by K. C. Finn
“Okay, this is the hard part. Now you step back with the left, but twist your body to face the left too.”
There was a sweet scent on his breath like he’d pinched one of Mam’s cakes that were meant for after dinner. I had hardly registered what he said before we started to move, and as I tried to twist my body my knee went to jelly and I started to fall backwards. I felt my eyes shoot wide open in shock, but it was only a moment before Henri wrapped both his arms around me and pulled me upright. I let out a few sharp breaths, my face pressed down against his chest as my legs shook on their own. As we waited for them to calm down I felt one of Henri’s smooth hands stroking the back of my shoulders, which made them feel weak all over again.
“Do you need to sit and rest?” Henri asked, his jaw moving against my hair.
I pulled back from his chest, shaking my head. I felt terribly weak and shaken in all sorts of ways, but there was no way I was ready for him to let me go. I couldn’t think of anything worse in that moment than having to leave his warm arms, the way he scooped me up and held me, like I could almost be a normal girl that could stand on her own. I made to speak, but my breath caught in my throat when I realised Henri was leaning his head down, bringing me closer to his smooth lips and his cheeky grin. I felt like my heart had stopped, like everything on the planet had stopped. There was no war, no families torn apart, no lack of food or nice clothes, no planes shooting bullets into the sky. There was just us and this moment, everything I could ever have wanted.
“Ooooh!”
Henri’s lips had barely grazed mine before he pulled his head away sharply. I craned my neck in fury to see Ness Fach in the doorway, waving Dolly excitedly. She pointed at us with a huge grin full of tiny teeth, then ran off at an inhuman pace.
“Mam! Maaaaaaaaaam!”
Henri scooped me up quickly and put me in my chair.
“I’ll go catch her,” he promised, kissing my forehead before he took off after the little tell-tale.
Which left me sitting alone with a thump in my chest so fierce I was sure my heart would just give up the ghost at any moment, but also smiling so much that I was sure it’d make my face ache for a week.
***
Henri had only just managed to stop Ness Fach from spilling the beans about our almost-kiss to Mam, but he hadn’t got to her before she reached Leighton, which sent my little brother to an all new level of annoying. For the rest of the time between then and the summer dance, any time we practised a few steps Leighton was there watching Henri like a mangy guard dog, fangs out and ready to attack. Having him there did actually make me concentrate less on Henri and more on learning to dance, but I would much rather have sent Leighton away if I thought he wouldn’t go straight to Mam and tell on us at once.
“The dance will be the place,” Henri whispered to me once whilst we practised, “Whenever you get tired, we can find a nice place outside to sit alone.”
“You know I get tired an awful lot, don’t you?” I giggled into his ear.
“I thought you were supposed to be watching your feet?” Leighton demanded irately from his perch at the door.
When the morning of the dance came around I was surprised to find Henri and Idrys joining us for breakfast. Henri arrived with a suspicious looking parcel under his arm which he took and put in another room before he joined us at the table. Afterwards he asked me to come and talk to him alone, taking the handles of my chair with an audibly deep breath. Leighton protested heavily, but Idrys insisted on taking him outside to calm down and get some air. To my surprise Henri wheeled me into my bedroom where the parcel, wrapped in brown paper, was waiting on my mattress. He passed it to me eagerly, sitting down on the corner of my bed with a glint in his eye.
I must have had the stupidest grin all over my face whilst I was opening the paper, but it was nothing compared to the Blod-like squeal of delight I gave when I finally found what was inside it. A dress. A beautiful new dress, navy with white polka dots. I spread it out over my knees to see the wide, flowy skirt part, perfect for dancing. It had a bright white ribbon around it to bring in the waist.
“I hope it’s all right,” Henri said quietly, “I didn’t have your measurements.”
Realisation set in slowly. My mouth fell open at him for a few seconds.
“You made this?” I asked. “For me?”
“Idrys thinks it very strange that I can tailor for men and women, but Mr Hoffman always liked us to do things that way.” There was a sad drop in his tone for just a moment when he mentioned his old employer. “If the waist is too big you can pull it in there.” He pointed at the ribbon as I nodded.
“What was it, before it was a dress?” I queried, inspecting the polka dots again.
“A tablecloth belonging to Mam’s mother,” he explained, now grinning as widely as me, “I did ask her permission, of course.”
“I love it,” I said brightly, “Oh I love it so much. It’s wonderful.”
I wanted so desperately to leap out of my chair and hug him, but all I could do was reach for his hand and give it a big squeeze. He took the dress from my lap and laid it out on the bed for me to admire. I’d be wearing it soon, in just a few hours’ time, dancing with Henri and sneaking off somewhere to finally claim that very first kiss that we’d been waiting for. The most perfect of all days had just begun.
As I started to speak again a terrifying cry shocked us both. A high pitched, screaming sob, like someone had just been stabbed, followed by a low, animal sort of wailing. It was how I used to cry when I first had the pain all over my body, but somehow this cry was much deeper, much worse. It sounded like someone was dying. My heart started to race as Henri grabbed my chair and we careered out of the bedroom, racing through the black and white hall to reach the source of the cry in the kitchen.
