Gull Island (18 page)

‘And you think that’s why he’s staying away? So he doesn’t get caught?’

‘It’s what I think, yes, but where is he? How is he managing? I’m so frightened for him.’

Barbara leaned closer to her friend and whispered, ‘Keep talking.’ Then, after saying something to encourage a reply, she stood up and peered over the wall, just in time to see Rosita haring along the path towards Luke’s cottage.

‘Kids, they don’t change, do they?’ she said sadly. ‘She’s still as prickly as she ever was.’

Mrs Carey shared Barbara’s sigh.

‘She needs to be a survivor, mind, like our Richard. Submission is death to all hope. Somehow, I think Rosita and our Richard will never give up hope of something better.’

Richard was in Cardiff. It being a Sunday, he was lying low and waiting for the day to pass. Tomorrow the plan he had been nurturing for years was to become a reality. Tomorrow, while Mam delivered the papers for the last time, he and his father would be signing themselves into a secure future.

A tobacconist and newsagents business was available for
£
85. The rent of the property was cheap and he’d saved enough to pay it for six months. The accommodation, although shabby and neglected, was a palace compared with the house on the beach that he knew was about to collapse. Business was poor too but he knew that, with an effort, it would improve. He wondered ruefully whether his father would rise to the occasion.

The money Richard had managed to accumulate had come from thieving, mostly from market stalls, both stall-holders and their customers. A few shillings or, when he was lucky, pounds here and there, like the time so long ago when he had taken
£
25 from the wholesalers’ box.

The money he most enjoyed acquiring had been from Barbara’s father. He had seen him staggering home one winter evening, silly-drunk and alone. While appearing to help him, he had relieved him of two pounds seven shillings and fourpence halfpenny from a back pocket. Nothing before or since had given him greater pleasure.

Lately, he had been more daring and had carried out a series of
burglaries
, but he knew it was too risky and had to stop. Twice he had almost been caught by the householder and once a policeman had arrived in time to see him and chase him for almost half an hour through the streets and lanes, until he had managed to find a ditch in which to hide. The ditch had been full of water, and the icy chill of it was still fresh in his memory.

He knew it had been his brother Idris, Mam’s golden boy, who had told the police where he would be. A few days later, he had accidentally let slip the address of a house he intended to burgle and had watched from a safe corner while the police hid and waited to catch him. Pity it was dear little Blodwen who had died, he thought bitterly. Better for them all if it had been Idris!

He’d been lucky, in spite of his brother’s attempts to have him arrested, but luck had a habit of running out. There was enough money now, and as long as his father did his share, things would be comfortable for the Careys at last.

The shop his father would rent was in their own home town. It was in a good position at a junction of the main road amid the shops and the smaller road leading down to the station. Hundreds of people passed on their way to work. He had stood there watching for several days and saw how good the place could become once it was smartened up a bit. The present owner had thirteen cats and the smell was obviously what
discouraged
customers. Once his mam had cleaned it, the convenience of stopping
to buy a morning paper and a packet of cigarettes or some chocolate just before getting on the train would soon appeal.

Beside the awful smell of the place, it looked drab and unattractive. After a month or so business would grow. Mam would soon have it sorted. Dad was a kindly man but without the bite needed to succeed. No, Mam would be the one to get things going, once he’d taught her the business side of things. She might even persuade that useless Idris to help, although that seemed to be too much to hope.

He went to the one café that was open and drank another cup of tea. There was nowhere else to go, nothing to do. He wanted to go home but he didn’t dare, not with golden boy Idris on the prowl.

The police couldn’t find him now, not with the lease to be signed tomorrow. Once that was done and he had explained the books to Mam, he would go away. Far away, until the hunt for him had died down and his activities had been forgotten.

Barbara stayed overnight in small bed and breakfast accommodation in the town and on the following morning took a taxi to the home to take Rosita out for the day. It was the promise of seeing Richard that persuaded Rosita to spend another day in her mother’s company but Barbara didn’t mind what the reason was as long as she was given a few hours to reach some kind of rapport with her difficult and resentful daughter.

They met Mrs Carey with Jack and Gareth delivering the last of the papers. The boys, now seventeen and eighteen, looked shifty when Barbara asked about the work they were doing.

