Souvent me Souviens (Work in Progress)

Chapter 4

     Thomas accepted the portrait from Polly in a cloud of disbelief. He grasped the golden frame tenderly, and pulled it close to gaze at its contents.

     "He looks so . . ." Tom spoke softly.

     A droplet fell silently down his cheek. Soon his whole face was dripping quietly with tears. The mask was melting.

     ". . . careless."

     Tom shut his eyes and turned the photograph down into his lap. Polly felt her own eyes welling up with sadness, almost as if she could feel Tom's regrets as he did himself. She sat down beside Tom and embraced him.

     "I hate him Polly," Tom whispered, resting his head on hers, "I hate myself."

     Polly couldn't think what to say, except that she didn't agree.

     "You're the one person who really ought to, Polly."

     "Well I don't," Polly stood up and held out her palm to Thomas. He took it, and the two of them went inside. Hand-in-hand, Polly led Tom upstairs to her room, and there above her bed hung Fire and Hemlock. She let go of his hand to take it off its hook, and passed it to Thomas. Tom set his portrait down on Polly's bed and held Fire and Hemlock. He turned it over, loosened the clamps holding glass to picture to board, and pulled the board up. Lying there was his soul, in the form of pale, wavy hair. Hesitantly, he picked up the locks before Polly could tell him not to.

     Nothing happened. Polly sighed. Tom slipped the hank of hair into the pocket of his anorak, and clamped the board back to the frame.

     "I should get back to my flat soon. I packed everything up to make it easier for Carla when I didn't come back," Tom's lips perked up a little, "clearly my plans have been knocked off-course."

     "Not being murdered, you mean?" Polly jested.

     "I've got to re-adjust my whole schedule now," Tom replied in much the same manner, "it's an inconvenience." More sincerely, he added, "I'll have to move out, so They don't find me again. Oh well," he hooked the Fire and Hemlock picture back up on the wall and lifted his golden-framed photograph, "if by chance you discover a good place in Oxford, call me. Or Ann, I suppose."

     He was going to let her keep Fire and Hemlock. The exchange required no words. Polly followed Tom downstairs. "Will you stay for lunch?" Leslie asked Tom at the first opportunity.

     "You haven't eaten lunch yet?" Sam inquired incredulously over a plate of nearly-gone cottage pie.

     "Stay for lunch, Tom," said Polly. And so Tom did. As he started on lunch, Polly asked Granny about a lingering question she had ever since leaving for Oxford.

     "You said you knew what They were in That House," Polly said, "but that I'd laugh and not believe you. So what are They, Granny?"

     "Not entirely human, that's for sure," Granny croaked. "Faeries, demons, it doesn't matter what you call Them. They could be extraterrestrials or gods trapped on earth for all I know, but They seem to be following faerie rules."

     Polly did not laugh and had no trouble believing this. The only one who looked remotely doubtful was Leslie, and yet there was no outright denial. "Which would make Laurel the Faerie Queene," Polly said, "if They really are faeries." It all made too much sense.

     Granny went upstairs to take a rest. Polly and the Dumas Quartet could not seem to carry on talking much after that. Someone would make a remark here and receive a polite response there, but then they would all go back to cottage pie and tea. It was only because Leslie had so many questions for Tom and Polly that there was any conversing at all. Some were to confirm things he already knew, or suspected. Other lines of inquiry were in regards to the odd set of double-memories he seemed to have developed. "I'm not sure what's real anymore," Leslie muttered.

     Polly understood completely. Before she had to leave Middleton, she was sure to get various addresses and phone numbers from Leslie and the Dumas Quartet. After stowing his golden-framed picture away, Thomas was sure to pull his cello out from the trunk and seat it in the car. Sam did say once that Tom always allowed the cello the best seat. It made Polly smile.

     She was drowning in thoughts on the bus to Oxford. Finally, she was able to sort her perplexing double-memories into a single timeline:

     Halloween, 1978, gate-crashing the funeral at Hunsdon House. Meeting Thomas Lynn, Sebastian, Laurel, and Morton Leroy for the first time. Visiting Mr. Lynn's flat. At Christmas I receive the first batch of nowhere books, which were really from Mr. Lynn.

     April, 1979, me and Mr. Lynn go to the Cotswolds. In December I steal the picture of Thomas from Hunsdon House. 1980, the trip to London. In autumn, I play Pierrot in the pantomime.

     1981, mum sends me away to Bristol. Polly's train of thought came to a screeching halt. In both sets of memories, Bristol stung her deeply. The way both Ivy and Reg abandoned her . . . In her hidden memories, she knew there was Thomas Lynn, someone who cared enough to make sure she got back to Middleton - but in the ordinary memories that Laurel had replaced the hidden ones with, there was no one. No one cared enough. Polly couldn't let herself dwell, and went on asserting the true memories to herself, more determined than before. Sebastian's kiss in the summer. Leslie's kiss at Fiona's Christmas party.

     1982, completing the Tales of Nowhere. The Dumas Quartet leaves for Australia.

     1983, the Dumas Quartet returns. Middleton fair. Everything goes wrong.

     Polly stopped again. It was years ago that this happened, and yet it felt so near in her mind, because after this point was when everything went blank. Not any more. Polly saw herself casting the spell to spy on Tom, desperate for answers to all the horrible things that had happened. Then the empty tunnels of Laurel's eyes piercing through the spell and into Polly's core. The deal that made Polly forget everything.

     The books from Mr. Lynn had been transformed in her memory to books that came from nowhere at all.

     Polly forgot about Leslie, and Leslie forgot about her. They only ever met because of that trip to the Cotswolds.

     The Tales of Nowhere disappeared as well, because it was the creation of both Thomas and Polly, in the beginning. No one Polly knew had ever heard of Mr. Lynn. Ordinary life marched on.

     1985, Sebastian gate-crashes Fiona's party and we meet again. But of course, because Polly had forgotten everything to do with Thomas Lynn and Hunsdon House, it was like meeting Seb for the first time.

     1986, first year at St. Margaret's. Sebastian insists we get engaged. Meeting Mr and Mrs Leroy.

     1987, second year at St. Margaret's. The truth is remembered. On Halloween, I save Thomas Lynn's life.

     NOW-HERE: Sunday, November first, 1987.

     Morton Leroy is dead, and Polly had just gate-crashed the funeral. Again. Well, the gate was open, she thought. That funeral was practically begging to be crashed.

     She went back to thinking about Tales of Nowhere. She had gone to St. Margaret's to become a writer, and now she remembered what she wanted to write. Hero, too, was as much a part of herself as the story in her head. There were the four companions: Tan Coul of the west, Tan Thare of the south, Tan Hanivar of the north, and Tan Audel of the east. They were the Dumas Quartet. Then there was the entire world of Nowhere, snug in Polly's head.