Christmas Fantasy

I thought I had set off in good time, but this was the shortest day of the year--four days before Christmas. I was in ancient Yorkshire, walking the coast north of Whitby. It was twilight before I had gone ten miles, and at Runswick Bay and Kettle-ness, I found it hard to see my feet. It was that uncertain time of day, just after a winter sunset, when the way is made visible by the pale sky showing in puddles on the muddy path.

And then everything was black. I stumbled on through the wykes and dumps until I saw a wavering light. This is how I came to Blackby Hole.

The village was not yet visible. But I knew there were cottages hidden in the nearby darkness, because there was in the air the burnt-toast smell of smoke from coal fires, the sharpest odor on frosty nights in English villages. There was only darkness and this coal smoke for a few hundred yards, and then clammy air rolled over me; and the next time I saw the light, it was smudged and refracted by the drifting fog.

This was the north--I had expected Christmas snow, but the sea fog was stranger and just as cold and penetrating. It was as if I lay with my face against a slab, and the ghostly progress of sloshing surf on the foreshore under the cliffs suggested terrible things. I imagined stepping off one of those cliffs or the edge breaking under me and the loose chunks of headland bearing me down and flinging me into the black water. The sea fog had settled and thickened, muffling sound and shrouding the coast.

I regretted this trip already. England is one of those safe, civilized countries where a traveler has to go to a great deal of trouble to place himself in danger. After days of struggling against the tame-ness and safety of the Cleveland Way, I had now succeeded in placing myself at risk.

The swimming light showed me a stile. I plunged over it and into a narrow lane. I heard the creak of a sign before I saw the pub itself--the Crossed Keys. And cottages appeared suddenly as dripping walls and shuttered windows. I was muddy and cold, so I decided to warm myself by the open fire at the Crossed Keys. There was a sign saying vacancies in the window, but I procrastinated. If I could find (continued on page 226)Christmas Fantasy(continued from page 152) a bus or a lift out of the village, I would leave this very night.

I saw tangled strings of Christmas lights and hanging ribbons. And there were bunches of holly among the horse brasses on the beams, one round holly wreath on the wall and a twist of tuberous mistletoe drooping over the door. Because these plants were real and dying, they seemed funereal rather than festive to me. Now I saw people: two men in chairs and a woman on the far side of the horseshoe shape of the bar. They had not moved when I entered; I had taken them for pieces of furniture--it was that kind of country pub. But why should they notice me? They must have seen plenty of travelers like me, muddy and sodden from the long-distance path that cut through the village. I was haggard from weeks of tramping and masked with a beard I had grown because I was sick of seeing my face in hotel mirrors and wearing ridiculous boots. And who is a more unpromising companion than a man bent under a knapsack?

So I was the first to speak, but I had to wait some minutes for an opportunity. The bell over the door tinkled as a little old woman in a loudly crackling plastic mac entered with a small wet dog.

"A tin of shandy and a packet of cheese-and-onion-flavored crisps," she said.

At the sound of the bell, a man had appeared from the rear of the pub. He grunted and filled the woman's order, and I noticed he handled her money using his enormous thumbs.

The woman fed the potato crisps to the dog, talking the whole while--reminding the animal to watch its manners. And then she was gone. That was my opportunity.

"I don't think I've ever seen a dog do that."

When I spoke, the two men in the chairs stood up and left the pub.

"I wonder whether it's hard for him to swallow them," I said.

"I reckon it's right easy like." This was the man behind the bar, probably the publican, a balding, round-eyed fellow in a sweater that was much too big for him. He looked at me briefly and said, "I'm stopping inside for my tea," and he left.

"They don't like to talk about Mrs. Pickering," the next voice said. It was the woman on the far side of the bar. "You've driven them away."

"I have that effect on some people," I said, and when she obliged me by laughing, I said, "Why don't you join me? It's much warmer here by the fire."

To my surprise, she took the other chair by the hearth and said, "I never know whether it's all right to sit here. There are a couple of old boys who always use these chairs. The fog has probably kept them at home."

She had beautiful teeth and bright eyes and soft hair cut short and a pale, indoor complexion. Lost in studying her, I gabbled without thinking, wanting only to keep her there by the fire. I had not spoken with anyone all day. Such long silences always made me feel invisible, so talking with that woman, I became real again--and more, I became hopeful.

