The Eyes of a King (35 page)

Anna shook her head. She had been thinking just now of the day when she was five years old and her Nan took her to Graysands Beach. They had run over the sand for miles, filling Emilie’s leather handbag with shells and stones. Then the sunlight started to fade, and Emilie said, “Time to go home, Anna angel.” Anna wanted one more shell, and then another one. Emilie laughed and did not mind. And then, suddenly, Anna decided they had enough. They turned and started back, hand in hand. It was late by then and they were caught in heavy traffic. If Anna had collected one less shell, or one more, what happened next would never have happened.

“Everything is luck,” she said again. “Whether you become a dancer or whether you don’t—that’s luck.”

“How did you get the chance to audition for dance school, then? Was that luck?”

He was grinning, but she answered seriously. “The principal
of Clara Nichols Performing Arts School toured in Russia with my dance teacher. It’s a personal favor to him. A scholarship place came free at the last minute, just a couple of weeks ago, and my teacher asked if I could audition for it before they give it to one of the people who came close in the auditions in the spring.”

Ryan laughed, and she smiled, but reluctantly. She turned back to the pan of water and watched the bubbles rising in it. “This seems to be what you English do,” said Ryan. “You have your dreams. And it is a good thing. You will dance professionally one day; I know it.”

“Monica offered me a job yesterday,” she said. “For when I leave school. What do you think?”

Ryan started to his feet, and she turned. “You should go to dance school,” he said. “You should do anything rather than give up on it, if it’s what you want to do. If you ask me, you should not even be here helping her now if you have to practice for an audition. You should let your family take care of their own affairs.”

“I had to come up here,” said Anna. “Monica couldn’t run a business like this without family to help her. You can do whatever you want, Ryan; you don’t have to earn your living.”

He did not reply for a moment. Instead, he sat down again at the table. She poured out the tea and set a cup in front of him. “If I had been an English boy, I would have wanted to be an artist,” he said. “But my ambitions are taken out of my hands.”

“What does that mean?” said Anna.

“Nothing. It means nothing. It means that I know luck is important—of course it is. If I had been born someone different, I could have done whatever I wanted. That is why I think that you
should not give up on dancing. It is in your own hands, whatever the struggle, far more than my future is in mine.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “You wanted to be an artist?” she asked eventually.

“Well, I used to be drawing all the time when I was a little boy. I will draw you a picture someday; then you can judge for yourself if I ever could have made one.”

“All right.” She smiled, but the smile faded fast.

They drank their tea in silence. Upstairs, children were running heavily up and down one of the corridors, making the ceiling creak. “You seem sad today, Anna,” Ryan said.

The way he had said it made her look up at him. As though he knew her well and cared about that. “No,” she said. “Not really.”

The rain thudded more heavily on the glass with a gust of wind. Ryan looked out. “Is that your family?” he said then, standing up to look at the photographs.

“Your mother looks like Monica,” he remarked. “But the other lady looks so much like you. Is she your grandmother?” Anna nodded. “And the man is your father?”

“Yes. He died.”

Ryan glanced at her. “I am sorry.” He turned to examine the picture again. “He looks like a good man.”

“I didn’t know him exactly. He died when I was one year old. But he was a good man—from what my mother has told me.”

“What do you know about him?”

Anna knew many things about her father; he had become a legend to her from years of Monica and Michelle’s stories. But she couldn’t tell them to this boy who she barely knew, even if she talked to him every day now. “Nothing,” she said. “I don’t really know anything.”

“He looks young in this picture,” said Ryan, touching the frame lightly.

“He’s eighteen there. Just after they married. A year before I was born.”

Ryan went on staring at the picture of her father, as if it was a window into another world. “I don’t have any family myself,” he said.

“Except for your great-uncle,” said Anna.

“Of course—yes. And one uncle, my mother’s brother, back where I come from. But I hate him. There is no one—almost no one—I wish dead more than him.”

“Don’t you feel bad to say that about your uncle?”

“Perhaps I should. You have not met him.”

“What about your mother and father?” said Anna.

Anger rose from him suddenly and overtook the room, though his face didn’t change. “They are dead.” His cup was rattling suddenly on the saucer in his hands. He put it down and stared out the window.

“I am sorry,” said Anna. “I didn’t mean …”

“I am not angry with you,” he said.

But his eyes, when he turned back to her, were angry.

“H
arold!
Harold!
” I had been asleep and dreaming. “Harold? What are you doing here? You should be at school.” I opened my eyes and saw a black silhouette, low down over the sky. Grandmother. “What are you doing here?” she demanded again.

I didn’t know, and I wondered why she had called me
Harold. I looked about me, turned over, and felt the grass beneath my back, printed in my shape, and the flowers crushing out pollen under my head. I sat up. I must have fallen asleep on Stirling’s grave.

“Why are you not in school, Harold?” she asked. I just looked at her. She stared back at me as if she didn’t know me.

She turned away as I stood up, and placed a new bouquet beneath the wooden cross. She arranged the flowers and began to hum and cry at the same time. I stood awkwardly behind her. The notes were high and out of tune, but I thought it was a hymn that she sang. She stood back and regarded the cross for a moment, her eyes losing their focus. I touched her arm.

She started and turned to me. “Leo?” I nodded. “You startled me. What are you doing here, Leo? Where did you come from? I did not see you arrive. Did you come in from the gate while I bent to lay down these flowers?”

I did not answer. “So late, though …,” she said, and she was not watching me. “So late to return. I thought you were dead. It’s been six years.” I was frightened. This was like a nightmare, when nothing makes sense. I shook my head fiercely. She watched me for a moment, then turned away again.

