The Homecoming Read online

  * * *

  Tomos appeared in the market soon after they opened.

  ‘Glyn is giving me the day off as he probably told you,’ he explained. ‘Don’t worry about your Mam, he won’t forget to take your dad and fetch her.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘Have you and Melanie got something special planned then?’

  ‘No, Melanie’s off to Cardiff to see her Mam. I’m off to do a bit of fishing, get some fresh air.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ she smiled.

  Molly closed her stall before lunchtime. She came to explain to Lydia that she was feeling very sick and needed to go home before she collapsed. ‘A bilious attack, I suppose. I’ll be all right if I can rest. Probably sleep the clock round.’

  Lydia promised to let the owner of the stall know and helped her friend to fix the canvas around the stall before watching her walk out of the market and head for the bus home. She was puzzled. Coming in that morning Molly had seemed perfectly well. But then, a bilious attack did come with very little warning.

  * * *

  Lydia went home alone, missing the lively chatter of her friend. She hurried from the bus to the house, rushing up the steps and into the house, then hesitated in the kitchen before calling to her parents that she was home. Tomos sometimes stayed and drank a cup of tea after bringing Annie back. All day she had been hoping Glyn wouldn’t do the same. She couldn’t face talking to him in her parents’ presence as if nothing had happened. She dreaded meeting him, afraid of how she would react. Please, don’t let him be here, she prayed silently. Then she was disappointed when he was not.

  Chapter Two

  Lydia and her father stood at the window of their living room and, looking out over the roofs of the houses and shops below, watched the group of ten-year-olds on the beach. They were pulling apart a wrecked rowing boat. They had begun by pelting stones at it, small ones at first then, as their determination intensified, the size of stones grew until they were staggering down over the rocks to the soft sand, and dropping their burdens onto the weakened craft. As boards loosened, the laughing boys used their hands and feet to tear its boards from the frame, red with effort and excited at the mess they were making.

  Lydia could see anger clouding her father’s expressnon.

  ‘Hooligans the lot of them,’ Billy said. ‘Specially that Neville Nolan. They all want a good hiding, that’s what!’

  ‘Oh, Dad, they’re only having fun.’

  ‘Fun you call it? Smashing something up? At their age I was working with my father, helping repair boats not smashing them! And sorting fish ready for market. The smell of that job put the girls off proper but I had to do it.’

  ‘It’s really because it’s Neville Nolan, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose it is. Little pest that he is. Nothing but cheek I get when I chase them out of the allotments. Thank goodness the castle is closed and they can’t get in there any more.’

  Lydia thought it wise not to tell her father that their access had been unaffected by the council’s attempts to seal the place off.

  Annie was home this morning as, being a Sunday, Lydia and Billy were not working. Her presence, constantly calling for attention, was the reason for her father’s irritability. Several times each hour, Annie would call for something to be sent upstairs for her: ‘I’m so dry, can I have a drink of water?’ or ‘I think I could manage a small biscuit,’ or ‘Can you help me to the lavvy? My legs have gone funny again.’

  Lydia accepted that her mother would never be any different, but Billy still occasionally railed against the fate that had landed him with such a burden. It amazed her that he complained so rarely. Most of the time he seemed content. Sometimes she interrupted her father and her Auntie Stella talking quietly together and felt they had been discussing her mother. But that was a good thing. Billy needed to talk to someone and Annie’s sister was the best person he could choose.

  Lydia wanted to get on with lunch so she was free to spend a few hours with Molly, but seeing her father’s unhappy mood, she stood silently beside him, a hand on his shoulder, talking to him. She looked small beside him, only five feet two and dainty, unlike Billy’s heavily built five feet eleven. But she had her father’s colouring, her light brown hair glinting with gold in the autumn sunshine streaming through the window. Her eyes did not have that far-seeing look of sailors and countrymen like his, but were as large and of the same deep blue. At that moment they showed more humour than Billy’s sombre expression.

  Lydia was hiding her own unhappiness from him.

