Posters advertising forthcoming events were already displayed in shop windows and on notice boards throughout the town. The summer entertainments attracted great numbers and there were groups peering at the list of promised attractions. Inter-school cricket, fancy-dress parades, best-dressed dolls, gardens competitions, cheap days on the seaside fairground rides. The list went on with something for everyone. Concerts were planned for fund-raising and an auction of unwanted items was advertised with the proceeds going to the charity that sent parcels to prisoners of war. Alice smiled as she remembered the many happy events organized by her friend Eirlys Ward in previous summers. Eirlys’s enthusiasm showed no sign of flagging.
The beach was sombre, yet even on such a day as this, with rain clouds low, obliterating the distant sea and the far-off coast of Somerset, there was a hint of the magical days to come. Hidden behind the dark curtains of intermittent rain there was a feeling of hope, the promise of better things to come. Even in her mood of melancholy she could feel it, a certain something in the air.
Soaked but as always soothed by the constancy of the sea, she began to walk towards the bus stop. There was no one else waiting and restlessly she turned again to look at the sea.
A few of the gift shops and cafés were open, evidence that St David’s Well Bay was slowly wakening after its winter slumbers. The season was barely begun though people were trickling in as the days grew longer and the sun strengthened, but today, with the drizzle and the overcast sky there were only a few braving the weather to sit on the sheltered seat on the promenade and no one was dancing about at the edge of the icily cold waves.
She looked around her to find something to tell Eynon in her next letter. He loved hearing about the beach. Leaning on the stout sea wall and staring across to where the tide was washing the edges of the rocks around the headland, she forced the remnants of her melancholic mood from her and tried to imagine Eynon down there on the sand, chivying the holidaymakers and day trippers to pay for a ride.
She walked along the prom and, finding a sheltered corner, she took out the most recent letter she had received from her soldier husband and reread it. Eynon had always loved the beach. From a small child he had worked with his parents and his Uncle Bleddyn: serving on the stalls, helping with the helter-skelter and the swingboats, his cheerful patter enticing the visitors to enjoy the fun.
Alice glanced up to where his parents would be serving customers with snacks. Tomorrow she would go and help, but today was a day to wallow in self-pity and dream of Eynon’s return. A bus appeared, turning the corner at the other side of the bay, and she ran and jumped on.
The shops were crowded with shoppers, even on such a dismal day. Water dripped from hat brims, umbrellas caused irritation and little comfort, water underfoot chilled weary feet. Most women carried empty baskets, searching for something to satisfy their families’ appetites and provide an interesting meal. The entrance to the town’s market, where it was at least dry, was crowded with those trying to get in and others reluctant to leave its shelter.
There was a queue at the fish stall, where fresh fish had arrived. At the fruit and vegetable stalls in the market people crowded around, hands waving, hoping to buy some of the green stuff and potatoes before even that meagre supply ran out.
Her brother-in-law, Eynon’s brother Ronnie, ran the stall and, seeing her, he waved and pointed to a brown paper bag near the till. ‘Hang about, Alice, I’ve got some tiddly carrot thinnings. Mr Gregory sent them.’
‘Where’s ours then?’ a woman demanded, and others echoed her complaint.
Ronnie spread his hands and apologized. ‘Sorry I am, Mrs, but these are nothing more than scraps, honest, not enough to share. But soon there’ll be fresh carrots and lettuce and tomatoes and you’ll be able to eat your fill.’
‘Eat our fill? That’ll be the day, Ronnie.’
Alice waited until the customers had been served, then thanked Ronnie and accepted the gift. Small they might be, but fresh vegetables were welcome.
‘Good news about our Beth, eh?’ Ronnie said with a wide smile. ‘Imagine her with a baby boy.’ He was referring to his sister Beth who, until the birth of her son, had run the busy market café.
Their words were overheard and the busy shoppers all added their good wishes with demands that Beth get back as soon as possible to her café. ‘This new girl doesn’t make a cup of tea like your Beth,’ was the general opinion. Ronnie promised to hurry her up. ‘I’ll get the little chap into school as quick as I can,’ he joked.
