Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  “Do you want a job?” Jack asked curiously. “What would you do?”

  “Work in a shop? I don’t know. Perhaps I should look for some voluntary work. Or work in a nursery. I’m used to children after all – even though I don’t have one of my own.”

  “Leave it for a while. You seem to find plenty to do, both here and helping your mother from time to time.”

  “I saw Eleri and Basil last week with their two boys. Eleri is thinking of going back to work in the cinema and she wants someone to look after the children occasionally, on the days when there’s a matinee performance and Basil isn’t there. What d’you think?”

  Jack hugged her and said, “Whatever you want to do is fine by me, you know that, love.”

  * * *

  Victoria’s mother, Mrs Collins, was a widow who lived in Goldings Street, with six of her seven children. She taught piano, but only to third grade. Her pupils then went to another, more confident, teacher. So, needing to earn more money, she had taken two cleaning jobs, depending on Victoria to stay with the youngest children sometimes.

  One job was at the house on Chestnut Road which had been the home of Nia Martin and her son Barry and which she had also shared with Lewis Lewis, when Dora had discovered their affair. She had died in the garden. After his mother’s death, Barry had lived there for a while with his wife, Caroline. But when Caroline had gone home to live with her parents Barry had eventually sold the place, glad to be rid of its memories.

  It had been bought by a brother and sister Martha Adams, a war widow, and her brother, Sam Lilly. Originally Mrs Collins had gone daily for two weeks to help them clean up and settle in, now they needed her one day each week to clean floors and dust and polish furniture.

  She quite enjoyed the work, the couple had some beautiful old furniture which was a pleasure to polish and leave glowing with the patina of years, and the work wasn’t hard. Mrs Adams was rather critical, but her brother compensated by helping Mrs Collins move heavy furniture and even doing some of the more unpleasant chores, like carrying coal and logs.

  One afternoon while she was in the park with two of her small children, pushing one on a swing and watching the other crawling around on the grass, Mr Lilly saw them and came over.

  “Are these your children, Mrs Collins?” he asked, doffing his trilby politely.

  “Only some of them,” she smiled. “There are more at home!”

  “You have more?”

  “There are seven but my eldest daughter is married and living in a house of her own. She married Jack Weston, a school teacher,” she said proudly.

  “If you’ll excuse my impertinence, you don’t look old enough to have a married daughter.”

  “I’m forty-three,” she replied, never having had a problem admitting to her years. “My daughter was married last summer and, would you believe it, she and Jack – who is a grandson of the grand and important Gladys and Arfon Weston no less – couldn’t face the big wedding the Weston family wanted, so they ran off, telling no one but me, and were married in Gretna Green.”

  “How splendid! Tell me more,” he begged.

  She wondered afterwards why she had relaxed so easily with a man she hardly knew. They had talked for a while, exchanging details of their lives, Sam taking his turn at playing with the children, pushing the swing and playing chase round the shrubs. When the town hall clock struck four, they both seemed suddenly aware of how much time they had spent there, and parted with reluctance.

  * * *

  In 1956, March was a month that wouldn’t make up its mind whether spring was on the way or winter was hanging on. Some days had the air of excitement that the promise of spring some times brings but there were other days when winter seemed set firmly in place for several more weeks. One dark night when there was no moon but when the sky was full of stars and the ground was stiff with frost, Mair stood waiting for Carl. She stamped her feet in her fur-lined boots and jigged on the spot. She even tilted one foot back and rested her toe, in the way horses did, in the hope they had something to teach her.

  Soon the icy air penetrated her thick dufflecoat, and she began to shiver. Not for the first time, she questioned her behaviour. What was she doing meeting a man who cared so little for her comfort? Carl had made it quite plain that he didn’t want it known that they sometimes met, he had practically ignored her on the few occasions when they saw each other and there were others present. Where was her pride? Why couldn’t she take the hint and find someone who would show some pleasure in being seen with her? The truth was, she admitted sadly, the excitement had taken away her senses.

