Gossamer Axe (20 page)

I do not know how to praise you, O my love
… The melody and the words and the emotion they expressed came back to Bill Sarah as he climbed the stairs to the bedroom. In the dark silence, he could hear Kelly’s soft breathing, and he leaned against the doorframe, listening.

He could not see her, but he knew that she lay among the sheets, her breasts, as firm as a girl’s, poking up from the white satin, her face composed and tranquil in sleep. Once, long ago, he had awakened just as the early morning light was paling the sky, and he had watched her for an hour, maybe two, wondering at this woman who had given him her life, who had vouchsafed to take his hand at the altar.

Your hair in my hands was sweet as new milk…

It could not all be gone, that sweetness of their youth, that honeyed, hot love that had turned sex into a sacrament, that had allowed him to hold her body as though his hands cupped a chalice. Somewhere, it was there to be found again… indeed, he had begun to find it already, through the music of, impossibly, a heavy-metal band.

Your lips against mine like the rich mead of kings…

Kelly stirred, groped for the light switch.

“It’s all right, darling,” Bill said quickly. “It’s just me.”

Sleep had obscured her memory of their argument. “You coming to bed?”

“In a minute. How was your meeting?” He had not the control over his voice that Christa Cruitaire had over her guitar, but he tried to put into his words something of what he had heard in her music. “I hope it went all right.”

“Yeah… it was fine. I got the contract.”

“Great.” He smiled in the darkness. “I’m… I’m proud of you, Kelly.”

She laughed sleepily. “You, Bill Sarah, are full of hot air.”

“Yeah… maybe so.” He laughed too. “But I’m still proud of you.”

“Come to bed, man.”

And when he was spooned against her body beneath the covers, he buried his face in her hair and put his arms about her.

Unlooked for, maybe forgotten, I have come to win you…

“How was the show?” she murmured.

“I can’t describe it.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No. No, really. It was… well…” He looked toward the window. In another hour, maybe there would be enough light so that he could see Kelly, so that he could watch her—just watch—for a while. “Do you remember that movie we saw way back? Polanski’s
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
? With that shot of Stonehenge coming up out of the mist?” She did not reply, but he went on. “It was like that. It was…”

Folded in his arms, Kelly was snoring gently. He smiled. “And I’m crazy as hell,” he whispered. “But I think I might just call them to see if they want a manager.”

He touched his lips to her hair and laid his head down on the pillow. Another hour or so, and he could watch her.

Cumad, the queen, is distracted, upset. She tosses back and forth in her chambers like a ship moored in an unquiet sea, her pallid hands wringing one another, her hair rustling across her shimmering garments with spider-like whispers.

“I saw a willow tree,” she says, rushing to the window as though to look again. “Its leaves are dark and green. It is the same tree each time I look at it. It is no different. It does not change.”

“That is the way of our Realm.” Lamcrann’s voice is soft, low. “There is no death here.” His jewels flicker in the light from the wall sconces as he turns his head to track his wandering queen.

She grips the sill of the window as though to anchor herself. The view is of twilight—it always is—and the sky is starless. In the distance, the horizon is limned by the corposant glow of a sunset that never was, of a sunrise that cannot be. “There is a rose in the courtyard, white as my skin.”

“That is true.”

Cumad turns, buffeted, heeling over in a wind of thought. “
It is always the same rose, my king
.”

She has shouted at him. This has not happened before. Lamcrann finds himself staring at her, speechless.

“It has never dropped a petal, never opened. It has never grown.” She turns back to the window, to the endless dusk. “I am tired,” she says softly. “I want to sleep.”

“We do not sleep, Cumad.”

She does not seem to hear him. “I want to sleep.”

Cumad will say no more, and Lamcrann leaves in a swirl of cloth-of-gold and filigreed robes. The door slams soundlessly behind him.

Staring into the half light, the queen struggles with wants and needs to which she can give no names. It is not the willow she desires, nor the rose. It is something else… something that eludes her.

How many times has she stood at this window and regarded an unchanging landscape of shrouded lake and hill, of distant myrtle grove and even more distant reflecting pool that images nothing? There are no yesterdays to count from. There is no progression of light and dark to determine before and after, to set events in order… there are, in fact, no events to set in order.

And perhaps this non-knowledge that has grown from a vague emptiness to a demanding void has driven her slightly mad; but she—poor queen!—has nothing with which to combat it. Even Siudb, the mortal woman, has no sense of time in the Realm: how then should a Sidh comprehend days, moons, the movements of stars and suns that exist only in another world?

“Something must change.” Cumad is unaware that she speaks aloud. “Something, anything, must die. I… I wish I could sleep.”

