had lifted, or maybe the wind had blown them back out to sea. It was a windy landscape, with small, crooked trees and hawthorn hedges along the roadside, and white birds hovered high above the waves, holding the wind in their wings. Then a wooded stretch, denser now, and in between the trees, old cement blocks sat heavily – anti-tank defences left over from the war. I remembered Felicity telling me about them, and about the railings set in the churchyard’s stone wall. They had been sawn off when the country needed more metal for airplanes, leaving iron coins set into the stone. She showed me how to press my thumb in each one – one a penny two a penny – and how to climb up the loupin-on stanes, that long-abandoned set of steps that Victorian ladies used to climb up to their high horses.
Just past the church, the bus stopped and I collected my bags. I hadn’t packed much because I wanted space to bring things home again. I wasn’t sure what, but maybe Gran had left something specific for me to find. Heirlooms or papers or photographs. I’d search the house as if for clues and maybe find why Gran had left it to me. Felicity had trained me to look for stories, hadn’t she?
I crossed the street to the hotel – a big whitewashed building with picnic tables and plant pots out front, trellises against the wall, and ivy. The door was open and no one sat at the desk in the front hall. I wasn’t sure about ringing the bell. It looked as if it would make a great deal of noise. I stood there for a moment, examining the map laid out on the wooden counter, the coastline curved like the back of a fish, or like a belly facing the sea. Then, an old woman came through a door behind me and cleared her throat.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Are you looking for a meal?’
‘No. Well … I’m really here to collect keys,’ I said. ‘For my grandmother’s house. Jane Hambleton. I was sent a letter that mentioned there would be a set of keys here. With Muriel?’ I opened up my shoulder bag and pulled out the letter for the woman to read, but she just looked into my face with a soft smile.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘That’s me. And you are Jane’s little Pidge. Felicity’s, I mean. You and I met when you were small. You won’t remember me, but your mother brought you here. And you look just like her. Except for the hair, maybe. The colour suits you.’ She coughed a little laugh and asked about my mother. ‘Is she keeping well? She’s here with you too, then?’
‘No, it’s just me. She’s back in Quebec. She’s well. Happy.’
‘Ah, yes. Settled there, I suppose. Such a shame that she couldn’t make it home in time for her mum’s funeral, but I suppose it was unexpected, wasn’t it? And so quick. But such a shame. And just before your own arrival. She was so looking forward to seeing you. She told me so many times that you were coming and that you might pop in here first, and that’s when she left the keys here. I think she was worried you might arrive when she was out for a walk or even down in the garden and that she wouldn’t hear you. But I’m sure all that’s in the letter, isn’t it? Ah well, things come out as they will, won’t they? Are you planning to stay long?’
‘I don’t quite know. There’s the house …’
‘Yes, I suppose it will need sorting through. All Jane’s lovely things. And Stanley’s books and papers, too. I don’t think she let go of much after his death.’
‘She left it to me. The house, I mean.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. It’s a good house, a cracking garden. So, you think you might stay?’
‘I live in Ottawa. My partner is there, and my work.’
‘Of course, of course. Yes, you’ll just be wanting to see it and sort, won’t you? Well, while you’re here, do pop in again. The kitchen does a lovely bit of lunch, if you ever need a meal. Cooking for one can be awkward, can’t it?’ Muriel reached over and straightened a messy pile of golf brochures beside the bell on the desk. ‘But you need the keys and you must be tired. Just arrived, and all that way, too. Ah yes, here they are.’
She found a small brown envelope under the counter and slid it across the map towards me. It looked as if there might be anything inside. A wedding ring. Ashes. Dragons’ teeth. I slipped it away into my pocket. ‘Thank you.’
‘Would a cup of tea help? You must be absolutely shattered. You’ve only just arrived, haven’t you? You have the aeroplane look about you.’
‘I’m just off the bus. I stayed in Edinburgh last night.’
‘Well, you come along through here and I’ll see about some tea. Unless you’d prefer a coffee?’
‘No, tea’s fine. Thanks.’
I followed her through the door at the end of the hallway, past a bar and a lounge with sofas and chairs and then into a larger room with tables set for lunch. White napkins and slate coasters.
‘Sit anywhere you like. Do you fancy something to eat?’
‘No. I’m not sure. I can’t quite fathom what time of day it is.’
‘Travel will do that. You sit down now. You’ll feel better with the tea in you. Sugar, too. It does wonders. And I’ll bring you a scone as well. You look like some bulking up might do you good.’
‘Thank you. That sounds wonderful.’
I chose a small table by the window. My fingers picked at the flap on the back of the envelope and then ripped the paper and shook out the contents into my hand. A heavy mortice key fell into my palm and sat there like a finger bone. No wonder Felicity thought in fairy tales, if this was the key to her childhood home.
My mother’s third birth came in bits and pieces. There were always sliced apples and something about the grass growing outside the cabin. She tried out new versions on me, changing the weather or time of day, approaching everything from a different angle. I liked it best when she began it in the afternoon. The morning story often featured rain and sometimes books left on the lawn. Once, she told me a fox ran across the grass with a vole in its mouth, and a crow shouted down from the trees, startling the fox so she dropped her prize as Felicity sat with me on the porch, watching. I didn’t like that telling at all. But the afternoon story went like this: we were together on the porch, Felicity on a stump stool and me sleeping swaddled in a blanket that Rika had knit, lying in a cradle Bas had carved. The rain was over, and the weather would be dry now, so she sat slicing the apples into rings, then threading them onto garden twine to dry in the wind. I could see her hands doing all this; she did it every autumn. Out on the lake, a loon surfaced and called, and I woke gently, my eyes bright as water. I didn’t cry or make a fuss and all afternoon, the loon sat there on the lake, calling and calling, and Felicity sliced all the apples and not one was wasted. Later, she’d hook the twine over a peg high up on our cabin wall, where the apple rings would grow dark and leathery. Felicity liked saving things to use later, saving up the seasons. I don’t know why this story counted as a birth, but she said it did.
My own birth was a tale she told lightly. When I asked questions, she smiled and said I already knew what I needed to – I had seen Rika working, helping, and I knew what needed to happen. It was like that, Felicity said. Like every other birth. Every mother is strong like that.
But all her counted stories made me wonder how many births I might have. Do you get to decide? Can you make them happen?
MOST
