The Long Walk Home

by Will North

  They had arrived in Dolgellau and Fiona pulled into a parking space in the small central square. She turned off the engine but kept talking.

  “The next year it happened again. Another heart attack. Six days after the dipping. He collapsed in the farmyard on his way to the kitchen for supper. I found him there, in the rain.”

  Fiona was staring ahead, as if watching a movie on the windscreen. Her hand still held the gearshift. Alec placed his atop hers. She didn’t pull away.

  “How awful for you, Fi. For you both.”

  She looked at their hands, then at Alec. “And that’s just the beginning!” she said with an artificial brightness. “But there are errands to be run. I don’t suppose you’re interested in playing butler and following me around with a sack. What do you want to do?”

  “I need to send a letter and get some money from the bank. Look, here’s an idea: that cereal is going to wear off in a little bit. Is there a café or something where we can meet?”

  Fiona thought for a moment and said, “I have a friend who has a tea shop just a few steps away. She’s a terrific baker. Shall we meet there? Say an hour? It’s called the Cozy.”

  “I’ll be there,” Alec said as he climbed out of the car, marveling at her change in mood.

  He stood watching as she dashed beneath the arcaded front of one of the old stone buildings on the square. Then he crossed the square to a door over which hung a small, oval red sign that said, simply, post. It was a sort of stationery and greeting card shop with a window at the back behind which a matronly woman presided over the Postal Service part of the business. Alec browsed a rack and picked out a picture postcard of the town with the mountain at its back. Then he stood aside to compose a note to Gwynne’s older sister, Jane, who had taken to calling herself “Spirit” for reasons that escaped him. “Dear Jane,” he wrote, feeling just a bit perverse, “I’ve made it to the mountain. Weather permitting, will take Gwynne’s ashes up to the summit tomorrow. All’s well here; hope you are, too.” He paid for the card and the stamp and left it with the postmistress. Then he walked across the square to the Lloyd’s Bank and cashed a traveler’s check so he could pay Fiona for his room. At the teller’s window a small sign displayed the date and he blinked in surprise; somehow, it had become April 12, his birthday.

  He’d lost track of the passing days as he walked across Britain to this little town in northwest Wales. That was the beauty of walking with no fixed itinerary and no deadline for being somewhere: every day was fresh and new, every moment was the present. Alec had never understood it when self-help books talked about the importance of “living in the present.” For him, the present had always seemed the merest fraction of a second between grief about the past and anxiety about the future. It probably started in childhood, he guessed; the present was often a frightening place in his family, financially precarious and perpetually at risk of exploding from his father’s volcanic anger. Even as a boy, Alec was constantly testing the emotional atmosphere in his turbulent family, anticipating what might happen next, and preparing for it. When he joined the Boy Scouts at thirteen, mostly so he could get out of the city and into the mountains on camping trips, he’d laughed to himself when he heard the Scout motto: “Be prepared.” No problem there, he thought.

  He’d been standing under an awning outside the bank, staring at the rain pounding the cobbles in the middle of the square, when he realized it was time to find the café. He asked directions from an elderly man in a flat tweed cap and a waxed, olive-green Barbour jacket who had sauntered across the square to the bank as if the teeming rain were just a minor inconvenience.

  “You’re from away, then, are you?” the man said when he heard Alec’s accent. It was less a question than an accusation. “One of them tourists with their big cars clogging the streets.”

  “I am from away, but I walked here,” Alec replied.

  “A walker, then! Ah well, that’s different. Come to climb old Cadair, have you?”

  “I have indeed,” Alec answered, warming to the man.

  “Well,” the old fellow said, squinting at the leaden sky, “fine day for it!”

  Alec couldn’t tell whether the fellow was pulling his leg or dead serious. He suspected the latter. He was a tough old bird.

  Alec arrived at the Cozy just as Fiona was taking her seat. It was a charming, chintz-trimmed shop, steamy and warm and fragrant with baked goods. He joined her and was telling her about the old man when the plump proprietress arrived to take their order.

