Love and War (16 page)

He says my outlook is narrow and parochial.

I say that he’s a moral coward, afraid of the scorn of small-minded, English-oriented people.

He says I’m over-emotional and that it’s time for me to grow up.

It’s our first quarrel. When the bell goes for afternoon school, I march out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

My first lesson is Welsh with 2A.

Arthur Williams’s father is in Swansea jail. Most conscientious objectors are allowed to work on the land, but he wouldn’t accept that alternative.

It seems the right time to show my hand. ‘How is your father, Arthur?’ I ask him as the class leaves.

‘I don’t know, Miss. My mother is only allowed to visit him once a month.’ My interest gives him courage. ‘He’s not a coward is he, Miss?’

‘No. I think he’s a very brave man.’

He’s a large, unattractive boy with bright red hair and flailing arms. He gives me a delighted, wide-eyed look before rushing out. For a few minutes I watch him chasing and clouting some smaller boys in the playground.

Behind the hills, the sky is a mild spring blue. Fourteen miles away my mother is doing as much work as she can manage with a still-bandaged finger. The little double daffodils are already out in the sloping garden and there are hot-scented gillyflowers in the shelter of the house. She hasn’t much time, and even less money to spend on flowers, but by saving the best seeds and some judicious planting – ‘I try to imagine where I’d be happy’ – she’s always got something in bloom. She’s got one rose bush with lovelier roses than I’ve come across anywhere else; deep pink, sweet smelling, perfectly round and fading to the palest lavender when fully open. She calls it Mary’s rose, not after the virgin or the queen, but after the woman who gave her the cutting years ago. Of course it’s much too early for roses now, but the pale primroses are out in profusion, their faint wet smell the breath of early spring. When I was little, I used to pick so many bunches of primroses that we had jam-jars full of them even on the outside window sills. I knew where to get the rare white primroses, too, and the pale pink ones. I think I could find them still.

On Palm Sunday, we used to make a primrose wreath for my grandmother’s grave. My mother used to say it was much prettier than the shop wreaths on some of the other graves, but I loved the big arum lilies shaped into crosses, used to promise faithfully that I’d always get one of those for her. Death seemed natural and not too frightening on those spring Sundays. Even those graves where the earth was newly-turned and raw failed to terrify me, then.

I was alone a great deal as a child, but I never thought of myself as lonely; never felt the lack of friends. I had friends at school and that seemed enough. Home and school were two different worlds with a two-mile stony track between them. At home, I had my mother and father and Dafi Blaenhir and a little house in the barn where I played with my doll, Grace, in wet weather. And later, I had books.

On fine summer days I used to hide away with the book I was reading, pretending not to hear them calling me in for meals. I had a little green den, formed by the bindwind which hung like curtains from the branches of the hazel trees by the brook, and the pages of my book were dappled with green. And no idiot-boy or sex-starved stranger ever lurched up to destroy the idyll; I can’t recall any really frightening experience. I had wasp stings and bee stings, of course, and was often caught in summer storms; thunder and lightning and torrential rain. I almost stepped on a snake once, but though momentarily alarmed, I recognised it as a harmless grass snake and stepped aside to let it pass; I remember being surprised by the rasping papery noise it made as it slithered along the path. Usually my solitary hours and long mountain walks yielded nothing worse than the stench of a decomposing animal, a rabbit or a fox.

I was brought up to be unafraid. My mother used to impress upon me that there were no such things as ghosts or witches. And no wicked burglars either, at least not in Wales. And any tramps I met were poor harmless fellows who I was welcome to bring home for some bread and cheese and a night in the barn.

I was brought up to think well of people; every man, not exactly a blood brother, perhaps, but certainly of the rank of cousin or cousin-in-law or second-cousin-once-removed. Land of brotherhood. Poor people help one another. We couldn’t manage the harvest on our own, neither could our neighbours, so we formed a self-help society. In the larger farms that employed two or three servants, it was almost unheard of for the year’s contract to be broken; far oftener they would remain with the family, as part of the family, for a lifetime.

