Megan of Merseyside (13 page)

‘I’ve come home once or twice when I’ve had a midday break but you’re never here, so I may as
well
stay on at the café. At least I can have a proper cooked meal there.’

‘You don’t have to work until nine o’clock at night, though, surely.’

‘I don’t always! When I finish early I go to the Stork.’

‘Your dad doesn’t like you going there …’

‘So what! I shan’t tell him so he’s not likely to find out … Unless you keep going on about it,’ Lynn retorted.

‘Are you still meeting this boy Flash when you go there?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Are you seeing any other lads?’

The moment she began asking these sort of questions Lynn would flounce off to her bedroom and slam the door shut. Her life was a closed book, but Kathy knew from her moods that everything wasn’t going the way Lynn wanted it to.

She had asked her time and again to bring this boy Flash home so that they could get to know him, but Lynn would only scowl or pull a face and change the subject.

Megan didn’t seem to have made any friends either. Robert Field was always offering to take her out but she rarely accepted. On the few occasions she did go somewhere with him, she would persuade Lynn to go along as well.

Kathy couldn’t understand it. True, he was a few years older than Megan, but what did that matter? He was nice looking, quiet, well spoken, owned his own house and had a good job so what more could Megan possibly want?

The only thing that seemed to interest Megan, though, was working for her secretarial diploma. She’d become quite fanatical about it.

Kathy didn’t see the sense in it. Being a secretary was all very well but where did it really get you in the end? You were still waiting hand and foot on some man so why not have the security of marriage.

It was less of a worry than Lynn going to the Stork Club night after night, of course. Jazz music seemed to attract some strange types in there, if the accounts she had read in the
Liverpool Echo
were true. She couldn’t help feeling anxious about Lynn mixing with people like that.

At one time, Watkin had been very strict with the girls, but since Lynn had started work at the Copper Kettle he’d washed his hands of her.

‘You agreed she could leave school and go to work there knowing it was against my wishes, so you can worry about her,’ he’d pronounced. ‘Don’t ever forget, though, that I wanted her to stay on at school.’

She’d protested that Lynn had found herself a job without a word to any of them.

‘If you’d supported me then she would have had no choice but to jack it in,’ he’d argued grimly. ‘Instead, you said leave her alone so from now on that’s what I’m going to do.’

And he had. He turned a deaf ear when she expressed concern about the long hours Lynn worked at the café. And he ignored the arguments that flared up when she remonstrated with Lynn for coming home so late at night.

The family unity they’d known when they lived in Beddgelert seemed to have gone for ever. They rarely sat down to their evening meal together. Either Lynn was working, or Watkin was doing overtime. And three evenings a week, Megan had to have her meal early so that she could get to night school on time.

Sunday was the only occasion they ate together and more often than not there was an argument and the mealtime ended in discord.

The trouble was that Watkin, Megan and Lynn were all so wrapped up in their own lives that they hadn’t time for each other. Nor did any of them have much time for her, Kathy thought despondently.

Was it any wonder that most of the time she felt lonely and neglected? she thought as she rinsed her cup and saucer. She knew so few people. In Beddgelert, whenever she had walked into the village she had met someone she knew. If she wanted to, she could stop and have a chat with them. Here, she could go out every day and not see the same person twice. She’d even taken to shopping in Paddy’s market for fruit and vegetables, because the stallholders there seemed to be more friendly than any of the shop assistants in Scotland Road.

‘Find yourself a hobby, or get involved in something, then you’ll soon get to know more people,’ Watkin told her whenever she’d complained she was on her own too much.

It wasn’t that easy. She went to the pictures two or three times a week. The seats were half price for matinees. At first, she felt guilty when she came out. It seemed all wrong to be sitting in there in
the
dark when outside the sun was shining. Then as the days grew shorter and colder, she enjoyed the warm darkness, happy to lose herself in the celluloid world of make-believe. She even began to resent having to hurry home afterwards in order to have a meal ready for her family when they came in from work.

Megan was the only one who seemed concerned about what was happening to her and the way she was spending her time.

‘Sitting in the cinema every afternoon is making you put on weight,’ Megan had remonstrated. ‘You need more exercise.’

