The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  “You can go in the barn and split up logs,” said Father, sternly. “Your lady-friend can ask my wife if there’s some washing or cleaning to be done.”

  Billy and I had crept up into the hay loft when the man had his back to us, piling the split logs into a barrow. We played a silly game, silently lying with our faces over the edge and pushing bits of straw down onto the traveller’s head. Once or twice he looked up, but he never saw us.

  After a while, the ragged girl came in and pinched the tramp on the arm. I saw him laugh and put out a hand to grab hold of her but, giggling, she twisted away and leant against the back wall of the barn.

  “Open your mouth,” she said, still laughing in a silly way and as he threw down the axe and moved towards her, she put her hand into the pocket of her dirty dress. To my surprise, when she withdrew her hand she was holding a wedge of cheese.

  “Clever girl,” the man said and pulled her towards him as she lifted her fingers and put the cheese straight into his mouth.

  “She’s pinched that cheese,” muttered Billy, angrily, but I was more interested in what happened next.

  “Look,” I whispered, as the couple went into one of the stalls and lay on the dusty floor. “What are they doing?”

  “Mucky stuff,” growled my brother and we watched, astounded, as the couple pulled their clothes aside and mated as casually as any of the animals about the farm.

  I think we must have made a noise for suddenly the girl opened her eyes and looked over the tramp’s rough shoulder.

  “Oh!” she squealed, “there’s lads up there,” and the man stopped his groaning and turned his head.

  “You young buggers!” he shouted leaping up and grabbing at his trousers which were loosened and hanging about his knees. “Watching like that. You’re not right in the head!”

  I stayed up in the loft but my brother wasn’t having an insult from some casual worker. “I’ll tell my Father,” he yelled, disappearing through the trap door and climbing down the ladder. “He’ll see that you don’t get paid.”

  The girl had got up too and was standing beside the man when Billy faced him. Her dress was undone and gaping at the front and she didn’t seem to care that her breasts were showing. I stared. I’d never seen a woman even partially undressed and I don’t think our Billy had either.

  “You stole that cheese from my mother’s pantry,” said Billy, “I’m going to tell. And I’m going to tell Father what you were doing just now.”

  I was kneeling up now in the loft, frightened by the row but not able to take my eyes off the ragged couple who were standing angrily but somehow unconcernedly amused in front of my brother.

  “Will you indeed,” said the girl and parting her wet lips, bent down and laughed into our Billy’s face. “Tell your Father,” she said, “that for a half crown I’ll do the same for him.”

  Billy went as red as a beetroot then and lifted his fist ready to give the girl a punch but the man grabbed his arm and held him so firmly that no matter how my brother struggled he couldn’t get away.

  “You shouldn’t be on our farm,” he shouted at the laughing girl, still trying to pull his arm free and I could see tears of rage and frustration in his eyes. “You’re a dirty common slut.”

  Suddenly the girl stopped laughing. “Common slut am I?” she spat, “well then this is what common sluts do,” and lifting her hand, she slapped my brother hard across his mouth.

  I was on my feet and going to the ladder. I had to help him, but I was too late, as ever. The man had dropped Billy’s arm and grabbed the girl. “Come on,” he said, now looking quite alarmed, “let’s get out of here.”

  I watched them run out of the barn and across the yard. “Did you see her titties?” I said, still too astonished to wonder if my brother was badly hurt.

  “Shut up!” he hissed and wiping the tears from his face, ran too, out of the barn. I thought he’d gone to tell Father but I don’t think he ever did.

  We never saw them again nor did Billy ever talk about it. And, somehow I had enough sense not to bring up the subject, but I thought of it often in later years and wondered.

  Those days I’m writing about were so long ago now but are as clear in my mind as my trip to the hospital today. Over eighty years ago it was, before the Great War, when I was a lad with Mother and Father and our Billy and Marian. And then Elizabeth came to live with us when I was coming up twelve, I think.

