‘I suppose he would be the only person.’
Daniel Markey was the best antiques valuer in the city, and a long time ago, when Leo was training as a soldier and every next man was in the military, Daniel Markey had been his sergeant. They acknowledged each other but hardly more than that.
‘So what did he say?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. He didn’t know the publisher. No, I’ll just have to leave it. I don’t think it’s a sign – not really. I think it’s just something Uncle thought would occupy me for a few hours. It was a bit like Harold North. As if he had written another book. I think that’s all Uncle meant by it.’
Asking Leo about the book seemed only to have added to his melancholy, so I gave up and made tea instead. Leo drank shakily; in the silence, I could hear it sliding down his throat each time he swallowed. I picked up the newspaper and turned over the pages. The rich people in the portraits stared back, people whose concerns were politics and wars. INVASION IMMINENT, the headline threatened.
‘If a war could really be coming, we should try to stay together,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t we?’
I knew it was childish to be so afraid. I had asked it because what he had just said made me think about him dying. Leo put his hand on the back of my head, like I was a little boy. ‘You talk more sense than anyone sometimes, Anselm,’ he said. ‘It’s true. We should always stay together.’
He took the newspaper from me and leafed through the first few pages. His hand came to rest at a picture of the king, under a report on the minute details of the split in the government.
‘He would give us a few hundred crowns,’ I remarked, half joking. ‘To pay those debts.’
‘No,’ said Leo. ‘No, he has sold all his furniture to give the money to the poor. It says so here. All the state furniture is gone. He must be desperate.’
‘What does he do now?’ I demanded. ‘Eat his banquets sitting on the floor?’
The idea was not particularly funny, but we both laughed, and once we started, it seemed better to keep laughing, in the cold shop with the wind howling outside, than to stop and let the darkness advance on us. I fetched our overcoats from the back room and turned down the lamp, and we waited for it to get light.
* * *
The next day, a fine frost clung to the dust of the city, and slogans had appeared overnight on every wall. The side of Mr Pascal’s shop bore Ahira’s and Talitha’s faces. The pharmacist’s front window was obscured with black slogans. Jasmine walked very close beside me all the way to school. The police were wandering about in every street, with their guns across their shoulders.
‘Don’t leave me,’ said Jasmine when we got to the gates. ‘I don’t like it at school.’
‘Jasmine, don’t start this,’ I said. My eyes ached from yet another sleepless night. ‘Of course you like school. Go on.’
‘No. Anselm, I don’t. Don’t make me go.’
I pushed her towards the gate. She whined and clung to my hand. ‘Jasmine, just go inside,’ I told her, but she would not, and it turned into an argument. I was so late for school that I had to sit at the back of the classroom, far enough from the heat of the stove that the window was still frosted. I could barely hear Sister Theresa, and my mind drifted.
On the shelf at the back of the classroom were stacks of dusty old history books. They were left over from before Lucien’s regime, and no one used them any longer, but nothing was thrown away in Queen Anneline Government School. I reached for one now and turned to the back, where the genealogies of the noble families were. When I was a little boy, I used to wonder if one of these names was my father’s. It seemed stupid now. I studied each name in the St. John family and half of the Markovs, then turned over to the de Fiore family and traced the line down again. It was cut off before the last descendant, a Jean-Cristophe. I supposed it meant they had disowned him.
Since resolving to find out the truth about my real father, I had done nothing about it. I thought of Michael telling me to go to the graveyard or the records office. If he had still been here, I would have done that. But it was not simple. It felt like a betrayal of Leo, to try and find the man he had long since replaced. And it was as though I was breaking some unspoken promise to my mother too.
‘Change places!’ called Sister Theresa, bringing me back. We changed at the end of every lesson now; the people at the back of the class got too cold otherwise. I shoved the book onto the shelf again and moved further forward.
The sun fell below the houses as we walked home from school, and the city grew as cold as death. The wind skinned your knuckles as though there was grit in it. Jasmine and I walked without speaking, our scarves pulled up to our eyes. ‘I can’t believe anywhere could be so cold,’ Jasmine said through rattling teeth as we crossed the new square.
