Miss Purdy's Class

by Annie Murray

  ‘You could have written back! What did you say those things to me for, Daniel? That’s what I can’t forgive you for. Why did you say you loved me and then treat me like that? Always politics, never people, that’s you, Daniel. You’re a cold, cruel man.’

  A great chill went through Gwen. She was stunned, barely able to take in what was happening in front of her: the harsh words which, deep down, when she admitted it to herself, rang so true, the beautiful, brown-eyed boy who was so obviously related to Daniel. She stood paralysed, wishing with every fibre in herself that this was not happening, that she was dreaming.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ Daniel was saying. His voice was neither apologetic nor defiant, just flat, as if his nature was an inevitability which he could only accept but not defeat. ‘I couldn’t just come back here and marry you, settle down in the valleys, Megan.’

  The woman shook her head, more tears coming. The little boy was beginning to be upset too by his mother’s emotion.

  ‘I hate you, Daniel,’ she wept. ‘I love Evan, but I hate you. You’ve ruined my life. I was going to get away from here too – you know I was. And now I’ll never be anything but the shame of Treherbert with the bastard child. D’you know why I’m here? With Auntie Beth again now she’s had yet another baby, that’s why. Good old Megan – she’ll stay at home and be the skivvy. She’ll come and nurse her auntie when no one else’ll be bothered. That’s why I was here in Tredegar, remember? Looking after auntie. Politics was my only way out. And you . . .’ She looked up at him, wet cheeked, eyes searching his face as if trying to find hope, to understand. ‘I loved you. And now I hate you more than anyone else alive. It’s the only way I can get through.’ She pulled her son close so that their cheeks were touching. ‘That’s your father, Evan. Take a good look at him – he’s everything a man shouldn’t be.’

  ‘I could send you some money,’ Daniel said desperately.

  ‘Oho – talk about better late than never! I don’t want your money, Daniel.’ She almost spat at him. ‘It’ll be cursed, like everything else that comes from you. I just want you to know what you are – what you’ve done. I hope you rot for it.’

  She turned away then and walked off, quickly, head down to shield herself from the staring bystanders, and in a few moments they saw her, in her pink frock, disappear past the chapel and round the corner.

  Forty-Eight

  ‘I can see something’s upsetting you, Gwen fach. Is it anything you want to tell your Auntie Shân?’

  Gwen could barely remember the walk back over the mountain, the having to be polite back with the family in Aberglyn, trying to eat thin stew and potatoes with them round the table. She could see, though, that the fact that she could barely swallow, or meet anyone’s eyes for fear of bursting into tears, and the silence between herself and Daniel were not lost on Shân. After dinner, when they had moved from the kitchen to the front room to sit by the fire, and Shân was boiling the kettle for a cup of tea, she put her head round the door. ‘There’s a little bit of help I’m needing, Gwen. Can you come in here a minute?’

  Once she was in the kitchen, Shân closed the door firmly behind them and spoke very softly. ‘You haven’t been yourself since you came back today.’

  Touched by the woman’s kindness, Gwen felt her eyes fill with tears again. She had cried on the walk home, trying to get Daniel to talk to her, to explain. All he seemed able to say was that he couldn’t help it, hadn’t meant to hurt her. But staying in the valleys, marriage and children – it seemed like a living death to him.

  ‘The party, the movement – that’s life and hope to me,’ he said. ‘I was only twenty-three when it happened . . . My life had only just begun – I couldn’t just be here and be tied down. It was a mistake. It’s on my conscience – course it is! And it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Gwen. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever met.’

  ‘I bet that’s what you told Megan!’ She suddenly remembered his great anxiety that she did not fall pregnant. No wonder! Now she saw all too clearly just how familiar a problem that was to him.

  ‘But I didn’t love her the way I love you,’ he said pleadingly.

  She was so hurt that she could not think where to begin with Daniel’s aunt. In the end she just blurted out, ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Know what, lovey?’ Shân asked cautiously.

