Chapter Four

Glyn was working at The Pirate. Besides cleaning the cellars, he was employed to paint the walls in the kitchen and store room, which necessitated moving a huge number of boxes and containers. He was very tired, as, besides the work at the pub, he helped out with the taxi whenever Tomos or Gimlet needed a few hours off, and he had even found a few hours work digging over a garden or two.

‘I don’t know what’s got into the boy,’ Billy said to Lydia one Sunday morning. ‘He told Gimlet and Tomos he wouldn’t be working with them at Howes’ Taxis, and there he is snatching every hour he can. He’s acting as if money is the only thing that matters.’

‘This Cath of his must have grand ideas,’ Lydia replied, rubbing harder at the brass fender. ‘Perhaps she won’t have him until he can buy her a house and all that goes with it. Some girls are like that, unwilling to start small and build a home together.’

‘I think he’s in trouble,’ Billy said. ‘He’s been in the navy since he was a boy and should have some savings, but he’s grubbing about for every penny like he’s got debts. Gimlet thinks it might be gambling. Why don’t you try and persuade him to talk? If we knew the problem we might help.’

‘Not my place to interfere, Dad. He made it clear that he and I were nothing more than friends. And I don’t even know if I want that. Glyn isn’t my responsibility, let this ‘Cath’ woman sort it out.’

Since talking to Matthew Hiatt it was easier for Lydia to talk so casually about Glyn. Glyn had hurt her badly but Matthew, with his deep, fascinating eyes so filled with admiration for her, had eased the pain in a remarkable way. She remembered how safe she felt with him beside her walking up to investigate the cries from the castle, and the way he held her hand on their return when fear was no longer an excuse.

When there was a knock on the door at mid-morning, she opened it still flushed from polishing and dusting the living room. Expecting Molly, she felt flustered at seeing Matthew there, looking at her with a hesitant smile on his tanned face. ‘Am I disturbing you?’ he asked.

‘Of course not, come in,’ she smiled, patting her hair and hoping she didn’t look a mess.

He stepped inside and followed her up to the living room.

‘It’s Matthew, Dad,’ she said unnecessarily.

‘I called to see if you are all right after yesterday’s adventure,’ he explained. With unconcealed admiration in his eyes he added, ‘I can see that you are.’ He turned to Billy and said gallantly, ‘You have a lovely daughter, Mr Jones. And I wondered if you’d allow me to take her out this afternoon.’

‘That depends where you think of going,’ Billy responded ungraciously. He was confused. This wasn’t like the Matthew Hiatt he remembered, all polite and mannerly. Besides, young men didn’t approach fathers for permission to take girls out. not these days they didn’t.

‘Dad!’ Lydia protested.

But Matthew laughed. ‘I want to walk around the village, relive a few memories, that’s all. I promise we’ll be back in good time and I will look after her.’

Feeling foolish at his pompous response to what was after all only politeness, Billy stood up and walked towards the stairs. ‘I think I can hear your Mam calling,’ he muttered as he disappeared.

‘Doesn’t like me, your dad,’ Matthew chuckled. ‘I’ll have to see if I can change his mind.’

Being locked in the castle was a good story but one which neither Lydia nor Molly could tell. The thought of the distress the news would give to Tomos’s wife, Melanie, was sufficient to hold Lydia’s tongue and they easily convinced Stella to do the same. Having Matthew with whom to discuss it was, therefore, a luxury and when they met for their first date, Lydia chatted to him about the mystery of Tomos and Molly being locked in and about the attack on her father.

Telling Matthew about her father and Gimlet’s plan to frighten the couple had them laughing. Making light of her father’s injury, the story was embellished and exaggerated and Matthew’s deepset eyes glowed as he looked into hers, giving a wonderful feeling of belonging. Sharing an adventure, even one so innocuous, had started their friendship with a closeness they might otherwise have taken weeks to achieve.

