Freddy hugged her but in his mind he saw crowds of girls filling his hours, drawn to him by his uniform, begging to be taken out to have fun. Not girls like Beth who was his safe, comfortable future, but girls like Shirley Downs offering excitement during his short-lived freedom.
When Moll came to the house to ask for a lift to the café a couple of days after Mrs Downs had left, Beth said, ‘Granny Moll, all the shops in town are dressing their windows in red, white and blue to show their support for the forces. Couldn’t we do the same? Patriotism helps the war effort, doesn’t it?’
‘Nonsense, girl. Paint to support the war effort ready for next season? The war will be over and done with long before that!’
* * *
‘You’d better ask her to come back,’ Huw said when he, Marged and Moll discussed the departure of Mrs Downs.
‘Get her back? I thought you didn’t want her to work for us in the first place,’ Moll said irritably. ‘Worse than a woman for changing your mind you are, Huw Castle!’
‘She’s a nasty bit of work and you know the way she gossips,’ he said, ‘but if we’re desperate for help until the end of September, she might be the simplest choice.’
It was eight thirty and they were on their way to the café. Beth had said she would catch the bus and join them later. As Marged put the key in the lock and opened the door an unpleasant smell met them.
‘What the ’ell—’ Huw went into the kitchen, sniffing and pulling faces. ‘Smells like something’s crawled in and died!’
The three of them searched the whole place but found nothing. The smell was strongest in the kitchen and with nothing but fresh air beneath the concrete floor of the café and a solid wooden floor beneath the kitchen area, there didn’t seem to be anywhere else to search. Opening the windows and doors as wide as they’d go, they started preparing for the day.
The smell increased as the hours passed. The sun was shining cheerfully and it was one of the hottest days so far that year. Disinfectant was poured everywhere but the smell returned to greet them next morning.
Lilly and Phil were still using the café for their secret meetings but even passion was defeated by the foulness of the air. They dared to leave the door open, hoping no one would walk up the metal steps and come in to request tea and sandwiches. Giggling at the unexpected problem, stretching the joke and laughter to the utmost, they didn’t stay long, choosing instead to go separately through the roads and lanes to the park where bushes and trees gave some privacy.
They felt complacent about Phil’s deferment from call-up. As the only member of staff able to run both the shop and repair-workshop, he was certain he was safe as, without him, the business would have to close down.
* * *
During the last days before Freddy had to report to camp for training, he and Beth saw each other often, but there was a coolness between them that neither mentioned and which Freddy couldn’t understand. He thought the explanation about his love of the cinema had satisfied Beth’s initial dismay at the rumours about himself and Shirley, and there didn’t seem to be anything else amiss.
He came to the beach late in the afternoons, helped the family to clear up and tried, with the rest, to solve the mystery of the dreadful stink. He often went back to Marged’s for a late supper but always left early, explaining thoughtfully that he knew Beth rose early and needed her sleep.
Once out of sight of the house in Sidney Street, he hurried to the flat above the newspaper shop and called to see Shirley. Besides the pictures – the town offered a generous choice with three cinemas which all changed their programme halfway through the week – there was also dancing.
Freddy still planned to marry Beth; it was the best way of ensuring a good future. The Pipers and Castles owned entertainments, stalls, cafés and ice-cream and pop factories and their business was sound. He would always have to work, but not too much. He believed that Beth offered him an easy life married to a family who were never likely to be short of the readies. He had to hang on to Beth. He thought he loved her in his own way, but he wanted some fun first.
* * *
There was an air of exhilaration about Eynon during those last days on the sands, a hint of a secret about to be told. Blowing up balloons to decorate the stalls to attract the dwindling crowds, he popped one behind Beth, laughing at her alarm. He marked Marged’s best mirror with a candle so it looked as though it was cracked, and couldn’t contain his laughter when she stared at it in horror before telling her it was a trick. He livened them up with his cheerful presence both on the beach and at home, and nothing was too much trouble. He had never been so helpful or willing. Huw and Marged smiled and put it down to his newly awakening interest in girls. When he asked for a day off Marged didn’t hesitate.
‘You’ve worked so hard you deserve it,’ she smiled, handing him a ten-shilling note. ‘Take this and give yourself a good time.’
Without explanation and also without denying the many hints about a girl that issued from Huw’s lips during breakfast, he left early. Long before the post arrived.
It was when they got home from the long day at the beach that Marged picked up the letter from the doormat.
‘Funny,’ she frowned. ‘It looks like our Eynon’s writing.’
‘Some joke I’ll bet. He’s full of nonsense at the moment – in fact, I’m beginning to wonder whether that stink at the café that’s beginning to smell fishy isn’t down to him. Some stink bomb from the joke shop or something.’
The letter with Eynon’s handwriting on it was puzzling and Marged stared at it for a while before opening it. She frowned, then glanced at the clock, automatically thinking as a caring mother. ‘Funny, he didn’t say what time he’d be back,’ she said vaguely. ‘He’ll have to have something cold.’ She opened the envelope, unfolded the sheet of paper, and screamed.
