Rainbow's End - Wizard (20 page)

Annie and Frieda were sitting on the bench to the left of the cave’s entrance, looking down the length of the magical valley. The two of them had seen the game between horses and children a thousand times over the years, but still found it amusing, and laughed at the antics of both sides. The horses ran off again, and in the lull t
hat followed, Arnold came out of the cave, bearing a tray with two large milkshakes on it. Banana - Annie’s favourite, and strawberry - which was Frieda’s. The strawberry had a cherry set into its foamy centre and stood on a heart-shaped place mat.

Arnold’s T-s
hirt read: “I am not overweight: I have a big bone structure”; he blushed painfully when both women thanked him for the unexpected, but welcome beverage, pulled in his stomach with a mighty effort, and stumbled back into the cave - blinded by love.

Annie reached over, and softly squeezed the younger woman’s hand. ‘You really like him, don’t you, Frieda?’ she asked. Frieda - with a jerky nod, and a blush to match Arnold’s, quickly looked away.

15

There was an hour of daylight left when Thomas got to Orson’s cottage
; sandals in one hand and photo album in the other; and crusty-brown boots of mud ending an inch above his ankles.

Apart from being wide, the short wooden bridge spanning the small stream before the cottage was also low enough for Thomas to sit down on, and dunk his feet in the water below. Which is wha
t he did; and while the swiftly flowing water washed the mud from his skin and between his toes, Tessie came down from the veranda to meet him. Thomas sat rubbing between her ears and softly told her what a beautiful dog she was; and she in turn, watched him with intelligent eyes and her Labrador grin. It wasn’t long before the last speck of mud swirled away between the mossy stones, and Thomas - on feet still wet - could slip back on his sandals. He walked off the small bridge and towards the cottage.

It had a new chimney - far enough from the old one not to bother the owls; smoke was rising slowly from it into the clear air of another perfect day. He went up the steps and saw
that all the windows were steamed up and impossible to see through; wonderful, familiar smells hung in the air.

He knocked on the closed door, and it opened by itself; stepped through and a blast of cold air hit him. Into a winter’s day in England…

Orson called a gravelly ‘close the door!’ from the kitchen and Thomas did, shutting out the summer. The cottage was chilly but cosy on the inside, and incongruously, the windows had snow falling outside. Their sills were piled high with the white stuff.

The living room was totally different: the recliner had been replaced by tw
o easy chairs and a comfortable looking couch, all facing a fire burning in a new grate under a new chimney. There were two small tables - one next to each of the easy chairs - and a few leather-covered footrests lay scattered on the thick, long-haired carpet covering the entire floor. Paintings of snow covered forests and mountains, and storm-tossed seas hung on the walls. Two lights, dimmed and recessed into the walls, as well as the fire, lent a cosy light to it all. The room was clean, and smelled of wood-smoke and aftershave lotion and other memories….

A table at the far end of the lounge had space for six, but was set for only two…

‘Welcome, Thomas.’

Thomas turned from watching the fire and had to stop himself from gaping. Orson stoo
d just outside the long kitchen counter. He was dressed smart-casual: neat grey woollen trousers with a knife-edge crease, a cream coloured polo neck jersey and a navy blue dinner jacket. His shoes were black lace-ups and shone like mirrors. His grey hair was neatly trimmed (and combed), and he’d shaved. He was watching Thomas’ reaction very closely, right eyelid at its usual half-mast.

‘So,’ he rasped, after a few seconds, and waved a hand down his front:  self-consciously proud, but trying to hide it. ‘What do you think?’ He raised his eyebrow and waited.

Thomas was at a momentary loss for words, then he stammered: ‘You look very…distinguished, sir.’ Orson’s eyelid went back to half-mast and he glared at the boy for a suspicious second. Then - seemingly satisfied with the response and what he saw, he nodded and said, knowing it was a lost cause, ‘Don’t call me sir.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Just looking at the old man made Thomas, in shorts, sandals and T-shirt, shiver. Orson saw it, pointed towards the back of the cottage, and said, ‘The spare bedroom is to your left. There are some fresh clothes on the bed that should fit you.’ He saw Thomas frown. ‘Annie gave them to me,’ he explained. ‘
She
said they’d fit.’ Almost accusingly, then, added, ‘Take a hot shower first, if you want.’

The bedroom was newly added on and so was
the bathroom (one of the shower stall taps still had its plastic wrapping). When Thomas had finished and was glowing pink with heat from the hot water, he got dressed in the new jeans, vest, checked woollen shirt and thick blue polo-neck jersey that lay neatly folded on the bed. There were also woollen socks and a pair of Nike running shoes. Annie had obviously been told of the weather expectations out Orson’s way, and Thomas was doubly grateful, for on top of being the right fit, the clothes were comfortable and warm.

Supper was soup and tasted wonderful. Just as Grammy’s used to. Pea-green and thick; full of fatty pieces of meat and bits of bacon and potato-pieces. Almost a stew, but with enough liquid to dunk the butter-dripping, steaming-hot slices of homemade bread into. The two of them got through half the pot and almost a full loaf of bread, and there were a lot of questions and answers from both sides before they sat back, sated.

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 t
he 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.