Gull Island

by Grace Thompson

  Unfortunately, in his inebriated state he told the group of people who were helping him celebrate about his daughter’s ‘bit of trouble’. Encouraged by his friends’ supportive outrage, he came home, threatened Barbara with a tightly clenched fist and told her to leave.

  Mrs Jones pleaded but Barbara thought her arguments were less than enthusiastic as she repeatedly reminded her daughter that she had no one to blame but herself anyway and could hardly expect others to be sympathetic. Frightened and unable to think what to do, her mother’s words racing through her brain, Barbara walked through the streets the following morning until an advertisement caught her attention. It seemed the answer, at least to her immediate problem.

  A week later, in response to the advertisement, Barbara handed in her notice at the shop, said a stiff goodbye to her family, and went to work on a small farm twenty-seven miles away from her home town, on which there were cows, sheep, chickens and geese, and cornfields sloping down to the sea.

  Luke was sitting in his Cardiff office staring out at the hazy sunshine and wishing he was on his boat fishing off Gull Island. He wore a sports jacket adorned with leather patches on sleeves and elbows, with a blue and green check shirt, and a plain green tie. He felt a fraud. The clothes were worn to conform to the image people expected when they walked into his shop to buy. If he were to dress in the shabby shorts he wore at weekends and in which he felt more comfortable, more himself, he would fail to persuade them that he was offering a quality service as he took their money. Second-hand books was one of the many occupations where formality was important.

  He left his chair and walked over to smile politely as a couple came in to look for a book on formal gardens of the eighteenth century. He led them to the relevant section of shelves and shared their delight when they found what they were looking for, but even at such a satisfying moment, he still longed to be free.

  He had been born into a wealthy family and his father initially prepared him to work alongside him in the wine business that had been in the family for three generations. But Luke had never settled into the business with a father who held for him ill-concealed dislike. Luke’s happiest times had been the hours spent with Roy Thomas and his lively, affectionate family. It was to them that he had scuttled whenever there was an hour to spare.

  Then, when Luke had been approaching his eighteenth birthday, Roy paid a rare visit to him. They were in his bedroom, enjoying a playful fight, and his father had come into the room and in a rage told Roy to leave and never come to the house again. There had never been an explanation.

  When Luke’s mother had died, Roy had defied the order and come to comfort his friend. Luke had been so shocked by the loss of the one person who had made the house a home, he had been unable to cry. Seeing Roy had released the tears and when Luke’s father found them, arms around each other, both with tear-stained faces, his rage almost became apoplectic.

  Roy was marched from the house and Luke pleaded for him to be allowed to stay.

  ‘He’s my friend and I love him,’ he said, and, white-faced with disbelief, he heard his father tell him to leave. In a voice trembling with anger and hate, Luke’s father told him he was unclean and not fit to dwell with decent people. When Luke continued to plead, his father hit him again and again.

  Luke had been so devastated both by the implication of his unnatural love for his friend, and by his father’s intransigent disapproval and embarrassment, that he spent weeks doing nothing more than reel from one bar to another. He was arrested three times for being drunk and disorderly and twice spent time in prison on remand, as his father refused to offer bail. Both incidents were for breaking the windows of his father’s house.

  His mother would have understood, or at least allowed him to talk about it, but she was dead. So it was his grandmother who had helped start him in a career by introducing him to the wonderful world of books and historical maps.

  She had rented a small shop and spent several weeks travelling with him to buy books and maps to fill the shelves, mostly books of little value at first, but gradually he began to deal with more interesting and rare volumes, and almost without thinking he began to specialize in books on gardens and the countryside. He also had room on the walls of his shop for the work of local artists, mostly seascapes.

  Once he had accepted the need to work and a purpose to rise each morning, he quickly began to succeed. The second-hand book trade was absorbing, his knowledge grew and he was soon respected and well liked. Having none of the aggression of many and without the domineering and condescending attitude men often showed towards women who worked alongside them, the offer of friendship came from all who met him. But apart from Roy Thomas, who was now away fighting in France, he remained a loner.

