Love and War (13 page)

‘Oh yes – when the war’s over. Everybody’s talking about when the war’s over, but it may go on for years and years.’ I splash through a puddle, lose my balance for a moment, feel his hand gripping my shoulder.

‘It will be wonderful for you when Huw comes back.’

‘It won’t, and you know it.’

‘Perhaps we’ll go away together.’

‘If only we could. Where would we go?’

‘Somewhere far away. Scotland.’

‘The tip of Lleyn. Aberdaron. A tiny cottage. You could paint and I’d cook mackerel for our tea.’

‘Isn’t rain wonderful?’

‘I love rain.’ He comes with me as far as the door. Retired railwayman Sam Jones, my next-door neighbour, nods at us from his front window as we say our chaste goodbyes.

When Ilona comes home at six o’clock, she brings Jack Jones into the house with her. ‘I found him on the doorstep,’ she says, ‘like a stray. We’ve introduced ourselves.’

‘I hope you don’t mind my coming to see you uninvited,’ Jack says. He seems very ill at ease, Ilona’s presence being perhaps the last straw. He’s a very shy man. I manage to get him to sit down; his eyes search the room as though locating a possible escape route.

‘Of course, I know your husband,’ he says, catching sight of Huw’s photograph in the middle of the mantelpiece. ‘We were in the school rugby team together years ago.’

‘Were you really? I didn’t realise you were at school in Llanfryn. How is it I don’t remember you?’

‘I’d probably left before you started. I’m thirty this year, a few years older than your husband. Have you heard from him lately?’

‘I had a letter today as a matter of fact. He seems quite well.’

‘Longing to be home, I’m sure.’

‘Yes.’

He takes another long, searching look at Huw’s photograph. ‘I didn’t know him well, mind. I didn’t come across him much in school, we were in different forms, but he was a good rugby man.’

‘He enjoys rugby and cricket.’

In the long pause that follows, I find myself studying him, wondering what Ilona will make of him; she’s studying him, too. He’s moderately good-looking; mahogany-coloured hair and pale skin with still a sprinkling of faded, almost yellow, summer freckles, a large beaky nose. What’s he doing here? What does he want to tell me? He’s still looking nervously about him.

‘I suppose Mary must have spoken to you about her fiancé, Alun Brooke,’ he says at last.

‘Yes. What about him? I mean, he’s all right, is he? He’d been in hospital, last I heard.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ Ilona Hughes says, obviously aware that whatever Jack’s got to say will take some time.

I try to help him along. ‘Poor Mary gets very worked-up about him. Is she particularly worried at the moment?’

I can hear Ilona filling the kettle and rattling cups and saucers on to a tray. We’ve got a casserole in the oven, I hope she remembers to turn the gas down.

‘He doesn’t exist, Rhian.’

‘What do you mean, he doesn’t exist?’ I find I’ve lowered my voice as though talking of the newly dead. ‘What can you mean?’

‘He never did exist. She imagined him, that’s all.’

‘
Imagined
him? Are you serious? Do you mean she invented him?’

‘I suppose she did, in a way. Yes. She cut out a picture of a soldier from a newspaper and gave him a name.’

‘Great Heavens! And a family, too. And took him over. And got engaged to him. Great Heavens, I can’t believe it. Dreamed about him every night. Carried his letters about with her. Where did those letters come from? Jack, she used to read me great chunks from his letters. How he looked up at the sky and saw... Oh dear, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ilona Hughes asks from the doorway. ‘What have I missed?’

‘Don’t laugh,’ Jack says, very quietly. ‘Please don’t laugh.’

‘Oh, why not?’ I feel anger welling up inside me. ‘Oh Ilona, you’ll never believe this.’

‘Think of all the shyness and loneliness and insecurity behind it,’ Jack says. ‘Please don’t laugh.’

‘If I promise not to laugh, will you promise not to... Oh, she’s sick, Jack, and I’m very worried about you, everyone is. You mustn’t get involved with her.’

‘She’s not sick.’ His voice trembles. ‘Oh, it’s all very well for you. For you and your friend. You’re beautiful and easy-going and you’re both spoilt because you’ve never known anything but a chorus of admiration. You’ve always been surrounded by boyfriends, you’ve always been popular and sought-after.’