  It was ten more minutes before he came running along the lane to the telephone box, which was one of their meeting places. At once she turned away from their regular walk along the path to the wood. He was arriving later and later because the nights were getting lighter and lighter she admitted to herself. What a fool she was.

  He chased after her, apologising for being late. Putting his arms around her he held her and she could feel his beating heart. “I ran all the way,” he said and for a moment she believed him. “I had a tricky job, fixing a carpet in a room that wasn’t square. Every wall was out of true. Damned pattern was a nightmare to fit and it took twice as long as I thought it would.”

  “Nothing to do with the evening being so light someone might see us?”

  “No. Well, all right, I do want to keep quiet about us a while longer,” he admitted.

  “Well it’s too late to go for a walk,” she said angrily. “Frozen stiff I am and I’m going home to a warm fire and a cup of something hot.” She looked at his hands to see whether they held a box of chocolates. Rhiannon reported that he called in to Temptations regularly for a small box of either Dairy Box or Milk Tray. They were never for her, she thought with disappointment. Cold, stiff, and feeling more than a little foolish for allowing herself to be treated so badly, she asked, “Brought any sweets, have you?”

  “No, I didn’t think, sorry. Besides, the shops were shut by the time I’d finished wrestling with that carpet.” She wondered who had been the recipient. Some other girl he met well out of sight? Humiliation swelled up inside her and, giving him a push, she shouted, “Clear off, Carl Rees! I’ve got better things to do with my evenings that wait for you in the freezing cold.”

  “Don’t, Mair, love. I’ve been waiting all day for these hours with you.”

  She stopped and looked at him, her heart pounding. His face was hardly visible in the darkness but it was a handsome face, a tempting face. “You can come with me, if you like,” she said, and the words were a challenge. She was saying, ‘meet my father’, and the answer, given with a silent shake of his head, was, ‘no’.

  Running along the dark and narrow lane to the cottage on the edge of the wood, she ignored his calls, his pleadings, and didn’t stop until she reached her gate. She stopped to regain her breath. Dad would wonder what was up if she went in in this state. As she stood there, building herself up to the decision to break off the romance that wasn’t, the courtship that was nothing more than a joke, she heard a faint sound, hardly more than a movement of the trees but in the almost silent night it came to her ears clearly. She at once presumed it was Carl, although she knew with that second thought that she would have heard him coming. The country lane and the wood on either side were not places to walk silently unless you were an expert. But she had been running, crying. It must be Carl. He would have made sure she was safely home wouldn’t he?

  “Go away. I never want to see you again. D’you hear me? Never!”

  “Mair?” a voice called hesitantly. “It’s me, Frank. Are you all right?”

  “No I’m not!” she shouted, “so what d’you think you can do about it, Frank Griffiths, eh?”

  “Walk with you while you calm down?” he suggested. He appeared out of the darkness then and, taking her arm, led her away from the gate and towards his cottage. “Come an’ talk to our Mam, have a cup of tea.”

  She wen
t without argument and he talked in whispers telling her where he’d seen an owl nesting and pointing out the path, marked on a low stretch of barbed wire with small bunches of hair, where the badger strolled on his nightly search for food.

  “You can see so much in the dark,” she said. “Walking with you is like one of those Romany stories we used to listen to on the wireless.”

  “It’s partly experience, I suppose. I recognise things because I’ve seen or heard them many times before. And pupils widen and take in the light, according to the doctor. Have a look,” he said and he pulled her round and bent his long skinny frame down until they were face to face.

  “Daft ’apporth! As if I can see anything in this light!”

  “You can if you give your eyes a chance,” he insisted. He brought his face closer and she smelled the honest, earthy smell of him, the clean night air created a special scent, leaving his skin excitingly perfumed with a hint of pine trees. So different from Carl with the rubbery smell of carpets which never seemed to leave him. They were close, very close. He didn’t kiss her, but she knew he wanted to.

