The room still had most of its shelves and tables in place and there was even an old trough and a couple of bread baskets standing melancholy, waiting for the bustle of an early morning start.
“It seems sad, doesn’t it?” Gilly said.
“At least it doesn’t smell too bad,” Shirley whispered. “Although I suspect there’s a whole colony of mice.”
“And beetles!”
“Ugh!” Shirley shivered, following Gilly around.
The other two rooms on the ground floor contained nothing but an old sink near the back door. The slate floor was covered with a thin film of dust and became patterned with the trailing marks of their feet as they wandered in and looked about them.
They went up the wooden stairs slowly as if half expecting something to jump out at them in the eerie hollow-sounding place. There were three rooms above what had been the shop and the bake-house. One had been the place where flour was stored and it still had the heavy hook and lifting gear outside the window.
“You’ve done some clearing up in here, Gilly,” Shirley said, touching the wall with a gloved hand and examining the result. “Tell me, love, what are you planning? Not a revival of Nevilles’ bakery to rival Jenkins’ and Green’s?”
“I’ll tell you when we’ve had a good look around,” Gilly said, smiling.
Above the three first floor rooms there were two smaller rooms and a twisting corridor as if the upper floor had been re arranged for some specific purpose.
“Am I allowed to ask questions yet?” Shirley smiled.
Gilly took off her scarf and wiped the dusty window sill and invited Shirley to sit. She did so, curling her nose in disapproval. They sat silently for a few moments, looking out across the rooftops of their neighbours; smoke rising from a hundred chimneys, the grey sky low and reflecting the sombre colour of the roofs.
“Auntie Shirley, I want to open a restaurant here. Do you think it’s possible?”
“If you want to do it, anything’s possible.” Shirley said after a moment’s thought. “You’ve got plenty of strength and determination in that thin body of yours, Gilly, love, and if I can help you in any way you’ve only to ask. Derek, too. You know how fond he is of you. Shift the spiders and beetles out first, mind,” he added with another curl of her nose.
“I don’t want to tell anyone just yet. Not even Uncle Derek. Promise?”
“Not a word. Although I think you ought to at least tell your Uncle Sam. You have to have someone to talk things over with.”
“Uncle Sam has enough on his mind for the present. You know he goes to London every weekend to look for some woman he met during the war?”
“Yes, he told me. Lillian Coleby, isn’t it?”
“And there’s the mess the business is in. He works for hours after we’ve all gone to bed, trying to fathom out ways of bringing it around. And he’s worried about Uncle Vic and Uncle Viv. There’s been no news at all of Uncle Viv and we were told only that Uncle Vic was a prisoner of the Japanese and is now in hospital. I keep thinking of those pictures of men who worked on the Burma-Siam railway and I can’t imagine how he’ll look when he is allowed home.
“Uncle Sam pretends, mind. For my sake, really. He talks about them both as if they’re on their way home safe and sound, that any minute they’ll walk through the door and argue in their quiet way about whose turn it is to do the early shift. Pretends they’re together he does, although we don’t know where Uncle Viv is. I can’t land him with this idea of mine now, can I?”
They discussed the possible layouts of the ground floor for a while but the icy coldness of the empty building eventually drove them out and they walked back to Shirley’s house continuing their conversation on the way.
“I won’t come in, Auntie Shirley, I don’t want to talk about all this in front of Uncle Derek.” Gilly didn’t dare say what she was thinking, that she didn’t trust Derek Green and was afraid he would somehow use the information to his own advantage.
She went back to the shop and let herself in. Ivor was upstairs singing tunelessly to himself accompanied by the old wind up gramophone he kept in his bedroom. Auntie Bessie was back with the Smokys. Uncle Sam was in London and wouldn’t be home until the late train. She sighed and made herself some tea and a sandwich of boiled fatty bacon she’d managed to get off ration. Covered with piccalilli it was just about acceptable.
