Unlocking the Past

by Grace Thompson

  “I don’t think that would work, Hywel,” Janet laughed. “They’d only have to look at your record.” With a sigh she added, “Yours and Basil’s and Frank’s and Ernie’s.”

  “Perhaps not, but I can threaten him though.”

  “You’ll have him shaking in his shoes, love!”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Guilty!”

  Hywel began searching the house and garden for things to sell to make the money to buy a few goats. He had been given the idea after talking to a woman at the court. She had a child who couldn’t tolerate cow’s milk and had to travel a long distance each day to buy milk from a goat-keeper in a village almost five miles away. The idea instantly appealed. He took her name and promised to get in touch if he heard of a goat-keeper nearer. He had reasoned that there must be others who would like the milk and cheese, beside one little boy. Although he wasn’t sure he’d try it himself.

  “Eat anything, they will,” he said enthusiastically and incorrectly, to Janet. “We’ll soon persuade locals to bring their leftover food for them. They did it for pigs during the war didn’t they? Well, they can do it now for my little war against the magistrates and farmer John Booker!” It all sounded so simple, Janet thought with a sigh.

  By the end of the following day, Hywel had filled the van with implements no longer needed, or which they could do without for a while, and set off to sell them. His son Basil was with him. There was no one like Basil for finding what was wanted or knowing of a place where that same something was needed. Their destination was an estate of prefabs where every tenant was determined to outdo their neighbours by setting out the garden and filling it with flowers ready for the summer display.

  Two old lawn mowers that Frank had persuaded to work, three rainwater butts, one complete with a tap that wouldn’t turn but looked good, an eclectic assortment of tools, some with the stamp of the local council only partly erased, plus several buckets containing shrubs, all rattled behind them as they set off to persuade someone they had just what he needed. They also had a dozen bottles of homemade wine. Hywel was loath to part with these but money was needed fast before his enthusiasm waned or Janet thought of more reasons for not increasing their animal population.

  * * *

  Watching Hywel starting to clear the ground to build housing for the goats was a diversion, but Janet’s mind was rarely free of worry about her daughter. Caroline continued to bring the little boy each morning and either she or Barry would collect him each afternoon, and on the surface everything looked fine. But Janet looked into Caroline’s eyes and saw the truth. Her lovely daughter was deeply unhappy.

  * * *

  Barry had never undressed in front of his wife, the unease she felt was contagious, and made him in some inexplicable way ashamed of his body. Did Caroline look at him, taller and a lot heavier than his dead brother and with more than a hint of fat around his middle, and grieve more desperately for Joseph who had been smaller, and darker and altogether more attractive? Joseph had been so handsome, and a lot more fun than the sober-sides he, Barry, had always been.

  As the weeks passed, his confidence in himself, as well as the state of the marriage, slipped lower and lower. Caroline found him gross, she hadn’t said so, but he too looked into her eyes and saw the truth. He was big and ugly and boring, compared with his trim, light-hearted brother. How could he have believed he could compete with Joseph even now, more than two years after his death?

  Yet he had to make something out of the mess. He couldn’t face the derision both in jest and in malicious gossip that would result in Caroline leaving him and returning to her parents. The humiliation would kill him. He would have to leave the town and start again somewhere else, and even then he would be trailing his empty marriage and pending divorce behind him. That capricious offer of help he had made when Caroline had been so desperately in need of a friend was ruining his life.

  In all these considerations he hardly thought that the problem was as great for Caroline.

  “Caroline, I haven’t any appointments this afternoon,” he said one morning as his sad wife was getting Joseph ready to go to her mother’s. “As it’s Wednesday, your half-day, I thought we could take Joseph to the park or to the beach. Shall I collect him and meet you outside the shop at one? I’ll bring a picnic, he’d like that.”

