Corner of a Small Town

by Corner of a Small Town (retail) (epub)

  “My husband never sees anyone on a Sunday afternoon.”

  “Tell him I’m here and it’s something that won’t wait.”

  Tutting and fussing, Gladys disappeared and after some distant mutterings Arfon appeared, straightening his tie and patting down his hair. “This won’t do, Viv. It won’t do at all. My wife made it clear—”

  “I’m leaving. I don’t have to put up with being treated like a simpleton and a lackey.”

  “But I don’t understand?”

  “Ask Joan. Pretending to be my assistant, flirting and then saying it was to keep me sweet! Treated me badly she did and I won’t put up with it. So I’ll work a week and then I’m off. There’s another firm moved in and they’ll be glad to employ me and treat me with the respect I deserve. I’ve already been to see them and I start a week tomorrow. Right? I’m damned good at my job, and you know it. So tell your family not to treat me like something that crawled out of a cowpat. Right?” Leaving old man Arfon struggling to form the first words of a speech, he stormed out.

  He was excited and angry and disappointed – and out of a job, having told a lie about having been offered a new one. He turned away from Sophie Street, where he had promised to be home for tea, and went for a walk around the lake and along the more blustery shore of the pebbly beach and up through the park, to where hundreds of picnickers had moved, away from the chill wind that came in on the back of the high tide. He had no idea where he was heading, he just accepted the need to tire himself in unnecessary exercise.

  * * *

  In the Lewises’ house, Dora had slipped into a doze and was slumped in her chair leaning towards the now cold ashes of the fire. Her distressed breathing was the only sound in the room.

  * * *

  Like Viv, Rhiannon stayed out longer than she intended. At five-thirty she was surprised at how late she was. She and Viv were aware of how slowly Sunday passed for their mother and had encouraged Dora to prepare a tea-time meal in the hope that it would fill a part of her afternoon. Now she was later than promised and she was angry with herself. Calling to Barry, who was in the flat above writing out his end of month invoices, she ran up the road and went into the house calling apologies to her mother. There was no reply and she walked through to the kitchen, surprised at seeing no preparations for a meal. Curious, she went back into the living room and only then saw the crouched figure of Dora leaning on the fender, apparently fast asleep.

  Her mother was cold and when she tried to wake her, deeply asleep. Inexperienced as she was, Rhiannon had no doubt that this was not a natural sleep. After quickly covering her mother with blankets, making her more comfortable and turning on an electric fire, she ran back to the shop and called for Barry.

  When Viv came in about fifteen minutes later, Dora was in an ambulance with Rhiannon, and Barry was setting off to tell Lewis.

  “Why did I stay out so long?” Viv wailed. “I knew she wasn’t well.” He told Barry briefly about the scene with the Westons, and Barry made the expected responses to soothe his guilt. “Shall I still go and fetch your father?” he asked. “You’d be better staying here until Rhiannon comes back.”

  “I’ll give it half an hour then I’ll phone,” Viv muttered. “Dad will come home, won’t he?”

  “I expect he’ll go straight to the hospital.”

  “If your mother will let him!” Viv glared at Barry. “It would suit them if she dies, wouldn’t it?”

  “Mam isn’t an ogre as you well know. She wouldn’t want this.”

  Barry had guessed correctly. Lewis went straight to the hospital. Barry didn’t know what to do next, so he drove to the Griffithses’ and told Eleri and Basil, who returned with him to seven Sophie Street to await further news. It was several hours before Barry remembered that the shop door wasn’t locked. He rushed to check, but everything appeared to be as he had left it, but when he went to lock the door the key wasn’t there. He patted his pockets, vaguely searching, but then forgot it. There was always the spare. Thank goodness it was a Sunday and there was no money in the till. He decided not to tell anyone about his stupidity. The following day he found the key just inside the shop door. He’d got away with it this time and the lapse made him determined to be more careful in future.

