She felt sick with excitement as she left him and hurried out of the pub, where she was well known. Foolishly, she hadn’t been able to resist taking it out and counting it before she left, and several of the man’s friends had seen her. She ran through back alleyways back to Maureen’s flat.
When the man returned from the toilet, it was to a chorus of jeers as he announced he had lost twenty-odd pounds. He was soon given the facts and the laughter at his gullibility made his unreliable temper explode.
He ran from the pub and, after listening for a few seconds, heard her tip—tapping footsteps in her high heels and followed her. He caught up with her as she reached Maureen’s door and shouted, threatening her with the police. Afraid of getting her friend into trouble by bringing the police to her door, she ran away, kicking off her shoes to run fast and silently, hoping he would be led away from Maureen.
Unable to return, she stayed in a cheap boarding house. Although she went to Maureen’s several times in the days that followed her stupid mistake, there was always a man watching the place. She had made an error of judgement, presuming the man would be too embarrassed to complain, unaware of his friends’ teasing and the man’s hot temper. She shivered as she realised she had robbed a man who wouldn’t give up.
If he was not there, waiting for her to return to Maureen’s, another man would be standing in the same place. She had to move right away.
But where would she live? Twenty-four pounds was a lot of money but it wouldn’t last for ever.
Maureen worked in the pub on the corner and she managed to see her and explain.
‘I’m broke and with no place to live I can’t see how I’ll avoid ending up sleeping under the arches,’ she sobbed.
‘Use Stanley, Harold and Percival,’ Maureen advised. ‘Go to the council and tell them you’re separated from your sons because you have nowhere to live. They’re bound to help you to get a place if there’s children involved.’
‘Bring my clothes to the pub for me to collect, will you?’ Teresa pleaded. ‘I can’t afford new.’
Maureen tried, but when she walked to work with a loaded suitcase it was taken from her by the man watching her flat and thrown into the canal.
The council were sympathetic when Teresa told them about her husband leaving, especially as she forgot to mention that he had been gone more than five years, soon after telling him she was expecting again. Then they told her they had to see the boys.
‘They’re on holiday in Wales,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t have any money to feed them and they had no decent clothes. My husband took everything we had.’ A few tears here, then she went on, ‘I have a friend in a small seaside town called St David’s Well. She offered to have them for a while, but they’ll be back next week and I’ve got nowhere for them to sleep.’
They were adamant. There would be no help unless she could produce the boys.
‘This war is bringing a lot of people in for help, and we have to check that we’re helping those in real need and not and not cheats,’ the women explained sympathetically.
With the money left in her purse, Teresa bought herself some clothes to replace those lost to her in Maureen’s flat, and went to catch the train for St David’s Well. At the station she shrieked and told the crowd that someone had stolen her purse, and several kind people offered to buy her food. She filled her pockets for later and went happily on her way.
* * *
Eirlys and Johnny were like two people who had recently discovered love. They couldn’t bear to be apart. Their kisses were no longer gentle affairs, but passionate and filled with promise of wonderful times to come. Johnny was Eirlys’s last thought each night and her first every morning.
If Johnny thought of Hannah at all, it was with the sadness of something beautiful that has passed into memory. He saw her sometimes and took chocolate or sweets for the girls on occasions. Sometimes he went alone, but he didn’t go inside. At other times Eirlys was with him, and they stayed while he played with Josie and Marie and she and Hannah talked wedding plans, much of it in muffled, giggling whispers, as Hannah was making Eirlys’s wedding dress and Johnny mustn’t learn a single detail of it.
If it caused Hannah pain, she determinedly didn’t show it.
Bleddyn was still supportive of Eirlys’s business plans, thankful that his fears of a romance between Johnny and Hannah had come to nothing. He sold several rugs for her and took orders for more. He also took an interest in her other ideas, for making toys and dolls’ clothes and children’s clothes with the smaller amounts of the wool they had bought. He encouraged her to think seriously about a shop sometime in the future.
