The Hidden Years (42 page)

For the first time in his life he had found genuine
acceptance and he blossomed under it, quickly learning to retaliate to
the girls' smart back-chat, quickly shedding the burdens of caution and
apprehension caused by living with his father.

When he and his mother returned to Liverpool at the end of
the summer, he was two inches taller, several inches broader, and had
developed muscles in his arms and chest from rowing the twins' boat,
was brown from day-long exposure to the weather, and was actually
having to shave… if only infrequently.

He missed Wales… He missed the twins, and the
long days at school seemed to drag. He had always purposefully kept
himself slightly aloof from his fellow pupils, knowing that he was
different, knowing that he was there under sufferance, that his parents
were not wealthy and middle-class like theirs, but his stay in Wales
had given him a new self-confidence, an awareness that there was
another side to him that did not embrace the culture of the Ryans. That
he had an uncle who was a doctor and a mother who could have
been… That he had no reason whatsoever to feel ashamed or
embarrassed about his origins.

His grandmother had made his mother promise that they
would return to Wales for Christmas, but before that, halfway through
the term, they had an unexpected visitor.

When he returned from school one day to find Robert
Cavanagh standing in the kitchen talking to his mother, his first
thought was to protect her, but, totally unexpectedly, it wasn't fear
he could see in her eyes as she stood facing the older man, but
pleasure. Her face was pink and flushed, her hair, which she had had
cut in a new style, curling prettily around her face. She looked
younger these days and happier, and there was a little bit more money
coming into the house, from his uncle, Daniel suspected.

He himself had a weekend job working in a local
supermarket stacking the shelves, and he insisted on giving the
majority of these small earnings to his mother.

'Daniel,' Robert Cavanagh smiled, extending his hand
towards him. Daniel took it automatically, listening as he explained
how he had happened to be in Liverpool on business and had decided to
call on them.

'I was just saying to your mother that I should like to
take you both out for a meal.'

Robert Cavanagh stayed in Liverpool for over a week and on
each and every evening of that week he took them out. His mother liked
him, Daniel could see that; it was only when Robert occasionally
mentioned his father that he saw his mother's face tighten and her body
tense.

The afternoon before he was due to leave, Robert picked
Daniel up from school. The unexpectedness of seeing him there waiting
for him in his dark red Jaguar saloon made Daniel hesitate before
climbing into it beside him.

'I wanted to have a word with you in private,
Daniel… Man to man, see. I love your mam, and I want to
marry her. I haven't said so to her yet. I wanted to talk to you about
it first, let you know what was in my mind, see… You're a
good boy, Danny, and I want you to know that if your mam and I do
marry, you'd be to me like my own son. I know you didn't always have an
easy time with your own father, and I can understand that you might not
want another man in your mother's life. The Ryans haven't treated her
as they ought… I'm going home tomorrow, but I'll see you
both at Christmas when you come to Wales… I shan't say
anything to your mam until then… I don't want to rush her,
see.'

'And if I don't want you to marry her?' Daniel asked
stiffly.

Robert turned round in his seat to face him, his face
stern and grave.

'Well, that's your prerogative, Danny…but it
isn't your permission I'm asking, see—it's your mother who'll
tell me yes or no. One day when you're a man yourself you'll understand
that when a man loves a woman the way I love your mam she's more
important to him than anything else in the world. I want us to be
friends, Danny—whether you want us to be or not is up to
you…'

His mother and Robert Cavanagh were married in the spring.
Robert had bought his mother a house outside Cardiff and it had been
arranged that Daniel, who had taken his O Levels and obtained a
respectable ten passes, would transfer to a school in Cardiff for his
final two years studying to take his A Levels. But this time he would
be attending as a fee-paying pupil.

It was going to be a new life for all of them, and Daniel
wasn't sure quite how he felt about it. He liked Robert Cavanagh and
yet at the same time he resented him… resented his intimacy
with his mother… He resented the way her whole face softened
and lit up when she looked at him. He was jealous, he recognised,
acknowledging that his behaviour was irrational and yet unable to help
it.

He spent the first summer of his mother's new marriage
with his grandmother. The twins were now both at St Andrews studying
medicine, but both of them were home for the holidays, and this time
there was far more experience and intent to the way the three of them
trawled the surprisingly rich waters of Aberystwyth looking for girls.

Daniel was well past the awkward fumbling stage now thanks
to some intensive coaching from one of the girls from a local convent
school. He was seventeen now, and Robert had given him a small car, so
while he was staying with his grandmother he used some of the money he
had earned during the term to pay for a course of driving lessons.

His aunt and uncle took him with them when they and the
twins went to Brittany for three weeks on a camping holiday, and for
the first time Daniel discovered the delights and dangers of foreign
girls. He was maturing rapidly. Unlike the twins, he still had no idea
what he wanted to do when he left school. He was hoping to get a degree
in economics, but beyond that he had no thoughts.

Robert had offered to take him into the business, which
was thriving and expanding, but Daniel wanted to be independent.
Besides, the building trade reminded him too much of his father, of his
aggression and violence.

He arrived home at the house in Cardiff two days ahead of
schedule, the twins having decided to return early to St Andrews to
attend a 'start-of-term bash'.

He used his key to unlock the front door. His own key had
been given to him by Robert as soon as they had moved into the new
house.

His mother loved her new home. It had been built at the
end of the previous century by a railway baron, and overlooked the sea.
It had high-ceilinged, plain, square rooms that let in plenty of
sunlight, and a large rambling garden which his mother worked in on
sunny days.

Now she was the one employing a cleaner instead of doing
the cleaning, and a gardener came twice a week to weed the borders and
mow the lawns. His mother looked happier than Daniel had ever seen her
look, and yet sometimes in repose there was a sadness about her face,
an uncertainty in her eyes that worried him.

