‘What does Bethan want to see me about then?’ Nelly demanded, coming from the kitchen with a cup of steaming tea for Amy. ‘I hopes she doesn’t expect me to do the job. I got all the work I can manage, thanks.’
‘Oh well,’ Milly replied, a disappointed look on her face. ‘I think it might have been that. Shall I tell her you’ll call in and see her?’
‘What for? I ain’t goin’ to do no sacks of potatoes, you can tell ’er that.’
‘The poor girl, she has to have help, Bethan can’t run the business on her own.’
The third customer stood quietly listening to the discussion and when Milly Toogood had gone, he stepped forward.
‘Hello, Victor love,’ Amy said, leaning across the counter for his kiss. Nelly glowered slightly and muttered that she would be off.
‘What did you come in for, Nelly,’ Amy asked, ‘anything special?’
‘Oh yes. There’s a piece about Winston Churchill in this week’s Illustrated, to celebrate ’is eightieth birthday. Me and George’ll enjoy that.’ She paid the fourpence and went out.
‘She still doesn’t approve of me, does she?’ Victor laughed. ‘She doesn’t even wish me a good morning.’
‘Nelly appointed herself my protector years ago and knowing of my propensity for falling in love with married men she watches me and scowls her fiercest frown when I’m in danger of repeating the disaster.’
‘But I’m not married, not any more.’
‘Farmer Billie Brown is richer!’
‘Oh, I’ll have to increase my investment in the weekly football pools, won’t I! That’s the only way I’ll ever be rich.’
Victor left as Mavis Powell, who lived in the flat above, arrived to help. The shop began to fill up with impatient early morning customers and he paused for a while to watch through the steamy windows as Amy dealt with the small purchases swiftly and with a smile for each. Then he drove off in the delivery van to the next village.
He had lost the happy mood that sight of Amy had given him. Every time his thoughts were thrust back to the death of his wife he swooped into the depths of dismay, the loss of her was too convenient. What could they do to escape from her?
He wondered if Amy would consider moving away, beginning again in another town, not far away, but far enough to avoid seeing the well-known things, things that were a part of his life with Imogine. He knew before he asked himself the question that Amy would refuse. Her life was here, her children were a part of the village. Margaret settled in school, her music lessons, even Freddy, who was a boy soldier, still belonged here. No, the answer lay in facing it, being bold and facing it. People would show their disapproval but it would all die away. A few months and they would be just another married couple.
His shoulders sagged slightly as he sat at the wheel of his van waiting for a herd of cows to pass across the road and into a field. How, with two sons and a daughter still grieving for their mother, how could he and Amy celebrate their love for each other? When they were together it was easy to pretend all would be well. Amy’s brave words of them marrying in six months’ time heartened him, but the glow faded as soon as he left her, leaving him with a dragging realisation that with the loss of his wife and the freedom it brought, nothing had really changed.
He stopped at a phone box and dialled the number of the shop.
‘Amy, come to the pictures tonight?’
‘I don’t know. Where will I find a baby sitter with such short notice?’
‘Ask Nelly. Tell her you’ve got a date with a handsome man. If she thinks you’re going with Billie Brown she’ll come like a shot,’ he joked. She agreed to try and he climbed back into the van with a feeling of excitement. At least they would be together, touching, alone in the darkness of the cinema for a few hours. It wasn’t much, but better than the loneliness in which thought chased thought and got him nowhere. He began to whistle cheerfully as he approached his next call.
* * *
When Nelly finished her work for the day she didn’t go home. With the large dogs pulling her along like some parody of an Art Nouveau statuette, she headed past Amy’s shop and on to where Hilda Evans lived. She had been uneasy ever since she had let slip that Griff and Bethan Toogood were having an affair, specially since no one had seen Hilda since the visit to Swansea Prison.
There was no reply to her knock on the front door but not one to give up easily, she went around to the lane and walked through the garage that smelled of oil and grease, and in which the remnants of several motorbikes were spread. Another door led her into the garden and she saw at once that the back door was open.
