‘February fill-dyke the old folk call it,’ he laughed.
‘Melted snow and all this rain will make the stream overflow,’ Patricia said. ‘Mr Caradoc has moved the sheep onto higher ground in case. I called with a message from Elizabeth and stopped to help.’
‘You look filthy!’
‘Thanks!’
‘I’ve lit the fire in the cottage and there’s a kettle simmering, want to stop and have a cup of tea?’ Matthew offered and, without waiting for the refusal that began to make her frown, he took her arm and led her along the narrower track to the cottage, ‘I’ve been painting the kitchen window frames. Vanessa wanted white would you believe. I thought a dark green more appropriate.’
‘So what did you choose?’ Patricia asked with a grin.
‘I am certain that green is far more practical and it’s smart for a kitchen.’
‘So?’
‘I’ve painted it white as Vanessa wanted,’ he said ruefully.
‘She’s clever with colours and it will add lightness to the room.’
Matthew poured tea for them and they sat in front of the cheerful fire while outside the rain hissed against the walls and windows.
Her coat began to steam and her feet began to thaw and she was reluctant as she stood to leave. ‘It’s my turn to cook, again!’ she sighed. ‘I never get out of that chore these days. My sisters always promise to help, but Elizabeth often works overtime and Marion’s so unreliable, always off with some new boyfriend, leaving me to do her share.’
‘You and I have the same problems, don’t we?’ Matthew said quietly.
‘What d’you mean? You go home to lodgings with a meal all ready for you.’
‘I mean you get put upon by your family – no, don’t deny it,’ he added as her chin came up in protest. ‘They put upon you and Vanessa does the same to me, in different ways, but the intent is the same. I have to do more and she does less.’
‘This cottage you mean?’
‘It was going to be something we worked at together. With her ideas and her skills with fabrics, it could have been wonderful. I planned to cut back some of the bushes that have encroached on its walls and develop a garden where we can sit. She was going to design and make furniture covers and curtains, and choose colours for the walls and…’
‘She’ll get better once the war ends. She was in that terrible air raid, remember.’
‘And so were you.’
‘I’m different.’
‘You’re different all right. Stronger and braver and more practical.’ He moved closer and touched her cheek lightly with his lips.
‘And covered in slowly congealing mud,’ she said sharply. ‘I’d better get home.’
‘To cover for the fact that Marion isn’t doing her share, while I go and tell Vanessa how much her brilliant artistic talents are needed by useless old me.’
‘You aren’t useless.’
‘Neither are you, but we both pretend to Vanessa, don’t we? Put ourselves down and build her up?’
She moved towards the door but Matthew followed and stood disconcertingly close. ‘Patricia, I don’t know whether I can face it. Marriage to Vanessa is going to be one long battle to keep her happy.’
‘Nonsense, Matthew. You love her and she loves you.’
‘Does she? What if I told you that I think she is incapable of loving anyone?’
‘I’d say you were talking a lot of nonsense. She loves you and longs for the day you and she get married.’
‘Patricia, it isn’t going to happen. You see, I no longer love her and I can’t find a way of telling her.’
He put his arms around her; she was engulfed in the need to comfort him and they stood for a long time, Matthew holding her blissfully close, and the thought of moving away was a physical pain.
A torch beam startled them coming across the open door and settling on their heads which were close together. Too close.
‘What’s going on! Patricia? Matthew? What do you think you’re doing!’ They hadn’t heard footsteps approaching and Roland’s voice coming so unexpectedly made Patricia jump away from Matthew and start blabbering an explanation, which, echoed by Matthew’s voice attempting the same sounded weak and untrue and utterly disloyal.
Matthew went with Roland, silent after his initial burst of guilty words. Patricia trailed behind them, confused by what had happened, her heart racing with the shock of its sudden end.
After a few yards, Roland waited for her to catch up. ‘I’ll accept that it was momentary madness,’ he said. ‘Vanessa mustn’t ever hear about this. You know how easily she’s upset.’
