Rhiannon hated the period after Christmas. The need for sweets dwindled as most families still had chocolates and sweets given as presents, so the shop was quiet. This year, besides the lack of business making the days drag, it was made worse by the end of her unofficial engagement to Barry. He still lived above the shop and his constant comings and goings were an embarrassment. She still had a sense of loss and when he came into the shop she tried to hide her face for fear he would see the regret and yearning.
In a purely selfish way she was glad every time she saw him staggering up the stairs, reminding her he was still living apart from Caroline. She didn’t doubt they would one day be together, seeing them over Christmas, sharing their love for Joseph, had made that clear, but she hoped it wouldn’t happen until she had accepted the end of her hopes of becoming Mrs Barry Martin.
At five-thirty she closed the shop, not waiting for the stragglers as she usually did, but hurrying out, away from the possibility of seeing Barry and Caroline together. As she closed the shop door she glanced at the window and saw that one of the pyramid display of toffee tins was missing. She frowned and replaced it. That was the second time this week she had noticed something missing. Over the past weeks several bars of chocolate had gone, and she was certain that a seven-pound jar half filled with winter mixture had not been sold. There was a thief among her customers, but how was she to find out who, and, what would she do when she had?
It was a mild, tranquil night, the icy wind that had tormented them all day had dropped and the cool air was a mere caress. She stopped, with her key in her hand and walked back down the road to the corner from where she could look between the houses, to the lights just visible in the docks and on the sea.
“Dreamin’ again, young Rhiannon?” a voice called and Rhiannon stepped across the road to speak to old Maggie Wilpin.
“Lovely clear night, Maggie,” she said.
“When you’re as old as me they’re all beautiful,” Maggie grunted.
“Isn’t it time you went inside?” Rhiannon coaxed. “You must be cold sitting still with only an old coat around you.”
Maggie grunted again and Rhiannon asked her why she sat there so late into the night.
“The nights are long, and if I stay here for part of them I can cope with the darkness better. Besides, I’m waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“Waiting for Gwyn’s dad Charlie to come home. He said he’ll be home in January.”
“Couldn’t you wait inside? Gwyn would be glad of your company, wouldn’t he?”
“He’s out with his friends. Won’t be home till eight, then he goes straight to bed. Hardly worth lighting the fire these days.”
“You do have a fire, don’t you?”
“Yes, I need it to cook on since the cooker clunked out on me. Gwyn’s dad’ll sort it when he’s home.”
Charlie Bevan was the husband of Maggie’s granddaughter Morfedd, who had left home when Charlie had been called up. Morfedd had since divorced him and Maggie had taken them in, her granddaughter’s husband and his small son. She was tired. How much longer would she have to wait for Charlie?
When Rhiannon reached home she asked her mother if they could buy some coal for Maggie. “I don’t think she lights a fire unless she has to. Gwyn spends most of his time out of the house and she doesn’t think it’s worth lighting it for herself.”
“Ask Viv when he comes home. He’ll go and see if he can persuade her,” Dora said. She had been making soups, experimenting with the idea of offering light lunches as well as the snacks for which the Rose Tree Café was well known. Taking the saucepanful of creamy tomato, made with the help of Janet Griffiths’s offering of cream, she said, “Here, Rhiannon, love, take her a bowl of this. Old Maggie likes my soups. And my hot pasties.”
“How many times this week have you given her food, Mam?”
“No matter.”
Joan and Megan’s mother told the twins she wanted to see them, together and at once. She knew that it was the day on which the results of Megan’s test would be known. She had said nothing to her sister. Time for that if the predicament were confirmed. She doubted whether she would ever be able to tell her mother. She’d have to emigrate first! The subject to be discussed, she told her daughters, was Megan’s visit to the doctor. “It’s all right, Mummy,” Megan said at once. “I’ve had the results and there isn’t going to be a baby. I – I was mistaken. Worry, the doctor said it might have been.”
“Oh, so we can forget it can we? Pretend it didn’t happen?” Sally said quietly.
“That’s best, isn’t it?” Megan said, unaware of the cold anger in her mother’s eyes.
“Are you now going to tell me who he is?” Sally’s voice grew only slightly louder but Megan stared at her in surprise. Unlike Auntie Sian, her mother rarely raised her voice.
“I don’t know.”
“What? How many men have you been with?”
As her mother looked about to collapse into tears, Joan said, “It’s all right Mummy. Remember when someone attacked her in the lane? Megan’s been afraid ever since, that the man might have left her pregnant.”
