The letter, Non thinks, it is Angela’s letter that has brought the truth to the surface. She waits for him to mention the letter, but he does not. But then again, neither has she mentioned Angela’s letter, and she has not mentioned, and has no intention of mentioning, that part of her visit to London. Does that make them equal? Equal in deception, she thinks. Can they live with it? She does not know what the answer might be.
‘You are all I want, Non,’ Davey says. He looks into her eyes.
She curbs a desire to look away in case he can see her deceit. Now, she understands why he found it difficult to look at her when he believed he had wronged her. She puts her arm around his waist and her other arm around his neck and draws herself to him. She feels his limbs relaxing and his breath deepening. And he puts his arms around her and begins to stroke her back with the long, languorous strokes that she loves and has not realised until this moment that she has missed so much.
As she murmurs her appreciation a loud clatter makes them jump apart as guiltily as if Catherine Davies had entered their bedroom. Herman is balancing on top of the open sash, cawing raucously, his beak wide open.
Davey begins to laugh. He laughs and laughs as if he will never stop, this man who has not laughed since he returned home to her from the War. And then his laughter turns to sobs as raucous as Herman’s caws, and Non holds her arms around his heaving body until her own body quivers with the effort.
32
‘Them crows are a bit loud this morning, missus.’ Lizzie German heaves the dolly into the washtub as she speaks, and begins pounding the clothes with it.
‘From first thing,’ Non says. ‘And yesterday the same. Herman’s around somewhere. He flew in through the bedroom window yesterday morning. What a fright he gave us, Lizzie.’
‘That bird,’ Lizzie says. ‘Just like my poor Herman was. Loud and clumsy.’
Non laughs at Lizzie’s expression, then begins to scrub in earnest at the cuffs of the shirt on her washboard. The suds float into her face. She can taste the soapiness when she licks her lips to moisten them. We are almost getting used to this heat, she thinks, it is as if we have never experienced anything else. No rain, no wind, no cold, no snow, no sleet, just sun from one year end to the other. She tries to remember how many weeks the heatwave has lasted. It is not tiring me as much as it did, she thinks, this weather.
‘Saw your Davey on my way up here this morning,’ Lizzie says. ‘Looks better than he’s done in a while.’
‘I think he’s feeling better.’ Non thinks maybe she ought to cross her fingers as she says it, touch wood; for luck, just in case. Yesterday she had scarcely been able to think about anything all day except that she had Davey back. She had been unable to stop smiling at him, touching his face or his hand whenever she walked past him, until Meg noticed and began to groan whenever it happened. Non smiles at Lizzie.
‘You, too,’ Lizzie says.
‘What?’
‘Looking better.’ Lizzie stops the pounding and leans on the dolly to watch Non. ‘And feeling better? You’re not having to stop every two minutes to draw breath.’
‘It seems to be working, Lizzie, cutting down the medicine, drop by drop.’
‘Two-edged sword, missus.’ Lizzie surprises Non with her insight, as always.
‘Yes. I can’t help feeling I’m somehow letting my father down.’
‘Hmm,’ Lizzie says. ‘You look to the living, missus. You’ve got plenty of them to look after without worrying about the dead.’
‘Life goes on, you mean, Lizzie?’
‘It does that. Full of life, your lot, too. I saw young Meg this morning after I saw your Davey, running down the hill. Looked a bit cross.’
‘Poor Meg,’ Non says. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t have steam coming out of her ears. The boys had been teasing her because she had a letter from her French penfriend.’
‘French!’ Lizzie begins to work the dolly again, as if she’s taking out her astonishment on the tubful of washing.
‘Yes, she thought it was a girl she was writing to, but it’s a boy, and he sent a picture of himself. She turned scarlet when she saw it, and those boys wouldn’t let up. It’s a good thing she had an excuse to go out – she’s working at the St David’s, she’s a chambermaid. And they’re teaching her to serve at table, too. Just imagine, Lizzie – Meg having to be polite to people!’
‘Won’t do her no harm,’ Lizzie says. ‘Bit of hard work. Having to mind her manners.’
