‘I’ll make a start on the garden soon, George,’ she announced one morning as she set off to do her few hours for Mrs French. ‘I fancy ’aving a go at fixing up one of them baskets Ollie and Billie made for us. Look nice in the apple tree it will.’
‘Please, Nelly, don’t try to do it on your own. I’ll be able to get out there with you in a few more days.’ He coughed then and she didn’t say any more. She didn’t want to worry him. But she looked at the basket and wondered if it was something she could do for herself. It would be a nice surprise for George if she could.
Nelly was becoming worried about money. While George worked they were comfortable, she had been better off than she could ever remember. Now, with the likelihood of him being too ill to work, for a few weeks at least, things were becoming very tight. She wondered if she could find an extra morning, but that seemed doubtful. She considered offering to help Bethan cut up her chips and wash her fish but she shuddered at the thought. No, there had to be a way, there always was.
The weather was a problem. Snow blocked the lane leading from Nelly’s cottage to the main road. She daren’t tell George and risk him trying to dig them out so she put on her wellingtons and, with the dogs leaping about beside her like demented frogs, she made her way up and down without him knowing her difficulty. The papers reported that the roads between Swansea and Brecon were blocked.
‘An’ that poor Princess Margaret comin’ back from Trinidad to find this!’ she sighed to Amy one morning. ‘I’d go straight back if I was ’er.’
‘Did you want something, Nelly, love, I’m just about to close.’
‘Some veg fer soup. Amy, if you ’ear’s of anyone wantin’ a few hours cleanin’ done, will you tell me?’
‘Short of money?’ Amy asked.
‘No, but with George not workin’, well, I might be soon and I wants ’im to ’ave good food and no worries.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ Amy promised.
Nelly decided to do something she hadn’t done for a long time; go into town and sell the clothes she had been given by friends and her various employers. Before George came into her life she used to save the occasional coat or dress she was given and, when she had sufficient, she would treat herself and the dogs to a day out. She would fill a suitcase with some of the better clothes, sell them at Mrs Greener’s second-hand clothes shop and have a night out on the proceeds. It was after such an evening that she had first met George.
The cupboard in which she stored the expensive clothes was in the back bedroom. For a while this had been George’s room but now they shared the same bed in the front room that looked over the garden.
George was asleep when she reached home and leaving the dogs sleeping beside him, she climbed the curved staircase and went to examine her store. There were four dresses, woollen ones unfortunately, Mrs Greener would complain that the season for them had gone. The two coats would be worth a few shillings though. One was grey with a fur collar and the other a soft blue, given to her by Mrs French in the hope she would abandon the ancient and over-sized one she constantly wore.
‘Too good to waste wearin’,’ she muttered as she folded them carefully with lots of tissue as Mrs French had once shown her.
After lunch, when George was comfortable in the armchair near the fire with the radio on and some books, she set off. The load was heavy even divided between two cases, but taking her time and without the dogs to trip her up, she went carefully down the snow-filled lane. At one point she put the cases on their side and kicked them, sending them sliding across the snow like unmanned sledges, before sinking in the soft surface. Her laughter followed them, unnaturally loud in the still air.
The elderly Mrs Greener was full of polite pleasure at seeing her but once she opened the cases, she shook her bright red hair, the old face which it framed wrinkled up in apparent disappointment.
‘Nelly, my dear, such beautiful quality as usual, but it’s the wrong season. All my clients will be looking for things for summer in a few weeks time.’
‘D’you want them or not?’ Nelly was used to the old woman’s strategy and today had little patience. All she wanted was some extra money to buy food for George to tempt his waning appetite.
‘I’ll take them from you as we’re old friends, Nelly, just wait there and I’ll find some money.’
Nelly sat in the room behind the shop where clothes racks lined the walls and shuddered. She hated this room where she had sat on so many occasions in the past, waiting for Mrs Greener to return with her payment. The sombre suits and the long dance dresses seemed to retain some ghostly spirit of past owners and she was glad when the red-headed old lady returned with her smile and a handful of money.