"And what is the mystery about Mrs. Pickering?"

"No mystery. It is well known." The woman stared solemnly at me, and I was sorry I had been so chirpy. "She murdered her fiancé."

I tried to remember Mrs. Pickering's face. I strained and recollected a sad, shawled figure in small boots. I recalled the crackling raincoat, the fingerless woolen gloves; she had no face. But all that was vague. My distinct memory was of a wet terrier smacking his jaws and half choking in his effort to eat the potato crisps.

"Not everyone is what they seem."

"She seemed very sweet," I said.

"I was thinking of her fiancé. He was a busybody and a terrible bully. Like a lot of men with sexual problems, he was very aggressive and violent. The local people knew what he was like and what she had to put up with. It was only strangers who were fooled by him. She killed him one night--with a billhook. He deserved it. She was given a suspended sentence--an incredibly wise decision. But no one likes to talk about her." I accepted it and answered her question, saying I had come from Whitby.

"By the way, my name is Edward Medford." The false name slipped out in spite of my desire to tell her the truth. I almost laughed at the oddness of it. "Can I get you a drink?"

"I'd love another drink. This is a whiskey," she said. "I didn't have any in the house--I'm battling a cold." When I returned with the drink, she was stoking the fire, tonging lumps of splintery coal from a scuttle. She thanked me for the drink and said, "I'm Rachel Haven."

She might have been 40, she could have been a bit more, and she seemed subdued. It was an effort for her to smile--she breathed in nicely when she did so. She struck me as independent and fearless, and solitary if not lonely. I liked her sensible clothes and heavy boots, her knitted scarf and thick coat. She seemed self-reliant and frank. She was not afraid of me. I found her extremely attractive.

We talked about the fog, the crumbling cliffs, the Crossed Keys and the distance to Saltburn, where there was a railway station. Then I said, "What's there to do around here?"

"I listen to the wireless or play my gramophone."

Those old-fashioned words were among the loneliest I had heard on the coast of Britain.

"And I do a great deal of reading."

I was too depressed to think of a proper response. I stroked my beard and saw that my silence was making her self-conscious.

"I suppose it is a very quiet life. But it suits me." She leaned forward and said, "What's that insignia on your tie?"

"Royal Geographical Society," I said. "I wear it when I'm hiking. Helps my morale."

I lifted the little gold emblem with my thumb, sort of offering it to her.

"Ties are very phallic," she said.

I let the thing drop, and I thought, Ties?

"It's obvious, isn't it?" she said, perhaps because I had not said anything.

I straightened up so that my tie wouldn't dangle, and I smoothed it against my shirt.

"I suppose beards are, too," I said. "Phallic symbols."

"Yours is," she said.

It was the first one I had ever grown, and I thought it made me look beaverlike and fat-faced; but when I heard her make that extraordinary remark, I felt that I had succeeded at something I had not been aware of having attempted. I had always resisted growing a beard, because I felt that a beard brought on a personality change--it happened to many men. She clearly approved.

We had another drink, and another, and went on talking in this way--she was full of unexpected remarks. The wind in the chimney disturbed the fire. It had become a bleak, murky night; no one else entered the pub.

"What time does this place close?"

"Half-ten," she said. "But if we left before then, he'd probably shut up shop. It's a filthy night."

"But where would we go?"

She had a lovely smile--it was more than a facial expression; it was a beautiful thought in her eyes and on her mouth. She said, "My cottage isn't far. We could have a drink there. You haven't let me buy my round!"

All the while, I had been wondering how this might end. I still did not know, but at least I had a chance. And it was not as a traveler wanting only to be welcomed and warmed by a tumble in her four-poster but something more--I liked her, and I was grateful to her for taking charge of me.

The landlord was not at the bar to see us leave; I was glad. I felt somewhat furtive and sheepish, as if I were sneaking away with Rachel Haven. I was also ashamed of this furtive feeling.

"That's a parasite," she said as we passed under the mistletoe.

She led me out to the narrow road, where the fog was swirling and drizzling in the dimmed Christmas lights of the pub windows, and then she turned into one of those country lanes that are like deep trenches. Although it was dark, Rachel did not hesitate, and I followed the sound of her footsteps grinding the damp pebbles in the lane. We had left the hamlet of hidden cottages and were headed for the cliffs. I could hear the waves dumping and sliding in the deep hollows below.