“You mean he – actually—?”
Pulling her mother to one side Joan said, “I don’t think he did – that – he didn’t do – you know what. But Megan was in such a state and she’s very ignorant about what creates a baby.”
Sally’s shoulders relaxed and she stared at her daughter with relief showing on her face. “Poor love,” she soothed. “Why didn’t you come to me?” Then she turned to her other daughter and said firmly, “And I hope you are ignorant of what’s needed too!”
“Oh, I am, Mummy. I just read more, that’s all.” Joan grinned and was relieved when her mother smiled too.
When they were alone, Joan said angrily, “And that’s the last time I get you out of a mess like that, Megan. I haven’t forgiven you for using my name yet!”
“Sorry Joan, but I was so frightened I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“D’you mean on the visit to the doctors? Or when you and Terry Jenkins went further than you intended?”
“What are you talking about?” Megan gasped. “It was that man in the lane!”
“And I’m a chimney sweep with gold teeth!” Joan snapped. “You can at least be honest with me, after I’ve squared it with Mummy.”
“All right. It was Terry, but I was afraid they’d make me marry him and I didn’t think I loved him enough for that.”
“Didn’t think?” Joan queried. “What about now? Aren’t you sure any more?”
“It’s funny, but in a way I was disappointed, about not having a baby. It was as if the decision about what to do with my life had been made for me. Now it’s all in the melting pot again and I have to make some plans for the future.”
“You’re bored, Megan. Get yourself a job. The Weston Women are no longer able to live a life of idleness, and I for one am glad.”
On New Year’s Eve there was a dance. Viv was going and he asked Rhiannon to go with him. “Jack will be there, and Eleri and Basil are going. The length of him! Can you just imagine what he’ll look like dancing with plump little Eleri? That’ll be a sight to see, all curled up like a pug dog’s tail, he’ll be.”
She shrugged noncommittally but decided later that she would. She didn’t want Barry to think that she was stuck indoors pining for him. Although Barry wouldn’t be there. He didn’t like dancing.
When she walked into the dancehall the first couple she saw was Barry and Caroline, partnered in a waltz. Barry obviously didn’t object to dancing when Caroline was his partner! Oh why hadn’t she asked Jimmy? He would have come with her and now she was faced with either dignified retreat, or having to sit and hope someone beside Viv would ask her to dance. At New Year there wouldn’t be many there who hadn’t come with a partner. She looked hopefully for Jack and had another surprise. Jack was dancing with Victoria Jones!
She spent a lot of that evening in the cloakroom or dancing with her brother. Basil asked her for a dance and in his usual bumbling way he shuffled her around the floor and demanded to know why she was alone.
“What’s happened to that Jimmy?” he asked. “Nice enough bloke, mind, better than hankering after Barry. Can’t make up his mind, that’s his trouble. That baby it is, you know. That little Joseph has the fault for Barry spending so much time at our place with our Caroline.”
Eleri heard the end of his comments as he escorted Rhiannon back to her seat.
“Oh shut up, Basil, love,” she sighed. But they looked at each other and smiled. Rhiannon sighed too, for the dream of someone looking at her as Basil looked at Eleri.
Barry and Caroline left before Auld Lang Syne, and he was silent as they drove back to the Griffithses’ cottage beyond the town.
“Is something wrong, Barry?” Caroline asked. “Is it because Rhiannon was there and you weren’t able to take her home? I could have come with Basil. He’d have seen me safe. He still would if we turned around and went back.”
“You want to know what’s wrong?” he asked and he answered for himself. “Everything’s wrong.”
“Tell me.”
After a few false starts he blurted it out. “I want to be married to you. Properly married. I want to share the fun of bringing up Joseph, you and me together. Now, what d’you say to that then?”
“Oh Barry. It’s what I want too.”
After a benign start, winter was soon gripping the country in a bitterly cold hand. Ice and snow caused problems in many ways: people falling and hurting themselves, transport delaying the arrival of goods, farmers being unable to lift crops. Many and varied businesses were hit as people stayed in rather than face the discomfort of the icy pavements and the keen wind. Even the January sales failed to coax the usual numbers of people out to hunt for bargains.
Viv managed to sell most of his surplus and damaged stock, the best going to Jack to decorate the small house on Goldings Street. Jack did most of the work, helped on occasions by Basil and Eleri, and Viv.
“Selling it to you at rock bottom prices then having to hang the stuff. Talk about cheek,” Viv moaned as he put the last piece of wallpaper in place in Mrs Jones’s bedroom.
