For a moment she considered joining up and becoming a WAAF or a WREN. The uniform was smart… but there was Mam. She couldn’t leave her even though she felt like running away to a place where no one know her, where she could cry for the loss of their single roomed home and all their beautiful work, and the loss of a future with Teifion.
She had wandered a long way from home. It was already quite dark even though it was hardly four o’clock. The day had been a dull one, showers keeping the clouds low. She went to the main road and caught a tram going back to the centre. By the time she had reached the corner of the road where she and Polly temporarily lodged with Mary Robins, one of their workers, her buoyant spirits had revived and she was already planning a new range of items to sell in the more exclusive shops of the town.
“Lucy, is that you?” her mother called as she opened the door. “Where have you been? Did you get the job?”
“Hello, Mam. No, I’m sorry but I didn’t get the job, I met Teifion there and caused a rumpus and was practically thrown out of the shop!” As usual, she began to tell the story of the disaster as if it were the funniest thing, but this time, her mother didn’t seem content to listen.
“Look at this.” Polly thrust a letter towards her and Lucy read it and stared at Polly in disbelief.
“Mam! Explain, please!” Lucy gasped.
“Well, you see, when we started to get on our feet, I thought it was a good idea to take out some insurance, in case one of us got ill and were unable to work for one thing, but when the man came to talk about it, he convinced me that we ought to insure our stock against theft or damage, so I did. And there’s the letter to say the claim will be met in full. I was able to show him precisely what we’d lost as the work-book was safe in my handbag.”
“Mam, you are wonderful!” Lucy hugged her.
“Yes, I am aren’t I?” Polly chuckled. “And here’s some more news. I think we’ve got a ground floor room. It was that Arthur, he found a place and got one for us in the same house again. Isn’t that kind of him? We can move in at the beginning of April. You can go and have a look at it first thing tomorrow. There’s even a bit of a garden. The tenants are moving out of Cardiff, going to mid-Wales they are, hoping to get away from the bombing.”
* * *
Gerry did less work now he was a member of the family, although he couldn’t always get out of the early morning baking. He disliked the bakery work and refused to even think about delivering bread on the horse and cart. Just as determinedly, Granfer refused to allow him to take over the books.
He spent hours just lazing about, flattering Fanny, persuading her to wait on him and several hours a day strutting about wearing his smart clothes and eyeing the population of young women. He was rarely seen out and about with Fanny. Apart from sharing a bed now the marriage might not have taken place for all the different it made to her.
Fanny had been to see a solicitor and instructed him to arrange for a will to be made in Gerry’s favour. Gerry had also managed to persuade Fanny that as Gilly was only seventeen he had better take control of her responsibilities, too. Any decisions regarding changes in the way things were done were to be left to him, with his greater experience of business affairs.
Fanny was so flattered with his attention and his dedication to their affairs that she agreed without question. It would take him a while to persuade the others but with Fanny’s three brothers at war and Granfer bed-bound and no longer fully aware of what was going on, it was only a matter of time. Then he could start changing things to accommodate Derek, and start to plan for the day when he and Derek would own a big bakery and he would have money to spend and he wouldn’t have to take his turn at the hated early morning chores.
Granfer persuaded Gilly, much against her will, to half-carry half-lead him down to the snug behind the bake-house once more. When he had rested and drunk the cocoa she made for him, he went through the books and explained to her in great detail how the books were set out. He warned her of what danger signs to look out for, how to quickly assess the state of the business and how to read a balance sheet.
He was in an excellent mood and seemed to have discovered a source of unbounded energy. He went over and over things, interspersing his lecture with amusing stories of the past, some wickedly funny, others tinged with a little sadness and regret. After that night, although he asked her for details of what was happening downstairs, he never asked to be taken to the snug. But one night she asked him.
It was late March, and Gilly had just heard that Paul had received his call-up papers. Since Granfer had accused Derek of helping Gerry fiddle with the scales, she and Paul had hardly spoken a word. Gilly had delivered the note as Granfer had requested, and the inspectors had come and corrected the imbalance in the weighing scales. The matter was over, but words can never be unsaid.
“I once promised to write to him, Granfer,” she said when they sat with their usual cup of cocoa warming their hands.
“No reason why you still can’t,” he said. “Glad he’ll be to have a letter from a pretty girl. Away from home and everything familiar and important, he’ll value a word and, damn me, I bet he won’t be able to resist writing back if only to make sure you keep the letters coming.”
When the evidence of their nightly escapade was put away and Gilly was guiding the frail old man back to his room, Granfer suddenly began to groan. He staggered, bent over and collapsed onto the landing.
“Granfer! What is it? Oh, don’t move, I’ll fetch Mam.” No longer worried about keeping quiet Gilly hugged him, then prepared to leave him to fetch her mother but he held her hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Gilly,” he panted. “Do something for me, will you?”
“I’ve got to get Mam. Please, Granfer, just rest easy while I go and fetch Mam.”
“There’s a letter under my mattress. It’s addressed to your Uncle Sam. Go now and get it, will you? Make sure they don’t open it. It’s for Sam you see.”
