Alex was propelled in the direction of the house, and she had no doubts what to do or say. She sank down onto her knees and held out her arms.
“Mark,” she said, fighting the urge to cry. “My beautiful Mark! Look at you, such a big, strong boy.” Her son hung back, but at a gentle shove from Simon moved towards her. So solid, so real, and with that scent so uniquely his own still clinging to his hair… She had to force herself to let him go before she crushed him, feeling the little body stiffen in her hold. She sat back on her heels and took his hands. “I’ve missed you so much, and I’ve tried to imagine what you would look like. And I was right; you look just like your father.”
She hid a smile at how Mark stretched when she said that. Clearly the boy had been told a lot about his father, at least to judge from how he was staring at Matthew. It was almost risible; her son and her husband stared at each other out of the exact same eyes, identical smiles appeared on their faces. Talk about dominant genes, she grinned.
“Son,” Matthew said, hunching down to Mark’s level. “Come here.” He opened his arms and Mark threw himself into them, bursting into tears.
“Alex.” Joan’s voice had an urgent edge to it and Alex tore herself away from watching son and father. “There’s someone else you must see.” Joan took Alex by the hand and lead her into the house.
“Someone else?” Alex bunched up her skirts to follow Joan up the staircase, a vague premonition in her gut. The jeans!
“Simon found him,” Joan said, “two weeks come Sunday. He was all alone in the woods, crying.”
“Who?”
“Here,” Joan said, opening the door that stood ajar at the end of the landing.
*
“I can’t believe it!” Alex clasped her hands together and looked at Matthew as if he could somehow sort this mess. He gave a helpless shrug.
“I mean, Isaac! Here!” Alex resumed her restless pacing up and down their bedroom. “How Matthew? How the hell can he be here?”
Matthew winced at her language, but she didn’t care. She was being torn into atoms by this. Two sons, two boys who had lost their mother, and both of them reunited with her on the same day.
“Joan said how the laddie says he fell through a wee painting.” Matthew looked ill just saying it.
Alex groaned, tugged at her hair. Bloody impossible! And fuck you, Mercedes, for painting these damn time portals. Matthew made a grab for her as she walked by and pulled her down to sit on the bed, one arm keeping her still.
“It’ll be fine, we’ll make it fine.”
Alex relaxed against him. “He actually recognised me, but that’s because he’s seen so many pictures of me.”
Isaac had sat up with a little shriek when Alex entered the room.
“And all he’s heard is that I’m gone, so when he saw me he supposed that meant that he was gone as well, and he didn’t want to die.” Alex mouth stretched into a brief smile. “I still suspect he thinks he’s dead, and he isn’t that impressed by heaven so far. But it is, isn’t it,” she went on, resting her head against Matthew. “This is a slice of heaven, right?”
He had opened the small window wide on the warm evening, and the room was full of the heady scents of early summer, a rich top note to the underlying familiar smells of stone, wood and linen.
“Aye, it is.” He slid off the bed to kneel before her, took her hand and raised it to kiss her palm. “Thank you; I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for you.”
She didn’t know what to say, not quite able to meet the naked look in his eyes. Her hand cupped his cheek for an instant.
“I did it mostly for me,” she whispered.
“For us, for him,” he whispered back, nodding in the direction of their son.
“No.” She wound her arms round his neck, pulled him close enough to kiss him. “I did it for me; I’d have died without you.” The smile that spread over his face made little fireworks explode throughout her body.
She shifted her gaze to the trundle bed where Mark was fast asleep, thrown on his back. Not once during the day had he let go of his father, and Matthew had agreed to let him sleep with them this once, overruling Joan’s objections.
“He knew you,” Alex said, “he didn’t know me.” It hurt; not as much as she had feared it would, but still it knifed her to see the way Mark automatically turned to Joan, not to her.
“Nay, he didn’t know me,” Matthew answered with a slight twist to his lips. “He’s just a wee laddie come face to face with his hero. Like you said; small lads dream of tall men that have lived through adventures. I fear Simon has been telling him a wee bit too much about me.”
Rachel fed and tucked into her basket, Alex turned towards her husband.
“I’m just going to check on Isaac, I’ll be right back.”
“Aye, or I’ll come and find you.”
She stuck her tongue out and darted off.
The door to the nursery squeaked when she eased it open. In the bed her son from the future was sleeping all alone now that Mark was in with them. He had been crying, the lashes sticky with wet saltiness, and she caressed his cheek softly, not wanting to wake him. He sighed in his sleep and tried to turn over, his brow pulling together in a frown when his splinted leg protested.
She looked down at the sleeping boy, fingers hovering millimetres from his skin. How old was he? Alex counted years in her head and concluded he was seven, going on eight, slight where Mark was sturdy, with a pretty, almost feminine, face, saved by two straight, dark brows. His hair was cut short, bristling like hedgehog spines across his scalp, and in his sleep his mouth had fallen open, a trail of wet trickling out of the corner of his mouth.
She sharpened her gaze, scanning his features for any resemblance to his biological father. It was there, alright, in everything from the shape of his brows and mouth to the nose. But mostly he reminded her of Don Benito – and perhaps of Mercedes. There was nothing of herself in the sleeping child; not in colouring or in features. Alex brushed her lips against his brow, tucked the quilt closer round him, and returned to her room and her waiting man.