"It's not much farther," she said. At once her footsteps went silent as she started down a muddy path. Some minutes later, she said, "There it is."

Lights burned in three or four pretty windows, and although they were blurred by sea mist, they helped me pick out the contour of this cottage, the low, slanting roof and the bulging walls. I could hear the sea clearly now; it was just beneath us, roaring softly.

It seemed a remote and solitary place, and I think I would have been frightened to be alone there. But all its desolate characteristics made it an excitement and a pleasure to be there with Rachel Haven. I was about to enter this stranger's life. It is a traveler's thrill: to delve and then move on--like passing through a pool of light.

"I always leave the lights on," Rachel said as she opened the front door. "I hate to come back to a dark house."

Inside the cottage, any sense of mystery vanished. It was a tidy place, penetrated with the odors of good bread and healthy cats and green plants. Its warmth heightened these odors and made them fragrant, and the warmth itself was a reassurance. It was rather shadowy--only the lamps near the windows were burning--but I could see the pots of ivy and the fruit basket on the scrubbed pine table, the cat asleep on the sofa near the fireplace, and I could hear a clock's hurrying tick. Along one wall were bookshelves, and there were some pictures on another wall. But these were striped with shadows. I did not want more light than this; I liked the fire and the dim lamps and the plump sofa.

"I've been making a jumper," Rachel said, holding up a sweater. I suppose she thought I had been wondering about the knitting paraphernalia that lay on a ladder-back chair. "I had hoped to finish it by Christmas, but there's not much chance of that--Christmas is Saturday."

"Is it for someone special--the jumper?"

"Yes," she said, and looked very serious and intense. "Someone in Africa. I'm sort of a godmother to a little girl in Lesotho. Actually, she's quite a big girl now. I send a lot of knitted things to her. It can get very cold in Africa."

She handed me a glass of white wine and we toasted each other merry Christmas. I sat down on the sofa and made room for her, but she chose to sit before the fire. The cat went to her, and she gathered it into her lap and stroked it.

"She calls me Mummy," Rachel said, and smiled, but not at me. "She's a fifth-former."

We went on talking--about the work on missions in Africa, about the Yorkshire weather, about the pleasures of radio programs and the taste of herbal tea; but all I thought about was how badly I wanted to make love to her. I could begin by getting down beside her on the carpet in front of the fire. I did not want to make it obvious. As we talked and as she refilled my glass, I grew steadily more dreamy with desire. Time passed; I was attentive, awaiting my chance.

She said, "I think this silly cat has been in a fight. He's got a torn ear."

"Let's see," I said, and scrambled next to her.

The torn ear occupied us for a while, and the fire warmed my face and I was sleepy with wine. At last, sensing that I was falling, I put my arm around her, then squeezed her shoulder and leaned to kiss her.

She arched her back and stiffened as if I had driven a spike into her.

"What are you doing?" she said with a quiet coldness.

I did not know what to say.

"Do you think I'm just going to tumble into bed with you?"

She said it with such a sneer that I was on my feet before she had finished speaking. She had made me ashamed of myself. I backed away, stumbling slightly--it was like being thrown out of bed. I said, no, it was the farthest thing from my mind and, my, look at the time!

"I have to go," I said. "Where's my pack?" And she switched on another light. I was at the door, wanting to run. The overbright light made the cottage seem less friendly and rather poky. Now I could see the books on the shelves. I was slinging on my knapsack and studying the shelves and, with nothing at all to lose--I had already touched bottom--I spoke the malicious thought that was in my mind.

"Have you read him?" I said. I was at the door, waiting for her parting words.

"Paul Theroux?" she said, and brightened: The good thought was on her face. "Oh, yes, I love him. He's smashing."

I hesitated at the door of the cottage, then smiled at Rachel Haven and took hold of my beard. She did not have the slightest idea who I was. She had rebuffed the man she knew as Edward Medford, but "Paul Theroux? Oh, yes, he's smashing." I wanted to laugh. I certainly wanted to stay longer.

Rachel said, "You don't have to rush off like this."

The words were hospitable, but they were face savers; her tone insisted that I leave soon.

She said, "I think I've offended you."

"Not at all!" I said--much too heartily, because I meant it. I had thought of teasing her a little and then saying, "Guess who I really am!"

