The Weston Girls

by Grace Thompson

  “Oh, I love you calling me Mam.” The excitement in Dora’s eyes could have been mistaken for anger, but in fact she was happier than she had been for a very long time. She had something to think about instead of sitting waiting for Lewis.

  * * *

  On Saturday evening, Rhiannon stepped out at the dark street and felt the chill wind before locking the shop door and hurrying home three doors away. It was too cold to stand and stare out over the distant sea as she once had. That was before she had started work at Temptations, when she had run the home while her mother went out to work.

  Although the wind was whipping along the street like a knife, she saw that old Maggie Wilpin was sitting in her doorway, wrapped in a blanket and waiting. But for what, no one really knew.

  Her mother was out, there was a note for her to find herself something to eat. Barry had an appointment to take photographs at some function, Viv was at a dance with his friends, she had the house to herself.

  But instead of staying in and enjoying the rare peace and solitude, she ate a sandwich and went back to the shop. There were several jobs needed doing. At this time of year, Mondays weren’t quiet enough to allow time for other than routine cleaning.

  Letting herself into the shop which, with its window blind down and the door locked, looked small and friendly, she leaned through the door leading to the stairs and listened, wondering if Barry was up there getting what he needed for his evening’s work. All was quiet.

  She began cleaning the top shelves and bringing down the spare boxes of sweets stacked there. Changing the displays took longer than she expected and it was almost half-past eight when she turned off the light to leave. She stood for a moment and felt the comforting thought of it being her own domain. She was only twenty but responsible for running the shop, making a profit and keeping the books in order. She smiled in the darkness. When she and Barry eventually married there wouldn’t be need to change a thing. She was building it up for their future.

  Thoughts of being married to Barry held her a moment longer as she day-dreamed about them sharing their lives completely. A car pulled up outside and she unlocked the door before realising that footsteps were heading towards her. She saw Barry’s van then, and she pulled the door wider and stepped forward to greet him. He hardly acknowledged her presence as he pushed past to go up to the flat. Hurt rapidly changed to anger. Now was a good opportunity to remind him they were supposed to be engaged. He was sure to have forgotten she was going with Jimmy.

  “Barry. I’m glad I caught you. What time will you call for me on Friday?” she said sweetly.

  “Friday?” he asked. “What’s happening on Friday?”

  “The Weston’s party of course. Really Barry, you’re getting absent-minded!”

  “But I can’t, at least I can, but—”

  “Don’t say you’ve forgotten you asked me? You have! You’ve arranged an appointment haven’t you?”

  “No, but I’ve promised to take Caroline. You can come as well,” he added as she began to take a deep breath to complain. “I thought we could all go.”

  “You didn’t think anything of the sort, Barry!”

  She hadn’t altered her arrangement to go with Jimmy, but she didn’t intend to let him off the hook by telling him. “So, you’re letting me down again, Barry Martin. What am I supposed to do, catch a bus there and walk home?” she shouted. “You didn’t think of me at all! You’d forgotten all about me. You didn’t even think of taking me! I cancelled my arrangement to go with Jimmy and you’ve forgotten me!” The lie, she felt, was a justifiable addition to her anger.

  “Caroline needs a break, Rhiannon. She rarely goes out and it took a lot of persuading for her to agree. Joseph goes to bed without trouble and her mother will look after him. She needs a bit of fun in her life.”

  “Pity for her! And what about me then?”

  “You’ll be with us, I just thought she’d enjoy a night out. Her brothers will be there and—”

  Pushing him aside, Rhiannon shouted more insults mainly on the subject of his peculiar attitude to a woman whom he was supposed to be divorcing, and ran back to the house.

  Across the road, in her doorway, Maggie Wilpin pulled the coat tighter about her shoulders and watched with interest. From the open door behind her, music on the radio announced the end of The Archers Omnibus.

  * * *

  On Sunday Rhiannon telephoned Jimmy to check that he was still taking her to the party. Uneasy with the thought that she was leading him on unfairly, she showed irritation when Barry called as she was helping to set out their midday meal.

