Holidays at Home Omnibus

by Wait Till Summer; Swingboats On the Sand; Waiting for Yesterday; Day Trippers; Unwise Promises; Street Parties (retail) (epub)

  Everything was covered in mud and there was an air of abandonment that suggested that little had changed over past years. She must have been mistaken. Her father couldn’t have been coming out of here.

  She smiled as she thought that the man must have been a tramp who had just been given some new clothes. Shirt, Fair Isle pullover, grey trousers and a sports jacket were almost a uniform for the working man on his day off these days.

  She stared around looking for clues to suggest the barn’s use as an occasional night shelter but found none. She had been wrong about the tramp. No one could live here. The man she saw had obviously been just passing by and had chosen not to talk to them – or, she thought with a grimace of distaste, he had been using the place as a urinal!

  She noticed an area just inside the door that had been spread with paving stones and was clean of mud. On the wall above her head there was a nail on which hung a key. She smiled to herself. It must be a long time since anyone had bothered to lock this place against thieves.

  Standing outside, thankful for the mild clean air away from the dankness within, she still didn’t feel like going home. The air was fresh, the sky an unbelievable blue and although there wasn’t any wind, leaves fell from branches as a reminder that summer was gone. She ran and tried to catch a falling leaf. Catching one as it left the tree and before it touched the ground meant a day of good luck in the year to come. Like a child, she ran about idiotically until she had caught three.

  Thinking of Johnny Castle, she whispered to herself, ‘One for a proposal, one for our engagement, and one for our wedding day.’

  Through a hedge she spotted a caravan parked near the corner of the next field. Not a healthy place to choose if Dadda had been right about rubbish and rats. She climbed over the gate and walked around to examine it. The curtains were clean, as were the windows. Beside the steps a pair of wellingtons stood, thick with mud. These gave her the feeling that the place was occupied, even though the curtains were drawn and no smoke climbed out through the chimney. Afraid of being seen and accused of nosiness, she crept quietly away.

  She didn’t see the curtains move and a pair of eyes watch her until she regained the hedge and disappeared.

  There was a stream at the bottom of the field in which the barn stood, and she made her way down and stood for a while looking at the water glistening as it made its way towards the distant sea. A movement to her right caught her eye and she turned to see Johnny’s mother walking, head down, along the other side of the field. She was not wearing a coat and, even though the sun was bright, there was an autumnal nip in the air. The green cardigan and thin brown dress Irene Castle was wearing did not seem suitable for a country walk.

  Eirlys was about to call out and go to meet her but held back. Johnny’s mother was known to be ill and she didn’t feel confident enough to engage her in conversation. She spoke strangely at times and Eirlys felt guilty, but not sufficiently so to walk across and say hello. Besides, the woman probably wanted to be on her own and wouldn’t appreciate her intruding into her thoughts. She would tell Johnny and make the excuse that she was too far away.

  She was pleased to have an excuse to call on Johnny. Home was suddenly a more enticing idea. Turning uphill away from the stream she cleaned her shoes as well as she could with the aid of a stick and handfuls of grass, and headed for Brook Lane.

  Invited in, Eirlys removed her muddy shoes and explained that she had been for a walk and had seen Irene, Johnny’s mother, inadequately dressed for the crisp autumn weather.

  ‘Mam often gets upset and goes off for a walk on her own,’ Johnny said, signalling for her to lower her voice. ‘Dad worries about her but can’t stop her. She’ll be back when she’s calmed down.’

  ‘But she was wearing a thin brown dress and no coat,’ Eirlys whispered. ‘Frozen solid she’ll be when the sun goes in, in nothing but a skimpy green cardigan.’

  ‘She’ll be back long before then.’

  Bleddyn had heard Eirlys arrive and he appeared from the kitchen bearing a tray filled with steaming cups. Gratefully she took one and settled near the roaring fire to drink it. Johnny didn’t seem at ease and he hadn’t sat down, just wandered around the room restlessly. It was as though he was expecting her to leave. He took the tea offered by his father and eventually sat down, not near her but at the table some distance away. Perhaps her visit had been ill timed and there was something he had planned to do.