  “Well, Fiona Edwards,” she said brightly. “We haven’t seen you in ages!”

  “I know, Brandith; it’s just I’m so busy.”

  Brandith stood and waited.

  “Oh!” Fiona said at last. “Where are my manners? Brandith, this is one of my guests, Alec Hudson. Alec, Brandith Evans.”

  Alec stood. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Evans; a pleasure to meet you. Lovely shop.”

  “That’ll be Miss Evans, thank you very much,” the woman said, extending her hand and blushing, “but Brandith will do just fine. From America then, are you?”

  “I am indeed,” he said, releasing her hand after a moment and sitting again. “Now what do you suggest for a foul afternoon like this ... Brandith?”

  “Well, you can choose what you like from the tea cakes on the trolley just there,” she said, pointing to a heavily laden pastry table on wheels by the wall, “but I’ve just pulled some currant scones from the oven and I have some lovely clotted cream I’m sure you’d like.”

  “Sounds great,” Alec said, flashing her a broad smile. “And a coffee for me, please.”

  Fiona watched this exchange and smiled; Brandith was clearly charmed.

  “And what about you, Fiona,” the woman said. “The same?”

  “Oh no, Brandith; just tea for me, thanks; Earl Grey, I think.”

  “Fiona Edwards,” the owner scolded, “look at you! You eat like a bird!”

  Then she softened and inclined her head toward Fiona, lowering her voice, “How’s our David then, Fi?”

  “About the same, I’m afraid.”

  “Still holed up in that hay barn, is he?”

  “Yes.”

  Brandith sighed. “Terrible thing, that is. Terrible.” She gave Fiona’s shoulder a sisterly pat. “I’ll just get that tea then.”

  Alec looked at Fiona. “Hay barn?”

  “I thought you only drank tea,” Fiona said.

  “Sometimes I break my own rules.”

  “Do you indeed?” she teased.

  “You’re evading the question.”

  Fiona nodded. “In addition to weakening his heart, the poisoning’s made him sensitive to practically every chemical in the environment—anything with a fragrance, many things without, many foods, especially meat; the list is very long.” She sighed.

  “Anyway, living in the house became impossible for him, even though I switched to perfume-free cleaning products and changed our diet. Plus, there are the fragrances that come in with our guests. He was sick all the time.”

  Alec thought about the unopened bottle of Amarige in Fiona’s bathroom. Of course. And now the absence of any of David’s things made sense.

  “But a hay barn?”

  Fiona smiled. “It’s probably the most expensive former hay barn in Britain. It’s a stone building away off in a corner of the farm, near the mountain. Used to store hay when David’s father had a cow. We had it completely renovated. Used nothing but chemical-free materials—untreated wood floors, milk-based paint, unbleached cotton fabrics. Sitting room with fire, bedroom, bath, and a small kitchen done entirely in stainless steel that I can just wipe down with simple soap and hot water.”

  “Does he never come out?”

  “Oh, he can still do work on the farm; being outside is good for him. He can’t go into the working barns, but he’s out most days fixing fences and walls, moving sheep from one pasture to another, looking after pregnant ewes, culling lambs, and so forth. Even though it’s l
ambing season now he can only work a few hours a day; he’s weak and tires easily. The doctor says it’s partly because his heart isn’t sending enough blood through his body. The rest is just the long-term effects of the poisoning. Owen does most of the farm work these days and, of course, the annual dipping. Doesn’t seem to bother him. At least not yet.”

  “My God, I think I’d go mad if I were David.”

  “I think he is,” Fiona said, shaking her head. “But it’s not just being cooped up that’s making him crazy. The poison’s affected his nervous system. He isn’t just forgetful, he has trouble thinking, sorting what needs doing and getting it done. It’s as if there are fissures in his brain he can’t bridge.“ He never was much of a reader, but now he just sits and watches the telly. He’s depressed and angry. He was always a quiet man, but he’s pulled deep inside himself. And he drinks too much; he makes Owen bring him whisky. He can become violent.”

