The room was warm from the day’s sun. Mary heard the ripple of the curtains wafting with the light breeze that had risen. The open window allowed noises from the street: a man whistling, a child’s cry, the rumble of some sort of a cart. She frowned, reluctant to open her eyes, savouring the effects of the sedative given to her by the doctor. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been cocooned in this small world but she knew she felt safe. Out there, there was something terrible waiting to pounce; something she needed to face.
She was drifting again, back into the protection of the soft sheets that smelled of lavender. Then it was there again, the horror. Eyes still closed she flung the covers to one side, tried to sit up. ‘Linda.’
‘Hush now, Liebling, it will be all right.’
‘Peter?’
‘I am here, mein Geliebter, I am here. Ted, he telephoned me.’
She felt the warmth of his fingers on hers.
‘I will always be here, Liebling.’
The relief that he’d returned to her was instant but fleeting. The anger and resentment rose up again, vying with the fear of what was happening to Linda. The image of her niece somewhere, lonely and frightened, consumed her, tortured her. But she wouldn’t let him comfort her. She pulled her fingers from under his and turned away. Tracks of tears slowly slid from the outer corners of her eyes and down to her hairline.
Peter waited until he was sure she was sleeping. He smoothed her hair away from her face, stroked her forehead. She was very pale. He looked at the shape of her under the covers, unable to believe she was carrying his child and he hadn’t known. There should have been some instinctive awareness. The combination of happiness and trepidation made him lightheaded, had done since he’d put the telephone down in Gwyneth’s and looked down into her anxious eyes. ‘Go to her,’ she’d said, ‘go and bring her home. And don’t take no for an answer.’
Waiting for the milk train on the platform at Pont y Haven, he’d known he was taking one of the biggest gambles of his
life.
Had he lost?