Miriam's Talisman (28 page)

I gave him Miriam's letter after breakfast. He took it from me without speaking, and carried it into his study, closing the door behind him. I waited for him in the silence of the vaulted room, turning the pages of a book. I tried to read line by line, but remembered not one word. An eternity passed before he emerged, slapped his hands together and asked me what I fancied for lunch. My disappointment was bitter, but I held back. Perhaps, I told myself, when we had a chance to know each other and he could trust me, then it would be safe to talk. Or maybe I had thought I might find some happiness here and was afraid to break the spell. Whatever the reason for my reluctance, I asked nothing about the letter and kept the talisman well hidden.

Over the next week I grew to know Harold Shaw, both as my grandfather and as my friend. He's an astonishing man, made more so by his age, living in bursts of outrageous energy between sitting down to ‘just catch my breath'. Often this took him several hours and, while he snored on the veranda, I would walk the gentle, sloping hills around the lake. We did talk of my grandmother, of course, and sometimes he forgot and talked to me as if I were her. It is as if, through her death, he had found his Miriam again. We both put a lot into those few days, knowing time was against us and so much of it had been lost already. I'll go back there, perhaps in the New Year, but it must be soon, very soon.

Harold showed me the mountains and forests of Massachusetts. I'd heard about New England in the fall, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There
were burnished golds and beaten coppers, citrines, topaz and amber, gems scattered on swathes of saffron and cinnamon, and all set against a satin sky: the cargo of a treasure galleon strewn across the landscape.

As evening drew in, the lake would turn to blue-tinged marble, as pale as Iolair's skin. I kicked at the carpet of fallen leaves and picked through them until I found one to match the yellow of his eyes. The damp earth below was the colour of his long, dark hair. I tried to imagine how far away I was from England. As the moon ripened towards full, I wondered if it rose in his sky as it fell in mine.

Word soon got around. On the second day, while Harold was asleep, I wandered into the centre of Harrisville. Several people waved to me or stopped to say hello. They seemed to know who I was and why I was here, and asked me all sorts of questions about England and how long I was intending to stay.

I had come prepared for the elegance of the big city, a five-star hotel and discreet visits to a hushed sanatorium. In the one and only clothing store, I managed to purchase some jeans and sweaters, a pair of walking boots and a lumber jacket like Harold's. Then, passing a toyshop, I spotted pads of drawing paper and something twitched in my fingers. There were no proper art materials, so I compromised with pencils and a box of Mickey Mouse poster paints. While Harold continued to sleep I sat cross-legged on the veranda with my pad and paintbrush.

At first I paused to study the shape and composition of the landscape. Then something else began to happen. I could hear the trees; I could hear them whisper, one to the other. I wanted to reach out, to touch each one; touch
their sadness and make it my own. Amid all this beauty, they were dying, sinking into the long sleep, the small death of winter. My limbs weakened with theirs. I was being drained as their life force was drained, spent in that last triumphant blaze of fire. I felt myself drifting and I pulled back, brought myself down to the solidity of paper and brushes. Then my hands began to work, following the line of my eye, but listening, listening all the while to the trees that died and the leaves that fell and the earth that welcomed and enfolded them.

‘Where did you learn to do that, girl?'

I was startled. I was so absorbed in what I was doing that I hadn't heard him move behind me. I scrambled to my feet, holding up the pad.

‘I was trying to capture the colours of the trees, but the paints aren't really made for it.'

He took the painting, stared at it, then at me. ‘Who taught you to paint? And don't tell me this is a schoolgirl hobby. I know what I see.'

‘I don't know. I just paint, that's all.'

He looked so serious that I began to feel uncomfortable, as if I'd done something out of place. Confused, I reached out for the paper to look for myself and the breath caught in my throat. This was my work? The scene was alive! It would capture the observer and draw them in; would force them to see and understand what I had seen and understood; feel what I had felt. I could not trust myself with this and thrust the paper at Harold.

‘Here, you keep it. Please.' I fumbled with the paintbox and spilled the water.

He said no more about it that day. Later I found the painting tacked to the wall of his study.

We had talked about Hannah, and there was sadness in his voice whenever he spoke of her. I knew I would have to tell him about those unopened letters. There was never going to be a right time, but there was a moment when it all came out.

