Children in Her Shadow (34 page)

Christmas was a happy time but this was also the first time that Dai saw Ruth in one of her melancholy moods as she privately reflected upon what her other children might be doing. At first Dai thought he was at fault but was soon reassured by Ruth.

No matter how hard he tried to understand Ruth’s sadness she would not let him into her thoughts and secrets. On one occasion he entered the bedroom and saw Ruth putting her small suitcase back on top of the wardrobe. As he approached her he saw the keys in her hand and looked worried. Ruth sat him down on the bed and said, “We both have pasts and some of mine are locked in that small suitcase. Please understand that I love you and that the past is in the past but sometimes I have to open the case to remember.” She paused and then said, “Please don’t ask me what’s in the case and please don’t ever open it.”

Dai put his arm around her and said, “If your past is in that tiny case then I’m happy and I give you my word that I will never look into it.” However, he gave Ruth a warning that in his experience it was children who look into places they should not and he suggested that the best thing for her to do was to put the contents of the case in the Bank. As always, Dai was sensitive and practical and the following week she took the small case of her memories and placed it with the Bank for safe keeping.

Some weeks later, Ruth went to see the solicitor and at his suggestion she too made out a last will and testament. She took all the advice given by her solicitor but insisted upon one additional insertion into the will. That request, recorded her wish that on her demise, her private bank box contents should be handed over in their entirety, unopened to Mary Morgan.

The solicitor was instructed that the contents of the small case, papers of no monitory value and some simple private items of baby clothes were only to be given to Mary. The solicitor was given a set of keys to the case and was also instructed that if Mary should predecease Ruth, the contents were to be taken by him and destroyed. The solicitor agreed.

By the beginning of June nineteen fifty four, Ruth realised that she was pregnant. She was overjoyed as was Dai when she broke the news to him. Huw was rather more concerned that it should be a boy so that he would have a friend to play with. But for Ruth and Dai this news would symbolise fully their commitment one to the other, the depth of their love and a real joy at being able to have a child of their own. But it also brought into sharp focus their age difference. Dai was a young looking fifty six whilst Ruth was still young at thirty two.

In the February of nineteen fifty five, Ruth gave birth to a healthy boy fulfilling the dearest wishes of Dai and Huw. Returning to her family tradition Ruth told Dai that she wanted to call the boy David Michael. He was delighted never knowing that the second name, Michael would celebrate not only her beloved brother Michael but the son Ruth could never talk about.

Ruth barely had time to settle David into a routine before she was to announce that she was again pregnant. Ruth delivered a second child in the second week of the following January, this time a girl. She named the child Joan Charlotte. Once again, Ruth would capture the name of one of her long lost children in the names of her new family.

It was to be a further two and a half years before Ruth would give birth to another child, again a girl and again the name was to capture that of one of her children from the past. She named her third child with Dai, Deborah Maria.

Throughout this period Ruth and Dai brought up their children in a home filled with love. They gave generously of their time to the children each in their own way trying to compensate for the deficiencies in their past. Ruth was over protective and Dai the complete opposite seeing childhood as the time when children should explore and take risks.

They brought the garage business from strength to strength with Ruth managing the accounts either with a child on her knee or at her feet in the office or late at night at home given that Ruth was not a great sleeper. Together Ruth and Dai were a partnership of giving rather than taking and each worked extraordinarily long hours to make their family happy and their business a success.

As the years passed Ruth suffered nightmares regularly, something that deeply troubled Dai as he watched the tormented Ruth cry and shout until she woke herself up. The outpourings of her nightmares was always shouts of ‘give them back to me’ and ‘I’m sorry please help me I’m sorry’. Dai knew not to pry knowing this was territory both had agreed not to enter.

Visions of the gypsy haunted Ruth as did her prophetic words, ‘
In your life you will have the blessing of many children but you will endure lifelong sadness. I can see the life you have yet to live and I warn you now that you will go through your life seeing children in your shadow.”

Ruth was also a prolific smoker, as indeed was Dai and often her nights were spent in a smoke filled kitchen as she prepared food for the children’s breakfast or ironed clothes. Ruth was obsessed by many small things but her greatest obsession was that her children should never, ever play further away from the house than she could see them. She was tormented by the thought that someone might try to snatch them something that was the subject of her many nightmares. The ‘someone’ was always Edward who stalked her mind regularly with the threat of taking away Huw and she saw these threats extending to her other children.

Ruth was most protective of Huw something that was noticed but never spoken about by Dai who was placid and always tolerant of Ruth’s sometimes strange ways. Their love was deep and resilient and there was never a cross word spoken. Ruth was moody but Dai began to see the signs and kept out of her way when a moody phase was approaching.

As a family they spent summers on the nearby beaches of Llantwit Major or the Gower coast and in the winter they gathered together around the fire for stories and games. Ruth resisted the call from Huw for a television believing that it would interfere with the interaction of her growing family. Ruth was strict and her old fashioned values were occasionally regarded by Dai as being out of character with someone who wanted her children to grow up with an independent streak drawn from her.

By the late summer of nineteen sixty Ruth was again pregnant with a child that she delivered in July nineteen sixty one. This child was to be called Mary in memory of her dearest friend Mary Morgan.

