The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  I had to get out. Another moment and I don’t know what might have happened. Acid bile had come into my mouth and I felt suddenly and violently sick. “Excuse me,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could and stood up. My chair fell over as I pushed it back but I didn’t stop to pick it up. All I could do was to choke out the words, “I’ll be back in a minute,” before running from the room.

  “He’ll be all right,” I heard Billy say, in an uncanny echo of the other night when I had walked out of a similar scene. “He probably had too much ale over the weekend.”

  Chapter 11

  Betrayal. It is a terrible word. I think it sounds worse than murder. I felt that I could never forgive her, for I knew that she didn’t love our Billy, not in that way. He was a brother, a friend, family even, but never a lover, not to her. And I knew too that he didn’t feel for her like I did. I don’t think Billy ever felt like that for anyone.

  It all happened a long time ago and I should have forgotten about that one day, for my life has held many other occasions that were sad and frightening. During my service years I saw and did some dreadful things, but I can’t say as I am ashamed of them; they were things we had to do. Now though, it’s as though that brutality happened to another person, not me. No, that is nothing like the feeling of betrayal that remains sharp and fresh many years later.

  A reporter from the local paper visited me yesterday and wanted me to give her an interview. She was doing a piece on the Burma railway and had been told by the vicar, of all people, that I’d been on it.

  “I wasn’t there, my dear,” I said, “I can’t help you.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr Wilde,” she said, all polite, “I’m only going by what the vicar told me. I’m a trainee, you see, and need a good story for my editor.” She flipped shut her notebook and put the tape recorder away in her shoulder bag.

  I felt sorry for her; she was only a youngster and wanted to get on in her profession. “I was in Burma during the war,” I said, “but not on the railway. The men that built that were prisoners of war, you know. I was with the Chindits.”

  You could see that she hadn’t a clue what I was talking about, but then, that war has been over for more than fifty years now so why should she. “The Chindits fought behind the lines,” I explained. “We were guerrillas; we blew up bridges and outposts. And any Jap soldier we could find,” I added that despite the look of distaste that had spread over her face.

  “But you weren’t a prisoner? Never captured?”

  “No.”

  She considered what I’d said for a moment and then shook her head. “I don’t think I can use that story. I was going for prisoner of war stuff. To tie in with the payments they’re getting.”

  Thomas had been sitting with me in the kitchen when the reporter came. He’s on summer holiday now and because the weather is bad, has been hanging about the house. He’s shot up a lot since coming to live here. His legs look all spindly and bumpy at the knees like the young colts did when we first put them out into the big field. He’ll be tall and thin like his mother. I wonder if there’s anything of his father about him. I wouldn’t know, of course, because I’ve never seen the man, but to me, the lad looks all Cleeton.

  “Tell me about the guerrillas, Mr Richard,” he said after the young reporter had gone. “Tell me about blowing things up.”

  Where to start? And a harder question was where to finish? I didn’t know what to tell him, for at nine he is too young to hear about what men did to each other during war and how could I explain about blowing up an outpost without first saying how we bayoneted the Japs who had been manning it.

  I stared at his eager face, quite perplexed and wondered what to say but fortunately I was saved, because Sharon came in from the yard then with her hands full of shopping bags. She’d been to the supermarket and one of Thomas’s chores was always to help putting the groceries away.

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea, in a minute,” she said while I sat and watched the proceedings. Thomas had been rewarded with a bag of sweeties for his efforts and had run off with his daft dog to eat them. He always shares his goodies with that dog.

  “No hurry.” I was thinking about that tape recorder that the reporter had. If I had one, I could speak my memoirs into it and that would save me the trouble of writing. To tell the truth, writing is becoming difficult. My hands seem to be getting weaker and my pen goes all over the place so that half the time I can’t read what I’ve written. Even sitting for any length of time in my chair is becoming more painful.

  When we were having our tea, I mentioned about the tape recorder to Sharon and asked her to buy me one when she went to the shops. “Get a good one, mind,” I said, “I don’t mind paying for the best. And lots of tapes.”