  ‘It’s all right if you’re going out, Johnny. I just called to tell you that I saw your mam, you don’t have to change your plans for me, mind,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t planning much. In fact, if you’re free this afternoon we could go for a walk. I want to see Taff and Evelyn but you could come with me.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d like that. I’d like to see their rooms. Done them out nice, have they?’

  Johnny shrugged. ‘They look fine to me.’

  As she was leaving, Irene came in and to Eirlys’s surprise the woman was wearing a thick brown coat with a fur collar. Johnny looked at his mother then turned to Eirlys with a frown.

  ‘I thought you said – Hello, Mam, had a nice walk?’

  ‘Lovely, Johnny. And I’m starved. I hope your father has kept an eye on the meat and roast potatoes.’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Bleddyn said, emerging from the kitchen. ‘And the vegetables are simmering nicely.’

  Eirlys looked at Irene and saw not a sick woman, but a woman with a face glowing with health, her dark eyes shining as though she had just been happily surprised. Surely she hadn’t been mistaken again in the area where she thought she had seen her father? Had the sad woman she had watched walking along with her head dropping low, and without a coat, not been Irene Castle? The place must be haunted by ghosts of the living!

  ‘I thought you said she wasn’t wearing a coat?’ Johnny demanded in a whisper.

  ‘But, I saw her, and she had a green cardigan and a thin brown dress on,’ Eirlys said, confused.

  At that moment Irene took off her coat and hung it on a peg. Eirlys stared when she saw that Irene was wearing the clothes she had described. Stumbling her way out of the door, unable to think what, if anything, to say, she shouted back, ‘Call for me later, Johnny.’

  ‘No, meet me at fifteen Curtis Street at three,’ Johnny replied. ‘Where have you been, Mam?’ he asked his mother as she washed her hands and began to make the gravy.

  ‘Oh, just looking at the shops. I want to choose something for Evelyn’s birthday next month. D’you think she’d like a new purse?’

  ‘Not across the fields?’

  ‘Fields? At this time of year?’ she smiled.

  Johnny looked at his mother’s shoes. They were clean and well polished. Eirlys must have been mistaken, or had made up the story about his mother. He wondered why.

  He arrived at the rooms occupied by his brother Taff and his sister-in-law Evelyn long before Eirlys was expected. He told them Eirlys’s story about seeing their mother.

  ‘Johnny, that’s an old trick, making an excuse to call on the boy you fancy. I remember finding a button and knocking on your door to ask if it belonged to Taff,’ Evelyn laughed. ‘She likes you and—’

  ‘She couldn’t find a button?’ Taff finished with a grin.

  ‘Mam said she hadn’t been near the fields. She walked around the shops looking for a birthday present for you, Evelyn.’

  ‘Eirlys said she saw your mother in the fields?’ Evelyn said.

  ‘That’s what she said. Why would she make up a story like that?’

  ‘Evelyn’s right, she likes you and wanted an excuse to call,’ Taff said.

  ‘Trouble is, Taff, I don’t think I like Eirlys as much as she likes me,’ Johnny said seriously.

  ‘Then keep out of her way, make arrangements so you’re never free when she calls; she’ll soon realise you don’t feel the same,’ Taff advised.

  Evelyn looked thoughtful, staring into space with a frown crinkling her eyes.

/>   ‘I have a feeling that she’ll be a bit clingy,’ Johnny went on. ‘I like her, but how do I tell her it’s no more than friendship, without hurting her feelings?’

  ‘Perhaps Evelyn could have a word,’ Taff suggested.

  Evelyn shrugged and agreed.

  Eirlys arrived just before three and Evelyn invited her in. The rooms, which consisted of a bedroom, living room, a kitchen into which a small table and two chairs had been squeezed, and – rather grand – a shared bathroom, were examined and admired. Then, while the brothers sat in the small, neat living room, Evelyn took Eirlys into the kitchen to prepare tea.

  Evelyn had made a cake, a few sandwiches and fruit and custard. As they were setting it out on the table, she said quietly, ‘You don’t want to crowd Johnny too much, you know, or you’ll frighten him away.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Eirlys asked.

