The Love Beach Read Free Page A

told me so. He wouldn't like to walk in on it, that's all.'
    'It wouldn't be cricket,' suggested Davies.
    'A great humorist,' commented Conway. 'Is that okay, then?'
    'I'm not sure it is.'
    'I've got lots of influence in the islands,' said Conway. 'Official influence, you know. I'll introduce you to plenty of people who need butter and fats.'
    'Get stuffed,' said Davies mildly. 'Anyway, how do you know I won't drop off?'
    'You wouldn't do that,' said Conway. He went out and left the door open. Davies closed it, then got up and opened it again. He listened for MacAndrews's footfalls above. He was still walking the bridge.
    It was not unusual for him to lie awake at night, anyway. Now he was doing it for Conway, and indirectly, he consoled himself, for the well‑being of Trellis and Jones, wholesale grocers, exporters, and importers, of Circular Quay, Sydney, and through them the well‑being of Isslwyn Davies, and the natives of the Apostle Islands who would be getting their butter and fats on time for the first time in their turbulent history.
    MacAndrews was still above, sounding like a man laboriously using a big wooden mallet on the boards, hesitating between strikes, have a puff and a blow, and then continuing for a while before stopping again.
    It was funny, wasn't it, he thought, that last Sunday at home, before he had gone to catch the ship for Australia.
    After all, it was November, and it was all the wrong time to go to the beach. But the children had wantedto go and Kate had said that it would be all right as long as it didn't rain.
    'It's all very well going to Barry Island in August and it rains,' she said. 'At least you can get in and have a cup of tea somewhere but there's nothing open now.'
    'They want to go,' Davies had said looking at the children. 'And it's the last day.'
    That last day. The words kept on being repeated all the time, didn't they. He said them, and Kate said them, and David and little Mag. The last day. The last time they would be together in Wales, of course, is what everybody meant. And they weren't sorry about that. After all, Australia had more sun than Wales, and better houses and much better beaches, and it was cheap at ten pounds each. Almost as cheap as Barry Island.
    They got the train from Newport and there was hardly anybody on it, not like a summer Sunday. David and Maggie pushed against the window, the boy standing and stretching, the girl kneeling on the plum railway upholstery. He and Kate sat on opposite sides and smiled at them and then at each other. He became aware that the cuff of his shirt was still frayed. She had promised to mend it too. She saw him looking at it and grinned. He could see her sitting back there now, her nice face and her hair done up by herself. It looked all right too. Her coat was getting old, but she wouldn't need a coat in Australia. She would get a nice tan too, going out on the boat, and he would meet her in Sydney, and they would be able to start again. He had answered her smile and nodded for her to come across to him and sit beside him. Sometimes they were a bit too much like parents. Doing that he felt a little childish, it was like trying to get her in the back seat of his old car when they were first going out together. They did not have that any longer either.
    Lying in the bunk, with the thin mattress all lumps beneath him, Davies smiled up at the ceiling on which Captain MacAndrews was still bumping. Kate had refused to go across the gap in the compartment and he had laughed and had surrendered and gone across to sit by her instead. He had heldher hand while the train ran through the marshy Welsh plain that goes down to the Bristol Channel.
    It was a solemn day, grey but mild, with no stirring on the marshes and the ships in Newport Docks sitting up in the distance as though they were voyaging on the grass and reeds and mudflats.
    'Mam,' said David. 'is that Dad's ship? Is that the ship for Australia?'
    Davies remembered answering for