Thomas gave a soft burp behind his linen serviette, and said, ‘Sorry.’
Orson’s was louder and behind his fist. ‘Scuse me,’ he croaked and they both laughed, newly at ease with their world and each other.
‘The food and everything else…’ Thomas waved at the room, the fire, ‘it was all - is all wonderful,’ he said, self-consciously.
‘It should be,’ Orson rasped. I spent all day fixing it. And preparing the food.’ (He wasn’t shy, Orson. And if praise was due - well…)
‘But didn’t you…couldn’t you just…’
‘Think it?’ Orson asked and Thomas nodded.
‘The room, yes. And I did,’ said the Traveller. ‘The food?’ He shook his head. ‘No’, he said, ‘Not the food. Never the food. Good food is like good wine, Thomas. To be at its best, it needs time…and love. Lots of time, and lots of love.’
Thomas had heard the exact same phrase from Grammy Rose a dozen times before, and he stared at Orson.
‘Come,’ said the old man, and stood up. With a “whoosh”, the table cleared itself - the dirty dishes and tablecloth depositing themselves in a clatter of breaking china into the empty black dustbin standing in the kitchen. Orson muttered, ‘I have to draw the line somewhere, don’t I?’
Two mugs of steaming hot chocolate stood waiting on one of the smaller tables, and Orson, after putting another couple of logs on the licking flames, took one and made himself comfortable on the middle of the couch. He motioned to Thomas to take the other, but when the boy stepped towards one of the chairs, stopped him.
‘No, Thomas,’ he said. ‘Bring your album and come sit here.’ Patting the space next to him.
They sat close - almost touching, and when Thomas opened his photo album between them, a page lay on his leg and the other on Orson’s. The first picture - the one of Grammy Rose with the streaks of grey in her hair, made Orson’s eyes go soft and distant; he gave a little groan which caused Thomas to involuntary glance at him. His hand stopped Thomas’ from turning the page, taking more time; looking, remembering.
After that, the boy let him do the paging. He stared a long time at the picture of Thomas’ mother - her familiar grey eyes and sandy hair… But much longer at every photo of Rose; and those of Thomas. The last picture - the one with the wagon, caused him to give another small sound and bite his lower lip very hard. A long minute later the old man - his eyes terribly sad, closed the album softly and excused himself.
The whole time they spent looking at the photos, not a word had been said, and a thoroughly puzzled Thomas sat waiting for Orson’s return to the lounge. He heard the old man blow his nose - hard, somewhere in a back room of the cottage, and taking his mug of forgotten chocolate, went to one of the windows. It had turned dark outside and the hot chocolate cold. He unconsciously thought it hot and had to hastily take the mug by its ear when its contents began steaming again.
When he came back, Orson took his place on the couch, and taking the closed album into his lap, patted the space beside him once more. Without a word, Thomas sat down: the lights dimmed and they sat in companionable silence for another few minutes - just staring at the dancing orange and blue, and yellow and green devils of the fire; just enjoying its heat. And then their mugs were full once more and Orson sat back, both hands wrapped around his mug: his eyes somewhere on the other side of the flames.
‘I would like to tell you a story, Thomas,’ he said then. The flickering fire cast shadows on the craggy planes of his face, and he took a deep breath before speaking again, in a soft voice.
*
‘A long time ago - more than thirty of our years, and about sixty of the Earth’s, a very beautiful woman came to Rainbow’s End.’ He gave a small smile, but kept his eyes on the fire. ‘To me,’ he said, ‘there were none more beautiful - not then, and not now.
‘She was a Gypsy - a princess. In her mid-twenties, and with black hair that curled and shone like shavings of polished coal. Her eyes were brown and dark, and they flashed and laughed and crinkled, and made everybody like her.’ Orson’s own grey eyes smiled as he remembered.
‘The princess was happy, in love with the whole world, and like the princess in the fairy-tale, she found herself a frog. Problem was - when she kissed this one, he stayed a frog.’ He gave a rueful grin, and after a few lost-in-thought sips of his chocolate, and some more staring into the past, continued.
