When she had time to sit and have a conversation with him, she encouraged him to talk about the sudden loss of his mother but he seemed reluctant to do so.
‘Every time I think about it, I feel a wash of shame flood over me,’ he said one day when they were walking up on the mountain to look for likely places to gather her Christmas holly. ‘I know that “if only” are the two most useless words in the English language, but I can’t help repeating them. If only I hadn’t argued with her that day. If only I hadn’t allowed the disagreement to continue. And worst of all, if only I hadn’t gone to town and stayed out for such a long time. I’d never left her for so long before. Not since I was a child. She was over seventy. I should have been more caring.’
‘What was the quarrel about, Gethyn?’ she asked. She had asked before but he had always been evasive. It was no different now.
‘Nothing. That’s the terrible part. It was over nothing at all.’
‘But there must have been something? You never lost your temper and certainly not with your mam. Can’t you remember what it was that she said to upset you? I’m sure it would help to ease your mind if you could.’
He frowned and shook his head. His eyes looked into hers and the frown softened and became a smile.
‘Let’s forget it, shall we?’
‘I want you to forget it, Gethyn, but I don’t think you will, not until you’ve talked it out of your system.’
‘I can’t.’
‘But you can remember what the quarrel was about, can’t you?’ she coaxed. But he wouldn’t be drawn.
‘Nothing,’ he repeated. ‘Nothing at all.’ She could see by the strained expression on his dark face that he did remember and the memory was eating him up.
Gethyn’s house was still in a mess. When she went to see him, he showed her into the tiny room at the front of the house. This room was reasonably comfortable and obviously well-used. She sat near the iron fireplace in which a fire burned. Gethyn sat near the window and she could see from the squashed cushions in the old wooden armchair that he spent a lot of his time there.
One day, while he was fetching her the fresh mint she had asked for and which grew in profusion in his garden, she sat down in the well-used chair and looked out. Allowing for Gethyn’s extra height, she could see the chair gave a clear view of the wooden footbridge and the car-parking space in front of the cottages to the right of him. To the left the path went to the foot of the steps leading up to the road and the road bridge. The parapet of the bridge was low enough to see the top half of people walking across. There wouldn’t be much going on at the five cottages that he didn’t know about.
She remembered with an ache how Larry had called Gethyn ‘the queer fellow’ and remarked on how often he was at the window, looking out. How strange that he hadn’t seen at least something of her mysterious visitors. But most of the occurrences had been at night, and even Gethyn had to leave the window and sleep, she told herself with a chuckle.
The Hughes’s seemed to bring everyone in the cottages closer together now they were home again. Rosemary hadn’t realised how much they had been missed. They were often waiting for her when she arrived home from work; they would be silhouetted against the light spilling out of their door, a cup of tea freshly made on their kitchen table. Rosemary rarely said no. Their genuine welcome was balm to her in her loneliness.
She had refused overtures from her friends to revive their once regular meetings. Apart from the occasional visit to the aerobics club with Sally she met socially with no one. She visited her parents once or twice to eat up the long, lonely weekends. But each day was heavy with waiting and hoping. Weeks had passed without a word from Larry. It was as if he hadn’t existed, apart from in her heart.
‘Perhaps he’s gone back to America,’ Muriel suggested one evening, and Rosemary could only shrug.
How could she know? She would probably never know. The world, instead of becoming smaller, seemed now to have to increased in size and emptiness.
* * *
One evening when she answered the invitation shouted across the bridge — this time by Henry – she found Gethyn there. He stood up and smiled a welcome that warmed her. Large, comfortingly familiar and dressed in warm sweater and corduroy trousers, his feet were without shoes, the cuffs of his trousers steaming in the heat of the fire.
‘I’ve been pulling firewood out of the stream,’ he explained. ‘Pushed down by the winds of last week and beginning to block the passage of the water. Handy for winter fires, so I was doing myself a favour as well as clearing the stream.’
‘Frozen stiff he was, I had to rescue him and make him a cup of tea,’ Muriel laughed. ‘Soaked he was too. Fifteen inch wellingtons and sixteen inches of water would you believe!’
‘Thinking of firewood, Gethyn,’ Henry said, as his wife poured tea for Rosemary, ‘what about this fireworks party you mentioned. Done any more about it, have you?’
‘I don’t think I’ll bother after all,’ Gethyn said. ‘Huw and Richard and the others are going to one of their friends, Mrs Priestley is frightened for her cat and, I don’t really feel ready for a party. I thought I’d give the fireworks to someone in the village. Someone with children. Who d’you think would like them?’
‘Are you sure, love?’ Muriel asked. ‘We’ll all join in if you want to have a bonfire. We’d scrape up a few more from the village for sure.’
‘No, it was a mistake, I’d rather give them to some children.’
They discussed who would be the recipients and Gethyn said he would take them the following day.
‘There’s only a few, hardly worth making a fuss about,’ Gethyn said deprecatingly.
After he’d gone, Henry said, ‘Typical of him to make light of his gift. Huw said he bought boxes of them.’
