‘Oh, him. He’s always around here, going in through the back gate and thinking no one will see. Furtive he looks to me. That tells you something, eh?’ The woman nodded knowingly.
Eirlys was embarrassed, understanding the insinuations. ‘Then it couldn’t have been my father. He has no business around here.’
‘You can hardly make a mistake with that great lump of plaster on his leg, can you? Your father you say?’
‘No, no. It wasn’t him. Too tall,’ she said, inventing any reason to convince the woman she was wrong. She was probably making it all up, Eirlys decided; she looked the sort to enjoy spreading gossip. True or untrue, it probably didn’t make any difference.
She hurried away, working hard to convince herself she had been wrong. Then she sighed with relief; if it had been her father he must have been calling on Johnny. Probably returning the scarf Johnny left a few days ago.
* * *
Morgan went to work on the bus and got off at the factory. They were pretty lenient about his timekeeping since his accident. He only had to tell them he had a hospital appointment and they didn’t ask for proof.
He worked the last hours of his shift and left the factory with the rest. Going straight home he was relieved when Annie was there. After the shock of Irene’s announcement he needed the ordinariness of home.
Throughout the late evening, after he had eaten the snack she had prepared for him, he was solicitous, making tea for them and bringing in the tin of biscuits, offering the last of the chocolate ones to her, raking out the fire before being asked, and even going out and, in the thin beam of a torch, bringing in firewood for the next morning in case there wasn’t enough already dry. All the time Irene’s words echoed around in his head. ‘Our baby, Morgan. Our baby.’
How could he tell Annie he had been carrying on with another woman? She didn’t deserve it, she hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, compared with wives of friends, he had been very fortunate, apart from not having a second child. He felt a leap of guilt. That would be another devastating blow for her, another woman bearing the child she couldn’t have. His child.
Irene was right about one thing, if they decided to stay together they would have to leave St David’s Well. The humiliation and embarrassment would be more than he could cope with. He looked at his wife, hard-working and strong, fierce-looking at times, gentle at others, with a full, generous figure, still very attractive. She was working away at the sock she was knitting, concentrating on turning the heel, counting stitches, frowning slightly. Such an ordinary task, such an ordinary scene, but one to which he might have to say goodbye.
A letter came for him the next morning and, seeing the scrawled writing, he took it from a curious Eirlys and stuffed it into his pocket. It wasn’t until Annie had gone to the baker’s shop and Eirlys had left for the office that he looked at it, staring at it for a long time before daring to open it. He had never seen Irene’s writing, but knew in his heart that she had written it.
Surely it was good news. It had to be. She had been mistaken, she had miscounted the days, it was a false alarm. Several of his friends had told him about those.
In trepidation he tore off the top of the envelope and unfolded the single page. The writing, large and untidy, swam before his eyes.
‘If you don’t help me I will kill myself,’ it said.
* * *
Irene sat in the doctor’s surgery. She was smiling slightly, her eyes glowing with an inner happiness. This was a wonderful thing to have happened. Now she and Morgan would be together. She could leave the boring Bleddyn with his fastidious routines and organised life. She could relax and enjoy herself with the easy-going Morgan. When she considered how they would live she promised herself that she would find work and help pay the bills. That was something she would never do for Bleddyn. He insisted that the only way to help was to work on the sands in the family business and the family made it clear they disapproved of her because she had always refused. She would show them how wrong they had been about her all these years. She wasn’t sick or helpless, just bored.
The doctor reached for his pad when he saw her. ‘More tablets, Mrs Castle?’ he asked.
‘Not this time, Doctor. I think it’s something far more interesting.’ She bowed her head shyly and said, ‘I think I am going to have another child.’
To her consternation the doctor didn’t gasp and tell her it was wonderful and exciting, or jump up and shake her hand and congratulate her. Instead he asked, ‘How old are you now, Mrs Castle?’
‘Old enough not to expect such a wonderful gift.’
‘I make it forty-four. A little old for babies.’
After asking a lot of questions, he examined her, then sat down again behind his desk. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no sign of a pregnancy. I think you might be starting the menopause. The change,’ he added when she looked puzzled. ‘A little early I agree, but we’re all made differently, and there have been other patients of mine who have had a similar experience.’
Irene was stunned. All the excitement, the hope of a fresh new life, the thrill of being a mother again, the attention, the pride, it was all gone in those few casually spoken words.
The doctor could see she was upset and added comfortingly, ‘Mrs Castle, you must realise that nature is kind not to allow us to have babies when we lack the energy to look after them properly. Of course, it might not be the change; what you are experiencing could be due to some other cause, and we will investigate further. Either way, you can relax and know you won’t have to face motherhood again. What a relief that must be.’
He wrote on his pad, giving her a prescription for her usual pills, and stood as a signal that her time was up. She said nothing, and seemed unable to rouse herself and leave his office. With a hand under her arm he coaxed her out of her chair. ‘You can sit in the waiting room for a while if you feel tired. Having surprising news sometimes has that effect. It will wear off soon and you will be relieved. Much the best result after your worries, Mrs Castle.’
