TALLIS’
THIRD
TUNE
ELLEN L. EKSTROM
ireadiwrite
Publishing
2011
ireadiwrite Publishing Edition
Copyright © 2011 Ellen L. Ekstrom
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This ireadiwrite Publishing edition is published by arrangement with Ellen L. Ekstrom.
ireadiwrite Publishing - www.ireadiwrite.com
First digital edition published by ireadiwrite Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.
TALLIS’ THIRD TUNE
ISBN 978-1-926760-58-2
Published in Canada with international distribution.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Michelle Halket
Cover Photography: Courtesy © CanStockPhoto: wingnutdesigns; CSlanec; sqback
For the Quinns and Alices across time,especially those we’ve had the pleasure to have known.
TALLIS’ THIRD TUNE
Chapter 1
My story began much in the same way as any other, say, for example, David Copperfield.
I was born.
Where it concerns this story, however, it was a different kind of birth; one that began with death.
I heard the conversation, and they called it around twelve oh-two in the morning – at exactly the same time as my birth, strangely enough. Even so, I’d like to respectfully disagree with those who assumed things they should not: that I died.
I did not die; I am not dead.
Not yet at least.
At least, I hope not.
Oh, wait…
Frankly, I didn’t remember the exact moment of my demise, nor did I remember pain. I remembered minutia, like ordering breakfast, or waiting for transit, or falling to sleep clearly as if it were a second ago – but then, I knew somehow that I existed in kairos rather than kronos, and a second in kairos is a thousand years on Earth.
Objects and places, people, appeared out of the ether like rainbows – there wasn’t a bright light to herald comings and goings, but soft flows of color that became shapes, then objects, then people, and places. For example, when I wrote this, I was sitting in what looked like a See’s Candy Store, the one at the convergence of Market, Sutter and Sansome in San Francisco, but it was set in a picturesque English village, perhaps somewhere in the Cotswolds or Dorset, somewhere in Thomas Hardy’s imagination – or mine. There were yellow daffodils and freesias in vases on every counter; the display case wasn’t stocked with caramels or almond bark, or Bordeaux creams, but with books. Little leather volumes that had straps across the front cover – like a child’s diary, the one you had to open with a key that usually hung around your neck along with a skate key, to keep one’s secrets safe from a brother’s or parents’ inquiring eyes.
On the shelves where heart-shaped boxes of nut chews and creams usually sat were small casks of parquetry wood. There was a coffee bar with an espresso machine and a display case full of cheesecakes of every kind. There were round café tables with heart-backed, cushioned chairs to match, and yellow gingham curtains on the mullioned windows. It was as if I had stepped into one of those faux Victorian shops at Disneyland.
Over the counter was a medieval sign with the word “CURIOS?” in great purple letters – “Curious?” in English. I called my home away from home, my way station on the way to wherever I was going the “Curiosity Shop.”
Yet, I was the only one in the Shop who was curious.
No one seemed to mind that I was sitting in the corner farthest from the door with my laptop. My Starbucks coffee travel mug, the one with the strawberries on it, was never drained of its cappuccino: small, skim milk, no cinnamon. I had a bottle of Diet Pepsi, too, and that was always cold, never lost its fizz.
People came and went quietly. Many of them were strangers to me; most were historical persons I studied and wrote about, even idolized. A few approached The Proprietress, a stern, beautiful woman who resembled Helen Mirren, but Mirren as she portrayed Queen Elizabeth II. Her hair was coiffed in a 1950s bob, and around her neck was an opera-length strand of exquisite pearls. She wore an ill-fitting, severe blue suit and carried a Princess Grace-style handbag in the crook of her arm. I looked down at her feet and nodded in approval; at least she wore Vivien Westwood pumps – Anglomania – Lady Dragon, to be precise. Customers’ needs were met efficiently and with an economy of motion and conversation. Once in a while a cask came down from the shelf. Sometimes the book in burgundy leather with gold tooled arabesques came out of the case, sometimes the vermillion with silver findings, but never the book in lapis lazuli suede with silver clasp and decoration. I wanted more than anything to see what was in that book, gaze down at the mysterious trinkets in casks that were unlocked, opened and locked up quickly.
One thing was certain: I must have been dreaming.
Or…I really was dead.
For I looked up from my writing one day and standing out on the sidewalk looking in was my brother Dennis, who died at the age of thirty-one. When our eyes met I felt the breath go out of me, then a surge of adrenalin coursed through me like an electrical current. He smiled, every dimple increasing, and turned away, walking into a hat shop across the street.
This occurred several times, perhaps seven in as many days, until I couldn’t stand it. “Dennis!” I shouted after him. “Denny!”
I was out the door and in the high street, dodged the traffic, though when a taxi came at me, I froze and waited for my imminent demise – which didn’t happen. The taxi went through me and sped around the corner to the bridge. Yes, it was one of those cinematic moments when all I could do was stare at my hands and torso while other vehicles and people collided with me and yet nothing happened to them, and nothing had changed. I didn’t look transparent or ethereal, nor did I wear gossamer or wings. I looked the same as I did – when I was sixteen.
