The Weston Girls

by Grace Thompson

  “Well, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are on at The Plaza. And the second film is Sidney Taffler in The Saint’s Return. It’s a good programme.”

  “I think we need to talk.”

  Excitement struck in the depths of her. She knew he meant finding somewhere private and indulging in some petting. She wanted to say yes, but she held back. She knew she wanted it too much. Would she stop him when he led her too far? Each time it was harder to resist.

  “Come on, Megan my darling. I don’t want to spend the evening trying to steal the occasional kiss when the film is exciting enough to keep people’s eyes on the screen.”

  He took her hand and without allowing further argument, led her back to her parents’ house.

  Megan was remembering Gladys’s flustered attempt to tell her there was a time to be strong and a time to allow the defences to ease. “Never submit to what is wrong, my dear,” the old lady had said, trying desperately to warn her granddaughter not to send Terrence away by her coldness yet to hang on to her virginity until after the wedding.

  With desire making Terry’s presence a blissful danger, Megan’s barriers slipped in a way her grandmother would not have approved. She loosened her grip on his hand and leaned against him, her head against his shoulder, so his arms came around her and held her tightly. At the gate she hesitated, aware that from this point, there might not be any turning back. Her father was out with friends and her mother was visiting her Auntie Sian, in Trellis Street. They would be alone and without fear of interruption for a couple of hours. Two hours that might change her life.

  “Come on, love,” Terry pleaded. “We have the place to ourselves. Why waste an opportunity like this?” They stood in the garden and watched as Joan left the house, and then they let themselves inside.

  Terry’s hand stopped her as she reached for the light switch. “No, darling, wait, in case Joan has forgotten something.”

  “Terry, you’re so clever, you must have done this sort of thing before.”

  “Only in my dreams, darling.”

  Standing in the darkened room, silent, listening for the returning footsteps was making the very air sizzle. She was bewitched by the closeness of Terry, the way his body moved and touched hers. Slowly his hands began to caress her and her emotions went haywire and she was filled with an urgent and desperate struggle to achieve something her body demanded.

  The romantic dream was shattered the moment she relaxed against him and he had coaxed her to the floor. He began to hold her firmly and for a moment she panicked. Desire left her in brief panic, only to return with greater intensity. Instead of the gentle loving of which she had so often dreamed, her body was demanding and selfish. Terry’s hands were rough and impatient and as she struggled to ease her own aching desire she forgot all warnings and struggled to achieve release.

  As they lay relaxed and confused by the urgency and the suddenness of its ending, fear returned. What had she done? Frightened now, she fought against him trying to free herself from his powerful arms. His voice whispered soothingly, telling her it was what they both wanted, and that she was a woman now, a wonderful fulfilled woman. All she could think of was that the last few minutes had probably ruined her life. She no longer found Terry charming, his face close to hers had been distorted and ugly, and she hated him almost as much as she hated herself.

  Forcing back tears she pushed him away and climbed the stairs to the bathroom. Locking herself in, she began to wash her body.

  In the darkened living room, Terry sat for a while utterly ashamed and angry with himself. All the weeks of waiting for his patience and control to snap like that. He was nothing more than an animal. Tears seeped through his lashes and he made no effort to brush them away.

  After half an hour he went up and knocked on the bathroom door, but a whispered, “Go away,” was all the response he had. Promising to see her in the morning, he crept out of the house feeling like a criminal.

  * * *

  In the Westons’ large house overlooking the docks, Viv and Joan were making plans for the changes to the Wallpaper and Paint Store.

  “The samples are already available and I’ve sent for them,” Viv told Old Man Arfon. “Six plain colours and two patterned, and there’ll be more later. We thought we’d open the new department some time in January 1954, ready for the spring cleaning craze a couple of months later. But we can start accepting orders straight away.”

  “Before the new store gets the same idea. It’s important to be the first if we want the new business to continue, people are surprisingly loyal,” Joan said.

