She still had moments when she feared he was dead. But for most of the time she imagined him sitting in some dingy room, trying to rebuild his life as she was trying to rebuild the tea rooms. By comparison with his, her task was simple. If only he would trust her enough to come back, they could work it all out together.
Her friend Matty Powell turned up one morning as she was washing down one of the kitchen walls. ‘Good heavens, Jessie! The place looked bad enough last time I came. What happened?’
‘Matty, lovely to see you. I’ll put the kettle on, I’m dying for a cuppa. We’d better go up to the flat, there isn’t anywhere clean enough to sit down here.’
When she told her friend about the fire and her brush with death she went on to tell her about Paul’s disappearance. ‘I wish I knew where he’d gone. If I could talk to him I know I could persuade him to come back to me. Ashamed he was, after all he tried to do he didn’t have the necessary luck. Poor darling.’
If Matty felt differently she said nothing. She let Jessie talk about her plans for reopening and kept away from the tender subject of the absent Paul. She knew from experience that agreeing with someone about the faults of a dear one could bring trouble later, when the faults were forgotten.
‘Come on,’ she said briskly. ‘Lend me an overall or something voluminous and I’ll give you a hand.’ Covered up with one of Paul’s shirts that had escaped the fire, she went back down to the café and spent the rest of the day beside Jessie, cleaning away the smoke stains from the walls.
Seranne was still trying to deal with the shock of inheriting Elsie Connors’s guest house. She had tried to speak to Ed, but apart from his brief comments about what was needed and handing her the weekly accounts, he walked away and ignored her. She went to two other solicitors and asked whether they had been given any papers belonging to Elsie, in case she had chosen a different firm to hold her final instructions. There was no sign of anything new. The will was firm and the place was hers.
The café she ran with Babs continued to increase in popularity and Tony still spent a few hours each day helping them. Occasionally the three of them went to the pictures and he always sat next to Seranne, leaning towards her to share the fun during a comedy and taking her hand when danger threatened the flickering characters on the screen. Once he leant over and kissed her cheek and Babs winked and whispered, ‘I knew it! You’ll be my sister-in-law before the end of the year.’
‘Not a chance!’ Seranne hissed back. If Tony heard he made no comment.
Paul found work in the kitchen of a restaurant not far from the seafront in Tenby. Around the corner was the hotel where he and Jessie had stayed after their wedding. He often sat near the hotel and thought of all his mistakes, the list passing through his mind like a series of indictments being read out in court.
If he had been asked what was his most disliked job, he would have answered without hesitation, washing dishes and pans. So there was some strange satisfaction in accepting the vacancy; he considered it a suitable punishment to scour dirty pans and scrape away stale food and deal with the resulting mess at the end of each shift.
Part of him hoped someone would see him and tell Jessie where he was to be found and another part knew he didn’t deserve an end to his misery. He was fed at the restaurant and he put aside every penny of his wages once the rent of his room was paid. He tried not to think of the factory he had lost and the dream of opening a smart, modern shop selling beautiful china, or his most recent idea of supplying catering equipment.
Why had it all gone wrong? He had worked beside his father all those years, and taking on a partner should have made things easier. Was he simply incapable of running a successful business? Was this his true level? Washing up in a seaside hotel?
Luke described Paul and asked his aunt who ran the roadside café if she had seen him.
‘Luke, I love you, but you must be twp if you think I’d remember one customer above the rest,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’m so busy I don’t look higher than the hand offering money. If people say hello, I say hello back but apart from a few of the long-time regulars I wouldn’t know them if I met them anywhere but here.’
Her young assistant disagreed. ‘There was a man travelling with Johnny Trevor. He comes in Tuesdays regular. I don’t know whether the hitchhiker was the man you’re looking for, but he could be. I’ll ask Johnny. He loves to have a passenger and chats to them like lost friends.’