‘Explorers in the north survive in places much colder than this,’ I said.
She trekked out ahead of me, pretending she was wading through snow. ‘What do they discover?’ she said.
I did not know. We read about them in the newspapers, but they were mostly Alcyrian. ‘Oil and gas, I think. So they can invent machines. They say it’s going to be a new era, across the whole continent, when these machines are perfected.’
I had heard this from Mr Pascal. Jasmine wrinkled her nose under her scarf. ‘Imagine going somewhere colder than this just for oil and gas. They must be looking for something more important.’ She stopped then and took hold of my arm. ‘What’s that sign?’
I looked where she was pointing. It was an arrow, painted in black on the side of a house. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Come on, it’s too cold to stop.’
‘There’s another,’ said Jasmine as we passed the next end building. ‘Shall we follow them?’
‘I think it’s getting ready for snow.’
‘Look. Another one, Anselm! Stop and look.’ She tugged my sleeve. A fresh blast of wind drew the tears from my eyes. ‘Can we follow them?’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘Let’s just get home,’ I said. The police were still about, and it was growing colder all the time. I tried to pull her on. In response, Jasmine turned and ran away down a side street. ‘Jasmine, come back!’ I shouted. She did not slow. I hesitated, then followed her. The wind drove into my eyes running in this direction and forced the tears faster out of them. At the end of the street, there was another arrow – a whole line of them, leading away along an alley.
‘It’s a secret trail,’ said Jasmine. ‘Like in The Beggar King.’
‘Let’s go back,’ I said. ‘It’s cold as hell.’
‘Not now, Anselm. We can’t turn back now.’
‘Come on, don’t be stupid.’
But Jasmine was determined. She ran ahead of me from arrow to arrow. I realized as we approached that the trail was leading us to Citadel Street. ‘Jas, come on,’ I said, ducking under the barbed wire. ‘Enough of playing games now. Let’s just go back.’
‘Isn’t this where we used to live?’ she asked, keeping a few yards between us so that I could not catch her.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I know there’s nothing down here, so let’s just go.’
‘No. Not yet.’
The street was deserted, half the houses demolished and the other half boarded. The wind howled around them and became strange voices that followed us as we walked. Every building in this street had an arrow now as well as a red cross on the door. Crows were gusting to and fro in the wind. We came to a halt abruptly, like soldiers in a comedy. I collided with Jasmine and dropped my books. ‘Look,’ she whispered. The arrows met on the front wall of our old building. Above them were the words THIS IS THE PLACE. Ahira’s face glared down at us in blue.
‘It’s something to do with the Imperial Order,’ I said. ‘Come on, Jas; let’s just go.’
Jasmine needed no further encouragement. We turned and ran. Perhaps it was childish that I was glancing back too. I stumbled as we climbed under the barbed wire, and the books in my arms slid across the frozen ground again. �
�Go on; I’ll catch up,’ I said, but Jasmine waited, hopping up and down with cold and fear. I picked up the books, and we ran again, along the alleyway and back into the light and bustle of the new square. Once we were surrounded by people, we glanced at each other and almost managed to laugh. But it had been actual fear that drove us, and we both knew it.
We did not speak as we resumed our walk home. Jasmine was studying the frosted ground thoughtfully. ‘Shall we tell Mama and Papa?’ she said at last. ‘Or not?’
I hesitated. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, let’s not tell them. But listen …’
‘What, Anselm?’
I wanted to say, But Leo thinks the Imperial Order are following him. But a man stood outside the door and watched us. But they smashed the windows in our shop, and now they have written their slogans on the house where we used to live, and it can’t just be coincidence. They must have some plan. ‘But nothing,’ I said, and took her hand. ‘Don’t say anything, all right? Let’s go home.’
‘You had better cheer your father up,’ said Mr Pascal when we got back. ‘He has been so downhearted all day that I despair of him. North, I don’t know how you will make money in the auction rooms tonight if you are so melancholy.’
