Missing the Moment

  “And I hope she’ll bring you happiness, Joe Llewellyn!” she snapped.

  Joe frowned as she walked away. He had no desire to marry Rhoda. He considered Rhoda to be an empty-headed spendthrift, too much like her selfish mother. No, it was Charlotte he loved. He should have been strong and insisted on getting her away from her mother while he had the chance. But the fleeting moment had passed. Life moved on and things certainly got left behind. Like himself, he thought wryly. Danny wasn’t due home for several weeks so there might be a chance to put things right. Oh, if only they could talk. These days they were like strangers.

  Charlotte, standing on the pavement, deciding whether or not to cross over and look at the shops on the other side of Main Street, was startled when an irate voice told her to –

  “Shift yourself, can’t you? Get on, woman, make up your mind. Talk about a ditherer!” The driver of a small, open-topped car had stopped to allow her to cross and was exasperated at her vagueness. Embarrassed, she didn’t cross but walked on towards the road bridge.

  He was right, that bad-tempered motorist. She was a ditherer and because of her inability to make up her mind, here she was at twenty-three having no job and wanting one, having lost Joe and wanting him, and practically engaged to Danny, whom she did not want.

  “Mam,” she announced when she walked breathless into the house, “you’ll have to get Bessie back to help in the house. I am going to marry and soon!”

  “Is Danny back already?” Harriet asked.

  “No. I’m going to marry Joe!”

  * * *

  The following day she went down to find him. The smart new Motor Spares shop was closed and a notice explained that he would be back in two days’ time. Following the path, she went to Auntie Bessie’s cottage and that was closed up too.

  “Gone away they have,” Lillian chanted. “Gone away for to buy an action car.”

  “An action car?” Charlotte frowned.

  “She means he’s buying a car in an auction,” Bertha chuckled. “Taking Bessie with him for a bit of a break. Barry Island they’ve gone to, would you believe? Come on in and have a cuppa while you’re here and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “Danny’s coming back.” Lillian said, while Bertha busied herself with cups and saucers. “He’s coming back.”

  “That’s right,” Charlotte smiled.

  “See me.” Lillian said. “See me.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Bertha said. “Best to agree,” she whispered through stiff lips, “or she’ll keep on all day.”

  “Me and my nightie,” Lillian insisted.

  “That’s right, love, you and your nightie.” Bertha shrugged. “Never know what’s going through her mind, poor dab. Half the time I just say ‘yes’ and hope for the best.”

  “I’ve been walking, and thinking about what I want to do with my life,” Charlotte explained to Bertha.

  “I wanted to talk to Auntie Bessie Philpot. She’s a good listener and she helps me put things right in my mind.”

  “Try me. I’ve known you and Joe all my life, remember. And your problems can’t be worse than hers, poor child.” She nodded at her daughter.

  “Joe and I don’t see each other any more and I miss him,” Charlotte began.

  “What about you and Danny then?”

  “My Danny,” Lillian muttered but they ignored her.

  “I thought I loved him but I don’t. He isn’t for me. I’ll tell him when he comes next time. I – I don’t want to tell him in a letter.”

  * * *

  There was a telephone call two mornings later: Gaynor Edwards asking Charlotte if she knew why Jack Roberts wasn’t at work. Charlotte had no idea but promised to make enquiries, but then said, “But surely you must have a better idea of his movements than anyone else? Isn’t Jack your – lodger?” She couldn’t resist the slight hesitation.

  “Lodger he is and nothing more! I don’t ask him to sign in and out!” snapped Gaynor. “He didn’t come home last night and I haven’t any idea where he is!”

  Charlotte wondered whether the anger was concern for Jack’s safety or whether they had quarrelled.

  “I’ll go into town and see if anyone has seen him. He and Kath Thomas were once very friendly, he might have told her where he was going.”

  “He wouldn’t tell her and not me,” Gaynor said, turning her previous protest on its head. “He went out to meet someone and didn’t come back. It wasn’t Kath or he’d have said.”