  ‘About Megan? About the child – Daniel’s son?’ Tears ran down her cheeks and she put her hands over her face. The pain of it seemed enough to overwhelm her. She felt Shân’s thin arms round her shoulders.

  ‘Oh, my poor girl, oh dear, oh dear, So that’s what’s happened. Oh Lord, I knew she’d come back to haunt him one day.’

  Gwen looked up at her. ‘You did know?’ The hushed conversation that night – of course she had known. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Shân looked stricken. ‘How could I? I’d only met the girl twice. She was staying in Tredegar, going to the League meetings there and that’s how they met, but he never brought her back here. I think she was staying with an auntie, a strict young woman from what I hear of her. Megan Hughes is not from a good family – lots of trouble. I never knew Daniel was so involved with her then. Not until later. The family’d just left, see, Theresa and the rest, gone to Birmingham. Daniel wasn’t coming back much at first – couldn’t afford it. He even walked once, all the way. Come the time Megan knew she was expecting, she came here, trying it on, telling me she was carrying Daniel’s baby. I mean, at first I wouldn’t believe her. How did I know if she was lying? But she kept on – course, she was upset, see. In the end, I thought, well, Daniel knows the truth of the matter, whatever it is, so I gave her the address in Birmingham. I’ve asked him about it so many times. He wouldn’t see her. Said what’s done is done.’ She shook her head, looking at the ceiling for a moment, as if in despair.

  ‘She’s not from round here, see, she’s from the Rhondda. Once she’d gone back there and expecting a child, I suppose she wasn’t in a position to keep running off trying to find him. After a time we all thought, let sleeping dogs lie. I don’t think she kept on writing – she must have given up, poor girl. So you see –’ she looked into Gwen’s desperate face – ‘that’s our Daniel, I’m afraid. God knows I’m ashamed of him for this. I’ve told and told him he should face up to his responsibilities . . . And then he came here with you, and you’re lovely, girl, and I could see how he is with you, and what could I do? You’re so good for him, Gwen, and how could I just destroy all that for you by bringing her up again? You must believe me – I’ve never seen Daniel be with anyone the way he is with you.’

  Gwen started crying again. It was all impossible, the pain, the enormity of it. Looking up desperately into Shân’s worn face, she said, ‘But I can’t be with someone who would deceive me like this! How could I ever, ever trust him again?’

  As she was speaking the door opened and the two women realized that Daniel was standing looking at them. His face was filled with shame, and a sadness which wrung Gwen’s heart. But in that moment she knew, really knew for sure, with a cold sense of reality. This was how it would always be, that he could hurt her so much then melt her with a look. She would come back again and again to burn herself against him, hoping it was safe, that she could love him and know deep, lasting trust – and that somehow, in one way or another, whether it was with women or politics, he would always let her down. Some women could live with it, but she knew she couldn’t.

  She drew away from Shân and went to him. She stood looking into his eyes, seeing that he was anguished, and sorry, but it was no good. He had betrayed her too badly this time.

  ‘I’m going home, Daniel. I’m sorry. I love you too much and I can’t live with what you might do to me.’ She started to walk away. ‘I don’t think I want to see you again.’

  The train journey home was a blur. It rained much of the way so vision was limited, and along the way, after the extreme emotions of the day, Gwen shut down and sat numb and stunned. Parting with Shân,
Anthony and Billy had been terrible. They already felt like family to her, but how could she ever see them again after this?

  ‘Keep writing to me, won’t you?’ Billy asked, looking in a troubled way at her tear-stained face. And she could only promise that she would.

  Shân embraced her silently and Anthony shook her hand and gruffly wished her well.

  ‘I’m sorry, girl,’ he said gruffly. ‘Don’t know what to say.’ And this made her cry all over again.

  Daniel accompanied her to the station and most of the way they walked through the drizzle in a cold, sad silence.

  When they reached the station, Daniel stopped her outside. ‘I can’t let you go.’ His voice was anguished. ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake, I know, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’d never leave you, Gwen. I love you too much.’

