Love and War (25 page)

‘Except leave Gwynn alone.’

‘How brutal you are.’

‘I’m a realist, that’s all. If you want someone badly enough you’ve got to sacrifice your scruples. Face up to that.’

‘Listen, when you have your Gran’s little house, can I come to be your lodger? I’m serious. Perhaps I could get a job in Brynteg. In the elementary school. I can’t stay here.’

‘You’ll change your mind when Gwynn leaves.’

‘It’s nothing to do with Gwynn. I’ve made a mistake and I’m just not prepared to live with it for the rest of my life. You’re the one who’s got herself pregnant, but I’m the one who’s trapped. You’re not trapped because you don’t give a damn for other people. I’m conventional, totally bound by the rules. It’s only when I’m with you that I have the courage to break out and think for myself. I want to leave this place. I don’t want to live with Huw again.’

‘You mustn’t condemn a man in his absence. You’ve just got sick of his parents. They do seem petty and money-grabbing, I grant you, but he may be quite different.
Something
made you fall for him. Perhaps you’ve simply forgotten what it was. That spark of excitement can’t be expected to last three years, but perhaps it can be revived when he gets back.’

‘I can’t remember any spark of excitement. I only remember feeling safe and comfortable because he was in love with me, pleased that he had a fairly well-paid job with his father, that he went to chapel on Sunday and had no outstanding faults.’

‘Not a bad tally.’

‘Oh Ilona, I betrayed my upbringing when I agreed to marry him.’

‘Heavens above!’

‘Don’t make fun of me. My mother and father had principles. Money and material comforts were very low on their list of priorities.’

‘Rhian, it seems to me that you’re casting around rather desperately to find some moral grounds for breaking up your marriage. Where does Gwynn fit in to all this?’

‘He doesn’t fit in to it. If I move from here, I’ll never see him again, I know that.’

‘Oh, and you think that will ease all your heartache. I thought exactly the same when I decided to leave Brynteg. I was full of the bravest optimism, thought I was cutting myself off, that I’d be free of him for ever. But believe me, you can’t leave it behind you.’

‘Won’t I ever get over Gwynn? Is that what you’re saying?’

She looks at me angrily. ‘How do I know? What do I know about anything? Don’t make me your guide. You thought your precious Mr Roberts was the one to sort out Mary Powell’s problems, but you’re not so eager to consult him about yours. Because he’d give you advice you wouldn’t want to take, that’s why. You want
my
advice because I’m the one who hasn’t kept the rules.’

‘You’re very cruel.’

‘You’ve said that before. Perhaps I am. But at the moment I’m much more clear-sighted than you. You will get over Gwynn. Other people, perhaps Huw, will become important to you again. But you’ll never be able to put him right out of your mind, of course you won’t. He’s a part of your life, girl, a part of your experience. My God, I’ve seen you coming in here looking like a tortured saint, all pale and glowing, simply because you’d walked up the hill with him.’

I look over at her. I honestly think her eyes have become calmer since she’s pregnant. It worries me. Will she become quiet and boring like everyone else?

‘You think it’s some sort of obsession, don’t you?’ I ask her.

‘How do I know. Love, infatuation, obsession, lust, they’re only words. You’re the one who studies words.’

We’re silent. I thought about words. Yes I studied them, toiled over them, savoured them syllable by syllable, but now I only wanted to get beyond them, to reach the hard elusive truth.

‘Christ, whichever it is, it hurts like hell. I can’t pretend it’s never happened. Love, I mean. It has. And now, oh Ilona, I can’t do without it. I want the danger and excitement of it. I’m not going to give it up. I’m simply not prepared to give it up.’

Ilona lets out a long sigh. ‘OK. Now you’re at least being truthful. You don’t really want to run away but to go on facing life here. Plenty of people live half-lives because that’s all they can do in the circumstances. Adultery’s always had a lousy press, but people don’t go in for it out of choice but because it’s the only option they have. It wasn’t my fault that Ifor married that rich tart, was it? When he was meant for me?’

‘I must see Gwynn again before he goes away. I want to... oh Ilona... I want to make love with him.’

