by Rosie Harris
‘Are these all the shirts and underpants and socks that I have, Mam?’ He frowned as he took them out of the cupboard and packed them into the suitcase.
‘One on your back, one in the wash and one clean and ready to wear,’ Alwyn told him. ‘You’re lucky there’s two of everything there,’ she sniffed. ‘That’s only because I’ve already done the washing and ironing for the week.’
‘That’s it, then,’ he announced in a forced voice as he closed the lid of the suitcase. ‘All my worldly belongings,’ he added, patting it lightly. ‘Right, I’d better be off.’
When he put his arms round his mother to kiss her goodbye Alwyn stiffened like a board. She remained unresponsive and didn’t even return his kiss.
Fern wondered what she ought to do if he came over and hugged her. She didn’t want Glanmor to leave any more than Alwyn did, but she knew that he had always dreamed of going to sea. She could see that this was a wonderful opportunity for him and wanted to wish him well but at the same time she didn’t want to antagonise Alwyn.
When he merely gave her a brief peck on the cheek it brought a lump of disappointment to her throat. She’d hoped he’d take her in his arms, hug her and kiss her properly. She wanted to fling her arms round his neck and cling to him and tell him how much she loved him and that it was breaking her heart that he was going, but, because Alwyn was watching, she remained mute.
The moment passed. She heard the door open, slam shut and the echo of his footsteps as, resolutely, he strode away down the road heading for the Pier Head.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Alwyn snatched up a shawl from the back of a chair and thrust Fern’s coat into her hands, at the same time pushing her towards the door.
‘Come on, after him. We must stop him. We can’t let him ruin his life like this.’
The lamplighter was already putting out the lights as they went out into the street. The air was sharp but the sky was clear and there was a moon and cascades of stars to light them on their way.
Together they followed the way they thought Glanmor would be heading towards the docks, They were walking so fast that they were both breathless by the time the Pier Head building came into view but, so far, there had been no sighting of him.
‘Where do we go from here?’ Fern panted. ‘We don’t know which dock the Saturn is berthed in.’
‘We’ll soon find out; there can’t be all that many cargo boats leaving here at midnight.’
Fern leaned on the railings and looked down into the dark waters below. ‘By the height of the water I’d say it is already high tide,’ she murmured worriedly.
‘Glanmor said they were sailing at midnight,’ Alwyn repeated stubbornly. She looked up at the clock face on the Pier Head building. ‘There are still a few minutes to go.’
‘He said they were sailing at high tide,’ Fern reminded her. ‘That might be before midnight.’
Even as they argued they heard the impatient chugging of the tugs followed by the sharp response of a ship’s hooter signalling that it was leaving the quayside. They watched in silence as a long, slim vessel moved out into the narrow channel that would take it out into the open sea.
‘That’s it; we’re too late, Alwyn. I’m sure that’s the Saturn,’ Fern whispered.
They clung together, shivering in the sharp night air, watching the ship disappear into the darkness, carrying with it the man who was so close to both their hearts.
Chapter Fourteen
Fern and Alwyn both missed Glanmor although neither of them openly admitted it.
Fern accepted that he had hated working in a factory. She also suspected that he had dreamed so much about going to sea that he knew he would never be able to settle down until he had finally achieved his ambition and his need to see more of the world was out of his system.
Alwyn felt bitter and angry that he had been so ungrateful as to desert her after she had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to give him a good, stable home life.
Frequently she took her frustration out on Fern, even going as far as to infer that Glanmor had left home because she’d taken over his room.
‘It was Glanmor’s idea that I should use his room,’ Fern protested, when Alwyn brought the matter up.
‘Well, that’s Glanmor all over, isn’t it?’ Alwyn sighed. ‘I suppose it’s because of the way I’ve brought him up, always making sure that he behaved unselfishly and put others before himself. Not me, his own mam, of course. He took me for granted. Always expected me to be able to sort things out and do everything for myself. Now look at the state things are in.’
‘I don’t know, you seem to be managing quite well,’ Fern said encouragingly.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Alwyn said dismissively.
Whenever she said this Fern wondered if perhaps it was time she left. She had saved hard ever since she’d been working in the market and she was sure that now she had enough money saved to be able to rent a room of her own. The only thing that stopped her from doing so was that she was afraid that if she did, then when Glanmor came home from sea his mother wouldn’t tell him her new address.
She kept telling herself that he knew where she worked, so what did it matter? But at the back of her mind was the thought that she’d like to wait and find a place with Glanmor, not on her own. Even if he had to go back to sea for another trip she would know he was coming back to her and that she was waiting for him.
Sometimes, when she was feeling very depressed or worried and it had been a long time since she’d heard from Glanmor, she wondered if he had found another girl. It was a well-known fact that sailors were supposed to have a girl in every port and she knew she would be heartbroken if he told her that he’d found someone else.
Although he wrote to them separately, Fern often wondered if his mother received more letters than she did. Glanmor wasn’t much of a letter-writer and he said very little about where he was or what was happening to him. He seemed to have no idea when he would be back in Cardiff.
