Edward Jenkins of Montague Court Hotel and Restaurant stood in the pouring rain on an April evening, staring through the grimy window of an empty shop. It wasn’t much on which to build a dream, but he envisaged the window clean, freshly painted, and filled with a display of sports equipment such as the small Welsh seaside town of Pendragon Island had never seen.
Until recently, when his parents had died leaving him a half share of Montague Court, he had pushed the dream of owning and running a sports shop far from his mind. With his commitment to the family business, and his sister Margaret determined he would never forget his responsibilities, he had given up all hope. Now, everything had changed. He had changed and the idea was no longer a fanciful dream, but a possibility. This tatty-looking shop was the chrysalis from which the butterfly of his future life would emerge.
He smiled at the well-worn metaphor, his thin schoolboyish features softening, the mouth relaxing from its usual tautness. He was a tall man, wearing a riding mac over a well-cut suit, a trilby protected from the downpour by an ancient umbrella. Like his conventional clothing, Edward had formal attitudes and an accent that clearly showed his background and schooling had been expensive.
Until very recently he had done everything expected of him: supported the family in their efforts to hold back the tide of progress; doing his duty and hating it. Then he had suddenly rebelled – stepped aside from a family entrenched in the traditions of monied background – and told his sister he would uphold the family business no longer.
It was exhilarating, but also frightening, to be completely alone, belonging nowhere and with no one.
Edward brought his thoughts back to the present and stared at the dilapidated shop in front of him, the appearance of which was worsened by the dark, wet, dreary evening. The name above the rain-spattered window was faded but he could still make out the words: William Jones, Draper.
The weather over the years had taken its toll, and mildew had added its camouflage colours. Water had made its relentless way through rotten wood and lay in an ever widening pool on the floor inside. The confidence that had spurted long enough for him to outsmart his strong-minded sister Margaret had quickly faded. As he stood there, hardly aware of the rainwater running down the large black umbrella and dripping onto the bottom of his trousers, seeping into his socks and the expensive leather shoes, he felt the last dregs of it fading away.
He was so alone. If only he’d found someone to share it, to be his partner, but, he admitted sadly, he wasn’t that good at making friends. Once, a long time ago there had been Rachel, but Margaret had made sure she hadn’t been waiting for him on his return from Egypt when he left the RAF. More recently there had been a rather foolish involvement with a woman called Maisie but she had left him too.
How could he consider running a business when he had no one to help or even with whom he could discuss his plans? It was hopeless. He was hopeless.
He heard someone running towards him and began to move away. But, as the approaching footsteps slowed to a walk, he turned back for one last look at the mess that was to have been the beginning of his splendid new life. He had been a fool to think he could do it.
The footsteps drew nearer then stopped and he heard a woman’s voice mutter, “Damnation!” He turned to face the woman, now wildly waving her umbrella as she hopped about on one foot, trying to deal with a problem shoe.
“Can I help?” he asked hesitantly. Even from the single word he’d had the impression this was no helpless female desperate for a man to offer assistance. Then, as both umbrellas were tilted back to reveal the two people to each other, he recognised Megan Weston, once wealthy, spoilt and very confident, and wished he hadn’t spoken. Megan Fowler-Weston was certainly no helpless female; in fact, with her overbearing, dogmatic personality, she was someone who unnerved him completely.
“Miss Weston. Have you hurt your foot?” he asked.
“Broken the blasted heel!”
Edward wanted to run away, make some excuse about an important appointment, but he couldn’t. Unwillingly, he offered his arm. “I’ll be pleased to help you to a phone box,” he suggested, “or, if you don’t mind accepting a lift from me, my car is not far.”
“Your car,” she said peremptorily. “And why should I mind?”
He didn’t reply.
She walked on one foot and one toe tip as they made their way around the corner to where he had parked his Morris Minor. He almost apologised for the smallness of it, remembering that her grandfather had once owned a Jaguar. Then he reminded himself that Arfon Weston – in fact all the Westons, Megan included – had since come down in the world and he now drove a more modest vehicle.
With the engine humming, she settled into the passenger seat, threw her sodden umbrella behind the back of the seat and kicked off both her shoes before offering a belated, “Thanks.”
