‘Come back upstairs,’ said my mother. ‘All of you. Come on.’
We went to bed, but I could tell no one else was sleeping. Eventually I got up again. Leo was there in the living room, smoking and staring out the narrow window at the roofs beyond. The whole city had a strangely subdued air now, like the atmosphere after a party. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.
He nodded and stubbed the cigarette out on the windowsill. ‘Things are changing,’ he said. ‘Aren’t they?’
‘I don’t know.’
He did not go on. I sat down on the sofa and stared into the dwindling fire. After a while, Leo stirred and crossed the room and sat down in Grandmother Margaret’s old rocking chair. There was no space in the tiny living room, and it stood jammed against the wall, where it could not move. He leaned forward and lit another cigarette. ‘There is something I want to know,’ he said. ‘Why do they always choose our shop?’
My skin felt cold, as if the fire gave no heat at all. ‘Do you think they really do?’ I said.
‘The windows,’ he said. ‘And shouting about royalists. It can’t just be chance.’
And the man standing in the shadows, I thought. He was watching us for some reason.
‘They know our name is North,’ said Leo. ‘They must know that this is a royalist family. They must. Either that or …’
‘Or what?’
He sucked in smoke as if it was the only thing sustaining him. ‘I don’t know. Nothing. I was thinking about something else.’
The silence came between us again. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t. His hands were shaking.
‘Listen, Anselm,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking about going somewhere else for a while.’
‘Where can we go?’
‘Not you three. Just me.’
There was a silence. I let it draw out on purpose, to force him to speak.
‘You three could move to another apartment,’ he said. ‘I’ll sell the contents of the shop at the auction rooms, and it will be enough to live on for a long time. A long enough time. And …’
‘But where would you go? Papa, what are you even talking about?’
He studied the cigarette in his hand, as though he didn’t know how it had got there. The wind in the chimney sounded like a crying child. ‘Mr Pascal says they will be bringing in compulsory labour soon. And when they do, I’ll have no choice.’
‘But you can claim exemption. On account of your cough, or the baby.’
‘Maybe I could, but—’
‘Don’t you want to?’ I said.
He did not answer. He sighed instead and took down The Darkness Has a Thousand Voices from the mantelpiece and turned over the pages. ‘I wish I knew what kind of country this baby will be born into,’ he said. ‘I wish I knew that everything would be all right. Anselm, my heart just feels like stone, as heavy as stone.’
‘It will be all right,’ I said. ‘The king has withstood all kinds of troubles.’
‘Has he? It feels like – I don’t know – like something is starting that no one understands. Or like the end of something. Like the end of the world.’
‘How do you know what the end of the world feels like?’ I said.
‘I can’t see any future any more.’
‘You shouldn’t talk like this, Papa. You only do it because you get so melancholy.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ He stood up and stubbed out his last cigarette. ‘I’ll try and get some sleep,’ he said. ‘You should too.’
But I did not sleep until the light started to rise behind the houses, and every half-hour, I heard him turn over quietly. I knew he only let himself turn every thirty minutes, so as not to wake my mother, who slept lightly. It seemed to me the loneliest sound, to hear him turning over like that in the darkness, and I could not sleep because of it. That, and thinking of Michael.
* * *
When we woke the next morning, the city was different. The people who passed our shop were strangely agitated as they hurried to work, laughing too loudly or talking in furtive groups. Mr Pascal came in before we had even opened up the shop. My mother was still upstairs dressing for work.
‘You had better come and see this, North,’ he remarked in his most ominous tone.
We followed him out. There was a chill of autumn in the air this early. Leo was shivering faintly as we walked. Mr Pascal led us down an alleyway and pointed up at the wall. Letters were daubed there in streaking blue paint: THE NEW IMPERIAL ORDER WILL TAKE BACK WHAT LUCIEN LOST. JOIN US OR DIE.’
