Miriam's Talisman (22 page)

Like hell I would!

‘Come on, Rabbit, I'll help you to unpack.'

And that was it. He had said the magic word—the spell was broken. Every muscle in my body tightened. A wave of energy surged along my spine, lava boiling up through a volcano.

‘I am not a rabbit!' I spat the words out as venom.

‘What was that? What did you say?'

‘I said I am not a fucking rabbit. I will not spend my
life digging a hole to cower in. Not for you, or Hannah, or anyone else.' My voice rose. Fury possessed me and I watched myself in wonder, realising that I was actually enjoying it. More than that, I was rejoicing in it. ‘What's more,
I'll
decide where I live and what I do and what I want!' I pushed Paul away, so hard that he stumbled backwards against the bed. I was a child again and I was free.

‘Just what do you want then?'

‘I want to fly, that's what I want to do. I want to fly with the eagles!'

‘For God's sake, Chloe, calm down.' He staggered to his feet, clutching the bed cover. His hair was sticking up and there was spittle on his chin.

‘I'm perfectly calm, thank you—'

‘You're out of control. You know that, don't you?'

‘—and rational. In fact, I think I've finally come to my senses. And guess what, Paul? You're no longer part of the deal.'

‘You're acting like you're crazy!'

‘Am I? Really? Then I suggest you leave here now, while you still can!'

I looked around for something to throw. Damn, I'd packed nearly everything. There was that hideous vase, a present from my mother—I'd always hated it. With cool calculation I hurled it at the doorpost just to the right of Paul's head. He ducked and it landed with a bang, failing to shatter. Disappointing. I was hoping for the full dramatic effect. However, the outcome was the same. Paul's feet thudded down the stairs and the front door slammed behind him.

Silence.

I could feel blood pulsing in my ears, the zing of adrenalin rushing through my veins. I threw myself backwards onto the bed, breathless and exhilarated. The weight of gravity had fallen from my body. There were no wings, but I was flying.

After a while I finished packing, dashed off a letter and pinned it to Angie's door, then said goodbye to the little house. On the way out I paused by the telephone table and picked up the
Yellow Pages
. Flipping through, I scanned the ads for travel agents.

I
T WAS ALL ARRANGED
.

Only five days, then I would board a flight for the United States. The tickets arrived as promised and I resented the brief visit to the bank for dollars. One hasty trip to the local shop for food, then I surrendered totally to the cottage, huddling down into it, waiting.

There was a long phone call from Angie. I refused to budge and forbade her to come to me, so we talked in circles for ages until, eventually, I persuaded her that I was OK. I convinced her I needed some time out, that was all. And she was to take no notice of anything Paul said; he'd had his ego badly dented. Apart from that one call, no one intruded upon my isolation. Perhaps I was forgotten, and if so I didn't mind.

This is how it will be, I thought, this is the shape and pattern of my future. For those few days I moved in solitude, adrift upon a slow, winding river while time relinquished its hold over me. Whenever September burnishes the trees and the ripe, rotting smell of harvested fields taints the evening air, I shall think of those silent days.

Asleep and sleepwalking, I spent the hours filling my senses with the essence of my new home: birds pecking and squabbling among the fruit canes, the mustiness that rises from sun-drenched plaster, ancient timbers creaking and sighing throughout the night. Although isolated, I cannot remember being afraid there. Nor was I idle, exploring cluttered cupboards and hidden spaces, coming to know what was mine. I told myself this was contentment. For the most part I believed it. Yet every rational thread in my mind should have been screaming out to me.

I found something.

I was in her bedroom, rooting around among some old clothes in the bottom drawer of a chest, when I felt the corner of something hard. It was a shoebox, a large one, white cardboard and tied round with a limp yellow ribbon. Of course I opened it. Envelopes—the box was full of them, all shapes and sizes, white and cream and blue. Love letters, I thought at first, wondering if I ought to not intrude further. Then I noticed they were still sealed. I quickly sifted through the box. No, not one of them had been opened. The stamps were all American, the postmarks mostly from Boston. And the dates, they went back years, but all December and April, December and April, Christmas and—

Of course. They were addressed to
Miss H. Shaw
. Not Miriam, but Hannah. Every Christmas and birthday, year after year after year. Every one remembered and not one of them reached her. For a long time I sat on the floor, turning them over in my hands, counting the years and wondering what to do. They were rightfully Hannah's. I would have to talk to her, find the right moment. But not yet.

So I replaced the lid, retied the ribbon and put the letters back where I had found them.

I finished Miriam's portrait. I tried to read her thoughts as I worked on her likeness, expecting there to be some understanding between us. I was convinced she was listening, but she gazed down and said nothing. I told her of my plan to find Harold and waited for her approval. I asked her about the letters, but she gave nothing away. I begged her to tell me what it was she was doing for me. Or
to
me. At times I tried to feign indifference. In the end I would despair of her.

‘Why are you doing this?' I would shout at her. ‘Who is he? Why me?'

Several times I turned my back on her and slammed the door behind me. But those outbursts were shortlived. It was easier to relinquish all volition and drift with the tide.

I had a string puppet once, a clown dressed in chequered trousers and a tailcoat. He had a mop of bright red curly hair, rather like mine. His mouth, outlined in white clown paint, was wide and distorted, a parody of a smile. I used to play with him, jerking him around on his strings, forcing him to move this way and that. No matter what I did to him, he smiled. Eventually, of course, the strings became incurably tangled and he hung there, pinned to the wall, helpless, his limbs contorted like the victim of some horrific accident. And still he went on smiling his fixed, idiot grin as I, too, went on passively smiling.

