Joan and Megan, the Weston Girls, were similar in appearance, although with the tiny scar on Megan’s cheek, a result of the accident in which Lewis-boy Lewis and Joseph Martin had died, most could tell them apart. But their characters were different. Joan was the leader, the forceful one, born first and four minutes older than her twin. Of the older twins, their mother Sally was the quiet one like Megan, their Auntie Sian the one most like Joan.
Sian and Sally had chosen different husbands, to match their disparate personalities and Sian had married the outwardly easy-going, but quietly resentful Islwyn. For the gentle Sally, her husband Ryan was the stronger of the two brothers-in-law. He was basically a lazy man and when the illegal behaviour of Old Arfon and Islwyn became known he had thankfully refused to consider going back to work at the Wallpaper and Paint store.
With finances becoming a worry, Sally tried again to persuade him to go back to her father and ask for his job back.
“You have had so much experience, Ryan, Daddy needs you to rebuild what he’s lost. I’m sure you can persuade him to take you back. We really do need to stop using our savings.”
“Mix my name with all that dishonesty? I have to accept being called a ‘Weston’ when my name is Fowler, but I don’t want people to think I’m like them. To be honest,” Ryan complained, “I don’t want to associate with them at all! But as we are family I owe them some loyalty.”
Untypically angry, Sally said quietly, “Oh yes, you put up with them don’t you, out of loyalty? And sitting around hoping my father will continue to support us isn’t anything to do with it?”
“He owes it to me for having to face all the disgrace.”
“Perhaps he thinks you owe him something for all the years he’s helped support us.”
“I’ll get a job, I’m just considering the options. There’s no rush. I will not go back to the shop, though, so forget that. Can you really imaging me having to do what that jumped-up Viv Lewis tells me? I’ll get something.”
“When?”
“Soon! And stop going on at me, woman! You’re becoming a real nag!”
Sally left the room with a swish of her skirt and returned seconds later with a bank book which she placed before him.
“Just look at how much we’ve spent since this happened and tell me how long we can last without having to do what Sian and Islwyn have done, and sell the house.”
“They didn’t have to move. Islwyn wanted to get rid of the guilt he’d been feeling. I’ve done nothing. It’s different altogether.”
“How long, Ryan?”
“Stop your fussing. Your father wouldn’t see us in real difficulties.”
“My father works his way through difficulties, perhaps he thinks it’s time you did the same.”
Ryan shook out his newspaper and held it up, a barrier between them and an end to the futile discussion. Couldn’t Sally see how impossible it was for him to go and beg someone for a job? No, he’d wait until one was offered. If nothing turned up, well, Arfon would help. He and Gladys wouldn’t allow their precious daughter’s standards to drop. Gladys was too much of a snob for that. Thank goodness.
Sally met her sister that afternoon with the intention of getting started on Christmas shopping.
“Although,” she explained to Sian, “I can’t see how I can buy anything more than tuppenny-ha’penny gifts this year, what with Ryan not working and Daddy unable to help us.”
“Why should he?” Sian demanded. “Why expect Daddy to bail him out? Why doesn’t Ryan get back to work?”
“I’ve tried to persuade him, but all he does is tell me not to nag.”
“Cowardly argument that is, Sally! A retort from the defeated!”
They went around the town, gathering items, some of which would be delivered later, then Sian suggested they went to the Rose Tree Café near the lake. They had once been regular customers but since the notoriety of the police investigation, their friends had been less than welcoming. Today, Sian decided it was time they returned to their normal routine and call in for a coffee and a chat after shopping.
The small tables were full and it was with some hesitation that one of their acquaintances moved up to allow them to sit.
Ignoring the clientele who were determinedly showing their indifference, they continued with their conversation quietly, their words muffled by the hum of a dozen conversations going on around them. Probably about them, they surmised.
“We can’t go on without money coming in for much longer,” Sally whispered. “I think I’ll have to look for something myself. It isn’t as if I have that much to do, now the girls are grown-up.”
“It’s certainly time they started earning!”
