Holidays at Home Omnibus
Page 78
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘Janet’s home. Max was killed on Sunday.’
‘What? Oh, poor Janet! They were thinking of getting engaged, weren’t they?’
‘More than that! The wedding was booked for the twentieth of September.’
He ran up the stairs to comfort Shirley.
‘They had arranged the wedding and moments later he was dead. I can understand why no one waits or makes long-term plans these days,’ Shirley said sadly. ‘Max, dead. I can’t believe it. All that talent gone for ever.’ She looked at him and seeing the glittering sadness in her eyes, Joseph took a chance on being snubbed and took her into his arms. Over Shirley’s head he looked at Hetty and slowly shook his head, telling her wordlessly that the letter had not contained good news.
Hetty sighed in disappointment and disappeared into the kitchen.
‘I want to sing more than ever now,’ Shirley told Joseph. ‘I want to be a success and sing his songs so his memory will live. I know I can succeed and I’ve a greater need to do so now. I haven’t heard from that first agent I saw. I’ll write again. I’ll go up and pester him until he finds me some bookings.’
Joseph pulled away from her. There was a cold expression in his eyes as he said softly, ‘The agent did write, Shirley love. I didn’t want to tell you, but I can’t let you go on to further disappointments. Sorry, my dear, but he turned you down.’
‘What? When did you hear?’ She turned and called to her mother. ‘Mam? Why didn’t you tell me?’
Hetty stepped out of the kitchen and said sorrowfully, ‘Sorry, Shirley love, but I didn’t know how to deal with it. So I asked Joseph to open the letter. He shouldn’t have told you today. Not today,’ she repeated, glaring at Joseph. ‘Hearing about Max was enough to cope with in one day.’
‘What did he say?’ Shirley whispered.
‘That you lacked the – er – the charisma needed which together with a first-class voice would enable you to rise above the averagely talented.’
Without a further word, Shirley went to her room and shut the door.
‘Thanks for being so diplomatic!’ Hetty said, pushing Joseph towards the door.
‘I didn’t think it fair to tiptoe around the edges, and try to let her down softly. Best to face the truth and then deal with it ’
Hetty pushed him harder and once he was outside, closed the door and locked it.
He heard her say, ‘Stupid, unfeeling idiot!’ before he walked away. He was smiling.
She would soon get that nonsense out of her head now she knew the truth. The London agent would have probably exploited her for purposes of his own. He had saved her from disappointment and worse, hadn’t he?
* * *
Janet returned to work on Tuesday morning. She would go back up on Friday for the funeral. She wanted to be there before that day but she feared she would be an intrusion into the family’s grief. She had known and loved Max, but not long enough to be given the right to share the family’s mourning. Besides, the Moons’ family home was damaged and they were in temporary accommodation until repairs were carried out and she couldn’t face staying in a hotel on her own. The loneliness would have been a painful reminder of what she had lost.
She told Ronnie Castle what had happened and, at lunchtime, his wife Olive and their baby called at the café and offered their sympathy.
‘If I can persuade Ronnie’s Auntie Audrey to look after Rhiannon, and bring her in to me for feeding, I’ll look after the café for you on Friday and Saturday,’ she offered. ‘There’ll be plenty of help if I mess things up. The market stall-holders are a friendly bunch.’
Janet accepted her offer, insisting that she would expect her to serve only cold snacks. She was still talking and acting normally, as though the funeral in London was nothing more than a slight inconvenience in a busy week. She was in a vague disbelieving state, sometimes convinced that Max would walk in and smile and tell her it had been a mistake. At those moments, reality would hit her hard.
How could there be a mistake, who else could have that tall, skinny, subtle body or that impossible red hair? Tears would threaten, the overwhelming loss hard to accept, and she would scrub one of the shelves or display cupboards and turn her head away from her customers until she was once more in control.
