“I have no family at all you see,” Lucy explained after apologising for the barrage of queries. “There was only Mam you see, being illegitimate, whoever my family were, they didn’t want to know of my existence.”
“I’ve always wished for a sister of my own, perhaps we’ll both get what we want. Me a sister and you a ready-made family.”
“I don’t think so, about the ready-made family I mean. They won’t want to acknowledge me, will they? Let everyone know about your Grandfather’s little, er, mistake?”
“I think Uncle Sam will convince them.” She offered her hand to Lucy. “Come and see my bedroom, a bit of a tip, mind, but there are lots of photograph albums and family souvenirs.”
No second visit was arranged. Sam thought it best to let things develop as they would. Sam and Lillian didn’t go to the wedding. With the difficulties between them unresolved it would have been an embarrassment. They offered the genuine excuse that it was difficult to take time off with the bakery still struggling. When the couple were back from their brief honeymoon in London, Lillian invited them for Sunday tea.
* * *
The alterations to change Neville’s old bake-house into a restaurant were underway. Building restrictions were in force but, by various means, the wood and other materials were found and slowly the place was taking shape. One April evening Gilly was checking that there were no alterations to her original plan. The kitchen was fitted: a large cooker and two sinks already in and working. Enamel working surfaces gleamed and the rest of the place was almost ready for the chairs and tables she had ordered. She had interviewed and chosen her staff, including an experienced cook. Gilly looked around her and felt a bubble of excitement. The dream had almost become a reality. If only she and Paul were together. What fun this would all have been.
She had just locked the door and was stepping out from the new porch entrance when she bumped into someone. She turned, a smile ready on her lips, an apology half spoken, when she realised it was Paul.
“Gilly! I was just trying to have a peep inside. I didn’t know there was anyone there. I’m glad for you. I want to wish you good luck with the new café – I mean restaurant. ” He was gabbling.
She was trembling with the suddenness of his appearance. His nearness drew her like a magnet. She wanted to run into his arms, tell him she loved him and beg him to forget the differences between their families. Instead she glared and pretended that the hatred that seemed to be their fate was as strong as ever.
“Your father stole from my Granfer to get over his money difficulties. He persuaded Gerry to sell him the bake-house for a ridiculous sum so he could borrow on the property. A hundred and fifty pounds would you believe! For a place very similar to this. He ruined my family. Just keep away from this place. I don’t want you to come near me, I don’t trust you not to try and steal this as well.”
“Won’t you ever forget those stupid stories? My father was home looking after the business while your uncles had to go and fight. That’s why he succeeded, because he was here to keep an eye to things, not because he stole from you!”
“Ask him! Just ask him about the bakery that he rented from us. Gerry sold it to him for one hundred and fifty pounds! Ask him about that, if you dare! Ask him how he managed to get a mortage on the property he stole from us that enabled him to buy his fancy modern machinery! Ask him that!” Sobbing, she ran away, past the shop and across the road leading to the docks. Too late she realised it was the way Paul would go home.
He caught up with her and ignoring her protests held her close to him until the crying had stopped. “God help, Gilly, this is like Romeo and Juliet!” He chuckled, trying to make light of it, trying to jolly her out of the stream of accusations that threatened to begin again as soon as she caught her breath. But it was useless. The angry words streamed out, all her disappointments, hurt and anger flowed until everything had been said. Then she fell silent and her shoulders drooped.
“Just go away, Paul,” she said wearily. “If you ever find out that what we’re saying is the truth, then I’ll talk to you.”
Paul went home determined ask his father outright if there was even a grain of truth in what Gilly had said.
“Dad, I’ve just seen Gilly. Is there any truth in what she says, about you cheating on her Granfer?”
“Paul don’t even think your father could do such a thing!” Shirley said at once. “He’s a good business man. And so was Granfer Jenkins, mind, but when he went the others just didn’t manage as well.”
