Swansea Summer

by Catrin Collier

Ann bustled in with a tea tray.

  ‘Thank you. Put it on the desk,’ John ordered abruptly.

  ‘Is there’s anything else, sir?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you, Ann. We have some confidential work in hand, so I’d appreciate it if you’d go down to the shop floor and assist the supervisors for the rest of the day.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Griffiths.’

  Katie and John sat in silence until they heard the outer office door opening and closing.

  ‘You will give me a reference?’ Katie asked.

  ‘A glowing one, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘It’s the last thing I want,’ Katie whispered.

  ‘Then don’t go.’

  ‘I can’t stay while things remain as they are.’

  ‘Do you think I’m happy with the situation?’

  ‘If you’re not, why can’t we …’

  ‘No!’ he broke in harshly. ‘I refuse to risk your reputation on my account. You’re young; these should be your best years and I won’t allow you to waste them on me.’

  ‘They are wasted without you.’

  ‘Katie.’ His voice softened as he looked at her. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking. How can you, when you’ve scarcely begun to live. I don’t even have a name to offer you and if I did, who’s to say you’ll feel the same way about me a month from now.’

  ‘I’ll love you until the day I die.’

  Coming from anyone other than Katie the declaration would have sounded melodramatic. ‘You haven’t even tried to find happiness with someone else, have you.’

  ‘There’s no point when I know I can’t be happy without you.’

  Leaving his desk, he limped to the window and looked out, trying to summon strength enough for both of them. ‘Nothing’s changed. I still refuse to risk your reputation by carrying on a hole-in-the-corner affair that should never have started.’

  ‘You’re sorry it happened.’

  He turned back to her. ‘How could I be when you gave me the happiest moments of my life, but I won’t sleep with you again while I remain married to Esme and at the moment she is refusing to divorce me.’

  ‘You could divorce her.’

  ‘My solicitor has warned me that if I try it could take years and even then there’s no guarantee I’d succeed. She is a bitter, twisted woman who is terrified of losing her social position and ending up alone and ostracised. She feels she has nothing to lose by exposing us and she won’t hesitate to do it, Katie, if she thinks it will get her what she wants.’

  ‘You.’

  ‘The last thing she wants is me.’ He smiled grimly. ‘But she does want the money and respectability marriage gives her.’

  ‘And you,’ Katie asked seriously. ‘Do you still want to divorce her?’

  ‘More than ever but she wants us to carry on living together for appearances’ sake, both of us leading separate lives.’

  ‘If that’s what she wants, we could …’

  ‘I’ll not make you my mistress, Katie,’ he broke in decisively.

  ‘Not even if it’s what I want?’ she begged.

  ‘Not even if it’s what you want,’ he echoed dismally. He reached out and touched her face with his fingertips. ‘Perhaps it was an impossible dream from the beginning.’

  ‘But you’ll still try to divorce Mrs Griffiths.’

  ‘My solicitor holds out little hope that I’ll succeed.’ He turned back to the window. ‘I wish I were free right now to offer you everything I have, but I’m not.’

  ‘I don’t want anything from you except your love.’

  ‘You have that.’

  ‘Not the way I want it. I couldn’t care less about respectability and I couldn’t love you any more if you were free. A marriage certificate is only a piece of paper …’

  ‘Which a woman like Esme can use to destroy our lives.’

  ‘Only if we let her.’

  ‘God, Katie, I’d give anything to see the world the way you do. But I know what scandal can do in this town.’

  She moved behind him and put her arms round his waist. For one blissful moment he leaned back against her, then he turned, intending to push her away, but her hands moved upwards. Linking her fingers round his neck, she pulled his head down to hers and as their lips met he forgot Esme, the divorce, the age difference between them, even his disfigurement. She loved him more completely than he had ever believed it possible for a woman to love a man and it made him feel omnipotent. As if he could fight the entire world and win.

  The telephone rang, shattering the moment. Hating himself for being weak enough to take what Katie so innocently and lovingly offered, John extricated himself from her arms and reached for the receiver. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Ekco television rep is here, Mr Griffiths. You said you wanted to see him when he next came in.’

