by Siân James
‘What do you mean, he doesn’t exist?’ I find I’ve lowered my voice as though talking of the newly dead. ‘What can you mean?’
‘He never did exist. She imagined him, that’s all.’
‘Imagined him? Are you serious? Do you mean she invented him?’
‘I suppose she did, in a way. Yes. She cut out a picture of a soldier from a newspaper and gave him a name.’
‘Great Heavens! And a family, too. And took him over. And got engaged to him. Great Heavens, I can’t believe it. Dreamed about him every night. Carried his letters about with her. Where did those letters come from? Jack, she used to read me great chunks from his letters. How he looked up at the sky and saw... Oh dear, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ilona Hughes asks from the doorway. ‘What have I missed?’
‘Don’t laugh,’ Jack says, very quietly. ‘Please don’t laugh.’
‘Oh, why not?’ I feel anger welling up inside me. ‘Oh Ilona, you’ll never believe this.’
‘Think of all the shyness and loneliness and insecurity behind it,’ Jack says. ‘Please don’t laugh.’
‘If I promise not to laugh, will you promise not to... Oh, she’s sick, Jack, and I’m very worried about you, everyone is. You mustn’t get involved with her.’
‘She’s not sick.’ His voice trembles. ‘Oh, it’s all very well for you. For you and your friend. You’re beautiful and easy-going and you’re both spoilt because you’ve never known anything but a chorus of admiration. You’ve always been surrounded by boyfriends, you’ve always been popular and sought-after.’
I’m trying to concentrate on what he’s saying, but Ilona, who has no idea what the real issue is, is incensed.
‘Are you talking about me?’ she asks. ‘I’m spoilt? Oh, no I’m not. Nor beautiful either, come to that and neither is Rhian. And I work hard to be popular. Yes, I’m sought-after because I always try to be friendly and sociable. I could be lonely and shy and insecure if I allowed myself to be. Anyone could, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I often think that lonely, shy and insecure are only other ways of saying selfish, self-regarding and self-engrossed.’
Jack shakes his head as though someone’s hit him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I was making a bid for your sympathy, that’s all. No, I won’t stay for a cup of tea, Rhian, thank you. I said I’d get back to Mary. She wanted you to know, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell you.’
I’m not surprised. ‘Jack, don’t go. I feel so mean-spirited. I do feel sorry for Mary, of course I do, but I can’t help feeling even more sorry for you.’
‘Don’t be sorry for me. I’ve always liked Mary, always felt protective towards her. Over several years, in fact. And now. Well, we’ve – we’ve fallen in love, I suppose. I might as well tell you the truth, Rhian, I’ve asked her to marry me and she’s accepted. She’s giving in her notice tomorrow and she’ll be leaving school at the end of term. We’re planning to get married in the Easter holidays. She wanted you to be the first to know.’
The news sinks down into my mind like a stone. ‘In that case, I can only offer you both my best wishes.’
‘Poor deluded man,’ I say over and over again when he’s gone. ‘Poor man.’
‘Come on, come on, what did I miss?’
I tell her; give her all the details. But of course no sort of abnormal behaviour takes Ilona by surprise. Besides, I’ve been the one constantly cajoled into worrying about this big, boyish, fair-haired, star-gazing, romantic, God-fearing second Lieutenant Alun Brooke. Who doesn’t exist.
‘I’ve even prayed for him,’ I mutter through clenched teeth when I’m washing up after our evening meal.
‘Serves you right,’ Ilona says. ‘You shouldn’t take those liberties with people, Rhian, when you hadn’t even been introduced.’
‘Ilona, don’t try to be superior. Just try to help me understand this woman. Is she quite mad, or what? Jack thinks I should feel sorry for her, but I just feel I want to hit her. Ilona, what do you make of it? Don’t you think there must be something terribly wrong with someone who can go to such lengths to deceive people?’
‘There’s something wrong with everybody. Don’t you ever tell lies?’