  * * *

  At the hospital, Lewis hurried to the waiting room where Rhiannon sat, pale-faced and frightened. For a moment he hesitated. Lewis wondered how she would behave with him after all that had happened. But Rhiannon jumped up and ran into the open arms of her father.

  “Rhiannon love, what happened? Is she ill? Didn’t anyone notice?”

  “She hasn’t been eating for weeks, not properly. She thinks I don’t notice her throwing her food in the ashbin. She’s been pretending to enjoy it, waiting until she thought we weren’t looking, then throwing it away.” She looked at her father, afraid to voice her thoughts. “Dad, d’you think it’s cancer? She’s gone so thin.”

  It was more than an hour before the doctor came to find them. What he said was reassuring.

  “I don’t think she has a wasting disease, Mr Lewis,” he began. “Your wife has pneumonia and is very undernourished.”

  Rhiannon tried not to look at her father as he spoke, but saw the movement of his body as he reacted to the news.

  The doctor went on: “Sometimes a person gets rundown, appetite decreases and without realising it, they no longer feel hunger and eventually lose enthusiasm for food altogether.”

  “My mother does suffer with nerves,” Rhiannon offered.

  “A depressed state could account for it, although I would think you need to look further than that. Depression isn’t an illness you know,” the doctor said firmly, voicing the opinion of many.

  Rhiannon didn’t agree. “Isn’t it?” she asked pointedly. She turned and looked at her father. “What do you think, Dad?” she asked him quietly.

  “Can I have a word in private, Doctor?” Lewis asked and Rhiannon left the room, hoping her father would be completely honest.

  * * *

  Dora stayed in hospital for two weeks, while they treated the pneumonia and persuaded her to eat. Lewis was there every day and Rhiannon and Viv called each evening. Eleri and Basil saw her with the rest of the Griffithses, although their rowdy presence was frowned upon by the hospital staff. They filled the air with chatter and laughter as they stood in the corridor waiting for their turn at the bedside.

  * * *

  The first week of Dora’s illness saw the end of Viv’s job at Weston’s. As he hadn’t even spoken to the rival firm, Waltons, about working for them, he was very disconsolate. On Friday evening he left work without a word of farewell. He had been home an hour when there was a knock at the door. Going to answer it, Viv presumed it was someone enquiring after his mother. But old man Arfon stood there.

  “This isn’t a convenient time. You don’t find me ‘At Home’,” Viv couldn’t resist saying, although a wide grin reduced the insult to a joke.

  “My wife likes to be formal, Viv, you know what women are for etiquette. Can I come in?”

  Viv offered him a chair near the blazing fire, and a glass of whisky left from a bottle opened several Christmases ago, and waited to hear what he had to say.

  “You, Viv Lewis, are a cantankerous sod!” was the startling beginning.

  “Yes, and I’m not about to alter!”

  “But we value your expertise, and because Islwyn may – er – well – possibly disappear for a while, and Ryan, er, is…”

  “As much use as a cardboard frying pan?”

  “Er – quite. We would like you to stay. Specially with Waltons trying to take some of our business. It appears to me,” Arfon said, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling, and Viv groaned inwardly as he felt a long speech coming on.

  “You have something to offer me then?” he interrupted.

  “A partnership.”

  Hiding his excitement, Viv stared at the old man and asked, “Can you give me more details?”


  “Don’t try to look cool, young man. You didn’t expect that much, did you?” the old man chuckled. “D’you know, Viv, you remind me very much of myself as a boy. You won’t be put upon and you go all out for what you want, not afraid to take chances. Damn me, you’re enough like me to be my son, eh?”

  “Only metaphorically speaking I hope!” Viv groaned, “We’ve had enough surprises in this family to last a long time!”

  “We’ll get the details settled as soon as we can. I have to get everything in order before this damned trial begins. Don’t think I’ve forgotten who’s fault that is, mind,” Arfon growled and Viv said, with a look of innocence,

  “Yours and your son-in-law’s of course!” He grinned at the old man, unrepentant.

