The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd

by Robert Davies

  As I turned to go, she stood in the open a few yards away, and I felt the hair on my neck standing in the shock and wash of adrenaline sudden surprise always brings. It was impossible she could have closed the distance so silently in a tangle of branches and dead leaves, yet she faced me without the slightest sign of fatigue or breathlessness. For a moment there was only the quiet of undisturbed forest and an awkward pause until she spoke.

  “Hello, Mr. Morgan,” she said.

  “Evan,” I replied. “You must be Aline.”

  ALINE walked slowly toward me and her eyes—deep blue like an evening sky—never wavered. Instead, they remained fixed and purposeful as those of a hunter tracking elusive game, and I admired how calm and unaffected she seemed because I was anything but. I wanted to explain, at least to demonstrate a meaning beyond the random encounter of strangers, but my words sounded distant and impersonal for such a moment.

  “Damon passed away suddenly and he left me this property.”

  Aline reached to draw back the hair that framed her face, slowly and without averting her gaze.

  “Yes, I know,” she replied evenly. “I was very sorry to hear it.”

  She moved to within a foot or two, and I wondered if she regarded me with only the mild interest of a new neighbor. A crocheted ivory shawl hung loosely around her shoulders and, unlike our first encounter, she wore ordinary blue jeans and ankle-high boots made of dark brown suede. A sweater in soft garnet material made for a simple but stylish look and nothing like the cloak and bare feet that had moved so effortlessly through the trees the day before. Had the townspeople told her of my intention to stay, at least for a while, as I sorted out what to do?

  “You startled me there, and…”

  “What do you do?” she asked abruptly.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Your profession in America.”

  The interruption was so sudden and I fumbled with my answer.

  “Oh…well, I’m an investigator; I work for an agency that looks into aviation accidents.”

  “It must be unpleasant to find the remains of those poor people in wreckage.”

  I remembered again the debris field in Tennessee and yellow cordon tape secured to the trees warning onlookers away.

  “Sometimes it is, but the things we learn from our work help prevent other accidents.”

  Aline stood beside me shoulder to shoulder as dusk closed in. The light streaking through the trees wandered on angled shafts across her face—delicate and wispy—like the beams of tiny searchlights playing in the curls of her shining hair. She squinted beneath a hand to shade her eyes, and I saw at last the measure of her beauty. Her frame was average for a thirty-five-year-old woman, but its proportions were nearly ideal; neither too much nor too little and a shape that demands and holds attention. Thin, sculpted lips revealed a lovely smile that evaporated the mystery surrounding her, and I tried not to stare at smooth, unblemished skin—those piercing blue eyes. But for all her physical attributes, her manner and gentle style held me as if caught in time.

  Another quiet moment passed, and then she turned to offer her hand. Her palm was noticeably warm and an interesting contradiction to the chill gathering around us.

  “I live beyond the hill there,” she said in a new, softer voice that seemed to signal the ice had been broken without disaster.

  “Yes, I saw it on a map when I first arrived. I hope I haven’t wandered across the property line?”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “You haven’t.”

  “My brother’s solicitor told me you and Damon weren’t exactly the best of friends, so…”

  “Jeremy is a thoughtful man,” she interrupted again, “but I think he may have made things sound worse than they were.”

  “Oh?”

  “Damon could be a bit noisy sometimes, but I liked him and there was no animosity between us.”

  “I’m told he wasn’t here for very long, and it seemed…”

  “Did they warn you?” she asked suddenly. Once more, she shunted aside my words in mid-sentence and with a whisper that seemed distant as if she was thinking out loud. Although surprising, her question wasn’t rude and I found it oddly endearing. I knew by a strange, hidden instinct she hadn’t interrupted me out of impatience or thoughtless indifference.

  “Warn me?”

  She turned and nodded over my shoulder.

  “When you came here, did Jeremy tell you to avoid me?”

  I felt the uneasiness return and with it, a muffled sound growing in my ears like a lonely cat yowling in the distance. I know my face reddened because I could feel it go warm, but her expression was unchanged. The moment seemed to take forever as I searched frantically for an answer, guessing the question was more a test than an honest search for information. Her past had come up in spite of my determination to stay away from halfway houses or mental hospitals.

  “No, not at all,” I said quickly. “Jeremy only mentioned you’re a very private person.”

  “That was all he said?”

  Had she spoken with him, I wondered? Would she gauge my answer against a previous conversation between them? There was no point in pretending otherwise.

  “He mentioned some troubles when you lived in Scotland, but…”

  “Did he explain them to you?”

  The moment was rushing suddenly beyond my grasp but I held on tight so she wouldn’t see the flustered surprise on my face. I had to respond but it felt like tumbling down a slippery, oiled chute toward an obvious trap.

  “Only that you were making a new start after some treatment you received in a hospital. It was none of my business so I didn’t ask further. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, or…”

  “You haven’t offended me, Mr. Morgan.”

