Where the West Wind Blows

by Mary Middleton

  “I’ve collected it since I was a child. One of my first memories is of sifting the shingle for sea glass. Its quite rare to find red these days but I’ve found quite a bit here.”

  “Very nice,” he says, “it’s like recycling,” although I can see he isn’t impressed. “Do you want to see what I’ve got in my pocket?”

  Fearing some obscene joke, I hesitate and he reads my mind and laughs at me. “What are you like, Woman? I’m offering you a toffee.”

  He draws a white paper bag from his pocket that is oozing with home-made stickiness.

  “You got this from Mrs Davis’ shop!” With my mouth already watering, I take the bag eagerly from him and try to extract a sweet from its companions but they are held together fast, like glue.

  “Aye, I went in yesterday, picked up a few things. I thought she’d have an apoplexy when she saw it was me but she was happy to take my money anyway, filthy as it is.”

  I manage to peel a piece from the paper and pop it in my mouth. It is hard, sweet and impossible to chew. For a few minutes my cheek bulges and my juices run. “Delicious,” I mumble with my mouth full. He tears away another piece which disappears into his own mouth and we chew companionably for a while.

  “I’ve never thought about you doing the shopping before,” I say suddenly. “I’ve never seen you out and about in the village. Only on the cliffs or on the beach.”

  “I avoid the village if I can and only go in for essentials. I’m running out of wood for my stove and needed to book the services of Huw the Log.”

  I try not to mind the mention of Huw’s name but my face burns although I don’t know why. There was nothing between us. Nothing!

  “Oh,” I say, trying to extricate toffee from my back teeth. “Good old Huw. Where do you get your money from? If that’s not a rude question.”

  He laughs quietly at me again. “No, it’s not rude. You can ask me anything. I have no secrets from you. I’m a rich man, Fiona, rich enough not to have to worry, anyway. My father bred race-horses and when he died I sold my inheritance to fund my escape. That’s how I come to own the hovel up on the hill. There’s still a bit put by …enough to buy logs anyway and toffee. Here ...” He holds out the bag again and I wrestle another piece free. While we chew we watch a gull fly low across the beach, skimming the sand. It settles not far away and begins to peck at a seaweed-covered rock. “I’ve always loved toffee,” Jezz says, “since I was a wee lad.”

  I look at my gooey fingers, my mouth still bulging. “It’s just so flaming sticky,” I say thickly, holding out my hands, wondering how to get them clean without resorting to plunging them in the frigid sea. And, before I can stop him, he takes my wrist and engulfs my forefinger with his mouth. I go to pull away but his tongue is burning hot on my frozen fingers, his lips soft and warm.

  It’s the most erotic moment of my life.

  I gasp as electricity jolts through my body and I watch, my breathing arrested, as his lips move up and down my fingers in turn, his tongue squirming, licking off the toffee, weakening my resolve. His coal black eyes glint through his fringe as he sucks each sticky finger and I cannot conceal the swathe of shocked deliciousness that trickles across my body.

  I whimper.

  He stops suddenly and looks at me, straightens up, his eyes burning. I can’t tear myself away.

  “Don’t ...” I say but without conviction and my words are much too late, for he is pulling me closer, our wet jackets are kissing, the warmth of his hands are on my neck, the heat of his breath on my face. His features merge, rain is trickling from his sodden hair down his cheeks, mingling with the moisture on my own.

  I tilt back my head, part my lips and he engulfs me in his warmth.

  Laughing we race, hand in hand, across the beach, splashing through rock pools, skittering and sliding across the wet shingle at the top of the sand and up the front path. We burst through the cottage door and he is dragging off my coat as we enter the kitchen. I turn toward him, demanding kisses as he fumbles with the buttons on my blouse. My hands cup his face and we back toward the Rayburn which mercifully is still hot, then he throws off his sodden jacket, his hair dripping over me as he moves closer. Then he takes my skull in both his hands and bends down to kiss me again.

  I cannot fight this.

