Read Facing the World Online

Authors: Grace Thompson

Facing the World (4 page)

BOOK: Facing the World
9.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

His first impulse was to go and bring Valmai here to face the son she hadn’t seen for two years. But he changed his mind. There might be a better way of using the information and he still had the picture and the silver bowl bearing Rhys’s fingerprints.

David Gorse was a bitter man. Like many of the people who lived in Tre Melin, he had worked at the furniture factory. When it closed its doors, he and almost fifty others had lost their jobs. Unlike most, David hadn’t found alternative employment. He had been so angry that every attempt to help him had been spurned. He had been a supervisor, no longer working with tools, and he felt that as it was clear he was superior to the rest he couldn’t accept work in a lesser capacity. A manager or nothing was his insistence when anything was offered.

Some found other jobs, some had retired, David passed the days in frustrated idleness. People no longer listened to his complaints, sympathy had been exhausted and now, many avoided him. He was a competent worker and he could have earned money doing small jobs around the area, designing and making items, dealing with small repairs, but he always declined. A small advancement from bench worker to supervisor had ruined his life. He believed his skill working with wood was a lowly one. He was management and not one of the several men who were proud of their skill, and his tools lay neglected in his mother’s garden shed. 

Now, he watched as Rhys hid in the shadows until Sally opened the door, two barely visible shadows in the almost complete darkness of the porch. Then the door opened wider and the light from within revealed the shadows merging as Rhys and Sally hugged before slipping through the door, which closed softly behind them. Envy rose in his throat and he turned away, wondering how best to use this new knowledge.

 

Rhys hugged Sally, breathing in the sweet scent of her, so longed for, and for so long. With their baby in the bedroom, they made
themselves
comfortable in the overcrowded living room and spent a blissful hour.

‘I long for the day when we can be together – no more snatched moments and painful partings,’ Rhys sighed.

‘We will. Surely the police must have given up? The trouble is there haven’t been any more burglaries since you left. Running away like you did convinced them they were down to you. But you’ll have completed your course soon and then you can come home and face up to any accusations. Only a few more months,’ she said.

Rhys hadn’t told Sally of the false evidence held by David Gorse; he didn’t want to worry her further or risk her telling someone. ‘I still think it might have been Keith Waterstone,’ he said. ‘The Waterstones were an unpleasant bunch.’

‘He is the most likely. Didn’t you say he was a thief when you were at school? The Waterstones have moved away, new people are moving in and the police will never question him now.’

‘I wonder whether a new spate of burglaries has happened where they now live?’

‘I’ll try to find out,’ she promised. Then she added, ‘Rhys, can’t you tell me when you’ll be coming home? It must be soon and I want to count the days on the calendar like a child at Christmas.’

‘I’m not sure yet, but as soon as I know I’ll come and tell you and we can celebrate.’ She was disappointed but not alarmed. He had to complete his course and perhaps wait for the results of the finals.

They peeped down at their sleeping daughter, on her back, arms relaxed on the pillow behind her head, her face rosy in the warmth of the small room. In whispers they shared news of the weeks they’d been apart. Rhys left before dawn and slept for a few hours in the old watermill where he had played wild and innocent games as a boy, 
remembering some as he crept in, and later out, of the old building just as he had during an imaginary adventure with homemade bows and arrows.

Sally lay reliving the past few hours, committing them to memory to replay them from time to time until Rhys came again. It wasn’t until much later that she realized, with a surge of alarm, that they hadn’t taken precautions.

 

‘I was thinking,’ Gwilym said one morning. ‘If we can set up a bench in the shed I could start making children’s toys. Eric was telling me that wooden trains and wheelbarrows and pull-along toys are still popular even though lots are now made with plastic.’

‘Wheels come off, see,’ Valmai said. ‘Plastic and metal bits don’t stay together. Wheeled wooden toys to sit on, trucks and tractors and trains will always be favoured by boys. We still have a few you made for Rhys! You could copy them for a start.’ She tried not to sound too excited but this was the first time he had even considered trying to work and if she could get someone to help her clear the shed and fix up a bench she’d get it ready in a very short time.

‘What about electricity?’ she asked casually. ‘A fire for a bit of warmth and you’ll need some light, for definite, and maybe a few more tools.’

‘Steady on, love. It’s only an idea!’

