The Rose Tree Café was a popular place for women to meet after their shopping, for a coffee and a chat with friends. By extending the range of food offered, Sian Weston and Dora Lewis had developed a lunchtime trade that attracted more and more men. Businessmen, reps mostly, would call, sure of a reasonably priced, well-cooked meal.
“When the women go home, the men come in,” Sian smiled. “The business is as sexually divided as parties are, women in one group the men in another.”
“And the men have the best stories!” Dora sighed.
It was eleven in the morning when Jimmy Herbert called in. He looked at the crowded room and, realising the occupants were all women, he hesitated, then began to retreat.
“It’s all right, Jimmy,” Dora called, “come through to the kitchen and I’ll find you a cuppa.”
Between serving, Dora chatted to him, guessing he had come to ask about Rhiannon. “I didn’t see you at the Griffithses at the weekend,” she said. “Didn’t you get an invite?”
“Yes, but I thought I’d better stay away. I asked Rhiannon but she was going with Charlie.”
“Don’t give up on her, Jimmy,” she advised.
“Charlie has her sympathy. He’s a whipped dog, isn’t he? Her interest might be short-lived. Once he’s on his feet and secure and no longer needing her help, he might lose his appeal.”
Sian’s twin sister, Sally, came as Jimmy was leaving. The café began to empty and she came into the kitchen where Dora was setting out the lunchtime menu and declared she was exhausted.
“Ryan does nothing to help and it’s a full-time job looking after house-guests,” she complained.
“Kick him out,” Dora muttered.
“Mother was very upset about Jack’s Gretna Green wedding, Sian,” Sally said. “What can I do to cheer her up? I do think you should have stopped them running away like that.”
“How could I? I didn’t know any more than anyone else.”
“Victoria’s mother knew.”
“Well she didn’t tell me! Now, if you aren’t going to help, can you move out of the way, Sally? Dora and I have about half an hour before the rush.”
“You couldn’t let me have half a dozen pasties could you? I’m stuck for supper for my paying guests and I want to have my hair done.”
As Sian began to collect six pasties, Dora said, “No, we can’t, Sally. Sorry, but I spent two hours last night after a day working here, to make them.”
Sally looked put out and turned to her sister for support.
“Sorry, Sally, Dora’s right, time is money.”
“Then don’t let me take any more of it!” Sally picked up her coat and rushed out.
“Sorry, Sian. I should have put that more diplomatically.”
“My fault. I didn’t think. Your time is as valuable as hers.”
Their next visitor was Lewis. In her forthright way, Dora said, “If it’s lunch you want it’ll be half an hour yet.”
“No, I haven’t come for lunch, although a cup of tea would be welcome. It’s about Rhiannon.”
“She’s all right, isn’t she?” Dora frowned. “Nothing’s happened?”
“If you call being seen with Charlie Bevan and that son of his all right, then she is!” he snapped.
“Oh, go away, Lewis. So far in the last hour we’ve had Jimmy flopping about in lovelorn despair, Sally telling us how hard she works and how hard done-by she is, and now you. We’re trying to run a café, not a problem page!”
Lewis put down the tea Sian had handed him and left.
Dora gave a deep sigh. “Who next?” she asked, hands on hips. “Because whoever it is, while we’re sorting out their problems I’ll set them to wash these pots!”
Getting to know Marion and her children was fun for Janet, at first. She quickly realised they were going to prove difficult to integrate, for, try as she might, the new members of her family were reticent, afraid to relax and join in the lively gatherings. There was also a hint of disapproval which she tried to ignore. Elenor, Marion’s adopted child, was unmarried and had worked as a live-in housekeeper for several years, content to own little more than most children possessed, in a tiny room with a lavatory and wash-basin close by.
Elenor loved children but, at fifty, had long forgotten her yearnings for one of her own. With her un-tapped motherly skills she indulged her nieces and nephews, the children of her two brothers, Harold and Fred. Not extravagantly, she assured Janet, she considered that was wrong; spoiling children was not character-building. But she gave them a small gift on their birthdays and on occasions a non-frivolous book that would help them with their schoolwork.
