Janet was surprised at the sudden change in Ernie. Since meeting Helen he was anxious to find work and seemed for ever to be asking around begging someone to give him a start. He had tried the woodyard and furniture factory, applied for the post of school caretaker and of assistant gardener at the hospital. He finally found a job, and came running through the yard filled with excitement to tell Janet and Hywel, “I’m going to be a bus conductor. A public servant.”
“But you can’t add to save your life, man!” Hywel said. “Public servant? Public embarrassment you’ll be.”
“No trouble,” Ernie said his eyes bright with excitement. “Teach me, they will, and I want the job so much I’ll be their star pupil, you just watch me.”
“Came in all fuss and feathers and told us he’s got a job,” a smiling Janet told Caroline later. “It’s because of that Helen Gunner. All fired up to be respectable he is. I can hardly believe it.”
“To love someone and want to work for them, that’s wonderful. I’m so pleased for him, Mam.” Caroline’s gentle smile relaxed into sadness.
“Barry worked for you, love,” Janet admonished, reading her daughter’s thoughts. “Whatever his faults you have to admit he worked for you.”
Caroline shook her head sadly. “For himself, not me. He wanted to build up a photography business. That was his dream and Joseph and I weren’t a part of it.”
It was a Sunday morning and the weather was calm. There was no wind and a weak sun bleached colours and presented a peaceful backdrop to the scene. The essence of the day, that special Sunday quiet, reminded people they didn’t have to rush to work, and many took the opportunity to stay a little longer in bed and go through the motions of the early morning rituals slowly and sleepily. Outside, where the Griffiths family often took their breakfast of toast and a cup of tea, was warm and still.
Janet and Caroline had taken the card table outside and were shelling peas and peeling potatoes ready for the midday meal and in the oven the meat was beginning to send forth tantalising smells.
They heard a van but neither looked up. It would be Frank, back for something. He was working at Jack’s house and always running out of materials. He had become forgetful in his hurry to get the job done; dashing off very early each morning and having to return to beg or borrow things he had forgotten. Paint brushes that had to be replaced because he’d neglected to wash his own. Sugar soap he’d forgotten to buy, and which he needed to wash walls. Sandpaper for rubbing down. And always rags for wiping up mess.
“What is it this time, Frank? Run out of elbow grease?” Caroline asked, without looking up.
“It isn’t Frank, it’s me,” Barry said. “I’ve come to ask you to come for a walk after lunch. There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
Caroline looked startled at seeing him. His visits were becoming less and less frequent. She looked at her mother who nodded imperceptibly before saying,
“In that case, Barry love, you’d better stay and eat with us, unless your Mam is expecting you?”
“No, I don’t go to Mam’s very often. I shift for myself,” Barry replied.
Guessing that there was something very important on Barry’s mind and hoping with fingers crossed so tightly they hurt, that it wasn’t divorce, Janet insisted on looking after Joseph.
“You go and have your talk in peace,” she said. “Hywel and I will entertain Joseph. He can help us make cakes for tea, eh Joseph? Dab-hand he is at mixing cakes.”
Barry drove Caroline to where they could park the van and look over the town and the sea beyond, in front of a small patch of woodland. They had left the van in a layby and walked through the fields where they had often walked in the days when they were married but just friends. Barry felt that a place where their relationship had been happy and uncomplicated, was the best place to discuss their future.
“I’ve sold the business,” he began, and at once Caroline’s eyes clouded with alarm. This was it, he was going to tell her goodbye.
“You’re going away?” she asked. “Making a new start?”
“Only if you’ll come with me,” he said. “Caroline, I’ve gone about things all wrong. I expected you to support me and help in the business but gave nothing in return.”
“It wasn’t easy for any of us.”
“Something went wrong right at the start and I avoided it instead of trying to put it right.”
“I was to blame,” Caroline said but Barry shushed her with a gentle hand.
“It was both of us, love. We both started off with such a handicap we couldn’t succeed. We both loved Joseph. Your Frank said we’re both carrying a sense of betrayal and he was right. You felt you were being unfaithful to Joseph and I felt I was cheating on my brother.”
“I haven’t stopped loving Joseph, I don’t think I ever will, but that’s in the past, only a memory.”
