Eirlys turned, smiling, prepared to enjoy some mild teasing, but Evelyn’s face was stony.
‘Why do you dislike me so much?’ she asked.
‘As if you didn’t know!’
‘That’s the point, I don’t know. Tell me, so we can sort it out, please.’
‘Pretending such innocence,’ Evelyn sneered.
‘Tell me.’
‘Ask your father,’ was the swift reply.
Unsettled by the encounter, Eirlys went to see Hannah to see how her wedding dress was progressing.
* * *
Hannah was setting in gathers on the frilled layers down each side of the crinoline-style skirt. Bags made of muslin were fixed inside to rest on each hip which, on the day, would be filled with tissue to hold out the sides. Embroidered honeysuckle and Tudor roses trailed down the bodice and the centre panel of the skirt.
As she inserted each neat stitch, Hannah dreamed of wearing it, walking up the aisle to stand beside Johnny. In her head she could hear the organ playing, then the silence before the spoken words of the marriage service, and aloud she said, ‘I do.’
When Eirlys knocked at the door she didn’t answer. She went on sewing, a tear in every stitch.
* * *
Stanley, Harold and Percival were sitting reading old comics and watching the rain through the spotted window of the ground floor flat. Not really a flat, just a room divided into two sections by a pair of curtains.
‘Wish we was with Auntie Annie,’ Percival said quietly.
‘What, leave our Ma again?’ Stanley said brightly. ‘You wouldn’t want to go away again, not really?’
‘I wanted to see Ma, but now I want to see Auntie Annie and Uncle Morgan,’ Percival said reasonably.
‘We haven’t even got our bikes,’ Harold added glumly.
Teresa had sold the three bicycles as soon as they had arrived on the carrier. She dealt with the sale swiftly and didn’t think the boys had even seen them, but Stanley had. He guessed what had happened to them but patted Harold on his head and said, ‘They ain’t come yet. That carrier takes ’is time, eh? Tomorrow; perhaps they’ll come tomorrow.’
Their new coats had disappeared too and several of their games and toys. Teresa had explained the absence of the toys by telling them there was no room, and they had gone to poor little children ‘who never had a thing to play with’. In the sparsely filled room, with nothing but out-of-date comics to look at, that wasn’t easy to explain to his brothers, so Stanley didn’t try.
Teresa also tore up some of the letters Annie and Morgan wrote. She checked first to make sure there was no postal order inside then threw them into the rubbish bin. When she did find money she kept most of it but bought a few sweets and gave them to the boys as a gift, from herself. Best they didn’t grieve too much for Annie and Morgan. She didn’t think they would see them again.
They tried to talk to her about their lives with Annie and Morgan and the friends they made but she never had time to listen. She had heard a little about the grand Christmas concert and the fun they’d had in the snow but didn’t question them and quickly changed the subject, reminding them how happy she was to have them back where she could look after them properly.
Partly her refusal to listen was fear that they might want to go back, partly it was because she wasn’t really interested. What did she care about St David’s Well? She loved them and did what she thought was best for them, but she didn’t want them to leave again. At least, not till she had the council flat. Then she would manage without them while she built them a proper home.
She went out most evenings, leaving the boys to amuse themselves and put themselves to bed when they were tired. Coming back home about a week after they had returned, the man whose wallet she had stolen was waiting for her. She panicked and ran away, hoping to put him off the scent. She didn’t want her boys harmed or frightened.
It was four in the morning before she felt safe to return. Stanley greeted her at the door.
‘Thank heaven’s you’re back, Ma. Our Harold’s got toothache and can’t sleep.’
Teresa cuddled him after giving him an aspirin and told him it was Annie and Morgan’s fault for giving them too many sweets.
‘Thank goodness I got you back home when I did, Stanley, or you could have suffered real bad ’ealth,’ she said.
‘Yeah; lucky us, eh,’ Stanley said as he crawled into the damp bed beside his brothers.
‘I’m lucky to have three wonderful sons like you, Stanley. Don’t I know it.’
When they woke the next morning, she began packing their meagre belongings into bag and said cheerfully, ‘Come on, stir your stumps, we’re movin’!’
* * *
To fill in some of the empty hours, and escape from the lonely house, Annie went along to the ARP meetings and helped by making tea and supplying a few cakes. She soon became involved in learning some basic first aid, and attended lectures on dealing with incendiary bombs and other devastations which they secretly thought would never happen.
Morgan too became more involved and learned to recognise British and enemy planes by their silhouettes, as well as how to tackle more immediate problems – everything from using a stirrup pump to rescuing people from burning houses. It was so far from everyday life which, apart from the shortages of food, was going on much the same as always, that it was treated like a game.
Since the death of Irene, Morgan hadn’t missed a single shift at the factory and he hadn’t been late either. Annie began to hope that their problems were behind them.
‘Saving to go and see the boys,’ he told everyone who teased him about his new-found reliability. ‘Annie and I want to go up and make sure they’re all right.’
‘The wedding too,’ Annie reminded him. ‘We want to do our best for Eirlys – if that Granny Molly Piper will let us,’ she added with a frown.
