Lydia and her father stood at the window of their living room and, looking out over the roofs of the houses and shops below, watched the group of ten-year-olds on the beach. They were pulling apart a wrecked rowing boat. They had begun by pelting stones at it, small ones at first then, as their determination intensified, the size of stones grew until they were staggering down over the rocks to the soft sand, and dropping their burdens onto the weakened craft. As boards loosened, the laughing boys used their hands and feet to tear its boards from the frame, red with effort and excited at the mess they were making.
Lydia could see anger clouding her father’s expressnon.
‘Hooligans the lot of them,’ Billy said. ‘Specially that Neville Nolan. They all want a good hiding, that’s what!’
‘Oh, Dad, they’re only having fun.’
‘Fun you call it? Smashing something up? At their age I was working with my father, helping repair boats not smashing them! And sorting fish ready for market. The smell of that job put the girls off proper but I had to do it.’
‘It’s really because it’s Neville Nolan, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose it is. Little pest that he is. Nothing but cheek I get when I chase them out of the allotments. Thank goodness the castle is closed and they can’t get in there any more.’
Lydia thought it wise not to tell her father that their access had been unaffected by the council’s attempts to seal the place off.
Annie was home this morning as, being a Sunday, Lydia and Billy were not working. Her presence, constantly calling for attention, was the reason for her father’s irritability. Several times each hour, Annie would call for something to be sent upstairs for her: ‘I’m so dry, can I have a drink of water?’ or ‘I think I could manage a small biscuit,’ or ‘Can you help me to the lavvy? My legs have gone funny again.’
Lydia accepted that her mother would never be any different, but Billy still occasionally railed against the fate that had landed him with such a burden. It amazed her that he complained so rarely. Most of the time he seemed content. Sometimes she interrupted her father and her Auntie Stella talking quietly together and felt they had been discussing her mother. But that was a good thing. Billy needed to talk to someone and Annie’s sister was the best person he could choose.
Lydia wanted to get on with lunch so she was free to spend a few hours with Molly, but seeing her father’s unhappy mood, she stood silently beside him, a hand on his shoulder, talking to him. She looked small beside him, only five feet two and dainty, unlike Billy’s heavily built five feet eleven. But she had her father’s colouring, her light brown hair glinting with gold in the autumn sunshine streaming through the window. Her eyes did not have that far-seeing look of sailors and countrymen like his, but were as large and of the same deep blue. At that moment they showed more humour than Billy’s sombre expression.
Lydia was hiding her own unhappiness from him.
Glyn’s longed-for return when he finally left the navy had been far from the wonderful moment she had dreamed of. Most had believed it had been a mutual falling out of love, but for Lydia the grief was still fresh and causing an aching hurt, deep inside, hidden even from her closest friend. Molly pretended to understand but for her life was far simpler. Why couldn’t she be as fancy-free as Molly?
Looking out of the window, sipping the strong tea she had made, they watched as the boys grew tired of their boat-wrecking and wandered off. A man was standing watching them and from the luggage he carried, he was newly arrived, or on the point of leaving.
‘Who’s that?’ Billy asked, half closing his eyes against the glare.
‘No one I know. Probably a tourist. Foreign by the look of him, with binoculars and a camera slung across his shoulders, and that rucksack looks a better quality than you get round here. And his clothes look, I don’t know, expensive, but different somehow.’
‘You’re right, he’s a nifty dresser.’
‘Definitely foreign, Dad.’
‘No.’ Billy frowned. ‘There’s something familiar about the cut of his jib. Something about the way he stands, so straight. He reminds me of…’ he shook his head as memory remained elusive. Then he looked at her and said emphatically, ‘Bet he was in the army!’
‘Navy!’
They often played this game, trying by observation, to decide who and what the visitors were and occasionally, Billy saw them in The Pirate, and either confirmed or disproved their wild guesses. Lydia went up to respond to yet another call from her mother, content that she had teased her father out of his misery.
Once lunch was over, Lydia slipped out to spend a couple of hours with Molly. She walked along the seafront, pushing her way through a crowd of people who had just alighted from a coach and were looking about them in a bemused way.
