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‘No. But I’m delighted that you’re now independent. Good luck with your driving. Do you like Goya’s work, Tom? Is he an influence?’

‘Don’t know his work I’m afraid.’

‘I think you do. And I feel he’s been a big influence on your development. Trust me. Look, take this book with you and you’ll see what I mean.’

‘I’ve entered the world of marketing, cheating and lies,’ Tom told Josi and Lowri over dinner that day. ‘Hammond is writing me up as someone greatly influenced by an artist I’ve never come across.’

‘Did he like the dark drawings then?’ Lowri asked.

‘Yes he certainly did. Wants another couple before next weekend. Talks of exhibiting some in a big London gallery along with some other war artists.’

‘My word. Will you be famous, then?’

‘Yes. Mari Elen will be proud of me yet.’

‘I am proud of you. I had to go out to the front of the class to tell everybody that you had won a medal in the war and Miss Bacon said I must be very proud.’

‘Is Miss Bacon a nice teacher?’

‘Yes she is. She’s quite pretty too, but the boys call her Miss Pig. That’s not kind is it?’

‘Very unkind. I hope you don’t.’ Tom said.

‘No I don’t. Though she is sometimes cross with me.’

‘Do you talk too much?’

‘Yes, and I sometimes pinch Ceri because she’s prettier than me.’

‘Mari Elen, no one could be prettier than you.’

‘She is, she’s got blue eyes and yellow hair and little fat arms. She looks like a doll.’

‘I could never give my heart to a girl with little fat arms.’

‘You’ve given your heart to May. I hope she has pretty arms.’

‘She has. I made sure of that. Do you realise that it’s only two months to my wedding. Are you looking forward to it?’

‘Yes, only I have Christmas to think of first. It’s a very busy time, Lowri says, and I must help a lot. Luckily, we have a holiday from school, so I shall be helping Lottie and Maud all day long. Sorry, but I have to go back to school now. I’ll talk some more when I get back.’

I’m sure you will, Tom thought. Whatever is going to become of this child? She’s sharp as a blade and she seems more like ten years old than three.

After dinner, when Lowri walked her back to school, Tom asked Josi whether he and Catrin had been as clever as Mari Elen.

‘Great Heavens no. Mari Elen is frighteningly bright, isn’t she. She reads words in English and Welsh already and she reckons things out like a preacher. Talking of preachers, she has man-to-man discussions with Mr Isaacs. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she says, “but I can’t work it out, somehow.” She’s just too much for Lowri and me. We’re simple folk and all we want is a quiet life.’

Chapter thirteen

Tom found it impossible to stop working. Graham, as his doctor, feared he was doing far too much.

‘You’ll use up all your memories and dreams in a couple of weeks if you’re not careful. Get it all out of your system, by all means, but you must consider your health which is the most important thing. No one should work as you’re doing. Mornings only would be my rule, nine until twelve. May won’t want to marry an invalid. Now that you’ve got a motor car you should get about a bit. Get to know the coastline in Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire. When this war phase passes you may want to paint seascapes; they’re always popular with the tourists. What about a painting of the little cathedral in St David’s? What about the ruins at Ystrad Fflur? The sailors’ church at Mwnt? Get out, find the scenes you’ll want to paint in the spring. I don’t want to have to treat you for a nervous breakdown. Go easy on the war memories. They must be fading now.’

Tom looked at him as though he were mad. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose they might fade. In time. Anyway, Graham, thank you for your advice which I’ll endeavour to follow. After this week it’ll be mornings only, I promise you.’

May and her father were coming to spend Christmas with Tom and his family so of course the meals and all the arrangements had to be perfect. The new housekeeper, Lowri’s aunt, worked like a slave, but poor Maud was sick and could hardly help at all. On Christmas Eve, after they had arrived on the afternoon train, the festivities began. Since Mr Malcolm and May were members of the church, it was decided that they should all go to midnight mass, even Mari Elen being allowed to accompany them. She fell asleep during the short service and Mr Malcolm was the one she chose to be allowed to carry her home. After that he was her devoted servant and the two became very close for the rest of his stay.