  “Oh, Barry, I’m sorry, I’ve arranged to go somewhere with Mam.” She looked at him, her dark eyes trying to assess whether he was disappointed or pleased. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? She’s borrowed the van and made arrangements for food and everything.” She frowned. “But perhaps I can ask her to change it until next week. I’ll talk to her when I take Joseph, shall I?”

  “No, you go with your Mam. I should spend the time finishing off some prints anyway. I’ve got some new mounts I want to experiment with too. Go, love, we’ll try again in a week or two, when it’s warmer.” In a small corner of his mind he admitted to relief that he didn’t have to spend hours pretending to be a happily married man and a proud father. Although his feelings for Joseph were no pretence. He loved the little boy, who warmed him with his undemanding love.

  Caroline wondered whether to tell him about her mother’s search for her missing sister or whether that would be breaking her mother’s confidence, although there was no conceivable reason for secrecy. But he didn’t ask where they were going. She sighed. He didn’t ask because he wasn’t sufficiently interested.

  They both felt the marriage slip another notch.

  * * *

  Although it was early April and the weather was far from warm, Janet had prepared a salad for Hywel and the boys’ midday meal.

  “They’ll grumble for sure but we won’t be there to hear them,” she chuckled as she and Caroline climbed into the van.

  “I’m hungry, Nanna,” Joseph said pleadingly and stuck a thumb into his mouth.

  “Eat your thumb and you get no picnic,” Janet said and the thumb was swiftly removed.

  They stopped only a mile or two outside the town, at a place where they could park on the cliff and look down over the sea. Below them was a sandy beach with jagged rocks at each end spreading curved, protective arms. On the brown and rusty-red surfaces, greenery struggled bravely to survive.

  The hardy samphire that smelled a little like lavender and was once used as a vegetable, made attractive mounds that softened the harsh angles of the rocks. Wild spinach and thrift clung defiantly, spreading their roots down through cracks and finding moisture enough to survive. Under their feet, thyme crept leisurely and imperceptibly along the ground, colonising any space and offering a delicious scent to those who touched its leaves as they passed by.

  The sky was blue but the wind was cold, whipping the turquoise and jade coloured water into tips that Joseph told them looked like a birthday cake. It made Janet shiver at the thought of paddling in it, as some foolhardy youngsters were doing. The shrieks of their laughter soared up to reach them on their high vantage point.

  “Coward that I am, I think we’ll eat our picnic in the car,” she said, catching hold of Joseph’s hand and hurrying him along.

  “Mam, I want to come back home,” Caroline whispered when they had eaten their fill and Joseph had dropped off to sleep in her arms.

  “And welcome you’d be. Me and your dad would love to have you back, but not yet. It wouldn’t be right to give up on your marriage before you’ve given it a real try.”

  “It’ll never come right. I thought I loved him enough but, well, the truth is, I look at him and all I see is a man who isn’t Joseph.”

  “Joseph is gone, love. There’s no future for you or for little Joseph if you insist on looking over your shoulder to what was once there. Playing fanciful games, imagining that somehow everything will change, and Joseph will walk back into your life and laugh and tell you it was all one of his practical jokes, is wrong and very foolish. You have to accept that it’s over. You have to look forward, love.”

  “It’
s hard. On Barry as well as me. He tries to please me but he isn’t sure either. I can sense that, and his hesitation adds to my own and we’re drifting further and further apart. Today he said he’d take an afternoon off and we’d go for a picnic but I couldn’t face it.”

  “What couldn’t you face? A pleasant afternoon out with Barry? You and Barry have always got on well.”

  “We still would if we hadn’t been stupid enough to try and make this parody of a marriage into a reality.”

  “Come on, let’s go and indulge ourselves in a real wallow in the past, and try and find my sister.” Janet smiled as she stepped outside and with the starting handle, cranked the engine into reluctant life. Then she laughed. “Hark at me telling you not to look back and at the same time talking about finding a sister I lost sixty years ago!”

