Love and War

by Siân James

  We’re silent. I thought about words. Yes I studied them, toiled over them, savoured them syllable by syllable, but now I only wanted to get beyond them, to reach the hard elusive truth.

  ‘Christ, whichever it is, it hurts like hell. I can’t pretend it’s never happened. Love, I mean. It has. And now, oh Ilona, I can’t do without it. I want the danger and excitement of it. I’m not going to give it up. I’m simply not prepared to give it up.’

  Ilona lets out a long sigh. ‘OK. Now you’re at least being truthful. You don’t really want to run away but to go on facing life here. Plenty of people live half-lives because that’s all they can do in the circumstances. Adultery’s always had a lousy press, but people don’t go in for it out of choice but because it’s the only option they have. It wasn’t my fault that Ifor married that rich tart, was it? When he was meant for me?’

  ‘I must see Gwynn again before he goes away. I want to... oh Ilona... I want to make love with him.’

  ‘Of course you do. And you would have long ago, except that he’s a nervous old granny. Write to him. No, don’t worry, I’ll see that he gets the letter safely. I’m not Mali Vaughan.’

  ‘“Dearest Gwynn. Why don’t you call here tonight? I can’t bear the thought of your leaving me with nothing but words and sighs to remember. With love and lust and obsession and infatuation. Rhian.” Do you think that would be clear enough? But Ilona, I don’t want to have to beg him to come here.’

  There’s a knock on the door. It’s Gwynn. Ilona brings him in. He looks shy, a bit of a nervous old granny, I have to admit it.

  ‘I was bringing you a letter from Rhian,’ Ilona says, because neither he nor I seem anxious or able to say anything at all.

  ‘You may as well tell him what you meant to write,’ she says, nodding at me briskly like a mother trying to persuade her child to recite a verse in chapel.

  Gwynn smiles; suddenly not as shy. ‘No, I’ll speak first,’ he says.

  Fourteen

  WHEN ILONA FINALLY GOES OUT, we lie on the carpet in front of the fire, all scruples forgotten. We fit together like two halves. I cry out with the wonder of it, drown in the depths of it, the love and lust of it, all, all those kisses. ‘That sort of kissing begins.’ Ap Gwilym, the fourteenth century poet knew far more about it than I did until tonight, those kisses that course and sing down your body. All this, all this; I can’t believe that something so violent can begin with such babylapping tenderness and end in such peace. My body seems vast as a cathedral, every cell and bone and muscle and sinew and blood-vessel and hair consoled and praised and ravished and comforted and corrupted and blessed.

  We lie naked in each other’s gaze and it’s what I want. He’s very beautiful – the skin of his belly is soft as cream, his brown eyes have gold flecks in them – and for the moment I feel beautiful too, soothed and beautiful. And I know that nothing will ever be the same again. The world will never be the same. How can I bear all this joy? All the stars and the sailing moon and the birds at dawn are nothing to me now.

  ‘It was good of you to send Jack to Celine, but, you see, the damage was already done. She’d already asked me, last Tuesday when she read your letter, whether I loved you and I said yes. I couldn’t lie, somehow, didn’t want to. Oh and she knew something was wrong even before she got the letter. All the time we were on holiday, she chipped away at my defences and I’m glad she did. I thought at first, I’ll be honest with you, that having a fortnight away might help to put you out of my mind, but it didn’t. It seemed to bring things to a head.

  ‘It’s been a long time. Since last Tuesday, I mean. I’ve been very worried. Why did it take you so long to come to me?’

  ‘Oh Rhian, I was sure of my feelings, but couldn’t forget the responsibility I had towards you. You’re so young. Even now, I know I’m taking advantage of your youth and inexperience. Does that sound patronising? It’s not that I’m experienced, I’m not. I’ve been married for over twenty years and up to now I’ve never been unfaithful to Celine. I’ve been tempted before, I admit it, many times before. But before this I’ve always been able to resist the temptation. With you, I resisted for a day and the next day was as bad as ever and the following day was worse. I couldn’t go on.’

  ‘You resisted too long. I thought you didn’t care for me.’

