Dora went home in a daze after learning of the death of her child. She desperately wanted to talk to Lewis, feel his supporting arms, hear him tell her gently all the details leading to that death. She presumed he knew. Someone would have had to be told. Her parents perhaps, but certainly Lewis, being the father. She felt the grief as if it were new and then a startling thought occurred. Perhaps Lewis didn’t know. It was possible that as she was so young only her parents had been told and they had kept the news from him as well? Then he too would have thought of the boy happily growing up in an adoptive family.
Had he imagined him at the various stages of his life: a helpless baby, then smiling, crawling, learning to walk, setting off for school, playing in his first football team, attracting girls, passing exams and being brilliant at everything? Being a dream child, he could be anything they wanted him to be.
She said nothing to Viv or Rhiannon but the following evening, she went to Lewis’s flat. Taking a chance on Nia being there she knocked and called, then pushed open the door and stepped in. Lewis was in the kitchen preparing a tray of sandwiches and tea.
“I went to London yesterday. To Somerset House,” she said staring at him, watching for his reaction.
“So you know about our Clifford then.”
“You did know! Why have you been keeping it from me all these years?”
“At the time we were both so distressed about having to give him up I thought it best you weren’t told how ill he was.”
“All this time I’ve imagined him growing up and he was in his little grave. You should have told me, Lewis,” Dora spoke softly, sadly.
“I couldn’t, love.” He added a second cup to the tray and led her into the small living-cum-bedroom which, apart from a shared bathroom, made up the rest of the flat.
“I expect the adoptive parents were upset too, they’d have prepared for him and bought all he’d need.”
Lewis poured the tea with a hand that shook, then he looked at her and said, softly, “The doctors knew there was something wrong before he was born. The heart wasn’t strong and, there was some deformities too. They told me there wasn’t a chance he’d survive. I kept on with the adoption story as I thought it was kinder.”
“You were wrong. I should have known.”
“Perhaps. But it wasn’t the easy way out. I had to keep my grief to myself, cope with knowing that a child we had made was less than perfect. Perhaps you’ll understand now why I was worried when we knew Lewis-boy was on the way.”
“No worries with her though. Her child was perfect, wasn’t he? There was nothing wrong with Joseph.”
Joseph is dead too, Lewis wanted to shout! But he ignored the gibe. Dora was entitled to be angry. He knew her anger was at a cruel fate and not really at him. He picked up a cup of tea but seeing her shoulders begin to shake he put it down and held her.
“Our precious love-child and I lost him twice.”
“I lost him too, Dora. Perhaps I should have told you. Losing him was something I carried alone, something we should have shared.”
“You never wanted him.”
“I’ve wanted all our children and I love them. Clifford came too early that’s all. He timed his entrance wrong.”
“But we’d have lost him anyway?”
“We’d have lost him anyway.”
She clung to him and as they sat wrapped in each other’s arms, Nia came in, saw Dora’s head buried against Lewis’s shoulder and with a brief nod to Lewis, slipped quietly out of the door.
As he hugged Dora, Lewis marvelled at the understanding and gentleness of Nia. She didn’t demand answers but simply guessed that this was a time for Dora, accepting it graciously.
Dora talked for several hours and Lewis patiently listened. She told him she no longer sold insurance, that Rhiannon was enjoying a livelier social life but refused to see her father, and that Viv was doing a remarkable job bringing Weston’s back to life. All of these things he knew from his regular meetings with Viv, but he allowed her to talk, making few comments, showing an interest.
It was after ten o’clock when he drove her home and she went straight to bed and slept. In the morning she was up early and had the fire lit and the breakfast cooking when Rhiannon and Viv came down. She told them where she had been and what she had learned. Viv felt sympathy for both his parents, and thanked his mother for trusting them with the story. But for Rhiannon the revelation only increased her disappointment with her father.
