Love and War (12 page)

‘Doesn’t that mean you finish in the middle of a story?’

‘Yes, but I always know how it’s going to end, don’t I? Always in the same way. The wise men always find the stable, Jairus’s daughter is always raised from the dead and the prodigal son always comes home.’

‘And Christ is always crucified in the end.’

‘Only that’s not the end, girl. That’s the beginning.’

She smiles at me, then closes the Bible and sits back against the pillow to drink her tea. She looks pale but pretty, a white shawl over her shoulders.

I was born – and conceived – in that wide bed. When I was ill I was allowed to sleep in the warm valley between my parents, one soft and one bony.

When I wasn’t there between them, did they sleep enfolded together, their limbs entwined? Though I never saw them kiss or even hold hands, their eyes often sought each other’s and their relationship seemed warm and close. Does she miss him still, miss him with her body?

‘Rhian, why are you looking at me in that strange way? Are you unhappy again, Rhian? Oh, I’m worried about you, being on your own all these years.’

‘And I’m worried about you. Listen, I’ll be up again on Friday and I’ll stay the night.’

‘But what about your housework, girl, and your shopping? You only have the Saturday.’

‘I’ll manage. Ilona Hughes will help me. Goodnight, Mam.’

‘Goodnight. It’ll be lovely to have you here, as long as it won’t put you behind. Take the lamp down with you and leave me the candle. And don’t forget to put Flossy in the barn.’

Flossy barks when I put her in the barn and then stops dead. We both listen. I’ve become a town girl; the mare clanking her chain, a cow coughing, a mouse rustling in the straw, any noise or no noise at all disturbs me.

I hurry down the long, narrow lane to the bus stop, from time to time flashing the torch in front of me.

Gwynn Morgan is meeting the bus and we walk up Hill Street together as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. I tell him about my mother’s poisoned finger, about her pretty bedroom, about all the noises of the quiet farm.

Eight

THE NEXT MORNING, I have a letter from Huw – the first for over a month.

He never tries to tell me where he is or what he’s doing. He could easily put in a few Welsh words to confound the censor, but he’s always too cautious and careful. In my last letter I wrote:
Have you come across Rho Wybod
? Rho Wybod sounds like a fat, slightly stupid country lad, but it’s actually Welsh for ‘give me news’.

But he still hasn’t; doesn’t seem prepared to try. Instead he goes on yet again about Ilona Hughes whom he’s never even met.
I know you think my mother is old-fashioned
, he says,
but I agree with her about this one thing. I don’t think it’s right for you to have a lodger who goes to pubs every night in the company of soldiers. I’m quite sure you don’t do anything like that yourse/f; but people might think you do. In people’s minds, birds of a feather flock together, and if your lodger leads that sort of life, they’ll think you do too, and I can’t bear that people should think badly of my wife. I’m sure you could get a decent, clean-living woman to keep you company, one who wouldn’t harm your reputation or our family’s. Please do what I ask, love. My mother would be so pleased. Believe me, I want everyone to think the best of you. I think of you constantly and look forward to being home with you. I don’t feel it will be too long now. With all my love, Huw.

Of course I’m very pleased to hear from him, relieved that he’s safe and well, but soon my strongest emotion is indignation at how small-minded and overbearing he is.

To calm myself I write a note for my next-door neighbour, retired railwayman Sam Jones, to take down to my mother-in-law.

I’ve just had a lovely letter from Huw. He’s very well and feels confident that the war will soon be over. He asks me to give you his love and to tell you that he’s longing to be home. He’s very pleased with our letters; to know that you two are well and that I still have Ilona Hughes for company.

Love from Rhian.

I feel much better after writing it. I suppose I’m small-minded as well.

The portrait isn’t going well. Gwynn’s wife hardly talked at all during today’s sitting and frowned when I did. I’m still not allowed to see it, though Gwynn is. He said, this afternoon, that it was at a tricky stage and gave it as his definite opinion that it would improve next week. He picked up a paintbrush to demonstrate something about tonal values, but she snatched it from his hand, saying, ‘It’s
my
painting,
mine
’, sounding like a six-year-old.

