Love and War

by Siân James

  ‘Oh, somewhere. Perhaps with his friend Mr Browne at the little dress shop. I never know where he is.’

  He’d waited for me outside school to make sure I’d remembered my promise. ‘She’s expecting you. Don’t be shy. I’ll see you before you leave.’

  ‘I’m slow making a start,’ his wife says. ‘I suppose I should make a few sketches. Next time you come, I’ll have the easel set up ready to begin. I think I’d like you with your back to the window, the hills as a background.’

  ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,’ I say, for no reason except that I often quote from the psalms. Our Sunday school teacher used to give us threepence for learning a whole psalm so I learnt them all. That’s how I got my first bike.

  ‘No, you have your back to the hills,’ she says.

  Well really! Of course, the Bible doesn’t count for Catholics – only statues and incense and things like that. I think I’ll stick to chapel; I love words even though I don’t always trust them.

  ‘How did you get your first bike?’ I ask her.

  ‘You can imagine me on a bicycle?’ she asks, as she pulls out paper and charcoal from one of the cupboards.

  No, not really. Not on a bicycle. I can imagine her being driven along Surrey lanes in a long black car. I can imagine her leaning back against a pile of cushions in a boat at Henley, gazing up at a fair-haired young man in shirt-sleeves and boater, who’s keen on her, of course, but doesn’t intend it to become serious, because though she’s treated almost as one of the family, she’s only a governess, and a Frog at that.

  ‘Did you have many admirers in Surrey?’

  ‘You’ve had little instruction in the rules of conversation,’ she says.

  It’s absolutely true. Six years in the County School, four years at University as well as twenty years of Sunday school, and never a hint on the rules of conversation.

  She relents. ‘It was a very good time,’ she says, but without answering my question.

  ‘I can’t imagine you without admirers,’ I say.

  ‘Even now? In this place?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘People don’t have admirers in this part of the world,’ she says firmly.

  I’m not too sure about that. My stomach tightens as I think of my next visit home and my determination to ask my mother about her admirer. ‘Miriam Lloyd tells me that you’re courting,’ I’ll say in a firm, friendly voice. ‘Is it true? Why haven’t I been told?’

  Who can it be though? I’ve refused to consider Gino and Martino. If my mother’s having feelings, it’s not going to be for small, mute men almost twenty years younger than herself.

  ‘What’s the matter? You’re frowning. I don’t want you to frown. It’s not becoming.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m thinking about my mother.’

  ‘Your mother... Yes, Gwynn says you don’t approve of her having a friend. Why is that? You know, he may be a very rich farmer who’ll take good care of her.’

  ‘We don’t have rich farmers in this part of the world. No, I’m worried because she hasn’t mentioned him to me. And the woman who thought it necessary to tell me about him, implied that he was a foreigner – which I suppose means one of the Italian prisoners.’

  ‘An American, perhaps? An American officer?’

  ‘No. She mentioned a foreign language. I think he’d have to be an Italian.’

  She’s drawing rapidly now. A minute or two and I’m already fidgety, my shoulder feeling numb. Why am I doing this?

  ‘Are there any penalties for fraternising with an Italian prisoner of war?’ she asks me.

  Great Heavens, I hadn’t even considered penalties. I’d only been thinking of the difficulties, the heartbreak. ‘What sort of penalties?’ I ask her, my voice suddenly cold.

  ‘In the last war, women who collaborated with the Germans were... oh, but that was France. I’m sure you needn’t worry about your mother. After all, she’s not a silly school-girl, is she?’

  She finishes the drawing, studies it for a few moments, then puts it in the cupboard without letting me see it. ‘And now we’ll go back to the drawing room and I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ she says. ‘I’m sure you needn’t worry about your mother.’

  I’m quite surprised to find that it’s already five o’clock.

  Gwynn is in the drawing room looking very pleased with himself. He’s laid the little round table by the window with a white cloth and pretty cups and saucers. ‘I’ll get the teapot,’ he says.

  When he returns, he’s carrying a tray with silver teapot and water jug, and a plate with three large raspberry buns.

