Almost hidden by climbing flowers and shrubs, she saw the workshop where Phil had carried out his printing business. The door was locked but the key hung outside and, idly curious, she went inside. Everything was neatly arrayed even though the police had searched the place for stolen items he hadn’t yet managed to sell. Mrs Spencer’s work no doubt. She was a person who loved to have everything neat and tidy, straightening things, even when there was no real need. The tools and machines were clean and there were no oddments of paper, no cleaning cloths as there would have been when Phil worked there. The windows were shining; any cobwebs had been brushed away. Cecily felt sad looking at the abandoned room and wondered if it would ever resound to the noise of the machines again.
She went out into the garden but there was still no sign of Ada and the door remained closed. After overnight rain, the clouds were still low and the air was chilly. She stepped back into the workshop and picked up one of Phil’s order books. She saw their name in there, Owen’s Grocery and Fresh Fish Shop. It was an order for letterheads and leaflets to distribute around the stall holders and cafes near the Pleasure Beach.
There was a page in the book she was idly examining and it was smudged and difficult to read. She put on the electric light and noticed that the bulb cable didn’t hang straight. Mrs Spencer couldn’t have noticed that, she smiled to herself, or it would have been straightened. Or perhaps she couldn’t reach and had no one to ask for help. She knew nothing about electricity, the cottage was still lit by gas light, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look in case it was just something in the way.
She climbed up onto the bench and stared at the ceiling rose, afraid to touch, then she saw something glinting between the rose and the ceiling. She moved the light bulb holder on its cable a little to one side and the object became clearly visible. It was a small earring. With a pencil she eased it out and then realized there was more.
She stepped down, frightened by the implications of what she had seen and waited for Ada. When her sister came out with her tearful mother-in-law, Cecily refused tea and pulled her sister away. ‘What’s the hurry?’ Ada demanded. ‘And don’t you want to hear about Phil?’
‘Of course I want to hear about Phil, but Ada, I’ve found some jewellery. Remember there were two offences to which Phil refused to plead guilty? Two robberies that he insisted he didn’t do?’
‘Yes, one of them our friends, Bertie and Beryl. I knew he wouldn’t have stolen from them.’
‘The other was Waldo and Melanie.’
‘So?’
‘I sheltered from the cold in Phil’s workroom and, I’m so sorry, Ada, love, but I think I’ve found the items that were stolen.’
‘Nonsense! Phil wouldn’t have taken anything from our friends. And the police searched the place. If they were there they would have been found. Someone must have put them there! Someone wanting to add to his sentence.’
When Ada had calmed down, they went back to the garden and, making sure Mrs Spencer was in the kitchen at the back of the house, slipped into the workshop. Together they eased out the jewellery that had been carefully and successfully hidden in a cavity in the ceiling behind the light fitting and spread it on the work table. There was no doubt who the pieces belonged to; they each recognized several.
‘What do we do now?’ Ada whispered. ‘I can’t give it to the police. It would mean another trial and another sentence. I couldn’t cope with any more. I want him home.’
‘Hide it again, but not in here. Then we’ll think carefully about the best way of helping Phil.’
‘Thank you,’ Ada sobbed.
They took the jewellery home and found a place for it in the heavy old wardrobe in the room that had once been their parents’ and sat in silence, each wondering about the best way of dealing with the discovery. Days passed and the problem seemed insoluble. They couldn’t give it back to Beryl and Melanie without an explanation that they didn’t want to give, and it seemed that every time they passed the bedroom door there were vibrations of disapproval coming from the large, old wardrobe.
The following Sunday, they went to the beach to try to forget the situation, even if it was only for a short time. The weather had improved and the sun shone bright and strong as they set off.
The smell of hot, damp sand met their nostrils as they stepped from the car. They chose to ignore the whispered comments and mumblings from people who recognized them but were well aware of the latest gossip they had engendered. The summer of 1938 had been good so far, rainy days and dark clouds quickly forgotten, rumours of imminent war ignored, as memories were being made of this wonderful summer.
