‘I’m glad I wasn’t.’
‘I’m not! I don’t want to see you again. Ken. Eirlys was my friend and now I’m her worst enemy.’
‘Stay with me, please; we have to talk about this,’ he said as she stood up to leave.
She sank back into the bentwood café chair, her arms defensively folded, and stared at him. ‘What can we do? You will be a father in a matter of weeks. How can we let this continue?’
‘Where are you staying?’
She gave him the name of the bed-and-breakfast; Ken told the waitress they had changed their minds, gave her a shilling tip and they left. Without telling her what he planned, he went to the house calling itself Mon Repos and asked for the bill. Instructing Janet to pack, he paid for the two nights she intended to stay and took her to a small hotel.
They stayed together until long past midnight and when he went home and crept up to bed, hoping not to disturb Eirlys, their bed was empty. He ran back downstairs where he saw a note propped up on the teapot. It told him that Eirlys was in hospital and he sat for several minutes staring into space, his eyes moist, his heart heavy with remorse. What sort of a person had he become that he could have abandoned his wife at such a time, abandoned her without even remembering she was ill?
Seven
The note shook in Ken’s hand. He threw it down and, without stopping to change, he ran to the hospital, too anxious even to find out if Morgan was awake. He entered the rather gloomy reception area and all but collapsed on the desk, where a young girl was staring at him fearfully. He was unaware how wild he looked, or how loudly he spoke when he made his demand.
‘I want to see my wife,’ he panted. ‘Mrs Eirlys Ward. She’s having a baby.’
‘Sorry Mr Ward, but visiting isn’t until two o’clock tomorrow,’ the girl stammered, wondering if she were about to be attacked.
A doctor and a nurse came then and calmed him, assuring him Eirlys was not in danger.
‘Mrs Ward is resting. We don’t want your baby born before we’re ready for him,’ the doctor said, encouraging Ken to sit. He felt guilty and ashamed, and in spite of that wanted to see Janet, to have her tell him everything would be all right.
‘I want to see her!’
‘And you will, but not in the middle of the night, Mr Ward. Go home and come back tomorrow.’
He dashed home at the same speed with which he had reached the hospital; guilt and worry made it impossible to slow down. Morgan was asleep, the boys too, but he didn’t think there was any chance of joining them. He made a cup of tea and sat in a chair, wondering how he could make up to Eirlys for his disgraceful behaviour.
* * *
The day following the beauty contest was a Sunday, and Vera woke up to the knowledge that after all the excitement and admiration of the contest she had to go to Castle’s Café and wash dishes. It made her resentful. Why wasn’t she on the stage, or posing for fashionable pictures for magazines? How did people with as lowly a start as she manage to break out of the conventions that choked them? She washed in the chilly bathroom, which wasn’t a bathroom at all, just a room Mrs Denver had set aside for them to wash in. It was on the north side and always cold. The wash-stand had a dark grey marble top and seemed to create an extra chill in the room. The towels hung on the side of it; there was a bowl in which to wash herself; a jug, which Mrs Denver never failed to fill with warm water for her; and the soap dish with its slab of green washing soap which the old lady supplied for them. She hated everything about the room that morning.
The soldier who had talked to her after the competition and asked her to meet him was nice, but she didn’t think he held the key to an exciting future. Soldiers moved on, and there were too many girls already who had succumbed, in the belief that their handsome soldier would return with love and a wedding ring. She heard Maldwyn whistling as he got out of bed; with a towel around his neck, he came to where she was, applying make-up in front of the mirror on the windowsill.
‘Finished?’ he asked. ‘I’ll go down and get some warm water if you are.’
‘I’m beginning to hate it here,’ she whispered. ‘I want something better. Don’t you?’
‘I’ve never been away from home before, and I can’t compare this with anything else, except the place we were thrown out from! I think we’re very lucky. Mrs Denver looks after us as though we’re her own. Spoils us in fact. I don’t think we’d do much better if we paid twice as much as we pay her.’
