps, then he goes off gallivanting and playing bowls or something,” she quickly amended. “And he’s said no more about joining the Home Guard, mind, for all his grand patriotic speeches.”
“Damn me, girl I bet they’re glad!”
“When will the uncles be home from the war? Everything is changing and not for the better.”
“Cheer up, little Gilly. You’re young and there’s plenty of time for things to change again, and next time for the better. How’s that Paul Green?” he asked as she took the cup and saucer from him.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since he came with his parents to visit you. Oh Granfer, when will he see me in my new coat?”
He chuckled and said, “Will you go on a message for me, supposing your mam and Auntie Bessie can spare you for an hour?”
“Of course. Glad to get out of this place.”
“I want you to go and see Derek Green.” He smiled wickedly. “There’s a genuine reason. Best you go now while you’ll still find someone in the bakery.”
“I hope old Granfer Green won’t be there, hates us he does.”
“Tell you why, shall I, Gilly? Because he and your grandmother were engaged and I stole her from him, that’s why.” He laughed a soft, giggling laugh like a child. “Damn me, Nathaniel Green’ll never forgive me. And what with us being rival bakers and me the best, well, you can’t blame the poor bloke, can you?” He continued to laugh, looking at his grand daughter, encouraging her to share the joke.
The message was for Derek to call and see him as he had an address where they could buy some illegal but good white flour.
“It’s war between old Nat and me and always will be,” he explained, “and that Derek is a right old misery, but in a real war we have to help each other and besides I owe him one for the way Shirley helped you with that coat.”
Fanny wouldn’t let Gilly wear her new coat. “It’s only an errand for Granfer, for heaven’s sake,” she complained. “You’ll keep the new coat for church for a few weeks at least and not waste it running on an errand only few yards away! Vain you’ll be getting my girl and where would that get us?”
“How can I waste a coat, Mam? Grown out of it I’ll be before I’ve got the creases out!”
For an answer Fanny went to the cupboard where the family hung what Bessie called their day-to-day-clothes and took out the hated school navy. The hat was handed to her and she stuck it on her head and hurried out.
As she went through the back lane which led to Green’s bakery she threw it down and childishly stamped on it before running off. As least Mam wouldn’t make her wear that hat again.
Paul was in the bake-house finishing off the last of a batch of bread-rolls for a restaurant’s evening order. He looked up, flushed from the ovens and smiling a greeting, but the smile was anyone’s smile, there was nothing warm or even friendly about it.
He had wanted to see her again, had felt a growing admiration for the girl he had known all his life. On the day she had returned from Cardiff with his mother she had looked different, less familiar and more womanly. Thoughts of her had filled his mind before sleep every night since. Seeing her walking down the lane towards the bakery now had been like a blow, a shock. She was back to being ordinary, boring, familiar Gilly Collins again.
Her hair was far from glamorous, she was wearing ankle socks and some ugly lace-up black shoes. And seeing her wearing the old school coat that made her look skinny and lanky, her eyes, so full of promise, were back to ordinary blue eyes, no different from hundreds of other girls. They were still a pretty blue, but not so large or so wide or so luminous. It was as if his memory was faulty. Perhaps he had only dreamt it?
“Granfer says for your father to call when he’s a moment to spare, he knows someone with decent white flour to sell.”
“For Dad?”
“That’s what he said. Tell him, will you?”
Paul continued with his work in silence, using two long sticks like broom-stick handles to tumble t
he bread rolls out of the oven and into a basket he held by the oven door. There were others waiting to be baked, standing ready on the long wooden slips, to be dropped one at a time off the end onto the floor of the oven. Gilly was defeated by his lack of interest and wanted to hurry away, she wished she hadn’t come. Why was she dreaming about being noticed by Paul Green?
“Best I be off,” she mumbled, her face beginning to colour in embarrassment. She felt she’d been standing there for an age, waiting for him to say something to her, although it could only have been seconds.
“What’s this special flour then?” he asked as she turned to go.
“White and illegal so don’t tell anyone else. Granfer thought your dad would like some for special favours to special customers.”
“How does he get to hear of these things? How does he know what’s going on?” he asked as he put the basket of rolls onto the table. “Stuck up there in that eyrie of his hardly moving from his bed.”
“You know my Granfer. He has a stream of visitors all bursting with gossip. And he’s still the centre of the business, looking at the books every week and knowing everything that happens.”
“Everything? You his eyes and ears, Gilly? Do you chatter to him and tell him all that’s happening? I bet you make it all sound interesting and exciting, don’t you? You and your chattering.” He wasn’t looking at her, concentrating now on cleaning some wooden trays before stacking them ready for the following morning, but she knew he was teasing her.
“I haven’t got time to stand chattering to you, that’s for sure!” She turned and hurried from the bake-house, out into the dark chill of the late afternoon. Tears were stinging her eyelids but she blinked them away and pretended it was simply the cold wind. He thought her a silly child and one who didn’t even justify the normal casual conversation of friends.
When she had gone, Paul looked at the doorway and felt regret. He had been unkind. The habit of brushing her away had become automatic. At school, the precarious friendship between the two families had brought them into contact frequently and he had been ragged by his friends at the way Gilly followed him around, offering to share her lunch at play-time and wanting to join in the games they played. The embarrassment had made him more unkind than he really meant to be and the habit had remained.
Family Pride Page 7