Eleri’s child was born three hours later. The midwife arrived in time and the doctor admitted that he had hardly needed to be there as it was such a quick and straightforward birth. A little boy, they decided to christen him Ronald but call him Ronnie.
While Eleri was giving birth to Ronnie, the police were searching for the rest of the men she had interrupted at their night’s work. Two had been held firmly by Frank and Ernie, and Basil and Hywel when the police came, but two more had run off. The policemen had spent some time at the cottage where Janet had given them tea and Hywel had sat sprawled on a chair as if giving an audience, refusing to get up and give one of them a seat, insisting he was “worn out, puffed out and fagged out”.
The warren from which the men had been taking rabbits, with the aid of ferrets and a couple of dogs, was in a field belonging to local farmer, John Booker. He was someone from whom Basil and his father had taken many a pheasant, partridge, hare and rabbit, but Basil had never touched the large warren so near his home. John Booker had ferrets of his own and he killed a couple of hundred rabbits once a year and sold them in the local market. With such a small meat ration, many families who had previously refused to try rabbit had become fond of the dark, tasty meat. To Basil, with his odd sense of fair play, rabbits from that warren were the farmer’s personal property, and he never touched them, unless one ran into one of his traps further afield, when he considered them fair game.
John Booker arrived before the police had gone, and he too stayed to drink tea and hear the full story of the capture of the men who had been robbing him. He was a burly man, over six feet tall and several stone heavier than Hywel and he looked flushed and puffy having been woken out of a deep sleep by the police.
“Give the man a seat by the fire, Hywel,” Janet coaxed, giving her husband a push to encourage him but Hywel groaned and said he too had had a disturbed night.
“It’s all right, Mrs Griffiths,” the farmer said. “I wouldn’t want to disturb you further, but I’ll be back in the morning with a gift for the new baby. I owe him a debt, him having brought some of these damned poachers to justice, eh, Hywel?” There was a quizzical look on John’s face as he smiled down at the sprawling Hywel, a look which he transferred to Basil: two of the men he had been trying to catch for years. “Yes, I’m grateful to the boy and his mother.”
The police told them the men had come in a van and planned to fill it with stolen game and take it to London arriving in time for the markets. They had discovered the van hidden in some trees, already half filled with pheasants. Gleefully, Basil prepared to give evidence against the thieves, assuring the men in blue he had given up his previous bad ways now he had a wife and a child, and denying any knowledge of the traps found in the woods, three fields away.
“What a night, Mam,” he said as, at five o’clock the following morning Janet and Hywel prepared to get a few hours sleep. “Me and our Dad helping the police. That’s the second time I’ve been helpful. They won’t be watching me so close now they believe I’ve become a respectable man who works with the police, will they? Damn me, our Dad, they’ll be asking me to join up soon!”
“Not if they’d found these they wouldn’t!” Hywel lifted the cushion on which he had been determinedly sitting throughout the police and the farmer’s visit, and showed his son three squashed and very dead partridge.
Gladys Weston usually had to persuade her son-in-law Islwyn to visit, specially since what she referred to as ‘his little lapse’. So when he arrived unannounced and during daylight hours, she at once expected a problem.
Victoria admitted him and called Gladys from where she was filling pages of a notebook with preparations for her party.
“Excuse me, Mrs Weston, but you have a visitor, Mr Islwyn Heath.”
“Show him into the lounge, Victoria, and it’s Heath-Weston. Bring us a tray of tea, will you? Now I wonder what the trouble is? Does he look all right?”
“Smiling he is, Mrs Weston.”
“Good heavens!”
Islwyn insisted on talking to both Arfon and Gladys, so she had to be patient until Arfon finished a phone call and joined them.
“Sian and I have sold the house, Mother-in-law,” Islwyn announced.
“That is downright inconsiderate, Islwyn. Hasn’t your family been through enough without you planning something so ill-considered? How can you think of moving just now? We haven’t any money to spare, so you’ll be looking at something worth far less that your present one. I’m sure Sian won’t like that, and why should she?” Gladys said, before looking at Arfon for him to continue.
But Arfon didn’t add to her blast of words, he simply asked, “Why?”
“We’ve agreed to rent a small house, just for the time being, until things have picked up, and we want you to have the money we make on the house.”
“What?” Gladys and Arfon said in unison.
“I said we’ve rented—”
“We heard what you said! But why are you doing this?”
“We want to pay you back some of the money you lost because of me, and in future I’ll keep Sian on what I can earn. It isn’t much help, I know, but it’s all I can do at present.”
