‘She always said you were very kind to her,’ Dai countered, smiling. He looked curiously at this little friend of his Mam’s. She was quite a bit younger than Bethan and she had gentler looks with the golden brown hair and the steady grey eyes. What foils they must have been to one another when they were friends as girls, he thought now, the one so fair and delicate, the other so dark haired, pink cheeked, sturdy! ‘Look, let me come back another day, when you’ve got over the shock of meeting someone out of your past, so to speak. Better it would be, perhaps.’
But she was shaking her head at him reprovingly, taking him by the hand, drawing him into a pleasant kitchen, all firelight and the good smell of cooking, whilst a young girl, chopping cabbage at the big scrubbed wooden table, turned and smiled at him.
‘Sit down, Dai, sit down,’ Nellie said, beginning to bustle about. ‘A cup of tea now, and some of my rich fruit-cake. Pass the tin over Elizabeth, there’s a good girl. Oh, Dai, I’m forgetting my manners! Elizabeth, dear, this is Richart, usually called Dai, the son of – of my good friend Bethan Evans. Richart, this is my daughter, Elizabeth.’
The two young people eyed one another cautiously, then shook hands.
‘Hello, Elizabeth; nice to meet you. Please call me Dai, when someone calls me Richart I always feel I’m either back at school or in disgrace.’
‘Hello, Dai, it’s nice to meet you, too. My Mam talks a lot about your Mam but I don’t think she’s mentioned you much.’
‘No. Well, when they were friends, you and I, Elizabeth, had not even been thought of. Oh, tea … that’s wonderful!’ He took the cup from Nellie and turned back to the younger girl. ‘I’ve been working on a trawler in the Arctic ocean, and I tell you, Liz, it’s hot tea that keeps us going!’
Elizabeth, who had been eyeing him warily, laughed and seemed to relax. She was very like her mother but with her hair a shade deeper, an almost reddy gold, and her skin flushed with health. ‘The Arctic ocean? Oh, Dai, will you tell us about it? Have you seen whales, polar bears, penguins?’
‘I’ve seen ’em all,’ Dai said, laughing back at her. ‘Why, you should see the fish we catch! My mate, Greasy, had his boot torn off him by a dead conger eel once …’
‘A
dead
conger eel? That’s one of those tall stories they talk about – Dad calls them fishermen’s tales, come to think of it! Now come on, the truth now!’
‘No, honest! The eel had been in the fish pounds for the best part of a day …’
He ate with them, of course. Nellie took him up to the spare room and showed him how comfortable he could be over Christmas, though she understood that he must go back to his friends tonight and tell them that he would be moving in with the Gallaghers the following day.
‘We’re having a real family Christmas and there’s no one in the world I’d sooner have to share it with us than – than Bethan’s boy,’ Nellie said, her eyes shining with affection. ‘Stu knows how close Bethan and I were, it was sad that we never met after we married, but we wrote often. Friends can stay close that way – we could read between the lines, even, so that a cheerful letter that hid pain was quickly responded to in the right way.’
‘Mam never showed no one the letters, but they were always by her side,’ Dai acknowledged. ‘Nellie … are you sure you don’t mind my calling you that? Nellie, she said if I ever wanted mothering …’
Nellie patted his arm. Elizabeth had gone to bed and Stuart had not yet arrived home so the two of them were sitting, side by side, on the sofa in the living-room whilst, as Nellie put it, they got to know one another.
‘You’re a good lad, Dai,’ she said softly. ‘And it’s my belief that you – your Da has disappointed you somehow. Can you tell me about it?’
Dai found that he could tell her, found, even, that it eased him to tell her. ‘They say, in the village, that Davy knew Menna even before my Mam passed on,’ he said bitterly, as the story ended. ‘Hate her I do, Nellie. A brassy, hard little bitch after what she can get, and my Da sniffing after what he can get … and my Mam …’
His voice broke and he stopped speaking. Nellie put her arms round his broad young shoulders and hugged him hard.
