Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  Sam’s sight was not very good, but he managed to help with most of the work, cleaning windows when they needed an extra rub, moving furniture and polishing the floors with the mop Martha provided. She had got rid of most of the carpets, considering then unhealthy.

  “I’d love to have a garden for the children to enjoy,” Mrs Collins said one morning, as they sat in the early spring sunshine. “I’ve never had a garden.”

  “You live in a house, so isn’t there a backyard? Somewhere to sit and feel the sun on your face?”

  “There’s a yard, but no flowers and looking at a grey, old blank wall isn’t the same as sitting in a garden with flowers and greenery.”

  “Do you know anyone who would do a bit of gardening, Mrs Collins?” he asked later. “A handyman rather than a professional.”

  “Well there’s Frank Griffiths, he’s often looking for a few hours work.” She explained where Frank could be found.

  “Thank you, I’ll go and see him. Mrs Collins, look, can I use your Christian name? Mrs Collins and Mr Lilly seems very formal between friends. I’d be pleased if you’d call me Sam.” She didn’t reply for a long moment and he thought he had embarrassed her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offence.”

  “You didn’t offend me,” she said softly. “I’ve never been called anything but Mrs Collins - or Mam.” She added, with a smile, “Even my husband called me Collins. I have such a silly name you see, for someone in my position.”

  “And you can’t tell me?”

  “I can’t tell you,” she repeated sadly. “I’m sorry. Perhaps one day.”

  “When you accept that you and I are friends.” He took her cup and they walked back into the house both very thoughtful, the word ‘friends’ hanging enticingly in the air between them.

  * * *

  Sally’s ploy to keep her boarders at a distance failed. She came back from the shops one day to find Maxie cutting the grass. She saw that he had already weeded one of the flowerbeds, and had made himself a cup of tea. This was too much.

  “I made him the tea, mummy,” Megan told he when she began to complain. “He was working so hard, doing those jobs we can’t find the time to do ourselves, that I thought he deserved it. Did I do wrong?”

  “No, dear, of course not, it’s just that Mr Powell is getting too friendly. I prefer the guests who wear an air of mild offence and complain with tedious regularity.”

  “I’ll make sure I do nothing to encourage him again,” Megan promised. “As for now, isn’t it a relief not to have to face grass cutting this weekend?”

  Outside the back gate, peering through a weak section of the privet hedge, Ryan watched and glared.

  “There’s a man watching the house,” Maxie reported when he carried the bags of grass cutting to the compost heap. “Anyone you know, is it?”

  “He’s my husband,” Sally explained.

  “I thought you were a widow, Mrs Fowler-Weston.” Maxie feigned surprise, even though Carl had forewarned him. He glanced at Ryan and for a moment, seeing the angry-looking man watching him and feeling his anger from the length of the garden, he felt a strong desire to run. But Sally’s nervousness stilled him and he went to her and reassured her, even though he knew nothing of the situation. She was afraid and that was enough for him. He led her away from where Ryan could see them, his arm protectively around her shoulders.

  Seeing Ryan standing there, silent, and so obviously disapproving, she began to talk. Forgotten was her intention of treating the boarders indifferently. Shaken by seeing Ryan staring at the house she needed a comforting shoulder. She explained to a sympathetic Maxie about Ryan’s breakdown, his occasional and frightening violence, and of their separation. Afterwards she was angry with herself for being so weak. “So much for my decision to be aloof,” she said to Megan.

  * * *

  Frank was in such a euphoric state having been invited to supper with Mair that his grin was beginning to alarm his friends. “He’s got more teeth than Charlie Perkins’s horse,” Hywel muttered as he glanced at his happy son. “An’ all because he’s been to supper with Mair, a policeman’s daughter. What’s the matter with the boy, Janet? Where did we go wrong?”

  The smile on Frank’s face remained undimmed, his happiness bursting out of every pore, so that when Sam Lilly called at the cottage to ask him about some work, he thought the man was mad.

