“She has to work. Why don’t you go over and pay her a visit? She’s not far away.”
Brian said nothing for a while. He swirled the beer in his glass, pushed back his hair. The place was noisy and crowded around them. Banks managed to focus and cut out the laughter and shouted conversations. Just the two of them on a floodlit island, the rest of the world a buzz in the distance.
“Brian? Is there something wrong?”
“Nah, not really.”
“Come on.”
Brian sipped some beer and shrugged. “It’s nothing. It’s just Sean, that’s all.”
Banks felt a tingling at the back of his neck. “What about him?”
“He’s a creep. He treats me like a kid. Whenever I go over there he can’t wait to get rid of me. He can’t keep his hands off of Mum, either. Dad, why can’t you two get back together? Why can’t things be the way they were?” He looked at Banks, brow furrowed, tears of anger and pain in his eyes. Not the cool, accomplished young man anymore but, for a moment, the scared little kid who has lost his parents and his only safe, reliable haven in the world.
Banks swallowed and reached for another cigarette. “It’s not that easy,” he said. “Do you think I didn’t want to?”
“Didn’t?”
“A lot’s changed.”
“You mean you’ve got a new girlfriend?”
If it were possible to inflect the word with more venom than Brian did, Banks couldn’t imagine how. “That’s not the point,” he said. “Your mother has made it quite clear, over and over again, that she doesn’t want to get back together. I’ve tried. I did have hopes at first, but… What more can I do?”
“Try harder.”
Banks shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “It takes two to do that, and I’m getting no encouragement whatsoever from her quarter. I’ve sort of given up on it. I’m sorry about Sean. Sorry you don’t get along.”
“He’s a plonker.”
“Yeah, well… Look, when you get a bit of free time, why don’t you come up to Gratly? You can help me work on the cottage. You haven’t even seen it yet. We can go for long walks together. Remember the way we used to? Semerwater? Langstrothdale? Hardraw Force?”
“I don’t know,” said Brian, pushing his hair back. “We’re gonna be really busy the next while.”
“Whenever. I’m not asking you to put a date to it. It’s an open invitation. Okay?”
Brian looked up from his beer and smiled that slightly crooked smile that always reminded Banks so much of his own father. “Okay,” he said. “I’d like that. It’s a deal. Soon as we get a few days’ break I’ll be knocking on your door.”
A bass note and drum roll cut through the buzz of conversation as if to echo what Brian had said. He looked up. “Gotta go, Dad,” he said. “Be around later?”
“I don’t think so,” said Banks. “I’ve got work to do. I’ll stick around for part of the set, but I might be gone before you’re through. It’s been great seeing you. And don’t be a stranger. Remember my offer. There’s a bed there for you whenever you want, for as long as you want.”
“Thanks, Dad. What’s it they say? ‘Home’s the place where they have to take you in.’ Wish I knew where mine was. Take care.”
Banks stuck out his hand and Brian shook it. Then, feeling guilty, he checked his watch. Time to hear a few more songs before slinking off to keep his date with Annie.
One day Gloria came to me and asked if I would mind closing the shop for an hour or so and walking with her. She looked pale and hadn’t taken her usual pains with her appearance.
It was the beginning of May, I remember, and it was all over but the shouting. Hitler was dead, the Russians had Berlin, and all the German troops in Italy had surrendered. It could only be days from the end now.
I closed the shop, as she asked, and we walked into Rowan Woods, leaving the road behind and wandering in the filtered green light of the new leaves. The woodland flowers were all in bloom, clusters of bluebells here and there, wild roses, violets and primroses. Birds were singing and the air was pungent with the smell of wild garlic. Now and then, I could hear a cuckoo call in the distance.
“I don’t know what to do with him, Gwen,” she said, wringing her hands as we walked, close to tears. “Nothing I do to try to reach him does any good.”
“I know,” I said. “We just have to be patient. Let the doctor do his job. Time will heal him.” Even as I spoke them, I felt the triteness and inadequacy of my words.
“It’s all right for you. He’s not your husband.”
“Gloria! He’s my brother.”
She put her hand on my arm. “Oh, I’m sorry, Gwen, that’s not the way I meant it. I’m just too distraught. But it’s not the same. He’s taken to sleeping on the Chesterfield now when he gets in from the pub.”
“You don’t… I mean, he doesn’t…?”
“Not since he came back. It’s not fair, Gwen. I know I’m being selfish, but this isn’t the man I married. I’m living with a stranger. It’s getting unbearable.”
“Are you going to leave him?”
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can. Brad is still pestering me to run off back to America with him as soon as his new orders come in. He says he might have to go out to the Pacific first – the war’s not over there yet – but he says he’ll send for me. Just imagine it, Gwen: Hollywood! A new life in the sunshine under the palm trees in a faraway magical land. A young, healthy, handsome, vigorous man who dotes on me. Endless possibilities of riches and wealth. I could even become a movie star. Ordinary people like you and me can do that over there, you know.”
“But?”
She turned away, eyes downcast. “A dream. That’s all. I can’t go. Silly, isn’t it? A few years ago I did exactly that. Walked away from a life I didn’t want and ended up here.”
“But you’d lost your whole family then. You had nothing to stay for. Anyone can understand your doing that.”
“Haven’t I lost Matt now?”
“It’s not the same.”
“You’re right; it’s not. Anyway, I’d walked away even before I lost them.”
“What do you mean?”
She paused and touched my arm again lightly. “There are things you don’t know about me, Gwen. I haven’t been a good person. I’ve done terrible things. I’ve been selfish. I’ve hurt people terribly. But I want you to know one thing. This is important.”
“What?”
“Matt is the only man I have ever truly loved.”
“Not Brad?”
“Not Brad, not… Never mind.”
“What were you going to say?”
Gloria paused and looked away from me. “I told you, I’ve done terrible things. If I tell you, you must promise never to tell anyone else.”
“I promise.”
She looked at me with those blue eyes of hers. I was shocked that I hadn’t noticed the tragedy in them before. “I won’t ask you to forgive me,” she said. “You might not be able to do that. But at least hear me out.”
I nodded. She leaned back against a tree.
“When I was sixteen,” she began, “I had a baby. I didn’t love the father, not really. Oh, I suppose I was infatuated. George was a few years older than me, good-looking, popular with all the girls. I was advanced for my age and flattered by his attentions. We… well, you know all about it. We only did it once, but I didn’t know anything about… you know… then, and I got pregnant. Our families wanted us to get married. George would have done it like a shot – he said he loved me – but… I knew, I knew deep down that it would be the worst mistake of my life. I knew if I married George I would be unhappy. He loved me then, but how long would it last? He drank, like they all did down on the docks, and I really believed it was just a matter of time before he would start beating me, looking upon me as his slave. I’d seen it in my own home. My own father. I hated him. That was why I wanted so desperately to escape. I used to listen to the wireless for hours trying to learn to speak the way I thought real people spoke. If my dad caught me, he’d either laugh at me or beat me, depending on how much he’d had to drink. So I left them all.”