‘Why now? Why not while I was still employed by the council? I stood a chance of getting it back then!’
‘Sorry, Eirlys. I thought I’d enjoy it, but it’s too confining. The walls close in on me and I can’t stand it. All right, I know it sounds like I’m using the war as an excuse, but it’s true. All the years I was away, living in uncomfortable conditions, I dreamed of a quiet office and going home each day to a clean, orderly home. But I can’t cope with it, I keep waiting for something to happen and I don’t even know what I’m waiting for!’
‘What will you do?’ she asked.’
‘Rejoin the army, if they’ll have me.’
Forgetting her words to Ken about being satisfied by having no work, she went straight to see her ex-boss.
‘Eirlys, how nice to see you.’ He called to the typist and asked for some tea.
While it came he asked about Ken and the family, then, when the tray had been brought and the girl had left, she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll guess why I’m here?’
He tilted his head questioningly.
‘I met Ralph and he told me he’s leaving. I’d like to apply for my job back, Mr Clifford.’ He looked away, busying himself with the milk jug and the packet of saccharine tablets that substituted for the sugar bowl. Her heart plummeted. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘I’m afraid there is, Mrs Ward. We can’t choose who we employ, not any more. While there are rules about employing ex-Army men, we have to comply. A man feeds a family, you see, and for a woman it’s only a stopgap until she marries or has a child. I’m so sorry.’
‘There aren’t any other vacancies, I suppose?’
‘Only one, and it wouldn’t suit someone with your abilities. We’re looking for an office junior, someone to take telephone messages, make tea, run errands, you know the sort of thing.’
Eirlys thanked him and left. She couldn’t drink the tea, it would have choked her.
* * *
Freddy decided that the only way to get his life back in some kind of order was to see Shirley again, talk to her and find out whether there was any hope of them at least continuing to stay friends. The contact through their letters, in which they had poured out their thoughts and fears, and their plans for the future, was no longer there and every time he saw the postman he remembered the joy of receiving them. He had imagined that the letters would have been replaced by seeing her, talking to her, really talking, not in the stilted comments on a letter to which he could never fully reply. But instead there was nothing.
He went to Brook Lane and asked Hetty if she had an address for her daughter. ‘I’ve got to go to London,’ he lied, ‘and I thought I’d maybe see her performance and take her out afterwards. If she wants to,’ he added hastily. ‘She’s probably too busy with other friends, mind.’
Hetty smiled and handed him the address written on an envelope. ‘Take this, I’ve just addressed it ready to write to her. I’ll write the name and address of the theatre on the back, so if you miss her at one place you’ll find her at the other. I’m sure she’d love to see you, Freddy.’ Freddy clutched the envelope like a lifeline and went back to the hotel to pack a small bag.
He was unaware of the date and the approach of the Christmas season. The following Tuesday was Christmas Day and on Saturday, three days beforee tramped around the busy streets and found the theatre where Shirley was appearing. It was closed. Notices stuck all over the walls and the entrance explained that the theatre would reopen on Boxing Day with the pantomime Puss in Boots.
Shirley’s mother must have known. She was letting him know that Shirley didn’t want to see him. Angrily, he walked through the excited shoppers, pushing people rudely aside when his way was blocked. Why couldn’t Shirley have told him herself? All that was needed was a letter. Then he remembered that although he knew her address, she no longer had his. Perhaps she was about to tell him when they had talked in the van that day but couldn’t find the words. Calming down, he knew she would have tried to be kind.
He’d better go back to Brook Lane and stay there until she turned up. She would certainly be home for Christmas now the show had finished. This unresolved affair had to be ended or he would never get his life together.
When he returned to the hotel where he had booked for two nights, he changed his mind and extended his booking through Christmas. Better here among strangers than at home trying to pretend he still belonged.
* * *
Alice told Eynon that she had followed Netta home to see if she could learn something and he was shocked at first, not with her temerity but because she could have walked into danger.
‘Alice, love, don’t do anything like that again. I’ll go and confront them when it’s necessary, I can handle myself against two protective brothers and you can’t. We have to talk about what we know and then decide what should be done.’ He held her tightly and laughed. ‘Can you imagine what they’d say if I turned up threatening to fight them? Little squirt, that’s what they’d think, but they’d be surprised, mind. Eat ‘em for breakfast and spit out the pips I would, small as I am.’
He deliberately made light of it but he was worried about the risk she had taken. Now they knew what she looked like, Netta’s brothers could threaten her at any time. ‘Promise me, Alice, love, if you see any of them again, Netta or her brothers, you’ll come straight and tell me.’
‘I promise.’
There was a knock at the door then, and they looked at each other in surprise. ‘Must be someone important, Alice. None of the family ever knock.’
‘D’you think—could it be Netta’s brothers come to cause trouble?’
Mentally preparing for confrontation, Eynon opened the door to a couple carrying suitcases. Their guest house had its first visitors.