  His business acumen was strong but in his dealings with people he was patient, helpful and without guile. He smiled a lot and made customers believe he had been waiting just for them to come in and cheer his day, but his smile hid his constant loneliness. Unhappiness, guilt, confusion and, most of all, disappointment at his family’s attitude still festered under the veil of quiet contentment.

  At five minutes to five he closed the ledger on which he had been working, tilted his chair back and stretched luxuriously. He wouldn’t go back to his lodgings; he would send a message to his landlady and go to the beach for a few hours of peace and quiet. With Roy in France fighting a bloody, insane battle there was no one to notice if he was late or, he thought with sadness welling up, to care if he didn’t get home at all.

  As the train took him to the station nearest to Gull Island, he began to wonder about Barbara. Had she succumbed to the pressures of her family and allowed herself to be led to some dark house where some old woman would perform atrocities on her lovely young body and destroy the life within it? What was it about some families that pride, the opinion of others, was of greater importance than love and support?

  Barbara was still on his mind when he reached the cottage and changed his clothes. He saw at once that she had been there. The teapot was slightly out of its precise place and the cup and saucer she had used was out of alignment. He was so fussy; like an old woman, he knew that. Roy often teased him about it.

  He ate some stale biscuits and drank two cups of tea then went to the boat. He saw the note at once. The baby was safe, thank goodness. Although short, it was such a bossy note he found it impossible not to smile. Terrible to know Bernard was dead, poor Barbara; but at least the baby was safe. He exuded his breath in a long sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized just how important it was.

  Surprisingly, it being so late in the season, he went out in the darkness and caught a few mackerel, baked them over a fire and ate them.

  Just before he left, as the darkness was complete and only faint variations, black against grey, showed him where the rocks were and the shape of his boat, he sat on the cooling beach, caressed by the offshore breeze, and wrote a reply in the light of his torch, guessing she would go there again.

  He wished he had asked for her address. She would be glad of a bit of support and he would gladly give it. He thought it unlikely he would ever have a child, but helping to save this one would in part make up for it. In small, neat letters he wrote: ‘Come on Sunday, you know where the tea is kept. Please, tell me your address.’

  He put it in the same place she had used but as he walked away, the boat tilted and settled more firmly on the gravel. Before he had reached the railway station, the piece of paper had flown over the waves like a ghostly butterfly.

  Barbara found work at the farm very hard. She thought of her anxiety at handling the bales of cloth in the shop and smiled bitterly. Here she was expected to roll fifteen-gallon milk churns, throw hay and animal feed about as if it were cotton wool, and carry buckets filled to the brim with water or milk. She felt constantly dirty and unkempt, rarely having either the time or the energy for washing herself. Then there was the farmer.

  Graham Prothero was in his mid thirties. He was a burly man, an i
nch or two under six feet tall, with a rather flat face, a small round nose, a round chin and a full-lipped mouth that seemed sculptured for laughter – but the suggestion of a humorous approach to life was false. He was immensely strong, with hands that seemed to Barbara as big as shovels. But as is often the case with such physique, he was softly spoken and when dealing with a sick animal those hands were surprisingly dexterous.

  He was a childless widower and seemed quite willing for her to take his wife’s place in his bed. He hinted at an easing of her heavy tasks if she would … accommodate him.

  ‘If you come in with me and keep my bed warm tonight, I think we might arrange for you to have a bit of a lie-in,’ he said one day while she was scrubbing the mud from the dark-grey slate floor of the kitchen. ‘What say we let you off the early-morning chores, like? And you can start after a breakfast cooked by me. Worth a change of bed for that, isn’t it?’

  His soft voice was not pleading; there was a matter-of-fact tone that added to the shock of the words and made her wonder if she had somehow misheard. She went on scrubbing the floor, backwards and forwards, the white foamy lather changing pattern with each stroke. He had come to stand over her as she knelt at her task. Best not to reply, she decided, and it occurred to her how less frightening he was than her father, even though he was far stronger and a great deal bigger.