She saw the man again, still looking towards the castle ruin high on its hill beyond the shops. She changed direction slightly and walked closer to him. With people from the coach trip still hovering, undecided on which way to walk, it was easy to stand and study him without him being aware of her scrutiny.
He was younger than she had first thought. Probably middle thirties. He was tall and strongly built, with dark, reddish hair that was worn longer than normal for someone so formally dressed. His eyes, as he stared over the heads of the crowd towards the ruined castle, were hooded and dark and his face was deeply tanned.
‘He hasn’t been holidaying here, then!’ Molly laughed when they met a few minutes later. ‘Rust more like with the summer we’ve had!’
Molly was the same height as Lydia and her colouring was similar but they were not alike. Molly was plump, and wore clothes which emphasised her fullness. Tight-fitting tops, short, straight skirts and a deeply cinched waist.
The girls were unalike in character as well as looks, Lydia being a quiet, gentle girl who constantly stepped back to allow her friend any limelight. Molly was first to put herself forward, always ready for adventure or laughter, both of which she was currently finding in the arms of her secret lover. The fun was mostly in avoiding being found out, she had little to lose except a reputation, which at the tender age of twenty-two, seemed hardly worth a moment’s thought, apart from the opinion of Mr and Mrs Frank with whom she shared a home.
Molly’s eyes glittered with excitement and Lydia guessed her friend’s thoughts were on the next meeting with her lover.
The man who had been looking up at the castle, had picked up his kitbag and canvas holdall and turned away from the seashore. He pushed his way through the crowd and went to find a hotel.
He was tired, having been travelling for several days and he intended to eat and then sleep until the following morning. Tomorrow he would look out a few remembered faces, see if anyone remembered him and if they did, whether they would give him the time of day. He chuckled, his sombre eyes softening momentarily. Not many would welcome him back if they remembered the way he’d been as a boy!
It was such a long time ago, and memories of the wild, seventeen year old boy he had then been, were probably softened by time, into nothing more than juvenile stupidity.
Later that day, Molly was waiting for her date at the top of the lane where small fishermen’s cottages led up onto the steep hill. They did not exchange affectionate greetings when he arrived, but walked rather sedately on up the hill. Turning off onto a narrow footpath, they were soon hidden by the gorse and brambles and goat-willow which clothed the hillside. Further on were the half-demolished remains of army huts abandoned after the war and a sheltered place for lovers to meet. It was only then that they kissed and revealed the fact that they were lovers.
‘Did you have a job getting out today, love?’ he asked, as they entered their regular shelter.
‘No, but Lydia’s guessed I meet someone every Sunday evening besides during the week when you can get away. I don’t think she knows who though, yet. We’ll have to be careful.’
‘D’you think we should give it a miss for a week or so, until her curiosity has faded, then?’
‘Why not go back to our usual place to meet? Not much chance of anyone seeing us there, is there?’
‘You mean the castle grounds?’ he frowned.
‘Closed it is, except to people like us who can get in through the woods or clamber over the gate. No one is likely to see us there.’
Between love-making and tender talk which both enjoyed but neither believed, they decided to make the castle grounds on a Tuesday evening their new arrangement. Leaving her at the corner of the lane, the man gave her a kiss and hurried off to join his friends for a game of cards. Friends who unwittingly gave him an alibi of sorts if his wife became suspicious and questioned his absence.
Molly returned to the house where she lived with Mr and Mrs Frank and began to prepare supper. She no longer acted as a lodger, but had gradually taken over the running of the house. She was very fond of them; they were the nearest thing to parents she had ever known. Her own mother and father had abandoned her when she was still very young. She had shared rooms and various lodgings, even staying with Lydia for a while, until Annie had objected.
Mr and Mrs Frank did not know about her affair and she hoped they wouldn’t until it either ended or came out into the open, which would only happen if her lover decided to leave his wife and marry her. Even then she would make sure they understood she would never leave them. The elderly couple had promised that the house would be hers after their death if she would stay with them and look after them. But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want them upset. She did not want them living in fear of her leaving them. She loved them too much to do that. And they were important enough for her to want them to live for many more years.
