Gull Island (5 page)

He wished he had asked for her address. She would be glad of a bit of support and he would gladly give it. He thought it unlikely he would ever have a child, but helping to save this one would in part make up for it. In small, neat letters he wrote: ‘Come on Sunday, you know where the tea is kept. Please, tell me your address.’

He put it in the same place she had used but as he walked away, the boat tilted and settled more firmly on the gravel. Before he had reached the railway station, the piece of paper had flown over the waves like a ghostly butterfly.

Barbara found work at the farm very hard. She thought of her anxiety at handling the bales of cloth in the shop and smiled bitterly. Here she was expected to roll fifteen-gallon milk churns, throw hay and animal feed about as if it were cotton wool, and carry buckets filled to the brim with water or milk. She felt constantly dirty and unkempt, rarely having either the time or the energy for washing herself. Then there was the farmer.

Graham Prothero was in his mid thirties. He was a burly man, an inch or two under six feet tall, with a rather flat face, a small round nose, a round chin and a full-lipped mouth that seemed sculptured for laughter – but the suggestion of a humorous approach to life was false. He was immensely strong, with hands that seemed to Barbara as big as shovels. But as is often the case with such physique, he was softly spoken and when dealing with a sick animal those hands were surprisingly dexterous.

He was a childless widower and seemed quite willing for her to take his wife’s place in his bed. He hinted at an easing of her heavy tasks if she would … accommodate him.

‘If you come in with me and keep my bed warm tonight, I think we might arrange for you to have a bit of a lie-in,’ he said one day while she was scrubbing the mud from the dark-grey slate floor of the kitchen. ‘What say we let you off the early-morning chores, like? And you can start after a breakfast cooked by me. Worth a change of bed for that, isn’t it?’

His soft voice was not pleading; there was a matter-of-fact tone that added to the shock of the words and made her wonder if she had somehow misheard. She went on scrubbing the floor, backwards and forwards, the white foamy lather changing pattern with each stroke. He had come to stand over her as she knelt at her task. Best not to reply, she decided, and
it occurred to her how less frightening he was than her father, even though he was far stronger and a great deal bigger.

‘What d’you say, then? Give it a go, like? And we’ll see how we can improve your days for you. Be company for us both, like, as well as a bit of comfort,’ he went on, still in the low, soft voice.

‘I like the room you’ve given me, thank you,’ she said without looking at him, afraid to give him a smile which he could interpret, together with the words, as a tease. She tried to continue scrubbing without moving her bottom for the same reason!

‘What say we give it a try? Your room if you’d prefer. I’m easy.’

She pretended at first not to understand what he meant, hoping her implied innocence would discourage him. At the end of October, when she still refused, he came into her room one evening and slid under the sheet. She stiffened in alarm. He talked to her as he did with his animals, gentling her like he would a frightened horse.

‘Come on, Babs. I know you really want this as much as I do. There’s daft it is for us to be deprived of something we both want.’

What should she do, or say? She could hardly run away wearing only a nightdress. His arms enfolded her and be began to stroke her. She still didn’t move, afraid now, aware of his strength. What if he lost his temper? She could be killed, buried and no one the wiser. Then his hand reached her swollen belly and he gave a growl of rage and threw himself off the bed.

‘You brazen hussy! You’ve got a baby in there and you didn’t tell me! All these weeks pretending such innocence! Get out. D’you hear me? Get out. I won’t give a home to a—’ He seemed lost for the right word and she lay still as his footsteps stomped down the stairs and into the yard. Night hours passed and still she didn’t move; she lay petrified until the clock struck five and she heard him moving about downstairs then go out again. She rose, packed her few belongings and left the farm.

With nowhere else to go, she set off to walk the twenty-seven miles back home. The milk cart gave her a lift for part of the way and for a few miles she sat beside a carter delivering some tree trunks to be trimmed before being sent on their way to a coal mine.

