It was supposed to run only as a formality—a dutiful inspection tour for the sole purpose of warding off Vienne’s disappointment by proclaiming the mission complete and unworthy of further effort. Having done so, I would be free and clear of the obligation and off for a late plane back to D.C., yet something held me in time and by a silent hand. I wondered in that moment if ownership of the farm was a compelling enough experience to withdraw my complaint and stick around. I could feel them coming on loud and clear—the justifications and rationalized arguments making the little house into more than a real estate transaction. Whether I liked it or not, my new place was beginning to feel like a home.
Jeremy’s cell phone blared out a “Rule, Britannia!” ringtone with a confirmation from his assistant my rental car had been delivered and photocopies of my driving license and passport were sufficient. We walked a while on the overgrown weed field that once was Damon’s front lawn. Jeremy insisted “a good going over with a sharpened mower would set it right in the spring,” but I wasn’t as confident.
At last, and with the keys safely in my coat pocket, we returned to town and one of the lengthy signature sessions I’d thought I left behind at Fields-Donnelley’s law office in London. The deed was duly transferred and insurance certificates updated. My scrawl at the bottom of service contracts for utilities shifted responsibility from Damon to me. After a handful of ancillary arrangements, I shoehorned myself into a blue Vauxhall Astra that might fit easily in the bed of my F250 back in Virginia. Armed with Jeremy’s roadmap and determined to adjust once more to driving in a passenger’s seat, I went painfully slowly over the distance back to the little house in the valley.
THE AIR WAS quiet when I stood again on the gravel of my driveway, and it seemed like a good time to check in with Vienne. She told me a platoon of workmen had finished clearing out some repair tasks before she arrived from her hotel, but it felt strange and sad looking at boxes in Damon’s guest room and the pieces of his relationship with Isolda that would be returned to her as an afterthought from strangers. I told her about Damon’s time at the farm and his abrupt departure. I told her about “the neighbor girl,” too, mostly because Jeremy’s description didn’t square with the previous owners’ apparent belief she was still off in the head.
I walked with mild curiosity through the weeds angling for a depression that defined an informal line between my backyard and a wooded expanse rising up a hillside where the big trees stood like monuments. Beneath them, twisted growth appeared here or there across a thick carpet of brown leaves, and I smiled at the stark contrast between the place and my antiseptic, big-city condominium.
A solitary pair of ravens weaved their way gently through a stand of young birch, and I watched them for a while. They spun in a graceful arc to perch in a tangle of branches, but as they did, my eyes were drawn at once to something near the ground—obvious and impossible to miss. It was the first time I ever saw her and the moment still brings a tingle up my spine when I recall it today.
Amid the shades of brown and black through the branches of trees—barren and cold under a clouded, autumn sky—Aline Lloyd looked straight at me, unmoving and clearly unmoved. Her hair, long and blonde with columns of gentle curls, flared out against the gloom like a pyramid of gold in a black-and-white movie. Her eyes were barely visible in the fading light, but still she stood fast in a dark purple cloak that seemed too flimsy for the cool air.
Without thinking I waved in a half-hearted gesture that was more reflex than consideration, simply to break the awkward pause and let her know I was looking, too. Suddenly, and without a word, she turned and moved slowly up the hill, wandering gently through the ancient oaks. Even from that distance I could see she was barefoot, but it didn’t seem to bother her. After a moment, she stopped and turned one last time before disappearing into the trees.
I stood for a while in silence with an expectation she would show again, but I abandoned the idea with Jeremy’s words echoing in my mind: “She keeps herself to herself.” At least, I thought with a smile, the mysterious girl from the farm next door came over the hill to have a look. A good sign, I wondered, or was she merely sizing me up for battle? He said Aline could be hard to get along with, but I was in no hurry to find out. Perhaps she just needed to look and listen, and I decided it was best to avoid the trees for a while.
