Holidays at Home Omnibus

by Wait Till Summer; Swingboats On the Sand; Waiting for Yesterday; Day Trippers; Unwise Promises; Street Parties (retail) (epub)

  She felt tearful at times and knew it was because she was not happy, in spite of what she told Ken. London was a fascinating place and she knew she would never grow tired of exploring on her own or with Ken when he was free, or with one of his sisters. But deep inside she was homesick for the small seaside town in South Wales.

  It was probably the manner of her leaving. The sudden end to her engagement to Johnny and the death of her mother had made it a frenzied decision, taken without proper thought. The unexpected return of the three evacuees who had been taken back to London by their mother, had added to her distress. Teresa Love had been present when Eirlys’s mother had been killed and she had brought the boys back to St David’s Well, purporting to comfort Eirlys’s father, Morgan, and herself. Morgan had been delighted to see them. Stanley, Harold and little Percival filled his life and helped ease the pain of his wife’s death. Teresa was a consoling friend. She told everyone she was there only for a brief visit but she had quickly settled in with every intention of staying.

  Finding her father in bed with the boys’ mother so soon after her mother’s funeral had meant Eirlys had felt unable to return home and the longer she delayed a return visit, the harder it was to contemplate walking into the house that had once been her home. She knew that her present confusion was because she hadn’t stayed and sorted everything out in her mind before moving on. Perhaps a visit home would help to settle her emotionally and allow her to make a fresh start.

  ‘I think I might go home when I can get a Saturday morning off,’ she told Ken as they waited for the train. ‘I’ve left it too long to face Teresa Love and my father.’

  ‘Good idea. You’ll feel better for seeing your father, and the evacuees. You miss them, don’t you?’ He looked at her quizzically and added, ‘Good for you to see Johnny too, see how you feel about him.’

  ‘I know how I feel about him! I thought I loved him and now I know it was nothing more than a loving friendship. I hope I’ll always be his loving friend. Hannah’s too.’

  ‘It’s Easter very soon. The eleventh of April is good Friday. Why don’t you go then?’

  ‘Not yet. Perhaps in a month or two.’

  ‘Go, Eirlys. When you’ve seen your father and Teresa and the three boys you’ll come back more relaxed about your father’s new family. Think of Stanley, Harold and Percival, the three musketeers. You’ll be happy seeing them so settled and reunited with their mother.’

  ‘Dadda is living with her. Teresa has taken Mam’s place and it was only weeks after Mam died that she moved in. How can I face him and pretend I’m pleased?’

  ‘Blame the war. Everyone seems to be grabbing what happiness they can in case it all ends tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s too simple an answer.’

  ‘You father can’t cope alone. Most of us need someone, the other half of the coin; we aren’t complete in ourselves. With your mother gone and you leaving straight afterwards, well, not many would blame him,’ he said softly.

  ‘All right. Ken. I’ll go.’

  * * *

  Shirley Downs was the first to see Eirlys when she walked out of the station late on Thursday evening two weeks later. Shirley had been delivering some monthly magazines that she considered too heavy for the young paper boy to carry. Eirlys tried to avoid her. The reminder that Shirley had been the cause of her friend Beth Castle and Freddy Clements ending their engagement, overlaid any truth that it had been a good thing. She blamed her. She had to blame someone in support of Beth.

  Putting down the last of the magazines in a porch doorway, Shirley ran to to join her. Eirlys forced her stiff expression into a casual smile.

  ‘Hi yer! Come back to open your shop, have you?’ Shirley teased, taking the small suitcase from her and walking along beside her.

  ‘No chance of that,’ Eirlys replied. ‘I chose the wrong time to start something new, with the war and everything.’

  ‘Plenty of empty shops, mind.’ Shirley said. ‘What with everything getting scarce, leaving some of them with nothing to sell, and women earning more money in the munitions than they’d ever earn in a shop, no one wants them.’

  ‘I’m only on a visit,’ Eirlys explained. ‘I managed to get this afternoon off and leave early, so I went straight to Paddington and got the two o’clock train.’