But she was beginning to feel less than happy about the secret affair. She had told Lydia she was better off without Glyn, that there were better ways to live than as an appendage to a man, but she was no longer being truthful when she insisted it was not what she wanted.
She set the table with cold meats and salad and a plate of bread and butter cut thinly, just the way they liked it. The Franks wouldn’t eat much of it, but she always did her best to make what she offered them as attractive as she could.
She had planned surprises for them too. A visit from an old friend, when they mentioned they would like to see him again, a trip to the cinema with Howes’ taxis taking them there and back. A special tea on their forty-fourth anniversary, with flowers and a specially ordered cake. All this occupied her mind but she was restless.
Her emotions were taking control; the love affair, entered upon so casually, was becoming more and more important to her. It was no longer easy to treat her boyfriend as unimportant and trivial.
Her words to Lydia about avoiding commitments and having fun, were beginning to have a hollow ring.
She spent time imagining how it would be if he could be persuaded to leave his wife and marry her. For the first time since the affair began, she wanted to discuss her situation with someone. Throwing off her apron, she hurried through the quiet streets to the house with its view across the bay and asked Lydia to go with her for a walk.
‘Give me a moment to finish sewing in this sleeve,’ Lydia said, sensing the urgency of her friend’s need to talk. ‘If Mam’s asleep I might sneak out for half an hour. Dad’s in The Pirate with Gimlet and the others and won’t be back for a while.’ Hurriedly repacking the sewing tin and making sure her mother was sleeping, the two girls set off to walk along the dark streets of the silent village. Only from the public houses came signs that not everyone was at home. The lights shone brightly from the windows and spilled out from the door as people went in and out. Occasional laughter rang out and, to Molly in her restless mood the sound added to her melancholy.
‘My friend and I have been lovers for almost a year,’ Molly began.
‘Wasting your youth you are. Why do you bother with him, Molly?’
‘He’s unhappy with his wife.’
‘Don’t they all say that? Not much of a reason to fritter away your life on him.’
‘It happens to be true.’
‘They all say that too.’
‘Oh, all right, if you aren’t going to even listen!’ Molly turned and began to walk back the way they had come.
‘Sorry. I’ll hear you out before I say another word. Right?’
‘She was expecting a baby, see, and they got married because it was the right thing to do. Then only weeks after the wedding, the baby, well, she lost it. So there they were, married and not even liking each other, hating each other for being trapped in a marriage neither wanted. They’d never loved each other.’
‘How can you make a baby without feeling love for each other?’ Lydia asked quietly.
‘It happens. Men will take what’s on offer without thinking further ahead than the next five minutes. Oh, yes. Women too! Sex is wonderful, as you’ll find out when your Mr Right comes along, but I take your point. Without love it isn’t so special. There’s the aftermath of guilt, see, which you don’t get if you’re in love.’
‘Do you feel guilt? Loving him and knowing he has a wife?’
‘It’s no longer a game of gratification. I – I think I love him. I want him to leave his wife.’ She stared at her friend to see her reaction. ‘Is that very wicked, Lydia?’
‘D’you think he will?’
‘Of course he wants to. But with his mam and dad hounding him and trying to make him behave as they think he should, it’s difficult for him. I can see that.’
‘And you, could you live with the pointing fingers and being shunned by so-called friends? Even in this day and age, people criticize women accused of breaking up marriages. Most women feel vulnerable and they shout quick when it happens to someone else, fearing it might be their turn next.’
‘I don’t want it made public yet. I don’t want anything to frighten Mr and Mrs Frank into thinking I’ll leave them. I won’t. I promised them I’d stay with them until they pass peacefully away and look after them properly until they do and I’ll keep that promise. They’ve been good to me and I wouldn’t let them down, not even for – for ‘what’s-his-name’, my fella. But seeing me mixed up in a divorce might make them worry and I don’t want that, I love them, see. So there you are, a fine ol’ mess, for sure. Me wanting him to leave his wife but not wanting anyone to breathe a word in case Mr and Mrs Frank are upset.’
Lydia was silent for a while.
