‘Upstairs in bed. As is Helen.’
The relief on Esme’s face was palpable. She drew heavily on her cigarette. ‘If you hadn’t given Joe the car, the chances are Larry Murton Davies would have asked him to stay over. He has a sister two years younger than Joe. Emily’s a debutante; she came out in London, has been presented to the queen ...’
‘I couldn’t give a damn about debutantes. We’re talking about Helen.’ He noticed Esme’s hand was shaking and realised Helen wasn’t the only one in shock. ‘In my opinion the police only advised me not to take it any further because of the name Murton Davies.’
‘Knowing Helen, nothing happened. That girl over-dramatizes every situation.’
‘She took a dress from the new winter ball gown collection. The blue beaded strapless ...’
‘You allowed a girl of that age ...’
‘I allowed her to do nothing, Esme. I didn’t even know she had it. It was torn off her – the police would like to believe accidentally, caught on Murton Davies’s watch strap, although I have my doubts. Jack Clay saw her half naked, struggling with Murton Davies, assumed the worst and waded in.’
‘And who is Jack Clay to come to Helen’s defence?’
‘It appears he was with her.’
‘Idiot girl has absolutely no people sense. If I’d had my way we would have moved out of this street years ago and then there would have been no way that Helen would even know Jack Clay. It’s obvious she set out to make an exhibition of herself. And Joe risked everything ...’
Helen hugged her knees to her chest as she crouched against the boarded-in banisters on the first floor and listened as her mother’s voice grew more and more piercing in escalating anger. She could hear every word as clearly as if she had been in the lounge and the tirade confirmed what she had suspected for years. That her mother didn’t love her or care what happened to her – that she only cared about Joe.
‘Helen?’ Joe loomed in the doorway of his room, a shadow only fractionally darker than the gloom of the landing. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Listening,’ she confessed wretchedly.
‘They’ll calm down.’
‘Mam won’t, not this time.’ She began to cry, softly, weakly, as the events of the night finally hit home.
‘Come on, back to bed.’ Joe helped her from the floor and led her into her bedroom. ‘It won’t seem as bad in the morning.’
‘Yes, it will. You saw all those people staring. Everyone thinks I’m a slut.’
‘They won’t when I’m around, because I’ll set them straight. And I’ll sort out Larry. Murton Davies or not, he won’t get away with what he did to you tonight.’
‘If you fight him, it will only make things worse. He thought I was one of those girls you can buy. Nothing can change that.’
‘He was drunk; he didn’t know what he was doing. He made a mistake no one will ever make again, I promise you.’
‘You can’t look after me for ever.’
‘I won’t have to. People soon forget gossip, Helen.’
‘Not gossip like this.’
‘Get some sleep. You’ll be able to put everything into perspective in the morning.’ As Joe closed the door on his sister he reflected that unfortunately Helen was right. No one loved a piece of salacious gossip more than Swansea people. The older generation would tut-tut and shake their heads. Young girls would be warned to stay away from Helen – and boys? If his friends’ behaviour was anything to go by, they’d give her a wide berth in public and try to get as close as they could to her when no one was looking, in the hope of seeing even more of her than the crowd had down the Pier.
Silence, grey and intimidating, hung over Carlton Terrace as Brian, Martin and Jack rounded the corner.
‘I don’t start work until Monday,’ Brian began hesitantly as Jack walked on ahead.
‘So?’ Martin whispered, conscious of the noise of their footsteps reverberating over the pavement.
‘Maybe we could do something tomorrow. You could show me Swansea. I have a bike. You could ride pillion.’
‘I don’t know what it’s like in Pontypridd, but round here coppers aren’t everyone’s favourite people. It doesn’t pay to be seen with one.’
‘I thought after Cyprus ...’
‘You thought wrong. Didn’t you see the way your colleagues stared at you when you sat with me tonight? Roy Williams tried to warn you off, but you wouldn’t listen.’
‘We’re mates.’
‘Coppers don’t have mates, especially mates called Clay. If you don’t believe me, look at the way Jack was treated.’