  ‘What d’you say, then? Give it a go, like? And we’ll see how we can improve your days for you. Be company for us both, like, as well as a bit of comfort,’ he went on, still in the low, soft voice.

  ‘I like the room you’ve given me, thank you,’ she said without looking at him, afraid to give him a smile which he could interpret, together with the words, as a tease. She tried to continue scrubbing without moving her bottom for the same reason!

  ‘What say we give it a try? Your room if you’d prefer. I’m easy.’

  She pretended at first not to understand what he meant, hoping her implied innocence would discourage him. At the end of October, when she still refused, he came into her room one evening and slid under the sheet. She stiffened in alarm. He talked to her as he did with his animals, gentling her like he would a frightened horse.

  ‘Come on, Babs. I know you really want this as much as I do. There’s daft it is for us to be deprived of something we both want.’

  What should she do, or say? She could hardly run away wearing only a nightdress. His arms enfolded her and be began to stroke her. She still didn’t move, afraid now, aware of his strength. What if he lost his temper? She could be killed, buried and no one the wiser. Then his hand reached her swollen belly and he gave a growl of rage and threw himself off the bed.

  ‘You brazen hussy! You’ve got a baby in there and you didn’t tell me! All these weeks pretending such innocence! Get out. D’you hear me? Get out. I won’t give a home to a—’ He seemed lost for the right word and she lay still as his footsteps stomped down the stairs and into the yard. Night hours passed and still she didn’t move; she lay petrified until the clock struck five and she heard him moving about downstairs then go out again. She rose, packed her few belongings and left the farm.

  With nowhere else to go, she set off to walk the twenty-seven miles back home. The milk cart gave her a lift for part of the way and for a few miles she sat beside a carter delivering some tree trunks to be trimmed before being sent on their way to a coal mine.

  She stopped at a couple of farms to ask if there was work and accommodation but she had no luck. It was evening when she reached home but her father opened the door and swiftly closed it again. She turned away, too weary to plead or even weep, and headed for the one place she might at least have a hearing.

  Mrs Carey didn’t waste time on too many questions but put Barbara to bed with her girls. Barbara was so exhausted that she slept almost immediately, squashed in with three others, including the one-year-old Blodwen, who wet the bed and didn’t stir for two hours.

  After further explanations during which Mrs Carey fed her and bathed her blistered feet, she described her life as a poorly paid farmworker and housekeeper to Graham Prothero. The next morning she first went again to plead with Mrs Stock to help her but she refused even to open the door. She felt so weary she thought her baby would simply fall from her, the weight of it was pressing so urgently and painfully down, but she put on her coat, a shawl belonging to Mrs Carey, boots belonging to Mr Carey and walked the two miles to the beach near Gull Island. She went into Luke’s cottage and collapsed into the armchair. With an inexplicable feeling of peace, she slept.

  When she roused herself it was morning and, stiff from a night in the armchair, she was aware that the place was less tidy than usual. A Cardiff newspaper was spread carelessly across the table and a piece had been ringed in spluttering ink. It announced the death of a Cardiff man, Roy Thomas, in the Battle of Verdun during the month of August. He must be Luke’s special friend. Where was Luke? She needed to talk to him, help him over this heartbreaking news. She put the paper on one side and made herself some tea. No milk. She smiled sadly at the memory: ‘but it’s all right if you add extra sugar.’

  Luke came that evening. She glanced at the paper and asked softly, ‘Your friend?’ When he nodded and turned away she went on, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Luke. I know what it’s like. The disbelief, the pretence that it’s a mistake and he’ll come walking back, laughing and teasing you for being worried. And that awful moment when you know you can’t pretend any more.’

