Giving a grunt of satisfaction he grasped the chrome handle but the shock of the water and the amount he had drunk caused him to be sick and confused, he lost his balance but still pulled on the handlebars. Instead of hauling it up, he was dragged down as the bicycle was eased away from the jutting rock on which it had been resting and the man sank, still holding to the handlebar as if for grim life.
* * *
It was very early in the morning and the ships, with their gangs of dockers busily at work, lacked form in the misty late-October air. Jack walked aimlessly, looking down into the depths occasionally for a sight of the grey mullet that abounded in the greasy water. Perhaps he’d meet Viv Lewis later and try for a few. Mucky water or not, they made a tasty meal.
Reaching the end of the docks he began to make for the road that would take him back through the town and to the school on the hill where his class of six-year-olds were waiting for him. He paused at the abandoned dock and at once saw the man. His legs were visible in the shallow water and the wheel of a bicycle could be seen beside his upside-down form.
He began to go down and haul him out but a sight of the man’s face made him realise it was far too late; better not risk falling in himself, but go for the docks’ policeman, whose house was not far away.
Later that day, the body was identified as that of Steve Jones, the father of Victoria, who had been a maid at the Westons’ house.
“It looks like he’d stolen Viv Lewis’s bike and was too drunk to manage it,” the sergeant told Jack when he enquired later that day.
“His daughter Victoria was my grandmother’s maid for a few years but I’m ashamed to say I know nothing about her family.”
“Rough they are,” the policeman confided, “and between you and me I don’t think Steve Jones will be much mourned. Gave ’em a hell of a life, he did.”
It was still distressing to learn of the man’s lonely death and Jack’s plans to go fishing were forgotten. He was heading for The Railwayman’s to tell Viv and the others the news when he changed direction and went instead to Goldings Street to see Victoria.
At first sight, Goldings Street looked like the remains of some battleground. Bombed during the early part of the war, it had been more or less left for the tenants to make of it what they could. Most had been allotted smart prefabs, but three families still survived in the ruinous collection of houses, having refused to move out.
The three houses at the end, with empty space behind them, where Philips Street had been taken down ready for new houses to be built, were in reasonable condition and, when Jack approached, he saw that clean net hung at the front windows and the doorsteps had the half-circle in front of them where regular scrubbing had left its mark.
The rest of the houses had been cleared away but sufficient rubble remained to give the place a derelict appearance and the road surface, although patched, was uneven. Jack knocked on the door of seventeen and Victoria opened the door. He was shocked by her appearance, the neat little maid in her black dress and white apron was unrecognisable behind the unkempt person before him.
“Victoria?” he began. “I just wanted to know if you’re all right and coping with things. It was I who found your father, you see, and, well, I’m very sorry about his death.”
Victoria burst into tears, and at once he put an arm around her to comfort her. “Don’t be sad, it must have been quick,” he said, but she pulled away from him and almost shouted,
“Sad? Sorry? I’m not sorry! I wish he’d choked on drink months ago, before he got my Mam up the spout again!”
The outburst and the crude expression startled him and he didn’t know what to say. He stared, trying to recognise in her the quiet, extremely polite and obedient maid, and failed.
“You might as well come in,” Victoria said and she stood back watching him quizzically as he entered.
There were two rooms and a small scullery and they were practically empty. A fire of wood burned in the oven range and a sooty pan simmered on the hob.
“He sold everything,” she explained. “All our furniture, anything he could carry or cart away. Mam’s in hospital and the others are with a neighbour till she comes home. I’m trying to think of ways of getting a bed for when she’s discharged.”
“The others? How many are you?” Jack asked quietly.
“Five besides me and there’s another one due soon after Christmas.”
“Is your mother all right? Not in any danger?”
“Just the usual beating. He gets – got – wild when he was drunk you see, and it ended up with him punching Mam then—” she was about to say he takes her upstairs but held her tongue. Even in her present tense state, she couldn’t say such things to someone like Jack Weston.
