The Hills and the Valley (63 page)

Although the afternoon was warm she walked quickly for she could not wait to see him. She stopped once to pick a couple of purple flower spears from the tall grass at the side of the road for Hope. The child sat quietly now, exclaiming now and then as a bird darted in the hedges or a butterfly fluttered past and Barbara chatted to her intermittently without giving a thought to what she was saying. The lane dipped down into the valley, the sun exposing patches of tar in places beneath the worn grey coating and Barbara steered the pushchair between them holding back to keep it from running away in the steepest part. Past Midlington Pit she went, where the huge wheels that raised and lowered the cage turned slowly against the blue August sky and men worked in the yard, shirts off in the warm afternoon, dust-blackened bodies riddled with pale rivers of sweat. A coal lorry passed her, the driver honking on his horn. She pulled into the side of the road, then turned into the track that would lead her along the valley floor to the house that had been her home.

It was narrow, much narrower than the lane, and the ground beneath her feet was liberally dusted with black coal dust. Fronds and branches spread out from the hedgerows to brush at the pushchair in the most narrow places and Barbara pushed them aside. Her heart was beating fast now, hammering against her ribs, and it owed nothing to the pace at which she had been walking.

Huw. Each beat of her heart repeated his name. Huw –Huw –Huw.

Don't be stupid, she told herself. But it made no difference.

The path widened and the house came into sight, square and grey, its chimneys spiking the blue of the sky. Barbara quickened her step.

‘Walk!' Hope chirped again. ‘Hope walk!'

Barbara ignored her.

Up the lane, through the gate. The door was ajar. Then suddenly it swung open and he was there – tall, dark, the same Huw she had loved for as long as she could remember. He must have been watching for her from the window. She ceased to think. Dropping the handles of the pushchair she ran to him.

She was in his arms, her face pressed tight against the cool cotton of his shirt. They hugged, not speaking, though her heart still clamoured his name. Oh it was so good to be here with him. So good! Emotion overwhelmed her. Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes and warmth began in the pit of her stomach, surging up into every vein. The world around them had ceased to exist. There was nothing, nothing outside the circle of his arms.

Nothing but Hope. Her small plaintive voice found a chink in the armour. ‘Mummy! Mum-mee!'

Reluctantly, Barbara pulled free.

‘All right, darling, Mummy is here.'

Hope was tugging at the pushchair straps, struggling to get out.

‘Sit still, you'll tip over!' Barbara warned. She glanced back at Huw. He was looking at her, just looking, his eyes deep pools as he drank her in, seeming to see into her very soul. Her stomach flipped.

‘I'll have to get Hope out of her pushchair,' she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘Don't you think she's grown? Isn't she a little picture?'

‘Yes.' But his eyes were still on Barbara.

She got Hope out of the pushchair and lifted her up. ‘It's Uncle Huw. Look!'

Hope turned her face into her mother's shoulder. Barbara and Huw continued to smile at one another across her head. After a moment Hope began to wriggle. Barbara set her down and she toddled into the house.

‘We'd better go in.' She noticed the bandage on his arm. ‘What have you been doing?'

‘Oh, legacy of war. It's nothing.'

The hall was dim, heavy with the scent of roses. Her fingers found his and twined. ‘Oh Huw, it's so good to see you!'

‘And you.'

It had been so long. There was so much to say. Yet they said none of it. Nothing was important but being together.

A voice from the kitchen: ‘Hope! What are you doing here?'

It was Mrs Milsom. They looked at one another and smiled, then Barbara followed her daughter along the hall. ‘Hello, Milsy.'

‘Miss Barbara! Come to see Master Huw, have you?' Mrs Milsom nodded and smiled, her multiple chins wobbling. ‘Go on then, the pair of you. I'll look after Hope. She'll be all right with me. Do you want a biscuit, Hope? Come on, you know where they're kept, don't you?'

‘She's only just had her lunch,' Barbara said automatically.

‘Never mind. This is a special occasion, isn't it? I'll keep an eye on her for you. I expect you and Master Huw want to talk.'