“Where would you like to be taken?” he asked as he took a cloth and wiped the misty windscreen.
“Somewhere miles from Pendragon Island, from choice!”
He hesitated, his hand on the indicator. “North? South? East or west?” he smiled.
Edward was rewarded with a rueful smile. “Sorry, I’m fed up with doting families if you must know. Drive me home, will you?” He was given directions to Glebe Lane where Megan lived with her parents, and set off through the heavy rain, which had emptied the streets of traffic.
He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but didn’t know how to begin. He knew she was expecting a baby out of wedlock, of course. That had been the source of gossip in the kitchens of Montague Court for weeks.
His sister Margaret Jenkins was having an affair with Megan’s Uncle Islwyn, which was another source of kitchen gossip, but only when his sister was not around.
Groping around for a safe subject he dared to ask, “When is the baby due?” then wished he hadn’t.
“August,” she answered easily. “It seems a long way off. Too far off to start worrying about it yet, but my mother and Grandmothers Weston and Fowler are fussing as if I were the first person ever to produce without the supporting arm of a husband.”
“You don’t want to marry my cousin?”
“Edward! You’ve just gone up in my estimation!”
“Why? What have I said?”
“Everyone presumes that it was I who was ‘left in the lurch’, whatever that means. No one has considered that I did not want to marry Terrence. You are the first to suggest it. Thank you!” Embarrassed, Edward said, “To be perfectly truthful, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to marry Terrence. He’s far from my favourite person. I’d hate to think you married him for the sake of giving the baby a name.”
“What were you doing staring into an empty shop, Edward?” she asked a moment later.
“Oh, I was just, I was—”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. Just because I unburdened my soul to you, doesn’t mean you’re obliged to reciprocate!” Her loud, confident voice made her sound irritable even when she wasn’t. This time she took the sting out of her sharpness with a smile.
“All right, if you want to know, I want to open the depressing-looking place as a sports shop. There, aren’t you going to tell me how stupid I am? That the town doesn’t have the need of one? That I’ll fail because I’m not friendly enough? That I’ll end up destitute, having lost all my money?”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea. If it weren’t for The Lump,” she patted her slightly extended stomach, “I’d offer to help!”
“My turn to say thanks,” he grinned.
Megan was surprised by the difference the smile made to his bland face. He normally wore a sombre, slightly nervous expression and appeared ready to apologise the moment some one approached him. Now this unexpected encounter seemed to have relaxed him. His eyes glinted in the darkness and his teeth showed even and white. She realised that he was much younger than she had previously thought.
“To take over the old draper’s shop and transform it will be costly,” she coaxed and waited for his reply. She watched him in the gloom of the evening, guessing from his slight frown that vanished the smile without trace, that he was undecided whether or not to continue to discuss it. “Starting from nothing – in fact, less than nothing, seeing the awful state of the place.” Still no response. “You’ll need an awful lot of capital to buy the property, clean it up and stock it sufficiently to attract buyers. It isn’t an impossible dream though.”
She knew she had said the right thing; his frown lifted and he turned to her and asked, “Megan, will you come with me tomorrow and look at it?” Then, regretting the impulse he quickly added, “but there, I don’t suppose you have the time, a busy young woman like you. Sorry I mentioned it.”
“Why me?” she enquired, ignoring his retreat.
“I shouldn’t have asked you, but I need a second eye on the place. I don’t think I see clearly because I want it so much.”
“What fun!” she smiled. “Shall we say two o’clock? I have a ghastly visit to the doctor in the morning, to make sure The Lump is making good progress.”
“You’ll come?”
“Try and stop me!”
Edward watched her walk away, limping up the path on her broken shoe to her front door and letting herself inside, while he idled the car engine and held back from letting in the clutch. He felt slightly embarrassed, wondering what the forthright Miss Megan Fowler-Weston would think of the almost derelict property. It looked even worse inside. He sighed, accepting the inevitable, that he would walk away after their two o’clock appointment convinced that he would never succeed in creating his own little empire. He could almost hear his sister Margaret’ s laughter at his failed and costly efforts.
He drove back to Montague Court in time to clear the last of the dishes and set the tables for breakfast, wishing he were miles away from the seaside town of Pendragon Island. But where he would like to be, he had no idea. A ship without a rudder, that’s me, he sighed.