“It’s hard for them, brought up indulged by a doting Grandmother who convinced them they would go from being kept by us, to being kept by their husbands, with the transition nothing more than a mild disturbance.”
“A decade ago it might have worked, but things have changed. No one demands that women stay home any more. They have a choice, but in the case of the Weston family, now, in 1953, the choice is work or starve. Don’t your three realise that?”
Sally shrugged, then she smiled at her twin. “Remember the fuss when your Jack came out of the army and announced he was going to train as a teacher? Without a word to anyone he applied for that one-year scheme the government cooked up to increase the fallen numbers of teachers.”
“Mummy thought the teaching profession rather low down on the scale of things,” Sian smiled. “Unless he were to teach Latin or Ancient Greek at one of the better universities, of course! Islwyn and I were no more keen than Gladys at the time, but Jack is good at what he does. Working with youngsters was one of his better decisions.”
Rose Tree Café was a little way out of town, not far from the lake and the pebbly beach, but it was popular with the women who didn’t work and who had a few hours on their hands each afternoon. They would come in twos and threes, spread their shopping bags to colonise briefly one of the blue cloth-covered tables. News would be exchanged then the huddles would break up, mix again and the knots of expensively dressed women would share a few minutes with an assortment of different people before waving brightly to all and leaving.
On this afternoon, Sian and Sally did not expect to be a part of the usual exchanges. A few smiled nervously and there were one or two doubtful nods of recognition. People who had once been their friends did not know how to behave. Sally and Sian sat and ignored them all. They had too many important worries on their minds to concern themselves about the antics of the idle wealthy.
Sally was worried and although Sian spoke harshly at times, she knew she spoke sense. Ryan needed to get a job, and with some urgency. Their money was running out at an alarming rate and she needed someone to tell her what to do. With her husband refusing to listen, Sian was the only other person she could turn to. Mummy would simply take out her purse and try to soothe the situation with a pound or two – “For a little treat to cheer you up…”
It was as they stood to leave that Gwennie Woodlas came over and sat down, determined not to be discouraged.
“You don’t know anyone who could give accommodation to a couple of reps working for a motor car accessories manufacturers, I suppose?” she asked loudly.
“Hardly!” Sian laughed. “Islwyn, Jack and me in that tiny terrace? There’s hardly room for us!”
Gwennie’s eyes swivelled around to Sally. “What about you, Sally, dear? Great big house and only the four of you. Those extra bedrooms could make you a bit of money.”
“She doesn’t need money,” Sian defended swiftly.
“Oh, I thought, being as though you haven’t been to order anything special for Christmas parties and dances, you might be still recovering from bad old Arfon’s bit of trouble.”
Until recently Sian and Sally had been regular customers at Guinevere, Gwennie Woodlas’s dress shop.
“We manage, we just won’t be celebrating much this year,” Sally said.
“Think about it, the summer visitors pay well for bed and a good breakfast, and they say rationing will be finished for definite before next season. Practise on a couple of reps and you could make a packet come the summer, mind.”
“Just out of curiosity, how much do they pay?”
“Big posh house like yours, Sally love, and you could ask fifteen shillings bed and breakfast. Each! Two to a room. Fill up their plates with fried bread and fried potatoes so they go out feeling full to bursting and they’ll come again and recommend you to all their friends. Worth thinking about, isn’t it?” She lowered her voice and said to Sian, “Little house like yours, so near the bomb sites, you’d be lucky to get seven and six pence, mind. Pity you moved, eh? Big mistake that was, gel. Always look prosperous, Sian, even when you got nothing in your purse except dead moths.”
“Wicked old busybody,” Sian muttered as the large, impressive form of Gwennie waved to them all and went to where a taxi waited. “Wealthiest widow in Pendragon Island and she’d skin a flea.”
“It is worth thinking about though,” Sally said thoughtfully. “But there, Ryan would never agree, not for a minute.”
“Then don’t ask!” Sian said firmly. “If he won’t get off his backside he can’t complain if you find a way of earning money, can he? If it will give you an extra couple of pounds in your purse, why not?” She gestured toward the departing taxi and added, “Better than a couple of emaciated moths!”
