Authors: Grace Thompson
‘Gareth, I’d love to come,’ she said at last. Smiling, she added, ‘Thank you for asking me.’
When Ada and Myfanwy returned, Cecily said in a dazed voice, ‘He’s done it. Gareth has actually invited me out.’
Ada felt the bitter taste of jealousy and for the first time ever found it hard to wish her sister well. ‘There’s nice,’ she said with a stiff smile.
Cecily noticed nothing wrong. She ran upstairs and began pulling clothes out of the big wardrobe. ‘Van, Van lovey, come and help me choose.’ Myfanwy went into the big bedroom shared by Cecily and Ada and watched as Cecily tried on dress after dress, coat after coat, until between them they had decided on the outfit for the theatre visit with Gareth.
‘Are you going to marry him, Auntie Cecily?’ Van asked, her head on one side, hair streaming down in a golden curtain. ‘If you do, can I be
bridesmaid
and wear a blue dress?’
Cecily laughed. ‘Too early to say, Van, lovey. But when I do marry and whoever I marry, you’ll be my beautiful bridesmaid and have the loveliest dress we can find, I promise.’ She hugged the serious-faced girl and they continued selecting, discussing shoes and hats and gloves before declaring themselves satisfied.
Cecily was excited at the prospect of being taken out by Gareth. She still found her dreams disturbed by thoughts of Danny but forced herself to remember that, by now, he would be married to Jessie and living in bliss in
Foxhole Street. Better second best than living an empty dream, she thought. Then guilt flooded her face with colour at the idea of considering Gareth in that way. She made a silent promise that should he ask her to be his wife, she would be a good one and push all thoughts of Danny and what might have been out of her mind for ever. She almost believed she could.
It wasn’t that she didn’t find Gareth attractive or feel the beginnings of love for him, but she had to admit that the way he allowed his mother to manipulate him caused her concern. If their incipient romance ever
blossomed
, she would persuade Gareth their best chance lay in putting distance between themselves and Mrs Price-Jones – as long as they didn’t go to live in Foxhole Street!
Ada was quiet that evening. She was hurt, having convinced herself that it was she whom Gareth had wanted to take out. Perhaps Cecily had pushed him into inviting her; she could be very forward at times. That had been the trouble between her and Danny Preston. Men didn’t really like forward women.
The following evening, Ada had arranged to go to the dance with Beryl and Bertie Richards, whose son, Edwin, was a friend of Myfanwy. The Richards lived in a big house that needed three servants to keep it the way Beryl Richards liked it. They had a car and would call for Ada at eight o’clock. Gareth was calling for Cecily at half past six.
Both sisters spent some time away from the shop getting ready, pressing clothes, shining shoes and brushing suede gloves. Willie stood in at the shop between their various appearances although he wasn’t confident at serving; he just kept an eye on anyone likely to help themselves and run for it.
Ada was convinced that without Cecily she would stand a better chance of finding partners. Cecily thought that a few hours alone with Gareth would show her how much happier he’d make her than Danny ever could with his touchiness and unreasonable jealousy.
At four o’clock they began to look out for their father. There was a grain boat in the dock and he had been working on her since early that morning. It was surprising he had not yet returned.
‘I hope he hasn’t gone off drinking,’ Ada whispered. ‘He can shift for himself so far as his meal goes if it’s spoilt, but we can’t leave him in charge of Van if he isn’t sober.’
‘I’ll stay if he doesn’t come in time,’ Cecily said at once. ‘You go with Beryl and Bertie.’ It might not be a bad thing if she and Gareth stayed home to talk.
‘No, it’s my turn to wait. You missed the Boxing Day party because Dadda was going out, remember?’ They both cared for Van equally. There was never any question of her being one sister’s responsibility over the other.
‘It’s a sailing ship he’s working on, isn’t it? Perhaps we can go for a walk on Sunday, take Myfanwy to have a look at her.’
‘Yes, yes, yes, please!’ Van frowned with the intensity of her pleading. ‘I think sailing ships are beautiful.’
