Nothing is Forever

by Grace Thompson

  He knocked on the door and walked in, and handed her a card which also held a note. He waited silently when she read it. ‘It’s from your mother, inviting me to spend Christmas with her.’ She stared at him in surprise. He quirked an eyebrow in a silent question. ‘But I can’t,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t leave the house, the others might come for a meal, or – I just can’t. Sorry. Will you explain to your mother?’

  ‘Can’t, or won’t?’

  ‘Oh, don’t start all that again.’

  ‘I’ll call for you at eleven on Christmas morning.’ As she began shaking her head again, he added, ‘Be ready, unless you really want to spend Christmas Day alone. You have a choice – this year. Next year you might not.’

  Was that a warning of his intention of saying goodbye? She watched him go and with tears in her eyes glanced at the calendar. It was ominously empty of any star markings, denoting visits.

  Tabs stood watching Ty Gwyn, wishing she was still living there. Curiosity had brought her there. She was doubtful of Jack’s story of helping a friend. She could see the silhouette of someone inside, walking backwards and forwards, then the figure could be seen slipping into a coat, and winding a scarf around her neck. She recognized Abigail and she was obviously going out. At this time of the evening, there were only the public houses or the chip shop to entice someone to brave the bitingly cold wind. She shivered as she watched the door and waited.

  She was rewarded a few minutes later by seeing Abigail come out, almost unrecognizable in the heavy coat and the thick scarf, lumbering along on thick fur-lined boots. She followed her without difficulty and groaned in disappointment when she went into a bus shelter at the edge of the park. There was no way she could follow her on a bus without being seen.

  To her relief two buses passed and she realized that she wasn’t getting on, but waiting for someone to get off. Jack! As he jumped off the bus and walked towards Abigail, Tabs didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t continue to follow; Jack only had to turn round and he would see her. Better then, go up to them straight away, and see what Jack had to say. But she hesitated before moving towards them and Jack put his arms around Abigail and they kissed. Not a kiss between friends, but a loving, passionate kiss of lovers. Stifling a sob she slowly and cautiously moved towards them, bushes around the bus stop gave her shelter and she was able to stand close enough to hear what Jack was saying.

  ‘I have to see Tabs again, Abi, love. We need her for a while longer. I feel something positive about Ty Gwyn, I’m disturbed by distant memories; things my father told me. This is the place where I’ll find my inheritance, and my family. I’m so certain this is where I’ll find my inheritance, my father’s treasure, if you can be just a little more patient. Darling, I know it’s asking a lot but we’ll be fine once I get what’s mine.’

  Tabs couldn’t hear Abigail’s reply but Jack protested and his words were clear. ‘Abi, love, I promised you there wouldn’t be anything but an occasional kiss and I’ve kept my word. You are my love, my only love.’

  Tabs’s hands moved to her belly where she knew Jack’s child was growing. She must have misunderstood; it wasn’t easy to hear their words with their faces muffled by their clothes. She tried to change the words she had heard, distorting them, making them say something different, Jack must have been telling Abigail that she – Tabs – was his one true love. It had to be a mistake. How could she cope if it weren’t? A baby with no one in the world to help her?

  She was shivering with shock and cold and she was afraid to move. She couldn’t confront them, not now, she needed to prepare. She would wait, then try to find Jack and tell him about the baby. He wouldn’t let her down, not when she had done so much to help him. She saw Jack dig in his pockets and hand something to Abigail.

  ‘Only twenty-two pounds, love, but I’ll get some more in a week or so. I’ll be back and we’ll be together for always.’

  Tears slid down Tabs’s face, she hadn’t misheard that. She stumbled as she tried to move away and she waited, shivering with shock and misery.

  Jack kissed Abigail but as he did so, his eyes moved to the bush behind which Tabs was hiding. She couldn’t see his eyes or she would have been afraid of the anger they showed. She froze and sighed with relief when he didn’t come to investigate. He kissed Abigail again but his eyes were searching the darkness of the bushes wondering who was there. Could it be Tabs? Could she have heard?