“Can we forget all that and start again? Right from the beginning I mean, courting like we’ve just met, not rushing into a double bed so we have to have Joseph between us to give us the space we both need. Just slowly and gradually, no plans, just to see where it takes us.”
“You said you’ve sold the business. What will you do?”
“I’ve got a job in the plastics factory. I started last Monday. It’s a funny sort of job, machines pressing out things like combs and hair brushes and the like, but it’s reasonable money and no evening work, so we’ll be able to do things together like a family should.”
“You did this for me?”
“For us,” he corrected with a smile.
“You’re still living at the flat?” she asked, afraid to hope that this time their rocky path might lead to something better.
“Only until you find us a place where you’d be happy,” he said. “You and young Joseph. Somewhere far from the memories of Temptations sweet shop, but not too far from your Mam and Dad. And with places to walk and play football and do all the things I neglected to do before. Will you try again, love? D’you think we have enough to make something of our lives together?”
“I don’t want to start again by making conditions, Barry, but will you promise me something?”
“Of course.”
“That if doubts creep in, we talk about everything openly and honestly.”
“That’s an easy promise to give. If we’d done that to begin with we wouldn’t have wasted so much precious time.” He stood up and offered her a hand to rise and they walked slowly back to the van. As he helped her in, Barry touched his lips against her forehead. “We have to lock away the past.”
“No, neither of us wants to forget Joseph. I think we have to learn to live with our ghost, remember him with love and affection, but make sure the past doesn’t ruin our future.”
Back at the Griffiths’s cottage, Janet had made a cake in the hope that there was cause for a celebration. “If not I can always feed it to the goats,” she told Hywel.
Jack and Victoria arrived home on Sunday, and the following day Jack had to be at school for the first day of term. They went first to Victoria’s mother’s house in Goldings Street and the whole family woke and ran down stairs to hug and kiss them both. Jack left Victoria there and went to the house he would now call home, to check that Frank and his new mother-in-law had done all he had asked and that the house was in a fit state to receive his new wife. It was six-thirty when he returned to Goldings Street to collect his bride.
They called at his parents’ house at seven, banging on the door and when it opened, standing there with Jack holding out Victoria’s hand for their inspection. Sian didn’t say a word, she just hugged them both and burst into tears. Islwyn laughed and said, “What a laugh! Well done, boy, well done.”
Jack wondered whether his father meant well done on finding such a lovely wife or well done for outwitting Grandmother Gladys! He didn’t care. He was home, and every day in the future his wife would be waiting for him when he returned from school, a prospect that filled him with joy.
Mrs Jones had done all they had asked and their pantry was filled and the house looked perfect when they went inside, with Jack romantic enough to insist he carried Victoria over the threshold. Supper was toast, which Jack burnt, and eggs which were forgotten so they stuck to the pan, as Jack kissed her.
His plan to take things slowly faded as she responded to his kisses and, switching off the gas cooker, he led her up the stairs.
Janet was so overjoyed to learn that Caroline and Barry were together again, or would be when they found somewhere to live, that the thoughts of finding her sister were temporarily forgotten. So receiving news of her was something of a shock, made more so by the way she came by it.
The long, stiff envelope sitting on the mat the day Jack and Victoria began their married life together, looked ominous. It had the certain look of officialdom and for the Griffithses that usually meant trouble. She took it through the house to where Hywel and Frank and Ernie were eating breakfast in the lazy morning sun and offered it to her husband.
“You two haven’t been up to anything, have you?” Hywel asked of the boys, his wiry eyebrows meeting in a knitted frown.
Janet watched as Hywel’s thick fingers struggled with the flap and sat as he unfolded the crisp pages and began to read. His face took on a deeper frown, then he smiled and said,
“Bad news and good, love. Your brother, Adrian, died and you inherit something or other. You have to go to the solicitor’s office tomorrow morning and arrange an appointment to read the will.” He put the letter down and touched her hands, covering their smallness with his large palms and curling his fingers around them in reassurance. “Sad to hear of a death, but don’t grieve for someone you never knew.”
“I’m not going to grieve, but I wish I’d seen him before he died, just to see if he’d changed. He might have changed, Hywel.”
