The following day, Maldwyn felt very aware of Vera. Every time they met during their working hours he smiled and tried to think of something interesting to say, but failed miserably. He waited for her while she and Marged dealt with the last-minute floor-cleaning and saw Marged hand Vera a package which he guessed contained food.
They walked down the path together and Vera said, ‘Pictures again, is it? I’ve got enough food for you not to need to go home for your supper.’
They weren’t the only ones eating their tea in the picture house, and the rustle of paper continued for a while before the audience settled to enjoy the film. At nine o’clock they left and, again without discussion, Maldwyn went with her to the railway sidings and entered her unusual accommodation.
She reached up and kissed him as soon as the door was closed, and he lost himself in the thrill of it. When Vera finally released him from their kiss. Maldwyn sank down on to the carriage seat and, smiling, she sat down to face him. Trying to calm his racing heart, he looked away from her tempting lips and the wickedly amused expression in her hazel eyes. Turning away, knowing his face was as revealing to her as a thousand words, he asked, ‘Vera, what are you doing here?’
She relaxed into the seat and stared out of the grimy window. ‘I had to find somewhere to sleep and I didn’t have the money for lodgings.’
‘I mean, what are you doing in St David’s Well?’
‘Long story,’ she sighed.
‘We’ve got all night.’
Now she admitted to being the girl Delyth and Madge had told him about. ‘It wasn’t true about the schoolteacher, mind. I did meet our boring neighbour once or twice but we only kissed and cuddled. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Then I was thrown out of the house when my father was told I had been friendly towards one of my neighbours while his wife was doing a night shift at the munitions factory.’
‘And were you? Seeing him? Was it true?’ Looking across the darkening compartment, he wanted, oh so badly, for her to say it was a nonsense. He wanted to be the first person she had kissed, to be told that she was pure and perfect and had been waiting for him to find her.
‘It was true.’ She stared at him, unblinking, as though daring him to criticise her. ‘I wasn’t the one to start it. Pestered me he did, and it wouldn’t have been anything more than a five-minute wonder if his wife’s father hadn’t got to hear about it. He told my father and, well, my father agreed with him and presumed the very worst.’
‘What was the worst?’ Maldwyn was so still, so locked in agony, he didn’t think his muscles would obey him when he tried to move. ‘Tell me, Vera.’
‘I flirted, and kissed him, and talked a bit of nonsense. We didn’t do anything worse. Dad wouldn’t listen, he believed everything I was accused of.’
‘There was more?’
‘I walked home a few times from the dance with the wife of a schoolteacher. They accused me of leading her into trouble. She walked home now and then with a man she knew and Dad wouldn’t believe I hadn’t persuaded her. He wouldn’t believe me, Maldwyn. That’s so hurtful. Then he gave me an hour to get out of the house. I’ve often been here as a day tripper. First as a child with Mam and Dad and my sisters, then on my own or with friends. It seemed a friendly town and, well, that’s it. Here I am.’
‘Surely he didn’t mean it? What father would do that, throw his daughter out of the house!’
‘Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he thought I’d apologise as I had so many times before when there was nothing to apologise for! But I was angry and I wanted to frighten him. He was always threatening me with a beating, always suspicious.’ She grinned then, her face lit like a child’s, and added, ‘Fun it was, with him next door. I enjoyed being told I was beautiful. Not that I believed it, mind, but it was fun to be told.’
‘You are beautiful. Perhaps that’s why your dad worried so much.’
‘Am I, Maldwyn? Beautiful?’
Maldwyn looked away. He was feeling uncomfortable being in the small compartment with the lovely Vera, like swimming out of his depth, unable to touch the security of the bottom with his feet.
‘What about your sisters?’ he managed to ask. ‘Don’t they support you?’
‘No, they stick together and treat me like – like a tart. And I pretend, just to shock them, say things so they believe it. It’s all a game really,’ she said sadly.
‘And you’re planning to go on living here in St David’s Well? Aren’t you afraid being on your own?’
‘A bit.’
He gestured around the small carriage and asked. ‘What about if you’re caught?’
‘What can anyone do except throw me out?’
‘It’s wartime. You could be arrested.’
