‘I wasn’t sure what to expect from the carnival but it was fun. I enjoyed it – and so did Harry, Mary, and the children. It was good to see them, if only for a few hours.’ Edyth picked up the last of the plates on the scrub-down table she had covered with a sheet because she didn’t have a large enough tablecloth, and carried them to the sink. Having invited all the members of the Bute Street Blues Band and their families, as well as her own, to supper, she had laid it out in the enormous kitchen of her shop.
‘You miss your family?’ Micah took the sheet from the table, folded it and hung it on the back of a chair.
‘Of course, but not enough to give up the bakery and go back to Pontypridd.’ She smiled when she saw Judy standing over the sink with her eyes closed.
Micah touched Judy’s arm. ‘Bed, miss, now. You’re falling asleep on your feet like a horse.’
‘I was just blinking,’ she mumbled.
‘So I saw.’ He took her by the shoulders and propelled her out of the kitchen, through the shop to the foot of the stairs. ‘It’s quite simple. You hold on to the hand rail, lift one leg, then the other and walk straight ahead. Don’t forget to wash off that greasepaint or you’ll be scrubbing your sheets for a week.’
Too tired to respond to Micah’s sarcasm, Judy did as he ordered.
He returned to the kitchen. Edyth had lifted the last of the plates from the washing-up water and left them to drain on the zinc draining board.
‘I’ve put the leftover food in the pantry. Everything else can wait until morning. Drink?’ she asked.
‘I’ve consumed more tea today than there’s water in the West and East docks combined.’
‘I said drink, not tea.’ She took the last flagon of beer from a cupboard and set it on the table next to him before pouring herself a small sherry from the bottle she’d opened for her guests. ‘This is cosy.’ She sat next to him at the table.
‘It could be cosy every night if you allowed me to talk to your father,’ he reproached.
‘To tell him what?’
‘That I love you and intend to marry you as soon as you’re free.’
‘I’m a married woman and my own person. You don’t need my father’s permission, only mine.’
‘Aside from courtesy, you may be married but you’re not twenty-one and, in Peter’s absence, that makes your father your guardian.’
‘I suppose it does, but as my present marriage isn’t annulled, and won’t be until Peter signs and returns those papers, which, given that he’s on the other side of the world, could take months, any talk of remarrying is premature.’
‘But Peter will be returning them any day now and when he does –’
‘Micah, I’ve been thinking,’ she interrupted.
He flicked opened the beer, poured some into a glass, replaced the rubber-ringed top and closed it again. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘What, me thinking? My brain doesn’t make a noise.’
‘Don’t joke, not now, Edyth, please.’ He removed his glasses and stared at her.
She knew he was acutely short-sighted, but even unfocused his deep blue eyes seemed to bore into hers, reading her thoughts as they formed. ‘If we married, you’d expect me to move into the Norwegian mission with you, wouldn’t you?’
‘Married people do generally live together,’ he agreed.
‘Now who’s not being serious?’ A note of irritation crept into her voice.
‘What point are you trying to make?’
‘My bakery …’
‘If that’s all you’re worried about, you could still run it,’ he said with relief. ‘Judy will be only too happy to carry on living here.’
‘It’s not Judy’s bakery, it’s mine. I’m up every morning at four –’ she glanced at the clock on the wall. The hands pointed to ten minutes to four and music was still echoing from the direction of Loudoun Square, ‘– every weekday morning, that is,’ she qualified. ‘That means I go to bed most nights at nine.’
‘I know,’ he murmured pointedly.
Not wanting to get sidetracked into a discussion as to what happened on the nights Micah stayed over when Judy was babysitting for one of her uncles, or away for an audition, she said, ‘How much sleep do you think I would get in the mission with the sailors whose ships are only in for a couple of days sitting up all night, talking, singing, drinking coffee, and eating waffles?’
‘Lots if you put cotton wool in your ears. But it’s not sleep you’re worried about, is it?’
‘No.’ She poured more sherry into her glass, not because she wanted to fill it but because she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘I was never sure what I wanted to do with my life, and, truth be told, I still don’t know. But I enjoy running the bakery. It’s mine, I own it. Granted, by the grace of my bank manager, and the interest I pay on my business account, but I employ people who rely on me to pay them wages at the end of the week. I don’t want to give that up to run a house or a mission and look after a husband.’
