‘Fire. The café’s on fire, you’d better come quick.’
By good fortune, a courting couple had passed when the fire near the door of the café was slowly gathering momentum, and they quickly alerted the fire brigade. Their response was fast. Lights had to be extinguished as fast as possible, fires in particular, in case they were intended to be a signal to the Luftwaffe. When Marged, Huw, Bleddyn, Beth and Lilly, who looked decidedly sick, tumbled out of the van, the flames were all but out, but the dining area was a smoking ruin.
The café was made mostly of wood, and they had expected to see nothing left but a pile of smouldering ashes, but from the outside the walls looked undamaged. Inside, however, they saw that the floor, in places, was burnt right through. The sight of the sand and a couple of abandoned deckchairs below, visible with the aid of brief flashes of the firemen’s torches, gave them a sick, dizzy sensation akin to vertigo. This was a view they hadn’t seen before.
It was difficult to assess the damage to the rest of the place but on inspection with the weak, shaded torches, it appeared that the walls were mostly firm, just blackened, the once neat paint now blistered.
Lilly felt sickness overwhelm her. She and Phil must be responsible for this. They had smoked, left their cigarette ends; they must have forgotten to make sure they were completely out. She tried to think clearly about whether Phil had slipped the evidence of their clandestine visit into a cigarette packet to be thrown away later, as he usually did, but everything was a blur. Her memory jerked from one thing to another and wouldn’t settle down. All she could think of was seeing their cigarettes balanced on the edge of a matchbox.
No one else could have started it; there hadn’t been time. How could she tell her parents and Granny Moll that she was the cause of this terrible disaster? Just lately it had been one problem after another. In a few hours Phil would be far away and she wouldn’t see him for months. She needed to talk to him. He’d help her decide what to do about all this.
A taxi drew up as they were locking up as best they could and preparing to leave. Moll stepped out and stared at the still smoking mess that had been Piper’s Café.
‘Oh, my God, look at it! Oh, my God, what happened? How will we sort it? Oh, Marged, what will we do? Who did this?’
Lilly was shaking but she went to her grandmother and hugged her, tears for herself being mistaken for tears for Moll. ‘Granny Moll, the season’s finished. We’ll have it sorted long before next year. It isn’t as bad as it looks.’ She held Moll more tightly and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You’re sorry? You aren’t to blame. But whoever did this will be sorry all right,’ Moll sobbed. ‘Piper’s, gone. I can’t believe it.’
‘It isn’t gone,’ Lilly soothed. ‘Dad and Uncle Bleddyn will have it looking better than before in plenty of time for next year’s opening.’
Marged looked at her elder daughter in surprise. She hadn’t expected Lilly to be the one offering sympathy to her grandmother. It would have been more in character for Lilly to cheer to see Piper’s go up in smoke. Perhaps she had misjudged the girl.
There was nothing more they could do. They all went back to Sidney Street, Beth and Lilly walking with Uncle Bleddyn, Moll in the van with Marged and Huw. Beth told Bleddyn about the mysterious cigarette ash that had been found several times and the suspicion that someone had been using the place after they had locked up and gone home.
Lilly said nothing. She was still trying to decide what to do. By the time she reached home, she had made up her mind that, having allowed so much time to pass without confessing, the wisest move was to do nothing and say nothing. The moment to confess had passed. Besides, there were other things on her mind – predominantly, Phil Martin.
* * *
As the van driven by Huw turned the corner into Sidney Street, Moll lurched against him and at first he thought she had fallen asleep. ‘Get her off me, Marged, I can’t drive with her leaning over me. Poor old girl, she’s exhausted. I’d better get her straight home.’
Marged tried but couldn’t rouse her mother. Standing at their front door was Audrey, with Maude and Myrtle dressed in night-clothes with blankets over their shoulders. Huw stopped and leaned over to open the passenger door, calling for Audrey to, ‘Come and help your mam, fallen asleep she has. Would you believe it?’
Moll wasn’t asleep. The shock of the last few hours had brought on a sudden heart attack which had ended her life. Audrey was now the only Piper left.
