Rope of Sand

by C F Dunn

  The drawing room was quiet and the house beyond silent. Burridge’s slow, dense text made a crazy paving of references that he hadn’t fully annotated, leaving me yawning after the tenth page. I detected a fair amount of our discussion and one aspect that he had lifted directly from my own work. Three months ago, I would have been steaming; now, I had to ask myself, did I care enough to do anything about it?

  I flicked through the volume to see if he had given me any credit for my work. He hadn’t, but there, leering out at me, I saw a name I hadn’t expected. Guy Hilliard had been referenced numerous times, not only from familiar works, but from a new book as well. So, he still took an active role in research, still grubbing around and no doubt slavering over some poor, hapless, innocent, stupid, naïve, hopeful undergrad. Despite the time and distance between us, cool sweat dampened my neck and I passed my hand over it, wiping it away along with my memories.

  As the sun gave way to thick cloud, the room darkened, bringing a sudden chill. The air moved. Maggie emerged abruptly from the gloom by the door as if she had been waiting there all this time. In the light of the lamp, her eyes became hard, sharp points in the pale square of her face and she said nothing, but let her gaze fall first on the book in my hand, and then to my chest and face – as if she knew what I had been thinking – as if she knew the very heart of me. I started at the thought and her corresponding look of satisfaction lingered for no more than the few seconds that it took for me to register it before she drew the mask of icy passivity over her features once more.

  She walked deliberately towards me right up to the sofa, and I thought at first that she meant to speak. She leaned forward and I felt myself involuntarily flinch from her. In one movement, without taking her eyes from mine, she scooped her book from the table, turned her back, and retreated into the darkness whence she had come. I stared after her until I could be sure she was no longer in the room.

  It happened so quickly that it was almost as if it hadn’t happened at all, except that the frantic beating of my heart bore witness to it. I knew I shouldn’t let her get to me. Matthew had made it very clear that he would take no nonsense from her and neither should I, but I had nothing on Maggie, and she seemed to have everything on me.

  I gave up on Burridge’s turgid gleanings and considered seeking out Matthew but decided that he would take one look at me and know that something had happened. Something and nothing. Instead I distracted myself by surveying the contents of the display cabinet where the hippocampus subtly glittered.

  Display cabinets are curious because they reveal more about their owner than perhaps they realize, whether they be an avid collector, an amasser of trivia, or use it as an ostentatious display of wealth or taste to impress the observer. Matthew’s cabinet formed a collection entirely privy to him, with no obvious meaning to the eclectic mix of ephemera – no theme in the way of date, or style, region, or subject – just a random assortment of objects whose meanings were known only to him. I frowned, trying to figure out the small, round, nut-brown object that lay next to an exquisite piece of jade-green porcelain. Opening the door, I picked it up gingerly between two fingers to have a closer look.

  “You’ve found the nutmeg.” Matthew’s voice sounded soft in my ear, and the nut spun out of my fingers as I jumped. His hand shot out and caught it before I could react, placing it back in my outstretched hand.

  “Don’t do that!”

  “It’s a good thing it wasn’t the Lung-Ch’uan bowl; I might not have caught it.” He grinned at my shocked face.

  “Why do you have a nutmeg among treasures, may I ask?” I held it in my open hand: an ordinary nutmeg, if a little larger than usually found, rattling in a slightly withered shell like the skin of a sun-blown sailor, but a nutmeg for all of that.

  Matthew rolled the spice around my palm with his index finger, making my hand tickle. “You’re familiar with the idea of a cabinet of curios?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Of course. Well, this is mine. I’ve had more things over the years; some I’ve had to leave behind if I’ve had to move quickly, but these I’ve managed to keep together and, although the cabinets change, the content doesn’t. They’re souvenirs, some more precious than others, but all remnants of my travels, nonetheless.”

  I cast my eyes across the shelves, beginning to see a geographical pattern in the pieces. “So these represent the places you have been to?”

  “More or less. I suppose you could say that I’m carrying my history with me, if I could put it in such crude terms. I used to collect things when I was a boy – oh, birds’ eggs and feathers, interesting stones, finds from the battlefield…”

  “The sword from Losecoat Field,” I murmured.

  “Yes, that sort of thing. I think that I tried to capture the beauty of an object, or its vitality, or its past, and keep it with me always. The value of it was – is – irrelevant, but its association is everything.”

  I held up the spice. “And the nutmeg?”

  He took it from me. “Ah, this is one of a handful I had and, at the time, they were worth more than the entire contents of this cabinet now. I think that you could say that they were part of the foundation of everything that I have today.”

  “You went to the Spice Islands back then!”

