A Shop in the High Street Read online

  When they had gone, Gladys looked at Arfon with dis­approval on her face. “What is our granddaughter doing with Edward Jenkins, Arfon? I don’t think he’s a suitable companion, do you?”

  “Nonsense, dear. He’s pleasant enough. Good family and all that.”

  “I suppose so, although with that cousin of his seducing Megan and leaving her in the lurch, causing us all such trouble, and his sister Margaret stealing Sian’s husband, they’re hardly a good family any more.” She frowned. “But if Megan likes him, shall I invite him to tea?”

  “Oh that’ll be fine, won’t it! Shall you invite his sister Margaret as well? His sister and Islwyn? Our Sian’s husband who she ran off with?”

  Gladys shook her head. “Best not, dear.”

  * * *

  Dora Lewis sat in her living room filling in the details of the day’s takings at the Rose Tree Café. Every time she completed a column of figures she was aware of the silence. The house had once rattled with the noise of a lively family: herself, Lewis Lewis her husband, and their three children. Now she was separated from Lewis and he was living across the road with their daughter and her family.

  After a brief attempt at reconciliation with Lewis, soon after their daughter’s marriage, she was on her own once more. Lewis had slipped quietly into her bedroom a few nights after his return to number seven Sophie Street and although she wanted him so much that her love and need of him was a continual ache, she had sent him away. Pride, or fear of being let down again when he found another woman, had been too much for her to bear.

  With their son Lewis-boy dead and his widow remarried to one of the Griffithses, and their other son Viv married to Megan’s sister Joan, she had hoped that her daughter Rhiannon would stay, at least for a while, until she accustomed herself to the emptiness.

  But now Rhiannon was married to Charlie Bevan and living across the road. They were all gone and seven Sophie Street felt like a barn.

  Dora reached over and picked up a wedding photograph of Rhiannon and Charlie with Charlie’s son Gwyn. Newly wed and burdened with Lewis sharing their home. It wasn’t right. And here she was, sitting alone in the family home with empty rooms mocking her.

  She wanted Lewis back so badly. But, afraid he would let her down again, she ignored his pleading eyes and showed no one how much she still loved him. The fact that her errant husband was sharing his daughter’s house just yards away and wanted to come back, was like a forbidden treat, a reward unearned and ungiven.

  She hadn’t believed him when he had told her he was moving in with the young newly-weds across the road. But today the car had been parked outside her house while Lewis had carried a rather bedraggled assortment of clothes into Rhiannon and Charlie Bevan’s home.

  It was blackmail, she was aware of that. Rhiannon and Charlie were just married and needed time to themselves; Charlie’s son, Gwyn, wanted to be with his father and his new stepmother without interference from anyone, let alone Rhiannon’s father, who had resented Charlie Bevan from the moment he had seen his daughter talking to the man whom he still referred to as ‘that jailbird’.

  She should offer Lewis a room here, in the home they had once shared, but she had been hurt so much she couldn’t face it. Rhiannon understood and Charlie understood, but that didn’t make Lewis living there a good thing.

  Dora pushed the photograph away from her and stared into the fire. The silence of seven Sophie Street settled around her and she felt chilly draughts she had never before been aware of, and felt the expanse of emptiness reminiscent of hiding in vacant, soulless houses as a child, waiting for a friend to find her and shout with glee.

  Just how long she could cope with the silence, the hollow­ness, the realisation that she was unneeded, she didn’t know.

  Thank goodness she and Sian Fowler-Weston had their café.

  Both women had been left by their husbands: Lewis to live with Nia Martin who had since died, and Sian’s husband Islwyn to live with Margaret Jenkins at Montague Court. For both of them, the Rose Tree Café, near the boating lake, was their sheet anchor. Coming home, to the empty unwelcoming house, was like being stranded by the outgoing tide.

