The Little Country

by Charles de Lint

  Janey gave him a last hug and stepped away, face still beaming.

  “You big galoot,” she said, giving his shoulder a soft punch. “Trust you to show up like this all unannounced.”

  “But. . .” Felix began.

  “It’s just wonderful to see you,” Janey went on before he could finish. She dragged him over to the couch so that they could sit down beside each other. “You have to tell me everything. Where you’ve been. What you’re doing here.” She glanced over at his baggage, gaze settling on the wooden box. “I see you brought your accordion. I hope you’ve brought some new tunes as well.”

  “There’s no beer,” the Gaffer said, “but I can put on a kettle.”

  Felix shook his head. “No thanks. I just had some tea.”

  Beside him, Janey took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “How long can you stay?” she asked. “Tell me it’ll be weeks.”

  Felix wanted to just bask in her attention and not say anything, but couldn’t.

  “Janey,” he said. “Why are you surprised to see me?”

  She blinked. “Why shouldn’t I be? You never said you were coming.”

  “But the letter‌—”

  “You wrote?” She looked over at the Gaffer. “We never got a letter, did we?”

  The Gaffer shook his head.

  “It must’ve got lost in the mail,” Janey said. “Where did you send it from?”

  “I didn’t write to you,” Felix said. “You wrote to me.”

  Janey blinked again. “I didn’t never,” she said.

  Felix disengaged his hand from hers and pulled the folded letter from his pocket. He handed it over to her.

  “Then what’s this?” he asked.

  Janey opened the letter and scanned it quickly.

  “I didn’t send this to you, Felix,” she said.

  Felix frowned. “It’s not funny,” he said. “I came a long way. I. . .”

  What could he say? That he’d come because he’d promised once and promises were sacred to him? Because he’d told her that he’d always be there for her, no matter what? Because the letter had burned like a bright beacon in his mind, awaking dead hopes?

  “I honestly didn’t write it,” Janey repeated. “And I’m not in any trouble, desperate or otherwise.”

  “But. . .”

  “Well, that’s not completely true. I broke up with Alan and I’ve got a tour coming up and I am desperate for a sideman, but it’s not the kind of thing I’d write to you about.” She poked the letter with a finger. “This sounds so . . . so serious.”

  “That’s why I came.”

  Janey had gone all earnest now. She reached out and took his hand again.

  “It means a lot that you did come after getting this,” she said.

  “Can I see this letter?” the Gaffer asked.

  Janey passed it over to him.

  “It’s a queer sort of game to be playing on someone,” the Gaffer said after he’d read it through.

  Felix met the old man’s steady gaze and saw in it that the Gaffer knew exactly why he’d come‌—and that he approved. Of course, he and the Gaffer had always got on well. But much as he liked the old man, it was his granddaughter he wanted to get on well with first.

  “Did you travel far?” the Gaffer added.

  “I got it in Madrid,” Felix said, “and came right away.”

  “I really didn’t write it,” Janey said. “I don’t even own a typewriter.”

  He wanted to believe her. But if she hadn’t sent it, then who had? Who knew him well enough to know that a letter like this would bring him to her, no matter where he was when it reached him? And why would they bother?

  It made no sense.

  “It’s not Janey’s sort of prank,” the Gaffer said.

  “I know.”

  At least he thought he did. The Janey he’d known would never have done it for a lark. But who could tell how much she’d changed in three years?

  He rubbed the stubble on his scalp again, feeling foolish to have come all this way, to be here, when he wasn’t needed.

  “It’s still wonderful to see you,” Janey said.

  “And better that there is no trouble, don’t you think, my robin?” the Gaffer added.

  Trouble, Felix thought.

  “Well, there has been trouble,” he said.

  Briefly he described what had happened when he first arrived.

  “How could they know?” the Gaffer said when Felix was done.

  “Know what?” both Felix and Janey asked at the same time.

  The Gaffer glanced at the book where it sat on the arm of his favorite chair. For long moments he said nothing. Then finally he sighed.

  “There’s a thing about that book,” he said. “I don’t rightly know what, but there’s been people after it for as long as it’s been in my possession.”

  Janey sat forward on the edge of the couch. “That’s right! You said some American woman had been asking after it.”

  “And she’s not the first, my gold,” the Gaffer said. “When I first got it from Billy. I . . . well, we were mates, Billy and I. Close as brothers, weren’t we? I didn’t know what it was about the book that made him send it to me, or want me to hide it‌—I’ve read it through myself and it’s just a tale like the others he’s written‌—but hide it I did.

  “First I kept it at Charlie’s place, and then later up at Andy Spurr’s farm, over near the Reservoir, and a good thing I did, for there were men coming around asking after it, threatening legal action against me‌—though they didn’t have half a leg to stand on‌—and even coming to the house when neither myself or the missus were home.”

  “When was this?” Janey asked.

  “Oh, years ago‌—before you were born, my love. But they came and pried and snooped for a few months, never giving me a moment’s rest, until one day they were all up and gone. Time to time, I’d get a letter‌—or a phone call, once we had a line put in‌—asking after Billy’s ‘unpublished writings.’ They’d be publishers, see, wanting notes or stories that hadn’t been published before, or asking after photographs and artifacts, but I could tell the difference between the genuine article and whoever these others were. They weren’t publishers, though I can’t tell you how I know that, or who they really were. Nor what they really wanted.”