  Tabs waited until the couple moved away, arms around each other, walking across the road where a bus stopped and hid their goodbyes. Then Abigail hurried back to the house and, stiff with cold and misery, Tabs followed.

  Jack hadn’t got on the bus and he ran softly across the road and watched as Tabs walked away.

  It was late, almost eleven o’clock, and Tabs knew her father would be worried, but she didn’t go home. Her unhappiness led her to Ruth.

  The house was dark, Ruth’s bedroom window showed a glimmer of yellow light behind thin curtains and Tabs guessed she was reading. Almost without thinking, she knocked on the door and called. The lights came on but the door didn’t open until Ruth had asked who was there and Tabs sobbed her name and asked to come in.

  The fire was still glowing and seeing that Tabs was shivering Ruth added some sticks and fresh coal before putting the kettle to boil and setting out cups and saucers. She didn’t ask any questions until Tabs was beside the fire, snuggled up in a blanket and with a hot-water bottle wrapped in another blanket, near her feet.

  ‘Jack, I presume?’ Ruth said, as she handed the still shivering girl a cup of cocoa.

  ‘He doesn’t love me and I’m going to have his baby,’ Tabs whispered.

  Ruth felt a twist of pain at the thought of the baby. Tabs didn’t deserve a child after the way she had behaved. Surprised at her reaction she wondered whether a desire for a child was dormant in every women, even if they didn’t realize it.

  ‘Why were you so stupid?’ she asked gently ‘He was using you, couldn’t you see that?’

  ‘I didn’t want to see it,’ Tabs whispered.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do now? You’ll need help, so will your father support you?’

  ‘Support a daughter who’s having an illegitimate baby? I can’t see that happening, can you? I’m on my own with this.’

  She finished the hot drink while she told Ruth how she had followed Abigail, then she seemed to be suddenly aware of her surroundings. ‘Ruth,’ she gasped, beginning to rise. ‘I’m sorry! I had no right to bother you with all this. I’ll go. My father will be worried and – my feet just brought me here, I’m so sorry. So sorry—’

  Ruth interrupted her and pushed her gently back in the armchair. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘But my father—’

  ‘I’ll phone Henry, he’ll tell your father where you are.’

  ‘I’m such a nuisance.’

  Ruth went to the phone box and spoke to Henry, who promised to go straight away and tell Tabs’s father she was safe and staying with Ruth. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, and thank you,’ he said before ending the call. ‘Thank goodness he didn’t say he was grateful’, she muttered, as she went back to the house.

  Tabs was curled up in the swirl of blankets and fast asleep on the couch. It seemed a pity to wake her to put her into a cold bed in a cold room, so she left her, added a little more coal to the fire and settled herself in the opposite chair wrapped in blankets from her bed, and she too slept.

  Chapter Eight

  Tabs rose early and she folded the blankets in which she had been wrapped, and went into the kitchen to make some tea. Ruth was still asleep in the armchair opposite and she placed the tea beside her and prepared to leave. She scribbled a note of thanks and was just opening the door when Ruth awoke. ‘Tabs? Stay and have some breakfast, you can go straight to work then.’

  Tabs shook her head but she hesitated, not relishing the thought of going back to face Martha. ‘I shoul
d get back to explain to Martha and Dad.’

  ‘Breakfast first or you might not have time to eat and you have to be sensible now.’

  Uncurling from the gloriously warm bedding, Ruth reached for a dressing-gown hanging over the door and padded into the kitchen carrying her tea and sipping it as she went. She drank her tea then began getting out what she needed to cook breakfast, as always, happy to have someone to cook for, but before the pan began to sizzle Tabs came out and said, ‘Thanks, Ruth. You’re very kind, kinder than I deserve, I know that. But I won’t stay. I’ll go to the newsagent’s early and perhaps leave at twelve instead of one o’clock.’

  When Tabs reached the newsagent’s, trying to force her unhappy thoughts aside and concentrate on her morning’s work, she saw Jack waiting for her.

  ‘Tabs, love,’ he whispered as he reached for her hand. ‘I’ve got myself in a bit of a mess.’