  * * *

  Lewis Lewis, Dora’s estranged husband, finished taking his belongings into Charlie and Rhiannon’s spare room. He stood at the window and stared across at number seven, where a light shone bleakly through closed curtains. He imagined Dora sitting there and wished he was with her. He had treated her badly, leaving her for Nia Martin who had died in a tragic accident leaving him bereft. Now he no longer had a place in his family, no place to live, and no one to hurry home to. Rhiannon had accepted him here under sufferance, and he knew he would be expected to stay in his room rather than share the evenings with them. Lewis Lewis was not good at being alone.

  He ran down the stairs and called, “Rhiannon, love, I think I’ll just go to The Railwayman for an hour, perhaps see Viv there.” Swallowing his unwillingness he added, “Fancy coming, Charlie?”

  “No thanks, we’re going to see the Griffithses. Rumour has it they’ve got some baby goats and Gwyn would love to see them.”

  “Right then.” He patted his pocket. “I’ve got a key, so I’ll see you later.” He went out, walking up the road aware of disappointment, wishing Charlie and Rhiannon had invited him to join them for their walk to the Griffiths’ house, but knowing he could expect nothing more.

  He stopped on the corner and looked at the sweet shop called Temptations. Nia Martin, the woman for whom he had left Dora, had owned it and his daughter, Rhiannon, had been working there for a couple of years. With Nia dead, it was now owned by Nia’s son Barry. There was a light in the flat above the shop and he wondered idly whether it had been rented out, and to whom.

  Since his son Viv had married Joan Fowler-Weston, he was no longer a regular visitor to The Railwayman, so it was with pleasure that Lewis recognised him sitting in a corner with Frank and Ernie Griffiths and Jack Weston. They were deep in discussion about something and he hesitated to join them, going instead to the bar to order a pint. He glanced across and pretended to have just noticed them when Viv raised a hand and beckoned him over.

  “Want a job, Mr Lewis?” Frank said, a lugubrious expression on his long face.

  “Not unless it’s well paid, with a car and plenty of perks. Why, what’s up?”

  “That Edward Jenkins bloke from Montague Court came to see me this afternoon. Seems he’s buying old Jones the Draper’s shop and wants me and our Ernie to clean it up a bit.”

  “A bit?” Lewis groaned theatrically. “It was a mess before the old man closed down. More rats than customers was what I heard. And spiders as big as a man’s hands and cockroaches to fill a man’s shoe.”

  “Thanks! That’s cheered me up no end.”

  “He isn’t going to be a draper is he? A bit too posh for anything like that I’d have thought,” Lewis said, taking a chair from another table and sitting down.

  “Sports shop I believe.”

  Lewis joined in the discussion as the viability of the business was considered, but his mood was melancholy and he edged away from it and stared around the room, hoping to find more interesting company. Molly Bondo came in and caught his eye, but he didn’t react. If he were seen talking to the local prostitute he’d never be allowed back into number seven Sophie Street!

  Somehow he had to behave himself for as long as it took for Dora to forgive him, or take pity on him, whichever came first.

  * * *

  Edward’s sister Margaret was in a dilemma. She had begun arrangements for the house to be extended and a swimming pool added, before Edward had dropped his bombshell, telling her he wanted the house sold to release his half of the value. With Islwyn Heath-Weston, who shared her worries and her bed, she was going through the accounts trying to find a way to continue with her plan without Edward’s money. It all seemed hopeless.

  “There are two separate prospective buyers coming this afternoon,” Islwyn said, handing her
the diary.

  “I don’t want to sell,” she said despairingly.

  “There isn’t an alternative, my dear. Edward saw to that.”

  “My stupid brother. Why can’t he see what he’s throwing away? With the improvements we’d planned, Montague Court would be a real money-spinner. People are thinking more and more about holidays, and offering them a stay in an impressive house like Montague Court, a place with such a history, and treating them like high-class ladies and gentlemen, it would have had strong appeal, I know it would.”

  “We should have brought him into the discussions sooner.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference, Issy. My brother isn’t a reasonable man.”

  The first of the viewers were shown around by Islwyn, who pretended to work for the family. Offering warnings as asides throughout his tour of the beautiful old building, he managed to convince them that it had every kind of rot and most insect infestations.

