The Changing Valley

by The Changing Valley (retail) (epub)

  Amy watched him go with mixed feelings. Lonely for a man’s affections, she had responded too eagerly to Billie’s sudden advances and now she felt ashamed. Leading him on was what people would call it, and her with no intention of marrying the man. Because, now the moment had passed and she had recovered from the surprising tenderness of his kisses, she knew that she did not feel enough love for him to make him the one man in her life. He was big and strong and utterly dependable but he was not what she wanted. Unbidden, images of Victor Honeyman filled her mind and she knew that if he were free, he would be the one. Billie was available and he obviously loved her. Why was life so perverse?

  * * *

  Johnny ran home from his mother’s house one afternoon, smiling at the conversation they had had about Bert Roberts and his attempts to organise the darts team outing. They had decided to sit in on the next meeting to see the fun. He hoped he could persuade Fay to go with them, although Fay never seemed to see the fun in the ordinary happenings of the village. The meetings were held at The Drovers and, as there was no spare room, they were held in the bar, so anyone could attend, much to Bert’s annoyance.

  Johnny half ran up Hywel Rise to St David’s Close where he and Fay now lived, looking eagerly to the end of the close to see if Fay’s car was outside their house. It was not and his footsteps slowed in disappointment. He glanced at his watch. It was almost five: she wouldn’t be long, but he always preferred it when she was there waiting for him.

  He went inside and began to prepare the vegetables Fay had left on the draining board. He turned on the wireless to hum along with, to take away the emptiness of the house which he always felt when she was not there. His mother’s house had been so different from the simply furnished home Fay had made. Mam’s chairs were big and there were too many of them for her small room which seemed to overflow with comfort. He adored his wife but missed the bustle and friendliness of his old home when Fay was not with him.

  He heard the approach of a car and ran to the front of the house, his dripping hands held against him to avoid spotting the shining floors. It was Fay, so he ran back and put the kettle on and opened the door to greet her.

  The sight of her gave him a shiver of pride: she was so beautiful. He still marvelled at his luck in winning her. Her slender figure, always immaculately dressed, her long blonde hair almost touching her shoulders and shining in the sunlight of the June day. As always she wore a hat and today she had on a pale-green suit with shoes and handbag of soft cream leather. The hat was a green straw with a feather in the band to match the suit exactly. A gold brooch on her lapel and small gold earrings were her only jewellery.

  She came down the steps to the front door, carrying a small shopping bag which he took from her.

  ‘Fay, my lovely, there’s glad I am to see you. Thought you’d never get home.’

  ‘Not late, am I?’ She glanced at the gold watch on her wrist and then, safe inside the front door, she kissed him.

  ‘I know I can never be too early for you.’ She smiled at him, her blue eyes closing slightly as she added, ‘Now, Johnny, what have you been up to that I should know about?’

  ‘I’ve driven my bus out and back again a couple of times, been to see Mam, and all the time, I’ve been thinking of you.’

  ‘Best for you too. Don’t stop thinking of me and telling me you love me, will you Johnny?’

  He looked at her closely. ‘Nothing wrong is there, lovely?’

  Looking away from him towards the steaming kettle she shook her head lightly, ‘Wrong? Nothing at all. Come on, let’s see to that kettle before it blows up!’

  They sat in the garden after their meal, the summer air silky on their skin. Johnny had made a small flower bed and improved the lawn and they spent some time each evening in the quiet peace and talked. Mostly they discussed their day, entertaining each other with stories of people and events that had amused or saddened or simply interested them. Johnny heard about difficult customers and Fay heard about the abortive meetings chaired by Bert Roberts. But that evening, Johnny felt Fay was holding something back.

  As the light began to fade Delina came to borrow a book and Fay jumped up to greet her friend with more than usual delight. Fay, calm, serene Fay, began to chatter as if grateful for the interruption. Johnny frowned. He would never feel secure in this marriage, he thought sadly, always looking for a sign that Fay was less than content with him. Fay was probably a little out of sorts and here he was trying to make a mystery out of it. He stood up and closed the deckchairs and, after putting them away, followed the chattering women into the house.

  ‘Got your bike mended then?’ he said to Delina.

