‘And you’re planning to go on living here in St David’s Well? Aren’t you afraid being on your own?’
‘A bit.’
He gestured around the small carriage and asked. ‘What about if you’re caught?’
‘What can anyone do except throw me out?’
‘It’s wartime. You could be arrested.’
‘I’m all right. A comfortable place to sleep, and breakfast for free when I get to Castle’s Café. Not a bad life — for a while. Until I get some wages anyway. I’ll tell you this for nothing: if I do fall foul of the law I’ll make sure everyone knows that I was thrown out by my own father. If I can get my story in the papers I will. There, doesn’t that tell you how wicked I am?’ She was finding it hard to control her tears and when Maldwyn spoke soothingly she allowed them to fall. ‘It was a bit of fun, that’s all, knowing men find me attractive. Life can be very boring. Some of my friends are in the forces or with the Naafi and I’m stuck at home with a dad who’s determined to stop me having any fun.’
‘I’ll find you a place to stay, somewhere comfortable,’ he promised.
‘I’ll stay here until I’m discovered.’
‘But what if you’re put in prison?’
‘You’ll visit me, won’t you. Maldwyn?’
Another kiss disturbed him and he didn’t want to leave her there, but she insisted, and when he hesitated outside she shooed him away impatiently. ‘Go, quick! Before you’re seen and give me away!’
As he hurried away Maldwyn was upset, but his anger was not directed at Vera’s father, whom he didn’t know, but at Winifred, his stepmother. If she were more reasonable, he could have taken Vera back home and looked after her.
Days passed, and Vera’s unconventional home remained safe from discovery. She settled in happily to work with Marged, enjoying the atmosphere and the pleasant work of feeding the day trippers. Any intention of finding some better employment faded as the summer season filled her with the excitement of serving the lively crowds that poured into Castle’s each day. She quickly began to feel like a local, a part of the reception committee keen to ensure the visitors enjoyed their stay. Maldwyn, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to leave the beach and start work with Mrs Chapel.
During their few hours off from the café, Maldwyn took Vera on walks. They explored places they hadn’t previously discovered, and found a small rocky bay not far from the popular main sandy beach, which they called their own. There they could sit undisturbed and talk and learn about each other. Marged often unwittingly supplied a cake or a sandwich which they would enjoy, pretending they were far away on some distant shore where they were safe and free from families and their accompanying problems.
Few people came to ‘their’ bay, which was known as New Bay from the story that it had been formed by men removing the reddish rock, first to retrieve the iron ore and more recently to build some of the smart houses above. People stopped sometimes to look down, but most were discouraged from joining them by the precipitous and undefined path leading down to where they sat.
One Wednesday afternoon when they had been given two hours off, they heard someone call, and looked up to see Delyth and Madge. They shouted for the girls to wait and clambered up to the road to join them.
‘I knew it was you the other day,’ Delyth accused Vera.
‘Why did you pretend it wasn’t?’ Madge asked.
‘Please,’ Vera begged, ‘don’t tell our dad you’ve seen me.’ She didn’t explain but the girls curiously agreed, deciding that it was not their business to interfere. Delyth showed them her sketchbook, with a drawing of the two of them sitting on the rocks staring out to sea.
The four of them walked back to Castle’s Café, the three girls chattering happily and Maldwyn walking beside them, smiling at the unexpected friendships he had made since leaving home. Leaving Delyth and Madge on the sand at the bottom of the metal steps, to lean on the craggy rocks and enjoy what was a warm, pleasant afternoon, Vera went up to deal with the busy couple of hours serving teas, Maldwyn down to relieve Bleddyn on the sands below taking money for rides.
After a while Huw gave him the takings to carry up to Marged and, seeing Vera taking cakes out of the oven and Marged calling for more plates, he stayed to help. Marged came into the kitchen where he was washing dishes and Vera was piling the hot cakes on to serving plates. They were laughing over some observation Vera was making about one of the more difficult customers.
