Lily’s War (12 page)

Matt removed her hand and kissed her with such force that she could not think of anything else but the two of them. She moaned as his mouth found her breast and he caressed it with his tongue. Doing what comes naturally is a marvellous thing. She felt as if her whole body was a balloon about to float off. His mouth moved down over the rest of her, slowly, deliberately, as if he was finding pleasure in discovering every inch of her body. She stroked the bony outline of his hip and his buttocks, until suddenly neither of them could bear to be apart any longer. It hurt her a little but she could bear a bit of pain and wanted to enfold him inside her. But strangely, as she did so, it seemed he was unfolding bursts of pleasure inside her, just like a chrysanthemum exploding into a mass of petals, bringing sheer delight.

‘What are you thinking?’ Matt’s arm went round her waist, pulling her close.

Lily turned in his embrace and snuggled up to him, feeling safe and warm, and cossetted. ‘A mining town, you say?’

‘I’ll tell you another time but right now I’d rather tell you I love you.’ His voice contained an emotion that sent tingles down her spine. ‘I could easily forget the whole world and just go on making love to you over and over again. I forgot to say the evening offices. I do that every evening normally.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said meekly. ‘I didn’t intend coming between you and God. But it was nice, wasn’t it?’

‘Nice!’ He laughed and outlined her mouth with a finger.

She kissed his hand. ‘I suppose we’d better get dressed or we’ll miss dinner.’

He nodded but the only move he made was to kiss her and bring her hard against him and they began to make love all over again.

Afterwards, when they felt really hungry, they went outside and into the street behind the hotel and bought fish and chips. They ate them out of the paper as they walked by the shushing sea in perfect peace.

It seemed strange to Lily when she woke next morning that there were no cows for her to milk, no Ben to exchange news with, no children to rouse and feed, no sister to squabble with, no father to chide. She sighed, remembering their quarrel. Then she determined not to think about it or worry about them. Hours stretched before her waiting to be claimed in a completely different way. She felt Matt move beside her and his leg slid over hers. Desire stirred inside her and she smiled as she turned towards him. Later there would be breakfast cooked by someone else.

They went to Holy Trinity church and afterwards took the zigzag path up the Great Orme, a massive limestone headland on one side of the bay.

‘Lewis Carroll is said to be have been inspired to write
Alice in Wonderland
somewhere round here,’ said Lily, sitting on Matt’s black mackintosh, looking over the sea towards Anglesey as he took a photograph of her.

‘Fascinating,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘We clergy are not without our talents. If it wasn’t for the hotel and the golf course, I could have made love to you all over again up here.’

‘You wouldn’t, out in the open?’ She smiled up at him. ‘Is that all you have on your mind?’

‘We are on our honeymoon.’ He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go somewhere quieter.’

He sat beside her and they talked. He told her about his life after the death of the mother he could barely remember. ‘Dad had a yen to dig for gold so he went to the goldfields north of Brisbane. I was placed in a kind of Anglican orphanage-cum-school but during the holidays Dad would come for me.’ She watched his face as he talked, trying to read his expression. It must have been lonely for the small boy he had been. ‘The men were really tough on the fields. They had to be, and most knew nothing of organised religion,’ he said, chewing on a grass stem. ‘Only that brought to them by the bush brothers. I was impresssed by them even at an early age and they brought balance to my life.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Now your childhood.’

Lily would rather have heard more about him but she spoke of her life when her father was away at the Front and how she had never had a holiday before. ‘There was always the milking, you see. I remember Mam’s mother and sister coming to visit us. I didn’t understand a word they said to me because they spoke in Welsh and they chided Mam for not teaching me it.’ She sighed, her fingers twisting a tussock of grass. ‘I never saw them again after Mam’s funeral. Dad never encouraged them to call.’

‘So this is the first time you’ve visited the land of your mother?’ said Matt, stretching out flat and pulling her down beside him.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, feeling like she was making a momentous statement. ‘And it’s probably the last with us going to Australia next week.’ For a moment she felt as if a cloud had crossed the sun. Then she remembered how much she wanted to go.

The next day they went to Conway Castle. ‘We have nothing as old as this in Australia, except the landscape,’ said Matt, pressing a hand against a grey stone wall.

