Ice Cream in Winter Read online

  Jacky Davies had found himself a seat near some of her friends and was enjoying being the centre of some admiring females. Patricia blew him a kiss.

  ‘Your latest boyfriend?’ Roland asked.

  ‘No, but he did me a great favour today and I wanted to show I’m pleased he’s having fun.’

  ‘What favour was that?’ Roland asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you. At least, not now, but perhaps I will one day.’

  ‘It’s made you very happy, what ever it was.’

  ‘So happy I feel that Vanessa’s party is my celebration too.’

  ‘That isn’t fair, is it?’

  ‘Don’t tell her, please, Roland. I didn’t really mean that, honest.’

  ‘I meant, you ought to have a celebration of your own. I know! Why don’t I take you and Vanessa into Cardiff next week. Just before I go back to my station. Heaven alone knows when I’ll get leave again. We could eat out and go to the pictures.’

  ‘Really?’ She nudged Vanessa. ‘Roland’s taking us into Cardiff! Isn’t that great? Oh,’ she joked with a wink at Roland, ‘I suppose you’ll have to ask Matthew if you can go, now.’

  Vanessa turned to her, and Patricia saw such happiness in her friend’s face she wished she hadn’t joked. Vanessa was very much in love. The idea came as a revelation. People frequently got engaged and married but she had rarely seen such undisguised happiness in someone’s face. Vanessa was a very beautiful girl; slim, frail and delicate, with pink skin that was almost translucent, hair that was a halo of gold, a perfect ‘rosebud’ mouth, blue eyes that glowed with a depth of colour that startled with their brilliance.

  She hugged Patricia and said in her soft, gentle voice, ‘That will be lovely. Thanks Roland. I’m sure Matthew won’t mind me going out with my own brother, even if we do have to take a flirt like you!’

  The crowd thinned towards nine-thirty and just before it was time to leave, Vanessa put on a record and they tried to dance. The square of carpet was rolled back and the gritty linoleum served as a dance floor for seven couples. Jacky danced with Patricia but was pushed aside by Roland, who in turn made room for Matthew Morris.

  When she danced with Matthew, it changed her mood almost as dramatically as finding out about her father and Nelda Roberts. He held her close, more tightly than was necessary in the small space. His hand went lower down her back and lower still and pressed her against him in a way that startled and excited her. Should he be doing this? Shouldn’t he be dancing with Vanessa and making her feel the sensations he was arousing? She turned her head, searching for Roland and, catching his eye, called, ‘Come on, Roland, I’m monopolising Matthew and he’s only being kind, it’s Vanessa he wants.’

  Long after the party was over, while she lay in bed wondering what time Marion would appear, she relived the turbulent emotions of her day. She wondered about the way Matthew had held her and the quizzical way he had looked at her. He couldn’t be interested in her, not now he and Vanessa were engaged. But there was more than ‘being nice to her fiancée’s best friend’ in the way he had danced with her. She felt a guilty feeling spreading through her and sat up in bed. More guilt? No fear! She could do without that. She threw three pillows at the wall and determinedly strangled the idea at birth.

  * * *

  In an hotel in Cardiff, down in an air-raid shelter on a very uncomfortable bed, Julia was writing a letter. Taking a chance that the only estate agents she had seen in Nant Cysgu would be handling the sale of Rose Cottage, she was writing for details. Although, she mused, what ever the state of the place, I know I’m going to buy it. It’s ‘meant to be’.

  Chapter Two

  The days following the party were confusing ones for Patricia. Thoughts of her mother seemed more, not less intense, with the discovery of her father’s new relationship. The nightmares she occasionally suffered had disturbed her every night since Boxing Day. As sleep was about to claim her she would see the sealed and solid box carried out by indistinct figures, of which one was her father. They walked slower and slower and finally stopped right in front of her. The box would open, the nails popping out like bullets from a weak gun, the lid would open and her mother would slowly sit up and point an accusing finger. Even in the daylight the memory of the dream brought her out in a cold sweat.