Luke thanked them and left. He was dressed incongruously for the lorry drivers’ café. Smart navy pinstriped suit, crisp white shirt, his shoes shining like glass. He was on his way to a board meeting of a company in which he had shares. Import and export was becoming increasingly important and this particular company was booming. He wondered vaguely whether he would have been equally successful if his marriage hadn’t ended before it had begun. Probably not. He had been a lorry driver, and once he’d found himself on his own, he’d put every moment of his time into work, earning money, making plans.
Unlike Paul Curtis, he’d been lucky. As he’d told Seranne and Babs, he had started by purchasing the contents of a shop to sell at the local market, then he’d progressed to getting a loan to buy a house which he resold with a profit that enabled him to pay back the loan within months. He had borrowed more and used it to buy and sell houses, until he had enough to buy the firm for which he had worked. The haulage company still held its original name, he wasn’t one to spread his name all over the towns. It was enough to know he was the owner.
Now, beside the haulage firm, he owned several small shops and a factory making wooden furniture which he designed himself. His success had led to him being invited to join the board of other, larger companies and now, at the age of thirty-five he was rich in money, but unable to find a private life to match his wealth.
After the meeting, he changed from the suit into casual clothes and drove around looking for a suitable premises for his latest plan. It needed to be close to a busy part of a town, a place where people passed, perhaps near a bus station or where there were popular shops like Woolworths. He found it in Barry.
Barry was a seaside town popular with visitors and he thought the population might be large enough to justify what he had in mind. An hour spent looking at the property on the busy main road with the agent, and a phone call to his architect to arrange a second visit, and negotiations were underway before he drove back to Badgers Brook to tell Seranne about his ideas.
‘A china shop? Will selling china be enough for a business to survive?’ she asked.
‘I think the country is beginning to want better things. There are some beautiful porcelain tea and dinner services coming into the country now and British manufacturers are being allowed to compete. It will be a bouyant business once people start replacing all their boring old white cups and saucers.’
On her afternoon off, he took her to see the shop, which he had already visited twice with his architect, and plans for some changes were set out on paper. Sitting on tea chests in the empty premises they looked through catalogues and discussed the stock he would buy.
‘I value these conversations with you,’ he said. ‘In fact, I value every moment I spend with you.’
Uneasy, wishing they could stay as casual friends, even though her heart was telling her something different, she moved ever so slightly away from him and said, ‘You know exactly what you want, so saying it aloud is all you need.’
‘I’m just speaking my thoughts aloud?’
‘With someone to guess what you’re thinking and encourage you to speak your thoughts aloud, anyone would do.’
‘No, Seranne, that isn’t true, not any more.’
Pretending not to understand him, she pointed to a page of Bunnykins children’s china made by Royal Doulton and said, ‘That’s something you ought to consider. Perfect for Christening presents from adoring aunts.’
He turned a few pages of the suppliers’ lists and said, ‘Glass too? Tell me. What am I thinking now?’ He
was smiling and she felt relief.
‘I think you’re thinking that anything beautiful would find a place in this new shop of yours.’
‘That’s a part of what I’m thinking.’
‘Murano glass from Italy,’ she read. ‘Swedish Orrefors, Dutch Leerdam, British White Friars … But now we have to go. I’ve promised to cook a meal for Mum and Babs.’
‘And Tony?’ he asked.
‘Of course. You too, if you can. Even hotshot businessmen must have to eat.’
They ate in the garden. Newly dug potatoes boiled and served with salad plus a tin of spam cut very thinly and spread, fan-like on each plate. The conversation about china and glass went on long into the evening, but both knew it was a veil covering what they really wanted to say.
Betty and Alun waited until most of the regulars were in the Ship and made their announcement. ‘I’m going away for a few days,’ Betty said. ‘I’ve arranged for a temporary manager and I’m sure he’ll look after you all as well as I do. Tilly will be here to keep you all in order.’
