Authors: Catrin Collier
Charlie ordered a pint of beer. Sipping it, he moved along the bar until he stood alongside Fred, who, foot on brass rail, arm extended, was holding forth on the depression and its causes to Ben Springer, who owned a shoe shop in town. When Fred finally paused to finish his drink, Charlie stepped forward.
‘Another, Mr Jones?’
The undertaker eyed Charlie suspiciously before replying. ‘I don’t mind if I do. Double brandy.’
Charlie ordered the brandy. He stuck to his beer; it had been a long time since he’d eaten, and he needed to keep a clear head. At least for the next half-hour.
‘I know you,’ Fred said as he picked up the glass the barman handed him. ‘You’re that foreign butcher who works the market.’
‘I am.’
‘Don’t know why we have to import foreigners to run the town’s businesses when there are so many local lads out of work,’ Ben Springer grumbled nastily, aggrieved that he hadn’t been included in the round of drinks.
‘I manage the stall for a Cardiff butcher,’ Charlie explained. ‘It’s not mine.’
‘And I suppose you think that makes it all right. But it’s still a job you’ve taken from those that need it.’
‘Is the brandy all right, Mr Jones?’ Charlie asked, turning his back on Ben Springer.
‘Fine.’ Fred drained his glass and motioned to the barman to refill it and pour Charlie another beer.
‘Could I have a word with you in private, Mr Jones?’ Charlie asked.
Fred led the way to a table in a secluded corner. New Inn prices were too steep for all but a handful of people in the town, and the bar wasn’t crowded, even on a Saturday night.
‘What are you after?’ Fred asked bluntly as soon as they were seated.
‘I’d like to know what rent you’re asking for your shop in Taff Street.’
‘I own a lot of shops in Taff Street. Which one you after?’
‘The one at the bottom of Penuel Lane that used to be a china shop.’
‘Good spot that, next to the entrance to the fruit market.’ Fred picked up his replenished brandy glass and sipped it. ‘You know an opportunity when you see it, young man. You after it for yourself?’
‘I’ll be employing others to run it.’
‘And what would you be selling. Meat?’
‘No. Fancy goods,’ Charlie replied vaguely.
‘You’d have to sell a lot of those to pay the rent I’m asking. That’s an expensive shop you’re looking at there. It’s even got a nice little flat above it. Did you know that?’
‘Yes. That’s one of the reasons I’d like it. But if the rent is too much for the profit margin I expect to be making, I’ll look elsewhere.’ Charlie finished his first pint and picked up the one Fred had bought him. ‘I counted thirty-five empty shops in town this morning.’
‘Not all of them have backyards, or living accommodation above.’
‘Not all of them have high rents either.’
Fred narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you prepared to pay?’
‘No more than a pound a week.’
‘That’s scandalous.’
‘Not for a five-year lease.’
‘You’re not lacking in confidence, I’ll say that for you.’
‘Two hundred and sixty pounds over five years, for a shop that was probably only worth three hundred and fifty pounds before the depression, looks a pretty good option to me.’
‘There’ll be no let-out clause in the lease,’ Fred warned. ‘I’ll have it sewn up tighter than my wife’s corsets.’
‘I won’t sign unless there’s an option to buy at the end of the five years. I understand that’s usual practice.’
‘Do you now.’ Fred fingered his chin thoughtfully as he drained his glass. ‘All right, I don’t see any problem with that. Option to buy at the going rate five years hence.’
‘At one hundred pounds.’
‘That’s daylight robbery!’
‘You’ll be getting three hundred and sixty pounds for a rundown shop that wouldn’t fetch a hundred and fifty if it was put on the open market now.’
‘I’m in no hurry to sell.’
Charlie finished his second glass and left his chair.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To see the solicitor, Mr Spickett, Monday morning. He’s acting for the estate that owns the shop next to the Park Hotel.’
‘My shop’s by the entrance to the fruit market.’
‘The one by the Park Hotel is close to the Taff Street park gates; it will get a fair amount of casual trade in the summer.’
‘Mine will get it all the year round.’
‘Word will soon get about. People will always go where there’s a bargain to be had.’
‘Tell you what.’ Fred signalled to the barman to fill his own glass and Charlie’s again. ‘I’ll give it to you for two hundred at the end of the lease.’