‘You are going to the auction rooms tonight?’ I asked. Leo rarely went to the auction rooms any more; they were the haunt of market traders.
‘Desperate times,’ said Mr Pascal.
It was bitterly cold that night after Leo and Mr Pascal set out. I tried to tidy some of the things in the shop, but I knew I was losing the battle and my bones ached. My mother and Jasmine were upstairs by the fire, acting out some noisy drama in my mother’s best dresses and heeled shoes. I put up the grilles on the shop windows and bolted the door, then got out that writing of Leo’s instead. But I was not certain I should read it at all.
Michael would have told me to do it. But Michael was far away; I didn’t know where. And I was certain Leo had put the writing in that drawer to be out of sight.
The shop was sinister on these autumn nights. I did not like the shadows or the way the oil lamp guttered in invisible draughts. With the wind howling down Trader’s Row, I thought I could hear voices out there. It made me think of Harlan Smith’s book and the people who spoke to him out of the darkness, in words he could not quite recognize. That was what happened in the story, right at the start. I had read bits of it, but I did not quite understand it.
Before I could decide whether or not to read what Leo had written, someone banged on the door and made me drop the pages. ‘Let me in; it’s perishing out here. Anselm! Is that you?’
It was my grandmother, rapping on the door and frowning in through the grimy pane of glass. I ran to let her in. ‘What are you doing sitting down in the shop on a night like this?’ she demanded as soon as she had crossed the threshold. ‘And what is that frightful noise from upstairs?’
‘Just Mother and Jasmine.’
‘I came to see how Maria is.’
She was already starting up the stairs. I shoved the papers into the drawer, picked up the lamp, and followed her. As we came into the living room, the laughter stopped abruptly. My mother was in an old red dress that she was falling out of, her rouge and lipstick clearly Jasmine’s work. Jasmine was wearing a skirt that came up to her armpits and Leo’s soldier’s boots.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ demanded my grandmother. ‘Maria, you are expecting a baby. You are supposed to be resting. And this child should not be wearing makeup like a common hussy.’
‘Common husky yourself,’ said Jasmine, which made my mother snort with laughter. ‘We’re doing a play, Grandmama. Come and watch.’
My grandmother did not come and watch. Instead, she lectured us from the doorway on the vices of the theatre, the serious danger the baby was in, and the indignity of the whole performance. My grandfather Julian would be turning over in his grave to think of such behaviour. What was more, we were Androses and once part of a great family, and if the family name was going down like a sinking ship, it was because of spectacles like this. (Jasmine sniggered at the word spectacles, which started my grandmother off again.) ‘And another thing,’ my grandmother finished. ‘Do you let Leonard smoke in here?’
‘He sometimes does,’ said my mother.
My grandmother raised her eyes to heaven and opened the window to let in the freezing night air. ‘Have some mercy!’ said my mother, still trying not to smile. The laughter was leaving her in stages, like a shaking fit.
My grandmother glared round at us all. I went downstairs to boil water for tea. When I came back up, my mother and Jasmine were dressed in their ordinary clothes again, and a cold silence hung over the room, clinging to everything far worse than Leo’s cigarette smoke.
‘Mama?’ said Jasmine as I set down the tray of tea on a pile of boxes. ‘What does “This is the place” mean?’
I glanced at her. ‘Has she been reading the newspapers?’ said my grandmother.
‘No,’ said Jasmine. ‘It says “This is the place” on the front of the house where we used to live, and I want to know why.’
‘I don’t know,’ said my mother, frowning. ‘Is it a line from the Bible?’
‘The Imperial Order went round writing it,’ said my grandmother. ‘There was something in today’s newspaper.’
‘I’ll go and find it,’ I said.
‘No—’ began my mother.
‘Go on, Anselm,’ said my grandmother. ‘Find it if you want.’
I stood fixed in the doorway. My grandmother frowned. ‘Go on,’ she repeated. ‘Maria, there is no harm. Anselm, I told you, go and find it.’