  ‘The police?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘It’s Abigail. I’ve been helping her because she’s the widow of a friend, but she’s become too fond of me. I’m so embarrassed but I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Kissing her doesn’t help!’

  ‘I’ve kissed her often but it’s suddenly become serious and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Please, love, meet me this evening so we can talk about it. I need your help to sort things out without causing her more embarrassment.’

  She didn’t believe him. Those kisses he shared with Abigail hadn’t been friendly pecks on the cheek. Nor were they instigated by a desperate Abigail towards an unwilling Jack. But she desperately needed to talk to him so she agreed to meet him at lunchtime. ‘On our very, very special bench,’ he said, staring into her eyes. She tried not to be affected and shrank away from him; could she believe anything he said? But she had to talk to him. He had to be told about the baby. Time was passing and soon people will guess. Before Martha found out, she wanted to be able to tell her herself and explain that Jack was supporting her. Surely he would get a job, somewhere to live and marry her once he knew about the baby? She knew she was dreaming, lying to herself, and how pathetic was that?

  After Tabs had gone, Ruth listened to the silence for a few moments then stared at the calendar. In two days time it would be Christmas Eve 1954 and, so far, there was no one coming to spend Christmas with her except two strangers, Abigail and her mother, Gloria, and they would probably spend much of the time at the new home Henry had found for them, which they were at that moment negotiating to take. They were already gone from her in spirit. How could it have happened? She ruefully counted the invitations she had received by touching her fingers, one by one. Emrys and Susan, Mali and Megan had asked her to spend the day with them and Mickie, and Henry’s mother had invited her too. Even Toni had asked her to call in on Christmas evening.

  How foolish to have refused them all. She had been so confident that everything would continue this year as in the past ten, that she had turned them all down. Surely her brothers would change their minds? Persuade their wives that this was where Christmas should be spent? Or could it be a joke? Would they come in at any moment, laughing and telling her they had been teasing her? Would this Christmas suddenly rearrange itself and be like all the rest, with four brothers, four sisters-in-law and Aunty Blod filling the house with their chatter and laughter, and demands for food? This was the baby’s first Christmas and she should be spending it here, in the family home.

  She remembered then that even Aunty Blodwen had declined the invitation that had previously never needed to be sent. There had never been any need to ask any of them, it was a natural occurrence, taken for granted. Christmas was spent here, with her, Ruth Thomas, organizing everything from the turkey and crackers to the bedding and potato peeling. Unreasonably, she blamed Toni.

  She put on a coat and scarf, built the fire with damp small coal to persuade it to burn slowly while she was out, and picked up her handbag. She would ask Aunty Blod herself. Aunty Blodwen would surely prefer to come home, rather than spend part of the time with a neighbour? Of course she would. Toni must have convinced her that changing the routine of years was a kindness to her, Ruth, who loved every moment the family spent with her.

  She wondered whether to invite Tabs. Surely she would prefer to be away from her stepmother for a few days?

  Before opening the door she looked around the house, listened to it. The rooms already felt cold, hollow, as though accepting the changes that she could not. She locked the door behind her and set out for the bus.

  Tabs was in the park, where she and Jack had arranged to meet. Henry saw her there and felt a surge of pity. He took a flask of tea, went out and offered it to her.

  ‘Drink this, Tabs. Although I think you should go home. It’s very cold for you to be sitting here.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m all right. Jack will be here soon. We arranged to meet here at one.’

  ‘But it’s only half twelve. At least come and wait in the shop.’

  She shook her head, and assured him she was, ‘just fine’. How could she tell him that they had arranged to meet at twelve and that Jack obviously wasn’t coming?

  At two she gave up and went home to where Martha had left a meal congealing on the top of a saucepan of now cold water. She scraped it into the rubbish bin. Still shivering with cold she went out again, this time to see the doctor.

  Waiting in the surgery she watched a girl, several years younger than herself, nursing a small baby. Could she do that? Care for a small, helpless, dependent child? The child began to cry and the mother took out a cloth-wrapped feeding bottle, fitted the cloth beneath the baby’s chin as a bib and offered the teat to the rosy little mouth. The baby began feeding, frowning with concentration, and the girl looked down at the child with such a loving expression on her face that Tabs wanted to cry.