*
Next day, Alex succeeded in getting Isaac to tell her what had happened. At first he refused to talk about it, but bit by bit Alex got it out of him, listening to his description of how he’d fallen and fallen before landing with a thump. He looked very pale as he recounted this, and Alex suspected it hadn’t been quite that simple, but chose not to push.
“Explain a bit more about the painting,” she said instead.
“I like being in Mercedes’ studio. Offa says I can paint as much as I like there.”
“You paint? Wow! Can you draw as well?”
Isaac made a depreciating gesture. “I like colours.”
He’d been digging through the cupboards for a new tube of green paint, and right at the back he’d found the little painting, stuck between the shelf and the wall. He’d tugged it loose, attracted by the brightness of the colours and how it – he threw her a worried look – well, how it sang, sort of.
“And I could see you,” he said in a surprised voice. “I saw you there, at the end of the tunnel.”
Alex chewed at the inside of her cheek. So it was true; Mercedes’ swirling pictures were backdoors into other times. It made her feel faint, cold sweat breaking out all over her body. Her mother a witch, some sort of repetitive time traveller… She banged a mental door on these thoughts and concentrated on her son instead. Among her belongings still rested the little picture destined for Sir William, and maybe he could go back the same way he came – if he wanted to.
“Would you like to go back?” Congratulations, Alex Graham; first prize for the most stupid question ever. Isaac gave her an astounded look. Go back? Did she think he could? Yes, oh yes, he so wanted to go back, he missed Daddy and Diane and Offa and even the twins.
“The twins?”
“My baby sisters,” Isaac said, “Olivia and Alice.”
“Ah,” Alex said, inundated by a wav
e of jealousy. “Diane’s twins?” With her John? Well, okay; not her John, not anymore, but still…
Isaac just nodded, looking rather irritated at this interruption to his litany of how much he hated it here.
“Hate it here?”
Isaac waved his hand at his surroundings. No TV, no computer, and look at the bed… The window was small, and someone had taken his jeans and put him in a long white dress and everyone smelled.
“Even you, although not as much as the others.” He went on to tell her that he hated the food – breakfast was alright, but dinner was awful, and why were there never any tomatoes?
“And I haven’t brushed my teeth once,” he finished, sneaking her a look.
“Hmm, well, we can’t have that, can we?” Alex sniffed at her sleeve. As far as she could make out, she didn’t smell – she was wearing a clean shift. “Have you been stuck up here all the time?” she asked, intercepting a longing glance towards the window.
Isaac nodded unhappily. “She – Aunt Joan – says I mustn’t move.”
“You can still sit outside, and I’m sure Samuel can make you some crutches or something. The problem is going to be to find you some clothes.” The jeans lay folded on a chair, but firstly they wouldn’t fit over the bandaged leg, and secondly Alex had no intention of letting him wear them. “You’ll just have to sit around in your shirt I suppose.”
“But…” Isaac blushed. “I…I don’t have any underwear on!”
Alex laughed. “Welcome to the club, mister. And let me let you in on a secret – no one does.”
*
Matthew carried Isaac outside and helped him sit on a stool by the kitchen door, his left leg extended awkwardly in front of him. Isaac regarded him curiously; this was the man his mother was married to, and that made him some kind of relation to him as well. Matthew’s long mouth curled upwards.
“Will you be alright then?”
Isaac nodded. Grownups were more or less the same everywhere, and he could see that Matthew was in a hurry to be off.
“Your mother will be down shortly, and if your wee brother comes asking for me, tell him I’m with the horses, aye?”
“Brother?” Isaac blinked in bewilderment.
“Mark,” Matthew clarified and strode off.
Isaac sat looking after him, tasting this new word – brother. He didn’t like it; not at all did he like it, and when Mark did rush by he pretended to sleep, studying Mama’s new son from under his lashes.
All that morning, Isaac sat on his stool, resting his back against the warm stone of the wall behind him. He saw Matthew walk this way and that, with Mark a scampering shadow at his heels, and just watching them together made his insides clench with longing for Dad. He sighed; if only he hadn’t… His eyes filled with tears and he sobbed, feeling excluded from this strange existence that went on around him. He didn’t want to stay here, and he threw an angry look at his leg. Once he could walk, he’d run away, it couldn’t be that far to Edinburgh, and at least he’d be home, in a city he knew. And he would wear his jeans, not this stupid, flapping shirt. He heard steps behind him and wiped his face, using the wide sleeve as a handkerchief.
*
Alex had been standing in the shade for some time watching him, this tangible reminder of a life she’d made such huge efforts to forget as much as possible. Her heart went out to him when she realised he was crying, a small boy in an oversized shirt that hid his face in the sleeve when she approached him.
“Hi,” Alex said, sitting down on the grass beside him. She swung Rachel into her lap and undid her lacings. Isaac stared at her uncovered breast.
“Is that how she eats?”
Alex nodded, cupping her daughter’s head. “Until she’s about one or so. She gets the odd biscuit mashed with milk as well, or carrots.”