  “Don’t you think we should call the police?” Charlotte suggested.

  “If he doesn’t turn up soon, yes. I think we should.”

  Charlotte put on a coat and gathered her umbrella. The day was a gloomy one, with rain slanting down from the hill, making mud of the surface, but she dressed smartly and in defiance of the weather. Joe was back and she wanted to look her best. After only a few minutes’ walking on the glutinous surface she wished she had stopped to put on wellingtons. Glamour came a poor second to comfort when you lived half way up a Welsh mountain!

  The shop was open, windows lit to dispel the gloom of the day. She went inside, experiencing a poignant pang of memory as she glanced at the door which led to the flat above. Joe was standing at the counter serving someone with a battery. He didn’t speak until the man had left.

  “Hello my pretty, there’s glad I am to see you. Got time for a coffee at Vi and Willie’s café? I’ve still got the ‘back in ten minutes’ notice.”

  “Joe, Jack hasn’t arrived at work and he didn’t go home last night. What d’you think could have happened to him?”

  “Let’s go this minute and talk to the police. He might have been knocked down on the road, or fallen in a ditch.”

  Wordlessly, she went with him to see Ned Hardy, and listened as he gave the details of Jack’s address and occupation.

  Once enquiries were underway she seemed at a loss. “I ought to go back to Gaynor. She must be worried.”

  “As soon as it’s one o’clock I’ll come with you.” Joe said. He hesitated. “Unless you and Danny are—”

  “Danny isn’t home for another three weeks,” she said.

  “Funny. He must have a double. Sure I am that I saw him yesterday when me and Auntie Bessie drove through Main Street.”

  “You were mistaken,” she replied. Then, “You drove? You have a car, then?”

  “Dying to show you I’ve been. But every time I phone, the Dragon says you’re busy, or out. You’re making it very clear that you don’t even want my friendship, Charlotte. Pity. I’d hate to think you weren’t a part of my life.”

  “Mam didn’t say that you’d phoned. She must have forgotten.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” He raised an eyebrow and stared at her. “Forgot she did. About a dozen times I’ve phoned and the Dragon forgot every time. Like when I had to alter an arrangement at the time Rhoda needed so much help. Forgot she did.” In imitation of his aunt’s deep, disapproving tones he said, “There’s a memory for you, isn’t it?”

  By four o’clock when it was already dark and the rain was continuing to pour, they had still not discovered Jack’s whereabouts. Police and volunteers began methodically to search the fields around Bryn Melinau, concentrating on the area around the factory. It was Joe who suggested looking at the other side of town.

  “But no one goes up by there,” the police sergeant said, shaking his head.

  “Oh, some people do,” Joe said, studiously avoiding Charlotte’s eyes.

  Joe had seen Charlotte and Danny returning from the barren area beyond the railway and, without thinking for a moment that they would find Jack, wanted to take her there himself, wipe out her memories of being there with Danny with memories of him.

  Unerringly he led her to the hollow in the hill and looked down. “Charlotte,” he began. But Charlotte was walking away, anger showing in the stiff-legged way she covered the ground.

  “Wait,” he called, “I want to explain.”

  She stopped then and
, hands on hips, turned to glare at him. “You saw us, didn’t you? And this is your stupid way of letting me know! So what, Joe Llewellyn? So what? I’ve been here with Danny while you and my sister have been—” Her voice choked on the words. She pushed him away as he attempted to put his arms around her and they all but fell onto the sticky earth. She recovered and hurried away, her eyes blinded by tears.

  * * *

  Jack was in hospital, in Barry. He had walked in there with injuries consistent with a fight but insisted that he remembered nothing. When the police found him he asked that a message be sent to Charlotte. He refused to see anyone apart from her. Joe offered to drive her but she refused and went by train.

  Jack explained that he was not returning to Bryn Melinau or his job at the bookbinding factory. His wounds had been dressed and he was ready to leave.

  “But why?” she demanded. “How can you leave us in such a mess? You know how little Uncle Peter can do.”

