Love and War (26 page)

She’s out of breath and flushed as she reaches the door. She avoids my kiss and sits down heavily on the nearest chair.

‘Is something the matter?’ I ask her, digging my nails into the palm of my hand to calm myself.

‘I’m afraid so. Yes. Huw’s father came up to the farm on Thursday to fetch those things I wanted you to have and he saw me with Alfredo. I thought you ought to know.’

She must have heard me gasp. ‘Oh, we were only having a bit of tea, girl, but of course the way a man sits down at a tea table can say it all. I had to introduce them and of course Fredo had to talk a bit of English, which was only polite, but every word he said made it more obvious how things stood and what his intentions were. And Huw’s father said not a word in reply, only “Well, I’d best be off then,” and backed away like a scalded cat. And he slunk back to his van without even taking the boxes he’d come for.’

‘A mean-spirited little man. And probably jealous as much as shocked. You remember how he was always calling on you after Father died? You always insisted it was only kindness, but I knew different.’

‘Well, I knew different too, before the end, but that’s something else. I never wanted to tell tales about Huw’s father.’

After a few minutes she begins to look a little less agitated – she never looks really comfortable anywhere except at home or in chapel – and starts casting an eye over the crumbs on the carpet and the dirty dishes still on the table.

‘I’ve had a lot on my mind,’ I tell her, before she has a chance to say anything.

‘Of course you have. I know how worried you must have been about me.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s not you I’m worried about.’

She looks at me sharply, her eyes like blue flames. ‘It’s not that Gwynn Morgan, Art?’

‘He’s going to the army at the end of next week.’

What happens next takes me completely by surprise. A sob lurches up from my chest, then another and another. My mother puts her hand over mine and then, of course, I really break down, huffling and sniffling for at least five minutes, squeezing my mother’s hand, trying to let her know all the things I can’t tell her.

‘Well, I’ll be off now,’ she says as soon as I’m relatively calm again. ‘I must let you get on with your housework or you’ll be behind all next week. I’ll manage to get the half past ten if I hurry. I can’t help you with your problem, girl, I wish I could, but I do know that neglecting your work is not going to help you.’

We hear someone at the door. ‘I can’t think who this can be,’ I tell my mother. ‘But please wait, because I want to come with you as far as the station. I’ve got to go in to town this morning.’

It’s Huw’s mother who comes bursting in, full of her usual self-importance and bustle. She’s a large woman, her hand-made dress is cut like a tent and her brown, hand-knitted cap is perched on her head like a little hedgehog.

‘Rhian, I saw your mother passing when I was in the queue at Iwan Morgan’s and I hurried up to see her as soon as I’d been served – sultanas I was after and I managed to get half a pound. Well hello, Mrs Lloyd, how are you? I thought I’d call round for a few minutes. It’s not often you come to Llanfair these days, is it? I must say, you’re looking very well. I’m delighted to see you looking so well. Is everything all right? Nothing worrying you, is there? Only seeing you so unexpectedly on a Saturday morning, I wondered whether there was anything the matter, anything I could do to help.’

‘Nothing, thank you, Mrs Evans. It’s nice to see you, of course, but there’s nothing I need at the moment, I’m plodding along quite well. I must let you have some eggs, Mrs Evans, the hens are laying very nicely just now. Pity I didn’t bring them with me this morning, but I was in a bit of a rush, somehow.’

‘Will you stop for a cup of tea?’ I ask my mother-in-law, trying to divert her attention. ‘We’ll all have a cup of tea. Mam, you can get the quarter past twelve today, can’t you?’

‘No, I must go, girl, or I’ll be trying to catch up with myself all day. I’ve got to do the flowers for chapel this afternoon, as well as the graves. You make Mrs Evans a cup of tea, Rhian, and I’ll take myself off.’

My mother has got to her feet and is looking towards the door with some desperation.

‘Only it was you I really came to see, Mrs Lloyd. You see, Bryn was a bit disturbed when he called to see you the other day.’ She looks at us in turn expecting one of us to question her. Neither of us does.

