“I’m very glad she did. I enjoyed it more than I ever thought. Didn’t you?”
She looked at his rather anxious eyes, the tightness around his mouth. It was all right, he was glad to be there and hoped she felt the same. She smiled, her face lighting up with relief.
“It was wonderful. So was tonight.”
They found a seat together on the train home and had the carriage to themselves for the last two stops. As the train pulled in to their station he leaned over and kissed her, rather hurriedly this time, and inexpertly, but they were more than content with the resulting lightness of spirit after their rather solemn discussion.
* * *
For Lucy and Polly, Christmas was a cheerful affair. Having sold a large quantity of goods they had relaxed, confident that now, at last, things were going well. It had given Lucy a feeling of luxurious extravagance to go to Cardiff Market and buy a rabbit, some fresh fish and vegetables, as well as a small gift for her mother.
Late on Christmas Eve, with all her shopping completed, Lucy went for a walk through the shops just to wander and feel the excited atmosphere of the crowds. Lucy felt nothing but joy. It was Christmas – that most wonderful of celebrations. They had survived the bombing, so far, her business was beginning to succeed and, that morning, a parcel and a card had been left for her, both bearing Teifion’s writing.
A few weeks previously he had taken her to the theatre in Cardiff. Apart from cups of tea at Luigi’s café, it had been the first time he had met her in the town. Usually they had gone some distance to little known places for a drink or, on occasions, a meal. She didn’t need to be told that he didn’t want to be seen with her. Parent trouble, she had diagnosed. Some parents resented the first girlfriend of their sons. She tried not to be hurt and hoped things would change. Oh, how she hoped things would change.
Since the theatre trip they hadn’t met. She wondered if someone had seen them together and told his parents. Then a flare of anger touched her cheeks. What was she thinking about demeaning herself like this? Why should she think they would mind? She was not unattractive and even if she lived in a poky little room, she had ambition and talent. For a moment she felt irritation with the absent Teifion. Surely if he thought anything of her he would stand up to his parents on her behalf? If not then it was best she forgot him! Then anger was snuffed out like a flame in a cold draught. She would accept whatever relationship he wanted of her rather than tell him goodbye, he was her only excitement. She smiled and thought of the parcel, wondering what it contained.
* * *
Teifion was shopping with his mother and aunt. He saw Lucy leaving the market and quickly darted back out of sight. He called his aunt’s attention to a display of hand-knitted toys. When he glanced up cautiously Lucy had gone.
He smiled solicitously at his aunt and offered to buy her one of the clown dolls, just for fun. Then he agreed that it would be a wicked waste of money. Money was his aunt and uncle’s constant delight and obsession, and the reason for his devoted attention.
For as long as he could remember his mother had encouraged him to be nice to her sister. Rich they were, compared to most, and with no children of their own it had been implied that, so long as he didn’t displease them, he might be the one to inherit. To marry someone they hadn’t chosen was in the category of “displease”.
He was slightly shaky after the near encounter with Lucy. She would not meet his aunt’s approval, there was nothing more certain. She preferred older women for a start, and with a more stable background. Her first questions on meeting any new acquaintance were address and the father’s occupation. But he felt regret at not being free to run and greet her, perhaps spend the afternoon with her like any normal person. She was very beautiful and had an air of gentility and superiority that excited him, made him dream of seeing her desperate for his loving, seeing the veneer of coolness stripped away and urgent desire fill those blue eyes.
As they walked towards the china stall where his aunt wanted to look at some inexpensive cups and saucers, he saw Lucy again. She was standing at the stall where the hand-made toys were displayed and examining them with interest. He ached to talk to her. If he could tell her of his hopes of an inheritance, the importance of keeping on the right side of his wealthy relations, would she understand? Then he could ask her to wait for him, wait until he either introduced her to his aunt in a way that made her acceptable, or… The thought of losing Lucy was causing him to lose sleep. He wanted her, but he wanted the money and the easy life it promised more.
