All That Glitters, page 35
‘I thought you’d be back for Sunday dinner.’ Mrs Griffiths opened the door to the flat on top of the shop. ‘One of your family dropped your case around yesterday, Edward.’
‘No one calls Eddie, Edward, Mam,’ Jenny protested.
‘Was it my cousin William?’ Eddie asked for the sake of something to say.
‘Probably, I didn’t see him. Mr Griffiths took it. He put it in your room, Jenny,’ she said abruptly with an air of disapproval. ‘And if the weight of the case is anything to go by, you’re going to have problems making room for your husband’s things in your wardrobe.’
‘We’ll manage, Mam.’
‘It will only be for a little while, Mrs Griffiths. A week or two at the most until we find a place of our own.’
‘Yes, well, that’s what you said when you started looking four weeks ago.’
‘We will find one, and soon, Mam,’ Jenny said insistently. ‘Come on, Eddie, I’ll show you my room.’
Eddie followed Jenny out of the passage into her bedroom. Set at the back of the house it looked down over the smoking chimneys of the coke works. Furnished with an enormous, old-fashioned bedroom suite and double bed which left as little room for manoeuvring as the living room, the atmosphere was every bit as stuffy and uninviting. Jenny opened the wardrobe door. Pushing her clothes to one side, she removed a couple of spare hangers.
‘You can have these. And I emptied the two bottom drawers in my chest for you on Friday night.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m sorry about last night, Eddie.’ She reached out to him. ‘Why don’t we go up Shoni’s as soon as we’ve eaten?’
‘Eddie, Jenny, the meal’s on the table. When you’ve got a place of your own you can do as you like, but while you’re living in my house I expect you to keep to my hours.’
‘Coming, Mam.’
‘Shoni’s?’
‘I have to go down the gym.’
‘Please, Eddie, I want to make it up to you.’
‘I work there every Sunday.’
‘Can’t you give it up now?’
‘We need all the money we can get. Besides, Joey’s generally there on Sunday afternoons, and I get in a bit of training.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘No.’
‘Jenny!’
‘Don’t keep your mother waiting, Jenny,’ he said coldly.
‘Do you know this is the first time Jane’s been to Barry Island,’ Haydn said as they walked down the white concrete steps that led from the promenade on to the uncomfortably warm sand of the beach.
‘Then stick close to Uncle William, I’ll teach you everything you need to know.’
‘Like how to get sand in sandwiches, and soak your clothes in salt water?’ Diana suggested.
Evan and Phyllis were all for sitting where they were, but William insisted on walking until they found what he called ‘the ideal spot’ which, Jane discovered, wasn’t anywhere near other people. Given the packed nature of the beach, which was pitched somewhere between Ponty park on a Whitsun and Ponty market at Christmas time, the task seemed impossible. Eventually they found a patch of sand that met William’s exacting specifications. Not too close to the water to be damp, and not too close to the wall to be in the path of newcomers walking down from the promenade.
Diana and Evan spread the blankets. William and Haydn dug deep holes with Brian’s spade, much to his annoyance, and buried the bottles of lemonade and orangeade up to their necks so they’d stay cool. As soon as they’d finished Diana and William whipped off their clothes to reveal their bathers and ran down to the sea, while Phyllis and Evan lay back on the blankets and watched Brian play with his bucket and spade.
‘Come on you two,’ William shouted from the foreshore, ‘it’s swimming time.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve swum before either?’ Haydn asked Jane.
‘You know what it’s like on a farm, Haydn,’ Phyllis broke in quickly. ‘Never any time for anything, and certainly not for trips down Ponty park to the pools, or the beach.’
‘Well she can paddle now.’ He grabbed her hand.
‘Let me get my dress off first.’ She removed it and, folding it carefully, laid it next to the towels.
