A Sixpenny Christmas (31 page)

Lana joined in the laughter which followed Nonny’s jibe, though she still felt annoyed that her plan of spending the day with Chris had been thwarted. She could see no reason why she shouldn’t accompany him as he worked amongst the sheep and for the first time it occurred to her that Auntie Molly often stepped in to prevent a tête-à-tête with her son. She said nothing now, however, with so many people sitting round the table and enjoying the gathering supper, but when she and
Nonny were up in their own room getting ready for bed she asked her friend in a rather plaintive tone whether she knew why Auntie Molly seemed to have turned against her.

Nonny’s big blue eyes widened. ‘Turned against you?’ she said incredulously. ‘What on earth are you talking about, Lana O’Mara? My mum loves you like a daughter, you know she does. You must have heard her saying so a hundred times.’

‘Oh, she says so, I grant you that,’ Lana said rather crossly. ‘But didn’t you hear her at the supper table just now? I wanted Chris to show me the old ewe’s lambs and he said it wouldn’t be any trouble, but she started making objections at once.’ She sniffed. ‘Does she think I’ll seduce her one and only into becoming a city boy? Or does she just think I’d make a rotten wife for a farmer?’

Nonny was tugging her thick sweater over her head but for a moment she stopped moving, frozen, apparently, into silence and stillness by her friend’s words. Then she threw the garment on to her bed and turned an astonished face towards Lana. ‘Not make a good farmer’s wife?’ she squeaked. ‘You and I are exactly the same age, Lana, and the last thing on my mind is getting married.’

Lana felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Oh, how you do leap to conclusions, Nonny. That was just a for instance, as they say. I don’t mean to marry anyone for years and years and I’d have to be desperately in love with someone to cut myself off from all the things I like best and take to sheep farming in Snowdonia. It’s just that Auntie Molly seems determined to keep Chris and me apart . . .’

Nonny gave a derisive crow of laughter. ‘Keep you apart? My dear Lana, whatever are you thinking of? Mum
doesn’t have to keep you and Chris apart, because Chris thinks of you as another sister, and not even a useful one. If you’re offended because Mum doesn’t want you to trail round after Chris when he and Dad and the dogs are working with the sheep, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were!’

‘But she did stop me; she said I was to go with you instead,’ Lana mumbled. She felt annoyed with herself. She had had a serious crush on Chris for a couple of years now, thought him the best-looking boy she had ever encountered, and despite what she had told Nonny she truly hoped that one day he would reciprocate her feelings and fall in love with her. In a way, she wanted this outcome from sheer pique. At home in Liverpool she had a great many admirers, lads who offered to take her to the flicks, to dance halls, on coach trips down to the coast. Here at Cefn Farm there were only two unattached males, and nice though he was Lana had never wasted a thought on Rhodri Pritchard. For one thing he was a decade older than she, and for another Welsh was his first language, so though he and Nonny jabbered away happily enough, and he always changed to English as soon as he realised Lana was present, she felt she had never really got to know him.

Chris, on the other hand, was only a couple of years older than herself and she saw no reason why he should not begin to show her the sort of flattering attention which she had come to believe was her due. Now, as she began to undress, not throwing her dirty clothes on the floor as Nonny did – Lana’s were not really dirty at all – but hanging them neatly in her half of the wardrobe, she glanced at her reflection in the old cheval glass which
Auntie Molly had recently bought at Seth Hughes’ auction rooms in Wrexham. She saw a slender girl with a mass of fair hair, big blue eyes set wide apart in an oval face and cheeks just flushing with rose. A pretty girl, and one who would never lack for boyfriends, because in addition to her looks she knew she possessed that enviable quality which years ago had been called ‘it’. Now, more frankly, it was sex appeal. She smiled at her reflection, revealing even white teeth and a dimple which peeked roguishly in one cheek. Yes, Chris Roberts would be mad if he didn’t fall at least a little in love with her.

Lana was about to turn away from the mirror to continue undressing – she was clad only in vest and knickers – when she was seized from behind and shoved to one side. Nonny, in pink and white striped pyjamas, for she had already shed her clothes and donned her nightwear, dug her painfully in the ribs with a stiffened forefinger.