‘Marriage doesn’t have to be like that,’ he countered.
‘It was with Peter and maybe it wouldn’t be like that with you at first. But in time it would.’
‘I’m looking after myself perfectly well now.’
‘No, you’re not. And please, let me finish,’ she begged before he had a chance to say another word. ‘Your sister does your laundry and mending; the ladies on the mission committee clean your room when they sweep out and dust the church and the public areas. Whoever’s manning the waffle iron makes your breakfast, the ladies’ committee your lunch, and Moody cooks supper for you most nights when he leaves here.’
‘That’s hardly surprising. He lives with my sister and he is her brother-in-law.’
‘Micah, all I’m trying to say is that your sister and the other women like looking after you and the seamen who call into the mission. It’s only natural. Most of them have husbands or fathers who are sailors and they miss them. You told me the first time you took me to your church that they like to help out because it pleases them to think that someone is doing the same for their men in whichever port in the world their ships are berthed. But it doesn’t alter the fact that I have a business to run. How could I manage the bakery if I was always worrying about whether or not you had clean underclothes and socks and what I was going to cook you for tea?’
‘My sister –’
‘And all the other ladies would stop doing your cleaning, cooking, and washing if we were married,’ she declared. ‘They would expect me to take over – and quite rightly so.’
He looked her in the eye. ‘So you don’t want to marry me, not now, or ever. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘No.’ The long day had finally caught up with her and she felt exhausted. Too drained to think, let alone argue.
‘Then when will you marry me?’
‘You know I can’t answer that until Peter sends me the annulment papers.’
‘And if you receive them tomorrow?’ he pressed.
‘That’s not likely to happen,’ she said irritably.
‘But if you do?’
‘I don’t know, Micah,’ she snapped. ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’
‘This is one subject you never want to discuss.’
‘You know I love you,’ she pleaded earnestly. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘It’s a lot, Edyth, but it would be a whole lot more if I could live openly with you.’
‘Why can’t you be happy with things the way they are?’
‘How can I be, when we have to sneak around and pretend that we are just friends? Don’t you know how terrified I am every time we make love in case I make you pregnant?’
‘What if you did? I’m married,’ she retorted unthinkingly.
‘Peter left you months ago.’
‘The people who matter most – my friends and family wouldn’t care.’
‘I think your parents would. And so would I. And so might some of your customers. Is it so unreasonable of me to want my child to bear my name and not Peter’s? I also happen to believe that every child has a right to be brought up in a loving secure home by a mother and a father who live together. As you were,’ he reminded her strongly.
‘So do I, Micah, but it’s my life we’re talking about.’ She was furious with him for even thinking that she would consider otherwise. ‘As for the people around here, where else would they buy their bread? There isn’t another decent baker in the Bay.’
‘You’re changing the subject again, Edyth, as you always do when I try to talk to you about us.’ Micah finished his beer, rose from his chair and pushed it back under the table.
Edyth had known Micah less than a year but she could tell when he was angry. Unlike most people he became quieter, more softly spoken, something she found difficult to adjust to after the emotional explosions of her four sisters while they were growing up together in Pontypridd.
‘Shall I see you tomorrow, on the Escape?’ she asked in an effort to appease him. They had met every Sunday afternoon on his boat since they had begun their affair. They also frequently stole a few hours during the late afternoons and early evenings in the week.
‘It’s where I practise my saxophone after services every Sunday,’ he said shortly. ‘We’ll talk then.’
He picked up his saxophone case. ‘Micah …’
‘There could still be strangers lurking around the Bay. Best lock up behind me.’ He stepped outside and closed the door behind him without giving her his customary goodnight kiss.
She thrust the bolt home and leaned against the wall. She really was too tired to think. But as she climbed the stairs she wondered why it was so difficult for a married woman to run a business or work outside the home. Her mother had managed it. But then she had worked in Harry’s business and she’d had their dedicated and loving housekeeper to run the house and look after the family in her absence.
Even if she found the money to employ a housekeeper to carry out her domestic and family chores – and at the moment she hadn’t a halfpenny to spare – where, in this modern day and age, would she find a woman willing to sacrifice her own life to that of an employer’s?