Alice stayed to share news of the family with him for a while, then left the busy market and the patient customers searching for something tasty that wasn’t on ration, and headed for home.
Aware of a deep, bone-aching tiredness, she went home to write to Eynon and then sleep. Tomorrow was Sunday and a welcome day off from the noise and smells of the factory. She listed in her head all the tasks she would do. She wanted everything perfect for when Eynon came home and with talk of the Second Front and an invasion of Europe, it had to be soon. She skipped the last few steps in a sudden surge of excitement, imagining Eynon appearing at the door, calling her name. Closing the door behind her, the silence once more surrounded her and the room locked her into its loneliness.
* * *
One Sunday morning a few weeks later, she awoke early to the sound of rain. There wouldn’t be much business on the beach today. Perhaps Eynon’s parents wouldn’t need her to help in their café and she could use her day off catching up with some routine housework and write a long loving letter to Eynon. And to daydream about his return. Daydreams that were becoming harder to create. She could picture Eynon in her mind’s eye, but wondered if the man who came home to her would be the same one who went away.
She looked at the front page of the morning newspaper and sighed. Fighting was still continuing in Italy, North Africa and Burma. The rumours of a Second Front to take the battle into Europe had grown into an imminent certainty but now, in May 1944, there was no news of the invasion. Eynon would not be home for a long time yet. She wasn’t even sure where he was. The last time he had written he was in North Africa but waiting for a new posting.
Alice had married Eynon in September 1942 and after only two days together, he had gone back to his unit and she’d had only letters to reassure her that he still loved her and was longing for their reunion. What if he had changed? Until he had joined the Army, all his life had been spent here, in St David’s Well, a small seaside town on the coast of South Wales. To have experienced so much, how could he return and be the same person?
And what about herself? Would he find her changed from the woman he had married? She was no longer the timid Alice Potter who had looked after her sick father, a man whose mood could change from amiability to wild rage in moments and who needed all her understanding. Colin Potter had been a boxer and had suffered brain-damage during his last fight. She lay there, looking out of the bedroom window, the gloomy view of the houses opposite blurred by the falling rain, and remembered.
With her mentally ill father she had lived in a derelict property that had once been a shop. The only rooms that were at all safe to use were two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen. The living room, with its two chairs and a wireless, where they occasionally sat, had been damp, the plaster falling from the walls exposing the old stone, and an ill-fitting window threatening to fall out at any moment. Her attempts to keep the awful place clean had been futile but she hadn’t complained, believing they had no money for anything better. Then Colin had died and she found his savings. Enough for her to have made his last years comfortable. But he had been determined to leave the money to her, his last, loving gesture and one that even now made tears form in her eyes.
She would have remained that timid person her father had known if she hadn’t met and married Eynon Castle and become a member of his busy family. She had been so lacking in confidence she had found it impossible to offer an opinion that differed from others and she had dressed in wh
at his sister Beth had once called, ‘Pretend I’m not here’ clothes. Dull, unobtrusive, that was how she would have stayed. Even when she helped on the beach during the busy summer season she had found herself a place in the kitchen away from the lively crowds. But being forced to work in a factory with girls from every walk of life had changed her as nothing else could.
She quickly realized that she needed to cope with their teasing, her nicknames, their sometimes ribald remarks about her naivety or be completely defeated. She dealt with them by laughing with them, exaggerating her own failings and adding to their conviction of her unworldliness and innocence. Now she was no longer apart from the rest, she gave witty answers as swiftly as the best of them. But, she wondered, would Eynon still love her, now she had changed?
It was too early to worry about getting up and she took out all the letters she had received and picked a few at random to read through. A couple of hours later, putting the letters carefully away in the box she kept on her bedside table, she dressed and caught a bus to the beach. Whatever the weather, the Castles’ cafés and stalls and rides on the sands would be open for business to anyone who wanted to come. If Eynon’s parents needed her assistance she would willingly use her only day off doing what she could. It brought Eynon closer to be with his family, knowing herself to be a part of it. Or, she amended, if not truly accepted as one of them, at least able to share a little in their busy day and surely find something interesting to include in Eynon’s letters.