‘Collecting dole, the pair of them,’ Mrs Carey said with a sigh. ‘Still, something will turn up for them soon, sure to.’

Both boys looked away and went into the house. Unknown to their parents, they had both signed up to join the army and in a few days’ time would be leaving for good.

‘Where’s Richard?’ Rosita asked after hugging the woman affectionately. ‘Did you tell him I was coming to see him?’

‘He didn’t come back, lovely girl.’ Mrs Carey glanced at Barbara. ‘Stayed out all night he did and Henry and me up watching the tide go out and come back in again without a moment’s sleep between us. Gone into Cardiff, my Henry has. Says he’s going to look for him, but I think he knows where he is and what he’s been doing. Them two are cooking
something
up for sure. Been into Cardiff time and again, they have, and not a word of what they’re doing.’

‘We’ll come and see you later – we don’t want to add to your work by staying. It’s a mild day. I think I’ll take Rosita to the Pleasure Beach.’

‘I don’t want to go to the Pleasure Beach, I want to stay with Auntie Molly Carey.’

‘But not yet,’ Mrs Carey said softly, giving the girl another hug. ‘Best you give me the chance to get a meal ready for you all, and give Uncle Henry Carey time to find Richard and bring him home.’

Barbara smiled her thanks at her thoughtful friend.

Barbara and Rosita decided to catch the train into town, then walk across the docks to the beach. Rosita didn’t remember passing so close to the huge ships before. She had only seen them on their way, out to sea. They towered above her like manmade cliffs, their painted sides leaning outward, swollen with cargoes and people. There were so many she thought she could have walked across from one side of the docks to the other on their decks. Cork-filled tenders stopped them from scraping their sides against the dockside, gangplanks stretched up to the deck rails where people leaned over and shouted to those below.

She said nothing to her mother and refused to answer when Barbara offered a comment. She just stared at the fascinating world around her. As well as sights, there were the assortment of smells: many kinds of fruit including bananas and oranges, and various types of wood including the sweet-scented cherry wood as lengths of pit-wood were unloaded for the coal mines in the valleys north of Cardiff. She was interested to see coal being exported. It was lifted from the light railway, still in its wagons, which were hoisted up on cranes, then tilted for the coal to be dropped straight into the cavernous holds of the ships.

Men were standing around the dockside in groups, talking, shaking their heads, gesturing to the cargoes waiting to be loaded, cigarettes cupped in curled fists to protect them from the wind that blew in from the sea. Their clothes were torn and Rosita wondered what cargo they had been loading that had ripped the cloth so viciously. She looked at her mother, the
question
on her lips, but she didn’t ask. Instead she tugged at the shredded jacket of a docker and asked him.

‘Iron ore did that,’ the man told her, and explained briefly what it was and how it was used. He winked at the serious-faced little girl and said, ‘Never marry a docker, lovely girl, you’ll never keep them looking smart and tidy.’ He returned to work, tossing his cigarette into the oily water of the dock.

Cranes swung overhead, lifting huge boxes with ease. Men wrote busily on sheets of paper and shouted orders. Everywhere there was frantic activity, ordered chaos, and Rosita stared in wonderment. Through a pipe in the side of one ship a steady stream of water flowed and Rosita laughed and said, ‘Look at that one! It’s peeing!’ She glared at her mother, daring her to complain at the vulgarity, but Barbara just smiled.

‘How can such a thing float?’ Barbara said, stopping to look at a Greek vessel. She shivered. ‘How can anyone travel on one? I’d be too scared, wouldn’t you?’

‘No fear! I’d love it.’

Barbara didn’t realize that the thought of escape from the institutional life she had been forced to lead was enough to quell any fear Rosita might have had of stepping onto the huge ship.

There was a queue of people waiting for the ferry that was dwarfed by the cargo ships, but seeing the glimmer of excitement in her daughter’s eyes, Barbara decided to wait, and they were rowed across by a man who seemed too small to manage the task.

As they walked up the hill from the docks, the scene changed from the business of import and export to holidays and entertainment. The sound of harsh metallic music filled the air, vying with screams and shouts of people having fun, and there was that indefinable scent of sea and warm sand.

