‘You don’t have to worry about Matthew and me. I won’t lose my family because I’m marrying him, even if they, like you, believe I’m making a mistake.’ She touched the woman’s arm affectionately. ‘You do think I’m making a mistake, don’t you?’
‘My dear, I wish for only the best for you. We’ve known each other for such a short time but I feel I’ve known you forever. To be honest, I think Matthew is a weak man and prone to worrying more about himself than another person, no matter how dear to him. Perhaps I’m wrong.’ She frowned. ‘I have been wrong before, dreadfully wrong. Please don’t be angry with me for saying this because I also want to say I’ll help you both and support you in any way I can. Now,’ she turned away and glared at the last section of the front lawn. ‘Now, we’ll get the last of this beautiful grass up, and away to the compost heap.’
Patricia noticed then that the shed door was open and inside, the machinery that had been neglected for so long was beginning to gleam. Sensing that it was a time for Julia to talk about the past, she asked, ‘What are you planning to do with all that machinery?’ She waved an arm towards the shed. ‘I suppose it should go for scrap to help the war effort.’
‘You’re right, it should. But it won’t. No one knows it’s there and there I want it to stay. So, don’t tell anyone, will you dear?’
‘Of course I won’t. But why are you keeping it?’
‘Sentimentality I suppose. My grandfather left Italy and came to Wales with empty pockets in the 1880s and started an ice cream factory here, in this shed. It never grew into the thriving business he had hoped for. Not then. It was just one of his attempts to make a place for himself and earn money to feed his family and give the younger members a chance to improve their lot.’
‘What did he do then?’
‘He found work in a café, making his wonderful ice cream for someone else, and eventually bought the business. All his experiments were done here and my father carried it on. These machines were the last ones he bought.
‘The cafés were successful. By working for as many hours as he managed to stay awake, he eventually owned seven, employing members of the family. My father’s generation also worked hard all their lives to give us better chances. The third generation was the first one to benefit from all the sacrifices. That was why it was so impossible to forgive my daughter for throwing away the opportunities that others had worked for, sacrificed their own lives for. He held onto all this to remind him that failure doesn’t mean an end of hopes, only a change of direction and a new beginning.’
‘What was his name, your grandfather?’
‘Andriotti. Enzo Andriotti. His hard work and his business acumen, his determination to succeed, enabled me to become a doctor, and, if my daughter hadn’t married the wrong man, she would have followed in my footsteps.’
She stared into space for a while, then smiled and said, ‘Now let’s lock this door in case there are spies searching for metal to take for their aeroplanes, and go and find ourselves a cake and a cup of tea, shall we?’
* * *
Although Patricia did not visit Vanessa, losing her nerve whenever she approached the Drew’s house, it was Roland who came to help them lift the last of the front lawn and dig up the large area of grass behind Rose Cottage. She met him walking up from the bus stop one evening, and learned he was on a ten day leave.
He looked travel-worn and tired and his face was different. Older and lined and much thinner. His eyes had a look that she thought of as torment, they didn’t light up as they once had whenever his mouth lifted in a smile. For a moment she hesitated to ask him to do any heavy work, but when she did he agreed at once.
‘I’ll be glad to,’ he said. ‘I feel the need to do something physical, something that will make me so tired I’ll sleep. I haven’t slept well these past weeks.’
There was such harshness in his voice she didn’t ask questions, but chattered on about Julia’s dismay at the loss of her flower beds and newly designed borders.
‘There are worse things than losing a few flowers,’ he said, his eyes glazed and full of pain, ‘but tell her to keep them. Plant them in odd corners, where vegetables refuse to grow. Flowers and the beauty of gardens like hers might save the sanity of us all when this war is done.’
‘Vanessa always says we are happiest when we have beautiful things around us.’ She glanced at him to see if mention of his sister had produced anger. He replied with a poem.
Can we live in the dark
Without spectrum’s bright light
Winter in splendor
Summer its flight
Can we live without sound
Never hearing birds cry
Unaware of the lark
As it soars through the sky
Can we live without touching
The one we adore
Wandering so empty
Alone on life’s shore
The beauty of love
Makes us see all that’s good
Widens our eyes
When we think nothing could.
‘Even those who seem not to notice need beauty.’ He smiled, then stopped and looked at her. ‘Besides the loveliness Mother Nature provides, we all need beauty like yours, Patricia. You are beautiful, and I mean more than your face.’
‘You aren’t angry with me for marrying Matthew?’ she dared to ask.
‘You’ve carried enough guilt in your short life. I wouldn’t want to add to that unnecessary burden. Just be happy. I’d hate to see you mess up my sister’s life and then not be happy.’ He stayed still, his hands lightly touching her shoulders, looking into her eyes. ‘If I were younger I’d steal you away from Matthew and marry you myself.’
‘You aren’t exactly old,’ she smiled.
‘Too old for you, alas,’ he replied. ‘Be happy. You shouldn’t have a moment that isn’t filled with joy.’
He touched her cheek lightly with his lips and they walked on.
‘Julia isn’t sure we will be – happy I mean.’