  She was achingly tired and longed for a peaceful, uninterrupted rest. The nightmare always returned an hour or two before she was due to rise and she would sometimes get up to escape the horrors. The long days exhausted her.

  She wished she could discuss it with someone but fear made her hesitate. What if everyone agreed with her father, that she was responsible? The nightmares would never go away if that happened. So she remained silent and spoke to no one, not even Vanessa who was her best friend and confidant in all things. Boyfriends, new loves, their first hesitant kisses, secret letters, discussions on the future, all these she and Vanessa shared, but the nightmares were a burden she felt she must carry alone.

  Vanessa sang in several choirs and occasionally played solo harp. Over the Christmas period she was kept busy and as always, Patricia went to every concert and sat in the front row to support her friend. Only lately, Matthew went with her, sat beside her and clapped and cheered with her, glancing at her and sharing the pleasure and pride. She didn’t feel at ease with him beside her. She liked him too much and suspected that, although he was engaged to Vanessa, he liked her too.

  What a pity she didn’t have someone like Matthew to talk to, and have him tell her she was stupid to be worried after all this time. But there was no one. If anyone listened, it would have to be Vanessa. Or Mr Caradoc’s sheep on the hill. Her melancholy was lifted into laughter at the thought.

  But Vanessa was not in the mood to discuss anything apart from her marriage, she thought sadly. Even if she dared to open the subject of her guilt, she doubted if Vanessa would listen. She was caught up in a mood of wonderment as presents for her ‘bottom drawer’ arrived daily and were admired, packed, then unpacked and admired again, whenever Patricia visited the Drew’s house. Admiring the presents and talking about Matthew, that was all her friend wanted to do these days. You’d think the wedding was next week instead of in two year’s time, she thought.

  There was a kind of desperation in her friend’s happiness that concerned her a little. On more than one occasion Vanessa has said fervently that she would die if Matthew left her, that life without him would be impossible. Patricia had laughed and teased her out of these brief but passionate moments, but they left a residue of unease. Vanessa seemed different since she had met and fallen for Matthew. It was all a bit tedious and Patricia had found her face stiffening with yet another attempt at a polite smile every time she had been invited up to Vanessa’s bedroom to examine the latest acquisitions.

  Matthew was often at the Drew’s house and on two occasions he offered to walk Patricia home. She wanted him to. He was attractive, and she felt increasingly lonely because of the changes in the close friendship with Vanessa. But she declined, once telling him that Jacky Davies was waiting for her and on the second occasion, she insisted that Roland left the pencil sketch he was doing of his sister and go with her.

  ‘Why did you want me to come?’ Roland asked, slightly irritated at the way he had been forced to abandon the portrait. She couldn’t tell him she found Matthew far too attractive. Oh dear, she thought sadly, that’s something else I can’t share with anyone.

  ‘I’m frightened in the blackout,’ she said and he looked at her with a wry expression. ‘I really wanted to talk to you about Vanessa’s engagement present,’ she invented, ‘I don’t know what to buy. Got any ideas?’

  ‘Why ask me?’ Roland laughed. ‘You are up there drooling over their collection almost daily, you should know better than I what they’ll need.’

  ‘Not drooling,’ she said glumly. ‘To be honest, I don’t really look. It’s exciting for Vanessa and I’m thrilled, honest, but my eyes glaze a bit. Don’t yours?’

 
; ‘Go to the market and get some cups and saucers,’ he chuckled. ‘They can’t have too many cups and saucers with all the visitors they have.’

  ‘I only earn fifteen shillings,’ she hesitated.

  ‘Buy cheap white china and I’ll paint them for you, how’s that? Now, can I go back to my portrait?’

  ‘Thanks, Roland.’ As they reached her gate she asked, ‘This portrait, is it something special?’

  ‘It’s of Vanessa. I’m giving it to them as a wedding present. I’m only doing preliminary sketches. I fiddle with drawings for a long time before actually putting paint to canvas. Nerves, I suppose. All that blank surface to cover.’

