Her heart was racing and she had begun to move away when the door was opened and a rosy-faced woman of about fifty stood there. Her arms covered in flour, her apron folded up and held to save spilling more flour on to the shining doorstep, she stood there smiling. The appetising smell of apples cooking issued forth around her.
‘I hope you’re not selling nothing, love. Broke I am,’ she said at once.
‘I heard about the death of Phil, I knew him from taking things to be repaired in his shop. I have a photograph, taken when we met by accident over the beach last summer. Cyril the Snap took it, thinking we knew each other, and I was curious to see how I looked so I bought it.’ She held out the rather tatty snap. ‘I thought his wife might like it, see, and as it’s no real use to me as I didn’t know him, I thought I’d bring it for her.’
‘For who, love?’
‘Like I said, for his wife.’
‘Phil wasn’t married, never had been. Plenty of women, mind, never no shortage of women with my Phil, but never no wife.’
The street seemed to spin, the houses dancing as though in some crazy dream. Lilly reached out to grab the door frame for support and instead found herself held in the woman’s arms and being guided inside the house. The once delicious smell from the apples began to make her nauseous. She thought she might be sick. She also thought that the sharp scent of apples cooking would always bring back memories of that moment.
‘Is it Phil’s child you’re carrying?’ Mrs Denver asked in a matter-of-fact tone as she helped her visitor to drink some hot, sweet tea. ‘Told the tale of being married regular he did, so’s not to be expected to marry them.’
’Them?’ Lilly asked, her voice slurred, her mouth dry.
‘Two children he’s got and I never see a hair of eithier of them. I know they’re both boys, but I don’t even know their names. Sad it is, not even being able to send them a card on their birthdays or a present at Christmas.’
She saw the ring on Lilly’s finger then and hurriedly apologised. ‘Oh, you’re married. Sorry, I thought – oh dear, I’ve really said the wrong thing. Just a friend, are you, genuine friend and nothing more?’
Lilly took off the ring and placed it on the plush-covered table. ‘It was my gran’s,’ she explained. ‘I thought Phil’s wife would believe the story of us hardly knowing each other if I pretended to be a married woman. I didn’t want to distress her with the truth.’
‘Such a kind girl you are. Here, let me get you another cup of tea – and a piece of my tart wouldn’t go amiss, I’ll be bound. Sugar for shock don’t they say? And I put half my extra Christmas ration in that tart!’
Lilly was trembling and Mrs Denver sat and talked to her, coaxing her to drink the tea. She urged her to eat the oversweet tart on to which she had sprinkled even more sugar.
As Lilly calmed down they talked, Lilly explaining that she had kept Phil’s identity a secret in respect for his non-existent wife. Phil’s mother told her of her disappointment over her son’s behaviour.
‘Now he’s gone and I’ve no real family left,’ Mrs Denver said sadly. ‘Only a sister who lives in London who I never see, and two grandchildren I’ll never be allowed to meet.’ She looked at the distraught girl sitting huddled close to the fire trying in vain to warm away the chill within her, and said, ‘Will you come and see me? When the baby’s born, I mean? I know I can’t be a real grandmother, you and Phil not being wed and all, but I could be a sort of friend, couldn’t I?’
Looking up into the round, motherly face, Lilly smiled shakily and said, ‘I’d like that. I’ve a feeling I’ll need a few friends once the secret is out.’
‘When is she due?’ Mrs Denver asked, her deep blue eyes shining with happiness. ‘I’ll be able to start counting the weeks.’
‘Some time in May, early in the month I think.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Mam and Dad don’t think so,’ Lilly grumbled, then, having explained about Piper’s Café and the stalls, she added, ‘I’ll be expected to work on the beach or the chip shop as soon as I’m out of bed!’
‘Then stay there for an extra week or so!’ Mrs Denver said with a laugh. ‘Men don’t like to ask questions when it’s to do with women’s problems, do they?’
‘To be honest, I’ve worked that out myself.’ Lilly gave a tentative smile. ‘I haven’t done much work since I knew this little one was on the way.’