‘Keeping this place clean and doing all the shopping is exercise enough for me.’

‘Why don’t you go over to New Brighton when it’s a nice day and take a walk along the prom?’ she’d suggested, and occasionally at the weekends they went out together. Once they’d gone on the bus to Southport; another time they’d taken the train to Chester. The two of them had spent a wonderful day there. They’d visited the cathedral, and walked round the walls as well as looking at all the shops.

Megan was so caring that it reminded Kathy of what Watkin had been like when they’d first been married. It was bred in her, mused Kathy. She’d been Watkin’s daughter from the very first day she’d been born.

She’d been a good baby. She’d rarely cried and had grown into an obedient child. Her dark, soulful eyes, framed by long lashes and thick dark brows, had sometimes seemed too large for her elfin face.

Lynn had been the exact opposite. A fretful, demanding baby, she’d grown into a self-willed little girl who always liked to be the centre of attention. She’d been so pretty, Kathy had melted whenever she looked at her. And Lynn had played on this.

‘You’re spoiling that little one, you know,’ Watkin had warned her over and over again. ‘You give in to her far too much.’

Although she knew he was right it made no difference. It had filled her with an incredible feeling of satisfaction to bring a smile to Lynn’s face. Lynn hadn’t changed; she could still twist most people round her little finger.

As they had grown older, Megan and Lynn had spent less and less time playing together. Lynn was always out with a crowd, often getting into mischief. Megan was more solitary and she had grown closer to Watkin. The two of them would often take a picnic and go off for the day, climbing Moel Hebog or wandering along the banks of the River Glaslyn.

Kathy had never been able to see the sense of doing that. The grass was the same there as it was anywhere else so what was the point of struggling to climb to the top of a mountain? There wasn’t even a decent road to walk up. The rough footpaths were full of jagged stones and you had to watch your step all the time or you could twist your ankle.

There was nothing to see when you’d scrambled to the top, except more sheep and more mountains and away in the distance a glimpse of the sea.

If she wanted to look at the sea, she had taken herself off to one of the sandy beaches at Porthmadog. There she could stretch out and soak up the sun while the girls amused themselves building sand castles or going for a paddle.

Looking back to those times, she reflected that they had been some of the happiest days of her life, only she hadn’t realised it at the time.

If Watkin hadn’t been so afraid of losing his job at Pengarw they might still be there. The possibility haunted her. It was such a pity he’d acted so impulsively. Sometimes she just didn’t understand how his mind worked.

She didn’t understand how Megan’s mind worked, either! The way Megan avoided Robert Field and turned down his invitations to go out left her speechless. She just couldn’t stop thinking about it. At one time she’d been convinced that Megan must be seeing someone else, but she so seldom went out on her own that it didn’t seem possible.

Lynn had said she was sweet on someone at work called Mr Miles, but when she had mentioned the name to Watkin he had become quite incensed. His face had been mottled with suppressed anger.

‘Don’t talk so daft, woman!’ he’d said scornfully. ‘Our Megan getting involved with Mr Miles … there’s a load of old rubbish! Whoever told you that?’

He hadn’t even answered when she had asked who Mr Miles was. Instead, he’d put on his coat and slammed out of the flat, leaving her to fret over it on her own.

She’d pushed the incident to the back of her mind. There was no point in worrying when she didn’t know the full story.

Lately, she’d started treating herself to the occasional glass of sherry. She didn’t let the others into her little secret because she was pretty sure they wouldn’t approve. She didn’t see any harm in it, though. She found having a little drink now and again bucked her up no end and made even the cramped little flat seem more bearable.

When they’d first come back to Liverpool, Watkin had been full of promises about moving into a bigger place, but nothing had ever come of it.

The idea had kept her spirits up for quite a while. She had even started to save a few shillings out of her housekeeping money each week ready to buy things for their new home. When Watkin seemed to lose interest in moving, though, she’d decided to spend the money on herself. That was when she’d started treating herself to the occasional bottle of sherry.

