Facing the World

by Grace Thompson

  When Joy Laker reached her house, the car was back in her drive, almost precisely where she had parked it after coming home from school. Almost but not exactly.

  When Valmai reached home Gwilym was upset, although relieved to know Jimmy was safe. ‘I should have been helping. I should have been out there with the others,’ he said.

  Valmai knew that sympathy hadn’t persuaded him to get out and face the world and her new method just might, so she said. ‘Yes, you should have been there.’ Then, leaving him to settle on the day bed in the living room, she went upstairs without another word. She hated treating him like this, but sympathy was too convenient an excuse for him not to try.

  Childcare workers and a woman police officer called on Netta and Walter, and Joy Laker, as Jimmy’s teacher, gave him more of her time. She went to talk to Netta and Walter and tried to make them see what their arguments were doing to a boy who couldn’t understand but could only accept blame for their misery. None of these visits were discussed outside the privacy of their house and Valmai could only hope that some good would come out of them. Jimmy was neglected by being in the middle of two very unhappy people and how could he not blame himself?

  Jimmy still hesitated before walking into the house. He felt happier when his mother was there but more and more often these days she was not. The table would be covered with newspapers and dirty plates where Walter had made food for himself. Jimmy had to wait until his mother came home from work and the time she arrived was becoming later and later. He had brought home a picture he had made, nothing special, except he had painted it with a design of clouds and the glow of sun across the sea. ‘Dad,’ he said hesitantly, ‘Miss Laker said this was good. What d’you think?’

  ‘What’s it supposed to be? It’s a picture with nothing going on. That’s a strange one. She was being kind to you, son. You’re better off doing sums and things if you ask me.’

  Jimmy nodded, ‘Yeah, none of us did anything special. Just messing about.’ He’d long ago decided it was best if he agreed. ‘I’d better leave it to show Mam, though.’

  He couldn’t decide which was worse, the rows and his mother there, or this long wait with his uncommunicative father who had eyes and ears only for the newspapers, the radio or the television. He cut a slice of bread and jam and went up to his room. If he noticed he had gone, Walter didn’t acknowledge the fact.

  Jimmy put the painting on the table beside the bed, stared at it and wondered whether his father was right and he shouldn’t waste his time on things no one wanted. Perhaps he’d give it away, but who would want it? Perhaps the box he was making in woodwork would please him. Or maybe the teacher would like it – if he could manage to finish the lid.

  David’s new job of maintenance for a firm responsible for several houses and other properties meant he had to travel and after a few weeks of getting about on his bike, the manager accepted that his work and reliability were satisfactory and gave him the use of a van. Fortunately it was a popular model, and there were many to be seen, unnoticeable, just what he liked. With the name of the firm emblazoned on its side and with no encouragement to keep it clean, he felt able to travel around in it, with mud partially disguising the number plate, and find a few houses to rob.

  He made sure to walk far away from where he parked the van and what he took were often not missed for a long time and in many cases never reported to the police. He was conscientious about the work he was given but sometimes he was so tired he parked up and dozed. It was on one such occasion that Sally saw him.

  She stopped and asked if he was all right and he happily assured her he was, now she had appeared. She asked about his mother and said, ‘Why don’t you bring her to the house for coffee on Sunday morning? Sadie loves company and we haven’t seen her apart from the night Jimmy was missing.’

  ‘Mam won’t come, she’s busy all morning preparing her famous roast dinner,’ he said, ‘but I will. See you about half ten?’

  ‘Bother,’ she muttered. Now she’d have to invite a few more or he’d get the wrong idea and she didn’t want any more complications in her life. She smiled then. She was like a teenager fighting off unwanted suitors. But it wasn’t really funny; she had the eerie feeling that friend though he was, David could make a nasty enemy.

  David’s savings were growing. Thanks to his mother’s generosity he didn’t pay anything to the home, she having decided he needed a few months to get on his feet. One evening he left the van and walked and found an uninhabited house at the end of a lane ten miles from home. With the aid of his torch he peered inside and saw there were several paintings that to his inexperienced eye looked as though they might be valuable. The place was locked, the windows secured but it was a simple task for him to enter. Trained as a carpenter, he was adept at removing locks, which he then replaced.

