Miss Purdy's Class (56 page)

‘No? Well, maybe not yet. You do know you can stay here for as long as you like? Ariadne’s very kind and she likes having you here. And so do I.’

She heard a knocking on the front door, and, after a short delay, Ariadne talking to someone.

‘It’ll be all right, Joey. You don’t need to run away again.’

‘I’m never going to the orphanage!’

The words seemed to explode out of him. He was suddenly seething with emotion, eyes narrowed in an animal way, so that for a moment she found him almost frightening.

‘The orphanage? No, of course we won’t put you in an orphanage! Oh, Joey – that’s why you ran away in the first place, wasn’t it?’

‘The man was coming. They took Lena and Kenny and Poll, but they weren’t having me!’

To Gwen’s irritation she heard Ariadne’s tread on the stairs. She was just beginning to get something out of Joey and now they were going to be interrupted.

‘Don’t worry,’ she told him.

‘Gwen!’ Ariadne hissed, poking her head round the door. ‘It’s Daniel –
your
Daniel. Downstairs!’

Gwen shot to her feet, in a complete panic.

‘Tell him to go. I won’t see him – I can’t!’

‘I can’t just tell him to leave, dear. Do calm down! He wants to see Joey – he did rescue him after all.’

‘Well, let me get into my room. I can’t see him . . . Don’t let him up here yet.’

She fled along to the front of the house and shut herself in her room, leaning back against the door. Through the blood pounding in her ears, she heard Ariadne calling from the landing, ‘You can come up now, Daniel,’ and his feet climbing the stairs. She stood with her arms folded, crushed against her, heart pounding, her breathing shallow. The longing to see him was so overpowering that it was all she could do to stop herself tearing the door open. Yet this collided head on with her dread of him, of the strength of her feelings, which gave him such power over her, a power which he had betrayed and could betray again and again. She closed her eyes, trying to make herself breathe properly, straining her ears to hear what was going on. She caught the deep timbre of his voice coming from Joey’s room. He was speaking gently, reassuringly. Pain washed through her. How extraordinary it was that those two had been brought together, both so far from home – that it had been Daniel, of all people, who had found Joey. She still did not know the exact circumstances and she wanted to ask. Not long ago all this would have felt so right, as if it was meant – like her soft spot for Lucy, her rapport with Billy. As if all these things had brought her to Daniel, tied her so closely to him, given her that feeling she had of coming home every time she was with him, as if it had all been set in the stars. And now everything was wrong. There was no trust. It was broken.

She went to sit on the edge of the bed, and watched her hands trembling in her lap as if they belonged to someone else. She could think of nothing, nothing except that he was here, a few paces away from her, and that soon he would leave and the house would be empty of him. And how would it be, his not trying to see her? Seeing or not seeing him – which was the more painful?

Then she heard footsteps and before she could even move the door opened. She jumped. Seeing him again was such a shock, at once so familiar and so strange.

‘Gwen – for God’s sake . . .’

He sounded distraught, but somehow this enraged her instead of making her pity him.

‘What?’ She got up off the bed. ‘For God’s sake
what
? No – don’t come any closer!’

Daniel turned and shut the door. ‘Why won’t you even speak to me?’

‘Because . . .’ She was having to hold on very tightly to her emotions. ‘Because I can’t stand it, that’s why.’

‘Please . . .’ He walked a couple of paces closer. ‘I know I’ve done something terrible, so wrong, leaving Megan like that – and the boy. I can’t even make amends for that because she won’t have me anywhere near . . .’

‘You’ve tried, then?’

‘I’ve been in the valleys. I went to Treherbert, but she wouldn’t even let me in the house. But the thing is, Gwen, I was younger then and on fire for what we were doing. I never really loved her – not the way I love you. I’ve told you. I don’t know what else to say . . .’

‘She seemed to think you did.’ Gwen felt suddenly overwhelmed with weariness. Here they were again, back in the same place, and it would always be like this. ‘Look, Daniel – please, just go. I can’t do this any more. I need to be by myself.’