The walk around the village, and up over the top of the hill from where they could look down over the whole of the bay and the mountains beyond, was perfect. It was one of those days when the sun had burned off every vestige of mist revealing the distant hills as clearly as the boats bobbing below. There was excitement in the air which was more like spring than the approach of winter.

Matthew talked mostly about his childhood and his frequent brushes with the law. He likened himself to the notorious Neville Nolan and assured her that although the boy was a nuisance, he was likely to grow up into a model citizen.

‘Like you?’ she queried.

‘Oh no, not as perfect as I,’ he teased. The smile on his face softened to admiration and Lydia felt her mind drift away from the hill and its view and thoughts of Neville Nolan and his little gang of ruffians. All she could see was those fascinating eyes and that tempting mouth. Her mind filled with the wonder of this new sensation, and a belief in love at first sight.

He put an arm around her and they walked in silence back through what had become a hollow lane, with the ground indented into a curve by years of wear, and trees and bushes arching high above them. Then down the long shallow steps back to the seafront.

They met several time during the following week, and although Lydia extolled the wonders of his company to Molly, the relationship was not as perfect as she described. It didn’t take more than a few dates for her to realise that, although they talked a lot, it was she who imparted information, and he who listened. Matthew chattered easily about when he was young, telling her things about her father she hadn’t known, including that he had courted her Aunt Stella before marrying her sister Annie. But of the years since he had left the village she learned little. She learned no more about him than what she and her father had guessed when they first saw him standing on the foreshore. And most of that had been wrong.

‘How long have you been teaching?’ she asked on one occasion.

‘Since I left the army,’ was the brief reply. ‘At least, after college.’

‘Have you ever done anything else?’

‘Not much, I’ve had a half-year off to travel.’

‘Oh, really? Where have you been?’

‘Here and there.’

It was impossible to ask further questions when none were allowed to develop into conversation or discussion and she felt uneasy, there was a closed-in look on his face that made her feel guilty of prying. Then he would smile and look at her with those deep, hooded eyes and say, ‘Lydia, I want to talk about you. My life has been boring. At least it was, until I came here to kick about a few old memories, and found you.’

He asked about her plans for the future and was surprised when she admitted she had none.

‘I, well, Glyn and I always thought we’d marry and I saw no further than that. I thought I’d work on the market stall until the babies came then settle into being a housewife and mother. I’ll always have to look after Mam, too. I’ve never thought any further than that.’

‘Is that enough for you? Don’t you have anything burning inside, something you’d love to achieve?’

‘I suppose my expectations are low, compared with yours, but I was content to work at the stall, earn a little extra with what I could make and—’

‘You said, “I was content”,’ he said, pouncing on the words. ‘Does that mean you’re no longer content to accept what you presently have?’

‘I haven’t made any plans,’ she said hesitantly.

‘For a start, why work for someone else?’

‘What alternative is there?’

‘Giving most of the profit for the things you make to your boss seems like idiocy to me. Sell them yourself and get a bigger bite of the cherry.’

‘How can I do that?’ she laughed. ‘Carry them around on my back and knock on doors looking for customers?’

‘You wouldn’t be the first to start that way. Besides, getting a shop isn’t that impossible. What about that house where your aunt lives? That was a shop once, why not reopen that?’

‘It was a hairdresser’s.’

‘So?’ He was staring at her so intently she began to feel uncomfortable. ‘Don’t underrate yourself, Lydia.’

‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not the type to run a business, learn something new.’ Thinking of Stella’s shop she envisaged becoming a hairdresser and, knowing it wasn’t what she wanted to do, his words were forgotten almost as soon as they were uttered. Besides, his lips, so close to her own, threw all serious thought out of the window. All her mind could grapple with was the kiss that hovered between them. The kiss when it came engulfed her. She felt herself drifting out of her depth, and fast.

Their need to see each other grew and Stella occasionally helped them to steal a few hours together by sitting with Annie for an hour while Billy went out for his usual couple of pints. On those occasions Billy didn’t always go to The Pirate to meet his friends. Sometimes Lydia returned to find him sitting talking to Stella, sharing a pot of tea.

