Sophie Street

by Sophie Street (retail) (epub)

  “I don’t think Helen will want to move for a while, not with the baby and all.”

  “And can’t you cope a bit longer, for her sake?”

  “I’m not allowed to sit in the armchair and eat my sandwich at supper time. I’m not allowed into the living room – that’s the lounge – until I’ve changed out of my working clothes. Mam, I wear my second-best suit and she still won’t let me in there! Oh, and we only watch interesting programmes on the television, no comedy, and no music. The woman’s barmy, our Mam.” Ernie looked up to see both his mother and his sister stifling giggles. “All right, joke over. What am I going to do?”

  “There’s always the shed,” Caroline laughed. “Threaten that and perhaps she’ll behave.”

  When Ernie went on his way, slightly more cheerful than when he had arrived, Janet put her hands on her hips and said, “That’s our Ernie sorted. Now, Caroline, what are we going to do about you?”

  * * *

  Mair tried not to think about the baby she carried. It could only be a couple of months, there was plenty of time. If her father had been suspicious, he might have noticed that she walked away from any talk about babies, even shutting off the television when anything remotely connected with children was shown. She still hadn’t spoken to a doctor, although she had almost decided that if nothing had happened by the middle of May, she would accept Rhiannon’s offer to go with her, and make an appointment. She continually put it off, knowing that once it was official, she could no longer pretend it wasn’t true.

  Once she began avoiding anything to do with babies, she seemed to come across the subject everywhere. Shops advertised maternity outfits, toys were recommended for every stage of childhood. Even on buses there were women knitting small white garments and every magazine she bought had something to add to the knowledge she did not want to gain. She was beginning to feel trapped.

  The worst occasion was when she accepted an invitation to go to the pictures with Frank. The film was boring, so instead, they went to find some supper at the cottage Frank shared with his parents. Helen and Ernie were there, all lovey-dovey, talking about the flat they were going to find once the baby was born. Seeing Helen’s swollen figure and the way she was boasting about her appetite, eating for two, Mair wanted to run straight out. She went into the kitchen where lines of washing had been hung to dry, and made tea, helped by the very attentive Frank. When the sounds of groaning and panting and cries of alarm filled the small house, she looked at Frank and said, urgently, “I think I should go home.”

  Shouts and wails and calming whispers played counter-point as Hywel begged Helen to get to the hospital and told Ernie off for not keeping her at home, and Janet soothed everyone and calmly asked Frank to run and phone for a taxi.

  “There’s the van,” Frank suggested, but Ernie shook his head. “Quicker it’ll be mind, and I’ll let you drive it,” Frank offered, aware of Mair’s embarrassment. “You could go now, this minute and be there in no time.”

  “Go, Frank, and phone the hospital,” Janet urged.

  Reaching for Mair’s hand, Frank pulled her out of the house and headed for the phone box at the end of the lane.

  It was then that Mair had her idea. Frank wasn’t very bright. She might be able to persuade him that the child she carried was his, if she could change her attitude towards him and get him into her bed within the next few days. She wouldn’t let him down. She’d be a good wife and he’d have no cause for complaint. Frank’s biggest asset as a prospective husband was his slowness. He had that highly desirable facet of his character that every woman dreamed of: Frank Griffiths was malleable.

  Carl had done her a favour denying they had been lovers. Apart from Rhiannon, no one would think it strange that she had been seeing Frank and not talking about it. He wasn’t considered a great catch. The Griffithses and her father were hardly likely to welcome the idea of a romance between them so it would hardly seem surprising that they had kept their meetings a secret.

  When the telephone calls had been made, she led Frank back to her cottage, explaining that with her father once again on nights, she didn’t fancy being alone tonight. “It was knowing that Helen’s baby’s birth is imminent,” she said. “I don’t know why, but it made me want company tonight.”

  Frank saw no point in asking for further explanation.

  * * *

  “Charlie Perkins’s horse impressions again,” Hywel whispered to Janet when Frank arrived home in time for an early breakfast.

  Chapter Seven

  Frank ate an enormous breakfast after his return from Mair’s cottage. He was finishing off with some thick toast made on the bright fire in the living room when his brother Basil came in.

