‘Delyth,’ Madge said when the weekend was upon them. ‘I’m not wasting another day with you acting like a Victorian lady with the vapours. You’re coming to St David’s Well and we’re going up on that cliff for a picnic. You’re going to get rid of this fear if I have to drag you there. Right?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Cowards say “can’t”, sensible young women say “I’ll try!”’
‘Since when have I been sensible?’ Delyth grinned weakly.
‘If you don’t come with me, I’ll go and tell the police what happened, and then you’ll have to talk about it, and that stupid Ken Ward will get into trouble and that poor wife of his will know and—’
‘All right. I’ll come, but if I lose my nerve promise you won’t make me go up on to the cliff path?’
‘You’ll go. And you’ll take your sketchbook with you. I want a pictorial record of our youth. Right?’ To further her persuasions she added, ‘What say we write to Maldwyn and ask him to meet us? Being a Sunday, he’ll be free.’
They wrote a letter care of Chapel’s Flowers and asked Maldwyn to meet them the following Sunday. He replied and promised to be at the station when they arrived. Madge also wrote to the three young women in the handicraft shop, inviting them to join them on the beach with Hannah’s children. She was sure that, with arrangements made involving others, Delyth was less likely to change her mind. ‘With five women and a couple of kids, I don’t suppose Maldwyn will enjoy it, but he can always escape and pretend he’s got something to do in that shop he loves so much,’ she said with a laugh.
Delyth began counting the hours, not with happy anticipation but with dread.
* * *
Ken’s day out with Eirlys was not a success. They seemed to have very little to say to each other and most of their conversations were about their work, each trying to persuade the other how busy they were, each making subliminal excuses for their disappointing marriage although the words only picked around the edges of the truth.
Ken promised that on the following Sunday he would go with Eirlys to the special meeting she had called and bring with him a few people who had run beauty contests before and might be willing to offer their help.
When they reached home Eirlys excused herself and went to bed. The boys were asleep and Morgan was at work. At ten thirty Ken went out and waited at the call box for Janet to ring.
‘I’m free next weekend,’ she told him.
‘I’m not,’ he groaned. ‘I’m going to Bedfordshire with a concert party. I have to leave here on Sunday night and drive the loaded lorry up.’
‘Perhaps it’s for the best, Ken. We shouldn’t meet any more. I keep telling myself how cruel it is to treat Eirlys so badly. I’ve applied for overseas posting and I’ll be going for training soon. It’s better to end it now.’
Ken wrestled with his conscience. Janet was right. He’d lost count of the times they had decided to say goodbye. But if she was going abroad then the decision would be made for them; until then … ‘I’ll leave a day early,’ he said. ‘You can come with me and help set up the stage.’
The arrangement would be perfectly acceptable, as several people were needed by the travelling concert party to set up the stage in the limited time allowed. But it was really only a smokescreen for what would go on when the concert ended.
* * *
Maldwyn was a little worried about his original plan to use the cellar for work and holding stock. That someone had come into the premises when he had been in the cellar and taken away the picture frame worried him. Mrs Chapel lived in the flat above and he didn’t want people wandering in and out unobserved. He brought a table and a few shelves back up and placed them in the rear of the shop, and it was there the bouquets were made up, where there was a clear view of the shop door when he or Mrs Chapel was alone.
He had been introduced to the traders at the early-morning market and from that day he had been allowed to choose what to buy. Mrs Chapel was thankful for the extra hour in bed and Maldwyn was as excited as a child at Christmas. He selected flowers of varying sizes, from small flowers for posies to large blooms for arrangements large enough to fill a fireplace or a corner of a room. He also went out in the fields and cut branches, which he painted and to which he added a few blossoms. These were a way of filling large areas such as churches relatively cheaply and were in demand at once.
The fruit too began to sell, even though Maldwyn startled his employer by charging higher prices than the shops nearby. He carefully selected each piece and never sold one with a sign of damage. The reputation for quality was quickly earned.
