Holidays at Home Omnibus

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

  Myrtle and Marged worked quickly, experience giving them the ability to deal with several things at once, and Vera tried hard to keep up with the speed at which they dealt with the queues that grew and eased and then grew again. The tables were set and reset as families came and ate and went back to the beach. The neat gingham tablecloths were smoothed, and soiled ones replaced when necessary.

  The floor was soon covered in sand. Children came barefoot and wearing swimming costumes, or dippers as they were usually called, and mothers took towels from their shoulders as they sat them at a table, shaking them unthinkingly before packing them away.

  Myrtle’s sister Maude, on holiday from her factory canteen, dealt with orders for the beach. Trays were set with teapots, china and plates of sandwiches which were taken down to the sand, a small deposit taken on the promised return of the tray and its contents.

  Stopping occasionally to watch the activities, Vera marvelled at the amount of food that was cooked, served and eaten, and the calm way the industrious team organised their time so none was wasted, and even managed to smile and offer a pleasant comment or two. By three o’clock she was exhausted.

  ‘Thank goodness that’s over. I’m dead on my feet,’ she sighed, flopping into a chair half-way through clearing a table.

  ‘Over?’ Marged laughed. ‘We’ve got the teatime rush yet!’

  They managed to drink a cup of tea and eat a thick slice of bread covered with sandwich spread between customers. Vera hid a welshcake in her handbag for later in case she wasn’t offered anything more, but she needn’t have bothered. Once the last rush of teatime customers had stopped, they began to clear away. A greaseproof-paper-wrapped package was handed to her and Marged told her she could go. ‘Take these sandwiches and cakes for your supper in case your landlady doesn’t feed you proper. I’ll let you off the cleaning as Maude and Myrtle are here to help. Tomorrow I’ll need you, mind.’

  ‘I’ll be here at eight,’ Vera promised, wondering how she was going to wake in time. One thing she hadn’t brought from home was a clock.

  Maldwyn hadn’t enjoyed his day. He lacked the ability of Huw and Bleddyn to banter with the customers on the swingboats and helter-skelter, and the children on the roundabout scared him with their curious, unselfconscious stares. He looked up at the café, where someone was closing a window, and wondered how Vera Matthews had managed or whether, like himself, she was already thinking of looking for a less hectic way of earning money.

  On the following day, because of the long hours, both Vera and Maldwyn were given a few hours off during the morning. Bleddyn and Hetty came to relieve them and they set off together towards the town.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Vera asked and, shame-faced, Maldwyn confessed that he was going to look for a different job.

  ‘Me too, when I’ve had a chance to look around this boring town,’ Vera surprised him by stating.

  ‘Boring? I love it here, always have. I like the atmosphere of the seaside holiday town. It’s the job I don’t like. Children stare so, don’t they? And the young girls embarrass me.’

  ‘Make fun of your thick glasses, do they?’ Vera asked cheekily. ‘I probably did the same at their age.’ She laughed. ‘They are a bit heavy, mind.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Join in the teasing; make them see you don’t mind. They’ll go away thinking you’re one hell of a lad.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll get some lighter frames when I have enough money.’

  ‘Good idea, those are …’ Lost for words, she said, ‘Yuck!’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it before. I’ve always worn horn rims like these.’

  ‘What are you doing here in St David’s Well?’ she asked, and he tried not to tell her, but her insistent questioning dragged out the whole story of what he saw as his stepmother’s betrayal.

  ‘Betrayal? Now there’s a big word,’ she said, laughing at him again. ‘Perhaps she was making you stand on your own two feet?’

  They were still together when Maldwyn reached the flower shop.

  ‘I worked in a flower shop before I came here,’ he said. ‘I thought of asking Mrs Chapel for a job.’

  ‘Flowers, eh? There’s me thinking you were an adventurer just back from the jungle,’ she teased. She saw his hesitation, and sensed his wish to go in alone, but she was amused by the stuttered goodbyes and the apologetic air so, ignoring the hint that she should leave, she went in with him.