“It isn’t as if food would be a problem, only having breakfast to get. I’m not as good a cook as you, Sian, but I’ll manage that,” Sally mused. “And it wouldn’t inconvenience Ryan all that much, would it?”
“Pity. It might make him get out and find a job!” Sian retorted and Sally couldn’t help but smile.
“Specially if I told him he had to do the washing up,” she added.
Leaving the café, with its blue and white table cloths, artificial roses and groups of gossiping women, they went back to the main road and called to see Gwennie Woodlas.
“Definitely not, Sally. I don’t know what you’re thinking of. Can you imagine your mother’s face if you told her we were taking in lodgers!”
“Summer visitors, Ryan, for about eight weeks in the summer that’s all.”
“Summer visitors, boarders, paying guests, lodgers, it’s all the same, demeaning yourself and waiting on people who won’t have any manners – or understand how to use a bathroom. Rough they’ll be.”
“All of them?”
“Yes!”
“Pity you aren’t enthusiastic, Ryan,” Sally said quietly, as she cleared the last of the dishes from the table, “because I have two motor trade reps arriving on Friday, looking for somewhere permanent. If I like the look of them, I might offer to take them here.” She glanced at his face as she left the room, assessing his reaction. Only hours earlier she would have said, ‘if we’ – and not – ‘if I’.
His reply was lost as she closed the kitchen door and burst into giggles with Joan and Megan, who had been supporting her, waiting in the kitchen while she broke the news.
“Come on, Mummy, leave the rest of the dishes, we’re taking you to the pictures to celebrate,” Joan said. “Megan, you and me.”
“On the way, we’ll have to stop and explain to Grandmother and Grandfather. The Westons are really on the way – ‘down’, aren’t they?” she laughed. “Poor Mummy, after all her efforts to make us into the most important family in the town, too. But d’you know, I think I’m going to enjoy the next few months, I really do.”
Once it had been explained exactly what Sally was going to do, Gladys accepted it with reasonable good grace. “After all, if it’s good enough for the Jenkinses, it’s good enough for the Westons, I suppose,” she said with a forced smile.
The smile remained as she waved them off but as the door closed it was wiped off as if by magic and she went to the telephone and demanded that Ryan call to see her at once.
“Are you really going to allow your wife to demean herself, cleaning up after other people, Ryan?” she demanded as he took off his coat. She glared at Victoria who was waiting to hang it up and snapped, “Go and fetch the tea, Victoria. Mr Ryan can hang up his own coat, he isn’t helpless.”
When they were seated beside a glowing wood fire, Gladys shot a few whispered comments towards her son-in-law but didn’t begin the real onslaught until Victoria had delivered the tea and left the room. She took a deep breath but Ryan stopped her with a raised hand.
“Don’t waste your breath, Mother-in-law, I’ve given up any hope of changing Sally’s mind. The two reps arrive on Friday and the room is ready for them. She won’t even discuss it. She can be very stubborn you know.”
“And you aren’t? Months it is since you earned any money and my daughter is showing you how! She’s capable enough to do something about the situation if you aren’t.”
“I can’t go back to the business and work for that Viv Lewis character, I’m sorry Mother-in-law, I’d do anything for Sally but I can’t do that.”
“No one is asking you to. There isn’t a job for you there if you begged! There are other jobs though and you haven’t even been looking.”
Ryan was saved from further criticism by the fortuitous arrival of Terry.
“I’m sorry Terry, dear, but Megan isn’t here. She and Joan have taken their mother to the pictures.”
She invited him in and when he sat, Ryan stood. “Sorry, but I have to go, I want to hear The Archers.”
“Can you tell me which cinema they went to? I can meet them and walk them home,” Terry said.
“No need,” Ryan said ungraciously. “It isn’t far and hardly dangerous.”
“Thank you, dear,” Gladys said, and glared at her son-in-law. “You might have forgotten the attack on Rhiannon Lewis, but I have not!”
