Gull Island (14 page)

The Careys had had no news of Barbara Jones and little Rosita. Richard thought of them often and wished Barbara hadn’t moved so far away. Mam would have been glad of her and Rosita these past months, he thought. He liked the idea of visiting the farm and pleaded with his father to take him there.

‘Too far, boy,’ Mr Carey said with regret. ‘Can’t spare the time. It’ll take a whole day to get there and then see her for only half an hour. Perhaps one day, when we’re rich.’ Being rich was a joke to Mr Carey, but not to Richard.

‘How long have we been living on the beach, Dad? It was when Rosita was born. I was wondering how old she is.’

Mr Carey frowned, his face pale and blue-tinged, in spite of the outdoor life he led. ‘Let’s see, boy. Born in 1917 so she’d be five and going to school. Fancy that. Five years we’ve been here.’

‘I hope that farmer Prothero bloke is being good to them,’ Richard muttered.

‘Sure to be. They’ll be as happy as anyone’s a right to be, with good home-grown food and not having to worry where the next shilling will come from.’

‘But we don’t know, Dad. Please can we visit? I want to go there and see if she’s enjoying being a farmer’s wife. It’s hard work and she isn’t very big, our Barbara. He could be working her too hard.’

Henry Carey had always doubted Barbara’s wisdom in returning to that farmer but there was nothing he could do about it, was there? That was always his attitude to problems; he wasn’t in the position to disagree with anything people wanted to do. Better to go the way events took you. Besides, fond as he was of her, Barbara wasn’t even family.

Legally married they were and her old enough to cope with whatever life handed her. Staying with them in the house on the beach hadn’t been much of an alternative to marrying a farmer. Saying she would be happy and well looked after was almost as good as believing it, wasn’t it? A bit of pretence helped a fellow to sleep at night. But the niggle of fear for the girl and the baby returned after Richard’s spoken concern. He hadn’t met Graham Prothero but he’d heard unpleasant rumours about how his sickly and overworked first wife had died.

Richard stepped off the train in the centre of the town and headed for the wholesalers. He had money in his pocket to pay for the week’s papers. It was the first time his father had trusted him with the money and he felt proud of the responsibility. Unconsciously his hand touched the right front of his coat. In an inside pocket the money jiggled in a satisfying way.

The wholesalers had a counter stretching across the room and behind it, at two cluttered desks, sat two clerks. On one wall there were cubbyholes with numbers on them. He went to the one bearing his father’s number and climbed up to feel about on the wooden surface to see if there were any magazines for him to take back. There were only two, special orders, and he rolled them carefully and put them in his pocket.

‘Oi! Can you come and see to me? I’m in a bit of a hurry!’ he said cheekily to one of the clerks.

‘Wait a minute. Can’t you see we’re busy?’ one of the clerks said, pointing to the phone she had just picked up.

‘Oi to you then,’ he said to the other girl. ‘All I want is for you to take my money. Not too much trouble, is it?’

He counted out the money when the girl came forward with the cash box and the ledger, and waited while she filled in a receipt. She took the money and then from outside came a squeal of brakes as a car skidded and then crashed into another, trying to negotiate a corner without giving way. Both girls went to the doorway and Richard’s hand slipped into the cash box and came out with a fold of notes.

Boldly he stood with the two girls, a hand on the shoulders of each, stretching to do so, chatting about the stupidity of drivers who insisted on going too fast, making the girls laugh at his adult expressions, and when they had exhausted the subject and there were three customers waiting at the counter near the cash box, he waved at them, gave a final critical comment on the craze for motoring, and sauntered away. When he felt safe enough to stop and count the money, he had
£
25. A fortune! His savings were growing at an encouraging rate.

He whistled as he stepped off the train and walked down to the beach. Still whistling cheerfully, he gave his father the receipt for the payment.

‘I’ll deliver the magazines with the evening papers, all right, Dad?’ His father put the receipt on the table where it fluttered lightly in the breeze. It was Richard who sighed and grabbed it, and put it on the spike with the rest. ‘Got to make sure you don’t lose it. Don’t want them saying we haven’t paid now, do we?’