  She closed her feelings against this and looked up at him. ‘As much as politics – the party? No, Daniel, I don’t think you do. I’ve seen it, all the way along, although I’ve tried not to. I wanted to believe you could really love me and put me first in the line sometimes, but you can’t. And I’ve seen you playing about with Esther. That was bad enough, but I tried to forgive you. But now this. You’ve got a son, Daniel, and you just walked away! I can’t stay with you if I can’t trust you. I can’t keep giving you my heart and having you tear me to pieces.’ She was dry eyed now, with a stony calm.

  He looked down at her, and in that second’s silence she saw that he knew she was right.

  ‘I do love you.’ He reached out to stroke her face but she pulled back.

  ‘Don’t, Daniel, please.’

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear it any more, being near him, even now the pain of being drawn back to him. She said an abrupt goodbye and walked away from him fast. She did not turn back, did not want to see if he left immediately or waited to watch her move out of his life.

  She did not tell Ariadne what had happened. The next few days she taught her class in a stunned, automatic way, dressing herself in her role as teacher every morning and going through the motions. Seeing Lucy every morning in front of her brought home just how many connections she had made with Daniel’s family, how she had come to love them. Breaking with Daniel was not going to be so simple. She couldn’t abandon Lucy and Billy just because of what Daniel had done, could she? And what about the party? How could she bear to do anything connected with that now? She found it hard to pay attention to anything at school. What had happened to Ron Parks, for the moment, escaped her attention. The evenings she spent miserably in her room. Ariadne kept asking if she was sickening for something and Gwen told her she did not feel quite well. Somehow she could not face up to talking about Daniel to anyone yet.

  Lying on her bed a couple of evenings after she had come back from Aberglyn, her mood sank very low. Everything she had wanted to do in coming away from home seemed to be cast into doubt. Look at what she had done! She had thrown away everything because of her love for Daniel: marriage to a good, decent man, her own family’s approval and welcome, her own happiness and security. Here she was, in a room in a strange household, teaching the children of the poor. What was her life going to be now? More of the same, stretching ahead for ever until she was like Lily Drysdale? Or Agnes Monk? She lay for a long time, staring at the light above her and wondering how it would be if she admitted defeat and begged her parents to take her back. Even begged Edwin to take her back? For a few moments she longed for the familiar, its safety and security, imagined their wedding, as they had planned it at St Mark’s, her home in a vicarage, children, Edwin talking over his thoughts and sermons with her, jigsaw puzzles on a table in the parlour to put visitors at their ease.

  She sat up suddenly.

  ‘No!’ she said out loud, startling herself. Her heart was beating fast. She did not want that, had never really wanted it, but had not seen that there could ever be anything else. Whereas Daniel . . . Caught between what she longed for in him, the passion of it, the sense of being so fully alive in his presence and the reality that it was never going to be possible to make a life with him that she could trust, she burst into tears. Hugging her knees, she sat rocking in distress on the bed. She felt torn up, as if Daniel had physically imprinted himself on her and then been ripped away, leaving her utterly bereft.

  When she got home the next afternoon, Ariadne said, ‘There’s a message for you, dear. Came just after you left this morning.’ And she handed Gwen a handwritten envelope. The looping script was unfamiliar and she opened it frowning.

  Dear Gwen,

  Millie asked me to let you know that the infant has arrived and is a female. She’s doing well and is at home. Millie would like some company so do come over.

  Sincerely,

  Lance

  With a wan smile she showed it to Ariadne.

  ‘A female?’ Ariadne exclaimed. ‘Well, isn’t that just like a man – and not to tell you her name!’

  ‘Perhaps she doesn’t have one yet,’ Gwen said.

  ‘Or her date of birth, or weight or where she was born!’

  ‘Well, that’s Lance for you. He’s not very sharp – not at this sort of thing.’ She felt slightly cheered by the distraction and was glad all had gone safely for Millie.

  ‘I think I’ll go and see them now.’ The thought of sitting alone in her room again was depressing. ‘I don’t have anything to take her.’