‘Sorry it isn’t more, Nelly, dear.’
‘So am I!’ Nelly said, returning the smile with even less sincerity. ‘See yer again I expect,’ she said as Mrs Greener bent her thin body to open the door for her.
‘I hope so, dear, such lovely quality you always bring.’
With declarations of affection and wails of disappointment that there was never time to chat, they parted, Mrs Greener a grotesque figure with her artificial hair and heavy makeup and Nelly, plump and scruffy in her wide-brimmed hat and her enormous coat fastened with a safety pin.
* * *
Maurice seemed to be making no effort to find a job. So far as Ethel knew he hadn’t approached Prue Beynon, who owned the building firm her husband had left her. Ethel asked Phil to keep an ear tuned for any likely vacancies but Phil shook his head.
‘Mam, I don’t think he wants to find work. If he does everyone will expect him to settle down with Sheila.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘That’s the problem, everything is wrong with it so far as Maurice is concerned. He doesn’t love her, Mam, and I don’t think our Maurice will settle for duty so don’t even think it. I don’t know what he’ll do, but I very much doubt if he’ll stay.’
‘Such trouble that girl caused.’
‘Fair play, Mam, it was Maurice who has to take the most blame!’
‘I suppose he was partly to blame, but that girl is trouble, there’s no pretending.’
Maurice came home that evening having spent part of his afternoon waiting for Delina to come out of school, only to see her walking to a car with someone obviously giving her a lift. Disconsolately he had then wandered through the town and, almost on impulse, called in to the employment exchange to make enquiries about work.
He came out with details of a job as an estimator for a builders’ merchants in London. Buying a writing pad and some envelopes, he wrote for further information.
He saw Nelly, carrying her suitcases, one inside the other and called to her.
‘Want some help, Nelly?’
‘Thanks, Maurice. Goin’ to the bus-stop are yer?’
‘Wherever you want, I’m not doing anything important,’ he said.
‘Blimey, you sound fed up! An’ what’s that mark on your face, left from the fight you ’ad with Tad?’
‘Yes, took me by surprise, he did.’
‘Thought that ’im bein’ small you’d flatten ’im, did yer?’
‘I didn’t know he’d done some boxing,’ he admitted ruefully.
‘What you goin’ to do with yerself now you’ve given up on Australia, go back into the army?’
‘No, I don’t think so. In fact I’ve just sent off for an interview for a job in London. But not a word to anyone mind, I don’t want Mam to know.’ His face looked troubled and younger, less confident as he added, ‘Mam has hopes of me settling down with Sheila, see, and between you and me, Nelly, I can’t face that. Sorry I am, mind, but there’s no future for us. I think even Sheila would see that if she was honest.’
‘It’s ’ard for ’er,’ Nelly said hesitantly.
‘I’ll hate to miss the competition, mind, the village is blooming isn’t it?’
Coming towards them on her way to the bus stop was Sheila, Nelly looked
at her and saw the slight bodily changes already taking place. Startled she said almost unthinkingly, ‘Yes, the village and Sheila, everything’s blooming, ain’t it.’
‘Maurice, are you going home?’ Sheila asked, her eyes shining with pleasure.
‘No, er, I was only helping Nelly with her cases. I’m meeting someone, sorry.’ Without another word he left them. Nelly wondered if he knew, whether Sheila had told him she was expecting again.
‘You all right, Sheila?’ she asked softly. She wanted to ask the girl outright but hesitated. Perhaps she was mistaken.
‘Of course I am, why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Only wondered. Does Maurice know yet?’
‘Know? Know what?’ Sheila’s face stiffened and colour suffused her cheeks, but her eyes glared at Nelly, daring her to say more.
‘I’d tell ’im soon if I was you, before he decides to buzz off again.’
