Holidays at Home Omnibus

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

  Teresa opened the door as they approached. She was dressed immaculately in a summer suit of pale pink with a hair ornament to match, and high-heeled shoes over silk-stockinged feet. Eirlys wondered again how she could spend so much time on herself and so little on her sons.

  ‘Morgan ain’t ‘ere,’ Teresa called as Eirlys stopped at the gate. ‘No point you comin’ in.’ She began closing the door behind the boys as they waved goodbye, and Eirlys walked disconsolately away.

  She knew that the factory no longer closed down at weekends and her father often had to work Saturday and Sunday, but she had hoped to see him. It was no longer possible for her to call without a reason. The excuse of taking the boys out had seemed to be a necessary one for visiting her home. She went back to the flat disappointed. If she had asked what shift Morgan was working she might ‘happen to be passing’ the factory when he left, but she couldn’t walk back and knock on the door; Teresa Love had made it quite clear she was unwelcome. Perhaps she would try again next weekend, she thought as she went home. But she didn’t have to wait that long.

  It was the following day when she saw her father. It was almost three o’clock and she was at home working on some financial lists she had brought back from the office and was about to stop and make herself a late lunch when the loud knocking alarmed her. As she opened her door, papers and pencil in her hand, her father pushed past her and closed the door behind him.

  ‘She’s gone. She’s taken the boys, and she’s gone.’

  Eirlys saw then that he had been crying.

  She didn’t know what to say. It was hardly the time to tell him it was for the best; he clearly wouldn’t agree. She folded her papers away and stood there while her father sobbed and told her how he had returned home after his six-till-two shift, to find the house empty, and a note propped against the teapot telling him they were gone and were never coming back. Calming himself, he said slowly and with a bitter laugh. ‘Blames you she does. She said I’ve never been happy since you came back.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dadda, I should have been more understanding. I had no right—’

  ‘No, love, you aren’t to blame. I would have realised soon enough what a fool I’d been. Truth is I already had but I didn’t know how to get out of the mess I’d made. Specially after this.’

  He handed her a post-office book which showed that the account had been emptied and closed. ‘Stole it all, she did. Money your mam had saved for when you got married so we could give you a real good start. It was money that belonged to you, Eirlys love. I never touched a penny of it, no matter how difficult things were. There was enough for a deposit on a house.’

  ‘But how—‘

  ‘Forged my signature, she did. Easily done I suppose. Your mam always said it was like the scrawl of an eight-year-old.’

  She tried to persuade him to go to the police but he was adamant. ‘No, even after everything that happened I can’t put the boys through anything like that. She knew I wouldn’t. She knew she was safe from an old fool like me.’

  Together they went back to the sad, neglected house in Conroy Street. Eirlys looking around wondering where to start getting it back to its original neatness and wondering if it were even possible.

  For the rest of that day, late into the night, Eirlys and Morgan pored over accounts and bills and overdue statements to assess the damage. With an aching dismay, Eirlys realised she would have to commit most of her wages for the coming months to clear the debts Teresa had left.

  ‘Thank goodness you came back home,’ Morgan said.

  For a fleeting moment. Eirlys wished she hadn’t.

  Five

  Eirlys paid rent to the end of the month at the flat and began to pack her belongings ready to move back into her father’s house. She went to look around in advance of moving back, hoping things would not be as bad as she feared. She guessed there would be washing and cleaning needed as Teresa’s idea of housework was not like her mother’s had been. She began by making up her bed in the room the boys had used, then concentrated on the kitchen.

  She didn’t go into the front room at first. It was a room they only used at Christmas or when they had visitors. When she did go there to look for something in the sideboard, where Annie had once kept previous bills and receipts, she was surprised to find the room practically empty.

  ‘Dadda?’ she called, staring at the wide expanse of empty carpet. ‘What’s happened to the furniture?’

  ‘Teresa sold it,’ he said, shamefaced.

  ‘But she can’t have sold it, it isn’t even paid for!’