She stopped at a couple of farms to ask if there was work and
accommodation
but she had no luck. It was evening when she reached home but her father opened the door and swiftly closed it again. She turned away, too weary to plead or even weep, and headed for the one place she might at least have a hearing.

Mrs Carey didn’t waste time on too many questions but put Barbara to bed with her girls. Barbara was so exhausted that she slept almost
immediately
,
squashed in with three others, including the one-year-old Blodwen, who wet the bed and didn’t stir for two hours.

After further explanations during which Mrs Carey fed her and bathed her blistered feet, she described her life as a poorly paid farmworker and housekeeper to Graham Prothero. The next morning she first went again to plead with Mrs Stock to help her but she refused even to open the door. She felt so weary she thought her baby would simply fall from her, the weight of it was pressing so urgently and painfully down, but she put on her coat, a shawl belonging to Mrs Carey, boots belonging to Mr Carey and walked the two miles to the beach near Gull Island. She went into Luke’s cottage and collapsed into the armchair. With an inexplicable feeling of peace, she slept.

When she roused herself it was morning and, stiff from a night in the armchair, she was aware that the place was less tidy than usual. A Cardiff newspaper was spread carelessly across the table and a piece had been ringed in spluttering ink. It announced the death of a Cardiff man, Roy Thomas, in the Battle of Verdun during the month of August. He must be Luke’s special friend. Where was Luke? She needed to talk to him, help him over this heartbreaking news. She put the paper on one side and made herself some tea. No milk. She smiled sadly at the memory: ‘but it’s all right if you add extra sugar.’

Luke came that evening. She glanced at the paper and asked softly, ‘Your friend?’ When he nodded and turned away she went on, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Luke. I know what it’s like. The disbelief, the pretence that it’s a mistake and he’ll come walking back, laughing and teasing you for being worried. And that awful moment when you know you can’t pretend any more.’

They went out together on the boat and caught fish which they cooked on a fire in the rocks. The evening was cold and they huddled together with Mrs Carey’s shawl around them and were glad of the warmth of the fire and of each other. They both talked about their sadness and although Barbara didn’t fully understand the loss Luke had suffered, considering it far less than her own, she offered sympathy and the promise of friendship for ever.

He was quiet, thoughtful and kind, far more gentle than the men she had been used to, apart from Bernard, and talking to him was without a moment’s unease.

‘It’s as though we’ve always been friends,’ she told him. ‘There’s no exploring each other’s mood and trying to avoid a word that might offend. As I think of something I can say it without fear of spoiling the moment.’

‘I feel the same. What good fortune it was that we came here that day, the day when you first knew about Rosita. It’s her we’ll have to thank as soon as she’s old enough.’

The sound of trundling wheels made them leave the fire and look along the lane. Coming into view through the near darkness was Mrs Carey’s son, Richard. He was pulling the bogie on which, propped up against sacks of firewood, sat his small, sober-faced sister, Blodwen.

‘Mam asked me to find you and give you this,’ he said casually, as if he had walked no more than a few paces to deliver the note which he handed to her.

‘Richard. How did you find me?’ she asked, taking the scrap of paper.

‘Mam and me, we guessed you’d be here. Talks about this place a lot, she does,’ he added to Luke. He straightened the little girl on her
improvised
pram and made her more comfortable. Her expression didn’t change, yet Luke thought he saw a glimmer of a smile as her eyes moved to watch them.

‘Well,’ Richard said, ‘I’d best be off then. Mam’ll shout if I don’t get this one home and to bed soon. Needs a candle she does if she’s awake after dark, see, and you know how much they cost. Eight pence halfpenny for a box of three dozen. Damn me proper, you can buy a great big jar of jam for that or a packet of oats to last us the week.’

‘He’s like an old man,’ Luke whispered with a chuckle as Richard turned the bogie and began to walk away. ‘And that little Blodwen is a comedienne in the making if I’m any judge.’ He raised his voice and called, ‘Here, wouldn’t you and your sister like a drink before you set off back home? I have some biscuits too.’

