Playing Beatie Bow (22 page)

Justine was overjoyed to see Abigail. The unit had been redecorated and was reasonably tidy. Justine herself looked plump and contented.

‘But Natalie, where’s she?’

‘Oh, she’ll be here in a moment, she’s out shopping with Robert. It’s her eighth birthday, you know. She’ll be so thrilled!’

‘She won’t even recognise me.’ Abigail laughed. ‘She was so little when I left.’

‘I’ll get back to my practice, Mum,’ said Vincent and, excusing himself, he went off into the next room. The piano started again.

Justine said excitedly, ‘He’s so promising, his teacher says – something quite out of the ordinary. Remember what a fiend he was? Well, the moment he started music lessons it acted like magic. He just suddenly became an ordinary, decent kid. Bill and I couldn’t believe it. We say prayers of gratitude every night.’

‘Bill? Isn’t your husband called Robert?’

‘No, no; Robert’s my younger brother. He’s Nat’s favourite uncle, being so young. He’s only twenty. Should be here soon. Now then, start from the very beginning and tell me about everything. Did you go to Oslo University? Did you have any romances with glamorous Norwegians?’

‘Oh, three or four.’ Abigail smiled. ‘They’re irresistible people. Not serious though.’

‘You’ll die being back in this old mundane place,’ said Justine.

‘No, not at all. Oh, it seems a bit hot and bright after those northern countries, but I’m going to finish my degree at Sydney University. I’ll soon get used to it, and everything that happened in the last four years will seem like a fairy-tale.’

The doorbell rang, and Justine jumped up. An older, bigger Natalie rushed in, her arms laden with parcels.

‘And Robert’s downstairs with all the big ones,’ she cried. Her gaze alighted on the visitor. For a split second she looked dumbfounded; then, yelling ‘Abigail!’, she dropped all her packages and hurled herself into the older girl’s arms. ‘Oh, you’ve turned into a grown-up, but I’d know you anywhere, anywhere!’

As Abigail’s arms closed around the wiry strong little body she had an instant pang of regret for the troubled and tearful child Natalie once had been. It was almost as if she were jealous that Natalie had found a braver, surer self without her help. The child’s big grey eyes were frank and lively, the mournful little face was gay.

She thought, ‘I suppose she’s forgotten everything’; but even as the thought entered her mind, Natalie put her lips close to Abigail’s and whispered, ‘Do you remember the furry little girl?’

Abigail nodded.

‘She’s always been our secret, hasn’t she? Because no one else saw her, you know.’

A key fumbled at the front door, and Natalie shrieked, ‘Oh, there’s Robert! Wait till you see the super things he’s bought for my birthday!’

‘How he spoils you monkeys!’ scolded Justine as she went to open the door. A tall young man entered, grinning over an armful of large packages. ‘Don’t jump on me, Natty, or I’ll collapse. Where’s Vince? There’s an un-birthday something here for him.’

Abigail was half-hidden by the arm of a wingchair. She felt as if she were going to faint, as though the blood were draining down to her toenails.

That voice – she felt again the old agony of longing, the tenderness, the unbearable sweetness of being fourteen and drowning in love for someone who thought her a child.

‘It’s all going to start again,’ she thought in panic. ‘But it can’t; I burnt the crochet. If it does I won’t know how to manage it now that I’m older.’

She cringed back into the chair, trying to hide herself until she could collect her thoughts.

‘Put all those down and come and meet one of my oldest friends,’ she heard Justine say. ‘Vincent, stop that racket. Robert’s got a surprise for you. Hurry up, Robert.’

She felt him standing there. For a moment she could not look up, she was too afraid.

Justine was chattering. ‘Abigail, you must meet my favourite brother, Robert. Robert Bow, Abigail Kirk.’

Abigail raised her eyes.

‘It was the most weird thing,’ Justine told her long afterwards. ‘All you did was to give him the sweetest smile I ever saw. I always thought you a bit of a sobersides, you know – but this! I practically melted. And then Robert said what he said … wow, it was really odd!’

‘Abby!’ the young man exclaimed. Then he turned scarlet and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. For a moment I thought I knew you. I don’t know why I said that; I don’t know that people call you Abby for short at all.’

His eyes were deep blue, his hair was fair. He was taller than Judah. His hands were not hard and brown.

‘But then, he’s lived to be older than Judah ever did,’ thought Abigail, ‘and he’s never worked as hard as Judah.’