  * * *

  Rhiannon closed the shop at one o’clock and at two-thirty was back there, keeping the blinds down while she tackled some cleaning. As usual, a few customers knocked on the door and pleaded for her to serve them with a forgotten card or a few sweets for the pictures. One of these was the paper-boy, Gwyn Bevan. He held out a shilling piece and asked for a Lovell’s nougat wafer and some Poor Ben’s aniseed gums.

  Trying not to sound suspicious, Rhiannon asked him where he’d got the money from.

  “My paper round, Miss. Dad lets me keep it and I’m saving for a bike, but Dad’s taking me to the pictures today and I’m buying the sweets.”

  “That’s smashing, Gwyn. I hope you enjoy it. Dad not working yet?”

  “Yes, he’s got a job, Miss. Works in a garage he does, and he’s learning to drive so he can deliver cars back after repairs.”

  “Windsor’s was it?” she asked.

  “Yes, Miss. He said he’d train our dad to be a top mechanic in no time.”

  So, Rhiannon smiled to herself, Mr Windsor had kept his promise. “There’s pleased I am. Well done you for keeping the paper round all winter. Easier in the summer, eh?”

  “I did it for Gran, but now I’m doing it for me,” he grinned. “It’ll be great to have a bike.”

  Gwyn Bevan, who was a small thirteen-year-old, had been living in Sophie Street, opposite the Lewises, since he was a tiny baby; sharing the shabby, bomb-damaged house, after his mother had left him and his father in the care of Maggie Wilpin, his mother’s grandmother.

  Maggie Wilpin had cared for the boy as well as she could during the several times his father, Charlie, had been in prison. She had died soon after Charlie had been released in January, and now he and his son seemed to be trying very hard to make a life for themselves. Charlie’s most recent imprisonment had been for breaking into and stealing from Temptations Sweet Shop and Rhiannon felt guilty at being the cause of his arrest.

  Another knock at the door and Rhiannon sighed. “I don’t know why I bother to come in and do some work, there’s never a minute passes without an interruption.”

  “Sorry, Miss.”

  “Oh, it’s all right, I don’t really mind. Enjoy the pictures.”

  The newcomer was Gertie Thomas who kept the shop on the opposite corner, selling groceries and vegetables.

  “Sorry to my heart to bother you, lovely girl, but seeing you’re serving Gwyn, can I have a card for our Florrie? Sick real bad she is, and her with a birthday tomorrow and me forgetting to send.”

  Rhiannon served Gertie with a card then locked up and went home. Today was not the day to get things done, she might as well go for a walk. Perhaps she’d go and see Eleri and ask Basil to look out for a good secondhand bike for young Gwyn.

  * * *

  Janet drove up to the cottage in the middle of the row on the village street. Number twelve, the letter had said. A Mrs Grant. She left Caroline and Joseph in the van and knocked on the door. Superstitiously, she crossed her fingers and hoped the old lady’s memory was clearer than her windows.

  It was some time before the door opened to reveal a small, white-haired lady wearing what looked like a dozen layers of clothing ending with a wrap-over apron.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Janet began, stooping to speak to the sharp-faced occupier. “I wondered whether you can help me. I’m looking for my sister.”

  “Nobody lives here except me and my son!” the woman’s voice was sharp and unfriendly.

  “She used to work for you, many years ago and I expect you’ve forgotten all about her,” Janet persevered.

  “I never forget a thing.”

  “Oh, good. Then would you have an idea where I might find Marion Williams.”

  “Marion who?”

  “Marion Williams. She lived at Hayes Brook Farm, but I believe she worked for you many years ago.”

  The frown on the old woman’s face deepened as she thought back. “Marion? Would that be a little bit of a thing, scrawny and with eyes like a scared rabbit? She was here when the children were small but she’s gone this long time. Lived in Spring Cottage after she left me, but I haven’t seen her for years.”

  “You really remember her? It must be over fifty years,” Janet marvelled.