  Janey shivered. “This is becoming more and more mysterious every moment.”

  The Gaffer nodded, but he didn’t seem very happy about the mystery of it.

  “When Andy died last year, his widow had me come take the box of Billy’s writings away because she was leaving the farm to live with her son in St. Ives. I put it up in the attic, but I didn’t look in it except to see that the book was still there. Didn’t open the book.”

  “Why not?” Felix asked.

  The Gaffer shrugged. “Don’t know, my gold. It’s just a feeling I have that when that book’s opened, things start to happen.”

  “But what kinds of things?” Janey wanted to know.

  The Gaffer looked as though he was about to say something, then shrugged again and settled on: “That the crows would come sniffing around again.”

  “I suppose there’s money to be made from a previously unknown and unpublished Dunthorn book?” Felix asked.

  Neither the Gaffer nor Janey replied.

  “Well, wouldn’t there be?”

  “I suppose,” the Gaffer said. “But it wouldn’t be right. I made a promise, didn’t I?”

  “I didn’t mean that you should get it published,” Felix said. “It’s only that it explains why people are coming around looking for it‌—that they’re even willing to steal it. There must be some rumour of the book’s existence that gets resurrected every once in a while.”

  Janey shook her head. “I’ve got all the biographies on him and I never came across even a hint of The Little Country, or any unpublished book, until I found it this afternoon.”

  “It’s more than money,” the Gaffer agreed. “There’s som
ething odd about the book. I can’t put it into words, but it’s there. Just a feeling I get.”

  Felix thought about the book. There was a certain feel about it, though he wouldn’t have called it odd. The word he would have chosen was comfortable. It was the sort of book that no sooner had he opened it than he felt at ease and among friends. Ready to follow the storyline, no matter how fantastic. And he didn’t even care much for that kind of book in the first place.

  “What will you do now?” he asked the Gaffer. “Hide it again?”

  “I suppose.”

  “But not until I get to finish reading it!” Janey protested.

  The Gaffer smiled. “No. We can wait that long, my queen. But we’ll have to be careful and hide it well whenever we go out.”

  Janey gave another little shiver. “Isn’t it all kind of, oh, I don’t know, sort of eerie?”

  “It’s queer, all right,” the Gaffer agreed.

  Though no more strange than the mysterious letter that had brought him here, Felix thought. He looked at it lying forgotten on Janey’s lap, then picked it up and refolded it once more.

  “Felix,” she began as he put it away in his pocket. “I honestly didn’t send that.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mind having come. It’s really good to see you‌—both of you.”

  “You’re not going to run off again, are you?” Janey asked.

  Is that how she saw the way their relationship had ended? Felix wondered. That he’d run off on her?

  “No,” he said. “I’ll stay for a day or so, but then I’ve got to go.”

  “But you just got here.”

  How to explain what it meant to him, being here with her, but not with her?

  “I used almost all the money I had to get here as quickly as I could,” he said. “I have to get back to London and see what ships are in port and if I can get a job.”

  “You can stay with us,” Janey said.

  “I’ll stay tonight.”

  “There’s lots of room,” the Gaffer added.

  Felix knew what he meant. It could be like it had been before, when he’d lived here with them. But it wouldn’t‌—couldn’t‌—be what it had been before. And while Felix didn’t ever not want to be friends with Janey, right now he was feeling too confused to even think about their getting back together again.

  There was that letter lying between them. . . .

  “Don’t blame me for something I didn’t do,” Janey began, but the Gaffer shushed her before she could go on.

  “Give the man a chance to catch his wits, my love.” He glanced at Felix. “You remember your old room?”

  Felix nodded.

  “Nothing much has changed. You can go on up and use it if you like.”

  Felix turned to Janey. He wanted to explain the confusion, but while he could speak so eloquently to her when she was only present in his imagination, when he was far out to sea on some freighter, sitting here in the Gaffer’s house on Duck Street, with her presence all too real, everything was just a jumble in his head.

  “I guess I’ll go up,” he said.

  Janey caught his arm as he got up from the couch and he paused, looking at her.

  “I. . .” she began, then sighed. “I just wanted to say good night.”

  Felix gave her a weak smile. “Good night,” he said.

  Collecting his baggage, he went upstairs.

  3.

  Janey sat for a long time on the couch after Felix had gone up. As she listened to him moving about in his room, a flood of memories went through her. They were good memories and they made her wonder for the first time in a long time just why their relationship hadn’t worked out.

  He’d never been jealous of what success she’d found as a musician like Alan, nor had the touring it necessitated troubled him as it did the fellow she’d dated before Alan‌—probably because Felix’s own work took him all over the world. They’d spent weeks together in Mousehole, though, when she wasn’t on the road and he was off ship, and when she did tour, he’d often turn up in the oddest places just to spend a few days with her. In New England, once, when his ship had docked in Boston. In California another time, when he took a few months off and hitchhiked across the country to see her. At a festival in Germany. Another in Scotland.