The christening of baby Joseph Martin took place on a cold, gusty day in late April. Rhiannon arranged to go with Viv but at the last minute he told her he’d meet her there as he had an errand to run first. Dora refused to go, knowing Nia would be there and afraid that Lewis would be with her, playing the proud role of grandfather escorting the proud grandmother; congratulating Caroline, holding the child and being a part of that family instead of his own.
Rhiannon didn’t attend the church service. Later on, she walked across the fields to the overfilled house that stood with its doors and windows wide open, issuing forth laughter and high spirits, in defiance of the low temperature.
Jimmy had begged an invitation and he walked down the path to meet her, apologising for not calling for her.
“I thought you were coming with your mother and Viv,” he explained.
“Viv had to go somewhere first and Mam isn’t coming,” she replied.
“Looks as if she changed her mind,” he chuckled. He pointed to the corner of the lane where Dora was just appearing, wrapped in a coat which she held tightly around her against the chill wind. She looked so small and pale that Rhiannon was alarmed.
“She looks so unwell,” she whispered. “I didn’t realise how thin she’s become.”
Dora was confused, unsure where she was, and why. Something about a christening. But not her baby, someone else’s.
The small party from the church had already returned and the party mood that seemed to often fill the small house was well underway. The Weston girls were there as godmothers and their cousin Jack was proudly boasting of being Joseph’s godfather. Viv had called for the girls and walked with them from the church with the others.
Rhiannon noted with some surprise that he seemed relaxed with them, Megan was quietly absorbing the scene and Joan was complaining about everything. Instead of being angry with her, Viv seemed amused, even supportive. Surely working for their grandfather in the capacity of manager instead of clerk hadn’t made that much difference?
Barry had been outside the church taking photographs and appearing in some himself, and he followed the rest in, having snapped the party returning. He took photographs of the guests including Rhiannon and smiled when she looked up in some disapproval.
“People don’t just want formal, carefully composed pictures,” he said. “We’ve had the ceremony, now we have a party.”
“D’you want me to take a photograph of you and Caroline, the proud parents, and the baby?” she asked, but if he heard the sarcasm in her voice he chose to ignore it.
“Thanks Rhiannon, but Viv and Jack have taken a few. You aren’t that clever with a camera. Now Caroline seems a natural, in fact, she comes with me often and helps with the children, just like you used to do.”
Snubbed, she went to sit beside her mother and Eleri.
Viv was laughingly telling Barry about how Joan worked at Weston’s. “For a couple of weeks she was marvellous, but now she comes and goes when she likes and although she does work while she’s there, she spends more time making up her face and combing her hair than actually holding a pen,” he chuckled. “Still, old man Arfon pays her a little and she’s amusing to have around.”
Viv had been flattered when Joan and Megan asked him to escort them to the church for their part in the christening ceremony. Megan had walked ahead with their cousin Jack, and Joan had taken his arm as they walked into the church and he felt all eyes on him, pride making him feel twice his height. She had been so attentive of late, he had begun to hope that she felt more for him than she might have for just friend.
She had chosen to sit beside him throughout the first hour of the service, and he had wondered if he would be taking her home later.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she had said when he had voiced this hope. “We have a taxi coming for us at eleven. Jack insisted on arranging it.” Had there been disappointment in her voice? Had she too imagined a slow walk home through the fields and the quiet streets?
Caroline could see that Dora was unhappy. She remembered being so desperately low-spirited herself. She had tried to end her life and that of her child. Instinctively, she knew that Dora’s thoughts were heading the same way. Pushing her way through the lively crowd, who seemed unaware of Dora’s distress, she sat beside her and began to talk.
Dora seemed almost unaware of her presence for a while. And although she found it difficult, Caroline persisted.
“When your Lewis-boy and my Joseph died I didn’t think I had anything to live for,” she said, and this caught Dora’s attention.
“I know what you mean. The world isn’t such a wonderful place when you lose everything.”
“But I didn’t lose everything, and neither did you,” Caroline said. “I had a change of heart and look at me now. I have a wonderful life and a wonderful son. Everything changes. Everything comes to an end, good times and bad.”