‘I’m all right. A comfortable place to sleep, and breakfast for free when I get to Castle’s Café. Not a bad life – for a while. Until I get some wages anyway. I’ll tell you this for nothing: if I do fall foul of the law I’ll make sure everyone knows that I was thrown out by my own father. If I can get my story in the papers I will. There, doesn’t that tell you how wicked I am?’ She was finding it hard to control her tears and when Maldwyn spoke soothingly she allowed them to fall. ‘It was a bit of fun, that’s all, knowing men find me attractive. Life can be very boring. Some of my friends are in the forces or with the Naafi and I’m stuck at home with a dad who’s determined to stop me having any fun.’
‘I’ll find you a place to stay, somewhere comfortable,’ he promised.
‘I’ll stay here until I’m discovered.’
‘But what if you’re put in prison?’
‘You’ll visit me, won’t you. Maldwyn?’
Another kiss disturbed him and he didn’t want to leave her there, but she insisted, and when he hesitated outside she shooed him away impatiently. ‘Go, quick! Before you’re seen and give me away!’
As he hurried away Maldwyn was upset, but his anger was not directed at Vera’s father, whom he didn’t know, but at Winifred, his stepmother. If she were more reasonable, he could have taken Vera back home and looked after her.
Days passed, and Vera’s unconventional home remained safe from discovery. She settled in happily to work with Marged, enjoying the atmosphere and the pleasant work of feeding the day trippers. Any intention of finding some better employment faded as the summer season filled her with the excitement of serving the lively crowds that poured into Castle’s each day. She quickly began to feel like a local, a part of the reception committee keen to ensure the visitors enjoyed their stay. Maldwyn, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to leave the beach and start work with Mrs Chapel.
During their few hours off from the café, Maldwyn took Vera on walks. They explored places they hadn’t previously discovered, and found a small rocky bay not far from the popular main sandy beach, which they called their own. There they could sit undisturbed and talk and learn about each other. Marged often unwittingly supplied a cake or a sandwich which they would enjoy, pretending they were far away on some distant shore where they were safe and free from families and their accompanying problems.
Few people came to ‘their’ bay, which was known as New Bay from the story that it had been formed by men removing the reddish rock, first to retrieve the iron ore and more recently to build some of the smart houses above. People stopped sometimes to look down, but most were discouraged from joining them by the precipitous and undefined path leading down to where they sat.
One Wednesday afternoon when they had been given two hours off, they heard someone call, and looked up to see Delyth and Madge. They shouted for the girls to wait and clambered up to the road to join them.
‘I knew it was you the other day,’ Delyth accused Vera.
‘Why did you pretend it wasn’t?’ Madge asked.
‘Please,’ Vera begged, ‘don’t tell our dad you’ve seen me.’ She didn’t explain but the girls curiously agreed, deciding that it was not their business to interfere. Delyth showed them her sketchbook, with a drawing of the two of them sitting on the rocks staring out to sea.
The four of them walked back to Castle’s Café, the three girls chattering happily and Maldwyn walking beside them, smiling at the unexpected friendships he had made since leaving home. Leaving Delyth and Madge on the sand at the bottom of the metal steps, to lean on the craggy rocks and enjoy what was a warm, pleasant afternoon, Vera went up to deal with the busy couple of hours serving teas, Maldwyn down to relieve Bleddyn on the sands below taking money for rides.
After a while Huw gave him the takings to carry up to Marged and, seeing Vera taking cakes out of the oven and Marged calling for more plates, he stayed to help. Marged came into the kitchen where he was washing dishes and Vera was piling the hot cakes on to serving plates. They were laughing over some observation Vera was making about one of the more difficult customers.
‘Haven’t changed your mind, have you?’ Marged asked. ‘You’re still going to leave us and work in that flower shop?’
It was at moments like this, with Vera working beside him and fresh memories making his heart sing, that he was tempted to change his mind. With undisguised regret he shook his head. ‘Sorry, but I’m better suited to a back room arranging flowers than a beach full of rowdy children.’
Later Delyth and Madge came up and bought a tray of tea, which Vera took down to the sands, the three girls enjoying a brief moment of chat before Marged, her voice shrill and easily heard over the sounds of the beach, yelled from the top of the steps for Vera to go back to the kitchen.