  Looking back over what I’ve written, our Marian doesn’t seem to come much into the story and that’s a shame because she was always there, even after she got married to Albert Baker. I think she preferred our house to their flat above the shop in the town. But she was with Mother a lot.

  My life was spent with Billy. We were that close, almost like twins although he was my elder and better in most things about the farm. There was only one time that I remember getting the better of him, apart from reading and writing, that is, but that didn’t count because Billy said those were sissy things. The day I remember was in the late spring when I would have been about ten years old. We had a big old laburnum tree in the back garden and Mother loved to look at the yellow blossoms. Father said he couldn’t abide the tree because the seeds were poisonous and he was frightened that the beasts might get into the garden and eat them. But Mother thought it a pretty thing and would often walk in the garden and stand under the canopy of blossom. Well, this day she wasn’t feeling too good and had taken to her bed for the afternoon. Marian had come over to look after her and, while she was waiting for the kettle to boil, she stood by the back door looking at the garden.

  “I’ll pick some flowers for her, when I’ve got a minute,” she said, “or, perhaps you lads could do it.”

  Billy laughed. “Picking flowers is girls’ work. I’m going to help Father in the shippon.”

  “I’ll get them,” I said. I never minded picking flowers. It didn’t seem sissy to me.

  Roses were just coming out, the early yellow ones and some tulips in the bed by the wall, but I knew what mother would like most. I was up the laburnum tree, pulling the strips of flowers off the branch when Father and Billy came round from the yard.

  “What are you doing up there, Richard?” said Father sternly.

  “He’s picking flowers, the big sissy,” our Billy said as he pulled a face at me and did a little play of curtseying and being a girl.

  I felt really bad then and climbed down the tree with my bunch of flowers. Father had no time for silly activities and he hated that old tree.

  “They’re for Mother, while she’s badly,” I muttered. I’ve no doubt that my face was redder than my hair at that point. Certainly Billy was pissing himself laughing behind Father’s back. But I was taken aback by Father’s reaction for I always found it hard to please him and expected a row.

  “You’re a good thoughtful boy, Richard,” was all he said and he went into the house to get a jug for the blossoms. Our Billy scowled and when we took them upstairs to show Mother, he tried to say that it was him who’d climbed up the tree. But Marian knew better, she’d been watching out of the window and told him not to be such a little liar. Anyway, everyone knew that Billy was scared of heights. I was the one who could climb.

  Mother gave me a big kiss. She gave one to Billy too, but mine was better.

  She was ill a lot that year, I never knew what was the matter with her, I wonder now if she was expecting another baby and lost it. It could have been but I think she was also upset about the war, which had started the August before. Some of the older lads in the village had gone to France and we had heard that young Jack Kendrick, the Vicar’s, son had been wounded in action. I saw him once in the vicarage garden.

  “Hello,” he called when I was hurrying to catch up with Billy on our way to school.

  “Come on,” yelled Billy, over his shoulder, “we’ll be late,” but I lingered, intrigued by the bandage around the young man’s head and the crutch that he was using to bash down the privet hedge so that we could s
ee each other better.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “You on your way to school?” he asked and I nodded, one eye on our Billy’s departing back.

  “Old Cutts still in charge?” He laughed and started to cough, making a unpleasant racking noise just like the old men did who sat on the wall by the church smoking their pipes. It seemed strange to hear that sound coming out of a person who wasn’t that many years older than me.

  “Yes,” I said and then I added, “he’ll give me the strap if I’m late.”

  “Better go then, don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  But I still hung on. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you?” I said. He wasn’t in uniform but wearing a pair of corduroy shooting breeches and a flannel shirt. I liked his face, it was open and friendly with hazel eyes that twinkled even though I could see nothing funny in our conversation.

  “I am, at least I am when I’m over there.”

  “Does that hurt?” I nodded towards the bandage on his head. A little bloodstain showed through the white gauze above one of his ears and I could see a bald patch where his hair had been shaved away.

