Liverpool Taffy (5 page)

‘Of course,’ Ma Kettle said. She sighed. ‘Better get a
move on; Jack’s fond of an early cuppa. And he’ll want his brekfuss betimes, too. Better shift yourself, chuck.’

Biddy, throwing her clothes on, said meekly that she would do her best to hurry. She realised that, having got her own way, she must be careful not to provoke Ma Kettle by being cocky. So she did not wash and Ma Kettle did not suggest that she should, she just hurried downstairs and began to hunt out the ingredients for the boys’ breakfast.

At least she isn’t going to try to starve me, she told herself as she got the huge frying pan out of the cupboard and put it carefully on top of the stove. As the fat began to hiss and spit she broke the first egg into it and stood the bacon ready. A real breakfast, and as soon as the boys were fed she, too, could eat this wonderful food! It was worth getting up early, worth slaving for Ma Kettle all day in the shop and half the night in the house, if she, Biddy, ate as well as the boys!

In January no beach is at its best, but Richart David Evans, Dai to his friends, sitting on the little cliff above the beach at Moelfre, looking down on the grey shingle, the black fanged rocks, the slow inward saunter of the silvery winter waves, was not seeing the scene before him. His mind was closed to the beauty, as it was to the cry of the gulls, and the salty, exciting, indefinable smell of the dark green weed and the wooden fishing boats, pulled up above the tideline.

His Mam was dead. After weeks of suffering she had died first thing in the morning four months ago, when Da had been out in the long garden at the back of the tall house on Stryd Pen, hoping to find that one of the hens had laid an egg with which he might tempt his heart’s darling, for there was no doubt in Dai’s mind that Davy had loved his Bethan true.

Davy had been devastated by her death, unmanned by it you could say. For weeks he had been inconsolable and Dai and his sister Sîan had done their best to comfort him, to see that he ate, slept, even mourned, with some degree of self-control. But a month ago Sîan, who had been engaged to be married for over a year but had delayed the wedding first because of her mother’s illness and then her death, had wed her Gareth and moved into his cottage in the nearby village of Benllech. And Da, Dai brooded darkly, had done the unforgivable.

He had brought another woman into Mam’s home.

‘Fond of the girls is your Da,’ Mam had whispered to
her son just before she died. ‘Marry again he will, love – marry again he must, for that’s your Da for you. Don’t resent the girl of his choice, Dai, my dear, but if you need a home while you come to terms with what’s happened, don’t forget my old friend, Nellie McDowell that was. She’s Nellie Gallagher now and if you need help, or … or anything … the sort of thing you’d have turned to me for … then Nellie will do what she can. Her address is in my little bureau. We still exchange letters from time to time. If you hurt, love, you must go to her. There isn’t a better woman living.’

‘Mam, Da wouldn’t … but I don’t want to talk about it. And if it pleases you, I’ll see this woman some time. Oh Mam, we love you so much, I don’t know what we’ll do without you.’

Bethan had smiled, the thin face suddenly bright with real amusement. ‘I know well what your Da will do! Now give me a kiss and go about your business; I just wanted one quiet word.’

Two days later she was dead and now … Dai gritted his teeth and thumped his knee with a clenched fist. Now his father had brought Menna from Amlwch into the house because he said it needed a woman’s touch – and it didn’t take any particular effort to realise three things. First, that Davy had known Menna for some time, and known her quite well what was more. Second, that he had not brought her in to act as his housekeeper but for a far more intimate purpose. Third, that Menna, whilst delighted to be living with Davy, had no desire whatsoever to share a house with his son.

Oh Mam, Mam, how well you knew my Da and how foolish I was not to see that his weakness for a pretty face was stronger even than his love for you, Dai mourned now, staring blackly out over the sea. And what do I do now? Stay here, to keep at bay at least some of the scandal that will soon be rife? Or go? It will mean leaving the
Sweetbriar
, and the fishing, and my nice little attic room and pretty Rhona from the Post Office, but then a man has to leave his Mam’s home one day and make a home for himself. My time to leave has come sooner than I expected, because I’ve been so content here, but I can’t stay. Not when Da installs her as his wife, which he will do. It’s the only way; the villagers won’t have him living shamelessly in sin with a little town hussy who doesn’t know our ways.

But what to do? The
Sweetbriar
was his own craft and he and his friend Meirion worked her together; they
could find the fish when others searched in vain, they were a good team and made money, quite a lot of money at times when fish was short and others could not find.

