My Little Blue Dress (4 page)

It made no sense that I wouldn't have a Murbery accent, just because me grand-da read to me.

The huge vocabulary, yes.

But not the lack of a Murbery accent.

And what about the casual turns of phrase? The
okays
and
yeahs
? The sheer informality?

The more I thought about it the more I came to doubt me grand-da's story. It wasn't just the holes in his logic. It was the way he'd shaken his fist at the sky in that bogus, theatrical manner . . . . That single squeezed-out tear . . .

“I've got to go,” I told Karen, scrambling up.

“Jus' use t'bushes.”

“No. It's not that. I've got some unfinished business. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Alreet then. 'Til t'morrow.”

M
E GRAND-DA WASN'T
in the garden, or down on the cliff tops staring out at the ocean. That meant he was in his bedroom. No one answered when I tapped on his door, but I pushed it open anyway.

The stench was overpowering in that gloomy box of a room: pipe tobacco, mildew, and exotic foreign spices. The carpet was entirely laundry and on the desk a tower of coffee mugs was strung with spider webs like rigging. I didn't see him at first, but then a spluttering caused me to zero in on a flat gray shape beneath a blanket on the military-style cot.

“Me grand-da?”

He spluttered again and his eyes popped open. “Oh . . . hail me lubbly.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Oh aye?” he yawned. “Come set thine tiny flammocks 'ere.” He patted the bed beside him.

“This isn't a social call.” I pushed the door shut behind me. “It wasn't true, was it? What you told me earlier about reading to me as a kid.”

We locked eyes, then the blood drained from his face and he slumped back onto his pillows.

“Me grand-da?”

He didn't speak, just lay there, eyes helplessly searching the ceiling.

“Aye . . .” he said sadly, “it were
true
, lass . . .” He trailed off.

“But?”

“Me lubbly, don't make me do this. There's sum thin's in life that an old feller's best off 'oldin on to rather than unburthenin'. Terrible thin's. Thin's that once learned can't be so easily
un
learned.”

“Yes? Such as what?” I didn't sound as scared as I felt. “For God's sake, me grand-da, what do you expect me to do at this point? Say, ‘Oh okay, me grand-da knows something terrible about me but he doesn't want to tell me what it is, so why not just forget the whole thing and go to bed'?”

The old man sighed. A sigh alarming in its length. For second after second the air hissed from his long old nose until my instincts were screaming at me to clamp his nostrils shut with my fingers and yell for me mam to go fetch Dr. Proctor.

Then it stopped.

“Berry well, me lubbly. I
did
read to thee as a nipper, but only so I'd 'ave sumthin' to tell thee if this day ebber came. If tha ebber came to me askin' to know why tha talks t'way tha does.”

“Yes? So why do I?”

“Is tha sure tha wants to know?”

Not really, but it was too late to back out now. “Yes.”

“Berry well. The truth, me lubbly, is that tha speaks in thine distinctib way because tha's
allergic
.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tha suffers from an allergy, lass.”

“An allergy? To what?”

He flapped his hand at the window. “An allergy to all this.”

“What are you pointing at?”

“Take a closer look, me lubbly.”

I hesitated, then trotted to the window and pressed my face against the glass.

An epic sunset was in full effect over Murbery. It looked like the sky had tilted, making all the colors of the day run together in a big fluid bruise of orange and yellow and purple and red above the ocean. On the air you could hear the
cawing
of crows, the
tink
of the blacksmith's hammer, and ever so faintly, if you strained to listen, the clopping of the friendly old carthorse as he trudged home in the thickening dark from Dubford up to Bramley Forge. Then with a visible
whoosh
, the gaslamps of Hughley flamed on far away down the coast . . . then those of Clee . . . Waxford . . . Froom . . . Bliffington . . .

I turned away, and as I did there came a great choir of women's voices, gliding in formation across the landscape as they scoured the terrain for little lads and little lasses, with cheeks as red as apples, and pockets full of frogspawn, calling them home for their tea . . .

“The
Past
, me lubbly. Tha's allergic to the
Past
.”

W
HEN
I
CAME TO
, me grand-da was still talking, not having noticed that I'd fallen over.

“. . . an' that's why tha talks so diff'rently to all t'other lickle lasses in Murb'ry. Because at thine core tha bain't be from round these parts. Tha comes from
t'Future,
lass. A faraway age berry diff'rent to t'one we in'abit, where all folk speak like thee.”

“Sorry, can you say that again?” I requested from the floor.