  ‘Hello again. Aren’t you the young man who works in a flower shop?’ Mrs Chapel smiled. ‘You’ve brought your girlfriend this time, I see.’

  Before he could refute the assumption. Vera stepped forward and introduced herself. ‘I’m Vera. I work in Castle’s Café over on the beach.’

  ‘I’m working on the sand with the stalls and rides, but I don’t think I’m going to like it,’ Maldwyn said, trying to turn so he blocked Vera from Mrs Chapel’s view.

  Vera was having none of it. She slid around and said, ‘Better with flowers than dealing with rowdy kids. It’s what he does, see. Arranges flowers, isn’t it, Maldwyn?’

  ‘Mrs Chapel knows what I do,’ he said stiffly, trying again to block her from his conversation with the proprietor.

  ‘So, have you got a job for him?’ Vera went on relentlessly, ignoring Maldwyn’s frown, mischief shining in her hazel eyes.

  ‘What about you, Maldwyn, is it really what you want? Don’t you fancy trying something different now you’ve broken away from home?’

  ‘I liked what I did and I didn’t want to leave.’

  ‘His mam threw him out, see,’ Vera said, amused at the uncomfortable expression on Maldwyn’s face. ‘Wicked step-mother,’ she further confided with a laugh.

  ‘Mind the shop for me for a few minutes, will you, Vera?’ Mrs Chapel beckoned for Maldwyn to follow her and led him through a curtained doorway into the room behind the shop. The room was obviously were she worked and was filled with wreaths in various stages of completion and other flower-arrangement forms, plus buckets and vases, rolls of green wire and shelves laden with more pots, containers and paper-wrapped dried flowers, all in a careless muddle.

  ‘Now, without the parrot on your shoulder, why did you come to see me?’

  ‘Vera’s right, I would like a job. I didn’t need her to talk for me,’ he said, trying to look offended but then, catching the quizzical look on Mrs Chapel’s face, he laughed. ‘Hell of a girl, isn’t she?’

  The two young people hurried to the bus stop and made their way back to the beach, reaching the café still laughing at the news that Maldwyn was going to hand in his notice after only one day, and stood meekly as Marged told them off for being fifteen minutes late.

  They were late leaving that evening, guilty at being late for the lunchtime session and subdued at the telling-off Marged had given Maldwyn for finding another job after only one day.

  Every dish and pan had been scoured and every surface wiped clean. The floors were swept free of sand and dropped food, and washed carefully.

  ‘You going straight back to your digs?’ Vera asked.

  ‘I ought to, or I’ll miss supper as well as breakfast.’

  ‘Forget it. I heard today of a pub where they sell pork sandwiches. Illegal it’ll be for sure, and more fat than lean, but let’s give it a try.’ Without waiting for an answer she took his arm and dragged him towards the bus stop. She couldn’t go back to the railway carriage too early. Better to wait until there were fewer people around. She had been lucky yesterday not to have been seen when she first went there.

  They ate their supper, which was better than they expected, and, strolling along the back lanes, Maldwyn asked, ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I’ll show you if you like,’ she promised. ‘What about the pictures first?’

  ‘Not tonight, I’m a bit tired. Tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s fine. We can go back to my lodgings after, just so you know where to find me. In case you get a bit lonely without your cruel stepmam,’ she teased.

  ‘And my
teddy and my three-wheeler bike with a bell,’ he added with mock seriousness.

  * * *

  The following evening they left the café together. Maldwyn had helped Huw with a bit of repair work after closing the rides and stalls on the sands, and they both carried a package of leftover food given to them by Marged. They were discussing what film they would see when Vera suddenly left him, ran back down the slope to the beach and disappeared among the people slowly making their way up to the promenade.

  Maldwyn looked for her, leaning on the thick stone wall and peering down at the straggle of women and children in the hope of seeing Vera’s red coat. A voice called and he turned to see Delyth and Madge pushing their way towards him.

  ‘Hello, wasn’t that Vera Matthews you were with just now?’ Delyth asked.

