The Adoption (21 page)

‘We’re all God’s creation,’ I had challenged fondling the puppy. ‘Can’t we give her a more personal name?’

‘Dogs are dogs,’ he declared unequivocally. ‘They have their place. Not to be confused with human beings. Red’s a fine name for a working dog, a gun dog.’ The puppy’s ears twitched upwards. ‘There, the bitch recognises it already.’

That is Leslie. The land is the ground under your feet. The fields are there to be carved up, to plough, to sow, to crop, to be harvested. The sheep are supplied for us, their wool to keep us warm, their meat to feed us. A dog earns its keep tracking, retrieving, hunting, herding. And when the animal fails, when age or disease catches up with him, the humane thing to do is dispatch him with a single shot to the head.

And a woman? Ah Leslie, the riddle of a woman. He faces the woman he has married with a complete lack of comprehension. I know
he
can’t solve the riddle of me. His wife is a tangle, a knot that will not loosen. But that is his folly. If he takes a moment in his day to chew on a straw and meditate, he will have an epiphany every bit as powerful as God appearing to Moses in the burning bush. He will peer into the flames that are consuming his wife, and see that she is foremost a mother, and only afterwards … a woman. ‘The farmer wants a wife, the farmer wants a wife, E-I-E-I-O, the farmer wants a wife.’ But the problem, oh, the problem is that the wife doesn’t want a farmer, she wants a child, her child. She is Modron. Earth mother. It is a mother he took to his bed, not a wife. And her heart is destined to be eternally elsewhere.

I’m sorry for him, that I can’t be his helpmate. For my part he’s become familiar, like a pot I cook with regular, or a cardigan I wear all the time, or shoe leather that has been worn to the mould of my feet with constant use. They say you can get accustomed to anything. And as such I’d miss him, I’d reach for him if he was gone. But no more than that. Besides, you can easily replace a pot, knit another cardigan, go to the shoe shop and purchase supple boots. The only faults I can level at him are that his hands are inclined to be clammy, that his breath can be a touch sour. But that’s all. Not so dreadful when you consider what women have endured throughout history. I wanted him to give me a boy, like Charles, like Prince Charles. I prayed for a boy. It wasn’t much to ask, all told. I could have forgiven him the rest if he’d managed that.

‘Don’t you think it’s a boy?’ I said to Leslie patting my mound, my anxiety doubling then trembling as my time fast approached.

‘Ah I don’t know about such things, Bethan. To me it’s what it is, a boy or a girl. No earthly reason to get yourself all worked up about it. I’ll be happy with either. Besides, we can have another go if it’s a girl.’

Poor Leslie! He doesn’t know that this is going to be my last, this echo baby. I’ll have no others, no more counterfeits. After this I’m
done
with the business of procreation, or it’s done with me. It depends how you want to look at it. Almost as much as I think of my gift baby, Thorston occupies my thoughts. I recall the letter, the second letter. I know there was a second letter. I saw it in my father’s turquoise eyes, the darkening of them. Was it from him? Had he written with his address, so I could run away and find him? I wonder if he’s met someone else by now? If he’s married? If when he makes love his memory transports him to the war that brought us together, to Bedwyr Farm in Wales? If he sees my face in ecstasy overlaying hers? I wonder if there are days when he travels back to the bitter winter of 1947, to the walls of snow hemming us in, to the shed, battered and bashed by the moaning, mewling wind? I wonder does he recall our cold flesh meeting, the friction of it, the matches of our bodies striking against each other, and the fire we made heating our blood? I wonder does he also have another child? Girl or boy? He didn’t know what we had, so it probably doesn’t torment him so much.

But for me during my second pregnancy it became an obsession. I wanted a son. I willed it to be a boy. Oh, not because men hanker after an heir to bear their family name, a lad about the place to train to the labour, someone to hand the farm on to. Leslie wasn’t troubled either way. It was no sham. He harboured no private longings, no secrets at all. He was a plain man, a predictable story. It was me who cared. I didn’t want a girl. I’d had a girl, see, and she was flawless, the most perfect in all creation. You couldn’t improve on her. No one could replace her. When my apprehension festered, I read old wives’ tales about what you should and shouldn’t eat if you wanted a boy child. My mam said to have lots of grain and meat to make a son. ‘I did when I had Brice,’ she confided with a wistful smile. ‘And for a girl it’s dairy products, cheese and milk and butter.’ So I put myself on a strict diet, something that’s not straightforward on a farm. I plucked a hair from my scalp, knotted my wedding ring into it, and dangled it over my belly
to
see if it would go back and forth for a boy. And when it began to circle I lied to myself.