‘Lydia?’ Molly coaxed.
‘I keep thinking of how I would feel if I had married Glyn and he’d found someone else. It’s humiliating enough having Glyn leave me for this ‘Cath’ woman. And we weren’t even officially engaged.’
‘No good talking to you then is it!’ Molly again turned and this time ran from her friend down past the shops towards the sea. She stopped as Lydia caught her up and held her arm. ‘I know it will cause misery,’ she sighed, her voice trembling tearfully. ‘But I love him and want him and I know we’d be happy.’
‘You don’t want it out in the open anyway, not yet, so I suggest you stop meeting for a while, let things calm down. You’ve been seen walking up past the fishermen’s cottages so it won’t be long before you – and he – are recognised. Stay away from him for a while to see how you both feel. That’s my advice, if you want it. That way you won’t risk upsetting Mr and Mrs Frank and if the marriage is mended, well, best you know now, before wasting any more of your time.’
‘I can’t do that, but we’ve chosen a different place to meet, where we shouldn’t be seen.’
‘If you must continue to meet, then good. Just don’t tell anyone where or when.’
The tall man had to get into the castle. It had been sheer luck that he had heard that the place was closing for repairs. Just when everything was looking so good this had to come back and haunt him. He had to find what he had hidden and remove it to a place where it would never be found. He was angry with himself. He should have done something before this.
He had been watching for several days and knew that children still managed to get not only into the grounds, but inside the castle itself. He had heard them laughing and running about and guessed at the games they were playing. He had seen the plans for the work that would be done and although it seemed unlikely that his secret would be discovered, he had to go and move the items and take them far away, this time making sure they would never again see the light of day. Weighted down and dropped overboard from a small boat, that was the best solution. But first he had to find them. Would he remember the exact spot, or would his memory let him down?
The following Tuesday, Molly set off to the woods on the sea side of the castle. A terrace of small houses – one of which belonged to the Howes – ran along the road facing the sea, and behind them a path ran between houses and the tree-covered slope. A track led up through a strip of woodland to the castle mound. A sea mist was adding to the chill of the October evening. It was dark once she left the lights along the road, but nevertheless, she kept to the shadows as she worked her way around between the backs of houses and the beginning of the wood.
The trees made strange shapes that seemed to move as she passed them. Leaves touched her face and branches of straggly brambles caught at her trousers and pulled her back. Trying to walk without making a sound added to her fear, the small noises she did make frightening her. The castle loomed up into the sky as she climbed the grassy mound, black and very different from its day-time tranquillity. She was relieved when she finally stood near the corner of the building which had once been the chapel.
Following the high walls, she worked her way blindly, feeling the walls for guidance, nervous now there was no light at all to guide her to the next corner. There a window had been weakened by the regular visits of Neville Nolan and his gang and she stopped and waited for her man-friend to arrive.
The path at this point was narrow, reduced in width by a stream of water coming from the castle wall that had weakened the earth causing it to slide down occasionally to rest against the allotment fence. The blackness of the night got to her and she couldn’t stay there listening for him.
The path was hardly wide enough for her to walk and she sidled sideways, her back to the walls, moving around towards the gateway, where once a portcullis had protected it from invasion. The silence was palpable, the night air pressing in on her, clammy and still and seeming to hum in her ears. Her heart was racing as she stood expecting to hear a sound that threatened her. But with what she hadn’t any idea, it was just that the night seemed to crackle with danger.
This wasn’t a good idea. Why hadn’t she insisted he met her on the road below and walked with her through this eerie place? Bravado had made her laugh when he had suggested it. Now she regretted her confidence. She decided that in future she would arrange to meet him where there was some light, and they would walk through the trees and around the walls together. Adventure or not, this was definitely the last time.
As she reached the corner where, at each side of the gateway, the walls recessed for towers which had never been built, she gave a small sigh of relief. At least there were distant lights, the shops along the road giving out a glow, and there was the sound of people and cars passing not far away. More confident now, but still intending to make this the last time, she stepped into the tower recess and a figure appeared and stopped right in front of her; big, threatening and too close for her to run.