Janet thought Elenor was the most boring person she had ever met.
Elenor’s life was quiet and orderly with three and a half weeks at the house where she worked, then a long weekend spent sharing her mother’s tiny flatlet, catching up on news of the family and walking in the fields near their home.
To have suddenly been introduced to the Griffithses was a shock, and one which she did not seem to enjoy. They broke all the rules of behaviour she had learned over the years of living in other people’s houses, rules which insisted she remained at all times unobtrusive and hardworking. The old Victorian family’s adage of children being seen but not heard applied with greater force to their servants.
To her, the Griffithses were unmannerly and rowdy, and she frequently took offence at their natural friendliness, and considered their questions an affront.
Marion excused her to Janet and Hywel, explaining that, with so little experience of people, she had been taught by her various employers that people in her position were expected to behave in a manner deemed not to cause offence to others. To this end Elenor had quashed her curiosity and with it any thoughts of betterment.
Janet bravely decided that, dreary though she might be, her “poor dear niece” was not too old to change.
“Although,” she admitted to Hywel, “I know I have an uphill battle on my hands if I hope to persuade the poor, dear woman to liven up and come out of the shadows.”
Marion’s sons, Harold and Fred, were settled in the first job they had been offered, and seemed content to remain there. Harold was a sweeper-up in a factory and his brother travelled on a bicycle as a jobbing labourer working on a number of farms in the area.
They were abysmally formal and uneasily over-polite. Even when confronted by Frank wearing underpants wandering around looking for trousers that Janet had “stolen” to wash they said nothing, but backed away looking at each other like cornered mice. Janet and Hywel had invited them to spend an evening with them, but as the talk became more uninhibited and the laughter loud and regular they made their excuses and left. Only Marion seemed prepared to learn to like them and for this, Janet was grateful.
“How sad it would be if, after finding each other we had nothing to say,” she sighed when she and Hywel had seen the family off after another tedious visit.
“Truth is, love, there isn’t anything to say. You and Marion have led such different lives. Hers is considered a success if she ‘keeps herself to herself’, pays her bills, and is thought to be a decent and honest woman. They’re strangled in respectability and keeping their place. How can you expect them to understand why we live like we do? Best you don’t hold out too much hope of becoming friends,” he said gently. But Janet was still convinced that all her sister needed was encouragement to open out and let some fun enter her life. Surely a sister of hers couldn’t enjoy being manacled by convention?
As time passed, the invitations still went out, but the new family members, apart from Marion, always declined. Janet waited for an excuse to arise to have a real party. It wouldn’t be long, excuses to invite friends around to celebrate something or another weren’t that infrequent in the Griffiths’ household. That would make Marion and her children relax and enjoy being a part of the family.
Ernie and Helen’s engagement was what Janet was waiting for although, having to suffer the inhibitions of her new family as well as the pretentiousness of Helen’s mother might be a lot to cope with. Ernie’s future mother-in-law, Gloria Gunner, was worse than Gladys Weston. At least Gladys once had money and background to account for it.
Once Ernie had confided in her that their announcement would be soon, on Helen’s birthday, the first thing she had to do was convince Gloria and Wilfred that their house was not a suitable venue for the celebration, while hers and Hywel’s was the perfect choice.
To her relief Gloria readily agreed.
“Wilfred and I will be getting the back rooms decorated for the young couple, the house will be in too much disarray to think of a party,” she explained.
And when is mine not? Janet asked herself.
Helen’s mother had generously told Ernie he and Helen could start their married life with her and Wilfred, using the two back rooms and sharing the kitchen. Gloria wasn’t too happy about this arrangement. She wondered whether Ernie – him being a Griffiths – had been taught the basic rules of cleanliness. But at least she would be able to keep an eye on him and make sure he treated her daughter properly.
The engagement party was planned for the end of November and with no rationing to outwit, Hywel thought the preparations seemed rather tame. But with the house filled to bursting and all the food they could need, Janet was sure it would be a success, and it would show Marion’s dull lot how to have fun.
