He paid for the eggs and placed them in the van.
‘How are the family?’ Peter asked. ‘Is your sister Beth still working the beach too?’
‘We’re all there, Uncle Bleddyn and my cousins Taff and Johnny, and Beth and Lilly and our Eynon and me. And Granny Moll of course, still thinks she’s in charge she does.’
‘Perhaps I’ll call and see you all. I sometimes walk down to help Father bring the donkeys back to their field.’
Driving off Ronnie chuckled. Posh voice; ‘Father’ instead of ‘Dad’: what a boring bloke he’d turned out to be. Different from when they used to go out looking for apple orchards and helping themselves to the fruit, scrumping they called it. Now he’d probably call it ‘depriving the owners of their property by illegal means’, he chuckled.
* * *
The weather turned nasty and the days at the beach consisted of bedraggled families coming into Piper’s Café for shelter more than food. The place smelled of damp clothing as people who had booked into a bed and breakfast filled the hours before they could return to their accommodation, change their clothes and make themselves comfortable.
Marged and Huw felt sorry for them and initially allowed them to stay longer than the amount of money spent would justify. Many more arrived as the season moved towards the main holiday period, however, and they realised they couldn’t fill the place with unprofitable bodies and exclude those who might spend money and eat the food they had prepared. Some of the stalls on the sand closed and Mr Gregory walked his patient donkeys home earlier than usual.
The cafés stayed open but few did more than cover their expenses, throwing left-over food away each evening. Mr Gregory might have taken the discarded food for his pigs but it was too far to travel for a few cakes and sandwiches. Buses and trains continued to bring people but fewer and fewer left the town and braved the dampened splendour of the seaside. The weekdays were very quiet and Beth and Lilly were given time off to enjoy as they wished, though at the weekend the whole family turned out, the stalls were opened and even a few flags were set to wave and help create the illusion of enjoyment.
One evening as Beth, draped in her father’s mac, had put the left-over food in the bins at the side of the café, she saw a young girl, who looked about eight, search through the rubbish and take several packages before running off, scuttling through the wet grass away from the headland and down towards the fields beyond.
It wasn’t the first time Beth had seen the girl and she felt a growing concern. A child hungry enough to steal food from a bin? She made up her mind that in future she would make sure the best of the left-over food was wrapped carefully and left on the top. She mentioned the incident to her mother and Marged agreed to do the same.
There was more waste than usual during those two wet weeks and towards the end of each day they gave any customers they had more generous portions than usual rather than throwing the food away. Each evening, however, a couple of cleanly wrapped packages were placed at the top of the bin, and Beth waited until she saw the small child run out and take them. All the stale food that went into the bin was well wrapped in newspaper so she didn’t feel too worried about the child eating any other food she might take.
On the days when she wasn’t needed, Beth had been spending a few hours working on a rug she was making for the house she and Freddy would one day own. Taking an idea from a friend who had begun to build a business making rugs, but using the method of weaving scraps of material into sacking, she used old coats and skirts she was given and a backing made from a potato sack. With so many oddments of material, she worked with only the slightest attempt at a pattern. Most of the colours were either navy or brown. Drab, Freddy would call it, she thought with a stab of pain, remembering his unkind remarks about her engagement party dress.
At that moment she heard the wailing call of the rag-and-bone man, who wandered the streets of St David’s Well with his horse and flat cart, begging for rags which he would later sell. On impulse she gathered the bags of material, all dark, practical colours, took the partly made rug with the hook she used to pull the scraps through, and gave them all to the surprised old man. She refused his offer of a mechanical singing bird or a goldfish and as she closed the door she saw he was examining her gift with interest. His wife might like to finish that; it would be better than putting it with the rest and getting a few pence. Pleased with the result of his day, he ambled slowly home.
‘I brought this old skirt from Auntie Audrey,’ her mother said as she came through the door, shaking the rain from her umbrella. ‘Dark brown it is, just what you need for the border.’
