by Janet Tanner
‘We stopped to look at the Mill,’ Barbara said.
‘Whatever for? At this time of night!’ Amy got up abruptly passing a hand through her bubbly fair hair. She suddenly looked very tired. ‘Do you two want cocoa? I put enough milk on for you. Though I expect Huw is about ready for bed if you’re not, Barbara. What with his long journey and after all he’s been through …’
‘It’s all right. I’m used to late nights,’ Huw said.
‘You go on to bed Mum. Don’t wait up for us,’ Barbara said.
‘It’s all right. I’m not that tired that I can’t sit and have a cup of cocoa with you,’ Amy said.
And if her voice was a trifle shrewish Barbara was too happy to notice it.
Chapter Eleven
The lovely glow was still with her when she woke next morning. She lay for a moment with the sheets pulled up to her chin revelling in it as she remembered every detail of the previous evening from the moment she had looked across the dance floor and seen Huw standing there in the doorway to their last whispered goodnight.
Amy and Ralph had seen them upstairs, staying down themselves, so they said, to lock up, and Barbara had felt a stab of bitter frustration that she and Huw could not be alone again together if only for a few short minutes. But in the shadows on the landing he had kissed her lightly and his fingers had momentarily touched hers before he went off along to his room. She had stood in her own doorway watching him go and he had turned and smiled at her once before going in and closing the door.
Well, there was always tomorrow.
‘If you think I’m going to college tomorrow when Huw is only going to be here for a couple of days you’ve got another think coming!’ she had said.
Amy had opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Barbara had not noticed.
Now it was tomorrow and the previous night seemed a little like a dream. But her red dress lying across the chair where she had dropped it and her dancing shoes with dried mud still clinging to their heels kicked off beneath the dressing table told her it had not been a dream. It had really happened. Huw was here under their own roof again if only for a little while and the two days until he had to go again stretched away enticingly yet seeming already ominously short.
Barbara pushed aside the blankets and got up not wanting to waste a moment of it. Some time during the night the frost had given way to rain; when she pulled the thick curtains and looked out the valley was drab and grey in the heavy sunless light of day. She found a jersey and skirt and got dressed, hanging the red dress carefully in the wardrobe.
Oh, you lovely dress! she thought. Every time I wear you something wonderful happens. And it’s all to do with Huw …
She hummed as she went downstairs. The kitchen was empty. Three cups, plates and cereal bowls were on the draining board, washed but not dried. Mum and Ralph must have gone to work and Maureen to school. And it was Mrs Milsom’s day off. Barbara dried up one of the cereal bowls, filled it with cornflakes and helped herself to milk from the jug on the cold slab. She was halfway through eating it when the door opened and Huw came in.
‘Hi there.’
‘Oh hello!’ She felt awkward suddenly, as if her feelings must be written all over her, and she was shy now at the thought of him seeing them.
‘Everyone else gone, have they?’
‘I suppose so. Do you want breakfast?’
‘It’s all right, I’ll get my own.’
‘There’s probably bacon and eggs if you want it,’ she said.
‘No, this will do fine.’ He filled another of the bowls with cornflakes.
They chatted for a while as they ate, not mentioning the previous evening, and Barbara made a pot of tea. While they were drinking it they heard the post come. Barbara smiled.
‘No need to rush for it this morning. There’s usually a mad scramble to see if there’s a letter from you. And when there is of course Mum always opens it,’ she said meaningfully.
‘I’d write just to you if I could but it’s had to be a family thing until now,’ Huw said.
Barbara felt her cheeks flood with pleased colour.
‘I was determined to stay home for you today,’ she said.
‘I’m glad you did.’ He caught at her hand as she set down the cup of tea, pulled her down and kissed her. ‘Morning, darling.’
‘Morning!’ She skipped away, thrilled by the kiss and by the ‘darling’but now, with the dawning of confidence, feeling the desire to play hard to get just a little.
‘Come here!’ he ordered.
‘Why?’
‘Never mind why. Just come here and I’ll show you.’