  Aline’s tone was steady and calm, and I envied her somehow. It was strange the way she first looked at me without a hint of emotion, and suddenly that changed. She nodded and smiled, looking again toward the hillside.

  “Would you like to walk a while? I can show you ‘round the property, if you have time.”

  Like a life preserver tossed to a drowning man, I grabbed at the offer with both hands.

  “Lead the way.”

  Aline motioned me toward an open spot where barren trees stood like sentinels across the forest floor. No matter where she led, I decided to follow quietly; we were on decent terms to start and that was precisely where I aimed to stay. As we strolled, she moved her arm in a gentle arc, tracing the ridgeline above and to the east.

  “If you follow the hill just there, it goes ‘round to the edge of my field. Beyond, a footpath in the grass leads to my house; I’ll show you.”

  The way was mostly level and sunlight creeping ever lower in the western sky made a bright orange swath across the leaves. I stayed beside her in the easy, unhurried pace people take as they chat on a relaxed stroll. It was delightful, and I felt as if I had been given extra time—a bonus to which I wasn’t otherwise entitled—and I smiled because the encounter wasn’t yet over. I tried not to be noticed but I know Aline caught me stealing glances from the corner of my eye. She didn’t seem to mind.

  Past the rise where I saw her that first day, I stopped and looked uphill toward the big oaks.

  “After Jeremy brought me out the day I arrived, I came here to poke around and noticed you looking down from the trees.”

  She stopped and shaded her eyes from the sunlight once more.

  “Yes.”

  “It was cold that day,” I said, “but I saw you were barefoot.”

  “I like to walk without these shoes sometimes,” she replied. “The way is soft and the leaves hide no dangers.”

  “Weren’t you freezing?”

  “Not here,” she said with a smile.

  I couldn’t know what that meant as she led us deeper into the woods, and after a while she spoke again.

  “Will you investigate air accidents in the UK now?”

  “I’m not authorized, and they ha
ve plenty of very skilled people as it is; I’m just a visitor here.”

  “But you bought things for your house—the things people need when they’re preparing to stay.”

  Had she spoken to the shopkeepers in town, I wondered? Perhaps she mentioned it merely out of curiosity, but the hidden message in her words suggested more than casual interest, and I waited a moment to consider my response carefully.

  “To be honest,” I began, “I wasn’t wild about the idea of coming up here at all. I just wanted to look around and figure out the best way to sell it.”

  “And now?”

  I stood at an invisible gate and one of the momentary pauses when preferences shape and fashion decisions we make that later become “life-changing.” Her question was simple enough, but my answer labored against a wall of consequence. Had I gone too far? Was my growing fondness of the little house and forested hills surrounding it enough to compel so permanent a move? It seems silly describing the moment today as a thoughtful pause—a hold on time itself—when I already knew what I would say.

  “Everything has changed; I don’t need a job anymore, and this is a beautiful place, but I never really thought about staying on permanently.”

  Aline stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her jeans, nodding with an understanding expression as her gaze wandered through the trees. It wasn’t simply to plan her response or prime it through the thin suggestion of indecision. She seemed to know without being told I had no intention of leaving.

  “There are worse places than the hills and valleys of North Wales.”

  I nodded with Washington D.C. in mind and said, “Yes there are.”

  She squinted into the late-day sun, and I wondered again about her past and what brought her to a secluded Denbighshire farm. Aline came down from windswept islands that stand between Scotland and the Arctic, but her name, manner, and dialect were clearly Welsh. Was it too soon to inquire? I remember fumbling in silence, trying to decide, but the question forced its way out.

  “How about you?” I asked. “I understand you were up in Stornoway for a few weeks to transition, but it sounds like you’ve settled here permanently.”

  “That discussion will take more time than we have today, Mr. Morgan.”

  I smiled so she would know I understood, but the signal to leave it alone was obvious. We moved past those first awkward moments, and I wanted to show her I could take a hint. It was also a chance to bridge the conversation elsewhere and to do it gracefully. I wanted Aline to see thoughtful deference; I needed her to know I was more than happy to take things slowly and without expectations. I suppose I had to show her I wasn’t Damon.

  “A topic for another day,” I replied. “Jeremy tells me you have a shop on the coast?”

  “A small clothing store for ladies,” she replied. “We have a jewelry line and lots of swimwear for the beach in summer—those sorts of things.”

  “I’ve never been but they tell me Colwyn Bay is a nice place.”

  “Maybe you should come up with me one day,” she said softly. I heard in her voice something more than a suggestion and it was a welcome sign I hadn’t blundered too badly.

  “I might do just that,” I said with a smile and relief the formalities Jeremy warned about were becoming needless.

  We walked through an opening in the trees where Aline pointed to a wide, grassy field. She told me previous owners had a local farmer plow it only days before she moved in, but there was no explanation why they thought to turn and disc the soil one last time. Now, it’s just grass and patches of weeds, a forgotten field from an earlier time.