I’m trying to concentrate on what he’s saying, but Ilona, who has no idea what the real issue is, is incensed.

‘Are you talking about
me
?’ she asks. ‘I’m spoilt? Oh, no I’m not. Nor beautiful either, come to that and neither is Rhian. And I work hard to be popular. Yes, I’m sought-after because I always try to be friendly and sociable. I could be lonely and shy and insecure if I allowed myself to be. Anyone could, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I often think that lonely, shy and insecure are only other ways of saying selfish, self-regarding and self-engrossed.’

Jack shakes his head as though someone’s hit him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I was making a bid for your sympathy, that’s all. No, I won’t stay for a cup of tea, Rhian, thank you. I said I’d get back to Mary. She wanted you to know, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell you.’

I’m not surprised. ‘Jack, don’t go. I feel so mean-spirited. I do feel sorry for Mary, of course I do, but I can’t help feeling even more sorry for you.’

‘Don’t be sorry for me. I’ve always liked Mary, always felt protective towards her. Over several years, in fact. And now. Well, we’ve – we’ve fallen in love, I suppose. I might as well tell you the truth, Rhian, I’ve asked her to marry me and she’s accepted. She’s giving in her notice tomorrow and she’ll be leaving school at the end of term. We’re planning to get married in the Easter holidays. She wanted you to be the first to know.’

The news sinks down into my mind like a stone. ‘In that case, I can only offer you both my best wishes.’

‘Poor deluded man,’ I say over and over again when he’s gone. ‘Poor man.’

‘Come on, come on, what did I miss?’

I tell her; give her all the details. But of course no sort of abnormal behaviour takes Ilona by surprise. Besides, I’ve been the one constantly cajoled into worrying about this big, boyish, fair-haired, star-gazing, romantic, God-fearing second Lieutenant Alun Brooke. Who doesn’t exist.

‘I’ve even prayed for him,’ I mutter through clenched teeth when I’m washing up after our evening meal.

‘Serves you right,’ Ilona says. ‘You shouldn’t take those liberties with people, Rhian, when you hadn’t even been introduced.’

‘Ilona, don’t try to be superior. Just try to help me understand this woman. Is she quite mad, or what? Jack thinks I should feel sorry for her, but I just feel I want to hit her. Ilona, what do you make of it? Don’t you think there must be something terribly wrong with someone who can go to such lengths to deceive people?’

‘There’s something wrong with everybody. Don’t you ever tell lies?’

‘No. Well, not whopping great lies, anyway. Great Heavens, she’s even told me all about his parents – his mother who had rheumatic fever when she was eighteen and who’s had a weak heart ever since, and his father who was always winning prizes for his camellias. They had this acre of garden and a big mansion with wisteria over the front door.’

‘And you believed it all?’

‘
Everybody
believed it all. She had a huge emerald and diamond engagement ring from him; she was always going on about how much it must have cost. Did she buy it herself? Can you imagine going to a jeweller’s and buying an engagement ring for yourself? If she was really mad, I suppose I’d have to try to feel sorry for her, but I think she was quite aware of what she was doing. She did it for the advantage it gave her; so that people would take more notice of her, I suppose.’

‘It probably started off as a harmless daydream. All her friends were getting engaged and married so she pretended to have a boyfriend, too. She probably mentioned him to someone, the whole thing took off and she couldn’t control it anymore. You often hear of people like her. There was a woman in Brynteg who used to...’

‘Please don’t tell me about her, Ilona, I couldn’t bear it. Tell me about someone who’s normal. Why can’t people be truthful and honest with one another? Oh, it’s Jack I feel sorry for. He’s going to be sucked into this great whirlpool of lies and deception.’

‘Well, he’s only got himself to blame. He was at her digs when you called there that night and you told me how attentive he’s been to her ever since. He shouldn’t have been hanging around with someone else’s fiancée.’

‘He was only being kind to her when she was so upset about Alfie Morris’s mother coming up to school.’

‘Rhian, don’t waste your pity on a man. He’s big enough and tough enough to look after himself.’