‘We had to be sure of the facts.’
‘Can you look me in the eye and tell me honestly that the facts played any part in Jack’s release? What happened back there was one big cover-up by the people who can afford monkey suits.’
‘Jack’s free.’
‘Only after a grilling, and if someone had persuaded Helen to say that Jack, not the other boy, had attacked her Jack would be in a cell right now.’
Brian fell silent. He wasn’t proud of what had happened to Jack in the station but he had also been extremely glad that he hadn’t been dragged any further into what could have turned out to be a very messy case. ‘So that’s it,’ he said finally, ‘two years’ friendship down the drain, just because I’m a copper.’
‘That’s it, but thanks for what you did tonight,’ Martin muttered grudgingly as he followed Jack down the steps to their basement.
Chapter Seven
Katie stirred restlessly in the bed as someone tried the front door. Seconds later there was a knocking. Sitting bolt upright, Katie whispered, ‘Lily?’
‘I heard the key turn, so it’s either Brian or Auntie Norah,’ Lily reassured her as she stepped out of bed and pulled her dressing gown over her pedal-pusher pyjamas.
‘You’ll ask who it is before opening the door?’ Katie’s voice was hoarse from the tears she had shed earlier.
‘Of course.’ Opening the door, Lily switched on the landing light and ran downstairs on bare feet. The hall tiles were icy to the touch and she wished she’d stopped to find her slippers. ‘Who is it?’ she called out, trying to decipher the shape through the stained-glass panel.
‘Brian Powell.’
She drew back the bolt on the door and opened it as far as the chain would allow.
‘Do you always lock your lodgers out at night?’ He blinked against the light and the sight of Lily: prettier in her dressing gown with her face scrubbed clean of make-up and her dark hair loose, tumbling round her sleep-flushed face, than she had been dressed up in the ballroom.
‘Auntie Norah had to go to hospital with Katie’s mam and Uncle Roy is working, so Katie and I are alone in the house.’ Releasing the chain, she pulled her dressing gown high around her throat and retreated to the foot of the stairs.
‘Well, you don’t have to worry now.’ He stepped inside and took off his coat. ‘I’m here to protect you,’ he added facetiously.
‘Auntie Norah left bread, ham and cheese on the kitchen table for your supper. She asked me to tell you to help yourself to anything you want, but I think she’d appreciate it if you put what you don’t eat back in the pantry.’
‘Thanks for the warning but although I grew up in Pontypridd I was brought up in a fairly civilised manner.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting ...’
‘I know you weren’t, Lily. I was teasing. Now go back upstairs before you catch your death.’
‘Goodnight, Brian.’
‘Goodnight,’ he called after her. ‘Did you say Katie was with you?’
‘Yes.’ She turned back, glad she wasn’t alone in the house with him. There was something unaccountably disturbing about his dark good looks.
‘You can tell her the trouble has been sorted. It was all a misunderstanding; there’ll be no charges, and Jack and Martin are already home.’
‘Thank you.’ She raced upstairs and into her bedroom, closing the door as
Brian went into the kitchen.
‘I heard him tell you about Jack and Marty. Ow, you’re freezing,’ Katie complained as Lily crept in besides her, still wearing her dressing gown.
‘Sorry, but it’s cold out there.’ Lily sat up as she heard Brian on the stairs. He walked past their door and into the front bedroom. ‘He couldn’t have eaten anything. Auntie Norah will be disappointed. She thinks all men have appetites like Uncle Roy.’
‘Do you like him?’ Katie asked.
‘I don’t know him, but I do know that Judy really wanted to go home with him.’
‘He seems nice, a bit like Martin. Do you think Jack really hurt that boy?’
‘No more than he deserved to be hurt,’ Lily pronounced decisively. ‘I think he was trying to attack Helen before Jack jumped on him.’
‘I was afraid Jack might have to go to gaol.’
‘For helping Helen?’
‘You always want to believe the best of everyone, Lily. Didn’t you see the way people were looking at Jack? He’s been to Borstal. Everyone thinks he’s a bad lot ...’ Katie faltered as a tear rolled down her cheek.
