‘I haven’t decided what I’ll do,’ he said. He looked at her and she widened her eyes, trying to look calm and appealing and utterly sensible of his dilemma. ‘Sheila, I’m sorry for all this.’
‘Rice pudding or fruit?’ she demanded.
They ate the rest of the meal in silence.
Sheila was out of her depth. She didn’t know what to say to Maurice or how to behave. He followed her into the kitchen after the solemn meal was thankfully over, congratulated her on her cooking skills, and said she was looking well: small talk, unnatural small talk. She tried to think of amusing things to tell him about what had been happening to her and the people he knew but everything seemed dull and unimportant. He didn’t offer any information about what he had been doing and the conversation attempts all ended in failure.
She wanted him, and wondered if there was anything left of the attraction she had once held for him. His face held no clues. He looked tired and suddenly, unable to resist, she said vehemently, ‘Pity you couldn’t even be bothered to shave before coming to see me.’
‘I’ve been walking around half the night and all day, trying to pluck up courage,’ he said.
‘I’ve never considered myself frightening and certainly not dangerous to a big man like you, Maurice.’ This was better, a bit of bantering might lead them into some kind of conversation.
‘Can I come and see you again tomorrow?’
‘If you like. I’ll be working all day, mind. But you can meet me after the shop closes.’
‘Do you have to go in? Can’t you ring up and tell them you’re sick or something?’
For a moment she was tempted, but she shook her head. Best not be too eager. She didn’t want him to think she was here waiting for him without him having to at least do some courting.
‘Please, Sheila. I want to talk to you. I’ve been so miserable.’
‘And what about me? Left here to face them all, having a baby on my own, seeing faces turned against me, blaming me – yes me, Maurice – for ruining Delina’s wedding.’
Her high voice fascinated him, just as it had when she had first attracted him. He hardly heard the words she was saying. He wondered if, after all the mess, there might be a chance of them trying again. She looked at him and saw a slight smile on the stubbly face and hit out at him, a small hand against his muscular chest. He caught hold of her hand and held it.
‘Forgive me, Sheila. Stay home tomorrow, tell your boss you aren’t well, and we’ll talk.’
‘No, Maurice, I can’t let them down.’
He reached for his coat and put it on.
‘I’ll be at Mam’s if you change your mind.’
Sheila threw the fancy night-clothes off her bed and sat down against the pillows. She wouldn’t sleep, there was no chance she’d even close her eyes after such an evening. She wished she had asked him to stay. She was entitled, they were man and wife and she wanted him, needed him in her bed.
Perhaps she would telephone from the box on the corner and tell her boss she was ill. The monthlies, they were always an acceptable excuse for being ‘unwell’, no one asked any questions about that. She reached for her diary to see when she was last ‘unwell’, flipping through the empty pages, days in which nothing had happened worth recording.
Then her face blanched, her blue eyes widened with shock. Her period was due five weeks ago. Surely she wasn’t expecting again?
Chapter Eleven
Hilda didn’t enjoy working at Tolly’s, the local name for The Plough. She had expected to be offered the job of barmaid but being employed as a cleaner made this unacceptable. Even when she went into the bar after her work was finished, dressed in her new clothes and with her hair and nails immaculate, she was still Hilda the cleaner, and although she realised that the work was easy in comparison with the hours spent behind the fish and chip shop, she would have to find something better.
Working in the mornings gave her plenty of time to look for something else and having made up her mind, that was what she did. After going home to change her clothes she went into town day after day, applying for jobs. She decided to be bold and even entered the glass doorway of the gown shop where Sheila had once worked, but without success.
There was an old gramophone at home, the wind-up instrument having escaped her wild sorting and throwing out of most of her furniture, because of the beautiful oak cabinet in which it was housed. One day she wandered into the record shop and stood listening to the faint sounds coming from the cubicle where customers stood to listen to their choices.
