Nothing is Forever

by Grace Thompson

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased that I told Tabs to go.’

  ‘I am, dear, it was a wonderful surprise, but if she leaves us, we’ll have to have someone here to run things. I’ll be concentrating on looking after you, won’t I?’

  What began as a discussion began to get rather strained and George considered the cost of employing someone to run the house and decided that wouldn’t be possible.

  He relaxed, confident that over the weeks before the wedding he would be able to persuade Martha that being on their own, with no interference from servants –which he couldn’t afford – or his irritating daughter hanging around like a wet week, was the perfect way to start married life. Whenever he mentioned it her responses grew colder and he began to worry.

  Jack gathered money from his various endeavours and bought a few decent clothes. As it was summer, a smart pair of slacks and a shirt was all that was needed to improve his appearance and he found a job in a green-grocery. His hands were still dirt-grained with the nails black edged with ground-in dirt from living rough but that would be put down to sorting out potatoes and the like. They would take a while to improve. A hair-cut and daily shaves improved his appearance and he soon had a regular group of admiring customers, attracted by his lively humorous chat and exaggerated flattery. With his wages safely hidden in his clothes, he slept out in abandoned barns and bus shelters for another week, then he found a room easily; there were many householders only too pleased to find a lodger to help pay their bills.

  So far he hadn’t been lucky. If this was the house his father had spoken about, then the family had vanished. He mentioned the name to several customers, but all he had was a frown and a shake of the head. Searching for his father’s family and his inheritance was frustrating. He knew so little about his father’s childhood and now he could no longer ask. This town had seemed likely to be the one as he had added the few clues and oddments of memory together.

  He went into the antique shop and spoke, almost as a last hope, to Tabitha. She might be the lead he’d been searching for; he had seen her coming out of the house, the name of which he half remembered, several times, Ty Gwyn. The place was almost exactly as his father had described it to him.

  There were fields around it, a church on the next corner and the oak tree in the garden. There was even a pond, now dried up but it was there, just like the picture that had been in his mind all these years. It seemed so right, but how was he going to find out? To do that he needed to get into Ty Gwyn and with time for a proper search. For the people he’d seen in and out of Ty Gwyn, Tabitha seemed the most likely to fall for his approach.

  After a few questions about the shop and its contents, he asked about the house called Ty Gwyn and whether it was owned by a family called Tyler.

  ‘Tyler? No, I’m sorry. The family there are called Thomas. I know them so would you like me to ask them whether the name is known to them?’ She felt breathless with embarrassment and she hoped her voice didn’t give her away. ‘If it would help?’

  ‘You’re very kind, Miss—’ His heart thudded similar to hers but for a different reason. This plain, boring-looking woman was someone he needed to cultivate. ‘Miss—?’ he invited again.

  ‘Bishop,’ she said, her face reddening with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m Jack.’ He offered a hand apologetically. ‘Sorry about the state of them, but serving potatoes and cleaning up rotten vegetables makes a mess of them.’

  ‘Is that what you do?’ she asked hesitantly.

  ‘Come out and have a cup of tea and a cake and I’ll tell you all about me,’ he said. ‘We’ll both be off at one, half-day closing. I’ve just been to the bank for some change,’ he explained, ‘and I saw your friendly face and just had to come in.’

  At one o’clock she closed the shop and looked around anxiously. As she had expected there was no sign of the young man. She was about to turn the corner when a shout stopped her. ‘Miss Bishop! Wait!’ Jack ran to her and said, ‘Come on. What’s your first name? I can’t call you Miss Bishop, it makes you sound like my aunty!’

  ‘You aren’t from around here, are you?’ she said.

  Laughing eyes looked at her. ‘How can you tell?’ he said. ‘Is it the way I say “aunty”?’ He pursed his mouth and said aunty in an exaggerated way and she laughed.

  ‘I hate telling people my name,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me, it can’t be worse than Miss Bishop!’

