The Hills and the Valley (20 page)

‘Drink up!' Ewart insisted. ‘We don't want you riding home on that bike o'yourn tonight. We be going to carry you!'

‘Leave the poor bugger alone,' Stanley Bristow interjected. ‘Don't you take no notice of'im, Alec. You'll want a clear head when you walk down that aisle tomorrow morning.'

‘And all your strength tomorrow night!' Tommy Clements joked. There was a roar of appreciative laughter but Alec found it impossible to join in.

He had never felt so trapped since he was four years old and starting school, he thought. He'd hated it, hated the teacher, sour sarcastic Miss Williams, hated the smell of the coke-burning stove that gave out a great deal of smoke but very little heat, hated being made to lie down on a mat for three quarters of an hour every afternoon to have a sleep. He had run away several times but whenever he did his mother had taken him back; his mother, whom he had thought he could rely on to make things come right, dragging him along the street and saying firmly: ‘I'm sorry, Alec, you've got to go. They'll put the attendance man on to me if you don't.' Trapped. Trapped. The glory of Friday afternoons, leaving the playground and knowing that for the whole weekend he would be free; the sick weight inside him on a Sunday night because tomorrow it would start all over again – at least until the holidays.

But there weren't any holidays in marriage. You were stuck with it for life. It was worse than going to prison when you came to think about it – there was no remission for good conduct. Alec took a swig of his beer, wishing he could drink himself into oblivion but it wouldn't do any good. He'd just have a thick head tomorrow to add to his troubles.

‘You've got a good girl there,' Stanley ruminated. ‘I always liked Joan.'

‘Nothing worse than being married to a shrew,' Walter Clements said.

The men were silent for a moment. They all knew Walter was thinking of Ada, his first wife. She had been a shrew and no mistake. And a slut into the bargain. But she was Tommy's mother for all that and with Tommy sitting across the table it was not something you could mention.

‘Trouble is you'm stuck with'em,' Stanley Bristow said. ‘That's why I never married. Give me horses every time. You know where you are with a horse.'

‘You'd have a job getting a horse to keep you warm in bed at nights though!' Ewart joked.

‘True enough. And there's plenty of blokes landed with a woman they don't want through looking for a warm bed
afore
they got married,' Tommy put in.

‘More fools them,' said Stanley.

Alec pushed back his chair. Suddenly he couldn't stand the ribaldry and innuendo any longer. It was choking him up, just as the thought of getting married tomorrow was choking him up.

‘Where be you going, Alec?' Ewart asked. ‘You sit down. The drinks tonight are on us!'

Alec drained his glass. The bar was swimming round him, the warmth and the noise and the smoke all part of the nightmare.

‘I'm going out for a breath of fresh air,' he said. ‘I'll see you later.'

He went out. His bicycle was parked at the foot of the stone steps and he wheeled it across the road trying to make some sense of his chaotic emotions.

I can't do it! he thought. I can't marry her. Stanley is right, she
is
a good girl, but I can't spend the rest of my life with her. Not now. Once upon a time I thought it was just me, not wanting to be tied down. I thought perhaps everybody felt this way and got over it. Or if they didn't then I was just peculiar, couldn't have natural feelings for a woman.

But that was before Bryda.

You're mad – bloody mad! he told himself but it made no difference. The feelings which had been missing where Joan was concerned were all there for Bryda. Yet the funny thing was that scarcely a thing had happened between them which was not strictly proper.

Since the night when he had changed the light bulb for her he had spent many hours in her kitchen but for the most part they had only talked of everyday happenings, Alec drinking a bottle of beer (which he now took with him in case Eric should notice his store being depleted), Bryda doing some of the interminable chores that came with running a home and looking after a family. Sometimes she ironed, sometimes she darned, once she had been baking – an apple pie and a treacle tart which filled the kitchen with a smell of mouthwatering sweetness. But apart from the occasional touch of hands which set Alec trembling with desire they remained behind the barriers of propriety. The unwritten rule was there between them – she had a husband, he had a fiancée. Whatever they felt for one another they were going to have to live as neighbours.