‘Of course you do. And you would have long ago, except that he’s a nervous old granny. Write to him. No, don’t worry, I’ll see that he gets the letter safely. I’m not Mali Vaughan.’

‘“
Dearest Gwynn. Why don’t you call here tonight? I can’t bear the thought of your leaving me with nothing but words and sighs to remember. With love and lust and obsession and infatuation. Rhian
.” Do you think that would be clear enough? But Ilona, I don’t want to have to beg him to come here.’

There’s a knock on the door. It’s Gwynn. Ilona brings him in. He looks shy, a bit of a nervous old granny, I have to admit it.

‘I was bringing you a letter from Rhian,’ Ilona says, because neither he nor I seem anxious or able to say anything at all.

‘You may as well tell him what you meant to write,’ she says, nodding at me briskly like a mother trying to persuade her child to recite a verse in chapel.

Gwynn smiles; suddenly not as shy. ‘No, I’ll speak first,’ he says.

Fourteen

WHEN ILONA FINALLY GOES OUT, we lie on the carpet in front of the fire, all scruples forgotten. We fit together like two halves. I cry out with the wonder of it, drown in the depths of it, the love and lust of it, all, all those kisses. ‘That sort of kissing begins.’ Ap Gwilym, the fourteenth century poet knew far more about it than I did until tonight, those kisses that course and sing down your body. All this, all this; I can’t believe that something so violent can begin with such babylapping tenderness and end in such peace. My body seems vast as a cathedral, every cell and bone and muscle and sinew and blood-vessel and hair consoled and praised and ravished and comforted and corrupted and blessed.

We lie naked in each other’s gaze and it’s what I want. He’s very beautiful – the skin of his belly is soft as cream, his brown eyes have gold flecks in them – and for the moment I feel beautiful too, soothed and beautiful. And I know that nothing will ever be the same again. The world will never be the same. How can I bear all this joy? All the stars and the sailing moon and the birds at dawn are nothing to me now.

‘It was good of you to send Jack to Celine, but, you see, the damage was already done. She’d already asked me, last Tuesday when she read your letter, whether I loved you and I said yes. I couldn’t lie, somehow, didn’t want to. Oh and she knew something was wrong even before she got the letter. All the time we were on holiday, she chipped away at my defences and I’m glad she did. I thought at first, I’ll be honest with you, that having a fortnight away might help to put you out of my mind, but it didn’t. It seemed to bring things to a head.

‘It’s been a long time. Since last Tuesday, I mean. I’ve been very worried. Why did it take you so long to come to me?’

‘Oh Rhian, I was sure of my feelings, but couldn’t forget the responsibility I had towards you. You’re so young. Even now, I know I’m taking advantage of your youth and inexperience. Does that sound patronising? It’s not that I’m experienced, I’m not. I’ve been married for over twenty years and up to now I’ve never been unfaithful to Celine. I’ve been tempted before, I admit it, many times before. But before this I’ve always been able to resist the temptation. With you, I resisted for a day and the next day was as bad as ever and the following day was worse. I couldn’t go on.’

‘You resisted too long. I thought you didn’t care for me.’

‘No you didn’t. I wouldn’t love you so much if I thought you were so foolish and faint-hearted. You knew I loved you. You knew.’

‘When you’ve gone, I’ll think this is a dream.’

‘No you won’t. You’ll remember. You’ll remember me. And after the war, when I come back, we’ll find some way of being together.’

‘Where do you go?’

‘To London.’

‘I’ll come to see you. I’ve never been to London. We’ll go to the National Gallery. When I was in the Fifth, doing Art with you, you were always talking about the National Gallery, how wonderful it was.’

‘You were lovely when you were sixteen. Cool as crystal. But now you’re soft and glowing, “With your nut coloured hair, and grey eyes and rose-flush coming and going.”’

‘Lovely.’

‘It could have been written for you. Hardy. About his first wife, I think.

“Where you will next be there’s no knowing

Facing round about me everywhere

With your nut coloured hair

And grey eyes, and rose-flush coming and going.”’

‘Lovely. No, not the poem, but that’s lovely too.’

And this hair, dark and moist. You taste like the inside of a sea shell.’

‘I knew it would be like this.’