‘I know. And it’ll be expensive, but there’s no harm in asking a few people. Eric’ll help clear the shed.’ She laughed deprecatingly. ‘I admit that would be a good idea even if you don’t open your own factory! It could do with a good sorting.’

On her way to work she dropped a note in to Eric, asking if he’d help, and the electrician who did work at the hotel agreed to come and look at what they would need. Their next-door neighbours Netta and Walter promised some muscle and by the time she returned home she had more or less dealt with everything.

‘Muscle and a bit of electricity, that’s all it’ll take,’ she said, her eyes sparking with excitement.

‘A whirlwind you are, Valmai Martin. I wish I hadn’t said anything!’ But his eyes were glowing too.

 

Amy Seaton-Jones and Rick Perry were cleaning up after the latest workman had left. They had knocked down a wall between a
bathroom
and lavatory, creating one large complete bathroom. The rubble had been removed under Amy’s imperious instructions but the walls had not yet been repaired and dust was thick over the whole house. Rick was trying to lay the dust on the floorboards with wet sawdust and a large brush. Amy was preparing to scrub the kitchen floor.

‘I don’t see why we have to clear up this thoroughly every night, Amy dear. Surely it’s pointless to scrub floors when they’ll be back to do some more bashing in about fourteen hours? Then there’ll be cementing, then plastering. Tidy up certainly. But washing floors? Might as well wait until they’ve finished and give it a good do, surely?’

‘It’s a matter of standards, Rick darling. Mummy says letting them see how particular we are will remind them to be that much more considerate.’

‘Another thing. They’d be faster if you weren’t hovering around. It’s a small house in a small town, not a palace.’ He smiled, to take away the hint of criticism. ‘I want to see it finished. I’m longing for the time when you work your magic and make this house into our perfect home.’

‘Oh, the magic will come but not before the men have finished their work and every trace of their presence has been removed.’

‘Only a couple of weeks, then I can start on the garden.’

‘Well, there is another slight delay, darling.’

Rick stared at her, a frown increasing the lines around his dark brown eyes. ‘Another delay?’

‘It’s the wardrobe. It’s rather old-fashioned and I thought we could have it taken out and a new one built. We can ask him about the summer house as well while the carpenter’s here. We’ll put it right at the end where we’ll get the most sun. It shouldn’t take long. Only a few more weeks. And while the carpenter is busy I thought we might as well arrange for the garden to be paved and the fish pond installed.’

‘But I thought we’d agreed that the garden was my province? That I could plan it, leave room for some vegetables?’

‘It is, darling. You can do exactly what you want, chose the
flowers, everything. But I do need a dry area, I do so hate walking on muddy grass and I’ve always wanted a fish pond. Mummy thinks water in a garden is so peaceful.’

Rick sighed but said nothing. He sometimes wondered why they even pretended to discuss anything as all the decisions were
overridden
by Amy and her mother.

Amy was at the window when Eric strolled past. ‘Look! There’s that awful tramp again. He walks past slowly just so he can look in the window! We’ll have to have thick net curtains at all the bedrooms and the ground floor.’

In vain Rick protested. ‘He isn’t a tramp and I hate nets. We agreed that we’re far enough away from the road to make them unnecessary.’

‘I agree, darling, but having someone like that dirty tramp wandering around changes things, doesn’t it?’

Rick walked outside and looked at the garden in the light escaping from the kitchen. A fox slipped through the neglected hedge and stared at him. ‘I bet she’ll call it a patio,’ he whispered. ‘And the summer house will be a gazebo.’

The fox walked across the garden and before going through the opposite hedge stopped and stared as though in sympathy. ‘I don’t recommend you visiting once we’re living here,’ he called after the beautiful creature. ‘Amy’s mother wouldn’t approve.’

He was smiling as he went back inside. He was being petty about small things. Once they were married and settled, Amy would run things her own way and her mother’s influence would fade. It was a difficult time with the wedding to arrange and the house to make into their home. He knew just how much Amy depended on her mother both for planning the wedding and the finances. Once he was solely responsible for their living expenses, everything would be perfect.

SALLY WAS WALKING
to the park with Sadie in her pushchair, armed with bread with which to feed the ducks, a favourite activity for the little girl. Amy, the new tenant in what was still called the Waterstones’ house, was coming out of her gate and Sally smiled and greeted her with a remark about the weather.