Matthew seemed very anxious not to annoy her father. ‘He remembers the old Matthew Hiatt and I have to prove to him that the wild boy has gone for ever.’

Whenever they went out for the evening, she was always brought home by ten o’clock. ‘He treats me like something fragile and precious,’ she confided in Molly. ‘So different from Glyn.’

Each night after they parted she would lie awake, re-living their kisses and the way he looked into her eyes so her insides melted, and wondered at the magical way her life had been transformed since she had first spoken to him the night they had rescued Molly and Tomos from the castle. Sometimes, between the dreamlike repetitions of past meetings and dreams of the next date, she thought of Glyn and felt a tiny sensation of remorse and sadness that it was this fascinating stranger and not Glyn who was filling her mind and awakening her body.

Matthew enjoyed the cinema and was quite knowledgeable about its stars. They laughed through comedies and hugged each other through thrillers and after a couple of weeks Lydia began to wonder if Matthew would be the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life. Then he disappeared.

After a particularly happy evening during which he gave her a large box of expensive Lintz chocolates and a beautiful bouquet of roses and took her to dine at a rather splendid restaurant, they strolled home beside the sea. They stopped occasionally to kiss, their arms around each other in the privacy of the dark night. He told her she was beautiful and gentle and loving, all the things a true woman should be, then took out a small jeweller’s box. Inside she found a silver bracelet, with three lucky charms on it; a dolphin, a mermaid and a seahorse.

‘Matthew, thank you! It’s beautiful!’

‘So are you.’

They delayed going home and instead walked along the front to the next beach. There, sitting on the rocks, with only the sound of the sea as accompaniment, he told her he loved her.

The next day he was gone.

It had begun to be a habit for him to walk with her to the bus as she set off for work and this morning he wasn’t there.

‘I bet he’s overslept and is still peacefully sleeping,’ Lydia smiled as she and Molly found their seats.

‘What were you doing to him last night then?’ Molly teased and saw a flush of embarrassment flood her friend’s face. ‘Serious, is it?’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know. It might be,’ Lydia said hesitantly. ‘Too early to say. I know I like him, he makes me feel that life is good.’

‘But you still have regrets about Glyn?’ Molly asked.

‘No,’ Lydia replied. But the answer was not completely true. Although she and Matthew were happy together and laughed a lot, and he had told her he loved her, there was a residue of doubt. She knew he was holding something back, that he was not showing his true self. She smiled and added, ‘He mentioned taking me to a dance on Saturday. Dad’s giving me the money to buy a new dress.’

‘Lucky old you. For my dates I have to put on my oldest clothes and heavy boots,’ Molly chuckled.

‘You’re still seeing Tomos then?’

‘Not at the castle, mind!’ She smiled secretly. ‘Found somewhere new we have and I’m not telling a soul where it is. We don’t want any more frights like the last one.’


Gimlet showed his unease whenever Matthew Hiatt was mentioned. ‘He bothers me,’ he told Billy one evening when they were sitting in The Pirate. ‘You ought to know why.’

‘Because of Rosie, you mean?’

‘Of course because of Rosie.’

‘It’s all so long ago. Matthew is curious to see the place where he was born and spent the first sixteen years of his life, there’s no chance he’s going to stir up gossip. Not after all this time.’

‘I remember the day she left,’ Billy said. ‘I’d seen her the previous evening, remember? You and Mary were sitting with Annie and me pretending to go and visit old Henry Golding who was in hospital.’

‘I remember,’ Gimlet said. He was staring intently at Billy. ‘You had a row.’

‘She wanted me to leave Annie, and when I said I wouldn’t she asked for money so she could go away and make a fresh start.’ Billy’s eyes were sad as he brought the scene back to mind. ‘She told me she was pregnant, but I didn’t believe her.’

‘You have no idea where she went?’