Megan was waiting for him when he reached the old draper’s shop the following day. Edward was tense, having had an argument with Margaret about his refusal to finish his lunchtime duties and, seeing an offended frown on Megan’s face – probably because he’d had the audacity to keep her waiting – he showed less than his usual politeness as he said, “Don’t start. I was unavoidably held up.” He felt a frisson of excitement as she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again without uttering a word. For a moment he wanted to apologise but held it back. The next few minutes would give her plenty of chances to get her own back!
To his surprise she didn’t react unfavourably at once, but walked around the double-fronted premises in silence. She followed him into the back room where the draper had once kept his stock but which was now a mess of broken shelves and unrecognisable clutter.
A door which squealed its protest on the red and black tiles was opened to reveal a kitchen which, in turn, led down rickety steps to a small, completely overgrown garden.
“Hard to imagine, Edward,” Megan said then, “but this faces almost due south and would be a sunny and a pleasant place to sit.”
“I always feel there’s something sad about an abandoned garden, although heaven knows why I think so. I’ve never so much as cut a blade of grass, and I wouldn’t know which way up to plant anything. I can’t even name these trees.”
“You have bramble, nettles, some optimistic ash and sycamore trees and the ubiquitous buddleia,” she said with authority.
They left the tangle of vegetation and went back inside. “Pretty hopeless, eh?” Edward said with a shrug, feeding her with words.
“D’you think so? I was imagining it once someone like Mrs Collins – Victoria’s mother – had had a few days here. It really wants little more than a good clean. Then there’s the Griffithses. Good at odd jobs they are. Get them to clear out all the rubbish first, then get them back to do some painting and you’d have a place burgeoning with possibilities.”
“I thought you’d tell me to forget it.”
“Well if you’re that defeatist you might as well,” she said, the sharpness returning to her voice.
“You’re right. I expect to fail. It’s time I changed all that, isn’t, it?”
“I should say so.” She looked at him, staring in a way that made him edgy, like a pupil before a headmistress’s accusations. “I can’t do anything really useful, Edward, because of The Lump, but I’m bored and I’d enjoy helping with the planning. In fact, if you decide to go ahead, I’ll go with you to see Frank Griffiths and get him to agree to the cleaning-up process. Phone me when you decide.”
“We haven’t sold Montague Court yet. There have been viewers but I suspect most of them have been local people curious to see inside what was once a manor house and is now in the reduced circumstance of a restaurant and hotel. I also suspect,” he added slowly, “that my sister is discouraging those who do show interest.”
“Then be there yourself. You can find out from the agent when to expect prospective buyers if Margaret is devious.”
“Yes, of course. That’s, what I’ll do. And there are ways of getting started without waiting for a sale. The agent explained it all to me.”
“So?” Megan said with a touch of impatience, “So will you continue to think about it? Think and think until the opportunity is gone?”
“I have decided,” he said and it was as though he was listening to someone else talking. “I am going to do it.”
She didn’t enthuse or even show surprise, she just said, “We’ll go and see Frank and Ernie Griffiths this evening. Call for me at seven.”
Going back to the estate agent, Edward explained that he wanted to buy the shop but until the estate was settled he wasn’t able to commit himself, and after long negotiations with the owner, a contract was drawn up for one year’s rental during which time he had the opportunity to buy. He went home feeling more drunk than sober even though he hadn’t touched a drop. He left the office trembling with that now familiar mixture of fear and excitement.
The rain had stopped and a weak moon showed itself as Edward knocked on the door at seven o’clock. Megan didn’t invite him in, she was waiting for him and came out immediately.
“We’ll walk, it isn’t far and I feel the need to stretch my legs after a day of rain.”
He locked the car and they set off together, chatting easily about the work needed and the sequence in which it should be done. He had some letters to post and they were passing her grandparents’ house on the way to the main post office, when they heard shouts. A man ran out of Arfon and Gladys Weston’s gate and pushed past them. Edward steadied Megan before seeing her grandfather shouting and gesturing for him to chase the man. He ran a short distance down the road and amazingly caught up with the man, who was of equal height as himself and about the same weight.