“They had to sell the bake-house to us, did they, Dad?” Paul asked innocently. “In difficulties were they? Had to raise some cash?”
“That’s right, boy. I took advantage of the opportunity to buy, I admit that. But I’d have been a fool not to. Gerry it was who saw the difficulties they were in. Being trained in the bank he could see from the books that they urgently needed money if the business wasn’t to close down. He came and asked if I could buy it. Gave a good price I did, mind. If word had got out of their cash situation, I could have bought it cheaper.”
“How much did you pay?” Paul asked.
“Let me think. Er, one thousand and seven hundred I think it was. I got a mortgage and bought some newer equipment at the same time, remember, Shirley?”
“Not one hundred and fifty pounds?”
“Who told you that yarn?” Derek snapped.
“Gerry Daniels,” Paul lied. “I saw him and Maisie when I went down the Vale on the day you gave me the car. He said you bought at one hundred and fifty and got a mortgage on the true value to settle your debts.”
“That lying, cheating – where is he? I’ll make him eat his words!”
“True though, isn’t it, Dad?”
“Paul,” Shirley pleaded anxiously. “Paul, stop this!”
“It is true, isn’t it?” Paul insisted.
“So, what if it is?” Derek gave up any pretence and leaned back in his chair, pride widening into a smile. “They’d have lost the business anyway. Too honest they are. I bought stuff when and where I could, no questions asked. Petrol, sugar, fats, eggs – I made cakes when they couldn’t get enough to look after their regular customers proper. In war-time you have to take the opportunities as they come, boy. And don’t you dare look all high and mighty. It’s time you grew up!” He rose threateningly in his chair and glared at his son. “You’ve done well out of it. You and your mother both, and don’t forget it!”
* * *
On their travels Vic and Viv learnt of Gerry and Maisie’s address. They called there one cold April day and knocked on the door. The old lady who opened the door stepped back in alarm.
“Called to talk to Gerry Daniels. Don’t worry, lady,” Viv said as the old woman shrank away from him. “We’re relations, like. Called to look him up for a chin-wag, that’s all.”
“Mr and Mrs Daniels moved weeks ago. This place belongs to me,” she told them. “My son’s just over by there, mind. He’s just coming in for his tea he is, so don’t think you can frighten an old lady.”
Vic turned away, walked to where he had left his bag, and came back with two freshly caught sewin. “Sorry if we startled you, missus. Here, have these fish for your tea, you and your son.”
“They rented a house from a Mrs Gregory,” she told them as they walked away. They smiled, touched their forelocks politely in unison, waved their thanks without turning around, and went back to their boat.
“Now, where to we start looking?” Vic said with a sigh.
“The pub,” Viv replied.
They found them easily. The people in the pub had been privy to their plans and described the small cottage in the next village. It was a very surpised Gerry who opened the door to their knock.
“Vic! Viv! So you got home unscathed? Well done, well done.” He didn’t open the door for them to enter, but Vic pushed it violently back on its hinges.
Gerry looked older, he was fatter, his clothes fitted less well and Vic guessed that the colour
of his hair and his thin moustache, which he was nervously stroking, owed their colour to a bottle.
Maisie saw the expression on the twins’ faces and disappeared into the kitchen. She turned on the radio and the strains of Edmundo Ross’s orchestra filled the room with incongruously cheerful music.
“I think we have a bit of talking to do,” Vic said quietly.
“I’ll just help Maisie with the tea,” he said and, slipping out of the room, he bolted through the back door and disappeared before Vic heard the door close behind him.
The twins went to see Sam and he greeted their news without much dismay.
“I don’t know if we should even try to proceed against him,” he told his brothers. “There’s been too much gossip about the Jenkins as it is, with Dad’s illegitimate granddaughter turning up and – Wayne.”
“Don’t say anything bad about Wayne. He’s a grand little boy and no one could think he was a disgrace on the family name.” Vic glared at his brother.
