Paint on the Smiles (20 page)

At the shop, the Owen family waited with increasing anxiety. Cecily stood beside Peter, glad of his strength. He began to plan their search ready for the moment when they decided they couldn’t wait any longer. Phil walked up and down in the confined space of the room behind the shop, groaning to himself. He was carrying Willie’s dog, comforting the animal as though it shared the worry of his missing wife.

‘She’ll be all right – she’s met someone and staying for a chat.’ Cecily repeated the words more to convince herself than the others.

‘Perhaps there’s been an air raid and we didn’t hear the siren?’ Dorothy suggested. ‘She’ll be sheltering at my house. There’s the Anderson shelter.’

‘Or under the stairs,’ Owen added.

Cecily and Peter shared a brief look of amusement. That was the pantry, a magnet to Owen, raid or not. She felt a pang of remorse for thinking spiteful thoughts at such a time.

Rhonwen was kneeling on the floor with Marged, playing snakes and ladders with Victor and Johnny’s new stepdaughters. Cecily saw Gareth watching them affectionately. ‘We’re very happy, Cecily,’ he said. ‘I’m so lucky.’

‘That’s easy to see.’ Peter smiled. He sensed Gareth’s need to talk and he moved so Cecily stood closer to him.

‘I’m so glad, Gareth, love.’ Cecily laughed softly. ‘I don’t think you’d have been so content with me. Just as well your mother stopped you marrying me, wasn’t it?’

‘Mam didn’t stop—’ He grinned and Cecily thought how boyish he still looked, with his straight hair and rather large ears and the shy expression in his sparkling light brown eyes. ‘All right,’ he admitted. ‘I did listen to Mam.’ He looked nervously at Peter before telling her, ‘I still love you, you know. Not in the way I love Rhonwen, but there’s still a strong affection. There’s fun we used to have at the dances, eh? That’s why I can ask you something.’

‘Anything,’ Cecily said at once.

‘I’m going back tomorrow and I think we’re in for some … big trouble … if you know what I mean. If … if I don’t get back, will you see that Rhonwen and Marged are all right?’ He hushed the automatic protests about to come from Cecily and Peter. ‘There’s the shop, and if you keep an eye on it, just to see that the manager is doing his job properly, they’ll
be all right financially. Rhonwen’s an innocent and someone could easily diddle her out of everything. Just keep an eye, if I’m not here to look after her, will you?’

Cecily kissed him affectionately and said, ‘I promise.’

Gareth moved away from Cecily and winked at Peter. ‘You can budge up again now.’ Peter laughed and moved to Cecily’s side. He placed an arm on her shoulder and she held his hand.

‘Time we started looking for Ada,’ Phil said in a wavering voice. He pointed to the clock which showed them she had been out for more than an hour and a half. He went out into the street, running, calling her name. Before anyone else had reached the shop door, he was out of sight.

‘Best we wait here for him to bring her back. She’s sure to be at Dorothy’s. Then,’ Gareth added slowly, ‘if she isn’t there, we’ll do what Peter suggests and go in different directions until we find her.’

‘Of course she’s at my house,’ Dorothy said confidently. She gave Cecily a hug. ‘Don’t worry, Cecily, your Ada will be all right.’

Cecily thought those were the first kind, sympathetic words from Dorothy for years and shivered at the thought they might be an augury of all the kind, sympathetic words to come.

They stood in the porch watching for Phil’s return. All the wedding party were there, none wanting to go until they had news of Ada. Peter stood beside Cecily, his large hand holding hers. When Phil reappeared, his voice reached them before he came in sight. ‘She’s not there! She’s not there!’

Fears that she had been knocked over or attacked by someone hoping there was money in the bag she carried swelled and reassurances were no longer heard. Willie rang the hospital but they hadn’t heard of an accident nor had they admitted anyone resembling Willie’s description of Ada.

From then on, through the darkness, they went to search the streets. Willie left Annette and Sharon to look after the children. Peter and Cecily were instructed to wait at the shop for when Ada came back. ‘And that,’ Cecily tearfully told Peter, ‘is the hardest of all.’

Sharon wanted to help with the search. ‘She’s my family now,’ she argued. ‘The girls are sleeping and Annette is here.’ But Johnny looked at her ridiculously unsuitable shoes with their satin-covered, high heels and decided his wife would be a liability on the streets.