  ‘No, she’s er—’ He remembered her warning about her family looking for her and stuttered. ‘I’ve never seen her before. She works — um — somewhere in another town,’ he ended stupidly. He pointed to Castle’s Café on the cliff path above the beach. ‘I’m working up there in Castle’s Café. Nice, eh?’

  ‘Sure of that are you?’ Madge asked suspiciously. ‘Looked to me like you and Vera Matthews are friends, and she’s missing from home.’

  They told him about the girl from their home town who had been accused of ‘carrying on’ with a married man and had left after being threatened by the man’s father-in-law.

  ‘You’re mistaken,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Vera Matthews, you say? Never heard of her. I’m off to the pictures. On my own.’ He glanced again to Castle’s Café where, climbing the steps to the doorway, was a figure in a red coat.

  It was much later when he met Vera, having got rid of Delyth and Madge, and they made their way to the picture house.

  ‘Who were those girls you were talking to?’ Vera asked innocently as she offered him a sweet. ‘Friends of yours?’

  ‘Delyth Owen and Madge Howells. They know you, said you were missing from home.’

  Vera gave a low chuckle and in the darkness of the cinema he felt her hair touch his face as she shook her head. ‘Never heard of ‘em. They’re mixing me up with someone else, aren’t they?’

  ‘Glad to hear it. She’s a bad ‘un from what they told me. Carrying on with a married man and being chased out of town by the man’s father-in-law.’

  Vera began to giggle. ‘Sounds like a better story than this film we’ve just paid a shilling and threepence to see. What a laugh, eh?’

  They watched the film to the end but didn’t stay for the programme to move through the second feature and the news to the repeat of the main film and on to the point where they had entered.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Vera said. ‘Come and see my lodgings. I think you’ll be impressed.’

  When they went out it was raining. ‘Oh fiddle, no umbrella,’ Vera groaned.

  ‘Where’s your mackintosh?’ he asked. He offered her a share of his raincoat. ‘I’ve never seen you carrying one, yet rain has threatened all day.’

  She couldn’t explain that in the haste of her exit she hadn’t had time to pick it up.

  ‘Boring old thing it was. I threw it out and haven’t bothered to get a new one.’ She grimaced. Clothing coupons! She had forgotten to bring them! ‘Got any clothing coupons to spare?’ she asked. ‘I need plenty for a raincoat and I haven’t even got one.’

  They caught a bus for part of the way, Maldwyn offering the fare and Vera telling the conductor where they were going. Then they made their way on foot around the large open area where railway engines and carriages were awaiting repair. Puzzled but not particularly anxious, presuming this was a short-cut to houses close to the next bay, Maldwyn followed her, protecting her from the worst of the downpour. When she stopped at one of the carriages and jumped in he stood staring at her in disbelief.

  ‘Get in quick, before we’re seen,’ she hissed, and grabbing hold of his lapel she hauled him inside, pulled him against her and kissed him.

  ‘Either shut your mouth or relax, Maldwyn. It’s like kissing the top of an eggcup!’

  He looked down at her tempting face and could only stutter in reply. Laughing, she pushed him gently out of the carriage door and waved until he was out of sight. The carriage was quite comfortable with its well-upholstered seat and there was even a mirror on one wall. Food in plenty from the café, Maldwyn for company until she found better. With a regular wage, life could be very good. Although she’d be able to afford a room once she’d worked for a couple of weeks, she thought she might stay for a while. She wasn’t doing any harm and no one would worry about an abandoned railway carriage.

  Maldwyn hurried away from the railway sidings, doubled up, trying to stay in the shadows although the night was dark. He was afraid of being seen and guiding someone to where Vera was living. What nerve the girl had. Sneaking into a place like that, where she had no right to be, that was something he would never be able to do. He wondered whether he could help her find somewhere safer, then asked himself if she would want him to. Vera was not the dependent type. She was the sort to go out and get what she wanted. If only he were the same, he might not be living alone, far from home, in a house where the landlady didn’t want him, only his money and his ration book.

  As he went inside, he heard her call. ‘That you, Mr Perkins? Sorry but you’re too late for supper.’ Which only confirmed his morbid thoughts. He was ungraciously allowed to make himself a cup of cocoa before going to bed, where he dreamed about Vera Matthews with her tantalising lips and mischievous eyes.