  Perhaps she wanted it too. Wanted to be held, flattered, admired.

  “A cup of tea?” she said breaking away from him in confusion. Frank Griffiths attracting her? She must be madder than she thought!

  But she didn’t release his arm as he led them unerringly through the trees, moving aside low branches she couldn’t even see, taking them on a short cut to his parents’ home. They stopped for a while and he showed her where foxes lived, and made her promise not to tell Farmer Booker or his father. “Some people hate foxes and kill them without reason,” he explained softly. “I can kill for the pot, but for no other reason.”

  “Farmer Booker has an excuse to kill foxes, he’s lost dozens of rabbits from his warren,” she replied.

  “I’ve killed more of his rabbits than the foxes,” he chuckled. “And I’ve walked past him and given him a ‘goodnight’ with a ferret up my jumper, a pocketful of nets, and a sackful of his rabbits hidden only yards from where he stood.”

  Janet and Hywel welcomed her without comment except to move up and make room for her near the roaring fire. Caroline came down from putting Joseph-Hywel to bed and made tea, while Janet set out a tray of sandwiches and cakes.

  “I had a date and was stood up,” she said as soon as she was settled. She didn’t want anyone to get the idea that she was going out with Frank Griffiths, did she?

  “Anyone we know?” Caroline asked, handing her a hot drink.

  “No, no one you’d know. Just someone I met in the shop. He wasn’t important.”

  “Best you take care who you meet these dark nights, girl,” Hywel said. “You never know who’s about these days.”

  “Poachers, d’you mean?” she asked innocently and Hywel smiled delightedly and nodded at Frank.

  “She’ll do this one,” he said.

  Frank walked her home and stood looking up at the cottage for a long time. If only things were different, if only he was good looking, or rich or something. He strolled home unhurriedly, calling a goodnight, to the still figure of Farmer Booker standing in a hedgerow not far from his farm.

  “Hawkeye you are and no mistake,” Booker retorted.

  “I don’t need to see you. Stink of that filthy ol’ pipe, you do. I could smell you at the other end of the field.”

  “Clever bugger.”

  “If only I was clever at something else. Sniffing out suspicious farmers won’t help me with Mair, will it?” Frank sighed, but the farmer didn’t hear.

  * * *

  Carl called at the sports shop to see Mair the following morning, but she told him to go away. Although she couldn’t imagine ever being serious about someone as daft as Frank, she knew she could do better than secret meetings with Carl. She had begun to feel guilty about them, without knowing the reason. Putting shame on me, he is, she told herself angrily.

  The next few days were miserable. There were moments when she weakened and knew that if Carl appeared she would agree to meet him. Fortunately, when she did see him, her anger was stronger than her regrets.

  * * *

  Frank knocked at her door late one evening and asked if she fancied a walk. He had been planning what he’d say all that day but when he plucked up the courage to ask her, he chose the wrong moment.

  “What makes everyone want to take me out in the dark?” she demanded. “Am I such an embarrassment to be seen with, then?”

  “No,” Frank said. “You’re nice.” He wished he could think of a better word but his mind didn’t work very quickly at the best of times, and talking to Mair was one of the worst of times for him, because he liked her so much. “I know I’m no great shakes, and I thought you’d be ashamed to be seen out with me.” He shuffled his feet in an embarrassed way, wondering if she understood what he was trying to say. “I’d love to take you out in the day. Smashing that’d be.”

  “Sorry I snapped. Come on in. Dad and I are just going to have a sandwich and a cup of tea.”

  “Don’t encourage him,” her father warned, when Frank had gone happily on his way. “You’ll never get rid of him if you do.” Her father’s words worried her. Frank was not what she wanted. When she saw Carl a few days later she made it clear that she wanted him back in her life – secrets and all.

