‘Right.’ She smiled. ‘And thank you.’
Marged and Huw went back with her later that day to help her clear her belongings from the rooms she had shared with her sick father. Marged noticed the girl’s efforts at keeping the place clean, seeing the attempts at washing the black mildew from the walls and the well-scrubbed floors in the part of the house they used. She saw the clean curtains which hid the shelves where food was kept and the old, battered saucepans gleaming with constant care.
Everywhere there was dust. Windows didn’t fit and cloth had been ineffectually stuffed around the sides to keep the weather at bay. The plaster was blown, and was bulging away from the walls and in many places trickling down as they watched. Gaslight fittings were hanging precariously and it was obvious that the only light, apart from one or two places, would have been from candles.
‘Eynon said we were lucky the place hadn’t blown up with us in it,’ Alice said as she saw the horror on their faces.
‘I only wish we’d known before,’ Huw said gruffly. ‘Damn it all, Marged, no one should live like this.’
‘I couldn’t have moved out before. I wouldn’t have been able to leave Dad.’
‘He’s safe now and he’ll have proper care.’ Marged hugged the solemn girl. ‘Look after you, we will, until our Eynon comes home.’
* * *
At the RAF camp, Janet was free to leave camp once the work was finished, although it was usually after nine thirty before everything was cleared away and the floors scrubbed, and the place was as spotless as the manager demanded. There was often a dance held locally and whenever she could. Janet would go. The girls in the NAAFI canteen became friends and usually travelled together, sometimes cadging a lift from one of the lorries when there were no officers around: sometimes there was a bus and on other occasions they walked.
Going into the village hall where the local dances were regularly held, the first person she saw one night was Ken.
‘I was hoping you’d come,’ he said as casually as when they met in St David’s Well. He led her on to the floor where the record was playing a polka to which everyone was dancing in a very exaggerated and humorous manner. The mood was one of highly charged excitement and before their first dance was over they were laughing and having fun with the rest. At first they were too breathless to speak. They stared at each other as though unable to believe they were there together.
Another record began, this time the slower Jerome Kern’s ‘All The Things You Are’, and at once the mood changed, became quieter as the dancers sang the words dedicating them to their partners. Janet and Ken stared at each other: neither had said more than a few words. There didn’t seem the need.
One of her friends came to find her and dragged her to the stage, where she sang, this time looking at Ken and singing to him.
The last waltz played, the lights were lowered and the murmur of softly whispered promises and words of love were spoken. As the crowd dispersed. Janet began to look for the rest of the girls who had come with her.
‘I have to go, there’s a lorry promised us a lift.’ she said. But Ken led her away from the dark shapes issuing out of the doorway, to where a group of trees promised privacy, although in the darkness of the night it was hardly necessary, just the lovers’ need for solitude. He kissed her deeply and with longing. She had no will to resist even though she knew she had no right to be so happy with a man who belonged to someone else.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked, knowing it was no coincidence that had brought them together.
‘It doesn’t matter. Why did you leave without telling me or keeping in touch?’
‘You know why.’
‘Because you feel the same as me, that I shouldn’t have married Eirlys?’
‘Forget it, Ken. You did marry her and you and I shouldn’t be talking like this.’
‘Write to me, Janet. Keep in touch, then we can meet sometimes, see if our feelings fade or whether it isn’t too late to do something about it.’
‘No, Ken. Please, stay out of my life. I left St David’s Well because I wanted to leave you. Don’t you understand? I don’t want this. I don’t want to see you again.’
‘Janet?’ a voice called. ‘Hurry up or we’ll have to walk back!’
‘Run more like,’ her friend Elen’s voice added.
Pushing him away she ran to where the lorry driver was revving the engine impatiently. With a foot on the tailboard, she raised her hands and was pulled up, then she turned to help others. In the unlit back of the vehicle, laughing as the lorry lurched and toppled them against each other, they began to sing popular choruses. She didn’t join in and hoped no one would see her tears.