  ‘Isn’t it marvellous!’ Delina laughed. ‘I fall off my bike and everyone knows about it!’

  ‘How many know it was Tad Simmons who mended it for you though?’ Johnny said conspiratorially. ‘Saw him I did. On the way to my early shift and he was polishing it as enthusiastically as a terrier shaking a rat. Duw, he worked hard on that bike.’

  ‘Bad-tempered, ill-mannered man. I hope I never see him again,’ Delina said with a scowl.

  Johnny looked at Fay and gave her a broad wink. Fay gave him a weak smile but she was definitely distant. He wondered if she were starting a summer cold.

  Delina did not stay long and soon they went to bed, where Fay slept at once but Johnny lay wide-awake, worrying about her. The night was still, quiet and long as he lay, trying not to disturb her with his tossing and turning. Something was wrong but how was he to find out if Fay did not talk to him about things that worried her? Dawn crept around the curtains before he finally dropped into a restless, dream-disturbed sleep.

  Delina also found it impossible to sleep that night. She was trying not to think about Tad Simmons. It couldn’t be that she was attracted to him. How could she be interested in such an unpleasant man? She wondered if it was something to do with love on the rebound, finding someone else, pretending to feel something for them in an effort to ease the pain of losing the one you loved? She had certainly loved Maurice Davies and, if Sheila had not ruined things, she would be his wife now, watching him go off to work each morning at Beynon’s building firm, and saving to buy their own home. But even thoughts of Maurice, now far away in Australia, could not take the image out of her mind of the small, irritable, blue-eyed man who was so ridiculously over-protective of his daughter.

  * * *

  The day before the Mumbles Train celebrations, Nelly went into town. She went with a suitcase containing several dresses and skirts and two winter coats given to her by people who, seeing her in her usual over-sized coat, believed she was in need of them. In fact, she sold them to Greener’s second-hand clothes shop and enjoyed spending the money more than she would have enjoyed wearing the good quality clothes.

  The shop was over-full with racks upon racks of suits, coats, dresses and jackets. There were drawers and cupboards filled with blouses and scarves as well as hats and jewellery and even underwear. As usual, Nelly was shown into the storeroom behind the shop where Mrs Greener, the proprietress, kept her waiting and then bustled her in as if she had but a moment to spare before being swallowed up once more by her busy shop.

  Mrs Greener was at least seventy but she wore carefully applied makeup and on her head was a bright wig of red curls which bounced as she walked. She smiled at Nelly and gushingly asked how she was, all the time moving to prevent Nelly getting the impression she had time to chatter.

  ‘How lovely to see you, Nelly dear. So sorry you’ve caught me at a bad moment, my dear. I’d have loved to stop and hear all your news. Perhaps next time, is it?’ She frowned as she opened the case, her varnished nails covering her dazzlingly white false teeth in dismay. ‘Winter things. What a pity. This means I can’t be as generous as I might have otherwise have been, dear.’ She named a price and Nelly, who was speechless under the fast flow of words simply nodded agreement. Mrs Greener knew she would not want to carry the heavy case all the way back to Hen Carw Parc.
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  When Nelly waved goodbye to the still apologising Mrs Greener, she was tempted to step inside the nearby pub.

  ‘I needs a drink after five minutes with ’er,’ she told the dogs. There were a few things she needed to buy so she ignored the enticing doorway with the sounds of chatter and chinking glasses issuing from it, and made her calls at the stores near by.

  Her purchases were mainly food for the planned picnic on the following day but she also bought a few surprises for Oliver. She caught the bus but did not alight at her usual stop but instead at the end of Sheepy Lane.

  At the top of the lane she turned into Hywel Rise and as she walked, she extracted from her pocket a note she had written in readiness. As she pushed it through the letter box, the door opened and Dawn stood there. The girl wore a martyred expression and stood silently waiting for some criticism, or so it seemed to Nelly’s sharp eye.

  ‘Dawn! I thought you’d be in school.’

  Dawn continued to stare, a defiant look on her young face making Nelly want to smile.

  ‘Read the note why don’t yer?’ Nelly waited as the girl picked up the piece of paper and studied it.