  Arfon growled again, but took Viv’s hand as he stood to leave. “I know the business will be in good hands.”

  “One more thing,” Viv said and Arfon glared at him.

  “Cheeky as well as cantankerous!”

  “Tell Joan and Megan I’m your rescuer and to treat me with respect.”

  Viv was grinning again and Arfon replied, “I’ll do no such thing! Gladys would kill me if I encouraged you to be more than friends with ‘her girls’! I want a wife waiting for me when I get out as well as a business!”

  Viv smiled for a long time after Arfon had gone. And he found himself hoping, not for the first time, that the old man would be spared a custodial sentence.

  * * *

  While Dora was in hospital, Rhiannon and Viv were woken very late one night by a loud banging on the front door. Together they crept downstairs, afraid to open it, convinced that it was the worst possible news about their mother. Their worst fears were confirmed when they saw two policemen standing there, torches in hand.

  “Rhiannon Lewis?” one of them asked.

  “What is it? Is it Mam?” Viv gripped his sister’s arm.

  “Your mother? No, that is, we don’t think so. There’s been a burglary at Temptations and I believe you are a key holder, Miss Lewis.”

  “A burglary? But Barry is there. He lives in the flat above. What’s happened? Has he been hurt?”

  “Would that be Mr Barry Martin?” the constable said, checking his notebook with the aid of his torch.

  “Yes, his mother Mrs Nia…” she frowned trying to think of Nia’s new name, but failed.

  “We’ve already spoken to the owner, Miss. Can we come in?”

  “When were you last at the shop?” she was asked.

  “Today is Thursday, just about,” she said glancing at the clock, “so I left there at one o’clock yesterday and I didn’t go back as Wednesday is my half day.”

  “Were you responsible for locking the shop?”

  “Yes, and I did. At about a quarter past one.

  “You have the key now?” He waited for her to show it to him and went on, “Where did you go after leaving the shop?”

  “I met my sister-in-law – I mean my ex-sister-in-law, Eleri, and we went to Pontypridd market.”

  The questions went on and it was after four a.m. before the police left them. Unable to sleep, Rhiannon and Viv went to the shop and knocked the door until Barry answered. It appeared that he had slept at his mother’s house on Tuesday and all day Wednesday he had been at an exhibition in Cardiff. He had arrived home long after midnight and found the door unlocked and the place had been ransacked, including most of his camera equipment from the flat.

  “You were in your usual hurry to be off, weren’t you?” he accused Rhiannon. “Always on a Wednesday you rush out to catch the coach for Ponty. You must have forgotten to lock the door.”

  Rhiannon denied it. She had never been less than careful when it came to locking the shop. “You’re in and out all the time, it’s most likely you!” she protested.

  Because of the shock, Barry did not connect the robbery with the day the shop had been left unlocked.

  The investigation went on. The police returned with more questions, particularly about locking the shop door on the day of the burglary.

  “The police think the thieves came with a van or they wouldn’t have been able to take so much stuff,” Viv said to Rhiannon. “They’re sure it was planned, not some casual thief who got lucky. So whether or not you forgot to lock up, they would have already decided on their own method of getting in.”

  “There was no sign of a forced entry, no mark on any of the windows or the sky-light, they must have unlocked the door,” Rhiannon said miserably, convinced the fault was hers. “Barry’s right, I do rush on a Wednesday to catch the coach with Eleri. But why did they go to so much trouble for sweets?”

  “Barry’s stuff was the target I should think. The sweets were simply too much of a ‘temptation’.” His attempt at a joke failed to amuse her.

  * * *

  Dora came out of hospital a few days later. Rhiannon felt unable to ask Barry to look after the shop so that she could be there when her mother arrived home, so she phoned Nia.

  “Sorry to ask you, I know this is very embarrassing for us both, but I don’t want to shut the shop and miss my Monday regulars,” Rhiannon explained. Nia eventually agreed to stay at the shop for a week so Rhiannon could look after her mother.