Master Huw. At any other time it might have amused Barbara the way Mrs Milsom still referred to a man of twenty-six as ‘Master Huw'. Not today. She was aware of nothing but a wave of gratitude. Mrs Milsom knew a great deal more than she ever let on. She had been a part of the household for so long it was impossible to imagine life without her, always unobtrusive yet always there when she was needed.

‘Shall we go out then?' Barbara asked. ‘It's a lovely day. A pity to waste the sunshine.'

‘Good idea,' said Huw.

Ordinary conversation. Just mundane words. Yet behind them so much emotion.

‘Be a good girl, Hope,' Barbara said.

Hope, her mouth full of biscuit, did not reply.

Huw held the door open and they walked out together into the sunlight.

Up the steep lane, Porters Hill, where Amy had run into Ralph's Morgan with the lorry so long ago, they went, through the ‘V' gate and into the first of the big uneven meadows.

Here there was shadow as well as sunshine, from the oaks and chestnuts that scattered the meadows and provided shade for the herd of cows that Farmer Miles moved from one field to another throughout the summer. They followed the well-worn track across the first meadow, then climbed through a gap in the hedge so that they were in a steeper, more bumpy field, streaked by marshy patches where the underground streams ran and dotted by cowpats. The field was less pleasant than the first one but it was also more secluded, and as such had a magic of its own. The steep little banks were covered with springy grass and a carpet of tom thumbs and the occasional thistle scratched at Barbara's bare ankles.

As the path flattened and widened Barbara fell into step beside Huw and linked her arm through his.

‘Huw, I was so sorry to hear about Claire.'

‘Thank you.' Claire seemed to belong to another life now; he realised with a shock he had not thought about her once since Amy had spoken to him last night about Barbara's troubles.

‘It must have been terrible for you.'

‘Yes.'

‘Don't you want to talk about it?'

‘No.' He turned, looking at her directly. ‘I want to talk about you.'

‘Me?'

‘Yes, you. You're not happy, are you, Barbara?'

‘Of course I'm happy.' But her eyes were giving the lie to the words.

‘Tell me about it,' he said.

She shrugged helplessly. ‘I wouldn't know where to begin. Anyway you don't want to hear about my problems.'

‘Barbara, I have always wanted to hear about your problems. Do you remember when that Riddle boy was bothering you? You didn't want to tell Amy, but you told me. And I sorted it out for you, didn't I?'

‘Yes, but that was just childhood problems. This is different. We're grown up now. We don't just think molehills are mountains. They really are.'

‘All the more reason why you should share them. I want to know.'

‘It sounds as if you already do. I suppose Mum has been talking to you. She shouldn't have. She had no right.'

‘She's worried about you – and so am I. But she only told me what she knew. She said you haven't talked to her for months.'

‘Talking does no good. I'm married to him, Huw. That's all there is to it. I made my bed and now I have to lie on it.' She gave a small strangled laugh. ‘That might almost be funny if it were true. The thing is we don't often lie on it – not together anyway. Thank goodness.'

‘Oh Barbara.'

They were at the edge of the field, near the hedge. He sat down, pulling her down beside him. She sat upright, her feet drawn up beside her, pulling blades of grass and splitting them as if her life depended on it.

‘Tell me,' he said.

She shook her head. She did not want to talk about it even to Huw. She did not want to think about the coldness interspersed with childish outbursts or the anger that seemed necessary to arouse him. And she did not want to admit even to Huw that her husband was one big sham, not a hero at all but a rank coward. That was the final indignity. If he had lost his reason through the trauma of war yet been a hero she could have stood it. But he was not a hero. When danger had threatened he had failed and in doing so had failed her too, negated her dreams, demeaned her somehow. With her head she had tried to understand and in part had done so. But her heart had refused to follow. To the outside world she could make excuses for him. But there was no remedy for her loss of respect for him. Nothing could erase her shame and scorn.

Tears blurred her eyes and she turned away so that Huw should not see them.

‘He doesn't hurt you, does he?' Huw asked. His voice was ragged.