‘None,’ Billy shrugged. ‘I did try and find out, mind, but she covered her tracks well. Didn’t want to be found, that’s my guess.’

‘You really haven’t an idea?’

Billy looked curiously at Gimlet. ‘Of course I haven’t! I’d have said, wouldn’t I? Young Matthew was demented, searching for her. He was a troublesome child but I was sorry for him when she left. He didn’t have anyone else, except that grandmother out in Bridgend. He went to live with her, I remember, but moved on as soon as he could arrange it, and joined the army. I didn’t like the boy, but I’d have helped him find his sister if I’d known where she went.’ He looked at Gimlet who still looked unconvinced. ‘I’d have said!’

‘Yes,’ Gimlet nodded. ‘You’d have said.’

The Pirate was filling up and Glyn and Tomos pushed through the doors and struggled through the crowds to join them. Tomos ordered drinks and the brothers at once began arguing.

‘I’m giving you all the work I can! I have to live too!’ Tomos said. ‘It would be different if you’d come on a permanent basis as we’d planned, but now, well, you made your choice and you’ll have to live with it. If you’d put all this money you’re stashing away into the business instead of grabbing your wages like a junky after his fix, and putting it into some secret deal of your own we might sort something out.’

‘I don’t have the money,’ Glyn insisted.

‘What have you done with it? All those years at sea and now working for us and doing a few shifts at the pub cleaning the cellars, even stacking shelves in the shop after closing. You must be rolling in it boy. Living home with Mam and Dad and from what I hear giving as little as you can get away with, what are you doing with it? Salting it away for a world cruise?’

‘I’m broke,’ Glyn said tightly, ‘that’s all you need to know.’

‘Is that why you finished with our Lydia?’ Billy asked.

‘There’s no Cath in London, I’m sure of that,’ Tomos said, banging the glasses onto the table and slopping some liquid. ‘Never no letters, and you haven’t been to see her. So what is it, Glyn?’

‘We talk on the phone,’ Glyn said.

‘You don’t use the one at home and you’re too mean to phone London from a phone box!’

‘My business! That’s what it is!’ Glyn stood up, pushing the table with the force of his anger. ‘My business. Right?‘

‘If you’re living home with Mam and Dad it’s their business too!’ Tomos shouted back.

‘If you’re in trouble you know we’ll help,’ Gimlet said more quietly. ‘Not gambling is it? Fools game gambling is, for sure.’

‘I’m just broke, that’s all. Cath is – well, she’ll wait for me.’ He looked at Billy and asked more calmly, ‘Is Lydia all right? I understand she’s been seeing a lot of that Matthew Hiatt.’

‘What if she is?’ Billy said with unaccustomed anger created by Tomos’s concern. ‘What Lydia does is nothing to do with you, remember! Let her down you did or she wouldn’t have looked at anyone else and you know it!’

‘I don’t trust him,’ Glyn persisted. ‘He doesn’t say why he’s here and doesn’t open up when people try to be friendly. Watch him, Billy, Lydia might be too trusting.’

‘You’re right there,’ Billy said glaring at him. ‘She trusted you, didn’t she?’


Glyn was worried about Lydia’s obvious infatuation with Matthew and he waited for her when the stall closed on the following day and offered her a lift home. ‘I was in town dropping off a fare, so I thought I’d try and get here before you left,’ he explained.

‘Yes, it will save me some time.’ She was glad of the lift but pride made her accept with only the minimum of thanks.

‘Going out tonight?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. But she didn’t explain that she was going to see her Auntie Stella and not meeting Matthew, which she knew was the reason for Glyn’s question. She looked up at him, bright-eyed with defiance, and a feeling of guilt, foolish but real, invaded her with discomfort. She hadn’t seen Matthew but was too unhappy about his disappearance to tell anyone, especially Glyn. ‘Matthew took me to dinner in the Chelsea Parlour last week.’ She forced a smile, refusing to show Glyn she was unhappy.