On impulse she asked the manager if he had a job for her. He did and she was taken on to begin the following week. Gleefully she went to Tolly’s to tell them she would no longer be their cleaner, and went home contented. Her life was falling neatly into place and the problem of how to deal with Griff was still months away. She would work four and a half days at the shop, with Monday off and Wednesday a half day, and still have time to spare to enjoy herself.
* * *
The Saturday morning, early in January, was bleak and the hills had a look of unmelting winter about them as Nelly shepherded the two children up Gypsy Lane to the camp beside the road. They were invited inside the small neat vardo and, to Margaret’s delight, were shown how to make some of the flowers the gypsies sold to make a few pennies to eke out their money until the farm work began again in the spring. Her fingers weren’t as nimble as Clara’s but she soon managed to produce a flower that, if not as good as the others, at least good enough to take home for her mother.
‘Why are the gypsies so kind to you, Nelly?’ Margaret asked as they walked back down the lane clutching the flowers they had been given. ‘Mam says they keep to themselves, that means they don’t like visitors, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, it’s on account of my Norman Birkett, ’im what died under a London bus. ’E was a gypsy, but for Gawd’s sake don’t tell my Evie I’ve let on. She ’ates to think ’er father was anything less than a duke!’
‘You mean my real grandfather was a gypsy?’ Oliver’s eyes glowed with pleasure.
‘Yes ’e was an’ don’t you go lettin’ on or Evie’ll ’ave me guts fer garters. An’ don’t tell ’er I said that neither!’ Nelly laughed.
‘Will you tell me all about him one day?’ Oliver asked, still wide-eyed with wonder. Nelly promised that she would.
* * *
Amy was inundated with offers to help her with her garden. Although it was too early to do more than some digging, she often went home from the shop to find Billie had cleared a patch ready for planting or Victor had delivered some soil or some shrubs. They would leave notes in her letter box and she began to chuckle as she approached the door each evening, wondering which of them had managed to think of something else to do to please her.
‘Billie just won’t take no for an answer,’ she laughed as she told Mavis about the rivalry, one morning. ‘And Victor is afraid I’ll change my mind.’
‘And will you?’
‘No, it’s Victor I’ll marry if anyone. Not Billie, lovely as he is. Shame, really. If he’d accept what I say, he might look elsewhere. We could have a double wedding, that would be fun, wouldn’t it? A double wedding in Hen Carw Parc?’
‘Just so long as you didn’t end up marrying the wrong one!’ snapped Mavis.
‘Like your Sheila did?’ Amy asked softly. ‘What’s happening with her and that Maurice? Any chance of them trying to make it work?’
‘How would I know? Sheila doesn’t tell me a thing, never has.’
‘Where’s he staying?’
‘With his mother. Ethel says she’s tried to make him go back to Sheila, but I doubt that. Her youngest son, her baby, I doubt she’ll want him to go.’
‘You’re wrong there, Ethel would want him to be with his wife.’ Amy spoke more sharply. Whatever Mavis’s troubles were with her daughter, it wouldn’t help to put blame where it didn’t belong. ‘Have you tried to bring them together?’ she asked.
‘Sh
eila won’t let me do anything.’
‘Why not ask them to dinner then go out and leave them to talk? It’s talking they must do for sure.’
Amy hoped her anxiety didn’t show. She had a strong concern for the fate of Sheila and Maurice’s marriage. More than she dare admit, she wanted them to come together and live as man and wife. Perhaps then her son Freddy would get over his obsession and find a girl of his own who would love him, not use him, as Sheila was doing.
* * *
Sheila’s reasons for wanting Maurice to accept her as his wife were even stronger than Amy’s. Days passed and still there was no sign of escape from the awful truth. She was expecting another baby. If only she had been strong for a few weeks longer. But Maurice’s writing to tell them he wouldn’t be home after all had seemed the very end of her hopes. Freddy wanted her so much and his desire had fired her own. What had happened between them had been inevitable, but disastrous. What could she do?
