Tallis' Third Tune

by Ellen L. Ekstrom

  “More like the mercy of his parents,” Richard the Third spoke up.

  “Your Grace has hit upon it directly,” Eleanor said, smiling at him. “A very direct hit!”

  “Be that as it may,” I interrupted, “you know when the cause is lost – and you never give up hope. You just move on. And you wonder…”

  “Let that be the end of the discussion,” Eleanor crowed and shot a venomous look at the goddess. “For now.”

  “You heard her,” I sniped at the ladies. “End of discussion. There’s nothing else to say. Go have a PopTart or something.”

  Left alone, I resumed the transcription of my notes from Villeharduin and de Joinville into the text of a footnote. I ignored Joan, still seated next to me, her chin propped up on her hand and staring.

  “What you didn’t say is much more important that what you said and you and I, and perhaps Richard over there, know that unspoken comment is the truth.”

  “I’m frightened now. I’ve changed so much,” I confessed.

  “Yes, you have and for the benefit of all!” Joan of Arc exclaimed, patting my shoulder.

  The Proprietress cleared her throat and then started organizing the display cases. “But are we speaking of Alice – or history?” she interjected.

  “Or both,” was my reply.

  “Remember what your brother said,” the Proprietress said. “Two wrongs in this case make a right.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that? What?” I demanded. “How can it be?”

  The Proprietress crooked her finger at me and took my book out of its case. “The first step is asking questions and asking why. Congratulations, you’re not like some people, after all. It annoys you so much that you have to ask.”

  She opened the book and pointed to a page that was not decorated with an enormous gold star, but by neat, flowing, italic script. Her finger tapped the page and I read words in my own hand: I was saving myself from Quinn’s parents, and saving him from a greater hurt.

  I understood – only just.

  “That’s one wrong, I guess,” I sighed. “Where’s the other?”

  She pointed to the door. Joan looked apprehensive, frowning, and I thought I heard her call out as I passed the threshold. Whatever it was, it was too late. The warmth I felt now was delicious. I found myself in a shower of golden light that transformed to soft peach, lavender, palest blue, while diamonds showered down upon me that soon became the warm water from my shower. I had returned to my apartment in Normandy Village in Berkeley, that Christmas of 1977.

  Donovan was sitting on the top of the stairs outside my apartment when later I went out to the grocery store.

  “You’ve been here all this time?” I demanded, incredulous.

  “Yes, and I passed your landlord a twenty to not call the police – only kidding! I’m kidding, Alice.” I brushed past him and he caught my hand. “What more can I do to prove I’m sorry and that I’ll never, ever, hurt you again?”

  My look was made of flint but inside I was melting.

  He lifted my chin to better see my eyes and I looked away at first, but the soulful glance, the softness I held in those eyes…

  “Come back this evening and we’ll talk.”

  I was genuinely surprised when he showed up at six o’clock that night. Thankfully there were no white flowers in his arms – only a bottle of Pellegrino sparkling water.

  “This is my pledge,” he said, handing the bottle to me. “If you will give me the courtesy of a fair hearing, I promise more.”

  “Come in,” I said. The tone was unemotional though my insides were quaking. I was glad to see him, but I wouldn’t let him know it – not yet, at least. I would not be so easily won over.

  He followed me into the living room and stood at the threshold as if waiting, then took a place on the sofa. I could sense that he followed me with his eyes as I came around and sat in the loveseat across from him. Without prompting he leaned forward a little, his forearms on knees and hands clasped together – penitential, if anything.

  “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. I pretended it didn’t matter until I realized how badly I hurt you,” he began. “I would do and say things to get what I wanted because I knew I could, and I knew I could get away with it.”

  That made me look up and I felt ethereal, a sense of joy that almost made my heart burst. Indeed, it was pounding furiously.

  “Until now,” Donovan said softly.

  He was staring me straight in the eyes and neither of us flinched. The eyes were soft and loving and for once not undressing me or taking account of my faults.

