Sophie Street

by Grace Thompson

  Rhiannon smiled. “The Firs was where my Dad first lived when Mam threw him out,” she confided.

  “Really? It’s an awful place. What happened to make them separate?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose it’s a secret, not round here anyway. But don’t mention it in front of Mam, will you?” She waited for Jennie’s nod. “My father had a mistress, Nia Martin. When Mam found out, he and Nia Martin lived together up in Chestnut Road until she died. Nia was Barry’s mother, which is why I’m telling you, so you’re aware of the connection.”

  Jennie looked thoughtful. “But everything is all right between them now?”

  “Mam couldn’t cope with it at first, but somehow they’ve worked a way through the difficulties and, yes, everything seems to be fine now, thank goodness.” She added, with a grimace, “For a while Charlie and I had Dad as a lodger. It was one of the reasons Mam took him back I think.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I’ll never mention it, I promise.”

  “Dad really loves Mam, but he loved Nia Martin too. I think he was completely happy with Nia. She was so gentle and kind. Mam has this terrible temper you see.”

  “I thought Peter loved me but that love wasn’t strong enough to escape from his mother’s authority. He never put me first. Not ever.”

  “Come back and have a cup of tea this afternoon,” Rhiannon suggested. “I used to come into the shop and do a bit of cleaning during the half-day closing, but I don’t any more. Since Barry and Caroline started meeting in the flat I feel a bit uncomfortable, afraid they’ll think I’m eavesdropping or something!”

  “Why do they do that? They’re married, aren’t they?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice they aren’t! She lives with her parents and he lives here. Crazy how some carry on, eh?”

  Jennie smiled, “And there’s us thinking that marriage was straightforward!”

  When Jennie called at number seven Sophie Street later, Rhiannon told her about the papers Dora had found. She took the box out of the cupboard but didn’t suggest looking through them. “They aren’t really very interesting,” she told Jennie.

  “I’d like to see them though. If your mother wouldn’t mind?”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t. They don’t concern the Lewises, and so old they are, I doubt if there’s anything left to keep secret,” Rhiannon said. “But I’d better check with Mam first. I’ll talk to her, shall I? Then we can look through them another day.”

  * * *

  Carl called at the Griffithses’ cottage a few days later and asked to see Frank.

  “Sleeping,” Hywel said succinctly.

  “Try the back porch,” Janet added.

  Bemused, Carl walked through the house accompanied by three cats and a rather weary-looking dog, to find Frank sprawled on the grass under an oak tree, his body protected by a blanket to which a dog would be ashamed to lay claim.

  “Frank?” Carl said, touching Frank’s shoulder and stepping back quickly.

  “Wha’r is it?”

  “Fancy doing a bit of work for me? One night or maybe two.”

  “I might.” Frank was cautious.

  “Just between me and you.”

  “Oh oh, something funny, then?”

  “Not really, not illegal anyway.”

  “Pity. I’d like to see how far I can push PC Gregory!” Fully awake now and sitting up, Frank called for his mother. “Mam? Any chance of two cups of tea? Two sugars? And some cake?”

  “Get it yourself, I’m ironing,” came the reply. Frank stood up and shrugged. “Worth a try,” he said, ambling into the kitchen and filling the kettle. “So, what’s this job then?”

  “Nothing difficult, shelves mostly. I’m fitting out a shop. And time is a bit tight. Most of the shelves are already made and if you fit them on the walls, I’ll get on with the rest. Okay?”

  “Nights you said?” Frank frowned. “Why is that then?”

  “Simply because there’s so little time.”

  “You’ve given a date for finishing?”

  “Yes. The place opens in less than two weeks.”

  “What sort of shop is it?” Frank asked.

  “You’ll see,” Carl replied evasively. “Something and nothing, bits and bobs.”

