Author's note: I very much apologize for the long wait. In Search of Mythical Kings has not been abandoned; the last six months have been very busy for me and I didn't have as much time or energy to write.
"I can't stay here, Hope. It's driving me crazy."
"I know, but—"
"No, you don't." Jeannie rolled onto her stomach, dangling one arm off the bed. Her fingertips grazed the carpet aimlessly. "You haven't lived here the past two years. I can't put up with him anymore."
"I'm not saying he isn't overprotective. I'm saying it's not much better once you move out."
"Yes, it is!" she insisted. "Look, I know they have rules and things at your boarding house, but at least you don't have to spend eighteen hours a day with them breathing down your neck, just waiting for you to mess up."
"But they are breathing down my neck," I said. "The house matrons, the other girls. There's no privacy, none whatsoever. And everybody knows your business, and nobody ever lets you just keep to yourself."
"I don't want to keep to myself," she moaned. "I want to go out and have a social life and be a normal twenty-year-old!"
I reached for a bottle of topcoat and began to brush it overtop of my toenails. "You'll have less of a social life if you go move to a city where you don't know anyone."
She rolled her eyes. "I'll make friends."
"It's not that easy."
"Maybe not for you."
Jeannie must have noticed my facial expression, because she jumped to add, "I didn't mean it that way."
"Yes, but you meant it."
"Not that way!"
"You can't say things like that and then try to take them back."
"You're being really over-sensitive," she huffed, pushing herself up onto her mattress. She turned to line her head up with the pillow and flopped down onto her back with such force that the bedsprings vibrated in protest.
"Jeannie! I said stop doing that!" called my mother's voice, slightly muffled by the closed door.
"Doing what?" she whined.
"You're going to pay for a new bed yourself, then!" responded my mother.
Jeannie turned her head sidewise to fix me with a plaintive stare.
I shook my head and screwed the cap back onto the nail polish.
"They won't leave me alone for three seconds," she said with quiet scorn. "Three seconds. And every time I want to go out, it's Who are you going with? What time will you be back? Are there going to be boys? Like I'm twelve years old."
That Jeannie sometimes behaved like a twelve-year-old seemed somewhat lost on her. I was sympathetic to her complaints, and I did agree that my parents were especially overprotective of her, it didn't help her cause when she sounded so much like a child.
"Look," I said. "Do you want me to talk to them?"
"They won't listen to you. There's no point."
"They might," I said. "Daddy sometimes listens to me."
"He only ever listens to you," she complained. "He thinks you're the perfect child."
"No, he doesn't," I said automatically, though I knew there was some truth to her statement.
"You know he does," said Jeannie as she held up her hand to examine her cherry red nail polish. "Do you think this is a chip?"
"Let me see."
She stretched over the edge of the bed, holding her hand out to me.
"It's a scratch," I said. "Do you have more of the same colour? I could fix it."
"No, I did it with Phyl at her house." She retracted her hand. "You know, I'll never get married if I can't even go on a date."
"You can go on a date," I sighed. "I know for a fact that Daddy doesn't—"
"No, but he always tries to make a big deal about when I come home and he never lets me stay out late!"
"I'm not allowed to stay out late either," I protested. "We have a curfew."
"But yours isn't nine o'clock," Jeannie pouted.
"Still," I said. "It's not a nice place to live. Trust me."
"Well, neither is living at home with Mam and Dad."
This argument continued on and off for the entire two weeks I spent at home. Jeannie wanted to move out to a boarding house like mine; my parents didn't want her to, and they wouldn't budge either on giving her a little more independence. I thought my dad was too strict with her, but I also knew he was too stubborn; he'd never change, not at fifty-seven. He was older than most of my friends' fathers, having married my mother when he was thirty-four and she was twenty-one. Being older, he was more old-fashioned and it drove Jeannie and I crazy. Particularly, Jeannie.
My Mam and I took a walk down the beach on my second last evening at home. She was barefoot, her sandals hooked around her index finger.
"I worry about you all alone," she said.
"I'm fine."
"I'm not worried you'll get into trouble, Hope. I'm worried you're going to be lonely and you don't have anyone to talk to."
