In spite of several enquiries, Moll could find no information about the family of Maude and Myrtle. The girls insisted that they had a brother whom they had never met, but the matron of the Children’s Home – where they had been taken after several attempts at finding them a foster home had ended in failure – knew nothing about any relations apart from an aunt, who had since died.
Moll called a family conference and everyone attended, including Freddy. It was held at Moll’s house as it was the largest, and they all squeezed into the parlour, even Bleddyn, Johnny – who arrived with Hannah and her two daughters – and Taff with his wife Evelyn. The idea was to decide on the best way of dealing with the shortage of help now the army was taking the young men. Moll also hoped they might come up with some ideas for extending the search for the girls’ family. They had been surprised to learn that Maude, who was recovering well from her illness, was fifteen, and Myrtle, whom they had guessed was eight, was in fact twelve.
With regard to the beach, Freddy offered to help when he could, but reminded them with importance that with the factory working around the clock with different shifts, he might not be reliable. Bleddyn decided to cut out the boat trips. ‘I can’t go very far out and they’ll soon be stopping me altogether I expect,’ he said gloomily. ‘So I’ll deal with the chip shop full time.’ Huw and Marged insisted they were unable to do more than run Piper’s Café, and they needed Beth’s assistance to do it properly.
‘Can I help?’ Maude asked. ‘I can take the money for the swingboats or the helter-skelter. Love that we would, me and Myrtle could do that easy.’
‘Threepenny ride, how much change from half a crown?’ Huw asked and neither girl could work it out. ‘All right, try this. You’re given a shilling, how much change for a threepenny ride from that?’
Maude felt her fingers as she counted and came up with the answer eventually but Myrtle looked as blank as before.
‘You have been to school?’ Marged asked them.
‘Not much,’ Maude admitted. ‘We didn’t go much after Mam and Dad died, then we went for a while when we lived with Auntie Hazel and again when we were with Auntie Rita and—’
‘When did you last go to school?’ Moll asked Myrtle, who shrugged and looked at her sister for an answer.
‘You’re too old for school, Maude, we’ll have to get you some help from somewhere else, but you, Myrtle, you’ll go back to school as soon as the new term starts, right?’
Myrtle looked frightened and hugged her sister. ‘I can’t. They laughed at me before, for not knowing how to read,’ she said. ‘I can’t go back.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Beth said, feeling a sense of responsibility for the two girls she had rescued from dire poverty. ‘We all will.’
Huw emptied his pockets and began at once to teach the girls the names of the various coins.
‘It seems like we’re stuck with you two until we find that brother of yours,’ Moll said, smiling at the two thin, pale children. ‘Best we do what we can for you while you’re here.’
The two girls settled in happily with Granny Moll and Auntie Audrey. With decent food and proper care their skin glowed with health and their hair shone. But their insecurity was still clearly shown by the way they clung to each other in sleep. Moll and her daughter Audrey always looked in on them before they went to their beds and they were touched by the sight of the two little girls tightly clasped in each other’s arms, using only a fraction of the big feather bed. Sometimes one of them would cry out in her sleep and the other would whisper soothingly to reassure her that everything was all right and they were safe.
Enquiries went on to try and discover any relations or friends who could give them some information about their early years, but so far nothing had been learnt. Moll repeatedly discussed the situation with her family and others and most were of the opinion that they would never find any relations as they did not want to be found.
‘Best we don’t tell Maude and Myrtle how hopeless it is, mind,’ Moll warned. ‘We don’t want them to give up hope, or run off again. Not now, when they’re beginning to settle down and build a life for themselves with us.’
Audrey, and on occasion Wilf, spent time with the girls helping them to master reading skills and basic adding and subtraction. Myrtle, who at first had understood nothing about reading, was a quick learner and one day Moll was amused to see that the younger sister was helping the older one with a task set her by Audrey.