She could not answer.

‘Barbara?' His hand gripped her arm. ‘Does he hurt you?'

She swallowed, wishing she could lie, knowing she could not.

‘Not very often.'

‘Bastard!' He spat it out between gritted teeth.

She twisted her head quickly. Her eyes were agonised.

‘He's sick. He can't help it …'

‘He'd be sick if I got my hands on him.'

‘Oh no, Huw, you mustn't …' She reached across, laying a restraining hand on his arm. At her touch she felt the muscle quiver and her breath caught in her throat. For long moments they sat unmoving, looking at one another as they had outside the house, only now Barbara felt as if all the life force was draining out of her limbs and she was being drawn up like a magnet into his eyes. Time was suspended. Then the magnetic pull grew stronger and they were moving almost imperceptibly closer, closer, until she could see only the blurred outline of his cheek and chin. She felt her lips tremble, drawn by that same magnetic force. They hovered, a breath away from his, then they were touching, clinging.

He raised his hand to her face, brushing the curls away and leaving his hand there cupping her ear and holding her head steady while he kissed her. After a moment they drew apart, looking at one another with that same intensity, then they came together all of a rush as if they could no longer bear the wasted years.

‘Barbara … Barbara …'

‘Oh Huw …'

The excitement was now a tight spiral at the very core of her sending tiny sharp shivers to spread through her like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. The light breeze which stirred the grass whispered over her skin and started a million pinpricks of awareness. Her whole body, it seemed, was sensitised, her soul a deep pool of longing and she was drowning in it.

Almost without being aware of moving she sank back into the grass, saw his face above her blotting out the sky, smelled his sunwarmed skin, felt the hard rippling muscles of his back beneath her hands as he leaned over her. Her heart was full. This was right. So right. They were together, isolated from the world by their love. He kissed her again, pushing back her dress from her shoulders and buried his face against her. The touch of his lips made her shiver again, a shiver of delight that linked the very core of her to the place where his mouth was pressed against her breast. The beauty of it made her weak. She shifted slightly beneath his weight and the grass scratched the back of her neck, but she was unaware of it except as a part of the overwhelming beauty of the whole. He took her gently with a restrained passion that made her ache with the need to be one with him, lifting her through the planes of delight to a pinacle of vibrant ecstacy, heights she had never dreamed existed, up, up, until she thought she would faint with the completeness of it. And then it was over and she was drifting back down the same path, warmed now, replete with love, until at last she lay contented in his arms.

He rolled away and she half turned with him, unwilling to relinquish the contact, her face still buried in the open neck of his shirt, tasting the salt of his skin. For long moments they lay there in one another's arms, the grass scratching beneath her bare legs, the sun warming above. She wanted to sleep, sleep here in this cave of love and seclusion, with the only sounds the drone of bumble bees in the clover and the distant lowing of one of Farmer Miles's cows in the field beyond. But Huw moved, raising himself on one elbow and looking down at her.

‘I love you, Barbara.'

‘And I love you.'

‘I've always loved you.'

‘I know.' It seemed like nothing less than the truth now; she
had
always known. ‘I've always loved you too.'

A moment's silence. Then he said: ‘You will leave him, won't you?'

It was as if someone had doused her with a bucket of cold water, shocking her back to reality. If he had said those same words a moment ago when she had been drifting on that beautiful plane she would have had no doubts. But now the real world had come close again.

‘Leave him?' she echoed.

‘Yes. You can't stay with him now. I won't let you. Not now.'

‘Oh Huw.' She sat up, covering her face with her hands. She did not want to face reality. Not yet. But there was no escaping it.

‘Look, I know it's not easy with a war on,' he said. ‘It's almost impossible to plan from one week to the next and I have to be honest, I haven't had time yet to work out how we can manage to be together. But I will. Leave Marcus, bring Hope and live with your mother for a time – she'll be only too pleased to have you, I know. And as soon as I can work something out I'll send for you.'

She swallowed. Her throat was aching. ‘I couldn't do that.'