The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  “Take no notice of him, miss,” I said when she bent over me to see if I wanted a drink, “he’s not a bad chap. We couldn’t have done without him in the jungle. It’s just his hand that’s bothering him.”

  “I know,” she said with a kind smile, “don’t worry.”

  Later, I found out that she was terrified of flying, but had bravely pretended to me and the other wounded that she had enjoyed the experience. It was like that during the war, everyone trying to be devil-may-care, no matter what happened. Not many obvious cowards were about, at least not that I met. Men and women hid their feelings from each other, specially their fears. I often think that if one of us in the Naga Hills had given way, we all might have done and God knows what would have happened then. The Japs would have had a field day with us.

  I got to know Lucy well in the following weeks and at one time I almost thought I might be in love with her. I think she was with me and was miserable when I was shipped home. Poor girl, she might have made me happy but she knew that my heart was elsewhere. She knew that from the start. I think I’d been mumbling things when I was feverish with the malaria.

  I thought of Lucy again this morning while I was watching the vapour trails and wondered if she ever flew again after we parted. Probably not.

  “I want to change something in my will,” I said to young Jones.

  “Thought you might,” he said, a bit cheekily. “That’s what these calls out usually are.”

  I looked down at him. He was lying on his back with his arms folded under his head. How wonderful to be that young and relaxed. Most of his life in front of him and an attitude that would allow him to enjoy it. “Get your pen out,” I growled, “and write this down.”

  After he’d gone, I came inside and had a sleep. I feel better today than I have for a week or so. It’s the warm weather, I know it. My old bones don’t ache so much and I can rest easier in my bed. Life is still sweet on days like today.

  Sharon has asked me if I mind if Thomas has a few friends in at the weekend for his birthday party.

  “I don’t mind,” I said, “but I didn’t know you knew anyone round here.”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s just a few kids from his school; he goes to their parties, so I have to ask them back. Don’t worry, I’ll keep them out of your way, in the kitchen or in the garden, but if it would be a nuisance, I can take them out to a burger bar.” She thought for a moment, chewing on the ear-piece of the spectacles that she always carries with her. Every spare moment she has her head in a book. “Yes, perhaps that’s for the best.”

  “No.” I wasn’t going to let her disappoint the child. “Don’t do that. Ask them here. After all it’s the only home the little lad’s got. He has to have somewhere to feel he belongs.”

  Sharon screwed her face up at that and for a moment, I thought she was going to cry. She didn’t, but she did lean over my desk where I’d come to sit after my sleep and dropped a little kiss on my forehead. “You really are an old sweetie,” she said and left the room quickly. I have become stupidly fond of this girl and am tempted to believe that she is indeed a descendant of the Major. She has the same charm and nobility that he had. I do hope the rest of her behaviour is better than his was, though.

  Birthday parties weren’t celebrated much when we were children. Mother would make a cake and decorate it with a candle to make it different from the cakes she made every day and we would get a small present. Mine was always a book and that was fine because I have loved books from the day I learned to read. Our Billy used to get football boots and once a cricket bat, which was a big present because cricket bats weren’t cheap. Maybe it was second hand, I don’t remember, but he loved it and we played for hours in the field, although it was late in the year and well past the cricket season.

  Elizabeth’s birthday was in July and in later years we used to have parties for her. I remember one in particular when we had a swimming party. It was the last summer before I left the farm and the end of my childhood. I was seventeen then, tall and gawky with arms and legs that always seemed too long for my body. “Don’t worry,” Mother used to say, “you’ll grow into yourself.”

  At the time, that old adage, which was what people always said in our village, was no comfort, but later, when I was in my twenties and had put on some weight to balance out my height, I understood. At twenty-five, I stood at six foot three in my stockinged feet and weighed fourteen stone. Mind you, when I came out of Burma I was barely nine stone and must have looked like a skeleton.