‘I hated living at home and I’m beginning to think this isn’t much better. If only I could get work in the fashion world. D’you think I’m attractive enough to work as a photographer’s model?’
‘Of course you are … but I think it takes more than beauty.’
‘You think I’m beautiful?’ she asked, lowering her head and glancing up at him sideways in what she hoped was a provocative manner.
He grinned. ‘Fishing for compliments, is it? Isn’t winning that beauty contest enough for you?’
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then replied soberly, ‘No, I don’t think it is.’
She was vague all morning. Marged had to repeat orders for her and she forgot several things she was supposed to do.
‘She’s in love, I think,’ Huw chuckled as he picked up a used cup she had left on a freshly set table.
‘In love with herself if you ask me!’ Marged snapped. She went into the kitchen, where Vera stood looking out of the window towards the cliff path, ignoring the sink filled with unwashed dishes.
‘Vera!’ she shouted, making the girl jump with shock. ‘We’ll be running out of clean plates if you don’t get a move on!’
‘Can’t I do something else, Mrs Castle? This hot water is ruining my hands. Look at them, all red and ugly.’
‘Dishes! And please hurry.’
Disconsolately, Vera washed and dried and stacked, and dreamed about a different sort of life, where she left all the menial jobs for someone else to do.
As the day went on, Vera was more and more reluctant to do her work. She was off-hand with customers, impatient when they hesitated while choosing their order. The children she told to be quiet, and brushed up any mess with huge sighs of irritation. Marged warned her that ‘Winning a competition is meant to be fun. You shouldn’t allow it to ruin your life by dreaming of something that will never happen.’
‘How d’you know it won’t happen? Look at Shirley Downs. She dreamed of being a singer and she achieved it.’
‘Shirley has a wonderful talent and she’s worked very hard to develop it. A pretty face isn’t enough, not on its own. Life isn’t froth and bubbles for most of us, just hard work. Getting as bad as our Lilly you are, Vera Matthews!’
Huw chuckled and said she’d soon come down to earth. ‘Let her have her few days of fantasy. She’ll soon accept that froth and bubbles are only to be found in a washing-up bowl.’
* * *
Janet waited in the hotel where she and Ken had spent several happy hours the evening before. He had promised to come but it was getting late; maybe he couldn’t get away. Being a mistress, she berated herself, had its drawbacks. Unreliability was just one of them. She asked at the small reception desk if any messages had come for her and at midday she went for a walk.
She ate a lonely lunch in a small restaurant that promised an ‘Old Fashioned Roast Dinner’. swallowing the dry potatoes and unidentifiable meat with difficulty. At three she decided he wasn’t coming, paid her bill and went to the railway station.
The blissful hours with Ken had left her low in spirits and ashamed of being so happy. She had to get away from him, move to a place where he would never find her.
As usual, the platform was crowded with people waiting for the mid-moming train: soldiers, sailors and airmen returning from leave with their loved ones standing near, seeing them off, not knowing what to say. As the time for the train drew near, the groups huddled closer, as though needing protection as the time to part approached with each loud tick of the platform clock.
But Janet was not in the midst of a crush of people; she was isolated within the throng, and she knew that was what the future offered her. Isolation even in the middle of a crowd of people. She had no place here, or anywhere, no roots, no one to care whether she were dead or alive. Staring into the future, she couldn’t imagine a situation where life could be any different.
* * *
Ken dozed for a few hours, then he washed and changed his clothes and set off back to the hospital. He didn’t want to telephone, he wanted to be there, to see her, hear her tell him she was all right.
The doctors had reassured them both about the baby, but before Ken returned Eirlys was warned that she had to rest more and it would be advisable for her to give up work completely.
‘Advisable, not necessary?’ she asked.
‘I would strongly recommend that you stay at home for the remainder of your pregnancy, Mrs Ward.’