‘Such a shame he’s so reserved,’ Muriel sighed. ‘There’s so much kindness and love in the man but he hasn’t anyone to share it with.’ She nodded towards the teapot. ‘More tea, love?’
* * *
‘Where have you been? You look frozen!’ Gethyn asked one morning when Rosemary had returned after a walk up on the mountain.
‘I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.’
‘Not still worrying about the American, are you?’
‘I wish he’d write or phone. It’s crazy for us to part in anger without time for explanations. It was all my fault,’ she said, as she unlocked her door and invited him inside.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘If he really loved you, nothing would have separated you one from the other.’
‘I accused him of flooding the house, of trying to frighten me away from my home, abusing my hospitality and using me, pretending to love me simply to use me.’ She fought back precipitant tears that seemed, these days, to be always there.
‘What’s happened to make you believe you were wrong?’ Gethyn asked with a hint of sarcasm. He went into the kitchen and put on a kettle for tea. ‘Shall I make us some toast?’ he asked, when there was no immediate reply. ‘You look as if you could do with something to warm you up.’
‘Gethyn, I know you never liked Larry, but he wasn’t responsible for what went on here. I know that now and I regret my stupidity in allowing myself to think he was. I’d give anything to talk to him, beg him to forgive me. I think he’d understand how fear had twisted my common sense into what was almost hysteria.’
‘I asked what had changed your mind.’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Someone has been trying to get us out of here so a business consortium can buy the houses and change them into the hotel they want. The cottages are in such a beautiful position. It’s a perfect place for holiday accommodation.’ She sighed deeply and took the tea Gethyn offered. ‘And I thought Larry was doing it. What motive could he have had? I was so stupid!’
‘I know you won’t like my saying this, but can you really believe that professional men would stoop to such depths simply to persuade you to sell?’
‘You hear about such t
hings.’
‘Perhaps, in London or New York. But here? In our small village?’
‘I’ve heard of people being frightened out of their homes,’ she insisted.
‘I’ve heard of two-headed ducks but I’ve never seen one!’ He was rewarded with a smile and he turned back to the toaster which was about to toss its brown offering up into his hand.
They crunched on the toast and sipped the tea companionably while Gethyn quietly tried to convince her that Larry was an enigma.
‘He’s what Mam would have called a dark horse.’
‘Gethyn!’ She laughed. ‘Now you’re being melodramatic! What did Larry gain? Nothing!’
‘But there must have been some reason behind his coming here and behaving as he did towards you? Perhaps you sending him away when you did saved you from further disasters.’
‘Nonsense.’ She swallowed the last of the toast. ‘If you can’t talk sense, then feed me. Can I have some more toast?’
* * *
In the weeks after Larry’s departure, Rosemary and Gethyn spent more and more time together. They took to walking at weekends, occasionally taking a small rucksack of food and drink and spending a day in the mountains. It was usually in their own area where the car was not necessary, but once, Gethyn asked to go to Aberangell.
Although her emotions railed against visiting a place where she and Larry had been so happy, she defied her instincts and they went.
Then there was the heart-stopping moment when they saw a Citroen Dolly, and it was all revived. She ached with longing for him and was tormented by the belief that she had misjudged him, and her dismay at the final ending of a wonderful affair.
‘It’s not him. It can’t be,’ she whispered. Gethyn smiled at her but didn’t comment.
‘There must be more than one red Citroen,’ she whispered.
He touched her arm, and gently pulled her away from the side of the road where she had been standing looking at the car that had driven past them.
She realised with a mild surprise that it was the first time since they were children that Gethyn had touched her. In all their meetings he had never once even held her hand. Suddenly she wanted him to.
She put a hand through his arm and said brightly, ‘Come on, we’ll find a pub and have a drink.’ His hand closed over hers and as they approached the village through which their walk would take them, his hand was warm and comfortingly familiar.
All through the half-hour they sat in the cosy bar, his eyes continually darted to catch her gaze. Perhaps to convince himself she was really there and with him. She smiled and began to realise that he was very dear to her. A warm feeling that was nothing to do with the blazing fire in the corner, overwhelmed her like a baptism of love.
‘Rosemary,’ he said thickly. ‘I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you again. You were drifting away from me. Are you back now?’
Warning bells clanged ominously in her ears. She knew that if she didn’t speak now he would be convinced that she was begining to fall in love with him. She looked at his eyes, regarding her, a question clear in their depths.
‘Gethyn,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ve never been away. You and I are friends, aren’t we? We’ll always be friends.’
‘You’re more than that to me,’ he said. ‘Something better than friends.’
‘We have an affinity based on years of companionship, Gethyn. What better relationship is there than good loyal friends?’ To soften her words, she put her hand over his as it lay on the table beside her. ‘I value your being there for me whenever I need someone, more than anything.’
She saw the nervous glance he flickered between her face and the check table cloth spread in front of them and wondered if she had been strong enough in her denial of love. His face was relaxed and half smiling. She hoped he had accepted what she had told him in the way she had intended.