‘Eirlys and Johnny are happy, and they’ve found a home a long way from Sidney Street,’ Morgan said. ‘They’ll be all right. Sure to be.’
Annie and Morgan were upset to have a flood of letters from the three boys. Most of them arrived without a postage stamp and they had to pay before receiving them. These had probably been written without Teresa knowing, Annie guessed. There were no complaints, no criticism of their mother, but they were clearly not happy and they were not attending school regularly, their mother waking too late to send them most mornings.
From the postcards they learned that Teresa had a single room in which they all lived. Stanley wrote cheerfully and said nothing about his being unhappy although it was apparent between the lines.
He told them how they missed the walks in the countryside and hoped to see the beach in the summer. Harold wanted to see Mr Gregory and the donkeys. In a P.S. Stanley told them Percival promised he would eat his ‘taters’ if he could come back. These words had been rubbed out but were still readable, and they brought Annie to tears.
‘They aren’t happy, that much is clear,’ Morgan said, walking up and down the living room agitatedly.
‘You’d be more worried if you’d seen the flat Teresa lived in before,’ Annie told him.
They were still separated by his betrayal with Irene Castle. Although outwardly relaxed, there were some days when Annie felt the hurt as much as she had in the moment she had been told. Then she would refuse to talk to him or even look at him, unwilling for him to see her pain. Even on the worst days, when they rarely exchanged more than the occasional word, where the boys were concerned they were in complete accord.
‘Now she hasn’t even got that miserable place,’ she went on. ‘Sharing they are, cramped four to a bed into a small room so the council will take pity on them and get them a decent flat.’
‘They should come back here,’ Morgan said, not for the first time.
‘I know that, and you saying it won’t make it happen!’ Annie snapped. ‘I think I should go up there and talk to them, see if I can persuade Teresa it would be better for them.’
‘Careful, or you’ll have her staying here as well, paying no rent and using us as child-minders so she can go out on the tiles!’
‘She’s stopped all that,’ Annie said. ‘She must have. She can’t leave the boys alone at night, specially not now, with the blackout making it easier for thieves to break in. I can’t bear the thought of them being alone at night.’ They looked at each other for reassurance. ‘She wouldn’t, would she?’
Morgan thought it was quite likely she would but didn’t say so and add to Annie’s distress.
‘And there’s the risk of an air raid, and bombs dropping,’ she went on. ‘Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean the danger has gone.’
‘Another reason for her to let them come home – I mean back here,’ he quickly amended.
‘I think they were beginning to think of this place as home,’ Annie said softly. ‘That’s probably why Teresa took them away from us.’
‘I suppose we can’t blame her for that. They are her boys after all and she loves them.’
‘They’d be better off with us, though, wouldn’t they?’
‘No, Annie, don’t torment yourself. With their mother they are and that’s got to be the best.’
* * *
Teresa was walking back home after seeing a man she had met the previous evening. The late evening was quiet, just a few cars passing by with their minimal lights, and even fewer pedestrians about. The public houses had closed an hour before and she had spent a while with the man in an empty house she sometimes used.
The figure darted out from the darkness of the passageway at the side of the building like a shadow. Without warning, he grabbed her from behind.
‘All right, bitch, I want the money you owe me.’
‘But I—’
A hand covered her mouth, stifling her protest, then she was pushed and slapped hard across the cheek, turned around and slapped again until she didn’t know where she was. The man pulled her handbag from her arm. ‘If there isn’t twenty-five quid in here, you’d better leave it for me tomorrow at the pub. If I don’t get it, you’re dead, you and your kids, Teresa Love.’ He twisted her and tripped her until she lost balance and fell to the ground. He kicked her several times, then ran off.
She lay there for several seconds, confused and dizzy from the blows and the suddenness of the attack. Then she rose to her feet and hurried to the front door of the house in which she and the boys rented a room of a flat. She felt that vulnerable coldness between her shoulder blades. The darkness closed in around her, isolating her, and the shadows were filled with invisible threats.
Her leg hurt and her head was spinning but she ran as fast as she could, seeking the shelter and safety of the flat. So he had found her again, and was still insisting on getting his money, more than she had stolen in fact; interest, to pay for his humiliation, she guessed. Where could she find that amount? The twenty-four pounds she had stolen from him was long gone.
A lot of the men she was involved with were unable to cope with being bested by anyone, particularly a woman. Little men pretending to be big. Not many were as vicious as this one. Why had she chosen to steal a wallet from him? She had never done that before, she had always played fair with her clients.
Weakness overcame her when she had climbed the first two steps and she longed to collapse, to sit and recover, but he could be still there in the darkness, watching her, ready to come after her again. She clung to the rail at the side of the steps for support and dragged herself to the top, concentrating on staying upright, when all she wanted was to sit down and recover.
She was trembling when she reached the door and had difficulty finding the keyhole. This meant she would have to move again. It wouldn’t be easy with the three boys to consider but she had to get away. She fell inside, closed the door behind her and stood for a long time to allow her heart to calm and her breathing to drop to a normal rate.
