Swansea Girls (2 page)

‘I told you, my new blue shirtwaister.’

‘Auntie Norah made me a green one from the same pattern as Lily’s blue. She brought it round to the salon this afternoon. My mother helped me pick out the material; she said the colour’s the same shade as my eyes, which has to be better than my hair.’ Flicking a lock forward, Judy pulled at it disparagingly as she sank back on the bed. ‘I wish Mam would let me dye it blonde.’

‘Auburn suits you.’

‘Only you could call ginger auburn, Lily.’

‘What are you wearing, Katie?’

‘She’s borrowing my yellow dress,’ Judy answered for her.

‘I am?’

‘I only said I wasn’t sure you could because I didn’t know if the green would be ready, but new dresses or not, we’re going to look like schoolgirls next to you if you go in that, Helen.’

‘I’m only wearing it tonight in honour of Adam Jordan.’

‘He’ll think you’ve escaped from a posh dinner dance in the Mermaid. And if Joe ...’

‘My brother’s going to a party. Have you noticed how university students go to ten times as many as we do?’

‘You could have gone to university if you’d wanted to.’ Lily finally relinquished the petticoat.

‘With my brains?’

‘What it must be to have a father who owns a warehouse full of clothes,’ Katie murmured enviously as Helen turned her back for Lily to unzip the dress. Her friends fell silent. Fathers were a touchy subject.

An evacuee who hadn’t been claimed by her family after the war, Lily couldn’t remember her father – or mother. Judy’s had been killed in the last week of hostilities and her secure upbringing was down to her mother’s business acumen and the success of the hairdressing salon she had opened, rather than any foresight on the part of her father who hadn’t taken out a single insurance policy. Katie’s father, like Helen’s, lived with his family, but you couldn’t get two more different men than Ernie Clay and John Griffiths.

Surly, foul-mouthed and bad-tempered, Ernie kept his family short of money, and spent every minute that opening hours and his night watchman’s job allowed in the back bar of the nearest pub. And the remainder of his free time bullying his family and beating his wife, if the shouts that resounded from the Clays’ basement flat and Annie Clay’s perpetual crops of bruises were anything to go by.

Conversely, despite disabilities, which everyone in Carlton Terrace politely and pointedly ignored, John Griffiths was hard-working, industrious and gave his wife a housekeeping allowance that was the envy of every woman in the street. He had expanded the small fancy goods warehouse his grandparents had left him into a Ladies’ and Children’s wear trade outlet that supplied the best department stores in south and west Wales. And although GRIFFITHS’S WHOLESALE FASHIONS AND HOUSEHOLD LINENS wasn’t quite the establishment Esme Griffiths liked to think it was, it was successful and profitable. So profitable that John had recently opened a Ladies’ wear outlet in the seaside village of Mumbles that catered for holiday-makers’ needs as well as locals.

‘My father’s not rich, just a working man the same as everyone else.’ Helen repeated her father’s maxim a little too dogmatically as Lily eased the dress back over her head. ‘I think I’ll run a bath. Pass me the Veet hair remover and Golden Dawn bath cubes, Judy. They’re in the top drawer of my dressing table. Not those, the yellow ones.’

‘You’d better be quick if you’re going to wash off the smell of the Veet,’ Judy warned. ‘It’s a quarter past six now. We ought to aim for the eight-o’clock Mumbles train if we’re going to get into the Pier before it’s too crowded for you to spot Adam Jordan, let alone stun him.’

‘Are you really going to wear this?’ Lily carefully draped the tapes that held the satin evening dress back on to the hanger.

‘Most definitely,’ Helen retorted, refusing to back down in the face of her friends’ collective disapproval.

‘In that case, do me a favour, pinch Joe’s razor to shave under your arms, otherwise you’ll be keeping us waiting.’ Judy brushed the end of Katie’s ponytail into a neat curl. Satisfied with her handiwork, she held up a hand mirror so Katie could see the back.

‘Thanks, Judy, that looks great.’

‘As the dress is already there, want to get ready in my house?’

‘Please.’

‘See you at half-seven.’ Helen waited until Lily closed her wardrobe before opening her bedroom door.

‘Twenty past, or we may not get a seat on the Mumbles train.’ Lily hesitated, glancing back at the petticoat on the bed. ‘You sure you won’t be wearing this, Helen?’

‘Absolutely. Now go or we’ll all be late.’

