Holidays at Home Omnibus

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

  Her sketchbook was almost filled and she took out a new one. Two other small boats passed; these had no engines but were quietly rowed. She saw the men lift the gleaming oars from the water before dropping something over the side. Round floats revealed their position. Lobster pots, she guessed. She captured the tranquil scene on paper before lying back and enjoying the last of the sun.

  Later they sat up, ate some of their food and discussed how they would spend the rest of the evening.

  ‘Let’s stay here,’ Madge said. ‘We’re only twenty minutes’ walk from the station and we’ve enough food for a snack before we leave.’ She settled back against the rocks, behind which a rugged path led up to a headland before snaking down to the next cove, called St Paul’s Bay. She picked up her book with the photograph of John as a bookmark and read for a while, but the day was peaceful, the air silky and warm, the sound of the waves far below soporific, and she closed her eyes against the bright sun and let daydreams take her.

  Delyth walked along and looked down on St Paul’s Bay and the small recess at beach level, hardly big enough to be called a cave but which a few of the more foolhardy local children dared each other to enter when the tide was low.

  She stood, leaning against the sun-warmed rocks, and drew what she could see, strong, confident strokes marking the shape of the rocks and the sea below. The cave at one side of the drawing looked dark and mysterious and, simply for fun, she depicted two figures standing in its shadowed entrance.

  ‘What are you doing?’ a voice demanded.

  ‘What business is it of yours?’ she shouted back, frightened and angry. A man stood there, a man she recognised as Ken Ward.

  ‘Who is it?’ Madge called, and the stranger turned away and disappeared behind the rocks.

  ‘Nothing, go back to sleep,’ Delyth said, her voice calm but her heart racing. She wanted to run, to get away from this place where an angry push would send her down to almost certain death. She looked towards Madge. She was so content today, better than she’d been since the news of her husband’s death had torn her apart. How could she spoil it for her by a return to the fanciful fear that someone was trying to kill her?

  Logic told her that Ken had been as startled by seeing her there as she had been by his sudden appearance. He was afraid she was going to pester him. That must be it; he was misled by what was only a coincidence, that was all, she insisted, and persuaded Madge to close her eyes again as the man disappeared up the path towards the headland.

  Putting the now filled sketchbook in their picnic bag, she picked up the new one and in cartoon form drew Madge sleeping, with grass grown around her as though she had been there for a long time, and another of a seagull perched on their picnic bag.

  Determined to face her own demons, she walked back to the place from where she could look down on St Paul’s Bay and drew the scene again. This time she drew a solitary man, looking up at her, his face no more than a blank space but the droop of the shoulders and general demeanour giving an air of menace.

  When the sun began to sink and the gentle breeze to cool, Madge woke up, stretched luxuriously and declared herself starving. She didn’t worry when there was no reply. She sleepily reached over to the bag, then looked around her. There was no sign of Delyth. Only her new sketchpad lay on the grass, marking the place where she had stood. When Madge picked it up she saw that all the recent drawings had been torn out.

  Five

  At first Madge presumed that her friend was hiding and preparing to jump out and startle her. She crept slowly around the bushes and rocks on the narrow strip of land between the drop to the beach and the rise of the rocky cliff, prepared to laugh. There was no sign of Delyth. She called a few times, her voice hardening as she began to think the joke had gone on long enough. Irritation swelled to anger. Then, as minutes passed and there was nothing but silence, she began to be alarmed.

  She called with more urgency and crawled as close as she dared to the edge, trying to look down to where the tide was rushing in. The tumble of rocks that passed as a beach was about to vanish below the turbulent water.

  Surely Delyth hadn’t fallen? Cautiously she searched as close to the edge as she felt safe, her heart racing, but to her relief there was no sign of freshly broken turf. She looked again at the few places where her friend could find concealment and her fear increased. The air around her seemed to crackle with danger. She turned sharply once or twice, convinced that someone was behind her, about to strike. Still calling, a pitiful wail in her voice, she stood against the wall of rock, her back pressed against it as a form of protection.