When I fell asleep, or the last time I remembered falling asleep, I had been fifty-seven.
After these moments of revelation, I bolted after Dennis into the hat shop.
The doorbell sang sweetly when I pushed the latch and entered a nineteenth century establishment. No one seemed to pay attention to me, certainly not The Proprietress, again, the woman resembling Helen Mirren in a severe blue suit. Customers were trying on hats and whispering as if it were a church service. In fact, over the door was a placard demanding “SILENCE, PLEASE!”
A shop assistant in a Regency gown thrust a cloche at me: it was pale blue with white, mauve and yellow roses tucked into the crown band. It went well with the Laura Ashley dress I found myself suddenly wearing. When I turned to admire myself in the full-length mirror behind me, I was face to face with Dennis.
“Hello, Alice.” He kissed my cheek and it felt like the sun warming me after clouds had parted. “You’ve always had a face for hats.”
“Hello,” I managed to whisper. Dennis smiled gently as if to cue my thoughts and I asked timidly, “Am I asleep?”
Dennis’ smile was a bit more sympathetic now and he shrugged indifferently.
“Oh! Ohhh…geez, well, in that case, I suppose this will be where you tell me an angel named Clarence or Phillip will visit and tell me I have three tasks to accomplish before I can meet Saint Peter at the gate.”
Dennis raised his brows as he always did to eithe
r mock me or get a better answer. “Phillip?”
He waved a hand at the costume jewelry laid out on a velvet-covered counter top. Fingering a string of creamy, ivory pearls, he shook his head. “You know me better than anyone, Alice; when did I ever fall for the Kapra way? Yes, I think the pearls – or do you prefer the silver cross with garnets? The cross, it is. It’s medieval – and it’s you. What do you think?”
I was wearing a heavy Byzantine cross set with garnets on a silver filigree chain around my neck. “This looks familiar, Dennis, is this…? But I think the pearls go better with this Laura Ashley country frock – what the hell?”
Looking down, I was wearing a pale blue-gray dress of soft wool now, and the hat changed with it, matching color and fabric.
“Perfect! A perfect faery princess,” Dennis murmured.
“Denny, I’m not understanding anything right now.”
“Well that’s the way it’s supposed to be – takes some getting used to, though.”
“When did I die?” I asked.
“August of 1978.”
“What?”
“August, 1978. I think you know what I’m talking about.”
“I got married, had a child, I didn’t die!”
“Didn’t you?”
“Oh hell, I’m supposed to figure this out, aren’t I?”
“Alice, you’re not expected to do anything like save kittens up in trees or go back home and save the town from bankruptcy. Angels won’t earn their wings by anything you do now. No bells or “Buffalo Gals.” You’re expected to do what you want.”
“But…”
“There are caveats and conditions, however. You get do-overs, if you want. It’s entirely up to you. And the situation, of course.”
“Do-overs? Like jacks or hopscotch?”
“Certain things have to be played through – you’ll figure it out.”
“But…!”
“Oh, and it’s more about changing you than anything or anyone else. That was a hard one to catch.”
Another kiss was planted on my cheek and I caught a scent of Number Six as he waved and went on his way. Though, what his way was, I didn’t know.
Not yet, at least.
Chapter 2
The Proprietress at the Curiosity Shop nodded when I appeared at my table. I didn’t remember returning to the Shop; I didn’t remember sleeping, nor having a place to sleep, but I felt rested and my stomach was full, as if I had a breakfast of sausages and waffles with a Starbucks cappuccino on the side.
“You’ll want to choose now,” The Proprietress announced of a sudden.
I looked up from my typing. “Pardon?” I asked.
“Your book – you’ll want to choose. Come along.”
I glanced about; there was no one else in the Shop and so I pushed my chair back and went to the display cases. The lapis book held my attention. “That one.”
After a moment during which The Proprietress scrutinized my face down to the last freckle on the bridge of my nose, the book came out of the case and was set before me on a brocaded cushion.
It was magnificent. Between the latticed vines decorating the leather suede cover were stars tooled in silver gilt. The clasp was a sapphire set in a silver finding. I ran my fingers over the book, tracing the outlines of vines and stars, my hands trembling. I had to have this book. I wanted to tuck it into my faux Prada bag and let it stay there forever…
“Some people think they know what they want before they understand why they want it!” The Proprietress sniffed.
I ignored the comment and fumbled with the clasp on the book. Looking around, I didn’t see a key either attached to the book or somewhere in the case. “Is there some way…?” I muttered, and The Proprietress snatched the book away to be locked up once again.
“Some people seem to think!” she hissed.
“Well, that was rude…”
“Take one!”
The Proprietress was pointing at a rack behind me, one of those carousels that held postcards. No postcards of a quaint English village here, but what looked like train timetables. Unfolding one, I discovered it was a time line – of my life. Turning it over in my hands, a name stood out among the others.