‘Yes, he was most upset to see you so friendly, Mrs Lloyd, with this Italian fellow you had in the house. I said there was nothing in it. “Don’t you worry about it,” I told him, “Mrs Lloyd would never do anything to hurt Huw’s feelings, she’s too fond of him. And besides she’s got a very strong sense of right and wrong. She’s a deeply religious, God-fearing woman,” I told him. “And besides...”

‘Why should it upset Huw?’ I ask her. ‘It doesn’t upset me, so why should it upset Huw?’

‘Why should it upset
Huw
? Is that what she’s asking? What an unnatural wife she is.’ She swings her large body round to face me. ‘Your husband, Rhian, in case you’ve forgotten, has been in Italy fighting the Eyeties for a year and a half. Fighting for his King and his Country. Fighting for our freedom.’

‘But the Italians are not in the war, now, so they’re no longer our enemies. Anyway, Christ says we must love our enemies and my mother is, as you say, a deeply religious woman and she...’

‘Rhian,’ my mother says, ‘please don’t talk about private matters. I don’t like this sort of talk at all. I really must go.’

‘And she’s going to marry him as soon as the war is over. It’s no secret – I intended to tell you, but I didn’t see you last week. I’ve already told Mr Roberts; he’s very pleased for them both and he’s promised to be one of the officiating ministers at the wedding.’

‘That’s typical of Mr Roberts. Has he met him, then?’

‘No, not yet. But he was asking after my mother, so I told him about Alfredo, told him he was a farmer, and a God-fearing man.’

She gives my mother a look, half pleading and half warning. ‘My Huw will never forgive you,’ she says. ‘In one of his letters he told us that all the Italians are treacherous and sub-human. That’s what he said – treacherous and sub-human.’

‘But soldiers have to think like that, don’t they? It makes it easier for them. They couldn’t do the things they have to do against unarmed civilians unless they believed they were treacherous and sub-human. That’s the propaganda machine. Alfredo is just a nice, ordinary man. And he’s got three young lads, all too young for the army, and he’s no idea what’s happened to them, hasn’t heard from them for almost a year.’

‘They asked for it. The Eyeties asked for it. Why did they join with Hitler instead of joining us? We’d have let them join us.’

‘I don’t know why. But I’m sure that Alfredo and his sons didn’t have anything to do with it.’

‘Motherless sons,’ my mother says, a catch in her voice.

‘What about
my
son?’ my mother-in-law asks. ‘Don’t you have any sympathy for
my
son?’

‘I pray for your son every night,’ my mother says, quietly and simply. ‘And now I really must go or I’ll miss that bus. Goodbye, Mrs Evans. Goodbye, Rhian. I’ll see you on Wednesday.’

I go to the door with her and watch her hurrying down the hill. I feel a great rush of tenderness for her; but if I said anything affectionate, she’d be startled out of her wits. I stand in the sun, listening to the blackbirds for a moment or two before going back to my mother-in-law. Unexpectedly I feel a flicker of affection for her too.

‘When I write to Huw on Sunday, I’ll tell him about Alfredo. Then it won’t be such a shock for him.’

‘No, please don’t, Rhian. Let him come home safe first.’

I suddenly feel very sorry for her. She’s a small-minded busybody, but she loves her son and he’s in danger.

‘Something tells me Huw is going to be all right,’ I tell her. ‘I really do believe that. He’s a survivor. And when he’s back home after going through so much; all the fighting in Africa and Italy and whatever’s to come in France, I think he’ll be able to take everything else in his stride.’

‘I hope so.’

‘I hope so, too.’

‘I’m glad that lodger of yours isn’t here,’ she says then. ‘That Ilona Hughes. You won’t hear anything said against her, I know, but she’s too flighty for my liking. She’s going around now with Mr Jones, the PT teacher. Leading him astray, I suppose. He used to come to chapel sometimes, but we seldom see him now.’

‘He was in the same rugby team as Huw, years ago.’

Her voice softens. ‘Was he really? I didn’t know that. Perhaps I should get Mr Roberts to have a word with him. Not that
he’d
say much – Mr Roberts won’t believe badly of anyone.’