* * *
The arrest of Joseph, charged with illegally supplying restricted goods, came as no shock to Cassie, but she did feel a sadness. It seemed such a waste, for their life together to end like this. The police questioned her for a long time on three occasions, but she was able to convince them that the business was not in her name. The local constable, Charlie Grove, was ill at ease during the interviews, having bought, in innocence, some of Cassie’s damaged goods for himself and Madge, the girl he was soon to marry. Cassie was unable to resist embarrassing him further by winking and promising to say nothing, when the other officer was out of hearing range.
She continued to empty the shops and her house until there was very little left. Jumble sales were popular both to buy things a household needed and for raising money for various good causes and it was at these that Cassie disposed of her oddments. The house in which she and Joseph lived was rented and the rentbook was seriously in arrears. Any day now she expected to receive notice or a court order demanding payment. The rent book being in Joseph’s name, she waited until the demand came and posted it to him without a letter of explanation. It would be delivered with his and Joanna’s Christmas cards – a nice touch.
A few days later Joseph turned up at the house and she opened the door and stared at him as though he were a stranger. ‘What d’you want?’ she asked coldly.
‘To come in of course, woman! What’s been happening here? Why haven’t the bills been paid, and where’s the stock? The shops are empty. Come on, Cassie, what’s going on?’
‘Going on? Nothing to interest you. You’ve got a different life now, you and – what’s her name – Joanna Lee-Jones? She wouldn’t be interested in running your shops for you while you have fun elsewhere, so why should I?’
‘Having fun? What’s got into you? What have you done with the stock? And how did the police get all those coupons?’
‘The stock is sold or given away. I thought the coupons I found hidden were stolen or counterfeit, so I handed them in as a respectable citizen and business woman should. Why? Cause you some trouble, did they?’
‘Respectable citizen! That’s rot! You deliberately set me up and now I face a prison sentence. Is that what you wanted?’
; ‘Yes, it was! I found out about you and that woman and decided I’d been a fool long enough. Go back to her, Joseph, or is it Joe these days? Go back and leave me be. What’s done is done and I hope she’s worth it!’
‘She’s gone.’ The bluster, the fizzing anger suddenly left him.
‘What d’you mean, gone?’
‘When the police came and charged me, I was given bail and when I went back to our—the rooms she rented, she was gone. I owed a month’s rent and all I had was a note telling me goodbye.’
For a moment the recent agonizing months floated away, the anger and hurt were gone and instead, the years of companionable partnership returned. He was in trouble and needed her help. He had thrown it all away for a pretty young face but could she do the same now the pretty face was gone? He stood there, still having got no further than the doorway and he looked so forlorn. Shoulders drooped, looking past her with a glazed expression, like a beaten dog. Pity flowed through her. All she had to do was step aside and allow him to pass, to walk back into her life, and all the lonely years stretching before her would be nothing more than a nightmare from which she had awoken.
In the gloomy half-light of the dark passageway she watched his face, undecided whether to be strong and lonely, or stupid but with a future. His head turned towards her but he glanced through the open door of the front room and his eyes blazed. ‘Where’s the furniture gone?’ he demanded angrily.
‘Gave most of it to young Alice who worked for me. They’ve bought a guest house and—’
‘Gave it away?’ He pushed past her and went from room to room, and in disbelief saw that, except the small kitchen with its table and solitary chair, they were empty. He ran upstairs to find one single bed and little besides. Bedding was piled on the floor in the absence of cupboards, and there were a few clothes thrown across the banisters.
Cassie stood watching his progress with some satisfaction. Now he’d understand just how much he had hurt her. She was softening towards him. Knowing that the woman had let him down, that he was on his own and needing her, she couldn’t send him away. They’d pick up the pieces and work together as they always had and put it all right. She followed his progress, his footsteps echoing as he went back to each room as if unable to believe what he saw the first time. She began to regret her enthusiastic house clearance. Fool that she was, she might have known he’d be back. Thirty and more years couldn’t be pushed aside all that easily, even for a pretty young face.
She heard him coming along the landing, the footsteps loud, linoleum harsh underfoot. Now he would come down and apologize and after making him suffer just a little longer, she’d tell him to go and collect his things and come home.
There was a half smile on her face as he stamped down the stairs at a run and took hold of her shoulders. Not gently as she’d so often imagined, but tightly, painfully, as he shook her. ‘You damned fool! I’ve got nothing left! You’ve lost me everything. Are you getting senile?’
Cold anger, rarely seen in Cassie’s eyes, glittered. ‘Senile is it? I’d be completely crazy, not ill, if I took you back!’ With a strength that startled Joseph and surprised herself she pushed him and then, with her foot on his backside, kicked him out of the door, slamming it satisfactorily behind him.
* * *
Maude and Reggie planned to marry the following April and Myrtle was not pleased. Having no real family, she and Maude had both dreamed of marriage and children, to start building a family of their own. She loved Stanley and knew they would be happy together. She knew that for Stanley too there was the urgent need to start making a place for himself in a family of his own. His mother had never married and Harold and Percival and he had different fathers, if they could be flattered by calling them fathers, Myrtle thought sadly. ‘Father unknown’ on the birth certificate was a terrible rejection to live with all your life. That was what was written on hers and Maude’s, even though they had known their father for the first years of their lives. He had left his wife to live with their mother but hadn’t divorced her.