Without a word or a change of pace, Richard turned the cart in the narrow lane and came back. Ten minutes later he set off again, with Blodwen wrapped in an extra blanket supplied by Luke.

Barbara didn’t open the note immediately. She had only glanced briefly at the writing in the hope it was from her mother. It didn’t look like Mam’s small neat printing but hope refused to die. Perhaps Dad had written it. That must be it. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Dad’s writing. It had to be from them. Who else would be writing to her? Surely they had forgiven her by now? They couldn’t see her without a place to call home. Not with a baby due in a matter of weeks.

She gripped the paper tightly. Convinced it was an invitation to go back home, she was startled to read that Bernard’s mother, Mrs Stock, wished to see her.

Shaking with disappointment, she handed the note to Luke. ‘I thought, after all these weeks, that Mam and Dad might have wanted to see me, but they don’t even want to know if I’m all right.’ She spoke half in sadness, half in anger. ‘It’s Bernard’s mother who wants to see me. I called yesterday and she wouldn’t open the door. D’you think she’s had a change of heart?
Could she be willing to help me after all?’ Barbara frowned. ‘Perhaps she thought about Auntie Molly Carey’s reminder of how her family is almost gone and will accept Rosita as belonging to her?’

‘Go carefully, Barbara,’ Luke warned. ‘Don’t let your disappointment warp your judgement. Don’t let Mrs Stock talk you into something you don’t want. It would be easy for her to play on your love for Bernard.’ He touched her arm to soften the words and added, ‘Bernard is still your love, I know that, but he’s dead. You and your daughter are what counts now. Please remember that and keep it in your mind as you listen to what she has to say. Your future is little Rosita. Promise me?’

‘I promise.’

When Barbara knocked on the door of Mrs Stock’s house this time, the door opened and she was pulled swiftly inside by the small, tense woman dressed completely in black.

‘Afraid you’ll be shamed by being seen talking to me?’ resentment made Barbara blurt out. ‘Afraid your character will be ruined by my being seen at your door?’

‘Now just hold your tongue, you! You’re in no position to get lippy with me,’ Mrs Stock said with a glare of pure dislike.

‘What d’you want?’ Barbara asked cheekily. Something in the woman’s cold expression had made her lose hope of any assistance. Whatever the woman wanted, it wouldn’t be an offer of support. And she wasn’t in the mood to grovel. She wouldn’t grovel to her parents so Mrs Stock had no chance if that was what she had expected.

‘I thought you might like this photograph of my Bernard.’ She handed a glossy studio picture to Barbara, who took it but hardly glanced at it. She was watching the woman’s face. ‘There’s something else,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m willing to adopt this baby of yours. Whether it’s Bernard’s or not, well, I have my doubts, but me and Mr Stock, we’ll give it a home. There, what d’you think of that? Very generous in the circumstances, you must agree.’

In words not normally used by a respectable young woman, Barbara told her no thanks!

L
EAVING
M
RS
S
TOCK
, Barbara didn’t know which was the stronger need, to laugh or to scream and shout her rage. It was laughter that won. Giggling almost hysterical laughter that threatened to tear at her throat as she tried to hold it back, she covered her face from the curious looks of those she passed as she hurried through the street towards Mrs Carey’s. First being thrown out by Graham Prothero and now this! What was wrong with her that no one was willing to support her?

Thank heavens for Auntie Molly Carey and her amiable husband. They had so little yet they were giving her all they could spare. She was
seventeen
and there was no one in the world who really loved her. Melancholy thoughts but they still produced only giggles.

‘Well? What did Mrs Stock want then? Nothing useful I’ll bet a farthing,’ Mrs Carey asked as Barbara walked in.

Sobering her tense, irrational laughter, Barbara told her what Mrs Stock had suggested. To her surprise, Mrs Carey looked solemn and not amused.