  Old Man Arfon was cautious. “Best we wait, get Christmas and the sales over first. Plenty of time to decide on this move in the spring. Around Easter perhaps, we’ll have a better idea of how things are going by then. The debts will be down and the banks will look more kindly on the project.”

  “Damn the banks! I’ve negotiated a good deal here! We’ll be getting the money before we have to pay for the goods. Taking orders we’ll be, not filling the place with stock we have to pay for. There’ll be no money standing idle with these carpets. Not like the paint and wallpaper. Can’t you see?” Viv’s temper made further persuasion impossible.

  “You’ve been thinking this out for weeks,” Old Man Arfon said pompously. “Please allow me an extra hour or two at least.”

  “We ought to do this, Grandfather,” Joan said. “And now, not next Easter. By then others will have taken the best of the business and we’ll be left behind.”

  “What d’you know about business?” her grandfather said grumpily.

  Viv stretched forward to retort but was held back by Joan.

  “I’ll think about it and tell you my decision next week,” Arfon said and stood to indicate the interview was over.

  “Tomorrow. I want to know tomorrow,” Viv said firmly. “We can’t let this chance go.”

  “All right, tomorrow, you ill-mannered tyrant!” Arfon said with a tight smile. “I’ll look over your ideas and tell you tomorrow. Now go away before I thump some manners into that red head of yours!”

  With their discussions complete, Viv walked Joan home, arm in arm, strolling casually, like the good friends they were. The house was empty and Viv waited with her, until first Sally, then Ryan returned. They talked for a while about the expansion to the family business.

  Although Ryan contributed nothing to the conversation, he listened carefully to all that was said. Bitterness filled his heart. This young upstart running the business that had been his. Carpets indeed. What a stupid idea for a paint and wallpaper shop. Arfon should never have re-employed him. He hoped every day that the boy would fail. Yet here he was, sitting in his living room and talking about his plans for expanding the business, comfortable and relaxed as if he were a family friend, and walking his daughter home like her equal. And he and Sally had to take in lodgers. It wasn’t right.

  Megan came in later, having waited until Terry had gone then walked around the town to ease her distress. She had held back tears of self-pity by the expedient of remembering how impossible it was to hide their effect.

  She told her sister she was tired and escaped to bed. When Joan came up an hour later she pretended to be asleep but her thoughts were racing. She might have a baby. She might be forced to marry Terry and she wasn’t sure she loved him. He wasn’t open about his life before he’d returned to Pendragon Island. There was a secrecy about him that she didn’t like. If he didn’t trust her with his past she didn’t think they could have a future.

  She was sure about one thing, she didn’t want to marry him – or anyone else at the moment. By morning she hadn’t slept but her plans were made. She would not be able to prevent a baby, but she could avoid marrying Terry Jenkins.

  Over breakfast, she told her parents that she and Terry wouldn’t be seeing each other any more.

  “Oh, Megan, I’m sorry,” her mother said. “What went wrong?”

  “We just don’t want to go on with something that won’t
work.”

  “I’m glad. I didn’t like him,” Joan said, “and Viv calls him a smarmy sod – sorry Mam,” Joan grinned.

  Sally began to berate her for copying someone like Viv Lewis, her father joined in, and Megan was glad her sister had taken the focus away from her.

  “What happened?” Joan asked her sister when they were alone but Megan shook her head.

  “Nothing. We just decided we wouldn’t see each other any more.”

  “Poor Grandmother. I think she was hoping for an engagement to announce at this party of hers.”

  “Well it won’t be mine! I don’t think I’ll ever marry. But we needn’t tell her just yet. I don’t want an inquest on what happened.”

  Joan looked at her sister’s sorrowful expression and asked again, “Tell me, Megan. What happened? I know something upset you, that was why I tried to take the heat off you at breakfast.”