‘Don’t waste energy hating her, she’s not worth it,’ she said, surprisingly. ‘You love your Da, but he’s a weak man; he always was, from what Bethan told me. I do remember her saying he was – was always after the girls. Just love the side of him that loves you, and try to remember that he needs a woman to look after him. It’s a shame that he couldn’t pick on a decent girl, but Menna was around when he needed her. And don’t let her stop you going home, Dai, bach. It’s … it’s your heritage, it’s what your Mam wanted for you. … I remember her saying that you would inherit it all, the cows on the headland, the sheep in the meadow beyond, the fishing boat, the beautiful old house and garden…. And it isn’t only that, Dai, it’s all the rest – the beach, the hills … the Island of Anglesey, where you were born and raised. That’s your heritage, too.’
‘Aye, you’re right,’ Dai said. He was astonished at the depth of feeling he already had for this pale, slight woman who seemed to understand his feelings almost without speech. His Mam had been right, Nellie Gallagher was a friend worth having. ‘I will go back, Nellie. But not right now; not yet. It’s a small village and I can only live at my Da’s house, and whilst she’s there … I’m not strong enough to go back there.’
‘Right. But don’t leave it too long. And write to your Da, tell him that you’re missing him and Moelfre. You’ll have to come to terms with Menna one of these days or lose your Da, Dai, and you don’t have to tell me you love him because I know you do, even if you aren’t yet willing to admit it.’ She sighed and got to her feet. ‘Any relationship based on love is a good relationship, Dai. Davy was always very lovable, or – or so I understood from Bethan.’
Dai stood up as well. ‘good you are for me, Nellie,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘Better I do feel than I’ve felt for many a month. You’re right, I may dislike Menna, but I do love my Da, and I’ll be writing to him. And now you’re sure I can come to you? I won’t be in your way, won’t spoil your family Christmas?’
‘You’ll make my Christmas,’ Nellie assured him. ‘And Stuart will be delighted to have another man about the place. Lilac’s husband, Joey, is at sea most of the year so when he’s home he spoils the twins disgracefully. Stuart will be glad to entertain someone who talks of something other than kindergartens, potty training and read-and-learn. Come back in time for lunch tomorrow, and bring your traps.’
‘I will. I’m more thankful man I can say, Nellie, for your kindness,’ Dai said sincerely. He had not felt so relieved about his father since his mother’s death, but now Nellie had made him look at their relationship he realised that it was, as she said, based on a very deep love. He must not let that love dissipate just because his Da had taken a silly, fluffy little creature to comfort him for his dear Bethan’s loss. Each to his own comfort, Dai reminded himself. Each to his own. ‘And I’ll post a card and a letter to my Da first thing in the morning, to reach him before Christmas,’ he added as he stood on the doorstep. ‘See you tomorrow, and thanks again!’
Nellie waved Dai off and then turned back indoors again. Stuart was later than he had hoped, but the large slice of apricot pudding was between two plates, waiting to be steam-heated through, and she had a jug of coffee keeping warm on the back of the stove.
She wondered how Stuart would take the news that he would be entertaining an extra guest for Christmas. She smiled to herself, pottering contentedly round her kitchen, setting out the breakfast for the morning. He would be pleased because she was pleased; he had heard her talking about her friend Bethan for years and had often suggested that the two of them should arrange to meet.
He knew nothing, of course, about Dai. Oh, he knew that Bethan had a son named Dai just as he knew Davy was Bethan’s husband. What he did not know and need never know was that Davy had once been Nellie’s lover – and that Dai was Nellie’s own little son, the son she had born in Moelfre more than twenty-two years ago and left with Bethan, who had reared him as her own.
Unless he guessed, of course. Stuart and she were so close that keeping secrets from one another was next to impossible. She had often been aware, in the early days of their marriage, that Stuart, who knew she had born an illegitimate child, was deeply jealous of her first lover. No amount of telling him that she had never really loved the man who had fathered that child could entirely convince him.
But time had done the trick. With every year that passed, her quiet but deep devotion to him and to their daughter had soothed his jealousy, calmed his fears. She doubted that Stuart had given a thought, either to the illegitimate child he assumed she had had adopted (and in a sense, of course, he was right) or to her first lover, for a dozen years, so he was unlikely to start agonising over it now.
He was a nice young man was Dai. Frighteningly like Davy at first glance, the same clustering black curls, the dark blue eyes, the quirky, teasing smile. But when you looked closer you saw a steadiness, a seriousness even, which Davy had lacked. Dai was responsible, sensible, reliable, and he was only twenty-two years old, whereas Davy, who had been considerably older than that when he had fathered Dai, had always been a lightweight … and far too fond of women.