There was still no sign of Owen when seven o’clock came. Gareth had called and stood nervously waiting near the shop door. Cecily realized it was too late for their planned theatre trip. ‘I can’t go, Gareth. I’m sorry but Dadda isn’t back and we’re getting a bit worried.’ She looked for
disappointment
on Gareth’s face but saw only relief.
‘Sorry I am, too, but perhaps it’s just as well. Mam isn’t too good and I’d be worried about her too. Fine pair we’d be up in Cardiff wishing we were home, isn’t it?’ He hurried off, refusing Cecily’s invitation to stay. Like a scared rabbit, Cecily thought irritably, covering her disappointment with anger. If there is a problem, he won’t be the one to help.
Ada explained to Bertie when he called at a quarter to eight, filling the darkened shop with his large and prosperous presence and insisting they stopped worrying, saying Owen would turn up unharmed and feeling sheepish any moment now.
‘I can’t leave Cecily in case there is something wrong,’ Ada explained. ‘We always face things together, even a father a bit worse for wear. Apologize to Beryl for me, will you? I hope you both have a lovely time.’
Behind her, Van clapped her hands in delight. ‘Good, now we can play Ludo!’
‘You can play climbing the wooden hill!’ Ada said and, protesting, the little girl was put to bed and the sisters watched the hands of the clock move around to nine o’clock.
‘Perhaps it’s a quick turnaround for the ship,’ Ada suggested. ‘They might be hoping to reload her and get her off fast. One of the men working on her said they’re in a hurry to get over to Avonmouth as a storm is brewing in the channel. They want to get her across before it comes.’
‘Unusual for Dadda to work overtime and not let us know. He’ll be very tired. He isn’t well, is he? Dear sister-in-law Dorothy was right about that.’
The rabbit stew had dried up and Cecily put it on one side. ‘I expect he’ll have fish and chips when he gets home. They’ll be open until eleven o’clock. He surely won’t be later than that?’
Ten o’clock passed, then eleven.
‘I’m going round to see Sam Small the foreman. He’ll know what’s happening. Never known him to work this long before, not on an early shift. And not without a message.’ Ada slipped on her coat and Cecily went with her to the door. Ada ran back a few minutes later.
‘The men in Dadda’s gang finished long ago. Sam doesn’t know where he can be.’
‘Drinking? Not at this time. We’d best go to the police. I’ll stay here and if I see anyone to ask, I’ll send them to the club in case he’s there and too legless to walk home.’
Cecily stood in the shop porch tearful and afraid. People passed whom she knew and were sent first to her sisters-in-law, Dorothy and Rhonwen, then their mother’s brother, Uncle Ben Prothero. She wished that by some miracle Danny would appear and was angry with Gareth for not waiting. She needed someone. She was frightened by the prospect of dealing with an accident or worse with only Ada to support her. She was always looked upon as the stronger one but right now she felt as weak and helpless as a baby.
Lights had gone out in the Greek restaurant down the road and the fish and chip shop opposite. The cinema up near the main road had closed its doors and few lights showed anywhere and still he hadn’t appeared.
Couples drifted past, sailors with girls, hugging each other and walking an erratic path, sometimes on the pavement, sometimes on the road,
stumbling
, laughing, oblivious to her and her fears.
Most of the night had gone before the sisters moved indoors. They were stiff with cold but they moved only to make tea for the policemen and others helping in the search. No one remembered seeing him after the men of the grain boat changed shifts. He had not been to any of his usual pubs and clubs.
At eight o’clock the shop opened as usual, with Willie stepping in to do the things usually managed by Owen. People flocked in asking for news and offering help. It was ten o’clock before there was anything to tell. Owen had been found in one of the holds of the ship, drowned in the grain. Apparently, he had fallen and been covered without anyone seeing him or hearing his brief cry.
The next forty-eight hours were a blur. Cecily or Ada took Van to school as usual, although Dorothy, the eldest of their sisters-in-law and the most outspoken, protested, insisting she should stay home.
