‘So are you,’ he said gruffly. He held her firmly then, as she tried to move away from him. Her head was pressed further back, her body arched against his as he kissed her urgently, his breath heavy, his arms like a serpent’s embrace.
His strength frightened her, but she responded at first, clinging to him, leaning back so he was almost carrying her in his arms. She knew she had plenty of time to make her excuses and get away.
Darkness began to close in on them, the curtain of night already thickening although the afternoon was far from spent. It filled in the gaps between the trees, drawing the evening around them making the woods their private dwelling, less vast, less public. The air quietened as birds settled with gentle twitterings. Then there was only her own breathing and her beating heart, and Maurice’s louder more intense breaths catching as if he were running and had exhausted himself in a race.
Excitement at knowing she could have this effect on a man made her pulse beat with a sudden fury. She was surprised to realise that her breaths were as raw as Maurice’s. She felt light-headed and was surprised to find herself first sitting, then lying in Maurice’s arms, her limbs limp and helpless.
Then the kissing became frightening and this time the fear would not go away. She could hardly breathe and she pulled away both alarmed and thrilled by his strength. Again she felt the exhilaration at her power over him and it was only when she decided it was time to stop that she realised it was too late.
Maurice was not a boy to be teased, not like all the others. She had underestimated him. All the others had accepted her unwillingness to continue, but Maurice would have to be stopped by other methods.
His hand was at the back of her head and as she opened her mouth to scream, he turned her face towards him and silenced her with his lips. He held her now so she couldn’t move and began to press her down on the grass.
Then the danger reached her in a different way and the forbidden was undeniable. She relaxed and gave herself up to his experience and skill. And when he was calm and still she opened her eyes and smiled up at him, blue eyes meeting hazel, both content. Sheila thought she had found her man. Maurice knew he had made another conquest.
He walked her as far as her corner and she carried on home, her mind racing to find an excuse for her lateness. By the time she opened the door she was shaking and when her mother called to demand an explanation Sheila burst into tears, insisted she had been ill, and ran to her room.
Nelly had watched them leaving the wood as she walked to the place where she attended to her toilet. The dogs always stayed home while she made these necessary journeys, so the young couple had been unaware of her approach. She had not called out for a chat as she usually did, but had stepped back out of sight when Maurice pulled his bicycle away from the oak tree and accompanied Sheila down the lane.
‘Trouble she is,’ she muttered. ‘I can smell it a mile off.’
* * *
In town, Freddy waited in vain for Sheila outside the cinema. He paced up and down, reading the newspaper posters reporting a crazy mixture of items, from the announcement of Father Christmas’s imminent arrival on November 7th, to the towpath murderer being sentenced to death. Ronald Reagan was appearing in Law and Order, and special offers were being made for people to emigrate to Australia for only ten pounds travelling expenses.
An occasional firework exploded in the streets nearby and he was sad that his plans to take Sheila to the bonfire celebrations next week had to be abandoned. The sooner he was called into the army the better.
Sheila did not sleep that night. She spent it partly lying on the bed and partly sitting on a chair staring out into the darkness. Sometimes she felt the excitement of Maurice’s loving over again, and sometimes she dreaded what she had begun. But whatever her emotions, she knew she could not allow it to be the first and last time. She was already making plans to see Maurice again, and deciding to use Freddy to help her.
Chapter Five
Nelly couldn’t sleep. All through the night her mind had been unable to escape from the problem of the ownership of her cottage. She dressed while it was still dark, not bothering to look at the clock on the small table, lit a candle and went downstairs. The fire looked dead, but there was always a hope even when the ashes looked as pale and lifeless as now.
She lit the oil lamp and began working on the fire. Shaking the ashes through, the warmth of a few coals touched her hand and soon, with the aid of some tightly curled paper and a few sticks, she had a fine blaze going. It would be a while before the kettle would boil, she knew that. Patiently she added a few more sticks and chunks of wood, then some pieces of coal. When there was a heart to the fire, she swivelled the kettle over and prepared to go out, first to the woods and then, with the dogs, down the lane to the main road. She had no purpose in mind, just the need to walk and get away from her worries.
