‘You don’t really want to go away, do you, Freddy?’ Beth asked as they made their way back into the house.
‘Of course not, love. Specially now I’ve been made second sales,’ he joked.
When he went into the shop the following morning, wearing his newest suit and a crisp white shirt, he was told his services were no longer required.
‘What? l’ve just spent a hell of a lot of money on new clothes, and for why? So I can look my best for you, that’s for why! You can’t tell me you’re sacking me. With men being called up you’ll need me to keep the business running.’ He was red in the face, disbelief in his blue eyes. This couldn’t be happening. What would Beth say? How could he tell her he’d just spent another ten pounds on three pairs of shoes, a dozen pairs of socks and a new trilby hat?
‘One of the men who was called up has come back, with part of his hand missing. We have to find him a place. It’s only fair and proper when he’s been fighting for us all,’ the manager said. He handed Freddy his cards and pay packet and thanking him formally for his work for the company, opened the door for Freddy to leave.
* * *
Lilly’s reaction to her brother joining up was to burst into tears every time he was mentioned. She wrote to him twice in the first week.
‘I don’t know what’s got into our Lilly,’ Marged said one day as she prepared toffee apples for the sweet and rock shop. ‘Her and our Ronnie have always quarrelled and now it’s as though he was her greatest friend.’
‘Had a row with this mysterious boyfriend probably. Who is he, d’you know?’ Huw asked.
‘No, and I don’t intend to question her. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.’
‘You’re her mother, she should talk to you,’ he complained. ‘You should know what’s going on.’
‘I can’t interfere. God ’elp, Huw, she’s twenty-six.’
‘And without the sense she was born with!’ Huw heaved his heavy leg off a stool and walked to the door. Making sure it was closed, he asked Marged, ‘Has our Beth said anything about Freddy’s savings? I bet you anything you like he’s spent them.’
‘She’s said nothing to me.’
‘Then we should make her talk to us, warn her about him. Take everything that’s going, he will.’
‘We can’t say anything. Mam says she has to learn for herself.’
‘Oh, Mam says, does she?’ There was incipient argument in the words. ‘That’s typical of you, Marged! Bury your head, pretend nothing’s happening! God alone knows who our Lilly’s carrying on with, and there’s our Beth being cheated on by young Freddy. You know he’s been seen in the pictures with that Shirley Downs, don’t you? Or are you pretending that isn’t happening too? Mam says this, Mam says that! You’re their mother and it’s up to you to look after them!’
Tightening her lips, Marged said, ‘There isn’t much of the Luxona ice-cream powder left. Shall we use it, or save some for a celebration at the end of the war?’
‘What are you asking me for? When do you ever listen to my opinion? Ask Mam; she’s in charge of this house as well as her own!’ Thumping down heavily on his plaster-encased leg he stormed out and went to join some friends for a dnnk.
* * *
Beth tried a new tactic in her detennination to discover where the young girl who stole the food was living. Instead of waiting in the café kitchen, she finished early with her mother’s willing permission and hid in the field through which the girl regularly ran. She waited until the girl was running well ahead and had stopped glancing behind her, obviously free from worries about being followed, then set off after her.
Beth was led through back lanes, pausing at each corner before catching up with her quarry. They were in the poorer part of St David’s Well, where houses had fallen into neglect and many were abandoned and beginning to fall down. Beth would never normally have ventured into this part of town, where broken-down stables and warehouses made it an alien landscape, where danger lurked in the shadows and the fallen buildings leaned towards her, daring her to enter. Even though the evening was still light, her heart raced and her body was tense, prepared for flight. She felt a presence behind her and her skin tingled with fear of an imminent attack. She felt that vulnerability between her shoulder blades but was afraid to look around.
Wondering how best to make her retreat, she was startled by a loud noise. She froze and waited for long seconds, expecting discovery, before slowly easing herself around the corner of a building. She looked along a back lane where weeds and saplings were growing out of the broken concrete. A drainpipe had fallen and was still rolling a little. Beth wondered if the girl had knocked it as she passed.
Looking down the length of the narrow lane with its crooked buildings and air of menace, there was no sign of the girl, or of anyone else. The broken and distorted doors leading to once smart stables and warehouses were still and there was no sound other than the pipe that still moved slightly, its weight giving it momentum for longer than Beth had expected.
A shiver of fear twisted her shoulders as she turned and retraced her steps. There was no point in searching through the desolate buildings. Once away from the area she walked hurriedly, trying to tell herself it was common sense and not cowardice that had persuaded her to leave without investigating.
* * *
Ronnie wrote regularly both to his wife, Olive, and to his mother. Olive wrote back assuring him that she was happy and managing well on the stalls, but it was not the truth.
‘Granny Moll,’ she said one day, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t carry on working the stalls. I hate it and although I promised Ronnie I’d help while he’s away, I just can’t.’
‘Give it time,’ Moll began, but Olive interrupted.
‘If you don’t let me work in the chip-shop café or the sweet and rock shop, there’s plenty of call for factory hands. I might have to go soon anyway. At least that way we’ll have some money when Ronnie comes home, enough to get out of our two miserable rooms in Curtis Road and into a place of our own.’