‘Still, she fell in love with him… And him?’ He grinned, remembering… ‘He was besotted… He fell over his own feet when she came near him, and suddenly had two left hands. He worshipped the ground she walked on. She was everything a man could wish for in a woman: Beautiful, clever, witty; and with that special kind of magic… that… mystery the Gypsy in her gave.’ Orson glanced at Thomas. The boy sat listening with rapt attention, his chocolate forgotten in the circling cup of his hands. He took another drink out of his own mug and continued once more.
‘She gave him almost twenty years of her life, and they had wonderful times. Beautiful times… Most of it was spent here - at Rainbow’s End, but they also travelled. He took her all over the world - the Earth… To a hundred different countries and all of its seven continents.
They watched the sun rise from the tip of Everest and saw the bulls run in Spain; lions mate on the Serengeti and the ballet and circus in Moscow. They danced on the islands of Majorca and Crete…’ Another deep breath and a sip.
‘They visited the pyramids in Egypt and Mexico, and the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu; they saw a wild pig swallowed by an anaconda in the Amazon jungles, and the salmon come home in Alaska; saw the magical Aurora Borealis over Iceland and Greenland, and the sun set over Antarctica…’
His gravelly voice had become progressively softer during his recount, and Thomas had to hold his face ever closer to Orson’s in order to hear. The Traveller seemed to suddenly notice the wide-eyed face of his young listener very close to his own, and with a shake of his head his eyes focussed and he returned to the present.
‘I’m sorry, Thomas,’ he said. ‘I got lost for a while there.’ He finished his hot chocolate with a gulp. ‘Would you like me to carry on?’ he asked and the boy nodded, wordlessly. Orson’s eyes stared into the empty mug and then lifted to the dimly-lit painting of snow-capped mountains and a sleeping lake, hanging over the fireplace.
‘It was not enough,’ he said. ‘She loved the snow and the cold and the Roma people almost as much as Rainbow’s End, and during their first thirteen years, went back to the Earth twice. They still saw each other whenever he Travelled there. Which was often. As often as possible… She stayed true to him.’ Orson gave an enigmatic smile - as if newly amazed at this actuality, then glanced at the spellbound boy again. ‘And he to her of course. After all - she was his all. His dream. He wanted no other… was not even remotely interested in any other woman.’ A small, unexpected cackle. ‘Nor they in him,’ he interrupted himself, then went on.
‘The last time she came to Rainbow’s End, she stayed for seven years, and the frog began hoping that this time it might be forever. And then, just after his fifty-first birthday, she left again…’ Orson shook his head and his eyes were dreadfully sad again. ‘This time she didn’t come back. He waited and hoped - for five years, ten… And finally stopped. The waiting, but not the hoping. Never the hoping… Until now.’
They sat quietly staring at the by now smaller flames for some time: then, as if waking from a dream, Orson opened the album on his lap at the last page - the photo of the wagon. He pointed to Rose, standing in front of it and smiling happily. ‘This was taken outside Stonehenge on the day Rosie turned thirty-five. It was at a Gypsy gathering.’ His finger moved to the ugly little man next to her, whose smile looked like a grimace. ‘The frog is me,’ he said softly, wistfully.
Thomas stared. First at the photo, and then at the man with the sad eyes sitting next to him. The fleshy nose, the eyes, even the wart; everything except the hair (which in the picture was a short, neat auburn), was the sam
e. He was amazed at himself for not having noticed it much sooner. The other reality was harder to grasp.
‘Grammy Rose?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘She was here? At Rainbow’s End?’
Orson nodded. His grey eyes sombre and still sad. ‘Three times,’ he said, ‘eleven of our years in all.’
A similar scene, in front of another fire, but a hundred-thousand kilometres away and in another world, came to Thomas. It took place two or three years ago, but felt like forever…
*
They had just finished doing the dishes and Thomas was sitting at the old pine table. His elbows were resting on its scarred surface and his chin in his cupped hands. He was watching Rose put away the dishes and at the same time, making a cup of tea.
