“Afterwards?”
She watched his face crumple as she pieced the story together. “Cathy said it was the first time Mam had heard from you since before the war ended,” she explained. “She was all wound up because she’d been trying to make a go of things with my dad—but she was still in love with you, I think. Cathy said Mam was hoping you were going to be posted to Britain. She said it was the only way you and she could be together, because my dad would never have let her take David to the States.”
He blinked, grief etched in the lines around his eyes.
“I’m so sorry I had to tell you.” She pulled her lips in over her teeth. “I had to make you understand why she’s so against you. I think that when David died, she wanted to . . . just wipe you out of her memory.” She swallowed, her eyes pooling. “She told me she couldn’t even remember your name.”
Both of them were crying now. Bill wrapped his arms around her, and they clung together in the dark.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “But do you see why I have to keep you away from her?”
She felt him nod his head. “Don’t you worry,” he murmured. “I’ll stay away.”
Chapter 42
Michael and the children arrived in time for breakfast the next morning. Rhiannon said she’d been awake since five o’clock, too excited to go back to sleep.
“Will you come and see me at the Eisteddfod, Granddad?” she said, taking Bill’s hand and dancing him around the kitchen.
“The what?” Bill gave her a puzzled grin and turned to Louisa.
“It’s an arts festival we have in Wales,” she said, casting a worried glance at Michael. “She’s got through to the county finals.”
“I’m singing a song in Welsh and doing a solo dance routine,” Rhiannon beamed. “You’ll still be here next Saturday, won’t you?” She had no idea, of course, of the implications of this invitation.
Bill and Louisa exchanged glances. “Well, I’d love to come and see you, honey.” He smiled. “But I’m not sure Americans are allowed. We’ll have to get your mama to ask. Tell you what, though.” He picked her up by the waist and twirled her around. “I’d like to see you practice—could we use the studio, Michael?”
They all filed across to the barn.
“What’s she dancing to?” Bill asked.
“It’s an instrumental track,” Michael replied. “We had a heck of a job finding something. They have very strict rules: no English lyrics allowed, only Welsh. It’s a Cozy Powell number. You heard of him?”
“Not ‘Dance with the Devil’?” Bill’s eyes clouded.
“That’s the one.” Michael smiled. “It’s all drums—very fast!”
“What is it, Dad?” Louisa bit her lip as she realized what she’d called him.
He looked up and smiled. “Oh, nothing serious.” He shook his head slowly. “I remember, first time I heard that number, it reminded me of something me and your mama used to dance to: ‘Drum Boogie,’ it was called. We used to jitterbug to it in the airraid shelter.”
“What’s a jitterbug, Granddad?” Rhiannon piped up. “Will you show me?”
“Sure I will, honey.” He smiled at the child through a film of tears.
“Are you crying, Granddad?”
“Aw, no—it’s just these old worn-out eyes of mine . . .” He took her hands in his. “You ready?”
Rhiannon squealed with delight as he twirled her around and flipped her over his head.
“What are we going to do?” Louisa whispered to Michael as Bill and Rhiannon careered around the studio. “We can’t let him and Mam and Dad go.”
“I know.” Michael nodded. “It seems mean, though, keeping him away. It means so much to him that she’s inherited his talent. When’s he going to get another chance to see her perform in public?”
Louisa frowned. “You’re right—but how do I explain that to them? They’re proud of her too—and they’re so much looking forward to it.”
“Don’t you think this might be a good opportunity to try and get your mother to bury the hatchet?”
She sighed. If only it was that simple.
At lunchtime Louisa went back to the farm with the children while Michael took Bill to the local pub.
Eddie was busy milking when she found him.
“How did Mam take it?” she asked, as they sat down together on an old wooden bench in the cowshed.
Eddie shrugged. “She said she’d been expecting it. Said she was surprised he hadn’t come sooner.”
“What?” Louisa gasped. “Didn’t she have any idea how hard it was, trying to find him? It’s certainly no thanks to her that we did!”
