Swansea Summer by Catrin Collier Page A

bear seeing the same contempt for him on her face that Esme had shown him earlier. It was simply his bad luck that he had fallen as deeply in love with her as he had.
    ‘I am not going in there.’ Adam stood his ground on the pavement outside the White Rose.
    ‘You’ll disappoint your lady love.’ Brian managed to keep a straight face, unlike Martin and Sam who both developed a sudden and avid interest in an office window across the road.
    ‘I could thump the lot of you.’
    ‘Why?’ Brian asked innocently. ‘We didn’t tell you to make a pass at Lifebuoy Lettie.’
    ‘You didn’t stop me, either.’
    ‘Come on, Adam, just one pint,’ Martin coaxed, deciding the joke had gone far enough and the sooner they all sat down in a quiet corner of the pub, the sooner they could tell him the truth.
    Turning on his heel, Adam strode up the road.
    ‘Adam!’ Martin shouted loud enough for everyone in Walter Road to hear, but Adam kept walking. ‘We should go after him.’
    ‘We won’t manage a drink if we do,’ Sam advised. ‘It’ll be stop tap in a quarter of an hour.’
    ‘Let him stew until tonight, we’ll tell him then.’ Oiled by the four pints he had downed in the Mackworth, Brian beamed at them and the world in general.
    ‘We’ll tell him?’ Martin queried.
    ‘You two are chicken.’
    ‘We have to live with him afterwards. You, on the other hand, are leaving for London tomorrow,’ Sam opened the door of the pub.
    ‘It’ll cost you,’ Brian cautioned.
    ‘What?’
    ‘A round of drinks.’ Brian laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘And I’ll have a packet of crisps as well. All this beer has given me the munchies.’
    ‘You’re very quiet, Katie,’ Judy commented, as they walked home from the warehouse.
    ‘Just tired,’ Katie lied.
    ‘Hard work, seeing a brother married.’ Judy waved to Brian, Martin and Sam as they rounded the corner of Carlton Terrace.
    ‘Someone’s bought up half of Griffiths’ warehouse.’ Brian swayed as he noted the number of carrier bags emblazoned with the warehouse logo the girls were carrying.
    ‘Shopping’s more productive than propping up the bar of the Rose.’ Judy had noticed the high spots of colour in Brian’s cheeks and knew what they meant.
    ‘We had a quick one after the wedding.’
    ‘I’m surprised you had room for it after what you downed in the Mackworth.’ She looked around. ‘And you managed to lose Adam. Or is he collapsed in a drunken heap somewhere?’
    ‘He didn’t want join us,’ Brian prevaricated.
    ‘He looked like death warmed up at the reception. What did you do to him?’ Judy persisted.
    ‘Me, nothing.’ Brian turned an innocent face to hers.
    ‘Tea, everyone,’ Martin offered, hoping to stave off a full-blown argument between Judy and Brian.
    ‘Please,’ Lily accepted. ‘That way I’ll be able to sneak up the basement stairs and avoid Mrs Lannon. Whenever I bring a bag in through the front door she thinks it’s her duty to inspect the contents.’
    ‘Your uncle’s housekeeper is a dear old thing.’ Sam pulled his keys from his trouser pocket.
    ‘Not when you have to live with her.’ Whichever part of the house Lily was in, even the basement the boys rented from her uncle, she suspected Mrs Lannon of crouching behind the door and eavesdropping on her conversations. Not only because the housekeeper was always hovering close by whenever she left a room, but also because the woman seemed to have an exhaustive knowledge of how she spent every minute of her free time.
    ‘I can’t stay.’ Judy took a bag from Katie that she’d carried for her. ‘I promised my mother I’d go through the clothes I left in my room when I went up to London.’
    ‘Do it tomorrow,’ Brian suggested.
    ‘When? I’d like a lie-in and we’re catching the two-thirty train. You’ll be round for tea at five.’
    ‘Not five minutes to.’
    Accustomed to Brian’s sense of humour, Judy didn’t smile. ‘Arrive when you like but