‘At least,’ Cecily told Peter, ‘it doesn’t give me much time to worry over what’s happening at the shop!’
Gareth came home on leave and he and Rhonwen called to see Cecily and Ada. Cecily thought he looked well as he smilingly thanked her for her letters.
‘And thanks for looking in at The Wedge to see that everything is running smoothly. I don’t know how you find time for all you do.’
‘By not thinking about it!’ she said with a laugh.
Johnny Fowler was another who called when he could manage it. They were surprised to see that his hair was now very short and standing stiffly up all over his head.
‘Poor dab,’ Ada said. ‘He looks like a paintbrush.’
Johnny’s difficult hair clearly didn’t worry him, as he called one day in 1943 to tell Cecily and Ada that he was getting married.
‘I met her in Somerset when I was on a forty-eight,’ he told them, smiling widely. ‘She’s with Mam now. Already making arrangements, they are, for the wedding. On my next leave it’ll be. You’ll all come, won’t you?’
‘What’s her name, what does she look like, what does she do?’ Cecily demanded, encouraging him to talk as he obviously wanted to.
‘Her name’s Sharon and she’s thirty-seven,’ he said proudly. ‘Got three daughters she has: Victoria, Debora and Leonora. Little beauties they are.’
They all wished him luck and promised to attend the wedding and filled his haversack with cakes and a few sweets and waved him off affectionately.
The sisters had a second visitor that day. Late in the evening there was a knock at the door and it was Ada who answered it, shading a torch as she opened the shop door to avoid trouble from the ever-vigilant wardens. A man she didn’t know stood there, and he seemed hesitant to explain who he was.
‘This is a bit difficult, like,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some news. It’s about – oh, hell, can I come in? It’s as dark as looking up a chimney out here.’
‘Phil?’ Ada called, and the man stepped back as if expecting trouble.
‘I want to talk to Miss Cecily Owen and Mrs Ada Spencer,’ he told her.
‘You’d better come through.’ Phil pulled Ada aside and allowed the man in, leading the way to the back room, where Cecily opened the door once the passage door was closed.
The man was very large. His army great-coat looked as if it were padded, Cecily thought. He had black hair cut short, and his bull-like neck was red with the chill of the night. His dark eyes looked around the room as if selecting the best position and he chose a chair and sat with his feet close to the fire, without being invited to do so.
‘It’s about your mother, see,’ he told them. ‘There’s been an accident. Well, not an accident, more an act of God, you might say.’ He might have gone on waffling around the subject for an age if Cecily hadn’t intervened.
‘Our mother?’ She and Ada drew close and reached for each other’s hand. ‘What about our mother? Who are you? Where is she? What’s happened?’ They asked questions in turn, confused and frightened by what they were about to be told.
‘It’s your mother, see, Kitty.’
‘What about her!’ Cecily demanded.
‘Well, she—’
‘For heaven’s sake, man, say it!’
The sisters moved closer, thinking the worst, guessing it was her death he was trying to tell them but refusing to say it for him. She was dead, the mother they hadn’t seen for many years and who had never contacted them.
‘It was a bomb, see. Direct hit on the house. Dad’s dead and Kitty, your mother, well, she’s on her own.’
Relief hissed out of them like air from a punctured balloon. They both felt relief peppered with anger for the devious way they had been told. He had put them through agony for nothing.
Ada was the first to find her voice. ‘And who are you?’
‘I’m Paul Gregory. It was my dad who Kitty – your mam – you know, lived with, like.’
As he went on, their anger changed to sympathy.
‘My dad’s gone and I haven’t got another soul in the world, except Kitty. My own mam threw me out when Dad went to live with your mam. I don’t like to think of Kitty being on her own, see, with me in the army and never there to look after her. I thought I’d tell you rather than write. She wants to see you, sure of that I am, but she isn’t sure of a welcome, see. I thought that if you wrote a letter I’ll see that she gets it. Fond of your mam I am. She’s been good to me has Kitty Owen.’
