As she heard the words, Audrey glanced across at her sister expecting to see animosity, but instead she saw a smile.
‘Audrey, you have done something wonderful here. I’m sure it will be a success.’
‘Are you saying you were wrong?‘ Audrey asked with a wide smile.
‘I was wrong and I have never been more pleased to say it. Giving young people a meeting place where they aren’t hassled to move on as soon as their cup’s empty, is a brilliant idea. Congratulations.’
Audrey hid her tearful joy. If only Wilf were here. She still wondered about the money, thinking of the better premises she could have bought if it had been found, and the better position, and being able to employ waitresses instead of stealing Maude and Myrtle from her sister.
‘Sorry about Maude and Myrtle,’ she said, ‘but by the time the new season begins they might well have changed their minds and ask to join you on the sands.’
‘Let them be. I’ll find help, don’t worry. Just enjoy your success, Audrey.’ She meant it and for the first time in months, the sisters hugged each other affectionately.
Hetty came with Shirley, Eirlys came with Beth, and Hannah walked in with the two little girls who had been given a special late night to attend the new café’s opening. Keith Kent called in just as they were closing to offer his congratulations.
When the doors closed at nine o’clock, the whole family fell into chairs exhausted, and stared at each other. Praise for Audrey for her vision, and Maude and Myrtle for their hard work echoed around the now quiet room.
‘And don’t forget Keith,’ Maude said. ‘He kept his promise and allowed us to open on time, remember.’ Myrtle nodded but said nothing. She still had reservations about him.
‘It will be a great success,’ Keith said, ‘and it’s all down to you, Audrey. We only helped you to follow your dream, didn’t we girls?’
‘I hope next week isn’t a disappointment,’ Audrey said.
Huw gave a groan. ‘You mean there’s more?’ In a mock frail voice, he added, ‘Thank goodness tomorrow’s Sunday and all I have to do is paint about eight chairs!’
Audrey said, her eyes sparkling, ‘Oh, how Wilf would have loved this.’ At the doorway Keith waved at her and quietly left.
Ten
Andy Probert knew he had been foolish to go back to St David’s Well, especially as it was in the hope of seeing Shirley. He had been at one of the concerts where he’d noticed her with a young soldier, and had guessed correctly that this must be the Freddy he’d heard so much about. He didn’t really know her that well anyway, and although she seemed friendly and even attracted to him, he couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t report him to the police — particularly now her young chap was back — and get him arrested then handed over to the army, who would not deal with him lightly.
After all, she was involved with a serving soldier and might easily be resentful about his avoidance of being called up. She had seemed sympathetic when he had tried to explain about his nightmares and fears of drowning while in uniform among others who seemed unable to help him. But things changed and having spent a short time with her Freddy Clements, she might easily decide to report him.
It was with these gloomy thoughts that he awoke in his temporary shelter in the Clements’s empty house that Sunday morning. After washing at the kitchen sink with cold water and a sliver of soap he carried in a tobacco tin, he looked carefully around him then slipped out through the back lane. He had left the back door unlocked but as a precaution he pocketed the key. Head down, collar of his overcoat pulled up around his ears, he was thankful that it was winter, and the darkness and chill air made it easy to hide behind thick clothing.
He knew where Shirley lived, having taken her home on a couple of occasions, and as he was approaching the house on Brook Lane he saw the paperboy with his sack of papers on a small bogie cart.
‘Got anything for the Castles, have you?’ he asked. When the boy nodded, he offered to take them for him and with the newspapers in his hand he knocked on the door. He would explain that he was helping but wasn’t sure of the number if anyone but Shirley answered the door, but he was in luck.
‘Hello. Shirley. I’m your new paperboy, handsome, eh?’
‘What are you doing here? Will you come in for a cup of tea and some toast? Mam’s just making some.’
‘I won’t come in, but if you can bring some with you, that’ll be great. Starving I am, and cold beans is all I’ve got to eat.’
‘Bring some? Where are we going?’