“It's true me lubbly. I knew it t'first moment I laid eyes on thee. 'Cause I'm allergic meself. That's why I spent me life on t'sea, 'cause no matter 'ow I tried I could nebber
fit in
round 'ere in Murbr'y. An' that's why I tried to shield thee, lass, why . . . why is tha givin' me that partickular look?”

“Because what you're saying makes no sense. A person can't be allergic to the past. Because . . .” I looked out the window again. “Well, it never
is
the past. As far as anyone can tell it's always the
present
. It just makes no sense.”

“I'm speakin' as plainly as I know 'ow, lass. Tha's allergic to t'past. An' if tha needs further proof, why don't tha fetch me old seaman's locker from 'neath me bunk? Should be unlocked.”

I tugged the rusty old trunk out from under his bed. The lid gave a scraping sound and then there it was, on top of all the silks and sword canes and shrunken pygmy heads: a sleek gray cardboard box with an oriental character embossed into one corner. “Open it, lass. It's a gift for thee.”

Reader . . . the little blue dress was a
cornflower
blue, with ruffled burgundy trim around its hem and its square-cut neck. Jouncing it in my hands I found it much
lighter
than it looked like it should have been, and when I peered closer . . . well, it was the weirdest thing. The fabric was
entirely smooth
, without discernible pores or fibers.

“Modern, i'n't it?” me grand-da said rather smugly.

I held the dress up and examined it.

Modern?

Was it?

I could
sort
of see what he meant. The fabric was certainly of ingenious weave, perhaps the product of some new machine, and the design of the thing was markedly . . . eclectic. If you only stared at one small area you could kid yourself that you'd seen its like before, in a magazine or shop. But then when you held it at arm's length . . . well, then it was like the dress, rather than
copying
those other styles, was . . . was sort of
quoting
them, ironically, as if all the other dresses in the history of the world were slow, stupid, ugly people at a party and the little blue dress was the cleverest, possibly drunkest person there, mimicking their voices, aping their mannerisms . . .

“Yes,” I said simply. “It's modern.”

“And so is tha, me lubbly,” the old man continued warmly. “ 'Ow that dress appears to thee reet now is 'ow
tha
'as allus looked to t'simple folk o' Murb'ry. Diff'rent. Strange. Belongin' to another world. Because tha
does
, lass. Tha belongs to a world that's far more sophisticated an' . . . an'
worldly
than this simple rustic region. Oh, but me lubbly . . .” I heard him smile. “It'll all come good in t'end. It's too late for an old feller like me but
tha
lass . . . thine time will come. A moment will arrive when these quaint surroundin's will drop away and both tha and thine new dress will be t'norm, rather than t'exception. An age in which a person can speak and act 'owebber 'e wants wi'out no fear o'
censure. I'm speakin' o' t'future, lass, though I don't know when it'll arribe. Could be a year, could be an 'undred year . . .”

“Okay, stop.” I shoved the dress back in its tissue paper and wobbled to my feet, suddenly exhausted. I'd had long days before, reader. Long like you couldn't imagine. Interminable slabs of buttery country fun where literally about ninety minutes seemed to pass between each
tink
of the blacksmith's hammer. But nothing like this. Nothing ever like this. Since tiny foot had met chilly floorboard that morning I had: washed and dressed myself to a very high standard; submitted myself to the scrutiny of a three-judge panel; had an epiphany; renounced the only future I'd ever envisioned; climbed a hill; talked to me grand-da; had
another
epiphany; enjoyed a full session of playing with Karen; gone to see me grand-da again; and been made privy to a theory so mindbending and counterintuitive that I had actually
fallen over.
It was time for me to go to bed.

“We can talk about it more tomorrow. Thanks for the dress. It's certainly very pretty, and . . . me grand-da? Are you okay?”

The old man's eyelids were fluttering like two trapped moths, and his breathing had a gurgle to it. “Aye, me lubbly. Reet as rain. We'll speak on it more tomorrow.”

E
XCEPT WE DIDN'T
. Because by morning me grand-da was dead, of a conniption in the night according to Dr. Proctor.

At his graveside funeral I wore the little blue dress beneath my black funeral pinafore in the preposterous hope that as it departed this world, bound for wherever it was headed, me grand-da's dissipating spirit might pass briefly
through my brain and impart the concrete, intelligible version of the nonsense he'd been feeding me on the evening he died.

But no such luck. The coffin went into the ground, the soil went on top of the coffin, and as we walked to the inn for the reception I lagged behind the other mourners and faced, for the first time, the fact that I would probably now never know what he'd been trying to tell me: why I spoke the way I did.