He looked at her in amazement. He’d always thought of her as a skinny little thing, but he hadn’t realised just how undeveloped her figure was. Or was it that he was used to chorus girls? That must be it. He was so accustomed to seeing the shape of showgirls, he’d forgotten that females could come in different sizes. Realising he’d been staring, he looked down to see Phyllis watching him. Embarrassed, he seized Jane’s hand and pulled her behind him down to the sea.
She hung back as small, white-crested waves, brown and muddy with churned-up sand, crashed over her toes.
‘It feels peculiar. I think I’m sinking.’
‘If you keep walking you won’t sink.’ He raced ahead and threw himself into the water.
‘It’s Haydn Powell!’ Jane heard the cry taken up by half a dozen girls.
‘It looks like him, but it can’t be.’
‘It is, you know. I saw him last night.’
The boldest of the group walked up to Jane, who stood shivering uncertainly in the cool breeze that was blowing in from the sea. ‘It is Haydn Powell isn’t it?’
She looked helplessly to William and Diana who were wading towards her.
‘People are always mistaking him for Haydn Powell,’ William said, flexing his muscles. ‘His name’s Dai Evans. He’s a delivery boy from Treorchy. Now look at me, I’m actually Clark Gable’s younger brother.’
‘Eddie, please don’t go.’ Jenny begged as she watched him pack the strip he used for sparring into a holdall.
‘You want to stop me training?’
‘No, but …’
‘But? You don’t want me to bring home the boxing purses that’ll buy us a place of our own?’
‘I’m sorry, Eddie. I really thought I’d find us somewhere.’
‘Well you didn’t, and until we have somewhere, don’t expect me to sit around in this dismal bedroom listening to you shouting “not in daylight”.’
‘Eddie, I’ve said I’m sorry. We only married yesterday …’
‘As if I’m likely to forget it.’
‘What do you expect me to do all afternoon?’
‘Whatever you normally do on a Sunday.’
‘I can hardly go down the café on my own.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we got married yesterday. If I go down there by myself people will talk. They’ll say there’s something wrong between us.’
‘Then they won’t be far wrong, will they?’ He picked up his bag and walked out.
Chapter Twenty-one
‘This is beautiful.’
‘There’s better seaside places.’
‘There can’t be.’ Jane, like Haydn, had left her shoes with Evan and Phyllis, but with the sun scorching down she’d followed his example and covered up. They were paddling side by side in the shallows, Haydn with his trousers rolled above his knees and his shirt flapping in the breeze; Jane with her frock unbuttoned over her damp swimsuit. He took her hand as they splashed past the last of the bathers, and picked their way over the carpet of gravel that marked the boundary between the popular stretch of sands and the deserted far end where black rocks cropped up, straggling jaggedly down to the sea.
‘I spent the winter season in Brighton. You should see the pier there, it’s huge. It has its own theatre as well as penny arcades and tea rooms.’
‘I’ve seen pictures of piers. Aren’t they built right over the sea?’
‘Unfortunately yes. We opened this season on Weymouth pier. For the first week we had nothing but spring storms. We went out every night praying the orchestra would play loud enough to drown out the sound of the waves crashing beneath us.’
‘Wasn’t that scary?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Frightfully!’
‘You look as though you’re auditioning for a toff’s part.’
‘Even a miner’s son can aspire to playing an Earl.’ He climbed on to the rocks. ‘There’s a natural seat here,’ he called down, extending his hand. She stepped up, sat beside him and looked back along the beach. It was like an illustration from a children’s book. Babies playing in the miniature, white-crested waves that broke on the fringes of the sea. Middle-aged men and women solemnly swishing their ankles in foot-deep water, licking at ice creams that dribbled over their hands and wrists; the women’s dresses tucked high into their knickers, the men sporting knotted handkerchiefs on their bald spots. Further up the beach, older children were busy with buckets and spades, digging deep holes and building elaborate sand castles decorated with seaweed and shells. Matrons dressed for church, sat stiffly on hired deckchairs, frowning disapprovingly on pairs of lovers entwined in one another’s arms on old army blankets. And in the distance the white concrete glare of the promenade, alive with diminutive figures clad in brilliant white and pastel summer outfits; towering above them, the ramshackle wooden buildings and rides of the funfair, its infectious music drifting in snatches on the breeze.
