Second Chance (8 page)

‘Grace thinks all English people are stuck-up.'

‘No, I don't. Yorkshire people can be quite homely. We do bed and breakfast now, Kate, and we get a lot of people from Yorkshire and, on the whole, they're quite decent. Quite like us.'

‘And Bleddyn? He's still at Oxford?'

‘No, he decided to take up teaching as well. I mean, in an ordinary school. I think he'd come to a dead end with his research. He gave it up, anyway. Head of Maths now in a Comprehensive in the East End.'

‘He's never married,' Grace said, ‘but he used to live with another of these dons when he was at Oxford – quite a long-term affair – and he's got a lovely daughter. She's about twenty now and going in for nursing. Siwan. Siwan
Grace
actually. She comes to stay with us quite often. The boys worship her. Anyway, what about you? Still with the same chap? Paul something? I remember your mother mentioning a Paul.'

‘Yes, I'm still with him. But it's not permanent.'

What made me say that? It was the first time I had, though the thought had occurred to me from time to time. The tears welled up again, rolling slowly down my face, one after the other.

‘This one could cry for Wales,' Rhydian told his wife. ‘I'll never forget what she was like when my mother died.'

He turned to me. ‘It was wonderful for us boys. We were desperately upset, I remember this hard lump I had in my chest so I could hardly breathe, but of course boys, young men rather, don't cry. Having you there was like having a hired mourner, our pain was eased, but our dignity remained intact. You did us a lot of good, Katie.'

‘I was only about thirteen then and I loved Auntie Jane more than anyone in the world except my mother. Her death terrified me. I couldn't see how we could possibly manage without her. I remember very well how I couldn't stop crying – in the chapel, in the cemetery and back at the farm afterwards. But, you know, I've hardly cried since. Until today.'

Rhydian got up and put his arm round me. ‘You used to come to us every Christmas, didn't you, till Mam died. You seemed to us like someone from another planet, so small and serious. We couldn't help teasing you.'

Something stirred inside me. ‘Was it you who made the sledge one year?'

He seemed pleased that I'd remembered it. ‘Yes, that was me. We've still got it, too. The boys still get it out whenever we have enough snow.'

‘How old were you? When you made it? Can you remember?'

‘Thirteen, I think. Having woodwork lessons in school. Twelve or thirteen.'

‘You took me out on it, once.'

‘Did I? Yes, I seem to remember that. Hope I didn't frighten you.'

I smiled at him.

Yes. He took me out on his sledge. One dazzling white Christmas, the snow frosted over with stars. I remember the fear I felt. And the pride. Hold on to me, he said, and I did. He seemed so large and strong. And warm as an animal. And smelling of animals, too. How old would I have been? Only about five, I suppose. But I can still remember when he said, Hold on tight. We'll go down Parc Isa. You're not frightened, are you?

‘What's the matter?' Grace asked me. ‘You're looking sad again. Have some more whisky.'

‘No, I'm all right. I was remembering Rhydian's sledge, that's all.'

Rhydian and Grace stayed until almost eleven and then it seemed a respectable time to go to bed. Their company, or the whisky, had managed to calm me and hoping for a good night's sleep I went out to the garden to fill my lungs with the cold mountain air. This is where I'd stand years ago reciting Shakespeare in the darkness: Desdemona, Ophelia, Juliet. ‘You've got a voice like milk and honey,' my mother would say when I got back into the house. ‘Like porridge and cream. Like buttermilk.' She seemed so close, I could almost touch her.

The moment passed when I saw Arthur streaking away across the garden and through the hedge at the bottom: I'd left the door open. I stood calling him for a while, but knew it was hopeless – he had no trust in me – so I went back to the house, hoping he'd turn up in the morning.

I filled my mother's hot water bottle to take to bed with me – it would be something to hold – and went upstairs. Paul hadn't rung. He was probably still in Cambridge getting to grips with Annabel's problems.

‘We had everything. Your grandmother had recently died so we were able to take over this house and we had most of her furniture as well, and pots and pans and a tea set and a half dinner set as wedding presents. I remember my Auntie Molly – she was Jane's eldest sister – asking me what she should send. “We've got everything, Auntie,” I said. “We've got absolutely everything now. But an extra pair of towels would be very useful.” It was true, we had a house and decent furniture and everything else we needed and a good wage coming in. And in just over a year's time, a baby girl as well, pretty as a little doll. We were happy, I swear we were, and it could have lasted for ever. Who knows what made him leave me? If only I could understand it.
No one
could understand it. Your Uncle Ted got his solicitor to make enquiries, it cost him a pretty penny too, but no one found out anything about him.'

I could hear her words all around me in the bedroom. Words don't seem to leave a place. ‘If only I could understand it. We were happy, I swear we were.'

I found myself answering her as I used to, found myself remembering something I'd once dared say when I was fourteen or fifteen and she very nearly recovered. ‘Perhaps he was afraid of too much responsibility. Perhaps he suspected there was another baby on the way.'

‘Why did you say that?' There was a sob as well as a swell of anger in my mother's voice. ‘What did you mean by that?'

I realised at once that I'd gone too far. ‘Nothing. I didn't mean anything in particular. I was only trying to imagine something which might have frightened him away. Men are nervous of commitment. They're not as brave as women. That's all I meant. That's all.'

It was no use trying to comfort her. She was crying bitterly, remembering, I suppose, the abortion she'd had – or was it an accidental miscarriage? – that little coiled-up foetus I'd seen all those years ago in the chamber-pot.

Perhaps that fit of desperate crying resolved something. It was the last I can remember.