Shirley went to see Janet and they talked about Max and his kindly nature and Shirley hid her own distress, unable to talk about it to anyone, specially Janet to whom she had boasted so often about the career she knew would be hers one day soon. As Janet talked, her mind drifted back to the audition, wondering what she had done wrong. She hadn’t been completely at ease, she knew that, but it had been so important to her. She couldn’t have been so hopeless that the man had dismissed her so harshly and finally.
‘His music must be kept alive,’ Janet was saying and Shirley nodded. It had been her opinion too.
‘I want to sing “Slide Down a Rainbow” one Saturday night,’ Janet went on. ‘On my own, just on my own.’ Getting no response she repeated, ‘One Saturday, on my own. Max’s song. Shirley nodded again. ‘Yes, on Saturday. I’ll sing with you.’
‘No, Shirley, not this Saturday, you aren’t listening. This Saturday I’ll be coming home from his funeral. I won’t want to sing, will I?’
‘I don’t want to sing ever again!’ Shirley sobbed and believing her friend was crying for her, Janet sympathised. ‘Sorry, I’ve been thinking only of myself. You’ll miss Max too, won’t you?’
‘I don’t want to sing, ever again.’ This time it was Janet who wasn’t listening.
* * *
Lilly met the disabled soldier, whom she now knew as Sam Edwards, several times as summer drew to a close. He was often sitting on the bench she favoured where he could catch the last of the sun’s rays when the day had been pleasant and was sheltered by tall privet bushes when the wind was keen.
Their first date had been a disaster. No one had been willing to look after Phyllis, and instead of a getting-to-know-you session, they sat in a café with the baby in her pram. They talked a while, with Lilly complaining about her unfeeling family and Sam commiserating in a soothing manner.
Once or twice as she sat down beside him it had begun to rain and he had suggested going to find a cup of tea and somewhere warm and dry to pass an hour. Since then there had been many such afternoons, spent talking and learning about each other in a cosy café in the centre of town. She told a much-edited story of herself. Her family was a wealthy one, she explained, so there was no need for her to work. Her parents owning half of the entertainments was more than a slight exaggeration but he seemed impressed at the time and the fleeting moment was all Lilly worried about. If necessary, there would be time for explanations later. Making up stories was fun. She told him about her daughter and her dead ‘husband’, Phil, who had died a hero without ever having seen his darling daughter, and if he was puzzled by the fact that her name was still Castle, he declined to comment.
Sam Edwards described his widowed father and his sister, and suggested that one day she might like to meet them. Soon afterwards she had arrived at ‘their’ bench to see an older man sitting beside him, whom he introduced as his father. Samuel Edwards.
‘Same name, that must be confusing.’ she said, laughing as she took the older man’s hand.
It was September when she first visited Sam’s home and a week later when he showed her to his bedroom. While Phyllis cried, they made love. Then he watched as she fed the distressed child, before making love again.
When she reached home, there was no one in and Lilly settled the baby into her cot and relaxed in a bath before going to bed herself, to dream of lasting happiness with Sam.
* * *
September was the tailing-off of the season’s activities. The weeks of Eirlys’s heavy responsibilities were over and she was looking for something with which to fill the hours. Ken was away for much of the time and although she had the house to run as well as a full-time job, she was
never one to sit and do nothing. As with most women during that time, when she did sit to listen to the wireless she always had some handwork to keep her fingers occupied.
A couple of years before she had planned to open a shop and the idea recurred from time to time with growing interest. The rugs she had made had been popular and some were still in her bedroom, wrapped up and waiting for a buyer.
Between knitting socks and scarves and helmets for the forces, she made toys. Some were knitted, many were sewn, fashioned out of the remnants of coats and skirts she had been given to make into rugs. When she was offered a short jacket of imitation fur she took it to Hannah and asked for her advice on making toy rabbits with it. With Eirlys cutting out from a pattern they devised and Hannah busy with her sewing machine, they made several. Then they had to be stuffed and the final seams sewn by hand.
