‘Don’t tell Nelly I was dissatisfied, will you?’
‘Indeed I won’t. Tell her you’re pleased, shall I? It does look as if she’s worked hard and she didn’t know you were coming to look, did she?’
‘Tell her that. Tell her I’m pleased.’
Prue had always been thin but now her eyes seemed too large for her face. Deep-set and shadowed, they aroused Netta’s pity.
‘Come on, Prue, I don’t think you should stay too long, not the first time. Come back in a day or so and we can have a proper look to see if anything wants doing. All right?’ She guided Prue back to the front door but in the hall Prue pulled away and opened the door of the small room leading off the hall that had been Harry’s office. Prue stared for a while, seeing in her troubled mind’s eye the man who used to sit at the table and pour over the books, night after night. The man she had destroyed. Tears filled her blue eyes and trickled down her cheek as she allowed herself to be led back to Netta’s house to wait for the taxi that would take her back to the mental hospital which was now her home.
Later that evening, Netta walked up the lane to find Nelly, who was unpacking the debris of a day out with Margaret, Oliver and Dawn.
‘I promised I wouldn’t say,’ Netta said in her quiet voice, ‘but I couldn’t fathom why she was so upset. First of all she seemed pleased with the look of the house. You really are keeping it looking nice, Nelly. Then, she seemed unable to say how neat it was and began to accuse you of being lazy. Went to pieces she did then, crying, and asking me not to tell you she was criticising you. It’s so strange, her not wanting to upset you. She did plenty of upsetting people before she was ill.’
‘Per’aps them doctors is tellin’ ’er to be nice to people – what an ’ope. Don’t worry about it, Netta. Illness like she’s got ’as complications. I expect that’s what it is, complications.’ She looked thoughtful for a while, then added, ‘Put ’er mind at rest, will yer? Tell ’er I bears ’er no malice, none at all, an’ say I wishes ’er well.’ She continued to look thoughtful as she gathered the remnants of cake for the hens at the door. ‘Impatient fer their share of the picnic,’ Nelly explained as she threw the crumbs down for them.
‘The picnic a success, was it?’ Netta asked.
‘Yes, the kids enjoy a chance to run around and climb an’ explore. Funny what kids say though. Dawn said Victor asked her to suggest we went on a picnic today. She said ’e gave ’er money fer ice cream, an’ all.’ Nelly chuckled. ‘Couldn’t bring herself to ask right out for ’erself I expect. As if Victor cares if me an’ the kids go on a picnic or not!’
* * *
On the day Sheila received her first pay packet she felt the last scale of depression peeling away from her. Having money in her purse and being able to consider buying some new clothes made her feel human again after the months of ungainliness followed by the distress of losing the baby.
Since the disaster of her marriage and the birth of her child she now felt, with her returned confidence, worldly-wise. She walked from the staff door of the gown-shop and headed towards the bus station, fingering her wedding ring, loose on her finger now she had lost so much weight. The sense of liberty given by the return to her job and the feel of the crisp pay-packet in her hand made her reluctant to go home.
She deliberately missed the bus she had caught every evening that week and wandered instead along the main road of Llan Gwyn, gazing into shop windows, admiring the clothes adorning the models in the more exclusive fashion shops at the far end of the shopping centre.
Dreaming of the new outfit she would buy for the autumn, she returned to the bus stop on the opposite side of the road, taking in the new hat-shop where Fay had recently started an account, gasping at the prices of the sparsely decorated hats. Clothes she loved but hats, she decided firmly, she could do without. She brushed her hair back from her shoulders as if defying the owner of the shop to think anything was needed to cover its beauty.
The pavements were crowded as she approached the entrance to the bus station, with its metal bars partitioning off the various queues, the floor grease-stained and shining. Sheila frowned with distaste as she tip-toed through, thinking it looked more like a cattle market than a place for people to wait. It was a wonder her shoes hadn’t softened and melted in the mess of oil and petrol. She looked along the row of benches against the far wall where a few seats were still vacant. Most refused to leave their place in the queues for the dubious comfort of the wooden benches.