‘Wicked waste,’ Mrs Chapel told her friends with a certain pride, but the damaged fruit was sold to either Mrs Denver, who cooked for a local café, or to Castle’s Café, to be made into pies and other desserts, and the profit made her content.
Maldwyn was pleased with the invitation to join Delyth and Madge the following Sunday, especially as Vera had told him she was working and couldn’t meet him for their occasional walk-and-talk hours, as she called them. He hated Sundays when Vera couldn’t meet him and usually spent the day cleaning out some corner of the shop.
When she heard of the arrangement. Mrs Denver promised to make a few treats, and he took out his smartest short-sleeved shirt and beige slacks. Madge had hinted in her letter that Delyth had stopped drawing and needed encouragement so he bought a good-quality sketchbook and a selection of pencils, the assistant telling him how lucky he was to have a 2H and a 4B soft lead when most shops could only supply a dubious HB. He thanked her vaguely, not sure what she meant but confident that Delyth would, and packed them with his dippers and towel, spare clothes and the food.
* * *
Ken had received a letter from Janet, disguised as a business letter by a brown envelope and a typed address; the weekend had been cancelled because two of the girls were ill and she had to work. That Saturday morning he dealt with several other letters regarding future concerts, went to the phone box and began listing appointments for auditions and confirming previously booked venues.
When Eirlys came home from work at lunchtime, he had gone. There was no message. She presumed he would turn up in time for the meeting with his colleagues, ready to offer advice.
The conversation with Janet and the plan to spend the weekend together had sent all thoughts of Eirlys and her meeting out of his head. Then the letter telling him the arrangement had been cancelled made him set off much earlier: to see Janet for a couple of hours was better than nothing. At nine thirty, while the boys were eating breakfast, he bathed and left the house in Conroy Street without giving the beauty contest a thought.
At the council offices on Sunday morning, Eirlys set out cups and saucers ready for the coffee she had promised to prepare for those attending, and threw anxious glances towards the door. He would come. He wouldn’t let her down at such an important time. She’d told everyone of his promises, the expert offering advice, the showbiz celebrity to open the event. He would come.
She delayed starting the meeting for as long as she could. After twenty minutes, when people were becoming restless, and she had been reminded that it was a Sunday morning and people had other things to do, she knew he wasn’t coming. With a heavy heart she listened to suggestions and noted in her neat writing the ideas and offers of help that would be useful.
The decision was made to hold the competition sometime in August, when the town was at its busiest, on the sands at St David’s Well Bay if the weather allowed or in the large dance hall at a nearby pebble beach if not. There was no famous person booked to open the contest. Ken had let her down badly, made her look inefficient, and it hurt.
She had arranged for her father to take the boys out so she and Ken could go somewhere and have lunch together. Instead she caught the bus to the bay and walked along the promenade, looking down at the families having fun and wondering why she had failed. The families were happy even though incomplete, the children accompanied by mothers, gra
ndmothers and aunts with only a few men: mostly grandfathers, she guessed.
One group climbed down the metal steps from Castle’s Café, a young woman with a child and an older man who she presumed was the grandfather, but she was wrong.
‘Lilly!’ she heard Marged shout from the café door. ‘Mrs Denver will look after Phyllis for you so you can come and help your family when they’re desperate!’
‘I’ll think about it our Mam,’ the young woman called back. So that was Lilly, Marged and Huw’s daughter who had married a man as old as her father. Eirlys wondered sadly whether they were happy. Everyone seemed to be, except herself and Ken.
The sun was strong that day and the men looked uncomfortable in their suits, with knotted handkerchiefs on their heads, some brave enough to roll their trousers half-way up their shins and dabble at the very edge of the waves.
One elderly man was surrounded by excited children who were trying in vain to suppress giggles. They were clearly being reprimanded for splashing the irate man’s best — or only — suit.