  Father and our Billy were heavy too, but they hadn’t the height. I don’t think Billy made five foot eight, but he was as strong, if not stronger than I was and a much better sportsman. If he’d been in the army, he would have been the boxing champion or something like that and maybe even won more combat medals than me. He was never frightened of anything was our Billy, and would have joined up, but being a farmer, was in a reserved occupation, so stayed at home for the duration. Fair play, though, he didn’t complain. Simply got on with the job.

  Anyway, that was later and I’m thinking now about that swimming party for Elizabeth. She was nineteen that July and the most beautiful girl in the area. I can’t properly describe how lovely she was, you would have to see her. To watch her walk into a room with an easy grace, her soft curls bouncing down her back and those dark blue eyes so merry and cheerful, you would be dumbstruck with her loveliness. And yet, she seemed not to care about her looks or her figure. I can’t remember her spending hours looking in the mirror like our Marian had done when she was a girl. Of course Marian wasn’t as pretty and perhaps her long stares into the looking-glass were more searching.

  She wasn’t plain, our Marian. In fact plenty of people thought her quite a catch and I remember being told that she was one of the most eligible girls in the village. I can tell you that Albert Baker wasn’t the only young man who courted her; he was simply the one she decided on. The most suitable, I suppose. And they made a handsome couple coming down the aisle at St Winifred’s, he in his best grey suit and stiff collar and she with a wreath of orange blossom circling her short brown hair. She wore Mother’s lace wedding dress with a long veil flowing out behind her and that veil caused an incident that was talked about in the village for years afterwards. It had been an unseasonably cold March that year and the wind blew in cruelly from the open church door, making the delicate lace fly about and wrap itself closely about her narrow body and face. Albert struggled clumsily to free her and when she emerged from the winding sheet, she was as pale as the dress. Even her lips that parted in a controlled little smile as she bowed from side to side to our friends gathered in the pews were pale. Some of the older people drew in their breaths and shook their heads.

  “Oh my good gracious,” Granny whispered loudly to Aunt May, “if that isn’t an unlucky sign I don’t know what is.”

  “Hush, Mother Wilde,” said Mother and gave Granny such a look that she was quiet and sulky for the rest of the day.

  I didn’t think that it was unlucky for the wind to tangle our Marian up in the veil nor did I think she looked upset. She was always pale. It was as though she had never been out of doors in her life and you’d never have taken our Marian for a country girl. Father always called her his ‘fine lady’.

  But Elizabeth was cut from a different cloth. Where Marian’s skin was papery white, Elizabeth’s was thick and creamy like the milk that came from Mother’s little Jersey house cow. I always thought she looked at her best in the summer when she had been out in the fields and her skin had taken on a warmer colour. Then her eyes seemed a deeper blue and her lips full and pink and I found it an endless pleasure to watch her and smell the fresh scent of meadow grass and lavender that wafted around her. I recall the cornflower blue dress with what she and Mother called a ‘sweetheart’ neckline, which she wore all one summer. Many’s the teatime that I sat opposite her at the kitchen table, staring at the creamy skin that rose and fell so carelessly above the fabric. Our Billy would b
e going on about the latest success he’d had with the cattle or one of the shires and Mother would be sitting behind the teapot listening and watching.

  “Go and re-fill the pot,” she said crossly to me one afternoon, when I’d been staring at Elizabeth and I remember now the hot sting of embarrassment as the blood rushed into my face. Billy didn’t notice. He always missed any by-play, it didn’t interest him. I think Elizabeth guessed though, for as I came back with the pot, a little smile played about her lips and she lowered her eyelashes when she turned to me with the plate of ginger cake. Was that flirting? It must have been. Unconscious on my part but probably not on hers. The beginnings, I suppose, of what was to be the driving force of my life for the next forty years. I would never experience happiness more exquisite than shared with her nor yet such heartbreaking despair.