"It's not like that," I said. "I have friends."
"Jeannie told me you don't like the girls in your house."
I stared at the waves. "That's not what I said."
"Well, you haven't invited any of them for a visit," said Mam.
I fell silent. She rubbed my shoulder gently.
"If you want to come home—"
"No," I said quickly, "I don't want to leave."
"We can set you up with a job here. It doesn't mean you'll be unemployed—"
"I want to stay in Cardiff," I insisted, even though my gut was telling me otherwise. "I like my life."
My mother pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back and there was nothing she could do. We walked in silence for some time, passing the Jones' and Perrys' whitewashed houses, where I used to go on play dates. Their daughters were all married now. Then, the pier, where a young couple eating ice cream was silhouetted against the setting sun. Finally when the beach narrowed into a tiny strip bordered by rocky cliffs, we turned around and headed back.
"I'm sure you know your sister is convinced we're holding her captive here," said Mam quietly.
"Not exactly," I said, diplomatically.
"Jeannie is very unhappy," said Mam. "I don't know what to do with her. We're trying to give her more freedom, Daddy and I, but she still thinks she's a prisoner in this house."
"She wants to do what I'm doing, Mam. You know she doesn't want to stay in Aberystwyth her whole life."
"I'm well aware of that," my mother replied. "But I can't in good conscience send her out to live who-knows-where, someplace Daddy and I haven't even visited, just to have an adventure."
"I'm sure that's not what she's asked for," I said. "She just wants to be like me."
My mother smiled a half-smile. There was something bittersweet in her expression.
"What?" I said.
"It's just..." she shook her head, her short curls bouncing in the breeze. "Jeannie can't be like you." She smiled again. "She's too much like me."
"What does that mean?"
She opened her mouth, paused and closed it again. I noticed the shallow lines bracketing her mouth, the crows' feet developing at the corners of her eyes.
"Mam, what does that mean?"
"I think you'll understand when you're a little bit older," she said, her smile infuriatingly cryptic. I knew there was nothing more I could ask, for she wouldn't explain and that was that.
We walked back to the house quietly. My mother put her shoes back on when we made our way up the scrubby grass and climbed a rotting staircase up to the road. We arrived back at the house as the sun disappeared and the street was cast in cool blue shadows.
I knew something was up because my Jeannie and my father were sitting quite formally in the living room, looking expectant. My mother and I shared a glance. She was wondering what Jeannie had done this time, and I was wondering what my father had done this time.
"Hope," said my father, as I tried to dart up the stairs. "Come here. We would like to ask you something."
I went back to the living room and leaned against the wall, my arms crossed.
"Annwyl, I don't know if this is the time—" my mother said softly.
"Nothing's the matter," said my father. "Actually, Jeannie and I were just talking about you, Hope."
I shot Jeannie a look, but she raised her eyebrows in response.
"Apparently, she has several vacation days saved up, and she would like to use them this fall."
"Alright..." I said.
"I want come to Cardiff," Jeannie said. "I thought...maybe I could stay with you and we could have a visit."
If all she had wanted was a visit, I doubted I'd be hearing about it from my father.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with that," said my mam. "How do you feel about that Hope? Won't it be nice to have your sister with you for a few days?"
"Mam, it's not just that," Jeannie cut in. "I want to see Saint Dwynwyn's. I want to see if maybe, if, if could go there."
My father sighed deeply. His hands rested on his belly, which had grown quite a bit from the day his wedding picture with my mother had been framed and hung above the mantle.
"Sweetheart," said my mam. "I think it's fine for you to go see Hope and have a nice visit, but Saint Dwynwyn's is a very different kind of place than home..."
"If it's fine for Hope, I can't see what's so wrong with it for me," Jeannie muttered stiffly.
"Well, you don't have a job in Cardiff, for one," said my father.
"Neither did Hope, until she got one."
"And you know I was lucky enough to have a friend who found her something there, but I don't know anyone in the hairdressing business—"
"Daddy," I interrupted. "I don't think you're being very fair."
"Thank you," said Jeannie.
