Love and War

by Siân James

  ‘Were you in the Ship?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Oh, please go back there, Gwynn. I don’t mind walking home on my own. Honestly.’

  Why do I always have to sound so ungracious? Why can’t I just say thank you and try to be pleasant? After all, he doesn’t know why I’m feeling so hot and embarrassed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. Why do you ask?’

  ‘You seem on edge. I thought we were friends. Aren’t we? Can’t we be friends?’

  ‘Oh Gwynn, I don’t know.’

  Great Heavens, now I’m crying. But if I just let the tears roll down my cheeks and into my collar, he might not notice. As long as I don’t sniff. Thank goodness for the blackout.

  ‘And now you’re crying,’ he says. ‘Whatever’s the matter? Come on, I want to know. Bad news at home? Look, I’m going to walk home with you. What’s the harm?’

  He’s still holding me by the elbow. It’s a great comfort.

  I give one quick sniff. ‘I met this silly woman on the bus. Miriam Lloyd. She comes from Tregroes and goes to our chapel. She told me some rotten tale about my mother.’

  ‘Good Lord! What sort of rotten tale?’

  ‘Oh, you know... she hinted she’d got some man-friend.’

  There’s a moment’s silence.

  ‘But what’s wrong with that? Why shouldn’t she have a man-friend? What could be more natural? Oh Rhian, are you against everything?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re a lovely girl, that’s what I mean. You’re very intelligent and... well... everything else. But you’re not going to make anything of yourself, you’re not going to realise half your potential, if you let your whole life be dominated by chapel rules. What’s wrong with your mother having a man-friend? What’s wrong with you coming with me to a pub?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t understand.’

  ‘Then explain it to me. Why shouldn’t your mother have a man-friend? Why should she have to be lonely for the rest of her life? She’s still young, Rhian.’

  ‘She’s forty-seven.’

  ‘That’s not old. Five years older than me, and I’m certainly not ready for the scrap heap.’

  ‘But why hasn’t she mentioned him to me? She must be ashamed of him. Ashamed of something.’

  ‘Not at all. Perhaps she just wants to keep him to herself for a while. Why can’t she decide when to tell you? Why can’t you trust her? You see everything in black and white, Rhian, and life isn’t like that. Isn’t it better to compromise about certain things? Isn’t it better to be fairly good and fairly happy than to be entirely blameless and miserable?’

  I pull away from him and blow my nose. My voice is thick with crying; there’s no point in further pretence.

  ‘Cheer up, Rhian. Are you any the worse for having had a coffee and a chat with me last Saturday morning?’

  His voice is suddenly very gentle and smooth. I think of sin.

  ‘Are you any the worse?’ he asks again. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am. You know perfectly well how I used to feel about you years ago – you must have known. So you should have realised how vulnerable I am. You shouldn’t have led me on. Now I think about you all the time. And I’m miserable to have to do without you.’

  ‘Oh Rhian.’ He puts his arm round my shoulders and propels me towards the high wall outside the Infants’ school. We lean against it.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ I whisper into his overcoat.

  ‘Why not? Don’t you think I’m miserable, to have to do without you? Yes, I did realise how you used to feel about me and now I feel the same about you. I think about you all the time, I watch out for you all the time at school. I know where you’re going to be, I’ve worked out exactly when you’ll be crossing the playground from one block to another so that I can look out and see you. Yes, I’m like an adolescent again. And you’re the...’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You might not find this flattering.’

  ‘I don’t want flattery. My heart’s racing already.’

  ‘You’re the object of my desire, Rhian.’

  I let that sink in. It’s certainly a very ungodly thought.

  ‘But I’m married to someone else. Of course you are, too, but I expect you’ve become used to...’

  ‘Yes? Used to what?’

  ‘You know. To dividing your life up into fairly happy and fairly good. So far, I’ve only been very good and, well, very bored.’

  ‘That sounds as though you mean to change.’

  ‘Does it? I don’t know.’

