“No! That’s not true!”
“It is!” She stared straight into Eva’s eyes. “Well, don’t worry—you won’t have to come to the Eisteddfod because I won’t be there! You’ll never have to see me again!”
Rhiannon shot out of the room as her grandmother struggled out of her chair. By the time Eva got to the hall, Rhiannon was running past Bill, who had been wandering distractedly around the garden.
“Hey! Where you going?” he called as she hurtled over the fence.
“The falls!” she yelled, without looking back.
Within seconds she had disappeared from his view. Then Bill saw Eva framed in the doorway, stick in hand. He leapt onto the porch. She turned away as if he was an evil spirit.
“What did you say to her?” He took her face in both his hands, forcing her to look at him. “Where’s she gone?” He searched her face. “The falls? Where’s that?” He saw a flicker of fear in her eyes. His hands fell to her shoulders. “Eva! Talk to me!”
“Please, God, no!” She was looking through him like someone in a trance. “Not my little angel! Not there!”
“We have to find her!” Bill grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the path. “You show me the way!”
“I . . . I can’t!” Eva’s lips quivered as she glanced down at her legs.
“Can we get there by road?”
“Y . . . yes,” she stammered, “b . . . but I . . . can’t drive!”
“Well, I can!”
She gave a small, strangled cry as he picked her up in his arms and ran with her to the Land Rover.
Louisa stood up and stretched. Her shoulders were stiff from sewing. She wandered through to the kitchen to make herself a coffee. “Michael!” she called. “Want a drink?” No reply. He must be in the studio with the others. As she picked up the kettle, she caught sight of a scribbled note propped against the tea caddy.
Dear Mum and Michael, I’ve taken Granddad Bill to make friends with Nan. See you later, love R.
“Oh my God!” Louisa grabbed Michael’s keys from the hook on the wall and ran from the kitchen. She had to find them. Stop them. As she revved the Jeep’s engine, she wondered whose idea this had been. Not Bill’s surely? He had promised to keep away. She sped up the track to the road, a spray of mud shooting out in her wake.
“Which way?” Bill looked at Eva as they reached the main road.
“That way.” She pointed right. “It leads straight down to the bridge.”
“And that’s where the falls are?”
Eva nodded. “Her father . . .” she trailed off, shaking her head like a dog shedding water.
“What about him?” Glancing sideways, Bill saw that her face had lost what little color it had.
“He . . . took his life.”
“Louisa told me.” Bill swallowed hard. As his eyes flicked back to the road, he caught the flash of a tear coursing down Eva’s cheek.
“Don’t worry.” He reached over and patted her hand. “We’ll find her!”
She gave a great gasp, sobs convulsing her body. “I . . . I’m s . . . so sorry,” she breathed. “All these years I . . . I—”
“No!” He thumped the dashboard, anguish in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I know why you felt that way: Lou told me—about losing your son.”
As he went to change gear, he felt her hand find his.
Louisa drove toward the bridge, her eyes scanning the fields on either side of the road. Which way would they have gone? And how long ago had they set off? Perhaps they were already there? Her insides froze as she pictured the scene. Her mother opening the door to Bill. The shock would be too much. She pictured her mother collapsing. A stroke. A heart attack. “Please, no!” she said aloud.
As she drove across the bridge something caught her eye. A flash of red. By the barrier above the falls. Rhiannon’s anorak? She pulled in at the side of the road and jumped out. Running back, she shaded her eyes, searching the steep, muddy bank that dropped away to the raging torrent below. Yes! It was Rhiannon! But where was Bill? And why was Rhiannon leaning over the barrier, looking down?
“Rhiannon!” Louisa shouted her daughter’s name, but a truck sped past, drowning her out. Then a Land Rover. She stared at the license plate. Their Land Rover. She saw it pull in on the other side of the bridge. As she ran toward it, she saw Bill leap out of the driver’s seat. She opened her mouth to call his name, but the sound died on her lips as she saw what he was doing. He was lifting her mother out of the passenger seat. Carrying her to the edge of the falls.
“Rhiannon!” He was shouting over the furious noise of the water. “Rhiannon! Look!” Louisa stared in utter amazement as her mother craned her neck to kiss Bill on the cheek.
Bill waved from the Land Rover as Rhiannon scrambled into the Jeep beside her mother. He glanced at Eva, who was fumbling with her seat belt. When she raised her head, her eyes were brimming.
“Please don’t cry, honey—she’s safe now.” For a moment it was as if time had stood still. He was standing in a snowy street in his army uniform, staring at her swollen stomach, telling her everything would be all right.
“Thank you.” Eva’s voice was little more than a whisper. “You saved her. What I said before: I didn’t mean . . .” She paused, holding back tears.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to explain.”
“I . . . I just want you to know I . . . I don’t regret it. You and me.” She bit her lip. “I turned it into a terrible burden all those years ago. Blaming you, blaming myself; really, it was so . . . destructive. What happened . . . it was nobody’s fault—I should have seen that.”
He took her hand in both of his. “I guess things never turn out the way you expect them to,” he said. “But so much good has come out of the sadness. We made something pretty special, didn’t we?”
“I shouldn’t have done it, should I?” Rhiannon was sitting in her pajamas, a mug of hot chocolate steaming on the bedside table.
