by Rosie Harris
The New Brighton one pulled away almost immediately. A panorama of shops, Wallasey Town Hall, and road after road of imposing houses running down to the river flashed past.
At the New Brighton terminus, a milk bar was just opening up. Suddenly hungry, she went in for a hot drink and something to eat. When she came out again the sun was breaking through, turning the grey Mersey to liquid gold, the tide-damp sand into dappled silver.
Megan set off at a brisk pace along the promenade, past the domed Winter Gardens Pavilion and the ribbon of small hotels towards Wallasey Village.
When she reached the point where the Mersey widened and became one with the sea, she paused. There, ahead of her, high on the sandstone cliff, were the imposing houses she’d first seen when she’d walked along the promenade on Boxing Day.
She stood transfixed, staring at the turreted one that was right at the tip of the headland … the one where Miles Walker lived.
‘Out and about early after your late night.’
Robert’s voice brought her out of her reverie. Megan swung round, staring at him in disbelief.
‘What … what are you doing here?’ she gasped, flushing with embarrassment.
‘I live here, remember? And,’ he added, ‘I always take a walk along the prom on a Sunday morning.’
Megan bit her lip and looked uncomfortable.
‘Fancy a guided tour? I’ll include those houses up there in Warren Drive. You are wasting your time, though,’ he added gravely. ‘Miles Walker is a heartbreaker. It would be best to forget him.’
Anger and misery choked her as she realised Robert had guessed her feelings for Miles. Tears blurred her eyes and she blinked them away quickly. The joy she’d felt when she’d set out, the elation she’d experienced when she’d boarded the tram at Seacombe Ferry, knowing that it was not just taking her to New Brighton but towards where Miles lived, had turned to ashes. The day that had promised to be so fulfilling was completely ruined.
‘Take a look over there!’ Robert told her, pointing to where purple shadows, almost like clouds, were massed on the skyline. ‘Those mountains are on the other side of the river Dee.’
‘Does that mean they’re in Wales?’
Robert Field nodded. ‘Why don’t you let me take you over there for the day,’ he suggested. ‘It would be the next best thing to actually being in Beddgelert.’
Chapter Thirteen
KATHY WILLIAMS WAS uneasy. She was filled with a vague disquieting feeling as if her dreams were unravelling like an old jumper.
All the time she had been living in Beddgelert she had hankered to be in Liverpool. Now that she was back in the city where she had grown up, it was something of a let down.
The moment Watkin had told her they were moving to Liverpool she had looked forward to being in touch again with all her old friends. Remembering the fun and escapades she and Ruby Adams had enjoyed after they’d both left school and started work, she’d imagined they’d be able to have more great times together. Like all the other people she had once known, though, Ruby had married and moved away.
That wasn’t the only reason for Kathy’s disenchantment with her new life. She had grumbled about the many short-comings of their cottage in Beddgelert but that had been a palace compared to the dreary, poky little flat they were living in now, she thought ruefully.
Looking back, the only thing she had really disliked about Beddgelert was the fact that nothing ever seemed to happen there. You saw the same people, day in, day out; except in summer when holiday-makers visited the area.
In those days she had longed for the big shops or a market to browse around looking for bargains. Yet now that the big stores were only a few streets away, they had lost their attraction. The initial thrill of looking at wonderful clothes, or exciting things for the home, quickly faded when you were doing it on your own. Unless you intended to buy something, and you couldn’t do that all the time.
Before Lynn had started work she had occasionally met her from school and they would window-shop on the way home. Lynn liked nothing better than to go in the big stores and try on everything from shoes to hats if they took her fancy. The two of them used to have a good laugh because Lynn always had such outrageous comments to make about the new fashions.
For all that, Lynn would have bought most of them if she’d had the money, Kathy thought as she made herself a cup of tea. Little spendthrift was Lynn. Now that she was working, most of her wages were earmarked before she got them. And if they weren’t spent on clothes then the money went on gramophone records or visits to the Stork Club.
Not like Megan, Kathy mused. She was cautious with her money. She had inherited Watkin’s thrifty nature and no mistake. When Megan bought something new it was carefully chosen to fit into her existing wardrobe, as well as being practical enough for work.
Except the time when she’d bought a full-length blue evening dress, the night she’d gone to the New Year’s Eve dance at the Tower Ballroom. That must have taken every penny of her savings, reflected Kathy. Either that or Watkin had given her something towards it.
Lynn had said she looked like a duchess in it and wondered who she was trying to impress.
It certainly couldn’t have been Robert Field, sighed Kathy as she refilled her cup, even though he’d been the one who had taken her.
This was something else that was continually bothering her, Kathy thought tetchily. Keeping tabs on Lynn and Megan was much harder here in Liverpool than it had been in Beddgelert. There they had spent most of their time together and she had been able to rely on Megan to keep an eye on Lynn. Not any longer, though. Now it was as if there was some sort of feud going on between the two of them.
When Lynn had still been at school it hadn’t been too bad. Now that she was working at the Copper Kettle, though, she had no idea how she spent her spare time, or who she was with when she wasn’t at the café. She left home before Megan in the morning and often it was nine o’clock at night before she came home again. Kathy frowned, remembering how insolent Lynn had been when she’d tried to talk to her about it.