A few days later, three other girls who had also been surprised to find themselves friends were spending a Saturday afternoon in their shop. Eirlys had left her father looking after the three evacuees and, having prepared a meal for the evening and written to her husband, she had come to spend the rest of the day with Hannah making gifts and serving customers. Beth would join them after closing the market café at four o’clock.
The shop was not very busy, but Christmas had depleted their stock and they had been making use of these quieter months to replenish the shelves, ready for what they hoped would be a busy summer. St David’s Well was usually full of visitors and day trippers from May until September, the population doubling in size when the miners’ week closed mines and factories. Since the war had changed the pattern of many years and the closing down didn’t happen, the season was spread more evenly, and pleas by government for the population to stay at home for their holidays seemed to have made no difference. The crowds still flocked in their thousands to the friendly inhabitants and golden sands of St David’s Well Bay.
As always the three young women discussed the letters they had received from absent husbands. Hannah told them that Johnny was still in North Africa and that two brief letters had arrived that week. Beth heard regularly from Peter as he was not overseas, and she eagerly waited for his next leave. Eirlys said nothing. Ken was away from home a lot but rarely wrote to tell her where he was, what he was doing or even that he missed her.
Ken was resentful about Eirlys’s job. He should be able to keep her, and it was shaming that he could not. That she was successful seemed a slight on his abilities. It was a large part of Eirlys’s work during the summer to arrange entertainment for the town’s Holidays at Home programme. As Ken ran concerts and dances he initially expected her to need his help with her plans, but found she managed well on her own. Unfortunately, he worked more and more with Janet Copp, who owned the market café now run by Beth.
With Shirley Downs, Janet had sung and danced a little when she wasn’t running the café. Gradually, partly because of his estrangement from Eirlys and her work, they began to feel more than friendship.
His love for Janet Copp had almost ended his marriage, but knowing that Eirlys was expecting their child had convinced him that his duty, if not his love, was with his wife. When Janet had left the town and joined the Naafi service, Ken had promised himself that he would stay faithful to his wife, but his resolve was weak: they had made contact again and the affair was once more a large part of his life.
Ken grieved for what he had lost. Eirlys and he had a partnership that was damaged, and with Janet in his life, even with the forthcoming child there seemed little chance of it mending. Eirlys tried to pretend, but he was aware that she knew she couldn’t depend on the birth of their child to magic everything right. Both were uneasy with each other, aware that their relationship was second-best.
There were many times when he could have come home but did not, happier to stay with a friend and invent an excuse of needing to work on arrangements for the next concert party, holding auditions, planning programmes, making transport arrangements, booking halls or promising a performance in one camp or another. It sounded impressive, but Ken knew he could deal with it all and still spend days at home during most weeks.
Knowing he could have been with Janet was a constant ache. If only Eirlys wasn’t expecting their child, their disastrous mistake could have been rectified. The marriage should never have happened. He believed that Eirlys regretted the marriage as much as he. What a mess.
Sitting in the bedroom of a friend, he wrote to Janet to arrange a meeting to discuss her appearance in a singalong he planned at a factory near where she was stationed. Two days later he had her reply agreeing to meet him. He then wrote a brief note to Eirlys, explaining that he might not be able to come home the following week as promised. He told her with false regret that he had to go to Scotland with a party of actors who were to perform one of Shakespeare’s plays. He threw down the pen, wondering why they were telling lies to each other. He couldn’t write any more. He just signed it ‘Your loving husband, Ken’. Another lie, he thought, as he licked and stuck the envelope. At least they had stopped adding a row of kisses along the bottom.
Eirlys had the letter in her pocket and sadly she showed it to Hannah and Beth.
‘Hardly a romantic letter from a husband whom I rarely see, is it?’ she said with a forced laugh. She doubted whether either Beth or Hannah could show anyone the letters they received from their husbands. They would be personal, full of loving affection and dreams of a wonderful future.
‘Some men are embarrassed at showing their feelings, specially on paper,’ Hannah said softly. ‘They’re afraid of it being seen by someone else who might perhaps make fun of them.’
‘He doesn’t love me.’ Eirlys said, her voice matter-of-fact, her eyes moist with unshed tears. When the others began to protest and to offer argument, she shook her head. ‘I know that if it weren’t for my little friend here,’ she patted her swelling belly, ‘I know he’d have left me. There. Are you shocked? I’d be one more addition to the statistics of mistaken marriages. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” isn’t that what everyone says?’