  She looked up, her face bleak, her eyes not quite focused on him. “I hardly recognize David anymore; he’s become someone else.”

  Alec didn’t know what to say, but his heart hurt for her. A few moments later, Brandith arrived with the tea and coffee and scones, setting before him a pot of strawberry jam and a small bowl of thick yellow clotted cream.

  “Sure you won’t have anything to eat, Fi?” she asked.

  Fiona rallied. “No thanks, luv; I’m not hungry. The tea will do me fine.”

  “Right then; if you need anything, just give us a shout.”

  Fiona was staring at the fogged-over shop windows as if she could see beyond them, far into the past.

  He had a fleeting sense that perhaps a distance had opened between Fiona and her husband long before his illness. He’d expected sadness, even anguish, but instead Fiona seemed resigned, exhausted. He looked at the scone and jam and thick cream and found he’d lost his appetite.

  “It’s been very hard on Meaghan, of course; they’re very close,” Fiona continued. “Fathers and daughters often are. It would have been hard enough for her to leave for university even under normal circumstances, but now ...”

  He reached over and poured her another cup of tea from her pot. She looked up sharply, as if suddenly awakened.

  “Listen to me rattle on! Let’s change the subject, shall we? Last night you said you didn’t finish something you set out to do on the mountain. Would you like to tell me what it is, or am I being rude?”

  Alec looked at the woman across the table. He had planned to carry out his task quietly, privately. Now he realized he wanted to share it with someone he’d known for only two days. It was something about the softness in her eyes; he thought she might understand. It was something, too, about the way she had opened to him, telling him about David. It also occurred to him—and this came as a surprise—that he might need her support to do what he needed to do.

  “You said it was a long story,” she added. “I promise not to fall asleep.”

  And so Alec told Fiona about his life with Gwynne, about being with her through the last months of her life, about her final request, about how it had taken him a full year to bring himself to fulfill it, and about why he’d decided he had to walk to the mountain.

  Fiona said nothing as he spoke. She understood now the sadness that clung to him. She wondered whether that was part of what drew her to him so powerfully. Fiona understood tragedy; it was something they had in common. Yes, it helped to explain the bond she felt with the handsome American, but it did nothing to explain the excitement she felt when she was with him. She decided that part didn’t need an explanation.

  When he finished they were both quiet for a few moments.

  “You must have loved her very much,” she said.

  “Yes, I did. I guess I always did.”

  “And you love her still.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s true. I think what’s true is that I miss her being here, on this earth—living, breathing, creating, making her magic. I miss that terribly. Is that love? A form of it, I suppose, but not the whole package. We always joked about how we were better as friends than as husband and wife. I think that’s it: I’ve lost my best friend.”

  Alec looked down at his plate. Sometime during his story, the scone had vanished.

  “Now that you’ve finished off my scone and clotted cream,” he said, “shall we head home so I can have something to eat, too?”

  “I just didn’t want to let it go to waste,” Fiona said.

  “Right.”

  eight

  THEY WERE DASHING THROUGH THE RAIN toward the car when Alec steered Fiona under the shelter of the awning over the window of the butcher’s shop.

  “I have something momentous to announce,” Alec said.

  “Do you, then!” Fiona lifted an eyebrow.

  “I discovered something at the bank.”

  “You’re overdrawn and going to skip town before paying me?”

  He pretended not to hear. “I learned that today is the twelfth of April. I’ll bet you can’t guess the significance of that date.”

  Fiona looked at him, baffled. “Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar?”

  “Nearly as significant, but wrong.”

  “What then?”

  “I was born on this day!”

  “You’re serious? This really is your birthday?”

  “Afraid it is,” Alec confessed. “Born exactly half a century ago.”

  “You’re joking; you couldn’t possibly be fifty.”

  Alec puffed himself up. “Why, thank you for that compliment, madam.”

  “You don’t look a day over sixty,” she added.

  “How very kind of you to say so. Look here, I have a modest proposal. As we’re standing here in front of ‘John Lewis and Sons: Family Butchers’—how do they get away with that, by the way?”