“I don’t understand, when you worked for my Grandmother things weren’t like this?”
“They were heading this way. Dad’s been drinking for years but he didn’t get really bad until just before I left Mrs Weston. That was the reason I didn’t try and persuade her to keep me on. I thought I could earn more, not having money stopped for my meals.”
“Wash your face, I’m taking you out for something to eat, I’m starving,” he added to quell her protest, “and I hate eating alone.”
He took her to a fish and chip shop where a few tables were available for those wanting to eat on the premises. His first impulse was to go to a smart restaurant but knew that she would not be comfortable, in her unsuitably thin dress and shabby coat. His heart ached as he watched her thin red hands as she ate, neatly but quickly, until the plate was empty. Poor little kid.
“Basil!” he said and she stared at him curiously. “Basil Griffiths is the man to find you some furniture cheaply. He has a mind sharp as a razor, remembering who has what for sale and how much he needs to offer. We’ll go now and see him.”
“I ought to get back,” she protested, but her voice held no conviction.
She waited outside The Railwayman’s as Jack hurried in and dragged Basil out, then they went to another café and drank tea while they discussed Victoria’s needs.
“I don’t have much money, only a few pounds,” she said, “until I get my wages on Saturday. Four pounds and five shillings altogether I’ll have then.” But the two men hushed her and promised to deliver what they could gather, on the following Saturday morning. Jack saw her back to her empty, lonely home and it was the most difficult thing he had ever done, to walk away and leave her there.
On Saturday morning he met Basil as arranged and with a borrowed horse and cart they arrived at Goldings Street, tooting the horn and shouting as if they were the beginning of some celebratory procession, which, in a way they were. Following a few minutes later came Frank and Ernie, Basil’s brother and cousin, pushing a handcart. Eleri, heavily pregnant, walked beside it carrying a loaded shopping basket.
An hour later, most of the furniture was in place, three beds, chests of drawers and couch and three chairs and a table which gave Victoria a surprise.
“That was ours!” she said, pointing to letters that had been carved on the drawer.
“That’s right, I bought it off your dad, not knowing he was robbing his own family, mind, or I wouldn’t have given seven and six for it.”
The pantry held a few stores plus a couple of rabbits, a clutch of eggs and a dish of apples which were a result of Basil’s ‘scrumping’ in a nearby orchard.
By the time Viv had closed Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint stores and ran around to Goldings Street, most of the work was done and the weary removal men were sitting on the floor on a rug scrounged from Gladys and Arfon, drinking tea.
“Talk about timing, crafty sod,” groaned Basil. “Look at him Eleri, how’s he got the cheek to hold out a hand for a cup of tea when he’s done nothing, eh?”
His wife laughed and stirred the cup before handing it to Viv. “Well, he ran all the way, not his fault if we’ve finished.”
“Finished? He’s down for painting the walls!”
The good
-natured banter went on for a while, then they all left to allow Victoria to get beds made up in preparation for her family’s return. Only Jack stayed. “There’s something you haven’t unpacked,” he said after the others had gone. “My cousins sent a few clothes, just to help until you get on your feet again.” He watched her hoping she wouldn’t be offended, but as she removed each article from the shopping basket Eleri had carried from his cousin’s house, he saw she was laughing.
She held up the frilly, low-necked dresses and the summer coats in pale coloured flimsy material and asked, “Where do they think I could wear these? And these?” she added, holding up a pair of high-heeled shoes in pale blue suede.
“I might have known,” Jack groaned. “My cousins aren’t over-blessed with common sense!”
“I’m sure they meant well.”
“You work for Viv, don’t you?” he said, remembering being told about the new cleaner at the shop. “It’s a bit hard isn’t it, doing two jobs?”
“It’s only until Mam is well again. She does washing and ironing – or she did, until the dolly tub and the table went!”
