Gull Island Read online

  Too lethargic to even walk across the room to put a match to the fire, he wrote down his wishes briefly and clearly and signed them with his full name and the date. Then he cried as he realized he couldn’t remember her address or her second name. It was Jones, wasn’t it? Or Davies? Or Evans or Thomas? The more he pondered the less he was sure. And didn’t a will need to be witnessed? What a fool he was. The document was useless because he was useless!

  He lit a match and was about to burn the paper but stopped, blew out the match and threw the paper into a drawer of the desk. Burning it was too much of an effort, he would have to get up to put the ashes in the embers in the grate and he really couldn’t be bothered.

  He sat in his chair and the lamp flickered and went out, leaving only the unpleasant smell of the burnt oil. He ought to get up and relight it but what was the point? Barbara had friends and didn’t need him, his father hated him and his sister wanted to pretend he didn’t exist.

  Discomfort, that sanity restorer, eventually brought him out of his depression and, shivering with cold, his muscles locked in tension, he forced himself to rise. Like an old man, he moved to relight the lamp and put a match to the fire. There was a shuffling among the screwed-up paper under the criss-cross sticks and as the flames began to slowly curl upwards, a mouse jumped out, shook itself and raised its head as if to reprimand him for disturbing its slumber.

  The fur on its back was only slightly scorched and it allowed him to pick it up and place it on the table. The creature was dazed but Luke pretended it was tame and was accepting him as a friend. It seemed very important at that moment to be accepted even by this tiny mouse. He sat watching it, while slowly taking a parcel of sandwiches from his pocket then offering the little creature some crumbs. To his delight the mouse sat up and chewed without any sign of fear.

  He ate too, with a pretence of company, and when the mouse had once more disappeared, he opened the door and stood looking out across the glistening sea to the island. The light from the moon made a path that tempted him once again to think of walking along it to oblivion, away from his misery. It was cold with a rawness that seemed to threaten the very skin on his face and he dug his hands deep into his pockets. His fingers closed on a long, narrow box. The watch. It was to have been his gift to Roy this Christmas. He lifted it again and was about to hurl it into the sea but then held back as an idea occurred to him. Once the war had ended, he would go and find Roy’s grave and bury the watch there with him.

  The decision gave him a sense of purpose he had lacked since the news of Roy’s death had reached him and the tenseness around his thin face relaxed as plans began to form. The mouse ran across the floor twice more as he sat quietly in his chair. He slept that night with an odd sense of comfort, knowing he had company.

  Mrs Carey was upset. Today she had received the payment from her Christmas savings club. All the year she had been giving sixpence and more when she could, to a woman who called each Friday and marked the amount on a card. Leaving Richard in charge of the children, she had gone to the shops and bought a small gift for each of them – dolls, toy cars, a scarf each for the twins – and with only a few shillings left to buy fruit on Christmas Eve, she had counted and found there was sixpence missing. She was extremely careful with money, always knowing to the halfpenny how much she owned. She knew it had been taken by one of the children. But which one?

  She waited until Barbara had brought them home and they were sitting around the crowded table before demanding to know who had taken the sixpence.

  ‘I save all the year so we can make Christmas a bit different from the rest of the year and I won’t have you taking more than your share,’ she said, her small figure bristling with anger and hurt.

  Barbara looked around at the shocked faces looking for a sign of guilt, but it was Idris, the golden boy, at whom she looked longest. ‘Idris?’ she asked quietly. ‘You were here all day and the others were out. D’you know anything about a missing sixpence?’

  ‘Barbara!’ Mrs Carey said at once. ‘As if my Idris would take from his own mother!’

  ‘Sorry, Auntie Molly Carey, I only thought – him being the only one here.…’

  ‘He wouldn’t take my money, would you, cariad? Now …’ She glared around the table again, questioning them all. On Idris’s palm, a round pattern deepened as he gripped the small silver coin tightly. Richard and Barbara watched him, and knew.