"I mean offended your masculine pride," she said.

With a difficulty I hoped was not visible to her, I suppressed my reply to this.

"I think you misunderstood me," she said.

A lovely woman's invitation to a perfect stranger to walk to her isolated cottage on the longest night of the year to split a bottle of wine: That seemed a wholly unambiguous offer to me. Or had I jumped to conclusions? All the while, she might have thought she was being kind to a lonely traveler. And yet, in this country, "Do you want a drink?" had nothing to do with thirst. Didn't she know that?

"But stay a little while longer," she said. "We might as well have the other half."

In fact, I had jumped up so quickly that I had left my glass with wine still in it. As she handed it to me, I dropped my knapsack to let her know I planned to linger.

"I think you had the wrong idea about me," she said. "It's strange when one lives alone. One is unaware of giving off a lot of contradictory signals. They think I'm a bit mad in the village. I know they talk about me behind my back: 'What does she do up there all alone?'"

"What do you do?"

"I have my wireless and my gramophone," she said. That sad old refrain. "And my books," she said, and gestured at the shelves, where perhaps 1000 paperbacks were tightly fitted.

Following the bookshelves took her back to the fireplace. I stayed where I was, near the books I had written.

She put a few small pieces of coal onto the fire and pushed the fire with the tongs. It was a frugal impulse, and I understood from it that she wanted the fire to die and--specifically--for me to take the hint and go. She did not want to throw me out, but she was trying to make me understand that her friendliness was formal--the same sort of philanthropy that motivated her to send woolly jumpers to Africa. She had been kind in a tentative way; all the presumption had been mine; she deserved to know I had lied to her about who I was.

I would have told her, except that I had the strong feeling that she did not think Edward Medford was a very nice person. It was more than that business about my masculine pride--it was that she did not like me much, didn't like my appearance. I had simply landed up here; I wasn't jolly, as hikers often are; I had to be told that Africa could be cold; I was a bit of an oaf. All this prevented me from blurting out my name. And then, thinking about it, I was glad I had given her a false name--especially a ridiculous one like Edward Medford.

I said, "You didn't really have to ask me for a drink."

"You looked a bit lost," she said. "And it's almost Christmas."

"So I'm your Christmas act of charity," I said. "Your good deed."

"You sound cross."

It was unreasonable of me, perhaps, but I felt she was being patronizing. I was still stung by the rebuff, by her exaggerated words "Do you think I'm just going to tumble into bed with you?" But more than that, she made me feel I was just another muddy hiker who had stumbled into Blackby Hole.

"I'm not cross. I appreciate your taking me in"--and when I saw the effect this had on her, I added, "but don't worry, I won't stay long." When she didn't react, I said, "Frankly, I thought you wanted a little company."

"You thought I was lonely," she said, and she laughed gently. "That's actually quite funny."

"Don't you ever get lonely?"

"I don't have time! I'm desperately busy." And her one-word shout was like an explanation: "Christmas!"

"Have you ever been married?"

"No," she said, interrupting me.

"Do you--"

"Questions," she said, and then looked away. "I had a fiancé once. He died."

I said nothing--allowed a moment of silence out of respect for this man's memory.

"A few years ago, I was seeing someone."

She hesitated. I thought, Seeing means everything.

"But he went away."

The words were sad, but she was fairly bright--there was no remorse or self-pity in her tone, only a wistful echo. That was what I had first found attractive in her--her spirit, her sense of freedom--and I had thought she had chosen me. I knew better now. She wanted only chat. So I chatted.

"You must read a great deal."

"You find that strange," she said.

That irritated me. I did not find it strange at all. I was glad. But she was boasting.

"It's not only you--a lot of people find it strange. They wonder what I see in an author of a book. But I can't describe the experience. It is magnificent--entirely imaginative." She smiled at me from a tremendous height. "Look at it this way. It is my version of hiking. New paths, new scenes, new people. It's like fresh air to me."

It was in the raw, simple tones of a hiker that I asked her, "Would you recommend any of these books to me?"

"All of them," she said. "I keep only the books I intend to reread. The rest I give away." She added, "I love reading about distant places."

"What--this stuff?" I said, and let my fingers hesitate on The Mosquito Coast, The Great Railway Bazaar and the rest of them standing under the author's name, between Thackeray and Thomas.

"Anything that feeds my fantasies," she said.