This time my mother did not argue. I went downstairs. Usually the newspaper was lying on the counter of the shop or on the table in the back room, but it was not there tonight. I searched everywhere, then opened the stove to add more coal and found it there. It was torn into shreds and nearly burned, shoved into the back of the flames. I did not know who had done that. I turned and went back up the stairs. ‘We don’t have today’s,’ I said as I came back into the living room. ‘Maybe Papa never went to get it.’
‘Oh,’ said my grandmother. ‘Well, the story was not very nice, but I suppose’ – she glanced at Jasmine – ‘she doesn’t understand. Anyway, the Imperial Order have been writing “This is the place” on the walls where the famous war criminals were shot. I suppose they see them as great heroes now.’
Jasmine put her thumb in her mouth and whispered, ‘Who was shot at our old house?’
‘Ahira,’ said my grandmother with half a glance at my mother. ‘He was shot just out there in the street. Anselm was a tiny baby at the time; you weren’t even born.’
We exchanged uneasy glances, but no one spoke. ‘I never knew that,’ I said when the silence had drawn out a long while.
‘Well, I don’t suppose you did,’ said my grandmother.
‘Down Citadel Street?’ I said. ‘No one ever told me that. You mean to say during the revolution?’
‘Yes,’ said my grandmother.
‘His blood must still be there,’ said Jasmine. ‘It must be all over the street. I’m not walking there ever again. Who shot him?’
‘Were we there at the time?’ I said.
‘Did you see it?’ said Jasmine. ‘Mama, did you see him get shot?’
My mother stood up abruptly and began clearing away the half-finished tea. The cups rattled as she carried them down the stairs; her hands were shaking badly.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing. The baby is just kicking. I would rather get up and walk about.’
‘I was drinking that tea, Maria!’ my grandmother called. My mother did not bring it back. ‘Well,’ said my grandmother, shaking her head. ‘I’m sure you children have a right to know the truth as much as the next person.’
There was a crash, and we all started. My mother had dropped the tray. The three of us ran to the top of the stairs and collided; my grandmother won the struggle.
‘Oh, Maria!’ she wailed as she ran ahead of us down the stairs. Strewn across the floor of the back room were the shattered remains of the cups. ‘Maria, those were mine!’ my grandmother cried. ‘We brought those from Cliff House – your father bought them for my wedding present! Oh, Maria! How could you be so careless?’
My mother did not answer. She just turned and went out into the yard and closed the door. I helped my grandmother pick up the cups, more to stop her lamenting than anything else. ‘I should never have given Maria half the set,’ she said. ‘Never, never—’
‘They are not all broken,’ I said, setting aside two that were only chipped at the edges.
‘Let me help,’ said Jasmine.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ll cut your hands. Stay on the stairs, Jas.’
She ignored me and picked up two halves of a cup. ‘Look,’ she said, frowning and piecing them back together on the sideboard. ‘It’s not broken, Grandmama.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ said my grandmother with a sob.
‘Look,’ said Jasmine, and stepped away from the cup. When she took her hands away, the two halves remained together. It was only when I got closer and still could not make out the cracks that I realized what she had done. I picked it up. It did not fall into two pieces as I had expected it to but held fast. ‘How did you do that?’ I said.
‘Willpower,’ she said.
‘But, Jasmine …’ I held the cup to the light of the oil lamp and tried to snap it again. It would not break. ‘Jasmine, that is not possible,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because even the great ones can’t mend what is broken,’ I said. ‘Uncle told me so when I was a little boy. It’s like a law of the world.’
‘There aren’t any laws,’ said Jasmine. ‘That’s stupid.’
‘There must be certain rules,’ I said. ‘Otherwise what is magic?’
‘Just people doing what they want to,’ said Jasmine vaguely, and went on piecing together the cups.
My grandmother shivered and stood close to the stove. Jasmine worked carefully, lining up each broken piece and frowning at it until the cracks disappeared. When she had finished, there was a silence. Even the wind lulled outside, as though in respect.
Voices in the Dark Page 14