Now I’m in a town of landladies out for themselves and charging too much money for a bed and a breakfast. There seems to be something about the sea air that makes people greedy. In the hills we’re kinder to one another; our roots go deeper, I suppose.

Jack Jones comes into my room bringing me a cup of tea. I’ve been too agitated to go to the staff-room and he’s noticed. As a reward for his thoughtfulness, I ask after Mary.

He says she’s been very depressed after a bout of ’flu, but that he’ll be seeing her in the Easter holidays. He doesn’t mention their marriage and to my surprise doesn’t seem over-eager to talk about her.

I begin to drink my tea, expecting him to go, but he stays at my side looking out of the window. There’s a friendly detachment about him which I find comforting after my bruising contact with Gwynn.

‘Would you join up?’ I ask, ‘if it wasn’t for your accident?’

‘I wouldn’t have any choice, would I? If it wasn’t for the arm, I wouldn’t have any choice.’

‘Unless you were a conscientious objector.’

‘Oh no, I wouldn’t be one of those. I don’t like the idea of war – who does? – but I’m not a pacifist. Why do you ask?’

‘I would be one, that’s all.’

His face registers mild interest but no real surprise. ‘Does Huw know?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t take it seriously. He doesn’t take me seriously at all. Huw thinks all my strange ideas are a part of my being a woman. He, a man, doesn’t have any strange ideas – or any ideas at all, come to that. I didn’t even try to talk Huw out of joining-up. I suppose I realised how futile it would have been.’

‘Most men would be the same, though. I mean, most men join up when they get their papers, don’t they? I think perhaps women are more concerned about the sanctity of life because they produce life.’

‘Do you like women? I mean, in the way you like men? I don’t think Huw does.’

‘Of course he does. Well, I know I do, anyway. In the past, I’ve always been more comfortable with men, but that’s only because I’ve always been very shy with women – I had five brothers but no sister, I never got to know any girls. But as far as
liking
is concerned, yes, I think I like them better than men.’

I’m moved by his words and by the slow, serious way he’s speaking, by his courtesy in giving my foolish questions such grave consideration. I wait for him to continue, and after a moment or two he does.

‘For one thing women don’t boast as much as men do. Huw was a bit of a show-off, I remember that much about him. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, though, because he’s probably grown out of it by this time. I mean, he was only sixteen, seventeen when I knew him.’

‘The worst thing about Huw is that he’s so sure he knows best about everything, so sure I should accept his judgement without question. For instance, his mother has written to him – several times, probably – telling him that Ilona Hughes is not a suitable companion for me because she goes to the pub with men. So he imagines he’s got the right to tell me to get rid of her and get a decent-living lodger, my feelings and my judgement counting for nothing.’

‘I liked Ilona Hughes. She seemed very... very straight.’

I smiled as I remembered the way she’d shouted at him. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘She is straight. Oh, she’s very impatient and outspoken and she loves to shock people, but you’re quite right, she’s entirely straightforward and honest.’

‘And perhaps people round here need to be shocked. All the chapel people who think they’re virtuous because of all the things they
don’t
do. I don’t think there’s much real harm in them, but I sometimes think goodness is a bit more positive than that.’

What he says is not original in any way, I know that, but I’ve got a feeling that he’s thinking it out for himself, that he’s rarely talked seriously to anyone before; everyone says he never talks about anything but rugby.

‘Do you know, I’ve never in my whole life been to a pub,’ I tell him. ‘That says something about my mentality, doesn’t it, the way I’ve clung to all the negative principles. Thou shalt not.’

‘Come out and have a drink with me tonight,’ he says, suddenly cheerful again.

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘No, I know. But come anyway. Half an hour’s chat and half a pint of beer. How about it?’

‘All right.’

‘Good. I’ll call for you at nine.’