North of Denver, Interstate 25 straightened out on the plains. The Rockies bent away to the west and receded to a shallow backdrop: a tumble of hills and summits speckled with December snow. Kevin’s Beetle protested at the constant freeway speed, and he was not sure himself why he was pushing: 35 was fast enough for a homeward journey.

In two hours he was taking the offramp at Missile Road, skirting the line of high-tension towers that marched in skeletal ranks alongside the highway. The stores at the corner of Missile and Frontage had been remodeled, their plaster facades replaced with modern brickwork and streamlined signs, but he recognized them and, with a right turn, entered the little web of residential streets.

But as the streets and the houses became more familiar, he began to wonder how much of this homecoming he actually wanted. He had laughed to himself about his childhood and youth, but here, immersed as he was in the source of his memories, with the white church peering at him through the bare crabapple trees, the laughter was fading quickly.

He parked in front of his parents’ house, grabbed his suitcase, and almost ran to the door for fear that his nerve might suddenly fail and send him back to his car, back to Denver.

Back to Christa.

His hand hovered over the doorbell. She had cried in his arms, but even her tears were strong. “Wish you were here, Chris,” he murmured.

But the door opened, and his mother was there: older, drier, her brown hair pale with incursions of gray, her blue eyes crinkling behind her steel-rimmed glasses as she smiled. She put her arms up to her tall son and brought his head down to hers. “Jesus and Mary, look at you, Kevin,” she said. “You’re a man.”

“Well, ma, I grew.”

She brought him into the house, and his father laid aside his newspaper and stood up from his chair. He offered his hand, and Kevin took it. Iron-haired and square-jawed, Martin Larkin looked him up and down, grinned thinly. “Still playing nigger music, Kevvy?”

“Yeah. Still.” The handshake was strong—the grip of a laborer—but although his father’s words were hearty, the turning of an old wound into a new joke, Kevin was conscious of the thinness of the humor.

Had he only imagined a bridge between himself and his family, then? Had he gilded a dream and taken it for the truth? The living room seemed smaller now, and the religious pictures on the walls had faded to vague outlines. Kevin made out the image of a thorn-crowned heart, of a man dying as his mother sorrowed in silence.

“God’s mercy on you,” Martin was saying, “but I guess we’ll have to…” His jaw trembled for a moment. “I guess we’ll have to get used to it. You seem strong enough. I’m glad we raised… no sissies.”

“Come into the kitchen, then,” said his mother quickly. “I’ve lunch ready.”

His parents asked him about his school, and his father spoke admiringly when he found out that Kevin actually made money. Kevin told them about the years he had spent wandering around the country, from San Francisco to New York, and he could not help but dwell on his time with Frankie.

“You…” His mother looked at his father, then at the picture of the Sacred Heart that hung above the table. “You liked Frankie, did you?”

“Oh, ma, if I could play blues like he did, I’d think that maybe I was a real musician.”

“I’m sure you’re a fine musician, Kevin. But… was there…” Donna Larkin fell silent. The electric clock whined through the seconds. “Was there anything more… between you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” She shook her head to dismiss the subject. “Never mind. I’m glad you had such a fine teacher.”

Kevin’s father had retired. He now spent most days in his garden or his woodshop. “I’m making cabinets and tables,” he said. “I sell them at the flea market, and now and again I get a call for something special. It’s turning out well.”

“Tell Kevin about what you made for Father Lynch.”

“Ah, it wasn’t anything, Donna.”

“It was too,” insisted his mother with pride. “Before he died, Father Lynch asked your father to make a new credence table for the sanctuary. It’s lovely. We see it every time we go to church. You’ll see it too, at Christmas Mass.”

Kevin looked up. “He’s dead, then?” Almost feeling cheated out of a possible confrontation. “Father Lynch?”

Donna blinked at his tone. “He passed away a few years ago. The whole parish turned out for the funeral. He’d done so much for all of us.”

“Yeah… I guess so…” Kevin had his own memories of Father Lynch. His parents exchanged glances, and his father bent his head and sighed.

Kevin expected some kind of reproof, some admonition to honor the priest, but none came. The clock continued to whine, and unspoken sentiments lay thick upon the table beside the cold roast beef. He was almost puzzled, for Martin Larkin had never been one to bite back words.

Off the kitchen, near the back door, a flight of narrow steps led up to the attic. Kevin groped for a change of subject. “You haven’t… given any thought to rebuilding granda’s old harp, have you?”

The silence thawed, but Martin had to think for a minute. “Why, I even forgot we had it. It’s up in the attic still, I guess.”

“Could I… could I get it down? I’d like to look at it.”

“You taking up the harp?”

“Well, I doubt I’d have much luck. But I know a girl in Denver who’s a harper, and…” Kevin did not know what to say. Christa suddenly seemed far away. Why had he come here?

“A girl? Are you courting her?” Donna seemed hopeful, almost eager.