  He touched his face cautiously and said. “How many times do you think I want telling that it’s time to move on?”

  “You know who did this?”

  “I know and I can’t tell you. I wish I could, Charlotte.” He stared at her intensely through bleary, bloodshot eyes and repeated. “I really wish I could.”

  For a moment Charlotte felt it was some sort of warning, but there was no one she knew who could do this to him. No, he was simply upset.

  “Can’t you tell the police?” she said.

  He shook his head. “There’s no chance of it stopping.” He smiled at her then, his terrifying, distorted smile, and said more brightly. “So, now is the time for you to show what you can do, Charlotte my dear.”

  “Me? But that’s ridiculous, you know it is. How can I do anything with Mam, and—”

  “If you don’t do something there will be no business to support you and your mother. Haven’t I always told you that the job is one you’d do well? You’re needed there, and your mother must be persuaded that it’s in her interest for you to take over. Your uncle’s days are numbered. Oh,” he said quickly, when a protest sprung to her lips, “I know you pretend that it isn’t so, but if he dies before you have a grasp of the day-to-day running of the place it will be too late. You’ll thank me, Charlotte. One day you’ll thank me for leaving you to deal with it all.”

  She left him, asking him to let her have his new address, promising to visit him again. As she walked down the cream-tiled corridor she saw a man enter from the outside. For a reason she couldn’t afterwards explain, she slipped behind a half-open door and watched. It was Danny.

  She saw him approach one of the nurses, heard him ask for Jack Roberts and heard the nurse reply that Mr Jack Roberts had signed himself out. An argument ensued in which Danny insisted on being told the man’s address and the nurse, pale faced under Danny’s anger, was equally adamant that he could not be told.

  Charlotte remained hidden until Danny had gone. She thought of Joe’s conviction that he had been in Bryn Melinau on the previous day, and wondered why Danny had lied to her. Slowly she emerged from her hiding place, hurt and bewildered. Then she shook off the feeling of disappointment. What did it matter? She wasn’t going to marry Danny. She had a job to do. Jack’s words echoed round and round in her mind, obliterating Danny’s deception and everything else. She had to take over at the factory where she was needed. All the confusion in her life had led her to this point. She was meant to take on the responsibility for Russell’s. Once her position there was an accepted fact, the rest of her life would fall into place.

  All she had to do was convince her mother. Saying it quick, it sounded easy.

  Chapter Eleven

  With Jack no longer working at Russell’s Bookbinders and Restorers, Charlotte knew they faced a crisis. The staff did what they could but did not know how to make the decisions on which work to deal with next.

  “Mam,” Charlotte pleaded, “unless someone deals with it there will be no business. Without income, how long do you think you can continue to live here? In less than two months we’d have to consider selling Mill House. Maybe sooner.”

  “Now you are being ridiculous, dear.” Harriet smiled with exasperating confidence. “Your father would never allow that to happen.”

  “My father? What has he to do with it? He’s living in half of the house, but is separated from us by more than walls, and shows no interest in either us or our problems.”

  “It’s only until he’s properly settled.” Harriet was adamant.

  “Mam, he is properly settled. He lives with Miranda, Ellie, Isabelle, Louise, Petula and baby Matthew. He doesn’t live with us.”

  “When he’s persuaded me to forgive him, he’ll come back to us and return to the factory and everything will be sorted out.”

  Charlotte sat back in her chair, where she had been looking through the order books, and gave a huge sigh.

  “You go on believing that and by Christmas we’ll all be homeless!”

  “Always one for looking on the black side.” Harriet touched the side table vaguely with her fingers and asked, “Fetch my tablets, will you, dear? I seem to have forgotten them again.”

  “I don’t have time,” Charlotte said grimly. “I am going to work.” Without waiting for more of her mother’s arguments she took a coat and hurriedly left the house.

