Love and War (2 page)

Huw’s mother, for instance, thinks the minister is undermining her son’s sacrifice. ‘Is my Huw wicked to fight, tell me that?’ she asks him on the way out.

‘Your Huw is very bravely doing what he conceives to be his duty. I’m not trying to deny the great courage of our soldiers.’

‘You’re dodging the question, Mr Roberts.’

‘Come along to Sunday School this afternoon, Mrs Evans, and we’ll see if we can find some New Testament verses to enlighten us.’

‘No thank you. I’ll stick to my way of thinking and you can stick to yours.’

I’m having dinner with my in-laws and Huw’s mother is still ranting on about poor Mr Roberts as we lay the table.

‘To hear him carrying on about the Germans being God’s children, only led astray, is deeply offensive, don’t you think so, Rhian? Gwilym Martin, Horeb, isn’t such a milksop, I can tell you. No, Mr Martin gets to the point quick enough, praying for the forces of God to smash the legions of Satan, and no nonsense about forgiveness either. I’d switch to Horeb in a minute, only Bryn’s afraid of losing custom in Tabernacle. Rhian, I hope you won’t let Huw know how disloyal Mr Roberts is being. I’m sure it would be no comfort for him to realise that his own minister is siding with the enemy. I hope their Padre – not that I like that name, very High Church it sounds – I hope he’s at least on the right side.’

‘I bought a new dress yesterday.’ I say blithely. I’ve long realised that’s it’s not a bit of use trying to alter or modify my mother-in-law’s views on anything; all I can do is wait for one of her dramatic pauses and then seize the opportunity to change the subject.

She’s astonished. ‘A new dress?’ Nobody can be as astonished as my mother-in-law. ‘A new dress? Did you need a new dress?’

‘I thought I did. Yes. I haven’t had one for ages. Not since the wedding.’

‘Well, well, well! A new dress!’

She lets the idea permeate into her mind as she mashes the potatoes.

‘I wish I’d have known you were thinking of a new dress, Rhian. You see, I’d have offered to make you one. I’ve got a yard and a half of lovely pre-war material – beige – which would have been ample for the bodice. Such lovely quality. Two yards of some contrasting colour for the skirt, say a nice apple-green, was all you’d have needed to buy. About five shillings was all you’d have had to spend. And perhaps six pence for a packet of fasteners.’

‘What a shame you hadn’t mentioned it.’

‘A new dress! Oh, I hope it didn’t cost too much.’

‘No, it was quite reasonable.’

‘Where did you get it? At J.C. Jones?’

‘No. I went to Studio Laura.’

‘To Studio Laura? Oh Rhian, what a pity! Didn’t I tell you about that Mr Browne who owns Studio Laura? Well, Mrs Watkins, Park Villa, is convinced he’s a German spy. Yes, she saw him out very late one night when she was taking Mot for his last walk, and there he was, lurking in the shadow of the breakwater and staring out to sea with a pair of binoculars.’

‘Great Heavens! I hope she reported him to PC Jones.’

‘Don’t make fun of me, Rhian. If he’s not a spy, why isn’t he in the army?’

‘Well, I suppose he could be too old. I should think he’d be about the same age as Gwynn Morgan, Art, who seems to be a friend of his.’

She sighs again as she carries the meat to the table.

‘That Gwynn Morgan. He’s another fine one. Always has to be different, that man. Why doesn’t he dress like a teacher, for a start? Probably fancies himself as one of these artists. And his wife is some sort of foreigner. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that Gwynn Morgan is another of these conchies, like Mr Roberts.’

‘Or a spy. I know for a fact that he’s got a pair of binoculars.’

Huw’s parents have an oppressively ugly house. It’s crammed full of nasty new furniture: a three-piece suite and pouffe in cabbage-green velvet with bronze braiding, tables and chairs and an outsize sideboard in shiny, yellow wood and an Axminster carpet – A1 quality – in autumn’s most vulgar shades. Every flat surface is covered with a display of glass and china ornaments which shiver when you shut a door.

