I’m sure my expression was obvious, knowing we were moving in complementary directions. I wanted to believe it was simply a function of alignment—personalities attracted as powerfully as anything physical—but she was inside my head even then, probing and measuring the emotional markers I once believed hidden and safe. We describe those moments in silly hyperbolic phrases that lend legitimacy to the phenomenon of finding another who is just as interested and taken by fancy as we. As I did in that time, we all believe with steadfast assurance there is no such thing as mind reading, but now, I want to find dismissive naysayers and let them see for themselves how wrong those declarations can be.
Later, we walked arm in arm along the West Promenade and watched under a leaden sky as the breakers rolled in on a deserted beach. As we went, there was little conversation, and more than once I wondered if she was tiring of it all—growing weary of me. Sipping tea at a well-disguised café where locals go to avoid the weather seemed to liven her up when she described the comical circumstances by which she’d acquired the space for her boutique. I listened politely, but it was more her manner than the meaning that interested me. She took on a mildly animated tone in precise increments I found surprising, but the process only reaffirmed a sense of belonging and she noticed at last.
“So, what do you think of our shop?” she asked as we returned to her Rover for the drive back home.
“It’s really very nice,” I replied. “I imagine a little busier in July, though?”
“Much,” she said with a smile, turning east along the coast highway for Abergele and a course change where the A55 veers southward. “We run at a faster pace in summer.”
The ride went by in silence for a while as Aline raced blackened clouds I knew would intercept us long before we reached Llangollen. Aline kept her eyes forward, and then she finally spoke.
“Shall we have dinner together?”
The invitation was somehow unsurprising, and I agreed immediately, but then she went silent. I couldn’t work out if it was simply a return to the quiet she seemed to favor instead of the often-forced conversation between people who feel obliged to talk in the car. Aline pulled suddenly into a narrow lay-by where Horseshoe Pass divides two mountains several miles north of Llangollen because, she said, “everyone stops here at some point to enjoy the view.” The orange glow wandering up the slopes from the west at sunset emphasized her point, and we stood squinting against a blustery wind. After we returned to her truck, I thought we would be back on the road, but she turned to me and said, “Did Jeremy tell you what happened to me in Scotland?”
My pause was brief but it was necessary so that the answer wouldn’t appear flippant or unconsidered.
“He told me you were there for treatment but nothing beyond that,” I replied.
She heard the hesitation in my voice but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“He didn’t tell you why?”
“Only that you had some personal difficulties.”
“You weren’t concerned about it?”
“I just…well, now that I’ve gotten to know you better, I guess it makes me wonder why it was necessary in the first place.”
“Why do you wonder?” she asked.
I fumbled in silence, trying desperately to avoid a misstep or blunder on a topic so profoundly personal.
“I don’t know, really. You don’t seem…”
She finished my thought for me.
“Crazy?”
I couldn’t answer. I know she understood my dilemma but the effect was powerful and immediate. I had never been overly sensitive about the word because no one I considered close was treated for a mental disorder. It was sudden and unexpected, but I hated hearing that term when it applied to Aline. The air inside her truck was noticeably cooler, and I must’ve hunched over automatically because she flicked the heater switch and opened the vents to a warming rush from a bland and otherwise featureless dashboard. I wished in silence she hadn’t brought up the subject but once broached, her stay in a psychiatric ward, and the questions I was determined not to ask, was dragged into view.
“I don’t know why you were in that place but Jeremy didn’t say and it’s none of my business anyway.”
“It’s all right, Evan,” she said softly. “I don’t mind talking about it.”
Without direct declarations we were suddenly on a first-name basis, I noticed, but another thought intruded. Was she testing me? Had Aline decided to expose and study my response or gauge the uncomfortable assumptions so many others hold when confronted with the subject of emotional problems? I decided to remain neutral.
“I presumed you’d get to it when and if you were ready; I wasn’t looking for an explanation, Aline.”
She only nodded and I moved quickly to close the awkward topic.
“I’m just glad we came up here today; this was a good idea.”
She smiled again and looked at me. I couldn’t make out if the expression was one of gratitude or if she saw only a naïve and sentimental man wishing to avoid a touchy subject on a lengthy ride home. I remembered worrying about Aline’s hidden past on the phone with Vienne only days earlier, but I did so with prefabricated bias I shouldn’t have held. It didn’t seem to bother Aline, and we continued in the hum of her truck’s tires along a wetted highway as the late-day sun disappeared beneath a shelf of gathering clouds.
It was an important moment, although I was too busy living within it to notice, mostly because it was a time when innocence I carried with me still mattered; when the future was an untouched canvas both inviting and full of promise. No matter her ability to see and understand without words, I went along in my ignorance, expecting at any moment to watch the wreckage of her time in Scotland pour out in an avalanche of tears. She was in no such state and it makes me feel better today knowing she simply waited for me to walk that path on my own. I had to, of course, and Aline knew that truth far better than I.