She smiled her thanks but said nothing of this to Ken when he arrived. She couldn’t give up work, not at this stage. She had to oversee her summer-entertainments plans to the end. There were only a few arrangements to follow through. Most of the work was done and she hated the thought of leaving it to someone else. It was her project and she wanted to hang on to it greedily. It was only a couple more weeks. Surely the baby wouldn’t object to that?
Ken was told he was not really allowed to enter the ward until visiting hours but he persuaded the matron to let him go and sit beside Eirlys for a few moments. She didn’t seem very pleased to see him.
He sat beside her bed and tried to talk to her about the success of the contest, repeating some of the flattering comments about her management of it that he had overheard, but she hardly seemed to hear him.
‘Are you tired?’ he asked after an uneasy few moments.
‘Yes, Ken. I think I want to sleep. Visiting time isn’t until this afternoon and the nurses have lots to do. Why don’t you go?’
He kissed her unresponsive lips and went out, turning at the door to see her pick up a magazine and begin to read. She couldn’t possibly know about Janet, so why was she so withdrawn from him? Perhaps their marriage was a failure for her too, he thought with some surprise.
He didn’t go back to Conroy Street. Instead he went to the hotel where he had taken Janet, running as he drew near, afraid she would have left early. He was told that she had left fifteen minutes before and, thanking the porter, he ran to the station just as the train pulled Janet, with a fuss of steam and smoke and noisy chuntering, out of his reach.
* * *
When Vera left the café she went back to Mrs Denver’s feeling very deflated. Yesterday she had been admired, told she was beautiful, and today she was washing dirty dishes, clearing up after families of boring people who didn’t even notice how lucky they were to be served by a beauty queen.
‘What is it, love?’ Mrs Denver asked as she handed her a cup of tea. ‘Anything I can do?’
‘Not unless you can tell me how I get out of this rut I’m in.’
‘Leaving home was an adventure, then finding a place to sleep in that railway carriage, and getting a job in Castle’s Café. That doesn’t sound like a rut to me. Be patient, dear; you’ll find something better, more suited to your talents.’
‘D’you think so? Really?’
‘Really. Daring, you are, bold and brave. One day soon you’ll know what you want and you’ll go out there and make it happen.’ She leaned over and patted Vera’s hand. ‘Until then, make the best of what you’ve got. Maldwyn is a good friend when you need company and doesn’t bother you much when you don’t. You have a job that pays well enough. Specially if you started being nice to the customers and earned a few more tips,’ she said pointedly.
‘I have been a pig today, Mrs Denver,’ she grinned.
‘I thought you might have been. Now, what about a nice wash and a change of clothes? Put that nice blue skirt and blouse on, the ones you bought last week, and make yourself feel less like a skivvy and more like a beauty queen, eh?’
* * *
Eirlys came out of hospital on Monday afternoon and went straight up to bed. Morgan fussed over her, glaring at Ken whenever he had the opportunity, making certain his son-in-law knew he considered him partly to blame for Eirlys’s problems. On the landing outside their bedroom, he asked, ‘You’re going to stay around for a few days, aren’t you? See that Eirlys is all right before you swan off somewhere to entertain the masses?’
‘I can’t. I have to go to North Wales and London. There are things I have to do, and I have to arrange for someone else to do them if I’m to have time off. I can’t just drop everything.’
‘Your wife’s more important at the moment, I’d say.’
‘Unfortunately the war doesn’t stop for illnesses, even for someone as important as Eirlys.’
‘This war is about people!’ Morgan pointed towards the three boys huddled together near the fireplace. ‘They are terrified. Afraid that if anything should happen to Eirlys they’d lose their home. I’ve tried to reassure them but seeing you so indifferent, not looking after Eirlys as you should, is making it worse for them.’
‘Father-in-law,’ Ken said sharply. ‘Those boys are your responsibility. Not mine and not really Eirlys’s. We’ll be moving out of your house one day and they will stay with you. You allowed their mother to live here with you and that implied they were staying for ever. Now you have to deal with them. Not me, not Eirlys, you!’