‘Offering to take the baby? Well, I suppose I can sympathize. She had a letter today, poor dab, from the war office.’ Then, as Barbara frowned, a wild thought entering her head that Bernard wasn’t dead but was coming home, she added, ‘Her Freddie is missing in action and we know what that usually means, don’t we? Her last surviving son. Now there’s no one but herself and that soft husband of hers. There’s a wicked world we live in, Barbara. They had a houseful of boys, four of them, and now they’re on their own. So I can understand her wanting Bernard’s baby, can’t you?’

‘She implied it wasn’t Bernard’s anyway, didn’t she? Said he wouldn’t do … you know, him being a Sunday school teacher an’ all.’ She saw a hastily hidden smile crease Mrs Carey’s face and went on, ‘But I didn’t do … that … with anyone else.’ That was funny too and her laughter returned.

‘Of course you didn’t and she knows it. She can’t help trying to keep him as an innocent child in her memory.’

When a fresh outburst of giggles had ended in tears, Barbara didn’t
know what to say. She would have been kinder to the woman if she had known about Freddie.

‘Seven killed on this street since last Christmas,’ Mrs Carey went on. ‘Never thought I’d be glad of my Henry’s bad chest. And the children being young means they’re safe at least from the bayonets and guns of the enemy.’ She smiled at Barbara. ‘Best you make the most of the baby’s early years – they get more and more of a worry the older they get. In their first years it’s bad enough, mind. Whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
consumption
, measles and all the rest. Still, best not to be gloomy, and sitting moaning won’t get the baby a new coat! Come on, get cracking on those potatoes and we’ll get a meal ready. You’ll stay,’ she said rhetorically, ‘and spend the night and for as long as you like, if you can bear the thought of sharing a bed with the others.’

Barbara hugged her and whispered her thanks tearfully. What a day. Tears and laughter and all in the wrong places too. She picked up the bucket of potatoes and washed them ready for peeling. As she began putting them into the large stew pan to cook on the fire, she wondered sadly why her own mother wasn’t as kind and sympathetic as Mrs Carey.

‘Why won’t Mam help me?’ she asked. ‘If you don’t feel the shame of having me under your roof, well … I mean, my own mother.’

‘Your dad, he’s the one. He’s so angry she doesn’t stand a chance of talking him round. She’d have weeks and weeks of argument and him giving her less than usual money for food. Done it before he has, when you wanted to stay on at school, remember? He gave her plenty of his lip then, he did, and sulked for weeks, the big Jessie that he is!’ She hugged Barbara briefly. ‘No,
cariad
, it’s not that your mam won’t help – she can’t help.’

She didn’t tell Barbara that Mrs Jones came every week with a few shillings for her to mind until Barbara needed it. There was over two pounds there now, hidden in a tin under some old nails and screws and odds and ends that no one bothered to look at. It was safe there until Barbara was really in need.

Henry Carey came in, with Richard, his usual shadow, behind him. The rest of the family gathered around to see what luxuries he had brought that day. Even the surly twins looked hopeful. The bag didn’t contain much but, round eyed, the children applauded each revelation.

‘First of all, I found these shoes and thought they might fit Barbara, her having bigger feet than my Molly,’ he said, turning to Barbara to explain. ‘I try and walk along the back lanes just before the ash cart comes to empty the bins. It’s amazing what people throw away. I often find something we can use or sometimes even sell. A bit of carpet, a bowl or bucket that’s still got a bit of life in it. Even furniture, a table or chair once or twice, just
missing a leg or needing a bit of a polish. Most things only need a bit of a polish.’

Barbara thought of the abandoned rubbish in the yard waiting for Mr Carey to find time for a bit of polish or the right bit of wood to mend it, and she shared a smile with Mrs Carey.

