‘Where did you get that?’ Annie demanded. Johnny reached out and put an arm around a shocked Eirlys.
‘It was what me an’ Uncle Morgan got when we went into the shop, when he hurt his leg,’ he said, as though surprised they had to ask.
Eirlys’s mind closed down. She was aware of the shouting that went on as Annie demanded a full explanation, but couldn’t remember a word that was said. She clung to Johnny, who tried to calm Annie down, begging her to think before she did anything, as her actions would have long-lasting effects.
Eventually Annie’s storm of anger was reduced to tears and Eirlys went into the kitchen to make the inevitable tea.
‘I can’t face him. You mustn’t go and see him either,’ Annie said to her daughter. ‘All these years of marriage and I don’t know him. How could he do such a thing? And involve a little boy too. I’ll never forgive him. Never.’
‘She will,’ Johnny comforted Eirlys. ‘People who are married usually do.’
‘Mam’s had so much to forgive him for, now this,’ she sobbed. ‘Can you see why I stayed when Ken asked me to marry him and move to London?’
‘Things will be rough for a while but I bet in a few months they’ll have put all this behind them. Look at my mam and dad. Mam’s been ill with her funny moods for years and Dad doesn’t give up on her, does he?’
‘Better or worse, richer or poorer?’ Eirlys said sadly. ‘I sometimes think it’s a lot to ask of someone, don’t you? Think of Hannah. I don’t think she was wrong to leave her husband, do you?’
‘Hannah is a brave woman,’ Johnny said. ‘I admire her a lot.’
* * *
The decision to give back the money was not easy to put into action. Morgan came out of hospital to a storm of abuse. He didn’t get the chance to ask why he’d had no visitors during his last few days in hospital; Annie gave the explanation the minute he set foot in the door.
In the first tirade she told him the money had to go back. When she had calmed down from the first onslaught, he asked mildly, ‘How?’
No one could think of a way.
Morgan was soon out and about, with a plaster on his leg that he wore like a medal for bravery except at home. His friends wrote silly messages on it and asked for the story of his chase to catch the burglar time and again. He was a hero outside the home, a villain inside. Neither Eirlys nor Annie spoke to him. It was only the ‘three musketeers’ who gave him any comfort.
He was careful not to mention it when Annie or Eirlys were around but he learned from Stanley where the cigarettes were hidden. Together they moved them to a safer place, in the shed of a stranger’s garden. The man who lived there was elderly and rarely left the house. There was little likelihood of the goods being found during the days it would take for Morgan to find buyers.
Morgan was not unhappy. Besides the cigarettes and the money, there were the tins of food to sell. It was more fun than working. Pity Annie had to find out.
* * *
Eirlys saw a lot of Max Moon and Ken Ward in the short time they were staying in St David’s Well. They arranged concerts around Cardiff, entertaining in the army barracks and also giving impromptu sing-alongs in a few factories. They also did some fundraising to buy comforts for the forces. They didn’t organise the events themselves but were paid a small fee for taking part; a few of the concerts took place in theatres, but most were small affairs in village halls.
They called one evening to take Eirlys and Johnny out. Johnny felt like an outsider as Ken and Eirlys shared so many memories, but with his own calling into the armed forces imminent, he listened with interest as they talked about the NAAFI, the Navy Army Air Force Institute, which would supply food and shopping facilities to the men at the front line.
Both Ken and Max were unable to serve for medical reasons but both had decided to serve in the capacity of entertainers and would soon be using their talents to help the men in France to take a break from the stresses of battle. Johnny admired them and congratulated them on their bravery, but at the same time wished them gone. He didn’t want Eirlys to admire them too much.