There was the lifeboat, too. He had just been taken on as a deckhand and loved it, was almost looking forward to the heavy seas of winter as a chance to prove himself. If he left …

The village had been his life for twenty years, he knew nothing else. Every man, woman and child here was his friend, would stand by him, agree with him if he told Da …

But Mam had known this would happen and had warned him that it was no use resisting. She knew Davy well, his charm, the way his dark eyes warmed and softened when they fell on a loved one. She understood completely that Da couldn’t go on without a woman, and had urged her son to accept Da’s choice – but Menna! Brassy-haired, shrill-voiced, she was the kind of woman that Dai liked least, the sort he avoided when he took a boatful of fish round to Amlwch and popped into the pub afterwards to wet his whistle before turning for home.

So leave then. No option, no choice. Just leave. Meirion would continue to fish the boat, give Dai a share of his profit if his friend was in need. So far as Dai was concerned Meirion could have the
Sweetbriar
and welcome; better him than Davy Evans, who would probably sell it to buy Menna a gold anklet chain or a locket or whatever silly frippery such a flibbertigibbet might desire.

But go where? He did not intend to run to Liverpool, with his tail between his legs, to this woman friend of Mam’s – what was her name? Gallagher, that was it. A Scottish-sounding name, or an Irish one, he wasn’t sure which, he just knew it wasn’t a good Welsh name. And anyway, what could a motherly woman do for him? He had lost the only mother he wanted, now he must take the man’s path.

As he sat on the cliff edge and glowered, unseeing, at the sea, a man walked across the beach below him, then looked up and shouted.

‘Dai, bach, what’s up wi’ you, mun? I’m baitin’ lobster pots; goin’ to give me a hand?’

It was Meirion.

Meirion stood on the shingle with the bag of fish pieces swinging from one hand and watched Dai scramble down the cliff towards him. Dai came down with his black curls bobbing on his head, his strong legs carrying him easily and swiftly over the rough going, his eyes intent on the ground at his feet. Like his Da, Dai Evans was good to look upon and the girls vied for his favours, but to Meirion, Dai was special. Fond of Dai he was, like brothers they had been all their lives, and worried he was at the way Dai had taken Bethan’s death.

Darkly. That was how he had taken it. Meirion was used to his friend’s eloquent eyes reflecting his moods, but of late those eyes had seldom sparkled and had looked opaque, angry. Then there was the girl Menna. No one approved, but there were those who understood, though Meirion was not one of them. How Davy Evans could take a brassy piece like her into his home, with Dai still so hurt by his loss, Meirion could not understand, and there was talk amongst the women – who knew everything – that Davy had always been a one for the girls, that having a bedridden wife for fifteen months before her death had tried him more than it would have done some men, that he had been visiting Menna in her father’s public house in Amlwch for more than a twelve-month ….

Dai crashed down the last few feet of cliff and crunched across the shingle towards Meirion. He looked better, less haunted, Meirion decided, considerably relieved. The curly grin which revealed the white, even teeth was splitting Dai’s tanned face and his eyes warmed when they met Meirion’s in much their old way. ‘Aye, I’ll give you a hand with the pots, bach. Meirion, my mind is made up. I’ll be leavin’ Moelfre as soon as I can get a berth on a ship out of Amlwch. I’ll ride over tomorrow – want to come?’

Dai had an old motorbike, his pride and joy after the
Sweetbriar
. He and Meirion had taken it to pieces and then put it together again half a hundred times; they knew it as they knew the palms of their own hands, and loved it, too. They both rode it, sometimes one in the driver’s seat whilst the other rode pillion, sometimes the other. For years and years everything they did they had done together – taking the
Sweetbriar
to sea, bringing
in the catch, selling it, lowering each other down the cliffs on a rope to rob seabirds’ nests, digging for cockles, chasing the giggling holidaymaking girls in the summer, flirting with them, teasing them … then turning back to the local girls for real companionship, to sensible Rhona and sweet Wanda … even their girlfriends were friends.

‘Goin’, Dai? What for? Why, in God’s sweet name?’

Meirion’s voice was shocked, he couldn’t help himself. If Dai went, how on earth would he go on? His instinct would have been to go too, to set off for Amlwch the following day and never return if that was what Dai wanted, but it was impossible. His Mam needed him, he had been the man of the house since his Da had been lost at sea. They had a good garden, good crops, but times was hard, they needed him, and not on some little coaster miles from here, either. He must be here, on the Isle of Anglesey, looking out for them, guarding them.