His voice distorted as he spoke and he swallowed a lot as if clearing his throat of sobs. Cecily and Ada felt sympathy growing, but then Cecily caught an expression in the young man’s eyes and felt a chilly, stomach-churning shock. The eyes were cold and calculating and showed no real distress at the bereavement he was talking of. It was an act. He was pretending to feel the emotions of a broken-hearted son. She was frightened by him and wanted him gone. He was a stranger getting in the way of thoughts about her mother returning. She wanted solitude and the chance to think, to take in the news of her, but instead here was this man faking grief at the death of a man they didn’t know, whom they hadn’t even met. The man who had taken their mother from them.
She tried to ignore him and allow her thoughts to dwell on her mother, whether they would be strangers after all the time that had passed, or friends. But Paul’s presence refused to allow it. He sat there waiting for her to speak. What did he want? Why couldn’t he see they needed to be left alone?
Ada was still clinging to Cecily, until Phil peeled her away, taking her into his arms and leaving Cecily standing alone. She realized that Ada was sobbing, and Phil was whispering to her in a soothing way, and Cecily moved away from them, fussing over cups and saucers.
‘Do you have time for a cup of tea? Or do you have a bus to catch?’ she asked the soldier, hoping he would take the hint and go. ‘We mustn’t take any more of your time.’ It didn’t sound very polite but the silent way he was staring at her made social niceties irrelevant.
After a silence that went on too long, he said, ‘Tea? I’d rather something stronger, Cecily.’ He smiled disarmingly and she felt ashamed. He had come to tell them about their mother being on her own, using his precious leave to do so. She was just being fanciful thinking there was anything other than kindness in his expression.
‘Take off your coat, boy,’ she said then. ‘Look in the cupboard over there and you might find a flagon of beer.’
He stood to take off his great-coat and in the uniform underneath he looked equally large. His battle blouse stretched across his huge chest and the sleeves bulged with muscles. Three stripes showed him to be a sergeant, the badges that he was a gunner. He found the flagon and a glass and settled to enjoy it. Phil watched but didn’t complain about not being offered to share it. Phil had a strange ability to make himself unnoticed at times like this, almost invisible, when someone else was taking all the attention.
‘And you are Paul? Paul Gregory?’ Ada rubbed her reddened eyes. ‘I’m afraid we’ve seen nothing of Mam since she left with your father. She was always sickly, mind, and we brought ourselves up, so we didn’t get really close to her even before she left.’
‘Sickly? Auntie Kitty, as I call her, has never even had a cold since I’ve known her! Full of fun she is, a damned good laugh. Hell, yes, she makes the house ring with it.’
The sisters looked at each other. Could there have been a mistake?
‘Our mam? Lively and full of fun? But – you’re sure you’ve got the right place? I mean, silly things happen in wartime and it doesn’t sound like our mam. An invalid, she was. Spent a lot of time in bed.’
‘She’s your mother all right. I’d have recognized you two easily from the photographs she has on her bedside table. Damn me, she talks about you enough too. I’d have known you two anywhere.’
‘And our mother is lively? And a lot of fun?’ Ada delved into a drawer and handed him a photograph of their mother.
‘Yes, that’s Auntie
Kitty. She said your father made her into an invalid, trying to make her into something she wasn’t.’
‘Rubbish!’ Ada said at once.
‘Was it?’ Paul poured himself the last of the beer. ‘She said he wouldn’t allow her to do anything except stay in the house and mind the girls, who didn’t want minding. She escaped into the life of a bedridden old woman, to be pampered, to read books, listen to the wireless and dream of a life where she could be herself.’
‘I don’t believe any of this.’ Cecily agreed with Ada.
‘You don’t? You’re Cecily, aren’t you? You’ll never marry, according to Kitty Owen, until you find a man willing to allow you to be yourself. She says you’re a free spirit and will never make the mistake she made. Is she right? I don’t see a ring, so perhaps she is and you haven’t found the right man yet.’
‘You are impertinent!’
He smiled and nodded agreement.