  The discussion went on for a few minutes, then Idris slid down from his seat next to his mother and crawled across to the hearth. He held up his hand, smiling his beautiful smile, and showed the sixpence he was holding. ‘Look, Mam, it’s here, dropped in the coals.’

  Mrs Carey was overjoyed but Barbara stared at Idris, her eyes full of doubt. She puzzled over why she disliked him so much and wondered also if it were possible to see the future character of one so young.

  Ten days later, long after midnight had struck and ended Christmas Day, Luke and the mouse dozed in front of a fire of driftwood, having eaten Christmas dinner together, sharing a chicken, some cheese and a loaf of bread. The mouse had found a comfortable place in the cupboard beside the fireplace and Luke felt beholden to his new friend to come as often as he could to warm the house for its comfort.

  Two miles away, in a bed already overcrowded, Barbara lay cuddling her small daughter whom she called Rosita. Rosita Jones, born just before midnight on Christmas Day.

  ‘She’s so small. And her causing so much fuss. And look at those legs! She’s like a doll with half the stuffing missing,’ Barbara said, as she examined the perfect child.

  Mrs Carey laughed, her eyes tearful with pleasure. ‘Give her time, fach. In a month those limbs will be filled out and she’ll be the most beautiful baby the town’s ever seen.’

  ‘If it had been a boy,’ Barbara said sleepily, ‘I’d have called him Luke.’

  Luke heard about the birth of Rosita early in 1918. It was a Tuesday but Richard didn’t complain when Barbara asked him to abandon school and go to the cottage at Gull Island with a note for Luke.

  The wind came across the sea with a bite and Richard covered up his head by pulling the back of his coat up and over it, his head in the part where his shoulders should be, arms high and sticking out like antennae. His legs were bare apart from socks which fell around his ankles and disappeared into the over-large boots, but it felt a little better when the wind didn’t burn his ears and forehead. Crouched at this odd angle, he walked on, giving the appearance of a deformed alien.

  Luke’s place seemed empty as he approached the lonely cottage on the isolated shore but as he knocked, then climbed up to look through the window, the door opened and a smiling Luke invited him inside.

  ‘I brought a note from Barbara,’ Richard explained, digging in his pocket.

  ‘I thought you might. It’s the baby, is it? The little girl?’

  ‘Called her Rosita, she has, mind. There’s a name to give a tiddly little squawker.’

  ‘She’s a squawker, is she, this Rosita? If she makes her presence known so loudly, she’s going to stay. It shows that she’s strong.’

  ‘Why d’you live here all alone?’ Richard asked. ‘Haven’t you got no family?’

  ‘None.’ The muscles on Luke’s jaw tightened and he tried to smile. Then he added, ‘Well, there’s my friend, of course. Not really family, more a sort of adopted friend.’ He knelt down and made a squeaking sound with his lips and after a moment the mouse came out and ran over to his outstretched hand.

  Richard moved slowly, instinctively careful not to frighten the little creature, and to his delight, the mouse accepted him and took food from him. The giving of food, such a basic gesture of friendship, gave pleasure and Luke’s smile became a natural one.

  The man and the boy found each other good company, the spurious adulthood of Richard giving Luke a protective feeling for the boy, Richard seeing in Luke a rare adult who talked to him as an equal and not down to him.

  ‘Did you know that I�
��m six today?’ Richard told him. ‘Mam said I can have the cream off the milk in my cocoa, but I expect I’ll let Blodwen have it, her being in more need of it, like, being so young.’

  ‘Or Barbara maybe?’ Luke couldn’t help suggesting.

  ‘She wouldn’t take it, not her. Barbara won’t take more than she has to.’

  ‘And it’s really your sixth birthday? Well, we ought to make today something special. What d’you say to a trip in the boat? We might even catch a small coddling.’

  Richard hid his excitement well, nodding briefly and throwing an ‘All right then’ over his shoulder in the most casual way. But Luke saw the glowing eyes and knew the boy was pleased. He found an extra coat and they set off armed with short boat rods and a tin of lug-worms that Luke had gathered earlier in the day.