  She smiled. “You and your old writing,” she said. “You’ve been at it all year. What is it? Your life story?”

  “Yes.” I said. “It is.”

  This is the first time we’ve talked about it although she has seen me scribbling for months now. She isn’t an inquisitive girl and as far as possible doesn’t interfere with what I’m doing. I like that. Privacy is a precious thing and after so many years of living on my own I have become used to not explaining my actions to anyone. It’s none of their business. But Sharon is different. I think I could almost let her read what I’ve written. Not yet, perhaps, but sometime.

  “I’ll get it,” she said, “don’t worry.” She looked at me in a motherly way, like she does when Thomas has a cut knee and put her hand on my arm. “Are you taking your medicines, Richard? They’re important.”

  I laughed. “They won’t cure me, you know that. I’m an old man and everything inside me is just about ready for the knackers yard. But I am taking the pain-killers. They just don’t work as well as they did before.”

  “I’ll get Dr Clewes to give you the stronger ones. He’s coming to see you tomorrow.”

  I didn’t argue. To be truthful, the pain is getting worse and sometimes I feel as though I’m burning up from the inside. I suppose I should have expected this; it isn’t as though they didn’t warn me, but I’ve still got so much of the story to write that I must be strong enough to carry on.

  Sharon bought the tape recorder and showed me how it worked. It’s really simple. I’ve got it on the table in my room beside the window and I’m in my padded chair with the microphone lying beside me. I couldn’t be more comfortable.

  Yet even with the assistance of this machine, I find it difficult to talk, or even think, of what happened between Elizabeth and me. Few things cut like the wounded vanity of a young man. Even now as I speak about it, that fool of a boy raises his head and his hurt and feeling of betrayal are still there, seeded in this old, old man.

  It was truly that. They all betrayed me. Elizabeth, Billy and Mother. Our Billy I could forgive because he didn’t know that him getting engaged to Elizabeth would mean heartache to me. But Elizabeth was guilty. After the way that she had kissed me and told me that she loved me better than anyone else, how could she turn round and get herself engaged to Billy?

  My flight from the kitchen ended behind the hay barn where I threw myself over an old barrel and sicked my guts up. I’d had more than my share of beer in that Welsh pub the night before, but not enough to make me like this. Tears mingled with the vomit and when I’d finished I crawled into the barn, lay on the sweet-smelling stack and cried my heart out.

  It couldn’t have been long before a shadow fell across the barn door. “You silly young bugger!” Billy was there, his chunky body blocking out the sparse light that pierced the gloom of that rainy afternoon. I raised my head, too miserable to try and hide my tears and saw that he was regarding me with a mixture of scorn and brotherly affection. “You’ve spent the whole weekend drinking,” he said. “Don’t try to tell me any different.”

  I didn’t. It was easier to let them all think that, than to give away that my heart was broken. “I had a bit,” I mumbled and he nodded and came over and hauled me to
my feet.

  “Come on, you silly fool. Come and have your tea. We’ll tell Mother that you’ve eaten something that disagreed with you. You wouldn’t want them upset.”

  No, I thought, they mustn’t be upset. It doesn’t matter that I am. I don’t matter. These selfish thoughts nearly set me off in childish tears again but Billy pulled me out of the barn and set me towards the water butt.

  “Wash the sick off your face,” he commanded and when I hesitated he grabbed the back of my neck and plunged my head into the water. Saving myself from drowning then became an imperative as I struggled to pull away from his steel-like grip and to stand up. “There,” he said, cheerfully, “that’s better, isn’t it?”

  “You never guessed, did you,” he said as we walked back towards the house.

  “No,” I said. I was using my hands to push water out of my hair and smooth back the cow-lick that always flopped over my brow. Hopefully, I would look like someone who’d been ill, rather than someone who’d been crying.

