‘Perhaps she wasn’t thinking clearly, in spite of what the doctor wrote. She was very ill for most of your marriage.’
‘Her mind was as clear as yours.’ There was bitterness in his voice. ‘What am I going to do? I’ll have to come back to the Ship and Compass, won’t I?’
‘We won’t make any decisions until we know all the facts.’
‘Are you saying you’ll let me down too? That you won’t welcome me back home?’ Betty declined to remind him that the Ship was hers alone. She had a painfully guilty feeling, because welcoming him home was not what she wanted. Not at all.
The bar was open when they went in but there were few customers. Alun was polishing glasses and talking to Colin Jones, who wore an old railways coat which he used for gardening, and she glanced at the floor to see that he’d left his usual trail of mud from the door to the bar and from there to the table near the fire. Today she didn’t care. Ed’s problem was her problem as well and she needed to talk to Alun in private. If Ed came back it would affect Alun too.
There was no opportunity as Ed went straight to tell him what had happened. She couldn’t hear his words but from the whining tone she could guess what he was saying. Her heart was racing; she was afraid that Alun would suggest moving out, believing it was what she would want.
There were constant interruptions when she tried to talk to Alun, mostly when Ed came in for another session of stating his dismay and misery. When they did have an opportunity she hesitated, unsure how best to explain how she felt and that resulted in Alun believing she was hesitating out of embarrassment at having to tell him to leave.
As she served the desultory few, she was rehearsing what she would say to make him understand that she didn’t want him to leave, not now, not ever. Putting all she felt into words was impossible, yet somehow she had to make him understand that when Ed had moved out, leaving her without help, she’d had to cope and, although she loved her brother, he now had to rebuild his own future and not expect to scuttle back to her, ruin her life, and expect everything to be made easy for him.
Another family in Cwm Derw was having problems. At the bakery, Babs had been summoned to a meeting, at which Tony and her parents told her they were building a new, larger, more modern bake house behind a larger shop they had bought, and they wanted her agreement.
‘I don’t agree,’ she said at once. ‘We’ve had this discussion time and again and I still believe we should stay with what we have. Extending and changing everything is a risk. We have a comfortable living here so why go for something new and unknown? It could be a disaster.’
‘All through the war and the years since, we’ve been restricted. Building was impossible and expanding the business was just a dream. Now it’s 1953, Queen Elizabeth will be crowned on 2 June. A new Elizabethan age. Everyone is looking to the future and making plans. We want to move on.’
‘Why?’ Babs asked again.
‘I’m young and everyone wants to make his mark,’ Tony said.
‘I don’t.’
Her mother looked away and her father coughed nervously. ‘Babs, love, if you don’t want to be a part of this expansion, we understand and we’re willing to give you your share of the money to do what you want.’
‘Buy me out?’
‘I suppose so, but giving you the opportunity to leave what you no longer enjoy and start again is a kinder way of saying it. You chose to leave the business, to run that café so now you no longer take any interest in the bakery, it seems the best solution.’
‘But I am interested. In fact, I want to come back and run the shop. I hate the café serving all those boring woman as they sit and gossip for ages over one small coffee and a bun. Seranne will make a far better manageress than I ever will.’
‘Too late,’ Tony said. ‘We’ll soon be advertising the shop for sale and we’ll move out as soon as the new premises are complete.’
Brother and sister continued to argue, going over the same points time after time, neither willing to give in. They were different sides of a very high fence. Their parents sighed and left the room. This was a quarrel no one could win. By the time they parted, faces ugly with acrimonious fury, it was seven o’clock on a dark, cold March evening.
Babs refused to sit and eat the meal her mother had prepared, and ran from the house. There was a bus coming and she ran for it as though it was her last chance and got off at the top of the lane near Badgers Brook.
When she knocked on the door of Badgers Brook, pushed it open and called, Seranne greeted her with pleasure. ‘What a lovely surprise, Babs. Come in, Kitty’s here, she brought me a helping of soup for my supper. Plenty for two if you’re staying.’
‘Thanks, I’d love to.’ She went into the warm living-room where Kitty sat in an armchair near the blazing fire. ‘Hello Mrs Jennings, not interrupting, am I?’
‘I’m just off to give my Bob his supper. But not because you’ve come, mind,’ Kitty said with a laugh.
Seranne set the table in the kitchen and served the bowls of lentil soup, flavoured with onions and a few bacon bones begged from the grocer. Babs said nothing until they had eaten and were sitting beside the fire nursing their cups of tea. ‘Seranne, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Tell me about it,’ her friend coaxed.
Babs explained about her family’s plan to sell the baker’s shop and move into a new premises. ‘I disagree and tonight they told me they’re going on with it without my consent. They offered to buy me out, give me my share of the money and let me start again with something I want to do.’
‘And?’