He emphasised that there being no baby was good news, but Irene hardly heard. She had taken in nothing since being told she was experiencing the change of life. She sat in the waiting room and stared at the dull walls. She was old, past child-bearing age, past the age when she could look ahead with hope. She was old, old, old. Her dreams were no longer possible. Her best years were behind her.
Mrs Grainer sat in a chair waiting her turn to see the doctor and she spoke to Irene, but received no response.
* * *
Morgan didn’t start work that day until two p.m., and he went in search of Irene. He had hardly slept the previous night, worrying about what had happened. Since their talk, every knock at the door threw him into a panic, convinced she had come to tell Annie about their affair. Somehow he had to persuade her to wait, do nothing until they were sure. When she had spoken to him, she had not seen a doctor and it was on this that he based his prayers.
She wasn’t at the house on Brook Lane and, finding Bleddyn there on his day off, he made some excuse about wanting Irene to help with the tea-making at the fire-watching station. Bleddyn didn’t think it was worth the trouble of asking her. ‘She won’t be keen to help, but I don’t know where she is anyway.’ He was shaking a large mat out in the garden and seemed a bit impatient at being interrupted. ‘She walks around on her own for hours and I never know where she’s been. Ill she is, you know that, don’t you? I’ve given up trying to find out how she fills her time.’
‘Must be awful for her,’ Morgan said sympathetically.
‘Awful for all of us,’ Bleddyn replied shortly. ‘You might try the shops, although shopping is something she rarely does, leaves it to me she does. Like everything else.’
Morgan’s leg was aching but he stomped along the main street looking for her in the shops without much hope of finding her. At one o’clock he gave up and went home to join Annie and Eirlys for eggs on toast before going to the factory.
*
* *
Bleddyn didn’t see Irene before leaving for the evening shift at the chip shop. He had spent his time off from the lunchtime session doing work that Irene could reasonably be expected to do and he was tired and irritable.
As the time came for him to leave the house, he was also concerned. He didn’t like her going out after dark, although as he worked most evenings he could never be sure she was in as she promised to be. He left a note telling her that there was stew in the saucepan for her to heat, called at the hardware shop and told Johnny to make sure she ate it, and went to open up. Something was worrying him and he couldn’t understand what it was.
Irene often stayed out until he was at the shop, and he didn’t normally worry, but not having seen her all day and being told by Mrs Grainer that she had been to see the doctor set alarm bells ringing. At nine o’clock, unable to wait any longer, he left the assistant in charge and ran home. The house was empty.
He searched through the rooms looking for something – he knew not what – to give him a clue. Then he realised what had been worrying him. Her coat with the fur collar, her only winter coat, was on the back of the door. She was out in the harshness of the January night insufficiently dressed.
He ran to Annie and Morgan’s hoping to find Johnny there. Gathering up several of the neighbours, Bleddyn and Johnny began to plan their route to search the streets. ‘She’s done this before,’ Bleddyn told them as they each collected a blanket and some torches.
Eirlys looked at Johnny and said accusingly, ‘You didn’t believe me when I told you I saw her in the fields without a coat.’
‘Sorry; I knew you weren’t imagining it. I saw her myself a while later and brought her home wrapped in my overcoat. I should have told you, but I try to pretend it isn’t true sometimes. She’s ill and I can’t cope with it.’
‘You should have told me, Johnny.’
‘Forget that now, let’s just find her.’
‘I’ll go to your house and wait, in case she turns up,’ she offered.
* * *
Morgan came in from work at ten, and was sent around to the ARP centre to ask the wardens to look out for Irene. Everything possible had been done, apart from telling the police, and Bleddyn didn’t want to do that until they had tried to find her themselves. ‘The less fuss for her to deal with the better,’ he explained. He didn’t admit to his fear that another result of police involvement might be her being taken away for treatment in the mental hospital, his greatest dread.
* * *
Irene had been given a lift to the outskirts of the town and had walked through the fields towards the caravan. She had left her coat at home and was shivering, dressed only in a black dress and a black cardigan.
She had stood perfectly still against the hedge when Bleddyn and Morgan passed her, stabbing the darkness with their torches and calling her name. The icy cold air had made her shake uncontrollably, but she had smiled as their voices faded away from her.
She sat in the caravan for a while, wrapped in the blankets smelling of mildew, seeking warmth and comfort from the memories it revived. With one of the blankets around her she walked over the now hard and brittle grass to the road and, throwing the blanket away, stopped a van and begged a lift.
The young couple inside were on a visit to the girl’s parents and they chatted amiably but without getting much response from Irene. Thanking them for the lift, she got out of the van and went to a lorry park where there was a café, which she had visited several times in the past. It was closed.