‘They’re all working,’ Non says, ‘even little Osian, with his carvings. I’ll show you his latest, Lizzie, when we stop for dinner. Meg is secretly pleased, I think, that she’s his model for almost every carving so far.’
‘I saw him going off with your Davey,’ Lizzie says.
‘He’s going to spend his days at the workshop during the holiday,’ Non says. ‘I think he’ll like that. Though it’s hard to tell with Osian.’
‘Told you he’d surprise you all,’ Lizzie says, echoing Gwydion’s words.
Non smiles and passes Lizzie the shirt to drop into her tub. She blows the suds from her arms and smoothes back her hair with her forearm. Gwydion, she thinks. I hope he goes soon to tell Branwen about what he is thinking of doing. The letters from Aoife and from his friend in Ireland seemed to arrive more and more frequently. Jackie Post had complained to her that morning that her family kept him busier than any other in the town. She wonders how long it will be before Gwydion begins to prepare actively for his departure. It is all talk at the moment, but he really needs to tell his mother. Non sighs. She knows how difficult that is going to be for him. She pulls another shirt from the soak and begins to rub the cuffs on the washboard. Every item of clothing Wil possesses has to be mended, washed and ironed, or sponged and pressed, over the next two days.
‘When’s he off, then?’ Lizzie nods at the shirt Non has in her hands.
‘Thursday,’ Non says. ‘He only heard yesterday. Eddie brought him a note from the Captain. They finished the work on the ship quicker than they expected. It’s just as well, Lizzie. It keeps us all too busy to think about him going. Meg and I thought we’d make a special supper for him on Wednesday, to wish him well on his travels.’
‘Your Davey’ll miss him in the workshop,’ Lizzie says. ‘What’s he going to do for an apprentice?’
‘Albert’s dragging his feet a bit,’ Non says.
‘That’s Albert all over,’ Lizzie says. ‘Too mean for his own good, let alone anyone else’s.’
‘Davey can’t think of anyone who’d make a good apprentice,’ Non says. ‘He’s thinking maybe one or two of the tramps would be glad to take on a bit of casual work for a roof over their heads and their food. They could sleep in the loft at the workshop. Just for the summer, you know. It wouldn’t cost Albert much.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were Davey.’ Maggie Ellis’s voice comes floating over the garden wall.
Lizzie rolls her eyes at Non, who tries to keep a straight face.
‘No, I don’t know if any of them can be trusted,’ Maggie says. ‘I could tell you some tales, you know. Oh, the stories I’ve heard!’
‘I think most of them are looking for work, Mrs Ellis,’ Non says, ‘not out to make mischief.’
‘I blame the War,’ Maggie Ellis says.
‘So do we all,’ Lizzie says, adding under her breath so that only Non hears her, ‘you silly old besom.’
‘And talking of the War,’ Maggie says, leaning over the roses, ‘did you hear about Elsie Thomas’s letter from the War Office?’
Non stops scrubbing and looks first at Lizzie, who shrugs, then at Maggie. ‘No,’ she says. ‘A letter about what, Mrs Ellis?’
‘Well . . .’ Maggie Ellis settles her bosom on the roses. ‘Elsie got someone to write to the War Office for her to ask if she could have Benjamin back from that grave in London, and they wrote back to her and said the soldier in London was unknown and that Benjamin had a grave in France, and they sent a picture of it.
It was a cross with a number on it, I saw it, it’s better than the one she’s got, but you still can’t read the number. Elsie thought it was lovely.’
‘I thought she’d given up on all that after seeing the woman in Port,’ Non says.
‘Ah, well,’ Lizzie says, stopping to stretch her back. ‘She had, missus, but someone persuaded her different.’ She turns to Maggie Ellis, ‘Didn’t they?’
‘Nothing to do with me, Lizzie,’ Maggie says.
‘Not what I heard,’ Lizzie says, and returns to her pounding.
‘And,’ Maggie says, ‘a lot of people went to see that woman in Port after what happened to Elsie. Seems she’s a foreigner, would you believe. Her own husband was killed in the War.’
