* * *
Audrey’s café had become the place where people gathered to share good news. Audrey loved the atmosphere she had created, allowing people to stay long after their coffee had been drunk and the cakes eaten, to sit and talk. As in most families, letters were shared throughout the war and now, with at least the war with Germany at an end, this sharing of news continued. Audrey stood behind the counter with Maude and listened to the lively conversations going on around her.
‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Every day there’s news of someone coming home.’
‘None of ours yet,’ Maude said. ‘Eynon and Johnny still far away, no message from Reggie since his surprise visit to the street party where we missed each other. I don’t know when I’ll see him. And there’s no sign of Shirley’s Freddy.’
‘Perhaps Reggie will go home to see his family first,’ Audrey said. ‘With his brother dead his mother will be so relieved to know Reggie’s safe.’
‘Of course. I’m being selfish. I wish he’d write though.’
‘There’ll be a letter soon, sure to be.’ Audrey wondered whether Reggie was one of the young men who had encouraged girls to write, without the intention of coming back to them. They had all needed love-letters to help them believe they had a future. Now his war was over, Reggie might be content to go back to his home and his former life and loves. She said nothing of this to Maude. If Reggie failed to arrive, then the realization would come slowly, less painfully.
The subject of their conversation was at the beach. He was uneasy about meeting Maude and had been to Audrey’s café twice and walked away. His thoughts were the opposite of Audrey’s. He knew he shouldn’t expect Maude to be as happy at seeing him as he was at returning to her. Everyone knew that girls wrote to soldiers out of sympathy, aware of their need for contact with home. Now he was back for good he didn’t want to make the mistake of expecting her to fall into his arms and swear undying love. Although his hopes were for something along those lines.
‘Reggie?’ He turned as he heard his name and stared at the young woman standing near him.
‘Myrtle? Gosh you’ve grown up. I’ve only been away five minutes and you’ve gone from a gawky school girl to a young woman.’
‘Cheek! I was never gawky! Where are you going? What’s with the suit?’
Reggie laughed deprecatingly and brushed an imaginary crumb from his lapel. ‘Demob suit. Like it?’
‘I’d better go quick and warn our Maude to take off her pinny and put on something fancy.’
‘Are you going there now? I’ll come with you,’ he said, offering her his arm.
‘I’ve got to go and see Stanley first,’ she explained. ‘Auntie Marged wants him at the beach early in the morning because Uncle Huw is going to the warehouse for supplies.’
‘All right, I’ll come with you,’ he said, glad of an excuse not to walk into Audrey’s flat alone. Aware of the lateness of the hour and of the time he had spent wandering, he suggested they caught the bus to Conroy Street.
Eirlys was out but they were invited inside, where Stanley and Harold immediately asked Reggie how many soldiers he had killed.
‘None, you gruesome lot,’ he told them. ‘I was in the Catering Corps.’
‘Ah, I see, own goals don’t count, eh?’ Stanley said, ducking Reggie’s blow.
Having delivered her message, Myrtle urged him to leave. ‘Come on, Reggie, the café will be closed soon and Auntie Audrey will wonder where I am. Don’t you want to see our Maude then?’
Audrey’s café stayed open until 9 p.m., and tonight it seemed that the customers didn’t want to go. A group of young girls sat crowded around three tables pushed together, sipping coffee and whispering secrets.
Shutting off the main light didn’t encourage them to depart and it wasn’t until Audrey went to stand by the open door that they reluctantly gathered their coats and stood to leave. Before they reached the door, a figure appeared and Audrey raised a hand and explained the café was closed. Then she recognized Myrtle and looked again at Reggie.
‘Maude?’ she called. ‘Come and see to this last customer, will you?’
‘Does this mean we can have another coffee?’ one of the customers asked hopefully.
‘Go now and you can have a free cup tomorrow. Just go.’
‘One coffee or one each?’
‘Go!’
Taking Myrtle’s hand, Audrey led her out into the kitchen, leaving Maude and Reggie alone.
With only the light angling through from the kitchen, where Audrey and Myrtle washed dishes with unnecessary noise. Reggie and Maude sat and stared at each other.
‘When did you get home?’ Maude asked.
Reggie didn’t reply, he just stared at her. ‘I can’t believe I’m here with you,’ he whispered.
‘Been to see your Mam?’
‘I want to kiss you.’
‘Reggie, stop it.’
‘Stop what? Wanting to kiss you? Never.’
‘I ought to be helping.’ She gestured towards the kitchen, where Myrtle and Audrey were singing.
‘Stop trying to make small talk. Just kiss me.’
‘Reggie, someone will see us!’
He leaned across the small table, big, strong, so familiar and so loved. She murmured his name softly, closed her eyes and surrendered to his kiss. Audrey glanced in and carefully closed the kitchen door.
‘Two down – Beth’s Peter and Maude’s Reggie – and three more to go,’ she whispered to Myrtle. ‘Our Eynon and Johnny, and Shirley’s Freddy.’
‘It won’t be long, Auntie Audrey.’
