Fur and Fathers

Chapter Sixteen

The doors stood open throughout the house.  Now that summer had finally arrived, they welcomed it with open arms.  Rays of sunshine striped the polished flags of the kitchen and warmed the back of the little white cat dozing on the doorstep; jars of wild flowers stood on every windowsill.  A robin had nested in the tool shed, and her mate’s strident song rang protectively around the garden every morning, warning off all rivals.  Malcolm had gone into town and hired a lawn mower to save disturbing the nesting bird.  He’d said he felt empathic.

He’d brought her here after their marriage, insisting on carrying her over the threshold.  She’d never even seen the place before, but she fell in love with it: the big, rambling old farmhouse nestling in a Cornish valley, with a few acres of rich land that a local farmer rented and used.  They didn’t spend all of their time here; his work for Starfleet meant frequent visits to San Francisco, where they rented an apartment, but this was home.  He’d had it redecorated and subtly refurbished to modern standards of comfort, but the ageless strength and beauty of the place remained.

They’d come home only that afternoon, tired from a long journey.  Their suitcases still stood in the hall, waiting to be emptied, but they could wait a little longer.  The big bath had beckoned more wooingly than tiresome duty, and the housekeeper had left a bottle of wine to chill in the fridge.

“Tell me about your grandmother, love.”  Hoshi relaxed into the strong arms cradling her from behind.  He had made love to her slowly, carefully, mindful of her pregnancy.  Now they were both sated and quiet, and there was the soft afterglow of togetherness.  The scented steam drifted out of the window, to be replaced by eddies of fresh cool air scented with mown grass instead.  “The one who left you this house.”

He laughed gently, reaching out for the wine glass perched on the ledge at the back of the bath.  “You mean Great-Grandmother Howard.  The terror of the family.”

“I found her photograph in an old album the other day when I was exploring the attic.  I think you look a lot like her.  How she must have looked when she was young, I mean,” she amended hastily, giggling, as he choked on his Chablis at the suggestion that he resembled a tyrant who’d been over ninety years of age when that picture was taken.

“You saved yourself just in time,” he growled with mock menace over her shoulder.  “Or I should have to think of a suitable punishment.”  She could tell by his voice beside her ear how his face had taken on a speculative expression, and his left hand slid slowly down her flank.  “Something slow and lin-ger-ing.”

“Oh look, now you’ve frightened the baby!” she cried with equally feigned indignation, as her swollen abdominal wall displayed a series of lively movements so strong that they sent small ripples through the bubble-strewn bathwater.

“Well, that’s what tyrants are supposed to do, aren’t they?”  Giving the absolute lie to his words, he set down his glass again so that both of his hands could come to rest with extraordinary tenderness on the bare wet skin, caressing the child inside. “Go to sleep, Princess.  Daddy’s here.”

“We could call her after your great-grandmother,” she suggested, putting her hands over his.

“God forbid.  One Agnes in my life was enough.  Just the mention of her scared the living daylights out of me.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  Really.  I only saw her once when I was about six or seven, but I remember it as though it were yesterday.”  He removed one hand in order to retrieve his wine, and sipped at it reflectively.  “I owe most of what I know of her to my Aunt Sherrie, who’s always been the family gossip and evidently thought I ought to know the story.  She was my mother’s grandmother, and she had almost the whole family whipped into terrified submission.  They didn’t tell her about mum’s marriage till it was over and done with; I think they honestly thought if she was invited she’d have done her level best to put a stop to it.  She found out Mum had just been on a date with Dad, and you know what she said?”  A soundless laugh.  “‘Don’t know the man but he comes from the wrong stable.  Bad blood in it.  That’s all I need to know.’  She didn’t want him in the family at any price.  And knowing her, if she’d found out about it in time she probably would have stopped it somehow.  She was a right old terror.”

“So why did your family come to visit?” she asked curiously.

“Strangely enough, she wanted to see me.  She issued what was in effect a royal command.  I think Dad would have preferred not to obey, but she had a trump card in her hand, of course.”  A cynical note entered his voice.  “This house.  Very valuable.  He had plans for it.”

“So they brought you to see her.”

