‘Here you are, Freddy, this is to start our savings for our own house.’ She handed it to him and felt only the briefest of doubts as he took it and put it in his inside pocket.
‘Marvellous she is, your Granny Moll. I wish I could contribute more, but my wages are worse than before. Fancy me being given the push. Just when I was promoted to second sales too. I’ve been there since I left school at fourteen, and that’s the way they treated me. I wouldn’t mind if I’d been called up, but just to be told to go – insulting it is, Beth. Damned insulting.’
‘Think of the chaos there’ll be when the war’s over. All the men coming back and wanting to return to their jobs and the replacements told they’re no longer needed.’
‘Doesn’t bear thinking about. I hope I can stay where I am for the duration. Small pay is better than none, eh?’
‘You don’t think you’ll be called up, then? Thank goodness for that.’
‘Couldn’t bear to leave you, Bethan.’ He kissed her firm little mouth and thought of the soft generous lips of Shirley Downs and the sensations she created with a kiss. He held Beth close to hide the disappointment in his blue eyes.
* * *
Lilly still met Phil whenever he could get away from his family. During the summer months, with the evening too light for concealment, they had been desperate for a safe place to meet. On one occasion they shared a shed with a couple of sheep, on another they jumped over a farm gate for an hour’s privacy, burrowing deep into haystacks when the weather was kind. Back lanes, shop doorways and certain places in the woods all had their uses, but with the end of summer in sight they needed to find a sheltered place to meet. Then Lilly had an idea.
‘Piper’s Café closes about eight,’ she said excitedly. ‘I’ve got keys, so why don’t we meet there?’
The beach was never as busy in the evenings, although some of the cafés stayed open and the fairground was still packed with those looking for thrills. As the evening wore on the lights from the rides grew brighter, until the time for blackout came and they were all snuffed out. The voices became more shrill for a while as young people held out before setting off back home, but fewer and fewer stayed to stroll along the beach. The bay gradually became shrouded in darkness and was abandoned. Seagulls strutted along the edge of the sea looking for food left by the trippers. A few older children searched for empty pop bottles which they could return and claim a few pennies for. An elderly man stacked the last of the deckchairs under the promenade where he was supposed to lock them up for the night, though he never actually bothered to find the chains and padlocks.
Wardens were strutting about warning people not to show a light. A man struck a match to light his pipe and the warden ran after him shouting angrily, ‘Oi, put that light out! Don’t you know there’s a war on and you can be fined for striking an unguarded match?’
Lilly watched with amusement. She wondered whether the warden really thought a match flame could be seen by a German pilot as he flew over or whether he was just being officious. Although, she remembered, there had been a fine for that offence in the paper recently. What a farce. They’d never be bombed; the Germans wouldn’t waste effort on a small town like St David’s Well.
She watched as the pipe-smoking man walked slowly up the slope leading to the promenade and headed for a pint of beer to celebrate the end of his long day. She was sitting at the bottom of the rocks in the shadows at the end of the promenade, the smell of the warm wet sand redolent of a thousand summer days. When she felt it was safe to do so, she crossed the sand, climbed the metal steps up to the café on the cliff path and unlocked the door. She went through the seated area and as she opened the main door, Phil slipped inside and took her in his arms.
The chairs were hard and too small for comfort, entwined as they were, so they sat on the floor in the corner near the door, where passers-by wouldn’t see them. They held each other close, spoke in whispers and thought they were in heaven.
‘What did you tell your wife so you could get away?’ Lilly asked when they were sitting smoking a cigarette, the glow lighting their faces at intervals and lighting up their expressions of love.
‘I’m walking the dog,’ he grinned.
‘Where is it then?’
‘Left it with a mate.’
That evening visit was the first of many. They left no evidence of having been there, even disposing of the rubbish that was sometimes pushed through the letter box by passers-by too lazy to find a rubbish bin. No one guessed the café had nightly visitors.
As weeks went by, Lilly persuaded Phil to reveal more about his unhappy marriage.
‘She’s out all the time, see,’ Phil explained when Lilly asked why he worked such long hours. ‘Never home to get my tea. I usually go in to find something keeping warm on top of a saucepan of hot water.’
‘That’s terrible.’ Lilly longed to help him, spoil him, look after him as a wife should.
‘I might as well stay at work and earn a bit extra,’ he went on. ‘Putting it away in secret I am; she’s a bit extravagant and always short of cash. I need to have a bit put by to dig her out when she gets into debt.’
‘You deserve better treatment,’ Lilly said, knowing she was the one to provide it. If only he would face the fact that his marriage was a terrible disaster, a mistake to be rectified.
‘I hope to be running Piper’s one day,’ she said, hoping he would understand what she was offering him. ‘Our Beth and my brothers and cousins will stay in the business of course, but it needs a strong person in charge. I’m like my Granny Moll, and I’m the one to do it after her time. Plenty of money then. If I marry, my husband won’t have to work such long hours.’
‘And your husband will have something to hurry home to,’ he whispered. ‘Lucky he’ll be, no mistake.’
