Family Pride

by Family Pride (retail) (epub)

  “Lucy, I want you to come and meet my parents. Perhaps on Sunday. Will you?” He looked so serious, his trilby shielding his face from the little light that penetrated their corner.

  Her guess had been wrong! He did want her to meet his parents. Whatever else there may be she would cope with it. She made a joke of his words.

  “Why so solemn, criminals are they? Or escapees from the mental hospital?” She took his arm and leaned to kiss his cheek. “Don’t look so worried, Teifion, I’m sure I’ll love them.” At that moment it didn’t occur to her that his fear was that they might not like her.

  * * *

  Derek Green left the bank with his shoulders hunched and his eyes staring down at the pavement. There was nothing for it, if he couldn’t get a loan somewhere he would have to close down. His creditors were losing patience and his suppliers were frequently reminding him that if he didn’t settle his account, he wouldn’t find others willing to take on a bad payer. Not these days when there were so many restrictions, what they could get hold of they could sell with ease.

  He had made a bit of money selling imported Irish butter and cheese and that had been slipped through the books to shore up the ailing business but the bank was always suspicious of unexplained cash. They wanted to know where it had come from. He daren’t do the same again, even if he found more cash to do it with. He didn’t want to risk the inspectors looking through his books.

  The money he did have put away was for Paul. Money to help him through college and to buy him a car for his eighteenth birthday. Whatever happened he wouldn’t touch that.

  Shirley wasn’t at home when he entered the house. He knew in a moment if she wasn’t there, the emptiness of the house hovered around him like a pall, she was its heart and its warmth. He picked the post off the mat and opened the envelopes with dread. How many more bills would he have to add to the pile on his desk? If only he could make Shirley understand about his lack of money, but he daren’t tell her. She had been used to spending at will and with a father and mother to accommodate her until she married, how could he ask her to change? The fear of losing her was enough to keep him awake at nights and that thought worried him more than the prospect of a debtor’s prison sentence.

  “Daft-silly about you I am,” he often told her and the words were no exaggeration.

  If only Gerry could somehow help. If he could pass over a few of the larger orders to Green’s bakery things might soon improve. Contracts like the canteens over the docks, or the cafés and restaurants that Jenkins’ supplied with mountains of bread now everything else was rationed and the government’s philosophy was to encourage people to “Use your loaf” and to “Eat more bread and potatoes”.

  And now there was Paul signing on to join the RAF. If he’d only waited he might have been able to swing it for his son not to go into the forces at all. Ill health at his age might have been a possible plea for Paul to stay and run what would then have been a one-man business. He lifted a poker to revive the fire and threw some of the requests for money onto the resulting blaze.

  He knew that burning the bills was only delaying the inevitable. Perhaps it would be better to offer the firm for sale now and have done with it. But pride prevented it. He had to keep it going for Paul. His father and Old Vic Jenkins had been rivals in Bread Street all their lives, ousting the third bake-house owned by Nevilles’ and taking the customers between them with great delight. He couldn’t just walk away and leave Jenkins’ to be the last baker in Bread Street. Paul had to have a thriving business to inherit. He owed the boy everything. If he hadn’t been born when Shirley was only sixteen, Shirley’s parents would never have allowed them to wed. Shirley and Paul, they were his life.

  And besides, how would it help? What would he do then to earn money? Shirley wasn’t yet thirty-five. She’d need an income for many years yet. He’d been over and over his accounts and if he sold now, with the business failing, he’d be lucky to be left with the house they lived in.

  No, he had to increase the business and fast. Then he’d have something to sell and perhaps he and Shirley could survive and leave a little to get Paul started in life. He would have to demand Gerry’s help. With Cyril Richards home and demanding blood, he was in a good position now to add a little pressure and make Gerry see that it was in his interest to put a little business Derek’s way.

  * * *

  With limited funds and a small allocation of rations, Gilly opened her café. The curious came first and were soon followed by the others on their recommendation. Soon the small café was a thriving place where friends met and sat for a while over a scone and a cup of tea and Gilly wished she had the space to add some extra tables.