The lumbering movement of the lorry and sitting sideways made her feel sick and she still felt a bit queasy the following morning. It would be a good excuse to miss a few dances, pretending that the travel upset her.
Letters arrived from Ken and at first she didn’t answer them, determined that having left home she had to go through with her decision to give Eirlys and Ken’s marriage a chance. One she read over and over. He had made up his mind, he knew where his happiness lay and he wanted to divorce Eirlys and marry her. It was too late, she couldn’t agree. Loving and losing seemed to be her fate.
She stayed in camp when her friends went to the next few dances, hoping that if Ken were there he would realise she had meant what she had said in reply.
A few days later she wrote again and told him news he didn’t want to hear.
* * *
Alice settled happily into Marged and Huw’s home. For Lilly it was an advantage having the girl who was so anxious to become part of the family so conveniently near and anxious to be her friend. There was a family of which she wanted to become a part too. She made use of Alice as a babysitter when she went to see Sam’s father to talk about weddings.
A letter from Sam told her he was being sent overseas. She showed it to her parents. He explained about his embarkation leave and asked her to marry him.
‘And what will your answer be?’ Marged asked, her fingers tightly crossed.
Lilly surprised them all by saying. ‘I’m getting married next Saturday. And before you start fussing, it’s already booked.’
At once Marged began to talk about food.
‘Oh forget all that, Mam!’ Lilly spoke sharply. ‘We don’t want any fuss. In fact, we’d like to go to the register office and not tell a soul.’
‘Lilly, love, don’t do that. People will—’ Marged was about to say that tongues would wag, people would suspect the reason for haste was a baby on the way. But with an illegitimate child already, she doubted whether Lilly would be concerned about gossip.
‘All right, tell us where and when and we’ll gather the family and make it a small celebration. But I hope our Eynon gives us the chance of a proper do. We need a good knees-up and that’s a fact.’
‘Next Saturday at three o’clock. We’ll meet you here.’
‘You mean here, at home?’
‘Right here in this room. Right?’
‘So we can go together to the register office you mean?’
‘We’ll all meet here, Mam.’
With that, Marged had to be content.
Hannah made a coat and hat for baby Phyllis, Huw booked cars to take the family to the register office and back again. Marged raided the Christmas decorations for silver balls, with which she made table decorations with the addition of some ribbons.
No one was sure what to buy for a wedding present. Marged and Huw presumed that, until the war ended, Lilly would continue to stay at home, sharing her room with Sam when he came on leave.
‘Cash would be best,’ Huw said. ‘Then they can save for when they get a place of their own.’
The news spread and Eirlys’s gift shop supplied many of the congratulation cards made by Hannah, to mark the occasion. Marged spent all her clothing coupons and Huw’s on underwear to give Lilly a decent trousseau, and found a suitable dress and coa
t in a second-hand shop for herself. Ignoring Lilly’s insistence that a sit-down meal was unnecessary. Marged went to see Bernard Gregory and managed to buy two chickens with which she planned a roast dinner for the fifteen or so guests she expected.
Amid the shoal of wedding day cards and good wishes that arrived by every post, there was a letter telling them that Eynon was missing in action. Marged stared at it as though willing it to disappear. When she showed it to Huw and later to Bleddyn, they decided that they would say nothing until after the wedding.
‘A small affair this wedding is anyway and it would be utterly miserable if we announced this. Our Lilly deserves a happy day at least,’ Marged sobbed as she read the message for the fifth time.
‘We’ll have to tell Alice, mind,’ Huw said in a choked voice. ‘Can’t just blurt it out without warning her, can we?’
To their surprise, Alice took the news calmly. ‘I know he’s safe,’ she insisted. But whether she believed it or was trying to cope in her own way, they couldn’t decide.
Eirlys was invited to call at the house at three o’clock on Saturday 14 March, to expect a meal but not to refer to it as a wedding breakfast.