Gladys offered Terry a drink and he sat with her and Arfon, relaxed and comfortable. He flattered Gladys by admiring the room and congratulating her on her excellent taste. “There’s such a skill in home-making, Mrs Weston,” he said. “So few really create a room where people can feel truly relaxed.”
“My girls have that skill too,” she said at once. “Even in that poky little house on Trellis Street, and temporarily being out of funds, my daughter has made a little haven for herself and her family.”
“It isn’t money, it’s flair,” Terry agreed.
Gladys took out her lists of party arrangements and asked his advice about music entertainment and Arfon slipped away, leaving them to it. With one eye on the clock, Terry began to offer suggestions and admire her organising skills. If he were to succeed with Megan, he needed Gladys on his side. Specially now, where there was danger of his previous life coming to light.
That damned letter had followed him through several changes of address and finally caught up with him at Montague Court.
It had been so unfortunate that Basil Griffiths had been there when the letter had arrived. Basil was talking to Edward and Margaret about their order for chickens and pheasants for the Christmas period. The letter was handed to him by the postman Henry Thomas and they had looked at him curiously as it had been re-addressed more than once and was tattered by its travels.
He had been unable to hide his shock and dismay at his whereabouts being known. Although his cousins had politely turned away, Basil had watched his face with undisguised curiosity. He had better think up a good story before Megan had suspicions roused by that interfering Griffiths. He’d better leave early and wait outside the cinema. He didn’t want to miss her.
Megan was more and more uneasy with Terry Jenkins. He attracted her and excited her but there was something that wasn’t right. It wasn’t something she could put into words and discuss with her sister, just a less than comfortable state of mind. His kisses were exciting and she knew her body was developing a need for love, but his strength frightened her making her aware of his impatience, instead of making her feel safe. Grandmother was so enthusiastic and her friends envied her new and handsome escort, so why wasn’t everything perfect?
It must be the strangeness of having someone special for the first time in her life, such a change from Joan’s and her brief flirtations which had always ended in their derisory laughter, leaving the boy feeling gauche and less than worthy of them.
Being with Terry so much of the time and only he, and being half in love and half afraid to let it happen, was like a barrier that she had to climb or push her way through to something wonderful that was waiting on the other side. She was half in love with him and she did want to let go and enjoy being one of a couple, yet something was holding her back from complete surrender.
It was nothing more than insecurity, a fear of depending on one person for her happiness and of someone driving a wedge between herself and Joan.
When she came out of the cinema with her mother and her sister she was unable to control the slight groan of disappointment that escaped her lips on seeing Terrence waiting for her. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not tonight when she was so confused about how she felt about him.
Sharp where her twin was concerned, Joan pulled her away on the pretext of looking at next week’s posters as soon as they had greeted each other. “Are you getting fed up with him?” she asked in a whisper.
“No, I’m not! So don’t think you can muscle in,” Megan retorted.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, but why did you groan when you saw him waiting for you?”
“It’s late and I wanted to go home and get to bed.”
Unconvinced, Joan walked with her back to where Terry and Sally waited. She walked with her mother, leaving Megan and Terry to follow them.
“Your grandmother told me where you were and I offered to see you safely home,” Terry explained, stealing a shy kiss.
“Thank you, but do you mind if I don’t ask you in? It’s late and Mummy’s had a busy day.”
“Only if we can lose the other two for a few moments,” Terry whispered and at once she was filled with excitement, imagining his deeper, longer kisses when they were alone.
Without waiting for Megan’s agreement, he called to Sally and explained they were going by a different route. “There’s something I want to show Megan in a shop window,” he said by way of an excuse.
“No, I don’t think so,” Sally said. “If you’ve waited so long to escort us home, then we should stay together.”
Late on the following day he called and invited Megan to go for a walk. The weather was a typical December day, cold and damp, with a chill seeping up from the ground and stiffening the muscles of the poorly clad. Megan, dressed in a fur coat and thick leather boots was cosy. She wore a bright blue scarf at her throat and expensive fur-lined gloves with a hat to match. Her face glowed, her eyes were clear and shining with good health and she knew she looked her best.