‘But it wasn’t anything. We were both miserable and we were comforting each other. Patricia’s fed up with the way her sisters leave more and more to her and—’
‘And you, Matthew? Why did you need consoling? Aren’t you happy being engaged to my sister?’
Roland’s voice was harsh and Patricia thought that she no longer had even an honourary brother. No loving family like Vanessa had, no brother to speak up for her. Not even a doting set of grandparents. It was the thought of Roland being disappointed in her that grieved her most. He really had been most upset.
On the way home from the shops the following day Matthew was waiting for her.
‘Patricia. I want to see you, talk to you.’
‘Matthew we can’t.’
‘I have to.’
They walked to the cottage where, as before, Matthew had a fire burning and a kettle simmering.
‘I can’t stop long.’
‘Meet me later.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Come here, we can pretend we’re working on the cottage.’
During the next few weeks they met and did some wallpapering and painting and talked. Gradually, each confessed to loving the other. How to tell Vanessa was the problem that spoilt their joy. Several times Patricia started a letter to Roland with the intention of telling him, requesting his help in letting his sister down lightly. Each time she began to write, explanations were put aside and it always ended up as the usual light-hearted note with local news with nothing more innocuous than the fact that Vanessa was looking well. About herself and Matthew she said nothing.
But it was again Roland who eventually put an end to her dream. He called at the cottage and found them together. They were working and their being there seemed innocent, but he surprised Patricia with the forcefulness of his insistence that she didn’t see Matthew again. Speaking to them both, but looking mostly at her, he made them see it was simply propinquity and not love. They were spending too much time together, working at the cottage. That must stop. Reminded of what the revelation would do to her delicate friend, Patricia agreed.
* * *
As winter relaxed into spring, Patricia gave up her visits to the cottage, forced herself away from dreams of Matthew, and looked for something to fill her time. The doctor still refused to allow her to work.
One way was helping Mrs Llewellyn. Rose Cottage was cluttered with books and ornaments and heavy furniture that threatened to buckle the walls.
‘I’ve been decorating,’ she apologised. ‘Now, sit there and I’ll unpack another cup and saucer, I’ve broken three,’ she added with a chuckle.
‘Let me help,’ Patrica said and within half an hour she had unpacked the china from three boxes and found a home for it in a cabinet in the kitchen. Two hours later she had been to the shop and bought hooks and hung up the saucepans and brought the kitchen under control. Another hour and she had sorted out the remaining boxes and filled bookshelves and cupboards and cleared enough of the floor to sit in comfort in front of the fire. Her shoulder was very painful but she managed to hide the fact from her new friend and only when she had finished did she admit to ‘a bit of an ache’.
Julia Llewellyn was unaware of the damage to her arm and shoulder so presumed it was simply the day’s work that had overtired the muscles. She smiled her thanks and as they laughed and exchanged stories abou
t themselves and others, the time passed in delightful companionship.
‘I had a son rather late in life,’ she told Patricia. ‘He’s serving in the R.A.F so we rarely meet.’
‘I have a father and two sisters, and soon I’ll have a step-mother. But no aunts, uncles or grandparents,’ Patricia explained. ‘I did have an honorary brother once but even he’s given up on me now. Oh, that reminds me. I directed a man here a while ago, would that be your son?’
‘Yes, he told me he’d met someone carrying an apple tart!’
‘Perhaps that was why he seemed familiar,’ Patricia smiled at her new friend. ‘He has dark eyes just like you.’
‘And you, my dear,’ Mrs Llewellyn replied.
Chapter Four
Matthew prepared to leave the milk delivery round he had built up from nothing, and his wholesale green grocers business, in the hands of an elderly man who had worked for him for several years. The army insisted they needed him more than his customers did.
‘This is probably for the best, Patricia, love,’ he told her on a brief evening meeting at the cottage. ‘An absence will help Vanessa get over me and give her the chance to find someone else. We can tell her about us very soon.’