‘I don’t think Uncle Roy or Brian believed Jack was in the wrong for a minute, but they couldn’t say anything down the Pier because policemen have to be seen to be impartial. I told you not to worry.’ Lily hugged Katie’s thin shoulders. ‘Uncle Roy can sort anything. Remember the time Jack got caught stealing cigarettes? Uncle Roy cleared it with Mr Phillips so all Jack had to do was apologise and deliver papers for a month.’
‘Mr Phillips even kept Jack on afterwards and paid him for his paper round, but beating up a boy who can afford a dinner jacket is a bit different from stealing five Woodbines.’
‘It’s all over now.’
‘Do you think Helen will still talk to us?’
‘After wearing that dress tonight it’s more likely to be the other way round,’ Lily murmured, recalling her aunt’s tight-lipped comments about their friend. ‘But there’s no use in worrying about things we can’t do anything about.’ She used one of her uncle’s favourite expressions. ‘Let’s try to sleep.’
‘I won’t until your Auntie Norah gets back with news of Mam.’
Lily lay back on her pillow and tried to think of something they could discuss that would take Katie’s mind off her family. ‘What did you and Adam talk about?’
‘The army. He and Marty were together for a while.’
‘Did he ask you to go out with him?’
‘No, but he offered to take me home.’
‘I’m sure he would have asked you to go out with him if he had brought you home on the train.’
‘I’m not. He was nice and everything, but he wasn’t like Joe Griffiths with you or Brian with Judy.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Gooey-eyed.’
‘Joe wouldn’t give a girl like me a second glance. He has his university friends. You saw him in that dinner suit.’
‘And the way he was watching you. Helen’s right, I’ve never seen him look at any girl the way he looked at you tonight.’ Katie snuggled further down under the covers. ‘He’s bound to ask you to go out with him.’
‘That doesn’t mean I will.’
‘Why not? He’s good-looking.’
‘Good looks aren’t everything. Would you go out with Adam if he asked you?’
Katie recalled her mother’s face when she was carried into the ambulance, her father’s crude and casual brutality. The noises that came from her parents’ bedroom the nights he didn’t work, her mother’s weak cries, her father’s angry shouts. ‘No,’ she whispered into the darkness. ‘No, I don’t want to go out with anyone.’
‘Not ever, not even with Adam Jordan?’ Lily asked in disbelief.
‘Not ever,’ Katie echoed. ‘All I want is a good job and a small flat of my own – perhaps not my own. I could keep house for my brothers, especially Jack. He needs someone to look after him, not like Marty.’
‘You’ll change your mind when you meet the right boy.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Katie maintained solemnly. ‘Some women are meant to be spinsters and I’m one of them.’
‘I’ll talk to you in five years when you’re married with three children.’
‘I won’t change my mind, Lily. You’ll see.’
Jack glanced around the kitchen. ‘It’s not like Mam to leave this place in a mess.’
‘Constable Williams told me Mrs Evans took her to hospital and rather than leave Katie alone here he thought it best she spend the night with Lily.’
‘Why?’
‘Dad came round and gave Mam another beating. Constable Williams knows there’s no saying what Dad would do if he came back drunk and found Katie here alone.’
‘We shouldn’t have left Mam.’
‘That’s what I said to Constable Williams, but as he pointed out, we can’t be with her twenty-four hours a day.’ Martin walked through the kitchen and opened the door into the passage. His parents’ bedroom door was open. His father lay face down on the bed, snoring, his muddy boots spreading filth over the faded rayon eiderdown. Fighting his initial urge to haul him off the bed and beat him to a pulp, Martin closed the door quietly and returned to the kitchen.
‘The old man in?’
‘Yes, which is why I’ll be out of here first thing tomorrow.’ Taking a teacloth from the drawer in the kitchen table, Martin began to dry the dishes his mother had stacked on the wooden draining board.
‘If you find a place ...’