Chapter Fourteen

MEGAN WAS SO
engrossed in her work that the days flew by. She scarcely noticed that summer was over and that the few drab trees she passed each morning on her way to work had begun to shed their grime-encrusted leaves. Grey skies and keener winds were the only outward signals that it would soon be winter.

In Beddgelert, as autumn advanced, it was as if an artist had run riot with his palette. The entire countryside donned a mantle of rich colour. Mountainsides flamed as bracken changed from green to gold and then to a burning red. The conifers cresting the skyline swayed like a rolling sea as the October winds sliced across them or gusts of ice-cold rain drenched their dark green branches. As the days grew shorter and colder, the sheep grazed their way down to the lower slopes, as if aware that soon they would need to seek shelter from snow and bitter winds.

Once, the changing seasons had been an integral part of Megan’s way of life. Now she had other things to fill her mind. After she’d gained her secretarial diploma with high marks Miss Pearce had given her the opportunity to use her newly acquired skills.

Delighted that her work was no longer confined
to
the routine checking of shipping documents, Megan looked forward eagerly to each new challenge. She worked conscientiously, determined not to make mistakes.

Her efforts were rewarded when Valerie Pearce praised her and confided that, as she would be leaving the following spring to get married, there was a very good chance of Megan being considered as her replacement.

Megan stared at her in astonishment. ‘You mean become Mr Walker’s secretary?’ she gasped.

‘That is what I hope!’ Valerie Pearce smiled. ‘Providing Mr Walker doesn’t think you are too young and inexperienced for such responsibility.’

‘Oh!’ Megan’s feeling of elation rapidly subsided.

‘I thought it might be a good idea for you to act as
my
secretary for a few months,’ Valerie Pearce added quickly as she saw disappointment darken Megan’s eyes.

‘To give me some idea of what is involved?’

‘That’s right! It will be good practice and prepare you for my job when the time comes.’

When Megan told her family that evening, her father’s delight equalled her own.

‘We’ll celebrate by having the best Christmas ever,’ he promised. ‘With all the overtime I’ve been doing lately we will certainly be able to afford it,’ he enthused.

‘Don’t count on me being around much of the time,’ Lynn told him. ‘I might be working.’

‘They’re not going to open the Copper Kettle on Christmas Day, surely?’ her father exclaimed angrily. ‘You spend far too much of your time there as it is.’

‘You’ve always said if a job’s worth doing then it’s worth doing well,’ she told him pertly, shrugging her shoulders.

‘Job!’ he repeated angrily. ‘I don’t consider that a job, not for one minute. I thought that by now you would be tired of the place and fed up with handing out bacon butties and mugs of tea and found yourself some proper work.’

‘I did think of going to work at the Stork in the New Year, looking after the cloakroom.’

‘Stop teasing, Lynn. They’ve already got someone doing that job,’ Megan pointed out.

‘Yeah, but she’s joining one of the bands as a singer so they’re looking for someone to take her place.’

‘Take no notice, Dad, she’s just kidding,’ Megan said quickly as she saw her father’s dark eyes blaze and knew his anger was rising.

Afterwards, when they were alone in the bedroom they shared, Megan tried to persuade Lynn that it really was time she looked for a better job.

‘Look, just because you’re angling for promotion there’s no need to come all holier than thou with me,’ Lynn retorted. ‘I like what I’m doing, thank you very much,’ she added, moving across to the mirror and starting to style her hair.

‘If you enjoy being a waitress then why not try for a job in one of the restaurants? You’d earn more money, for a start!’

As their eyes met in the mirror, Lynn pulled a face and gave an exaggerated shrug.

‘Promise me you’ll think about it, Lynn,’ Megan pleaded.

‘Perhaps,’ Lynn told her laconically. ‘Do you like my hair cut as short as this?’

‘No, I don’t! It makes you look like a boy,’ Megan told her critically.

‘It’s no worse than the way you do yours,’ Lynn argued. ‘You’re still wearing it tucked back behind your ears like you did when you were a kid at school,’ she added deprecatingly.

‘I like it this way,’ Megan told her firmly. ‘At least it’s tidy! Yours looks like a bird’s nest most of the time, especially when you go out in the wind.’