‘Good on you. Take advantage of it. We don’t get many opportunities in life!’
Like two conspirators they talked about the beach and how it would not be good for the baby, at least for the first two years.
‘I’ll have to find some way of earning money, though,’ Lilly said. ‘I don’t want to lean on Mam and Dad for ever.’
‘Plenty of work about with this war on,’ Mrs Denver said confidently. ‘Factory work pays well and you can easily find someone to look after the little girl.’
‘You said “she” and now “little girl”; are you so sure?’ Lilly asked curiously.
‘Never been wrong yet. The others were boys,’ she added sadly.
Lilly walked to the bus stop with her new friend and felt happier about the forthcoming birth than at any time since it had been confirmed.
* * *
Huw was disappointed by Marged’s reaction to the new sign above the chip shop and café. Although he hung around as often as he could, she saw it for the first time when he was not there. She went to speak to Bleddyn about something and walked in without noticing it. As she was on the way out, Beth called, ‘Hello, Mam. What d’you think of the new sign, then?’
It took a split second for Marged to realise what had happened and, having her back to Beth and Bleddyn as she pushed her way through the queue of customers, she was able to hide her initial fury. She walked on through the shop and out on to the pavement, then looked up at the brand new sign and nodded casually at them.
‘Very nice,’ was all she said before walking on.
‘She took that well,’ was Beth’s comment.
‘I wouldn’t fancy being in your Dad’s shoes, all the same,’ Bleddyn laughed as he shook salt and vinegar on to a bag of chips.
Marged didn’t go straight home. She went to the sign-writing business, which was now run by the once retired father and uncle of the owner, who was now painting camouflage on army lorries, guns and tanks.
‘There’s been a terrible mistake, Mr Morton. The sign was ordered and paid for by Mr Castle, but the sign should have read “Piper’s”.’
She spoke briskly and with an edge of irritation at their incompetence, so that they hovered over their order book and both agreed that they could see how easily the mistake could have been made.
‘I’ll be generous, considering the mistake was yours,’ she told them, and offered to pay a small sum for the correct sign – the old one repainted, for quickness - to be erected on the following Sunday.
‘Sunday? We don’t usually work on a Sunday, Mrs Castle.’
‘No? But then, I don’t suppose you usually make a mistake and paint the wrong name on a sign for a long-established business, do you?’
They agreed to fix the old sign, repainted, on Sunday morning.
* * *
Lilly went to see Mrs Denver a week after her first visit and once again the lady was baking.
Lilly wondered where she found the ingredients and Mrs Denver smiled as though reading her thoughts.
‘I do a bit of cooking for the café down the road,’ she explained. ‘Get an allowance they do and I’m good at ekeing out the stuff and making more for them to sell. Tell the truth, Lilly, love, I use smaller tins too and a slice of cake is a slice of cake, eh? Nobody bothers to measure it, do they?’
It was obvious from her home that Mrs Denver was far from wealthy, but one day she insisted on going shopping to buy what they could for the baby.
After an initial refusal, Lilly agreed. She could see that Mrs Denver wanted to be a part of the baby’s life and with her on
ly son dead, there was no other family for her to cherish, so she agreed.
As she explained to Beth a few weeks later, ‘I can always find ways of repaying her, give her things she needs and won’t be able to buy.’
* * *
Beth went to see Freddy’s parents one morning and when she went into the living room she was instantly aware of an atmosphere. Then she saw a forage cap on the arm of the sofa.
‘Is that Freddy’s? Is he here?’ she asked, excitement mixed with confusion. ‘He didn’t tell me he was coming on leave.’
‘Well, I—’
Mrs Clements seemed unable to decide what to say and suspicion coloured Beth’s face as she began to walk towards the door. ‘He told you not to tell me, didn’t he?’ Then there was the sound of feet running down the stairs and Freddy burst in.
‘Beth, love. How did you know I was home? It was meant to be a surprise!’
