Love and War (22 page)

‘Why not? It hasn’t come as a complete surprise, girl, has it? It’s something I’ve been half-expecting for years. No-one can go on being lucky for ever. Don’t look at me like that, Jack. I’ve never pretended to be a boring little virgin, have I? If you think I’m common, just walk out and leave me alone.’

‘Of course I don’t think you’re common,’ Jack says. ‘What’s the matter with you? I spend all my time telling you how very... uncommon I think you are.’

Is he now hankering after Ilona? He notices me staring at him.

‘Have you had a letter from Huw?’ he asks me. ‘You hadn’t heard from him last time I was here.’

Ilona doesn’t let me answer. ‘Why do you come round here bothering me?’ she asks him, real anger in her voice. ‘You’ve got Mary, haven’t you? I should think that woman would be more than enough for anyone.’

‘Everything is so sad,’ I say. I’ve recently had two letters, but nowadays they only make me realise how little Huw and I have in common. ‘Is anybody happy? I’d like to think that someone, somewhere is really happy.’

‘I’m happy,’ Ilona says. ‘Honestly I am and I’ve only just realised it. Yes, I’m happy. I’m twenty-five years old, I’ve got a bit of money saved and I’m going to have a baby. How bloody marvellous. I’ve always been a rebel, people have always prophesied that I’ll end up badly, so they’ll be delighted to be proved right. But perhaps they’ll end up envying me. Oh, it’s not going to be easy, I realise that. People who find they can’t make me feel ashamed of myself will try to make me feel guilty for the baby’s sake. “The poor little mite. Have you thought of his struggles, an outcast from civilised society?” I’ll have to put up with all that sort of thing.’

‘I think the war has made people a little more tolerant,’ Jack says.

‘Dr Samuel wondered whether I might consider adoption, whether I might consider making a childless couple happy. “Do I look like a Charity?” I asked him. “Do I look as though I care a damn about any childless couple?” He wondered, then, whether I realised how narrow-minded people could be to women in my position. Of course I realise it. Those wives who have such a hell of a life, a houseful of children, no money and husbands who get fighting drunk and beat them up every Saturday night; the most powerful emotion they’ve got left is anger for any woman who doesn’t conform.’

‘Marriage isn’t always like that,’ Jack says. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that.’

‘No, that’s the extreme. But even at best, it’s an unequal partnership. You’re going to get married, or so you say, to a woman you already know to be totally unbalanced. How long is it going to take you to feel enormously proud of yourself and contemptuous of her? Your marriage is doomed before it even begins. What you want to do, Jack, is take stock of yourself and decide what you really want out of life.’

‘There are plenty of marriages where it’s the man who suffers,’ Jack says. ‘When a woman constantly belittles a man,
he’s
the one bound to suffer.’

When I married Huw I’d hardly considered the problems of marriage. It was simply what two people did, usually when they were in their early twenties; got married and then had children.

‘You can’t believe any good of any man, can you?’ Jack asks. ‘You can’t believe that I, for instance, have an earnest desire to be a good husband and to make a woman happy. And I feel I stand a chance with Mary. She’s vulnerable and insecure and I think I’ll be able to restore her self-confidence.’

‘No, you won’t,’ Ilona says. ‘She won’t respect a man she’s been able to manipulate.’

‘Anyway, I’ve already bought her an engagement ring. It would kill her if I broke with her now.’

‘Kill her? Great Heavens, why should it kill her?’

Jack looks even more miserable. ‘Oh, it’s not that I think I’m God’s great gift or anything like that. Far from it. But Mary’s already suffered enough and it would be another blow wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? What do you think, Rhian?’

‘Yes, it would, I’m sure. But I still think it’s what you should do. After all, it’s what you want to do. It’s obvious. You’re sitting here now because you want Ilona to go on persuading you to give her up. If you were really intent on marrying Mary, you’d think Ilona was a great busybody and have nothing more to do with her.’

