I was given the week off work for Christmas and I spent it back home in Aberystwyth. My man and dad offered to put me up in the basement on a hideaway bed, a privilege I'd never been offered as a teenager (despite my frequent requests for more privacy and fewer opportunities for Jeannie to steal my clothes.) To their surprise, I turned down the offer, and spent the week in my old bedroom with Jeannie. Now that we weren't living together, all the little spats we'd had during our childhood seemed hilariously trivial. I hardly socialized with anyone else that week. Nobody back in Cardiff knew me as well as she did, and I hardly had any old school chums to confide in anymore. Almost all of them had drifted off into their own private worlds, getting engaged, married, and then engulfed in nappies and their own nuptial bliss. The few adventurous sorts who had remained single had long since moved to more prosperous cities with better opportunities. I suppose you could say I was one of them, though Cardiff didn't feel all that adventurous, and the insurance office was rife with many things (stale air and paper clips among them), but not with opportunities for a girl like me to advance.
Christmas passed uneventfully. Jeannie was happy because she'd passed her hairdressing exam, and my dad was happy that she was gainfully employed. One evening, I briefly mentioned that I'd had a run-in with an aggressive tramp who had tried to kidnap me, only to be saved by a Good Samaritan at just the right moment. My parents were properly shocked, horrified and relieved, displaying all the necessarily theatric responses to my saga.
Of course, I'd left out the part where I'd gone for a walk in the forest all by myself, and had neglected to tell anyone where I would be for the afternoon. Nor did I mention that the Good Samaritan was a young man just about my age, and that we'd been friends ever since. (Remus later inherited this tendency to leave out crucial portions of the narrative, never directly lying, but doing the equivalent by omission. It was a ruse Lyall fell for over and over, but he was perfectly transparent to me. My god... how I miss them both now.)
One night, as I sat on the toilet's lid, brushing my hair while Jeannie applied her nightly litany of facial creams and moisturizers, I mentioned to her only in passing that I'd seen Lyall again. She'd asked me if I had made any new friends in Cardiff and I'd listed some other secretaries and clerks at the office, as well as the girls at Saint Dwynwyn's (none of whom were truly my friends.) Jeanie had more friends than I, and more than a few platonic male friends, so she wasn't suspicious the way our parents would have been. They thought any male friends of ours were boyfriends, though at our age, girls didn't go steady for long without getting a ring.
It wasn't that I really fancied Lyall; not yet. But there was something quiet and private about our friendship, and for the time being, I wanted to keep it that way. My job was boring and my housemates were not ideal, and if Cardiff wasn't the exciting city I'd hoped it would be, at least there was the puzzle of Lyall: his disconcerting sense of humour, his gentle courtesy and the weird incongruities that sprang up around us when we were together, as though the world were a pop-up card I could only open when he was there.
I returned to Cardiff after the holidays with several new outfits and a parcel of homemade cranberry biscuits. Two weeks passed dully. My attic bedroom was an icebox; as I slept, I would reflexively curl into such a tight ball that I woke up with aching muscles, my skin damp with cold sweat.
I ate supper with all my housemates and the matrons, Mrs. Winchfill and Mrs. Owens. We took turns politely their interrogations, which is what passed for conversation when the matrons were present. And they were always present; perhaps if they lived their own lives, they wouldn't be so obsessed with monitoring ours.
"Hope has received a letter," announced Mrs. Winchfill to the table.
"Fascinating," whispered Irene under her breath. She lived on the ground floor, where the matrons could keep a close eye on her.
"I got a letter?" Nobody had given me any letter, and there were none in my mail cubbyhole that afternoon.
"Yes, and it arrived this evening, after the post. No stamp, either."
"Oh."
"Whoever wrote it must have dropped it off in person," said Mrs. Owens.
"I wonder who wrote it," mused Mrs. Winchfill, as if she hadn't already read it with her X-ray vision.
Val rolled her dramatically outlined eyes.
"No return address," said Mrs. Owens.
"I wouldn't expect so, given that it had no stamp and clearly wasn't sent in the post," said Irene, as condescendingly as possible.
"Here you go, dear," said Mrs. Winchfill. She stretched across the table in precisely the way we were forbidden to go, and handed me the small envelope. "Go on, have a look."