Afterwards, she thought he had been as startled at the confrontation as she, but at the moment it was all her nightmares and fear reaching fruition at once. She attempted to scream but the push he gave her sent her sliding then falling, off the path, down through the undergrowth which hid a steep bank, until she came to a stop, unharmed but breathless and terribly afraid, near the fence of the allotments.
She held her breath and listened but there wasn’t a sound. Where was he, the man who attacked her? And where was her boyfriend? Why wasn’t he rushing to help? She stood up and pressed herself into a blackthorn bush unaware of the discomfort of the prickly branches, and stared, wide-eyed, around her. The light coming from the road was limited but she could make out the dark towering walls of the castle above her.
Then the faint light from the street lamps began to fade as rain began to fall, softly, with a gentle hiss that obliterated all sound. Where was he, this hooligan who had frightened her? Was he still up there watching her, waiting for her to move? Intending to push her again? Only this time to wait until she was near the high wall from where he could push her down onto the road far below? Afraid to move, shivering with the chill of the rain that was slowly soaking her right through, she listened, half imagining she could hear his breathing above the softly falling rain.
After an age, she moved out of the shadows and, slowly at first, then at a low, scuttling run, hurried down the grassy slope towards the gate opposite Stella’s house. The castle gate was locked as she knew it would be but nothing would persuade her to go back through the wood. Having to climb the gate made her utter small squeaks of fear, expecting at every moment the man to reappear and attack her.
Then she heard footsteps running towards her. She felt her fingers weaken, the muscles in her legs failed her and she fell back from the gate and prepared to run, not thinking where, just running from whatever new danger threatened.
‘Molly? Is that you, love?’
‘Thank goodness!’ she sobbed. ‘Where have you been? Why were you so late? There’s a man… and he pushed me, and…’ Explanations were muffled as she clung to him across the metal barrier. Then he was over the gate in a leap and holding her trembling body to his own. She smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves.
‘Come on, love. Whoever he is he’ll be well gone now. Some idiot of a tramp most likely, frightening you away from the spot he’d chosen for the night.’ He helped her over the gate, concern for her fright making him careless of being seen, and talking soothingly, began to walk her home.
‘Molly?’ Lydia stepped out of a shop doorway where she had been admiring some shoes, and bumped into her friend. For one heart-stopping moment she thought Molly’s companion, with his arms draped so affectionately around her shoulders was Glyn. Then she realised it was Glyn’s brother. So Tomos was Molly’s secret lover. No wonder she wanted to keep his identity a secret!
‘Tomos! So you are the married man who’s wife doesn’t love him? Molly, how could you?’
‘Please, Lydia, keep it to yourself,’ Tomos pleaded, after trying in vain to bluff it out. ‘All right, we’ve been seeing each other for a year, what can you tell us that we haven’t already said ourselves a thousand times? Melanie and I have never loved each other, you know that’s true. We both know our marriage was a mistake.’
‘Please, Lydia, we don’t want it all to come out now, not like this.’
Molly explained about the attack and gradually Lydia’s outrage cooled. ‘You could at least be honest enough to tell her,’ she said. ‘Others will soon know.’
Lydia was shocked. It was one thing to share the secret of a love affair but very different when you knew and liked the unsuspecting wife. How could she keep quiet and watch Melanie being cheated?
‘We will tell Melanie, and soon,’ Tomos said, ‘but not now. Please, keep quiet for a little while longer? Let me tell her when the moment is right?’
After a lot of persuading, Lydia gave her word. She was still raw with the unhappiness of Glyn telling her he had found someone else and knowing Tomos’s parents and his wife made her more sensitive than she might otherwise have been. ‘I won’t cover for you, mind,’ she said firmly. ‘Not like I did the day you pretended to go home with a bilious attack.’ She saw from Molly’s expression that her guess had been correct. ‘I’ll keep quiet because it’s best for Melanie to hear about this from you, Tomos. But don’t even think of asking me to be your alibi because that is something I will not do.’