“Try not to be too hard on her, Lou. She says things she doesn’t mean when she’s had a shock—you know that.”
Louisa nodded. “I’m sorry—it’s just been so stressful, the last few days—and now Rhiannon’s gone and invited him to the Eisteddfod and I don’t know what to do!” She caught her breath, close to tears.
Eddie patted her arm, rubbing his forehead with his other hand. “Well, it’s only natural that he’d want to go. I don’t mind him being there, but as for your mother . . .”
“Oh Dad!” She hugged him. “How can you be so . . .” She struggled for the right word. Unselfish? Kind? Forgiving? He was all those things. Things that had made her wish a hundred times that she was his child, not her mother’s. “I . . . I don’t know how to say this,” she faltered.
“What?”
“Aren’t you afraid that if she . . . you know?” Her words hung in the air like the motes of dust floating in the afternoon sunshine.
Eddie stared at the rough floor of the cowshed, rolling a piece of straw with the sole of his shoe. “Not really.” His voice was quiet but steady. “It was a long time ago, Lou. People change.”
Yes, she thought, they do. Her mother had been just twenty-one when she met Bill. Louisa shuddered at the memory of herself at that age. What had changed her? Time—and the love of a good man. Was it the same for her mother? Eddie had been there for Eva through all the grief and the good times the past thirty years had brought. And Bill had not. In that moment something occurred to Louisa. That it would have been so much easier for Bill to find her mother than for her to find him.
If he had wanted to.
He knew her surname, the place she had once worked. Yes, he had searched the streets of Eva’s old neighborhood. But he had told her it was her, Louisa, he was hoping to find. Perhaps he had never truly loved Eva the way she had loved him—and deep down, her mother knew it.
She looked at Eddie’s profile, lit up by the sun slanting through the window. “What would you do if you were me?”
He drew in a breath. “I’d go and see your mother. Tell her what you’ve just told me: that it’s Rhiannon who’s asked him. Maybe that’ll make a difference.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then it’s up to you. She’s your daughter—you’re the one who has to decide who goes.”
Louisa chewed over Eddie’s words as she made her way to the bungalow. What if her mother refused point-blank to be in the same room as Bill, which she almost certainly would? What if Eddie decided to go alone? Would it be fair to let the two men meet? To let Eddie shake hands with Bill, not knowing the awful secret of David’s death? Should she tell Eddie like she’d told Bill? Could it possibly be right to rake up all that misery again? Eddie didn’t deserve that. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Eva was in the kitchen making a sponge cake. She looked up, a sieve full of flour frozen in midair. Her eyes said it all. Reproachful, disappointed, and . . . scared. Yes, Louisa thought, there was real fear in her eyes. Had she expected her daughter to come waltzing into the house with her long-lost lover in tow?
“Mam?”
The sieve clattered noisily onto the mixing bowl. “You’ve not brought him, then?”
“No! Of course I haven’t!” Louisa was fighting to stay calm. “I promised I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
>
Eva set her lips in a thin line. “How is he?” The question was addressed to the table.
“Okay.” Louisa took a breath. “He’s not had an easy life, but he’s picked himself up. He’s gone into the church.”
“Oh.” Eva traced a river in the powdering of flour that had escaped the sides of the bowl. “The church.” She sounded like an echo.
“I told him you didn’t want to see him—but Rhiannon wants him to go to the Eisteddfod.” She paused. Her mother’s finger was still moving through the flour. “Did you hear what I said, Mum?”
“Yes, I heard.” Eva’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Let him go, then. There’ll be other chances for us to see her. She’s such a bright little thing—she’s bound to win more competitions.”
“Oh Mam!” Louisa didn’t know whether to hug her or shout at her. “But you were so looking forward to it!”
“I know.” Still Eva didn’t look up. “But like I said, there’ll be other times.” There was a puff of white as a tear dropped onto the table.