‘Make some tea,’ he suggested. ‘That’ll be really helpful.’

Those looking for Ada came and went continuously, Phil running, his eyes wide with fear at each failure to find his wife. Several saw the fallen
ruin of the building under which Ada had been buried, and saw the men clearing the rubble without a thought of Ada being involved. Barriers were in place keeping people away from the workmen and they accepted that without question. Still they wondered whether there had been an air raid without any of them hearing the siren.

‘That or an unexploded bomb,’ Willie decided.

At three in the morning Johnny regretfully had to leave. ‘I have to be back in camp soon – it’s the six o’clock train or I’m in trouble.’

Cecily hugged him and Sharon. ‘Sorry your day has been spoilt with this worry. We wanted it to be perfect for you both.’

The bridal couple thanked her for all she had done and Sharon promised to ring later to be told that Ada was safe. ‘As I’m sure she will be,’ Johnny added.

The little family walked up the hill to the main road and off to the rooms Johnny had found for them. Sharon, who still wore the high-heeled shoes, carried Leonora, Johnny carried Debora, and Victoria, who was only six, was holding her mother’s skirt and walking behind. The children were still in their bridesmaid dresses but Sharon had changed into a red satin dress in her bedroom, which was now cluttered cheerfully with oddments of the wedding ceremony and its aftermath.

Gareth also had to return to his unit but Rhonwen offered to stay.

‘No.’ Cecily smiled stiffly, her face unwilling to give up the frown of dread that had begun when Phil had returned from the first fruitless search. ‘Go on, you, and see Gareth off properly. Good luck, Gareth, love. And Rhonwen, come and see us often while he’s away. And come if you’ve any problems we can help with. Me, Ada, Peter and Phil, and Willie as well, we’re always here, remember.’

Gareth gestured his thanks with a nod and, with his arms around his wife and stepdaughter, went home. Cecily shivered as they turned for one last wave. ‘It’s almost as if he’s saying goodbye,’ she whispered to Peter.

He put a reassuring arm around her. ‘He’ll be back, and you won’t feel so sad when Ada is found.’

Ada became aware of a draught of air. Dust-carrying air that cooled her face, chilled it and eventually roused her to realization of where she was. The dust tickled her nose and she tried to move her head to ease it and found she could not. She shouted with shock as her hair was pulled against the restriction. Her voice wasn’t loud but had enough force to send eddies of brick dust floating up over her face.

Light began to shine through the gap via which the cool air came, and she could see motes of brick dust sparkling in the early sunshine. She ached terribly, especially her legs, but when she tried to move them to ease her discomfort, they were held by something painful, like broken brick, she surmised, then she went back to sleep again. She woke after only a few minutes and thought of the people who had helped her the first time and wondered vaguely if they were all right or whether they too had been covered in rubble as she had. She wriggled a little and debris shifted noisily. She had to get back to Phil. He’d be so worried.

There were no sounds coming through the gap in broken timber and rubble. Just her thoughts, which seemed to her to have been spoken aloud, the silence was so intense. She thought she had better call, but dust filled her mouth when she tried and it was such an effort. Someone would come: Phil would be searching for her, and Cecily. They wouldn’t be long. She was unaware of the men carefully moving aside the bricks, not realizing she was suffering from deafness – the reason for the eerie silence. She wondered if there was anything in telepathy. If she thought about him deeply, calling to him where she lay, would Phil hear her? She concentrated on him, visualizing his face, thinking his name over and over, but sleep caught her and she drifted into a dream of a warm place, a soft, silky bed and a soothing drink gliding down her throat, easing away the dust.

The next time she woke it was with a sense of movement; something was happening nearby. Then her ears cleared and she heard brick clinking on brick and murmuring voices and she thought it was Phil. Perhaps he had heard her, and was there, on top of her premature tomb, digging down to find her. She had to call to him, tell him she was all right – ‘Phil’ – but the intake of breath made her cough instead. The regular sound of bricks being moved ceased. The low voices sounded more urgent and someone said, ‘Anyone there?’

She coughed to clear her throat and managed to say, one word at a time between coughing, ‘Yes – Ada – Spencer. Is –that – you – Phil?’

The words had been heard, instructions were shouted, eager hands began to move the rubble with greater urgency and the voice continued to talk to her, soothing, encouraging, reassuring. She cried when the gap widened, bringing light and air, and was closed again but it was quickly reopened, widened and a face finally peered down at her; a dirty face, with a warden’s helmet above it.

