Gull Island

by Grace Thompson

  Rosita licked her fingers inelegantly, savouring the smudge of cream from the cake, and took a deep breath. She felt a cheat, not being honest with Mrs Carey about what she had learned of the changes, but keeping your mouth closed was essential at times like these. This venture would succeed. She, Rosita Jones, had made sure of that.

  ‘Have you and Uncle Henry Carey discussed it fully?’ she asked when she was sitting with both of them later, a second cup of tea in front of them.

  ‘I’m almost seventy,’ Henry said, looking at his wife. ‘Molly and I both think you’re right. It’s time we put our feet up and took things easy.’ His thin face wore a martyred expression and silently Rosita thought he had rarely done anything else except take it easy! But she smiled, patted his hands sympathetically and agreed.

  ‘You’ve worked hard all your lives. Now you can enjoy yourselves. I’ll buy the shop and you can find a decent place to live.’

  ‘I already have.’ Molly smiled. ‘Henry and I closed the shop for an hour at dinner time and went to look at it. Down overlooking the sand at Red Rock Bay it is, where we can go for walks, or sit and watch the children playing. Lovely it’ll be.’

  ‘Missed the sea, I have,’ Henry said with a hint of the offended martyr in his voice again. ‘All them years on the beach. Lovely it was, mind, even though it was a bit lonely. I missed it something terrible when we left there, you know. Beautiful it was, living at the edge of the sea. I only came here because it was best for the family.’

  Uncle Henry’s words left the usual irritation. She loved him dearly but had never been blind to his laziness. It was typical of the man to marvel over what he had gladly left behind years ago instead of appreciating what he had been given, Rosita thought.

  ‘Must have people round us now, though,’ Molly Carey added. ‘After the years in the shop we’ll need company, won’t we, Henry?’

  ‘We thought we’d get a dog, now dear old Patch has gone,’ Henry added.

  ‘I’ve seen to all the business side of things,’ Rosita said. Then, crossing her fingers in child-like fear, she went on, ‘You haven’t been in touch with Richard, have you? Oughtn’t he to be told what you’re going to do?’

  ‘The business is mine,’ Henry said with pride. ‘The whole bang lot! Richard hasn’t been home since I – he got this place for us.’

  Molly shook her head sadly. ‘Went away before he was sixteen. Get a letter we do, from time to time, and always a card on birthdays and at Christmas. From somewhere up London way they come. But never a sight of him. Not even when he sent the money to buy the property after we’d rented it for years. It was all done through the banks and a solicitor. Not a sight of him, not once.’

  Rosita sighed with relief. The last thing she wanted now was Richard Carey turning up and telling her she couldn’t buy the place.

  They all met at the solicitor’s office a few days later and the sale was completed. Rosita went back to the house she and Miss Grainger still shared and told her of her success.

  ‘I agreed that for a month Auntie Molly Carey can stay. They’ll continue to run the shop and, during that time, they can get their own house sorted.’

  ‘You still intend to run the shop yourself once they move out?’ Miss Grainger queried.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s very long hours and unless you close for an hour or so for lunch, you’ll be on your feet from 5 a.m. until 6 p.m.’

  ‘It will be hard, but until I find someone really suitable, that’s what I intend doing. I’ve found someone to help you and I’m looking for someone to do at least part of the days for me.’ Her eyes glowed as she turned to look at Miss Grainger. ‘I’ve been so very lucky to have your help all these years.’ In a rare moment of emotion, Rosita hugged her friend. ‘We’re on our way up now, and without you we couldn’t have done any of it.’

  ‘Nonsense, dear. If I hadn’t happened along, someone else would have turned up. You were destined to do well.’

  ‘Not always. Only after I realized the need for glasses and was shown the fascination of business and accounting – all down to you.’

  At the railway station in the centre of the town, a man was alighting from the Cardiff train. He had been travelling for five hours and had left London behind, he hoped for good. The lovely June day was drawing to a close with a chill in the air, making him fasten the buttons of his dark grey overcoat.

