The Giver of Stars

15

The small town bankers, grocers, editors and lawyers, the police, the sheriff, if not the government, were all apparently subservient to the money and corporate masters of the area. It was their compulsion, if not always their desire, to stand well with these who had the power to cause them material or personal difficulties.

Theodore Dreiser, introduction to Harlan Miners Speak

‘Three families who wouldn’t let me so much as hand over a book unless we read Bible stories, one slammed door up by those new houses near Hoffman, but Mrs Cotter seems to have come back round now she understands we’re not trying to tempt her into the ways of the flesh, and Doreen Abney says can she have the magazine with the recipe for the rabbit pie as she forgot to write it out two weeks ago.’ Kathleen’s saddlebag landed with a thump on the desk. She turned to look at Alice and rubbed dirt from her hands.

‘Oh, and Mr Van Cleve stopped me in the street to tell me that we were an abomination and the sooner we were gone from this town the better.’

‘I’ll show him abomination,’ said Beth, darkly.

By mid-March, Beth had returned to work full-time, but nobody had the heart to tell Kathleen she was no longer needed. Mrs Brady, who was a fair woman if a little unbending, had declined to draw Izzy’s wage since she had gone, and Margery simply handed the little brown paper packet directly to Kathleen. It was something of a relief, as she had been paying her out of her own pocket with the few savings she had hidden since her father’s death. Twice Kathleen’s mother-in-law had come by the library to bring her children and show them what their mama was engaged in, her voice filled with pride. The children were great favourites among the women, who showed them the newest books and let them sit on the mule, and there was something in Kathleen’s slow smile, and the genuine warmth of her mother-in-law towards her, that made everyone feel a little better.

Realizing Alice would not be budged on the matter of returning to the house, Mr Van Cleve had taken a new tack, insisting she leave town, that she wasn’t wanted here, pulling alongside her in his car as she headed out on her early-morning rounds so that Spirit’s eyes rolled white and she pranced sideways to get away from the man bellowing out of the driver’s window.

‘You got no way to support yourself. And that library’s going to be finished in a matter of weeks. I’ve heard it from the governor’s office himself. You ain’t coming back to the house, then you’d best find somewhere else. Somewhere back in England.’

She had learned to ride with her face fixed straight ahead, as if she couldn’t hear him, and this would enrage him more so that he would invariably end up shouting halfway down the road, while Bennett slunk down in the passenger seat.

‘You ain’t even all that pretty any more!’

‘Do you think Margery is really okay with me staying at the cabin?’ she would ask Fred afterwards. ‘I don’t want to be in the way. But he’s right. I don’t have anywhere else to go.’

Fred would bite his lip, as if he wanted to say something he couldn’t.

‘I think Margery likes having you around. Like all of us,’ he would answer carefully.

She had started to notice new things about Fred: the confident way his hands rested on horses, the fluidity in the way he moved, not like Bennett who, despite his athleticism, had always seemed uncomfortable, restrained by his own muscles, as if movement could only burst out of him sporadically. She found excuses to stay late in the cabin, helping Sophia, who kept her lips pursed. She knew. Oh, they all knew.

‘You like him, don’t you?’ Sophia asked her outright, one night.

‘Me? Fred? Oh, my. I –’ she stammered.

‘He’s a good man.’ Sophia said it with the emphasis on good, as if she were comparing him to someone else.

‘Were you ever married, Sophia?’

‘Me, no.’ Sophia raised a thread to her teeth and bit it through neatly. And just at the point when Alice wondered if she had, yet again, been too direct, she added, ‘Loved a man once. Benjamin. A miner. He was best friends with William. We knew each other since we were children.’ She held her stitching up to the lamp. ‘But he’s dead now.’

‘Did he … die in the mines?’

‘No. Some men shot him. He was minding his business, just walking home from work.’

‘Oh, Sophia. I’m so sorry.’

Sophia’s expression was unreadable, as if she had had years of practice in hiding what she felt. ‘I couldn’t stay here for a long time. Took myself off to Louisville and put all my heart into working at the coloured library there. Built something of a life, though I missed him every day. When I heard William had suffered his accident, I prayed to God not to make me come back here. But, you know, He has His ways.’

‘Is it still difficult?’

‘It was at first. But … things change. Ben died fourteen years ago now. The world moves on.’

‘Do you think … you’ll ever meet anyone else?’

‘Oh, no. That ship has sailed. Besides, I don’t fit nowhere. Too educated for most of the men around here. My brother would say too opinionated.’ Sophia laughed.

‘That sounds familiar,’ said Alice, and sighed.