‘The problem is,’ Alun added, ‘I have to be absent for a couple of those days too. It’s to do with the money coming to me from the restaurant,’ he explained, as grins began to spread from face to face.
‘Oh, yes, for sure it is. Come on, Alun, pull the other one,’ Jack Gretorex said, and other murmurings began.
‘I don’t know what you’re implying,’ Alun said, feigning annoyance, ‘but I can assure you that nothing untoward is planned between us. D’you think Betty would – d’you think I would – well, everything is respectable. It’s just a coincidence.’
Slowly the murmurings changed to apologies, except for an unrepentant Jack, who said, ‘More fool you then, Alun.’
‘D’you think we fooled them?’ Alun asked, as they were cleaning the bar later.
‘It’s impossible to get one over this lot, but I don’t think they really believe we’re off on a naughty weekend.’
‘Amazing how wrong they can be,’ he said, holding her in his arms.
Looking for Paul was an automatic part of every journey Luke took. He stopped occasionally and asked strangers as well as some of his widely spread relations if they had seen him, carrying a wedding photograph of Paul and Jessie, borrowed from Seranne. When he called again at the roadside café run by his aunt there was news for him. The young assistant handed him a note written by the man who had given Paul a lift to Llanelli.
In revived hope he went there and asked around the various places where he thought Paul might have found work. After two days he gave up, thankful he hadn’t mentioned the small lead to Jessie. Then a second lorry driver told him the man had gone on to Tenby. Johnny Trevor remembered the man well. ‘He told me he was Paul and he was running away from family troubles – of his own making he told me. I dropped him off at Tenby and told him I’d be going back to Llanelli in a couple of days’ time if he decided to go back, but I heard no more from him.’
Luke went into several cafés and public houses and even a few shops but no one remembered seeing Paul. Then he stopped a man who was sitting on a bench near a hotel who looked at the photograph then nodded. It was then Luke decided to tell Jessie what he had learnt.
Jessie came back to Badgers Brook dirty and tired after spending most of the day clearing what had been the living-room of the flat. As always her first question to Seranne was, ‘Any news of Paul?’ Seranne shook her head.
They were sitting down to eat when Luke came. ‘Any news?’ Jessie asked again.
‘There’s a possibility that he’s in Tenby. Not a lot of help really, he could have moved on from there, so don’t build up your hopes. It’s probably a false lead like so many others.’
With Jessie and Seranne asking questions, he told them the little he knew. ‘I showed the photograph of Paul to several people and one man thought – just thought,’ he warned, ‘that he’d seen Paul sitting on a seat near a hotel several times during the past few weeks.’
‘I have to go there,’ Jessie said at once.
‘I can take you on Saturday? I’m not free until then,’ Luke offered.
‘No. Thank you, Luke, for all you’ve done, but I’ll go on my own, tomorrow.’
Luke didn’t disagree. He had hoped all along that Jessie would be the one to find her husband. Jessie listened intently as he described the hotel, her eyes widening. ‘It’s where we spent our honeymoon,’ she gasped. ‘How stupid of me not to go there. That’s where he’ll be, I’m sure of it.’
‘Shall I ask Babs if she can manage without me tomorrow and come with you?’ Seranne asked, but she saw Luke shaking his head. ‘On second thoughts, it’s our busiest day and I need to be there.’
‘Thank you, dear, but this is something I need to do on my own.’
She set off on the bus the following morning and was in Tenby by ten o’clock. She didn’t go straight to the hotel but to a café where she sat nursing a cup of tea, trying to think of the words with which to greet him. Half an hour later she walked up to the hotel and asked to see Paul Curtis whom she believed was working there. That was her first disappointment. They hadn’t heard of him and didn’t recognize him from the photograph or her description.
Throughout the day she wandered through the town, stopping occasionally and searching the faces passing in the hope of seeing him. Several cafés enticed her in, as her legs ached and her disappointment made her weary, but no one remembered seeing him. After phoning The Wayfaring Tree to tell Seranne what she planned, she stayed that night at the hotel and the following morning began wandering through the streets again.
