‘I won’t be back till late. I’m going to Swansea.’
‘Oh!’ Robert says, suddenly louder. ‘Good! We’ll be here. Waiting.’
? ? ?
William drives west, the crumpled paper with an address in Robert’s handwriting on the dashboard. When he reaches Mumbles, he stops to ask in a corner newsagent for directions to Plunch Lane. He’s close. The five-minute drive ends with him parking his car opposite a chalet-style house halfway up a steep hill.
He turns off his lights and stares at the illuminated face of his mother’s home, lights shining through the curtains of both downstairs windows. He can’t quite believe that her life is contained within the walls of this neat little house, with its beige gravel path and privet hedge, that he has not once visited. He imagines sitting down with her and telling her what he’s seen, what he’s done at Aberfan. He imagines that old feeling of being the centre of her world, the focus of her intense love and attention.
Bone-tired and hungry, he knows it was the raw displays of parental love in the mortuary that have bought him to her house. The dogged blame and judgement that have sustained him for so long started to lose their grip in Aberfan. With the engine off, and the car growing rapidly colder, force of habit takes over. She left him, after all, to come here. None of this was his doing. He taps his head on the steering wheel, the cold creeping into his muscles. He lets the familiar reel play again; her driving away, waving but not looking back at him, the impact just above his sternum, the desolation of watching her leave.
Robert had suggested he invite her to his graduation, telling William that he and Evelyn had exchanged letters over the past few months; friendly, open. ‘Maybe we can put all this behind us,’ he’d said. William flinches at the memory of the recent – the only – argument he’s ever had with Uncle Robert.
‘She didn’t even want me to be an embalmer! Are you kidding me?’
Howard appeared at the lounge door. ‘How are we doing in here?’
‘This little prince here doesn’t like the fact that his mother and I are in touch at long last.’
Little prince! That stung. William’s whole life, Robert has only ever said kind things to him.
‘Maybe he needs time to adjust to the idea, Robert.’
‘She was hateful to you.’ William ignored Howard alto gether. ‘She humiliated us.’ The momentum of his anger was stronger than his self-control; his face pulled into tears. ‘She left me!’
Twice he removes the key from the ignition, twice he puts it back. Eventually, he punches the dashboard and starts the engine.
‘No, Mum.’
? ? ?
Stopping at the first phone box he sees, he scrabbles for change in the glove compartment, gets out. With the coins in a tidy pile on top of the telephone, he rests his forehead on the red ridge of a window pane for a moment before dialling.
‘Mr Finch?’
‘William!’
‘I’m calling from a phone box. Is Gloria there, please?’
‘She is! Hang on!’ Car headlights fleetingly bleach his legs.
‘Hello, you!’ Gloria’s voice is loud and relieved. ‘Robert called, he’s beside himself.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he says softly, ‘I’ve spoken to him.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Wales.’
‘Oh God, the funerals.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. No. Kind of. I need to say something, Gloria.’
‘All right.’
‘Promise not to speak till I’m done.’
‘OK …’ She sounds wary.
‘I love you, Gloria. Have done since the day we met.’ He pauses; there’s absolute silence. ‘After the dinner dance, I drove to Aberfan thinking, when I get home, I’m going to ask Gloria to marry me.’ The relief of saying it out loud is immense, but he must press on before she misunderstands. ‘But after this, I can’t. You want to be a mum. You should be.’ He scrunches his eyes at the memory of the pulpy blood on the Finches’ stairs, of Gloria being carried out of the house. ‘You’ll be wonderful, but I’m not cut out for family life. You need to find someone else.’ Utter silence. He waits, just to hear her breathing, but there’s nothing. ‘Goodbye, Gloria.’
Part II
CAMBRIDGE CHOIR
12
SEPTEMBER 1957
The sky is bruise-blue and the air almost golden with the promise of rain. He is chilly in his grey shorts and green blazer.
His mother, Evelyn, is kneeling down, though the ground is gravelly and she’s wearing new stockings. Her face is so close he can see a swirl on her right cheek where her make-up isn’t quite rubbed in. Her eyes start to silver. He hopes they won’t spill. William glances over her shoulder and sees a tall father with a wide smile slapping his son’s back. The mother’s make-up is silkier and thicker than Evelyn’s, she has a pretty scarf tied under her chin, and she wears pointy sunglasses even though it’s not sunny. She’s smiling too, but with her eyes behind the slanted black lenses, her face looks blank. There’s a hanky in her hand. William wishes his dad could be there to smack his back and make them all smile – and then his mum wouldn’t be all alone when she leaves in a few minutes.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ Evelyn is saying, the tide in her eyes still high. ‘And so would your father be. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ He puts his hand on her shoulder because he can’t bear her to look sad. She stands up so quickly, his hand slaps down onto the grey flannel of his new shorts.
‘Don’t start being all nice to me, William Lavery, you’ll set me off.’ She smiles down at him, blinking. ‘I’m allowed to come and see how you’re getting on in six weeks. It’ll come round before we know it. By then you’ll have all sorts of lovely music in your head you can sing to me over lunch.’
‘I will’ – he forces his voice to be big and brave – ‘like this.’ He puts his hands out theatrically: ‘Laaaaaaaaaaaa.’ He doesn’t want her to go, but he knows she has to and he mustn’t make it worse for her.