by Lisa Tuttle
She followed Ina’s bent and slowly moving form out of the sitting room, into the narrow hallway, and up a short, steep flight of stairs and wondered how she managed to look after someone even older and more frail than herself. The house seemed too small to accommodate a live-in nurse, but maybe someone came in daily to help.
“Knock knock,” called Ina after pausing to catch her breath at the top of the stairs. “Are you decent, Mother? We have a visitor.”
She heard a frail wisp of a voice reply, although she couldn’t make out the words, then Ina opened a door saying, “Now, Mother, here’s a treat! Someone come to talk to you. Go in, Kathleen, dear, go in.”
The room was small, stale-smelling and murky, the orange-and-yellow curtains drawn across the window letting in only a faint light. There was a lamp beside the bed, but the combination of a heavy, tasseled shade and low-wattage bulb meant it did little to relieve the gloom. She noticed that the lamp shade also bore a thick, furlike coating of grey dust, and in contrast to the careful housekeeping in evidence downstairs, the room was a mess. The floor and bedside table were littered with dirty plates and cutlery, empty cups, used tissues, and crumpled wads of cling film.
Lying in the long, narrow bed, propped up against a stack of lumpy pillows, with a box of tissues and a stack of magazines spilling over beside her, was a little old lady. Her eyes appeared unnaturally large and luminous in her wizened head, reminding Kathleen of a lemur. On her head she wore an old-fashioned, lace-trimmed white cap, tied under her chin, like a baby’s bonnet, and her shoulders and torso were swathed in a number of pastel-colored shawls and scarves: yellow, pink, and blue.
“Mother, this is Kathleen Mullaroy. She’s the new librarian.”
The old woman shuddered, and her already big eyes became larger still. “Ina, that’s your job! Don’t tell me they’ve sacked you? Oh, what will become of us! I suppose I shall have to go out to work again. You ungrateful girl, what—”
“Mother!” Ina spoke loudly but without heat. “I don’t work at the library anymore. I retired, remember?”
“Stuff and nonsense! What did you want to retire so young for? Waste of your education.”
“Mother, I was too old for that job. They made me retire. Maybe at the time they were wrong, but now I’m not so spry. You have to admit, I’m not young anymore.”
The old woman continued to direct her fierce, lamplike gaze at her daughter, and Kathleen imagined she was gathering her resources for another attack, but finally she gave a reluctant nod, and said, “No, I suppose you’re not young. But you can hardly call yourself old to your mother now, can you?” She gave a dry, scraping chuckle and turned her eyes full on Kathleen. “So, what brings you calling, Mrs. Librarian?”
Ina replied for her. “Kathleen is curious about the Wall family. I told her you knew Mr. Lachlan when you were a lass. I remembered you used to sell him treasures you found on the beach, but I couldn’t remember what they were.”
“Black beans,” she replied promptly. “Those big, black hard seeds that come from foreign parts. I can’t mind their proper name. Some folk call them fairy eggs, but they’re not that. They’re supposed to be lucky. I had a kind of knack for finding things like that, things that had a bit o’ power to ’em, and Mr. Lachlan liked to own them. I don’t know if they brought him luck…it was all right through his lifetime, but the family came to a bad end.” Her head nodded up and down, and Kathleen was unable to decide if it was an intentional movement or a tremor.
The old woman made her uncomfortable; there was something almost eerie about her prolonged life. But, ashamed of her feelings, she made an effort to be sociable. “Are you talking about…do you mean what happened to Ronan Wall?”
Mrs. McClusky gave her a very sharp look, her head craning forward and wobbling slightly. “You know him?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head quickly. “No, of course not; I don’t think anyone’s seen or heard from him since nineteen fifty, isn’t that right?” She cast an appealing glance at Ina, who simply gazed back, impassive. “But I’d heard that he was the last of the Walls, then he left, and it left the town in a bad way.”
“He wasn’t really a Wall, although his grandfather gave him the name. I suppose it was Mr. Alexander’s right to do that, but it wasn’t right, to let the inheritance fall to a bastard. The boy wasn’t one of us, and he never belonged here. Nobody knew his father.”