“Stop moaning. You’ll be glad of my tuition when you have a place of your own,” Jack said. “That is if anyone would have you!”
“Hark who’s talking! An old man like you. I’ve given up waiting for an invitation to your wedding, boy!” The banter continued but Viv’s heart was heavy. The prospect of his marrying were slight. He loved Joan but how could he expect her to marry him and accept the little he could offer? The Westons may be broke, but they were still the Westons, and subject to the ambitions and attitudes of people with money.
Viv’s words also had their effect on Jack. The following morning when it was time for Victoria to leave Goldings Street and go to start her day’s work for his grandmother, Jack was waiting for her at the corner of Goldings Street and Trellis Street. It was too early to call. With all those little Joneses to get up, get dressed and breakfasted, he would have been in the way.
He no longer worried about his parents or anyone else seeing them together. Today he was going to propose. He waited until the front door opened then ran down to greet her.
“I want you to put on your warmest coat, Victoria,” he said as she stepped out of her front door. “You and I are going to take the day off.” He silenced her anxious “But—” with assurances that his Grandmother knew all about it and had given her blessing.
He walked with her to forty-four Trellis Street and they set off on the motorbike in freezing cold air into the countryside that glistened with frost. Out through villages huddled between starkly beautiful fields and hills, along lanes in which dead vegetation had been given new life by winter’s glorious touch.
He had no real destination in mind, he was just putting off the moment when he put the question and she would say either Yes, or No. Once said, a No would be so final that he wanted to drive on and on and not hear it.
She wouldn’t say Yes. Why should she? A pretty little thing like her? And so young she had plenty of time to choose someone more suitable. For a moment he almost decided to forget the whole thing, take her on a good day out, treat her to a meal somewhere and return her home with the dreaded words unsaid. He even turned the bike around and began to head for home.
At a crossroads he stopped and hesitated, then he drove to the pebbly beach and stopped near the entrance to the big park. Giving himself no further time to dither, he helped her off and then held her close and, with tension almost closing his throat said, as if he were barking out an order, “Victoria, will you marry me?”
She stared up at him, her eyes bright in her red, chilled face. “Say that again?” she whispered, a smile wrinkling her wind-burned cheeks in a delightful way. He relaxed and smiled too.
“I love you, you silly little thing, you must have known. Will you marry me?”
“What will your mother and grandmother say?”
“Grandmother already knows and as for mother, let’s go and tell her now, shall we? She’ll be at the café.” He kissed her, laughing at how cold their noses were, then took her to Rose Tree Café to tell his mother their news.
At the entrance, he stopped in the porch and said in alarm, “Victoria, you haven’t said Yes!”
“Yes,” she said, but there was doubt in her voice and he waited as she added, “If your mother raises no objections. I won’t want to cause trouble between you and your family.”
“Victoria, that must be the flattest acceptance ever!” He held the door of the café closed and said urgently, “You do love me?”
“I always have,” she said seriously, “but I never dreamed you would ever love me.”
He kissed her gently, playfully, and opened the door of the café and gave his mother a wide smile.
Dora and Sian had opened the Rose Tree Café on Monday the eleventh of January. Rhiannon had received a daily report on their progress but she had not yet visited it. On the day Jack proposed to Victoria, Jimmy walked in to Temptations and invited her out to lunch.
“I don’t have time, silly,” she said, “I only close for an hour.”
“An hour’s plenty,” he said. “I want to take you to the new place over by the lake.”
He grinned then and her heart warmed to him. He really was very thoughtful.
“Rose Tree Café, you mean,” she smiled. “Mam’s place.”
“Not new but definitely under new management.”
The café was hardly full, a few tables were occupied by one or two people brought there, as Dora and Sian had guessed, by the desire to see if the rumours were true and one of the Weston women was working there. The lunchtime menu had never been large, it had been more a place for snacks, and it would take time to spread the news of a better choice.
Because they had so little time, Rhiannon and Jimmy ate tomatoes on toast. Not very tasty tomatoes as they were imported and had ripened unevenly, and with the tops stubbornly hard. But they both cleared their plates and finished off with tea and a cake. “We’ll do better once the rationing is finished,” Dora said apologetically. “If it does ever!”
“Welsh lamb roasted with honey, good warming cawl, lavabread and bacon, and other wholesome recipes that are traditionally Welsh. These will be our speciality,” Sian added. “So, spread the word.” Gwennie Woodlas came through the door in a flurry of crisp skirts and a whiff of perfume. “Meat and two veg and easy on the gravy,” she demanded with a smile.