  ‘Fool I’ve been, haven’t I? Besides all the other debts, now I have to pay for a three-piece suite that I don’t even have any more.’

  ‘You’ll have to get the police.’

  ‘No, Eirlys, I can’t do that! I couldn’t face it. I feel enough of a fool already.’

  Reluctantly, Eirlys agreed.

  She was too busy to start sorting out the house; her work often kept her at the office until long after five-thirty. Yet in every spare moment, she collated the piles of unpaid bills into some kind of order. By date, then in order of importance, then shuffled them again into the various areas like coal, light and rent and rates, local shops. Which to settle first? Once she threw them into the air in frustration, watching them fluttering down to cover the carpet and all the space where furniture had once stood.

  There were so many unpaid bills she really didn’t know where to begin. Head in her hands, elbows on her much scribbled-in notebook, she frowned as she wondered which was the most sensible way of dealing with them. One thing was certain: they wouldn’t all be cleared for several months.

  She decided finally that honesty was the best way and she wrote to some of the people to whom her father owed money and explained, as kindly as she could, something of what had happened.

  There was no doubt her father’s affairs were going to take a long time, Eirlys sighed as she began placing money on to red-printed bills that most urgently needed payment. The rent was in arrears and the ominous warnings on the coal and gas bills were also priorities. There was also the new three-piece suite to be paid for, even though it was no longer there. Teresa had sold it, but the balance still had to be paid. She had acted illegally but Morgan accepted the debt as his own.

  Digging into her own rather slender savings was unavoidable. So was staying in her flat. Having to come home was disappointing, but the rent she had been paying would help sort out the financial mess. They needed all the money they could find to clear the debts left by Teresa.

  ‘Dadda is more important than my independence,’ she explained to Beth when she told her what had happened. ‘He’s so unhappy. Teresa hurt him terribly by getting into a mess and then running away leaving him to deal with it all. Besides the realisation of how she cheated him, there’s the loss of the boys too. Losing the boys is very hard for him.’

  ‘Losing Teresa too,’ Beth said. ‘I think he believed she was there for life. Thank goodness he didn’t marry her.’

  It was Bleddyn, and Johnny’s wife Hannah, who helped Eirlys move back in the following weekend. Using the firm’s van, Bleddyn carried her few possessions from the flat and, seeing the mess the house was in, Hannah stayed and helped with the cleaning. By the end of the first day, it was beginning to feel like her home once more, although, she admitted to Hannah, she grieved for her brief foray into living as an independent woman.

  She didn’t have much time to nurse her disappointment though, with so much work to be done. She would get home sometimes as late as seven thirty and when her father was working and not in need of a meal, she would make a sandwich and listen to the wireless, glad of Arthur Askey and Tommy Handley and other comedians making her laugh, and the extra programmes of organ music to hum to as she dealt with the chores. If she felt lonely she brushed the thought away. She was one of the lucky ones: so far none of her closest friends had been seriously injured, she was doing a job she enjoyed, living among friends in a town she
loved.

  Many would envy her, and be grateful for such luxuries.

  * * *

  Despite being worried about his wife, Joseph’s attraction for Shirley was growing and as he left home each morning, leaving behind his sick wife, he felt the guilt surround him at every step. This morning he hadn’t spent as much time with Dolly as he usually did, making excuses about cleaning shoes, chopping firewood they didn’t need, and going to the shop to buy an extra paper and spend a few minutes with Shirley.

  If he were honest, he didn’t believe there could be a future for himself with Shirley Downs, but the promise he had made to his wife about not getting involved with someone else was becoming increasingly impossible to keep. No actions, he had avoided even touching her, but his thoughts about her seemed almost as disloyal.

  ‘l’ve met a girl,’ he told his mother that evening, and before she could comment, he added quickly. ‘No, nothing has happened, not even a kiss, but because of how I feel, I’m afraid to stay long with Dolly in case she guesses. I don’t want her to have a moment’s doubt about me.’