  I don’t even want to.

  I reach up and clasp him to me, let my tongue dance madly with his own. His cold hands pull at my clothes, fumbling with my waistband and I pull away, step back, to strip off my sweater and my wet, clinging leggings.

  I can’t get them off fast enough and when I look up again he is already naked. Filling up my kitchen with his need.

  He is no longer an intrusion.

  Falling to his knees before the hearth, he reaches for my hand and pulls me down with him, the stone floor striking cold against my naked skin. I shiver as the chill air sweeps over me but his touch is warm, the ferocity of his feelings overwhelming, filling me up, leaving no room for anything.

  Not even doubt.

  Not even sorrow.

  Not even guilt.

  Fifteen

  So, here I am, part of a couple again. We are an odd pairing but a couple nonetheless. We see each other every day; usually he comes to my cottage but sometimes I walk across the bay, climb the cliff path to Y Pen and enter his bachelor world.

  The second time I visit his ‘hovel’ as he calls it, I notice belatedly that it is a converted railway carriage, and beneath the grime of neglect lurk fine Victorian wood panelling, brass handles and historic posters advertising train journeys to the west coast. In by-gone days the factory workers of England had flocked to Wales for a fortnight of sea air and Jezz’s home is a relic of that time; a remnant of Mr Beeching’s rape of the Welsh railroads. I resolve that, when I know him better, we will clean it up and polish it back to its former glory. The carriage nestles in a dip on the cliff top, the highest point for miles and when the wind blows strong the hovel seems to shift and lift like a great rocking cradle.

  He begins to attend to many of the small jobs that I have long neglected at my cottage. He fixes a new tap so it no longer drips and seals the window in the attic so that I no longer have a puddle build up on the windowsill. He even sweeps the chimney and hoovers out the Rayburn, and when he lights a small fire afterwards I am amazed how much better the flue draws and how much brighter the flame. I look up at him. “That is so much better, thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it, just get that kettle on.” He wipes his hand across his forehead, leaving a stripe of soot and I laugh at him.

  “Look at you, you’re filthy. Go wash your face, but first give me your jumper and I’ll stick it in the machine, look at it.”

  “Did anyone ever tell ye how bossy you are?”

  He strips off and stands bare-chested in my kitchen. While I am bending over the washing machine, he fills the kettle himself and is tossing tea-bags into the pot when someone knocks on the front door. “You expecting anyone?”

  “No,” Puzzled, I quickly shove in a cup of powder and select the correct setting on the dial before hurrying into the hall to answer the door.

  It is Huw, looking very sheepish and bearing what looks suspiciously like a bag of buns. He smiles slowly and lifts his offering.

  “Good afternoon, Fiona, Gran had these to spare and I thought you might …” He breaks off the sentence as his eye focuses on something a little way behind me and I turn to see Jezz emerging from my kitchen, his chest broadcasting his virility. Huw lowers his bag of buns, his face reddening. “I see you are busy, Fiona, I’m sorry to intrude.”

  Turning sharply on his heel he makes off along the front path. “Huw, wait …” I call after him but Jezz puts his hand on my shoulder and prevents me from following.

  “Let him go,” he says, “it’s better that he knows where he stands now.” Jezz is right, to run after him might give him the wrong idea again. I close the door quietly and follow him back inside. The kitchen is snug and warm, shutting out t
he cold.

  “Why do I feel so guilty?”

  His big arms slide around me and I lay my head on his chest.

  “Acht, you’re always guilty about something, woman.”

  After Jezz and I become an item I do not think of Mrs Davis again and she has given up offering advice. When I go to collect my groceries she is detached and chilly, like the disappointed parent of a wayward child. The supply of buns has stopped and the snippets of gossip have dried up but still I smile and am as polite as I can be. It is the only way.

  Jezz is not a killer.

  He is the injured party.