‘We’re off to feed the ducks, aren’t we, Sadie?’ she said.

Amy gave a stiff smile and was about to walk on, but undeterred, Sally said, ‘Are your alterations to the house nearly finished? When are you and Rick tying the knot? I hope it will be finished in time – so much to do with the wedding to arrange as well as sort out builders.’

‘We have everything in hand,’ Amy replied rather pompously, and this time Sally allowed her to walk on. Pointless trying to befriend her. She was clearly uninterested in getting to know her neighbours. Then she heard a call, and Rick appeared. ‘Hi, how is little Sadie? Two years old, that’s quite an age,’ he said as he approached them. Amy had hurried on and he shrugged apologetically and ran after her.

‘Come on, love,’ he encouraged. ‘If we’re going to live here we have to be polite to our neighbours.’

‘Some of them certainly, darling, but definitely not all.’

Philosophically calm after the attempt to speak to Amy, Sally was convinced that the young woman would eventually come round to accepting the local people. They were friendly and kind and she would soon learn that, whatever Milly Sewell had told her. She walked on to the park, chatting cheerfully to Sadie, trying not to feel hurt. Amy’s attitude must be due to that woman’s gossiping tongue. She wondered why she took such pleasure in upsetting others. 

After watching the ducks for a while, Sally went to the bank. It was time to send more money to Rhys. A balance reminded her of how little was left. She wondered whether they would be able to put a deposit down on a house. If he came home soon, got a job, earned a reasonable wage then they might just manage. His two years at college had cost more than they had expected and it still wasn’t over. She folded the statement and hid it in her pocket.

Buying a house wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning. Living in two rooms had meant she had practically no furniture or even kitchen equipment, as she had used that belonging to Mrs Falconer. Even the bare minimum would be costly and she unfolded the
statement
again, stared at it as though it would magically change for the better, and wondered just how they would cope. Buying everything on hire purchase was a recipe for disaster.

As those thoughts were filling her mind, she saw a notice on the community hall doorway advertising a sale of unwanted furniture. Perhaps, if Mrs Falconer didn’t mind, she might look for a few bargains. After all, it wouldn’t be long before Rhys was home and she would be moving out.

She went to the post office and bought postal orders, which she put in brown business envelopes and sent to Rhys care of a café he regularly used. Surely there wouldn’t be many more payments? His second year would end soon and he wouldn’t need to stay in his digs once the exams were over. He could be here with her and Sadie while he waited for the results. ‘Oh, Rhys,’ she muttered aloud, ‘Please tell me you’re coming home.’

‘Talking to yourself, Sally?’ David Gorse asked, taking the handle of the pushchair from her and talking to Sadie.

Startled, Sally wondered if he had seen her push the postal orders into the brown envelope. She relaxed. Even if he had, he would have been unable to see the name or the address. She was unaware that it wasn’t the first time he had watched her buy the postal orders and had guessed the reason for the regular arrangement.

She approached the gate in School Lane and saw Mrs Falconer at the door. David Gorse helped her lift the pushchair inside.

‘Cup of tea?’ he asked, winking at Mrs Falconer. ‘I’ve got some biscuits, plenty for four of us.’

He sat talking to Sadie while Sally made the tea and Mrs Falconer
brought cakes to add to the biscuits. When they had finished and Mrs Falconer had returned to her part of the house, David stared at Sally and said, softly, ‘I do admire you, Sally.’

‘Me? Why?’

‘The way you support Rhys. Oh, I know you pretend not to know where he is, but you send money, don’t you?’

‘It’s none of your business what I do.’

‘Knowing he committed those burglaries, and that the police want him for questioning, you still support him.’ Sally said nothing, and he went on, ‘He’s a lucky man and I just hope he knows it. You deserve so much better than a weak man like Rhys.’

‘Stop this,’ she said and she stood, implying that he should leave, but he stood with her and held her arms.

‘Sally, I know what he’s like. We’ve known each other all our lives and he’s weak. And you can add cowardly to that, sheltering behind a strong and brave woman like you.’

‘Please go, David. And keep your suspicions to yourself, There are enough gossips in Tre Melin without you starting.’

‘Don’t forget I’m here when you need a friend.’

She didn’t reply.