  Glyn’s longed-for return when he finally left the navy had been far from the wonderful moment she had dreamed of. Most had believed it had been a mutual falling out of love, but for Lydia the grief was still fresh and causing an aching hurt, deep inside, hidden even from her closest friend. Molly pretended to understand but for her life was far simpler. Why couldn’t she be as fancy-free as Molly?

  Looking out of the window, sipping the strong tea she had made, they watched as the boys grew tired of their boat-wrecking and wandered off. A man was standing watching them and from the luggage he carried, he was newly arrived, or on the point of leaving.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Billy asked, half closing his eyes against the glare.

  ‘No one I know. Probably a tourist. Foreign by the look of him, with binoculars and a camera slung across his shoulders, and that rucksack looks a better quality than you get round here. And his clothes look, I don’t know, expensive, but different somehow.’

  ‘You’re right, he’s a nifty dresser.’

  ‘Definitely foreign, Dad.’

  ‘No.’ Billy frowned. ‘There’s something familiar about the cut of his jib. Something about the way he stands, so straight. He reminds me of…’ he shook his head as memory remained elusive. Then he looked at her and said emphatically, ‘Bet he was in the army!’

  ‘Navy!’

  They often played this game, trying by observation, to decide who and what the visitors were and occasionally, Billy saw them in The Pirate, and either confirmed or disproved their wild guesses. Lydia went up to respond to yet another call from her mother, content that she had teased her father out of his misery.

  Once lunch was over, Lydia slipped out to spend a couple of hours with Molly. She walked along the seafront, pushing her way through a crowd of people who had just alighted from a coach and were looking about them in a bemused way.

  She saw the man again, still looking towards the castle ruin high on its hill beyond the shops. She changed direction slightly and walked closer to him. With people from the coach trip still hovering, undecided on which way to walk, it was easy to stand and study him without him being aware of her scrutiny.

  He was younger than she had first thought. Probably middle thirties. He was tall and strongly built, with dark, reddish hair that was worn longer than normal for someone so formally dressed. His eyes, as he stared over the heads of the crowd towards the ruined castle, were hooded and dark and his face was deeply tanned.

  ‘He hasn’t been holidaying here, then!’ Molly laughed when they met a few minutes later. ‘Rust more like with the summer we’ve had!’

  Molly was the same height as Lydia and her colouring was similar but they were not alike. Molly was plump, and wore clothes which emphasised her fullness. Tight-fitting tops, short, straight skirts and a deeply cinched waist.

  The girls were unalike in character as well as looks, Lydia being a quiet, gentle girl who constantly stepped back to allow her friend any limelight. Molly was first to put herself forward, always ready for adventure or laughter, both of which she was currently finding in the arms of her secret lover. The fun was mostly in avoiding being found out, she had little to lose except a reputation, which at the tender age of twenty-two, seemed hardly worth a moment’s thought, apart from the opinion of Mr and Mrs Frank with whom she shared a home.

  Molly’s eyes glittered with excitement and Lydia guessed her friend’s thoughts were on the next meeti
ng with her lover.

  * * *

  The man who had been looking up at the castle, had picked up his kitbag and canvas holdall and turned away from the seashore. He pushed his way through the crowd and went to find a hotel.

  He was tired, having been travelling for several days and he intended to eat and then sleep until the following morning. Tomorrow he would look out a few remembered faces, see if anyone remembered him and if they did, whether they would give him the time of day. He chuckled, his sombre eyes softening momentarily. Not many would welcome him back if they remembered the way he’d been as a boy!

  It was such a long time ago, and memories of the wild, seventeen year old boy he had then been, were probably softened by time, into nothing more than juvenile stupidity.

  * * *

  Later that day, Molly was waiting for her date at the top of the lane where small fishermen’s cottages led up onto the steep hill. They did not exchange affectionate greetings when he arrived, but walked rather sedately on up the hill. Turning off onto a narrow footpath, they were soon hidden by the gorse and brambles and goat-willow which clothed the hillside. Further on were the half-demolished remains of army huts abandoned after the war and a sheltered place for lovers to meet. It was only then that they kissed and revealed the fact that they were lovers.