‘She’s still there, then?’ Non says. She shakes her head. ‘Well, I think she was a fake.’ And yet, she thinks, fake or not, she did bring Elsie some comfort – though she seemed to have frightened herself! Then that séance in London – what a sham that woman was, too – but what she told people seemed to comfort them. In her mind’s eye she sees Angela weeping with happiness. People are deceived because they want to be, she thinks.
‘Ah, but Non, did you know . . .’ Maggie Ellis leans so far over the wall that Non thinks the roses that were blooming earlier must be completely destroyed. It is a wonder they keep growing at all. ‘Did you know that it’s the child who has the gift?’ Maggie looks from Non to Lizzie and back again. ‘It’s not the woman, it’s the child.’
The child! No wonder Madame Leblanc had been so astonished. Non feels the hair rise on the back of her neck, and begins to scrub with vigour.
‘I told Elsie it was the child,’ Maggie Ellis says. ‘But she doesn’t want to go back there again. No, it’s all about the war memorial with Elsie now. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’
Maggie picks up news like a terrier scenting a rabbit, thinks Non. And at that, Maggie points her nose in the air as if she has scented another piece of gossip.
‘Someone’s at my front door,’ she says, and heads back for her house.
‘Is old Mrs Davies still after putting her Billy on the memorial?’ Lizzie says.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Lizzie. I’ve lost track of where we are with that. I hope not. I hope Davey’s managed to persuade her to leave it alone.’
‘A bad lot, that Billy,’ Lizzie says.
‘You mentioned that before, Lizzie. And just lately, I heard something – I didn’t know about this – I heard what Billy was like, you know, with the girls and the babies. And I wondered – did you ever hear anything about that, Lizzie?’
Lizzie looks up from her tub. She nods. ‘Heard something about it, missus. Got a cousin in Tremadoc.’
‘What about Osian?’ Non says. ‘Is he one of Billy’s? I don’t want details, Lizzie – I just want to know.’
Lizzie nods again.
‘For sure?’
‘Yes, missus, for sure.’
‘Thank you, Lizzie,’ Non says.
‘He were like an old goat.’
‘Who’s that?’ Maggie Ellis bobs up again behind the wall. ‘Who are you talking about? That William Morgan? Real old billygoat, that one.’
‘Looks like one, too,’ Lizzie says, ‘with that sorry beard.’
They cackle companionably, a pair of old crows. Non knows exactly what William Morgan is like from helping Gwen Morgan out so many times over the years. Until Davey put a stop to all that.
‘He’s a sour one, too,’ Maggie says. ‘Did you hear about Gwen dressing up like Charlie Chaplin and walking down Tryfar swinging a walking stick just like he does in that film I saw in Port? Did you see it? And William Morgan’s best black shoes on her feet. Laugh? I thought I’d die. It was better than a circus. But old William didn’t think it was funny. ‘Specially when he saw his shoes. You should have seen his face.’
‘She paid for that, Maggie,’ Lizzie says.
Maggie Ellis stops laughing and leans on the wall. ‘Men!’ she says.
‘Her Emlyn’s a good lad, though, looks after her,’ Lizzie says. ‘I dare say your Wil knows him from the golf, missus. He goes caddying down there, too. He’d make your Davey a good little apprentice in a few years. How old would he be, Maggie? Ten? Eleven?’
But Maggie is not listening. ‘Someone at your door, Non,’ she says. ‘Can’t you hear? It’ll be that tramp I just sent round, the one at my door just now. An Englishman. Said he was looking for Davey. Why d’you think an English tramp’s looking for Davey?’
Non’s mind races as she hurries through the house, drying her hands and arms as best as she can on her damp apron. An English tramp – could it be someone Davey knew in the War who has fallen on hard times? Someone who could help him remember what he has forgotten? She pauses in front of the looking glass on the hat stand to tidy her hair, then opens the front door.
The man has retreated to the lower step after knocking on the door, so that she is looking at the top of his head. Why did Maggie Ellis think he was a tramp? His shoes are a little scuffed and dusty, but his fair hair is neatly parted and combed, and he is wearing a lightweight suit that, though it looks a little grubby to be sure, is of a better quality than anyone can afford around here.