“The sooner my life comes to an end the better,” Dora said. “I’ve lost my husband and my son.”
“Oh,” Caroline said sadly, “I thought you loved Rhiannon and Viv as well as Lewis-boy. Did you love him more because he was the first? Some mothers are like that.”
“I didn’t love him more!”
“But you’re thinking it would be best to leave them?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I do. I really do. I tried to walk into the sea. I haven’t told anyone outside the family, but that’s how much I understand. I tried to end my life without thought of the ones I was leaving behind. It was Barry who saved me and Barry who gave me a fresh start to a wonderful life.”
“You’ve got a small son depending on you, and a husband.”
“No, not a husband,” she smiled. “Barry only married me to give Joseph his father’s name. We’re divorcing as soon as we can and I’ll be on my own with Joseph. But I know I’ll never be so depressed that I won’t be able to cope, and neither will you. Not with Rhiannon and Viv, who’ll one day give you grandchildren to spoil.” She patted Dora’s arm and smiled into her eyes as if implanting that thought. “I have to go now, Barry’s mother is cutting the cake.”
Looking up, Dora saw that behind Nia, Lewis was looking across at her and smiling. She glared at him with some of her old fierceness and left.
With so many crowded into the rooms, the air was stifling even with the windows and doors open. A fire blazed up into the chimney and drinks seemed to make people hotter still. Viv suggested a walk to Joan, who agreed. He picked up a coat in case she needed it and they walked down the lane, leaving the chatter and music behind them. He put an arm around her to guide her and as they came close he kissed her.
“Joan, I’ve been wanting to do that for so long.”
“I hope you enjoyed it,” she said harshly. “It’s the last chance you get. Who d’you think you are? You work for my father. If I told him what you’ve just done he’d sack you.”
Viv blazed. “I don’t work for your father! He’s too weak to make a decision about which coat to wear! I work for your grandfather and he won’t sack me because he needs me. You all need me. The Westons were practically finished before I came in and rescued you and never forget it!” Leaving her to find her own way back, he leapt over a stile and ran through the dark fields back to Sophie Street, regretting that it was too late to go to The Railwayman’s and get drunk.
When Rhiannon realised that both Viv and her mother had gone she knew she had to leave too. Barry was waiting beside the van when she stepped out into the crispy cold night.
“I’m going now if you want a lift,” he said.
“I’d rather walk.”
“Rhiannon, we only live three doors from each other.” He opened the passenger door and, regretting her harshness, she got in.
He leaned over to make sure the door was fastened and almost before either realised what had happened, they kissed.
His arms held her in a long embrace, his hands did alarmingly pleasurable things to her body, his lips promised delights she had hardly imagined. It was something she had dreamed of for so long and refused to acknowledge, that she clung to him now as if she would never let him go.
It was several minutes before she came to her senses. Then she begged him to stop.
“Please, Barry, this is wrong.”
“Rhiannon, how can it be wrong? You know I love you. I’ve loved you for such a long, long time.”
“You’re married!”
“In name only and for a couple of years only. You can wait for me can’t you? Please, wait for me. Don’t say no. Not now, when you’ve shown me you still feel the same about me. It will be all right. We have to wait for a while, that’s all, my darling.”
“There’s been enough talk about my family. I don’t want people saying I’ve split you and Caroline. I couldn’t face it and neither could Mam.”
“But you know it was a marriage of convenience, don’t you? So her child could have the Martin name?” He kissed her again and then said, “You know there’s nothing between Caroline and me beside friendship, don’t you?”
“I do, but there are many who don’t. It’s no use, Barry. We have to stay away from each other until Caroline is safe from rumours and malicious gossip. For Caroline’s sake and for Mam’s.”
Rhiannon was worried about her mother. Dora was working hard and eating too little. Night after night, she crept down and sat in the kitchen with a pot of tea. She said nothing to Viv, but Eleri assured her it was nothing to worry about, that her unhappiness would ease.
