Swansea Summer

by Catrin Collier

  Walking purposefully up Verandah Street, he turned down the back lane. Darkness closed around him and he slowed his pace, giving his eyes time to become accustomed to the gloom. Fixing his attention on the ground, he trod carefully and didn’t raise his head until he neared Lily’s house.

  He stopped, mesmerised by the sight of her perched on the window seat of her kitchen. She was leaning against one side of the bay, her knees drawn up to her chest. He lingered, taking in every inch of her diminutive, slim figure, imprinting it, and the clothes she was wearing, on his memory. From the way the royal-blue candlewick dressing gown that she’d thrown carelessly over turquoise peddle-pusher pyjamas draped round her, to the tiny bows on the ballet-type slippers she was wearing. Her ankles were crossed and she was holding a blue and white striped breakfast cup, resting it on one knee. Her long dark hair fell to her waist, plaited loosely over one shoulder. If he’d been there he would have loosened it, run his fingers through the thick waves …

  He could almost smell the lemon-scented shampoo she used as it mingled with the delicate perfume of her skin cream and her favoured fragrance, Lily of the Valley. Feel the cool, silky texture of her skin beneath his fingertips …

  Oblivious to his presence, she continued to gaze out into the night. He caught a glimpse of someone moving in the room behind her but he only had eyes for Lily. Leaning against the garden wall, he fumbled blindly for his cigarettes, pushing one between his lips, too engrossed with her image to look for his lighter. When she finally left the seat and moved too far inside the room for him to see her, he remained staring at the window even after the light was switched off. A flicker of landing light glimmered through a bedroom door on the floor above the kitchen. His heart quickened when a lamp was lit and he realised it was her bedroom. But the curtains were closed.

  He imagined her moving around behind them: slipping off the candlewick dressing gown and hanging it on a hook on the back of the door, sitting on the bed and removing her slippers, turning back the bedclothes …

  The light went out a full five minutes before he visualised her getting into bed. The back of her house plunged into darkness, yet he remained focused on her bedroom window. He imagined her lying between crisp white linen sheets that smelled of lavender and ironing. Her lustrous black plait curled on the pillow beneath her head, her arm resting outside the blankets, her lips slightly parted as she breathed softly through her mouth …

  The sky paled, the birds began to sing and he forced himself from his reverie. Shivering, he walked the few steps to his garden gate. Some day he wouldn’t be exiled to the bottom of her garden, but sharing her bedroom, and neither of them would sleep. They would spend entire nights making love – slowly, tenderly, erotically – and they would confide their hopes, dreams and thoughts. There would be no secrets – not between them. Together they would plan their lives and in the morning they would open the curtains to the sun and begin to live out their dreams.

  ‘You and Mrs Lannon had another run-in, Lily?’ Roy asked as she ran downstairs.

  Lily checked she had everything she needed in her handbag and lifted her jacket from the hall stand. ‘She didn’t waste any time telling you.’

  ‘She knocked on my door and handed me a letter at six o’clock this morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Roy.’

  ‘So am I.’ Tying the belt on his dressing gown, he went into the kitchen. ‘Tea and toast?’

  ‘Please. All Katie and I were doing was making cocoa and sandwiches because we couldn’t sleep and she accused us of hiding the boys up here.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s convinced they weren’t here, even now.’ He cut two slices of bread and dropped them on to the grill.

  ‘It’s absurd.’

  ‘What’s absurd is me thinking it was going to work out between you and a woman like that. Norah always used to say she was the most narrow-minded creature in the street.’

  ‘Then why did you ask her to be your housekeeper?’

  ‘Because beggars can’t be choosers, love, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d take the job.’ He spooned tea into the pot. ‘Unfortunately, now we’re back where we started.’

  ‘She’s given in her notice?’

  ‘Packed her bags and moved back into her own house at seven o’clock this morning.’

  ‘Because of what I said to her last night?’

  ‘Because of what I said to her this morning when she accused you of …’

  ‘Being a tart.’ She set two cups, saucers and plates on the table.