“Get off me you damned fool,” the man muttered, his voice surprising Edward by its well modulated tone. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and tried to swing him around; he wore a mask, and as Edward made an attempt to remove it, he lost his grip. The man wriggled violently and made his escape.
“Sorry, but he got away,” he apologised. “But I heard him speak and he didn’t sound like a working-class chancer. He was educated and from the way he struggled, very fit.”
Arfon was hugging Megan and he said gruffly, “Are you all right my dear? Not hurt? You’d better come in.” Arfon peered at the man now standing beside his granddaughter and added, “Edward Jenkins isn’t it? You’d better come in too. Hurry Megan, I need to call the police and you can help settle your grandmother.”
“Police? Grandfather! For goodness sake tell me what happened?”
“Someone tried to rob us that’s what, but we’re all right. No one harmed. What cheek! At this time of an evening too!”
Going into the large, well-furnished house overlooking the docks, Edward felt uneasy. This wasn’t his affair, and it would be best if he left. He began to excuse himself from staying, but Megan insisted he waited until the police arrived, so he went into the kitchen and made tea while Megan comforted Gladys and Arfon who were complaining loudly.
The thief stopped not far from where he had lost sight of Edward and took a breath. Then he walked slowly and casually through the streets back to the house he shared with Barbara Wheel and their two daughters. The accent had been a sudden improvisation and it had given him an idea. Tomorrow he would go into Cardiff and buy himself a really smart suit, shirt and some shoes. The police investigating the robberies wouldn’t be looking for someone like Percy Flemming, assistant gardener, would they? Not if the intruder had been described as well dressed and with a ‘posh’ accent.
The police arrived and Arfon went into what Gladys called his public speaking mode, and in a pompous voice described how he and Gladys heard something and went to investigate and saw a man in the hall. Arfon made much of the way he chased the intruder; Gladys cried a little and Megan and Edward added what they knew, before they abandoned their intention to visit the Griffithses and Edward took Megan home.
When they had gone, Gladys looked at Arfon with disapproval on her face. “What is our granddaughter doing with Edward Jenkins, Arfon? I don’t think he’s a suitable companion, do you?”
“Nonsense, dear. He’s pleasant enough. Good family and all that.”
“I suppose so, although with that cousin of his seducing Megan and leaving her in the lurch, causing us all such trouble, and his sister Margaret stealing Sian’s husband, they’re hardly a good family any more.” She frowned. “But if Megan likes him, shall I invite him to tea?”
“Oh that’ll be fine, won’t it! Shall you invite his sister Margaret as well? His sister and Islwyn? Our Sian’s husband who she ran off with?”
Gladys shook her head. “Best not, dear.”
Dora Lewis sat in her living room filling in the details of the day’s takings at the Rose Tree Café. Every time she completed a column of figures she was aware of the silence. The house had once rattled with the noise of a lively family: herself, Lewis Lewis her husband, and their three children. Now she was separated from Lewis and he was living across the road with their daughter and her family.
After a brief attempt at reconciliation with Lewis, soon after their daughter’s marriage, she was on her own once more. Lewis had slipped quietly into her bedroom a few nights after his return to number seven Sophie Street and although she wanted him so much that her love and need of him was a continual ache, she had sent him away. Pride, or fear of being let down again when he found another woman, had been too much for her to bear.
With their son Lewis-boy dead and his widow remarried to one of the Griffithses, and their other son Viv married to Megan’s sister Joan, she had hoped that her daughter Rhiannon would stay, at least for a while, until she accustomed herself to the emptiness.
But now Rhiannon was married to Charlie Bevan and living across the road. They were all gone and seven Sophie Street felt like a barn.
Dora reached over and picked up a wedding photograph of Rhiannon and Charlie with Charlie’s son Gwyn. Newly wed and burdened with Lewis sharing their home. It wasn’t right. And here she was, sitting alone in the family home with empty rooms mocking her.
She wanted Lewis back so badly. But, afraid he would let her down again, she ignored his pleading eyes and showed no one how much she still loved him. The fact that her errant husband was sharing his daughter’s house just yards away and wanted to come back, was like a forbidden treat, a reward unearned and ungiven.
