Holidays at Home Omnibus

by Wait Till Summer; Swingboats On the Sand; Waiting for Yesterday; Day Trippers; Unwise Promises; Street Parties (retail) (epub)

  Over several days, friends supplied material. The colours were mostly drab, with the occasional camel coat the only cheerful addition to the dark navy, browns and black. Sacking was easy to obtain; flour sacks from the bakery where Annie worked and any amount of potato sacks collected from the greengrocer where Johnny’s cousin Beth worked. To Annie’s surprise, Eirlys’s interest began to grow. Instead of simply covering the sacking with strips of material, she developed ideas for designs, usually after a discussion with the talented Hannah, who helped work out some simple patterns on the sacking for Eirlys to follow. The whole family, including Stanley. Harold and even Percival were intrigued. They helped with the cutting of strips and Percival asked her to make one to take home to his mother.

  ‘What about one for this treehouse then? When we get it,’ Harold demanded in his abrupt manner.

  ‘No, but I will make you one for beside your bed,’ Eirlys promised.

  The new hobby helped to take her mind off the mystery of Evelyn’s sudden dislike and Johnny’s absence. Johnny did call one evening. She was alone, her parents having taken the three boys to the pictures, and she jumped up, guessing it was he. Then she stopped and, in the darkness of the front bedroom, looked through the blackout curtain and watched as he picked up his bicycle and walked away.

  * * *

  Johnny was restless. Twice he had called on Eirlys and twice she had been out. Now he began to wonder just what Evelyn had said to her. He didn’t want to display feelings stronger than he felt, but he did miss her. Wherever he went, whatever he did, it was more fun with Eirlys. Most of his friends were either courting seriously or flirting with several girls. He was the only one without female company and he was beginning to feel regret for worrying about Eirlys taking their friendship too seriously. He had obviously been mistaken and now he was on his own, a situation he found displeasing.

  One evening, unable to wait any longer, he met her from work, standing outside the council offices and watching the door through which the staff left. She was the last to leave, emerging in deep conversation with a colleague. She smiled when he called to her and ran to greet him.

  ‘Johnny, this is a surprise. Don’t say you’ve come to walk me home?’

  ‘Well, yes. I was in town and I thought as it was almost half five, I’d wait. D’you fancy a walk later?’

  ‘I’d love it, but I’ve promised to go to a friend’s house to collect some old coats.’

  ‘Old coats?’ he laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going into the second hand business?’

  She was reluctant to tell him about the rug-making. He might misconstrue and think she was making it for her bottom drawer in preparation for their marriage – which it was; but that was a private thought, not for anyone else to know, especially not Evelyn!

  ‘I could help you carry them?’ he offered.

  ‘Thanks, but perhaps we could meet tomorrow instead?’

  This was agreed and a curious Johnny left her at her gate and walked slowly home.

  An hour later Eirlys and the three boys set off, Stanley pulling a bogie cart borrowed from a neighbour, in which Percival was given a ride. They called at three houses where friends had promised Eirlys some unwanted coats and another where huge parcels of wool were handed to her, remnants of a sewing circle long since disbanded.

  Although it was dark, a sliver of a moon gave a little light and near Curtis Street Eirlys saw Irene, Johnny’s mother. She knew she wouldn’t tell him; he wouldn’t believe her. Besides, the woman was wearing a coat and there was nothing strange about her walking along the street properly dressed against the cold evening.

  Irene stopped near a shop on the corner and as Eirlys passed they exchanged polite ‘good evenings’ as though both were uneasy about the meeting.

  ‘Nice bit of stuff in that coat,’ Harold said loudly. ‘Bit of old tom cat would trim the edges of our rug a treat, eh?’

  A cowardly Eirlys pretended not to have heard.

  Percival couldn’t manage to sit on the top on the way back but Eirlys carried him piggyback while his brothers struggled with the assorted load. Annie grumbled about the chaos of collecting so much material, but was pacified when she realised how excited her daughter was with her new interest.