  It was half past ten on a Monday morning in September. The weather was cool, the air opaque with overnight moisture, but already the sun was peering through, touching the trees and the hills, bringing forth rich colours. The walk along the quiet lane always lightened Charlotte’s heart and by the time she reached the factory she had left behind her bad humour.

  Gaynor ran out to meet her as she approached the door and from her face it was clear she had bad news. Charlotte presumed she had heard that Jack had left. Preparing herself for an embarrassing conversation, pretending ignorance of how close Gaynor and Jack had been, she took a deep breath and said. “I know Jack has gone, if that’s what you were about to say.”

  “It’s your uncle. Oh Charlotte, I think he’s dead.”

  With a wail of agony, Charlotte pushed Gaynor aside and ran into her uncle’s office. He was sitting in his chair, head lolling as if he had fallen asleep, but the sleep was one from which he would never wake.

  She held him for a moment, arms around his shoulders, face against his cheek, unaware of the concerned faces looking around the door. She didn’t cry then, but stood thinking how much she would miss him. A large part of her childhood had slipped away with his passing.

  Gaynor came in after a few minutes and led her away. “Called the police and a doctor I have. Best we leave him until they come.”

  Charlotte began to shake, her arms beating a silent tattoo. Someone brought her a cup of tea, held it against her lips and she drank without even remembering she had done so. When the doctor was examining him, she rang Joe.

  “Please Joe, come to the factory. It’s Uncle Peter.”

  Joe was beside her when she went to tell her mother, holding her hand, sharing her grief. Harriet had her coat on to go out. She stared at them both as if they were tormenting her with a sick joke.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “It isn’t true. Peter is fine.” The arrival of the policeman followed by the doctor convinced her. She said nothing, just removed her coat, hung it on the hall stand as usual, for Charlotte to take upstairs. She took the tablets the doctor prescribed and went to bed.

  The shock of Peter’s death reverberated through the house. Eric looked bewildered, as if unable to believe what had happened to his brother. Harriet lay prostrate on her bed, easing away the disaster in sweet unconsciousness. Rhoda went away for a few days, insisting that after losing her husband so recently, she was simply unable to stay in a house of mourning. As always, it was Charlotte who was left to deal with the situation.

  Joe stayed, leaving his Auntie Bessie Philpot to look after the shop and Charlotte briefly found ease and comfort in his arms. But as u
sual, everyone relied on Charlotte. Charlotte was the one who coped. Couldn’t anyone see that in her genuine grief for her uncle she also needed to be consoled?

  Eric seemed to be dazed by the event and came one night, late, when Charlotte was mixing her mother’s cocoa. He stood in the kitchen, staring around him as if suddenly finding himself in a house of strangers.

  “What will you do, Charlotte?” he asked.

  “What do you suggest, Dadda?”

  “It isn’t for me to say. I gave up any right to advise you when I walked away from you so long ago. But Uncle Peter believed you could run the business. Why don’t you give it a try?”

  “Would you help me?”

  “No, my dear. It isn’t anything to do with me any more.” He patted her shoulder and went back through the hall into his own part of Mill House, to his second family.

  * * *

  On the morning of the funeral a taxi deposited Rhoda outside. She wore a very smart and obviously expensive black suit, with a hat that must have cost enough to keep the factory going for a week. The suit was tight fitting, the skirt short, the neckline revealing the swell of her breasts. The jacket pinched in her twenty-two-inch waist smoothly, without a sign of a crease. Her stockings were nylon and her shoes high quality black leather. A tiny frill of white showed at her cuffs and was echoed by a frill on her black leather clutch bag. The outfit showed her figure to best advantage, Charlotte decided, while stopping just short of being salacious.

  The funeral was a long drawn out affair. It was ten-thirty that night before Charlotte and Harriet and Rhoda were finally alone.

  “What shall we do?” Rhoda said dramatically.

  “I’m off to bed,” Charlotte said, deliberately misunderstanding. “I have to get up for work in the morning.”

  “I meant in the future, how will we cope without Uncle Peter?”

  “You’re never going to the factory!” Harriet gasped in disapproval.