She hadn’t believed him when he had told her he was moving in with the young newly-weds across the road. But today the car had been parked outside her house while Lewis had carried a rather bedraggled assortment of clothes into Rhiannon and Charlie Bevan’s home.
It was blackmail, she was aware of that. Rhiannon and Charlie were just married and needed time to themselves; Charlie’s son, Gwyn, wanted to be with his father and his new stepmother without interference from anyone, let alone Rhiannon’s father, who had resented Charlie Bevan from the moment he had seen his daughter talking to the man whom he still referred to as ‘that jailbird’.
She should offer Lewis a room here, in the home they had once shared, but she had been hurt so much she couldn’t face it. Rhiannon understood and Charlie understood, but that didn’t make Lewis living there a good thing.
Dora pushed the photograph away from her and stared into the fire. The silence of seven Sophie Street settled around her and she felt chilly draughts she had never before been aware of, and felt the expanse of emptiness reminiscent of hiding in vacant, soulless houses as a child, waiting for a friend to find her and shout with glee.
Just how long she could cope with the silence, the hollowness, the realisation that she was unneeded, she didn’t know.
Thank goodness she and Sian Fowler-Weston had their café.
Both women had been left by their husbands: Lewis to live with Nia Martin who had since died, and Sian’s husband Islwyn to live with Margaret Jenkins at Montague Court. For both of them, the Rose Tree Café, near the boating lake, was their sheet anchor. Coming home, to the empty unwelcoming house, was like being stranded by the outgoing tide.
Lewis Lewis, Dora’s estranged husband, finished taking his belongings into Charlie and Rhiannon’s spare room. He stood at the window and stared across at number seven, where a light shone bleakly through closed curtains. He imagined Dora sitting there and wished he was with her. He had treated her badly, leaving her for Nia Martin who had died in a tragic accident leaving him bereft. Now he no longer had a place in his family, no place to live, and no one to hurry home to. Rhiannon had accepted him here under sufferance, and he knew he would be expected to stay in his room rather than share the evenings with them. Lewis Lewis was not good at being alone.
He ran down the stairs and called, “Rhiannon, love, I think I’ll just go to The Railwayman for an hour, perhaps see Viv there.” Swallowing his unwillingness he added, “Fancy coming, Charlie?”
“No thanks, we’re going to see the Griffithses. Rumour has it they’ve got some baby goats and Gwyn would love to see them.”
“Right then.” He patted his pocket. “I’ve got a key, so I’ll see you later.” He went out, walking up the road aware of disappointment, wishing Charlie and Rhiannon had invited him to join them for their walk to the Griffiths’ house, but knowing he could expect nothing more.
He stopped on the corner and looked at the sweet shop called Temptations. Nia Martin, the woman for whom he had left Dora, had owned it and his daughter, Rhiannon, had been working there for a couple of years. With Nia dead, it was now owned by Nia’s son Barry. There was a light in the flat above the shop and he wondered idly whether it had been rented out, and to whom.
Since his son Viv had married Joan Fowler-Weston, he was no longer a regular visitor to The Railwayman, so it was with pleasure that Lewis recognised him sitting in a corner with Frank and Ernie Griffiths and Jack Weston. They were deep in discussion about something and he hesitated to join them, going instead to the bar to order a pint. He glanced across and pretended to have just noticed them when Viv raised a hand and beckoned him over.
“Want a job, Mr Lewis?” Frank said, a lugubrious expression on his long face.
“Not unless it’s well paid, with a car and plenty of perks. Why, what’s up?”
“That Edward Jenkins bloke from Montague Court came to see me this afternoon. Seems he’s buying old Jones the Draper’s shop and wants me and our Ernie to clean it up a bit.”
“A bit?” Lewis groaned theatrically. “It was a mess before the old man closed down. More rats than customers was what I heard. And spiders as big as a man’s hands and cockroaches to fill a man’s shoe.”
“Thanks! That’s cheered me up no end.”
“He isn’t going to be a draper is he? A bit too posh for anything like that I’d have thought,” Lewis said, taking a chair from another table and sitting down.
“Sports shop I believe.”
Lewis joined in the discussion as the viability of the business was considered, but his mood was melancholy and he edged away from it and stared around the room, hoping to find more interesting company. Molly Bondo came in and caught his eye, but he didn’t react. If he were seen talking to the local prostitute he’d never be allowed back into number seven Sophie Street!