“Once she’s over the new horror of learning that her child died so soon after he was born, and all these years she’d been unable to mourn him,” Eleri assured her, “She’ll cope.”
Because of her concern that news of her love for Barry might become public knowledge, and add further to her mother’s distress, Rhiannon was frequently less than civil with him. It wasn’t that difficult for her to show him her anger. In her mind the cause of the family’s current misery was the fault of his mother. She only had to think of her father to feel fury – and it was easy to blame Barry. If Nia had left them alone her parents would be together and the house wouldn’t be such an unhappy place.
Rhiannon looked around at the shelves in Temptations one morning as she was about to open, and asked herself if she should leave. Getting away from this connection with Nia and Barry might help her mother to forget. But it was not a prospect to excite her. She loved the shop and its happy trade.
With rationing over she saw her customers more frequently and many more had become friends. She was being invited to parties and trips to the cinema and to the occasional dance and so had what could be described as a busy social life for the first time in her life. She looked back at the time when she kept house for her mother and the family and realised what she had been missing.
It would be the same now wherever she worked, she knew that. She would make new friends and keep those she already had. But she loved this little shop with the bright displays, shiny chrome and polished glass, and took pleasure in helping people make their purchases, especially if it was a gift from her growing selection, or something to surprise a child.
Easter had increased her stock of the gifts she had long envisaged selling: Lovells Easter eggcups with chocolate eggs in them, chickens, rabbits and funny faces. Mothers, aunts and grandmothers had bought them as fast as she could stock them. Temptations was a happy place to work and she was saddened at the prospect of leaving. But if it would help her mother, she decided then, that was what she must do.
“You’re looking pensive, Rhiannon,” Barry said as he came into the shop with a load of equipment. “Nothing wrong, is there?”
“No, but I’m thinking of leaving here,” she replied.
He dropped the tripod and cases and stared at her. “You’re leaving? But why? Whatever is wrong will be put right. Is it me, wandering in and out to the flat? I’d hate it, but I’ll come less often if it bothers you.”
“Mam is so quiet these days, working hard on the house and the garden and I think she’d be happier if we didn’t have any connection with the woman who ruined her life.” As Barry began to protest she raised a hand to make him listen. “In Mam’s mind your mother is responsible. I know my father must take most of the blame, but she can’t see that. She loves him you see. That makes logical thinking a bit difficult.”
“But where will you go if you leave here? At least you’re close to home and if you want to pop home you can, any time.”
“Mam isn’t ill, she’s just a bit depressed and she’s dealing with that by working too hard.”
“She doesn’t look too well. Has she seen a doctor?”
Frightened that she had perhaps said too much, she retaliated crossly. “She doesn’t need a doctor! How will a doctor help? This is something my father could cure, but because of your mother clinging to him and not letting him go he won’t even try!”
“Please don’t leave, Rhiannon. You’re doing such an excellent job and Mam is pleased with the way you’ve increased the business. But all that’s a separate issue. I want you to stay. If we can’t be together I want to be able to see you every day. You know how I feel about you.” He took her arm and pulled her gently into the room behind the shop. Taking her into his arms he kissed her and she couldn’t deny that for her, too, a separation would be hard to bear.
“I love you and we should have married before all this mix-up began.”
“There’s no point talking about what might have been,” Rhiannon sighed, but it was his turn to hold up a hand to hush her.
“I know we can’t go back in time to how it was before Lewis-boy and Joseph died. But please, don’t go out of my life.”
“I am out of your life,” she said. “And until you and Caroline are divorced there’s no chance I’ll ever be in it. It’s all so impossible, Barry.”
“Don’t say that, Rhiannon. Don’t make me give up hope.”
Lewis heard from Viv that Dora was unwell. He called one Friday evening on the way home from his calls and saw that Viv was right; Dora was shedding weight fast and her face looked years older because of it.
The familiar spark flared in her bright blue eyes though, as she demanded, “What d’you want?”