‘I got William for company. We get by. And I’m hopeful. Things are good.’ She smiled. ‘Got to count your blessings. I enjoy my job. I got friends here now.’

‘That’s a little how I feel, too.’

Almost on impulse, Sophia reached out a slim hand and squeezed Alice’s. Alice squeezed back, struck by the unexpected comfort of a human touch. They held each other’s grip tightly and then, almost reluctantly, released it.

‘I do think he’s kind,’ said Alice, after a moment. ‘And … quite handsome.’

‘Girl, all you’d have to do is say the word. That man’s been pining after you like a dog after a bone since the day I got here.’

‘But I can’t, can I?’

Sophia looked up.

‘Half the town thinks this library is a hotbed of immorality, and me at the heart of it. Can you imagine what they’d say about us if I took up with a man? A man who wasn’t my husband?’

She had a point, Sophia told William afterwards. Just seemed a damn shame, two good people so glad to be in each other’s company.

‘Well,’ said William, ‘nobody ever said this world was going to be fair.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ said Sophia, and returned to her stitching, briefly lost in the memory of a man with an easy laugh who had never failed to make her smile, and the long-lost weight of his arm around her waist.

‘She’s a schoolmistress, old Spirit,’ Fred said, as they rode home in the encroaching dusk. He was wearing a heavy oilcloth jacket to keep off the thin rain, and the green scarf the librarians had bought him for Christmas was wrapped around his neck, as it had been every day since they’d given it to him. ‘You see it today? Every time this one spooked she gave him a look as if to say, “You get a hold of yourself.” And when he didn’t listen her ears went flat back. She’s telling him, all right.’

Alice watched the two horses walking side by side and marvelled at the tiny differences Fred could distinguish. He could assess a horse’s conformation, sucking his teeth at sloping shoulders or cow hocks or an underdeveloped top line, when all Alice saw was ‘nice horsey’. He could assess their characters too – they were pretty much who they were from birth, as long as men didn’t muck them up too much, he said. ‘Course, most couldn’t help themselves.’ She was often left with the impression that when Fred said these things he was talking about something else entirely.

He had taken to meeting her along her routes on a young Thoroughbred with a scarred ear – Pirate. He said it was helpful to have the young horse work alongside Spirit’s more level temperament, but she suspected he had other reasons for being there and she didn’t mind. It was hard enough being alone with her thoughts most of the day.

‘Did you finish the Hardy?’

Fred screwed up his face. ‘I did. Couldn’t warm to that Angel character, though.’

‘No?’

‘Found myself kind of wanting to give him a kick half the time. There she was, that poor girl, just wanting to love him. And him like some kind of preacher, judging her. Even though none of it was her fault. And then at the end he goes and marries her sister!’

Alice stifled a laugh. ‘I’d forgotten that bit.’

They talked of books they had recommended to each other. She had quite enjoyed the Mark Twain, found the George Herbert poems unexpectedly moving. Lately it had seemed easier for them to talk about books than anything in real life.

‘So … can I give you a ride home?’ They had reached the library and turned the horses into Fred’s barn for the night. ‘It’s awful wet to be walking all the way up to Marge’s. I could drive you as far as the big oak.’

Oh, but it was tempting. The long walk in the dark was the worst part of the day, a point at which she was hungry and aching and her mind had nowhere good to settle. There was a time when she might have ridden Spirit and kept her there overnight, but they had an unspoken agreement not to keep any other animals at the cabin just now.

Fred had closed up the barn and was looking at her expectantly. She thought of the quiet pleasure of sitting alongside him, of watching his strong hands on the wheel, his smile as he told her things in small bursts, confidences offered up like shells in the palm of his hand. ‘I don’t know, Fred. I can’t really be seen –’

‘Well, I was thinking …’ He shifted on his feet a little. ‘I know you like to allow Margery and Sven a little space together … and right now more than most …’

Something odd was going on with Margery and Sven. It had taken her a week or two to notice, but the little cabin was no longer filled with the muffled cries of lovemaking. Sven was often gone before Alice rose in the morning, and when he was there, there were no whispered jokes or casual intimacies but stiff silences and loaded glances. Margery seemed preoccupied. Her face was set stern, and her manner short. The previous evening, though, when Alice had asked her if she would rather she left, the woman’s face had softened. Then she had responded quite unexpectedly – not by telling her dismissively that she was fine, and not to fuss, but by saying quietly, No. Please don’t leave. A lover’s tiff? She would not betray her friend by talking about her private business but she felt utterly at a loss.

‘… so I was wondering if you would like to have some food with me? I’d be happy to cook. And I could –’

She dragged her attention back to the man in front of her.

‘– have you back at the cabin by half past eight or thereabouts.’