  ‘I’m busy at the moment, Dennis. Offer him coffee and tell him I’ll be down as soon as I can.’

  ‘You don’t want me to send him up, Mr Griffiths?’

  ‘No, Dennis, I don’t want you to send him up.’

  Katie handed John her handkerchief as he replaced the telephone. ‘You have lipstick on your cheek.’

  John went into the cloakroom and used her handkerchief to scrub his face clean. Reluctant to see anyone until he had regained his equanimity, he remained in front of the mirror. Was it his imagination or were there more grey hairs at his temples? Had his scars always been so ingrained or were they deepening with age? He raised his hands to brush back his hair and caught sight of the withered claw that had almost been consumed in the fire. Then he thought of Katie, young, fresh, perfect … it couldn’t last between them – could it?

  Taking a deep breath, he checked his face again before rejoining Katie in the office. She was sitting at her desk.

  ‘That was insane. Anyone could have walked in on us.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to be sorry or promise that it won’t happen again because I’m not sorry and I do want it to happen again.’

  He held her look for a moment. ‘I’m the one who’s sorry and I understand now why you have to leave. How soon do Lewis Lewis want you to start?’

  ‘I told them I have to give two weeks’ notice.’

  ‘Two weeks!’

  ‘It’s what’s on my contract.’

  ‘It doesn’t give me much time to replace you.’

  ‘Everyone in Swansea has heard how good the conditions are here. There are plenty of experienced secretaries who’d jump at the chance of working for you.’ She knew the inference that he only wanted her to be his secretary would hurt; yet she twisted the knife in the hope that even now he’d change his mind about allowing things to go back to what they had been.

  ‘Place an advertisement in the Evening Post in the morning. Run it by me before you submit the copy.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Griffiths.’ He was so close, all she had to do was reach out to touch his hand. As if he knew what she was thinking, he retreated.

  ‘You’ll work your notice.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Griffiths.’

  ‘You have holidays coming.’

  ‘I don’t mind losing them.’

  ‘I’ll pay you.’

  ‘I don’t want your money.’

  ‘It’s all I have to give you and it’s not as if you haven’t earned it. You’ll be hard to replace.’ He finally looked at her. ‘And I don’t just mean as a secretary.’

  ‘Then don’t let me go.’

  ‘I have to, Katie, for both our sakes.’

  Showing more strength than he would have given her credit for a few months before, she picked up the notepad, returned to her desk and began to draft the advertisement.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘So you’re Helen’s husband.’ The middle-aged woman looked Jack up and down, as though he were a foul-smelling specimen on a fishmonger’s slab.

  Despite the fact that he was wearing a brand-new black suit, white cotton shirt and black tie John had insisted he buy, on the grounds that the Italian
mohair suit he had worn for his wedding was unsuitable for a funeral, Jack felt distinctly second-class as he nodded an uncomfortable agreement.

  ‘A Welsh cake, Mr Clay.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Jack politely refused the housekeeper’s offer. He was having enough problems trying to balance the teacup and plate of sandwiches she had pressed on him as soon as he had walked through the door of Helen’s grandmother’s house for the traditional post funeral ‘tea’. He glanced through the open drawing-room door into the dining room of the house that had assumed manor house proportions to his inexperienced eye. It was packed with people but he could see no sign of his father-in-law.

  ‘Joseph, darling, you poor, poor boy. We were simply devastated when we heard the sad news, weren’t we Robin, Angela?’

  Jack watched as a middle-aged woman bore down on Joe. After embracing him she moved along, making room for her children to speak to him, and Jack recognised Joe’s friends, Robin and Angela Watkin Morgan, from Lily’s and Joe’s ill-fated engagement party.

  ‘Helen’s mother tells me John found a job for you at the warehouse.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack glowered at the elderly man who’d accosted him, resenting the implication that he needed someone to ‘find’ him a job as if he were incapable of landing a job on his own merit.

