Gull Island (19 page)

The only intimation of their plans was a note pinned to the tablecloth saying they would ‘be in touch soon’. Losing three sons at the same time and each going without the ritual of parting was hard, and Mrs Carey used all her strength in cleaning the shop, wanting to blot out her misery with exhaustion.

On 21 April, Barbara came again and took Rosita into Cardiff to see the King and Queen arrive by train for the opening of the National Museum of Wales. The excitement of the crowds lining the streets and waving flags thrilled Rosita, especially as she remembered that her half-sisters Kate and Hattie wouldn’t be seeing it, and she wanted to shout and cheer with the rest. But aware of her mother wanting to see her happy, she did not. Flags filled the air with an undulating blaze of colour, every other face wearing a radiant smile of welcome for the royal visitors.

When the crowds drifted away, they wandered around the shops and Barbara bought some clothes for her daughter. A dress for Sundays and some white ankle-strap shoes with white, pink-trimmed ankle socks. She also bought some Celanese underwear for herself. Impractical and foolish, but it gave her satisfaction to own such delicate things. The woollen skirts, thick aprons, the coarse, practical underwear would still be used on the farm, but knowing she had other ways to dress, other ways to live, would help her cope with the monotony of her existence. The thought of returning to the farm and Graham was less and less enticing. Town was an almost forgotten joy.

At the playhouse, there was a comedy on called
Just Married
. Barbara longed to see it, to be a part of the crowd bent on enjoying themselves, to laugh and relax for a couple of hours, do something far removed from her normal, regimented days. But she had to get Rosita back to the home and there wasn’t time. Perhaps another day.

Weary with their wanderings, they caught the train back to town to see Mr and Mrs Carey’s newly acquired shop and saw that already Mrs Carey had begun to smarten it up. The smell was still all-pervading but would soon be ousted by the stronger smells of disinfectant and new paint.

The cats roamed around mewing and yowling and Mrs Carey chased them off with a broom, much to Rosita’s amusement. Barbara wondered why Rosita could laugh when she was with the Careys but never showed any sign of pleasure when she was with her. Could a child not yet eleven be capable of showing disapproval of her as punishment?

There were several tins of paint on the counter; already newly painted areas were shining in the gas light and the children were occupied cleaning their rooms. Alun and Billie and Idris were arguing about who had the best rooms and who would share with whom. Ada came for the day to help.

Barbara regretfully left them to it and took Rosita back to the home. She watched the girl go inside carrying her gifts and mementoes without a word or a backward glance. She felt defeated by her daughter. Not once had she shown happiness at their being together. She only became animated when she was with the Careys. Out of them it was only Richard who interested her and he was on the run from the police.

Barbara visited again, aware that she was nothing more than the
necessary
means of getting her daughter out of the home and to visit the Careys. There was never the slightest hint that Rosita took any pleasure in her mother’s company. But Bank Holiday Monday would surely persuade Rosita out of her scowling mood. With hope for a successful visit, leaving Kate and Hattie behind again, she took her to the seaside, where
holiday-makers
were enjoying warm sunshine.

It was mid-afternoon before they reached the sands, after a journey standing crushed with other cheerful passengers on the packed train. Everywhere was filled with happy, laughing people. Barbara became
immediately
caught up in the spirit of the day, forgetting momentarily the years of working on the farm, and becoming once again the lighthearted young woman she had almost forgotten being. Even the surly expression on Rosita’s face couldn’t spoil the atmosphere for her.

It was as though everyone was celebrating some great event. The beach was crowded with parties of people who had travelled there by every
imaginable
means of transport. Besides the sixty extra trains and the buses that unloaded regularly, there were some less usual vehicles disgorging families set on having a good day out. Everything from huge furniture vans and lorries to small cars and bicycles. There were even milk floats drawn by ponies and filled with passengers instead of churns and crates of milk.

Several men had brought mouth organs and banjos and music mingled in a dozen melodies at the same time and people danced wherever there was space to do so. The Charleston was performed high above the crowds on the roof of the promenade, and below, a party of young people danced to their own voices, singing, ‘I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate.’

On the sand, beautifully dressed young women with their elegant
partners
were unwilling to leave, even after the sun had dropped below the horizon. The mood changed. The women’s sleeveless tops that shimmered as the wearers moved were covered in jackets as the air cooled. Beautifully dressed men offered their blazers and white jackets to their partners,
draping them around shoulders and using the move to steal a sly kiss. They all looked incongruously smart in such a setting. A number of men
gathered
driftwood from where earlier tides had left it and lit fires. One brought out a gramophone and the groups gathered near the fires to sing, laugh and then dance some more.