Did I say I was alone? No, not really alone. Iolair was there. Any moment I might have turned around and come face to face with him. A sudden stirring of branches in the windless orchard and my heart would leap into my
throat. The faint trace of damp moss and crushed grass as I entered a room set every nerve in my body alive.

And there were gifts. Feathers and flowers would fall into my lap, a bowl of fresh strawberries would appear at breakfast time. One morning I awoke to warm September sunshine sliding across my pillow and found handfuls of snowdrops, their petals heavy with crystals of snow melting into the warm linen. Most of the time it was enough that I knew he was with me, close, very close. But there were moments when I wanted him so much, when I thought of him so hard that I was sure the air itself would crack in two and he would step through. Yes, he was there and he knew. But he never came.

No, that's not quite true. I did talk with him once, although it wasn't at the cottage. It was early in the morning of the third day. I had woken, aware of a heavy silence outside, to find Grantchester cocooned in a layer of mist that muffled all the usual morning sounds. I couldn't resist creeping out into a world where I could move unseen. Pulling on warm clothes I slipped out of the door, across the lane and into the field. The mist lay low, saturating the grass and draping the hedges, yet betraying an oyster-shell sky streaked with pink and violet.

The pathway, no more than a track, took me across the field, over a stile and up to the river. Yes, I did say
up
to the river. The fens make a strange landscape, much of it below sea level. Those early Dutchmen who once lived there dug ditches and dykes, draining the earth with a network of waterways feeding into natural rivers. The soil is black and rich, but repeated harvests and the north winds of winter have robbed the fields, leaving them to sink even lower, so that in places they lie below the roads and
canals. Despite the work of modern drainage engineers and conservationists the fenlands exist on the brink of disaster; the fen people are stubborn and relentless.

In the days before there were roads and railways, canals carried the traffic of commerce. A pathway runs alongside the river, a narrow strip where heavy horses once pulled barges all the way to villages and market towns. Now the towpaths serve leisure boatmen, anglers and families out for a Sunday stroll. That's where I walked, watching white vapour roll over the surface of the water, the strong current teasing it into curling tendrils.

The path led me towards the rising sun, still low and red on the horizon, and my vision was blurred by diffused sunlight transmuting the air into a haze of dusty gold. But I could see something ahead on the path, a dark shape like a bundle abandoned by the river. It could have been anything. I walked on and was much nearer before I realised it was a figure crouching on the bank. It was not a good place to meet a stranger, and common sense would have turned me around, but then I recognised the long black coat draping the ground around him and a quiver of warmth ran through my body. He gave no sign but I knew that he was aware of me. He was bending over the edge, sleeve pushed up to his elbow as he trailed his hand in the water.

‘What are you doing?'

‘Shush. You must speak softly or you will frighten him. They are very sensitive to sound, you know.'

‘Frighten who?'

‘Come down here and see.'

I crouched beside him and looked to where his arm entered the water. There was a fish, brown and silver
scaled with a red flush on its underside. About the size of a small cat it was, and like a cat it caressed itself on Iolair's hand; yes, that's it, a cat, the way it rubs your legs with its body, then turns to stroke the other side. Back and forth it went, slipping itself over his hand as if entranced by the movement and the touch.

‘That's wonderful,' I whispered. ‘How do you do that?'

‘Actually, it's this fellow here who's doing all the work.'

‘What sort of fish is it?'

‘Oh, a very splendid fish in my opinion, and quite old as fishes go, a wise old man of the river.'

‘No, I meant what is it called?'

‘I don't think fish have names. They are at a much earlier stage of evolution, without our self-awareness, so they would have no need of personal titles. Not like cats. They usually have several names—depending on who's speaking to them.'

As usual I was never quite sure if he was sending me up or if his answers were genuine. Perhaps a bit of both.

‘Would he let me do that?'

‘He might if I ask him. I think your arms are shorter than mine, so you'll have to lie down. But move carefully, don't startle him.'

So I did. I slid down onto my knees then stretched out full length with my nose in the grass. Pushing my sweater sleeve up as far as it would go, I dipped my hand slowly and gently into the water next to Iolair's. The coldness of the river gripped my arm like a manacle of ice. Almost immediately my fingers started to turn blue.

‘Now keep very still, let him get used to you. He will come to you as he wishes.'

The fish continued its stately dance with Iolair's hand, unperturbed by my appearance over the water or my limb's unexpected entry into his world. I tried to be patient.

‘I'm going away, you know,' I whispered.

‘Yes, I know.'

‘It's only for a little while. I'm going to find my grandfather, Miriam's husband.'

He said nothing.

‘I've never been that far on my own before.'

‘I can't come with you.'

‘Oh, I didn't mean—'

‘I would if I could, you know that. But the flight from Ireland was more than I could bear.'

‘You mean you're afraid of flying? Lots of people are. Can't say I'm that confident about it either.'

‘Oh, no,' he turned to look at me at last, ‘I have no problem with flying. It's the water.'

‘What about the water?'

‘Too much salt.'

I felt we were heading up a blind alleyway, so I tried a different route.

‘Is that where you came from? Ireland?' I asked.

‘Not exactly. But I did have to cross the Channel to get here. And I managed to get to Europe, although, of course, there's less water to pass over, but salt water all the same. To go all the way to the New World, the Atlantic Ocean…No, it's not possible.'

‘Oh, I see.' Though I didn't.