Nellie had never regretted losing Davy because by the time she had born Dai and left him with Bethan she had fallen totally out of love with the handsome young Welshman. Perhaps knowing what their love-affair could have done to Bethan had something to do with it, perhaps even his deceiving them both – for he had not told her he was married just as Bethan had never known he had a mistress – had taken that first fine gloss off their affair. But whatever the reason, by the time Dai was a year old she had recovered from her temporary madness and was growing up, mentally as well as physically.
Stuart had been her only true love. He was her strength, her rock. He was patient with her, explaining current affairs – the horrors of the Spanish civil war, the frightening way the Germans were behaving, as though they had forgotten the ‘fourteen-’eighteen war – even the pecularities of the British
legal system and the difficulties faced by their new young King and Queen, became simple when Stuart explained them. Yet he managed never to make her feel foolish or ill-educated, sharing his knowledge easily, matter-of-factly.
And Elizabeth was her darling daughter and a companion second only to Stuart so far as Nellie was concerned. I’m a family person, she told herself now, a simple woman content with simple things. And though Davy and I made a baby together, it was just … just youth and silliness. There wasn’t so much as a scrap of real love between us two, just friendship and a natural physical need for closeness, and a bit of flattery because I’d not had a boyfriend before him.
But it was so good to see Dai again! Last time he had been a bonny, dark-haired baby, crowing with delight when she had held him up to see the lambs playing in the field, gripping her hair with incredible baby-strength, smiling at her with that wide, totally trusting toothless-ness which only the very young can show.
He’s a man now, and a handsome one, yet he’s still that baby, too, she told herself as she laid the table for breakfast and began to close the fire down for the night. It was almost midnight, and even if Stuart came in the next few minutes it was unlikely he would want to eat this late. I’m glad Dai’s got in touch with me, and grateful for dear Bethan’s generosity in putting us in touch. Sweet, selfless Bethan, giving Nellie back the son she had lost all claim to so long ago.
But there was little point in hanging around the kitchen; best make her way to bed now. Stuart would come in quietly, so as not to wake her. She made herself a cup of cocoa and had left the kitchen and was closing the door behind her when a key rattled in the front door lock. Nellie’s heart bounded joyfully; Stuart! She ran across the hallway and pulled the door impatiently inwards so that Stuart, still trying to disengage his key from the lock, followed it and almost trod on her.
‘Darling Stu, how late you are! I don’t suppose you feel like apricot pudding, but I’ll make you some cocoa, or hot milk with a tot of rum in it if you’d rather.’
Stuart’s dark eyes were heavy with tiredness but his thin face creased into a grin at her words and he bent and kissed her, first teasingly on the nose, then seriously, on the mouth. Nellie put her arms round him and hugged, then exclaimed. ‘You’re soaking wet! Is it raining?’
‘Raining? It’s snowing, my love. We’re in for a white Christmas! Ah, but it’s good to be home. I’ve been trying to get a piece done for the paper tomorrow … did you listen to the six o’clock news?’
‘On and off,’ Nellie said. ‘Come through into the kitchen, it’s nice and warm in there still. Why do you ask if I listened to the news?’
‘I wondered whether you’d heard; reports have been coming through saying that the Japs have attacked a British ship in the Yangtse River – HMS
Ladybird
. They killed a rating and injured several others. Apparently it was mistaken for a Chinese vessel, or that’s what the Japs say, anyway.’
‘They’re as bad as the Huns,’ Nellie said grimly. ‘Horrible, cruel little men. I don’t remember the
Ladybird
, but wasn’t there something about an American ship?’
‘Yes, that’s right. The
Pansy
. She was sunk with the loss of several lives.’
‘Oh Stu, where will it all end? I do hate it so. Why must nations fight?’
‘It seems to be human nature,’ Stuart said gloomily. ‘It just seems worse at Christmas. But there’s no point in discussing the news, it’s bad enough to be working late all evening on such a dismal story, I just wondered if the BBC had reported it. Can I have hot milk, please?’
‘Darling, of course. Here, give me that wet coat, I’ll hang it on the clothes rack whilst the milk heats, it’ll be dry in time for you to wear it for work tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ Stuart said, watching affectionately as his wife measured milk into a pan. ‘What would I do without you?’