  ‘Tabitha.’ She waited for the exclamation of amusement or disbelief.

  He looked at her for a moment then said. ‘Yep. Tabitha is fine. Unusual, but not boring, in fact, it makes you sound interesting. Too much of a mouthful for me, though, so come on, Tabs, lets find a café that sells real creamy cakes.’

  On that first date he didn’t question her about the Tyler family. It was clear she was very unsure of herself and he could easily frighten her off, so he encouraged her to talk and, in a startling moment of realization she was aware of sitting talking to this handsome stranger and she felt embarrassment overwhelm her. She was talking too much, he must be bored, what was she thinking of!

  She put down the cup she was holding, missed the saucer and spilt tea across the table. She gasped and went to stand up but he held her hand and beckoned to the man behind the counter. ‘Give him something to do,’ he whispered. ‘He looks bored standing there. He isn’t as lucky as me, having someone as exciting as you to share an hour with.’

  She didn’t believe him. He was being kind.

  ‘I’m clumsy,’ she said. ‘I’m always dropping things and breaking things.’

  ‘Not true,’ he said firmly. ‘That boss of your wouldn’t employ you in that shop if you were. So don’t tell me porky pies. That’s an expression my father used to use.’

  ‘My father calls lies Tom Peppers.’

  After the table had been wiped, he talked to her while she calmed down. He told her a little about his childhood – most of it pure fantasy.

  ‘My father was born in Wales but his parents took him to England when he was very young. Just a baby I believe. I don’t know anything more than that.’ That wasn’t true either but it was all she needed to know.

  ‘So you don’t know where your family are?’ Her eyes were moist with sympathy.

  ‘Or even if I have any.’ He looked glum, but his eyes were twinkling as he teased, ‘Sorry for me, are you, Tabs? Are you going to look after me to ease my loneliness?’

  Tabs thought that was a role she would willingly accept.

  They parted after an hour and she walked back into the house and hurried to her room. It had been such a remarkable day she needed to sit and think about it or she would imagine it had been a dream. She wondered whether she would see him again and began counting the hours until the shop opened and she could watch the door in hope.

  Realistically she guessed she would be watching the door for many days until she had to give up.

  On Saturday morning, Ruth went shopping and she expected either Megan or Mali to be there when she got back. To her dismay the house was empty and worse, the back door was unlocked. She went inside and stood listening for a long time before starting to look in the rooms. The silence was in her head like a hissing sound, and she imagined someone watching her as she forced herself to look in every room. Foolishly, she carried a teapot, the first thing her hand touched when she had put down her shopping basket.

  The downstairs was empty and nothing had been moved, but she was still frightened as she slowly went up the stairs. Each room she checked was empty and showed nothing out of the ordinary. There was a muddle in Megan and Mali’s room. The unused one looked the same as normal.

  Her own, left until the last, was where she had the biggest fright. The wardrobe doors stood open and the clothes had been moved, slid along the rail gathered at each end. She looked around her half expecting someone to jump out and attack her. Then logic prevailed. Of course no one had been in the house. Who would want to look through her things? There was
nothing in the house apart from oddments the family had gathered over the years. Personal things. Certainly nothing of value. Nervously she touched the few clothes she had and looked behind them before adjusting them so they were neatly spaced.

  She must have closed the door carelessly, she told herself, a sleeve or the hem of a coat must have stopped it closing properly and a gust of wind or something would have been sufficient to allow doors to slide open.

  She went back down only half convinced. The house had always been filled with people and nothing like this had happened before, or was she so tense that she noticed things more? She had told herself that the dressing table drawers being tipped out in her bedroom was due to her sleep walking, even though she had no knowledge of ever having done so since she was a child, and now she was telling herself she had not closed the wardrobe properly and given herself another fright. She went into the kitchen and turned the radio on very loud and sang along with Johnnie Ray, ‘Walking My Baby Back Home’.

