Later, when night had begun to creep in over the town and a cold wind encouraged the last of the walkers to hurry away home, she stood outside the darkened fish-and-chip restaurant called Castle’s for a while, wondering what to do to fill the time until she could go home. She determined to wait until at least the nine o’clock train. With luck, by the time she reached home her father would be either out or in bed.
Lights around her were slowly being extinguished as blackout curtains and barricades were put in place for the evening. The café behind her didn’t show even a thread of light to let customers know it was open for business. Instead a chalk notice had been hung on a hook near the door announcing that Castle’s was ‘Frying Tonight’.
A man approached and she moved away.
‘Waiting for someone?’ he asked.
‘No, wondering if I can afford a plate of fish and chips,’ she said with a laugh.
‘Come on, I’ll treat you,’ he said, taking her arm and guilding her towards the entrance with its blackout doorway, a tunnel-like addition built to prevent light escaping from inside. She allowed herself to be led. This might be an amusing way of killing time.
Inside, the lights dazzled after the dullness of the evening. She looked up to see who her companion was and saw a soldier little more than her own age. He ordered their food and led her to a corner table where they were served by a pleasant woman they learned was Hetty Castle, the wife of the proprietor, Bleddyn.
The young soldier told her he was stranded between trains and, rather than wait on the station platform, had decided to spend a few hours in St David’s Well.
‘Have you been here before?’ Vera asked.
‘No, I don’t know this area at all. I’m stationed at Brecon and came to visit a friend.’
‘I live about an hour away but I come here often, specially in the summer. It’s a great place for a day out.’
‘A bit early for a day by the sea?’
‘To be honest, I’m keeping away from our dad. I hope to avoid him until he’s calmed down a bit or I’ll get a wallop.’ She laughed, and explained something of her family, making a joke of her father’s anxiety about his girls getting into trouble.
‘I’m one of three, all boys, and I miss my family a lot. There’s always this fear that we won’t all meet again, that if I get back one of my brothers won’t. It’s a feeling of dread that fills every waking moment and gives me nights invaded by terrible dreams.’
In the oasis of a corner table in Castle’s Café, they shared confidences, safe in the belief they were unlikely to meet again and, when they went for their trains, they kissed goodbye like lovers.
* * *
Maldwyn Perkins strolled around the town. There was a florist in the main street: ‘Chapel’s Flowers of St David’s Well’, the sign announced. He went to look in the window to see what they were doing that he could emulate in his own place. A waste of time really, as his boss was always reluctant to accept new ideas. From the clothes shop next door a man came out and after the usual pleasantries said. ‘She won’t be there much longer. I’ll be buying her out any time now. Old, she is, and with no family to help she’ll be retiring and I can expand. Smart shop I’ll have then, eh’? Double-fronted and painted a cheerful yellow.’ He held out a hand. ‘Elliot’s the name. Arnold Elliot.’
Mrs Chapel, a small, plump, rosy-faced lady in her late fifties, came out of the flower-shop door and began washing down the windowsills. Mr Elliot waved and went back to his own premises. Mrs Chapel smiled at Maldwyn, glad of someone to talk to. When Maldwyn told her he worked for a florist she treated him like a long-lost friend. They exchanged commiserations about the difficulties the war had caused to the business, and Maldwyn promised to call next time he came to the town. He was smiling as he stepped out on to the pavement and, turning to give Mrs Chapel one more wave, he bumped into Madge and Delyth.
‘Hi yer Maldwyn. Going for the train?’ Madge asked.
‘Yes, but not yet. I’m after something to eat then I thought I’d walk along the front one more time,’ he smiled. ‘I always hate having to leave, don’t you?’
‘Glad to get home, me,’ Delyth said. ‘I only came to do a bit of sketching.’ She offered her book for him to see what she had done.
He lifted his glasses up to his brow, held the pages close to his face and examined her work.
Delyth stared at him. His eyes were a deep velvety brown, surprisingly unfamiliar without the thick, dark frame of the glasses around them. He looked sort of naked, and she felt as though she were prying. She turned away as he dropped the spectacles back into place, and Maldwyn thought she was afraid he might criticise her work. She wasn’t exceptional, he thought, but had managed to capture the scene of the men setting up the base of the stall on the sand. On another page she had drawn Huw Castle and himself, fixing the piece of wood around the café window. He told them what had happened, then, after praising her efforts, suggested they all went for fish and chips at the café nearby. ‘My treat,’ he smiled, ‘a reward for a budding artist.’
To Maldwyn’s surprise he saw Huw and Marged Castle there as he ushered the girls inside.
‘Hello again,’ Huw said. Marged just nodded, unable to forget his failure to help the war effort; selling flowers while so many suffered.
They were introduced to Bleddyn and Hetty, then settled into the corner table that Vera and her soldier had recently vacated. They began to talk about their day out and plan the next. The brief assistance he had given Huw and the friendly conversation with Mrs Chapel at the flower shop had given Maldwyn the feeling of being among friends. He was warmed by the encounters and happier than he’d felt for a long time. He no longer felt the need to be alone, and looked forward to spending the next hour or so with Delyth and Madge, to exchange news of their day out.