‘Only you can know whether or not she is right. If you have any doubts, get out while you can. I doubt if Matthew and Vanessa will get back together again, but that shouldn’t be a consideration. If you aren’t certain, then be honest, face the recriminations and anger.’ He threw down his bag and once again held her facing him, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Are you sure, Patricia?’
‘I’m sure,’ she replied. But at that moment, looking into his exhausted face, the echoes of his poem in her heart, her thoughts weren’t of Matthew. All she wanted was to comfort Roland.
The week during which she worked alongside Roland and Julia, clearing and digging over what had been a rich green lawn, was one of the happiest periods she could remember. She went there in the mornings before the shop opened and at lunch times and on her day off. Roland would be there to greet her.
Matthew came a few times after he had collected the evening milk. Darkness soon stopped their activities but they would stay with Julia, pouring over seed catalogues and making plans for when the weather allowed more time to be spent outside. And grander plans for when peace returned everything to normal.
Patricia tried not to admit to herself that it was a relief not to be alone with Matthew. But his appearance in their group was an intrusion. He changed the atmosphere and made her less easy, but these thoughts she put down to pre-marriage tension and told no one. Their special time, on Thursday evenings, when they spent a few hours alone, were different.
In their brief courtship and engagement they had always kept Thursday evenings as their own. It was Matthew’s day off and he would go to the cottage early and make a fire, then meet her as she closed Cottage Flowers and walk back with her, stopping to buy a fish and chips supper on their way. Sally would sometimes allow her to finish early, when she saw Matthew standing waiting for her.
It sounded more romantic than it actually was, she confessed to herself, but she allowed others to think it was the highlight of her week. They seemed
to have less and less to say to each other and the conversations were mundane and a little strained. She felt Matthew’s mind was somewhere else. Perhaps with Vanessa, she wondered sadly. And hers was at Rose Cottage with Julia and Roland and their plans for the garden once the war had been won.
Work in the garden was hard, but they all laughed and encouraged each other until the lawns had been cleared and the ground dug over. During that last week, Roland frequently withdrew a sketch block from his pocket and did swift drawings of the two women at work.
‘I’m glad it’s done before I go back,’ Roland said on the Sunday afternoon, as he sat beside Julia and Patricia in the shade of a gnarled old apple tree. It was the final day of his leave and they were relaxing after the final strenuous hours, sipping iced coffee supplied by Julia. ‘Tomorrow it’s back to hell. On my next visit you will be Mrs Matthew Morris.’ He stared at Patricia, as if trying to see into her very heart.
Neither woman spoke. Julia knew questions about the ‘Hell’ he was returning to would gain no answers. Patricia had nothing to say. She was engulfed in sadness. It was the first time Roland had referred to the end of his leave and the first time bitterness had tinged his voice.
‘When you come back we’ll have the area planted,’ Julia said when minutes had passed without another word from him. ‘Everything will be thriving.’
Patricia stood up then and pulled him to his feet and led him along the path, pointing out the positions where the various crops would be sown.
‘Next year we’ll have an earlier start,’ Julia said as she joined them. ‘But we should do well enough. I’ll go into the hedgerows and cut sticks for peas and runner beans and I might try a few tomatoes under glass.’ She went in to wash the glasses and Roland sat against the tree again and watched as Patricia tidied a clump of raspberry canes, cutting out the dead ones and replacing the nets around the new.
‘We’ll have to thin these properly in the autumn,’ she called out to him.
When she looked across, expecting a response, Roland was asleep. She knelt beside him, watching the frown across his brow ease and a youthfulness return to his face. A lurching, aching tenderness enveloped her and she slithered into a sitting position and held his hand when he slept. She shushed Julia when she came out of the house and stayed beside him, unmoving, until he woke more than an hour later.
* * *
When Roland had gone, the mood of Patricia’s life changed dramatically. Instead of days spent at Cottage Flowers or in Julia’s garden, the hours were filled with last minute arrangements for her wedding.
Her dress was borrowed and the flowers provided by Sally. The food was going to be simple and sparce and, if it weren’t for the cream promised by Matthew to add some life to a few trifles, and some home-cured and strictly illegal pork promised by Mr Caradoc, the prospects would have been even gloomier.
The cottage was given its final clean, the curtains sewn and hung and the furniture was placed in what Patricia decided was the most attractive arrangement. Matthew helped very little. He made the excuse that he needed to work with the man who was to take over for him when he left shortly to join the army, and the reason for the haste in fixing their wedding.
There was still a lacklustre feel about it, the guilt Roland had mentioned was ruining its magic. A girl’s wedding day was supposed to be the most exciting of her life, yet Patricia was approaching it almost with dread. She was distressed at the prospect of being married without Vanessa there. If only they could talk about it, but that seemed to be impossible. Mrs Drew showed disapproval every time their paths crossed. Yet Mrs Drew did try to persuade her daughter to talk to both Patricia and Matthew. But this was for Vanessa’s sake, not for any concern about Patricia’s obvious lack of joy.