“Keep Sian? You’d have to get a job first!” Gladys said harshly.
“That’s the second thing I wanted to tell you. I’ve got a job.” He looked at Gladys with what Arfon thought was a smile, but which Gladys later described as a smirk. “I’m the new cook at the Fortune fish and chip shop by the beach.”
When Islwyn left, he overheard Gladys say tearfully, “I knew this would happen, Arfon, dear. He’s finally gone off his head.”
Islwyn smiled widely. On the contrary, he felt more sane than at any time since he had married into the Weston family. Marrying Sian had ruined him. He had been offered a soft and easy life and had willingly accepted having to live life their way. He felt drunk with freedom as he walked to the Fortune fish and chip shop to begin his first lesson in cooking the best fish and chips in Pendragon Island.
After discussions lasting well into the night, Arfon decided he wouldn’t, couldn’t accept the money for the house. Early the following morning he and Gladys went to see their daughter, hoping Islwyn wouldn’t be there. It was a Saturday so Jack was sitting reading the paper and commenting occasionally about Father Christmas coming as early as November the seventh, only two days after bonfire night, and there being live bears in the Swansea Pantomime, and yet more rumours that food rationing would end the following year.
When they were settled with coffee before them, Arfon explained the reason for their visit. “Your mother and I wish to thank you for your generous offer, Sian, my dear, but we cannot allow it.”
“But you must, Daddy. I think it’s important to Islwyn that you do.” She didn’t tell her parents it was she who first mooted the idea. Better for Islwyn if they thought it had come from him.
“Tell him we refuse but we are grateful,” Gladys said.
“I’m sorry Mummy, but you must agree. Making this decision was what brought him back from his withdrawn and depressed state, don’t you agree, Jack?” she looked to her son to pull him into the conversation.
“Mam’s right, Grandfather. It took a long time and a lot of guts for Dad to face the facts. Now, with Mam’s help, he has. You mustn’t throw his apology in his face.”
“But where will you live?”
“We’ve signed the rental agreement on a house in Trellis Street,” Sian told them. “We’ll have to sell much of the furniture, it wouldn’t fit anyway and that will be more off the debt he owes.”
Gladys stared at her daughter, searching for regret or dismay and found none. “You are willing to accept this, dear?”
“Mummy, I’m so proud of him for this decision. You can’t take it away from him without destroying him completely and I – wouldn’t want that.” She didn’t add that the Westons had made him the way he was but she thought it. “It’s a chance for him to find out who he really is,” she ended.
Gladys glared at her. That was going too far.
“He is married to a Weston. That’s who he is,” she snapped.
Jack looked at his grandfather and winked.
“We accept and thank him most sincerely, Sian,” Arfon said as he stood to leave. “You have a man with hidden depths in Islwyn and you may tell him I said so.”
“Now…” Gladys said, rising and leaving the coffee she hated but thought smart to drink, “…about curtains…”
Jack and his grandfather exchanged a look and a silent groan. Gladys was off again.
In late November, Basil and Eleri took their baby back to the flat they rented in Trellis Street, where, a few days later, they watched Sian, Islwyn and Jack Heath-Weston move in.
Sian had been excited about the move, a feeling of sacrifice made her walk tall and the shame of her husband’s stealing was fading fast. What Islwyn was doing was wonderful and it reduced the shame of his behaviour, which she in any case had explained away to her friends with a hushed mention of ‘illness’.
The road was more shabby than she remembered, with a hazy November sun revealing the lack of paint and the scarred walls. She swallowed her qualms and told herself that it was going to be wonderful living among these poorer people and helping them to improve their lot by emulating their betters. A small child was chalking on the pavement, marking out a hopscotch game. Sian frowned at her. “That,” she said firmly, “will have to stop!
The furniture van was pulling up as Sian reached number forty-four. Standing outside their various homes were whole families, gathered preparing to be entertained. They made no attempt to hide their curiosity, but watched with interest and added a light-hearted commentary as the furniture was taken inside.
Sian hurried the men about their work, really she had never imagined such embarrassment. Why had Islwyn insisted on moving on a Saturday when the husbands and children were at home? To her shame the door opposite and to the right opened and the gangly form of Basil Griffiths appeared followed by his wife with the baby carried in a Welsh shawl. Sian almost ran up the pavement and into the house, colliding with one of the removal men, tilting him practically off-balance, then glaring at him until he apologised.
“Eleri wondered if you wanted any help,” Basil said, leaning in, a hand on each side of the doorway.
“We’re managing perfectly well, thank you. Now, if you would kindly move out of the way, the workmen will soon be finished. Goodbye.”