He pulled out a handful of hazelnuts, dropped from a broken bag as someone carried them home, and he shared them between the children. ‘And then,’ he said with a teasing smile, ‘and then I saw, sitting on the ground with no one to miss them, these!’ Like a conjurer he produced a cabbage, three carrots still covered in incriminating earth and three duck eggs. Amid cheers he pulled up his sleeve and showed a dog bite, admitting cheerfully, ‘I also got this, mind. I had to stick my hand through a fence to get the eggs. Richard couldn’t reach luckily or the animal would have had his hand off!’ He entertained the family with exaggerated stories about his battle with the dog, which grew larger and more ferocious with every telling.

Helping Mrs Carey by minding the children and accepting occasionally offered work in someone’s kitchen when a member of staff fell ill, Barbara survived until the beginning of December. From what she had learned from one visit to the doctor and the information given by sundry ‘experts’ who had been through the birth of a child several times, Barbara guessed that the baby would be born near Christmas. Luke came to her mind suddenly as she remembered that his birthday was Christmas Day, and she wanted to see him again.

She was surprised to realize that she also missed Graham Prothero and life at the farm. She often sat and stared into space with her blue, dreamy eyes and thought about him. Would it have been possible for her to live with him as his wife? He hadn’t suggested marrying her, she knew that, but if she hadn’t had a belly full of baby, what then? Would he have considered making her Mrs Prothero?

She rolled the name around her tongue; it wasn’t such a terrible prospect. She remembered his strong physique with growing interest, and those large hands that could be so gentle. There was something very safe and dependable about Graham. She felt colour warm her cheeks as she compared him to Bernard and stood up abruptly to push away the
excitement
of where her thoughts were taking her. No, she still loved Bernard and she always would.

Mrs Carey had arranged for the services of Mrs Block, whom her mother had once asked to perform an abortion, to be available at the birth. That thought frightened Barbara more than the anticipation of pain. What if she killed the baby at the moment of birth?

‘There’s daft you are, young Barbara,’ Mrs Carey said. ‘I’ll be there, won’t I? And I’ll promise her an extra shilling if the baby is strong and healthy. Now, does that make you feel better, girl?’

Once or twice Barbara took Richard and a couple of the other children and walked with them to the beach near Gull Island. Mrs Carey was glad to have them ‘out from under my feet’ for a while, all except Idris, of course. Idris was still beautiful with golden hair that fell in natural curls around his chubby neck. His eyes were as blue as a picture Barbara had seen of a lake in a place called Switzerland.

One Saturday afternoon, early in December, leaving Mrs Carey baking a pie which she planned to fill with swede and potato and a few scraps of leftover meat, and Mr Carey treating himself to a visit to the football game, Barbara walked out to Luke’s cottage near Gull Island. Leaving the
children
making sandcastles on a patch of coarse sand, she went into the cottage, hoping for a message from Luke. She wanted to tell him all was well with Rosita, but the place was neat and tidy and there was no sign of him ever having been back. Leaving another note in case he turned up, she spent a while playing with the children, awkwardly finding a place where she could rest with a minimum of discomfort.

She had brought a loaf and a small amount of jam wrapped in paper and a cloth. They ate it with great enjoyment and quenched their thirst at the pump from where Luke gathered his water, but she didn’t allow them into the cottage – that would have been an intrusion, unless Luke gave permission.

When it was time to leave, Richard was missing. Immediately Barbara was in a panic. The tide was swirling around the island and almost covering the causeway, wrapping the island in a wild and murderous embrace. She thought of Mrs Carey’s words about her family being safe from the
fighting
in far-off France. Surely she couldn’t lose a five-year-old to the sea so close to home?

Screaming his name in her panic, clutching her swollen belly, she sobbed as she ran around the cottage and the ruins of others nearby, but the waves drowned her call and the seagulls laughed at her. The other children, sensing her fear, began to cry, running with her, pulling on her skirts,
frightened
but not knowing why.

