The Hills and the Valley (57 page)

‘Whatever is wrong? I haven't ever seen you like this before, Amy.'

She laughed, a small mirthless sound.

‘I don't think I've ever been like this before! Or not for years and years. Are you properly awake, Ralph?'

‘Now I am.'

‘Good. Because it's going to take quite a time.'

‘Well?' she said when she had finished. ‘What do you think?'

Darkness had fallen while they were talking. Amy got up, fixed the blackout and put on the light. Ralph still sat chin resting on his hand.

‘What do I think? I think you shouldn't interfere.'

‘But Ralph, she's so unhappy! She can't go on that way.'

‘It's for her to sort out, Amy. If you start poking your nose in you'll only make things worse.'

‘But she's my daughter! I can't just …'

‘Support her. Listen to her if she wants to talk. But don't try to manage her affairs. Look what happened when you interfered between her and Huw.'

‘That was different. I had to, Ralph!'

‘Yes, I suppose you did. I'm sorry, Amy. But it just shows the mess that the very best of intentions can lead you into. I really think you must leave it to Barbara.'

All very well to say. Not so easy to do. Being a mother meant bleeding with your children, wanting to make things better for them, if not perfect. Amy found herself remembering Charlotte's maxim: ‘When they're little they are a weight on your arm, when they're grown they're a weight on your heart.' Now, despite Ralph's warning, she felt she simply could not sit back and do nothing.

The idea came to her in the middle of the night, astounding her with its simplicity.

She would write to Huw. If Huw knew that Barbara was unhappy he would be here ‘like a shot'and there was no reason now why they should not be together if that was what they both wanted. She wouldn't suggest it, of course. She would take Ralph's advice that far. But she couldn't see Huw standing for Barbara being treated this way and he had always had more influence with her than anyone else. And at the same time she would be going some way to putting right the wrong that she had instigated.

Quietly, she slipped out of bed without disturbing Ralph and went down to the study to find pen and paper. In the small hours she wrote, pouring out the story to her adopted son. Then she slipped the letter into her bag. It could be posted tomorrow with the office mail. Amy went back to bed feeling a good deal happier and at last she slept.

Her relief lasted a few hours only. When she rose next morning the day's post was already stacked on the small table in the hall waiting for her and amongst it she saw an envelope bearing Huw's distinctive handwriting. Eagerly she tore it open, then felt her heart sinking as she read what he had to say:

I expect this will come as quite a shock to you, but in wartime things move at a different pace for you never know from one day to the next what is going to happen.

The fact is, Amy, I am married. To a wonderful girl. Claire is a WAAF and we met when she was posted to my station. We were going to wait a while until I had had the opportunity to meet her people and bring her home to meet you. But service life being what it is it looked as if we were going to be separated and we did not want that. So we applied for a special licence and tied the knot.

I know you'll love her, Amy, as I do, and I hope you will understand and forgive me for not being able to include you in one of the most important events of my life. And I pray the war will soon be over and we will all be able to be together again.

I remain, as always, your loving son
–
Huw.

Amy stared at the letter and felt the hope drain out of her, leaving only disappointment and despair. She was too late. He had found someone else – ‘a wonderful girl'. There was nothing else she could do for him or for Barbara.

Never had the war seemed more endless or the night blacker. Amy folded the letter, wondering how on earth she would break the news to Barbara. Then, she tore up her own letter to Huw and alone in her office she laid her head down on her folded arms and wept.

In the spring of 1944 Margaret Hall had an unexpected visitor – or, to be precise, two unexpected visitors. She opened the door one Friday afternoon to a flashily dressed woman with crimped hair and too much paint on her face and a man in GI's uniform. Her eyes widened with surprise and she looked from one to the other of them enquiringly.

It was the woman who spoke, fussing with the fur tippet at her throat and touching a scarlet tipped nail to her equally bright scarlet lips.

‘You'll be Mrs Hall, I dare say.' The broad Cockney accent was unmistakeable. ‘Well, I'm Mrs Cooper. We've come to see Elaine and Marie.'