  “I wondered if you’d like to come with me to the Griffithses’ later, to see Caroline and young Joseph. About seven? He’s usually allowed to stay up later on Sundays when everyone calls.”

  “No, I’m too busy,” she said ungraciously. “Now go away, I’m listening to Billy Cotton’s Band Show.”

  “If he’s more important than talking to me,” Barry retorted.

  “He is!”

  “Well, I’ll be leaving about seven if you change your mind. Basil and Eleri will be there, they always go over on a Sunday evening and Basil leaves there to go straight to work.”

  She showed him out and immediately wished she had been less rude. “I’ll go down at seven and start the evening off well by apologising to him,” she told Viv, Lewis, and Dora – who had been listening in the kitchen.

  “Best for you, you bad-tempered idiot,” Viv said. “You’re always glad to see Eleri and baby Ronnie aren’t you? And Joseph is a nice little chap.”

  “If he had asked me to go and see Eleri, I wouldn’t have been so angry.”

  “You like Caroline, don’t you?”

  “I did, until Barry began to make it clear he prefers her company to mine!”

  “Rubbish,” Viv snorted.

  But Rhiannon wasn’t so sure.

  She went to a lot of trouble over her appearance and went down to the sweet shop at seven, but the place was in darkness, no light shone from the flat above. She even unlocked the shop door and called up the stairs to the flat, but Barry had gone. She debated whether to walk over to the Griffithses’ lonely house or go back home to sulk. Remembering the attack on her a few weeks before she decided that sulking might be childish but would certainly be safer and more comfortable than a walk across the fields on a December night with the cold already nipping at her feet.

  * * *

  At the Westons’ house, Viv had arranged to meet Jack. Victoria wasn’t there to answer the door, which was opened by Jack himself. Putting on a squeaky voice Jack asked for the caller’s name and told him, “Please to wait in the ’all while I finds the master.” Shoving him good-naturedly out of the way, Viv went in.

  Their task that evening was to climb into the loft and seek out the Christmas decorations. Jack was the tallest by several inches so he climbed onto Viv’s shoulders and heaved himself into the roof space. Handing down boxes to Viv, they found all they needed and began to plan how they would use them to make the hall Gladys had rented for the party look its festive best. Most were old, having been bought pre-war and repaired several times.

  “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of bunting,” Gladys told them. “Victoria is making some at this moment.”

  “Where is she?” Jack demanded.

  “In the attic dear, using my old sewing machine.” When Gladys had gone to make some tea, they went up the short flight of stairs which led to a room over the front of the house and found Victoria cutting triangles from old clothes and sewing them on to tape to make bunting.

  “This is breaking Grandmother’s heart, all this economy,” Jack said after greeting Victoria. “Before all this trouble she would simply have arranged for someone to do it all and sat back waiting for the day to arrive.”

  “That’s what she’s doing now,” chuckled Victoria. “I’m making the bunting, Viv’s mother is doing the food, and you are putting up the tables and decorations in the hall. All your gr
andmother did was write the invitations.”

  “She’s right, Jack,” Viv said. “So get on with it, sort out them trimmings and take a deep breath for blowing up all them balloons.”

  “We haven’t got to do that, have we?”

  “We? Not me, mate. Your name is on every one.”

  Jack began handing Victoria the flags for her to fix on the tape. “I’d forgotten this old sewing machine.”

  “They’re very handy. One would save Mam a lot of time, the boys are always through the seat of their pants, and making cot sheets from old ones takes a long time.”

  “I’ll ask Basil if he can get one.”

  “No, Jack. We haven’t paid for the other furniture yet. We can’t afford one.”

  “A gift,” he pleaded.

  “No,” she said firmly. “Thank you for your kind thought, but no.”

