Time to Move On (3 page)

‘Tea rooms,’ Seranne corrected with a grin. ‘Mum hates it referred to as a café.’

‘I can’t say I blame her when I think of the awful “caff” we have in Cwm Derw. But come on, give them a chance. What are you buying them as a wedding present?’

‘Heavens, I haven’t decided yet!’

‘Then let’s go into Maes Hir on Wednesday. It’s market day and there’s sure to be something there that will suit.’

‘A pair of kippers?’

‘That isn’t the attitude. Come on, she’s your mum and deserves something really nice.’

They eventually found a charming White Friars glass vase and a pair of good quality towels, which a friend of Babs embroidered with ‘his’ and ‘hers’.

‘I’ll buy them something really special for their first anniversary,’ Seranne said as she wrapped them.

‘You don’t think they’ll last that long, do you?’

‘I hope they do, I really hope they will be blissfully happy, but there’s something about Paul that makes me distrust him. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit to being worried for my mother.’

The day of the wedding came around fast. The tea rooms closed for the day and many customers gathered to see the bride leave in a large Rolls Royce hired for the day by Paul.

Seranne wore a silk dress in pale honey, a charming contrast to her mother’s gown in sky blue. Babs came as a second witness in a dress a few shades deeper than Seranne’s. None of Paul’s family came, although several gifts arrived with apologies for their inability to attend. A three-year-old girl, the daughter of a customer, presented Jessie with a silver horseshoe and the local chimney sweep arrived to wish them good fortune.

It was a happy interlude, but coming back to the flat it became a rather sombre affair. Seranne and Babs had decorated the rooms and even the staircase with bunting and a few balloons, and they had prepared a buffet, but the guests were so few it lacked gaiety, the laughter seemed
forced and the affair was low-key and almost sad. Seranne and Jessie had no known relatives and being so busy with the tea rooms meant they had little time for social events, so they had made few real friends. Neighbours and several regular customers made up the numbers and the result made them feel like strangers in their own home. Both Paul and Jessie were relieved when it was time for them to leave for their brief honeymoon in Tenby.

‘Will you be all right in the flat on your own?’ Tony asked Seranne, giving a stupidly large wink as he and Babs were leaving. ‘I’ll stay if you like?’

‘I’d rather borrow Mrs Baker’s dog!’ she replied, pointing them both towards the door.

She had never been in the flat on her own at night and as time for bed approached, she wished she had asked Babs to stay. She hesitated to undress and when she had pulled on her nightgown wearing so few clothes made her feel vulnerable and she was tempted to redress in her day clothes and sleep on the armchair. She went downstairs three times to check that the doors were locked and kept the wireless playing to give the illusion of not being alone in the almost alien building.

The hollowness of the empty rooms around her and the silent tea rooms below isolating her from the rest of the community made her heart race and she began listening for the sound of someone entering and threatening her. Like a child, she was in need of the reassurance of a small light. In her heightened state of anxiety, the sounds of the building, its creaks and sighs, seemed much louder than usual and it was a long time before she settled.

The following day was a Sunday and she had a leisurely breakfast sitting in front of the electric fire, still in her dressing gown. She smiled as she thought of her mother’s disapproval. Jessie always insisted on a mannerly approach to mealtimes. A knock at the door surprised her. It was hardly eight o’clock.

Babs mocked her as she stepped inside. ‘Still in your nightie? Shame on you! Come on, we’re going out.’

‘It’s Sunday. Where is there to go on a Sunday morning in November?’

‘Tony has the car as Dad doesn’t need it, and we’re going out for the day.’

‘I can’t, Babs. There’s the cleaning to do and—’

‘And between us we can sort that in an hour. Tony is taking us to the seaside and we’re having lunch with our Auntie Megan. Come on, it’s all arranged.’

Tony ran up the stairs a few moments later and the three of them started to deal with the usual Sunday routine. They settled for the absolute minimal and prepared for the unexpected day out. He drove them to a small cottage near the river in the Vale of Glamorgan and Seranne found herself hugged and greeted like a lost relative by Babs’s Auntie Megan. When Uncle Richie came in from the frosty garden with leeks and some Brussels sprouts, the affectionate greeting was repeated.

