The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [602]
“Yes. She—in the Blitz. A bomb.”
“In Scotland? But I thought—”
“No. In London.”
He didn’t want to speak of it. He never had spoken of it. On the rare occasions when memory led in that direction, he veered away. That territory lay behind a closed door, with a large “No Entry” sign that he had never sought to pass. And yet tonight . . . he felt the echo of Bree’s brief anguish at the thought that her son might not recall her. And he felt the same echo, like a faint voice calling, from the woman locked behind that door in his mind. But was it locked, after all?
With a hollow feeling behind his breastbone that might have been dread, he reached out and put his hand on the knob of that closed door. How much did he recall?
“My Gran, my mother’s mum, was English,” he said slowly. “A widow. We went south to live with her in London, when my dad was killed.”
He had not thought of Gran, any more than his mum, in years. But with his speaking, he could smell the rosewater and glycerine lotion his grandmother had used on her hands, the faintly musty smell of her upstairs flat in Tottenham Court Road, crammed with horsehair furniture too large for it, remnants of a previous life that had held a house, a husband, and children.
He took a deep breath. Bree felt it, and pressed her broad firm back encouragingly against his chest. He kissed the back of her neck. So the door did open—just a crack, maybe, but the light of a wintry London afternoon shone through it, lighting up a stack of battered wooden blocks on a threadbare carpet. A woman’s hand was building a tower with them, the faint sun scattering rainbows from a diamond on her hand. His own fingers curled in reflex, seeing that slim hand.
“Mum—my mother—she was small, like Gran. That is, they both seemed big, to me, but I remember . . . I remember seeing her stand on her tiptoes to reach things down from the shelf.”
Things. The tea-caddy, with its cut-glass sugar bowl. The battered kettle, three mismatched mugs. His had had a panda bear on it. A package of biscuits—bright red, with a picture of a parrot . . . My God, he hadn’t seen those kind ever again—did they still make them? No, of course not, not now . . .
He pulled his veering mind firmly back from such distractions.
“I know what she looked like, but mostly from pictures, not from my own memories.” And yet he did have memories, he realized, with a disturbing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He thought “Mum,” and suddenly he didn’t see the photos anymore; he saw the chain of her spectacles, a string of tiny metal beads against the soft curve of a breast, and a pleasant warm smoothness, smelling of soap against his cheek; the cotton fabric of a flowered housedress. Blue flowers. Shaped like trumpets, with curling vines; he could see them clearly.
“What did she look like? Do you look like her at all?”
He shrugged, and Bree shifted, rolling over to face him, her head propped upon her outstretched arm. Her eyes shone in the half-dark, sleepiness overcome by interest.
“A little,” he said slowly. “Her hair was dark, like mine.” Shiny, curly. Lifting in the wind, sprinkled with white grains of sand. He’d sprinkled sand on her head, and she brushed it from her hair, laughing. A beach somewhere?
“The Reverend kept some pictures of her, in his study. One showed her holding me on her lap. I don’t know what we were looking at—but both of us look as though we’re trying hard to keep from laughing. We look a lot alike in that one. I have her mouth, I think—and . . . maybe . . . the shape of her brows.”
For a long time he had felt a tightness in his chest whenever he saw the pictures of his mother. But then it had passed, the pictures lost their meaning and became no more than objects in the casual clutter of the Reverend’s house. Now he saw them clearly once again, and the tightness in his chest was back. He cleared his throat hard, hoping to ease it.
“Need water?” She made to rise, reaching for the jug and cup she kept for him on the stool by the bed,