Mrs. Owens eyed me expectantly.
"Oh, I wouldn't want to be rude and read a letter at the dinner table," I said sweetly.
"That's alright," Mrs. Owens assured me. "You didn't get a chance to read it earlier."
"I wonder why," said Mable innocently. Her room was directly below mine, and though she was known for sneaking certain liquids into the house and divvying them up in exchange for borrowed clothing and extra time in the bathroom, the matrons gave her a wide berth out of sympathy, because she was an orphan and had no family.
"I wonder why the sender dropped it off in the mailbox instead of asking for you in person. To come all the way just to send a letter..." Mrs. Winchfill feigned puzzlement.
"It must be important news," Val announced. "Maybe a wedding invitation."
"People send wedding invitations in the mail," said Mrs. Winchfill. "Go on, Hope. Open it."
I noticed that nobody at the table was eating. The shepherd's pie was untouched. Needless to say, I really didn't want to open the letter there.
"Maybe Hope wants to read it later," said Edith quietly. She was a shy but sweet girl, bookish and bespectacled. Edith was a student at the university, which was unusual for girls in those days.
"It's just a letter," said Mrs. Winchfill. "There's no reason to fear a piece of paper."
(There are, indeed, many reasons to fear a piece of paper, and years later I would discover each one of them when neighbours found out about Remus and sent us Howlers and jinxed hate mail.)
"Maybe it's a summons," giggled Norah, the most recent addition to the house. She had moved in after enrolling in a nursing college, and could often be found curled up in front of the fire, studying obscene diagrams.
"It's not a summons," said Mrs. Winchfill irritably, "it would have a stamp."
"It's obviously from a boy," said Irene, "or she'd open it now."
"She never tells us about her dates until after the fact," said Val. "Hope, we aren't going to steal them for ourselves—"
"Valerie," said Mrs. Owens sharply.
"But you know it's true," Val insisted. Irene threw her head back and laughed, flashing the red lipstick on her teeth.
In spite of myself, I flushed a deep pink. There was a young man who worked in the office above mine who fancied me; we'd met in the elevator several times. He was condescending and made fun of my position all the time, as though I'd find my low station in the world funny. He had asked me out several times; each time, I politely declined, and each time, he laughed and insisted I was playing hard-to-get.
I won't name him now, as that would spoil the surprise when you meet him later on. But it wouldn't have been beyond him to find out my address and deliver a letter in person, and I dared not risk the additional teasing of my housemates over a man who idea of flirtation was embarassing a twenty-one-year-old girl with sarcastic comments.
"I think that's enough about Hope's personal life for now," said Mrs. Winchfill, now convinced that her best chance of snooping would be later on, in private. "None of you girls has cleaned the second floor WC since last week. Do I need to make up a chart again?"
There was silence around the table. Someone would have to volunteer unless we wanted a chore chart like little children, but nobody wanted to volunteer. Bathroom duty as the absolute worst; the six of us girls shared one bathroom, a steaming jungle of spilled powders, make-up tubs with no lid, multiple hair dryers with cords tangled like snakes in a mating frenzy, always one less toothbrush then there were people, and a situation involving a basket of wire curlers and knotted hair that you simply wouldn't believe, even if you believe in witches and werewolves and rock 'n' roll.
Sometimes I would break down first and volunteer, but if I did it today, it would look like I was trying to distract everyone from the letter. I held my breath and hoped Edith would give in before Mrs. Winchfill took out her pink pencil. I watched the furrow between her eyebrows deepen; if she made a chart for us, I would inevitably be given the worst chores as punishment for withholding the letter.
"It's alright," murmured Edith. "I haven't done it in a long time, it's my turn."
"Are you sure, dear? I know you have so much studying to do," said Mrs. Owens, who was looking directly at me.
"Really," said Edith. "It's alright."
I exhaled and squeezed the letter on my lap, thumbs pressing together through paper smooth as vellum. Later that night, I would have to keep it in the lockbox, with my journal; both matrons held master keys for every room in the house and periodically went through them, to check for "fire safety." I kept the key to the lockbox on me at all times, either in my pocket (while at home) or in my purse.
