Finders and Keepers (24 page)

‘Thank you, Doctor Adams.' Harry almost offered him his hand before he recalled the rule about physical contact. ‘I will be back as soon as I have returned from Pontypridd to tell my family the good news.'

‘Harry!' Bella ran downstairs, threw her arms around him and hugged him as soon as he walked through the front door of his family's new home. He dropped his suitcase and wrapped his arms around her, contrasting her warm welcome with the more restrained and reserved one she had given him when he had arrived on Pontypridd station.

‘You all right, Belle?' he asked solicitously. Her eyes were red and puffy and she was reluctant to let him go.

‘I'm fine,' she replied unconvincingly.

‘Edyth?'

‘No change as of yesterday. Mam and Dad are visiting her in the hospital now. I wanted to go with them but they won't allow more than two to a bed, or children under twenty-one. I ask you.
Children!'
she exclaimed indignantly. ‘As if I'm a child.'

He put his head back and listened for a moment. ‘The house is quiet.'

‘Mari has taken the others down to Uncle Joey and Aunty Rhian's for tea.'

‘You didn't want to go with them?' He disentangled himself from her arms and tossed his hat on the stand.

She shook her head. ‘No, I had some school work to do and reading for next term and letters to write …' Her voice broke, thick with unshed tears.

‘It's all right, Belle, I feel exactly the same way,' he sympathized. ‘It just doesn't seem right to carry on as if nothing's happened while Granddad and Edyth are lying in hospital.'

‘I feel so guilty, Harry.' She opened the door and led the way into the drawing room. ‘All Edyth and I did that day was quarrel. I said some terrible things to her -'

‘All you and Edyth have done for years is quarrel, and you both say terrible things to one another all the time,' he reminded her gently. ‘Everyone in the family knows that neither of you mean what you say. And much as I love Edyth, she has honed aggravation into an art. How many times has she burst out laughing just when she's got one of us so boiling mad we want to slap her?'

‘Yes, but now she's seriously ill and they won't even let me see her, and she could be in hospital for weeks.'

‘I'd say only until she's well enough to start annoying the doctors and nurses.' He feigned an optimism he didn't feel. ‘So, stop torturing yourself with the thought that anything you said hurt her any more than anything she said hurt you.' He walked over to the drinks tray and poured himself a whisky. ‘Want a sherry?'

‘A small one, please, Harry.' She sat on the sofa and stared at the summer arrangement of dried flowers that filled the hearth. ‘You haven't said how Grandfather is, and after listening to Mam and Dad's bulletins on Edyth this week, I'm almost too afraid to ask.'

He handed her the sherry he'd poured. ‘All things considered, Granddad was amazingly well when I saw him this morning.'

‘Really? You're not just saying that, Harry?' Her eyes brightened when she looked up at him.

‘Really,' he confirmed. ‘As he said to me, all he has to do is read, eat, drink and be looked after. Although he did complain that like most females, the nurses fuss too much.'

‘That sounds like Granddad.'

He sat next to her on the sofa and reached for her hand. ‘Edyth will get better, Belle. I just know she will,' he insisted emphatically, refusing to think of the alternative.

‘I wish you'd been around these last few days to convince me. But even if Edyth does recover, Granddad won't, will he?'

He couldn't bring himself to lie to her, not even to give her a few more days or weeks of hope. ‘No, Belle, he won't.'

‘And that's horrid. I can't imagine him not being there when I want to talk to him. He's … He's …'

Harry set his drink on a side table, took hers from her and hugged her again. ‘We all love him and we're all going to miss him, Belle. But he's not dead yet.'

‘Do you think they'll let me see him?'

‘That may be difficult. The doctor will only allow him to have visitors when he's well enough and even then only two at a time. But we might be able to arrange something.' He was reluctant to promise her anything. His grandfather had fourteen grandchildren besides them, all of whom would undoubtedly want to say goodbye to him, and that was without his stepfather, mother, uncles and aunts.

