The Changing Valley

by The Changing Valley (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  Delina stayed in town one evening after school and went to the library. She looked through illustrations for a project on ‘Travel Through The Ages’ which she wanted to use for her class. To her surprise, when she came out Dawn was there, standing outside the building, looking tired and unkempt.

  ‘Dawn? What are you doing here?’ Delina asked, stiffling angry thoughts about Tad allowing his daughter to wander in the town with so little regard for her safety.

  ‘I was to have met Dad,’ Dawn explained, ‘but he hasn’t come and I’m cold. Can I have a lift home on your bicycle, Miss?’

  ‘Certainly not. That is against the law without a proper seat.’

  ‘But there’s room on the carrier, Miss. I’ve done it before.’

  ‘Sorry, but no.’ Delina was firm. ‘It wouldn’t be safe and in any case it’s not allowed.’

  ‘Better just wait then, Miss, hadn’t I?’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Since three.’

  ‘You haven’t been in school?’

  ‘Sore throat, Miss.’

  ‘I see. Well, I think you should go straight home. Do you have your fare? I can certainly help you with that.’

  ‘Return ticket, Miss.’

  Delina hesitated. ‘Are you sure you’ll find your way back all right?’

  ‘Done it lots of times, Miss.’

  ‘I bet you have,’ Delina muttered angrily. ‘Well, would you like to borrow a shilling for an emergency?’

  ‘No thanks, Miss.’

  ‘Then don’t stand around here any longer. Off you go.’

  ‘Right, Miss.’

  Delina glanced back as she rode around the corner and saw that the girl was slowly wandering in the direction of the bus station. She wondered if she should have walked with her and seen her safely on the bus, but decided that Dawn was not the sort to appreciate such fussing.

  All the way home Delina dreamed of what she would like to tell Tad Simmons. How could he allow a ten-year-old girl to wait for him in town, and then not bother to turn up? She fumed as she peddled along the quiet country road between Llan Gwyn and Hen Carw Parc, and still felt the gushing anger tightening her jaw as she dismounted and walked up Heol Caradoc.

  She could not face using Hywel Rise and having to pass the Simmon’s house where Tad was probably sitting reading a paper, and feeling no concern for his daughter wandering around alone. She almost wished she had risked giving the girl a lift on her bicycle. Illegal or not it would have given her the opportunity to tell Tad what she thought of him.

  Delina had eaten her meal and was helping her mother to wash the dishes when there was a knock at the door. She removed her apron and went to answer it. Tad stood there, and each glared forcefully at the other.

  ‘You should be ashamed—’ Delina began, but she was out-shouted by Tad.

  ‘I should? What sort of a teacher you are I daren’t think! Fancy seeing a child stuck in town, having lost her bus fare, and refusing to help her!’

  ‘What?’ The unfairness and the untruthfulness shocked her and rendered her speechless. She stood there while he told her what he thought of a woman who would turn her back on a child in such danger.

  ‘She had her return ticket and I offered her money to get home,’ she said at last. ‘What I did refuse to do was let her ride home on the carrier of my bicycle.’

  ‘That’s a very different story from the one my daughter told! Damned good mind to report you, Miss Honeyman!’

  ‘Feel free to do so!’ Delina slammed the door so hard that her mother came to see what had happened.

  ‘Just a parent being bloody-minded,’ she shocked her mother by saying.

  ‘Really, Delina, you must control your temper.’

  * * *

  It had been a bad day for Sheila and she was ill-tempered as well as anxious that she would meet Nigel the accountant when she was looking far from her best. It had rained during the night and continued throughout the day. She had stepped in a puddle on her way to the shops at lunchtime and had to buy a new pair of stockings before going back to the salon. She was angry about the added expense when she was putting away every spare penny towards buying her new autumn outfit.

  The school holidays had begun and her customers had been dragging weary children with them when they came to try on new clothes. The children, running in and out of the rails holding expensive dresses and costumes, had worn Sheila to the point where a headache was threatening. She hated the school holidays and the noisy, ill-behaved children and distraught mothers who were far less amenable to spending money on an expensive item with their offspring creating havoc in the salon.