‘Take these toffee apples down to the shop, will you, dear? I promise I’ll talk it over with Marged, see what we can sort out, is it?’
Audrey was serving a family with seaside rock to take back after their holiday and, placing the toffee apples and some slabs of coconut ice on the counter, Olive waited until Audrey had finished. Before she could ask Ronnie’s aunt what she thought of her working there, Lilly came in.
‘Mam says I’ve got to stay here while you go and get some lunch,’ she said sulkily.
‘It’s all right, I’ll stay if you like,’ Olive offered.
‘No, you go back and fetch me a few sandwiches and a pot of tea, Lilly, I’ll eat here. Wilf is coming to share it with me.’
Lilly wandered slowly along the promenade, looking over the sea wall, down to where the Punch and Judy man was about to begin his midday performance in front of a group of children who were sitting cross-legged on the sand. To her surprise she saw Phil walking towards her. She ran towards him but to her shock and dismay he pushed her aside as though he didn’t know her and hurried on.
She stared after him in disbelief. Had he seen someone he knew, someone who might tell his wife he was talking to a woman? Tears welled up. This was no way to live, she thought sadly. She watched as he went past where the audience of the Punch and Judy theatre were sending up shouts and laughter, enjoying the fun. Every eye was turned to the puppet swinging the string of sausages and she approached him again.
‘Phil, I—’ He glanced at her, then stopped and began to turn away once again. She darted around until she was facing him. At that moment the beach photographer jumped out in front of them and snapped. Walking backwards beside Phil, he tried to persuade him to buy the photograph. So that was why he was so cautious. He was unwilling to have his photograph taken, although she had tried to persuade him on several occasions.
‘Keep away,’ Phil hissed and Lilly stood back and watched as he strode towards the road.
Almost without thinking, Lilly ran to the photographer who had given up and was looking around for a better prospect.
‘That last photograph you took. Can I have a print, please?’ she asked.
The small triumph was short lived. As she turned to go back to Piper’s Café, she began to feel angry. She tried to fuel the anger, telling herself she would finish it, that Phil was treating her badly and she deserved better, but the emotion flared only briefly and was done, stifled by the achingly empty thought of life without him. She tried to tell herself that any hopes of his eventually marrying her were nothing more than foolish dreams, but while there was a chance, however slim, she had to cling to it. She knew she was being a fool, but hope flowered through her humiliation and disappointment. At least she would have a photograph, around which she could spin fantasies. A picture of them together. That would be something to help her pretend that one day everything would be perfect.
Four
The town was awash with posters warning about careless talk, unnecessary travel and the need to save fuel and food and paper and almost everything else. Besides these posters there were others telling mothers to let their sons and daughters go to war. Men walked around with feelings of guilt if they were not in uniform and informed everyone who would listen that they were exempt either on health grounds or age, or because their work was of national importance; excusing themselves for being there and not on some distant battlefield.
The men who were called up to serve in the armed forces put on a brave expression and told their family that they couldn’t wait to get stuck in. Any fears they had were hidden behind confident smiles and light-hearted words.
It was not only the men who were worried. Wives, girlfriends and sisters, besides being frightened for their men’s safety, were concerned about their own ability to cope alone. For Olive, the suggestion that she give up the two rooms where she and Ronnie had lived since their wedding seemed the end of everything.
‘It’s our home, Ronnie,’ she said sadly when on his first leave he suggested she went back to live with her parents until he came home.
They stood together looking around the small, over-filled room with its basic furniture and the clutter of their own belongings with which they had tried to create a place that was clearly theirs and couldn’t belong to anyone else.
‘Perhaps Mam and Dad could find room for it all in the store room at the ice-cream factory?’ he suggested.
‘I want to stay, be here when you come back and we can pretend nothing’s happened.’
‘Think about it, Olive, love. I’d be happier knowing you were with your mam and dad and not on your own. What if there’s an air raid? We’ve already had a few. What if the town gets bombed? Please, love, think about it.’
Later that day, while they were counting up the takings on the stall, Granny Moll came across the sand, pausing to speak to them. Huw was struggling to close up the helter-skelter with one of Bleddyn’s sons. He limped across to speak to her but she waved him away.
‘It’s amazing how quickly this war is changing things,’ Ronnie said. ‘We won’t be selling ice-cream, the sweets and crisps will be on allocation if not rationed. What are we going to give the trippers when we can’t give them those things, Granny Moll?’
‘We’ll think of something,’ Moll smiled. ‘And in the mean time, Olive dear, what about you? Ronnie’s right. You can’t stay in those rooms on your own, can you?’
‘Why not? I’m married. I can’t run home to Mam when things get difficult, Granny Moll.’
‘That’s what Ronnie wants you to do, isn’t it? Happier he’d be, knowing you weren’t on your own.’
‘I can’t go back to live with Mam and Dad. Not after running my own home. I’ve got used to doing things my way.’
‘Then I’ve got a suggestion. What about coming to live with me and our Audrey? The house is too big for just Audrey and me. And,’ she went on quickly as she saw that Olive was about to refuse, ‘with all my spare rooms, I’ll be having soldiers or evacuees billeted on me if you don’t come and use a couple of them.’