"I don't see what's wrong with Jeannie coming out for a few days and seeing how she likes it," I said. "If she hates Saint Dwynwyn's, then she'll know."
"I won't hate it," said Jeannie. "And anyways—" she daintily crossed her legs and sat upright properly—"there are other boarding houses for girls. It's not the only one."
"Your mother and I visited more than a few," said my father. "And not all of them provided the proper supervision."
"It's a matter of safety," said my mother.
""Well, if it's safe for Hope, then what's the problem?"
"It's only a visit..." I said, trying to redirect the conversation from what I hoped would not come next.
My father took off his bifocals, and polished them on his sleeve. Without looking at Jeannie, he said, "It's not just a visit if Jeannie thinks we're making any promises about sending her off to live in Cardiff if she likes it."
"Now, Archie," said my mother. "I think she understands that it's just a visit...we don't need to make any decisions now."
"You won't make any decisions ever," whined Jeannie. "And you never let me decide anything for myself—"
"Jeannie—" warned my mam.
"You don't let me do anything!"
"That's not what this is about," said my mother. "And we don't have to make a scene, when Hope is only home for a little while."
"I don't want to be home anymore at all!" she exclaimed.
"Don't you even think about how you're hurting my feelings when you say things like that?" my mother implored.
"Your feelings? What about my life?"
"Daddy," I said quietly, "I think I'll go upstairs."
"That might be best, pumpkin," he said. "This will be a while." Jeannie and my mother were now talking over each other, and my mother was beginning to cry.
I slipped up the stairs as inconspicuously as I could and hid in my room. The arguing continued for another hour (or so it felt), as voices rose, lowered and rose again like clashing arpeggios. First my father was lecturing Jeannie, then my mother interrupted, then the three of them spoke over each other. I could tell both Jeannie and my mother were in tears. Finally, the whole debacle ended when Jeannie stormed out and opened the door to our room; upon seeing me, she slammed the door and ran to the bathroom, locking herself in.
I followed her tentatively and pressed my ear upon the door.
"Jeannie," I said to the door. "Come back to our room."
She said nothing, but sniffed.
"Jeannie."
"..."
"Look, I didn't start this. I didn't do anything—"
"No, you never do anything wrong," she scoffed. Her voice was muffled by the door, but I could hear how bitter it was. "You're the perfect child and I'll never be as perfect as you and that's just the way it is."
"Jeannie, this isn't about me! You know it's not me that's keeping you home."
"Yeah, well, you never, ever try to stand up for me."
"I wasn't even home! I was out for a walk—"
"Oh, please. You saw that whole scene in the living room, and you just snuck out as soon as you could."
So she had noticed, and taken note. "What was I supposed to do?" I whined, even though pangs of guilt were taking hold in my conscience.
She sniffed again. "You could have stayed. You could have said that you wanted me to visit, you didn't even say that."
"Well, I do want you to visit."
"Yeah, right." I heard a clicking; it was probably her long, polished toenails against the bathtub as she swung her feet back and forth, sitting on the toilet's lid.
"I do, Jeannie."
"You didn't say that to Daddy. You didn't say you thought I wouldn't have any trouble coming to Cardiff."
"I didn't want to bring that up," I said, more quietly.
"No. Of course not. Because if you actually said something in my favour, then Daddy might have thought you disagreed with him."
"I just didn't want to start a fight, Jeannie."
"It was already a fight."
"Well, I didn't want to get involved," I said.
She went silent for a long minute and then broke out into a fresh sob. I felt awful. I knew I was wrong, and she was right. I never stood up for her to our parents, or even invited her to Cardiff. I just abandoned her to Aberystwyth, to my parents, who couldn't—or wouldn't—let her grow up.
"Jeannie," I said more softly. "Please. Open the door."
"Go away," she sniffed.
"Please. I want to talk. I'm sorry."
"I said, go away!"
"I won't go away. I'll stay here until you leave."
"I won't leave until you go away," she replied.
"Then I guess you'll never leave because I'm not going away."
"If you want me to ever leave the bathroom, then you have to go away."