Somehow he had to behave himself for as long as it took for Dora to forgive him, or take pity on him, whichever came first.
Edward’s sister Margaret was in a dilemma. She had begun arrangements for the house to be extended and a swimming pool added, before Edward had dropped his bombshell, telling her he wanted the house sold to release his half of the value. With Islwyn Heath-Weston, who shared her worries and her bed, she was going through the accounts trying to find a way to continue with her plan without Edward’s money. It all seemed hopeless.
“There are two separate prospective buyers coming this afternoon,” Islwyn said, handing her the diary.
“I don’t want to sell,” she said despairingly.
“There isn’t an alternative, my dear. Edward saw to that.”
“My stupid brother. Why can’t he see what he’s throwing away? With the improvements we’d planned, Montague Court would be a real money-spinner. People are thinking more and more about holidays, and offering them a stay in an impressive house like Montague Court, a place with such a history, and treating them like high-class ladies and gentlemen, it would have had strong appeal, I know it would.”
“We should have brought him into the discussions sooner.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference, Issy. My brother isn’t a reasonable man.”
The first of the viewers were shown around by Islwyn, who pretended to work for the family. Offering warnings as asides throughout his tour of the beautiful old building, he managed to convince them that it had every kind of rot and most insect infestations.
“We can’t always be that lucky,” he sighed as Mr and Mrs Threedling walked away.
Islwyn was just setting out with the second of that day’s viewers when to his disappointment, Edward returned.
“Thank you, Mr Heath-Weston, but I will attend to Mr and Mrs Grant.” For a moment Edward thought Islwyn was going to argue but Edward snatched the notepad from him and smiled politely at the prospects and invited them to follow him.
Annie Grant was a small, neatly dressed woman in her forties and when she spoke her voice was gentle. Leigh Grant was louder in dress as well as voice, wearing a rather bold check jacket and grey trousers, and a shirt and a discordant tie. He appeared the more confident, yet it was to his wife he looked when queries were raised and it was she who asked the most pertinent questions.
Edward explained that Montague Court had been their family home for more than three hundred years.
“Death duties and repairs forced our parents to sell the estate, including woodlands and a couple of farms, eight smallholdings, and a sawmill. For the last few years we have managed the house as an hotel and restaurant to keep it in the family. But that is no longer possible.”
“You’ll regret selling it?” Leigh Grant asked.
“Not really. It’s my sister Margaret who has strong historic fervour. I want a life free from worries about the roof and the prospect of damp and woodworm and the rest.” He smiled then, guessing what would be Mrs Grant’s next question. “It has been treated for those things and so far as I know there aren’t any serious problems about to emerge. But you’ll check everything of course?”
“We’d need to have a survey,” Mr Grant said. He turned to his wife and asked, “What d’you think of it Annie? Would you be happy here?”
Edward slowly guided them around the spacious, beautifully proportioned rooms, entertaining them with an occasional anecdote about how they had been used in his grandmother’s time and he knew they were impressed.
When Mrs Grant asked whether the curtains and carpets would be available to buy, Edward felt a surge of hope. He wrote the name of his solicitor on the notepad and handed it to them.
“You have our telephone number, but I’ll write it down again for you. Please will you speak to me when you have a query, or if you would like a second look? My sister gets so upset you see,” he explained. After the reminder from Megan, he knew he didn’t want Islwyn or Margaret talking to, and discouraging, them. “It’s important you deal with me over this.” He hoped they wouldn’t give Margaret and Islwyn a chance to intervene. He needed to be free of the place as soon as possible so he could concentrate on the sports shop.
When Islwyn and Ryan had married Arfon and Gladys Weston’s twin daughters, they had been given a life of comparative luxury. Neither worked very hard, leaving the running of the Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint Stores to a succession of managers, the most recent being Dora and Lewis’s son Viv.
While idling their time and digging into the till when they needed extra money, the business had failed. Then a series of disasters had hit the family and Arfon had sacked them both. To their further fury, Viv Lewis had been given the position of manager.