‘Haven’t changed your mind, have you?’ Marged asked. ‘You’re still going to leave us and work in that flower shop?’
It was at moments like this, with Vera working beside him and fresh memories making his heart sing, that he was tempted to change his mind. With undisguised regret he shook his head. ‘Sorry, but I’m better suited to a back room arranging flowers than a beach full of rowdy children.’
Later Delyth and Madge came up and bought a tray of tea, which Vera took down to the sands, the three girls enjoying a brief moment of chat before Marged, her voice shrill and easily heard over the sounds of the beach, yelled from the top of the steps for Vera to go back to the kitchen.
* * *
A few days later, three other girls who had also been surprised to find themselves friends were spending a Saturday afternoon in their shop. Eirlys had left her father looking after the three evacuees and, having prepared a meal for the evening and written to her husband, she had come to spend the rest of the day with Hannah making gifts and serving customers. Beth would join them after closing the market café at four o’clock.
The shop was not very busy, but Christmas had depleted their stock and they had been making use of these quieter months to replenish the shelves, ready for what they hoped would be a busy summer. St David’s Well was usually full of visitors and day trippers from May until September, the population doubling in size when the miners’ week closed mines and factories. Since the war had changed the pattern of many years and the closing down didn’t happen, the season was spread more evenly, and pleas by government for the population to stay at home for their holidays seemed to have made no difference. The crowds still flocked in their thousands to the friendly inhabitants and golden sands of St David’s Well Bay.
As always the three young women discussed the letters they had received from absent husbands. Hannah told them that Johnny was still in North Africa and that two brief letters had arrived that week. Beth heard regularly from Peter as he was not overseas, and she eagerly waited for his next leave. Eirlys said nothing. Ken was away from home a lot but rarely wrote to tell her where he was, what he was doing or even that he missed her.
Ken was resentful about Eirlys’s job. He should be able to keep her, and it was shaming that he could not. That she was successful seemed a slight on his abilities. It was a large part of Eirlys’s work during the summer to arrange entertainment for the town’s Holidays at Home programme. As Ken ran concerts and dances he initially expected her to need his help with her plans, but found she managed well on her own. Unfortunately, he worked more and more with Janet Copp, who owned the market café now run by Beth.
With Shirley Downs, Janet had sung and danced a little when she wasn’t running the café. Gradually, partly because of his estrangement from Eirlys and her work, they began to feel more than friendship.
His love for Janet Copp had almost ended his marriage, but knowing that Eirlys was expecting their child had convinced him that his duty, if not his love, was with his wife. When Janet had left the town and joined the Naafi service, Ken had promised himself that he would stay faithful to his wife, but his resolve was weak: they had made contact again and the affair was once more a large part of his life.
Ken grieved for what he had lost. Eirlys and he had a partnership that was damaged, and with Janet in his life, even with the forthcoming child there seemed little chance of it mending. Eirlys tried to pretend, but he was aware that she knew she couldn’t depend on the birth of their child to magic everything right. Both were uneasy wi
th each other, aware that their relationship was second-best.
There were many times when he could have come home but did not, happier to stay with a friend and invent an excuse of needing to work on arrangements for the next concert party, holding auditions, planning programmes, making transport arrangements, booking halls or promising a performance in one camp or another. It sounded impressive, but Ken knew he could deal with it all and still spend days at home during most weeks.
Knowing he could have been with Janet was a constant ache. If only Eirlys wasn’t expecting their child, their disastrous mistake could have been rectified. The marriage should never have happened. He believed that Eirlys regretted the marriage as much as he. What a mess.
