The Thirteenth Tale

THE FRIENDLY GIANT

I ran. I jumped over the holes in the floorboards, leaped down the stairs three at a time, lost my footing and lunged at the handrail for support. I grasped at a handful of ivy, stumbled, saved myself and lurched forward again. The library? No. The other way. Through an archway. Branches of elder and buddleia caught at my clothes, and I half fell several times as my feet scrabbled through the detritus of the broken house.

At last, inevitably, I crashed to the ground, and a wild cry escaped my lips.

"Oh dear, oh dear. Did I startle you? Oh dear."

I stared back through the archway.

Leaning over the gallery landing was not the skeleton or monster of my imaginings, but a giant. He moved smoothly down the stairs, stepped daintily and unconcernedly through the debris on the floor and came to stand over me with an expression of the utmost concern on his face.

"Oh my goodness." He must have been six-foot-four or -five, and was broad, so broad that the house seemed to shrink around him. "I never meant… You see, I only thought… Because you'd been there some time, and… But that doesn't matter now, because the thing is, my dear, are you hurt?"

I felt reduced to the size of a child. But for all his great dimensions, this man, too, had something of a child about him. Too plump for wrinkles, he had a round, cherubic face, and a halo of silver-blond curls sat neatly around his balding head. His eyes were round like the frames of his spectacles. They were kind and had a blue transparency.

I must have been looking dazed, and pale, too, perhaps. He knelt by my side and took my wrist. "My, my, that was quite a tumble you took. If only I'd… I should never have… Pulse a bit high. Hmm." My shin was stinging. I reached to investigate a tear in the knee of my trousers, and my fingers came away bloodied. "Dear, oh dear. It's the leg, is it? Is it broken? Can you move it?" I wriggled my foot, and the man's face was a picture of relief.

"Thank goodness. I should never have forgiven myself. Now, you stay there while I… I'll just get the… Back in a minute." And off he went. His feet danced delicately in and out of the jagged edges of wood, then skipped swiftly up the stairs, while the upper half of his body sailed serenely above, as if unconnected to the elaborate footwork going on below.

I took a deep breath and waited.

"I've put the kettle on," he announced as he returned. It was a proper first-aid kit he had with him, white with a red cross on it, and he took out an antiseptic lotion and some gauze.

"I always said, someone will get hurt in that old place one of these days. I've had the kit for years. Better safe than sorry, eh? Oh dear, oh dear!" He winced with empathy as he pressed the stinging pad against my cut shin. "Let's be brave, shall we?"

"Do you have electricity here?" I asked. I was feeling bewildered.

"Electricity? But it's a ruin." He stared at me, astonished by my question, as though I might have suffered a concussion in the fall and lost my reason.

"It's just that I thought you said you'd put the kettle on."

"Oh, I see! No! I have a camping stove. I used to have a Thermos flask, but"-he turned his nose up-"tea from a Thermos is not very nice, is it? Now, does it sting very badly?"

"Only a bit." "Good girl. Quite a tumble that was. Now tea-lemon and sugar all right? No milk, I'm afraid. No fridge." "Lemon will be lovely." "Right. Well, let's make you comfortable. The rain has stopped, so tea outdoors?" He went to the grand old double door at the front of the house and unlatched it. With a creak smaller than one expected, the doors swung open, and I began to get to my feet.

"Don't move!"

The giant danced back toward me, bent down and picked me up. I felt myself being raised into the air and carried smoothly outside. He sat me sideways on the back of one of the black cats I had admired an hour earlier.

"You wait there, and when I come back, you and I will have a lovely tea!" and he went back into the house. His huge back glided up the stairs and disappeared into the entrance of the corridor and the third room.

"Comfy?" I nodded. "Marvelous." He smiled as though it were indeed marvelous. "Now, let us introduce ourselves. My name is Love. Aurelius Alphonse Love.

Do call me Aurelius." He looked at me expectantly. "Margaret Lea." "Margaret." He beamed. "Splendid. Quite splendid. Now, eat." Between the ears of the big black cat he had unfolded a napkin, corner by corner. Inside was a dark and sticky slice of cake, cut generously. I bit into it. It was the perfect cake for a cold day: spiced with ginger, sweet but hot. The stranger strained the tea into dainty china cups. He offered me a bowl of sugar lumps, then took a blue velvet pouch from his breast pocket, which he opened. Resting on the velvet was a silver spoon with an elongated A in the form of a stylized angel ornamenting the handle. I took it, stirred my tea and passed it back to him.

While I ate and drank, my host sat on the second cat, which took on an unexpected kittenish appearance beneath his great girth. He ate in silence, neatly and with concentration. He watched me eat, too, anxious that I should appreciate the food.

"That was lovely," I said. "Homemade, I think?"

The gap between the two cats was about ten feet, and to converse we had to raise our voices slightly, giving the conversation a somewhat theatrical air, as though it were some performance. And indeed we had an audience. In the rain-washed light, close to the edge of the woods, a deer, stock-still, regarded us curiously. Unblinking, alert, nostrils twitching. Seeing I had spotted it, it made no attempt to run but decided, on the contrary, not to be afraid.

My companion wiped his fingers on his napkin, then shook it out and folded it into four. "You liked it then? The recipe was given to me by Mrs. Love. I've been making this cake since I was a child. Mrs. Love was a wonderful cook. A marvelous woman all round. Of course, she is departed now. A good age. Though one might have hoped- But it was not to be."

"I see." Though I wasn't sure I did see. Was Mrs. Love his wife? Though he'd said he'd been making her cake since he was a child. Surely he couldn't mean his mother? Why would he call his mother Mrs. Love? Two things were clear, though: He had loved her and she was dead. "I'm sorry," I said.

