Move Over Darling (4 page)

And they were surprised that so few young people stayed in Penmorfa, thought Kitty, wondering wildly if she would ever have a social life again. Her rented room in a shared house in the student heartland of Cardiff had been minging, but there was always someone to have a laugh with. Her job in Events and Leisure Management had been fun whilst it lasted and her social life had been brilliant. And all that gone, thanks to being stupidly lazy about contraception.

‘Quite right, too,’ Delyth was saying, looking faintly amphibious in her leaf-green fleece. ‘It may be marvellous publicity, as you put it, Alys, but for whom? What’s he done for us? He can hardly even bring himself to acknowledge his roots. This village made Gethin Lewis what he is today and all he’s done in return is throw everything back in our faces.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?’ asked Alys, giving the older woman a despairing look over the rim of her reading glasses. ‘Especially given the demands of his career. I’m sure if we approached him, he’d be only too happy to help.’

‘We can manage without help from the likes of Gethin Lewis, especially when he’s shown the whole world exactly what he thinks of us!’ Mair insisted, tucking a handkerchief into the elasticated waist of her flora dirndl skirt. ‘When you’ve lived in Penmorfa as long as we have, you’ll understand these things. Gethin Lewis thinks he’s far too good for us. He couldn’t wait to get away and I’m surprised he’s got the nerve to show his face again now.’

Now they were getting to the real issue, thought Kitty; Alys could never win in their eyes because she hadn’t been born in the village. Most people in the room had moved with the times, but Delyth and Mair still expected everyone to defer to their decades of experience about the way things were done.

‘It’s Penmorfa I’m thinking of,’ said Alys, getting cross.

The Duo of Doom exchanged a look to suggest that Alys was no judge of character. ‘Well, he’s certainly got you on his side.’ Delyth puffed her cheeks and looked even more like a disapproving frog. ‘He always was a little devil with the girls. Perhaps it’s just his pretty face you’re finding difficult to resist, Alys?’

Now you’ve done it, thought Kitty, longing for her mother to explode. Her parents had their ups and downs like any couple, but they never faltered in their support of each other. If Alys, with her drive and energy, was like a restless wave, her father was the constant rock absorbing the poundings, forever enduring. Looking at it from the outside, there might have been an element of predictability about the arrangement, but there was a permanence about her parents’ relationship that made Kitty feel rather wistful. It was difficult to imagine being in a partnership of some thirty years when, in her experience, most blokes found it hard to stick around for thirty days. She waited for the fireworks, but Alys just shook her head at the paperwork on her lap and settled back in her chair, her mouth set in a tense line. Even her mother, it seemed, found it difficult to tell Delyth and Mair where to get off.

In the frosty silence all Kitty could hear was a mint rattling against someone’s false teeth until a log cracked in the wood burner and made everyone jump. Just then the sitting-room door opened. The Vicar, who’d already been delayed because she’d had to run her husband to the station when his car refused to start, only to be called to the phone on her return, finally surfaced.

‘So sorry, ladies,’ she said. With her chic dark hair and lovely high cheekbones she was, Kitty was surprised to see, a bit of a babe. For a woman who had five churches to look after, she was remarkably serene, too. ‘That was the Bishop.’ She smiled. ‘I’m afraid there may be a slight problem with the Valentine’s dance.’ She settled herself between Mair and Delyth, dividing the Red Sea of Remonstration nicely, Kitty observed.

‘But first, I don’t suppose many of have you have undergone Criminal Record Bureau checks, have you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re implying, Vicar,’ huffed Delyth, her chest beneath the green fleece swelling with indignation.

The Vicar gently patted her arm and looked round the room, searching in vain for raised hands. ‘Oh, dear. That’s what I thought.’

‘What difference would it make if we had?’ asked Alys, leaning forward.

The Vicar gave a ladylike sigh. ‘Well, because the mother-and-toddler group use the church hall twice a week, it’s raised what the Bishop is calling “legitimate concerns” about the safety of the toddlers.’

‘Meaning?’ said Alys.

The Vicar spread her pale hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Meaning that unless all of you have CRB checks, it’s simply not reasonable for us to guarantee the safety of any toddlers you may come into contact with. The Church has to ensure that any organisation undertaking regulated activities within the hall has made the necessary checks and registrations. ’

‘But most of them are our grandchildren!’ a plaintive voice from the other side of the room cried.

‘I’m afraid that doesn’t give you any legal rights in this case,’ the Vicar said, shaking her head. ‘We must be seen to be putting the necessary safeguards in place not just to protect and promote the welfare of children, but also to enhance public confidence. I’m very sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it simply won’t be possible for the Church to allow you to use the hall until this issue is addressed.’