  He put three paintings in the van, hidden by the tools and materials he carried, and drove away. How could he learn of their value and how, if they were worth something, could he sell them? Perhaps he’d do better to wait and claim a reward. Although that would be risky; he might have left evidence of being in the house. Unless….

  The next day, he called on Sally and told her how he had helped the police and nearly caught a burglar.

  ‘I saw a car drive away, see, and curious, I went to see what was along the lane. There was this house and the door was open and I went inside and looked around. Then I relocked the door and went to call the police.’

  ‘That could have been dangerous. You should be careful,’ she said. ‘Did they find the paintings?’

  ‘The police didn’t. I did! They were hidden in the hedge – the thieves probably planned to pick them up later. No one was caught though,’ he added.

  A few days later, having been told by a dealer how much he’d have paid for the paintings, David found the house again. What a pity I couldn’t get Rhys’s fingerprints on a few things in that house, he mused. That would finish him for good.

  Milly saw the postman about to take letters to Valmai and to Netta and Walter. ‘Here,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Save yourself a few paces. I’m just going to call on them both. It’s about a Bring and Buy on Saturday. Tell your wife, will you?’ The postman thanked her and hurried on.

  Milly glanced at the envelopes and smiled in satisfaction. One was for Valmai and Gwilym and the postmark was Bristol. It must be from that runaway son of theirs.

  ‘Hello, Valmai, any chance of a cup of tea?’ she called as she went through the gate. ‘Letter here from your son. Lovely to hear, even if he never comes home, isn’t it?’

  Valmai snatched the envelope and glared at Milly, who was smiling innocently.

  ‘From your Rhys, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know till I open it.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s been so long you’ve forgotten his handwriting. Sad that is.’

  ‘What’s sad is you nosing into other people’s business!’

  ‘No tea then? Never mind.’ Still smiling, Milly went back to the gate. She stopped and poked her head into the shed, ‘Letter from your Rhys, Gwilym. Still writing care of that café, are you? No proper address yet?’

  ‘He’s fine, and we’re well aware of where he is and what he’s doing.’

  ‘I bet poor Sally wishes she felt the same.’

  Gwilym moved even closer to the bench, making sure his legs were hidden, and turned back to the wood he was planing.

  Milly went to call on one of her friends and asked, ‘Fancy a trip to Bristol? Do a bit of Christmas shopping? There’s a nice little café I’ve heard of where we can have a spot of lunch.’

  Sally’s job kept her busy although she felt guilty about the time she spent away from Sadie, and the reduced hours Valmai worked to help them. Sadie was content and chattered happily whenever they were alone, about all she had been doing at Granny’s. For the time being Sally had to accept the arrangements and get on with securing her place in the business she enjoyed.

  She was building up a r
eputation for making clever choices, wise distribution of stock and for buying at the best prices. In December she was given a rise in pay. Time, she decided, to start 1962 right by making proper arrangements for Sadie and give Valmai the chance to return to the full number of hours she needed to work. Getting her life on a firm base would please them all.

  She would make enquiries about a qualified childminder to stay in the house. She began with an advertisement in the local paper and also approached an agency. This time, no matter how long it took, she had to make sure she found the right person.

  Jimmy spent a lot of time with Gwilym. Sometimes Eric was there but he only stayed when either Valmai or Netta came too. Walter’s outburst the night he had found Jimmy still worried him, even though the police had been there all the time and Walter was aware of this. He had spent a lot of time at the mill with the boy and he was afraid that a few words at the wrong time and in the hearing of the wrong people would mean he’d be in serious – albeit undeserved – trouble.

  The headboard Gwilym had made for Sally had been much admired during the time it had been in the workshop and he had since made three more, with Eric’s help. Now, in between making two rocking cradles, ordered by one of the shops in Barry, they spent odd moments making tree ornaments, which Jimmy helped them to paint.