  ‘I see your father’s lodger is still there,’ Shirley said knowingly. ‘Teresa Love and her three boys have found a permanent home with your father it seems. Where will you sleep? Teresa will be using your room, won’t she? At least till you go back to London!’ The words were said with a chuckle. It would be common knowledge that Teresa Love had moved in soon after the death of Eirlys’s mother and settled to take her place.

  ‘My father couldn’t manage on his own,’ Eirlys said sadly. ‘I was wrong to leave him.’ She forced her thoughts away from the scandal that had caused her so much anguish and said brightly, ‘Tell me, Shirley, what have you been doing since I left?’

  ‘Dancing!’ was Shirley’s brief reply. ‘I started going with Freddy Clements as you know, but he’s in the army and not likely to be home very often, so I’ve dumped him and I’m searching for a partner who will be around all the time.’

  ‘You dumped him after taking him away from Beth?’

  ‘Took him away? Came willing he did. Beth Castle’s very nice – whatever that word means – but even her best friends would admit that she isn’t much fun. She wouldn’t dance, wouldn’t go to the pictures. Can you blame Freddy Clements for getting bored? But what’s the sense in having a dance partner who’s hundred of miles away? No, I’ve got to find someone regular if I’m to get anywhere.’

  Eirlys looked shocked but said nothing more.

  ‘I’ve even started dancing lessons but like everywhere else, I’m expected to partner a girl and imagine she’s a tall, handsome man. My imagination isn’t that good, I need the real thing! I went with Max Moon a few times. Too tall of course but strong and very nimble. We won first prize at the Saturday dance but we refused it,’ she said casually. ‘Left it for someone else to win, him being a professional and me being, well, better than most. Max is too tall for me, mind, but very light on his feet. Pity is, he’s not here much either.’

  ‘So you’ll give him the push too?’

  ‘Yeh. Damned war, eh?’

  ‘Yes, damned war,’ Eirlys repeated, thinking of how it had taken away everything good in her life. A loving mother, a father she had adored, marriage to Johnny Castle and it had even taken her away from this town where she had been happy.

  ‘Max and your friend Ken Ward are off to Scotland in a few days’ time,’ she told Shirley. ‘They have a tour booked, entertaining army bases mainly but a few hospitals and factories too.’

  ‘Fond of Ken Ward, are you?’

  ‘Fond, yes. He’s like the brother I never had.’

  ‘As fond as you were of Johnny Castle?’ She looked towards her companion curiously, but she couldn’t read anything in Eirlys’s expression. Unable to resist taunting, she went on, ‘There’s happy there, those two, Johnny and Hannah. A marriage made in heaven if ever there was one.’ She looked at Eirlys again but there was no response.

  Shirley was grinning as she left her at the shop above which she lived with her mother, Hetty Downs. She knew she was unkind to tease, but Eirlys had been so sure of herself and Johnny Castle, it was only human nature to be a bit pleased when her life turned out to be not as perfect as she pretended.

  ‘See you soon.’ she called as she opened the door and ran up the linoleum-covered stairs to the flat.

  Eirlys walked on and wondered whether she had made a mistake in coming home. Everyone had moved on. Johnny had forgotten their broken engagement and was happy with Hannah and her two girls in a ‘marriage made in heaven’, to quote Shirley Downs. Her friend Beth Castle had broken off her engagement to Freddy Clements after discovering his ‘carryings on’ with Shirley and was now going to marry Peter Gregory. Her father was obviously settled with Teresa Lov
e and her sons. Everyone was frantic it seemed. Engagements that usually lasted a couple of years now seemed to last a matter of weeks. And herself? She had simply run away and taken her disappointments with her.

  She slowed her footsteps as she approached Conroy Street. She felt very apprehensive, wondering how she would be received. Would Teresa treat her as a guest rather than someone who belonged there? If she did, would she be able to accept Teresa being the lady of the house? Would her father be easy or was he too anxious about this long-delayed meeting?

