The Color of Secrets (33 page)

Louisa listened in shocked silence as Cathy explained the terrible dilemma Eva had faced on Eddie’s return. “She had to choose between Bill and your brother,” she said. “If she’d tried to follow him to the States, she would’ve had to leave David behind, you see.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if he’s ever told you, but your dad—Eddie, I mean—went through a terrible time during the war. All he wanted was to get his family back. He would never have agreed to your mother taking David to the States.”

“Did my
. . .
” Louisa hesitated. She couldn’t say the word
father
. “Did Bill want her to go?”

“That was the other thing.” Cathy let out a long breath. “She didn’t really know what was in his mind because he was whisked off so quickly. He wanted to do the right thing by you, which was why he’d been trying to arrange for the Red Cross to take you to his aunt in Chicago. But Eva said he never actually mentioned marriage.” She paused, her face creased with concern, and Louisa saw that she was searching for a way of softening the harsh reality of what had happened. “He was very young,” Cathy went on. “Your mum was only twenty-one when they met, and he was a few months younger, if I remember rightly. And although they both believed Eddie was dead, marriage would have been out of the question until his death was officially confirmed at the end of the war.”

Louisa stared at the photograph album in her lap. Her mother looked radiantly happy. Was she already pregnant when it was taken? She wondered how long the affair had lasted, how her mother had come to give birth at the farmhouse in Wales instead of in Wolverhampton, and why Bill hadn’t fought harder to get her over to America. There were so many questions hammering inside her head, but one was more insistent than the rest. “You say he wanted to send me to his aunt in Chicago,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. “Is that where he came from?”

Cathy shook her head. “No, he was from New Orleans. In Louisiana.”

This brought a small, bewildered sound from Louisa: something between a gasp and a sob.

“You didn’t know how you came by your name, then?” Cathy bit her lip. “Well, he couldn’t send you home to his mother because of the race laws. There were strict rules in the southern states about black and white people intermarrying. He knew you’d be treated as an outcast if he sent you there.”

“But it was different in Chicago?”

“Yes. He told your mother that his aunt had raised five children of her own and would be prepared to take you on until the war ended.”

“Do you know her name?” Louisa felt her heartbeat quicken.

“I think it was Millie.” Cathy frowned. “I never knew her surname, I’m afraid.”

“And what about Bill? Dad said his last name was Willis.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Cathy nodded. “But Bill wasn’t his real first name. Your mum said he wouldn’t tell her his real name. I think he was embarrassed about it.”

“What? Oh no!” Louisa’s hand flew to her mouth. “How am I going to find him without a first name?” She glanced from Cathy to Michael, then back again. “What about the parcel he sent after the war? Did it have an address on it?”

“No, it didn’t. He said he’d write with his new address when he knew where the army was going to post him.” Cathy explained how Bill had never known about Eva’s move to Wales, that any further mail would have gone to the old house in Wolverhampton, which had changed hands. “At first she wanted me to ask the new people to forward any letters he sent,” Cathy said, “but David died before I’d had a chance to go round there. She made it very clear then that she wanted nothing more to do with Bill. You see, she blamed him for David’s death as much as she blamed herself.”

Louisa blinked away new tears. If only she’d known all this. If only her mother had confided in her. But how could she? How could she have let on that Bill had been the love of her life? The man she wanted to marry. And that Louisa’s beloved dad was the second best she had been compelled to put up with?

“You must understand, Louisa: she was very much in love with him.” Cathy’s voice was almost a whisper. Louisa saw that there were tears in her eyes too. “Before your brother died, when Eddie had just come back from the war, she came to my house in Wolverhampton. We talked it all through. She knew that going to the States was going to be impossible for her. I asked her then what she was going to tell you when you grew up.” Cathy blinked. “I remember her exact words. She said: I’ll tell her I loved her father very much.”

Chapter 36

“Would you like me to go and organize some supper?” Michael’s voice startled Louisa. She’d been so wrapped up in Cathy’s story of the romance between Bill and her mother that she had lost all track of time.

“Oh, it’s half past six!” She jumped to her feet. “I should be getting back!”

“Wouldn’t you like to stay the night, dear?” Cathy said. “It seems a shame, you having to rush off.”