There was no change in his mood after their stop and their conversation. She was still happy to have his company as a bridge between her loss of Larry and a return to her previous life. For him, she imagined she filled a gap left by his care of his mother. She was someone to look after, even though at some distance.
That he had been encouraged by her words did not occur to her until she found a huge basket arrangement of flowers waiting at her door on returning from work on the following day. When she saw them, in the light of the torch that was necessary now to guide her from the car park across the footbridge and to her door, she almost shouted with delight.
‘Larry!’ she whispered aloud. She trembled as she pushed her key into the lock and held her breath as she switched on the light and opened the tiny envelope that held the message. Then her heart plunged like a dying bird. The card was from Gethyn, thanking her for a wonderful day.
She closed the door, conscious of the fact that he was probably sitting in his chair by the window watching for her, expecting a response, but she was unable to even thank him. Anger was highest in her emotions, not pleasure or even polite appreciation. She was angry with him for boosting her hopes. It was Larry whom she wanted. It was Larry whom she loved.
There were letters on the floor and she picked them up, her lips tight, not even glancing at them, scrunching them in her hands as if they too were an irritation.
It was when she had washed up the few dishes and settled to watch television that she remembered her post. Amid an assortment of junk-mail was an air mail letter. With trembling hands she turned it over to read the addressee. It was the girl in New York, Barbara, who was also a friend of Larry.
It was brief, Barbara’s large bold handwriting covering the flimsy sheet with only a few lines. She would be in London in a few days’ time. Would Rosemary meet her? it asked. There was a phone number and although it was late, she dialled the number, which was an hotel, and was told that Miss Barbara Tate was booked in for three days’ time. She left a message to say she would meet her at the hotel, on Saturday at two o’clock.
She went in then to thank Gethyn for his flowers and when she had told him how much she had loved them, hoping he wouldn’t come in and see them thrown casually across the kitchen table, she asked, ‘Gethyn, will you keep a special eye on the house at the weekend? I’m not so worried, now the mischief seems to have stopped, but I’d be happier if I knew you were watching it for me.’
‘Of course. Going to visit your parents, are you?’
‘No, in fact I’m off to London.’
‘Larry!’ he expostulated. She shook her head.
‘No, just a friend, another American, as it happens, but a woman this time. Her name is Barbara Tate and I met her on my holiday back in June.’
He seemed slightly mollified by her explanation and again she felt the resurgence of guilt for not being more honest with him about her feelings. She was leading him on, unintentionally, but never the less unkindly. But how could she state baldly that she could never love him? That she was still in love with Larry?
‘Thanks, Gethyn.’ She didn’t step further inside than the small hallway although he stepped back and eagerly invited her to do so. She was determined that at least she could start being less friendly, stop popping in so frequently, stop treating him like more than a kind neighbour, using him to fill the emptiness.
‘Won’t you come in?’ he asked with a frown of disappointment.
‘It’s late, I have to write a letter and—’
‘All right,’ he laughed, ‘I know when I’m getting the brush-off. See you tomorrow, sleep well, my love.’
The words ‘my love’ startled her. They took her by surprise and without realising it, she touched her hand to her lips and blew a kiss. It was something she did often, and to the slightest of acquaintances, but the thought that for Gethyn it might be misconstrued, clutched her heart with dismay. Then she snorted with exasperation at herself. Really! She was getting paranoid! Gethyn probably felt the same for her as she felt for him and nothing more!
* * *
She left the car in Aberystwyth and
caught the Euston train with a less than excited feeling of anticipation for the few days ahead. To her it wasn’t an unexpected holiday but another pilgrimage to places seen and enjoyed with Larry. Everywhere she and Barbara might go she would be shadowed by memories of her previous visit, with the image of Larry, laughing beside her.
The hotel was not the grand one to which Larry had taken her, but a small guest house in Chiswick. She alighted at Turnham Green underground station and looked around her. She wasn’t expecting to be met, but she waited until everyone had left the platform, then made her way outside. Opposite was a park and she stood for a moment watching as children exercised a playful puppy. She was in no hurry to meet Barbara and have to listen to questions about Larry.
How foolish she had been to come. How foolish she’d feel admitting that having lived together for months she didn’t even know where he was! The map in her hand marking the position of the hotel, fluttered in the cold wind, a reminder of the moment they had first met. She pulled up the collar of her fluffy-lined jacket and headed for the main road.
A glance at her watch told her she had plenty of time, and she dawdled, relishing the evocative aroma of Greek bread and other assorted ethnic foods that were floating on the crisp cold air from the wonderful assortment of shops.
The hotel was in a quiet road and she went into its enveloping warmth gratefully. There was a sign pointing to a lounge and when she opened the door and looked in, she looked first at the two women sitting beside a table, drinks in front of them. Neither of them looked like Barbara and she began to retreat, wondering if in fact she would recognise her friend again.
‘Rose Mary,’ a voice called and she looked into the corner as Larry stood up and smiled at her.
‘Larry!’ The room spun and she stared at him. She stood like a statue, her face frozen with shock, as he walked over to her and took her arm. ‘Larry,’ she said again, like an idiot.
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