  ‘No you didn’t. I wouldn’t love you so much if I thought you were so foolish and faint-hearted. You knew I loved you. You knew.’

  ‘When you’ve gone, I’ll think this is a dream.’

  ‘No you won’t. You’ll remember. You’ll remember me. And after the war, when I come back, we’ll find some way of being together.’

  ‘Where do you go?’

  ‘To London.’

  ‘I’ll come to see you. I’ve never been to London. We’ll go to the National Gallery. When I was in the Fifth, doing Art with you, you were always talking about the National Gallery, how wonderful it was.’

  ‘You were lovely when you were sixteen. Cool as crystal. But now you’re soft and glowing, “With your nut coloured hair, and grey eyes and rose-flush coming and going.”’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘It could have been written for you. Hardy. About his first wife, I think.

  “Where you will next be there’s no knowing

  Facing round about me everywhere

  With your nut coloured hair

  And grey eyes, and rose-flush coming and going.”’

  ‘Lovely. No, not the poem, but that’s lovely too.’

  And this hair, dark and moist. You taste like the inside of a sea shell.’

  ‘I knew it would be like this.’

  ‘One day, I’ll paint you like this, so tender and soft and yielding. I can’t stop thinking about you. Sometimes you look so cool and composed that I want to make you tremble and cry, so that I can lick away your tears and comfort you. I suppose that’s depraved, wanting to punish you because you’ve made me love you so much.’

  ‘Breaking up your marriage. I told Ilona I’d have done anything to avoid that and she said, anything but leave him alone. She was right. If you hadn’t come here tonight I was going to write to you. To make you come to me.’

  ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Please come to me because I’m sick with love and lust. Rhian.’

  ‘Lust?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hussy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Yes seems all I’m able to say as I lie so snugly in the heat of his protection. Yes.

  It lasts about an hour, that deep happiness when my feet curled up with delight and the cut-grass smell of his nakedness was in my nostrils.

  Then comes the terror of his leaving me. He must leave me. Tonight and again when he goes to London. When I’ve hardly begun to know the comfort of his lovely body.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘Because you’re not a twenty-year-old Art student. Because I’m not Celine.’

  ‘I’m too old for you.’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s just that I want your past, all your past. Oh, why am I crying when I’m so happy?’

  ‘Because you’re Welsh and we all have this streak of melancholy. We’re all trapped in this sense of doom all around us; the barren hills, the terrible mountains, the wind-swept trees, old castles, old history, old blood gone rusty as bracken. Put out a hand and we feel chill ghosts all around us, ghosts of our defeated armies I suppose. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Oh Rhian, I don’t want to go away. I don’t want to go on teaching either. I want to paint. I want to live with you and paint for you. I want to paint great abstract paintings, charcoal grey and black and rust-red, full of crows and bracken and broken-down stone walls.’

  ‘But what about rivers and lakes and the sea with the setting sun in it? Won’t you put water into your paintings? Waterfalls and raindrops and shiny green grass?’

  ‘One day I’ll paint you like this.’

  ‘I wasn’t happy about Celine’s painting.’<
br />
  ‘So Jack said. You shouldn’t have let it upset you so much. It probably did her a great deal of good. She’s very direct, very primitive. She’ll be all right, I think. She’s got plenty of guts. And plenty of anger.’

  I want to ask him whether he still loves her, whether he loves me more, whether he’ll love me for ever. I want so much to be noble, or at least decent, but I’m already anxious to extract promises from him.

  ‘When do you have to go?’ I ask him. The hairs on his chest are almost white. Shall we ever spend a whole night together? ‘Are you staying at Jack’s tonight?’

  ‘Yes. I sleep on the sofa in the parlour. A lumpy old sofa, too uncomfortable even to sit on. At about three o’clock this morning I got up and lay on the floor which seemed much softer.’

  ‘Must you go back there?’

  ‘Yes. But tomorrow I’ll go home. I need to talk to Celine. I must get all this sorted out and settled.’

  ‘You can’t stay here tonight?’

  ‘Of course not. I can’t risk that. I can’t ruin your reputation.’

  ‘You just have. Twice.’