She wasn’t sure she believed him, but it was easier to pretend so she joined in the joke, telling Mrs Clements she wasn’t a very convincing liar and telling Freddy he was a dreadful tease.
‘Back to camp tomorrow, mind. This was so short it was hardly worth the fare, except that I had to see you,’ he told her when his mother had left the room.
‘What d’you want to do, then?’ she asked, expecting him to say, ‘the pictures’, as usual.
‘I want to walk in the dark and kiss you and tell you how much I love you,’ he said.
‘I did have something arranged for this afternoon but it’s easily cancelled. And I’ll go and see Uncle Bleddyn; I’m sure he’ll find someone else to take my place lunchtime and tonight,’ Beth responded, pleasantly surprised.
‘No, love, it’s impossible. That’s what I want to do, but it isn’t what I have to do. Special leave this is. I have to go and see the wife of a chap who was killed a week ago. I promised him that if he – you know – if he didn’t come back, I would go and see his wife and children. Take the letter he left with me.’
‘Oh Freddy, not even an hour?’
‘Hell of a war, this, isn’t it, love? I want to be with my girl but I can’t even spend an afternoon telling her how much I miss her.’
‘You were going to call, though?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘On the way back to the station, yes. Just time to tell you how much I love you and miss you.’ They kissed and hugged each other but it was clear that Freddy wanted her to go and disconsolately she walked back to Sidney Street and changed out of her best clothes for the two hours serving fish and chips and the ever more mysterious rissoles.
When she finished clearing up after the lunchtime session, she didn’t go home. Instead she walked to Goose Lane. She supposed she might as well keep the arrangement she had made. The disappointment with Freddy was something she was becoming used to.
Peter had an unexpected pre-Christmas leave. He wasn’t able to tell her why, but she gathered that there was a meeting he’d had to attend. She knew from a few things he had let slip that he was involved with codes and cyphers and she wondered whether he was involved with men working behind enemy lines. She wondered, but didn’t ask. Peter was easy to talk to and open about everything else, but his work was a strictly forbidden subject.
He and Beth had planned to spend an hour or two cleaning up the small grave. She walked up and he was waiting for her at the gates, with a few tools in a bag beside him. Audrey and a slightly embarrassed Wilf met them there and, armed with their selection of assorted tools, they began to clean the stone and make the inscription easy to read.
It was cold, frosty and damp, and as soon as they broke through the soil they were surrounded by an unpleasant earthy smell which seemed to permeate their clothes. They were soon scratched and bleeding from the determination of the brambles to defy their efforts to remove them, and Peter and Wilf, who was now fully involved, tried to persuade the two women to leave it to them.
They organised a rota with each man taking it in turns digging out a root and passing it to the other to be cut and packed for removal. When the pathetically small grave was cleared, a rose bush planted and seeds of forget-me-nots scattered, Beth and Peter walked away leaving Audrey and Wilf to remember and grieve.
‘It was so cruel for Auntie Audrey to have to grieve alone, and for Wilf never to have been allowed to see their child.’
‘It was considered to be such a disgrace, wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose Granny Moll thought she was doing the best thing.’
‘I would never have allowed anything like that to happen to you, Beth. I would have fought and fought for you, whatever the family thought.’
‘Would you, Peter?’
‘I care for you, Beth, you know that, and I’d never let anything bad happen to you.’ He put an arm around her and pulled her against him. She relaxed against the strength of him, knowing she only had to raise her head to share the kiss that was waiting for her. The moment was fraught with longing, and slowly Beth moved closer. A flash of Freddy’s face drifted across her mind and was discarded together with his lies and cheating. This was now, and Peter was showing her a different future. Why should she hesitate?
Then over Peter’s shoulder she saw Audrey and Wilf, and the sight of them, familiar, a part of the real world, the world in which she had promised Freddy she’d be his wife, brought her down to earth. Moving reluctantly away from Peter, her hand grasping his as if through the door of a prison, her inside and him unattainable on the outside, she called to the other couple, ‘Peter’s father has invited us back for a cup of tea. All right?’