‘Fred, I can’t.’

He closed his mouth abruptly over his words.

‘I – It’s not that I wouldn’t like to. It’s just … if I were seen – well, things are tricky just now. You know how this town talks.’

He looked like he had half expected it.

‘I can’t risk making things worse for the library. Or … for myself. Perhaps when things have calmed down a little.’

Even as she said the words she realized she wasn’t sure how that would work. This town could polish a piece of gossip and preserve it like an insect in amber. It would still be rolling around whole centuries later.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Well, just wanted you to know the offer’s there. In case you get tired of Margery’s cooking.’

He tried to laugh and they stood facing each other, each a little awkward. He broke it, raised his hat in greeting, and trudged back up the wet path to his house. Alice stood watching, thinking of the warmth inside, the blue rag rug, the sweet smell of the polished wood. And then she sighed, pulled her scarf over her nose and began the long walk up the cold mountain to Margery’s.

Sven knew that Margery was not a woman who would be pushed. But when she told him it would be best if he stayed at his own house for the third time that week, he could no longer ignore the feeling in his gut. Watching her unsaddle Charley, he found himself crossing his arms and observing her with cooler, assessing eyes until finally he uttered the words he’d been mulling over for weeks.

‘Have I done something, Marge?’

‘What?’

And there it was again. The way she would barely look at him when she spoke.

‘Seems like the last few weeks you barely want me around.’

‘You’re talking crazy.’

‘I can’t seem to say nothing to please you. When we go to bed you’re bundled up like a silkworm. Don’t want me to touch you …’ he stuttered, faltering uncharacteristically. ‘We’ve never been cold with each other, even when we were apart. Not in ten years. I just … want to know if I’ve done something to offend you.’

Her shoulders slumped a little. She reached under the horse for his girth and flipped it over the saddle, the buckle jangling as it landed. There was something weary in the way she did it that reminded him of a mother dealing with ill-behaved children. She allowed a short silence before she spoke. ‘You’ve done nothing to offend me, Sven. I’m … just tired.’

‘So why don’t you want me even to hold you?’

‘Well, I don’t always want to be held.’

‘You never used to mind.’

Disliking the sound of his voice, he took the saddle from her and walked it over to the house. She turned Charley loose into his stall, rugged him, bolted the barn door, and followed in silence. They locked everything, these days, their eyes sharp for change, ears tuned to any strange sound around the holler. The track up from the road was strewn with a series of strings set with bells and tin cans to give her fair warning, and two loaded shotguns flanked the bed.

He placed the saddle on its stand and stood, thinking. Then he took a step towards her, lifted a hand, and touched the side of her face softly, an olive branch. She didn’t look up. Before, she would have pressed his palm to her skin and kissed it. The fact of this made something plummet inside him.

‘We’ve always been straight with each other, haven’t we?’

‘Sven –’

‘I respect how you want to live. I accepted that you don’t want to be tied. I haven’t so much as mentioned it since –’

She rubbed at her forehead. ‘Can we not do this now?’

‘What I mean is – we agreed. We agreed that … if you did decide you didn’t want me any more, you would say.’

‘Are we on this again?’ Margery sounded sad and exasperated. She turned away from him. ‘It’s not you. I don’t want you to go anywhere. I just – I just got a lot to think about.’

‘We’ve all got a lot to think about.’

She shook her head.

‘Margery.’

And there she stood, mulish as Charley. Giving him nothing.

Sven Gustavsson was not a man possessed of a difficult temperament, but he was proud and he had his limits. ‘I can’t keep doing this. I’m not going to keep bothering you.’ She raised her head as he turned. ‘You know where to find me when you’re ready to see me again.’ He held up one hand as he walked off down the mountain. He didn’t look back.

Sophia was off on Friday as it was William’s birthday and, given they were up to date with the repairs (possibly due to Alice’s spending so much extra time at the library), Margery had urged her to stay with her brother. Alice rode up Split Creek as dusk fell, noting that the light was still on, and wondered, given Sophia’s absence, which of the librarians was still inside. Beth was always swift to finish, dumping her books and racing home to the farm (if she didn’t get there quick enough her brothers would have eaten whatever food had been put by for her). Kathleen was equally keen to get home, to catch her children’s last waking moments before bedtime. It was only she and Izzy who kept their horses at Fred’s barn, and Izzy, it appeared, was gone from the project for good.

Alice unsaddled Spirit and stood for a minute in the warmth of the stall, then kissed the mare’s sweet-smelling ears, pressing her face against her warm neck and finding treats for her when she nuzzled her pockets with her soft, inquisitive nose. She loved the animal now, knew her traits and strengths as well as she knew her own. The little horse was, she realized, the most constant relationship in her life. When she was sure the mare was comfortable, she headed for the back door of the library, from which she could still see a sliver of light through the unpapered gaps in the wood.