Lilly was better tempered now she and Phil were meeting regularly and had reached a new level of understanding. They seemed able to talk about anything now the barriers were down and he had told her about his unhappy marriage. She began to believe that he would one day leave his wife and, far into the future, would marry her.
She worked a little harder on the beach and didn’t complain about the various jobs she disliked. She was anxious to show her father and mother how much she deserved to be given more responsibility, building up to the time when they would retire and leave the business in her hands. Me and Phil running Piper’s, she dreamed. Handyman he was, good at fixing things; he’d be an asset to Piper’s with its almost continuous maintenance problems. Yes, life looked good. If only she could persuade him to leave his uncaring wife.
* * *
Beth continued to pursue the little girl who came each evening to take the food. The girl was now well aware of being followed and easily evaded Beth’s attempt to follow. Beth tried leaving Piper’s early and waiting near the lane to which she had been led, the place where she suspected her quarry lived, but although she waited long after the girl should have returned, she didn’t appear.
With the familiarity of several visits, the run-down places had lost some of their terror but it still wasn’t a place where she liked to dawdle. The semi-derelict buildings seemed to hold unseen dangers, their interiors dark and threatening. She saw a door move occasionally as though someone was watching, hidden behind its rotten wood. A cat paused to look at her as it slunk along the gutter about its business and a rat sat for a while, watching her with beady, intelligent eyes, but there was no sign or sound to suggest human habitation.
She tried putting a note with the food, but saw it flutter to the ground and dance away on the breeze. It seemed she needed some assistance if she were to find out more and be able to help the child further. She decided to ask her family.
Lilly told her she was stupid, and Eynon said he hadn’t the time. Both were involved in their love lives and when they weren’t meeting their loved ones they were dreaming about meeting them. Eynon had met a girl who was holidaying in the town, and he was determined to pursue her durin
g the few days left. She lived about sixty miles away so the romance was unlikely to continue after the holiday, but at seventeen he found that an advantage rather than a problem. Beth pleaded with them both to no avail.
Ronnie came home on embarkation leave and Beth asked him to help. When the situation had been explained, he agreed. On the following evening he went to the field near the café and settled down in a spot from where he could see the café bins. Olive was with him, lying down in the tall ripe summer grass. They were inseparable during those precious days and Beth had to accept the help of both of them or neither.
They saw the girl take the food, which Beth now left on top of the bin, the packages having increased in size and the contents more varied. Olive spoke aloud to Ronnie, who replied as though angry and stayed where he was. Olive walked off in the same direction taken by the girl, making sure she had the girl’s attention. A lover’s tiff would reassure her as to their presence there. She wouldn’t see them as a threat.
Ronnie waited until they were both out of sight then darted through the lanes to the area Beth had described. Beth waited at the far side of the field but was careful not to show herself.
As the girl reached the lane behind the run-down houses, she paused and looked around her. Feeling safe from curious eyes she ran softly up the worn concrete with its immature forest of weeds and saplings. She gave another brief look around before she darted in through a stable door and closed it softly behind her.
Half an hour later, the three conspirators met and discussed their next move.
On the following day, Beth did not put out the usual bundle. She watched as the girl came and searched through the bin, which Beth had filled with unwrapped fish leftovers to discourage her. She was crying when she ran off and Beth’s eyes filled with guilt at the way she had made the girl suffer disappointment.
An hour later she took a generous packet of food, which included fresh fruit and some chocolate, and made her way to the stable. Ronnie and Olive met her and together they went in. Darkness and silence greeted them and they stood for a long time while their eyes grew accustomed to the poor light. Then they made out a mound in one corner and on investigation discovered a child who looked about twelve lying, obviously ill, under a heap of old coats.
‘Who are you?’ the girl asked, her voice low and wheezing as though with a heavy cold.
‘Friends,’ Ronnie said. ‘Come to help you we have.’
‘Please, go away.’
‘You have to see a doctor.’
‘No need for a doctor, my sister is looking after me.’
‘So is my sister, though you don’t know it,’ Ronnie replied.
‘It’s you who puts out the food?’ The girl turned her head slowly to look at Beth, who nodded. ‘Thank you.’ She lowered her head as though the weight of it was too much for her slender neck.
‘We can’t leave you here like this,’ Olive said, compassion softening her voice.
‘We manage fine,’ the breathless voice insisted.
‘We could take you to the hospital,’ Ronnie offered. ‘When you’re well again maybe you will manage fine, but you have to be fit to live rough like this.’
‘And what about school?’ Beth asked. ‘Doesn’t someone at school try to help you both?’
‘None of your business!’ a voice shouted and they turned to see the small figure of the younger sister silhouetted against the open door. ‘Go away and leave us alone. We don’t want no interfering busybodies!’
‘Either you accept our help or two of us will stay here and the other will go and fetch the police,’ Ronnie said firmly. ‘The choice is yours and you have one minute to decide.’ He deliberately panicked the girl, knowing that if they went away, allowing them time to consider, the girls would have moved on before they could return, even though the older one looked too sick to be moved.