  He is big and rough and ill-disciplined but I wouldn’t change him. I love the way his big laugh fills up my cottage and it is good that, these days, I can detect no reservation in his joy. Slowly he is coming to terms, forgiving himself, learning to forget, just as I am slowly beginning to forgive James for abandoning me. For Jezz was right, so much of my misery was anger and once I let go of it and began to forgive, the healing began.

  I consider myself fortunate and, if I were to die tomorrow, I’d die content. I’ve been loved by two men; one a gentleman and the other, a bear and I am as close to being happy as I will ever be.

  When the winter begins to bite deep we closet ourselves away beneath a heavyweight duvet in my chilly bedroom and, while the rain lashes against the windows and the draught seeps in beneath the shingle, it is warm in our bed.

  There is no place I’d rather be.

  Not in this life.

  Not in the next.

  Jezz’s lovemaking leaves me breathless, stirred up, wanting more, not because I am unsatisfied but because, like chocolate, the more you have of it, the more you want. He leaves me sore, sated and so tired that I sleep better than I ever have before. When I wake in the morning, if he is still with me, I burrow beneath the covers and rouse him, persuading him to love me again and, if he has already left, as he sometimes has, I find a cooling cup of tea on my bedside table and a single piece of sea glass; sometimes green, sometimes blue, and sometimes red.

  Jewels from my man.

  It cannot be forever, my old self whispers, nothing lasts forever, only death but I shush myself up and refuse to listen. I tell myself I don’t care if it doesn’t last, I will live only for today. But, still the knowledge is there, at the back of my conscience, reminding me that one day I will be alone again.

  Christmas comes and goes with the traditional present sharing and over-indulgence and January follows with the usual regrets and resolutions. Then February, with its fearsome roar soon giving way to brighter, brittle days and short afternoons that lengthen into long dark nights at the fireside. Spring is close enough now to offer some comfort and I begin to make plans. I don’t speak of them to Jezz for I am always conscious that he might not be here to see them through, but I make them nonetheless.

  We begin to clear a patch of ground behind the cottage. He throws off his coat and I watch the play of his muscles beneath his shirt as he turns his spade, making easy work of the overgrown soil while I run backwards and forwards to the compost heap with wheelbarrows full of last year’s weeds. We hack back the overgrown shrubs and burn the clippings, the smoke spiralling above us before dissipating into the air.

  On some level we realise it is not just the garden we are clearing but our minds, chucking out the dross of the past to make way for the future. A future in which we will grow cabbages and lettuce, tomato and onions, maybe even a patch of strawberries. It is an idyllic picture that I cannot resist.

  In my attic room is a large canvas of the cottage with a pristine vegetable garden, hens scratching amid rows of produce and Jezz, relaxed and smiling, leaning one hand on his spade.

  But maybe I am wrong to paint him so. Perhaps Jezz isn’t meant for smiling.

  ***

  “What’s up with you?” he asks, handing me a cup one morning in late March. “You look like death.”

  “I feel like it.” I take the cup from him but I don’t drink. When he goes downstairs to light the fire I slide the saucer onto the bedside table and put my hands on my stomach.

  I’m going to be sick.

  I am right. I am sicker than a dog. For what seems like hours I heave helplessly with my head down the pan, and then I emerge, white faced and worn out, to sprawl on the bed for the rest of the day. I can keep nothing down and, when I get on the scales, they tell me I have lost weight. I have noticed I’ve been losing weight for some time and when I tease the tangles from my hair, great shanks of it are left clinging to the bristles of my brush. I don’t want to lose my hair!

  Jezz brings me tempting plates of food but I push them all away. I cannot help his hurt and indignation but I cannot think beyond the nausea and the disease that is eating away at my insides.

  “You’ll see a doctor,” he says sternly, “right away.”

  “My doctor’s in England.”

  “We have them here too, you know. Transfer your records to the surgery in town. You should have done so anyway. You’ve been here almost two years.”

  It hadn’t been worth signing up with a doctor, not when all I wanted was to die. Now though, now that I want to live I fear I wont be able to. Death is mocking me, punishing me for my fickleness, beckoning his long bony finger, dragging me away. Away from Jezz.