When she tried to talk to Alwyn about Glanmor she found the older woman seemed to know even less than she did.
‘It’s no good talking to me about him; you probably hear from him more than I do,’ Alwyn muttered.
‘I think we are both missing him, though,’ Fern sighed.
‘It’s all very well for you; it’s not your responsibility when things go wrong here. This is where Glanmor should be. We need a man about the place to knock in nails, move heavy furniture, and the hundred and one other small jobs that need doing, like putting a new washer on the tap,’ Alwyn went on in a disgruntled voice as she tried to turn the tap off and stop the irritating drip.
Every night when she arrived home Fern found that Alwyn had a fresh moan about something. At first she offered to help but this only made Alwyn even angrier.
‘You do it,’ she’d say in a scornful voice. ‘You wouldn’t know which end of a hammer to use.’
Although Fern knew that Alwyn was probably right she was willing to try but Alwyn made it so clear that it was beyond her capabilities that in the end she said nothing and after a while stopped offering her services.
When one evening she arrived home and found a broad-shouldered middle-aged stranger in the kitchen fitting a new washer on the leaking tap she gave an inward sigh of relief that Alwyn had at last called someone in to mend it and would no longer be grumbling about it all the time.
To her surprise, when they sat down for their evening meal, he sat down with them. Alwyn introduced him as Jake Tomlinson. ‘He’s one of the sailors from the Seaman’s Mission where I work and he offered to come and mend it,’ she explained.
From then on, Jake became a regular visitor. When he’d finished whatever little job it was that Alwyn had asked him to come and do, the pair of them would go off to the pub so that she could buy him a beer or two.
‘I’m not in the habit of going to pubs, but it’s the only way I can recompense him for his services since he refuses t
o take any money,’ she explained to Fern.
The friendship between Alwyn and Jake seemed to grow apace and soon he was eating with them every night. Most evenings he and Alwyn went out to the pub but occasionally he brought a bottle of rum with him and they stayed in. Whenever this happened Alwyn made it quite clear that she expected Fern to either go out or take herself off to her own room.
It was times like this when Fern really did miss Glanmor. He was the only real friend she had; the only one who had ever taken her out to the pictures or for a walk.
When she had started working at the market one or two of the younger men who worked there had invited her out but she had always turned down their invitations, preferring to spend any leisure time she had with Glanmor.
She had rebuffed them so often that now, when she would have welcomed the opportunity to go out with them, they no longer showed any interest. They were still quite friendly, though, and would always keep an eye on her stall for a few minutes while she was absent if she asked them to do so.
It was shortly after Christmas when she came down with a heavy cold. She managed to keep going but as soon as the morning rush was over outside the railway station on Saturday, Maria took over and sent her home for the rest of the day.
‘Off to bed with a hot-water bottle and a drink of hot lemon when you get there, mind, and stay there all day tomorrow if you are no better,’ Maria advised.
When she woke up the next morning she had such a sore throat and aching head that she felt even more ill than she’d done the day before. Thankfully it was Sunday, so she decided to do as Maria had told her and stay in bed.
She lay there for several minutes hoping that she might hear Alwyn moving around and could call out and ask her if she would make her a cup of tea. Then she remembered that Alwyn would have gone to work, preparing the vegetables for the men’s midday meal. Shivering, she pulled her coat on over her nightdress and padded down to the kitchen to make herself a drink.
To her surprise, Jake was in the kitchen. He was wearing only a singlet and trousers and from the tousled look of his hair and the stubble on his face he had only just woken up himself.
‘Another one who has slept in,’ he grunted as she went into the scullery. ‘There’s tea in the pot, I’ve just brewed it.’
She felt uncomfortable as he stood there breathing heavily, scratching his chest and watching her as she took down a cup from the shelf and filled it from the big brown teapot.
‘Taking it back to bed with you, are you?’ he questioned.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Do you want someone to come with you to keep you company and give you a cuddle?’ he leered as he moved closer to her.
Fern didn’t answer but she edged as far away from him as she could.
‘You’ve only got to say the word,’ he persisted moving closer to her. ‘There’s no point in being lonely.’
‘I don’t need any company. I’ve got a bad head cold and I want to have a lie-in,’ she said stiffly as she pulled her coat more tightly together.
Jake turned away, pulled a cigarette out from a packet in his pocket and began to light it. ‘In that case, if you’ve got a snotty nose I don’t think I’ll bother,’ he muttered as she hurried past him on her way back upstairs.
Fern didn’t answer but she found she was still shaking when she reached her narrow little room. With a feeling of panic she looked around for something to push up against the door in case he decided to follow her.
From then on, when she discovered that Jake had more or less moved in, and was sleeping with Alwyn three or four nights a week, she was careful to avoid him as much as possible. Nevertheless, she was aware that he seemed to be watching her all the time and it made her feel uneasy.
Fern wondered how Jake and Glanmor would hit it off when Glanmor came home and wondered what he would have to say when he found out how much his mother had changed now that Jake was more or less living with her.
Alwyn really was a completely different person, Fern reflected. She had not only put on a great deal of weight but she’d also taken to using lipstick and powder and had started to dress up in the evenings when she went out drinking with Jake.
