Unlocking the Past

by Grace Thompson

  With Ernie uncharacteristically secretive, Frank suspected the worst and thought his cousin was doing deals without sharing with him. When he saw Ernie handing Janet an extra five pounds for “extras”, his suspicions increased. Quick to rouse to anger, he saw this as traitorous and picked a fight. As they fought often and without the necessity of a reason, Ernie had no idea of Frank’s growing mistrust.

  * * *

  The night was moonlit and so still and silent, the watcher could almost feel a tingle as if the woodland around him were a stage set, waiting for its actors.

  The oak tree with its crown of new growth showed not a quiver of a leaf, the grasses at its feet didn’t stir to reveal the presence of even the smallest creature. Shadows were black and solid, not the gentle promise of shade offered in daylight hours but ominous places where danger might lurk.

  The hand on his shoulder was the lightest touch but made his blood chill, his heart race, his body prepare for flight or fight. Then he calmed as Ernie’s voice whispered,

  “Hello, Frank.”

  “I didn’t hear you come!”

  “I’ve been watching you this ages.”

  “Well, you can go now. I’m only waiting for a sight of the badgers. Beautiful sight they are, nine of them now the youngsters have joined in the nightly rambles.”

  “Sorry I disturbed you, then. They won’t come now.”

  “Go on you, I’ll wait a bit longer,” Frank said.

  Ernie faded into the quiet night but he didn’t go far. He slid into the thicket of evergreens and waited. Frank was up to something, he was sure of it. He was afraid it might include Percy and if so, Frank could be in serious trouble. Percy Flemming was not a man to trust, he thought, echoing those of Frank.

  A mile away, upwind of the thicket, the badgers set out on their search for food. Sniffing the air, they chose a route that would take them away from the men.

  * * *

  With the café to run in partnership with Sian Weston, Dora’s life had begun to settle into a pleasant hum of activity: the days spent at The Rose Tree Café and the evenings attending to household chores and watching the comings and goings of her son and daughter. At the weekends, when Viv and Rhiannon were occupied with their social life, whizzing in and out of the house between exciting dates, she found plenty to do keeping the books up to date and starting on the season’s gardening tasks.

  This weekend she planned to dig over where the potatoes were to go, and also to fill the bottom of the bean trench with the manure she had bought from the Griffiths boys. There was enough to stop her dwelling on how life had once been, but not enough to exhaust her and stop the depression that hovered darkly around the edge of her emotions from creeping in and threatening to spoil things.

  The telephone rang and she picked it up to hear Sian Weston’s rather sharp voice asking her to call. “Anything about the café is it?” she asked. “Shall I bring the books?”

  “No, it’s about this wedding.”

  “Which one, your Jack and Victoria or my Viv and your high-falutin’ niece, Joan?”

  “Your Viv and Joan. My mother is furious, of course, but the young people want us to cater.”

  Dora laughed. “We did it before, didn’t we? Your mother’s posh Christmas do?” Her mind was thinking fast, ideas coming and being rejected and being replaced by others. “We could manage, with a bit of help, and still have time to get ourselves dressed up posh and be a part of the ceremony.”

  “Bring your note book,” Sian sighed. “Between its pages there has to be something to please them all.”

  * * *

  “It was our Jack’s idea, would you believe,” Sian began when Dora stepped into the small terraced house in Trellis Street. “Joan and Viv agreed enthusiastically. I think my Jack and Victoria hope that if Joan’s wedding is less extravagant, then they can have one even smaller.” She frowned and added, “I think young Victoria is finding my mother a bit powerful and she wants to tone everything down. Jack is a bit concerned, to be honest.”

  “She’s every prospective bride’s nightmare, your mother!” Dora stated in her forthright way. “You’re the mother-in-law but there’s Gladys Weston taking over, as usual, and behaving like she’s in charge.”

  “I’m afraid she is in charge, and I confess it’s my fault,” Sian sighed. “Mother has always been a strong-minded woman and for most of our lives Sally and I have been content to let her take over. Both of our husbands were given easy, well-paid jobs in Daddy’s firm, and her generosity to our children made us accept all the rest without a thought.”

  “Until it all blew up in your faces.” Dora put the kettle on the gas stove and reached for the teapot, completely at home in the house of the woman who had once treated her like a sub-species of humanity. “Funny how we’ve all had a change in our lives, isn’t it? You Westons losing your money and me losing my Lewis to that Nia Martin. And our Rhiannon losing Barry to Caroline Griffiths. It’s as if someone was shuffling the cards, gently meddling with the suits, then suddenly threw them up in the air, just for the hell of it.”

  “I miss having money to buy what I fancy, I’ll admit that,” Sian said. “But for the rest, well, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been, us running the café, and Islwyn – my dear husband, once director of Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint, and now working in the Fortune café – cooking chips.” They both laughed then at the incongruity of it, Sian wiped her eyes and reached for the teacups. “Come on, Dora, let’s start working out a menu for Joan and Viv’s wedding that will enable us to impress everyone and still give us time to join the jollifications!”