“I’ve brought the money to pay the rates, they’re due this month, aren’t they? And the ground rent on the house.” He handed her an envelope and added, “It’s all there, plus a few pounds which I want to pay every week towards the upkeep of the house.”
“I don’t want your money. Give it to her.”
“Nia has her own house to see to and she doesn’t ask for money from me, you know that, Dora. This is for you and Rhiannon and Viv, to keep the house going.”
With this precedent set, Lewis began to call every Friday. His intention was to stay a while to make sure she was all right, but this did not happen. His visits consisted of handing her an envelope and having the door closed firmly in his face.
Rhiannon went upstairs to Barry’s flat one morning before she opened the shop. She had some post for him and wondered if he was at home or staying at his mother’s as he sometimes did. She knocked on the door, and, receiving no answer, opened it and put the letters on the table. Curious, she stepped further into the flat and looked in each room.
The place was a mess. In the bedroom the bed was unmade. The living room was cluttered with the equipment of his trade. Cables and cameras, tripods and meters were in a tangle around the room and she shuddered at the thought of trying to sort it all out. The kitchen was a different matter, she knew how to deal with that.
On all the surfaces and in piles on the floor were used plates, tins and saucepans, each coated with congealed remnants of past meals. It was worse than Chestnut Road when Nia was away.
Between serving customers Rhiannon tidied up, washing the pans and dishes and putting them away in cupboards. Food that was opened and half used she put in the ashbin. She replaced the stale loaf with a fresh one.
She waited expectantly for Barry’s next visit, hoping for praise and half regretting her impulse to clean his mess. But Barry said nothing. She was unaware that he naturally assumed his mother had been in and cleared up as she had on several Sundays when Rhiannon wasn’t there.
At first she was offended and put it down to the male belief that cleaning up their mess was what women enjoyed. But she still went up to the flat on occasions when she was certain he wouldn’t appear.
During the month of August, when the town was buzzing with the usual influx of summer visitors and the weekends were filled with beach parties and dances and long walks and lazy swims, Nia and Lewis met more and more openly. All their acquaintances and friends knew that their affair was continuing; Dora seemed immune to the lingering wisps of gossip as the pair openly discussed living together at Nia’s house on Chestnut Road.
Since her second marriage had failed, Nia knew that she needed someone in her life. Until now she had been content, but now her oft-repeated insistence that she needed no one was a sham. It was partly because of the death of her adored Joseph and the possibility of Barry leaving. She had never really been alone, with the boys coming and going and filling the house with their friends. And she had been young then. She faced the fact straight on and admitted she was lonely. She told all this to Lewis and said, “Lewis, love. Why don’t we live together? We can’t cause any more gossip than we do at present. It’s been hard on Dora but perhaps she’s better able to accept it if we showed her your marriage is definitely over.”
Lewis stared at her in disbelief then he hugged her, saying her name over and over. At last his life was going to come together, they were going to settle it at last. After all these years it was going to be all right.
But although it had long been a fervent hope that he thought would never become a reality, Lewis now hesitated. Telling Dora had seemed so easy while Nia was in his arms. Facing Dora and explaining the decision to her was a different matter. The cold stare in her blue eyes made it harder each time he tried. The long days made way for the slower pace of autumn without his finding the courage to take action. Nia, guessing his problem and understanding it, surprised him by offering a solution.
“Why don’t we move right away?”
“Leave the town you mean? But there’s your shop and my job and…” He looked at her momentarily then lowered his gaze before finishing, “…and there’s Rhiannon. I don’t want to go away before she and I are friends again.”
“It’s really Dora, isn’t it, love?” Nia said.
“I know you’re upset that Rhiannon refuses to talk to you, but you’d cope with that. It’s Dora you can’t leave. You can’t cut that final strand of string, can you?” She didn’t speak angrily. She touched his arm affectionately. “I understand, Lewis, my dear. She has taken all this very badly and I know she’s unwell. Let’s wait a while longer, shall we? Just until she’s fit again.”
