Swansea Girls (23 page)

‘Sorry, but I’m desperate. I’m trying to repair my bike and I need another pair of hands. Martin’s in night school, Brian’s working and when I looked in upstairs, Mrs Evans and Katie were surrounded by bits of paper and cloth, and I didn’t like to disturb them.’

‘I put a number in my window.’

‘I know, eight. I only saw it ten minutes ago. I stayed back at the yard to try to fix my bike. When I couldn’t, I had to wheel it home.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s the truth, Helen. You going to help me or not?’

‘Give me a hand and I’ll climb over the wall.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to walk round?’

‘It would but our garden door is locked and I haven’t the key.’

‘Give me a minute.’ Humping a crate from the garage, Jack stacked it against the wall, stood on it and leaned over, extending his hand to Helen. Taking it, she nimbly walked up the wall and balanced precariously on the row of jagged stones that topped it.

‘Don’t you dare jump, you’ll break your neck.’

She landed beside him before he could say another word. ‘It wasn’t that far down,’ she gasped, winded by the fall. Her ankles and knees hurt but she would have died rather than admit it.

‘You’re an idiot.’

‘Only sometimes.’ Fighting the pain in her ankles, she rose to her feet. ‘Right, what do you want me to do?’

He opened the back door of Roy Williams’ garage. Light flooded out into the garden, sending shafts into the still air, highlighting mosquitoes. ‘Hold a nut in a monkey wrench while I try to loosen it. At the moment all it’s doing is going round and round.’

‘What’s a monkey wrench?’

‘This.’ He slammed the tool into her hand. ‘Come over here.’

Resenting his tone, she hesitated before doing as he asked. Ten cramped, irritating minutes later she was beginning to long for the boredom and solitude of her room.

‘Don’t loosen your grip, not now. It’s finally shifting!’ he exclaimed crossly.

‘I’m not.’

‘You bloody well are ...’

‘I didn’t come here to be sworn at.’ Dropping the wrench, she leapt to her feet and went to the door.

‘Bloody girls, you’re all the same. No sticking power.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean, Jack Clay?’

‘What I said. We’re almost there and you have to walk out in a huff.’

She glared at him and he glared back. It reminded her of one of the stupid contests they used to have in school when the person who looked away or blinked first lost the game.

‘You were the one who swore. And you didn’t even apologise.’

‘Why should I when you’re going anyway.’

‘Say sorry and I might not.’

‘And you still might.’

‘Try me and see.’

He turned back to his bike. ‘I thought you agreed to be my girl,’ he muttered.

‘That was before you stood me up last night.’

‘I was here. You weren’t.’

‘I saw Brian – I thought he was you.’

‘You spoke to him?’

She nodded.

‘That’s all I need. If he says anything to Martin ...’

‘So now you’re ashamed to tell your brother about me.’

‘You’re the one who doesn’t want anyone to know about us. And if you must know, I promised Martin I wouldn’t have anything more to do with you after last Saturday. You did get me into a pile of trouble. Martin and I were in the police station for most of the night.’

‘That’s right, rub it in just like my mother. Helen Griffiths – nothing but trouble ...’

‘Just like Jack Clay.’ He smiled up at her.

Cautiously returning his smile, she retrieved the wrench and clipped it back on to the nut.

‘Thanks.’ He set to work again.

‘So how do you like living next door?’ she asked.

‘Well enough.’

‘I heard your mam’s in hospital.’

‘The whole bloody street knows, and who put her there.’

‘I hope she’ll be better soon.’

‘So do I. There, that’s it.’ Freeing the bolt, he unscrewed it. ‘That needs some work doing to it before I put it back on.’ He wiped his hands on an oily rag.

‘Great tennis racket.’ She lifted it down from a shelf.

‘Prehistoric more like, but Constable Williams wouldn’t let us throw it out when we sorted the basement.’

‘I suppose you’ll be going out on Saturday night.’

‘Not to the Pier. My skiffle group’s playing in St James’s.’

‘I wish I could go.’

‘But you won’t be able to.’

‘Not this time but my mother can’t keep me locked up for ever.’

‘When she lets you out again she won’t want you going out with a Clay.’