  ‘What colour will she be wearing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘I think people have a colour that’s special to them. Don’t you?’

  ‘And in what colour do you see Vanessa?’

  ‘Pale, pale green, almost fading into white.’

  He frowned and thought for a moment. ‘I’ll have to wait and see what she chooses.’

  ‘Are we still going to Cardiff?’ she asked, as he prepared to leave.

  ‘Next Thursday, second of January. I’ve even spoken to your Mr Caradoc for you and he’s agreed for you to have the morning off if you promise to be in good time for work on Friday morning.’

  ‘When am I ever late!’

  * * *

  Leonard Lloyd was hurrying home to be in time to greet his daughters when they returned from the engagement party. They should be back at half past ten, and it was already twenty past. The reason he was delayed was Nelda. He had gone to see his friend Cyril Philips, also a caretaker, in a school about three miles away. But on his way back he had stopped to talk to Nelda. He was seriously thinking of proposing and although he had practised the words time and again, when he was with her they refused to come out.

  It was fear of rejection, he knew that. When his first love had told her family she was going to marry him they had refused permission. It had been a humiliating blow. They had refused even to meet him. A man with a small grocers shop, he had hardly been the catch of the year, but they hadn’t given him a chance.

  He wasn’t even the owner of a shop any more, just a school caretaker, and his situation was exacerbated by working at his important but unskilled job in the same school as Nelda taught. The only small consolation was that he had a home to offer her, here with Elizabeth and Patricia and Marion. Better than the flat she rented.

  * * *

  Nelda Roberts rented a small flat not far from the school. It was in Church Lane which ran parallel with Woodcutter’s Row with a field between them. She sat and stared into the fire early one morning, hugging her dressing gown around her slim figure and sipping a cup of cocoa.

  She was a small, red-haired, dark-eyed woman who was approaching her twenty-ninth birthday. She would soon be thirty, the age when women were no longer considered likely to marry. She wanted to marry. She wanted to marry Leonard. If only she could persuade him to part from his daughters, they could be very happy. But Patricia, Marion and Elizabeth would have to leave. She wouldn’t move in and become ‘Mother’ to his three daughters, one only eleven years younger than herself, even to avoid being called an ‘Old Maid’.

  The flat was dismal. Dark and very small. She was limited in what she could do with it, although she was clever at decorating and design, because she had no money to spare. Apart from teaching, she received a small fee for running courses at the local Youth Club. It wasn’t enough for extras. She stared into the slowly strengthening fire, seeking a solution to her own predicament.

  She just managed on her income, but life was a constant juggling of bills and there was vain hope of a few luxuries. New clothes were a rare event and the flat was shabby and damp and in need of re-furnishing and decoration. Leonard didn’t have much money but he was capable and he had a large and comfortable house filled with good quality furnishings.

  She knew Leonard wanted to marry her. His words had hinted at it and she knew he needed help to actually say them. Like him, she was basically unsure of the wisdom of such a move. Sensitive to the problems and anxious about the reaction of Leonard’s three daughters, she also wondered how much longer they could keep their meetings secret.

  Already a few people were looking at her with that half-grin that suggests they know something. Jacky Davies had cheekily asked if she suffered from chilblains and if snow was a cure. He must have seen them on the hill. That had been stupid, to succumb to passion up there in the middle of winter. She admitted to herself that hers had been the greater urgency. But it had been a foolish mistake. Now Jacky Davies knew, how long before the news reached the school staff?

  She dressed and cleared away the remains of her light breakfast. All her movements were swift, efficient, as if there was a need to hurry. The flat was as neat as she could make it, with the house plants placed to hide the damp on one corner and the chair placed over the stain on the worn carpet. She sighed as she looked around. She had to do something, find herself a decent place to live. She made up her face with care, combed her naturally curly hair and went to see Leonard.

  It was the first time she had called at his house and he looked startled, then his face opened into a wide smile.

