He went first to the kitchen and put the kettle on to make a cup of tea. Calling periodically, he took off his overcoat and trilby and shuffled his cold feet into his slippers. Whistling as he busied himself settling out cups and saucers, his movements fast and efficient, he didn’t see the pile of clothes on the couch until the tea was poured and the biscuit tin had been raided. A closer look revealed the clothes were his. The contents of his wardrobe and drawers had been dumped on the couch together with two blankets and a pillow.
When Dora came into the room she held the earring in front of her like an offering. “You’d better take this back to that tart you’ve been to see. Pity for her to have an odd earring, isn’t it? Expensive they look too. Buy them for her, did you? Payment for sharing her bed?”
“What is it? What earring? Where did you find it? I don’t know anything about it and Nia doesn’t wear earrings so it can’t be hers.” He was gabbling like a schoolboy caught smoking.
“One of the others, then? Don’t tell me there aren’t any others. Since when have you been able to keep faithful to only two women! Egomaniac you are Lewis Lewis! You’d need the admiration of a dozen tarts like Nia Martin to keep you happy.”
“I know nothing about it.” He spoke loudly, his confidence growing. He knew that only Nia had been in the car with him and he had cleaned it less than a week ago. No, this was down to Dora. “You’re trying to trick me for some reason of your own. I haven’t had a woman in the car and I don’t know where you got that ghastly trinket from but I’ve got nothing to do with it so don’t try your tricks on me!”
“Insane you are, Lewis Lewis, and I can’t think why I believed you when you said it was over. Get out of my sight.”
Silently, Lewis began to take the clothes she had piled up and transported them to the car.
“Where are you going? Back to her?” Dora shrieked as he took the third armful.
“Back to The Firs you stupid woman, and there I’m going to stay!”
* * *
Lewis-boy walked across the cold, empty beach from the rocky outcrop on one side to the steps leading up to the clifftop on the other. He had been wandering around all day, not wanting to go home, avoiding telling Eleri and the others he had been sacked. The firm didn’t give much of a reason, only that sales weren’t up to expectations. He had listened to a eulogy on his father’s successes in bringing the joys of frozen food to scores of towns and villages. He had nodded in gloomy acknowledgement when his failures were thus compared. He knew he had only got the job because of his father’s reputation. ‘A chip off the old block’ was what they had expected, a faint shadow was all they had had.
The day was overcast but there was a brightness on the horizon, and he wondered if it was an omen of better to come. Damn it all, it couldn’t get any worse. He no longer had a car and that hurt. He was used to getting in and driving without worrying about overloaded buses or that rattle trap old bike he’d had since he was fourteen.
Feeling in his pocket, he checked that he had the bus fare then walked up the beach along the windswept prom to the line of bus stops. The pavement had a thin covering of windblown sand and there was no one waiting. He idly looked at fun-fair rides, shops and cafés that were firmly closed. A few tattered remnants of flags and rust-streaked notices recommending fish and chip suppers and afternoon teas moved in the occasional gusts, adding melancholy to his already depressed spirits. Out of season, the place looked as lifeless as he felt.
As he waited for the bus he began to invent a story to explain why he had decided to leave. Not the true one, of course, pride deserved a little boost at a time like this. Dad would know the facts but Eleri would believe her husband, wouldn’t she? If he got his story in first she would.
It was four o’clock and safe to return home, but this was the only day he’d be able to keep the secret. Tomorrow Dad would know – if he didn’t already and although he was out of the house and living at The Firs again, he was sure to tell someone. He had to speak to Eleri first. She mustn’t hear it from Dad. Damn it all, he was only twenty-one, life should still be fun! Perhaps he’d meet Joseph and Barry and Jack Weston tonight, have a bit of a laugh then meet Eleri from work and tell her then.
