He smiled when he saw the childishly made banner and the Union flags that flew from the windows in his honour. A rosy-faced little boy was swinging on the gate and he realized with a start that it was his son, his six-year-old son, whom he hadn’t seen for more than five years. He stopped and took a deep breath.
‘Hello,’ he said then.
‘Hello, what happened to your face?’
‘I got burnt.’
‘My dad’s coming home,’ the boy said, looking past him, along the street, impatient for that first glimpse.
‘Is your mother home? And your sister, Margaret?’
‘Yeh, but they’re busy gettin’ ready for our dad.’
‘Tell her I’m here, will you?’
‘I’ll try, but she’s awful busy, mind.’
‘Matthew!’ His wife appeared in the porch to see who her son was talking to and she stared in disbelief at his face. Slowly, tearfully she approached and put her arms around his neck. She held him against her but didn’t offer her face for a kiss. Matthew told himself it didn’t matter: he’d been expecting it. His scarred lips were hardly tempting.
He offered an arm to his son and the child came up and stared deep frown furrowing his brow. ‘Margaret,’ he called to his sister loudly. ‘Come and see ’im. Our dad’s home and he’s a hero and wounded something awful.’
In many other houses welcomes were planned and, for many families, the adjustments were swiftly done. In others, children who had known only their mother were upset at being corrected by the stranger who had entered their homes. Some were cheeky to hide their anxieties, others became subdued and there were many more, the majority, who went to school and boasted about the man who was their father, who was brave, and big and home for ever.
Sam Junior was demobbed and went at once to the house where he and his father had lived. Pretending not to know his father’s whereabouts, he asked the neighbours where he could be found and, making sure his father was at home, he knocked on the door of the place where his father, Lilly and Phyllis now lived. He knew it would be his father who opened the door. Lilly didn’t often rouse herself to do such things.
‘Hello, Dad. This is a surprise. When did you move here, then?’ he asked, stepping past his father and standing in the hall, not knowing which way to go.
‘Sorry, son. I didn’t want to worry you while you were away but we had to sell up. Financial problems. There’s no room for you here, I’m afraid, but I’ve arranged for you to lodge with Mrs Denver, you remember her? Our little Phyllis’s grandmother, in Queen Street. Will that be all right?’
‘That’s fine, until I get sorted. Can I see her before I go?’
‘Lilly?’ his father asked.
‘Well yes, but I was thinking of little Phyllis. I bet she’s changed since I saw her last. Eh?’
The four-year-old Phyllis was sitting at the table patiently finishing a jigsaw puzzle. She looked up, her bright-blue eyes crinkling with pleasure as she greeted him. ‘I can’t find the straight edge for this corner, Daddy,’ she said and Sam Senior went across and helped direct her fingers to the correct piece and applauded her when she completed the puzzle.
‘She’s beautiful, Dad,’ Sam said, patting the child’s fair head.
‘Clever too. She does that puzzle in no time. Sociable little thing, she pretends to need help so I can become involved. She does it to me all the time.’ He spoke proudly as he kissed a rosy cheek.
‘Mrs Denver is expecting you for tea,’ he said pointedly. ‘I’ll tell Lilly you’re home and you can call and see her, perhaps tomorrow?’
‘Fine. But I don’t know when. I have to go and search for a job before they’re all taken, remember.’
‘We’ll be here all day,’ his father assured him.
Sam Junior was shaking when he left his father’s house. His attitude had been so formal. Nothing like the welcome he had envisaged over the past months and years. Lilly must be right, his father knew of their secret affair. He hadn’t believed her when she told him in a letter what she suspected. Lilly was a bit of a drama queen, he knew that and he thought she was inventing a problem to add spice to their next meeting. But now he believed her. He had to see her, talk to her, decide how they would deal with it. But how, without his father finding out?
He went to Mrs Denver’s and his welcome there was far greater than his father’s had been. She had made a room as comfortable as she could and even had a fire burning in the grate.
‘Not that it will be a regular thing,’ she warned. ‘Coal is rationed and I have to save what I have for the cooking range. This is just a welcome home.’
He thanked her and unpacked his few belongings. When he opened a wardrobe to put his greatcoat inside he was surprised to see the rest of his clothes there.
‘Your dad brought them when they left the house,’ Mrs Denver explained.
‘I’ve been well and truly banished, haven’t I?’ His new landlady said nothing but from the expression on her kindly face he guessed that his father had confided in her. What a mess. What a stupid mistake to become involved with his stepmother – inevitable though. It sounded sordid, but he knew that when he and Lilly met would be impossible for them not to continue with the affair. Thoughts of her had filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else since his last visit home.
* * *
Joseph had refused to take back the suspect bedding, the pink-edged sheets and pillowcases and the only way Cassie could get rid of them was to sell them, offering them secretly – under the counter – to customers in the know. The news was spread by word of mouth and the commodity-starved people gladly risked being found out, for the treat of something new. Alice bought some for her own store and made sure both Marged and Audrey were well stocked. If the police had any suspicions, nothing was said and the piles of boxes in the back room of the shops gradually emptied. The bank balance of Cassie and Joseph rose steadily.