‘Plenty of time for grieving,’ Cecily insisted. ‘We don’t want her hearing displays of hysterics and getting frightened and upset. Ada and I have spoken to the teachers and they agree it’s best for her to be kept out of the worst of it.’
‘Talking to her about it we are, mind,’ Ada added. ‘Talking as much as she wants, but seeing Uncle Ben’s new wife wailing and driving us all demented won’t help her to accept the loss, now will it? Best she’s out of it.
The shop is full with tearful friends and relations from the moment we open. And,’ she added later to Cecily, ‘as we might have guessed, Dorothy was the loudest and the most irritating!’
Dorothy, the widow of their eldest brother, presumed she was heir to the property. Her son Owen Owen, named for his grandfather – as she reminded them frequently over the days following their father’s death – was automatically the one to inherit his grandfather’s money and business.
‘My dear husband, God rest his soul, was the first born and my
Owen-Owen
-named-for-his-grandfather will of course take over the shop.’
‘Owen is thirteen, Dorothy. How d’you expect him to manage a
business
? Shut the shop while he goes to school, will he?’ Ada asked sarcastically.
‘I’ll support him and keep it going for him until he finishes school, of course. And,’ she added grandly, ‘you can both stay until you find
somewhere
to live.’
Cecily and Ada looked at each other and shrugged. Dorothy was
unstoppable
.
Cecily raised a hand to stop the flow of words. ‘If you’ve had your twopennorth, Dorothy, will you please go. Ada and I are worn out and we need some rest.’
The sisters stood together when the crowded room emptied. Coats and hats, which had been thrown across the shop counters, were shrugged on and the murmur of Dorothy’s voice carried to them comments about their stubbornness to see the obvious and how simple it really was.
‘We were wise not to tell them Dadda made a will,’ Cecily whispered. ‘They’d have been here all night!’
They went in together to see that Van was safely tucked in for the night and found the little girl crying. ‘Will we be moving from here?’ she asked tearfully. ‘Will all our furniture go on the back of a cart and—’
‘No, lovey, there’ll be no shifting us, I promise that,’ Ada assured her.
‘Yes, Myfanwy Owen,’ Cecily added. ‘Belong here we do, the three of us. It’s our home so don’t you worry about a thing.’
‘But Auntie Dorothy said—’
‘Don’t mention Auntie Dorothy or I’ll be saying a swear!’ Ada said and the little girl giggled.
There was little sleep for either of the sisters that night, each silently grieving for the father they had loved and twinned with that grief was a longing for their mother to walk back into their lives. Cecily determined once more to try and find her. If she knew about Dadda’s death, surely she would come and see them, share their loss and perhaps accept a place in their lives once more?
The need for her mother was a childlike craving to be cuddled and comforted and in her memory Cecily felt the caring arms squeeze her
shoulders
and the soft cheek pressed against her own. She could almost hear the soothing voice that had gentled away a thousand hurts in her childhood. The child in her longed to dissolve her distress in tears but she determinedly held them back. She had to be strong. Ada and Myfanwy would depend on her, especially during the next few days.
Beside her, Ada lay thinking her own private thoughts that were similar to those of her sister. Neither girl spoke her thoughts aloud, each hoping the other was getting some badly needed sleep.
In the room nearby, Van was also awake, wondering what she had done for God to punish her so. Gran was a faded memory suffused by time into an angelic figure, always smiling and always there to talk to and to read to her and join in her games. But she was gone, and now Granddad had been taken from her. What if the aunties went too? The thought made her heart beat in fright and tears squeezed under her eyelids and moistened the pillow. In all her memory there had only been Gran and Granddad and the aunties. No Mam or Dad, like most of her friends.
She decided she would be very good and make sure she did nothing more to justify further punishment. To be completely alone – or having to live with Auntie Dorothy! – was the very worst thing. She jumped out of bed and tiptoed to the aunties’ room. Climbing onto the pillows she
slithered
down in between Cecily and Ada and felt arms wrap around her and make her feel safe.
T
HE SHOP BLINDS
were pulled right down and the shop was dark in the early morning. It was not empty although it showed a closed sign on the glass door. Women in black coats reaching almost to their ankles, their faces covered with veils and shadowed by shawls, stood silently waiting for the funeral procession of Owen Owen, proprietor, to reach the door.