To her surprise they didn’t walk to the shops but instead, Terry led her through an alleyway and stopped where a bend concealed them from the sight of people passing. A tantalisingly brief kiss then he led her on to where a churchyard gate stood open. Another tormenting kiss and on again to where a seat and a porch offered privacy. There at last he stopped and after looking down into her eyes for a long moment, he gave a low groan and uttered her name.
“Megan. Lovely Megan, I love you.”
Gathering her into his arms he kissed her slowly, eased her coat away from her and held her tightly against him so she was aware of his growing desire.
All fears forgotten she relaxed in his arms and drifted into a dream of such joy she wondered why she had ever been afraid.
Then he began sliding his hands over her most intimate places. His lips drifted lower and lower, touching her taut breasts through her thin blouse, his fingers reaching inside her skirt, and the fear came back.
“No, Terry. Please take me home.”
He pleaded and begged, then, with his breath still ragged, he moved away.
“I can’t stand much more of this, my darling,” he said as they walked away from the tempting silence of the cold churchyard. “Seeing you, being so close to you, wanting you and being unable to have you.” He put an arm around her shoulder, feeling the slight movement of rejection with some dismay. “I’ve loved you from the first moment we met.”
Why did that sound so insincere? she wondered with sudden alarm. Such a well-used sentence, how could anyone believe it? They walked home in silence, side by side but separate.
When she went inside she looked at Joan and shared a frown. They would talk later. She had to talk to someone, however difficult it was. Terry had woken her body to love but not her heart. She just wasn’t ready to put her life in his hands.
Gladys Weston looked at her daughter with horror. “You mean Gwennie Woodlas hinted that we couldn’t afford new clothes for the Christmas season? How dare she? I hope you put her right, Sian?”
“I said we weren’t in the mood for celebrating and that our Christmas would be a quiet one,” Sian replied.
“And there’s me organising a party and Gwennie knowing all about it? Good heavens, child, she must think we’ll be buying from the chain stores!”
“Does it matter what Gwennie Woodlas thinks, Mummy?”
“Her clientele includes everyone who is anyone in Pendragon Island. Of course it matters! Come on, find Sally and the girls and we’ll go at once and order dresses for the party.”
“But Sally and I haven’t enough money,” Sian protested.
“Neither have I according to your father, dear, but why should that stop us? Come on, call your sister. Five party dresses for a start. That will stop her spreading rumours about the Westons!”
Having arranged to meet her daughters and granddaughters at two, Gladys made another phone call, this time to Terrence Jenkins.
“We’re going to choose our dresses for the party,” she told him. “Perhaps you’d like to come and help Megan pick one that makes her look her best.” Terry agreed and persuaded his uncle’s maid to press his suit for the occasion. He needed to look his best too if he were to persuade Megan into a night of passion. Things were not looking very good. Megan had cooled towards him and he hated to think he’d been wasting his time, staying put in this small town and risking the writer of that letter finding him, all for nothing.
Rhiannon Lewis was not looking forward to Christmas with her usual enthusiasm. With her relationship with Barry the cause for gossip and Jimmy hoping to make their friendship into something more she was in a turmoil.
Barry saw no reason for Rhiannon and himself not to be seen together as often as they wished, but he was married, albeit in name only, to Caroline Griffiths, and Rhiannon felt it was wrong. Her mother agreed.
“I understand how you feel, Rhiannon, love. With your father playing home and away, it makes everyone expect the worst of us Lewises and we don’t want your life spoilt by more gossip.”
Rhiannon and Barry knew that with Barry being the son of her father’s ‘other woman’ there was no possibility of any sympathy for their plight from Dora. She had never openly demanded that they stopped seeing each other, but she did encourage Jimmy Herbert, inviting him to tea, and for an evening of cards or Monopoly, making him feel he could call any time, specially as he was a rep and often far from home. “Your second home this is, Jimmy and don’t be afraid to knock at the door any time you want a cup of tea,” she frequently said, and Jimmy, in his pursuit of Rhiannon often did.
