191. The Good Earth

191. The Good Earth

“If he won’t have her, I will marry her myself!” Uncle Richearth suddenly yelled.

Now this was unexpected.

Richearth had been giving us the impression of being the more formal of the two uncles sitting with us. But he now leapt agilely onto the said table and shouted, “¡Clepeta Aprietos Bivalva, I will marry you myself!”

“Why is he freaking out?” asked Thistle, the first to recover speech. “Has he been drinking?”

“Well…yes,” I said. He had been drinking more than eating, yes, but I hadn’t thought it might be so much.

“Get off the table, Uncle Rich!” scolded Bella. “Get off it this minute!”

And when he responded by repeating and repeating Miss Clepeta’s name in bloodcurling roars, like a desperate caged beast,  Bella began to shout at Uncle Wildgale too, hoping he would stop his brother.

“Get him off the table, Uncle Wild! Get him to shut up! He’s frightening people!”

“Everybody is staring at us!” contributed Belle. “This is ridiculous! He’s making a fool of himself. And of us! Get him off the table, uncle!”

“No,” said Uncle Wildgale flatly, “I don’t want to.”  And he just leaned back on his chair and sat there at the table watching the spectacle with his arms crossed.

“Charlie! Nick! Pull him down! ” Bella hissed at her and her sister´s escorts.  Both boys did try to haul Uncle Rich off the table but they were no match for him. He kept waving them off like flies. When Bella saw the boys were getting nowhere for all their scuffling, she turned to me.

“CLEPETA APRIETOS BIVALVA!” roared and roared Uncle Rich, and somewhere between roar and roar I heard Bella say, “Arley, do something!”

I was considering jumping onto the table like the other two boys and adding my efforts to theirs, but before I made up my mind to, the table gave and collapsed noisily, its eight legs spreading out on the floor.

“Hey! Watch it!” cried Uncle Wildgale, who was almost sucked under the table but managed to avoid this and retrieve his chair and sit on it again.

But Uncle Rich could not be made to hush.

“I will marry her myself!” he hollered. “How could I not marry a woman with a name like that? I love that woman! ¡CLEPETA APRIETOS BIVALVA! You are loved!”  

“You can’t marry her! You already have a wife!” Belle reminded him.

“No, I don’t!” he hollered. “Where is my wife? Do you see my wife here at my side? That’s where she should be! BY MY SIDE! Is she? You don’t see her, do you? Well, neither do I. And that’s because she’s not here! She does not exist! I haven’t got a wife!”

“As of this moment you haven’t!” a woman’s voice was heard to shout back at him. I didn’t get to see who that was.

“I want Clepeta!” shouted Uncle Rich. “I won’t settle for anyone else!”

“You can’t marry Clepeta!” cried Belle. “Take my word for it! She’s not right for you!”

“You can’t imagine what Richie is capable of marrying, dearie,” intervened Uncle Wildgale. “What number will Clepeta make, Rich?”

“All they want is my money!” hollered Uncle Rich. “You daughters of…of lousy parents!” 

“No. No, that can’t be true, Uncle Rich. Haven’t you looked at yourself in a mirror? We girls were positively in love with you when we were little,” said Heather, trying to calm him. “We all had crushes on you, because we thought you were our cutest uncle, and you uncles are all so cute that makes you gorgeous, Uncle Rich.”

“Really?” said Uncle Richearth. “Does that mean Clepeta will have me?”

At some point Uncle Evenfall, who had been slumbering in his ambulant armchair a little ways from us must have woken up.

“Get our brother out of here, Wild,” said Uncle Evenfall to Uncle Wildgale over my shoulder. “He’s not well.”

“No,” said Uncle Wildgale flatly, his arms still well crossed, “I don’t want to.” And he leaned further back on his chair.

Uncle Evenfall knew better than to argue with Wildgale. He took Richearth  by the arm, meaning to take him away himself.

“Are you taking me to see Clepeta?” Uncle Rich asked Uncle Evenfall.

“Yes, of course. Where else?” Uncle Evenfall assured Rich.

“You can’t do that,” Belle began to protest, but Heather hushed her.

“Good!” said Uncle Rich. “Because that’s where I want to go! Oh, Clepeta! My Clepeta! My own Clepeta Aprietos Bivalva! What a name! To hear it is to love her!”

Uncle Evenfall got Uncle Rich to sit on his ambulant armchair and wheeled him away, the latter still shouting Clepeta´s name to the winds, now singing in French. “Clepeta, my Clepeta, I’m searching for my Clepeta! Je cherche après Clepeta, Clepeta, oh, ma Clepeta! Je cherche après Clepeta et ne la trouve pa!" And then even daring to sing opera, "Clepetaaa!  Clepetaaaa! J'taimeeeeee !” Despite how embarassing the situation was, hearing him sing the love song from Samson et Dalila, it struck me that a voice as deep and sonorous as his was wasted on a gentleman farmer.

“Well, that was exciting!” said Thistle, without moving a muscle of her face.

“What if someone put something in his cup?” asked Heather, glancing around suspiciously.

“Don’t you worry about Richie, kids,” said Uncle Wildgale, seeing how stunned we all looked. “This isn’t because a broken heart has turned him into a slave of the trodden grape. Even will take him to spend the night at  his place and he’ll return home tomorrow noon  gloating over a bushel of pebblesbright he will have wheedled out of Even and there will be fifty kooks there waiting to be driven away from his door all saying their name is Clepeta. And he will have to get someone to blow them away from there. And if he doesn't find someone to do the dirty work for him, maybe he’ll try to get them to fight it out among themselves. And you know what? He just might marry the one who is left standing.  And that will serve him right.”

“This is what that was about?” asked Thistle. “He wanted some pebblesbright? I hate to have to say this, but maybe Alpin is right about our family being all daft.”

