A String in the Harp (45 page)

“No, I didn’t think you’d have any concept,” said Dr. Owen.

But I do, thought Peter. It mattered to him terribly, but they were on different paths and they would never meet each other. Which was right? Or were they neither? Or both? These were questions Peter couldn’t ask Dr. Owen. They didn’t understand one another and likely never would.

“No matter. If not today, we’ll find it tomorrow, somewhere else. Persistence. We must simply go on
trying
and we’ll succeed.” He came back to Peter. “No point in keeping you any longer. Give my regards to your father, will you?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” said Peter sincerely. In an odd way he rather liked Dr. Owen. He could afford to now; the Key was safe. “Um, could I just leave a note for Dr. Rhys?”

Dr. Owen nodded absently, his thoughts gone on to something else as he collected a pile of papers.

On a blank index card he found on the desk, Peter wrote: “Everything all right. Peter Morgan” and propped it against Dr. Rhys’s penholder. “I’ll just go now.”

“What? Oh, of course.” Thankfully, Peter slipped out of the office; it was done and finished. In his eagerness to get away to the wind and sun, he didn’t even see the man standing just outside the door until he bumped into him.

“Ooop!” He checked himself. “Sorry, I—Dad!”

“You’re dangerous,” remarked David. “I’ve felt it often recently.”

“I wasn’t looking.”

“I guessed as much.”

“Were you waiting for Dr. Rhys? He’s not there yet.”

“No. You.”

“Were you?” Peter was surprised.

“Mmm. You seem to be in very good shape for someone who’s just come off the rack.”

“It wasn’t so bad.”

“One or the other of us has changed a great deal in a few months,” David observed. “Or both of us, perhaps. Come on, I need a cup of coffee.”

***

The strange, twisted monkey puzzle trees along North Parade were covered with a green haze of new shoots, the wide pavements beneath them crowded with University students and professors, mums with prams and small children hanging like fringe off the hems of their coats. The long afternoon sun still had some warmth in it, though it was past four o’clock. The shabbiness of Aberstwyth was familiar and no longer depressing: the cracked plaster and blistered window frames of the row houses, the chipped paint on doors and smell of frying from the guest houses, the gray net curtains.

How would it seem in the holidays when the students were done with exams and gone and the streets were full instead with people on vacation from the smoky industrial cities of England—Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sheffield? They’d all walk up and down the Prom and breathe the sea air and buy postcards and ices or lie on the pebbly beach if the sun shone. Hugh-the-Bus said you would hardly know the place, so different it was with all the shops and cafes and cottages open, and the caravan sites along the coast bursting with tourists. Odd to think of strangers walking where Peter and David were walking now, living in Bryn Celyn. Unsettling.

They found seats in the window of a small cafe, where they could sit across from each other and watch the business of the street. David got them two white coffees and Peter
loaded his with brown demerara sugar, crunching it on the bottom of his cup with the spoon.

“What happened?” asked David finally. “Will you tell me?”

“Nothing much,” answered Peter. “He wanted to know if I had anything he’d be interested in, and I said no. I didn’t lie to him; I haven’t.”

David frowned a little. “Is that the end of it? Was he satisfied?”

“He had to be. I told him the truth and he believed me. He was very disappointed.” Peter tasted his coffee, winced, and spooned in more sugar.

“Sorry. I don’t suppose you really like coffee, do you? I wasn’t thinking. Want something else?”

Peter shook his head. “I was sorry for Dr. Owen, he wanted it so much.”

“So it’s over—with him, and with you.”

“That part is. Dad?”

“What?”

“If we didn’t go back to America this summer, what would happen?”

“Did I hear you right?”

“Suppose we stayed another year?”

David sighed. “You needn’t worry, Peter, I’ve made up my mind to take you back.”

“No,” said Peter. “Jen and Becky and I talked about it this morning after you’d gone.” He hesitated, knowing what he was going to say, but not knowing how it would be received. “We don’t think it’s fair for you to decide for all of us without discussing it.”

David sat very still for a long moment, head bent, his hands with their square, capable fingers quiet on the table top. “You don’t?” he said at last.

“It’s our family, too, Dad. Jen’s been running the house for months—managing money and cooking. And Becky’s
been helping; she’s doing well enough with school. They ought to be allowed to say what they think.”

“And you?”

“I’m part of the family, too, even though I have made a mess of things. Some of it’s my own fault, but some I couldn’t help. I’m sorry.” It wasn’t as hard to say that as Peter had thought it would be.

There was just a hint of a smile in David’s eyes when he looked up at his son. “It’s much easier for one person to decide than for four to agree,” he said.

“Then you get all the blame if you’re wrong.”

“Or all the credit,” David added.

Peter shrugged. The coffee in the cups between them got cold. What was David thinking? That he, Peter, had no right to talk this way after the way he’d behaved all year? But David had been waiting outside the office. He had bought him a cup of coffee. He was listening.

“School’s the worst,” said Peter. “But I can make it up.”

“I know you can,” said David dryly. “I’ve been saying that for months.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know how to explain . . .”

“Then don’t try yet. Later, if you need to. Peter, how can I expect all the answers from you when I don’t have them myself? The questions aren’t easy: what do I do about Jen’s school if we stay? She can’t have another year like this. What do I tell Beth? And the English Department at Amherst? What are the reasons for staying here?”

“What about wanting to?” asked Peter.