‘Lana O’Mara, you must be the most conceited girl in the whole world,’ she said derisively. ‘Staring at your reflection and no doubt thinking that there’s not a man for miles who doesn’t long for your kisses!’ She half closed her eyes, tilted up her small chin and affected an American drawl. ‘Gee, honey, ain’t you the purtiest thing! You’re so sweet and gorgeous I could jest gobble you up!’ She dropped the mid-Atlantic accent and reverted to her own voice. ‘D’you know what Chris would do if he saw you cavorting in front of the mirror like a perishin’ film star? He’d laugh like a drain and tell you to stop acting so daft.’ Nonny ran her hands across her small breasts, then pointed at her friend’s completely flat chest.
She giggled. ‘I don’t know why you wear that horrible pink brassiere, because you’ve got nothing to put in it. I’ve got bigger busts than you and I don’t wear one.’

‘Yours is just fat, not real busts,’ Lana said defensively. ‘I’ll have bigger busts than you one day, because girls follow their mothers and my mum has huge ones.’

Nonny considered her friend, her head on one side. ‘Do you read your stars in the paper each week?’ she asked slowly. ‘Dad says it’s a lot of nonsense and he’s probably right, because when you think about it you and I were born at the same time on the same day in the same flipping place, and so we have identical horoscopes, but we couldn’t be more different.’

There was a short silence, then Lana stripped off her remaining clothes and pulled on her white cotton nightie. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ she enquired, sitting down on her bed and reaching for her cup of cocoa. She yawned exaggeratedly. ‘Golly, I’m tired! Do you think your mum will let us lie in tomorrow?’

Nonny climbed into bed and then considered her friend’s question. ‘You can lie in if you want; you’re a guest,’ she reminded her friend. ‘But I’m a worker, I am. You don’t know how many jobs need to be done whilst the ewes are penned so we can get hold of them. The lambs have to be earmarked, you know, and we have to examine the mouth of every sheep, and check them for maggots – not that they’re likely to suffer from that if they’ve been well washed and dipped – see that none of them have foot rot . . . oh, it would take all night to tell you half the things we’ll be doing over the next few weeks.’

Lana heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Wake me tomorrow as soon as you’ve washed, then, and I’ll follow you
downstairs,’ she said resignedly. ‘God, me friends in Liverpool don’t know the half, do they? They’re so envious of me spending time in the mountains most holidays! I do tell them that hill farming’s hard work, but I don’t think they believe me.’

Nonny finished her cocoa, then scrambled out of bed to blow out the candle on the chest of drawers, for Cefn Farm was still not ‘on the electric’ as the locals put it. Lana watched dreamily as she crossed the room and pulled back the curtains, then opened the window and hastily shut it again. ‘It’s still too windy for open windows tonight,’ she remarked. ‘Ooh, the lino feels like ice on my bare feet.’ She leapt back into bed and heaved the blankets up round her shoulders. ‘Are you sure you want to be woken? Only I’ll be up at first light and that’s pretty early at this time of year.’

Lana, cuddling down into her warm nest, was tempted. She knew no one would blame her if she did not get up when Nonny did, but if she lay in Chris would be off up to the hills before she had drunk her first cup of tea, and as always, she would have given everything she possessed to impress Chris favourably. She adored him, had hero-worshipped him as a small girl, but now that feeling had crystallised into a far more adult desire to please him, so she reiterated her wish to be woken and then plunged thankfully into sleep.

‘Lana?’

In the grey light next day Lana opened sleepy, reluctant eyes and saw Nonny in her underwear, rubbing her wet face dry on her towel. She grinned when she saw that Lana was awake and gestured to the washstand. ‘Your
turn. I went down and fetched a jug of hot water, so if you’d like to wash in what’s left, you’re welcome,’ she said. ‘I’m going to put on an extra sweater and if I were you I’d do the same. Mum’s already got the porridge on the go; she tried to get me to bring you up a cup of tea, but I knew you’d only leave it on the side to get cold whilst you washed and dressed.’

Lana, who would have liked a hot cup of tea, muttered beneath her breath but Nonny was busy pulling on the thick grey socks which she always wore inside her wellingtons and did not hear, and presently the two girls, both now dressed, thundered down the stairs and into the kitchen. The room was already bright with lamp-and firelight and Chris, Rhys, Jacob and old Mr Williams were scraping the last of the porridge from their bowls, draining their mugs of tea and getting to their feet. Despite the brightness of the kitchen Lana could see through the low window that the sun had risen and was pouring golden light from behind the distant peaks. It was going to be another fine day.