  Morgan made shelves and Annie found a pine box which held the wool. A washing bath that had sprouted a leak and had never been thrown away was used to hold the cut-up strips of material. Eirlys was grateful for her parents’ support, especially when they went on helping with the boring job of unpicking the coats and cutting the material into strips. Twice Johnny called but each time she was too busy to go out.

  She was grateful to Evelyn for saying what she had, even though she had been very hurt by her strange antipathy since. She had never discovered what had changed Evelyn from a friend into someone so critical and unkind. Yet she might not have started on this fascinating hobby without her harsh words.

  The first rug was a bit lumpy and uneven, but it found a place of honour beside the bed Stanley shared with Harold, with another promised for Percival’s corner. Hannah came once to see how the work was progressing and declared herself impressed.

  ‘You could earn yourself some money with these,’ she suggested. ‘Hand-made rugs are prized and you could use shades to suit the customer’s colour scheme.’

  Eirlys laughed disparagingly but the idea didn’t quite go away. The main difficulty was finding material in sufficient quantities and in suitable colours.

  * * *

  In despair, Johnny began working on the treehouse. Rain had prevented it being completed during the first weekend, but with a dry cold snap coinciding with a day off for both Morgan and himself, he arranged with Eirlys’s father to carry the ready-made platform to the tree Morgan had chosen, and begin to fix it securely into place.

  Working all morning and returning in the afternoon to stain the wooden structure an unobtrusive brown, they walked back to the house tired but satisfied.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll have a grand opening,’ Morgan announced to the three boys who were eating their evening meal.

  Eirlys smiled and blew her father a kiss. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘All except Percival,’ Annie said sternly, ‘unless he eats that egg on toast.’

  ‘I’m havin’ a bit of bover with me crusts,’ Percival complained solemnly. Stanley reached out and helped himself to the crusts pushed to the side of his youngest brother’s plate then Percival began to cry. ‘I wanted that bit! There was some egg on that bit!’

  Annie ignored him and removed the plates to where Eirlys was washing up in the kitchen. Percival ate very little. The appetites of his brothers had increased and their improved weight had shown it clearly, but Percival’s hadn’t. He chewed for ages on a mouthful, lips open, dismay clouding his eyes, insisting that he only liked ‘proper’ chips, by which he meant those from a chip shop.

  ‘And sweets and chocolate,’ Annie said with a frown. ‘You never have any “bover” with chocolate, do you?’

  ‘Everyone can eat chocolate,’ he replied disparagingly.

  ‘Cup of tea, Johnny?’ Annie asked, hiding a smile. Percival really was a character. ‘There’s egg on toast for you too, if you’re hungry.’

  While her father and Johnny washed their hands, Eirlys and Annie cooked fresh meals and the two men settled down companionably to eat.

  ‘Do you fancy going to see the treehouse?’ Johnny asked Eirlys, but she shook her head.

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll come with you for the grand opening. Tonight I have something to finish.’

  ‘Tell him what you’re doing for goodness’ sake, Eirlys; he’ll think you’re making illegal whisky or something!’ Annie said in exasperation.

  So Johnny was taken up to her bedroom where cloth strips and hanks of wool covered the floor and a half-made rug hung over the single bed.

  The most recently completed one was wrapped in brown paper and she unfolded it to show him. She had improved her technique and also her choice of col
ours, no longer taking randomly from the box of strips but choosing with greater care. The result was a simple pattern with each shape filled with a blend of hues making the overall rug an attractive and well-made item. This one had a diagonally striped pattern, with assorted blues filling some and assorted greens others, with a border of rust and browns.

  ‘It’s really smart. Is it for anyone special, or for your bedroom?’ Johnny asked.

  ‘This one is for Hannah to thank her for helping when I started. D’you think she’ll like it?’

  ‘She’ll love it for the kind thought as well as for the quality.’

  They went together to give it to Hannah, who, as usual, was sewing, busily finishing off a child’s dress she was making for a client. Johnny sat and watched as Eirlys and Hannah examined the rug and admired its colours. He watched Hannah and marvelled again at the aura of peace and calm surrounding her, when life for her must be so hard.