Lily placed her hand alongside his and closed her eyes. ‘It was built by Edward the First’s men to keep the unruly Welsh led by Llewelyn under control,’ she said in a singsong voice. ‘Until then the Welsh had always defeated the English in the mountains. Edward was crafty. He gathered a fleet and crossed the Menai Straits and burnt the harvest on Anglesey, where it’s better for growing grain. Grain which would have fed Llewelyn’s hungry men during the winter. They had no choice but to pay homage to Edward or starve.’

Matt’s voice was amused. ‘I take it your mother told you all that.’

She opened her eyes and grinned. ‘In that exact way. Wales is full of true stories as well as legends. There’s a sad one about a lord who had a hunting dog that was more pet than killer. He left him one day guarding his son. A wolf entered the hall and made for the baby but the dog wouldn’t let him near.’

‘I suppose there was a fight?’ said Matt, twisting his fingers through hers.

‘A real bloody one. When the lord returned the dog limped over to welcome him – only to have a sword stuck through him because his master thought he’d killed the baby.’

‘He hadn’t, of course.’

‘Of course not,’ she said approvingly. ‘The lord was heartbroken when he found the dead wolf.’

‘And the moral of the story is?’

‘Could be, act in haste, repent in leisure? But I prefer, don’t always presume something until you know for sure.’

Matt’s eyes smiled into hers. ‘I prefer that, too. Now let’s go somewhere quieter.’ He caught hold of her fingers and led her to the car.

They drove up into the green rolling hills along narrow winding lanes bordered by high hedges of hazel, honeysuckle and hawthorn. It was a perfect day. The sun was warm and as they got higher the scenery was breathtaking. Even when the car got a puncture it did not spoil the day. Lily sat on a grassy bank among purple, blue and yellow tiny wild flowers, drinking in the view across a valley to a line of partly forested hills, the tops of which were plum-coloured in the late afternoon sun.

‘It’s awesome, isn’t it?’ said Matt, glancing up at her.

‘Yes.’ Lily rose and kissed the back of his neck. ‘Your changing a wheel is a sight I never thought to see either. I didn’t think you were so practical.’

He tightened a final nut and straightened. ‘Another part of my life story. When I was about sixteen Dad struck it rich again and gave up the gold digging and we went walkabout. Only we didn’t walk, we had a truck. When you’re stuck in the middle of the bush or the desert you have to be your own mechanic. I helped Dad out loads of times.’

She smiled and handed him a rag. ‘Next?’

‘Sydney.’ He wiped his hands on the rag. ‘Dad bought a beaut house overlooking the harbour. He didn’t have long enough there. Pity for him to die when as an adult I knew him well enough to understand why he did things the way he did when I was a lad. He never got over my mother’s death.’ He tossed the rag into the boot, his head bent, but Lily caught sight of his expression and was aware that her husband was a man of different facets, seemingly so confident and yet with an unmistakable vulnerability which was probably due to the kind of upbringing he had had.

‘Why didn’t you ever settle in the house in Sydney?’

‘It’s as I told you,’ he said, flashing her a brief smile. ‘I went where I believed God called me.’

‘Why didn’t you sell the house?’ She moved closer, putting her arms round him.

‘Its links with Dad, I suppose.’ His voice was muffled against her hair.

‘Haven’t you ever felt that God might be calling you to settle there?’

‘No. I knew coming to Liverpool was right. I’m not so sure about leaving it.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Her emotions were suddenly confused. It would be easier on the family if she stayed but she did want to go to Australia. ‘But everything’s arranged,’ she murmured. ‘You said your friend—’

‘It is!’ He lifted his head and looked suddenly weary. ‘Don’t worry, Lil, you’ll see all those sights you’ve set your heart on.’

‘I wasn’t worrying.’ She felt uncomfortable because he made it sound as if he only wanted to go to please her. ‘I said wherever you were I want to be, and I meant it,’ she said slowly.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He bent his head and kissed her.

She knew she had said the right thing but still experienced a sort of guilt.