Cecily smiled as she took off her lightweight coat. ‘It’s a hot one. There’ll be more in the sea than on the prom today.’ She picked up the basket, which contained Van’s bathing costume, their sun hats and an inflatable beach ball.
‘I wish we’d brought our bathers,’ Ada sighed. ‘Lovely it would be to sink into the waves.’
‘Buy one,’ said Van. ‘It’s years since you two went into the tide.’
Above the sound of cars pulling into the car park, they could hear the whirring and clacking and whistling of the dozens of rides in the amusement park. Above the trees shielding the cars from the road, the top of the figure eight could be seen, the carriages pausing at the highest point before swooping down leaving the screams of its passengers in its wake.
‘Remember how we used to love that?’ Cecily said.
‘Yes, but the fun was not the ride but the excuse to cling to the boys,’ Ada said with a laugh.
‘I think that sort of thing is childish,’ Van said, slamming the car boot for emphasis. ‘I can’t understand how people can go on it and make such an exhibition of themselves.’
Ada shrugged. ‘That’s young people for you. Fourteen and already too old for fun.’
‘Nineteen thirty-eight isn’t fun though, is it?’ Cecily said as they walked towards the sand. ‘Everyone’s anxious about the future. Things were more relaxed when we were your age, Van.’
‘D’you realize how old we sound?’ Ada exclaimed when they were waiting to cross the road. ‘Talking like two old women we are and us not far past thirty.’
‘Most are married and settled with children an’ all,’ Van said critically. ‘Missed the boat you two did, for sure, and that’s why the past sounds so good – there was still hope for you then.’
The sisters stared at her in surprise.
‘I was talking to Edwin about it yesterday,’ Van went on. ‘He thinks that only unhappy people look back and say everything was better then.’
‘Oh, he does, does he?’ Cecily looked at her daughter, an eyebrow quirked questioningly. ‘And what else did he say about us?’
‘He says he loves you both but you aren’t fun any more.’
Crossing the busy road a reply was delayed, then, as they reached the wide pavement and the start of the stalls and shops, Peter Marshall called and waved. He had been waiting for them.
Peter had been a friend since they had first visited the traders to persuade them to buy from their shop, promising good prices and reliable service. He had been one of the first to become a customer and remained a friend.
‘Peter, love.’ Cecily smiled a greeting and asked, ‘Where can we buy bathers? Ada and I want to go into the sea.’
They chose simple identical costumes in red and bought white head-hugging caps to protect their hair. Walking through the established groups on the hot sand, they found a place where they could spread out their belongings and take possession for a few hours.
‘You’ll need this.’ Peter handed them a large towel and looked studiously at his book while the three of them took turns doing contortions under the towel, to emerge ready for the sea. He slipped off his shirt and trousers to reveal his woollen bathers of dark blue tied with a white cord.
Seeing him as an elderly man possibly a little overweight, Cecily was surprised to see how lean and fit he looked. His body was nothing like his
rather fleshy face but strong and surprisingly youthful. She felt shy taking his hand as they ran between the scattering of people towards the distant sea. Peter looked back and offered his other hand to Van.
‘Come on, Ada,’ he called. ‘Last one in is a cissy!’ He laughed and the mood was set for a happy afternoon.
Used to seeing Peter either in overalls as he worked in his garage or in a neat suit with a shirt and tie, Cecily hadn’t thought of him as anything else but a middle-aged man who spent most of his time in an office chair. A lovely, kindly man, a devoted friend but older than the rest of their friends. Now she saw a man who, although in his early fifties, was still young enough to enjoy a day out. She laughed then, beginning to see the day as one they would remember with pleasure.
They ran, stumbling on occasions as they wove in and out of families and their clutter. Strings of donkeys strolled across and barred their way, old men wandered aimlessly, selling balloons and flags, young men played football and were being shouted at by pot-bellied sunbathers. Then they were on the wet sand chasing the tide, which was as far out as it would go.