The fire was low and she made it up and moved the big saucepan over the heat. It contained a rich vegetable and lentil soup and it would heat through slowly ready for supper. Uncle Sam would be glad of that when he came back from his search.
She wondered idly what Lillian was like, whether she would find her pleasant company. A new auntie might be fun. The house certainly needed someone cheerful and that was the impression Uncle Sam gave of her; plump, attractive, good tempered and eternally cheerful.
Sitting near the fire and with a writing pad on the table beside her, she began to draw a plan of how she would arrange the ground floor of Nevilles’ old bake-house and transform it into a restaurant. After a while she put it aside and began to write the same things but in the form of a letter to Paul. She included the same request, for him not to mention her ideas to his father or anyone else, she added, to avoid him discovering her mistrust of his father.
* * *
Lucy still saw Teifion about once a week and, although his keeping their meetings a secret from his parents was hurtful and she kept telling herself that his attitude would never change, she needed the occasional reminder that someone at least found her attractive and desirable. He occasionally visited the room she and her mother rented and was always charming to her mother.
It couldn’t go on, she knew that, and things came to a head early one Saturday evening when they were walking towards the bus station intending to visit a public house in Dinas Powis. Without warning, Teifion pushed her into a doorway and hurried down the road away from her. His hissed instructions for her to “stay there”, and she crouched against the door protecting her face from some un-named threat.
For a few seconds her mind returned to the devastating air raids 1941 and 1942 and her heart tightened as she waited for the chaotic noise of people running and shouting, whistles blaring, sirens wailing, bombs screaming towards where she tried to hide. She pressed her eyes tightly closed, tensing herself against injury and the terrifying prospect of being buried alive under buildings falling like childrens’ toys. Gradually the memories and the echoes of those terrifying days faded.
Nothing happened. People continued to pass by unhurriedly and she uncurled herself and looked out. On the corner, about three shops away, Teifion was talking to the Slades, Mr Slade was carrying a loaded basket: the couple had obviously been to the market for the last of the perishable goods that were often sold cheaply on a Saturday evening.
She waited for almost a minute, staring at him, then, as he began to walk away from her, his arm on his aunt’s shoulder, she realised what a fool she had been. Did she have such a low opinion of herself that she had to put up with the crumbs of comfort an occasional date with Teifion gave her? She must be crazy! Right, this was definitely it! She left the doorway and, although her home was in the opposite direction, she walked smartly past the three people glaring at them as she went.
“Goodnight, Teifion! Enjoy yourself with your delightful company!”
That she had been stupid to allow herself to treated in such a way and for such a long time made her angry. But not with Teifion. He wasn’t important enough or nice enough to waste anger on, it was herself she was furious with: how could she have been so – so meek? Well, it was over now. If she saw him again she would throw whatever she happened to have in her hands and she hoped it would be something sticky and messy. She walked quickly home, imagining the worst of the things she could aim at him.
By the time she had opened the door to greet her mother she was almost light-hearted, a sense of freedom flowed through her, so she almost sang the greeting to Polly, “Ma-
am, I’m ho-ome.”
The room was in darkness. Unable to leave her chair, Polly couldn’t reach to put a match to the gas light, but one of the other boarders usually came in and lit it for her.
She must have fallen asleep and not heard his knock. That she was ill became apparent as soon as the gas light spread its yellow glow.
When the doctor came, he arranged for Polly to go to hospital and, on the following day, she died. Kidney failure, the doctors told a dazed and stunned Lucy.
She walked home from the hospital, hardly aware of where she was heading. There seemed to be no purpose in life any more. Going home meant Polly. What was the point of going home now? An empty room containing too many memories. Every tick of the clock a reprimand, a criticism for not recognising the fact that her mother was so ill.
As she climbed the stairs to the cold flat, she ached with the pain of her loss. Tears slid down her icy cheeks. “Oh, Mam, how I’ll miss you,” she whispered as she pushed her key in the lock.