Hannah came to see the girls sometimes, bringing her two small children, Josie aged four who was already at school, and Marie who was three. Using the books bought for her own girls, Hannah patiently encouraged the four girls to play ‘schools’, thereby adding to the development of them all.
‘Great with the kids, isn’t she, Granny Moll?’ Johnny whispered when they were watching Hannah playing a counting game with the children. ‘Endlessly patient and so gentle when she has to correct them.’
Moll looked at Bleddyn’s son fondly. ‘Besotted you are, young Johnny.’
‘You do like her, don’t you, Granny Moll?’
‘How could anyone not like Hannah?’ Moll replied. ‘She’s beautiful inside and out.’ Johnny smiled at her until she spoilt it by adding, ‘Too old for you to think of marrying, mind.’
‘I loved her long before I knew her age,’, Johnny said. Moll recognised a quiet determination in his young face and said nothing more.
Johnny left her and went to join the game of I Spy, which Hannah had changed into a more beneficial game by telling them the object they chose had to be written down. Moll watched them and her eyes softened. Hannah was beautiful and she had helped generously in the teaching of Maude and Myrtle. Bleddyn would be fortunate to have her as a daughter-in-law.
The girls were excellent pupils, she thought, as she watched them laboriously writing on the paper she had supplied, Hannah helping her own two and ready to assist the others when necessary.
Everyone needs an incentive to persuade them to work at a new skill, and for both Maude and Myrtle the urgency was to acquire sufficient ability to be allowed to help on the beach. Moll’s motives weren’t entirely selfless. With the boys all likely to go to help the fight against Germany, she knew that two other members of the family, even though temporary, would be a valuable asset.
* * *
The first week of August was the busiest of the beach season and the family asked friends, neighbours and even a small band of children to help out. Little boys standing on pop crates, wearing outsized shirts back to front in place of overalls, stretched over the small counter to reach for the pennies, which they counted carefully into the biscuit tin which served as a till. Arms waved like frantic jellyfish as everyone tried to be served at once. Ice-cream melted and ran down chubby arms to be licked off when no one was looking, leaving faces sticky as well as rosy in the warm sun, and causing havoc when wasps were attracted by the delicious confection.
The beach filled up until there was hardly any sand to be seen when the tide was high. Screams filled the air as children splashed in the sea and performed wobbly walks both around the edge and inside the beach pool. The uneven surface hurt their feet, adding to the excuses to shout and scream.
More and more day-trippers came: mums, dads, aunties, grandmothers and grandads, arriving by train, bus, bicycle or on foot. They were mostly loaded with heavy baskets and bags filled with whatever they considered necessary for a good day out.
Besides the increasing number of visitors, more vendors came in the hope of a successful day, and Beth noticed that the men who came were generally older than usual, fathers and uncles and brothers with things to sell, services to offer, taking the place of those gone to serve their country, trying to keep the business alive for when their loved ones returned.
Cyril the Snap, the street photographer, abandoned his occasional pitch in the centre of a large city and came for his annual ‘holiday’, smiling hopefully at young girls, flattering them and persuading them that, ‘No
t to take your photographs, beautiful girls that you are, Duw, it would be a crime.’
They accepted his words willingly, laughing, half believing him, and he thanked them, told them they were adorable, blew kisses and went to look for more prospective customers.
Mystical, Magical, All-Seeing, All-Knowing Sarah, the Gypsy Princess, advertised her psychic powers on her booth on the promenade. An exotic addition to the rest, her tent was decorated in bold colours and bedecked with gold and silver, attracting some and frightening others. She would sometimes appear, draped in layer after layer of dark-coloured skirts and shawls edged with sparkling designs, and smiled to herself when some hurried past, afraid of those dark, intelligent eyes, which sometimes looked at them boldly and sometimes softened into a wink.
Candy floss failed to appear, obviously a victim of sugar rationing, but Moll dug into her store cupboard and continued to offer coconut ice, Turkish delight and toffee apples made from the last of her stock, selling it in the rock shop run by Audrey, as well as on the stalls where ice-creams were still the favourite.