  ‘Oh those cakes,’ his wife says. ‘Hard and dry and not worth eating.’

  I can’t even try to agree with her. ‘I love raspberry buns. How did you get them? They’ve never usually got them in the afternoon.’

  ‘That’s my secret. Come on, help yourself. Take the biggest.’

  ‘She can have mine as well. They’re very nasty. Full of grease. And it’s no great secret how he got them either. That Carys Edwards, manageress of the Teifiside Bakery, was one of his childhood sweethearts.’

  Carys Edwards is a power-mad despot who marshals the bakery queues like a sergeant-major. She’s got thinning sandy hair and warts on her face.

  Gwynn winks at me and pours out the tea. It’s dark and strong.

  I have another very happy moment.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ Ilona Hughes says when I get home. ‘I’ve heard of all sorts of strange goings-on, but this beats all.’

  ‘What sort of goings-on?’ I ask her, trying to change the subject. Me, I never hear of any. Llanfair is probably the most boring town in West Wales. Ilona Hughes comes from Brynteg in North Wales, where, according to her, life sizzles.

  ‘There was an old couple in Brynteg, Charlie and Lil Hopkins. Nothing very special, he worked in the quarry, she scrubbed the front step, took in washing, chapel on Sunday; quite respectable. Only one trouble in their life, they had no family. Never mind, everybody said, you have more time for each other. It was true. I can see them now going for long walks on fine summer evenings, he with his check cap and his yellow corduroys, she tall and thin with grey hair pulled back into a little bun, always arm in arm, always in accord. Well, Lil dies, she’s about fifty-something by this time, and only in the funeral we find out she was a man called John Arfon Rees.

  ‘Must have caused a bit of talk,’ I say carefully.

  ‘Not in Brynteg. Hardly a ripple.’

  I can’t help smiling, though, of course, I never believe a word she says.

  She’s remembered to make supper, fair play. It’s potato and swede mashed with the top of the milk with grated cheese on top, and brussel sprouts. She eats twice as much as I do and then complains she’s still hungry.

  Denzil won’t be in town again until Friday evening. He’s stationed in Tonfaen and it’s too far to get in to Llanfair except when they lay on buses on Friday and Saturday.

  I can’t get on with my marking while she’s pacing about.

  ‘Are you going to wait for Denzil if he’s sent abroad?’ I ask her.

  She gives me a withering glance. ‘Wait for Denzil! Whatever for? You can’t think I’d consider marrying Denzil! Oh, he’s bright enough, he’s good for a laugh, but before the war he worked on a market stall. No, I’m going to marry money, kid. It’s money that excites me. Oh, you’ll be all right, Huw will have his father’s business. I can see you now with a fur coat and matching toque and a Silver Cross pram.’

  ‘And spending my evenings doing the accounts and sending out bills.’

  ‘Saving up for a car and a holiday in Bournemouth. Buying Daniel Neal clothes for the children. Listening to their piano practice after school.’

  ‘And then, suddenly, I’ll be old, and I’ll never have done anything to make it all worthwhile. “How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope, The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?”

  ‘Don’t start on Keats.’


  ‘Rosetti. Dante Gabriel Rosetti.’

  ‘You’re in love, aren’t you? With Gwynn Morgan. Am I right?’

  Hearing his name makes my heart jump, but I’m definitely not going to confide in Ilona Hughes. She’ll tease me cruelly and use it against me on every possible occasion.

  ‘Aren’t you? Just a bit? Come on, tell Auntie ’Lona.’

  ‘He’s married. I don’t want to think about him.’

  ‘A little bit? Just this much?’ She holds up the tip of her little finger.

  I burst out crying. ‘Oh, Ilona, what shall I do?’

  Ilona Hughes doesn’t rush in with any trite solutions, I’ll say that for her. She doesn’t even smile. She sits quiet for a long time studying her hands, first the backs and then the palms, almost as though she’s seeing them for the first time.

  ‘Well, as far as I can see, there are three ways open to you,’ she says at last. ‘Only first of all, close your mouth. You look really stupid with your cheeks all blotchy and your jaw hanging open.’

