Nothing is Forever

by Grace Thompson

  She stopped before going inside, savouring the thought of being needed again. The night wasn’t really dark; the sky was lit with the glow from the street lights in the town, and several windows nearby were un-curtained, allowing early Christmas lights to shine out, and the air was no longer chilly, but crisp with the feel of the season and tinged with happiness.

  As she went into the house she wondered if Geraint’s visit would justify planning a family Christmas party. The house would love a party, she thought fancifully. It always seemed different when the rooms were filled with people celebrating something; cosy, warm, well used and loved. The house needed people as much as it needed a strong roof.

  It was very late on Friday when her brother finally arrived, almost eleven o’clock. To her surprise, Tommy and Bryn were with him and, as she was about to close the door, she was even more surprised to see Emrys coming in behind them.

  ‘Don’t tell me you all want to stay,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’m definitely not the one who’ll be sleeping in the bath!’ She hastily set the kettle to boil and took pasties out of the oven. ‘Not many,’ she said gesturing towards them. ‘I didn’t expect all of you.’ They all looked serious as they found places around the large kitchen table and she felt a growing fear. This was a parody of the party she had imagined, and she couldn’t begin to guess the reason for it.

  Her hands were shaking as she poured tea for them and her voice, when she spoke, sounded strange. ‘Come on then, let’s have the bad news.’

  Geraint spoke first, while the others lowered their eyes, concentrating on the cup of tea in front of them. ‘We want to sell the house.’

  ‘But we can’t. It’s our home, all of us.’

  ‘Toni and I want to buy a place and selling this would give us a deposit,’ Tommy said.

  ‘Me too,’ Bryn added quietly. ‘The flat isn’t big enough now we have a baby to consider.’

  ‘What about Aunty Blodwen? You know how she loves to come here. She needs a break from that tiny place of hers sometimes and it was her home, where she was born and brought up.’ No one spoke and she added, a little angrily, ‘What about me?’

  ‘That’s what we’re here to consider,’ Geraint replied. ‘We’re so grateful to you for being there when we needed you, but now things have changed and we all want to go our own way, build a new life.’

  ‘Without me.’

  ‘No!’ they all chorused.

  ‘We want you living close and being a part of our lives just like you’ve always been!’ Tommy added.

  Ruth stared at him. ‘Not any more, not since you and Toni married.’ She calmed her voice and added untruthfully, ‘I can understand Toni wanting things her way. But she reminds me at every opportunity that I’m no longer needed and it hurts. Now this. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to leave here.’

  ‘Marry Henry?’ Emrys queried.

  ‘Because it’s convenient for you?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because it has always been convenient for us to have this place, somewhere to come back to, and have you here for us, but now it isn’t convenient any longer,’ Geraint said, his voice sounding harsh and even irritable to Ruth’s sensitive mind.

  ‘We’ve all enjoyed having this place as the centre of things,’ Bryn said more softly, ‘but now it’s time for changes, you must see that. We’re all settled, Ruth, we’ve all made lives for ourselves, we have homes of our own.’

  ‘We’re well aware of how much we owe you.’ Tommy added. ‘You were so good to us, giving up years of your life to care for us.’

  ‘You did a wonderful job,’ Emrys added, ‘but it’s over and now you’re free to do what you want.’

  ‘What I want is to stay here,’ she whispered.

  ‘Sorry, Sis, but we think it’s for the best, for us all,’ Geraint said. ‘Including you.’

  ‘And what about Abigail and Gloria? They don’t have anywhere else to go.’

  ‘Then they must find somewhere. They aren’t part of our problem,’ Geraint responded firmly.

  ‘But I am?’

  ‘Of course you are. We have to consider you first of all.’

  The one consoling thought in it all, she decided as she went up to bed, was she’d be able to tell Tabs to leave.

  The following morning Geraint explained that he would like to stay and do a few repairs and some decorating. Ruth knew it was spiteful, and was ashamed afterwards, but at breakfast time, she told Tabs to leave. ‘Geraint will be staying for a while and it won’t be convenient as he’ll be decorating the rooms, starting with yours,’ she said.

  Tabs turned away and stared into the fire. Where could she go? This was the worst possible time to be friendless and homeless. Controlling her panic, she said, ‘I understand, Ruth and I’m grateful that you allowed me to stay this long. Especially after my stupidity. Really grateful.’

  How Ruth hated that word. ‘Grateful’ sounded as though she did everything grudgingly, ‘grateful’ was when you did something you didn’t want to do and although that might be true in Tabs’s case, it certainly wasn’t true about the care she had given to her brothers and sisters-in-law or Aunty Blodwen. They were family and she cared for them out of love. Tinged with duty, maybe, but still out of love.

  She heard Tabs running upstairs and being sick and guessed the shock had been more than she had shown. She really was a mouse, she thought guiltily and I should have told her in a kinder way. But I’ve made excuses for her, forgiven her for her actions and she deserved to be upset. Then compassion returned and she went up to see if there was anything she could do.

  After dealing with breakfast, she decided to swallow her pride and go to see Henry. She felt completely alone, all her brothers and their wives were against her and she had to try and put things right between herself and Henry, and explain to him why she had asked Tabs to leave.