"Then I guess you're never leaving the bathroom then!" I said shrilly.
"Then you'll wait at this door forever!" she retorted before we both burst into giggles. My back slid down the door and I sat against it, laughing harder and harder until I felt I might burst. When the door opened without warning, I fell backwards against Jeannie's legs; she tripped and her bottom landed on the floor with a thump. We stayed like that, both of us on the floor, giggling. Her rosy cheeks were stained with tears and a watery trickle of mucus was coming out of one nostril.
She grabbed my foot and examined my ankle.
"You should try a depilatory cream," she said quite casually. "Since you don't get much time in the shower."
I shook my head. "I'm not using that stuff in my room. Eula says it stinks to high heaven."
Jeannie giggled and leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Alright, don't be cross, but I used it in our room once and I couldn't sleep there for three nights."
For some reason, I found this quite hilarious. I laughed so hard I began to hiccup, which set Jeannie off into a fresh round of giggles.
Our mother appeared through the doorway. "What are you girls doing in here on the floor?"
"We're—we're catching up," said Jeannie dramatically.
My mother sighed, shook her head and left. She was used to our antics and knew explaining it all would take years. My father, who had wanted a son very badly, said he couldn't understand what language we were speaking half the time, and the other half, he couldn't for the life of him know what on earth we were talking about.
How I had missed Jeannie over the last few months. Eula was my closest friend, an old one from grammar school, but we weren't anywhere near as close as we used to be. She had gotten married very young and was living in Aberystwyth with her husband and baby, with no plans to ever leave. It seemed like all of my old school friends had melted away like marshmallows in hot cocoa, all happily married and having long since formed new social circles. I wanted friends, but I couldn't seem to develop a real bond with Val, Mabli, Norah or Edith (Irene, who I quite loathed, was out of the question.) I was glad to see that Jeannie was the same as ever, quite unapologetically so, when everyone else had changed.
Our two weeks ended at the train station, where I waited with my mother and Jeannie on the platform (my father was off at work.) My mam hugged me tightly for a long minute, as I would only see her next at Christmas. Jeannie gazed longingly at my luggage, but she wasn't angry anymore.
"I missed you," I said to Jeannie. "You will come and visit very soon?"
"Not quite," she said with a sigh, her perfectly permed curls ruffling in the breeze a train pulling out of the station left in its wake. "I'm not coming by until September. You know, I only have a week to visit and I'm not going to waste it during the summer. Aberystwyth's only good for one thing, and that's the beach."
My mother shook her head. "Aberystwyth is a very pretty place and I think you should consider yourself lucky to live here."
"Mam—" I warned quietly, placing a hand on her arm. "I'm looking forward to your visit. I know you didn't believe how messy our bathroom was, but you'll understand when you see it for yourself."
That made her smile, although she still looked sad. Her arms were folded across a pale yellow blouse patterned with painted rhododendrons. I knew she had spent a fortune on that shirt; it was real silk, and one of her absolute favourites. It touched me that she would wear it to the train station to see me off, when the blouse was usually reserved for very promising first dates.
The conductor stuck his head out of a window and shouted, "Now boarding, ten o'clock to Cardiff!"
"Give me another hug," said my mother, and I embraced her.
She patted my hair, and whispered, "Be safe. Don't go walking by yourself in the forest, or anything like that again."
I laughed. "I won't, I promise."
Jeannie came forward and we embraced. She smelled like lemonade and Soir de Paris.
"Have fun," she murmured to me. "Go do everything we can't do at home. And, Hope? If you get a boyfriend, don't you dare not tell me everything!"
"I will," I promised, and pushed away the unbidden thought of Lyall that surfaced in my mind. For some reason, he was making appearances in my thoughts rather more often than you would think, given that I hadn't seen him in a month.
The conductor repeated his warning, and I was forced to part with Jeannie and my mam. After several more announcements of our departure, the train actually began to move. I waved to Jeannie and my mother through the window until the platform began to recede from view, its backward thrust accelerating while I remained quite still in my velvet seat, unmoving, watching all the people and houses and shops and spires of my home set off on their own journey, without me.