“Will soup and something on toast do, Gwennie? We aren’t starting the full lunch menu for another couple of weeks.” Dora went off to serve her. If they could please Gwennie Woodlas, then others would follow her lead.
When Jack came in pushing Victoria gently before him, Sian was coming out of the kitchen with a tray of teas.
“Jack? Is something wrong?” she asked at once. “Your grandmother?” Then she saw his smile, and relaxed.
“Grandmother is fine, and we’re here to start our celebrations, Mum. Victoria and I are going to be married.”
Sian had heard a whispered rumour, but it was still a shock to see her son looking so happy with her mother’s servant. She managed to hide her first reaction as she looked away and put down the tray, then she turned, kissed them both and offered her congratulations to her son.
“How lucky you are, Jack, to have found such a lovely bride. Welcome to the family, Victoria.”
The hubbub of conversations had died down but was revived and Gwennie hurriedly finished her soup and hurried off to begin spreading the news. At the doorway she stopped and called back.
“Oh, by the way, Sian. Will you be seeing your Sally? If you do, tell her Megan’s been to see me and I’ve offered her a job, helping me in the gown shop.”
This startling piece of news seemed unimportant after her son’s announcement and it was almost an hour later before she remembered and telephoned her sister then her mother.
Barry was waiting for Rhiannon when she got back and at once she began to explain her late return.
“No matter,” he said. “I just want to talk to you. It’s about Caroline and me.”
“You want to stay married to her.”
He went into long and detailed explanation but she heard none of it, she just wanted him gone so she could allow the fact to penetrate. It was a freedom of a sort. Better to be free than tied to someone who no longer loved her.
Barry and Caroline married for real, and a wedding to come, when Jack married Victoria. What a surprise. Jack and Victoria. She wondered if Viv knew. She hoped not. It was fun being able to tell news like that.
She felt the usual excitement at the thought of a wedding, but amid the joy was the shadow of her own hollow life. It was time she was settled, and with Barry gone from her life she stared into an empty future.
That evening as she was closing, Rhiannon watched with extra care to see who came in and who paused near the doorway from where they could reach into the window. Gwyn came as usual with Barry’s evening paper and he stopped to talk.
“Our dad’ll be home soon,” he said.
“I’m pleased for you, Gwyn,” Rhiannon said, replacing the jar of Midget Gems on the shelf after selling two ounces. “Let’s hope he gets a job and stays out of trouble this time, eh?”
“He will. He promised in his letter that he won’t leave me again.”
Charlie Bevan had been caught and imprisoned after robbing Temptations, and at the time, Rhiannon had been gratified to know the thief was being punished. But now, listening to Gwyn, who had been deprived of his father for months, she felt unexpected guilt.
The guilty were never the only ones to suffer. A thief had been caught and locked up, but his innocent family were poor and without friends, because of something they had neither done nor condoned.
Maggie Wilpin had been sitting outside her door waiting for Charlie’s return, lonely and trying to care for the boy. Gwyn himself had been like a lost soul, wandering the streets long after his friends had been safely settled in their homes, also waiting for the father he obviously loved and of whom he had been deprived. She gave Gwyn a sweet from the jar of pear drops and silently hoped that Charlie would survive without being tempted back to crime. For Gwyn’s sake, and poor old Maggie’s.
She closed up fifteen minutes later, after a late rush of customers. In the commotion of serving she hadn’t noticed anyone hesitate at the door, but another chocolate bar was missing.
She no longer wanted to catch the thief and be responsible for making another family suffer. Better she asked Barry to fix a board across to make the small window harder to reach.
A few days later she did catch her thief. Coming down the stairs from the flat, where she had been to get some hot water, she was in time to see Gwyn Bevan’s arm reach into the window and grab a tin of old fashioned humbugs left over from Christmas.
With a growl of anger, she grabbed him by the arm, swung him around and whacked him hard on the backside. Gwyn was almost thirteen but he was small and looked more like a ten-year-old. His voice lacked nothing because of his size and the yell he gave startled her and, more angry because of it she hit him again.
“Here! What’s going on?” A man burst through the door and grabbed Gwyn then stood protectively between him and the glaring Rhiannon.
“That’s what’s wrong! Look at that!” She pointed to Gwyn’s hand which still held the decorative tin. The boy uncurled his fingers and the tin dropped and rolled along the floor.