“I’ll have a word with Grandmother Weston,” Jack told her as he prepared to leave. “It would be better than going out at seven in the winter mornings to clean a shop.”
“I don’t mind, it pays for extra food, and Mam needs building up.”
“I mind,” Jack said firmly. “Grandmother wasn’t such a terrible employer, I’m sure.”
“I liked working there,” Victoria admitted.
“She’d like you to come back. Mair Gregory is all right but she isn’t used to Grandmother’s little ways. She compares Mair Gregory unfavourably with you all the time. She really does wish you were back.”
“What? After me giving evidence to the police about what I heard your grandfather and Viv saying about the fire?”
“We were all angry at the time, specially with you and Viv, but things settle and she would be relieved for things to go back to as they were. Mair isn’t so willing – or as tolerant! I think she’ll agree to pay you more than before, she wants you that much. Think about it and I’ll call and see you tomorrow,” he said.
“OK,” Victoria grudgingly agreed. “But I want you to promise me you’ll say nothing about my family troubles. If she takes me back it’s because she wants me, and not because I’m a charity case.”
* * *
He talked to Gladys with an urgency and with such persuasion that she almost agreed. Jack so rarely asked her for anything, how could she refuse him? But she did!
She admired his eloquent skills then scolded him, complaining that he really should have listened to her and become a famous barrister.
“But you can’t really expect me and your grandfather to have a traitor in the house, dear,” she explained, her face full of regret. So Jack had to accept her decision, for the time being, until he could think of another way to talk his grandmother round, without going back on his word to Victoria.
Chapter Four
Dora had lived in Sophie Street since her marriage to Lewis Lewis almost twenty-three years before, Christmas 1930. The sweet shop had been on the corner, three doors down, even longer than that, although in the old lady’s day it had been called Katie’s Confections. Nia had taken over from her grandmother and changed the name to Temptations and now with a long-time love affair between Nia and her husband, the name had an ironic ring.
The fact of her daughter, Rhiannon working for Nia was something that Dora tried not to think about. It had been arranged when in a flippant moment she had said she didn’t care, but she did. Every day she hoped that Rhiannon would come home and tell her she was leaving but if anything Rhiannon was happier now than when she had first started work there.
A further tie between the families threatened as Nia’s son had fallen in love with Rhiannon. It seemed for a while that she was going to have Nia’s son as a son-in-law but thankfully that had fizzled out and Barry was now married to Caroline, one of the Griffithses. The accident that had killed her son, Lewis-boy, had also caused the death of Nia’s older son. Joseph Martin had died only hours after Lewis-boy, another connection between two women who each wished the other a thousand miles away. And it was then that the double tragedy revealed that Lewis was in fact the father of Nia’s son, Joseph, as well. It was a shock from which Dora had never quite recovered.
What a mix-up, she sighed as she chopped mint and mixed it into vinegar to add flavour to two sad-looking chops. Viv heard her sigh and asked if she was all right. She pointed to the meat. “They call it lamb but I bet this poor sheep died of old age,” she said.
“I don’t care if it committed suicide, Mam. I’m starving,” Viv replied. He ran upstairs to change out of his work clothes and into something more comfortable. “Will it be long? I’m going to see Jack Weston, do a bit of fishing.”
“I don’t know what you two do on that river bank, Viv, but I don’t see many fish!” Dora teased.
“Mullet you’ll have tonight, we’re going to try the docks.”
“After pulling that drunken old man out? I don’t fancy any of that!” Dora heard Lewis’s car and tried to keep the conversation going. It was always easier if she were involved with Viv or Rhiannon when her husband walked in. There was always that moment of uneasiness, the unspoken question about whether he would go out or stay in, and, if he went out, whether he would explain where he was going or leave her to wonder if he was meeting Nia.
Tonight he seemed to be in a good mood. He smiled, sniffed appreciatively and said he was starving. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that the delicious smell was mainly the result of Bisto gravy and mint sauce.