Sitting in the bedroom of a friend, he wrote to Janet to arrange a meeting to discuss her appearance in a singalong he planned at a factory near where she was stationed. Two days later he had her reply agreeing to meet him. He then wrote a brief note to Eirlys, explaining that he might not be able to come home the following week as promised. He told her with false regret that he had to go to Scotland with a party of actors who were to perform one of Shakespeare’s plays. He threw down the pen, wondering why they were telling lies to each other. He couldn’t write any more. He just signed it ‘Your loving husband, Ken’. Another lie, he thought, as he licked and stuck the envelope. At least they had stopped adding a row of kisses along the bottom.
Eirlys had the letter in her pocket and sadly she showed it to Hannah and Beth.
‘Hardly a romantic letter from a husband whom I rarely see, is it?’ she said with a forced laugh. She doubted whether either Beth or Hannah could show anyone the letters they received from their husbands. They would be personal, full of loving affection and dreams of a wonderful future.
‘Some men are embarrassed at showing their feelings, specially on paper,’ Hannah said softly. ‘They’re afraid of it being seen by someone else who might perhaps make fun of them.’
‘He doesn’t love me.’ Eirlys said, her voice matter-of-fact, her eyes moist with unshed tears. When the others began to protest and to offer argument, she shook her head. ‘I know that if it weren’t for my little friend here,’ she patted her swelling belly, ‘I know he’d have left me. There. Are you shocked? I’d be one more addition to the statistics of mistaken marriages. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” isn’t that what everyone says?’
Beth didn’t know what to say. She and Peter were so happy, even though they were separated for most of the time. Their love was a strong thread holding them close however far apart they were.
Hannah stood up, put an arm around Eirlys and said, ‘Thank you for telling us, Eirlys. We can help now we know. I don’t know how at the moment, but we can listen when you want to talk, and laugh or cry with you. Friends we are and we care about you, we really do.’
The three girls settled back to their respective jobs, Hannah sewing the ears on yet another stuffed rabbit, Beth neatening the edges of a doll’s cot eiderdown, and Eirlys fixing the backing on a pretty bedroom rug. Beth began to sing, and Hannah smiled and tried to join in, but Eirlys seemed lost in her thoughts.
‘What have the boys been up to lately?’ Hannah asked, knowing that to talk about the three former evacuees was a certain way to make her smile.
‘They’re helping Dad on his allotment,’ Eirlys told them, but even thinking about Stanley, Harold and Percival Love didn’t work the magic for her today.
She walked home at six o’clock, wishing for the first time that this baby had not happened. She felt a superstitious guilt at the thought, but knew she meant it. Without the baby she doubted whether she and Ken would still be together. What was so noble about two people being unhappy, she thought sadly, staying together when duty and doing the right thing were so painful? Ken’s brief note was in her pocket and she tore it up and let the wind take the pieces where it would.
* * *
Delyth and Madge had heard no more about their leaving the shop and finding war work but they knew that it could happen at any time.
‘I think we should look for work in St David’s Well again. It might be our last chance of getting away from home.’ Delyth said.
Unaware that Vera had done the same thing, they went into the gift shop, on their next day trip, and asked if the owners knew of any jobs for which they might apply. At once Beth and Hannah offered their help, and as they discussed the possibilities over cups of tea, the promise of friendship developed.
* * *
Maldwyn’s first day at the flower shop was enjoyable. His nimble fingers designed displays from the dried flowers Mrs Chapel had in stock and he redressed the rather formal window with a summer display that delighted his employer.
‘Natural talent you’ve got, young Maldwyn, she said when they stood outside the shop admiring the attractive window.
‘I’ve been learning since I was fourteen,’ he said. ‘You can’t help getting better after all those years.’
‘It’s forty years for me and you’re far cleverer. Don’t put yourself down, there’s plenty of others more than willing to do that.’
They were about to close when a man came running up, pleading with them to stay open a little longer. ‘I need flowers real desperate,’ he told them. ‘I forgot my wife’s birthday.’
There weren’t many flowers left, but Maldwyn prepared a bunch of marigolds and comflowers with some stems of goldenrod to fill it up and handed it to the grateful man. He took the money and noted the transaction neatly in the book.