  “Of course I’ll do a small gardening job.” Frank beamed when Mr Lilly had explained. “When d’you want me to start? Certainly, certainly. As quickly as I can. I’ll work all night if it’s urgent, I’m so pleased you asked me.” Mr Lilly glanced nervously at Janet and Hywel who had offered tea, and were sitting one each side of the fire on which a stewpot simmered.

  “A woman,” Hywel hissed in explanation, and Janet nodded soberly.

  When Mr Lilly left, having been shown round the property and been introduced to dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, ducks and goats and a couple of ferrets, he wondered whether he had been wise.

  His next step was to visit Mrs Collins’s daughter, Victoria, and he went, after enquiries, to the neat little house in Philips Street and knocked at the door.

  “My name is Sam Lilly. You don’t know me,” he began when he had ascertained that the person he was speaking to was Jack Weston, Victoria’s husband, “but your mother-in-law, Mrs Collins, helps my sister in the house and, if you have a moment, I’d like to talk to you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Mam, is there?” Victoria asked, appearing beside Jack.

  “Your mother is well and so far as I can tell, happy,” he assured them both.

  Going inside the small room, he was surprised at how attractive it was. When he commented on the pleasant decor Jack told him that most of the work had been done by Frank and Ernie Griffiths.

  “What a coincidence! Frank is one of the reasons I’m here.”

  Having been reassured that Frank was a trustworthy person, which Jack did with tongue in cheek and with nudges from his wife, Sam explained his plan.

  “Your mother tells me she has never had a garden and, with Frank’s assistance, I thought I might provide her with one. Planters, shelves on a whitewashed wall, you know the kind of thing.”

  His idea was welcomed and their promise of help willingly given.

  Frank and Jack met that evening in the Railwayman’s and discussed what was needed. They arranged to meet and look at the yard behind 17 Goldings Street when Mrs Collins was at work a few days later.

  Jack and Victoria spent some time looking around a local nursery and making lists of suggested plantings for Frank and Sam Lilly to consider. It became a secret enjoyed by many. Frank and Sam used Hywel’s battered old van to transport containers and plants to one of the many sheds around the Griffiths’s cottage, where the planning and planting was done. The shed became a meeting place for Jack, Sam and Viv, as well as for Frank and the rest of his family.

  On the day they intended to make the transformation, Jack and Victoria arranged to take Mrs Collins to west Wales for a drive. The youngest two children went with them and the others were being looked after by Rhiannon helped by Dora.

  The day was warm and Jack and Victoria had packed a picnic. Doubtful that the beginning of April was a suitable time for eating out of doors, Mrs Collins was assured that they could eat in the car if the sun didn’t oblige.

  Lewis, Charlie and Gwyn went along to Goldings Street and were quickly found jobs to do, the first of which was white washing the walls.

  “Half the town’s involved, and how Mrs Collins hasn’t heard the whispers I’ll never know.” Sam laughed, as he and Frank began loading the van to take the shelves and containers to Goldings Street on that Sunday morning.

  With everything prepared in advance, Frank and Ernie quickly fixed shelves to the newly painted walls. Hywel brought in the simple table and benches he and Basil had made from discarded floorboards taken at night from a due-to-be-demolished house. Sam Lilly moved the items around the small area until
he was satisfied. With much huffing and puffing and moaning about people who couldn’t make up their minds, from Charlie, Frank and Viv, the job was finally done. Climbing into the van with the tools and oddments of wood, they drove off to return the tools they’d borrowed, satisfied with their day’s work.

  Unsure how long the job would take, Jack didn’t bring his family back until early evening. Dusk was closing in and, the street lights were becoming stronger and as he stopped the car, he said, “Come on, Mother-in-law, on with the kettle, we could all do with a cup of tea.”

  When she was encouraged to go outside, she gave a gasp of delight. “How…? When…?” she gasped. Then she smiled wider and said, “Mr Lilly?”

