‘Mrs Davies, this is Annette,’ he said proudly as the woman opened her door. ‘Will you come with us while I show her my home?’
‘Now in a minute,’ Gladys said. ‘I’ll have to take my potatoes off the boil or they’ll be a mish-mash – no good for the pasties I’m making.’ She disappeared inside and Annette and Willie looked around self-consciously, unable to look at each other although that was what they both wanted. ‘You look nice,’ he said eventually.
Annette stroked the skirt of the blue dress she wore, its gathered waist accentuating her rather full hips. ‘Thank you.’
Annette wondered why they were so different today. Usually they began talking the moment they met and were still thinking of things to say long after they parted. They were beginning a new stage of their relationship, no longer two separate people but a couple, with nothing they didn’t share. Both were silently, almost unconsciously accepting the fact.
Mrs Davies walked with them the short distance across the unmade road and Willie ushered them both inside, and leaving the door open, followed them in. He showed them around with modest pride, pointing out the things he had changed since his family had left.
‘You made this table?’ Annette said admiringly. ‘But you’re very clever to do that.’
‘Danny Preston helped.’
‘You wait till you see the bed he made.’ Mrs Davies’s pride in her neighbour was apparent. It was she who pointed out the painting and the renewing of floorboards and the cupboard with its shining hinges which she polished every week, and the oven range that Willie had dragged back from a rubbish dump and spent many evenings polishing. It gleamed dully in the light from the fire.
‘It’s a beautiful home, Willie.’ Annette’s cheeks reddened as they climbed the stairs to see the bed. There was a patchwork quilt over it and the wooden frame was well made and firm. As she suddenly thought of lying there beside Willie, her blushes increased alarmingly. She went out of the room hoping Willie hadn’t guessed the reason.
‘I want you to tell me about curtains,’ Willie said when they were back in the living room. ‘I’ve started making a rag rug and Mrs Davies is helping, so it won’t be long before it’s finished. Then the curtains are the final thing. Will you help? I want something really nice. Thick and cosy.’
‘It will be expensive,’ Annette warned.
‘I’ll have the money in a week or two.’
They arranged to meet at a small drapers on the following Thursday between his deliveries. ‘If we see Mam we can pretend we met by accident.’ Annette was smiling happily. Seeing his home, helping him choose curtains: what an exciting day.
Gladys Davies loved being involved in the secret meeting. She could have helped Willie choose curtains but seeing the young couple together, knew this was one time when it was better not to offer.
‘I’ll walk with you to the bus,’ Willie said as Annette prepared to leave. They waved to Mrs Davies as they set off up the green lane to the park.
As they approached the park gates they could hear the sound of a brass band and soon saw a small crowd, listening to hymns and occasionally joining in with the well-known words. Willie led her past and when they were out of sight, he leaned forward and kissed her.
Startled at first, she soon warmed to the new sensation. Her arms, from hanging limply at her sides, moved slowly up and around him, feeling his lean frame pressed against hers until the kiss filled her entire body. They walked closer together when they broke away and their pace slowed even more as they were reluctant to reach the end of the tree-lined path and face strangers once again.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Willie’s voice was hardly a whisper and her own sounded freakishly low as she replied, ‘Yes, Willie. Tomorrow.’
The bus came too soon and she turned in her seat to watch until he was no more than a memory, before facing the front and wondering what would happen when her mother found out. She relaxed, thinking of the kiss and decided that Willie was resourceful enough to cope. She could rely on him completely.
Phil Spencer’s van was passing the bus as Willie and Annette were saying goodbye. Ada saw they were holding hands and from their expressions, in the brief glimpse she had, they were not meeting for the first time. She’d better have a word with Willie. There was no possibility of Dorothy allowing a romance to develop between her daughter and an errand boy. When she explained to Phil he laughed.
‘Spoilsport you are, Ada Owen! Leave them be. If they love each other nothing will stop them getting together and if they don’t, well, there’s no point in you messing up their fun, now is there?’