  Although the coat was no longer new, and a trifle small for his six-foot-three, broad-shouldered figure, he looked moderately smart, with a navy chalk-striped suit and a carelessly fastened blue-grey tie. A trilby covered the dark hair that grew curly and low on his neck. He wore rather gaudy grey leather shoes that would have made Rosita shudder with disapproval. His suitcases were battered and threatening to burst. A pair of braces had been tied round one to prevent his belongings from falling out for all to see. A pity, perhaps, as they would have made an interesting study.

  The two cases contained a few items of clothing, bricklayer’s tools, several textbooks on building and architecture, a battered enamel mug and, wrapped in greaseproof paper like sandwiches for a picnic, a great deal of money. The largest spirit level was too long to fit in either case and was carried over his shoulder in a canvas bag that had once housed a fishing rod.

  Complete with all his worldly possessions, Richard Carey was home.

  He didn’t go straight to the newsagents, where his parents would have given him a jubilant welcome. With last-minute arrangements and a lot of travelling over the past week, he was exhausted. He went instead to a hotel, where he booked a room. Within thirty minutes of pushing through the hotel room door, he was asleep.

  Rosita stood in the Careys’ shop with Miss Grainger and began to fear she had made a terrible error of judgement. The place was far more neglected than she had realized. A visitor there ever since the Careys had taken it over, she had become so used to seeing it she had fallen into the trap of seeing nothing.

  The shop was clean, the shelves well scrubbed, but more than half were empty. The walls were in dire need of decoration and the stock lacked variety and was far too low generally to satisfy the customers they hoped to encourage. Like everything Henry Carey had tackled, it had been half-heartedly done and what had been achieved was due to his wife’s efforts.

  The loan was going to be difficult to pay and money desperately needed to build up the business would be hard to find. The books had only told half the story. The stock listed was not there. Henry Carey’s book-keeping was as efficient as all the other aspects of his idle life.

  ‘The priority must be stock,’ Miss Grainger said. ‘If a customer comes in and doesn’t find what he wants he won’t bother to try us again.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Rosita said. ‘We’ll spend a chunk of the bank loan filling the shelves and I’ll go back to work.’

  ‘But you can’t. Who will run this place?’

  ‘I’ll find a girl to work during the hours I’m away. I’ll manage the mornings and evenings.’

  ‘Rosita, you really can’t do this.’

  ‘Not for ever I can’t but for a month or so while we get this place on its feet, I must. I’m not going to give in and accept defeat, not after all our struggles.’

  Rosita went to see the Careys at their home overlooking the beach later on Sunday after the shop had closed, determined not to allow her worries to show. The takings that first week had been frighteningly small and when she closed her eyes she could see debts and summonses piling up as a footpath to a gloomy future. She had lied to the bank manager and to the Careys so she could buy the shop and she wasn’t going to let weakness show now. She held an ace, she reminded herself, and mustn’t lose it. She had to survive until changes that were promised came about. Then she would make enough money to start an even better business. Survival until then was going to be a constant worry, balancing on a tightrope above certain failure, but survive she must.

  ‘It’s great, Auntie Molly Carey. You’ve left everyth
ing so clean there isn’t a thing to do – just open the doors tomorrow morning and there I’ll be, a businesswoman with two shops to her name.’

  Mrs Carey smiled her pleasure at the praise. ‘I worked till ten o’clock for the past week getting everything nice for you, fach. Glad you were pleased.’

  ‘I’m thinking of putting in an assistant for a while. I half promised to help out in my old job if they were stuck. You don’t know anyone who would do the job for me, do you?’

  Mrs Carey thought for a moment and a fleeting idea came and then faded on her lined face. Watching her, Rosita guessed she had thought of someone then changed her mind.

  ‘Who were you thinking of?’ she asked. ‘Come on, Auntie Molly Carey, I can read you like a balance sheet!’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure. There is someone who is looking for a job but I don’t know if she’ll be suitable.’