  ‘We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Richard Thomas, the family solicitor.’ As the man offered a handshake, Jack looked round for somewhere he could dump his cup and saucer. Seeing his predicament the man lowered his hand. ‘There’s no need to stand on ceremony. You will be at the reading.’

  ‘The reading?’ After a family service in the house, a second interminable one that seemed to last years in a cold, grey, damp church and a third mercifully short one at the graveside, Jack had hoped the formalities were over.

  ‘The will,’ Richard explained. ‘I asked John to gather the family in the library in one hour.’ He looked around the room. ‘By then everyone should have moved on. Funerals are rarely protracted affairs when the deceased are as elderly as Mrs Harris.’ Seeing Jack’s confusion he explained, ‘Most of her friends, if not all, have gone before.’ As he sauntered off, Jack spotted John standing alone in the doorway. In his eagerness to reach him he spilled most of his tea over the carpet. Embarrassed, he rubbed his foot over the stain, hoping no one had noticed.

  ‘So that’s your brother-in-law.’ Angela Watkin Morgan studied Jack from his shiny black shoes to the gleaming Brylcreemed tip of his styled quiff.

  ‘You’ve met Jack before,’ Joe reminded her.

  ‘I most certainly have not. I’d remember someone who looked like him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s extremely good-looking. In a rough and ready, coarse, working-class sort of way,’ she qualified. ‘Bit Marlon Brando. The sort of man who’d sweep a girl off her feet and out of her knickers before she knows what’s hit her and’ – she smiled knowingly – ‘give her an alarmingly good time. But then your sister’s experience rather bears that out.’

  ‘Excuse Angie, she has a vivid imagination she overdoses with romantic potboilers.’

  ‘I do not read potboilers.’

  ‘What’s Forever Amber if it’s not a pot-boiler?’

  ‘A historical novel.’

  ‘The way you were dribbling at the mouth when you read it, I’d say history was the last thing on your mind.’ Robin by-passed the tea tray the housekeeper was carrying and liberated a couple of sherries from a tray on the sideboard behind him. Handing one to Joe, he murmured, ‘No disrespect to your grandmother, but why do they never have whisky at funerals?’

  ‘Because it would be bad form to get pie-eyed in the middle of the afternoon.’ Angie snatched Robin’s sherry from him and downed it in one. ‘So, you going to introduce me?’ she demanded of Joe.

  ‘To Jack?’

  ‘No, the King of Siam.’

  ‘After what you just said about him, no.’

  ‘Because you don’t trust him.’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Spoilsport. I lo-ove married men. They are so vulnerable, especially when their wives are away – or in hospital.’

  ‘That’s my sister’s husband you’re talking about.’

  ‘Dear Joe.’ She brushed the tip of her fingers over his cheek. ‘Always the prehistoric prude. Never mind, I can introduce myself.’

  To Joe’s annoyance she strolled over to Jack and took the plate and teacup from his hands.

  ‘Take no notice. Angie’s making a habit of trying to shock people.’ Robin reached for the sherry tray again.

  ‘Looks like she’s succeeding,’ Joe observed, as he watched her take Jack’s arm and lead him into the next room.

  ‘You going drinking with the boys in the Vivs tonight?’

  ‘That would be bad form on the day of my grandmother’s funeral.’

  ‘As Angie says, you’re prehistoric.’ Robin leaned against the wall. ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘Saturday?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Joe answered, his mind clearly elsewhere.

  ‘You’re not thinking of going down to the Pier again.’

  ‘I like it there,’ Joe retorted, instantly on the defensive.

  ‘The gorgeous Lily might not dance with you again.’

  ‘She will.’

  Robin drank his sherry and took two more from the tray. ‘These are both for me,’ he said, as Joe held out his hand. ‘With you for a friend I need them.’

  ‘Helen’s a lucky girl.’

  ‘You think so?’ Jack wondered how he could get rid of Angela without appearing downright rude.

  ‘Not for being in hospital, silly.’ She giggled, leading him out through the French doors towards the shrubbery. ‘For having you for a husband.’

  ‘I’m lucky to have her for a wife.’