‘I don’t think it will be that easy, she loves you, almost as much as I do.’
‘But I don’t love her.’
‘I find it hard to visit her, knowing how we feel about each other, guilty I suppose.’
‘Honesty, not guilt. That’s what you have to remember. I couldn’t face a life with someone I didn’t love and it wouldn’t make her happy either, now would it? Honesty is hard but it’s the best way forward, my love.’
‘Am I? Your love?’
‘Now and always.’
They sat wrapped in each other’s arms in the darkening room as the fire slowly died, then regretfully locked the door on their secret and walked home.
Patricia insisted that her shoulder was ‘as good as new’ but the doctor was still adamant, so she went to see Vanessa’s aunt, Sally Drew, at Cottage Flowers. Her father had suggested it but she had hesitated, afraid that when the truth about her and Matthew came out she would lose her job.
Patricia stood outside the shop and looked at the notice advertising for an assistant-cum-trainee. Inside, Sally Drew sat with her feet resting on a basket which normally held flowers, winding lengths of twisted moss around a wire frame to form the base of a wreath, holding it in place with fine green wire.
‘Will I do?’ she asked, flicking a thumb at the notice pinned to the window display.
‘What d’you know about flowers, Patricia Lloyd?’ Sally asked, brushing oddments of moss and wire off a chair and inviting her to sit beside her.
‘Very little, but I’ll learn. I think I’d enjoy selling beautiful flowers. They bring a lot of happiness, don’t they?’
‘And sorrow. I’ve often thought what a waste of beauty to give flowers to commemorate death. Better to keep them for happy times and give something more sombre instead. Still, it’s a good living and I shouldn’t complain.’ She looked at her visitor and asked, ‘Why aren’t you going back to the farm? Fed up with hard work, is it?’
‘It’s this shoulder,’ Patricia said, rubbing the offending part. ‘The doctor says it won’t get better if I don’t find something less strenuous. Pity, I thought I was helping the war effort, keeping Will’s place for him while he battled overseas.’
‘How did you hurt your shoulder?’ Sally asked.
‘In the air raid, in Cardiff with Vanessa and Roland! Surely Mrs Drew told you?’
Sally put her head on one side and, rolling her bright blue eyes upwards, said wryly, ‘Mrs Drew? Talking about the troubles of others? It’s only Vanessa who’s suffered at all in this war!’
It was agreed that Patricia started on the following Monday and she went home to search through her limited wardrobe for something smart enough to wear in the shop. It would be a novelty to dress up for work instead of wearing heavy outer garments to ward off the cold and the rain and the various unpleasant messes she came into contact with at Caradoc’s farm.
Still in her oldest clothes she went to see Mr Caradoc and told him that, with regret, she had found another job. She defied the doctor’s warnings, and making her good arm take most of the strain, she helped Mr Caradoc for the rest of the day, painting the outside of the stone outhouses with whitewash.
At three o’clock, she stacked the paint buckets, slung her jacket over her shoulder, and closed the barn door on the back-breaking work. Although only February, it was a mild, peaceful evening and the war seemed so far away as to be a distant memory. The birds were making their settling-down sounds, the dogs were lying in the shadows of the kitchen walls. Everything seemed to be drawing a breath and taking a break from the frenzied activities of the day. High up in the sky a lone plane soared and Patricia wondered only vaguely if it were an enemy. The evening was too calm and peaceful to believe such a threat.
News items constantly assured the public that the war was truly on its last phase and peace would come with the end of summer. The memory of such assurances being given regularly since 1939 were pushed aside, and the new promises believed.
Patricia regretted that this would be her last day here on the farm. She would miss Caradoc’s, specially in the summer. Working on a small farm, during the summer months meant long, hard days, often stretching into evening, and there was little time or energy for fun, but there was the freedom of fewer clothes, more hours spent in the open air and a general feeling of well-being in the work.