  All I know is that I’m very happy at this moment. I think I’ll probably remember this moment for ever: the moon rising in white gauze, the tumbled clouds, the bruise-dark hills, the roughness of the wall behind my shoulder, the faint sigh of the sea in the distance. Will he kiss me? Do I want him to? No, I only want this cold peace, this clean truth and innocence we may not have again.

  How long do we stand against the wall, quite still? It seems like several minutes. Or hours.

  What will happen? Nothing. What can happen?

  The town clock striking nine brings us back to some sort of reality. We sigh and set off up the hill; his house is in the same direction as mine, but a further ten minutes’ walk out of town. We walk slowly, as though our feet are weighted.

  We don’t seem to have anything more to say to each other and in no time at all we’re at my front door.

  ‘Good night.’ My voice sounds strained and despondent. ‘Thank you for meeting the bus.’

  Isn’t he going to say anything in reply? How can I turn and leave him when he’s said so much, confessed to feelings I wouldn’t have dared dream of! Oh, I must have some final word. Please.

  ‘Listen,’ he says at last, his voice sounding harsh and as desperate as mine. ‘Listen, my wife would like to paint you some time.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Yes, she noticed you at the Carol Service. She’s anxious to start portrait painting and she thought you had an interesting face. Do you think you could spare the time? To sit for her?’

  I struggle to answer. I’ve no idea what to say, no idea how I feel about the prospect of meeting his wife; pleased or apprehensive – or both. ‘I really don’t know,’ I say at last, trying not to sound as overwhelmed as I feel. ‘I’m really not sure whether I’ve got the time this term.’

  ‘Think about it,’ he says.

  ‘I didn’t know your wife was an artist.’

  ‘She hasn’t been painting long. But I think she’s going to be good.’

  Tears sting my eyes. Oh God. French, and an artist as well. It doesn’t seem fair.

  ‘You love her.’ It’s a flat statement, not a question. My voice seems drained of all emotion.

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes. We’ve been married almost twenty years. And you love Huw, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  Why does he want me to meet his wife? Is it something to do with being open and honest, not wanting me to go into anything with my eyes shut? Oh, what’s it all about? What’s going to happen?

  ‘You must call round to meet her. Her name’s Celine. You will, won’t you? Shall I tell her you’ll come?’

  His voice is suddenly more relaxed. Something has been resolved, I suppose. He touches my hand. ‘You will come?’

  Of course I will. Life offers us opportunities and challenges we can’t question or resist. Doors open and we go through them.

  ‘Yes, I’ll come.’

  ‘Good. What about next Monday after school? Would that suit you? Perhaps you could come every Monday – I mean, till the portrait’s finished. Could you? Do you think you could?’

  ‘I suppose so. Shall I come straight from school? Or shall I go home to change first? Shall I wear my new dress? I’ve been wondering when to wear it.’

  ‘Oh yes, the new dress. She’d be flattered. I told her about it. About my getting a discount for you.’

  ‘Was she amused?’
>
  I realise that we’re now talking to each other in an affected, insincere way; better perhaps than talking like half-crazed lovers, as we were earlier.

  I let myself into the house where I once, for about thirty days and nights, lived with my husband, Huw. I try to think about him, but I can’t. I try to think of him with love, or even with pity or sadness, but I can’t. He’s out of my mind. I’m already deep in sin.

  The fire is out and won’t be revived, so I sit in my coat waiting for Ilona Hughes to get back. I boil some water on the gas and make myself a hot drink.

  I’m going to his home. I’m going to meet his wife. I feel faint at the prospect. Why should I submit myself to such an ordeal? What if I start to tremble and she notices? She’ll make mincemeat out of me. She looks terrifying, so bold and self-assured.

  When Ilona gets back, my heart is beating so loudly that I can hardly hear her speak. I usually go to bed as soon as she comes in, but tonight I rush to make her a cup of cocoa. Perhaps she’ll mention him. Even to hear his name will be balm.

  ‘Did Gwynn Morgan meet your bus?’ she asks me at last.

  ‘Yes. Why did you tell him where I was? Why did you mention me to him? I told you not to.’