  ‘Don’t always be available when he wants to go out, make him see that you have a life of your own without depending on him for the social side.’

  ‘But I do sort of depend on him,’ Eirlys explained. ‘I like doing things with Johnny and I want him to know that.’

  ‘Men respect you more if you have other interests. It gives you something fresh to talk about when you’re together.’

  ‘I work from nine till five thirty. I don’t have a lot of time for hobbies. If I did, I’d want to share them with Johnny.’

  Evelyn placed the sandwiches on the centre of the freshly-ironed blue-edged white tablecloth and said firmly, ‘Don’t drift through the days waiting for marriage, Eirlys, get out and do things while you have the chance.’

  ‘My job—’ she began to explain.

  ‘Come on, Eirlys, like so many young girls you dreamily sit in a safe job waiting for a safe marriage.’

  Stung by the harsh truth, hurt by hearing it from Evelyn, whom she had begun to consider to be a friend, Eirlys was relieved when Johnny stood up and offered to walk her home.

  She said little on the short stroll to Conroy Street, said goodnight at the gate without giving Johnny the opportunity for a kiss. Going inside, she announced, ‘Dadda, I want to learn to drive, so I am joining the ARP.’

  ‘What? Never, my girl. I don’t want you to even think of it. I don’t know what’s got into you and your mam to want to deal with the things we might have to face. So it’s no! Right?’

  Surprised at her father’s vehemence, Eirlys insisted rudely, and on the verge of tears, that it was none of his business and she would go to the headquarters the following lunchtime and sign up.

  Seeing the distress on her daughter’s face, Annie Price urged her husband to be quiet.

  ‘No, I won’t hush up. I don’t want our daughter having to face fires and injured people and risking death by driving around while bombs are falling.’ Morgan was adamant.

  ‘What bombs?’ Eirlys demanded. ‘If there was a chance of us being bombed we wouldn’t have been chosen as a safe place for evacuees, would we? I am going to join and I am going to learn to drive.’

  Trying a different tack, Annie asked, ‘What if Johnny wants you to go to the pictures or somewhere? It will take a lot of your time, love.’

  ‘Johnny will have to go on his own. We all have to do something to help the war effort and if he doesn’t understand that, well, it’s too bad!’

  ‘They’ve had a row,’ Annie mouthed to Morgan, who nodded and wisely said nothing more. But he was worried. He didn’t want Eirlys knowing his movements. Spending a few evenings with the Air Raid Precaution group gave him some welcome freedom and his daughter or, worse still, Annie belonging to the same organisation would interfere with that.

  ‘Perhaps we can persuade her to run the Girl Guides pack instead,’ he said to Annie.

  ‘That doesn’t have the same ring as fighting Hitler, now does it!’ she retorted. ‘Let her go if she wants to. What harm could it do?’

  Morgan didn’t reply. He coped with his marriage and with Annie’s disappointment by escaping sometimes. He needed time away from the home. The instigation of the ARP had been a lifesaver.

  * * *

  Eirlys began to think about the things her father had promised to make for the boys, among them a treehouse. She decided to go back to the area near the barn where she had seen the sturdy oak tree that would be perfect for a hideaway house for them.

  As she approached the field she saw two dogs and recognised them as belonging to Evelyn’s parents. She looked around and, seeing Evelyn some distance away, called out and began to make her way towards her. This was nice; someone with whom to discuss her ideas.

  She called out again as she saw Evelyn stop, then turn away from her and hurry off. Surely she had seen her or heard her shout? Why hadn’t she at least waved? On her way home she knocked at the house in Curtis Street but there was no reply.

  * * *

  Stanley, Harold and Percival had settled down in school surprisingly well. Stanley amused the others in his class with his spurious adulthood, understanding things of which they were unaware. His different background and upbringing added a freshness to the class that even the teacher – after a few misunderstandings – began to encourage.

