Monday Girl (41 page)

‘I didn’t plan it,’ Renee protested. ‘It just happened.’

‘I suppose it was mostly my fault for telling you to go to the bus with him.’ Anne had been regretting that suggestion ever since her daughter had told her what transpired.

When Glynn Williams did write, at last, it gave his young wife further cause to worry, about more than the ominous shakiness of his hand.

I was unconscious in a French hospital for weeks after they found me, apparently. My leg was shattered, but they’re speaking about fixing me up with a new one if things don’t work out right. I couldn’t write before, because my right arm was wounded, too, and by the time I was sent to England, I wondered if it would be best to let you carry on thinking I was dead.

I asked a nurse to write to my mother, and the next thing I knew, Mam had sent Eiddwen to cheer me up. This place is only about an hour’s journey from Porthcross.

‘Damn his mother!’ Renee exclaimed, in the middle of reading the letter out loud. ‘She wants to split us up.’

‘How on earth do you make that out?’ Anne sounded mystified. ‘She was only sending somebody to visit him. She maybe didn’t feel up to going herself.’

‘She hadn’t wanted to go herself. She was disappointed that Glynn didn’t marry Eiddwen, and she’s trying to get them together.’

Anne sighed, but said, ‘Go on. What else does he say?’ Renee bent over the letter again.

I was very glad to see her, and I told her what I’d been thinking, but she said I wasn’t being fair to you and made me write. I hope you haven’t been too upset, never hearing from me for so long, but I’m still undergoing a lot of treatment, and my innermost thoughts are all jumbled up. I don’t want you to come here, because I really couldn’t face seeing you just yet.

The girl looked up again. ‘He’s been able to face seeing Eiddwen again, though.’

‘He’d no choice about that,’ Anne said gently. ‘Does he say anything else?’

Renee glanced down quickly. ‘‘‘I hope you are keeping well. Love, Glynn.’’ That’s all.’

‘At least he’s sent his love,’ Anne pointed out.

Renee remembered Bill Scroggie saying that most men found it easy to end a letter by writing ‘love’, when she had told him about Tim and Jack writing to her. She kept the thought to herself, and agreed with her mother, rather reluctantly, when Anne said that she would have to await developments.

On the 8th May 1945, just a few days later, the war in Europe came to an end, and both women wept at the welcome news, but it was another three long weeks before Glynn Williams wrote again. His handwriting was steadier, and he told her first about some of the treatment he was receiving.

Then he went on: ‘Eiddwen has been very good. She comes nearly every second evening, and she’s a great tonic. I don’t know how I would have coped with all this, if she hadn’t been around.’

Renee let the pages drop to the table. ‘I can see what’s happening, you know. He’s falling in love with her all over again. That’s what she wants, and so does his mother.’

Anne’s eyes were full of sympathy. ‘Just think, though. Wouldn’t you rush to help an old boyfriend if he was wounded and in hospital near you, hundreds of miles from his wife? You’d do it for Jack, if he was in that position, wouldn’t you?’

‘That’s different. I love Jack.’

‘That girl more than likely loves Glynn.’

Her daughter was silent, considering this, then admitted to herself that it was probably true. ‘If I knew Jack was in hospital somewhere, I’d go to him straight away,’ she said at last. ‘Like I’d have gone to Glynn, if he’d let me.’

‘Yes, Glynn was wrong in telling you not to go.’ Anne’s tone suggested that she was angry with her son-in-law for causing this extra, unnecessary suffering to his wife. ‘A man in his physical and mental state could easily imagine he’s in love with the person showing him care and devotion. Does he give any explanation?’

Renee carried on reading aloud.

I’ve told Eiddwen how much I loved you, still love you, and she understands. I’m telling you, now, how much I loved Eiddwen, how much I love her again. I hope you can bring yourself to understand and forgive.

Believe me, my dear, this is the best way. It wouldn’t work with us. I can’t forget that terrible scene on our wedding night, for I touched the depths of Hell. I never recovered, and I made your life a hell with the way I behaved afterwards.

Our marriage was never normal, and I think the burning anger and jealousy which was with me on that first night would return to haunt me over the years if we were together. I loved Eiddwen long before I met you, and she made one misjudgement, which I can freely forgive. My life with her could be happy and carefree, but I haven’t said one word of this to her, and I don’t intend to unless you agree to divorce me.