Beth didn’t know what to say. She and Peter were so happy, even though they were separated for most of the time. Their love was a strong thread holding them close however far apart they were.
Hannah stood up, put an arm around Eirlys and said, ‘Thank you for telling us, Eirlys. We can help now we know. I don’t know how at the moment, but we can listen when you want to talk, and laugh or cry with you. Friends we are and we care about you, we really do.’
The three girls settled back to their respective jobs, Hannah sewing the ears on yet another stuffed rabbit, Beth neatening the edges of a doll’s cot eiderdown, and Eirlys fixing the backing on a pretty bedroom rug. Beth began to sing, and Hannah smiled and tried to join in, but Eirlys seemed lost in her thoughts.
‘What have the boys been up to lately?’ Hannah asked, knowing that to talk about the three former evacuees was a certain way to make her smile.
‘They’re helping Dad on his allotment,’ Eirlys told them, but even thinking about Stanley, Harold and Percival Love didn’t work the magic for her today.
She walked home at six o’clock, wishing for the first time that this baby had not happened. She felt a superstitious guilt at the thought, but knew she meant it. Without the baby she doubted whether she and Ken would still be together. What was so noble about two people being unhappy, she thought sadly, staying together when duty and doing the right thing were so painful? Ken’s brief note was in her pocket and she tore it up and let the wind take the pieces where it would.
Delyth and Madge had heard no more about their leaving the shop and finding war work but they knew that it could happen at any time.
‘I think we should look for work in St David’s Well again. It might be our last chance of getting away from home.’ Delyth said.
Unaware that Vera had done the same thing, they went into the gift shop, on their next day trip, and asked if the owners knew of any jobs for which they might apply. At once Beth and Hannah offered their help, and as they discussed the possibilities over cups of tea, the promise of friendship developed.
Maldwyn’s first day at the flower shop was enjoyable. His nimble fingers designed displays from the dried flowers Mrs Chapel had in stock and he redressed the rather formal window with a summer display that delighted his employer.
‘Natural talent you’ve got, young Maldwyn,’ she said when they stood outside the shop admiring the attractive window.
‘I’ve been learning since I was fourteen,’ he said. ‘You can’t help getting better after all those years.’
‘It’s forty years for me and you’re far cleverer. Don’t put yourself down, there’s plenty of others more than willing to do that.’
They were about to close when a man came running up, pleading with them to stay open a little longer. ‘I need flowers real desperate,’ he told them. ‘I forgot my wife’s birthday.’
There weren’t many flowers left, but Maldwyn prepared a bunch of marigolds and comflowers with some stems of goldenrod to fill it up and handed it to the grateful man. He took the money and noted the transaction neatly in the book.
Mrs Chapel smiled at him. ‘I think in a week or so I can leave you in charge and go to visit my sister,’ she told him. ‘Years it is since I’ve had a little holiday.’
‘I’ll be pleased to help, and you needn’t worry about my closing at lunchtime either. I can get something sent over from the café.’
He was whistling as he brushed the floor and washed down the pavement outside.
‘Big mistake coming to work for Mrs Chapel,’ Arnold Elliot called. ‘Your job won’t last long. But I might have something for you when I extend.’
‘I hope she stays for many years yet,’ Maldwyn said, glancing through the doorway to see whether Mrs Chapel had heard the gloomy prediction.
‘Don’t take any notice of Arnold,’ she told him when he had closed the door. ‘He’s been talking about extending ever since I’ve known him and he still hasn’t persuaded me to move. It would take more than he offered to get me out of this place.’
‘Good on you,’ Maldwyn smiled.
The following Sunday he and Vera went up on the cliffs, where a flat area of grass seemed a pleasant place to sit. The plateau was half-way between the top of the headland and the shoreline below. There was no beach, just a few rocks that were exposed at low tide. They wriggled towards the edge and looked down at the rocky shore below them. A long way below.
‘Gosh!’ Vera exclaimed. ‘Falling down there would give you a headache!’
They heard shouting, and for a moment they presumed the remarks were for someone else. Then they realised the voice came from a man below them in a small fishing boat.
