The Homecoming Read online

  The second close encounter was with Gimlet. Puzzled, the tall man followed without a sound as Gimlet shinned over the gate and ran up towards the castle gates. He watched as Gimlet climbed the wall and went through the window, using a rope tied to an ash tree. Then he headed for the kitchen, studying the ground with the aid of a torch before snapping off the light and returning the way he had come.

  The tall man smiled. The time he took replacing the turves so no one would see evidence of his digging had been well worth it, but what could the man have been looking for? An object lost while enjoying a bit of secret courting, perhaps? Maybe he was looking for the bicycle clips he had found on his first night of digging! he mused.

  Putting aside concern for the man’s motives he turned his mind to the night’s work and began to lift out the first sod.

  * * *

  Billy had a bit of a cold that weekend, and taking advantage of him staying at home with Annie and not going to clean out the allotment shed as he had planned, Lydia went to see her aunt. Dismayed at the unexplained absence of Matthew she didn’t feel able to discuss it with Molly. Molly’s attitude to boyfriends was so different from her own and, although Molly would undoubtedly laugh her out of her melancholy, she needed a serious discussion about her future and for that, Auntie Stella was her choice. Without bitterness, she knew her mother would put her own needs before recommending any changes in her daughter’s life.

  Her knock was unanswered and she stood at the gate for a few moments undecided whether to wait or look at the shops and return later. The castle looked benign in the brightness of the winter sun and the ivy which clothed its walls was a brilliant green. The castle isn’t the cause ofthe trouble, Lydia told herself, it was people who had created that. The thought comforted her. Perhaps she would even be brave enough to go there again if the need arose. Sadly she thought it would not be with Matthew holding her hand.

  ‘Go on in, love, the door isn’t locked.’ Stella appeared round the corner having walked along the road behind the shops. ‘Still looking up at that old castle and wondering what went on there, are you?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Lydia smiled. ‘It doesn’t look half so frightening during the day, does it?’

  ‘I’ve lived here, under the shadow of its walls all my life,’ Stella said chuckling, ‘and I don’t think it holds any terrors for me. When you take away the mysteries caused by courting couples who shouldn’t be courting, and little boys playing out their own fantasies, you’ll find there’s little left that can’t be explained!’

  ‘I don’t think Molly will go there again,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Perhaps not Molly, but someone is for sure. I’ve seen someone moving up there and once, very late at night a man came past my gate, stood in the shadow of my wall for about twenty minutes. I thought it was Gimlet, but then he hopped over the gate as nimble as a hurdler so I decided it couldn’t have been him! Taller too, more like that Matthew Hiatt only bigger in build. Seen anything of him lately?’ she chattered on while unpacking her shopping. ‘Nice looking he is, mind, but as big a mystery as what went on at the castle, don’t you think?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him for days,’ Lydia blurted out sadly. ‘He’s gone, Auntie Stella. And he didn’t even say goodbye. We were getting on so well and we’d half arranged to go to a dance last Saturday but he never called and I haven’t seen him since.’ She thought of the wonderful and extravagant evening at The Chelsea Parlour and told her aunt that she realised now that it had been a goodbye.

  ‘You’ve been to his lodgings?’

  ‘He paid his bill and left on the morning after we last met.’

  Over a cup of tea and some home-made cake, Lydia talked. She poured out all her hurt and Stella listened in silence. Then Stella stood up, brushed the crumbs from her lap into the grate and said firmly, ‘You, my girl, have to plan your future. Drifting along waiting to marry is all right while you have a partner with the same idea but now you’re on your own and you must make the most of it.’ Being one of those people unable to sit with idle hands, Stella reached for the child’s cardigan she was knitting. As they discussed alternatives for Lydia to consider, she suddenly held up the garment and said, ‘Why don’t you leave that stall and work for yourself?’

  ‘Matthew suggested the same thing!’ Lydia stared at her aunt, her face open with surprise, then her expression faded and she said the same to Stella she had said to Matthew. ‘How can I?’