‘Yet another example of Health and Safety gone mad!’ protested Alys, accompanied by mutinous murmurs.

‘Alas, it’s more than bureaucratic zeal,’ said the Vicar as heads turned her way. ‘I’m sorry to report that there’s an additional concern. A recent inspection of the building has revealed that it falls seriously short of modern standards. The heating’s inadequate, the loos are beyond antique and there’s no disabled access. Unless the means are found to carry out the necessary work, it will have to be closed anyway. The Bishop did point out that when Abersaith was in a similar predicament, their historic market hall was saved when funding was secured to match the sum raised when everyone agreed to buy community shares.’

‘Our church hall’s not exactly an historic landmark.’ Alys sighed, gathering up her paperwork. ‘And there’s still the immediate problem of the Valentine’s dance. Doesn’t the Bishop realise how not being able to use the church hall will affect Penmorfa? Unless he reconsiders the matter, there’s simply nowhere else to go.’

‘Actually, Mam,’ said Kitty, anxious to go home and congratulating herself on coming up with a brilliant idea that would mean Delyth and Mair having to be grateful to her mother. ‘What about our Summerhouse Café? It’s just about big enough. Is there any reason we couldn’t hold the do there?’

‘Thanks for helping me this morning,’ said Coralie. ‘I’m pleased with how this
Dream Home
range is selling, even in the current climate.’

‘Beats me how you came up with the idea for all this,’ Kitty said, unpacking a bottle of Squeaky Clean window spray.

‘It’s all thanks to my fairy great-godmother,’ Coralie explained, taking a box cutter to the next parcel. ‘My grandmother was evacuated to a family near here. Unlike so many children, her story had a happy ending. She grew very close to her Welsh family and returned for years for holidays after she’d had my mum. Aunty Elinor, as she called her, had been in service here; she got my gran to practise her handwriting by dictating all her cleaning secrets to her.’

‘Hmm, maybe something life-changing like that will happen to me,’ mused Kitty, standing back to admire her handiwork.

Something life-changing
was
happening to her, Coralie nearly pointed out, except that would slow Kitty down even more and at the rate she was working they’d be there all day. Kitty had returned to Penmorfa at Christmas, apparently after a temporary work contract had ended in Cardiff. That was one reason she’d given for coming back. She still wasn’t talking about the other, the little baby bump she was trying to hide. Everyone was playing along with Kitty for now, pretending nothing had changed. Not that Coralie had a problem with that approach; most people had something they didn’t particularly want to talk about. And whilst Kitty wasn’t going to be able to keep her secret to herself indefinitely, it would be a relief for all concerned if she turned to her mother first.

‘I don’t really know what I want to do,’ Kitty went on, pulling at her crinkle tunic top where it was trying to hug her stomach. She was still at the stage where most people wouldn’t have noticed her condition, but most people hadn’t had Alys pacing their room, tearing her hair out over her daughter’s determination to remain close-lipped.

Coralie took over with the unpacking, unobtrusively speeding things up whilst Kitty wandered over to the
Dream Body
sample bottles and helped herself to a dollop of hand cream.

‘I keep hoping something will come to me, see. I worked in the garden centre last summer, but I get terrible hay fever and it ruined my nails,’ Kitty said, flexing her fingers. ‘Perhaps Gethin Lewis will spot me whilst he’s here and ask me to be his next muse?’

Coralie bent over the box. She’d woken up far too early, full of the usual four-in-the-morning worries, and then found herself wondering about her neighbour. Her grandmother’s notes recommended tucking a piece of muslin sprinkled with lavender oil into a pillow case to combat sleeplessness. Although Coralie lay back and tried very hard to conjure up lavender fields, she couldn’t quite dismiss thoughts of alternative cures involving the man next door, possibly reclining just the other side of the wall.

‘Is his work any good?’ she couldn’t resist asking, whilst Kitty blatantly unscrewed one of the non-samples and waved it under her nose.

‘Oh, that smells lush!’ Kitty eyed her over the bottle. ‘I can’t believe you’re asking that! You must have heard of
Last Samba before Sunset
.’

‘That’s not him, is it?’ Coralie was shocked. Posters and cards of the elegant yet deeply sexy portrayal of a couple dancing on the beach in late light, oblivious to the disapproving stares of two frumps crouched behind a windbreak and a pair of old farmers assessing them like horse flesh, adorned living room walls and student bedsits everywhere. The male figure was in shadow, his back turned, so that the attention centred on the sensual beauty of the woman with her arms outstretched moving towards him. It was an iconic image and to think, its creator had been practically naked in her back garden!

Kitty grinned and nodded. ‘Watch, there’ll be a run on any magazine with a free lipstick in the express supermarket, now he’s back. Even if they do offload all the rubbish colours on us here. Got to be worth a try, though. I wouldn’t mind letting him have a good look at my finer points.’