“Even you?”

He nodded. “No matter what we do though, we want it to be
our
decision, not just yours.”

Unreadable thoughts flickered across David’s face. “You’re all so young,” he protested mildly. “I can’t help thinking of you as my children!”

“We’re getting older.”

“Almost too fast. You’re very persuasive, you know. I’m not at all sure I have much chance against the three of you. There’s a tremendous lot to be considered.”

“We’ll all consider it,” Peter pleaded.

“Well,” said David. “I spent the afternoon writing this.” He took a letter out of his pocket. “I worked hard on it; I was going to walk up the hill and deliver it on the way home. It explains why I have to turn down the University’s offer for next year. Now you tell me I can’t do it that way.”

Peter waited, holding his breath.

“I guess we have to take it back to Bryn Celyn with us and discuss it first.”

“Oh.” The word escaped involuntarily.

“If we go now, we’ll just make the 5:10 bus. Ready?”

“Oh, yes!” Peter cried joyfully. “Yes!”

The 5:10 to Ynyslas Turn was crowded mostly with students—full of cheerful noise. Peter and David had to find separate seats for the ride up Penglais Hill. From the rear of the bus, Peter could only glimpse the back of his father’s head between passengers. No promises, no commitments. David hadn’t torn up the letter, only said they’d discuss it. But Peter was happy. He watched the rows of houses grind past the window as the bus stuttered up Penglais. At the top a jumble of students piled off, and Peter went up to sit with his father.

Beyond Aber they were once more riding between fields hemmed in by hedges of hawthorn, blackthorn, and blackberry. Bow Street, Llandre, Dolybont. At the Borth post office they climbed out and walked to Upper Borth in the windy evening. Gulls blew overhead, crying, on stretched wings. The lights were coming on behind curtains. The narrow margin that was Borth, a single strand spun thin between the sea and the bog, was beginning to emerge from the twilight—beads of light on a string.

This was not their place forever, but it wasn’t a place to be despised, as Peter had once believed. He’d been unhappy
here, alone and lonely and resentful. But he’d found something in Borth: a thing more important even than the Key. He had learned that he was part of other people and they part of him and he was glad. He could accept it now.

“Next year, where will we be?” he asked softly.

If David heard him, he didn’t answer, but they walked toward Bryn Celyn side by side, so close their arms touched. As they turned up the path, the front door opened, spilling yellow light into the Welsh dusk. Jen and Becky were there, waiting for them.

Primary chief Bard am I to Elphin,

And my original country is that of the Summer Stars;

Idno and Heinin called me Merddin,

At last every king will call me Taliesin.

***

I have been given the Muse from the cauldron of Caridwen;

I have been Bard of the Harp to Lleon of Lochlin.

I have been on the White Hill, in the Court of Cynfelin.

I have been fostered in the lands of Rheged and Caerleon,

I have been teacher to all manner of men,

I am able to instruct all the Universe.

I shall be until the Day of Doom upon the face of the earth;

And it is not known whether I am man, beast, or fish.

—from The Mabinogion, Taliesin

T
ALIESIN HIMSELF
was a real Welsh bard. He lived during the sixth century, and fragments of his poetry have survived and been translated into English. From the fragments, written down long after his death when Welsh became a written as well as a spoken language, it is known that he was familiar with the courts of men like Maelgwn, Gwyddno, and Urien Rheged—possibly even Arthur’s at Caerleon. The story of Taliesin is translated in Lady Charlotte Guest’s version of
The Mabinogion,
but it is a fairy tale, a legend that grew around the real man. Perhaps it has its roots in fact; at least so I would like to believe. The poetry in this story is thought to be that of Taliesin and his contemporaries and was translated by Lady Charlotte Guest and William Skene. I have made minor changes in their translations. The life of Taliesin that the Key shows Peter is what I have imagined his real story to be. It is my own version. To my knowledge there is no harp key, and it is not known where Taliesin is buried.

But if you ever travel to Cardiganshire in Wales, you will find the village of Borth as I have described it: caught between the sea and the Bog; and the town of Aberystwyth with its National Library and University. With the help of an Ordnance Survey Map you can even find Bedd Taliesin, Sarn Cynfelin, Nant-y-moch, and Pumlumon Fawr. You’ll meet Hugheses and Evanses and Rhyses—but not the ones I’ve written about—because Welsh surnames are few, and hear Welsh spoken in the shops and on the buses. If you go in the spring you will see primroses and lambs, and unless you’re
extraordinarily lucky, you will discover that I have not exaggerated about the rain!

Perhaps, if you’re there long enough, you will feel the wildness and ancient power of the country, watch buzzards over the hills, discover cairns and hill forts, and understand that there are indeed many kinds of magic.

N
ANCY
B
OND
has spent most of her life in Massachusetts: growing up and living in Concord, going to college at Mt. Holyoke in South Hadley, working in Boston, Lincoln and Gardner. Her three greatest interests as long as she can remember have been natural history, books—especially children’s books—and Britain, and she has spent most of her time on one or another or all three. She has worked in the promotion departments of two publishing houses and as a librarian; participated in nature and conservation workshops and organizations; and lived a total of almost four years in the British Isles. Her latest trip there was in 1971-1972 when she studied at the College of Librarianship Wales, in Aberystwyth, for her library degree. It was out of the experiences of that year that
A String in the Harp,
her first book grew.