By this time Ilona has started growling at her knitting. ‘Look, I’ll finish that cardigan for you,’ I tell her. ‘The part I do will look a bit different because I’m a decent knitter, but the strain of watching you mauling it about is too much for me.’

‘Thank you,’ Ilona says, handing it over to me as though it were a dangerous animal.

I take the almost-finished left front, undo a few rows, pick up the stitches and carry on. I’m suddenly bored with Jack’s problem. I realise how little I care for Mary. We were always considered friends because we were the only two young women on the staff, but I never felt much warmth for her and all I feel for her now is contempt and pity. I must be looking quite fierce because I notice both Ilona and Jack staring at me.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask them. ‘I saw your portrait last night,’ Jack says. ‘I was having supper with Gwynn and his wife and she showed it to me. It’s a good likeness.’

‘Is it? I haven’t been allowed to see it. Gwynn told me that my dress is good, but that my body is wooden and my face blank. Well, perhaps my face
is
blank.’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ Ilona says. ‘I’m certainly not going to risk offending you till you finish that cardigan.’

‘Gwynn’s got his medical next week,’ Jack says. ‘He’s not at all keen to join up. On the quiet, I think he’s a bit of a rebel like you, Rhian. He kept saying how he’d like to be English with no doubts about the rights and wrongs of the war. I don’t think he’ll be a very enthusiastic soldier.’

‘I suppose he’ll only be a sort of teacher anyway,’ Ilona says. ‘Something in the Education Corps, a different sort of teacher. He won’t be a fighting soldier. Not at his age.’

‘He’s fit enough,’ Jack says, ‘and he’s not much over forty.’

‘I didn’t see him in school today. I went up to his room at dinner-time, but he wasn’t there. Perhaps he went home.’ To my embarrassment, my voice is high and unsteady.

‘I don’t know. Anyway, he’s calling here later on. He’s got some holiday sketches he wants to show you. I saw them last night. They’re very good.’

He’s calling here later on. I want to fling my arms about and shout. I go on counting stitches very carefully.

‘I will come out for that drink, Jack,’ Ilona says, ‘I think perhaps a pregnant woman needs something stronger than tea.’

Oh, bless you, Ilona.

She puts her jacket on and goes to look at herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece. ‘Hey, why didn’t you tell me I’d got a letter?’

‘I’m sorry. I was so upset, I forgot about it.’

‘It’s from that idiot, Denzil. At last. And just half a page, look. He’s hopeless. “We had a terrible journey with lots of – something” – a word I can’t read. “Everyone says there’s going to be a party soon” I suppose that means the invasion. “I’m quite looking forward to it” What a fool. “I hope it doesn’t get too noisy.” It will, boy, it will. “If you marry me, I’ll come back to effing Wales and find work in those effing quarries.” He can’t spell quarries after three attempts. “I bet we’ll have some good times. What do you say? Love and all that, Denzil.”’

‘He’s going to make an honest woman of you,’ I tell her.

‘An illiterate barrow-boy from Liverpool,’ she says. ‘Is that all you think I deserve?’

‘You’re delighted to have heard from him, anyway. Look at you, grinning away like a cat.’

‘Of course I am. We got on very well. I liked him, I certainly didn’t want to think he’d forgotten me after a couple of weeks. On the other hand, the last thing in the world I want is to marry him. Get that into your thick skull.’

‘He could help you with that little shop.’

‘You just want me to be tied up like you are.’

‘You’re already tied up, my girl. Good and proper.’

While we’re teasing each other, I happen to catch sight of Jack who’s looking completely distraught. ‘Let’s go,’ he says quietly. ‘I really need that drink.’

Gwynn arrives almost as soon as they leave.

My heart is thudding, but I try to remain calm. ‘I’m glad you could come. Hasn’t it been a terrible day? I tried to see you in the dinner hour.’

‘I’m sorry. I felt I had to call on Mrs Talfan. How are you?’

‘Better now. Much better now. Did you have a good holiday?’

‘No. Did you?’

‘No. How could I be happy?’

‘How was your mother?’

‘Quite well again, thank you. How is Celine?’

