Fearful Symmetry

by C F Dunn

  “Well, I certainly wish I had your genes,” Rob said, coming forward to shake his hand.

  “So do I,” Pat darted a laugh before that avenue could be explored further. “Years in the sun haven’t been as kind to me. And there’s Flora and Alex – and Archie! My, how you’ve all grown up. Oh! And this must be Theo.” Her eyes misted and she pressed a hanky to her nose. “Look at me! Don’t take any notice; I’m just a silly old woman.”

  “It’s been a long flight,” Henry explained as I led Pat to the sofa by the fire to sit by Mum and introduced her to Theo. He gave her one of his angelic smiles and promptly burped, and she laughed, but more joyfully this time. The years had left their mark in her overly sunned skin, and her hair – once carefully cut and coloured – lay steely and ragged about her slackened jawline. But she still smiled like the Pat I once knew, and mere minutes with the children had begun to loosen the tension her shoulders bore.

  “A long journey? You’ve been living in Arizona, I believe; is that where you’ve flown from?” Dad asked.

  “No.” Henry covered his hesitation in settling himself down on a rickety chair by the hearth. “No, we’ve been on a bit of an extended tour of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor – always wanted to see more of the world.” His eyes briefly met mine. “We would have come sooner, but…”

  Standing with his sturdy back to the fire, his feet planted firmly apart, Dad did his best impression of Lord of the Manor. “I expect communication was compromised in such remote regions. Certainly was in my day.”

  “Yes, we were out of contact for a time,” Henry finished quietly, and there was so much left unvoiced in the way he said it. For all he looked unnervingly like Matthew now that he had shed the glasses and beard, the light I was so used to in his father was absent in the son. I could only guess at what they had been through to get here. I detected he would rather not say.

  “You must be exhausted,” I said. “I’m afraid there’s not much lunch left, but there’s plenty of tea and Christmas cake if you would like some.”

  “And bags of chocolate,” Beth added, “if Em will share it.”

  Once I’d waved my family off later that evening, I went back into the great hall. Pat dozed with Theo by the fire and Henry inspected the silver dish – recently emptied of glittering chocolate coins by the children – in the remaining light of the Christmas candles. “So, you’ve heard nothing?” he said, without looking up.

  “I hoped you might.”

  He outlined the faint coat of arms in the centre of the dish, and shook his head. “No. I’ve heard nothing since Joel got a message to us. We were on the road within an hour. Left everything behind, as I expect you have.” I felt my face drain and he winced in apology. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me.” He came over. “You had no other choice than to leave him – you couldn’t risk them taking the children. It’s what he would have wanted.” He made it sound as if he thought Matthew were dead. He must have realized because he added, “Dad wanted you safe because it gives him something to live for, Emma. He won’t give up – give in – while you are safe.”

  “Yes, but the fact is that we are here in relative safety and he is not. We don’t know where he is, who has him – anything. I can’t sense him, Henry. We always had this thing – this connection – it’s difficult to explain, but it’s not there any more. I know I shouldn’t despair, but I can’t help it. And seeing you like this, so very much like him, makes his absence unbearable.”

  “If I’d known it would have caused you so much pain, we wouldn’t have come.”

  “No,” I shook my head with vehemence. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t want you to go. Stay for as long as you want. My home is your home, as it has always been and as Matthew intended.” Henry turned away, and at first I thought I had somehow offended him, until I detected the sombre mantle clouding him, and the slight shake of the silver dish he held. “Henry?” I reached out and placed my hand on his. “I don’t know how long we will be safe here, but Matthew must have believed it offers us a chance of some sort of normality – a future. Please, stay, and be part of it with us.”

  He glanced over to the sofa, where Pat still slumbered, then back to me. He drew breath. “The thing is, Emma, we’ve had a complete lockdown on our finances, all our assets. We tried to access them but they’ve been ring-fenced and we couldn’t risk being traced, so we have nothing to offer you but Pat’s baby-minding service and my hard labour to pay our way.”