‘You’re looking for Davey?’ she says.
‘Davey Davies.’ The man does not raise his face to look at her and she barely hears what he says.
‘Davey’s at work. Can I help you?’
‘Would you direct me to his place of work, if you please?’
He speaks the way Angela spoke, she thinks, and the way the grand English families spoke who used to come here to their big houses until the War took away their husbands and sons and their money. Maybe he takes her for the skivvy, standing here in an apron.
‘I’m Rhiannon Davies, Davey’s wife.’
The man makes no response; his shoes seem to be of more interest to him. Non waits a moment, then gives him directions to the workshop.
He says something to his shoes that Non takes for thanks and turns away. She watches him as he walks down the hill until he is out of her sight. He shuffles his feet like an old man, and she sees what it was about him that led Maggie Ellis to call him a tramp – a slump of despair in his shoulders.
She closes the front door and hurries back to Lizzie and the washing. How odd, she thinks, how peculiar. She cannot imagine Davey shoulder to shoulder with someone like that in the trenches.
33
They are having their last supper before Wil leaves them. Here is Wil himself, sitting next to his father and eating his favourite meal: the last of the salt bacon, and potatoes fried to a crisp. Catherine Davies has already objected to eating any kind of pork, even one as well salted as this, because it is summer, and has given her portion to Wil. The time of year does not worry Wil. He will eat most things at any time, like any growing boy. Which is what he is to Non, however manly he may feel as he sets off to his new life.
‘I just hope you’re not all ill after eating that meat.’ Catherine Davies cannot let it go. ‘And it’s rather extravagant in the middle of the week, Rhiannon.’
‘It has to be special to wish Wil well for his journey,’ Non says.
‘He deserves a good bellyful this evening.’ Davey ladles the rest of the potatoes onto Wil’s plate before anyone else can take them. ‘He’s done a week’s work today, showing Teddy the ropes.’
Catherine Davies sniffs. She doesn’t actually need to say anything, the sniff alone would do it, but she cannot help it. ‘I just hope that you won’t have cause to regret taking on a vagrant like that.’
It has happened so quickly, one day there was a man at the door looking for Davey, and two days later he is Teddy – Teddy! – and working for Davey, sleeping in the workshop loft and eating their food. Davey told Non he had no idea who Teddy was, that he must be one of the many things that Davey seems to have forgotten, but Teddy said that they met in the clearing hospital and Davey had given him a letter to be sent to Non if he were to die or disappear.
Non had shuddered at the thought, and then realised that this must be one of the letters Angela had mentioned. How many more of them were there? Davey said the least he could do was make some provision for the man when he had gone to so much trouble to return the letter to its writer. And it had happened at a propitious time, Davey argued, as if he had to persuade himself. Wil was about to leave, and the amount of work was increasing fast with not only coffins to make, but the new items of furniture the owner of Wern Fawr was ordering. And the carvings he had commissioned meant that Davey had to keep an eye on Osian, too.
‘He’ll be fine, Mother, and it’s only temporary until Albert agrees to a new apprentice for me,’ Davey says. ‘Don’t let your food get cold.’
There is an air of excitement among the diners, and Non knows this is because each has a special gift for Wil to remember them by and to be useful to him on his voyages. How they have managed to keep this secret from Wil, she does not know. Meg is usually the one who cannot hold a secret for long, but maybe she is beginning to become a little more private, a little more secretive, since she had her reply from Jean, because she has not told any one of them anything about him, nor shown them the photograph he sent to her.
Non finishes her potatoes and pork. She has a better appetite than she is used to having, and the salt is welcome in the heat, though she fears they will all be drinking water like fish all evening. She lays her knife and fork on her plate and looks around the table at the faces there. The only member of the family missing is Herman. He has flown in and out of their house all his life, but cannot stay in the vicinity of her mother-in-law without attempting to peck her, and has had to be shut in the kitchen. She can hear his soft, sad caws as he eats the potato she has left him.
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