The boys had been promised new clothes for the wedding and Stanley in particular was excited at the prospect.
‘Will I be a best man?’ Percival wanted to know.
‘The best there is,’ Eirlys laughed. ‘I couldn’t imagine getting married without you three standing near me. I’ll need your support, won’t I? You are very important to me, all of you.’
As she spoke the words she realised how much she meant them. The boys had become such an important part of their lives. With Mam and Dadda still not speaking except when necessary, their presence was especially valuable. The house would have been silent and sad without them. The home revolved around them and their various activities. It was impossible to imagine the house without their filling it with noise and muddle and laughter.
Annie and Morgan took them to the department store and besides buying them each a suit and shirt and shoes, they were given good quality warm coats. Spring was on the way but the weather would be cold for a few months yet, Annie reminded them.
She wanted them to look smart for her daughter’s wedding, even if they weren’t really her family.
* * *
It was cold and dark and Annie had put up the blackout curtains and lighted the lamps early. Morgan had carried in extra coal and a few logs and the place looked particularly cheerful when Eirlys came home from work. Johnny was working at the chip shop that evening, and she had planned a lazy few hours writing out wedding invitations and checking wedding lists to make sure nothing was being forgotten.
Annie had made a large fish pie, something that Percival occasionally ate with slightly more enthusiasm that other meals as it required little if any chewing. They were finishing off the food, talking about their various activities throughout the day, when there was a knock at the door – a loud, impatient knock.
‘’Ere, come on, let me in before I’m frozen to the doorstep,’ Teresa complained, and the three boys jumped from the table and ran to greet her, loud in their delight.
She dragged a large suitcase inside, pointed to a collection of assorted bags borrowed from friends and packed with her possessions, and ran to the fire to warm herself, leaving Morgan to carry the luggage and Annie to find her some food.
‘I couldn’t stay in London any longer,’ she said by way of explanation.
‘Missed us, did yer?’ Harold asked.
‘More than that, I couldn’t go another day without seeing you,’ she said hugging them all.
After the initial surprise, Annie and Morgan set about finding her a place to stay, insisting that she stayed a day or so, as the boys needed to see her for more than the weekend she had mentioned.
‘Sure, are yer? I can easy stay in a boarding ’ouse or something,’ she said airily as she handed Morgan the last of the bags she carried and settled herself in front of the fire.
She settled in, taking over the small boxroom recently used by Morgan, dumping most of the contents into other rooms to give herself more space. The camp bed was rescued from the bottom of the garden, brought in and put close to the fire to be aired, but this Teresa refused.
‘That ain’t big enough, for me,’ she complained. ‘No, let my boys share. Three to a bed they sleep at ’ome, cosy that is, then you can move the other single in for me.’
At once they all set to and did what she asked. No one questioned her:
the boys were happy to see their mother and that was enough for Annie, Morgan and Eirlys.
She unpacked her things and spread herself widely. She brought clothes out from her suitcases and hung dresses and skirts around the picture rails and jumpers over the banisters. Shoes and boots were spread along the walls, both upstairs and down, until Morgan offered her several of their cases to use as extra drawers.
‘Wonderful. Just what I need,’ she said, pulling out underwear and dropping it carelessly into the new storage.
‘Taken over the damned house she has,’ Morgan grumbled to Annie and their togetherness against the behaviour of the uninvited guest slowly began to repair their damaged relationship.
Eirlys heard them talking long into the night and was relieved to hear muffled laughter coming through the walls. Smiling, she covered her head with her pillow and settled to dream about being Mrs Johnny Castle.
There was no offer of any money to pay for her keep from Teresa and Annie’s hints to that effect were disregarded.
‘Another loaf of bread needed?’ Annie sighed, when Teresa had been with them four days. ‘It’s certainly more expensive having seven instead of six, isn’t it, Morgan?’