She tied the dogs to a convenient tree and called, ‘Hilda? You all right?’ There was no reply, but sounds from within suggested that Hilda might be on her way to the door. ‘You all right, Hilda?’ she called again.
Hilda appeared in the kitchen, her usual, large toothed smile on her wrinkled face. ‘Come in, Nelly. If you promise to keep a secret, I’ll show you something.’
‘Cut me throat and ’ope to die,’ Nelly said, drawing a finger across her neck with enthusiasm.
Hilda led her into the small front room of the house and there, half in and half out of a shoe-box, were more pound notes than Nelly had ever seen. More, many more than when Amy counted up her day’s takings.
‘Blimey, ’Ilda! Where did that come from?’
‘My Griff’s little nest egg. He hopes to give himself a good start when he comes out of prison. Poor dab. He’s going to have one hell of a disappointment!’
‘What d’you mean? You’re going to ’and it to the police ain’t yer? It is stolen, ain’t it? Money pinched from the likes of Archie Pierce?’
‘Yes, but I’m afraid the police won’t see any of it. I might slip a few pounds under Archie’s door, mind, but as for the rest, well, people have recovered from the loss now and… Nelly, I’ve never had any luck, not in all my forty-three years. I can’t hand it back.’
‘But what will you do with it?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I do know I’m going to have some fun with it. Fun, Nelly. Fun has always been what other people have. This is a chance for me to find out, first hand, what it feels like to have fun.’
‘This is all my fault,’ Nelly sighed. ‘If I ’adn’t believed you knew, and let it out about your Griff and that stupid Bethan Toogood, you’d never have considered doing this.’
‘I went into that prison and acted the devoted, forgiving wife, stupid and trusting and honest. I came out and threw off the act like a coat that no longer fitted. I’m glad you told me, Nelly. I might have gone on the way I am for the rest of my life. D’you know,’ she went on, her dark eyes shining in the animated face, ‘I look in every mirror I pass and each time I see my reflection I like it less. Tomorrow all that will change.’
‘Blimey, what you goin’ to do, for Gawd’s sake?’
‘A proper hair-do for a start.’ She pulled down one of the curls which had just been released from a curler. Black, but with a touch of redness that makes it look like rust has set in, Nelly thought. ‘And I’m going to Boots and ask the girl there about makeup. Yes, don’t look so shocked, Nelly. And,’ she leaned towards Nelly and widened her smile so that her teeth threatened to engulf her, ‘next week, I’m going to order a new set of teeth.’
‘Thank Gawd fer that!’ Nelly said. ‘Those look like they was made for a pantomime horse!’
‘Being a mistress isn’t fair on wives you know,’ Hilda went on, her fingers tucking the piles of notes back into the box. ‘She gets the best of a man while the wife is left with the worst. She only has to be attentive for a little while now and then, so she can be glamorous and can pretend to be interested in his every word. She has to be fun for the short while they’re together. Not for her the washing boiling over or the grease on the carpet from the motorbikes, the hurry to iron a favourite shirt, the irritations and the anger. She will listen sympathetically as he tells her of his wife’s nagging, her untidiness and extravaganc
e. Married women stop seeing their husband as the man they’d once found attractive and irresistible. They become wrapped up in the day-to-day routine worries and the boredom. The “other woman” doesn’t.’
It was the longest speech Hilda had ever made. Nelly wanted to spring up in defence of the ‘other woman’, knowing Amy had been in that situation three times, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
‘So you’re going to spend his money while he’s in prison then.’
‘Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t? He’s been giving ‘her’ the money that I had to work in that fish and chip shop yard to earn! She was paying me and he was giving it back to her and Arthur, that son of hers! Don’t you find that ironic, Nelly?’
‘Don’t you think you ought to return it to the police?’
‘Would it go back to Archie?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Here.’ Hilda handed four pound notes to Nelly. ‘Take this and stuff it through Archie’s door. He’s the only one I feel any regret for. Hasn’t got much and him old and on his own.’ Nelly put her hands behind her back.
‘I wouldn’t touch it. You do what you think is right.’
‘You won’t tell, Nelly?’
