The World is a Wedding (11 page)

‘I want to decorate the walls and the ceiling,' she continued. ‘Can you do that for me?' Wilfred didn't have a clue how to wallpaper a ceiling; surely the wallpaper just fell off?

‘Certainly, Mrs. Newton-Lewis,' he replied hopefully. Wallpaper was always peeling off walls, never mind ceilings. Perhaps there was some way he could nail it on.

‘I knew as much,' Mrs. Newton-Lewis declared. ‘I said to Mrs. Annie Evans, “That Wilfred Price has no end of skills up his sleeve: undertaker,” I said, “decorator.” I said, “I'll buy my wallpaper here in Narberth instead of going to Ocky White's in Haverfordwest and Wilfred will be able to do the decorating as well”.'

‘Thank you very much, Mrs. Newton-Lewis.' When Wilfred opened the shop he'd put up a shelf for paint on the back wall, built a counter and bought a till. He'd expected he might occasionally be asked to paint the odd door or wall, but he hadn't thought of himself as a decorator.

‘You'll need to somehow move my antique Welsh dresser to paper behind it. And I'd like it done by the day after tomorrow as my two sisters are coming from Llanddewi Velfrey. Can you finish it by then?'

‘Oh, yes, indeed,' said Wilfred, praying that no one would die in the next few days.

‘I considered having a paisley in a fuchsia and yellow, but I have changed my mind. I am thinking of the
Tulip and Willow
by William Morris.' She turned a large page in the wallpaper book. ‘Or perhaps the
Cornucopia
?'

‘We have plenty of rolls in stock of this one in bice-blue and biliverdin,' said Wilfred, unsure if he'd used his new
B
words correctly, and showing Mrs. Newton-Lewis a large sunflower print with a blue background.

‘There's lovely. There's posh. Yes, I'll take it. Yes.' Mrs. Newton-Lewis smoothed the matte wallpaper appreciatively. ‘I expect you learned to decorate when you were an apprentice.'

Wilfred had learned nothing of the sort during his four-year apprenticeship with Mr. Ogmore Auden of
O. Auden, Wheelwrights & Cabinet Makers of Whitland
.

‘Are you thinking of painting the skirting-boards?' he asked, by way of a diversion.

‘Thank you for reminding me. I like a clean, fresh skirting-board. I was thinking of a Van Dyke Brown. And how many rolls of wallpaper will I need, Wilfred?'

‘I'll work that out for you, Mrs. Newton-Lewis.'

‘I would say ten.'

‘Yes, I agree,' said Wilfred with no basis at all for agreement.

‘Do you gloss-paint front doors? If you do, I can tell the ladies in Narberth Lest We Forget Society, while we are knitting for those poor soldiers so afflicted by the War.' Mrs. Newton-Lewis knew everyone, saw everything and told everybody. ‘And I expect you lime-wash the outside of houses as well. Do you do that, Wilfred?'

‘These things are possible,' replied Wilfred non-committally.

‘I know Mrs. Roberts wants the whole house decorated.'

Mrs. Roberts lived in the big house at the top of the High Street. Wilfred swallowed.

‘I'll tell her at chapel all about your book of wallpapers, and that you know how to decorate properly. I suggested to her to paint the outside russet or a cinnabar, so I expect you'll have to dye the lime-wash with rowan berries.'

He was an undertaker, not a painter. Honey hell—he was radical wrong if he thought he knew how to decorate! Mind, Wilfred thought to himself, it was work and it was money and would help replace his savings. And he didn't want to be a lazy Herbert. There could be no vanity to it—he was going to be a father and he must provide for his family.

So he replied: ‘You tell the lovely ladies of the Narberth Lest We Forget Society, Mrs. Newton-Lewis, and I'll be glad for the work.'

 

Several weeks later, Flora walked down the frost-bitten lane past St. Andrew's Church, where the blackberries grew in a tangle, searching for a view of the valley to photograph. She wanted to take photographs of the hills around Narberth before the baby was born, while she still had time on her hands, and because today she wanted to take her mind from what was worrying her. She would have liked some company. Wilfred was always ready to talk to her, and he showed her so much affection that Flora wondered if sometimes he held back from fear that he would overwhelm her with his ardour—but today he was visiting a miner in Providence Hill who claimed he'd seen the Grim Reaper and wanted to arrange his funeral.