She waited on the corner of the lane for Stanley and they ran to greet each other affectionately. As usual they started talking immediately – although they met almost every day there was so much to tell each other. The lanes were edged by dripping hedges and they made their way to one of their secret places.
They had found a hay barn on the edge of a farmer’s field where they could sit undisturbed and talk over their future plans. It was there they went on this cold, crisp Christmas Eve. Stanley had finished work and Audrey’s café had closed until after the holiday. They had set off to do some last-minute shopping but instead had wandered away from the houses and into the misty fields. They made their way over the hard ground, squeezed between strands of barbed wire and snuggled deep into the hay.
Outside the barn the trees of a nearby wood were scarcely visible, an abandoned plough, a fallen tree, some rusty tangled wire, were shrouded in the mist that made the well-known scene unfamiliar.
‘I wish we were married and had a place where we could meet in comfort, somewhere cosy and comfortable. I’ve worked out that we could afford to take a room in Alice and Eynon’s guest house. Not a proper start, not what I want for you, but we could save an’ save until we have enough for some furniture and, oh, Myrtle, I wish we were old enough to defy them all, don’t you? I want to marry you, I want you to be my wife, not have to meet in soggy haylofts and—’ She stopped his complaining with a kiss. A kiss that was not like any other kiss that did things to her insides and brought on a longing so strong she was breathless when they parted.
‘It’s not fair,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Our Maude and Reggie are getting married on the sixth of April and even though it’s a Saturday, Auntie Audrey’s closing the café and having the party there.’ Her words were interrupted by his kisses as she went on, ‘They’ve even been promised rooms in Auntie Audrey’s house with Ronnie and Olive. The whole family’s getting involved and they talk about nothing else. While you and I aren’t allowed even to get engaged.’
‘We are engaged, Myrtle. You and I know it, so why worry about anyone else, eh?’
‘I love you, Stanley Love. I long to be Mrs Love. What a name, eh?’
‘There is one way, Myrtle,’ Stanley said. ‘A certain way of telling them we’re old enough. If you had a baby, they’d make us get married, wouldn’t they?’
Myrtle laughed. ‘Yes. That would make them take notice of us, eh?’ She raised her head to look at him and share the amusing thought, but Stanley wasn’t laughing. There was a look on his handsome face she hadn’t seen before. He gently pulled her closer and gathered her into his arms, held her so they touched along the whole length of their bodies. He began kissing her more urgently; some were short, teasing kisses and others long, demanding, enveloping every part of her.
‘Let’s do it, shall we?’ His kisses and the passionate urging in his husky voice easily persuaded her.
* * *
Shirley came back to St David’s Well with a sadness she couldn’t shake off. The theatre closing and then being told by her mother that Freddy had called to see her seemed to be the end of everything. She had declined offers of further work, knowing that her heart was no longer in it. A career on the stage, once a dream, was no longer important. On Christmas Eve she walked through the main street, looking at the shops, aware of the effort being made to make the season a joyful one. She bought a few presents for the family, gifts to place under the tree, and on impulse bought a smart shirt for Freddy. If she didn’t see him, Johnny would like it and they were about the same size. She wondered where he was staying. He had to be in the town: there was nowhere else for him to go, but where?
Freddy was shopping too, but for himself. He had very little money but he bought a pair of trousers and a jumper with the clothing coupons he’d been allocated. In a second-hand shop there was a brooch that appealed. It was in the shape of a heart set with rubies and, being gold, it took almost all of his money. He took
the clothing he’d bought, asked for a refund, and paid for the brooch gladly. Perhaps, one day he’d see Shirley and give it to her. One day, but he didn’t know when.
Christmas was another excuse for a party but although the war had ended and most of the men were safely back with their families, austerity still restricted the way it was celebrated. Families gathered, everyone bringing food. Neighbours lent glasses and china and chairs and borrowed for themselves when their get-togethers took place.
The weather was cold but doors stood open: people popped in to offer season’s greetings and stayed for a while. Audrey’s house, being the largest and only a few doors up from Marged and Huw’s, was the venue on Christmas night for the Castles’ gathering.
Shirley was there with her mother and Bleddyn, Morgan came with the three boys and Eirlys, Ken and their son. Stanley winked at Myrtle and said to Audrey, ‘You’ll be needing a bigger house for parties like this, with the family growing so big.’
Myrtle watched as her sister measured and discussed what she and Reggie would need when they moved in. With luck, now they had ‘done it’, Maude might not be the first to marry, despite all their plans. She glanced at Stanley and blew a kiss.
Lilly wore the lovely dress Hannah had made for her and accepted the compliments with ease that sounded like boredom. Hannah knew differently. She could see that Lilly was flattered to be admired. She was careful how she sat down and carefully eased the dress smoothly under her so as not to crease it. Her manner had changed: putting on the dress seemed to make her aware of herself as a young woman and she posed rather than stood, joining animatedly in the conversations and even playing a game of draughts with the three boys. Hannah hoped that the dress and the realization that she was too young to give up on life would stay with her. Perhaps she would make her a skirt and bolero for the spring.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 172