Gull Island (2 page)

It was a rock-strewn area of the coast they called
their
beach, where they walked hand in hand and lay in small private places in the rocks. Today it was deserted. Besides the wooden shack which opened on
occasions
to sell sweets and pop, there were only a few damp and neglected cottages and further inland, one large and imposing house which stretched its Tudor-style walls haughtily up from green lawns and looked across the sea to where an island showed itself, glistening in the
late-afternoon
sun.

The tide was low, the sea a benign murmur. A causeway led temptingly across to the small outcrop of rocks and greenery and low shrubs, where rabbits lived unthreatened and cropped the rich grass. But Barbara knew from previous experience how quickly the sea crept around both sides of the island and covered the causeway with a dangerous tide where deep 
pools and uneven rocks made hurrying feet stumble and hidden currents tugged at the legs of the unwary.

She sat there unmoving for hours, unaware of the need for food or even a drink to refresh her. The fact that she carried a child had been a
devastating
surprise. Even Mrs Carey’s explanations had only just begun to penetrate her shocked mind. The revelation was alternately filling her with fear and elation. Now she and Bernard would be married. The fact that she was only seventeen wouldn’t be an obstacle – Mam and Dad had been married at her age, and they’d be glad to have one less person in the cramped rooms.

She began to feel chilly and came out of her reverie to see that the tide was almost fully in. A sea mist had fallen, hiding the late summer sun so the island was little more than an outline in the opaque air. Apart from the almost unnoticed sound of the waves, everywhere was silent and she
fancifully
imagined that she was alone in the whole world. She would stay here in the beautiful, hazy, peaceful place, and Bernard would come and find her and they would walk off into the mist and start a new life without having to untangle the confusion that surrounded her.

But there was no confusion, she reassured herself. All she had to do was wait until Bernard came back from London, explain the situation as Mrs Carey had explained it to her, then leave it to him. They would be married and everything would fit perfectly into place.

She tightened the jacket round her shoulders, appreciating its warmth. The mist had brought a chill to the air. The island was almost lost to sight now and seemed to be floating on the quietly swelling sea. Bernard called the mist that veiled the scene a sea fret. The beach and the island was, he’d told her, a place of sea frets and mysteries. She smiled. Sometimes Bernard talked as if he were reading poetry. Like when he called her eyes sleeping pools of dreamy
wonderment
. She wasn’t sure what he meant but it sounded romantic.

A sound invaded her thoughts and she felt a mild irritation at the
intrusion
. She recognized the slap of oars on the small waves and the creaking and clunking of wood within rowlocks. Looking out to sea she saw,
gradually
emerging through the mist, almost as if it were gliding on air, a small rowing boat.

She began to rise, not wanting to talk to anyone. But the man in the boat had seen her and he called, paused in his rhythmic rowing and waved. She stood, half prepared to walk away but suddenly changing her mind and wanting to talk to someone, and in the eerie light she waved back.

‘How could you see your way in this? Daft I call it to go out in a little boat in such weather.’ Unaccountably she was angry for the risks he had taken.

‘I’ve only been around to the next bay to visit a friend,’ the young man replied as he dragged the boat up onto the shingle. ‘Here, catch this and tie her to that post, will you?’ As she fumbled with the rope he stepped lightly across the rocks and took it from her. ‘Here, like this.’ Taking the rope, he showed her the way to tie it with a bowline.

She couldn’t guess the stranger’s age. Perhaps he was younger than herself, perhaps older. She thought he would look the same ten years from now. He was quite small, hardly taller than she was, five feet three at a guess. He was lean, thin even, and his fair hair, bleached almost white by the summer sun, was long and straight, almost touching his shoulders and adding to the illusion of extreme slimness. His eyes, she noticed with
fascination
, were the colour of the sea and the skin around them was wrinkled as though he spent his days with them half closed against the glare of the sun on the sea.

He wore a shabby jumper from which threads of wool hung in fringes over his hands and across his neck. His trousers barely reached mid-calf and if there had been hems they had been lost for many months, so, matching the jumper, a fringe escaped the carelessly rolled-up ends like a family of spiders having a free ride.