Cecily wanted to throw him out. She watched him drain the last of the beer and go to the sideboard to find more. He was big, confident and intrusive, an alien in their safe living room.
Paul waved a new flagon at Phil, who sat beside his wife, leaning forward in a protective way, poised to leap up to defend her.
‘Want a glass?’ Paul asked. Phil shook his head.
Cecily’s brain was struggling with confused thoughts. The way he had walked in, found himself a place at their fireside, and told them things about their mother’s life had disturbed her. His grating personality made her postpone her thoughts on her mother until he was gone. She wondered how she could help him on his way.
The second flagon of beer was half emptied and she watched as he refilled his glass. As the liquid went down, so the moment of his departure drew closer. She wished Phil would take some and make the moment come sooner.
Paul Gregory looked at her over the rim of the tilted glass and his dark eyes closed slightly as if he were smiling. Had he guessed her thoughts, seen her discomfort? Was he prolonging his stay to torment her? There was something frightening about him. She wasn’t imagining it. She was unable to control a shiver of apprehension from travelling down her spine.
They heard the doorbell tinkle as it opened to admit Van. She and Edwin had been to the pictures and Cecily hoped he would come in, although he rarely did. Van walked through the shop and went into the passage to hang up her coat. She poked her head around the door.
‘I’ve called to pick up the order book. Uncle Bertie said he wanted to have a look at it,’ she called out. ‘I’ll stay tonight as I want to have a chat.’ Then she saw Paul and, recovering from the shock of seeing him, demanded rudely, ‘Who are you? You aren’t taking in lonely soldiers now, are you, Mam?’ The words were directed at her mother but she stared into the appreciative eyes of the soldier, not showing with even a flicker of a smile that she and Paul had met often at her grandmother’s house.
Almost sullenly, Cecily introduced her daughter to Paul, who stood up and held Van’s hand for what seemed to Cecily an interminably long time. He too hid the fact that he and Van were friends.
‘So, you are Myfanwy.’ He smiled, showing strong white teeth in a wide, aggressive jaw. ‘My sort of cousin by non marriage, you might say.’
‘You are not related,’ Cecily said at once.
‘Now there’s a lovely thought,’ Paul said. He was admiring Van, who stared back boldly, her young face slightly flushed and very beautiful. ‘Seventeen and never been kissed?’ Paul teased. Cecily saw the charm being turned on as Van and Paul sized each other up. She was upset, wanting him to go, never to appear again, wishing Van wasn’t looking at him in that way.
‘Good for us to meet at last. Like my own family, you are.’
Ada laughed and the sound cut into Cecily’s agitation. She turned to see Ada and Phil watching the young couple with obvious delight. They clearly didn’t share Cecily’s unease.
Ada stood then and whispered in Cecily’s ear, ‘Don’t tell her why he came. We’ll tell her about Mam later, when we’re on our own.’ Cecily nodded agreement.
‘Well, thank you for coming, Paul.’ Cecily implied it was time for him to go.
Van said, ‘Sandwich, anyone? I’m starving and sinking for a cuppa.’
Cecily’s heart dropped as Paul at once nodded. Ada nudged Phil and went with him into the back kitchen to prepare food, leaving Cecily and Van with the young sergeant. It came out then, his father’s death and why he had called. He went on to explain why Kitty and his father had never married.
‘My mam refused to divorce him, see, so even when your father died, they still weren’t free. But that didn’t stop them being happy, damn me, no. There wasn’t a more content pair in the whole town, I bet a shilling. She had to work, of course, cleaned at some swanky houses near Roath Park. And she did a few hours at the corner shop.’
‘Mam hated the shop!’ Ada protested.
‘Never! Loved it she did, flirted something awful, mind, terrible she was. The male customers loved it and spent more than they intended just for a glimpse of her smile. A proper flirt she was and my ol’ dad loved it. Knew she was only having fun and belonged to no one but him, see. Well met them two for sure.’