“Still thinking of those clown dolls, Teifion?” his mother said tartly, breaking into his thoughts. “I’m beginning to think you haven’t grown up.” But Teifion only smiled and led them further away from Lucy.
“Watching the clown dolls or some young fliberty-gibbet of a girl,” his aunt said with a disapproving frown. “Probably someone far too young for him, of course. He always likes them far too young.”
His mother looked at her sister, shrugged and raised her eyes in exasperation.
After they had parted from his aunt and uncle, Teifion and his mother met Lucy again, face to face this time as they headed for the department store across the road from the castle. Teifion, interpreting from her wide smile that she was about to speak, frantically waved at her and shook his head. He nodded, doffed his hat as they passed, and explained to his mother that the lady was one of the designers he met occasionally.
“She was standing at the doll stall wasn’t she?” his mother asked curiously.
“Was she? I didn’t notice,” he lied.
But for both Teifion and Lucy, Christmas was ruined. Teifion watched as his aunt and his mother unwrapped his gifts to them. He had, on impulse, included the samples of work he had obtained from Lucy. The beautifully made table-cloth and the expensive-looking gloves were admired and his excellent taste commented on. He explained they were the work of a talented designer, the young woman, he reminded his mother, that they had greeted near the castle on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. He had to persuade them that Lucy was a suitable companion for him, young as she was. He had to. But not at the risk of losing the good will of his aunt and uncle. That was too high a price to pay, even, he thought with regret, for Lucy.
Lucy opened the parcel from Teifion with little joy and gave the large and expensive box of chocolates it contained to Arthur, together with a helping of the roast rabbit, aware that the lonely and kind old man hadn’t even had a Christmas card.
* * *
Christmas in Bread Street was a less than jolly affair. There were no letters from the uncles and this cast an anxious gloom over the family. Gilly was called upon to help with the extra baking on the days leading up to Christmas Eve. Besides the bread that seemed to leave the shop shelves the moment it touched them, there were extra orders to keep an account of and then there were the turkeys and chickens they traditionally cooked for the neighbours. The requests were carefully written down so everyone was served and all the birds would be cooked in time for the family dinners.
Mrs Moxon came and begged for some stale loaves for her chickens and as there were none left from the day before, Bessie gave her some fresh ones and didn’t charge. She firmly refused to accept Gerry’s explanation of the use the stale bread was put to, her kind heart couldn’t bear to think of anyone hungry at Christmastime.
“I know she drinks all her money away, but at least she’ll have some fresh bread to eat. Pity for her, poor dab. I don’t think she has much of a life. That Mrs Daniels tries to help her, I’m sure, her being her sister, but I don’t think she gets enough to eat. We can surely spare her a couple of loaves.” On Monday, the day before Christmas Eve, Gerry worked through until three am, then went to bed leaving the baked bread ready for Dai Smoky to deliver at seven o’clock when he was due in, and the overnight dough ready mixed in the trows to rise slowly.
Gilly set her alarm and went to help Bessie at six o’clock and found her aunt in tears. “The fire
s are out, the ovens as cold as cold. The over-night dough hasn’t risen. What’s gone wrong?” she wailed.
An examination proved her right on both. The fires had been dampened down and appeared to have been flooded with water. There was no way they could bake and deliver the Christmas Eve bread. It would take eight to twelve hours, probably longer, for the oven to reach five hundred degrees fahrenheit, the bread wouldn’t bake successfully in anything less. And it had to be a solid heat that would drop only fifty degrees when the wet dough was put into the ovens and the dampers opened. After a shorter time, even if the required heat was attained, the heat wouldn’t be firm enough to hold the heat above three hundred and fifty.
“There’s nothing we can do, we’ll have to abandon the whole day’s baking and start the fires up again on Boxing day,” Gerry said when he had been roused and had walked sleepily into the bake-house. But Dai Smoky wasn’t to be beaten.
“The fires can be dried out and re-lit in an hour. We’ll have to let all our customers know we’ll be delivering after dark this evening, or tomorrow morning if necessary. We can’t let people down at Christmas!”