 

Valmai spent most of the following weekend trying to sort out the contents of her shed. She struggled to get in and push out some of the contents so she could at least see what she had kept all these years, ‘Just in case.’ She dragged everything she could move into a pile and had to climb out of the shed, having thrown it too close to the doorway. Each afternoon she did a little more and on Saturday morning, after struggling for an hour with a tea chest filled with boxes of screws and assorted nails and oddments of metal that she no longer remembered the use of, Netta from next door came out and offered help.

‘No use me asking my Walter to help. It’s as much as he can do to dress and feed himself, lazy so-and-so,’ she muttered. ‘Our Jimmy might enjoy giving a hand, though. Jimmy?’ she shouted and a tousle-headed ten-year-old boy appeared in the doorway, a round of toast in his hand, jam decorating his freckled face.

‘Mornin’, Mrs Martin,’ he called. ‘There’s a mess you’ve made in your garden.’ 

‘Be’ave,’ Netta scolded, but he grinned, unrepentant.

‘Eric’s coming later,’ Valmai said. ‘He’ll soon tell me what to keep and what to throw away.’

‘All of it, I’d say,’ Netta muttered.

‘Can I have that old toboggan? Your Rhys is too old for it now.’

‘It’s April. You’ll wait a long time for some snow, young Jimmy.’

Jimmy came over, having wiped his sticky fingers on his jumper, and began helping her to sort out the muddle into various piles. There were lots of pieces of wood ranging from large planks and tree branches to small offcuts stored ready for firewood, but now Valmai piled the best of the small oddly shaped pieces, knowing that if she could persuade Gwilym to start making small toys they would be useful.

Eric came as arranged and when most of the contents were spread across the top of the garden he went inside to check on the building itself. He came out and shook his head. ‘Rotten all along the bottom,’ he reported, ‘and the roof could give way if we had a storm.’

‘It can be mended, though?’ Valmai asked.

Again the shake of his head. ‘Sorry, Val, but it’s too far gone and the expense wouldn’t be worth it. It’ll never make a workshop. It’s a bit too small too. You need a new one, I’m afraid.’

‘Tea, anyone?’ Gwilym called from the doorway.

Valmai hid her disappointment and instead said, ‘I’ll go to the timber yard. Sectional sheds are the cheapest, aren’t they?’

‘Not if we get some of the men together and make it ourselves.’ He looked at Gwilym, who was watching from the doorway, sitting in his chair, a blanket covering his legs, waving a tea-cup. ‘You’ll have to design it, mind, Gwilym. Only you know what you’ll need.’

‘Too expensive,’ Gwilym said, turning his chair to go back inside. ‘Nice idea, but there’s no way we can afford a new shed.’ He was half-smiling, as though relieved that his idea had been vetoed by economics.

‘We’ll see about that,’ Valmai muttered. She followed her husband back into the house with Eric and young Jimmy Prosser following. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea while we think about the best way to go about it,’ she announced. She filled the kettle then turned to Gwilym. ‘It’s no use putting on a pout. A new shed you need and that’s what you’ll have.’ 

When Eric left, having promised to try and get a work team together, Jimmy went with him.

‘Where are you off to, young Jimmy?’ Eric asked.

‘Don’t know. Down through the wood to the old mill, probably. There’s a pair of wrens nesting down there and would you believe a duck has made a nest on the paddles of the waterwheel. Lucky it no longer works, eh?’

‘Be careful down there. That building is in a poor state.’

‘A hundred and fifty years old and still stronger than Gwilym’s shed!’ Jimmy said.

‘True enough,’ Eric agreed with a laugh.

‘Someone’s been sleeping there.’

‘What, recently?’

‘I found some paper and a few crusts, and an apple core, and they weren’t there the day before.’ He put a hand in his pocket and showed Eric a small brass disc that at first looked like a coin. ‘I found this too. What d’you think it is?’

Eric looked at it. It bore a number and the name of a coal mine. ‘When the miners go down to start work they take a disc like this from the foreman and when they come back up they give him the disc back. That way the foreman knows how many men went down and knows that all the men are all safely out.’ He was frowning as he handed it back to Jimmy, who examined it with interest. The mine was the one where Gwilym’s father had worked. He was almost certain that the disk was the one proudly owned by Rhys. Did this mean Rhys had been there? Sleeping at the old mill? If he had then Gwilym and Valmai didn’t know. He was their trusted friend and he would have been told.