"Can we eat now?" protested Mabli. "I'm starving."
Hello,
I hope you've enjoyed your holidays back home. I was envious when you mentioned your mother's excellent cooking. My Christmas was relaxing, if subdued, but I am glad to be back at work. After living on one's own, it is difficult to go back to old routines at the family home, but I suppose you actually have more freedom at home than at that place can neither spell nor pronounce.
You are most likely very busy at work, I know. I sympathize, but if you have any spare time in the evening, maybe you would like to have coffee or visit the library with me. I would like that, but I understand if it's not possible.
I forgot to wish you a happy new year, so I shall do it now. I hope all goes well for you this coming year,
Sincerely, Lyall Lupin
It was no surprise to me that the letter was from him, but I felt happy and a little embarassed all the same. Thank goodness I hadn't given in and opened it downstairs—all the girls would have misinterpreted his words and made a whole to-do out of my going out with a male friend alone. Lyall was much more of gentleman than any of the other boys who came by the house, carrying flowers and really awful chocolates with unidentifiable fillings, but my housemates (never mind Winchfill and Owens) would spoil things by implying he had less than pure intentions.
Valerie didn't try to embarrass me—she just read everything in life as a paperback romance. Her mind was the dirtiest, but Irene could be deliberately nasty. Sometimes she was very sweet, lending me clothes and sharing the homemade peanut brittle her mother would send in the post. And then the next day, I'd find out that all the girls girls at St. Dwynwyn's were invited to her boyfriend's graduation party at a St. Fagan's Castle, except for me. Worse still, she implied to everyone else that I had been invited and declined, because I "would rather stay in," so of course they were sure to gush about the party the next day right in front of me. After I told Val I hadn't been invited, Irene later intimated to her in private that sometimes I lied about things like that to get sympathy. Mable could go from sweet to sour depending on her mood, but at least she wasn't passive-aggressive.
I wasn't very friendly with the other girls I lived with, and I like to think it wasn't for lack of trying. Edith was sweet, but too shy to befriend. There were a few girls I worked with at the office who were around my age, but only two were unmarried. We sometimes at our lunches together or went out to see a film in the evening. To be honest, I didn't have much chemistry with them.
Though we had only known each other several months, Lyall had quickly become my closest Cardiff friend. It was off, because we had almost nothing in common. He had never heard of any of my favourite musicians and he rarely, if ever, went to the cinema. Lyall's field of study was so obscure he found it 'too difficult' to explain exactly what he did.
Our family backgrounds were completely different. He wasn't exactly wealthy, but I could tell his family had some kind of pedigree, for he had mentioned that his grandparents collected exotic artifacts as a hobby. He'd also commented that his mother never cooked, and wouldn't know how to use an iron if her life depended on it, so I assumed they had a maid. Lyall had attended a boarding school that obviously attracted some very fancy people, like the ones I'd met at the Christmas party. He carried a chequebook with him everywhere; I almost never saw him use cash.
And he was strange. Of course, wizards have their sayings—"Muggles don't notice much, do they?"—but I noticed something. It wasn't the ordinary eccentricity of men I knew at the office, or my dad's old friends from the RAF. Lyall didn't wear weirdly patterned socks, or make inappropriate comments to me about my "feminine attributes," as so many of these men did, but he had a confounding combination of high intelligence and seeming ignorance of so many aspects of modern life.
He feigned understanding when I mentioned an article about the Prime Minister in passing, but I could tell he didn't even recognize the name. I asked him if he followed rugby. He asked me who rugby was.
Lyall thought vaccinations were taken by pills. I complained once about children who made a scene at department stores by the knocking people's bags down and running up the escalator, and he corrected me with an amused look. "You mean elevator, yes?"
"How would you run up an elevator?"
"You mean, they press all the buttons..."
"No, I mean, running up the 'down' escalator."
"The down elevator?" He laughed. "You know they go both ways."
"No, I mean the escalator." I said. "You know, the moving stairs."
Lyall opened his mouth and then closed it. He had the queerest look on his face for a moment; then his wry smile replaced it, like a pond absorbing a ripple. "I'm sorry, I think I misheard you," he said quietly.