  The hem of her skirt was damp and beginning to wrinkle and her feet were still cold from the soaking she had had at lunchtime. Her fair hair was lank and untidy and she had not even bothered to repair her makeup before leaving the shop. The day was a dreadful one and the sooner she could get home and forget it the better.

  Wind was gusting and, as she turned a corner near the cafe where she had taken tea with Nigel, her umbrella was blown inside out and she had to battle with it for ages before being able to fold it. She eventually gave up in temper and threw it into a corner of a shop porch. Tightening the hood of her plastic mac around her neck, she scurried to the bus station.

  Concentrating on getting the early bus, and fearing to meet Nigel, she was careless of where she stepped. Too close to the kerb, she was suddenly drenched in a wave of icy cold, dirty water which filled her high-heeled patent-leather shoes and left a ridge of mud on her ankles. She looked up with a squeal and recognised that the driver of the car, now slowed by traffic further on, was Evie.

  ‘Thoughtless, careless drivers,’ she wailed as people saw what had happened and gave her glances of sympathy. Feet squelching in ruined shoes, she walked to the bus and joined the queue. She was desperate to tell someone how badly Evie had treated her and was even glad to see Amy waiting in the queue, holding Sian, and supporting the pushchair against her knees. Amy was a lot further up the queue, so Sheila joined her, ignoring the muttered complaints of others.

  ‘That Evie Chartridge,’ she began, as if continuing a previous conversation to disarm those about to complain of her queue-jumping. ‘Soaked me from the knees down she did. Look at my shoes, ruined! Shouldn’t be driving at all if you ask me.’

  ‘Evie? Driving? But when?’ Amy asked in alarm.

  ‘Now just. I was hurrying to get to the bus stop and she passed me at the end of the road. Shot through a puddle without even trying to slow down, and she soaked me. Look at me feet.’

  ‘But she should be minding Margaret! She promised she’d be there all afternoon.’ Consternation made Amy confide in the girl she did not particularly like. ‘I do plenty of minding for her. Oliver is always with me, yet the moment I ask her, she forgets!’

  ‘Typical,’ Sheila said. ‘Always on the take, some people, never prepared to give.’

  Sheila saw Delina join the end of the queue and gave a vague wave of recognition before turning back to Amy. She helped her on the bus with the baby and her shopping and found a seat for them both. The conversation soon turned to Freddie.

  ‘He’s been so kind to me, your Freddie,’ Sheila said as she brought out some photographs he had sent her. ‘He was really cut-up about me losing the baby, wasn’t he? Dreamed of helping me with her, me being left to cope on my own.’

  ‘He’s a thoughtful boy and would help anyone in trouble,’ Amy said, tight-lipped. She wished she had caught a bus sooner, worrying about where Margaret was. Now, having to listen to Sheila for the whole journey was too much.

  ‘He still wants to marry me, you know,’ Sheila went on.

  ‘But you aren’t free to marry anyone, are you?’

  ‘No, but he’ll wait.’

  Amy found herself leaning forward as if trying to hurry the bus or perhaps to escape the conversation with Sheila. Sheila soon realised that the talk of Freddie was antagonising
Amy and began to talk instead of some of the customers she had served, including amusing stories in the hope of making Amy smile.

  ‘I’m worried about Margaret. I don’t like her to be on her own,’ Amy explained when Sheila paused, waiting for a response to a particularly funny anecdote.

  ‘Yes, I can understand that. Working and motherhood don’t really go together, do they?’ Sheila said, and to Amy’s relief, she sank into silence.

  At the stop near Sheepy Lane Sheila and Delina alighted and paused to exchange a few words about the dreadful weather before crossing the road. Then Sheila pointed and asked, ‘Who is that? She looks like a gypsy child.’

  ‘It’s Dawn Simmons,’ Delina said angrily. She strode across the glistening road and demanded to know what Dawn was doing standing in the rain.