‘It won’t hurt to have a word with him,’ she protested.
‘It’ll do less harm to say nothing. Thinking no one knows is part of the magic. Love is wonderful and it enhances every sight and sound, every moment of every day. Leave them be.’
‘You’re very poetic today.’ Ada glanced at her companion, who seemed to have his eyes everywhere except the road.
‘Love does that. I should know, I’m in love myself.’ As Ada turned and looked at him, he grinned, winked broadly and added quietly, ‘With you, Ada Owen, soon to be Ada Spencer, with you.’
‘You’re daft! I don’t know you well enough to call you a friend, let alone consider marrying you!’
‘What’s taking you so long? I knew ages ago!’ He began to whistle merrily and when there was a verge suitable for parking, he stopped the van and turned in his seat to face her. ‘Well? Will you marry me?’ His thin face and bright eyes staring at her in such concentration made laughter threaten. ‘I promise I’ll give you all you need and most of all you want. And plenty of laughter too. What more can you want?’
‘No, Phil. I can’t marry you.’ Then the laughter died in her and she saw only a man who wanted her and was offering to share the rest of his life with her. But it was ridiculous. ‘I don’t love you, and—’
‘Not this week perhaps, or even next week, but soon you will, although tomorrow wouldn’t be too soon for me.’ He still spoke in his nervous chatter as if they were discussing nothing more exciting than where to drive next. ‘We’ll let Cecily get her “do” over first, I suppose, then we’ll plan ours.’ He moved closer to the stiff, startled Ada and kissed her. First on the cheek then, as she turned to protest, he held her head in gentle hands and kissed her lips. A low moan escaped him and she felt moved and in moments had fallen under the spell of his urgent caresses. They didn’t drive for several minutes and when they did she was limp with shock and confusion.
When she walked into the shop, Cecily looked alarmed, seeing the bright glow on her sister’s face. ‘Ada? What’s happened? Are you ill?’
‘Nothing terrible.’ Ada’s lips broke into a smile so devastatingly lovely that her eyes seemed lit from within. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said, and ran from the room.
Phil Spencer had ideas far above his ability to earn. The need for money was a constant problem and never as much as now, when he knew he wanted Ada for his wife. Ada’s family were hardly rich but they were used to having all they wanted and they only wanted the best. How could he expect to win her if he couldn’t compete financially?
Phil had always cheated, both in his limited school career and in the small business he had built for himself after a brief apprenticeship with an old man called Prosser. When old man Prosser died, Phil had muddled through, managing to hang on to the business, through many mistakes and disasters, learning as he went, and the only way he survived was by cheating.
He charged for less than he gave, giving the impression he was woolly minded about money and prone to mistakes. That way any complaints could be put down to absentmindedness rather than dishonesty. He sometimes asked for and got a second payment for some distant and half-forgotten order. He also stole on occasions when calling at houses for settlement of an account; a small item here and there, selling to a jeweller who was even more dishonest than he.
All this was not for personal greed – for himself he need
ed little to be content – but the conviction that his role was that of breadwinner for his mother and, hopefully in the future, a wife. If he married Ada he wanted to provide everything. That was the man’s role. He encouraged his mother to be generous in everything, and to keep a ‘good table’. He made it clear that she only had to ask and he would provide. He would do the same for Ada. She would want for nothing while he was responsible for her welfare.
He felt a glow of pride as he imagined how he would feel when she walked down the aisle to where he waited, and in an ancient and beautiful ceremony changed her name from Owen to Spencer.
‘Lovely girl, always ready to laugh,’ his mother said as he went back into the house.
‘I’m going to marry her,’ he replied. ‘Whatever I have to do to win her, Ada Owen will one day be my wife.’
Chapter Eight
WALDO’S GROCERY STORE was larger and more important than the one owned by Cecily and Ada. The smells were different too. Lacking the smell of fresh fish and kippers and the salt fish that appeared on many breakfast tables, the strongest smells were those of delicious, freshly ground coffee and the appetizing smell of smoked bacon, which the girls didn’t stock. Cheese, too, because of the larger amounts sold, filled the busy shop with mouth-watering aromas.