She saw Maurice often. After that first uneasy interview she had begun to call into Ethel’s on the way home after work. Sometimes he was there and other times Ethel would explain that she didn’t know where he was to be found. On these days she would hurry up the hill hoping he would be waiting for her.
After several disappointments she began to wonder where he went and came up with the thought that it was probably Delina he was spending time with. She put on her best, off-white swagger coat and under it wore a tight skirt with a bright red jumper to match the lining of the hood. Then she walked down to where the Honeymans lived.
She saw him standing there and walked up to him and asked: ‘On your way to see me, were you?’
‘Oh, hello, Sheila, where are you going? Somewhere nice? You look very smart.’
‘I thought you said we have to talk? How can we talk if I’m at home and you’re standing here like a tom cat on the prowl? She’s engaged to marry Tad, Maurice, and in case you’ve forgotten,’ she added huskily, ‘you are married to me.’
Her voice revealed no anger or disappointment, her eyes showed a hint of tears as she looked up at him with unhidden love and admiration.
‘All right, Sheila, none of this is really your fault. I’ll come back and we’ll talk.’
They talked as they walked to her house, but nothing was decided. He agreed with her comments but made no offer of a solution.
‘Give me time,’ was all he said. ‘I need time.’
How much time he had already had seemed too obvious to point out. How little time she had before the truth about her condition would be impossible to hide was too dreadful to think about.
* * *
Nelly complained that since the advent of television there were fewer meetings and social evenings in the village. The enthusiasm of the villagers, gardeners and non-gardeners alike changed all that, for a while anyway.
During February, Bert Roberts and Billie seemed to be involved in some gathering or other every evening.
‘It’s worse than fire-watching during the war,’ Brenda Roberts complained one morning when they met in Amy’s shop. ‘No sooner does Bert swallow his meal than he’s off to discuss some idea or other with Billie. There’s another meeting this evening would you believe? At the usual venue The Drovers of course! This time about the number of window boxes and hanging baskets per house. And the meetings never end ’til stop-tap!’
Nelly nodded sympathetically and planned an easy meal for that evening so she could join in the discussion.
‘You comin’ Amy?’ she asked as Brenda left the shop.
‘If Margaret will come with me, love. Although I want to leave the planning of my garden to Freddy, if I can persuade Billie and Victor to stop using it as a battle-ground!’
‘Still fightin’ over you, are they?’
‘I’m afraid so. I’ve told Billie clearly that I won’t marry him but he still hopes.’ She laughed, her earrings twinkling in the artificial light. ‘Just think of it, talk about bountiful blessings. For years I had no one, no one that was free anyway, now there’s Bachelor Billie and Widower Victor.’
‘’Ang on, Amy, there might be another one on the horizon. Everything goes in threes so they say!’
* * *
It was George’s idea that they pooled the contributions to the fund. That way no one felt unable to compete. The meeting that evening was to distribute flower seeds and cuttings to those able to protect them from the weeks of frost to come.
‘I’ve got seventeen geranium plants in me back bedroom,’ Nelly announced. ‘What I want is some flowers to put with ’em.’
‘My Catrina would like some petunias,’ Phil said.
‘To add to what we already have in hand, my wife would like some mesembryanthemums, calceolarias, and some ageratum,’ Timothy said in his precise manner.
‘She would!’ was Nelly’s hoarsely whispered comment.
The demands and suggestions went on, with Bert trying to write everything down, frustrated as usual by the fact that although he had borrowed a gavel with which to bang on the bar, no one took any notice of him.
Nelly was given drinks by Billie and Victor, both of whom hoped to get her on their side in the fight for Amy. Sheila turned up in the hope of seeing Maurice and was also given a drink, out of sympathy for the way Maurice was behaving. Amy arrived having left Margaret with Delina and Tad brought along a list of materials he had been promised from the factory where he worked.
‘There’s some material to line the wooden boxes we’re making for the window sills,’ he reported, ‘and some barrels which we can cut down and fill with plants.’