  ‘Waiting for Dad,’ Dawn said, shivering.

  ‘Go home at once and change out of those wet clothes,’ Delina said firmly. ‘No dawdling. Go now, understand? And don’t distort my words when you tell your father, like last time. I’m telling you to go home out of the rain and get warm and dry, right?’

  Delina watched as the little girl stepped out of the hedge that had given her scant protection from the rain, and walk slowly up the lane in front of them.

  ‘Poor dab,’ Sheila whispered. ‘No mother, and a father who doesn’t seem to care.’

  ‘I think he cares but can’t cope. He’s probably too proud to accept help,’ Delina said sharply. ‘A foolish and bad-tempered man who deserves to have the child taken into care.’

  A few yards in front of them, the hissing rain did not prevent Dawn from hearing what was said.

  ‘Best for her too!’ Sheila said.

  * * *

  Billie Brown did only the routine jobs. There were so many things he intended to do but the continuous rain stopped him doing them. He helped Mary with the milking and bottling and, when she returned after delivering the first round, washed bottles in the open-sided shed before going in and finding the meal Mary had left for him. The fire was bright in the dull room, reflecting on the windows and making everything inside warm and safe. He sat in the wooden settle and dreamed of Amy. A smile stretched his features as he thought of her. He had been puzzled by her coolness for a few days, then she had mentioned the photograph of himself with Sheila and he was delighted to realise she was jealous. The thought of her being upset by thinking he could be interested in a girl like Sheila Davies was ridiculous, but knowing she cared was wonderful.

  He did not know that it was dislike of Sheila and not jealousy that had caused Amy to be angry. Amy had received a letter from Freddie in which he told her he was moving to the West Country. She had told Mavis, but Mavis already knew, having been told by Sheila some days previously. The picture of Sheila and Billie had angered her. Sheila seemed to taint everything in her life and spoil it.

  After the evening milking and the bottling that followed, Billie rang Amy and invited her out. As he was putting down the receiver he heard motorbikes entering the yard and at once prepared for trouble. He had not reported the fact that there had been someone around the farm when he and Mary had both been out but he wondered if he should ring the constable now, before he went to see who it was. Then he felt foolish. Someone intent on breaking in would hardly drive up on a noisy motorbike, and he had not seen any sign of wheels other than their own after that night. He opened the door to Pete and Gerry.

  ‘There’s a ewe down in the stream,’ Pete told him as he opened the door. ‘Thought we’d better tell you, like.’

  ‘It seems to have slipped into the water and now it can’t get up again. The water’s flowing fast, see,’ Gerry added, ‘and the banks are very slippery with all this rain.’

  Billie put on his boots and heavy raincoat and walked with them to where the stream flowed through his land. It was not far away that they found the ewe, who was standing exhausted after trying repeatedly to climb the steep bank. The river had underscored the bank and a once overhanging turf had fallen, Billie guessed, with the ewe standing on it.

  A fully grown sheep with its coat soaking wet is a very heavy animal and it was a long time before the three of them got it safely on to the bank. Billie removed his raincoat and his boots and went into the fast flowing stream to persuade the frightened animal to walk further along the stream to where the bank offered an easier prospect of rescuing it. Even then it had taken more than two hours of heaving and pushing to get it up on to the bank. The men as well as the sheep were exhausted.

  ‘You’d better come back to the farm for some warm dry clothes,’ Billie panted. ‘Grateful I am for your help.’

  The boys washed themselves and drank some tea, helping themselves enthusiastically to Mary’s cakes before dressing in some of Billie’s spare clothes to drive home. Billie’s clothes hung on the smaller boys but they were unable to resist the opportunity to look inside the farm house.

  They had seen it from the woods and with binoculars had sometimes watched Billie and Mary about their tasks. They told Billie how interested they had been to look inside the building.

  ‘Watched it from the woods, have you?’ he asked curiously. ‘I saw tyre tracks up there once.’

  ‘We weren’t watching your house,’ Gerry grinned.