The venom in the old woman’s voice made Kathleen feel like protecting that long-lost boy. It made her realize what a hard time people could have of it in the past, for “sins” completely out of their control. Not only for the color of their skins, but for something their mothers had done—or had forced on them—before they were born. “I suppose his mother did,” she said coolly.
Mrs. McClusky snorted quietly and pushed herself up, quivering, against the pillows. “Her! That Emmeline! She was a daftie—not all there—tetched in the head, away wi’ the fairies—d’you ken?”
“She was a brilliant artist.”
“Artist! And what’s the use of that for a woman? Oh, yes, I know her father doted on her, encouraged her, thinking that she was like him because she could draw a bit, maybe thinking she’d have a fine career. Maybe she would, if he’d sent her away, but he kept her here. Maybe, if her mother had lived, she could have kept her safe. But her father didn’t understand. Mr. Alexander Wall was an incomer, you know, for all that he was a Wall. He was born on the other side of the world, and then he was educated in Glasgow, so he never knew how different things are here. He didn’t know the truth until it was too late. He wouldn’t have listened, anyway, he doted on his daughter so. He couldn’t let her go. He was bound and determined to fetch her back, no matter what the price for the rest of us.” She stopped, panting slightly, and her mouth continued to move although no words could be heard.
“Mother, we’re tiring you.”
“No, no.” Her voice came out a croak and her head shook still more.
Kathleen shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, oppressed by the cluttered, dingy room and the old woman’s prejudices. “I can see we are,” she said. “I really should go…I could come back another time,” she offered as a sop to the old woman’s now vigorously shaking head.
“Mother’s not used to talking so much.”
“I like it,” croaked the old woman. “It’s a treat for me to talk about the old days and have somebody who wants to listen. What else did you want to know?” Her big eyes fastened greedily on Kathleen’s face. “Who are you interested in? Emmeline? She killed herself, you know. Drowned herself in the sea. They never found her body.” She stopped again, gasping, and Kathleen shot a look at Ina.
“Your mother needs to rest.”
“My mother could tell you more,” Mrs. McClusky croaked. “She used to do Mr. Lachlan’s laundry. She was in and out of his house all the time—oh, the stories she used to tell us children! Ina, fetch your granny, there’s a love.”
Ina seemed unperturbed by this request, and Kathleen assumed she must be used to her mother’s losing touch with the present and drifting back to a much earlier time in her head. “Granny’s asleep,” she said mildly.
“She’s always sleeping! It won’t do her any harm to be fetched out of her bed now. I know she’d like to see a new face.” Mrs. McClusky’s happy, coaxing expression darkened, and she moved impatiently against the pillows. “Go on, then! Or do I have to get up and fetch her myself, you idle girl?” The yellow shawl slipped down her arms as she struggled to rise.
“Stop where you are, Mother.” Ina sighed. “I’ll get her. Calm yourself.”
As Kathleen watched uneasily, Ina shuffled slowly around the foot of the bed toward the massive bulk of an old wooden wardrobe. With a soft groan of effort, she tugged at one handle, and the right-hand door swung open, blocking Kathleen’s view of whatever might be inside.
The old woman in the bed smiled and nodded up at her. “Mummy’s going to join us. Mummy has the best
stories; she’ll tell you all about those Walls.”
“Really, it’s not important—I really should go,” Kathleen murmured helplessly. She tried to steal a look at her watch, but couldn’t make out the time in the dim light. “I have to get home.”
“Not until you meet Mummy. You must stay long enough to meet my mother.”
“Here we are then,” said Ina, panting as she emerged from the wardrobe with a bundle of blankets in her arms. “I’ll—just—put you down—here—on my mother’s bed—eh, Granny?” Tottering under the awkward weight, she all but fell forward onto the bed with the thing she was carrying.
