by Wendy Jones
Wilfred cycled arduously upwards, past clusters of bluebells by the hedgerow, a profusion of them in a clear, strong lilac colour. ‘Come on, Wilfred, come on!’ he said to himself. Heck, he thought, it’d be nice to live in Norfolk: it was as flat as a pancake apparently. That would be marvellous for any cyclist. Mind, if he lived in Norfolk and didn’t wear himself ragged cycling strenuously up almighty hills he might be proposing willy-nilly to all the peachy girls, and that would never do. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else. No, hills were God’s gift to the unmarried man. And he must be careful not to suffer from aboulia again, he thought, using a word he had acquired from his dictionary. Aboulia had already caused him – and Grace – enough anguish.
He hunched his shoulders and leaned forward on the handlebars. Wilfred wanted a wife – that much he knew. It was a big decision for any man to make, no doubt about it, especially one such as himself who had already been none too clever in these difficult matters of matrimony. And he also knew that from now on, he would approach these things differently, more considerately for starters. He knew he wanted a good woman but beyond that Wilfred wasn’t at all sure what made a good wife. He would need to have what his apprentice-master Mr Ogmore Auden had once called ‘lustful thoughts’ about his betrothed – Wilfred was confident that he wouldn’t find that difficult.
He stopped to wipe his brow with his handkerchief. He knew he couldn’t feel towards his prospective wife as he had towards Elizabeth Thomas, who was a very pleasant person, no one could doubt it. But with her buck teeth and unfortunate frizz of hair, Elizabeth Thomas from Plain Dealings Road had been a relief to Wilfred when he was an apprentice because she was one of the very few young women in Narberth he didn’t have lustful thoughts about. That was why they’d been friends; he could actually have a conversation with Miss Elizabeth Thomas without being distracted.
Wilfred fell into a rhythm with the pedalling and was making slow and steady progress up the incline. What did a man look for in a wife, he wondered. Was it cooking? Cleaning? Cleaning would be handy: neither he nor his da were very particular around the house and it could get a bit much sometimes. Perhaps a lady who liked wallpaper and who would be good as a shop assistant in a paint and wallpaper shop.
He arrived at the crest of the hill, dismounted from his bike and quenched his thirst with some water from his glass bottle while he surveyed the cove. The water was placid, the clouds fluffy. It was beautiful here, high up and close to the heavens. Wilfred didn’t know what marriage involved. Because his father was widowed, Wilfred had had no insight into the day-to-day goings-on of marriage, hadn’t grown up enveloped in one. He imagined the worst ones were like Punch and Judy’s marriage. He’d seen the puppet show once on the annual Bethesda Chapel Sunday School outing to Saundersfoot – the man hit the woman, the woman nagged the man, and they lived with an alligator. That was no good at all, thought Wilfred, getting back on his bicycle and freewheeling down the last stretch of the road to White Hook.
He coursed down the lane, weaving from side to side. It definitely wouldn’t do to marry someone unkind. And every man wanted to marry a woman who was a lady, although it had occurred to him that he didn’t want his wife to be a lady all the time. Wilfred could imagine occasions, more private occasions, when he would enjoy it if his wife was a little less decorous.
It was a sultry day and the leaves on the trees along the lane created a dappled shade. Wilfred took his hands off the handlebars and leaned back. There was only one corner to cycle round and then he’d be there. Wilfred knew hardly anything about this Miss Flora Edwards. Except that she was not like other women, seemed more ordered within herself, perhaps wilder in her expression. And did she take photographs? How modern. She was mysterious to him. Surely you shouldn’t marry a woman because she was enigmatic? There was that children’s hymn that they’d sung in Scripture lessons, the one about the parable: ‘The WISE man BUILT his HOUSE upon the ROCK’. Mystery wasn’t a rock, it was a foundation of sand, and as that parable explained, if you built your house on the sand, it collapsed.
He reached the end of the lane and rounded the corner. Grace, Wilfred conjectured, was like a daisy, with her blonde, bobbed hair and pale skin. Flora was more … he didn’t know what, only when he thought of her he was reminded of the rich, deep scent of the wine-coloured wallflowers that grew freely through the iron railings near the stream. Where Grace had been obvious, Flora was deeper, and was reeling him in.