“The ovens have to be re-lit anyway, for the turkeys and chickens we’ve promised to cook,” Bessie said.
Gilly looked at the dough in the trows. The hessian, covers, instead of showing a round risen shape ready to be knocked up, were flat and unaltered. What had gone wrong?
An examination of the yard revealed that the gate in the stable door had been left wide open. Obviously someone had come in and put out the fires as some kind of a joke. But there was no explanation for the unrisen dough.
“And on the busiest day of the year, too,” Bessie sobbed.
“You don’t think that Ivor—?”
“No I don’t!” Bessie defended, “but if I ever find out who did this to us I’ll fetch him one right across his chops and that’s for sure!”
“Perhaps the Greens could help out?” Gilly suggested. Bessie disagreed with that, too.
“The Greens help us? They’d have us in racks before they’d care!”
Green’s bakery van was in evidence that day, cruising around the streets offering bread to the housewives desperate to fill their larders for the busy days ahead. Gilly wondered how Derek Green had managed to have so much extra bread available. It was almost as if he had known in advance, wasn’t it? She also wondered what had made Gerry go and examine the gate to find it open, when she had locked it herself on the previous afternoon.
Mrs Moxon did a brisk business selling her warmed up loaves scrounged from several bakers in the town, which she insisted were her own baking. From the proceeds she had a supply of drink hidden away out of her sister’s sight and felt sure that, whatever disasters were wrecking the world, she would have a memorable Christmas. Although memorable was perhaps not the word; she doubted if she would remember very much of it!
Gilly had bought a couple of chickens from Mrs Smoky but they were all too exhausted and miserable to enjoy them. Fanny and Bessie invited Smoky Vic, Edna and Dai to help them finish the remains in sandwiches in the afternoon.
On Boxing day after midday dinner, Gilly left the rest of the family listening to the wireless and spent a couple of hours making Welsh-cakes on the girdle-stone, using pieces of the paper that had been used to wrap the slabs of cooking fat to grease the stone before cooking each batch. She also tried out a recipe for a Victory Sponge that she had heard on the radio programme that went out every morning at eight-fifteen, “On The Kitchen Front”. It contained dried egg, sugar, bread-crumbs, baking powder and lemon essence, plus those now famous characters Potato Pete and Doctor Carrot both, on this occasion, grated. Gilly put it on to steam with some doubts and went on cooking the Welsh-cakes. As she turned them, savouring the fresh smell of the fruity cakes, she thought again of the café idea.
Granfer had been right when he said not to wait but to make things happen. As soon as Christmas was over she would begin her enquiries. If Paul was going away, it would give her something to fill her time and her thoughts. And, she smiled, something to write to him about. He could follow her progress as she planned, then executed her idea.
When the Welsh-cakes were cooked she slipped on one of Uncle Sam’s old coats and wandered out to the stable where Ianto munched contentedly on his bran, and Puss lay sleeping on a pile of empty sacks. She climbed the ladder to the store-room where, among a pile of abandoned furniture and toys, she found what she needed. Three chairs, perfect apart from a few scratches and a lot of hay-dust. She shook the worst off and carefully lowered them on rope down to the floor below. While she waited for Christmas to be over and the offices open again, she could clean and polish the chairs ready for when permission was granted.
While she was scrubbing her hands after her exploration of the loft, Paul arrived with his parents. In dismay, Gilly looked at the remnants of the chicken and the small piece of boiled bacon which had represented a month’s ration for them all, saved for the holiday. How could she make sandwiches for all of them out of that? She greeted them and said they must stay for tea and then hurried back to perform miracles with the carcase of the bird.
“It’s all good practise,” she told Shirley when she and Paul followed her out to the back kitchen. “If I’m going to run a café I’ll have to be imaginative to cope with the shortages, won’t I?”
“Then you’re going to do it?” Shirley hugged her in delight. “Good for you! She’ll do well, won’t she, Paul?”