‘I thought we sorted that out on Sunday. She can’t stop me from going around with whoever I like.’

‘Come off it, Helen. Don’t tell me you haven’t had second thoughts since then.’

‘I haven’t. That’s why I was so mad when you didn’t turn up last night or tonight.’

‘I’m here now.’

‘So you are.’ She looked at him, wondering if he was going to kiss her again.

‘I’ve been thinking ...’

‘Here it comes.’

‘Be honest, Helen. The only reason you wanted to go outside with me on Saturday night was because you were too embarrassed to carry on sitting in the Pier in that dress.’

‘I’m sorry I wore the dress but I’m not sorry I agreed to meet you – apart from what happened afterwards, which wasn’t your fault.’

‘Really?’

‘If you think any different you’re an idiot. You’re a good-looking boy, Jack Clay.’

‘You’re not so bad yourself.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘Why not come round?’

‘Now?’

‘No, next week,’ she snapped in exasperation. ‘I’ve spent all day cleaning our basement so we’d have somewhere to sit. I put my records and record player in there and made sandwiches.’

‘So, a Griffiths really is asking a Clay out?’

‘More like in. What do you say?’

Joe helped Lily on with her coat, then stood back to allow those who’d left their seats just before the closing credits to stampede ahead of them. Taking Lily’s hand, he joined the tail end of the queue moving up the aisles and into the foyer. ‘Fish and chips?’ he asked, entwining his fingers with hers.

‘I’m not hungry after that coffee and cake in the Kardomah.’

‘Then you’re more easily satisfied than most girls.’

‘So you have been out with a lot of girls.’

‘A few.’ He tried not to sound condescending. ‘But then I’m older than you.’

‘You make it sound more like thirty years than two and half.’

‘Sorry, I find it difficult not to think of you as a child.’

As they stepped into the street he released her hand and slipped on his own overcoat.

‘Because I’m short.’

‘Because you’re Helen’s friend.’ He gave her hand a slight squeeze as he caught it again. ‘You’re not sensitive about your height, are you?’

‘No,’ she lied, ‘but I’d give anything to be tall like Helen.’

‘Anything?’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘Now you’re teasing me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve apologised since the film finished. It doesn’t feel right, does it?’

‘What?’ He looked up and down the street in search of inspiration. If Roy had been anything other than a policeman he would have taken Lily into a pub. But he suspected that if Roy Williams discovered he had taken Lily into a pub, this first date would also be their last. He could hardly take her into a café or restaurant if she didn’t want to eat, unless they went to one of the small Italian-run places where the proprietors genuinely didn’t seem to mind serving customers only coffee or tea late at night and they were all everyday sort of places. He wanted to take her somewhere special. The only problem was where ...

‘Us going out together.’

His blood ran cold as he turned to her. ‘I’ve bored you.’

‘Don’t be silly; I’ve had a lovely evening. I enjoyed the visit to the Kardomah and the film but it’s obvious you think of me as a child and Helen’s friend, and I think of you as Helen’s brother.’

‘I don’t think of you as a child,’ he protested.

‘You just said you did.’

‘I didn’t mean now. I meant – I don’t know what I meant, Lily. It was just something to say. It’s a bad habit of mine to blurt out the first thing that comes into my head whenever there’s a gap in the conversation. Are you sure you don’t want a meal? It doesn’t have to be fish and chips, we could find somewhere that serves something else.’

‘I’m really not hungry.’

‘Just a coffee, then. I did tell your aunt we’d be going for a meal after the film,’ he reminded.

‘All right, one coffee. But only one, I have work in the morning.’

‘So do I, but it’s only just ten o’clock, surely you don’t go to bed this early.’

‘No, but I have things to do.’

‘Slap a mud pack on your face, wind curlers into your hair, take out your teeth and soak them in a glass.’

‘I don’t do any of those things.’ She smiled mischievously. ‘Except for the teeth.’

‘So you do have a sense of humour.’ He steered her round the corner to a café set conveniently close to the bus station. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, the atmosphere hot and steamy after the cool of the street, the front tables packed with bus crews on break, polishing off plates of sausages, beans, eggs and chips. He stood in the doorway until his eyes became accustomed to the smoke, then spotted an empty corner table in the back that afforded a little privacy.