  I went to buy a horse once at the Dublin Horse Show and saw women who looked a lot like Elizabeth. They were from the west of Ireland, strong confident girls who could judge horseflesh as well as any man and were never at a loss for words to answer you back. I suppose Elizabeth was from the same roots, a lot of Liverpudlians are. Irish or Welsh, or a mixture of the two. What is it about the Celts? They are so different from us ordinary English. Their ability to achieve extreme joy and extreme sadness is unparalleled, as is their ability to pass it on. It would seem that you can’t have one without the other and, what is so much worse, you are willing to bear the pain, to get the ecstasy.

  She had callers coming to the house, lots of them fine lads, friends of ours from the village, but she wouldn’t look at them as anything other than pals. Groups of us would go on picnics and always a couple or two would be having a cuddle up in the heather, but not Elizabeth. She said she was saving herself for Mr Right. I never knew who she meant and I don’t think she did either, but it was something Mother had taught her. She and Mother were so close.

  “Will you come to the church social with me?” asked Johnny Lowe, Herbert’s grandson who had come home from the Great War with only one eye. He was a few years older than us, but lots of his friends had been killed at the front and in those days he still lived at home. Never short of money, was Johnny Lowe and the lads in the village whispered that he’d taken it from dead soldiers and not only the Hun, but I didn’t think so. He was a straight sort of person with a good head on his shoulders. He had got into the buying and selling of supplies, blankets and biscuits and even wine, quite legally, I believe, even before his discharge and was now in business in the town. By the time he was thirty he was a millionaire living in London, and Elizabeth couldn’t have done better than to have married him. She would have been a real lady, but she didn’t want him.

  “I’m going with Billy and Richard,” she answered, but added, letting him down lightly, “I’ll see you there.”

  He’d nodded, grinning in his lopsided way, for the bullet that had taken out his eye had also cut a furrow through the nerves in his cheek and left a scar not only on the outside. “All right,” he said, “you can promise me the last waltz.”

  Elizabeth smiled at that. The last waltz meant something in those days. It was nearly as important as an engagement ring. As it happened, she danced the last waltz with me at that social, but only because she was holding me up. I’d been drinking and she didn’t want Mother to see.

  Johnny was one of the group who came to her birthday picnic. He and my pal Fred Darlington, and some of the other boys. Our girl cousins from the village had been invited too although we weren’t that close to them. They were dull but necessary as chaperones, if nothing else. Elizabeth was quite pally with Mary Phoenix who was a sort of cousin. Her granny was Granny’s sister and a much nicer person, as I remember. She drank a bit though and Granny never had a good word for her. Mary was a nice girl, in service at a big house where she was learning to be a cook. She was jolly and giggled a lot over silly things. You’d always be sure of a good audience if you told Mary a joke. She’d scream with laughter even if she didn’t get it. Some of the lads used to tell her dirty jokes, which I’m sure, being quite an innocent, she didn’t understand, but she would go into gales of laughter and the lads seemed to get more wicked pleasure out of that than in the pathetic joke itself. I must confess that I once sat in on those joke-telling sessions with Mary Phoenix and found it most amusing but our Billy walked in on us in the back of the church hall and was really angry.

  “Come away, Dick,” he said, furious and dragging me by the arm. “Those are mucky stories, not fit to listen to.” He never liked anything even in the slightest bit salacious. For a farmer, he was prudish and in that way, quite like our Marian. As we left, the boys were still sniggering and Mary looking round all confused and pink-faced but laughing.

  “You’re a common slut, Mary Phoenix!” shouted Billy over his shoulder as we reached the door, “listening to all that dirty talk.” I felt bad for her then and even the other lads looked embarrassed but Mary seemed to think it was all part of the joke and carried on laughing. For a moment, I thought Billy would run back and hit her, he was shaking with rage, but I walked on towards the door and he followed me.

  Elizabeth had also asked Jane Parry to come. She was the illegitimate daughter of poor Mabel who had got pregnant at our house after I was born. Mother didn’t like her, but I think Elizabeth was curious. She asked me a couple of times about the story and then said, “Poor thing,” in an indignant tone. She asked me who she thought the father could be but I had no idea and was no help.

