Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  * * *

  Peter heard of her new job from Carl, whom he met in the High Street.

  “What is she thinking of!” Peter was shocked. People he knew were likely to see her there and that would be embarrassing for him. And what would Mam say? He had to stop her before someone told Mam.

  The house was empty when he got home. His parents were out on a rare visit to the pictures and his meal was on a saucepan of simmering water keeping warm. He hated that, eating alone with the gravy forming a dark rim around the plate. He thought of Jennie and wished things could have been different. If only she and Mam had got on.

  His thoughts drifted back over other girlfriends he had brought home. Mam never approved of any of them. In a rare flash of honesty he knew that she had firmly discouraged them. It was Jennie who had fought against his mother’s determination to keep her away from him, and he had been flattered at the way she had fought for him. Even when they were married, Mam was always reminding him that nothing was for ever, that divorce was always an option and no longer considered as shaming as it had once been. She had warned him not to have children, too. Perhaps she had thought the arrival of a child would make the marriage more permanent, less easy to dissolve? Had Jennie been right? Had his mother been constantly undermining their marriage? Nonsense. She just wanted him to be happy.

  Jennie hadn’t wanted children, this was the one subject about which Jennie and his mother didn’t argue. Mam always insisted that for them to have a child would have been a mistake. For the first time, he wondered why.

  * * *

  Edward and Megan Jenkins loved their daughter Rosemary but since their wedding, Edward was a little worried. The baby’s father was his cousin, Terrence and although Terrence had shown no interest in the child, Edward was well aware that should he want to, Terrence could make life difficult for them.

  “Megan, how do you feel about my adopting our daughter?” he asked one evening as they were settling the nine-month-old into her cot. “That sounds ridiculous, but she is ours and I love her dearly. I just think that if I formally adopted her, there wouldn’t be any problems to rise up and bother us in the future. What do you think?”

  “I want her to be ours, legally ours, Edward. I’ll start making enquiries tomorrow.”

  “Should we write to Terrence and tell him what we plan to do?”

  “Better to leave him out of it until we know the facts and are ready to start proceedings,” she replied. “I doubt he’ll be bothered, but he might try and make some money out of it, don’t you think?”

  “Make us pay to stop him formally protesting you mean?’’

  “He’s always broke and he’s quite capable of it, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, you’re right. We’ll make enquiries and say nothing.”

  * * *

  In the large kitchen of Montague Court, Edward’s sister Margaret was browsing through an old newspaper, before wrapping up vegetable peelings in it and putting them in the waste bin. Her eye caught a picture of her brother. It was an account of the wedding of Edward to Megan and, as she read it, she felt unreasonably angry. Because Edward had refused to stay at Montague Court and help her build it up into a prestigious hotel and restaurant, she had lost it. Now he was successful in his small-minded way and she was working in a menial job in the place around which she had spun her dreams.

  For a while she had accepted her situation but, seeing Edward’s smiling face looking out of the local newspaper, reminded her of all she had lost. She sat there for a long time, thinking of her brother and his wife, Megan, one of the once high and mighty Weston family, and their daughter, Rosemary.

  Rosemary was not Edward’s child she thought with some relish. Perhaps a word to her cousin Terrence might be interesting. Complacency was always Edward’s failing. He let things happen and didn’t worry too much about what the future might hold, only about the immediate situation. She very much doubted whether Edward had contacted Terrence to ask if he wanted any part in baby Rosemary’s upbringing. With time on her hands, bitterness in her heart, Margaret started to write a letter. Money. That was always the best way of persuading cousin Terrence to do something. Money was something of which Terrence could never have too much.

  “Darling,” she said, when Islwyn came in with some freshly laundered bedding. “I’ve decided to write to my cousin Terrence.”

  “Why bother?” Islwyn replied. “He’ll be here looking for money before the ink’s dry!”

  “I might have a way for him to earn some,” she said, gathering him into her arms.

  * * *

  Basil and Eleri were worried about their housing situation. Every day, Eleri went to various estate agents and looked at every flat they had on their books. She also toured the shops, looking for notices of places to rent and looked at any she saw advertised. The results so far had been disappointing. They simply couldn’t afford anything decent.

  Basil asked everyone he knew and investigated every avenue without success.

  As she often did, Eleri went to talk to Dora, of whom she was very fond.

  “We could put a notice in the café for you.” Dora suggested. “But wouldn’t it be better and simpler just to pay the extra rent and stay put? It’s so costly to move, even from rooms. Nothing fits and you get rid of things you’d rather keep and buy stuff you like less. And there are the boys. They might not be as happy as they are now, close to the shops and the park you are, and not far from the school.”

  “I’d have to work.”

  “Yes, and pay for someone to mind the boys. I’d look after them for you, you know that, but with the café, there’s only the evenings.”

  “I’ve thought of everything and there doesn’t seem to be a solution,” Eleri sighed.

  Dora’s blue eyes were bright and thoughtful for a long time after Eleri had gone.