At the back door to my garage, I stopped to inspect an iron mud scraper set into a crude concrete square beside the stone walkway. Surface rust and the absence of dirt around it suggested it hadn’t been used much, but as I reached for the door, I could feel the sensation wash over me—singular and unmistakable. As if held by a memory brought back from a dream, I knew she was still watching. I spun quickly but nothing was there; no one was watching. My heart raced and both hands trembled at my side. A cat’s tail puffs up and its back hunches under the same pressure, but it was only imagination taking me away.
“Goddamn jitters,” I mumbled aloud to no one.
I stayed a while longer, knowing the farm had never been Damon’s home. Was it becoming mine? I spent a last night at the Royal, and ordinary household items would be my target the following morning. Despite my resolve to guard against it, the process of acclimating was already underway.
A SHORT CIRCUIT around the narrow triangle made by my little farmhouse, Llangollen and Wrexham made for an interesting adventure in domestic shopping. I wandered through a Sainsbury’s supermarket and smiled at both the familiar and utterly alien European branding, mostly grateful marketing philosophies aren’t so different from ours in America. I filled my “carriage” with plenty of options to maximize my chances of avoiding death by starvation; dining at a London hotel is one thing, but working my way through a Welsh kitchen to create even a rough estimate of breakfast is quite another. Grinning involuntarily at the evidence of my shifting sense of place, I stepped slowly through the shops in a quest for items I buy at home without a thought. It was slow going, but I was at least slightly prepared for what was becoming a long-term proposition.
In town, I expected them to stare and whisper behind flattened hands, but the clerks and shop owners of Llangollen seemed not to notice. A few wondered why an American would come so far up for a Welsh “holiday” since the summer crowds and tour groups were gone. I guess they were typical of small-town people in a lot of places: courteous and genuine by force of their nature. There is a requirement among villagers the world over to look after neighbors and help when they should because they are their own best support mechanism; it’s been that way for thousands of years and nothing’s changing it now. I looked at them with envy and a growing sense of distance from the big city I’d left only days before. In the faces of those villagers was a reflection and measure of home, and I wondered for the first time in a long time what lured me out from my own little town so long ago.
When evening fell, my house was still alien the way all new places are, but the night passed easily and I woke only once to gleaming moonlight streaking in through the bedroom window like a silent and reassuring signal everything would work itself out in time.
AFTER BREAKFAST I was ready to renew my inspection tour. Out-of-date magazines with ads about travel to exotic destinations were fanned out like playing cards on a coffee table in my front room, and it made me wonder who had left them. Damon wouldn’t have considered such a detail, which left his decorators as the most likely source.
When I stepped slowly across the yard still enveloped in a clinging fog, only the birds, awake and calling out from the hillside beyond, broke the quiet. An occasional car up on the road passed slowly through poor visibility, and I looked at their headlight beams with memories of the pilot in Tennessee who died so violently. I thought about other things, too; the path I followed to a quiet, Welsh farm seemed somehow more than a long road trip and an unwanted administrative burden. There was plenty of time to decide, but I could sense the answer to a question had already been made: I had less interest in leaving after all and changes would
follow. Unsure of myself and what I wanted, I decided to give it another week.
ON THE FIFTH day, my inheritance was shifting from an impersonal real estate opportunity to a place that looked more familiar each time I returned from town. I was getting pretty good at right-side driving, too, although the habit of reaching for the shifter with my left hand was more difficult to acquire and getting honked at for wrong-way incursions became embarrassingly routine.
As I poured coffee, my phone vibrated on the tile counter; Vienne was waiting at Barajas Airport north of Madrid before her flight to New York and a connector to Montreal. I listened as she spoke, but her experience at Damon’s apartment described a much different process than my first week in Denbighshire.
“Are you still in the UK?” she asked.
“Standing in my little country kitchen; I just conquered the new coffee machine.”
“Wow! Are you moving in, or what?”