  ‘Did you have a job getting out today, love?’ he asked, as they entered their regular shelter.

  ‘No, but Lydia’s guessed I meet someone every Sunday evening besides during the week when you can get away. I don’t think she knows who though, yet. We’ll have to be careful.’

  ‘D’you think we should give it a miss for a week or so, until her curiosity has faded, then?’

  ‘Why not go back to our usual place to meet? Not much chance of anyone seeing us there, is there?’

  ‘You mean the castle grounds?’ he frowned.

  ‘Closed it is, except to people like us who can get in through the woods or clamber over the gate. No one is likely to see us there.’

  Between love-making and tender talk which both enjoyed but neither believed, they decided to make the castle grounds on a Tuesday evening their new arrangement. Leaving her at the corner of the lane, the man gave her a kiss and hurried off to join his friends for a game of cards. Friends who unwittingly gave him an alibi of sorts if his wife became suspicious and questioned his absence.

  Molly returned to the house where she lived with Mr and Mrs Frank and began to prepare supper. She no longer acted as a lodger, but had gradually taken over the running of the house. She was very fond of them; they were the nearest thing to parents she had ever known. Her own mother and father had abandoned her when she was still very young. She had shared rooms and various lodgings, even staying with Lydia for a while, until Annie had objected.

  Mr and Mrs Frank did not know about her affair and she hoped they wouldn’t until it either ended or came out into the open, which would only happen if her lover decided to leave his wife and marry her. Even then she would make sure they understood she would never leave them. The elderly couple had promised that the house would be hers after their death if she would stay with them and look after them. But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want them upset. She did not want them living in fear of her leaving them. She loved them too much to do that. And they were important enough for her to want them to live for many more years.

  But she was beginning to feel less than happy about the secret affair. She had told Lydia she was better off without Glyn, that there were better ways to live than as an appendage to a man, but she was no longer being truthful when she insisted it was not what she wanted.

  She set the table with cold meats and salad and a plate of bread and butter cut thinly, just the way they liked it. The Franks wouldn’t eat much of it, but she always did her best to make what she offered them as attractive as she could.

  She had planned surprises for them too. A visit from an old friend, when they mentioned they would like to see him again, a trip to the cinema with Howes’ taxis taking them there and back. A special tea on their forty-fourth anniversary, with flowers and a specially ordered cake. All this occupied her mind but she was restless.

  Her emotions were taking control; the love affair, entered upon so casually, was becoming more and more important to her. It was no longer easy to treat her boyfriend as unimportant and trivial.

  Her words to Lydia about avoiding commitments and having fun, were beginning to have a hollow ring.

  She spent time imagining how it would be if he could be persuaded to leave his wife and marry her. For the first time since the affair began, she wanted to discuss her situation with someone. Throwing off her apron, she hurried through the quiet streets to the house with its view across the bay and asked Lydia to go with her for a walk.

  ‘Give me a moment to finish sewing in this sleeve,’ Lydia said, sensing the urgency of her friend’s need to talk. ‘If Mam’s asleep I might sneak out for half an hour. Dad’s in The Pirate with Gimlet and the others and won’t be back for a while.’ Hurriedly repacking the sewing tin and making sure her mother was sleeping, the two girls set off to walk along the dark streets of the silent village. Only from the public houses came signs that not everyone was at home. The lights shone brightly from the windows and spilled out from the door as people went in and out. Occasional laughter rang out and, to Molly in her restless mood the sound added to her melancholy.

  ‘My friend and I have been lovers for almost a year,’ Molly began.

  ‘Wasting your youth you are. Why do you bother with him, Molly?’

  ‘He’s unhappy with his wife.’

  ‘Don’t they all say that? Not much of a reason to fritter away your life on him.’

  ‘It happens to be true.’