In the bedroom. Eirlys covered her ears with the pillows. Downstairs, the three boys looked subdued and frightened as the men argued, their voices raised in anger.
‘What will happen to us if Eirlys dies, like Mam did?’ Percival asked in his low, slow voice. ‘Will we have to go back to London and stay in a room like before, sleeping three in a bed?’
‘Course not,’ Stanley assured him, with more confidence than he felt. ‘Eirlys ain’t going to die, she’s ’avin’ a baby, that’s all.’ He looked towards the stairs and added in a whisper, ‘Anyway, if she does, Uncle Morgan’ll see us all right, won’t he?’
‘Why does she have to go to bed and sleep just because there’s a baby coming to live with us?’ Harold asked.
‘Oh, Harold,’ Stanley groaned in worldly-wise tone. ‘Do you ‘ave to ask all these questions?’
Morgan came down the stairs, followed by Ken. ‘Go on,’ he grinned, pointing a thumb up the stairs, ‘you can all go and see her now.’ With a whoop of delight they scuttled up the stairs and into her room and sat gently on the bed.
‘When’s this baby coming then?’ Percival asked with a sigh. ‘It’s taking ages. Uncle Morgan says that’s why you’re ill. How come it’s troubling you before the postman brings it?’
* * *
It was two days before Ken felt able to leave. He went straight to the camp where Janet had worked, to be told she had moved on.
‘Can you give me an address where I can reach her?’ he asked, taking out a notebook and fountain pen. ‘She’s promised to sing at two of the concerts I’ve arranged and I need to let her know about rehearsals.’
The guards at the entrance to the camp eyed him suspiciously. ‘There’s no message here for you, and if I were you, mate, I’d clear off and stop asking questions.’
‘You could be risking arrest and possible interrogation if you hang about trying to get information, even about the Naafi girls,’ the other added. ‘And you could get the lady in question suspected of spying too.’
He walked away. From behind a counter, Janet stood up, thanked them and returned to the Nissen hut where she slept.
With a heavy heart Ken moved on, wondering how he could find Janet, whether he should, and how he could face the rest of his life without her if he didn’t. He realised that, if she had moved on without telling him where, his only hope of contact was through Shirley, who used to partner her on stage, or Beth, who ran the market café which was still in her name. Surely she would come back to it one day? Like thousands of others, he curs
ed the war and the upheaval it created and wondered whether anything would ever return to how it was.
He changed some money into penny pieces, found a phone box and began booking halls and arranging meetings, and all the time he wondered where Janet had gone and if she would get in touch. It took a long time and today he was impatient. Few people had telephones and he would sometimes have to wait while the owner of the phone, often in a corner shop, ran to find the person he wanted.
* * *
With the holiday season at an end, the children back in school and fewer day trippers and visitors arriving in the small town, it might be expected that everything would slow to a more sedate pace, with the average age of the crowd being greater than during high summer, and no silly hats or bursts of laughter at things that were not really funny. The mood did change, but the people who did come were still determined to have fun, and were making the most of every sunny day, crowding into the town through the first weeks of September, by train, bus, bicycle and on foot. Restrictions on using petrol for pleasure reduced the number of cars, but there were a suspiciously high number of vans and lorries crowded with children arriving with the rest, the owners hoping that if the police saw the illegal use of their firms’ vehicles they would sympathetically turn away.
Delyth and Madge still came whenever they could, usually on Sundays and often on Wednesdays as well. Cutting down the cost of the day out by bringing food and a bottle of pop from home, they were beginning to feel like locals, and were treated so by many of the traders and shopkeepers.
Vera had been the one to introduce them, firstly to the Castle family and then to others. They always met her and gave her news of her family and friends. Together with Maldwyn, her friendship gave them a greater sense of belonging. They knew that their life would be sadder once the season ended, and the stalls and entertainments on the sands were dismantled and stored away until the spring.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 105