Solsbury Hill: A Novel - Softcover

Copyright © 2014 by Susan M. Wyler

Part

One

The phone rang off the hook, she read. As she poured milky coffee from the saucer back into the cup, she wondered if old phones had startled with electricity, if they’d jumped right out of the cradle from the shock. With a blister on her heel from the recent heat and humidity, she folded down the back of her ballet flat. The café’s air-conditioning was up too high and she had no sweater to cover her bare shoulders. She was trying to read a book her friend Tabitha had lent her, but it was filled with a tedious cast of artists in turn-of-the-century Paris, so she set it aside.

Eleanor pulled her hair into a ponytail and swirled it into a bun, which she punctured with the stem of her glasses to hold in place. She pondered the word cradle. The café air was thick with roasted beans and the waiter, who set her plate with a clatter on the zinc table, reeked of coffee from his pores. She thanked him, sat up in her chair, brought the cup to her lips, and sipped. Eleanor had elegant limbs and three feet of straight spine to the top of her head. Despite the challenges of being tall, she refused to stoop. Even in high school, once she got over the drama of being taller than many of the boys, she wore heels whenever she wanted to. These days, she wandered about the East Village in five different versions of ballet slippers, one for almost every day of the week. She checked the blister and resolved to stop by the pharmacy for some liquid bandage, slipped the leather slippers off, and sat on her feet to keep them warm as a blast of thunder clapped and a downpour exploded outside.

Miles swept in and shook out his umbrella. He would be irritated by the rain, she knew. On the lake at Christmastime with pine and cinnamon in the air, he liked the rhythmic backdrop of rain, but at the end of a busy day in the city, with the outdoor tables pulled inside, he wouldn’t be able to smoke a cigarette with his coffee. She watched as he shook his wet hair and scanned the place for her profile: the angled nose, creamy cheeks on pale skin, the self-assurance in the length of the back of her neck, and then the quirky red glasses stuck in her tangle of hair.

Miles bumped through the tables on his way toward her, excusing himself to the other patrons till a young woman stood and said his name in a husky voice that carried to the back of the room and the table where Eleanor was reading, and she looked up. The pixie was pressed too close against him. There were gray bentwood chairs and metal tables urging them toward each other. The girl wasn’t trying to move away and neither was Miles. His face was flushed and the girl said, “Call me,” as Miles looked caught in a tight space between pleasing the dark pixie’s pleasant smile and tossing glances at Eleanor to say, “I’m on my way, babe. I’m trying to get there, honey.”

She studied his face, how he’d changed since they were in high school when he was awkward and stood too close at parties, popped up behind her locker door, and was hesitant to drop his tray across from hers in the lunchroom. Miles had grown into good looks over the years. His slight build had filled out, his bright hair had darkened to a curly, tousled gold, and he had stretched to six feet, two inches tall, but more than that, he had grown into a charisma, and she smiled to herself to see the boy she’d known since sixth grade exercising his newfound magnetism.

“Sorry, El,” he said as he got to the table.

He kissed her.

She kissed him and offered a sip of her coffee. “It’s a latte with whipped cream.” She licked her upper lip to catch any remnant sweet.

His legs wrapped around her legs under the table and he took her hand, kissed the tips of her fingers and took a tiny nibble, then a tender suck of her forefinger. He could be gentle. Raised genteel, from an old Connecticut family with money and manners to match, Miles wore smart shoes and tailored suits in fine wools. Still, he tangled his body around hers as often as he could.

“What was your day like?” he asked.

“Amazing.”

His hand rested above her knee on the inside of her thigh. He was distracted.

Eleanor nibbled on a corner of lemon tart as her eyes shifted to the girl who was watching them, then back to Miles. “You?”

“Average day. Mostly looked forward to seeing you at the end of it.” He pulled the glasses out of her hair and ran his fingers through the long strands, his eyes soft with affection. “What’s this?” He picked up her book. “Is it good?”

Eleanor scrunched up her face and shrugged and just then the light in the café changed and they both turned to see what had happened outside. The burst of brilliant sunlight from a break in the stormy clouds was enough to silence them for a minute. He reached for her hand. Whenever the sun broke through the darkness of clouds in this particular way, it reminded them both of the day of her mother’s funeral, when she and Miles were twelve years old.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. They were expected for dinner at her friend Violet’s apartment. Miles took Eleanor’s hand and led her through the tangle of tables, right past the pixie, out into the silver light of a tropical storm in New York City.

