The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd

by Robert Davies

  The nagging question of Damon’s fortune and the weird behavior we’d found in the transactions exposed by his will would resurface soon enough, but I simply didn’t have the patience to continue until after the holidays. Vienne made it clear the leg work was mine alone, since I no longer had a day job, and that meant more travel and the emotional bribery of strangers as each clue pulled away the weeds hiding still more. Regardless, there were loose ends and unwelcome tasks I had to attend and waiting further would only make matters worse.

  It was a drudgery I agonized over during quiet moments in bed at night, but once complete the process of closing out my administrative duties would be liberating. I had to find a buyer for my condominium, a home for my truck, but also a place to store my things, and as I packed for Canada, I felt like a stranger at the prospect of returning to North America. In a bizarre moment, I realized my next transatlantic flight heading west would no longer be the process of going home.

  I stopped in to spend an hour with Aline, and she promised to drive by now and then to keep an eye on the place while I was gone. Her manner shifted back to one of distance and caution; again, she seemed more acquaintance than friend and the difference bothered me until she dropped me at the railway station in Ruabon and said, “I wish you were staying, but please be careful and hurry back.”

  By the time I walked along a concourse at Heathrow hours later, my mind had drifted to other things and most of them were questions I knew Vienne would ask about my brief mission to Sweden and my conversation with Birgit Nyström. I wondered if she would ask about Aline, and I rehearsed in my mind suitable answers that would give enough detail to satisfy her curiosity but not so much that would invite closer scrutiny. It seemed a juvenile indulgence, but a part of me wanted Vienne to ask so I could describe for her those things about Aline I found most compelling. I needed her to hear more than comfort with my new surroundings and to understand the girl across the hill was no longer a mere acquaintance.

  MY WEEK WITH Vienne went along much better than I expected if only for an agreed moratorium prohibiting discussion of all that had happened since Damon’s death. We spent our time enjoying the season and recounting fond remembrances the way all families do when one of their own has passed on. We went down the St. Lawrence River to Québec City to let the charms of a place in harmony with winter wash over us. The experience transported me back to a time when we threw snowballs and pounded on the hill behind our childhood home with sleds, toboggans, inner tubes, and the occasional hood of a destroyed car—anything would work, so long as it was fast and reasonably comfortable. Each evening, I dressed up in the uniform of stylish urban success and went along without complaint (relatively speaking) when Vienne insisted on introducing me to every unattached woman in eastern Canada because that is what big sisters do.

  Christmas morning found us late to rise and the gift exchange process took a while because Vienne’s fondness for mimosas kept us in her kitchen. It was nice, and a wonderful throwback to our childhood, observing family traditions all by ourselves. Stories rolled out amid laughter and a few tears, but mostly it reminded us neither was alone in the world.

  She had visitors through the day, and when her neighbors dropped in, I took a moment to inspect my phone for messages. Inside one of them, a single line from Aline made me smile broadly: “Happy Christmas, Evan—thinking of you!” I returned the simple text with one of my own and the moment eased a feeling of isolation made by the distance between us; another connection reaffirmed. I didn’t tell Vienne because doing so invited merciless teasing, but rereading Aline’s simple note three more times made me feel better.

  On my final night in Montreal, we arrived at an exclusive, invitation-only event and sipped disgusting pomegranate margaritas with fashion designers and models pretending to be sober until the buffet’s ice sculpture melted away and with it, their inhibitions. According to the engraved invitation, the evening was supposed to be a “deliciously wicked” affair. Instead, I saw an expensive audition for a deliberately vulgar, R-rated reality show. I watched them from a safe corner of the room—pretty boys and prettier girls—trolling like pimps in a bus station with selfish, pornographic intent, and when we made our way at last to Vienne’s car, the evening had taken its toll. We stepped carefully over channels of slush made by tires earlier in the day, now hardened by single-digit temperatures into slippery granite, but it didn’t seem to matter; I just wanted to go home.

  AS A LATE-DAY blizzard steamrolled the city, Vienne dropped me at the airport facing a two-hour wait before my flight to London. With nothing better to do, I sat at the gate thumbing through messages in my phone from former colleagues wondering how I was doing. Some asked when I intended a return to Virginia, and I answered them with a standard description of obligations in the wake of Damon’s death that would keep me in the UK for a while.

  From my position near the boarding gate, I watched deicing trucks descend on our plane and smiled my approval as clouds of steam and sickly yellow glycol solution billowed around the big Boeing. A man sat nearby with a woman half his age, and I turned away to hide my smile as his companion recalled a road trip to Las Vegas where “it never gets cold and the cops are really nice.”

  In the valley at that moment it was well after midnight, and my mind wandered for a while to thoughts of Aline. I looked at her message for the twentieth time and cursed myself for failing to book an earlier flight. In a moment of absurd impulse, I fought a powerful temptation to place the call, but the thought passed. It seemed much more than an idea or innocent gamble and I felt compelled to it—driven, perhaps—until a sobering flush of embarrassment shocked me back to reality. Was her hold on me so powerful even then? I turned the phone off and stuffed it into my bag in disgust, suddenly disappointed with myself for considering such a thing. I imagined how it would be and a confused, disapproving scowl on Aline’s face for being pulled from her sleep by a call from across the Atlantic.

