noise in there,’ his da called from the back door. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’
‘Nothing, Da.’
‘Well, it doesn’t sound like nothing to me.’
‘Making a coffin.’
‘Are you killing someone to go in it as well?’
Wilfred held the hammer in both hands, pausing. He took another nail from the box. He rammed it into the wood.
After Grace had told him, he had lain awake perturbed, desperate to understand, while Grace had slept in a way that appeared almost serene, as if released from an overwhelming burden she had been carrying, and relief had given her respite. She slept, but Wilfred was utterly awake; his mind charged and clouded with incomprehension. What would the Revd Waldo Williams say? Dr Reece? Mrs Reece? He imagined telling Flora. He tried to lie still, but couldn’t. It was too big, the truth of it too enormous to understand or envisage. All night he felt fevered, the skin on his face burned, the bones in his head ratcheted tighter and his legs moved restlessly between the sheets. Madoc. It was all he could think about and he was unable to rest with the truth of it – and he knew it to be true.
Madoc.
‘Doctor Reece?’ Wilfred called. He knocked on the panelled door to his father-in-law’s surgery. There was no answer.
‘Doctor Reece,’ Wilfred stated with more resolve. There was still no reply, but this did not deter him. The man might be a doctor of medicine, he might be older than him, he might even be his father-in-law, but Wilfred would not be intimidated. Wilfred would not be bullied, not this time. That was over now. Unbidden, he opened the door and stepped into the room.
Dr Reece didn’t look up. Instead he put the lid on his fountain pen with a snap, replaced the Mont Blanc on his ledger and took his blotter between his hands. Relations between the two men had been exceedingly strained since the early summer when Dr Reece had come round to 11 Market Street and waited a whole warm, sunny afternoon for Wilfred to return home. Since then there had been no small talk – no talking of any kind. Until now.
As hard as it was to imagine, seeing the doctor’s aged face, Wilfred knew that Dr Reece had once been a young man who had all the thoughts that all young men have, and that he would have been sweet on Mrs Reece, when she was younger and fleshier. But Grace’s father had assumed that Wilfred had had these same feelings towards his daughter and had acted on those thoughts, made them a reality, with the resultant consequences. That, outside the strictures of marriage, was unforgivable.
Wilfred coughed, but Dr Reece ignored him. This man is a doctor, Wilfred said to himself, looking around the dark front room that was the surgery. He must know far more about the birds and the bees. He must have studied such things in books at university. Indeed, Wilfred thought, Dr Reece would know more about the matter than anyone else in Narberth – theoretically, of course. This man here, his arms folded like a shield in front of his chest, sitting at his large, heavy desk, so certain that Wilfred had nothing worthwhile to say, knew more about intercourse than any of the other three hundred or so people in Narberth. But he didn’t know about his son. He doesn’t know that, Wilfred thought.
‘Doctor Reece, I want an annulment.’
His father-in-law looked up at him with his piercing eyes and snorted. He smoothed his hair slowly and moved his stethoscope to the corner of his desk.
‘From Grace,’ Wilfred continued. He was no longer cowed by Dr Reece’s silence. Nor would he be daunted if the doctor spoke as if Wilfred had said a ridiculous thing.
‘Of the marriage.’
Dr Reece glanced briefly at Wilfred.
‘Because the marriage was not consummated.’
It was awkward indeed, to talk about this thing with a man, even a medical man, about his daughter. Awkward? Impolite? Would those be the right words to describe it, Wilfred wondered. No, not really: this was beyond impolite, beyond normal conversation.
‘And how will you prove the marriage is unconsummated?’ the doctor asked, emphasizing the word ‘prove’. He was a scientist; he wanted proof. Wilfred looked back at him, held his eyes steadily. Wilfred knew that Dr Reece expected to win, was used to winning. Grace’s father was certain of his power and practised in the art of bullying.
‘I shan’t,’ Wilfred admitted. He looked down at the floor.