  I wipe my eyes and try to look intelligent.

  ‘First, you do nothing. You face up to the fact that you find him attractive and do nothing except give him a fond look now and again, and even that could be dangerous. He’s married – oh, he finds his wife a trial, I’m sure of that, but he’ll never leave her, I’m sure of that, too. She plays on the fact that she’s a foreigner, in a strange, a very strange country. She doesn’t choose to make friends, and with no friends or family, her dependence on Gwynn is that much greater. I suppose it’s possible that he asked you home so you could work all that out for yourself.’

  ‘She did seem to want to paint me.’

  ‘Perhaps he managed to plant that idea into her head. You’re quite pretty, I suppose, but you’re not that special. You’re certainly not the only pretty woman around here.’

  ‘Who else is there?’ I ask her.

  She ignores me. ‘Plenty of people, most people, perhaps, have a bit of a hopeless passion for someone at some time or another, but after a while it dies a natural death, I suppose, and they remember it, when they remember it at all, with a sort of wry smile.’

  How long do you think that takes? No, I’m not trying to be funny, I’d really like to know. How long does it take? From hopeless passion to wry smile?’

  ‘The second way is to have a very careful affair. This is the way I’d choose. I could probably manage it, so could Gwynn perhaps, but I’m not sure you could. By a careful affair I mean that you’d only meet once a week or even once a fortnight, and of course, where no-one is likely to see you. It could be in this house. I’ve heard of people having careful affairs without even breaking their marriage vows. You can have a lot of erotic pleasure having a meal or a cup of tea together, thigh by thigh. You wouldn’t, of course, ever turn up at his house unexpectedly or send him letters, or waylay him on the way to school. You’d always be perfectly controlled.’

  ‘I can imagine what the third way is. An uncontrolled affair. The world well-lost.’

  Ilona sighs. ‘Yes, it sounds very romantic. The reality is likely to be that his wife finds out and insists on going to live somewhere as far from Llanfair as possible. He’d go with her, his tail between his legs, and you and Huw would be left here hating each other. Those are your alternatives as far as I can see. Over to you, kid.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be able to manage the first way or the third – and certainly not the second. Oh dear. Anyway, I haven’t got to decide tonight, have I? It’s wonderful, I suppose, to have a decision to make. I mean, to know that he cares for me. Last week, I had no idea. Last week, I had nothing. ‘

  ‘Only Huw,’ Ilona says, rather spitefully.

  ‘Poor Huw.’

  ‘Oh shut up. Don’t ever be sorry for a man. They always end up having the best of it.’

  At this moment, it strikes me that Ilona is far from being the light-hearted, free-and-easy flirt I’ve always taken her for. Something about the way she’s looking at me makes it clear that she knows precisely what I’m facing.

  ‘Who are you running away from?’ I ask her. ‘Why did you leave Brynteg and move to Llanfair?’

  For a moment, I think she’s going to confide in me, but her mood changes abruptly.

  ‘Why, indeed. I think perhaps the good Lord sent me here to try and knock some sense into you.’

  ‘Oh, Ilona, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Don’t start that moaning again. One way or another you’ll make a mess of your life, just like everyone else. You’ll do nothing and regret it or you’ll do everything and regret it. Take your pick. And do you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going out for some fish and chips. I’m still starving.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m going to finish this marking. Not tonight.’

  ‘Come with me, then. We can have cod and chips, a plateful of bread and butter and a pot of tea for one and six.’

  Five

  MY MOTHER is at the top of Pen Hewl Fach meeting me off the bus. She’s got her Sunday coat on.

  ‘I love these lighter evenings,’ she says, ‘with the snow almost gone. I couldn’t stop in the house. I’m always restless in February, waiting and waiting.’

  We pause at a five-barred gate to look down the valley at the sun setting in a blaze of pink. ‘What colour is heliotrope?’ she asks me. ‘It’s very fashionable this year, according to the Western Mail.’

  ‘I think it’s a sort of puce.’

  ‘Is it really? Puce? Then I won’t mind a bit not having a new costume of it.’

  ‘You could buy a heliotrope blouse to wear with your grey costume.’