  They drank their tea in silence, Cad looking around the untidy collection of barns and sheds, watching the goats who were trying to get out and join the cats who drowsed in the sun and the chickens who scratched the earth, heads on one side, looking for tidbits of food. “Nice place,” he said, when he caught Frank watching him.

  “This baby of Mair’s. Yours is it?” Frank asked.

  “No chance,” Carl said quickly, too quickly. “Mair and I were never that close.”

  Frank thought of the times he had watched the cottage at the edge of the wood. How he had guessed what was going on inside from the pattern of lights, on and off, ending with the bedroom curtains dimly lit before that light too was extinguished. He remembered the pain of seeing Carl hurrying away from the cottage just before PC Gregory came home from his supposed night duty. It made him sad, but not sad enough to be less than thrilled at the prospect of marrying Mair.

  “Getting married we are,” he told Carl, watching his face intently. But if there was anything more than pleasure on Cad’s face, he couldn’t detect it. “Yes, in about four weeks,” he added. “Haven’t told our Mam the date yet mind. Suppose we’d better tell her soon, so she can start passing the news around that the Griffithses are having a party.”

  The thought of the party reminded Frank that he and Mair were likely to have nowhere to live. He’d better tell her about her father and that Dreese woman, get their claim in quick, before they announced their plans.

  * * *

  At first Mair didn’t believe him and then, realising that her father was involved with Carl’s mother – Carl, whose child she was carrying, it all seemed too much and she quarrelled with Frank, telling him he was a gossip and worse. He stepped back from the tirade of abuse she threw at him, then quietly took her arm.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said quietly.

  “Get lost! I’m not going anywhere. How can you do this to me? Tell stories about my father. What reason is there for insulting him when he’ll be your father-in-law.”

  “I followed him back one night when he said he was on night duty and he went to the house in Bella Vista.”

  “That’s where Carl lives.”

  “She has rooms in the same house. And your father visits her there. Come with me and we’ll talk to Carl. He’s working in a shop in town.” She refused to go, and when he thought about it, he understood why she didn’t want to come face to face with Carl.

  Promising to meet her that evening and sort it out, hoping that his request for accommodation would be met by embarrassing her father, Frank went loping across the fields and into the police station. Gregory wasn’t there so he left a note, untidily written with a stub of a pencil, telling him to talk to Mair and tell her the truth.

  Chapter Eleven

  With Terrence still calling occasionally to see his “darling daughter”, Megan and Edward were uneasy. They had taken the first steps toward adopting Rosemary, but were hesitant about going further because of the threat of Terrence’s presence. As Rosemary’s first birthday drew near, they decided they would celebrate it quietly, and Gladys and Arfon willingly agreed to have a small family gathering in their home. They called to see Megan’s grandparents one Wednesday afternoon when the sports shop was closed. They sat in the garden of the large old house and watched Rosemary determinedly taking her first wobbly steps across a blanket spread between Arfon and Edward, her plump little arms waving like windmills as she tried again and again to take more than two steps before falling into the protective arms of one of her doting family.

  “The garden will be perfect for a children’s party,” Gladys said, happily visualising the event. “We’ll have plenty of room for trestle tables and a play area, I’ll get Mrs Dreese to
act as waitress, we can hire a—”

  “Grandmother,” Megan put out a hand to stop Gladys’s cheerful plans. “This has to be a quiet affair, we don’t want Terrence turning up. We don’t want him to come and remind us how easily he could spoil our lives. He does have a right to see Rosemary, doesn’t he? And there’s no way to stop him protesting when Edward and I apply to adopt her. The less he sees of her the better our case, can’t you see that, darling Grannie?”

  “Grandmother, please.” Gladys frowned.

  Edward came forward and put an arm on Megan’s shoulders. “I think we should tell your grandparents what has happened,” he said.

  “Terrence has more or less warned us that unless we pay him some money, he will refuse permission for Edward and me to adopt Rosemary. Can you imagine what life would be like with him turning up whenever he wanted, reminding Rosemary that she isn’t Edward’s child? I can’t bear the thought, but I absolutely refuse to pay him to sign the papers.”

