Swansea Girls (33 page)

‘I think she’s miffed,’ Lily whispered as Esme tugged the door until the lock gave a final definitive click.

‘I’ll pacify her later. You eaten?’ Roy asked.

‘No. I’m not hungry. I’ll eat after ...’

‘Everyone’s left,’ Roy finished for her. ‘I want our life to get back to normal too, Lily, but I’m afraid there isn’t going to be a normal for us, not now Norah’s gone.’ He gave her a brief hug. ‘You want to go in there with me?’

‘Not really.’

‘We’ll need this room as well as the dining room, but not before the furniture’s been shifted back.’ He pulled an easy chair away from the wall and dragged it on to the rug, positioning it exactly over the dents the castors had made in the thick pile.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Jordan and Mrs Hunt wanted to see to it earlier, but I wouldn’t let them.’

‘Then how about you giving me a hand to do it now? Afterwards, you can go down to the garden and sit on Norah’s bench while I make small talk and thank everyone for coming.’

‘Wouldn’t that be rather cowardly of me?’

‘There isn’t anyone here you won’t be seeing again. I’ll tell them you’re not feeling well. If they don’t understand that you need to be alone, they’re not worth bothering with. Now take the other end of that table. Careful now, it might be a bit heavy.’

Chapter Eighteen

‘Katie, I’ve brought some food for you and your brothers.’ Helen tapped the back of the basement door with the heel of her shoe to announce her arrival as she edged a heavily laden tray round the curve at the bottom of the stairs.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Jack shouted. Running out of his bedroom at the end of the passage, he took the tray from Helen. Forcing her back, he kissed her behind the cover of the door.

‘Want to sit with us for a bit?’ Katie invited, as Helen followed him into the kitchen.

‘Only if I wouldn’t be in the way.’

‘That has to be a first, tactful Helen.’ Jack set the tray on the table.

‘Jack, apologise to Helen,’ Martin prompted.

‘It’s all right, I have tended to put my foot in it lately.’

‘Is Lily upstairs?’ Martin took a sandwich and opened it.

‘She’s sitting in the garden. I think if her uncle hadn’t suggested she go out there for some peace and quiet she would have hit someone. Probably my or Judy’s mother. The way they’re carrying on up there with Mrs Jordan and Mrs Lannon, anyone would think they’re catering for the Queen.’

‘You only brought cheese and cucumber?’ Jack asked, examining the sandwiches.

‘And ham salad, salmon and lettuce and cream cheese and spring onions. I’ll go back up for cake if you want some. There wasn’t room for it on the tray.’

‘Great, Helen, thanks, I’m starving.’

‘Aren’t you always,’ she responded, without thinking what she was saying.

Martin looked from her to Jack, as his brother lifted four plates from the dresser and piled one high with sandwiches for himself. ‘This is good of you, Helen, thank you.’

‘Any time.’ She smiled at Martin but the smile died on her lips. She had never seen him look so exhausted – or so peculiarly at her. Could he suspect that she and Jack ... ‘Point me in the direction of the teapot and I’ll make tea.’ Avoiding Martin’s gaze, she looked around the room.

‘It’s all right, I’ll do it.’ Jack took his plate with him as he went to the stove.

‘Brian and Judy upstairs?’ Martin asked, still watching her.

‘Seeing as how the “caterers” had to have someone to order around, they kindly volunteered.’

‘Remind me to give Brian a gold star when he comes down.’ Jack spooned tea into the pot.

‘Do you think Lily would appreciate a cup of tea and something to eat?’

‘I’m sure she would, Martin,’ Helen encouraged, wishing him anywhere but in the same room as Jack and her.

‘Give me a couple of minutes and you can take the tea out with you.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Finally turning away from Helen, Martin looked at his sister. ‘Katie, help me out here. What sandwiches would Lily choose?’

‘Tell me to go away if you don’t want company, Lily.’ Joe stood in front of the bench Roy had set facing his flowerbed. He remembered Mrs Evans sitting on it sewing through almost every fine summer afternoon of his childhood, and he didn’t want to intrude if Lily was remembering.

‘Please, sit down. I’m trying to escape all those people upstairs. I would have gone to the basement with Jack, Martin and Katie but I think they should be left alone for a while.’

He sat beside her and took her hand in his.

‘Uncle Roy said Auntie Norah’s funeral went well.’

‘It was quiet, dignified, moving, and from what little I knew of her I think she would have approved of the hymns and sermon. Which is more than I can say for the carrying on here, if the sniping that’s going on between some of the women upstairs is indicative of what’s been happening.’

‘Katie and I really wanted to go to the funerals.’