I want to marry her, so please consider this carefully. Put all the blame on me, and try not to think harshly of . . .

Glynn.

Renee heaved a shuddering sigh when she laid the letter on the table, her hand trembling in agitation.

‘You’ll divorce him, of course?’ Anne eyed her keenly.

‘Why should I? That girl’s not going to get my husband.’

‘Not even if your husband wants that girl, not you?’

‘No! I’ve suffered enough, Mum.’ The girl’s face had tightened.

‘He was in love with her when Fred took him here first,’ Renee reminded her. ‘He maybe never got over her. He saw her when he went to Porthcross after we were married, remember? The time I was supposed to be going with him, but Sheila broke her leg and I couldn’t go. And he likely saw her every time he popped up there when he had short passes before D-Day.’

‘It’s more or less the same with you and Jack Thomson,’ Anne observed, quietly.

The girl paused. ‘Yes, I never thought of it like that. I’m the pot calling the kettle black, you mean?’

‘Exactly, and you’ll have to forget about Jack, or accept it if Glynn decides he loves this girl more than he loves you.’

‘I’m going to lose both of them. I can feel it.’ Renee’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Something must have happened to Jack, when there’s been no word from him or his mother.’ The girl’s doubts about Glynn were to be answered when he wrote the next time.

Renee,

Reading between the lines in your last letter, I can tell that you’re jealous of Eiddwen. I wish I could say you’re mistaken, but you’re not. I’ve turned this over and over in my mind, because I knew I was going to hurt one of you whatever I did, and I’m sorry that it has to be you.

‘I’m sorry, too, Renee,’ Anne murmured, ‘but you have been expecting it, haven’t you?’

‘I suppose so, but it’s not a nice feeling to think that you’re about to be thrown away like yesterday’s newspaper.’ Anne raised her eyebrows. ‘He’ll never come back to you, even if you don’t divorce him.’

‘She’s not going to have him.’ Renee gripped her mouth.

‘She has him now. Be sensible about it.’

The girl picked up the letter and read it through again, silently. ‘He says he still loves me,’ she said pathetically as she put it down once more.

Anne patted her hand. ‘Yes, but he also says he can’t go on with the marriage. Face facts, Renee. Give him up. You can’t cling to Glynn just because you’ve lost Jack. You’ll get over this, and start to make a new life for yourself. You’ll find somebody else, you’re not twenty-two yet.’

Her daughter was still stubborn. ‘I don’t want anybody else.’

‘You might, someday.’

Renee’s thoughts turned sadly to Jack. If she could only get in touch with him . . . no, that wasn’t possible. He must have been killed, it was over a year since she had seen or heard of him, and she was completely alone. She came slowly to the conclusion that what her mother said was true. It was pointless trying to hold on to Glynn, when she knew she would never see him again, either.

She sat down that night and wrote a long letter to him, expressing her feelings for him and regretting what she had done to him by telling him of her sordid past life, letting the words flow on to the page as they came into her head.

After the fourth page, she laid down her pen to read over what she had written, before she would let him know that she agreed to the divorce. Suddenly, with a snort of derision, she picked up the sheets of paper and ripped them into tiny fragments. Then she started to write again. ‘Glynn, I’m sorry about everything. I will give you your divorce, and I wish you and Eiddwen every happiness. Renee.’

She folded the single page, slipped it into an envelope and wrote the address boldly. This was the end for her, the end of all her hopes and dreams. She would have to forget Glynn – and Jack – and make a fresh start, on her own.

‘I’ve agreed,’ she told Anne, and held the envelope up before she went out to post it.

‘I’m glad.’

Next morning, Renee made an appointment on the telephone to see a solicitor during her lunch hour, to set the wheels in motion to end her marriage.

Mr Miller, a small, dapper man with a sympathetic face, and brown hair balding at the temples, asked her some very personal questions, which she negotiated skilfully without mentioning her association with Fergus Cooper, but indicating that Glynn had been obsessively jealous and, in consequence, had shown some peculiar sexual behaviour. She said, also, that he had now left her for another woman. It wasn’t the whole truth, but she couldn’t file for divorce unless she seemed to be the innocent party.

