Swansea Girls by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online Page A

me looking at Lily, Mam. Marty’s had his eye on her since he was six.’
    ‘I have not.’
    ‘No shame if you have, nice girl like that. You know she’s a banker now.’
    ‘She’s a typist who works in a bank, Mam.’
    Doris sailed on, ignoring her son. ‘Norah did well by keeping that girl on in school and sending her to technological college. She passed all her exams, you know, as high as she could go.’
    ‘Lily’s a bright girl.’ Adam opened the door. ‘Time we were off.’
    ‘Here, your suit’s got white bits all over the shoulders. Whatever have you been leaning against?’
    ‘Nothing I know about,’ Adam protested as his mother took a clothes brush, marked A present from Tenby from a hook behind the door and gave his jacket a good going over.
    ‘You fit then?’
    ‘As I’ll ever be.’ Martin rose to his feet as Mrs Jordan replaced the brush on the hook.
    Adam kissed the top of his mother’s head. ‘Don’t wait up.’
    ‘You’ll be wanting your supper.’
    ‘We’ll stop for chips, Mam.’
    ‘I don’t know, you boys today, filling yourselves up with stuff and rubbish.’
    ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Jordan, I’ll take care of him.’
    ‘See that you do, Marty,’ Doris warned, not altogether humorously.
    ‘I don’t recognise that car.’ Mrs Murton Davies frowned as a Rover edged slowly down her drive towards the gravelled parking area at the side of the substantial three-storied Edwardian villa that dominated the cliff top above Caswell Bay.
    Mrs Watkin Morgan followed her line of vision. ‘It’s the Griffiths boy. That’s his father’s car; he hasn’t one of his own.’
    ‘Do we know him?’
    ‘Larry and Robin do, he’s at university with them.’
    ‘There was a time when being at university meant something, unfortunately not any more.’ Mrs Murton Davies signalled to a waiter to bring the champagne tray to the bench they were sitting on. ‘Is he a scholarship boy?’
    ‘He went to grammar school.’
    ‘I see.’ Mrs Murton Davies pursed her lips, tightening the fine lines round her mouth.
    ‘His mother was in school with us. Pretty girl, bright, you must remember her – Esme Harris. She does a lot with the Little Theatre these days.’
    ‘The headmaster’s daughter?’
    ‘The teachers thought she’d go far. She proved them wrong.’
    ‘Wasn’t there some sort of scandal there? Didn’t she have to marry young, a dreadful man who’d been horribly scarred in a fire, lived in town and worked in a clothes shop.’
    ‘Warehouse, actually, Griffiths’s Wholesale, he inherited it from his grandfather.’ Mrs Watkin Morgan lifted a champagne glass from the waiter’s tray. ‘He’s done rather well for himself. The warehouse is quite popular these days and he’s not long opened Elegance, that chic little fashion place on Newton Road. I’m only surprised Esme hasn’t insisted they move out to a better area.’
    ‘But the boy can hardly be our sort. I’m surprised Larry invited him.’
    ‘Joe’s very good-looking and positively oozes charm, just like his grandfather the headmaster. Angie adores him.’
    ‘You know him socially?’
    ‘As much as anyone ever knows a student socially. He and Robin are close.’
    ‘I’ve tried to instil a sense of responsibility into Larry when it comes to the friends he brings home. We simply can’t be too careful with three girls in the house. They’re at that impressionable age. Introduce them to the wrong sort and we could have a disaster on our hands – like Esme Harris,’ she added snidely.
    ‘Richard Thomas is the Griffithses’ solicitor.’
    ‘I’m surprised they feel the need to have one.’
    ‘He mentioned some time ago that the boy has a substantial trust fund. His grandfather’s sister set it up. She had no children and apparently looked on Joseph as her own.’
    ‘How large is substantial?’
    ‘You know Richard, he wouldn’t be drawn on figures but he did say that between the income from the trust and the