  ‘Tell me where I can find her and I’ll decide once I’ve interviewed her. It was a man I was hoping for,’ she lied, ‘but a woman would be cheaper and easier to manage. I’d take on a woman for a trial period and see how we got on.’

  ‘I think Kate would accept that. She’s a quiet girl but hard-working.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Let me see.’ Mrs Carey stared into space as she worked it out. ‘She’d be about your age, I think. Perhaps a bit younger.’

  An hour later, Kate arrived at the shop having been brought by Idris, the golden boy, who still managed to survive without working, although he was on the payroll while his parents owned the shop.

  Rosita saw her coming through the shop door and felt the years slipping back. She was staring at her mother as a young woman. She turned to Mrs Carey, seeing agitation on her face. Pulling her aside, Mrs Carey said, ‘Yes, before you ask, it’s your half-sister, Kate.’

  Through her shock and anger, Rosita stared at the smiling young woman approaching her. Then, unable to speak, she turned and ran into the room behind the shop. Mrs Carey followed.

  ‘I know I should have told you. I was wrong and stupid. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity of bringing you two together. Kate’s a lovely girl – you and she would get on if only you’d give it a chance.’

  ‘Does she know who I am?’

  ‘No, I haven’t said a word about you. There’s no chance of her recognizing you either. You follow your father, Bernard Stock, and there’s no sign of your mother in you, not like our Kate, who’s the image of Barbara as she used to be.’

  Looking through a crack in the door, Rosita stared at her half-sister, her emotions in turmoil. She saw a slim, shy young woman, dressed in a way that disguised her trim figure as if she were trying to hide from the world. Rosita’s first thought was, no. This woman wouldn’t have the necessary confidence for running a busy shop, but knowing that it was only for a few months, while they got the business on its feet and able to command a good price, she stopped to consider. There would be malicious pleasure in having the girl working for her, to give orders and know all the time that she was the sister who, together with her father and sister Hattie, had ignored her very existence from the age of five. Slowly, she walked back into the shop and held out her hand, watching the woman’s face for the slightest sign of recognition. There was none. ‘I am Miss Caroline Evans. Do you think you can help me run this business?’

  ‘I’d like to try,’ Kate said, smiling. ‘My Idris hasn’t been well, see, and work has been difficult. If I could earn something regular it will help. Only till he’s really fit again, mind.’

  That will take for ever, Rosita thought grimly. Thank goodness she’d had the sense to avoid marriage. What a mistake it would have been to become encumbered with an idle husband.

  ‘Have you worked in a shop before?’ she asked, trying to calm her shaking limbs. Really, meeting this woman had been worse than when a bomb had dropped on the factory!

  ‘Well yes. I’ve often helped out when Mother-in-law needed an extra pair of hands.’

  ‘Good she was, too.’ Mrs Carey spoke proudly. ‘Never needed telling more than once.’

  ‘What did you do before you were married?’

  ‘I worked in a school.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll work with you this week, and next week we’ll see how you manage on your own. Just for a trial, mind, to see how we get on.’ Any sign of malingering and she’d be out, half-sister or not, Rosita decided emphatically.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll be here at six for the morning papers.’

  ‘No, I’ll do the early shift. I’ll expect you at eight.’

  Kate hadn’t mentioned wages and Rosita thought it wise to remain silent on that matter too. She wouldn’t pay a generous wage but would lead the girl on with promises of something better once the trial period was over. If Kate was going to help until Idris felt able to work, she’d be there for a long time!

  After Kate had gone to tell Idris the good news, Mrs Carey said, ‘I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to do.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me my sister was married to Idris?’

  ‘I don’t know. I avoided it for a while, afraid of you being upset, then, well, you know how it is, once you start a secret, the breaking of it becomes more and more impossible. I didn’t want you to stop coming to see us. We love you like one of our own we do, me and your Uncle Henry Carey.’

  ‘When did they marry?’

  ‘Ten years ago. I introduced them one Christmas when your mam brought the girls to visit. They’d moved to Cardiff for a while see, and I thought that if you two ever met, then would be the time to tell you.’