  “I want to buy her things, Viv,” Jack said when they were walking home a few hours later, having seen Victoria safely back to Goldings Street. “She has so little and it costs hardly anything to get her the things she needs. Everyone is in a spate of chucking out old stuff and buying new these days. After so many years being unable to buy anything new, most want a change. You ask Basil, there are dozens of bargains to be had. I reckon I could furnish a house for fifty pounds. Good quality items too.”

  “Thinking of setting up home then, are you? Who’s the lucky woman?”

  “Don’t be soft, man. I was thinking of people like Mrs Jones.”

  “There’s one way you could persuade her to accept what you offer her,” Viv said. “Marry the girl.”

  “Don’t be soft,” Jack repeated.

  “Oh, I see. Not grand enough I suppose.”

  “It isn’t that. I’m far too old for her! She’s only sixteen.”

  “Not too grand, but too old? Now there’s a thing. I wonder what she’d think of that.” He looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “My father and Nia Martin wanted to marry each other years ago but thought the age difference was too great a hurdle. Look where that bit of stupidity has led us.”

  It was just after eight o’clock and Viv was pleased with the way he had casually left at just the right time to meet Joan. She had made the excuse of visiting a friend and was waiting at the bus stop near the park. The night was cold and frost glistened on the fence posts and made the occasional stretch of pavements slippery. Pleased with the excuse to hold Joan close, Viv suggested they went to the beach.

  “In December? In the dark?” she laughed.

  “Only fools would do such a thing so we’re unlikely to be seen,” he said. “Most people are indoors watching the Sunday night play on the television.”

  If there was a moon, dark clouds had hidden it from view and the darkness was only broken by the faint light on the edge of the waves. If anything it was colder at the sea’s edge and they ran across the deep sands to warm themselves. Finding a sheltered spot where they could sit for a while, Viv was allowed to put his arms around Joan.

  “Only to keep ourselves warm,” she warned in her acerbic manner. “No ideas, mind.”

  “You can’t stop me having ideas, Joan love. Not even the Westons can do that.” He pressed her against him and was content to breathe in her special scent and feel her heart beating close to his own.

  They were later than usual and he watched as she went indoors to tiptoe up the stairs and hope her parents didn’t hear.

  He didn’t hurry home and it was just after eleven as he turned into Sophie Street and saw Barry.

  “Hi, Barry. Our Rhiannon was looking for you earlier. Dressed up sharp as sharp she was, mind, so I hope you didn’t forget a date.”

  “Oh God. She didn’t change her mind and call for me, did she?”

  “About seven it would have been.”

  “Look, Viv, do me a favour will you? Tell her you saw me but at nine o’clock, not past eleven?”

  “What have you been up to then?”

  “Nothing, but if she knows I stayed this late with Caroline she’ll think I have been. I’ll tell her I came home at nine, sounds a lot better than eleven.”

  Viv shrugged amiably. “If you like. It’s no skin off my nose.”

  They stood and talked for a while outside Temptations then calling goodnight they each went home. Viv to number seven and Barry to the flat above his mother’s shop.

  * * *

  Since breaking up with Terrence, Megan found time hanging heavily. The time she had been spending with him seemed to leave great gaps in her day that defied all efforts to fill.

  On that Sunday evening before her grandmother’s party she was with the Griffithses. Using a casual request from her grandmother as an excuse, she had called to ask what time Eleri and Dora wanted to have the key to begin their display of food the following Friday.

  As usual, the place seemed to be having a party of its own, with Basil, Eleri and the baby, Caroline and Barry and baby Joseph. With The Railwayman’s closed, it being Sunday, Hywel, Frank and Ernie were there as well. The place was crowded and filled with lively chatter. The cheerful company had the effect of reminding her how alone she was and filled with that melancholy thought, there was tension for what she was about to do.

  She was close to tears and holding them back made her appear even more than usually stand-offish, refusing even to laugh at the nonsense coming from Frank and Ernie and Hywel. Baby Ronnie she kept well way from, frowning disapprovingly at his dribbling smile. There were whispered remarks about her haughty manner but when she said she was leaving, Frank stood and offered to walk her home. She refused briskly and rudely, and left about nine-thirty to walk alone down the dark, silent lanes.

