Authors: Isabel Sharpe
Knit in Comfort (11 page)
“I wouldn't say that.” Stanley's voice was overly hearty. “Elizabeth? Have we deprived you?”
“Oh. No. Of course not.” She shook her head too many times, feeling sick.
David smiled, dark-eyed Paul Newman in the warm night. “I hope you'll join me.”
“Us,” Ella said.
Megan made a small sound. Surprise? Disapproval? What the hell was going on?
“You told me you were going home, Ella,” David said.
“Did I?” Her smile was artificially sweetened. “I guess I changed my mind. Woman's prerogative.”
Elizabeth hated this. After such a beautiful, simple day be
ing able to share the family's happiness, and with her first decent design idea making her so excited and proud, the Twins of Doom had to show up and complicate everything in ways she didn't understand, and what's more, didn't want to. Comfort wasn't supposed to be like this.
She stood up next to Stanley in a show of solidarity. Her motion turned the porch light on, flooding the group of tense faces. “Thanks for the invite, but I'm staying here.”
Stanley's arm landed strong and warm around Elizabeth's shoulders. “She's with the family tonight. You two enjoy yourselves.”
“Actually.” Ella edged toward the porch. “I think I'll visit here. I haven't seen Stanley in a while, and Megan and I have to talk knitting and Sally's wedding plans.”
“
Et tu
, Ella?”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Ella mounted the steps, pushed past Elizabeth and stood on Stanley's other side. “I changed my mind again.”
David nodded, hands shoved into his pockets. He glanced at Megan and for a brief, shocking second the cynical sneer dropped and he looked like the kid last picked in gym class. “I'll be going home, then. Good night all.”
Megan made a quick movement in her seat, then got up and went into the house. Ella still hovered hopefully behind Stanley, who was staring murderously after the retreating David and didn't see Megan's face, which was just as well. One look would have made it obvious his wife was about to cry.
In Eshaness over the next weeks there is constant talk of Gillian. Of her chanting to the sky at sundown. Of her bewitching birds to eat from her hand. Of her swimming nude every morning and every eveningâshe has been seen coming back from the cliffs with her hair wet and clothes dry. Boys and men, young and old, start scanning the shores, morning and evening. There is talk that Alban Tait spotted her, but when he called, she dove and resurfaced as a seal, letting out a mocking bark. Others swear she is no selkie, but a mermaid after a mortal husband. Still others confirm she is a witch brought to curse them all. Their crops will fail, their animals will die, many will be lost at sea. All murmur that nothing good will come of having her there.
Fiona says nothing; she merely listens. One evening as
she and her mum, her Aunt Charlotte and her Granny Nessa knit by the peat fire, a recently completed shawl stretched on a frame behind their bench, father's fiddle hanging next to the hearth, mutton and fish drying in the rafters, there is a knock at the door. Fiona opens to Gillian. Her house is lonely, she says, she needs the companionship of women. Fiona longs to shut her out, but that is not the Shetland way. She draws back, lets in Gillian's beautiful colors, her flowery sweater, her green eyes and red-plum lips, welcomes her and fetches a chair, in which Gillian sits as if she's been there every night of her life and pulls out her knitting.
The women dart glances first, then longer looks, then finally give in to their longing and stare. This is lace such as they have never seen before, finer than theirs, more intricate, with patterns new to Eshaness, maybe new to Shetland, maybe new to their world. The chatter stops and they watch, spellbound by her needles working, by the cobweb lace falling in cascades like mermaid's hair onto her lap.
Gillian tells them in her lovely lilting voice how she was orphaned by the sea and by disease, taken in by an old woman the rest of her village distrusted, who taught Gillian how to pluck the finest hair from the necks of her sheep, how to spin so that a spider would envy her, nine thousand yards from a single ounce, taught her to look for patterns, not from other women or from tradition, but in the foam of waves, in the branches of trees, in the arrangements of stars, in her mind's eye and most of all in her heart.
Fiona and her mother and aunt and grandmother lis
ten and it seems their own knitting goes more quickly, their stitches are more even, their backs not so stiff and their hands not so tired.
When her story is done Gillian admires Fiona's lace, clumsy in comparison to her own, and asks where she learned, did her mother or granny teach her? In Fiona's heart the black snake of jealousy thrashes. She says she learned from a woman who appeared only at nightâdripping wet from the sea, where she'd swim naked every dayâwho would sit with Fiona and teach her 'til just before dawn, when she'd disappear back into the darkness.
Fiona's mother and grandmother laugh and tease her for the story. Gillian nods in peaceful acknowledgment and Fiona bends over her knitting again, angry and ashamed of her lies. In the ensuing silence, she looks up to find Gillian watching with her green gaze full of wisdom and understanding.