‘I offered a hundred.’ Charlie ignored the beer the barman carried to their table.
‘A hundred and fifty.’
‘One hundred and twenty-five, and that’s my final offer.’
The undertaker stared into the Russian’s cold blue eyes and saw the man meant exactly what he’d said. ‘I’ll get my solicitor to draw up the papers tomorrow.’
‘In the meantime if you wouldn’t mind signing this.’ Charlie pulled the piece of paper he’d torn from his notebook out of his pocket and pushed it over the table.
Only then did he pick up his glass.
‘What’s this?’
‘Details of our agreement.’
Fred peered at the figures. ‘Lease at fifty-two pounds a year, payable quarterly ... you said nothing about quarterly!’
‘Standard business practice.’
‘Comes to something when a foreigner tells a man what’s standard business practice in his own country.’ There was a trace of humour in Fred’s voice that had been absent from Ben Springer’s. ‘Buying at one hundred and twenty-five pounds ... you had it all worked out before you walked in here!’
‘I worked out what I could afford beforehand. Yes.’
‘Even if I sign this, it wouldn’t be witnessed, so it wouldn’t be legal.’
‘No,’ Charlie acceded. ‘But it would be legal enough to make a fuss should you try to pull out tomorrow morning.’
‘What did your family do in Russia? Horse-trading?’
‘Something along those lines,’ Charlie agreed mildly.
Fred removed a fountain pen from his top pocket, and signed his name at the foot of the page. ‘How soon do you want to be in?’
‘Monday morning.’
‘This week coming?’
Charlie nodded. ‘There’s some work that needs doing.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I took a good look before the china people moved out.’
‘Snooping?’
‘I used to deliver meat for Mrs Meakins.’
‘I’m not paying out any money for repairs. You take the place as you find it.’
‘That’s why I knocked you down on price.’ Charlie finished his beer. ‘If I’m going to own the place eventually, I’d like to see the job done properly.’
‘Ever had the feeling you’ve been had?’ Fred muttered to the barman as he pushed his glass across the bar after Charlie left.
‘Every night I work in this place, sir.’ The barman pulled the brandy bottle from beneath the counter.
As Fred picked up his refilled glass he smiled. At least he’d managed to rent his empty shop, which was more than the poor sod who owned the shop next to the Park Hotel had done.
William had never been in the market so late. If there were things that needed doing that warranted staying behind for more than half an hour, Charlie inevitably saw to them, an arrangement that suited William admirably.
After all, Charlie was the one who managed the business.
He was only the paid help, although he was more than prepared to put in whatever effort was needed. He was grateful to Charlie for employing him, grateful that he had somewhere to go six days a week, unlike his cousin Eddie who worked for Wilf Horton every Wednesday and Saturday and tried to make up the money he earned by helping his father out on the cart. It was an open secret between the men in the household that Evan and Eddie didn’t bring in enough money tatting to keep one of them, let alone two.
After putting on his coat and cap, William slammed the wooden shutters that Charlie had hinged across the stall, secured the padlock and breathed a sigh of relief. Hoping that he’d thought of everything. Knives ... emptying buckets ... oh well, what wasn’t done, wasn’t. He was damned if he was going to open the shutters again. He glanced at the clock over the door. Ten o’clock. Too late to do anything except go to Ronconi’s, drink chocolate, and hope that Tina would evade her brother’s eagle eye long enough for them to exchange a word or two.
Hands in pocket, coat buttoned high against the wind, he whistled the opening bars of ‘
You were temptation’
as he walked towards the side door.
‘Will?’
‘Vera?’ he stared at a girl he last remembered as a ragged; grubby ten-year-old who’d lived a couple of doors down from him in Leyshon Street. He looked up at the stall. ‘You working for old George now?’
‘He’s left me to lock up and I can’t lift the shutters. You wouldn’t give me a hand would you?’
‘For you, Vera, anything,’ he winked. Pushing his cap to the back of his head he picked up the first of the square wooden shutters, which unlike those around Charlie’s stall, needed to be hoisted up and slotted into place at the front of the counter.
‘Where’s George then?’ he asked as he heaved the last into place.
‘It’s Saturday night,’ she said disparagingly.
‘Don’t tell me, he’s playing cards in the back room of the Queen’s.’