That evening they went to the New Prince’s Theatre in Mostyn Street to be entertained by Ambrose and his Orchestra in ‘Calling all Stars’. Elizabeth Welch sang, Larry Adler played his harmonica, and Flotsam and Jetsam made them laugh. Afterwards they walked along the promenade as the stars pricked on in the sky. The air was fresh and moist with the tang of the sea and the greenery of the hills behind. This Wales was where her mother had been born and where her parents had met. Lily recalled Matt’s words about the heat and the dryness of the outback and realised as if for the first time she was travelling to a foreign land. How different her life would be. None of the familiar sounds and sights. No Ben or Daisy, no Father, or Ronnie and May whom she had reared as if they were her own. She felt a constriction in her throat and could not get rid of it.

That night Lily clung to Matt after they had made love. ‘You do really love me, don’t you?’ she demanded. ‘And you’d forgive me if I did anything you didn’t like?’ She had no idea what made her speak in such a way.

He said drowsily, ‘What were you planning on doing? Running away with the milkman?’

‘Very funny.’ She could not prevent a laugh. ‘It’s just that people do hurt each other without intending to. Say you love me.’

‘How can you doubt it?’ His tone was surprised as he held her tighter.

‘I just want to hear you say it,’ she murmured, resting her head on his bare shoulder.

‘I love you. I’ll always love you.’ He kissed the hollow of her throat and her upper breast. ‘I believe we were meant for each other from the beginning of time.’

A relieved sigh escaped her. His way with words was a balm, soothing emotions which had momentarily become too much for her. Tomorrow they would return to Liverpool and her family. Soon she would be saying goodbye to the world she had known all her life and sailing off to a completely new one.

‘I hope Dad isn’t going to cut off his nose to spite his face and tell me never to darken his doors again,’ said Lily, as they drove up Islington past the toy wholesaler’s.

Matt smiled. ‘It’d be a bit of a waste when we’re leaving the country in a week’s time.’

She frowned. ‘That’d be Dad all over, though.’

‘Stop worrying. Could be he’s seeing things differently now.’

Lily hoped so but could feel the tension building up inside her. Ben should have finished the second milking and would be home, so that should make matters easier between her father, herself and Matt.

The car drew up outside the dairy and she stepped out. Immediately she noticed the curtains were drawn upstairs. Daisy must have forgotten to open them. One of the neighbours was sandstoning the front step. She looked their way.

‘Hello, Mrs Day,’ said Lily, smiling.

The woman gave a solemn nod, half opened her mouth, then shut it again and wielded the sandstone with more vigour.

Lily hurried ahead of Matt into the shop. The bell jangled and immediately May came through from the back premises, a buttie in her hand. She flung herself on Lily. ‘Gosh, am I glad to see you! It’s been terrible here and our Daisy’s been driving me mad! She expected me to fetch coal! Me!’

‘Is that all?’ Lily hugged her. ‘Where’s Dad? I thought he’d be here.’

May threw back her head and said in an awed voice: ‘You still don’t know? Dad’s dead! They put out a bulletin on the wireless to try and get in touch with you.’

‘Dead!’ Lily could not believe it. She gazed over May’s head at Matt imploringly.

He moved to put an arm around her. ‘How?’ he said succinctly.

‘It was Uncle William who found him,’ said May, talking rapidly. ‘His head was all kicked in and there was blood splattered everywhere. I heard him telling our Ben.’

Blood! thought Lily dazedly, vaguely remembering some kind of dream she had had. ‘Where’s Ben?’

‘In the cool room. He went to see the body and came back as white as a sheet. I heard him telling our Daisy that he hardly recognised Dad. He thinks he tried to mount the horse and it panicked.’

‘The fool, the fool!’ cried Lily, her hand going to her mouth. She could picture her father’s death vividly. Blood! Cry blood! She should have realised he’d do something stupid! She felt dizzy and clung to Matt. He led her over to the fireplace where a fire was laid and sat her on a chair and told May to make tea while he found the matches. He set light to the kindling before kneeling in front of Lily.

He took one of her hands between both of his. ‘Your father was a grown man, not a child. He was responsible for his own actions. Don’t be blaming yourself.’

The world steadied but it took a great effort for Lily to speak. ‘How did you know I was blaming myself?’

‘People often do in such circumstances.’

‘But it was my fault! If I hadn’t—’

‘No, it wasn’t!’ It was Ben’s voice. He had entered the room.

Lily looked up and felt a rush of sympathy and affection for him. His face was drawn with weariness. ‘I’m sorry, Ben, you’ve had to cope with everything. It must have been terrible.’