  “We can’t always be that lucky,” he sighed as Mr and Mrs Threedling walked away.

  Islwyn was just setting out with the second of that day’s viewers when to his disappointment, Edward returned.

  “Thank you, Mr Heath-Weston, but I will attend to Mr and Mrs Grant.” For a moment Edward thought Islwyn was going to argue but Edward snatched the notepad from him and smiled politely at the prospects and invited them to follow him.

  Annie Grant was a small, neatly dressed woman in her forties and when she spoke her voice was gentle. Leigh Grant was louder in dress as well as voice, wearing a rather bold check jacket and grey trousers, and a shirt and a discordant tie. He appeared the more confident, yet it was to his wife he looked when queries were raised and it was she who asked the most pertinent questions.

  Edward explained that Montague Court had been their family home for more than three hundred years.

  “Death duties and repairs forced our parents to sell the estate, including woodlands and a couple of farms, eight smallholdings, and a sawmill. For the last few years we have managed the house as an hotel and restaurant to keep it in the family. But that is no longer possible.”

  “You’ll regret selling it?” Leigh Grant asked.

  “Not really. It’s my sister Margaret who has strong historic fervour. I want a life free from worries about the roof and the prospect of damp and woodworm and the rest.” He smiled then, guessing what would be Mrs Grant’s next question. “It has been treated for those things and so far as I know there aren’t any serious problems about to emerge. But you’ll check everything of course?”

  “We’d need to have a survey,” Mr Grant said. He turned to his wife and asked, “What d’you think of it Annie? Would you be happy here?”

  Edward slowly guided them around the spacious, beautifully proportioned rooms, entertaining them with an occasional anecdote about how they had been used in his grandmother’s time and he knew they were impressed.

  When Mrs Grant asked whether the curtains and carpets would be available to buy, Edward felt a surge of hope. He wrote the name of his solicitor on the notepad and handed it to them.

  “You have our telephone number, but I’ll write it down again for you. Please will you speak to me when you have a query, or if you would like a second look? My sister gets so upset you see,” he explained. After the reminder from Megan, he knew he didn’t want Islwyn or Margaret talking to, and discouraging, them. “It’s important you deal with me over this.” He hoped they wouldn’t give Margaret and Islwyn a chance to intervene. He needed to be free of the place as soon as possible so he could concentrate on the sports shop.

  * * *

  When Islwyn and Ryan had married Arfon and Gladys Weston’s twin daughters, they had been given a life of comparative luxury. Neither worked very hard, leaving the running of the Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint Stores to a succession of managers, the most recent being Dora and Lewis’s son Viv.

  While idling their time and digging into the till when they needed extra money, the business had failed. Then a series of disasters had hit the family and Arfon had sacked them both. To their further fury, Viv Lewis had been given the position of manager.

  Sian’s husband, Islwyn, had found work in a fish and chip shop, an occupation chosen mainly to embarrass Old Man Arfon into giving him his job and salary back. To his disbelief, Arfon had refused and had allowed Viv Lewis not only to stay, but had given him a partnership. His long-time affair with Margaret Jenkins had provided him with an escape and when his wife, Sian, sold their home to give the money to Arfon and Gladys, he had left her to live with Margaret at Montague Court.

  Ryan, who was married to Sally, hadn’t worked at all. He had just sat idly watching as Sally rearranged her life and took in paying guests to provide them with an income. For a while he found it amusing, but gradually the thought that his wife was managing to keep their home, providing for himself and their daughter Megan by her efforts, was making him more and more tense.

  Old Man Arfon showed no sign of relenting and, to add to his unhappiness, his brother-in-law Islwyn seemed to have found himself a very comfortable life at Montague Court, and his daughter Megan was expecting an illegitimate child.

  The hardest part was their openness about their misbehav­iour. Islwyn made no pretence of the fact he was living with Margaret Jenkins, sharing her bed, and unrepentant about Sian’s humiliation, and Megan seemed inordinately proud of her predicament, flaunting her disgrace instead of hiding away and making plans to dispose of the baby. She was out and about without a moment’s embarrassment and telling everyone that she was keeping the child. He rose out of his chair and hurried from the house. It was all too much.