Louisa stepped across the floor. She lifted her hand. It hovered in midair. Why was it so hard to touch her? “You don’t have to stay away, Mam. I was hoping . . . for Rhiannon’s sake—”
“No!” her mother cut in. “Please don’t ask me. You know I . . .” she faltered, “I can never . . .”
“Forgive him?” Louisa’s hand found her mother’s shoulder. “I know, Mam. I know what happened with David, and I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do. But it wasn’t Bill’s fault—not really, was it? Why can’t you let it go?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Eva whimpered.
“Like what?”
“Like my mother!” Eva’s lower lip began to tremble. “When she . . .”
“When she what?”
“She was right.” Tears coursed down Eva’s face as she stared past Louisa, her head nodding, then shaking in denial. “We never should have . . . and God punished me for it.”
Louisa took her mother by both shoulders, bending at the knees so that her eyes were level with Eva’s. “Listen to me, Mam! Bill believes in God, but I don’t think even he would buy anything as cruel as that!” Her voice seemed to ricochet around the tiny kitchen. Her mother burrowed in her pocket, her hand leaving floury trails on the fabric of her dress. She lifted a handkerchief to her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mam, I didn’t mean to shout.” Louisa tried to regulate her voice, but she felt like screaming. Didn’t her mother realize how it made her feel, going on about Bill like that? As if she wished I’d never been born, she thought bitterly.
She glanced at her mother’s tear-streaked face. “Maybe it’s not Bill,” she said slowly. “Maybe it’s yourself you need to forgive.”
The day before the Eisteddfod Louisa saw Tom off to school and set to work on Rhiannon’s costume. She had a boxful of sequins to sew onto the pale-pink leotard, and she knew it was going to take her most of the morning. Rhiannon had been given the day off school to practice and was already in the studio perfecting her moves with Bill.
As Louisa threaded the silver disks onto the needle and jabbed it into the fabric, she thought about her mother, wondering what really lay behind the brick wall she had built in her mind to keep Bill out. Was there more to it than just guilt? Was she afraid that if she saw even a photograph, it would bring all the old feelings flooding back? Eddie had seemed confident that it was all in the past, but how could he be so sure?
Louisa held up the costume to the light. This time tomorrow Rhiannon would be dancing in it. She tried to imagine how it would be if her mother, Eddie, and Bill were all there to watch. Despite Eva’s words, Louisa couldn’t stop hoping it might happen. She realized it was something she longed for above anything else. It was as if one final piece of the jigsaw was still missing. Her mother’s refusal to have anything to do with Bill was almost physically painful to her. The more she thought about it, the more it felt like a denial of her very existence.
Michael pushed open the door and set a mug of tea down in front of her. “Rhiannon’s going to look fantastic in that.” He rubbed her shoulders. “Have you told her about your parents?”
“No, not yet.” Louisa pursed her lips. “Dad said the best thing would be if we tell her afterwards. Say Nan’s had one of her turns, and they couldn’t get there. He thought it might upset her if she knew they weren’t going.”
Michael nodded. “I think Bill feels really guilty about it.”
“Well, he shouldn’t—not really. What Mum said is true—there probably will be other chances for them to see her, won’t there?” She couldn’t tell Michael how she really felt. She was afraid he’d take matters into his own hands. Go to her mother and try persuading her himself. No, she thought, this is something no one can talk her into doing. There’s something she’s not telling me. Might never tell me. Like I’ve got things I’ll never tell her. And I’m just going to have to accept it.
Neither Louisa nor Michael heard Rhiannon tiptoeing off down the hall. She had come into the house for a drink and, hearing her name, had listened at the door. Her nine-year-old face was like thunder as she trudged back to the studio, kicking at the tender heads of crocuses sprouting along the path. She stopped at the entrance, planning what she was going to say. Forcing her mouth into a smile, she went inside, where Bill was rewinding the tape.
“Granddad, I’m a bit fed up of rehearsing—could we go for a walk instead?”