  But Megan refused to discuss it, she was too distressed. She had committed the ultimate shame. Giving in to a man before they were wed was something she had never imagined herself doing. She could be expecting a baby. How could she tell her sister that?

  * * *

  Viv was walking to work on Friday morning a week before Gladys’s party. He was in a bad mood. Arfon had still not given him permission to go ahead with the carpets. He and Joan had spent hours mapping out their displays but Arfon was still insisting they waited until Easter. On impulse, Viv changed his route and walked past the new wallpaper shop down a side road near the Church. He sometimes looked in their windows to see if there were any new ideas which he could emulate, although, he thought smugly, they usually copied him.

  He glanced in as he strolled past but was shocked into stopping and staring. Apart from the back wall of the window, there were no rolls of wallpaper or tins of paint on display. It was filled with carpet samples.

  Squares of several colours formed a pattern and in the centre was a sign stating that it was the introduction of the newest do-it-yourself carpets.

  “Damnation!” he said aloud. “How could they have got on to it so quick? And why has Old Man Arfon dragged his heels and allowed it to happen?”

  He ran to the shop and telephoned Arfon and told him to go and look at the new wallpaper shop. “You and your waiting for the right time,” he moaned. “Lost your nerve you have. And now they’ve made us second best.”

  “Never, boy. First we are. I’ll have a look at their prices. If we’re careful and keep our prices down we can beat them yet.”

  “But we haven’t even got the window display yet and it’s Christmas in two weeks! Head start they’ll have and I know I had the idea first. They copy us with window displays and even copied my idea about setting out areas as rooms right down to the bedside lamps! There’s no way he’d have thought about it first. No way.”

  “She, not he. It’s a Miss Franklin who runs the shop and I think she’s a friend of Sally and Ryan’s.”

  “Now there’s a thought! I bet your precious Ryan had something to do with this!” Furiously, Viv rang the carpet suppliers and demanded that the samples were delivered that day.

  To appease what was likely to be a good outlet, the samples arrived and they were more than Viv had anticipated. Rolls in the various widths and every colour in the two designs. Joan was there when they arrived and Viv said to her, “We’ll spend the weekend getting the display in place and show that tinpot firm round the corner how it should be done.”

  “Are you asking or telling me?” Joan glared at him dangerously.

  “Sorry, but I’m so flaming mad. We tried to persuade Old Man Arfon to do something before Christmas, didn’t we? And he was too cautious.” He calmed down and said quietly, “Will you help me, Joan? I can’t do it on my own and besides, I need your flair. This one has got to be good. We don’t have to stock it, just take orders and post them on to the manufacturers. But we do have to make it look tempting.”

  “I wanted to spend the weekend with Megan. I think she’s upset, Viv.”

  “That smarmy sod Terry has upset her, hasn’t he? I’ll sort him if he has, mind.”

  “They aren’t seeing each other any more.”

  “Hoo-bloody-ray! Best news I’ve had all week. Saw sense, did she?”

  “I don’t know what happened but I do know she was upset and what’s worse, she won’t talk about it.”

  “Ask her to come and help us. She might open out if she’s away from home.”

  “That’s an idea. But you won’t press her, will you? And don’t call Terry a smarmy sod. It might have been he who decided to end it and she could still be wanting them to get back together.”

  “You’re right. This is a time for saying as little as possible. But if he’s harmed her—”

  “All right, we know you and your gang would love to sort him out,” she smiled.

  “Me and the Griffithses strike fear into the hearts of the ungodly!” He looked at the samples again and added, “And who ever told Miss Franklin about the carpets had better look out too!”

  Chapter Ten

  With a combination of pleading and blackmail, Dora and Eleri had managed to find sufficient food for the buffet at Gladys’s party but there was a serious shortage of meat.

  “Pasties made with onions and oddments of crusty old cheese scrounged from the grocers, and one tin of corned beef having to make thirty, the guests aren’t going to be sick from a sudden increase in meat, are they?” Dora sighed as the ingredients were gathered on her kitchen table.