  “And both will be very welcome. I don’t want anything, Henry. I’m glad of your company; it’s odd how tiring it is, hiding the children’s differences, let alone mine, from my family.”

  He placed the dish back on the table, a keen interest replacing the doubt. “You’ve noticed changes, then, since the transfusion?”

  Pat stirred, and I nodded to the window seat at the far end of the room. We sat in near-darkness, thankful of the shutters holding back bitter wind, and lowered our voices.

  “Nothing much at first – I had more energy, perhaps, didn’t need as much sleep. Oh, and my appetite shrank – not that I had much anyway. But over the years I’ve noticed I heal more quickly and I no longer need glasses to read. All small things in themselves, but…”

  “… they add up to something significant,” Henry finished, pinching his lips with his forefinger and thumb, thoughtful. “Dad must have been interested in the changes in you.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “He was very excited and it spurred new areas of research. He was on the verge of a breakthrough when we had to run. It was one of the reasons why we didn’t leave sooner.”

  “And the other?” I didn’t answer, and Henry said slowly, “He thought I might return, is that it?”

  I gave a short nod of affirmation and Henry closed his eyes. Finally, he opened them again. “Had he… changed – at all?”

  “Physically? No.”

  He looked into the shadowed corners of the room, up at the ceiling arching over our heads, picked out by the darkened beams like the skeleton of a fossil in chalk, at the high stone mantel with the shields carved upon it. “So this is where he came from all those years ago.”

  “Near here – at New Hall. You remember the etching we were given for a wedding present? It hung to one side of the dining room fire at home.”

  “I always wondered why you had that.”

  “Mrs Seaton gave it to us. She met Matthew once and I think… I think she knew. Anyway, this was her home. She sold it to Matthew, but I didn’t know he had bought it until we came here. The Seatons held the manor for centuries; they were cousins to the Lynes – to you. Look, this is the Lynes coat of arms.” Lowering my voice and taking a candle, I crossed to the fireplace and held its uncertain flame to the carved stone shield and waited for him to join me. When I glanced at him again, his eyes glistened.

  “I never imagined… I never thought…”

  I laid my hand over his again and this time he grasped it. “In the morning I’ll show you around and then introduce you to your ancestors.”

  “It’s very basic, I’m afraid, but it’s probably the best of the bunch.” Fragile winter light did the tatty bedroom few favours. The walls shed paper like sloughed skin, and a desultory moth broke into ragged flight from the remaining rug barely covering the wide elm planks.

  Pat assessed the space, cluttered as it was with saggy cardboard boxes, the carcasses of generations of woodlice, and empty picture frames propped in the corner and gaping like mouths. “Well, it could certainly do with a good clean.”

  “I know it isn’t what you’d choose.”

  “Emma,” she said, looking earnestly at me. “This family has been separated too long for me to care where I lay my head. Just as long as we’re together. Henry’s not been himself since we left Maine, and Maggie’s death and Matthew’s disappearance wounded him far more than he lets on. It’s like something’s been broken inside him, you know?” I nodded. “Anyhow, it’s good of you to have us in your
home.”

  Home. Yes, I suppose it was home now. “Then I should warn you,” I replied, “the kitchen was last updated a couple of centuries ago and I still haven’t worked out how to use the oven.”

  “Sweetie,” she hooted, “some things sure don’t change. Don’t you worry about it. I can cook sourdough on a campfire if need be.”

  “It might just come to that,” I murmured.

  Downstairs, Henry and Theo were deep in conversation, which seemed to involve a great deal of bottom-bouncing and chortling. Henry sat cross-legged on the floor holding Bear, and Theo, pulling himself to a rocky standing position, jiggled for a few seconds, and then dropped onto his backside with a squeal. From the bastion of a sofa, Rosie watched, fingers in mouth, mute. Without looking at her, Henry said, “Rosie, I could do with some help. I reckon the orchard would be a great place for a see-saw next to the swing. How about it? There are some long planks in one of the barns, but I don’t know which is the best. Do you think you could help me out?”