‘Marge?’ she called.

‘Well, you sure do take your time.’

Alice blinked at the sight of Fred, seated at a little table in the middle of the room, dressed in a clean flannel shirt and blue jeans.

‘Took your point about not being seen with me in public. But I thought maybe we could have a meal together anyway.’

Alice closed the door behind her, taking in the neatly laid table, with a little vase of coltsfoot, harbinger of spring, in the centre, the two chairs, and the oil lamps flickering on the desks nearby, sending shadows over the spines of the books around them.

He seemed to take her shocked silence for reticence. ‘It’s just pork and black bean stew. Nothing too fancy – I wasn’t sure what time you’d make it back. The greens may have cooled a little. I didn’t realize you’d be so thorough with that horse of mine.’ He lifted the lid off the heavy iron pot and the room was suddenly filled with the scent of slow-cooked meat. Beside her on the table sat a heavy pan of corn bread and a bowl of green beans.

Alice’s stomach gurgled unexpectedly and loudly, and she pressed a hand to it, trying not to blush.

‘Well, someone approves,’ Fred said evenly. He stood and walked over to pull out a chair for her.

She put her hat on the desk, and unwound her scarf. ‘Fred, I –’

‘I know. But I enjoy your company, Alice. And being a man in these parts, I don’t get to entertain someone like you too often.’ He leaned towards her to pour her a glass of wine. ‘So I’d be much obliged if you’d … indulge me?’

She opened her mouth to protest, then found she wasn’t sure what she was protesting. When she looked up, he was watching her, waiting for a sign. ‘This all looks wonderful,’ she said.

He let out a little breath then, as if perhaps even up to that point he had not been sure whether she would cut and run. And then, as he began to serve the food, he smiled, a slow, broad smile that was so filled with satisfaction she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

The Packhorse Library had become, in the months of its existence, a symbol of many things, and a focus for others, some controversial and some that would provoke unease in certain people however long it stayed around. But for one freezing damp evening in March, it became a tiny, glowing refuge. Two people locked safely inside, briefly released from their complicated histories and the weighty expectations of the town around them, ate good food and laughed and discussed poetry and stories, horses, and mistakes they had made, and while there was barely a touch between them, apart from the accidental brushing of skin against skin while passing bread or refilling a glass, Alice rediscovered a little part of her that she hadn’t known she missed: the flirtatious young woman who liked to talk about things she had read, seen and thought about as much as she liked to ride a mountain track. In turn Fred enjoyed a woman’s full attention, a ready laugh at his jokes and the challenge of an idea that might differ from his own. Time flew, and each ended the night full and happy, with the rare glow that comes from knowing your very being has been understood by somebody else, and that there might just be someone out there who will only ever see the best in you.

Fred lifted the table easily down the last of the steps, ready to move it back into his house, then turned back to double-lock the door. Alice stood beside him, wrapping her scarf around her face, her belly full and a smile on her lips. Both were shielded from view by the library and somehow found themselves standing just inches apart.

‘You sure you won’t let me drive you back up the mountain? It’s cold, and dark, and that’s a long walk.’

She shook her head. ‘It’ll feel like five minutes tonight.’

He studied her in the half-light. ‘You ain’t spooked by much these days, are you?’

‘No.’

‘That’ll be Margery’s influence.’

They smiled at each other and he looked briefly thoughtful. ‘Wait there.’

He jogged up to the house and returned, a minute later, with a shotgun, which he handed to her. ‘Just in case,’ he said. ‘You might not be spooked, but it’ll allow me to rest easy. Bring it back tomorrow.’

She took it from him without protest, and there followed a strange, elongated couple of minutes, the kind in which two people know they have to part, and don’t want to, and while neither can acknowledge it, each believes the other feels it too.

‘Well,’ she said, at last, ‘it’s getting late.’

He rubbed his thumb speculatively across the table-top, his mouth closed over words he could not say.

‘Thank you, Fred. It was honestly the nicest evening I’ve had. Probably since I came here. I – I really appreciate it.’

A look passed between them that was a complicated mixture of things. An acknowledgement, of the kind that might normally make a heart sing, but cut with the knowledge that some things were impossible and that your heart could break a little knowing it.

And suddenly a little of the magic of the evening dissipated.

‘Goodnight, then, Alice.’

‘Goodnight, Fred,’ she said. Then, placing the gun over her shoulder, she turned and strode up the road before he could say anything that would make more of a mess of things than they already were.