While Auntie Megan prepared lunch, they walked along the river, Tony pointing out the various birds in the bare branches and describing the days out he and Babs had enjoyed as children. The chill wind made Seranne’s face rosy and her eyes shone with the pleasure of the
unexpected
treat. The meal was huge and delicious and when she returned to the empty flat to await the return of her mother and her stepfather she was happier than she’d been for a long time.

She was filled with the smug feeling of having cheated by not
following
her mother’s strict routine of Sunday cleaning. Tony hinted this wouldn’t be the last. Perhaps Paul’s arrival meant a freedom she hadn’t known she lacked?

She set the table for supper for three and sat reading a book and it was a while before the sound of dripping water penetrated her thoughts. At first she thought the weather had warmed and turned to rain. Then she realized the sound was inside. Investigation soon led to the problem. In the kitchen, where the new sink had been installed, where old lead piping met new copper, there was a leak. She needed a plumber – and fast.

She grabbed a coat and set off for the house where the plumber who had dealt with the work lived. The house was ominously dark. He wasn’t at home. Now what could she do? She stood irresolute, looking around as though a solution was hidden in the darkness. Nothing for it but to go back and continue catching the drips in a bucket. Surely her mother and Paul would be back soon, and Paul would know what to do? Time passed and in despair she phoned the bakery and asked Tony for his help.

He contacted a friend living near the tea rooms who came at once. When Jessie walked in, their kitchen was filled with tools and people: Tony and two friends – one the plumber – plus Seranne making tea and Babs trying to help. The floor was awash and while Babs and Tony mocked her, Seranne was scolding the plumber, warning him that she expected him to clear up the mess he was making.

Once the plumber and the rest had gone, Tony stayed just long enough to deal with the worst of the mess. As he reminded them, he had to start work at 4 a.m. Seranne and Babs looked at the once immaculate kitchen,
it looked a daunting task.

‘Lucky we didn’t spend all day cleaning, eh?’ Babs whispered.

Ignoring their protests, Jessie helped, but Paul didn’t do anything. He went into the room that was now his and Jessie’s and prepared for bed.

Outwardly very little changed once Jessie and Paul were married, although a few more items disappeared without explanation. But for Seranne, his presence and the way her mother agreed with the small changes he suggested, without consulting her, was making her restless. It would never go back to how it had been, herself and her mother in complete harmony and the place running as neatly as a train on tracks, it would only get worse.

She lay awake many nights wishing she could leave, but where would she go? All she had ever done was help her mother run the tea rooms, the prospect of walking away and finding somewhere to live and a job to pay for it was overwhelmingly frightening. The awful thing was she and Jessie frequently argued and that was something that had never happened before. She knew she was at fault, her temper had always been easily roused and she knew she overreacted to practically everything Paul said. It wasn’t his presence in their lives, she thought she could learn to cope with that, it was his interference in the business they had managed all their lives.

‘There is too much waste,’ he had announced quite soon after moving in.

‘How can you say that? We throw very little away at the end of each day. Making fresh cakes in small batches throughout the day means we only cook what we need.’ Seranne protested.

‘Hush, dear,’ Jessie pleaded. ‘Paul is a businessman and he understands things we don’t. He’s trying to help.’

Because of the difficulty of keeping quiet, Seranne took to walking each evening whatever the weather. The only evenings she stayed in the flat was when her mother and Paul went out. This they did often. He took Jessie dancing and occasionally for a meal in some expensive
restaurant
.

He was always the first to rise and his first move was to go down and collect the post, tucking anything that came for him in his pocket to read in private. Seranne’s dislike of him didn’t wane and she began to be
suspicious
about his eagerness to avoid anyone seeing his letters.

Finding the sandwiches with less filling, and cakes made smaller and the jam dishes less full, made her anger towards him increase. Every day
there seemed to be more so-called improvements about which she disagreed.