  She stood outside 78 Conroy Street for a long time before walking up the path to the front door. Normally she would use the back entrance which was never locked but instead she raised her hand to the dull, unpolished knocker. For the first time in her life she knocked on her own front door. She knew she could and should walk in, but some sense of unease forbade it. When Teresa opened the door with Stanley, Harold and Percival crowding behind her, Eirlys pretended to be searching in her handbag for her key.

  ‘Eirlys!’ the three boys shouted. Teresa looked back and called, ‘Morgan, it’s your Eirlys!’ She stepped back to allow the boys to swarm forward, all trying to hug Eirlys at once, shouting their greetings, trying to tell her their news. Twelve-year-old Stanley and ten-year-old Harold looked at her as though unable to believe she was there. Percival, the youngest, put an arm around her and wouldn’t be separated from her, even to get through the doorway; looking up at her, his pale, solemn face was almost tearful.

  Her father came then and wordlessly held her close before taking her bags, adjusting the black-out curtaining ready for lighting-up time and pushing the boys aside to allow her to enter.

  ‘Knocking the door, is it? Since when have you needed to knock the door, Eirlys, love?’ he said, his smile as great a welcome as she could have wished. ‘Duw, it’s wonderful good to see you back home.’

  ‘Come on, Morgan, get the kettle on,’ Teresa said brightly. ‘Eirlys is gasping for a cuppa, I can see that if you can’t.’ Teresa, her face thickly made up and her hair an unbelievable blonde, pushed Morgan playfully towards the kitchen.

  Everyone talked at once, even Percival who, at ‘seven-almost-eight’, as he proudly informed her, had something to say. In his solemn manner he told her he had a reading book and would read some of it to her at bedtime.

  She had been away a year and although there were no birthdays to celebrate, she had brought them some gifts. As they were Londoners, driven away by the threat of bombing early in the war, she had chosen a few ornaments relevant to their previous home, tiny models of a London bus and a London taxi, and for Stanley, the oldest, a statue of Nelson on his column. Sweets were not yet rationed although some were in short supply so she had filled a bag with their favourites.

  Apart from the first greeting in the hallway darkened by the black-out restrictions, she hadn’t looked at her father. She was embarrassed, knowing he was sharing a bed with Teresa. A situation that would have been awkward and uncomfortable to deal with if it involved a casual acquaintance, was extremely painful with her own father. Her Dadda blatantly sleeping with another woman. It was like the worst kind of romantic fiction. How could she look at him? How would she cope with sleeping in the room next to the one he shared with this comparative stranger? Why had she come? Why had he allowed her to stay?

  She found herself thinking of Ken Ward and wishing he were here to share her discomfort. He was so relaxed about everything, his presence would have eased the situation. His house was one of the few private houses to have a telephone and on impulse, as soon as they had eaten – fish and chips from the chip shop – she made an excuse and went to a phone box to talk to him.

  ‘I shouldn’t have come, Ken,’ she said as soon as he answered.

  ‘Of course you should. Whatever the situation, he is your father and you love him.’

  ‘But she’s living here as – you know – as his wife.’ She felt herself redden as she explained. ‘Everybody knows. Shirley Downs met me as I arrived and made sure I knew that it was common knowledge.’

  ‘Thank goodness he found someone to look after him. When your mother died he missed her so much he wanted to replace her. If he had been unhappy with her, he wouldn’t have wanted to find someone else. It’s a compliment to your mother that he found someone to take her place so quickly.’

  ‘A nice thought, Ken, but I don’t think the choice was his. Teresa made the decision and moved in, nothing to do with Mam and how he missed her. Dadda was too soft to refuse!’

  She returned to the house feeling worse rather than comforted.

  Out of a sense of decorum or consideration for her. Teresa slept in Harold’s bed and Harold shared with his younger brother. Muted whispers early the following morning told Eirlys that things had changed during the night.

  She was the first to rise and she set the table for breakfast and went out for a walk. The April morning was misty and birds were busy flying here and there searching for food for their mates and early broods. The hedges were smothered with the wonderful blossoms of blackthorn, the sloeberry bushes. Flowers before the leaves made it a welcome sight as though the branches were too impatient to wait to display their springtime excesses.