  ‘I’d rather a nice rose-pink like that sunset, but I suppose I should stick to white. That does for everything, doesn’t it; christenings, weddings and funerals. Yes, I may buy a new white blouse if I do all right with the lambs.’

  Her voice softens. ‘I used to meet your father here,’ she says, ‘when we were courting.’ I squeeze her arm. The word courting gives me the cue I’ve been hoping for and I take a deep breath. ‘Mam. I met that silly woman, Miriam Lloyd, on the bus last week.’

  ‘Yes, she told me she’d seen you,’ she says, very calmly. ‘She said someone was meeting you off the bus as well, a tall pleasant-looking man she said he was.’

  ‘It was Mr Morgan, Art.’

  ‘Yes, I thought it might be.’

  ‘He walked home with me, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to think.’

  ‘And I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about your – friend. That foreign gentleman Miriam Lloyd told me about. What am I supposed to think about him? Is it Gino or Martino she’s seen you walking out with?’

  Even in the fading light, I can see her smiling. ‘I’ve meant to tell you for weeks,’ she says, ‘but I didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘Is it anything serious, then?’ I’ve broken out in a sweat.

  ‘How can it be anything serious, girl, with him an Italian prisoner of war?’

  My knees are giving way; I can’t go on walking. ‘Please, tell me about him. It’s not fair to keep me in the dark. I need to know.’

  ‘Don’t get excited, girl, I’ll tell you everything. His name is Fredo. Well, Alfredo really, but they call him Fredo. He’s in charge of the others, a sort of foreman, I suppose. Not an officer, mind, they’re in another camp, but he’s older and he was a farmer himself, so he shows the others what to do. He works here for a few days with Gino and Martino, then works at another farm with another pair. He’s a very good worker, too, the sort who goes at it without any huffing and puffing. Well, he can sometimes get away after supper when they’re all supposed to be shut up in the camp. I don’t know how he manages it, but I suppose it’s something he could be punished for. He walks three miles to get here, so of course, I give him a bit of a meal, and we talk what little we can, me with hardly a word of Italian and him with next
to no English. And after that he walks back.’

  Why can’t I think of anything to say? Because I’m terrified, that’s why. My mother is so innocent and unworldly that she doesn’t realise how violently her neighbours and friends might react. Even the wildest chapel people might feel outraged by her friendship with one of the ‘enemy’. Italians aren’t hated as the Germans are, but they’re certainly not loved. What if she was ostracised from the community? Farmers depend on one another for help at the harvest and in hard weather. What if she’s snowed up? What if she falls ill and can’t get out to feed the animals and milk the cows? And the man himself, what does she really know of him? If he was even a moderately decent man, would he be prepared to let her risk her good name? Perhaps he’s a really sick man, wanting revenge, or money to escape.

  ‘If you stayed tonight, you could meet him,’ she says. ‘That is, if he manages to get out. You could have a lift back in the post van tomorrow. You’d probably be a bit late for school, but you could say you’d missed the bus, which would be true enough, in a sense.’

  ‘Is he married?’

  ‘That doesn’t come into it, girl. It’s friendship I’m offering him, not a future. Rhian, I’m nearly fifty.’

  ‘You’re 47 and still very beautiful.’

  ‘Very beautiful. Hark at her. Very beautiful, with my cheeks fun of thread veins and my hair full of grey. If I was a hen, girl, I wouldn’t be worth the boiling... Well, he was married, but I think his wife is dead. At least, he’s shown me a photograph of a big tomb with an angel on the top. He’s a Roman Catholic, of course, but as you always say, Rhian, no religion has a monopoly of God. There, I’m getting quite tolerant in my old age, aren’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m frightened, I really am.’

  ‘Frightened? Good gracious me, what is there to be frightened of. It’s the war, isn’t it, that’s to blame for everything? If it wasn’t for the war, he’d be home in all that lovely sunshine growing olives and those big tomatoes. And Huw would be home with you, and you’d have a baby by this time and another on the way, and not a minute to give a second thought to Mr Morgan, Art, or anyone else.’