Bombers’ Moon

as they could be with a fence between them. She would confront him about his feelings for her and for Meryl.

Had his marriage to her little sister been one of expediency, what the Victorians would have called a marriage of convenience? Of course it must have been, it was a cover so they would both be safe. But the baby, how could she explain the baby, even to herself? There must be an explanation, there had to be; had Meryl seduced him, had he given in to her in a moment of weakness?

Hari made her way from the munitions to the camp and waited for about an hour, hanging about among the trees until she saw James come out of one of the huts. ‘Evening, James.’

‘Hello there, cariad, you’re looking very pretty today if I may say so.’ James smiled, obviously happy to see her again. ‘Where on earth have you been, I thought you were supposed to make regular checks up here?’

‘My job is nearly over now,’ Hari said, ‘in any case I had to go away for a few days.’

‘Well, I must say you look well for it, girl, red suits you.’

Hari looked down at her new coat, red, like poppies, like blood, like dear dead Kate’s shoes.

‘Thank you, James. What are you going to do now that the war is over?’

‘I’ll have to stay here; important officers are being shifted into Island Farm, Hari, men like Field Marshal Von Rundstedt. He’s a real gent, not a war criminal, but he has to go to Nuremburg in Germany as a witness. In the meantime I’ll be guarding him and the other high-up officers.’

‘And what will happen to the ordinary officers?’

‘They are being shipped back to where they belong,’ James said fiercely.

Hari’s heart sank. How would Michael manage in the chaos there must be in Germany, right now? The Russians and the Allies were occupying the place and Hitler was alleged to be dead, but no one knew the truth of that. It would not be safe for any German returning to the Fatherland. In any case, Michael belonged here, in Wales.

‘And what about that girl who was here a few weeks ago, a silly girl with a baby—will her chap be sent back to Germany?’

‘Haven’t seen the poor creature at all, though the other guards say she hangs around like a stray cat, but she’s wasting her time.’

‘What do you mean?’ Hari asked.

‘That fellow, the German she was daft enough to… well you know, he’s already gone.’ He nodded in satisfaction at a job well done.

‘Gone where?’

‘He was sent back to Germany quick, sharp. Fell sick, see, and we got enough problems without keeping sick enemies here.’

Hari hid her feelings of shock. She wondered if Meryl knew. She would have to make the journey down to the farm, see her sister and find out what was happening. It was a bitter taste in her mouth that she had to ask Meryl anything about Michael. He was hers, she’d seen him first, lain with him, lost her virginity with him.

‘And are you staying at the munitions place, Hari?’ James’s tone was anxious.

‘Oh, yes, it will take years to sort everything out and at least I’ve got a job to keep home and hearth together, for now.’ Her tone was wry.

Hari didn’t want James to ask any more questions. ‘I’ve got to get back home.’ She blew him a kiss. ‘See you soon, James.’

She had a car now, an old clapped-out van someone had fitted windows in. She drove home to Swansea trying to wipe away the mist in her eyes. The streets were empty; the shelters still looked the same; the home guard roamed the streets; the blackout curtains were still in place; it was as if no one believed yet the war was over.

Later, the dark crept in and even the electric lighting didn’t dispel Hari’s gloom. What was she going to do with her life when she eventually left Bridgend? She might get a job as a telephonist or a typist even or perhaps work in Marks and Spencer’s. Yet none of those jobs appealed.

She might meet a man, as Violet had pointed out. Another man she could love as she loved Michael? She didn’t think so. She indulged herself, remembering their love-making, the one and only time they’d been intimate together. She had melted into Michael, her love obscuring every other emotion. They had become one being together forever, at least that’s what she believed then. Would she ever trust another man?

She sat alone in her bedroom, the bedroom of her own house, her empty house, and knew she felt bitter and sorry for herself. She’d taken them all in: Jessie, Father, George and Violet, and even allowed Meryl to stay with her child. And now they had left and she was alone. She sat before the fire, her toes pointed close to the flames, and though she was grieving, her eyes for once were dry as if all her tears were gone.

Seventy-Eight

I saw Hari coming towards the farmhouse and prepared myself for—well I didn’t know what, but I realized the meeting would be difficult, perhaps even hostile. She didn’t knock, but opened the door and came straight to where I was sitting near the window, Michael’s hastily scribbled note, reread a hundred times, on my knee.

‘You know,’ I said, and heard the challenge in my voice. She stood over me, Hari, my sister, her cheeks flushed, her red hair tossed around her face. She looked beautiful. How could I compete with her?

‘Jessie had the kindness to tell me.’ She shook back her hair. ‘How could you tell Jessie and not me, Meryl, how could you?’

I stood up to face her, determined not to get angry. ‘My husband is coming back from Germany, he’s coming home and if I chose to tell his mother that’s my business.’

‘Michael would expect you to tell me.’ She sounded sure and my heart nearly failed me.

‘Why didn’t he write to you then, and not just me?’

‘He had your contacts to help him, didn’t he? They would hardly expect him to write to anyone but his wife, would they? They probably stood over him to make sure he wasn’t going to betray them.’

It sounded sense to me and the sense of euphoria that swept over me whenever I held the paper Michael had written on vanished.

‘Yes, they would expect him to write to his wife and not his “one-nighter”.’

‘He told you we only had one night?’

‘Of course he told me, one night when we lay half asleep after making love; he told me it was the biggest mistake of his life.’ So he had but not in the way I said it. Michael regretted taking Hari’s virginity with so little thought for her future, he felt he’d taken advantage of her innocence. I hammered the nails home. ‘He wished he’d never done it.’

Hari’s cheeks were suddenly pale and I felt sorry for her. I nearly took her in my arms but then she spoke.

‘At least I had him first.’ It wasn’t the first time she’d told me and it hurt like hell.

I retaliated like a child. ‘Aye, and he made all his mistakes with you, experimented with sex as boys do. He came to me a man full grown, knowing his own mind and his own body.’

‘I could have had his child.’ Hari was losing now, her lips trembled and like a tiger I went for my weakened enemy.

‘But you didn’t have his child! I did, his lawful wife, I had his son, carried him in my womb, brought him safely back home—a legitimate child of a true marriage.’

Hari retreated to the door. ‘I won’t give up, Meryl, Michael is mine, he’ll want to be with me. We can have children too, lots of them, you don’t have the monopoly on motherhood you know.’

She slammed out of the house and I sank back into my chair near the window, hating myself, hating Hari, and unwilling to feed my now-crying child until all the pain and venom had drained from my trembling body.

A week later I stood on the platform at Swansea Station and waited for the train to puff into sight. It would poke its sparking, shooting nose round the curve of the land and pull up beside me, and Michael, my beloved Michael, would step out. And then what?