It was five horridly dull weeks in Cardiff before September arrived. I usually loved the summer, but this time around it couldn't have ended fast enough. St. Dwynwyn's was about a thousand degrees inside—nobody had air conditioning at that time. We opened all the windows we could, but the house was old and some windows were stuck shut by multiple overzealous paint jobs or warping of the wooden window frames. One particularly gruesome Sunday, Val lay on the setee in the sitting room all morning, wearing only a negligee and fanning herself with an accordion-folded page torn from Woman's Own. Poor Val was caught first by a very irate Irene, whose magazine Val had partially mutilated, and god knows what sort of passive aggressive revenge Irene planned on taking. Then, when Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Winchfill returned from church around noon with an older female friend of theirs, they were absolutely horrified to have inadvertently exposed old Mrs. What's-her-name to an inappropriately dressed Val, who, aside from her silky negligee, was also chewing gum and had her feet up on the pillows. One of the pillows in question was cross-stitched by Mrs. Owens' own hand with a quote from Corinthians bordered by French knots; she was less than pleased to see this artistic masterpiece lowered by the profanity of serving as a footrest to Val's coral-painted toes. Needless to say, the rest of us girls were happily excused from bathroom duty for two weeks. Though I did feel sorry for Val's misfortune—she really was only trying to get some relief from the heat—there was no arguing that this incident was anything but eminently forseeable, as everyone else knew that Irene was the worst possible person to steal from, and that the matrons always got home from church around eleven o'clock and it would have taken very little effort to clear out of the sitting room by a quarter to.
"Honestly, Edith wouldn't have made a big to-do out of the magazine and I'm sure you would have let Val take a page out," Norah had commented to me under her breath as we watched Val trudge up the stairs to the bathroom, stony-faced and bitter. "But at least we don't have to clean the bathroom for two whole weeks."
This prospect did not cheer me up as much as it should have, for Val was the least thorough at cleaning out of all of us; she somehow managed to rearrange all of the grime and mess without removing any of it. Somehow, the wire curler and tangled hair imbroglio had worsened during my time in Aberystwyth; what had once filled a single basket now spilled over into two, and I think there were at least two pairs of tweezers caught up in the midst, like bystanders who try breaking up a fight, only to get involved in the tussle and make matters worse.
But there was cause for hope. Jeannie would be visiting very soon, and Lyall would be coming back from his summer travels as well. A rush of nervous excited coursed through me at the thought of seeing him again. He had told me he was spending two weeks in Greece, a month in Turkey and would then be travelling to Ireland, where he had several conferences and "demonstrations" to attend. Despite his assurances that this was all for his work, it seemed an awful lot like a vacation to me, and one I would have died to go on.
I didn't know when exactly he would be arriving home, but he had promised he would telephone me when he did. We had exchanged a few letters during the summer; I knew he was probably busier than me, but I made sure never to write him back until I had received a letter from him. I didn't want him to think that I was too eager; moreover, I was embarassed at how blank, how boring my life must seem compared to his. Lyall's most recent letter had described his visiting Ardgroom, an ancient stone circle in County Cork:
There are quite a few legends associated with these stone circles and few known facts. My colleagues in the region were eager to share their own stories of oddities that had occurred either in the vicinity of the stone circle or immediately following some sort of contact with the circle. Of course, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, but I will admit my curiosity was piqued. We have stone circles at home too, of course, but it seems the Irish are much more willing to admit to the limits of their own understanding of exactly how permeable the boundaries are between reality and superstition.
I re-read his letters several times, all the while convincing myself that my enthusiasm for them was wholly inspired by my interest in travel and not, say, the inexplicably strong desire to hear his quiet, reedy voice and see his mouth twitch when I made fun of him. No, it couldn't be that; because if I fancied him, I would know about it, and if I didn't know, than I couldn't fancy him. And all that sort of thing. Years later, it would make me laugh to remember the mental gymnastics I went through that summer, the summer of 1958. The summer of boredom, of romantic paperbacks from the library, of trying to save money and failing miserably, of giggling with Jeannie on the telephone while Irene tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for me to finish my call. It made laugh, and reminisce and then, one day, it would make me cry, when I knew that I was going somewhere Lyall couldn't follow.