‘What’s it worth.’
Flirtatiously she moved just within his reach, pretending surprise when he reached out and caught her. He pulled her down again, this time onto his knee, holding her there and kissing her. She leaned against him, delirious with happiness.
‘Huw! All these years and I never knew you were like this,’ she teased.
‘Barbara! All these years and I never knew you were!’
She traced the line of his nose with her finger. When she reached his upper lip he made a playful snap at it with his teeth.
‘Hey, come on,’ she said, jumping up again. ‘Let’s get these dishes washed up.’
‘Spoilsport!’
The washing up took quite a long time since there was a great deal of tomfoolery with soapsuds and tea towels and quite a lot of kissing.
‘What are we going to do today?’
‘Don’t much mind. We could go out for a walk. Or we could just stay here and play some records on the gramophone.’
‘It’s up to you. Your choice.’
‘I think,’ said Barbara, ‘we’ll stay and play records for now and then go out for a walk when Mum and co. are due home.’
‘That’s not very nice,’ he chided. ‘I came home to see them too.’
‘No you didn’t. You came to see me.’
‘All right, madam, I came to see you. But I can’t leave them out altogether, especially not Amy. She’s a very special person, you know. You take her for granted. I suppose it’s only natural. But I have never forgotten that if it had not been for her I would have been raised in an Industrial School, as they were called in those days, where they used to send bad lads to have the devil knocked out of them.’
‘Pity you didn’t go there then!’ she teased.
‘If I had, I would not have met you. Or if I had met you, you wouldn’t have looked at me twice, not a nicely brought up, convent educated girl like you!’
‘Shame!’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ he said lightly. ‘Never mind, that’s not how things worked out, thanks to Amy. I’ve never known really why she did what she did and at the time I can’t say I was very grateful to her. I was a little heller – took it out on her, ran away, did anything I could to get my own back on life. Not now though. Now I’m old enough to know better and I am grateful. And if you think I’m going to hurt her by avoiding her these few days I’m here you’ve got another think coming. We’ve got all our lives …’
He broke off and suddenly the shadow of the war was there again between them. But only for a moment. She was too happy to let it spoil things for long. ‘All our lives’he had said. Oh Huw, Huw …
‘I love you,’ she said.
‘And I love you.’ He said it a trifle awkwardly and kissed her again.
‘I think I’ve always loved you. Ever since I was a little girl. I knew. I just knew.’
He grinned. ‘You were a good kid. I liked doing things for you. And then suddenly – you weren’t a kid any more.’
‘I should hope not!’
‘Last Christmas when I came home I looked at you and I thought – Christ, she’s grown up!’
‘Kids have a habit of doing that.’
‘Not always as nicely as you have. Barbara, you are the prettiest girl I have ever seen.’
‘Do you see many?’ she asked, experiencing a
moment’s jealousy.
‘A few. But they just don’t interest me. Not the way you do.’
‘Are we going to play those records then – or are we going to stay in the kitchen all day.’
‘I don’t much care,’ he said. ‘As long as we can be together.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Neither do I. Isn’t it wonderful?’
It was a glorious stolen day, a day of laughter and kisses, some tender, some passionate. They played the gramophone but never got around to taking the walk – the weather was not really nice enough, they kidded themselves. The rain had closed in, hanging in a thick cloud over the valley and dripping constantly from the trees.
Amy came home early. She was in even before Maureen was back from school, looking, Barbara thought, a trifle strained and weary.
‘I want to get a nice meal for you, Huw. It would be Mrs Milsom’s day off, wouldn’t it, just this one special day? What time do you have to leave tomorrow?’
Barbara looked up sharply. ‘What do you mean – tomorrow? Haven’t you got a three-day pass, Huw?’
‘A three-day pass doesn’t mean three days with us. It took him one of them to get here, didn’t it? And I expect it will take him the best part of another to get back.’
‘Oh no! I never thought! You never said …’ Barbara felt cheated and shocked as if someone had thrown a bath of cold water over her.