“No love, he hadn’t changed. And I didn’t like to tell you but you have seen him.”
“I have?”
“Remember that man who came to look at the goats when we thought to sell them? The man you disliked so much you wouldn’t let him have the goats?”
“That was Adrian?”
“Nasty bit of work he was, you were right to stay away from him.”
“I wonder why he came? He must have known who we were. Why didn’t I recognise him? My own brother?”
“You did, love,” Hywel said softly, “You didn’t name him but you saw what he was, said he reminded you of your father, remember? You recognised that cruel streak for sure.”
“Perhaps he knew he was ill and came to say goodbye?”
“Maybe, if you can imagine him being sensitive enough to do such a thing.”
Hywel went with her to the solicitor and waiting outside the office door were two women, a small, tired-looking lady who looked about seventy-five and a woman who, Janet guessed, was in her fifties.
“Janet?” the elderly woman queried. Janet had found her sister, Marion.
Caroline found a flat overlooking the docks in a large house that had been converted into three flats. It had been given the grand name of Valencia Villa, and to Caroline it was perfect. The front rooms looked across the road towards the docks and from the back they looked out on a long garden which would be a perfect playground for Joseph.
When she took Barry to see it, one evening after work, she showed him around as if she were a saleswoman and he a prospective purchaser.
“Three bedrooms if you count the room they call a box room, and a kitchen and a proper bathroom and,” she announced as she opened the final door, “the biggest living room anyone could want!”
They stood at the bay window and looked out to where ships from every seafaring nation called, bringing food and luxuries in ships with foreign names, and foreign crews, and which, once emptied of their treasures, were loaded with Welsh coal and steel to transport it far and wide. Joseph would never grow bored with watching their comings and goings.
“What d’you think?” Caroline asked, apprehensively. So far Barry had said hardly a word. He seemed to be looking at her more than the rooms she was so proudly presenting.
“Perfect,” he breathed. “Perfect, like you.” Caroline turned to him and in an agony of shyness, revealed by the rich colour rising on her face, said, “This time I’ll try really hard to make it work, Barry.”
“We can’t fail, my love.” He kissed her and desire hardened his lips and his arms became a vice and she pulled away in something akin to fear and stared up at him, her dark eyes full of reproach.
“I’m sorry, Barry. It’s no use. I can’t belong to you, not like that.” Tears flooded her eyes and she whispered, “There have been too many difficulties.”
He walked away, leaving her in the flat. After standing in the silent room for an age, she went out, closing the door on her hopes of a marriage and a home of her own, with a loud click of the key.
The two newly-wed couples settled happily into their new lives. Joan and Viv Lewis worked together at Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint, and dreamed of further expansion. Victoria and Jack Heath – who to Gladys’s further dismay had abandoned the addition of the name Weston – were developing a pattern of living that suited them both. Victoria was content to stay at home and keep the house perfect for Jack’s return, when she would have a meal ready to put before him which they would share while they discussed the events of their hours of separation.
Rhiannon knew something was wrong with Caroline. After hearing of her meeting with Barry and their plans to find a home and begin their tortured married life again, she had expected Caroline to be excited and filled with plans. Instead, she was subdued and when they met refused to discuss her hunt for a place of their own.
“I’m sorry if I’m being nosy,” Rhiannon said when her innocent enquiries met with a blank silence. “I thought you’d like to talk about your progress. I’m sure I would if it were me.”
“There isn’t any progress. Barry and I seem to take a few steps back every time we take one forward. We seem further apart than when we made the foolish decision to marry.”
“Thing are bound to be difficult, starting with a mock marriage, but if you love each other—”
“He says he loves me but I think he’s in love with the idea of being married and having a home. After all, roughing it in the discomfort of the small flat over his mother’s shop isn’t much of an existence, is it? No, it’s that hollow miserable life he’s living that makes him want to try again. Unable to go home to his mother, who’s blissfully happy, settled with Lew—your father,” she amended in embarrassment. “I think even marriage to me would be better than night after night on his own in that flat with no hope of change. Don’t you?”
“That isn’t why he wants you to be together! He loved little Joseph before he loved you, I think,” Rhiannon said trying to be completely honest. “But love for you quickly followed. I could see it happening, remember. In his heart he gradually left me and turned to you. He wants a home and a family, but only with you.”