One Wednesday afternoon, Rhiannon and her mother were sorting through the tattered decorations, survivors of many Christmases and countless repair sessions. There was a knock at the door and the cheerful voice of Jimmy called, “It’s only me, can I come in?”
“If you do you’ll have to help us untangle this little lot,” Dora replied.
“A cup-a-tea first then I’ll show you how it’s done,” Jimmy laughed, shedding his navy overcoat and hurrying over to warm his hands against the roaring fire.
“What are you doing here, Jimmy?” Rhiannon asked. “It’s half-day closing so you can’t expect any business.”
“No, I came down special. I want to ask you if you’ll come to a party with me on December the eighteenth. It promises to be a posh do, mind, so you’ll have to dress up and do me proud.”
“Cheek!”
“Funny really, I don’t know why I’ve been invited. It’s them Westons, you know, the lot your Viv works for. I only know Megan and Joan through meeting them at the dance class with you and Viv, so why they invited me I can’t think. But will you come?”
“I couldn’t! I don’t like the Weston Girls for a start, and they wouldn’t want the likes of me there. They’ll be asking the wealthy families not the scruffs of Sophie Street.”
Jimmy put on a superior look and nodded. “Yes, I realised I’d be slumming asking someone like you, Rhiannon. Best if I take someone else, eh, Mrs Lewis?”
“After court cases and all the rest of it, I don’t think the Westons are wealthy any more.”
“But that won’t stop them acting like they are,” Jimmy frowned. “So, why ask me?”
“Short of men,” Viv said coming from the kitchen where he had been cleaning his shoes. “Joan asked me for a few suggestions for eligible young men. I suggested you. Mind, I also suggested the Griffithses and so did Jack, but I don’t think that went down too well!”
“They don’t have as many friends as before the trouble,” Dora said. “But you go, Rhiannon, and get a nice frock and show them how lovely you are compared with them Weston Girls with their haughty ways, long noses and short skirts.”
“Thanks, Jimmy, I’d love to come,” Rhiannon smiled. “I’ll see if Eleri will come shopping and help me choose a dress.”
The following morning, when she went to open the shop, Barry arrived and invited her to go the party with him.
“I’m sorry, Barry. I’d have loved to go with you, if only I’d known. Now it’s too late, I’m already going with Jimmy Herbert,” she said. After commiserations she suggested, “Why don’t you invite Caroline? She doesn’t go out much and I’m sure she’d enjoy it?” She expected him to refuse, to say it wouldn’t be right, or fair, and she would regretfully have to tell Jimmy she had changed her mind and was going with Barry.
She was sadly mistaken.
“That’s a good idea! You’re right, Rhiannon, it would be a real treat for her, and we would still see each other there, wouldn’t we?”
Dora was very fond of Eleri. Although she was no longer her daughter-in-law, since the death of Lewis-boy, she still treated her as if she were. Now Eleri was married to Basil Griffiths and had borne him a son, she went to the flat in Trellis Street regularly to take small gifts, including clothes she had knitted for the baby.
On the afternoon following the discussion about Gladys Weston’s party, she took out her bicycle on which she had collected insurance for many years, and, waving to her daughter Rhiannon as she passed the sweet shop, she went up to the main road to collect her rations. On the way back she stopped to spend an hour with Eleri and Basil and the baby.
It was a pleasant day, a winter sun forcing its way through the morning mist and creating a brief spell of brightness that belied the shortness of the day. In an hour it would be dark, but for the moment it was easy to imagine there was time to wander over to the beach and relax on the sand with other families. People she passed had opened their coats, enjoying the brief hint of warmer weather. The crowds looking in the shops moved at a more leisurely pace and Dora felt happy and more relaxed than of late.
Eleri was preparing supper, which Basil would eat at seven, before going for a pint at The Railwayman’s then on, to work throughout the night.
“Mam! There’s a lovely surprise.” Eleri took Dora’s coat and ushered her to a chair close to the fire. “Wait now while I finish grating this old bit of cheese into the pie and we’ll have a nice cup of tea.”