I wish I had written him more letters; and that I had invited him to my company dinners and that I hadn't waited for him to call first. I wish I hadn't been afraid. I wish we could be together now, his arms encircling me like standing stones, immovable things, guarding the secret thing at the centre, or trying to contain it, offering it a home.
"Hello."
"Hi," I said softly. He was browner than he had been, though not sunburned; unlike me, he was capable of tanning properly. His suit looked brand new, with shiny buttons and no wear and tear on the elbow patches. I wondered whether he felt like I did when I wore a new dress for the first time.
"You've, er...you've spent time in the sun."
"Is it that bad?" I asked.
"No, no," he assured me. "Just a little pinker than usual."
"Do I look like a lobster?"
"Not unless I am unfamiliar with a very unusual breed of lobster," he said dryly.
We had decided it was too nice outside to stay in, so we went on a walk in the countryside, past little inns and cottages with hens clucking around out front of them.
"You're wearing good shoes," said Lyall.
"What?"
"Your shoes are good. For this sort of thing, I mean," he said awkwardly. "Practical."
I was wearing laced-up Oxford shoes.
"Oh," I said. We were out of practise, conversationally. It had been a long two months, and despite the letters we had sent each other, it was strange to be together in person again. I had spent so much time thinking about him over the summer, imagining what he would say when I saw something funny or especially interesting, that now that we were together, I felt almost embarrassed to look at him. Surely, I thought, he would have felt discombobulated if he knew how often I had been thinking of him.
"So," said Lyall. "How is work?"
"Fine." I kicked up a cloud of dust from the dirt road, watching it disperse and disappear into the breeze. "Work is work. It's always the same—at least mine is."
"Ah." He waited a beat before saying, "I wish you had somewhere more interesting to work. It seems like you might...enjoy it more somewhere else."
"I would."
"Not that I'm saying you aren't good at your work—" he added hastily.
"It's alright," I said. "I'm not very good at it, to be honest."
"No, no—I just meant—I think you could be very good at something more, er, more suited to your skillset."
"I'm a mediocre clerk at best," I said glumly. "It's no secret."
"I doubt that," said Lyall."
"Don't." I gave him a plaintive look. The sun gleamed off his light brown hair.
"Have you ever thought about doing something else?" he asked.
"Every day. But I'm not trained for anything else. I don't know what to do."
"You ought to do what you're good at," he said. "What comes most naturally to you."
I gave him a sad smile. "I'm not very good at anything. Not naturally."
"That isn't true," he said brusquely. "You have more than a few skills I haven't got, and those are only the ones I know about."
"Like what?"
He looked up and to the side, away from me, as if to think. He inhaled, about to speak, and I suddenly felt nervous.
"You know how to make conversation. That's not something everyone finds easy. Believe me."
"You can't make a job out of that, though. And I'm miserable at sales; I used to be a shopgirl, so I would know."
"No, I wasn't suggesting sales," said Lyall. "I don't think you would like that, and it would be a waste of your talents, anyways."
"I really don't know what talents you're talking about." As I spoke, we edged to the left so that a bright blue truck behind us could pass. A huge dust cloud blasted us in its wake; Lyall coughed into his handkerchief and I hastily tried to brush the dirt off my clothes.
"I'm sorry about that," he said, embarrassed. "I should have stood in front of you."
"It's alright. No harm done." I gave him a smile, which only seemed to embarrass him further. "So, you were saying..."
"I was—what was I saying?" he asked.
"You were telling me sales would be a waste of my talents, and I said I didn't know what that meant."
"Oh. Yes." He was walking quite quickly now; I had to speedwalk to keep up with his long strides. "Well, I thought—I thought you would, er...you might be more suited to something with children, actually."
"Really?" I asked, though he wasn't wrong. I loved children, I always had.
"Well, it's just a thought," said Lyall quickly. "I could be wrong, I don't know. You just—you seemed to me like someone who would be good with children."
"You have to have a lot of patience for that," I said.