  Jimmy came in one afternoon proudly showing them the box he had made at school. The sides had been recessed inside, near the top, to support a lid. ‘It needs a little knob to open it, but I broke the one I was making and we didn’t have time for another try,’ he explained.

  ‘It’s beautifully made, young Jimmy. Well done!’

  ‘Better than I could have done at your age,’ Eric added.

  ‘Come back when you’ve shown your father and we’ll sort out a finial for the lid. Well done indeed!’ And as Jimmy went off to show his father, hoping for at least a little praise, Gwilym began marking out an acorn to act as a handle to go in the centre of the lid.

  Walter hardly glanced at the box being proudly held up by his son. ‘Wasting time fiddling about with stuff like that,’ he said. ‘You should stay away from Gwilym and that Eric. Fiddling about with wood won’t get you far. Fiddling with stuff no one wants, painting weird pictures, I don’t know what that school is thinking of.’

  ‘But you do like it, Dad?’

  ‘Yes, it’s fine. Now shush, boy, I’m listening to the TV.’

  Jimmy didn’t bother to show him his end-of-term report.

  The acorn was carved by Jimmy with Gwilym encouraging and Valmai holding her breath as the boy managed with the sharp tools. It was fixed in place and Jimmy said, ‘Dad won’t want it, he doesn’t like me fiddling with stuff like this. I thought I’d give it to Miss Laker as a Christmas present.’

  ‘Better check with Mam and Dad first. I think they’ll love it, it’s really well made,’ Valmai said.

  She was waiting when Netta arrived back from work and at once she said. ‘Your Jimmy has made a beautiful box and he should be praised for doing it. Your Walter won’t bother, but really, Netta, you must.’

  Netta went in and said all the right things; it was wonderful, he was so clever, but all the time she was glancing at Walter and hardly looked at it. Jimmy went out that night and threw it in the leat, where it floated for a while then sank and disappeared into the silt.

  He spent hours at the mill despite the cold weather, clearing the leat and struggling to ease the penstock so it could be raised and lowered. What it needed, Eric had explained when they discussed it, was some thick cart grease. ‘Even then,’ Eric went on, ‘I doubt if it will work, not after all the years of neglect.’

  Surprisingly it was David Gorse who helped, by providing grease to use on the neglected gates. Jimmy found a tin that was still half full which David had thrown away and he took it to the mill and spent a happy afternoon working to free the rusted metal.

  Milly Sewell and her friend Mavis were in Bristol. They stopped at the café Milly had learned was the postal address for Rhys and talked about him loudly, hoping to attract some comments. The man behind the counter stared at them occasionally but said nothing. An hour later they left, Milly disappointed. They hadn’t gone far on their way to the shopping centre that her luck changed. Coming out of a wallpaper and paint shop was Rhys. With him, sharing his laughter about something, were a woman and a young girl. The woman she didn’t recognize at first, but then Rhys called, ‘Come on, Julia Thomas, we’ll be late for the pictures at this rate. A real slow coach she is, your mother,’ he said to the little girl.

  Milly stared, frowning until she was convinced that she knew who the young woman was. ‘Well I never!’ she muttered to Mavis. ‘Fancy that! Rhys Martin and Eric’s daughter. Who’d have believed it?’

  Milly spent the journey home wondering about the best way of using her exciting new knowledge. Should she tell Eric? Or would it be more fun to tell Valmai and that workshy husband of hers, idling his time in that shed instead of facing the world and getting a proper job? What she really needed was an audience and the following morning she found one.

  She was making her way to Valmai and Gwilym’s house, intending to just hint that she had news of their son, and when she reached the front gate laughter led her to the shed in the back garden. Eric was there, and Jimmy was showing them a small tree Eric had made for a nativity scene which was minus its top. ‘The chisel slipped, Uncle Gwilym. I saw it slip and snap the top off. And he’s done it before.’ Jimmy was laughing as he held the two pieces together.

  ‘It just shows that even the best of us can make a mistake,’ Gwilym said, winking at Eric.

  ‘Now, Jimmy,’ Eric said, ‘will you have another go at sanding this figure’s arms so they look like a pair?’