“Of course we’re all daft,” shrugged Uncle Wildgale. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Madness is the aristocracy of disease. But this doesn’t mean Alpin can insult us. By the way, where is he?”

“Right here,” said Alpin. “But Clepeta had better not be among the fifty women at that door. I want her for myself, especially now that guy wants her too.”   

I awoke the next morning with a worse headache than I imagined Uncle Rich had to have. Or maybe that would be Uncle Even.

It didn’t get any better when I saw Belle and Bella had dropped by before I got down to having breakfast.

“Only a word, Arley,” they said. “We’re in a rush. But Daddy says to tell you to drop by your sponsor’s  if you need to find Fishfin. That’s all, coz. Breezy bye bye! Auguria!”

I thought it would be nice for a change of atmosphere to visit Don Alonso and decided to drop by his house. Alpin would probably sleep until the evening, resting like a boa after all he had eaten the night before, so I might be free for a while. I packed some cinnamon rolls and picked some summer roses for Doña Estrella and set off through the woods. I also took with me the pebblebright I meant to give Fishfin. The stone, at least, was making me feel better and keeping the food and flowers fresh, though I now regarded it with other eyes. I couldn’t help thinking maybe I should have given Uncle Richearth the sixth pebblebright we had found and he wouldn’t have acted out like he had. But something told me then and now that just one wouldn’t have been enough for him. And suddenly, Uncle Even’s voice rang in my ears. “He’s not like Alpin. He’s like the earth. He takes but he gives too.”  And I remembered that Uncle Rich’s lands produced most of the food that fed our people. And that what he didn’t need to grow the next crop he gave away freely.

I found Don Alonso sitting out in his garden with no other than Finisterre Fishfin. I gave the chef the pebblebright and he was very pleased to have it.

“When your uncle Augustus let me out of the pantry, he said there was someone he would like me to meet. That’s why I’m here. Normally, I would have kicked the pantry door down, but the doors on ideal houses are all perfectly steadfast. I could have wrecked the stuff in that storeroom, but its little owner had no fault at all and I wasn’t going to damage her property. I only wanted to get my hands round that barbarian’s neck and strangle him like a chicken.”

“I see,” I said.

“Your uncle said I had to go on a vacation to get over all the stress of that luncheon. At first I didn’t see eye to eye with that, but now I sort of do. My new friend, Alonso, has made me see a trip could be good for me.”

“We’re doing the way,” said Don Alonso. “First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll set off on pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela. Would you like to come with us? Fishfin will be our guide. He’s from Galicia.”

“I consider myself a  bit gallego, but I’ve never been on a pilgrimage. Not to Santiago, not to St. Andrew of Teixido, not to…anywhere holy. Do you think this will be good for me? Help me control my temper? Your uncle says it might.”

“Will you come with us?” asked Don Alonso. “Michael will be coming too. We would love to have you. Do you have a bicycle? We’re going by bicycle. One can walk there, or ride a bicycle there, or ride a horse. Nothing else will do. That’s how it has to be done.”

“I wish I could,” I said sincerely. “I would really love to go with you, but I have to work.”

“Yes, you do, you loafer. I get up this morning and where do I find you? Are you at the foot of my bed in attendance? No, you aren’t. You’re skipping work. And I have to come all the way here to find you.”

“Ah! That’s him, isn’t it?” muttered Fishfin, his eyes suddenly glowering like live coals at the sight of Alpin. “The barbarian that needs strangling?”

“We have to leave, I suppose,” I said quickly. “It was nice seeing you. I really wish I could do the way with you.”

“We’re leaving alright,” said Alpin, “but for Galicia.”

“No. I don’t think you want to go there, Alpin,” I said. “You haven’t lost anything there. And it’s not an easy place to be at.”

“You know what’s there and I don’t want to lose? What I need to find before some copycat does?”

“You’ve lost something in Galicia?” I asked, fearing to hear the reply.

“My girl Clepeta. My intended. She lives there somewhere. Or so your cousins told me.”

“No!” I exclaimed. This was incredible even for a coincidence. A fatality, that was what it was.

Alpin drew out of his pocket a parchment map.

“X marks the spot,” he said.

“That’s at the end of the world,” I said, checking out the map my cousins had given him. “You don’t want to go there!”

“Do they give you something if you do the pilgrimage? I might as well kill two birds with one stone if I have to go all the way there.”

“They give you a certificate. A piece of paper saying you’ve been there.”

“It’s more than a piece of paper!” exclaimed Don Alonso.

I made a warning face at Don Alonso so he wouldn’t encourage Alpin but it was too late.

“You have to walk all the way there from your house to get the piece of paper,” I said. “Too much walking, Alpin.”

“No. No trouble at all. We’ll fly there by plane and we’ll rent a house right next to St. James Cathedral. If we pay for it, the house is ours, isn’t it? Our residence. We just walk out of it one morning and go fetch the piece of paper. Should there be a cue, you’ll have to think of a way to skip it. That should take two minutes. Then we go see my girl. Start looking for houses to rent, Arley. I’ll see about the airplane tickets.”

After much argument, I gave in, as usual. Don Alonso’s party would leave as planned, early the next morning on bicycles. Alpin and I would give them a headstart so we wouldn’t clash with them on the way and so they could stop and eat at places before we got there. That should guarantee their food supply. We would leave a day after and do the way on horseback. Alpin doesn’t like bicycles. They take too much effort to move and you can’t just hit them with a whip or dig spurs into them. My greatest concern then became where to find a horse that could put up with Alpin. Perhaps a mechanical one?

“Ah, you needn’t worry about that. There’s stupid old Darcy. He has to be good for something, hasn’t he? He’ll find me a proper horse.”