Patricia stared at Roland, striken with shock.
‘But this means it was an accident. A terrifyingly unfortunate accident! If Matthew and I had stuck to our plan on that Thursday it wouldn’t have happened!’
‘And what’s more, it means my mother has known all along that you weren’t even remotely responsible for her death. She killed herself in a pathetic attempt to stop your wedding and get Matthew back.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘Face her with it.’
‘Not now, she’s ill and I don’t think she would be able to cope. Not now.’
‘I’ll tell her we’ve found this as soon as the doctors assure me she is strong enough to cope with it and, at the same time, I’ll tell her about us.’
‘No, Roland. I couldn’t marry you. It would be defying the fates.’
‘What d’you mean? What has this to do with you and me?’
‘Your mother hates me enough to withhold evidence from the police. I couldn’t marry you knowing I was hated so much. Our marriage would be doomed from the start. Vanessa isn’t dead, she’s around here, and at Matthew’s cottage, haunting me and tormenting me still.’
‘Let’s give this a chance to sink in. I can’t think clearly so I can understand how distressed you must be. But please, Patricia, don’t let’s allow it to separate us.’
‘I’m going away. Leaving here. I never want to see or hear anything about the Drews, ever again!’ said Patricia heatedly.
* * *
Mrs Drew returned home a few days later, displaying no apparent ill effects from the attack, but demanding of Roland that she needed extra care and consideration. Roland questioned the doctor who forcefully stated that it had not been a heart attack, more a display of temper and he would appreciate it if Roland ensured she didn’t waste the hospital’s and his time again. He was too angry with his mother to tackle her over her deceit immediately.
Just ten days before Roland’s portraits were displayed in Cardiff, Patricia packed up her few possessions and moved out of the caravan. She told no one where she was living apart from Julia who was sworn to secrecy. The back room of the proposed ice cream parlour was hardly a comfortable home, specially when the builders came in. She lived amid the rubble in conditions only a tramp would have appreciated.
Knowing how unhappy and lonely Marion was, she allowed Julia to pass on the address of the café to her and she came on several Sundays, on the back of Jacky Davies’ motor bike.
Together Jacky and the sisters would clean up the week’s rubble and make room for the next stage of the alterations. The three of them would eat squatting on the floor or, occasionally, find an out-of-season café where they would eat and enjoy the comfort of proper chairs and a table and dust free air. Afterwards they would walk along the deserted prom and watch the sea in its grey winter garb beating the rocks; berating them for some unknown misdemeanor.
On one of these visits, Marion told Patricia Nelda was again expecting a baby. ‘She wants you to come home and take on the responsibility like you did for Richard,’ she said.
‘But I can’t! I’d be letting Julia down.’
‘I told her that, but she’s convinced you won’t let her down. She says Julia being our grandmother doesn’t count, after her years of absence.’
Worry about this new situation had to be put aside. She wrote to her father and Nelda, but made no promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. Her time was spent planning and ordering furnishings, after consultations with Julia, and she also sent out for quotes to supply the new business with fresh cakes and pastries. The days were long and she worked hard filling them so there was neither the time to dwell on Nelda’s problems, nor on Roland and what might have been.
For the first few weeks she expected every day that he would call. Surely he would not give up on her without trying to persuade her she was wrong?
‘Give it time, Patricia,’ Julia urged. ‘It will all come right, but you must be patient. You and he are on the edge of something exciting and you have to put aside your love for each other until you’ve reached your goal. Success is everything. You’ll see.’
‘My mother was happy and she made us happy too. Me, Elizabeth, Marion and Dad. I’d call that success, wouldn’t you?’
Julia didn’t reply.
Roland wrote to Patricia, telling her about the success of his exhibition, and much more besides. Patricia did not reply. He sent her a poem, convinced this would touch her heart and make her respond.
Rooms are all empty and silent of song,
Days without movement and achingly long
Clocks without hands that drag out each day
Life without purpose now you’ve gone away.
‘No, don’t post it,’ Julia told him. ‘She won’t open it. She is very determined to stand on her own two feet, at last. I’ll wait for a suitable moment and hand it to her.’
‘You know best, Julia,’ Roland said.
She stacked it at the back of her sideboard drawer with all the others. She did know best, Julia told herself. Once Patricia understood what it was like to organise her own destiny, then she would marry on her own terms and not to support her husband in whatever he chose to do. Just a few months and she could have all the letters and everything would be all right. She had to do this to compensate for her daughter Donna. If only she had stayed and supported Donna everything would have been different. One day Patricia and Roland would thank her.
* * *
In August, the Olympic Games took place for the first time since Hitler’s extravaganza in 1936, and for a while, shortages and financial problems were pushed to the inner pages of the daily papers.
In Castell Newydd games of a different kind were played out as families filled the beach. In spare moments, Patricia would walk along the promenade, watching the children, vicariously enjoying their fun. On Sundays, Marion and sometimes Jacky came, bringing news of the family and occasionally, Leonard would bring Nelda and Richard to spend a few hours on the sands.