* * *
Nelda gave scant attention to Patricia’s forthcoming marriage. She had problems of her own. She met Patricia at Youth Club and asked all the polite questions but paid little attention to the girl’s answers. Her worries caused her to be less than easy when she and Leonard were alone. She snapped at him on occasions, something she had never done before. They had always been peaceable with each other, that was part of the joy. Their thoughts ran alongside without any serious disagreements. Now, she took offence at small remarks and it worried him.
One day he asked her if she were trying to tell him ‘goodbye’.
‘No, Leonard. I don’t want that. Do you?’ she asked him hesitantly. ‘If you do you must say now.’
‘Nelda, I love you. I don’t want us to end it. Whatever happens I want you for my wife.’
‘Whatever happens?’
‘If you’ve a problem then it’s our problem.’
‘Perhaps you’ll change your mind when I tell you what it is.’
‘Nothing you tell me will change how I feel about you,’ he promised. She took a deep breath and hoped he was right.
‘I want us to move away from here, to somewhere where we aren’t known.’
‘Why?’ He was startled at her announcement. What ever he had expected it wasn’t this.
‘I can’t face telling the girls – about the baby. They aren’t children and they’ll know that you and I – well, they’ll know what we did. I’d be so embarrassed, Leonard. I just can’t face it.’
‘They’ll understand. I think they’ll be pleased, intrigued at the prospect of a half-sister or brother. Give them a chance before you run away.’
‘I can’t face them. They’ll be horrified and they’ll join in with the gossip and – if it was strangers I wouldn’t care. But here where everyone knows us and, it’s mainly the girls, your daughters. What will they think of us? Of me? Please, Leonard, can’t we go away and tell them when the baby has arrived?’
‘No need, I promise you. We’ll tell them and they’ll support you, not add fuel to the gossips.’
* * *
The days passed and Patricia felt very much alone, facing the preparations for her wedding. Elizabeth was planning to marry Will, and Marion was fighting off boys in every direction, writing to a dozen others, while still insisting she was in love with Paul Symons. As for her father, the one she thought would share the excitement, give her the time such an occasion warranted, he was lost in thoughts of his own and seemed hardly aware of her need for support.
Vanessa was not devastated by the fast approaching wedding day of her ex-fiancé Matthew and her once best friend Patricia. She knew with utter certainty that the wedding would not take place. She had plans to ensure that it wouldn’t! She went about her life without mentioning Matthew and, even when her mother tried to make her discuss it, she would smile and tell her not to worry, that it was she and no one else, who would become Mrs Matthew Morris.
Mrs Drew pleaded with her to talk to Matthew or Patricia, hoping that a full discussion would make her see the futility of believing that the wedding was not going to happen. Roland suggested sending Vanessa away to friends in Gloucester until after March the twelfth but Mrs Drew refused, believing that by staying, being aware of the preparations, her daughter would come to her senses. Meanwhile she fed her with tablets to make her sleep and tablets to take away the headaches from which Vanessa suffered.
Her beautiful child smiled at her and assured her that all would be well, that the wedding dress she had continued to make, would be completed in time for her own wedding day. The curtains she had half finished would hang in her and Matthew’s cottage; that the nursery she and Matthew had planned would be filled with their children. Mrs Drew would sigh and hand more tablets to her fey child, longing for the twelfth to come and go quickly, leaving Vanessa no alternative but to accept the truth.
Vanessa was content. She had decided on which day she would make her move. It couldn’t be too early, in case Patricia and Matthew had time to recover, and it mustn’t be too late, when they might feel unable to cancel the arrangements. No, Thursday the tenth was exactly right. They were sentimental about Thursdays. It was Matthew’s day off and she knew he met Patricia f
rom Auntie Sally Drew’s and took her back to the cottage, where he would have a fire burning and they would eat their stupid meal and spend the evening dreaming of how wonderful their lives would be as Mr and Mrs Matthew Morris. Both of them pretending. Both knowing it would never ever happen. Matthew was hers and he would come back to her. On Thursday the tenth.
She would be kind to Patricia of course. She would generously allow a return to their previous friendship, at least while Matthew was in the forces. It would be lonely without him, even though she intended to live at home and not up at the cottage as Matthew fondly imagined. Everyone would marvel at her generosity to her disloyal friend. She stared at the calendar and in her imagination ticked off another day. Then she reached over to her sewing table and added a few more stitches to her wedding gown.
In the last two days before the tenth, her calm deserted her. She rarely left her bed, and couldn’t sleep when it came to night time. In despair, an exhausted Mrs Drew gave her extra sleeping tablets which didn’t work, and made hot drinks which were left untouched. Vanessa was feverish, restless and completely unable to sleep.
‘These tablets aren’t having any effect now, my darling. I’ll go to the doctor and ask for something different,’ Mrs Drew said anxiously. ‘You must have sleep. Everything else we can cope with, if only you can rest.’
In vain Mrs Drew coaxed her to take some exercise so she would find it easier to sleep, but Vanessa just lay there and looked towards the door as if waiting for someone to come. Mrs Drew knew it was Matthew she watched for and begged her daughter to give up expecting him.
‘He’s left you! He’s marrying Patricia on Saturday!’ she said in a harsh voice. ‘How can you believe he’ll come back to you?’ Then she added in a gentler voice, ‘Their wedding is only hours away.’
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