‘No police, please, and no hospitals,’ the elder girl pleaded between coughing.
‘They’ll send us back, see,’ her sister added. ‘We can’t go back; we’re trying to find our brother.’ She crouched down beside her sister in a protective way.
‘Back where?’ Ronnie asked, bending down to talk to them. ‘Do you have a mother somewhere? We’ll help you find your brother if we can,’ he offered encouragingly. ‘Or take you back to your mother.’
‘Dead, she is, and our dad. We were put in a home, see, and our brother was sent somewhere else, and we can’t find him. He’d look after us if we could find him.’
‘Take them to Granny Moll,’ Olive suggested. ‘She’ll know what to do.’
With Ronnie half carrying the sick sister and the other fussing around her like a distraught mother hen with a solitary chick, they made their way through the lanes towards Sidney Street.
Before they were halfway there, Ronnie had to lift the girl and carry her. She smelled unpleasantly of perspiration and the dampness of the bedding in which she was wrapped. She felt very light and he wondered how long they had been surviving on what the younger sister could steal. They were both so thin and gaunt, he didn’t think they had had sufficient food for a long time.
Olive opened the door and called to Granny Moll. She was convinced that Moll would get the two girls into hospital and back into the care of the council as soon as they explained, but Moll had different ideas.
‘Food and some cough medicine, that’s all they need,’ she said when she had heard the impassioned pleading of the two girls not to send them back to the home. ‘We’ll see if a bit of maldod will put them right, then we can think again.’
Somewhat doubtfully, Ronnie, Olive and Beth agreed.
Moll rang the police later and rather evasively explained the situation.
‘They aren’t criminals – and they aren’t running away from conscription,’ she joked. ‘Two children in need of a home, they are. I’ll keep an eye on them and you say nothing to your superiors or the authorities till I tell you, right?’
‘If they’re runaways, I need to—’
‘You didn’t find them, you don’t know where they are, so how can you tell anyone?’
‘But it’s my duty to—’
‘Forty-eight hours, that’s all I’m asking.’
‘I have to see them and find out where they’re from. You can’t just casually take on someone else’s children.’
Moll could hear a lot of noise in the background, people talking, shouting, arguing, laughing. She guessed the man was in the middle of something important. Depending on it, she added more weight to her argument. ‘I’ll take responsibility for them, and you’ve got plenty of other things to see to with this war an’ all. So give me a couple of days, right?’
‘All right,’ the constable agreed reluctantly, knowing he was wrong but too harassed by the local residents classed as aliens to argue. The front desk was crowded with Italians and Germans who had lived in the town for many years, many of them sailors who had liked the town and found work and stayed. These foreign residents now had to report weekly to be checked, or risk being imprisoned. After being kept waiting, they were becoming restless and noisy and he gave up. ‘Keep them for tonight and I’ll be over first thing tomorrow. And make sure you’re there,’ he warned as a pretence that he was in control.
‘Oi! Where d’you think you’re going?’ Moll demanded of Beth and Olive as they went towards the kitchen door. ‘Staying here you are, the three of you. I’m not doing this on my own.’
‘We were going to make some tea and get them some hot food,’ Olive explained.
‘Washing comes first,’ Moll said firmly. ‘A wash and a clean bed is what these two want most. Then we’ll see about cawl and a cwlff. Right?’ ‘Cawl and a cwlff’ was a bowl of home-made soup and a thick slice off the loaf. Once the two girls were settled between Moll’s clean white sheets, Olive and Ronnie were allowed to relax and eat their own share of the food, and Beth was allowed to go home.
Moll smiled. The house had felt empty for years. Once Marged had left, she and Audrey
had rattled around in the three-storey building. Now, with Olive and Ronnie staying there and these two children desperate for a home, the place was filling up nicely.
The sergeant came the following morning and after numerous phone calls it was agreed that the children would stay with her until something else could be arranged. Myrtle and Maude burst into tears at the policeman’s words.
‘We don’t want to go back.’
‘We have to find our brother,’ Maude wailed.
‘Don’t worry, trust Granny Moll,’ the old woman promised. ‘You won’t go anywhere you don’t want to go. The sergeant is too busy with important things to worry about a couple of tiddlers like you.’
* * *
Before July ended, Bleddyn’s two sons received their call-up papers. Marged and Huw wondered how they were going to cope with the severe shortage of staff. Marged asked Freddy to help by giving up his job at the factory and joining them, but he refused. He didn’t explain that he hoped to avoid being sent into the army; instead, he told them that the factory desperately needed his organising skills and war work was more important that holidays on the beach.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, boy,’ Huw replied. ‘Wars aren’t only fought on the battlefields, it’s on the home front too that wars are won or lost! Morale is important and we have to do everything we can to keep it high.’
‘Selling ice-creams and making money from rides?’ Freddy was sarcastic, almost believing his story about the importance of his position. ‘Bullets and bombs we need, not ice-cream.’
* * *
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 39