To her family, Patricia gave the impression of contentment as she boasted about how successful the ice cream parlour was promising to be, and how happy she was to live practically on the seashore. These Sunday visits grew into beach parties, with Elizabeth and Will coming and on occasions, Mr Forest.
It was almost the end of August, when the holiday period was at its height, when the alterations were finally completed and the preparation room and stock rooms painted and filled. In the preparation room a brand new machine was installed to mix and heat the ingredients of great-grandfather Andriotti’s recipe.
The ice cream parlour itself had been cheerfully decorated. New furniture of white and red had arrived and the coffee machines were already set up on the marble and glass counter. Bottles of coloured syrups were on the counter top and one day, they hoped to have chopped nuts and chocolate and many other embellishments to the basic vanilla ices, which Mr Forest had recommended.
Mr Forest remained to help. With his family grown up and departed he was glad to fill his hours, glad to feel his expertise was still of value. Without accepting any money for his time, which he insisted couldn’t be more happily spent than helping them, he worked several hours each day. Patricia wondered how they would have managed without him. He was very interested in what they were planning and seemed reluctant to depart from his transformed premises. His knowledge was invaluable, his wide experience saved them many expensive mistakes.
When all was done they sat back and waited for the moment when they would open their shop as ‘Julia’s Ices’.
* * *
Roland tried to accept Patricia’s absence, and her refusal to even write to him, telling himself it was only a temporary lull in their relationship. That was the dream. The reality was the fear that, once she found her feet and began to make a success of the ice cream parlour she would be lost to him for ever.
He still visited Julia and was told of their progress at the new premises. Julia repeatedly told him that
Patricia didn’t want to see him. She made him promise not even to visit the town of Castell Newydd, until Patricia told her otherwise. In this he was not complaisant; he went on several occasions to view from the outside the shop where he knew Patricia was living, hoping to bump into her without actually knocking on her door.
He worked very hard. Now he no longer taught at the local school he was free to paint and study for even more hours a day. It was what he had always wanted, to earn a living with his palette and brushes. But the joy was no longer there.
The painting of three little girls won Roland greater acclaim, more commissions were received as his reputation grew. On the day ‘Julia’s Ice’ opened its doors to the public, he realised that he had sufficient work to occupy him for months. By the end of the year he would be earning more, much more, than his salary as a teacher. The book Patricia and he had written, using sketches of his wartime experiences, had found a publisher and was selling well. If only Patrica would come back to him the happiness of his future would be assured.
Mrs Drew began to enjoy the reflected glory of her son’s fame. She didn’t actually tell him so, but realised that his artistic abilities were far greater than those of the daughter she had spoiled so inexcusably. But although she was aware of his growing success, she knew he was not happy.
Her sleep began to be haunted with the ghosts of her behaviour to Patricia as well as to her son. Nightmares disturbed her night after night. Scenes in which she shouted abuse at Patricia, heard the girl sobbing, made her break from sleep in a sweat. She would look around her bedroom, hearing echoes of the girl’s crying.
Every time she looked at the portrait of Vanessa which hung over the mantlepiece, she felt a hot rush of shame at the way she had treated Patricia, and through her, her son. She had loaded onto her young shoulders the guilt that should have been her own.
There was nothing she could do. Apologising was not in her nature. She would have to live with it until Roland faced her and told her he loved the girl and intended to marry her.
* * *
Although Roland didn’t call, Patricia was not without visitors as Autumn changed the character of the small town. Her sister Marion came often, but never with Matthew. Patricia persuaded her to talk about it one day and was alarmed to learn that Matthew was ignoring his wife and spending his time at the shrine he had made to Vanessa in the cottage that was to have been his home.
‘He refuses to sell it,’ Marion told her. ‘I’ve pleaded and even promised to help re-decorate, but I’m not allowed near the place.’ She looked away from her sister and said in little more than a whisper, ‘The truth is, he hardly ever speaks to me. We haven’t been out together apart from visiting Elizabeth and Will, and Nelda and our Dad, since the first month of our marriage – if you can call it that!’
‘You eat at the same table, though, and sleep in the same bed?’ Patricia asked, handing her sister a cup of tea. She was startled when Marion shook her head.
‘I eat alone. Where he eats I have no idea and I’m well past caring.’
‘Haven’t you told anyone? A doctor? He’s obviously in need of help.’
‘Blow him! It’s me needing help! But, I’ve found it, so don’t worry.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean I’m less and less hurt by his attitude, and Jacky is more and more a comfort. I know Matthew shouldn’t be so obsessed with a dead girl, whose photograph he uses as a shrine, but I no longer care. Jacky adds zest and excitement to my life, as well as the feeling of being loved and valued. One day it will sort itself out. In the meantime, Matthew’s behaviour gives me freedom to enjoy myself.’
