‘That’s hardly surprising. She’s had several in the past and they don’t stay long. She gets tired of them very quickly, doesn’t she?’
‘Usually, but this time they’ve booked their wedding.’
‘What!’
‘She doesn’t have a ring and she’s only know him a few months but they are getting married at the register office on the eighth of November, would you believe.’
‘Well I suppose, if it works out, it will be nice for her. After all you’ll probably marry one day and otherwise she’d be on her own.’
‘Of course she wouldn’t. We run the tea rooms together and that wouldn’t change.’
‘But she’s still young … ish!’
‘She’s forty. I’m twenty-two. She was only eighteen when I was born.’
‘Twenty-two and I’m three years older. Time we were married, Seranne. Are you sure you won’t marry my brother?’
Seranne put on a mock serious expression and said, ‘Even Tony would be better than being on the shelf, I suppose.’ Then they laughed. It was a long-standing joke between them.
‘What about this party a week Saturday night? Or we could go to the local hop this week instead of my date with Keith? We aren’t that passionate about each other any more and I’d be glad of the excuse to cancel.’
‘I don’t feel like dancing.’
‘A good reason to go then, you misery!’
‘All right. Better than watching Mum and Paul canoodling.’
Babs sighed. ‘I could to with a nice canoodle, couldn’t you?’
On Saturday it was again Tony who obliged with transport and the two girls set off with the intention of having a good time. They both enjoyed dancing although they didn’t go as often as they would have liked because of the very early start to their days. There were several girls there they knew and with their mood set for fun they found laughter easy.
To their surprise, Paul Curtis walked in and almost immediately began to dance with a young woman, whispering in her ear, making her laugh. Angry, the mood ruined, Seranne waited until Babs had joined a group of their friends, then left the hall and spent the rest of the evening in the cloak-room, blaming Paul for her ruined evening.
The following morning, after staying the night with Babs, she refused a lift home and left early to get home by bus. Being Sunday there were fewer buses and after several long delays, she wished she hadn’t been so insistent on refusing Tony’s offer of a lift. But she knew this was the only morning when Tony could sleep later than usual. Besides, she needed to be on her own, to decide what – if anything – to say to her mother.
She kept thinking of Paul flirting with the young girl and feared for her mother, who seemed to be about to make another mistake. She got off the bus some distance from home, unable to sit any longer, filled with the need to walk. It wasn’t far and the crisp cold morning made it almost pleasurable. Mist shrouded the trees, frost glistened on the pavement and she felt her feet slide, unstable on the three-inch heels of her dancing shoes. Stupid to walk in them. Why hadn’t she carried some sensible ones?
Muttering to herself, walking cautiously, rather like a drunk, she stepped on to the road and made her way across to where a light glowed from above the dark windows of the tea rooms. She wondered if her mother knew where Paul had spent his evening and the temptation to tell her was strong. Surely she ought to be told? If she were to marry him, and find out too late that he was a womanizer surely that would be worse than making her face it now?
She felt a chill of guilt knowing that her resentment towards mother’s plan to marry was not really because she thought Paul unsuitable. The truth was she was afraid. Her mother was the only person in her life apart from a few friends; no relations, not even a distant cousin. Her mind kept filling with imaginary scenes. None were pleasant. She was taken by various routes into the future, each one a trip to loneliness, while her mother and Paul went off together, their lives filled with laughter and happiness.
Her resentment towards her mother marrying was because she was afraid of being left alone. How selfish was that?
She stood on the pavement hesitating about going in. Ignoring her freezing cold feet in the flimsy shoes, she walked past the flat unwilling to go inside, then back again to stare through the windows of the tea rooms, wishing it would all return to normal. She crossed the road, wishing there was somewhere to go for an hour or two while she calmed her restive thoughts. How could she pretend everything was all right, knowing Paul had been out dancing while her mother – his fiancée – had sat at home unaware? Surely she had to tell her. Not for selfish reasons, but to save her mother from making a big mistake.
‘You’re wandering around as though you’re lost, but as you live across the road that can’t be true.’ The voice startled her and she turned to see the man from the corner table looking down at her, his smile barely visible in the early morning gloom.
‘I was thinking!’ she said, embarrassment making her voice sharp.
‘Don’t let me interrupt, then.’
He slowly backed away, arms open in apology, and on impulse she added, ‘I’m thinking about my mother.’
‘Oh? Is it something I can help with? I’ll listen if you want to talk.’
‘She’s getting married.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘The man she’s planning to marry was at a dance in Cwm Derw last night.’
‘Cwm Derw? That’s a long way to go for a dance.’
‘My friends have a bakery there.’
‘Hopkins?’
‘Yes, and he was there, dancing and flirting with a young woman.’
‘You’re probably jumping to conclusions. Men and women dance together and have fun together without automatically misbehaving.’
‘We’ve seen him there before.’
‘You’re wondering whether or not to tell your mother?’
‘D’you think I should?’
‘Most definitely not! You can’t interfere in the lives of others, without knowing all the facts. I’ve had experience of how devastating that can be.’ With that he walked away, leaving her wondering what sadness he’d experienced and also, whether in her mother’s case, her not talking could have a more devastating result. Still uncertain about what to do, she went up the stairs calling to her mother.