When Nelly’s landlord had died without leaving a will and without any relatives to come and claim what he had left, Nelly had kept very quiet about her cottage. She had continued to put aside the four shillings rent each week and hoped that no distant cousin would appear one day to tell her to go. She would forget the worry for a while on occasions but it always came flooding back.
The old man had lived in a room in one of the cottages near Amy’s shop and if ever anyone had known that Nelly’s cottage was his, they had forgotten by now. Each week he had walked up the lane to collect Nelly’s rent, stayed for a cup of tea and whatever cake was going, then returned to his room. He had died in his sleep and, apart from commiserating with Nelly on the loss of her weekly visitor, no one linked the old man with her name.
She knew that it had once been thatched, but the roof had been replaced by the old man himself with Welsh slate. The back of the house was in a dreadful state and, although Nelly had tackled it all with great enthusiasm at first, she had never tidied the back of the building. The door was nailed into place and the window blocked by a rampant Virginia creeper which covered the walls and several neglected trees. Nelly rarely went there, happily leaving it to the birds and other creatures who inhabited it. She called it her jungle. But despite the cottage’s dilapidated condition, she was very happy there and the thought of losing her home was terrifying.
She had once asked Johnny to find out the legal situation but he had told her it was so complicated she had better forget it and leave it to luck. But time passed and the money in the box upstairs grew and she thought about it more and more.
It was Sunday morning, not yet six o’clock, and the roads were quiet. She had walked a short distance along the main road when she heard footsteps. She moved into the hedge, pulling the dogs with her, and waited, curious to know who was about so early. It was Maurice. She still waited, intending to give him a fright. He was certain to pass the place where she hid, she thought, he had already passed Johnny Cartwright’s door and there was no one else nearby he was friendly with. But to her surprise he went up to Archie Pearce’s house and began knocking on his door. He threw some stones up at the window, rattled the door and then, like Nelly, he hid. She saw then that there was a girl with him and the two of them watched while Archie stumbled out, half dressed, and looked about in a bemused way for the bus to work.
The joke was a good one and Nelly always liked a laugh, but she felt a bit sorry for Archie who was absent-minded at the best of times. She walked on, ignoring the couple giggling in a gateway, and said, ‘’Avin’ a nightmare then, Archie?’
‘Damn aye. I could have sworn I was knocked up like it was a Thursday.’ He muttered something and went back indoors.
Later on she told Johnny, who looked at her and laughed. ‘Always one for teasing, that Maurice. I’ll get him back for that, shall I Nelly? I know a few tricks too.’
Nelly did not mention Sheila being with him. Somehow that spoilt the joke.
Nelly was walking back from Mrs French’s a day or two later, carrying a tweed suit and a couple of dresses. Mrs French often gave her good quality clothing t
hat had been either her own, or given to her to give to a deserving person. She knew Nelly often sold them and used the money to buy herself a few drinks, but pretended not to. The woman had so little you couldn’t begrudge her an evening out.
Nelly did not go straight home with her gifts but first knocked on Netta Cartwright’s door.
‘Your Johnny in by any chance?’ she asked as her friend invited her inside.
‘I think he’s in the garden, sorting out the over-grown bushes at the end.’ Netta went into the narrow kitchen, where a wooden board covered a bath, and called down the garden in her gentle voice, ‘Johnny? Nelly would like a word.’ Softly spoken as she was, her son heard her and came at once.
‘Yes, Mam, I would like a cup of tea,’ he said.
‘All right,’ Netta laughed. ‘You go and talk and I’ll make tea.’ She turned to Nelly and said, ‘Have you heard about Prue? Her being pregnant and a widow too, poor thing.’
‘Yeh, I ’eard. What a thing to ’appen.’ There was no sympathy in Nelly’s voice. She didn’t pretend to like Prue Beynon.
Johnny led her into the front room and sprawled across the couch. ‘What’s the trouble, Nelly?’