  ‘Girls then?’ Billie asked.

  ‘No.’ The boys laughed and Billie waited patiently for them to explain.

  ‘Arthur Toogood got a bit of a fright, that’s all. He’d let our tyres down twice, so we offered him a ride, took him up there and threatened to chuck him down if he didn’t promise to leave the bikes alone in future,’ Pete laughed.

  ‘Then someone told us it wasn’t Arthur but Dawn Simmons who did it, so we gave him a bag of sweet and he’s appointed himself guardian of the bikes.’

  * * *

  ‘Lots of good stuff in that old barn of a house,’ Pete said as they roared off through the farm lane.

  ‘Yes indeed. Makes our homes look a bit scruffy. Not fair is it, some having so much.’

  ‘He works hard for it, mind. I don’t think I’d like to start work at five and still be at it at ten o’clock at night like he often is.’

  Billie watched them go and went inside to get ready to take Amy to the pictures. He wished he had not telephoned her. He was stiffening already with the soaking and the effort of lifting the sheep up the slippery, steep bank. There was a sharp pain across his shoulder which he knew would take a few days to fade. ‘Stupid animal!’ he said aloud as he climbed the stairs stiffly to run a bath. He yawned as he undressed and threw his clothes into the washing basket. A day of inactivity then the sudden effort of dealing with the sheep had made him feel more ready for bed than going out gallivanting. Perhaps he was too old for this courting lark?

  * * *

  On that Tuesday, Fay did not go to the hotel where she had met Dexter. She did not even go into Llan Gwyn but had stopped for lunch in Swansea at a cafe overlooking a rocky beach. She sat eating her meal, watching children exploring the pools dressed in macs and wellingtons, ignoring the rain, determined to make the best of their holiday. The rain had eased only slightly and the day was gloomy, the only brightness the children’s clothes moving like fantastic insects below her. The bright lights of the cafe emphasised the gloom of the day rather than improved it.

  There were several families inside the cafe, the children restless with the inactivity the weather had caused, and Fay’s meal was not a peaceful one. A coach arrived in the car-park and a pack of excited school-age children swarmed in and, as they fought to find places near their friends and argued about the positioning of chairs and tables, Fay picked up her handbag and umbrella and left, smiling at the people in charge of the unruly but happy group.

  She ran to the shelter of the car and sat watching the determined explorers on the beach. She was undecided about the following day and it made her less able to concentrate on her business. She had to decide whether she would go to Pembrokeshire on the following day. The thought of seeing De
xter was a guilty excitement. In the few moments after Johnny had stormed out and she had followed, Dexter told her the name of a restaurant where she would find him on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sorely tempted, she opened her diary and considered the possibility of making the visit to Pembrokeshire a couple of weeks early.

  It was innocent, she persuaded herself, and Johnny was being unreasonably jealous. She would go and meet Dexter for a brief hour and explain to her customers that the change of day was due to a forthcoming holiday. She thought Johnny would be content, knowing she had promised not to visit the hotel again on Tuesdays or any other day. She smiled at the small deceit.

  She remembered how Johnny had looked when he had come upon her talking with Dexter, seeing her laughing with him and obviously enjoying his company. He had been hurt and almost frightened, but she still determined to go on the following day. Life was dull and there seemed to spread out in front of her a line of monotonous days with little to vary them apart from an occasional row with Johnny.

  The rain continued to fall and she was soon chilled. Children skipped around the car, jumping into the dips in the macadam, splashing each other and laughing, determined to make some fun out of the dreary day. Everyone ran, scuttling to and from the cafe, where they steamed the windows with their damp clothes and filled the room with chatter.

  Fay had eaten a salad and locally caught sewin for lunch but felt suddenly hungry again. She took out a packet of Penclawdd cockles she had bought for Johnny and which she did not usually enjoy, and ate them all. She was sure to be sick, shellfish did not always agree with her. She wanted something to take away the taste but could not face running across the car-park again. She started the car, feeling cold, damp and still hungry. She would call on two more customers then go home.