Rhiannon looked around at the shelves in Temptations one morning as she was about to open, and asked herself if she should leave. Getting away from this connection with Nia and Barry might help her mother to forget. But it was not a prospect to excite her. She loved the shop and its happy trade.
With rationing over she saw her customers more frequently and many more had become friends. She was being invited to parties and trips to the cinema and to the occasional dance and so had what could be described as a busy social life for the first time in her life. She looked back at the time when she kept house for her mother and the family and realised what she had been missing.
It would be the same now wherever she worked, she knew that. She would make new friends and keep those she already had. But she loved this little shop with the bright displays, shiny chrome and polished glass, and took pleasure in helping people make their purchases, especially if it was a gift from her growing selection, or something to surprise a child.
Easter had increased her stock of the gifts she had long envisaged selling: Lovells Easter eggcups with chocolate eggs in them, chickens, rabbits and funny faces. Mothers, aunts and grandmothers had bought them as fast as she could stock them. Temptations was a happy place to work and she was saddened at the prospect of leaving. But if it would help her mother, she decided then, that was what she must do.
“You’re looking pensive, Rhiannon,” Barry said as he came into the shop with a load of equipment. “Nothing wrong, is there?”
“No, but I’m thinking of leaving here,” she replied.
He dropped the tripod and cases and stared at her. “You’re leaving? But why? Whatever is wrong will be put right. Is it me, wandering in and out to the flat? I’d hate it, but I’ll come less often if it bothers you.”
“Mam is so quiet these days, working hard on the house and the garden and I think she’d be happier if we didn’t have any connection with the woman who ruined her life.” As Barry began to protest she raised a hand to make him listen. “In Mam’s mind your mother is responsible. I know my father must take most of the blame, but she can’t see that. She loves him you see. That makes logical thinking a bit difficult.”
“But where will you go if you leave here? At least you’re close to home and if you want to pop home you can, any time.”
“Mam isn’t ill, she’s just a bit depressed and she’s dealing with that by working too hard.”
“She doesn’t look too well. Has she seen a doctor?”
Frightened that she had perhaps said too much, she retaliated crossly. “She doesn’t need a doctor! How will a doctor help? This is something my father could cure, but because of your mother clinging to him and not letting him go he won’t even try!”
“Please don’t leave, Rhiannon. You’re doing such an excellent job and Mam is pleased with the way you’ve increased the business. But all that’s a separate issue. I want you to stay. If we can’t be together I want to be able to see you every day. You know how I feel about you.” He took her arm and pulled her gently into the room behind the shop. Taking her into his arms he kissed her and she couldn’t deny that for her, too, a separation would be hard to bear.
“I love you and we should have married before all this mix-up began.”
“There’s no point talking about what might have been,” Rhiannon sighed, but it was his turn to hold up a hand to hush her.
“I know we can’t go back in time to how it was before Lewis-boy and Joseph died. But please, don’t go out of my life.”
“I am out of your life,” she said. “And until you and Caroline are divorced there’s no chance I’ll ever be in it. It’s all so impossible, Barry.”
“Don’t say that, Rhiannon. Don’t make me give up hope.”
* * *
Lewis heard from Viv that Dora was unwell. He called one Friday evening on the way home from his calls and saw that Viv was right; Dora was shedding weight fast and her face looked years older because of it.
The familiar spark flared in her bright blue eyes though, as she demanded, “What d’you want?”
“I’ve brought the money to pay the rates, they’re due this month, aren’t they? And the ground rent on the house.” He handed her an envelope and added, “It’s all there, plus a few pounds which I want to pay every week towards the upkeep of the house.”
“I don’t want your money. Give it to her.”
“Nia has her own house to see to and she doesn’t ask for money from me, you know that, Dora. This is for you and Rhiannon and Viv, to keep the house going.”
With this precedent set, Lewis began to call every Friday. His intention was to stay a while to make sure she was all right, but this did not happen. His visits consisted of handing her an envelope and having the door closed firmly in his face.
* * *
Rhiannon went upstairs to Barry’s flat one morning before she opened the shop. She had some post for him and wondered if he was at home or staying at his mother’s as he sometimes did. She knocked on the door, and, receiving no answer, opened it and put the letters on the table. Curious, she stepped further into the flat and looked in each room.
The place was a mess. In the bedroom the bed was unmade. The living room was cluttered with the equipment of his trade. Cables and cameras, tripods and meters were in a tangle around the room and she shuddered at the thought of trying to sort it all out. The kitchen was a different matter, she knew how to deal with that.
On all the surfaces and in piles on the floor were used plates, tins and saucepans, each coated with congealed remnants of past meals. It was worse than Chestnut Road when Nia was away.
Between serving customers Rhiannon tidied up, washing the pans and dishes and putting them away in cupboards. Food that was opened and half used she put in the ashbin. She replaced the stale loaf with a fresh one.
She waited expectantly for Barry’s next visit, hoping for praise and half regretting her impulse to clean his mess. But Barry said nothing. She was unaware that he naturally assumed his mother had been in and cleared up as she had on several Sundays when Rhiannon wasn’t there.
