Paint on the Smiles (18 page)

Peter put down the white cloth and put his arms around her. ‘Cecily, dear girl, you worry too much. However hard you try, you cannot protect Van from every danger, avoid for her every pitfall life brings. You have to accept that she’ll make mistakes. All right, perhaps you said more than you ought, but whether you did or not is irrelevant. Van is nineteen and whatever she is, she will remain. Come, my love, cheer up. Let’s go back in and you can smile your wonderful smile at them both.’

She looked at him, seeing the kindly friend of so many years and hugged him almost shyly. ‘Peter, what would I do without you? You’re such a good friend. How long has it been now?’

‘Thirteen years last April.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek and she turned impulsively and kissed his lips. With an arm casually around her waist, they went back into the living room with smiles that were genuine.

Van and Paul were standing and Paul was putting on his army greatcoat.

‘Where are you going?’ Cecily asked.

‘For a walk and a cuddle in the dark,’ Paul replied.

‘We’ll have to start saving our clothing coupons now,’ Ada said happily. ‘Won’t it be lovely to have a wedding in the family? All the relations here. You can have all my coupons, Van, love. What about yours, Cecily?’

The next morning Cecily went out and spent eight of her twenty-six coupons – which had to last for a year – on a pair of worsted slacks for two pounds fifteen shillings, and a full-sleeved blouse using six more and two pounds sixteen shillings. A pretty nightdress cost one pound and ten
shillings and used six coupons. Defiantly she returned to the shop and spent the remaining six coupons on eight pairs of stockings at a shilling a pair.

T
HROUGHOUT THAT SUMMER
and autumn there were a few air raids but most times the enemy planes flew over the town without causing any trouble. Nuisance raids they were called: a plane passed over and the warning would sound, forcing workers to leave their benches and causing a loss of production. Gradually people became less worried and would hesitate before going to the shelters; some ignored them completely. A few bombs were dropped in the area but there was no return to the fierce attacks of earlier months. One theory was that if a plane had a bomb left after a previous attack somewhere further north, the crew would drop it rather than take it back to Germany, and they were indifferent about the target.

Cecily spent her days at Van’s side in the office overlooking Watkins’ shop floor, trying not to worry. She tried not to think about Van writing to Paul every day and waiting for his next leave with undisguised excitement. She tried not to think of the way Ada and Phil were allowing the business to slide deeper and deeper towards unrecoverable failure. It was all so difficult and if she tried to discuss either problem she risked an argument, so she worried, but spoke of it only to Peter.

Ada and Phil seemed to keep themselves busy in spite of falling trade. They still had a few customers registered for weekly rations but these were much reduced. Butter and cheese were down to two ounces per person per week and most weeks there was only one egg. Fuel was restricted too; the coal allowance was not sufficient for a daily fire during the winter, and logs were a popular extra. Magazines were full of recipes for wartime cooking: eggless cakes, fatless sponges, and there was Spam and the famous dried eggs.

Watkins’ store began to build up for the Christmas trade by having small allocations of tinned fruit. The store was decorated with a few streamers to add some cheer, but in Owen’s shop the shelves remained
empty. Phil still went out on the cart but rarely brought anything apart from rabbits. These sold quickly, a queue forming before Phil had taken them from the cart.

Annette called with their youngest child, whom they had called William, and explained that, try as she might, she couldn’t persuade Willie to return to the shop. ‘He just sits and mopes, except when Danny comes home on leave and that isn’t very often. In fact, it’s months since we saw him,’ she told the sisters.

‘Shall I come and see him and ask him to come back?’ Cecily suggested. She was tempted to show Annette the books and point out how much they genuinely needed his advice and encouragement, but loyalty stopped her. It was too easy to offend Ada these days.

‘I don’t think he’ll be persuaded, but please try, Auntie Cecily. I’m in despair, I really am. I’m tired of talking to him.’

‘And talking isn’t all you’ve been doing, is it?’ Cecily said with a chuckle.

‘No, you’ve guessed. There’s another baby due in June. I can manage four children,’ Annette said wearily, ‘but please get Willie from under my feet!’

‘Let’s hope the war is over before he’s born.’

‘I’ll go on Sunday,’ Cecily told Peter. ‘In between fire drill and first aid and teaching a lot of new girls to drive ambulances! It seems we just get them used to the heavy vehicle then they take their skills to the forces.’

They went late on Sunday morning and were invited to stay for lunch.

‘No, loves, I can’t,’ Cecily said, seeing the small piece of lamb they were prepared to share. ‘Ada will be expecting us back. I only came to have a word with Willie.’ She looked to where the twenty-nine-year-old sat, with a length of wood under his damaged arm trying to shape it into a hobby horse for four-year-old Claire. Seeing him struggling, she decided to use every argument she could to get him back, and forget her loyalties to Ada and Phil.