When she saw what Ina had taken out of the wardrobe, Kathleen was seized by a sudden attack of dizziness and blinked hard, unable to believe what she was seeing. There on the bed was what seemed at first to be a very large doll, perhaps the size of a two-year-old child. Only, as it opened filmy blue eyes and raised its head on a scraggy, shaking neck to peer around the room, it was quite clearly alive, and very far from infancy. Thin, almost bloodless lips cracked apart, and a reedy, querulous voice whined, “I was sleeping. Why’ve you disturbed me?”
“I’m sorry, Granny, but Mother told me to,” Ina panted.
“Who is that? Is that the doctor?” The eyes, which bulged unpleasantly from a bald, skull-like head, fixed upon Kathleen, who stood rigid with shock.
“No, Mummy.” Mrs. McClusky spoke in a soft, ingratiating tone. “This is Ina’s young friend, Kathleen. She came to ask about the Wall family, and since you know so much more about them than I do…You’ll enjoy a bit of company, and you can tell some stories about the old days.”
The little old woman made a high, gargling sound and waved a clawlike hand feebly in the air. “Ina! Ina! Help me sit up, child!”
The retired librarian struggled to move her grandmother, and at last managed to wedge her in beside Mrs. McClusky against the pile of pillows. When she was settled, the oldest woman made the noise again and clutched at her throat. “I’m that parched after my sleep. Ina! Where’s the tea? You know I always have a cup of tea first thing!”
“I’ll just make some fresh,” said Ina, and Kathleen cast her an anxious look. If Ina left the room, she was going too. There was no way she was going to be left alone here with these two weird, impossibly aged creatures.
“Have a sweetie,” said Mrs. McClusky, rummaging around in the bedclothes until she’d uncovered a paper bag full of some round, hard candies that looked like sour balls. She leaned sideways and popped one into her mother’s mouth. “That’ll wet your whistle.”
The tiny old woman sucked for a few moments, her eyes fluttering. Ina began to creep around the foot of the bed again, moving toward Kathleen and the door.
“Where are you going, miss?” Mrs. McClusky spoke sharply.
Ina came to a halt. “To make the tea, Mother,” she said meekly.
Pushing the hard candy into her cheek, the grandmother stuck out her neck, rather like a tortoise, and peered around the room. “One, two, three, four. If you’re making tea for four, why not for five? Do me a favor before you go down to make the tea, Ina?”
“Yes, Granny?”
“Bring out your great-granny; she always loved a party.”
“Oh, what a good idea!” cried Mrs. McClusky. “It’s been ever so long since I’ve seen her. Yes! Wake up my granny; wake her up, Ina, and bring her out, there’s a good girl.”
Ina sighed and rolled her eyes in a put-upon way, but she was smiling as she turned and headed back to the wardrobe. “Now then, Great-granny,” she said loudly, tugging open the other door. “We’ve got a nice surprise for you.”
Kathleen bolted from the room. She couldn’t bear to see a second animated mummy, a creature even more ancient and shriveled than the two already on the bed. Between the sound of her footsteps pounding down the stairs and her own panicked breathing she couldn’t hear if anyone shouted or called after her, and she was consoled by the thought that even if Ina tried to give chase, she had small chance of catching up.
She hurtled through the front door, slammed it shut behind her, and raced to her car which, having already adopted local ways, she hadn’t bothered to lock. She locked the doors once she was inside, though, and, panting anxiously, started it up and drove off as quickly as she could, head down, shoulders hunched, without looking back. She didn’t think about where she was going; she couldn’t think about what she was fleeing; her heart was pounding like a drum and her single imperative was escape. It was only after she passed the filling station on the edge of town and saw the “Haste ye Back” sign that she understood that she didn’t want to go back to the library house; it didn’t feel safe enough. It wasn’t far enough away from the weirdness she’d just witnessed, and she was prepared to drive all the 132 miles to Glasgow, without stopping and quite possibly breaking the speed limit—until the sign warning ROAD CLOSED AHEAD forced her to step on the brake, and then, moments later, she saw for the first time the massive rock fall that made escape impossible.
“Oh hell.” Bringing the car to a complete and rather jolting stop, she slapped the steering wheel with an open hand. How could she forget?