  There was still an hour before boarding, so I went for a walk along the concourse to stretch my legs and enjoy another aimless pursuit, but also it was a way to kill time and avoid drooling on myself if I nodded off at the gate. Some of the shops were a bit more upscale than I imagined, and it surprised me I hadn’t noticed them earlier. A few stood out, and I paused at one of them to inspect a set of lined leather gloves and matching cashmere scarf. Both were obscenely expensive and I frowned at a predictable airport markup philosophy that preys on thoughtless assholes who forget to buy something for loved ones until the last minute. I was glad Vienne wasn’t there to see me because she believes (accurately or otherwise) my frugal nature is only a confirmation that I have no soul and fretting about the price tag would have won me severe and lengthy ridicule.

  After detailed questioning by a girl behind the counter to establish correct size for the gloves, I surrendered and paid the money. It felt strange and yet satisfying to buy a gift, but I worried Aline would think it presumptuous until the sales girls assured me the thought would be appreciated. Was the charming show just a skillful sales ploy? Probably, but the risk of failure was worth taking if only to see Aline smile. I found a vacant spot along the wall and closed my eyes until the Air Canada gate agent called passengers to prepare for boarding—the signal another aerial plod was about to begin.

  WALES SHARES A common, informal border with England, but getting there by airplane from North America is a fatiguing process that finally ended when the taxi eased down my driveway on a bright morning under clearing skies. An overnight dusting of snow made for a lovely scene suited to a Currier & Ives catalogue, and I stood in the cold air for a moment simply to enjoy the quiet. When I closed the door, my phone buzzed from a pocket and I answered with a wide grin.

  “Good morning, Aline; your timing is perfect.”

  “Welcome home, Evan,” she replied softly. “How was your trip?”

  “Tiring, but it was good to see my sister. How about you—did you have a nice holiday?”

  “It wa
s lovely,” she replied. “I spent some of the time with Margaret and her family.”

  She went silent suddenly and the pause seemed excessive until she finally spoke again.

  “I’m glad you’re back home and safe.”

  It sounded strange, the reference to safety, but I put it down to what may have been an ordinary aversion to flying.

  “It’s good to be back,” I said, nodding. “The flights took forever but at least I made it without going insane, so…”

  I cringed immediately, silent and furious with myself for so thoughtless a comment. I wanted to apologize and tell her I hadn’t said it for any reason other than decrying the stress of airline travel, but she didn’t seem to notice. After another second, she said, “You must be very tired.”

  “I’m fine,” I replied. “I fly a lot and it’s easy to sleep on airplanes without any trouble.”

  It was surprising she called at the precise moment I arrived but I didn’t think more of it. I heard her throat clear and it was obvious she held the phone away from her face by the muted sound.

  “Are you going into town or staying home for a while?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’m done moving for now, believe me; there’s nothing like coming home after a long trip, so I’ll probably hang out and…”

  “I missed you,” she said, nearly at a whisper.

  In another time and place her words might reasonably have seemed abrupt and unexpected, considering we’d only known each other a few months, but it wasn’t any of those things and I answered her without a thought.

  “I missed you, too. I thought about calling from the airport last night while I waited for my flight.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “It was late—almost one o’clock in the morning back here. I was sitting at the gate and…”

  “I wouldn’t have minded, Evan.”

  At once, a shiver ran through me, immediate and delightful. Had another door opened, I wondered?

  “You were probably sleeping,” I offered.

  “I can go back to sleep, can’t I? It’s nice whenever you call.”

  I stood in my kitchen the way people do when their attention is so focused little else matters. I hadn’t asked for them, but Aline’s words poured into me like a tonic and I basked in the moment.

  “It’s nice to hear your voice again, too. I guess it’s why I wanted to call you from Montreal, but…”

  In that second, before I could finish my thought, another image flooded into my brain like a tidal wave—unstoppable and unexpected. She stood motionless in the woods as clear as the moment I first saw her on that hillside in the flowing, sheer material of her cloak. I saw her eyes, shining out from a gathering mist and fixed upon me like cool, blue lasers—unwavering and steady. She was silent but I felt as if she called out to me from that place, and the sensation was overwhelming. There were no words I could form and no sound I could make, transfixed and held in time like an obedient statue, waiting for an unknown command or order. Only her face, framed by the gentle curls of her hair, remained in my thoughts, and the paralysis gripped me until she broke through the strange, trance-like pause.

  “If you’re not doing anything later, I’m off to Wrexham to run a few errands…”

  I heard her but still I couldn’t speak, and the images persisted in my mind.

  “Evan?”

  “Oh, uh…yes, I’m here—sorry.”

  “I was just wondering if you’d like to come along to Wrexham?”

  “Of course,” I said at once. “Just tell me when to be ready.”

  “I’ll be ‘round at one o’clock?”

  “One o’clock,” I answered automatically.