“Rhiannon won’t be long,” Lewis said. “I saw the shop was closed when I came past.”
“Unless she’s talking to that Barry Martin. He seems to forget he’s married and with a small son.”
“Give over, Mam, we all know Barry and Caroline Griffiths aren’t really married. He gave her son his name because his real father died with our Lewis-boy.”
“I don’t want to talk about Lewis-boy and all that,” Dora said sharply, her eyes threatening a row.
“They’re living apart and have been ever since the wedding. You can’t expect Rhiannon not to see him until the divorce is through.”
“I do expect it!” Dora’s red hair and bright blue eyes seemed to glow as her temper began to rise. “There’s no future in our Rhiannon carrying on with a married man. He might say he and Caroline are planning to divorce but where’s the proof?”
“Leave it, Mam,” Viv pleaded, glancing at his father who seemed to be concentrating on his food.
The conversation was conducted, as usual, with Lewis and Viv in the living room and Dora eating alone in the kitchen.
“I just hope she sees sense before she gets too old and ends up on the shelf,” Dora shouted and with a forkful heading towards her mouth, added, “And Barry’s too old for her anyway! Not that that stopped his mother from carrying on with your father, mind!”
Lewis tilted back his chair and turned the radio on. There was an announcement that thirty thousand houses had been completed that month and he wished he was in one of them, far away from Sophie Street and Dora’s bitterness. He wasn’t interested in the news and didn’t take anything in but it was better than Dora with her thinly-veiled reminders about his continuing affair with Nia. He had intended to stay in and go through his order book, listing the customers he would call on the following week but he changed his mind. Like so often in the past, he came through the door with good intentions but ten minutes of Dora and he wanted to escape.
When Rhiannon came in the mood lightened as she began talking about her day at the sweet shop. Who did his tolerant and cheerful daughter take after, Lewis wondered, looking at her smile that encompassed them all? Viv was like his mother, red-haired and quick-tempered enough to prove the old story about redheads being fiery. Poor Lewis-boy had looked like him: black hair and dark eyes, and he had tr
ied so hard to resemble him in every other way. Rhiannon with her brown eyes and thick brown hair was like neither and she was definitely the peacekeeper among the Lewises. If seven Sophie Street was a potential time bomb, primed to blow up, it was Rhiannon who held firmly to the fuse.
“I’m going out tonight, Mam,” Rhiannon said as the table was cleared. “I’m going to see Eleri. Fancy, her baby is due in a couple of weeks, can you believe how quickly the time has gone?”
“There’s a box in the corner, that crocheted blanket I’ve made, and some embroidered pillowcases for later on. Take them, will you?”
Viv gathered his fishing gear, Rhiannon picked up the gifts for Eleri and before Dora could ask the question he dreaded answering, Lewis collected his order books and darted out of the front door to the car.
Dora thought of his smile when he had first arrived and it cut her deep inside. The smile was shallow, his real smile, full of affection and love was reserved for Nia Martin. Realising she was alone once more and unable, or unwilling, to find a way to pass the lonely hours, Dora smashed Lewis’s plates and cup and saucer and calmly washed and dried the rest.
* * *
“I don’t like you walking through the fields in the dark to visit Eleri,” Viv said as they walked down Sophie Street. “It’ll be different once the baby’s born and she and Basil are back in their own home. Trellis Street isn’t far.”
“I’ll be all right, I know the way blindfolded and I’ve never met a soul in all the times I’ve been there.”
“Carry a stick then, just in case you meet a drunk or something,” Viv pleaded.
“It’s all right, Viv,” Rhiannon said quietly. “I think us Lewises have had our ration of bad luck.” She counted on her gloved fingers. “Losing Lewis-boy in that stupid accident, me and Barry finishing before we got started, Dad found out carrying on with Nia Martin, Mam and Dad fighting like cats.”
The Weston Girls Page 6