An Acceptable Time (2 page)

The downstairs rooms of the old house had been opened up, so that there was a comfortable L-shaped living room, and a big, rambly area that was kitchen/sitting room/dining room. Polly and Zachary approached the house from the north, climbing up onto the tiered terrace, which still held the summer furniture. “I’ve got to help Granddad get that into the cellar for the winter,” she said. “It’s too cold now for sitting outdoors for meals.”

She led Zachary toward the kitchen and the pleasant aromas of cooking and an applewood fire. Four people were sitting around the oval table cluttered with tea cups and a plate of cinnamon toast. Her grandmother saw them and stood up. “Oh, good. You did find each other. Come on in. Tea’s ready. Zachary, I’d like you to meet my old friend Dr. Louise Colubra, and her brother, Bishop Nason Colubra.”

The bishop stood up to shake hands with Zachary. He wore narrow jeans and a striped rugby shirt and his thinness made him seem even taller than he was. He reminded Polly of a heron. He had strong, long hands and wore his one treasured possession, a large gold ring set with a beautiful topaz, in elegant contrast to his casual country clothes. “Retired,” he said, “and come to live with my little sister.”

Little indeed, in contrast to her brother. Dr. Louise was a small-boned woman, and if the bishop made Polly think of a heron, Dr. Louise was like a brown thrush in her tweed skirt and cardigan. She, too, shook hands with Zachary. “When Kate Murry calls me her old friend, I wonder what the ‘old’ refers to.”

“Friendship, of course,” Polly’s grandmother said.

“Dr. Louise!” Polly took her place at the table, indicating to Zachary that he should sit beside her. “We saw your namesake!”

“Not the original Louise the Larger, surely?” The doctor took a plate of fragrant cinnamon toast and put it in front of Zachary.

“I’m sorry.” Zachary stared at the doctor. “What’s your name?”

“Louise Colubra.”

“I get it!” Zachary sounded triumphant. “Colubra is Latin for snake!”

“That’s right.” Polly looked at him admiringly. Zachary had already shown himself to have surprising stores of knowledge. She remembered him telling her, for instance, that Greek architecture was limited because the Greeks had not discovered the arch. She went to the kitchen dresser to get mugs for herself and Zachary. “My uncles named the snake after Dr. Louise.”

“But why Louise the
Larger
?”

The bishop smiled. “Louise is hardly large, and I gather the snake is—larger, at least, for a black snake, than Louise is for a human being.”

Polly put the mugs on the table. “It’s lots easier to explain Louise the Larger with Dr. Louise here, than back at the stone wall.”

A kettle was humming on the wood stove, its lid rising and falling. Polly’s grandfather lifted it with a potholder and poured water into the teapot. “Tea’s pretty strong by now. I’d better thin it down.” He put the kettle back on the stove, then poured tea for Polly and Zachary.

The bishop leaned across the table and helped himself to cinnamon toast. “The reason for our unceremonious visit,” he said, swallowing, “is that I’ve found another one.” He pointed to an object which sat like a loaf of bread by Polly’s grandfather’s mug.

“It looks like a stone,” Polly said.

“And so it is,” the bishop agreed. “Like any stone from any stone wall. But it isn’t. Look.”

Polly thought she saw lines on the stone, but they had probably been scratched as the old walls settled, or frost-heaved in winter.

But Zachary traced the stones with delicate fingers. “Hey, is this Ogam writing?”

The bishop beamed at him in delight and surprise. “It is, young man, it is! How do you know about it?”

“One of my bosses in Hartford is interested in these stones. And I’ve been going so stir-crazy in that stuffy office that I’ve let him rattle on to me. It’s better than medical malpractice suits”—Dr. Louise stiffened—“and it
is
interesting, to think maybe people were here from Britain, here on the North American continent, as long ago as—oh, three thousand years.”

“And you flunked out of all those fancy prep schools,” Polly said wonderingly.

He smiled, took a sip of tea. “When something interests me, I retain it.” He held out his cup and Polly refilled it.

She put the teapot down and tentatively touched the stone. “Is this a petroglyph?”

The bishop helped himself to more cinnamon toast.

“Um-hm.”

“And that’s Og—”

“Ogam writing.”

“What does it say?”

“If I’m translating it correctly, something about Venus, and peaceful harvests and mild government. What do you think, young man?”