‘Did I tell you about the time my real mother died?’ she asked him on Christmas afternoon. ‘Well, it was a very stormy night and by a dreadful mistake she was locked out of the house and had to stay in the churchyard all night. When day dawned she found the church door had been left open so she went in to the church which was decorated with white and green flowers exactly as it was last night. And in the morning the vicar found her amongst all the flowers. She was so beautiful that he couldn’t believe that she was dead. He raised her in his arms and kissed her closed eyelids but she was never to wake again. Then he went to tell my father what had happened to his wife. “You shouldn’t have locked her out of the house,” he said. “You have verily caused her death.” My father was bowed down
with grief. But he soon recovered and afterwards married Lowri to be my step-mother. I love Lowri very much but she is not as beautiful as my real mother, who was called Miriam.’

‘That’s a beautiful story,’ Mr Malcolm said, ‘but I think, madam, that you were making it up as you went along. Perhaps you will be a famous author when you grow up.’

‘I can’t decide whether to be a famous author or a famous artist like my half-brother, Tom. People are very enthusiastic about his work though I think it is rather ugly. I shall only paint beautiful things about death and churches and lilies.’

‘Anyone think it was a mistake to have taken her to midnight mass last night?’ Josi asked. ‘If you remember I
was in favour of leaving her at home with Maud. How long will this churches and lilies phase last? I could do without it.’

Mari Elen seemed to have fallen in love with Mr Malcolm. It was laughable how she insisted on sitting next to him and lavishing her attention on him. Josi felt sorry for the man and wondered whether he’d ever before had such devotion shown him. ‘Will you come for a walk with me? Would you like to be my Grandpa because I haven’t got a Grandpa? Shall I sit next to you at the wedding party? Shall I sit next to you at the carol service tonight? Would you like to nurse my new baby? She’s really only a doll but I like to pretend that she’s a real baby. Look, she cries when I turn her upside down or pat her on the back. Was May a nice little girl when she was only three and a half like me? Was she prettier than me? Did you like her more than you like me?’

‘Let poor Mr Malcolm have five minutes to himself, Mari Elen. He doesn’t have to play with you all day.’

‘Oh, but he’s leaving on Wednesday and I shall miss him so much. Mr Malcolm, do you promise to come again at Easter? I wish you lived with us and could be my Tadcu, that’s Welsh for Grandpa. That would make me so happy.’ She patted his face and held his hand in hers.

‘Don’t be silly, he’s delighted at all the attention,’ May said when Lowri tried to apologise for the way Mari Elen was behaving. ‘He’s absolutely besotted with the child,’ she assured them, but Lowri and Josi found it hard to believe. Lawrence Malcolm was a thin, ailing man with no obvious attractions, but for Mari Elen he was a knight, a very perfect gentleman. She never let him out of her sight.

He and May had bought her an impressive post office set for Christmas but when Mr Malcolm had found that he was elevated to Grandpa status he insisted on taking Mari Elen to the best shop in Carmarthen and buying her a long white party dress with pearl headdress and a black velvet cape. It had an enormous effect on Mari Elen, turning her into a perfect little lady. She wore nothing else for the whole of the Christmas holiday.

When Tom next visited Mr Hammond with two new drawings, the dealer had some excellent news. Mr Loseley had been as impressed by his work as he himself was and intended showing some of his paintings in the gallery’s new-year exhibition of contemporary artists. ‘He puts you second to none,’ Mr Hammond said. ‘One of the real discoveries of 1918. He will be inviting all the critics in before the exhibition opens and of course they will all be told about your war service and your Military Cross.’

May was very excited and invited them all to come up to London to visit the exhibition on the opening night, staying with her and her father afterwards. Josi said that only Mari Elen could go as she was the only one with suitable clothes. ‘We’ll all have suitable clothes,’ Lowri said. ‘You’ve got to get a new suit for the wedding so you can wear it once beforehand. I’m certainly going. By the way, Catrin wondered if you could invite Rose to the wedding. They’ve written to each other once or twice and get on so well.’

