A Family Affair (43 page)

For her part, Jenny couldn't believe that Bryn had forgotten about her, but the worry that he might have done was growing insidiously with every disappointment, and she veered between hope and despair, a roller coaster of emotion that was reducing her to a nervous wreck.

Supposing he'd had an accident on his motorbike? He could be in hospital, dead even, and she wouldn't know. She said that to Carrie, because the fear was so intense she couldn't keep it to herself, but Carrie pooh-poohed the suggestion.

‘It's not very likely, is it? I don't think it's that for one minute.'

And truth to tell, neither did Jenny. The chance of Bryn having been killed was very small and if he was simply injured, there was nothing to stop him writing. Unless, of course, he was unconscious, or had both arms in plaster, or … Jenny realised she was stretching credibility, looking for an excuse. She also felt that if something terrible had happened to Bryn, she'd have known somehow, really
known
deep inside, as opposed to the imaginings of anxiety.

Whether she wanted to believe it or not it was actually far more likely that he'd simply used the posting as an excuse to finish with her. Perhaps he hadn't even been posted away at all, just made that up as an excuse because he didn't want to see her again. But it didn't make sense – why would he have given her the cup if he hadn't cared about her? Unless of course it was just a way of easing his conscience. Tears pricked her eyes as she remembered the way he'd said: ‘I've got loads of them'as if perhaps they meant nothing to him at all.

Round and round on the carousel of hope and despair she went, sometimes trying to forget him, tell herself at least now she could concentrate on passing her exams with really good grades and getting started on the career she'd always wanted. But it did no good. The terrible hollow ache was still there inside her and it refused to go away.

On the Saturday before Christmas she went to see Heather and Vanessa. Vanessa was highly excitable, unable to keep still for two seconds, and whilst Heather went to shop Jenny trimmed the tree that Steven had bought and stuck it in a bucket of sand. She let Vanessa help her but had to keep shouting at her to be careful with the ornaments – candleholders into which tiny candles would be stuck, glass icicles and incredibly fragile coloured balls, concave on one side, with pretty contrasting frosted linings. Inevitably, some of them had shattered since last year, which made Jenny feel even more sad. She remembered each and every one of the baubles from her own childhood; Heather had inherited them since Carrie, who hated the mess made by falling pine needles, had treated herself to one of the little artificial trees that were beginning to appear on the market. Jenny hated it – it was spiky and ugly and lacked the lovely scent of a real tree. It was also too small to trim properly.

‘Have you heard from that boy of yours yet?' Heather asked when she got home from shopping and was unpacking her basket. Jenny shook her head.

‘Don't upset yourself about it,' Heather advised. ‘There's plenty more fish in the sea.'

Jenny turned away wretchedly. That wasn't what she wanted to hear at all, and it didn't help one bit. There might be plenty more fish in the sea but there was only one Bryn. If she never saw him again she didn't think she could bear it.

As she made her way home though, back up the hill past the Jolly Collier and the butcher's shop where cockerels and pheasants, still wearing all their feathers, hung above the window from a row of meat hooks, she suddenly felt better. There was no logical explanation for her change of mood, it was just that somehow the fog had lifted and the sun come out. Jenny walked along Alder Road with a spring in her step, humming ‘While Shepherds Watch'.

The boys were playing their inevitable game of football on the Green, their socks in untidy concertinas round their ankles, coats discarded, in spite of the chill December air, to mark the goal posts. The ball came hurtling towards her and before she could stop herself she had kicked it back to them. Not a bad kick either, covering at least half the distance, though it stopped short against the kerb. The boys came whooping to collect it and Jenny went up the path actually grinning.

The house smelled of cooking chips – chips and Spam was a Saturday staple, though sometimes for a treat they had fish and chips from the shop. The trouble with that was by the time they got them home they were cold and had to be heated up again in the oven, which always spoiled them, to Jenny's mind. The other Saturday staple was sausage and mash, but since Jenny didn't like Carrie's mashed potato, which was rather stodgy and uninteresting, she was glad it was chips.