Barbara was grabbed by a man wearing a smooth grey pin-striped suit, from which he removed the jacket, revealing a crisp white shirt and
expensive
braces. His shirt sleeves were held at the correct length by silver armbands. Laughing, she allowed herself to be led, still clinging to Rosita’s hand into the dance.

He tried to pull Rosita into the throng but she wriggled and shouted and he gratefully dropped her back onto the sand, where she sat and glared every time her mother looked at her – which wasn’t often.

The man’s braces were exactly the same blue as his tie, his hair was
flattened
back with pomade and his shoes, scuffed already by the sand, were patent leather.

‘Surely you must have intended to go somewhere different from the beach?’ Barbara asked, giggling like the rest of the crowd.

‘Dressed for fun, my dear, wherever I might find it,’ he replied, jigging enthusiastically to the music, his fingers tapping out the rhythm on her spine.

Barbara couldn’t remember ever feeling so young and excited and she wanted the day to go on for ever. Even Rosita seemed content to sit and watch the unusual scene. But the day did end, as the daylight waned, and she knew she would be very late getting Rosita back to the home.

She told herself that to stay was unfair to everyone, irresponsible, selfish, but eventually gave in to her longing for the evening of fun. She took a delighted Rosita back to the Careys and telephoned the home to say she was keeping her for an extra day. With more apprehension she spoke to a very disgruntled Graham, explaining that both she and Rosita were tired, and that she would be home the following day. She then went back to the beach, filled with a delicious feeling of guilty excitement. She was
irresistibly
drawn back to the partying people not far from the seawater swimming pool. Another night away from Graham and the girls wouldn’t matter, and anyway, she excused, it was far too late to get back tonight, so why waste an opportunity for fun?

Her recent partner seemed to be waiting for her. She walked straight into his smiling welcome as soon as she reached the shelter of the promenade. He took her in his arms as naturally as she had once thought Bernard would have done, and led her down to join the noisy, laughing throng.

It was easy to begin talking to the people and she was soon a part of a gathering around one of the largest bonfires, drinking from assorted bottles
of wine that lay about in plenitude, and singing with the rest. Old songs, sentimental songs, popular songs from the music halls and, best of all, slow, romantic ones, with her partner looking into her eyes in the flickering light of the fire and doing strange things to her breathing.

When the fire burned low she settled with the man who had been her partner for the dancing and dozed unselfconsciously, feeling like a
seventeen
-year-old again.

Laughter disturbed her and she sat up, sleep less important than
experiencing
this wonderful night. The fire still flickered as fresh wood was occasionally added and shadows could be seen like fringes around the drowsy groups. Music could still be heard and one or two couples were dancing although much more slowly than previously.

‘My name is Jim,’ her companion said. ‘Will you stay for tomorrow? It threatens to be even better than today.’ He leaned closer and added against her cheek, ‘And tonight the best part of all.’

She hesitated, longing to agree with the implication in those few
whispered
words. She hated the thought of returning to Graham in that brief moment. She didn’t have to tell her new friend about Graham and the girls; she could say nothing. Lying by default, they called it; not as wicked as a downright lie. And it wasn’t as if she really planned to do anything wrong, just a bit of innocent flirting. But she couldn’t trust herself. So in the end she said a regretful no.

‘I’ll have to leave first thing in the morning,’ she told him. ‘I’m expected back by midday. I promised my husband,’ she added, forcing herself to say the necessary words.

‘My wife expected me back two days ago, my dear, but it’s party time and we should have fun,’ he replied lightly. He offered her some more of the wine she had been drinking without thought, from the time she had returned. She drank, allowed him to kiss her, then as his hands began to wander, pushed him gently, reluctantly away.

They spent the night with their arms around each other, dozing a little, waking to talk and kiss a little. Jim was so fresh, so sweet and clean; his skin smelled deliciously of soap. She knew she would remember him for ever.

While the rest of the group were still sleeping, huddled against each other in untidy heaps, Barbara slipped away. She wanted so much to stay and enjoy another day of fun but she hadn’t the right. Her fun was to be found with Graham or not at all. Groggy with the unaccustomed drink of the evening before, she found her way to the station and caught the first train to the beach and the Careys to collect Rosita and return her to the home.

Rosita complained most of the way back but Barbara seemed lost in a daydream and unaware, so eventually she gave up and sat looking out of the window, ignoring her mother completely.