  ‘I didn’t. Not a word. He asked after you, came right out with it. “Where’s our little Rhian tonight?” He’s fallen for you, kid. He can’t hide it.’

  ‘Oh nonsense. He’s only interested in me because his wife wants to do a portrait of me. She’s an artist. She noticed me at the Carol Service and she’s been desperate to paint me ever since. I’m going to their house after school on Monday. Yes, next Monday. So it’ll be your turn to make supper.’

  I’ve seldom managed to get the better of Ilona Hughes, but tonight I have. She stares down into the murky depths of her cocoa in the deepest perplexity.

  ‘How was Denzil?’ I ask her, but she shows no sign of having heard me.

  After a minute or two, I get up, fill my hot water bottle and lock the front door. ‘Good night, Ilona.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ she says at last. ‘He’s fallen for you, I know that much, I could hear it in his voice. So why is he taking you home to meet his wife?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s his way of fighting it.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ she says again.

  Four

  ‘YOU’VE GOT AN UNUSUAL FACE,’ Gwynn Morgan’s wife says. ‘Very nearly beautiful. Your nose is a bit too wide and your jaw is too square, but your cheek bones are good and your eyes are formidable. Formidable. Most Welsh girls are round-faced and pretty, but you’re very nearly beautiful.’

  ‘Sometimes I feel very nearly ugly.’

  She studies me again. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I may call the portrait ‘A Young Woman Very Nearly Beautiful’. That is, if I get it finished. Perhaps you’ll be too bored to come again. I shall probably need at least ten sittings. How do you feel about that?’

  I smile uneasily. She speaks with a faint but distinctive French accent, enunciating every word clearly with slightly trilling ‘r’s. ‘Would you like to see some of my work?’

  I’m not sure that I would – as usual, I’m not sure of anything – but I follow her along the black-and-white tiled passage into a back room overlooking the kitchen garden.

  ‘My studio,’ she says proudly.

  If Gwynn had said ‘My studio’ the tone would have been ironic; the Welsh, insecure to a man, protect themselves with a large measure of self-mockery; his wife seems enviably self-assured.

  She points at a number of watercolours ranged along the wall opposite the door; two are of a garden in summer, one is a woodland scene and there are three or four of meadows with hills in the distance. They all seem carefully planned and neatly executed, like paintings by a retired infants’ teacher.

  ‘Don’t say they’re pretty,’ she warns me.

  ‘Oh, I won’t.’ But any other comment I can think of is either patronising or wildly untrue. Instead of words, I decide on deeply penetrating looks, moving close to the paintings and then backing away, nodding my head and biting my lower lip from time to time. And when, after this base little charade, I turn away, I’m confronted by a large oil-painting of Gwynn, blazing with power and vigour. I can hardly bear to look at it; he looks almost saturnine, the slight cleft in his chin is emphasised, his nostrils flare, his lips curl. The background is tomato red.

  ‘Very ’orrible, yes?’ his wife says.

  Again I’m lost for words, but luckily Mrs Morgan turns it to face the wall, expecting none.

  ‘I won’t be so cruel to you,’ she says.

  I try to put it out of my mind, but I can’t help feeling that she’d wanted me to see it, that it was meant as a warning.

  The studio is bare of clutter, almost bare of furniture, a long narrow room with white walls and a big window facing the garden with a row of pine cupboards on the opposite wall. There are two kitchen chairs, one on each side of the bracken-filled fireplace; the room is heated by a small black oil-stove. Mrs Morgan fetches one of the chairs, puts it down by the window, sits on it and motions me to do the same.

  ‘You’re very tidy. I expected a jumble of canvasses, pots of paints and turps, brushes and old rags. The Art room in school is in a terrible state; the cleaners aren’t allowed inside.’

  ‘You don’t teach Art?’

  ‘Heavens, no. I can’t draw at all, not even a rabbit. I go up to see the work occasionally, that’s all. I teach English and Welsh. I did Honours Welsh.’

  ‘I didn’t know that Welsh was a University subject. I thought it was a dying language.’