  “And the Lewises and Jack and Frank and Ernie and Hywel.” Her daughter laughed. “Half the town was involved.”

  “I must go and thank them all,” she said as she walked around the garden, which was lit with a bulb fixed near the back door and the light shining out from the living-room. “I never imagined the old yard could become a garden.” She touched the pots and rubbed a hand across the smooth wood of the table. “He’s so kind, I must go and thank him, at once, and all the others too.”

  “Cup of tea first,” Jack insisted. He filled the kettle and set it to boil. Then smiling widely, enjoying her pleasure, he said, “All right then, if you insist on thanking everyone…”He went to the front door and whistled and the work force trooped back in followed by her children with Dora and Lewis, Janet and Hywel Griffiths and more hesitantly, Sam Lilly.

  Mrs Collins gave Sam a hug, as he modestly accepted her thanks, which resulted in a spate of wolf whistles and silly remarks which both participants clearly enjoyed.

  * * *

  Gladys heard a knock at the door one afternoon in early April. She looked around checking that the room was tidy enough for visitors, pushing a cushion more neatly across the arm of the heavy couch and pulling the table runner into a slightly more central position. She took a deep breath. She hated answering the door herself. It had been one of the many things she had enjoyed about having a servant. She could decide who to be invited in when she wanted. Besides, she discouraged people from calling without an appointment being made.

  A tall, rather thin woman stood on the step, dressed in black. Her pale face reminding Gladys of a mourner at a funeral. It was raining heavily, the day was dark, and the large black umbrella which the women held above her head, added to the funereal effect.

  “Yes?” Gladys enquired haughtily. “What do you want?”

  “It’s more what you want, I believe,” the woman replied in a surprisingly well modulated voice.

  At once Glady’s voice softened and she asked, “How can I help you, Mrs – er?”

  “I believe you need a cleaner. I’m very experienced in looking after a home and, if the conditions are satisfactory, I’d like to apply for the job.”

  “Come in, Mrs – er?”

  “My name in Dreese. I am a widow and my husband was German.” This was spoken as though in preparation for an unpleasant response, but Gladys was desperate to have some help and the thought of a servant who was well spoken had already made her anxious for the woman to accept the job. “A German? How interesting,” was all she said.

  An hour later, after sharing a pot of tea and some excellent home-made apple strudel which Mrs Dreese had brought with her, the arrangement was made. Accepting an hourly rate that was going to shock Arfon out of his chair, Mrs Dreese was to begin her ‘training’ as Gladys put it, on the following morning. The references submitted by Mrs Dreese seemed short lived. She didn’t appear to have worked for very long.

  “My husband had a successful business you see, and we lived comfortably and well.” She described her previous home in one of the better areas of a nearby town and Gladys was visibly impressed. “Then we had a disaster, another firm came in offering lower prices until we were driven out, and then the prices went back up and we had nothing left.”

  “She’s a widow, dear,” Gladys explained to Arfon when he admitted he was suspicious. “I don’t think she needed to work while her husband was alive. She’s a person fallen on hard times.” She lowered her voice sympathetically.

  “Then make sure you don’t put temptation in her way,” Arfon warned. “Hard times can make thieves of the best of us!”

  “Arfon, dear. Don’t say such things.” She knew he was referring to his own lapse that had almost ended with him facing a prison sentence. “The Westons don’t consider such things. I’ll treat her as I would anyone else, unless I have reason to change my opinion.”

  “German you say?”

  “Yes, but the war is over.”

  “I wasn’t going to criticise—”

  “People do, dear. I could see it in her eyes. Even the best of us have some prejudices and you’ll have to be careful what you say.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything!”

  “Of course you were dear, but you’ll soon accept her for what she is, a decent woman.”

  “Gladys! I wasn’t going to—” He gave up.

  * * *

  Mrs Dreese went back to the two rooms and a kitchen she called home. She wondered what her son, would say. He hated her using her real name and telling people about his father.