“I’m not sure yet. The place was already furnished so I didn’t have much to buy, but it’s very livable while I figure out what I’m going to do with it.”
“Is it nice, or all messed up like Damon’s apartment?”
“Very nice, actually,” I replied. “It’s still a little weird, and it felt like I was house-sitting for him when I first got here, but I’m getting more comfortable each day.”
Vienne’s surprise was understandable but it brought a note of relief. She made no secret of her hope I would retain ownership of the property instead of selling it off, at least for a while.
“How’d it go with Damon’s lawyer?” she asked.
“He had everything ready and waiting,” I replied. “Are you finished in Spain?”
When she told me of the awkward moments when Isolda collected her things, I listened and nodded at the image in my mind as she walked through Damon’s empty apartment. Vienne hadn’t made up her mind any faster than I, but the similar condition suddenly held little importance to me. I walked in a nervous circle as she described how precise and neat the painters had been, but she went on for a while and the words became irrelevant, as if I was in a hurry and she’d called to tell me the price of gasoline went up or a friend I never met had become engaged; no matter the subject, I had little interest in hearing about it.
The paperwork was forwarded from Fields-Donnelley to the authorities in Malaga, she said; there was nothing else to do except make her choice to keep it or sell. I nodded impatiently as I moved on a looping circuit around my house, wishing silently she would hang up. Just to break the routine, I detoured instead through my front room, stopping to peer out from a window and up the gentle rise where my driveway meets the road. I had no particular reason to look, but somehow, I needed to. It wasn’t surprising when I saw a sand-colored Land Rover idling at my gate. Pale sunlight glaring against the driver’s window prevented a decent view inside, yet I knew who was at the wheel just the same.
I knelt on a couch positioned near the window while bracing myself to get a better look. At once, the Rover turned and trundled up the road, and it made me smile with a satisfied nod. It took a few moments before I was able to beg off successfully from Vienne’s call, and as the circuit went dead, I tapped in Jeremy’s number. When he answered I was still watching the gate.
“Good morning, Evan,” he began. “All settled?”
“It’s getting there, but I’m looking at a mountain of work in the springtime.”
He chuckled and said, “I know the lads who tidied up for Damon if you’d like their number?”
“Thanks; for the moment I’ll leave nature alone.”
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“It’s nothing important but didn’t you say Aline Lloyd drives an old Land Rover?”
“Yes, that’s right. She bought it at a military auction as I recall. Why?”
“What color is it just out of curiosity?”
“Lightish shade of tan. The Marines had them painted up in trop camouflage for desert operations in Iraq. See her on the road, did you?”
“Sort of,” I replied. “She stopped at the end of my driveway just now—sat there for a few minutes until I looked out through the window.”
“You’ve gotten her attention; that’s clear enough.”
“I hope I haven’t pissed her off.”
“Oh, she was bound to have a look at some point. I’d let her make contact first, Evan; the others went ‘round to introduce themselves but that’s not the way with Aline.”
It seemed odd and a bit gossipy to mention my earlier “sighting” in the glen, but I worried the little wave toward her may have been enough to leave a bad impression.
“Damon included?”
“I think so, yeah,” he replied. “Your brother was a very…positive sort of gent and I believe he regarded others likewise.”
“He could rub feathers the wrong way sometimes but he didn’t mean to.”
“Possibly,” Jeremy replied, “Aline thought of him as a bit of a wet puppy, so it follows she has concerns, especially as you’re his brother.”
“She knows who I am?”
“It’s not surprising, really. I know she asked after you in the shops the day you arrived, and it is a very small community after all.”
“I’m the new kid on the block, so I’ll keep my mouth shut and stay on this side of the hill.”
“Watch,” he said. “She’ll show again soon enough and probably with a few questions of her own.”
“Thanks, Jeremy; that’s all I needed.”
“No problem, Evan. Cheers.”