“All right, boy, don’t get your feathers ruffled, I know how you feel about the little chap. But I can’t help thinking that we’d come out of this particular situation worse than Gerry. It’s our Fanny’s memory we’d be harming, remember. Besides, I doubt if there’s much money left for us to claim back from him if they’re renting the cottage.”
“I want Derek Green more than Gerry Daniels, I admit,” Viv replied. “What say we talk to young Paul? Soft on Gilly isn’t he? Perhaps we can persuade him to make his father pay for what he stole from us. That money we lost on the bake-house sale would give us a chance to set the business on its feet again.”
“Damn me, yes, we could retire old Ianto the horse and buy a van for a start off!” Sam enthused. “What say we invite Paul to come for a drink. Okay?”
Lillian insisted on going with them to talk to Paul and Sam didn’t argue. She had a quiet word with Gilly, too. “I didn’t want you to think I’d do anything underhand. You’re fond of Paul, I know that. Fond of his Mam, too, so I thought you should know what the uncles are planning.”
Gilly thanked her and went to her room to think about what Lillian had said. It was early evening and supper was cooking; a few very small sausages, vegetables, roast potatoes with gravy to which Gilly had added a few scraps of corned beef to give a hint of the meat that was so frequently missing from their plates. Once they had eaten she would go and see Paul, talk to him before he met the uncles. She didn’t know what she would say, but simply hoped that the right words would come.
Paul was standing in his living room facing the stricken faces of his parents.
“Leaving the firm? Don’t be a fool,” Derek said. “I’ve spent most of my life building it up so you’d have something to inherit. You can’t leave.”
“I knew when I came back after the war that I didn’t want to go back to the business. I was weak, I should have told you there and then.”
“This is all to do with that girl. Gilly’s been getting at you again.”
Shirley sat silently through the first few moments after Paul’s announcement. When she spoke it was with a smile. “What is it you want to do, Paul, love? Want to tell us about it? You know we’ll help in any way we can.”
“I spent most of the war as a cook, then for some reason I was transferred and I spent the last months of my service as a driver. I was surprised how much I missed the cook-house. I hadn’t dreamed there would be so much satisfaction in preparing food and making it tasty and attractive. I’ve thought about it for a long time and now I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to college to study catering.”
“There, I told you,” Derek shouted. “It is that girl! Her and her damned cafés.”
There was a knock at the door and no one heard it.
“All right, Gilly is a part of this decision. But she hasn’t persuaded me. If you want the truth, Dad, I can’t live with the knowlege of how you cheated her family.” Paul was tight-lipped as he took his jacket from the back of a chair and left the room. He went through the back door in such a hurry that he almost knocked Gilly over. They grabbed each other for support, then they drew closer.
“Paul, I—”
“Gilly, I was just coming to see you!”
“Paul, I just wanted to tell you—” his lips silenced her but she pulled away. “The uncles are—”
“Wait. Let’s get away from here where we can talk freely. I think once we start there won’t be any stopping.”
Chapter Seventeen
The announcement that Gilly and Paul were together again was met with some doubt by both families but the stronger reaction came from Derek. He called at the house in Bread Street, something he hadn’t done since Granfer died, apart from a few rare social occasions under pressure from Shirley.
“I want a word, Sam,” he said in his ungracious manner and Sam excused himself from Lillian and went out into the yard and leaned against the stable door.
“Well? If it’s about Gilly marrying your Paul I just hope he isn’t a chip off the old block, that’s all. I wouldn’t like my niece married to someone like you!”
“I want you to help me to break them up.”
“What? It’s nothing to do with us. They love each other and there’s nothing we can do about it. I just hope he’ll behave and treat her right, or there will be something I can do!” Sam was unusually belligerent, “If he causes her any unhappiness I’ll—”
“What will you do, Sam?” Derek sneered. “You haven’t enough aggression in you to run a baker’s round let alone sort out my son!”