He still wasn't entirely sure about Robert—there
was an awkwardness between them, a barrier which Daniel was careful to
keep in place.

It wasn't that he didn't like Robert; he did, and
sometimes the burden of his own guilt that he should in so many ways
prefer Robert to his own dead father weighed heavily on him.

The hallway smelled of roses; there was a huge bowlful of
them on the table. He smiled when he saw them. His mother had confessed
to him that having enough money to actually buy fresh flowers was to
her the epitome of luxury.

Dropping his case in the hall, he went upstairs intending
to shower and change, but as he passed his mother's bedroom door a
sound from inside the room made him check.

He heard his mother's voice, low and haunted, and then
Robert's, the words indistinguishable, and then agonisingly his mother
cried out, a guttural, mortal sound of agony.

Daniel didn't stop to think. He thrust open the door and
rushed in, one thought and one only in his mind. Robert was hurting his
mother…hurting her as his father had once hurt her.

Robert and his mother were lying on the bed, Robert's
naked body lean and tanned, apart from his buttocks which were paler.

He had turned his head towards the door, his body
shielding that of his mother, Daniel recognised, just as he immediately
recognised something else.

Robert had not been hurting his mother, he had been making
love with her… that sound he had heard… Daniel
had enough experience of sex himself now to know that it was a pleasure
that sometimes came perilously close to agony.

He felt his face start to burn with embarrassment; heard
himself stammering an apology as he backed out of the room.

Robert and his mother… he had known, of course,
but had tucked the knowledge somewhere to the back of his mind, had
allowed himself to believe that their marriage was made out of
companionship and friendship, even though Robert had told him how much
he loved her.

When he got to his own room he discovered that he was
shaking, that he felt sick and somehow betrayed. He felt wretchedly
uncomfortable with the knowledge of his mother's sexuality and guilty
about his own stupidity.

Unable to face either of them, he went out and spent the
rest of the day and well into the night wandering round Cardiff.

It was late when he got back but there was a light on in
the hall and in the sitting-room.

As he unlocked the front door and went in, Robert came out
of the sitting-room and said quietly, 'Before you go to bed, Danny, I'd
like to have a word with you.'

Funny how Robert was the only one who called him
Danny… almost as though he were a little boy still, he
thought truculently as he followed the other unwillingly into the
sitting-room.

'If it's about this afternoon,' Daniel began aggressively,
'I thought…'

He broke off, shaking his head in confusion, unable to
admit what he had thought, afraid of making himself look an even bigger
fool than he already had done.

'What did you think, Danny? That perhaps I was hurting
your mother the way John did?'

Daniel felt his face blaze with colour. He couldn't meet
Robert's eyes, felt as though somehow he was tarred with the same brush
as his father, tainted with the same aggressive inability to control
either his temper or his reactions, guilty of using his strength to
hurt others weaker than himself.

'I know all about how John hurt your mother, Danny.'

'I couldn't stop him—I wanted to but…
I was afraid…' Daniel stopped, not knowing where the words
had come from, not knowing until now how much it had hurt him that he
hadn't been able to protect her.

'No, of course you couldn't. And besides…'

He hadn't seen Robert move, but he must have done so
because now he was standing beside him, gripping his arm consolingly,
as though he understood… 'It's probably just as well that
you didn't interfere, Danny… It might only have made a bad
situation worse. It wasn't entirely John's fault. I was as much to
blame as anyone… Come and sit down, Danny. There's something
I want to talk to you about. Something your mother and I should have
told you when we got married, but I wanted time—time for you
to get to know me before you judged me. However…'

Daniel stared at him, not knowing what he was talking
about or why he should look so grave.

'You know, don't you, that I was married before I met your
mother?'

'Yes…'

'Well, after we lost our child Nora had a nervous
breakdown. Our doctor thought it might be best if she stayed with her
own family for a while, so she moved back with her parents, while I
lived alone down at the yard. I knew your mother vaguely. Gareth and I
had been at school together. He brought her down to the yard with him
one day when he came on some errand… Introduced her to
me… She was just seventeen by then, prettiest girl I've ever
seen. Shyest as well, but when she smiled…well, it was so
rewarding making her smile that I clean forgot what it was Gareth had
wanted from me, and since he had gone on into town leaving Megan with
me I said I'd better walk up to the house with her and ask him again
just what it was.

'On the way there she told me about how she was going to
be a doctor. She was at school in Aberystwyth then… That's
where she met your father; he was working on the new road they were
constructing. He'd seen her, taken a fancy to her as any man might, and
pestered her into having a coffee with him after school. She was a
little bit afraid of him even then, I think…

'After we'd said goodbye I found myself thinking about her
more and more, and even worse making excuses to call at your
grandfather's so that I could see her. I found out that she liked
walking, so I persuaded your grandmother to let me take her out for the
day to walk along the coastal path from St David's. It was a hot
summer, with the air so still and the sky so blue… I haven't
any words to explain to you why I did what I should not have
done… She was still a child, I was a man and a married man
at that, but when I kissed her she responded so sweetly it took my
breath away and my self-control.

'I'd never intended to make love to her. I swear
it… All I wanted to do was to see her smile… and
afterwards, well, I was so stunned by what I'd done, by how I'd
felt… I considered myself an experienced man…
There'd been one or two other girls before I married Nora, but your
mother… She was upset, of course, and so was I. I wanted to
tell her how much I loved her, how much I wanted her, but how could I?
I took her home, intended to call back the next day and talk to her,
apologise… but that night I had a phone call from Nora's
mother to say that that afternoon Nora had tried to commit suicide and
that she was back in hospital.

'Of course I had to go to her. She was a very sick woman,
mentally and physically, and the doctors told me that it would help if
I took her away somewhere where there were no memories of our child.