Mushroom Town

by Oliver Onions

So, idly, John Willie told June of the town's struggle between its principles and its living, and then they rose from the table. When June heard that Minetta wasn't coming with them she wanted to stay behind and help; but Minetta persuaded her that she would only be in the way, and that anyway she couldn't help her with her painting; and presently, with towels and costumes, she and John Willie went forth and, after a casual discussion about its being rather soon after breakfast to bathe, descended to the beach.

June was certainly a pretty enough girl for even a fastidious young man to be seen about with. No neater shoes than those that moved beneath the gypsophylla of her petticoats were to be seen on the whole Promenade, and she held her longish figure trimly, and was almost on the "fast" side with her little thin switch of a cane. She was an inch taller than John Willie, too, which was another inch of smartness to be seen walking with. He found her a bathing-machine and secured another for himself; and when, presently, they lay on their backs side by side a hundred yards farther out from the shore than anybody else, with the sun hot on their faces and their eyes blinking up at the intense blue, they continued to talk as they had talked before—of who had been to Llanyglo lately and who had not, and of what had become of Mrs. Maynard, and whether anybody had seen Hilda Morrell lately, and whether that London man—what was his name—Mr. Ashton—had been heard of since. John Willie, for his part, asked how Mrs. Lacey and Wiggie were, and told June what a lot was thought of her father's laying out of the Kursaal Gardens, and asked her when the work was expected to be finished.

Then they came in again, dressed, and regained the Promenade.

John Willie was surprised to find how quickly the morning went. The Concert was half over by the time they reached the Pavilion, and when the Concert was over and the drub-drub on the boards of the Pier became incessant, June said that, build as they would, it would be a long time before they built on the Trwyn. To that John Willie replied that he wasn't so sure, and told her of how at one time it had been a toss-up whether they wouldn't make a terrace there and build the "Imperial" on it; and June's reply was that she would never have thought it. Then John Willie looked at his watch, and at first thought it must have stopped, the time had flown so. They turned their faces to the Promenade again, and at a Booking Kiosk John Willie ordered a landau for half-past two. Minetta (he told June) would have finished her work by then, and the three of them could go either out Abercelyn way, or through Porth Neigr and round home, or along the Delyn road, just as June wished. June said that if she really had her choice, she would like the Abercelyn drive, because it was years since she had been there, and she would like to see how much it had altered.

So out towards Abercelyn the three of them went that afternoon, and June's eyes opened wide at the Sarn manganese sidings, and John Willie told her to mind that gypsophylla of her petticoats against the coal-heaps and grease-boxes of the wagons. Then back in the landau again, he took a well-earned rest while Minetta and June talked. He leaned back against the hot leather, and smoked and watched them, and wondered, first, whether anybody would ever marry Minetta, and, next, whether anybody would ever marry June, and then all at once found himself wondering about the gipsy girl again.

Suppose he should take seats for June and Minetta at some entertainment that evening, should see them comfortably settled, and should then go out for another look for her?...

But, now that he knew who she was, he thought of her, somehow, ever so slightly differently. He was no less set on finding her; indeed he was more set; but part of the possible surprise and excitement had certainly gone. Had he apparently not been destined not to see her again, the thing would have been less of an adventure than he had at first supposed. There would have been far fewer discoveries to make. It might even have been difficult to talk to her. He could talk pleasantly to June and be thinking of something else all the time; but he could hardly have asked Ynys Lovell how her mother was getting on with her chair-mending and fortune-telling, or have told her that he had heard that her kinsman Dafydd Dafis had won the "penillion" contest at the Eisteddfod....

Ah!——

Again he had it, and, lying back on the hot leather of the hired landau, wondered that he had not had it sooner. Of course—Dafydd Dafis. If anybody knew where she was, Dafydd would know. That was what he would do that evening while Minetta and June were at the Concert. He would take a stroll to Dafydd's house (which was no longer the single-roomed cottage near the old Independent Chapel, but a two-roomed one in Maengwyn Street), and he would sit down and have a smoke and ask Dafydd how all was with him....

At this point he became conscious that June was speaking to him. She was offering him a penny for his thoughts. Instantly he fell into the rut of easy conversation again. It took him hardly a moment to find a topic.