“Did I?” Isaac looked disgusted at the thought.
No, she thought, you didn’t, because I couldn’t bear the weight of you in my arms, and just the thought of having you at my breast filled me with panic.
“You didn’t like it,” Alex lied, and saw how he sagged in relief.
“Diane says it ruins your figure,” Isaac said.
“Well she would,” Alex muttered. “She doesn’t have much of one to begin with, more or less flat like an ironing board.” She shifted Rachel to the other side and smiled up at her son. “You like Diane?”
Very much, he said, describing with enthusiasm how much time they would spend together on WoW.
“WoW?”
“World of Warcraft,” Isaac said. For a couple of minutes he actually looked happy, his eyes bright as he explained everything about this game to her. Not that she understood all that much, but she did manage to look very captivated.
Alex handed a replete Rachel to Isaac.
“Here, you hold her for me. I’ll go and find us something to drink, okay?” He just nodded, his arms tight around the baby.
When Alex came back carrying a jug of cold milk and a piece of pie to go with it, Isaac was singing to Rachel, in Swedish.
“Who taught you that?”
“Offa,” he grinned, “but he says I mustn’t tell people what it is about.”
“No better not, and he shouldn’t be teaching you stuff like that, you’re only seven. Anyway, your sister seems to like it.”
Isaac stiffened. “My sister?”
Alex nodded, her mouth full with pie. Isaac shook his head and shoved Rachel off his lap to land on the grass.
“She’s not my sister! My sisters are Olivia and Alice, and they’re pretty girls, not fat like this one. And they don’t smell, either.”
Alex lifted Rachel up, glaring at Isaac. “She’s not fat! And she’s a baby. You could’ve hurt her.” She stood to tower over him, a shrieking Rachel in her arms. “Obviously you haven’t been taught manners, have you?” She stalked off, leaving Isaac to sit alone.
Chapter 39
For two days, Alex hovered at a distance from Isaac, minimising their communication to what was absolutely necessary, no more. He should apologise for what he did, she told herself, he could have hurt Rachel. And yet he wasn’t much more than a baby himself, a little boy lost in space. She sighed and turned to her other son, who was tugging at her skirts.
“Yes?” she prompted, when Mark remained standing silent, an expression of deep concentration on his face.
“Isaac cries at night,” he blurted, and before Alex could say anything, he was flying out the door.
“You’ve been a wee bit harsh with him these last few days,” Joan said, coming over to sit beside Alex at the kitchen table. She handed Alex a bowl of early peas and they sat in companionable silence shelling them.
“He shouldn’t have pushed Rachel off his lap.” Alex tried to sound stern, find some anger inside her. In reality what she felt was guilt; for not missing him all that often during the intervening years, for knowing that should she be given the choice between this time and that, she would always choose to stay here, with Matthew and their children.
“Nay,” Joan agreed, “but he’s a small lad, very far from home. Not only far in place, but also in time.”
Alex gave her an admiring look. Joan sounded quite relaxed, and yet she’d gone the colour of a dirty sheet when Alex came clean a couple of nights ago, admitting that yes, she’d dropped through time as well – just like Isaac.
“It doesn’t scare you anymore?”
“Scare me?” Joan laughed. “It does my head in.” She bit into a discarded pod, looked at Alex for a long time. “Poor lad; so unhappy here.”
Alex squirmed. Joan was right, she’d been far too harsh on poor Isaac.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked, getting to her feet.
“Out, I reckon. He’s been avoiding the house lately.”
Alex found Isaac down by the stream, staring longingly at the pool. Struck by inspiration, she ran back to the house and returned with towels and soap, dropping to her knees beside him.
“Right, you�
��re taking a bath. Mind you, the water’s bloody cold this early in June, but you really must wash before your ears grow fuzzy with mould.”
Isaac’s hands flew up to his ears.
“Kidding,” Alex said, “but you do stink, you know.” He didn’t; he smelled of small boy, sun warmed hair and a slight salty tang that she hoped was sweat, not tears.
“So do you,” Isaac retorted.
Alex grinned and shed her skirts. “That’s why I’m going bathing with you.”
From the way Isaac looked at her, he’d never seen a naked woman before, and he went a dusky pink when she stripped him, undid his bandage and studied his leg.
“I’ll carry you out in the deep end, and then you can test if you can move it. You can swim, right?”
“Of course I can!”
She picked him up and walked into the water.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she exclaimed through gritted teeth, making Isaac giggle. He squealed when the cold water hit his skin, and held on hard to Alex as she towed him into the deeper water.
“So, can you use your leg?” she asked, letting go of him. He paddled, a bit clumsily at first, but was soon moving gracefully through the water, laughing until he choked when she chased him with the soap.
Afterwards he sat close beside her in the sun, still butt naked, and Alex gave him a quick hug.
“I love you, and even if I’ve been gone from you for very many years, I’ve never forgotten you.”
Isaac looked away. “That’s what Offa’s always said, that you were still peeking down at me.”
Alex rested back against her arms, raising her face to the sun. “I miss Magnus a lot, is he alright?”
Like Chaff in the Wind (The Graham Saga) Page 30