  Oh, the gentleness and lovebites and pet-words and long, wet kisses and long, long caresses, the sweet nuzzling, the promises.

  I go to bed as soon as he goes, leaving a note for Ilona. ‘Dear Ilona. Love Rhian.’ What more is there to say?

  In bed, I feel I’m flowing away very gently like a slowly flowing river.

  Fifteen

  MY MOTHER arrives here unexpectedly on Saturday morning. These days she very seldom leaves the farm, so I’m terrified; convinced that someone has let her know about Gwynn and me. Oh, and now there is something to know about Gwynn and me!

  She’s dressed in the bright royal-blue costume she bought for my wedding and has seldom worn since. It makes her skin look sallow and changes the shape of her soft body. Why did I make her buy it? Why did I try to make her look fashionable? I persuaded her to do so many things which went completely against the grain. In Tregroes we don’t go in for wedding receptions in cafes, but just have tea and sandwiches and a slice of wedding cake in the vestry for everyone who turns up at the service. But Huw’s mother wanted a sit-down meal in Glyn Owen’s which meant making a list of wedding guests and hiring cars. My mother gave in to everything to make it easier for me, but I know it embarrassed her, the ostentation.

  She’s out of breath and flushed as she reaches the door. She avoids my kiss and sits down heavily on the nearest chair.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ I ask her, digging my nails into the palm of my hand to calm myself.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Yes. Huw’s father came up to the farm on Thursday to fetch those things I wanted you to have and he saw me with Alfredo. I thought you ought to know.’

  She must have heard me gasp. ‘Oh, we were only having a bit of tea, girl, but of course the way a man sits down at a tea table can say it all. I had to introduce them and of course Fredo had to talk a bit of English, which was only polite, but every word he said made it more obvious how things stood and what his intentions were. And Huw’s father said not a word in reply, only “Well, I’d best be off then,” and backed away like a scalded cat. And he slunk back to his van without even taking the boxes he’d come for.’

  ‘A mean-spirited little man. And probably jealous as much as shocked. You remember how he was always calling on you after Father died? You always insisted it was only kindness, but I knew different.’

  ‘Well, I knew different too, before the end, but that’s something else. I never wanted to tell tales about Huw’s father.’

  After a few minutes she begins to look a little less agitated – she never looks really comfortable anywhere except at home or in chapel – and starts casting an eye over the crumbs on the carpet and the dirty dishes still on the table.

  ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind,’ I tell her, before she has a chance to say anything.

  ‘Of course you have. I know how worried you must have been about me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not you I’m worried about.’

  She looks at me sharply, her eyes like blue flames. ‘It’s not that Gwynn Morgan, Art?’

  ‘He’s going to the army at the end of next week.’

  What happens next takes me completely by surprise. A sob lurches up from my chest, then another and another. My mother puts her hand over mine and then, of course, I really break down, huffling and sniffling for at least five minutes, squeezing my mother’s hand, trying to let her know all the things I can’t tell her.

  ‘Well, I’ll be off now,’ she says as soon as I’m relatively calm again. ‘I must let you get on with your housework or you’ll be behind all next week. I’ll manage to get the half past ten if I hurry. I can’t help you with your problem, girl, I wish I could, but I do know that neglecting your work is not going to help you.’

  We hear someone at the door. ‘I can’t think who this can be,’ I tell my mother. ‘But please wait, because I want to come with you as far as the station. I’ve got to go in to town this morning.’

  It’s Huw’s mother who comes bursting in, full of her usual self-importance and bustle. She’s a large woman, her hand-made dress is cut like a tent and her brown, hand-knitted cap is perched on her head like a little hedgehog.

  ‘Rhian, I saw your mother passing when I was in the queue at Iwan Morgan’s and I hurried up to see her as soon as I’d been served – sultanas I was after and I managed to get half a pound. Well hello, Mrs Lloyd, how are you? I thought I’d call round for a few minutes. It’s not often you come to Llanfair these days, is it? I must say, you’re looking very well. I’m delighted to see you looking so well. Is everything all right? Nothing worrying you, is there? Only seeing you so unexpectedly on a Saturday morning, I wondered whether there was anything the matter, anything I could do to help.’

