Paint on the Smiles (22 page)

‘All the effort is going into the war,’ Van said, pointing to a house from which the thatch was tumbling in green, rotting disarray. ‘The women are all at work and their spare time is spent growing food and helping with voluntary services. It’ll be years before this is all returned to how it was. When the men come home there will be so few of them.’

‘If these people hadn’t helped, people like your mother and thousands like her, we wouldn’t be so close to victory. It had to be an all-out effort and that’s what we had.’

They sat on a stile and watched as dusk gradually filled in the distant hills. The sea faded into a continuation of the night sky. Trees shushed softly in the offshore breeze that the cooling earth produced and was a lullaby with the birds making soft soothing twittering in the hedges. Van realized that even though their thoughts were melancholy, she had never been so happy.

It was getting dark, although the night was still warm, as they made their way back over the fields and reached the edge of the town. In a dell, where the air was cool, they stopped and made love slowly, taking more time than before to please each other and coming together in perfect culmination of their love.

It seemed so right, the love that had never before been a part of their relationship. No guilt or uneasiness came to spoil it for Van. Passion grew again and it was some time before they moved. They strolled back home, hand in hand, speaking to everyone they met, wishing strangers a peaceful night and having strangers bestow good wishes upon them too.

‘I have to go and see Mam, explain about tomorrow,’ Van said, when they reached the shop porch.

‘I won’t come in,’ he said. ‘I’ll go home but don’t be long, will you?’

‘I’ll be there before you know it,’ Van said as she surrendered to a final kiss. She watched him walk away, tall, confident and very, very dear. Then
she took out her key and pushed the door, the cheerful bell warning Cecily and the others of her arrival.

‘Hello, lovey.’ Cecily smiled. ‘Where have you been, out with Edwin, is it?’

‘Yes. He only has two days’ leave. I won’t be in the shop tomorrow morning. I’ll make a few notes for the reps that are due.’

‘Of course. I’ll cope, don’t worry. It’s a busy day, mind, most people want their rations on Thursday or Friday, but we’ll manage. Young Jennifer is a good girl and she works hard. Go you, and enjoy yourself.’

Van was aware of the excitement in her mother’s eyes. She knew her mother hoped it was Edwin she would marry and not Paul Gregory.

‘Here you are, Van.’ Ada handed her a cup of tea, quickly made with the ever-simmering kettle. ‘Something to eat, love?’

‘No, I’ll go straight back.’ She went to kiss them all, including Phil, who watched her with a disapproving look on his thin face. She went through the shop, rattled the door to make the old bell jingle but didn’t go out. She slipped back to listen to the conversation.

‘Well, there’s a surprise for you!’ she heard her mother say with obvious pleasure. ‘It seems I mustn’t give up hope of her coming to her senses just yet. If she and Edwin go out for the day and Van comes back looking like that, Paul might not be my son-in-law after all!’

‘Let’s hope not,’ Ada said. ‘Edwin’s far more suitable. No chance he’s a fortune hunter either, mind.’

‘She’s promised to Paul!’ Phil objected loudly. ‘She’s accepted him and she’s wearing his ring! You don’t want her to have the reputation of a tart, do you? Carrying on with a man and engaged to another, and him a serving soldier. Disgusting, that’s what it is, disgusting!’

‘If it means that Van doesn’t marry that Paul Gregory, then it can only be for the best,’ Cecily retorted. ‘I’d be so happy if she became Mrs Edwin Richards. He’s the right one for her. Sure of it I am.’

Van tiptoed across the wooden floor and slid carefully round the door, muffling the bell with her hand to prevent it giving away her late departure. She was laughing as she ran down the street. Tormenting her mother was so easy and the best was still to come.

At the Richards’ house they ate a light supper, then she went to bed, insisting that Edwin would want to talk to his parents as his visit was so brief. In the bathroom she washed her body, examining it, expecting it to be different from the morning. Was she different? She certainly felt different. But her resolve to make her mother pay for her ruined childhood,
that hadn’t changed. Edwin’s unexpected revelation of his love hadn’t altered her that much.

She slipped into bed with the delicious feeling that he might defy chance and come to her room while his parents slept, but he did not. She woke longing to feel again his loving hands and warm lips, and enjoy his strong brown body against her own.

They ate breakfast together, the four of them, and she was quiet as his parents brought him up to date on local news. They were still talking as she went up to dress. She chose a summer dress of striped blue cotton, its simple lines showing to advantage her slender figure. The colour seemed to match the sky and the blue of her eyes, which sparkled with secret joy. She chose a straw hat with ribbons hanging down to join her long fair hair. Bathed and scented, she went downstairs. Uncle Bertie and Auntie Beryl were going out for an hour and she waited until they were gone, then, while Edwin was dressing, she left the house.

Turning right, she passed the road where Owen’s shop was opening its door and through the lane to the main road. She walked past bombed-out houses where children played dangerous games among unsafe walls and broken furniture, past shops with boards instead of windows, where homemade notices declared ‘Business As Usual’ in bold letters alongside the Welsh dragon and Union Jack flags waving defiance to the enemy.

A fire engine was emptying water from a basement where a water main had burst. The old Merryweather engine had been retired in favour of the new Dennis in 1940 but had come back into service as a reserve.

Cats and dogs prowled everywhere, many homeless and with no one to claim them they wandered in a constant search for food. She saw a rat scuttle across a piece of wasteground and shuddered. The bright sun shone on a perfectly symmetrical spider’s web which joined the two sides of a broken window, as if in an attempt to render temporary repairs. Everything was a fascination; seen for the very first time. It was so long since she had wandered without a thought for anything other than the moment.

There were sweet coupons in her handbag and she went into a shop to buy some chocolate. The entrance was through a zig-zag passageway, made to prevent light escaping during the hours of darkness. It was a dark cave-like entrance to the cheerful shop within.

Handing her coupons and pennies to the assistant, she bought a two-ounce bar, her ration for the week, and dropped it into her handbag. The
woman recognized her and said, ‘Miss Owen, isn’t it? From Waldo Watkins’ store? Got a day off, have you? There’s lovely.’

‘Not really,’ Van confided with a chuckle. ‘I’m mitching!’

‘Best for you too.’ The woman laughed. ‘Does us good to cheat now and then. I wish I could cheat and come with you, indeed I do. Here you are,’ she added and picked up a small penny bar. ‘Take this, a treat for me.’

Van smiled widely and thanked her. ‘I knew this was going to be a lovely day.’

She went out again through the dark, zig-zag passage, out into the sun and, still smiling, walked on through the back lanes to the old part of the town. Breaking the penny bar into four pieces and sucking them, she relished the rare pleasure of the sweet smoothness. She usually gave her sweet ration to Willie for his children and tried – in vain – to persuade Owen to do the same.

Following the route she and Edwin had taken the previous day, she stopped where they had stopped, paused to admire the views they had admired and relived the hours they had walked with her pale hand in Edwin’s suntanned one. Sitting on the same stile, she looked out over the distant sea, so different in colour from the previous evening but giving her the same air of wonder and peace.

She ate her bar of chocolate in the dell where they had made love, lying looking up at the sky, dreaming of how it had been. She didn’t wallow in regrets or wish today had been different. Today was for dreaming and remembering. At three o’clock, the time Edwin was catching his train, she stood, combed her hair, adjusted her hat and walked slowly back to the town.

She didn’t go straight to Edwin’s home where she had lived since Waldo’s death, but to Owen’s shop. It was only five but the door was closed. She opened it with her key.

‘Van, where have you been?’ Cecily demanded. ‘Edwin has spent his precious leave searching the town for you. I had to leave the office and try to help. How could you be so thoughtless?’

‘I went for a walk. You don’t begrudge me a day off, do you? It’s a long time since I had some time to myself.’

‘But what about Edwin?’ Cecily asked, but Van turned and, ribbons swinging, was walking away, calmly preparing her excuses for Beryl and Bertie.

Phil spent more and more time just sitting in the room behind the shop. He seemed to have lost interest in going out with the horse and cart to find food to sell. He would read the morning paper from cover to cover, then just sit, staring into the fire, promising to do the few things Ada asked of him, but eventually succeeding in persuading her that either they didn’t want doing or that Willie was a better person to ask.

On the morning following Van’s day out, he waited until the shop had a few customers, mainly calling for a chat rather than to buy. With a gossipy customer in full swing, and Ada pinned down for a while, he opened the drawer in which paper and envelopes were kept. He addressed the envelope to Paul and began a letter.

Phil wasn’t the only one writing to a member of His Majesty’s forces that day. At the bench which Willie used as a temporary office in a corner of the workshop, he was writing to Danny. He had taken the day off from Owen’s where there was little to do, to spend time at the workshop where there was plenty.

Behind him were the sounds of wood being worked on an electric lathe, and chisels shaping a length of replacement skirting board. He had employed twin sixteen-year-old boys, who in the past year had become competent at furniture making as well as repairs and restoring. Although, with wood on a rigid and limited quota, it was difficult to keep them both occupied until they began to buy wood from bomb-damaged houses and advertised it as such.

Leonard and Graham Williams paused in their work and Willie went to see how Leonard was getting on with the child’s desk and stool he was finishing, following his own design. The work was good and he praised them both.

‘How do you feel about joining me in a new venture?’ he asked them before finishing the letter to Danny. ‘I’m only getting my thoughts down on paper as yet, but I’d welcome your views.’

‘Glad to listen to what you have to say, boss,’ Leonard said and his brother nodded. Of the two, Leonard was usually the first to speak, although Graham didn’t automatically agree with his twin.

‘I can’t do the work I enjoyed before the war,’ Willie said, waving the stump of his arm and giving a wry smile. ‘A carpenter needs two good
hands and that’s for sure. But I can write, and telephone, and take down orders and do the invoicing and all that sort of thing.’

‘Ideas are your department too,’ Leonard said, and once again Graham nodded agreement.

‘Well, I’ve been thinking that it isn’t all that convenient now, getting supplies. Some places sell sand and cement and the heavy materials and some sell wood. Others sell plumbing needs and I want to have a yard so large we can stock everything a builder needs.’

‘What about the workshop?’ Leonard asked anxiously.

‘That will continue as before and you two will turn out some really first-class stuff. I want the yard as well.’

‘Seems worth considering,’ Leonard said. ‘Plenty of building to be done when this war is finally over.’

His brother shook his head. ‘Only as long as you can get good honest men to work for you, and the cash to start it.’ His voice trailed off, indicating his doubts.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to employ builders?’ Leonard suggested. ‘Extend the business you’ve been doing and what you’ve a good name for? Damn it all, Graham’s right – you’ve only to look around this area to see all the work that’ll be needed once Hitler’s been sorted.’

‘And that won’t be long by the sound of things,’ Graham added. ‘Giving it to ’em proper our boys are, according to the papers.’

Willie looked thoughtful. ‘That’s a good point – it’s what we know, after all. We might make more money building and repairing, but will it be easy to find experienced men? So many have lost their lives and those who do come back might not want to go back to what they did before. And,’ he added, rubbing his damaged arm, ‘there’ll be plenty who can’t!’

‘There’ll be plenty looking for work, man. Plenty. They’ll want to start earning as fast as they can. And we can make a start now, get in quick and take the best jobs so we’ll be a going concern before the men get home. Have something to offer them then, won’t we?’

Willie looked across the road at the shell of the Spencers’ once-neat cottage. The walls were damaged and there was no roof. Windows, and even the door, had been taken by those who needed replacements, and the flowers had mostly gone from the garden that had been Mrs Spencer’s joy, to fill other plots.

‘Perhaps we could start with the Spencers’ place,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll ask Phil if he wants to sell the place and we could rebuild it and sell it. You two could manage most of the carpentry with my guidance and we’re
sure to find a bricklayer and electricians and the rest. Yes, I’ll put that idea in my letter to Danny and tomorrow I’ll talk to Phil and Ada.’ He looked at the boys, almost seventeen and already strong and very capable. ‘I think we could do well, you two, me and Danny Preston. What d’you think?’