“I keep seeing Joseph when he comes near,” Caroline whispered. “Instead of seeing Barry I see Joseph and then he’s all wrong. Oh, I know it sounds as if I’m in love with a ghost but it isn’t like that. I want to love Barry but I can’t help thinking that we both still love Joseph too much.”
“Perhaps Barry knows that, he might even think that every time he touches you, you’re wishing it was Joseph.”
“Then how can we ever put things right between us?”
“Determination to make it work is the only way.”
“Wanting to isn’t enough,” Caroline sighed.
“I’m dreaming of having a place of my own, too,” Rhiannon told her.
“You and Charlie Bevan?”
Rhiannon nodded. “Most people accept that he’s given up his criminal past, all, that is, except our Dad.”
“It’s never easy, is it?” Caroline sighed.
Rhiannon and her courtship with Charlie was once more the subject of conversation in Nia and Lewis’s house in Chestnut Road. Lewis was trying to think of ways to persuade his daughter to stop seeing the man.
“Leave them, Lewis, love,” Nia pleaded when he complained to her about how often Rhiannon was out with “that damned ex-jailbird”.
“He’s more than an ex-jailbird, my dear. No one is simply how one person sees him. You have one opinion of Charlie, I have another and Rhiannon a different one again. Three impressions and Charlie is all of them. Rhiannon believes he will stay on the path of honesty and why should we think we know better? Let’s give him the support she wants us to give. That way she’ll relax and look at things more calmly. If we continue to fight her on this she might jump too soon into the biggest mistake of her life.”
Lewis saw the sense of her words and when Nia suggested inviting Rhiannon and Charlie and young Gwyn for tea that weekend, he agreed.
“Whole-heartedly mind, Lewis love,” she warned gently. “If you’re thinking of using the invitation as an excuse for gibes and accusations, best we leave it.”
“All right,” he smiled, kissing her cheek, “you’ve convinced me I have to behave.” He kissed her again and added, “I’ll get sweets and a present for young Gwyn. What d’you think he’d like, a jigsaw puzzle?”
“A water bottle or a new bell for his bike might be better,” she suggested. “He loves that bike, and he goes for quite long rides with Rhiannon and Charlie on Sundays.”
Lewis agreed, told her she was wonderful and decided to buy all three.
It was with some trepidation that Charlie, dressed in his smartest suit and a new tie bought for him by Rhiannon, walked up the drive and knocked on the door of Nia’s house. Lewis answered the door, and, with what was obviously a forced smile, welcomed them inside. Nia kissed Rhiannon and gave Gwyn a hug and led them out into the garden.
The garden was quite large with shrubs and a few old trees with one or two flower beds, a perfect place for Gwyn to explore. Leaving him to his own devices, the four adults sat in the chairs set out near the rose bed and talked.
Lewis said little. Promising Nia he would say nothing impolite had robbed him of anything to say. But Nia and Rhiannon chatted easily and brought Charlie into the conversation like experts.
He eyed the young man warily and had to admit that he seemed genuinely fond and respectful of his daughter.
Charlie continually glanced around checking on what his son was doing. When he hadn’t heard or seen him for a few minutes he went to investigate. Lewis followed him as he left the group and wandered towards the largest tree. Looking up, Charlie called,
“Come down, Gwyn. You should ask before you do anything like climb a tree. This isn’t a park, remember.”
Clambering down easily, then hanging onto a branch with one hand, Gwyn swung until his father stepped forward and helped him to the ground.
Nia had followed them and she said, “I really don’t mind you climbing the trees, Gwyn, but that one isn’t safe. A few branches have fallen and I think it should come down. I’m so worried that it’ll fall while little Joseph is here.”
“Next weekend, I promise,” Lewis said.
“Want a hand?” Charlie offered and with a glance from Nia, Lewis accepted his offer.
“Next Saturday?”
“Right then,” Charlie said happily. “Saturday afternoon it is.”
Rhiannon went home feeling reassured that, once her father really knew Charlie, he wouldn’t raise any objections to their marrying.