‘I caught the early bus,’ she told Jessie when she went inside.
‘Oh? Did you enjoy the dance? You must have seen Paul there.’
‘Paul? Well. I – I thought I saw him but presumed I was mistaken.’
‘No, he was with friends celebrating their daughter’s twenty-first birthday. Something arranged a long time ago. I was invited, but thought it better not to go.’
Seranne wondered whether she would dare tell the man at the corner table he had been right. He had saved her from storming in, in her usual quick-tempered way, telling her mother she was being fooled and upsetting her. She was grateful not to have made a terrible mistake.
Her mother was in the kitchen dealing with a fresh batch of cooking the following morning when the man she now knew as Luke came in and made his way to his usual place. Self-consciously she went to ask for his order and at once said, ‘You were right, about not telling my mother. She already knew.’
‘Good, I can understand how difficult it must be for someone like you to hold back.’
‘What d’you mean?’
He looked into her eyes, laughter in his, offended injury in hers which quickly changed to embarrassment when he said softly, ‘Are there omelettes on the menu? I saw you quarrelling with a small terrier a few days ago.’
‘Yes. Well. He startled me and eggs aren’t easy to replace.’ She took out the small notebook with its dangling pencil and said, ‘One of our scones with jam and cream served separately? Thank you, sir.’ There was just a slight edge to the ‘sir’.
Her mother went out that evening and Seranne sat in the living-room doing neat darns on some of the worn tablecloths bef
ore ironing them. She thought about Paul and wondered whether this time her mother might have got it right.
Jessie had been married three times, firstly to Seranne’s father, who had died when she was a baby in 1930, then to Simon Laurence, who gave Seranne his name when he adopted her. They were divorced when she was ten and he had dropped completely out of their lives. The third was Peter Wood who had disappeared during the war, but Seranne suspected he hadn’t died, but had resulted in another divorce. Since then there had been several friends but none lasted very long, to Seranne’s relief. Although each one was different from the last, there was always the fear that they would stay and make changes to her life. She knew the fears were selfish, but running the tea rooms with her mother was all she had ever known.
From what she had gathered, Paul Curtis owned a small factory making leather goods, mostly shopping bags, travel bags and ladies handbags, but also wallets and shaving cases and manicure sets. He drove a smart Vauxhall car and dressed well. He obviously had money and certainly didn’t lack charm. Perhaps he would be the one to make her mother happy. Perhaps too Luke was right, and it wasn’t her place to offer an opinion. But however she fought it, the fear was still there. Tony was right, she was afraid of change. A third person would ruin the pleasant way she and her mother lived their lives.
Jessie was so happy as she planned her wedding that Seranne hid her doubts and pretended to share the excitement. She hated the way the flat was rearranged to make room for Paul. The furniture was shuffled around and several pieces were discarded. A small table that had been her grandmother’s disappeared, taken by Paul together with her father’s desk and chair while she was out, and she didn’t get a sensible reply when she asked their whereabouts.
‘Your mother didn’t want them any longer,’ Paul explained. ‘Isn’t that sufficient reason to find them a good home?’
She suspected him of selling them and outwitting him became a game. She arranged for Tony to collect anything her mother decided to discard for Babs to look after, ready for that distant ‘one day’ when she might need them for a home of her own. A couple of armchairs and a painting that Paul declared he disliked were put in store before Paul could remove them, and if he was disappointed he didn’t show it.
She had mixed feelings as her mother’s bedroom was rearranged and prepared for sharing, drawers emptied and space made in the wardrobe for his clothes. New bedding had been acquired and Seranne found it embarrassing to think of her mother sharing a bed with this stranger who was coming into their lives.
She began searching the newspapers for evening activities to join, anything to avoid spending evenings in the flat. How could she sit there and make conversation while they stared into each other’s eyes and wished her elsewhere? Yet there were things she and Jessie needed to discuss. They would still share responsibility for the tea rooms and that meant working together and discussing the day to day running of the place.
As the wedding day approached, Seranne discussed her worries with Babs on the telephone and Babs came up several times using the bakery van and encouraged Seranne to get all her worries out in the open. She tried to coax her not to be so afraid. ‘Why should anything change?’ she insisted. ‘Paul won’t interfere with the business. He owns a factory making leather bags. How can that give him the authority to advise on selling cakes in a café?’
‘Tea rooms,’ Seranne corrected with a grin. ‘Mum hates it referred to as a café.’
‘I can’t say I blame her when I think of the awful “caff” we have in Cwm Derw. But come on, give them a chance. What are you buying them as a wedding present?’
‘Heavens, I haven’t decided yet!’
‘Then let’s go into Maes Hir on Wednesday. It’s market day and there’s sure to be something there that will suit.’
‘A pair of kippers?’
‘That isn’t the attitude. Come on, she’s your mum and deserves something really nice.’
They eventually found a charming White Friars glass vase and a pair of good quality towels, which a friend of Babs embroidered with ‘his’ and ‘hers’.