He accepted my condolences with a sad expression, then brightened. "But it's a fitting memorial, don't you think? The cake, I mean?"

"Certainly. Was it long ago? That you lost her?"

He thought. "Nearly twenty years. Though it seems more. Or less. Depending on how one looks at it."

I nodded. I was none the wiser.

For a few moments we sat in silence. I looked out to the deer park. At the cusp of the wood, more deer were emerging. They moved with the sunlight across the grassy park.

The stinging in my leg had diminished. I was feeling better. "Tell me… " the stranger began, and I suspected he had needed to pluck up the courage to ask his question. "Do you have a mother?" I felt a start of surprise. People hardly ever notice me for long enough to ask me personal questions.

"Do you mind? Forgive me for asking, but- How can I put it? Families are a matter of… of… But if you'd rather not- I am sorry."

"It's all right," I said slowly. "I don't mind." And actually I didn't. Perhaps it was the series of shocks I'd had, or else the influence of this queer setting, but it seemed that anything I might say about myself here, to this man, would remain forever in this place, with him, and have no currency anywhere else in the world. Whatever I said to him would have no consequences. So I answered his question. "Yes, I do have a mother."

"A mother! How- Oh, how-" A curiously intense expression came into his eyes, a sadness or a longing. "What could be pleasanter than to have a mother!" he finally exclaimed. It was clearly an invitation to say more.

"You don't have a mother, then?" I asked.

Aurelius's face twisted momentarily. "Sadly-I have always wanted- Or a father, come to that. Even brothers or sisters. Anyone who actually belonged to me. As a child I used to pretend. I made up an entire family. Generations of it! You'd have laughed!" There was nothing to laugh at in his face as he spoke. "But as to an actual mother… a factual, known mother… Of course, everybody has a mother, don't they? I know that. It's a question of knowing who that mother is. And I have always hoped that one day- For it's not out of the question, is it? And so I have never given up hope."

"Ah."

"It's a very sorry thing." He gave a shrug that he wanted to be casual, but wasn't. "I should have liked to have a mother." "Mr. Love-" "Aurelius, please." "Aurelius. You know, with mothers, things aren't always as pleasant as you might suppose." "Ah?" It seemed to have the force of a great revelation to him. He peered closely at me. "Squabbles?" "Not exactly." He frowned. "Misunderstandings?" I shook my head. "Worse?" He was stupefied. He sought what the problem might be in the sky, in the woods and finally, in my eyes. "Secrets," I told him. "Secrets!" His eyes widened to perfect circles. Baffled, he shook his head, making an impossible attempt to fathom my meaning. "Forgive me," he said at last. "I don't know how to help. I know so very little about families. My ignorance is vaster than the sea. I'm sorry about the secrets. I'm sure you are right to feel as you do."

Compassion warmed his eyes and he handed me a neatly folded white handkerchief. "I'm sorry," I said. "It must be delayed shock." "I expect so." While I dried my eyes he looked away from me toward the deer park. The sky was darkening by slow degrees. Now I followed his gaze to see a shimmer of white: the pale coat of the deer as it leaped lightly into the cover of the trees.

"I thought you were a ghost," I told him. "When I felt the door handle move. Or a skeleton." "A skeleton! Me! A skeleton!" He chuckled, delighted, and his entire body seemed to shake with mirth. "But you turned out to be a giant."

"Quite so! A giant." He wiped the laughter from his eyes and said, "There is a ghost, you know-or so they say." I know, I almost said, I saw her, but of course it wasn't my ghost he was talking about. "Have you seen the ghost?" "No," he sighed. "Not even the shadow of a ghost." We sat in silence for a moment, each of us contemplating ghosts of our own. "It's getting chilly," I remarked. "Leg feeling all right?" "I think so."I slid off the cat's back and tried my weight on it. "Yes.

It's much better now." "Wonderful. Wonderful." Our voices were murmurs in the softening light. "Who exactly was Mrs. Love?" "The lady who took me in. She gave me her name. She gave me her recipe book. She gave me everything, really." I nodded. Then I picked up my camera. "I think I should be going, actually. I ought to try for some photos at the church before the light quite disappears. Thank you so much for the tea." "I must be off in a few minutes myself. It has been so nice to meet you, Margaret. Will you come again?" "You don't actually live here, do you?" I asked doubtfully. He laughed. It was a dark, rich sweetness, like the cake. "Bless me, no. I have a house over there." He gestured toward the woods. "I just come here in the afternoons. For, well, let's say for contemplation, shall we?" "They're knocking it down soon. I suppose you know?" "I know." He stroked the cat, absently, fondly. "It's a shame, isn't it? I shall miss the old place. Actually I thought you were one of their people when I heard you. A surveyor or something. But you're not."

"No, I'm not a surveyor. I'm writing a book about someone who used to live here."

"The Angelfield girls?"

"Yes."

Aurelius nodded ruminatively. "They were twins, you know. Imagine that." For a moment his eyes were far away.

"Will you come again, Margaret?" he asked as I picked up my bag.

"I'm bound to."

He reached into his pocket and drew out a card. Aurelius Love, Traditional English Catering for Weddings, Christenings and Parties. He pointed to the address and telephone number. "Do telephone me when you come again. You must come to the cottage and I'll make you a proper tea."

Before we parted, Aurelius took my hand and patted it in an easy, old-fashioned manner. Then his massive frame glided gracefully up the wide sweep of steps and he closed the heavy doors behind him.

Slowly I walked down the drive to the church, my mind full of the stranger I had just met-met and befriended. It was most unlike me. And as I passed through the lych-gate, I reflected that perhaps /was the stranger. Was it just my imagination, or since meeting Miss Winter was I not quite myself?