The air was cooler and they were glad to increase their speed to stay warm. The sand was a complicated pattern of ripples, hard ridges where water, warmed by the sun, was trapped, a treat for their feet. The subdued roar of people behind them faded to a hum as their feet touched the foaming surf. All this Cecily noticed as though for the first time. It was so long since they had enjoyed a day of simple pleasures like this.
Peter released their hands and, after running as far as he could, he threw himself into the frothy white waves. He surfaced and looked back for them. Van was the next to swim out to where he was treading water and jeering at the sisters’ hesitation. He and Van coaxed and teased and laughed together until Cecily and Ada sank with gasps of shock under the clear water.
Then they swam and raced, disappearing underwater to appear alongside unexpectedly, splashing each other like children.
‘Why haven’t we done this before?’ Ada gasped. ‘I’d forgotten what fun it is.’
‘Make sure you do it again, soon,’ Peter advised.
Peter took charge of that afternoon in July 1938. He organized a ball game after the swim, insisting it was important to get thoroughly warmed before getting dressed. They took turns to squirm about under the large towel to dress themselves, then, while they were combing their hair, he said, ‘I own part shares in the Golden Schooner. We’ll eat there.’
Van was right about Ada and me, Cecily thought as they packed the wet clothes. Since the court appearance, she and Ada had built a wall around themselves and were crouching behind it, afraid of allowing anyone inside for fear of being hurt. Fun had been firmly locked out.
Such troubled lives they had led. First their mother leaving them, then their father being killed in an accident on a grain ship, then her planned marriage to Gareth Price-Jones cancelled when Dorothy had revealed that she was in fact Myfanwy’s mother. She knew the fault was hers in that instance. She should have told Van long before but she had been afraid of upsetting her – although finding out like she had was far, far worse.
And Ada’s marriage to Phil, which had been so happy until he had been caught with the proceeds of a robbery, and through it all there was Danny Preston and their on-off love affair ruined by his unreasonable jealousy.
Peter had come into their lives soon after the death of their father when they were just starting to build up the business and coping with their grief and the troubles that followed. He was the understanding, uncritical, reliable friend they had needed.
Phil’s arrest was a humiliation for both Ada and Cecily, less so for herself but an extra agony all the same, to be endured while people gleefully spoke of them as the ugly sisters – the ugliness not a factual description, more an opinion of their unsavoury characters.
During Phil’s trial, Cecily and Ada had seen him shrink from the lively, optimistic, lighthearted man into a shell of skin and bone. The colour went from his cheeks and the laughter drained from his eyes. His appearance altered as the trial continued until, at the end, where he was given a custodial sentence, he was an old man without a sign of the fun-loving, cheeky character Ada had married.
He had remained unmoved and apparently unaware as his counsel asked that ninety-eight cases be taken into account. It had been explained to him that it was wiser to face them all now, rather than come out of prison and face another trial and sentence if further evidence had come to light. Two charges he had denied.
Ada had comforted her mother-in-law, who refused to believe it, even when Phil himself told her it was true. She was particularly shocked at the stories of violence against three people who had caught him on their premises and had suffered injuries as he made his escape.
Bringing her mind back to the present on the summer beach, feeling the warmth of the sun, hearing the laughter of children, she smiled at her sister encouragingly as though she had shared her melancholy thoughts.
Van was in front walking with Peter as they made their way up to the restaurant on a rocky headland where windows looked out over the sea. They ate crab salad and fresh fruit and drank a bottle of wine, which, as they rarely drank, made both girls a little sleepy. Van, to her chagrin, was given lemonade.
‘I feel as if we’ve had a holiday,’ Ada said, lazily stretching. ‘Thank you, Peter, for a lovely day.’
‘Perfect,’ Cecily agreed. She looked at her daughter. ‘Don’t you agree, Van, lovey?’
‘Yes. It’s the sort of day my friends have often.’ The censure in her voice was the only cloud.