“Oh yes. It’s six years. How the time has raced by for you, Harold. You said you would contact me. A letter—a message with a friend—anything. Two words would have been enough. But you did not. And your son Leonard hates me because I would not let them come to you in Alcyria, and Stirling cries for his mother, but what else could I do? I would not risk the lives of your boys when I had no word. Why did you not contact me?”

I almost spoke. But it was like a promise, and I would not break it. She stared at me blankly. Then she looked at the grave,
and when she turned back, she seemed to see me properly again. She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “You are back,” she said quietly, continuing from where she had left off. “Oh, I have been so worried, Leo. You are back to stay now?” I nodded, and she gripped my shoulder tighter. “Thank heavens.”

She stepped back and looked at me then. “Why are you so dirty? And you look pale; have you eaten since Saturday?” She put a hand to my face. “What happened, Leo? I thought you were going to the border. Did you decide to come back?”

When I made no reply, she took my arm. “Come, let us go home.” It reminded me so suddenly, and so exactly, of Stirling’s burial that for a moment I was back there, in the darkness and the dismal scuttling of the raindrops, beside the new grave.

“Come, Leo,” she said, and I followed her.

We reached home about seven o’clock. “I have missed you, Leo,” said Grandmother. “I was so lonely. I have lost Stirling, and I had lost you. Nothing but my thoughts, and no one to talk to—no one to share the burden of Stirling’s death.” Then she began to cry. I wished she would not talk about it if it made her cry. “Talk to me, Leo,” she said. “Say something to comfort me.” I could not have done, even if I had been willing to speak again.

She clasped my hands in her own trembling ones, and they felt frail and bony and weak as paper. “I try to forget Stirling’s death, but how can I?” she went on. “Everything here reminds me of him; everything reminds me that he is dead. And what is there for me to do? I cannot work; I have no friends; even Father Dunstan cannot be here all the time. Church is my only comfort. I can’t bear to sit here alone, crying and thinking of Stirling.”

Then she tried to smile and put a false cheeriness into her voice. “But it will be better now you are here, Leo. You know how I suffer; I know you are suffering too. We can help each other to bear this.” I nodded, trying to pull my hand away. “Look at you, Leo,” she said, in a different tone, brushing the tears from her face. “You look unwell. Go down and take a shower, and I’ll make you some soup.”

I took a shower, then folded that uniform, put the pistol underneath it in the windowsill chest, and put on my ordinary clothes again—black ones. Grandmother was wearing black also. It was the custom to wear black for a month. I vowed then that I’d wear black forever. Anyhow, I thought dismally, a month was as long as forever when it had been only three days. From the bedroom I could hear Anselm’s thin wail and the sound of shouting—Maria and her mother arguing again.

“You look like you need a good hot meal, Leo,” Grandmother said when I opened the door. She was cooking onions in oil; the juice in the air caught at my eyes. I felt sick to think of Grandmother saying cheery things and cooking so soon, as if she had already forgotten. I wished I was back in the hills, sweating and stumbling, where at least my life reflected the pain in my heart.

“I’m going to have to look after you now,” Grandmother said. I did not ask, “Now what?” but she said anyway, “Now I do not have Stirling to look after, that is,” and began crying. So did I. I tried not to, because I did not want her to comfort me, but it was no use. “Come here, Leo,” she said, holding out her hand, but I shook my head and went into the bedroom and shut the door.

“Leo!” I heard her calling, in a tear-choked pretense at
jollity, a few minutes later. I got up from my bed and went out, though I didn’t feel hungry.

We ate silently, on two sides of the table, with Stirling’s empty chair between us. I stared straight down at the vegetable soup as I shoveled it into my mouth. I ripped a large piece of bread and crammed it in defiantly, the food pushing out of my too-full mouth, and the tears pushing out of my eyes. I felt guilty, eating so greedily, but I did it anyway. I willed the tears not to brim over.

“I think I forgot something,” mumbled Grandmother. “This soup doesn’t taste quite right.” It was true—it tasted different from how she usually made it—but I did not care. “It is different, is it not?” said Grandmother. “And I burned the onions. Sorry, Leo.” I went on shoveling it into my mouth and shrugged.

“Father Dunstan might call round this evening,” said Grandmother after a moment. “He has been very supportive.” I went on eating. “He would like to speak to you. He is worried about you.” The words dropped into silence again. I took another piece of bread, wiped it round my empty bowl, and pushed it into my mouth. “He has been very helpful to me,” she said. “I hope you will talk to him. Would you like some more of that?” I nodded. Eating was something to do, and I set myself about it with a ferocity.

“I spoke to Maria yesterday,” Grandmother said, setting down another piece of bread and another bowl of soup in front of me. I began eating again. “She asked after you. She’s a very nice girl. Apparently that baby of hers has been ill.” I didn’t look up. “Nothing serious,” Grandmother said anyway. “Only a cold or something like that. She seemed quite tired out; apparently he has been crying without pause.”

The silence came down again. “So, did you get to the border?” she asked. “How is the war going?” I shook my head. “You did not reach the border?” I shook my head again. “Why did you come back?” I shrugged. I could not explain that without words. “You did not do something bad, that they sent you back?” I shook my head. They did not send me back; that at least was true. “Ah, well …” She drifted into silence again.

A couple of minutes later there was a knock at the door. Grandmother got up to answer it, evidently relieved, and the tight atmosphere broke. It was Father Dunstan. “Hello, Margaret,” he said. And then, catching sight of me, “Leo. You are back from the border? I did not expect to see you so soon.” I gave him a curt nod. There was deep sorrow in his voice. I wished he wouldn’t pretend to be sad when he wasn’t the one who should be sad. He wasn’t the one whose brother had died. He barely even knew Stirling.

“It’s kind of you to visit, Father,” said Grandmother.