What more he would say if he knew it had been Viv Lewis who was one of grandfather’s employees! Grandfather Weston had strong ideas about class, and Viv Lewis was most certainly not suitable company for one of Grandmother Gladys’s Weston Girls.
Their name wasn’t Weston, but affectation made her grandparents insist they used it. Megan and Joan Fowler-Weston they were called and their father, Ryan Fowler, had accepted that his name was not good enough without demur. Weston money soothed their way through life and Ryan was not one to complain about that.
Her twin, Megan, was at their grandparents’ house and if necessary, Joan knew she would cover for her absence but she did want to be back in time for supper, which Grandmother usually served at nine-thirty. Joan and Megan had just come that day to stay with Gladys and Arfon for a week, while their parents were visiting their other grandmother, Grandmother Fowler, in Penarth. Probably in the hope of some money, she and Megan had surmised.
Reaching the gate she waited in case her grandfather had stopped in the porch for a final cigarette before going inside. She had been caught by that little habit of his before! When she was sure all was clear she slipped in through the kitchen door, where the maid, Mair Gregory, working late for the week of their stay, turned away and pretended she hadn’t seen her. With a whispered, “Thanks, Mair,” Joan ran up the wide staircase to the room she shared with Megan.
Although Joan had escaped the notice of her grandfather, someone else had recognised her as she ran away from the bus stop. Her Uncle Islwyn.
“And there’s old Gladys talking about them marrying successful,” he muttered with a wry smile. “A shop boy from Sophie Street. That’ll impress her for sure!”
Although he was only forty-four Islwyn walked in the shuffling gait of an elderly man. He had followed Joan around the corner, darting back as he saw her raise her skirt and begin to slip off her stockings.
“Really,” he muttered, “the Weston Girls have no sense of what’s right, no restraint. Ruined proper they’ve been, by their doting grandparents.”
When he dared to look again around the corner of the fence Joan was gone. Islwyn strolled on, wondering vaguely which of the twins it had been. Joan probably. She had always been the worst of the two.
Islwyn rarely left his house except at night, apart from when summoned by Gladys. Since the police investigation and the revelation that he had been stealing from the family’s wallpaper and paint stores, he had become an empty husk, compared with the haughty and unbearably smug man he had once been. Resentment had caused him to take from the firm to compensate for the lack of money his son Jack received compared with those flighty nieces of his.
Jack hadn’t minded his twin cousins being fêted with clothes and entertainment and treats practically every day of their lives, but Islwyn had. Resentment had grown over the years until he’d had to do something to redress the balance for his son. Jack used to laugh and say that it was what made Grandmother Gladys Weston happy, and it gave him pleasure to watch.
Now the small nest egg he had built up for Jack had been confiscated and he had narrowly escaped a court appearance. The fact that he had escaped facing a judge and jury hadn’t prevented the publicity. The papers had reported the affair to the exclusion of everything else – or so it had seemed. There had been so much talk he rarely felt able to show his face. As for working, how did his father-in-law expect him to find work, with everyone knowing he’d been accused of taking money? Money that in any case rightly belonged to him, or at least to his son.
Sian pretended to be concerned for him when there were people about but in fact didn’t speak to him when they were alone, except when absolutely necessary. He was living a half-life, hiding away until night time enabled him to leave the house and the recriminating eyes of his wife, and take some exercise.
For no reason at all, he followed in Joan’s footsteps to the Westons’ big house on the road overlooking the docks, and stood for a while imagining the look on Gladys’s and Arfon’s faces if he told them that their precious granddaughter was meeting Viv Lewis, that perfidious little man who worked in their shop.
Smiling at the imagined scene, he wandered up the hill to the main road and on around the town, a lonely, shabby figure lit occasionally by street lamps and the light from house windows. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and he wondered idly whether Sian had left him anything for his supper. He hoped not. He wasn’t hungry, eating was too much of an effort.
The rain had stopped. He walked on over the beach, half frightened by the empty, dark place where the ghosts of holiday entertainment seemed to watch him from the shadows; where echoes of laughter hovered on the wind, mocking his misery.
* * *
After supper, during which Gladys Weston demanded to hear all about the twins’ day, Megan and Joan escaped to their room.
“Did you meet him?” Megan whispered.
“I did and we went for a walk in the rain,” Joan replied.
“Hardly exciting!”
“Viv Lewis is hardly exciting at the best of times, all he talks about is Grandfather and the business. He’s a good dancer though. Pity we can’t go with him more often, instead of the boring people Grandmother approves of. I enjoy his company more than most. He doesn’t kowtow to us like so many of our friends.
“Most of our so-called friends ignore us! No one kowtows to us since the accusations against Uncle Islwyn and dear old Grandfather, do they?” Megan said sadly. “D’you know, I still can’t believe Grandfather would set fire to his shop to save his business. That’s criminal and how can you put Grandfather Arfon in that category?”
“That letter Viv Lewis and Basil Griffiths found, with the confession of the man who actually struck the match seemed so undeniable.”
“Don’t talk about it now, tell me about Viv.”
“We talked about Uncle Islwyn, which is why I mentioned him now, I suppose. Viv feels so bad about it all.”
