The Bridge Between Friends

Chapter 1

Cora had been talking about her big birthday for months and for that reason everyone was either invited or they invited themselves.

‘Where will you fit everyone, Cora?’ ‘Are you going to have a rota system?’ ‘A second seating?’ And more furtively, ‘Will there be children?’ Inviting children meant that adults had to act like grown-ups, which was the last thing any of them wanted to do at a party.

Cora was very happy about it – she liked a celebration, people, wine, food. Her son Gwyn was planning it. She’d never been one for not making a fuss, didn’t understand the concept. Where was the fun in that?

Party day was sunny with a pale blue sky marbled with cloud and Cora sat by the wooden picnic table in the quivering shade of the apple tree, coloured bulbs swaying and bunting waving festively from the branches.

With her roots freshly done and her floaty white dress she looked like a healthy ghost. She could hear her son Gwyn and granddaughter Lottie organising things in the kitchen.

She was keeping out of the way; it was her birthday, after all.

Gladdie turned up early, unannounced, because she came into the garden through the back gate carrying a bottle bag with a Christmas tree on it.

She was wearing beige trousers cut off at her shins, orthopaedic sandals and a Marks and Spencer blue check blouse.

Her pink hair was newly cut and asymmetric, touching her earlobe on one side and jaw-length on the other.

‘Happy birthday, Cora! Well? What do you think?’ She shook her head for full effect.

‘It’s not level,’ Cora said.

‘Get with it, Cora! You could do with a touch of style yourself.’

‘Style is it now?’

‘Remember how your hair went green when we were Budgies? It suited you, that green, truth be told.’

‘Budgies.’ Cora laughed at the memory. ‘I never minded them calling us that, did you, Glad? Dew! Those were the days! We had money and freedom! Good times, weren’t they, while they lasted?’

‘Apart from the bombing.’

‘Yeah.’ Cora pursed her lips. ‘Apart from the bombing.’ The bombing was a different story, packed away in a different part of her memory.

‘And the deaths. Owen,’ Gladdie added drily.

Her little brother, Owen. What a thing to forget. Although the truth was Cora hadn’t forgotten him, she’d just overlooked his place in the pattern of things, like a dropped stitch.

It had been her father’s idea to send eight-year-old Owen somewhere safe for the duration of the war, namely Canada, because they lived close to the munitions factory. It was a prime target for the Luftwaffe. When that was hit they’d all be blown to kingdom come.

Her father reasoned that the boy would come back fresh when it was all over, nerves untarnished by bombing and, more importantly, all in one piece.

He would need to be. The country would have to be rebuilt, and there was no knowing how many men would survive to come back home, that’s what her father said, and they would need every one of them.

It was a powerful argument and a logical one.

What man wouldn’t want to save his son if he had the chance?

Gladdie put the Christmas bottle bag on the picnic table with a thud. ‘Here’s your present: it’s Penderyn Welsh Cream liqueur. I haven’t tried it yet and I want to see if I like it. I’ll have the bottle bag back if you don’t mind. I’m recycling.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Where’s Megan?’

‘She won’t be long, she’s got some horse liniment from the vet’s to rub on her knees before she comes. It was expensive, mind, but it’s worth a try.’

‘You can trust a vet.’

Cora grinned. Megan hadn’t been having much luck with her young GP who said that at her age having painful joints was to be expected and was there anything in particular it was stopping her from doing?

Crosswords, Megan had replied.

It was a bad idea to use sarcasm against doctors; they weren’t used to it, you see. Or maybe they were, because pasted around the surgery were signs warning that Abuse of Medical Staff Would Not Be Tolerated, which was a mistake in Cora’s opinion because it put the idea into your head.

Anyway, she had her own medical story to share.

‘I went in to make an appointment and they said I had to phone them, even though I was only a couple of feet away from the receptionist, close enough to shake her hand in fact. I asked if I could use her phone to speak to the doctor and she said I had to go home to do it because that was the rule. Oh, here’s Megan now, galloping into the garden like a racehorse. ’

‘Don’t laugh,’ Megan said, hobbling over to them, her yellow floral dress billowing in the breeze, her grey hair lively as a storm cloud.

‘Once they’re straight I can’t bend them, and once they’re bent I can’t straighten them.

’ She fell into a picnic chair with a grunt, gripping the arms firmly.

‘Happy birthday, Cora,’ she said, looking her up and down.

‘I didn’t know it was fancy dress. You look like a negative.

’ Her gaze drifted, sharpened. ‘Lor, Gladdie, what’s happened to your hair? It’s all lopsided.’

‘Very amusing. I could ask you the same thing,’ Gladdie said, ‘you look like a wild woman. You need product, that’s what you need, to sort out the frizz. Seren would have done it for you. They’ve got pensioners’ rates on a Tuesday. What shampoo are you using?’

‘Shampoo? Waste of money. What’s wrong with Fairy Liquid?’

‘Nothing, if you’re washing your hair and your pans at the same time.’

‘Stop arguing! It’s my birthday,’ Cora protested cheerfully.

‘Look! Here’s Gwyn with the champagne. Hurry up, Gwyn, we’re parched out here!

’ She smiled at her son fondly. He was wearing a turquoise linen shirt, and his sunglasses had some kind of turquoise tint to them.

Dark blond hair cut short, good-looking man, Cora thought.

Takes after his father. It was Gwyn’s idea to have this party for her big birthday, once she’d suggested it to him.

He put the three glasses down on the table, peeled the pink foil off the bottle, unscrewed the cage, and twisted the squealing cork until it popped free.

Cora caught the blushing foam in the glass. ‘Cheers!’

‘Quick,’ Gladdie said, ‘let’s drink it all before anyone else gets here.’ The doorbell rang in the distant hall. ‘Too late.’

