When Grace had sold her father’s company following his death six years earlier, she had not included Alonetown in the agreement. Had separated it from the company into her own private ownership. Her own somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Few people remembered the project and even less could pinpoint its location. The life she had lived there brought feelings of gratitude and resentment. Thankful for the protection and wellbeing, less so for the exclusion and hollowness she had felt later in life. A box within a box of memories. Each no less important to her than the last, no more meaningful than the most.
The pale light cascading down the frame of the shop window lit up the catwalk mannequin nearest the door. A familiar chunk chipped away from a scarred and scratched left ear. The light blue colour faded and the rose sheen missing from a face too much facing into the sun. Grace tilted the mannequin’s red hat away from the chipped ear. The imperfection left to show. The moment of when, and the reason why, was not lost to a ten-year-old Grace. Many years had gone past since that moment, the only thing for Grace now was to allow her fingers to trace across the jagged surface as though she were soothing a wound. A brief half smile escaped before her hand dropped to her side as she turned and made her way from the shop.
Stepping up to the town’s only mailbox, she slid the lid upward, the well-oiled hinge silent in its movement, before depositing the two envelopes. Closing the cover over the metallic open mouth she stilled as if catching her breath for a moment before continuing her walk.
Entering a nearby convenience store, Grace stood for a moment and listened to the large white cooler whirring. Narrow shelves contained everything a town full of people could wish to purchase. On the counter, a small turntable rack of key chains emblazoned with the town name dangled motionless. Every small detail taken care of.
Grace savoured the single low note humming for another moment before picking up a large red apple from the top of a bowl separated on the counter. Using both her hands she polished the apple so that it gleamed and reflected. She rested her lips against the stretched red skin and waited a moment before biting into it. The sound was just as pleasing as the taste as the crisp flesh broke. Closing her eyes, she pictured herself when she would come to the store to select a snack. She would take a large apple and head to a place that even the warm breeze failed to reach. A quiet corner of a voiceless town. As she took a bite so large it filled both of her cheeks the noise would slice through the silence that surrounded her. Invariably it would be one of the apartments, their interiors furnished with different styles. This was one of her most favourite places to explore. Each self-contained living space was like stepping into a period of time. Just washed dishes, open magazines, even radio programs from the era were available on a loop. Music and news from a time past. History being lived. Only later in life had she realised that this too was a lesson, carefully orchestrated, devilishly planned.
Stepping outside the store she stared at the three-storey apartment block opposite knowing that each room was empty of flesh but full of memories. She visited her past and for a brief moment, heard her mother calling out from the street below, shouting her name, the name of a long forgotten ten-year-old girl.
Swallowing her guilt, her eyes glistening in the store light, she began moving further down the street until she stood outside a small picture house, a sixty-seater with black lettering on the lined overhang dictating ‘Now Showing’. The prominent feature on the corner of Main and First. As a teenager, she had watched movies by herself, popcorn in hand, the dust catching the pole of light projected from where she had selected and loaded her movie of choice. She had sat, at one time or another, in every one of the sixty seats. Sometimes she had sat with her mother by her side smiling, laughing or crying at a different generation, a visual delicacy of slapstick or words emblazoned in white. Each one precious as a memory but at the time just a collection of moments. Later in life she had chosen to keep the old equipment when other options were available. Nostalgia had caught up with her and she was thankful at times for it.
One year during a typically hot early September and leaving the picture house with the concept of time forgotten, they stepped outside into the warmed air of evening before her mother had seemed frozen to the spot. Her hand slowly searched for Grace’s as she stared down the dimly lit road. Grace, her eyes adjusting to the low streetlight, now had her hand encased by her mother’s. When the coyote limped under one of the streetlights Grace tightened her own grip.
She had seen coyote before, usually more than one, before the sound of a shot had echoed down the street and sent them running. The coyote that faced them, seemingly alone and separated from the pack, was limping on its front right leg. She had felt pangs of sympathy as it came to stop in the middle of the street. Its head tilted questioningly for a moment as if to ask why she wasn’t helping.
Grace’s mother began pulling her back toward the brightly lit picture house. Each step painfully slow and deliberate as if attempting to fill the footsteps made in the carefree moments. Grace didn’t look behind her, neither of them did. They kept staring at the coyote as they made the nine steps back to the theatre’s swing door.
The animal was smaller and slimmer than most she had seen. August was generally the time that the young coyote separated from the family. Things hadn’t gone well for this one. The knowledge that it was injured seemed to make her mother more anxious, more diligent. Even though Grace was young she had been told time and again by her father of the dangers. Even in the eclipsed serenity of Alonetown a moment could shape your future far beyond your own plan.
The coyote stayed pensive, its leg raised slightly as if ready to sprint forward, its nose sniffing the air, searching for what could not be seen.
While being guided back by her mother, her forgotten enclosed hand clasped, warm and numb, she watched the coyote wandering into the shadows of Church Way. They waited silently inside the cinema foyer, her mother fretting with her hands after pressing the call button on the payphone in the lobby. Several minutes later her father walked in, a shotgun cradled under his arm. A modern-day knight with a modern-day lance. Grace stayed silent the whole time while he attempted to calm her down. Stayed within step distance of her mother. Not that she was afraid of the coyote, more that she knew her mother was afraid of what may change.
