A String in the Harp (5 page)

Now, today, on this rainy Sunday, he deliberately took it out of his drawer and sat on his bed, gripping it tightly, and waited. This time he’d find out more. The Key was warm in his hand, and after a few minutes he could feel it begin to vibrate almost imperceptibly with sound. He hung on and felt the room slip away from him, its walls melting into moving fragments of light: bright, dancing flecks that dazzled. Voices rose and fell in Welsh cadence, weaving together in patterns of rhythm that hung on the air.

Sunlight glistened on the surface of a huge lake. Peter saw it reflected in splinters on a sloping roof, that of a rough-hewn, open-sided shelter. Underlying the voices was the gentle sound of wavelets against the island’s shores. He knew it was an island, for he could see bright water on all sides. The boys beneath the shelter were repeating phrases over and over in the summer afternoon, learning them by heart.
Triads.
The unfamiliar word came at once to Peter. He knew they were groups of three things: The Three Great Herdsmen; The Three Fearless Men; The Three Futile Battles. He felt the intensity of the sun and lake wind. The strange words conjured images in his mind, images the boys were being taught to remember. Peter was there, he saw it all, but no one took any notice of him. He seemed to be invisible.

Abruptly it all faded, the light and the lake, the island, the voices. Peter blinked at the window streaming with rain beside his bed. The Key was warm under his fingers, but it lay quite still. At least this time he had held onto it, and though he was bewildered and uncertain, he knew it hadn’t hurt him in any way. But he couldn’t tell anyone about it, he wouldn’t know how. And why should he? They all had their own concerns. He would keep his secret. He put the Key carefully back in its hiding place.

***

“Here,” said David. “You have to turn on the gas first, like that, then take a match and stick it in that hole.” There was a
popping noise, a whoosh, then a steady, vigorous roar that sounded like a blowtorch. “Nothing to it.”

“Electricity is so much simpler,” said Jen doubtfully.

“Oh, come now. You’ve been a Girl Scout, you know how to light fires. This isn’t much different once you get the hang of it.”

“Just don’t singe your eyebrows,” Peter said helpfully.

“You should talk,” Becky chided. “You won’t even try.”

“I’m too young to die,” her brother retorted.

David withdrew behind his morning paper and left them to bicker over the grill where the bread was toasted. “Just so long as I get some toast before I have to go.”

Becky sawed chunks off a loaf of bread, while Jen made herself some coffee and watched the toast. It browned very fast under the gas, and she had only turned around to put milk in her mug when Becky yelled, “Smoke!”

The first two pieces were charred to crisps and had to be discarded, but at last Jen had a plateful, and they all sat down together.

“I still don’t see why you have to go to the University today, even if it is Monday,” said Becky. “It’s Christmas vacation for everybody else. There won’t be anyone to teach, will there?”

“Doesn’t matter. I have lectures to work on, tests to grade, and a paper to write.” David smiled at her. “You can manage on your own this week now that Jen’s here, and Mrs. Davies is just next door if you need anything. You have a good time and I’ll see you at supper.”

“What do you want to do,” Becky asked, when the beds were made and the dishes washed. “You should choose, Jen.”

“We could go explore Borth, I guess. I haven’t really seen it yet.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for it?” said Peter dryly. “It’s a thrill.”

“Well, you don’t have to come,” Becky exclaimed.

“Oh, let’s have a good fight!” said Jen. “Nothing like it to begin Christmas vacation.”

In the end they all went, for company and lack of anything better to do. The village began at Mr. Williams’s shop and ran straight north. As Jen commented, there wasn’t much chance of getting lost in Borth.

“If you did,” Peter pointed out, “it would be fatal—you’d either drown or sink into the Bog.”

The village wasn’t very prepossessing, even Becky had to admit. The houses lining the street looked old and slightly decayed, their plaster flaking, stucco cracked, paint chipped by the rough salt wind and the sand that came stinging off the beach with it. More than half the buildings were blank and empty, shut up for the winter, looking derelict.

“It does seem kind of bleak,” ventured Jen, after they’d been walking ten minutes.

“It wasn’t quite this awful at the end of August,” said Peter. “At least there were a few more people around and all the shops were open, but on its best days it isn’t beautiful.”

“What on earth do people
do
out here?”