‘When summer comes we’ll be here every Sunday, and most Wednesdays too. With the lighter evenings it’ll be worth the trip,’ Madge said. ‘It’s great when the town is full of visitors. Starting in May it gets better and better.’
Delyth agreed. Perhaps Madge was right, and her future lay nearer home than London after all. She looked at Maldwyn, remembering the deep brown eyes behind the formidable glasses. ‘Perhaps we can meet again and share a meal. It’s fun to talk about what we’ve done, isn’t it, Madge?’ she said, looking to her friend for support.
They didn’t want to go home and end the day yet, so they caught a bus back to the beach and wandered across the now empty sands. Darkness had fallen, and as there were no lights once blackout time had arrived, they all linked arms and ran through the sand at the edge of the tide, where the brightness of the surf gave some illusion of light.
The shops and houses were all in darkness. A few vehicles passed with partially shaded lights, and the buses too were sparsely lit. Still with arms linked companionably, they went to the railway station a short distance from the beach.
Maldwyn was thinking of how Huw had waved and told him to be sure and call next time he came. Mrs Chapel was on the platform with her baskets filled with paper flowers and twigs. ‘I’ve been to collect some artificial flowers made by a friend,’ she explained. ‘I’ll make some arrangements to sell tomorrow.’ While the girls listened with interest. Maldwyn and Mrs Chapel discussed her artificial offerings and her plans for using them. She alighted at the station in the centre of the town and waved enthusiastically as she left. ‘Cheerio, then, Maldwyn. Come and see me next time. Don’t forget now. You girls an’ all, mind. Welcome you’ll be.’
As he travelled back to the house he shared with his stepmother, Maldwyn had an even stronger feeling than usual that the place he was leaving was where he truly belonged.
He saw Delyth and Madge to their homes, which were next door to each other, but refused an invitation to go in and have a cup of tea. It was late and he had no desire for further company. He wanted to stay with his dream of living and working in St David’s Well.
* * *
He hesitated
before stepping inside his back door. The house had been his home all his life but he no longer had the right to it. When his mam had died, his father had quickly remarried; with Winifred taking on the running of the house, life had settled down into something near to normal. Nothing much changed, the furniture remained the same, and the meals Winifred cooked were chosen to suit his father. But when his father was killed in a road accident only a month after the blackout regulations came into force, everything from his past life had been stripped away. Out went the furniture, in came new, chosen at the auction rooms in the town. Heavy velvet curtains were replaced by pale cream cotton. Woodwork and wallpaper were stripped and workmen employed to redecorate in more cheerful colours. Even the food changed: puddings were a thing of the past and salads appeared practically every day.
His comfortable double bed had been sold and a small one had taken its place. Most of his childhood possessions had been packed into boxes and put in the cellar: planes and ships he had made, photographs of himself and his parents in formal attire, books that had been attendance rewards from Sunday school. Just one teddy bear remained, and a train set on top of his wardrobe, with the suitcase he had used when they had gone to St David’s Well for a holiday. All these things had happened without consultation. The house was no longer his; he had been reduced to being a lodger whose opinion didn’t matter.
Once, when he went home to find all his father’s books burning on a bonfire in the garden, he complained angrily and she had told him he could move out if he didn’t like it.
‘How can I do that? It’s my home,’ he’d replied.
‘Not any more it isn’t. Your father left the house to me, and after my time it’s going to my niece.’
After that shock he accepted everything she did without complaint. He didn’t earn enough to move out and find a place of his own. Any money his father had intended to leave him was no longer there for him. Winifred cared for him well but regularly asked him what his plans were for moving on, reminding him his future was not secure, that things had to change.
He stood at the door in the darkness of the April night and wished he didn’t have to take the next step that would take him into the kitchen that belonged to a stranger, a stranger who wanted him gone.
‘It’s only me,’ he called as he hung up his coat and trilby. He’d stopped using the familiar and complimentary ‘Mam’ when she’d told him he no longer belonged.
‘Have a good day out?’ Winifred called, and he went into the living room where his stepmother sat on a couch listening to the wireless.
He sat beside her and told her some of the events of his day.
‘Perhaps I’ll come with you next time, Maldwyn. I used to like a day at the seaside.’
‘That’ll be nice,’ he lied. He had no intention of going anywhere with her, not after what she had done. Companionable outings, once a regular pleasure, were now a thing of the past.
‘I’ve made a plate of sandwiches and the kettle’s boiling for a cup of cocoa. Sit down and I’ll bring it in. We can sit by the fire and enjoy the last of the heat.’
She treated him as generously as always, he had to admit that. Meals and clean clothes when he needed them. When they had eaten their supper, she kissed him and said in Welsh. ‘Good-night, angels watch over you,’ just as his own mother had done.
He knew she wanted him to leave, find a place of his own, but on the other hand, surely she needed him? She couldn’t relish living alone. Perhaps, he thought with dread, she was planning to remarry. Then any connection they’d had would be completely gone and he would have no one at all. On that sombre thought, he slept.