  I rose and reached for two wine glasses in the hutch cabinet and brought them back to the coffee table, pouring the sparkling water and watching it fizz and grow still.

  “It’s not wine…” I murmured.

  “The first promise.”

  “And the second?” I asked, smiling.

  He leaned across the table so that our lips were almost touching and whispered, “To take our time, Alice.” And then he moved away, winking.

  It took me by surprise, but it was delightful. I took a sip of the water and set my glass down. “Stay for dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll throw something together – everything goes with water, right?”

  For the first time since our reunion, Donovan threw back his head and laughed – a hearty laugh that seemed forced.

  While I worked quickly in the kitchen to put a dinner together, Donovan explored the living room, calling out approving critiques of my decorating efforts and my choice in art and books.

  “Hey!” he called. “This guy could be my twin!”

  Closing the oven door with my foot, I took off the apron and went in to see what he was talking about. Donovan was holding a framed snapshot of Quinn and me standing in front of Holbrook Library across from the Pacific School of Religion Chapel on Holy Hill.

  “That’s a family friend,” I said as I took the photo out of his hands and replaced it on the shelf where he found it.

  “Friend? Standing pretty close to you for just a friend,” Donovan teased – or so I thought. His smile chilled to brittle.

  “Yes, a gay friend…”

  “…Wait, wait, wait! Back up the truck, Mary!” my brother Dennis was saying as I suddenly slumped down into my chair in the Curiosity Shop, feeling as if I had just fallen out of the sky. “Why on earth did you tell him that?”

  “It was the first thing that popped into my head!” I pleaded, staring first at Dennis, then Joan of Arc, who had gripped the pommel of her sword a little too quickly for my liking, and then Marie Antoinette who stopped in mid-bite, her Danish suspended by a dainty thumb and forefinger. Richard the Third, working on his crossword, muttered, “Wrong answer!”

  “Oh for God’s sake, send her back!” Dennis moaned.

  “Get it right, Alice,” Richard advised, erasing his latest entry on the crossword. “You only get this one chance…”

  “Wait!” I cried, and when I blinked, I was staring up at Donovan, who stared back with a more familiar look: with narrowed, dark eyes and the smirk on his lips.

  “This is the friend you wanted to forget?” he queried.

  “He went to England for college, we broke up during the winter break of his second year at Oxford, and he’s now a cellist with the Royal Philharmonic.”

  Donovan studied my face, perhaps searching for the indication of a love still burning, tears to prove that it wasn’t over – at least in my heart or mind. He glanced at the photo and nodded.

  “Yeah, college will do that. Let’s eat,” he said, smiling.

  Dinner was pleasant; the conversation was mostly about his work at the excavations at Petra and those at a castle in the mountains of Tuscany, peppered by my questions and comments. I noted that he didn’t ask about what my plans were with regard to my work once I received the Ph.D. in History, nor anything else that concerned my life; but he did help with the washing up and we brought our dessert i
nto the living room.

  “Let’s have some music,” Donovan suggested and crouched by the stereo to thumb through my collection of rock n’ roll, classical and medieval records. He found a record and put it on the stereo turntable, waiting until the record started before moving away. He had chosen a suite of medieval chansons and dances by David Munrow’s Early Music Consort. “A lot of Middle Eastern influence in the music, don’t you think?” he queried as we sat and shared a huge slice of chocolate cake.

  “The Crusaders brought the instruments and the music back from the Holy Land,” I commented, feeding him the last of the frosting and some crumbs.

  He now leaned back with his head on pillows of the overstuffed sofa, eyes closed, listening. Suddenly he said, “I can picture you at Petra, the sun on your skin.”

  “Picking the sand out of my teeth and hair,” I jibed and as I had hoped, the overly serious Donovan laughed.

  He turned to look at me; the dark eyes were soft and loving, sensual. “I picture you at sunset, just when it starts to cool – just a bit. The violets and oranges of the last rays, the warmth of the day making you…”

  Donovan didn’t finish the sentence but reached out pushed my hair back, kissing my cheek and my neck, fingers gently sliding down the curve of shoulder inside my blouse to the swell of my breasts.