  ‘Nelda! Come in, the girls are all out but they’ll be back in a while.’

  She stretched up and kissed him lightly and he held her close. ‘Why did you come?’ he asked.

  ‘Jacky Davies made a remark yesterday that makes me think he’s seen us together, up on the hill. Boxing Day probably. I think we have to make a decision about where this affair is going, don’t you?’

  ‘I know where I’d like it to take us,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I can’t. You might not like what I have in mind.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I want us to get married – but I know it’s out of the question,’ he added quickly.

  ‘I want that too.’

  ‘You do? But I thought, you being a teacher and me …’

  ‘And you being a highly intelligent and loving man who happens to be a caretaker?’

  ‘Don’t you feel a little ashamed of being seen with me? I’m a caretaker in the school where you teach.’

  ‘Ashamed? Is that what you’ve been thinking? I thought you were embarrassed, afraid your daughters would disapprove because you are in your forties and daughters think that at such a great age parents have no right to love.’

  ‘Nelda, my lovely girl, you’re too young for me and too clever and too perfect altogether, but if there’s a chance of marrying you I don’t intend letting my girls keep us apart. I don’t want us to wait a day longer than the time it takes to call the banns.’

  ‘Where will we live?’ she asked, snuggling against him.

  ‘Here of course.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Where else?’

  She looked up at him and frowned. ‘Won’t the girls mind moving out?’

  ‘Move out? Why? This is their home and it’s big enough for us all.’

  ‘Leonard, you’ve been a wonderful father, everyone who knows you says so. Would it be so terrible to leave them now they’re almost grown up? We would need time on our own to adjust to being married. If we’re going to succeed I think you’ll have to tell them to find other homes. It isn’t as if they’re children.’

  He looked shocked and she knew she had spoken too soon, said the wrong thing. She went on explaining that with just the two of them life would be perfect…and after a while he said solemnly, ‘I’ll talk to them tonight.’

  ‘And let’s make a start now, on letting people know about us, shall we?’

  Nelda walked home with her arm through Leonard’s. They could have crossed the field at the back of their respective houses but they didn’t. They walked slowly along Ebenezer Street, the main road of the village, and stopped to talk to everyone they met. The affair was out in the open and there was only the girls to tell. She might have edged him into the proposal
but that announcement must be left to Leonard.

  She whispered softly, ‘I love you, Leonard Lloyd,’ when they parted, but behind the adoring smile were steely thoughts that she would never move into Woodcutter’s Row and become mother to his three girls.

  When she went to back to her pokey little flat, she sat for a long time thinking about having Leonard with her all the time. It was an idea she liked. They got on well and she knew that, given support from their families, they would be very happy. Surely they would get that support? Herself and Leonard, just the two of them, sharing a home. Perfect.

  * * *

  Patricia was the first one home that day and Leonard immediately broached the subject of his proposed marriage to Nelda Roberts.

  ‘What will happen to us?’ she asked, her heart thumping as fear for the future overwhelmed her. ‘Will we have to find a place of our own? We haven’t got an Auntie Beryl, like Jacky Davies had. How will we afford it? What if Elizabeth gets married? We couldn’t afford much with just Marion and me and when she goes and there’s only me, what will happen to me?’

  All this came out in a rush and Leonard laughed as he raised a hand and begged her to stop.

  ‘We’ll all sit down and talk about it, the five of us.’

  ‘It is a pity we don’t have a family, isn’t it Dad? Nothing would seem too bad if we had aunties and uncles and grandparents like other people have.’

  ‘I don’t have any family and your Mam’s people all moved away and we lost touch. Fearn, their name was. I wrote to them several times but they never replied. They’re probably dead now. I did try very hard to contact them when Mam died you know, I contacted all the friends I knew of, wrote letters to anyone I thought might help find them. But it was useless, there were no replies to my letters. I have no idea where they went.’ His eyes were sad, then he smiled, patted Patricia’s head and added, ‘At least having Nelda will be one addition to our family and she’s young enough to become a friend to you all.’