‘Get back, you fools! You’re sitting on an overhang and it’s likely to collapse!’ Still they didn’t grasp what he was saying and they waved cheerfully. With hands around his mouth to increase the sound the man repeated his warning and at last they realised and crawled back from the edge.
They heard laughter and, turning, saw they had been joined by Delyth and Madge. Standing a few yards away, Delyth swiftly drew the scene and followed it with another showing the couple flying through the air and down towards the rocks.
‘Lot of fuss about nothing,’ Vera said. It wasn’t until later when they were walking back to St David’s Well Bay that they looked back at the place where they had been sitting and saw that the turf actually overhung the edge by a few feet and they had been in real danger of falling.
‘We’ll keep away from there in future!’ Maldwyn said, hugging her. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
Delyth was saddened by the growing affection between Maldwyn and Vera. She remembered his dark, deep brown eyes and grieved silently for what might have been.
They had asked at various places where they thought they might have found work, but Delyth’s heart was no longer in the idea. Maldwyn had been a strong reason for her decision to move to the town.
Maldwyn sent cards and letters regularly to his stepmother and received a letter from her every Friday. Sometimes she sent a postal order for two shillings for him to go to the pictures. Although her words were cheerful he sensed an underlying sadness; she mentioned the visitors she had, and there seemed very few. He thought often about going home, but the need for Winifred was less than when he had first left. Would she tell him to come back? Would he want to? He was practically running the flower shop and that was something his previous boss would never have allowed. Then there was Vera, and Delyth and Madge, and the Castle family at the café. He had more friends than he’d ever had and he knew he didn’t want to give up on this new life. Yet he did have a responsibility to Winifred. If she was unhappy, he had to at least go home and see what he could do to help. Perhaps she was ill? That was the decider.
‘I’m going home on Wednesday,’ he told Vera. ‘I’ve been away long enough to risk seeing my stepmother without the danger of feeling homesick.’ To his surprise she said she would go with him.
‘To see your family you mean?’
‘I think they’ll be able to forgive me by now,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Considering I didn’t do anything except tease Mr Henry Selby, the silly old fool!’
It was a morning in early June when they caught the train for Bryn Teg, and the weather was behaving impeccably. The sun shone and gave colour to the houses and fields they passed, the ever-changing view lightening Maldwyn’s heart unexpectedly as he recognised familiar places. Surely he hadn’t been away long enough to feel this excitement at coming home?
As the train approached their station even the dark, mountainous slagheaps had a beauty of their own, the sun giving them a greenish sheen broken by patches of brighter green where grasses and a few wild flowers had begun to colonise.
The village streets were peopled with shoppers, the schoolyards reminiscent of a Brueghel painting. Balls bounced against walls and were thrown and kicked and argued over by small children. Others played chase, skittering through other games and causing minor battles. Skipping in its many forms, whip-and-top and chanting games he recognised and still knew by heart. He was years away in age but only moments in memory.
As Maldwyn’s excitement grew. Vera’s spirits dropped. Was she really brave enough to walk into her home and say, ‘Hi yer Mam,’ as though nothing had happened? What if Dad was there? How would she greet him? Would she take one look at his furious face and make a run for it? Or was she strong enough now to face him and dare him to take his belt off, and threaten to call the police if he did? When she was in St David’s Well she had been confident. She had lain on her comfortable seat in the railway carriage she called home and imagined how boldly she would walk in and face them all.
Over the past few days she had lived and relived the scene as she stepped into the kitchen and stared them down. Her mother would see how she had changed, and her sisters too would see she was no longer the falsely confident child fearing her father’s anger. She was independent, and no longer needed his support. She was strong now and could say goodbye to the days when she had to conform to standards set by Mam and Dad. Now, as the train slowed to a squealing stop, her confidence seeped away like the steam from the engine that had brought her here. The fire in her eyes dulled and she knew that coming home had returned her to being a child again.
Maldwyn walked her to her door then left, arranging to meet her when it was time for their train back to St David’s Well. She took a few deep breaths, listening to the argument going on inside between her sisters. No sound of Dad, she thought with relief. Pushing open the door, she walked resolutely through.
The first person she saw was her father and her heart began to bump painfully in her chest. To her surprise he smiled and said, ‘Home again is it? And about time too. Auntie Kitty fed up with you is she?’
‘Auntie Kitty? I haven’t been near her.’