Seven
The fire at Piper’s Café and the death of Moll Piper caused quite a stir in the town of St David’s Well. Moll had been a familiar figure and had been well liked. Her death so quickly after the fire seemed to make it a greater tragedy and people speculating about how the fire had begun suggested reasons that varied from spite for the family’s success to enemy action!
A pale Marged seemed suddenly older, supporting her sister Audrey, both of them busy making preparations for the funeral in three days’ time. Beth and her father looked stunned. Lilly sat and cried. Maude and Myrtle looked scared.
‘We’ll have to leave, there’s no doubt about it,’ Maude whispered to her young sister. ‘Now Granny Moll has gone, the others won’t want us hanging around.’
‘Where will we go?’ Myrtle asked as they sat, shivering, in the yard behind Moll’s house.
‘Don’t know, but we’ll find somewhere warm for the winter.’
‘Perhaps they’ll let us stay till the spring and we can work on the sands again.’
‘Maude? Myrtle? Are you out there?’ Audrey called and they grabbed each other’s hand for comfort and went inside.
‘We have to go to the shops, you’ll need some dark clothes for the day of the funeral,’ Audrey told them. ‘Get your best shoes on and we’ll go straight away.’
The dresses and cardigans she chose for them were too large and in a style unsuitable for their youth. The clothes made them look smaller and thinner but they didn’t care. ‘It’ll be extra layers to wear when we leave,’ Maude whispered. ‘Perhaps we’ll be able to steal a couple of blankets too. I don’t think Granny Moll would mind if we took the spare ones in the old trunk, do you?’
‘Why did she have to go an’ die?’ Myrtle sobbed.
Cards of sympathy arrived for the family, cold, stark white ones with an edging of black. Myrtle was frightened by seeing them standing along the mantelpiece.
‘Perhaps we should buy one?’ Maude suggested.
‘Perhaps.’ Myrtle didn’t look convinced. The sight of them made her shiver.
Marged didn’t like the clothes Audrey had bought for the girls. ‘They’re miles too big. They make them look like orphans.’
‘That’s what they are!’
‘Just because they’re orphans they don’t have to look like them!’
‘They’ll only be worn once, it wasn’t worth spending more,’ Audrey defended her decision.
‘Then why did you buy them to fit them in two years’ time?’
There wasn’t time to go back and change them so they had to suffice. The days went quickly and everyone had jobs to do to ensure the smooth running of the funeral and the gathering afterwards at the house.
They had heard nothing more about Eynon, though there had been several further visits from the military police. Nevertheless, Marged wrote to Eynon at the only address she knew to tell him about the death of his grandmother. ‘Surely he’ll be found and given leave to attend,’ she said to Huw. Huw nodded agreement, but knew the letter, like all the others, would receive no reply. Wherever Eynon was, he was in a situation in which he couldn’t make contact.
* * *
Staggering along the unmade road for a few yards, Eynon had known he couldn’t hope to catch up with his group. He looked around him, moving his head slowly to avoid the pain such movement produced. There was no light to be seen. Everywhere was blackness and he felt the openness of wild countryside surrounding him. He had to sleep. Taking his groundsheet from his pack
took ages but eventually he lay down and, wrapping it around him, slept.
When he woke the day was far from new. He guessed that evening was approaching and he had practically slept the clock around. A wound on his head had bled profusely and was stuck to his great-coat. He stood and looked around. He could hear the trickle of water and made his way to where he could wash the wound. Examining it carefully he felt the damage. It was large and gaping and needed attention, but attention it wouldn’t get. He was not going back to accept punishment for Kipper’s cruelty. However long this war lasted, he wasn’t going back.
* * *
The funeral of Moll Piper was a small one. With so many men away fighting the war, and no women allowed at the cemetery for the brief service, the huddle of men surrounding the grave was fewer than a dozen.
Huw and Bleddyn stood together and wished their sons were safe at home and able to stand with them. Neighbours and those who worked the beach were represented although, like the Castles, their numbers were reduced by the call-up.