‘That’s expensive,’ he said.

‘He can afford it and he thinks I’m worth it!’ she snapped, wishing he would go away and not disturb her and spoil her mood. ‘He buys me flowers and expensive chocolates and treats me like I’m someone very special.’

‘You are,’ he said with a hesitant smile.

‘He thinks so and can afford to show me,’ she replied.

‘Lucky old him!’

She touched the bracelet she had worn every day since Matthew disappeared but didn’t mention it. ‘Sorry, Glyn, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to get the meal ready for Mam and Dad and I have to be out by half-seven.’

‘Watch him, Lydia,’ Glyn warned. ‘Better still, stay right away from him. He’s trouble that one, always was. I can feel it every time I look at him.’

‘Go away, Glyn!’ she snapped. ‘Stay out of my life, it was where you chose to be, remember? Out of my life?’ Hurriedly pushing him aside, she ran up the steps and into the house.

She was early, not having to wait for a bus and glad her parents were not yet home from Auntie Stella’s. Tears ran down her rosy cheeks. Were they tears of anger at his impertinence? Or frustration? Or regret? She couldn’t decide which. She only knew that with Glyn telling her to stay away from Matthew, and Matthew, for reasons of his own, deciding to stay away from her, it had made his absence more difficult to cope with. What was wrong with her that first Glyn then Matthew told her she was wonderful then dropped her like the proverbial hot brick?

Banging the saucepans about to express her annoyance for the tears which came too readily, she peeled the potatoes roughly and put them on to boil. It would have to be a fry-up: eggs, bacon and boring old potatoes, boiled then fried with some vegetables added. Mam hated it and Dad wasn’t too keen but she lacked the enthusiasm to do more.

Slapping down the bacon and cracking the eggs so fiercely on the side of the pan the yolks broke, she suddenly stopped and asked herself, why was she angry? Was Matthew’s absence of two days so devastating? He hadn’t let her down on a date, left her standing waiting for him to turn up, feeling and looking foolish, had he? He’d just gone off about his own business for a day or two. She had no reason to doubt he’d be back. Or was it Glyn making her restless and filling her with inexplicable frustration? Did Glyn still mean that much to her?

She fingered the bracelet again. Had it been Matthew’s parting gift, wrapped up in talk of loving to make her remember him?

More calmly she extravagantly threw away the unattractive eggs and over-cooked bacon and the half cooked potatoes. She decided on sausages instead. Sausage and mash wasn’t exactly cordon bleu but her parents would prefer it to her first effort which showed her ill-temper so clearly. Glyn was no longer a part of her life, his wishes were not important. Suggesting she gave up Matthew was an impertinence. She mashed the potatoes with enthusiasm, achieving feathery splendour, and felt calmer by the time Tomos and Billy brought her mother home.

Matthew failed to appear again that evening although she sat there sewing until long after midnight in case he came. On the following day there was still no sign and Lydia allowed her imagination to build up her fears. She stopped pretending she knew where he was, and when he was returning, and told her father he had gone.

‘What could have happened to him? He’s vanished,’ she told her father. ‘Just like his sister did all those years ago.’

‘Don’t be soft, girl,’ Billy said. ‘How could he? Besides, Rosie Hiatt didn’t vanish like some conjurer’s trick, she left the town.’

‘What happened to her, Dad?’

Billy shrugged. ‘No one knows for certain. I know the police were interested in Matthew, they had him in their sights for several petty crimes in the area, but Rosie…’ he hesitated, about to explain about her summonses for prostitution, but decided that Lydia wouldn’t be happier knowing, so instead he shrugged and said, ‘Rumours abounded. She was off to marry a wealthy man in England. She was joining the Salvation Army and repenting her wicked ways. She went to live on a Kibbutz. One story was that she went off with a band of Gypsies!’

‘What wicked ways?’

‘Oh, she was a bit of a flirt, that’s all.’ He patted Lydia’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, love, if he’s right for you he’ll be back.’