Cecily and Ada stood with the rest, although without a coat. They were close together, shivering slightly, partly because of the coldness of the winter air and partly because of the uneasy mood of the occasion. Today was a turning point in their lives: the death of their father and the news just confirmed by the solicitor.
Their faces were stiff with the effort of holding in their excitement, fearing the criticism from the mourning relatives gathered around them if the light of exhilaration showed in their eyes on this day, when sobriety was all.
Outside, all was quiet and when the horses eventually turned into the steep street, everyone fidgeted and prepared themselves. Ada opened the shop door and the bell tinkled merrily, incongruous in the awe-filled silence.
‘Should have hushed that bell,’ someone muttered and Cecily thought she recognized the disapproving one of Uncle Ben’s new wife, Auntie Maggie Prothero. The remark was echoed by Dorothy.
Oddly, it was the smells that Cecily and Ada remembered when they discussed the gathering later. A thousand shop-scents, from the obstinate fish and fruit to the more subtle spices and teas and coffees were there, a background to their everyday life, but over them all, intrusive and alien, was the powerful smell of mothballs and heavy perfumes.
As the hearse clattered to a stop outside, Ada whispered to her sister, ‘I’ll be glad when this lot have all gone home!’
Cecily nodded agreement. ‘It’ll be hours yet, mind.’
The shop filled as more people came through from the room behind to
see Owen on his way. Dorothy came to stand near them with a hand on their shoulders. Her son Owen was in the car following the horse-drawn hearse but her daughter, the shy sixteen-year-old Annette, was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where’s Annette?’ Ada asked.
‘Oh, probably hiding in a corner! When is she not?’ Dorothy said in mild despair. ‘Such a trial, that daughter of mine. Thank goodness Owen is more sensible.’
Marged, the daughter of the other sister-in-law, Rhonwen, giggled
nervously
and Myfanwy hushed her with all the authority of her six years. ‘Hush,’ she warned, ‘or Auntie Dorothy will give us a wallop!’ She handed Marged a handkerchief. ‘Chew on this,’ she said, stifling her own laughter.
‘Girls are such a trial, aren’t they?’ Dorothy smiled at Rhonwen. ‘My Annette so shy and your Marged such a giggler, I don’t know which is the worst.’
The gentle Rhonwen gave her still-giggling daughter a hug. ‘Van will keep them in order, for sure,’ she whispered.
The cortege had stopped outside and the women crowded onto the
pavement
, hugging themselves against the biting wind that came in from the sea. They stood, some bending their heads in prayer, others just staring at the carriage with its four black horses bedecked with black feathered plumes and wearing black covers over their ears. Four men walked solemnly in and through the shop and returned a few minutes later, moving slowly along the orderly path made for them through the group of grieving women, under the burden of Owen Owen’s coffin.
The four men were distant cousins of the Owen family, all in their
twenties
and all pale-faced beneath the tall black hats they wore. Johnny Fowler was unable to manage his hat and it fell and rolled into the gutter, from where Van promptly retrieved it and held it against her like a shield.
Johnny’s thin hair was plastered to his head with grease, the hairs bonded together and trying to escape the curve of his head, sticking up along the side in a frozen fringe. Marged giggled again and suffered a dig in the ribs from Van.
The crowd in the shop emptied onto the pavement as the women stood to see the funeral procession turn to go back up the hill and onto the main road. Flowers were placed around the coffin and there were so many that some had to go in the following cars.
‘Dadda hated flowers,’ Cecily sniffed, her voice sounding loud in the silence broken only by the shuffling of the men’s feet and the metallic percussion of the horses’ feet on the road.
In a corner of the room behind the shop, Annette sat watching Willie,
who had stayed with her until the last moment, before leaving to join the rest of the men.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ he promised. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see you’re all right.’