‘It’s about me ’ouse,’ she whispered. ‘You know, about ’ow I can get to stay in it, if anyone finds out the owner’s dead.’
‘I tried to find out what to do a few months ago,’ Johnny said, feeling a little guilty that he had forgotten all about it since, ‘but the position isn’t easy to understand. Honestly, they talk in a foreign language I’m sure. I went to the library, but couldn’t make head nor tail. Best forget it. How long is it now?’
‘Six years.’
‘There’s the Citizen’s Advice, but I’m afraid that once we start making enquiries and everything comes out into the open, it could mean you having to give up the place altogether. Best to leave it be. No one is going to suddenly appear and claim it after all these years. No, forget it. I’m sure that’s best.’
Nelly looked doubtful, and Johnny went on, ‘Tell you what, I’ll have another go at looking it up in the library. Pity we can’t tell Fay, smarter than the two of us put together, Fay is.’
‘Thanks, Johnny. You won’t mention it to anyone, will yer?’
‘I promise. Don’t worry, pretend it’s yours. You’ve probably paid all it’s worth in rent anyhow.’
‘What shall I do about the rent?’
At that moment Netta tapped on the door and came in with a tray.
‘Mam,’ Johnny asked, ‘if Nelly had a bit of money to spend, what d’you think she should buy?’
‘A wireless,’ Netta said at once. ‘It would give her more pleasure than anything else I can think of.’
Johnny spread his hands in an expressive gesture of ‘there you are, that’s your answer’ and Nelly’s brown eyes sparkled.
‘A wireless! Just fancy, I could hear Ray’s a Laugh, an’ Take it From Here, an’ Educating Archie an’ all that music!’ She laughed, ‘Which reminds me, can I come an’ ’ear The Goon Show tonight, Netta?’
Nelly walked home and, after taking the dogs for a run in the woods, went upstairs and packed the clothes away in a suitcase which she hauled from under the bed, planning a trip into town to cheer herself up.
She was still uneasy. If only George would come back, she could talk it over with him and he’d know what to do.
‘Better not go to town ’til after four,’ she told the dogs. ‘Evie’ll be busy getting Oliver’s tea then. It wouldn’t do fer ’er to see us gettin’ on a bus with me suitcase! Think the worst, she would, an’ expect me to come ’ome rollin’ drunk. Although,’ she grinned to herself, ‘that mightn’t be such a bad idea!’
Packing the clothes she had been given by various people over the past weeks, she dragged the suitcase down the curved staircase to the living room. The dogs began to bark in excitement. They were usually included in a trip into town and looked up at her hopefully until she said, ‘You comin’?’ She was answered by a chorus of barking that made her clap her hands over her ears.
She brought some coal and wood inside, and filled the kettle and a bowl with water from the tap in the lane. She’d probably miss the Goons, but that couldn’t be helped.
After a wash in the bowl she went upstairs to change her clothes, discarding her old navy cardigan, which was held in place with a pair of safety pins, and putting on a tight grey dress. She was looking forward to her outing and, putting a Gracie Fields record on her wind-up gramophone, sang cheerfully as she waited for four o’clock to come.
* * *
Johnny was on the late shift and he was surprised to see Fay arriving just as he was leaving the house. She was beautiful, he thought as he watched her walk through the gate. She was wearing her favourite blue, a suit, or what his mother called ‘a costume’, in sky-blue, with a white blouse frilly at her neck. She wore a small hat with a veil of lace and a navy flower under the tilted side, and carried a handbag which matched her light navy shoes exactly.
She greeted him affectionately. ‘Johnny, I hoped I’d catch you before you went to work. I’ve had an idea,’ she went on between kisses, ‘I’m working locally today, just short trips to Llan Gwyn and no further than Swansea. Why don’t I take your mother with me and drop her off at the pictures? It’s ages since she went anywhere and I know she’d love it. I’ll treat her to tea afterwards.’
‘Fay, my lovely girl, that’s a great idea. Mam,’ he called, and when Netta came out of the kitchen, he explained Fay’s invitation to her.