Friends, neighbours and family all arrived at once, on the dot, coming into the garden and wishing Cora a happy birthday, kissing her or hanging back awkwardly, depending on how well they knew her, and moments later they were milling around happily with glasses or bottles in their hands.

Elisavet was there too, the cleaning lady the three of them shared.

She wasn’t wearing the usual white hairband which made her look like a nun, so for a moment Cora couldn’t place her.

She was clasping her hands in front of her and wearing a dark trouser suit.

Her long black hair was loose and lavish around her face.

She looked very smart, very calm, oddly official.

‘You came!’ Cora said.

‘Yes,’ Elisavet replied in her usual serious way, and gave a brief nod of acknowledgement to Gladdie and Megan.

Cora, Gladdie and Megan looked up at her with interest, hoping for a smile.

Elisavet stared back at them. Her dark eyes seemed to absorb the light.

‘Help yourself to a drink,’ Cora said quickly, and started waving wildly to Gwyn. ‘Gwyn! Gwyn! Get Elisavet a drink, will you? Anything she wants!’

Good old Gwyn.

He strolled over amiably. ‘Hullo, Elisavet! I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said. ‘What are you having?’

They carried on watching the two of them for a few minutes to see if they could catch Elisavet smiling, and then they gave up, distracted by food, wine, conversation, cream liqueur. Cora chewed the edge of her thumbnail and screwed up her nose. ‘Did it seem as if I was trying to get rid of her?’

‘Yes,’ Gladdie said.

‘Good-looking girl, isn’t she,’ Megan said thoughtfully. ‘But I think we annoy her.’

‘Really?’ It was a disturbing thought. ‘How could we? We’re lovely!’ Cora glanced up through the branches, expecting to see dark clouds between the bunting and the coloured bulbs, but the sky was still summer blue.

Mid-afternoon came. The sun had moved around the garden, shifting the shade, darkening the grass, and the opportunistic wasps were darting around stealing crumbs from plates.

Cora had never been happier. She started telling Megan and Gladdie a story about tarmac, didn’t know what prompted it, when her son Gwyn clapped his hands and called for attention, sending the magpies clattering out of the bushes.

He had a booming, carrying voice, very well suited to his profession of solicitor.

Cora clasped her hands between her knees in the cool of the cotton dress and thought happily: this will be the cake, now. I hope the breeze doesn’t blow the candles out before I do.

But it wasn’t the cake after all. Her teenaged granddaughter Lottie came over barefoot and handed her a large white envelope adorned with a huge purple stick-on bow.

‘Happy birthday!’

Beautiful girl, Lottie was, with long blow-dried brown hair and a smooth, perfect face.

She was wearing a red sleeveless dress. She gave Cora a quirky smile and crouched on the warm grass beside her.

She tossed her dark hair from her face and looked at Cora with that one inherited ironic eyebrow, like a mirror image.

The other eyebrow, on both of them, was perfectly conventional and straight. Who knew you could inherit an eyebrow?

A couple of years ago, Lottie had gone through a phase of shaving both eyebrows off and drawing them on again as a matching pair and it was surprising how anonymous she looked, how disturbingly ordinary.

It was people’s flaws that made them unique.

Neighbours would peer at her closely, trying to work out what on earth was different about her.

‘Open your present,’ Lottie encouraged her. ‘We hope you like it.’

‘I’m bound to like it, aren’t I,’ Cora said warmly, touching the purple bow, and she realised from the expectant hush that had fallen over the garden that she was meant to open the white envelope there and then, in front of everyone.

She felt suddenly reluctant, wondering if it was something gimmicky like a zip wire or a skydive.

Lor! You read about that sort of thing all the time, pensioners falling from the sky, mouths agape, loose cheeks flapping, with a man strapped to the back of them.

It was one thing to pretend to be ‘with it’ in her old age, and another to find you were expected to prove it in public.

She opened the envelope slowly and carefully, buying time, and took out two folded sheets of printed paper with tickets clipped to them. ‘What’s this then?’ she appealed, holding the papers at arm’s length. ‘I haven’t got my glasses on me.’

‘Tickets to Island Farm Camp,’ Lottie explained. ‘They’re having an open day and we can go there and have a look around.’

‘Oh! Island Farm Camp, is it?’ Cora marvelled. ‘Well, I never!’ The words seemed to stretch over the years like an ancient language, reminding her of the thrill of adventure, recounting the passion and the fear of being young.

The camp had been abandoned and overgrown for decades now and they had got so used to it being there that they no longer saw it. But recently the place was being brought to life again, and as proof, here were the tickets. The printed sheets trembled in her hand. Well! Who’d have thought?

She glanced up at her son Gwyn and saw the look on his grown-up face, the look of a boy wanting to please his mother.

And she smiled at him, because he did please her, he’d always pleased her in every one of his guises: baby, schoolboy, teenager, solicitor, father.

Through ever-changing roles, and despite the tumult of life, her son had kept within him the same solid core of soundness and loving decency.

She looked down at the sheets of paper, unclipped the tickets and studied them intently, even though she couldn’t read them, lost for words. I’m going back to Island Farm.

And when she looked up again, everyone was still crowding around her expectantly, silently, studying her, waiting for her reaction.

She realised then that they were in on it, this gift, and had been all along.

‘Well!’ she said, fanning herself with the papers.

‘My word! This is a surprise! Thank you!’ She pressed her fingers against her lips to stop them quivering.

It was all she could manage to say right then, and it wasn’t much of a speech, she knew that.

But looking up at them again, she knew they’d heard the words she didn’t say, and from their smiles and satisfied murmurs it turned out that was good enough.