Sheila went upstairs on the bus, refusing to help Nelly get her cumbersome case into the platform. Nelly sat sadly inside. She thought that once again, she had spoken when she shouldn’t.
* * *
Maurice was feeling more cheerful with hopes of a job away from Hen Carw Parc and the complications of a wife he didn’t love. He had planned a day out fishing and the weather was at last turning spring-like. He set out on his bicycle with the bag behind the saddle filled with fishing tackle and a large supply of food, the rods strapped to the cross bar. The only thing he lacked was company. At the bottom of Sheepy Lane he saw Pete Evans and called to him.
‘I’m going fishing, fancy coming?’
‘I wouldn’t mind, Maurice, but I haven’t any bait.’
‘Plenty here for us both. Come on, I’ll wait ’til you get your rods.’
Half an hour later the two hopefuls set off on Pete’s motorbike for Swansea docks in the hope of catching some mullet. Pete wasn’t the company Maurice had hoped for, he spent most of the time complaining about his mother’s carryings on with her new boyfriend.
‘Can’t blame her, boy,’ Maurice said at least five times, ‘your dad being arrested like that. It’s a wonder she didn’t do anything worse.’ He was glad when it was too dark for them to see and he could suggest they went home.
Pete agreed to take Maurice’s fishing tackle back for him and they parted at The Drovers. There he found a meeting in progress.
‘Not the gardens again,’ he groaned. A few looked up but after a vague wave returned to the earnest discussions Maurice had interrupted. Victor and Billie were arguing about some point of design. They each had paper in front of them bearing a rough sketch of Amy’s garden.
‘I thought Freddy was deciding how his mam’s garden will look,’ Maurice said, hoping to stir the argument further.
‘He is, we’re just discussing how to set out the flowers she wants,’ Victor said before returning his attention to the drawings. Attempts to join in the conversations that were buzzing around him all failed and he drank the beer he had ordered and walked home. The day which had begun with such optimism had collapsed into dull, boring nothingness.
The thought of Sheila came uninvited into his mind and the prospect of an evening with her seemed preferable to spending the next few hours with his friends. They were all either too boring to contemplate or lost to him with a wife or a career. He had been away too long. What people said about it being impossible to go back to a place once you have left seemed regrettably true. London beckoned, his youthful optimism giving him dreams of a full and adventurous life once he had shaken off the dust of Hen Carw Parc. But until then, he might as well see Sheila.
Delina had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him, although he hadn’t finished with Tad Simmons yet. He would be dealt with before he left. In the meantime, there was Sheila. He increased his pace and began to walk back through the village heading for the council houses.
* * *
Sheila had called in to see Bethan. With Maurice still showing no signs of coming back to her she was becoming anxious about the baby. Soon people besides Nelly would guess and already she knew she was giving clues in the way she automatically pulled her coat around her when she was out. And the way she tied her apron less tightly when she was home. She tried pretending she wasn’t expecting, allowing her coat to swing as she usually did to show off her generous figure to everyone who passed. If only she could pretend and stop trying to hide the barely perceptible swelling of her tummy.
It was a time when Bethan was preparing to open the shop for the evening customers, but she stopped and made a cup of tea when she saw her visitor.
‘I only called to say hello, Bethan. I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you lately, I’m so busy, what with Gran and everything. There’s Mam and Dad to keep an eye on too,’ she went on in her musical voice, her eyes rolling in exasperation. ‘They worry so much I have to make sure they’re all right. Then there’s Maurice.’ She lowered her head sorrowfully. ‘I have to see him now and again. He pesters me to go back to him, but I can’t. You understand how I fear being hurt again, don’t you?’
Bethan nodded wisely but wondered how Sheila could turn him away. ‘I wouldn’t be as strong as you, Sheila,’ she admitted. ‘He’s so handsome and after all he is your husband.’
‘We’ll go out next Tuesday evening, shall we? Perhaps to the pictures, we haven’t had a real chat for ages.’