Mam was on the floor with her head in her hands. Her usually rosy face was bright crimson, flushed all too bright. Her calloused hands shook as she covered her eyes, sobbing and wailing. Blod stood beside her with a letter in her hands, her pale Celtic face now white and lifeless as though her soul had just upped and left her body. She raised a hand to her mouth in slow motion, looking at me with a terrifying emptiness in her crystal blue eyes. Her lips moved but no words came out, the only sound was her mother sobbing uncontrollably beside her in a heap.
The kitchen door burst open as Idrys came marching in; he too had been alerted by Mam’s wild cries. Leighton was behind him looking younger than I’d ever seen him, his face white and full of terror as his eyes took in the sight of Mam and Blod in their tableau of shock. Idrys was demanding an answer from the pair of them as to the distress, but all Blod could do was give him the letter from her trembling hand. She turned away slowly in her ghostly fashion, facing the wall, shaking her head of blonde curls. Mam slowly retreated into silence; it shook me to my core to see such a strong, proud woman curled on the floor like a frightened animal, shuddering with a river of silent tears streaking down her face.
“What is it?” I said fearfully, looking up at Idrys as he studied the letter.
Every semblance of joy in the old famer’s face was gone. He looked grey and bleak; his usually sparkling eyes were empty when they found my gaze. He let the letter flutter slowly to the floor, clearing his throat.
“Clive’s dead.”
Mam let out another huge shriek at hearing the words out loud. Suddenly I didn’t feel like dancing ever again.
The letter had come from Thomas, who was a ground mechanic now stationed in Portsmouth. Clive and Ieuan were on a plane together that went out to battle the Luftwaffe, but it had been shot down over the English Channel in the early hours of yesterday morning. Boats supporting the battle in the air had pulled Clive’s body from the wreckage, only to find that he had taken almost the full blast of the attack. He’d died on impact, before the plane even started to go down. Most of the other men had been pulled from the sea, just barely alive, and taken to hospital, but worse news still awaited the Price family. Two crewm
en had not been recovered at all, and Ieuan was one of them.
For once Leighton didn’t complain when Henri wrapped his arms around me, in fact when I sat down later on the sofa with my head on Henri’s chest, my brother curled up in front of our feet like a kitten. I stroked his sun-bleached hair as he shuddered out tiny tears. For my own part the tears wouldn’t come, it was like my eyes were too shocked by it all to realise they were supposed to be crying. Henri sat in a thoughtful silence for the whole afternoon, only speaking when I asked him things; I rather thought he’d seen enough death on his way to me, perhaps he hadn’t imagined that the reaper’s cold shadow could reach us in the sunny mountains of Bryn Eira Bach.
Idrys made the decision that he and Henri would abandon the cottage over the pasture for now and come and stay at Ty Gwyn to care for Mam. I couldn’t even bring myself to be happy that Henri and I would be under one roof when I thought about Mam and Blod and the hell they were going through. For the first day in all the months I’d lived in the farm house, Blod’s radio was silent. Fourteen hours passed between the arrival of the post and me settling into bed for the night, yet I was sure that I could still hear Mam crying through the ceiling above my head. I wondered how there was any water left in her body at all.
Leighton’s eleventh birthday was August 4th, just four days before Henri was due to turn eighteen, but neither boy was keen for a party, especially when it was announced that Clive’s funeral had been arranged for a date smack bang between the two. Idrys was making all of the arrangements to spare his daughter the horror, so when Henri was occupied with picking up the slack out on the farm, I started spending a lot of time with Ness Fach in the summer sun where I could see him going by as he worked.
“What’s he doin’ now?” Ness asked, bouncing on my knee and waving her Dolly in Henri’s direction.
“He’s picking up the yucky weeds,” I explained, “So they don’t make all the nice flowers…” I stopped myself before the word ‘die’ fell out of my mouth. “… get poorly.”
“That’s boring,” Ness said.
I found the strength for a sad smile as the little girl threw her head back onto my shoulder, looking up into the sky with her huge blue eyes. I watched her small face as she followed the clouds, one finger outstretched to point at them. She wasn’t smiling.
“Daddy’s up there,” she said suddenly. I froze, my heart held in an invisible clamp. “He’s always up there flying in the sky. But Blod says he won’t come home no more. He’s going to live up there now.”
“That’s right,” I whispered, my throat feeling tight and dry.
It was now that my body had decided it finally wanted to cry, but there couldn’t be anything worse for Ness Fach than having the whole house blubbering, especially since she didn’t have much clue as to why everybody in her life had suddenly fallen silent and tearful. I sucked up every drop of water and shook the hotness from my face, cuddling her up in my arms.
“Blod says Ieu might go live there too,” Ness added.
“We’ll see,” I choked, “He might want to come back here, with us.” I felt awful as a flash of Ieuan’s cheeky smile and ginger hair crept in behind my eyes.
“Can I go and live there if I want?” she asked thoughtfully.
“No,” I said all too quickly, burying my head against her long tawny hair to hide my tears, “It’s only for people who can fly, sweetheart.”