  Her pregnancy was confirmed and Tabs was given several leaflets, a few words of advice and told to make another appointment with the receptionist before leaving. ‘If you have any concerns, please come and see me,’ the doctor said kindly, aware that Tabitha Bishop was unmarried and with a father not known for his compassionate nature, if the care of his deceased wife was anything to judge him by.

  Ruth knocked on the door of Aunty Blodwen’s flat and it was a long time before there was a response. Limping badly, Blodwen smiled and opened the door wide for Ruth to go inside. ‘Why didn’t you use your key?’ Blod asked, heading for the kitchen.

  ‘Forgot it, Aunty. I was in a hurry to see you, hoping I can persuade you to change your mind about coming for Christmas.’

  ‘I think we’ve scrounged on you for long enough, it’s time you did something for yourself. Christmas seems a good place to start. I know Henry’s mother has invited you and we think you should go.’

  ‘Toni’s idea?’ Ruth asked, putting out cups for the inevitable tea.

  ‘Not only Toni, we all think the same, dear.’

  ‘But Toni thought of it first?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t remember. Last week it was. They all called to see me. Tommy and Bryn and Emrys, and their other halves. Brought cakes they did. Hang on, I think there are some left.’ Avoiding looking at her visitor she delved into the pantry and brought out a memorial tin of King George and Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation and took out a few Welsh cakes.

  Although Ruth stated her case, lying a little when Blodwen asked how many were going to be there, her aunt insisted that this Christmas, Ruth must please herself and stop allowing others to dictate her plans. ‘If it doesn’t stop now, dear, you’ll be slipping into old age as the favourite aunty with time for looking after nephews and nieces and no life of your own. Marry Henry before he gives up and looks elsewhere.’

  ‘I can’t do that! Marry Henry as the alternative to an empty old age?’ The oft repeated protest sounded false. ‘That’s insulting to Henry as well as me!’

  ‘You don’t love him enough then, or those things wouldn’t matter, or even enter your head. If that’s the case, let him go, dear, give both o
f you a chance to find the right one.’

  Calmer, Ruth asked. ‘You’ve never married, Aunty. Was there ever anyone you loved?’

  Blodwen chuckled. ‘Quite a few! Too many and too easily forgotten.’

  ‘No one special?’

  ‘No one special.’ The sad, nostalgic, expression on her aunt’s face made Ruth want to ask more but decided now wasn’t the time.

  ‘So,’ Ruth said, sipping her tea and reaching for a cake, ‘Christmas. Are you sure you won’t change your mind?’ She wanted to admit that there was no one coming, that she faced a few days with nothing but memories to keep her company but she didn’t. It would sound so pathetic, a kind of emotional blackmail, forcing her aunt to change her plans. Life was changing and she’d just have to find the strength to deal with it. Once Christmas was over she’d do just that. Get a job, find a flat, and build a life without using her family as a prop. If she could get through Christmas she’d cope. It would be over in a week, she told herself – knowing it would be a very, very long and empty week.

  Blodwen hugged her as she left. ‘You must come and visit, mind. Mrs Harrison will be pleased to see you. Remembers you as a baby she does, and talks a lot about your mam. You’ll enjoy that.’ She closed the door and stood for a long time, listening to Ruth’s footsteps fading. She wasn’t sure they were doing the right thing, even though it was with the best intentions.

  Ruth went home and put the finishing touches to the trimmings, as the decorations were locally called. The tree stood in a corner of the hall, it’s twinkling lights ready to greet anyone who called. Branches of fir trees partly sprayed with silver, hazel twigs painted white, holly with plenty of red berries, and a selection of artificial flowers filled every available shelf. Cards fastened to ribbons showered down the walls. It was beautiful but it made Ruth want to weep. She began making mince pies, weighing out a pound of flour. Surely someone will be here to eat them, she thought, and defiantly added a second pound of flour to the bowl.