“Run guest houses in the summer and keep students in the winter or have shops. And there are the ones like Hugh-the-Bus and Mr. Williams who work at regular jobs all year. Lots of professors from the University live out here, too, like Dad, and go into Aber every day,” explained Becky. “Gwilym says he likes it better here in the winter when there aren’t so many people. He says there are more birds.”

Peter shook his head mournfully. “The Bog has gotten to him. It can be quite serious—Bog Fever. No cure.”

Jen laughed.
That
sounded more like Peter. He seemed to have relaxed a bit.

Stuck in among the boarded-up buildings were shops that were still open and busy this morning. Jen looked in at each one with interest. There didn’t seem to be any supermarket in Borth, just lots of little stores that each sold one kind of thing:
meat, or fruit and vegetables, or baked goods. They got sucked into a bakery by the lovely warm, sweet smell, as they stood looking at the cakes and pies in its window. Jen bought them each an eclair and they walked on, eating them and shamelessly licking their fingers.

Along the ocean, the houses suddenly ended and there was a great, gray cement sea wall instead, too high to see over from the road. On the right Becky pointed out the station where Jen had arrived. Was it really only two days ago? It hardly seemed possible. She remembered Aunt Beth saying, “It won’t be anything like what you’re used to, dear. I don’t think there’s much there.” And Jen had answered confidently, “Dad and Becky and Peter will be there, and it’ll be fun to live by the sea.”

“Hey,” Becky nudged her. “What are you thinking about?”

“Probably that in another three weeks she’ll be on her way home again,” said Peter, gloomy again.

“No,” said Jen. “Just thinking how different from Amherst it is.”

Peter snorted. “That’s the kind of remark that always gets me into trouble!”

“Come on,” Becky said, “let’s go up on the sea wall.”

There were steps to go up and a broad flat walk on top. On the other side was the sand beach. In spite of Peter’s gloom, Jen was excited to be so close to the ocean. They lived too far from it at home to go often, but she had always loved it.

The steel-gray sea washed up and down the beach; the waves chipped white at the edges where they met the sand. Becky turned around to show Jen where their house was on the cliff behind them, but Peter refused to stop because it was too cold, so after a moment they followed him. Becky was too busy telling Jen about people and houses to notice when Peter did stop short, and she ran up his heels, Jen right in back.

“Do watch out,” said Peter irritably, catching his balance.

“You ought to say when you’re going to stop.”

“I didn’t know I was. There’s one of your friends, isn’t it?” He pointed down the beach to a thin solitary figure wandering slowly toward them along the tide line.

“It’s Gwilym,” said Becky. “I wonder what he’s been out looking for. Hey!” She waved her arms at him. “Hey, Gwilym!”

The figure turned in their direction and continued moving slowly.

“Maybe he’ll ignore us,” suggested Peter half-hopefully.

“What’s the matter with him?” Jen asked in surprise.

“Nothing,” said Becky flatly. “He just isn’t interested in the things Peter likes, that’s all. He’s perfectly nice once you get to know him, but I think he’s a bit shy.” She jumped off the wall and ran over to Gwilym.

Jen and Peter followed slowly. Jen had heard too much from Becky about Gwilym not to be curious. He greeted Becky, glanced apprehensively at her brother and sister, and turned to point at something up the beach the way he’d come.

“There’s a flock of ducks out there, Gwilym says. Can you see them? They’re down near Ynyslas,” Becky informed them as they came up. “He says they’re scoters.”

Oh, dear, thought Jen. Her first impression was of a tall, awkward boy, thin and brown-haired, wearing glasses. He looked uncomfortably like his mother. Gwilym blushed unbecomingly at Becky’s excitement. “Scoters are really very common here,” he said, not looking at Jen. There was a painful silence then he added, “They winter here every year.”

“This is my sister, Jen,” Becky said quickly.

Gwilym nodded. “Mum said you’d come Saturday. Just for the holidays, she said.”

“Three weeks,” said Jen, wondering what else Mrs. Davies had said.

“What did you see besides scoters?” Becky demanded.

Gwilym looked relieved; he was on safe ground. “Teal, widgeon, scaup, and a couple of pintails, mostly. All common this time of year.” He managed to look straight at Jen this time. “It’s good birding up at the estuary. Are you interested?”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know anything about birds,” she admitted.