Grace allowed the memory to fade slowly before stroking her fingers down the length of the brass bar that would allow her to enter. Through the glass she could see the deserted counter, its small variety of snacks lined up ready to pick over. Against the far wall the old wooden phone box, surrounding its large one-armed mechanical occupant, had its light on as though the open folded doors had recently been pushed aside. Resisting the urge, she turned and crossed the road and walked slowly down Church Way. Dignified steps took her past the small boutique shops of glittering chains, books, candles and leather. Each two-storey building unique in its own way yet emanating a sense of collective belonging.
The Madeline, a hotel of painted white block stone and dark wooden frames was named after her mother and joked about by her father. Pristine, sturdy and dependable. Her mother’s voice, light and playful, asked on more than one occasion if that were her or the hotel. Her father would smile and knew better than to answer.
Thirteen rooms waiting for visitors that would never come. The small kitchen and dining room never used, pristine. No knocks from chairs or spills from over exuberant staff waiting on guests hungry for their attention.
Within any town new blood flows from buildings designed for visitors. People who come to see and share their spirit to the streets surrounding them. An interaction with other places, other minds, other cultures can be a healthy experience. Can beat a rhythm for all who seek it.
Grace knew every room, every closed door, every carpet pattern and tiled bathroom. Her fingers had traced the architrave around the main door on more than one occasion, with more than one splinter piercing her delicate youthful fingertips. Days gone and made all the sweeter by the passage of time.
Room seven was her favourite. Not eight which took on the pallor of a virgin’s honeymoon and spanned the area of three other rooms. Seven was a plain room in comparison. A single non-descript bed, large striped green and red wallpaper, a small writing desk against the three-quarter room height window. All the rooms had the same windows but none of the others had the exterior flagpole directly above them. An untimely and un-choreographed dance of colour and shade blocking and revealing scenery amid a changing sky. Movement, flickers of life in an otherwise motionless town.
Now, with the air as silent and growing colder, the dancer draped ragged, unmoving and sullen. A single light shone against it, the stage lit, rips like scars on show for all to see. The flag remained as one of the few untouched items. A symbol, not of a country, but of a choice made. A representation of past endeavours, of equality and fairness. The design a memory, faded from the original dye with no less meaning now than then.
Grace continued to stare at it for a few more quiet moments before she carried on walking, slowly and deliberately picking her steps out one by one. A thoughtful slow march placing each foot between the cracks of the pavement careful not to touch the dividing lines which caused each to be part of the whole. Eventually, the toes of her boots rested on the precipice of grey stone. Only one thing was built beyond this point. An area different and older than the rest of town. Waiting silently in the darkness, its form rising above all others, was an unkempt wooden church. In the daylight, it would show itself to be made up of worn pale blue and white boards. Its arched Gothic style windows, cracked and faded, were held together by years of dirt. Time itself had clung and held against the steep pitched roof.
This had been the one place her mother and father had forbidden her to go as a child. And as a child the one place she wanted to explore the most. Even as a teenager she had stopped at the edge of town as though held back by some unknown force which kept her from stepping off the pavement edge.
Only when her mother died did she eventually walk the dust path to the place where the lifeless body was laid to rest. Despite not being religious her father had said it was the right thing to do. Only three people attended, including herself at an age when her teen years were nearly behind her. No hymns of melancholy notes. No joyful or sorrowful remembrance of the passage of time. From dust to dust.
Both her and her father mourned their loss in their own way. Reluctant to leave they both stayed in the empty town for nearly a month. Days would pass without either of them seeing each other. The streets would welcome each and every step that disturbed the dust and breath of nature blowing warmly against the surface.
Eventually they returned to the city and Grace moved onto campus. The next stage in a sedentary evolution of studies. Very little was said between her and her father. Life went on as it had before her mother’s passing. Days passed one at a time, much the same next as the previous. Each day expectant of no less than the one before.
Alonetown had been forgotten amongst those days, amongst the months and years. The unseen caretaker who dutifully waited for notice of their return was a forgotten hero to Grace as her life became part of the jigsaw that kept the city running.
Her father had taught her that life is made of moments. As each moment merges the pace of one’s life skips and jumps dependant on the quality of that moment. Most people find themselves unhappy with the present until it’s in the past and time may not heal all wounds but skewer the memory of them.
Somewhere throughout those entwined moments a note came from Alonetown telling of the passing of her father. He had returned on the first anniversary of her mother’s death and had not left for nearly four years. A very private burial was attended by two people. Grace was one of them.
The loss was made easier by the distance between them. The bitter memory still made her eyes glisten and her throat close. Loneliness had always been a friend through choice, now it was friend and foe. While surrounded by the talkative and loud she longed for the peacefulness that was Alonetown. When alone she longed for the inclusion and the distraction of playful voices.