  “You can push two more in I’m sure,” Fanny said, supportive now she could see the success of Gilly’s venture. “Or put two couples around the same table, no one would mind.”

  “No, Mam,” Gilly said. “I don’t want people to be squashed in or to share tables with other parties. They want to sit and talk privately, not have the other customers listening to their conversations.”

  So as the reputation grew, another queue became a regular sight in the town, people waiting to enjoy a few minutes relaxation at Gilly’s Café, as it became known.

  Gerry surprised Fanny by staying close to home on the few days following Cyril Richards’ return. Deeming it wise to stay well out of sight of Marigold’s house, he would spend the afternoons chopping wood for the winter fires or helping Gilly clean and paint the chairs she had bought for the café project. He even peeled potatoes for Fanny on a night Gilly was out with Paul and sat beside her in the kitchen while she prepared the meal. To Fanny’s giddy excitement, he seemed to want to spend every moment of his day with her.

  When Derek called to see Gerry, Fanny took them a tray of tea and left them to talk while she served in the shop. Bessie was out visiting Mrs Smoky and Gilly was shopping for what she could get in the greengrocers.

  When Derek had gone, having told him that Cyril Richards was asking questions of everyone he knew in an attempt to discover the father of Marigold’s baby, Gerry came into the shop, closed the door, and pulled down the blind.

  “Gerry? What is it?” Fanny asked. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Nothing you can’t put right, my dear.” He took her hand and led her into the back room. There he kissed her, pressing her against him and wrapping his arms around her so tightly she thought she would faint with the pleasure of it.

  “Gerry, what is it? Have you had a shock?”

  “Fanny, I’ve been a fool. All these weeks staying here, so close to you, yet afraid to speak my mind. Fanny, my dear, you must know how I feel about you. Will you marry me?”

  As she fluttered and stuttered and finally said she would, Gerry stared unseeing at the wall. If he were engaged to Fanny, she would swear to his devotion, say to anyone who asked that he rarely left her side. Who was to say how long that situation had lasted? Fanny’s pride would insist it had always been so. He brought his mind back to what his “beloved” was saying.

  “What did you say? Say it again, my dear, slowly, so I can savour every wonderful word. Yes? You will? Then let’s make it soon, my dear, soon.”

  “Just as soon as we can make arrangements. Oh, Gerry, we’ll be so happy.” His eyes glazed, stared at the wall and saw his freedom escaping. He murmured something which Fanny took for agreement.

  * * *

  “Don’t you see, Derek,” he pleaded with his friend a few days later, “I can’t help you now, you can’t ask it. How can I be expected to ruin the firm I will one day own a part of?” He saw a future in which the business would be run by the family leaving him free to enjoy its profit.

  “Because if you don’t help me as you promised I’ll talk to Fanny and old Vic Jenkins about why you really left the bank, and to Cyril about the father of Marigold’s baby, that’s why!”

  “But how can I help you by ruining my own prospects?”

  “Because, with the busin
ess going from Jenkins’ and coming to Green’s, you and I will eventually have both firms rolled into one. You will be my partner in a successful bakery like this town’s never seen. Once Paul has finished his education he’ll be the one to lift Green’s out of the ordinary and transform it to the exceptional.”

  Derek’s eyes glowed with excitement at the vision. His son, Paul, running a smart and successful business selling less bread but specialising in the grander end of the market, with Continental style gateaux, finest wedding and celebration cakes. Cakes for any occasion would be synonymous with Green’s of Bread Street. There would be motor vans rushing around the town delivering Green’s luxurious and original cakes to every corner. His name in white, written with a flourish. Coming back to earth, he said to Gerry, “For a start you can alter the scales, just a little, just enough for the loaves to be less than the weight they’re supposed to be and not enough for the public to notice, that is until someone points it out, like. Very strict on weight they are. The papers would be glad to report a summons for short weight. Soon gets around, that sort of news.”