* * *
At the other end of town, Vera Matthews went inside and ran to her room. Perhaps if she could avoid her father until the following day his temper might have eased and she would escape the thrashing. She sneaked into the bedroom she shared with her sisters and as they giggled she told them of her adventures, making much more of her meeting with the lonely soldier than had actually happened. The door opened and her father came in. He refused to listen to her denials and smacked her as he would a child, turning her over and hitting her twice on her buttocks, while at the doorway her mother looked on in silence.
There were stifled giggles from her sisters, and heavy breathing from Vera as she defiantly refused to cry. She was full of resentment and a determination to leave her home for ever.
* * *
In St David’s Well, Marged and Huw stayed to help Bleddyn and Hetty to clear up after the restaurant closed. Hetty made a tray of tea and they sat down for an unofficial business meeting.
‘With the season starting in a few weeks, we’re desperate short of help,’ Huw began. ‘With the boys gone to fight, and our Beth married and running the market café, she can’t be expected to give us more than an hour or two now and then.’
‘Your Lilly?’ Hetty suggested.
‘Useless, as usual,’ Huw snapped. ‘Never was one for work, our Lilly, and being married and having a little girl she has all the excuses she needs for doing nothing at all to help the family.’
For once Marged didn’t spring to their daughter’s defence. She was still smarting from the shock of Lilly, an unmarried mother of a little girl, marrying Sam Edwards, a man the same age as her father, without telling anyone what she planned.
They made a list of those available to help on the beach stalls and cafés, noting the hours they might be free from school or other occupations.
‘It’s looking a bit thin,’ Bleddyn sighed. ‘I almost asked that young chap who helped you with the window if he wanted a job! Dragging people from the streets we’ll be, if the labour shortage gets any worse.’
‘The one selling flowers instead of doing war work? We don’t want the likes of him working here,’ Marged said sharply.
‘If he can count and is honest, I’d take him tomorrow,’ Bleddyn said grimly. ‘Selling flowers might be trivial but there’s no sense in being a dead hero either.’
They were silent for a moment, aware of Bleddyn’s reference to his son Taff, who had been killed the previous year.
* * *
Delyth and Madge had been friends all their lives. They had started school only a term apart, when Madge’s parents moved into the house next door, and had rarely quarrelled. They had no brothers or sisters and their closeness was valuable to them both. Madge’s parents worked as caretakers at the local school and Delyth’s father had been a policeman. He had died several years before and her mother was comforted by an ‘uncle’ Trev.
Delyth’s father had left behind several sketchbooks filled with his interpretations of local scenery. This was the reason she tried to follow him and fill books with her own efforts. She knew she wasn’t good enough but had to do it as a sort of link with her childhood, when she had so often sat beside him, watching his pictures come to life.
Everyone told Madge how lucky she was having two devoted parents, with her father being too old for conscription, but in fact Betty and Geoffrey Davies hadn’t let the birth of their daughter interfere with their life at any time. She often thought she might as well have been an orphan for all the interest they took in her. During her childhood they had filled their days with the school and the local gardening club and the darts team and many other activities, leaving Madge in the care of Nora Owen, Delyth’s mother. She often remarked to Delyth that she had been nothing more than a slight interruption in her parents’ lives.
Although Madge had married, she hadn’t left home. She and John had decided to stay with her parents and gather the possessions they would need ready for the home they would build once the war ended. Memories of her husband seemed to tie her to the house, with its echoes of the short time they’d had together. She knew she depended on Delyth more than she should, and wondered whether she would ever be able to cope without her, or would retreat into a shell of loneliness. Most of their plans were suggested by Delyth, so when the latest was spoken, she was shocked into making a decision.<
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‘What about us joining the Army or something, Madge?’ Delyth asked the day after their trip to St David’s Well Bay. ‘It’s time we did something. In fact it’s a miracle we haven’t been called up before this. Almost eighteen we are.’
‘The Army? I don’t fancy that. Couldn’t we go into the factories? The pay’s better than we get in the shop.’
‘That’s local. Leaving home is the key. Factory work won’t take us away from home, will it? Don’t you want to get away?’
‘Well, no, not really. I want to stay where we were happy, John and me.’
‘Stuck here for ever, you’ll be, if you don’t make a move now. Come on, let’s think about it, make plans before we’re told where to go and what to do, is it?’
‘I’d quite like to live in St David’s Well, wouldn’t you?’
‘Hardly adventurous, moving to a town an hour’s journey away from home!’
‘Let’s go there again next Wednesday and see what work there is. Talk to people, find out what’s going on. There has to be some war work, with employers looking out for beautiful young women like us,’ she joked.
* * *
April had turned into May before they went and, although the weather hadn’t improved dramatically, in the small seaside resort summer had arrived. It was as though someone had pressed a switch and the town had come to life. The month of May heralded the start of the summer season and everyone involved with the organisation of Holidays at Home was determined to make it succeed.
With the war raging on without a sign of an end, the government encouraged every town and village to offer entertainments to keep people from travelling during the holiday period. Transport was needed for the armed forces, their equipment and stores, and there were restrictions on the movements of many commodities that weren’t considered absolutely necessary.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 92