felt as if I wasn’t quite there, as if I was invisible. Thorston and I exchanged a look. Not a long look, a second, perhaps two or three. I could smell his blood, and some stew bubbling on the stove, and the tarry scent of the soapy washing-up water. And I wanted to be sick. My dad stood back from the door, snorting in and out his breaths. And then the man I loved seemed to melt into the basalt black essence of the night.
My dad’s eyes took me in, head to toe and back again, as if he did not recognise me, as if he was filled with revulsion at what he saw before him. ‘May God forgive you, Bethan, for what you have done because I never shall!’ he said.
Without responding I went upstairs to my room. I did not switch on the light. I used the tip of a finger to draw a circle on the condensation that clung to the windowpane. I spied Thorston through its lens, a bent figure, crushed then swallowed by the night. And it came to me then, with our baby banging on the door of me, that I would not love again. I would go through the motions of my life, and uncomplainingly I would do what was asked of me. I would submit. From this moment to the moment of my death I would make no fuss, cause no further disruption. I would make reparation. I sold my soul that day, not to the devil but to my father. Although there was nothing to choose between them.
Over the next week my parents treated me as if I was a curse, as if being in the same room as me they risked eternal damnation. They looked away or dropped their gazes when I walked by. We ate our meals without a word. It was as if someone had died. I recalled when we heard that Brice was dead, and it was the same, like every day was a funeral, only this wasn’t grief it was blind hatred and bigotry and dogmatism. The hell of it was that I didn’t have death in my belly but life, a life made from love. I ached for my love, I ached all over the way I did when I had the mumps as a child. Dad didn’t want me working on the farm now that they knew about the baby, as if I was an abomination, an incarnation of evil, of original sin. He made me stay in the house all day. It felt like I was suffocating for want of fresh air and the feel of the wind buffeting my cheeks. Lying on my bed through those long hours, staring up the ceiling, I began to have wild thoughts of running away, of finding my love, of us escaping together. Only they wouldn’t let me out, not even for a walk. That was when the idea of writing to him came to me, writing a letter. He had been a prisoner of war staying in the camp in Llanmartin and I thought, well … I hoped, prayed actually, that he’d gone back there, and not left for Germany already. Of course it was no longer a POW camp but if he hadn’t returned there he might have left a forwarding address. Someone might recognise the name. They might remember him. They might know where to send it.
I firmed up my plan in middle of the night. I would write, explain that I had made a dreadful mistake, that I should have left with him, that we were destined to spend our lives together, to marry and bring up our child. I realised as I lay there feeling our baby flutter inside me and imagining the little arms and legs paddling in the warm safe pool beneath my linked fingers that I was being irrational. Even if I wrote him a letter, how would I get it to him when I might as well be in prison? And if I did find a way of posting it, honestly what were the odds that he had gone back to Llanmartin, or that they had a record of his address? The war was over, and most probably he’d journeyed to his homeland by now, Germany. If not there, then I could take a pin, shut my eyes and stick it in a map of Europe. It was an unwinnable lottery. And if I was lucky and he was still in Britain he might be anywhere – Ireland, or Scotland or England. Only a miracle would put me where I belonged, with the man I love so much, so very much, that it hurts, physically hurts. But you know, my
My dad’s eyes took me in, head to toe and back again, as if he did not recognise me, as if he was filled with revulsion at what he saw before him. ‘May God forgive you, Bethan, for what you have done because I never shall!’ he said.
Without responding I went upstairs to my room. I did not switch on the light. I used the tip of a finger to draw a circle on the condensation that clung to the windowpane. I spied Thorston through its lens, a bent figure, crushed then swallowed by the night. And it came to me then, with our baby banging on the door of me, that I would not love again. I would go through the motions of my life, and uncomplainingly I would do what was asked of me. I would submit. From this moment to the moment of my death I would make no fuss, cause no further disruption. I would make reparation. I sold my soul that day, not to the devil but to my father. Although there was nothing to choose between them.
Over the next week my parents treated me as if I was a curse, as if being in the same room as me they risked eternal damnation. They looked away or dropped their gazes when I walked by. We ate our meals without a word. It was as if someone had died. I recalled when we heard that Brice was dead, and it was the same, like every day was a funeral, only this wasn’t grief it was blind hatred and bigotry and dogmatism. The hell of it was that I didn’t have death in my belly but life, a life made from love. I ached for my love, I ached all over the way I did when I had the mumps as a child. Dad didn’t want me working on the farm now that they knew about the baby, as if I was an abomination, an incarnation of evil, of original sin. He made me stay in the house all day. It felt like I was suffocating for want of fresh air and the feel of the wind buffeting my cheeks. Lying on my bed through those long hours, staring up the ceiling, I began to have wild thoughts of running away, of finding my love, of us escaping together. Only they wouldn’t let me out, not even for a walk. That was when the idea of writing to him came to me, writing a letter. He had been a prisoner of war staying in the camp in Llanmartin and I thought, well … I hoped, prayed actually, that he’d gone back there, and not left for Germany already. Of course it was no longer a POW camp but if he hadn’t returned there he might have left a forwarding address. Someone might recognise the name. They might remember him. They might know where to send it.
I firmed up my plan in middle of the night. I would write, explain that I had made a dreadful mistake, that I should have left with him, that we were destined to spend our lives together, to marry and bring up our child. I realised as I lay there feeling our baby flutter inside me and imagining the little arms and legs paddling in the warm safe pool beneath my linked fingers that I was being irrational. Even if I wrote him a letter, how would I get it to him when I might as well be in prison? And if I did find a way of posting it, honestly what were the odds that he had gone back to Llanmartin, or that they had a record of his address? The war was over, and most probably he’d journeyed to his homeland by now, Germany. If not there, then I could take a pin, shut my eyes and stick it in a map of Europe. It was an unwinnable lottery. And if I was lucky and he was still in Britain he might be anywhere – Ireland, or Scotland or England. Only a miracle would put me where I belonged, with the man I love so much, so very much, that it hurts, physically hurts. But you know, my
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