‘It’s all over the city apparently,’ said Mr Pascal, shielding his eyes to gaze up at the words. ‘They must have been everywhere. It must have taken hundreds of people to do it. I wonder what the king will have to say about this.’
Leo was still shivering, with his arms folded tightly across his chest.
‘Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Mr Pascal. ‘It looks like civil war.’
The pharmacist and her husband came out and studied the letters. The greengrocers across the road still had their grilles up. They had taken a cautious attitude since food prices went up the year before, and now with the slightest hint of trouble, they did not open.
‘And I’ll show you something worse,’ said Mr Pascal.
Leo was already following Mr Pascal along the alleyway. I went after them. We came to a halt at the side of a half-demolished house.
‘Look,’ said Mr Pascal with a certain pride in his discovery. One whole side of the building was covered with a face – a man with a scar across his right cheek and his hand raised in a gesture of defiance. It must have taken them half the night to do this. I thought at first it was Rigel, and that was the famous scar they said he gained in the revolution. But the way Mr Pascal was sighing and shaking his head, I could tell this was no revolutionary hero.
‘Ahira,’ said Leo very quietly.
‘That’s right,’ said Mr Pascal.
‘Ahira?’ I said, startled. ‘Why would someone paint Ahira on the wall?’
‘It’s a criminal offence,’ said Mr Pascal. ‘You are not allowed to paint a war criminal on the walls of this city. Whoever did that will be afraid to show their face again.’
‘Who’s Ahira?’ said a small voice, and I turned. Jasmine was standing beside me, her thumb in her mouth.
‘Jasmine, go straight back to the shop,’ said Leo. ‘Anselm, take her.’
‘No,’ said Jasmine. ‘I want to know who that man is.’
‘I’ll tell you on the way back,’ I said. She followed me for a few steps, then dragged her feet in the dust. ‘Come on, Jasmine.’
‘Tell me now,’ she said.
‘He’s no one. Just a man who worked for Lucien. Come on.’
‘Who’s Lucien?’
‘You know Lucien.’
‘No, I don’t.’
I had never thought about Jasmine not knowing these things. ‘Who’s Lucien?’ Jasmine repeated.
‘He used to rule this country, until I was three months old,’ I said. ‘He was – what was the name?’
‘Commander of the Realm,’ said Leo, who had fallen in beside us. ‘Jasmine, will you please hurry?’
‘Billy and Joe are playing out under the tree,’ said Jasmine, pointing towards the pharmacist’s sons. ‘Can I go?’
‘No,’ said Leo. ‘You’ll have to stay in the shop today.’
‘Why?’ Jasmine wailed. ‘I don’t like it in the shop. There’s nothing to do!’
‘You can go out to the yard later if things quieten down.’
‘No!’ Jasmine lay down on the doorstep and began crying. People glanced at her as they passed.
‘Jasmine,’ I said. ‘Hey, Jasmine. I’ll take you for a walk later—’
‘No,’ said Leo, picking Jasmine up and carrying her, screaming, through the door. ‘You are both staying inside.’
We opened up the shop, and my mother insisted on going to work, but all day Leo was glancing
at the door, and every customer made him start. We saw the police passing several times, sweating in their red uniforms. The summer seemed determined to finish with a flourish. Even the shade shimmered black and restless. The other traders kept calling into our shop, as though we were under siege and had to raise each other’s spirits. Leo closed at four o’clock. We had taken nothing all day.
I could tell Leo was not sleeping, because I could not sleep either. Lying awake in the moonlight, I could see the faint light of the oil lamp on the shop counter creeping up the stairs and across the living-room floorboards and coming to rest against the bottom of my door. A few nights later, we were woken by shouts again. A building somewhere was on fire, and people were running up and down the street with guns. Smoke billowed thickly across the clouds. We all stood in the living room, not speaking, while the police ran about and people clamoured in the street. Then, after a while, it fell silent again. Even the dogs did not dare to bark.