‘I’ve thrown the rug away. I didn’t want to finish it,’ Beth said, taking the baskets from her mother and beginning to sort out the tea-towels and tablecloths for the wash. ‘Dull, it was; boring.’
‘You can hardly want pale colours to put on the floor, love.’ Marged frowned. ‘What’s the matter, fach?’
‘The truth is, Mam, I don’t feel engaged. I can’t see that Freddy and I will ever get married if I don’t even have a ring to show we’re engaged.’
‘Two weeks and he still hasn’t collected it from the jeweller?’
‘Why don’t you go in tomorrow and see what the trouble is?’ Huw suggested, following Marged into the house. ‘Lord knows we aren’t busy, what with this rain an’ all, so get yourself down there first thing and sort him out, is it?’
Freddy didn’t call that evening so Beth wasn’t able to discuss it with him. She imagined going to the jeweller and then calling into the gents’ outfitters and surprising him by wearing it. Or perhaps she would just give him the box so he could choose a romantic moment and place it on her finger. She was dreamily imagining it all as she walked to the jeweller’s shop next morning.
The shop was being opened as she reached the door and she tentatively asked the rather haughty-looking young man if her ring was ready. The man was formally dressed in a three-piece suit, his hair slicked back severely, his mouth pursed in disapproval. Pimples in abundance failed to reduce the self-confidence that his position clearly gave him. He paused after she posed her question as though deciding whether or not she was a suitable person to enter, then he stood back for her to walk in.
She had never been inside a jeweller’s shop before going with Freddy to choose the ring, and there was something intimidating about entering the sparkling shop where so many expensive items were on display, items she would never be able to afford. She waited, feeling like an interloper who was about to be thrown out.
There was much discussion going on behind the half-closed door and then the assistant came out and shook his head off-handedly. ‘I’m very sorry, Miss Castle, but we have nothing reserved or under repair in your name.’
She began to leave, embarrassment colouring her cheeks, wondering how she could have made a mistake. Then the assistant was brushed rudely aside and the proprietor came forward, a kindly expression on his face.
‘I’m very sorry, Miss Castle, but there is nothing reserved for you. Could you have perhaps made a mistake about the shop? There are other jewellers, and…’ He smiled kindly.
Feeling marginally better she smiled and began to leave. Had she come into the wrong jewellery shop? Then she turned back. ‘Of course! It would be under the name of my fiance, Mr Frederick Clements.’ She smiled.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Castle, but Mr Clements didn’t buy that ring after all. I understood you had changed your mind.’
‘Oh, no. Er, there must be some mistake.’
The man felt sorry for her and said kindly, ‘If the mistake is ours, I apologise sincerely, Miss Castle. We will do everything we can to put things right.’
She almost ran from the sympathetic voice, the knowing eyes, fumbling her way out, unable to see for humiliating tears.
* * *
Lilly’s way of spending her spare time as the rain continued and the beach was quiet was to lie on her bed and read. Phil Martin worked in the back room of a wireles
s shop, on the outskirts of the town, repairing wireless sets and gramophones. The fact that he was married meant she couldn’t go and see him, even as a customer. She had already done so twice and another visit in the guise of a customer was out of the question. With other members of staff there, she would soon be noticed; remarks would fly and Phil’s wife would get suspicious. That would mean disaster. Or would it? Again she felt that impish desire to confront the woman, make her face the fact that Phil no longer loved her. Then she would have to let Phil go. It was an intoxicating prospect.
Why had she been unlucky in love? She comforted herself with the thought that her sister Beth wasn’t any better off marrying Freddy Clements. Liked himself too much, that one. She threw down the book and stared at the ceiling. If only she had met Phil a couple of years earlier, she would be the one celebrating an engagement. She didn’t think Phil would spend the money for the ring by putting clothes on his back, which was what Mam and Dad suspected Freddy Clements of doing. No, Phil Martin would buy her a beautiful ring and then the wedding ring to snuggle up beside it and they’d be so happy. If only he hadn’t married so soon.