‘No. Well, not whopping great lies, anyway. Great Heavens, she’s even told me all about his parents – his mother who had rheumatic fever when she was eighteen and who’s had a weak heart ever since, and his father who was always winning prizes for his camellias. They had this acre of garden and a big mansion with wisteria over the front door.’
‘And you believed it all?’
‘Everybody believed it all. She had a huge emerald and diamond engagement ring from him; she was always going on about how much it must have cost. Did she buy it herself? Can you imagine going to a jeweller’s and buying an engagement ring for yourself? If she was really mad, I suppose I’d have to try to feel sorry for her, but I think she was quite aware of what she was doing. She did it for the advantage it gave her; so that people would take more notice of her, I suppose.’
‘It probably started off as a harmless daydream. All her friends were getting engaged and married so she pretended to have a boyfriend, too. She probably mentioned him to someone, the whole thing took off and she couldn’t control it anymore. You often hear of people like her. There was a woman in Brynteg who used to...’
‘Please don’t tell me about her, Ilona, I couldn’t bear it. Tell me about someone who’s normal. Why can’t people be truthful and honest with one another? Oh, it’s Jack I feel sorry for. He’s going to be sucked into this great whirlpool of lies and deception.’
‘Well, he’s only got himself to blame. He was at her digs when you called there that night and you told me how attentive he’s been to her ever since. He shouldn’t have been hanging around with someone else’s fiancée.’
‘He was only being kind to her when she was so upset about Alfie Morris’s mother coming up to school.’
‘Rhian, don’t waste your pity on a man. He’s big enough and tough enough to look after himself.’
At school the next day, Mary and I smile carefully at each other. I know she’d love to talk, if l let her, but I can’t bring myself to have anything to do with her at the moment. Anyway, she’s got poor Jack now. She can pour out her heart and soul to him.
I wonder what the Head will say when he hears about them? Of course he’ll be delighted to accept Mary’s resignation. Perhaps she’ll tell him that Alun was killed in action. It would certainly be a hero’s death. He’d die while rescuing a badly wounded private – a fellow Welshman probably – and you can bet your life they’d have a few quiet words of prayer together, too.
I’m beginning to feel quite unhinged. Why can’t I stop thinking about him? I can see his face so clearly; the band of peeling sunburn over his nose and cheeks, his sweat-streaked blond hair curling slightly on his neck even after the severest army haircut, the broad, six-foot-two-inch frame. My hold on reality seems as weak as Mary’s. I repeat Huw’s army number under my breath! 14405196. Why can’t I see his face? I take out his letter from my handbag and re-read it; my anger floods back, so I suppose he must be real, too. But why can’t he write sweet, poetic letters like Alun Brooke’s? Stop it. What’s the matter with me? Perhaps it’s the effect of the times we’re living in: life and death, fact and fantasy, truth and lies, wild impossible events and ordinary day-to-day happenings all swirling round together in this mad cauldron of war. I’ll blame it on that, anyway.
*
After my lesson with 2A, I’m summoned to the Head’s room again. What does he want now? I’m beginning to think I’m some sort of special chum.
‘Come in, come in,’ he says in his most hearty voice when I tap on the door.
He waits for me to sit down opposite him.
‘Well, you’ve got more sense than I have,’ he says. ‘Yes, indeed. A woman of sound sense and judgement.’ He gives me quite a ple
asant, unforced smile which seems only an inch or two wider than other people’s.
‘You saw through her,’ he says. ‘I didn’t. I confess that I was taken in by her. And I’m not often taken in, no indeed. John Cynrig Williams is not often deceived by people.’
That’s how he talks.
It doesn’t seem worth trying to tell him that I was taken in by her too – even to the extent of being envious of her handsome, steadfast sweetheart.