David Ellis had never slept in a room with the curtains drawn. Not even when he had shared a bedroom with his younger brother. Since birth he had followed the farmers’ dictate of rising with the sun and if not exactly going to bed when it set, sitting up no more than an hour or two after dark, especially during the long winter nights. More would have been considered a waste of coal and candles and although his family no longer had to practise the stringent economies they had been forced to adhere to before his sister had married Harry, old habits died hard. Despite his late night after the carnival, David left his bed the moment the first cold grey fingers of light highlighted the summits of the eastern hills that towered over the reservoir below the farmhouse. He stood at the window in his pyjama trousers, staring at the view that was so familiar to him he had long since taken it for granted. The Ellis Estate’s eighteenth-century farmhouse and outbuildings had been built in a square that enclosed the farmyard. Situated just below the crest of a hill so the top could shelter it from the worst of the winter snowstorms that swept the Brecon Beacons, the house was as large and substantial as any manor in Wales.
For six months of the year it was a cold, bleak, and cruel place. But in spring and summer it was easy to forget the deep snowdrifts and heavy frosts that blocked the road and killed the weaker animals. Below him, sheep he had watched grow from frisky gambolling lambs to stolid maturity cropped the grassy slopes that tumbled down to the valley floor. Rabbits popped in and out of burrows and half a dozen wild ducks swam peacefully among the reeds at the water’s edge of the reservoir that flooded the valley floor. A pair of kites circled lazily on the same level as his window. It was a quiet, peaceful scene – too peaceful for a man who loved a woman who lived more than sixty miles away.
He strode purposefully from the window and lifted the suitcase Harry and Mary had bought him last Christmas from the cupboard next to the fireplace. Opening it out on the bed, he emptied a drawer in his chest and packed his cotton summer underclothes. Then he stood back and surveyed his wardrobe. He’d need his three good linen shirts, spare collars, ties, socks, sock suspenders, braces, sports coat, and thick cotton and woollen trousers, but he wouldn’t need the overalls he wore around the farm. Sweaters – would it be hot or cold on board ship? Deciding it could be either, depending on the destination, he folded three of the thickest ones Mary had knitted him on top of his shirts then threw in the wooden box that contained his bone collar studs, silver tiepins and cuff links.
Boots? He packed his newest pair before dressing in the only suit that fitted him. A grey pinstripe he’d had tailored to replace the navy blue one he’d bought for Harry and Mary’s wedding and outgrown less than a year later.
He pushed his ‘best’ gold cuff links that Harry’s parents and sisters had given him for his last birthday into his shirt cuffs, fastened his tie with the matching pin and took a last look around his bedroom. Books? He flicked through the selection on top of the cupboard. He hadn’t learned to read and write until he was fifteen and since then he’d developed a taste for adventure stories. But he’d read his small library three times over.
There would be bookshops and libraries in Cardiff. He smiled at the thought. He’d never wanted to dot ornaments around his bedroom like his sister Martha. But there were a few things he couldn’t leave behind. One was his fountain pen, which he’d bought with the first money Harry had insisted he receive as ‘wages’ for running the farm, another was a framed photograph taken at Harry and Mary’s wedding.
He had carved the frame himself and Harry had bought the glass for it. It was a formal, posed group photograph. Harry and Mary stood centre stage flanked by groomsmen, bridesmaids and all of Harry’s immediate family. And, to Harry’s right, he stood frozen in time next to Edyth.
‘You look smart,’ Mary commented when David joined her and Harry in the kitchen for breakfast. ‘You’ve decided to go to chapel with us this morning?’
‘No.’ David took his customary chair at the table and helped himself to two slices of bread.
‘There’s a girl in the valley you’re out to impress?’ Even as Harry said it, he knew it was a forlorn hope.
‘No.’ David looked around. ‘Where are the others?’
‘They finished breakfast half an hour ago. They’ve taken Ruth into the barn to look for eggs.’ Harry folded the copy of the South Wales Echo that he had bought at the station the day before and set it aside. ‘What was all that banging in your room earlier?’
‘Nothing.’ David spread butter on his bread.
‘Two eggs or three?’ Mary asked from the stove, where she was frying laver bread, bacon and sausages.
David decided that as he had a long journey ahead of him and an uncertain reception the other end he may as well start with a good meal inside him. ‘Four.’
‘All that dancing yesterday has given you an appetite.’ Harry left his chair when the baby started crying. ‘He can’t possibly be hungry after you’ve just fed him, Mary, so I’ll see to him.’ He lifted Will from his day cot in the corner next to the range, laid him against his shoulder and rubbed his tiny back. The baby responded with an enormous burp and a watery smile.