  Regarding him with cobalt eyes, she took her fingers from her mouth, climbed from the sofa and ran across the great hall and into the screens passage. A moment later the back door thumped. Henry looked crestfallen. “She hasn’t spoken to me since we arrived.”

  “You look like Matthew and she misses her daddy. She doesn’t know you yet.”

  Theo climbed onto Henry’s legs, and patted his chin. Henry smiled, his eyes crinkling in that good-natured way that reminded me so much of their father. “At least I’ve not blotted my copybook where my little brother is concerned.” Theo slid off and rocketed towards the window on all fours.

  “It isn’t your fault, Henry. She’ll come round. It’s been a lot to adjust to in a short period of time.”

  He smiled again, this time with a laconic slant. “Ah, so you can still read emotions, can you?”

  “Loud and clear. Don’t feel guilty; she’ll be better once she’s had a run around outside. Like her father, a bit of sunshine perks her up and we’ve not had much this last month.” I traced the lateral joints in the flagged floor on which we sat, debating how – or whether – to bring up the next subject. Henry made it easier.

  “Emma, is something bothering you?”

  I glanced at him from under my lashes. “Henry, I’m so sorry about Maggie.”

  He avoided looking in my direction and instead watched Theo’s attempts to stand using the push-along dog Matthew had given Archie when he was about the same age. Eventually he said, “I couldn’t go to her funeral – none of us could – so her family wasn’t there to say goodbye. To die in that state, alone, frightened, pursued… what a waste of life.” He looked at me then. “She was never really happy, was she? You knew that as well as anyone. Perhaps that’s what makes her death so hard.”

  Theo succeeded in pushing the dog along a few steps, an ecstatic grin on his little face making the contrast between his happiness and Maggie all the more poignant. He patted the dog’s back and promptly sat down with a thump. He looked over his shoulder at us, wondering whether he should cry. I smiled at him and he laughed instead.

  “Henry, I’ve been thinking about Maggie a lot recently – why she took Matthew’s car, what she must have been thinking and feeling. All I know is that she thought it was something she could do to buy us time, to give us a chance – something positive for once, after all those years of resentment. She didn’t die in vain, Henry; she bought us enough time to get to the plane – she gave us that chance.”

  “Not for Dad.”

  “No, but for his children, and for me; she died in an attempt to help her grandfather. When had she ever been able to do that? When had she ever been in a position, either mentally or physically, to return some of the love she had been shown in her life? When I saw her last – back at the house – something about her had changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time – too much was going on – but on reflection, she’d had a change of heart – as if something inside her had woken up.”

  “It’s a pity she died before she could benefit from it.”

  “She died believing she could help us, Henry, and in that gift, she found a sense of freedom and happiness I don’t believe she had experienced in a very long time.”

  “Do you truly believe that?”

  “Yes,” I smiled, placing my hand to my breast. “In the very heart of me.” I stood up and brushed myself down. “I think it’s time Theo had something to eat; he’s enjoying chewing that dog’s ear too much.”

  Henry rose as Pat came bursting in carrying something heavy, face flushed. “Look what was in the corner of the bedroom!” she exclaimed, holding out a gilt picture frame, chipped gesso glowing white and a length of gadrooned moulding missing. I looked at the unremarkable seventeenth-century landscape: yellowing fluffy trees, fluffy ochre clouds, fluffy… cows. No wonder Roger Seaton had rejected it. “Gosh. Yes, er… thanks.” I ran out of things to say. Her eyes gleamed and, slowly, she turned the frame around.

  Henry spoke first. “Well I never!”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I saw what was painted on the back,” Pat said. “Isn’t he handsome!”

  I found my voice, taut with emotion. “He… he didn’t know what had become of it. He thought it destroyed, but the Seatons must have had it all this time. Perhaps they had the awful landscape painted to disguise Matthew’s portrait on the other side – to protect it – to preserve his memory.”

