It would always be there, Mam’s presence. She would always half expect to see her sitting up in the big white bed, her grey hair loose around her shoulders, demanding breakfast and complaining about the hot-water bottle being cold. Cecily looked down over the curving banister to where a light showed faintly. It was all theirs now, hers and Ada’s. Tomorrow they would begin to build up the business and make a good life for themselves.
Whether Gareth would have a part in it only time would tell. His non-appearance at the funeral, or even to offer condolences, suggested that, having asked her out, he had been thankful something had intervened and given him a chance to reconsider.
She went to the bedroom she shared with Ada and hurriedly undressed in the icy chill. The sheets were cold and stiff against her body and she enjoyed the punishment for a moment before sliding her feet down to reach the warmth of the stone hot-water bottle.
She thought of their father and how kind and loving he had been. A constant source of security, utterly reliable whatever problem they faced. Now he was gone and she thought again about the saying: ‘Be careful what you wish for, or you might get it.’ She and Ada used to wish Dadda would leave them to get on with running the shop the way they wanted to and his death had given them their wish. She was crying when Ada came up and they hugged each other and allowed the grief to find release in tears.
The day following the funeral was busy. Everyone stopped as they passed or called in to buy and stayed to offer their sympathy, and to ask questions about what would happen to the shop now there was no man about.
Willie set about his extra chores with an eagerness that delighted them. He watched and saw what was needed before being told.
‘Your mam pleased with the extra money?’ Ada asked.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Willie said, thinking of the empty house waiting for him. ‘Grateful she is and to thank you very much,’ he said as though he were repeating his mother’s words.
Whenever she was free, Cecily left the shop and in the back kitchen busily prepared the cooked meats for the weekend trade. The room still smelled strongly of the funeral flowers and for once she didn’t curl up her nose at the assorted smells coming from the cooking. At twelve o’clock everything except the faggots were finished and she went to help Ada clean up for lunchtime closing.
‘Thank goodness it’s Wednesday and half-day closing,’ Ada grumbled as she scrubbed the marble counter. ‘Worn out I am and sinking for a cuppa. I thought this morning would never end.’
‘Want any help in here?’ Willie asked, coming from the passage. ‘The trap is ready for this afternoon. The deliveries and the stable work is all done.’
‘Willie, you’re a marvel.’ Ada told him. ‘Stay and have a bit of food with us then we’ll go straight off. We shouldn’t be long.’
‘I found this in the stables, miss,’ Willie said hesitantly, showing them a grey leather glove. ‘I think it belongs to Miss Annette. Call with it, shall I?’
‘We’ll drop it in on the way,’ Ada said. Willie put it back in his pocket, where it had been since the previous day.
Ada had already pulled the blind on the window where fresh fish was sold from a cold marble slab. She had scrubbed it, first with sawdust, then with hot water containing soda and soap. Now she rubbed the surface briskly with a piece of clean sacking until it was spotless and she smiled her satisfaction at the result.
‘The pigs’ trotters and tails are cooked,’ Cecily reported. ‘I’ll bring them in here to cool.’ As she returned with the steaming dish, Ada said warningly, ‘Cover them up, quick. Here’s Ali.’
Taking the freshly washed muslin, Cecily managed to cover the offending sight as the proprietor of the Arab boarding house entered, smiling as he greeted them both.
‘Just the gentleman I want to see,’ Cecily said. ‘Look down this list of spices, will you, and tell me what we need to stock to save you walking up to the high street.’ She handed him the list and as he called out the names she noted them in her order book and smiled her thanks.
His dark intelligent eyes met hers. ‘You are after bigger business, Miss Cecily?’
‘Much bigger,’ she replied. ‘If there’s anything you think we should stock, please tell us.’
‘The eyes of sheep?’ he teased.
‘Everything except sheep’s eyes.’
When they were washing up after lunch, Ada frowned as she looked at the order book. ‘We’ll be spending a lot of money this month.’
‘Yes,’ Cecily agreed, ‘and it will be a long time before we benefit. It will take time for the news to get around that we’re increasing our lines.’