When Paul eventually left, he and Van seemed to have become friends. It was she who walked through the dark shop with him to see him on his way. Cecily waited in an agony of suspense for Van to come back. It was so unlike her daughter to be so friendly on such brief acquaintance. Peals of laughter rang out, hers high and merry, Paul’s deep and with a tone that another time and with another person Cecily would have found infectious.
The door bell jangled at last and Van came into the room. Cecily saw from the flushed cheeks and the shining eyes that her daughter had enjoyed the encounter. Excitement didn’t show that clearly when she had just parted from Edwin Richards.
It was about Edwin that Van wanted to ‘chat’. ‘He’s joining up,’ she told them. ‘The deferment is over and he leaves tomorrow.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ Ada asked.
‘He only told me tonight.’
‘Then why didn’t he come in? Why aren’t you staying there to see him off?’
‘I wanted to talk to you, to explain.’
Cecily frowned, wondering what was coming next.
‘Edwin hoped we’d become engaged before he went away.’
‘Van! That’s wonderful!’ They all chorused their delight.
‘I said no. I’m not ready for such commitment. I haven’t even got control of the shop yet. There’s a lot I want to do before having a husband and children. I – I don’t even know if Edwin is the one.’
‘You’ve been close ever since you were born. Being only two years older than you, he’s always been your protector.’
‘Perhaps the length of time we’ve been together explains why there’s no excitement in the prospect of being his wife.’
‘I hope you don’t think someone like Paul Gregory and the excitement he offers is a better long-term prospect!’ Cecily asked.
‘Perhaps. He’s certainly different!’ was the disconcerting reply.
Cecily lay awake for hours that night, thinking about the implication of what her mother had told Paul. It seemed her mother knew her better than she knew herself. The refusal to marry Danny and accept his terms although she both loved and desired him was clearer to her mother than it had been to herself and eerily close to her mother’s life than she would have believed. She found it amazing that where she had been unable to put it into actual words, her mother had explained it simply and had been able to make Paul, a complete stranger to her, understand.
It was then it began to be real. A hope that she and Ada and their mother might meet and talk, without the recriminations that might otherwise have come between them. She thought of Danny too, knowing her decision not to marry him had been a wise one, even if not until now fully understood. She felt a greater loneliness than ever, knowing that Danny would never again be a part of her life or he
r dreams. She knew her future lay in helping Van to achieve a full and happy life, while she, Cecily Owen, faced a future unfettered by a loving partnership. Her chances had all gone.
She sat up and switched on the bedside light, which Ada and Phil had given to her on her thirty-seventh birthday, and reached for a book. She had just found her place in Pickwick Papers, which she found to be a pleasant way of cutting off the worries of the day, when the low growl of a siren warned of an air raid.
She hurriedly slipped on the trousers she had recently taken to wearing and a thick jumper, and hurried downstairs, calling to Van, Ada and Phil. They settled at once in the cold cellar. All except Cecily had been roused from a deep sleep and had no difficulty in returning to its blanketed comfort.
Cecily, still in her sleepless state, sat and stared into the dark corners of the barely lit room listening to the drone of planes and the thudding of guns, apprehensive that the next moment would contain the blast to take them all, as it had taken Mam’s coalman.
Morning came and apart from the lingering smell of gun smoke and the sight of children searching for shrapnel, there was nothing to show for their disturbed night.
Neither Ada nor Cecily had suggested that Paul Gregory should call again, so it was a surprise when Van announced that Paul was coming for Sunday lunch one day in September.
‘Lovely,’ Cecily managed to say, swallowing her dismay. ‘I’ll ask Beryl and Bertie, and Edwin if he’s home, shall I? It’s time for him to have some leave, isn’t it?’
‘No, Mam. No one else. Just Paul and me.’
‘It’s not as if he’s someone we like,’ Cecily confided to Ada and Phil later. ‘He just breezed in off the street and sat as if he’d the right to be here. He’s supposedly the son of the man Mam lived with, for heaven’s sake! That makes him a nobody in my estimation!’
Paint on the Smiles Page 15