She sat in her mother’s chair without taking off her coat and was startled out of her reverie by a knock on the door. It was the young man whom she had not met before but who had called daily to see if Polly needed anything. He stood there some what embarrassed.
“Sorry about yer ma,” he said in a strong London accent. “Pals we were, ’er and me. If there’s anything I can do to ’elp—”
“Thank you, I – I don’t know what to do,” she said, sitting down like a collapsed balloon.
He went to the stove in the corner of the room and put the kettle on to boil. “Cup of tea first, eh? That’s what my old Ma would’ve said, Gawd rest ’er soul.”
“Thank you, I think it would be welcome. It’s been such a shock. I never knew she was so ill.”
“Didn’t want to worry yer. Your mum was a fine old trooper, wasn’t she? She kept going on that old crochetin’ of ’ers right to the last. Determined you’d get the business you dreamed of.” He obviously knew his way around the small room and soon had a cup of tea poured, with a couple of biscuits tilted in the saucer.
“You seem to know a lot about us?” She frowned at him, seeing for the first time his large dark eyes, the untidy mop of dark hair, the springy strength of him, the neatness of his worn shirt and the brown corduroys held around his waist with an ancient leather belt. “I’m sorry, but I don’t even know your name.”
“Gee people calls me. Geoffrey if you wants to be precise. There’s two Geoffreys in the bakery, so they made me Gee to separate us. Not that there was any need, him being twice as big and three times as ugly as me! Big bloke ’e was, and with ’ands like ’ams and a neck like a bull.” He chattered on, inconsequentially, while re-filling her cup. She drank gratefully.
She needed someone to talk to, to pour out her feelings about the loss of her mother, the only family she had. Gee seemed to fit into the role of sympathetic listener and as he had spent hours talking to Polly, and knew most of her life story, he was the perfect person for her to open her heart to.
The funeral was a very small affair, but there were more people there than Lucy had expected. Lucy had no relations apart from her mother, but Gee had rounded up the boarders from the house that had been destroyed and the women who had, for a brief time, worked for her. They attended the simple service in the cold, hollow-sounding church and then returned, not to the small room, but to a café where Gee had arranged for a simple spread to be available for those who cared to come.
After the day of the funeral she scarcely saw him. She guessed that, as he was her mother’s friend, he didn’t want to intrude. She missed him and felt the abandonment like a fresh pain.
Teifion called a few days later and, seeing him standing at her door, smiling at her, confident of her forgiveness, at a time when she felt more lonely than she could ever have imagined, Lucy hugged him and welcomed him, the humiliation of his previous treatment once more forgiven. She had to have someone in her life and although Teifion was obviously less attracted to her than she was to him, she couldn’t turn him away. Not now, with Polly gone and no one to take her place.
It was winter and when she came home after her evening work, cleaning the offices of a local laundry, she often found the gas-light lit for her and the kettle beginning to simmer. She never saw Gee, though she guessed it was he who was responsible.
With the excuse of looking after her mother no longer valid, she had to find a regular occupation. Work either in a factory, on the land, or in a shop, was plentiful. She didn’t fancy working in a factory, land work seemed like another world, so she settled for a part-time job in a news agency so she could still continue to do her cleaning work. Even with the extra hours of work, the emptiness in her life was not filled. Teifion appeared on occasions and took her out, always somewhere quiet, as before. She simply accepted the occasional treat of sharing his company.
Sometimes she was unable to resist teasing him; she would look across a room or between shoppers and say, “Isn’t that your Aunt and Uncle, the Slimy Slades, over by there?” and enjoy seeing the start of anxiety that flooded his good-looking features. He would smile then and laugh with her.