She pressed her hand against her swelling figure and tried to imagine enjoying such innocent fun with her baby and Ken, and she failed. This baby would be loved, but it wouldn’t bring the great happiness she had once imagined.
‘What sad thoughts are you harbouring this day, my dear?’ The voice came from a strangely dressed woman, wrapped in silky shawls with beads and sparkling jewels adorning her clothes and hair. Two dark, mesmerising eyes stared out from the shawl, preventing Eirlys from turning away and walking on.
‘I’m not sad,’ she said defensively.
‘You can’t lie to me, my dear.’ The woman shook her head from side to side slowly, earrings clattering musically. She continued to stare. ‘Not a death, I think, but a failure. A man, but you think he isn’t the man for you.’
Alarmed and not a little frightened, Eirlys tried to pass the gypsy woman, whom she now recognised as the fortune teller from the booth on the far end of the promenade. ‘I’m married,’ she retorted rather haughtily.
‘To the wrong man is what you think, dearie,’ the gypsy woman insisted. ‘You are seeing a baby who will bring you joy, but believe his father will not be there to see your son grow into a fine young man.’ She reached out and held Eirlys’s arm in a strong grip. ‘Come and see me; cross my palm with silver and I will tell you what you need — maybe not want, but need to know.’
Unnerved, Eirlys watched the woman walk slowly away. How could a stranger know why she was sad? As she passed the colourful tent which advertised ‘Sarah the All-seeing, All-knowing Gypsy King’s Daughter’, she tried not to read the times when the woman would be there, but her mind took in the times against her will and she wondered whether, one lunch break, she might go in and listen to what she had to say.
There wasn’t much point. Marriage was for ever and nothing the woman, wise or not, might say could change that. Thoughts of divorce filtered through her mind from time to time but were always discarded; with the baby coming it was not an option either she or Ken could accept.
* * *
Ken met Janet in a café not far from the camp where she was working. The lorry, which was loaded with the props for the concert, was parked outside. Ken had been there for an hour when she arrived, in uniform, windblown and rosy from the run from the bus stop. He felt no irritation at having to wait for her, just joy at her arrival.
‘Sorry Ken, I was delayed. Some supplies arrived as I was leaving and I had to stay and see them stored properly or the mice will have more than the men.’ He had stood up when she opened the café door and opened his arms wide. They kissed affectionately, grinning with the pleasure of seeing each other.
‘Another cup of tea then, is it?’ the girl behind the counter called.
‘I’ve already drunk three; if I have another I’ll explode.’ Ken laughed. ‘I was afraid she’d tell me to leave if I didn’t have something in front of me.’
‘Two teas and two doughnuts,’ Janet replied and added in a low voice, ‘And they’d better be as good as the ones I make, or else.’
They played with the food. Eating was only a pretence, the café being one of the few places they were able to meet. Their talk was casual at first, relating the various activities taking place in their worlds. Then Ken became serious and told her what he had done.
‘A young girl, a friend of Beth and Hannah and my wife, saw us together in the park. We were arguing, if you remember. She did a drawing of us together and another of us walking off hand in hand.’ He showed her the crumpled pages he had torn from Delyth’s book.
‘If Eirlys saw it she’d be so distressed,’ Janet said, guilt making her look away from Ken.
‘She did see it. She told me about the girl with a talent for sketching. Fonunately she didn’t recognise the two figures as you and me. Delyth — that’s her name — hadn’t intended a likeness, just a sketch of two people. But — oh, Janet — I threatened the girl and made her return the drawings.’
‘Was that wise? It might have been better to ignore it, pretend it was nothing to do with you.’
‘I panicked. I—I followed the two girls, and frightened Delyth, snatched the drawings, then gave her five pounds, pretending it was payment for them. I know I made things worse. She might have suspected the man was me and that I was with a woman who was more than a passing stranger, but now she knows for certain.’