Her mother, who had been washing towels in the sink, turned around and stared at her husband. ‘There, I told you we should have looked for her.’
Vera sank into a chair and stared at them. ‘You mean you didn’t look for me?’
‘I thought – Damn it girl, you always go to Auntie Kitty’s when you flounce out of here and you’ve done that enough times!’ her father defended.
It was true. Whenever she and her father had clashed she had always run to be comforted by his sister Kitty, who never seemed to be too busy to spend time with her. As soon as she could walk she had regularly made her way to her auntie’s in the cottage on the hill where there were chickens and cats and a sheepdog and, on occasions, other animals as well, which she looked after for other people.
‘You didn’t go and find out if I was there?’ Vera felt tears well up. She had imagined her parents worrying about her, and causing them concern was the reason she hadn’t written. She had wanted Dad to feel shame at his treatment of her, make him see how unreasonable he had been.
‘I wanted to go, Vera, but your dad thought it best to leave you alone till you felt ready to say sorry,’ her mother whispered, wringing out a towel and shaking it to straighten it. Her face was serene, and Vera knew she wasn’t really aware of what was being said. Accepting the cup of tea her sister Netta offered, she wondered with rising irritation when one of them would be interested enough to ask where she had been.
‘Are you staying home now?’ her father asked gruffly.
‘No, I’m not staying with a family which cares so little, and I’m certainly not going to apologise for doing nothing at all!’
‘Will you have a bit of cake with your tea?’ her mother asked politely, continuing to deal with the washing.
Vera shook her head. ‘Best I don’t stay, Mam. I have a train to catch.’
‘A train?’ Her mother frowned.
At last she’s going to ask me where I’ve been, Vera thought, wondering how much she would tell them all.
‘Time for a bite to eat?’ her mother asked, dashing her hope of a belated show of interest.
‘Next time, Mam,’ she replied, standing to leave.
‘Yes, you must come again. We miss you, Vera, love.’
Sadness overwhelmed Vera and she hugged her tiny, vague mother and nodded towards her father. So much for the welcome of the prodigal, she thought bitterly.
‘Where are you going then, if you aren’t with Auntie Kitty?’ her father asked.
At last! But the question was too late. She hid her disappointment, the hurt showing only in the tightness of her jaw. ‘I’ve got a job and a temporary address. I might write when I get something permanent,’ she said casually. As she hugged her sisters, her mother took the towels she had washed, rinsed and put to dry back in the water and began washing them all over again.
‘You can stay if you want to,’ her father said.
She was tempted, not by a need to be home and a part of her family, but by knowing she ought to be there to help her mother. She was the oldest daughter and had a duty to support the rest. But she had only to think of sharing a bedroom with her four sisters, and recall the fight for the kitchen sink and some precious privacy for washing herself, to mentally flee from the idea of returning.
The doctor’s surgery was open and she went in and sat to await her turn. The doctor was sympathetic when she asked if there was any help available for her mother, and he explained that he visited her as often as he could.
‘The trouble is your father,’ he said.
‘Surprise, surprise! When is the trouble not my father?’
‘He refuses to accept that there is a problem and won’t take advice.’
‘Surprise again!’ She looked away from the doctor and asked, ‘Would it help my mother if I stay? I find my father impossible to live with and I’ve moved away. I feel guilty, wondering if my staying would be best for her.’ She held her breath as she waited for his reply. Please make it easy for me to go, she prayed.
‘You have four sisters and they all do what they can and, to be truthful, there isn’t much anyone can do. There are tablets, which I’m told your father throws on the fire, and apart from making sure she is safe from danger, doing everything you can to prevent accidents, all we have left is a home for the elderly and the, er – the sick.’ He hesitated to say the ‘mentally ill’. Mr Matthews was almost certainly not the only one to refuse to accept that evaluation. ‘Your father won’t agree to that either.’
‘I think he’d consider sending her away as his failure.’
‘Where are you living?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got a job in a beach café in St David’s Well. I’m enjoying it. I’ve made new friends and I’m happy. But if you think I should come back home, then I will.’
‘Stay where you’re happy. Miss Matthews. Your staying will only add to the list of miserable and frustrated people. I wish you well.’ He smiled and stood up, dismissing her.