Perhaps in his heart Alec had been nursing a dream that one day he would take her away from that brute of a husband of hers to a world where they could be together openly and he could banish the shadows from her eyes forever. But if so it had been just that – a dream, and one that was all the more impossible as the remorseless machine that controlled his life rolled along, sweeping him with it. He had agreed to marry Joan and that was all there was to it. He accepted it as a fact of life.

Until the night before his wedding when he suddenly knew that he simply could not go through with it.

The knowledge came to him like a bolt from the blue, frightening him into immobility. He stood in the centre of the road, his bicycle propped against him. He couldn't go through with it. He couldn't promise to love, honour and keep Joan as long as they both should live when the only person he wanted in the whole world was going to be living on the other side of a brick wall. But what the hell was he going to do about it? How could he pull out at this late stage? Everything was ready, even the bridesmaids'dresses which the dressmaker had sweated over late into the night. Some of the guests had already arrived, Uncle Jack and Aunt Stella had driven up from Minehead and were staying with his grandmother in Greenslade Terrace, and Joan's cousin Betty had arrived from Yorkshire. Everything would have to be cancelled. He went cold at the thought. Yet the insistent demon was darting inside him now.

You can't marry her. It wouldn't be fair to either of you. What sort of a life would you have, starting off like this, when all you want is to be with Bryda …

A car hooted and he looked up, startled out of his reverie, to see a set of partially hooded lights approaching fast. Quickly, he skipped to the side of the road thinking that if he was to get knocked down and killed it would settle things once and for all – and with no disgrace to Joan.

If only there was someone he could talk to! Uncle Harry, for instance. He was a sensible type and used to sorting out men's problems. But there was no time to go looking for him. And besides, without meaning to the men in the Miners Arms had told him all he needed to know.

‘There's nothing worse than being married to a shrew,' Walter Clements had said. Well, that was what Joan would certainly become when she realised he did not love her. He could see it now, the bitterness and the recriminations, the constant urging to change not his ways but his feelings, something which would not be dictated to even by the strongest of wills.

‘There's plenty got themselves landed with a woman they don't want through looking for a warm bed afore they got married,' had been Tommy's comment. True, very true, for him as for all the others. But mostly they had been trapped because there was a baby on the way. This was not so in his case. In the beginning he had thought there might be. But Joan had told him it was all right, she hadn't fallen.

Good Joan. Honest Joan. She could have made him believe otherwise and he would never have left her, unwed, to bring up his nipper. But she had told him the truth and now he was going to penalise her for it.

No, not penalise. She deserves more than I can give her, Alec thought. And the sooner I tell her so the better. Filled with dread though he was at the thought of the scene ahead of him, for the first time for weeks Alec also felt elated – and in control of his own fate.

He mounted his bicycle and pedalled along the New Road, the only flat road out of the centre of Hills bridge, towards Joan's home.

‘I don't believe it, Alec. I don't believe what you're saying!'

Joan stood in the little front room surrounded by the trappings of her forthcoming marriage. Her dress covered with an old white sheet to keep it clean and hide it from the gaze of visitors hung from the curtain rail. On the table the presents were arranged, each topped with a gift card, while a sheet of wrapping paper, eagerly torn from one present and still forming the rough shape of the box it had covered, lay discarded in a corner.

‘I'm sorry, Joan,' Alec said wretchedly.

‘Buy
why
?' Joan cried. ‘You can't do this to me, Alec! Everything is arranged. Everything! All these presents – look!' She swept a distracted hand in the direction of the table. ‘You can't call it off now! You can't!'

‘I've got to,' Alec said. ‘It wouldn't be fair to you.'

‘Fair!' She was almost hysterical. ‘You think it's
fair
to come here the night before our wedding and tell me you're not going to marry me? It's crazy. That's what it is. You've gone crazy!'

‘No, I'm seeing sense. It's a bit late, I know, but …'

‘Late? I should damn well think it is! Well I'm telling you
I
shall be there in the morning and …'

‘Well I won't,' Alec said.