  Milly stood for a moment watching the two men and the boy working together, then, as Valmai came to join them, she said, ‘I saw your daughter yesterday, Eric. Looking well, isn’t she?’

  ‘Julia? You saw Julia? Where is she? How is she?’ Eric was shaken. He dropped what he was doing and stared at Milly’s smiling face.

  ‘Oh, she’s fine and very happy from what I saw. With Rhys she was, her and the little girl. Was she another poor woman your Rhys abandoned then went back to, Gwilym?’

  ‘Julia? Are you sure? And a child? I don’t understand,’ Eric said.

  ‘What’s to understand? Loves and leaves them, doesn’t he, your Rhys?’ she said, looking at Valmai.

  Questions came thick and fast, voices increasing in volume as Milly teased them with half-complete replies. Jimmy went to stand beside Valmai and reached for her hand, afraid that the questions would turn into rows. Not here, he pleaded with an unrecognized God. If they row here I’ll have nowhere to go.

  Milly smiled at a white-faced Valmai and held up her hands in protest. ‘Stop. Please. I’ll tell you all I know if you’ll give me a chance.’

  Valmai moved closer to Gwilym and stared at her. ‘Stop enjoying this and tell us what you know, if it’s the truth you’re telling and not a pack of vicious lies, Milly Sewell.’

  She released Jimmy’s hand and, unnoticed, he moved away, out of the door and back to his empty house. Walter was asleep in the armchair, the television was on, the fire was out, and he went up to his room. He opened his bedroom window and listened to the voices raised in anger. Now there was nowhere to go.

  In the workshop, Milly was still holding court, pleased with the way the news was greeted.

  ‘I went for a day out and saw your Rhys and he was with a woman.’ She paused for effect. ‘And when I recognized Eric’s daughter Julia I was too surprised to say anything. I just watched as they walked off with a dear little girl. I thought I must be dreaming, but it was Rhys all right and the woman he was with was your daughter, Eric.’

  ‘How can you know? She was a schoolgirl when you last saw her.’

  ‘You know what it’s like to see photographs of babies and know straight away who they are. There’s always something that doesn’t change. That thick hair
and those big blue eyes. Even after all this time there was no doubt. Your Julia is with Rhys Martin living in Bristol, there was no mistake. All this time he’s been missing and poor Sally’s been coping with his daughter on her own.’ She turned to Valmai. ‘Protecting him you’ve been, and Eric not told where his daughter is. Shame on you, Valmai. All this time he’s been with Julia Thomas, or whatever her name is now. If they’re married it would be Martin, wouldn’t it, Gwilym?’

  ‘Of course he isn’t married! Eric, she’s mistaken. Rhys and Sally have an understanding. He’ll be back soon and then we’ll hear the truth.’

  ‘Shall I tell Sally or would you like to give her the sad news?’ Milly said with false sympathy.

  ‘Keep away from her, d’you hear? This is a distortion of the facts, something you do very well, Milly Sewell. Now go away and leave us to deal with any problems we have in our own way.’

  Milly waved and left, smiling at the shouted remarks from Gwilym’s workshop that followed her. She didn’t care if she had been mistaken; she’d had her fun.

  Next door, Jimmy covered his ears.

  ‘Eric,’ Gwilym pleaded. ‘Believe us, we know nothing about this and I for one don’t think it’s true.’ He reached out and patted Eric’s shoulder. Eric moved away, his face white as he stared at Gwilym and Valmai in disbelief. ‘You knew. All this time you knew Rhys was with Julia and didn’t tell me.’

  ‘No, Eric, we’d have told you. It isn’t true. It can’t be.’ Valmai was adamant, desperate for him to believe her.

  ‘Milly might have seen Rhys; she’s clever enough to find out where he lives. Sally no longer tries to keep it a secret,’ Gwilym said. ‘She might have seen someone resembling your daughter, Eric, but after all this time, how can she be certain it was her? She was a child when she left. Pigtails and missing some teeth. No, I’m sure Rhys isn’t with Julia. He’d have told us if he’d found her. He wouldn’t keep that to himself, whatever his reason for staying away.’