The War Widow

by Lorna Gray

  “Actually,” I remarked wryly, “the war didn’t change him at all. He came back with another woman.”

  “Oh–Oh!” Mary’s response was a drawn-out expression passing from realisation to disgusted amusement and onwards into sympathetic understanding and a not inconsiderable amount of ‘I told you so’. Which promptly made her laugh. She said incredulously, “You really do have a policy of keeping out of the competition, don’t you? Don’t you have any pride? Didn’t you fight for him at all?”

  “I—”

  She interrupted me hastily. “I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly, fiercely sincere, and after a moment her eyelashes dropped to shield her gaze from me. The bracelet glittered as it twirled within her fingers.

  Mary was not the first woman of my acquaintance to question my lack of fight. I didn’t know how to explain to her that it wasn’t enough to blame me for choosing to endure three years of unfaithfulness until the war took him out of my sphere and then several months more once he came back again. She needed to first understand the complexities of the hurt behind discovering sometime in the midst of my seventh month of marriage that while my husband and I did indeed both share the same deep abiding passion for his art, his own passion tended to get a little diverted along the way, into his subject’s bedchamber.

  There was no way to ever make a bold young confident woman like Mary comprehend why it had happened in the first place or how his affairs hadn’t seemed to stem from a lack of the appropriate feelings for me. Or how the nature of my reaction to that first instance set the pattern for the next time and the next and the next until I felt that pursuing the obvious option of setting my wedding ring down upon the kitchen table and storming out would be the greatest betrayal of them all.

  It was one of the reasons why I never tried to compete with those women. With any woman. We weren’t children. I knew that when blame came to be apportioned for the failure of my marriage, a good deal of it must come my way. Mary was right to say I didn’t want to enter into a battleground where the weapon was my femininity. But she was wrong when she called it a lack of pride. It wasn’t all weakness. And I didn’t need to be told now that I should have been tougher; I should have handled Rhys differently; that I should, in fact, have been anything other than myself. I’ve always thought it must be a very strange relationship that depended on the threat of wrath to keep it from straying.

  And besides, in my own way I fought very hard indeed during that time and all the months since. After all, however belittling the experience was and regardless of how frequently I failed to rise up and give body to the anger that did indeed lurk within, I think I must still have always retained at least some sense of my value. I never stopped believing that surely, if I had just one job to do in our marriage and that was to make him happy and I failed, it was because of things I couldn’t change; things that were always out of my scope. It wasn’t because I simply didn’t fight hard enough.

  I didn’t say any of this to Mary. As well as being very hard to articulate, the recent advent of Rhys’s death had rather clouded my memory of that history so that it was very hard to remember now precisely what he’d done and how I had felt about it all. And besides, me being me, there was always the distinct possibility that I’d misunderstood something vital somewhere along the way and I’d been making a stand all this time on a completely pointless battle line.

  Mary wasn’t really worrying about me anyway. The bracelet span and clattered on the ruined wall and she cursed as she snatched it back. There was a pause while she forced it back over her hand onto her wrist. Then she said as if it were the end of the world, “I like Adam, you know.”

  I twisted to follow her gaze and we both looked over to where he had appeared beside a tower, now staring up at its broken flight of steps with notebook still in hand.

  She added glumly, “He’s very clever, don’t you think? And far too famous for his own good. But at least he’s nice. Not that being nice counts for anything. Take Jim Bristol for example. He’s nice too, and he actually speaks and he’s never been married either—”

  I interrupted her very abruptly. “Adam’s married?”

  “Widowed.”

  And yet I knew this. How did I know this? I didn’t really need her to explain that he had been widowed just before the war. Then it came to me how I must have learned this. He must have told me very simply and plainly over tea at Devil’s Bridge. It was just a shame that it must have been lost in that confusion about seeing Jim and admitting the bus accident because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what he’d said.

  I interrupted Mary again in the midst of her puzzlement over whether she could bear to be the second love of a man’s life and asked, “Mary, when did Adam come to the hotel? When did his visit begin, I mean?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “A little over a week ago I think. He’s been before. He was here when we arrived, busily receiving a lecture from the man who guards the door at night about old mining waste coming down the river into the harbour.”

  “But why here? I mean, why choose Aberystwyth and just now?”

  She smirked. “Ask that question of the author and he’ll probably reluctantly tell you something utterly brief but tedious about the local industry. And yet, why not here, anyway? It’s got roads, trains, good hotels, Welsh mountains. You might just as easily ask the same question of me or the Miss Bartlemans, or Jim or that woman with the small boy. And he really is an author. Does it matter?”

  She didn’t wait to see my swift shake of my head. She reverted to the topic that interested her. “I’m glad to say Jim isn’t nursing a broken heart for his long-dead wife but he’s never going to be the subject of a lecture on what constitutes a great catch.”

  She grimaced. I took this as a hint of the disagreement that had occurred between her and her sister that morning. Proving it, Mary leaned in with mock secrecy to confide tartly, “Alice has very fixed criteria for the concept and she’s very good at explaining it. Which is ironic because I know full well that she raced towards the first eligible male who came well laden with funds and she’s been fighting boredom ever since.”