  Stanley’s love of books led him to the library too, and he was reading A Christmas Carol to his brothers, reading ahead then changing the wording to make it easier for his brothers to understand. There weren’t many books in the Price household but Morgan’s copies of The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After found their way into Stanley’s bedroom, where he was allowed to read for an inch of a candle after the others were asleep. Eirlys knew he also sneaked a torch under his pillow and used that to read a while longer when the candle had burned down to its mark.

  Stanley looked through the daily paper too and it was he who read out the tragic news of the Royal Oak being sunk at her base, Scapa Flow. That disaster was a shock to everyone and was on the lips of customers in every shop and bus passengers as they travelled to and from work. For many, it was the realisation that the enemy could strike them in their homes too. Sobered by the ship being struck with the loss of so many men when it was supposed to be safe, with that incident people were made more aware of being at war than by anything that had happened previously.

  They were at the library one Saturday morning, when Eirlys had a rare few hours off, and they met Evelyn there. Smiling a welcome and walking over to talk to her, Eirlys was struck by the angry look on her friend’s face.

  ‘Evelyn? What’s happened? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘You should know that, Eirlys Price! I don’t know how you can look Johnny in the face and smile your sweet innocent smile, knowing what you do. Shamed you should be.’

  Puzzled, Eirlys watched Evelyn walk out of the library, pausing only to turn and give one more devastatingly furious glare. She had no idea what had happened. Since they had last met she had been at work. She hadn’t seen Johnny for several days. What on earth was wrong? First the incident near the barn when Evelyn had run away without speaking, and now this.

  She had defied her father and gone along one lunchtime to make enquiries about joining the ARP. She had arranged to attend a lecture explaining the various ways she could help. Her enquiry about driving lessons was noted and she had thought at the time it might justify a visit to Johnny to ask for a few lessons from him in Piper’s van. Now, after Evelyn’s strange anger, she wondered how she would be received, and also whether a visit might result in an explanation. It was this thought that made up her mind. She would call on Johnny Castle and demand to be told what was wrong.

  She knocked on Bleddyn and Irene’s door that evening but there was no reply. A walk around to the back lane showed the house to be in darkness, but whether that was due to the blackout or because it was empty she had no way of telling. Disconsolately she walked back home.

  ‘Johnny called,’ her mother told her as she went in through the back door. ‘Said he was going to meet Taff and Evelyn and would you like to go with him.’

  Remember
ing the attitude of Evelyn to her and Johnny’s friendship, she decided she would be better staying away. Evelyn’s home was not the place to go for explanations. She needed more neutral ground than Evelyn and Taff’s home. Settling near the roaring fire she looked idly through some magazines, not taking much in, just using them as an excuse to allow her thoughts to wander.

  There were several articles about handiwork. Mostly knitting but other crafts as well. One attracted her attention. It showed attractive rugs made from strips of material and the idea looked simple.

  ‘Mam, have we any old coats I could cut up to make a rug for my room?’

  ‘Rug-making? You? You’ll never finish it. There’s me having to complete the gloves you started last winter, and the angora jumper is still on its needles from months ago.’

  ‘This is different, it uses a sewing machine.’

  ‘You want me to let you loose on my precious sewing machine? You’ve got a hope, my girl!’

  ‘Mam, you only use it to mend sheets and the like and you never let me use it.’

  ‘No, and ask yourself why. You muddle it up and it takes hours to sort it out. Bad-tempered you are when you get a needle in your hand. You lack the patience to learn and I lack the patience to teach.’

  ‘I thought I’d ask Hannah to show me how; I can’t learn from you. We end up arguing every time.’

  The method was simple, and used as a base a piece of sacking. It entailed winding lengths of cloth or thick wool around a length of thick wire which had been bent into the shape of a large hairpin. By machining a line up through the centre, then removing the wire, a double row of loops was left. Then the wire was covered again and sewn as close to the first as possible. This was repeated until the piece of sacking was covered in loops of coloured wool or material.

  Eirlys found Hannah working at her machine and when she explained about the rug-making Hannah was intrigued enough to experiment with the instructions. Two days later, Eirlys took delivery of a second-hand treadle sewing machine and a corner of her bedroom was transformed into a workshop.