A group of lorry drivers were huddled in a corner sharing hot drinks from their flasks and she drank gratefully from one and accepted a lift into the next town. She moved from one town to another and finally, at two a.m., she was standing near the entrance to the docks of a town some thirty miles away from St David’s Well.
She knew that the access to the dock area would be heavily guarded, but dressed in dark clothes and being small she thought she might succeed in getting past the soldiers who stood, shuffling their feet, changing position, clearly bored and impatient for their shift to end.
Her chance came when the guard changed and at the same time challenged a workman going to deal with a consignment of food just arriving at the dockside. She slipped easily under the wire and slid out on the other side. She felt a chuckle swell and fill her throat. It was a daring game she was playing, outwitting the soldiers who were armed with guns.
Slowly she made her way to the very edge of the dock. It took her almost an hour but instead of becoming tired, she felt more awake with every minute that passed. She was clever, level-headed, resourceful, talented, all the attributes Bleddyn accused her of lacking. She would succeed without anyone even trying to stop her.
* * *
The search continued in St David’s Well, hampered by the intense darkness. Once they thought they had found Irene, and the call that went around the countryside and the subsequent relief was felt by everyone.
It turned out to be a female tramp who, when woken, issued a stream of abuse that startled Johnny and Taff, then reduced them to laughter as they imagined their quiet mother knowing such words.
* * *
Irene sat near a bollard for a while thinking about the cheerful decorations still covering shop windows and showing at the windows of houses. Tawdry they were, she thought. A pathetic attempt to make Christmas a special time when it was nothing more than an excuse to drink and eat more than you needed. She tried to remember Christmases when the boys were small, but then, as now, she had backed away from any fun. She blamed Bleddyn. The Castle family tried too hard and made it artificial. Yes, Bleddyn was to blame. And now Morgan was letting her down too. No baby, but he didn’t know that. He had refused to help her. There was no one anywhere who cared for her.
There was little light but she could see the water, moving sluggishly, greasy and looking very cold. The surface was several feet below where she was sitting. If she went in there, she would not be able to get back out. She vaguely wondered whether the soldiers would be punished for allowing her to reach the dockside. She was curious but not concerned.
* * *
At two o’clock, as Irene was crawling through the wire towards the dockside, Huw called his brother and insisted on informing the police. ‘Damn it all, Bleddyn, we might be talking about her life here!’ he said in exasperation.
Bleddyn agreed and then, as was often the case, their reaction made him wish he had spoken to them earlier.
At once teams were sent out and a series of signals arranged to report if Irene was found or any clues or ideas needed to be shared. The streets of the town and the fields surrounding became unusually busy and activity increased as the night wore on.
‘She might have been wandering and now the cold might have made her try and find a place to sleep. We have to find her before her body temperature falls too low,’ one of the officers told them. Ignoring the fields, they concentrated their searches on the streets near her home. Frustrated by the lack of light, thin torch beams pricked the darkness in alleyways and lanes and on waste ground again and again. People who now worked in close proximity called to each other as the intensive search gathered momentum.
Bleddyn and Huw searched together and they knocked on the door of anyone who might know Irene to ask for news, but no one had seen her. Morgan sneaked off to see if she had gone to their caravan, but the air of neglect and the stale smell that greeted him made him doubt whether the place had been used that day. In the darkness and his melancholy mood he didn’t notice the absence of one of the blankets. He told the police about the caravan and explained that it was a place where Irene liked to spend time. He told them he had searched it and thought it had not been recently opened.
* * *
Irene became aware of how cold she was. Her whole body was stiff, there was no feeling in her feet and her hands just wouldn’t move. She rubbed her arms with her hands once or twice, to try to bring life back. She soon gave up and accepted the letharg
ic sensation of non-feeling like a friend. A deep sadness overwhelmed her and she slipped gently into the water, momentarily imagining that it was warmer than the air.
Eight
In the mortuary chapel, Bleddyn sat and stared at the body of his wife and wondered what had caused her to be so unhappy that she couldn’t face another day.
‘I failed her,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what else I could have done.’
Johnny and Taff were with him, and Taff’s wife Evelyn was waiting outside the room.
Taff said, ‘She was ill, Dad, you can’t blame yourself for this.’
‘But I do. I should have cared for her more. I worked long hours, specially in the summer, and she was left on her own day after day.’
‘I can’t remember a time when she was not ill,’ Taff said. ‘We were always making excuses for her. How can this be your fault?’
Johnny asked, ‘Did you know how ill she was?’
‘I learned recently that she was a difficult and confused child and was suicidal when she was a very young woman, besides the attempts I knew about.’
‘I mean, when you married her, did you know about the depression? Her strange moods? The family must have known. Did they tell you?’
Bleddyn shook his head. ‘No, I had no idea. They kept it from me.’
‘If you had known, would you still have married her?’ Taff asked.
Bleddyn stared into space but did not reply.
Johnny wasn’t a man to show his emotions easily, certainly not within his family, but he had a strong impulse to hug his father.
* * *
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 18