Bernard Gregory was kept busy with his team of donkeys and the small cart, decorated with flags and pulled by his pony, which gave rides to children. Bernard had retired from the sands several years previously and left the happy business to his son, Peter, but with Peter previously studying for better things and now serving in the forces, Bernard had returned to enjoy his summer with the children.
During a particularly busy day, Beth stood at the top of the café steps, after having been down to the sands to make sure there was no crockery left abandoned, and looked at the scene below. Colour and noise was everywhere: children yelling, mothers shouting louder to attract their attention, and, in many cases, surprisingly, being heard. Every colour imaginable was shown in the summer dresses and dippers and towels, and tablecloths too, as families set out picnic meals. The only dull spots were the men, most of whom sat wearing their suits, sporting a handkerchief on their heads, the only concession to summer being the few inches they exposed of their ankles by rolling up their navy serge trousers. Some had removed their jackets which were folded neatly beside them, but most still wore shirts and ties; loosened, but still respectably in place.
Beth thought of Freddy working in that stuffy factory and felt sorry for him missing these wonderful days.
* * *
Freddy had worked a morning shift, finishing at two p.m. and at five o’clock he called to see Shirley.
‘Decision day today,’ he told her when she had finished serving a customer and was free. ‘Today I’ll know whether or not my application for deferment will be approved.’
‘Good luck,’ Shirley said, but she sounded far from interested.
‘Is everything all right?’ Freddy asked, slightly offended. ‘I thought you’d want to know.’
‘I might be signing up myself,’ she said.
‘You, signing up? Leaving your mam to cope on her own? You can’t do that.’
‘The shop has been sold and the new owner will let us stay in the flat but we’re losing our jobs.’
‘Sorry I am, Shirley. There’s me worrying about my own problems and you’re facing this.’ He was still unappeased, thinking she should have been more concerned for him, but he bravely ignored his own worries and suggested, ‘Tell you what, I know that Piper’s are looking for staff, for the last weeks of summer at least. Shall I put in a word for you and your mam?’
‘Lovely – I don’t think! With Mam convinced that the Pipers stole the business and it should rightly be hers, she’d love working for them, wouldn’t she?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t think.’
‘I wouldn’t say no to working on the beach,’ Shirley’s mother surprised them by saying. ‘And I’d be good at it. It’s in my blood after all - not that they’d think so, the thieving lot!’
* * *
‘No, no, no!’ Huw was adamant. ‘I don’t want that woman working for us.’
‘We’re desperate, Huw. I don’t think we can refuse,’ Marged said.
‘She’s trouble. She might think I’ve forgotten, but I remember the way she called us everything she could lay her tongue to and that’s plenty, telling everyone your grandparents stole the business from her grandparents.’
‘Load of ol’ rubbish that was,’ Moll said, agreeing with Huw for once. ‘We don’t want her sort here, cause trouble she would for sure.’
Marged argued and finally threatened to go on strike. ‘I can’t do all the cooking and serve tables with only our Beth to help. Lilly is worse than useless, half the time she doesn’t turn up and when she does she’s only in the way. I have to have help until the end of summer and this Mrs Downs is all we’ve found.’
‘You’re right, Marged,’ Moll conceded eventually. ‘It’s only for the last few weeks, so what harm can she do?’
‘Damn it all, Marged, when am I going to have some say in what happens at Piper’s?’ cried Huw. ‘Never listen to me, none of you. I make suggestions and you throw them out without discussion, you employ the staff without consulting me, but on this I’m determined. Mrs Downs will be trouble and I don’t want her here, right?’
‘What about starting her daughter Shirley as well?’ Freddy suggested, a flutter of amusement in his throat.
‘No, no, no!’ Huw shouted angrily, but the idea was discussed as though he hadn’t spoken.
‘Let’s see how Mrs Downs gets on first,’ Moll said.