‘I’ll have a couple of those,’ the landlord shouted. ‘The bigger the better. I’ll be one of the first houses the judges’ll see remember.’
Sheila sat sipping the drinks that kept appearing in front of her and watching the door for Maurice to arrive. When he did it was almost nine o’clock and when she half-stood to greet him, she felt her head spinning. She rarely drank and sitting here, absorbing the sympathy, she hadn’t realised how much alcohol she had also absorbed.
Best not to attempt to talk to Maurice now, she thought. What if she began to stumble over her words. She didn’t want him to have any excuse to criticise her or the way she lived. Pushing aside the last two glasses and nodding to Nelly to suggest she might like to finish them, she stood and walked with the infinite care of the unstable to the bar.
‘Get me a taxi, will you?’ she asked the barman, handing him twopence for the phone.
She went outside to wait having failed to exchange even a glance with Maurice and as the wind was chill she huddled against the wall for shelter.
Light shone on the surface of the car park as the door opened again. A figure came out and stood, lifting his collar high, adjusting the trilby hat on his head.
She held her breath. It was Maurice.
Now there was a chance to talk she daren’t. She knew she would sound drunk. Hardly daring to breathe she waited until the taxi came from the direction of Llan Gwyn and turned to pull up near the door. Without glancing in the direction of Maurice, she ran to open the door and slid inside. The door on the other side opened as hers closed. Maurice slipped in and gave her address to the driver.
She hesitated to speak, although the cold air and the surprise of Maurice following her out had made her feel less fuddled.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked as the car sped along the wet road towards the village.
‘Going to your mother’s, are you?’ she said and to her relief her voice sounded normal, high-pitched and, she convinced herself, quite musical.
‘No, Sheila, I’ve put this off long enough. I think we should have that talk, don’t you?’
At once her body was swamped with emotions and sensations of loving. In her mind she was already in his arms, felt the warmth of desire flooding through her veins, she remembered surrendering to the passion of his kisses the thoughts coming vividly to her mind and taking her far from the smoky, stale-smelling taxi. She w
as transported to the trees which were the usual scene of their loving, the warm, sweet-scented summer grass, the cold, crisp winter countryside, magical places as fresh in her memory as if they had happened yesterday not over a year ago. She had to persuade him to come to her bed. She had always been able to persuade him in the past and she didn’t think her body was less voluptuous now than it had been then.
He was looking at her, in the reflection of the few streetlights his face was dark and mysterious and she realised she hadn’t replied.
‘Talk, Maurice? If that’s what you want, we’ll talk.’
* * *
Victor walked up Nelly’s lane with Amy, Nelly and George. His arm rested lightly on Amy’s shoulders. Having to walk up and collect Margaret meant that even if she had wished, Amy had to refuse the lift Billie offered her in his Land Rover. Hugging her close, he touched her cheek with a secret kiss unseen by Nelly and George, but the sharp-eared Nelly had guessed from the slightly stumbling footsteps and shouted back, ‘Come on there, no snoggin’ in the back row like a couple of kids. Can’t you wait ’til you get ’ome?’
Margaret and Daniel were quietly reading when they reached Victor’s house. Delina, too, was sitting with her head in a book. Of David there was no sign.
‘Where’s David?’ Victor asked as he went in and found Amy a seat near the dying fire.
‘Gone to bed,’ Delina answered.
‘I think I bore him, Uncle Victor,’ Margaret said with a wry smile. ‘I offered to play ludo or snakes and ladders, but he said they were boring, too.’
‘Cheeky young pup—’
‘It’s all right,’ Margaret smiled. ‘I said I was happy to read, and he lent me this.’ She showed him a book about the adventures of ‘Romany’, a man who lived in a caravan and wrote about the countryside. ‘After I told him about my visit to the gypsies near Mr Leighton’s farm. I think he might like to come with Nelly and me one day.’
Valley in Bloom Page 15