‘You know our Lilly, awkward is her middle name. Says she and Sam don’t want a fuss. I ask you, how can you expect to get married and not have a bit of a fuss?’
‘Perhaps Sam is a bit shy.’ Eirlys suggested. ‘He hasn’t had the chance to get to know you very well. Being in the army most of the time he and Lilly have been friends.’
‘Maybe that’s it. Well, he’ll soon learn that you can’t belong to this family and not enjoy a good party!’
‘Where are they going to live?’
‘She’s that vague you’d never believe. I presume she’ll want to live here until Sam gets out of the forces. She can hardly do otherwise, can she?’
Eirlys gave her the neatly parcelled cushions she had made as a wedding gift. ‘Tell her that if the colours aren’t what she likes I’ll change them.’
‘Thank you, Eirlys. She’ll be thrilled for sure.’
Eirlys smiled. It was hard to imagine Lilly excited over anything as mundane as two cushions!
Guests began to arrive at two thirty and Lilly was nowhere to be found. Huw, looking distinctly uncomfortable in a suit, declared that if she didn’t show soon he was going to change into a sports jacket and damn the conventions.
‘You’ll suffer like the rest of us,’ Marged warned. ‘How d’you think I feel in second-hand shoes that are a half size too small?’
‘This collar’s so stiff with starch it’s threatening to cut my throat and how smart would that look with blood all over the place, eh?’
At five minutes past three the door opened and Lilly walked in with Sam’s father. She carried a small posy of flowers and wore a hat with fresh flowers sewn on to the brim. Marged had to admit that her daughter looked lovely for her wedding.
‘Come on then, get into the cars, we’re late as it is,’ Marged said, swallowing tears of emotion and pride.
‘We aren’t going anywhere, Mam,’ Lilly said. Taking Sam’s father’s arm, she said, ‘Sam senior and I were married half an hour ago.’
Twelve
Marged and Huw pretended that the wedding was a happy joke and encouraged the other guests to think the same. Deep inside, hidden by their smiles, they felt humiliated. Marrying a man the same age as her father would have been difficult enough to explain, but to marry him secretly, while giving everyone the impression she was going to marry the son, made it impossible. How could they face people, knowing they were talking about them, laughing at their embarrassment?
The party atmosphere was strained, only Lilly seeming unaffected by her announcement. The food was excellent but no one tasted it; they were all wishing the occasion was over and they could leave. There was the threat of an approaching row in the air that no one wanted to witness.
Ken sat next to Eirlys wishing he were a hundred miles away, with Janet. A letter had arrived that morning and he had taken it from the postman without Eirlys seeing it, the handwriting telling him it was from Janet. It was unopened and he hoped it was an answer to his own, telling her he wanted to divorce Eirlys and marry her.
As the talk went on around him he fingered the letter, wanting to read it but unable to get away from Eirlys. He needed privacy, a pleasant place and the time to relish what he hoped was the promise of a new beginning, a happy future.
‘I do think Mrs Denver should have told them – you know – what was going on,’ Eirlys whispered.
‘Going on?’ he said, half hearing what she was telling him and alarm stiffening his jaw. ‘What’s going on?’
She pointed at Mrs Denver, who had apparently been present at the marriage. The poor woman looked close to tears. She was trying to help Marged as the meal progressed, hovering as though waiting for an opportunity to explain her involvement, but Marged didn’t want to hear. Every time the older woman opened her mouth to speak, Marged pushed her angrily aside. Why hadn’t she told them what Lilly planned? How could she condone such a wicked plan?
Everyone was trying to make conversation but trying to avoid certain subjects made it hazardous. The present wedding was taboo, the weddings of others were no better, and the war, with the fall of Singapore and ferocious bombing raids of Germany which would certainly bring reprisals, was too gloomy to mention.
Marged and Huw were thinking about how they had protected their daughter’s special day by keeping to themselves their worry about Eynon, and unanimously they agreed it was no longer necessary. Why should they pretend everything was a huge joke when their son was somewhere fighting for his life?