  ‘Nothing, thank you, Mrs Evans. It’s nice to see you, of course, but there’s nothing I need at the moment, I’m plodding along quite well. I must let you have some eggs, Mrs Evans, the hens are laying very nicely just now. Pity I didn’t bring them with me this morning, but I was in a bit of a rush, somehow.’

  ‘Will you stop for a cup of tea?’ I ask my mother-in-law, trying to divert her attention. ‘We’ll all have a cup of tea. Mam, you can get the quarter past twelve today, can’t you?’

  ‘No, I must go, girl, or I’ll be trying to catch up with myself all day. I’ve got to do the flowers for chapel this afternoon, as well as the graves. You make Mrs Evans a cup of tea, Rhian, and I’ll take myself off.’

  My mother has got to her feet and is looking towards the door with some desperation.

  ‘Only it was you I really came to see, Mrs Lloyd. You see, Bryn was a bit disturbed when he called to see you the other day.’ She looks at us in turn expecting one of us to question her. Neither of us does.

  ‘Yes, he was most upset to see you so friendly, Mrs Lloyd, with this Italian fellow you had in the house. I said there was nothing in it. “Don’t you worry about it,” I told him, “Mrs Lloyd would never do anything to hurt Huw’s feelings, she’s too fond of him. And besides she’s got a very strong sense of right and wrong. She’s a deeply religious, God-fearing woman,” I told him. “And besides...”

  ‘Why should it upset Huw?’ I ask her. ‘It doesn’t upset me, so why should it upset Huw?’

  ‘Why should it upset Huw? Is that what she’s asking? What an unnatural wife she is.’ She swings her large body round to face me. ‘Your husband, Rhian, in case you’ve forgotten, has been in Italy fighting the Eyeties for a year and a half. Fighting for his King and his Country. Fighting for our freedom.’

  ‘But the Italians are not in the war, now, so they’re no longer our enemies. Anyway, Christ says we must love our enemies and my mother is, as you say, a deeply religious woman and she...’

  ‘Rhian,’ my mother says, ‘please don’t talk about private matters. I don’t like this sort of talk at all. I really must go.’

  ‘And she’s goi
ng to marry him as soon as the war is over. It’s no secret – I intended to tell you, but I didn’t see you last week. I’ve already told Mr Roberts; he’s very pleased for them both and he’s promised to be one of the officiating ministers at the wedding.’

  ‘That’s typical of Mr Roberts. Has he met him, then?’

  ‘No, not yet. But he was asking after my mother, so I told him about Alfredo, told him he was a farmer, and a God-fearing man.’

  She gives my mother a look, half pleading and half warning. ‘My Huw will never forgive you,’ she says. ‘In one of his letters he told us that all the Italians are treacherous and sub-human. That’s what he said – treacherous and sub-human.’

  ‘But soldiers have to think like that, don’t they? It makes it easier for them. They couldn’t do the things they have to do against unarmed civilians unless they believed they were treacherous and sub-human. That’s the propaganda machine. Alfredo is just a nice, ordinary man. And he’s got three young lads, all too young for the army, and he’s no idea what’s happened to them, hasn’t heard from them for almost a year.’

  ‘They asked for it. The Eyeties asked for it. Why did they join with Hitler instead of joining us? We’d have let them join us.’

  ‘I don’t know why. But I’m sure that Alfredo and his sons didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Motherless sons,’ my mother says, a catch in her voice.

  ‘What about my son?’ my mother-in-law asks. ‘Don’t you have any sympathy for my son?’

  ‘I pray for your son every night,’ my mother says, quietly and simply. ‘And now I really must go or I’ll miss that bus. Goodbye, Mrs Evans. Goodbye, Rhian. I’ll see you on Wednesday.’

  I go to the door with her and watch her hurrying down the hill. I feel a great rush of tenderness for her; but if I said anything affectionate, she’d be startled out of her wits. I stand in the sun, listening to the blackbirds for a moment or two before going back to my mother-in-law. Unexpectedly I feel a flicker of affection for her too.