‘I’m working, Mam. It’s not like being at school, you know.’
‘I know that but you don’t have to do a twelve-hour day! It’s probably illegal at your age, anyway.’
‘I’ve come home once or twice when I’ve had a midday break but you’re never here, so I may as well stay on at the café. At least I can have a proper cooked meal there.’
‘You don’t have to work until nine o’clock at night, though, surely.’
‘I don’t always! When I finish early I go to the Stork.’
‘Your dad doesn’t like you going there …’
‘So what! I shan’t tell him so he’s not likely to find out … Unless you keep going on about it,’ Lynn retorted.
‘Are you still meeting this boy Flash when you go there?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Are you seeing any other lads?’
The moment she began asking these sort of questions Lynn would flounce off to her bedroom and slam the door shut. Her life was a closed book, but Kathy knew from her moods that everything wasn’t going the way Lynn wanted it to.
She had asked her time and again to bring this boy Flash home so that they could get to know him, but Lynn would only scowl or pull a face and change the subject.
Megan didn’t seem to have made any friends either. Robert Field was always offering to take her out but she rarely accepted. On the few occasions she did go somewhere with him, she would persuade Lynn to go along as well.
Kathy couldn’t understand it. True, he was a few years older than Megan, but what did that matter? He was nice looking, quiet, well spoken, owned his own house and had a good job so what more could Megan possibly want?
The only thing that seemed to interest Megan, though, was working for her secretarial diploma. She’d become quite fanatical about it.
Kathy didn’t see the sense in it. Being a secretary was all very well but where did it
really get you in the end? You were still waiting hand and foot on some man so why not have the security of marriage.
It was less of a worry than Lynn going to the Stork Club night after night, of course. Jazz music seemed to attract some strange types in there, if the accounts she had read in the Liverpool Echo were true. She couldn’t help feeling anxious about Lynn mixing with people like that.
At one time, Watkin had been very strict with the girls, but since Lynn had started work at the Copper Kettle he’d washed his hands of her.
‘You agreed she could leave school and go to work there knowing it was against my wishes, so you can worry about her,’ he’d pronounced. ‘Don’t ever forget, though, that I wanted her to stay on at school.’
She’d protested that Lynn had found herself a job without a word to any of them.
‘If you’d supported me then she would have had no choice but to jack it in,’ he’d argued grimly. ‘Instead, you said leave her alone so from now on that’s what I’m going to do.’
And he had. He turned a deaf ear when she expressed concern about the long hours Lynn worked at the café. And he ignored the arguments that flared up when she remonstrated with Lynn for coming home so late at night.
The family unity they’d known when they lived in Beddgelert seemed to have gone for ever. They rarely sat down to their evening meal together. Either Lynn was working, or Watkin was doing overtime. And three evenings a week, Megan had to have her meal early so that she could get to night school on time.
Sunday was the only occasion they ate together and more often than not there was an argument and the mealtime ended in discord.
The trouble was that Watkin, Megan and Lynn were all so wrapped up in their own lives that they hadn’t time for each other. Nor did any of them have much time for her, Kathy thought despondently.
Was it any wonder that most of the time she felt lonely and neglected? she thought as she rinsed her cup and saucer. She knew so few people. In Beddgelert, whenever she had walked into the village she had met someone she knew. If she wanted to, she could stop and have a chat with them. Here, she could go out every day and not see the same person twice. She’d even taken to shopping in Paddy’s market for fruit and vegetables, because the stallholders there seemed to be more friendly than any of the shop assistants in Scotland Road.
‘Find yourself a hobby, or get involved in something, then you’ll soon get to know more people,’ Watkin told her whenever she’d complained she was on her own too much.
It wasn’t that easy. She went to the pictures two or three times a week. The seats were half price for matinees. At first, she felt guilty when she came out. It seemed all wrong to be sitting in there in the dark when outside the sun was shining. Then as the days grew shorter and colder, she enjoyed the warm darkness, happy to lose herself in the celluloid world of make-believe. She even began to resent having to hurry home afterwards in order to have a meal ready for her family when they came in from work.
Megan was the only one who seemed concerned about what was happening to her and the way she was spending her time.
‘Sitting in the cinema every afternoon is making you put on weight,’ Megan had remonstrated. ‘You need more exercise.’
‘Keeping this place clean and doing all the shopping is exercise enough for me.’
‘Why don’t you go over to New Brighton when it’s a nice day and take a walk along the prom?’ she’d suggested, and occasionally at the weekends they went out together. Once they’d gone on the bus to Southport; another time they’d taken the train to Chester. The two of them had spent a wonderful day there. They’d visited the cathedral, and walked round the walls as well as looking at all the shops.
Megan was so caring that it reminded Kathy of what Watkin had been like when they’d first been married. It was bred in her, mused Kathy. She’d been Watkin’s daughter from the very first day she’d been born.
She’d been a good baby. She’d rarely cried and had grown into an obedient child. Her dark, soulful eyes, framed by long lashes and thick dark brows, had sometimes seemed too large for her elfin face.