She walked across and found a seat near the corner, but left almost immediately as the man sitting next to her took out a bottle of cider and began to drink noisily. She gave him a frosty glare which worried him not at all, and went back to the queue to lean over the metal rail. Overhearing someone talk about Hen Carw Parc, she realised she had missed another bus and again left the queue and went to find a cup of tea.
Half an hour later, when she was once again heading for the bus station, she heard motorbikes approaching. She turned and screamed in fright as two bikes seemed to be heading straight for her. They swerved at the last moment and she saw the laughing faces of Pete Evans and Gerry Williams.
‘Move your arse, Sheila Powell.’ Pete called back. Sheila stood glaring after them but could only manage, ‘Oh, oh, you, you pigs!’
A voice at her side asked anxiously if she was all right and a hand steadied her elbow in a comforting way. Shaking, her eyes wide with fright, Sheila turned to see a young man, about twenty-four, staring at her, concern showing in his hazel eyes. His eyes were deep-set above a long thin nose, the mouth pursed slightly in disapproval as he stared after the disappearing bikes and murmured, succinctly, ‘Idiots.’
‘I agree,’ Sheila said in her high voice.
‘Will you come and have a cup of tea to calm your nerves? I’m sure you shouldn’t go on with your journey until you’ve recovered from the shock. Hooligans, they were, and not old enough to have machines like those.’ His voice was low and soothing and Sheila nodded agreement and moved with him towards the exit.
‘Yes, I would be glad to sit for a while.’
‘I know a small place just around the corner. Take my arm,’ he added. ‘You’ve gone very white.’
Solicitously he guided her to a small cafe that called itself the Copper Pan and justified the name by having a copper kettle in the fern-filled window. Inside, the place was clean and obviously very expensive. There were several more pans and kitchen utensils around the walls, which were decorated to look like an old fashioned timber-framed room.
They sat in a corner near the window and waited for the waitress to come and take their order. To her relief Sheila did not have to think about what she wanted. The man ordered for her in a masterful way that warmed her heart and made her look at him with undisguised admiration. This was more like stories in magazines. She felt her confidence growing in the presence of this sophisticated and mature man. Maturity was something Sheila admired in a man and she immediately compared him with Freddie, remembering his gaucheness and enjoying the encounter even more.
The waitress brought tea, to which the young man added two heaped spoonsful of sugar before offering it to her. There were cream cakes on the two-tier plate but again he chose for her, selecting an iced, cream-filled doughnut.
‘Now, sip the tea while it’s hot,’ he instructed and, wide-eyed, Sheila did as he asked.
‘Very kind of you,’ she murmured as she brought the cup to her lips. She closed her eyes and drank the tea which she did not want or need, smiling at him over the cup when she had taken a few sips, before lowering the cup, holding his gaze as she did so.
‘My name is Nigel Knighton,’ he said, as he coaxed her to take more of the over-sweet liquid. ‘I’m an accountant working for a small builders near here. Please tell me who you are?’
‘Sheila Pow–Davies,’ she corrected. ‘I work as first sales in a gown-shop. I live in Hen Carw Parc – for the moment,’ she added quickly, for she hated admitting to this hands
ome and sophisticated man that she lived in a small village.
‘Do you? Lovely place Hen Carw Parc,’ Nigel said. ‘I have to live in town and would love to live in the country. The air is so much fresher and cleaner.’
‘You would? I can’t get away from it fast enough.’
‘Your husband…’ he hesitated, glancing at her hand and the shiny new gold band. ‘Perhaps he’s the one who loves the country?’
Sheila bent her head and whispered, ‘Not really. I haven’t a husband.’ She did not explain, thinking it would be fun to leave him with an air of mystery. He took her hands and rubbed them, wanting to comfort this pretty little thing who had obviously been badly treated by life.
Half an hour later he saw her on to the bus and stood waving until it disappeared from his sight. Sheila sat in her seat, well pleased with her day’s events, already planning what she would wear on the following day when they would meet in the same cafe for tea, after work. She glowed with excitement and anticipation. Meeting someone like Nigel, who was an accountant and therefore brainy, was such wonderful luck and how romantic it had been! How wise that she had refused to go to live near Freddie and be escorted around with someone wearing dreary khaki.