  “Any news about Helen’s baby?” Basil asked, and with his mouth full, Frank shook his head and nodded to the pile of freshly toasted bread. When Basil had found himself a plate and was spreading the toast generously with butter, Frank managed to say, “I think Mam’s at the hospital now.”

  “You look pleased with yourself,” Basil said, as Frank happily munched his way through his food. “Your face isn’t a natural smiler. So, what’s happened?”

  “I saw Mair last night and she’s given that Carl Rees the push.”

  “Sure of that, are you?”

  “Well, I hope so, but I’ll keep an eye on the pair of them just in case she changes her mind.”

  “Don’t build your hopes up, brother Frank. Mair’s had a few boyfriends in her time, and besides, you’ll give our Dad a heart attack if you start talking of wedding bells and a policeman’s daughter in the same breath, mind!”

  Frank looked uncomfortable. “Who’d have a bloke like me?” he said, but he was soon thinking of the way he and Mair had spent the previous night while her father was out, and the smile came back.

  Basil waited awhile but as there was no sign of Janet coming home he left and returned to Trellis Street. He had wanted to talk to his parents, as his landlord had increased the rent and he had heard rumours that he was intending to get him and his little family out of their flat altogether. He had a regular job, but nothing saved, and he didn’t know how to deal with the threat.

  As he left the shabby cottage, where he had had such a happy childhood, he stopped and looked thoughtfully at the outhouse which had been a bedroom until he and then Ernie had married and left home. Was it a possibility? He shook his head abandoning the idea as soon as it had been born. He couldn’t bring Eleri and the boys to live in what was little more than animal shelter. Things had changed and it was no longer possible to think of bringing up a family in such an inconvenient place. Eleri had lived with her first husband, Lewis-boy, at Dora and Lewis’s house. He had only provided a small, overcrowded flat and he couldn’t expect her to accept anything more lowly than that. What could he do?

  He climbed the gate into the lane, his long legs making this easier than unlocking the gate and relocking it after him. He stood again, looking back at the shed-cum-extension and he was standing so still, so quiet, that he heard the sibilant hiss of tyres on the surface of the lane while the cause of it was still some distance away. Automatically, from ingrained practice, he stepped silently back into the shelter of a tree and watched.

  Constable Gregory sailed serenely past on his bicycle, and when Basil called, “Good morning,” he had the pleasure of seeing the man wobble and almost lose his balance. The policeman stopped and glared at him. “What you doing skulking about in the hedges, Basil?” he asked.

  “Wondering what you’re up to when you should be asleep,” Basil replied, remembering Frank telling him the man had been working the previous night.

  “Sleeping? That’s a laugh. Off to work I am, watching out for the likes of you and your family! So behave!”

  “Going in the wrong direction aren’t you?” Basil nodded in the direction of town and tilted his head enquiringly.

  “None of your business where I’ve been or where I’m going, Basil Griffiths. Remember I’m after villains so
watch it. Right?” Wearing a haughty, righteous expression he sailed on. Basil wondered which of his brothers had been wandering around Farmer Booker’s woods, or if his father had been the one most recently aggravating the man. The idea had its appeal and he went back to the cottage and collected a few things. Tonight he’d set a few traps. A rabbit made a good nourishing stew.

  * * *

  That night, Frank walked to Mair’s cottage and stood watching, half expecting and half dreading the sight of Carl Rees arriving. Mair’s father was at home, but that was no reason why Mair couldn’t go and meet Carl at a given time.

  At nine o’clock the back door opened and Frank’s spirits dropped but it was her father who stepped out. He was not in uniform but he moved with care and went silently through the woods, unaware of being followed by Frank.