  ‘You want me to come with you on some picnic?’

  ‘If yer dad says you can. My Ollie’s comin’ an’ Margaret.’

  ‘I’ll ask Dad.’ The girl’s eyes showed excitement but the mouth remained unsmiling.

  ‘Taken any snaps yet with that camera?’ Nelly asked, when she realised that was all the answer she would get.

  ‘Yes.’

  The girl went back inside and closed the door. Nelly bent to shout through the letter box. ‘Come early in the mornin’ if you’re comin’. Bring yer camera. Tomorrow could give you a chance of some real good pictures an’ maybe you could enter the competition at school, eh?’ Nelly waited a moment, frowning as she listened for further communication, then shrugged as none came.

  * * *

  Nelly woke early on the day of the trip to Mumbles and her first move as always was to open the door and let the dogs run out. They ran eagerly up the path and waited while she opened it for them. Barking their delight at being free and having her for company, they danced inelegantly on their back legs, a parody of a ballet, before disappearing temporarily through the trees that bordered the edge of the lane.

  Nelly stood breathing in the quiet after their departure. There was a calmness, a solitary sensation as if all life around her was oblivious of her presence. Birds sang and a hedgehog strolled past her feet, unperturbed by her intrusion into his world.

  Lost ’is watch an’ is late gettin’ ’ome, she thought with a smile.

  A lizard lay on the bank where a stream once ran, soaking up the gradually strengthening sun. In a tree close by a blackbird was already busily flying to and from its nest with bills-full of worms for its young. The sounds were all hushed as if she were listening to the world slowly wakening as the sun drew the curtain on a new day.

  In the distance other sounds began to intrude; a tractor driving across a field, the sawing of wood as someone mended a fence and far away, beyond the ruins of the old castle, the bleating of lambs and ewes, temporarily separated as the ewes were shorn of their untidy fleeces. They sound more like children, Nelly thought, not for the first time. Every year the plaintive sound disturbed her momentarily until she remembered the innocent cause.

  Giving a sigh of contentment, she turned towards the cottage. The dogs were waiting for her; their routine told them that breakfast came next and their eyes stared unwaveringly at her, urging her silently to hurry. Nelly’s sigh and the reappearance of the big dogs caused the blackbird to call his alarm and he clacked and flew deeper into the wood, his wings touching the branches in his haste.

  Leaving the dogs inside, Nelly returned to the woods to perform her own morning functions and, after a wash in the enamel bowl set on the table, she began to prepare food for the picnic. She sang as she worked, accompanied by the wireless, and the dogs settled down by the fire, raising their heads occasionally to watch her, looking for clues as to what the day was likely to hold.

  The plan was for the children to meet at Nelly’s cottage and, as she guessed, they all arrived early. They played on the swing in the garden while Nelly finished packing the wickerwork basket that had been among her possessions when she had said goodbye to her small, top-storey room in 1940, leaving behind the bombing and the terrors of a London at war to join her evacuee daughter, Evie, in Hen Carw Parc. The basketwork case had been fitted with rope to replace the worn leather straps and, to Nelly’s eyes, it looked elegant. She filled it with the few pieces of china and cutlery she thought they might need, together with some of the food. When she had arrived in the village, it had been filled untidily with the pitifully few clothes she possessed. She smiled as she remembered.

  The cottage had been in a neglected state and she and Evie had camped out in one room, sleeping on the floor with some blankets of dubious cleanliness over them. Evie had cried and complained, resentful of the mother who had followed her and taken her from the comfort of the home where she had been placed. For her mother to reappear when she had begun to hope never to see her again was a depressing blow to Evie, Nelly knew that. Everything about her mother embarrassed her then and the feeling had intensified through the years.

  ‘Poor Evie,’ Nelly whispered as she pressed the lid down on the basket.

  Evie arrived on the morning of the picnic, neatly dressed and with her face wearing a look of disapproval as she entered the room and greeted her mother. She was half dragging a protesting Oliver, who fought back against coming in as he pleaded with her to let him wear something different.