The baby began to bleat a warning that he wouldn’t be ignored for long and Dora looked at Eleri. “Can I pick him up, love?”
“Of course you can. I’ll be glad if you can amuse him for five minutes while I finish making this pie. Thanks Mam.”
With a new mother-in-law, Janet Griffiths, Eleri’s name for Dora hadn’t changed from ‘Mam’. Eleri saw no reason to change the name she had used for so long, and Dora loved it.
“What about if I finish the pie and you cuddle little Ronnie?” Dora suggested. She looked at the small piece of meat that Eleri had chopped to stretch into a meal for them and dug around in the food cupboard for inspiration. Lentils and an oxo were added, mashed potato to cover instead of the sad-looking pastry and the hard, stale cheese grated onto the top to make it more attractive. While it cooked she stayed with Ronnie while Eleri and Basil went to do some shopping.
When the pie came out of the oven an hour and a half later brown and shiny, Eleri hugged Dora and said, “Mam, you are a marvel. You can make a meal out of nothing and make it look great.”
“Eleri’s learning fast,” Basil said proudly, “but she’ll be glad when this damned rationing’s finished.”
“Won’t we all!”
They chatted about the baby’s progress and then about their arrangements for Christmas.
“We’re all going over to the Griffithses’ as you’d guess,” Eleri laughed. “The smallest house and the largest number of people. I don’t know how they fit them in, do you?”
“No, but I wouldn’t mind trying,” Dora said sadly. “Rattles round in the house I do. And when Rhiannon and Viv leave, as they surely will one of these days, well it’ll get worse won’t it, not better.”
“Why don’t you come too?” Eleri suggested. “Your Viv and Rhiannon are coming in the evening and I know Janet and Hywel would love to see you too.”
“And Lewis? Is he coming, with his fancy woman?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.” She frowned then added apologetically, “Yes, Nia probably will come now she has a grandson there, won’t she? Sorry, Mam. I wasn’t thinking.” Realising her mistake she quickly changed the subject. “Mam, it’s not my business but why don’t you get yourself a job again? You’ve been home for a while now and it seems such a waste, you being so clever with figures and not using your skills.”
“It’s a cook you ought to be,” Basil said, sniffing the pie appreciatively.
“There’s plenty to do in the house and garden.” Dora’s blue eyes brightened and her voice was sharp.
Undeterred, Eleri said softly, “Do all that standing on your head, you would, so fast you work. It would be good for you to have some interest outside the house, mind. Why don’t you make that your New Year’s Resolution?”
“Perhaps.”
There was a slight uneasiness between them and anxious to clear it, Eleri took the baby she had been feeding and said pleadingly, “Cuddle him off to sleep Mam, you know he always relaxes with you.”
“Bad habits we’re giving him.”
“And lots of love too,” she smiled, kissing Dora’s pale cheek affectionately.
As Dora cycled home, rain began to fall. Soft and clean onto the leaf-filled gutters. It stung her hands and she wished she’d remembered gloves. But she was soon distracted from the cold by her thoughts. She did need something to fill her time. No, not fill it, use it. She had to stop this hanging around hoping that Nia would leave Lewis and he would come back to her.
Perhaps she should buy herself a pet. A dog would be best, she could take him on walks. Or should she find a job? Perhaps Eleri was right and she needed to get out, meet people and stop hiding in shame. She needed more than just walking a dog. Nothing strenuous, but something that really interested her.
She smiled in the darkness thinking of Gladys Weston having to face the fact that her son-in-law was working in a chip shop. What a laugh. She’d do better than that. The Lewises knew how to get on.
Her son Viv was running the Weston’s business for them and bringing it round from disaster. Her daughter Rhiannon was managing that Nia Martin’s sweet shop, and there was Gladys’s son-in-law Islwyn Heath, cooking chips!
What a funny world it was when things could go so topsy-turvy. She began to sing as she turned the corner into Sophie Street, “How Much Is That Doggie In the Window, Woof Woof—”