  “We haven’t tried the Griffithses, Mam. I mean apart from Basil’s rabbits and the offer of a pheasant.”

  “Basil’s promise of a pheasant and a couple of rabbits is wonderful but they won’t do for a buffet. Who’s ever heard of rabbit sandwiches? No, what we need is something like ham and where are we going to get that?”

  “I’ll ask Basil,” Eleri spoke with utter confidence. If something could be found, her husband was the one to find it.

  “God ’elp, girl, you can’t expect even Basil to go out and shoot a pig!”

  Eleri smiled mysteriously and said, “You’ve never seen the Griffithses’ back shed, have you?”

  “Where Frank and Ernie sleep you mean? Two men sleeping there, it’s bound to be a pig sty, but how does that help us?”

  “Behind that shed there’s another one, the back shed. Come up with me this afternoon and we’ll try a bit more blackmail.”

  “A couple of chickens? That would be a help, goes down well a bit of chicken.”

  “Wait and see,” Eleri chuckled.

  * * *

  The Griffithses lived almost independently of the village, brought back to the ways of the previous century by rationing and the sheer joy of it. They were practically self-sufficient and Hywel felt the occasional twinge of dismay at the thought of food rationing ending and there being no further need for his prowess as a provider.

  The building behind the shed which had been converted into a bedroom for Frank and Ernie was small, and it was used for the purpose for which Hywel’s grandfather had built it, curing bacon and ham by smoking.

  Outside the family, not many knew of its existence, as few ventured outside into the untidy yard apart from a visit to the lavatory. Oddments gathered over the years – including an assortment of bicycles in various stages of decrepitude, the large bath, and the mangle used on washing day – had become a jungle through which only Hywel and Basil knew the safe way.

  The brick-built pigsty was empty – Hywel had been reported for keeping a pig illegally and the animal had been confiscated. But the smoke house was in use. Slow-burning sawdust was issuing smoke through the small hole in its roof and beside it, a large barrel released tempting smells through its bung. Suspended inside both shed and barrel were joints of ham and bacon, being smoke-cured for bartering and for the family’s winter breakfasts.

  When Eleri and Dora arrived with baby Ronnie, Eleri explained at once what they were looking for. “Some ham, for a few sandwiches so we
can charge Gladys Weston top price for our services,” she said. “It’ll be a bit fatty,” warned Janet. “The best has gone and the new won’t be ready until after Christmas.”

  “Ham? Ready after Christmas? What are you talking about?” Dora asked. And Hywel showed her, under the promise of secrecy, the home curing progress.

  “I smoke fish too. And if you haven’t tasted wild duck smoked over oak chippings, well, you have a treat in store,” Hywel told Dora, licking his lips at the thought.

  “I want this buffet to be a real success, see. If this one goes well we might be asked to do a few more. Only as favours, mind, nothing official, but later on, well, you never know.”

  “I might not be able to help for long, Mam. Basil and I want another baby before Ronnie’s two, mind.”

  “No matter, love. I’ll be glad of your help for as long as you can give it, then I’ll find someone else, don’t be worried.”

  “So either way, this first one’s got to be good, make your name,” Janet said. “Right then. Tell me what you’ve got already and we’ll see what we can do.”

  An hour later Eleri and a bemused Dora left, having been promised smoked ham, some streaky bacon for crispy bacon rolls, sausages, and some freshly baked bread rolls.

  “We haven’t started yet and already we’ve got a useful contact!” Dora said excitedly. “This first one will be expensive, aimed to impress. We won’t expect to make much, but once rationing ends we should be able to make a tidy little profit on do’s like this.”

  Eleri agreed. “I think we should be bold, appear confident, look ahead and make plans for the next, Mam.”

  “You and me working together, Eleri. Wonderful!”

  “Only for a while, Mam.”