‘Perhaps we could send young Willie around with some hand-bills? We could get them printed cheaply enough at Phil Spencer’s print shop.’
‘Good idea. We’ll make Owen’s shop the largest shop in the town!’
‘Bigger than Waldo Watkins’s?’
‘Why not? Waldo has made his money, now it’s our turn. Besides, I think Waldo and Melanie are falling into the trap of concentrating more on their wealthy friends up around the park. There’s more to be made here, among the small streets, where people fill their tables with plenty of good, honest food and not expensive luxuries spread thinly. No, I think we’ll do well here if we get the stock right and give a service people want.’
They collected their black coats and their hats covered with artificial flowers in sombre colours, then locked the shop and walked through to the stable where Willie Morgan waited to take them to the shops at the beach.
Willie had changed into a newly bought, albeit second-hand, jacket. He usually kept a spare in the stable but since the increase in his wages had been promised and the new duties, which he translated as looking after Cecily and Ada, he was determined to look after himself too. His long, curling black hair had been washed and brushed, and the shirt he wore had been repaired and laundered by his neighbour, Gladys Davies, who looked after his fire. The coat had been sponged and pressed by that same lady. In between his work during the morning, he had polished the trap and washed the wheels until everything was as clean as he could make it.
As the trap climbed the hill and turned into the main road, one of their customers, Gertie Dill, stared at them, disapproval on her thin face, and when she was sure they had noted her expression, turned away, her small mouth tight in disgust. Cecily and Ada waved as they passed her and she glared again before shouting, ‘All that show at the funeral! It was nothing but a suck-in. The poor dab’s hardly cold in his grave before you two go off gallivanting!’
Ada looked upset but Cecily turned and waved again, smiling as if the words hadn’t reached them. ‘Don’t worry about her, Ada. Any excuse to give us a slating and she grabs it with enthusiasm. Jealous old witch.’
‘Yes, she sold all her husband’s clothes and his pigeons before he was dead, that one,’ Willie reminded them with a chuckle.
There were others who showed their disapproval as they rode along, laughing at Willie’s remark. Once past the town and heading along the quieter roads leading to the Pleasure Beach, there were few to worry them and they began to sing, Willie joining in the choruses.
Someone who did see them without their being aware was Mrs Price-Jones, who stared in disbelief before hurrying to tell her son Gareth.
They called on several cafes and stalls which, although not open for business, had groups of people working on them, busily cleaning and painting fresh signs to tempt the hordes to come, to enter and to buy. At each place they visited they introduced themselves and left details of the stock they carried and the services they offered regarding deliveries. Willie removed his cap and nodded politely as he was mentioned and described as reliable and conscientious.
‘Damn me, you’re coming early to talk about the summer trade,’ one man said with a huge laugh. ‘How the ’ell do I know what I’ll want in June when it’s only January?’
‘We just want you to know about us,’ Ada explained. ‘We’ll call again a bit nearer
the time, but we were told this was the weekend when many of you come here to plan work on repairs and decoration, so we thought we’d come and introduce ourselves.’
Cecily tactfully asked for the addresses of other rival stall-holders and made notes in her book.
‘Whitsun, that’s the traditional time for us to start,’ one man reminded them, after introducing himself as Peter Marshall. He gestured to the wooden cafe he was painting a cheerful green. ‘For the rest of the year this is just a useless responsibility.’
‘They’d come on bright days if you offered cups of tea,’ Ada suggested.
‘Council wouldn’t allow it.’
‘You could try asking for a short licence,’ Ada offered.
‘And we do a good line in teas, Mr Marshall.’ Cecily thumbed through her notes and handed him a price list, offering a better price for larger quantities.
‘I do think it’s a pity you’re just out of sight from the approach road, Mr Marshall,’ Ada said, her head on one side, tilting her hat provocatively. ‘Now, if this was my cafe, I’d find some tall, strong men to lift it and move it further over so it can be seen by new arrivals walking from the station.’
‘Council won’t allow that either. Sites are given and rules are firm.’