‘You can be sure of that. I’ll try and ferget I’ve seen or ’eard any of it.’
‘D’you know, that brazen Bethan has sent her son up here to ask me when I am going back to work? The cheek of it! I didn’t let on that I knew about her and Griff, mind. I just said I didn’t think I would be well enough to work in the cold yard for a few weeks. I don’t want her going to Griff and letting on that I know. I want it to be a wonderful surprise when he comes out and finds there isn’t a home for him here any more!’ Hilda’s face glowed and, for a brief moment, Nelly glimpsed beneath the wrinkled skin, the ill-kempt hair and the over-large teeth, a new personality emerging.
* * *
Mavis Powell lived in the flat above Amy’s shop with her husband, Ralph. Their daughter, Sheila, the wife of the absent Maurice Davies, lived with her grandmother up in the council houses. Although Sheila was married, Mavis felt no release from the torment of having a rather wayward daughter. Married she might be, but she was still a constant worry and, although Mavis hated admitting it, an embarrassment, too.
The post had arrived as she had stepped out of the side door and walked into the shop. Phil the post handed her an envelope which she recognised as an airmail letter. It had to be from Sheila’s husband. Maurice had admitted being responsible for Sheila’s pregnancy, called off his wedding to Delina Honeyman and married Sheila.
Unwillingly forced into the change of plan by herself and his own family, Maurice had made plans to compensate for their persuasions and the ruination of his life. The day following the wedding to Sheila he had disappeared, leaving a note to say he had emigrated to Australia.
There had been talk of him returning, Sheila had told them he was grief-stricken over the way he had treated her and was coming home to her. But that, Mavis thought with a frown, was as likely as having snow on mid-summer’s day! Any remorse shown by Maurice Davies would be a ploy to get something he wanted and nothing to do with his responsibilities to Sheila!
The letter remained unopened in her apron pocket until there was a lull in the flow of customers and Amy had made them a cup of coffee. She fingered the flimsy paper and wondered if she dare open it. Whatever news it contained it almost certainly meant trouble. When had Sheila ever been anything else?
‘I’ve had a letter from Australia, Amy,’ she said, taking it out and fingering it.
‘Oh? From Maurice I suppose. Does he say when he’s coming home?’
‘I haven’t opened it.’
‘Why? It’s the first communication you’ve ever received from your son-in-law, that must be exciting.’
‘Why do I expect trouble every time I hear about him? Him and that daughter of mine, they’re a right pair!’
‘Good might come of it all now he’s decided to come home.’
‘If Sheila’s baby had lived I’d have thought it worth while, but all he did was mess her up even more than getting her in the family way. Best he’d married that Delina Honeyman and left us to sort out the rest.’
‘Open it for goodness sake!’ Amy took the envelope and slit the top and handed it back to Mavis.
‘He didn’t spend long on it, did he?’ Mavis said, holding up the single page of writing. She began to read and when she had done so, she handed the letter to Amy. ‘Go on, read it and tell me what I should do.’
Maurice had begun the letter, ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Powell’, not mother-in-law and father-in-law. He said he wanted to come home to Sheila but had the chance of a job which, if kept for a year or so, would help clear his debts and return the money his family had sent out for his fare home. He asked that Mrs Powell look after Sheila for him and asked her to understand that this was for the best.
Amy handed the letter back to Mavis and shrugged. ‘Knowing Maurice Davies, I suspect that he’s found himself a girl and is enjoying himself too much to leave Australia at present!’
‘And how am I going to comfort Sheila with that bit of news!’
‘Sheila already knows.’
Both women jumped and stared at the doorway where Sheila stood, haloed in the light of a weak sun. She stayed there, a slim and very attractive young woman, dressed in a tight-fitting blouse and a straight skirt that enhanced her generous bust and her small waist. The three-quarter coat she wore was open. Sheila always refused to put comfort before appearance. She tried never to hide her figure. Even in the coldest weather she would defy the chill wind and allow her coat to be blown wide to show the way her full breasts stretched the cloth of her blouse.
