They put aside some of Moll’s jewellery for Beth, and for Ronnie’s wife Olive. Some of the best pieces went to Lilly – who cried as loudly as she had when Moll had passed away.
Beth was surprised at the regret Lilly had displayed. Her sister hadn’t been particularly fond of Granny Moll when she was alive, had often moaned when told to do something to help her, yet since her death Lilly seemed to be continually weeping.
With the approach of winter, and with the café in the hands of builders, the Castle family were taking on work for the winter months. Lilly went back to the café at the back of the fish-and-chip shop run by Bleddyn, but after two weeks she admitted that she no longer wanted to work there for six months of the year.
‘I need something out in the open,’ she explained. ‘The smell of that fish makes me feel quite ill.’
‘You’ve done it every winter for years,’ Beth protested. ‘Why suddenly is the job beneath you?’
‘If you must know I’ve never liked working there, coming home with the stink of fish and fat in my hair! I did it because I had to. It’s a family business and I’m family!’
‘When it suits you!’ Beth retorted.
‘Stop it, you two,’ Marged sighed. ‘If Lilly doesn’t want to work in the café, we’ll find someone who does. What about you, Beth, fancy giving it a try?’
‘All right, I’ll try,’ Beth said, relieved that she didn’t have to take a job in one of the cold, open-fronted greengrocers like she had the winter before.
‘Jump in my coffin so quick, would you?’ Lilly snapped. ‘I haven’t decided no for definite yet!’
Before Beth could retaliate and start a serious quarrel, Marged raised a hand and told them to hush.
‘What would Granny Moll think of you two arguing all the time like a couple of kids?’ she demanded and Lilly, predictably, collapsed once more into tears.
Lilly made little effort to find work. She made no comment when Beth started in the job that she had always considered her own at Uncle Bleddyn’s café. She rose late and went to bed early, and, in between, did as little as she could get away with. Marged threatened her with a visit to the doctor, thinking that the mourning and grieving had gone on too long for a healthy young woman, and were now simply an excuse to be idle.
Letters were eagerly awaited by most families, and friends and neighbours shared what little news they had with others. Beth received a short note from Freddy, full of what he had done and making it seem that life was one long, laugh-filled pub crawl. He taught her a new word, ‘skiving’, which was an essential skill for survival, he told her. He then asked whether she could send him some money as he was finding it difficult to manage. She threw it down in disgust. Why hadn’t he responded to the news about the fire and Granny Moll? Her letter must have reached him by now!
The following day she received a second letter, this one full of remorse at his previous one. He told her the letter had been mislaid and he’d just read it. He explained that he wrote all that nonsense as a way to fill the pages, because life was really very dull and he missed her and longed to be home once again. He was sympathetic, concerned and as loving as she could wish. Saying nothing to her parents, she went to the post office, took out ten shillings and popped it into her next letter.
Thoughts of money made her decide to check on their savings. Freddy had taken it out of the bank and had told her it was safe in National Savings. A word with his mother, a hint that she intended to surprise Freddy by adding to it, and the book was in her hands. It contained only three shillings. Once again he had spent all they had saved. It was no more than she had suspected.
* * *
Marged picked up a letter from the doormat one morning and puzzled over the writing. It wasn’t a hand she recognised. Fear clutched her heart. It was Eynon. Someone was writing to tell her he was dead! Audrey was there and Marged handed it to her; she was unable to open it and her hands shook as she waited for her sister to tell her what it contained.
‘It’s from someone calling himself Ross, but I think it’s Eynon.’
Marged snatched it back and read, ‘Dear Auntie Marged, Just to let you know I’m all right and will get in touch soon.’
‘You’ll have to take it to the police, Marged. The boy has to be found for his own safety.’
‘They can put me in prison first! If he comes here I’ll do everything to make sure he doesn’t go back.’
The long-awaited letter from Ronnie arrived and Olive was told that he was injured and would be coming home. She ran to tell Marged and Huw.