My new neighbor’s interest was obvious, but not as clear was her goal. Vienne said it was terrible of me to say but I felt uneasy at the prospect of a mental patient lurking on the edges of my property. In simple terms, I wondered what the hell she wanted. “Treat her like any other,” Jeremy had cautioned, but that’s not so easily accomplished if she isn’t like any other.
It seemed useless to worry about it, and I resumed my slow property walks, establishing from Jeremy’s map the neighboring property line I was determined not to violate. Damon’s investment was a rough, dogleg parcel matching the contours of our road on the western side and those of the hill separating it from Aline Lloyd’s farm to the east. It was getting late in the day, but splendid sun breaks made for a nice stroll through the trees when I decided to aim downhill toward the southeastern corner and the limits of my modest domain.
The ground levels for a while with space between the groves where sunlight splashed across gathered leaves and twigs. I moved through them, dry and rustling with each plow of my boot, uncaring for the noise that echoed beyond. I remember being charmed at the notion of becoming a gentleman farmer until I saw in tangible terms what the process would demand. Taking out the underbrush alone would consume a summer, I reckoned, and that meant time I didn’t want to spend. It wasn’t long before my fanciful idea died out under the weight of cold reality, and standing on a decent-sized plot of land that was suddenly mine brought a strange calming effect I couldn’t help but notice. I bathed in it for a while until the daydream changed abruptly when I could hear the thump of my own heartbeat.
There was no reason or cause; I was at peace, alone and content in that solitude. I didn’t know why—not back then—but I turned left slowly and looked at a precise spot halfway up the hillside. Of course, she was there, motionless and watching me through the trees. She hadn’t made a sound and my line of sight was focused in the opposite direction, but somehow, I knew just where to look.
There is an interesting effect that happens in the ocean when predators hunt the shallow waters of a reef. Sea animals make noise—clicks and pops, squeaks and gurgles—and it is unexpected if you’ve never heard it. I marveled at a sound, shouting out the power of life, while snorkeling ten feet deep along a cliff of coral in the tidal channels of Takaroa when suddenly the water around me changed and went quiet when a sleek, gray shark moved through, perhaps compelling the subordinate creatures to silence (and survival). In
the sunlight that poured on an angle through the trees, I felt like that as I stood perfectly still, looking only at her. Was I predator or prey?
I decided to offer a test, an unexpected action that might provoke an interesting response. Instead of a shout or another idiotic wave, I knelt down in the leaves and leaned over a bit to prop myself up with an outstretched arm as one might in the park on a summer afternoon. Would she return a gesture of her own, I wondered, or move down the hillside at the very least? Instead, she did nothing. A test returned in a silent war of wills? It was childish, but I wanted to see how far she would go. Could she be spooked if I called the bluff?
I looked away, only for a second, and when I turned back she was gone. But as I grinned with a self-satisfied chuckle, a sudden, sharp noise like rocks being clapped together in a slow, deliberate cadence pulled me to my feet when I realized it came from the direction of my house. Without a thought, I sprinted across even ground and the spaces between trees, dodging them like a football player on a straight line for the opening to my weed-covered backyard. I could hear the clacking sound increase in its frequency, as though reacting to my pounding feet. Suddenly the direction changed, echoing down from the north through trees to my right. As I drew nearer, and the roof of my house came into view, the air went suddenly and deathly still.
I paused where the ground levels off to catch my breath beside the remains of an old, fallen tree rotting on its side among the ferns. The odd sounds seemed frantic and hurried to draw attention but were now only a slight rustle in the leaves as a soft breeze wandered through. I breathed with relief those strange noises had not been made by uninvited visitors at my house. By habit, or maybe instinct, my eyes wandered from left to right looking for something—anything—to account for the sounds. Only the oaks, still holding their brown leaves tightly, looked back at me. The answer would stay hidden, it would seem, but I decided to move up the hill on my next foray to look around and find the source. A mystery to be solved, I thought to myself, but only for the moment.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 4