Nia was looking out of the window at her garden. Since Lewis had come to live there, she had been left with little to do. He insisted on someone to help with the housework and had taken over much of the maintenance outside. He came with her when she chose new shrubs, ostensibly to help carry them, but she usually ended up with his selection and not her own.
She didn’t really mind, she knew Lewis had always enjoyed working on a garden and when he had lived with Dora he had produced large quantities of vegetables and flowers from the plot behind seven Sophie Street. But besides doing the heavy work, he had taken over the organising of it and on occasions she missed not having an excuse to spend the day outside. She had always found satisfaction in spending a day sorting out, cutting back then having a huge bonfire to get rid of the unwanted vegetation.
Today was a particularly long and lonely one. When he worked locally, Lewis always managed to call in at some time during the day, sometimes even to eat lunch with her. Travelling in the Brecon area as he was today, he wouldn’t be back until late this evening and the long hours stretched before her and made her restless.
She looked at the tree he had promised to cut down weeks ago. Charlie had been more than willing to help, he had even offered to do it himself, but Lewis always made some excuse. He didn’t want to show in the slightest way that Charlie could become an accepted member of the family. He had to discourage Rhiannon from seeing the man, he told Nia frequently, and not actively encourage him, by accepting his help. So, because of Charlie’s offer to help, which Lewis couldn’t – or wouldn’t – accept, the tree remained in its precarious state.
The large branch on which young Gwyn had swung looked dead and must be weak. And with winter approaching with its storms she knew it represented a danger as it hovered over the place Joseph liked to play with his toys, several of which were still there, under the tree waiting for him. His tricycle, and the cars and lorries filled with earth, and the beautiful ride-on waggon Barry had made. When weather permitted, she and Lewis often sat, even now with winter on the way, to sip a drink and enjoy the peace of the place.
It was Wednesday, so Caroline might come with Joseph. But they wouldn’t be here until at least three o’clock. Plenty of time to take a saw to the branch and make it safe. Lewis would be cross with her but it would be too late to stop her, she mused. And he was never cross with her for long.
Caroline left her mother’s house, intending to go straight to Chestnut Road, but on the way she changed her mind and went instead to see Rhiannon. “I’m on my way up to see Barry’s mother – why don’t you come with us?” she asked when Rhiannon had told her she had nothing planned for her half-day.
“Love to. Let’s go the long way round and walk through Pigog Wood first,” she suggested. “Little Joseph would love to play a game of hide and seek with us among the trees.”
Taking a few cakes and some chocolate in case Joseph got hungry, they set off intending to reach Nia’s by four o’clock.
“Just in time for tea,” Caroline said. “She looks forward to seeing Joseph and always makes a cake on Wednesdays in case we call. I think she’s a bit lonely sometimes after being used to working in the shop, so I try not to disappoint her.”
“Does Barry see his mother regularly?”
“Not really. She doesn’t say, but I don’t think she sees him as often as she would like.”
“Life’s never perfect is it?” Rhiannon sighed. “With plenty of money and my Dad to keep her happy, she still has her disappointments.”
“And I’m the worst of them,” Caroline said sadly. “My failure to make Barry happy.”
“You and Barry, there’s been no change?”
“No change.”
Nia soon realised the saw wasn’t as easy to handle as it appeared to be when used by Barry. She had watched him making a variety of items from large pieces of furniture to the many smaller things, like toys for Joseph and picture frames for his photographs and, like most experts, he had made it look simple.
Now, balanced on a step ladder and using both hands to push the awkward tool through the branch, she was aching with the effort as the saw continually stuck in the cut. Her hands were blistered, and her head ached and her wrenched shoulder muscles felt as if they were about to split.
She was tempted to abandon the idea, but knowing her visitors might arrive at any time she pressed on, with the intention of boasting of her success. Today she would have earned her tea and cakes.
The weather was humid. The sun had disappeared, the clouds had dropped low and were threatening rain. She was about halfway through the heavy branch when she had to stop and rest and get a cool drink.