‘Well, I’ve insisted on her reporting sick for the rest of the term. I can’t have any more of her lies and hysteria. Lies and hysteria disrupt a school more than any number of absent teachers. Colleagues can cover for absent teachers – I know you won’t mind taking over some of her first-year classes, Mrs Evans – but no one can undo the effects of lies and hysteria. Yes, I’m sending her home by the midday train today and she won’t be returning. If Jack Jones chooses to follow her to Fronilltyd during the Easter holiday, that’s up to him. I’ve strongly advised him against it, but unfortunately I have no power to control a teacher’s out-of-school activity, except in so far as it affects his school work. If he chooses to get himself involved with a lying, hysterical woman, I can do nothing about it, though one would think he’d consider the loss of an arm enough of a liability. However, these last few weeks of term may give him the opportunity to reconsider his position.’
I don’t respond because I can’t bear the thought of being in any sort of agreement with him. In fact, he’s succeeded in making me feel a little more sympathetic towards Mary and a little less worried about Jack.
The interview seems to be over so I get to my feet.
‘I’m very pleased with you, Mrs Evans,’ he says, ‘very pleased to have you on my staff. You’re doing well here. Mrs Evans, I’ve been disappointed in Miss Powell. Don’t let me be disappointed in you, Mrs Evans. Do I make myself clear?’
I meet his searching little eyes. Great Heavens, how much does he know about me and Gwynn?
But what is there to know?
Nine
THIS MORNING Gwynn receives his call-up papers; a catastrophe I hadn’t anticipated since he’s already over forty.
We have a quarrel in the Art room at lunch time. I’d thought he was a pacifist, as I am. He says he is in principle, but that he still intends to join up. He says, yes, he’s quite aware of the power of propaganda, thank you, is quite aware that the Germans are not all savages nor the Allies all avenging angels, but he also believes that the Germans were the original aggressors, that it would be better for the world if the Allies win and that, in any case, he’d be proud to help liberate France.
I’ve been a Welsh Nationalist and pacifist almost since I can remember. I believe that an independent Wales would be neutral like Switzerland, Ireland and Sweden, but since she is legally part of Great Britain, then individuals who think as I do should follow their conscience and refuse to join the English army.
He says my concept of Wales is over-romantic, that the Welsh way of life I talk about is no different from the way of life of any poor, radical, non-conformist section of society in any part of Britain.
I say that our language and literature make us a separate nation so that we are set apart from any other section of society. We are a nation with a national culture and if that’s an over-romantic idea, I admit to being over-romantic.
He says that no man is an island, that Wales, whether a separate nation or not, is part of the main.
I say that war is never right and that he’s capitulated to the propaganda of the English press.
He says my outlook is narrow and parochial.
I say that he’s a moral coward, afraid of the scorn of small-minded, English-oriented people.
He says I’m over-emotional and that it’s time for me to grow up.
It’s our first quarrel. When the bell goes for afternoon school, I march out of the room, slamming the door behind me.
My first lesson is Welsh with 2A.
Arthur Williams’s father is in Swansea jail. Most conscientious objectors are allowed to work on the land, but he wouldn’t accept that alternative.
It seems the right time to show my hand. ‘How is your father, Arthur?’ I ask him as the class leaves.
‘I don’t know, Miss. My mother is only allowed to visit him once a month.’ My interest gives him courage. ‘He’s not a coward is he, Miss?’
‘No. I think he’s a very brave man.’
He’s a large, unattractive boy with bright red hair and flailing arms. He gives me a delighted, wide-eyed look before rushing out. For a few minutes I watch him chasing and clouting some smaller boys in the playground.
Behind the hills, the sky is a mild spring blue. Fourteen miles away my mother is doing as much work as she can manage with a still-bandaged finger. The little double daffodils are already out in the sloping garden and there are hot-scented gillyflowers in the shelter of the house. She hasn’t much time, and even less money to spend on flowers, but by saving the best seeds and some judicious planting – ‘I try to imagine where I’d be happy’ – she’s always got something in bloom. She’s got one rose bush with lovelier roses than I’ve come across anywhere else; deep pink, sweet smelling, perfectly round and fading to the palest lavender when fully open. She calls it Mary’s rose, not after the virgin or the queen, but after the woman who gave her the cutting years ago. Of course it’s much too early for roses now, but the pale primroses are out in profusion, their faint wet smell the breath of early spring. When I was little, I used to pick so many bunches of primroses that we had jam-jars full of them even on the outside window sills. I knew where to get the rare white primroses, too, and the pale pink ones. I think I could find them still.