After the frightening experience in the castle grounds, which had resulted in their being seen by Lydia, Tomos and Molly continued to meet there, although Molly would never venture alone further than the gate, which was near Lydia’s Auntie Stella’s. There the street lights and the activity around the fish and chip shop on the main road at least gave them warning of someone approaching. Together, Molly clinging to him nervously, they would walk up through the allotments over a weakened section of fence. They would make their way to their favourite place at the back of the castle behind the chapel block and snuggle against its walls in precious privacy.
One evening Tomos arrived early. His wife, Melanie had gone to the pictures and he slipped in via the wood and wandered around the castle looking for a way inside. He saw that he could gain access through a window which had been carelessly blocked. With little trouble, he pushed some of rocks aside and widened the hole which, he guessed, was regularly used by children.
Although she was afraid, Molly wouldn’t show it: she was the ‘bit of fun’, wasn’t she? Always ready for laughter and adventure, taking on any ‘dare’. Not the established and complaisant wife! With encouragement and stifled laughter they went inside and found a room with the roof intact. It smelled unpleasantly of dampness and other indistinguishable odours but it promised a winter of, if not comfort, at least shelter from the wind and rain and, with the public forbidden entry, blessed privacy.
‘Thank goodness Lydia promised to keep our secret,’ Molly said. ‘At least she’s the only one who knows.’ In this, however, she was wrong.
Gimlet was fuming. He went round to Billy Jones’s house and stumped up the stairs from the kitchen without waiting for an invitation. ‘Talked about, we are, and all because of that stupid son of mine.’
‘Which one?’ Billy asked, offering him a chair.
Gimlet was too angry to sit, he paced up and down the room glaring at the walls as if the blame was written across them. ‘That damned stupid Tomos of course! Only gone and found himself another woman, hasn’t he!’
‘Never!’
‘And his little wife Melanie sitting at home embroidering pillowcases for when they get a place of their own. What are we going to do, Billy?’
‘We?’ Billy chuckled. ‘We? Nothing to do with me, and glad I am to say it.’
‘I want to give him a real fright, got any ideas?’
‘Tell him you’ve let his room and want him out?’ Billy suggested. ‘I’ve always thought your Mary has made them too comfortable, mind.’
‘You’ve got to help me, Billy. Imagine what it’s like me having to face his poor wife knowing what I know. Terrible it is.’
‘What can I do?’ Billy asked in exasperation.
‘They’re meeting at the castle tonight and I thought we’d arrange a sort of welcoming committee. I want to warn them off and I don’t want to be overheard. The fewer that find out the better. Facing them in their little ‘love nest’ will be more of a shock. But first I thought we’d have a bit of fun. You with me, boy?’ When he explained what he had planned, Billy nodded agreement.
‘Too good to miss,’ he smiled. ‘We aren’t too old for a bit of a lark!’
Tomos and Molly weren’t meeting at the castle that Tuesday evening. Melanie had gone to visit her mother in Cardiff for a few days, and they were making the most of their unexpected freedom. They were going to town to see a film and pretend for a while that they were a normal, happy, courting couple.
Two hours later, while Tomos and Molly were happily enjoying the comfort of sitting in the warm, dark cinema with their arms around each other, Gimlet and Billy were shivering with the cold, waiting in the castle for them to appear. Fortunately the night was clear and dry. Between them the men carried a couple of sheets and several torches with which they planned to frighten the couple, have a bit of a laugh before revealing themselves, sharply changing the mood to one of seriousness and warning them that their secret was well and truly out.
Unaware they they were being watched by a group of small boys led by Neville Nolan, they practiced opening the sheets and covering their heads with them, using the torches held in their mouths to light the apparitions, planning the unearthly moans.
As they were so engaged, the boys, who had entered the castle close behind them with the ease of regular practise, crept up behind them and, while they were ensconced in the sheets, touched them and whispered a low moaning wail in their ears.
Leaping up, frantically trying to escape from the clinging folds, dropping the torches and bumping into each other, the two men finally extricated themselves and ran to where they had entered, and, each trying to be first, made their escape.
As the first conspirator reached the ground he was hit severely across his head. When Gimlet finally managed, with fumbling fingers, to find the spare torch, he discovered that Billy was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound.