Swansea Girls (22 page)

‘There’s more to life than kowtowing to influential people and empty social fripperies, Esme.’

Esme and Joe stared at John in amazement. It was the first time he had dared interrupt one of their arguments.

‘Lily’s a decent girl and if Joe chooses to go out with her, or even marry her, I for one would be delighted.’

‘Don’t you want Joseph to get on in life?’

‘I want him to be happy.’

‘And you think he’ll be happy married to a girl with hardly any education? No social graces, no ambitions ...’

‘Are you describing Lily or me, Esme?’ John raised his eyes and looked at her. When she remained silent he continued, daring to say exactly what he thought to her for the first time in years. ‘If I’ve made you unhappy, or thwarted your social ambitions, Esme, I’m sorry. I really am. But then you haven’t exactly made me happy either, so please feel free to leave any time you want.’

She stared at him incredulously. ‘After all these years ... I’ve no money, no training ...’

‘You can keep your allowance. The offer is on the table, it’s up to you whether you accept it or not.’ He walked into the hall, scarcely believing what he’d said. His hands were trembling, his heart thundering, but he felt a strange sense of elation. He’d done it. He’d actually taken the first step to free himself from Esme and a marriage in name only that had placed a stranglehold on his life for the last eighteen years.

Hands on the back of his chair, eyes focused on the floor, Joe heard his father take his coat from the stand and open the front door. He sensed his mother watching him. Embarrassed for her and his father, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Turning to the door, he followed his father out of the house.

John had only just closed the door on the driver’s side of his car when he saw Joe leaving the house. Winding down the window, he hailed him. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

‘I’m only going to the studio and I’m already late.’

‘You’ll be two minutes quicker in the car.’

Capitulating, Joe opened the passenger door.

‘I’m sorry you had to see that, Joe.’

‘Dad ...’

‘Please let me finish and when I have, I don’t want to hear another word on the subject from you. I’m sorry your mother and I have problems, but they are nothing to do with you. I will love and support you and Helen for as long as you need support and afterwards I will always try to be there if either of you need my help.’

‘Dad ...’

‘I just wanted you to know that.’ John stopped the car outside the BBC building. ‘Now, you’d better go inside before you are late.’

Chapter Twelve

Helen waited until the front door opened and closed a third time before venturing out of her bedroom. Leaving the breakfast table for the daily to clear, she went down to the basement. Trying not to think about Jack, she dragged the rugs outside and beat them on the line until her arms ached. She dusted the furniture and swept the floorboards in the front room that had a window overlooking the garden. She carried down her record player and records, arranged them neatly on a side table and pasted photographs she’d cut from magazines on to the back of old rolls of wallpaper she had found in one of the wardrobes. Finally she cleaned the window, pinned her collages to the wall and carried the rugs back in.

The sofa and easy chairs that had been in the parlour during her childhood were covered with a slippery uncomfortable dark-green material she didn’t like, so she scavenged some old striped blankets from the top of the airing cupboard and draped them over the seats. They really didn’t look too bad once she’d set the old, squashy tapestry cushions on them.

Standing in the doorway, she surveyed her handiwork. The room looked clean, bright and inviting: a place she would enjoy sitting and listening to her records in. She hoped Jack would think so – if he ever saw it. Racing upstairs, she discovered the daily had left and no one else was at home. Toying with the eight and nine she had drawn on cards, she decided to take a chance and pinned the nine to the back of one of the curtains in her room. Then, just in case, she opened a tin of spam, cut a pile of sandwiches and wrapped them in greaseproof paper. Placing them in a carrier bag together with a couple of slices of fruit cake and a bottle of lemonade, glasses and plates, she carried them downstairs, hiding the bag behind the sofa.

She caught sight of herself in the hall mirror as she returned upstairs. Her mother was right, she did look a sight, but it was nothing a bath, fresh clothes and makeup couldn’t cure. And then – then what? Her heart raced. She wasn’t at all sure what a clandestine evening with Jack – if he came – would bring. Hopefully some excitement to dispel the boredom. And if he didn’t turn up?

She dispelled the thought from her mind. He hadn’t turned up last night because Brian was in the way. She had told him she couldn’t risk being seen with anyone. He was only thinking of her – that had to be it. He’d only been thinking of her.

‘Mrs Evans didn’t want me to go in to the café today because she thought I should rest my ankle but I couldn’t let Mr Petronelli down. I thought I could do the washing up just as well sitting down but it was hopeless at break time because I couldn’t walk quickly enough to cover for the waitresses. So when one of the other girls said her sister could start work in the cafe right away, Mr Petronelli agreed I could leave at the end of the day. That means I can start here first thing tomorrow morning if you want me to, Mr Griffiths.’ Katie stood uneasily in front of John Griffiths’ desk in the warehouse office. She felt shabby and grubby, and knew she smelled of the café kitchen, an unappetising mixture of fish, chips and cooking fat.

‘That’s good news, Katie. As I said, you have a lot to learn.’ John Griffiths peered at her over the rim of the reading glasses he wore when he worked on the account books. ‘If you have time I could show you around now and introduce you to everyone. Then it might not seem so strange when you come in tomorrow morning.’

‘I’d like that, Mr Griffiths.’

John rose from his chair and slipped his jacket on over his shirtsleeves and braces. ‘This, as you’ve probably gathered, is my office. And the lady who showed you in’ – he opened the door that connected to the outer office – ‘is Rosie Thomas, my soon to be married secretary. Rosie, this is the young lady I told you about, Katie Clay.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’ Rosie smiled and looked into Katie’s eyes as she shook her hand, and Katie felt as though Rosie was genuinely glad to see her.

‘The offices, as you see, haven’t been decorated in years; there never seems to be a good time to refurbish them. They’re not very grand but they are functional and hold everything we need to hand.’

Katie looked around at the battered steel filing cabinets and shelves filled to overflowing with ledgers and boxes of papers. Neither office was anywhere near as luxurious as Thomas and Butler’s but she felt more at ease in them.

‘This is where I meet our suppliers’ representatives.’ John indicated an alcove off the main office that held a comfortable three-piece suite and a table half hidden under piles of brochures. No neat fan of magazines that would need constant rearranging, Katie noted gratefully. ‘This corridor leads to the Ladies and Gents toilets, the back staircase down to the loading bay and yard.’ John pointed out the various doors as they walked down the passage that opened out of Rosie’s office. ‘And this is the main warehouse.’ Holding the door for her, he stepped forward. Katie followed and found herself on a glass-walled staircase that overlooked the ground floor. ‘Three floors.’ There was unmistakable pride in John’s voice. ‘Ladies’, gents’ and children’s fashions, handbags, shoes, luggage and haberdashery on the ground floor. Furniture on the first and household linens, tableware, china, silverware, baby goods and jewellery on the second.’

‘I had no idea your warehouse was so big, Mr Griffiths.’

‘It’s deceptive when you look at the frontage.’

Katie followed him down the stairs and into the fashion department. She stared at rail after rail of dresses, costumes and blouses. ‘I’ve never seen so many clothes.’

‘The one thing I insist on is that all my staff, even the ones who work in the stockroom, are well-dressed and well-spoken. Our customers are important people and it’s vital that they are extended every courtesy when they patronise Griffiths’s Wholesale.’

Katie looked down at her shabby black skirt, threadbare and rusty from washing, and her old school blouse. ‘These are my café clothes, Mr Griffiths. I have a costume, a new one. Mrs Evans made it for my interview at Thomas and Butler’s.’

‘You’ll need more than one outfit, Katie. Everyone does, that is why I encourage my staff to open a five-shilling-a-week account. Once open, they can have a five-pound voucher to spend in the warehouse and, as all staff purchases carry a thirty-per-cent discount, five pounds can go a long way. Why don’t you look around now and I’ll send Rosie down to help you open one and choose some things. Rosie knows what sort of clothes are suitable for the office. She also has very good dress sense,’ he hinted tactfully.

‘I’m not sure, Mr Griffiths. Mam hates debt ...’

‘But this wouldn’t be debt, Katie. Think of it this way, you’ll be earning two pounds a week instead of two pounds five shillings. And two pounds is considered reasonable for what you’ll be doing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s more than I hoped for,’ she assured him hastily, lest he think her ungrateful.

‘So you’ll be earning two pounds, plus a few clothes. Shall I send Rosie down?’

‘Please, Mr Griffiths, thank you.’

‘And after you’ve finished shopping, I’ll drive you back to Carlton Terrace.’

‘There’s no need, Mr Griffiths, really.’

‘You can’t go far on that ankle. I know what it feels like to try and push yourself beyond your physical capabilities.’

‘Thank you, Mr Griffiths.’

As Katie watched him limp back towards the office she envied Helen her father more than ever. Not only because John Griffiths was kind and generous, but because he was easy to talk to and understood her problems without even having to ask her what they were.

Joe loved the sense of intimacy mixed with fantasy and expectation the cinema conjured every time darkness closed around him in an auditorium and lights began to flicker on the screen. His love affair with films had begun when his father had taken him to a matinee performance of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
to celebrate his third birthday. Losing himself in the colour, images, music and story, he had sat enthralled, not wanting to leave even after the final credits had rolled and the lights had come up.

But with Lily everything was different. As the lights dimmed he looked to the screen, only this time he couldn’t bring himself to concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time. Lily, not the story being played out in front of him, filled his senses. He was acutely aware of her sitting beside him. Her cool, clean scent, a mixture of Lily of the Valley, medicated shampoo and Camay soap, was more beguiling and alluring than all of Angela’s expensive perfumes. He found himself listening intently for the small sighs of her soft, shallow breaths. He stole sideways glances while she followed the film and, as darkness settled once again after the intermission at the start of the main film, revelled in the soft feel of her hand that he had dared to take into his.

He couldn’t recall ever feeling this way before, not even at the height of his passion for Angela, and it had never been enough for him simply to sit next to Angie. He had wanted more – and always more than she had been prepared to give. He’d humiliated himself by running after her last winter and doing everything she asked of him, yet even when she’d reduced him to the status of pathetic, besotted slave and the butt of their combined friends’ jokes, she had only been prepared to give him a few chaste kisses. And she’d made him beg for those. There had been a single memorable, abandoned occasion when they’d both drunk more of the wine her father had laid down for Robin’s twenty-first birthday than had been good for them, and she’d allowed him to grope at her breast through several layers of cardigan, cotton blouse and thick brassiere. But he’d been so drunk he’d assumed he’d dreamed the whole thing the following morning and would have continued to do so if she hadn’t reprimanded him for taking advantage of her.

He wondered if he felt the way he did towards Lily simply because Angela had let him know she was available. Did the poet in him prefer the ideal of unrequited love? He stole another glance at Lily, rapt, engrossed in the film and, as his feelings towards her intensified, an image of them making love flooded unbidden to his mind. He could almost feel the texture of her skin beneath his fingertips, the teasing, silken brush of her hair as it swept across his face, the sweet taste of her lips, moist, warm as they opened ...

As his body responded to the pictures he conjured, Lily turned her head and smiled. His face burned. Staring intently and blindly at the screen, he released her hand and tensed every muscle in an effort to control himself, terrified she would read his thoughts – and despise him for them.

When she looked back at the film, he slowly, gradually began to breathe again, all the while hating himself for thinking of Lily that way. Already he’d decided that he wanted more from her than sex. And if he were fortunate enough to engender the same overwhelming feelings in her he would happily forgo all the poetic misery of unrequited love in favour of fulfilment.

Calmer, he reached for her hand again and was reassured by the answering pressure of her fingers on his.

‘You all right, Joe?’ she whispered close to his ear.

‘Fine.’ Careful to keep his gaze fixed on Audrey Hepburn, he lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips. He knew she was watching him but he preferred not to look at her. Occasionally imagination coupled with anticipation could heighten even perfect pleasure.

Helen turned the page in her book and read the top line. Recognising she hadn’t understood a single word, she began again, then realised she didn’t have a clue who the characters were or what they were doing. Exasperated, she threw the book across her bedroom. It fell against the wardrobe, splitting the spine, before landing in a welter of loose pages on the floor.

Damn her mother and damn her father for effectively locking her in the house when they were both out enjoying themselves. It was half past eight. She had switched the nine to an eight after her mother had left the house but there had been no sign of Jack. She had watched carefully for him from her window, not daring to stand out in the garden lest Brian, Martin or Constable Williams saw her and realised who she was waiting for.

Leaving her bed, she sat on her windowsill and looked out. She could go downstairs, climb the garden wall and – and what? Half the people in the street would be sure to inform her mother if they saw her and even if she took the risk where could she go and what could she do?

Lily was at the pictures with Joe, all lovey-dovey, and that would be the end of their friendship because everyone knew that once a girl started going out with a boy all she wanted to do was coo at that boy even on Saturday dance nights. Besides, her mother had informed her at teatime that last night’s visit from Katie and Lily must have been a fluke, down to her father’s offer of a job to Katie, because it was common knowledge in the street that Mrs Hunt and Mrs Evans had forbidden Judy and Lily to see, or be seen with, her. And as Katie was staying with Mrs Evans, presumably that meant she had lost even the most malleable of her friends.

Twilight was gathering thick and fast, reminding her that winter was on its way. It felt as though even the seasons were conspiring to depress her. Tempted to scream from boredom, she left the windowsill and paced her bedroom floor. Twelve steps one way, thirteen the other. Unlucky thirteen, certainly for her. She needed to get out of the house, to breathe fresh air. No one could blame her for that. Not even Brian. And the garden was still hers whether Jack wanted her to be his girl or not.

Tearing down the two flights of stairs, she opened the basement door and ran to the door set in the wall at the far end. There was a tree, a gnarled old apple that hadn’t borne any fruit in years. It had seemed huge when she and Joe had been children. They had spent hours climbing it, generally when her mother hadn’t been around to complain about the state they were getting their clothes into. She stretched up and hooked her hands round a branch.

‘If you’re just standing there doing nothing, I don’t suppose you’d give me a hand.’

She whirled around to see Jack’s head above the five-foot wall that separated the gardens. ‘You scared the living daylights out of me.’