“Oh.” He was clearly disappointed. “People who aren’t interested in natural history generally find Borth rather isolated.”

“Yes, they do,” declared Peter.

“Have you lived here always?” inquired Jen politely, with a frown at Peter.

“Yes.” He put a full stop on it, and Jen began to search for something else she could ask, but then he went on. “I like it really. I like it this way, but in the season it gets too crowded.”

Jen looked around at the vast empty sands and tried to imagine Borth crowded without much success: bodies stretched out on the sand, children building sandcastles, people swimming, eating ice cream, jostling on the sea wall. She shivered as the raw December wind gusted around them, and they began to move along the beach toward the cliff as if by mutual consent.

“After Bank Holiday in May or June all the rooms in town are booked solid, and the caravan parks south of here are full. It isn’t much fun then.”

“I should think it would be more cheerful,” observed Jen.

Gwilym shrugged unenthusiastically. “Depends on what you like, I suppose. It’s nicer without strangers in the house, too.”

“Strangers? In your house?”

“I told you,” said Becky. “Mrs. Davies takes in guests during the summer.”

“Is it a hotel?”

“Just like yours,” replied Gwilym. “A bit bigger perhaps. We’ve got three spare bedrooms with Susan and Sheila
gone. Mum does your housekeeping because she hasn’t anyone to look after at home this winter. She had a University student last year.”

“It must be awful to have strange people staying in your house,” said Peter.

“You get used to it. Mum’s always done it. Her mum used to do it in Shrewsbury before. Lots of people around here do bed and breakfast in summer. Mum says it more than pays for itself, and it doesn’t cost the trippers near as much as staying in a hotel would do.”

“I would
hate
it,” Peter declared.

“I don’t know,” said Becky thoughtfully. “It would be fun seeing who came. I don’t think I’d mind.”

“But suppose you don’t like them? What if they leave a mess, or make lots of noise, or stay out late at night?” Jen could see all kinds of problems.

“You risk it,” Gwilym answered, sounding mildly surprised that the Morgans considered bed-and-breakfast such a strange business. “Usually they’re not bad—I hardly ever see them. Dad and I keep to the kitchen mostly, and guests have their bedrooms and the lounge for meals and like that. Don’t you have bed-and-breakfast in America?”

“No way,” said Peter.

“We have hotels and guest houses and motels,” Jen amplified, “but I’ve never paid to stay in someone else’s house.”

Gwilym nodded wisely. He had opened up considerably and even seemed to be enjoying the conversation. “Dad says there are some motels in England and Scotland, but I’ve never stayed in one. They’re very dear. Mind you, not all bed-and-breakfasts are very nice, but Mum keeps a good one and does a nice fried breakfast. Of course, last year—” They were all watching him with great interest. “Last year we did have a couple that left without Mum seeing them. But that’s only happened the once to us.”

“You mean they left without paying?” Becky asked.

“They did. They said they would stop the weekend till Monday morning, see. Then Sunday night we heard them come in—Dad said after it must just have been the man, but he made enough noise for two. When they didn’t come down to breakfast in the morning, Mum went up to knock—she only serves until nine so she won’t have to spend the morning over it—and the door was latched from the inside, see, and no one answered. Dad didn’t get an answer either, speaking through the door, so I had to climb up the outside by the drain. The window was wide open, and there hadn’t been anyone in the beds at all and the place was cleaned out. My mum was that mad, but Dad said they must have been truly hard up, not able to pay. We never did see them again, those two.”

“But that’s awful,” exclaimed Becky in shocked tones. “What did your mother do?”

“Wasn’t a thing she could do—gone is gone. Dad was sure they hadn’t signed their proper names in our book. That’s the risk of it, he says, but he took the latches off the insides of all the doors.”

They absorbed this story of petty crime in silence, stopping together outside Mr. Williams’s shop.

“Are you going up for lunch?” Jen inquired, avoiding Peter’s eye.

“Well—” Gwilym hesitated. “I’ve to do some errands for Mum.”

“Come by for tea,” offered Becky promptly.

Gwilym glanced at Jen uncertainly.

“Sure,” she said.

Gwilym smiled suddenly and Jen smiled back, glad to see his face lose some of its angularity.