Louisa sat down beside her, slipping her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “You shouldn’t have run away, no,” she said, “and I want you to promise me you’ll never go anywhere near that bridge on your own again.” She paused, feeling the warmth of Rhiannon’s face against her skin as the child nodded her head. “But taking Granddad Bill to see Nan—that was something I should have done days ago.”
Rhiannon sat back in bed, a puzzled look in her eyes. “But I thought . . .”
“I know.” Louisa smiled. “But I was wrong. I thought that if I left things alone, Nan would sort it out for herself, change her mind about things. But I realize now it would never have happened. What she was feeling inside would have just eaten away at her like a maggot in an apple.” She cupped Rhiannon’s chin in her hand. “What you did was like holding up a mirror. Suddenly she was seeing herself through your eyes, and she didn’t like what she saw.”
Rhiannon frowned. “So everything’s all right?”
Louisa nodded, hugging her tight. Yes, she thought, sometimes shock tactics are the only way. She smiled inside as she remembered the day Michael had thrown her into the sea. What would she be like now if she hadn’t conquered her phobia about her skin? And what if she had kept up that pretense until she was her mother’s age? What kind of paranoid, self-obsessed creature might she have become?
“What about Granddad Eddie?” Rhiannon piped up suddenly. “What’s he going to say?”
Louisa thought for a moment before replying. “Well . . . I think he’ll be pleased.”
“Pleased? That Nan kissed Granddad Bill?”
“No.” Louisa ruffled her daughter’s damp hair. “But he wouldn’t mind them having that sort of kiss, anyway. What I mean is I think he’ll be pleased that she’s stopped being so sad.”
The Eisteddfod was a seething mass of anxious-looking parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Louisa scanned the faces for Eva and Eddie. Nothing had been said since the previous evening. No phone calls exchanged. Eva had been exhausted by the day’s events, and Louisa had
n’t wanted to push things any further just yet. She wandered up and down the foyer. No sign of either of them. People were starting to file into the hall.
“Come on,” Michael said, catching her arm. “We’d better get seats.”
They settled into a row near the front of the hall with Bill sitting between them. Louisa looked over her shoulder a few times, but it was impossible to see much behind her as the seats began to fill up.
When the MC walked onto the stage, everyone fell silent. Bill glanced at her, his eyebrows like question marks. She shrugged, wondering what was going through his mind. Had she misread the situation yesterday? Was that kiss the reason her parents hadn’t turned up? She forced the thought firmly to the back of her mind.
The MC spoke Welsh. Bill and Michael wore faces of puzzled concentration as each category was announced. “Solo singing next,” Louisa whispered.
Rhiannon was the third of seven performers. Louisa’s gaze moved from her daughter to Bill, enjoying the sight of him, so obviously moved by her singing. She came in second, and he grumbled loudly, saying she was clearly the best and the judges must be prejudiced. Louisa had to shush him as the MC walked onstage to announce the next category.
“She’s dancing next—hope she’s had time to change!” Louisa’s stomach was in knots.
As the first few drumbeats sounded, Rhiannon hurtled across the stage, starting her routine with a series of backflips that drew spontaneous applause from the audience. Louisa hoped the noise wouldn’t put her off.
It didn’t. She won first prize.
“That’s my girl!” Bill thwacked his hands together. Louisa had to grab his arm to stop him from leaping up as Rhiannon received her medal. There was a loud whistle from the back of the hall. Twisting her head, she caught her breath. It was Eddie. He was standing just inside the door, holding her mother’s hand. And Eva was cheering, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Bill!” she whispered. “Look!”
As the applause subsided, Bill rose without a word and, taking her hand, led her down the long aisle, past the sea of curious faces. She saw her mother, eyes shining, her arm around Eddie’s waist now, holding him very close.
As Louisa drew nearer, Bill’s fingers squeezed hers. A feeling of lightness filled her whole being. For the first time she could remember, she felt proud of her mother. It no longer mattered whose daughter she really was. She belonged in equal measure to all three of them.
The last thing she saw was Bill holding out his hand to Eddie. Two pink palms meeting. The other colors blurring in a film of tears.
Acknowledgments
In the two years preceding the D-day landings, approximately 130,000 black GIs were stationed in the United Kingdom. It is estimated that between 700 and 1,000 babies were born in Britain during the Second World War as a result of relationships between British women and black American servicemen.
Although this book is a work of fiction, it was inspired by interviews with a number of these so-called brown babies. I am grateful for the honesty with which this material was given, and I respect the wishes of those concerned for their anonymity to be preserved.
The places described in the story are all real. As a child growing up in Wolverhampton I witnessed some of the racial bigotry, which was, unfortunately, common at that time. Later I moved to the coast of Wales, near Aberystwyth, where I live now. I am grateful to my Welsh friend Janet Thomas, whose guidance and encouragement have played a key role in my development as a writer.
Special thanks also to Christina Henry de Tessan for her editorial advice and to Jodi Warshaw and the team at Amazon Publishing.
This book began life as a self-published novel and was “spotted,” thanks to Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award. I would like to thank my daughter, Isabella, and my son, Deri, for their creative and technical input, without which this would not have happened.
About the Author
Photo © 2014 Isabella Ashford
Lindsay Ashford grew up in Wolverhampton, UK. She was the first woman to graduate from Queens’ College, Cambridge, in its 550-year history. After earning her degree in criminology, Ashford worked as a reporter for the BBC and a freelance journalist for a number of national magazines and newspapers. She has four children and currently lives in a house overlooking the sea on the west coast of Wales.
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