‘She’s well, too. Have you heard from Huw?’

‘Yes. Two letters. He’s all right.’

‘You’re pale. Are you eating properly?’

‘I’m always pale. Especially when I’m happy.’

That’s as much as we have to say. For the next half-hour we look at each other and sigh. I feel the same peace as I sometimes do when I stare out at the hills. I don’t tell him how unhappy I’ve been. He doesn’t show me his holiday sketches.

Twelve

THIS WEEK Gwynn’s wife has a throat infection and doesn’t feel well enough to resume work on the portrait, so I don’t get my afternoon tea with all the sweet pleasure that involves.

I’m hoping that Ilona will suggest a walk to the Ship tonight, but she doesn’t. She’s in a strange mood; all the pleasure she pretended to feel – or indeed felt – about her pregnancy last week seems to have vanished; now she seems angry and bitter. She’s not even hungry.

While writing my weekly letter to Huw, I try to persuade her to write to Denzil.

‘Leave me alone,’ she says. ‘Stop trying to push Denzil at me.’

‘I’m not. I’d rather push Jack at you, if anyone.’

She doesn’t seem to have heard me.

‘Jack is more than ready to fall in love with you,’ I say carefully. She still makes no response.

‘Aren’t you interested?’

‘No. Jack’s a fool. A nice enough lad, but a fool.’

‘Ilona, have you ever been in love?’

‘Yes. But not with Denzil and not with Jack. So shut up about them both.’

‘Tell me about it. About being in love.’

‘What the hell is there to say? You know exactly what it’s like.’

‘An ache of pleasure? A torment of delight?’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘Do you know, Ilona, I was desperately in love with Gwynn when I was sixteen, seventeen. I’ve never told you that. But I thought it was adolescent foolishness. I never felt anything remotely like it for Huw, so I thought the calm way I felt about him was love grown sensible and mature. How sad it all is.’

‘I think I’ll have an early night. Nothing depresses me as much as people droning on about love.’

‘Take the hot-water bottle, then. There’s going to be another frost tonight. Who’d think it was May?’

‘All the books and the poems and the songs. Love, love, love. And it wings straight past them like a stone skimming out to sea.’

‘Don’t forget the hot-water bottle.’

‘Go to hell. I like being cold.’

My mother is in the middle of spring cleaning. She’s been clearing away my father’s books; definite proof, if more were needed, that she intends to marry Alfredo. She’s filling a large trunk with all the things she wants me to have.

‘Right. These china cows and the set of jugs he had from his auntie. I want you to take them. And the brass candlesticks that came from his grandmother and all his books.’

‘I’d like them, of course. I’ll treasure them. But what’s the hurry? It doesn’t make much sense to take them away now.’

‘No, I’m sure it doesn’t make much sense. Not to anyone but me. I’ll be happier, that’s all.’

‘In that case, I’ll get Huw’s father to fetch them in his van.’

‘Will he come? Has he got the petrol?’

‘He’s always ready to put himself out if it means acquiring anything for nothing.’

‘These things are for you, not for him.’

‘They’ll be in the family, though, won’t they? And Huw is the head of the family. To him, I’m just Huw’s wife living in Huw’s house.’

‘That’s how things are. That’s how things have always been.’ She sighs and sits down at the table opposite me. ‘This war is turning everything upside down. Look at you. You’re getting used to earning too much money and being your own boss. It’s going to be difficult for you to knuckle down to being a housewife. You got married too soon. I said enough. If you were still single, engaged to Huw, not married, and still living in those digs in Iorwerth Place, you’d have more to look forward to and less to give up.’

‘You’re right. When it comes to handing yourself over to a man, lock, stock and barrel, you certainly need to be sure it’s the right one.’

I’ve gone too far. She sits up straight, her bright blue eyes smiting me. ‘You’ve chosen your man. I’m not talking about that.’

I try to placate her. ‘You chose the right one, anyway. Anyone could sense how close you were, how well your marriage worked.’

‘It had to work. There was no other way. Knowing that made it easy.’