  She told no one about the open wardrobe, gradually accepting that she had been responsible, but last thing at night when she was alone in the kitchen setting the breakfast table as she always had, she shivered and knew that the house was different, less friendly and she couldn’t understand why. It hadn’t changed, so she must have done. She needed to get out of the place, find something to keep her coming and going, in and out, then it would soon be as ordinary as it had always been. But she didn’t want a job, she couldn’t work. Not while there was a chance she might be needed by her brothers.

  She took out her work basket filled with assorted cottons and with every colour of darning wools she had used for darning the boys’ socks. The white wool wrapped in tissue looked out of place among the dark colours and she picked it up and began studying the knitting pattern for the baby’s coat. She was unlikely to sleep tonight so she might as well do something useful.

  When she went around to see Toni and Tommy on Sunday morning, Toni was on her own. ‘Tommy and Bryn have gone to work,’ she said by way of greeting. ‘I’m going in later for a hour or two.’

  ‘On Sunday? Wool shops don’t open on Sundays.’

  ‘I’m going in while the shop’s closed to sort out the knitting patterns, they’ve got in a bit of a mess.’

  ‘And Tommy and Bryn?’

  ‘They’re finishing creosoting a barn for one of the farmers they do occasional work for.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say? I’d have invited you for dinner.’ She reached into her basket and handed Toni a tissue-wrapped packet. ‘I’ve brought you this. I made it for the new baby, sat up half the night so my gift would be the first,’ she said with a smile. ‘Now, I want you to tell me how I can help.’

  ‘We’re managing fine, Ruth, but thanks.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean now, although I have a cake to bring over later, when I’ve iced it. But later on, you’ll need lots of support when the baby comes and I want you to know that whatever you want me to do, I’ll be happy to help. It’s such an exciting thing, a baby in the family. I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about him – or her.’ Well, that was almost true.

  She looked at Toni’s face and the young woman’s expression shocked her. Tight-lipped and eyebrows almost meeting in a frown. ‘Is everything all right, Toni, love?’

  Then she saw the packet, lying still unopened on Toni’s lap and thought, with a stab of pain, that she knew what the girl wanted to say. ‘The baby, he’s still all right, isn’t he?’

  ‘The baby is fine, we’re all fine, but Ruth, this is our life now, mine and Tommy’s and we’ll cope with our baby when he comes.’ She looked uncomfortable and her voice was tense as she went on, ‘We appreciate all you’ve done, of course we do, but now you have to find a life of your own and leave us to deal with ours.’ She was silent for a moment allowing Ruth to speak but Ruth just stared at her. ‘You really need to get a job, Ruth, get out of the house for a while each day. We won’t do things your way but we’ll manage. And now, with all four brothers married, this is time for yourself. We’re all settled and getting on with our lives, really we are.’ She tried to smile to take the sting out of her words but it wasn’t successful. ‘Look, I’m not doing this very well, but your brothers are all really grateful for the way you’ve looked after them since your parents died and they always will be. You kept the family together. It’s thanks to you that they’ve had a home all these years. But it’s time now to let go, find a life of your own, they all want that for you.’

  Seeing the shocked expression on Ruth’s face, she reached out and held her hand, the tissue-wrapped packet falling unheeded, to the floor. ‘Ruth, it’s you we’re thinking of as well as ourselves. We don’t want to lean on you, you’ve done your bit and you’ve been wonderful, but we want to cope on our own, do things our own way, as new parents always do. You have to do the same, cope with the change in our lives, or you’ll end up a lonely old woman. Tommy and Bryn, Emrys and Geraint, they don’t want that and neither to I. Deep in your heart you must know we’re right. Please believe me, it’s best for us all.’

  ‘Of course I understand. I’ll be glad to be free, it’s about time, isn’t it?’ Ruth heard the words and could hardly believe they came from her own lips. The voice didn’t sound like her own. She wanted to shout and rail at the hurtful words. How could her brothers discard her on the word of someone who had been in the family for such a brief time? She had been mother, father as well as sister to them and now, because Toni thought they should, they were brushing their hands together dusting off ten years of loving, unselfish care.