‘Well done, young man,’ Harry smiled. ‘I’m getting good at this fathering lark.’
‘If you’re not going to chapel, Davy, where are you going?’ Mary transferred four slices of bacon, three sausages, and a large portion of fried laver bread mixed with oatmeal on to a plate and carried it over to her brother.
‘Cardiff.’ David reached for the salt cellar.
‘It’s Sunday service on the trains. You may have trouble getting back tonight,’ Harry warned.
‘I’m not coming back. Can I have a lift to the station with you when you take the others to chapel, please, Harry?’
A dense silence fell over the kitchen. ‘What do you mean, you’re not coming back?’ Mary’s voice wavered with suppressed emotion as she carried the eggs, still in the pan, over to David.
‘I’m leaving the farm.’
Mary stared at her brother. When she saw the expression on his face she almost dropped the frying pan. ‘You can’t be thinking of living in Cardiff.’
‘Why not?’ David challenged.
‘We have some talking to do. You’d better sit down, Mary,’ Harry advised.
Mary lifted the eggs on to David’s plate and returned the frying pan to the range. After setting it on one of the covered hot plates she joined Harry and David at the table.
David sensed them both looking at him, but he began to eat his breakfast although it was sticking in his throat. Unable to bear the tension a moment longer, Harry braved the question uppermost in his mind. ‘What do you intend to do in Cardiff?’
‘Go to sea.’
‘You don’t know the first thing about sailing a ship,’ Mary pointed out harshly.
‘Neither did any sailor until he went to sea. All those ships in the docks must need crew.’
‘They do – qualified crew.’ Harry sensed the baby growing limp in his arms. He glanced at him, saw he was asleep and returned him to his day cot.
‘How hard can it be to sail a ship?’ David reached for the butter. ‘All right, sailing a ship is skilled work but there’s bound to be all sorts of menial jobs that I can do on board while I learn. Don’t sailors scrub decks –’
‘And peel potatoes, empty slop buckets, shovel coal into boilers –’
‘There you are then, Mary,’ David broke in triumphantly. ‘That doesn’t sound too different from farm work.’
‘Why Cardiff?’ Mary knew the answer but she had to ask the question because she wasn’t sure David would admit to wanting to be close to Edyth.
‘Because it’s a port. From there I can see the world.’
‘And the farm?’ Her voice cracked and both Harry and David knew she was close to tears. ‘Who do you think is going to run the farm while you are off seeing the world?’
‘You and Mr Jones manage the farm perfectly well now, whether I’m here or not.’
‘But Mr Jones works for us, David. He doesn’t own the Ellis Estate. His heart isn’t in the place.’
David finally gave up on his breakfast and pushed the uneaten food to the side of his plate. He dropped his knife and fork on top and left the table. ‘Neither is mine, Mary.’ He opened the door that led into the farmyard. ‘I’ll find the others and tell them that I’m leaving.’
Mary left her chair and went after him but Harry grabbed her skirt and held her fast until David had closed the outside door.
‘Let him go, darling.’
‘David can’t leave. The farm is his. The Ellises have fought for hundreds of years to keep it in the family. His name – David Ellis – is carved over the door …’
‘Your ancestor’s name is carved over the door,’ Harry reminded her. ‘The Ellis Estate was his dream, not David’s. David’s young, he’s not sure what he wants from life yet. Please don’t be angry with him for rejecting someone else’s dream.’
‘What was the point of all that work, all that sacrifice? My parents and grandparents worked day and night to build the farm so David could inherit it and now,’ she choked back a sob, ‘it’s all been for nothing.’
He pulled her down on to his lap. ‘It’s not been for nothing. The farm belongs to you and your brothers and sister. And in four years’ time, when I reach thirty and my trust is dissolved, you will own it outright. And if David doesn’t want it then, perhaps Luke or Matthew will when they’re old enough.’
‘But it’s always been the eldest son who inherits. I must make David understand …’
Harry locked his hands around her waist when she tried to climb off him. ‘You can’t tell him anything that he doesn’t already know.’
‘But …’
He wiped the tears from her eyes with his handkerchief. ‘If you want David to remain part of this family, let him go, Mary.’
‘It’s hard.’
