Miriam's Talisman (27 page)

That was fine until they woke me an hour before landing and I realised I was nearly across the Atlantic. In an hour's time they were going to make me get off the plane, and all I had was an address on a scrap of paper:

The travel agent had told me Harrisville was just over an hour's drive from Boston Airport. I had some vague idea of Boston being a big city, like London or New York. Harrisville must be a suburb. Perhaps the lodge was an old folks' home. Why hadn't I looked at a map? I was on the other side of the world with no idea where I was or where I was going; few people even knew I was there. Right up until the time I left, Greg had kept on trying to contact Harold Shaw. There continued to be no reply, just an answerphone and an abrupt voice saying, ‘Aquinnah Lodge. There's no one here. If you want you can leave a message.'

I should have listened to Greg. I should have waited. Even if I found Harold, he wouldn't know who I was. He could be sick, or senile. Perhaps he was already dead. Perhaps they had all died and the nursing home had closed down and I would find it all boarded up. I thought about going straight to the desk and booking a flight home. I could make up some story about an emergency, stay in the airport, sleep on a bench.

Pull yourself together, I told myself. I was booked into a hotel, and it should be easy enough to get a taxi there. I could stay in the room for a few hours, calm down a little, have a bath and a decent meal, a good sleep. And if I still felt like this in the morning,
then
I could turn around and run home.

I managed to recover my baggage and was walking out of Customs and through to the exit hall. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was surprised to find Logan Airport looking very much like the Heathrow I'd left behind. Even though it was late evening, there seemed to be lots of people around and they looked harmless enough. Perhaps
it wouldn't be so bad. Security guards were everywhere. I would have asked one of them where to get a cab, only they were carrying guns.

Suddenly I was hit by a wall of tartan and sheepskin, a wall that tossed me into the air, spun me around and set me down again. Was I being mugged? Yes, this was America, of course I was being mugged. Why didn't someone help me? Then I was being crushed. No, I was being held at arm's length and shaken by the shoulders. Then I was looking into watery blue eyes and a stained and straggly beard and a woollen hat pulled down hard over bushy eyebrows.

‘God, you're so like her. I didn't think it was possible.'

The voice was gruff and broken. I tried to call for help. Barely a whimper came out.

‘Oh, I'm sorry, girl. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. It's me, Harold. Your grandfather. Hey, listen to that: grandfather!'

He shook me again, then relinquished his grip to snatch up my suitcase and propel me towards the doors.

‘Come on, let's get you out of here. Get you somewhere I can take a proper look at you. Only just made it. Needed to catch a few hours' sleep. Woke up just in time.'

I managed to regain my breath and thought I ought to say something. ‘We've been trying to contact you for days. I didn't know if I would be able to find you.'

‘Been up in the mountains, staying with a friend. Did some fishing. Got back this afternoon and found a message on the machine. That Uson fellow. Said you were on your way.'

A strong arm was locked firmly around my shoulders and I was being marched past the line of cabs, my last
means of escape. We were heading for a white truck, some sort of four-wheel-drive. He tossed my suitcase in the back and pushed me up into the passenger seat.

‘Where are we going?'

‘Home, of course.'

This was all happening too fast. ‘I've booked into a hotel, The Meridian.'

‘Nonsense, girl. You've not come all this way to stay in a hotel. Besides, the lodge is only an hour away. It would take us that time to fight through the city traffic. Driving through Boston isn't for the faint-hearted.' He wrestled the engine into gear and pulled out on to the road.

Floundering in a whirlpool of trepidation, I attempted to organise some rational thought. If he was who he claimed to be, he was remarkable. Harold would be well into his seventies. The man beside me was as strong as a man twenty years his junior. Tall, though I could see his shoulders were bent. Glaring street lamps illuminated his face. His jaw was square and firm beneath the grizzled beard, skin leathery and deeply lined, and his hands, gripping the steering wheel, were taut and wiry. Yes, I suppose it could be possible. He turned to glance at me, shook his head in disbelief, laughing to himself, his eyes shining. He reached out and slapped my knee, and chuckled. Yes, perhaps this could be Harold.

The truck swung away from the airport and on to the motorway. The man beside me screwed up his eyes and peered forward through the windscreen. He's too old to be driving, I thought. God, we're on the wrong side of the road! Then I realised that everyone else was too. I was still in a daze. It's probably jet lag, I thought, though I wasn't sure exactly what that meant.

A terrible thought struck me. ‘You say you found a message on the answerphone? You haven't actually spoken to anyone, then?'

He turned to me for a moment, then looked hard at the road. ‘It's OK,' he said, softly, reaching out to pat my hand, ‘I phoned him back, that Uson fellow. He told me about Miriam. Strange, I knew it had to happen one day. Either her or me. Always thought it would be me. Couldn't picture her growing old, you see. In my mind she's the same as when I last saw her. It doesn't seem right.'