  “I—see,” I said, understanding her feelings at last. “Oh dear.”

  I could guess now who was coaching Mary into her weary cynicism and it wasn’t the legion of boring admirers that waited in the wings. I could also perceive why I thought Mary dressed-up in her elegant finery like a doll put out on display. I suppose Mrs Alderton expected reasonable repayment for her investment when presumably it was Dr Alderton who was funding Mary’s adventure in wealthier circles in the first place.

  Beside me, Mary’s hands had found themselves a new occupation scoring a scrap of stone upon the stonework by her right hip and it was at that moment that I realised of all things, what she probably needed most was a thoroughly motherly hug.

  Instead we sat in silent contemplation of the subject of her upset for a while before she spoke again, and when she did her voice was very quiet. “Do you know anything about him?”

  “Adam? No, not really. In fact, it would seem considerably less than you …”

  “And Jim?”

  It was said very carelessly. The solid stones of the castle wall were cool beneath my hand. I said, “He told me he does something in local government, but I don’t know what. General dogsbody he said, but I doubt that. He doesn’t look much like anybody’s dogsbody to me.” Then, in an unguarded moment, I added, “I don’t quite trust him somehow.”

  Having finished scoring marks upon the broken wall, Mary had turned away, instantly distracted by something beyond one of the towers that I couldn’t see. “You don’t? Well that’s easily remedied. I’ll sit in the back with you on the return trip and then you won’t have to talk to him.” Then she looked back at me, reverting in an instant to the lively extrovert that I recognised. She stood up and brushed off her skirt, suddenly impatient to be off. “I can’t believe I’m discussing their comparative merits like …”

  “Like th
ey’re a pair of new socks?” I suggested.

  She grinned. “Precisely. And you already know my opinion of clothing shortages and the principle of make-do-and-mend. So on that note I think I’m going to explore over … there. See you in a little while. And Katie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t let the rotten stinkers make you sad.” And she jumped down off the low curtain wall to vanish into the trees. It seemed the obvious moment to abandon my pretence that today’s painting was anything other than a screen I was trying to hide behind and instead I packed away my things and climbed carefully to my feet.

  I found Adam peering down into the deep square well that yawned black and wide in the heart of the castle. Jim had drifted away a while ago; sometime in the midst of Mary’s rant about men returning from war I believe. There was nothing to frighten me here. Except the suspicion that having just been thinking empowering thoughts about fighting the right battles and not the ones that people set for me, it was high time that I proved I really was as brave as I claimed to be. I should make my peace with the next person on the list.

  Adam was absorbed in making a rough sketch of the well, adding a little note here and there on the construction, and didn’t look up when I appeared beside him. I stood there for a few minutes, waiting while his hand moved confidently across the page and noticing the worn engraving on the neat little mechanical pencil that bore the initials JH.

  It was probably his wife’s. Janet? Jane? Jennifer? I couldn’t remember.

  His hands were strong looking but with pleasant fingers that were indicative of a lifetime of writing. The warm jumper had been rolled back to reveal neatly muscled forearms and a battered old Rolex on a brown leather strap which was fraying a little at the edges.

  Still he didn’t look up. I began to suspect I really wasn’t wanted here. Perhaps I should have sashayed up to him with eyelashes bristling – or whatever they did – Mary would never have stood for this. Then I wondered if I should just keep to my own character and slip discreetly away again and leave him to it. Just as I was about to move, an eye rolled sideways towards me.

  “Thank you,” he said while turning a page, “for waiting. You know how it is when you’re pursuing the faintest thread of an idea. One small hesitation and it’s gone. Are you having a nice time?”

  “I am,” I replied equally softly. “Thank you for letting me come.”

  He wrote a few rapid lines, indecipherable handwriting filling most of the page. Then he added, “I wasn’t sure that you wanted to.”

  Ah.

  There was a wealth of meaning in his statement. I knew then that I had not been forgiven; yesterday would not be forgotten. I took a breath.

  And was beaten to it by his unexpected confession.

  He paused over his notebook and said in a forceful rush, “I think you must have been already on your way out of the lounge last night and didn’t hear but I told them in no uncertain terms that as far as I was concerned it had been a pleasure to have your company yesterday on the drive back to the hotel and if you ever needed to go anywhere else, I was sure you knew you only had to ask.” A pause, then more gently, “And you do, you know.”

  “What?”

  Suddenly he had turned his gaze upon me. “Only have to ask.”

  “Oh,” I said, very meekly indeed. “Thank you.”

  Those startlingly grave eyes were fixed on me, pinning me there. It was deeply disconcerting and he knew it. A muscle plucked at the corner of his mouth. I was finally realising that he had tried to say this in the passage outside our rooms this morning. Only I’d been too busy being offended and then Mary and her sister had appeared.

  He said, “It was very wrong of me to make you lie about how you got back yesterday. I only asked you to do it at all because I’ve had some absolutely awful research trips where every move has been dissected by strangers. It gets absolutely maddening sometimes. Particularly when I know at some point someone’ll start hinting about having a walk-on part in the next book. It’s far better if I avoid giving them any additional ammunition. But you do understand that I didn’t mean to make things awkward for you, don’t you?”