  The day of the party was glorious. A hot July day with cloudless skies and an eighty-degree temperature at mid-day. The swimming was to take place late in the afternoon when all the guests had finished work and school. Mother and Elizabeth spent most of the day making the picnic which we would take up to the river. Billy had harnessed up Peter, a grey and whiskery old horse now, but still willing and able and the easiest animal in the world to manage. They had put the food in greaseproof paper parcels into wicker baskets and loaded them onto a little cart, which Peter would pull. Mother added towels and extra cardigans and shawls in case the girls felt cold though it was baking hot and wasn’t cooling off as the afternoon wore on. A crate of pop had been delivered from the Golden Lion, Cherryade and Vimto and Billy’s favourite, Dandelion and Burdock. Fred Darlington sneaked in some bottles of beer and Johnny Lowe brought a bottle of spirits. Our Billy didn’t know about these; he wouldn’t have approved, but I did and had a good few swigs. I’ve always liked a drink.

  All of us youngsters gathered in the yard at about five o’clock and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Elizabeth before trailing away in groups of two or three across the fields towards the river. Billy led the horse by its neck halter and I walked along beside him. I remember being excited, loving the occasion and burning with desire to give Elizabeth the present I had saved so hard to buy.

  “What are you getting for her birthday?” I had asked Billy a few days earlier.

  He looked at me quite astonished. “I don’t know,” he said, “never even thought about it.”

  “Well, you should, she’s like a sister to us. You always get Marian something.”

  Billy nodded thoughtfully as he heaved bales of sweet-smelling meadow hay into the barn. At twenty he was in his prime. Rippling muscles moved strongly beneath the brown skin of his arms and his fresh face gleamed with good health. His brown hair curled at the nape of his neck and as I stood there watching him, I was envious. I wanted desperately to be that handsome. The only thing was that he didn’t have a girlfriend and my pals used to discuss that for hours. They made all sorts of suggestions, most of them pretty coarse and I had a regular job defending him.

  “The farm takes up all his time,” I said and that was true. We had a lot of land, more than most of the other farmers in the area and in order to turn a profit you needed to be at it every hour of the day. Billy was making a good profit, so good in fact, that he was talking of sending me to university. Mother was all for it and encouraged both of us to consider the proposal a
s a normal extension of my schooling. I was keen too, anxious to show off my academic prowess in front of the family and the village. I see now what foolish pride I had and no shame. God knows, it has always been true that pride goes before a fall but I don’t think I deserved such a steep descent.

  But back to Billy. Lots of girls lowered their eyes before him and giggled to each other when we walked into church or into the village hall, but he wasn’t interested. He liked Elizabeth though, admiring the way she had with the beasts and her no nonsense approach to life. We had a happy life at home, Mother, Elizabeth, Billy and me, all friends and close as any family could be. So when I mentioned her birthday gift, it gave Billy something to think about.

  I had my present for her safely wrapped in tissue paper in my trouser pocket and as I walked beside him towards the river, I kept putting my hand into the pocket and touching the paper. I had bought her a necklace of blue and silver beads, which I had found in the market some weeks before.

  “It’s real silver, mister,” the gypsy woman said, “and gemstones between.” She was often at the beast market, sitting behind a little table where oddments of jewellery and tarnished cutlery were on display. Our Billy would have it that everything she sold had been pinched, but I know Mother bought one or two things from the woman, so it seemed all right for me to do likewise.

  I picked up the necklace. The links between the stones did look like silver, but the beads were probably glass. Nonetheless they were the colour of Elizabeth’s eyes and I knew that they were meant for her. “How much?”

  “Five shillings.”

  This was a facer. Five shillings was all I’d saved since Easter when I’d spent my previous savings on a school trip to London. That had cost quite a bit, but I didn’t regret a penny of it. I was the first person in the family to ever go to London. But I’d hoped to have some of that five shillings left to go to Patsy Collin’s circus when it came to our town in September.