At first she was offended and put it down to the male belief that cleaning up their mess was what women enjoyed. But she still went up to the flat on occasions when she was certain he wouldn’t appear.
* * *
During the month of August, when the town was buzzing with the usual influx of summer visitors and the weekends were filled with beach parties and dances and long walks and lazy swims, Nia and Lewis met more and more openly. All their acquaintances and friends knew that their affair was continuing; Dora seemed immune to the lingering wisps of gossip as the pair openly discussed living together at Nia’s house on Chestnut Road.
Since her second marriage had failed, Nia knew that she needed someone in her life. Until now she had been content, but now her oft-repeated insistence that she needed no one was a sham. It was partly because of the death of her adored Joseph and the possibility of Barry leaving. She had never really been alone, with the boys coming and going and filling the house with their friends. And she had been young then. She faced the fact straight on and admitted she was lonely. She told all this to Lewis and said, “Lewis, love. Why don’t we live together? We can’t cause any more gossip than we do at present. It’s been hard on Dora but perhaps she’s better able to accept it if we showed her your marriage is definitely over.”
Lewis stared at her in disbelief then he hugged her, saying her name over and over. At last his life was going to come together, they were going to settle it at last. After all these years it was going to be all right.
But although it had long been a fervent hope that he thought would never become a reality, Lewis now hesitated. Telling Dora had seemed so easy while Nia was in his arms. Facing Dora and explaining the decision to her was a different matter. The cold stare in her blue eyes made it harder each time he tried. The long days made way for the slower pace of autumn without his finding the courage to take action. Nia, guessi
ng his problem and understanding it, surprised him by offering a solution.
“Why don’t we move right away?”
“Leave the town you mean? But there’s your shop and my job and…” He looked at her momentarily then lowered his gaze before finishing, “…and there’s Rhiannon. I don’t want to go away before she and I are friends again.”
“It’s really Dora, isn’t it, love?” Nia said.
“I know you’re upset that Rhiannon refuses to talk to you, but you’d cope with that. It’s Dora you can’t leave. You can’t cut that final strand of string, can you?” She didn’t speak angrily. She touched his arm affectionately. “I understand, Lewis, my dear. She has taken all this very badly and I know she’s unwell. Let’s wait a while longer, shall we? Just until she’s fit again.”
So the weeks slid past into winter with them spending the occasional night together in Chestnut Road or Lewis’s tiny flat, giving more fuel to the few gossips who cared, and sending Dora deeper into solitude. She rarely went out now and although Viv and Rhiannon occasionally brought friends in, she seemed immune to their lively chatter, lost in a world of her own.
It was Barry who discussed the situation with Rhiannon, telling her that her father and his mother wanted to move away and make a fresh start.
“How can they make a fresh start? Both married they are.”
“No one is happy like this, at least two of them would be if they were together.”
“It’s so cruel. Mam’s done nothing.”
“They fell out of love. It happens, you can’t hide your head and pretend it doesn’t.”
“So that’s all marriage means to you is it? A few years being in love, then, give up when things are less than perfect?”
“You know it isn’t like that with me. I won’t change.”
“You’re divorcing too, remember? Why don’t you try and make a marriage with your wife?”
“Neither Caroline nor I want that and you know it.”
“I wish they would go away! Perhaps Mam will accept it’s finished if they left the town instead of letting everyone see them together, pitying her as the abandoned wife.”
“I’ll tell them that, shall I?” he said tight-lipped.
“Tell them what you like.”
“D’you know, Rhiannon, you’ve stayed at home too long. You’re beginning to sound as bitter as your mother and you don’t even have a reason!” He picked up his things and pushed his way through to the door, his footsteps sounding loud as he stamped up the stairs.
On Sunday, Rhiannon found herself with nothing particular to do. Dora was in the garden cutting out old raspberry canes and fixing sticks for the young ones to come in the spring. Viv was out with Jack, and Eleri and Basil were visiting the Griffiths. She put on a jacket and left the house, intending to walk across the docks and along the beach.
She automatically glanced towards the shop to see if Barry’s van was outside. It wasn’t, but the shop door was open and she hesitantly looked inside. Nia stood behind the counter with a duster in her hand. At once Rhiannon was on the defensive.
“I wash all the counters and shelves every week,” she began and to her relief, Nia laughed.
“Hello Rhiannon. I’m not cleaning the shop. It’s spotless as always. No, to tell you the truth I usually pop in and check Barry’s flat. Such a mess he makes in a few days, although, he does seem to be getting better lately.”
“No he isn’t,” Rhiannon said. “I’ve been going up most days and keeping the mess to manageable proportions!” Their laughter was genuine and when Nia invited her up to the flat for a cup of tea she accepted. Although it was easy to hate Nia when she was away from her, as soon as they met, her liking for the woman quickly returned.
Friendly mood or not, it was impossible for Rhiannon not to mention Barry’s remark about Nia and her father moving out of the town. “It’s the fear of making it worse and not better for your mother that makes us hesitate,” Nia explained. “But I think that once we’ve gone, when we aren’t likely to meet, Dora would be better able to cope. She’d go out more and feel more relaxed. Your father isn’t so sure. What do you think?”
