Unlocking the Past

by Grace Thompson

  “Did you know Mam is trying to find her long-lost sister?” Caroline said as Rhiannon poured more tea. “Lost for over sixty years, mind, but she’s realised she could still be alive, and is having one last try.”

  “How exciting. I don’t know where you’d start on something like that.”

  “There’s a village called Cwrt y Celyn, and Auntie Marion worked there for a while when she was very young. She married the local policeman, so we know her married name. We even found the house where they lived, but it’s derelict and the trail’s gone cold from there on.”

  “I know Cwrt y Celyn. Gertie Thomas in the corner shop lived there. She might know something.” They discussed the possibilities for a while and decided to call and see Gertie later, when they had drunk their fill of tea.

  “You miss them, don’t you?” Rhiannon dared to say. “Your Mam and Dad, your brothers and the lively house where half the village congregates?”

  Caroline didn’t trust her voice, she only nodded. Rhiannon decided that next time she saw Eleri she would suggest she called on her sister-in-law each Wednesday, to ease the long hours of Barry’s absence.

  On Wednesdays when the shop closed at one o’clock, Gertie often went into Cardiff. This afternoon she hadn’t and was already regretting it. The hours alone behind the shop dragged on her half-day too, and again on Sundays, now she didn’t have old Maggie Wilpin to gossip to. So hearing the knock on the door and seeing Caroline, Joseph and Rhiannon there, gave her great pleasure. Over-full of tea as they were, she insisted on making more while they explained the reason for their visit.

  “I remember the farm and the frightening old man who lived there. Was he your grandfather, Caroline? Well I never did! Thank the good Lord you didn’t take after him, then!”

  “D’you remember my mother living there? And her brother, Adrian?”

  “Pig of a man. Worse than your grandfather he was.”

  “And the sister?”

  Gertie wrinkled up her face in heavy concentration, but finally shook her head. “Never remember no sister.”

  “Marion, her name was,” Caroline coaxed. “Older than Mam. She ran away when she was eleven.”

  “Best for her, poor dab.”

  Gertie’s face had a faraway look as she remembered the atmosphere of secrecy and rumours of violence surrounding the family but no amount of hinting could rouse the girl called Marion from Gertie’s memories.

  “I can see the farm, and I can picture too the old man and his son, but until this very minute I didn’t realise that the little girl who lived there and who was never allowed out to play, was your mam. Funny old world, isn’t it?” she smiled as if the remark were newly minted.

  When Caroline went to her parents’ house the following morning to deliver Joseph into their care, she mentioned the conversation with Gertie to her mother. It was a surprise to Janet that Gertie Thomas, whom she had known ever since she and Hywel had married and come to live at the cottage, had been born in the same village as herself.

  “Say something more original than, ‘it’s a funny old world’, Mam,” Caroline pleaded.

  “My old mother-in-law used to say that coincidences are more common than brown eggs, and the unlikely happens more often then we think,” Janet said.

  “Almost as bad,” Caroline teased.

  “As soon as I find a minute I’ll go down and have a good chin-wag,” Janet promised. But any hope of Gertie helping her in the search for Marion was already quashed. If Gertie remembered her father and brother and herself, yet had no recollection of Marion, it was unlikely such a memory would return. She sighed. It was all so long ago.

  Chapter Six

  Frank met Percy Flemming one evening without telling anyone where he was going. It wasn’t difficult. Ernie was off meeting that Helen Gunner, or doing a deal of his own. Whatever Ernie was at, he wasn’t giving a thought to what he, Frank, was doing. It hurt. Close friends they’d always been. He nodded a vague cheerio to his mother and went out. Mam and Dad would presume he was going to The Railwayman’s, so they hadn’t bothered to ask. The place Percy had chosen was a bit cloak-and-dagger he thought, with slight irritation. A corner of a field in which Farmer Booker sometimes kept his young steers.