"Don't you, though?"
He slowed down his pace to match my shorter stride, as though he had only just noticed that I was labouring to keep up with him. I looked at him just as he looked at me. We made eye contact, and surprisingly, he didn't break it.
"You have a lot of patience with me," he said softly.
I laughed. "You aren't a child."
"I've been called worse."
It was hard for me to believe at the time that he could have been accused of childishness, or immaturity; he seemed like the most grown-up person my age that I knew.
"Well," I murmured. "You were right. I do like children."
I could tell he was trying not to smile.
"It's nice to know I can be right, now and then," said Lyall, sounding much cheerier.
"You must be right about a lot of things," I said, "otherwise you wouldn't have a career in research."
"A very astute point."
We continued on until we reached a farm with two girls out front who looked to be about eight and six. They were manning a very lonely lemonade stand with drinks as well as muffins and brownies for sale. Both girls were eyeing us with naked anticipation.
"What do you think?" asked Lyall loudly enough that both girls could hear us from several yards away.
"Well, I think I'm very thirsty."
"I think I am, as well," he said. We strolled leisurely towards the stall. A fat bumblebee fluttered just above the brownies, trying very hard (and failing) to look as inconspicuous as a fly.
"Hi!" said the older girl brightly. She yanked the shoulder of her younger sister back, forcing her to stop resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hand.
"Hi," said the younger girl, more shyly.
"Hello," I said. "My friend and I would like two cups of lemonade, please."
"Okay, but you have to pay first," said the little girl matter-of-factly, but she was harshly shushed by her sister. They reminded me of Jeannie and I so much; how I wished she could be here, trying to maintain her composure with me.
"How much is it?" asked Lyall, who had taken his wallet out.
"It's two pence for one cup," said the older girl very casually, as though she had sold hundreds of cups that day.
"That makes FOUR pence for both!" said the little girl with great pride.
"Very good," I said. After Lyall made a great show of very carefully counting out four coins to the girls, who were watching him with eagle eyes, we took our lemonades in plastic cups. While the two girls focused on the money, the bumblebee furtively plopped its fat behind onto a brownie.
"Thank you very much," I said, giving the girls a smile that would hopefully make up for the day's poor sales.
"Thank you!" said the little girl.
"No, you have to say, you're welcome," chided the older sister, as we walked away.
When Lyall and I reached the road, we looked at each other and smiled. Lyall raised his eyebrows by a hair and I giggled.
"Someone ought to tell them this isn't a prime location for retail sales," said Lyall.
"But just think of how we made their day!" I said. "They probably haven't had any other customers."
"It was a bit watery," said Lyall.
"I'm sure they filled the pitcher with ice this morning, and all of it melted."
"Mm," he murmured, and drained the rest of the cup in one shot.
"I was right about you, though," he said.
"About what?"
"About children." He paused. "You are good with children. With talking to them, I mean."
I considered his comment. "I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult," I said.
"It was an observation," said Lyall. He inhaled and exhaled heavily. "Please don't take it the wrong way."
"I won't."
We had reached a bend in the road, where a small copse of trees cast a very welcome pool of shade over our heads. The road continued down a hill. The valley below was looking quite brown; the summer had been very dry. We paused to enjoy the shade, which was more refreshing than the watery-sweet taste of lukewarm lemonade.
"Do you want to go down, or turn back?" I asked.
Lyall checked his watch. "I think we're going to have to turn back," he said. "It's almost four."
"Do you have plans?"
"No, but I thought you said you needed to be home by six."
"Well, I don't have to be home by six," I said. "But that's when dinner's served so if I come any later than six-thirty, I'll miss it. And they really don't like it if I start dinner halfway through."
"Oh," said Lyall, sounding amused. "So—if I were to take you out for dinner, then you wouldn't need to be home by six?"
"Hypothetically," I said, smiling. "Although it would depend on whether you actually were to take me out to dinner."
He looked down and murmured, "I would like to."
"So would I."
"So," said Lyall, looking very pleased with himself, "shall we continue on a bit farther?"
"Yes, I think so."