Violet, whose bones were beautiful but who’d grown too thin, liked giving elegant dinner parties so she could watch her food eaten, so she could dress in tiny, sleeveless, backless dresses that displayed the pale scars of cuts along her forearms. It was hard to take your eyes off her when she walked through the room: she was crystalline, sparkled like a clear glass lightbulb. Eleanor could only take small doses of Violet these days. She enjoyed the beluga in soft eggs, also the chilled, modern blend of Pinot noir and Riesling, but it was always good to leave and get home.

Eleanor’s apartment was six floors up a tight stairwell. Wet from walking in the pouring rain, they tumbled up and kissed at every landing.

“It’s great not being your buddy anymore,” he said.

She took his hand and led him around the last curve, up the last step, fumbled for her ring of keys, and let them in.

“So you’re not my buddy?” She unbuttoned the first two buttons of his soaked black cotton shirt. Unbuckled his silver belt buckle and dropped his pants. “Say you’re still my buddy, honey, sweet Miles.”

Miles stepped out of his pants, and Eleanor led him into the kitchen, where she opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne. She popped it open and poured two flutes. Held his eyes, took a deep breath, and stopped time for a moment.

“Ah, your amazing day.”

She clicked her glass against his. “Barneys bought the collection.” She raised her glass above her head as Miles whooped, howled, picked her up off her feet, and spun her around. “My wunderkind!” he said.

“To you, to me, to us!” She was bubbling over.

He kissed her and his hand slipped up the back of her shirt. He tipped his glass for her to sip and then he took a sip and then he walked her backward and lowered her onto the bed without losing contact, without for a moment letting his eyes slip from hers. He didn’t let her feel the floor but kept her body lifted toward him.

She remembered when she’d fallen from a low limb of the tree in her back garden, a week after her mother had died. She had climbed the tree to get away from the visitors inside the house, and she remembered feeling high and separate from her sadness up there, and then climbing down she slipped on a low branch and somehow Miles had been there to catch her before she hit the bricks below. Now, in the ceiling overhead she saw the face of the boy Miles had been. She looked into his eyes, into this face so familiar.

In the morning, they lay in bed with the blinds cracked enough to watch the rain that had resumed, a wind so loud they heard it through the window, a rare hurricane warning for New York City. Miles smoked his cigarette at last. Eleanor didn’t mind. She had quit smoking when she was eighteen but loved the smell of it, loved the taste of it on his tongue. She inhaled what he exhaled and it made her woozy, loved it after they’d made love, loved it like she loved licking frosting off cupcakes, eating olives from martinis.

She climbed out of bed. “I’m gonna shower.” She closed the door then opened it again. “I’ve got to sleep alone here tonight, right?” she said. He was going out with guys from work.

“Yeah, is that all right still?”

“Of course.” She closed the door.

The water poured over her body and she squeezed some almond scrub onto a glove to scrape a crust of city dirt, sweat, and sex off her skin. When she shut off the water and pushed the curtain open, the small fan in front of the open window blew a chill across her nakedness. She heard the linen closet open and imagined Miles changing the sweaty sheets, snapping the fresh top sheet till it floated to rest. She wondered if he’d be able to stay for the day or whether he’d hurry away to get some work done at home.

She felt strange and she couldn’t shake it. Everything seemed odd and she didn’t know why, but this happened sometimes. There were days when she didn’t trust what she saw and couldn’t fathom how she felt, but the simplest thing to do, she’d found, was to assume that all was fine.

The bedsprings creaked in the other room. With vigor, she rubbed her hair till it was almost dry, rubbed her scalp and then her face with a rough hemp towel, then ran a thick comb through her hair.

Miles came in and moved the fan to pull the window shut. “You smell so good.” His nose in her neck. “What is that? It’s new,” he said.

“Lavender,” she said.

He shook his head.

 “Almond.”

Shook his head again.

“Karma.” A sticky balm of flowers and herbs.

“Ridiculous good,” he said.

Wind rattled the windows and the sky let loose an annihilating downpour. It drew them to the window to look up, to look out.

“Jeez,” he said, watching the storm crash down. “I guess I’m staying.” He smiled.

“You might have to.” Eleanor pulled on her blue kimono but didn’t tie it shut. “I’ve got bear claws in the freezer.”