In a strange way the hours of impromptu holidaying had eased the
situation
between Barbara and Graham. Knowing there was an escape, that waiting for her was an opportunity for fun any time she wanted it, made it less important. She smiled a greeting when he came out to meet her and that night she returned to his bed.

Winter began early that year. Frosts and even a few flurries of snow came before December began. Graham had increased his flock of sheep and he spent hours up on the hills, checking they were safe. Sometimes Barbara went with him, walking beside him to the hut where he sometimes stayed overnight, when lambing was a full-time activity. On occasions, she left the girls in the care of a neighbour and stayed out with him. Those nights in the silent world of the snow-clad hills, just the two of them wrapped in isolation, were magical, filled with contentment.

Kate and Hattie were growing into quiet, well-behaved children, and she and Graham had reached one of their periodic happy phases. There was no shortage of good food and Graham rarely showed signs of the anger of previous years.

Rosita was safe and cared for. She would grow up and sort out her
difficulties
without her mother’s help. Barbara had slowly accepted that she had been right to send her away, that she was not the one to help her untangle her problems and was able, now, to discuss her behaviour with Graham, who reassured her.

‘You always tried to help her, Babs. Done your best you have. She’s made it quite clear that your help isn’t needed. You have to accept that and then you’ll stop worrying.’

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed sadly. ‘Although I still feel a failure where she’s concerned.’

‘You’re needed here,’ Graham told her time and again. ‘I need you and Kate and Hattie need you. It’s here you belong. Rosita will find someone one day and she’ll grow into a fine young woman. If she has your blood in her veins she can’t do anything else, now can she?’

Barbara fervently hoped he was right.

L
UKE HEARD OF
the death of his father by accident. A visitor to the Café de Jacques brought with him a Cardiff paper, wrapped around a gift for Luke and Martine, a pound of laverbread, the popular Welsh delicacy made from a type of seaweed. The visitor had found the café on his way through Calais while motoring south some years before and since then he had called every time he’d visited France, usually bringing a gift from Wales.

Luke unwrapped the gift, his mouth watering at the prospect of warming the laverbread in a little of the fat from frying bacon. A perfect breakfast. Delicious. He smoothed the paper, intending to read it later, but at once the name of his father caught his eye and he gasped with shock.

‘My father. He’s dead!’ he said to Martine.

‘So, you have lost the chance to make up your quarrel. For that I am sad,
cherie
.’

In three days Luke was back in Cardiff. He knew from the newspaper that he was too late to attend the funeral but hoped to visit his sister and perhaps resume normal contact with her. Surely now his father was gone there was no reason to continue with the estrangement between them? He was wrong. His sister refused to see him.

Spending a few days with Jeanie and her husband at the shop, he had an idea and, with Jeanie’s willing help, carried it out. Using her to cover his identity, he negotiated to buy the cottage on the beach from his father’s estate.

He went by train to see the place although it was not yet his. Before he left the station he looked around him, half afraid his sister would be there, see him, and guess his intentions. Apart from that fear, he felt the usual pleasure at going back and sat for a long time against the sea wall and stared across at Gull Island.

The day was stormy and wild with dead vegetation bowling along like tumbleweed in a cowboy film. The air tingled around him like an angry, tail-swishing cat. The wind gusted spasmodically and threatened to bowl
him along with the dead plants. It was exciting and he felt buoyant, hopeful of a good result from his attempts to own the cottage he had always loved.

He returned to France before the transaction was complete but travelled joyfully, knowing that the next time he came home, the cottage, his cottage, would be waiting for him.

Even the knowledge that his sister would have blocked the sale, had she known it was he who had wanted it, couldn’t dampen his delight. The cottage was his, to return to whenever he wanted. He planned one day to take Martine there. Perhaps, when they were no longer fit to run Café de Jacques, they would retire there and be happy. He smiled at the thought, yet behind the smile and the image, there was another shadowy picture of himself living at the cottage, but with Barbara and Rosita, not Martine.

Barbara put down the paper she was reading, tucked the small round
spectacles
in her apron pocket and stared across the room to where her husband was lacing up his boots and tying string around his leg just below the knees. The
yorks
, as the string protection was called, were a necessary addition to his dress. Graham was going out to the barn to tackle the rats. They had been known to run up a man’s trouser legs, and, whether the stories were true or apocryphal, Graham wasn’t a man to take chances. She smiled at him as he pulled the string
yorks
extra tight, her slow, dreamy eyes showing a rare sparkle. He frowned, wondering idly what the reason was for her amusement, but he didn’t ask. Graham wasn’t a man to waste words.