‘You won’t tell Dad or my sisters where I am?’ she asked. ‘I’ll keep in touch, mind, but I want to decide when.’
There were hours to wait before meeting Maldwyn for the journey home, and she wished they hadn’t agreed to travel together. She didn’t want to stay any longer. She needed someone to tease and to laugh with, someone to make her forget her contempt for herself. She wondered what Maldwyn was doing and whether his homecoming had been more pleasant than her own.
Maldwyn had pushed open the back door and called to Winifred. He no longer called her Mam, as in the early days of her marriage to his father, and unable to decide on an alternative he called. ‘Hi there, it’s me, Maldwyn.’
‘“Hi there”, indeed. You sound like one of those American soldiers. Nice boys they are mind, so friendly, and such manners you’d never believe!’ she chattered as she came forward and hugged him and took the bag he was carrying, adding, ‘There’s lovely it is to see you, Maldwyn. Is this the washing I asked you to bring?’
Embarrassed, tearful, unable to cope with the first few moments, Winifred was glad she had the clothes to deal with. Giving him a cup of tea and a few biscuits, she busied herself in the small back kitchen and soon had the washing sorted. The whites were put on to boil and the rest were soaking in the big galvanised bath brought in from the garden.
She had saved what food she could and set out the table with a spread worthy of Christmas Day. After they had eaten, replete and glad to be home, Maldwyn flopped into the large, overstuffed couch and felt happiness pouring over him like a ray of warm sunshine.
They didn’t do much besides talk, eat, and drink tea. At four o’clock, while the washing blew cheerfully on the clothes-line in the garden, they went for a walk. They went first to see the owner of the flower shop where Maldwyn had worked, and, to please his stepmother, to the cemetery to put flowers on his parents’ graves. Then they went to sit awhile in the park.
There were no shops open, it being a half-day closing, but they found a café and Maldwyn treated Winifred to yet more tea and a slice of fruit cake, with mysterious contents they failed to identify. Walking back through the park, they saw Delyth, who was filling the pages of her sketchbook with drawings of children at play. He introduced her to his stepmother, who admired the girl’s work profusely and made her blush.
Near a bench a few yards away, two people were standing close together and obviously quarrelling. The man’s demeanour appeared calm but the girl was waving her arms and stamping her foot in her determination to be the winner of the argument. From their distance the words couldn’t be heard but the attitude and position of the two figures left them in no doubt that the meeting was far from joyous. Maldwyn was amused to see that Delyth was hastily sketching the two figures, glancing at the couple then at her pad as she tried to capture the scene. ‘Careful, Delyth, you could get in trouble here. They might be married, and not to each other!’ he warned jokingly.
Delyth continued to draw, catching the anger as the woman raised a hand to strike the man, who held her hand and leaned forward to talk soothingly to her. Then the girl’s shoulders sagged, her head moved back as she straightened up and she fell silent. Moments later they walked away, arms around each other, her head on his shoulder, unaware of the audience they had attracted.
Maldwyn left Delyth, who told them she had seen Vera sitting on the station platform reading a book.
‘Don’t tell me she’s home again. Vera Matthews! Trouble, that girl is, carrying on something wicked,’ Winifred said, unaware of the startled expression on Maldwyn’s face. ‘Not that I could have done what her father did and send her away from home without a thought for her safety, whatever she’d done.’
‘Specially as she might not have been at fault!’ Maldwyn retorted, his lips tight with anger. ‘She’s seventeen years old; the neighbour is almost forty. Who do you think was to blame? Eh?’
‘The man, without a doubt,’ Winifred said apologetically.
The momentary anger faded and they said their goodbyes with sadness. In some childish, petulant corner of his mind. Maldwyn wanted Winifred to ask him to come back home, only so he could tell her no, that his new life was a happy one. She didn’t, and he was relieved and a little ashamed at his unkindness.
With the freshly ironed washing in his bag, he thanked Winifred and set off to meet Vera to travel home. He asked her why she had been sitting on the station reading that aftemoon, instead of being home with her family.
‘What family?’ she said with a sigh. Maldwyn didn’t ask questions. Better to wait until she was ready to tell him. She went into a shop doorway to wipe away her tears on the pretext of combing her hair and adding powder to her nose.