There was something in her expression, too, that made men stare and her mother feel fear. She was so brazen. Where did she get such boldness, Mavis constantly asked herself, and why did she court trouble by showing it?
Sheila stayed in the doorway and, opening her shoulder bag, took out a letter identical to the one her mother still held. ‘I see you’ve had a letter, too. From my loving husband telling me he can’t come home to me and how devastated it makes him? He must think I’m twp! Found a girl he has and he thinks you can keep me sweet until he’s bored with her. Well, two can play that game!’
‘Sheila!’ Mavis ran to the door and scuttled after the hip-swinging figure of her daughter. A blue letter fluttered from the girl’s hands and fell to the road way. Mavis stopped following her daughter to capture it. Best that no one else read it, her anxious mind warned. She walked slowly back to the shop.
Sheila caught the bus into town. She was late for work but that didn’t matter. The way she felt at the moment she would resign if the manageress even began to complain. She stopped in the post office in Llan Gwyn and wrote a letter to Amy’s soldier son, Freddy. At least she had the sense to keep him hanging on. He’d console her for her disappointment. ‘Freddy Prichard,’ she whispered, ‘you are too young, too dull, but at least you’re available and relatively harmless.’
* * *
On Freddy’s next leave he didn’t write to tell his mother he would be home. Amy would be pleased to see him whether or not he had told her he was coming. Best wait to see what Sheila had in mind. From her letter and a subsequent phone call, she was beginning to feel more affection for him. Hope, which had been dashed more often than he cared to remember, was rising once again.
He arrived at Swansea station and stepped out into the dull winter day and looked around. Tall and strongly built, he looked older than his sixteen years. He wasn’t a vain boy but he stopped and put his rimless glasses back on his nose, the ones he used when in uniform happily abandoned for a few days.
He didn’t expect anyone to meet him but paused just to take in the sounds and scents of his home town. To his surprise and proud pleasure, Sheila hailed him from the doorway of the Grand Hotel opposite the station entrance and ran into his arms.
She kissed him, lightl
y he had to admit, but nevertheless with obvious delight. Then, with her arm around his waist he tucked her into his shoulder and they walked down the High Street to catch the bus for Hen Carw Parc.
Johnny Cartwright was driving the bus. Just his luck. Now he’d tell everyone and his mother would know he was home.
‘Don’t tell Mam I’m home,’ he pleaded, ‘I want to give her a surprise.’
Johnny winked and touched his nose. ‘Not a word, boy,’ he said, then he jerked his head back towards the women who were getting on in front of them. ‘Can’t say you’ve much chance with them, mind. Nosy-bugger Beynon and her friend.’
‘We’d better go straight to Mam, I think,’ Freddy sighed, recognising the prim and disapproving face of his Auntie Prue.
‘Do we have to?’ Sheila pleaded, widening her eyes in a way she knew he liked.
‘To be honest, I’m broke. I’ll have to go and ask Mam for a sub.’
‘All right, we’ll go to your Mam’s then we’ll go up to Gran’s, all right? It’s quiet there, we can… talk.’ She said ‘talk’ as if she meant a great deal more.
Waving goodbye to Johnny, they crossed the road from the bus stop and walked towards Amy’s house. The sound of a piano met them as they touched the gate and Freddy stopped.
‘Good, isn’t she? Little Margaret passing exams and playing on a stage. Who’d have believed it?’
‘Come on, Freddy, I want us to get home.’
Amy was in the kitchen and when she opened the door she expected to see Victor. For a brief second she hesitated, confused seeing her son and Sheila Davies standing there smiling.
‘Freddy, love! What a surprise! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? There’s only a scrap meal and I’d have done something special. Sheila, come on in.’ She bustled them through the cold hallway to the living room where a fire burned brightly. They sat close together, holding hands on the big, comfortable couch. ‘How long have you got this time, love?’ she asked, busying herself with the kettle. ‘I hope it’s longer than a few hours.’ She wished she could stop talking full pelt. But Sheila always made her on edge. The girl was using Freddy and he was too stupid, or too infatuated, to see it. That he might be really in love with her she refused to consider.
Valley in Bloom Page 4