by Penny Jordan
'He hasn't forgotten his home, though,' had been Sarah's comment. 'When the chapel roof needed replacing Robert sent a gang of his men over and virtually did the job free.'
'She had a baby, a little girl,' his mother told him quietly. 'A pretty little thing, she was. I think I must have been about fifteen at the time. She and Robert still lived here then. She was a pretty girl, Nora… always one to like a bit of a laugh and a joke with the boys… Bit of a flirt, like, some said.
'Anyway it seems she'd gone for a walk along the cliff and she'd taken the baby with her in the pram. Only while she was up there she'd met this lad, whether by accident or on purpose I don't really know. They got chatting and she must have forgotten to put the brake on the baby's pram, because the next thing they knew it was rolling towards the edge of the cliff. They tried to stop it, but it was too late. It was a full tide, and a good two-hundred-foot drop over the cliff there… The poor little mite had no chance really…
'Totally changed Nora, it did… Took to wandering along the cliff top late at night crying and wringing her hands. She had to be sent away for a while to a special hospital…' She gave a brief shake of her head. 'It's a terrible thing to happen to a woman, that… Poor woman, indeed. God willing, she's at peace now.'
'And Robert—Mr Cavanagh. How did he…?'
'Well, Robert was heartbroken… Fair doted on the child he did and no mistake, but it's different for a man…'
'And did they have any more children?' Daniel wanted to know. His mother shook her head.
'She couldn't, see… something went wrong when she had the first and the doctors told her then that there wouldn't be any more. That's what made it so hard for her.'
It was only later that Daniel recognised that this conversation with his mother had marked a turning point in his life: that she was now treating him as a co-adult and not a child, that with the removal of his father from their lives he had now become the man of the family.
Later, looking back, that summer in Wales was one of the happiest in his life.
The twins, his cousins, Andrew and Anthony, although almost two years his senior, welcomed his company.
The small town had no senior school, there weren't many other young adults in the town, and their nearest friends lived in Aberystwyth.
A bike was found from somewhere for Daniel and the three of them would sometimes cycle into Aberystwyth to meet up with a gang of the twins' friends, and to spend the afternoon watching the girls on the beach and the pier, occasionally throwing out flirtatious remarks to them, talking light-heartedly about what they would do, if they were lucky enough to get one of the girls to take up their vocal invitations.
In the end, and much to his own surprise, it was Daniel who aroused the most interest in the groups of girls who gathered on the beach ostensibly for the purpose of sunbathing, but in reality in order to amuse themselves by teasing the boys.
He had his first amateurish kiss in the shadows beneath the pier, experienced his first unsteady and half shocking thrill of groping clumsily with the clothing of the girl wriggling in his arms as she exhorted him, 'No, not like that… it unfastens here like this, see?'
Perhaps because of his height and the breadth of his shoulders, perhaps because his voice had now well and truly broken, and his jaw was already shadowed with his first beard, or perhaps simply because the twins were older and he was accepted as being their peer, the crowd all seemed to assume that he was older than his sixteen years.
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.
H
e 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.
'We went to the South of France for four months… When I came back your mother was already married to John Ryan, with a child on the way, or so the gossips had it.
'I realised then how much I loved her. I was searingly, bitterly jealous. I think I almost hated her for giving herself to someone else.
'I didn't ask for the details of how she had met him, of who he was… I only found out later that your grandfather had been completely opposed to the marriage, that he had only given his permission when Megan told him that she was pregnant. He vowed never to speak to her again as long as he lived. He was that kind of man; very strict, very stern, and Megan was his favourite child… Over the years I heard occasional reports about your mother. I tried not to listen. I couldn't endure the thought of her happiness with someone else. Time softens some pains but it can't extinguish them entirely. And then Nora died and your father… I walked into your grandmother's kitchen, saw your mother, and knew I had never stopped loving her.'
'But she looked so afraid of you…'
'Not of me, Danny,' Robert told him gently. 'What she was afraid of was that I would look at you and see that you were not John Ryan's son but mine.'