Again, he came closer. They were only a yard or so apart, and she had to fight the feeling, the tingling that came over her when he came near. She stepped backwards.

‘So are you saying you don’t love me? All those months, all those words didn’t mean anything. Was it just lies then, all you said, if it just disappears like this, like a puff of smoke?’

‘You know it wasn’t.’ She could feel tears coming and loss of control and she fought them hard. ‘I did love you – I do. I think I love you too much. What you do affects me
so much
. I can’t live like that, never knowing if I can trust you – with Esther, or with whoever turns up next, or knowing that you had a woman and child all this time and never told me, never seemed to think it mattered!’ She began to cry then. ‘How could you, Daniel? I poured myself out for you, month after month and you just hurt me so much . . .’ She put her hands over her face.

‘I know. Don’t you think I know? Look, I’m sorry . . .’ He came close and gently put his arms round her, and she did not resist. ‘But I want – I need – to tell you that it matters. That you mean more to me than any woman I’ve ever met before. I need to know whether you’ll give me a chance?’

The feel, the smell of him, were so achingly familiar she longed just to surrender, to press him close to her, for everything to be back where it was and all right. But she was shaking her head. It was not all right. What they had had before had been ruptured.

‘I want to know if you’re with me.’ His voice was very solemn and he drew back and looked into her tearful eyes. ‘I’m going away.’

‘
What?
’ She stared at him. ‘Where to?’

‘There are volunteers going to Spain. Some have gone already – a few, here and there. The party is starting to get people signing up. They want to get something more organized going, when there are more volunteers.’

‘You’re going to go – to Spain?’ Suddenly she laughed, incredulous, pushing him away from her. ‘God, Daniel, you’re the end. You come back here, playing with my feelings all over again and then announce that you’re disappearing to heaven knows where!’

‘We can do some good over there—’ He was all fired up, she could hear. ‘Something direct. Not like here, fighting against this cowardly government and all the apathy on the left! In Spain they’re really making the revolution happen. They’re up against it, see? It’s so clear what’s going on when you’re fighting the fascist enemy face to face. I’ll be leaving within the next week or two, to go to Catalonia.’

Gwen was lost for words.

‘That’s why I had to see you, my girl . . .’

‘I’m not your . . .’

He laid his hand gently over her lips. ‘Don’t say that now. Think about it. Think of me when I’m fighting in Spain and see whether I matter to you. Because I know you’ll be the light I carry in my heart . . .’

‘Oh, Daniel, stop,’ she said miserably.

‘Will you write to me?’

She hesitated, then nodded. ‘Are you really going so soon?’

‘Within days. You know me – never sit still if I can help it.’

‘It doesn’t mean . . . It doesn’t mean I’m just sitting here waiting for you to come back.’

He looked silently down into her eyes and she fought desperately not to be moved by his expression. She reached up and stroked his cheek.

‘Give me a kiss for the leaving?’

His face moved closer to hers and she closed her eyes and kissed him back.

After he had gone she rested on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. Her emotions were completely different now from those of the previous weeks, and she realized to her surprise that she might reach a place of calm. The future held so many challenges. One day she would have to reckon with her family. There were the children in her charge, her life at the school. There was Joey to care for.

And there was Daniel . . . She knew now some of the things she didn’t want – with him or with anyone. She didn’t want her mother’s dead respectability, nor did she want to be trapped like Millie, who’d rather run home to her mother than be with her husband. She didn’t intend to run slavishly after men like Ariadne had done either. She wanted to make a different way, deciding things for herself because she was learning from hard experience.

Daniel was in her life, and whatever difficulty and pain that involved she did love him. She believed that he also loved her. But he was going away and there was no knowing what it would mean for him. The future, for now, was without him and all she could feel was a delicate balance of the certainty of love and a surrender to not knowing whether she would ever be with him.

When she had sat for some time, a smile came to her lips and she reached across and picked up her picture of Amy Johnson. She looked into Amy’s strong face.