  “No, not much. I was lucky; most of the shrapnel missed me.”

  My eyes were round at that and I would have stayed there talking about the fighting but Billy came running back down the lane and grabbed me.

  “Hurry up, idiot!” he commanded pulling at my jacket and with a reluctant little wave to my new friend I ran after him.

  “Goodbyee,” Jack called and I laughed out loud at the sound of it as I sped towards the toll of the school bell.

  He went back after sick leave and was killed within three days. Mother went to the Vicar to tell him how sorry she was. Mrs Kendrick had died when Jack was born, so the Vicar had no-one now and was brought low. Even his religion didn’t seem to help. Mother was quiet and thoughtful when she came back from the vicarage and it was after that she got poorly. But she was better in the autumn and back on her feet again by Christmas.

  That year we had a visit from Mother’s brother, John, who was a soldier like her younger brother, Richard, my namesake, but who had survived the Boer War and had then been posted to India. He told some tales, so exciting and wonderful, that even Billy would sit and listen for hours. Father would smoke his pipe and ask a few questions now and then, particularly about the animals they had out there and became particularly interested when Uncle John told us about a tiger hunt that he had been on. Mother was proud of him because he was an officer. He had been raised from the ranks and was now a Captain.

  “I’ll never get any higher,” he said, but was cheerful about it, telling us that it would be too expensive to be a Major or a Colonel. They had to keep horses and grand houses and entertain, even in India. As it was, Uncle John lived in a bungalow that had a veranda all round and kept two native servants. He slept under mosquito netting and searched under the bed every day for snakes. We gasped in a sort of thrilled horror at that and I wonder if it was those tales that made up my mind to join the army later on. To a certain extent, my experiences in India were like his. He fought a few battles against warring tribesmen as I did too and thought myself a grand, brave fellow. But later on, I encountered the Japs, who damn near killed me.

  On Christmas morning, he opened a big chest and brought out presents for us all. Billy and I both had curved daggers with fancy handles. I still have mine, but Billy lost his the following summer. “Bloody useless on a farm,” he said scornfully when we were up in our bedroom, “unless you wanted to kill someone.”

  Father was given a pair of little pistols, in a polished box.

  “This is too generous, brother John,” said Father, examining them with delight and squinting down the sights.

  Uncle John shook his head. “No it isn’t, Thomas. I’ve no family, except you and Mary Constance and the children and it gives me pleasure to hand these things on.” At the time I didn’t understand that sentiment but I suppose it’s something that comes with age. It’ll give me pleasure too when the time comes. That box with the duelling pistols is in the drawer beside my right leg. Perhaps another Thomas would appreciate it.

  Mother and Marian had sandalwood boxes and coloured silk shawls with long fringes and exotic patterns of birds and flowers. I never saw Marian wear hers, but Mother went to the next church social with her turquoise shawl arranged over her grey dress and looked lovely. Granny said it was showing off, but Father said he was proud of her and that shut Granny up.

  Uncle John went back to India in the early spring and we never saw him again. He stayed on there after coming out of the army and when I went out, I was posted to the very same station and visited the church where he was buried, to see his grave. I got a surprise then. Apparently, he’d married a native girl when he was in his sixties and they’d had a son. Their names were on the grave stone too, ‘beloved husband of Aisha and father of Richard.’ So another Richard Wilde existed, but I never found him. I’ll bet he didn’t have red hair.

  That next summer, we went on holiday to Llandudno. We’d been on lots of day trips before, to New Brighton and sometimes to Rhyl, but this summer Father thought that Mother needed a proper break and paid for two weeks at a boarding house on the West Shore. Father only came for the first week, saying that he couldn’t spare the time away from the farm, but Mother, Billy and I stayed on and Marian and Albert Baker came to stay in the same place.