‘I wanted to go back to the shop and sell bread and cakes, but it’s too late. They’re selling and I’m losing my home.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic. You can still live at home, unless you feel it’s time to move on? And they will certainly find you a job. But it’s a good time to stop and think how you want to spend the rest of your life. I left when I realized I was getting in the way of my mother’s new marriage. It’s a frightening feeling, like hanging over a river on a branch that might break off at any moment. But it doesn’t. Young people do it all the time, leave the safety of home and move on.’
‘I don’t want to stay in the café. Even with your help – which makes me realize what a cheat I am, applying for a job I couldn’t do.’
Seranne looked at her thoughtfully. ‘What if we could buy it, run it our own way, would that make you enjoy it?’
‘Buy it? Buy the café?’
‘I have some savings and with what your parents plan to give you we could afford it, although it would be run on a shoestring at first. If you could make the bread, in fact do all the baking, we could advertise home-made cakes and bread and the smell alone would bring ’em in!’ Warming to the idea she had been incubating for a while, she went on. ‘There’s a lot we could do to increase trade, appearance for a start. It’s never been made to look very appealing, has it?’
Their tea went cold as they sat there in the calm quiet of the old house and allowed their thoughts to tumble over the possibilities. The clock marked the hours unnoticed when they took out paper and pens and started working out what their idea would mean. By adding together their funds, the cost of buying the business plus the expenses of smartening it up seemed a possibility and their eyes glowed with the excitement.
‘I’d need a larger room than the kitchen we have at present,’ Babs said. ‘Could we afford to extend? Even double it?’
‘It’s a question of permits for new building, but I can’t see that it’s impossible, can you? Things are far less tight than a couple of years ago.’
‘My family will know all about building permits!’ Babs said, wryly. ‘They’ve been investigating for months.’
‘We wouldn’t be able to do anything straightaway, we’d have to see how the finances work out, but …’
Babs laughed then. ‘There’s me coming here for a moan because my family are making changes and just hours later I’m planning an e
xpansion of my own!’
‘There’s a lot to find out, the first being whether Mr Griffiths will sell. I did hear rumours about him wanting to retire, which is why I had already been thinking about this idea.’
‘How can we run a business? I haven’t the first idea.’
‘I believe that if you really want something, then all you need is determination and a small pinch of luck.’
‘My parents said this is a perfect time for making plans. It’s coronation year, we’re now in the new Elizabethan age.’
‘Maybe they’re right and it’s a time to be bold. There’s excitement in the air although the coronation is a couple of months away. Already the streets are planning the decorations and the street parties. We could pretend they are for us too, Babs.’
‘I’m so glad I came here tonight, or I’d have flopped on the bed bemoaning my misfortunes, and waking up in the morning convinced I’ve been cruelly treated.’
‘It’s this house,’ Seranne told her. ‘Badgers Brook takes away all negative thoughts and gives you a chance to think things out clearly.’
They sat silently for a while, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere of the house. Its walls issued warmth and comfort and they both knew that it was this which had helped them make their important decision and was assuring them that everything would be all right.
Betty and Alun tried several times to talk about Ed’s shock and disappointment at his wife’s surprising decision. It wasn’t an easy subject as each thought they could guess what the other was thinking. Alun believed that with her brother Ed back at the Ship, Betty would no longer need him. She was certain to want him to leave, even if she found it hard to tell him so. He had to make it easier for her by telling her he was going away.
Betty was convinced that Alun had stayed as long as he had just for her benefit and would be relieved to be able to leave and find a place where he could return to what he did best, running a restaurant. They skirted around the subject in a casual way, neither able to explain how they really felt.
Ed was still bitter about Elsie’s treatment of him and made it quite clear he wanted – and expected – to come back, but Betty insisted he had to stay at the guest house until Mary Anne Crisp was found and the place was claimed. He reacted like a child when she tried to remind him that the Ship was hers alone and no longer his home.
‘You left me without a thought when you and Elsie decided to marry and I understood. After all, you had your own life to lead and only stayed because there was nowhere else you wanted to be. Until Elsie.’
‘But it’s my home, Betty. I haven’t known anywhere else.’
‘Until Elsie,’ she reminded him again. ‘You chose to take your share of the place and I became sole owner many years ago.’
‘You’ll come and help with the breakfast?’ he asked.
‘Not permanently. Just until you find someone else to help.’
It was very late when he went out muttering that the Ship was still his home, refusing to accept that he no longer owned a share of it.
Alun listened and was sad. He stepped outside leaving Betty to her thoughts. A heavy mist had fallen, blanketing the houses and reducing the street lights to hazy lollipops. It was late and his footsteps sounded extra loud as he walked along the street, past the post office and the houses where only a few lights showed. With no destination in mind he walked along the path leading to the allotments, the planting in precise rows hardly visible. A rabbit hopped across his view and he wondered if the gardeners would lose a few treats, but he didn’t attempt to chase it away. An owl hooted and its melancholy sound persuaded him to return to where there were at least signs of people.
Walking past the guest house, still avoiding going back to the Ship, he was startled to hear someone call his name. ‘Ed?’ he answered. ‘What are you doing out so late?’
‘Same as you I expect, trying to decide what to do.’
‘You have to stay on, at least until the new owner is found, don’t you?’