"I'd love to know your fantasies."

"They're to do with travel mostly. I dream of sunny countries and blue skies. Steinbeck--the wonderful towns he writes about. Monterey, California. Fresno--it's such a lovely word. Fruit growing. Just the words citrus groves make me sigh. I think of the sun on the rows of pretty trees and heating the roads and the rooftops. I see the bright houses and the little patches of shade under the green trees and the vines. I dream of Mexico, too. Very hot and dry--the desert is sort of odorless, you know. Nothing decays--everything withers beautifully, like pressed flowers. I dream of small towns in endless summer--"

She was describing the opposite of Blackby Hole, where the rising wind of December pushed at the windowpanes and howled under the eaves and the sea spilled its cold surf down below on the hard shelf of beach.

Rachel Haven was still talking--now about small, hot towns in middle America: fresh air, good food, friendly folk and sunshine. She also saw herself in the African sun and in a bungalow in Malaysia and taking a stroll in China. They were simple visions and strange because they were not at all extravagant. They were not expensive or luxurious--no five-star hotels or native bearers.

"We're on a picnic," she was saying, "sitting on very green grass on a riverbank in the sun. We have food--I've made sandwiches--and everyone is drowsing, and someone says, 'Let's do this again tomorrow!'"

And then I saw it, too. We were together, Rachel Haven and I, in California or Mexico, packing a picnic basket and setting off under a blue sky. I had an intense sight of it, which was the more passionate for its simplicity. It was possible and, more than that, it was easy. She did not know how attainable it was. I had so often bought tickets and visited such places; but I had been alone and restless, and I had left thinking, Someday I will come back with someone and be happy.

Rachel Haven had risen from the sofa. I smiled at her and prepared myself to say everything.

Her own smile was an effort. She said, "Hiking boots!"

We both looked at my feet.

She said, "Those little treads pick up mud and carry it indoors and drop it. Look--"

I was standing on a green square of carpet. There were small pellets of mud, like bonbons, all around my boots.

"I'm terribly sorry," I said, and raised one boot, looking for a footing. "What a mess."

"Please don't move," she said. "You're making it worse."

"Shall I take these things off?"

"I don't know," she said. She was exasperated and upset, and there was a squint of pain in her eyes as she looked down. "I wove that carpet myself--on a hand loom. I did a weaving course in York. It took me ever such a long time. You can't see the pattern very clearly, but I've based it on a Kashmiri design. It's vines and lotuses--"

"Muddy lotuses."

"I'm afraid so, yes."

Her voice was flat and disappointed. She wanted me to go through that door and keep going. She had not asked where I was planning to stay. I had no place to stay! I suspected that she wanted me to know that I was no longer welcome. I had drunk all her wine and asked too many questions and tracked mud onto her handmade carpets. People who live successfully alone live with elaborate rules. I had broken several of hers. She wanted me out. Worse, she wished she had never seen me.

And it was because of this that I knelt and untied one muddy boot and then the other and stepped out of them and walked across the room reflectively--making her wait--and then back to the bookshelves and said, "But what do you really think of him?"

"Dylan Thomas?"

"No." I could not utter my own name to her. I feared it might give me a sudden brain storm and that everything would come out. I tried to be casual; I wagged my fingers. "Him."

"Paul Theroux," she said.

I clutched my beard merely to make my head move in a noncommittal way.

"I've read practically everything he's written that's in paperback. The novels, the short stories, the travel books. The Great Railway Bazaar was the one that started me off. That's travel, but it's not an ordinary travel book. It's mostly him, so you feel at the end of it that you know him pretty well. He's wonderful on people. The men he writes about are very vivid--funny, too--but most of his women are pretty awful. Those stockings of yours must be wet through. You're leaving footprints on my floor."

It was a stone floor; my feet were so cold, my toes were turned up like Turkish slippers. She had not asked whether I was comfortable or invited me to sit down. She was too absorbed talking about this smashing writer, who was so wonderful on people.

"They'll be there tomorrow," she said, looking down at my footprints on the flagstone floor. And she smiled--it was not disappointment this time but disgust. "I hate feet." She was squinting at mine. "The Japanese are right. There's something really sickening about them."

Her words were about feet in general, but her manner indicated that she was talking specifically about my feet.

It was a winter night near Christmas; the fog and the sea mist lay thick against the coast; I was a stranger. If she had warmed to me, welcomed me or showed any concern, I am sure I would have been very direct. I would have told her my name, and then I would have left. If she had been hostile, I would have done the same, but for another reason. But she was indifferent to me. And because I was certain that I wasn't going to tell her my name--it would have been embarrassing otherwise--I asked her about this writer.

What was he like?

"He's very hunky, very sexy, I bet."

"You're mocking me," she said coldly.

I was--out of nervousness, out of panic. And I was mocking myself. I wanted badly to interrupt her.

"I think of him as tall and rather shy. Very gentle and"--she smiled and looked away--"very funny. Not a joke teller but sort of endlessly amusing in a dry sort of way. And a little frustrated." She was not looking at me but, rather, was studying the man's books, the row of them on the third shelf. She said, "I'd like to meet him."

I had hold of my beard again. I said, "Sure, but what then?"

With defiance she said, "I think we'd have a smashing time. I think I could make him very happy."

Then she glanced at my feet--my wet socks--and looked at me with pure hatred. Her eyes were large and deep brown, and because they were turned against me, they were cold and beautiful and very fierce. They said, "Go."

I wanted to go. I walked again to the door. Rachel stepped out of my way. She moved slowly; she was thinking. She began speaking, as if continuing a thought that had begun in her head.

"But, of course, I'll never meet him. I'll never go to California or see Africa. I won't go to medical school. I'll never learn to play tennis or ride a horse. Bridge will go on being a mystery to me. The queen won't come to my wedding, and even if I do marry, I'll never have children. I won't get an award at the woman-of-the-year lunch. I'll never have a computer or a motorbike or a Rolls-Royce. I doubt that I'll ever learn to speak another language. I won't discover or explore anything. Nothing will be named after me."

Now she glanced up at me. I had my shoes on. I could not have told her my name now for anything. She sounded sad. It seemed to me now that it would only make her sadder if I told her who I really was. Perhaps I could have once, but it was too late now; and I was very sorry, because she did not like me much and I still found her attractive.

"On the other hand, nothing bad will ever happen to me," she said. "No disasters. I'll just live. I'm quite happy, actually."

"You've been very kind to me."

"No," she said, and laughed carelessly. "I've disappointed you." And she handed me my knapsack. "But you know nothing at all about me." There was an unpleasant thought on her face as she turned away.

I wanted to tell her my name then; but, of course, after all that time, would she have believed me? If she had, the truth would have looked like mockery.

"You'd better go." She spoke it like a warning.

Into the darkness: The sea fog blinded and soaked me. I crept slowly down the soft, sinking path, and loud waves broke near me under the cliff. I was not able to draw an easy breath until I was back in the dim lamplight and the homely stink of coal smoke in the road at Blackby Hole.

•

The Crossed Keys was shut, but I raised the landlord by rapping. Yes, he said, he had a room--five pounds--and he promised me a good breakfast. I apologized for arriving at such a late hour.

"We're used to it, being on the coastal path," he said, leading me up the narrow stairs. "All sorts of hikers come through." And by then we were under the light in the upstairs hallway. He looked at my face very closely.

"I know you," he said in a puzzled voice.

Was he, too, a reader?

"I was here earlier, having a drink."

"Yes," he said. But he did not smile. "When that woman was in the bar. Gives me the creeps, she does. That queer one."

Everything you say about her is gossip, Rachel had said of Mrs. Pickering. But the landlord was still frowning at me.

"That killed her lover," he said.

"Mrs. Pickering," I said.

"Mrs. Pickering never hurt a soul! No, I mean that brute Rachel Haven. Ah, you're a stranger--you wouldn't know. Rachel killed her fiancé. This was years ago. She was declared mental, and she got off. She claimed the bloke was a beast and she used a billhook on him while the balance of her mind was disturbed."

I tried to interrupt him, yet I had no question--I merely wanted to stop him from talking, because I was afraid to hear any more.

"But there was another lover. No one knew the bloke. He disappeared. No one missed him." The landlord nodded slowly and let this sink in. "She's never hurt me--she don't like me--but she's death on men she loves."

And then, in his friendly northern way, out of the side of his mouth, he urged me to sleep well.

"'Ties are very phallic,' she said. 7 suppose beards are, too,' I said. 'Yours is,' she said."