‘I see no reason why you shouldn’t have. This Welsh tradition of men at the graveside and women in the house is barbaric.’

‘I wish Uncle Roy thought so.’

‘He is a stickler for tradition. You being there would have upset him.’

‘What about upsetting me and my aunt?’

‘Lily, no one is going to mourn or miss Mrs Evans more than you. She knew that and you know it. I had a word with your uncle and borrowed my father’s car. If you want to go out to Oxwich to see her grave I’ll take you.’

‘Now.’ She jumped to her feet.

‘If you like, but your uncle and my father warned me that some people might think us going off together straight after the funeral odd.’

‘I couldn’t care less.’

‘That’s my girl.’

‘So you’ll take me?’

‘Yes.’ He reached for her hand.

‘I have to see Uncle Roy.’

‘He’s standing at the kitchen window.’

Lily looked up. Roy nodded and gave her the ‘thumbs-up’ sign.

‘You don’t have to go back into the house. The car’s in our garage.’

‘You thought of everything.’

‘I try.’

‘Joe, I ...’ Overwhelmed by emotion, she flung her arms round his neck and clung to him, burying her head in the shoulder of his suit, hoping he wouldn’t see the tears that had hovered perilously close to the surface since Norah had died. He held her close, stroking the back of her head and murmuring soft, gentle words of comfort.

Standing in the kitchen window, Roy was astounded by the intimacy of Lily’s and Joe’s embrace. It brought home to him as nothing else could Lily’s newfound status of womanhood. But the sight didn’t upset him as much as it did Martin, who was watching from his bedroom window a floor below.

Abandoning the tray he’d stacked with plates of sandwiches and teas for himself and Lily on his bed, Martin continued to watch Lily and Joe, hating himself for staring, yet unable to tear himself away. Could that have been him if he’d found the courage to ask Lily out as soon as he came back from National Service? Would she have turned him down?

He’d once heard Mrs Evans say that loving someone meant wanting the best for them. Lily would undoubtedly be better off with Joe, because Joe would be able to give her everything he’d never be able to. But as he watched Joe guide Lily out through the gate at the bottom of the garden, he remembered his mother and all her trite adages about money not bringing happiness and for the first time he could see truth behind the hackneyed words. There was something about Joe of romance and books, something unworldly that made him uneasy about entrusting anyone’s happiness to him. Especially that of the girl he loved more than anyone else in the world.

As they left the town and suburbs behind them and hit the open Gower Road that cut across Fairwood Common, Joe took one hand from the wheel, slipped it round Lily’s shoulders and hugged her. ‘Poor you, you’ve had a foul time.’

‘No more than Katie.’

‘It will be a long time before either of you will be allowed to forget what happened and remember your dead the way you want to. Swansea will be talking about Ernie Clay, and what he did to his wife and your aunt, for years. Even at the graveside in Morriston yesterday people kept looking over their shoulders to see if he would have the nerve to turn up.’

‘My uncle made sure he wouldn’t. I’m not supposed to know, but I overheard him talking to your father when they were making the arrangements. By putting Mrs Clay’s death in the paper with
all enquiries to undertaker,
they made certain the only people who would attend were people they knew about. Uncle Roy also mentioned that the police were questioning Mr Clay yesterday afternoon. I think he had something to do with the timing.’

‘I can’t believe Ernie Clay is free to walk the streets.’

‘Neither can I, but my uncle told me that legally ...’

‘Mr Clay can only be charged with minor offences. My father explained the technicalities. But I still think there has to be a moral as well as legal side to the law.’

‘Katie never wants to see him again.’

‘From the way Martin and Jack were talking yesterday, they intend to make sure she doesn’t. You and she are still going to live with your uncle, aren’t you?’

‘Of course. What makes you think we’re not?’

‘It’s just that ...’

‘The street gossips are saying he’s not related to us and young girls shouldn’t be left with an older man.’ She looked to him for confirmation and he nodded. ‘He says he’s going to advertise for a housekeeper, although Katie and I are perfectly capable of running the house.’

‘While working full time?’

‘While working full time,’ she reiterated decisively, turning to the window.

They drove on in silence as the road turned down through the woods of Parkmill and back up to the coast. Turning left just before the crumbling Norman wall that enclosed the eighteenth-century manor of Penrice, they gazed out over Oxwich marshes and the enormous sweep of Oxwich Bay.

‘I love this place, so did my auntie, but I never thought she would be buried here.’

‘Your uncle told me his family had farmed in Oxwich for over two hundred years.’

‘It still surprised us that she wanted to be buried here with her parents. Uncle Roy said that if her husband had had a grave she would have wanted to be buried with him, but he went down on a ship at Dunkirk.’