Basil turned away and she saw him shrug in the direction of his wife. Sian wondered for the first time if she had made a terrible mistake. Neighbours she could cope with, they could simply be ignored, but one of those awful Griffithses living practically opposite and worse, offering to help? That was an onerous start.
“Islwyn?” she called. “Do hurry up with the curtains. I want them drawn as soon as possible!”
Determined to be a good neighbour and perhaps lessen the hostility Sian was already creating, Basil offered to clear and dig their garden. In unison, Sian said no, and Islwyn said yes. In his present mood of forgiveness, he was even willing to allow Basil to speak to him. But Sian’s voice was the louder and she repeated her refusal of the offer firmly.
“Heaven’s above, Islwyn, they’ll be asking us to mind that baby as soon as we’re unpacked! These people don’t do anything for nothing you know!”
Megan and Terry had been out together several times and Gladys was pleased. He seemed such a mannerly young man, and with jewellery as his profession he must be used to the best. He was the type to make sure his wife received nothing but the best too. Such a touch of luck meeting poor old Mr Jenkins with his need for a bib, and then finding out that his grandson was a friend of dear Jack.
Gladys was putting the finishing touches to an orange cake. Made with farm butter Arfon had bought illegally from a customer, and decorated with shredded orange peel, it looked very festive.
Joan and Megan were coming to tea and bringing Terry and Jack with them. It seemed likely that Megan and Terry were going to make their friendship into something more serious. One of her grandchildren possibly settled and two more to deal with before the month was out. It no longer seemed an impossible task. This party would help, bringing together all the best of Pendragon Island’s young people.
She telephoned one of her most loyal friends and asked about the Jenkinses. Not really for reassurance but to boast.
“My dear granddaughters are coming to tea today and bringing Terrence, one of the Jenkinses. Do you know of him?” she asked Gwennie Woodlas, who kept the exclusive gown shop, called Guinevere.
“Terry Jenkins, Gladys my dear? Wasn’t he living in London or Bristol or somewhere like that? Selling something, I believe.”
“Jewellery, my dear. And only the very best. He was in the army with my grandson. I know his grandfather, Mr Jenkins who lives over near the Pleasure Beach. Lovely family, aren’t they?”
They chattered for a while, promised to meet soon and Gladys put down the phone reassured that although practically penniless and reduced to running what had been the family home as an hotel, the Jenkinses were a respectable family as near to upper class as the town could provide. She added a few drops of cointreau to the orange sponge. No point in being niggardly when someone like Terrence Jenkins was calling.
Terry and Megan were in Cardiff, having spent an hour looking around the splendid market, with Megan drooling over the puppies and other pets on the upper floor above the main stalls. They were intending to do some Christmas shopping. At least, Megan was hoping Terry would buy something for her and make their friendship more permanent. She told him to turn away when she bought him a rather expensive cravat and pushed it into her shopping bag with a teasing warning for him not to try and guess what it was.
She was gratified when a little while later he told her to wait while he did a bit of shopping on his own. Waiting on a corner at the arcade she noted the shops within walking distance and wondered if he might be visiting a jewellers. He returned in less than ten minutes and told her not to be nosy, when she asked what he had bought. It was fun, flirting and getting to know someone who might be ‘the one’.
They left Cardiff at three, not wanting to be late for Grandmother’s tea party. When they went in and saw the spread she had managed to provide, which seemed to suggest that rationing was a myth and had never happened, Megan secretly pretended it was a celebration of her growing friendship with the handsome and charming Terrence.
“Where are you two young people going this evening?” Gladys asked as she cut up the last of the orange cake.
Megan looked at Terry for confirmation before saying, “We thought we’d go to the dance class.”
“Again, dear? What can you want with a place like that after the private lessons I paid for all those years?”
“Joan enjoys it and it is fun, Grandmother.” They went to Gomer Hall, with Joan, Jack, Rhiannon, Jimmy and Viv, but they left after half an hour. Terry had whispered in her ear that there was a more interesting way to spend the next couple of hours and taking their coats from the attendant, they slipped out into the crisp darkness.
The park wasn’t far away and with ease, Terry found a place at which they could climb through the hedge and find precious privacy. Almost at once he began disturbing her clothes and alarmed, she pulled away from him.
“Come on, Megan, you know you want it. You’ve been giving me the ‘glad eye’ all day.”
“I want you to hold me and kiss me but not like this,” she said, a sob distorting her voice.