Since that first brief meeting at the solicitor’s office, Janet Griffiths and her sister Marion Jolly hadn’t met. Marion had made excuses for every suggestion that their families should meet. There was a lack-lustre look in Marion’s eyes as if the thought of getting to know her relations was too much of an effort. Now, at the meeting arranged to hear the reading of Adrian’s will, while she stared at her sister and tried to encourage her to smile, Janet learned that they were joint inheritors of their father’s farm.
It was a shock for Janet. Having had no news of her brother during all the years she had been away, she had presumed he had married and had children of his own to whom the farm would pass. Knowing he had lived his life alone, with only occasional help, saddened her.
“I should have at least made enquiries and tried to help him,” she told her newly-found sister. “I was so glad to get away, and Hywel and I have been so happy, I’ve hardly given Adrian a thought.”
Marion, who lived less than fifty miles from Pendragon Island, shrugged away the regret. “You can’t think with today’s attitudes and information of what you should have done years ago. Then you were still hurt and angry at the way he treated us, and of his cruelty to anyone near enough to be at the receiving end of his fury. That couldn’t be altered. From what I’ve learnt, he didn’t change even slightly from the bully we remembered. So, no regrets as we see him go to his grave.
“Unpleasant and ugly,” she went on in her monotonous voice. “That was how he was and always had been. Neither you nor I could have changed him, no matter how we tried. We’d have been hurt, and perhaps we’d have hurt our families too. We were right to leave him be.”
Marion spoke without compassion and she seemed to Janet to lack all humour, as her small attempts to raise a smile were ignored.
They had arranged for Adrian to be buried in the churchyard near the farm, and the branch of the family hitherto unknown to Janet, that had begun with Marion, were coming to the cottage for the interment. Marion’s sons, Fred and Harold were there with their families and her adopted daughter, Elenor.
On the day of the funeral, all these strangers filed into the small house and nodded in an uninterested way before sitting down; the men with their flat caps on their knees, the women with hands in their laps, folded, palms up.
Such a houseful. People from all over the town of Pendragon Island, many who hardly knew of the existence of Janet’s brother, walking across the fields, sure of a welcome. Marion’s family were all neatly dressed but showed a distinct and unmistakable lack of money. For Marion and her family, life had obviously been far from kind. Looking at the bunch of her younger generation, Janet was proud of the way her sons and daughter looked.
Ernie had been persuaded by Helen to buy a new suit which he assured everyone would do for hatches, matches and dispatches for at least ten years. Barry and Caroline came in smiling in pretence of being a couple, and were dressed in best clothes, and had even bought Joseph a suit as a mark of respect for the man only three people there had ever known. Basil and Frank looked as though they were employed as official mourners so experienced were they in following funerals for a small fee and setting the solemn tone.
At the cemetery the grave-digger carried his tools to Adrian’s grave in preparation for filling it in. He was cursing his assistant, who hadn’t dug the plot deep enough. Now he’d have to sort that out before filling in, or there’d be hell to pay. Afternoon burials were a real bind, and he muttered to himself as he made his preparations. There was to be another burial early the following day, so he had to get this one looking tidy so as not to upset tomorrow’s mourners. Tomorrow’s was a second burial, a widower to be buried with his wife. He checked his plan briefly and began. With the help of his assistant he hauled the coffin to the surface to dig deeper as instructed.
Leaving the coffin covered with a tarpaulin and flowers, he decided that there was time for a pint before tackling the task and he dug his spade into the earth to leave it standing upright and walked off. The spade wavered a while then fell with a spurt of earth, to land between Adrian’s plot and the next.
The grave-digger walked across the churchyard and out of the gate, the thought of a beer increasing his speed, and was hit by the car carrying a family bringing flowers to a deceased loved one. He was taken to the accident hospital for treatment, so it was his assistant who later went up to finish what the man had begun.
At the Griffithses’ cottage, more and more people arrived, muttered their condolences, and their congratulations on the inheritance. They were introduced to Marion and offered food and drink. The sawn-off tree-trunks were brought into use again, as well as boxes and bins to seat them all. Marion and her sons and daughters were bemused by it all.
Lewis came with Nia, and sat beside his estranged wife, Dora, without any obvious signs of anger. In fact, Dora and Lewis talked easily and seemed more like friends than the combatants of a bitter separation.