We were walking through a ravine on a particularly warm afternoon that January. Bare branches reached towards us from both steep hillsides. A soft tapping sound issued from icicles dripping onto the path. I made sure to watch my step, avoiding puddles and the clumps of muddy snow left where shadows blocked the sun.
"Do you know, I think winter ought to be abolished," I said casually.
Lyall raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps you ought to move to the tropics instead."
"What—you like winter so much?"
"I do, in fact. It's my favourite season."
"How can you like all the plants dying, and being frozen to bits?"
Lyall looked around casually, as though checking to see whether the plants were actually dead. "You aren't frozen today, are you?" he asked.
"No, but that's because it doesn't feel like winter."
"Well," said Lyall, "it is winter, so it feels like winter to me."
I scowled at him. "You know what I mean."
"I do know what you mean," said Lyall. "You mean to move the goalposts by excluding every day of good weather from winter, and, I presume, every day of bad weather from all the other seasons." He said nothing more as we reached a bend in the pathway and a brook came into view. The water bubbled and trickled between large rocks and broken branches.
"You didn't answer the question," I said.
"Which one?"
"Whether you liked all the plants being dead."
Lyall looked down at me through glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.
"I don't see it that way," he said briskly. "Anyways, I prefer the cold." He stopped down to pick up a long twig and absentmindedly stir the water.
"So you're cold-hearted," I teased.
He stopped stirring and paused, staring at the ripples undulating outward from his twig.
"I've been told that before," he said in a weirdly light voice.
A trickle of guilt ran through me as though it had dripped off an icicle, onto my head and down my neck. I was a terrible hypocrite; so over-sensitive to the teasing of my housemates or co-workers that tears welled up in my eyes at the tiniest provocation, and yet this was not the first time I'd gone too far with Lyall.
"Lyall, I—I didn't mean—"
"I know," he said curtly. "Look. I think I saw a fish in that brooke. I've never seen a fish swim in a place like this in February."
There was something about Lyall that begged teasing—I felt the temptation and his friends at the party seemed to as well. Perhaps it was his rigidity, the way he never changed from one environment to another, like the stereotypical Englishman exploring the tropics in a suit and tie. Maybe it was his shyness, or the opacity of his emotions, but more likely, I just badly wanted his attention.
I followed Lyall to the water's edge, avoiding mud and chunks of ice.
"I don't see any fish," I said.
"Wait."
I waited and watched sheets of water as thin as a silk scarf surge over the rocks. A flash of orange caught in the corner of my eye and then disappeared around the bend in the brooke.
"Was that it?"
He nodded.
"What kind of fish was that?"
"No idea," he replied.
"But aren't you the expert on these things?"
A shadow passed over his expression.
"I don't know everything," he admitted slowly. "In fact, the more I talk to you, the more I realize I don't know."
He looked at me plainly. His hands were twisting his handkerchief into a pretzel.
I didn't know quite what to say to that. My mouth opened and closed.
Lyall looked down at his handkerchief, and, noticing at once how twisted it was, he smoothed it flat on the back of his hand.
"No one knows everything," I said. "If you knew everything, you'd know...you'd know what colour I'm thinking of now."
He eyed me critically. "You're thinking of blue."
"I was thinking of teal."
Lyall shook his head and smirked. "That's the same thing."
"It's absolutely not," I protested.
"What is it with girls," he asked, "that you can't ever use the normal name for a colour? Whatever happened to red and yellow, or white and black?"
"It's not girls," I said, "it's just people who use the correct words for things."
"Ah. I see," he said, wryly. "And here I thought we were disagreeing over whether the correct words to describe a colour were, you know, colours. Not rose or eggshell or...alabaster or whatever else."
I shook my head, smiling. "I still you had a lucky guess."
"Try me again."
"Are you going to argue again over whether you're right?"
"Of course not."
I looked up at the sky and then down at my shoes, trying to think of a colour that wasn't too obvious. Lyall waited patiently.
"Alright, go," I said.
He looked at me, this time making eye contact so much more direct than he usually did that I felt pierced, somehow.
"Emerald green," he said softly. "Even after I said no more fancy colours."
"How did you do that?"