  They went out together on the boat and caught fish which they cooked on a fire in the rocks. The evening was cold and they huddled together with Mrs Carey’s shawl around them and were glad of the warmth of the fire and of each other. They both talked about their sadness and although Barbara didn’t fully understand the loss Luke had suffered, considering it far less than her own, she offered sympathy and the promise of friendship for ever.

  He was quiet, thoughtful and kind, far more gentle than the men she had been used to, apart from Bernard, and talking to him was without a moment’s unease.

  ‘It’s as though we’ve always been friends,’ she told him. ‘There’s no exploring each other’s mood and trying to avoid a word that might offend. As I think of something I can say it without fear of spoiling the moment.’

  ‘I feel the same. What good fortune it was that we came here that day, the day when you first knew about Rosita. It’s her we’ll have to thank as soon as she’s old enough.’

  The sound of trundling wheels made them leave the fire and look along the lane. Coming into view through the near darkness was Mrs Carey’s son, Richard. He was pulling the bogie on which, propped up against sacks of firewood, sat his small, sober-faced sister, Blodwen.

  ‘Mam asked me to find you and give you this,’ he said casually, as if he had walked no more than a few paces to deliver the note which he handed to her.

  ‘Richard. How did you find me?’ she asked, taking the scrap of paper.

  ‘Mam and me, we guessed you’d be here. Talks about this place a lot, she does,’ he added to Luke. He straightened the little girl on her improvised pram and made her more comfortable. Her expression didn’t change, yet Luke thought he saw a glimmer of a smile as her eyes moved to watch them.

  ‘Well,’ Richard said, ‘I’d best be off then. Mam’ll shout if I don’t get this one home and to bed soon. Needs a candle she does if she’s awake after dark, see, and you know how much they cost. Eight pence halfpenny for a box of three dozen. Damn me proper, you can buy a great big jar of jam for that or a packet of oats to last us the week.’

  ‘He’s like an old man,’ Luke whispered with a chuckle as Richard turned the bogie and began to walk away. ‘And that little Blodwen is a comedienne in the making if I’m any judge.’ He raised his voice and called, ‘Here, wouldn’t you and your sister like a drink before you set off back home? I have some biscuits too.’

  Without a word or a change of pace, Richard turned the cart in the narrow lane and came back. Ten minutes later he set off again,
with Blodwen wrapped in an extra blanket supplied by Luke.

  Barbara didn’t open the note immediately. She had only glanced briefly at the writing in the hope it was from her mother. It didn’t look like Mam’s small neat printing but hope refused to die. Perhaps Dad had written it. That must be it. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Dad’s writing. It had to be from them. Who else would be writing to her? Surely they had forgiven her by now? They couldn’t see her without a place to call home. Not with a baby due in a matter of weeks.

  She gripped the paper tightly. Convinced it was an invitation to go back home, she was startled to read that Bernard’s mother, Mrs Stock, wished to see her.

  Shaking with disappointment, she handed the note to Luke. ‘I thought, after all these weeks, that Mam and Dad might have wanted to see me, but they don’t even want to know if I’m all right.’ She spoke half in sadness, half in anger. ‘It’s Bernard’s mother who wants to see me. I called yesterday and she wouldn’t open the door. D’you think she’s had a change of heart? Could she be willing to help me after all?’ Barbara frowned. ‘Perhaps she thought about Auntie Molly Carey’s reminder of how her family is almost gone and will accept Rosita as belonging to her?’

  ‘Go carefully, Barbara,’ Luke warned. ‘Don’t let your disappointment warp your judgement. Don’t let Mrs Stock talk you into something you don’t want. It would be easy for her to play on your love for Bernard.’ He touched her arm to soften the words and added, ‘Bernard is still your love, I know that, but he’s dead. You and your daughter are what counts now. Please remember that and keep it in your mind as you listen to what she has to say. Your future is little Rosita. Promise me?’

  ‘I promise.’

  When Barbara knocked on the door of Mrs Stock’s house this time, the door opened and she was pulled swiftly inside by the small, tense woman dressed completely in black.