  ‘That’s not the word she used. She will gossip about you, love.’

  ‘No one who cares about me will listen.’ She folded her jacket over the back of a chair. ‘Can Katie and I look after the house now?’

  ‘You’ll have to until I get someone else. In the meantime Mrs Hunt and Judy are moving in and I’m moving out into Mrs Hunt’s.’ He turned the toast. ‘I telephoned Joy early this morning and she agreed it was the best solution. If you and Katie were to move in with her and Judy it would look as if you’d done something wrong and I was punishing you.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘So am I but with Mrs Lannon back in her own house next door but one and watching your and Katie’s every move, and the boys living downstairs, it’s as well to have a respectable woman sleeping in the house.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry. It’s not fair on you or Mrs Hunt.’

  ‘No, it’s not, but it’s only until we can work out a better solution.’ He smiled. ‘Just don’t keep Joy awake tonight with your picnics. You know how hard she works in that hairdresser’s on Saturdays.’

  ‘How is Helen?’ John stopped the doctor as he walked down the stairs.

  ‘Much better this morning.’ The doctor looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Can I have a word, John?’

  ‘Of course.’ John opened the door to the living room. ‘Can I get you something, tea, coffee?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’ The doctor put his bag on the floor and sat on the sofa. ‘I’ve been thinking about Helen. Have you considered suggesting that she and Jack adopt a child?’

  ‘No.’ John sat in the chair opposite him. ‘There’s so much red tape involved and she and Jack are young …’

  ‘She could opt for a private adoption. I could arrange it.’

  John looked at the doctor in surprise.

  ‘We – the partners in the practice, that is – have arranged dozens over the years and all of them have worked extremely well.’

  ‘How exactly would they go about it?’ John asked cautiously.

  ‘It’s very simple. We match childless couples to pregnant women who can’t keep their child. I’ll be perfectly honest: most of the mothers are young and unmarried – some under sixteen. Terrified of the disgrace of giving birth to an illegitimate child, they don’t confide in their families or come to us until they can no longer hide their pregnancy. I have three such patients in my care at the moment. If Jack and Helen are prepared to take any baby, I can match them with a prospective mother right away. If they have a preference for a boy or girl it may take a little longer.’

  ‘You don’t want references or checks?’

  ‘How long have we known one another, John?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘More years than I care to remember.’

  ‘Quite; enough said. There will be a few expenses. We like to house the mothers in a discreet boarding house rather than a Salvation Army hostel and deliver the babies in a private clinic. It ensures privacy for the girls and better health monitoring for both the mother and the baby. You will also need the services of a solicitor. Either one of my partners or myself will become the legal guardian of the child at birth, we will arrange for it to be fostered by Helen as soon as it can leave the clinic, which will pave the way for formal adoption to take place, usually when the child is a couple of months old. In my experience the bills rarely come to more than a hundred pounds, but then’ – he smiled wryly – ‘Helen and Jack will be left wit
h the expense of bringing up the child. Naturally, each party will remain completely anonymous to the other.’

  ‘What about an arrangement fee?’

  ‘There is none.’ The doctor rose to his feet.

  ‘You do this for nothing?’

  ‘To assuage my conscience. When I was training I spent six months working on a gynaecological ward in Balham. We averaged between ten and twelve deaths a month from backstreet abortions on women desperate enough to risk their health and their lives to rid themselves of a child and that was without all the women who became sterile, or crippled. Twenty years on it’s no better. There’s four women dying in Swansea Hospital right this minute from septicaemia introduced by knitting needles and Omo douches. And women will continue to die until we change the law.’

  ‘Legalise abortion!’ John was shocked by the thought.

  ‘You’d rather women continued to die?’ He tipped his hat as he walked to his car. ‘Let me know what Helen and Jack decide.’

  ‘You look ill …’

  ‘It’s probably something I ate at the dinner dance last night,’ Judy lied. ‘The chicken tasted funny.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have eaten it,’ Joy lectured.