  “I disagree,” Edward said quietly. “I think we should pay and get rid of my cousin for good.”

  “But would it?” Arfon leant slightly back and Gladys and Megan knew that there was a speech coming on. “As I see it, paying, giving in to this blackmail – yes, my dear,” he said to Gladys, who had gasped at the unpleasant word, “blackmail it is, and if we submit, how do we guarantee that he won’t come back again and again? As I see this situation, you have to appeal to the man’s better nature, make him see how important it is for the child he purports to love that she has a happy settled future, and—”

  “Once he signs, he won’t be able to trouble us again, will he?” Edward interrupted.

  “Nothing to stop him coming to see us, and no guarantee that he won’t talk to Rosemary later and disrupt us all,” Megan sighed.

  They walked back to the flat, Edward pushing the little girl who was sleepy after her exciting afternoon in the garden among four doting adults.

  “What will we do?” Edward asked.

  “Nothing, just go ahead with the adoption and hope that between now and when Terrence returns to London, he will go into the solicitors office and sign the papers. He has been notified that an appointment will be made and we have to hope he keeps it and does what we want.”

  As soon as the young people had gone, Arfon put on his coat and announced that he had to go out. He refused to tell his wife where he was going and Gladys sat by the front window and watched him drive away. She crossed her fingers tightly, hoping he was going to sort out the situation and make sure Rosemary’s future was secure.

  When he returned more than two hours later he still refused to explain where he had been, but he was smiling and she felt hope and relief settle within her. Dear Arfon, he always sorted everything out. Head of the Weston family he was, and he always would be.

  * * *

  A few days later, when the second post arrived, Edward was serving a customer and Mair was in the kitchen making coffee. It was ten thirty, and usually the steady flow of customers slowed down then for an hour allowing them time for a brief break. Megan came down with Rosemary in her arms and casually opened the mail. She threw envelopes in the waste bin, stacked the invoices and statements in separate piles in her usual organised manner. Then she began looking at the pile of birthday cards for their daughter, smiling as she guessed the senders from the writing, frowning when she did not. Among the private mail she picked up a letter from their solicitor. When she opened it, she shouted angrily at Edward, “What have you done?”

  “What is it, darling? Is something wrong?”

  “You’ve paid him! You’ve paid that stupid cousin of yours and you promised me you wouldn’t!”

  “Megan, I haven’t seen him since the time I told you about, when he asked me to reconsider and pay him. I explained that we wouldn’t, whatever his threats, that no matter how difficult he made it, Rosemary was staying with us.”

  “Then someone has.” She handed him the letter and hugged Rosemary as she waited for him to read it.

  In the kitchen behind the shop, Mair heard the raised voices and she began to cry. Unaccountably the thought of Edward and Megan disagreeing frightened her. If they had problems, what chance did she have of ever being happy, starting marriage to Frank with this dreadful secret? Staunching her tears by angry rubbing succeeded only in reddening her eyes and blotching the skin around them. Would she ever be happy? Was anyone, she wondered dolefully?

  “This only states that Terrence will raise no objection to the adoption by you and me,” Edward said.

  “Someone must have paid him. I don’t believe he’d give up when he had such a wonderful opportunity to take money from us. He knows how successful the business is, he’ll see no further than the constantly crowded shop and he’ll imagine we are very rich. I just don’t believe he’d give up such a chance. Not Terrence.”

  Edward said nothing more but he decided that at the first opportunity he would go and talk to Arfon. He was the only one he knew with the incentive and enough money to pay Terrence what he asked.

  As Megan began to go back upstairs with Rosemary, she was aware that Mair was sobbing. She and Edward looked at each other, startled by the unlikely behaviour of their assistant. Handing Rosemary to Edward she went in and asked what was wrong. It was a while before Mair could calm herself sufficiently to talk. When she did, it all came out.