“Rubbish! He’s responsible, isn’t he?”
“Hardly, Megan.”
“He told on him.”
“That’s hardly being responsible, is it?”
“Poor Grandfather. And poor Grandmother. It’s worse for her than any of us. We’ll probably marry and be free of this worry about money, but she loves being important and this has made her a figure of fun.” Megan smiled then, her carefully made-up face not quite hiding the young girl behind the sophisticated mask. “Let’s plan a surprise for her, shall we? Something special to take her mind off it all for a while.”
“Such as?” Joan arched a brow indicating it was a futile hope.
“Viv gave me the idea. He thought a trip into Cardiff, lunch out and a wander around the shops, you know how she loves that.”
“Oh, very exciting that would be! You heard Grandfather telling us there was no spare money. She won’t be able to go shopping for years, if ever.”
“We could treat her, and take her to the theatre.”
“Us pay, you mean?”
“Why not, Joan? She’s given us plenty in the past.”
“It’s a novel idea, but would she agree?”
“We’ll tell her it’s all booked and insist she takes it or risk hurting our feelings.”
Joan shrugged. “All right. We’ll ask her.” She turned then and glared at her sister. “Megan, exactly when did Viv give you this idea? When did you see him? I thought we’d agreed that you were tired of him and I was going out with him – until I grew tired of him?”
“I called into the shop to collect some papers for Grandfather. We talked about Grandmother then. Don’t worry. Viv Lewis is all yours!”
“So is that face cream! So hand it back. Now!” Joan retorted.
* * *
Gladys Weston sat up long after Arfon and the twins had gone to bed. She sat near the low fire and thought sadly about how her dreams were fading. She was sorry for Jack of course. He must have had to cope with a lot of abuse, with his father accused of fraud and his grandfather
of arson. His career as a school teacher might not be much, but he seemed to enjoy it. But it was far far worse for the twins, her Weston Girls.
Jack was her failure she had decided long ago. He wouldn’t conform to her idea of making the Weston name more important, a name which made people sit up and take notice. She remembered sadly how hard she had tried to persuade him to become a solicitor or a doctor or a financier – she had always thought that sounded rather grand – but he had laughingly refused to consider anything she suggested.
“If you want me to have power, Grandmother,” he had chuckled, “I’ll become a bus conductor, there’s a smart uniform and everyone will take notice as I ring my little bell and stop and start the bus. Now there’s power for you!”
No, it was useless and a waste of time to try and make something of Jack, she thought with a sigh. “You all right, Grandmother?” a voice whispered and Megan peeped around the door. “I hadn’t heard you coming up and I wondered if you needed anything. A nice cup of tea? Or Horlicks?”
“Thank you Megan, a cup of Horlicks would be nice. Then you must go to bed. Even someone as lovely as you needs her beauty sleep, you know.”
An hour later, the drink cold and untasted, Gladys still sat near the revived fire thinking. But now her face had lost its sadness. Her eyes glowed with excitement; she had decided what to do. The year of 1953 was almost out, but it could be the year in which the engagements of Joan and Megan and Jack would be announced. Or at least the year in which they started courting in real earnest.
She would show everyone that the Westons were not hiding away in shame. Planning the weddings would bring them to the notice of their one-time friends and make them wish they hadn’t abandoned them when disaster had struck. She pulled out a notebook and began to write down the names of all the eligible men she knew.
It was already October, so she could count the time in weeks only, but by the time the fire had issued its last dying flame and settled into grey lifeless ash, her first big plan had been born. She crept up to the room she shared with Arfon and slept like a baby.
* * *
Viv Lewis opened Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint Store, and went at once to the small office which jutted out from the top of the stairs and overlooked the shop floor. It was an hour before the place was open for customers and half an hour before the rest of the staff arrived.
He liked this time on his own, time to sort the post, if Henry Thomas wasn’t late again, and deal with some of the bookwork that needed his full attention. By coming in early, he was able to spend more time on the shop floor, dealing with customers himself when he could, and always listening to make sure the staff looked after them properly. Although, after next week the staff would consist of only one.
Viv loved his job. He had started there as an odd job boy supposedly observing and learning the business but he had soon shown himself capable and enthusiastic, offering ideas to Arfon when he appeared and infuriating Arfon’s sons-in-law. They had not been able to accept his abilities, even now when he had made a remarkable improvement in the business they had all but killed.
It had been Viv who had brought them to the brink of disaster, hadn’t it, they reminded anyone who would listen, by bringing to light the truth about the fire which had burned down the premises many years before? And through that – Islwyn said so often he almost believed it – the police had delved deeper and mistakenly thought Islwyn had been stealing from his father-in-law’s firm for years.
Rightly or wrongly, Viv had been sacked, but Arfon had soon realised that if he were to save the business for when the court cases were over, he needed someone like Viv to restore it and build it up.
Viv knew that by offering the job and eventually making him a partner, Arfon had made enemies for him, of both Ryan, and Islwyn. Being found guilty of cheating on his father-in-law didn’t stop Islwyn hating him and blaming him for his thieving becoming public knowledge. In Islwyn, Viv knew he had a dangerous enemy.