"Lucky guess," he said. His eyebrows were raised just enough for a tiny crease to form across his forehead.
"That's impossible."
"How else could I have known?" he asked.
"Maybe I mouthed it by accident."
"You didn't," he said softly.
"Alright then, we'll try another," I said. "But I'm going to choose a 'fancy colour,' otherwise it will be too easy."
"If you must," said Lyall wryly. "But I don't even know what 'ecru' means—"
"You can't," I whispered, more to myself than to him. "How did you know that?"
I saw my reflection, pale and mystified in the lenses of his glasses. He pushed them up the bridge of his nose self-consciously.
"Does that amuse you?" he asked.
"There's a trick to it. I know there must be—"
"No tricks," said Lyall. "Would I trick you?"
We gazed at each other during a loaded pause, and then he raised his eyebrows just slightly and I burst out laughing as he smiled at the ground.
"Come." He motioned towards a fork in the path. "Why don't we go into the woods?"
"I've had bad luck with that before," I said with a giggle.
"Terrible luck. It was a good thing that tramp came along, or you'd have had to come across me even earlier."
"Thank goodness it saved me from meeting you in the normal way."
"Well..." Lyall slowed his pace so that I could keep up without hurrying. "I don't know what the normal way is, really."
"The normal way?"
"Er...to meet someone. Not that—" he thought for a moment. A dried-up leaf drifted down onto his shoulder. I wanted to brush it off, but I was too shy.
"—not that I don't—I mean, I just don't really meet girls that often. Anymore."
"...oh," was the only thing I could think to say. As we entered the woods, deep shadows fell across our path. It was cooler out of the sunlight; it felt more like winter.
"That was probably the wrong way to put it," he admitted. "I just—well, since I finished school I...I don't really meet people anymore. Except for work." He glanced at me, gauging my reaction.
"But you meet a lot of animals," I said, a little too brightly.
"Yes. Well. 'Meet,' in a sense."
We walked along in silence for some time, though the woods were far from silent; broken twigs snapped beneath our feet, and squirrels leapt from bough to bough above our heads, landing on branches elastic as trampolines.
Lyall spoke up suddenly as though he had only just been interrupted. "I only meant—that I wouldn't have met you any other way, you know."
"Probably not," I said.
'I don't really, er, approach strangers."
"No, I don't either."
"Some people can," said Lyall, "but I wouldn't. I mean, I couldn't."
"Neither could I."
"But you approached me," he said,
"You weren't a stranger!" I laughed.
"I wasn't?"
"Lyall. You'd just saved my life. I suppose I didn't have it in me to fear I'd run into a second kidnapper within thirty seconds of the first."
"I suppose that's fair enough," he said. The leaf was still on his shoulder. "And...I'm not a kidnapper, for what it's worth."
"It's worth quite a bit, actually," I said, with a grin.
"Ah." Lyall blinked and peered at me through his glasses, his shoulders hunched somewhat expectantly. I realized we had stopped walking.
"You miss Aberystwyth, don't you?" he asked suddenly.
It wasn't a strange question, but I felt taken aback, nonetheless.
"Yes," I said. "I do."
"You don't like Cardiff."
"I don't dislike it," I said.
"But you don't like it," he stated flatly.
"I—no, not really," I admitted. "I'm not in love with this place."
"Then why don't you leave?" he asked. He sounded sincerely curious, though the question was almost facetious.
"I have a job here, Lyall. I can't just go home."
"But you want to go, don't you." He was shifting his weight from one foot to another. I could hear the rubber of his shoes shift against pebbles underfoot.
"Yes and no."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I don't know," I sighed. "I don't want to go home and live with my mam and dad forever and I don't want to stay here forever." A certain tightening of his mouth informed me of what he so wanted to say, so I added, "I mean, I know nothing is forever."
He looked up at the bare trees overhead. "No," he said softly. "Nothing's forever."
I studied his face. His skin seemed much paler than before, but perhaps it was a trick of the cold winter sunlight and the blue shadows criss-crossing the ravine. Lyall looked back at me and I quickly averted my gaze.
"You, er..." he began. "I suppose you miss your friends, back in Aberystwyth."