  Like Dinny Boyd, he enjoyed playing music, but had absolutely no ambition to turn professional‌—a fact that constantly irritated her because he was just so bloody good on his box. In the circles that knew about this sort of thing, he was reckoned in the same breath as some of the masters of the instrument‌—John Kimmel, Paddy O’Brien, Joe Cooley, Tony MacMahon, Joe Burke‌—and was considered on a par with his contemporaries such as Martin O’Connor, Jackie Daly, and the like. He also played a mean whistle, as well as a little concert flute and guitar. But while he’d sit in with her the odd time, he refused to make the commitment to record or tour.

  They used to argue about it‌—a great deal towards the end of their relationship. In fact, she thought, if she was going to be honest about it, it was the constant pressure she’d put on him about it that had contributed the most to the breakup. They’d start off talking about his reluctance to tour, or about his wanting to settle down‌—a laugh, since his work took him to the four corners of the world‌—and somehow that would segue into pointless and often strident arguments that, when she looked back on them, really weren’t about anything very important at all.

  She could remember his trying to stop them, his calmness in the face of her quarreling, but she had too volatile a temper and his imperturbability just made her more angry. It was silly, really, because five minutes later, she’d forget all about it, but though he wouldn’t say anything, he’d still carry the hurt. She could see it in his eyes, or in the cautious way he dealt with her, and that would just set things off again until finally they called it quits one day. Before she was even fully aware of what they were doing, he’d packed up and was gone.

  She’d missed him terribly at first and accepted a long tour on the Continent‌—one that she’d refused when it was first offered to her because she and Felix had had plans to spend a month traveling around Ireland. Without him, she didn’t want to go to Ireland anymore. And she didn’t want to stay in Mousehole. All she wanted to do was to try to put it all behind her.

  So she’d done just that. But seeing him tonight‌—feeling her heart lift when she saw him and the way she just fit so perfectly into the circle of his arms‌—she realized that she’d been too effective. What she should have done was not let him go in the first place.

  Sighing, she glanced at the Gaffer who was sitting in his chair by the hearth, pretending not to be watching her.

  “He doesn’t believe me, does he?” she said.

  “Well, it’s a strange business, my gold.”

  “I feel funny seeing him again. It’s like we never broke up, but at the same time it’s like there’s a whole ocean lying in between us.”

  She tugged at a loose thread at the hem of her short skirt, her gaze fixed on what she was doing, though she wasn’t thinking about the thread or her skirt at all. Finally she looked over at her grandfather again.

  “Do you think second chances are possible?” she asked.

  “Well, that depends,” the Gaffer said. “We didn’t worry much about that kind of thing in my time. Couples tried to make do, to see each other through the rough spots. I’m not saying that way was right or wrong‌—there’s times when a man and a woman just aren’t right for each other and no matter of work can make things better between them‌—but mostly we stuck to it.”

  “But what about me and Felix?”

  “How do you feel about seeing him?” the Gaffer asked.

  “All mixed up.”

  “Well, my robin, first you have to decide what it is that you want.”

  “I suppose.”

  The Gaffer nodded. “It’s hard, I know. But know what you want first, my love. If you just try to muddle through, you
’ll only give each other still more heartbreak.”

  “But how can I convince him that I didn’t send that stupid letter?”

  “It’s not so stupid, really, is it?” the Gaffer said. “It brought him here, didn’t it?”

  Janey gave him a sudden considering look. “You didn’t send it, did you?”

  The Gaffer laughed. “Not a chance of that, my flower. I learned long ago to keep my nose in my own business, especially when it comes to family.”

  “Well, then who did?”

  “Don’t worry about that so much. Worry about your heart, my love. He won’t be here long.”

  “But he doesn’t believe me.”

  “Give him time to believe.”

  Janey sighed. “You just said he wasn’t going to be here long, and now you tell me I should give him time.”

  The Gaffer rose from his chair. “Now you know why I like to keep to my own business,” he said. “In this sort of an affair, no matter what you say, you’re wrong.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean‌—”

  “That’s all right, my dear,” the Gaffer said. “Your old grandfather knows you better than you think. Now I’m for bed. Are you staying up?”

  Janey shook her head.

  The Gaffer picked up the Dunthorn book from the arm of the chair and handed it to her.

  “Well, don’t leave this lying around,” he said.

  “I won’t. Good night, Gramps.”

  “Good night, my robin. Things will look different in the morning when you see them with fresh eyes.”

  “I need a fresh brain,” Janey muttered, but the Gaffer was already leaving the room and gave no notice that he’d heard her.

  Or maybe a fresh heart, she added to herself. Oh, why did things always have to get so complicated?

  She slouched on the couch for a while longer, until at last she got up and collected her instruments. Turning off the lights, she went outside to her own room.

  The Gaffer’s cottage had a small courtyard in front of it‌—the same place where Felix had struggled with the burglar earlier that evening. A low stone wall, broken by an wrought-iron gate, closed it in from the road. Flower boxes hung from either side of it, while Jabez, the Gaffer’s black and white tomcat, could be found lounging upon the top most days and well into the evening.