She stopped at the turning which led to Matthew’s cottage. The track was gloomy in the darkness but she thought she could smell smoke and began to visualise the glow of the fire in the pleasant room. She wished she and Matthew had arranged to meet. For once there was no hurry to get home and prepare the meal.
It was Friday, that meant it was Marion’s turn to cook, she mused, as she headed down Deepcut Lane. They would almost certainly have mashed potatoes and the bacon ration with bottled tomatoes to flavour it. Marion always chose something simple when she promised to cook the family meal, so she could hurry away to meet her latest boyfriend.
To her disappointment, when she let herself into the house, there was no smell of cooking, no wireless to be heard and no sign of anyone being home. She glanced at the understairs cupboard and saw that two bicycles were gone. Marion and Elisabeth were both out.
‘Dad?’ she called and listened with her head on one side for a response. None came. With a sigh she reached for the vegetable basket and began to sort out the makings of a meal.
Leonard Lloyd came in a few minutes after the potatoes began to bubble and the tin of spam had been thinly sliced.
‘Where are your sisters?’ he asked.
‘Hello, Patricia. Did you have a good day?’ Patricia asked with sarcastic brightness. The words were softened with a smile that lit her dark eyes.
‘Sorry love. How was your day?’
‘Hard on the back. Don’t tell the doc, but I went to tell Mr Caradoc I’ve got a new job in Cottage Flowers and I stayed to help with the white-washing. I’d hoped to have a bath while Marion got the meal. The arrangement seems easily broken when it’s her turn, doesn’t it? The same thing happens every week. Friday is her day for cooking. I cook every other day. Cooking on a Friday when I do duty at the Youth Club isn’t much to ask her!’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll have a word.’
‘Fat lot of good that’ll do,’ Patricia muttered, but there was only resigned acceptance in her voice, no threat of anger.
Her father still saw Nelda regularly but always did his share of the household tasks, making sure the fire was tended and the fuel shed and log basket filled. He was kept busy enough as caretaker and groundsman at the local school and also had his duties as a sergeant in the Home Guard, and Firewatching.
Marion, who successfully juggled several young men, and Elizabeth, who was only a few weeks away from her marriage to Will Carado
c came in at nine-thirty.
‘What happened to my dinner then?’ Patricia asked when her sisters finally returned. ‘Your turn it was, Marion.’
Ignoring her mild complaint, Marion looked at her with glowing eyes and said, ‘You’ll never guess who I’ve been out with?’
‘Hitler’s mate Göering?’ Patricia suggested.
‘Your friend Vanessa and her brother Roland, that’s who.’
‘Vanessa? Is she all right? Sally Drew said she wasn’t at school again today.’
‘She seemed all right when she came out dancing with us. Tea dance it was. Smashing dancer that Roland.’
‘A bit old mind,’ Patrica said sharply. She felt resentment at the thought of Marion dancing with Roland. Vanessa was no longer her close friend and, once news of herself and Matthew was out, would never be again, but she still felt a surprisingly fierce possessiveness at the thought of Marion sharing her company and dancing with Roland.
Seeing Matthew secretly, still unable to tell Vanessa they were in love, meant she saw very little of her one-time constant companion. Although six years her senior, Vanessa’s brother was someone she looked upon as her special friend, specially since the Cardiff air raid, and she was quite painfully jealous at the thought of her sister sharing a few hours with him. Men flocked around Marion, she certainly had what the film stars called ‘it’ and imagining her flirting with Roland was unsettling. ‘I think I’ll pop over and see Vanessa,’ she said, putting the meal on the table for her sisters. ‘She’s probaby well enough to talk, so long as she stays in the prone position! If dancing hasn’t exhausted her!’ she added in a tight-lipped mutter.
She was uneasy in Vanessa’s company, afraid of letting slip her feelings for Matthew, but she had to go to the Drew’s occasionally, keep up the pretence until she and Matthew could find a suitable way of telling Vanessa her engagement was off.
Ice Cream in Winter Page 7