  He laughed quietly. “Trust you to know what I’m referring to! Yes, I went to the Banda Islands when a small bag of these could make a man’s fortune. The islands had been taken by the Dutch then and my presence wasn’t entirely welcome. I traded the spices – keeping this one, of course – and went on to other parts of what we now call Indonesia, to China…” he lightly touched the Lung-Ch’uan bowl, beauty conjured in its simplicity, “… and India. A rajah tried to cut my throat with this.” He paused, smiling slightly as he lifted an ornate knife in a heavily jewelled sheath next to the candlestick. “The dagger was his peace offering to make amends for his breach of courtesy.”

  The skin of his throat bore no evidence of a blade, but I stroked it delicately with my fingertips to make sure, and he bent his head to kiss them. “But I thought you came to America early on?”

  “I did, but I came and went over the decades. It helped me avoid detection, but I also searched for anything that might explain what had happened to me, at the same time learning more about medicine than any single institution could teach me today.”

  “And amassing a fortune on the way,” I said, wryly, removing the nutmeg from his fingers and placing it carefully next to the bowl. “Let’s hope Pat never finds herself short of spice.”

  “Indeed! I think I might miss it almost more than any other piece. Anyway, with my certain peculiarities it meant that I could take risks that other men couldn’t. I didn’t do it solely for the money, although I quickly came to understand that it was a way I could help protect myself. Have you any idea how much good false documentation costs?”

  “I’m not sure if I want to,” I joked.

  But he was serious. “You might need to one day, Emma. The money enables us to have a means of escaping detection using fake passports, birth certificates – even the physical means of escape using planes, fast cars. Wealth is a means to an end. I’ve lived too long to see it as an end in itself. I just hope that we don’t have to use it for that purpose.” He looked so worried for a moment, his brow drawn together, that I felt fear pressing in around us from the unlit corners of the room.

  I inched closer to him. “You said that you took risks for a reason other than for money?”

  “Risks? Oh… yes, well, I took risks because I wanted to see how far I could go before I… succeeded.”

  “In killing yourself?” I said a little crossly, remembering Richardson’s account in his diary of Matthew pushing the boundaries. “I trust you don’t do that any more.”

  He looked sheepish. “No, I don’t need to. There’s not much point, and anyway I have additional responsibilities that far outweigh the inconvenience of long life.” He caressed my cheek briefly, his fac
e brightening, then lifted his head as if listening. “The boys are back; ready for your tree?”

  “Math sucks.” Joel pushed his hat to the back of his head, giving himself a halo of cropped gold hair, as he surveyed the length of the tree. Harry gave him a I told you so look and Ellie snickered, her hands on her hips. “What did Mom always tell you?” she said, and all three intoned, “‘Math is the sum of all knowledge.’”

  Joel groaned, kicking snow with the toe of his boot. “Geesh, don’t let Mom know I messed up.”

  “Yeah, sure we won’t,” Harry smirked, dodging the loose snowball that narrowly missed his head.

  I walked down the length of the tree as it lay in the snow of the courtyard. It represented a very fine specimen. “It really isn’t a problem. I could do with those lower branches for decorating anyway, and then it’s only a question of taking an inch or two – or perhaps twenty – off the bottom and it’ll be fine. And I totally agree with you, Joel – maths is a foreign language intent on confusing us lateral thinkers. Don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.”

  Joel nodded appreciatively. “Gee, thanks, Doc, it’s like I’ve been telling these freak geeks for years: math squares your brain – think outside the box.”

  Ellie looked as if she couldn’t decide which of us deserved her derision more. She had returned from town with Dan shortly after the boys trundled in with the fir strapped to the trailer, the tip nodding its head in agreement as the vehicle rode every bump of hardened snow. She had been told by her father to give us a hand with the tree and she made it quite clear she did so under duress. The boys ignored her, shaking the snow and loose needles off the branches. They proceeded to manoeuvre it through the double doors of the drawing room into place in one corner where it had room to spread its boughs. They made it look all so easy, hoisting the heavy trunk on their shoulders as if it were made of nothing but air. It wobbled slightly before settling into its makeshift stand, the soft point skimming the high ceiling.

  I clapped my hands in triumph. “There, you see? Perfect, thanks.”

  Joel high-fived his brother. “I gotta shift, Doctor D, I’ve been summoned by Mom and Dad.” He went off whistling with his hands in his pockets, a little too nonchalant for it to be natural. I wondered what it was about his parents that worried him.

  I turned back to Harry, who had undertaken the removal of the lower branches, putting them to one side for me. “I don’t suppose you could spare me a few minutes’ help getting the lights and decorations on, could you, Harry, please?”

  There were few enough and I didn’t need his help, which he probably knew, but he was gracious enough not to let it show. His smile was minimal but he bothered to make the attempt anyway. We each unravelled a long string of tiny lights in little clear hoods like icy snowdrops and started to intertwine them near the trunk, unleashing the resinous scent of childhood when Christmas trees smelt of pine. In all that time, Harry kept his comments to monosyllabic questions or answers, always polite, but reserved.

