Envy darted through her and left her feeling sad. She should have been a part of such scenes, surrounded by her family, laughing with them and joining in the fun.
Moving away from the game of chase she went further into the wood, walking slowly, aware of the increasing birdsong as evening lengthened the shadows and she moved further away from the house. A robin watched from a branch, his curiosity making him bold. A movement nearby made her turn her head in time to see the lovely undulating movement of a squirrel, disturbed at its feasting. Her sadness began to lift as the peace of the woodland surrounded her. She stopped and, leaning against the smooth trunk of a beech, stood hoping that more of the shy denizens of the beautiful place would appear.
Instead she heard more voices. Although Ivor was reticent in talking about his family, through the little she had gleaned from their conversations and her own observations she knew most of them by sight. The woman coming through the trees about to cross in front of her at some distance she recognized at once. This was Jennie, Marie’s glamorous sister. She couldn’t immediately see whom she was talking to but it was a man. Not her husband, whom she knew to be much older.
The prospect of ‘goings on’, of seeing something she shouldn’t, was exciting. She slid around the large trunk until she was sure she couldn’t be seen, and waited until they had passed. Once she could get behind them she’d be able to follow.
They stopped, suddenly, and she almost revealed herself to them. The man leaned against a tree and the woman was wrapped in his embrace. A momentary glance and a chill of recognition: she knew the man was Bill.
*
Marie had been badly shaken by her unexpected sighting of Ivor. ‘It was no more than that,’ she told Geoff when he called at the house with a gift of illegal farm butter from one of his customers. ‘We met at the end of a lane, Ivor looked shocked, as though he’d seen a ghost, and unable to decide what to do. I made up his mind for him, I turned and ran.’ She was upset and trying to make a joke of it, failed. The day was gloomy, matching her sombre mood, rain pattering down the windows from a heavy sky. She had relived that moment so many times since. Every time it ended with her running towards him, almost melting into his arms, then stopping while he offered feeble excuses for why he couldn’t come home to them, another rejection.
She went into the kitchen and filled the kettle noisily to hide her distress. Geoff waited until she came back then asked. ‘Perhaps he feels too guilty to face you. I wonder if you might be wise to accept that he isn’t coming back.’
‘You know something, don’t you? I can tell from your voice.’
‘I don’t know anything for certain.’
‘Please, Geoff, tell me.’
‘I went to try and find him and when I did he was with a young woman, no one I knew. They were coming out of the pictures, and they went into a boarding house together.’
‘Then he did leave me for someone else.’
‘I don’t know. To be honest it appeared so, but there’s often an explanation. Although, it’s difficult to find one for this.’ Having started, Marie was insistent that he told her the full story. ‘I watched them, I know it wasn’t my business and I’ve no excuse to offer, but I went on the same day the following week and the week after that. Each time they went to the pictures, once stopping to buy chips and walking through the streets, talking as they ate them.’ He paused, not wanting to relate the rest, but she urged him on. ‘Then for two weeks I didn’t see them and I knocked on the door of the lodging house and asked to speak to him.’
‘And?’ she coaxed.
‘He, that is they, had moved out. According the the landlady they were renting a single room which they were to share.’
‘I see.’ Marie’s heart began thumping painfully and so loudly she thought it must surely be heard.
‘I shouldn’t have told you. I could so easily be wrong. I just didn’t want you to live each day in the hope of him coming back. Whether I’m right or wrong, you have to stop looking for a happy ending and start building a new life. If he does come back it won’t matter, if he doesn’t then you won’t have wasted part of your life.’
Geoff left soon after the revelation, even though he wanted to stay, help her by talking about what he had learned and perhaps think of a reasonable explanation. It was a Saturday evening and Marie had been sewing clothes for Violet’s dolls. Roger and Royston were settled for the evening in the kitchen, playing cards with a couple of friends, and Rhodri was watching the card players and occasionally helping Roger, his favourite, to cheat. What on earth had possessed Ivor that he could walk away from this?
Jennie called soon after Geoff had gone. Her eyes were sparkling, her make-up less than perfect, and there was an air of excitement about her that Marie suspected was due to the company of a man. She hardly took in the implications, the shock of Geoff’s news numbing her brain to everything else. She desperately needed to talk to someone and Jennie might be persuaded to listen, although she knew that was hardly likely.
At ten o’clock Marie offered to walk Jennie home. The rain was as relentless as earlier and they took a large umbrella, linking arms, Jennie laughing at the unexpected soakings as their unwary feet landed in puddles. Marie tried once or twice to tell Jennie what Geoff had told her, but Jennie was oblivious to her worries, chattering happily all the way. She gave up, knowing her story wouldn’t have had a considered hearing. Sheltered beneath their large umbrella, protected from the downpour drumming around them, Marie began to enjoy the quiet isolation, finding it calming.
Unfortunately she walked in to trouble. Ernie opened the door before they touched it, and he looked anxious. ‘Jennie! Where have you been? I thought you were going to see Lucy. I went round with an umbrella as it was raining so hard but she hadn’t seen you.’ He gave Marie a light kiss on her cheek and hugged his wife briefly.