They walked through the fairground and Barbara paid for Rosita to try her hand at hoop-la, roll-a-ball and darts, in the hope that she would win a prize to take back to the home, but her daughter was clumsy and awkward, failing to achieve a decent score.

She was puzzled at her lack of skill but decided it was her bad temper causing the failure. Although, she remembered, Rosita had never been very good at school either. Perhaps her lack of ability to learn was the reason for her bad behaviour and not the other way round?

‘Never mind, dear,’ she comforted, ‘we can’t all be good at games.’

‘Stupid games! These people are all cheats!’

Barbara hurried her away and bought her an ice cream – that was safer.

Walking along the promenade, they went down to the beach, stepping between families who had made themselves comfortable with sand-tables and tablecloths and food spread out around near the mother.

‘You didn’t bring a picnic!’ Rosita complained. ‘I’ve never had a picnic.’

‘Yes, you have. Don’t you remember how we used to take a basket of food and eat it in the
cwm
below the farm?’

‘No, I don’t! You must be thinking of the other two!’

‘The tearooms are open – we’ll have a tray on the sand,’ Barbara said gently. They ordered a tray of tea and some sandwiches and cakes, and with teapot, hot-water jug and the necessary china, they walked back to the sands to find a place to eat.

Several children nearby had flags and balloons attached to sandcastle turrets. There were buckets and spades, water-wings and towels lying around the family groups and the scene should have been one of bright colours, yet the formal dress of the trippers made the view a sombre one.

Men wore their best suits and shirts with only a few of them allowed to loosen their neck ties and ease their collars from sweating necks. Most still wore their caps. Women were dressed, like Barbara, in long skirts and heavy cardigans, some laden with winter coats. Neither Barbara nor others removed their cloche hats even when the sun strengthened and they were feeling uncomfortably warm. Many hats were awry after constant easing, giving the wearers a comical appearance that amused Rosita and made her point and laugh much to Barbara’s embarrassment.

As they left the beach, Barbara shook her head at a man running around trying to persuade people to take a ride on his small boat but she stopped at the Punch and Judy show, which interested Rosita for a few minutes. There wasn’t a moment when she relaxed, smiled or acted like other
ten-year
-olds, however. Disappointed, Barbara took her back to the station to get a train to the town.

Refusing every suggestion of things to do, Rosita insisted on going back to the Careys’ to see if Richard had returned. But as before, Mrs Carey was there with the others but there was no sign of Richard or his father.

‘We’ll have to go,’ Barbara said. ‘I promised to take you back long before this.’

‘I want to see Richard.’ The stubborn look was entrenched on Rosita’s small face and her dark, resentful eyes glistened warningly as she added, ‘if you don’t let me wait, I’ll run away again and find him for myself!’

As the evening light was fading, they saw two men walking towards them, but they stopped before they reached the house.

‘Policemen they are, and looking for Richard,’ Mrs Carey breathed. ‘Oh, they’ll catch him for sure when he comes back with his father. Oh, why did I insist on Henry going to find him?’

The solitary figure of Mr Carey was seen approaching moments later and he was stopped and questioned by the policemen. He must have
satisfied
them as, after a moment or two, he continued to walk towards them. A jaunty walk, filled with suppressed excitement. He broke into a run when he saw them all waiting.

‘Good news!’ he called as soon as he was within shouting distance. ‘We own a shop, Mother, and tomorrow we move in and start business!’

‘Where’s Richard?’ Mrs Carey and Rosita asked in chorus.

‘Ah, well then, that’s difficult to answer. He’s gone, see, and with the police wanting to talk to him, I don’t think he’ll be back for ages.’

Barbara stayed a few more days and Mrs Carey was glad to have her there with so many things happening at once, none of them pleasant. First of all there was the loss of Richard, who was the family’s strength. Then they had the noisome shop to clean, and that seemed an impossible task,
especially as most of the thirteen cats, whose smells caused such a problem, refused to vacate their home. Then, when they went back to the house on the beach to gather the last of their possessions, it was to learn that Jack and Gareth had left without saying goodbye.