  Stopping while still some distance from the houses on the edge of the town, and making sure no one had seen her, she scratched her long nails across her chest and hit the top of her arms with a heavy stick. She tugged at her clothes until they were torn, and, removing her knickers, hid them under a bush before scratching herself some more. It hurt. She hadn’t thought about how much it would hurt and the tears in her eyes were real. She ran home, pulling her hair out of its tidy style, and as she reached the back door, screamed for help. It was Jack who answered the door, and Joan who took her in her arms, leading her into her mother’s care. Her sobs were genuine as she gasped out the story of an attack and screamed hysterically for them not to call the police. Between getting her into a bath and trying to get details of what had happened, she was asked why she had been walking home alone.

  “Viv—” she began, before another spate of sobbing stifled her words. She had been about to say ‘Viv is usually there’, but the single word remained in the air, a reproach, an accusation.

  Joan’s eyes widened in shock and she stared in disbelief at her cousin Jack. “No,” she whispered. “Not Viv, there’s some mistake!” She didn’t tell them Viv had been with her. Better to wait until Megan cleared it up tomorrow.

  Sally gestured silently, stopping further questions. Now was not the time. “We have to reassure her and make her comfortable. If she refuses to talk to the police there’s nothing more we can do tonight.” She turned to her other daughter and asked, “Go with her, Joan, love. Try to make her talk.”

  Sitting outside the bathroom until Megan was dressed in a clean crisp nightdress, Joan whispered soothingly, assuring her it would be all right. It wasn’t until much later than Megan told her she had been attacked sexually. A lie, but at least if she were to have a baby no one would know it was Terry’s. No one would try and persuade her to marry him.

  * * *

  Jack didn’t go into school the following day. He spent the morning making enquiries, first about the whereabouts of Terry, who told him he hadn’t seen Megan since a quarrel a few days ago. At lunchtime he went to find Viv.

  The shop was about to close for lunch and Viv was thankfully alone when Jack walked in. Without a word, he punched him so powerfully Viv fell to the floor and slithered several yards, where he lay wondering what had happened. A pen
cil, fallen from his pocket rolled across the floor, the rattling sound loud in the silent aftermath of violence.

  He shook his head and stared in surprise at the blood on his hands and clothes. When he spoke his voice sounded as if it came from a long way off. “Jack?” he frowned.

  “That’s for Megan.”

  “Megan? What the hell you on about, you mad sod?”

  “Not satisfied with carrying on with Joan you have to have Megan as well. Oh yes,” he said as Viv was about to deny it. “I know all about your little meetings at the shop and at the bus stop near the park. My father has seen you there and so have I!”

  “Never had you down for a Peeping Tom, Jack,” Viv muttered, still bemused by the blow.

  Slowly, absent-mindedly, still unclear of what had happened, Viv scrambled up and when Jack ran at him again, he bent down to retrieve the pencil. He rose after picking up the pencil, so the velocity of the attempted blow sent Jack completely off balance. He found himself flying over the smaller man’s shoulder.

  “Damn it all, Viv, you aren’t bad for a little ’un,” he said grudgingly as he picked himself up.

  “What’s this all about, Jack?” Viv asked, trying to staunch the blood from his nose.

  “What time did you get home last night?”

  Viv hesitated, remembering Barry’s request for an alibi. “Nine o’clock or thereabouts. Why?”

  “Megan was attacked last night on her way home from the Griffithses’.”

  “What?”

  To Jack, his friend’s dismay and anger appeared genuine. After showing his concern by asking how she was, Viv demanded, “Where was Terry? What was he doing letting her walk home alone in the dark? Our Rhiannon was attacked along that path remember! Where was he?”

  “He’s gone from the scene. More to the point, where were you? The poor kid arrived in one hell of a state and the only name she uttered was yours.”

  “I didn’t see her last night. Dammit, I was with you!”