The weak sunshine filtering in through the stable door, which was open whilst they went to and fro with boxes, was temporarily blocked as a shaggy-haired, good-looking blond guy leaned in at them. ‘Talking about me again, Kitty?’ he said, raising the shovel he’d been using to clear the paths like a trident.

‘In your dreams, Adam,’ Kitty sniffed, turning away to get on with the stacking.

Adam grinned, showing a chipped front tooth which, together with a slightly crooked nose, only added to his rakish charm. Coralie shook her head, puzzled by Kitty’s sudden froideur. It was hard to find anything to dislike about Adam, even when he didn’t turn up for work at the garden centre because he was down at the bay trying to catch a wave. She could see why Alys always forgave him.

‘How are my two favourite girls, then?’ he went on. ‘Coralie, did I ever tell you how much I love redheads?’

‘He’s also quite partial to blondes, brunettes, girls with straightened hair, spiky hair, short hair, long hair, and he isn’t averse to a touch of silver either,’ said Kitty with a touch of vehemence that made Coralie blink.

‘Cheers, Kitty,’ said Adam, with a flash of his emerald eyes. ‘I thought you might be pleased to see me for once, especially as your dad and I are running around like blue-arsed flies thanks to your bright idea for the Summerhouse Café.’

‘Oh, have you found someone to take it on?’ asked Coralie, still wondering why the air was crackling between Kitty and Adam. Surely it was a good thing if the place was being reopened? The Polish couple who’d been running the café and who’d seemed so determined to make a go of life in Penmorfa had taken off shortly after she’d moved in, but then austerity Britain had been quite a different place to the one where they’d started their optimistic new life. Alys, she knew, worried about the loss of winter trade, but had been forced, for lack of staff, to leave it closed.

Coralie listened whilst Kitty gave her a potted history of events at the
Merched y Wawr
. ‘So, the Summerhouse Café’s just a stop-gap, whilst the Vicar discusses permanent provision of a community space with the Charity Commission,’ Kitty concluded. ‘She says that if they go down the route of restoring the existing church hall there are several funding pots we can try.’

‘Cheaper to build a brand new hall,’ said Adam, raising his eyebrows.

‘Except there’s no money for a new build!’ Kitty told him, as if he was stupid. ‘By saving an existing building we get points for sustainability, like they did at Abersaith.’

‘Penmorfa always loses out to Abersaith,’ mused Adam. ‘It’s because nothing ever happens here. It’s a pity Wilfie isn’t better known. If he was as famous a poet as Dylan Thomas, we could claim that he wrote his best poems in the church hall and ask for funding to preserve it for the nation.’

‘But,’ said Coralie, who was still getting used to the idea, ‘you do have a phenomenally well-known artist. Surely that has to offer some possibilities?’

Kitty and Adam exchanged glances, back on common ground.

‘He’s a bit controversial, see,’ said Kitty. ‘There are some people who hate that painting. They say he’s poking fun at rural life, making us all look like yokels. Delyth and Mair will never forgive him – they say it’s them behind the windbreak!’

‘There’s that, of course,’ Adam agreed, ‘then there’s the fact that the smooth bastard’s shagged half our women. I daresay he’ll have a crack at a few more whilst he’s home.’ He cast a sour look at Kitty.

‘Oh, you’re not afraid of a bit of competition, are you?’ laughed Kitty. ‘Don’t worry about it, Adam. I mean what sort of woman would give in to a fabulously wealthy, drop-dead-gorgeous hunk when she could have a young stud of a garden-labouring surf-bum?’

‘At least I’ve got a job,’ he shot back. ‘You’re still a lazy cow who runs home to mam and dad every time the money runs out. One day you’re going to have to grow up.’

Sooner than he thought, Coralie predicted, taking a step back and getting ready to protect her stock. All that was thrown, though, was another bitter look from Adam before he nodded a curt goodbye and took off.

‘Really,’ Kitty tutted, her face a picture of innocence as she turned back to the shelves, ‘some people can be so touchy.’

By mid-afternoon the Courtyard was deserted and a cold front had closed in. A couple of cars had rolled across the tarmac of the car park earlier, spilling out the hardier variety of holidaymaker, those who didn’t mind a spot of wind and weather. But most of them had been in search of shelter and some respite from the bone-chilling temperature which refused to lift despite the deceptive sunshine. Coralie didn’t need to tell Kitty twice that she might as well find something more useful to do than hanging around in an empty shop.