‘My mother always said that letting go is the worst thing about having children. She didn’t want me to go to boarding school, neither did I come to that, but the decision was made for us by the trustees of my estate. And if she hadn’t gone along with it, she and I might have lost what little influence we have with the board. And there’s Edyth. My father and mother predicted that her marriage to Peter would end in disaster but if they hadn’t given her permission to marry him, there’s no saying what Edyth might have done. Run away to Gretna Green or done something even more stupid. Let David go with good grace, darling,’ he reiterated, ‘and he might – just might – come back to us and the farm.’
She looked up at him through tear-filled eyes. ‘Do you think he will?’ she asked tremulously, needing reassurance.
‘I don’t know. But what I do know is that if we try to keep him here against his will, he’ll end up hating us and the farm, so we may as well let him go with our blessing.’
‘You know he’s only leaving because of Edyth?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t think she loves him.’
Harry had watched Edyth and David at the carnival and as Edyth had treated David no differently from him or anyone else in the family, he was forced to agree with his wife. ‘I don’t think she does either.’
‘Then where will that leave David? He’ll be stuck in Cardiff, trying to get a job on board ship when he knows nothing about them. And all three of Judy’s uncles were complaining yesterday that they couldn’t get berths out of Tiger Bay and they’re registered as able seamen. David hasn’t even got ship’s papers. He won’t be an ordinary seaman; he’ll be nothing – a dogsbody.’
‘Judy’s uncles have families to support. They’ll want higher wages than David.’
‘You know Tiger Bay’s reputation. David could get beaten up there – murdered even.’
‘Darling, Edyth’s surviving there and she hasn’t been beaten up or murdered.’ Harry pulled her head down on his shoulder. ‘Edyth may not love David but he’s family. She has friends there, good friends. If we ask them, they’ll look out for David and see that he doesn’t come to any harm.’
‘You think so?’ She sat up and looked at him.
‘I know so.’ He spoke with more conviction than he felt. ‘After David’s left, I’ll telephone Edyth and ask her to talk to Micah Holsten and Judy’s uncles. They have steady heads and influence in the community. And I’d better make sure that David has enough money to keep himself for a few weeks until he finds work. He’ll also need to take his bank book with him. But for now we’ll go outside and tell David that we wish him well and we’ll drive him to the station. And no matter what, he’ll always have a home here with us, whenever he wants one.’
Aled James stood before the cheval mirror in the luxuriously furnished bedroom of his Windsor Hotel suite and adjusted his shirt cuff to the recommended half inch that should be worn below a suit jacket to show off his solid gold, diamond-studded cuff links. He might have sailed into Tiger Bay as a sailor but he had no intention of being mistaken for one now he had arrived. He had given his seaman’s clothes to Freddie that morning and told him to dispose of them.
Clothes were Important to him, as were his shoes. All handmade, and not just in London. It was possible to buy anything in New York provided you had the money to pay for it, and the last suit he’d had tailored had come from the workshops of a renowned Jewish gentlemen’s outfitters in Warsaw. Three pairs of his shoes bore the label of a Berlin cobbler who’d made the Kaiser’s footwear until he’d abdicated. His shirts and underwear came from Bond Street, his silk ties from Paris.
He opened his cigar case and removed one he’d already cut. He lit it with his solid gold cigarette lighter. Like the case, the lighter was Dunhill, his watch, Patek Philippe and Co., Geneva. Only the best for him. He might have felt pleased with himself and what he’d accomplished in America – if thoughts of Harry Evans hadn’t kept intruding into his mind.
They brought a sharp unpalatable reminder of the filthy, barefoot urchin he’d been. His skin marked by ringworm and bruises, his body crawling with fleas and lice, as he and Harry had played in the sea of colliery waste around Bush Houses in Clydach Vale. It hadn’t been much of a place, but then his mother had never been much of a housekeeper – or, come to that, much of a mother. He’d loved her but he had never been blind to her faults, and hindsight had thrown every one of them into sharp relief.
He buttoned his beige silk waistcoat, adjusted the knot on his paisley silk tie and checked his cream linen suit for creases. The maid had done an excellent job of pressing it and he made a mental note to tip her more generously next time he asked her to look after his clothes. He had lived in hotel suites since the day he had begun to make serious money. It saved him the bother of having to buy a place and staff it, and it was easy to entertain business associates at short notice. Provided the hotel was high class, he had learned that money could buy him whatever he wanted – at any time of the day or night.