‘Oh my God!' Joan ran to the door. ‘Mum! Dad! Come here, please! Alec says he's not going to marry me!'

Her parents, alerted by the commotion, were in the hall outside. They came rushing in, their faces pictures of disbelief and distress.

‘What's going on? What's all the shouting about?'

‘Alec's calling it off. He's calling the wedding off!'

‘He can't be!' Joan's mother cried. ‘Alec, you can't be!'

‘He is – ask him!'

‘I'm sorry,' Alec said woodenly. ‘Yes, it's true. I can't go through with it.'

‘Oh my Lord!' Joan's mother looked on the verge of collapse.

‘Now steady on – wait a minute.' Her father was struggling to remain calm. ‘This is just wedding nerves. Everybody has them, lad.'

‘No, it's not that,' Alec said. ‘I should never have said I'd marry her. I know that now and …'

‘You mean you've been leading my girl on? All this time?'

‘Not leading her on, no …'

‘What else do you call it? Well you can't pull out now. It's too late for that.'

‘It's not too late till the ring's on her finger,' Alec said.

‘And what are we supposed to do?' Joan's mother cried. ‘Alec, for goodness sake, you'll break her heart. Look at her. How can you do this to her?'

Alec looked at Joan and almost weakened. Her plump pretty face was ravaged, her hair tumbled from running her fingers through it. She was not crying yet, the shock was too deep for tears. They would come later and he hated to think of her crying. But, however upset she was it was better than sentencing her to a life without love.

‘I can't go through with it,' he persisted.

‘And what about all the expense?' Joan's father thundered. ‘This has cost us a packet, you know. The cake – trifles – sherry for the toasts …'

‘Her dress and the bridesmaids',' her mother wailed. ‘And the Minister. What will the Minister say?' Another thought occurred to her. ‘Why don't you go and see him now?' she urged. ‘He'll talk to you, Alec. You'll feel different if you both go and talk to the Minister.'

‘No, I won't,' Alec said. ‘Look, I'll see you right about the expense. I'll pay you back bit by bit I promise. But I can't go through with it.'

‘What about your mother? Does she know?'

‘Not yet. I thought I ought to tell Joan first.'

‘What's she going to say?'

‘I don't know.'

‘No, I'll bet you don't! Go and get her in, Arthur. For goodness sake go and get his mother!'

‘She won't change my mind either,' Alec said. He was shaking yet he had never been more certain that he was doing the right thing than he was at this moment. ‘Nobody is going to change my mind.'

‘Oh my Lord! My Lord!'

‘I'm sorry,' he said again. He turned and walked out of the room. Joan's father made to go after him, then thought better of it.

‘God rot you!' he shouted. The words echoed in the hall and filled Alec's ears. ‘God rot you for doing this to my daughter!'

Alec did not turn around. He just kept walking out into the night.

He should have gone home, he supposed. He should have gone home and broken the news to his own mother and father. But he simply could not face another row now. They would hear soon enough – if they hadn't heard through the wall already. Joan's mother and father would be ready enough to rush around and paint it large and scarlet with him the villain of the piece.

Which was what he deserved to be, he supposed. The villain leaving the girl at the altar. But it wasn't all his fault, dammit. Joan had pursued him relentlessly for as long as he could remember. He had been too weak to resist. Well, just in time he had realised he had to stop being weak and make a stand for all their sakes.

But facing his mother and father was not a pleasant prospect. They wouldn't rant and rave as Joan's parents had – it was not their way. But they would be upset to think he was letting Joan down and there would be discussions long into the night as to what to do about the cancellation, the guests, the presents. Well, he'd said his piece. He had offered to pay any expense. And as far as he was concerned the guests could take their presents back with them when they left tomorrow. He could feel no emotion about it. All that had been spent, leaving a sort of flatness. And relief.

That still left the house, of course. God knew what they would do with that. Unless he was to live in it himself. He could keep an eye on Bryda then. Or more. If he could persuade her to leave her husband perhaps she would move in with him …