‘If you believe in God, they’re together now.’

‘You don’t believe in God?’ she asked, as he turned at the end of the beach and drove up the narrow lane that led to the tiny Norman church.

‘I think everyone has their own idea of God,’ he answered evasively, parking the car in front of the gate. After helping her out, he led her through a small side gate, around to the beach side of the church. On a gentle rise overlooking the sea lay a mound of multi-coloured flowers. They grated, incongruously garish against the old grey stone and subdued greenery of the church and yard.

She stood for a moment in absolute silence. When she moved, Joe allowed her to walk on alone. This was her last time with Norah and if he gave her that, perhaps she’d allow the rest of her life to be his.

Brian glanced through the door of the kitchen into the dining room and balked at the idea of walking in there. Every room on the ground floor was crammed with people; both newly arranged parlour and dining room filled with neighbours and elderly relatives of Constable Williams.

The ten days since Norah and Annie had died had been interminable. Sharing rooms with Martin and Jack had made him feel as though he’d been stranded in limbo. One or the other, or both of them, had vetoed every suggestion he had tried to make. Nothing could happen or be discussed, no decisions taken until ‘after the funerals’. He was ashamed that during Annie’s funeral the day before he hadn’t felt much sympathy or grief for either of his flatmates, only relief that it would soon be over so his life and theirs could continue.

‘Has the kettle boiled?’ Judy bustled in with a tray full of dirty cups and an empty teapot.

‘No.’

‘Put it on. Mrs Jordan and my mother are screaming for more tea.’

Brian obediently lifted the kettle from the range as Judy dumped the cups and saucers into the sink and ran the hot tap.

‘I don’t blame you for hiding in here. It’s bedlam out there and people are saying the stupidest things. Some ghastly old relative of Mrs Evans’s has just asked Mr Williams for her clothes because “our Norah always dressed nice when she was going out and promised I could have them when she passed on”. Considering she’s about ten times the width of Mrs Evans, I’m sure no such thing was ever said. She also cornered Lily before she made it through the door into the garden and asked her when she was going to the orphanage.’

‘What did Lily say?’

‘Fortunately Mr Williams overheard and answered that Lily was a little old for orphanages, considering she worked in a bank.’

‘I don’t think people mean to be tactless. Funerals are a strain; no one knows the right thing to say, so they blurt out the first thing that comes into their head.’

‘I’m not so sure. You wouldn’t believe the number of women who are insisting Norah promised them something on her death.’

‘I would.’ Tipping the tea leaves into the bin, he swilled the teapot out under the running tap. ‘I’ve seen it in my own family. My half-brother and I had to escort my father’s first wife out of the house after my father’s funeral when we caught her pocketing my mother’s spoons and china.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know your father had died.’ Judy was more shocked by the idea of Brian’s father having two wives alive at the same time than his being dead, but politeness overcame her curiosity and she kept her questions to herself.

‘It happened three years ago. I’m used to the idea now of him not being there, but I miss him like crazy. Especially when something bad or’ – he smiled at her – ‘extra good like meeting you happens.’

‘Extra good,’ Judy echoed. ‘We know nothing about one another.’

‘A situation which will be remedied as soon as you go out with me.’

‘Judy, isn’t that tea ready yet?’ Joy interrupted as she walked in from the dining room.

‘Kettle’s almost boiled.’ Judy dried the last cup.

‘As soon as it’s made, bring it in and don’t forget fresh cups.’

‘You think people would have hung on to their cups if they wanted a refill,’ Judy grumbled, stacking china on the tray as Brian made the tea.

‘How do you fancy escaping down to the basement and sitting with Katie, Martin and Jack after I’ve carried this in for you?’

‘Sounds great, but I’ll have to wait until I won’t be missed.’

Given the way her mother was watching her, Brian thought that moment wasn’t likely to happen, but he smiled anyway. Lifting the heavy tray, he carried it through to the dining room. Joy Hunt had already cleared a space for it on the sideboard.

‘Take these sandwiches round.’ She pushed plates into both his and Judy’s hands. ‘I’m sure everyone is hungry, they’re just too polite to be the first to eat and we’re going to be left with mountains of food if you don’t persuade them to stop hanging back.’

Judy gave Brian a look of commiseration as she headed for a corner dominated by a group of elderly women with badly fitting false teeth.

Joe walked to the sea wall and looked over the rocks to the smooth, broad sweep of the sandy bay. He savoured the moment, absorbing the scenery and composing lines of verse, secure in the knowledge that when she had said her goodbyes to her aunt, Lily would join him. The beginnings of a poem came to mind, even the title, ‘The Last Goodbye’.