“Don’t worry about a letter, I have to get the doctor!”
“Damn me,” his voice was frighteningly low. “I need your help desperate and for the purpose all you can do is argue.” He looked up at her, the torch she held shining on an ashen face. “Please, Gilly, go first and fetch the letter. Hide it. Keep it safe for Sam, there’s a lovely girl.” His voice failed and his eyes closed.
“All right.” She ran upstairs and came back moments later with a blanket and with the letter in her hand. She shone the torch again and showed it to him.
“Good girl. Not for your Mam, mind. Keep it safe for Uncle Sam.”
“I promise, Granfer. Now stay still while I fetch Mam and run for the doctor.” She covered him with the blanket she had brought from his room and ran down, heart thumping, wondering if she had been wrong to waste precious seconds, and called her mother.
When she returned from fetching the doctor, her beloved Granfer was dead.
Chapter Ten
Gilly’s grief for Granfer threatened to make her ill. She wandered around the house at night willing his death to have been a dream, opening the door of his room, half expecting to see him sitting up against the pillows waiting for her to lead him down for a few hours’ contented chatter in the snug. She had known how ill he was, had rehearsed facing the fact of his death many times in quiet moments, but it had not prepared her. It was the first time she faced the knowledge that, although she was part of a fairly large family, she was utterly lonely.
Loneliness, she decided, meant not being important to anyone and, although she worked alongside the others in the bakery, she had never really had a place within the business. Everyone had a role to play and someone who cared for them, except herself. She hadn’t been aware of it when she had Granfer and Paul, but now there was no one and so far as she could see, there never would be again.
If only Paul were here, she wished. She would never feel friendless, unwanted or alone if he loved her. With him beside her her confidence would soar. But he wasn’t even there to s
hare her unhappiness.
Gradually she came out of the intense grief of the early weeks thinking more clearly about her future and determined to concentrate on her café. She would make something of her life before Paul came home, show him what an independent woman she was. So she had lost Granfer and Paul no longer loved her, well, she could either wallow in misery or do something about it. She began by searching through her meagre wardrobe and throwing into the rag collection everything she disliked. There wasn’t much left but it made her feel better, more confident. She was being herself from now on, Gilly Collins, not the weak-kneed shadow who became whatever the others wanted her to be.
While the family grieved over losing Granfer, Gerry was able to solve Derek’s immediate problems with speed and simplicity. Following the death of the old man he exuded confidence and authority and, when he offered something for Fanny and Bessie to sign, they did so without bothering to enquire too deeply into the content. Only Gilly queried what he was doing and attemped to read the papers her mother was signing so casually, but Gerry smiled, whipped the papers away and told her not to worry her head about such things but to concentrate on looking after her mam and her aunt.
To everyone’s surprise he worked with greater enthusiasm than ever before and Fanny boasted about his dedication and thoughtfulness as he rose each morning and set about the bake-house routine often with only Dai Smoky, and occasionally Smoky Vic, to help him. He refused to allow Bessie to do a share of the bake-house work, insisting that she comfort Fanny. Somehow the bread was baked and they dealt with the deliveries, the three men worked long hours to make sure nothing was neglected, while the sisters grieved. Ivor watched them with mild curiosity on his face.
In spite of his self-inflicted duties, Gerry still managed to visit Maisie Boxmoor a couple of times a week and his lack of interest in Fanny’s bed was excused as exhaustion due to the long hours he worked.
The way he dealt with Derek’s lack of money and for which he was paid handsomely, was unbelievably easy. He also solved Derek’s money problems by selling him the bake-house which Green’s Bakers had rented from the Jenkins family for almost fifty years. The price Gerry placed on it was one hundred and fifty pounds and once the deal had gone through, with the assistance of a friendly solicitor, the bank offered Derek a mortgage on the building which covered his debts and paid for some new equipment. All they had to do then was to make sure the rest of the family didn’t find out.
Gerry knew that once Vic, Viv and Sam returned from the forces they would discover what he had done, but by then he planned to be a long way away and out of reach of their vengeance. With Maisie Boxmoor for a companion, he had a hideaway already planned and it was financed with help from Derek Green and the Jenkins’ Bakery accounts of which, since Granfer’s death, he was now in sole charge. Getting Granfer to relinquish the reins had proved impossible, even with a devoted Fanny on his side. But now the books and the profits from the business were his.
* * *
In April, Marigold Richards had a daughter. She had gifts and visits from her parents and her parents-in law, but no word from Cyril.
Each time they met on a street she felt the pain of guilt and the ache of longing as strongly as on the first day she had realised what she had done and spent the lonely days wishing Cyril could be persuaded to talk to her. But when their eyes met his expression was of cold and simmering anger.
She held the baby Stella close to her and remembered how she had thought, briefly, of giving up the baby if Cyril had agreed to come back to her. But once she had seen her daughter nothing would have separated them. Whatever happened, no matter how lonely she would be in the future, she would never regret having Stella. That simple fact gave her back some of her lost confidence and she walked with her head up, accepted the admiration of passers-by when she went out with Stella riding in the Silver Cross pram her parents had bought her. She was a married woman whose husband had left her, that was all she needed to remember. The next time she saw Cyril she didn’t lower her head but stared at him boldly and this time it was he who looked away first.