  * * *

  Sally had rearranged her house to accommodate more guests. Planning for the time when Megan and her baby were no longer living there, she decided to move into a smaller room on the ground floor. It would be separate from the strangers who filled her rooms on most night and somehow she would feel safer. She didn’t admit to her daughters that she was occasionally afraid, or tell them about the rather forceful man she had asked to leave. She didn’t want them to worry unnecessarily about her. Jeremy Pullen-Thomas, with his attempted organisation of her had been frightening and had reminded her how vulnerable she was without Ryan. When she had begun taking in guests Ryan had been living with her and the idea of trouble hadn’t even been a passing thought. Now, facing the situation of being alone here while strangers wandered about the house was very different.

  She thought of her strong-minded daughters and smiled as she imagined their disparaging response to her admitting being afraid. Yet her own husband had attacked her and if Ryan could frighten her so much, what could a stranger like Jeremy Pullen-Thomas do?

  Max Powell was helpful, but at six thirty one morning, he had knocked on her bedroom door and offered her an early cup of tea. Her nervousness had crept up a notch as she realised she had made the serious mistake of fuzzing the line between business and friendliness. Perhaps it was because some of the men had become regulars, calling once or twice each week and beginning to relax in the homely atmosphere she provided. Better if she could attract once-only visitors who would remain strangers, but that was impossible to arrange. No, she would have to withdraw from any overtures towards friendliness and keep everything formal. She might even make the excuse that she was fully booked the next time Max Powell rang. Seeing him behave like a close friend might encourage the others to do the same. Offering her early morning tea! Really! Better if he stayed away for a while to allow her to practice her new role.

  The room she intended to make her own had been used only as a small sitting room for those guests who didn’t want to watch the television. It would need shelves, cupboards and a small wardrobe before she could sleep there. The other room, which Megan now used for baby Rosemary would have to be dealt with later, after Easter, when Megan and Edward would be married.

  Megan had recommended Frank Griffiths to do the work, but Sally thought Carl Rees, who had worked for Jennie Francis, might be a more suitable character to have in the house while she was busy. The Griffithses were not to be trusted, everyone knew that. She wondered how her daughter could ever pretend they were her friends. Leaving a note for Megan to pass on to Carl when he went into the shop, she waited for him to call.

  As she considered her plans to
move to the smaller room, she thought of the other spare room in which Ryan had sat some times and which, with some self-deception he called his study. It was small but it would hold a single bed and a dressing table and perhaps Carl could fix a rail of some sort where clothes could be hung? She began to make a list to discuss with him.

  * * *

  Since Christmas, when Rhiannon’s parents had ended their long-running row and settled down together again, Rhiannon and Charlie had lived in silent dread of the fiery Dora throwing Lewis out again and having him return to sleep in their back bedroom.

  So one night when they woke about midnight to the sounds of shouts and yells coming from her parent’s house, they looked at each other in alarm.

  “I knew it! Our Mam’s lost her temper with him again!”

  “Oh no.” Charlie groaned. “Get the spare bed aired. He’ll be back.”

  “Why can’t she stay calm and discuss their differences?” Rhiannon complained.

  “Because she’s Dora and reasonable discussion is something she wouldn’t understand.”

  They crept out of bed and Charlie wrapped a blanket around Rhiannon’s shoulders. Kneeling down by the window they looked across the street to number seven, where the bedroom light was on. Even in the winter, Dora liked to sleep with the window open and the sound of what was apparently a heated argument, greeted them as they opened theirs. The two voices were like a comic opera with the almost soprano shrieks of her mother and the lower, more reasonable, baritone of her father. Rhiannon began to giggle. “Did you ever know such a pair?”

  “They are unique,” Charlie said, sharing her laughter.

  Other lights came on in the Lewis’s house and the front door burst open. Lewis, wearing pyjamas, with a dressing gown across one arm which, dragged on the floor behind him, ran across the road.