  I did understand him. Something else struck me when his attention returned to the well before his feet. I said on a slightly accusatory note, “It was you who left Jane Eyre for me outside my bedroom door, wasn’t it?”

  I saw his eyelashes flicker. After a momentary hesitation, he acknowledged the truth with the briefest tilt of his head.

  I was peculiarly shaken. He wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t asked. And yet with him it was the discovery of one misinterpreted gesture of kindness after another. I suppose I should have anticipated this. After all what was it that had particularly coloured my greeting to him this morning? It was the idea that last night I’d done something that had so disrupted his peace that he’d felt it necessary to give me a firm set-down before our fellow guests.

  Unfortunately, now I was having to learn just how insulting it was to him that I was requiring him to explain that his remarks had been nothing of the sort.

  It made me say rather humbly, “Thank you so much. The book was a life-saver.”

  “It was? How so?”

  I felt a fool as I conceded, “I don’t sleep very well at the moment. Your gift of the book saved me from having to spend several hours of last night staring at the ceiling.”

  “Oh,” he said, fiddling thoughtfully with an earlobe. “Is that a normal thing for you, or is it from your, um, brush with the bus?”

  I gave him a faintly sheepish smile. “That bus has a lot to answer for.”

  “Concussion and insomnia as well? You must be absolutely shattered.”

  I laughed. “That,” I said, “is something of an understatement.”

  It was more than insomnia; it was nightmares too. In the dreams that stalked my nights I was weaker than I was in daylight. Those men found me and their voices were darker, rougher than Adam’s; and harsher even than they were in my waking memory of that scene in Lancaster. By night they might have come straight from a film script with every gesture a kaleidoscope of every silver-screen villain ever played. Their words were a blur of confusion. Perhaps a reference to the gallery, or Cirencester; and then the one absolute certainty of the reoccurring phrase: Where is it?

  Each night for the past week I had woken to darkness, sweating and fighting the panic while every sluggish blink of my eyes plunged me back into that last horrible scene from the nightmare. Water, the constant roar of falling water. And last night it had been worse than ever because now I had a memory of the real landscape to add to the stage-set as I dreamed I was watching Rhys fall…

  There was another confession I needed to make here. I said quickly, “That bus does have a lot to answer for. I’m sorry, Adam. About yesterday I mean, when I glared at you in the middle of saying goodbye outside the telephone box. I can’t imagine what you must have thought.” His pencil was hovering over the page once more but his attention was only vaguely fixed upon the great void dug into the ground beneath us and I knew he was waiting for me to continue. “No, correct that; I can imagine. And if you had meant to make things awkward for me last night I’d have deserved every moment of it. You didn’t do anything wrong; you know that, don’t you? And I really am sorry.”

  I heard him draw breath to respond but suddenly I was gabbling an explanation, straying into telling him precisely what I’d promised myself never to say. The silly thing was I was almost grateful to do it.

  Before I’d even identified that this must be another miscalculation I was admitting grimly, “It’s because of the concussion you see. I’ve been getting these impossible ideas ever since – suspicions I suppose you’d call them – which only require a person to say one little thing for me to plunge headlong into embarrassing myself in some new excruciating fashion. Then I wake up and realise that it’s just my imagination again and it’s awful. I truly am sorry. I hope you’ll believe me when I say I’m trying very hard to cont
ain it and I never meant to let it level any accusations at you—”

  “Of course.”

  “—of all people.”

  He had turned to face me. He’d interrupted before I’d finished. Why had I said that last part? It made it seem – I don’t know what it made him think – but in my head was the horrible, absurd idea that I really had betrayed something I shouldn’t this time. I think in the midst of the past few minutes a very genuine appreciation of his core decency had crept in and I didn’t think it would ever quite leave again. But I certainly hadn’t intended him to know that.

  There was also a fear that this sudden warmth of feeling was only part of that damned tendency to lurch from one extreme of feeling to the other. Yesterday my heart had performed at least five swoops in the course of one afternoon at Devil’s Bridge. Today it was trying to climb to the giddy heights of pretending that I was growing to know him just that little bit better, before presumably making an even bigger plunge into an abyss.

  The thought made me stare at him rather intently and ask, “Why did you intervene in the lounge last night? I mean thank you very much and so on for saving me from further embarrassment but it didn’t seem to me that Mary was particularly worrying about me.”

  There was a brief formless silence while he seemed to be turning over his answer in his mind.

  When he didn’t rush to answer, I carefully directed this at the surrounding landscape, “In fact, I should have thought that by speaking, you were sacrificing rather more of your peace than your ongoing silence would have claimed of mine. You must have known that.”

  I couldn’t help thinking of the way his interruption had blundered into the midst of all that mess of the waterfall. I was thinking that his interjection hadn’t saved me from Mary, it had saved me from going up to bed with a head full of Rhys’s death. I don’t know what I would have done if his answer had confirmed it.