She pulled the saw clear of the branch and threw it down before stiffly climbing down the steps. For a moment she stood, stretching her aching muscles and taking deep breaths. Why was the wood so stubborn? It was old and had not shown a leaf for years. Lewis said it was rotten so why didn’t it give way to her efforts? She went underneath it and looked up, trying to gauge how much more she would have to cut before it would break free with its own weight. She touched it and wriggled it about and then stretched some more before going into the house to get the drink she so desperately needed.
Lewis was on his way home with only a few more calls to make on the way. In a small market town, he stopped and bought flowers for Nia and a couple of story books for Joseph. He enjoyed reading to the little boy and chose them with care. Getting back into the car after collecting his final order of the day, he smiled to himself. It had been a lovely day, more like spring than dull November. Driving through wonderful scenery between Swansea and Brecon, he wished he had brought Nia with him. She would have loved a day out. But she liked to stay home on Wednesdays in case Caroline came with Joseph. He wondered idly whether they were there. He wouldn’t be home in time to see them, but perhaps he and Nia would go to the Griffithses’ after they had eaten and give the books to Joseph.
Nia returned to the tree, standing and looking at how much she had managed, smiling, thinking about how impressed Lewis would be when she showed him her handiwork, when there was a creaking sound. She didn’t pause to look up but darted away from the danger area. Then she turned to see the huge branch break with an awesome snap and lurch towards her. She turned to move further away, but tripped over the waggon Barry had made, and twisted onto her side. Her head landed heavily on a metal lorry and she was stunned. The branch caught on another, twisted in an elegant dance before falling, falling, like a clumsy arrow. Nia took all its weight on her temple, pressing her down onto the toy lorry. She didn’t have time to call out. If she had she would have called “Lewis”.
Rhiannon and Caroline stayed longer than intended in Pigog Wood. Joseph was delighted with the game involving two devoted adults who were relaxed and having fun. They put Joseph in his pushchair and hurried along the road hoping Nia wouldn’t be too disappointed at the short time left for their visit. They turned in the drive and Joseph, having been released from the pushchair he hated, ran ahead of them calling, “Nana, Nanny, it’s me!” He disappeared around the corner to where the kitchen door stood open and to their surprise returned, slowly walking backwards around the corner towards them. When he turned his face to them, his thumb in his mouth, his eyes were large with fear. “Nanny,” he said, taking the thumb out of his mouth and pointing.
“You wait here with Joseph,” Rhiannon said and went to see what had frightened the child. She came back white-faced, her eyes as wide and frightened as Joseph’s.
“Oh, Caroline, there’s been a dreadful accident!” she said running to hug them both. “How awful that Joseph was the first to see her.”
When Lewis came home, whistling cheerfully, with the books for Joseph and the flowers for Nia and a small brooch he had bought for her at a market in one of the towns he had visited, he was surprised to see a policeman waiting at the gate.
“Hello? Is anything up?” he asked.
“Are you Mr Lewis Lewis, sir?”
“Yes, daft isn’t it? What a stupid idea, eh? When I was at school they called me Lewis Twice.” He chattered on; “Did the same thing to my son would you believe? Lewis-boy we called him so we didn’t get mixed up.” He slammed the car door and tilted his head on one side and frowned. “How can I help you? Nothing wrong, is there?”
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident, Mr Lewis. Mrs Martin, the lady who owns this house. I believe you live here with her?”
“Yes. Yes. Go on, man!”
“I think you’d better come and sit down sir.”
“For God’s sake, tell me!”
“I’m afraid the lady had an accident, in the garden it was.”
“That bloody tree! I’ll bet it was that tree! Where is she? What hospital?” He turned to open his car door again and the policeman held his arm.
“I’m very sorry, sir, but the lady is dead.”
Lewis stared at the man, unblinking, just staring, waiting for something more to be said to take away the nonsense of the last sentence.
“She can’t be,” he said finally. He smiled and stepped forward as a figure appeared around the corner and the smile faded as he recognised not Nia but his daughter, Rhiannon. With her was Caroline, who was carrying Joseph. From the expression on their faces he knew he hadn’t been mistaken, the policeman really had told him Nia was dead. He began to wail, a low eerie sound that seemed to emanate from the earth beneath him.