We drove on in silence. Traffic signs and place names flashed by in the headlights. We seemed to be in the centre of several lanes of traffic sweeping in terrifying formation past the edge of the city. Then he manoeuvred the truck onto another, less threatening, highway, and I saw that we were heading along a coast road.

‘Don't know about you,' he said, ‘but I could do with some coffee. I know a good place up ahead. It's on the Salem road. A truckers' stop, but clean and the food's excellent.'

‘Salem? Isn't that where there were witches?'

‘You bet. It's where I met your grandmother.'

This time he rocked with laughter and I joined in. Yes, this had to be Harold Shaw.

The diner was brightly lit, all chrome and melamine, scrubbed and gleaming. I expected waitresses out of fifties Hollywood movies, dressed in gingham aprons and chewing gum. Instead they wore jeans and neat shirts, were well-spoken and polite. Nobody said ‘Have a nice day'. They all seemed to know Harold. He explained they
were students, working their way through university. I was paraded before everyone.

‘My granddaughter, from England.'

American-sized plates appeared and endless hot coffee. I didn't think I was hungry until the smell of food hit me and I found I was ravenous. Harold ate too, but with less enthusiasm. He hardly took his eyes off me.

‘Same colour hair. Hers was straighter. Fell down her back like a waterfall. Same eyes, too. First thing I noticed about her. Worked in the library, University of Salem. My first teaching post. Nearly wore out my library pass before I asked her for a date.'

‘I thought you used to live in Boston?'

‘Yes, that's right. I was born in Boston. Studied at Harvard. Miriam's family were from Salem. Irish stock originally. After we married, I got a lectureship at Cambridge. This Cambridge, that is—it's a sub-department of Harvard. Odd that when she left Ireland she chose to live in an English university city called Cambridge. Anyhow, we settled in Boston. Fourth generation of Shaws to establish there.'

‘Hannah still remembers Boston.'

A shadow came over his face. His voice shook. ‘How is Hannah?'

We both reached for photographs. I showed him a picture of my mother and David, taken this year. He recognised them both. I was amazed to find he had a picture of two small children on a beach: David and me, building sandcastles. Then David on a motorbike and another of me in Guide uniform. There was one of Hannah as a teenager. I had forgotten how pretty she was, although shorter and darker than her mother. Then he showed me a Miriam I
never knew, a young woman in shorts, her hair tied in a ponytail, smiling and waving. She was standing in long grass, dwarfed by giant standing stones. The photo was in black and white, the corners cracked and dog-eared. I turned it over and saw there was writing on the back:
Wicklow Mountains, Ireland, August 1957
.

I showed Harold a Miriam much older than he remembered, a Miriam he had never known. He gazed at the picture for a long time. I told him he must keep them all. He returned his photographs to the wallet in which they had worn a grubby space as if they were taken out often. So much we had to say to each other, but it was far too soon. There would be time.

The truck ambled on through the night. A half-moon rose in a clear sky. I watched it playing on the ocean before we turned off the coast road to wind through fields and gentle forest-clad hills. Occasionally the line of trees broke and I caught the surface of still water, milky in the moonlight. This wasn't the country I'd expected. Nor was this the man I expected.

Harrisville turned out to be a small-town settlement of white-painted wooden houses.
Population 6,420
the sign read, hardly more than a village. Harold slowed the truck and followed the main road through the centre of town. Eventually, on the outskirts at the far side, he turned off on to a dirt track and headed down towards a lake. We came to a halt in front of Aquinnah Lodge. It reminded me of a log cabin, but huge, with walls of glass and wide verandas overlooking the water. I clambered down, stiff and exhausted from hours of travel.

He led the way through the front door and flooded a huge, vaulted room with light. It was like a museum. The wood-lined walls were hung with Indian weapons, shields, leather tunics worked with brightly coloured beads. There were old maps and sepia pictures from the nineteenth century: severe-faced Indians, their arms crossed, sitting in motionless ranks as if posing for a school photograph; white men in fringed leather with rifles, one foot on the mound of a dead buffalo. Books were scattered everywhere. An entire canoe hung suspended from the ceiling. It was another version of Miriam's cottage, more exotic, but equally eccentric and chaotic.

Harold insisted on carrying my suitcase through to the guest room.

‘You make yourself at home while I just catch my breath,' he said. ‘Then I'll light the stove.'

He dropped down into an armchair. By the time I had taken off my coat he was asleep, his hat pulled down over his ears.

I knew nothing until the next morning, having found the shower and put myself to bed, falling asleep instantly. I was woken by the whizzing of the coffee grinder and the clatter of pots and pans. Harold took the whole issue of food seriously—catching or shooting it, preparing it, eating it, and then sleeping it off. As he was no longer lecturing, food had taken over his life and he considered it only right and natural that I should participate fully. I was certainly hungry for the scrambled eggs and slices of venison, but the syrupy pancakes first thing in the morning defeated me.