  She stayed less than two minutes. When she told him of the brothers’ ultimatum, he told her he knew what they were planning, but was asked not to say anything. She shouted at him and ran out. In the whole, big wide world there was no one on her side.

  Abigail couldn’t see her way out of the mess she had created. They needed a home and to achieve that she had to work. But she couldn’t work and leave her mother to be cared for by Ruth, who was out at work for most of the day anyway, and without working she couldn’t get them a home. Round and around the problem went until she was exhausted with the search for a solution. She had applied for her job back but without a car and the loss of several big customers due to her absence she was refused. Someone else had stepped in and was doing good business and they saw no reason why they should ask the new employee to leave. She knew she had let them down by leaving without notice and without keeping in touch more regularly but her mother’s illness and her own miscarriage, followed by the fire that might have cost her her life had been so frightening she had no thought for how much they needed the coverage in the areas she had built up and had so enjoyed.

  Henry had been considering a change. Nothing was right. The business wasn’t making him happy any more: it was growing, and recently he had met a man who was approaching retirement but was looking for work in the business he knew best. He had run an antiques shop in a small town outside London for many years and, after selling it and returning to South Wales, had found retirement less than enjoyable.

  They had met at an antiques fair, spent a lot of the day together and Henry learned that Peter James’s knowledge of furniture was impressive. Henry didn’t want a partner; he enjoyed being independent and making his own choices, but he offered to sell the business and Peter looked at the books and the properties and accepted without hesitation.

  Henry hadn’t mentioned his decision to Ruth. Each time they had met recently she had been on the defensive and any discussion had been impossible. Besides, Henry thought about his mother’s words and began to wonder if she had been right, and his wisest move was to walk away.

  Ironically, Ruth heard about the shop bein
g offered for sale, not from Henry as she might have expected, but from Tabs. That made the news even more difficult to accept. There was something in the old saying, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’, as her anger was as much towards Tabs for telling her as towards Henry for not.

  She went to the shop when she finished her collections but he wasn’t there. She badly wanted to talk to him but in this instance was glad he wasn’t at home. She would have made a difficult situation much worse by walking in and complaining at being excluded from such an important decision.

  She calmed down and rode back to Ty Gwyn. It was time for her to decide what she wanted from life and whether she could imagine living a life without Henry. She wondered where he was and mused sadly that until recently she would have known exactly what his plans were.

  Henry was on the way to Rhossili. He stopped at the house where Lillian lived and knocked on the door. She came around the side of the house, holding a heavy raincoat around her shoulders explaining that the front door was stuck again.

  She invited him in to a room that was beautifully decorated with holly and ivy and strings of Christmas cards, and he handed her a box of cakes he had brought.

  ‘Problems, Henry?’ she asked, placing the cakes onto a plate.

  ‘I’ve sold the business. All three shops and I’m not quite sure what I want to do next,’ he told her.

  She laughed. ‘You’re certainly a man of surprises. Well done. I’m all for having fresh horizons to yearn for.’

  ‘I don’t know what horizons I’m looking for, at least, my ideas aren’t exactly firm.’

  ‘What about Ruth? Doesn’t she have an idea of what she would like? You must have discussed it before taking such a drastic step? I presume this is partly to find something you can both share.’

  ‘Ruth knows the shop is sold and unfortunately she found out from Tabs before I could talk to her. It happened very suddenly, you see.’

  ‘That was unfortunate.’ She refilled his teacup and patted his shoulder. ‘If Ruth is to be a part of this new stage in your life, you must talk to her. Involve her in every stage. Take her somewhere quiet and explain how you feel.’

  ‘She is as slippery as an eel when I try to talk about our future.’

  Lillian thought it wise not to offer her comments on what seemed to be an obvious move – saying goodbye to a woman who can’t or won’t make up her mind! Instead she asked, ‘Where will you live after the shop is sold?’

  ‘There’s a house which I took Ruth to see a few months ago and I think it might be perfect for the idea I have in mind.’

  ‘When you’re ready to talk, come and I’ll listen,’ she promised.

  He didn’t drive straight back to the shop, instead he went to the house on the common he had shown to Ruth and spoke to the owner, who was still looking for a buyer.

  Geraint had begun the work on the house, Tabs was packing ready to leave and, ignoring them both, Ruth began to prepare for Christmas. She was being stupid, she knew that. Over the Christmas period she would be sitting in the house alone, while her brothers and their wives celebrated in their own way.

  Geraint had told her he would be going back to London to see about starting up his new business; Toni and Brenda, Tommy and Bryn had their plans made. Susan and Emrys asked her if she’d like spend the few days with them but Ruth declined. ‘I’ll be needed here for Aunty Blod, and several friends will be popping in,’ she lied. ‘But I’ll help with some cooking if you like.’ She knew as she spoke those words that she had laid herself open for another rejection. Smiles, apologies and that word ‘grateful’ were repeated, but, ‘no thanks’ was the message.

  She sat in the silent house while Geraint was out buying more supplies and Tabs was at work and she listened to the silence around her, and the emptiness filled her with dread. This was her life from now on into the empty years ahead. Wherever she lived, in this house or another, or a soulless flat somewhere, she would face every day alone.