‘Of course she must come. I shall look forward to meeting her and so will my father. Are you sure there’s no one else from Wales who you would like to invite? It’ll be nothing but all my relatives, I’m afraid, all my maiden aunts and my great-aunts.’

There were eight of
Tom’s drawings in the exhibition as well as two of his earlier paintings. When Josi and Lowri, having put Mari Elen to bed, joined Tom and May at the gallery they found that each one of his drawings had a red circle at its side. ‘Every one has been sold,’ May said excitedly. ‘It may be partly due to the article in
The Times
this morning that said that Siegfried Sassoon’s great war poems had been illustrated at last and by another MC, Tom Evans, exciting new artist from Wales.’

‘Would you believe one hundred guineas?’ Tom whispered to his father.

‘Surely not,’ Josi said. ‘The world is going mad. To think… well, I won’t tell you what I thought about that particular one.’

Rose was at the exhibition and she and Catrin got very emotional together. ‘Did you recognise the dead soldier?’ Rose asked Catrin. ‘It wasn’t anyone from his own company, it was Edward each time.’

‘Yes, that was the first thing I noticed. In each of the drawings. He must have missed him as much as we did.’

‘Have you heard of this poet whose poems are supposed to have the same impact as Tom’s drawings?’

‘Yes. He got into trouble some time ago, calling for an immediate end to hostilities. He would probably have been jailed, disgraced certainly, except that his friends declared he was suffering a nervous breakdown, over-tired, over-emotional, overwhelmed I suppose, and therefore not able to think straight. He was pardoned, I believe and they say he’s insisting on going out to France again. But whatever his opinions are, his poems still stand. They’re wonderful. And I think Tom has been invited to meet him before he goes back to the Front.’

‘Do you think Tom is aware of how everyone is talking about him? How handsome he is. He’s taller and he’s filled out since the last time I saw him. How wonderful that he’s alive. So many of Edward’s friends have been killed. I must find Tom to tell him how pleased I am to see him again and to find him alive.’

Mr Hammond rounded up all Tom’s friends and gave them all a glass of champagne. Catrin and Rose both cried a little, but it was hardly noticed. Rose had to leave, she had re-married and her husband was waiting for her, but not before she’d promised to visit them in the spring.

‘She and I loved the same man,’ Catrin told May. ‘I’ll tell you about it one day. He was Tom’s friend and he’s the soldier who lies dead or mutilated in some of the drawings. He was so handsome. May, you wouldn’t have noticed Tom if Edward was around.’

The poet, Sassoon, who’d been classed with Tom in
The Times
review turned up and congratulated Tom on his drawings. ‘It’s like being back in those bloody trenches. You’re lucky to be out of it. I return next month. Tell me, is the dying soldier you show in so many of your drawings a man called Edward Turncliffe?’

‘Yes. We were never together in the same battles, never even in the same regiment. He died in one of the first battles in Ypres, but he was a very good friend and I think of him far too often.’

‘I didn’t know him at all well but we were neighbours and I always admired his looks, so to see him tonight has been a real surprise. I mustn’t take up too much of your time, but I hope we meet again.’

Before leaving, Tom found that Siegfried Sassoon had bought one of his drawings. He felt very proud of that.

They returned to Hendre Ddu early next morning and soon Tom forgot that he was an exhibited artist. The money, though, was a godsend.

‘You know, Lowri’ Josi said when they were in bed that night, ‘I can’t help feeling a bit worried about Catrin. I mean, all this great fuss about Tom. After all, it was her that was supposed to be the artist, wasn’t it?’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Another pause. ‘But don’t worry yourself about it. Her talent is safe inside her and she’ll use it again one day.’

‘I hope so,’ Josi said, rather doubtfully. ‘I’ll have to tell her something like that anyway. Yes.’

Lowri hadn’t finished. ‘I don’t think Jesus Christ thought too much about having babies and so on in that parable about the talents. About people using their talents and not burying them.’