  Three

  The following day, Maldwyn felt very aware of Vera. Every time they met during their working hours he smiled and tried to think of something interesting to say, but failed miserably. He waited for her while she and Marged dealt with the last-minute floor-cleaning and saw Marged hand Vera a package which he guessed contained food.

  They walked down the path together and Vera said, ‘Pictures again, is it? I’ve got enough food for you not to need to go home for your supper.’

  They weren’t the only ones eating their tea in the picture house, and the rustle of paper continued for a while before the audience settled to enjoy the film. At nine o’clock they left and, again without discussion, Maldwyn went with her to the railway sidings and entered her unusual accommodation.

  She reached up and kissed him as soon as the door was closed, and he lost himself in the thrill of it. When Vera finally released him from their kiss. Maldwyn sank down on to the carriage seat and, smiling, she sat down to face him. Trying to calm his racing heart, he looked away from her tempting lips and the wickedly amused expression in her hazel eyes. Turning away, knowing his face was as revealing to her as a thousand words, he asked, ‘Vera, what are you doing here?’

  She relaxed into the seat and stared out of the grimy window. ‘I had to find somewhere to sleep and I didn’t have the money for lodgings.’

  ‘I mean, what are you doing in St David’s Well?’

  ‘Long story,’ she sighed.

  ‘We’ve got all night.’

  Now she admitted to being the girl Delyth and Madge had told him about. ‘It wasn’t true about the schoolteacher, mind. I did meet our boring neighbour once or twice but we only kissed and cuddled. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Then I was thrown out of the house when my father was told I had been friendly towards one of my neighbours while his wife was doing a night shift at the munitions factory.’

  ‘And were you? Seeing him? Was it true?’ Looking across the darkening compartment, he wanted, oh so badly, for her to say it was a nonsense. He wanted to be the first person she had kissed, to be told that she was pure and perfect and had been waiting for him to find her.

  ‘It was true.’ She stared at him, unblinking, as though daring him to criticise her. ‘I wasn’t the one to start it. Pestered me he did, and it wouldn’t have been anything more than a five-minute wonder if his wife’s father hadn’t got to hear about it. He told my father and, well, my father agreed with h
im and presumed the very worst.’

  ‘What was the worst?’ Maldwyn was so still, so locked in agony, he didn’t think his muscles would obey him when he tried to move. ‘Tell me, Vera.’

  ‘I flirted, and kissed him, and talked a bit of nonsense. We didn’t do anything worse. Dad wouldn’t listen, he believed everything I was accused of.’

  ‘There was more?’

  ‘I walked home a few times from the dance with the wife of a schoolteacher. They accused me of leading her into trouble. She walked home now and then with a man she knew and Dad wouldn’t believe I hadn’t persuaded her. He wouldn’t believe me, Maldwyn. That’s so hurtful. Then he gave me an hour to get out of the house. I’ve often been here as a day tripper. First as a child with Mam and Dad and my sisters, then on my own or with friends. It seemed a friendly town and, well, that’s it. Here I am.’

  ‘Surely he didn’t mean it? What father would do that, throw his daughter out of the house!’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he thought I’d apologise as I had so many times before when there was nothing to apologise for! But I was angry and I wanted to frighten him. He was always threatening me with a beating, always suspicious.’ She grinned then, her face lit like a child’s, and added, ‘Fun it was, with him next door. I enjoyed being told I was beautiful. Not that I believed it, mind, but it was fun to be told.’

  ‘You are beautiful. Perhaps that’s why your dad worried so much.’

  ‘Am I, Maldwyn? Beautiful?’

  Maldwyn looked away. He was feeling uncomfortable being in the small compartment with the lovely Vera, like swimming out of his depth, unable to touch the security of the bottom with his feet.

  ‘What about your sisters?’ he managed to ask. ‘Don’t they support you?’

  ‘No, they stick together and treat me like — like a tart. And I pretend, just to shock them, say things so they believe it. It’s all a game really,’ she said sadly.