  “Get away with what?”

  “Butchering families! Anyway, as we’re standing here in front of the butcher’s, I have an idea: how about I cook dinner for you tonight?”

  “You’re joking. You cook?”

  “Does the pope pray?”

  “Haven’t a clue; I’m Anglican. I think we killed off all the papists back in Elizabeth the First’s time. But if it’s your birthday, shouldn’t I be cooking something for you?”

  “You did that last night. Tonight you’re very generously going to give me the chance to cook on that hulking great beast of a stove in your kitchen.”

  “Cooker,” Fiona corrected. She gave him that cocked-head look. “First the tent in my garden, now taking over my kitchen. Okay, you’re on.”

  Alec was already tugging her into the shop. The balding man in the bloodstained apron behind the counter looked up from trimming the membrane from a long pork tenderloin.

  “Good afternoon to you, Fiona,” the butcher said, peering over his half-glasses. “Though what’s good about it I don’t know. Rain’s relentless.”

  “I know, John,” Fiona replied, “and the temperature is dropping. I’m a bit worried about the lambing if it gets much colder.”

  “Don’t you go worrying your pretty head about that, Fi,” he said, his meaty hands splayed on the white marble counter. “Those sheep of David’s are tough stock. Now, what can I get for you today?”

  She looked over to Alec, who had been prowling the premises as if on a hunt.

  “Up to him, actually. Alec, meet John; John, Alec. Guest of mine who claims he can cook.”

  Alec smiled at the dig. “I wonder if I might have half of that tenderloin you’re working on?”

  “Good choice. Local pork, that is, from just up the valley.”

  He set to work trimming.

  “How’s young Owen working out, then?” the butcher asked without looking up.

  “Splendidly, John; he’s a good boy and a hard worker. Smart, too.”

  “Told you he was, didn’t I?”

  Owen, it turned out, was his nephew and John had recommended him when David had gotten too ill to manage the farm on his own.r />
  “And David? How’s he faring?”

  “Same, John, just the same ...” Fiona replied, her voice trailing off.

  “Bloody shame, that is, pardon my language. He’s not the David I knew at school, poor devil.”

  “No, John, he’s not,” Fiona agreed. Alec watched the cloud cross Fiona’s face.

  “Right then,” John said, turning to Alec, “anything else for you, sir?”

  “No thanks, that’ll do it.”

  “Two pounds seventy pence, then, please,” John said, handing him the parcel.

  Alec paid and they were out the door. “Greengrocer?”

  “Just opposite the car,” Fiona said. “What do you need?”

  “Garlic, lemon, maybe some spinach.”

  “I have some things wintering over in my garden: carrots, leeks, parsnips, chard, if that’s any help.”

  “Do you have any cornmeal at the house?”

  “Yes; I use it for baking.”

  “Excellent!” Alec said before plunging through the door of a shop called the Wine Rack.

  Fiona followed him and watched as he quickly scanned the shelves, then strode to one corner of the shop and pulled down two long, thin bottles.

  “Pinot Blanc, from Alsace, fragrant but dry.”

  He didn’t ask her whether she liked the wine, but Fiona found she was delighted by this. It was wonderful being taken care of for a change, and he clearly knew what he was doing. David didn’t care for wine. Felinfoel ale was his drink. That and, lately, the whisky.

  Alec paid the girl at the counter. Fiona didn’t know her and was relieved, then annoyed. Why should it matter? She wasn’t doing anything wrong, for goodness’ sake. Still, she liked the way Alec opened doors for her and ushered her through, the palm of his hand brushing against the small of her back ever so lightly. He was just being a gentleman, she knew, and she, in turn, was beginning to feel like a lady. She felt feminine; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that way.

  “Look, Alec, you go ahead to the greengrocer’s,” she said as they stepped outside again. “I have one more errand to run. Won’t be long.”

  “How will you find me?” Alec asked, watching the throngs crisscrossing the crowded market square.