‘I suppose I ought to go fairly early in the morning,’ Huw said. ‘I have to be back by midnight and I’m not quite sure how easy it will be to get there.’
His motor cycle was off the road now, since he had loaned it to a friend who had drunk a little too much and wrapped it around a lamp post.
‘Go by train,’ Barbara said.
‘Yes, but even trains are a bit uncertain these days.’
‘And I don’t think you can miss another day’s college, Barbara,’
Amy said severely.
‘Oh Mum!’
‘You’ve had all day today.’ Amy glanced at her watch. ‘Maureen’s bus should be in now soon. You can take my car and go and meet her. It’s pouring with rain.’
Barbara brightened. She loved driving Amy’s car.
‘All right. Are you coming with me, Huw?’
‘Don’t hog him, Barbara. I want to talk to Huw myself. You go for Maureen and Huw can chat to me while I’m peeling the potatoes.’
About to protest Barbara remembered what Huw had said about not leaving Amy out. Perhaps she was being selfish.
‘All right.’ She fetched her gabardine raincoat and a scarf. When she had put it on her face peeped rosily out of the hood. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘Take care,’ said Amy.
Huw and Barbara exchanged a secret smile and she went out humming.
The moment the car had left the drive Amy turned to Huw.
‘I’m sorry, Huw, but I wanted to get Barbara out of the way. I have to talk to you alone.’ Her voice was serious, her face drawn into tight lines. He looked at her in surprise.
‘You worry too much. Things aren’t, as bad as you might think.’
Her mouth quirked but without humour.
‘I’m afraid they are. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. Nothing to do with the war. It’s about you and Barbara.’
‘Oh!’
‘I’m sorry, Huw. I’m really sorry to have to do this at such a time when you’re trying to snatch a couple of days relaxation. But I can’t see any alternative.’ She pulled out a chair. ‘Let’s sit down, shall we?’
She sat and he perched on the table opposite her, waiting.
‘You see, I can’t help noticing the way things are going between you and Barbara,’ Amy said. There was a little tremble in her voice. ‘I am right, aren’t I?’
Huw shifted slightly, feeling uncomfortable.
‘Well yes, if you put it like that.’
‘You are becoming fond of one another.’
‘Yes.’
‘More than fond.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Look, Amy, I know it may seem strange to you after all these years, but Barbara and I – well, I suppose you could say we have discovered one another. Since you’ve brought the subject up – I want to marry her.’
Amy blanched. ‘You can’t.’
He got up, crossed to the sink and leaned against it.
‘I know it’s a bit sudden, but I suppose at a time like this when you don’t know from one day to the next what is going to happen to you things do happen more suddenly.’
‘What does Barbara say about this?’ Amy asked.
‘She doesn’t know yet. I haven’t asked her. But it’s been on my mind all day. I can’t stand the thought of leaving her. I love her, Amy.’
Amy sunk her head in her hands and saw nothing but bright flaring patterns on a background of darkness. It was just as she had feared. Worse. The only blessing was that he hadn’t said anything to Barbara yet. At least she could spare her daughter that. But there was no easy way out for Huw. No way at all …
‘You can’t,’ she said.
‘But I do. And she loves me. I’m sorry if it’s a shock to you, Amy. I hoped you might be pleased.’
‘No, I mean you can’t. Really can’t. It’s wrong for you to love her and you certainly cannot marry her.’
The seriousness of her tone got through to him.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I need a drink,’ Amy said. She hurried into the drawing room, poured two glasses of whisky, neat, from Ralph’s bottle of Glenlivet and gave one to Huw. ‘By the time I’ve finished I think you’ll need one too,’ she said wryly.
He took the glass and set it down on the draining board.
‘What is all this, Amy?’
‘Huw, you know that I took you in when your mother died.’
‘Yes, and I am very grateful.’
‘But you don’t know why. Very few people do. I can think of only three. My mother. My solicitor. And … someone else. I never saw the need to tell you and perhaps change the parameters of your world. Now I see I was wrong. I should have told you long ago what I am going to tell you now. Did you ever know why you and your mother had come to Hillsbridge just before she died?’