Ruth was by now thirty eight and her recent life of child bearing, not to mention the three she had many years ago was having an impact upon her. She constantly looked tired, was becoming rather grumpier and was now having to look after Dai who at sixty one was not in the best of heath. But no matter what the world threw at Ruth she was stoic and generally cheery. Her life was her children, then Dai and then the business in which she was taking an increased interest as Dai stepped back to only working a few days per week.

By late nineteen sixty two, Dai was diagnosed as having lung cancer. He remained positive but it was becoming obvious that the cancer was weakening him. However, for Dai the news in the October that he was again to become a father seemed to rally his spirits but this would be a false dawn.

In the middle of December nineteen sixty two after bravely fighting the cancer, Dai died in the arms of his darling Ruth.

For Ruth the world caved in. Her lover, her friend, her soul mate and the father to her children was gone and Ruth was now alone with her children, her secrets and the business.

There was no time for sentimentality after the funeral. Ruth knew that all that stood between her and another disaster for the children she had brought into the world was her. She insisted that Christmas should not be put on hold and drew the children to her to understand that they must now work for each other and for her so that she could become the breadwinner and mother. The fourteen year old Huw rose to the challenge and stepped in as the man of the house organising the children and ensuring they turned as much to him as they would to their mother for support and help. The tight knit family of five children was soon to expand to six with the birth in May nineteen sixty three of another girl.

Ruth pondered the name for some time before, with the help of the children she alighted upon a name that would remain a lasting tribute to Dai. The name that was very carefully spelt out at the registry office to ensure no mistake was Daianne.

Ruth managed to keep the garage business running drawing upon the excellent relationship she had established with the staff. The sales manager brought in when Dai died was made general manager and with the careful help of Ruth the business grew with two new dealerships being added over the next few years to cement the modest income Ruth was able to draw from the business. Ruth’s nest egg continued to grow but her frugal nature resisted all calls from the children for holidays though she did eventually agree that there could be a television in the house.

Ruth’s nightmares continued as did her long nights alone in her smoke filled kitchen escaping the call to sleep where once again she would be awoken by terrifying nightmares confronting her past, despite the joy and happiness her children with Dai brought to her.

Ruth’s new fear was that the eighteen year old Charlotte from her past may try to find her and in so doing, would shatter the image her children had of their mother. On the other hand, Ruth was obsessed by trying to find a way in which she might possibly see her three children in the north of England without compromising her new life.

Ruth regularly visited the Bank to sit in the bank deposits section reviewing her box of memories. She never took the box or its contents out of the bank in part because the memories were all too vivid and in part because she continued to heed Dai’s words that children get into every corner of a house and will find anything that has been hidden.

Though Ruth had lost touch with Mary, during her trips to the bank she left her diaries in the hope that one day Mary would read them. These diaries would fill in the gaps but would also remind Mary that she was never far from Ruth’s thoughts.

It was now October nineteen seventy and Ruth’s children were rapidly growing up. Huw was twenty two and very much Ruth’s man about the house and a willing and capable surrogate father to the young ones. Joan was a sensible fifteen year old and the others were generally very well behaved. This drove Ruth to discuss with two dear friends and neighbours if they would spend a few days at the house helping Huw to care for the children whist she took a trip down memory lane to return to Blackpool.

The children were excited that Simon and Karen, who were in their late thirties, would spend time with them. They had two children who were the same ages as Mary and Daianne and they went to school together. The children helped form the plans that Karen, her daughter Isabel and Ruth’s girls would sleep at Ruth’s house and Simon, his son Benjamin and the boys would sleep at Simon’s house.

Happy with the plans and content that the children would have a wonderful time with Simon and Karen, Ruth embarked upon her epic journey of rediscovery. The first real challenge was to again enter Cardiff a city that still brought flashback memories of the death and destruction she witnessed as a young woman during the bombings.

Ruth’s train journey from Cardiff to Preston also brought back memories of the young alluring woman that turned heads on her journey to Blackpool all those years ago. Though smartly dressed Ruth could see that she no longer turned heads, she was now forty seven, a mother of nine children and she had dark secrets that would certainly turn heads but for a completely different reason

On arrival in Blackpool, Ruth returned to the guest house Mrs Morgan and Mary stayed in when they came to see her during the war. Little had changed in Blackpool except that the khaki uniforms and the austere greys and browns of the nineteen forties had been replaced by the mini skirt, hippies wearing shaggy Afghan coats, Indian cheesecloth shirts, and patchwork gypsy skirts. The suits and trilbies of the war years had for men been replaced by tight fitting shirts with large collars, and flared flannel trousers were now out replaced by American jeans and platform shoes.

Ruth spent the majority of her days in the library reading through old newspapers looking for any pointers that might lead her to understand where her children may be. She assumed that Edward would have remained local to Blackpool and so she combed the electoral rolls but found nothing. On her second day of visiting, a kindly lady sat next to her and said, “I’m the librarian and I could not help but notice that you are obviously searching for something or someone in our records, can I assist you.” Ruth was immediately concerned not to reveal too much simply saying that she lived and worked here during the war and wanted to see if she could find any names of people or stories about people she knew from that time. Her response was unconvincing to the librarian who had seen many women pass through the library in search of information, mainly of long lost sweethearts.