The clothes, she thought with a frown, were misleading. The boy, or young man, was no pauper. His voice was without a strong local accent and he sounded what Barbara’s friends would call ‘swanky’. There was an air of confidence about him too that suggested he could afford to dress well if he chose. She forgot her recent alarms, her daydreams and her irritation at being interrupted and was filled with curiosity.

‘Live near here, do you?’ she asked as she followed him up from the now-chilly beach towards the old cottages. ‘I bet you live in that posh house beyond the beach with timber beams and dozens of chimneys.’

‘That place has been empty for years, although a relation of mine once owned it.’ He smiled and gestured towards the cottages. ‘These smaller places belong to my father and I stay here sometimes.’ He looked at her, his eyes still remarkably matching the colour of the sea moving gently behind him. ‘I have the makings of tea if you fancy a cup. You look as though you could do with warming up. No milk, I’m afraid.’

She hesitated, wanting to go but half afraid. ‘Oh, I don’t think I could drink tea without milk, thanks all the same.’

‘Putting in extra sugar helps.’ His smile lit up his face, giving it an almost roguish look. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. I don’t bite or pounce on lovely young women.’

She smiled back, intrigued by his almost piratical appearance and casual, easy manner. He was different from anyone else she had ever met. This
adventure would be something to tell Bernard about when he came home – something to add to that other news.

The cottage to which he led her was surprisingly neat inside. Built of yellowish stone with a pattern of red sandstone around the windows and doorways, there was a strong smell of dampness as she entered the storm porch but once inside the living room, a chintz-covered chair and a bowl of wild flowers gave the place a brightness and warmth. She stood for a moment, her head hardly moving but her large pale-blue eyes widening and absorbing the unexpectedly pleasant sight.

The young man put a match to the fire and, leaving her to explore, busied himself with a paraffin stove and a tin kettle. While she looked in amazement at the long line of books on a stone shelf, which smelled of damp and showed signs of mildew, he made tea and put the tray on the floor in front of the spluttering fire.

‘My name is Luke. Who are you?’

‘Barbara. Barbara Jones but I think I’ll be changing it very soon.’ Did she imagine the slight frown that crossed his face? Was there a hint of
disappointment
at the news of her marrying? She silently laughed off the vanity and in her embarrassment at the way her thoughts had travelled, she blurted out, ‘Mam told me this morning I’m going to have a baby, see, and when Bernard knows he’ll marry me for sure. Then I’ll be Barbara Stock.’

‘What will you do, Barbara, if he – well, if you decide not to marry this Bernard?’

‘I don’t know,’ she gasped. The thought of Bernard letting her down simply hadn’t occurred to her. She stared at him. Suddenly all the fears and uncertainties flooded in and she was chilled as if by immersion in icy water. Her eyes widened and her teeth chattered. She crouched nearer to the warmth of the fire, not wanting to look at the serious-faced stranger. Why had she told him? He was staring at her when she eventually looked at him again, the frown on his face deepening.

‘Don’t let them make you give her away. She’s yours and you must keep her, watch her grow and she’ll fill every day with joy.’

‘She? You think it will be a girl? Funny, I hadn’t got round to wondering whether it will be a girl or a boy.’

‘It will be a girl and you must call her Rosita.’

‘There’s a fancy name for a Jones!’

‘Jones? Then you don’t think this Bernard will marry you?’ he asked softly.

‘Of course he will! I wasn’t thinking—’

‘But if he doesn’t, you won’t let them take the baby away and kill it, or give it to someone else to raise, will you? Please tell me you won’t.’

‘Bernard and I will be married. She, or he, will be ours.’

‘But if he doesn’t?’ he insisted urgently.

‘If you insist on my saying it, all right, if I don’t marry Bernard, then I’ll keep the baby.’ He looked so serious she was laughing, confident in the outcome. ‘All right then? Satisfied?’

‘Good. Now if you’ve finished your tea I’ll walk a part of the way with you. I have to go back myself soon but an hour won’t matter. There are plenty of trains to Cardiff. Are you ready? Your mother will be worrying, especially if you’ve only just learned about Rosita.’

‘Rosita?’ She laughed.

‘Rosita.’ He hugged her and added, ‘My mother was called Rosita. I’d like to think that somewhere in the world there’ll be a little girl who carries her name.’

