Like Chaff in the Wind (29 page)

“I don’t think Ham has any stones left in his hooves to dislodge,” she said, kissing him on the nape.

“No.” Matthew continued smoothing his hands up and down the horse’s legs.

“Stupid name for a horse,” she added in an effort to distract him.

“You think? It would have been worse if he was a pig.” He tweaked at her hair. “We could have been dead.”

“But we’re not, right?”

“No, we’re not, but no thanks to my twisted, evil brother. He wishes us both dead, Alex, both!”

“He won’t try again,” Sandy said, having come over to join them.

“He won’t? How so?” Matthew asked.

“There are ways to rein in a maddened beast; you start by talking to its master.”

“What? Matthew should go to the king?” Alex held out her arms to receive Rachel back.

“Hmm, no that would not be wise, I think. Leave it with me, aye? It is I, is it not, that has the gift of the word – not that I seem to entrance all audiences.” Sandy winked at Alex and sauntered off to talk to his brother.

Chapter 38

Two uneventful nights, and just before noon of the penultimate day of May, Matthew turned Ham up the last stretch towards Hillview. Clouds chased each other across a sky blue in patches, and a gusty wind tore at cloaks and hoods, lifting Ham’s mane to float like an elongated set of medusa curls around the powerful neck. A very good horse, not quite as impressive as Samson, but with strong cruppers and clean legs and a good head, with those flat, dished cheekbones that spoke of Arab ancestry.

Matthew smiled wryly; he was only thinking of the horse to distract himself from the snakes that presently inhabited his stomach. Would it have changed? Two and a half years since he’d last seen his home on a cold January morning, and with every step the horse took down the road, Matthew felt his heart pick up pace, a weakening sensation in elbow creases and knees.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked.

“I’m afraid it may have changed.”

Alex blew out loudly through her nose. “Of course it will – superficially. Just as it had when you came back from those years in prison.” She adjusted the shawl that held Rachel to her chest and reached back to pat Matthew on the leg. “The heart of it doesn’t change. The fields, the hill, the way the stream meanders across the meadow – all of that remains as it always was. It’s the earth as such that calls to you, the place where you’ve lived as a child, where your family has lived for generations. And no matter how changed, it’s still the place where you belong, forever rooted there.” She sighed and gave a shaky laugh. “Not like me, hey? I have no roots, no place on earth eternally labelled ‘home’. A proverbial rolling stone, that’s me. Even in my old time – or should I say my future time – that’s the way it was.”

“You belong here too,” Matthew said, spreading his hand over her stomach. “You belong with me.” He disliked it when she spoke of that old life of hers, even as tangentially as she had just done. It made him too aware of how random their meeting was – a fickle misalignment in time, and two people who should never have met ended up eye to eye.

He widened his fingers, pretending he could curl them round the wee stranger in her womb, keep it safe and cosseted. He chuckled; the bairn lay well protected under the steady beat of her heart. He pressed his hand harder into her belly, swept by a primitive pride in his own virility; his woman, his child. She pushed back against him. It made his blood fizz, how his wife softened at his touch, and he bent his head to nibble at her ear, laughing at how all of her shivered in response.

“Tonight, in our bed.”

“Maybe,” she said with a little shrug. He bit harder and she squealed, promising him that of course tonight in their bed.

“What do I say to him?” Alex asked Matthew a bit later. “Come here, come to Mama? What if he doesn’t want to?” She shifted, clearly nervous. “I keep on seeing him hiding behind Joan’s legs, staring at us from a safe distance.”

“You’ll say the right thing; you’re his mother.”

“You think?”

“Of course you will, lass.” His son; no longer a wean, but a laddie. He couldn’t visualise this unknown little being, seeing instead the babe he had left behind, all dimples and folds of baby fat with light hazel eyes. Alex feared Mark might not recognise her. He feared he might not recognise his son.

Matthew held in Ham just before they crested the last little hill and dropped off.

“I must piss.”

Alex fussed with her hair, smoothing it back before replacing cap and hat, and in Matthew’s eyes she was very beautiful, sitting the horse with their daughter clasped to her chest. He took the reins and walked the last few steps, and there before him lay Hillview, spread out in the summer greenery. The barn, the weathered stable, henhouse, dovecot and privy – still all there, solid and permanent. His eyes flew over the buildings, noting that they stood strong and well maintained. Two horses in the meadow, the glittering line of water where the stream cut its way behind kitchen garden and storage sheds. Alex inhaled, and he turned to look at her.

“Home,” she said.

“Aye; home.” His eyes flew to the main house, nestling back against the hill – grey stone, dark slate roof and two chimneys. Home. He dashed a hand over his eyes and drew in a lungful of Hillview air – finer air than anywhere else on earth. Exclamations of delight floated up from below, Matthew took a firm grip on the reins, and began the last walk downhill, towards his home, his family and son.

*

She should have been scanning the waiting faces, but the one thing that caught Alex’s eyes as Matthew led Ham down the slope was so incongruous she nearly fell off the horse. It couldn’t be! She looked again at the solitary garment hanging to dry, and suppressed a desire to knuckle her eyes. Light blue, long legged and with a copper zipper up the front; jeans…here! She was mesmerised by them, her head swivelling, but then she was being helped off the horse, Rachel was swept from her by Matthew, and she was surrounded by arms, by people welcoming her home. There was Joan, still as thin as a rail, her grey eyes shiny with tears, her hair covered by an overlarge cap, and here came Simon, weeping openly as he squished her to his chest.

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 wave 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.”