‘We can’t afford any more housekeeping,’ he said supporting her. ‘By the time we’ve paid the bills there isn’t enough left for extra.’ Then, ‘How long are you staying, Teresa?’
‘Oh, I won’t go just yet. I can’t face saying goodbye to my darlin’ boys just yet,’ Teresa said airily, helping herself to another slice of bread and some cheese.
‘No butter on that slice, mind,’ Annie warned. ‘That butter has to last us till ration day, and that’s Friday.’
Making a moue, pleading with her eyes, Teresa took a small amount of butter and spread it on a corner of the slice, bit it and threw the rest aside.
A week after she had arrived, Annie and Morgan looked out of the window watching for her to come home from school with the boys. They were already half an hour later than usual. Teresa had gone to meet them, carrying the new winter coats Annie had bought them for Eirlys’s wedding. Annie had argued, insisting they didn’t need them as they were wearing jumpers and their macs, but Teresa had insisted.
‘I like to see Stanley, Harold and my Percival looking smart,’ she said as though the coats were her gift to them.
When another half an hour had passed and they still hadn’t arrived, Morgan suggested she might have taken them to the pictures.
‘Typical of her not to bother to tell us,’ he said.
When Eirlys came in from work, it was six o’clock and Annie was torn between anger at Teresa’s thoughtlessness and concern in case something had gone wrong.
‘If one of them were hurt, one of the others would have come to tell us,’ Eirlys reasoned. But she went to see the schoolteacher who lived near and asked if they had been met.
‘Yes, their mother met them; waiting outside she was, dressed up and carrying a couple of coats, if I remember.’
‘Thank you. Sorry I bothered you, but we were worried. They’ve probably gone to the pictures and forgot to tell us.’
‘Pictures? That’s not likely. They went off in a taxi, and there were several suitcases with them. And more luggage waiting for them at the station I was told. Off for a little holiday with their mother, are they? She didn’t say how long they’d be away.’
Eirlys left the woman still talking and ran to find Johnny. As the station was on the way to Brook Lane, she ran there first and made enquiries.
‘Yes,’ the ticket office clerk told her. ‘A young woman did buy tickets for her three boys. Singles they were and she had a return. Such a lot of luggage she had too, and not even a sixpenny tip for the porter.’
Eirlys looked stricken with grief when she met Johnny and told him what had happened. Johnny hugged her and said, ‘They’ll write and if things get bad up there, they’ll be back.’
When they returned to Annie and Morgan, her father told her he had looked into the rooms and discovered that all the boys’ best clothes and toys were gone. Further enquires revealed that even the bikes had been sent on as advance luggage.
‘So it’s true,’ Eirlys said. ‘Teresa has taken the boys back to London.’
Morgan nodded. ‘And it doesn’t look as if they’re coming back.’
Ten
With the boys gone and her life lacking the need to keep busy in order to get everything done, Annie was lost. She read and reread the postcards they received, which were written by Stanley and signed by all three boys. They asked about their friends and the donkeys and whether there had been any more snow. Annie wrote back and asked about their new school and whether they had been to the pictures or anywhere else of interest, but her questions were ignored and she had the feeling they did nothing besides exist in the small flat their mother rented. She was even doubtful that they attended school.
She and Morgan went several times to stand and look into the room the boys had shared, as though half expecting them to appear and laugh and tell them it was all a huge joke.
Because of the gap in their lives, they tried to involve themselves in their daughter’s wedding plans. Morgan went to see if anything needed doing at the rooms in Mrs Hibbert’s house but Johnny and his father and Taff had dealt with the redecoration and everything was in place. He came home after each attempt to help feeling useless.
For Annie it was worse. Since Eirlys was born she had dreamed of the wonderful wedding she would arrange for her. Now, at a time when she needed to have something to fill her days, even that had been taken from her. The organisation of Eirlys and Johnny Castle’s wedding had been taken completely out of Annie’s hands. Once the wedding guest lists had been shown to Moll she had taken over, giving instructions to Annie and Morgan on their specific tasks and organising everything herself.