They walked back along the silent, mist-enshrouded lanes, the hedges on either side of them like walls separating them from the rest of the world. A cotton-wool world in which they were alone. Barbara was warmed by Luke’s company and by his matter-of-fact approach to her situation so that the shock of the morning was becoming an accepted fact and something with which she could deal without difficulty. Apart from the baby and the love and happiness she would surely bring to her, Luke had talked mostly about the sea and the fish he caught and the journeys he would one day make, when the war was over and he was free.

‘Free? Good heavens, Luke, look at you, how could you be more free?’ she laughed.

‘Tomorrow I go back to that other life.’

‘You aren’t in the army, are you? You don’t look old enough.’

‘I’ll be twenty at Christmas. Christmas Day, in fact. No, the army wouldn’t have me – my chest is the problem apparently.’

‘Mam has worked in the munitions factory but only for a while. Dad works in a soap factory and grows vegetables. That’s the extent of the Joneses’ contribution to the war effort, I’m afraid.’

‘Nothing so honourable for me. I have a second-hand bookshop. Hardly a blow against the enemy. I did try several times to enlist but they refused me. A friend of mine is in France. His name is Roy Thomas. He and I have been close friends since we were little more than babies. His family is where I think of as home, especially since my mother died. Their home is as noisy and relaxed as mine is silent and disapproving.’ They walked on for a while and Barbara waited, sensing his need to tell her more.

‘Roy writes cheerful letters but I think the men are going through hell. I wish I were there too. I know it isn’t the thing but I miss Roy very much.’

‘What d’you mean it isn’t the thing? If he’s your friend, why shouldn’t you miss him?’

‘Oh, it’s just that our families are so different and …’ He allowed the sentence to hang in the air unfinished and Barbara guessed it was something he didn’t feel able to tell her.

‘Do you really wish you were out there, in France? I confess I’m glad not to have to face it. Loving friend or not, I’m thankful I’m not expected to go.’

‘You’re a woman, designed for more gentle things.’

He smiled and Barbara smiled back; the awkward moment had passed. It was the only moment in which there had been any uneasiness between them. She wondered about Roy Thomas, and experienced a slight feeling of envy at the unknown man’s ability to spoil the unlikely friendship between herself and this unusual man. But she didn’t attempt to bring the
conversation
back to him.

As they reached the end of the lane that took them away from the beach, they heard voices and the laughter of children. Coming towards them through the hazy evening was a group of youngsters. One was pulling a homemade bogie – a wooden soap box with a long plank for steering and to which old pram wheels had been added.

Barbara smiled as she recognized the Carey family. Richard, the
five-year
-old, was helping to steer the cart and beside him, fast asleep, was his baby sister Blodwen. A solemn child even in sleep, she was propped upright, jammed in with cushions, the colours of which had faded to a greyish brown. Also in the party were Billie, aged ten, and Gareth, aged seven. The oldest Careys, twin girls Ada and Dilys, were far too aloof to share this escapade. Alun, at twelve, was already chasing girls. Mrs Carey kept her favourite, Idris, close to her, rarely letting him join in any of the activities arranged by the rest.

‘What are you doing so far from home?’ Barbara demanded.

It was Richard who answered. ‘There’s bound to be some firewood washed up on the beach so we’re getting some for Mam.’ He gestured behind him and coming into sight was a second bogie cart pulled by another of his brothers, the eight-year-old Jack. Barbara noted that although only five, Richard was the one organizing the little procession.

‘Come back with me now this minute!’ Barbara said angrily. ‘Your mam’ll kill the lot of you!’

‘Not without wood.’ Richard’s jaw was pushed out in a stubborn expression.

‘But it’s late and almost dark.’

‘We’ve walked a long way for to go home with nothing,’ his brother Billie added. ‘Come on, you lot, we can cut across the fields from here.’

‘The tide’s up.’ Barbara hoped that would decide the matter. ‘Best you come another day.’

Totally ignoring her, the small group dragged the carts up the bank and through the hedge and when the sleeping child threatened to fall out, Luke ran to help them. ‘Who are they all?’ he whispered as he lifted the ungainly bogie down onto the field.