Mr Carey chuckled. ‘You sound like you’re the dad, not me.’ He
whittled
uselessly at a piece of wood with which he hoped to fix a broken window frame. ‘See anything interesting in town?’

‘Only the smartest car you’ve ever seen. Boy oh boy it was a beauty. Crashed it did, with another coming the opposite way, and them girls ran to the door with as much excitement as if it had been Rudolph Valentino! The driver was dressed like men who fly aeroplanes. Scarves and goggles and leather coat an’ all. And a fancy camera slung over his shoulder.’ He gave a sigh. ‘He must have been carrying pounds’ worth of clothes and equipment on his back. Makes you sick how rich some people are and there’s us with nothing.’

‘No use complaining about that, son. There’s some born to be rich and some born to be poor and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

That’s what you think, Richard thought. Aloud, he said, ‘Dad, can I have a shilling to go into Cardiff tonight? Fancy the pictures I do and I think Douglas Fairbanks is on. And there’s a film about a motor car ride through North Wales. I’d love to drive a car, I would.’

‘Wishful thinking that is for sure. People like us don’t even get to ride in motor cars.’

‘I have. That Miss Bell has taken me twice into the library and to the office down the docks to talk to the man who does the books. Interesting that was.’

‘Well, that’s the closest you’ll get to owning one.’

I’ll have one, one day, see if I don’t, Richard promised himself, with a determined smile.

Mr Carey counted out twelve pennies into Richard’s hand. ‘Deserve that, you do, for all the hours you help me. I just don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have you, boy, and that’s a fact.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I thank God you aren’t like that useless Idris. Sitting there leaning on Mam, looking up at her with doting eyes. If she so much as moves he falls over.’

‘I haven’t started yet, Dad. Just watch me. I’ll see you and Mam all right one day.’

‘For sure you will.’ Henry smiled indulgently at his son. What chance did he or any of them have of improving their lot? Paying their way, that’s all they were doing. He couldn’t afford the shilling he’d just given Richard, but the boy had to have some encouragement to go on helping. If Richard got fed up and left, they would all be done for. Alun and Billie had already found jobs far away.

He called Richard back and said, ‘Here’s another seven-pence halfpenny. Get a tin of cocoa after your evening round, will you? It warms your mam and helps her to sleep.’

Richard called in to see Miss Bell on his way to deliver his papers. ‘Here’s the shilling to get that book you said I should read about “counting see” or whatever it’s called.’

‘Accountancy,’ she corrected, and promised to have it by the following day.

It was as the crowds went in at the beginning of the main film that Richard wriggled past the pay desk and slipped through the blanket-like curtains and into the darkness. No point spending ninepence when you didn’t have to. The usherettes were frantically reaching out for tickets to fold and tear in half and by standing with a family group, he had easily slipped through unnoticed. Last row but two in the back stalls was the best as he hadn’t paid. In the middle of the row. No one would bother him there.

He was whistling when he came out again into the fresh air and someone began to accompany him, singing words to his tune. He turned to see a small, thin man with a long, rather straggly beard, wearing a black beret and steel-framed glasses. He wore wide, cream trousers and a short beige jacket.

‘Hello, Richard. It is Richard, isn’t it?’

For a moment Richard didn’t recognize him then he shouted in disbelief. ‘Luke? We thought you must be dead! Where have you been and why haven’t you been to see us? It’s donkey’s years since we saw you and what’s with the funny get-up?’

‘One question at a time,’ Luke laughed. ‘Come on, have you got time for a cup of tea and a bun?’

‘You bet I have, if you’re paying.’

One of the first questions Luke asked was, ‘How are Barbara and Rosita?’

‘We haven’t heard for ages. I’ve pleaded with Dad to take me there but it’s too far. And with the papers to see to early morning and in the evening, there isn’t time to get there and back.’

‘I have a car,’ Luke offered.

‘Damn me, you haven’t!’

‘I’ll come for you first thing in the morning and as soon as the papers are delivered, we’ll go and find them. I’m going back to France in a couple of days. I only came on a brief visit to check on the shop, so it will have to be tomorrow. Will that be all right?’

‘That’ll be great! D’you mean I’ll really have a ride in a car? I’ve been in one before, mind,’ he added boastfully. ‘Miss Bell, the teacher, she’s taken me places.’