‘Oh bother,’ she said, quickly inventing cover. ‘I’ve been with Marie all evening. I completely forgot I’d arranged to meet Lucy. I’ll have to go there and apologize tomorrow first thing.’
‘But I don’t understand, she wasn’t expecting you.’
‘She must have forgotten too.’
‘Any chance of a cup of tea,’ Marie interposed.
‘Perhaps you’d make it? You know where everything is. Jennie, dear, you’d better get out of those wet things, look at you, your feet are soaking.’ Fussing like an old woman he ushered Jennie upstairs and told her to find a pair of shoes to lend to Marie. ‘Bill has been out all evening too,’ he said when he came down. ‘He came in a while ago and went straight to bed. They all left me on my own and we’d be glad if you’d stay a while, we both like a bit of company.’
Marie went into the kitchen and while she set the tray and dealt with the kettle, Jennie stayed upstairs. When she eventually came down carrying a pair of shoes, Marie looked again at her sister’s bright eyes and glowing cheeks. Even if she hadn’t guessed before, Marie would have known by her expression then that Bill had been the reason for that happiness.
Conversation was difficult. She felt acute embarrassment sitting with a cuckolded husband, her sister and Bill – the cause of it – having just stolen a few extra moments together.
‘I’m going to see Judy Morris tomorrow, Jennie. I’m thinking of offering her a part-time job. I need an assistant but the business doesn’t justify someone full time. D’you think she’ll come? I would have gone tonight but then you came and put it out of my mind.’ She was gabbling, afraid that if Jennie spoke it would ruin the fragile web of deceit they had woven.
With an expertise perfected by practice, and happy having so recently left Bill’s arms, Jennie quickly accepted the lie, saying brightly, ‘That’s all right, sis. I’ll come with you tomorrow, shall I? Together we’ll persuade her.’ They went into the kitchen to wash the cups, and in whispered bursts they exchanged details of their story, although they both knew that the less said the better. The fewer details offered, the less likely it was they’d be caught
out.
There was no chance of Marie telling her sister what Geoff had learned about Ivor. Perhaps it was just as well. Better to sort it out in her own mind before allowing anyone else to add their opinion. She walked home, having refused a lift with Ernie, glad of the silence in which to think.
She still hoped that Geoff was wrong, that there was another explanation. Mistaken identity was a possibility, or spite on the part of the landlady. She had to believe in Ivor until he told her himself that he had left her for another woman, although his excuse that he’d been trying to help his father didn’t seem believable, no matter how she tried to make the story fit the facts. He’d cheated her first by stealing and now by infidelity, how could there be an innocent reason for those things? And if there was an explanation, why hadn’t he told her? After all, Rhodri was no longer a secret but very much a part of the family. Any shame he’d felt at having Rhodri for a father must surely have faded. The old man’s odd behaviour had been accepted by all, and he loved Violet and she was fond of him. Any wounds must have been healed. So why didn’t he come home? She couldn’t think of a reason, unless Geoff was right.
*
Jennie called at the shop the following day to thank her sister for lying. ‘I’m so sorry to have put you in that position. I promise never to do it again.’
‘A few months ago I’d have been furious, all “holier than thou”, but since Ivor left me, possibly for someone else, well, let’s just say my moral stance is no longer certain.’
‘I still regret you having to lie.’
‘I’m considering applying for a divorce.’
‘You and me both!’ Jennie said gloomily.
‘Seriously, I can’t live this half-life. Being widowed was hard, caring for the twins, not really belonging to anyone, but this is far worse. I don’t want to be tied to a man who doesn’t want me.’
Reacting late, Jennie said, ‘What d’you mean? That Ivor left you for someone else? You said “possibly for someone else”. What did you mean?’
‘Oh, just a rumour, that’s all.’ Once more she felt unable to discuss Geoff’s news with her sister.
‘Probably rubbish,’ Jennie said dismissively. There was no further reaction; true to form, she hardly heard her sister’s whispered concerns, more interested in her own. ‘Bill wants me to leave Ernie, go away with him and find somewhere we can live together. A fresh start among strangers; people who would accept us for what we appeared to be: a young couple recently married.’
‘Don’t go. I’ll have no one if you leave.’
‘There’s Geoff. He’s a good friend and he’d be more if you’d let him.’
‘A friend, nothing more,’ Marie said firmly.
‘Then come with us. I’d be there to help with the kids and we’d find work easily enough.’
‘I can’t uproot Violet and the boys again. And what about poor Rhodri? I can’t abandon him like his son did. Twice!’ She turned to her sister and hugged her briefly in the hope of softening what she was about to say. ‘You’ll have to end it, won’t you? Risking everything for the sake of a few stolen moments of passion – is it worth it?’
‘How can I stay away from Bill? We live in the same house.’
‘He’ll have to leave. It’s the only way. If Ernie finds out it would kill him. I know he doesn’t behave like an ardent lover, but he’s fond of you, in his way.’ She looked at Jennie quizzically. ‘Couldn’t you learn to cope with that? It’s what you promised in church.’
‘Only if I never saw Bill again.’