  ‘They have children?’

  ‘Yes, Helen and Lynne, twins aged nine.’

  ‘You haven’t told her who I am?’

  ‘No. Not a hint, I promise. I thought I’d wait and see how you felt about her knowing.’

  ‘I don’t want her told. There’s no possibility of her recognizing me,’ Rosita said bitterly. ‘She didn’t want to know all the years I was away and I don’t want to know now. Right? Abandoned I was, considered a nuisance. And me only five years old. She hasn’t seen me since. She didn’t visit once, all the time I was in that home.’

  ‘She won’t learn who you are from me. You’re Miss Caroline Evans. Good at keeping secrets I am,’ she said sadly. ‘All these years I’ve known where Richard is. And I haven’t been able to tell a soul in case he’s still wanted by the police.’

  Rosita had been standing, agitated and ready to leave, upset by the recent revelations. Now she sat down again and stared at the woman, dumbfounded.

  ‘You know where Richard is?’ she asked, eyes wide with shock. What other surprises would this remarkable day reveal?

  ‘More or less. He’s working as a builder. Bricklaying and doing other things as well. Last I heard he’d passed some exam or other. Doing well he is. Got a business of his own, he says. Pity is he can’t come and see us.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he come?’

  ‘For a long time, he couldn’t, afraid of the police catching up with him. Someone told on him, see. Then years passed and he says he doesn’t have the time.’

  Rosita walked slowly back home, her mind a jumble of confusing thoughts. Richard, her protector when no one else seemed to care, long disappeared from her life but never forgotten for a single day. She frowned as she counted up how long it had been since they had met. More than twenty years. Like her half-sister Kate, he wouldn’t recognize her now, although she was certain she would know him the moment they met. If they ever did.

  Amid the navy suits, black shoes and white mufflers of the local men in the public house, Richard Carey’s clothes stood out. They were more fashionable and well cut. He was recognized as a stranger and curious faces stared towards him and a few braver souls questioned him, warily at first.

  ‘Come far, have you, boy?’ a small-featured elderly man asked.

  ‘From a place not far from London,’ Richard told him. ‘Does it show that I’m not from round here?’

  ‘Well,
them clothes wasn’t bought round here and that’s a fact! Besides, we haven’t seen you in here before and a bloke as big as you couldn’t be overlooked for long, and that’s a fact!’

  ‘Saw you getting off the Cardiff train a couple of days ago,’ another voice called. ‘Said you was a foreigner then, with shoes that colour, didn’t I, Joe?’

  ‘Never seen anyone with grey shoes before. We don’t see them around here,’ the old man reinforced.

  Richard chuckled. A foreigner, and him born not half a mile from where they were sitting!

  He bought a round of drinks and left soon after, having amused himself by twisting their questions and his answers so he gave no further details of who he was or why he was there.

  ‘Not one of them spivs from London, are you?’ was the parting shot from the elderly Joe. ‘My sister saw one of them and he sold her stockings cheap. One had three seams!’

  Richard cut off the laughter as he closed the door behind him.

  It was lunchtime and Richard had just visited the local Labour Exchange to seek some workmen. Demolition it would be first, then at last his big building project. He had worked for so long to set it up it was hard to believe it was within a few weeks of fruition.

  It wasn’t proving easy to find the sort of men he needed. Since the war had ended and the country had begun to recover, there had been a surge of new building and qualified men were in short supply. Still, first he had to get the demolition done, and by the time he was ready to employ bricklayers, plasterers and carpenters he would have found them.

  He went to the bank to make sure his cheques had been cleared and saw to his satisfaction that he now had a healthy balance. That was beside the money he had not declared and which would soon be put to good use.

  Now to visit his parents. He felt a surge of excitement tinged with anxiety as he turned the corner and headed for the small shop he had thought of so often during the years he had been away. It was smaller than he remembered. But he had been fifteen when he’d seen it last and from a child’s eye level across the counter it would have seemed enormous. Now, he looked across it and stared at a rather elegant woman who stood beside the till.