Huw ran to her and snatched it from her trembling hands. ‘What does he mean, he’s joined the army?’ he demanded as though Marged had the answers. ‘He isn’t old enough for call-up till next year!’
‘He’s volunteered. He’s old enough to volunteer,’ Marged wailed.
Phone calls and visits to the police, the army recruitment office and every other organisation they could think of to demand his return were met with the solid stone walls of officialdom. Eynon was old enough and he was on his way to the camp where initial training would take place. They weren’t even told which one. All they could do was wait until he made contact.
‘There is a war on,’ the sergeant in the recruitment office reminded them with unnecessary sarcasm.
‘So we’re short of another pair of hands,’ was one of Huw’s comments the morning following a sleepless night.
‘Is that all you can think about?’ Marged said unfairly. ‘Eynon, our youngest, has gone to war!’
‘Tomorrow we open the café as usual, and we help others to forget their war for an hour or two. We need someone extra to help on the stalls.’ He spoke firmly, determined that Marged wouldn’t collapse into despair.
‘I’ll call and ask Mrs Downs to come back, I suppose,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll have to grovel a bit, but compared with our Eynon running away, a bit of grovelling isn’t important.’ She looked at the face of her husband, seeing the lines of distress there, she was reminded that for him too this was a difficult situation to deal with; she wasn’t alone. ‘He’s only a boy,’ she said and they hugged, seeking comfort from each other.
A second letter arrived a few days later, a letter full of apologies and cheerful with news of Eynon’s first few days as a soldier. He told them he was already making new friends and wondered whether he could bring a couple of the lads home on his first leave, as several had never seen the sea.
‘He has the right attitude, our Eynon,’ Huw said emotionally. ‘He’ll do well, for sure.’
‘There are a couple of camp beds in the loft.’ Marged was already planning Eynon’s first leave. ‘And we’ll keep that tin of salmon. It’s his favourite
with a bit of salad.’
* * *
Eynon was bitterly regretting his decision to join up. Why had he listened to Freddy? The glorified portrayal of adventure and brave acts had stirred his imagination and thrilled his young mind, but the reality was very different from his dreams. The exercise had been something he had looked forward to with excitement. He considered himself a fit young man, running everywhere and rarely catching a bus. He was sure he’d show the rest how things should be done. He hadn’t been prepared for the long hours of marching with heavy kit and little prospect of a rest. Nor had the constant punishments entered into his thoughts. He was there because he had chosen to be, so why punish him for mistakes he couldn’t avoid? His attempts at humour were considered childlike and when he heard the others talking about their lives before they had joined up he realised how sheltered his own life had been. He was smaller than most and that too had been pounced upon as a likely subject for teasing.
Then there was Kipper, so called because of his constant smoking and the fact that he was so dark skinned and thin. He was a sadistic bully and as soon as he saw Eynon, he knew he had found his victim. For a while others took Eynon’s side but they quickly realised that if they wanted a reasonably peaceful existence they would have to turn the proverbial blind eye. Kipper tolerated no one else’s opinion. After just ten days, Eynon was on his own.
It wasn’t the unseen punches and kicks, or the constant ‘jokes’ of making his kit filthy just before inspection, or even the nail that had been driven up inside his boots before a five-mile run. It was the loneliness. He missed his family more than he had imagined. He had no one to talk to and he didn’t dare write home complaining.
* * *
People walking to the station in a steady stream to see husbands, sons and loved ones off was an almost daily sight. When Beth walked with Freddy one late August morning, her emotions were mixed. In tune with others on the same duty as herself, she looked suitably sad, but inside there was an air of relief. Ashamed of the sensation, she was nevertheless filled with the excitement of being on the verge of something new.
She had been dreading this day, and like many others wondered how she would cope. To her surprise she now knew she would cope very well. She couldn’t admit that to Freddy of course and although they said very little, she promised him she would write regularly and would miss him something awful.
Assurances were given that he would miss her too, but to the newly awakened Beth the words had the discordant ring of insincerity. She wondered whether, like herself, he welcomed the break from their very close and long relationship. The saying ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ seemed to her at that moment to be wishful thinking.
Their final kiss was less than heartwarming; with others watching and shedding a few tears, she felt uneasy, aware that her falseness matched Freddy’s as she clung to him briefly, anxious to be gone.
* * *
Mrs Downs returned to help in Piper’s Café and the smell lingered in the air for a while but soon faded. She had removed the kipper she had nailed to the back of a drawer and had thrown it into the tide. Huw watched and frowned but said nothing.
‘All the place needed was a good scrub,’ she said with a superior tilt to her head.
* * *
Bleddyn lived for letters from his sons. He didn’t hear from either of them often, but heard a little news from the letters Taff wrote to Evelyn.
Hannah didn’t make many attempts to keep in touch with Bleddyn. Knowing how much he disapproved of his younger son’s choice, she didn’t know how to be supportive now Johnny was away. She wanted to call, but Bleddyn had made his feelings quite clear on the evening of the farewell party and she was too unsure of her welcome.