At four o’clock Auntie Audrey was due to call to pick up the freshly laundered gingham tablecloths for the next day. Regardless of how quiet the café was, the white tablecloths were washed daily and the gingham ones underneath were changed twice a week. Over-fussy Mam was. Lilly wouldn’t waste time on unnecessary washing if she were in charge.
She heard the knock at the door and, picking up a duster and a tin of polish to make herself look busy, she went down to let her aunt in.
‘Was that Phil Martin or whatever he calls himself that you were kissing in King Edward Street the other night?’ Audrey demanded. ‘Want your head read you do, my girl.’
‘Phil who?’ Lilly blustered.
‘You know who I mean. What are you thinking of, carrying on with a bloke like that? Notorious he is, that one!’
‘I didn’t – we aren’t—’ Seeing the glare of confidence in her aunt’s beady eyes, Lilly lowered her head, giving up trying to bluff her way out of the accusation. ‘You won’t tell Mam, will you?’
‘Best we forget it and you keep away from him. D’you hear? Or I’ll have a little chat with your mam and your dad. Right?‘
The fear that churned in Lilly gradually turned to excitement. Notorious! She was the reason for him being called notorious.
There’s romantic! An illicit affair! That was what she had just been reading about. It was so thrilling, and it was her story too. A deep and forbidden love. She couldn’t wait to see Phil and tell him again how much she loved him. She smiled at her aunt and tried to look contrite.
Audrey saw the gleam of excitement in Lilly’s eyes and sighed. Her nieces didn’t seem to be any luckier in love than she was.
Audrey Piper and Wilf Thomas had been courting for more than twenty years. Audrey lived with her mother and, she explained to anyone who asked, by the time she and Wilf began thinking about marriage she had felt unable to leave her. Wilf lived with his aged mother too and he didn’t see how he could leave home and live with Audrey and Moll. The situation could have been resolved in the early days of their courtship, but there seemed to be plenty of time and now, with Wilf’s mother in a wheelchair and Moll so dependent on Audrey, they were trapped.
Audrey had told the story so often she almost believed it herself – except at night, alone in her white counterpaned bed, when she imagined how it could have been.
Every New Year’s Eve, she and Wilf opened a bottle of port and drank to the coming year, convinced that somehow their trap would be sprung and they would be free to marry. There was always a tinge of guilt in their eyes as they looked at each other and clinked glasses. The only solution to their dilemma was for both Wilf’s mother and Granny Moll to die.
* * *
Bleddyn Castle had worked with his brother Huw since they were children, first running messages and helping out with a few chores for Moll and her husband Joseph, earning a few pennies, then, when they left school, coming to work for the Pipers full time, doing odd jobs in the winter and spending wonderful summers on the sands.
He had married Irene and they had had two sons. Taff and Johnny had taken to the beach and their life seemed set to continue into the foreseeable future, but Irene had died and for a while everything had changed. Nothing had seemed worth doing. But after a short time of mourning and regrets and guilt, Bleddyn revived his interest and his summer began as so many others had done, working happily among the holiday crowds.
Now Johnny and Taff seemed content to follow in the family tradition, with only Taff’s wife Evelyn breaking out and refusing to take a share of the responsibility during the summer. At twenty-five, two years younger than Taff, Evelyn was basically very shy and hated the beach trade. The crowds embarrassed her and she was unhappy serving on the stall or in the café, fumbling with the change and getting flustered when orders came thick and fast. So the family had accepted her decision and she now worked as a supervisor and inspector in a factory that had once made enamel saucepans, washing-up bowls, food canisters and other kitchen equipment, but had changed to making items for the war machine. In this role she was efficient and well liked. On the beach, dealing with the public at play, she had felt like a stupid child.