‘What happened?’ they demanded in unison. Handing them the letter, she said breathlessly, ‘An injury to his knee, apparently, but he’s alive and he’s coming home!’
One morning, as her father and Uncle Bleddyn were setting off to begin to grease the joints of the dismantled stalls and put them away for the winter, Beth received two letters. One was the usual brief note from Freddy with a PS thanking her for the money. The other envelope was addressed in handwriting she didn’t recognise.
She sat down in surprise when she unsealed it. It was from Peter Gregory. Very different from Freddy’s hastily scrawled note, it was full of amusing observations about people he remembered from when they were children. He asked about the two girls, Maude and Myrtle, and remembered to ask about Freddy, Eynon and Ronnie too, something Freddy never did. His PS was to hope she was well and had found interesting work for the winter.
Feeling a bit guilty at the comparisons she was making, she handed it to her mother and father then said, ‘I might go and see Mr Gregory. I expect he’d like to read it too. Can’t have too many letters at a time like this.’
‘I wonder why he wrote to you?’ Marged said, hope of a separation from Freddy Clements adding a sparkle to her eyes.
‘I think they like to keep in touch with home. Writing is a way of making contact.’ Beth’s tone was casual, but she was already mentally composing her reply.
* * *
The stalls were taken apart and cleaned before being stored in their winter premises, a barn on a farm a few miles out of town. They would be repainted in the spring, and Huw was determined they would be a patriotic red, white and blue.
Bernard Gregory’s donkeys had been taken to their winter home, where they had two large fields and comfortable stables. As Beth was working in Bleddyn’s fish-and-chip shop, she was free during the afternoons. She took the letter and cycled to the house in Goose Lane where Bernard Gregory lived.
She found him in a large shed at the back of the premises, cleaning the saddles ready for waxing. The donkeys all had names and holidaying children grew to know each one. Dolly, Bertha, Pat, Hazel, Charlie, Bertie, Clifford: the names were brightly painted on the headbands. Without their name plates Beth was never sure which was which, but Bernard knew the names and characters of every one.
‘Dolly is as gentle as you could wish, but Hazel, she has to be treated with caution. Anyone too heavy and she won’t move, and she has been known to tip a persistent rider off! Charlie has to be leader, or he kicks…’ He laughed affectionately as he remembered.
Beth handed him the letter and his eyes filled with tears as he read it. ‘Thanks for bringing it down, lovely girl. Peter writes as often as he can, but it’s difficult at times. This is a bonus.’
‘Will it be all right if I write back?’ she asked.
‘Good heavens, why not? Love to hear from home, they do.’
‘I only thought that he might not want to bother writing to me again. It’s more important that you get letters, after all, but if I write and tell him I don’t expect a reply—’
‘If you have the time to tell him about what’s happening here, it would help him. Just casual chat about home, that’s all they want, everyday things. A reminder about the sanity of home.’
Talking to Peter’s father she picked up on several things to tell him in her letter and as she cycled home she felt excited at the prospect of another letter in response. Writing to
Freddy wasn’t much fun, she had to admit, and his replies were hardly worth the cost of the stamps – which she had paid for anyway, stamps she sent him to encourage him to write.
* * *
In defiance of his wishes, Lilly had written several times to Phil but every day the postman passed without bringing her a reply, until one day she lost her temper and wrote a fiercely angry letter, threatening to go and see his wife if she didn’t get a response in two weeks. At last, in November, the long-awaited letter arrived.
With trembling hands she opened it, and burst into tears.
‘What’s the matter with the girl?’ Huw demanded irritably. ‘Waiting for the postman with more interest than that snappy terrier on the corner and when he finally brings her a letter what does she do? She cries! God ’elp, Marged, the girl is beyond me.’
Lilly looked up and in a low voice said, ‘Mam, Dad, I’m expecting and the father is married and won’t leave his wife. He refuses to help in any way, says it can’t be his.’