Louisa looked at Michael.

“Okay by me,” he said. “We can drive back first thing in the morning if you like.”

She hesitated a moment before replying. She hadn’t intended to be away overnight, but there was still so much she wanted to ask. The children would be fine without her for just one night, and Gina would cook up some excuse for her being held up. “I’d love to stay.” She smiled. “If you’re sure I’m not putting you to any trouble. You’ve both been so kind.”

Gina was almost speechless with excitement when Louisa phoned a few minutes later. “So, some hunky bloke drives you to a posh hotel,” she spluttered, “and then invites you to stay the night
. . .
”

“Don’t get carried away.” Louisa laughed. “He’s married with a teenage daughter. Luckily for me they were away for the weekend—otherwise I probably wouldn’t have got to meet his mum.”

“Hmm. Well, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Gina giggled.

Louisa gave a wry smile as she replaced the receiver.
Just like Gina
, she thought. Couldn’t get it into her head that the only man she was interested in finding was Bill.

During the evening meal Cathy related everything else she could remember about Bill and Eva’s time together. Louisa’s eyes widened when she described what had happened to Bill’s friend Jimmy.

“Your father knew the girl was lying,” Cathy said. “He’d seen them together several times, and from what he said, she’d been more than willing. She cried rape when she found out she was pregnant. You see, she was terrified of admitting to her parents that she’d had an affair with a colored man.”

“And they hanged him for it?” Louisa glanced at Michael, who looked every bit as incredulous as she was.

Cathy nodded. “It made the headlines. He was the first man ever to hang in this country for the crime of rape. But he wasn’t the last.”

“There were others?”

“Yes. All American servicemen. Most of them black, I believe.” Cathy frowned. “You have to understand that attitudes were very different then. Most people in this country had never set eyes on a colored person until the Americans arrived. There were all sorts of stupid rumors going round. I remember a girl at work telling us that black men had tails like monkeys.” She made a face. “I think most of the rumors were started deliberately by the US Army: they wanted British people to keep their distance from the black GIs, I suppose because they thought any mixing would make them more resentful of the segregation back home. Your father was punched to the ground by a white American soldier the first night he met your mum—and all they were doing was dancing.”

Louisa blinked. This was almost unimaginable. Her mother, dancing. Her mother a rebel who flouted social taboos. And her father—the man whose face she didn’t have to imagine anymore—he was brave enough to risk a beating for the chance to dance with her.

“Your mum couldn’t abide racism. She told me she couldn’t bear to hear people picked on just because of their appearance.” Cathy pressed her lips together. Once again Louisa got the feeling she was working out just how much she should say. “It was because of David, your brother,” she went on. “When he was born, he had a birthmark on his face. It faded quite quickly, but your mum never forgot how cruel people were about it.”

Louisa considered this for a moment. She couldn’t square this image of her mother as a feisty, fearless young woman with the nervous, introverted person she had grown up with. “Was Mum already pregnant with me when my father’s friend was hanged?” she asked. It had occurred to her that Eva could have tried exactly the same trick as Jimmy’s girlfriend. To say she had been raped would have deflected the blame when Eddie came home from the war.

“Yes, she was about four months’ pregnant, I think. She was on her way to tell Bill about it the night Jimmy was arrested, but when all that blew up, she realized it would be too much for him to take. In the end she waited until she was about five or six months gone.”

Cathy described how Eva had collapsed in the snow at the railway station after trying to hide her pregnancy. “She hadn’t told anyone: not even her own family. You see, when Mary—your grandmother—read in the papers about Jimmy’s girlfriend being pregnant, she was absolutely scathing about it. She made her views very clear to your mum, saying no one would want the baby and it’d probably end up in a children’s home. Eva was too terrified to tell her that she was in the same boat.” Cathy drew in a breath. She opened her mouth as if about to say something else, then closed it again.

The scenes Cathy conjured seemed as real to Louisa as images on a cinema screen. They triggered a barrage of questions. How had she concealed the pregnancy? Had she really believed she had a future with Bill? Did Bill know that she was married with a child?

“Not at first,” Cathy said, when she voiced this last question. “She did tell him later, though.”

Louisa’s face fell.