Eventually, even Coralie decided that rather than standing there doing nothing she would go home and see what she could do to increase internet sales instead. Willow, with her pale face and cascade of dyed red hair, was looking woefully out of one panelled window like a latter day Lady of Shalott, although Coralie suspected that she was keeping her eyes peeled for Rhys rather than paying customers. She gave her a little wave as she crossed the courtyard and received a wan smile in return.

Most of them don’t survive the winter
. Gethin Lewis’s stark conclusion about the new start-ups in the area nipped like the cold air. What
would
she do if she’d mistaken that tingle of excitement that had changed her life when she’d opened the dusty journal and started to read her grandmother’s neat script? Coralie used to be able to claim that one thing she did understand was business, but how could she say that when it had all gone so spectacularly wrong?

She stopped to take some deep, steadying breaths, the raw air stinging her nostrils and making her eyes water. Across the car park the sight of Betty, her Atlantis-blue Rascal van, standing alone in a thin layer of almost untouched snow, gave her a focus and helped draw her back to the present. Poor Betty, not half as prestigious as her previous car, a luxury Audi that made light of the many business miles she used to drive, but ideal for trundling her boxes from the workshop to the Craft Courtyard and back.

Coralie jumped in and switched on the engine, the cold vinyl seat making her teeth chatter as she waited for the windscreen to defrost. Given the rather basic heating, this could sometimes be a lengthy process. Eventually a big enough gap appeared for the long wooden shed of the garden centre shop to come into view. Alys was probably poring over catalogues inside, planning for the future. Gardeners had a wonderful ability to see the potential in the most barren, unpromising ground, thought Coralie, releasing the hand brake. It wasn’t a bad philosophy, although some days she looked at her own life and wondered if she would ever see green shoots again.

Realising that she was clenching the steering wheel so hard that her fingers were numb, she relaxed her shoulders and found something to listen to. Comfort music. Something to chase away all the dark thoughts before she got home and had to try to drum up new outlets for Sweet Cleans. The bass notes started and Coralie nodded. ‘Move Over Darling’, Doris’s 1964 hit about irresistible temptation, one of her favourites. Perfect, although the line about waving her conscience goodbye almost set her off again.

A bone-jarring jolt, as one of the potholes in the road still waiting to be filled after the previous year’s snow made its presence felt, brought her back down to earth. Coralie slipped down a gear and managed to coax the van over what felt like the foot-slopes of Snowdon. However, the operation appeared to have cost a front bulb which flickered weakly. Whilst Betty’s compact size and manoeuvrability meant she could squeeze past tractors without too much difficulty, some caution was needed to ease her along the pock-marks and craters of the narrow lane leading up to her cottage. To negotiate those, what was ideally required was a big, solid car with a powerful engine. Like the one steaming far too fast towards her.

Uncertain condition
, thought Gethin, pressing his shoulders against the supple leather of the heated driver’s seat as he set off down the lane. The legal term, apparently, for the clause his father had inserted in his Will in an attempt to control him from beyond the grave.

‘The meaning’s clear enough,’ his solicitor had told him, once the Will had rumbled through the due legal processes. ‘You’ll only have the benefit of your father’s house if you reside there personally for the next five years. But no court in the land will enforce that condition because it’s impossible to apply.’

‘What about a challenge from the other potential beneficiary?’ Gethin had asked, wondering how quickly he could get shot of the place.

‘Litigation, litigation, litigation. It’s a costly old business challenging a Will. And once the wheels are set in motion they can be very hard to stop. Especially when the costs are coming from the claimant’s own pockets.’

Perhaps, somewhere, his father had sensed he’d found a loophole because he’d certainly left something behind; an unsaleable cottage and no builder to sort it out. A scramble, it seemed, for soon-to-dry-up funding streams meant that anyone who was any good was heavily involved in regeneration work up at Abersaith.

‘Any progress with the other business? The “Art in Your Home” stuff?’ he asked. Just to add to the fun, and his legal costs, the company responsible for all the posters of his famous painting had recently gone into liquidation owing him money, another victim of improved digital printing technologies crowding the art market.

‘You know there’s a strict order for creditors: tax authorities, banks … These things take time, but we’re doing all we can to pursue your royalty payments.’

Was no one in a hurry these days? At least he’d found a builder who could spare him half-an-hour to give him a quote, albeit with a few caveats about his very busy schedule.

Gethin put his foot down. Might as well give the smart, hired Land Rover a run for his money; that’s what potholes were for, wasn’t it? He was just beginning to enjoy himself when he caught sight of a single light coming towards him in the dusk and hit the brakes. Almost instantly, he realised that the single light didn’t belong to a motorbike, but a van whose offside light was winking so feebly that he hadn’t spotted it at first. Swerving into the hedge, he winced as he heard the hawthorn branches scratching at the pristine paintwork and pulled up just a nanoparticle short of disaster.