Mrs Chapel smiled at him. ‘I think in a week or so I can leave you in charge and go to visit my sister,’ she told him. ‘Years it is since I’ve had a little holiday.’
‘I’ll be pleased to help, and you needn’t worry about my closing at lunchtime either. I can get something sent over from the café.’
He was whistling as he brushed the floor and washed down the pavement outside.
‘Big mistake coming to work for Mrs Chapel,’ Arnold Elliot called. ‘Your job won’t last long. But I might have something for you when I extend.’
‘I hope she stays for many years yet,’ Maldwyn said, glancing through the doorway to see whether Mrs Chapel had heard the gloomy prediction.
‘Don’t take any notice of Arnold,’ she told him when he had closed the door. ‘He’s been talking about extending ever since I’ve known him and he still hasn’t persuaded me to move. It would take more than he offered to get me out of this place.’
‘Good on you,’ Maldwyn smiled.
* * *
The following Sunday he and Vera went up on the cliffs, where a flat area of grass seemed a pleasant place to sit. The plateau was half-way between the top of the headland and the shoreline below. There was no beach, just a few rocks that were exposed at low tide. They wriggled towards the edge and looked down at the rocky shore below them. A long way below.
‘Gosh!’ Vera exclaimed. ‘Falling down there would give you a headache!’
They heard shouting, and for a moment they presumed the remarks were for someone else. Then they realised the voice came from a man below them in a small fishing boat.
‘Get back, you fools! You’re sitting on an overhang and it’s likely to collapse!’ Still they didn’t grasp what he was saying and they waved cheerfully. With hands around his mouth to increase the sound the man repeated his warning and at last they realised and crawled back from the edge.
They heard laughter and, turning, saw they had been joined by Delyth and Madge. Standing a few yards away, Delyth swiftly drew the scene and followed it with another showing the couple flying through the air and down towards the rocks.
‘Lot of fuss about nothing,’ Vera said. It wasn’t until later when they were walking back to St David’s Well Bay that they looked back at the place where they had been sitting and saw that the turf actually overhung the edge by a few feet and they had been in real danger of falling.
‘We’ll keep away from there in future!’ Maldwyn said, hugging her. �
�I don’t want to lose you.’
Delyth was saddened by the growing affection between Maldwyn and Vera. She remembered his dark, deep brown eyes and grieved silently for what might have been.
They had asked at various places where they thought they might have found work, but Delyth’s heart was no longer in the idea. Maldwyn had been a strong reason for her decision to move to the town.
Maldwyn sent cards and letters regularly to his stepmother and received a letter from her every Friday. Sometimes she sent a postal order for two shillings for him to go to the pictures. Although her words were cheerful he sensed an underlying sadness; she mentioned the visitors she had, and there seemed very few. He thought often about going home, but the need for Winifred was less than when he had first left. Would she tell him to come back? Would he want to? He was practically running the flower shop and that was something his previous boss would never have allowed. Then there was Vera, and Delyth and Madge, and the Castle family at the café. He had more friends than he’d ever had and he knew he didn’t want to give up on this new life. Yet he did have a responsibility to Winifred. If she was unhappy, he had to at least go home and see what he could do to help. Perhaps she was ill? That was the decider.
‘I’m going home on Wednesday,’ he told Vera. ‘I’ve been away long enough to risk seeing my stepmother without the danger of feeling homesick.’ To his surprise she said she would go with him.
‘To see your family you mean?’
‘I think they’ll be able to forgive me by now,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Considering I didn’t do anything except tease Mr Henry Selby, the silly old fool!’
* * *
It was a morning in early June when they caught the train for Bryn Teg, and the weather was behaving impeccably. The sun shone and gave colour to the houses and fields they passed, the ever-changing view lightening Maldwyn’s heart unexpectedly as he recognised familiar places. Surely he hadn’t been away long enough to feel this excitement at coming home?
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