"Yes. Well—sort of." I looked down at my boots, thinking of Christmas, of Jeannie's constant outings to her parties and socials while I stayed with my parents and knitted cozies for the ornaments. "It's kind of complicated."
"Ah. I see."
"Do you."
"You don't want to talk about him," Lyall said quietly.
I raised my eyebrows. "Him?"
"Your—" his shoulders tightened and relaxed reflexively. "Your boyfriend."
Lyall removed his glasses and polished them with his wrinkled handkerchief. I'd never seen him without his glasses before. It seemed as though he'd removed an article of clothing far more intimate.
"Oh, no," I said. "I don't have one."
He looked skeptical, but said nothing further. We walked out of the woods and into a small clearing. Wooden benches set on either side of the path were soaked and scratched with initials and rude pictures.
"I'd offer you a seat, but, er—" Lyall gestured to the benches.
"I'm fine," I said, scraping my boots against a large rock to wipe off the mud. Lyall stood two paces away from me, studying the ground.
"Hope," he said.
"Yes."
"I, er. I shouldn't have said that. I don't know why I said it."
"It's fine."
He shook his head. "I...should not have assumed..."
"It doesn't matter," I said, though I wasn't quite sure yet whether it did. "I assume things all the time."
"Yes, but—" he looked at me oddly, his eyes shining. "I mean, I suppose you've assumed correctly about me."
"Maybe not," I said. "Maybe there's all sorts of things about you I'd assume wrong."
This seemed to amuse Lyall more than a little; he even smiled a bit.
"Perhaps one or two things," he said cryptically. "At the most."
"I don't mind a surprise," I said, with a smile.
"Well, maybe someday," said Lyall.
I raised an eyebrow but he simply gestured forward and we walked on, past the clearing and over a small bridge to where a hill rose up and swallowed the skyline.
As the summer approached, I began wondering uneasily about how long Lyall would stay in Cardiff. He'd made it clear that he was there for work, and that it was not exactly his first choice of city to live in. I knew he would not stay in Cardiff forever—and hopefully, nor would I—but my heart sank at the thought of him leaving long before I could.
I would be given a week off work in July, but otherwise, my whole summer would be spent filing copying and collating at the office. My mother reminded me over the phone to be grateful that I had a job at all, while my father cheerfully noted that someday, when I was married and changing nappies all day, I would probably look back on my bachelorette days with some fondness. (I sensed a great deal of projection in that statement.)
My colleagues held an office cocktail party to celebrate the beginning of summer; it was also something of a reward from our senior partners for acquiring several profitable new accounts over the past quarter. We young secretaries really had nothing to do with any of it, but we were always welcome at these events to serve as eye candy, to blush and accept the embarrassingly overwrought compliments from our liquored-up bosses. I didn't love having to spend the evening with my bosses, but it was a nice opportunity to eat at a fancy restaurant on someone else's dime.
We were allowed to bring a date. I wanted to ask Lyall as a friend but I felt too embarrassed. Every time I thought of telephoning him to ask, the thought of the other girls listening in on my conversation and giggling became paralyzing. So instead, I attended the dinner alone and spent the night listening to men twice my age droning on about so-and-so from accounting whose in-laws were coming in from Swansea, and how difficult it was to get a decent mechanic without paying an arm and a leg. One of our newer hires, a man whose office was a converted broom closet, told me I had a piece of lint on my jumper, and before I could reply, he leaned in and stuck his hand on my breast to remove the imaginary lint. I sprung back instinctively, prompting him to get sullen and complain that I didn't know how to accept a favour. I longed to shoot Lyall a loaded glance, and watch the slight rise of his eyebrows. I'd like to say that I learned my lesson after that night, but I really didn't.
We continued socializing regularly into mid-June. Lyall and I saw each other at least once a week, sometimes twice. Usually, he invited me but sometimes I took the initiative at the end of our outing to ask when when we'd next meet. I didn't want to seem too clingy, since he had other friends in Cardiff (at least, I thought they lived in Cardiff) and I had none.
We went out for a walk by the lakefront in Roath Park on a sunny day in late June. It was hot—at least, for Cardiff—but Lyall wore his usual uniform of tweed suit, matching waistcoat and tie neatly fastened to his shirt with a gold tie clip. It was becoming a point of interest to see how little he could modify his wardrobe, no matter how broad a variety of weather he found himself in.