Willie had come across Annette, the shy daughter of the anything-
but-shy
Dorothy, in the stable with the horses. The prospect of sitting among the relatives and almost certainly being criticized by her mother was too much for her. Willie had coaxed her into the house, found her a chair behind a door where few would see her and had stood there, shielding her from the rest, encouraging her not to be afraid.
He knew it wasn’t just people, or her mother, that had made her run and hide between the warm living softness of the two horses where Willie had found her, but also the thought of the coffin and its contents. He boldly gave her hand a squeeze and hurried out to join the others.
At a signal from Johnny Fowler, who had been appointed to walk in front of the cortege of carriage, cars and carts, it moved slowly off, the horses’ hoofs slipping briefly on the frosty surface. The plumes on the horses’ heads swayed backwards and forwards as if in an attempt to help them up the steep hill to the main road. Then they were on their way, up and out of sight, along the main road where cars and horse-drawn traffic and pedestrians stopped to watch them pass, men removing hats and women reaching for handkerchiefs as they grieved for the man on his last journey.
In the shop, the door closed and the weeping slowly subsided. Some mourners went home and a few comments were heard as they passed through the shop porch.
‘Waldo Watkins from the big grocer’s shop looked bad, didn’t he? Pale as a corpse himself.’
‘Did you see the way those girls were grinning? Trying to hide it, mind, but I saw them. There’s wicked with their father dead and gone.’
‘They don’t realize it yet but they’ll miss him, old drunk that he was. Who’s going to look after that little girl while they go gallivanting night after night now? Tell me that.’
It was mostly the female members of the family who were left and they found seats in the room behind the shop to sit and wait for the men to return from the cemetery. Cecily and Ada went through the passage to the back kitchen where they had already prepared the food. They shuddered at the strong smell of flowers that pervaded the room and opened the back door to help it escape.
On the gas stove stood the large soot-blackened kettle humming gently. Its usual place was beside the fire in the room behind the shop but just for today, Cecily had insisted on doing it ‘proper’. Ada thought it was wrong
to show off on the day of their father’s funeral but Cecily had insisted and Ada finally agreed. She guessed it was the presence of the critical Dorothy that made Cecily so extra fussy, with tray cloths and the best tablecloths on display.
‘Thank goodness that part is over.’ Cecily threw off the hat she had been wearing and sent it winging across the room and out through the open door.
‘Cecily!’ Ada glanced at the door passage. ‘Don’t let those in there hear you talking like that!’
‘Oh, Ada, he was our dadda and I loved him, but all that moaning and groaning in there is nothing to do with our grief that he’s gone.’
Ada shushed her and pointed to the door. Myfanwy stood there, her eyes large, her small face bewildered by the strange events of the day, having been brought back from a visit to Beryl and Bertie’s home.
‘Can I go to school now, Auntie Cecily?’ she asked in a low, wavering voice.
‘No, indeed! You’re having the day off.’ Both sisters bent down to comfort her. ‘Go now and talk to your aunties and cousins. The uncles will be back soon and you can help us serve the food. Glad of your help we’ll be.’ Cecily gently patted the blonde head and watched her walk back to the room behind the shop.
‘She can sleep with us tonight, can’t she?’ Ada suggested.
‘Good idea. Come on,’ she said briskly, ‘you cut the cakes and I’ll arrange the sandwiches. You do the cakes much neater than me.’ They both bustled about setting out the food on large meat-plates that were usually used only at Christmas and special occasions, to be carried into the living room.
‘I’ll do both if you’ll serve the teas,’ Ada said. ‘I hate pouring teas. Dorothy only has to look at me and it all goes into the saucers.’
They worked swiftly and in unison as always, each able to take over what the other had started, agreeing wordlessly on how things should be done. They had always been close and rarely disagreed about anything.
‘He didn’t come then,’ Ada stated after a pause.
‘Who? Gareth? I expect his mam was ill again.’ They sighed and shared a look of impatience.
Gareth Price-Jones owned the barber’s shop which had been his father’s. It had kept him and his mother in moderate comfort all his life. When Evan Price-Jones died, Gareth had taken over the business and after a few
disasters
, was now a competent hairdresser with a regular clientele who called once a fortnight for a trim or twice a week for shaves.