He arrived at the gate to White Hook and felt a wave of anxiety in his throat. He was here. He had anticipated this for long days and suddenly he was here. The bicycle wheels crunched on the gravel as he began walking up the drive. Right, he decided, he was going to invite her to the Staunton House Refreshment Rooms in Narberth. It was a popular café, if a bit steamy, and they had an impressive selection of cream cakes which he knew ladies were partial to. But would it be good enough for Flora? He’d taken Grace there once, but Flora was different. Flora was the bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas. Though what if she needed a chaperone? What if her mother came along and sat there like a fire extinguisher?
At the top of the drive he bent to pull off his trouser clips then leaned his bicycle against the kitchen wall with a clatter. Right. He would deliver the invoice for the funeral to Mrs Melbourne Edwards – he had it ready in an envelope in his inside pocket – and once financial matters were settled he would ask Flora if she would care to join him for a pot of tea, at a later date, at her convenience, at the Staunton House Refreshment Rooms in Narberth. Right. Yes, he would do that.
‘The service was to your satisfaction, mam?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mr Price. And you’ll be wanting to settle the bill for services rendered.’
‘Ah …’ This was always an awkward moment in the undertaking business. Customers had recently buried a loved family member – something they hadn’t wanted to do anyway – and now Wilfred was asking them to pay for it. It added insult to injury. What had Mr Ogmore Auden said? ‘Be delicate in your business dealings but make sure the buggers pay!’ That could be easier said than done in some cases, Wilfred thought.
‘I’ll write a banker’s cheque for the full amount.’ Mrs Melbourne Edwards searched for a pen in the drawer of the Welsh dresser but was unable to find one. Wilfred took a risk.
‘May I offer you mine, Mrs Edwards?’ he said, proffering his fountain pen from his inside pocket. Sometimes people wouldn’t borrow an ink pen in case they bent the gold nib with their specific way of holding the pen and spoiled it for the owner, but Mrs Melbourne Edwards accepted his offer.
‘Thank you very much, Mr Price. That’s most kind of you. Things get mislaid in these drawers for weeks on end. I expect your mam is more organized than I am.’ Wilfred smiled politely.
Flora was standing barefooted by the gas stove, her chestnut hair catching the light. Wilfred was agonizingly aware of her, barely able to concentrate with her presence so close.
Mrs Melbourne Edwards flapped the banker’s cheque in the air to dry the ink then handed the payment to Wilfred. Wilfred took the cheque in both hands, formally thanked Mrs Edwards and then summoned his courage.
‘I was wondering’, Wilfred began slowly, ‘if your daughter … Flora …’ this was more awkward than he’d envisioned … ‘would like to have a cup of tea or coffee.’ Why did he say coffee? It was too strong! It sounded completely wrong. He hadn’t meant to say coffee; he’d even practised saying, ‘Tea and cake.’
‘A cup of tea!’ exclaimed Flora’s mother. ‘Tea! At this time? And her father not yet in his grave three weeks. Mr Price, surely …’ Mrs Melbourne Edwards looked bewildered.
‘Yes, forgive me,’ said Wilfred far too hastily. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’ He assumed his funeral face. ‘I hoped a modest change of scenery and an anteprandial refreshment might provide somewhat of a relief to your daughter during these exceedingly sad times.’ Wilfred was lying: his face turned redder.
‘Well, I shall say Auf Wiede
rsehen to you both,’ he said, remembering the dictionary definition he had read that morning.
As Wilfred slipped his pen back into his jacket pocket he glanced surreptitiously at Flora. He saw her dignified, straight neck, her head bent down, her abundant mass of brown hair, saw her move the toes of her right foot back and forth elegantly across the slate floor, like a ballerina practising. Her mother had said no but was Flora saying no? Could a mother speak for a daughter? Could Mrs Melbourne Edwards speak for Flora? These were modern times. Flora swayed slightly as she moved her pointed toes gently from side to side, and in her swaying Wilfred read her yes.
4
The Invitation
‘You couldn’t look smarter if you tried.’ Mrs Reece, flushed with vanity, reached up and straightened Madoc’s epaulettes. ‘Doctor Reece, doesn’t Madoc look a picture?’