  The night was dark and still, with not even a light breeze to move the branches. All his senses alert, Frank trailed Gregory’s progress through the trees. Then he heard the unmistakable sounds of someone else stepping cautiously through the trees. Such faint sounds that the constable seemed unaware of them. The thought that it might be one of his brothers or his father, made Frank take action to warn him. He shook a branch and ran through an area he knew was best avoided if he wanted to walk in silence; it was covered with dry, brittle twigs, the remnants of an aborted attempt to clear some of the intrusive brambles. His feet made a lot of noise and the constable turned and headed straight for him. Frank saw him with his night-trained eyes and easily avoided him, turning back to stand and watch once more across the lane from Mair’s home. He didn’t know who had been wandering the woods, but he thought, by the professional way the person had walked with hardly a sound, that it might have been his father, or Basil or perhaps Ernie, even though he should have been home waiting for news of his child.

  A short distance away, his brother Basil picked up his abandoned equipment and continued setting his traps. His smile was reminiscent of Frank’s.

  * * *

  The following morning, Frank poured himself a beer from the flagon in the corner and told his mother that he was going to start on the bedroom for Jack and Victoria at last.

  “You’d never believe the colour, our Mam. White woodwork and the door panelled in hardboard and painted yellow to match the walls. Could you sleep in such a room? Damn it all, it would be like sleeping in the daylight.”

  “And when has that bothered you, Frank?” Janet teased.

  “Well, I suppose it’s modern. But yellow? Now a soft blue or pink, that’s all right, mind. I like a bit of colour, but it has to be soft and soothing, not ‘wake up it’s morning.’”

  Janet was laughing while she helped Frank to gather together his painting and wallpapering tools, when a red-faced Ernie came bursting in to tell them them he had a son. “Another grandson for you Mam. Where’s our Dad? Chuffed he’ll be for sure.” Frank was pleased with the news, thumping Ernie on the back and telling him well done. Janet began to cry but insisted the tears were happy ones. Hywel muttered something about being front line now there was a younger generation to push them up a notch and Ernie drank Frank’s beer. Frank remembered just in time not to start a fight.

  As an excuse to call, Frank went to the sports shop to tell Mair of the arrival of a new Griffiths, and invited her to go for a walk with him that evening. Then he ran down to Temptations to tell Rhiannon, and the news began to travel.

  That evening, Rhiannon and Charlie went to tell Dora and Lewis and, as they approached the house, they heard quarrelling. Dismayed, they called from the doorway before walking in. Rhiannon looked suspiciously from one to the other. “Not arguing, are you?” she asked.

  Dora snapped, “Of course we are! Your father wants to fill the garden with vegetables we no longer need and I want a lawn and flowers!”

  Rhiannon was so relieved she giggled and Dora joined in.

  “I know what you were thinking,” she whispered when she and her daughter were making tea, “afraid I was about to throw your father out and you’d have him back as a lodger!”

  * * *

  “You should have seen their faces,” Dora told Sian the next morning when they were opening the Rose Tree Café. “Terrified they were. Poor Charlie was forcing such a smile, he looked as though he was being strangled!”

  “Are their fears ungrounded?” Sian asked as she grated cheese into a bowl. “You don’t regret having Lewis back?”

  “I wish I’d come to my senses sooner,” Dora replied. “I’m really happy now Lewis and I are back together again. Although, there’s still a sense of waiting, as if something has yet to fall into place. I’m happy, don’t doubt it, but – I don’t know – we aren’t complete somehow.”

  “You still remember the early days, when the house was full to bursting, and there weren’t enough hours in the day to do all you wanted to achieve,” Sian suggested. “Life changes and we sometimes find it hard to accept it.”

  Dora nodded. “You’re right about that. The house seems too big. All those empty rooms. I open the doors sometimes and look in and it’s as though I’m a stranger there, as though they belong to another life, ghosts have taken possession. In my melancholic moments I can almost hear the children shouting and laughing and then I return to the present and become engulfed by sadness. We rattle about like peas in a colander, me and Lewis, and I think we both feel it.”

  Aware of having said too much, she turned to Sian and asked brightly, “And what about you? D’you hear anything about your delinquent, Islwyn? Or Issy, as that Margaret Jenkins insists on calling him?”

  “So far as I know he and Margaret Jenkins seem to be content, although I do wonder sometimes. She must hate working as a housekeeper in the house her family once owned. And, Islwyn, well, he was never one for hard work. I doubt he’s changed even for his new love! I don’t think she can be exactly happy, do you? And she must hate seeing her brother Edward so successful and happily married. I don’t think Margaret is the sort to take pleasure from the happiness of others.”