‘You go to school?’

‘No fear. But Miss Bell shows me things, like maths and—’ He paused, making sure he got it right ‘—accountancy, and reading as well. She says
reading is important if I’m to learn—’ Again the pause ‘—accountancy. I enjoy her showing me but I couldn’t go to school – that would be boring and a waste of time.’ He looked doubtfully at the strangely dressed man. ‘And I can really have a ride in the car?’

‘And your father too, if he can spare the time.’

Rosita had started school at the village a mile from the farm. Barbara was concerned as she was not doing very well. Given words to copy from the blackboard on to her little wooden-framed slate, she drew pictures instead. When she did write words they were always different from the ones on the board and she soon earned the nickname ‘Miss Stupid’.

Adding and subtracting she managed well enough, particularly mental arithmetic, when the teacher called out the questions, but even so there were days when she achieved nothing, days when all her work was
incorrect
or hidden under furious scribbling.

The teachers tried to help her but eventually, driven to less and less effort by her rudeness and her lack of co-operation, they put her behaviour down to an inability to learn and gave her pictures to cut out and drawings to colour instead.

‘Why are you so difficult?’ Barbara asked one day, when Rosita was screaming and insisting she would not go to school. ‘You’re more like a prickly hedgehog than a little girl! If you’d only listen to what the teachers tell you and do what they ask, school would be fun.’

‘How can it ever be fun to be told you’re daft? Everyone calls me that stupid Jones girl. They laugh at me. And they make fun of me because I haven’t got the same name as my father.’

‘I’ll come with you this morning and talk to them.’

‘No! No. No. I won’t go!’

‘Rosita, don’t be so stupid!’ Barbara regretted the word almost before it had left her lips. ‘I don’t mean stupid, I mean—’

‘Him out there, he calls me stupid. The teachers call me stupid and now YOU!’

Graham came to the door wondering what the noise was about and at once Rosita tried to stop crying, her sobs choking as she held her breath. There was that devil in her that refused to cower, though, and in a loud whisper she said, ‘It’s him who’s stupid, not me!’

Graham strode into the room and Barbara stood in front of the
now-screaming
child.

‘No, Graham,’ she warned.

Frustrated, Graham stood clenching and unclenching his fists, then stamped out and slammed the door.

Rosita stayed at home that day and Barbara put aside thoughts of the morrow. One day at a time, that was the only way to deal with Rosita.

Luke’s car was a small open-topped four-seater and to Richard it was perfection. His father had declined to come so he sat in the passenger seat and allowed his imagination to fly. He would have a car like this and take his mam on trips to see things she had never even heard of. And he would wave as they sped past villagers who would stop and stare in amazement at such a young man owning such a magnificent vehicle.

He asked endless questions about the engine and the speed of which it was capable and twice Luke stopped and lifted the bonnet to explain a particularly complicated reply. As always he was surprised at how easily Richard understood.

The journey took longer than Luke had expected as the way was not signposted, the farm was a small one and it was only when they were quite close to it that people recognized its name and were able to direct them.

It alarmed Luke to see how the expressions of the local people changed to dislike when the name of Graham Prothero was mentioned. He began to have an uneasy feeling that what awaited them would not be pleasant.

Richard smiled and thought only of seeing the look on their faces when he and Luke arrived in this wonderful car. It was green with black mudguards and trim. The leather upholstery was also green and smelled expensive. Richard thought he would have one exactly the same.

It was as the sun reached the summit before its descent down the other side of the sky that he began to think how little time he would have to spend with the two people he looked forward so much to seeing. ‘Will we be able to stay a while?’ he asked apprehensively.

‘A couple of hours at least. Your father promised he would manage the papers this evening so we don’t have to hurry back. In fact, we can find somewhere to eat if you like.’

‘If I’d like? Will a dog chase a rabbit?’

They drove through the gates of the farm and pulled up near a water pump. The door of the farmhouse opened and a woman stood there, dressed in layers of clothes, as if each one had been added to disguise the tattered state of a previous one, and giving her a bulky appearance. Her once-long hair was badly cut into an attempt at a shingle. It wasn’t until she spoke that they recognized Barbara.