Flora spotted a woman ahead walking nervously, almost scared to put her feet on the frozen earth. They met at the stile and the woman waited, offering a chapped white hand as Flora climbed carefully over. As the woman looked up at her, their eyes met. Flora saw—or rather the woman showed her, with a look almost of defiance—her cheek and eye, witness to the violence and force that had created the bruised colours.

The two women walked alongside the drystone wall, stepping over hummocks of frosted grass. The field was dotted with Welsh Black cows.

‘You're Wilfred Price's wife, aren't you?' the woman said.

Flora nodded.

‘I'm Phyllis Probert.'

Wilfred had mentioned Mr. Probert to Flora and she knew he worked in the Dragon Inn. Flora wanted to reach out to this woman, to make a friend in Narberth, but didn't quite know how. She was aware that the other women in Narberth treated her with some distance and a little suspicion. She wasn't from Narberth or even Templeton, she was from Pleasant Valley in Stepaside and from a different family with different ancestors, and they knew instinctively that she wasn't one of them. She had married their much-respected undertaker who would have been a catch among the Narberth ladies, with his good looks, integrity and his warm, friendly jokes. He had a good business and he didn't drink. And he didn't hit her. Wilfred had once been, no doubt, the pinnacle of many women's romantic dreams in Narberth—all of them, she imagined, dashed when she emerged, as if out of nowhere, as his wife.

The two women followed the path towards the next field.

‘Is it due around the spring?' Mrs. Probert asked. ‘That's when Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon is having her baby.'

‘Yes.' Flora wrapped her scarf around her neck. ‘Sometimes that feels a long way away, and sometimes it feels soon,' she admitted, hinting at what was on her mind and beginning to concern her. Flora had talked very little about the baby to anyone except Wilfred. And every time she mentioned the baby to him, he immediately talked about the paint and wallpaper shop. The wind blew and Flora brushed her hair from her face.

‘It's your first, isn't it?' the woman said to Flora. ‘That's why you're scared.'

Flora noticed that the woman's other eye was stretched with very fine lines and seemed to move slowly, almost tiredly. The woman said something, almost shy to reveal an aspect of herself in return.

‘Pardon?' Flora couldn't hear her words above the wind, but understood that the woman was pulled taut with violence and poverty. She and Wilfred had a smoother life: it seemed they had enough money—certainly every Wednesday when she bicycled to visit White Hook, he gave her a one-pound note to give to her mother. Although Wilfred didn't tell her the details, she didn't think they were poor, but if they were, she imagined Wilfred would keep it from her to spare her the worry.

‘I walk around Narberth every day,' Mrs. Probert repeated, ‘when Mr. Probert is at the Dragon Inn.'

‘It's a beautiful walk, even in the winter,' Flora stated. They walked silently together, unable to talk easily above the blustering of the wind, until they reached the further field.

‘I'm going to stay here and take a photograph of the valley,' Flora said.

‘I'm going to keep walking,' Mrs. Probert replied quietly, but with determination. ‘I want to be strong enough to walk around Narberth three times: I have a plan.' She didn't explain any further.

Flora smiled, intrigued, saying, ‘Then perhaps we will meet around Narberth again.'

‘I expect we will.'

‘If you would like to come for a cup of tea one afternoon at 11, Market Street?' Flora Myffanwy offered. She had been lonely in Narberth and wanted for female company. This woman's life was different in some ways from her own, since Mr. Probert worked in a public house, while Wilfred had his own business, and that might mean it would be unusual for Mrs. Probert to pay a visit. But they had shared confidences, and that was the essence of female friendship: trust in which one could reveal oneself. She liked this birdlike woman with her bad nerves and her flintiness. And the house would soon be looking clean enough to receive visitors.

Mrs. Probert thanked her, pulling her thin, loose coat around her.

‘Wait,' Flora said on an impulse. ‘Would you like this?' She put her hand in her handbag and brought out a small gold-coloured tube.

‘Lipstick?' Mrs. Probert asked. ‘I have no need of lipstick.' Flora saw she was ashamed of her face.

‘Take it; I want you to have it.'

Mrs. Probert blushed, accepting the gift.