He was not an unattractive man and he had charm, but he was rather shy. He showed his reserve in the way he walked, head forward, and it was only on the dance floor that he held himself proudly and shone with
confidence
, especially when he partnered Cecily or Ada, who were such excellent performers like himself.
On the day of Owen Owen’s funeral, he didn’t close his shop. He wanted to, he felt ashamed at not doing so, but his mam had insisted he did not.
‘Your father built that business up by being reliable, Gareth,’ she had warned. ‘Go on, then! Shut the place and send all your customers
somewhere
else to get their shaves and haircuts! That is, if you want to see the place close completely and watch all your poor dear father’s efforts to provide us with a meagre living go down the drain!’ She puffed angrily. ‘Go on, then. Shut the shop and go to the funeral with them two girls. Oh, yes,’ she added quickly before he could answer, ‘I know it’s them girls you want to see, not show respect for that disgusting old drunk who was their father.’
‘Mam, that’s not fair on him! He was a local businessman and everyone will close for an hour or so. People won’t be disappointed at seeing the shop shut; it’s what they’ll expect.’
‘If the shop’s too much for you and you need a flimsy excuse for a few hours’ rest, then say. We’ll see about selling it, although what you expect us to live on I don’t know.’ She lifted a perfumed handkerchief to her rather prominent nose and sniffed quietly as if holding back tears. Gareth knew when he was beaten.
‘All right, Mam, I’ll stay open. But I bet there’ll be some talk.’
‘If someone had bothered to tell us what was happening and if we’d been asked to visit and stay for the funeral, it would have been different,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Above themselves the Owens, always have been, and her running off with the coalman!’
So the funeral cortege passed the shop while Gareth was shaving old Busby Morris and, seeing the crowd gathering outside raising their hats or sniffing into elegant handkerchiefs, Gareth left the old man soaped and half shaved and stood in the wedge-shaped porch of his shop as the procession made its way through the main road, his face red with embarrassment.
The funeral was a large one, Owen being a well-known tradesman, but with so many of his family lost during the war, most of the younger men filling the cavalcade of assorted vehicles were not relations but friends and fellow shopkeepers. Beside the vehicles, a considerable number were walking.
Gareth caught the eye of the wealthy Waldo Watkins, a rival in a friendly way to the grocer now carried in the oak coffin behind the plumed black horses. Gareth looked down guiltily. Mam was wrong and he should have
gone. Damn me, you don’t wait to be invited to a funeral! Why wasn’t he strong enough to defy Mam and do what he knew was right? he wondered angrily. But the anger was towards himself, not his mam.
In the car following the horse and carriage sat Bertie Richards, the
prosperous
landlord who had always been a close friend of the Owen family. Again, Gareth lowered his head in shame.
Traffic had pulled into the side to allow the funeral free passage and in the distance, Gareth could still see the thin figure of Johnny Fowler walking ahead, setting the pace for the rest. As the last of the walkers passed the shop, he went back inside to where a slightly impatient Busby Morris – so called because he had once been in the guards – was beginning to shout his complaints. He collected fresh hot water and, apologizing earnestly, finished the shave.
As he worked he only half listened to his customer’s chatter. His mind was at the grocery shop where friends and relations would be gathered to learn the fate of the business. He knew it was impossible for Cecily and Ada to run it themselves. Two young women without a man there? Not possible. They would need a man and there was only Willie Morgan and a fat lot of use he’d be, him only a skinny lad of sixteen.
He wondered how soon he might go and see the sisters and ask them how things would be arranged. He wished he’d gone to the funeral. Mam was difficult at times. Now he’d be uneasy going there, expecting a
coolness
at his apparent indifference.
He closed the shop early – a small defiance – but walked home the long way round so Mam wouldn’t know.
At Owen’s shop, with everything ready for the meal, Cecily and Ada stood among the black-coated women waiting for the shop bell to ring and tell them the men were back. They went into the back kitchen occasionally to reassure themselves that everything was done. Holding hands with them both, Van went with them.