Luke passed through Tenby on his way back from Pembroke and saw Paul sitting on the bench. He looked less than happy but was dressed neatly, his hair recently cut and his shoes shining with polish. At least he hadn’t let himself go and was probably in employment, he thought with relief. He didn’t want to be the one to find him. He knew that for them to have any chance, it had to be Jessie who made contact.
Unfortunately, Paul saw him and stood to greet him. ‘Don’t tell Jessie where to find me,’ were his first words.
Luke didn’t reply, having already done so.
‘What makes you think she won’t want to see you?’ he asked.
‘I’ve let her down.’
‘She puts it down to an impatient urge to please her. Plus bad luck and a bit of bad judgement. She’d help you out of the mess if only you’d let her. For goodness sake, Paul, stop treating her like a fragile doll.’
‘I was so excited at finding her I neglected the factory, left the running of it to incompetent people who were doing their best but had no experience. Then I took money from our bank account, cut down on everything of importance in the tea rooms and ruined the business, which I thought we no longer needed. I lost most of it paying debts to avoid bankruptcy and in an attempt to start something new that would give us a wonderful new start.’
‘The china shop?’
‘That was too expensive. I gave that up straightaway and tried the catering equipment because I didn’t have to lay out so much money. I’d be taking orders from the stuff I displayed. But I dithered for too long and the franchise went to someone else. I still think the beautiful china was a good idea, but I just didn’t have the money to stock it, at least with the kind of quality goods envisaged.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I wanted to do everything for Jessie, give her a life in which she didn’t have to work, but I was too impatient, and overconfident.’
As Luke listened to the man stating his failures in that matter of fact tone, without whining, accepting the blame he knew he deserved, knowing he had been very stupid, he had a strong conviction that although Paul might never be a businessman, his love for Jessie was in no doubt. ‘Look, I have to go now, but think about coming back. Jessie would rather life with you than without. She’s already looking ahead. Builders have started on the repairs to the tea rooms and with luck, she’ll reopen at Christmas.’
‘Then I’ll stay away. She’ll s
ucceed if she hasn’t got me to drag her down.’
Luke didn’t reply, there was no point in repeating what he’d already said. Now it was up to Paul. And Jessie. He handed him a note with his name and phone number and left him. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but he crossed his fingers and hoped that now he had confronted him, Paul wouldn’t move on.
Alun booked the register office marriage and they quietly made their plans. It was difficult not to share the excitement with others but they both felt this was the best way. Betty took a day off and went into Cardiff to buy a new outfit, choosing a slim-fitting dress in blue crepe with a peplum and a small bow. The coat was light navy with shoes and matching handbag. ‘Goodness knows when I’ll wear all this again,’ she said, as she took it to her room.
‘We’ll give ourselves a few treats, theatre and dining out an occasional weekend away. We aren’t going to live like hermits, are we?’ Alun said. ‘I’ll want to show the world my lovely wife.’
Luke said nothing to Seranne about talking to Paul. Jessie phoned her every day at the café. ‘She still hasn’t found him and if she doesn’t have any success she will come back here at the weekend,’ Seranne told him.
‘Tell her to stay there over the weekend in case he worked during the week and might be out and about on Sunday,’ he advised. He was concerned. Could Paul have moved on, unwilling to risk being seen again?
Jessie finished breakfast and stood outside the hotel, wondering in which direction to walk. It all seemed so futile. If Paul were here they could be walking around the same area separated by a row of houses, a wall, a few steps, and still not meet. She looked around her where families of holidaymakers wandered past with their children, carrying picnic baskets, fishing nets, buckets and spades. The smell of wet sand and seaweed mingled with other familiar scents teasing her nose with memories of long ago, when she had been one of those children, excited by the prospect of a happy, sun-filled day.
Time to Move On Page 27