‘Will he?’ she asked Molly wistfully as the bus trundled along taking them home from work the following day. ‘I wish I could believe that.’


The tall man was careful to enter the castle ground only when it was too late for anyone to be around, or when darkness and rain impeded the view. He had seen Stella once or twice, staring up at the ruin as if watching him, and he wondered superstitiously if the woman had second sight or had eyes that could penetrate the darkness, but decided she was just taking a breath of air before retiring. Although there was no possibility of her seeing him, let alone being able to identify him later, being such a distance away and in darkness, he still waited until he saw the light go on in her bedroom before shinning up the rope and dropping almost silently into the castle to begin his night’s work.

On two occasions he had a narrow escape. A man with a dog on a lead, walked through the wood and up to the fence as he was about to climb over and enter the castle grounds. The dog growled and the owner stood for a moment, looking towards the tree where the tall man stood flexing his muscles and slowly raising the branch he held. Then the dog was distracted by a movement further away and dog and owner turned towards the quarry edge, and the tall man breathed out slowly between clenched teeth.

The second close encounter was with Gimlet. Puzzled, the tall man followed without a sound as Gimlet shinned over the gate and ran up towards the castle gates. He watched as Gimlet climbed the wall and went through the window, using a rope tied to an ash tree. Then he headed for the kitchen, studying the ground with the aid of a torch before snapping off the light and returning the way he had come.

The tall man smiled. The time he took replacing the turves so no one would see evidence of his digging had been well worth it, but what could the man have been looking for? An object lost while enjoying a bit of secret courting, perhaps? Maybe he was looking for the bicycle clips he had found on his first night of digging! he mused.

Putting aside concern for the man’s motives he turned his mind to the night’s work and began to lift out the first sod.


Billy had a bit of a cold that weekend, and taking advantage of him staying at home with Annie and not going to clean out the allotment shed as he had planned, Lydia went to see her aunt. Dismayed at the unexplained absence of Matthew she didn’t feel able to discuss it with Molly. Molly’s attitude to boyfriends was so different from her own and, although Molly would undoubtedly laugh her out of her melancholy, she needed a serious discussion about her future and for that, Auntie Stella was her choice. Without bitterness, she knew her mother would put her own needs before recommending any changes in her daughter’s life.

Her knock was unanswered and she stood at the gate for a few moments undecided whether to wait or look at the shops and return later. The castle looked benign in the brightness of the winter sun and the ivy which clothed its walls was a brilliant green. The castle isn’t the cause ofthe trouble, Lydia told herself, it was people who had created that. The thought comforted her. Perhaps she would even be brave enough to go there again if the need arose. Sadly she thought it would not be with Matthew holding her hand.

‘Go on in, love, the door isn’t locked.’ Stella appeared round the corner having walked along the road behind the shops. ‘Still looking up at that old castle and wondering what went on there, are you?’

‘Sort of,’ Lydia smiled. ‘It doesn’t look half so frightening during the day, does it?’

‘I’ve lived here, under the shadow of its walls all my life,’ Stella said chuckling, ‘and I don’t think it holds any terrors for me. When you take away the mysteries caused by courting couples who shouldn’t be courting, and little boys playing out their own fantasies, you’ll find there’s little left that can’t be explained!’

‘I don’t think Molly will go there again,’ Lydia said.

‘Perhaps not Molly, but someone is for sure. I’ve seen someone moving up there and once, very late at night a man came past my gate, stood in the shadow of my wall for about twenty minutes. I thought it was Gimlet, but then he hopped over the gate as nimble as a hurdler so I decided it couldn’t have been him! Taller too, more like that Matthew Hiatt only bigger in build. Seen anything of him lately?’ she chattered on while unpacking her shopping. ‘Nice looking he is, mind, but as big a mystery as what went on at the castle, don’t you think?’