  * * *

  Lewis came into the café soon after Eleri had left with her two boys. Sorry to have missed them, he abandoned thought of a cup of tea and went straight out again, hoping to offer the little family a lift home. Instead he saw Mrs Glory Collins getting off a bus, struggling with a large parcel. He stopped and invited her to get into the car.

  “It’s some sewing I’ve done for Mrs Adams,” she explained as Lewis took the heavy parcel from her. “Curtains that needed lining. Sam – Mr Lilly – offered to come down and fetch them but I thought I could manage. Glad to meet you I was, believe me.”

  “Why do women have to try and be independent?” Lewis smiled. “You can talk of equality all you like but we’re built differently for different tasks. Right?”

  “Leave the heavy stuff for the men, is that it?”

  “Why not?”

  He waited while she went into the house on Chestnut Road, the house where he had lived so happily with Nia Martin before her death. He had accepted the loss of his love and knew he was happier than he deserved to be with his wife. Dora loved him and had been able, eventually, to forgive him for his long-standing relationship with Nia. But there were moments when he longed to see Nia’s gentle, smiling face, hear her softly spoken voice telling of her love for him.

  He was quiet on the way back to Goldings Street and Mrs Collins looked at him aware of his good looks: black hair, slim moustache, slightly tanned smooth skin and those devastatingly appealing eyes. He was always neatly dressed; shoes shining, dazzlingly white shirt, well-pressed suit with just a line of a handkerchief showing in a top pocket. She wondered whether he was true to Dora now, or whether those attractive features had led him into further liaisons. Knowing Dora, she hoped not.

  There was another woman filling Lewis’s thoughts, but Nia was dead and he couldn’t imagine loving anyone else as he had loved her. Pulling his mind back from melancholy, he stopped at a florist and bought flowers for Dora, and a smaller bunch for a delighted Mrs Collins.

  * * *

  Mrs Dreese quite enjoyed working for Gladys and Arfon Weston. Gladys’s imagined importance amused her and she flattered the
old woman and pretended to admire her in a way that delighted Gladys. There was no malice in Mrs Dreese’s actions, she just liked pleasing her employer. It amused her to see Gladys’s behaviour, the way she scored points over her friends, her pretence that she was from a grander background than she could truthfully lay claim to.

  Before her husband’s troubles had taken everything from them, Mrs Dreese had owned a larger house than Gladys’s and had employed several people to help, including a full-time housekeeper and a gardener. About this she had said nothing.

  After all, it was the present that counted and, apart from the few pieces of furniture she managed to cram into her and Carl’s rooms, she owned next to nothing.

  She was aware that one of the things that gave Gladys pleasure was the fact that she was well spoken and well mannered. She knew that when she went through the wide, hall with its oak panelled walls to answer a knock at the door, Gladys would sometimes stand listening while she asked the visitor’s name and business before showing them into the hall and asking them to wait while she enquired.

  One morning, Gladys’s curiosity got the better of her and she asked her tall, elegant ‘servant’, to join her for her morning coffee.

  “How long have you been a widow, Mrs Dreese?”

  “Not long. My husband died of a heart attack when my son, Carl, was twenty-two. He was a clever boy, but all hope of college was abandoned when we realised how little money we had.”

  “How sad,” Gladys commiserated. “He does some carpet-fitting for my husband’s business, doesn’t he? Doesn’t mix socially much, I gather, apart from some fishing with my grandson, Jack. Jack was brilliant you know, but he was determined to be a teacher. He had a call, you see. He could have done anything he wanted, but it was as a teacher that he was called.”

  “How wonderful,” Mrs Dreese said. “To give up on a great career because he was called to help in the local school.”

  “Of course your son is rather fond of Constable Gregory’s daughter, Mair, isn’t he?” Gladys whispered conspiratorially. “Poor Mair. She worked for me for a while you know, but she wasn’t trained.”

  “I wouldn’t know about his social life. I don’t interfere,” Mrs Dreese replied evasively.

  “Your husband was in business, was he?”

  The firm and very emphatic “Yes,” with no further supplements, made Gladys realise she had asked too many questions, too soon. Perhaps she would go and see Joan and Viv to find out more. Carl did carpet-fitting for them from time to time and they might have learnt something about the man. “Time we were getting on, I think,” she said, dismissively, as though it had been she who had ended the conversation. Mrs Dreese smiled, gathered the cups and returned to the kitchen.

  When she went home, Mrs Dreese knocked on the door of her son’s room before entering her own. Carl answered and rather ungraciously invited her inside.

  “There’s still gossip about you and this Mair Gregory,” she said at once. “You have to be more careful. You don’t want to face defending yourself in a paternity order. Or worse still, get married.”

  “There’s no chance of either of those things happening. I have been careful. No one has seen me with Mair except in very public places. Anyway, it’s not your concern. I’m twenty-eight years old, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Of course it’s my concern! You have a debt of honour to repay. You promised. You can’t forget it and play around dangerously like this. You’ve taken her out, you can’t deny that. Spent money on her, money we can’t afford to spend.” She sat down on the edge of the couch that was also his bed, drooped a little and went on, “Don’t give up, Carl, please don’t give up on your promises.”

  “Don’t give up? Giving up is all I ever do! And all in the name of my dear departed father! He let me down! I had to give up on college, give up on girlfriends, give up all thought of doing something for myself! Why should I carry on? He’s dead! Nothing I give up will change that!”

  “He was a good man,” she said softly.

  “A foolish one! And I’m wasting my life because of his foolishness! He ran his business into the ground, giving to people he thought were in need. Gullible to every pleading face, that’s the truth of it, isn’t it, Mam?”

  “No. He was trusting. Too trusting. I’ll admit he was too trusting. But foolish? No. How can you say such a thing?”

  Instead of answering, Carl grabbed his coat from the back of a chair and left her. Standing in his room, staring at the swinging door which led into the narrow, stale-smelling hall, she looked less confident, even a little afraid.

  Her own rooms were larger than those of her son. From her sitting-room, french windows opened onto a rather bedraggled garden which gave her a sense of greater space and freedom. She went in, pulled back the heavy maroon velvet curtains, and opened them, then held the kitchen door ajar with a pair of boots Carl had given her for the purpose. The breeze was refreshing. Staring out into the bright garden, her dejected mood making her aware of the untidiness, rather than of the beauty of the fresh green of the trees and the cheerfulness of the flowering shrubs. She wondered how much longer she could persuade her son to carry on.

  Carl came back after an hour and knocked on the door of her room. She raised her arms and they hugged in silence.

  “Let me have a look through father’s papers,” he said as he sat on the board which covered the bath in the kitchen. “If I had some idea of how much we still need, I might be encouraged.” Mrs Dreese shook her head. “No, Carl, my dear. I don’t want to take them out of the box. I want to leave them just as your father placed them there when he entrusted me with all this. You know the full amount, fifteen thousand pounds, and I won’t open the papers until we’re almost there.” She opened her purse and showed him a couple of five pound notes. “This is what I’m contributing this month. Not bad, eh?” She put it inside a teapot on a high shelf.

  He hugged her again and handed her a ten shilling note. “Mam, I’m sorry. Take this and treat yourself to an evening at the pictures. I was going to join Viv Lewis and Jack Weston for a pint. Better you have a night out instead. You’re working so hard. You make me ashamed for losing heart sometimes like I do.”

  * * *

  Sally went back to Glebe Lane one afternoon, rushing because she was late, thinking ahead of the meal she had to prepare. She had been up to Rose Tree Café to see her sister and had stayed too long. Now she was carrying the new potatoes she had extravagantly bought, which she was intending to serve with poached salmon and salad. It had been the ease of the simple meal that had encouraged her to take an hour off. An hour that had extended into two, and now she was late. New potatoes took forever to scrape.

  She unlocked the front door and stepped inside. There was an hour before any of her guests were due. She didn’t encourage them to return before six o’clock. That gave her plenty of time to prepare the meal and gave them time to change.

  Some of them bought wine, a growing habit, she understood, and one which restaurants were beginning to take seriously. She kept each bottle in her larder clearly labelled with the owner’s name and brought it to their table each evening. Her shopping bag contained a bottle of wine she had bought as a spare. It might be worth offering a glass and making an extra profit, so long as no one reported her for selling without a licence, she thought with a surge of guilt.

  The girl she had recently engaged to help with the cleaning had gone and she was pleased with the clean, lavender smell of furniture polish that met her as she went inside. She was humming as she dropped her shopping bag in the hall and began taking off her coat. Then a sound in the kitchen startled her, her first thought was that Ryan had come back.

  “Hello, Mrs Fowler-Weston, I thought I’d make a start on the dinner as you were a bit late back.”

  “Mr Powell! What are you doing here? I have repeatedly explained that my kitchen is out of bounds.” Startled, she sounded more upset than she would normally have been. The guests did sometimes return early, b
ut they always went straight to their rooms.

  “Maxie, call me Maxie,” he said as if there had been no reaction to his interference. “I’ve cooked potatoes and opened a tin of meat so we can have a cottage pie,” he said smiling as he helped to hang up her coat. “Vegetables will have to be carrots and swede, they won’t mind missing greens for once. Feed us well you do, Mrs Fowler-Weston.”

  Sally stared at him. “Mr Powell, I do not need your help in dealing with the running of this place. I have dinner arranged. Will you please leave my kitchen!”

  As she spoke she was planning how she would tell him to leave and not come back. She would do it this very evening, once she had sorted out the meal for the others. She couldn’t have this. She had to be strong. Oh, how she wished Ryan were here, or even Megan. Someone to stand with her when she told this amiable but unwanted man to go. Maxie Powell didn’t make her nervous, like others had done, but she couldn’t cope with someone interfering and using her kitchen as though it were his own. It just wouldn’t do.