Margaret was so astonished she was rendered almost speechless. ‘Oh!' was all she could manage.

The woman tittered shrilly. ‘Well, that's a nice welcome, I must say! After we've come all the way from London, too. Aren't you going to ask us in?'

‘Yes, yes of course!' Margaret opened the door wide and stepped aside. The woman took the GI's arm and pulled him into the hall. An overpowering smell of cheap perfume came with her. Margaret led the way into the front room and the woman looked around appraisingly.

‘Well, this is nice, isn't it, Joe? This is Joe, by the way. My fiancé.' She pronounced it ‘feeanc-ey'.

The American grinned and thrust out a big hand to take Margaret's in a bear-like grip.

‘Joseph Z. King, honey. That's me. Pleased t'meet you, I'm sure.'

‘Yes,' Margaret said faintly.

‘Joe had some leave so I thought I'd bring him down to meet the girls. Seeing we're going to be married as soon as we can get through all the red tape, it seemed only right.' The woman squeezed the GI's arm, simpering at him coquettishly then looking around again. ‘Where are they then?'

‘I'm terribly sorry but I'm afraid they're not here,' Margaret said. ‘They're in Minehead, staying with my brother for a few days. It's half term at school and we thought a change and the sea air would do them good.'

‘Well!' The woman looked more affronted than disappointed. ‘That's a nice thing! I thought
you
were supposed to be looking after them.'

‘I am,' Margaret said patiently. ‘I have been looking after them for the last four years and in all that time you haven't been to see them once. How was I to know you were going to choose this week to visit? If you had let me know you were coming I'd have made sure they were here, of course, but under the circumstances …'

‘It hasn't been easy,' the woman said defensively. ‘We've had a rare old time of it in London, I can tell you. And I haven't had the money to fling about on train fares. But I've wrote to them. You can't say I haven't wrote.'

‘Oh yes, you have occasionally,' Margaret conceded. ‘But I wouldn't have thought it would have been beyond you to make the effort to get down to see them at least once in a while. And I really don't see that I should take the blame for them not being here now. They needed a holiday, Mrs Cooper, and I'm sure my husband's brother will give them a good one. He's a schoolmaster and well used to dealing with children.'

‘I see,' the woman sniffed, slightly mollified.

Margaret indicated the sofa. ‘Well, now that you are here, perhaps you'd like to sit down. I'll put the kettle on and make you a cup of tea.'

She left them and went into the kitchen bristling slightly. The nerve of the woman, turning up, out of the blue after more than four years and expecting the children to be here and waiting for her! Margaret thought of the first Christmas they had been with her when they had eagerly awaited her arrival with the other evacuees'parents and been disappointed, thought of the mornings when she had seen them waiting in vain for the arrival of the postman and the problems which she had been forced to sort out for them unaided, and her blood boiled. After all this time, the woman had virtually given up her rights to them – abandoned them to be looked after by somebody else – then she had the gall to criticise Margaret for arranging for them to have a holiday!

She made the tea and took it into the front room. The woman was cuddling up to the GI and there was now more lipstick on his face than there was on her mouth. Margaret pulled up a table and set down the tray.

‘Actually, I am very glad of the chance to meet you at last, Mrs Cooper,' she said, attempting to make a fresh start. ‘I've grown very close to the girls in the time they've been with me. In fact there are times when it seems they have always been here and I can't imagine life without them.'

‘Oh!' Mrs Cooper looked surprised. ‘They can be a couple of little beggars at times, though. I hope you've kept them in order. A good hiding and off to bed wiv'out any supper and they soon see sense.'

‘You're too hard on them, sugar,' Joe said affectionately and Mrs Cooper patted his knee.

‘You'll spoil them, given the chance, Joe, I know! Joe an me'll be taking'em over to the States with us after the war's over you see,' she added for Margaret's benefit. ‘I shall be a GI bride!' she giggled.

Margaret poured the tea, trying to hide the shock waves that were running through her.

‘The children don't know anything about this yet, of course.'