‘I’ll buy them something really special for their first anniversary,’ Seranne said as she wrapped them.
‘You don’t think they’ll last that long, do you?’
‘I hope they do, I really hope they will be blissfully happy, but there’s something about Paul that makes me distrust him. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit to being worried for my mother.’
The day of the wedding came around fast. The tea rooms closed for the day and many customers gathered to see the bride leave in a large Rolls Royce hired for the day by Paul.
Seranne wore a silk dress in pale honey, a charming contrast to her mother’s gown in sky blue. Babs came as a second witness in a dress a few shades deeper than Seranne’s. None of Paul’s family came, although several gifts arrived with apologies for their inability to attend. A three-year-old girl, the daughter of a customer, presented Jessie with a silver horseshoe and the local chimney sweep arrived to wish them good fortune.
It was a happy interlude, but coming back to the flat it became a rather sombre affair. Seranne and Babs had decorated the rooms and even the staircase with bunting and a few balloons, and they had prepared a buffet, but the guests were so few it lacked gaiety, the laughter seemed forced and the affair was low-key and almost sad. Seranne and Jessie had no known relatives and being so busy with the tea rooms meant they had little time for social events, so they had made few real friends. Neighbours and several regular customers made up the numbers and the result made them feel like strangers in their own home. Both Paul and Jessie were relieved when it was time for them to leave for their brief honeymoon in Tenby.
‘Will you be all right in the flat on your own?’ Tony asked Seranne, giving a stupidly large wink as he and Babs were leaving. ‘I’ll stay if you like?’
‘I’d rather borrow Mrs Baker’s dog!’ she replied, pointing them both towards the door.
She had never been in the flat on her own at night and as time for bed approached, she wished she had asked Babs to stay. She hesitated to undress and when she had pulled on her nightgown wearing so few clothes made her feel vulnerable and she was tempted to redress in her day clothes and sleep on the armchair. She went downstairs three times to check that the doors were locked and kept the wireless playing to give the illusion of not being alone in the almost alien building.
The hollowness of the empty rooms around her and the silent tea rooms below isolating her from the rest of the community made her heart race and she began listening for the sound of someone entering and threatening her. Like a child, she was in need of the reassurance of a small light. In her heightened state of anxiety, the sounds of the building, its creaks and sighs, seemed much louder than usual and it was a long time before she settled.
The following day was a Sunday and she had a leisurely breakfast sitting in front of the electric fire, still in her dressing gown. She smiled as she thought of her mother’s disapproval. Jessie always insisted on a mannerly approach to mealtimes. A knock at the door surprised her. It was hardly eight o’clock.
Babs mocked her as she stepped inside. ‘Still in your nightie? Shame on you! Come on, we’re going out.’
‘It’s Sunday. Where is there to go on a Sunday morning in November?’
‘Tony has the car as Dad doesn’t need it, and we’re going out for the day.’
‘I can’t, Babs. There’s the cleaning to do and—’
‘And between us we can sort that in an hour. Tony is taking us to the seaside and we’re having lunch with our Auntie Megan. Come on, it’s all arranged.’
Tony ran up the stairs a few moments later and the three of them started to deal with the usual Sunday routine. They settled for the absolute minimal and prepared for the unexpected day out. He drove them to a small cottage near the river in the Vale of Glamorgan and Seranne found herself hugged and greeted like a lost relative by Babs’s Auntie Megan. When Uncl
e Richie came in from the frosty garden with leeks and some Brussels sprouts, the affectionate greeting was repeated.
While Auntie Megan prepared lunch, they walked along the river, Tony pointing out the various birds in the bare branches and describing the days out he and Babs had enjoyed as children. The chill wind made Seranne’s face rosy and her eyes shone with the pleasure of the unexpected treat. The meal was huge and delicious and when she returned to the empty flat to await the return of her mother and her stepfather she was happier than she’d been for a long time.
She was filled with the smug feeling of having cheated by not following her mother’s strict routine of Sunday cleaning. Tony hinted this wouldn’t be the last. Perhaps Paul’s arrival meant a freedom she hadn’t known she lacked?
She set the table for supper for three and sat reading a book and it was a while before the sound of dripping water penetrated her thoughts. At first she thought the weather had warmed and turned to rain. Then she realized the sound was inside. Investigation soon led to the problem. In the kitchen, where the new sink had been installed, where old lead piping met new copper, there was a leak. She needed a plumber – and fast.
She grabbed a coat and set off for the house where the plumber who had dealt with the work lived. The house was ominously dark. He wasn’t at home. Now what could she do? She stood irresolute, looking around as though a solution was hidden in the darkness. Nothing for it but to go back and continue catching the drips in a bucket. Surely her mother and Paul would be back soon, and Paul would know what to do? Time passed and in despair she phoned the bakery and asked Tony for his help.
He contacted a friend living near the tea rooms who came at once. When Jessie walked in, their kitchen was filled with tools and people: Tony and two friends – one the plumber – plus Seranne making tea and Babs trying to help. The floor was awash and while Babs and Tony mocked her, Seranne was scolding the plumber, warning him that she expected him to clear up the mess he was making.
Time to Move On Page 2