‘One day, I’ll paint you like this, so tender and soft and yielding. I can’t stop thinking about you. Sometimes you look so cool and composed that I want to make you tremble and cry, so that I can lick away your tears and comfort you. I suppose that’s depraved, wanting to punish you because you’ve made me love you so much.’

‘Breaking up your marriage. I told Ilona I’d have done anything to avoid that and she said, anything but leave him alone. She was right. If you hadn’t come here tonight I was going to write to you. To make you come to me.’

‘What were you going to say?’

‘Please come to me because I’m sick with love and lust. Rhian.’

‘Lust?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hussy.’

‘Yes.’

Yes seems all I’m able to say as I lie so snugly in the heat of his protection. Yes.

It lasts about an hour, that deep happiness when my feet curled up with delight and the cut-grass smell of his nakedness was in my nostrils.

Then comes the terror of his leaving me. He must leave me. Tonight and again when he goes to London. When I’ve hardly begun to know the comfort of his lovely body.

‘Why are you crying?’

‘Because you’re not a twenty-year-old Art student. Because I’m not Celine.’

‘I’m too old for you.’

‘It’s not that. It’s just that I want your past, all your past. Oh, why am I crying when I’m so happy?’

‘Because you’re Welsh and we all have this streak of melancholy. We’re all trapped in this sense of doom all around us; the barren hills, the terrible mountains, the wind-swept trees, old castles, old history, old blood gone rusty as bracken. Put out a hand and we feel chill ghosts all around us, ghosts of our defeated armies I suppose. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Oh Rhian, I don’t want to go away. I don’t want to go on teaching either. I want to paint. I want to live with you and paint for you. I want to paint great abstract paintings, charcoal grey and black and rust-red, full of crows and bracken and broken-down stone walls.’

‘But what about rivers and lakes and the sea with the setting sun in it? Won’t you put water into your paintings? Waterfalls and raindrops and shiny green grass?’

‘One day I’ll paint you like this.’

‘I wasn’t happy about Celine’s painting.’

‘So Jack said. You shouldn’t have let it upset you so much. It probably did her a great deal of good. She’s very direct, very primitive. She’ll be all right, I think. She’s got plenty of guts. And plenty of anger.’

I want to ask him whether he still loves her, whether he loves me more, whether he’ll love me for ever. I want so much to be noble, or at least decent, but I’m already anxious to extract promises from him.

‘When do you have to go?’ I ask him. The hairs on his chest are almost white. Shall we ever spend a whole night together? ‘Are you staying at Jack’s tonight?’

‘Yes. I sleep on the sofa in the parlour. A lumpy old sofa, too uncomfortable even to sit on. At about three o’clock this morning I got up and lay on the floor which seemed much softer.’

‘Must you go back there?’

‘Yes. But tomorrow I’ll go home. I need to talk to Celine. I must get all this sorted out and settled.’

‘You can’t stay here tonight?’

‘Of course not. I can’t risk that. I can’t ruin your reputation.’

‘You just have. Twice.’

Oh, the gentleness and lovebites and pet-words and long, wet kisses and long, long caresses, the sweet nuzzling, the promises.

I go to bed as soon as he goes, leaving a note for Ilona. ‘Dear Ilona. Love Rhian.’ What more is there to say?

In bed, I feel I’m flowing away very gently like a slowly flowing river.

Fifteen

MY MOTHER arrives here unexpectedly on Saturday morning. These days she very seldom leaves the farm, so I’m terrified; convinced that someone has let her know about Gwynn and me. Oh, and now there
is
something to know about Gwynn and me!

She’s dressed in the bright royal-blue costume she bought for my wedding and has seldom worn since. It makes her skin look sallow and changes the shape of her soft body. Why did I make her buy it? Why did I try to make her look fashionable? I persuaded her to do so many things which went completely against the grain. In Tregroes we don’t go in for wedding receptions in cafes, but just have tea and sandwiches and a slice of wedding cake in the vestry for everyone who turns up at the service. But Huw’s mother wanted a sit-down meal in Glyn Owen’s which meant making a list of wedding guests and hiring cars. My mother gave in to everything to make it easier for me, but I know it embarrassed her, the ostentation.