Bleddyn’s other son Johnny also loved the beach and dreaded the end of the season. He wasn’t married but was seeing a divorced woman called Hannah. He didn’t bring her home to meet the family very often as he sensed that it was an ordeal for her. At thirty, she was eight years older than him and although he wasn’t concerned about the age difference or the fact that she had two daughters, Hannah was inhibited by it all. Occasionally she would bring the girls to the beach when she knew Johnny was working on the swingboats and he would give rides to the girls and spend a little time with them. But mostly they went for walks in the park or travelled into the next town to go to the cinema there. The outings always included the four of them, as Hannah’s parents refused to help her, accusing her of bringing shame to the family by leaving her husband and having no sympathy for her difficulties.
Hannah and the girls, Josie who was four and Marie who was three, lived in two rooms in her mother’s house but were not allowed to have any visitors. To earn money to keep herself and the children she worked as a cleaner, getting to offices very early in the mornings, when her mother grudgingly agreed to listen for the children waking, or during the evenings once they were asleep. She was an accomplished needlewoman, and she supplemented this small income with dressmaking. She loved Johnny dearly, but the children, the divorce and the age difference made her afraid. She left all the running to him and prayed he wouldn’t grow tired of her hesitancy, mistaking it for lack of love.
Marged and Huw’s son, Ronnie, loved the beach and looked forward to the opening of the holiday season with great joy. But his happiness was tempered by the discontent on his wife’s face. Like Taff’s wife Evelyn, Olive hated the summer. As the weeks passed, leaving winter behind, she had begun her campaign. Reasons why Ronnie should not join his family for the summer poured out in a steady stream. As the days grew longer, her frustration grew stronger.
‘I have to give up my job and help out, and it just isn’t fair,’ she complained one Wednesday morning as Ronnie gathered his white jacket and hat ready to work on the ice-cream stall.
‘The money’s regular and if we have a good season we all get a bonus; what’s wrong with that? Your job will be waiting for you when the beach closes.’ Ronnie spoke calmly but he was tired of the constant battle. He had worked on the beach with his family since he was six, standing on a pop-bottle box to see over the counter as soon as he was capable of serving. He had been doing the job when he and Olive met, and she had joined in with enthusiasm then, so he couldn’t understand why she now wanted him to change.
‘I want your family to keep Piper’s fish-and-chip restaurant open all year. You know it would pay for itself.’
‘Un
cle Bleddyn runs the chip shop and he closes the café part for the summer. It’s the way it’s always been done, love, you know that.’
‘Because it’s always been done doesn’t make it right!’
‘Look, I’ve got to go.’ He kissed her lightly then went to the door. ‘Don’t forget you’re taking over from Eynon at three so he can go to the pool. He’s taking swimming lessons for some life-saving badge, him and Freddy, remember?’
‘Just an excuse to get out of his shift if you ask me,’ she muttered.
‘Who d’you mean, our Eynon or Freddy Clements?’
‘Both! Your Eynon hates the beach as much as I do.’
‘Rubbish. Born to Piper’s Café and the stalls he was.’ But Ronnie looked doubtful as he got on his bicycle to leave their rooms in Curtis Road and head for the beach.
Olive put down the hearth brush and ignored the mess of ashes from last night’s fire. Granny Moll would be at home today; it might be worth trying once more to talk to her.
The day was dry but the sun was reluctant to show itself so she put a short jacket over her cotton dress, slipped her feet out of slippers and into sandals and went to get the bus.
Moll answered the door and smiled a welcome. ‘Come in and stay for a bite to eat, Olive, we don’t often get the chance to chat now summer’s here. You aren’t on till three, are you?’ she continued as she led the way down the passage to the kitchen at the back of the house. She bustled about making sandwiches, grating cheese and mixing it with salad cream and chopped onion and adding a leaf or two of lettuce. ‘The thinnings,’ she said, to explain the smallness of the lettuce leaves. ‘Auntie Audrey and I thinned the row of lettuce plants and it’s a pity to waste them.’
‘Granny Moll, don’t you think it would be a good idea for me to keep the chip-shop café open? I’m not much use on the beach, am I? I don’t like it and I find it hard to be polite some days. If I had one assistant I could run the café and it would bring in more than having me helping out on the beach, now wouldn’t it?’
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 34