 

The trees along the dawn-lit lanes were leafless and the air pristine with cold as Wilfred drove them to Wiseman's Bridge. They had taken to going for a drive every Saturday morning of their married life. That morning, Flora had woken before first light, unable to sleep. Wilfred had asked if she would rouse him, and she waited until twenty past six to put her hand on the strong, relaxed muscles of his upper arm and whisper his name. He woke quickly—like a man who had much to live for—and they had both washed by splashing cold water from the bowl they filled from the jug. Flora put on her dark green wool dress, on which she had let out the waist, her cardigan and wool coat, Wilfred wore his Oxford bags, a red tie, his tweed jacket and an overcoat, and they left before breakfasting so as to return in time for Wilfred to open the wallpaper shop at ten o'clock, though customers were few and far between.

Flora looked out of the automobile window and put her hands further into her muff. The bare shells of cow parsley, large as a child's head, swept against the side of the hearse. She remembered how green the land had been in the summer. Now the hedgerows were lined with fractured sticks of bracken, but the lane still held its beauty despite the change of season. There was something she should tell Wilfred, but she didn't yet know how to say it.

‘You're looking fetching today, and very fresh-faced, my dear,' Wilfred commented, taking her hand. ‘You're not wearing your lipstick.'

‘I gave it to Mrs. Probert.'

‘There's kind of you. That Mr. Probert—
ach-y-fi
. He's too spifflicated on beer for my liking.'

‘You're not wearing your undertaker's suit,' Flora replied, attempting to make the conversation more comfortable.

‘Indeed I'm not. But I'm still an undertaker,' he stated. Wilfred rubbed the black stubble on his chin the way he did when he was thinking. She glanced at Wilfred as he drove, wondering about him. Being married to Wilfred meant watching him do that several times a day for the rest of her life. As well as seeing that resigned, slightly sad and wistful smile he had when he didn't know the answer. And falling asleep to the smell of his hair oil. It meant dead bodies in the workshop waiting to be buried. And it meant new life. It meant that too, she hoped. He was becoming more familiar to her, much less of a stranger, though she had still only known him less than a year. She felt curious about him.

‘I watch you about at your work, but I still don't know very much about what you do,' she admitted. Wilfred was so alive, with his flushed face, purposeful movements, strong body and striding walk, she didn't think of him surrounded by the dead. He had buried her father—that was how they had met, after all—but she had only seen him driving the hearse and directing the funeral. Wilfred, she now realised, had made her father's death elegant and ordered, and it had occurred to her recently that death—what the undertaker saw—wasn't necessarily always neat.

‘People in Narberth die,' Wilfred answered, changing gear. ‘I make their coffin. Sometimes I bring them to my workshop where I look after them. Then I drive them to chapel, carry them to their grave and I speak kindly to their devastated loved ones. And then, my dear, the bald fact of the matter is I charge them five pounds.'

Silvery seagulls flew above them in the empty sky.

‘I'm grateful for the business,' he added. ‘And for the decorating work from Mrs. Newton-Lewis.'

Flora Myffanwy touched her wedding ring. She understood. When her father had died, Flora and her mother had little income to speak of. A man needed a job so his family would have enough money, especially in times such as these. A man did what he needed to do to care for his family.

‘I must consider my da, and now you, of course, my dear,' Wilfred said, echoing her thoughts and placing his hand over hers, ‘before I can think of whether I want to have a dead person sitting on a mahogany chair in the boiling heat under the glass roof of the workshop.'

Flora nodded: the unspoken had been spoken.

‘Before I met you,' she said, her voice slightly tinged with anxiety, ‘all I knew about death was the shiny hearse, the black clothes and the devastation.'

‘That's enough for any human being,' Wilfred replied.

Fear came over Flora. She was holding something to herself that she didn't understand but couldn't ignore. She looked out of the window towards the dark, striated cliff-faces that framed Wiseman's Bridge, wanting to distract herself from her thoughts.

‘Wilfred, would you like me to help in the business?'

‘No, Flora Myffanwy,' Wilfred said with certainty. ‘It's not a business for a woman. When one is an undertaker, such as I am, one is surrounded by people who feel anything but joy and happiness. That is not for you, Flora. Take photographs with your camera. Be as you are, and be my wife.'