Cyril was eaten up with jealousy at the thought of his wife making love to another man and although there were days when he didn’t pursue his enquiries, he never gave up the hope of one day confronting the man and making him pay for the violation of his marriage. Only then would he begin to think of a reconciliation.
He was not a violent man, and would certainly not harm a woman, let alone his own wife; her cheating on him couldn’t alter that. But his dreams were sometimes violent and he frequently woke sweating, heart racing, after an imagined fight with the faceless man who had ruined his life.
Outwardly he seemed content and over the shock of his home-coming. He joined a club and played table-tennis to strengthen his leg and gathered a few old friends around him. But alone he brooded and planned and dreamed of the day he and the faceless man would confront each other. The desire to see him punished grew in intensity as the days passed.
* * *
The café was a continuing success. Gilly found it quite easy to manage the household cooking and serve in the café for most of the day. At first there were only a dozen or so regulars but once the news of the new café spread, several of the shop-girls and the staff of local offices began to come in for a lunch-time snack. Gilly smiled as romances began over fish-paste and watercress sandwiches at her tables. Although, she noted sadly, with so few young men in the town, most of the talk was not of romance but the loss of Singapore to the Japanese armies. There was no way of knowing where her uncles were and Gilly wondered if they were included in the thousands of prisoners taken, and she prayed for their safety.
April 1942 was a worrying month with the armies battling in North Africa, Burma and Greece was well as attacking Germany from the air. The island of Malta, having suffered more than two thousand air-raids, was awarded the George Cross by King George VI. The cities of London, Exeter, Bath and York were bombed incessantly, resulting in many beautiful buildings being destroyed; the all-night raids on London by five hundred planes was the most severe attack of the war so far.
Gilly read with horror of the civilian casualties approaching two thousand and wondered if she would survive to greet her uncles on their return, and if Paul, reading these figures, worried about her safety as she did about his.
Income tax was increased, coal became rationed, increasing food shortages meant housewives had to queue for the most ordinary items; the news of a supply of some rare commodity like shaving soap, onions, a piece of matting or some plain white cups spread like a bush telegraph making women reach for a coat, abandon what they were doing and hope to be in time to buy.
The rationing meant the sandwiches she supplied were imitations of the real thing. Since 1940 no bananas had been imported and along with many others, Gilly made a substitute from mashed parsnips with the addition of some banana flavouring. “Date” cake was made with cooked beetroot taking the place of dates, and the inevitable fatless sponge was on offer, decorated whenever possible with a sprinking of sugar or a trace of chocolate-flavoured spread.
By the summer of 1942 morning coffee and afternoon tea had expanded to cover the whole day, the shop counter had been moved and Gilly had squeezed in three more tables and was employing two part-time assistants so she was free to prepare the food.
She still did all the family cooking, finding pleasure and satisfaction in creating new ideas and coping with the difficulties of increasing shortages. Vegetable sausages were introduced at one shilling and eight pence a pound and were a welcome addition. Dealing with these problems helped take her mind off Paul’s silent absence.
The idea of another café began to develop in her mind, perhaps down in the centre of town where shoppers, who spent so much time standing in queues in the hope of some treat or luxury for their families, would relish a sit down in pleasant surroundings. Perhaps her ambition would have to wait until the war was over and the uncles were back, though. She was needed
to help in the bake-house now Gerry’s burst of enthusiasm was fading. She put aside her plans, mentally locking them up until things were easier.
* * *
Vic and Viv, Gilly’s twin uncles, had leave together but didn’t come home. They were never close members of the Jenkins family, even as children they seemed content with each other. As toddlers they had always reached for each other for comfort when they were hurt, ill or unhappy, never their mother or father. Their communication with Fanny, Bessie and Gilly was limited.
To Gilly it had always seemed they had nothing to say. When they had returned home after a brief holiday or a day out they had smiled, answered the family’s queries by saying they had enjoyed it and added nothing more. Letters from Uncle Sam were long and rambling, even with the threat of the censor’s blue pencil, he always found plenty to say but on the rare occasions Vic or Viv wrote, the letters were disappointingly brief. Granfer had always complained that they needed no one but each other and Gilly knew he was hurt by their insularity.
Both men were small, like Granfer, but their leaness contained not weakness but steely strength. Gilly took out some photographs and remembered how they used to walk for miles carrying what they needed on their backs. They would camp, living a simple life. She shuddered at the thought they might be taken prisoners and locked up. How would they cope with such confinement?
She was unaware they were at that moment walking in mid-Wales, reveling in the quiet, calm beauty of the green hills and the warm friendliness of the villagers. Mam and Auntie Bessie might have been hurt that they hadn’t returned home, but perhaps Gilly was mature enough to understand their need for peace and replenishment.
* * *
Sam found himself on leave in the heat of a London air-raid and walking along the street to the underground station to take shelter, he bumped into a young woman hurrying in the opposite direction.
Family Pride Page 19