It was later on, when we had finished our walk and gone out for dinner at a small family-run restaurant, that I mentioned my sister would be coming to visit at the end of September.
"She's going to stay in my room, " I said. "You've no idea the hoops I've had to jump through trying to persuade Mrs. Winchfill and Mrs. Owens to let her stay the night."
Lyall opened his mouth to speak but coughed instead; the room was very smoky. I had noticed that unlike most men at the time, Lyall didn't smoke, and he didn't stink of stale cigarettes like a lot of boys my age. It was a very appealing trait.
"I suppose you're paying for the privilege," he said, after coughing into his handkerchief.
"No, I but I did lead them on to believe Jeannie is a prospective renter. Girls like her are there target market."
"Is she not one, then?"
I sighed and slumped against the fraying upholstery of our booth. The ceiling above us was unevenly plastered and tattooed with brownish water stains.
"Jeannie thinks she is," I said. "But it's not going to happen. Not next year, and definitely not at St. Dwynwyn's."
Lyall looked at me curiously, but didn't ask why not. He ate a chip and then rested his clasped hands on the table before his plate.
"Anyways. I haven't asked about you."
"You've asked many things," Lyall pointed out. "I didn't want to talk too much about myself."
I giggled. "I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. You're a little bit...taciturn, you know."
Two creases appeared around the corners of his mouth, but he said nothing.
That was the gentle end of his sense of humour. It was only after I grew to know him better, particularly after we were married, that I met with the wicked end; he could be very naughty and very funny, but only a handful of people ever saw that side of him. I know what people say about him now; I know what people think, but they're wrong and they don't know him the way I do. Not even Remus does.
A waitress came to take our plates away. I had left a good deal on mine, having avoided the burnt bits of my shepherd's pie and made it only half-way through the gigantic hunk of uncooked broccoli that had been placed as a kind of afterthought next to the pie, but Lyall had wiped his plate clean.
"How long is she staying?" he said, all of a sudden.
"A week."
"Oh," he said. "I suppose you'll be busy for the week, then."
"Well, I still have to go to work."
"I meant, in the evening," he clarified. "You'll be busy." He fingered the edge of his cup absently.
"I suppose so. Why?"
"Well, I—I guess I won't call you that week. You know. To make plans."
"But we can still make plans," I said. "Jeannie can come along. I'm sure she'd love to meet you."
"Oh," he looked embarassed, "I don't know about that."
"You don't want to meet her?"
"No, I just—I don't know that she would want to meet me."
"Of course she does," I insisted. "She wants to meet the person who saved my life!"
"Well," he said tentatively, looking down at his knees. "That."
I wondered why he seemed so awkward whenever I brought that up. Most men I knew would be very proud to have a story like that (particularly my father, who never shut up about the war.)
"Anyways," I said. "If you'd like, we're going to go out for brunch on the last Sunday to a really cute place I found. You can come with us, if you'd like." Jeannie and I were also going out dancing the night before but I was not going to ask a man out to a dance, and particularly not Lyall, of all people. "Will you come?"
"If you'd like," said Lyall noncomittantly. "If it's alright with your sister."
"It will be," I said.
The waitress arrived at our table again. Her yellow dress and white apron were faded and stained with coffee. "Have you thought about dessert?" she said.
I looked to Lyall expectantly.
"Does a man in the desert think about water?" he said.
So, Jeannie was to meet Lyall. What I hadn't told him was that the whole thing was her idea. She had gotten it into her mind that I had mentioned him a few times too many for my feelings towards him to be entirely platonic, and wanted very much to meet my "boyfriend" (WHICH HE WAS NOT, I wrote and underlined three times in my journal that night.) It was to be the beginning of a very long and complicated relationship between the two of them. I won't say they never had their disagreements, or that I always liked the way they spoke of each other. Family is hard. Family you neither grew up with, nor chose is the hardest. But Lyall was generous and took her in when Jeannie was in despair; and many years later, Jeannie would look after him in his hour of greatest need. Perhaps I should have done more to bring them together, while I still could.
Or, perhaps I should have warned Jeannie about Irene and the flowered shower cap.