  “Not such an achievement, she was the only servant I ever had. I was ill, see, after the second child and I couldn’t do the housework. But I didn’t think her name was Williams mind. Jolly? Colly? Something more like that. It’s no use, I can’t remember. Perhaps it was Williams? No, I don’t think so – still, I suppose at eighty-two I’m entitled to get something wrong.”

  “You don’t know where she might be now, I suppose?”

  “You suppose right. Never seen nor heard of her in years, but you could try Spring Cottage.”

  After thanking her for her help, Janet returned to the van. “I forgot to ask directions. I wonder where the post office is?” she said to Caroline. “We have to find Spring Cottage.”

  To their dismay Wednesday was half-day closing in that village as well as in Pendragon Island. A knock at a door resulted in another elderly lady asking how she could help. On asking for Spring Cottage, they were directed through the village, up a narrow lane and into a muddy turn-off about a mile further on.

  They reached the muddy lane without mishap but it was obvious that the van would not be able to cope with the thick mud and deep, water-filled craters of the dark, tunnel-like track.

  “What can we do?” Caroline asked. “We’d need a tractor to get up there.”

  “I’ve got wellingtons in the back. You stay here and I’ll go and see how far the worst of it is. If someone lives up there it has to be navigable, surely.”

  “No, Mam, we’ll go together. Come on, I’ll wear Dad’s boots and we can carry Joseph between us.”

  They set off, laughing like children as their feet squelched in and out of the mud and once or twice they screamed as their feet slipped and they were in danger of landing full length in the thick, glutinous mess.

  It wasn’t very far but the lane twisted and turned so each time it straightened out they still looked to be a long way from the end. Branches met overhead and hid the spring sunshine. Beside them they could hear the chuckling of a small stream, hidden from sight by a rich variety of wild flowers including Jack-by-the-hedge and Herb Robert with its red stems and its distinctive scent, and garlic and the first leaves of hedge parsley and a dozen others, so it smelled fresh and clean in spite of the thick mud oozing around their boots.

  Once they were out through the last of the gloom, there were fields ahead of them and beyond, a headland rising up. In the distance the wheeling gulls and the chug-chug-chug of a ship’s engine told them that the sea was just out of sight.

  Forgetting the search for a moment, they plodded on and up until the sea was spread before them, sparkling in the afternoon sun with the sails of a few boats gliding across making use of the slight breeze to tack lazily home.

  “Wales is a land filled with delights,” Janet announced, “with a surprise around every corner.”

  There was no time to seek a way down to the beach, which was rocky from what they could see, bu
t they promised themselves they would come again, prepared with food and the accoutrements of a day out, and explore.

  As they turned back to the tunnelled path Janet frowned. “We haven’t seen a cottage, have we? We’d better look around a bit before we go back to the van. It has to be here somewhere.”

  The overgrown path seemed to lead nowhere else but the way they had come, but they still went left and right of it in the hope of finding the route to Spring Cottage.

  Hidden by the undergrowth of many years, they discovered rusted machinery and household implements. A wheelbarrow, bed springs, numerous buckets and a kettle colonised by a community of woodlice. Joseph shouted in delight when he picked up a toy car, which he insisted on taking him with him “for Barry to mend”.

  The sound of water led them to a stand of trees, bent over and distorted over the years of their growth by the gales from the sea. There, beside the spring that had obviously given it its name, was a ruined house. The name, Spring Cottage, was still visible on the drunken door, but it was a ruin, its roof partly open to the skies.

  They stopped for a drink of the clear, ice-cold water and returned to the van. “The trail ends here,” Janet said briskly. “Ah well, it was worth a try.”

  “Sorry, Mam. It must be a disappointment.”

  “Not really. I didn’t expect anything more than a dead end. I’d be foolish to hope for more, wouldn’t I? It was fun though, for Joseph as well as you and me. An excuse for a lovely day out. I think we should come here again.”