  “I’m expecting,” she began.

  “Frank?” Megan asked matter of factly.

  “Frank’s promised to marry me.”

  “And you don’t want to?”

  “The baby isn’t his, it’s Carl Rees’s and Carl won’t have anything to do with it and I don’t know what to do.” Tears fell again and Megan whispered to Edward, took the baby from him and led the girl up to the flat.

  Mair told Megan about the nights she had spent with Carl while her father was on duty, and about starting to see Frank in the deliberate intention of persuading him that the baby was his. “We’ve told Frank’s parents and they were so kind and, and now I can’t go through with it. We’d never be happy. I’d ruin Frank’s life as well as mine.”

  “Does Frank know yet, that the baby isn’t his?”

  “No, I don’t think he’d guess, he isn’t the sort to be suspicious.” She stopped then and covered her lower face with her hands, her red, swollen eyes wide as she stared at her employer.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t be talking to you about all this. I’m sorry Mrs Jenkins, I’m sorry!”

  “Because my husband isn’t Rosemary’s father d’you mean? It’s hardly a secret. Edward and I love each other and we love and adore Rosemary. We aren’t the first to begin our marriage in such a way.”

  “Should I tell Frank then?”

  “You can either tell him, or risk him finding out either by counting the weeks, noting the dates, or by someone else doing it for him. Although I don’t think he’d need that. Whatever you say about Frank Griffiths, he isn’t so stupid he can’t work it out for himself. There are few of us who cannot count to nine! There’s also the risk of Carl appearing, as Terrence has done, spoiling everything with a few words. On consideration, I think it would be better to start straight and honest, but that decision is yours and only yours.”

  Megan sent Mair home early, knowing she wouldn’t want to appear in the shop with her reddened eyes and feeling so unhappy. If anyone ought to understand how the girl was feeling it was she.

  Instead of going back to the cottage Mair turned down a side street, past the shop where Carl had worked for Jennie Francis, and went along to Sophie Street. Expecting to see Rhiannon she was startled to see Jennie serving a young woman with a birthday card from the selection on the counter. “Where’s Rhiannon? She isn’t ill, is she?”

  “No, she’s fine, but she’s leaving Temptations soon, and I’m taking over. Try number seven, her mother’s house. She’s staying there at present. She’s only gone home to put a pie in the oven. Is anything wrong?” she asked, as Mair turned to
leave. “You look upset.”

  “It’s nothing, just a bit of a tummy upset, that’s all,” Mair said half smiling at the irony. Her stomach wasn’t upset, but her belly was getting rather full!

  Rhiannon welcomed her, told her she had no more than ten minutes and went on rolling out the pastry to cover the rhubarb and apple pie she was preparing.

  “I’ve agreed to marry Frank Griffiths,” Mair began.

  “Wonderful. With Basil married to Eleri who’s almost my sister, you’ll be almost a sister too!”

  “How d’you make that out?”

  “Well, Eleri was married to my brother, Lewis-boy, so she was my sister-in-law. But my brother died. Right? You with me so far? Then she married Basil Griffiths and although she’s no longer my sister-in-law, I pretend she is and she still calls my mother, Mam. So you see, we’ll be almost sisters. Isn’t that exciting?”

  Mair laughed for the first time for days, grateful for Rhiannon cheering her with her nonsense. “I’ve always wanted a sister,” she said, hugging Rhiannon.

  As they walked back to the shop, they were talking excitedly of how they would walk to the park together, pushing their prams, comparing notes on their and other people’s children. In a happier frame of mind, Mair went home and tried to work out the best way of telling Frank the truth.

  Megan was right: to start with deceit was too risky, she could lose everything with a careless or unkind word. She was surprised to realise just how much she wanted Frank’s support and how anxious she was not to cause him pain and disappointment. She would have to be very careful when she told him, make him believe that it was he whom she loved and that Carl had been a brief madness.

  * * *