It was less than two minutes before she saw him casually sauntering out of a ruined building some 200 yards further along the beach, but in those terrifying seconds her mind had sped through the loss of him, finding his body, telling his mother he was dead.

Seeing him alive and unharmed, she ran up and hit him furiously about his head and shoulders. She was crying then as she hugged him better and said she was sorry, trying to explain her fear.

‘Come and see what I’ve found,’ Richard said, when they had both stopped crying. ‘There’s this house, see, and I wonder if I could come
sometimes
and play in it.’

‘No you can’t. It belongs to someone,’ Barbara explained. ‘You can’t go in a house that doesn’t belong to you, as I explained when I wouldn’t let you into my friend Luke’s cottage.’

‘We wouldn’t do no harm,’ Richard protested. ‘Come on, Barbara, just have a look-see. Or I’ll tell our mam you clouted me for nothing,’ he warned.

‘Oh, all right.’ She grinned at him. ‘Then we really do have to get back.’

The house had been empty for a long time and there was little sign of previous habitation. Walls once whitewashed were mottled with old paint and moulds in a variety of colours, all drab. The corners of the room were dark with stones and branches and oddment of nets and sacking and
vegetation
that the wind had brought in. The fireplace was nothing more than a hole, empty of any appliance with which to cook. Rusted metal gave a clue that there had once been a hook on which to hang a cooking pot. Or, Barbara mused, there might have once been a small range or more likely a Dutch oven to stand in front of the blaze. Leaving the other children to play with pebbles on the stone-slabs floor, she and Richard went upstairs.

‘Careful, Richard, the wood must be rotten. I don’t want you falling through onto the slabs below.’

‘Promise not to hit me if I hurt myself?’ he asked cheekily.

There were two bedrooms and the remains of a third, which had once been supported by a porch. The porch had gone, blown away by some fierce Atlantic storm, and the floor of the third and smallest room hung at a dangerous angle.

They were all dirt-streaked from the dust of the old place by the time they left but Barbara used the edge of her full skirt and by dipping it into a rocky, barnacle-encrusted pool wiped off the worst of it before
shepherding
them along the lanes towards home.

She was tired, and decided not to walk the four miles there and back again until after the baby was born. Even Mrs Carey, who answered her many questions as well and thoroughly as she was able, had not prepared her for the cumbersomeness of her body, or the aching back and legs, or the terrible weight between her legs when she had been on her feet too long. She wished she could have seen Luke. He was her lucky charm, her 
merrythought
– not that she had seen many of those! The wishbone, or any other part of a juicy chicken, was not for the likes of her, unless one should crawl, suicidally, into Mr Carey’s pocket!

As they passed the turning leading to the railway station, it was almost
dark, the moon not yet filled with light, and she hardly looked at the steaming monster that was snorting impatiently at the platform. Blodwen, who rarely wanted to move from her place on the bogie, cried to be picked up to see it and, groaning at the extra strain on her back, Barbara did so.

As the engine pulled away, the lighted carriages towed like a column of fireflies, a figure came down the bank from the station, saw them and called. Barbara waited with fingers crossed in hope and to her delight recognized the small, neat figure of Luke. She was surprised by how different he looked, dressed in formal city clothes.

‘Barbara! What good luck. I’ve been hoping you’d come to see me before this. Is everything all right?’

‘Me and Rosita are fine and being looked after by Auntie Molly Carey.’ She smiled her delight at seeing him. ‘These are some of her tribe as you’ll remember. We’ve been for a picnic.’

‘You didn’t cross to the island, I hope.’

‘No fear. Too many to look after.’

‘Don’t go unless I’m with you, will you?’

‘I won’t. Never sure of the tide and with these to look after—’

‘I don’t need looking after,’ Richard protested, bristling with outrage.

Barbara and Luke stood smiling at each other, making inconsequential remarks. Richard watched them, frowning and gathering the others around him, waiting for her to move on. Occasionally he would sigh to remind her they were there and the sigh was echoed by little Blodwen.