  ‘Ah – now, I might be able to help you there,’ Ariadne said. And she disappeared upstairs and came back with a soft parcel wrapped in tissue. ‘It’s a little matinée coat – I made it for my sister’s baby, years ago now. She died a few days after she was born, poor little thing, and I’ve never had the heart to do anything with it.’

  When Millie opened the parcel, the garment was a lovely pale pink, and Millie was delighted with it. She was sitting up in bed, the room in a great state of disarray because ‘Lance is hopeless’, as Millie kept saying. Lance, who appeared exhausted by the experience of becoming a father, was laid out in a chair in the sitting room. The baby was a dear little thing with a film of carroty hair like Millie’s, and her name was to be Amy Jane.

  ‘That’s pretty,’ Gwen said, perching precariously on a chair by the bed, on top of a pile of clothes.

  ‘She’s a poppet,’ Millie said, looking down at the child in her arms, whose eyes were closed, the bluish lids flickering gently as if she was dreaming.

  ‘How was it, Mill?’ Gwen felt shy asking. Millie had been through something which put her beyond, into a new kind of adulthood.

  ‘Pretty grim.’ Millie made a face. ‘Never mind – it’s over now. Never again, though.’

  ‘I bet everyone says that.’

  ‘Maybe. I mean it, though.’ She lowered her voice, leaning close to Gwen. ‘What am I going to do? He just doesn’t want to know.’ Tears were rolling down Millie’s round cheeks and they fell on Amy’s tiny face as Millie looked down. ‘She’s so lovely – how can he not want anything to do with her?’

  ‘Oh, Mill!’ Gwen put her arm round her friend’s shoulders. She had a warm, milky smell. ‘I’m sure he does really. He’s probably a bit shocked by it all. After all, he hasn’t had to carry her round inside him all this time. It’s early days.’

  ‘But he’s barely even been in to look at her! And he treats me as if I’m a terrible nuisance because I need help, and I’m so tired and sore . . .’ Millie broke down and really cried now. ‘Oh God, why did I marry him, Gwen? I wish I’d never set eyes on him! How am I going to bring up our little girl with him? I feel so hopeless – I just want to go home to Mum’s.’

  Gwen held her, stroking her back, desperately trying to think of something hopeful to say. Millie and Lance’s marriage had been a disaster from the start: it was no good saying everything would all be all right.

  ‘Men often don’t get close to their children until they’re older,’ she said, dredging up something she remembered her mother saying.

  ‘That’s what Mum says. Course, she’ll come and help me,
but he is her father – he should care about her, shouldn’t he?’

  Gwen sighed. She thought of Megan Hughes and little Evan. Daniel didn’t seem to care a fig for his existence. As far as she could see, men were so different as to be an utter mystery. But it didn’t seem helpful to point that out at this moment.

  ‘Well, I think he should. She’s beautiful, Millie. You’ll just have to be very strong for her and hope he follows on. It’s his loss if he doesn’t.’

  Gwen read about the Hunger March in the newspaper, sitting in her room at Ariadne’s. Contingents of marchers were coming from all over the country. Ellen Wilkinson, the MP they had heard speak in the Town Hall, was marching with her constituents from Jarrow. The Welsh marchers, five hundred and four strong, had all assembled in Cathays Park in Cardiff to head east to London. She read the words spoken by the march’s leader, Councillor Lewis Jones:

  We are going to London to meet the government and the House of Commons, and if they refuse to see us we will force ourselves upon the Cabinet and if necessary upon the King and we will force this pack of gangsters to abolish for ever the means test. They are ruining our country.

  Gwen sat with the paper on her lap, staring ahead of her. She could see the great crowds of men in her mind, as they had been in Tonypandy: their poor clothes and caps, their Welsh accents, their hunger and the power of their determination. And among them, always, she could see Daniel’s face, there with his people, alight with a passion that he could never quite find in anything else, not in her, not in his family, not in anything settled. And she ached with a pain that seemed to fill her whole body.