  ‘I didn’t, after the first bite.’ Judy picked up her handbag. ‘I have to get to the shop.’

  ‘You can’t work if you’re ill,’ Joy admonished.

  ‘The salon’s only just opened. How many customers do you think I’ll keep if I don’t open on a fully booked Saturday?’

  ‘You have to eat something,’ Joy shouted as Judy ran down the passage.

  ‘I’ll grab something on the way.’

  Joy sighed as she poured herself a second cup of tea. She had hoped that Judy’s date with Adam would go some way to help her forget Brian, but if anything, Judy looked more miserable than the day he’d left for London.

  ‘No! No! No!’

  Terrified that Helen was about to become hysterical again, Jack lifted the breakfast tray he’d brought up for her from the bed and tried to hold her in an attempt to calm her down but she thrust him away.

  ‘I lost my baby!’ she screamed at her father. ‘Don’t you understand, I lost my baby, a child that would have been my son and your grandson. It’s not like I lost a purse or a handbag. You can’t just go out and buy me a replacement …’

  ‘Your father was only trying to help us, sweetheart.’ Jack fought to keep his own feelings in check lest he add to Helen’s misery.

  ‘Stop it!’ Helen glared at him. ‘I don’t want the two of you trying to make me feel better. I don’t want to feel better, I want to … I want to …’ As she dissolved into tears, Jack folded his arms round her, pulling her even closer, while she fought to push him away. Finally she laid her head on his shoulder and shuddered in paroxysms of grief as great rasping sobs tore from her throat.

  John looked helplessly at Jack. ‘I’m sorry. I only wanted to help …’

  ‘I know, Mr Griffiths, and thank you for trying.’

  Turning aside, John stole from the room and closed the door softly behind him. The only consolation he could draw from the tragedy that had befallen his daughter was the remarkable strength Jack had found to handle it. He just hoped Helen would be able to cope when she found herself alone.

  ‘Your father meant well, sweetheart.’ Jack wiped the tears from Helen’s eyes and brushed her hair away from her face.

  ‘I know … it’s just that …’ she faltered as she looked up at him.

  ‘I’m going away, you need to get your strength back and although somewhere in the future there’ll be the right baby, now is not the perfect time for us to become a family.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ she asked seriously.

  ‘That there’ll be the right baby for us one day? Yes.’ Leaning against the headboard, he cradled her in his arms. ‘It wasn’t just you who lost the baby, sweetheart, it was us. And I meant what I said in the hospital: much as I wanted the baby, I want and need you more. I couldn’t live without you.’

  ‘But you’re going to have to and I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next two years …’

  ‘There’ll be leaves and letters. Martin said it goes really quickly.’

  ‘And you believe him.’ She snuggled down on his chest.

  ‘Not right now, I don’t. But we’ll get through it somehow.’

  ‘I do love you,’ she said earnestly.

  ‘And I love you. Don’t be too hard on your father. He thought he was doing the right thing in talking to the doctor and it’s good to know that when I finish in the army we’ll be able to adopt a baby if we want to.’

  ‘“If we want to” makes it sound as if you don’t,’ she murmured hesitantly.

  ‘I want time alone with you first.’ He stroked her arm.

  ‘You wouldn’t have had that if I hadn’t lost the baby.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have,’ he agreed. ‘But as you said to your father, we can’t replace our baby with another. To us he was very real even though he wasn’t born. There may be others but there’ll never be the one we talked about.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Jack, what I said about you being a Borstal boy …’

  ‘Was true.’

  ‘I still shouldn’t have said it.’

  ‘Forget it, sweetheart.’

  ‘I wish I could. You’ve been so wonderful and I’ve been so horrible. And the doctor said we can’t even make love and that’s so important to a man …’

  ‘It’s not to a woman?’ he interrupted apprehensively.