We had been working outside. Harold showed me how to use his powered chainsaw and he let me help cut logs for the coming winter. We were laughing a lot and it ended with me kicking up leaves and throwing them at him like a child. I realised, in the middle of all that play, what had been missing from my childhood: I should have had a grandfather. And what about Hannah? How different would she have been if Harold had stayed with her? Why had Miriam kept them apart? For the first time, those formless doubts about Miriam that I had always pushed into some dark corner of my mind started to assert themselves, solidifying into something tangible. And at its centre was a tiny core of resentment.

He was sitting on the veranda, still laughing and picking leaves out of his coat while I brewed tea. I carried the mugs out to him and crouched on the steps at his feet.

‘She never got your letters. Hannah, I mean. They never reached her.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I found them. Miriam had kept them, hidden them away. They are all unopened. Hannah didn't know. She thinks you didn't…That you …'

He was silent for a while, nodding slowly. ‘That doesn't surprise me. Miriam said we had to make a clean break. I
suppose I wrote them more for myself than anything.'

‘I've no idea why she kept them. She stored them away carefully. I found them hidden in a drawer.'

‘Does Hannah ever speak of me?'

‘No, never. The first I knew about you was after the funeral when Greg told me about that envelope I brought. That's why I'm here now.'

He nodded again and sipped his tea.

‘But the point is that Hannah didn't know about the letters. She thinks you abandoned her completely.'

‘In a way I suppose I did. I can't explain it. I had to leave. It was like there was something pushing me out. But I tried to keep in touch through Miriam. It got easier as time went on and we fell into a pattern. I'd write to them both, every Christmas and birthday, and there was always a card for Hannah. Miriam usually wrote back. There'd be news and photographs. But whenever I suggested a visit she refused. She kept saying it was better that way. Going back gets more and more difficult as the years pass. You get to a point where it's just not possible.'

‘No, it's not too late. I'll talk to her, make her understand how it was. I've got the letters. I'll
make
her read them if I have to.'

Harold shook his head and said nothing, drained his mug and set about stacking the logs.

A few days later I dared to paint again.

Harold suggested we drive up to the foot of the White Mountains. He urged me to bring my art materials, to keep me amused while he fished. We set off early. Harold
knew the country roads, the old tracks, away from the press of tourists. As soon as we turned off the main highway and the traffic thinned to an occasional passing farm truck, I took the wheel so he could rest. We drove through the vastness of the countryside, through gentle rolling farmland dotted with picture-postcard villages. Then the truck began to climb slowly through golden hills. Rivers gushed beside the roads, cresting with white foam as they collided with stones. We stopped halfway across a bridge to lean over railings drenched with spume and watch the water roaring beneath us.

‘Used to come here with your grandmother. She loved the mountains.'

‘What was she like when you first knew her? Before you were married, I mean.'

He looked into the distance, his eyes squinting at the morning sun. ‘First time I saw her she was hanging out the library window feeding a squirrel. I dropped my pile of books down on the counter and the creature scampered away up the tree. “You've frightened him,” she said. “Poor thing. I've been trying to tame him all summer. Oh, perhaps it's just as well—he's eaten half my lunch.” She turned and smiled, and her hair swirled around her like a whirlpool and settled on her shoulders. I saw those green eyes and that was it. I was sunk! Miriam Delaney, she was then. So pretty she scared the life out of me. Library secretary. Worked for the university, but not a graduate. Not that she wasn't bright. Far from it. But her mind was different, not forced along a certain path. Free to wander anywhere she willed. Bit like that squirrel, I suppose. You'd think you had her eating out of your hand, then, at the slightest movement, she was
off. It took me five weeks to pluck up the courage to ask her for a date. We found we shared a passion for history, although with her there was more romance than fact. It was like she took up where I left off. She'd take my dry lists of dates and names and breathe life into them. Three months later, we were married.'

‘And that was in Salem, was it?'

‘That's right. I'd been lecturing there. Then she persuaded me to apply for a post at Harvard. Never thought I'd get it, but
she
did. And she was right. We took a small house there, just on the outskirts of Boston, not far from my parents. They took to Miriam like a daughter. When little Hannah was born, they were over the moon. What a pair! You could see they were both of Irish descent, even though they looked nothing like each other. From somewhere way back in Miriam's ancestral tree, Hannah had inherited Celtic blood. Little thing, with that pale skin and her dark hair and blue eyes. She looked like a fragile china doll next to Miriam's red and emerald fire. I'd just sit and look at them both together and think they were perfect. Couldn't believe my luck. Thought I had everything. I
did
have everything. Should have quit there.' He turned away abruptly and headed back to the truck. ‘Come on, girl, those fish won't wait all day.'