They all went back to the house on Goose Lane and took the smell of the dank graveside with them. Mr Gregory offered tea and as darkness brought an end to the day, Peter took them all back to Sidney Street on the cart. He looked at Beth longingly as she stepped down and she felt aching regret as, with tears welling, she turned away.
Twelve
Shirley’s mother was beginning to wish she had not encouraged her daughter to befriend Freddy Clements. All she had hoped for was to separate the boy from Beth to spite the Castles and give them some grief. Now it seemed that her daughter Shirley was more involved that she had intended. Freddy was a nice enough boy, she mused, and while he had worked for the gents’ outfitters, a likely prospect as a husband. But now he was in the army as a regular, and that meant absences and opportunities to seek the company of other women. Nice he might be, but trustworthy he was not, she decided. She knew from bitterly learnt lessons that most men were weak when faced with temptation or the demands of a strongly sexual woman. She didn’t want Shirley to have the same disappointments as herself. Freddy Clements was vain, and the type of man who’d be as easily flattered as her husband Paul had been.
‘Don’t you think you could do better than Freddy?’ she asked her daughter one morning as she was getting her coat on ready to go to work. ‘You won’t see much of him, even after this war is over, him being a regular.’
‘Five years he’s signed for, not life. He’ll be out when he’s twenty-three, Mam. He could go back to the shop – or perhaps he’ll learn a trade while he’s in the army and come out qualified to do something better.’
‘You’ve talked about it, then? You and him, after the war?’
‘Talked about it, yes, but not him and me. He’s engaged to Beth Castle, isn’t he? I just provide a bit of company now and then.’
‘As long as that’s all you’re providing!’
‘I don’t think he and Beth are all that well suited, mind,’ Shirley replied, ignoring her mother’s remark. ‘A bit boring she is. Doesn’t like dancing and Freddy loves it. She won’t go into a café because she would rather eat at home.’
‘Not surprising she won’t eat in cafés, she works in them most of the year!’
‘She doesn’t like the pictures, she only goes to please him – and I bet she makes sure he knows it, too!’
‘And you’re better suited, you and Freddy?’
‘I think so. He just got trapped wi
th Beth Castle. They started off at infant school and it’s nothing more than habit that kept them together all this time.’
‘Be warned that if he’s unfaithful to Beth, he could be the same with you. I know what it’s like living with a man who doesn’t remain faithful. Laughing at me he was, your father.’
‘Just friends we are, Mam, that’s all.’
‘Them Castles are no better than they should be,’ Hetty Downs sniffed, wrapping a thick scarf around her head. ‘Lilly expecting and not saying – perhaps not even knowing – who the father is!’
‘Lilly’s all right. It’s Beth I don’t like. At least Lilly’s ready for a bit of fun.’
‘And she’s got a souvenir of some man’s “fun”, hasn’t she? Don’t make the same mistake, Shirley. A man doesn’t respect women who’re easy.’
Shirley smiled to herself. What made people think sex was a chore for women and only fun for a man? She knew better than that!
Hetty dragged on her short, fur-lined boots and picked up her handbag and umbrella. ‘Got to go. It’s mornings like this when I wish I still worked in the shop below. At least you haven’t got to face the icy cold weather and walk to that icy cold factory.’
‘You’ve forgotten quick! The shop door open all the time, and only a small electric fire for a few hours? Frozen stiff I am, long before you get to your factory!’
They both thought about Freddy during the morning, Shirley wondering how soon she could suggest to him that he broke off his engagement to Beth, and Hetty wondering how she could break them apart. Neither was concerned about Beth. If they considered her at all, it was with the casual attitude that she deserved to be abandoned by Freddy because she did nothing to try and keep him.
* * *
In Audrey’s house the post arrived and was casually put on a small table to be inspected later. When Ronnie came down he saw that one of the letters was headed OHMS and he opened it to learn that he was to attend a medical examination to see whether he was fit to return to active service.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 57