‘No, but they'll be thrilled.' Joe put an arm around Mrs Cooper and hugged her. ‘It's a great life for kids in the States. A great life for everyone!'

Margaret said nothing. She was thinking of Elaine, who thought of London as her home, and Marie, whom, she had grown to love as her own child, going to the States, to a strange country, to live with a woman who? cared so much for them that she had not visited them once in more than four years and a man who was a total stranger. It was dreadful; unthinkable! A great empty space yawned open within her and she remembered her own idea, planted so long ago now and nourished and watered over the years, to adopt them herself. She had not mentioned it to Harry again since his first unfavourable reaction, but that did not mean she had forgotten it. Far from it. It was just that she had almost seemed to have become the children's mother unofficially. And now they were to be snatched away from her. Her mouth felt dry. This was the moment to speak or it would be too late.

‘Of course, if you like they could always stay here with me,' she ventured. There was a slight tremble in her voice and it was echoed in her hand as she set down a tea cup. She looked up quickly and caught the gleam in the woman's small mean eyes.

‘Stay here wiv'you? What d'you mean by that?'

Margaret heard the eager note in the question and was heartened.

‘As I said, I like having them. I should miss them terribly. As far as I'm concerned they can stay.'

‘You mean when I go to the States? You'd keep them here?'

Margaret nodded, holding her breath. The woman straightened in her seat with a jaunty little movement.

‘Well, that's very civil of you, I'm sure …'

‘Hey wait a minute!' the GI interposed. ‘This is all going a mite too fast for me. You know what you're saying, sugar?'

‘Yes, 'course I do! They've got a nice home here, Joe. They're settled like. You an'me – well, we could have a good time on our own. They could always come over for their'ollerdays,' she added as an afterthought.

Margaret's heart was beating so fast it was making her feel a little sick.

‘I should want to do things properly, Mrs Cooper,' she said. ‘Be legally responsible for them, you understand.'

The woman's eyes narrowed. ‘How d'you mean?'

Margaret's hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that the nails bit deep semi-circles into her palms.

‘I'd like to adopt them.'

She saw the woman's face change. The thin scarlet lips tightened, high spots of colour showed on her cheeks through the dark smudging of rouge.

‘Adopt my kids?' Her tone was incredulous. ‘You want to adopt my kids?'

Margaret swallowed hard. ‘Yes. They're happy here and I'm very fond of them. You seemed quite willing for them to stay with me a moment ago.'

‘Yes – but adopt them! Oh, I don't know about that!' She got a packet of cigarettes out of her bag and lit one, drawing on it fiercely. ‘That's going a bit far, isn't it?'

‘I don't think so,' Margaret said levelly. ‘There would be things that would arise – I'd have to be in control, Mrs Cooper. And to be honest I don't really think
you
want them …'

‘Now wait a minute! Who says she doesn't want them?' Joe interrupted and the woman quickly followed his lead.

‘That's right! Who says I don't want them? You've got a nerve, I must say, just because you're …'

‘You don't seem to. You never come to see them.' Margaret was on the defensive suddenly, her dream slipping away from her.

‘I told you about that!' Mrs Cooper snapped. ‘We aren't all living in clover like you, you know. Some of us finds it hard to make ends meet, never mind chasing round on trains.'

Margaret was on the point of mentioning the three pounds she had once sent to enable Mrs Cooper to visit, but before she could do so Joe spoke.

‘That'll all change, sugar,' he said, putting an arm around Mrs Cooper. ‘When we get back to the States you'll want for nothing and I'll make sure your kids don't either.'

The woman simpered at him and drew on her cigarette, picking bits of tobacco from her scarlet lips. She seemed to be torn between the tempting thought of a new life alone with Joe and outrage that a stranger should suggest adopting her children, unable to decide which part Joe wanted her to play – the fun-loving lover or the devoted mother. Margaret felt a wave of contempt. Little wonder the children had been so insecure, little wonder Elaine lied and stole, and Marie clung to her, the first person she had ever been able to depend on in her young life in all probability.