Her hair was a thick, silver-grey mop, cut stylishly short by Marge (the small village’s part-time hair dresser and Grammy’s friend), who visited at least once a week. Rose was softly singing something in Romany, and Thomas thought to himself that, although younger than her, none of his friend’s mothers were half as pretty.
‘Grammy?’
‘Mmm-mm?’ Her brown eyes smiled at him.
‘Were you ever married?’
Her eyebrows lifted, but Rose’s hands remained busy. As always, she took his questions seriously, and spent a few seconds considering it before she asked, ‘Why?’ Her eyes were curious. ‘Why do you ask?’
Thomas shrugged, ‘Just wondered, I suppose.’
She finished putting some pots in the cupboard beneath the sink, and then stood up - her back against and her hands gripping the shiny metal rim behind her, looking at Thomas once more.
‘No, I never was,’ she said softly and seconds later gave a small, dreamy smile. ‘But I came very close, once.’ She saw the questions in his eyes and hers lifted to the empty wall behind Thomas. They saw things he didn’t, and she said, still softly, ‘Go light the fire, Thomas. It’s story time.’
The small lounge heat up fast and they both sat sunk deep into the worn but familiar upholstery of the ancient old couch. Grammy’s legs were folded under her and she leaned back against the backrest. Both her hands were wrapped around the mug of tea and she was staring at, but not seeing the flickering flames in the grate. She had been quiet for a long time, but they’d been through the same ritual dozens of times, and Thomas knew when to wait.
*
‘It seems so very, very long ago. And so very, very far away.’ Grammy’s voice was soft but clear; the only other sounds the loud, rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the small entrance hall, and the occasional sputtering of pine resin boiling and puffing, making mini explosions on the bark of the burning logs.
‘He made me laugh,’ she said, and smiled to herself in remembering. ‘And he was so ugly you had to love him. And rude…’ Rose gave a small, and after so long, still disbelieving laugh. ‘Oh, Thomas, he was the rudest person you ever saw.’ Her eyes became gentle with recall. ‘But not to me. Never to me…’ softer. ‘To me he was only love and gentleness. And laughter…’
She went on and told Thomas about loving and sharing; about special times and special people. Special memories. And later still, of another world, and dwarves and giants and magic…
*
Orson said something and Thomas returned to the present.
‘I’m sorry, sir…?’
‘Don’t call…’ Orson stopped and shook his head, hopelessly. He tapped the back cover of the album. A thick, plain white envelope lay under its transparent plastic covering. ‘More photos?’ he asked, in a wishful tone, hoping…
‘No, sir.’ Thomas’ mind went back again. Orson noticed and kept quiet.
*
They were in front of the fire again, only about a month ago. Grammy had lost a lot of weight and had dark circles under her eyes. She slept a lot and was tired all the time. They were talking about that again. That dreaded subject. The time when she would not be with him anymore. The time Thomas dreaded more than anything else, and refused to call by its name, “Death”.
‘You are going to meet a man Thomas.’ They sat close together - under an old duvet, and Rose had her arm around his shoulders. Holding him tight. She sipped some of her red wine (she’d loved red wine). ‘It might be years from now, but it might also be very soon. I have a feeling it’s going to be very soon.’ Her eyes dropped to Thomas’, and although the sickness seemed to have shrunk her body overnight, she was still a head or more taller than him.
‘Do you remember the man we spoke about a few years ago - the one I was going to marry?’ Rose’s brown eyes were tender.
‘The ugly one?’ Thomas asked.
She laughed and gave him a hug. ‘The ugly one, yes.’ Another squeeze and she said, ‘He’s also your grandfather.’
Thomas nodded. ‘I sort of knew that, I suppose.’
Rose smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I though you would have.’ Another minute and she said, ‘Go fetch me your photo album and some tape, please.’
When he returned, Grammy sat looking at an envelope, which she held between the fingertips of both hands. It was white and bulky, and seemed to be sealed. When he handed her the heavy book, she smiled her thanks and opened it to its back page. The inside cover was layered with thick plastic, and while a surprised Thomas looked on, Rose used the small penknife she kept on her key-ring to make a long slit along its transparent top. She took the envelope - which smelled of her perfume - and slid it into the hardly visible slit, under the plastic, then closed the cut with two strips of tape. After some critical assessment, made sure by adding another - sealing the envelope into its plastic cocoon and making it part of the book. She looked at Thomas and put the tip of one finger on the sealed in envelope. ‘This is for him,’ she said.