Quinn Radcliffe.
“The train station is down the road. You don’t have much time,” The Proprietress ordered.
My book bag and laptop were thrust at me; the Prada bag slung over a shoulder. I peeked inside, hoping…
“Nooo, Alice! The book isn’t there.”
“Can I just…?”
The Proprietress pointed out the door and to the north. She stamped her Westwood pump and roundly gestured to the street.
“Well, good bye then,” I said, trying to be friendly. “I get it now – you’re God.”
The Proprietress glared over the rim of her cat-eye glasses, my mother’s glasses. “Oh please, dear child! I’m much too busy for that! Hurry! It all must be done in a week!”
“A week?”
Colors flowed and bled into one another like a ‘60s light-show and paisley patterns swirled around me until I was standing in the midst of Union Station. It was not the boutique-infested strip mall interrupted by Amtrak trains, life-size cutouts of the president and vice president, and racks of souvenir key chains shaped like the White House or the Capitol, but the station as it should be: a living organism of people and machinery, of purpose. Before me were the boarding gates. A sign flashed arrivals and departures. It didn’t surprise me that a non-stop train for Berkeley, California was ready to depart. I knew that was my destination and I sprinted for the train, amazed at my energy and the lack of pain in my back and knees.
But then, I was sixteen again, wasn’t I?
There was one empty compartment on the train and I slid in, throwing my bag on one bench, myself on the other. The train eased out of the station, the famous and familiar buildings of Washington starting to disappear. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them, a man was smiling at me – Jack Lemmon, I thought at once. He wore an Amtrak uniform and held a ticket punch in his right hand.
“Good afternoon, Alice. Your ticket?”
“Geez!”
I hadn’t purchased a ticket!
“The outside pocket of the book bag, Miss,” he said in a friendly, comforting voice.
Reaching into the bag as instructed, and never diverting my glance from his, I pulled out a book of tickets: rectangles of brightly colored stock paper like the old ticket books for rides at Disneyland. Each ticket had a letter printed on its face, A to E. I thumbed through the book and asked, “Which ride is this?”
“This would be an ‘A’ ride, Miss.”
“Ah.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“The ‘A’ rides are the least exciting. I don’t suppose we’re going to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle?”
The ticket was punched. “See you in a while, Miss. The café car is the next one over – to your left as you go out,” he said. “Do you want me to close this?”
I nodded, and he closed the compartment door as he went, humming A Time for Us.
Curiosity compelled me after a few moments to go out into the corridor. The smell of a roast turkey dinner was even more compelling. I turned right and found myself in the café car of the Orient Express circa 1910, but the passengers were more eclectic: Albert Einstein, Richard the Third and Thomas Cranmer were engaged in a spirited debate about Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple’s legacy while Bodicea and C. S. Lewis were sharing tea and scones; the astronauts from the Challenger Space Shuttle were playing poker with Thomas Hardy, Marilyn Monroe, President Kennedy and Joan of Arc. Eleanor of Aquitaine was trying to show George Eliot how to knit, while Jane Austen scribbled furiously in a notebook and Agatha Christie kept slapping her hand and growling, “Mind how you write, Girl! Mind how you write!” Off at a table by himself was a seventeen-year old boy faced with a bacon double cheeseburger and fries.
My stomach lurched and I broke into a sw
eat, and then began to tremble.
Quinn…
Jack Lemmon approached, this time dressed in an impeccably tailored tuxedo. He offered a menu and extended a hand. “I suppose you’ll want to sit with him?” he asked, jerking his chin towards the boy.
I wanted a table near the door, to eavesdrop on the Einstein-Ricardian-Cranmer conversation, but the tables were suddenly full of more historical personalities. The only spare seat was at the table in the corner.
“You have a guest, sir – dinner for two,” Jack Lemmon announced as he seated me opposite the boy.
It made sense, looking at him. If I appeared as I did at sixteen, it only stood to reason that he would be the same age as when we went on our first date. He was struggling to fit the cheeseburger into his mouth when he noticed me.
“Hello!” The exclamation was of genuine delight. He put down the burger and poured a glass of Diet Pepsi, shoving it towards me.
“Thanks! You remembered. So…I guess you’re…”
“Glad to see you? What do you think?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I murmured, looking around.
“Going to Berkeley?”
“I don’t know…”
He reached out and brushed the hair out of my eyes. “There. I like to look at your eyes – the smile’s not bad, either. Mighty fine, Miss Alice!”
Quinn started in on the burger and after a few bites, looked up and smiled – that knee-disintegrating smile I remembered as years came and went – and said, “You’re not hungry?”
Looking down, I saw that a plate of fish and chips was before me, a bottle of malt vinegar close at hand. “Wow! I was just thinking…I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”
“Remember our dinners out?”
“We didn’t go out much – a movie once in a while.”
“I didn’t have an allowance, remember? I just liked being with you. You were the only girl who really listened, Alice, like you were interested. You were patient and kind, especially loving.”
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