“I’ll see to this,” Rhiannon said. “There’s no need for you to involve yourself.” She did not want this interfering stranger to go for the police.
It was only then that Gwyn turned and looked at the man who still held him. “Dad!” he shouted. “You’re back!”
“And not before time, either,” Charlie Bevan said grimly.
Later that evening, Charlie Bevan came to apologise. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. What you did, giving Gwyn a slap and a fright wasn’t wrong. He deserved it. I’m home now and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m not going to the police, if that’s why you’re here,” Rhiannon said. “I wouldn’t. Not after being responsible for you being sent away last time. He’s been so lonely and lost. I’m sorry,” she said and was surprised to hear him laugh.
“Bless you, Miss Lewis. I’m glad you did. It was the last straw, see, and someone I met in there made me face up to what I am, and ask myself if I want to go on like I am for the rest of my life. I don’t. And unless I’m very unlucky, I won’t see the inside of a prison ever again.”
“I’m still sorry I deprived Gwyn of his father. Maggie’s done her best but—” Charlie appeared not to hear her.
“This man I met,” he went on, “he made me look hard at some of the old men in there, men who’ve spent more than half their lives in prison, not seeing their kids grow up, not being an example to them, only someone used as a threat. ‘You’ll grow up like you father if you don’t watch out’.” He shook his head. “I don’t want that.” He stared at her, his blue eyes dark in the artificial light, his hair cropped and shining golden on his head. He was tall, almost as tall as Barry, and he looked strong and determined.
“You’ve punished Gwyn?”
“No, but I made him talk about it. He was stealing the sweets old Maggie liked, and taking money when he had the chance, to buy food to coax her to eat, or so he says.”
“That’s all over now you’re home.”
“If I can get a job.”
She looked again at his tall, straight figure, the clear confident expression in his eyes. “Somehow I think you will.”
Gladys was settling the last of the party payments and as she totalled the final cost she thought what a waste of money it had been. Neither Megan nor Joan had met anyone they had since bothered to meet. Only Jack of the three had found his future spouse and she had been here all the time, a servant in her house. And one who used to complain about Jack patting her bottom!
It had seemed so simple, give a party, and all her problems would be solved. The romantic setting would encourage the young people to find someone they could learn to love, and soon her grandchildren would begin their courtships with attractive and wealthy young people. After all, it was at a dance that she and Arfon had met. It was where most people found their partners. Not her grandchildren of course! They had to be different! She moaned silently. Jack choosing a servant. Joan and Megan choosing no one at all!
As she licked and sealed the last envelope with its account and money inside, she heard the door and the voices of Joan and Megan. She rang the bell for Victoria, gave a very mild curse remembering she was no longer there, and went herself to the hall to greet them.
“Darlings,” she said hugging them. “Come into the kitchen and we’ll make some tea. What d’you think of Jack’s news?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing,” Joan said, “it will be difficult for us to remember not to ask her to fetch and carry for us.”
“Joan dear, you mustn’t!”
“We won’t Grandmother,” Megan laughed. “We like Victoria and she’ll be good for Jack. That’s what counts.”
“Yes, dear.” Gladys sounded unconvinced.
They discussed the little they knew about Victoria and Jack’s wedding plans for a while: the determination of Jack to have a quiet affair, bouncing against Gladys’s determination to have a splendid, show-em-how-it’s-done occasion.
“I was hoping you two would meet someone at the party and start to make plans of your own,” Gladys said sadly, “but you didn’t seem to see anyone who took your fancy.”
“Oh I did,” Joan said with a far-away look in her eyes. “I danced with the man I intend to marry.”
“You did?” Gladys brightened up considerably.
“No one new, someone I’ve known a very long time but only just realised I want to marry.”
“Tell me, dear. We’ll invite him here for Sunday tea.”
“He doesn’t know yet, but I intend to marry Viv,” Joan said, looking at her grandmother with a rebellious spark in her eye. “Viv Lewis.”
Gladys smiled through her tears.
Rhiannon was closing for the evening when Maggie Wilpin came across to talk to her.
“That grandson of mine. Was he stealing from you?” she asked.
“No, it was a misunderstanding, Maggie,” Rhiannon said at once. “He was looking, that’s all. He’d picked up a tin to look at the picture and I went at him, thinking he was taking it. Other stuff had been taken, you see. Your Gwyn was looking. Only looking he was.”
“Humbugs wasn’t it? He knows I like ’em,” Maggie said sadly.
“Gwyn’s dad came and we sorted it all. Nothing to worry about.”