We spent a pleasant evening together dining and sipping a few pints at a raucous pub she seemed to prefer over others. The lively crowd didn’t bother her and I wondered if Aline’s mysterious past, and demand for solitude, had been oversold. She smiled and chatted with a few of the regulars and it was clear they accepted her as one of their own. If she had come to the valley for a new start, Llangollen was a great place to do it and her plan was obviously working.
FRIENDSHIPS develop and progress along mostly predictable lines, and ours wasn’t meaningfully different. Once made, my decision to stay in Wales seemed more acceptable as the days settled into winter and I began to feel the comfort of permanence. In town I met and enjoyed the company of others, many due to introductions by Jeremy, but the faces became familiar so that first names were common. In the shops they called me Evan instead of “Mr. Morgan” and I found the distinction delightful.
On the far side of our hill, Aline was different, too; almost three months beyond our first encounter, the impressions formed in my mind during those earliest moments were fading. In precise and careful increments, even the invisible border surrounding secrets of her past began to fall as she came to regard me less and less as an object to be kept at a distance. On our walks through the trees, now a regular practice despite the worsening weather, her backstory began to emerge. I discovered she was an only child, born in Cardiff. Her mom and dad were college professors—math and geology, respectively—but her father’s considerable experience with the influence of loading on subsurface rock was in demand. I spent an hour on the internet trying to figure out what that meant in layman’s terms and it translated into gobs of consultancy fees when bridge builders called for his expertise.
After he took a job as a geotechnical analyst for a London-based firm, some of Aline’s formative years were spent on the move as her dad’s survey work obliged frequent relocations. She allowed only glimpses at details of her childhood in those first talks, and I wondered if that was a product of her difficulties in Scotland or if something worse happened she simply w
ished to avoid in conversation. Instead, hers was a happy, if slightly unorthodox, upbringing.
Visits with her parents had become biannual events at best since they moved away in 2005 to begin their retirement by exchanging land-bound property for a thirty-meter yawl. They tried life in Bermuda for a few years, she explained, but hurricanes that threaten sailboats like theirs, plus the necessary borders of an island overrun by tourists, demanded a change. Now, they keep a slip at a marina in Trieste as their home base on the northern shore of the Adriatic, not far from Venice. When I asked why they chose Trieste, Aline smiled and told me her mom and dad spent their honeymoon in a villa overlooking nearby Gorizia.
I remember she paused suddenly as though the history of her family should not have been revealed. It was an awkward moment as we stood out a drizzle beneath an overhang at her back door, and I worried the pace of getting to know one another might have exceeded its limits, at least in Aline’s mind. It wasn’t surprising but she asked about my parents and I told her Vienne and I don’t see our extended family as much as we once did. Of course, she wondered why and I explained the sudden and tragic deaths of our parents when they were on holiday in Europe.
It was an honest and understandable question, but I think Aline felt worse about asking than I did by explaining the accident that took them when a German passenger train they were riding collided with another at speed outside the station in Rüsselsheim. Her expression changed just a little, enough to see evidence of her empathy and warmth that contradicted my early perceptions of an aloof, difficult hermit with emotional scars.
Contact with her relatives remained an unknown and she never spoke in those first days of aunts, uncles, or cousins. The distance from family made me wonder if Aline’s solitude was an unavoidable product or a deliberate choice? I could only determine she was alone and had been for years, but that truth also suggested the Christmas season might be an unwelcome annual misery. In the quiet of that moment, I thought again of Damon and Vienne.
Jeremy called a few days later to catch up, excited at the prospect of his boys arriving with their own families for a holiday visit. He sounded like the grandfatherly ideal, doting on his children’s children at every opportunity, and I smiled at the picture his description made. I wondered if he would ask and it wasn’t a surprise when he brought up my plans for the upcoming season as my own path—and another fork in the road—still loomed.
Vienne expected me in Montreal through New Year’s Day, but I think she extended the invitation from a mistaken belief I needed rescue from solitude and the remote hills of North Wales. I made up the excuse an electrician was due to inspect my circuit breakers a few days after Christmas, obliging me to fly back early. Knowing the tedious society parties Vienne would force me to attend in one or two of Montreal’s elite havens made my decision for a shortened stay all the more attractive.
I did a decent job of ignoring the impending trip until Vienne’s e-mail reminded me parking at Trudeau Airport wasn’t the best option because of ongoing construction, forcing her to wait at the curb as I cleared Customs and baggage claim on my own. Suddenly, I just wanted it to be over. A genie, released from its bottle and ready to grant any wish, would laugh at my request to transport me forward in time and any day would do so long as it was in January. I’m certain no amount of prodding would have made me admit it then, but my hesitation was built mostly on a hope (or need) to stay close and within easy reach of Aline’s house.
THE CHRISTMAS RUSH was accelerating and I wondered how Aline kept it or if she bothered at all. Aside from small bunches of mistletoe that seemed to be in every room, there was scant evidence of Yuletide trappings in her house and she hadn’t made any special mention of the season. Of course, I missed the Celtic significance of the plant entirely, but I couldn’t help wondering and it stung to think of her enduring Christmas alone. I took the opportunity to investigate during one of the now-regular Friday morning breakfast dates with Jeremy.