  “But how—”

  “The large orders from the industries, that’s what I’m after first. See to it, will you? Just alter the balance, only a touch, mind. Lucky old Jenkins isn’t about, he’d spot it in a minute. Sharp eyes old Jenkins has got, mind. Now, come to my bake-house, I’ll show you what you have to do.”

  When he left Derek’s bake-house, empty now with the last of the bread baked and sold, Gerry looked pale. Everything was crowding him. Losing his job and being threatened with criminal charges; Marigold’s baby; her husband coming home before it could be born and passed on to someone who’d care for it; now this. Taking the odd ten bob from the till or touching his mother for the price of some new clothes was one thing, but to help Derek Green to deliberately ruin Jenkins’. Hells bells, that wasn’t on. It really wasn’t on. He’d have to try and jolly Derek along and hope that things would improve for him without resorting to such methods. Supposing he were caught! The idea of prison was enough to make him panic. Heavens above, he’d come out more dazed than Ivor!

  Marrying Fanny would have solved his problems neatly, money to spend and only a little curb on his freedom. Now Derek wanted him to set about destroying the business he had hoped would keep him in comfort and idleness for the rest of his life. Why was life so unfair?

  Although it was risky he didn’t go straight back to the shop but turned down an alleyway and entered the back gate of Maisie Boxmoor’s house. He stayed an hour, told her of unfair life was, then he set off home, opening her back gate and peering around it to make sure he wasn’t observed.

  It was late afternoon and continuous rain made the day very dark and gloomy. The rain trickled down his collar even though he had it turned up and had his trilby on.

  Damn it, why hadn’t he brought his umbrella, he rarely went out without it.

  He didn’t explain his absence to Fanny although she was curious. Best not to start habits like telling her his movements. Especially today when he would have to lie. In a small town like this, where they were all so well known, lies were too risky, best to say nothing then you couldn’t be caught out.

  “All right if I have a bath, my dear?” he asked, as she helped him remove his coat. “I went without my umbrella and I’ve got a bit chilled.

  “You didn’t, I saw you carrying it as you went out.”

  “Oh, then I must have left it in the pub, where I met Derek,” he said glibly. “I’ll go back later and fetch it.”

  Maisie Boxmoor came into the shop later and asked for a split tin. She had the umbrella in her shopping bag and looked about, hoping for a chance to return it to Gerry. Edna Smoky was talking to Bessie and what they said changed her mind.

  “Yes, getting married they are, and soon, too. Fancy our Fanny taking the plunge again, and with Gerry Daniels! I never thought anyone would catch him, did you?” Bessie laughed.

  “Plenty have tried, mind,” Edna laughed. “And are probably glad they failed!”

  Paying for her loaf, Maisie hurried out. She was under no illusions regarding the men who were her customers and whom she called her friends. She was a prostitute and calling herself or them by other names didn’t alter the fact. But she did expect some honesty with her friends. Gerry arranging to marry Fanny Collins was a blow to her pride although she couldn’t quite understand why. Hurrying home out of the snow-threatening icy cold wind, she wondered why she had been so churned up on hearing the news.

  She touched the umbrella in her basket and tightened her lips. Perhaps she would still return it to Gerry, to save him any embarrassment, but first she’d probably clout him with it!

  * * *

  Paul and Gilly were seeing more and more of each other. They made any excuse or no excuse at all to spend time together. Paul had suddenly realised that the familiar school-girl had grown into an attractive young woman. Her transformation had taken him completely by surprise. He was, he explained to his mother, completely bowled over. He had taken other girls out to the pictures or for walks on the beach, and had talked and flirted mildly with others at dances he attended with his parents, but none had surprised him like Gilly Collins. He spent every waking moment planning how he could see her again and the regret at applying for the forces before he needed to was growing. How could he bear being separated from her?