  She was undecided whether to wait, in the hope Delyth would reappear as suddenly as she had vanished, or run to find help. Her fear increased as she realised that, if Delyth had fallen, then she must be seriously injured; she had heard no sound, no call for help.

  Facing her fear, she told herself she had to go down the precarious path to the disappearing beach below and look for Delyth before the tide came too far in for her to be able to find her. There wasn’t much time; the inexorable swell of the water would soon obliterate the narrow beach completely and rise high enough to cover an unconscious person, she thought with a shiver of fear.

  Leaving everything behind except Delyth’s coat, which she thought she might need, she went behind the rock and began to make her way down the dangerous route to the sea. She had reached half-way when she paused for a moment. The coat was an encumbrance and she pushed it between some rocks. Before starting down again, she called Delyth’s name, although with little hope. To her unspeakable relief, she heard Delyth call back.

  ‘Down here, Madge! Quick, I’m at the edge of the cave.’

  Slithering, careless of the danger, Madge made haste down the rest of the way and saw her friend with her foot stuck in a crevice in the rocks.

  Typically in moments of relief after fear, Madge began remonstrating with Delyth for not calling before. ‘I’ve been calling and listening. Why didn’t you shout, let me know where you were?’

  ‘I was trying to get my foot out. I didn’t want you to try coming down to help and for both of us to get stuck! But now I’m frightened, the water’s coming up so fast.’

  With the tide around them rising against their legs, both girls struggled to free Delyth’s foot from the grip of the rock. Minutes passed in frantic tugging and pulling and all the time the water rose around them.

  ‘We’re going to die,’ Delyth sobbed.

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic!’ Madge snapped. ‘Even at its highest the water won’t reach our faces.’ She was far from convinced of the truth of her confident statement but there was no chance for them if Delyth gave up and stopped trying.

  Although it was summer, their hands began to feel stiff with the coldness of the water. The waves hit them repeatedly, playfully wetting them as they came in with a rush of foam, and showering them as they bounced off the rocks as they departed. Soon they were completely soaked and Madge had to crouch with the water covering her face as she bent down and tried to ease her fingers around the recalcitrant shoe. Delyth was groaning and shaking with shock, fear, the chill of the water and the growing conviction that she would die. The shivers became an ululating moan.

  ‘Stop that!’ Madge shouted. ‘When I say, “Now.” I want you to grab your leg and pull back. Both together, ready — NOW.’

  Whether it was desperation giving them added strength, or Madge getting a better grip around the front of Delyth’s foot, their combined effort released her and sent them both falling heavily into the foaming waves. The deeper water made walking difficult and they struggled towards the point where they had clambered down. Their muscles were weak from their efforts and they stopped several times as they climbed back to the path. Eventually they stood panting, high above the relentless tide, soaking and bleeding, but safe.

  ‘Look what you’ve done to my hands,’ Madge said, showing her cut hands and broken nails.

  Delyth was trembling uncontrollably. ‘Wh
at about my back and my legs and my foot?’ she said, before they both burst into noisy tears.

  They had towels and bathers with them and a spare jumper, so they dried themselves and dressed in everything they had, wrapping their towels around their waists to walk down the path and along the promenade to the railway station, their coats around their shoulders and buttoned under their chins, worn as cloaks.

  It was not until they were sitting on the train, still trembling at the shock of the near-fatal accident, that Madge asked Delyth what she had been doing in such a dangerous place.

  ‘It was that man, Ken, the one I sketched in the park with the woman who wasn’t his wife.’

  ‘What are you talking about? How could Ken, or anyone else with any sense, be down there with the tide coming in? You didn’t hit your head as well as jam your foot, did you?’

  ‘He pulled me behind the rock and demanded the drawings I’d done in the park. He was afraid we’d tell that wife of his, poor dab. Eirlys she is, remember? The girl who works in the handicraft shop? I showed him the new book I was using and he snatched it and threw it down to the bay. I told him the used sketchbook was in the bag near where you were sleeping and he made me promise not to tell anyone about seeing him there that day.’