  She met Shirley Downs again as she wandered slowly home, giving her father and Teresa time to get up, disguise their sleeping arrangements and start their day.

  ‘Hi yer!’ Shirley called, moving the heavy bag on her shoulder to a more comfortable position. ‘Don’t tell me you slept in the fields! That’s taking embarrassment too far!’

  ‘I woke early and the morning was too good to waste.’ Eirlys smiled. ‘Want a hand with the papers?’

  ‘The paper boy let me down again,’ Shirley moaned.

  ‘Why not ask Stanley, he’s keen to earn money unless he’s changed in the time I’ve been away.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll call and ask him. Have you thought any more about a business of your own?’ Shirley asked as they took it in turns to push the newspapers through letter boxes.

  ‘I’ve got a job in London and I think I’ll stay there for a while longer. Ken’s parents are very kind.’

  ‘And Ken, is he the reason you’ll stay?’

  ‘You ask a lot of questions, Shirley.’

  ‘You don’t have many answers,’ Shirley said with a shrug. ‘Don’t stay with Ken for fear you won’t find anyone better.’ Then as they parted, she added, ‘Too many make that mistake. You almost did with Johnny, remember!’

  Smarting under the girl’s forthright impertinence, Eirlys hurried home. Shirley was too outspoken to ever be a friend, she thought angrily.

  The return to St David’s Well didn’t achieve much and Eirlys wished she had waited a while longer. She had come back too soon. Her wounds hadn’t healed. She and her father were both uneasy with each other and Teresa seemed unable to say anything apart from polite comments about the weather and a few vague remarks about the progress of the war. Then there was the ever present possibility of bumping into Johnny Castle and Hannah. She wasn’t sure how she would feel about seeing them together.

  She was happiest when she was out with the three boys. The weather was dull but she took them to one of the quieter beaches where, to her dismay, barbed wire and concrete fortifications prevented any serious exploring. As she explained the reason for their disappointment, they wandered back to the sandy St David’s Well Bay where preparations were well under way for the summer opening.

  Pitches were marked out on the sands, and heavy metal bases were in place on a few sites. These would be covered by canvas-topped stalls selling all the needs of holiday-makers once the summer officially began.

  On the promenade, where sand drifted on the ground and people were busy finishing the painting of the shop and café fronts, shops selling inexpensive gifts and seaside rock were already displaying an assortment of novelties ready for business, although the word ice cream had been painted out as that commodity was a victim of the war, no longer allowed to be made. There would be
other things to sell to fill in the gaps left by goods no longer available. St David’s Well Bay was ready for a summer of fun, whatever shortages they suffered.

  Above the beach alongside the cliff path a flag was flying above the café once called Piper’s, now bearing the name Castle’s; a name that was once to have been hers, until Johnny realised his happiness lay not with her but with Hannah Wilcox and her two young daughters.

  On impulse she walked up the steps leading from the beach, the boys following with shouts and a pretence of fear as they made their way up the clanking metal steps, and peered in through the window. The café was empty, although everything was ready for the visitors: china and cutlery dazzlingly clean, the shelves covered with fresh paper and the glasses and windows gleaming.

  She didn’t call to see Johnny and Hannah. Her disappointment at the sudden end to her plans to marry Johnny still brought her pain. Although she knew that they would never have been completely content, and knew he loved Hannah as he’d never loved her, she wasn’t ready to see them together and be reminded of their happiness. She did see Johnny’s father, Bleddyn Castle, when she took the three musketeers, as the evacuees liked to be called, for a fish and chip supper at the Castles’ fish café in the town.

  Bleddyn didn’t try to disguise his delight at seeing her. He found them a table at the back of the café and whenever he could spare a moment from serving and cooking, he joined them to hear their news.

  The boys, Stanley, Harold and Percival, were still very enthusiastic about their return to the town and considered themselves to be locals. They talked about London but showed no regret at leaving or any desire to go back. Eirlys, who had seen the sad little room where they had lived with their mother, understood why they didn’t want to return.