My mother made tea, and we sat around the back room in silence. Jasmine was on Leo’s knee with her face buried in his shirt. Across the table, his eyes kept meeting mine. ‘I wish to God that Aldebaran was here,’ he said eventually.
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ said Jasmine, her voice muffled.
Leo hugged her more tightly. ‘I wasn’t, Jas.’
My mother started talking about the baby. It was kicking tonight, she said, as though the riots had woken it too.
‘Does he sleep?’ said Jasmine.
‘Yes,’ said my mother. ‘It sleeps and wakes up like anyone else.’
‘He, not it,’ said Jasmine. ‘It’s going to be a boy.’
‘If it is a boy,’ said my mother abruptly, ‘I want to call him Stirling.’
No one spoke, but the silence this time had a different quality. ‘Stirling is a good name,’ said Jasmine. ‘Would you have called me Stirling if I was a boy?’
‘Your middle name is Stella – that’s the closest we could get.’
‘My middle name is Stella?’ Jasmine demanded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me ever before?’
‘It’s on your certificate of birth,’ said my mother. ‘I must have mentioned it, haven’t I, Jas?’
‘Let me see that certificate,’ said Jasmine.
Leo got up and searched through the drawer where we had once kept important documents, but they had long since been swamped by other contents. ‘It must be here somewhere,’ he said.
‘I wrote it down in my journal,’ I said. ‘Remember those journals I used to keep?’
‘Go and find it,’ said my mother.
‘I don’t know where they are. Maybe in that box under the sofa.’
‘Go on, Anselm,’ said Jasmine.
I took another lamp and went upstairs. The box was furred with dust, but I could see the journals there on the top. I had kept them as a child when I saw Leo writing and wanted to copy him. I found the one from the year of Jasmine’s birth and carried it back down.
‘Is that your writing?’ said Jasmine when I opened it.
‘Yes. Look – here it is.’ I had recorded it carefully, in Leo’s ink pen, borrowed for the occasion. ‘“I am glad to report that Jasmine Stella Andros North was born safely in our apartment in Citadel Street, delivered by Sister Mary Fuller, AMC."’
‘What’s AMC?’ demanded Jasmine.
‘Me being pompous,’ I said. ‘It’s on the plaque outside her door.’
‘It just means Advanced Midwifery Certificate,’ said my mother. ‘Sister Mary Fuller. I liked her. Perhaps I’ll have her again for this baby.’
‘Go on,’ said Jasmine.
I read on:'“I, Anselm Andros North, ran to Paradise Way to fetch the midwife. My sister is called Jasmine because of the jasmine flowers growing in the gutter outside the window. And Stella in honour of my uncle Stirling. She is nine years and one month and thirty days younger than me. Jasmine looks red and small, but I can tell already she will be a beautiful lady. She cried in the church when the priest baptized her. She cries a good deal.”’
Jasmine laughed at that. ‘“She cries a good deal”! Did I?’
‘I forgot about Anselm running for the doctor,’ said my mother. ‘And, yes. Yes, you did cry a good deal, at least at the start.’
The firelight and that account held us against the dark outside.
‘Why did you name me after a flower that grew in the gutter?’ Jasmine asked, looking up at my mother with something like disappointment.
‘Because it was the one beautiful thing in that place,’ my mother said.
After we went back upstairs, I sat at my desk under the window and turned over the pages of those old journals. Some of them went so far back that I could not even remember the circumstances in which I had written them; they were like a stranger’s words. Others I could recall, even down to the look of my small hand gripping the pen and the light outside the windows. I turned to the year that we moved into the shop and found an entry I remembered well: ‘I have a new friend next door whose name is Mikeal. We are going to signal to each other from the windows and when we grow up we are going to travel around the world together and be the best of friends always, even when we get married and go to different places.’ And Michael had crossed out his name a few weeks later when he insisted on reading my journal and had written the proper spelling very firmly underneath it.