Walking through town he saw notices in a few windows advertising for staff. Most were unsuitable, or too demeaning even for an unemployed salesman who couldn’t sell. Then one caught his eye. It was in the grocery. Cut Price Ken’s was one of those half-empty shops where fresh stock came daily and was quickly sold at lower than usual prices. It was never certain what would be on offer each day so customers went to Cut Price Ken’s first and bought what they could, before going further afield for the items they couldn’t get from Ken. It was not much of a job and Lewis-boy knew the wages would be abysmal, but the small words at the bottom drew his interest. Flat available for the right applicant.
He mused over the possibilities for a while then, seeing that the address for the owner was only around the corner, he went at once to see him. Fifteen minutes later he had accepted the job and agreed to move in a week’s time. As he was passing Temptations, he popped his head around the door. “Hi yer, sis. All right?”
“All right I suppose, but it’s awful without Dad. Mam’s prowling and looking for arguments, on the verge of tears one minute and threatening to ‘belt us proper’ the next.”
“What happened, d’you know?”
“He said it was our Mam fixing him up to give herself an excuse to chuck him out again. I can’t believe that, can you?”
“I can believe anything of those two. There’s been a war on at our house since long before 1939 and there’s no sign of it ending!”
“But pretending to find an earring in his car?”
“Rhiannon, don’t say anything at home yet, but I haven’t got a car any more.”
“You haven’t had an accident? You aren’t hurt?” Her eyes widened in distress.
“Not an accident. I’ve been sacked.”
“Why? What have you done?” Rhiannon covered her cheeks with her hands.
“More what I haven’t done, like sell something! I’m not a brilliant salesman like our Dad, I don’t know why I thought I could be. Not a word to Eleri, mind. I want to tell her on the way home from work tonight.”
“What will you do? You and Eleri will never get a place of your own now. Oh, poor Eleri, she did so want to start building a home.”
“We will get our own place, in fact, we’ll get one sooner this way. I’ve already got a job as a shop assistant and there’s a flat behind the shop as part of the deal.”
“But you just said you aren’t a salesman—”
“Oh I think I could manage this. It’s selling potatoes and carrots at Cut Price Ken’s and if I can’t manage that it’s best I shoot myself. Better off dead I’d be, if I can’t sell a few spuds!”
“Oh Lewis-boy, it isn’t what you hoped for, is it?”
“Better than some manage to achieve. At least we’ll have a place of our own. Now,” he added brightly, “no more glum looks, I’m going to celebrate with Joseph and Jack tonight, then I’ll tell Eleri and from then on it’s going to be better. Right?”
“Right.” She smiled.
When Lewis-boy walked into The Railwayman’s Jack and Joseph were already there. They saw at once that he was excited about something.
“What is it, Lewis-boy, Eleri expecting is it?”
“No it isn’t,” Lewis-boy snapped, “and if you don’t behave I won’t tell you my news.” Allowing himself to be persuaded, he told them about the new job with a pretended pride. “I did it so Eleri and I could have a home of our own,” he said. “Fed up we are, living with Mam, with her and Dad at each other’s throats like mad dogs half the time.”
“Aw, there’s good you are to that girl, Lewis-boy.” Joseph said, glancing at Jack.
“Got to do your best, haven’t you?” Lewis-boy said and his two friends nodded wisely. “It isn’t much of a wage, mind,” he went on, “and I
’ll miss the car, but I decided it was worth it to get a place. Eleri deserves it, she does.”
“Aw, there’s a good kind husband you are, giving up all that for Eleri,” Jack said.
“And losing the car too, and all for your little wife. Aw.” Viv arrived in time to hear the last few words and he shook his head. “Heard you were sacked,” he said. “Our Dad called at the shop to tell me. Sorry, Lewis-boy.”
“I’d heard too,” Jack Weston said.
“And you let me go on about it being my choice to leave, pretending to believe me!”
“Didn’t have the heart to stop you,” Jack laughed, “but we won’t let on.”
“Best you tell Eleri mind, before she hears it from our Dad or someone else. She doesn’t deserve that,” Viv reminded him.
“All right, I was sacked. And the reason I lost my job was because I’m useless at selling frozen foods, right? I was upset when I was told, but now I’m glad. I knew I was no good, and I was sick of trying to do as well as our Dad. At least now I won’t have to worry about the number of sales I make. Spuds are too numerous to count!”