  “It’s all right for Joan. She’s a Weston and used to getting her own way. It’s young Victoria I’m sorry for. Marrying your Jack, and your mother constantly reminding the poor girl that she once worked for her as a maid of all work.”

  “Jack is aware of the problem and he’s very caring. I think they’ll be all right, in spite of the unlikeliness of the partnership. He really loves her. She’s a lucky girl.”

  “I hope she stays lucky,” Dora sighed. “I thought Lewis loved me once, and now look at us!”

  * * *

  Victoria and Jack, the subjects of their discussion, were entering the middle house of three in Gethyn Street. The three properties had once formed part of a long terrace but a bomb had resulted in a lot of repairs and two houses being demolished. What remained were two terraces and a lot of empty space in which buddlea and rosebay willow herb flourished, and children played.

  Jack grasped Victoria’s hand as they entered number nineteen, invited in for another guided tour. Mrs Toplas showed them the two living rooms, the kitchen, the yard, the two bedrooms, and the box-room that would one day be their bathroom, with great pride. She seemed to have learnt her patter by rote, hardly taking a breath, and spelling out all the advantages as if this were their first visit.

  “Now,” she said when the tour was completed. “Sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea. In the kitchen I’ll be if you have any questions.”

  “Well?” Jack looked at Victoria, a quizzical eyebrow raised. “D’you think we could be happy here?’’

  After giving a huge sigh, Victoria whispered, “I wish we could move in today!”

  “You’re still worried about the wedding?”

  “Terrified.”

  “I don’t want you to feel terrified. I want you to enjoy our special day.”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be married by special licence and tell everyone afterwards?”

  “I’m proud to be marrying you, love. I don’t want it to be a hole-in-the-corner affair.” He frowned, a thoughtful expression on his lean face. Then he smiled and gave her a quick hug before Mrs Toplas came bustling in with a neatly laid tray. “Wait until August,” he whispered, “and we’ll do it properly, but in a way you’ll enjoy. I promise. Go along with everything Grandmother suggests and trust me.”

  Later that evening, when Jack had walked Victoria back to her home,
he went to find Viv.

  “How do I persuade Grandmother Gladys that Victoria and I want to plan and arrange our own wedding?” he asked.

  “Register office, then make a bolt for it. There’s something of the Welsh Dragon about our Gladys, mind, and she’ll be breathing fire, so when you come back make sure you’re wearing fireproof suits!”

  “At least your wedding comes first and so close to ours that it’s taking some of the pressure off.”

  “Glad to oblige, mate,” Viv grinned then he added more seriously, “Mind you, Jack, you ought to listen to Victoria. It’s her special day and although you’re able to ignore most of your grandmother’s excesses, Victoria can’t. Make it a day she’ll enjoy, eh?”

  “I’ve just promised to do exactly that, Viv,” Jack replied thoughtfully.

  * * *

  Hywel had not really meant it when he told his family they were going to keep goats. The energetic clearing of land and uprooting trees to make way for them had been a necessary task to dissipate his anger. But a coincidental meeting with a man with goats for sale made the idle thought into reality.

  He was driving the van from Pendragon Island to a small village about three miles away to collect some hardcore for a local builder who needed to fill in the foundations of a new house. The weather was cold and there was the threat of rain in the air.

  He turned on the wipers and watched as they did little more than scratch the dust on the windscreen. After suffering the poor visibility for about a mile, he stopped and took out a cloth to clean the glass. Looking over a hedge near where he parked was the solemn face of a goat. Stretching up to see if there were others, he saw a man in a very large floppy hat bending over in a corner of the field.

  “Keeping goats difficult, is it?” he called.

  “Want to buy a couple?” was the eager response.

  After a long conversation, during which the old man described the endless joys of owning a goat and Hywel’s quest for information failed to achieve any useful result, Hywel abandoned the collection of hardcore for the day and travelled home with two nanny goats and one kid in the back of the van.

  * * *

  “But where will we keep them?” Janet asked as the noisy and anxious cargo was unloaded. “You should have finished making a place for them before you bought them.”

  “No trouble. Where’s Frank and Ernie? There’s a couple of rolls of chicken wire behind the shed, a few stakes and they’ll be settled until morning. We’ll knock up a proper pen in a couple of days.”

  Three goats who are unhappy can make a lot of noise and these were really unhappy goats. One wanted milking and the others were just cold and miserable. Janet tied up the nanny without a kid and tried to take her mind back to her childhood when milking was a part of every day. But that was a herd of cows. Did they differ from goats?

  Tying the creature’s head and talking soothingly seemed to be a good start, but each time she managed to get the milk flowing in rhythmical squirts into the pail, the goat panicked and kicked it over. Frank tried and was kicked in the shoulder as the goat twisted away from the pail.

  Tethering as a temporary arrangement seemed a simple idea, but finding ground firm enough to hold a stake against the unhappy tugging of the nanny with a kid was no easy task. Besides, dogs could roam in and terrify the captive creatures.