Waldo’s customers had a far greater choice than Cecily could provide and would wander from the provisions side to the grocery, pausing to examine the displays of new items. A new biscuit one week, offers of exotic tinned fruit another, or even a table filled with several cheeses from which bite-sized tasters were offered.
There were two bent-wood chairs close to the two counters and these were used by those intending to recite a long list of requirements to be delivered later in the day. The seats were well polished and Waldo was frequently asked to provide more, but he declined. Two chairs close together would encourage people to stay and chatter and once they had given their order he wanted them out and on their way to make room for others.
The shop was quite noisy. The machine for grinding coffee was a frequent rumble as customers bought the beans from the sacks on display and waited while they were ground. The raisin-stoner was another grinding rumble that the assistants hated, the machine being a tedious one to clean but which was in frequent use. Knives being sharpened and the whirring of the overhead wires sending money across to the cash desk near the door, together with the hum of a dozen conversations, gave the shop a special symphony of its own.
Waldo loved it. He worked in an office through the window of which he could look down on the shop floor, but he frequently left the paperwork in the capable hands of his two clerks and walked around his empire, as he jokingly called it, talking to customers and encouraging the busy assistants with a kind word.
Below the shop were other rooms, sparsely fitted out but a hive of activity. Down there grey-coated figures kept the shop supplied, boning bacon and hams, preparing the large blocks of butter and removing the hard, encrusted muslin from the huge rounds of cheese. Two boys spent a part of each day cutting sugar paper to wrap dried fruit or rice or dried peas, which were sold with a steeping tablet and the muslin bag in which to cook them.
Foodstuffs were weighed and placed in the centre of the piece of paper and carefully folded with the ends tucked in. Then they were carried up to the shop to replenish the shelves, each product in a different colour so needing no labelling.
One morning, Waldo had just returned from the bank when he was greeted by a voice he always tried to ignore. He quickly hid the scowl that threatened and said, politely, ‘Hello, Dorothy.’ He gestured towards the counter. ‘Is someone looking after you?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you, Waldo. I only want some decent bacon for Owen’s breakfast. I have to do some shopping at Cecily’s, being family, but Owen is very fussy about his bacon and there’s none as excellent as yours.’
Waldo smiled inwardly. Considering he supplied Cecily and Ada with their bacon, he could hardly agree, but he nodded politely. ‘Not at work today?’ he asked. ‘Not ill, I hope?’ He began to move away, tactfully suggesting he had things to do, but something made him stay.
‘A day off,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been into Cardiff to check on something. Something personal.’ Lowering her voice she added, ‘It was about a birth certificate.’
‘A birth certificate?’
‘Yes, Waldo. I couldn’t find out what I want to know and now I have to write to London.’
‘Well, good luck with whatever you’re doing.’ He frowned as he moved away, then braced himself for another of his least favourite customers. ‘Mrs Price-Jones, how nice to see you. How are you?’ he asked, hoping she wouldn’t tell him.
‘Worried, Mr Watkins. I’m worried.’
He only half listened, trying to edge away from her as she explained about her son’s intention to marry Cecily.
‘I admire the woman, Mr Watkins, but Gareth and she aren’t suited. A mother knows these things.’
Dorothy hadn’t left the shop and she heard the words, eavesdropping without difficulty in spite of the general hubbub. She waited for Gareth’s mother and Waldo watched then as Dorothy led the woman out to have a cup of tea and discuss it. He was frowning, wondering uneasily what Dorothy was planning.
He spent the rest of the day in his office but did little work. When he left at closing time he was still anxious and two spots of colour on his cheeks made him look almost feverish. He drove slowly to his house overlooking the sea and, after greeting Melanie, went into his study and poured himself a whisky. ‘Damn Dorothy and Mrs Price-Jones with their long, quivering noses,’ he muttered angrily.