He released her then and collapsed forward with his head almost on his knees. In a muffled voice he said, “Don’t you know what you’re doing to me? Teasing me like this?”
“Teasing? but—”
“Yes, teasing, tormenting me, saying ‘love me’ then ‘don’t touch’. You don’t know how hard it is for me, loving you so desperately and being afraid of frightening you away.”
She only heard the words she wanted to hear, the rest made no sense and she put her arms around him and pulled him to face her.
“You love me?” she said in awe.
“Of course I do, you silly little thing.”
“Oh, Terry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tease. I didn’t know you felt anything more than liking, you see.” He touched her face gently, allowing a sob to escape his trembling lips until she stilled them with her own. Almost without realising it she was engulfed in a dreamlike sensation that made her unaware of anything except their two bodies and the love that had until then, been something read about, dreamed about, but not real. This time she made no effort to still his wandering hands. She had never been kissed so thoroughly before and she was starry-eyed when they returned to the hall to walk sedately home with Joan and her cousin, Jack.
Joan and Viv still saw each other at the dance and found their steps matched as if they had rehearsed for years. But through the last days of November, when Megan and Terry were out every evening, visiting friends and becoming accepted as a couple, she was lonely. She began to call at the Wallpaper and Paint store during the afternoons to give Viv a little help by entering the goods in and out, keeping the stock control system up to date. Viv was grateful but a little uneasy. He had asked her to meet him on several occasions but she refused.
The day after the dance class, when her sister’s sparkling eyes had told of her discovery of love, she surprised him by saying she would be at her Auntie Sian and Uncle Islwyn’s the following evening, and why didn’t he come.
“What? Me call on your Uncle Islwyn? No fear! He hates the sight of me and can I really blame him? Damn it all, Joan. I daren’t even call for Jack. We have to meet on the corner like shy lovebirds! I couldn’t go visiting, specially not now, with them living in that little terraced house after leaving the posh place they had. No matter how I twist it round, it is down to me, isn’t it?”
“He’s changed, Viv. I’d like you to see how he’s changed. Come on Monday then, instead of the dance, see what you think.”
“You’ll tell him I’m coming?”
“I promise there won’t be any trouble.”
“If there is, I can go across and see Basil and Eleri.” He was thinking aloud. “All right then. Meet me tonight and we’ll discuss it.”
Joan smiled. He did have the most wonderfully blue eyes. “All right, Viv. Tonight.”
Telling her mother she was going to the dance class again, she went to the corner of Goldings Street and Trellis Street and waited for Viv. Unfortunately, Gladys had been gathering children’s clothes which she intended to take to Victoria for her younger brothers and sister. They met as Viv ran up and hugged Joan before walking off, arm in arm, in the direction of Sian and Islwyn’s house.
“Joan? Is that you?”
“Grandmother!”
“Mrs Weston?”
Neither knew what to say and it was Joan who gathered her wits first. “Viv and I are just going to call for Jack. He’s probably forgotten and it leaves us short of a man.”
Gladys knew it wasn’t done to start an argument in the street, so said, “I will see you tomorrow morning.”
Leaving the young couple hesitating about what to do, Gladys knocked on the door in Goldings Street and it was answered, not by Victoria but by her grandson, Jack, jacket off acting as if he lived there! The world has gone completely mad, she thought in alarm.
“Hello, Grandmother, I just called to deliver a new table for Victoria and her mother. Basil’s here too, we got it from Mam and Dad, there were one or two pieces they couldn’t find room for or sell. Want to see?”
Shaken and anxious to get home, Gladys shook her head and handed the bag of clothes to Victoria. “Your family might find a use for these,” she said as if telling the girl off for some misdemeanour, adding, “Don’t be late in the morning.”
“I don’t want you mixing with the likes of Vivian Lewis, dear,” she said when Megan and Joan were in her sitting room the following morning eating ‘Teisien Lap’ spread with the last of the farm butter. “We are grateful to the young man, for supporting your grandfather in his efforts to rebuild the business, but that doesn’t mean you can be friends. It’s quite enough that we have to be grateful!”
“We only talk shop talk, Grandmother,” Joan said, knowing how it angered her grandmother to hear the business referred to as the shop. When her sister was out of hearing, fetching a fresh pot of coffee, she added that it was Megan who Viv was soft on anyway.
“You mustn’t encourage him to be ‘soft’ on either of you. How will you find a good husband if you’re seen with people like the Lewis family? Look at Megan, she’s found herself a handsome young man and so must you, dear.”