  ‘Easy. Open up the shop here,’ Stella replied, unknowingly again making the same suggestion as Matthew.

  ‘I don’t know anything about running a business like that.’

  ‘How d’you know before you’ve given it a try?’ Stella repeated Matthew’s words again.

  ‘How can I?’ This was a day for echoes, she thought with slight irritation. ‘What do I know about hairdressing?’

  ‘Hairdressing? Who said anything about hairdressing? I mean to sell wool and hand-knitted garments. Some factory-mades too, to bring more trade. It isn’t a bad spot here, right opposite the castle where visitors pass in the summer.’

  This was something different. This was worth considering.

  ‘But, don’t you need a lot of money to open a shop?’

  ‘Not if we’re careful. We’d have to start small. mind. Tell you what, I’ll keep this little cardigan,’ she waved her knitting with enthusiasm, ‘and the others I’ve made ready to take for your Mrs Thomas, and instead, they’ll go to start the stock-pile for ‘Lydia Jones, Quality Knitwear and Wool’, how will that be?’

  Two hours later, Lydia left her aunt’s house buoyed up with excitement and with plans and ideas buzzing through her head. With Stella promising her six months before she charged her rent, and also agreeing to help run the place while looking after Annie, it seemed so right, that Lydia had already decided to do it before she reached home.

  She burst in through the door, climbing the stairs from the kitchen calling to her parents, ‘Mam, Dad, I’m going to open a shop, what d’you think of…’ her words petered out as she saw Glyn standing beside the window looking out of the window. ‘Hello, Glyn,’ she managed, before going into her room to take off her coat.

  She stood in her bedroom, angry that he was here, just when she needed to discuss what she and Auntie Stella had decided. Now she would have his opinions and interruptions and no doubt her mother would seek his support, try to discourage her, and was probably already telling him how impossible it all was.

  Childishly she was tempted to wait in her room until she heard him going downstairs and out of the house. Instead, she touched up her make-up and combed her hair and went back into the living room looking, if not feeling, confident and controlled. I’m a businesswoman, or almost, she told herself. Glyn’s opinion isn’t relevant. Her spurious confidence took its first dive as she reminded herself it was her mother, not Glyn, whom she had to convince.

  ‘I can’t see how we’ll manage,’ was Annie’s predictable first comment. ‘Stella won’t have time for you to be under her feet all fuss and feathers. Selfish of you to think of it,’ she added.

  ‘It was Auntie Stella’s idea. Hers, and Matthew’s!’ she added looking defiantly at Glyn. ‘He thinks I’m foolish to go on working for someone else, giving away a large chunk of my profits. Knitting and getting the full price makes better sense, he said.’

  ‘There’s rent and light and heating and—’ Glyn began hesitantly.

  ‘All considered and thought of. Auntie Stella is going to invest in me by letting me have the shop free for a few months,’ Lydia retorted sharply. ‘You don’t honestly think I’d consider starting a business and not be aware of those basic needs do you?’

  ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ Billy said. ‘And very kind of Stella to offer her help. Fancy, my daughter a business woman!’

  ‘What about me?’ Annie sounded genuinely frightened and Lydia hastily reassured her.

  ‘You’ll be with Auntie Stella, and I’ll be there as well. There won’t be an
y difference so far as you’re concerned, I promise, Mam.’

  ‘If Tomos and I can help,’ Glyn said, ‘we’ll be happy to run you to wholesalers and the like.’

  She ignored Glyn, pretended she hadn’t heard, didn’t want to say thank you, didn’t want him involved. He’d let her down once and she wasn’t giving him the chance to do so again. It was impossible for her to smile and to thank him. She turned to her father. ‘I’ll make a list of the firms who supply the stall, that isn’t cheating, is it, Dad? Then I’ll give my notice next Friday. I’ll be free to start working for myself before Christmas with any luck.’

  When Glyn shrugged himself into his coat and prepared to leave, Billy insisted he stayed for a cup of tea. ‘Lydia’s made some pasties for tea, stay and have one, she always makes plenty.’