There was a knock at the outside door and he shouted, ‘It’s open.’
Freddie showed a thin man with a pencil moustache into the sitting room. Aled left the bedroom and joined them.
‘Mr Arnold, the estate agent, to see you, boss.’
‘Mr Arnold.’ Aled gave the man a broad, empty smile. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Coffee, please,’ Geoff Arnold replied cautiously.
‘Freddie, telephone down for coffee for two. You have brought your portfolio of properties for sale and rent, Mr Arnold?’
‘I have, Mr James.’
‘Sit down. We may be able to do business.’
Edyth hadn’t attended church since she’d bought the bakery. When the Reverend Spicer had visited her to reproach her on her absence, she’d used the excuse of lack of time due to the pressing needs of her business. But lack of time hadn’t stopped her from taking Sunday afternoon walks. Micah’s boat, the Escape, was berthed among a flotilla of other small boats in a secluded dock, well away from the large vessels that towered over the quaysides.
Micah had inherited the boat from a friend. It hadn’t sailed in years and since Micah had sold the engine and sails, it was no longer even capable of moving. But it made an ideal retreat from the crowded and noisy Norwegian mission. He went there whenever he wanted to read or compose music and practise his saxophone. And, in the last few months, it had become Edyth’s sanctuary from the world too.
Not quite knowing what to expect after the words they had exchanged the night before, Edyth’s steps slowed as she approached the plank walkway that stretched across the dock to allow access to the boats. She could hear Micah playing ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’, recognising the tune from a record her eldest sister Bella and her husband Toby had brought back from their honeymoon in New York. She waited until he finished before tapping on the cabin door.
Micah opened it and looked at her in surprise. ‘Why the knock?’
‘Because I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me after what you said last night.’
‘I was angry, wasn’t I?’ He stood back to allow her to walk in.
‘Does the past tense mean that you aren’t any more?’
‘I’ve decided to postpone the argument until you are free. Then I’ll start it up again.’
‘I warn you now, Micah, I won’t become an appendage to your mission.’
He set his saxophone down carefully in its velvetbedded case. ‘I said I’ll postpone the argument.’ He took off his glasses. Folding them, he set them beside the case before wrapping his arms around her and kissing her.
Relieved, she leaned against him. ‘I do love you.’
‘I know.’ He glanced down at the table separating the two bench seats that could be converted into a bed. ‘Tired?’
‘Exhausted.’
‘Judy?’
‘I left her eating a late breakfast. She intends to spend the rest of the day with her uncles and their families. What about the mission?’
‘A visiting ship’s chaplain asked if he could take evening service. I told him that I’d sacrifice the pleasure of conducting it just this once.’
She smiled. ‘A whole afternoon and evening.’
‘I would say, “Let’s see if we can stay awake because that way, we’ll make it last longer”, but I’ve a feeling we’ll be asleep five minutes after we stretch out on the bed.’
‘Five minutes?’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Maybe ten.’ He folded the table away.
‘Ten minutes can be a long time. I can barely keep my eyes open now, let alone after you’ve had your wicked way with me.’ She watched him bolt the door. ‘We’re all right, aren’t we, Micah?’ she asked seriously.
‘For the time being.’
Trying not to think further than that afternoon, she pulled the cushions from the bench seat and tossed them on to the floor.
He stepped over them, gathered her into his arms and unbuttoned the back of her dress. Sliding it over her shoulders, he allowed it and her petticoat to drop to the floor. ‘Did I ever tell you that you’re beautiful?’
‘Always when you take your glasses off and can’t see.’ She drew back, unbuttoned his waistcoat, helped him out of it and pulled down his braces.
‘I can see everything I want to.’ He slipped the straps of her bust shaper over her shoulders. When her breasts were exposed he kissed each nipple in turn.
‘We should make the bed properly.’ She was still unbuttoning his shirt when he pressed her down on to the cushions.
‘Why?’ He kissed the soft skin at the base of her ear.
‘Because we’ll be uncomfortable later.’
‘And then we’ll wake up and do this all over again.’ Unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his flies, he kicked his trousers off and pulled down her French knickers. ‘I like you just the way you are now – naked. You do realise once we’re married I won’t allow you to dress. And then we’ll have a lifetime of Sunday afternoons.’