  The days were short and with darkness descending before four o’clock on some days they rarely had the opportunity to see each other during day-light hours. Gilly was busy with her household chores and her preparations for her café, and Paul had his college work, besides the help he continued to give his father.

  One evening the two families were going to a concert given in aid of Comforts For The Troops, Ivor supposedly staying home to mind Granfer. Snow had fallen over the previous few days and had been impacted into a hard icy surface by a drop in temperature. Paul didn’t want to waste an evening sitting with a couple of hundred others when he could have Gilly all to himself.

  “Rebecca is on at the cinema,” Gilly suggested. “Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.”

  “Let’s go into Cardiff instead,” he said.

  The others weren’t keen to allow them to go, there had been a few air-raids again lately, after a lull lasting several weeks, and they were afraid for the young couple to be so far away from them.

  But Paul persuaded Shirley and she helped to persuade the others that they were as safe there as anywhere and they ran, slipping and sliding and laughing on the ice, down to the station for the Cardiff train.

  The air-raid on Cardiff began early and, leaving the cinema queue, Gilly and Paul went to the shelter to sit it out, happy with the excuse to sit close and hold hands among strangers. When the All Clear sounded its strident message, they had hardly reached the street before a second warning sounded.

  The raids continued for four hours and when they finally reached the streets it was to find a place they no longer recognised. Streets were blocked with rubble, fires were blazing and in silhouette they saw figures of firemen and auxiliary helpers trying to put out the flames.

  People were climbing over the wrecked houses ignoring the shouted warnings and the impatient whistles of the wardens and police, the threat of unexploded bombs unimportant in their search for loved ones, or a few pathetic desperately needed possessions. People wailed and cried and the buildings seemed to be crying, too. Through fractured pipes water ran down the walls and dripped unneeded into shattered rooms.

  Stifling her sobs at the desecration, thinking of the misery that faced many dozens of families, Gilly was led away by Paul.

  They became disorientated more than once as the now unfamiliar streets led to dead ends, blocked by the ruins of buildings. It was a policeman who finally directed them to the railway station where they sat among the subdued, bewildered people waiting for a train and wondering, almost disinterestedly, if it would come.

  They arrived home at four in the morning, dirt
y, smoke-stained and weary, having walked a good part of the way. The shop was open, the black-out disturbed by the early morning wind gusting through the open door. They were all there, Paul’s parents, Gilly’s mother and Gerry, Bessie and, snoring peaceably on the armchair which Gerry considered his own, Ivor. On the couch, having been carried down during the first raid and refusing to be taken up until Gilly was home, was Granfer.

  “Thank God you’re safe!” from Shirley.

  “What happened, are you hurt?”

  “Did you manage to get to a shelter?”

  “Was it bad?”

  “I told you not to go to Cardiff while these raids are so severe!” This from Fanny, who looked at Gerry for his agreement.

  “Did you get a bus or were the trains running?”

  “You sure you’re both all right?”

  Questions were thrown at them but they had no need to answer, no one expected replies, they were just talking to ease the tension, relieved at their safe return. Gilly found that now she was safely home her legs were shaking and she felt terribly cold.

  “Make the girl a cup of tea! Can’t you see she’s sinking for one?” Granfer said, stretching up to receive her kiss. “Come and tell me all about it later,” he whispered against her dirt-streaked cheek.

  * * *

  Lucy and Teifion had been on their way to meet his parents when the first raid began. Lucy had had to remind him of his suggestion that they should be introduced to each other, and more or less placed him in a position from which he couldn’t escape. Now, with wardens blowing whistles and ordering people to get to the shelters, she began to wish they had chosen another time.

  Ignoring the shouts of wardens, they ran on through the dark street, glancing above at the criss-cross of search lights seeking out enemy bombers for the guns to destroy.

  Teifion’s house was empty when they went inside and they made their way to the shelter. “It’ll be a bit crowded tonight. My aunt and uncle are visiting,” Teifion explained as they walked down the garden to the hump that was all that showed of the half-buried anderson shelter. “They’ve come specially to meet you.”