With everyone accepting them as a courting couple, Megan should have been happy, but there was something about Terry that made her uneasy. He was charming and attentive and the look of admiration and love in his eyes made her weak at the knees, but just occasionally she sensed a lack of sincerity. His flattery came out too pat, as if it had been said many times before.
She had tried questioning Jack, but he seemed to know less about him than Terry implied, she had the impression that although they had been in the army together, Jack didn’t actually know very much about the man.
“Shall we go to the pictures this evening, Joan?” she asked.
“Without Terry you mean?”
“Yes, I want a chat, and with you in the shop helping Viv most afternoons, I miss you,” Megan said.
“Hasn’t Terry asked you out this evening, dear?” Gladys asked refilling their teacups.
“Yes, but I said I wanted to stay in and wash my hair, Grandmother,” Megan replied.
“Ring him up and say you’ve changed your mind. I’ll pay for you to have your hair washed and set. It looks so lovely when it goes in that under-roll.”
“No thanks Grandmother, I’d really like an evening in with Joan.”
“Nonsense, go and telephone now and you can bring him for supper after the film, you know how he loves my cottage pie.”
Megan agreed, but with a sense of being pushed in a direction she hadn’t decided whether or not to take. The knowledge that she was being pushed into a closer relationship with Terry excited her but at the same time she knew she was moving too fast, she needed more time to gradually get to know him. Grandmother was pushing her and Terry was pushing her and Joan wouldn’t discuss it. She had an uneasy feeling of loneliness.
“We won’t ever drift apart, will we, Joan?” she said as they were walking home.
“Don’t be ridiculous! But we do have to move away and accept that we have a life of our own, if that’s what you’re trying to tell me. Mummy and Auntie Sian managed to stay close but build their own lives. I don’t mind – about you and Terry, I mean. I really don’t feel jealous or pushed out.”
But I do, Megan thought sadly.
At the cinema they found themselves sitting next to Rhiannon and Jimmy. Megan and Rhiannon were wary of each other. Through Joan, Megan knew a lot more about Rhiannon and the Lewises than she would be expected to know and she was on her guard, afraid of revealing her sister’s involvement with Viv. For her part, besides being aware of Viv’s occasional meetings with Joan, Rhiannon only knew the Weston twins as the prickly granddaughters of Viv’s boss. They met at the dance class but Rhiannon didn’t trust either of them to be friends. Any misbehaviour on her part would be reported back to Mr Weston.
She and Jimmy often brought a sandwich with them to save time when the shop closed late. Tonight she didn’t want to do anything that might be criticised.
She sat as far away from Jimmy as was possible and refused the ham roll he had brought for her.
“What have I done?” Jimmy demanded in a hissing whisper, her being so far away from him.
“Nothing. I’ll tell you later,” she hissed back.
Viv and Joan were working on an idea he had first mentioned the night he and Jack and Basil had delivered furniture to Victoria Jones’s sad little home in Goldings Street. He had wandered around with a deep frown on his face until Joan had demanded to know what he was thinking about.
“The shop next door to the store is empty,” he began in the hushed tone of a conspirator. “Now then, if we could rent it and knock the two into one, we could supply all people’s furnishing needs under one roof.”
“What are you talking about, Viv? Furnish a house? With paint and paper?”
He explained further in a reverential whisper, the idea growing like a spiritual painting in his mind.
“Utility furniture, dockets for this, coupons for that and the other, people have had enough of it all, and with the new ideas of contemporary furnishings, and this bright carpeting that can be cut as easily as cardboard, people could transform their homes. The beauty of this new carpet is I don’t have to buy expensive stock. We have pieces in the full range of colours and take orders, see? It’s brilliant.” He frowned then and added more soberly, “I’d need you to be my adviser, mind. In fact, you could go to college and learn more about interior design. How does that grab you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve had all the education I need and the thought of returning for more makes me shudder, so you can forget it! But, tell me more about you idea. Isn’t it too costly?”
“Ask Old Man Arfon. He’ll tell you that there are times to take chances and times to stand still. This is a time to grab opportunity and force the business upward and outward.”
“Really, Viv, you’re sounding like a politician now!”
“Carpets and a few small items of furniture at first, but moving on to bedroom suites and dining suites and three-piece suites and—” He hugged her and made their one remaining assistant look away in embarrassment. “Joan love, let’s go and see your grandfather now this minute, or as soon as we close the shop.”
“Don’t call me love or the idea will be finished before you’ve even started to explain.”
“You are my love, though, even if you don’t yet know it!” he said, boldly hugging her again. “My love and my inspiration.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said again, but she was smiling. And this time she didn’t slap his face.