* * *
Shirley watched as the town’s population swelled with the demobbed men and women. As with Eirlys, there were many disappointments as employees were asked to leave the jobs they had made their own, to make room for the returning men. Familiar faces reappeared and the townspeople settled down to revive their broken lives. So where was Freddy Clements?
She had written to the war office, and made enquiries at every possible office but she was told that unless they had a specific request, they couldn’t divulge the whereabouts of an ex-serviceman. Cynically she wondered whether many of the requests they received were attempts to find an absconded father. Every letter she wrote to him arrived back at her own address, as he had arranged. But as for Freddy himself, there was no sign.
She had money belonging to him and that worried her. Besides the money, there were a few pieces which she thought he would like to keep, mementoes of his childhood and things his parents had loved, plus some new, carefully stored linen that she hoped they would one day share.
That glimpse of the future was in abeyance too. She couldn’t know how he felt about her until they met. Letters were so unreliable. His affectionate words were perhaps regretted, making it impossible for him to come home, afraid she would expect more than he could give. He had never been the most reliable of men. When they had first started meeting, he had been engaged to marry Beth Castle. They had spent a couple of weekends in the Grantham hotel in Gorsebank, while Beth still dreamed of marriage. The war was certain to have changed him, but not necessarily made him more trustworthy where women are concerned. Loyalty was something he had lacked before 1939 and it would take a miracle to change him that much. Boxes of his belongings were in a cupboard in her room and, it seemed, there they would stay.
* * *
Sam Junior didn’t see either Lilly or his father over the following few days. He called at the house but there was never any reply. Was his father inside, listening to his knocking and refusing to open the door? After several more disappointments he went to the employment exchange and applied for work in the c
ouncil offices, where there were vacancies for clerks dealing with housing priorities. When he learned he was successful he put a note through his father’s door telling him so, and went back to Mrs Denver’s.
Sam picked up the note and tore it through. Then he set the table for tea and went to the library. Reading was his only solace since Lilly had ruined his life.
* * *
Matthew had been home for two weeks when he knew that the hero’s welcome was not for him. He went to visit other men, people he had served with and envied them. Several of them he had met in hospital and, injured or whole, they all seemed to be secure, safe back home, wrapped around in pride and love.
His wife had tried, he knew that, but there was something holding her back. He wondered if the ‘something’ was a ‘someone’, a man she had met while he had been away, but there had been no sign of him. And the children made no mention of another man visiting their house.
The summer season ended, the rides and stalls were packed away for the winter and the nights began to draw in. For the first time since war began, the streets were no longer hazardous, fewer pedestrians tripped over unseen objects. Winter was no longer to be dreaded, except for the shortages of fuel and the continuing food rationing. And Matthew Proudfoot had still not found a job.
Before the war he had worked in the showroom of a garage, selling cars, but the scars on his once handsome face had made it impossible for his employers to take him back. Offices, shops and even the timber yard, where there was a vacancy for a sawyer, out of sight, measuring and cutting up wood needed by builders, had all refused to employ him, the excuses vague and sometimes abrupt.
He knew this was partly his own fault as, with the passing time he was less and less polite to prospective bosses and his surliness discouraged anyone from giving him a chance.
His wife still worked in the factory, which had reverted back from munitions to saucepans and other, less offensive, products and every week made him more frustrated than the last as he had to face the fact that without her wages they would be in what the locals called ‘Queer Street’.
One afternoon, he walked several miles, calling at every likely looking place where he might find work. Surely there was some place where he could work where he wouldn’t offend anyone, he thought bitterly. His feet ached, his heart was heavy with despair. What more could he do? He stopped in Audrey’s café, which had become a regular haunt in his frustrating days. She automatically asked whether he’d had any luck, and frowned in sympathy when he told her he had not.
She placed a cup of tea at his elbow and he looked at the list he had made the previous evening of places to apply. All crossed out. Unless the employment exchange had something, or there was an advertisement in the evening paper, there was nothing more he could do that day. Hidden by a large-leafed plant, he overheard someone criticizing someone, accusing them of being lazy, and realized with horror that they were referring to him.
‘Some of them need a nudge, mind,’ an unseen woman was saying. ‘There’s that Matthew Proudfoot. He’s been home for weeks and is there a sign of him getting a job? No there isn’t!’
‘His poor wife has worked all through the war and she should be taking it easy now. You’d think he’d be glad to look after her, wouldn’t you?’
He stood up and stumbled from the café and out into the gloomy evening. It was raining and as he walked along the pavement, a car drove past and soaked his trouser legs as it sped through a deep puddle. He looked at the car and saw the passenger laughing at him.
A few moments later he caught up with the car, which had parked outside a tobacconist shop. There was no one inside but the engine was running. Without thinking, Matthew jumped in and drove off. He had no idea where he was going, he just had to put a few miles between himself and this town.
He hit the pedestrian as he walked out of the small park in the centre of the town and felt the horrifying bump as he ran over him. He drove on, hardly able to see through his tears, until the town was a long way behind him; then, weeping like a child he abandoned the car and began to walk home.