Bleddyn knew that his sons, Taff and Johnny, would be there had they not been overseas, and Huw thought of Ronnie, from whom they hadn’t heard for several weeks. Bleddyn had seen Johnny’s girlfriend, Hannah, at the house with the rest of the women, and he had managed to have a word with Marged and Beth to ask them to make her welcome.
Bernard Gregory was there with his son, Peter, who was on leave. Few greetings were exchanged but the young man seemed aloof, as though the death of an old friend was unimportant and he was there under sufferance. At twenty-seven, Peter had already seen so much death he was unaffected by the loss of the old lady, but he comforted his father and made all the right noises to the family. He felt no strong emotion and had no need to hide his tears behind a handkerchief as his father did. He tried to pretend, but could not.
He had been in the army since before war broke out, spending time in France and Holland and Germany and witnessing at first hand atrocities which had not yet come to light. Now he was in the intelligence service, still dropping into enemy-held territory, forming resistance groups, extending his knowledge and, recently, sending others into danger. It was impossible to witness so much without becoming immune to the display of sadness at the death of Granny Molly Piper. He was there solely to support his father, although he had known and liked Moll.
As with many others, the beach had been his playground as a child. He had helped his father as soon as he grew old enough, running with the donkeys, helping to look after them during the winter as well as the summer. Calling into the café or begging sweets from one of the stalls, he had grown up as part of the wider family of beach traders, knowing them all, calling them aunties and uncles, safe under their watchful eyes. Yet seeing the sad faces around the open grave, something in him had hardened. Moll had been nearly seventy-five and she’d had a good life compared with the eighteen-year-old he had seen die two days previously. He felt a surge of impatience and wanted to be gone.
‘You’ll come back to the house, Peter?’ Huw asked. Although he had been about to shake his head, a glance at his father’s face told him he would be needed there.
‘Just for half an hour,’ he said, leading them towards the pony and cart waiting at the cemetery gate. ‘I’ve no wish to listen to eulogies about a woman who, by dying, has become a saint!’
Bernard was aware of some of his son’s experiences and understood his attitude.
‘I’ve known Moll since I was a snotty-nosed kid,’ Bernard said to his son as the sturdy Welsh cob trotted towards Sidney Street. ‘Your mam and I did our courting under that café, freezing cold in the winter, or huddled among the rows and rows of deckchairs in the summer. When you were born Moll and her Joseph came to the house and brought us some hand-knitted clothes and a blanket for your cot as though we were both part of her own family. Miss her something awful I will.’
‘No one likes to lose a friend.’ Peter was thinking about his young, innocent friend who had died a couple of days before.
‘Besides the loss of a friend,’ his father went on, as the pony walked lazily through the streets, ‘besides knowing I’ll never see old Moll again, it’s a warning to get my own life in order. I’m on the front line now, in a row facing the last trumpet.’
‘Come on, Dad!’ Peter turned and smiled with strong affection at his solemn-faced father. ‘You’ve got a long way to go yet, and besides, we’re supposed to cheer the relatives today, not remind them of their mortality.’
‘There won’t be one around my age who won’t be thinking the same,’ Bernard defended.
When they arrived at the house of Moll and Audrey Piper, there was a knot of neighbours outside, arms folded, leaning towards each other with words of praise for Moll, sympathy for the family and whispered criticism of the hats. Pushing past them, his tall figure in the smart uniform very impressive, his blue eyes carrying an air of authority, Peter went to find Beth.
The front room, rarely used, which Moll had called the parlour, was full of people, all in dark clothes, moving sluggishly like a tide caught against the sea wall, a seething homogenous mass of humanity. Heads were bowed and voices were slow and low. The curtains across the windows added to the gloom and Peter thought they looked as though they had been drenched in black treacle.