‘When, and as soon as possible, I’m moving you, Katie and Mam out.’
‘And if Mam won’t go?’
‘After what happened tonight, I’ll make her.’
‘Want some tea?’ Jack picked up the kettle.
‘I want to talk. Why the hell did you arrange to meet Helen Griffiths outside the Pier tonight?’
‘Like I told you and your copper mate, she said she wanted some fresh air.’
‘You only had to look at what she was wearing to know she was trouble. Every other boy there gave her a wide berth.’
‘I felt sorry for her.’
‘That’s rich, a Clay feeling sorry for a Griffiths.’
‘As you said, no other boy would go near her – or girl that I saw. She was by herself most of the night. You were with Lily, Katie was with Adam, Judy had gone off with your copper friend ...’
‘So you decided to go to her rescue.’
‘I didn’t know things were going to turn out the way they did.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if you go looking for trouble.’
‘Not me, I like the quiet life.’
‘That’s not what I’ve heard. Do yourself a favour, Jack, stay away from Helen Griffiths.’
‘That’s one warning I don’t need. After tonight I wouldn’t touch her with a septic barge pole.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Martin stashed the last of the dishes in the rickety dresser and flung the towel on to the stand. ‘I’m for bed. I don’t suppose you fancy creeping into Mam and Dad’s room and filching the alarm clock? I want to be out of here by eight.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘I’ll go round the newsagents and read the cards in the windows to see if there’s any adverts for rooms to let.’ He looked around the kitchen. ‘Furnished if possible. We don’t want to take anything from this place. There’s memories here I’d like to bury once and for all.’
‘Want some company?’ Jack asked tentatively.
‘Yes – yes, I would. If we split up we’re bound to find something by the end of the day.’
‘I’ll get the clock.’
Esme didn’t bother to knock at Helen’s door in the morning. She walked straight into her room. Still in her pyjamas, unwashed, hair uncombed, Helen was curled on her windowsill. ‘I know all about last night. What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘Nothing,’ Helen whispered so quietly that her mother didn’t hear her.
‘I asked you a question,
Helen.’
‘The boy attacked me ...’
‘By boy you mean Larry Murton Davies?’
‘That’s what Constable Williams called him.’
‘Whatever he did, you led him on. You do realise that, don’t you? It’s entirely your own fault. You took one of the most expensive dresses from your father’s warehouse – a dress totally unsuitable for a hop down the Pier. You set out to expose yourself and ruined the dress in the process. And you haven’t a single word to say in your defence. Have you any idea of the damage this will do to our reputation as a family, not to mention yours?’
‘The doctor ...’
‘Carried out a medical examination, your father said.’ Esme sat on the end of Helen’s bed and reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. ‘It appals me that the police thought that necessary. They obviously had you down as a streetwalker and, believe you me, men don’t court or marry streetwalkers – or girls who’ve been the subject of gossip.’
‘I didn’t mean for it to happen.’ Helen burst into tears; she simply couldn’t help herself, although she knew they wouldn’t have any effect on her mother. Esme had always regarded any kind of emotional display as a sign of weakness.
‘No doubt, but from what the police told your father, half of Mumbles saw you naked last night. What’s the use of a doctor certifying you’re untouched when you’ve made an exhibition of yourself? And to think of all the advantages your father and I gave you. Private school, coaching, dance, music, art and elocution lessons – I had hoped that you would learn to mix with decent people and in time marry the right kind of man, but that has gone by the board now. Any man who gives you a second glance will have only one thing on his mind and it won’t be an engagement ring.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Helen choked out between sobs.
‘Yes, well, it’s spilt milk and that’s for sure. Your only hope is to stop going out, except to work, that’s if they’ll still have you. In six months or so ...’
‘Six months!’ Helen stared at her mother, aghast at the suggestion.
‘At least that.’ Esme flicked her ash into a cut-glass hairclip tray on Helen’s dressing table. ‘And in the meantime just hope and pray this doesn’t affect Joe’s reputation – because if it does, I won’t ever forgive you.’
Swansea Girls Page 11