"How's work?" I asked him.
"Fine, fine. I'm actually going away for two weeks, this summer, to do some research."
"Where to?"
"Reykjavik," he said. "There's a conference on Bo—well, a conference I'm attending, and then I'm doing so more research in the field."
"You're so lucky," I teased.
"Not really," he said. "I'd rather not go to bed where the sun shines almost all night."
"Ooh, I forgot about that!" I said. "Wow. You really get to go everywhere, don't you?"
He smiled cryptically. I noticed a glimmer of sweat on his forehead; apparently, he was affected by temperature.
I heard a tinny jingle play from an ice cream truck that pulled around the corner. Immediately, a cacophony of children's voices sounded:
"Mammy, please!"
"Can we get one to share? Please?"
"I only have three pennies, it's not fair!"
"I want a chocolate one!"
Lyall nodded towards the truck. "Would you like one?"
I looked down and nodded, embarrassed at how obvious my reaction to the ice cream truck was.
"I was hoping you would," said Lyall. "I didn't want to be the only one."
Lyall ordered a chocolate cone for himself and I got a strawberry one; he paid for both without giving me a chance to protest, and for once, I didn't. I supposed we looked like a real couple, going for a walk and eating ice cream together and secretly I enjoyed it, though I wasn't attracted to him that way. (Or that's what I told myself.)
There were lots children running about and nursing mothers sitting on all the park benches, so we ate while walking past the lake. Two little girls in matching blue pinafore dresses were dragging on their mother's hands, trying to pull her in opposite directions. They reminded me of Jeannie and I. My mother used to dress us up in matching outfits, which annoyed Jeannie because it meant always having to wear hand-me-downs that were exactly the same as the clothes she just outgrew.
"There was a pond in a park I used to go to with my sister when I was little," I said. "I made up a lot of stories about there being mermaids in the lake."
"Did you?" said Lyall, sounding amused.
"Yes, and they would be nice stories when we were in front of my mother or my Nan, but then at night, when we were in bed, I told her really scary stories about sea monsters until she cried."
"It sounds like you were quite naughty."
"Yes, I was. But after Jeannie cried, I felt bad and let her stay in my bed since she was afraid of having nightmares. It made me feel really grown-up, as horrible as that sounds now."
Lyall licked the drippings from around the circumference of his cone. "All children are horrible sometimes." He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief. "I was a menace."
"No, you weren't," I insisted, with a smile.
"Well, not to any siblings, since I was an only child. But I gave my el—my housekeeper some trouble."
"I don't believe you. You were probably the most well-behaved child there was." As I spoke, a boy ahead of us yanked the handle of a kite out of his brother's hand, causing the little brother to scream. The older one ran away, laughing.
"I made a mess of my father's study," said Lyall. "I took all the books off the shelf and never put anything away."
"That's hardly what I would call being a menace."
"That's not how my parents saw it."
I laughed. "They sound awfully strict."
He shook his head. "No...perhaps it seems that way to you. I think—" he paused, gazing out into space. "I think they just weren't used to being around children." Lyall glanced at me, but looked away when our eyes met. "I wasn't around a lot of other children either. Not till I was at school."
"And that's where you met Ogilvy."
"Yes."
It was a conversation I'd remember in the difficult years ahead, when we so frequently came to odds over how Remus ought to be raised. Lyall didn't seem to know or understand children, reacting to Remus sometimes as though he were an alien, particularly when he was very little. He was sometimes too harsh, and other times tiptoed around Remus, treating him with kid gloves. We came to blows many times over this—but of course, when you meet his parents, you will understand a little better how Lyall came to be the way he is.
We didn't walk far that afternoon, mostly making circles around the lake. As the sun sank lower and dipped behind the city skyline, the crowd in the park thinned out. Long purple shadows streaked the grass, while the lake swallowed up clouds and rippled them out across the wavy surface of the water.
"It's beautiful, isn't it," I said softly to Lyall.
"Mm," he responded, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. He seemed unmoved by the landscape.
"I love this time of day. Would you say it's dusk?"