After the pain of Lewis’s betrayal of her with Nia who had once been her friend, Dora had learned to accept the situation, although she still felt the agony of loving someone who had spurned her. She was, if not content, well pleased with the way her life was developing.
Marion and her family remained formal and left early. For the rest, the gathering didn’t disperse until about two in the morning. The lively chatter had reached a peak and subsided and all those present were sated with news of people they didn’t know, passed on by those whom they rarely met. The occasion had gone through the usual phases of uncomfortable shuffling and over-politeness, with the unfamiliar mix of people hardly known to each other, and the uncertainty of how to behave, and on through the relaxation of becoming friends, until the party spirit was reached and everyone had a good time.
When the last of the mourners left, laughing and joking in the way of many funerals, Ernie and Frank went to stand outside in the cool of the night, too hyped-up to think of sleep. The finality of death had made them both consider their disagreement and reminded them how easy it would be for their separation to continue into the years ahead.
There was a full moon and together they made their way to the cemetery, not with any goal in mind but with the casual wandering that had often taken them to places unplanned. The open grave looked eerie in the moonlight and they went closer, daring each other to lean over and see whether the coffin was visible or if the grave had been filled. To their surprise the grave appeared empty.
“Someone’s stolen the old bugger,” Frank muttered.
The grave next to that which they had been told was intended for their uncle, was filled, the earth left loose and rather untidy. Frank reached across to try and see the label on one of the wreaths and his foot sank into the soft earth. He gave a yell and they both decided to leave the churchyard to its ghosts and go home to bed. But they were still puzzled by the fact that the wrong grave appeared to have been filled.
The following day they were still unsatisfied and they went once again to the cemetery. The funeral at the grave next to Adrian’s was of a Mr Gareth Pryce-Yeoman, and would take place at eleven that morning, so Ernie and Frank attended and stood beside the grave with the rest of the mourners. When the service was over they asked the grave digger’s assistant where they could find information on the graves and the allotment of them.
Enquiries told them that the grave they had just seen filled with the widower was in fact the wrong one. His predeceased wife was buried in the one alongside. Their uncle had been buried in the grave intended for Mr Pryce-Yeoman.
“Something will have to be done!” Frank gasped. But although they gave the facts to as many people who would listen, it seemed impossible for the wrong to be put right. No one believed them. The two graves, in a row of seven recent interments, appeared to be correct, as set out in the reference books. So far as everyone associated with the church and its cemetery were concerned, the burials had been carried out as planned. The flowers decorated the correct grave, the labels and numbers all tallied. Their uncle was apparently buried in the correct grave and Mr Pryce-Yeoman was sharing his final abode with his wife.
Frank and Ernie were so incensed by this treatment of an uncle they had never known, their damaged friendship was instantly repaired. Even Janet and Hywel were unconvinced that a mistake had been made.
The relations of Pryce-Yeoman were also unconvinced and politely, if a little anxiously, said they were only too glad to trust the efficiency of the service, and advised them to forget it. The complications that such a puzzle entailed were alarming and they insisted that everything was sure to be exactly as it should be. Only Frank and Ernie refused to accept it.
“That grave was empty!” they insisted.
“Drunk you were, mind,” Hywel pointed out. “I bet you couldn’t remember which one it is even now, if we took the flowers away.”
“I would,” Frank insisted and Ernie echoed his assurance, insisting that he’d be blowed if he’d been too drunk to make a mistake like that.
The farm was for sale and a buyer had already made moves towards taking it over before the funeral had taken place. In fact the animals were being cared for by him and it seemed that the sale would go through with little delay. The solicitor sent for the two sisters and told them that when the farm was sold and outstanding debts paid, they could expect a sum of around nine hundred pounds each. They looked at each other when the solicitor told them this, each feeling pleasure that was mixed with guilt.
“How can we accept so much money from a brother we disliked and never saw?” Janet said.
“If you don’t it will go into the coffers of the government and it’s hardly enough to affect the National Debt, is it?” the man smiled. “These things happen so rarely in life I advise you both to take the money and enjoy it. It could change much of what you dislike in your lives without ruining the things you enjoy.”