  She disconnected and I sat for a while until the image faded. In a sudden and inexplicable moment, I could smell the faint odor of her pine incense again. There was no reason, yet it wafted through my kitchen distinct and unmistakable. The strange occurrence of another “vision” disappeared, but I didn’t take the time to consider what it meant. I finished unpacking and waited until Aline’s Land Rover wandered down the driveway.

  AS we sped along the highway east, Aline seemed happy to see me, and I was certainly delighted to see her, but there was something more. She smiled for no apparent reason and I saw it from the corner of my eye. A random thought or humorous memory, perhaps? It didn’t matter and we spent time on the things people chat about as they catch up—life’s ordinary processes and the obligations between friends who haven’t seen each other in a while.

  She told me about Margaret’s twin nephews and their excitement to find the Star Wars toys on Christmas morning Aline had concealed in her truck until the boys were finally asleep the night before. It seemed so normal and I smiled at the thought of her wrapping gifts on the floor of her living room. In her description I heard the voice of contentment and satisfaction as anyone would in the warmth of the season. I listened and heard stability, too. I won’t allow the intrusion of vanity to suggest it was anything to do with me, but the thought teased from a distance just the same.

  After discussions with a shipping agency, plus a few turns through a handful of clothing stores as a reconnaissance mission to check out the competition, we lunched at a Wrexham pub called the Nags Head. I watched her and the change was obvious: distance between us had lessened since our first meeting in the trees and recognizing it lifted me. Now, she seemed more at ease as though a requisite condition had been met and the aloof, mysterious persona was dismantled and put away for another time.

  It was nothing out of the ordinary because people often remain at arm’s length until they get to know each other as a matter of course. Those invisible, protective barriers are there for a reason, and only fools or drunks ignore them in the first moments. The loud ones—overly friendly and gushing because they need acceptance more than the rest of us—are the tedious exceptions. It takes time to move through the days and weeks when we decide if another is acceptable, and we shifted quietly into a friendship far beyond the social limits of mere neighbors.

  I remembered my first day and Jeremy’s careful description of Damon’s neighbor, suggesting her treatment for a mental condition shouldn’t color my impressions of her as he walked the thin line between reasonable caution and undue worry. They accepted her, he said, and she was at least comfortable with them, but I know Jeremy saw in me a stranger and one who needed to understand. Aline’s relationship with Damon was, at least in Jeremy’s mind, sometimes strained, and he worried I was in danger of making matters worse. After all, they knew nothing of me beyond that connection, and Aline’s distant nature was widely regarded as an unfortunate by-product of her time in Scotland.

  As the days passed, my encounters with Aline proved nothing like the tense, confrontational picture I first formed in my mind; whatever malady that kept her in an institution for months was likely gone, and she seemed hesitant only for the same reasons a shy person waits and watches until satisfied no hidden threats are waiting.

  I shook my head at the thought of her stay in a psychiatric ward. Was Aline’s recovery completed on a predictable schedule, or was she simply not so ill after all? Perhaps she reached the invisible limits of what she could tolerate and the circuits inside her mind closed as a measure of self-protection in what is so often called a breakdown. Plenty of people find themselves at such a juncture and for reasons that don’t necessarily include a loss of their sanity. On a cold, sunny afternoon she didn’t look like a girl fighting unseen demons, and I smiled at the thought when we climbed back into her truck and aimed it toward home.

  When we arrived, Aline wondered if I would like to come inside for a while. I nodded, knowing it likely meant yet another cup of tea and stretches of silence on the couch in her living room, but the practice was becoming our routine. As it is for so many others who meet and form a growing friendship, we walked beside each other, waiting but unwilling to interrupt the natural process. I noticed a new LED television hanging from a wall although she seemed to never watch
it. I stood to inspect and admire the machine, imagining an enhanced experience on Super Bowl Sunday, just as Aline’s phone chirped where she had left it on a lamp table.

  I remember the moment because it was the first time anyone called her while I was there. Probably Margaret, I figured, calling from Colwyn Bay to discuss shop business, but when Aline smiled broadly and said, “Thank you so much; I have your address and I’m leaving now,” it was clear the caller was somebody else. When she disconnected Aline told me she needed to leave, and I moved quickly to put my cup in her sink.

  “I’ll get going, but give me a buzz if you want to hang out later?”

  She smiled again and said, “If it’s all right, I’d like to stop in on my way home?”

  “I’ll be there when you get back,” I replied, turning for the door.

  I pause here because the officials stopped us at this point during our interrogations. Oh, they called them “conversations,” but they were always the ones asking questions and we were the ones with answers. At Burke’s direction, a thin woman with an unpronounceable last name they called “Mo” had been given control of the process, and she wanted to go into detail I didn’t think was important. She insisted, which meant the delay would be made worse if we didn’t cooperate, so I played along. I called her “Miss Persimmon” but not for anything to do with the Mary Poppins character and mostly out of spite because I wanted her to know I didn’t subscribe to the implied authority she held. It annoyed her, of course, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

  There were others like her, too—psychologists they thoughtfully rebranded as “behavioral analysts”—and she wandered around the interview room’s bland government-issue table like a film director handing out instructions and commentary while an assistant dutifully typed notes into a laptop. Mo was curious about the process by which my relationship with Aline crossed over from acquaintance to something more.