“You’re both married, yet you’re talking about going away as if a wife and a husband are hardly worth a thought. Don’t you feel guilty?” Rhiannon asked boldly.
“Oh,” Nia gave her soft little sigh. “I feel guilty, of course I do. But if Lewis and I didn’t see each other ever again, the guilt wouldn’t go away. Your parents wouldn’t get back to how they were before. My husband wouldn’t change his mind and come back. You wouldn’t see Barry as anything other than the son of your father’s fancy piece.” She gave Rhiannon a sad smile. “Yes, I know what I’m called,” she said. “We’re well past the half-way to our three score years and ten, Lewis and I. It would be such a waste of the years ahead, to pretend we can put things right, dear.”
“But that doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t make it right, but I don’t think anything will, do you?”
Before Rhiannon left, Nia handed her an envelope. “I was going to leave this on the counter for you to see tomorrow,” she said.
“Nothing to do with your telling Barry you feel you ought to leave, it isn’t intended to persuade you to stay. It’s just a thank you for what you’re doing for me here.”
Inside was a note to say that as from that week her wages were increased by a massive two pounds a week.
Chapter Fourteen
Sunday was always the worst day of the week for Dora. There was nothing she could do to fill the hours of what had once been a lively family day. Few friends were free even if she had the energy to seek them out. Rhiannon and Viv were occupied with their friends and even the midday meal, once an opportunity to catch up with each other’s news, had been reduced to a hasty scramble to get out of the house.
Today Viv was off somewhere with Jack Weston, Dora couldn’t remember where. And Rhiannon was taking the opportunity to resite some displays in the shop. Dora wondered if Barry would be there and if her daughter would ever find someone to love while he continually invaded her life. Sitting staring into the fire, her thoughts drifted to Lewis. What sort of Sunday did he enjoy with Nia?
She wanted to rise and get the table set for supper, but felt less and less able to move. She had thrown her dinner away again, without the others realising. They were in such a hurry to get out of the house these days it was easy to fool them into believing she was eating, whereas in fact the thought of food made her stomach curl like a wild wave in a storm.
An hour passed and she tried to focus her tired eyes on the clock. It was too much of an effort. She ought to move, she’d promised to make pancakes with some duck eggs Basil had brought them, but the idea of cooking made her feel sick. Although she had not eaten properly for ages she didn’t feel hungry. But she had promised to cook for the others. In a minute, she told herself. Now in a minute, when she’d had a rest.
* * *
Viv had been so incensed by Joan’s reaction to his kiss he couldn’t face the thought of going into Weston’s on the following Monday. He might have allowed his humiliation to run its course and fade, but on Sunday morning, while he was off to meet Jack for a spot of fishing, he met Joan and Megan walking from church.
They were dressed in a combination of colours that made heads turn, including his. Reds and deep maroon and bright orange and pale greens fought for supremacy on the fabric of full-skirted dresses and jackets. They wore tiny hats tilted over their faces in the same material and the result was, in his eyes, magnificence.
He waited for them to reach him, glaring at Joan and trying to read her face.
“Viv, off to meet Jack, are you?” Megan smiled.
“Why Jack fishes in the docks for mullet, with all the local amateurs, when he can afford a trip in decent company to West Wales for salmon, I can’t imagine,” Joan contributed.
“Slumming appeals to some!” Viv retorted.
“Not to me.”<
br />
“You didn’t fight when I kissed you though, did you?” Viv said, determined to make her feel some of his embarrassment. “You didn’t think of slumming then, did you?”
Joan stepped forward and poked his chest with a manicured and varnished fingernail. “Get this straight, Viv Lewis. You’re all right for a bit of amusement, but nothing more. I was asked to be sweet to you so you’d stay and help sort out the business. Well, you’ve done it and now I can stop pretending that you’re even approaching my idea of a man!”
Speechless, Viv watched them go, Megan turning twice with a worried expression on her face as if she wanted to apologise.
He met Jack but said nothing, although Jack guessed his friend was in a rage about something. Determined not to let his anger and hurt show, Viv fished for a while with little success, then leaving Jack to motorcycle back home, he walked to where Arfon and Gladys Weston lived.
Gladys Weston had made it clear on several occasions lately that he was not to call uninvited.
“We are not always ‘At Home’,” she explained sternly. “If you wish to see my husband, it has to be at the shop, or if he prefers, here, when you have telephoned and made an appointment.” Knowing that a Sunday afternoon was the worst possible time to arrive unannounced, Viv banged importantly and spoke loudly to the nervous young girl who was Victoria’s replacement,
“Tell Mr Arfon I am here to talk to him.”
“I’ll ask him if—” the girl stuttered.
Viv repeated, “Tell, Mr Weston I am here to talk to him.” To the girl’s added alarm, he stepped into the hall without being invited to enter.
The girl scuttled away and returned followed by Gladys. Instead of being in awe of the formidable woman as he once might have been, Viv showed impatience and said, “It’s Mr Weston I’m here to see.”
Corner of a Small Town Page 22