‘No floor on the building, is there? No trouble getting a few tall men to go inside and take the weight and budge it over a few steps. I noticed how low it is, made for girls, not tall men. Once it was moved, a little at a time, no one would believe it hadn’t always been there.’
‘Specially if, when you moved it, a bit of paint got spilt around the base. Look as though it had been there for years, it would.’
Willie was chuckling. The sisters certainly had plenty of daring ideas. Mr Marshall caught the boy’s eye and he too began to laugh, a full belly laugh, his head thrown back.
‘Damn me if I don’t try!’
Willie patted his pocket where he had put the watch the girls had lent him. He pulled it out and said importantly, ‘We’re behind schedule, ladies. We have to be back to meet Myfanwy, remember.’
They set off again, waving cheerfully at the cafe owner, then studied their list of proposed calls. Before they left the beach they had forged links with seven more cafe owners who might be interested in the services they offered. But it was Mr Marshall who remained in their mind at the end of their journey.
They stopped at the school and waited until Van emerged, looking around to see which of her aunties was meeting her that day. She gave a whoop of delight on seeing the pony and trap and stopped to fondle the head of the animal before climbing in and settling herself between them to ride home in style.
A stew was simmering on the hob and they invited Willie to share their meal. He politely refused to enter the living room and carried the bowl of stew and a plateful of bread out into the stable to eat in the light of the lantern and a guttering candle.
Before the sisters and Myfanwy ate, they set out a calendar of dates on which to revisit the people they had spoken to that afternoon. They also wrote the addresses of cafe owners they had not managed to see.
‘We’ll go next Wednesday and visit them all,’ Cecily said excitedly. ‘It’s going so well, Ada. I think 1930 is going to be a busy summer.’
‘That Mr Marshall was nice, wasn’t he?’ Ada mused.
‘Too old!’
‘And talking about men—’
‘Which we weren’t.’
‘Talking about men, he didn’t come, did he? Gareth I mean. Funny he didn’t come to the funeral and didn’t call today either.’
‘Gareth Price-Jones can’t do anything unless his mother gives permission!’ Cecily snapped. ‘Marvellous dancer he might be, but friend he is not!’
Ada ladled the beef stew out of the fire-blackened pan and set the table for their meal. Van came from the kitchen where she had been playing washing her doll’s clothes and they all began to eat. They had hardly started on the tasty meal when there was a knock on the shop door and they all looked at each other.
‘Who can that be?’ Cecily sighed. ‘Someone run out of sugar or something no doubt.’
‘I’ll go.’ Ada went through the dark shop and opened the outer door, the bell tinkling cheerfully. ‘Hello, Dorothy, we didn’t expect—’ Her politenesses halted as Dorothy rudely pushed past her.
‘You won’t get away with this, Cecily Owen,’ Dorothy shouted.
‘What are you on about?’ Cecily put an arm around Van’s shoulders and stared at her sister-in-law in amazement. Dorothy’s usual superior expression had been replaced by sheer rage.
‘You two. Stealing the shop and everything else from my son! Your eldest brother would have inherited if he’d lived, so his son should have it all. And if you hadn’t asserted undue influence on your father—’
‘What book did you get that from, Dorothy?’ Ada asked sweetly. She also went to stand beside Van, who seemed upset by the angry outburst.
‘Never mind what book! Just understand that I have taken advice and intend to get back for my son what is rightly his.’
‘Sit down.’ Cecily stood up and her voice was raised. Dorothy began to stare her out but instead sank into a chair beside the table.
‘Want some stew?’ Ada asked.
‘No I do not,’ Dorothy retorted.
‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ Ada replied calmly. For the first time Cecily noticed that, hanging back, afraid to come into the room where her mother’s fury was filling the air, was Dorothy’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Annette. Ada coaxed her in.
‘Go and sit by there,’ Dorothy snapped, pointing to a chair in the corner. Annette obeyed. Ada went to a drawer and took out some sweets. ‘Here you are, fach, I know Winter Mixtures are your favourite. You and our Van.’ Silently the two youngsters helped themselves to the sweets.