To me, every object seems one too many, but Huw’s mother cherishes each one, tenderly recalling its date of purchase and price, and dusting or polishing or blowing on it every day. Almost every week she’s altered the position of something or other; the double-decker tea-trolley or the brown standard lamp or the large technicolour painting of Cader Idris, and I’m called upon to comment on the result. ‘Oh yes,’ I say, nodding my head sagely and fast to indicate that she’s now got it to a T ... And I’ll be equally enthusiastic when it’s back in its original place the following week.

Huw’s father is proud only of how much it all cost. ‘No one else in Llanfair has got things as expensive as these,’ he says. ‘Well, it’ll all be yours and Huw’s when we’ve gone.’

His wife frowns, none too pleased to be reminded of that day she’ll have to leave even the Al Axminster and the Royal Derby plates behind her.

The house where I was brought up is different, the poverty of generations of my farming family ensuring that nothing was ever replaced. Most of the furniture is scrubbed pine, centuries old, well-worn but still reflecting something of the skill and integrity of the country craftsman who made it. The floor is of blue flagstones.

After Sunday School, I write to Huw.

Dear Huw

It’s been another quiet week here. I wonder where you are and what you’re doing. There are so many rumours. Everyone seems to think we’ll be hearing something as soon as spring comes, something momentous. The papers are full of phrases like ‘the beginning of the end’. Whatever happens, you know that I’ll be thinking of you and praying for your safety.

I bought myself a new dress yesterday, dark blue and quite plain. Well, I thought I needed something to cheer me up, I suppose. I went to the new shop on the prom. It was rather expensive, but luckily I’d happened to meet Mr Morgan, Art, when I was having a coffee in Glyn Owen’s and he said he could get a discount for me because he does the window-dressing there. Anyway, he came with me and the owner, Mr Tremlett Browne, took a third off the price. Mr Morgan asked after you and sends his regards.

Mr Roberts’s sermon this morning was on forgiveness. Your mother was, as usual, annoyed because he prays for all wounded soldiers instead of only ours. Mr Martin, Horeb, is much more patriotic, it seems. She wishes she could go to Horeb for the duration, but your father declares he couldn’t share bed or board with a Methodist so she’ll have to put up with poor Mr Roberts. Anyway, I like him. He may be a bit of a pacifist, but though people like to forget it these days, Christ himself had unfortunate leanings that way.

Your mother cooked a lovely dinner – lamb and mint-sauce (bottled).

I have no more news, so I send you my usual love.

Your wife,

Rhian

I wish I hadn’t bought it, that new dress. All is vanity, sayeth the preacher. I wish I could stop thinking of the way Gwynn Morgan looked at me when he saw me in it. All day I’ve tried hard to think of other things, serious things; war and death, oh, and the moral degeneration which is worse than death. But then I remember that look, that emotion encircling us, and happiness breaks in again. I can’t seem to help myself.ve like the chest of a lanky thirteen-year-old boy. I stood up to examine myself in the mirror. My face was pale, my eyes dark, my chest ribbed as a corset.

I got out of the bath and started retching into the wash-basin. ‘I must be very ill,’ I said aloud, waking myself up. It was seven thirty. I was sweating, but not feverish as far as I could tell. At least my breasts were intact: one, two. I touched them tenderly: pretty breasts, on the small side but not insignificant.

I very rarely dreamed, that was the odd thing, though everyone else seemed to be dreaming extravagantly that year. Every morning in the staff room, someone would be relating the latest: how the Germans had landed on Pengraig sands and taken over the Teify View Hotel; how an Italian prisoner of war had gone up to the pulpit in Bethel, leading the prayers in perfect Welsh.

Mr Talfan Roberts, our deputy head, once dreamed that his pilot son had been the first to fly the Channel without a plane. He showed us how he’d worked his arms up and down.

Mary Powell, Maths, whose fiancé was in Burma, was forever dreaming of his return or his death. She often asked me for dreams of Huw, but I never had one for her. Well, he’d been abroad so long, in Africa and Italy – where was he now? – I hadn’t seen him for nearly three years. I couldn’t even picture him very clearly. Rather plump rosy cheeks and dark brown eyes; I could get individual items but not the whole face. His breath had a lovely clean smell like fresh washing, his feet were small and narrow. I often wondered what he remembered about me.