The Castle family was well known in St David’s Well. Marged Castle’s grandparents, called Piper, had started the business by opening the café high above the sands which could be reached from the footpath around the cliff top or by using metal steps that led up from the beach. They owned several beach stalls, selling the usual seaside requirements for a day on the sands, as well as the helter-skelter, a children’s roundabout and the popular swingboats, all of which stayed on the sand all summer and were stored away throughout the winter. There was also a fish and chip café in the town, run by her father-in-law and Huw’s brother, Bleddyn.
As it was Sunday and the town café was closed, Alice expected both brothers to be manning the beach stalls and rides but there was no sign of them. Huddled in the doubtful shelter of the deckchair store were eight donkeys and beside them mournfully puffing on his pipe sat their owner, the donkey man, Bernard Gregory. When Alice made her way across the raindrop-pitted sand of the beach, she saw that Huw and Bleddyn were with him.
‘Not many customers today, then,’ she called as she struggled with her umbrella against gusts of wind that threatened to make her airborne. ‘I’ve called to see if you wanted any help, but I don’t see a queue of customers.’
‘More sense than us, young Alice,’ Bernard replied. ‘Gone back to bed the whole bang lot of ’em, I reckon.’
‘I’ll be glad when we get them weather forecasts again,’ Huw grunted. ‘Then we could stay in bed too.’
‘Ridiculous precaution if you ask me.’ Bleddyn’s bearded face split to show strong even teeth as he laughed. ‘I can’t see how it would help Hitler by knowing the rain is going to soak us and the donkeys, can you?’
On being told that Marged was in the café serving the few stalwarts who had braved the downpour, Alice left them and, as the tide was out, made her way up the metal steps to the café above.
‘Alice, love, there’s good of you to come.’ Marged smiled a greeting as her daughter-in-law stepped inside and hooked her umbrella on the top of the steps. ‘Not rushed off our feet, but Bernard says it will stop soon and we’ll have a dry afternoon.’
Alice looked out of the window where rain streamed down the glass, distorting the view of the beach. She pulled a face showing her doubt.
‘He’s usually right, mind,’ Marged said, ‘even if he does go by cows and birds and clouds and things. Country-man our Bernard is, and they know how to read the signs.’
Taking off her coat, Alice washed her hands, accepted an apron and began mixing the ingredients for Welsh-cakes, the flat, tasty cakes that were cooked on a heavy metal plate locally called a bakestone. Not as much fruit as there used to be, and the proportions of fat to flour had changed dramatically, but freshly cooked and served warm, they were still a popular item with the visitors.
‘Have you heard from either of the boys?’ Alice asked.
‘Bleddyn had a letter from his Johnny, but nothing from our Eynon.’ She looked hopefully at her daughter-in-law. ‘Have you had a letter?’
Alice fingered her most recent letter from Eynon and hesitantly handed it to Marged. ‘You can read this one if you like.’
Letters within the family were shared but were usually read out so the personal, loving words could be held back, savoured by the recipient alone. But news had been scarce over recent weeks and Marged’s hopeful enquiry was something she couldn’t ignore. She went on with the cake mixture as Marged read the short note. There was little in this one to mull over, few clues to help them work out where he was and what he was doing. Assurances of his love were brief too.
‘I suppose he didn’t have time to write more,’ Alice said, tucking the precious letter back in her pocket. ‘Sometimes they have to move with hardly any time to pack let alone write to us.’
‘As long as we keep writing to them,’ Marged said softly. ‘And at least we can share. Bleddyn reads Johnny’s letters to Hannah and the girls as well as his own, and I get to share yours.’ Impulsively she hugged Alice. ‘I’m so lucky that our Eynon married you, Alice. You’ve been such a comfort and us Castles are so glad to have you in the family.’