Zachary shook his head. “This is the first Ogam stone I’ve actually seen. My boss has some photographs, but he’s mostly interested in theory—Celts, and maybe druids, actually living with, and probably marrying, the natives.”

Polly looked more closely. Very faintly she could see a couple of horizontal lines, with markings above and below them. “Some farmer used this for his stone wall and never even noticed?”

Her grandmother put another plate of cinnamon toast on the table and removed the empty one. The fragrance joined with that of the wood fire in the open fireplace.

“Two hundred years ago farmers had all they could do to eke out a living. And how many farmers today have time to examine the stones that get heaved up in the spring?” her grandfather asked.

“Still our biggest crop,” Dr. Louise interjected.

Polly’s grandfather pushed his glasses up his nose in a typical gesture. “And if they did see markings on the stones and realized they weren’t random, they wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what the markings were about.”

His wife laughed. “Did you?”

He returned the laugh. “Touché. If it hadn’t been for Nase I’d have continued in ignorant bliss.”

Dr. Louise smiled at him. “Your work does tend to keep your head in the stars.”

“Actually, Louise, astrophysicists get precious little time for stargazing.”

“Where did you find this rock, Nase?” Mrs. Murry sat at the table and poured herself some tea.

“In that old stone wall you have to cross to get to the star-watching rock.”

“Louise the Larger’s wall!” Polly exclaimed, thinking that it was natural that the bishop should know about the star-watching rock; it had been a special place for the entire Murry family, not only her mother.

The bishop continued, “The early settlers were so busy clearing their fields, it was no wonder they didn’t notice stones with Ogam markings.”

“Ogam is an alphabet,” Zachary explained to Polly. “A Celtic alphabet, with fifteen consonants and some vowels, with a few other signs for diphthongs, or double letters like
ng
.”

“Ogam, however,” the bishop added, “was primarily an oral, rather than a written, language. Would your boss like to see this stone?”

“He’d drop his teeth.” Zachary grinned. “But I’m not going to tell him. He’d just come and take over. No way.” He looked at his watch, stood up. “Listen, this has been terrific, and I’ve enjoyed meeting everybody, but I didn’t realize what time it was, and I’ve got a dinner date back in Hartford, but I’d like to drive over again soon if I may.”

“Of course.” Mrs. Murry rose. “Anytime. The only people Polly has seen since she’s been here are the four of us antiques.”

“You’re not—” Polly started to protest.

But her grandmother continued, “There aren’t many young people around, and we’ve worried about that.”

“Do come, any weekend,” Mr. Murry urged.

“Yes, do,” Polly agreed.

“I don’t really have to wait for the weekend,” Zachary said. “I have Thursday afternoons off.” He looked at Polly and she smiled at him. “Okay if I drive over then? It’s not too much over an hour. I could be here by two.”

“Of course. We’ll expect you then.”

They Murry grandparents and Polly accompanied Zachary out of the kitchen, past Mrs. Murry’s lab, and through the garage. Zachary’s small red sports car was parked next to a bright blue pickup truck.

Mr. Murry indicated it. “Nase’s pride and joy. He drives like a madman. It’s very pleasant to have met you, Zachary, and we look forward to seeing you on Thursday.”

Zachary shook hands with the Murrys, kissed Polly lightly.

“What a nice young man,” Mrs. Murry said, as they went back into the house.

And in the kitchen the bishop echoed her. “What a delightful young man.”

“How amazing,” Mr. Murry said, “that he knows about the Ogam stones.”

“Oh, there’ve been a couple of articles about them in the Hartford papers,” Dr. Louise said. “But he does seem a charming and bright young man. Very pale, though. Looks as if he spends too much time indoors. How do you know him, Polly?”

Polly squatted in front of the fire. “I met him last summer in Athens, before I went to the conference in Cyprus.”

“What’s his background?”

“He’s from California, and his father’s into all kinds of multinational big business. When Zachary bums around Europe he doesn’t backpack, he stays in the best hotels. But I think he’s kind of lonely.”

“He’s taking time off from college?”

“Yes. He’s in college a little late. He didn’t do well in school because if he’s not interested, he doesn’t bother.” A half-grown kitten pushed out of the cellar, stalked across the room, and jumped into Polly’s lap, causing her to sit back on her heels. “So where’ve you been, Hadron?” Polly scratched the striped head.

Dr. Louise raised her eyebrows. “A natural name for a subatomic physicist’s cat.”

The bishop said, mildly, “I thought it was a variant of Hadrian.”