“I’ll decide when I see how she makes sandwiches for all of us out of that,” Paul teased. “The Smokys have arrived. And Gerry’s Mam and Auntie Megan.” He grinned as he took off his jacket and offered to help.
Gilly minced the pickings of the carcass and to the meat she added breadcrumbs and a pot of chicken paste. With the minced bacon she mixed mayonaise and a touch of onion, putting aside the fat to be rendered down for frying. The Welsh-cakes were displayed attractively on doilies, the steamed sponge looked surprisingly good and was served with evaporated milk. With some parsley and slices of tomato for garnish, the table looked festive and satisfied all their tea-time appetites. The bones of the chicken were put on the fire to simmer, the stock would make a delicious soup for the next day.
* * *
Derek and Gerry had carried Granfer down for the second day in a row so he could enjoy the gathering of family and friends, and when Gilly crept into his room late that night, she found him fast asleep and snoring contentedly.
She watched him for a while before leaving the room, loving him, dreading the day when he was lost to her. Today, after Paul’s visit and Auntie Shirley’s present of a lacy slip that Mam insisted on calling a petticoat, she had so much to talk about. Well, it would have to wait until tomorrow.
The house was silent and for a while the nights hadn’t been broken by air-raids. She stood outside his bedroom and listened to the quiet, comfortingly familiar house. Without the torch on she couldn’t see anything but in her mind’s eye knew where she was, how many steps to her own doorway and how far below her Mam slept. For no other reason but her wide-awake mood, she passed her door and went down the first flight of stairs. She imagined how it would be once the black-out no longer shut out the night, making an island of every room. It seemed an age since she had lain on her bed watching the moon riding in temporary authority over the sky, ousting the sun and giving its special light to the scene around it.
The sound when it came was unexpected and it startled her. Pressing herself against the bannister she looked down. Someone going to the lavatory, probably. Then she saw the flash of a torch and in its brief shaft of light saw the door of her mother’s room open and Gerry emerge.
She closed her eyes tightly and hoped she could forget what she had seen. How could she look at Mam now without showing her disgust? They weren’t married so they shouldn’t be sharing a bed. And why else would Gerry be creeping out of her bedroom at this time? She might not know much but she knew that was the way of things. Oth
er women, like that Maisie Boxmoor, went with other men, but not her Mam. She returned to her room and consoled herself with the thought that Granfer hadn’t been awake and watching with her.
* * *
In January, a British aircraft-carrier in the Gibralter Straits was crippled by enemy action and over a period of several hours, sank. Marigold’s pilot husband, Cyril Richards, was on board and as he was picked up, his leg was almost severed between the boat and some jagged metal half submerged. In an army hospital the leg was treated and after some weeks he was sent home, crippled but undismayed. A blighty one! A wound that meant he was out of the war and with all his senses intact, he looked on the crippled leg as a blessing.
In the convalescent home he spent his time talking to the wounded, penning letters for those who were unable to write home, and cheering the rest as well as he could. He kept his imminent arrival a secret from his wife, as excited by the home-coming as a child waiting for a birthday and his high-spirits were infectious. His light-hearted approach to his disability helped morale enormously and the doctors used his positive attitude as an example to the rest.
“It’s knowing Marigold is waiting for me,” he explained to the doctor one day. “All through the most hellish days, I knew I’d survive. I’ve been able to picture her her waiting for me. Now I’m out of this mess for good we can plan our future again.”
“You’re one of the lucky ones. Some of these men have no one to go back to. It’s only been a little more than a year, but for some women that’s too long to wait for someone who might never return. I’ve watched them; the letters from home are opened with dread by many of the men, wanting to read the loving words but afraid that instead they’ll read goodbye.”
“Not my Marigold. Just think, in hours, after all these months, I’ll be going home to the sort of welcome those poor lads out there are still dreaming of. Tomorrow I’ll be sleeping in my own bed beside my Marigold.”
Family Pride Page 14