The talk turns idle, the needles Thy. Gillian rises to go. Fiona sees her to the door and Gillian presses her hand, said she was privileged to hear the story of Fiona's mysterious teacher. Then she leans in and whispers that Calum has spoken highly of Fiona in all ways a man can speak about a woman, and that if Calum truly belongs to Fiona, Gillian will not be an obstacle to their happiness.
She smiles her sad, private smile and goes off into the night, leaving Fiona to think on what she's just heard and wish she had not so many doubts about the word
if.
Megan shifted in the lawn chair, unable to get comfortable. She'd made the coffee too strong this morning, still trying to
get the proportion right, and it was burning a hole in her stomach, making her jittery and headachy. Or maybe it wasn't the coffee.
Last night she'd dreamed of Shetland, of the wide, moody ocean and walks along the cliffs. Of knitting lace next to the fire with her extended female family, of riding Shetland ponies over the heather, of fog and storms and moon paths on the water.
She'd woken this morning, body next to Stanley, mind still in the dream, except the dream seemed more like a memory, of her rising early to see her father off in his boat, helping prepare his breakfast and packing his lunch. While she listened, her dream dad had talked winds and tides, fogs and seagulls, how fishing wasn't what it used to be, how other fisherman were doingâwell, poorly, retired, injured, ill. A hard life. A frowning, tight, cold life.
Around her now, North Carolina smiled warmly, drowsy with laziness and conceit. Homesickness pierced her for a place she'd never been. The freedom of the sea. The battle to survive, keeping one close to the edge, open and alive. Was the dream about Shetland? Or a mishmash of memories and remembered stories of her seaside birthplace, Newfoundland, where Fiona's daughter, Bridget, emigrated to from Scotland?
The window of the garage apartment went up with its distinctive grating rattle. The screen raised next, got stuck halfway, lowered. Elizabeth would try again, then her blond head would poke out to greet the morning and her landlord.
Megan grabbed her coffee, jumped up and rushed into the house. The second she crossed the threshold, she started laughing. What was she running from? Crazy woman.
From Vera's room, the sound of scuffing slippers. Anoth
er morning. Another breakfast to get. Another day to spend with her children and half-husband, getting meals, organizing, listening, refereeing, offering support and validation. The life she'd embraced for so many years threatened to overwhelm her with its insignificance.
She stepped into the kitchen, grabbed the sunflower-strewn notepad and wrote briskly, “Gone for a walk,” left the note on her chair pulled into the middle of the room and let herself out the front door, giggling again, this time from nerves.
A grown woman running away from responsibility like an adolescent playing hooky from school. At the bottom of the porch steps, she stopped. This was silly. She was perfectly up to the task of having coffee with Elizabeth and Vera again this morning.
She just didn't want to.
Her dream of Shetland had changed right before she woke up. The low rocky coast had raised itself into high black cliffs teeming with birds, nesting and wheeling in the salty air. Stanley had been there next to Megan, his plain-as-toast wife, but with eyes only for the dark beauty who dominated the other half of his life.
Her giggles faded. She'd found the picture in Stanley's wallet years ago when she'd been short of cash for groceries and hadn't wanted to waken him after a late night. She'd known immediately it was Genevieve. That beautiful face staring at her, dark exotic eyes, wavy thick dark hair, full lips, high cheekbonesâ¦The physical manifestation of what had hurt plenty as a concept nearly knocked the wind out of her. Megan had put the picture back in his wallet and had taken more cash than she needed, a petty gesture she still didn't regret.
She headed past David's quiet house, where he'd be asleep or
nursing yet another hangover. The dream was a dream, brought on by her return to lace knitting, by her daydreaming ideas for Sally's dress. The Shetland story of Gillian was a fabrication of her mother's and had nothing to do with her adult life.
“Hey.”
Megan turned. David, stepping out on his porch in jogging shorts and a T-shirt, holding a mug of coffee.
“Hello.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Where are you headed this fine morning?”
Megan retraced a few steps. His color was good, eyes clear. He didn't look hungover, just morning-rumpled. “I'm taking a walk.”
“At this hour?”
“Obviously.”
“Hmm.” He peered up at the sky. “Any pigs flying today? Usually you're out in the garden by yourself.”
“How do you know that?”
“I'm up early too, Megan.”
“Oh.” She hovered, embarrassed and pleased to think of him watching her, wanting to keep moving, wanting to stay. “I didn't know that.”
“Why would you?”
She felt herself blushing. “Did you drink bourbon by yourself last night after Ella ditched you?”