One day she would say goodbye to him, start her crotchet work again and build up the business she had planned with Polly, but she always found an excuse to leave the hooks and cottons until another day. Best to wait ’til the winter, or the spring, or the time when Hitler was forgotten and the world had returned to normal. By next year she would have found a decent place to live and for the moment, that was her only real ambition. The suitcase was under the table in her room. It was new, bought to replace the one they had lost. Day followed day, week followed week and it remained empty.
* * *
Gilly shared her time between her two cafés and helping Sam and Dai Smoky in the bakery. One morning, at the end of November, she walked down to see Shirley. It was a week day, so little Stella was with her while Marigold was at work.
“I’m just off to the shops, come with us?” Shirley said. “I’ve got something to show you.”
They put the little girl in her new coat that Shirley had bought her and walked through the main road to the small park near the bowling green.
When they had found a seat where they were sheltered from the cold wind, Shirley handed Gilly an envelope. “Read it, it’s to us both,” she encouraged and Gilly pulled out the flimsy sheet with bated breath.
“He’s coming home at last! Paul is in England and will be home,” she checked the page again, “in less than a week.”
“And is he going to have a party!” Shirley said, her eyes shining with the thought of it. “I’ve already booked the hall at the top of our road and tonight and for the next few days you and I will be busy making bunting. I don’t see that he should have a less colourful welcome that the men who got home first, do you?”
Gilly was glad to just sit and allow Shirley to outline her plans. She felt sick with an excitement that was tinged with dread. How would he look? Would he be the same? Or would she look into the eyes of a stranger? All her confidence about him being exactly the same as when he had left dissolved like snow on a hot palm.
“And we’ll have a real band so we can dance and there’ll be buffet tables running all down the far wall,” Shirley’s words touched her mind then faded like a faulty wireless. “I’ve ordered some material for a new long dress, pale blue it is and I’ll trim it with sequins. You’ll wear long and keep me company, won’t you, Gilly.”
Gilly half heard and nodded her aquiesence. She wanted to run away. A fear of meeting Paul and sharing his homecoming with the dozens of friends Shirley was planning to invite was abhorrent. Perhaps she would go with Uncle Sam when he went to London on Saturday afternoon, be away when Paul arrived. Then, once the party was over they could meet as if by accident and pretend the separation had been only a few weeks.
“And Marigold and we’d better include poor Ivor, loves a party, doesn’t he, poor dab. Like a kid he is for a party. Is there anyone e
lse you can think of who we ought to invite?” Shirley stopped briefly then went on. “Come down tomorrow and we’ll go over the arrangements. When shall we go shopping to get your dress? Don’t worry about the clothes coupons, I bought some last week from old Mrs Moxon. Never bothered with anything new for years, she hasn’t.”
Gilly made her excuses and hurried home, wanting time alone to think of Paul. It was so long since they had quarreled and parted, then, through letters, had made up and re-established their relationship.
Throughout the week following news of Paul’s imminent arrival, Shirley went about the town like a dancing doll, transmitting her excitement to everyone she met, begging and scrounging flags and decorations, food and coupons, anything that would help to make the party a success.
Gilly was subdued, wanting the days to pass and bring the week following the party miraculously here. But before the day of Paul’s release had arrived, something else happened to make his imminent appearance more of an anxiety. Uncle Viv came home, looking smaller, thinner and more like Granfer, unharmed, but without any news of his twin.
* * *
Sam arrived home from yet another fruitless day in London searching for Lillian, to find a smiling Gilly waiting for him.
“Uncle Sam! It’s Uncle Viv! He’s home and not even a bit of skin missing!”
“Where?” Sam looked around the room. “Is he really all right? Where’s he been? What happened to him? And what about Vic, is he safe, too?”
“There’s no news yet. Uncle Viv is very tired and he couldn’t stay up to see you. He says to call him in time for the early baking, mind. Wants to get back to normal as quick as quick. Oh, Uncle Sam, isn’t it good? Paul coming home and now Uncle Viv. Soon we’ll see Uncle Vic and we’ll all be together again.”
Family Pride Page 25