“I know that makes her sound bad, but you mustn’t judge her too harshly. It’s hard for your generation to understand how things were during the war. None of us knew if we had any kind of future. When you think you could be dead this time next year, next month, next week even, you just live for the moment.” She reached for the coffeepot and topped up their cups. “When your mother met Bill, she wasn’t looking for romance. She only agreed to go out that night because I talked her into it. Bill quite literally whisked her off her feet.”

Louisa sipped her coffee, trying to picture the Civic Hall as it would have been that night. The men in uniform, the young women desperate for a bit of excitement to distract them from the nightmare of war. She remembered that Christmas Ball she had gone to at seventeen, desperate to dance away her own nightmare. How she had danced with Ray, seduced him, in a hopeless attempt to blot Trefor’s face from her mind. But it was not the same. She had never felt what Cathy was describing. That burning desire. That obsessive longing. That unstoppable passion blitzing every obstacle in its path.

It was half past nine when they finally got up from the table. Cathy excused herself, saying she had a party of guests due to arrive early the next morning. “Why don’t you show Louisa around the village?” she said to Michael.

It was still light outside, and Michael took Louisa down the road to a place where another wooden bridge led across the stream into woodland. “There’s not much to see in the village.” He smiled. “Shall we have a quick walk and then go for last orders at the pub? The other pub, I mean?”

Louisa chuckled. “I suppose it must be strange, drinking in your mother’s bar,” she said, following him along a path bordered by tall cow parsley and red campions.

“It is.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. “I have to be on my best behavior in front of the staff. And the guests are
. . .
well, suffice it to say I once made the mistake of bringing the lads down here to play a gig.”

“Didn’t go down well?”

Michael winced. “I think Mum’s clientele are more into Andy Williams than Mick Jagger. Since then I’ve always done my drinking at the Nag’s Head.”

They walked on in silence for a few minutes. There was no sound other than the warbling of roosting birds and the distant murmur of the stream. The scent of honeysuckle and wild garlic drifted in the air, and for a second she closed her eyes, drinking in the peace. Her mind was a jumble of emotions. She was both thrilled and shattered by what she had learned from Cathy. And all the time new questions were popping up in her head.

“Oh!”

Michael had stopped suddenly, and she had bumped right into him.

“Sorry,” he said, “we’ve come to a stile. It’s getting dark, isn’t it? We should have turned back sooner.”

“No, it’s
. . .
it was my fault.” She couldn’t get the words out properly. The touch of his hand on her arm had sent an electric shock through her entire body. She could feel his breath on her neck and suddenly she wanted to reach out and pull him to her, feel his arms wrap themselves around her body. “Y
. . .
yes,” she mumbled. “You’re right.” She stepped backward, away from him. “We’d better head back.”

As she followed him back along the path, she felt as if her limbs were on fire. Her mouth was so dry, she could barely swallow. The power of it terrified her. And all he had done was touch her arm.

The Nag’s Head was crowded, but they managed to find a couple of stools next to a table that was little more than a shelf protruding from one side of the enormous fireplace.

“It’s a shame Mum doesn’t know your father’s address, isn’t it?” Michael said, setting down two glasses of cider.

Louisa nodded, shifting her stool as he sat down beside her. The feelings he had stirred up made her feel guilty and confused. She mustn’t allow their bodies to touch again. As she sipped her drink, her forehead puckered. “What would you do?” she asked, staring into her glass. “If it was your father, I mean?”

“I think I’d try the American Embassy.” He put his half-empty glass back on the table. “There’s got to be a list of World War Two servicemen who came to this country.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “Without knowing his first name, though, it could be tough.”

“I suppose Willis is a fairly common name. I wonder how many there’d be in a place like New Orleans?”

“Could be hundreds.” He thought for a moment. “The newspapers might be your best bet, you know. Mum said Jimmy’s hanging made the headlines. What if your father’s name got a mention—if he had to give evidence at the court martial, say?”

“I suppose it’s worth a try.” She looked at him. His blue eyes sparkled in the firelight. “How would I go about it?”

“I’ll do it if you like. They keep old copies of the
Express & Star
in the town library. I could pop in next week sometime.”

“Are you sure?” She found herself wishing he wasn’t so nice.

“Absolutely.” He grinned. “I quite like the idea of playing detective.”