‘I’m so tired these days, I’m likely to fall flat on my face and snore in the gutter,’ she told him, waving her hand in an ineffectual attempt to push her hair from her eyes. ‘That long the days are, I wonder why I bother to go to bed for the few hours I sleep.’ She took a deep breath and went on. ‘It’s Phil partly, Willie. You know he’s a bit, well, a bit odd. He spends a lot of time driving around in the horse and cart, most days coming back with nothing, and Ada is left to cope on her own. I’m with
Van all day and I have to come home and cook a meal, then, between all the voluntary work, I deal with the books. Not the ordering, I’m not allowed to do that. I order too much apparently and it isn’t sensible. How they explain how having no stock to sell is sensible I can’t explain.’

‘I did wonder about the empty shelves but Ada explained about Van dealing with the big orders to save you worrying about them.’

‘That’s only partly true. The bulk of the day-to-day business is still in the shop but they’re running it down and down. Quite honestly, there soon won’t be any business to worry about. Between them they’ve lost three quarters of it already.’

‘What will you do?’ Willie asked.

‘Please, will you come at least for a little while?’

‘I don’t like leaving Annette to get three children into the shelter if there’s a raid. I’m needed here.’

‘I know you have your own business to get back on its feet, but could you come and see if you can persuade them to start building it up again? You know the business as well as I do and Phil might not object if you make suggestions about increasing the stock and encouraging our old customers back. I don’t know what I’ll do if things go on like this for much longer.’

Willie stood up and walked around the room. ‘What’s the point of me being there? What can I do with one arm?’

‘More than most can do with two!’ Cecily snapped. ‘It was your arm and that’s terrible but it wasn’t your brain, was it?’

Peter beckoned to the children and took them out into the garden, with Annette following.

‘It’s easy for you to talk,’ Willie argued.

‘I never dreamt you’d be the one to feel sorry for yourself, Willie Morgan! I’m working an eighteen-hour day, running here, running there, trying to do the work of three and watching the business – that you and I built – go down the drain like the water from scrubbing a filthy floor!’

She glared at him, her blue eyes wide in feigned anger, her fingers crossed behind her back. Her relief, when she heard him chuckle, was enormous.

‘All right, you big bully,’ he said. ‘But if I feel I’m not pulling my weight, I’ll pack it in, right?’

‘No. That’s not right! Starting with built-in defeat isn’t for me and it isn’t for you either.’

Peter laughed all the way back to the shop. ‘You’re a formidable
woman, Miss Owen.’ He smiled. ‘A suit of armour and a pack of dogs wouldn’t be enough to persuade me to take you on when you’re really determined.’

‘Did I overdo it?’

‘No, my dear. Like everything else you do, it was perfectly correct.’

‘Flatterer!’

So Willie agreed to go back to the shop, leaving Annette and Victor and Claire and William to get to the shelter, if necessary, without him.

‘We managed while you were away, love, and we’ll manage now,’ Annette assured him affectionately. ‘Go to the shop and promise me you won’t try running home through an air raid again.’

‘And you promise to take the children and your precious cargo to the shelter the minute the siren starts.’

She put her head on one side. ‘Willie, you never used to boss me around.’

He smiled, told her she was the most beautiful wife in the world and set off for the shop.

At the end of his first day he reported to Cecily that all was definitely not well.

‘There isn’t much on offer at the wholesalers but Ada is refusing to buy anything,’ he complained. ‘Things are so desperately scarce that she could sell whatever she can get. But no, she seems to get more satisfaction from emptying yet another shelf and putting up a board to hide the gap. She washes the shelves and does the windows every Monday regular, and boasts that the shop was never so clean. They’ve stopped selling fresh fish altogether, as Phil can’t bear the smell, so that order has gone completely, although I might manage to get it back.’

‘I’m so worried, Willie. Every time I try to explain to Ada about widening her stock, she jumps into a rage and looks to Phil for support against me. He says I’ve given her responsibility and should trust her to do what’s best. The truth is, I
don’t
trust her. I suppose I never have.’

He patted her shoulder in a comforting way. ‘Get this damned war over then we’ll start again, but it’ll be harder than before – restrictions won’t vanish overnight. And there isn’t as much fresh ground to cover as when you took over from your father.’

‘It’s all there for us. We’re using Watkins’ for the big contracts so they’re safe. It’ll all come back. All the beach trade too, and the shipping orders. I deal with them through Van’s store so they’ll come back once Van no longer needs me at Watkins’.’