  ‘Then stop behaving like a guilty man, Joseph. I bought a new jigsaw puzzle today. Try and persuade her to sit up for a while and help you with it.’ She looked at him with affection. Life had not treated him well and she longed for him to have some normal, good-natured fun. Marrying Dolly so soon after finding out that she was seriously ill had been a devastating blow and now he was a prisoner in a marriage that had no foundation in love. Pity was a poor substitute.

  ‘Perhaps I should stay away from dances. Better if I don’t see her at all.’

  ‘I think you should go and have fun, be happy for a while. You enjoy dancing and the crowd and the music and laughter are a tonic for you. If you’re happy you bring it home, then that happiness helps Dolly too,’ she advised.

  * * *

  Throughout June and early July, Shirley and Janet were busy with engagements. Their reputation was growing and they were booked for cabaret at dances and for the occasional businessmen’s dinner dances.

  Calling themselves The Two Jays, Shirley calling herself Jane, had started a good run of success. They sang duets and danced together, and they would include a solo from Shirley which was always a highlight of their act. She usually chose a sentimental piece, which everyone needed; the reminder of their boys far away from home had an appeal that rarely failed to please. Like tears of grief after a death, the sadness was in some strange way a comfort. Max’s song, ‘Waiting for Yesterday’, was a regular request.

  Keeping to their early mornings at work and the late evening bookings was hard for them both. Shirley used most of her afternoons off to rest, but on Wednesday, when Janet too was not working, they practised, talked over their ideas, and dreamed their dreams.

  Joseph still escorted them, and Shirley hugged him once or twice when they had received extra applause and praise, but he never responded. He told them both how well they had done but there was never anything more. Shirley wondered why and for a while suspected that it was Janet he liked and they were perhaps meeting without telling her.

  ‘D’you know where Joseph lives?’ she asked her friend one day. ‘I know it’s Oakley Road but it’s a long straggle of houses, miles of it.’

  Janet shook her head and Shirley stared at her, trying to decide whether or not her friend was being truthful. ‘We don’t know much about him at all, do we?’ Janet said. ‘Just that he failed the army because of his eyesight and lives with his mam.’

  ‘I might walk up there one day and ask a few people where they live.’

  ‘No, we couldn’t do that! What if he opened the door, what would we say? He’ll tell us if we ask, there’s no secret, he just isn’t a Chatterbox!’

  ‘Aren’t you curious? You do like him, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think about him any more than as useful company when we walk home late at night. I don’t think he wants any more than that. Strange though.’ She frowned.

  ‘Never no mention of family, no brother or sister.’ Shirley lowered her voice and in a frightened voice added. ‘Perhaps he’s murdered them all and put the bodies under the floorboards!’ She laughed at Janet’s expression.

  ‘Stop it, Shirley, or I’ll never sleep tonight!’

  ‘Come on, he’s boring but not dangerous!’

  Satisfied that Janet had had no more luck in interesting Joseph than herself, she let the subject drop. She wasn’t interested in Joseph as a serious boyfriend, but just curious at his lack of interest in herself, except as their escort.

  * * *

  Morgan was depressed. The house seemed so empty without the noise the boys created and everything was orderly when he had become accustomed to clutter. The few items Teresa had left behind, Eirlys had folded away and put in an old suitcase on top of her wardrobe: clothes the boys might need if they ever returned, and one or two school and story books.

  At her suggestion Morgan had rented an allotment. It was too late for most crops but he built a small shed with windows on three sides where he planned to start next year’s seedlings. Other allotment holders were generous and he soon had a few sprouts and leeks in neat rows. Lettuces were transplanted and radishes were sown. He knew it was more to keep busy than with any real hope of success.

  Eirlys found him there one Sunday evening, leaning on a hoe, talking to another gardener. The last few days had been dry and very warm and loosening the soil helped to keep down the weeds and refresh it.