Rhiannon ran to him and together they cried and all Lewis could say was, “What happened?” over and over again, seeming not to hear the oft-repeated reply. That she was dead, the woman he had loved all his adult life was gone from him, that was the only thought that filled his mind.
His head was filled with a strange buzzing sound and it was a long time before he realised it came from himself. His eyes were glazed, seeing a future that didn’t include Nia. He stumbled towards the back door and then he looked at his daughter. “D’you know, Rhiannon, on her headstone it won’t say Nia Lewis. Not even Nia Martin. She’ll be Nia Davies after some man she was married to briefly, when your mother found out about us and she fled to London. She should have been Nia Lewis and now it’s too late.”
Like a child he allowed himself to be led inside and sat in a chair, and to be hugged by his daughter and his frightened grandson. Caroline stood like a statue, wondering how to comfort Barry.
Barry didn’t finish work until six o’clock. When he saw the foreman approaching him more than an hour before that, walking hesitantly along the benches at which the packers worked, he smiled a greeting.
“You look fed-up. The machines playing up again?”
“You’d better come to my office, boy,” he was told.
Caroline was there and her face told him something serious had happened. The foreman left them together while Caroline told him the awful news and they walked out together, arms around each other before driving up to Chestnut Road in the van.
Later that night, when all who needed to be told had been informed and the seemingly endless line of people trekking in and out had finally stopped, and Lewis had been put to bed with sleeping tablets supplied by the doctor, Caroline and Barry were left alone.
“Please don’t go home tonight,” Barry said. “I don’t want to leave here and I don’t want to spend the night alone.”
“Lewis is here,” she said.
“I want you.”
He looked so confused, so unhappy and so young. She stepped towards him and held him in her arms. Holding back tears he took deep breaths, and gradually calmed down. Neither of them moved for a long, long time.
Caroline put her fingers to his cheeks and turned his face to meet hers. The kiss was like the culmination of years of need. Ice to fire. A need greater than hunger, greater than thirst. An all-consuming need that his enfolding arms and his lips and the scent of him and the warmth of him, melted away.
Lewis was a man in pain. He wandered around, dealing with the arrangements with Barry, and seemed only half aware of what he was doing. He continued to live at Chestnut Road but went every evening to sit in Dora’s living room, hardly saying a word, but attending to the chores like adding coal to the fire or making cups of tea as if his mind had tripped back to the time before the break-up of his marriage.
On the night before the funeral, he began to talk and Dora thought he would never stop. He talked about Nia, about their life together, and how they had always loved each other. As an afterthought, as if suddenly aware of who he was with, he told Dora that he had loved her too, but Dora only gave Rhiannon a grim smile and said nothing.
He talked until he fell asleep but instead of allowing him to stay where he was, on the couch near the still glowing fire, Dora woke him.
“Lewis, tomorrow’s the funeral. You have to be at the house and go with it from there. Barry needs you, and you need to be there.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” he said as he shrugged himself into his coat. “The house is for Barry and Caroline, I’ve always known that. I don’t know where I’ll go.”
“There’s always The Firs.” Dora’s eyes gleamed with malice as she remembered the discomfort of the shabby rooms in that place, where Lewis had spent some time after walking out of their home. “It isn’t as if you don’t know the place, is it?”
Dora stood at the door as the car drove away. She still loved him, she always would, but he wouldn’t come back. She had more pride now, and would never make a fool of herself over a man again. Not any more.
The funeral was a large one. Nia had been in business in the town for many years, taking over Temptations from her mother, and she had been well-liked. Lewis walked with Barry, and the Griffithses were with them, offering support.
Lewis stood between Viv and Basil and kept looking around as if waiting for Nia to come and tell him he’d had a nightmare, unable to accept what had happened. He stared at the coffin in which his happiness lay. “I’ve lost Joseph, and now Nia, why am I being punished so?” he murmured.
“You lost our Lewis-boy too,” Viv reminded him. But the words of reproach seemed not to penetrate the haze of misery and despair.
Dora was standing near and she said, “You had years of happiness, some never manage any.” Her voice was tender. She ached to comfort him but didn’t know how. Even a hand reaching out to touch his arm had been quickly withdrawn. Best to wait. Then, gradually aware of her concern and angry with herself for feeling it, her expression hardened and she walked away.