I felt I really deserved my tea and that half-hour in the front parlour which she calls the
salon
.

I wonder if Gwynn lays the table as prettily when I’m not here? I know the Chelsea buns are for me, but sadly, they’re the one incongruous item: too large, too vulgar and sugary for the delicate china, the white lace and the silver.

‘I had a word with Jack Jones this afternoon,’ Gwynn says, when his wife has poured out the tea. His hand grazes mine as he passes me my cup.

‘What about?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

‘About that silly girl, Mary Powell,’ Mrs Morgan says. ‘Feeling sorry for a silly girl is one thing, but living with the consequences for the rest of your life is quite another.’

She knows everything that goes on at school; Gwynn tells her every smallest detail. I’m sick with jealousy at the thought of the hours and hours of conversation they have, while he and I have so little. He feels something for me, I know that: some twinges of desire, some love, perhaps. Oh, but she is his lawful wife. She sleeps with him every night. If she wakes from a bad dream she can put her hand on his chest, feel the warmth of his lovely body, the steady beat of his heart.

My misery is so sharp, it’s a kind of ecstasy.

‘She’s a man-eater,’ Mrs Morgan continues. ‘She’s so insecure and so unattractive, poor thing, that she makes a grab at whatever’s offered, even in the way of friendship. She exaggerates whatever happens, too and makes a mountain out of it.’

Gwynn observes his wife with what looks like tender exasperation. ‘When she first came here – before you arrived, she was the only youngster on the staff – she seemed so lonely that I once asked her over for Sunday tea.’

I have another pang of jealousy.

‘And I found that she’d told Miss Walters – who was the school secretary at that time – that I’d taken her out for some birthday celebration. I didn’t even know it was the silly girl’s birthday, her twenty-first as it happened. I wasn’t even aware of it.’

‘And Gwynn has some taste,’ Mrs Morgan says. ‘He has some standards.’

‘What about Carys Edwards?’ I ask, throwing in the name of the balding bakery manageress, a childhood sweetheart, in an effort to appear light-hearted.

Mrs Morgan looks at Gwynn and gives him a small, intimate smile. I have a moment’s panic: she knows all about me too: Gwynn tells her all about our affair – which is no affair – as he tells her about everything else in his life. For a moment I see a mother bird, sitting fat and serene on a nest, while her mate flies back to her with some little wriggling creature in his beak.

‘I don’t think it means anything,’ I say firmly. ‘Jack is –

‘A man,’ Mrs Morgan says.

I ignore her. ‘He’s very lonely. He’s always been a man’s man, but now that all his friends are in the army, he wants Mary as a friend. He feels sorry for her because she’s such a dead loss as a teacher and because her fiancé is abroad. Their relationship is quite platonic, I’m sure.’

Of course I’m not as sure as I pretend. Like everyone else, I’ve been uneasily aware of their sudden closeness. He’s been trailing after her during school hours, carrying her books, waiting for her at the main gates when it’s time to go home. Only today Mrs Lewis, History, reported that she’d seen them on the prom together on Sunday afternoon.

Mrs Morgan studies me. She’s wearing a dark grey dress in a heavy, shot-satin material, shiny as a trout’s belly. She always looks as though she’s in an elegant form of fancy dress; the flounced smock she wears when she’s painting looks like an artist’s smock from a musical comedy. Even in my best Studio Laura dress, I look ordinary beside her. What if I had to sit here in my gathered skirt and my lumpy, hand-knitted cardigan?

Her pale eyes are still focused on me as though she’s interested in far more than my words; as though she’s trying to suck in every thought from the deepest recesses of my brain.

Gwynn notices her absorption in me, and comes to my rescue. ‘Anyway, I had a word with Jack this afternoon,’ he says again.

She turns to him. ‘What did he say?’

‘I hardly like to tell you. Not in front of Rhian. It made me feel... well... rather upset.’

He examines the crease in his trousers, pulls the legs up a fraction to ease the strain of the material over his knees. He’s enjoying the way we’re both looking at him.