‘The rides have started early,’ Haydn commented as faint, high-pitched screams of delight carried towards them. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve been to a fair either?’
‘No.’ She looked out to sea, thinking that nothing could have prepared her for this. The clear, sparkling brilliance, the sound of the waves interspersed with the chatter of a thousand day trippers, and above all the smell: a salty, fishy, tangy fragrance mixed together with stewed tea, sickly sweet candy floss, sticky, sugary rock and frying onions from the sausage and chips stands.
‘Then you’re in for a treat.’
‘How expensive a treat?’ she asked, wondering if the half a crown she’d brought with her would be enough.
‘To you, nothing.’
‘I told you I pay my own way.’
‘I earn more than you.’
‘That doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to treat me.’
‘I thought you agreed to be my girl until the end of the season.’
‘Girl, not sponger.’
‘Accepting a couple of rides won’t compromise your independence.’
‘I prefer to use my own money.’
‘I refuse to argue on a day like this. Come on,’ he helped her down from the rock.
‘What’s over there?’ she asked, pointing to a row of small wooden cottages.
‘Chalets. You can rent them by the week.’
‘It would be heaven to spend a whole week in a place like this.’
‘I wouldn’t know, but I can imagine. No work, no stage, nothing to do except this all day long.’ He looked over his shoulder to check that no one was close. Twining his fingers gently in her hair, he pulled her head towards him and kissed her, more slowly and thoroughly than he had the last time. As the length of his body burned against hers, she felt as though she was melting, fusing into one with him, the sun, the sand, and the sea.
‘The others will be wondering where we are.’
‘Let them wonder.’
‘They’ll suspect.’
‘I can live with that if you can.’
‘I wish it could be always like this.’
‘You and me?’
‘Not you and me, silly,’ she replied quickly, mindful of his warning that he would soon be gone, and not wanting to spoil a moment of the time he was prepared to give her by being too demanding. ‘This! The day, the beach, the sun and those chalets. I’d like to live in that one over there. The pink one on the end, not just for now and the summer, but all the year around.’
‘Pretty bleak, cold and damp in winter.’
‘I wouldn’t care. They must have fireplaces. I could build a fire and …’
‘No chimneys.’ he pointed out logically.
‘This daydream is mine not yours. Don’t upset it; if I want to imagine a fireplace in that chalet I will.’
‘Am I allowed to visit and sit by this hearth of yours?’
‘For tea on Sunday, if you’re good.’
‘Well, this Sunday, it’s time to go and eat. Not tea and crumpets, but pop and sandwiches.’
‘And then we’ll have to go?’ There was such a crestfallen expression on her face he couldn’t resist hugging her again.
‘Not for a few hours. But if you want to look at the fair we’ll have to leave the beach fairly soon.’
He felt more content and at peace with himself than he had done for a long time as he walked Jane back to the others. She was so naive, trusting and inexperienced. It was almost as good as being in love and courting for the very first time.
‘Again!’
‘Absolutely not. You’re getting ruined.’ Phyllis lifted Brian from the roundabout that boasted a bright blue cockerel among its wonderfully weird bestiary. He’d taken a shine to it the moment he’d seen it. Evan had paid for his first ride, but his reluctance to leave his new-found wooden friend had prompted Haydn, William, Diana and Jane to pay for another four.
‘Please?’ Brian looked up at his mother with enormous eyes that looked all the larger for the touch of sunburn on his round cheeks.
‘No. My arm is tired from waving to you every time you go round.’
‘If you come with Dad and Mam now, I’ll buy you a stick of rock to eat on the train on the way home.’ Evan bribed him.
‘You really want to go?’ Haydn asked.
‘Brian’s worn out. If he doesn’t have a nap soon he’ll start whining, and if we go now we can be home when Charlie and Alma come up for tea.’