Leaving the café, they walked slowly along the quiet country roads. Janet was on duty in less than an hour and besides the early-evening shift in the canteen she had promised to sing that night in a concert organised by the soldiers at the camp.
‘Crowded, it is, lorries, guns, vehicles and all sorts, and hundreds of extra men coming from all over the place ready to embark for foreign parts,’ she told him, trying to take his mind away from his worries about Eirlys. ‘The barracks are filled to overflowing and there are tents going up all over the fields. So they thought a concert would be a way of passing the evening for those who can’t leave camp. As we had to forget our weekend away, I offered to sing.’
Because Janet understood a lot about Ken’s work, they had plenty to discuss and the time they had together passed unbelievably fast.
‘I want to tell Eirlys about us,’ he said as he held her. ‘It’s the only way. I will tell her, but I want to choose where and when. I don’t want someone like this Delyth girl dictating to me.’
‘Try to forget it happened, love. You’ll probably hear no more about it.’
Walking back to the bus stop holding hands, both wishing the parting could be delayed, they spoke of more personal things, their love and need of each other, the dream of facing the scandal and walking away from Eirlys, but for both the fact that there was a baby involved made the dream more poignant and sad. Both knew their plans were nothing more than pretence. It was too late. It wouldn’t happen. Ken would stay with Eirlys, and Janet would be unable to return to St David’s Well and the market café.
‘Whatever happens, we’ll always stay in touch, won’t we?’ Janet asked.
‘Until you find someone else, someone free to love you as you deserve.’
He stood and watched the bus, with her face a vague pale shadow in the back window, until it was no longer in sight, then turned to make his way back to a house he could never call home.
He still hadn’t remembered the arrangement to meet his wife. His thoughts were all selfish ones. Anger filled him, not with himself for cheating and for the lies he would have to tell, but with Eirlys for making it necessary. His anger was particular; he felt none for most of the people he knew. It was only Eirlys who brought out that unpleasant emotion and in his saner moments he knew that what he called anger was really only a thinly veiled guilt, which he twisted and distorted to ease his conscience. As anger cooled, he wondered sadly how love, that gentlest of emotions, had turned him into a cowardly bully.
He had delivered the lorryload of props to the venue and, as he was not really needed once his acts h
ad arrived and rehearsals were under way, he left them and travelled by train back to St David’s Well. He was shocked when Eirlys berated him for not turning up at her meeting. Shocked that he had forgotten so completely. He promised to do something about it immediately, but she muttered quietly that she wouldn’t expect wonders.
The following Sunday, Ken volunteered to take the three boys to the beach and, taking a ball, buckets and spades and the rest of the paraphernalia needed for a day out, he found a place for them on the sand and settled for what he knew would be a boring few hours.
Eirlys had promised to join them later, after spending a few hours helping Hannah and Beth. Leaving her father in charge of the potatoes in a slow oven and the pathetic joint of meat simmering in a pan with vegetables, she walked to the shop. She was very quiet, and Hannah tactfully asked it she were feeling unwell.
‘I’m a bit tired; this little baby is wearing me out,’ she said.
‘Perhaps it’s time you stopped working?’ Beth suggested, but Eirlys shook her head.
‘Ken’s money isn’t generous, and I need my wage for as long as I can keep working. Dad is good and gives what he can spare, but the boys eat enormous quantities, except Percival, who’s still a bit picky with his food. Then there’s getting what I need for this baby.’ She hesitated a moment and Beth and Hannah waited for her to continue. ‘I met that gypsy fortune teller on the prom the other day. She said it will be a boy; d’you think she knows what she’s talking about?’ She hoped they would speak derisively of the woman’s talent and she wasn’t thinking of the sex of her unborn child, but the confusing remarks about her being with the wrong man and all the implications of that casually spoken statement.
‘I think there are a lot of people who make these things up, but people say she has a way of coming up with the truth,’ Hannah said.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 101