* * *
During the following weekend Eleri and Lewis-boy, with Rhiannon helping, started to move into the flat behind Ken’s Cut Price shop. On Saturday evening, Joseph and Barry, and Jack Weston arrived offering to help and turned the event into a party. Lewis turned up, offered a brief word of sympathy to his son then congratulated him on being clever enough to find a job with a flat thrown in.
“You’ll be able to start building a home now, eh, Eleri? Take this as a start.” He handed Eleri two fivers and added, “That’s to fill the pantry so there’s something to eat when I call. Right?”
“They’ll have plenty of spuds!” Joseph teased. “I hear you are to be congratulated too, Joseph, best wishes, and God protect you from your in-laws,” Lewis said with a wry grin. “Best you find a place to live as far from the Griffiths as you can get.”
“Australia?” Jack suggested.
At nine o’clock Dora arrived and Lewis stood up and offered her a drink of the cider he had brought. She shook her head and prowled around inspecting the place while the others held their breath, expecting another shouting match. She nodded approval, poured herself a drink and sat down beside Rhiannon to hear their plans.
Rhiannon stood up and offered her seat to her father. If her parents sat together they might talk and not shout. That would be a start, she thought, secretly showing crossed fingers to Eleri. Not a lot, but a start.
Dora was frightened. Lewis living back at The Firs, Eleri and Lewis-boy moving out and already the house was beginning to sound hollow.
If Rhiannon married, or Viv, what would she do with herself? Perhaps the earring had been a trick on someone’s part? Stranger things had happened. If only she didn’t lose her temper so quickly. If they had talked about it she might have at least pretended to believe him. A successful marriage, she thought cynically, is ten per cent love, ten per cent luck and eighty per cent pretence.
“More cider, love?” Lewis smiled at her. He tried really hard with that smile, looking at her with eyes softened and pleading. He moved fractionally closer.
“Why not?” she replied offering him her glass. The noise in the room was such that he had to move closer still to be sure she heard him repeat. “Why not?” His lips just touched her ear, a mere brush but he knew she was in a mood to listen to his explanations and softly, he began.
Chapter Seven
Joseph was relieved when the visit to introduce Caroline Griffiths to his mother went well. He knew Caroline was not the wife his mother would have chosen for him and before that Saturday supper, she was predisposed to dislike her. Joseph knew he was his mother’s favourite, her first born and any girl he had brought home and introduced as his future wife wouldn’t have entirely pleased her. But when they left, after Caroline had insisted on helping with the dishes, his mother had kissed her and welcomed her into the family. He didn’t think there could be a happier man in Pendragon Island that evening.
Nia watched them go, Joseph watching carefully over his bride-to-be, making sure she was warmly dressed and didn’t trip over the step, protective and gentle and yet with that bubbling sense of fun still there, only now shared between them. She couldn’t help a feeling of regret, envy even.
Before that Saturday evening she had tried not to prejudge Caroline or think of her as the woman who was going to take her son from her, but she had found it hard. Yet, after only a short while in Caroline’s company she could see what it was that attracted her son. Her warmth and gentleness, her intelligence and humour were a surprise and she found it impossible to believe that Caroline was related to the rest of the Griffiths clan. “She’s lovely,” she whispered to him when she went to see to the meal. “She can’t be a Griffiths, she must be a changeling!”
Caroline’s parents, the grizzled and overweight Hywel and skinny, grey-haired Janet, and her brothers, Basil and Frank, with her cousin Ernie, lived on their wits. Caroline was the only one to earn any money, although the rest of her family never seemed hard up.
Basil spent his time poaching or doing ‘deals’ that only just had their roots on the side of legality. He was tall and extremely thin, his long-limbed figure giving the appearance of a pair of scissors in danger of falling apart. His complexion was deathly pale, his arms dangled as if on loose rivets. He habitually woke fully around midnight and during the day always looked half asleep.