‘I haven’t seen him for days,’ Lydia blurted out sadly. ‘He’s gone, Auntie Stella. And he didn’t even say goodbye. We were getting on so well and we’d half arranged to go to a dance last Saturday but he never called and I haven’t seen him since.’ She thought of the wonderful and extravagant evening at The Chelsea Parlour and told her aunt that she realised now that it had been a goodbye.

‘You’ve been to his lodgings?’

‘He paid his bill and left on the morning after we last met.’

Over a cup of tea and some home-made cake, Lydia talked. She poured out all her hurt and Stella listened in silence. Then Stella stood up, brushed the crumbs from her lap into the grate and said firmly, ‘You, my girl, have to plan your future. Drifting along waiting to marry is all right while you have a partner with the same idea but now you’re on your own and you must make the most of it.’ Being one of those people unable to sit with idle hands, Stella reached for the child’s cardigan she was knitting. As they discussed alternatives for Lydia to consider, she suddenly held up the garment and said, ‘Why don’t you leave that stall and work for yourself?’

‘Matthew suggested the same thing!’ Lydia stared at her aunt, her face open with surprise, then her expression faded and she said the same to Stella she had said to Matthew. ‘How can I?’

‘Easy. Open up the shop here,’ Stella replied, unknowingly again making the same suggestion as Matthew.

‘I don’t know anything about running a business like that.’

‘How d’you know before you’ve given it a try?’ Stella repeated Matthew’s words again.

‘How can I?’ This was a day for echoes, she thought with slight irritation. ‘What do I know about hairdressing?’

‘Hairdressing? Who said anything about hairdressing? I mean to sell wool and hand-knitted garments. Some factory-mades too, to bring more trade. It isn’t a bad spot here, right opposite the castle where visitors pass in the summer.’

This was something different. This was worth considering.

‘But, don’t you need a lot of money to open a shop?’

‘Not if we’re careful. We’d have to start small. mind. Tell you what, I’ll keep this little cardigan,’ she waved her knitting with enthusiasm, ‘and the others I’ve made ready to take for your Mrs Thomas, and instead, they’ll go to start the stock-pile for ‘Lydia Jones, Quality Knitwear and Wool’, how will that be?’

Two hours later, Lydia left her aunt’s house buoyed up with excitement and with plans and ideas buzzing through her head. With Stella promising her six months before she charged her rent, and also agreeing to help run the place while looking after Annie, it seemed so right, that Lydia had already decided to do it before she reached home.

She burst in through the door, climbing the stairs from the kitchen calling to her parents, ‘Mam, Dad, I’m going to open a shop, what d’you think of…’ her words petered out as she saw Glyn standing beside the window looking out of the window. ‘Hello, Glyn,’ she managed, before going into her room to take off her coat.

She stood in her bedroom, angry that he was here, just when she needed to discuss what she and Auntie Stella had decided. Now she would have his opinions and interruptions and no doubt her mother would seek his support, try to discourage her, and was probably already telling him how impossible it all was.

Childishly she was tempted to wait in her room until she heard him going downstairs and out of the house. Instead, she touched up her make-up and combed her hair and went back into the living room looking, if not feeling, confident and controlled. I’m a businesswoman, or almost, she told herself. Glyn’s opinion isn’t relevant. Her spurious confidence took its first dive as she reminded herself it was her mother, not Glyn, whom she had to convince.

‘I can’t see how we’ll manage,’ was Annie’s predictable first comment. ‘Stella won’t have time for you to be under her feet all fuss and feathers. Selfish of you to think of it,’ she added.

‘It was Auntie Stella’s idea. Hers, and Matthew’s!’ she added looking defiantly at Glyn. ‘He thinks I’m foolish to go on working for someone else, giving away a large chunk of my profits. Knitting and getting the full price makes better sense, he said.’

‘There’s rent and light and heating and—’ Glyn began hesitantly.

‘All considered and thought of. Auntie Stella is going to invest in me by letting me have the shop free for a few months,’ Lydia retorted sharply. ‘You don’t honestly think I’d consider starting a business and not be aware of those basic needs do you?’

‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ Billy said. ‘And very kind of Stella to offer her help. Fancy, my daughter a business woman!’

‘What about me?’ Annie sounded genuinely frightened and Lydia hastily reassured her.

‘You’ll be with Auntie Stella, and I’ll be there as well. There won’t be any difference so far as you’re concerned, I promise, Mam.’

‘If Tomos and I can help,’ Glyn said, ‘we’ll be happy to run you to wholesalers and the like.’

She ignored Glyn, pretended she hadn’t heard, didn’t want to say thank you, didn’t want him involved. He’d let her down once and she wasn’t giving him the chance to do so again. It was impossible for her to smile and to thank him. She turned to her father. ‘I’ll make a list of the firms who supply the stall, that isn’t cheating, is it, Dad? Then I’ll give my notice next Friday. I’ll be free to start working for myself before Christmas with any luck.’

When Glyn shrugged himself into his coat and prepared to leave, Billy insisted he stayed for a cup of tea. ‘Lydia’s made some pasties for tea, stay and have one, she always makes plenty.’

So Lydia had to go down and prepare food for them when all she wanted to do was think about this new project. Having Glyn silently watching her was taking the joy out of it, part of her wished she could involve him and wild thoughts danced in her head, remembering how easily they had once shared every thought, every plan.

That route swiftly led her to the memory of hearing he was leaving her for someone else. Sentimental dreams of even friendship being restored were snapped off sharply. There was no love and no prospect of friendship. Now, when she thought of loving, it was the dark-eyed Matthew who filled her mind and had her body racing with the prospect of fulfillment. Yet the memories of when she and Glyn were together refused to fade away.

Glyn followed her down the stairs to the kitchen and watched as she put the pasties in the oven to warm. He set the tray with plates and cups and saucers as he had many times before. Her thoughts continued to play tricks, one minute thinking this was how it had always been, then being brought up sharp to memories of him telling her goodbye. She was very conscious of him as he whistled cheerfully and helped load the second tray, putting out napkins and finding the cutlery with the ease of regular practice.

‘How is – Cath?’ she asked, hiding her expression as she bent over the oven.

‘Cath is fine. She and I are still searching for a flat,’ he said.

‘London, is it?’

‘Probably, yes.’

‘Good-looking is she, this Cath?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose she is.’

‘His answers were curt, he obviously didn’t want to discuss his new lady-love with me,’ Lydia told Molly the following morning on their way to work.

‘More fool you for trying!’ Molly said unsympathetically. ‘I’d have told him to drop dead if he even spoke to me after what he did to you!’

‘D’you know, Molly, I know this sounds silly, but I don’t think there is a “Cath in London”. I think he’s made her up.’

‘Tomos thinks so too,’ Molly said. ‘He thinks he’s got a girl pregnant and has to pay her maintenance every week and that’s why he’s broke.’

For some reason Lydia found this easier to bear than the thought that he had found someone else he loved more than her. A moment’s weakness and then regret she could now understand. After all, wasn’t that what had happened to Glyn’s brother? But if it were true, she would never marry him. Not when someone else had more right to him, a stronger need of him. For the first time she began to wonder if there was someone else in Matthew’s life. Perhaps he had a wife somewhere, a man didn’t necessarily wear a wedding ring, so it was easy to be deceived. ‘Do you think Matthew is married or has a fiancee somewhere?’ she asked her friend.

‘What if he has? A brief bit of fun wouldn’t harm her, she’d never find out, would she?’

Lydia was silent for a while. That wasn’t the way she looked at things. A relationship had to be true and honest or she would prefer not to have one at all. Best she forget both Matthew and Glyn and concentrate on the business she and her aunt were planning. In a low voice she began explaining to Molly what she was going to do. For a while anyway, it would keep her busy and with little time to think about the undependable Glyn, or the mysterious Matthew Hiatt.