Peter walked them back to the car as families were packing up to go home. The donkeys were gathered ready to be taken back to their field and an evening meal. Shutters were going up on stalls on the sand and the balloon seller had fallen asleep against a wall. The midget cars were still doing a good trade and the shops selling fish and chips had queues outside as hunger drove the people from the beach.
Cecily looked back as she drove away from the car park to see Peter still waving. He appeared to her then to be a lonely figure, standing in the lengthening shadow of the trees. She turned the car in a circle and called to him, ‘Come for lunch on Sunday?’ He happily agreed.
‘He loves you too,’ Van sulked. ‘There’s Danny, Gareth, Peter and my father. They all love you and you still aren’t married.’
‘Hush, girl,’ Ada admonished.
Since parting from his wife in 1935, Danny Preston had continued to live in the house next to Gladys Davies, near Willie and Annette. Although he hadn’t wanted a child, knowing he had a daughter, now almost three, distressed him dreadfully. He had tried repeatedly to see her but Jessie’s mother refused to let him in.
‘The divorce agreement doesn’t include you seeing little Danielle,’ the sharp-faced woman insisted. ‘Go away or I’ll call the police.’
‘But she’s my daughter.’
‘You’ve never behaved like a husband so how can you know how to be a father?’
‘I pay for her, don’t I? And generously too. More than the courts decided was fair.’ He often resorted to anger in the hope he could bully her into letting him spend some time with his child but it never worked.
‘In fact,’ he admitted to Willie, ‘I think it only makes her more determined to keep me away.’
‘Give it time, Danny. Jessie might relent as Danielle grows up. At least paying as you promised you’ll keep some sort of contact.’
‘Unless Jessie marries again.’
‘Plenty of time to worry about that when there’s cause. No hint of another man so far.’ Willie put down the heavy plane he was using and patted Danny’s shoulder. ‘Come and have a cup of tea with Annette, then we’ll try this new window for size.’
Danny was a postman and Willie still worked at Owen’s shop, but with Annette dealing with the office work, their own business was flourishing. Both men worked well with their hands and could tackle every aspect of house repairs. When they wer
en’t working on the pieces of furniture for which they had a steady list of customers, they were kept busy with small repairs. They filled every moment and apart from the hours spent in his room, where he felt the loneliness of his bachelor existence, Danny was as content as Willie.
He put down his tools and followed Willie to where Annette was making bread. She put it to rise near the fireplace and smiled a welcome. Her plump arms were floury and there were smears of flour on her rosy cheeks. Willie felt a lump in his throat as he looked at her from the doorway. She made him so utterly happy. He still marvelled at his good fortune.
Her eyes and nose wrinkled as she blew him a kiss. ‘Ready for a cuppa, are you, boys?’ She gestured to the black, highly polished oven range, where a white tea towel covered some freshly baked Welsh cakes. ‘Saw you coming so the tea’s ready to pour – help yourselves.’
‘Thanks, love,’ Willie said, reaching for the plate.
‘Welsh cake for Victor?’ a small voice asked.
‘Hello, Niblo.’ Danny smiled as Willie picked up his son, asked if he’d been good and rewarded him with a cake.
When tea was poured and the two men were sitting one on each side of the oven range – ‘Like Toby jugs,’ Annette often said – Willie made an announcement.
‘We are all going on holiday,’ he said. He picked up Victor and, ignoring the butter which transferred itself from the boy’s hands to his own face and hair, went on, ‘All of us, Danny as well. What d’you think of that, then?’
‘A holiday?’ Annette frowned.
‘Yes, we’re all going to a place in west Wales, for a whole week. It’s a proper hotel near the beach where Victor can bathe every day and learn to swim.’
‘But are you sure? Will the sisters give you the time off? And will it be all right to leave the house for a week?’
‘Can I please have another Welsh cake?’ Victor asked.
He was given another cake by Willie, who explained, ‘We’ve all worked hard these past years and I think it’s time we had a reward. Danny, you will come, won’t you? We’ll have a great time. I’ve already asked the sisters and they’ve agreed. All we have to do is pack the car and go.’
Paint on the Smiles Page 2