They were on the road approaching the station when, hearing a voice calling, Maldwyn turned to see Delyth running towards him. ‘Will you look out for work for Madge and me,’ she began, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of an engine. They saw a lorry coming towards them quite fast. They didn’t take much notice at first, although the engine sound might have warned them of its increasing speed. The pavement was narrow, with privet hedges growing over the low wall and impeding their progress, so they were near the edge of the pavement when they realised that the lorry was crossing the road and coming straight for them.
It mounted the pavement and grew larger, the sound becoming more terrifying until their heads seemed filled with the noise and the image of its approach. In the shop doorway, Vera froze. Maldwyn reacted firstly by throwing down his bag. Then he lifted Delyth up and pushed her over the wall and through the dense hedge.
With engine screaming, the lorry careered on, narrowly avoiding a collision with an oncoming car before disappearing around the corner. Vera and Delyth were shaking, Delyth wailing almost silently. The occupants of the house ran out, first to complain about the damage to their hedge, then, on being told what had happened, to comfort them with hot, sweet tea and kind words.
Maldwyn’s bag had burst open; its contents were spread over the road and had already been run over by the lorry and a postal van. The clothes so lovingly laundered by Winifred were ruined. Leaving it to be picked up later, Maldwyn walked Delyth home.
They were all subdued when they reached the small terraced house. The apparently deliberate attack had frightened them, and even though Maldwyn insisted it had been someone fooling about, or at the very worst mistaking them for someone else, Delyth wouldn’t be comforted.
When they finally reached St David’s Well, Maldwyn knew he had once again missed supper so they stopped in the town at Bleddyn Castle’s fish-and-chip shop and walked towards the railway sidings as they ate them. Hardly looking up, their feet took them to where the carriage was parked, and it wasn’t until they were within yards of it that they realised it was no longer there.
‘My clothes! My suitcase, it’s all gone!’ Vera sobbed. ‘What am I going to do? My ration book! The clothing coupons you gave me! Everything!’
‘Come back with me. I’ll smuggle you into my room while the landlady’s in the kitchen. It’ll be all right,’ Maldwyn soothed, holding her tight. ‘Whatever happens. I’ll look after you. I’ll take good care of you, I promise,’ he told her, determined to make her feel less afraid. ‘For tonight, the best thing is to get you somewhere warm and safe. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re all right.’ They stood for a long time between the rails, hugging each other, Vera’s sobs subsiding as Maldwyn described how comfortable his bed would be while he slept by the side of the wash-stand with a jug for a pillow. He succeeded in making her laugh at last and he happily added to the nonsense as he wiped away her tears. ‘I’ll stuff it with socks to make it nice and soft.’
Voices called, whistles blew and they looked up to see three men running, jumping the rails, heading towards them. Carelessly grabbing his battered bag, he took Vera’s hand and they ran. Clothes, stained with tyre tracks, fell as they ran, leaving a trail of neatly folded but filthy garments in their wake. They outran the men and hid, panting, laughing, behind a line of trucks until they were gone.
They went into Maldwyn’s lodging house without being seen, and he spent a very uncomfortable night curled up in a corner, while Vera slept peacefully in his bed. In the morning, very early, Maldwyn went down and stood at the bottom of the stairs ready to beckon when it was safe for Vera to leave. He quietly opened the door to a morning dark with rain. She was leaning over the stairs, looking down and awaiting his signal, when a firm hand touched her shoulder. The face of the landlady showed no inclination to listen to explanations.
‘I’ll give you five minutes to get out of here,’ she said, glaring down at Maldwyn. ‘This is a respectable house and there’s no room in it for the likes of you!’
He ran up, intending to plead, but she slapped his ration book into his hand and insisted that the week’s rent was due. As they collected their few possessions, the only sound was the woman’s impatient breathing and the rain. It was coming down relentlessly and with no sign of ever stopping. Looking at the useless paper carrier bags Mrs Prosser had provided, he began to ask. ‘D’you think I could borrow a bag or two—’ A glare was the only reply.
They stood in the porch outside the swiftly closed door and he looked gloomily at Vera. ‘And there’s me thinking I can look after you. I can’t even look after myself!’
Her response to that was peals of laughter and, carrying the assorted luggage, they went down the road, apparently oblivious of the downpour, singing, ‘It ain’t gonna rain no more no more, it ain’t gonna rain no more.’