  In my memory that was the best holiday I ever had. The weather was perfect and although we were into the second year of the Great War, people seemed to be quite cheerful around the town. Marian’s Albert almost joined up at a recruiting rally that we went to on the promenade, but Marian persuaded him that he was in a reserved occupation, as an apothecary, and that he mustn’t go. He did go later that year. I think he was too ashamed to be safely at home when so many lads were being killed. He joined up as a stretcher bearer, having some knowledge of medicines and first aid and served in a field hospital throughout.

  Our Billy wanted to join up. He was nearly thirteen then and told me in bed one night at the boarding house that he was going to lie about his age and join the Royal Welch Fusiliers, our local regiment. I said he’d never get away with it, but he was determined. He did try, but the sergeant knew he was only a lad and sent him away. It almost spoiled his holiday and he was angry for days afterwards. I never told Mother what he’d tried to do even though she asked me what was making him so miserable.

  He cheered up though when we went on to the beach. Our Billy loved swimming. Mother didn’t go into the water but Marian had a suit with a knee-length skirt and a frilly hat to cover her hair and she went to the edge of the sea, holding Albert’s hand, squealing like a pig. She never went in further than her knees but scampered back to sit beside Mother and shout instructions to us boys. Albert went in all the way although he couldn’t swim and walked, doing a pretend breast stroke with his arms until he was nearly out of his depth. Once he forgot that he was still wearing his boater and a big wave came in and knocked it off his head. How we laughed as it floated away.

  Billy was a good swimmer; he taught himself in the river at home and although he had no proper style he could get through the water safely, with a lot of snorting and splashing. I could swim too, but I was less daring and wouldn’t go out as far. I preferred to stay away from Billy anyway because he loved to dive down and grab your legs and pull you under. Some boys from Liverpool were in the sea one day at Llandudno and we got to playing with them. Billy did his diving trick to one of them and later, the boy’s father had a word with Mother. Billy got a telling off.

  We also went on trips on Mr White’s charabanc, a motor bus with a removable canvas cover in case of rain. It held about fourteen people and Mr White took us first to Anglesey, which I thought was a bit boring, simply more beaches and tea at a café at Rhosneigr. Mother and Marian enjoyed it, although Albert spent his time reading a newspaper and smoking countless cigarettes. Billy grumbled all the way and I couldn’t blame him; we felt tr
apped. But on the next trip we went to Snowdon, and I found heaven.

  We stopped at a pretty lake at the foot of the great mountain and everyone got out. Two lady school teachers from London were on the trip and they told me the Welsh name of the mountain and all the other peaks around. Then they let me come with them a little way up the hillside and said that they had hired a guide and were going all the way up on the following day. Before we went back, one of them spoke to Mother and said that if I would like to come with them on the morrow, they would be glad of my company and would take good care of me.

  “He’s a little young,” said Mother, “and not as strong as some.” She nodded significantly towards our Billy, who was skimming pebbles into the lake and showing off, but the ladies could see that he wasn’t in the least interested.

  “Oh, please, Mother,” I pleaded. It seemed such an important moment. Mother pondered for a minute or two and then looked to Marian to see what she thought.

  “Let him go, Mother,” said Marian with a smile, “it’ll get him away from you know who, for a day.” She meant Billy, of course and not kindly. They never got on particularly well.

  Mother sighed. “Very well, then and thank you, miss. He’ll be a good boy; I can assure you of that.”

  Oh, I was. The best and most happy boy in the whole world. From the top of Snowdon I could see for miles, to the east, way across the other mountain tops into mid Wales and when I turned and looked the other way, the whole stretch of the North Wales coast lay before me and the flat round Isle of Anglesey floated like a green jewel in a shimmering sea. My heart was full. When we got back to Llandudno the sun was sinking into the west and I was late for the evening meal at the boarding house. Mother asked me if I’d enjoyed myself, but I couldn’t really speak. I was still so overwhelmed with the experience.

  Our Billy dismissed the climbing with scorn, saying he’d done something better. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was only trying to get one over me, but he told me that night in bed that he had taken a girl he’d met on the beach under the pier and kissed her.