So the weeks slid past into winter with them spending the occasional night together in Chestnut Road or Lewis’s tiny flat, giving more fuel to the few gossips who cared, and sending Dora deeper into solitude. She rarely went out now and although Viv and Rhiannon occasionally brought friends in, she seemed immune to their lively chatter, lost in a world of her own.
It was Barry who discussed the situation with Rhiannon, telling her that her father and his mother wanted to move away and make a fresh start.
“How can they make a fresh start? Both married they are.”
“No one is happy like this, at least two of them would be if they were together.”
“It’s so cruel. Mam’s done nothing.”
“They fell out of love. It happens, you can’t hide your head and pretend it doesn’t.”
“So that’s all marriage means to you is it? A few years being in love, then, give up when things are less than perfect?”
“You know it isn’t like that with me. I won’t change.”
“You’re divorcing too, remember? Why don’t you try and make a marriage with your wife?”
“Neither Caroline nor I want that and you know it.”
“I wish they would go away! Perhaps Mam will accept it’s finished if they left the town instead of letting everyone see them together, pitying her as the abandoned wife.”
“I’ll tell them that, shall I?” he said tight-lipped.
“Tell them what you like.”
“D’you know, Rhiannon, you’ve stayed at home too long. You’re beginning to sound as bitter as your mother and you don’t even have a reason!” He picked up his things and pushed his way through to the door, his footsteps sounding loud as he stamped up the stairs.
On Sunday, Rhiannon found herself with nothing particular to do. Dora was in the garden cutting out old raspberry canes and fixing sticks for the young ones to come in the spring. Viv was out with Jack, and Eleri and Basil were visiting the Griffiths. She put on a jacket and left the house, intending to walk across the docks and along the beach.
She automatically glanced towards the shop to see if Barry’s van was outside. It wasn’t, but the shop door was open and she hesitantly looked inside. Nia stood behind the counter with a duster in her hand. At once Rhiannon was on the defensive.
“I wash all the counters and shelves every week,” she began and to her relief, Nia laughed.
“Hello Rhiannon. I’m not cleaning the shop. It’s spotless as always. No, to tell you the truth I usually pop in and check Barry’s flat. Such a mess he makes in a few days, although, he does seem to be getting better lately.”
“No he isn’t,” Rhiannon said. “I’ve been going up most days and keeping the mess to manageable proportions!” Their laughter was genuine and when Nia invited her up to the flat for a cup of tea she accepted. Although it was easy to hate Nia when she was away from her, as soon as they met, her liking for the woman quickly returned.
Friendly mood or not, it was impossible for Rhiannon not to mention Barry’s remark about Nia and her father moving out of the town. “It’s the fear of making it worse and not better for your mother that makes us hesitate,” Nia explained. “But I think that once we’ve gone, when we aren’t likely to meet, Dora would be better able to cope. She’d go out more and feel more relaxed. Your father isn’t so sure. What do you think?”
“You’re both married, yet you’re talking about going away as if a wife and a husband are hardly worth a thought. Don’t you feel guilty?” Rhiannon asked boldly.
“Oh,” Nia gave her soft little sigh. “I feel guilty, of course I do. But if Lewis and I didn’t see each other ever again, the guilt wouldn’t go away. Your parents wouldn’t get back to how they were before. My husband wouldn’t change his mind and come back. You wouldn’t see Barry as anything other than the son of your father’s fancy piece.” She gave Rhiannon a sad smile. “Yes, I know what I’m called,” she said. “We’re well past the half-way to our three score years and ten, Lewis and I. It would be such a waste of the years ahead, to pretend we can put things right, dear.”
“But that doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t make it right, but I don’t think anything will, do you?”
Before Rhiannon left, Nia handed her an envelope. “I was going to leave this on the counter for you to see tomorrow,” she said.
“Nothing to do with your telling Barry you feel you ought to leave, it isn’t intended to persuade you to stay. It’s just a thank you for what you’re doing for me here.”
Inside was a note to say that as from that week her wages were increased by a massive two pounds a week.