  ‘They all say that too.’

  ‘Oh, all right, if you aren’t going to even listen!’ Molly turned and began to walk back the way they had come.

  ‘Sorry. I’ll hear you out before I say another word. Right?’

  ‘She was expecting a baby, see, and they got married because it was the right thing to do. Then only weeks after the wedding, the baby, well, she lost it. So there they were, married and not even liking each other, hating each other for being trapped in a marriage neither wanted. They’d never loved each other.’

  ‘How can you make a baby without feeling love for each other?’ Lydia asked quietly.

  ‘It happens. Men will take what’s on offer without thinking further ahead than the next five minutes. Oh, yes. Women too! Sex is wonderful, as you’ll find out when your Mr Right comes along, but I take your point. Without love it isn’t so special. There’s the aftermath of guilt, see, which you don’t get if you’re in love.’

  ‘Do you feel guilt? Loving him and knowing he has a wife?’

  ‘It’s no longer a game of gratification. I – I think I love him. I want him to leave his wife.’ She stared at her friend to see her reaction. ‘Is that very wicked, Lydia?’

  ‘D’you think he will?’

  ‘Of course he wants to. But with his mam and dad hounding him and trying to make him behave as they think he should, it’s difficult for him. I can see that.’

  ‘And you, could you live with the pointing fingers and being shunned by so-called friends? Even in this day and age, people criticize women accused of breaking up marriages. Most women feel vulnerable and they shout quick when it happens to someone else, fearing it might be their turn next.’

  ‘I don’t want it made public yet. I don’t want anything to frighten Mr and Mrs Frank into thinking I’ll leave them. I won’t. I promised them I’d stay with them until they pass peacefully away and look after them properly until they do and I’ll keep that promise. They’ve been good to me and I wouldn’t let them down, not even for – for ‘what’s-his-name’, my fella. But seeing me mixed up in a divorce might make them worry and I don’t want that, I love them, see. So there you are, a fine ol’ mess, for sure. Me wanting him to leave his wife but not wanting anyone to
breathe a word in case Mr and Mrs Frank are upset.’

  Lydia was silent for a while.

  ‘Lydia?’ Molly coaxed.

  ‘I keep thinking of how I would feel if I had married Glyn and he’d found someone else. It’s humiliating enough having Glyn leave me for this ‘Cath’ woman. And we weren’t even officially engaged.’

  ‘No good talking to you then is it!’ Molly again turned and this time ran from her friend down past the shops towards the sea. She stopped as Lydia caught her up and held her arm. ‘I know it will cause misery,’ she sighed, her voice trembling tearfully. ‘But I love him and want him and I know we’d be happy.’

  ‘You don’t want it out in the open anyway, not yet, so I suggest you stop meeting for a while, let things calm down. You’ve been seen walking up past the fishermen’s cottages so it won’t be long before you – and he – are recognised. Stay away from him for a while to see how you both feel. That’s my advice, if you want it. That way you won’t risk upsetting Mr and Mrs Frank and if the marriage is mended, well, best you know now, before wasting any more of your time.’

  ‘I can’t do that, but we’ve chosen a different place to meet, where we shouldn’t be seen.’

  ‘If you must continue to meet, then good. Just don’t tell anyone where or when.’

  * * *

  The tall man had to get into the castle. It had been sheer luck that he had heard that the place was closing for repairs. Just when everything was looking so good this had to come back and haunt him. He had to find what he had hidden and remove it to a place where it would never be found. He was angry with himself. He should have done something before this.

  He had been watching for several days and knew that children still managed to get not only into the grounds, but inside the castle itself. He had heard them laughing and running about and guessed at the games they were playing. He had seen the plans for the work that would be done and although it seemed unlikely that his secret would be discovered, he had to go and move the items and take them far away, this time making sure they would never again see the light of day. Weighted down and dropped overboard from a small boat, that was the best solution. But first he had to find them. Would he remember the exact spot, or would his memory let him down?