* * *
When she heard that Reggie Probert was home, Shirley went to see him. Perhaps there was news about his brother? Although she was only half convinced that he was alive, she had to know for certain. With no body found and no other evidence of his death, like hundreds of other women, she couldn’t quite believe it.
‘Reggie,’ she called when she saw him walking beside a small cart being pulled by one of the donkeys. ‘Glad to see you home safe and sound. Back with Mr Gregory, are you?’
‘He put me to work straight away,’ he said. ‘Terrible hard man he is.’ Shirley was surprised to hear him criticizing his boss, until Bernard’s head popped out from the other side of the cart.
‘Lazy devil wanted a week off. I told him he’d skived long enough and the mustard field wanted ploughing in.’
Shirley followed them up the hill to where the field of yellow mustard flowers glowed like gold in the sun. Growing the crop and ploughing it in fed the ground with what Bernard called green manure – she remembered Andy explaining that. While Bernard went to collect the horse, Reggie spread his coat and invited her to sit.
‘You want to talk to me about Andy, I suppose.’
‘I don’t want to upset you, Reggie, but I think I’ve seen him.’
Reggie didn’t show any surprise or distress. ‘I don’t think that’s all that unusual. When someone dies in an accident and you see them and you attend their funeral, it’s final and settled but when someone dies a long way from home and you don’t even know where or how, it’s as though the story’s incomplete. So in your mind you’re waiting for him to appear, denying what the facts tell you.’
‘Nonsense!’ Shirley retorted angrily. ‘I’m not some silly girl in love with a ghost! Andy wasn’t important to me and I’m certainly not daydreaming of the return of some hero! I just think he might be alive because of the kind of person he is. He was a cheat and a crook, and he avoided being sent to fight for most of the war. He was scared, Reggie. Running away in the confusion of battle was something I can believe and so can you, if you’re honest.’
Reggie shook his dark head. ‘If you’re right, he would have contacted me. He knows I would never report him. He’s my brother and I’d rather have him alive and in trouble, than dead. The nightmares he suffered where he saw himself drowning were real enough. I shared a bedroom with him and he used to wake screaming and Dad
and I had to hold him until he came out of the terror he saw for himself.’
‘If he’s caught even after the war finally ends, he’ll still go to prison, won’t he?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it won’t be difficult to find a new personality. There’s plenty of confusion, with people missing and families dispersed. He could start again with a different name maybe.’
‘But you don’t think he’s alive?’
‘No, I don’t. He’d have let me know.’
Bernard came with the horse and a collection of harness straps and buckles and Shirley left them to their work and walked back into town. She was almost convinced, but there was still a niggle of doubt. She tried to think of Freddy Clements, preparing a letter in her head that she would write when she reached home. But Freddy’s face slipped away from her mind and was replaced by the handsome, cheeky face of Reggie’s brother with his guileless, blue eyes.
* * *
Cassie closed for the half day on Wednesday and instead of spending the time doing housework and bringing the shop’s books up to date she went into Cardiff. She hadn’t decided whether or not she would call at his office to try to see Joseph, but she was increasingly curious about his continued absences.
The address was in a quiet area of the town, some distance from the shops, where offices and one or two houses attracted few passers-by. Her footsteps sounded hollow on the pavement, echoing back and emphasizing the emptiness.
The buildings were large and impersonal, with many windows boarded, presumably after bomb damage, and others still criss-crossed with anti-shatter tape. Only the strong wooden door of the offices, with its polished letter boxes, showed signs of habitation. She stopped and stared at it, still wondering whether or not to knock and begin an enquiry which might lead to something she didn’t want to know.
There was something off-putting about this place, where Joseph had spent the war years. She had no right to be there, it was a part of his life in which she had no part. On her one previous visit, a girl had sat typing, just inside the door and discouraged anyone from entering. That was understandable if what Joseph had told her was true and he was on secret war work, but surely everything had been relaxed from those dangerous times now Germany was defeated?
The door was a heavy one and she pondered briefly and idly on how large the key would have to be. Several brass notices were fastened to the side of it. None of them hinted at the importance of the work that had gone on inside. The firms sounded innocuous and most appeared to provide office equipment or were small printers. That was different. Before it had been connected with supplies of food. She knocked at the door loudly, trying to appear confident. Joseph was her husband, after all, and she was entitled to talk to him.
A young man opened the door and stood, his head tilted questioningly, without saying a word.
‘I wish to see Mr Joseph Davies,’ she said firmly.
‘Sorry, madam, there’s no one of that name working here.’
‘What d’you mean? My husband has worked here all through the war.’
‘Ah, but our area of the conflict has ended, and the Ministry of Food personnel have moved on.’ He closed the door before she could formulate another question and she stood there for a long time staring at it.
‘Can I help you?’ a voice asked and Cassie turned to see a young woman standing beside her, obviously waiting to go inside.
‘My husband works there and a young man just told me he doesn’t.’
‘And your husband’s name is – ?’
‘Joseph. Joseph Davies.’
‘Oh, I know Joe. He lives in Gratton Street.’