  Richard found the boat an unbelievably thrilling experience. Luke rowed them around the island and they landed for a brief walk on the soft, downy turf and watched as rabbits hopped about with no fear of them. The air had warmed slightly but was still harsh and the thought of anchoring the craft and sitting to wait for fish to swim to their bait quickly lost its appeal, so after Luke had rowed them further across the bay until they were opposite the ruined cottage, they returned to the beach and the warmth of his home with relief.

  Defiant of the cold, they didn’t stay inside. Luke made a fire on the shore and they sat in the lee of the boat, draped in blankets, while the flames licked around the driftwood and they talked. They each spoke of their dreams and hopes for a future neither could really imagine.

  Luke spoke prosaically of continuing to run his book-selling business without any contact with the family he loved. Richard’s future was filled with hopes of a different kind of life to the present one. He described vividly a time where there was plenty of space and where no one needed to be cold or hungry. A future in which the Carey family didn’t depend on the varied contents of Mr Carey’s pockets.

  When the fire died down and shadows began to bring a return of the deepening cold, they went inside and ate several rounds of toast, then they walked along the beach to the cottage Richard and Barbara had once explored.

  ‘D’you own this?’ Richard asked. ‘You must be rich if you own the other one and rich people always own more than they need.’

  ‘It belongs to no one. The man who used to live there moved away when I was a child.’

  ‘There’d be plenty of room for us in that place.’ Richard studied it with his old-young face, one small, skinny leg propped on a rock, leaning forwards, elbow on his raised knee, in the attitude of an ancient philosopher.

  ‘What?’ Luke laughed aloud. ‘One cough and the lot would be down around you!’

  ‘It’s strong!’ Richard insisted.

  Luke looked at the boy, surprised at the vehemence in his voice. ‘Do you really think so, Richard?’

  ‘It’s only the front bit that’s falling off.’

  Doubtfully, Luke went to look more closely at the walls and then, seeing the anxious look on the boy’s face and realizing that this was a part of his dream, he nodded. ‘You’re right. Once that porch is re-built it wouldn’t make a bad home.’ A look of pleasure lit Richard’s young face, and the thin shoulders dropped in relief.

  ‘I got a plan, see,’ the boy said.

  Luke was curious but didn’t ask. If and when Richard wanted him to be involved, he’d tell him.

  Among his food supplies, Luke had some Gong soup that cost twopence for three packets. Not much of a meal to offer a guest but at least it only took a few minutes to make and it would warm them. He made up two bowls and filled them with bread and they ate with enjoyment.

  Richard had a rather ancient apple in his pocket, which he solemnly cut in half. They curled their faces at the sourness but by dipping it into the sugar bowl ate everything except the core, which they gave to the mouse.

  ‘Give little Rosita a hug from me, will you?’ Luke said as Richard reluctantly stood to leave.

  ‘Lucky you are that she isn’t living with you,’ Richard sighed, tutting and shaking his head in his old man gesture. ‘Noisy beyond she is. There’s always knocking from them in the next room or them up above complaining and asking us to keep her quiet. Fat chance of anyone getting that one to stay quiet.’

  When Richard had gone, Luke sat for a long time on the stony beach near the embers of the fire, staring out at the slowly receding tide. He had enjoyed the company of the boy and now, even though the night air chilled him, he couldn’t face returning to the loneliness that stretched out before him once he closed the cottage door behind him.

  He kicked the fire into a blaze and threw on more wood. Better out here where he could at least believe in the existence of others even if they were miles away, than shutting himself in the cottage and the unbreakable silence behind a closed door. After an hour, during which he went over the conversation between himself and the six-year-old Richard Carey, smiling occasionally at brief memories, he went in, fed the mouse and went to bed.

  The following morning he was wakened early by the sound of someone entering. Curious but not alarmed, he sat up and reached for his clothes and in moments he was on his way down the stairs. To his initial delight, he saw his father standing near the fireplace – tall, well dressed but with such a look of hatred in his eyes that the smile of welcome froze on Luke’s face and the contents of his stomach curdled.