‘Well, well, well, fancy seeing you, Miss O’Mara!’ Chris’s voice was teasing but, Lana thought, affectionate. ‘I do trust my sister didn’t drag you screaming and kicking out of bed?’

‘No she did not; I asked her to wake me when she’d finished washing, and she did,’ Lana said with dignity. ‘Ooh, Auntie Molly, that porridge looks delicious.’ She looked around the kitchen. ‘Where’s Mum? Still in bed, I suppose.’

Molly tutted, smiling at her guest. ‘You’re wrong there, chick; she’s gone to the dairy for more milk.’ She began to serve the porridge into two dishes. ‘Since you two are
going to do the work of the yard to release the men to deal with the sheep, you won’t need to be out and about all that early. Nevertheless, your stomachs will want lining, so start with porridge and finish up with toast and marmalade; that should see you right till lunchtime.’

As Chris strode towards the sheep pens he was smiling at the thought of Lana coming to grips with her fear of animals. How she could possibly be frightened of sheep was more than he could understand, but she was beginning to get over her fear, fighting it as resolutely as she had said she would. Chris laughed at her and teased her, tried to tell himself that he thought of her as a sister, but in fact he found himself captivated by this new Lana, with her delicate elfin features and her captivating smile. His mother, however, though she had never put it into words, clearly thought that she would never make a suitable wife for a hill farmer. Chris supposed, reluctantly, that she was probably right, but as he began to move amongst the sheep he reminded himself that they were still young. At present, pretty clothes, dancing and film stars were more important, he imagined, than anything else in Lana’s life. Oh, he was well aware that she liked him very much, but he supposed that this was a transient feeling, one which only came to the fore when she was at Cefn Farm. Indeed, his own feelings for her were vague as yet.

As he swung open the gate of the first pen and the sheep began to surge around him, he spotted one which was dragging a hind foot and chided himself. This was no time to start wondering about his relationship with Lana; this was a time for keeping one’s mind on one’s
work. Resolutely he pushed through the milling ewes, grabbed the lame one and shouted to Jacob to give him a hand. Work took over; other things could wait. After all, when the school holidays ended, Lana would be going back to Liverpool, a long way from both Cefn Farm and himself. Plenty of time to sort out his feelings; plenty of time.

Nonny approached the Miss Perkins secretarial college in Rodney Street, aware of an uneasy fluttering in her stomach. The school had a first rate reputation and only took pupils with a high educational standard. Molly had been delighted when Nonny had passed all six of her O level exams with good grades and had accompanied her daughter to the college for her first interview, which she had passed with flying colours. The college was run by two sisters, Miss Elizabeth and Miss Matilda. They ran a special course for pupils who had done well at French in school, since Miss Elizabeth spoke French, it was said, like a native, and the other courses were run by Miss Matilda and two employees. Nonny, having spoken both Welsh and English from the time she was two or three, had found the French language relatively easy and had been accepted by Miss Elizabeth for the special class. Now, however, walking slowly along Rodney Street in the college’s neat uniform – navy suit, white blouse and navy Burberry – she began to wish that she had enrolled for a less exalted course. The truth was that over the years she had come to know many of Lana’s friends, and even though most of them had gone to the technical college it had never occurred to her that she would know nobody at all in her class. However, she fully appreciated
her parents’ insistence that she should work as hard as she possibly could and gain every possible certificate and diploma, so that when she applied for work she could command a far higher salary than those pupils who spent their college days just having fun, and at the end of the course barely managed to scrape a pass.

Lana had started her second year at the technical college having spent the first year doing as little work as possible; in fact, achieving only a borderline pass at the end of her first nine months. She had said airily that she did not care, that she was not, and never had been, an academic, but Nonny knew that her own exam results had brought Lana face to face with reality. Then, at the beginning of the new term, Lana had realised that, because of her poor performance, the technical college might easily insist that she repeat her first year again. She had bounced into the classroom, brimming with confidence, and had had to eat humble pie and make a great many promises in order to go up with the rest of her class.