Alice couldn’t return the hug without covering Marged with flour, so she kissed her on the cheek instead, warmed by the show of affection.
‘Right then,’ Huw announced from the doorway. ‘Where’s our cup of tea, our Marged? Three thirsty men you’ve got waiting here.’ He watched as Alice placed the first of the Welsh-cakes on the bakestone and added, ‘And a couple of them wouldn’t be a bad idea either.’
Their conversation, between serving the straggling line of soggy customers, was about the birth of Beth’s baby. ‘It’s funny to think that I’m an Auntie,’ Alice mused. ‘It makes me feel older somehow.’ She told them about the demands of the market customers for Beth to return to the café as soon as possible.
‘I hope she’ll stay home for a while,’ Marged said. ‘Enjoy the early years with the little boy, but I can’t suggest it. Nothing kept me away from the beach for long, even having four children didn’t persuade me to stay home.’
Bleddyn explained that his daughter-in-law, Hannah, had promised to look after the little boy as soon as Beth felt ready to leave him.
‘That’s all right now,’ Marged said. ‘But when the war’s over and your Johnny comes home, she might want to stay at home.’
‘The girls will work something out. Capable they are, your Beth and our Hannah.’
At three o’clock, when the rain had stopped but the day was still reluctant to brighten, Alice left. A couple of local boys had arrived willing to work on the stalls and with their help, Marged, Huw and Bleddyn would cope for the couple of hours left of the miserable day. Bernard Gregory admitted he had been wrong and led his string of donkeys off the beach and headed for home to Peter and Beth and his new grandson.
As she approached Holby Street, where she had two rooms and the use of the kitchen, Alice turned away. Instead of going home she went to see Marged’s sister, Audrey. She needed to talk to someone and Marged, although loving and kind, was too close to Eynon to enable her to be honest. The restlessness had been revived by talk about Beth’s baby and she recognized it as a slow growing fear. How would she react to Eynon’s return? Would they greet each other as lovers or strangers? Would their reunion be awkward and end in failure? These problems were not subjects to discuss with Eynon’s mother.
In the flat above the café she owned, Audrey invited her to stay and have tea with them. Audrey’s recently acquired second husband, Keith, an
d the two orphaned girls Maude and Myrtle, to whom Audrey had given a home, sensed Alice’s need to talk. Audrey made an excuse for Alice to go with her for a walk while the girls prepared their meal. Maude and Myrtle offered to make pancakes with a couple of precious eggs and a sprinkling of diluted vinegar as a pretence of lemon.
The weather was still dull and with the day approaching its end, the prospect of a walk was hardly enticing but they shrugged themselves into coats, hats and scarves and set off through the gloomy wet streets.
‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ Audrey enquired. ‘Have you heard from Eynon? Is he all right? So worrying, this talk of the Second Front. I sometimes think people forget that it’s our young men and women they’re sending out there, cheerfully waving them off to risk their lives. Victory at any price sounds noble but they won’t all come back to enjoy it, will they? That aspect of war seems to be ignored by the people who write slogans on walls demanding a “Second Front Now”. If only there was another way of defeating the enemy instead of sending people to be–’ She stopped as she realized that Alice was struggling to hold back tears. ‘Oh, Alice, how thoughtless of me. You haven’t heard for a while, is that it? You’re worried about our Eynon and there’s me prattling on in my stupid way.’ She hugged the girl and Alice allowed tears to fall. ‘You’ll get a letter soon, dear, you know how the post piles up and you don’t hear, then it comes when you’ve almost given up hope. Remember that time when you had five letters on the same day? How lovely that was.’
‘I have heard and Eynon is all right – so far as I know.’ Alice assured her in a voice muffled by her handkerchief.
‘I just wish this war would end and he could come home. I miss him, Auntie Audrey and – and I don’t feel certain that he’s missing me.’
‘What a lot of rot, dear. I can’t think what’s got into you, thinking such nonsense. I hear from Eynon too, remember, he’s that good at writing to us all, and all he thinks about is coming back to you.’
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