She switched off the engine and got out, her eyes fixed on the landslide. It was an impressive sight. At the center of a mass of mud and rubble was one huge slab of rock, the size of a small house, which utterly blocked the road. There was no way around it. At one side of the road was the steep, forbidding cliff face, the side of a hill that had long ago been blasted and dug out when the road was built, and had finally produced this landslide. On the other side the ground dropped sharply to the rocky shore and the sea.
She looked down at the sea, perhaps eight or nine feet below. It would be possible to climb down—there seemed to be plenty of hand- and footholds in the side of the embankment—and once there, to follow the shoreline until she came to a place where she could gain access to the road again. But the exposed rocks looked awfully slippery—the ones that weren’t honed to a knife-edge—licked by the waves that foamed and swirled around them. Maybe, at low tide (assuming it wasn’t already low tide), with the right shoes and a helpful companion, but not now. For now she was stuck.
She stared at the massive rock in the middle of the road, chewed her thumbnail, and tried not to cry.
DURING HIS DINNER break on Tuesday, Mario headed as usual down to the harbor. But this time he walked with his head up, looking around the crowded streets as he went, searching the faces. He was looking for the tall, curly-haired American girl who’d come into the chip shop that afternoon.
Third time lucky, he told himself hopefully.
He’d messed up the first time they met, for sure, and he’d been kicking himself ever since for his unbelievably stupid behavior. Some sort of residual loyalty to Anna had made him resist the attraction he’d felt for the girl who’d asked him to join her for a drink on Sunday night, but minutes after walking away from her he’d realized how pointless that was. Anna didn’t want his loyalty or anything else he had to offer. She’d cut him off. He was free.
It had taken him a long time to perceive this freedom as a good thing, but he was in a different place now. Something had been knocked loose by the earth tremor, not just the hillside that blocked the road, but inside Mario himself, shifting a whole load of mud and rock in his chest away from his heart and lungs so that he could finally breathe again and feel something other than pain.
Then, when she’d smiled at him this afternoon—and what a smile!—he knew she’d decided to forgive him for his clumsy retreat on Sunday. Given half a chance, he’d take it, but Uncle Tony was such a hard-ass, and he’d chosen just that moment to order him back to the kitchen to chip more potatoes.
For once he was glad this was such a small town. And thanks to the landslide, he could be sure the girl was still around. They were bound to run into one another again.
But although the streets were unusually full of people out enjoying the mild evening, he saw no one he recognized. When he rea
ched the harbor, he found it busier than ever. Strangely, considering that the landslide was generally reckoned to have cut Appleton off from the world, the last few days had transformed the sheltered harbor from a chilly, forgotten backwater into a vibrant, bustling place that reminded him, at least a little bit, of Palermo. There were major differences, of course, but the waterfront had come to life, busier now than it had been even at the height of summer. Small craft thronged the water, dozens of battered, rather grubby working boats bobbing alongside the pleasure craft—sailing yachts and small motorboats—which were the more usual visitors to Appleton harbor. And the people—there must have been ten times as many people in and on the harbor than there’d been on the last bank holiday weekend. He wondered who they all were.
Some, clearly, were here for commercial reasons. Having scented an opportunity, they’d sailed down the coast, or motored across the water from their homes around Glasgow or Ayr to put up advertisements on the pier for “water taxis,” ferry services, and small boat charters.
But the purposes of other visitors were more mysterious. These were the oddly assorted newcomers who posted no signs, did not tout for custom or even come ashore. Whoever they might be, wherever they had come from, they were certainly not ordinary tourists. They stayed put on their vessels and gave no clue as to why they’d come, or when they might leave. They communicated with each other in a babble of different tongues, and their boats, maneuvering around each other in the increasingly restricted space of the harbor basin, occasionally drew close enough to exchange passengers. He saw women and children, too, clambering from one boat to another, and even animals. There were dogs and cats on board some of the boats; and he’d heard the cackle of hens and, he was almost certain, the bleating of a goat. The whole effect was of a floating campground or fair. Mario felt they were all just waiting for something to begin, and he wondered why he hadn’t heard any gossip in the town about a forthcoming event so important it had drawn so many people from different countries.