  He walked up the lane almost silently in his rubber-soled ‘daps’ and after he had gone a few yards, he realised that someone was following him. If this was Percy having a bit of fun at his expense he’d be very sorry. He stopped and melted into the soft branches of a fir tree. The footsteps came on and he clenched his teeth. “Get ready for a shock, Percy Flemming,” he muttered. The footsteps continued to draw near but in the gloom of the evening, there didn’t appear to be anyone there.

  His heart leapt into his mouth and he tensed himself for flight. As he was about to burst out of cover he recognised the unmistakable scent of goat.

  “Ermintrude!” he whispered. “Scared me half to death, you did!”

  The goat who seemed to think she was a dog, had broken out once again and followed him. It had taken the goats less than three days before they found a way out of the enclosure Hywel had made. The next attempt had been cleared in a few hours. They seemed to treat it like a game, the challenge of outwitting Hywel was great fun. Frank greeted the friendly creature and was rewarded with an exuberant welcome as the goat danced around him in delight. He found a piece of string in his pocket and tied up this newest member of the family, and sat to wait for Percy with a silly grin on his face.

  “I didn’t expect you to bring a friend,” Percy chuckled a few moments later.

  They walked back in the direction of the Griffithses’ house as Percy presented Frank with his plan, or as much of it as he was willing to tell.

  “It’s a factory storeroom,” he said, “where they keep the orders ready for dispatch. I’ve got everything set up, the dates when the contents will be worth taking, when there’ll be money held to pay wages too. And I have a driver standing by as well as someone to take the goods off my hands.”

  Frank felt his knees weaken. It sounded very high-risk stuff, a long way from pinching one of Booker’s pheasants. “What d’you want me to do, then?”

  “I want you to open the gates and dispose of the watchman.”

  “Don’t talk daft, man! How am I to get rid of a nightwatchman?”

  “Put him to sleep or distract him. Do it any way you like, but make sure he isn’t around to blow the whistle on us when we go in.”

  “I won’t hit anyone, mind! I couldn’t. Our Basil’s a night watchman.”

  There was a pause. “I know.”

  “When is this to happen?”

  “I’ll tell you where and when on the night, you’ll have details when we’re on the way and not before. Not a word, right?” Percy began to walk away and Frank called after him.

  “I’m not sure, Percy—”

  Percy darted back and held the tall man by the front of his jacket and glared up at him. “You’re in, boy, and there’s no way you can change your mind, right?”

  “All right. But is that all you’re saying? I still don’t know what you want me to do!”

  “Unlock the gates, that padlock chain looks easy to snap, then make sure the watchman isn’t watching. That isn’t difficult, is it? And,” he added, “leave your friend home.” As the night swallowed him up, Frank heard him laughing.

  This was out of his league, Frank knew that much. He had been satisfied with selling a few rabbits and pheasants, and “lifting” an item when the opportunity arose to make a few shillings. But this was serious thieving. The smell of prison seemed to surround him as he walked home through the clear night. Mam and Dad had supported him throughout his various brushes with the law, but would they help him through this if it all went wrong? But in spite of his fears the thought of having fifty pounds in his hand was intoxicating. That, and the thought of getting one over Ernie.

  After returning the goat to her pen, he set off again. Walking across the fields to The Railwayman’s, he tho
ught about his attitude towards Ernie and his girlfriend, Helen. A part of his resentment was the fear of being on his own. All his life he’d had a willing partner with Ernie, whatever he had planned. He had never been without company either, never without someone to listen when things were good, or console him when his plans weren’t going smoothly.

  There had been girlfriends in the past, but they had never been important enough to separate him from Ernie, in fact the choice of girls to take out was decided by whether or not there were two of them. Now it seemed likely to change and Frank wasn’t ready for it.

  He walked into the bar and stared in amazement. There, behind the counter, pulling a pint like an expert, was Jack Weston.

  “No, I haven’t been sacked and no, it isn’t a part-time job,” Jack pre-empted him. “I was curious, that’s all. I wanted to find out how to pull a pint. Right?”