‘It’s hard to imagine it,’ Willie said, ‘the men and women coming home, food rationing just a memory, goods coming from abroad to fill the shops. It will all happen, but I’m afraid it won’t be for a while. Perhaps this time next year we’ll see encouraging signs.’

‘However long it takes, we’ll get the shop going again.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I just wish Ada hadn’t lost so many of our day-to-day customers. Small people, small orders are what we started with and they’re still our mainstay, or would be if she hadn’t lost them!’

‘Van will return the big contracts, will she?’

‘Of course.’ Cecily laughed. ‘If I want to handle them, that is. It’s all in the family, isn’t it, and it doesn’t really matter whether they’re dealt with in our shop or hers.’

‘Will you stay at Watkins’ when Van is twenty-one? Have you thought of a manager for her?’

‘Plenty of time for that – 1945 is when she’ll be celebrating. Besides, being twenty-one doesn’t change anything. She just takes over the business officially. And what’s the point of looking for a manager now with all the young men in the forces? No, it’s the end of the war that will start things moving. Then we’ll sort everything out and I’ll come back to where I belong.’

‘Best for you too,’ Willie said firmly.

Christmas 1943 drew near without any prospect of the conflict being brought to an end and for Cecily and Ada, the occasion offered only the promise of a few days’ rest and quiet. Peter was the only extra person they had invited. They anticipated this restful oasis in their lives with pleasure, but in fact the house was constantly filled with callers and they had little time to relax.

Although they expected no one else, extra food had been stocked, just in case. Peter brought cakes, pasties, a loaf and some tinned meat, bottles of beer and some sherry, again, just in case. ‘Anything you don’t need we can give to Horse and his wife so they too can enjoy Christmas,’ he said.

Gareth was home on leave and he called with Rhonwen and Marged – who was now twenty-five, and in the Wrens. Willie brought his family, plus the dog he had rescued during an air raid, and Danny, who looked very strange with short hair and without his earring.

‘He arrived just as Annette and I were leaving,’ Willie explained. ‘I told him you’d be pleased to see them. Jessie and Danielle are with him.’ He
looked at her to see if there was a sign of dismay, but she covered her surprise well.

Cecily hugged Victor and Claire and picked up baby William as some sort of defence as she walked through the shop to greet Danny and his family. She almost hid behind the baby as she said, ‘Danny. There’s lovely to see you.’ She turned to the small, red-headed woman at his side, who was hesitating to enter. ‘Jessie! Welcome. Come in, all of you.’ Still hugging the baby, she led them into the living room. She was trembling. How could Willie be so insensitive?

Once inside, leaving coats draped over the counters, it was obvious the room behind the shop was too small. Peter went through to the back kitchen to fill kettles for the inevitable cups of tea, allowing her time to greet them all.

‘Come on, all of you,’ Cecily said brightly, ‘I think we’ll go upstairs to the big sitting room or we’ll fall over each other.’ She ran upstairs, leading the procession of visitors, and put a match to the fire, and fussed over it for a while, glad of the excuse to avoid looking at Danny. When she did, he came over and kissed her lightly on her cheek and at once did the same to Ada.

‘A Happy Christmas,’ he said. ‘You’re both looking lovely.’

Peter forgot about tea as Ada and Phil opened the drinks cupboard and took up bottles of port, sherry and lemonade, Willie produced a couple of flagons of beer and Cecily searched for sufficient glasses for them all. Since the bombing, they had packed away their best glasses and china in the cellar and were using cheaper ones. She apologized for them as she handed round drinks and snacks. She was still on edge at Danny’s unexpected appearance, his wife watching her, trying to understand, perhaps, what it was her husband saw in the agitated woman.

When everyone was supplied with a drink and some games found for the children, she sat and allowed the talk to flow around her. It was easier than she might have thought. Danny still got to her and she supposed he always would but the occasion, with so many people present, was quite pleasant. Her heart calmed to its normal beat and the initial tension faded away. Danny and Willie had plenty to discuss, being friends and business partners, and the children were an easy distraction when things went quiet.

Rhonwen and Gareth were obviously very happy and Cecily felt momentarily bleak at the reminder that she might have married Gareth if
his mother and Dorothy hadn’t interfered. But there was no jealousy, only regret that she was alone and everyone else part of a couple.

‘Where’s Phil?’ Ada asked as she added more precious fuel to the fire.

‘He won’t be far – he’s looking for more drink, I expect.’

‘I’d better go and find him. We’ll need more coal and logs brought up.’ She went downstairs, leaving the chattering group and calling to her husband.

He was outside. She found him in the back lane standing looking up at the sky, his arms around Zachariah’s donkey, singing softly in duet with Horse, who was heard but not seen.