  A gentle rise led us to the high side of a long meadow, and beyond, a house not unlike my own waited in the kidney-shaped clearing of a lawn dotted by a handful of dormant fruit trees. A heavy stone wall—ancient and weatherworn—defined the edge of her front yard, and within it carefully placed antique farm equipment rusted in silence atop raised garden beds.

  The conversation while we walked was restrained but the stretches between words seemed natural and welcome. Most would find it impossible to wander around with a stranger and not search for something to say, but Aline was content in our silence until she stopped and regarded me for a moment. I was about to comment on the picturesque sylvan scene and offer a polite nod to the charming image her farm made, but she intercepted the thought.

  “How long since your family moved away?”

  My paternal ancestry was obvious, and predecessors called Morgan may have walked in that very place long before, but her question made me feel lacking when I couldn’t answer with certainty. Had she expected better? I thought of countless souls who made their way across the ocean in search of a better life, clutching worn suitcases and the total of their worldly possessions on the decks of sailing ships in New York harbor. Some of them came from Wales in the final moments of a journey from which many never returned.

  “I know the first ones arrived before the Civil War,” I replied, “so it had to have been in the early or middle 1800s. My grandfather told us about distant cousins who fought at Cold Harbor and Antietam, and I saw their names on a memorial plaque when I was a kid. I think some of them may have been sappers at the Siege of Petersburg, fresh off the boat from collieries in South Wales, and…”

  I stopped suddenly and looked at her. I had rambled on about places that likely meant nothing to her—foreign places where Americans killed each other by the thousand, sometimes in only minutes, to free people they would never meet from bondage. She was patient, letting me drift from the present to a distant past, but I smiled and shook my head to offer an apology or explanation, hoping she hadn’t heard the voice of a clumsy expat.

  “Sorry for the tangent,” I offered.

  I thought she would return an understanding smile and leave it at that. I was sure she had heard the names of faraway places and accepted the importance of their meaning as only my own. Instead, she surprised me again.

  “I remember those battles,” she said. “The towns and farms where your Republic became a nation. A headmaster told the children about it in a history class when I was at school—Gettysburg and Abraham Lincoln—but he didn’t understand it the way you do. None of them understood that time and its terrible cost.”

  There was an odd note of melancholy in her voice and a distant expression that suggested meaning of events beyond an average person’s experience.

  “Are you a student of history?” I asked.

  She smiled again and said, “I am history.”

  I had no idea what her answer meant in that odd moment, but now that I do, the mild embarrassment tugs at my elbow to remind me again how easily secrets can be missed. She looked upward through the trees.

  “It’s getting chilly.”

  I nodded in silence, and she pointed toward her house.

  “I have tea inside, if you’d care for some?”

  There was something different in her expression—something new. It’s difficult to describe without the tactile indicators we notice in sudden, unexpected moments, but the strange sadness I had seen in her face was gone. Instead, she looked on with calmness and warmth that contradicted my impression of her only hours before. Once more, I fumbled badly in the wake of misperception, standing alone in a quiet and foreign place. She was nothing like the image my mind made—suspicious and wary. After a pleasant walk, Aline was signaling her approval at the prospect of a friendship in its earliest moments.

  “Yes, please,” I answered, and she motioned for me to follow.

  ALINE’S HOUSE WAS similar to mine, mostly from the architectural standards in the days when they were first built. Inside I expected a haven of knickknacks and domestic accessories an uninitiated American’s imagination paints as necessary in a quaint Welsh cottage. Instead, it was starkly utilitarian with few decorations, artwork, or personal photos. She had been there far longer than I, but deliberate minimalism was clearly her chosen style.

  Her modest kitchen was warm and welcoming, and I sat at her table
while she prepared a kettle on the smooth glass surface of a contemporary range that seemed out of place. A laptop stood open on the counter beside a toaster I judged to be older than both of us, and above, where copper anodized pots and pans dangled from their hooks attached to a circular wrought iron band that looked like the tread of a wagon wheel. In the air a faint aroma of pine incense lingered, but not so much that recent use was likely. Did she favor it for only the scent, I wondered, or was there a spiritual side she hadn’t shown yet?

  “This is a nice place,” I said, feeling suddenly better about things for the first time since Vienne’s phone message and the news of Damon’s death. Traveling from one crash site to another, I was a faceless government official poking around the wreckage and its terrible human cost—a cold, seemingly indifferent presence at a place of profound tragedy. In Aline’s house, I felt the tension release like a tourniquet around my head mercifully loosened.

  “We can sit in the front when tea’s up.”

  I looked through an archway from her kitchen into the living room, suddenly aware of a beautiful, crackling fire I’d missed when we walked in from her yard. It seemed strange and unlikely, but I didn’t remember her building one or the curls of smoke rising up from her chimney as a signal when we finished our tour. I went toward it, expecting perhaps an artificial gas arrangement ignited with the flip of a wall switch. Instead, it was real, with licking tongues of orange flame through twisted logs. I remember that moment particularly well today, and it might’ve been a clue to a smarter man, but she cut short my thoughts when she asked if I took anything in my tea.