Their newly revealed feelings for each other and the events at the newsagent had brought Eirlys and himself closer together. Most evenings she worked on her rug-making for an hour or two, then went with him to spend the evening with Bleddyn and Irene – who seemed to spend more time at home these days. They listened to the wireless and to records, played cards and talked. Johnny explained that his mother seemed to be coming out of her latest depression, but Eirlys cynically wondered if it was simply the weather that made it less attractive to wander the streets without a coat and alone. Irene certainly appeared to be more cheerful, smiling to herself as though harbouring a secret.
One evening, Johnny invited her to go with him to see his Auntie Marged and Uncle Huw. ‘I think Granny Moll has found you some coats you might be able to use,’ he told her. She had sold all the rugs she had made and the shortage of material was slowing her production, so she was delighted.
Bleddyn encouraged them to go, assuring them that Irene would be perfectly all right on her own for a few hours.
‘Don’t talk around me as though I’m the family dog.’ Irene said mildly. Bleddyn laughed affectionately, pleased at her light-hearted mood.
* * *
Bleddyn had said nothing to his wife, for fear of worrying her back into the dark depression that plagued her, but had told his brother Huw that he was relieved to see Johnny spending time with Eirlys. ‘Better than him getting too fond of Hannah Wilcox,’ he explained. ‘There’s trouble brewing there if that affair gets out of hand. She’s been married before and with children too; it would be a burden for him to take on. Plus there’s disapproving parents and an irate husband on the prowl. I feel sorry for the girl, she doesn’t deserve such a rotten hand, but I want better for our Johnny than that.’
It was due to that conversation that Bleddyn and Huw’s mother-in-law, Moll, heard about Eirlys’s hobby and had gathered a few unwanted coats. Eirlys was welcomed warmly when she went with Johnny to collect them and she felt an excitement, a feeling that perhaps it was going to happen, and she would one day be a part of this large, close family. With her father disgraced, her mother not speaking to him except to shout accusations, a place within this family had an even greater attraction.
When two more rugs had been completed, using coats given by Granny Moll, Eirlys sold them and posted the money to Teresa in London, unaware that Morgan had defied Annie and, as soon as he could walk on crutches as far as the post office, had bought postal orders for Stanley to do the same.
* * *
Teresa stared at the postal orders, which had arrived by the same post. Now she would be able to move to a better place.
Packing didn’t take long. She put her tidiest clothes in a suitcase borrowed for the occasion, threw away all that needed washing, packed a few boxes with the odd pieces of china she possessed and was ready to leave when her friend came to take her to a larger flat in a street near Paddington Station.
Moving into the new place was even quicker. She simply threw open her suitcase and, using it as a drawer, she spread skirts and dresses across the table and left the rest of her clothes inside it. She draped her satin cover over the rather lumpy bed. The ancient cooker didn’t work but the gas fire did. She’d manage just fine.
She checked to make sure she had the address of Annie and Morgan Price and promised herself she would write back and thank them for the money the very next day. She threw the piece of paper casually on to the bed; it fell to the floor and was picked up and discarded with rubbish and yesterday’s newspapers, left by a previous tenant. When she couldn’t find the address she put it out of her mind. When she had time she would easily get the address from the WVS who had organised the evacuation. Or she could even go to the town of St David’s Well. After all, it wasn’t like London. Tiddly little place like that, she’d find them easily.
Putting on her new high-heeled shoes and her
last pair of silk stockings, she went to join her friends for a celebration drink.
* * *
The boys still wrote regularly to their mother, Eirlys and her mother made certain of that. They knew how important it was for the family to keep in touch so there wouldn’t be any strangeness when they were eventually reunited. They didn’t hear for a while, but Teresa had never been the most reliable correspondent and Eirlys made them keep writing.
There had been two bombing incidents in London in the month of November although these were not from German aircraft, but caused by the IRA. Nevertheless it was still worrying for Stanley, who listened to the news avidly, and he watched for the post every day, anxious to be reassured that his mother was safe.
‘Perhaps she didn’t get the money,’ he whispered to the still-ostracised Morgan.
‘Can’t you take me to London to see her if Auntie Annie won’t?’