  “No,” I say, “I will see the doctor but I will go home to do it. It’s about time I went back for a while. There are things that I need to sort out: things I’ve been putting off.”

  “Home.” He picks up on that one word, repeats it accusingly but I don’t rise to his challenge. I don’t feel well enough but I stick to my guns. I am determined to do this my way. If the news is to be bad then I want to hear it from someone who knows me, not some stranger to whom I am only a depraved foreigner who is sleeping with a convict.

  Jezz isn’t happy. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, no. I will go alone. I won’t be gone long, just a day or two.”

  I don’t tell him so but the disease had begun to affect my bowels now, I’ve always been regular, same time every morning, but now I am bunged up and uncomfortable, my body feels bloated and tender. I am so poorly I don’t want to make love or be touched, just cradled, just rocked and comforted. And Jezz does that so well, my big, brave beast of a man. He is made for comforting. I am swamped in his arms, rocked like a baby but my dreams are of pillows held hard over my face, my breath staunched while Mrs Davis laughs as I battle for life.

  He orders a taxi and comes with me to the station, carrying my bag, giving me instructions as if I were a child. I stand at the train window to bid him goodbye and see his big, solemn face, his hastily sketched frown. “Take care,” he says and his hand covers mine offering warmth and safety. At the last minute I want to change my mind and beg him to come with me. I know he won’t mind, in fact he will be glad and I really do need someone strong. But I leave the request unspoken and, as the train pulls away, Jezz raises a hand, blows me a kiss and I watch as his big frame grows smaller and smaller.

  The bad dreams follow me to London and every night, Jezz is smothering me with my pillow or squeezing my throat, taking my life, absorbing my essence and I begin to wonder if perhaps the nightmares are prophetic. If I am right and I am sick of the same disease that afflicted Jezz’s wife, maybe they will yet become real.

  If I stay.

  But staying is impossible, if my fears are true.

  How can I ask him to go through all that again?

  Sixteen

  London is thick with stench and pollution. At Victoria Station I hail a taxi and, third time lucky, I fall into the back seat. I give him the address and sit back, trying not to gag as I watch the outside world reel by like a fast-forwarded movie.

  The street where I lived for so long seems like a film set and it takes all my courage to open the door of the house I once shared with James. Inside, alien smells assault me. It is tidy, clinical and not like home at all, the things neatly arranged on the sideboard belong to somebo
dy else.

  I snap on the kitchen light and find, to my huge relief, that the kitchen floor has been scrubbed clean and no sign remains of the tragedy that was played out here. I can scarce believe that those things were real. Was that devastated woman really me? It seems like a dream I had once and I have to check that the thin red bracelets on my arms are still there to bear testament to it all.

  I pass into the sitting room where the familiar furniture is strange and I run my hand along the back of the white leather sofa and come to a stop before the fireplace where, what I used to think of as my best work, still hangs. I look at it now.

  “Lord,” I murmur, “I don’t like that at all. It is so flat, so bright and empty. Chocolate boxy. I knew nothing about life then, how did I ever think I could paint and how on earth did I ever make a living from it?”

  I move through the house, picking things up and putting them down again. Remembering my old life as if it is a play I’ve once seen and can’t quite remember the ending. And during the train journey I’d been worrying that it would all prove too painful and that the guilt would return and make me afraid to go back to Jezz.

  I’ve moved on.

  Happily.

  It is such a tragedy that it is all to be cut short.

  It is still light when I go to bed. As I turn back the flowered duvet I am sure I will never rest. The cleaning lady I engaged has been thorough and everything smells of Febreeze. I sit up on my pillows and pretend to read a book and the woman reflected in the mirror is thin and pale against the dark pillowcase. To my surprise, when I wake sometime later, the bedside light still burning and my book has fallen to the floor. I am sprawled diagonally across the mattress and, unexpectedly, I feel very refreshed.