Eight
Marged stared at Huw and they both stared at Lilly as though waiting for her to explain her words, tell them she had been joking, that they hadn’t heard properly, anything other than face the situation with which she had presented them.
‘It’s true,’ she said harshly. ‘I’m expecting and there’s no one to help me. There’ll be no hasty marriage to try and make this respectable, Mam. I’m on my own.’
‘Just tell us who the father is and I’ll see if you’re on your own,’ Huw growled.
She looked at him contemptuously. ‘Don’t you listen? There is no father. This baby will just have me. No one else, understand, Dad? No need for you to flex your muscles and start playing the outraged Victorian parent. This baby has no father. Right?’
Too shocked to complain at her rudeness, Huw looked at his wife for support.
‘We have to do something, Lilly,’ Marged said. ‘There’s more than you involved here, whatever you say.’
Lilly shook her head, screwing up Phil’s letter and throwing it into the flames of the fire so nothing could be gleaned from it. Cajoling, threatening, pleading, nothing did any good. On the matter of the baby’s father, Lilly would not budge.
As though she was not there, Marged and Huw discussed the possibility of sending Lilly away, having the baby adopted. Lilly refused to consider it.
‘I’m having this baby, Mam, and if you don’t want me, then I’ll find somewhere else to live.’ She had no idea how she could possibly cope on her own, but was determined not to give in to threats.
Marged looked at Huw and said softly, ‘How are we going to tell Audrey?’
Beth was the next to be told and it was Lilly who told her when they were alone and she could put her case to her sister for having the child, without her parents adding their opinions.
‘I’m convinced that when – my boyfriend – sees the beautiful baby he’ll love her and want us both,’ Lilly told Beth, looking at her for reassurance.
‘Have you written to him since he told you he wouldn’t help?’ Beth asked, avoiding a reply. ‘Perhaps when he’s had time to think, he’ll at least help financially.’
‘Yes, I wrote back, not angry, not pleading and helpless either, mind. I just stated the facts, and reminded him that the baby is his, and he’ll regret it if he abandons her.’
As the sisters sat and talked, all previous antagonism faded. Beth felt a strong need to defend her sister and take care of her through the difficult weeks ahead.
‘If it’s a daughter, he’ll definitely want her then. Fathers are notoriously soft when it comes to daughters,’ Lilly went on. ‘Remember how we used to run to our Dad when Mam told us off?’ They both smiled at the memories of Huw’s spoiling.
‘I’ll stay with you when you tell Auntie Audrey, shall I?’ Beth offered. ‘You’re not alone, Lilly, we’re all here and the baby won’t lack love.’ She hugged her sister and was surprised to feel a painful tinge of envy.
Audrey told her much the same as Beth. She didn’t mention the baby’s father, but she could guess who it was. She would help in any way she could and heaven help anyone she heard gossiping about Lilly. ‘Put them to rights straight off I will,’ she promised.
Wilf nodded tacit agreement, but his eyes and his tightly clenched mouth told a different story. Disapproval was clear and as soon as they were on their own, he told Audrey so.
‘Why is everything being made so easy for her?’ he asked.
‘Times change, Wilf. You wouldn’t have our Lilly treated like a criminal, would you?’
‘No, but it’s so unfair.’
‘I know, dear, but when is life ever fair?’
‘It certainly wasn’t for us, was it?’ he said, taking her hand and holding it tight.
Uncle Bleddyn was philosophical about it. ‘I don’t think you’ll be the only young woman in this situation, fach,’ he said hugging her. ‘Men away from home month after month, women tempted by men who are available, stands to reason, we’ll soon have a whole flock of ’em.’
‘No more knitting for soldiers,’ Marged said. ‘I’ll be knitting for my grandchild, won’t I?’
Huw remained determined to find out who the man was, and make him pay.