  Frank chuckled. It sounded as though Jack had been called to explain himself time and again. Serve him right, larking about on the wrong side of the counter. He found himself a seat beside Viv and Basil, called for a pint and snapped his fingers at Jack for service. Jack’s response was another gesture, even less polite.

  “Want to earn some money?” Jack called across during a lull in serving.

  “Don’t be daft, when do I not?” Frank replied. “But you aren’t getting me behind no bar, mind. Disorientated completely I’d be, behind there.”

  “I’m buying a house. We need someone to do a bit of decorating.”

  Frank groaned. Wallpapering he could do without. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s wallpapering,” he began, but he hesitated. It might be a good idea to accept. If he had money it was a wise move to have some way of accounting for it. “All right, I’ll come and see you at the weekend.”

  Ernie came in just before stop-tap and they walked home together across the fields.

  “Jack wants me to do some decorating,” Frank said.

  “I’m in if you want help,” Ernie said. “I need a bit of extra money.”

  “I guessed as much, you going off and doing deals on your own. You haven’t started gambling have you?”

  “No, and I haven’t been doing deals without counting you in, either!”

  “That’s what you tell me! Using that Helen Gunner as a cover, even bringing her to the house to meet Mam.”

  Normally a fight would have ensued, but Ernie shook his head and replied, “I haven’t, Frank. I guessed that’s what’s been eating you. I wouldn’t do anything without telling you. When you saw me in the van, Helen was with me. I made her duck down out of sight, afraid of leg-pulling.”

  “Bet you’ve never been invited to her house!”

  “They wouldn’t have me,” Ernie said and as Frank began to laugh, he joined in.

  Frank believed him and was ashamed of his lack of trust. For a moment he was tempted to tell him about the deal he was doing with Percy Flemming, but he didn’t. Getting on the wrong side of Percy wasn’t recommended. “Serious is it, you and this Helen?” he asked.

  “It could be. I feel different about her. But it won’t stop us being mates, will it? I mean, we’ve both known that one day things would change. But you and me, we’ll always be a partnership. I wouldn’t like that to change, Frank.”

  “Of course it won’t. We’ll still work together on anything that crops up, won’t we?” They walked the rest of the way in silence, Ernie thinking about Helen, and Frank thinking about Percy Flemming and wishing he could get out of his involvement.

  * * *

  Caroline felt all hope of a true marriage slipping away. And worse, having once mentioned it to her mother and been told to try harder, she felt unable to bring up the subject again. Once being a part of a loving family, and living in a house where loneliness was impossible, moving to Sophie Street and spending hours alone at the flat was hard to take. Barry was always out on photography appointments and Joseph went to bed at seven. The flat was more like a prison than a home. Wednesdays, like today, were worse. She looked ahead and was threatened by a life of unhappiness.

  She looked out of the window and saw Rhiannon closing her front door. She knew she would look up as she passed and, seeing her, would wave. If only she would stop and spend a part of her half-day with her. She didn’t feel able to ask. Once having been engaged to Barry, Rhiannon could hardly be expected to forget her role in ending it and become a close friend. She watched as the girl approached and was already smiling as Rhiannon looked up. On impulse she opened the window and called, “Time for a cup of tea, Rhiannon? I’d be glad of your company.” To her relief, Rhiannon stopped and unlocked the shop door.

  Caroline was in the kitchen filling the kettle when Rhiannon’s footsteps came lightly up the stairs.

  “I was going for a walk, why don’t you come?” she announced. “After the tea of course!”

  “Joseph would like that, if you’re sure you want company,” Caroline hesitated.

  “We could go to the beach if you like. It’s not cold.” Then she changed her mind. “I’ve got a better idea, let’s go to the lake and have a cup of tea in The Rose Tree Café with Mam.”

  Dora was pleased to see them, and as usual, went first to talk to the little boy. She found them a table in the corner and served them with a set afternoon tea. The café was busy, as the sun had shown itself and encouraged people out for a walk along the lakeside and to the beach where the wind always blew and brought colour to cheeks, and an appetite that had them looking for tea and cakes.