‘Oh, these Christians!’

‘Don’t make fun of me, Rhian.’

For a moment we’re almost friends.

*

When she leaves, I sit with my head on the table and make myself think about Huw, about the sinful way I’m treating him. I promised to love only him, putting aside all others. And after all, I married him of my own free will – if there is such a thing. I think I always knew I should have waited – as my mother wanted me to – but how can you make a rational decision when someone is begging and begging you to get married and he’s being sent abroad in a few weeks’ time?

I manage to stay miserable for about ten minutes. Then thoughts of Gwynn take over again: the way his eyes darken, the way his lips open a little and grow soft as he looks at me, the beauty of his head and his body and his large strong hands. I know physical beauty is not all-important nor unchanging, but it certainly makes you tremble. I’m trembling now as I think of him, what he can do to me. I’m so lucky; so wicked and so blessed.

He’s moved back home now. He and Celine are talking again, discussing the future, trying to remain friends. She said she was sorry she’d sent the letter to the Head, but having done so, felt more ready to forget it, more ready to forgive me. When he comes out in the evening, she doesn’t ask him where he’s going or whether he’ll be seeing me. The French are realists, Gwynn says, ready to make the best of any situation, not the worst. Perhaps she’s managed to convince herself that his love for me won’t last, so she’s able to be tolerant.

In my dreams, she looks white and angry, anything but tolerant. What’s to become of us all? She never did me any harm.

The next week passes in a dream. It’s perfect weather. After school I walk the three miles over the cliffs to Celyn sands; Gwynn meets me there and we cling together, and talk and talk as though we’ll never get another chance.

We walk back in the dark, many hours later, the sound of the sea filling our silences. I can hardly bear it when he leaves me to return home. It’s only the thought of the weekend we’re going to spend together in London that keeps me sane. We intend to meet on his first twenty-four-hour leave.

I don’t even go home on Wednesday; I write to my mother telling her I’ll see her next week, letting her draw her own conclusions.

He leaves on the early train on Friday. Naturally, I can’t go to the station to see him off, can only listen from my bedroom to the sound of the train taking him away.

Sixteen

IN THE PAST I’d always considered myself conscientious, dedicated, industrious; these were the qualities I admired in others and the ones that had made me a graduate teacher rather than a farm servant or a shop girl. Now something else had taken me over, and it was something very like madness. I was still coping with school, keeping my classes occupied, setting homework and marking it, but deep inside me was a weak, trembling, unstable girl who had lost her lover and was only just managing to choke down a fit of sobbing.

Late every night I walked over dangerous cliff paths the three miles to Celyn sands, which no sane woman would have done at that time, and I’d lie in the places where Gwynn and I had lain together and moan for him and then stand at the edge of the sea and cry out till my throat ached.

One night before he’d left, when it had suddenly turned cold, he’d given me his old tweed jacket to wear; I’d managed to hold on to it, and every evening when I got back to the house, I took it out of the wardrobe, trying to draw some comfort from it, sniffing it all over for some memory of him, sleeping on it at night, rubbing my cheeks on the coarse material until they were sore, shedding so many tears on it that I imagined it smelt of our salt love.

I couldn’t bear to sleep in the front room bed I’d slept in with Huw, so I persuaded Ilona to change rooms with me. I was happier, or at least less agitated, in the single bed in the small room overlooking the garden.

I couldn’t bear to remember that I was, or ever had been, married to Huw. It was very difficult to go on having Sunday dinner with Huw’s parents, almost impossible to talk to them about him and about our future plans when I knew we had no future together. They, not surprisingly, in view of the imminent invasion and the danger he was facing, seemed able to talk of nothing else.
When Huw comes home. When Huw comes home. When Huw comes home
. And I could do nothing but smile my Judas smile.

Writing to him was getting more and more difficult, too. I filled my letters with trivial news which couldn’t possibly interest him, so that I had little space for anything but ‘With love from Rhian’ at the end. He must surely have realised from those letters that something was amiss.