  “Incandescent?” I murmured between soft kisses.

  “I can see you in the tent, the silk curtains brushing up against your body as the breeze stirs them.”

  “Pillows and carpets, perhaps some incense?”

  “If you want!” he said huskily, adding, “Hold that thought!”

  Donovan slid off the sofa and picked up his coat, walking towards the hallway.

  “You’re going?” I asked, running to catch up.

  “Disappointed?” he asked, winking. Before I could say another word, Donovan lightly bussed my forehead and said, “We take our time, because we have time – right? See you tomorrow night if you don’t have anything else going on.”

  I felt the lightness within me soar as I turned and took my chair at the table in the Curiosity Shop.

  “What has become of our darling Alice?” Marie Antoinette demanded, offering a slice of apple pie. “Before she didn’t want to change the leopard’s spots, and now she can’t wait to jump into bed with him again! Well, Alice Rose?”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be cake?” I quipped.

  “My, my, isn’t Alice clever!” the Proprietress spoke up. “She thinks she has him wrapped around her finger! Be careful he doesn’t cut off your circulation!”

  I was ready to snipe at her, conjuring in my mind some fairly tart language and almost physically impossible things she could do with her stars, her books, her parquetry casks, when the Shop came to a standstill. All heads turned to the door.

  “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met,” said the sloe-eyed, dark haired woman walking slowly towards me. She was not exceptionally beautiful, but her low voice and the way she carried herself made her attractive. I noted the French style of dress and the horseshoe coif of the early sixteenth century, and could not take my eyes from the bandana she wore around her neck. Around that slender neck was the famous pearl choker with the ‘B’ suspended from it.

  Anne Boleyn extended a hand in greeting.

  I took it and was surprised by the strength and warmth. “We meet at last, Alice Martin! Your brother said you’d be here by now,” she said, lifting my chin with her long, bejeweled fingers, studying my face. “Ah yes! You are exceptionally pretty – beautiful, even. Dennis never lies.”

  “Dennis talked to you about me?”

  “What a charming young man and such a talent with needle and thread! He made this dress. What do you think?”

  She took a spin and the rich fabric swirled around her, a stream of scarlet velvet and gold that flashed and burned in the sunlight streaming through the windows.

  “Wait, isn’t that the dress Jane Seymour wore for the Holbein portrait?” I wanted to know.

  “Stupid little cow!” Anne hissed, and started to move away, smoothing the fabric of her skirts carefully.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend!”

  “Not you! The stupid little whey faced whore that got me killed,” Anne grumbled.

  “Please,” I offered a chair. Anne sat down and glanced over at Marie Antoinette, frowning, who pointed at Anne’s neck and said, “Nice touch, the kerchief.”

  “I’m sure you have advice for me, too,” I said to Anne as I opened up the laptop and pressed the power button. “No sooner do I think about someone than they appear and give me advice for the lovelorn – though each of them,” here I shot looks at every man and woman in the Shop, “is living in a glass house – their experience with love is, was, no better than mine! Present company included, Your Grace. So tell me, what jewels of experience can you give me so that I can deal with whatever is next on my itinerary?”

  Anne watched the boot up and nodded. “So much better than pen and ink,” she said. “Just think of the sonnets Thomas might have written for me – Thomas Wyatt?”

  “I know his work.”

  “Mistress Boleyn,” the Proprietress hinted. “It’s not always about you.”

  Anne brightened, turning to face me, her black eyes sparkling. “Ah, advice! I thought I could change Henry and make him love me despite my giving him a daughter…”

  “That daughter was worth ten boys,” I muttered.

  “It truly is impossible for a leopard to change his spots. I could have given him sons but it wouldn’t have mattered; he was tired of me the night after our first union. I’m surprised I lasted three years – are you writing this down?”

  “No, I’m writing a history of the Fourth Crusade, but I am listening.”

  “Horrible subject; and such a scandal! What does one do with Venetians? It was their fault Constantinople was destroyed,” Anne sniffed.