‘Son, you do us proud.’ Grace watched as her father patted her brother on the arm, his worn, red fingers against the sleeve of the khaki uniform.
‘A Sergeant, Doctor Reece!’ Mrs Reece interjected. ‘Sidney isn’t a Sergeant and he’s been in the Fifteenth Welsh Regiment for six years as well. He enlisted just after the war, the moment he was seventeen – and he’s still only a Lance Corporal. I was telling Sidney’s mother last Monday, “Well, Madoc’s now a Sergeant and has a three-point chevron on his sleeve”. I know for a fact she didn’t like it that her son is still a Lance Corporal after all that time – when my son is a Sergeant.’ Mrs Reece reached up and tugged at the corner of Madoc’s collar. ‘I did a tidy job of those boots. I greased them with Quikko lamp black. They look very clean.’
Grace looked down at Madoc’s Army boots with their thick, serrated soles, tough hardened leather uppers and the extreme black perfection of their shine. They were big boots: Madoc had big feet. He’d always had big feet, to match his large head and his thickset body. Madoc smiled, his blue eyes charming beneath his bushy eyebrows. God only knows what happened to him in the war, Grace thought.
‘Mother, now! You spoil me. I’ll be back at the barracks before long and polishing them myself. Didn’t use spit, did you?’
‘Oh, get away with you, Madoc!’ Grace watched her mother beam and her father smile at Madoc’s teasing.
Grace straightened her pearl necklace, formed a smile on her face and felt a tugging in her chest. Her brother was going off again, somewhere no one had ever heard of in Africa, some camp in a wilderness, full of a mess of green tents and men polishing their shoes and pressing their uniforms, smartening themselves to kill. That’s all the Army seemed to Grace, polishing and killing. The Army was men without women and, Grace knew, being without women changed men, made them forget, made them more violent. Or Madoc, at least. Men without women thought everything was a war. Men who had been without women for a long time were dangerous when they returned.
‘Oh Madoc, what’ll we do without you?’
‘Pull yourself together, Mrs Reece,’ Dr Reece admonished. ‘Our son is a grown man with a job to do: let him go in peace. He’s not a child any more.’
‘You take your lunch tin with you, now, for the train journey. I’ve made you cucumber sandwiches. Don’t forget to eat properly.’
‘Mother!’ said Madoc, grinning. Then Grace watched as he bent down and picked their mother up in his arms and swung her round.
‘Madoc!’ Mrs Reece cried out jubilantly, her long woollen skirt sailing out. Grace could see that her mother was delighting in her son: his strength, his humour, how he tended her.
‘Madoc now, put your mother down,’ Dr Reece said, smiling and speaking quietly, knowing Madoc didn’t like loud noise since he’d come back from the Battle of Mammet and the trenches.
‘You’re light as a feather, Mother,’ Madoc commented, her wooden clogs tapping against the flagstones as he set her down on the floor.
‘Madoc,’ Mrs Reece said, taking her hanky from the pocket of her pinny and dabbing at her eyes. She was wearing her best pinny, the one Madoc had given her for Christmas.
Grace watched her father’s eyes moisten. Her parents were genuinely happy to be here with Madoc, but some of their cheerfulness was false; some of their red-faced animation was because they knew that their son might go away to the Army and get killed. They all knew that. It was quite possible that Madoc would board the boat to that world of men he lived with, and for another man, from somewhere else, to point a gun at him and accurately, precisely and intentionally and immediately, kill him. There would be a grave. And that would be the end of Madoc. In this parting there was the image of his death.
‘Grace …’ Madoc said. She stood there quietly.
‘Grace,’ prompted Dr Reece, ‘say goodbye to your brother.’ Grace looked down.
‘Don’t be getting all emotional,’ her father chided. ‘Madoc will be back. There’s no need for anyone to get upset. What are you getting upset for?’
Madoc held out his hand and Grace shook it, still looking down.
‘Hold yourself together, please, Grace,’ Dr Reece said.
‘Don’t go annoying the bees,’ Madoc said to Grace. For reasons Madoc hadn’t explained and no one understood, he hadn’t gone near his bees since he’d come back from the war. ‘I want to come home and find them all alive, every single one of them. I’ll be counting!’
‘Oh, Madoc,’ Mrs Reece said. ‘Don’t tease!’