 

‘The new shed is the subject of one-sided discussions in our house,’ Valmai complained to Netta. ‘I’m determined we’ll get one and Gwilym is insisting that we can’t afford it and he isn’t sure he’d work in it if we did. I point out a solution to every problem he comes up with and I’m talking to myself! Oh, Netta, why is he so defeatist?’

‘Pride. Must be. After all, he was a cross-country runner, he coached the local under elevens rugby team, cricket in the summer. To have to give up all that is bound to have changed the poor man.’

‘The rugby team would still like him to help but he won’t pass
through our gate. What do I have to do to make him face the world? He’s done nothing wrong yet he’s acting like a—’

‘A criminal? Like your Rhys but with even less reason? They both faced trouble but dealt with it in opposite ways. Gwilym won’t move and Rhys moved too far! They both gave up. Heard anything from your Rhys?’

Valmai shook her head. ‘There’s a card occasionally, usually from somewhere up north. Blackpool, North Wales, even Scotland.’

‘Walking was his favourite pastime like his father, so perhaps he’s just wandering.’

‘If only he’d come home. The police haven’t anything on him. They wanted to question him but he wasn’t a suspect, yet he ran off before they could interview him. If they’d really wanted to talk to him you can’t tell me they wouldn’t have found him. They aren’t stupid. But,’ she added sadly, ‘perhaps my son is.’

‘There might have been some other reason he chose to leave, nothing to do with the robberies.’ Netta was thinking of Sally, left to face the criticisms and bring up her baby on her own. Nothing had been said, but she’d always believed Rhys was the father of
two-year-old
Sadie. ‘Good heavens, Valmai, I’ve just realized it’s more than two years since he left.’ Pointedly she added, ‘Little Sadie was two a week or so back. Doesn’t time fly?’

Valmai didn’t reply.

When Netta went inside, Walter said, ‘Still making excuses for that son of theirs, is she? Leaving that girl to cope alone. What sort of a man does that?’

‘Not much better yourself,’ Netta retorted. ‘Leaving me to keep the family fed. Lazy you are, Walter Prosser. Time you got up and shifted yourself. Plenty of work out there for those who want it.’

‘I’ve tried. There’s nothing for me and you know it.’

‘I know nothing of the sort. Idle, useless waste of breath you are.’

The argument went on and young Jimmy approached the house with his heart racing, aware that it could go on for a long time. He covered his ears and ran back along the path and out into the street.

Valmai was setting off for work and she called to him. ‘Go in and have a piece of cake with Gwilym, why don’t you?’

His footsteps slowed. ‘Rowing again, they are,’ he said. ‘I hate it when they row. I’m invisible when they row.’ 

Valmai went back with him and had a quick word with Gwilym, who asked the boy if he fancied a bit of toast. Jimmy stayed until the shouting had subsided then went home. He picked up a chunk of bread, an apple and some crisps and went back out.

Jimmy spent a lot of time out of the house. He wandered around the fields south of Mill Road and spent a lot of time watching the activities around the stream that had once fed the huge wheel of the watermill. He took bread and an apple from his pocket and ate, throwing the crusts where the ducks would find them. Aimlessly strolling through the fields, he joined the main road not far from the Waterstones’ house, where he sat on the wall and watched as men went in and out with discarded bricks, old and new wood. A few of the men stopped to talk to him, and one gave him a couple of sweets from his pocket.

Amy appeared at the window and she banged on the pane and made movements clearly telling him to go away. Pretending not to understand, he waved back cheerily. The front door opened and she came running out, flapping her arms as though he were a strange animal.

‘Evenin’, Mrs,’ he said, amused by her behaviour and the peculiar headdress she wore. ‘Why are you wearing a net curtain on your head?’

‘Go away, you cheeky boy, and don’t sit on my wall like that.’

‘I wasn’t hurting it!’ he grumbled as he jumped down. He didn’t move far, just a few inches away from the wall, and she continued to shoo him away.

BOOK: Facing the World
9.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Trophy Wife by Diana Diamond
Against All Odds (Arabesque) by Forster, Gwynne
Street Soldier 2 by Silhouettes
Anathema by Maria Rachel Hooley
Love of the Wild by Susan Laine
Mystery at Peacock Hall by Charles Tang, Charles Tang