On Palm Sunday, we used to make a primrose wreath for my grandmother’s grave. My mother used to say it was much prettier than the shop wreaths on some of the other graves, but I loved the big arum lilies shaped into crosses, used to promise faithfully that I’d always get one of those for her. Death seemed natural and not too frightening on those spring Sundays. Even those graves where the earth was newly-turned and raw failed to terrify me, then.
I was alone a great deal as a child, but I never thought of myself as lonely; never felt the lack of friends. I had friends at school and that seemed enough. Home and school were two different worlds with a two-mile stony track between them. At home, I had my mother and father and Dafi Blaenhir and a little house in the barn where I played with my doll, Grace, in wet weather. And later, I had books.
On fine summer days I used to hide away with the book I was reading, pretending not to hear them calling me in for meals. I had a little green den, formed by the bindwind which hung like curtains from the branches of the hazel trees by the brook, and the pages of my book were dappled with green. And no idiot-boy or sex-starved stranger ever lurched up to destroy the idyll; I can’t recall any really frightening experience. I had wasp stings and bee stings, of course, and was often caught in summer storms; thunder and lightning and torrential rain. I almost stepped on a snake once, but though momentarily alarmed, I recognised it as a harmless grass snake and stepped aside to let it pass; I remember being surprised by the rasping papery noise it made as it slithered along the path. Usually my solitary hours and long mountain walks yielded nothing worse than the stench of a decomposing animal, a rabbit or a fox.
I was brought up to be unafraid. My mother used to impress upon me that there were no such things as ghosts or witches. And no wicked burglars either, at least not in Wales. And any tramps I met were poor harmless fellows who I was welcome to bring home for some bread and cheese and a night in the barn.
I was brought up to think well of people; every man, not exactly a blood brother, perhaps, but certainly of the rank of cousin or cousin-in-law or second-cousin-once-removed. Land of brotherhood. Poor people help one another. We couldn’t manage the harvest on our own, neither could our neighbours, so we formed a self-help society. In the larger farms that employed two or three servants, it was
almost unheard of for the year’s contract to be broken; far oftener they would remain with the family, as part of the family, for a lifetime.
Now I’m in a town of landladies out for themselves and charging too much money for a bed and a breakfast. There seems to be something about the sea air that makes people greedy. In the hills we’re kinder to one another; our roots go deeper, I suppose.
Jack Jones comes into my room bringing me a cup of tea. I’ve been too agitated to go to the staff-room and he’s noticed. As a reward for his thoughtfulness, I ask after Mary.
He says she’s been very depressed after a bout of ’flu, but that he’ll be seeing her in the Easter holidays. He doesn’t mention their marriage and to my surprise doesn’t seem over-eager to talk about her.
I begin to drink my tea, expecting him to go, but he stays at my side looking out of the window. There’s a friendly detachment about him which I find comforting after my bruising contact with Gwynn.
‘Would you join up?’ I ask, ‘if it wasn’t for your accident?’
‘I wouldn’t have any choice, would I? If it wasn’t for the arm, I wouldn’t have any choice.’
‘Unless you were a conscientious objector.’
‘Oh no, I wouldn’t be one of those. I don’t like the idea of war – who does? – but I’m not a pacifist. Why do you ask?’
‘I would be one, that’s all.’
His face registers mild interest but no real surprise. ‘Does Huw know?’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t take it seriously. He doesn’t take me seriously at all. Huw thinks all my strange ideas are a part of my being a woman. He, a man, doesn’t have any strange ideas – or any ideas at all, come to that. I didn’t even try to talk Huw out of joining-up. I suppose I realised how futile it would have been.’
‘Most men would be the same, though. I mean, most men join up when they get their papers, don’t they? I think perhaps women are more concerned about the sanctity of life because they produce life.’