“Nope.” He took the last gulp of coffee. “Did my brain cells a favor and skipped it.”
“Good idea.”
“I have them occasionally.”
She took another step toward him, then right up to his porch. He wasn't scowling, his tone was light. A little more like the old David, which gave her courage. “I'm reading Hemingway.
A Farewell to Arms
. I thought maybe we could talk about it sometimeâ¦If you wanted to.”
His eyebrow lifted; lips curled; Mr. Sardonic was back. “Are you asking me for a date, Mrs. Morgan?”
She clenched her fists, face burning. “Stop it. What's the matter with you? We used to be able to talk like normal people. Now you act as if it's my fault Victoria left you.”
David looked startled. “I wasn't trying to make you feel that way.”
“Well you have.”
He laughed humorlessly, rubbing the back of his neck. “So you want to dissect Hemingway?”
She lifted her hands, let them fall. “I miss talking to you, is all.”
“I miss you, too, Megan.” His eyes were calm and direct, staring down at her from his porch. Not a trace of sarcasm.
She felt a burst of familiar adrenaline. “Then why do you keep pushing me away?”
“Because I'm single now. You're not.”
“What difference does that make?” She asked before she thought, then couldn't look up at him anymore. “It shouldn't make any difference.”
“But it does.”
“You're afraid people will talk?”
“Ha! After what's been published about my wife, my marriage and me, I no longer give a crap what other people think.”
“Then what? The truth, David. No more cute lines.”
“Okay.” He put his cup down on the porch railing and braced his hands on it. “I'm afraid I won't be able to keep quiet anymore about what Stanley is doing to you. I'm afraid I'll spend every minute of my time with you showing how little he de
serves you, trying to get you to stand up for yourself and tell him where to go. And I'm afraid in the midst of this noble attempt at helping you, I will find I have selfish motives for trying to get you to leave him because of what we were to each other a million years ago and probably still could be if we got the chance.”
His words rose up and came at her like a too-big ocean wave. She spun around and walked away, fast at first, then broke into a jog, then a sprint, wishing Wiggins Street was a runway and she was an airbus with a flight plan to Anywhere But Here.
A few houses later she veered off the road, dropped back to a walk on a familiar path through the woods, climbed up Gambler's Hill to her favorite spot, a stream which had found an assortment of flat, tilted rocks and fashioned itself a gently cascading waterfall. She used to come here often after she first found out about Stanley's other family. It was a place to escape to while the kids were in school, when the four walls of her life had been too oppressive. And she'd had some idea that if she left all her tears here there wouldn't be so many to poison the atmosphere in the house.
Under and around a tree branch, she found her favorite rock, perched on it, breathing too hard and not just because she was out of shape. She didn't want to hear or understand or think about what David had just said. Forget talking to him about Hemingway. She'd Google information she needed to know. Someoneâmany someonesâwould have written articles on
A Farewell to Arms
. She didn't need David for that.
The water slid, splashing and rushing importantly over the arrangement of mossy rocks for a short way before disappearing again underground. Morning sun caught flung drops and made them sparkle before they fell, watering ferns on the leafy forest
floor or rejoining the flow. Rhododendrons grew; saplings in the shade of their older siblings tried their best to become trees as well. Why had she stayed away from this place for so long?
“Megan.”
She jumped, not having heard his footsteps. David found a rock close to hers and sat, gazing around him.
“You followed me here?”
“Sure, why not? I love this place.”
She stared at him as evenly as she could with her heart refusing its regular rhythm. “I come here when I want to be alone.”
“I know.”
“Then why would youâ”
“I want to talk to you.” He turned his lazy grin on her, but his hands stretched taut and clawlike on the rock behind him.
“And as usual, you run away from anything that doesn't feel good.”
“Unlike you coming back to Comfort.”
“Touché.” He leaned down, dipped his hand in the water, let drops drip off the ends of his fingers.
“What did you want to talk about?”
He glanced at her. “Not going to make this easy, are you?”
“About as easy as you've made it for me the last three months.”
“Fair enough.” He shook his hand dry, leaned back again.
“I bought a recording recently. Gundula Janowitz, singing Strauss's
Four Last Songs
, do you know it?”
“The piece or the recording?” She stopped him from answering. “Never mind. No to either.”
“The songs are Strauss's last, written when he was eighty-four to poetry about facing death. Beautiful poems, not railing against the dying of the light, but accepting it.
Now that day wearies me, my ardent desires will receive more kindly, like a tired
child, the starry night
. There's a moment in the third song when the soprano comes in after a violin solo that made me think of you.”