Lowrie was born at 3.35 am, at home here on Carwyn Farm. And when they told me it was a girl, I was as disappointed as I imagine Anne Boleyn was when she gave birth to Elizabeth. I didn’t have a King Henry strutting about expecting a prince. Only me. Well, what was left of me, like Swansea after they bombed it. I wanted a departure from my yesterdays. A boy to carry me into the future on his sturdy back. We learned about Anne Boleyn in school. When was that? Oh a million years ago now it seems. In that far off schoolroom the teacher said that if the baby had been a boy, Queen Anne might not have had her head chopped off. Ironically that stands for me as well. Since her birth, Lowrie’s birth, my head’s toppled off entirely. I don’t recognise the one sitting on my shoulders. It has a shrewish tongue in it that isn’t mine.

What did I feel when they put the baby in my arms, when my husband came in all glowing with pride and exultant, when my mam looked serene and top heavy with tenderness? Ah, I braced myself for the avalanche of love that had come when my gift baby was born. Nothing. Not so much as a snowball to unseat me. I looked deep into her eyes, brown like her father’s, the brown of the upturned earth at plough time, and I felt … angry. No more than a handful of breaths and already she had let me down. Where were the turquoise eyes of my gift baby? What right had this imposter to show up and shove her shadow out of the crib? If I was worth anything as a mother I must fight to keep her space free, vacant, ready for her to return to me.

‘Can you take her now, Mam,’ I said, thrusting her away from me.

‘But she’s still hungry, Bethan,’ she protested, as the tiny mouth rooted for milk. ‘A few minutes more, surely.’

‘I’m tired, Mam. And I’m not sure that I want to breastfeed. After all, I didn’t breastfeed before.’

‘But you can now. Nothing stopping you,’ my mam whispered when Leslie had tactfully left us alone together.

‘I know I can, Mam,’ I retorted. ‘But I don’t care to.’

Her brow crinkled. She was confounded, uncertain how to react to this recalcitrant mother. ‘It’s good for the baby. When the first milk comes in it’s full of antibodies. It’ll protect her. You know that. It’s why … why …’ She broke off and dropped her voice still lower before continuing. ‘It’s why the other baby got sick.’

‘The other baby?’ I queried, heaving myself up on my pillows.

‘Lucilla,’ she mouthed.

‘Oh well, she recovered all right didn’t she, Mam?’ I presented my case reasonably. ‘She was in prime condition when I gave her away.’

My mam had the decency to blush, and hastened off with my legitimate baby to heat up some milk.

Lowrie was two years old last week. She’s a pleasant disposition. I can’t complain. Good-natured. Leslie adores her. He is devoted to his daughter, spending hour after hour playing with her, or merely sitting her on his lap before a cosy fire crooning Welsh ballads. I see her as his daughter, my husband’s daughter. And not mine. Besides, she has more the look of him. I expect the Queen will go on to have more babies. Why not? She has the staff to help her, nannies and so on. The other night when Leslie came to bed (I generally go up before him), he lifted my nightgown and spoke, his large hands dividing up my body.

‘Shall we try for another?’ His tone was all husky with lust. I let him have his way. But I saw to it that he withdrew early. I use a diaphragm but I don’t trust it fully. When he’s big inside me I feel bunged up, blocked. I want to clench my muscles and push him out. I stroked his lined brow in the velvet of the night, tried to smooth the truth from it. ‘A companion for Lowrie? What do you say, Bethan?’

‘We’ll see,’ I replied, forecasting silently that there would be no more babies.

Chapter 16

Harriet, 1956

I SEE THIS
house, our home, as a fourth person in our
family
, one that left to its own devices would be as dissolute as the fathers in Bermondsey who drink their wages weekly. Each day I set about knocking some order into it. And each day the house does all it can to thwart me in my pursuits. The society, the Sons of Temperance, has become our second home, our home away from home. My father would have been pleased at our involvement, pleased as well that Enid, my sister-in-law and her children, Frank and Rachel, number in the ranks of our brethren.