‘Lovely. Then come back here and we’ll have supper before you go home. I’ll wait on you for a change. You deserve a treat, all that you have to do for others.’
Sheila walked out through the shop, warm and steamy with the first batch of chips about to go into the hot fat. She waved goodbye and ran across the road, knowing she ought to go and see her parents but afraid to, imagining Mavis taking one look at her and knowing about the baby.
She was passing the lych gate of the church when a shadow stretched and came out towards her.
‘Maurice!’ she screamed. ‘Oh, how you frightened me.’ She pressed a hand to her chest and leant against the fence as if too weak to stand and Maurice took her arm, full of remorse.
‘Sorry, Sheila, I thought you saw me. I waved as you came out of the fish and chip shop. I was on my way to see you.’
‘Where have you been? You smell of fish!’ She leaned towards him and breathed deeply. ‘And of the sea.’
‘I went fishing with young Pete Evans. God what a misery-guts he is, all he did was moan.’
They walked together up the lane, past his mother’s house, Sheila, confused by the darkness as they left the main road behind them, needed the support of Maurice’s arm. It was fate, she decided. Fate had guided him to her tonight so she could tell him.
Gran had eaten the casserole she had prepared before work that morning and the dish had been returned to the oven. There wasn’t much but it would do, she decided. Putting it on to two plates she sat with Maurice in the chilly kitchen, an electric fire shedding more light than warmth. She hoped Gran would go to bed early so she and Maurice could sit in comfort and talk.
Gran wasn’t tired and although Sheila hinted as blatantly as she could, the old woman refused to budge from the fire and go to her cold bedroom. Sheila tried to wait patiently but she found it more and more impossible to contain herself. He had to know and from the way he was behaving tonight, he’d be pleased. She was excited, hugging the prospect of her announcement to her and the mood made her excellent and amusing company. She made Maurice relax and her brightness was contagious. He, too, was light-hearted, having spent a dull day that had suddenly become more exciting. He told her some of his adventures in Australia and during the journey there and basked in the admiration of this not unattractive wife of his.
‘I’m glad we’ve had this chance to talk, Maurice, there’s something I want to tell you.’ She couldn’t wait a moment longer.
He looked at her recognising in her voice a hint of a changed mood. ‘Tell me something?’ he asked. It must be about the divorce. How should he treat the subject: kindly and wi
th regret, or matter of fact, cold and business-like? ‘That sounds ominous, Sheila,’ he said cautiously.
‘I’m afraid it’s news that will alter our lives once again, Maurice.’
Suddenly he knew. He looked at the faint blush on her cheeks, the way her eyes were staring down at her fingers on which she twisted her wedding ring in a nervous yet telling gesture. She was expecting again! He stood up and left the table.
‘Sorry, Sheila, I’ve just realised the time. Mam will be wondering, I was only calling in for a pint and there’s me keeping you talking all this time.’
‘But Maurice, don’t you want to hear—’
‘Thanks for the meal, it was great.’ Grabbing his overcoat he hurried from the house, blowing a kiss and slamming the door after him, shutting himself off once again from her.
Sheila stared at the door, her heart racing. He had known. He must have known. If that was so, then his attitude was horrifyingly clear, he didn’t want anything to do with her, ever again.
‘Maurice gone, has he?’ Gran called.
‘Definitely,’ Sheila sobbed.
Chapter Sixteen
After the rush of Saturday shoppers had petered out around half past three, Amy asked Mavis to manage on her own and went home. There was plenty to do if tomorrow were to be a success and although she couldn’t really decide what she meant by ‘success’, she wanted to make sure that at least the food was satisfactory.
Calling for Margaret who was staying with Evie and Timothy meant, as she guessed, that she would have Oliver as well.
‘All right, he can come back with us, but can you come and fetch him, Evie, I won’t have time once I start cooking.’ Reluctantly, Evie agreed.
The children were soon involved with her preparations and as pasties and cakes began to appear on the table of the kitchen their excitement grew.
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