At school the next day, Mary and I smile carefully at each other. I know she’d love to talk, if l let her, but I can’t bring myself to have anything to do with her at the moment. Anyway, she’s got poor Jack now. She can pour out her heart and soul to him.

I wonder what the Head will say when he hears about them? Of course he’ll be delighted to accept Mary’s resignation. Perhaps she’ll tell him that Alun was killed in action. It would certainly be a hero’s death. He’d die while rescuing a badly wounded private – a fellow Welshman probably – and you can bet your life they’d have a few quiet words of prayer together, too.

I’m beginning to feel quite unhinged. Why can’t I stop thinking about him? I can see his face so clearly; the band of peeling sunburn over his nose and cheeks, his sweat-streaked blond hair curling slightly on his neck even after the severest army haircut, the broad, six-foot-two-inch frame. My hold on reality seems as weak as Mary’s. I repeat Huw’s army number under my breath! 14405196. Why can’t I see his face? I take out his letter from my handbag and re-read it; my anger floods back, so I suppose he must be real, too. But why can’t he write sweet, poetic letters like Alun Brooke’s? Stop it. What’s the matter with me? Perhaps it’s the effect of the times we’re living in: life and death, fact and fantasy, truth and lies, wild impossible events and ordinary day-to-day happenings all swirling round together in this mad cauldron of war. I’ll blame it on that, anyway.

*

After my lesson with 2A, I’m summoned to the Head’s room again. What does he want now? I’m beginning to think I’m some sort of special chum.

‘Come in, come in,’ he says in his most hearty voice when I tap on the door.

He waits for me to sit down opposite him.

‘Well, you’ve got more sense than I have,’ he says. ‘Yes, indeed. A woman of sound sense and judgement.’ He gives me quite a pleasant, unforced smile which seems only an inch or two wider than other people’s.

‘You saw through her,’ he says. ‘I didn’t. I confess that I was taken in by her. And I’m not often taken in, no indeed. John Cynrig Williams is not often deceived by people.’

That’s how he talks.

It doesn’t seem worth trying to tell him that I was taken in by her too – even to the extent of being envious of her handsome, steadfast sweetheart.

‘Well, I’ve insisted on her reporting sick for the rest of the term. I can’t have any more of her lies and hysteria. Lies and hysteria disrupt a school more than any number of absent teachers. Colleagues can cover for absent teachers – I know you won’t mind taking over some of her first-year classes, Mrs Evans – but no one can undo the effects of lies and hysteria. Yes, I’m sending her home by the midday train today and she won’t be returning. If Jack Jones chooses to follow her to Fronilltyd during the Easter holiday, that’s up to him. I’ve strongly advised him against it, but unfortunately I have no power to control a teacher’s out-of-school activity, except in so far as it affects his school work. If he chooses to get himself involved with a lying, hysterical woman, I can do nothing about it, though one would think he’d consider the loss of an arm enough of a liability. However, these last few weeks of term may give him the opportunity to reconsider his position.’

I don’t respond because I can’t bear the thought of being in any sort of agreement with him. In fact, he’s succeeded in making me feel a little more sympathetic towards Mary and a little less worried about Jack.

The interview seems to be over so I get to my feet.

‘I’m very pleased with you, Mrs Evans,’ he says, ‘very pleased to have you on my staff. You’re doing well here. Mrs Evans, I’ve been disappointed in Miss Powell. Don’t let me be disappointed in you, Mrs Evans. Do I make myself clear?’

I meet his searching little eyes. Great Heavens, how much does he know about me and Gwynn?

But what is there to know?

Nine

THIS MORNING Gwynn receives his call-up papers; a catastrophe I hadn’t anticipated since he’s already over forty.

We have a quarrel in the Art room at lunch time. I’d thought he was a pacifist, as I am. He says he is in principle, but that he still intends to join up. He says, yes, he’s quite aware of the power of propaganda, thank you, is quite aware that the Germans are not all savages nor the Allies all avenging angels, but he also believes that the Germans were the original aggressors, that it would be better for the world if the Allies win and that, in any case, he’d be proud to help liberate France.