‘I’ll show you where I’m living.’
Wrapping a couple of slices of toast in some greaseproof paper, she went out and saw him waiting at the end of the lane.
‘Living here in St David’s Well permanently then, are you?’
‘I’ll be around for a while. A big risk, mind, me being in such demand — by the police and the army — but worth it to see you, Shirley Downs.’
He took her via the lanes and after checking that no one was in sight, he pushed her through the gate of the Clements’s house and closed it behind them.
‘Andy! What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘This is Freddy’s house!’
‘Hardly. Not anymore. He won’t be paying the rent on it out of his army pay for the pleasure of returning after the war, will he?’
‘But you can’t stay here!’
‘What harm am I doing? I slip in and out without disturbing a thing and sleeping in a corner won’t offend his parents or their ghosts, will it?’
He was grinning widely as he showed her a small collection of tins and a vacuum flask. ‘Fancy a cup? I can’t offer you anything to eat, unless you fancy some sardines? I have to go to a café for food and to get this filled.’
Disapproval flared but quickly died. He made her laugh and he didn’t appear to be doing any harm by using an empty house. He put a hand on her arm, but she shrugged it off, a warning look in her eyes.
‘All right, but you can’t blame me for trying,’ he said, grinning.
She looked at the clothes which he used as bedding in a corner of the kitchen and frowned. This was one story Freddy wouldn’t like to read in a letter.
‘If I keep my hands in my pockets and my eyes on the ground, will you come upstairs and look at the garden? I think it was once very nice, but the lawn is about three feet high and the flowers are hidden by weeds. Isn’t it amazing how well weeds grow without attention?’ Andy said as he gently persuaded Shirley to follow him upstairs.
Today was also the day that Maldwyn had planned to take his fiancée to see the Clements’s house with a view to renting it. Delyth arrived by train at ten o’clock on that dark, damp November Sunday morning, filled with excitement. Most of her friends had begun married life living either with their parents, or in two rooms in the house of a neighbour. Maldwyn had promised her a house.
Hand in hand they walked to the house and Maldwyn unlocked the door. They were met with a draught that puzzled Maldwyn. ‘Wait here while I check that there’s no one else around,’ he said. He was extra protective of Delyth as she had been involved in a menacing situation the last summer, and was still nervous when something unexpected happened.
He went inside and quietly looked into the two living rooms and the kitchen. The back door opened when he turned the handle and he looked at the bunch of keys the estate agent had given him and found one to fit. Locking the door, he called to Delyth. ‘Someone must have left the back door open. I think, and the draught when we came in must have closed it. Come on, there’s no one here, love.’
Upstairs, where they had been looking out of the window into the neglected garden. Shirley heard voices and suddenly looked at Andy, alarmed. Andy, however, just stifled a laugh.
‘It sounds like that Maldwyn from the flower shop,’ Shirley whispered. ‘He must be here with his fiancee. Delyth, she’s called. She was kidnapped last year and nearly died. I don’t want to give her another fright. We have to get away. But how?’
&n
bsp; ‘Pity they didn’t leave a wardrobe here, it would have been fun snuggled in there with you.’
‘Shut up and think of a way to get us out of this!’
Maldwyn and Delyth looked around the ground floor. The linoleum had been left in the rooms, the hall and on the stairs. It was highly polished, the brass rods across each stair still shining brightly.
‘That’s lucky, we won’t have to buy floor covering.’ Delyth said. ‘Whatever we bought wouldn’t be better than this.’ The kitchen with its red tiled floor was again spotlessly clean. It contained a cooker and a sink with a well scrubbed wooden draining board. As they commented on the various items downstairs, Andy was mimicking them upstairs.
Shirley was less amused. ‘How do we get out?’ she hissed. ‘You might be able to get out of a window and run away, but I can’t!’
‘It’ll be easy as long as you can put on a bit of an act, and I bet that’s something you can do real well, you being on the stage an’ all. Just go downstairs all bold and tell them you were looking at the place for a friend. You found the back door open and walked in.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll take the rest of the toast and scarper out the window, what else?’