“What d’you want to say? I think you’d better say it, plain and fast, and go.”
“What I came here to say is that I don’t want Paul and Gilly to marry. If they split up, then I won’t make it general knowledge that Granfer Jenkins wasn’t your real father. That your mother was carrying on with my father and you were born at that time. Plain and fast enough for you Sam Jenkins?”
Sam was shocked by the words. Granfer had hinted at something in his letter but had failed to come right out with it. After explaining about the daughter in Cardiff and asking Sam to find her, he had half confessed to something further but lacked the courage to say it. Sam had puzzled over what the old man had wanted to tell him, and he knew the words by heart:
There’s something else you should know, my boy but I can’t bring myself to put it into words. Just remember that whatever happens, whatever you hear, I love you and couldn’t be more proud of you. No one could have been a better son to me.
Now the mystery was solved. Sam looked steadily at Derek and said calmly, “That old yarn? It was a joke, you damned fool. A joke between the two of them. Something you couldn’t understand. The rivalry between our fathers was well-known and they were always trying to put one over the other. My being so big, see, and me growing as tall as your father and even heavier. It was a joke. Tell who you like!”
“Just tell her she can’t marry my son, I want better for him than your niece. There’s been enough gossip about the Jenkins’ to last for years, you don’t want any more, do you? It will only take a few words here and there.”
“Tell who you like, though knowing you it won’t be you who does the deed, send someone else, that’s more your style. Someone like the weak and willing Gerry Daniels. Just go, will you? Look at you, a man with everything yet you’re sour-faced, resentful and so greedy it’s a disease. You sit in that house with your lovely wife and son like a compost-heap in a beautiful garden. You don’t deserve them, Derek Green, and what’s more they don’t deserve you.”
Leaving Derek to find his own way through the house and shop, he went up to his room to look once again at the letter his father had left and which he had been unwilling to show his brothers and sisters.
* * *
After being introduced by Sam and Lillian, Gilly kept in close touch with Lucy Lewis. It was intriguing to discover a half-cousin – which was the closest they could get to agreeing their relationship. For Lucy it was nothing less than mira
culous. All her life she had regretted not having anyone belonging to her apart from her mother.
Unaware of the argument going on between Sam and Derek, Gilly and Paul met Lucy and Gee one evening, intending to go to the cinema but they sat and talked instead. Lucy had a voracious appetite for information about the family and Gilly found the girl’s enthusiasm for that information very enjoyable. The opportunity to boast about her Granfer was irresistible, and Paul shared her pride as if Granfer were one of his own.
On this particular night, although Lucy seemed as full of questions as usual and the laughter and chatter flowed as easily as normal between the young couples, Gilly sensed that all was not well. When the men had gone to buy a fresh pot of tea she asked, “Lucy? Is everything all right?” To her alarm she saw tears spring in Lucy’s eyes. “What is it? There’s no problem between you and Gee is there? Oh, I hope not, you’re so good together.”
“I’m going to have a baby,” Lucy whispered, “and I daren’t tell Gee. We’re so broke, and if I have to give up work we’ll never get out of the two rooms we rent. I’m trying not to think of it, pretend it isn’t happening, but now and then the fear of the future flows over me and—”
“Tell him.” Gilly said firmly. “Tell Gee at once, now, while we’re here. That’s what being married is, sharing everything. You are one of a family now, Lucy, and you have to remember that you’re no longer alone.”
When the two men returned, Lucy had dried her eyes and she smiled at Gee and said, “Surprise I’ve got and I know I should be all romantic and tell you when we’re alone but I want to share it with Lucy and Paul.”
“You’re expectin’!” Gee said at once. “Are you? Really? That’s smashing, love. Cor, what great news. When is it due and what’ll we call it?”
Lucy laughed as he hugged her and accepted Paul and Lucy’s congratulations. “You knew,” she accused Gee. “How did you guess?”
Family Pride Page 31