  Frank came in, asked if Ernie was home and looked around for supper but was sent out with some urgency to find some fencing. The fencing seemed a good idea to everyone but the goats. It was dark and they were ready to settle for the night, instead they had been dragged into a van and dumped among maniacs. They struggled against every effort of Janet and the rest to confine them.

  * * *

  Ernie had been out with Helen. He had given Frank the slip again and had taken Helen for a walk in a part of town where he was unlikely to meet anyone he knew, stopping occasionally to steal a kiss.

  “Isn’t it time we told our parents we’re meeting?” Helen said with a sigh.

  “I want to, I really do,” Ernie said. “But I need a little more time to talk to them. I want everything to be perfect when we tell them.” He couldn’t explain that he was afraid of the ribbing they would both get, afraid she would walk away and not come back if Frank and Viv started on at her with their jokes and innuendoes. He had to take the worst of it himself before she was introduced to their so-called wit. He dawdled home wondering how to introduce the subject.

  When he reached the cottage at about eleven-thirty, expecting the house to be dark and quiet, he was alarmed to see every light on. Extra oil lamps were hung on the white-washed walls of every shed and outbuilding. The shadows created were three and four-fold as each light came from a different angle and created a different shape. All the shapes moved in a frantic way and, besides the dancing shadows, there was noise.

  Ernie stared in horror and was convinced his whole family was being murdered and the shadows were of devils cavorting and dancing around the area of carnage and devastation. The shadows were of huge animals. Or were they? They were definitely part animal. He had clearly seen a horned head.

  He closed his eyes, willing the terrifying sight to disappear, but when he reopened them the images were still there. Devil-worshipping maniacs were abroad! And they had killed his family! Without stopping to investigate further he ran back down to the town and woke the constable.

  The scene was the same when he returned with reinforcements but the constable, who refused to believe in devils, swiftly deduced the cause of the chaos. He convinced Ernie that the “devils” were his family plus chickens squawking in fright and some very irate goats.

  The policeman surprised them all by grabbing the distressed animals firmly one in each hand and guiding them into the back kitchen. The two adults trotted with him obediently, the kid following without further fuss.

  After thanking the constable, and locking the door, and making sure everything edible was well out of reach, they all staggered, exhausted, to their beds.

  * * *

  The builder for whom Hywel was collecting hardcore was at roof height on two of his houses when, overnight, the roofing timbers vanished. If he wondered about the smart pen and goat house boasted about by the Griffithses a few days later, he didn’t say.

  * * *

  The advertisement which Janet had paid for, requesting information about her sister, Marion, resulted surprisingly in three replies. Two were obviously mistaken in that they described women who were the wrong age, but the third told of the young woman who had worked for Mrs Grant in the village and then left to marry the son of the local policeman, whose name she had forgotten.

  Janet showed Hywel then waited for her daughter to return from work to see whether she thought it worth another trip to the village. Caroline read the letter and her eyes sparkled in a way Janet hadn’t seen for weeks.

  “Mam, this is something we can work on. We’ll have her married name!” For a while, the letter explained, the young woman had lived in Spring Cottage alone, but when she had married the policeman’s son they had moved on and no one knew where they went.

  A few days later they had learned that the name of the policeman was Jolly. “That old Mrs Grant remembered well,” Janet said. “Didn’t she say Colly or Jolly?”

  On the following Wednesday, Janet told Hywel she needed the van, but, with the hardcore still a four-trips-a-day job, Hywel had to refuse.

  “I can take you there and pick you up on the next trip,” he offered and this was arranged, but it was Frank who actually drove them. With a picnic basket tucked into the cab between three adults of assorted shapes and sizes, plus a child and his teddy, they set off.

  The lady who had written was a disappointment. All the information she had was in the letter and much of that had been passed on to her by an aunt.

  Frank returned to them after loading the van and delivering the hardcore, then he stayed to share their picnic. The lane was still as muddy but with Frank carrying Joseph and the
picnic shared between Janet and Caroline the journey was easy. They stopped short of the cliffs as the day was cold, and ate in the shelter of the abandoned cottage.

  While Frank and Caroline walked to look over the sea, Janet and Joseph explored as much as they dared of the house. The stairs were sound and the roof over the two bedrooms kept out most of the weather, although mosses and lichen grew on the walls making weird patterns in the damp wallpaper and peeling paint.

  In one of the bedrooms, Janet picked up a scrap of paper held between two pieces of glass from which the frame had fallen. It had been nibbled at the edges by some beetles or bugs, but just visible was a photograph of a young man. Janet’s heart began to race with excitement. Could this be the man her sister had married? Was this stranger her brother-in-law?

  * * *

  So far, Ernie hadn’t taken Helen Gunner through the town. He had kept to the backstreets or met her on the bus and went to Cardiff where they were less likely to be seen. Their only foray through the streets of Pendragon Island were no further than the smaller cafés at the edge of the town and, with great daring, to the cinema, where he led her in during the performance and squashed her into the back row, hoping not to be recognised.

  “Come on, Ernie, you must be ashamed of me,” she pouted one evening when they walked home via the back lanes to her home in Trap Lane. “If you aren’t, why don’t we ever go where there are people? And when are you going to meet my family and me yours?”