She was not even deflated when she stepped off the bus to see her parents waiting for her, their faces dragged down with worry, the recriminations as easy to read in their eyes as the signpost to the council houses on the corner.
‘Frantic we’ve been, Sheila,’ Her mother said as soon as they were within hearing. ‘We didn’t see you getting off the usual bus and then the next one sailed past without stopping.’
‘I went for a cup of tea, Mam, that’s all! Surely I’m allowed that?’
‘Of course, just in future phone the shop. Amy will give me a message if I’m not there.’
‘Just a bit of thought, that’s all we’re asking for, Sheila,’ her father said disapprovingly. ‘Just a bit of thought.’
‘Mam,’ Sheila said, ignoring her father completely. ‘I’m twenty-one and married. I know I haven’t got a husband on hand, but I am married and twenty-one. I don’t have to tell you everything about my day, now do I?’
‘It’s just that we worry about you.’
‘Then don’t!’ She flashed them a dazzling smile and ran across the road and up Sheepy Lane without looking back.
Chapter Fourteen
Johnny was unable to resist looking in on Fay on the following Tuesday. He had changed shifts without telling her and felt like a criminal for the deceit. He stood watching the hotel, dreading seeing her, yet unable to move away. Several times between twelve and twelve-thirty he shifted a few paces, as if heading for the bus stop and home, the guilty feeling that he was spying on her increasing but not stopping him. At a quarter-to-one she came, looked briefly around and walked inside.
Even then he hesitated, afraid that he would learn something he would rather not know. Childish I am, he thought, but childish or not I can’t go on imagining the worst without tackling it and getting the truth, however painful. There was fear too, that he would make her angry by appearing during her working day. He knew she liked to forget everything and concentrate on her job while she was away from home, cutting off everything except the knowledge of her stock and the information she had on the latest fashion trends.
If she suspected the real reason for his being in town when he was supposed to be driving his bus – that he did not trust her – there was a risk of damaging a relationship that was already shaky. He stood at the grand carpeted entrance for a moment. There was still time to turn back, go home and try to forget his suspicions. Then, straightening his shoulders he walked in, going straight to the staircase and up to the restaurant.
He saw her immediately and again stopped to consider if he should continue. She was sitting at a corner table, facing the wall and opposite her was a man. He was leaning forward and they were both laughing. Johnny wanted to run away, again like a child, he thought as his legs shook with panic. If he walked away now, gave her time, perhaps she would come to him and tell him about the man, explain how they had met and become so friendly. But his legs refused to work. He was incapable of running anywhere. His eyes were transfixed by the couple at the corner table, wondering what it was that they found so funny when he was crying inside.
A waiter approached and asked if he wanted a table.
‘No thanks, I’m joining my wife.’ He spoke loudly and saw the couple he was watching jerk apart as Fay recognised his voice. Fay turned a startled face in his direction then gave him a dazzling smile, a slight blush adding to her loveliness. Forcing a smile, he went across and kissed her.
‘Shopping, I was, and I thought I’d surprise you, my lovely,’ he said. He looked at the man, still chewing, and brushing his mouth with a napkin.
‘You must be Johnny?’ the man said. ‘My name is Dexter, Dexter Lloyd-Rees.
The man spoke with an educated voice, loud and confident and Johnny felt himself shrinking.
‘I’m Fay’s husband. Lucky man, aren’t I?’
‘Darling, what are you doing in town?’ Fay asked.
‘More to the point, what are you doing in town?’ Johnny asked, embarrassment rapidly turning to anger. ‘Why are you spending time with him, when you’re always too busy for us?’
‘I have to eat, darling,’ Fay admonished gently. ‘This gentleman only shared my table as the place was beginning to fill up. We have met here before,’ she added, ‘purely coincidentally, of course.’