“Indeed.  And she was sitting in state in the lounge, waiting for the newest member of the family to be presented.  Like a bloody Empress, she was.  I’d had so many warnings drummed into me that I’d got to be on my best behaviour; it was a miracle I didn’t wet myself.”

“Oh, Malcolm, you didn’t!”

“No, but it was a close call.  Believe you me, I got out of there as fast as I could.  I’d got pretty good at covert manoeuvres even at that age.  I made my escape in short order as soon as I thought nobody was looking.”  His reminiscing tone took on a grin.  “I bolted out of the nearest door I could find.  As luck would have it, it was the back door.  It took me to the orchard at the back of the house, and that was it.  I was in love.”

“With an orchard?”

“Sounds mad, doesn’t it?  But it was so … wild.  Free.  The long grass, and the windfall apples just lying in it.  And the stream at the bottom of it.  A real honest-to-God stream, the sort you could find frogs and newts and things in.  Not a trammelled little trickle of water running to order down a channel from a fountain to a fishpond and being pumped back up again.  I’d never seen anything like it.”  He was silent for a while.

“So what happened?” his wife prompted, reaching for her own glass, which in deference to her pregnancy contained only apple juice.

“Great-Grandmother found me there.  Down by the stream.  With the tips of my shoes muddy because I’d been so fascinated I’d got careless.”  The complexity of his tone now made her tighten the fingers of her other hand around his where it still rested on her stomach.  “I just looked up and there she was.  I had no idea how long she’d been there.  She was looking at my shoes, and I knew I’d done something terrible, in spite of all the warnings.

“Then she spoke.  ‘The soil always knows.  You belong here, don’t you, young man?’”  He’d never lost his wonderful English accent, but to her delight his voice had now acquired a chiselled, slightly nasal precision that belonged to a vanished generation.

“I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t have a clue what she was on about.  But I knew she was right.  So I said ‘Yes.’

“And she just nodded.  ‘Your mother and father have gone down to the village for a meal,’ she said.  ‘You’re staying with me.’  So I did.  All afternoon.  We had lunch together.  Crumpets and scones,” he said, laughing a little.  “And she took me into the library and showed me some of the books.  Story books.  Wonderful stories, with pictures.  Things Dad would never have allowed in the house – about King Arthur and the Round Table, and about dragons and knights and legends.  Then she took me to the window and pointed out down the valley.”  A long pause.  “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it with exactly that light on it.  It needs the sun at the right angle, at the right season.  But you know away in the distance, you can see the sea?  And that day, the way the cloud was lying on the horizon it looked exactly as if there was a country there, beyond it, shining…. Pure magic, it was, to me.  And she knew I could see it.

“‘That was what this house was named after, young man,’ she told me.  ‘Lyonesse.  The Land of the West.  Your father would never have seen it, no matter how long he looked.’”  He was silent again for a moment.  “Mum and Dad came back about half an hour after that.  Needless to say, the atmosphere wasn’t of the sweetest.  She could have asked us to stay the night, but it was never suggested; whether she wouldn’t have us or Dad wouldn’t have agreed to stay anyway, I don’t know.  Anyway we left just before dark; I think we stayed in a hotel nearby because it was too far to drive home.  And from listening to the conversation as we drove away, I knew we wouldn’t be going back.”

“And you never did?” asked Hoshi, wondering.

“No, never.  Not even for the funeral.  And I didn’t find out for years that she’d actually left the house to me – tied up in such a way that Dad couldn’t even set foot in it.”  His chest shook with now slightly bitter laughter.  “I’ve often wished I’d been privileged to be there when the will was read out.  The whole bloody family was after that house, and she left it to me.”

“So how did you find out?  Did your parents tell you?”

“Oh, no.  I have this suspicion Dad actually hoped I never would find out.  I got a letter from a solicitor on my twenty-first birthday.  One day I was a hard-up student working for my advanced exams and wondering how the hell I was going to get the money to travel to San Francisco, even if my application was accepted, and the next I was a property owner in my own right.”  A pause.  “There was a package as well.  A little silver box, very old; you’ll find it on the mantelpiece in the lounge now.  I opened it and it was full of earth. There was a note in the packaging. ‘As long as you have some of this with you, you are never away from your home.’ I put a tiny bit of it in a sealed packet and took it with me when I joined the ship.  I used to carry it in one of my utility pockets. Stupid, I know.”  He sighed.  “She didn’t have a lot of money in the bank, but I got that as well, such as it was.  It paid for my flight to America, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“And if you hadn’t had it, I’d never have met you.”  She squeezed his hand.  “So it’s all down to terrible Great-Grandmother Howard.”