  Billy laughed. He was animated and excited, quite unlike his normal steady self. I didn’t like him this way, it made me uncomfortable. Our Billy was not a person who found life amusing. “Mother had the ring,” he said, “it was just the business of taking it to the jeweller to have a different stone. She thought the pearl should come out because of the old saying.” I must have looked puzzled for he added with a shrug, “Pearls for tears. She kept saying that. We had an opal put in instead.” Years later, Elizabeth told me that opals were unlucky, but I didn’t know that then any more than our Billy did.

  He stopped for a moment to look in the calf pen. I stood watching as he reached over to open the mouth of one of the little beasts and put an exploratory hand along its flank. My mind was full of rings and stones and wondering if she had worn the blue and silver necklace over the weekend. He rejoined me and we continued across the yard.

  “That’s why I hadn’t got the present in time,” he said. “Bloody jeweller took too long.”

  “Was it Mother’s idea?” I asked. I was positive I knew the answer.

  He had the grace to flush so I didn’t believe him when he protested, “No, of course not. I thought of it, it was obvious. I need a wife to run the farm and Elizabeth is as good as anyone could possibly be. Besides, I’m right fond of her.”

  What could I say? He’d only done what any young farmer would do. A knowledgeable wife was a necessity on a properly run dairy farm. Elizabeth had become as good as Mother in the dairy and as well as that, she was strong. In many ways she was better than the new herdsman we’d taken on. Certainly, she made two of old Herbert Lowe.

  Mother was now sitting at her place in the kitchen and was serving a second cup of tea to Marian and Elizabeth. They looked at me searchingly as we came in, but Billy saved me the necessity of explanation. “He’s been sick,” he said casually. “Eaten a bad crab sandwich over the weekend.”

  That set off a discussion of the merits and otherwise of seafood in strange places and I was able to slide into my place without having to talk to anyone. I looked up once and caught Elizabeth’s eye. If she was trying to send me a message, I wasn’t inclined to be receptive. As far as I was concerned, anything between us was over but I felt a squirming starting again in my stomach. I was grateful when Mother said, kindly, “Are you feeling better now, son? Could you manage some bread and butter?”

  It was when Marian was ready to go home, that Billy brought up the subject of the engagement again. “You haven’t seen the ring,” he said, “and neither has our Dick.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Go and get it.”

  Was it with some reluctance that she pushed back her chair and stood up? I don’t know. She still hadn’t said anything and as far as my boyish mind could tell, hadn’t shown any great excitement in this event. “She keeps it in its box,” continued Billy as Elizabeth walked over to the dresser. “In case it gets damaged when she’s with the beasts.”

  Marian looked at it closely when Elizabeth slipped the ring on her finger. “I recognise that setting,” she said and looked at Mother with an almost accusative glare. “Wasn’t that a pearl ring? You used to wear it sometimes.”

  “Yes it was. It came to me from my mother and from hers before.” She had the grace to look slightly flustered. “These things must be kept in the family.”

  “It’s nice, isn’t it, Marian?” said Billy, as ever, unaware of any awkwardness.

  My sister stood up and brushed a few crumbs from her dress. “Very pretty,” she said and pulled on her hat, ready to go home. Her car must have been in the front drive for I hadn’t noticed it when I came in from the yard. She had learned to drive in the last year and was now proficient.

  “Goodbye, Richard, dear,” she said. “I hope you feel better soon.” She gave me a searching look that I didn’t like. I turned my head away to pick up another piece of cake. I was now suddenly ravenous again.

  “Mother, Billy,” she nodded to them and walked through into the hall. The fact that she hadn’t spoken to Elizabeth hung heavy on the air and Mother sighed. I saw her close her hand over Elizabeth’s and the look that passed between them was one of relief, I think, that the difficulty of imparting the news was over.

  The evening passed quietly at our house. I sat with one of my favourite books on my lap, a comforter of old, but tonight none of the words went in. My mind was dull, exhausted with my own real emotions and not ready to accept those foolish fictions of Thomas Hardy’s. I knew that Squire Boldwood’s heartache couldn’t possibly be as bad as mine.