  Walking back to Sophie street, Caroline felt happier, more relaxed and when she went into the flat she began to prepare a meal with a lighter heart: one of the hated Wednesdays was almost over. She could cope well enough with evenings, there was plenty to do after a day at work, and the hours soon passed, even though she found them lonely and quiet. But the days when the wool shop closed at lunchtime, and meant five more hours to kill, were dismal.

  Perhaps she ought to plan something similar on every half-day? Wednesdays were becoming more and more a dread. A little housework and some cooking then watching the clock and wondering how many hours before Barry would come in. Then excitement when he arrived which soon degenerated into dismay at his silence and lack of interest. Leaving her mother after picking up Joseph, and walking home to the emptiness of her own home on Wednesdays was more and more daunting. Using the half-day to give herself a small treat would stop the spiral of dread.

  The meal was ready for six o’clock but there was no sign of Barry. She put the meal on top of a saucepan of water and put it to simmer on the cooker. The gravy would soon shrivel and dry up around the edges, but she admitted to herself that she didn’t particularly care. Barry could have left a message if he’d known he’d be late.

  * * *

  Barry was in The Railwayman’s. He was sitting at the bar and, as it was too soon for any of the others to arrive, he was talking to Jack.

  “How’s business?” Jack asked him.

  “Bad. No parties, no special need for portraits, and there seems to be a lull in weddings at the moment,” Barry said dejectedly. “It’ll pick up again later, for sure. Something about tax back if you marry before the end of the tax year gave me a rash of weddings up to the beginning of April, now there doesn’t seem to be anyone out there with plans to wed.”

  “There’s Victoria and me, and Joan and Viv. Both in August.”

  “Very fat that’ll keep me, won’t it?”

  “Us, Barry. You don’t say ‘me’ anymore. You have Caroline, you should be saying us. I take great pleasure in thinking about Victoria and saying, ‘us’.”

  “Caroline’s my wife, but it doesn’t seem like we are a ‘us’, Jack.”

  “I thought you’d decided to make it work?”

  “That was the plan. But I think she still loves my brother.”

  “Of course she doesn’t! See it in her eyes we could that it’s you she wants. What went wrong?”

  “Apart from getting drunk and passing out on the d
ay we’d decided to call our wedding day, you mean?”

  “That can’t have done irreparable harm!” Jack laughed.

  “She didn’t come to bed the night we came back home to the flat. I woke up during the night and she wasn’t there. I went down and she was washing the floor. Can you believe that? She stayed up and did some washing and then she unpacked the rest of her things and stacked them in the cupboards, and scrubbed the kitchen floor. Not very flattering, Jack, coming second in importance to a kitchen floor.”

  Jack looked thoughtful. “Coming from such a lively family as the Griffithses, Caroline’s surprisingly shy. I think she depended on you to do all the running. If you showed even the slightest indifference she’d convince herself you were only marrying her for the child’s sake. She has very little confidence. A bit like Victoria. She’d been my grandmother’s maid, for heaven’s sake. And my grandmother is Gladys Weston! How’s that for a handicap?

  “I had to make Victoria believe I really loved her and wanted to marry her, and did she take some convincing! Still does. Like thistledown, our plans are. One puff of disapproval from my family and she wants to run away and hide. I’d never give up on her, though. And I’ll never stop reminding myself how much she needs my reassurance.”

  “You think that’s what it is with Caroline?”

  “It won’t do any harm to let her know you love her, will it?”

  “You’re getting sentimental, aren’t you?” Barry was about to tease but something in Jack’s expression stopped him. He added quietly, “She might put me down.”

  “So what? She won’t make it a public announcement will she? No one else would know. But somehow I don’t think she will.”

  The bar was filling up and Barry sat in the corner, his thoughts in turmoil. He imagined scenes where Caroline welcomed his advances, running towards him with her arms wide and welcoming, her brown eyes filled with love, and then those scenes were replaced by others in which she stared at him coldly and turned away. Perhaps he had left it too late?