  Disturbed by his attraction for Hannah, he kissed Eirlys with more enthusiasm than was wise. Remembering Evelyn’s warnings, he said goodnight without suggesting anything about the following day. Although, he thought as he walked back to Brook Lane, the arrangement to meet and show Stanley, Harold and Percival their playhouse in the oak tree had already been planned.

  He couldn’t sleep for a long time, even though the work on the treehouse had pulled at a few rarely used muscles and he had been pleasantly tired when he and Morgan had finished it. It was thoughts of Hannah, not Eirlys, that drove away sleep. There was something very appealing about Hannah; a tranquillity overcame him in her presence. He told himself he was being foolish to even think about her in that way. She was too old for him, and Eirlys was a good friend in the way that would eventually lead to love. Why was he agonising about Eirlys? He knew deep down that when he had reached the stage when marriage was what he wanted, she was the one for him. But he couldn’t put Hannah out of his mind.

  * * *

  When Annie Price went to the newsagent to pay the weekly paper bill, she thought she would give the three boys a treat and buy them some sweets. They didn’t receive pocket money, except the occasional two-shilling postal order their mother sent for them to share. She chose smarties and handed the money to Mrs Downs, the manager of the shop.

  ‘There’s a face for sweets young Percival’s got,’ Hetty Downs smiled. ‘He eats them as fast as his brother buys them, hardly waiting till he gets out of the shop. I tease him that I put them in a bag for fear of him biting my fingers off.’

  ‘Percival? Our Percival you mean? I don’t think so. He doesn’t get money for sweets that often. Poor his mother is and she can’t send money very often. There’s no father, see,’ she explained confidentially. ‘Morgan and I buy for them occasionally and I know Eirlys does, but they don’t have money to spend of their own.’

  ‘Someone is being generous then,’ Mrs Downs insisted. ‘Come in here two or three times a week for sweets, they do.’

  ‘No wonder he’ll never eat his dinners!’ Annie frowned. ‘But who is giving them money?’

  Annie asked the boys whether they had received any money from their mother without telling her and the answer was a firm ‘No.’

  ‘Then who is giving you the money to buy sweets several times a week?’ she demanded.

  Harold and Percival looked at the oldest brother, utterly confident that he could explain.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘We was in the park and I found a ten-shilling note. I went to the post office and got it changed into shillings and I’ve been spending it on sweets because that’s what Percival likes to eat. Never no dinners, just chocolate and cakes and stuff like that.’

  ‘Chocolate an’ cakes,’ affirmed Percival with a knowledgeable nod or two.

  Annie looked thoughtful. Ten shillings was a lot of money and they should have handed it in to the police station, although she could understand the temptation to keep it. But how long would ten shillings last if what Mrs Downs had told her was true? Three or six bars of chocolate each time would soon see the end of a ten-shilling note. She wondered uneasily whether the boys were stealing. She couldn’t accuse them, but decided that in future she would keep an extra careful check on the amount of money in her purse.

  Stanley was thoughtful too. His decision was to use different shops for his purchases. Going to the same place where Mrs Price bought her newspapers had been a stupid mistake. That Mrs Downs would know them too well. He made a mental list of the sweet shops and cake shops he could use, determined that Percival wouldn’t be deprived of his sweets and cakes, whatever he had to do to keep him supplied.

  * * *

  Johnny called on Eirlys on Friday evening and found her clearing the dishes from their meal. He felt ill at ease, still unsure what his sister-in-law had said to Eirlys to discourage her from thinking of him too seriously.

  ‘Evelyn and Taff are going into Cardiff tomorrow. Fancy coming?’ he asked her. ‘They want to do some shopping and we could eat out and perhaps go to the theatre for a change.’

  Eirlys’s heart began to thump unpleasantly. This was a chance to persuade Evelyn to tell her what was going on in her mind.

  ‘Please?’ he added as the silence lengthened.

  She turned and smiled at him in a way that made his heart behave oddly. ‘I’d love to, Johnny. What time are we leaving?’