The children were making such a commotion over the presents that Justine rocketed away to supervise.

Robert sat down on the floor beside the chair. He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘We’ve never met, have we? You must think me a nut, bursting out that way. Can’t think what made me do it.’

All the confused, half-frightened, half-rapturous feelings that had churned in Abigail’s interior a few moments previously had gone. Judah had not shipped on
The Brothers
. He had lived, he had lived! The empty place in her heart filled with peaceful benign happiness. She knew that it was settling over her face, that if she looked into a mirror she would see the ghost of a middle-aged woman, still married, still in love, rich with contentment. She almost put out her hand to stroke Robert’s cheek as she had dared to do to Judah in that long ago year. But she did not. It was not yet time. He did not know what she knew.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘how does your name happen to be Bow when Justine’s surname is …’ she broke off. ‘But of course, that’s her married name. You must excuse me. I was quite young when I lived in the unit next door.’

‘Oh, yes, I know,’ said Robert. ‘Natalie’s often mentioned you. You used to take her to the playground.’

What else, she wondered, had Natalie told him?

‘I knew some other Bows once,’ she said. ‘I had a friend, he was called Judah.’

Robert looked dumbfounded. ‘But that’s my name too! Robert Judah Bow! Where did you know them? They must be cousins or something. I must ask Justine.’

‘No, no,’ said Abigail tranquilly. ‘She didn’t know them. We’ll talk about them another time. Just let’s sit.’

She wasn’t sure afterwards what they talked about. It was too natural and ordinary to remember. She told Robert about Norway, and he told her about the marine engineering course he was doing.

‘I’ve got this feeling about the sea, you see.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I think my ancestors came from Shetland or somewhere, so I suppose the sea is in my genes.’

‘Orkney,’ said Abigail half to herself. He looked at her half puzzled, half fascinated.

‘May I come and see you?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m right next door.’

They smiled at each other like old friends.

As she went out, Justine whispered, ‘Isn’t he a doll?’

Abigail smiled. As she bent to kiss Natalie, the little girl whispered in her old way. ‘You won’t go away, will you, Abigail? Everything’s going to come out all right now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Abigail.

When she returned to her parents’ unit Kathy said, ‘We’ve decided art deco is too frightful. Maybe Norwegian, with the doors painted with garlands and bouquets in dim colours.’

‘You’ll start a trend,’ said Abigail absently. She did not feel she would be living in that unit very long, so she was not very interested in how it would look. Kathy asked her about the Crowns, nodded with pleasure over the miraculous change in Vincent.

‘He was jealous of Natalie, you know,’ she said.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Abigail. ‘Kids … whoever knows what they’re thinking?’

‘And who else was there with Justine, that made you look the way you’re looking?’ asked Kathy, slyly.

‘A university student called Robert Bow,’ answered Abigail.

‘And?’

‘He’s dropping in Saturday afternoon. You’ll like him.’

Kathy was about to say something teasing when Abigail added, ‘He’s bringing the family Bible.’

Kathy looked bewildered.

‘We just want to look up a family tree,’ explained Abigail.

At the week-end Robert arrived. He towered even over Weyland Kirk. Abigail saw now that, aside from his height, there were small differences from Judah’s in his face. The eyes and hair and features were the same, but the teeth more regular. The smallpox scar that had dimpled Judah’s cheek was missing; the hair was cut altogether differently.

‘He’s had an easier life than Judah, just as I’ve had an easier life than Dovey or poor little Beatie, probably. I wonder what happened to her?’

The Bible was a mighty volume. The green plush had hardly any pile left at all; the brass edges were black and bent. They had not been polished for many years.

‘Justine had it at the top of the linen cupboard. It belonged to some old great-great aunt or such. She used to be headmistress at Fort Street School, you know the old building up near the Observatory that the National Trust has now?’

‘So she made it, the little stirrer!’ crowed Abigail. She beamed at Robert, who gaped at her.

‘She wasn’t any little stirrer; she was a perfect old tartar. Mother remembered her quite well; she was in an old ladies’ home or something. Mother was petrified with terror of her, she said.’

‘Old Miss Bow?’ Abigail laughed marvelling. ‘Who would have guessed it? I guess that’s how that kids’ game sprang up … terror lest Miss Beatie Bow would rise from the grave and give them all whatfor!’ She laughed. ‘Sorry, Robert. I must sound like a witch. But after we’ve looked at your family tree I’ll explain a bit.’ Her eyes twinkled as she smiled at him. ‘The rest I won’t tell you until we know each other lots better.’