‘We’re not taking on either of them. I forbid it.’ Huw’s voice was losing its power, knowing he was making no impression on the others.
‘We’ll have a vote,’ Marged said, realising that she was on safe ground. Huw was outvoted and Mrs Downs arrived the following morning to start work at Piper’s Café.
* * *
Some of the boats were still managing to give short rides when the tide was high and the barricades built to deter invaders far out to sea. Bleddyn had put his boat in storage for the duration, however, sadly covering her with tarpaulin after giving her an extra coat of paint to protect her.
It was sad to see the small craft hugging the shore and giving a pretence of danger to a few passengers, while others looked on and patiently waited their turn. Bleddyn preferred not to look.
* * *
On the morning of Mrs Downs’s first day, she collected the rubbish that had been pushed through the letter box during the night and sniffed disapprovingly.
‘Don’t you clean up before you go home?’
‘Yes we do,’ Marged retorted. ‘Everything here is shining spotless and all the left-over food is thrown away. You know how fussy we are about quality and cleanliness. This cigarette packet is what some idle creature has pushed through after we’ve closed. Don’t think you can tell me anything about cleanliness, Mrs Downs.’
It was not an auspicious start. With another busy day, there was little time for point-scoring though, and Marged had to admit that Mrs Downs - Hetty, as she chose to be called – worked as hard as any of the others, needing little instruction, seeming to understand what was needed, and to learn quickly where everything was kept. When she mentioned this to Huw he only grunted.
Freddy turned up at five o’clock and offered to help clear the tables and stack dishes for washing. He had been to the swimming baths in his occasional role of lifeguard, which meant a free swim after he had kept watch for a few hours. His towel and dippers were in his bag, which he put on a chair near the door. He thought he might get a swim in the sea later, although he was never very keen, preferring the more orderly pool with its changing rooms and lockers and no waves to worry about. The waves were rough that day, and increasing in size as the tide grew towards its highest point. Perhaps he wouldn’t bother. He wouldn’t admit it but he never felt easy about sea bathing, in spite of his training as a lifeguard. He preferred to have a safety rail handy and near enough to grab.
He kissed Beth when Marged wasn’t looking, then stood beside Shirley’s mother and settled to the routine work
of cleaning up. The day had been a very busy one, with a continuous queue of people wanting food, partly to save on their rations by eating out. The sea was too rough for most people to enjoy bathing and the sand was being blown about by a frivolous wind, making picnics less pleasant, so instead many trippers had found their way into the café to eat in comfort.
Beth felt a slight twinge of jealousy when Mrs Downs’s daughter Shirley arrived to meet her mother. She saw Freddy invite her to join them in the kitchen and shortly afterwards laughter swelled out interspersed by whispered conversation. She went in once to find them doubled over with mirth and asked what the joke was.
‘Too complicated to explain,’ Mrs Downs said, and this increased the laughter as Beth walked away.
It was fast approaching closing time but still the people came and still Marged and Huw and Beth served meals.
‘More plates, please,’ Beth called, popping her head into the kitchen. Shirley and Freddy were wiping plates and stacking them, laughing at something Shirley’s mother was saying, and she felt again that surge of jealousy, a sensation of being left out, pushed aside by the girl and her mother. Perhaps her father had been right, and they shouldn’t have invited Mrs Downs to help, she thought, although honesty made her admit to herself that the woman worked hard and didn’t need constant reminders of what was expected of her.
Bleddyn called unexpectedly to borrow some cooking fat, since he was running low at the fish-and-chip shop, and as he left, carrying the white slab in its greaseproof wrapping, a roar was heard coming from below them. Beth and her parents ran to the window and, looking down, saw that there had been an accident. A crowd was gathered and more people were running towards the edge of the tide. Some were pointing to where one of the small pleasure boats had overturned.
‘Freddy!’ Beth called. ‘There’s been an accident! Quick, you’ll have to help!’
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