He looked contented, she thought; a man living well within his
capabilities
and looking no further. Apart from periods of half-glimpsed restlessness when she felt a lack of something obscure and unrecognized, she too was far from unhappy. The grain was in, the fields ploughed, and with only root crops left in the ground, life at the farm was slowing down and slipping into the different pace of winter.

While Graham dealt with maintenance of buildings and cleaning up after the busy summer, Barbara was kept busy storing and preserving the fruits and vegetables they had grown for their own use. Apple rings were drying in the cool oven, carrots and beetroot stored in shallow boxes between layers of dry ashes or sand. Jams and pickles adorned the large pantry. Above their heads hung half sides of bacon and hams, salted and then smoked by hanging them over smouldering oak chippings in an outhouse.

Looking around her neat and orderly kitchen, she smiled. It had worked out well for her. Leaving Rosita had been hard but it had been the right thing to do. Kate and Hattie were loved by their father and – here guilt
crept into her reminiscences – Rosita had to be better growing up away from him.

She looked across again at Graham as he was about to leave the room. Tall and burly, she hadn’t looked at him for a long time. Not properly. She was startled at how old he looked; this year, 1934, he would be fifty. Perhaps he would arrange to celebrate it with a party. Just the four of them, of course. His social life was no more than his market-day meeting and a drink with neighbouring farmers.

She folded her newspaper, with its worrying reports on the rapid rise of Hitler, and the danger to its neighbours from a militant Germany. A
headline
caught her eye and she put on her glasses.

‘This man Hitler is coming up fast,’ she said to Graham. ‘It says here that last year he became chancellor and straightaway disbanded trade unions and started arguments about withdrawing Germany from the disarmament conference. Yet he has the support and admiration of the ordinary people, who believe his promises of better things.’

‘The man’s a marvellous orator, I’ll give him that, but that’s all he is for sure. Just a bag of ol’ wind. He’ll soon fade and leave the field open for someone with more sense than to risk involving his country in another war,’ Graham replied.

Straightening her glasses, Barbara read on: ‘This report says, “He continues to entrance crowds and is the idol of everyone who is truly German. Those who have less right to call themselves Germans are less content. They foresee difficulties ahead.” What d’you think he means by that?’

Graham wasn’t listening. He was searching the drawer for the scarf that was hanging over the back of a chair in front of the fire to warm for him. Barbara lowered her glasses on her nose and pointed to it with a solitary finger then, refixing her glasses, went back to the article.

Hitler had swiftly assumed the office of head of state, it said, and there was nothing in his way. He would be Germany’s autonomous leader, its dictator, with powers wider than anyone could at that time imagine. The words made her shiver, and she thought about Luke.

Barbara didn’t normally concern herself with world events but there were constant warnings that Germany was once more posturing for a fight. The lust for power had not been killed by the 1914–18 war, only temporarily subdued. She didn’t believe Graham’s casual reassurances. Danger there was, without doubt. The reporter had written with urgent insistence. A man like Hitler, who had come up to such a position of
importance
in the world, would surely not be content to stop and sit on his heels? He was still young and would want more and more.

Seeing her consternation, Graham said, ‘If this Hitler bloke wants to involve his people in arguments, best we let him get on with it. We’ve got more important things to worry about.’ It was Graham’s usual comment, often repeated in different words each time she tried to persuade him to discuss the news.

As Graham closed the door behind him, Barbara’s thoughts returned to Luke. He was living in France and might be involved if Germany and France clashed into conflict again, but she didn’t tell Graham of her fears. He never liked her talking about her past. He was unsettled by any
reference
to people she had once known and from whom she had been taken when she married him. The threat of her leaving him was to him very real, a constant nightmare.

He was unaware that secretly Barbara often thought about Luke; whether he was homesick for the small beach and the cottage and his boat. She knew she was! Even though life was pleasant enough, memories harked back repeatedly to the beach near Gull Island, where she had met Luke and where there had been a special sort of peace.

She searched a cupboard and found some knitting wool. She would make Graham a pair of socks for his birthday in November. Knitting only when he was out of the house would take longer but it would be fun to give him a surprise and the girls would enjoy sharing the secret.