‘That won’t be long if I’ve anything to say about it.’

‘Let’s go into the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Those two are fighting over re-decorating the unit. We’ve been through the red-plush loo seat phase, and I don’t want to be present as they pass into the birchwood and Scandinavian, with Lappish rugs. Besides, in there we can put this monster out flat on the table.’

Robert opened the enormous book and turned to one of the thick mended pages. Hand-painted violets and faded ribbons of lilac enclosed the family tree. Each name was in a little painted oval touched with gold paint. Some of it was in a fanciful Victorian hand with long looping tails, the ink bleached to a light brown. Some names were in a round, childish script, and at the bottom the names of Vincent and Natalie Crown were written in Justine’s favourite green biro.

Abigail fell upon it eagerly. ‘Your great-grandfather, Judah, where’s he?’

‘Hold on!’ said Robert. ‘I didn’t have a great-grandfather Judah. That’s just a family name. My great-grandfather was Samuel, I think.’

‘It couldn’t be,’ protested Abigail. ‘That was Trooper Bow’s name, their father, Beatie and Gibbie and Judah’s father.’

‘How on earth –? Never mind now – Gibbie! That was it. Gilbert. Look, here it is.’

His brown forefinger slid down the painted branches of the tree till it landed on Gilbert Samuel, b. 1863, d. 1933.

‘That’s not possible,’ cried Abigail. ‘He wasn’t supposed to live; he wasn’t long for this world. What’s Gibbie doing hanging around until he was – what is it? – seventy, mind you!’

Robert gazed at her, flabbergasted.

‘Then Judah must have drowned after all,’ she said slowly. ‘Where is he, Robert?’

Her finger went back to the curly Victorian writing. She found
Judah Bow
, b. 1855, d. 1874.

‘Oh, Robert, he was on the ship after all. He died at nineteen. It isn’t fair!’

‘Oh, Judah, oh, Judah,’ she sobbed. In a moment Robert had his arms around her. He tried to make sense of her choked mumbles, but all he could get was: ‘And when I saw you I was sure he had lived, and Dovey had had a baby, and you were descended from him. How do you look exactly like him then? Beastly little Gibbie! You’ve no idea how awful he was, always panting to join his mamma amongst the angels. He even had his funeral worked out.’ She raised her head and sniffed angrily. ‘It’s just him to put it all over everyone and live till seventy, little sneak.’

‘But if he hadn’t lived,’ Robert pointed out softly, ‘I wouldn’t have had him for a great-grandfather, and I wouldn’t be here listening to you.’

‘I loved him so much,’ wept Abigail. ‘Not horrible Gibbie, but Judah; and I knew he would be drowned and tried to warn him but I couldn’t get back … Oh, Robert, he died when he was nineteen, he never had a real life at all.’

‘Now then,’ said Robert, and there was in his voice the firmness of Judah Bow, who had been a man, with a man’s work and authority, at eighteen. ‘You’re going to calm down and tell me all about this: how you know things about my family I don’t know, why you’re crying about someone who died more than a century ago. You know you’re going to tell me sooner or later, don’t you? So why not sooner?’

He kissed away her tears. It seemed a very natural and accustomed thing to do. So, very simply and without embarrassment, Abigail told him what had happened four years before. He listened seriously.

‘Natalie has something to do with this, hasn’t she?’ he pondered. ‘Because, after all, she’s a Bow, and perhaps she has the Gift. And the crochet, because it came from the fingers of that Great-great-great-grandmother Alice from the Orkneys, was just enough to tip you over into the last century. She was right, you know: you were the Stranger of the Prophecy.’

‘But the rest of the Prophecy –’ cried Abigail. ‘I mean, it was Granny Tallisker herself who believed that one for death and one for barrenness meant Gibbie for death, because he was so frail, and one for barrenness meant Beatie, because she always said she wouldn’t get married no matter what. And instead it was Judah for death, and Dovey for barrenness. The Prophecy was right, but Granny had the wrong people.’

‘Dovey wasn’t barren,’ said Robert gently. ‘She’s the one called Dorcas, I presume? Look at the family tree again. She had a child, Judith, and it died with her, the same year as she and Granny died.’