When Morgan refused, and Eirlys had explained that with Christmas in a few weeks she couldn’t take time off work to go with him, Stanley called a family conference. In bed one night after the lights were out, he woke Harold and Percival and told them he was going on his own.
‘I’ll set off for school at the usual time, but I’ll head for the train.’
‘I want to come,’ Percival said. ‘I’m bovered about bombs, but I want to see Mum.’
‘You can’t come and that’s that. I’m going to persuade her to come here and see us,’ Stanley promised. ‘I’ve got enough money to pay for my fare and she’s bound to have lots of money now we’ve paid her rent. Didn’t she tell us in her last letter that she was working in a big dress shop and selling posh clothes to the nobs? No doubt about it, she’ll be coming back with me for a little holiday.’
He found his way to London, assuring the guard that he was being met at Paddington by his mother. The Underground created no difficulties; he had been using the trains since he was five, ducking under the barriers and out-running the porter on occasions. As a precaution, he had written down what Annie had told him through careful questioning, in case things had changed. He stepped off on to the platform where they had alighted on their earlier visit. He found the flat, his heart racing as he knocked on the familiar door.
Back home, Morgan had hobbled to the school to hand in Stanley’s lunch, which in his anxiety he had forgotten. Learning that Stanley hadn’t arrived at school, he questioned the other two until they told him where Stanley had gone.
He went to the police and explained the problem. A boy of eleven on his own in London was a serious situation. The phone calls exchanged between St David’s Well and the Paddington police failed to result in Stanley being met off the train, but at the moment Stanley learned, to his disbelief, that his mother no longer lived at the same address, he turned to be met by a smiling and friendly policeman, who promised to make enquiries for him and let him know where his mother had gone.
‘Don’t you worry, son, we’ll find her. Now, I bet you’re starving after all that travelling. Clever boy you are, ain’t you, to have come all this way and found the right door? She’ll be right proud of you.’
Settled in an office with a tray of sandwiches and tea to restore him, Stanley answered the constable’s questions. ‘If you could describe her, that would be a help,’ he was asked.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Stanley muttered, as he fumbled in his pocket. He handed the constable a crumpled photograph.
‘Got a picture, have you? Marvellous. My, what a pretty mum you’ve got.’
They were unable to find Teresa, but the police promised to search for her and let him know where she was living. ‘Only an oversight. She’s a bit forgetful, what with the upheaval of the move an’ everything. She’ll be in touch before we even start looking, you can bet your life, young Stanley,’ the policeman said cheerily. ‘There might even be a letter when you get back home.’
Stanley was tired and dejected, aching with disappointment at failing to find his mother. He felt in his heart that they would never see her again. He sat on the train with the guard keeping a special eye on him, and even sharing the man’s sandwiches, thinking of the best story to tell Harold and Percival. In his pocket were two bars of chocolate to give them, but he and the guard finished them off before they reached Swindon.
* * *
Hannah called on Eirlys to ask about Stanley, whose story was the talk of the small town. Johnny was there and when Eirlys saw a shared look of intimacy between them, she was startled by her jealousy and somewhat ashamed of it too. As if Johnny and Hannah could be anything more than friends, she chided herself. She couldn’t ignore it, though, and she moved closer to slip her hand into Johnny’s, a proprietorial gesture which he seemed to resent. She must make sure not to be too demonstrative when they were together, some men found it embarrassing, she reminded herself.
Annie and Morgan were still not speaking and it was Johnny and Eirlys who met Stanley at the station. He emerged from the carriage accompanied by the guard, who had kept an eye on him throughout the long journey.
Stanley was full of his adventure, telling it with many dramatic moments to entertain his brothers. He told them a completely fictional account of seeing the policeman running up as the passengers emerged from the train and how he had darted around to avoid being spotted, ‘Just in case he was after me.’ He went on to describe how he had gone into the café at Paddington station and had sat eating crisps and drinking pop, looking around him at the other passengers, many in uniform. ‘I’ve never seen such a crowd, not since we got on the train to come here.’