  So Lydia had to go down and prepare food for them when all she wanted to do was think about this new project. Having Glyn silently watching her was taking the joy out of it, part of her wished she could involve him and wild thoughts danced in her head, remembering how easily they had once shared every thought, every plan.

  That route swiftly led her to the memory of hearing he was leaving her for someone else. Sentimental dreams of even friendship being restored were snapped off sharply. There was no love and no prospect of friendship. Now, when she thought of loving, it was the dark-eyed Matthew who filled her mind and had her body racing with the prospect of fulfillment. Yet the memories of when she and Glyn were together refused to fade away.

  Glyn followed her down the stairs to the kitchen and watched as she put the pasties in the oven to warm. He set the tray with plates and cups and saucers as he had many times before. Her thoughts continued to play tricks, one minute thinking this was how it had always been, then being brought up sharp to memories of him telling her goodbye. She was very conscious of him as he whistled cheerfully and helped load the second tray, putting out napkins and finding the cutlery with the ease of regular practice.

  ‘How is – Cath?’ she asked, hiding her expression as she bent over the oven.

  ‘Cath is fine. She and I are still searching for a flat,’ he said.

  ‘London, is it?’

  ‘Probably, yes.’

  ‘Good-looking is she, this Cath?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose she is.’

  ‘His answers were curt, he obviously didn’t want to discuss his new lady-love with me,’ Lydia told Molly the following morning on their way to work.

  ‘More fool you for trying!’ Molly said unsympathetically. ‘I’d have told him to drop dead if he even spoke to me after what he did to you!’

  ‘D’you know, Molly, I know this sounds silly, but I don’t think there is a “Cath in London”. I think he’s made her up.’

  ‘Tomos thinks so too,’ Molly said. ‘He thinks he’s got a girl pregnant and has to pay her maintenance every week and that’s why he’s broke.’

  For some reason Lydia found this easier to bear than the thought that he had found someone else he loved more than her. A moment’s weakness and then regret she could now understand. After all, wasn’t that what had happened to Glyn’s brother? But if it were true, she would never marry him. Not when someone else had more right to him, a stronger need of him. For the first time she began to wonder if there was someone else in Matthew’s life. Perhaps he had a wife somewhere, a man didn’t necessarily wear a wedding ring, so it was easy to be deceived. ‘Do you think Matthew is married or has a fiancee somewhere?’ she asked her friend.

  ‘What if he has? A brief bit of fun wouldn’t harm her, she’d never find out, would she?’

  Lydia was silent for a while. That wasn’t the way she looked at things. A relationship had to be true and honest or she would prefer not to have one at all. Best she forget both Matthew and Glyn and concentrate on the business she and her aunt were planning. In a low voice she began explaining to Molly what she was going to do. For a while anyway, it would keep her busy and with little time to think about the undependable Glyn, or the mysterious Matthew Hiatt.

  Chapter Five

  The setting up of the business took a lot of Lydia’s time. She constantly sneaked off from the market to telephone to one department after another and saw various accountants and tax officers until she began to think it would have been simpler to continue working on the market stall and selling what she made to friends.

  ‘It’s never-ending,’ she complained to Stella one Sunday morning two weeks later. ‘It’s like working my way through a jungle and never finding the way out. Every time I think I’ve got there, the path opens out into three more and I don’t think I’ll ever come to the end of it.’

  They were giving the shop an intermediate clean, as half the room had already been fitted out with shelves and display areas. The bow window shone with Stella’s efforts and the new shelves were being covered with attractive paper awaiting the arrival of their stock of wool. Boxes of jumpers and children’s clothes were stacked both in the shop and in Stella’s living room. From the cellar they had unearthed a pair of stools and a glass-fronted display cabinet in which they planned to show some of their better quality knitwear. Knitting with sequins was one of Stella’s specialities.

  ‘I think I’ll end up living in the shed out the back if he doesn’t finish the shelves soon,’ she sighed.

  ‘Who’s doing the work, you haven’t said?’ Lydia queried.