As they were finishing the wedding cake and holding up their glasses for the toast, Huw stood up and instead of wishing the couple a life of happiness, he said solemnly, ‘We weren’t going to mention this today, out of consideration for Lilly and her – husband. But Marged and I heard a few days ago that our younger son, Eynon, is missing in action somewhere in France.’
There was a gasp of horror that brought tears to Marged’s eyes. Lilly’s hands flew to her face and Ronnie hugged Olive as the words were spoken. Beth and Peter held hands, looking at each other. Peter knew better than anyone the danger Eynon faced if he were behind enemy lines.
‘Do we know any more, Dad?’ Ronnie asked, his voice shaking.
‘Only that he’s missing, son. We didn’t even know he was over there. So that’s what I want us to drink to. That wherever he is, our Eynon is safe.’
The toast to the happy couple seemed unimportant after that.
Peter and Beth talked together in low tones, Beth asking him if he could somehow find out where her brother was.
‘I’ll try,’ he promised, ‘but I’m no longer in the field and it’s difficult. Secrecy is imperative to save lives.’
In the absence of a best man, the other witness being a neighbour who hadn’t been invited to the wedding breakfast, Sam stood up and said a few brief sentences. He promised to look after Lilly and Phyllis, and told them all how proud and happy she had made him by becoming his wife. Then he asked that their prayers would be for the safe return of Eynon, whom he had never met, but hoped to meet very soon.
Ken seemed to have distanced himself from the atmosphere surrounding the newly-weds. Whispered conversations went on around the table, cake and drinks were consumed, and he stared into space unaware of anything. When Eirlys spoke to him he hardly seemed to hear. His answers were brief and vague.
‘Wake up, darling,’ Eirlys said, laughing. ‘You don’t seem to be with us at all. Writing a tune in your head, are you?’
He chose a moment when Eirlys was talking to Beth to slip away into the garden, where primroses crowded under the bushes, their buds filled with promise. Leaf-buds were bursting on the trees in which birds sang melodiously, creating a cheerful scene. He opened the letter and stared at the page for a long time without moving.
Eirlys was commiserating with others on the worrying news
about Eynon and didn’t notice his absence or, on his return, the look of concentration in his eyes, a brightness that hadn’t been there before.
When the meal and the somewhat empty toasts were over and people began to leave, Marged let her guard slip and to Mrs Denver, she hissed, ‘You knew about this and didn’t tell us.’
‘I didn’t know.’ The woman was tearful. ‘I arrived at the register office early and looked for the family. Puzzled I was when there wasn’t a sign of any of you. I didn’t know Lilly had given you the wrong time, and I didn’t know about Sam senior until they walked in.’
‘Rubbish! You must have known. You must have realised the discrepancy in the time.’
‘I had no idea. When Lilly and Sam’s father came, I looked around for Sam, and Lilly said, “He’s here, meet my future husband. Sam.” That’s the first I knew. Went cold I did. I thought of you and the shock it would be but it was too late for me to tell you, or even warn you. I’m so sorry. I was there as a witness and I’m ashamed. I just hope they’ll be happy, and I can still see little Phyllis.’
Marged didn’t believe her. It was better not to: she had to have someone to blame.
‘I don’t think much of Sam for doing this to us,’ Huw muttered as Sam waved goodbye. He was carrying baby Phyllis, with Lilly hanging devotedly on his arm. ‘Not much of a man to agree to such a cruel joke.’
‘Our Lilly can be very persuasive, mind,’ Marged admitted sadly.
‘The only way to deal with it is to pretend it was a huge joke,’ she said as Ronnie and Olive tried to comfort her later that evening. ‘A big huge joke, that’s what it was, and Huw and I were in on it, sharing it with her.’
Over the next few days, she told the story with great exaggeration to everyone she met, making sure she got her version in first as often as she could. Huw did the same, and it was only when they were alone that they said what they really thought of their daughter and her new husband. None of it was polite.
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