‘Ada,’ Cecily said one morning, ‘we are going to buy a van.’
‘Are we? Is this something to discuss or have you already decided?’
‘What d’you mean?’ Cecily looked startled seeing the tightness of her sister’s lips and the warning glitter in the grey eyes. ‘Of course we’ll discuss it. I only said it that way thinking aloud.’
‘Oh, I see. So you meant what do I think of the idea of buying a van?’
Cecily put a hand on her sister’s arm and looked at her apologetically. ‘It came out wrong, that’s all. I saw Waldo yesterday when you were out. He and Melanie came to take Myfanwy to the park. He suggested we buy a van to save Willie’s time and provide a better service.’
‘Who will drive it?’ Ada sounded slightly mollified.
‘Willie.’
‘Perhaps Phil could teach him? They live near each other and Phil has been driving for a while.’
‘Yes, we’ll ask him.’ Cecily had already asked Peter Marshall to both sell them a van and teach Willie to drive it, but she thought this wasn’t the time to mention either. She felt guilty. She should have discussed it with Ada before telling Peter to go ahead and get a vehicle. ‘Is it all right, then? Shall I ask Peter to find a good van for us?’
‘If Waldo thinks our finances are secure, I agree we should. But I want to drive too. We could use it on Wednesdays and Sundays sometimes to take Myfanwy out. She loves the beach and trips out into the country and we rarely take her.’
‘She has plenty of trips with Waldo and Melanie as well as Bertie and Beryl. We shouldn’t feel guilty at not taking her ourselves. We work long hours and trying to fit in more outings would make it harder to manage it all.’
‘You’re right, we do work hard. It seems an age since we had a really good night out. What d’you say we ask Beryl and Bertie to have Van on Wednesday? Not a night out, but there’s a tea dance and they can be fun.’
‘Oh yes! We’ll go! Just the two of us.’
‘Won’t Gareth mind?’ Ada asked.
‘Of course not. He isn’t jealous like – some would be.’ She was thinking of Danny and felt a stab of pain. ‘Gareth will be pleased I’m having some fun.’
‘We do need a change,’ Ada said excitedly, ‘and we won’t be late back.’
‘And first we can talk to Peter Marshall and see about us buying a van!’
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In many ways it was the wrong time to buy a van. Willie was constantly busy as trade on the beach was working up to its height and it was enough for him to do to keep their customers supplied and manage the routine work around the yard and the shop. He finished very late most days, then went with either Peter or Waldo and occasionally Phil Spencer for instruction on driving. To add to his problems, Waldo and Peter agreed on the way the vehicle should be driven but Phil confused him with advice. He began to accept most of Waldo and Peter’s teaching but with a few of Phil’s tricks for getting through a congested area.
‘If you shout and sound the horn, and look scared stiff as though your brakes have failed, and drive an erratic course threatening to slice off a few legs with your mudguards, it usually results in people forgetting any arguments about who has right of way and make room for you – fast!’ Phil advised with a laugh.
They still kept the horses, and were looking for a field in which they could spend their days. Willie, as a very young man, had started by using a bicycle to deliver locally and then been promoted to the horse and cart. Now he was driving a motor vehicle. He loved it, although he missed the warm friendly animals, and was soon confident to drive on his own. Their customers now had an excellent service with phoned orders delivered in minutes. Peter Marshall seemed pleased to help too and even delivered a few orders to rival cafe owners in his Riley. It was a summer they all enjoyed.
Peter had become very friendly with the sisters but had not let slip about the regular meetings between Willie and Annette. One day, when he called to pay his account, he told them he’d bought a second cafe at the other side of the beach.
‘Extra business is fine but it’s damned hard work.’ He smiled at Cecily, who he thought looked tired. ‘You look as if you could do with a day out. What about me taking you to Porthcawl? I want to size up the beach trade there to see if it’s worth me renting a place next year. What about next Sunday? And young Myfanwy, of course.’
Goodbye to Dreams Page 13