“Uh…” The idea seemed preposterous. One might as soon court the sea or the Rockies as make overtures to Christa Cruitaire. “We’re… friends.”

“A-
ha
! said his father.

There was a palpable sense of relief in the air, but Kevin felt as though he had inadvertently diminished Christa. “How is everyone else?” he said quickly. “Teresa, and Marie, and Jeanine?”

“They’ll be here for Christmas dinner,” said Donna. “Jeanine is Sister Jeanine now, and she’ll fly in from Chicago come Wednesday morning. Teresa and Marie are up in Casper. They’re married.” She smiled at Kevin. “Some fine children they have, Kevin. But there’s no one to carry on the Larkin name.”

Kevin nodded abstractedly and chewed at a roast-beef sandwich. He should not have mentioned Christa. He could sense a wedding being planned: Christa blue-eyed and Irish and in a white gown, himself in a tuxedo, the family gathered around with approving glances.

He shuddered, floundered, groped again for a different subject. “What about Danny?”

Silence. His father’s mouth was suddenly set. His mother looked away. “Danny…” She spoke with difficulty. “Danny won’t be here.”

“What’s the matter? The Church won’t let him come?”

Martin set down his fork a little too hard. “Your brother won’t be here, that’s all.”

“But—”

“That’s all, Kevin,” he repeated. “The matter’s done.”

Kevin knew that tone.
The matter’s done
. There was simply no more to be said—about music, about church, about anything. He looked from his mother’s lined face to his father’s. A glacier had descended upon the kitchen table.

He cleared his throat. “Good lunch, ma. Where should I take my suitcase?”

“We’ve got your old room ready, Kevin.” His mother’s voice sounded distant, as though the lid of a sarcophagus intervened. “I hope it will do.”

Danny’s high-school yearbooks were missing from the bookcase in the living room, and his pictures had been removed from the family album. His old room had likewise vanished: Donna had taken it for her own bedroom. Kevin found that in itself vaguely disturbing, for despite their twin beds, Martin and Donna had, in his youth, been an affectionate couple. Now they not only slept in separate rooms, but they also hardly ever touched.

As Christmas approached, Kevin explored the house, and although he found it outwardly unchanged, inwardly it had become as chill and grieving as if his parents were waking a corpse in the living room. The weather was mild and the sun made the sky blue and the foothills brown, but Donna Larkin went through the motions of her day with a thin, brittle smile. Martin labored in his woodshop, but seemed bent under more weight than that of a 2x4 or a sheet of plywood.

Wednesday morning, mumbling something about old things that he wanted to find, Kevin climbed the stairs to the attic and lifted the hatch that was thick with dust and cobwebs. As much as he sought his grandfather’s harp, he was also looking for something that he could name as Danny’s.

He had hoped to make peace with his entire family this Christmas, Danny included, but that desire was being denied him. It was useless to ask questions. If he were going to find any sense of belonging or of home, he would have to find it himself. And he would find it not among the present and the living, but scattered amid the possessions of the absent and the dead.

In a graying box, he found some of Danny’s old school papers. Childishly printed, the pages were superscribed with
J. M.J
. and filled with copied questions and answers from the Baltimore Catechism.

Why did God make me?

God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him.

Up at the top:
Daniel Larkin. Grade 2. Room 3
.

“Where are you now, Danny?” he whispered. “What the hell happened?”

A faint gleam caught his eye, and he found, tucked between two stacks of clothes, an old harp. It was larger and heavier than the one he had seen in Christa’s house, and it was certainly less ornate, but he lifted it reverently.

He tested the strings. They would barely sound. Many were broken. The soundbox was cracked, and some of the dusty wood was rotten and patched with mildew. Oxidation caked the brass plate that ran the length of the harmonic curve, and he did not have to try the tuning pins to know that tarnish and corrosion had frozen them in place.

He looked over the instrument with a sigh.
A sad fate for a harp
, Christa had said, and she was right.

Sitting on the floor of his parents’ attic, examining the remnants of his brother’s life and the ruin of his grandfather’s harp, Kevin let his mind rest for a minute on Christa. He felt hollow and unfulfilled by this attempt to regain his family, and the thought of the harper’s blue eyes and sweet face nearly sent him down the stairs for his suitcase and his car keys.

A knocking from below. “Kevvy! Are you up there?”

His voice was tight. “Right here, ma.”

“Your father and I are going to the airport to pick up Jeanine. Will you be all right?”

He held the harp in his arms as he had once held Christa. “Yeah, I’ll be all right.”

“I’ve left some money out on the counter,” she continued. “Can you run to the store while we’re out and pick up a ham for tomorrow? The whole family will be here for dinner, and I want to be sure there’s enough for all of us.”

He clutched the harp. “Sure…”