‘I’m learning to fly too,’ she said.

Epilogue

February 1937

‘It’s from Daniel, isn’t it?’ Ariadne was full of glee as she handed Gwen the envelope. ‘Boys, shoes off and sit by the fire. I don’t want your slushy water all over the house! And there are doughnuts in the kitchen.’

Gwen had come home from school with Joey and Ron in tow. Outside, the place was bright with snow. She left the boys to Ariadne, who had been waiting to pounce on them and take charge.

In her room she read the letter, hearing his voice:

Albacete

30.1.1937

Dear Gwen,

It was very nice to get your letter at last. I’m glad Joey is back at school and seeming more himself. I suppose his strange moods are not surprising, what with the time of it he’s had. I wonder if he has talked to you any more about what happened and how he came to be all the way down there. Say hello to him for me, won’t you? I’m glad Ariadne is ‘like a new person’ as you said. She must have been lonely and now you’ve given her a family, of sorts. Where would Joey be without her, eh?

Things are quiet here today so far, so that’s why I’m taking the chance to write. Being here has given me so many thoughts, about the revolution and where we’re all going. I don’t possibly have time to write them all down. One thing that strikes me with great force is that when you hear about ‘war’ at home it sounds like something more organized and militarily set up than it ever is here. It really is neighbour against neighbour, men, women and even children. No one can escape and I’ve seen more inhuman treatment of man by man here already than I had ever imagined seeing in a lifetime. Even without extremes, there is so much misery, hunger, orphaned children etc. What we need desperately is more aid coming in to help the Spanish people. So, all of you – keep it coming to us. Your work is not for nothing! Even more than by the misery, I am affected by the courage, determination and self-sacrifice here in the face of Franco and his fascist thugs. The republicans are fighting for all the best things there are – freedom and justice and right. With all our efforts, these are the things we have to attain if barbarism is not to take over the world.

I am feeling especially melancholy though today, as a terrible sad thing has happened. I think I told you in my last letter that I had palled up with an Irish lad, Christie O’Brien? He’d come from England, but he said he’d been training as a priest in Ireland and left the seminary. Wouldn’t say why, but he seemed to have had it hard. He was killed by a sniper yesterday – hiding out in the church tower they were. Got him straight through the head. I feel badly as I have no address to let his family know. He didn’t talk much about where he came from. I’ll miss Christie, though, God rest him. He was a good
compañero
.

I’m going to have to stop, when I feel I’ve barely begun, there’s so much to describe and there’s so much to feel. But this is to let you know how we are so far. Go and see Mam now and then for me, will you? And keep up those letters to Billy – you’ve done wonders for him.

All I want to say is too much to put down, about how you’re in my heart and all the bad I’ve done I’m ashamed of. But I’m rushing now and it’s coming out wrong. I do love you, however hard it is for you to believe me. You’re my light. I hope I’ll get another letter from you soon, dear Gwen.

Anyway,
Salud!
as they say here.

My love,

Daniel

Author’s Note

The ‘Federation’ and the ‘Movement’ referred to in the text are the South Wales Miners’ Federation and the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement respectively.

Miss Purdy’s Class

Annie Murray was born in Berkshire and read English at St John’s College, Oxford. Her first job took her to Birmingham, where she met and married her husband. They have four children. Her first ‘Birmingham’ novel,
Birmingham Rose
, hit
The Times
bestseller list when it was published in 1995. She has subsequently written nine other successful novels, including, most recently,
Family of Women
. Annie Murray now lives in Reading.

Also by Annie Murray

Birmingham Rose

Birmingham Friends

Birmingham Blitz

Orphan of Angel Street

Poppy Day

The Narrowboat Girl

Chocolate Girls

Water Gypsies

Family of Women

For Rose

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the South Wales Miners’ Library, Swansea, the Labour History Archive and the Peoples’ Museum, both in Manchester, to the Big Pit at Blaenafon, to Tonypandy Library, Birmingham Central Library and Castle Vale Readers’ Group, Birmingham.