I find myself staring at the hills again. In the last ten minutes they’ve become a darker blue, a more sombre violet.

‘I shouldn’t have married Huw,’ I say, almost in a whisper.

‘Rhian, you don’t mean that.’

‘I didn’t mean to say it. I’ve never admitted it to anyone else, hardly even to myself. Don’t let it upset you, though, Jack. Forget it. People make mistakes all the time. And have to live with them for the rest of their lives.’

‘Are you trying to warn me off marriage, Rhian? Because if you are...’

‘No, I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking of you and Mary. Only of Huw and me.’

‘Try not to be depressed, Rhian. When Huw comes home I’m sure it’ll all seem different.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. He seems so domineering.’

‘Perhaps all men are the same once they’re married. I know I’ve often been embarrassed by the way my friends treat their wives. I mean, they go out every night while their wives stay in with the children. It’s a fact of life. So much about marriage seems unfair. Men always seem to have the best of it.’

‘I don’t have any married friends.’ Or did Gwynn and his wife count, I wondered.

‘I suppose being on my own, I’ve had time to notice,’ Jack says.

‘I don’t think Gwynn Morgan is like that. I’ve been to his house a few times and he always seems very thoughtful. Of course his wife is an exceptional woman, isn’t she? I mean, French and all that, very sure of herself. I don’t suppose anyone could take advantage of a woman like that.’

‘Well, you’ll have to become a woman like that, won’t you?’

His voice has changed, becoming suddenly cold. I shouldn’t have mentioned Gwynn.

‘She’s painting my portrait. I’ve been to their house a few times.’

‘I know. He’s told me about it.’

In spite of Jack’s obvious disapproval, I can’t resist talking about Gwynn. ‘And Gwynn is exceptional, too. Because he’s an artist I suppose, and a thinker.’

‘Don’t get too fond of him, Rhian, for all that. Mrs Lewis says she’s worried about how often you’re up in his room.’

‘Great Heavens! Haven’t we got some busybodies on this staff.’

‘Mrs Lewis says that every young teacher has a term or two when she spends every available moment in the Art room with Gwynn Morgan.’

My throat is burning. ‘In that case, why is she worried about me?’

‘Because you’re married, I suppose.’

‘That should make it better, not worse. We’re both married so we’re both safe.’

‘I hope so.’

The bell goes, Jack smiles at me rather sadly and takes my empty cup back to the staff room. I’m quite surprised at how much I like him. At least I’ve got one thing to thank Mary Powell for; I’d hardly spoken to him before we met at her digs.

As Form 3C – the noisy lot that gave Mary Powell such trouble – surge into my room like a battalion of not-so-light infantry, I scribble a hasty note.

Dearest Gwynn,

I’m sorry for all the harsh things I said. You’re right. I am immature and over-emotional and too much in love and too fearful of your safety. Please forgive me,

Rhian.

Of course I’m ashamed of my complete capitulation. I still think I could sacrifice a great deal – my career, for instance – for Wales. But to fall out with the person I love is another matter and altogether impossible.

I put the letter in an envelope and ask Mali Vaughan, the girl sitting in the front desk, to take it to Gwynn.

‘I said I’d go out to the pub with Jack Jones tonight,’ I tell Ilona Hughes after supper. ‘Will you come with us?’

She gives me a look I can’t quite interpret.

‘He’s a very nice man, Ilona, very decent and thoughtful. What’s the matter? You always say I should go out and meet people instead of stagnating here every night.’

‘Why is it all right to go out with Jack, someone you don’t care about, but wrong to go out with Gwynn? It seems contrary, that’s all.’

‘How is it that you don’t understand? It’s obvious. I feel safe with Jack. Because I’m not in love with him, I suppose. Even if someone told my mother-in-law I’d been seen with him, I wouldn’t mind. He’s a colleague of mine, I’d tell her, and there’s nothing wrong with my seeing him from time to time. She could think what she liked as long as I knew it was innocent.’