‘Sure you wouldn’t like anything with your coffee?’ He helped her off with her coat as the waitress came to take their order.

‘Nothing, thanks.’ She sat with her back to the wall and watched him as he hung their coats on the stand. Half the women in the room were staring at him but he appeared to be oblivious to his good looks and the attention he was attracting. A plus for her, but she couldn’t help feeling that something wasn’t quite right. That he should be with one of his university girlfriends, not her.

‘What you said earlier about me being Helen’s brother.’ He offered her a cigarette as he sat opposite her. ‘Could it be that you need persuading not to think of me as your brother too?’

‘I don’t smoke and no, I can’t even begin to imagine what having a brother or sister is like. It’s just that ...’ Her voice trailed as she realised how ridiculous her thoughts would sound put into words.

‘What?’ He smiled encouragingly.

‘I always assumed that the first boy to ask me out would be a stranger. Someone I’d never seen before, not a boy I’d known most of my life.’

‘And a stranger would be better than me.’ He leaned back to enable the waitress to put two of the coffees that were only served in the Italian cafes on the table. Thick and creamy, the tops frothing with steamed milk.

‘It would be easier to exchange small talk with someone I didn’t know.’

‘If it’s small talk you want, let’s start with the plot of the film. Handsome, sophisticated, debonair writer meets beautiful girl with a mysterious past she refuses to discuss or explain. Beguiled, captivated, he falls in love, only to discover the girl is a princess and for ever unattainable. See the similarities?’

‘I’m no princess.’ She laughed.

‘But you do have a mysterious past.’

‘Only when it comes to my real family.’

‘You can’t be sure that the blood in your veins isn’t blue.’

‘With a name like Sullivan?’

‘Irish royalty who fled after the Cromwell invasion.’

‘To the East End of London?’

‘I’m trying to invent a romantic background for you.’

‘That doesn’t fit the facts.’

‘Tell me what you know and I’ll do better.’

She spooned sugar into her cup and stirred her coffee. ‘I was three years old when I was evacuated. Auntie Norah kept the label pinned to my coat when I arrived in Swansea. It had my name, Lily Mary Sullivan, an address in London that no longer exists because it disappeared in the Blitz and a square that meant special consideration. When Auntie Norah asked, no one was able to tell her what the special consideration was. Fortunately for me, she took a chance that it might not be too serious and gave me a home anyway.’

‘You never found out more?’

‘I plagued the life out of Auntie Norah as soon as I was old enough to understand that my parents didn’t want me back, but by then Auntie Norah and Uncle Roy were the only family I could remember and I think I would have hated having to leave them, even if someone had come looking for me. Auntie Norah made enquiries on my behalf and discovered that my mother had died during the war, probably in the Blitz. No one seemed to know anything about my father other than his name. As he never turned up for me at the end of the war I suppose he must have been killed too.’

‘How about you’re the last surviving member of the French royal family, guillotined during the reign of terror? The descendant of a child entrusted to an Irish nanny who smuggled it across the Channel and ...’

‘Into the East End.’

‘You’re obsessed with the East End. It’s not a stumbling block.’

‘Everyone I’ve met who has been there says it’s anything but a salubrious area.’

‘A poor Irish nanny wouldn’t be able to afford a Mayfair address.’

‘I can see you have a great career ahead of you when you get your degree: Joseph Griffiths – or should it be Josephine? – romantic novels and fairy tales a speciality.’

‘I could do worse than spend my working life in a fantasy world.’ He reached across the table for her hand.

‘You wouldn’t be able to pay your bills.’

‘So beautiful and so prosaic.’

‘I take it that’s a poetic way of saying I’m a realist.’

‘If you’re worried about paying the bills – don’t. I’ll have more money than even I’ll be able to spend, because everyone who can read will want to escape into the worlds I’ll create.’ He gazed intently into her eyes, watching the gold flecks glitter with reflected light.

‘Then you do want to become a writer.’ She was conscious of talking purely for the sake of saying something. She had never felt so peculiar or quite so out of her depth before. The old familiar Joe she thought she knew so well seemed to have vanished, leaving an intense stranger in his place. A man she suddenly felt she knew nothing about.

‘I already am.’