Lynn had been the exact opposite. A fretful, demanding baby, she’d grown into a self-willed little girl who always liked to be the centre of attention. She’d been so pretty, Kathy had melted whenever she looked at her. And Lynn had played on this.
‘You’re spoiling that little one, you know,’ Watkin had warned her over and over again. ‘You give in to her far too much.’
Although she knew he was right it made no difference. It had filled her with an incredible feeling of satisfaction to bring a smile to Lynn’s face. Lynn hadn’t changed; she could still twist most people round her little finger.
As they had grown older, Megan and Lynn had spent less and less time playing together. Lynn was always out with a crowd, often getting into mischief. Megan was more solitary and she had grown closer to Watkin. The two of them would often take a picnic and go off for the day, climbing Moel Hebog or wandering along the banks of the River Glaslyn.
Kathy had never been able to see the sense of doing that. The grass was the same there as it was anywhere else so what was the point of struggling to climb to the top of a mountain? There wasn’t even a decent road to walk up. The rough footpaths were full of jagged stones and you had to watch your step all the time or you could twist your ankle.
There was nothing to see when you’d scrambled to the top, except more sheep and more mountains and away in the distance a glimpse of the sea.
If she wanted to look at the sea, she had taken herself off to one of the sandy beaches at Porthmadog. There she could stretch out and soak up the sun while the girls amused themselves building sand castles or going for a paddle.
Looking back to those times, she reflected that they had been some of the happiest days of her life, only she hadn’t realised it at the time.
If Watkin hadn’t been so afraid of losing his job at Pengarw they might still be there. The possibility haunted her. It was such a pity he’d acted so impulsively. Sometimes she just didn’t understand how his mind worked.
She didn’t understand how Megan’s mind worked, either! The way Megan avoided Robert Field and turned down his invitations to go out left her speechless. She just couldn’t stop thinking about it. At one time she’d been convinced that Megan must be seeing someone else, but she so seldom went out on her own that it didn’t seem possible.
Lynn had said she was sweet on someone at work called Mr Miles, but when she had mentioned the name to Watkin he had become quite incensed. His face had been mottled with suppressed anger.
‘Don’t talk so daft, woman!’ he’d said scornfully. ‘Our Megan getting involved with Mr Miles … there’s a load of old rubbish! Whoever told you that?’
He hadn’t even answered when she had asked who Mr Miles was. Instead, he’d put on his coat and slammed out of the flat, leaving her to fret over it on her own.
She’d pushed the incident to the back of her mind. There was no point in worrying when she didn’t know the full story.
Lately, she’d started treating herself to the occasional glass of sherry. She didn’t let the others into her little secret because she was pretty sure they wouldn’t approve. She didn’t see any harm in it, though. She found having a little drink now and again bucked her up no end and made even the cramped little flat seem more bearable.
When they’d first come back to Liverpool, Watkin had been full of promises about moving into a bigger place, but nothing had ever come of it.
The idea had kept her spirits up for quite a while. She had even started to save a few shillings out of her housekeeping money each week ready to buy things for their new home. When Watkin seemed to lose interest in moving, though, she’d decided to spend the money on herself. That was when she’d started treating herself to the occasional bottle of sherry.
Chapter Fourteen
MEGAN WAS SO engrossed in her work that the days flew by. She scarcely noticed that summer was over a
nd that the few drab trees she passed each morning on her way to work had begun to shed their grime-encrusted leaves. Grey skies and keener winds were the only outward signals that it would soon be winter.
In Beddgelert, as autumn advanced, it was as if an artist had run riot with his palette. The entire countryside donned a mantle of rich colour. Mountainsides flamed as bracken changed from green to gold and then to a burning red. The conifers cresting the skyline swayed like a rolling sea as the October winds sliced across them or gusts of ice-cold rain drenched their dark green branches. As the days grew shorter and colder, the sheep grazed their way down to the lower slopes, as if aware that soon they would need to seek shelter from snow and bitter winds.
Once, the changing seasons had been an integral part of Megan’s way of life. Now she had other things to fill her mind. After she’d gained her secretarial diploma with high marks Miss Pearce had given her the opportunity to use her newly acquired skills.
Delighted that her work was no longer confined to the routine checking of shipping documents, Megan looked forward eagerly to each new challenge. She worked conscientiously, determined not to make mistakes.
Her efforts were rewarded when Valerie Pearce praised her and confided that, as she would be leaving the following spring to get married, there was a very good chance of Megan being considered as her replacement.
Megan stared at her in astonishment. ‘You mean become Mr Walker’s secretary?’ she gasped.
‘That is what I hope!’ Valerie Pearce smiled. ‘Providing Mr Walker doesn’t think you are too young and inexperienced for such responsibility.’
‘Oh!’ Megan’s feeling of elation rapidly subsided.
‘I thought it might be a good idea for you to act as my secretary for a few months,’ Valerie Pearce added quickly as she saw disappointment darken Megan’s eyes.
‘To give me some idea of what is involved?’
‘That’s right! It will be good practice and prepare you for my job when the time comes.’
When Megan told her family that evening, her father’s delight equalled her own.