"Er—yes, I suppose," he mumbled.
"Though the sun hasn't set yet," I added. We were heading towards the exit onto the street. I could feel the tiny pebbles beneath my feet sink into the damp earth when I stepped on them.
Lyall spoke up abruptly. "Are you going away for the summer?"
"I'm only going home for two weeks in July," I said. "Otherwise, I need to be at work."
"Right." He was walking so slowly I had to shorten my own steps to remain at his pace.
"I am coming back to Cardiff when the summer's over," he added.
Relief floated up through me, lifting the invisible weight I'd been carrying all evening.
"There's another thing," Lyall said softly. "I mean—not another thing —just that next year...I mean, in the fall...it would be nice if we could meet up again to...just to do things like this..."
He very studiously avoided eye contact as he spoke.
"Of course!" I very nearly exclaimed. "If you're going to be at the same address...or otherwise, we can exchange our new phone numbers—"
"No, no, same address," he assured me. "Are you, er—?"
I smiled. "Yes. Unfortunately."
"Well." Our eyes met for a moment before his irises were obscured by the pinkish reflection of the lake on his glasses. "I do hope you find better accommodations soon."
"That' not very likely, I'm afraid. My dad is dead-set on Saint Dwynwyn's. He thinks it's the only reputable boarding house in Cardiff and he doesn't want me with a room mate, having no supervision at all."
He looked bemused at the mention of my father. "You are twenty-two though, aren't you?" he asked.
"Next week I will be. But don't bother explaining that to my father, he's horribly overprotective." I laughed. "He doesn't want my sister to move away from home at all."
Lyall didn't seem to think this was cause for laughter; he looked a bit nauseated. "Is he, er—" Lyall looked away, at the woods behind us. "It's probably none of my business."
"What?"
"Your father...is that why you aren't, er..."
"Aren't...?"
"Aren't seeing anyone," he mumbled quickly. "But it's not my business to ask."
I felt the heat rise through my cheeks as I shook my head. "No. Not at all. I mean...it was different, when I was in college...but now, I mean, he knows he can't, well he can't decide for us anymore." I giggled, more out of embarrassment than anything else. "He doesn't mind us going out with boys, so long as we don't...you know."
"Yes. No. I mean, er," Lyall blushed. "I suppose as long as you don't—stay out late."
Stay out late. Lyall, as you will soon learn, was very talented at coming up with gentle euphemisms.
"Well, he just wants us to be safe." I smiled at Lyall. "You know he would have been very unhappy to hear I was walking in the woods alone."
"I assume so."
We had reached the gateway to the street. The sun had now sunk almost completely below the horizon, and the streetlamps had switched on. Lyall glanced at his watch.
"What time is it?"
"About eight forty-five," he said, his voice having regained its usual air of calmness and objectivity.
"Wow. We've been out for a long time, haven't we?" I reached for my purse, rooting through it for a bus token.
"I must have lost track of time," said Lyall. "Do you want me to call for a cab?"
"No, no, that's alright. I can take the bus."
"It's getting dark out," he said.
"I take the bus all the time," I insisted. I had found my token beneath a lipstick and a tiny pamphlet entitled "THE DEVIL IS REAL: [sic] Wichcraft and You" that a street preacher had forced on me one morning when I waited at a crosswalk.
"Still," he said. "I would feel better if I could go with you."
"Of course." I felt a tiny flurry of happiness; somehow, Lyall's concern felt less paternalistic and more genuine—or, perhaps, I was simply glad to share his company for another half-hour.
Lyall was mostly silent during our ride on the bus, which was followed by a transfer to another bus (he seemed somewhat mystified by the process of transfers. I chalked it up to his being from a very small town.) We parted that evening at a quarter after nine. I was glad to have made it back before my curfew, but disappointed to see him go. Two months seemed like ages and ages then; twenty-some years later, I would long for time to stretch out like taffy again, for a summer to last a lifetime. I wish, I wish I could be twenty-two again, and unzipping my A-line skirt, lining up for the bathroom in my towel, turning off the transistor radio and going to bed with the window pane pushed up, listening to the crickets bowing a monotone and drifting off to dreams of mermaids swimming towards no destination.