  ‘People do think that. They’ve been thinking it for centuries, but somehow it struggles on. My mother is doing what she can to promulgate a Welsh/Italian interest. There’s already Welsh in Patagonia, Welsh and Spanish, but no English.’ I talk a great deal when I’m nervous.

  Mrs Morgan opens her eyes wide and examines me again. I wish she’d start working. So far, she hasn’t produced even a sheet of paper or a stub of pencil.

  As though reading my thoughts, she says, ‘I want to discover a little about you before I start.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Great Heavens, what does she mean? What does she want to discover about me?

  She studies me and I study her. She’s a large woman with a large, very pale face. She looks as though she’s never been out in the sun or the wind, let alone the Cardiganshire rain.

  ‘You don’t go out much,’ I say. ‘I’ve hardly ever seen you in town. You come to Prize Day and the Christmas concert, I know, and I know you go to Sant Ioan’s on a Sunday, but I’ve never seen you shopping or walking about in Llanfair.’

  ‘There is no one to know in Llanfair,’ she says.

  She’s quite right, of course.

  Of people to know, we only have Mrs Harcourt-Williams and Lady Griffin and they’re too busy nowadays with all their winning-the-war committees to hold garden-parties for the natives as they used to.

  I search my brains for some social titbits.

  ‘Mrs Wynne-Jones, the doctor’s wife, told my mother-in-law a few weeks ago that she and her friends meet for coffee in the Dolphin every Friday morning. Do you know Mrs Wynne-Jones?’

  ‘The Dolphin Hotel,’ she says, as though with a sour taste in her mouth.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to be unkind about the Dolphin. It’s a lovely place, I used to work there when I was a student.’

  ‘What work did you do?’

  ‘I was a chambermaid. The bedrooms are gorgeous, all huge mirrors and crystal chandeliers. Of course, it may be different now. I’ve never been there since.’

  ‘I suppose you prefer to go to the Ship in the evenings?’

  ‘I don’t go anywhere in the evenings. Well, I go to chapel on Sunday, home to see my mother on Wednesday and sometimes to a school drama meeting on a Friday. That’s about all. Other nights I stay in and save money. I don’t like going to the pictures on my own.’

  �
��You miss your ’usband? You’re a very faithful wife, yes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Abroad somewhere. He’s been abroad for almost three years.’

  She sighs and closes her eyes. ‘My fiancé was killed in the last war. Jean-Pierre Lamarque. He was a violinist before he became a soldier.’

  Her voice has become very sad and gentle. When she opens her eyes I see that they’re not grey as I’d thought, but the washed-out green of old bottles.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I wanted to become a nun, but I was only seventeen and my parents wouldn’t agree to it.’

  ‘How long was it before you met... Mr Morgan?’

  She makes an effort to remember. ‘I don’t know. Oh, it was several years later. When I was twenty I came to England as a governess. I worked in Whiteways House in Surrey, a family related to the Devonshires. They were very good to me.’

  The people at the Dolphin Hotel were good to me, too, but I don’t bother to mention it. They weren’t related to anyone, as far as I know.

  ‘I was treated as one of the family,’ she says.

  In my experience, that isn’t altogether a good thing. Treated as family in this part of the world means you work harder than hired help on no pay.

  ‘They took me to balls at the big ’ouses and to Ascot and Henley.’

  ‘And where did you meet Mr Morgan?’

  She sighs deeply, not seeming eager to leave the delights of her past life. ‘That was when I was back in France on my annual holiday. It was in Rouen – he was lost and I took pity on him. I think I was twenty-three or -four then. We got married almost at once, though he was only a student and very poor.’

  How soft and white she is. I can imagine her at twenty-three or -four, very elegantly dressed, pale and plump as a white dove. How besotted the poor, simple art student must have been with her. Jealousy claws at my stomach, almost making me groan. How beautiful Gwynn must have been at twenty, his body slim and boyish, his curly hair black, his gaze straight and clear. Reader, she married him.

  ‘Where is he this evening?’ I ask, as soon as I can talk fairly normally.