Have no delusions, the destructive power of drink is awesome. It should on no account be underestimated. It splits families asunder. It corrupts the mind and ruins the health of strong men. It undermines the morality of women. And it lures children into petty crime. The dismal sights that meet our eyes when we tramp the streets are a constant reminder to me. We march frequently, give out leaflets, spread the word, welcome with open arms our suffering brothers and sisters who are called to sign the pledge of lifelong abstinence: ‘We, the undersigned, vow to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicine.’

We took Lucilla on the last march. That was an education for the girl, let me tell you. We held our banners high and paraded through
the
slums of Bermondsey, inviting the damned to swell our numbers and renounce the demon drink. Enid and I, spearheading our valiant troop, took turns displaying the finest of them all. Saint George painted on a fringed silk canvas. His sword and shield are at the ready. His cloak of temperance billows behind his plumed helmet. Under his conquering feet lies the slain dragon. His scaly body is beribboned by the horrors unleashed by drink.

‘Disease, Pauperism, Death, It Biteth Like a Serpent, Drink, Lust and Drunkenness.’ In the left-hand corner a rose bush blooms among the words, ‘Virtue, Peace and Love’ – the rewards for those that wrestle alcohol and, like Saint George, prevail. Frank, my dear nephew, nags me constantly, wanting to know when he will be tall enough to carry it.

‘It’s the most the brilliant of all the banners, Aunt Harriet. With Saint George stabbing the odious dragon, and the monster writhing in agony.’ That boy is going to grow up into a fine young man, a man who will amount to something. Rachel, my niece, shy girl that she is, has no aspirations to head up the processions. She claims the scenes depicted on the banners give her nightmares – such a homely, sensitive nature.

Merfyn’s immense contribution to the cause is common knowledge. His rise in the ranks has been meteoric. Already chairman, only last year, he was voted in as Intergroup Treasurer, looking after the savings of countless families who do not fritter away their money on gin, ale and whisky. It is a highly trusted position that only a celebrated few attain. When funds in the kitty are plentiful, we Sons and Daughters of Temperance holiday together, or arrange a day of field games, or an interesting and informative outing, or indeed attend an intergroup conference. In addition some members save for personal items, or budget for Christmas. On the marches, my husband cuts a dashing figure, as magnificent as the Lord Mayor of London, I like to
think
. His heavy gold chain of office is draped over his shoulders, the medallion with its enamel triangle at its heart, his badge of office, lying against his chest. To focus the group, we hold a prayer meeting before we set off.

‘“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Proverbs twenty-three, verses thirty-one to thirty-two,’” Merfyn intones sonorously.

‘“At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder,”’ we faithful disciples chorus, speaking out with one tongue against the devil’s beverage.

And then we are off to scour the streets for new recruits. ‘Give up the evils of drink!’ we shout. ‘Join us!’ I let Lucilla give out leaflets. Her eyes were wide as saucers as she witnessed the poverty and misery, the ragged sickly children coughing and limping, the comatose mothers tippling on bathtub gin, the insensible, bleary-eyed men lying in the gutters babbling, their senses numbed with drink, the dogs licking their sores, and the piles of stinking rubbish attended by buzzing masses of blowflies.

‘This is what alcohol does to a man, Lucilla,’ I schooled, as a drunk made a grab for her with a shaky hand, mumbling unintelligibly. Sometimes they jeer us, as they jeered the Messiah. We embrace our martyrdom. It is their folly that separates them from God’s grace. And it is our duty to prise open their blind eyes. After this experience, Merfyn and I decide Lucilla is ready to attend meetings. I anticipate a show of thanks at the honour we are bestowing upon her. What I get is a mule, hoofs planted stubbornly.

‘I am perfectly happy staying home here with Mrs Fortinbrass,’ she demurs.

‘This is like school, Lucilla. When you were five you went to school. Now you are eight you will attend the temperance meetings.’

She tucks a straggle of hair behind her ears and her brow puckers. ‘Must I go?’ she asks, downcast.

‘Yes you must,’ I retort crossly. ‘We take the trolley bus from East Finchley to Archway, to the chapel hall. There are special groups for children. Aunt Enid will be there, and your cousins, Frank and Rachel. There are games and competitions and dances. And you’ll make dozens of friends. Nice children from nice families.’