The solicitor made copious notes while she talked, and then, as he wrote for quite a long spell without saying a word, she looked round his small office, full of leather-bound law tomes. The musty smell in the tiny space became overpowering, and she was very relieved when Mr Miller laid down his pen amongst the clutter of documents and forms on his desk.

He leaned back in his chair. ‘It will be a few months before you’ll be called to the Divorce Court in Edinburgh, I’m afraid, Mrs Williams. The war broke up so many marriages, there’s a large backlog of cases to be heard.’

She stood up to go, and he smiled. ‘It will be a traumatic time for you, my dear, but when it’s over, you’ll be free to find new happiness.’

When she went out into the street, she stood for a moment, thankfully breathing in the fresh air and reflecting, sadly, that there would be no new happiness for her. A tide of anger swept over her suddenly, when it occurred to her that Fergus Cooper had wreaked his ultimate revenge.

 
Chapter Twenty-Six

Spirits in Cattofield were brightened up one miserable Saturday afternoon in November 1946 by a welcome visit from Mike Donaldson, now home for good, accompanied by his wife and their four-year-old son, Michael.

After the delighted greetings were over, Mike apologised to Anne Gordon for having stopped writing to her. ‘We came up through Italy, after the North African campaign was settled, and we didn’t get much time to ourselves. I managed to scribble a line or two to Babs now and then, but that was all.’

Anne’s smile was understanding and forgiving. ‘Don’t worry, Mike. I knew Babs would have let me know if you’d been wounded, or taken prisoner, or anything like that.’

‘He nearly
was
taken prisoner once,’ Babs put in.

‘Och, they’re not wanting to hear about that.’ Mike brushed the experience lightly aside.

Anne respected his obvious reluctance to speak about it.

‘When did you come home?’

‘Last Tuesday, but I’ve been getting to know my son, here.’ His eyes rested adoringly on the small boy who was standing between his mother and father, and the chubby face looked up and grinned.

Babs laughed. ‘They’ve been together every minute. I can hardly get Michael to leave his daddy, even at bedtime.’

Renee had been just as effusive over Mike’s return as Anne when he came in first but now she sat silently, pleased that he was reunited with his wife and son, but reflecting on her own plight. She would never be reunited with either of the men she loved, and the thought intensified the dull ache which was always present in the pit of her stomach, and which she had almost learned to live with.

She glanced at the man and woman on the settee. Babs was the picture of happiness, and, even holding her child’s hand, still looked like a young girl. Mike’s face was older, much older than when he went away, and his hair was pure white now, not blond. His striped demob suit was rather ill-fitting, but he, too, seemed deliriously happy, hardly taking his eyes off his wife except to look lovingly at his son.

Swallowing, Renee tried to concentrate on the conversation. Babs had been telling Anne about their plans to look for a place of their own, and was saying, ‘You see, it’s not fair to Mike for us to be living with my mother after all he’s come through.’

‘No, it’s not very satisfactory being in somebody else’s house,’ Anne said, sympathetically, ‘not with a little boy.’ Mike shrugged his shoulders. ‘It wouldn’t worry me, Mrs Gordon, as long as we were all together. I’m just thankful to be home again, all in one piece.’

Babs turned to Renee. ‘Have you had any better news of Glynn? Tim was telling us he’d been wounded. Is he recovering all right now?’

Renee hadn’t been prepared for this. She had taken it for granted that her mother would have forewarned them at the door, but presumably she had been too pleased to see Mike.

‘Yes, he’s recovering gradually,’ she replied in a steady voice. ‘Enough to ask for a divorce, anyway.’ Their shocked silence made her wish that she hadn’t been so flippant.

Babs visibly gathered her wits together. ‘Oh, Renee, I’m very sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It was a bit of a bombshell at first, but I’ll get over it. I’ve arranged it with a solicitor, so all I have to do now is wait.’

‘Well,’ Mike said quietly, ‘it’s maybe all for the best.’ He changed the subject quickly, embarrassed for her sake.

‘Tim’s getting on quite well now. The doctors say he should be able to go back to his old job in a week or two.’

‘That’s great!’ Renee didn’t have to force herself to sound happy about this. ‘And you, Mike? Will you be going back to your old job as well?’