She hardly cried at all when we had the news of my father's death a few years later. His body was found under the floorboards of a cheap lodging house near the docks in Liverpool, along with the bodies of three other young men who'd gone missing in the same year.

It was a sensational case at the time, with shrieking headlines in certain newspapers about vice rings and male prostitution, but since the hostel had been closed after the owner's death almost fifteen years before, nothing was proved beyond the identity of the murdered men.

I was eighteen at the time, still at school doing my A levels. I had no memory of my father, had never even seen a photograph of him, but I certainly mourned him deeply, realising how unhappy his life must have been and how terrifying his death. I suppose if such a thing happened today, professional counselling would be provided by the school. As it was, the Headmaster called me into his study, told me that the staff had discussed the tragedy at a meeting, decided that it would be too much of a strain for me to receive their individual condolences, so had asked him to pass on their sympathy and support. Furthermore, he continued – he was fond of that word – my subject teachers would be pleased to offer me individual tuition at any time when I felt I might be losing my concentration.

I thanked him and we shook hands.

I don't remember anyone being unkind at school. If there were any who considered the news something to snigger about, they kept out of my way. I suppose I was very lucky.

I didn't lose concentration on my work; the tragedy had the opposite effect. I worked like a demon, feeling, more than ever, that I had something to prove. I had to do well. I had to rise above my background. I realise now that the determination to succeed marked me as both judgemental and snobbish. I'm not proud of it. But that's how it was.

I mourned my father, of course I did, but at the same time, couldn't help being aware that his unexplained disappearance showed great weakness. I remember asking Uncle Ted – who had re-married by this time, but was still calling on us from time to time – whether he thought my father was homosexual. ‘He was a decent chap,' was all he'd say. ‘He'd worked hard and got on. Everybody spoke highly of him and he seemed to be good to your mother. Who knows what pressure he was under? Well, he may have been... what you said... but he wouldn't have wanted to harm anyone, you can be sure of that. I think you should try to get your mother to believe he was going to America intending to make his fortune before sending for her. I think she might find some comfort in that, don't you?'

‘Uncle Ted thinks...' I started to say, when he'd left and my mother and I were on our own.

‘It doesn't matter what your Uncle Ted or anybody else thinks,' she said. ‘I've laid him to rest now. He left me. And then he died. It's a sad, sad story, but now it's over. I'm sorry you never knew him, but now it's over... Do you think I'm hard?'

‘Hard? You've mourned him for fifteen years.'

‘Fifteen years and three months. And now it's over.'

It was over, all the waiting and crying. But nothing took its place. There was never anyone else in her life.

But there was suddenly another voice in my head. The busy-body, Maggie Davies. ‘And poor old George Williams will be at the funeral as well. Because he was very friendly, you know, with your mother in these latter years.'

Hers was the last voice I heard before falling asleep.

I slept deeply, but woke before it was light. I'd been dreaming again about the abortion I had three years ago.

I'd come off the pill because of some headaches I'd been having, and in no time at all discovered I was pregnant. I was very excited for a day or so.

‘What if I told you I was pregnant?' I asked Paul when he came back from some foreign trip.

‘You can't be, love. We've been tremendously careful.'

‘What if I told you I wanted to be pregnant?'

‘Well, that would be different, wouldn't it? If you really wanted a baby I'm sure you could persuade me to go along with it.' He sounded very tired.

‘You'd have to be persuaded, though? You wouldn't be enthusiastic?'

‘I wouldn't be madly enthusiastic, darling, because of my age. I'm almost fifty, you know that, and besides I thought we'd decided against it.'

‘You're right. We had.'

‘And you're very nearly forty, love, though God knows you don't look it. I think we should consider this quite carefully, don't you? About how old we'd be when the child was a teenager, and so on. I mean, if we did decide to go ahead.'

‘We'd certainly have to consider it very carefully,' I said, all the joy seeping out of me.

‘And I wonder what Annabel and Selena would think about it,' Paul continued. ‘They're at an age to be rather upset, don't you think? We'd have to consider the effect it might have on them.'

That seemed the last straw. ‘Say no more,' I said, ‘I've decided against it. We won't speak of it again.'

I gave up without a struggle. I made an appointment at a private clinic, timed for Paul's next trip abroad, and went through with the termination, knowing quite well that I'd suffer after it. Yes, I suffered after it. Yes, I regretted it bitterly.

I never mentioned it to anyone except to my dresser at the theatre. She was a motherly fifty year old who knew immediately that something was troubling me.

‘Come on, tell Nancy all about it. What's wrong with you?'

‘What makes you think there's anything wrong with me?'

‘You look different. Your face is clenched and your skin is wet as a fish. Your old man been playing you up, has he?'

‘It's not that.'

‘What, then?'

‘Oh Nancy, I had an abortion yesterday. And I feel awful.'

She put her arms round me and hugged me. She said nothing for a long time, but I could feel her sympathy. I felt she must have had an abortion herself at some stage, to understand so much. She didn't refer to it again, but she was very tender towards me for the rest of the run.

I never told Paul about it; it was my decision and I didn't want him to feel guilty about it. All the same, it came between us.

I suddenly realise that I've never loved anyone unreservedly. I've never been able to love anyone body and soul. The words sent shivers through me. Body and soul. With my body I thee worship. And soul. Which was surely something more than mind, something deeper, almost spiritual. I'd been pleased to think that my love for Paul had been mature and comforting; cerebral, in fact. Oh, but that wasn't enough. Body and soul, I repeated mournfully. Why had I always been satisfied with one or the other?