Carrie was standing on a chair, hanging newly arrived Christmas cards on a length of twine which stretched along one wall dangling in loops between the holly-decked pictures. She looked round as Jenny came in and waved her hand towards the table.

‘There's something for you there.'

Jenny's heart leaped, but somehow she wasn't surprised. Deep inside she'd known. All the way home she'd known.

Jenny picked up the envelope with her name on it, a small square envelope addressed in a hand she didn't recognise. She clutched it to her as if she'd never let it go and went upstairs without even stopping to take off her coat.

It was quite a short letter. His name, service number and address, written in neat capitals in the top left-hand corner, took up almost half the first side, and he began without any flowery preamble: ‘Dear Jenny'. There was a bit apologising for not having written before, a bit about what he'd been doing, and that was more or less it. But he finished: ‘I miss you. Please write soon. Love, Bryn' and she melted inside just looking at his name. It didn't matter that he hadn't written much. It didn't matter that there were no declarations of undying love. The letter had come. He hadn't forgotten her. That was enough.

David was dreading Christmas. The brightly-lit shop windows, the decorated tree and the festoons of streamers and cards at home, and the general air of festivity only served to sharpen the terrible sense of loss which had closed in around him since Linda's death. This should have been their first Christmas together as man and wife, instead he was living at home again just as if his marriage had never happened. Linda's name was rarely, if ever, mentioned. David couldn't bring himself to talk about her, hugging his grief to himself, and Carrie, typically, seemed determined to deny her existence, as if pretending it had all been just a bad dream would somehow make it so. The thought of sitting around on Christmas Day, opening presents and singing carols as they always did, was unbearable to him. Not only would he be missing her with the ache of sorrow that tore his guts out, he would also resent the way the family were celebrating. That they were sorry she had died he did not doubt, but they didn't feel it as he did and Carrie would make sure the shadow of her death did not mar the festivities. That, David felt, was the ultimate betrayal. At this time, more than any other, he wanted to mourn her –
needed
to mourn her. And he wanted to do it alone.

‘I'm not going to be here for Christmas,' he said.

The family were having Sunday lunch – roast lamb and onion sauce – and
Family Favourites
on the radio was playing one sickly love message after another from separated sweethearts. Love you – Miss you – Can't wait until we can be together again. He and Linda would never be together again.

Carrie put down her knife. ‘What d'you mean – you won't be here for Christmas?'

‘I'm going away.'

‘Going away! Where?' Carrie sounded outraged.

‘I don't know yet. I thought I might go camping somewhere.'

‘
Camping!
You can't go
camping
in the middle of December! I never heard anything like it! You'll catch your death of cold!'

‘Mum – I used to be in the army, remember? I've camped in worse conditions than this.'

‘Nowhere will be open this time of year. All the sites will be shut up for the winter.'

‘I'll find somewhere. And if I can't – well, I'll just pitch my tent in the woods or something, like we used to on exercises.'

‘I won't hear of it!' Carrie said. ‘Spending Christmas on your own – it's the last thing you want to do.'

‘Leave the boy alone, Carrie,' Joe said. His tone was level but unusually authoritative, the tone that, because he so rarely used it, always brought Carrie up short. ‘He knows what he wants.'

‘Do you think
I
could enjoy my Christmas knowing he was on his own in the wilds, in a tent, in December?' Carrie retorted defensively.

‘This isn't about you though, is it, m'dear?' Joe said mildly yet firmly. ‘If that's what he's decided he wants to do then it's not for you to interfere. Nor start making him feel guilty on top of everything else.'

‘What do you mean – make him feel guilty?'

‘He's got enough to worry about without you making him think he's going to spoil your Christmas.' He turned his faded blue eyes on David. ‘If you want to go away, my son, you do it. And don't you think twice about us. We'll be all right. We've all got one another.'