‘It was in confidence, of course.’

I jump up. ‘I’ll go,’ I say. ‘I don’t like secrets.’

‘He told me to bugger off and mind my own business,’ he says with a delighted smile.

‘Well, really,’ Mrs Morgan says. ‘That’s shocking. To speak to you like that, when you only meant to be kind.’

‘I’d have said exactly the same,’ he says, ‘if anyone dared advise me on a personal affair. What about you, Rhian?’

‘I’m afraid I’m another who doesn’t take very kindly to advice. My mother says I’m stubborn as an old donkey.’ I tell them about Huw’s letter and the note I sent my mother-in-law.

Gwynn smiles again.

‘This Ilona Hughes I don’t know,’ Mrs Morgan says, ‘but I don’t think I approve of her either. Oh, these conventions are so boring, I know, but they can save a lot of trouble and ’eartache in the end. You know this young woman, Gwynn?’

‘Yes, we have a chat in the Ship occasionally. She’s all right, perfectly all right – a suitable lodger in every way.’

‘You must come to tea one Sunday afternoon to meet her.’

As soon as I’ve said it, I wish I hadn’t. I can’t visualise Ilona and Gwynn’s wife together and my front room is very ugly, not much better than Mary Powell’s bed-sitting room. And I haven’t got any decent china. I had a pretty tea-set as a wedding present, but Ilona keeps breaking the cups and bringing me some of her grandmother’s as replacements.

‘Rhian’s cottage is lovely. You’d like it,’ Gwynn says.

‘I didn’t know you’d been there,’ she says, quick as a cat with a mouse. ‘When was this?’

‘I know it well. Ted Rowlands had digs there before he got married. Most of the houses in Hill Road have been ruined with bay windows and glass front doors, but Rhian’s is much as it always was.’

‘Only it’s got a bathroom,’ I say.

‘Only it’s got a
bathroom
,’ Gwynn says, mimicking me.

‘We didn’t have a bathroom at home,’ I tell him. My mother still doesn’t. She has to pump every drop of water and boil it in the kettle, or in the boiler in the back-kitchen on washing day. And on Friday nights for baths.’

‘So what,’ he says. ‘I was brought up exactly the same. It doesn’t make us worse – or better – than anyone else. Tougher, perhaps.’

‘Can we please stop talking about these baths and bathrooms?’ Mrs Morgan says. ‘Can we perhaps think of something more interesting to talk about?’

She’s getting bored with me. I dredge my mind for a tasty piece of gossip but come up with nothing.

‘I haven’t seen Ilona’s boyfriend lately,’ Gwynn says. ‘The curly-haired chap. Has he left Tonfaen?’

‘Yes. For the South Coast, I think. She hasn’t heard from him yet. She seems to miss him, though she always said it wasn’t serious.’

‘These soldiers don’t want anything serious,’ Mrs Morgan says. ‘They want to kiss and run. This girl should be careful about who she sees.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Denzil wasn’t like that. He seemed very fond of Ilona. He seemed very nice.’

‘Well, he was Catholic, for a start,’ Gwynn says, ‘and they’re always a cut above the rest, aren’t they, Celine? He used to be at Sant Ioan’s every Sunday morning.’

‘There was a small group of soldiers, yes. Very good boys they looked – but soldiers always look serious and good in church.’

When tea is over, Gwynn announces that he intends to walk home with me; the heavy rain, I think, has given him an excuse. I’ve got a mackintosh with a hood, but he insists on holding his large black umbrella over the two of us. We walk closely together; I can feel his hip bone hard against mine.

‘How’s your mother’s finger?’ he asks me.

‘Much better. The district nurse came on Friday and lanced it. She’s supposed to be calling today to change the dressing. I’ll go up there again tomorrow after school.’

‘How’s the Italian foreman?’

‘Oh Gwynn, I’m too nervous to think about it. He came again when I was there on Friday evening. Because she’s ill, he’s beginning to take charge of everything – and she’s letting him. What’s going to happen?’

‘Don’t worry. When the war’s over, everything will be fine. He’ll stay in this country and they’ll get married.’