  ‘Of course it is. It’s just that I feel so weak and helpless and …’

  ‘Cry it out, sweetheart.’ He reached for his handkerchief as her tears soaked his shirt, grateful that this time they were silent. There had to be an end to grief, he only wished it were in sight.

  ‘Lily, how thoughtful! I take it they’re for Helen.’ Joe opened the front door of his father’s house on Saturday afternoon to find her standing on the step holding a bunch of anemones.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Better, or so Jack says,’ he hedged. He had heard his sister crying early that morning but since then the house had been relatively silent and he had been too much of a coward to go near her, or do more than enquire how she was when Jack came downstairs at intervals to fetch food and drink. He stepped back. ‘Do come in.’

  ‘It’s time for another coffee.’ Robin left the dining room carrying two mugs. ‘Hello, gorgeous Lily.’ He raised his eyebrows as Lily turned her back to him so Joe could help her off with her jacket.

  ‘Hello, Robin,’ she answered, as Joe hung her coat on the hall stand.

  ‘Long time no see.’

  ‘Robin and I are studying,’ Joe interrupted, giving Robin a hard look in the hope of warning him off making any more embarrassing comments.

  ‘Don’t let me disturb you.’ She retrieved the flowers Joe had laid on the stairs.

  ‘We appear to be taking a break.’ Robin beamed as he leaned against the passage wall.

  ‘Weren’t you making coffee?’ Joe reminded him.

  Robin looked down at the mugs he was holding. ‘So I was. Would you like a cup, Lily?’

  ‘No, thank you, I only called to see Helen.’

  ‘Helen and I thought we heard your voice.’ Jack looked down at her from the landing.

  ‘Can I come up?’ She smiled at Jack with genuine pleasure and Joe’s heartbeat quickened. If only she would smile at him again that way.

  ‘Do. Helen will be pleased to see you. I’m making tea. Would you like a cup?’ He ran down the stairs.

  ‘I’d love one, thank you.’

  ‘You’ll let Jack make you tea but you won’t let me make you coffee,’ Robin reproached her.

  ‘You’re busy studying.’

  As Jack followed Robin into the kitchen, Joe seized his opportunity. ‘Are you going to the Pier tonight, Lily?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about next week?’ he pressed.

&nbs
p; ‘I have no idea what I’ll be doing.’

  ‘We could go for another walk …’

  ‘Martin and I have made plans for next week, Joe. If you’ll excuse me, I can’t wait to see Helen.’ Turning, she ran up the stairs.

  ‘They’re lovely, I’ll get Jack to put them in water.’ Helen laid the flowers Lily had given her on her pillow.

  ‘I can do it.’ Lily picked them up.

  ‘No, stay and talk to me.’ Helen grabbed her friend’s hand. ‘I feel as though I haven’t spoken to you or Katie in years. What’s the gossip?’

  ‘I’m not sure where to start.’ Lily lifted the dressing-table stool close to the bed. Even if she’d been at liberty to do so, she could hardly begin by telling Helen that Katie had fallen in love with her father and was leaving the warehouse, or Judy hadn’t heard a word from Brian since he left. ‘Uncle Roy and Mrs Hunt have fixed the date for the second Saturday in July,’ she began, deciding it was the safest topic.

  ‘Are we all invited to the wedding?’

  ‘I think so. Mrs Hunt’s having a small reception in her house afterwards.’

  ‘That will be nice.’ Helen thought for a moment. ‘Are they going to live in your house?’

  ‘No. Uncle Roy’s moving in with Mrs Hunt.’

  ‘So you and Katie are staying in your house with Mrs Lannon.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Helen raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I quarrelled with her.’

  ‘You quarrelled with Mrs Lannon!’

  Jack heard Helen cry out as he carried a tray up the stairs. He hurried forward, then realised it was all right. Helen was actually laughing for the first time since she had left hospital. ‘What’s funny?’ He set down the tray on the dressing table.

  ‘Helen thinks it hilarious that Katie and I annoyed Mrs Lannon so much she moved out of my uncle’s house this morning.’