David nodded. ‘Thanks, Dad.' There were tears glittering in his eyes. His father's understanding had brought to the surface some of the emotions he fought so hard to keep under wraps. But he was grateful, all the same. Joe might stay in the background most of the time, but when he did intervene he was able to put Carrie in her place better than anyone else could!

In the middle of the afternoon of Christmas Eve, when the house was full of the smell of mince pies baking and singed cockerel as Carrie burned the feather stubbles off the bird in preparation for the oven, there was a knock at the front door.

‘Can you get it?' Carrie called from the kitchen.

Jenny went to the door. The postman was standing there, a proper postman this time, not one of the students. Jenny was surprised. She'd thought the post would have been and gone by now.

‘Couldn't get this through the letter box,' he said, handing her a thin white parcel. ‘Happy Christmas!'

‘Thank you. Happy Christmas!' Jenny said.

She recognised the writing on the box at once – she had read Bryn's letter so many times that the unfamiliar was now totally familiar.

‘What is it?' Carrie called. ‘If it's those carol singers again, tell them I haven't got any more change.'

‘No, it's the post. For me.'

‘The post? This time of the afternoon?' Carrie came into the living room wiping her hands on her apron. ‘What is it?'

‘It's for me,' Jenny repeated.

She tugged at the sticky tape with eager fingers and opened the box.

Inside was the most beautiful card she had ever seen – rabbits and robins and a huge padded red satin heart in the middle of which sat a brooch made of imitation pearls and bits of diamanté.
To The One I Love
was the inscription.

‘Oh!' Jenny said.

‘Well!' Carrie said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Well!'

She sounded a bit cross, Jenny thought, but she didn't care. She took the brooch off the card and pinned it to her jumper. It looked a bit odd, sitting there on the dark grey wool, but she didn't care about that either.

Like the cup, she knew this was something she would treasure all her life.

‘Well, I don't know, this is a treat and no mistake!' Charlotte said.

She was installed in the fireside corner of the living room of her old home, and Helen, gratified, thought she had seldom seen her looking happier.

The furniture was different, of course – her own had been sold with the house and Helen had put in a modern cottage suite. But she had managed to find a wing chair in a second-hand shop that was very like the one that had been Charlotte's favourite, and it was in that she now sat, beaming at the family who had congregated to spend Christmas Day in their old family home.

Jack and Stella had come up from Minehead and were staying in Helen's room whilst she had moved temporarily into the small spare room, sleeping on the camp bed that was the only piece of furniture it could yet boast. Charlotte was in the second bedroom and the others had all arrived during the afternoon – Amy and Ralph, who had driven over to collect Dolly en route, Barbara and Huw and their children Hope and Neil, Maureen and a young man she had met at college and brought home for Christmas. There would be another wedding in the family before long if she wasn't very much mistake, Helen thought, and permitted herself a wry smile. Most of her cousins were younger than she was and they were all beating her to the altar!

I must seem like a confirmed spinster to them!
Helen thought.

‘You're not having any of your own friends here on Christmas Day, then,' her mother had said, and Helen had known what lay behind the apparently casual remark.

‘I know what you're getting at, Mum,' she had said. ‘You're asking me if you can buy yourself a new hat – and the answer is no. I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer.'

‘I'm not asking anything of the sort!' Stella had said hastily but the flush of colour in her cheeks gave the lie to the denial.

Perhaps, Helen thought, it was just as well Guy had opted out. She had invited him, feeling duty-bound to do so since if he had left Marian he would be likely to be spending Christmas alone, though even as she issued the invitation she had been concerned she might be giving him – and her family – the wrong idea. Though she had been seeing him fairly regularly she was still sticking by what she had told him – that she didn't want to rush into anything and find herself back in the same position as before. But it wasn't easy; already she had felt herself being drawn in, the web that was spun as much from her own emotions as anything Guy did or said ensnaring her insidiously but relentlessly.