‘What else did you do?’ Harold encouraged.
‘Did you buy chips from our chip shop?’ Percival wanted to know.
‘Nah. I bought Mum a leather handbag from a barrer boy,’ Stanley said proudly. ‘I brought it back so we can give it to her when she comes to see us. Lucky I had the money from the shop, eh? It was a real bargain, the man told me.’
Eirlys and Johnny exchanged a look of horror. Johnny gestured with a tilt of his head for her to go into the kitchen where they could talk.
‘If Stanley carries on boasting about the money he’s spent, word could reach the ears of the police and we’ll all be in trouble. Knowing who broke into the shop and not reporting it is an offence in its own right; besides your father being arrested, we’ll all be found guilty.’
Johnny looked serious and Eirlys said, ‘What can we do? I can’t tell the police my father is a burglar. I’m sure he’ll never do anything like that again.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘It was a dare, a bit of fun, a childish prank, showing off to Stanley, that’s all.’
‘A one and only time?’ Johnny looked so serious that Eirlys clung to him, prepared for worse news.
‘You said he went out every Friday and told your mother he was going to the ARP meeting, and there isn’t one held on Fridays. Where does he go?’
‘You don’t think… That’s too frightening to believe.’
‘I’ll look back through the local paper and see if there is a pattern of break-ins on Fridays, shall I? If there isn’t, we’ll be able to put our minds at ease.’
‘Johnny, I don’t know what I’d have done without you being here,’ she said. ‘Talk about a nightmare. I still can’t see an end to it.’
‘At least he won’t try any fancy footwork with that great lump of plaster on his leg,’ he chuckled, and succeeded in making her smile.
The voice of Stanley droned on, repeating his stories over and again until Percival fell asleep and Harold and even Stanley were yawning fit to split their faces. Annie herded them up to bed while Morgan sat listening to the late news. Bumps and shouts came from upstairs as the boys tried to prove they weren’t tired at all, but could stay up all night, and in the privacy of the kitchen Eirlys and Johnny stood wrapped in each other’s arms and kissed.
* * *
Morgan hadn’t managed to walk far on his crutches. Living in an aura of misery, hearing nothing but criti
cism that he knew he deserved, he didn’t think he could be more miserable. He wanted to see Irene. But how? He couldn’t call at the house in Brook Lane and the caravan was too great a distance to walk to leave a note in the hope she would call there. Anyway, he was too noticeable to do either. Everywhere he went people stopped to speak to him. A face exposed on the local front page was disaster to someone having a secret affair, he thought miserably. Having a great lump of plaster on his leg didn’t make him invisible either.
Then the problem was solved by Irene herself.
He was sitting morosely reading the Daily Chronicle and debating with himself whether or not to go out to walk to the park and freeze, when there was a knock at the door.
‘Hang on, I’m coming,’ he called and struggled through the kitchen to the back door. ‘Irene!’ he gasped. ‘What a sight for sore eyes! Come in. Annie won’t be back for hours yet. Am I glad to see you. Bored half to death I am.’
Irene slipped off her coat and they fell into each other’s arms. They clung to each other and whispered endearments, then Irene explained the reason for her visit.
‘I know you can’t get to the caravan for a while,’ she said. ‘But our house is empty for most of the day; why can’t we meet there?’
‘Damned risky.’ Morgan frowned.
‘The chance of us being seen is slight. Come though the back lane.
You can always say you called with a message from your Eirlys for our Johnny.’
‘What if we’re caught in the house? Annie would never forgive me for that.’
‘So what? You’ll always have me,’ she said.
The expression on her face as she made the remark gave him a jolt. Was that what she really wanted? For him to leave Annie and Eirlys and live with her? Did she think he had enough money for a fresh start?
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