Netta looked into her daughter-in law’s face and saw her anxiety. She knew Fay was tense and guessed that she was very unhappy, but this was something new. Was there something behind this invitation? All the same she smiled and patted Fay’s arm affectionately.
‘Fay, fach, that would be lovely. You and me having tea together, just the two of us. What time do you want me to be ready?’
Fay looked at her watch and shrugged. ‘I don’t want to rush you, that would spoil the whole thing. Say an hour?’
‘Lovely.’
Netta went upstairs to select from her limited wardrobe something that wouldn’t disgrace her fashion-conscious daughter-in-law. She was pleased at the invitation but still apprehensive about the real reason for it. She whispered a small prayer that Fay wasn’t going to tell her the marriage was over. ‘Please God, anything but that,’ she murmured, her small hands pressed firmly together and her brown eyes tightly closed.
Johnny also sensed Fay’s anxiety. He worried about her, knowing she did not always discuss her fears with him. When her ex-fiancé had turned up ill and injured after being presumed dead for eight years, she had kept the secret from him and tried to handle it alone, although he admitted that when she did tell him he had refused to believe her. Now there was something else, he could sense it, and he held her tightly before leaving for the bus depot. Johnny wished he could find a way to her heart and make their marriage as perfect as he dreamed it could be.
Fay admired Netta’s pink dress and woollen coat.
‘That looks perfect. I’ll have to watch myself or you’ll be ashamed to go out with me!’ She opened the car door and settled the plump little lady inside.
Fay went with her to the cinema, bought her ticket, and left her there, promising to meet her at four-thirty when the film would be finished. She stood and waved until Netta went through the dark red curtains and into the care of an usherette.
The car was parked close to the cinema and Fay ran back to it, glancing anxiously at her watch. She drove back to Hen Carw Parc and began to take boxes out of the back of the car and up to her room. Then, with a tray set for tea, she waited.
The man from the council was prompt. At three o’clock there was a knock at the door and Fay went to answer it. The official went first to look at the room she and Johnny shared, shaking his head at the lack of space, then downstairs to look at the kitchen-cum-bathroom and to drink his tea while he filled in forms.
‘You’ll have a g
ood case here for re-housing, Mrs Cartwright,’ he said when he had completed his questions. ‘You’ll be hearing from us very soon.’
At four o’clock he left, and Fay returned the boxes to the car, put some empty ones out for the dustmen and then drove to town to meet Netta. They spent a happy hour chatting, laughing and eating Kunzle Cakes and drinking tea.
* * *
Phil Davies called on Nelly before she left for town. He was carrying a can of paraffin oil for her lamp.
‘Thanks, Phil, it’s a treat not having to go down with me old pram wheels and bring it up.’ She helped him carry it down the path and put it in the larder behind the back door. ‘Stay fer a cuppa why don’t yer?’
Phil shook his head. ‘I’d love one, Nelly, but by the look of that suitcase you’re going out. Somewhere exciting, is it?’
‘Just off to town for an outin’ – don’t-tell-my-Evie! Get the FBI out she would. Watches me like an ’awk!’
‘Not a word.’ Phil rubbed the side of his nose with a finger, then said, ‘What’s happening with the Cartwrights then? Saw an official looking car pull up this afternoon, while Netta was out too. The man went in and must have talked to Fay for ages. Carried a clip-board he did, looked important.’
Nelly shrugged. ‘Don’t know, but when you finds out you’ll tell me, won’t yer?’
‘Amy thought the man was from the council.’
‘Fay’s boss more like. She’s an important business woman is Fay. Sees a lot of important people she does.’
‘Perhaps.’ Phil looked doubtful.‘Come on, Nelly I’ll carry your case down to the bus. I’m going down anyway.’ They met a group of children as they turned into the lane. Two of them were struggling with a Guy Fawkes dummy made from an old suit of clothing stuffed with newspaper, and with a swede for its head.
Valley Affairs Page 9