  * * *

  Islwyn had a visitor that afternoon. To see his brother-in-law, Ryan, walking along the drive of Montague Court was a surprise. Since he had walked out on Sian, no one in the family had spoken to him. He hadn’t even seen any of them except his schoolteacher son, Jack, who had begged him to go home. Seeing his brother-in-law approaching and obviously in a bad mood, he presumed Ryan was intent on making the same request.

  “Ryan. What a surprise. Come to tell me to go back to my grieving wife, have you?”

  “No I haven’t,” Ryan said glumly. “Why should you when you’ve landed yourself with all this?” He waved an arm around the house and its gardens.

  “It isn’t as good as it looks,” Islwyn said, getting into step with Ryan and edging away from the house. “Margaret is having to sell. That stupid Edward is being uncooperative.”

  “Stupid? He’s managed to scupper your plans rather neatly!”

  “Not yet he hasn’t.”

  “You’re still better off than if you’d stayed with your wife, sharing that rabbit-hutch of a house in Trellis Street. Especially with her out all day working at that damned Rose Tree Café with Dora Lewis. You’d have been reminded every day what a failure you are.” Ryan sighed. “What a mess eh? My having to keep out of the way in my own home, as Sally entertains strangers and gives them the attention she should be giving me, and you–” he tilted his head and smiled sarcastically, “–poor you, suffering all the discomforts of living in a mansion with a wealthy woman.”

  “If Edward had cooperated it would have been wonderful, but it’s falling apart.”

  “Poor you.” Ryan said again, and the sarcastic grin remained.

  “You can sneer, but it isn’t as good as we’d hoped, although we are in it together – I’m not alone. I don’t have to sit back feeling sorry for myself, and wait for my wife to feed me! I’ll never regret leaving Sian for Margaret, whether things turn out good or bad. It’s an exciting new start. What have you got to look forward to? More of the same, while you get older and older and more and more sorry for yourself? Pathetic you are Ryan, and you always were!”

  “Thief!”

  “Loser!”

  Ryan was seething as he walked back to Glebe Lane. The house was impressively large and he knew it was still theirs solely because of Sally’s efforts. He had been unlucky.
The Westons losing their money had been a disaster for him. Until then he had been working at the Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint Stores, and receiving a good salary, while having Viv Lewis do all the work. Islwyn was right, he was sitting around waiting for Sally to spare him a moment between fussing over her guests. Resentment, slowly simmering over the past weeks, began to build.

  He went through to the kitchen, where Sally was preparing vegetables for the evening meal she provided for her guests.

  “Fetch me some tea,” he said as he brushed past her.

  “Make it will you, Ryan? I have to finish these before I go to the shops. Megan will be home soon. She’ll be glad of a cup too.”

  “Me make it? For you and that disgusting daughter of yours? You’re my wife. You make it. I’ll be in the lounge with the morning papers – if your boarders haven’t ruined them!”

  Sally turned to him, her face flushed, an uneasy defiance in her eyes. “I don’t have time.”

  Ryan turned on his heel and hit her.

  Chapter Two

  After Ryan had hit Sally with a vicious left-handed cuff across her face, they stared at each other in disbelief. Sally didn’t feel the pain immediately and her eyes were wide with shock. Ryan watched as a small straight weal appeared and darkened to deep reddish-blue on her left cheekbone. He registered vaguely that it had been caused by his wed­ding ring.

  “Ryan,” Sally whispered, when the truth of it finally reached her brain, “you hit me!”

  Ryan’s more frightening thought was how badly he wanted to hit her again. He hurried from the house, unaware of where his feet were taking him. Walking fast, occasionally breaking into a run, he didn’t stop until he was breathless. And still he was filled with a desire to hit her, again and again, to make up for the frustrations of the past months. It was her fault. She should have insisted on her father helping them out, not succumbed to the pathetic need to show everyone how brave she was, an example of how well the Weston women coped.