Once Andy had slipped out of the window and with the support of the drainpipe had slid to the ground, she shuffled her feet and coughed, to alert Maldwyn and Delyth of her presence.
‘Who’s that?’ Maldwyn called, pushing Delyth behind him.
‘And who’s that?’ Shirley demanded like an extra loud echo, having decided that the best form of defence is attack. She came down the stairs holding on to the banister, her stick raised threateningly in the other hand.
‘Shirley Downs?’ Delyth gasped. ‘I didn’t know there was anyone here.’
‘Maldwyn? Delyth? Hi yer. I hope I didn’t give you a fright. Tell the truth I shouldn’t be here. I was looking at it for a friend and when I found the back door open I came in. I didn’t know what to do when I heard you come in.’
They were in the hall and from where Shirley was standing she looked into the kitchen. Outside the window, Andy was clearly finding the situation very amusing. He was waving, his laughter inaudible but no doubt genuine. Shirley found it difficult not to join in. He really was an idiot. When the others turned around he ducked down out of sight only to reappear in the window beside the front door making a silly face.
‘Who was that?’ Maldwyn asked.
‘Just some stupid child having a laugh,’ Shirley replied.
Andy was leaning on the wall at the end of Brook Lane when she reached home.
‘Go away. I’ve had enough of your stupid games,’ she said.
‘Meet me later? We could go for a walk?’
‘So you can embarrass me again? Sorry, but once is enough.’
‘Somewhere private, only me and you.’
‘Go away or I’ll call the police. You should be in the army not conning a living out of others.’
‘Oh dear, we are high and mighty today, aren’t we?’
Audrey was on her way to see Bleddyn, and hearing voices she looked down the lane. Recognizing Andy, she decided to call the police. They came quickly and as Andy was walking away, he was met by two constables who grabbed an arm each and hauled him away. He looked back at Shirley who stared in disbelief. She wanted to tell him it was not she who had called the police, but suddenly she realized it didn’t matter. He was going where he belonged and a thief and cheat for a friend wasn’t the best way to cope with missing Freddy. She went in and wrote to Freddy telling him everything. She told it humorously, giving Maldwyn and Delyth’s involvement a greater part in the story than was true.
* * *
Marged guessed that the new café would be busy with people coming to look out of curiosity; a temporary burst of activity that might not last. In this she had been correct. The week began with the tables constantly occupied, but by Thursday the numbers had decreased as customers returned to their usual meeting places.
‘It’s nice to see it so busy and I’m thrilled for you but don’t be too complacent. Audrey,’ she warned when the week was ending and they were cleaning the place ready to close.
‘I didn’t expect anything more than nosy parkers at first.’ Audrey replied. ‘In fact, the people I’m hoping for haven’t started to find the place yet.’
‘You don’t want shoppers and office girls? But they will be your mainstay. You have to cater for them or you’ll fail.’
‘I want the young people. I want the busiest time to be after the shops close. This is a place for them to meet and chat and flirt a little. I want them to gather here between finishing work and going to the pictures, that’s the sort of place I want this to be. Not a gossip shop for bored women. Apart from dances and the pictures, there’s nowhere for the young to go. Wilf and I often talked about opening a place like this, a place where the young will congregate. There are plenty of places for shoppers and I don’t want this to be just another one.’
Marged said nothing but her face spoke clearly of her doubts.
During the week, she had called each day and helped when necessary. Sometimes moving a few things then sighing as she watched her sister put them back as they were. Mid morning and again at lunchtime, the place filled up with shoppers and office girls, as Marged had predicted, but the evenings when Audrey had hoped to see young people occupying every chair, filling the air with their chatter and laughter, remained her quietest time.