  Her job would finish in a couple of weeks and she knew she had to get another. That might open up her life a little, but the truth was that she didn’t want her life opened up to other people. She belonged here, in this house, providing a base and security for her brothers and their families. She ignored the small voice within her that warned her the role she envisioned playing didn’t exist any more, and maybe it never had. Her position had always been temporary, so why couldn’t she accept that and move on?

  She told Henry that she would miss the farm visits. Talking to the people who lived and worked in the country had been a joy, her interest in the wild flowers had increased and the sights she had been shown of some of the shy animals that lived their secret lives alongside man had been fascinating. She and Henry had spent hours walking the cliffs and fields and their knowledge was growing, adding to the pleasure of the walks. But those outings were rare now, since her inability to accept change had spoilt so much between them. Perhaps, once the house was sold and she was settled in wherever she decided to live, she and Henry would revert to the loving friends they had always been. She admitted to herself that most of the change had to come from herself, and wondered if Henry still cared enough to give her a chance. Telling Abigail she and her mother would have to leave was more difficult than telling Tabs. She guiltily admitted to herself there had been a certain glee in telling Tabs she must go, but Abigail seemed so frail and helpless, depending on Jack to help her.

  ‘Do you have any idea where Jack can be?’ she asked Abigail, after explaining about selling the house. ‘Or when he’ll be back?’

  Abigail shook her head. ‘He travels around getting work wherever he can, trying to raise money to help us. But we can’t rely on him now. I don’t know how to get in touch with him and after Tabs persuaded him to steal from Henry he can’t come back here, can he?’

  ‘Tabs persuaded him? I understood that he persuaded her!’

  ‘Jack works hard, but he’s never been dishonest, until he met Tabs.’

  Ruth was confused, and couldn’t accept what Abigail was saying, she disliked Tabs who had let her down so badly but she was such a mouse, how could she have found the courage to steal from Henry? She must have been persuaded by Jack. She said nothing more. Gathering the plates and cutlery from the dresser she set the table for lunch.

  ‘I have found a job,’ Abigail told her then. ‘But I don’t know whether I can take it, and I don’t know how we’ll manage if I don’t.’

  Ruth sat at on the couch and waited for her to tell more.

  ‘I can’t do the job I was doing before. I let them down, you see, with Mum being ill and….’

  She hesitated and Ruth said, ‘The loss of your baby.’

  ‘But I’ve been offered a position as sales lady in a fashion shop within a large store and I can’t take it unless someone will look after my mother and there’s no one. I don’t know when Jack will be back.’

  ‘Does she need looking after? What will happen when you find a place of your own?’

  ‘It’s just for the next few weeks. Until I feel sure she’s fully recovered. Then, with a flat nearby, where I can see her every lunchtime I’ll be happier leaving her.’

  ‘All I can do is say you can stay with me until the house is sold. After Christmas I’ll be here all day. If that helps?’ The woman thanked her profusely and relief showed on her smiling face. Ruth wondered how Henry would react and thought a smile unlikely. Or, that little voice whispered, perhaps he will smile, if he no longer cares.

  Tabs moved back to her father’s house, the worst possible place for what she had to deal with over the next few months. She squeezed herself and her few belongings into the small cramped room. She was determined not to become Martha’s unpaid housekeeper but soon found herself preparing breakfast for the three of them and on occasions for paying guests too. It would soon be Christmas and she imagined herself sitting alone in her over-filled room except when Martha asked her – oh so politely – to help with something. It was a small defiance, b
ut she went out every evening before the dishes were cleared and walked around the town. If it rained she went to the pictures, if not, she would dress as warmly as possible and walk around the places where she had seen Jack. One day he would reappear, she was sure of it.

  Three days before Christmas, Geraint went to do some shopping. He bought a gift for each of the family he expected to see on Christmas Day. Ruth watched indifferently as he placed them under the tree. There were very few parcels there, where usually everyone placed their gifts ready for the grand opening session on Christmas morning.

  For the first time she could remember, Aunty Blodwen wasn’t coming to spend Christmas with her. Aware that the boys were all going elsewhere, Blod explained that she would stay with a friend. ‘I thought Geraint was decorating the room I usually have and I didn’t want to be a nuisance,’ she had explained on a brief visit. ‘I’m grateful for all the Christmases you’ve looked after me,’ she went on.

  There it was, that word again!

  ‘I want you here,’ Ruth insisted.

  Blodwen shook her head. ‘Tommy’s wife explained how we were all taking advantage of you, so I’ve arranged to spend the day with my neighbour Mrs Harrison.’

  ‘Our Christmas is nothing to do with Toni!’

  ‘I know, dear, but she was only thinking of you, being kind.’

  Ruth’s first instinct was to tell Henry but she stopped the thought as soon as it begun. She had quarrelled with Henry. She had made it clear that he was less important that her absentee family. She was on her own. Then, to her surprise she had two invitations. One came from Mrs Harrison, Aunty Blod’s neighbour. She invited her to spend the day with her and Blodwen, but before she could consider how to reply, Henry came.