That only made my heart ache, so I closed the journal and went back to the earlier ones. I found an entry from the year before that made me pause and turn up the lamp. ‘Jasmine looks like Leo and my mother already,’ I had written, ‘and I keep thinking about my real father. Sometimes when I look in the mirror I can see something about his face in mine. I think he had red hair and a strong kind of look. I wish I had seen his grave. I wish I knew what his first name was and whether he would have been proud of me.’
I turned a page back and found ‘my real father’ again. He was there, too, in the journal from the year before, every few entries, and he took up six pages of speculation in the one before that. And suddenly it came back to me clearly, the way I had felt about not knowing – before Leo became my father and I decided not to think about it any more.
I closed the journal and watched the clouds drifting over the stars. They looked like the continents of another world. I wondered where Michael was by now. I wondered how long he would remember me.
Everything felt wrong with my heart since Aldebaran had died, as though his absence had set the whole world out of joint. That night, I decided two things as I watched the clouds and shivered and could not sleep. I would find out who my real father was, before things grew too uncertain. And then, before life divided us, I would find Michael again.
THE NIGHT OF
THE FIRST OF JANUARY
‘You were in love with your friend Michael,’ said Mr Hardy. He did not ask it; he just said it.
‘I suppose so,’ I said.
‘And are you going to find him?’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’ He waited. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever find him again now,’ I said. ‘With everything that’s happened since.’
‘I think you should find him,’ Mr Hardy said. ‘One day. No matter what has happened since.’
I got up and refilled his glass of spirits, more for the sake of avoiding his glance than for any other reason. ‘I thought you would be shocked,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘I probably look old to you,’ he said. ‘But that means nothing. People have fallen in love since time began. Sometimes with the wrong person, as that newspaper put it, but always irrevocably and in spite of the fuss it has caused.’
I could not help smiling at that. He was strange, Mr Hardy, and I did not know what to make of him, but already he had become a kind of relative to me in the loneliness of the journey. He sipped his spirits thoughtfully, then said, ‘I was in love once.’
‘Just once?’ I said.
He considered it. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just once.’
I had expected him to have a whole
line of women in his history; he was a traveller and a man who knew about the world. ‘I’ll tell you the story, if you want to hear it,’ he said.
‘I do,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’
‘Well,’ he began. ‘I used to write copy for a company that sold encyclopaedias. I wanted to be a great writer, but the newspapers wouldn’t have me.’ He gave a dry laugh and sipped his spirits again. ‘Anyway, they assigned me the worst letters, and I worked on those. X and Z. I was seventeen years old and just out of school. I had a four-mile walk home across the city, and in the winter it froze your blood. I used to walk home past a convent where poor girls took rooms. They went out to work as clerks or housemaids in the town, and in the evenings they helped the nuns at their chores.’
I did not know where this story was leading, but I knew better than to interrupt.
Mr Hardy studied the spirits in his glass and went on. ‘Anyway, one night I was late coming home, and as I was walking by this convent, I heard someone singing. If you had heard it …’ He shook his head. ‘It was the most beautiful thing in the world. I suppose I was very young, but I know it was beautiful. Like an angel’s voice. I stood there listening for half an hour and didn’t even notice that my fingers were numb with cold. And the next night I came home late again, just in the hope of hearing her singing.’
‘Did you hear her again?’
‘Yes. Before I knew it, I was staying for an extra hour every night, just so I could be outside the window when she came home. I used to stand in the cold outside the convent walls, even when the snow was falling like tomorrow would never come. And I was in love, I swear.’
‘Without ever seeing her?’ I asked.
Mr Hardy laughed, and his eyes glittered in the lamplight. ‘Yes, I suppose so. It was weeks before I really saw her face. It took me that time to work up the courage. I waited one day until she came out of the convent door on her way to work. I didn’t go up to her; I just watched her pass. She had lovely grey eyes and a way of walking.’
Voices in the Dark Page 10