“I live in two little rooms, and with Henry and Fred and Elenor so busy with their own lives, I get a bit lonely,” Marion said. “Perhaps I could buy a house in Pendragon Island and share some time with you?” she said to Janet.
“From what you’ve told me, you two have a lot to catch up on, so if it’s what you both want, I think it a splendid plan.” He wished them both well and promised to help them in the future should the need arise and they went out of his office feeling dazed.
Janet and Hywel’s first idea was to share the money between their children.
“After all, we have all we want and they’re just starting off,” Janet said. But when they mentioned it to the family there was a loud chorus of protest.
“You and Dad should have some fun with it,” Basil said. The others agreed but Hywel looked around at his family and shook his head.
“Fun we have in plenty with you lot!”
“A holiday then?” The ideas flew for days but as nothing they suggested appealed to Hywel or Janet all thought of the importance of Adrian’s money faded.
Frank and Ernie finally convinced Basil that their uncle was buried in the wrong grave and as time passed their determination to put the matter right increased.
“We can’t have an uncle lying on top of Mrs Pryce Yeoman for ever and ever, Amen, can we?” Frank shouted one day. “It isn’t decent!”
“Put like that, I have to agree,” Basil said with a grin. “All right, but what d’you suggest? You’ve told everyone we can think of and no one believes you.”
“Swop them over ourselves, that’s what,” Frank said.
Without allowing too much time to pass, believing that time might persuade Basil they were wrong, Frank and Ernie arranged to go to the cemetery with spades and shovels that night. Being a Saturday, Basil was in the habit of calling at The Railwayman’s for a drink with his friends. So he did the same as usual, only he had taken the precaution of snaring a dozen or so rabbits first. As long as they weren’t caught in the churchyard actually in the act of desecrating the graves, they would be able to justify their late night walk.
Viv was in The Railwayman’s on one of his now rare visits, preferring, as he did, to go out with Joan. He was sitting with Jack as the brothers walked in. Viv and Jack guessed at once that the Griffithses were up to something.
“Tell me or I’ll call the cops,” Viv warned and Jack repeated his threat.
“It would be handy to have a few extra hands,” Ernie said hopefully.
Thinking of all that heavy digging, Frank agreed.
They left the pub at intervals, Jack going home to warn Victoria he would be late and to pick up a spade. Viv running home to tell Joan.
But unlike Victoria, who was content to wait until Jack decided to explain, Joan insisted on being told exactly what was going on.
“I’m going with you,” she said when she had been told. And when Viv argued she threatened to telephone the police.
“That’s what I threatened,” he grumbled. “And now I’m involved in an illegal act.”
“I’ll be your lookout, I bet none of you thought of that! I’m coming to make sure the lot of you don’t end up in prison!” Joan wore her most determined expression and Viv knew it was useless to argue further as she reached for her coat.
Basil undid the door of the churchyard maintenance shed half-hidden by the prickly remains of last summer’s roses, and took out a large rubber sheet which they placed beside the grave to hold the excavated earth. They emptied the two graves without much effort, there having been little time for the earth to become compacted. Joan shut her eyes tightly as the coffins were exchanged. But she listened to the comments and was relieved to hear them agree that Frank and Ernie had been right and the graves had contained the wrong bodies.
They had achieved the job so far with very little noise and it was only when confidence grew and Frank and Ernie began to noisily scrape their tools to reduce the amount of mud sticking to them as they filled the last inches, that the tramp, who had been sleeping behind one of the ancient mounds, woke and looked across to see what had disturbed him. Then, on silent feet he ran to the phone box and dialled 999 and sat back to watch the fun.
When they heard the sound of a car approaching, the five gathered their tools and ran, Viv grabbing Joan’s arm and hurrying her along, heading for the shelter of a wood. Once there they whispered together and decided that they should cross the fields belonging to Farmer Booker and if possible, rouse him and make sure they were seen. It would give them an alibi of sorts.
Walking close to the farm house and disturbing the dogs was simple enough and when Booker came out with a shotgun in his hands, Basil, Frank and Ernie made sure they were seen and recognised.
When Janet heard that her sons were under arrest for poaching she looked at Hywel and gave a sigh. “And there’s us wondering how to spend Adrian’s money!” she sighed. “We need to keep it for paying our sons’ fines!”