In the ambulance the severely injured man managed to tell them his name, but he died before he reached the hospital. Lilly Edwards, née Castle, was a widow.
Nine
It was as Sam Junior stood outside the house in which his father and Lilly lived that the police called. Unable to decide whether or not he should knock, he watched as the constable arrived and the front door was opened by Lilly. She was dressed in a bright-orange dress that seemed to light the evening as no street lamp could. The glow from the inside surrounding her gave her an aura of gold and he had never seen anything so desirable. He was shaken by a surge of love for her. Illicit love it might be and love he must continue to deny, but desire was making it impossible to think clearly.
Then he heard her scream and she disappeared inside with the constable following. Frantically he knocked on the door until it was opened, and he pushed past the policeman and went to where Lilly was sitting, staring at him as though unable to see him.
‘Lilly? What on earth has happened? Is Phyllis all right?’
‘Phyllis? She’s fine. She’s with Mrs Denver.’ Her eyes gradually focused and she saw him for the first time. ‘It’s Sam. He’s been killed.’
Sam Junior stayed with her and the constable while a neighbour was sent to find Marged and Huw. Within an hour all the family had been told and Beth had agreed to stay with her at least for the night. Mrs Denver brought Phyllis back and was distressed to hear the news.
‘First losing my son, dear little Phyllis’s father, and now your husband. Oh, you poor dear,’ she sobbed. Lilly hugged the child as though she had been in danger of losing her too.
‘She could have been with him,’ she murmured. ‘He loved taking her out.’
Audrey and Keith came and squeezed into the small room. No one knew what to do but none of them wanted to leave.
Lilly went with the policeman to identify the body, and Sam Junior went with her. They both waited with hands and arms shaking with shock, until he had been made ready. Then they went back to the sad little rooms where the relatives sat talking in whispers.
Audrey had brought the makings of tea and cups were handed around and accepted with automatic indifference. Lilly had never been an easy person to talk to and now, everyone seemed struck dumb. People whispered among themselves. No one offered more than a few clichéd words of comfort. Gradually people drifted away, glad to be free from the stifling grief. Only Marged, Huw and Beth stayed.
Sam Junior sat up with them for most of the night while Lilly tried to sleep. He was shocked and tearful, filled with a sense of loss. Guilt made it impossible for him to believe his father’s death was an accident and at three o’clock in the morning he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He told them about his affair with Lilly.
‘Dad must have found out,’ he said. ‘He found out and couldn’t live with it. All this –’ he waved his arms around the small over-crowded room – ‘the loss of the house, Dad’s death, everything, it’s my fault.’
Beth went upstairs to where her sister was sitting on the bed, covered in Sam’s dressing gown and hugging Phyllis.
‘Have you slept?’ Beth asked.
Lilly shook her head. ‘Is Sam Junior still there?’
‘Yes, he’s there. Mam and Dad have stayed too. We do know why, it’s just impossible to go. This is a terrible situation. We’ll all do what we can, but you’ll have to be brave because of Phyllis. She loved him, didn’t she?’
‘Will you ask Sam to come up?’
‘Is that wise?’
‘What d’you mean? He’s lost his father! I’ve lost my husband! We need to comfort each other, don’t we?’
Beth hesitated, then said. ‘He told us. About you and he having, well, you know. He thinks Sam found out and couldn’t cope with it. He’s afraid Sam’s death wasn’t an accident. He believes his father was so distressed he stepped in front of that car deliberately.�
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‘Beth! How can you talk about such a thing now? Can’t you see that’s what I’ve been thinking too? How can you be so cruel only hours after my husband died?’
‘If it is true, then you and Sam had better meet only in company. If this gets out, you and he would face an embarrassing enquiry.’
‘Thinking of me, are you? Or yourself and Mam and Dad?’
‘All of us. Particularly you. And little Phyllis.’
‘Go away, Beth. You’ve never been on my side. Too perfect, that’s your trouble.’
Beth kissed the sleeping child and left the room.
It was true, she and Lilly had never been close. She had loved the family business and had worked hard while Lilly had been very good at avoiding things she didn’t want to do. They had both harboured dislike and even jealousy towards each other all their lives. But this was different. She wanted to help her sister cope with this traumatic situation.
Lilly was lazy but perhaps she couldn’t help being weak and easily tempted. This was a time to forget past resentments and do all she could. And, she told herself, with a certain cynicism, I’ll do it without expecting thanks. That was the only way to deal with someone like her sister. ‘I think she might like another cup of tea,’ she announced when she went back to the others.
‘I’ll take it up,’ Sam said, and she shrugged. Who was she to disagree?
‘He’d better not stay here with Lilly,’ Marged said, her mouth tight with disapproval.
‘I think she should come home where we can look after her and Phyllis,’ Huw added. ‘She’ll need a lot of looking after now.’
Marged sighed sadly. ‘Poor Lilly. She always has.’
* * *
Alice was in Cassie’s second shop during her lunch-hour, when Beth came to tell her the following day and she went at once to Marged and Huw’s house, where Lilly was ensconced on a couch, wrapped in blankets and being attended by an anxious Marged. Huw was on the floor building castles of coloured bricks with Phyllis.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 164