He thought the crowded room smelled of decay, filled as it was with the strong odour of stale clothes, dampness and mothballs. Dull clothes suitable for funerals were kept in the backs of wardrobes; suits and bowler hats for the men and, for the women, ill-fitting black dresses smelling slightly of damp and hats with the greenish tinge of mildew. These had all been brought out, brushed, and worn as a mark of respect for the dead. Tomorrow they would return to their dark places to await the next solemn occasion.
Peter found Beth, her mother and her Auntie Audrey in the kitchen where the air was cleaner, attending to the wants of their guests. Olive had broken down and was talking to Uncle Bleddyn, who was trying to reassure her about Ronnie’s lack of letters.
‘Never you mind, Olive, love. Ronnie is a thoughtful boy and he’ll get a letter to you as fast as he can, but there are bound to be times when it’s difficult. He won’t be able to trot down to the corner and pop it in the pillar box as easy as you can, will he?’
Peter waved at Beth who looked up in surprise.
‘Peter? How kind of you to come.’ She offered a hand, which he took, pulling her forward and kissing her.
‘Beth! How grown up you look. It seems everyone has changed in the time I’ve been away.’ His voice was carefully modulated, the accent no longer familiar.
When they had exchanged a few pleasantries, Marged handed Peter two plates of food. ‘Take these for you and your father in case he can’t get to the table, will you, Peter? There’s a love.’
When Peter had obediently struggled out of the kitchen in search of his father, Auntie Audrey mimicked his voice. ‘“Beth, how you’ve grown.” Fancy talk for a boy who ran with the donkeys, eh?’
‘None of your, “Hi yer, how’ve you bin?”,’ Marged agreed. ‘Always fancied himself, that one.’
Beth blushed a little, afraid Peter might have heard and been embarrassed. When the food was more or less dealt with, she went to find him. With Freddy so poor at writing letters, she needed to understand something about life in the forces. Through Peter Gregory, she might learn something about the way Freddy lived, even though he was in a different service.
‘To say that Freddy is not very good at writing letters is an understatement,’ she laughingly told Peter. ‘Three the first week, one the next – and that was to ask for money! And it’s now two weeks since I’ve heard from him. I hear from my brother Ronnie more often than Freddy,’ she sighed. ‘Although we haven’t heard from him for a while.’
‘I don’t write to Dad as often as I should,’ Peter confessed. ‘Walking into the barracks is stepping into a separate world, an alien place where none of the normal rules apply. We cope better by forgetting how things were and concent
rating on how they are. I’m part of that different world, Beth, so I can understand how he feels; being taken away from everything familiar, dealing with the day-to-day activities that often make very little sense, pretending the people I share my life with are my friends. It’s better to cut yourself off from the real world and accept the artificial one. That way you might survive. So don’t be hurt when he doesn’t write. He’s coping with something he was never prepared for, a way of life he would never have chosen.’
He pointed to the corner near the fireplace, now visible as the crowd was thinning. ‘Who are those girls?’
‘Maude and Myrtle, the two girls I found living on the streets and stealing food to survive.’ She explained about the food left out for them outside Piper’s Café, and the devious way she had tracked them down. ‘Maude was ill and poor little Myrtle was trying to keep them both safe. Granny Moll took them in and, as they refused to go back to the children’s home and Granny Moll agreed to be responsible for them, they’ve stayed with us ever since.’
‘What’s going to happen to them now your grandmother has gone? From the anxious look on their faces, that seems to be their question too.’ Maude and Myrtle sat huddled together, two pale, thin children dressed in the over-large and sombre clothes, silently watching the people come and go. ‘Dresses chosen for suitability rather than flattery, by the look of them,’ Peter whispered.
Beth walked over to the silent girls and Peter followed.
‘Has Auntie Audrey spoken to you yet?’ Beth asked. ‘About what’s going to happen?’
‘No, but we know she’ll be telling us to go,’ Maude said stiffly. ‘Stands to reason. Now Auntie Audrey and that Wilf Thomas can get married, they won’t want us hanging around, getting in the way, for sure.’
‘Nonsense! There’s no question of you going anywhere. Auntie Audrey needs you for company in that big old house.’
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 46