  Lewis had visited Dora every day of that first week and when he stopped, Dora had a relapse. The doctor told Dora that she would need a lot of care at home. Lewis was told what the doctor had said and he in turn telephoned Nia and told her.

  “You’ll have to stay with her, love,” she said. “We’ve enough on our consciences without Dora’s health failing.”

  “Only for a while, until she’s well enough to cope on her own.”

  “She’ll never do that, Lewis, love. You have to stay with her.”

  “She’s won, hasn’t she?” Lewis said, his voice low and sad. “We’re on the edge of beginning our life together at long last, after all that’s happened, all we’ve put each other through, but Dora’s won.”

  * * *

  “Mam will never have you back,” Rhiannon told him when he explained he was moving back to number seven Sophie Street. “You’ve left it too late.”

  Lewis glared at her and said, angrily, “I’m not asking her. I’m telling her!”

  A few days later, Lewis vacated the flat, although he continued to pay the rent. His car stopped outside number seven Sophie Street unnoticed and he carried in his clothes and files and order books and put them in their original places. Dora watched him with a blank expression.

  He didn’t move back into Dora’s bedroom, but made himself a comfortable room where Eleri and Lewis-boy had once lived. Several times each week he visited the flat. There Nia would be waiting for him and for a while they’d pretend they were together, although both now knew they never would be.

  * * *

  Barry regretted accusing Rhiannon of carelessness as soon as the words were uttered. But it was not until two days later that he remembered forgetting to make the place secure and the loss of the key. How could he have blamed her for carelessness when he had left the shop unattended when Dora had been taken ill?

  He tried several times to apologise for his hasty words but she refused to listen. He knew her stubbornness was partly due to her father and his mother’s continuing relationship, which was creating more fuel for the gossips now Dora was ill. He still hoped that things would settle and that Rhiannon would finally accept that no one could be held responsible for the actions of their parents.

  One thing he could and did do to make amends for his stupidity was tell the police that on the day Dora went to hospital he had left the shop unlocked for more than two hours. Now he had to admit to Rhiannon he had been the careless one, not her.

  * * *

  It was Basil who found the spoils of the burglary, or most of them. None of the sweets were found but most of Barry’s cameras and assorted equipment were hidden in the wood behind the Griffiths’s house. He didn’t touch any of it, but threw his coat over it and went to tell the police. Basil had been walki
ng through the lanes heading for the woods in the hope of a pheasant. He walked slowly and casually but he cursed when he saw the local constable coming towards him on a bicycle. He stopped and leaned against a tree, hoping the man wouldn’t somehow guess that he had a gun on him. Skinny like he was, his knobbly knees and baggy corduroys were good camouflage for a concealed weapon.

  After a casual chat with the constable, Basil sighed with relief and climbed stiffly and awkwardly over a gate. There he made his way into the wood and prepared to settle for a long wait. It was evening, and light rain darkened the day early. Spotting the mound in the woods where there hadn’t been one the previous day, he investigated. Delighted by his discovery he hid his gun, threw the incriminating corn out of his jacket pockets and went to find the constable.

  Two days later they arrested Charlie Bevan, the father of Gwyn, the paperboy. He confessed to finding the shop open and with its key in the door. Unable to miss such an opportunity, he had made a mould of the key and hoped the lock wouldn’t be changed before he could make use of it. Then all he had had to do was arrange transport for a day when Barry and Rhiannon weren’t around and empty the place at his leisure through the back bedroom window and into the lane.

  Basil went home full of pride, to tell Eleri and his parents that he had been helping the police do their job.

  “That makes a change, boy,” Hywel said with a chuckle, “making work for them is what you do best!”

  Janet smiled at Hywel, and they shared a glance to where Eleri was listening to Basil telling her again in even greater detail of his sharp eyes and knowledge of his area.