  “Alice knows that – and I don’t think she cares about your opinion on the matter,” Joan coaxed.

  “If - you - please?” Anne snapped back, glaring, and then turned to me and smiled. “Let me be brief: never give away your heart. They’re not worth it! Not a single man.”

  “Mon Dieu! Is that all you have to say?” Joan exclaimed.

  “I could have told you she was going to say that,” Richard the Third muttered.

  “So could I,” I echoed and looked up at the martyred English queen, smiling. “But there is hope.”

  “What?!”

  The exclamation in unison by everyone in the Shop was like a Greek chorus and made me smile. I said brightly, “You see that there is hope, don’t you?”

  “Unbelievable! My, how you’ve changed your tune!” the Proprietress sighed. “Where is the fear and caution?”

  “You told me I had to play it through,” I said. “I’m only doing what I’m told – and hopefully.”

  “Goodness! Look at the time! Alice, I know you’d love to stay and chat, tell us what an evil man Donovan Trist was and how very much you want to try to erase him from your history, but time is short and you must be going,” the Proprietress said. She smirked as I left the Curiosity Shop and walked down the high street to the train station. As usual, the train pulled away as I entered my solitary compartment and settled in.

  “We’re all hoping for the very best, Miss Martin,” the conductor said as we negotiated our usual transaction. “Ah! A ‘D’ ride. Things will be getting interesting – but you already know that. You know where to go for dinner.”

  He left the compartment whistling Jacques Brel’s If You Go Away. Frowning, I opened the door and watched him work his way down the train. The song was in my head for the rest of the journey and when the train whistle blew it was the tea kettle on my kitchen stove, and I was listening to the song on the radio as I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon alone.

  I was fresh from the luxury of a bubble bath, the apartment scented with my trademark scent of Elixir of Love Number 1; I was warm an
d contented. Curled up on the sofa, I had job applications and notebooks scattered around me, my Pomeranian Sammie sleeping on my feet. The rain was a pleasant mantra, white noise to help me write essays extolling my virtues as a doctor of Philosophy in History and all the reasons I should be hired to teach and write at various universities.

  The only university I hadn’t applied to was Brown in Providence, Rhode Island.

  It was going on six o’clock when the doorbell rang. I grabbed my wallet and shushed Sammie as he yapped and slid on the polished wood floors as we went to get the takeaway dinner ordered from China Station.

  “Hi.”

  Donovan raised his hands for supplication and said, “I know we had a date tonight, but I wanted to see you now – couldn’t wait, really. I wanted to hear your laugh and see your lovely eyes.” That took me by surprise. I found that all I could do was smile. He looked miserable and raised his brows questioningly. “I was trying to be romantic…I can go if this isn’t what you want.”

  “Oh, sorry! Please, come out of the rain. I’m sorry – I was expecting cashew chicken, chow mein and broccoli beef – boy, that sounded dumb. Come in, please.”

  Moments later Donovan was warming himself in front of the wall heater in the living room while I hung up his sodden raincoat and umbrella in the bathroom and then just as quickly switched on the coffee maker. “Who knew California could be this cold?” he jested.

  “Just ask Mark Twain!” I called back.

  “Ah yes, the coldest winter he ever spent was July in San Francisco,” Donovan remarked, then, “Waterhouse!”

  “Pardon?”

  “The prints on the wall – John William Waterhouse. And I see you like Edward Coley Burne-Jones, too.”

  He was admiring the prints of Fair Rosamund, Juliet, and Love Among the Ruins, works with medieval themes by my favorite Pre-Raphaelite painters. Fair Rosamund was a medieval damsel looking out a castle window at the column of knights approaching in the distance; Juliet was a profile portrait of a young girl looking very pensive, as if she were hiding a secret – and we all know what secret that was! Love Among the Ruins was Edward Coley Burne-Jones’ masterpiece: two lovers clinging to one another in the ruins of an ancient palace or castle, the colors rich and vibrant. These works hung over the dormant living room fireplace with my own poor offerings in watercolor and ink.