‘Then he has to leave. If he loves you he’ll see it’s the only way.’ She hesitated then said, ‘I don’t want to alarm you, Jennie, but Violet saw you a few nights ago. She told us you and Bill were kissing. We tried to make a joke of it, telling her that as your stepson it was perfectly normal, but sooner or later someone else will see you and they might not be as easily persuaded of your innocence.’
*
Ivor had to see Marie. He began to think it was just possible that if he could talk to her and explain his fears she might agree to him coming home. That thought became a dream that he lived day as well as night, and eventually he found his way to Cwm Derw. He didn’t go straight to the house, his nerve failed him. If she refused to talk he had shot his bolt and the chance of a further meeting would be low.
He went into the wood and walked as close to the house as he dared. He had to call when she was alone. Marie first.
Then, if that went well once the full truth was told, they would talk to the rest of the family together.
Nervously avoiding making the final move, he walked into a dell where children picked bluebells and prirnroses in the spring, and it was as he stood there, dreaming, hoping, trying to pluck up the courage to knock on the door that had once, briefly, been his, that he became aware of someone watching him. Afraid at first to look up in case it was Marie, he slowly raised his head and stared into blue eyes so like his own. But these were angry eyes, and the face was scowling, the jaw pugnacious.
‘Hello, Dad,’ he said softly.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here? Clear off, you’re frightening the badgers.’
Rhodri was having a bad day, with his head filled with fears of being taken back to hospital.
‘It’s me. Dad, don’t you recognize me?’
‘Who are you?’ A deep frown wrinkled the old face and then cleared. ‘I know you! You’re that doctor, aren’t you? Come to take me back. Well I’m not going. Bugger off.’ He clasped his face in his hands like a guilty child, then as he grew more confident he repeated the curse, saying it time and again, louder and louder, while Ivor backed away.
He left without trying to see Marie. What was the point? If she knew his father she would understand why he had to stay away from them; his future was written in the confused blue eyes. How could he put them through what was certain to come? He loved them too much to inflict that on them. He went back to his hotel room and sat unmoving, staring out of the window at the bleak grey sea, knowing that this was the best he could hope for for the years ahead: sitting alone in a silent room, staring into emptiness.
*
It was easy for Jennie to tell Bill she wanted to see him and to arrange a meeting place. Marie was right; they had to end their affair. Marie had agreed they could use a visit to her as an excuse, Bill pretending to help her with a repair to the house. They went to the park, where the gates and railings no longer barred access, the metal having been removed during the early years of the war for scrap, ‘to build spitfires’.
They sat on a bench where bushes offered some shelter from the cool night air, and at once Jennie told him he had to leave. ‘If you stay your father will find out and I don’t want him hurt. He loves and trusts you and he’s been kind to me. His generosity would be poorly paid if he found us together.’
He argued for a long time, trying from every angle to persuade her to change her mind and go with him, but she was adamant. The clock was striking eleven when they parted, Jennie to go home and Bill intending to wait for an hour before following her.
They didn’t notice the car parked on the corner with its lights out, and as they were switched on Bill and Jennie, wrapped in their final embrace, were caught in their beam. At once the lights were dimmed and the couple parted; Jennie ran towards home, while Bill stood there for a long time without moving.
He hardly noticed the sound of a car moving off, and the squeal of brakes in the next street seemed a part of a dream. It wasn’t until he walked towards the house, intending to try to slip in unseen rather than wait out in the cold for an hour as he usually did, that the bundle in the middle of the road caught his eye.
Someone was standing over it, straightening it out, and he realized it was a body. With a wail of dread he ran towards it and the figure moved off, quickly swallowed up in the darkness. It must be a dream, it couldn’t be happening to him again. He kneeled down beside the unmoving form, knowing even before he had looked that the unconsci
ous woman was Jennie.
‘Jennie! Oh, no! Speak to me, say you’re all right! Jennie!’ He found her pulse, hardly noticing that she had been arranged as though she were sleeping, her clothes carefully in place.
He knocked on the nearest door but there was no telephone. He persuaded the man to wait with Jennie while he ran to the phone box to call for an ambulance. No moving her this time, that lesson was still giving him nightmares. Having phoned he ran back and sat beside Jennie, talking to her, promising her that everything would be all right, that help was on the way.
The ambulance came and with it the police. They questioned him but he hardly remembered what was said. He went with her to the hospital and it was from there that he telephoned his father and Marie to tell them the awful news.
The night passed in a haze. The police had already called to tell Ernie and he had informed her parents, so they all met at the hospital, where officious nurses sent them to wait outside as there was ‘no room for family reunions here!’
In an hour or so it was clear that Jennie’s leg was broken and she had suffered other less serious injuries. She would be in hospital for a while and Bill knew that, in spite of their vows to separate, he couldn’t leave.
The police questioned him and asked how he had happened to find her. The excuse that he had been walking home seemed to satisfy them but a day later he was reminded about the recent accident to his fiancée.
‘The two accidents can hardly be connected,’ he protested. ‘One was my fiancée and the other my stepmother.’ Again they seemed satisfied, but if just a small piece of his story was disproved they would dig until they uncovered the truth. He begged Marie to make sure she repeated her statement exactly. ‘They mustn’t find out about Jennie and me.’
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