‘Your suitcase is in the back of the motorcar. Come along now, young man. You’ve got a job to do.’ Dr Reece patted his son on the back. He had put on a maroon and navy Welsh Guards tie to mark the occasion.
Mrs Reece rushed to the kettle, which was whistling hysterically, filling the kitchen with steam.
‘No time for tea, Mrs Reece,’ Dr Reece decided.
‘Oh, Doctor Reece, we can’t be seeing Madoc off without a hot drink!’
‘No time at all, Mrs Reece. Madoc, Mother’s put some Bara brith in your case. Give Ishwyn Thomas a slice when you arrive. And give him our best regards.’
‘I will, Da.’
‘Tell him I saw his mother. She came to the surgery last Thursday. I examined her knee joint and it is my opinion that she is walking much better.’
The back door was open; it was still early in the year and the air was chilly. Grace wrapped her wool shawl around her shoulders, holding herself within it. The hooked ham was swaying and the clean laundry hanging from the ceiling was flitting in the breeze.
‘Right,’ her father said, swelling out his chest. ‘One mustn’t keep His Majesty’s Army waiting.’
Then, almost immediately, Madoc had left and the house had a new emptiness – and Grace wondered if Madoc was really going off, or if a part of him stayed always here, always with them.
From the parlour window she watched him walk down the front path to the wrought-iron gate, his broad shoulders emphasized by the epaulettes, his brown leather belt buckled firmly at his waist. The iron half-moons on the soles of his boots hit the stone path with a tight, hard click. At the end of the path, he put his cap on his head, one hand at the front, one hand at the back, straightened it, then opened the gate, which squeaked discordantly. He walked sharply, backbone stretched exaggeratedly in the way men in the Army were taught to walk. He looked distinct, smarter, more powerful and purposeful than the other people milling around on Narberth High Street. He seemed ordained and restored by Her Majesty, or God, to a higher purpose, one of deciding and presiding over the death of others, one who fought evil with the goodness of rationality.
Grace sat on the windowsill observing Madoc stride up the street, past the dust cart, jovially doffing his peaked cap to people, being slapped on the back, ruffling the hair of a small child as if he was a hero among Narberthians, leaving for a quest. Her father followed behind, taking the long route to the car, the public one, past houses and carriages, a cart and pedestrians. Madoc stepped off the pavement on to the road, passed the Star Supply Stores and was gone. And he might not return.
A few days later Grace was standing by the kitch
en door because her mother had called her. Her father was sitting squarely in his usual place at the head of the table, her mother hovering tensely nearby. In the centre of the table there was a boiled fruitcake.
‘Now then, Grace,’ Dr Reece began, putting down The Lancet and peering over his glasses, considering her.
The problem, Grace realized, with having a father who was a doctor was that he was practised at observing, and right now he was observing her.
‘Grace Amelia, your father is talking to you.’
Grace didn’t answer her mother; instead she walked over to the stove and began re-folding a starched tea towel to keep her hands – and her mind – occupied.
‘Grace …’ her father began solicitously.
‘Your father and I are perfectly aware that you are down in the mouth,’ her mother interrupted, before slamming her hand down hard on the tabletop to kill a bluebottle. The teacups rattled in response. ‘Look what you’ve made me do, Grace Amelia. There’s tea spilled everywhere!’
Grace placed the now neatly folded tea towel back over the stove rail.
‘Is it … might it be to do …’ her father enquired ponderously. ‘We thought it could be to do with Wilfred.’
Wilfred. Grace knew they would know, that they were only pretending to guess. Wilfred, her now ex-fiancé, who was supposed to have been besotted with her, marry her and then provide order and respectability.
‘Wilfred hasn’t set foot in this house five weeks on Saturday,’ her mother pronounced indignantly. Her father removed his gold-framed spectacles and began polishing them with a clean white handkerchief.
‘It is not what is to be expected by a young man of sensibilities who has declared his affections,’ he offered.
‘Madoc would never behave like this,’ Mrs Reece declared, sawing a slice from the loaf, ‘and that’s because I’ve brought him up properly.’ She wiped the blade of the bread-knife with the dishcloth. ‘I’ve taught my son right from wrong. He knows how to behave.’