  ‘About two. Taff fancies going to Roath Park to feed the ducks, would you believe? I think he’s trying to build a few memories before he goes into the army.’

  ‘Don’t talk about it,’ Eirlys shivered.

  ‘I’ll be off soon, sure to be. I only hope Dad can cope all right without us. Mam isn’t much company for him these days.’

  ‘I did see her without a coat that day, you know. I didn’t imagine it.’

  ‘What could she be doing?’ Johnny said, as though believing her, although he still wasn’t convinced that Eirlys hadn’t mistaken another woman for his mother.

  Sensing his doubts, she added, ‘I described her clothes before she took her coat off, didn’t I?’

  ‘Mam is behaving oddly,’ he admitted. ‘I think Dad is afraid she’ll get worse and he won’t be able to cope.’

  ‘Has she always gone off like this?’

  ‘I think she might have done, but Dad has always protected us from knowing.’

  ‘It isn’t – it isn’t other men?’

  ‘I think Dad would know if she went off with other men,’ he said disparagingly. ‘No, it’s nerves. A lot of women suffer with nerves and it shows itself in different ways.’ He was quoting his father’s explanation. ‘Thank goodness it isn’t drink or fighting,’ he added, quoting Bleddyn again.

  * * *

  Eirlys felt uneasy as she waited for Evelyn and Taff to join them. Why had she agreed to this day out? She began searching her mind for an excuse to go back home.

  When they arrived at the station, it was swiftly obvious that Evelyn didn’t want to show Taff or Johnny how she felt because she greeted her with every impression of pleasure. It was only when they were on their own that she allowed her dislike to show.

  When Johnny and Taff went to check on the times of the return trains, Eirlys turned to Evelyn and demanded angrily, ‘What is the matter with you? What am I supposed to have done?’

  ‘You know very well what’s happened.’ Evelyn began to walk away and Eirlys pulled on her arm roughly to make her face her.

  ‘If you won’t tell me, then will you at least stop creating this atmosphere and ruining my day out? I work long hours and an afternoon out with Johnny is a rare treat. I don’t think you should spoil it. If you can’t bear my company, please go home now, for Johnny’s sake if not mine!’

  ‘You Prices think you can do anything and get away with it!’

  ‘Get away with what?’ Eirlys said in exasperation.

  ‘You two look serious,’ Johnny said as he and Taff returned unnoticed by the two girls.

  ‘Yes,’ Eirlys said lugubriously, to cover thei
r argument, ‘I’ve brought the wrong colour lipstick.’ It raised a smile and the atmosphere cleared.

  The four of them did manage to enjoy their day out. The uneasiness remained hidden from the two brothers and Evelyn made no reference to the affectionate way Johnny and Eirlys behaved, to Eirlys’s relief. When she stepped on to the train to travel home, and sat close to Johnny, arm in his, head on his shoulder, she was light-hearted and convinced that her reticence toward Johnny over the past days had cleared the air and allowed Johnny to decide whether or not they should continue to see each other. Surely nothing would spoil their courtship now? Evelyn had said nothing more. She was happier than she had been for a long time.

  Johnny was contented too. The four of them had enjoyed their day and there hadn’t been a moment of dissension. Plans were suggested and carried out amicably. Laughter had been plentiful and he didn’t think there was a cloud in his particular sky.

  He left Eirlys after a loving kiss and walked home, passing the house of Hannah’s parents, where Hannah lived with her two little girls. Suddenly it was as though a cloud had burst and brought rain and storm and misery.

  * * *

  Eirlys was too excited to go straight into the house. She stopped at the door, the key in her hand. She could hear the radio playing dance music and the buzz of conversation, rising and falling, punctuated occasionally by thumps as her mother banged to emphasise a point. They were arguing again, her father’s voice low, reasonable, her mother’s more shrill and obviously angry. She was glowing with the joy of Johnny’s kiss, dreamily reliving it and allowing her thoughts to travel with it to other, as yet unlearned delights. Walking in to a quarrel would be a cruel awakening.