The suggestion was discussed all that day, Moll and Audrey deciding which rooms would be best for Olive, Olive asking Ronnie if he thought he would be able to accept not having a place of their own when he came on leave.
‘I’ll put up with that knowing you’re not on your own,’ he replied, then he looked at her with a suspicious grin on his face. ‘There’s something else stopping you, isn’t there? You’re thinking you’ll be unable to refuse to work on the sands if you take two rooms with Granny Moll?’ He hugged her and asked, ‘What if I make sure she knows you aren’t willing?’
Moll promised she wouldn’t try and persuade Olive. ‘Just give me a couple of weeks when I can call on you if I’m real desperate at weekends and when you’re not working, and as soon as I can find some extra help I won’t ask you again, right?’ To add further persuasion, she added, ‘And think of how much cheaper it will be, easier for you to save for a place of your own, better than two rooms, eh?’
So it was arranged and before Ronnie left, he saw their possessions packed away and his wife settled into two rooms in his grandmother’s house.
At first Olive spent the evenings with Moll and, when she was in, with Audrey. But she gradually spent more time in her own room. She couldn’t write to Ronnie in the loving way she wanted to with Granny Moll there. Moll’s presence inhibited her from expressing her feelings.
Audrey was out several evenings each week. She had joined the Air Raid Precaution group who met in the school, learning ways of dealing with the air raids they were sure would come. She had also started organising weekly sales of unwanted items to raise money for servicemen’s comforts. Using a wooden barrow she walked the streets knocking on doors collecting items for sale, and every Saturday afternoon she set up a stall on the pavement outside Woolworths to sell them all.
Olive thought that having to live without her husband’s presence and suffering the occasional session on the beach stall was enough support of the war effort for her to give, and ignored Audrey’s attempts at persuading her to help with these activities.
Huw, with an ankle almost healed, but still using a stick, had joined the Local Defence Volunteers which many had joined at its conception in May. They had been promised weapons and a uniform and a new title in the near future and in July, Churchill gave them the more impressive title of the Home Guard. Their ages varied from seventeen to over sixty – although most were in the upper age limits – and they quickly earned the nickname ‘Dad’s Army’.
Everyone seemed to be doing something to support their country on the home front when they couldn’t help further afield.
* * *
Freddy quickly recovered from the shock of losing his job. Perhaps he would be lucky and find himself a position in a reserved occupation and evade call-up, he thought hopefully. He was not as keen to serve as he pretended and had nightmares of himself in battles surrounded by faces filled with hatred and hands threatening him with guns.
He went to the Labour Exchange straight away, hoping to find a position that would exclude him from call-up. There were plenty of reserved occupations, although he didn’t think that experience working for a gents’ outfitters qualified him for many.
‘Certain farm workers are exempt,’ the man in the labour exchange told him. ‘But without experience I doubt that you’d qualify.’
‘Thank God for that!’ Freddy replied fervently. He thought of all that mud – and worse – and large smelly animals and decided he’d rather take his chances against Hitler’s army.
Prospective employers always began an interview by asking his age and, knowing he was ripe for call-up, were unwilling to take him on.
‘Hardly worth our time training you, see,’ he was told. ‘You’ll be off before you can be any use to us.’
There were vacancies at one of the factories that had changed from constructing machinery to making munitions and aerop
lane parts. When Freddy arrived for an interview he was offered work on the bench with a lot of women, for which he would wear greasy overalls, or an office job with less money but for which he could dress in a tidy suit. He chose the office job and was determined to become so indispensible he would evade conscription.
* * *
Moll called Beth aside one morning and handed her a pound note. ‘Here, love, put this with the rest. Best to save while you can.’
‘Granny Moll, it’s too much. A whole pound! Freddy earns less that in a week!’
‘Take it and start building on it.’
‘Thank you, Gran,’ Beth said, hugging her.
‘There won’t be much for him when he gets army pay.’
‘He isn’t getting much now, Granny Moll.’
‘I thought the pay was good at the munitions?’
‘Yes, but he’s in the office and the pay is less than he was earning in the shop.’ She shrugged. ‘Not everyone will make money out of the war. Although I’m sure there’s some who will, mind.’
‘Didn’t fancy dirtying his hands? Don’t be shamed by that,’ she added as Beth was about to protest. ‘Freddy is who he is. Don’t be one of those girls who marry someone they want to change.’ She opened her purse. ‘Here, love, put this with the rest.’ She handed Beth another ten-shilling note. Ignoring her granddaughter’s protest, she pushed it into her pocket. ‘Piper’s is a good business and you should benefit from all the work you do. I want you to have a real good start. Put it in a savings book in your name. Keep it as a surprise for Freddy when this lot is over and you can plan your wedding, is it?’
When Beth met Freddy later that evening she had the money in her handbag to give to him. Granny Moll had advised her to put it into a savings account of her own, and add to it regularly every week, but Beth felt she had to show Freddy she still trusted him after his confession about taking money from their joint savings. It had given her so much pride, knowing they had a bank account with a real bank and not a post office book like most of her friends. Surely he wouldn’t take from it again?
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 38