‘But don’t let us stop you from staying as long as you like,’ Phyllis urged them. ‘I’ll make a pie that can be eaten cold.’
‘Don’t cook.’ Haydn said. ‘We’ll stay until dark so Jane can see the fair lit up, and buy fish and chips to eat on the train.’
‘The fair won’t be lit up tonight, boy.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’re at war. Blackout, remember.’
‘I keep forgetting.’
‘If it never gets any worse than it is now, I won’t be sorry,’ Phyllis said softly.
‘I’ll take the bag.’
‘Leave it in the station, Uncle Evan. I’ll pick it up when we get in.’ William offered.
‘I intended to.’
Placated by the promise of rock, Brian waved goodbye and trotted off happily between his parents.
‘Right, ghost train first.’ William dropped a piece of seaweed he’d been carrying down Diana’s back.
‘And the shooting gallery.’
‘And the penny arcade.’
Diana and William knew the fair inside out. Every time there’d been a few shillings to spare, their mother, Megan, had taken them to either Barry or Porthcawl. Familiarity with the layout enabled them to race from amusement to amusement at breakneck speed. But Jane refused to be hurried. She lagged behind, content to be a bystander, to watch others enjoy the rides and try their hand at the roller-ball and shooting galleries. Haydn finally collared Will and Diana at the cakewalk and arranged to meet them outside the fish and chip bar at dusk. Free to wander at Jane’s pace he led her into an arcade where she fed a penny into the laughing policeman. When the grotesque clown-like figure had chortled his last, he rolled a penny into a miniature waxwork model of a barber’s shop encased in glass. A door opened to reveal the barber wielding an axe instead of a razor. A customer’s head was severed, rusty stains dripped down the smock of the victim, the door closed, but not quickly enough. Jane saw the figures sliding back into their opening pose so the drama could be re-enacted as soon as the next penny was dropped into the machine.
‘I prefer the laughing policeman’
‘Try, “What the Butler Saw”.’
‘Why?’
‘My grandmother thought it too risqué for us when we were kids, so it’s probably all a sweet young thing like you can take.’
‘You’re forgetting I’ve seen Revue.’
‘Two numbers. We kept the best ones for when the usherettes went out.’
He followed her from one machine to the next, and later from one sideshow to another, all the while watching the expression on her face change from delight to confusion at the peculiar mix of fantasy and tawdry illusion.
‘Where to next?’ he asked as they emerged from an exhibition that included a bearded lady and a mermaid. ‘Miniature world inhabited by dwarves? Or the boxing booth?’
‘I’d prefer to take one last look at the sea.’
‘If it’s money …’
‘I have lots.’ She held out her hand, showing him the three sixpences she had left from her half-crown. ‘I just want to see what the beach looks like now the sun’s setting.’
The noise of the funfair grew fainter as they walked down the promenade towards the steps that led to the sands. Men, women, and even a few children, sat huddled under blankets in the shelter of the sea wall below them.
‘Better to be down and out in a seaside resort where there’s a chance of earning a few bob cleaning up around a stall or passing out a few deckchairs, than in a workhouse back home,’ Haydn said as they descended to the beach.
‘I had no idea so many people didn’t have a home to go to.’ She looked at them and wondered why she hadn’t found the courage to run away from the workhouse sooner.
‘Not all of them are homeless. Some are just here for one or two nights. Especially the families with children. If you can’t afford a chalet, camping out on the beach is the next best thing. The railway return for two or three days isn’t that much more than a day trip.’
‘And the others?’
‘I hope for their sake they find somewhere better to go before winter.’ He looked back at the fair. ‘I haven’t seen this place so crowded in years, but then I suppose people want all the good times they can get before the war begins to bite. I only wish you could have seen it all lit up. Now that is a sight worth seeing.’
‘It will be lit up again when the war finishes.’
‘Strange to think we’re at war. In a few weeks when it all gets organised, probably no one will be allowed to walk along here.’
‘Why?’