“He’s not coming back,” she told her daughter, wagging a warning finger. He had loved Nia too much for that to be possible. He wasn’t going to come back and treat her as a bolt-hole in his misery. Never again would she accept second best.
Farmer Booker saw the mournful Basil and Frank and Ernie at the graveside and murmured, “Not planning any more shenanigans here are you?”
“What the ’ell d’you mean?” Frank asked.
“That bit of poaching you were supposed to have done the night the graves were disturbed. The rabbits in that bag were as stiff as a load of firewood.”
Frank and Ernie, Viv and Jack took him on one side and explained to him what they had been doing. Booker’s laughter startled the mourners and frightened a few sparrows away from the newly-turned soil of the graves.
“Well, what could we do?” Frank demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Old sod he might have been, but we couldn’t have an uncle lying on top of Mrs Pryce-Yeoman for ever could we? It wouldn’t have been proper!” The laughter came again, louder, and Booker had to walk away from the crowd to enjoy it.
“I’ll drop the charges,” he said between helpless hoots of laughter. “You’ve given me the best laugh this ages.”
Full of consternation at Booker’s generosity, the three Griffiths boys went to see him later that day and, somewhat bemused, he agreed not to withdraw charges of trespass and poaching. They needed the trespass charge. It was an alibi, of sorts, for being innocent of the more serious charge of desecrating the graves.
Barry and Caroline quickly confirmed that the house in Chestnut Road was theirs.
“What shall we do about Lewis?” Caroline asked after the visit to the solicitors. “This is his home. We can’t just tell him to go, can we?”
“Let him stay for a while. Until he finds somewhere else. There’s plenty of room until our Joseph has a brother or a sister,” he said, touching her rosy cheek with his lips.
“We have to find this Mr Davies, the man she married in London. He ought to know, and there’s the painting and the other things she left him in her will.”
Lewis had the man’s name and address and, on the advice of the solicitor, they wrote to him.
The reply came very quickly. He offered his condolences and said how sorry he was that they had never met. He would be very happy to receive the small gifts and the Paul Nash painting, which he had bought for Nia as a wedding present. Without delay, Barry parcelled them up and posted them off.
The party to celebrate the engagement of Ernie and Helen was attended by half the town’s young people. Or so Hywel thought as they trooped in; a never-ending stream. The TV was pushed into the shed and Farmer Booker surprised them all by turning up with a gift for the young couple and playing them a few tunes on a piano accordion. By eight o’clock the party was off to a good start.
Caroline and Barry were there, sober and looking pale, although Janet was relieved to see a different light in Caroline’s eyes when she and Barry exchanged glances. When she had a chance, she asked how things were, and Caroline hugged her and said, “It’s going to be all right, Mam. Barry and I are all right.”
Grieving for Nia hadn’t been allowed to stop them celebrating the engagement of Caroline’s brother. As Barry reminded them, they were his only family now and he was going to treasure them.
As Lewis wouldn’t be there, Dora walked across the fields with Rhiannon, Charlie and Gwyn, and Viv and Joan, who made excuses for her twin Megan, explaining that Megan had a previous engagement.
Megan was discontented. She missed the company of her sister and on the occasions when they did meet Joan was no fun any more. Marriage had sobered her. Once, The Weston Girls, as they had always been known, had a reputation for doing the unlikely and even the unacceptable and outrageous. Now things had changed and Megan hated it. She, who had mainly followed her sister’s lead, was looking for excitement.
Knowing that her family did not want her to involve herself with Terrence Jenkins, with whom she had once had a brief affair, she invited him to go with her to the Griffithses party. An hour after Joan had made her excuses, she walked in. The expression on Joan’s face alone, made it worth the bother.
On Joan’s insistence, Viv told Megan they would walk her home, but Megan clung to Terry’s arm and shook her head.
“Terrence will look after me, won’t you?” She smiled up at Terrence, a handsome if rather haughty-looking individual, and stretched up to touch her lips against his chin, which was as far as she could reach. “You don’t have to worry about me while I’m with him,” she assured everyone.