  ‘It needs watering, any volunteers?’ he asked when Eirlys approached.

  They went to where a stream flowed deep in the ground and had settled into a pool, and lifted off the cover of the area they used. The rich, earthy smell met their nostrils and Eirlys found it pleasing with half-forgotten memories. The ground was damp and thick with wild flowers, mostly herb Robert. Thoughts of other, sun-filled days flooded back as Eirlys filled her nose with the pungent perfume which many disliked but which she loved. Whenever she smelled that unmistakable aroma it took her back to hours spent helping her father in the community of gardeners not far from her school.

  They worked steadily for a while, passing a comment occasionally with one of the other gardeners. An elderly man whom she remembered from when she was a child tending her own small plot, called across.

  ‘I found this the other day, Morgan. It belongs to one of your lads. Harold I think.’ He held out a wooden boat which Morgan had carved, the mast still intact but the sails shredded. ‘I found it near the water, it’s rotted in the damp earth,’ the man explained. ‘I’ll make some new sails if you like. I made several of these for my boys years ago.’

  Too choked to reply, Morgan looked at Eirlys for help. She looked at the boat and smiled at the man she had once called Uncle Malcolm. ‘Thank you, he’ll be pleased to see it repaired.’

  Eirlys finished watering the plot alone. Her father had hurried home to hide his distress.

  An account arrived the next morning from a store in Cardiff. Before she left, Teresa had spent a lot of money replenishing her own and the boys’ wardrobes. Eirlys showed her father, then without comment put it with the rest.

  ‘How she managed to carry it all puzzles me,’ he said with a shrug.

  Eirlys thought Teresa would not have any difficulty persuading people to help her, but she said nothing. Everything had been said, time and again. Now her energies must be spent putting her father’s life back together.

  * * *

  Eynon Castle received a disturbing letter from Alice soon after he returned to camp. She attempted a joke, telling him that her father was unimpressed with Eynon’s lack of aggression. She mentioned that he had hit her but it was casually said, as though the blow had been nothing. She had stayed away from the seaside rock shop embarrassed by a cut lip and a heavily bruised nose.

  ‘I didn’t want to put the customers off and I didn’t want your Auntie Audrey writing to worry you by telling you I’m off work sick,’ she told him. ‘I’m fine, just a bit sore so d
on’t worry about me. Dad has calmed down now and if the pattern follows as usual, he’ll stay that way for a few weeks. He can’t help it, he loves me really,’ she had added. Alice had never made a secret of her father’s violent temper, but Eynon’s growing love for Alice made it unacceptable.

  If only he could get home, just for a few hours, to see her and reassure himself she was all right. Being caught out of camp without permission was a serious offence, particularly for him with his past record. Yet he knew he had to try.

  He felt that fortune was on his side when his group was taken to a place on the Brecon Beacons to camp and train for an unknown destination. Once he was overseas it was unlikely he and Alice would meet for months, if not years. He had to get away and get safely back without his absence being discovered.

  He had suffered no bullying since his return to his group and, taking a chance, he asked the man who had once made his life so miserable to help him.

  The camp was set up in a valley, where a sparkling stream, icy cold, straight from the mountains, meandered slowly through on its way to join the River Usk.

  He and Kipper were on guard until late at night and leaving Kipper to do what was necessary to cover his absence. Eynon ran south and headed for the road that would take him to Merthyr Tydfil, Abercynon and eventually Cardiff. He was fortunate with lifts, convincing the lorry drivers he stopped that he was on manoeuvres and was having to use his initiative to get to his destination.

  Used to travelling at night after his months on the run, he knocked on Alice’s door at three a.m.

  Reassured by seeing her, he spent an hour in her bed, filled his pockets with food and began to journey back. Before he left, he woke Colin Potter and warned him not to hit his daughter again. ‘Or you’ll find yourself back in the fight game, with me as your opponent,’ he warned. ‘You’ll find I’m not so mild as I pretend. Right?’