“All right then,” she replied. I felt Dolly being flung to and fro in front of me.
Ness had lost two fathers already in her short little life, two men who made it clear that they adored her, that neither one had ever wanted to be separated from her. It made my thoughts turn inwards to London, to Mum and most especially to Dad. If my father was out there alive somewhere, then he had made the choice to stay away from us all. Bickerstaff clearly hated his life in the village, but he was here all the same, perhaps only here for stolen glimpses of the little girl playing with Dolly in my arms. His little girl.
There were a lot of things that couldn’t be put right any more at Ty Gwyn, but I thought there was at least one thing I could do.
***
On the day of the funeral it seemed as though the whole of Bryn Eira Bach had turned out to cry and sing and hang their heads in unison for the great man that was RAF Flight Sergeant Clive Price. I could hardly bear the kind words and hopeful wishes in the preacher’s service; I spent most of it with my head buried in Henri’s shoulder trying not to make it too obvious that I was covering my other ear to block it all out. It was so wrong for us even to be sat there, so wrong that such a good man had died defending his country from the murderous horde that were still trying to claim the skies over England.
I caught sight of Doctor Bickerstaff walking through the graveyard after the burial, his black suit shining in the glare of the August sun, and knew that my opportunity had arrived. I got onto my crutches as fast as my newfound strength allowed and called Ness over to me. Blod gave me a watchful, tearstained look over the assembled family, but she couldn’t intervene. Thomas was home temporarily for the service and he was clutching her hand so tightly that the tips of her pale, perfect fingers were tinged with blue. Ness took hold of my left crutch as though it was as simple as holding my hand and we set off at a snail’s pace towards the lonely doctor.
Bickerstaff was alerted by my ragged breaths and thumping footfalls long before I got to him, but he waited patiently with his usual expressionless face until we made it closer to him. Ness hid behind my leg at first when we reached him, peeping out through the gap in the triangular wooden frame to watch him with interest. He gave her a quick glance, his stiff lip softening. He scratched under his chin thoughtfully, taking in a deep breath like he was preparing himself for a great undertaking.
“How’s Blod?” he asked quietly.
“Frantic,” I answered, “Mam just keeps shutting herself in her room. Blod’s been trying to run the house, but she can’t cope with it all. We’ve all tried to help, but she won’t let us.”
“Perhaps she wants to be rushed off her feet,” Bickerstaff supposed, “Some people prefer to bury their grief in keeping busy. I know I do.”
Ness was slowly coming out from behind me. She ambled forward, Dolly in the one hand as always, but she took the hem of her dress in her other hand and swished it about. It was a black dress recycled from one that Blod had worn some years ago to her grandmother’s funeral.
“Bampi says I look pretty in this,” she mumbled, mimicking the little twirl she had done for us that same morning in the kitchen.
Bickerstaff’s resolve broke entirely. He wore a massive smile, but his eyes were growing damper by the second. He crouched down to the floor to be at eye level with the little girl, steadying her as she started to get dizzy from the twirling.
“You do,” he said gently, “you look pretty as a picture.”
Ness crinkled her nose. “Which picture?”
The doctor faltered for a moment, but Ness was patiently awaiting an answer.
“All the pictures,” Bickerstaff answered, I could hear the break in his throat where tears were threatening, “Every picture you can think of, well you’re the prettiest of them all.”
“Ooh,” said Ness, smiling all over with her tiny teeth, “I’m going to tell Blod I’m the prettiest!”
Before either of us could stop her she was jogging away on her small, unsteady feet back towards the family. Bickerstaff rose again and looked down at me, sucking in a breath. His watery eyes were threatening to set me off again, but I did my best to hold it in. I had done enough crying to last me a lifetime and a fair chunk of it had been in front of him already.
“Blod’s not really up to looking after her at the moment,” I began, looking away from his unbearably sad face to focus on the chapel, “So I’ve offered for Henri and me to bring her along when I come to see you next, to get her out of the way for a bit.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly. A short silence passed between us. �
�Henri knows, doesn’t he?” The doctor asked.
“He does.” I didn’t see much point in lying.
“I hope you can trust him, whoever he is.”
I looked back to Bickerstaff, whose emotions had receded to leave his usual stern face. He wasn’t used to believing in people, not like Mam; he still wouldn’t entertain a word of Henri’s story.
“I know I can trust him,” I said. It was meant to come out fierce, but I was too weak for the full emotion to find its voice.
“He’s a stranger,” Bickerstaff challenged.
“Not to me,” I replied.
“But how? How can you be sure of that?”
“I have my reasons,” I replied, my face suddenly as stone-like as his.
Bickerstaff narrowed his eyes at me. “You know something we don’t.” It wasn’t a question.
I nodded, but gave no reply.
***
We spent Henri’s birthday under a tree drinking orange pop and trying to talk about subjects that didn’t lead back to the war. The news of Clive and Ieuan had shaken Leigh out of his selfish reverie, so if one good thing had come from the darkness it was the fact that my brother had finally actually gotten to know Henri. He even sang Happy Birthday in what he called ‘The Proper English Way’, laughing so hard he could barely get the words out for lack of breath:
