A THORNE REMAINING

By Jo Anzalone

PART THREE:

For the next couple of days, the two women settled into the house, making themselves at home, getting used to what was where, especially in the large kitchen.  This Mr. Thorne seemed to have every pot, every utensil known to man.

"Look at this spice rack!" Adelaide exclaimed. "Did you ever see the like?"

Allison pressed her palms on her chair arms, trying to raise herself enough to read the labels. "Impressive," she agreed.

"I wonder who he cooked for?" Adelaide went on. "Surely not all this just for himself?"

Allison wondered that, too. Was Terry...married? There was no real sign of a woman's presence in the house other than that separate, back bedroom. If he'd been married, wouldn't they have shared his room? But his room was entirely masculine, entirely his. She'd spent most of the previous day exploring it thoroughly. After breakfast, she'd gone up to his desk, carefully studying the items arranged neatly on its broad surface.  There was a picture of a handsome boy in his early teens, something vulnerable, almost wistful in his expression. Was he a nephew, a younger brother, possibly even a son? If he were a son, where was his mother? Why was there no trace of her in his  house?

She held the boy's picture, examining his face, wondering if it showed traces of Terry's. What did Terry look like? As she became more familiar with his room, her desire to be able to picture him grew steadily. But he didn't seem to keep pictures of himself around. Well, there was that one black and white framed photo in the hallway. It was of a boys' soccer team. She imagined his mother must have hung it there years ago. But which one was Terry? The faces were all young, all eager, but there were so many of them.   Her eyes traveled back and forth down the rows. Was he kneeling in the front row, or one of the guys standing? It was so frustrating, not knowing!

She'd put the boy's picture back, picking up a purplish geode that sat just beside it. Had he picked it up on one of his trips? She turned it in her hands then set it back. There was a leather cup filled with various pens and pencils, a small carved figure, very African-looking, a flat dish with a mixture of coins in it. A cigarette lighter rested in the middle of a clean, amber glass ashtray.  A cork coaster lay beside that, something Egyptian embossed in it. All the desk top really told her was that he smoked and traveled a lot. Not much to go on to add to her mental image of him.

Pushing back just a little, she eyed the top of three desk drawers on the left side of the kneehole. Did she dare open them? How much prying was allowed before it was too much? Well, she argued with herself, he had leased his house, now hadn't he? Leased it knowing it was fully furnished, that his things remained inside. She licked her lips, staring at the drawer. "Might I find more of you in there, Terry? Would you have left a picture... something?" 

Gingerly, slowly she pulled on the handle. It wasn't locked! She pulled more, leaning forward to peer inside, feeling somehow like a criminal.  First into view were two decks of well-worn playing cards. She frowned, wanting some more personal sign of him. Behind them was a small box of plain white envelopes and a roll of stamps. The drawer wouldn't pull any further, but she could tell there was still room at its very back. Sliding her hand past the envelopes, she explored with her fingertips, encountering something metallic and cold.  She snatched her hand back. Was it what she thought it might be? Removing the box of envelopes, she cautiously reached again to the back of the drawer. Yes. It was a small handgun. She pulled it out, holding it between a thumb and forefinger, letting it dangle over her lap, staring at it fascinated. So, he was the sort of man who kept a gun in his desk, was he?

Adelaide's footsteps sounded down the hall and Allison quickly put the gun away, forgetting the box of envelopes on the desktop as she pushed the drawer shut and turned to face the opening door. "Lunch ready?" she asked, hoping her face were composed.

A few minutes later, she sat opposite her sister at the marble-topped kitchen table, absently chewing a sandwich.  Her mind was totally occupied in constructing a portrait of the owner of the house. Adelaide watched her. "Allie," she blurted finally, "where in heaven's name ARE you?"

"What?" she asked, not having heard Adelaide's question.

"You. Wherever is your mind wandering?"

Allison smiled vaguely, then took a sip of lemonade. "Just thinking about this house, Addie, wondering what its history is."

"Well," Adelaide explained, "from what the realtor told me, it was built sometime back in the 1920's by the grandfather of the current owner. Has only been lived in by that one family...until us, that is."

"The owner," Allison asked off-handedly, "did the realtor say anything much about him?"

"All I understand is that he has some sort of strange job that keeps him almost always on the go. I didn't really ask anything about him. Why?"

"No reason," Allison replied. "It's just that I think I must be staying in his room."

"You going to set your art supplies up in there, you think?"

"Probably in a day or two," Allison answered. "Just kind of want to get settled in, get a feel for the place first."  She wheeled her dishes to the sink then turned to look back at her sister. "Ok if I go outside for a bit?"

"Sure, just let me help you go slowly down that ramp."

Pausing at the top of the ramp in her chair, she studied its incline from this higher position. Whoever had built the thing had obviously no knowledge of wheelchairs as it was quite short, its angle way too steep. "Thanks," she said gratefully as Adelaide held tightly onto the back handles of the chair, controlling her descent.

"You'll be all right...out here by yourself?"

Allison smiled. Adelaide seemed to think she was still a helpless little girl at times.  "I'll be fine," she assured her. "Just going to explore around the yard a bit. I'll give a holler when I need back up the ramp, ok?"

What she wanted to do was see how close she could get to the stream. His stream. Somehow she knew he must think of it in those terms.  The yard was fairly flat, with just a slight slope to the right down through the old eucalypts to the water. She managed it rather easily, in fact, following a well-worn path. This was where he walked when he went down to the stream. She stopped half-way to her goal, trying to imagine him, man and boy, coming along just here year after year.

Continuing on her way, she found a smooth, level area of hard-packed dirt not more than two feet back from the bank.  Had he played here with his toy trucks? Suddenly she felt a bit silly, delving so deeply into the life of someone she would never meet. Tipping her head, she distracted herself by looking up through the tall eucalypts, watching a few small white clouds scudding past. Just to her right, the grass grew right down to the edge of the stream and beyond that, a flat rock jutted out, making a ledge under which the water rippled.

Inevitably, her thoughts returned to him, to him sitting there, his feet dangling into the creek. Suddenly she had a great yearning to sit there herself, to feel the sensation of the cool, flowing water. She sighed. Even if she were able to manage hauling herself out there, she wouldn't be able to feel the water anyway.

"No, Allison," she reprimanded herself firmly. "Don't you dare! No pity parties for you!"  Usually she was able to control such thoughts. She only vaguely recalled the sensation of walking, almost rather as though it were only something she'd dreamed about many years ago. Her chair was the fact of her life. No getting around that.

She looked up again, studying the light. Perhaps she might bring her paints down here?  Yes, that would be good. Try to capture the essence of the dappled sunlight on the ripples. Yes.

Turning her chair, she looked back at the house. From here she could see his bedroom windows. In her mind, he opened the French doors, came out on the porch and called her name. Only...he had no face. She really must find out what he looked like!

That evening she'd curled up in bed, reading his Dickens. She's really meant to spend time with Captain Aubrey, but somehow what his grandmother had written to him about strength and perseverance had grabbed ahold of her.  It had been many years since she'd first read it and she found herself wanting to read it from that perspective and to read it because, well, it was... his.

The following morning it had rained, so she didn't get to go down beside the stream to paint. Adelaide spent a long time in her room, working on a new chapter for her book, a novel set in Colonial Williamsburg.  Her sister was fascinated with early American history and had already had two books published in a series of seven she planned.

Allison stayed in her room, watching the rain drip off the edge of the porch, then set about her explorations again. She sat for a while, staring at the large oil painting over the desk. It was done in shades of amber and peach, showing a wide valley at sunset, a thunderstorm approaching in the distance. Was it a real place? Had he been there? Why had he chosen this particular painting for his room?

She seemed to end up, always, with more questions than answers. Perhaps it was the very mystery of him she found so intriguing? What if he were, in actual life, a dumpy middle-aged man with a bald head and a large, drooping moustache that his dinner crumbs lodged in? Somehow, though, that image didn't fit with the gun in the drawer. That took her back to his desk. There were two more drawers.  She opened the middle one, still feeling that sense of guilt that took her when she pried in less open places. Never had she engaged in such outright nosiness before.

This drawer, though, was filled with several stacks of maps and nothing else.  She pulled out the top few. Vienna. Budapest. Geneva. The Balkans. South Africa. Bolivia. Was there anywhere he didn't go, didn't need a map of? She put them carefully back, shutting the drawer, then pulling on the handle of the bottom one. Locked. Drat! He must have something in there he didn't want anyone else to see. She opened the slender drawer above the kneehole attempting a casual glance just in case the key might be there. Of course not. Why would he lock the drawer and then put the key in such an obvious place? There was just a mixture of typical desk things...small boxes of paperclips, rubber bands, a ruler or two, another cigarette lighter, a pair of scissors, stapler, nothing of interest. Wait. What was that? A postcard?

Excitedly, she pulled it out. It was a picture of a terrible slum district in Rio, flimsy shacks half falling down, laundry hung between the roofs, garbage everywhere. Turning it over she saw that it was addressed to Terrence Thorne. Ah, Terrence. Did anyone actually ever call him that? The message looked hastily scrawled by someone who had found nothing to press on, the words tipping angularly across the small space. "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here instead of me!" There was a sloppy smiley face and the name "Dino" at the bottom.

After leaving the bar, Terry had wandered a while in the Botanic Gardens, trying to figure out how to get to Thorneton. Surely there was some easy way for disembodied folk to go where they wished?  He had no idea how to do it, however. Shaking his head, he muttered, "Missed Haunting 101, I guess." Was there no instruction manual for all this?

He found himself at the bus depot, waiting for someone to open the door. If he opened it himself, the man at the desk would see. Probably not a good idea. Late at night as it was, very few people were taking buses anywhere. Finally the janitor wheeled a small cart into the building and he slipped through before the door closed. Checking the posted schedules, he found a bus leaving for Brisbane within the hour. He could get off in Coffs and take another for Armidale. That would get him close enough to Thorneton to walk the rest of the way.

He sat on a long bench, waiting. A folded newspaper lay just beside him and, forgetful of his current state, he picked it up, opening it wide. Suddenly he remembered and peered quickly over its top edge. The ticket agent was staring in his direction, his eyes wide, his mouth wider. "Shit!" he said, setting the paper down. The agent backed away from his counter, disappearing in some great hurry into an office, locking the door. Terry sighed. He'd have to learn to be more careful. Then he grinned to himself. Perhaps he should invest in a nice set of chains?

He strolled around, reading the various signs and posters. An older couple came in, looked for the agent, then headed outside to see if he were there. Terry managed to get through the door before it closed behind them. Before long, the bus to Brisbane pulled in and several people got off. The driver left the bus door open and Terry hurriedly boarded, taking a seat in the very back. Only five other people were on the bus and he breathed a sigh of relief, settling back as the bus made its way through Sydney, heading for the Harbour Bridge. He'd always liked crossing the huge bridge, the view even from the roadway being quite spectacular. Maybe three, four times he'd done the bridge climb to its top. He'd always planned to take Henry up there some day, some day if he ever got him out of England. It hit him now that he'd never do that.

"Henry," he whispered, closing his eyes.

The bus ride was a long one, the stops and layovers stretching it out through the entire next day and a good part of the night. It wasn't quite dawn again when he arrived in Coffs.  He walked the familiar streets for a while then went down to the harbour and sat on a low wooden fence, staring at the Pacific. He was near a dock where some of the boats that took sight-seers out whale-watching were moored. The ocean made little lapping noises against their hulls and suddenly he thought of the sound of the stream by Thorneton. Why was he wasting time sitting there like some lump in Coffs when he should be on the road? Perhaps it was because he was so new, still making constant adjustments to the odd condition he found himself in, that he was easily distracted?

But the sound of the water had done it, had placed firmly in the center of his thoughts again the desire to go home. He had no real understanding of the why of it, other than that was where he had grown up so it must be the right place for him to return to now. But, no, that wasn't it. He knew there was more to it somehow. Something was waiting for him there, something he needed to find. He would know what it was when he got there.

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