“Or we were mispronouncing it?” Mrs. Murry suggested.

He sighed. “I suppose it’s a name for a subatomic particle or something like that?”

Dr. Louise asked, “Kate, why don’t you and Alex get another dog?”

“Ananda lived to be sixteen. We haven’t been that long without a dog.”

“This house doesn’t seem right without a dog.”

“That’s what Sandy and Dennys keep telling us.” Mr. Murry turned from the stove and began drawing the curtains across the wide kitchen windows. “We’ve never gone out looking for dogs. They just seem to appear periodically.”

Polly sighed comfortably and shifted position. She loved her grandparents and the Colubras because they affirmed her, made her believe in infinite possibilities. At home on Benne Seed Island, Polly was the eldest of a large family. Here she was the only one, with all the privileges of an only child. She looked up as her grandfather hefted the Ogam stone and set it down on the kitchen dresser.

“Three thousand years,” he said. “Not much in galactic terms, but a great deal of time in human terms. Time long gone, as we limited creatures look at it. But when you’re up in a space shuttle, ordinary concepts of time and space vanish. We still have much to learn about time. We’ll never leave the solar system as long as we keep on thinking of time as a river flowing from one direction into the sea.” He patted the stone.

“You’ve found other Ogam stones?” Polly asked.

“I haven’t. Nase has. Nase, Polly might well be able to help out with the translations. She has a positive genius for languages.”

Polly flushed. “Oh, Granddad, I just—”

“You speak Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And didn’t you study some Chinese?”

Now she laughed. “One day, maybe. I do love languages. Last summer I picked up a little Greek.”

Mrs. Murry lit the two kerosene lamps which flanked the pot of geraniums on the table. “Polly’s being modest. According to those who know—her parents, her uncles—her ability with languages is amazing.” Then, to Polly’s relief, she changed the subject. “Louise, Nase, you will stay for dinner, won’t you?”

The doctor shook her head. “I think we’d better be heading for home. Nase drives like a bat out of hell at night.”

“Now, really, Louise—”

Mrs. Murry said, “I have a large mess of chicken and vegetables simmering over the Bunsen burner in the lab. We’ll be eating it for a week if you don’t help us out.”

“It does seem an imposition—you’re always feeding us—”

The bishop offered, “We’ll do the dishes tonight, and give Polly and Alex a vacation.”

“It’s a bargain,” Mr. Murry said.

Dr. Louise held out her hands. “I give in. Alex. Kate.” She indicated the Ogam stone. “You really take all this seriously?”

Mr. Murry replied, “Oddly enough, I do, Celts, druids, and all. Kate is still dubious, but—”

“But we’ve been forced to take even stranger things seriously.” Mrs. Murry headed for the door. “I’m off to get the casserole and finish it in the kitchen.”

Polly shivered. “It’s freezing in the lab. Grand was showing me how to use a gas chromatography this morning but icicles trickled off the end of my nose and she sent me in. Uncle Sandy calls me a swamp blossom.”

Dr. Louise smiled. “Your grandmother’s machinery is all for show. Her real work is up in her head.”

“I couldn’t get along without the Bunsen burner. Why don’t you go for a swim, Polly? You know the pool’s the warmest place in the house.”

It was Polly’s regular swimming time. She agreed readily. She loved to swim in the dark, by the light of the stars and a young moon. Swimming time, thinking time.

“See you in a bit.” She stood up, shaking a reluctant Hadron out of her lap.

Up the back stairs. The first day, when her grandparents had taken her upstairs, she had not been sure where they were going to put her. Her mother’s favorite place was the attic, with a big brass bed under the eaves, where her parents slept on their infrequent visits. On the second floor was her grandparents’ room, with a grand four-poster bed. Across the hall was Sandy and Dennys, her uncles’ room, with their old bunk beds, because on the rare occasions when the larger family was able to get together, all beds were needed. There was a room which might have been another bedroom but which was her grandfather’s study, with bookshelves and a scarred rolltop desk, and a pull-out couch for overflow. Then there was her uncle Charles Wallace’s room—her mother’s youngest brother.

Polly had had a rather blank feeling that there was no room in her grandparents’ house that was hers. Despite the fact that she had six brothers and sisters, she was used to having her own room with her own things. Each of the O’Keefe children did, though the rooms were little bigger than cubicles, for their parents believed that particularly in a large family a certain amount of personal space was essential.