‘Our profits are sufficient and we don’t need to cheat our customers,’ she shouted one evening when she tried to make her mother see what was happening. ‘People are remarking on the reduced measures and some are already finding other places to eat.’

‘Quality is what they come here for and that hasn’t altered,’ Jessie insisted.

‘Quality and a fair price! You can’t reduce the quantity and expect them to pay the same.’

‘Paul says we’ve been giving too much and we should adjust our prices to other cafés to the area.’

‘Paul has a factory making leather bags! What does he know about tea rooms?’

‘I’m a businessman, Seranne, and I can see why you aren’t making the profits relating to the outlay.’

Seranne ran out even though it was past ten o’clock and slammed the door behind her. Too late she remembered she didn’t have a key. Now she would have to knock and ask to be let in. Why couldn’t she stay calm? Deal with Paul in a reasonable way, persuade her mother to agree, instead of charging about like a spoilt child?

She had nowhere to go. She couldn’t call on Babs, it was too far to go at this time of night. Disconsolately she wandered along the pavement, wishing she had slammed into her bedroom instead of out of the door. When she reached the corner she sat on the garden wall where the woman with the small terrier lived. ‘Just start barking at me tonight and I’ll be ready for your owner!’ she muttered, looking at the house and almost wishing the little dog would give her an excuse for an argument.

‘Talking to yourself?’

Startled, she looked around her and saw Luke, the man from the corner table, walking towards her. ‘I wasn’t talking,’ she retorted. ‘I’m thinking aloud.’ Without giving him a chance to say any more she hurried back home to the side door and knocked loudly, her irritability apparent. He walked past and her mood was worsened by the sound of his subdued laughter.

There was no immediate response to her knocking and she walked away, childishly hoping to punish her mother by making her worry. It was cold and she walked down the side of the kitchen to shelter from a rising wind.

Inside, Jessie was held back from opening the door by Paul. ‘Let her
get chilled, it might cool her temper making her wait a little while,’ he said, caressing Jessie’s back, holding her close to him. Jessie waited about five minutes then pleaded with Paul to let her in.

Luke was still smiling as he reached his car and jumped in. She really was a hot-tempered character, but there was something almost childlike about her that appealed. He wondered whether she had always been ready for an argument or whether something in her life was causing her irritability. Not that he would ever find out. He knew her as a waitress in her mother’s tea rooms and it would never go further than that. His days of being attracted to young women were over. It seemed he would never be free.

He saw the side door of the tea rooms open but instead of seeing Seranne go inside he saw Paul come out. Curious, he waited. Paul stood for a moment outside, then walked to the corner and stopped again. He looked as though he was waiting for someone. Then he heard running footsteps and two men appeared, nothing more than crouched figures in the darkness, and to his horror, he saw them leap on the man and as one held him the other punched him.

‘Hey! Stop that,’ he called and ran across to intervene. Paul received several more blows before falling to the ground.

Luke heard the attackers muttering in a menacing way as they leant over the man before one ran off. The other said quite clearly, ‘Pay him, or there’s worse than that coming to you.’ After pushing Luke aside and aiming one more punch, the second man followed the first and was quickly swallowed up in the darkness.

Seranne got to Paul almost as soon as Luke and together they helped the distressed man back to the flat.

‘Did you know them? Were they trying to rob you?’ Luke asked.

‘I’ll phone for the police,’ Jessie said tearfully.

‘No, don’t do that. What good would it do? They’re long gone and I couldn’t even describe them.’

‘The police need to be told.’

‘Please leave it. I must have been mistaken for someone else, or perhaps they were just looking for a fight. They smelt of drink. They won’t come back.’

Luke said nothing of what he had heard, following his own advice of not jumping to conclusions, he would make enquiries though, using the wide network of relations he had spread around the area. Among his army of aunts and uncles and cousins there was sure to be someone who would know what was going on. He left soon after helping Paul into bed.
Jessie and Seranne sat silently staring at the walls.

‘A flood and now an attack on Paul, whatever next,’ Seranne said as she stood to go to her room.