Maggie nodded doubtfully. “I don’t want him to grow up making the same mistakes his father did.”
“No. Neither does Charlie,” Rhiannon assured her.
“You think the boy’ll be all right, now Charlie’s home, do you?”
“Sure of it, Maggie.”
Gertie walked across from her grocers’ shop on the opposite corner and called to Rhiannon, “Give a hand carrying the veg in for me, there’s a good, lovely girl.” Then she saw Maggie.
“That Charlie Bevan’s home at last then, Maggie.”
“Thank goodness,” Maggie replied. “He’ll watch the boy from now on. I can rest at last. There’s glad I’ll be to hand over to Charlie and take things easy. I’m awful tired, Gertie.”
Later that evening, when Rhiannon ran down to post a letter for Dora, there was a mist that hid icy patches on the ground and she walked carefully for fear of slipping. As least Maggie would be inside now Charlie was home to look after her she thought. Then she saw a shape in the doorway of number eight which she guessed was Maggie. What was the matter with Charlie that he’d let her stay out there in the bitter cold? He owed it to her to care for her proper after all the months she had looked after Gwyn.
She went across and saw that there were two people sitting there. Charlie was hugging Maggie and he was crying. Sitting in the seat where she had spent so many lonely hours, Maggie had relaxed in the knowledge that Gwyn would now be safe, and had quietly died.
Dora was looking through her post one morning while she ate breakfast with Rhiannon and Viv.
“Barry’s moving out of the flat above the shop, Mam,” Rhiannon said as casually as she was able. “He and Caroline are going to make their marriage a real one. I’m not upset, I’ve seen it coming for a long time.”
“Looking down at the town from above it must look like a game of draughts!” Dora snapped as she handed Viv a letter from Lewis. “Your father’s going to live in Chestnut Road with that Nia Martin in February. No shame they’ve got, them two! Your Barry’s moving from the flat above Temptations to live in the flat your father was renting, with Caroline and Joseph. And, to cap it all, Jack is asking Nia if she will rent the flat above the shop. to him and Victoria!”
“There’s more, Mam,” Viv said, taking a deep breath before saying. “Last night Joan and I decided we will marry towards the end of the year.”
“You and that—” Dora quickly adjusted her reaction after a dig from her daughter and instead said, “Sudden like, isn’t it, Viv? I thought you and the Weston Girls were more like enemies.”
“Blaming them for the death of our Lewis-boy helped me cope with his death for a while,” Viv said. “But we’ve worked together more and more and I’ve seen the real Joan. We’re perfect partners. I didn’t think she’d ever think of me as more than the man who runs her grandfather’s business, mind, but last night, well, we talked openly and honestly about how we felt and… There you go, another move in the giant game of draughts. I’ll be looking for a flat where we can start our married life.”
“Good on you,” Dora said. “I wish you joy. Both of you.” She stood up and hugged her son and added, “I really do, my boy. I really do.”
“And me, Viv, but I won’t half miss you,” Rhiannon added as she too hugged him.
Gladys and Arfon sat watching the television news and thinking about their own.
“I can’t pretend to be thrilled, Arfon,” Gladys said. “Victoria Jones and Viv Lewis as relations. It will be hard to live down.”
“Once the Town Cats get to hear of it, you mean? Just make sure you get your version in first, make it known how thrilled we are, my dear. The best form of defence is attack, so they say.”
“We’ve been the main subject of gossip in the town this past year or so, haven’t we? When will it end? I had such dreams, Arfon. Good marriages for my lovely Weston Girls and a gentle well-brought-up girl for dear Jack.”
“I think Victoria will surprise you, Gladys. She has the makings of a fine wife. And as for the rest, well, Ryan and Islwyn have let us down, but the Weston Women have dragged us out of the mess we were in. With Viv’s leadership of course. We mustn’t forget how much we owe him.”
Gladys nodded and smiled. “They have been remarkable, haven’t they? Megan going out all on her own and getting herself an apprenticeship with Gwennie Woodlas of all people. Joan learning the family business and working beside Viv. Sally running her home as a rather high-class guest house and Sian working beside Dora Lewis and making a success of the Rose Tree Café.”
“And you, my dear,” Arfon said touching her hand affectionately. “You were so right to hang on to this house, our home. There were many times when I wanted to sell up, give up, accept defeat, but you wouldn’t let me. Your determination kept us all going, helped us through. The Weston Women are a remarkable bunch and you the most remarkable of them all.”