  She picked up the tiny coat she had lovingly made during the night when she couldn’t sleep and offered it again to Toni. Her newest and most outspoken sister-in-law opened the tissue paper slowly, and tearfully said, ‘It’s beautiful, Ruth. Thank you very much. I will treasure it. Our baby’s first gift.’

  ‘I’ll—’ Ruth was about to say she’d make more but she stopped and instead, said. ‘If you’d like any more, just ask.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Toni replied at once. ‘We’d love more as lovely as this one. Thank you, Ruth. I know how lucky I am to have you for a sister-in-law,’ she added, as Ruth stood to leave. ‘Tommy and Bryn told me how clever you are at handiwork. You used to knit them beautiful jumpers. Complicated cable patterns and Fair Isle, wonderful work.’

  ‘Yes, I did, but that’s all in the past now, isn’t it?’

  Ruth went back to the house and lifted the rugs and heaved the furniture around and scrubbed the kitchen floor. It was what she always did when she was upset, scrub and clean until she felt calm again.

  Henry went into the shop, surprised that it was closed. Tabitha, his assistant, was normally so reliable. She didn’t work full time at the shop selling antiques, it wasn’t the kind of business that filled the shop every moment of the day with customers queuing for assistance. Henry advertised the hours he opened and when he wasn’t there, Tabitha usually filled in. For her not to be there as promised was unusual and he wondered if she was all right

  Tabitha, at the age of twenty-nine, was very unworldly and even a stranger smiling and greeting her with ‘good morning’ made the colour rise in her cheeks sending her hurrying away like a frightened goose – one of her long-standing nicknames. She was a very nervous person, constantly criticized and often humiliated by her father. After years of his taunts, she accepted his low opinion of herself. Following the death of her mother, she had automatically left the factory where she worked as a cleaner, and stayed home to keep house for her father. Gradually she had been allowed to help out at Henry’s shop, and she loved it.

  Her knowledge and interest had surprised him and he was pleased to be able to discuss his purchases with her. She agreed with his estimated value on most things. After a short time he allowed her to buy if she saw something they could re-sell, and until the silver tea-set, which remained a mystery, she had never been wrong.

  Her father had begun to go out in the evenings more frequently
over the past months. She didn’t ask where he went, presuming it would be the local club of which he had been a member for many years. She was just pleased to have time on her own, without his constant criticism, although she rarely did anything more exciting than listen to her favourite programmes on the wireless. She made very few decisions and when Ruth offered her a room she presumed she hadn’t really wanted her there. It was only when Henry added his persuasions, promising her that if she was unhappy he would find her something more suitable that she accepted gratefully. Another decision avoided. Decision making was something of which she had very little experience.

  An only child, she had always known she was not wanted. Her father constantly told her how her arrival had ruined their lives. She often wondered whether they had given her such an unusual name out of spite. Besides being shy, her mother’s choice of dress, long shapeless skirts and blouses that were too large, and shoes with ankle straps like those worn by small children, added to the impression that she was a little odd, even simple, although she was neither.

  Teasing had been a daily agony at school and the unusual name was a gift to her tormentors. No second name, just Tabitha Bishop, so the few friends she had made in her sad life called her Tabs. Many of the girls she knew had earned nicknames, a sign of affection, and she longed for someone to call her something different, but apart from ‘scaredy cat’, and ‘goose’, and even by some, ‘the idiot girl’, she waited in vain.

  Being introduced to her father’s ‘intended’ had been a shock. She wondered how she would cope with another woman in the house. Martha would probably treat her in the same way as her father, but she couldn’t think of anything she could do to change things. Leaving her home was the last thing she expected to do and her father telling her she must, gave her nightmares. But Henry had helped to reassure her that it would be a good thing to break away.