Her sister’s confession gave her much to think about but rather than feel ashamed of the way Marion was behaving, it made Patricia ache with loneliness. Had Julia been right to persuade her to prove herself capable of running a business and building a career? She longed to go to Roland and feel his arms around her, tell her she too was loved. Her sister’s failed marriage and her secret affair with Jacky Davies had made her realise how empty her own life was. With an effort, she forced herself to feel enthusiasm at the prospect of opening the new business in a few days time.
For a while, it worked.
Chapter Twelve
The beach being so close to where she worked was a novelty and a constant joy to Patricia. She began regular, early morning walks along the sands and up onto the headland, enjoying the bracing air and the feeling of freedom. Although the holiday season was filling the small town with summer visitors, she rarely met anyone; most families were still indoors planning their day.
Behind neat, net-curtained windows she caught glimpses of families eagerly tucking into whatever the landladies had found to fill their plates. Fried potatoes and tomatoes filled the spaces and hid the meanness of the rations, and stale bread, fried with the faintest smear of fat, gave them at least the smell of bacon on the many mornings when there was none.
She felt like a holiday maker herself, yet, at the same time, she was becoming more and more a part of the community. Owners of the shops near ‘Julia’s Ices’ called in to wish them luck.
Because of the chancy situation of starting from nothing, and the need to give as much finance as they could to the business, Patricia lived frugally. She looked with some envy at the young mothers and children in their new beach clothes. She was wearing last summer’s dresses and her white shoes had been dyed navy to disguise their scuffed appearance.
Years of clothes rationing, the drabness of the clothes that were suitable for the farm and for Cottage Flowers made her long to join the fashion conscious as she had, for a while, with the New Look. But for her, fashion would have to wait. Every penny she spent was an agony. The money in her purse belonged not to her but to the bank, or to Julia, and she considered very carefully before spending any of it.
Although initially nervous at being alone in the large house, of which the dowstairs rooms were the café and preparation room, Patricia soon found she was too tired to do anything but sleep once she closed the door of her bedroom and turned out the light. She went twice each week to do some chores at home, helping Nelda to clean the house and sometimes she spent a little time with her father in the vegetable garden behind the house. Every time she stepped off the train she hoped it would be a visit in which she and Roland would come face to face, but in this she was always disappointed.
Marion visited on several occasions, coming by train and spending the day helping her sister, while describing, without being too specific, that she was finding marriage a disappointment. That she had empty days to fill became clear as she increased the number of times she came to Castell Newydd and began to understand the work and take an interest in what Patricia and Julia were doing. Patricia began to depend on her help and that pleased her.
‘It’s a very different Marion from the one who never did her share at home,’ Patricia told Julia.
Jacky sometimes arrived with her, once insisting that he had been cajoled into coming to move the fridges and freezer. Once he came and tidied and scrubbed the yard. Then he came without any excuse at all and took them out for lunch. After that he was a regular visitor, bringing Marion on the back of his motorbike or in a car borrowed for a few hours.
Marion was more animated, more her old self when Jacky was there and Patricia wondered if her sister was seeking more than friendship from him. And, if she were, how Matthew would react.
‘Matthew hardly speaks to her,’ Jacky told her when she hinted that he was perhaps too friendly with her married sister. ‘He stays out all day, usually till midnight, and many people have seen him up at Vanessa’s grave. Just standing there silently looking down on the flowers he brings several times a week. Standing beside a grave when he could be with Marion. It’s weird.’
‘What about money? She says he won’t let her find a job.’
‘He gives her a little money each week, leaving it on the table early in the morning for her to pick up. He never hands it to h
er. It isn’t enough, mind, but it’s some. He doesn’t even eat with her, preferring to find what he needs in a café before he goes home.’
‘Does he know you’re here with her today? Doesn’t he mind her spending so much time with you, Jacky?’
‘He doesn’t seem to care how she spends her time, and to an attractive girl like your Marion that is damned insulting. I – I do what I can to make her happy, you can’t ask me not to do that?’
* * *
The day the ice cream parlour was finally opened was exhausting. Neither Patricia nor Julia had slept well the night before and they were up before seven to set out the last minute things and give the chairs and tables a final, unnecessary wipe. The doors opened at nine a.m, and, after an anxious half an hour during which they thought they would never serve a single customer and have to close in a month, people began trickling in.
Initially, every time the door opened, Patricia would look up hoping to see Roland. Surely he wouldn’t let their first day pass without coming to wish them luck? She had been telling herself this was why he hadn’t called. He planned to wait and surprise her on the first day of business, and share in the celebration of her success.
Her father came, with an obviously pregnant Nelda, who congratulated them on the design and the facilities offered.
‘So far we’ve only seen a few locals, most of our trade is with holiday makers and they will disappear at the end of September,’ Patricia said.
‘Just as well. You’ll be coming to help me when this one is born, won’t you?’ Nelda said. ‘Through the winter you’ll have to close up anyway, so it will work out fine.’
‘Nelda, I can’t just close while I look after you, although I’ll do what I can. We owe money and without the income we’ll soon be in desperate trouble.’
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