As she stood there she wondered whether she could leave the boys and go somewhere on her own until the man’s anger had died down. Touching her stomach, she was comforted by the tiny bulge of notes she had hidden inside her knickers after her last client had left her in the empty house and she had cleaned herself up. Thank goodness her attacker hadn’t known about them.
Her handbag contained less than a pound. Now she would be able to buy those new shoes she had set her heart on, and treat the boys to good meals for a few days. There was no point in trying to pay the man. He didn’t want her money, he wanted revenge. He would be watching her, and waiting for the opportunity to hit her again.
Her face hurt and her leg ached where she had fallen awkwardly, and she knew there would be big bruises on her where the toe of his shoe had landed. Bruising was something she didn’t like, they could give clients the wrong idea. ‘And I bet my last pair of stockings are laddered,’ she muttered to herself, worrying about the trivial to take her thoughts from the serious. It was past eleven thirty, and the flat, which she was sharing with a friend, was in darkness when she moved away from the door and adjusted the blackout curtain. She decided she would have to break her own firm rules; she wouldn’t undress or have a thorough wash, in case she disturbed the rest of the household. She had promised her friend she would be home before ten.
Then she heard sobbing. It was quiet – muffled, she guessed, by the blankets across his mouth – but unmistakable.
‘Percival?’ she whispered, climbing painfully over Harold and Stanley to reach her youngest, squashed against the wall in the single bed.
‘I want to go back to Annie an’ Morgan,’ he blubbered.
‘Soon, darlin’, soon. I promise,’ Teresa whispered. She wondered how it could be arranged. Perhaps she could send the boys back now the housing officer had seen them. It would give her a real chance to save up for something decent if she didn’t have the boys to worry about. This time she could really succeed, get them a decent home with proper beds and everything.
She had to get away from this flat, that much was certain. She couldn’t risk the man hurting the boys or her friend who had helped her out by lending her a room. If she went far enough perhaps the man wouldn’t find her again. If she was lucky with a few quality clients she might even pay him off! Leave his money at the pub he used. That idea was a novelty, being rich enough to pay him back. She might even deduct the money he’d taken from her handbag!
She would let the council housing officer know she’d had to move again, and if it was somewhere worse it wouldn’t matter, just for a while, until she got that smart flat. Yes, everything would be settled if she could hand the boys back to Annie and Morgan for a while.
The idea was very tempting and she hugged the little boy and repeated her promise. ‘I’ll write to Mr and Mrs Price tomorrow and ask if we can go back for a little holiday, shall I?’
‘I’d rather ’ave a big ’oliday,’ Percival said sleepily.
‘I love you, Percival,’ Teresa whispered.
* * *
Life was hectic for Eirlys, with customers arriving frequently to order one of her custom-made rugs. Some of the requests came as a result of the display Bleddyn and Johnny had set up in the sweet and rock shop on the promenade. Johnny’s father was being very supportive of her enterprise.
The machine-made rugs didn’t take very long, with her parents helping to cut the strips of material from coats and skirts, and in some cases heavy curtains. The hand-made designs took a lot longer and Annie began to help her make these as well as help with the preparation. So far they had been small hearth rugs and smaller ones for children. She knew she had to find a way of embarking on more adventurous sizes and even different shapes. She had to add variety to what she was offering if she were to expand.
She had spasms of guilt when she realised she was more excited about her burgeoning business than the arrangements for her wedding. She reminded herself that most of it had been taken out of her hands by Granny Moll Piper, and found comfort in that. Yet she knew her lack of enthusiasm was rea
lly something far more serious: by her lack of involvement she was letting Johnny down.
On impulse one Saturday she arranged to go shopping with Johnny’s cousin Beth.
‘We’ll look for some special underwear and night-clothes,’ Eirlys whispered, and they began to giggle like children at the implications.
They caught the train into Cardiff and began looking around the shops, eventually choosing the garments for Eirlys’s honeymoon. Clutching their exciting purchases they wandered towards the market stalls, attracted by the buzz of activity now the day was ending and the stall-holders were anxious to sell the last of the perishables. Saturday afternoon was the time for bargains.
They didn’t buy meat or fish. With nowhere to store it, their ‘bargains’ would have ended in the dustbin. The fruit and vegetables looked fresh, though, the prices too good to miss, and by the time they reached the railway station they were staggering under the weight of it.
Eirlys and Beth noticed a thin, shabbily dressed man getting on their train but neither commented. The number of sick and exhausted soldiers returning from France made the young man a not uncommon sight. They looked away, embarrassed as he passed them. They felt sympathy but were unable to open a conversation with a stranger.
It was as they alighted at the platform that they saw him again and this time he approached them. It wasn’t until he was close that they recognised him.
‘Peter?’ Beth said. ‘Peter Gregory? What on earth have you been doing with yourself? Your dad’ll have a fit when he sees the state of you.’
‘Living rough you might say,’ Peter replied in his polite tone. ‘I dare say Dad will accept the challenge to fatten me up like one of his Christmas turkeys before I depart once more for – who knows what.’ He took some of the carrier bags with which they were struggling and they left the platform. To their delight, Mr Gregory was there with the pony and trap and they all piled in.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 24