Which was why it was fun to meet the Weston Girls in secret and to enjoy calling Jack his friend. For a while he thought he had lost Jack but they were gradually reverting to their previous comradeship, although both avoided the subject of fire, theft and the vagaries of British justice.
Now, in the quiet shop, he watched as Henry Thomas bent down and stuffed the morning’s post through the letter box and shouted, “Sorry I’m late, boy, the alarm clock called me so quiet I never heard it. Too soft it was, so was the bed!”
Viv waved and went down to see what needed immediate attention. Today was half-day closing and he hoped to finish on time and meet Jack after school closed, for a spot of fishing.
The letter, with its large, bold handwriting stood out from the rest and he opened it, a smile flickering around his lips. Joan!
‘Eight o’clock on Sunday. Usual Place.’
That was all it said, and he tore it up into small pieces and threw it in the bin. He would join the boys for an hour first, meeting them at the Griffithses’, from where he could run across the fields to the corner where they usually met. That way he had an alibi of sorts, although he’d have to be careful not to drink too much of Hywel Griffiths’s home-brew!
To his surprise he had a second invitation that day. Friday was his birthday, his twenty-first, and Jack had remembered.
“I thought you might like to come out for a meal,” he said when he called at the shop after school closed at lunch time.
“Thanks!” Viv was pleased. Apart from a gift from his parents and Rhiannon, he hadn’t expected his twenty-first to be very different from the other birthdays.
“I’ve booked a table at Montague Court over the beach.”
“Dining with the crachach are we? I hope I don’t forget and use a knife to eat my peas!”
“Just don’t drink out of your saucer!”
“My grandfather used to, Jack,” Viv said. “Bless his socks, he started work early and if he overslept, my Gran would make a cup of tea then pour it into four saucers to cool it and he’d go along the line slurping it up.”
“Clever, but I don’t think they’d like it at Montague Court, d’you?”
“Dare me?”
“No, Viv! I don’t!”
* * *
Gladys Weston wore her fur-trimmed coat and carried her most expensive leather handbag. Her shoes and gloves were best leather too, and she walked tall and looked with disapproval on everyone she passed. So many of her smiles had been ignored in recent weeks she no longer offered any.
Going into the bank, she sighed to see several other people waiting. Even Caroline Martin, the sister of the awful Griffithses, was opening a bank account.
Really she thought, a frown folding creases in her brow, there was no knowing who you’d bump into in a bank these days. So many common people knowing your business. She pushed her way through the small group of people waiting and sat in the chair near the counter.
“I have an appointment to see the manager,” she announced loudly. She had no such thing, having disregarded his constant plea to telephone first, but she had no intention of standing in line behind the likes of the Griffithses.
“Oh, good morning, Mrs Weston. I’ll go and see if he’s free.” The man behind the counter abandoned those waiting and scuttled into the back room. He came back a moment later and with a face reddening in embarrassment, said, “I’m sorry, Mrs Weston, but there seems to have been a mistake. No appointment has been made.”
“Then you’d better make one quickly hadn’t you!”
Gladys sat glaring around her while the other customers stood in line and patiently waited.
When she was shown into the manager’s office, she announced without preamble that she wished to withdraw her money and close the account.
“But, why, Mrs Weston? There isn’t anything wrong is there? If we have been remiss in any way—”
“I have no wish to discuss my affairs with you, young man, if you would please arrange for me to receive the money in two days
time I will call then and collect it.”
“But – it’s rather a large amount. I wouldn’t be happy allowing you to walk out carrying it.”
“No one would know what I was carrying – unless you plan to tell all and sundry.” Gladys drew herself up and added, “No one would dare to attack me, if that’s what you were thinking.”
The manager couldn’t disagree. The woman was probably made of granite!
Gladys had been saving what she could, to add to her personal account for many years, imagining some really spectacular birthday present for the twins on their twenty-first. That hadn’t materialised, as their other grandmother in Penarth had arranged something for them there. Now she hoped the party would be an engagement celebration. She planned to introduce her Weston Girls to all the most eligible young men in Pendragon Island. Now Arfon was safe from a prison sentence she could begin her campaign to find husbands for her girls. And a wife for Jack of course. At least he wouldn’t be so costly!
Having collected her money two days later, she went to the house of her daughter Sian. She hoped Islwyn wouldn’t be there. She’d heard he spent most of his time in his room, only going out at night. And that, she thought, is a very good thing. Stupid man, robbing from his own family! He deserved all he suffered. How her lovely daughter Sian could have got herself married to a stupid man like Islwyn she had never understood. Islwyn had completely taken her in. She would make sure Joan and Megan were better suited.
Sian was in the kitchen, a smudge of flour on her cheek revealing her activity. A good cook, Sian spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Even with food still rationed, Sian enjoyed making attractive and nutritious meals. Gladys sniffed disapproval, what a waste, using such wonderful skills for someone like Islwyn!
“I am planning a party, dear,” she told Sian. “I don’t know exactly when it will take place but probably some time towards the end of the year.”
The Weston Girls Page 3