‘Do I? When Betty wants me to go back home?’
‘Is that what she wants?’
‘Of course it is. We worked together for years until I gave it up to marry Elsie. If only I’d known.’
‘What would you have done differently?’
‘I loved her you know.’
‘Then you would still have married her and looked after her, so what have you really lost?’
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’ Ed turned and went in, banging the door loudly.
Alun stared after him for a long time, the mist beginning to move in swirling patterns as the wind began to rise. He was chilled, having worn insufficient clothing for the late hour but the chill inside was the worst.
He knew he had to leave. Betty was showing anger towards Ed but her anger was misplaced, she was angry with herself for not agreeing to have him back at the Ship. She wants to help her brother but is hesitating because of me, he told himself. I have to help her by walking away. Even if it breaks my heart.
Ed reopened the door of the guest house and stood in the misty darkness looking out at the garden he had tended, making the guest house an attractive first impression for visitors. The lawn was neatly cut and the flower beds dug and raked ready for the annuals he had growing in the greenhouse at the back.
What hadn’t he done? How had he failed her that she could cut him out like this? Her treachery was worse by not warning him. Perhaps if they had talked about it she would have reconsidered. She might at least have tried to make him understand, given him the chance to make plans. Then he shrugged. What could she have said that would make sense of what she had done?
Shivering, he went inside and up to his room, dejected and conscious of being completely alone. What price love? Cheated by his wife whom he had loved, and not wanted by his sister, who said she loved him!
Another man staring unseeing into the mist was Luke. He sat in his car, lights turned off and stared up at the puny lights showing in the flat above the the tea rooms. What was going on? This successful business had been destroyed and Paul Curtis had rented a shop in Barry which was promised to be opened in two months time to sell fine china. So far as he could ascertain, the man wasn’t earning any money. He thought of the china that had belonged to Jessie’s tea rooms that he had sold. What else had he taken from Seranne’s mother to get his business idea started? And if money was his priority why had he ruined the business that had kept Seranne and Jessie in comfortable ease?
From his enquiries he had discovered that Paul had been borrowing wildly for months. When he had left the forces at the end of the war he had taken on a partner in the business left to him by his father. He had presumed the business ran itself as he had never done anything while his father had been alive and it soon suffered from his inability to do the necessary work. Money had been spent giving the impression of a wealthy man with no real need to worry about finance. Orders had fallen as he had neglected to take on the necessary work of running the place and all his best employees had gone.
Luke was almost certain Paul had used Jessie’s money to narrowly avoid bankruptcy, which would have meant he’d be unable to start again. What was curious was the way he had persuaded Jessie to neglect her own business and instead spend time and money having fun.
An outside light came on and he watched as Paul came out and hurried around to where his car was parked. Cautiously, Luke followed. It was late and there were few cars on the road, which made it difficult not to be seen following. Illegally shutting off his lights for brief moments and slowing right down, then speeding up again, was all he could do. He hoped Paul was too intent on getting to wherever he was going. He stopped when he guessed where the man was heading. Then he waited until the rear lights were out of sight and slowly headed for the house where Pat Sewell lived. Paul didn’t stay long and, reminding himself of his own rule about not jumping to conclusions, Luke drove away.
When Betty finished clearing the dishes from Ed’s breakfast she picked
up the letter she had taken from Mark Lacy and tried to persuade him to open it. As on several occasions before, he’d refused and in desperation, Betty tore it open and read it aloud. Then she read it again, more slowly.
Without an apology for not leaving the property for him, Elsie explained that having been left a large sum of money by an aunt she hardly knew which had changed her life, she had determined to do the same for someone else when her time came. She had been working as a cleaner in an hotel on the seafront in Tenby when she had been informed of the gift. Besides being unexpected, the money came with no stipulation about how it should be spent apart from the hope that the money was used to invest in a business and in turn would be passed on in the same unannounced way. The unexpected legacy had enabled her to buy the guest house and had made her financially secure for the rest of her life. Such a wonderfully generous gift was something for which she had never ceased being grateful and she determined to do the same for someone else. She explained, again without apology, that their marriage, when she knew she was seriously ill, hadn’t altered her resolution.
‘Right. I’m closing the guest house,’ Ed said firmly. ‘Why should I sit here like a lemon looking after it for someone I don’t even know? I’ll cancel the rest of the bookings, there aren’t many for April anyway. And I’ll move back next week.’
Filled with guilt at what she had to say, she shouted the words, startling Ed with their ferocity. ‘No, Ed! Why should you expect to walk back into the Ship? Alun and I manage very well, he works harder than you ever did, and I don’t want things to change.’
‘It’s my home,’ he insisted.
‘No! It isn’t! I own it and I run it and you’ve never been more than a passenger!’ Her voice rising even louder in anger, she stood and glared at him. ‘If you do come back – and I’ll have to think about that – you’ll rent a room and find a job to pay for it. I’m your sister, for heaven’s sake. Not a stupidly tolerant mother!’
Time to Move On Page 15