* * *
Keith Kent had long ago finished all the work that needed doing in the café, but he still found excuses to call. Once it was a pair of chairs he had found and painted in the green Audrey had chosen for her café. Another time it had been a wide elegant container that had once held flowers. He cleaned it up, painted it and took it to Chapel’s Flowers for Maldwyn to fill with a dried flower arrangement to stand near the café doorway. His visits were usually after he had finished his day’s work and he always stayed and found some small job to do. He often went up to the flat with Audrey, Maude and Myrtle for a late supper but always left before ten o’clock. He came more and more frequently, no longer needing a reason, and on days when he failed to appear Audrey found herself looking for him and wondering where he was.
‘You want to watch it,’ Marged warned, when someone remarked on the late night visits. ‘A rich widow you are and rich pickings might be what he’s after.’
‘You don’t think he could like me for myself then?’
‘Of course he could, Audrey, don’t be so touchy. I’m just warning you to be careful, that’s all.’
‘Thank you, I will.’
The friction between them had eased. With the beach activities long ago closed down, Marged called at the Corner Café most days and helped in the kitchen. When she saw something that needed doing, she tried to persuade Huw or Bleddyn to deal with it, hoping that Keith would eventually be squeezed out of the café for good. The Castle family needed no outsiders. Keith was very good at finding an excuse to call. Audrey was in a strange mood of late and she didn’t want the man taking advantage of her.
The winter was a quiet time for the Castle family and Marged was glad to pass a few hours working beside her sister. After all, she had worked at Castle’s Café on the beach since she was a child and knew the business better than most. ‘Audrey ought to be grateful,’ she told Huw, ‘but she hardly says thank you. There’s something bothering her, I know it.’
‘Wait, be patient, help her when you can, and she’ll tell you when she’s ready.‘ Huw advised.
‘I do help, don’t I?’
Huw guessed that part of Marged’s way of helping would be to tell her sister how things should be done. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you don’t go so often, love,’ he said. ‘Let her do it her way, sort out her own problems, is it? You can’t have her becoming dependent on you, then leave her as soon as the season starts, can you?’
Marged didn’t appear to listen to him. ‘I’ll clean those mi
rrors again tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Fingermarks all over them. Now that was a mistake, having mirrors like that just tempts people to mess them up.’
With Christmas drawing near the town did its best to add a sparkle to the shops and the streets. A few windows displayed Christmas trees and if the ornaments were tattered and had seen better days, no one complained. Whatever happened, the festival would be marked with as much joy as possible.
Stanley, Harold and Percival went out with Myrtle to gather holly from the fields around Mr Gregory’s smallholding. He had taken what he needed to fill the orders from market stallholders to sell as a welcome addition to the fruit and vegetables they managed to acquire, and had given them permission to take any that was left. Small bunches of the rich green, shiny leaves with a few berries, were used to fill pots and vases in Audrey’s café and candles were placed in jars and would be lit to add to the atmosphere during the last couple of weeks before everything closed down on Christmas Eve.
Audrey found it strange not to be involved in the usual family arrangements. In the house where she had lived all her life, the house in which she and Marged had been born, the family had gathered and the house had rung with reminiscences, singsongs and laughter. Now the house was empty apart from Marged and Huw’s son Ronnie and his family, who still lived in the top rooms. Audrey knew she would have to do something soon about finding a tenant, but she couldn’t let it go, not yet, in case the café failed and she had to go back.
The flat above the café was comfortable and with Maude and Myrtle sharing it, she was beginning to feel at home there, but if she had to sell the café the flat would be sold with it and she would have to go back to Sidney Street. The thought saddened her. This place was completely her own; for the first time in her life she had made the decisions with no thought of trying to please others. She had chosen a home and everything that went into it, she didn’t want to give it up.
She promised to go to Marged and Huw’s on Christmas evening, but the lunchtime meal would be here in her new home with Maude and Myrtle and perhaps, if the girls had no objection, she might invite Keith to share it with them. As the thought developed she laughed aloud. Still locked into her brain was the compulsion to ask if her plans met with approval, first by her mother, then Marged. Now, when she thought she was free to please herself, she was worrying about Maude and Myrtle being upset.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 138