  Billy and Elizabeth had gone out, I didn’t know where, probably onto the hill, now that the rain had stopped and their work for the day was over. I wasn’t invited and I wouldn’t have gone with them anyway. I wondered if they were holding hands or even kissing. A picture of them lying close on the scrubby grass, arms clasped around each other, groaning in an agony of passion came into my mind and I fought to swallow the huge lump in my throat. But even then in my despair, I couldn’t quite believe in what I was imagining. Hugging and kissing weren’t our Billy’s way.

  Mother came in from the dairy, having wrapped the cheeses in muslin, ready for market. She took off her apron and picked up her darning basket. It was habit that made me move the lamp closer to her, something I did most nights, but now I stole a look at her, wondering if she would say anything to me about today’s happenings. She looked tired, older than I remembered and for the first time I noticed that she had more grey than gold in her hair. Mother was a handsome woman and I had always been proud of her. She and I had a strong rapport, sharing a love of books and learning. Indeed it was she who had insisted on taking the Major’s entire bequest, his library of books, even though Billy had said we hadn’t room for them. “I will have them,” she’d said “They can go in the parlour. I’ll get the joiner in to make good shelves, nothing cheap, mind. Some of those books are very old and valuable.”

  Billy had been silent for a moment before saying, “You must do what you want, Mother, though I doubt whether having anything of Cleeton’s in this house would have been to Father’s liking.”

  She had coloured at that. “Leave me to decide what your father would or wouldn’t have liked, William Wilde. Who knew him better than me?”

  That was an end of it. The bookcases were built, with dark mahogany shelves smoothed like silk so that none of the pages or the carefully worked bindings could be damaged when the volumes were pulled out. The joiner had warmed to his task and added carved lintels and decorative scalloped edges to the upper shelves. It was a work of art really. A craftsman’s job and it is here now in front of me nearly eighty years later. I remember that it was Mother and I who put the books away when they arrived in packing cases one day after the Gate House was emptied.

  “When I die, Richard,” she said, “these are yours. Remember. Don’t let your brother try to tell you any different.”

  I didn’t want to listen to that. What young boy whose father had died only a few years previously wanted t
o hear about the death of his mother. I pretended to read one of the books and didn’t answer. As it happened, when Mother did die, she had left me the books in her will, so there was never any doubt, but I often wondered what might have happened to them all those years when I was away, if Billy had realised how valuable some of them were. If he had known that selling two or three of the best ones would have bought him a champion horse or a tractor, then I know they would have been down to the saleroom in a trice.

  And I was sitting with one of the Major’s books on my knee that evening in the kitchen when Mother told me why Elizabeth couldn’t be mine.

  She plunged right into it, taking advantage of the fact that we were on our own. “I know you’re upset, Richard,” she said, “but there’s nothing to be done about it. This farm has to be kept going and it needs both William and Elizabeth.”

  I was going to interrupt. I was going to say that they didn’t love each other and it was wrong, but she held up her hand.

  “You’ll be going away to university in a few weeks. It’ll be a new life for you. And this place could never be yours; you know that. There’s room for only one family here and it has to be William’s. It’s his right. He is his father’s heir.”

  “Aren’t I his heir too?” I said, my voice breaking. “It can’t all be Billy’s.”

  She shook her head. “The farm mustn’t be split up. It would lose its value and,” here she faltered. “There’s something else you should know…”

  I was a boy and had no patience to listen. “But why Elizabeth?” I broke in, refusing to let her give another reason. “Why must he marry her?”

  Mother folded her lips in that determined way that I recognised. “Because she must stay here too. I want it. I want to have her near me.”

  The tears that had been so near the surface all evening came rushing back into my eyes then. “It’s not fair,” I cried, like the silly fool that I was. “You don’t care about me. All that matters to you is Billy and Elizabeth. You’ve pushed Marian out and now you’re pushing me.” I sobbed it out carelessly, in anger and frustration, without thinking of the meaning of my words, but once it was said and in the open I realised that I had spoken the truth. The old relationship I had enjoyed with Mother was finished forever. My nearly eighteen years of childhood was over and things could never be the same. This brought me up sharp and the tears were over almost as quickly as they had started.