‘This is the part that makes or ruins them,’ Hannah explained, patiently going over each seam and pulling out the tufts of fur to hide the stitching and give the toys a professional finish. ‘Stuffing them evenly and neatening the seams will have to be done properly if you’re to make a business of it.’
‘How would you feel about us going into partnership?’ Eirlys asked. ‘I’ll do as much of the work as I can, and I’ll find out the cost of renting a small shop, or perhaps to start, a shop window to display what we make. What d’you think?’
Hannah’s calm eyes brightened. ‘I’d love it. I have to continue with my dressmaking, of course, it’s my living, but making these toys and gifts is fun.’
Predictably, Hannah’s father-in-law at once offered to help and he found a small shop with no living accommodation, simply a lock-up, right on the main road, and he agreed to pay the first six months’ rent for them.
‘Worth it just to get Eirlys’s stack of wool out of my back bedroom,’ he said when they protested.
It was surprisingly easy to get the rental. The owner, Mrs Dace, who had sold chocolates and sweets, lived behind the shop and had closed it at the beginning of the war. Mrs Dace was delighted to see it used and the rent was nominal for the first year.
During the month of October, Eirlys and Hannah worked hard building their stock. The rugs Eirlys made with a sewing machine were quickly produced and they soon had a selection to display. Beside their handmade items, with their contacts with suppliers of gifts and prizes for the beach stalls, they were able to obtain generous terms and a six-week payment arrangement on other gifts and toys to add to the variety of what they could offer.
Hannah moved her sewing machine into the shop and worked there during the day on her dressmaking. She soon found this was unsatisfactory. Not being able to work at home in the evening meant a slowing down of her production. A second machine, found and paid for by Bleddyn, sorted the problem.
Besides her normal work. Hannah concentrated on toys and household gifts, aware that with the approach of Christmas people would be glad to have some choice. Shortages were becoming severe and they knew that even little things like novelty tea cosies and egg cosies that would amuse, would sell well as Christmas 1941 approached and the panic to find acceptable gifts began.
They also invited people to bring their work in to sell and devised a system of numbering so they would know whom to pay at the end of every month. Organisation was Eirlys’s metier and she and Hannah worked well together.
Bleddyn’s plan in getting rid of the collection of wool and material he had stored for Eirlys was twofold. He wanted to help Eirlys and Hannah to build a business for themselves and he wanted to empty the room so he could decorate. It was time he obliterated all memories of his dead wife and started to live again.
* * *
Shirley refused to go to any dances and when invited to sing at local fund-raising concerts, made excuses not to go. Sometimes she agreed to accompany the still-grieving Janet, then at the last moment would send a note explaining that she was ill.
Joseph spent many evenings in the Downs’s flat but Shirley hardly seemed aware he was there. When Hetty and Bleddyn went out and they were alone, she allowed him to kiss her and sometimes would respond enthusiastically, ending up in her bed. Other times she would lie limp in his arms, unaware of him, lost in shattered dreams.
He proposed to her several times but she refused. Knowing the singing career she had envisaged would no longer be hers didn’t stop the aching need to perform.
One night she wasn’t there when he called and Hetty insisted she didn’t know where she had gone. Shirley was standing in the crowd at the dance, watching as a comedian went through his well-worn routine and ended with a song. Sadness overwhelmed her. He wasn’t even moderately good, yet he was up there, confidently pulling the audience into joining in. Why hadn’t that agent seen her capabilities? Why hadn’t he recognised her potential?
She slipped out and walked along the empty street, her heels ringing on the pavement, an accompaniment to the song she was silently singing in her heart.
Instead of going home she went to call on Janet. She had been very neglectful of Janet since Max had been killed. Not much of a friend, am I? she scolded herself, determined to spend more time with Janet even though she would never sing with her again.
Janet answered the door and smiled a welcome.
‘Shirley, it’s good to see you! You’ve been hiding away and I don’t know why. Have I upset you? It wasn’t that stupid judge giving Max and me first prize was it? The man was a fool, Max said so and I agreed.’
‘You know that agent I saw in London?’