‘Lily, is that you, love?’ Roy Williams called from the back kitchen-cum-living room as he heard the front door close.

‘Yes, Uncle Roy.’

‘Come and meet someone.’

Lily walked through to see the brother and sister who had taken her in as a three-year-old evacuee and loved and cared for her ever since, sitting with a strange young man.

‘Here’s our Lily.’ Roy’s sister Norah beamed proudly at her foster-daughter. ‘Lily, this is Brian Powell, our new lodger.’

Brian rose to his feet and held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lily.’

‘Brian starts work at the station on Monday,’ Roy explained.

‘You’re a policeman?’ Lily wasn’t good at gauging people’s height, but Brian seemed even taller than her Uncle Roy, and he was over six feet.

‘I’ve just finished training in Bridgend.’

‘Brian’s from Pontypridd. Swansea’s his first posting.’

‘By the look of you the weather must be a lot warmer in Pontypridd than Swansea,’ Norah observed. Brian’s hair was black, his skin a rich sunburned brown.

‘I only left Cyprus two months ago, Mrs Evans. National Service,’ he added by way of an explanation.

‘It must be lovely to travel,’ Lily murmured shyly as she sat on the sofa next to Norah.

‘That depends on how you do it. The army doesn’t make first-class arrangements but once we were there the beaches were fantastic. White sand, blue sea ...’

‘And warmer than Langland Bay I should think.’ Roy pulled his pipe from his trouser pocket.

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to any of the Gower beaches.’

‘Never?’ Lily asked incredulously.

‘The furthest Pontypridd people go on day trips is Barry Island or Porthcawl.’

‘But now you’re here, you have to see the Gower.’

‘I have a bike; perhaps you could show me.’

‘I wouldn’t be happy with our Lily riding pillion on a motorbike,’ Norah broke in swiftly. ‘Aren’t you going out with the girls tonight, Lily?’

‘Yes, and I have to get ready. Excuse me, Brian.’

‘Nice to meet you, Lily.’

As Lily closed the door she heard Norah say, ‘Lily is only just eighteen, Brian. My brother and I lead a quiet life. Some would say we’ve sheltered Lily, wrapped her in cotton wool as it were, but the truth is she’s not used to young men, especially in our home. You see, we stopped taking in lodgers when the war ended, but given the present housing shortage, when the sergeant mentioned you were having trouble finding a place we thought it only right to offer you a room here ...’

Lily didn’t wait to hear any more. Whether it was his height, suntan or air of confident self-sufficiency, Brian seemed a lot older than her. And there was one thing she agreed on with Judy and Helen. Fair boys like Adam Jordan were more attractive than dark ones. Not that she stood a chance of getting Adam to notice her with Helen around, but that didn’t stop her from dreaming – just a little.

Brian remained in Norah’s living room only as long as it took to finish his tea, home-made cake and make his excuses. He’d heard enough stories about PC Roy Williams in police training school to know that he was a well-respected officer who had gained the trust and admiration of every colleague he had ever worked with, and nothing, but nothing, happened in Swansea that he didn’t know about. He’d been looking forward to working with, and learning from him, but Roy’s widowed sister was something else. Roy had mentioned that her husband had been killed at Dunkirk but, German guns aside, Brian decided that the late Mr Evans had proved his courage by marrying the formidable Norah.

More spinster than widow, two minutes in her company had been enough to convince him that he had about as much chance of smuggling a woman into his room as he had of sneaking in an elephant. The thought depressed him. The house and his room were neat and clean, the tea Norah served excellent, but there was something off-puttingly respectable and antiseptic about the atmosphere after three months of communal bachelor living in training school.

Dumping his suitcase and bag in the corner of his bedroom, he took the towels Norah had arranged on his washstand and washed and shaved in the bathroom. Returning to his bedroom, he lifted his case on to the bed, unlocked it, and picked out a clean shirt. He changed, checked his hair and face in the mirror and selected a different tie to go with the grey mohair suit he’d splashed out on after demob, then headed downstairs. Swansea might be uncharted territory but the army had taught him to treat every billet as an adventure. And he was hoping to find at least one unattached, pretty girl who’d look on a newcomer in a strange town as sympathetically and compassionately as a few of the locals had in Cyprus.

‘You have your key, Brian?’ Norah was in the hall, dusting a highly polished chest of drawers. He sensed that she’d been waiting for him.

‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Evans.’ He patted his pocket.

‘Will you be late?’