She gulped back her tears. ‘It's all so ghastly. This summer nothing's happening the way I thought it would. Edyth and I made so many plans. We were going to press a collection of wild flowers and fill a sketchbook with scenes from around Ponty as a Christmas present for Dad. And we were going to take the little ones by train to the fields at Creigiau to pick primroses …'

The front door opened and closed, and their parents' voices drifted in from the hall. Harry handed Bella his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose before they went out to meet them.

Shocked, Harry saw that his mother's hair had streaks of grey that hadn't been there when he'd left for the Swansea Valley. But she was smiling. She opened her arms to both of them. ‘She's awake,' she cried. ‘Harry, Belle, Edyth's awake.'

‘And she knew both of us.' Lloyd swept Bella off her feet. ‘So you can stop crying, Belle, and prepare yourself for some more teasing when she gets home.'

‘You're not just trying to make us feel better, Harry? Dad really is in good spirits?' Lloyd asked for the twentieth time when he and Harry sat alone together over coffee and brandy in the dining room after dinner. Bella had gone upstairs to help Sali put the younger girls to bed, and, Lloyd and Harry suspected, to write cards and letters to Edyth and their grandfather.

‘He really is.' Harry was exhausted, and not just by the long drive from the Swansea Valley. He'd spent half an hour talking on the telephone to Joey and Victor, answering their endless questions about his grandfather and reassuring them that he had settled into the sanatorium and responded well to treatment. And afterwards he'd had to satisfy his parents' and sisters' thirst for news. It had been a relief to read Glyn a bedtime story in the quiet of his bedroom before dinner. ‘I didn't like to ask earlier when Mam and Bella were still here – is Edyth going to make a full recovery?'

‘Doctor Williams said it's too early to tell.' Lloyd ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face.

Harry knew his stepfather. The gesture indicated he was worried. ‘Does he think there might be a problem?'

‘I had a private talk with him when your mother was with Edyth. Not a word to your mother?'

‘Of course not,' Harry promised.

‘There's damage to Edyth's spine. As yet, she has no feeling in her legs. It could return but -'

‘Are you saying that she could be crippled?' Appalled by the thought, Harry slumped back in his chair. Edyth had been born a tomboy. Ever since she'd taken her first steps, she'd been out and about, riding her horse or bicycle, climbing trees, charging round with their cousins on Uncle Victor's farm, doing crazy – and generally dangerous – things, like playing tag with the animals.

‘As Doctor Williams said, it's early days, but I'd rather you didn't mention the possibility to your mother or Dad. He still doesn't know about Edyth?' Lloyd asked.

‘I haven't said a word.'

‘Don't,' Lloyd warned.

‘You only have to look at Mam to see the strain she's under,' Harry commented soberly.

‘Her hair.' Lloyd made a face as he sipped his brandy. ‘It was a shock to both of us. It happened overnight.'

‘If you're talking about me, I always said that girl would turn me grey.' Sali came in with Bella.

‘She's certainly done that, sweetheart.' Lloyd reached for her hand when she walked past his chair. ‘Brandy?'

‘Please.' Sali smoothed Harry's hair away from his forehead when she sat down. ‘How are you bearing up under all this strain?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘It's not too late to go to Paris. Your tickets are open until the end of next month, and if you write to the studio -'

Harry shook his head. ‘I'm staying.'

‘Here or the Swansea Valley?' Lloyd asked.

‘Moving between the two, now that Doctor Adams is prepared to let me ask after Granddad three or four times a week. I think I'll manage to see him as long as he's well enough to receive visitors. But I would also like to see Edyth.'

‘Doctor Williams isn't prepared to allow anyone other than us in to see her for the next week, possibly even longer, but we can give her your love. Thank you, darling.' Sali took the brandy Lloyd handed her.

‘I don't see why Doctor Williams won't let me see her,' Bella argued forcefully. ‘After all, I'm the closest to her in age.'

‘Sorry, Belle, but he was quite firm on that point. He said young people come into contact with far more contagious diseases than adults and he can't risk Edyth catching anything while she's in her present weakened state.'

‘But to look on the bright side, darling, Edyth will be home the minute she's well enough, and now she's come out of her coma, that can't be long,' Sali said confidently.