“True.  It all sprang from that.  Starfleet, Enterprise, you… and our little princess here.”

“You know, because of that I think we really ought to name her Agnes.  Agnes Sato-Reed.”

“Heaven forbid.”  He kissed her ear.  “She might grow up to be terrifying as well.”

“I thought you were pretty terrifying when I met you first.  You had such a scowl.”

“That wasn’t a scowl.  It was my professional expression.”

“Well at least I know now where you got it from.  Great-Grandmother Howard.”

“You know, if you keep making these accusations I really will have to reconsider that threat I made earlier.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

She closed her eyes, relaxing into his slow caresses.

Somewhere there was the thin sound of a newborn baby wailing.

His hands paused.  He was obviously listening intently.

“You’re dead, aren’t you?” she said presently.

“Yes.”  His voice was very soft.

“Then we’re not here, are we?”

“No.”

She wanted to turn around, to see him face to face, but she knew it wasn’t going to happen.  “Will I see you again?” she asked childishly.

“Not for a while.”

“Then I don’t want to go back.”

“Listen.”  He pulled gently at her hand, and she felt his mouth come to rest softly against her fingers.  “Agnes needs you.”

“But I need you too.”

“You’re strong enough to cope.  Strong enough to face anything.  That’s what I admired about you first, love.  You were scared, but you coped.  You could have turned tail and run, but you stayed with us and grew into the woman I love.”  He kissed her hand again.  It was impossibly unfair.

“Why did you leave?” she cried.

“I didn’t have any choice, love,” he said ruefully.  “Well, no, I did.  I could stay with you and the ship and die, or I could do my job and protect you.  To me, that was no choice.  Old habits die hard.”

“And the good die young.”  She was shaking.

“No wonder you thought I looked ninety.”

“Malcolm Reed, you are…”

“Handsome?  Irresistible?  Incredibly sexy?” he suggested.

“All three, you bastard.”  Tears and laughter.  “I’ve got to go to her.”

“Take her to Lyonesse.  It’s yours now.  And hers.  It’s a great place to grow up in, if that’s what you decide you want for her.  And the books are still there – all of them; I hoped I’d read them to her one day, but I’m afraid you’ll just have to do it instead.”  A smile lurked in his voice.  “With your linguistic skills, you’ll do it better than I’d ever have done anyway.  And with any luck she’ll love them like I did.”

“But you won’t be there.”

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”  He stroked her hair.  “Me and Great-Grandmother Howard.”

“Oh, great.  A haunted house.  How could I resist?”

“At least if someone creeps up behind you at dead of night and grabs your bum, you’ll know who it is.”

“Just you up to your old tricks, eh?”

“Well it won’t be Great-Grandfather Howard, he wouldn’t dare.  Anyway, it’s your fault.  You shouldn’t have such a gorgeous bum.  You’ll never know how often I ogled it on the ship.”

“I took a few peeks at yours, mister.  Though Trip’s was pretty nice too,” she added.

“No use.  T'Pol had her dibs on that from the start.”

“I know.  That’s why I had to settle for what I could get.”

“At least you got the husband with the superior weapon capability.”

“Can’t argue with you there.”  The warmth of the bath was incredibly soothing.  Sleep was stealing over her, and the baby had stopped crying.  When she listened carefully, she could hear the soft, contented gurgling of an infant on the edge of sleep.

“Just hold me a little while longer, Malcolm,” she entreated, turning her head a little sideways against the firm pillow of his chest.

“Always, love.”  His strong arms were cradling her, supporting her, lending her his strength.  As he had from their earliest days on Enterprise.

“Love you, always…”  She linked fingers with him drowsily.

“Always plus one.”  His voice was hardly more than a whisper in her ear, as it had been on so many nights when she’d fallen asleep in his arms.  “Goodnight, love.”

Hoshi Sato-Reed drifted away into slumber, utterly secure.

“And goodbye, till we meet again.”