  “Then we have much to thank them for.” Henry wiped away dusty cobwebs strung across his father’s face, revealing an inch-long slash in the canvas. His hand dropped to his side, the smile from his lips. “Nonetheless, it seems someone had it in for him, like the monument in the church.” He moved his head slowly back and forth. “I hadn’t realized until now what he meant when he said he had been driven from his home, his community. I don’t think I wanted to understand.”

  Pat gave me the painting and I took it to the light, carefully removing years of dust with a tissue. Gilded hair touched his high-necked collar, the starched white material edged in lace over a restrained blue doublet – slashed with silk and buttoned in silver. Neither Puritan in sobriety, nor extravagantly flamboyant, he represented a more peaceful era before conflict erupted into which he would inevitably be drawn. But it was in the lively expression he wore and the intelligent interest in his eyes that I recognized the man I knew and, in that second, I felt the cord that bound us, unbroken, resonant across the acres that separated us and the oceans of time. I brought the portrait to my lips and kissed it, willing him to feel it.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I were separated from my husband,” Pat observed. We were alone once again. “Henry’s gone to fix that see-saw for the children. He needs something to take his mind off things, as do you. It can’t be easy being here without Matthew, nor seeing him every day in his son.”

  “I’d much rather you were both here – Matthew would, too.” I looked down at the benign face gazing back at me. “I’d like to get this repaired, but it’ll have to wait. The roof needs looking at first and I suppose we also have to eat.” I leaned the portrait carefully against the wall.

  A sound of scampering distracted us and Pat burst out, “What are you doing, little man?”

  Theo raced towards us, a piece of paper clamped between his lips, a mischievous look in his eyes. He reached our feet and, laughing, I picked him up and balanced him on my hip. I removed the soggy paper, exchanging it for a kiss. “He’s being a puppy. I suspect Rosie’s been training him as a substitute, hasn’t she, slobber-chops?” We rubbed noses like Eskimo kisses and he gurgled happily. “Now, what have you found?” I tilted my head to read the scrawled writing: Levi Dobranovich, and the address and telephone number. How apposite; I had quite forgotten.

  Henry and I disembarked in a dismal street little more than a glorified alley, off a busy main road, on the outskirts of the city. The cold sun seemed to struggle to gain a footing here. Traffic fumes clung to the pores of the buildings, and chea
p fascias in foreign languages advertised unfamiliar foods. Cooking smells, pungent and aromatic, drifted from the flats above the shabby shopfronts. I felt alien in these surroundings.

  The taxi sped away, leaving us marooned. A man sat on a stool by a shop door, eyeing us. He hawked and spat. Keeping my head down, I checked the address and located a battered metal door between two shopfronts. It had neither a name nor anything that gave away what might lie behind it, only its street number: 294. The red eye of a surveillance camera stared down, high up and out of reach. Pulling my hood further around my face, I pressed a button on a little square plate set into the wall. There was a pause, then a click as something released, and Henry pushed the door open for me. He leaned close. “Looks can be deceptive,” he said doubtfully. I certainly hoped so.

  A narrow flight of stairs ran up directly from where we entered. Another door stood sentinel at the top, ajar. We brought with us the odour of the street and it lingered in the ill-lit stairwell. I hesitated. I had no option other than to climb the stairs.

  Violin music, more at home in a street café in Vienna, drifted through the crack the open door made. I pushed it gingerly, hovering at the threshold. The furnishings were rich – almost decadent – and at odds with the threadbare world we had left in the street below: a swollen walnut bureau with ormolu mounts, a longcase clock in russet mahogany, and in the corner, a tall stove released a gentle heat. Thick curtains hung in deep swathes across the single window and the only illumination came from strong, clear spotlights carefully positioned above the table in the centre of the room.

  “Come in, come in,” a European accent instructed from beyond a partition. “I have been expecting you.” A little man wearing a stained leather apron, and round as a tub, greeted us. He seemed old – very old, though what his age might be I couldn’t guess. He was made smaller by his bowed back and he peered up through glasses thick as pebbles. He looked like a gnome and creaked like a broken gate.