with them, Martin glanced at his sister who was standing silently next to Judy and Brian. Katie couldn’t have chipped a word in edgewise between those two, even if she’d wanted to. But she showed no inclination to join him and Lily.
‘You can’t push people into talking when they don’t want to, Marty,’ Lily murmured.
‘If I’d pushed Jack at times I might have stopped him from thieving and going to Borstal and, maybe, having to get married at eighteen.’
‘You wouldn’t have stopped him from seeing Helen,’ she said lightly. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t have kept those two apart.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he granted, ‘but if I’d given him a good talking-to when I came back from the army …’
‘He wouldn’t have listened. Not then. And you’re forgetting Helen is every bit as wild as Jack and just as crazy about him as he is about her. Besides, all things considered it’s turned out well. He’s calmed down since you came back and that has to be down to you. And look where he is now, on honeymoon in London with a wife who adores him and a lovely home and a job with prospects to come back to.’
He offered her his arm, closing his hand round her gloved fingers as she hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. ‘You’re brilliant at making people feel good about themselves.’
‘You’re so hard on yourself it only takes a couple of compliments – no, that’s not the right word – home truths to make you realise you can’t hold yourself responsible for the ills of the entire world.’
‘You’re quite something, Lily Sullivan.’ He wondered, yet again, why she was with him, not someone with more education, money and better prospects, like Joe Griffiths.
‘You two going to stand there spooning all night, or make a move towards the Mumbles train?’ Adam demanded.
Martin looked up. While he and Lily had been talking, the others had walked on ahead and were standing on the corner of Verandah and Mansel Streets. ‘We’re with you.’ Taking Lily’s hand, he raced down to join them.
‘You remember what happened the last time we went to the Pier Ballroom,’ Robin Watkin Morgan reminded Joe, as they sat drinking beer with whisky chasers in the saloon bar of the Mermaid Hotel in Mumbles.
‘Larry Murton Davies made an idiot of himself.’
‘And made us look like idiots because we were with him.’
‘Seeing as how he’s in Italy now, he can’t make either himself or us look like fools tonight.’
‘Which makes you all the more determined to carry on where he left off.’
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Joe retorted irritably.
‘You’ve done nothing but talk about Lily Sullivan since she gave you back your engagement ring.’
‘She couldn’t give it back to me because I didn’t give it to her in the first place.’
‘No need to be so bloody pedantic.’
‘You were at the engagement party, you saw …’
‘Your intended fiancée’s real mother crawl out of the gutter she touts in, gatecrash the party and put an end to the proceedings,’ Robin interrupted, hoping to avoid yet another exhaustive post-mortem on the event from Joe. ‘You had a narrow escape, the only problem is you can’t see it.’
‘I refuse to stand by and watch a girl like Lily throw herself away on a lout.’
‘Martin Clay is your brother-in-law, as of this afternoon.’
‘The brother of my brother-in-law and that doesn’t make him any less of a lout.’
Robin reined in his exasperation. He and Joe had met as freshers at Swansea University almost three years before. And apart from an overdeveloped sense of romanticism and a puritanical bourgeois attitude to sex, Joe had proved a good and loyal friend. It was Joe’s coaching that had enabled him to pass examinations with grades beyond his own capabilities and Joe had already been offered a position at the BBC on graduation, an organisation he burned to work for. Given Joe’s extraordinary talents, he had no doubt his friend would rise
‘You can’t push people into talking when they don’t want to, Marty,’ Lily murmured.
‘If I’d pushed Jack at times I might have stopped him from thieving and going to Borstal and, maybe, having to get married at eighteen.’
‘You wouldn’t have stopped him from seeing Helen,’ she said lightly. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t have kept those two apart.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he granted, ‘but if I’d given him a good talking-to when I came back from the army …’
‘He wouldn’t have listened. Not then. And you’re forgetting Helen is every bit as wild as Jack and just as crazy about him as he is about her. Besides, all things considered it’s turned out well. He’s calmed down since you came back and that has to be down to you. And look where he is now, on honeymoon in London with a wife who adores him and a lovely home and a job with prospects to come back to.’
He offered her his arm, closing his hand round her gloved fingers as she hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. ‘You’re brilliant at making people feel good about themselves.’
‘You’re so hard on yourself it only takes a couple of compliments – no, that’s not the right word – home truths to make you realise you can’t hold yourself responsible for the ills of the entire world.’
‘You’re quite something, Lily Sullivan.’ He wondered, yet again, why she was with him, not someone with more education, money and better prospects, like Joe Griffiths.
‘You two going to stand there spooning all night, or make a move towards the Mumbles train?’ Adam demanded.
Martin looked up. While he and Lily had been talking, the others had walked on ahead and were standing on the corner of Verandah and Mansel Streets. ‘We’re with you.’ Taking Lily’s hand, he raced down to join them.
‘You remember what happened the last time we went to the Pier Ballroom,’ Robin Watkin Morgan reminded Joe, as they sat drinking beer with whisky chasers in the saloon bar of the Mermaid Hotel in Mumbles.
‘Larry Murton Davies made an idiot of himself.’
‘And made us look like idiots because we were with him.’
‘Seeing as how he’s in Italy now, he can’t make either himself or us look like fools tonight.’
‘Which makes you all the more determined to carry on where he left off.’
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Joe retorted irritably.
‘You’ve done nothing but talk about Lily Sullivan since she gave you back your engagement ring.’
‘She couldn’t give it back to me because I didn’t give it to her in the first place.’
‘No need to be so bloody pedantic.’
‘You were at the engagement party, you saw …’
‘Your intended fiancée’s real mother crawl out of the gutter she touts in, gatecrash the party and put an end to the proceedings,’ Robin interrupted, hoping to avoid yet another exhaustive post-mortem on the event from Joe. ‘You had a narrow escape, the only problem is you can’t see it.’
‘I refuse to stand by and watch a girl like Lily throw herself away on a lout.’
‘Martin Clay is your brother-in-law, as of this afternoon.’
‘The brother of my brother-in-law and that doesn’t make him any less of a lout.’
Robin reined in his exasperation. He and Joe had met as freshers at Swansea University almost three years before. And apart from an overdeveloped sense of romanticism and a puritanical bourgeois attitude to sex, Joe had proved a good and loyal friend. It was Joe’s coaching that had enabled him to pass examinations with grades beyond his own capabilities and Joe had already been offered a position at the BBC on graduation, an organisation he burned to work for. Given Joe’s extraordinary talents, he had no doubt his friend would rise
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