‘I’m Ada Spencer, of Owen’s shop. Will you tell Phil and Cecily I’m all right?’

Ada was taken to the hospital and a warden called at the shop to tell them Ada was safe.

Phil ran up the hill as soon as the words were spoken, not stopping to wait for any further news, but finding time to call to Cecily, ‘This is your fault, you bitch! Sending her out at that time of night like she was your servant! If she’s harmed I’ll kill you, bitch!’

Cecily gasped at the shock of it and Peter held her, supporting and half carrying her to a chair beside the fire. ‘It’s the relief. He isn’t a stable man and he had to hit out at someone once he knew she was safe. He’d been preparing himself to be told she was dead, you see. Then all the tension had to come out. Forget what he said, as he certainly will once he sees Ada and finds her unharmed. The warden told us she had no more than cuts and a few bruises. A miracle, he said. And remember too that he was here and could have easily gone instead, or gone with her, couldn’t he?’

Cecily listened to Peter’s words, too stunned to cry. ‘I feel so alone,’ she said later when everyone had gone and the shop was open for business. ‘Van marrying that Paul Gregory, Ada wrapped up in Phil and not caring a jot for me, ignoring the way he insults me. I have no one, Peter.’

‘I care for you, Cecily, you must know that.’ He held her and said, ‘I know this is probably the worst possible moment, but will you marry me? I’ve loved you ever since you first came to the beach and persuaded me to buy from Owen’s. I’ve hesitated all this time to ask you, thinking I’m too old, or that you love Danny, but now, with tragedy all around us, don’t you think we should take what happiness we can, while we can? It’s an uncertain world and tomorrow might be too late.’

Cecily clung to him and after a moment, said, ‘If I marry you, it would be for all the wrong reasons. To have someone of my own, someone to put me first, a man who belongs to me and shares my joys and sorrows.’

‘I’ll accept that.’ For the first time in the fourteen years since they had first met, he kissed her with unrestrained love, his lips taking hers in a slow, all-enveloping possession. She responded with warmth and a passion that surprised her and with tears falling, as she saw an end to the empty years.

They were married during the first week of May and for their honeymoon went to see Betty Grable and Robert Young in
Sweet Rosie O’Grady
at the pictures. Cecily wore a silvery lace dress with a swathed bodice and a full skirt. It was sleeveless and with it she wore a white,
flimsy stole. Rhonwen had made her a beautiful hat of the same material as the dress and trimmed it with feathers filched from a hat of her own. The sleeveless style caused a few frowns of disapproval but Cecily laughed them away.

‘It’s all I have that’s remotely suitable,’ she said, ‘and I needed to take out the sleeves for Rhonwen to make the hat!’

Peter wore a grey suit with double-breasted waistcoat, a watch and chain across it. Chamois gloves hid his grease-stained fingers and a grey hat added distinction to his tall and generous figure. All his clothes were hired.

Ada was there, fully recovered from her ordeal when the building collapsed. She stood beside her sister in a cream dress, also defiantly sleeveless, with a generously pleated skirt and a top with pleats falling from shoulder to waist. A straw hat borrowed from Rhonwen was swathed in cream chiffon and had a large, artificial rose at the front.

Phil refused to come and Van too pleaded an urgent meeting that prevented her being at the register office. If Cecily was hurt by the absence of her daughter and brother-in-law, and her still-silent mother, she didn’t show it by the slightest frown. For Peter’s sake she was radiant and he was ridiculously proud. The glow from them promised happiness that nothing could tarnish: not a sulky daughter, or an indifferent mother or a brother-in-law filled with hate. Peter came to live at the shop, presenting his ration book to Cecily with a bow. ‘My love, my life and my ration book. What more can I offer?’

There was something else. Cecily and Ada were delighted when he suggested renting his house over beyond the beach to Johnny and his new family. Sharon and the girls could move in straightaway and have a home ready for Johnny to come home to. Cecily was filled with pleasurable excitement when they went down the next day to talk to Sharon about it.

The horse and cart came into use once again, this time with the owner driving it as Phil typically refused to help. Sharon and her girls, together with their possessions, left the rooms they had rented, and moved into Peter’s house. ‘I doubt it will ever be tidy again,’ Cecily warned as they watched Sharon ineffectively trying to put clothes into already overfull drawers and cupboards.