He entered her and for once, she allowed his forecast of their future together to go unchallenged …
Judy was washing her breakfast things when the telephone rang in the ante room off the kitchen, where Edyth did her accounts and kept her invoices. She picked it up and recited the telephone number.
‘Judy?’
‘Hello, Mr Evans,’ she said, relieved that it wasn’t a customer demanding extra baked goods or cancelling an order. She enjoyed working for Edyth but hated making decisions that might cost the business money if she got them wrong.
‘Is Edyth there?’
‘No, she went out an hour ago.’
‘Is she likely to be back soon?’
‘Not until this evening, she’s gone to visit a friend,’ she answered evasively.
‘Damn! Sorry, Judy, I didn’t mean to swear. Can you get a message to her?’
‘If it’s urgent, Mr Evans, I can try.’ She knew exactly where Edyth was because every gossip in the Bay had seen her visit Micah Holsten’s boat on Sunday afternoons, but the last thing she wanted to do was disturb them.
‘My brother-in-law David – what am I saying, of course you know David – you were dancing with him yesterday. Well, he left the farm this morning for Cardiff. His train is due in at four o’clock. He’s taken it into his head to become a sailor.’
‘Now? When there’s a slump in trade and all the shipping companies are laying off seamen?’
‘You don’t have to tell me it’s a crazy idea. But there’s no point in trying to talk David out of it. Once he makes up his mind to do something, he does it, no matter what the consequences. He’s going to have to find out how impossible it will be for him to become a sailor the hard way. He doesn’t know anyone in the Bay except you and Edyth and although he’s practically family, he’s not related to Edyth by blood so I don’t think he should move in with you two,’ he said flatly. ‘But I don’t want him wandering around the doss houses on the docks. He’s lived on the farm all his life, he’s not used to people, especially ones who will take advantage of a young boy’s naivety.’
‘I understand, Mr Evans. Helga Brown – Pastor Holsten’s sister – takes in lodgers. She lives in the same street as my uncles.’
‘That sounds perfect. Do you think she’ll have a room to spare?’
‘I don’t know about a room, Mr Evans – they come expensive on the Bay. But she’ll probably have a bed.’
‘If she has, reserve it for David, please. He has enough money to keep himself for a few weeks. When it runs out I hope he’ll have enough sense to come home. If Micah’s sister can’t put him up, try and find him respectable lodgings somewhere else. And tell Edyth I’d be grateful if she’d meet the train and see him to Micah’s sister’s house. Ask her to telephone me as soon as she can. Mary’s worried sick about him.’
‘I will, Mr Evans, and if Edyth can’t meet the train I will.’
‘Thank you, Judy, you’re a gem. I must go and pick up Mary and the others from chapel now. Look after yourself and Edie for me.’
‘I will, Mr Evans. Goodbye.’ Judy replaced the receiver and walked back into the kitchen.
David Ellis was coming to the Bay to live – and, he thought, work. With the situation as it was at the moment an unskilled man would be lucky to get a berth on a coal ship to Ireland in return for his food. Judy only hoped David had enough sense not to advertise the fact that he was carrying sufficient money to pay for a few weeks’ lodging. If he didn’t, he’d soon attract the attention of some of the more desperate seamen in the doss houses.
She’d have to persuade him to hand over the bulk of his money to Helga Brown in advance to pay for his board and lodgings. She tried not to think what might happen if he chose not to listen to her. She didn’t know David well, but the fact that he’d insisted on coming to the Bay in the face of Harry and Mary’s opposition was testimony to his stubbornness and lack of common sense.
Her heart beat faster as an image came to mind of Harry Evans, handsome, debonair, well-to-do and respectable, unlike some of the rougher characters who lived on the Bay. And he was devoted to his wife and children. She didn’t love Harry – how could she when he was a married man? – but she hoped that there would be a man a little like him in her future. One who would love and cosset her and take care of her and their children the way Harry did Mary.
She sighed. It was more likely she’d continue to be surrounded by immature headstrong idiot boys like David Ellis, who needed looking after because they were just as stupid and troublesome as her cousins and their friends. Boys who had about as much romance in their soul as the dull-eyed codfish that lay on Tommy the fishmonger’s cart.
Irritated by the thought, she threw the dishcloth back into the washing-up water and carried on washing her dishes.