17. Loneliness at Night

THE POETESS Part 17

After quite a worried hour of thought in which my imagination tried to make a fool of me I did spend that first night in my almost refurbished cottage and wasn’t troubled at all by visions of poor old Harry. I suppose that knowing his story helped. His life had ended in shell-shocked torment, and mine was nowhere near as traumatic as that. He lived every day with the bombs and bullets of a bloody war inside his head, a war that wouldn’t end while he lived, and all I had to trouble me was a pile of old bones.

Since that day I’ve read quite a bit about the viciousness of the two world wars, and it has always struck me as a strange comment on human nature that the word victory was ever used. When both conflicts came to an end leaving millions dead it seemed almost cruel to me that crowds gathered to cheer. Yes, they were cheering because the wars were over and the bloodshed was coming to an end, but so far as the dead were concerned there was nothing worth cheering about.

Dead is dead.

When the builders had finally left the site, and tidied what they could, carting away the debris of the centuries, Rosie set about turning her house into a home, yet at the same time she was aware there was something missing.

Every night she went to bed alone, and every morning she rose from that same bed alone. The weeks passed by and from time to time she was aware of a haunting sense of solitude.

Until, that is, she had a visit from Violet.

“I called,” murmured Violet as if it was the last thing on this Earth she wanted to do. “I left Archie with Roy. He can be a daddy for a change.”

“That’s what he wanted to be.”

“Archie likes him, I think,” murmured Violet

“He must be almost at school by now,” smiled Rosie, “getting to be a big boy.”

Violet nodded. “His dad, his real dad, the man who raped me, is dead.”

“You what?” asked Rosie, shocked.

“Yesterday. Last night, actually. He had what they called a stroke and one minute he was alive and well and joking with me and the next he was just sitting there with the most grotesque expression on his face, and dead.”

“You poor soul,” whispered Rosie, “what a dreadful thing to happen.”

“This morning Archie asked where his daddy was, and I didn’t know what to say. So I went to the caravan where Roy’s staying. I took Archie with me, of course. Roy’s such a nice fellow. He understood and, well, when I said I didn’t know where to turn he suggested I came down here to see you.”

“Why me?” asked Rosie.

“He said you were understanding. That you’d know what I should do…”

And that was the nub of the question. What should Violet do? She could see if she could win Roy back into her home and into her bed, she might even see if Roy could manage to forgive and forget and be there for her, offer her himself for the rest of their lives together? Which, and here was where my flickering memories and wretched far-off dreams might have borne fruit, should she discard him so that some time soon, and not so distant in time, I could repeat that one glorious kiss we had shared years ago? And maybe stay with him? I was, after all, only too aware of my loneliness.

“What would you like to do?” asked Rosie.

“I don’t know. Roy’s all right, he’s a good man to have around the house…”

“Even though you kicked him out of your lives?”

“That was before Archie’s real dad died!”

“And now he is dead?”

“I’ve got to work out what’s best for Archie.”

“What’s best for you, you mean, Violet.” Rosie thought she could see through the other woman’s dithering to the real woman underneath.

“I don’t think…” she stammered.

“You don’t think what?” demanded Rosie. “The man who created Archie with you, Mr Hardcastle, he didn’t actually live with you, did he?”

Violet shook her head. “He said he shouldn’t,” she murmured, tears in her eyes, “he said the kids at school would soon latch on and that that once a week should be enough, that and taking Archie for the odd trip to the park.”

“So for a once-e-week bunk-up with him you chucked Roy out?”

“It would have confused the boy if he’d stayed!” defended Violet. “And anyway, Roy had his own room when he was with me. He went to his daft aunt’s caravan, you know!”

“After I’d cleared my own stuff out of it,” sighed Rosie, “you’re not very good at the relationship thing, Violet, are you?”

“So what do you think I should do, Rosie?” asked Violet.

“You should think of Roy,” decided Rosie. “You’ve chucked him out onto the street, but your preferred option has sadly died so you want number two back pronto. What do you think Roy would make of that? What would you make of it if you were Roy?”

I could see that hit home. Her expression, her whole demeanour, changed. She became less the centre of the story in her own mind, and let someone else in. Maybe she wasn’t that bad after all.

But neither option was what happened next.

“Roy’s taking Archie to my mum’s,” said Violet, “I would be so grateful, so very grateful, if I could stay here until tomorrow. I … I can’t face it.”

“Can’t face what, Violet?”

“Everything. The police, the questions, Roy, mum, the whole dreadful business.”

“And you want to stay here?”

She nodded.

“But I’ve only got the one bed. The spare room’s nowhere near ready yet.”

“I don’t mind sharing…”

The words that were to rock my world.

And that was it. The one and only time in my life that I’ve shared my bed with another woman. The one and only time in my life when a goodnight peck on the cheek turned into something that was neither a peck nor goodnight. The only time in my life when I found myself really understanding the soul and spirit of my own sex.

And it meant more to me than, even all these years afterwards, I can begin to understand properly. It wasn’t because I, myself, had been coming to terms with loneliness. It was because I, being a woman, could understand her.

Violet was such a fragile person and it was easy for me to see how a man like the brute Hardcastle had taken advantage of he with his suave sophistication, had appealed to whatever it is men appeal to when they seduce their women, and how easily broken those women might end up being.

I’ve always been on the feminine side of life. That’s why I call myself a poetess rather than a poet. We women need to be our own army and defend our own hearts using our own terms, however difficult that might be. If we try to be equal to men it’ll never work until we evolve testicles, and goodness knows, that must never be!

© Peter Rogerson, 23.03.21