“Just out of curiosity, does Aline usually stay in town over Christmas, or does she go to visit relatives somewhere?”
“Has she said something to you about it?” he asked warily.
“She hasn’t,” I answered, “but knowing about her folks’ distance and being an only child, I just wondered how it goes for her this time of year.”
He waited a moment, likely gathering his thoughts before speaking, and I thought for a moment I’d asked the wrong question until he continued.
“It’s obvious you and Aline are getting on rather well.”
“No problems so far,” I answered. “She’s quiet but actually very nice and not at all what I expected.”
“There, you see?” he said. “All that was needed was a bit of time for her to get used to things.”
I said nothing about my Swedish adventure and he continued.
“She goes up to Colwyn to celebrate the season with her shop manager’s family; Margaret’s mum and dad live close by.”
“Ah. Well, that’s good to know, and at least I won’t feel weird about bringing it up next time I see her.”
He waited again, and I know he was hoping I’d elaborate, but when I didn’t, Jeremy went on.
“At the risk of sounding like an old hen with nothing better to do, they tell me you and Aline have been spending a lot of time together.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“In the shops—they notice things like that, especially in small towns.”
“Gossip is a way of life all over the world, apparently.”
“They don’t mean anything ill by it, Evan; it’s just that Aline hasn’t kept company with a gentleman caller since she’s been down from Scotland; they would like to see things running normal for her again, that’s all.”
I laughed out loud at the notion and said, “I’ll take that as encouragement.”
“And you should,” he replied. “Aline may be a different sort, reserved and sometimes at a bit of a distance, but she’s still just a girl. She fancies you, and that’s a very good sign.”
I thought of a hospital psychiatric ward and how it must’ve been for her.
“She hasn’t knocked me down and stomped on my head, so…”
“I had my doubts, to be honest,” he continued. “When they called to tell us you were coming up from London, we worried she might take it badly, but you’ve gotten through and much further than any others.”
We chatted a while longer, agreeing to meet the following Monday for tea. It was always nice spending time with Jeremy and yapping about sports or politics, but it was his place as both an anchor and social compass in a new community I valued most. Hearing my friendship with Aline drew attention in town was hardly surprising, but it forced me to confront my growing interest in her and the truth it was no longer a matter of simple acquaintance. I found something different in her company and a quality that went far beyond animal magnetism. It felt good to know she might have reached a similar conclusion.
Near dusk, I called Aline for the outward reason of telling her I would be leaving for Canada soon but mostly it was a need to hear her voice again. She reacted mildly to the news and I felt a bit cheated when she seemed not to care at all. Instead of disappointment, knowing I would be gone for the Christmas week, she was more interested in learning about Vienne—what she did and where she lived. It was clear Damon hadn’t spent much time telling her about Vienne or me, and it seemed strange when she probed for more, ignoring the itinerary details in favor of my big sister’s history, but I told her the story.
Vienne studied veterinary medicine at Colorado State, but after our parents died, she left school in the middle of her junior year when a former classmate offered her a city job in Van Nuys as a coordinator in the fashion industry. She made the shift and moved to California, aiming young models dutifully toward their dreams of fame and public adoration, only because she had a knack for the work (and an appreciation of the salary it brought).
A better offer came her way from Québec, bu
t the luster wore off quickly for the simple reason, she insisted, the runways of Montreal were not wildly different from those in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, or London. She was in no particular hurry but there was little doubt my sister had decided to revive and complete her veterinary studies, and our sudden financial windfall would eventually shorten her stay in Montreal. When Vienne hinted at the prospect, I didn’t pay much attention because a future move didn’t carry immediate obligations, but Aline found it interesting.
I went to visit at the boutique, but our time was spent mostly on ordinary topics and adjustments Margaret was making to seasonal decorations and displays. Aline’s house remained as it was and I wondered again if Christmas held a negative meaning for her. There was no evidence she carried hostile, atheist dislike for religious holidays, yet it seemed an afterthought or something she went along with in polite ambivalence the way people genuflect on cue at Catholic weddings in deference to traditions practiced by others.
I wanted to ask but it was bad timing, and there were moments in the quiet of her kitchen she seemed to drift away, distant and startled suddenly when I called her name. The glaring absence of conversation I once found unsettling had become routine and she was content for us only to sit and enjoy one another’s company without a word. It might seem odd to others, I suppose, but we didn’t always need words to fill the spaces and silence. After a while, it became our way and that was good enough for me.
For most of those hours I worked hard to complete the transition from my old life to the new. There would be no finish line through which I could surge or celebrate, and I understood the unpredictable nature of my place and condition demanded a week-to-week plan at best. I had no job or purpose beyond assimilation into a rural Welsh setting, and for the first time in a very long time I felt useless, with nothing better to do than exist.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 9