“Sure.” Bill looked up and smiled. “Reckon you’ve had all the practice you need: you could do this routine in your sleep!”
“Good!” She took his hand. “I want to show you the countryside around here. Stuff you can’t really see from the car. Do you like long walks?”
He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Long as we can take some candy: keep our strength up.”
“Okay—I’ll go and get some.”
“And tell your mama where we’re going,” he called after her.
An hour later Bill and Rhiannon stopped at a stile to share the packet of Maltesers she had stuffed into her pocket.
“Where are we now?” he asked, panting from the effort of the climb.
“Up there’s Bryn Llwyd,” she said, popping three sweets into her mouth without stopping to draw breath. “It means Gray Hill in Welsh.”
“Well, it sure doesn’t look gray!” Bill wiped a trickle of perspiration from his forehead. The spring sunshine had broken through the high cloud, lighting up the emerald boughs of the pine trees that lay a few yards ahead of them.
Rhiannon looked at him, a frown wrinkling the soft brown skin between her eyebrows.
“What is it, honey?”
“I’m really thirsty, Granddad. I should have brought something to drink.” She looked about her. There was a small white bungalow a hundred yards or so up the hill, nestled in front of the thick margin of pine trees. Rhiannon let her eyes rest on it for a moment. “Do you think if we went and knocked on the door of that house, they might give us a drink of water?”
He shrugged. “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in asking.”
As they trudged toward the bungalow, Rhiannon’s heart began to hammer in her chest. She knew very well this was wrong. But she would do it. She had to.
Her eyes darted around as they walked up the path to the front door. The Land Rover was parked at the end of the track. She swallowed hard. What if her other granddad was at home? She hadn’t counted on that. Would there be a fight? She glanced at the porch and saw with relief that Eddie’s big work boots were missing from the shoe rack. Raising her hand, she knocked on the blue-painted door.
Eva was a long time getting to the door. They heard her slow footsteps and the tap of her stick on the tiles as she approached. She blinked as the sunlight caught her eyes.
“Rhiannon?” She raised her free hand to her forehead to shield her eyes. Then she caught sight of the figure standing in the shadow of the porch. The hand fell to her mouth.
“Eva?” Bill’s face was
as pained and confused as hers was. He turned to Rhiannon, who instinctively grabbed her grandmother’s arm. But Eva brushed her aside, struggling back down the hallway.
“No!” Eva cried out, her free hand flailing backward, as if she was fending off flies. “I told your mother! I can’t!”
Bill sank onto the porch step, his head in his hands. Rhiannon glanced from him to the receding figure of her grandmother. She followed her into the house. Eva was slumped in an armchair, staring out of the window at the sheep grazing the hummocky field down the valley.
“Why can’t you be friends with him, Nan?” Rhiannon whispered the words, but her tone was steely. “He told me how you used to dance together in the air-raid shelter. What fun you had.” She sniffed hard, fighting back the tears that stung the back of her eyes. “Why do you hate him so much?”
Eva answered her with silence, her lips a tight, straight line and her expression blank.
“Why Nan?”
“You . . . you’re too young to understand.” Eva’s voice was like the hiss of a snake about to strike.
“I’m not a baby!” Rhiannon cried out, indignant.
“I know that.” Eva stared at her swollen knuckles. “I’ll tell you when you’re a bit older.”
“That’s no good!” Rhiannon’s voice rose. “I want you to be friends now! I want both of you to see me tomorrow!”
“I’m sorry.” The words came out through clenched teeth. “I just can’t. Now will you take him away?”
“I know why you hate him.” Rhiannon’s voice was quieter now, but it had a sinister edge. “It’s because he’s a black man, isn’t it? You’re ashamed of him, aren’t you?”
“No!” Eva’s face tipped upward. “It’s not that!”
“Yes it is!” Rhiannon’s eyes had an odd look. A mixture of triumph and fear. “And I remind you of him, don’t I? I bet you wish I’d never been born!”
The Color of Secrets Page 35