‘For sure. That’s why you and he are sharing the pot of tea and the sandwiches are on one plate and not two! You must think I’m thick!’ Johnny’s voice was rising and the manager glided silently across the red carpet to intervene.
‘Is something wrong?’ he asked in a low voice, hoping that the troublemakers would lower their voices too. ‘If you would prefer a different table?’
‘Yes, there’s plenty of room, isn’t there? Plenty of choice!’ Johnny snapped. ‘But no thanks. I don’t care much for the company!’ He walked briskly out, the pain in his heart a tight band around his chest, stifling his breath and making him want to stand and scream his distress to the world.
Outside he stopped, breathing heavily, wondering what to do. Should he go home? Or would it be best to stay away from everyone for a while and allow time to cool off? For the first time in his life he had nowhere to go. Always in the past, whatever difficulties he had encountered, there had been someone in the village to talk to. He had never faced anything so bad as this. Not even when Fay had failed to turn up for their wedding had he felt so completely alone.
The street was full of hurrying people, all intent on some destination and ignoring him, apart from the few who brushed against him and glared their disapproval of someone who could stand still amid the moving sea of busy bustling people. Fay touched his arm and he shrugged her off. She called his name as he moved away but he darted through the crowd, wanting her, needing her but unable to even look at her face.
How could she seek someone else? Hadn’t he loved her enough for ten men? Wasn’t he as thoughtful and considerate as any woman could expect? He had agreed with everything she wanted, even leaving the village to go and live up on the council houses isolated from his friends. He hurried on, not aware of where he was heading and finally found himself on the road to Hen Carw Parc. He walked along the road, glancing back occasionally until he saw a bus approaching. The driver recognised him and slowed down while he mounted the platform, smiling and joking with the conductor while his heart bled.
Fay was already there when he reached the house. He walked in and hushed her attempt at an explanation.
‘Tonight we’re going to the concert at the church hall,’ he said coldly. ‘We’re going together, right? And we won’t show by the smallest lack of affection that there’s anything wrong between us, right? Even if it is all a farce!’
‘But Johnny it is all—’
‘Just be quiet, Fay. Let’s get today over with, then
we’ll see about tomorrow. For now, I want us to go to the concert, sit next to Mam and enjoy being a part of the village.’
Fay gave up her attempt to appease him. She had worked out a story on the drive home that would cover the meeting of herself and Dexter. She would tell Johnny he was married and that they were waiting for Dexter’s wife to join them. The fact that Dexter had hurriedly asked her to meet him the following week in a small village on the coast a few miles out of town, where no buses passed, she tried to forget.
She tried to understand what it was she lacked that made constant reassurance, like the mild flirtation, so necessary. Very many invitations came her way: she was constantly eating out and having new people entering her life and, dressed as attractively as she was, there were often misunderstandings. On three occasions, seeing her sitting alone in an hotel lounge, men had presumed that she was a prostitute and those times were very upsetting.
There had been nothing like that about Dexter. He seemed simply to enjoy her company and she had warmed to the sensation of being flattered and thought interesting as well as beautiful. For Johnny, her being beautiful seemed sufficient. He did not want to know about how she felt about world happenings, or whether the latest book from the travelling library was a good or a bad read. For Johnny, she filled his life completely just by being there. He did not treat her like a person at all.
Watching him getting dressed in the suit he had bought for their wedding, ready to go to the village concert, she felt a surge of guilt at her rebellious thoughts. He really was a good husband and she did love him. If only he would let go of the village and its smallness they could be happy. He deserved better than she gave him, she knew that, but why didn’t he try to understand her a little more? Battling to and fro, her thoughts made her frown and caused a headache, which Johnny, refusing to talk, did nothing to alleviate.
She put on a summer dress of white linen with a pattern of yellow poppies and a sash of the same rich yellow which she knew Johnny liked. For once she did not wear a hat, but left her blonde hair falling about her shoulders in a long under-roll which shone with healthy cleanliness. Her eyes were calm and a little sad as they walked down Heol Caradoc and Sheepy Lane, where they met Ethel who was waiting for Phil and Catrin to escort her.
The Changing Valley Page 25