‘Has lodgings there you mean?’ She was confused. ‘But he worked here and had accommodation that went with the job. I don’t understand. If the job has changed, why is he in lodgings with a home an hour away? He’s living here!’ she insisted. ‘And his name is Joseph. No one calls him Joe.’ Cassie was angry. She was being made to look a fool. As the young woman shrugged then reached out to knock on the door, Cassie swallowed her pride to ask, ‘You don’t know the number, of his lodgings, I mean?’
The young woman frowned as though trying to remember. ‘We all went to a party there on V.E. night. Number seven I think it was. Yes, number seven. Green curtains. I can check for you?’ she added brightly.
‘No need. Thanks,’ Cassie said as she turned away. The girl must be wrong. Joseph going to a party on V.E. night? He didn’t even like parties. Besides, he’d have come home to her if he’d been free.
The young woman gave her directions and she walked to the end of Gratton Street and looked at the fourth house along, with its green curtains. She didn’t knock. She was afraid she would have to explain to another stranger that she didn’t know where her husband was. Throughout the war he had lived in the same building as the offices, the staff working around the clock on a shift system. So when that was no longer necessary, why hadn’t he come home? What was he doing living in Gratton Street? These were questions needing an answer but not here: she needed the security of home to ask them. She turned away and returned to the centre of the town.
Disconsolately she wandered through the market, where queues suggested the arrival of some luxury or other. She mused over what she would describe as luxuries. Things that had once been commonplace had been added to the list of items worth queuing for in the almost six years of rationing. She stretched across to see that one queue was for small, odd-shaped cucumbers, and some sad-looking pears. In the fish market people waited patiently to be allowed to buy a pound of sprats. She didn’t bother. At home there was a small portion of cheese she had been saving for Joseph. She’d make a Welsh rarebit for her supper. Wherever he was, it didn’t seem likely he’d be wanting supper today. His arrivals were always heralded by a letter a few days before.
At home she lit a fire and made herself a snack, then settled to concentrate on the books. She had to forget Gratton Street and other mysteries until Joseph was there. Later that night she wrote to him, making no mention of her aborted visit. Instead she told him their bank balance, and the possibility of renting yet another shop while the premises were cheap. That would please him and perhaps would persuade him to come home and discuss her proposed next stage of their business plan.
Alice came into the shop the following day and she told her that Joseph was not working for the war department any more, and of being told he had found new lodgings. Aware of the woman’s anxieties that were half hidden by a cheery smile, Alice asked why she hadn’t called at the address she had been given.
‘I don’t know. Time, partly. I wanted to get home before the crowds filled the trains. I hate not having a seat.’
To Alice the answer didn’t convince. ‘If you like, I’ll go with you one afternoon. If you haven’t heard by next Sunday, we could go in and find the place. I’ll wait outside and we can come home together.’
‘No need, Alice. You’re needed on the beach at the weekends, I’m sure.’
‘Not any more,’ Alice replied. She spoke lightly, hiding her continuing hurt. ‘They have plenty of willing hands these days. Casual workers they know nothing about have been taken on, so I’m not needed.’
‘More fools them.’
‘Yes, well, shall we go on Sunday? Or we could make it Wednesday, then we could have a cup of tea somewhere.’
‘Thank you, Alice, but he’ll be home before then, sure to be.’
‘If you want any help, with anything, just get in touch. You know where I live.’ Alice had a feeling that all was not well, but she couldn’t ask questions outright and reveal her suspicions. She knew Cassie didn’t find it easy to confide in someone else and a persistent offer of help might make her wary, discouraging her from further confidences. Then she wouldn’t be any use at all. Suspicions were growing in Alice’s mind and she guessed that one day soon, Cassie would need a friend.
* * *
The Victory Parade of children in bright fancy dress attracted crowds who lined the pavemen
t to watch as it passed through the main road of the town. Children who hadn’t joined in, tagged on the end, calling names, jeering the participants, blowing raspberries and being chased away by irate parents, then darting back to torment some more. The procession wound its way around the streets ending up at the town hall. There, transport awaited them and buses and lorries took the participants to the beach.
Every nationality who had shared the victory was represented and besides the school children walking along class by class, there were toddlers and small babies being pushed in prams or carried by proud mothers. In the middle of the line was Bernard and his donkeys.
The townspeople who watched the cavalcade pass, had been joined by repatriated soldiers wearing the hospital uniform; most were bandaged, many had lost limbs but all were enjoying the scene and cheering the children as they passed.
When they reached the beach, a concert party had gathered to reward the participants and, sitting them in rows, the teachers urged them to be quiet as the choir began to sing ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’. At the side of the stage, Shirley waited for her signal to join in.
It was immediately apparent that something was wrong, as one section of the choir was singing in a different key. The conductor’s attempts to rectify this led to another section singing at a slower tempo. Shirley began again. After several attempts to bring them to order, some choir members leaned forward and poked their tongues out at the apparently irate conductor. Some of the audience were disconcerted but others guessed it was part of the fun of that celebratory day.
Then, to convince the doubters, from within the closely packed singers clowns appeared, squirted water at everyone and ran around, falling over, tripping people up and causing mayhem. They were cheered by the audience while the conductor tried in vain to restore order.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 158