It’s Saturday morning, which means cleaning the kitchen and shopping. Ilona Hughes, my lodger, who works at the General Post Office in Bridge Street, is rushing over her breakfast. ‘You are lucky to have Saturday off,’ she says. ‘You’ve even got some margarine left. How can I make a sandwich for my lunch-break without a scrap of margarine? I’ll starve, I really will.’

I don’t bother to answer her. She eats like a pig.

Anyway, I’m not happy, in spite of having a day off school and some margarine – and an egg and a rather hard slice of bacon, come to that.

I’m only twenty-four years old, but I feel forty. I’m so sensible, it’s beginning to show. Such a good manager, stretching out my rations to last the whole week, and my work to fill my whole life. If it’s Wednesday evening, I’m marking 5A’s compositions. If it’s Saturday morning, I’m doing my housework. If it’s Sunday afternoon I’m teaching my Sunday school class, then home to write Huw his weekly letter. All the time, working and managing. And saving money for that bigger house – large enough for those three children we’re going to have when he comes home.

As I sigh, my ribs stick into my heart. I’m getting much too thin; that dream was a warning. I’m as dried-up as last year’s apple.
Dear Huw, I’ve turned into a school teacher. Love, Rhian.

Huw and I got married three and a half years ago when he had his first leave from the army. I sit with my hands in my lap and think about him, letting my tea get cold. I still can’t see his face.

We’ve only lived together for thirty days: two 14-day leaves, and one 48 hour. More of a honeymoon than a marriage, really.

We hoped for a baby when he was on embarkation leave. (If we hadn’t been married, we’d probably have had one. There’s been a lot of that going on. Rosie Williams had a little boy last year and I must say she seems very proud of him. He sits up in his pram in the front garden, looking very robust and self-assured. You can tell his father was a Yank.) We wanted a girl.

Of course, I’d known Huw for ages. He was almost four years older than me and when he first asked me for a date, I couldn’t believe my luck. When he met me out of school in his father’s dark blue van, I felt that life had nothing more to offer.

When I passed my Higher and got a place in college, people said I was sure to find someone else, but I never did. Well, I never looked for anyone else. Aber’s only thirty miles away and he came to see me most week-ends, so I never went to the Saturday hops or anything like that. Perhaps I should have. Why did I say that?

Being reasonably intelligent and very hard-working, I got a good degree and after doing a year’s teacher training, slipped into a vacancy at my old school. The war had been on for a year by that time, and several of the young teachers had been called up.

Huw was a builder with his father’s firm. He left school after getting his Senior, but his mother is always telling me how clever he was and how the Head begged them to let him stay on. ‘But what’s the good of college?’ she says. ‘It only makes people proud.’ She’d have liked a different sort of daughter-in-law, someone content to live with them doing the housework while she got on with all the paperwork she’s always complaining of. She’s a small-minded woman, but quite kind in her own way. She doesn’t have much time for me, but when I had pleurisy last winter, she was always up here with little jars of this and that and running her hand over the ledges for dust.

It was Huw’s father who gave us this house. It had belonged to his parents; his mother had lived alone in it until she was over eighty, so it was pretty dilapidated, but of course he could easily have renovated it and sold it. It was he who put in the bathroom for us, too – scene of last night’s vivid dream.

I’m very fortunate, as Huw’s mother so often points out, to have no rent to pay and a lodger for company. Not that she approves of Ilona Hughes. She says she’s fast and that I shouldn’t allow her to have men in the house. How does she know who Ilona has in the house? The fact is, she knows everything about everybody. I don’t need the
News of the World
. She has it, but hides it under the sofa if anyone calls.

Dear Huw, I wish your mother would mind her own business and that your father wasn’t so mean. Why couldn’t he have fixed a few tiles on the walls of the bathroom? Even in my dreams, I’m ashamed of it. He only used that green distemper because he had it left over from the Town Hall. Love, Rhian.

On the whole, I quite like teaching, but beginning a new school term is like stepping into a tunnel: struggle, repetitive work, struggle, with examinations and the summer holiday in the far, far distance.