Thomas was flabbergasted. The envelope was blank, with no inscription, no name. He looked at Rose with a bewildered look on his young face. ‘But how will I know…?’ he asked.
She answered with a gentle smile, a sure look and another hug. ‘You will know, Thomas,’ she replied, and her voice was very sure. ‘Don’t ask me how I know; just believe me - you will know.’
*
Thomas started picking at the tape, but his fingernails were trimmed short (a habit Grammy had instilled in him since he was old enough to trim them himself), and he made no inroads until Orson grumbled softly at his side.
‘Think it open, Thomas.’
He did; and the sticky strips were suddenly gone - leaving no trace that they had ever been. He slid out the envelope with the tips of two fingers; the air was suddenly filled with the fragrance of Rose and roses, and Thomas gave the envelope to Orson.
‘This is for you, sir,’ he said to the surprised old man. ‘But you’re only to open it once I’ve left. When you’re alone.’
Orson’s eyes begged and Thomas nodded. ‘It’s from Grammy Rose,’ he said, then added, softer, ‘Your Rose.’
The late night was beautiful - with a million stars and the huge moon to help the ball of fire light Thomas’ way back to the cave. It was also hot, and by the time he got to its entrance and the fireball disappeared, he was down to bare feet, wearing just his denim pants and undershirt.
*****
…Orson my love. My only love.
Today marked thirty-one years and six months since the day I left Rainbow’s End. Rainbow’s End, but not you. Never you. For even though you were many, many kilometres away, you were always in my heart - and always on my mind (remember our song). I miss you, Orson. So very, very much.
Today was our grandson’s eleventh birthday. Your - our daughter - turned thirty-one a few months back. She lives in Majorca (remember how we used to dance on the beach and the sun all gold on the Mediterranean Sea?) I named her Elaine, after a much admired teacher I once had. Sadly, the name is all they have in common. But maybe I’m too harsh. Be that as it may…
Orson, I am dying, and I am now able to give you the explanation I feel I have owed you for so long (but never could give you). It is so simple
really, and only three words say it all. “I fell pregnant.” Yes!! At Rainbow’s End. Where we all (Ariana included) thought it was impossible. She told me that for many centuries, no babies had been conceived - let alone been born at Rainbow’s End. Nobody knew why, but she thought it was a virus dating back to the Magari’s time. (They - the Magari - believed it was a curse).
But leave that there… I fell pregnant and I became scared. Not for me, but for our baby. I wasn’t prepared to either let our child be stillborn, or die before it even had a chance to live. I also knew that if I told you I was leaving, you would come with me. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Without a Traveller, there would be no more children, and Rainbow’s End would have no purpose. It would die… cease to exist. I could not do that - not to that wonderful, beautiful place. That place just made for children.
Neither could I do it to you. You are as much a part of Rainbow’s End, as it is of you, Orson. You would fade away anywhere else. You would die inside… I know (I am supposed to be a Gypsy Princess, remember)
The letter ran to many pages, and went on to remind the old Traveller of the places and times he and Rose had shared. Happy times and sad times, hello times and goodbye times. Secret times… And places where it had seemed to be just them in the world.
As he read on, silent tears rolled over Orson’s craggy cheeks and fell unheeded on the scented paper held like treasure between his blunt fingertips - mixing his essence with that of his love, his Rose. The last page was sad, but it also gave new hope, new purpose, new life.
…I send you a boy Orson. Our boy. I call him that, because that is what he is - who he is. He is a Roma. He is also a Traveller. I know; I have seen him do things he does not yet understand himself, and again I remind you - I am a Gypsy. I know these things. I feel them.
Thomas is strong. He is very strong. His mind already; his body will follow. He is also honest, which is sometimes better than strong.
Rainbow's End - Wizard Page 15