  I took out the first of the baubles and handed it to him with an expectant look, knowing he would have to stay to finish the task and couldn’t avoid the conversation I had been cooking up. “Harry,” I began, “do you get to see much of your great-grandmother? She lives quite a way away, doesn’t she?” I handed him another silver ball, the harsh metallic colour softened by age so it gleamed rather than shone.

  “Yeah, sure, I see her regularly – we all do – it’s not that far.”

  I straightened a hook on a red bauble and handed it to him. “That’s good, because I know Matthew thinks it important to keep in touch and how much she means to him.” Harry declined to comment, and his mouth formed a single line, making his resemblance to Matthew when he avoided something even more striking. This was delicate territory, and had he turned around and told me to mind my own business, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I went on. “It must be pretty lonely for Matthew without his wife for all these years.”

  Harry gave me a tight look. “He has his family.”

  “Yes,” I said, evenly. “He has, and his family are everything to him, but he also has me now, and I mean a lot to him too.” I don’t know where I found the nerve to talk to him so directly or why I felt it necessary that he understand the nature of our relationship.

  He sucked air over his teeth, building himself up to reply. “Look, Dr… Emma. I don’t mind you being here and I’m really glad if Matthew’s happy – OK, I know he’s happy – but he’s married. I didn’t want to say anything because it’s up to him what he does, and I guess he’s old enough to know what he’s doing, but there’s things I believe in so please don’t ask me to go against my conscience and say it’s all right.”

  I bent down to select another ball from the box and to give myself time to think. “I understand, Harry; we both do, perhaps more than you might think. Matthew would not – will not – be disloyal to his wife and, for that matter, whether you choose to believe it, neither would I.” I looked at him straight without wavering, without blinking.

  For a clear minute he regarded me with his bluer-than-blue eyes before he swallowed, and gave a quick nod of his head. “Right then, Emma, how many of these do we have, ’cos this tree is sure gonna look mighty nak’d wit’out ’dem balls.” He threw me a wicked sideways glance as he slewed his language, and I burst out laughing.

  The sun had not long set behind the dense blanket of cloud, but outside the blank windows the darkness became intense. Harry left the tree and began closing the shutters rapidly in a well-rehearsed routine.

  “Are the shutters always closed at night, Harry?”

  He clunked one of the heavy iron bars into place. “Yep – always.” Clunk, the next one fell into its socket. He pulled the lined curtains in front of it.

  “They’re more for security than heat conservation, aren’t they?”

  He looked at me over his shoulder, then continued battening down the room. “They do the job for both. Less light pollution too,” he added, though I wasn’t convinced by that argument. He closed the double shutters over the doors to the courtyard, and secured them with bars top and bottom. He leaned against them without turning around. “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Emma?”

  I continued hanging the fragile baubles around the tree, the occasional needle pricking my skin. “No, not at all – go ahead.”

  “You wear a cross, right?” He turned now and looked at me steadily. “Does it mean something to you? I mean, is it significant to you, or just a piece of jewellery?”

  I ceased what I was doing, feeling the weight behind his question. “Yes, it is important to me as a symbol of my faith. Why?”

  He ran his hand through his hair making the tidy spikes stick haphazardly in all directions. “You know about Matthew, right?”

  I chose my reply carefully, guarding my words, remembering that only I knew how old Matthew really was. “If you are talking about his longevity, yes, I know about it.”

  “And you’re OK with that? I mean, it’s not natural, it isn’t how things should be, how they’re meant to be.” He stalked the length of the room and back again checking each of the shutters in turn needlessly. Clearly this was something which had been on his mind for some time.

  “Harry, what’s worrying you?”

  He stopped and stuck his hands in his pockets, making him look younger than his nineteen years. “I don’t know who else I can talk to about this. You’re the only person outside the family who knows about Matthew, and I can’t talk to Grams or Henry because… well, you know… and Ellie and Joel don’t believe in anything so they can’t see why it matters what Matthew is. And I can’t talk to anyone at church for obvious reasons. I don’t know what to think because his being as he is goes against everything I believe.” He ruffled his hair again and hunched his shoulders, looking miserable. “If Matthew doesn’t die or can’t die, what does that make him? Where does that place him with God? If he can’t die, how can he ever find God? I d
on’t know whether I can even accept him as he is, and…”

  “Whoa,” I cut in. “Hold on, Harry – there are several questions here. Don’t confuse the issues and bundle them together. First, don’t for one moment think that Matthew hasn’t been through all of this over the last… countless years. He’s as much in search of answers as you are,” I paused. “Haven’t you discussed this with him directly? Of all the family, I would have thought he is the one person you can talk to.”

  Harry shrugged. “Yeah, he’s always been easy to talk to, and we’ve talked about loads of things, but I don’t want him to know that I have doubts about… you know… about his soul. He’s done everything for me, he trusts me. I don’t want to let him down. Gee, that sounds weird. I’ve talked over things generally with him, but not specifically about him.”