  She had dressed him in a short-trousered suit and knee- length socks with turned-down tops. His shoes were heavy and polished like mirrors, the shirt was fastened at the neck with a bow tie and his hair was so flattened with water that the ends rose away from his head in timid protest. His face was wild with despair and embarrassment, and his eyes, enlarged by tears, were enormous.

  Nelly wiped her fingers on one of the dogs as she fought back anger. ‘Oliver, come on, love, you’re just in time to ’elp me with this ’amper.’ She moved closer to him and winked.

  ‘Mind his clothes, Mother, your hands are probably covered with fish paste. It’s only his second best, but I don’t want it ruined, ’ Evie warned as Nelly went to hug the boy.

  ‘Just you go ’ome, Evie, an’ leave Ollie to me. ‘E won’t get a spot in these clothes, not a spot, I promise yer.’

  Evie kissed the boy, warned him to behave, remember what he had been told about eating too much, not to eat any rubbish and managing to succeed in wringing every hope of an enjoyable day out of him.

  Nelly watched her daughter leave and winked at Oliver again. ‘Go an’ look in the bag on the stairs,’ she said.

  Oliver opened the carrier bag and, with his eyes shining, unwrapped the shorts and summer shirt. A pair of rubber soled daps for his feet and a pair of short socks completed the outfit and he went joyfully upstairs to change. They set off soon after with Oliver proudly admiring his new clothes and each of them carrying something towards their day out.

  Oliver carried a bag containing two bottles of Nelly’s homemade lemonade whilst Margaret, who’d arrived shortly after Ollie, carried a blanket on which they planned to eat their picnic. They sang as they marched in front of Nelly and the dogs, around the bend in the lane towards the main road. Nelly looked behind them several times, hoping to see Dawn, but it was not until the cottage was out of sight that she appeared. She hung back, allowing Nelly only a darting glimpse before moving back out of her sight. Nelly spoke without turning around. ‘Come on then, young Dawn, give us a ’and with some of this stuff.’

  Dawn came forward and took the coat from Nelly’s arm and, as Oliver and Margaret, seeing the interloper, slowed their pace to walk one each side of ‘their’ Nelly, she pushed Oliver aside and walked between him and his grandmother. Margaret then pushed between Oliver and Dawn, glaring a
t Dawn to remind her she was the newcomer and should remember her place. Nelly laughed, her mouth wide open to reveal her uneven teeth. ‘Blimey, it’s like a game of draughts walkin’ with you lot!’

  Amy was waiting for them at the end of the lane, with the baby in her arms. ‘It seemed less work than struggling with the push-chair,’ she explained, ‘but I’m glad she isn’t an ounce heavier!’

  They caught the bus and, with the three older children upstairs in the front seat, Amy and Nelly settled themselves with all their luggage near the platform. Nelly thought Amy looked strained and worried and wondered if she should ask what was wrong, or wait to be told. Amy was a good friend but inclined to be sharp at times so she decided to wait.

  ‘Prue is coming for the day on Sunday,’ Amy said and Nelly wondered if this was the reason for the tension.

  ‘Want any ’elp, do yer? I could ’ave Margaret fer the day then you an’ Prue could concentrate on the baby. Giver ’er a chance to get to know ’er, won’t it? Let me an’ George take Margaret off yer ’ands, why don’t yer?’

  ‘That is tempting, Nelly. I’ll think about it, shall I? I hope Prue will be well enough to have Sian back one day. I keep pretending I only have her for one more week.’

  ‘Is it too much for yer?’ Nelly’s brown eyes saddened in sympathy for her friend.

  ‘It’s partly that and partly because I don’t want to become too attached to her.’ She stared out of the window for a while, an unhappy and strained expression in her blue eyes that made Nelly worry. She waited for Amy to continue.

  ‘And there’s Freddie, still after that Sheila, in spite of the way she’s carried on,’ Amy added after a pause.

  ‘Don’t worry. ‘E’s young an’ there’s bound to be plenty of girlfriends before ’e settles down. She ain’t fer ’im, an’ all ’e feels is sympathy, like what Billie said. After all, she was ’is first love, even if it was a one-sided carry-on. Freddie’s a good sympathetic boy ain’t ’e?’ Nelly said, repeating Billie’s words.