Sian’s husband, Islwyn, had found work in a fish and chip shop, an occupation chosen mainly to embarrass Old Man Arfon into giving him his job and salary back. To his disbelief, Arfon had refused and had allowed Viv Lewis not only to stay, but had given him a partnership. His long-time affair with Margaret Jenkins had provided him with an escape and when his wife, Sian, sold their home to give the money to Arfon and Gladys, he had left her to live with Margaret at Montague Court.
Ryan, who was married to Sally, hadn’t worked at all. He had just sat idly watching as Sally rearranged her life and took in paying guests to provide them with an income. For a while he found it amusing, but gradually the thought that his wife was managing to keep their home, providing for himself and their daughter Megan by her efforts, was making him more and more tense.
Old Man Arfon showed no sign of relenting and, to add to his unhappiness, his brother-in-law Islwyn seemed to have found himself a very comfortable life at Montague Court, and his daughter Megan was expecting an illegitimate child.
The hardest part was their openness about their misbehaviour. Islwyn made no pretence of the fact he was living with Margaret Jenkins, sharing her bed, and unrepentant about Sian’s humiliation, and Megan seemed inordinately proud of her predicament, flaunting her disgrace instead of hiding away and making plans to dispose of the baby. She was out and about without a moment’s embarrassment and telling everyone that she was keeping the child. He rose out of his chair and hurried from the house. It was all too much.
Islwyn had a visitor that afternoon. To see his brother-in-law, Ryan, walking along the drive of Montague Court was a surprise. Since he had walked out on Sian, no one in the family had spoken to him. He hadn’t even seen any of them except his schoolteacher son, Jack, who had begged him to go home. Seeing his brother-in-law approaching and obviously in a bad mood, he presumed Ryan was intent on making the same request.
“Ryan. What a surprise. Come to tell me to go back to my grieving wife, have you?”
“No I haven’t,” Ryan said glumly. “Why should you when you’ve landed yourself with all this?” He waved an arm around the house and its gardens.
“It isn’t as good as it looks,” Islwyn said, getting into step with Ryan and edging away from the house. “Margaret is having to sell. That stupid Edward is being uncooperative.”
“Stupid? He’s managed to scupper your plans rather neatly!”
“Not yet he hasn’t.”
“You’re still better off than if you’d stayed with your wife, sharing that rabbit-hutch of a house in Trellis Street. Especially with her out all day working at that damned Rose Tree Café with Dora Lewis. You’d have been reminded every day what a failure you are.” Ryan sighed. “What a mess eh? My having to keep out of the way in my own home, as Sally entertains strangers and gives them the attention she should be giving me, and you–” he tilted his head and smiled sarcastically, “–poor you, suffering all the discomforts of living in a mansion with a wealthy woman.”
“If Edward had cooperated it would have been wonderful, but it’s falling apart.”
“Poor you.” Ryan said again, and the sarcastic grin remained.
“You can sneer, but it isn’t as good as we’d hoped, although we are in it together – I’m not alone. I don’t have to sit back feeling sorry for myself, and wait for my wife to feed me! I’ll never regret leaving Sian for Margaret, whether things turn out good or bad. It’s an exciting new start. What have you got to look forward to? More of the same, while you get older and older and more and more sorry for yourself? Pathetic you are Ryan, and you always were!”
“Thief!”
“Loser!”
Ryan was seething as he walked back to Glebe Lane. The house was impressively large and he knew it was still theirs solely because of Sally’s efforts. He had been unlucky. The Westons losing their money had been a disaster for him. Until then he had been working at the Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint Stores, and receiving a good salary, while having Viv Lewis do all the work. Islwyn was right, he was sitting around waiting for Sally to spare him a moment between fussing over her guests. Resentment, slowly simmering over the past weeks, began to build.
He went through to the kitchen, where Sally was preparing vegetables for the evening meal she provided for her guests.
“Fetch me some tea,” he said as he brushed past her.
“Make it will you, Ryan? I have to finish these before I go to the shops. Megan will be home soon. She’ll be glad of a cup too.”
“Me make it? For you and that disgusting daughter of yours? You’re my wife. You make it. I’ll be in the lounge with the morning papers – if your boarders haven’t ruined them!”
Sally turned to him, her face flushed, an uneasy defiance in her eyes. “I don’t have time.”
Ryan turned on his heel and hit her.