Aware of her parents’ disappointment, Eirlys began to have qualms about belonging to a family in which Moll was matriarch, and in which everyone so willingly accepted it.
‘There’s room for thirty guests in the café and if the weather is fine it will be perfect for photographs,’ Moll announced one evening, having invited Annie and Morgan and Eirlys to discuss what had so far been planned. Evelyn and Taff were there too as well as Marged, Huw and their youngest daughter Beth, who was to be chief bridesmaid. Johnny was helping his father at Piper’s fish-and-chip shop.
Eirlys told Beth, ‘I want to have flowers inside the church and around the porch, as well as on the tables for the reception. But I want you, as bridesmaid, and myself to carry a prayer book and a single rose. I’ve seen some in silver and white. What do you think?’
‘I’d like that,’ Beth said, her dark eyes shining. ‘So stylish.’
‘It will hardly be the event of the year,’ Evelyn hissed. She made several snide remarks throughout Moll’s announcements, most of which she was careful not to let anyone else but Eirlys hear.
Moll was tapping her pencil on her notebook impatiently and said sharply, ‘Can we get on with this? I have a lot to arrange. I take it that Piper’s Café for the reception is all right?’
‘How do you feel about using Piper’s Café, Mam?’ Eirlys asked Annie, hoping she would disagree. She had no real objection to using Piper’s Café, in fact it would be a rather charming and unusual choice, high above the sands with wonderful views across the bay, but she felt the need to stop Moll on something, otherwise the wedding would have nothing at all to do with her or Johnny.
‘I thought we’d have it in the room above the Oaktree café,’ Annie said. ‘They specialise in weddings.’ She was talked out of that in a few firmly spoken words.
‘This is the Piper family and we always have our receptions at Piper’s Café.’ There was no opportunity to argue. Moll had spoken, Annie thought, with irritation rising.
‘Eirlys and I will be making the wedding cake,’ she said, but that idea was quashed too.
‘No need, I’ve already ordered it, Mrs Price. Three tiers and all in white.�
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‘I hope you haven’t seen the dress,’ Eirlys said a little petulantly. ‘I want that to be a surprise for everyone.’
She was shocked to be told even that had been checked by Moll. ‘I went to see the material to make sure it’s the best,’ Moll said, unaware of the irritation she was causing.
Annie began to wriggle in her seat. Morgan put a hand on her shoulder and told her to stay calm.
‘What about the honeymoon, a week in a caravan, is it?’ Evelyn smiled, glancing first at Eirlys then at Morgan. Eirlys was startled at her father’s reaction. He jumped up and insisted that enough had been settled for one evening and prepared to leave.
The three Prices left the house in Sidney Street and as soon as the door was closed behind them they began to verbalise their frustration.
‘It’s my wedding. Mine and Johnny’s, and it’s nothing to do with Granny Moll,’ Eirlys said, her voice low with simmering anger. ‘I feel like leaving her to carry on with the arrangements, then running away with Johnny and getting married in a register office!’
‘What if we all went to London, so Stanley, Harold and Percival could share it?’ Morgan said, and Eirlys spared a moment to remember how much her father was missing the boys.
‘What did that Evelyn mean about you having a honeymoon in a caravan?’ Annie asked.
‘Nothing more than cattiness,’ Morgan said at once. ‘I don’t know what’s got into that girl. You’d think she was jealous of our Eirlys, or something.’
‘She doesn’t consider me a suitable wife for Johnny,’ Eirlys told them, ‘but she won’t explain why.’
‘Ask her,’ Annie said.
‘Don’t bother,’ Morgan shrugged.
A few days later, Eirlys and Evelyn came face to face in Woolworths. Eirlys was choosing some ribbons with which to bind a small rug she had made for a baby’s room.
‘Trimmings for your honeymoon nightie?’ Evelyn asked.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 23