‘When are you thinking of going back to the Swansea Valley, Harry?' Lloyd asked.

‘I'd like to call into the sanatorium the day after tomorrow. And because early morning is the best time for visiting, that means leaving tomorrow afternoon. I thought I'd call in on Uncle Joey in the store and Uncle Victor at the farm on the way.' Harry felt slightly guilty. He wanted to see his grandfather – but there was also Diana.

‘You'll need an extra suitcase to take all the letters, cards and gifts the children have been making,' Sali warned.

‘Ask Doctor Adams if Joey and Victor can visit him at the weekend?' Lloyd opened the cigarette box, and offered it to Sali and Harry. ‘They said they were hoping to go down, and your mother and I will visit -'

‘Just as soon as Edyth is better and home.' Sali took a cigarette. ‘You have no idea how good that sounds after the strain of the past few days, Harry.'

Harry didn't dare look at his mother or glance at Lloyd, lest his mother intercept his look and read his thoughts.

She always had been far too intuitive for his liking.

Harry returned to the inn late the following evening. Just as his mother had predicted, he was loaded with cards, letters and gifts from the family for his grandfather: jars of homemade jam and preserves from Mari, and Billy's old housekeeper, Betty Morgan; letters from his older cousins, and crayon pictures from his younger ones; copies of the latest books from Joey, Victor and Lloyd; wool-work slippers stitched by Rhian; a cardigan Megan had knitted; and a dressing gown his mother had bought.

Not knowing how long he would be in the valley, he had also stopped off in Swansea and stocked up on art supplies. Even if Toby was too busy painting his Holy Grail scene in the vestry to give him any hints or tuition, he decided that he might as well put the time between visits to his grandfather to good use. And as he had discovered for himself, with Diana's help, the valley was very beautiful.

‘You're ready to show your uncle the Grail painting?' Harry asked in surprise when Toby loaded the covered canvas into the back of his car early the following morning.

‘I want his opinion on the colours I've used before I finish it. In my room, not the vestry,' he qualified. ‘Hopefully, even if he wants them changed, I won't need to go back there or listen to another word that spills from that woman's mouth. Talk about verbal dysentery. However, if Frank doesn't like the composition, I'll look for another background and model before I return there.'

‘No doubt you left the vicar's wife and daughter grief-stricken,' Harry joked as he climbed into the driver's seat.

‘They can join the club.'

‘What club?'

‘The club of women who have met me, and had to learn to live with the brutal reality that, to them, I will remain forever unattainable,' Toby declaimed in Shakespearean mode.

‘You do have a vivid imagination.' Harry laughed.

‘We can't all be as fortunate as you with the lovely Diana. You given any thought to where you're going after you visit your grandfather?' Toby sat beside him and slammed the car door.

‘I thought I might try my hand at translating my sketch of the reservoir into a watercolour.'

‘Arthurian lake, you mean.' Toby yawned and stretched his arms above his head. ‘Depending on what Frank says, I'll either come back here and work on the canvas, or go on with you. I showed Frank the preliminary sketches of the lake and he's more or less decided where the arm and sword should go. If I ask the Snow Queen nicely, do you think she'll let me paint her arm with the sword?'

‘How should I know?'

‘I was hoping you'd sit with us and bestow loving glances on her while I paint. That way she won't get bored. Don't tell me you're getting more strawberries,' Toby remonstrated when Harry stopped at the roadside stall.

‘My grandfather likes them.'

‘He's going to turn into one if he eats the amount you buy.'

‘It's a short season.' Harry bought two baskets. His grandfather had always been generous, and he didn't doubt that there were other patients besides the miners who would enjoy them.

‘You're back, Mr Evans, and loaded.' Diana Adams stopped Harry in the corridor. Gowned and masked, he and Toby were heading for the lift on the ground floor.

‘As you see.' He held up the strawberries and bag of letters and books. ‘Presents for my grandfather. How is he?'

‘In surprisingly good spirits, and the presents will be given to him at the ward sister's discretion. We have rules about cluttering the patients' rooms.'