They could make something as well. Kate was quite proficient and could make him a scarf. What about Hattie? She lacked patience and skills. Perhaps she’d better buy him some tobacco for his pipe! She found some red wool and decided that once the socks were finished, she would make scarf and gloves for Rosita and send them for her birthday on Christmas Day.

Barbara had gone to the home to visit Rosita twice during the late summer of 1934 but each time the girl had refused to see her. The matron apologized and begged Barbara to try again, but even though she had tried three times on her second visit, walking the fields between attempts, hoping for a change of heart, Rosita hadn’t appeared.

Richard was in a town thirty miles away from his home and working on a building site. He had learned the skills of bricklaying, had mastered
plastering
to a modest level and was surprisingly good at carpentry but it was at none of these that he earned his living. Thanks to the patience and teaching skills of Miss Bell, he had succeeded in passing exams in
accountancy
and also business management. He worked for a building firm dealing with various aspects of the business and was also working at other jobs in the evenings to increase his savings. He spent very little, and didn’t have a
social life, concentrating solely on building a bank account that would one day give him a start in a business of his own.

He sat in a café sifting through the papers sent to him by his solicitor, who was helping him to negotiate the purchase of a small field on which he planned to build one day when he had accumulated enough money to make a start. He often thought of the beach house and the family he had left behind. He knew his mother had made a good job of building the
business
he had bought for them; he and his father kept in touch by letter and phone calls.

It was Rosita about whom he longed to have news, the little girl, so angry and distressed, beaten by that man Barbara had married then
abandoned
to live among strangers. He wondered if she was still in the home, or whether she had run away and was somewhere, alone, facing danger, with no one to help her. As soon as he was safe from police enquiries, he would find her and look after her properly.

Rosita was working but still living at the home. After being given the chance to find other, more pleasant work, and being told she was useless, the job she had been given was cleaning and Rosita hated it. Matron had told her kindly but firmly, ‘There isn’t really anything else you can do, my dear. You do make so many mistakes.’

‘I’m not stupid. People just don’t explain properly,’ Rosita insisted. ‘When I was delivering for that grocer I kept missing the signposts – them posts are so high I went straight past. And I couldn’t help knocking over that bowl of soup when I worked in the café. The spoon was sticking out and—’

‘That’s always the case, dear. You are just a bit clumsy and forgetful, that’s all. Try not to worry about it. Just do a job you can do and forget trying to better yourself. That only leads to disappointment for a girl like you.’

So the work she was given were only the simplest of tasks and that meant black-leading the grates, scrubbing endless floors and peeling endless vegetables. She flatly refused to consider farm work.

On New Year’s Eve, during the final hours of 1934, Barbara was sitting mending some of the clothes Kate and Hattie used for their work around the farm. They were old but still serviceable. It was only silly superstition, she knew that, but her mother had always insisted that any work outstanding had to be finished before the year ended, and that included repairing clothes. The mending basket had to be emptied. It was considered very bad luck to let things lie unfinished after the clock struck midnight.
She glanced at the time. Only a bit of darning on one of Graham’s socks after this patch, then she could go to bed.

Graham was walking back to the house. He had left his favourite pipe behind. His clothes were white, the air full of falling snow, blocking out sounds and giving the fields an unfamiliar pattern. He knew the area so well he could have walked it blindfolded and he found the path with ease even though the edges were blurred with several inches of the dazzling white covering.

When he came to the fence above the
cwm
, he looked down and saw a movement, white on white and he knew immediately what it was. That damned ewe again! He had pulled her away from that spot only yesterday. Set on choosing their own birthing place, some of them. This one was
determined
to have her lamb on the edge of the cliff or commit suicide in the attempt! There was always one awkward one, he mused. Every year there was one who caused him extra worry over their safety. With a sigh, he climbed over the fence and began to walk towards her, his crook in his hand.

Perhaps he would stop and have a warm drink with Barbara when he collected his pipe. She was unlikely to be in bed, he thought, remembering the pile of mending she had undertaken to finish.

His footsteps were already half obliterated as he stood looking down at the ewe.

‘Now, old girl, are you going to be sensible and come back with me?’

Barbara banked up the fire. When Graham came back from the hill early in the morning, he would be glad of the warmth. It would only need a lift with the poker and he’d have a nice blaze. She moved the big kettle close to the heat and mixed cocoa and sugar and milk in the bottom of a cup ready for him to make himself a warm drink. As she was about to go upstairs there was a knock at the door. Graham must have forgotten
something
. But why didn’t he just push the door? It was never locked. Perhaps he was taking off his boots and coat before coming in.