‘Not really. It was something to do with money.’ He was casting his mind back to the small boy he had been, remembering how he had trailed miserably behind his mother up a long hill to visit – yes, Amy. It was something he had pushed aside with the passage of years. The memory of ‘the woman’as he had called Amy then shouting at his poor sick mother and turning them out of her house did not square with the Amy he knew now. Somehow in the period of adjustment he had blotted it out.
‘Yes, it was to do with money,’ Amy said. ‘After your mother’s husband died she was more or less destitute. She came to Hillsbridge to beg assistance from my husband not knowing that he had been killed in an accident at his transport yard.’
Huw’s eyes narrowed.
‘Why should she do that?’
Amy took a gulp of the whisky. It burned her throat. ‘Because,’ she said slowly, ‘my husband Llew was your father.’
The silence seemed to go on forever.
‘I didn’t believe it at first,’ Amy went on, her voice low yet perfectly audible in the quiet kitchen. ‘I sent her packing. Then, when she got pneumonia and died and you were left all alone I thought I had better investigate what she had told me. I questioned Mrs Roberts – Llew’s mother – and I discovered to my horror that it was true. Llew had had an affair with your mother back home in the Valleys. Her husband had accepted you as his own, but after he died and she was desperate for money, she turned to Llew for help. He had been sending enough to support you but when he was killed the money stopped. That was why she had come to Hillsbridge – to find out the reason for her letters remaining unanswered. And to beg for help. Times were different then, you see, Huw. The depression and all that …’
‘So you took me in because you felt guilty,’ he said. It
was taking shape now, all of it, and he could not understand why he had never questioned it before and come up with an answer that was somewhere near the truth.
‘I took you in in the beginning because you were Llew’s son. I loved Llew very much.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Then I kept you because I came to love you too. But you see now, Huw, why there can never be anything between you and Barbara. You and she have the same father. She is your half sister.’
‘Oh my God.’ For a moment he sat stunned, then reached for the glass of whisky and swallowed it all in one gulp.
‘I’m so sorry, Huw,’ Amy said. ‘Under any other circumstances I’d have been so pleased, but …’
‘You should have told me,’ he said. ‘God, Amy, I had a right to know.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry …’
The door opened. The girls burst in.
‘Hi, Mum, we’re home!’
In the tension neither Amy nor Huw had heard the approach of the car. Now the girls stared, puzzled by the atmosphere in the kitchen.
‘You weren’t long,’ Amy said. Huw sat, not speaking.
‘Hang your coats up,’ Amy said.
They looked at one another and Barbara looked at Huw. He avoided her eyes. They went out to the hall.
‘Huw – please – don’t tell Barbara,’ Amy begged softly. ‘I don’t want her to know that her father …’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. He looked like a boxer reeling from a low punch.
‘Please!’
He got up. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
‘I’ll come with you!’ Barbara said eagerly, coming back into the kitchen.
‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘No, Barbara, I want to go alone.’
Barbara sat on the bus shrouded in wretchedness.
‘What’s the matter, Babs?’ Maureen asked.
‘Nothing. Leave me alone.’
‘Sorry, I’m sure. I don’t know what’s wrong with everybody. You are all as snappy as snapdragons. I don’t understand it.’
Barbara said nothing. She did not understand either – could not fathom the change which had occurred in the short time it had taken her to collect Maureen from the bus yesterday. She had left bubbling with love and happiness and returned to an atmosphere of tension. And Huw had hardly spoken to her since, seemed to be avoiding her. Why had he gone rushing off for a walk on his own like that? After the lovely day they had shared it did not make sense. And the whole evening had been the same, awkward and subdued. The meal had been rotten – hardly surprising as Amy had never been a good cook and since marrying Ralph had had little need to practise what skills she had possessed, but even taking that into account it had been worse than usual. And afterwards, though they had played their favourite games of Lexicon and Rummy at Ralph’s suggestion, that curious tension had remained.