I was relieved to hear that.
“I hadn’t seen Jacob in years,” he said. “From his letter, I could tell he thinks very highly of you. He and I were in a music history class together when we were at university. Of course, he was a real musician — a wonderful violinist — and I was just picking up an optional course. He was quite a ladies’ man in those days. So now he’s with the symphony — and has a wife, as well? Isn’t it funny, I never thought of him as the type who’d settle down to the boring, domestic life. His wife must be quite exceptional, I suppose?”
I assured him that Deirdre was indeed quite something — and was especially fond of cats.
He now began asking me questions about myself. I told him everything he wanted to know, even about the shocking deaths of my parents.
He listened to that with great sympathy. Some years before, apparently, his own father and his only brother, both coal miners, had been killed in a cave-in at the Duncairn mine. His mother had died, heartbroken, just a year after their deaths. He himself still lived in the family rowhouse, which was full of reminders of them.
“You won’t meet too many people in Duncairn who haven’t had a family member killed in the mines,” he said. “That’s the story in a nutshell of these towns in the Uplands. I’d have been sent down the mines myself, but I was just a bit too big.” He spread his arms, indicating his bulk. “So, I stayed at the books and here I am, principal of the school where I used to be a pupil.”
After that, we talked a while longer about what my teaching responsibilities would entail. He handed me a copy of an elementary grammar and composition book my pupils would be using.
“Take this along with you,” he said. “You’ve lots of time to get to know the contents. There’s nothing to it.”
AS I WAS LEAVING, I thanked him for all his reassurance.
“I have a feeling you’ll enjoy it here,” he said.
He lumbered along beside me to the door of the school. “When I get back from this Board of Education assignment, we’ll get together,” he said. “I often go to the Bracken for a pint in the evenings, if you’d like that. I’m getting married in October so I’ll be trying to make the most of my freedom while it lasts. Did I say a pint? Maybe we’ll have more than one.” He laughed — a reedy but pleasant sound.
He was so massive I guessed he could put away a fair number of pints without much trouble.
3
On most of the days following, I’d head up into the hills with a bag holding a waterproof shell in case of rain, the textbook Sam had given me, and a sandwich from Mackenzie’s, where everyone seemed to know I was the new teacher. I’d walk for a few miles and find myself a clear spot amongst the gorse bushes to sit down. After an hour or two of reading, I’d get out my sandwich. Invariably, at that point, a swarm of those small black birds with the white streaks on their wings would appear, shrieking and swooping. They were so bold I’d have to swat at them with my book to stop them from snatching the bread out of my hand.
Often, on those days, I’d make for a big rock I’d noticed on my first walk. It was an oddity up in the high moors — a lone, twenty-foot-high boulder, just sitting there with no other noticeable rocks around. Its northern side was smooth and mossy. But some indentations for climbing had been sculpted into its south face, and I made use of them. I discovered that the top of the rock was concave — a mossy depression four feet in width and three feet in depth at its lowest.
Sitting up there, I could see farther across the entire landscape below. A mile or two north lay the cluster of Duncairn itself, then nothing but isolated shepherds’ cottages, dots of sheep widely scattered, then more hills rolling away behind. To the south were just hills upon hills, except for one lone house about a mile away amongst a windbreak of trees.
The top of the rock became my favourite place for reading. Some days, when the wind moaning over the edge sounded like a great lullaby, I’d even stretch out in the mossy basin and nap.
AFTER LUNCH ONE overcast afternoon — it was well into my second week in Duncairn — I walked to the rock with my book. I climbed to the top and settled down to some syntactical problem. I must have dozed off, for I was startled to hear a voice over my head.
“Am I disturbing you?”
I looked up at a pair of cynical eyes, like a cat’s, staring down at me.
I was immediately wide awake.
The cat’s eyes were actually the inverted eyes of a woman, leaning over the parapet above me. When I sat upright, I realized that her eyes were most uncynical — in fact, they were blue and pleasing to look at. Indeed, her entire face was pleasing. She seemed around my own age, with fair hair and a fair complexion a little flushed from the moorland air.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know it isn’t always wise to fall asleep outdoors. Even on top of the rock.”
Her quiet voice, too, was pleasing.
“Have you noticed those little black birds with the white wing feathers?” she said. “The locals call them ‘eye-pickers.’ Someone should have told you about them. They sometimes peck the eyes out of sheep, but they’ve been known to go for the eyes of people who’re asleep.”
I was shocked to hear that, for the birds looked so pretty. “Even pretty things can be dangerous,” she said.
I thanked her for warning me. She was still on the outside of the rock and looked as though she was about to climb back down. So I quickly introduced myself and told her I’d be filling in at the school for a while.
“So I heard,” she said. “I’ve seen you climbing up here a few times. I thought I’d come up and say hello.”
I invited her, in that case, to visit with me for a while, as though this oval on top of the rock was my parlour. I reached out my hand and she took it, climbed over the edge, and sat down opposite me.
She wore hiking boots and a dark-blue wool sweater over jeans. She had the sturdy build of someone active.
“My name’s Miriam Galt,” she said.
I really liked the look of her. The oval wasn’t much larger than a bathtub, so our limbs couldn’t help touching quite intimately.
I was mystified at how she could have got to the rock without my seeing her when I first climbed up. I’d looked around the moorlands from the top before sitting down and could have sworn there was no human being for miles — just a few dozen sheep. I’d been asleep for only a few minutes. I’d already noticed, though, how distances in this area were somehow distorted. On my walks, the landscape would seem to me deserted, then a shepherd and his dog might suddenly appear so near I could hardly believe my eyes.
The mystery was solved for me by Miriam Galt.
“Do you see that gully?” She pointed at what looked like a narrow ditch a hundred yards or so from the rock, running to the southeast through the moors. “It doesn’t seem like much from here, but it’s six feet deep in most parts and easy for walking in. It goes past where I live — up there.” She indicated the lone house I’d noticed before, with the windbreak of trees. “I was walking in the gully when I saw you climbing up here today. And here I am.” She smiled.