‘You’ve got it.’
‘Bit unfair, leaving you to do all the work.’ William secured the bar across the shutters and slipped on the open padlock. ‘There, all done.’ He turned and smiled at her. Vera was a couple of years younger than him. Sixteen, if he remembered rightly, the same age as his sister Diana; but he didn’t recall her being as pretty as she was now. Her wild, unkempt matted curls had been tamed, and there was no sign of the spots that had earned her the nickname of Nettles.
Her dark brown hair was neatly waved and glossy. It framed an oval face with a beautiful peaches-and-cream complexion that showed off her bow-shaped mouth and large brown eyes to fine advantage. But he didn’t waste too much time looking at her face. Her figure had filled out, and his glance lingered on the full, rounded breasts, clearly outlined beneath her thin cotton overall. If she had anything on underneath, it certainly didn’t show, and he admired her capacity to withstand the cold. He was shivering through the thick layers of his jacket and coat.
‘George has left me to lock up four Saturdays running,’ she grumbled. ‘He never used to before we were married.’
‘You married George Collins?’ William couldn’t keep the shock from his voice. George Collins was fat, bald ... and old. He had to be at least fifty.
‘He’s a good man, and he takes care of me. I want for nothing.’ She might have been repeating a lesson she’d learned by heart, and William realised this wasn’t the first time she’d had to defend her marriage. ‘He was my father’s oldest friend and when Dad died ...’
‘I heard about that. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry we lost touch after you moved from Leyshon Street.’
‘Mam says we should never have moved. The house we rented in Wood Road was bigger, but Mam says there’s no people in Ponty like the neighbours we had on the Graig.’
‘So how long you been married?’
‘Four months. George is so kind, and not only to me. He helps my mam out too. She’s still got five at home, and it’s been hard on her since Dad died. George’s money makes all the difference ...’ she stopped suddenly, realising she was saying far too much.
‘Who would have thought it,’ William said tactlessly. ‘Little Vera and old George.’
‘I’m not little Vera any more, and George is not that old,’ she countered indignantly. But her protest didn’t fool William. He noticed her bottom lip tremble.
‘Obviously not in the way that matters, seeing as how he married you,’ William consoled clumsily.
‘Thanks for the shutters.’
‘Any time.’ He took a step forward, but something made him turn back. Vera was holding on to the padlock she’d fastened, sobs shaking her shoulders, tears pouring down her cheeks.
‘Hey. Come on,’ William put his hand on her arm. ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.’
‘I’m just being silly,’ she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but tears still clung to her eyelashes. For the first time William saw that she wasn’t simply pretty. She was beautiful. She even looked good when she cried, unlike his sister Diana, whose nose always turned bright red. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you home,’ he offered.
‘George’s house is on the Parade, and I know you still live on the Graig. I saw Diana and Tina Ronconi waiting in the queue to get into the pictures. George lets me go to the Palladium with my sister every week, because he doesn’t like the pictures. Diana told me that you were both living with your aunt and uncle now after ...’
‘Come on. Pick up your coat. If we don’t make a move we’re going to be landed with the job of locking the whole market.’ The last thing William wanted was to get caught up in a discussion on the events that had led to his mother’s imprisonment.
‘Do you remember all those picnics we had over Shoni’s pond?’ Vera asked as they walked out of Market Square into Taff Street. ‘That time you and your cousin Haydn fell in when you tried to catch fish. You said you were going to cook them over the fire we’d lit on the bank.’
‘Just as well it was the wrong time of year for tadpoles,’ he said carelessly. ‘I have a feeling they wouldn’t have been very tasty.’
‘And then there was that time you hid Miss Jones’s glasses in Sunday school, and tied Mrs Edwards’s cat –’
‘How long have you been working on George’s stall?’ William didn’t enjoy talking about his childhood in Leyshon Street. It reminded him of home, of his mother, and he had never really come to terms with the thought of her locked up in Cardiff prison day after day.
‘Since two weeks before we got married.’
‘I can’t get over you and George.’ He shook his head as they rounded the corner by the old bridge. ‘I always used to think that you and Jimmy ...’
‘Jimmy’s in Cornwall. When he couldn’t get a job around here he went to the Labour Exchange and they found him a place on a farm. He wrote to me once or twice, he seems to like it there.’