  ‘As if we would!’

  ‘I think he expected me to ask for money but I didn’t even think of it. I promised to tear them up in little pieces so long as he’d go away and leave me alone. I was real scared. Madge.’

  ‘I saw your book with the pages torn out.’

  ‘He took the other one. He wouldn’t trust my promises and made me go and get it without waking you. He tore out the two sketches I’d done and stuffed them in his pocket, then threw the book over the edge of the cliff.’

  ‘All this was going on with me lying prostrate and helpless? I’ll never sleep in the sun ever again!’ She shuddered at her vulnerability.

  ‘Then,’ Delyth went on, reaching into the pocket of her soaking wet shorts, ‘then he made me take this.’ She took out a fold of white paper and slowly opened it to reveal a five-pound note.

  ‘God ’elp! I’ve never owned one of those in my life!’

  ‘He hurried off and I went back down to retrieve my book, and my bag fell off my shoulder. I went down to get it and I couldn’t find a way back up, there was an overhang stopping me, so I went down to try another route and, well, you know the rest. I thought I could shelter in the cave if the tide came too high but I slipped, and the more I struggled the tighter I was lodged.’

  The train was full and the journey seemed endless. Cold, wet and still very shaken, the girls alighted at their stop and hurried home.

  * * *

  Ken sat in the quiet house. The three boys were at school, Eirlys and Morgan were at work and he was supposed to be phoning a few Army and Air Force camps, making arrangements for a concert-party tour. The list was in his hand and he was dressed ready to go out and find a telephone box, but he couldn’t rouse the enthusiasm to get up and deal with it. Thoughts of how he had treated Delyth obliterated every other. Delyth and the others he was using so badly.

  He was so ashamed of what he had done, frightening the young girl with her sketchbook. It merged with the guilt of him wanting another woman while Eirlys was carrying his child, and was like a volcano inside him threatening to burst and send him to kingdom come. What had happened to him, that he could act like a madman? How had he changed so much? He was never an angry man, yet now he was terrifying young girls and cheating on his pregnant wife. He had married Eirlys for better or for worse and nothing had changed since then except his dissatisfaction. If only he hadn’t met Janet. Or had met her before he married Eirlys. Perhaps he was weak and would never have been content. If Janet hadn’t happened, would someone else have appeared to destroy his marriage?

  The easiest excuse was the war and how it had altered the way people felt about things. He wasn’t the only one to be restless. The desperate feeling that ‘Today might be all you’re going to get’ made everyone behave more selfishly, made them greedy for every experience, every chance of happiness in case death or disablement made an end to their dreams for the future. Yet, if that were the case, why wasn’t he happy? He was taking risks, threatening the happiness of Eirlys and of Janet, and it wasn’t filling every day with joy. Far from it.

  He went to the phone box and cancelled his meetings for the next few days, delegating work that he was using simply as an excuse not to stay at home. Better he spent some time with Eirlys and tried to forget Janet. The boys came home for lunch and, because of her father’s shift work, it was Eirlys’s turn to feed them. She would be surprised to find the table laid, the kettle on and beans on toast, the boys’ favourite, ready to serve.

  ‘Ken! This is a lovely surprise. I thought you had to go out?’

  ‘I suddenly tired of dashing about and hardly seeing you, so I made a few phone calls and put everything off for a few days. Can you take a day off tomorrow? I thought we could go out, take a picnic, just you and me.’

  ‘Oh Ken, I’d love to, but I have a meeting I can’t cancel. We’ve decided we’re having a beauty contest and as it’s something we haven’t done before we have a lot of working out to do. I have to get the details as soon as possible so I can display posters and put a piece in the local paper and, well, you know what it’s like if anyone does, Ken. You have an idea but however simple it sounds there’s always a great deal to do.’