  ‘Father? Good to see you. Sorry I was still in bed. I’ll soon have the fire lit and some tea made.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘What?’ Luke staggered as if the man had hit him. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Get out of this house and do not come back. This cottage belongs to the family and you do not.’

  ‘But I come here at weekends to get away from town and what harm can I do, just living here for a few days a week?’

  ‘It’s a family property and you are trespassing. Your sister told me you were living here and I won’t allow it, d’you hear?’

  ‘You can’t mean it, Father.’ Luke was trembling. He hadn’t realized just how much he had hoped that once he and his father met and talked, things would have come right between them. But, as usual, in his father’s presence, he couldn’t muster his thoughts to even begin. ‘I’m your son,’ he stuttered painfully. ‘I love you and you must love me. How can that not be so?’

  ‘Don’t say that word! Coming from your mouth it’s unclean. I’ll wait outside while you gather your things then the door will be locked and you will give me your key.’

  In a daze, Luke went upstairs and returned with his clothes and few possessions in a leather bag. His father refused to take the key from his hand but told him to place it on the table in a cigar box presumably brought for the purpose. Didn’t he even want to touch something I’ve handled? Luke wailed inwardly at the insult. Foolishly, in that moment of anguish, he thought of the mouse.

  ‘I have a pet mouse – he depends on me for food,’ he said, stuttering madly.

  ‘No more he doesn’t.’ His father kicked the carcase of the mouse towards the centre of the room, the mouse crushed with his heel as it came trustingly to greet him. Luke stumbled from the house and didn’t see his father leave.

  He was absent from the bookshop all that week, having broken the lock and slept in the cottage, guessing his father wouldn’t bother to check that he had indeed left. He had to see Barbara and Rosita before he returned to Cardiff, give them an address where they could find him. They at least wouldn’t abandon him. But he wondered if even Barbara would turn away from him if she knew how much his father hated him for saying he loved his friend Roy. He knew he mustn’t ever mention Roy again, but just hold the happy childhood memories of the Thomas family close to his heart.

  He had to wait until Sunday. That seemed the most likely day for Barbara and the children to come. To occupy himself while he waited, he began repairing the porch of the house in which Richard had taken such interest. There were a few tools in the cottage and the re
mains of the porch were scattered but mostly still sound. He went into town to order wood and cement, which was delivered immediately, Luke himself riding with it on the back of the firm’s horse and cart.

  Stones for renewing the walls were easy to find and by the time Sunday had come, the porch was as good as new. It was surprising how much the place improved with a good brushing and scrubbing. He even whitewashed some of the walls, taking pleasure in the transformation and enjoying the physical hard work, using it to blot out the expression of hatred on his father’s face.

  The third bedroom still needed a lot of work but he knew a bag of plaster, strips of skirting board and a few pots of paint would work a small miracle. It was tempting to take another week away from the shop and continue with the tasks he had set himself, but he had to get back. The bookshop was his sheet anchor and without that reason to rise each morning, he would soon succumb to misery and despair.

  He bought potatoes from a local farmer on that Sunday morning and put them into the edge of the newly lit bonfire. He watched the lanes and listened for the sound of the children coming. He’d hear them soon and they’d be singing. They were always singing. At three o’clock, with the day already darkening, the potatoes were cooked and he had abandoned hope. Cleaning himself up, he changed into his town clothes and went to the station.

  Chapter Four

  AS 1918 MOVED along on leaden feet, the newspapers continued to print photographs of young men who had been killed, wounded or gassed, or were missing in one of the many battlefields. The list seemed endless, with some mothers begging for news of a missing son and others taking what comfort they could from the words of praise for their sons’ bravery and coolness in action. A few believed the oft-repeated words.

  For all the mothers it was their little boys they lost, children who had been given a uniform and told they were men. To the mothers they would never be anything but their naughty boys, whom they had expected to come in dirty and hungry from some street game or other.