  “Poor Islwyn.”

  “Not really. When you think of what he did – taking money from my parents’ business and doing nothing for it, cheating on the accounts to take even more, well, I think he’s lucky to have what he has got.”

  “And you wouldn’t take him back?”

  “No! There are better men than him in the world and if I wanted a new husband, I’d find one.”

  “And, would you? Look for another husband?” Dora dared to ask.

  “I might, once Islwyn has agreed to the divorce.”

  Dora was surprised. If anyone had asked her, she would have been certain that Sian had no interest whatever in finding another man to share her life.

  “It just shows,” she said to Lewis later, “You never really know another person, no matter that you believe them to be a close friend.”

  * * *

  Dora’s daughter looked up smiling as the confectionery rep got out of his car and hurried towards the shop. Before she had married Charlie, she and Jimmy Herbert had been close friends and it was as a friend she greeted him. It was raining and she opened the door for him to run straight in. Jimmy held a briefcase rather ineffectually over his head as he ran from the car.

  “Tea?” she offered as soon as he had closed the shop door.

  She usually persuaded him to stay a while when he called for an order. They reminisced about the dance class in Gomer Hall that they had enjoyed for a while, and discussed mutual friends, before he settled down to take her order. Jimmy worked for the same company as Rhiannon’s father, which gave them another link.

  He was still there when Jennie Francis came in for some toffees. Seeing Rhiannon greet her as a friend rather than an unknown customer, Jimmy took out a sample of toffees and gave them to her. Rhiannon introduced them and went into the kitchen to find another cup. Before Jimmy left, he had learnt something about Jennie’s situation and had told her of a job going in a shop at the Pleasure Beach, selling nothing but seaside
rock – in every imaginable shape and size.

  “It isn’t what I want,” Jennie confided in her friend when Jimmy had gone. “But with the house being sold and me having to find somewhere to live, I have to earn some money. It would only be a stop-gap, while I sorted out my finances and got myself started in a business of my own.”

  “No chance of a reconciliation, then? You and Peter?”

  “I have hoped for things to come right,” Jennie admitted. “But whenever decisions have to be made, Peter always choses his mother to discuss them with rather than me and I can’t see that ever changing. She’ll get older and more demanding and he’ll become more and more guilty if he doesn’t do what she wants. I don’t want to be second best for the rest of my life. Would you?”

  “No one deserves that,” Rhiannon said. “For a while I thought Barry Martin was the one for me, but he wasn’t as loving and caring as Charlie is. Better to wait for the right one, don’t take a chance telling yourself it will get better, because it almost certainly won’t.”

  “The house will be sold in a couple more weeks. It doesn’t take long for your life to be pulled apart,” Jennie said sadly. “A few months ago I had a struggling business, a husband and a home. Now they’ve all gone. It’s hard to believe sometimes.”

  “Come back and have some lunch with me,” Rhiannon said. “I boiled a joint of ham yesterday, we could have a sandwich. Then,” she added, “you could take a bus over to the Pleasure Beach and see about the exciting job selling sticky rock!” She was pleased to see Jennie smiling as she pulled down the blind and locked the shop door.

  With some misgivings, Jennie took the job in the small shop overlooking the beach. She knew she had to earn some money, enough to find a room and feed herself. Imagine ending up in a bed-sit in some crummy old ruin, after owning a house. It was crazy. The debts accrued from the business should have been shared. Peter should have been with her, helping to sort out the end of her enterprise. Instead, she had a mental picture of him of standing beside his mother looking at her with disapproval as she struggled. Selling rock and listening to inane jokes as people bought sweet dummies and talked about the recipient’s reaction as though they were the first person to think of such a thing. She shuddered. At least it would bring in some money while she looked for something better. There was a part of her too that hoped the news would shame Peter into some offer of assistance once the house was gone and she was installed in her drab room. She was determined it would be a drab room. That way there was the greatest incentive for her to get out and move on.