Dorothy was shedding her coat and hat and seemed to be prepared to entrench for battle.
‘Ada and I are tired,’ Cecily said. ‘We don’t want a long discussion, so what is it you have to say?’
‘I’m warning you that you’ve broken the rules of honesty and family loyalty, and I won’t accept it. This shop—’ She waved her arms about vaguely ‘—it all belongs to my son, Owen Owen, named for his grandfather.’
‘What about your daughter?’
‘Annette is a girl!’ Dorothy looked surprised at being asked such a stupid question. ‘Owen it is who belongs here, to carry on the family name. Owen Owen. You’ve cheated him.’
‘He’s thirteen, for heaven’s sake.’ Cecily was becoming angry. ‘He can’t look over the counter let alone run a business!’
‘All I want is your word, written up legal and proper, that it belongs to him and you’ll hand over what’s his by right.’
Ada was taking no part in the argument at this point. She was hugging Van and Annette, reassuring them there was nothing to be frightened of by stupid adults arguing and shouting.
In a low voice, Annette said, ‘Auntie Ada, I left one of my gloves in the stable and Mam will be cross if she finds out. Can I go and look for it?’
‘Pitch black out there it is but, yes, we’ll come and help you.’
Van pulled the curtain and looked out to where a light shone in the stable, ‘There’s a light. Willie’s still there, and he’ll help you find it, for sure.’
Annette slid off the chair and scuttled around the door into the passage hoping her mother wouldn’t stop her. The gas-light in the back kitchen had been lowered but the glow was sufficient for her to see her way. Walking up the yard she called, and Willie came out to meet her.
‘Left my glove I did.’
‘Yes, and I found it.’ They both smiled and he led her inside and found her a seat on a sack of sweet-scented hay, which he covered with his coat. A shiver shook her shoulders and he took off the coat he was wearing and put it around her.
‘What’s going on in there then?’ he asked, sitting beside her.
‘You can guess,’ Annette told him with a wry
smile. ‘More shouting about how the aunties robbed poor Owen-Owen-named-for-his-grandfather!’
‘How does Owen feel about it?’
‘He thinks it funny, the thought of him at thirteen owning a shop. Daft they are, the lot of them. How can they expect Auntie Cecily and Auntie Ada to just get out and leave everything to my brother? They have to have a home and the business is theirs. I think so anyway.’
‘They’ll make a real success of it too, now the old man isn’t here to stop them,’ Willie told her. ‘And I’m going to learn all I can. One day,’ he said hesitantly, ‘one day, I won’t be Willie Morgan stable boy and odd-job boy, I’ll be a man with a place of my own and a position in the town.’
‘And I hope I’ll be there to be the first to congratulate you, Willie.’
‘Friends we are. Friends we’ll always be.’ He stood up and held out a hand to help her rise. She gripped it and they hesitantly leaned closer until their faces touched, cheek against cheek. A slow movement and lips met in a shy, delicate kiss.
Willie walked with her to the back door where the faint yellow light spilled onto the yard. At the door she whispered ‘Good night’ and he called her back.
‘Annette, don’t forget this.’ He took her glove from his pocket and kissed it before handing it to her.
When she went back to her chair behind the door, it seemed her mother hadn’t missed her and the argument was continuing the same as when she had left.
‘Dadda left the shop to Cecily and me,’ Ada was saying wearily. ‘It’s legal and there’s no argument about it.’
‘But it’s what you do!’ Dorothy shouted in exasperation. ‘All right, if the shop is yours legally, it’s your duty to see it comes back to my Owen.’
Cecily pointedly handed Dorothy the black, fur-trimmed coat and matching hat. Annette stood up from her chair.
‘Sorry we are for all the shouting,’ Cecily said to the anxious-looking girl. She put an arm around Van to include her and said, ‘Come and see us tomorrow. Why not meet at the school and come home with Van? We’ll all love to see you and you can eat with us and Willie will take you home. Right?’
Goodbye to Dreams Page 7