It wasn’t plain blue, the kimono. There were ivory cream branches and vines with leaves and flowers, all on slippery silk that skimmed her body. Her skin was pale in the winter, almost blue, but in the summer turned to the color of caramel. Eleanor licked the stickiness of bear claw from her fingers, then from his. Her kimono draped carelessly, exposed part of her breast, her hip. “I feel kind of weird,” she said.

“How weird?”

“Not very.” She smiled mischievously and sipped the yerba maté she loved. Miles found it too sweet.

“I mean, weird, how?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Uneasy.” She looked outside and thought a bit. “It’s the weather, maybe.”

He kissed the mole on the inside slope of her right breast. Her mother had the same mole. When she was small her father had called it a beauty mark, told her it was a sign of a destined and great love, winked at her as if to let her in on a secret.

Miles licked the scar on her arm that looked like a souvenir from a knife fight but really came from a cookie sheet coming out of the oven, then he scooted down to kiss the circular scar where the engine of a motorcycle had burned the inside of her right calf in high school.

Even though Miles’ place was uptown and grander, an apartment his parents had kept in the city since she could remember, they liked to stay at her place. She could count on one hand the times they’d been at his place. All day they stayed in. They wandered about half-dressed, listened to music, sat side by side and read the papers to each other. Miles ordered Thai food as Eleanor went through pictures of a red-haired beauty modeling Eleanor’s sweaters on street corners all over Manhattan. They curled into each other on her deep couch and ate tom kha soup and red devil noodles. Suddenly, he stepped out of the bedroom in a smart-looking jacket and tie.

“I forgot you were going,” she said, feeling disheveled.

“Wish I didn’t have to. You okay?”

“Go.” She extended her leg, touched his thigh with her toe. “It’s okay, go.”

“I’ll be running in the morning, if the storm lets up.”

“I know.”

He turned from the door and leaned over the couch to kiss her. She dropped her head back and took his face in her hands. “See you,” she said.

When the door closed behind him, the strange feeling swept through her again.

She had just pulled a pint of mocha chip ice cream from the freezer when the princess phone rang. It startled her. Her home phone almost never rang and she had no idea who’d be calling. The sweet blue vintage phone didn’t identify the caller.

“Hello?” Eleanor’s tone was uncertain.

“May I speak to Eleanor Abbott, please?” An Englishwoman’s voice.

“This is she.”

“Eleanor, this is Gwen, Gwendolyn Angle. I am glad to have reached you. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m a friend of your aunt Alice and, well, I have rather bad news, I’m afraid.”

Eleanor hardly knew Aunt Alice, who sent her birthday and holiday cards and recently, on her twenty-seventh birthday, a ring: a striking jet cameo, which Eleanor always wore.

“She’s quite ill, and she asked me to call you.”

“I had no idea . . .”

“No, no, you wouldn’t have. It’s been recent and terribly sudden.”

Eleanor had written a thank-you note on a beautiful card, but she hadn’t given it another thought. She remembered meeting Alice only once. Eleanor dragged herself back to the quiet voice from far away.

“. . . Alice would be so pleased if you could come. The doctor thinks she won’t be with us for long, and, well, I have the sense she’s in some way almost desperate for you to come.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I hate to impose, my dear. I know you must be busy.”

“No, not at all.” Hesitant, “I mean, I could come . . .”

“Could you?” There was measurable relief in Ms. Angle’s voice. “We’d arrange a ticket—I can do that right now.”

“Umm. I think I should be able to come . . .” Her mother’s sister, an aunt she’d forgotten. It was inconceivable. She’d had no family for so many years.

“I’m sure you have things to arrange. Your job . . .”

“I work for myself. I could come.”

“If you would, it would be wonderful. I’ll tell her, then, shall I? Thank you, Eleanor.” She waited. “No, I won’t tell her yet, but she’ll be so pleased if you come. Do you think you really will?”

Eleanor ran through the plans she had for the next few days and realized she was, for the first time in a long time—free. She’d need to speak with Gladys and maybe it would be possible for Miles to arrange things. “I absolutely will. I’ll come.”

They exchanged information and Eleanor put the phone back in its cradle. It was stifling inside the house, and she wanted to get out. She called Miles, but he didn’t answer his phone, and she didn’t leave a message. She opened the kitchen window and climbed onto the tiny balcony there, thought about what she knew of her aunt.

Alice lived on the Yorkshire moors, in the home where El...