Part 14 (1/2)
”Lew's going to the Orkneys too,” Victoria said, her voice rising Her face as she said this ful So was her hair, lank, unevenly cut
”Oh”
”He's kind of, you know, in charge of the project He's”-she perfor of nonchalance, ”he's my prof, sort of”
”Really just a post-doc, Mrs Flett Victoria and I caether It was er, ready to be amused
On the plane the three of them were seated side by side, Lewis Roy on the aisle, Victoria in the middle, her aunt by the
They drank sone and ate a dinner of chicken and sliced carrots, and in the daze and rumble of airline ritual beca, coht to Europe, and as the story progressed he fell, egregiously, into the present tense ”So the pilot ht We turn back
We're like all shook up But we sit there spooning up our grub like it's just a real fun ti on an airstrip so, and we're like stuck there for twelve whole hours, the toilet , and then-”
”Aunt Daisy's tired, I think,” Victoria hummed
He fell instantly silent Gnawed on his knuckle bones, yawned hugely, glanced about
Victoria burned with shaaround his shoulders like a cape of fur, his boyish narrativehis brilliance, his extraordinary tenderness transforht around blankets and pillows and dihts, and they all three pretended to sleep Victoria could hear her aunt's jagged breathing, almost a sob, and understood that this elderly person beside her longed with all her soul to be home in her Florida condo, to be anywhere but where she was, riding the night Atlantic with the little nightlight glea on theframe and across her eyelids
Victoria, the whole of her terrible radar on duty, could sense, too, the waves of sadness, of failure, e from Lewis Roy's stiff body Under the secrecy of her woolen blanket she reached sideways for his hand, found it treht She had never touched him before; he really was her instructor and she his student; they were not, then, on a footing of intimacy
After a while she reached out her other hand and placed it on her elderly aunt's tense wrist, saying with the pressure of her fingertips: everything's going to be all right, trust ether by the dolorous stretched ared one continent for another They ht Each of theile planet Not one of the to
The Orkney Islands are low-lying, green, cultivated, covered inding roads and with sheep who picturesquely graze on slopinga tableau that could have been painted by a watercolorist two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago Behind and beneath this pastoral scenery lie prehistoric ruins-villages, forts, cairns, burial chaht not, be astronoe remains, too, another layer And the Norse monuments, ninth century Also the medieval, the feudal, the monastic
And other more contemporary additions-for superimposed upon the ancient and the bucolic are today's s such specialties as Orkney cakes (delicious) or Orkney cheeses; then there are the craft enterprises, knitting for the most part (but this is sadly in decline), the tourist thrust (booround buzz of daily corocers, stationers, lawyers, clergymen, what have you
None of this is what Victoria's Great-aunt Daisy had expected
Moorland, bog, heather was more what she'd had invillages or in the two main towns, Kirkwall and Stromness Even Victoria was surprised to see the hundreds of townish houses, so solidly built, so plain She looked at the unrevealing facades of these houses and i in front ofsweaters over their heads, flattening down their hair Hardly anyone seemed to be out and about Of course it was early in the day Of course there was a fierce wind blowing off the sea Rain pelted down Despite this, Victoria and her aunt and Lewis Roy were standing in the churchyard at Stro, who discovered: A holy lyf a hapie end The Soul to Christ doth send Where its best To be at rest Magnus Flett, born 1584, died 1616
For some reason this inscription hter; it see up everywhere, not only Magnus but Thomas Flett, Cecil Flett, Jamesina Flett, Donaldina Flett; the Flett fas and queens of the ce, and after a minute Lew took the tomen by the arm and led them across the street to a tea shop where they sat out the storm, keenly aware of each other
”What kind of man was your father-in-law, Mrs Flett?” Lewis posed this question in a social voice, while spreading butter on a floury scone
”Well, I'm not quite sure”
”But you rieved His wife left hi ”One of those old-fashi+oned happy families”
”His three sons took their mother's part They refused to see their father They would have nothing to do with him”
”And this made him bitter?”
”It drove hi in the drenched dark street, the black rain clouds ”When he was sixty-five years old I can only think he must have been bitter”
”But you don't know for sure”
”Actually-”
”Yes?”
”Actually, I never met my father-in-law”
”I see” Clearly he was taken aback
”We never met, no And I've always felt sorry about that That we never ht, well-”
”What?”
”That we s”-she paused-”to say to each other”
”Not many women feel that way about their fathers-in-law”
”No, I suppose not”
”Magnus Flett wasperhaps to share responsibility for the brokenness of families
They drank their tea in silence Then Lewis, deterht, raised a celebratory tea cup and said, ”Here's to the bones of the real Magnus Flett! We'll find him yet”
”You erness in others
”Oh, well,” Victoria's aunt said, hernow, her chest full of heartbeats
The next day the wind died down The sun ca, and tourists in shorts and T-shi+rts and sued the narrow streets of Stro postcards