  ‘Well, if you must know, it’s Glyn. Now—’ she held out a hand to stop Lydia’s protest. ‘I know you said you didn’t want him to help but he offered and, he’s doing it for nothing, so you needn’t go on about him grabbing all the money he can. Only costing us the price of the wood it is, and if there’d been a storm I think he’d have used driftwood to save us even that, so careful he’s being. Now, we have to be grateful, don’t we? A shoe-string operation this is after all.’

  ‘I understand and I don’t blame you, but I don’t want to be grateful to Glyn.’

  ‘No fuss, I’ll thank him for the pair of us! Now, I’ll make the tea while you finish putting paper on that last shelf. Coming in to do the ones on this side tomorrow he is.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay away!’

  ‘Best for you too. I don’t want him distracted and putting them vertical instead of horizontal,’ Stella quipped.

  ‘Has he said anything about this new girlfriend, er…’ she put her head on one side quizzically, ‘Cath is she called?’

  ‘You know very well she’s called Cath and no, he hasn’t discussed her. I have the feeling he’s regretting telling you goodbye and wants a chance to put things right.’

  ‘Pity for him! I won’t be messed about again!’

  ‘I can understand your anger, fach, but don’t let pride keep you from being happy. It’s no fun watching your life slip away watching the man you should have married instead of being with him.’

  Something in her aunt’s voice made Lydia turn and stare. ‘Auntie Stella? You don’t mean you were unhappy with Uncle Sam?’

  ‘No love, not unhappy. He was a good, kind man, but there was someone else and I turned him away. It’s a constant regret, not forgiving him then for something that seems so trivial now.’

  It was late when Lydia left the house near the castle gate and she automatically glanced up at the dark walls. It was Stella who heard the howling first, and she looked up and frowned. ‘Whatever’s that?’

  ‘Sounds like a dog. Could it be lost?’ Lydia was at once sympathetic and wanting to help. ‘It isn’t far from the gate, perhaps if I climbed over and offered it some food I’d be able to catch it?’

  A piece of meat from the Sunday roast was found and Lydia carefully climbed over the gate and dropped down into the darkness of the grounds. The dog heard her and ran to her, but then as she leaned forward to offer the morsel, and her shadow loomed before her like a dark cloak, it ran back up towards the high walls of the ruin. Lydia was handed a torch and without putting it on, she followed.

  She found the dog, a young, smooth-h
aired terrier, shivering against the wall near the tall castle gates, and this time it allowed her near enough to pick it up and begin to carry it down the slope to the gate. Half way down it became agitated and struggled to get free. It managed to jump from her arms and Lydia gasped in frustration as it ran once again up to the wrought-iron gates.

  * * *

  Inside the castle the tall man was digging out his first spadeful of the night. He was puzzled. Surely he should have come upon it before this? He frowned. and looked around him at the remnants of the kitchen walls, then he paced out the area he had already examined and decided that, as time was beginning to run out, he would move and start again against the furthest wall. He cursed silently, angry with himself for the haziness of his memory. He had expected it to be so easy.

  He heard the dog whining and was irritated. He didn’t want anything untoward happening to bring people sniffing around. If the stupid animal had been inside the castle he would have aimed a blow at it and made it run, but separated by the thick walls, it was out of his reach and he could only hope it would soon get fed up and go back where it belonged.

  He dug out three sods in the new area, wondering if he was doing the right thing, glancing back to the place he had reached the night before. Perhaps he should have continued in his methodical way, not start losing his nerve digging in panic, running around chasing his own tail.

  He was concentrating, still undecided on where to dig, when the dog began howling. Low at first, increasing in pitch and volume, ululating, unearthly, filling the air and echoing around the ancient stones. In spite of his cold determination to find what he had come for he paused momentarily, fighting off that age-old survival instinct; the urge to run. It was such an eerie sound, tragic and despairing.

  It was as the howling increased in intensity with the dog raising his head to the sky and issuing a wavering soprano, that he felt his spade touch something. At last! Shading the torch with a hand he knelt down beside the disturbed turf and reached out to scrabble around in the loose soil.