  ‘What if I come along? I might be able to help. I might even be able to arrange for a celebrity to open the proceedings; how would that be?’

  Eirlys’s eyes were shining as she nodded enthusiastically. ‘That would be wonderful, Ken. Thank you.’

  The sound of shouting announced the arrival of the three boys. Stanley and Harold burst in, saying they were starving, closely followed by nine-year-old Percival, who was worried in case the meal included one of a long list of things he didn’t like.

  He came in sniffing, trying to guess what they were being offered. If it was soup he hoped he’d be allowed to mash the vegetables like Eirlys’s mother, Annie, used to do. No chance of meat, thank goodness. He didn’t like lumps. He peered around his brothers as they threw off their blazers, and sighed with relief. Beans on toast. That was all right, so long as he could leave the crusts.

  Eirlys watched him, guessing his thoughts, and shared an amused smile with Ken.

  ‘No lumps to “bover” you today, Percival,’ she said kindly.

  Ken watched Eirlys as she dealt with the food, talked to the boys, asked about their morning then efficiently cleared away, leaving the kitchen neat and orderly, before starting to prepare the vegetables for the evening meal. She always looked neat, never a hair out of place. Her work area was always swiftly cleared. Even now, nearly five months pregnant, her figure was in control, her skirt and a long cardigan hiding the bulge of the baby. So in control.

  He stood admiring her, making himself proud of her, of the way she managed a very complicated job, ran the house and looked after himself, her father and three lively boys, and still looked unruffled and — he repeated the words in his mind — in control. A wave of sadness swept over him. So in control; her clothes sensible and immaculate, her small neat figure, her almost sculpted hair cut to shape and never being allowed to fall into disarray. Janet was careless about such things. She didn’t worry about a scarf to keep her hair tidy, but loved to allow the wind to blow through it. She dressed well, but without the anxiety that Eirlys showed. In bed, too, she was less inhibited, not worried about how she looked or behaved. He turned away from his wife and admitted to himself that no matter how he tried to pretend, it was Janet he wanted, Janet he loved. His life here with Eirlys, Morgan, Stanley, Harold and Percival was a prison and, with a baby expected in November, life had thrown away the key.

  He walked back with Eirlys, leaving her at the office door.

  ‘I’ll try to get out of one of tomorrow’s meetings,’ she told him. ‘Come with me to the f
irst and we can still go out for the rest of the day.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘I can have you all to myself for a few hours at least.’ Leaving her smiling happily, he went to the phone box and began making his calls. With misery overwhelming him he defied common sense; his first call was to the camp where Janet was based. He left a message asking her to phone him at the call box near Conroy Street at ten thirty that evening.

  The smile stayed on Eirlys’s face until the door closed behind her. Ken was making a real effort but she knew he was unhappy. She had the feeling that he hated coming home and guessed that having the three boys living with them was part of the trouble but there was nothing she could do about it. As for the rest of the trouble, she didn’t even know what it was, so how could she deal with it? She only knew that, for her, marriage to Ken was a continuing disappointment and she had to presume it was the same for him. There was no specific cause, they were just misfits who had married in haste and would now repent at their leisure, as the saying went.

  If only this baby hadn’t happened they might have amicably ended it, but now, like Ken, she felt trapped. She wanted to continue with her job and help at the handicraft shop with Hannah and Beth, not spend hours sitting waiting for Ken to appear and then wishing him gone. If only there was someone to talk to. It wasn’t the kind of thing to discuss with her father. It was at times like these she missed her mother so much. If Annie were here, she’d understand and help her decide what to do. She didn’t feel able to talk to Hannah or Beth either. They were so much in love with their husbands they would never understand.

  * * *

  Delyth was nervous and tearful; she told her boss she was ill and would be away from work for at least a week. When she ventured outside, the sound of a car approaching was enough to send her diving into the hedge or running in panic to a place where she could hide. He was still out there, whoever he was, watching her, waiting for another opportunity to run her down and this time make sure he killed her.