“He appears slow,” Joseph had once told Nia, “but if a copper or a game keeper appears he can dive through a hole in a hedge with speed that would put a terrier to shame.”
Frank, who had been wounded during the war and had a weak right arm, and cousin Ernie, were best known for their trail of unfinished jobs and for fighting. How did Caroline fit into such a family? And, more important, how would she fit into this one? Nia asked herself these questions as the couple drifted out of sight in the darkness and chill of the late evening.
The men in Caroline’s family survived mostly on seasonal farm-work, plus the occasional job that came their way. They were known to tackle anything from ploughing, haymaking, hedging and ditching, sheep-shearing and rubbish clearing and even, on occasions when they needed money for some scheme or other, to paint a house or repair a roof. They were also known to idle their time away for months on end. That they were clever was never in doubt, that they were lazy was also beyond dispute.
All this passed through Nia’s mind as she sat and thought of the evening just passed. Joseph was so obviously happy that any lingering doubts about the wisdom of his marrying Caroline quickly dispersed.
“If it’s any help to you,” she had offered, when the young couple were finishing their meal, “only if you want it, mind, there’s the flat above Temptations lying empty, or it will be once Barry has removed his stuff. His new premises should be finished by Christmas.”
“You mean we could live there?”
“If you think it will suit you. Why not?”
Barry came in at that moment and the three of them discussed the feasibility of his emptying the flat and getting it decorated before the spring.
“An Easter wedding it is, then,” Joseph had smiled.
Nia hugged them both and there was such a sentimental softness about her face, with a hint of a tear in her eye, that Barry had a mind to tease her but he held the words back. Joseph was his mam’s favourite, he knew that and seeing her happy at Joseph’s choice of wife was a special moment. Too special for him to spoil.
Walking home, Joseph and Caroline discussed the evening and agreed that it had been a success.
“You won Mam over straight away, my beautiful Caroline,” Joseph whispered. “So lucky I am that no one found you first.”
“You think we should take the flat and marry at Easter?” She sounded doubtful.
“Is something wrong? Aren’t you sure? Is it anything Mam said? Or Barry?”
“Your mother and brother have made me feel a
part of the family already, love, it’s just—”
“What? Tell me what’s worrying you. You won’t change your mind will you? I love you and I know we’ll be happy.”
“I won’t change, but your mother might when she meets the Griffithses at home.”
He laughed then. “Come on, I know it’s late but let’s go and arrange it straight away and get it over with.”
“No, Joseph, they’ll need notice and—”
Ignoring her pleading to wait, Joseph walked to her door, knocked and called, “Anyone home? It’s Joseph bringing your Caroline home.”
The scene inside the house was one of chaos. The remains of a meal were still on the table; Frank, Basil and Ernie were arguing and only a few yards away Hywel was trying to listen to the radio. A huge cat was lying across a loaf of bread and a half-knitted jumper.
“Hi-yer Joseph, where did you find Caroline?”
“Your mam and dad here?” Joseph asked, holding Caroline’s hand and tugging her resisting form into the room.
“Mam? Dad?” Basil called and after a few moments, during which Caroline stood glaring at her brothers’ amused faces, Hywel and Janet Griffiths came down the stairs.
“Hello, boy, what do you want at this time of night?” Hywel asked. “Nothing wrong is there?”
“I’ve come to tell you that Caroline and I are getting married at Easter.”
“You what?” Everyone stood up and stared at the couple so that Joseph unconsciously stepped back, pulling Caroline with him.
“We’re getting married,” Caroline repeated. “Mrs Martin says we can rent the flat above the sweet shop.”
There was a silence that seemed hostile, then everyone started to speak at once. It occurred to Joseph that they all wanted to ask if there was a baby on the way to justify the sudden announcement, but he could hardly embarrass Caroline by reassuring them.
After the congratulations and large helpings of predictable teasing, Joseph left to walk home, feeling as if he had been wrung out. But after walking only a few yards he felt invigorated and so filled with excitement he wanted to shout his joy to the sky. So he did.
Corner of a Small Town Page 11