  The two rooms for which she paid a weekly rent of ten shillings were small and very dark due in part to the overgrown hedge outside the back window of her living room. She had offered to have them cut them down, but the landlord had refused permission.

  The door from the living room led into a narrow kitchen. Along one wall was a bath, covered with a board, which she removed when she took the weekly bath she was allowed. She also removed it to do her washing, in the two hours allotted to her on Monday afternoons. At the moment the wooden board was propped against the wall, the clothes and bedding having just been washed, but left in the bath waiting for the weather to be suitable for drying it in the overgrown garden.

  There was a small food cupboard, and she took out a packet of ham and a loaf of bread. Filling two plates with small, neatly cut sandwiches, she covered them with a clean cloth and went to find her son.

  She called to him as she knocked on his door, “There’s a sandwich if you’d like it.”

  “What’s this about you applying for a job as a cleaner?” he demanded as he pulled the door open. “And with someone like Gladys Weston too.”

  “It’s what I do best, looking after a home. I kept our home beautifully, didn’t I? Now I no longer have one, apart from those shabby rooms, I think I’ll enjoy working for the Westons and pretending their house is mine.”

  “Oh, Mother, why did it all have to go so wrong? How could my father end up bankrupt?”

  “I don’t know, Carl, but I do know we have to try and put it right.”

  Carl Dreese, who called himself Rees, took the sandwiches and for a moment resented his promise to his mother that they would work and save until his father’s debts had been cleared. He had given up so much: a career, the girl he loved, and his home. Sometimes there seemed little chance of living long enough to do more than pay off the debts. He knew his mother had given up her chance of a happy life, too, but there were times when he still resented his sacrifices, believing that his were greater – promising he would avoid girls and meeting Mair in secret so his mother wouldn’t be upset. It was hard.

  His mother saw the doubt on his face and said encouragingly, “It won’t be much longer, Carl. Another year or two and we’ll almost be there. Selling the house gave us a good start. Thank goodness the house was mine, or that would have been lost to us too.”

  Chapter Five

  Edward Jenkins was absent from the sports shop more and more frequently as Easter approached and arrangements for his special day were filling his time. Gladys was heavily involved. Megan discouraged her grandmother as much as possible but, as she explained to Edward, she didn’t want to upset her.

  “Dear Grannie had such plans for my sister and cousin Jack and m
e,” she told him as they went through the guest list in Edward’s flat one evening. “I think she had been saving for our weddings for years and if the family business hadn’t failed we would each have had a splendid affair and invited half the town.”

  “I don’t think so. Jack and Victoria ran away from her dream of a large white wedding, remember? Going off to Gretna Green like a couple of kids. And when your sister Joan married Viv Lewis they cut her ideas severely, didn’t they?”

  “And now we’ve done the same. Poor Grandmother. She did want to pretend the Westons were royalty for the day.”

  “What about the reception? We still haven’t decided.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to have the reception in Montague Court? It was your home.”

  “My sister is still there and I don’t trust her not to try and spoil it. No, we’ve ordered the cake, and for the rest we’ll ask Dora Lewis – if she can find someone to help her on the day. Mair perhaps? We can’t expect your Aunt Sian to organise the catering for our wedding, even if she is Dora’s partner. We’d never get that one past your grandmother!”

  “So, it’s Gomer Hall and Dora and partner, then? You are sure, Edward?”

  “We’ll go and see Dora this evening, shall we?”

  * * *

  Dora invited Sian to discuss the young couple’s arrangements and they planned the buffet lunch for Tuesday, April the third. With Sian helping Dora with the advance preparations and Mair agreeing to help on the day, everything was quickly organised.

  The day broke calm and dry. Dora was in the hall before seven, checking that the tables were set up and the ordered food had arrived safely. Mair met her there and they decorated the tables and the walls so that the rather drab room was as festive as they could make it.