‘Yes?’ Janet’s eyes lit up hoping for some good news. ‘You’ve heard?’
‘I heard some time ago. He said I had moderate talent but nothing to lift me above the ordinary, or some such phrase. I don’t remember the exact words, something about a lack of charisma, I think. Whatever he said, he made it clear that I had no chance of being a singer-dancer.’
‘Have you got the letter?’
‘No, Joseph read it and threw it away. I think he wanted to let me down lightly, but he didn’t. He just told me what the man said, coldly and harshly.’
‘He would.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Joseph was probably delighted. He doesn’t want you to have a singing career, does he? That much is clear to anyone who isn’t half asleep! He shows so little pleasure in your success. I bet he was pleased when you didn’t win last time, wasn’t he?’ A glance at Shirley’s face told her she had been right in her suspicions. ‘He wants you to marry him and spend your life looking after him.’
‘He has asked me to marry him and I think I’m going to say yes.’ Shirley was still upset at her friend’s engagement to Max and wanted to prove she too had received a proposal.
‘Why don’t you give it one more try? Say nothing to Joseph or anyone else. There’s an audition for a pantomime in Cardiff this month. You and I could apply. Why not?’ she coaxed, seeing the doubt in Shirley’s eyes. ‘There won’t be any disappointment to report if no one knows except us.’
‘We couldn’t accept if we did get a part. You work all day in the market café and I have to work in the shop or Mam and I lose the flat.’
‘So what? If we do get offered a part we can tell them the money’s not good enough or we don’t like the look of the leading man. It’ll be fun. Come on. Shirley, say yes and I’ll write off now this minute.’
‘All right. Why not?’
Janet was relieved to see the glimmer of a smile.
Eight
The desperate need to marry continued to affect the town as more soldiers left to serve overseas and more girls grieved for them and feared the appearance of the young telegram boys on their bicycles, wearing their red-trimmed, navy pork-pie hats and carrying the bag of yellow envelopes.
Eirlys and Ken’s wedding took place with little excitement, although she tried to make the occasion special by inviting all her friends, and having Ken’s sisters as her bridesmaids.
They were married in church, with Eirlys wearing a
hastily borrowed white dress and veil and silver sandals. She contacted the beach photographer for some informal photographs to remember the day.
There was no honeymoon, just an afternoon in Cardiff which ended up as a shopping trip and a visit to the cinema: neither of them could spare more than those few hours. Ken moved into 78 Conroy Street carrying only a small suitcase and the whole day was an anticlimax. They were uneasy with each other; the wedding being so casual meant they didn’t really feel married.
She also missed her mother that day and thought of the difference Annie being there would have made. It was nothing more than a strange interlude at the beginning of a new stage of their lives and Eirlys regretted the hasty decision, and wished they had waited and built up the excitement, made it more of an occasion.
The following evening, her father made himself scarce, realising their need to be alone. To Eirlys’s disappointment Ken wanted to go to the local dance and, hiding her dismay, she agreed. She sat there, forcing a smile, watching others having fun and wishing she were home where there was so much to do.
* * *
Arranging to attend the audition for the Cardiff pantomime was easy for Janet. Beth was in between jobs having finished at the beach and not yet having found winter work. She enjoyed working at the market café which was busy but simpler than the Castle family’s café on St David’s Well Bay. Myrtle was used to going there to help after school to help washing dishes when she wasn’t delivering groceries on the bike. With Myrtle’s help and being used to a busy café, Beth had no difficulty coping.
‘My brother Ronnie’s just around the corner if I meet any problems,’ she said. With Janet’s willing permission she moved a few things around to make them convenient to the way she worked and she was ready to take over.
The customers were mostly shoppers, resting for a while between their endless searching and queuing for food, any food that was extra to the rations. A few scabby-looking apples were delivered to her brother Ronnie’s stall and at once people appeared as though by magic to form a patient, orderly queue around the nearby stalls, accepting Ronnie’s allocation of a pound per customer to give as many people as possible a share.