  ‘How sweet, a couple who are not cynical about marriage. And they say love is going out of fashion. Do you think it is?’

  Jack looked down at her. ‘I think you’re talking a lot of nonsense.’

  ‘But, darling, nonsense is the only thing worth discussing these days.’ Leading him behind a large oak tree, she pouted her lips in a fair imitation of Doris Day and waited expectantly for a kiss.

  ‘Only for people who have nothing better to do.’ Removing her hand from his arm he returned to the house.

  Richard Thomas sat behind the desk that had been Esme’s father’s and studied the people assembled on the rows of chairs before him. He pretended to rearrange the piles of papers in front of him, although his secretary had set out everything to his exact instructions earlier. Almost fifty years of being a solicitor hadn’t diminished the buzz of excitement he derived from will readings – when there was a sizeable estate at stake.

  The beneficiaries invariably attempted to look solemn, grief-stricken and disinterested, as befitting people mourning the loss of a beloved relative, but few managed to achieve it. He had even begun to recognise the types. The stalwart, sacrificial servants who had given the best years of their lives to caring for a cantankerous elderly employer, were usually at pains to point out they expected nothing, although he sensed that they generally had expectations of a valuable something. Few managed to look gleeful at modest bequests and he doubted whether Mrs Harris’s housekeeper would be delighted with her lot in a few minutes.

  Then there was the immediate family. If the deceased was a widow or widower and there was more than one child, the ensuing arguments over who got what had been known to result in civil suits, which decimated the estate and benefited his firm. There were no siblings here, but he could sniff a potential suit. The question was, did he want to take it?

  ‘Are you sure you want me here, Richard?’

  John Griffiths’ question concentrated Richard’s mind. This was his moment and he would allow no one else to take control. ‘If you’ll bear with me, John. Shall we begin.’ As no one spoke, he indicated a pile of envelopes set out on a table to the side of the desk. �
��These are copies that have been made for the beneficiaries of Mrs Harris’s estate. After the reading, you may take the envelope bearing your name and study the document at your leisure. My office will be pleased to answer any questions you may have. But I think you will find everything quite straightforward. Mrs Harris took pains to keep everything simple and legally watertight.’

  Wondering what he was doing there, Jack gazed out of the window as the solicitor droned on in a tedious monotone. Helen had told him about her grandmother’s house, of Sunday visits, teas on the lawn, picnics she and Joe had taken down to the beach that stretched, vast and inviting, below the garden, but he had never imagined anything as grand as this. It emphasised the social divide between them even more than the rented basement flats in Carlton Terrace that he had lived in all his life and her ‘upstairs existence’ as the daughter of a family that actually owned a house. A sharp intake of breath drew his attention to what Richard was saying.

  ‘… My housekeeper, in recognition of years of devoted care and service, five hundred pounds.’

  Five hundred pounds! The most he had ever saved in his life was five. Five hundred pounds would buy a decent house, yet the woman didn’t look pleased. As she pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and blotted her eyes, he wondered if she was too grief-stricken to realise her good fortune.

  ‘To my niece, Dorothy Green, the sum of two thousand pounds in recognition of her frequent visits and sincere enquiries after my health.’ Jack smiled as he looked at Helen’s Aunt Dot. She at least looked pleased and surprised. He was glad. He and Helen owed her a lot for recommending their honeymoon hotel and paying their first week’s bill. ‘To my son-in-law, John Griffiths, I bequeath a life-time interest in my investment properties in the Sandfields area of Swansea, in recognition of the care he has taken of my grandchildren.’

  John evinced all the astonishment Jack had expected to see on the housekeeper’s face.

  ‘To my granddaughter, Helen, the house, land and full estate I inherited from my sister, Julie, to do with as she wishes and, after her father’s death, my investment properties in the Sandfields.’ Jack noticed that Richard Thomas paused and peered at him over the top of his spectacles but as Helen had never mentioned an ‘Aunt Julie’ and he had no idea what ‘investment properties’ were, the bequest meant absolutely nothing to him.