A visit to the doctor confirmed Lilly’s fears and she was told the baby would be born early in May. Quickly working it out in her head, she realised that their visits to the café after closing had made hers and Phil’s love-making too easy. The dark, cosy privacy had relaxed them, made them forget the danger of their growing desire. If they had stuck to the park and back lanes she might have been saved this distress, but somehow, even with Phil’s refusal to become involved, she wasn’t sorry.
It was unlikely she would marry. She loved Phil and because of his determination to remain married, he had made love to her, told her how much he cared, then let her down in the worst possible way. She would never feel the same way about anyone else, so this baby would be all she had to fill her life. While her mother and father continued to discuss ways of finding out who the father was, she gently dreamed of girls’ names and boys’ names and wondered if she might be the first in the family to produce twins.
‘So I have to plan for May,’ Lilly said one day as she and her mother were washing up after supper. ‘I’ll have the winter to get everything ready, won’t I?’ She sighed happily. ‘A spring baby will be lovely.’
‘Typical!’ Huw grumbled. ‘Right at the start of the season. It couldn’t be worse.’
Beth silently thought that Lilly being unable to work wouldn’t change much; she never had been too keen to do her share. ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ she said. ‘With Freddy away, I’ll have plenty of spare time.’
‘And besides,’ Huw went on, glaring at his daughter, ‘what’s lovely about having a baby and everyone knowing you haven’t been churched? No engagement ring or even a visible boyfriend. People’ll think you’re a tart, that’s what they’ll think, mind. Carrying on like a tart. What’s lovely about that, eh?’
‘That’s enough, Huw,’ Marged warned, and Huw stomped off to look at the garden to cool his anger.
Apart from Beth, it was Hannah who helped Lilly the most. Bleddyn had told her about the pregnancy when she visited him with her two girls to share one of Johnny’s letters with him.
‘D’you think I could call on Lilly?’ she asked, and Bleddyn walked up to Sidney Street with her and Marged invited them in. While Bleddyn and his brother went out to look at the garden, a euphemism for talking in private, Lilly and her mother went to make tea. Leaving Josie and Marie listening to the wireless, Hannah followed them into the kitchen.
‘Johnny’s dad has told me about the baby,’ she said hesitantly to Lilly. ‘I wondered whether you’d like to borrow my pram? It’s in Mam’s loft and it’s been well polished and covered against dust, so it should look smart enough.’
‘Thanks, that’s kind of you, Hannah.’ Lilly was delighted with this positive response to her news. ‘I’d be glad to borro
w it. There’s so much to get, isn’t there, and me without a husband.’ She lowered her eyes, expecting sympathy, but Hannah’s reaction surprised her.
‘You’re on your own, but at least you know it. Some mothers think they’re safe and secure in a marriage and find they are not. That’s worse. Forget looking for sympathy, face the facts and get on with it, that’s my advice.’
Shock and the beginnings of anger showed in Lilly’s face but then she relaxed and smiled. ‘Thanks again, I think I needed that.’
‘Sorry if I was rude,’ Hannah apologised.
‘No, not rude, just reminding me that I’ve got myself into this mess and I have to – as you put it – face facts.’
‘Married, was he?’ Hannah asked, thinking of her own ex-husband’s games.
‘I don’t want to talk about him,’ Lilly said quietly.
‘If ever you do, then come and see me. I’ve had plenty of disasters in my life and it’s taught me, among other things, to be discreet. And I love Johnny and would never do anything to hurt his family.’
They arranged to meet at the weekend, when Hannah would help her make lists of what she would need. ‘I might even find a few baby nightgowns and a cardigan or two. I don’t think I’ll be needing them any more,’ Hannah told her.
* * *
When Ronnie was released from hospital, Olive went to the station to meet his train. She stood on the platform, watching the few passengers wandering about, some carrying shopping bags and others with briefcases and a newspaper. It was all so different from the day Ronnie had left. The platform had been crowded then, groups surrounding young men as they left to join their training camp, travel warrant ready to show the inspector, small suitcases with all they were allowed to take held tightly in one hand, the other in most cases around a mother or a sister, a wife or a lover.
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 48