‘Why?’ Dai sighed, picked up a lobster pot and began to insert the bait. ‘Oh, Meirion, bach, you must know as well as I do that I can’t stay here and see that woman take my Mam’s place! What’s more, she do hate me very heartily, and though I’m angry with him, I want my Da to be happy. He won’t be happy with me disapproving of his woman and his woman searching her mind for ways to discredit me with my Da. So what better than a berth on a ship heading for anywhere but here? What better than a complete break?’

‘But … but the
Sweetbriar
, your place on the lifeboat … even the old bike, damn it! Dai, you can’t go, this is our place, where we belong! You can’t let her push you out!’

‘She’s not pushing me out, I’m going before she starts,’ Dai said crossly. ‘She’d try, I don’t deny it, but she won’t have the trouble. As for the
Sweetbriar
, she’s yours until I come back, or decide not to, or whatever. And yes, miss the lifeboat I will, but if I sign on aboard a coaster in Amlwch then no time would I have for the lifeboat, anyway.’

‘Where’ll you live when you come ashore?’ Meirion asked plaintively. He brightened. ‘Or will you come home, then? Back here, to us?’

‘I don’t know, I’ve not made up my mind yet,’ Dai said guardedly. ‘I’d like to, but … well, there’s no gettin’ away from it, mun, Menna hates me right well.’

‘She won’t mind you in small doses,’ Meirion said with surprising shrewdness. ‘It’s only twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, that she finds difficult, I guess. Right. I’ll come over to the port with you. What time are you leaving?’

Biddy gradually settled down in the Kettle household. She was startled and a little upset to find that Maisie had been sacked, but as Ma quickly pointed out, with two of them at it the work of keeping the flat clean and the boys neat shouldn’t be too difficult. And Ma Kettle could have been worse, for all she was tightfisted and dishonest. She had at first ordered and then tried to wheedle Biddy into giving short weight but in this Biddy proved adamant. ‘I’d burn in hell if they didn’t catch me and spend me life in prison if they did,’ was her stoutly repeated excuse, and when Ma Kettle explained that it was not so much dishonest as good business practice, that in fact her sweets were worth a great deal more than she charged for ’em, only folk were so mean they wouldn’t give her a decent price, Biddy just sniffed and began to clean down.

‘Then you’d best not serve customers; you’ll cost me too much,’ Ma grumbled but Biddy, who believed in speaking her mind, pointed out that at least an assistant who was too honest to cheat the customers was also too honest to cheat her employer, which meant that the little wooden till with its tiny compartments for farthings, ha’pennies, pennies and so on was safe from the threat of thieving fingers.

This caused Ma Kettle to look thoughtful and afterwards Kenny told Biddy that she had taken exactly the right stand. ‘’Cos we ’ad a gel afore you, Trix ’er name was, an’ she took from the till, nicked sweets, gave ’er mates special prices, walked off ’ome one night wi’ a bag o’ sugar in ’er bloomers … Ma prizes honesty after that.’

Oddly enough, Kenny, who looked such unlikely friendship material, was becoming a good friend to Biddy. His appearance was against him, of course, the hard little eyes behind the spectacles seeming to look accusingly out on the world, but that was just short-sightedness. Kenny was bright at his books and enjoyed being tested on his recently acquired
knowledge and Biddy liked to help, and he saw his parent rather more clearly than she saw herself.

‘Stand up to ’er,’ he continually advised Biddy. ‘She’ll like you for it in the end. ‘Sides, you works ’arder than most, it wouldn’t do to let ’er keep you short o’ grub. Think what she saves on Maisie’s wages, let alone on yours. You want to see her wi’ Aunt Olliphant; Aunt won’t stand none o’ Ma’s bossin’ – she’s the younger sister – but Ma respecks her for it. So if you want seconds of puddin’, say so.’

‘I don’t see why she grudges me,’ Biddy had said once, in the early days. ‘I swear she counts up every cabbage leaf that passes my lips to see whether she’d be better paying me a wage instead of giving me my meals.’

Kenny chuckled. The two of them were sitting on the hard bench in the shop kitchen, ostensibly studying. Kenny worked for a firm of chartered accountants and was going to take exams to better himself and he had told his mother that Biddy was a big help to him since she understood the work and could ask him the sort of questions he would get in his exams.