Terrence was far from comfortable in the shabby and over-filled house. He thought of other places where they could have spent their time and constantly glanced at the clock and wished it was time to leave. He was afraid to suggest escaping too soon, he was anxious to please Megan even to the extent of staying in this awful room with these awful people she amused herself by calling her friends.
Marion and her family arrived at nine o’clock and left again at half-past. They hardly spoke, in fact Fred stood clutching his cap, wringing it out, obviously embarrassed in company. Janet waved them off and thought it unlikely she would see them again. It had been exciting, searching for them. “But sometimes it’s better to leave the past locked away,” she whispered to Hywel.
“You had as much chance of teaching that lot to enjoy themselves as teaching a goldfish to ride a bike!” was Hywel’s reply.
During the evening Megan stayed close to Terrence and made sure she was seen kissing him, behaving in a way that embarrassed those present. She looked at the others with thinly veiled contempt. All these couples doing the conventional thing. Surely life could hold something more?
When it was time to leave, she walked to Terrence’s car, clinging to his arm with the concentration of a drunk.
“Megan, love, does this mean you’ve forgiven me?” Terrence asked. “I promise you I haven’t seen a girl since we parted. I want to marry you.”
“Oh no, Terrence, don’t let’s be boring. The town has had a surfeit of weddings and engagements, for heaven’s sake! Let’s run off to London and have some fun.”
“Run away and get married like Jack, you mean?”
“No! No, just have some fun before life squeezes us into our allotted rut.”
The Gunners were determined to disapprove, and were helped in that aim by Ernie’s announcement that he had lost his job. His days as a bus conductor had ended ignominiously after starting a fight with a passenger who dared to tell him his bus was late.
Gloria told him he could forget his hopes of marrying Helen until he found a job and kept it. Helen smiled and cancelled out the threat with a wink. For the rest of the evening, Gloria tried to show everyone how upset she was, but the laughter got to her and the teasing which included herself and Wilfred softened her resolve and she enjoyed the evening in spite of her determination not to.
Charlie and a sleepy Gwyn walked across the fields with Rhiannon and Dora and Viv and Joan. On the doorstep of seven Sophie Street, sitting huddled against the cold night air, was Lewis.
“Wrong house, Lewis,” Dora said sharply. “Memory going is it? You live at Chestnut Road now, or The Firs if Barry’s thrown you out.”
“I just wanted to hear how the party went, Dora. That’s all.”
“It was the usual lively evening, with the Griffithses on top form and poor Helen on a knife-edge, trying to be her mother’s polite little girl and at the same time hold her own with the Griffiths boys. They’ll be all right, Helen and Ernie.”
“I suppose they’re my family now, aren’t they? Nia’s son married to Caroline, their little Joseph my grandson.”
“We’re your family,” Viv said, with an arm around his mother. “You turned away from us, we didn’t leave you.”
Viv stood with an arm around his wife and his mother, Charlie stood with Rhiannon and his son. Lewis stood up and nodded to them all before walking slowly to the car. Before getting in he listened to the sound of them, laughing and chattering as they closed the door on him, then he drove away.
When the guests had gone and the debris of the evening was scattered around them, Janet and Hywel summed it up.
“Well, so much for our new relations, love,” Hywel sighed. “Stayed less than an hour, showed their embarrassment at our uncouth ways and walked off with their pathetic noses in the air. How dare they think themselves superior to us?”
Janet chuckled. “Who doesn’t? Did you see the way Terrence glared at us all? And the way Helen’s mother looked at the food? A soul-sister to old Gladys Weston she is for sure, or tries to be! She, actually shuddered when I brought in that plateful of brawn sandwiches and a seven-pound sweet jar filled with pickled onions!”
“She was more likely upset at the way everyone tucked in! They all eat as though they’d been starved for a week. Small-minded lot, our new relations, you’ll never change them. Some people never change.”
“You’re right, love.” Janet laughed and pointed to the mantelpiece on which stood a long envelope. “Nothing changes. Our Basil and our Frank and our Ernie are in court again next week, for trespassing and poaching.”