Fern tried to ignore what has happening at home and to concentrate instead on what went on at the Hayes. Business was steady but far from brisk because spring was late. When at last it did start to warm up, the air was heavy and oppressive and every so often there was the rumble of thunder and everyone’s nerves seemed to be on edge waiting for the storm to break.
Alwyn complained about the heat at work and often when she came in from work Fern found her pottering around barefoot in the kitchen, wearing only her under-slip. Jake was usually lounging against the sink in only his string vest or else with his shirt unbuttoned all the way down.
‘You should try taking your dress off, Fern,’ Jake told her. ‘You’d feel a lot cooler if you did, especially if you also took those clumpy shoes and your thick stockings off as well and sat with your feet in a bowl of cold water.’
‘I’m sure I would feel cooler and I would do, if I had some privacy,’ Fern told him. ‘There’s not much chance of that here though, is there?’ she added pointedly.
Although Alwyn said nothing she raised her eyebrows and gave Jake a puzzled look.
Fern pretended not to notice it but she was well aware of the atmosphere in the room. As soon as she’d eaten her meal and helped to clear everything away she went off to her room.
Here at least she could strip off and get cool, she thought thankfully as she took off the heavy navy-blue cotton dress she’d worn to work that day and then peeled off her lisle stockings and lay down on the bed.
The air in the tiny bedroom was stagnant and although she had opened the sash window as wide as she possibly could the air was so heavy that she felt drowsy and in next to no time she had drifted off into a light sleep.
She was wakened by the feel of someone’s hand sliding the straps of her slip down off her shoulders. For a moment the light breeze across her naked flesh was deliciously cooling but when she felt the hand move down her neck and then start to fondle her exposed breasts she drew in her breath sharply. Shocked into alertness she opened her eyes.
For a moment she thought she must be still asleep and having a bad dream. She blinked rapidly and ran her hand over her eyes to try and clear her head.
It was no dream. She found Jake Tomlinson was on her bed and kneeling over her, his face so close to hers that she choked on his stale breath.
Petrified, she opened her mouth to scream but immediately his hand clamped down over her face, effectively silencing her. She struggled to breathe and she felt so scared that she couldn’t stop shaking.
‘Got you at my mercy now, haven’t I?’ he gloated as he looked down at her.
There was such a look of lust on his face and his dark eyes glittered in such an evil way that when she felt his hand slide up her bare leg she was only too aware of what was in his mind and she struggled desperately.
His cruel laugh at the ineffectiveness of her attempt to free herself gave strength to her endeavours. She knew she was powerless against his strength so she bit down hard on the side of the hand he was still holding over her mouth.
He yelped with pain as her teeth pierced his flesh and momentarily relaxed his hold of her.
Taking a deep breath she brought up her knee and managed to catch him not in the groin, as she’d intended, but in the soft flab of his stomach and that momentarily winded him.
‘You spiteful little bitch, I’ll get even with you for this,’ he panted as he pulled away from her.
‘Alwyn will get even with you when I tell her about what you’ve tried to do,’ Fern sobbed. ‘She won’t be welcoming you here again in the future.’
‘If you say one word to her, you’ll find yourself in trouble,’ he warned. ‘You’d better watch out. Make sure you know who’s walking behind you when you come home at night.’
‘You wouldn’t dare attac
k me,’ Fern challenged. Her breath caught in her throat as spasms of fear took hold of her.
He laughed coarsely. ‘I’m not the only one who’ll be out to get you one of these dark nights. Keep looking over your shoulder, if you know what’s good for you.’
His threats made her feel so vulnerable that she decided the time really had come for her to move out. She couldn’t stand the atmosphere any longer. She had enough saved up and although her original intention was to do nothing until Glanmor came home, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer for that to happen.
She dressed quickly, determined to act right away before she changed her mind. Her savings were tucked away under the bed in one of Maria’s stout canvas purses so she wedged a chair against the door in case either Alwyn or Jake should hear her moving the mattress and come to see what was going on.
She breathed a deep sigh of relief as she pulled the purse from its hiding place. Then she straightened the room before opening it. When she did so she gave a gasp of dismay. It was completely empty. Every penny of her hard-earned savings was gone.
She couldn’t believe it. She wondered if she had mistakenly taken it out and counted her savings and then put the purse back under the mattress without putting the money into the purse. Or whether she hadn’t closed the purse properly and the money had fallen out. Once again she removed the mattress; this time completely so that the springs were bare, but there was no sign of any money or anything else hidden there.
Tears of self-pity streamed down her face. Who had taken it, she wondered? It had to be either Alwyn or Jake, but how had they known it was there? She’d always been so careful; counting it and then secreting it away when Alwyn was out of the house. She knew every coin and note that was in the purse. She knew exactly how much should be there.
The more she thought about it the surer she became that Alwyn was the culprit. All the new clothes she’d been buying; the good food she was putting on the table whenever Jake was there for a meal. Alwyn must also be the one paying for their nights out at the pub because Jake had been out of work ever since he’d started coming there.