Swallowing the resentment he felt at being asked the question after two and half years of coming and going as he pleased in his free time, he answered as pleasantly as he could bring himself to, ‘I don’t expect to be very late, Mrs Evans.’

‘Have a good time.’

‘I’ll try.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Are there any good pubs close by that you can recommend, Mrs Evans?’

‘I’ve never been in a pub in my life, Brian.’

‘Of course, I should have thought ...’

‘But Roy seems to like the White Rose on Walter Road. Pity he’s on duty tonight or he would have taken you there himself. He enjoys a pint. Turn left as you leave the house, left at the end of the street, straight on and you’ll see it on the main road.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Evans.’

‘And stay away from the dock area, but then, what am I doing telling a policeman how to look after himself.’

‘You know Swansea, I don’t, Mrs Evans. My father always told me to take advice in the spirit it’s given.’ He dared to wink at her as he opened the door, confirming her opinion that she had been right to warn him off her Lily. Innocent young girls were better off with less showy boyfriends than the likes of Brian Powell, with his dangerous good looks, suntan and overly charming ways.

‘You look nice, love,’ Roy murmured absently, as Lily ran downstairs.

‘Thanks, Uncle Roy.’ Lily dropped a kiss on to his bald head as she passed his chair.

‘New petticoat?’ Norah asked.

‘Helen lent it to me to see how it would look.’

‘You don’t have to borrow clothes from Helen. You’ve enough money in your Post Office account to buy whatever you want.’

‘I know, Auntie Norah, but I really wasn’t sure whether it would suit me. Besides, Helen borrows from me.’

‘Only books that I can see. That petticoat suits you. Get your own on Monday and have a good time.’

‘Home on the half-past-ten train,’ Roy warned.

‘Promise.’ Lily gave him another kiss before hugging Norah.

‘That’s enough now, get on with you,’ Norah ordered. ‘And remember ...’

‘No drinking anything stronger than orange juice, no smoking and no leaving the Pier with any strange boys,’ Lily chanted. ‘Does that mean I can leave with one I do know?’

The house seemed strangely quiet after she’d left.

‘She’s grown up fast the last couple of months,’ Norah commented wistfully as Roy left his chair.

‘That she has,’ he agreed flatly, buttoning his policeman’s tunic.

‘That Pier Ballroom ...’

‘I’ve told you a hundred times, Norah, the town’s no rougher than it was when we were kids. You know what youngsters are when they’re out for a good time. A bit loud, a bit boisterous but there’s no real harm in them.’

‘Those Teddy boys – the papers say they carry flick knives.’

‘I’ve never seen any.’

‘They’d hardly show them to a policeman, would they. Roy...’

‘Nothing’s going to happen to our Lily down the Pier, Norah. She’s too sensible to stray from the crowd, and Judy and Katie are nice, level-headed girls.’ He deliberately left out all mention of Helen Griffiths knowing Norah didn’t need to ask what he thought of that one.

‘I’ve a feeling ...’

‘You’ve been down that Spiritualist Church again.’

‘Not for three weeks.’

‘A séance, then.’

‘I haven’t been to one of those in six months.’

‘You and your feelings. You’ve been wrong ...’

‘I am never wrong,’ Norah contradicted vehemently. ‘I just can’t put a timescale on things. Mark my words, there’s trouble coming our Lily’s way.’

‘Then if it’s coming, it’s coming and there’s nothing we can do about it until it gets here. Worrying in advance won’t help.’ He picked up his helmet. ‘Forget the sewing, put your feet up for once. Have a few sherries and listen to the radio.’

‘With the new lodger to see to?’

‘He’s a capable young man, Norah. Let him see to himself. After National Service and training school he’s used to it.’

‘I’m not sure that bed of his has been aired properly. I’ll slip a warming pan into it just in case and peel and boil some potatoes so we can have potato pancakes with the breakfast eggs, laver bread and bacon. I bought a nice piece of black pudding, too, from Mrs Williams’ stall at the market.’

‘The last thing a young copper needs is mollycoddling.’

‘Everyone needs a bit of home comfort now and then.’

‘After the army, I doubt he’d recognise, let alone appreciate it.’ Roy checked his watch. ‘But a few of your potato pancakes always go down well after a night shift. Just don’t spend all evening cooking.’

‘I won’t. And ...’

‘I’ll wander down Mumbles around half past ten.’

‘You won’t let our Lily see you.’