She visited Huw and Marged, taking the children and staying for a cup of tea. At these times she was able to impart small items of news, which she hoped would be passed on to Johnny’s father. She still continued to help Maude and Myrtle with their reading and Moll was always pleased to see her. The news went in the other direction too. She was able to write to Johnny and tell him of the daily happenings and keep him in touch with the Piper businesses while he was away.
The news of embarkation leave was something Bleddyn was dreading. The night the news had reached him, via a brief letter and a visit from Taff’s wife, Evelyn, he was unable to relax. He went for a walk along the edge of the tide, the gentle shushing of the waves soothing his taut nerves. Sitting on the wall, a man’s overcoat draped around her, was Olive.
‘Can’t sleep either?’ he asked, sitting beside her and staring out to sea.
‘I know it doesn’t really make sense, but I feel this is the closest I can get to Ronnie,’ she said. ‘He’s over there somewhere, beyond that land and over another great stretch of water, but this is the closest I can get.’
‘I can’t explain why I came,’ Bleddyn said. ‘I just couldn’t sleep and this seemed a good place to come and think back on how good life was until this damned war opened its hungry jaws and took our boys.’
‘I wish I’d appreciated the happy times more,’ Olive sighed. ‘I fought Ronnie, told him I hated working on the beach. I tried so hard to persuade him to leave and get a better job. Now, seeing how people need the nonsense, the laughter and the escape we offer here… well, I know its value and wish I’d known it before. Ronnie and I would have been happier. I wish I’d helped more and complained less.’
‘I’ve been told that both my sons will be coming home on embarkation leave, and you know what that means.’
‘It means you have to hide your fears and be cheerful and let them be happy.’ She smiled. ‘We’ll all be accomplished actors by the time this lot is over, won’t we?’
‘You’re right, and they’ll go back smiling. Thank you, love, you’re a good kid and Ronnie is a lucky devil to be married to you.’
‘I’ll make sure he knows it when he comes on leave.’ She smiled again. ‘How are Evelyn and Hannah coping? They must be frightened too. I know; I’ve been through it, remember.’
‘Evelyn is putting on a brave face – for my sake, I think - but I don’t know about Hannah. She – well, she can’t be a serious girlfriend for our Johnny, can she? She so much older and with two children an’ all.’
‘From what I’ve seen of them it’s very serious. Johnny loves her very much, and her children. You should go and see them; it’s what Johnny would want, you keeping an eye on them for him.’
‘I don’t think she’d want to see me, I’ve never been very friendly.’
‘Then it’s time you were.’ She smiled to ease the criticism and said, ‘Come on, what about a bag of chips before we go for the bus?’
‘Chips? When I run a chip shop most of the year?’
‘Why not? You can pretend you’re checking on the competition!’
* * *
The beach was as full as it could possibly be. Whereas in low season families came and found a circle of sand to call their own, now the tide was high during the afternoon and there were so many trippers flooding into the bay that there wasn’t the space to offer any prospect of temporary ownership. Buckets and spades, sun hats and windmills as well as the rest of the paraphernalia of the day out became mingled with the group next along, and cardigans disappeared under sand as people walked past trying to find a place to sit and spread themselves out. The smell of wet sand filled everyone’s nostrils and the children glowed with the sun and happiness that only a holiday beach can provide. And still they came. Marged and Beth were serving meals without a moment’s rest from the time they opened the café doors.
The wind got up during the afternoons, and Beth ran up and down the steps gathering trays and returning deposits, afraid to leave the trays of china for the users to return, knowing from past experience that some would be lost under the spraying sand or be broken under careless feet. The number of spoons they lost each season was countless, even though the deposit slip clearly marked every item.
* * *
<
br /> Shirley was back working in the paper shop. As with so many other businesses, the men had disappeared and women were in demand. She went back with fewer hours and a ten-shilling increase in wages.
She had worked in the shop for as long as she could remember, standing beside her father and mother, going with her dad to the wholesaler to collect the odd magazine and to pay the weekly account. Helping to carry newspapers out on to the bogie cart her father had made for the paper boys to use on their deliveries was something she had done as soon as she was strong enough, and when she was eight she had been given a round of her own, with money at the end of each week.
She had been only six when her father had left to live somewhere else, and twelve years old when he disappeared from her life completely. She remembered the confusion of her thoughts when she was told he would never come back. For a long time she had looked at people in the street hoping it had been a mistake and he would suddenly appear.
Now she looked at the old bogie cart and wondered whether she could tow it behind her as she had done years ago. Experimentally she pulled it around the small yard behind the shop. If the paper boy let them down again, she might try. Pulling it up Grantly Rise and Channel View Avenue might be less of a struggle than having that heavy bag on her shoulders, she thought with a wry smile.
Shirley was puzzled by her mother’s attitude towards the Pipers. She had been told the story about her mother’s grandparents losing the business because of Moll Piper’s grandparents, but there were stories about lost wealth in every family, apocryphal, the stuff of legends. She had always thought the story about the Pipers was the same. Her mother had hinted about something else, something equally wicked, but Shirley had put that down to a desire to keep the story alive, to continue the hatred, nothing more.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 44