The next thing I knew, the music had finished and the phone was ringing. I fumbled for the receiver, said hello.
‘Thomas?’
I didn’t recognise the voice. ‘I’m sorry –’
‘You haven’t forgotten me already, have you?’
‘Odell!’ There was the most peculiar sensation inside my chest, as though my heart had just been dropped from a great height. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was asleep.’
‘It’s me who should be sorry. I shouldn’t be disturbing you like this, but I didn’t know who else to call.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Mr Croy,’ she said. ‘The man I work for. He’s been arrested.’ I began to say something, but she talked over me. ‘If they’ve arrested him, then they’ll probably want to arrest me too. I left my flat as soon as I heard. I haven’t dared go back.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I just had an idea,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to trust me, though.’
‘Be quick. I haven’t got much time.’
‘Do you remember walking round a lake last night?’
‘Of course.’
‘We saw a woman hit a ball into the water. Her dog swam after it.’
‘Yes, I remember.’ Her voice had softened a little.
‘There was a bench,’ I said. ‘Meet me there at seven o’clock. Will you be all right till then?’
‘I think so. But what –’
‘Don’t ask me anything else. Just meet me there tonight. At seven.’
I put the phone down and then leaned back against the cushions. I wondered if Luke had betrayed Odell in order to save that girlfriend of his. Judging by what Odell had told me, it would have been in keeping with his character. Or perhaps, in the end, she had brought disaster on herself. She had broken the rules too many times, and Croy was guilty of having indulged her. Not that it mattered much. When we met that evening, I was going to suggest that she stayed with me for a few days. She could stay as long as she wanted.
Moments later, I seemed to wake up again, which puzzled me, since I wasn’t aware of having gone back to sleep. Outside, the church clock chimed the half-hour, its notes trembling, forlorn. I remembered my appointment with Odell. Jumping to my feet, I hurried out to the kitchen. The oven said 5:32.
I returned to the living-room, switched on a lamp. Thinking back to the phone-call, it struck me how unlike herself Odell had sounded. It would be the shock. After all, her whole existence had been disrupted. Though I sympathised with her – I had a pretty clear idea of what she would be going through – I couldn’t suppress a feeling of excitement. First Vishram’s offer of a job, now Odell’s predicament: both unexpected, to put it mildly, and yet the one dovetailed with the other in a way that was almost symbiotic. A future was beginning to open out before me, a future I could actually imagine. Odell would stay at my place. I would nurture her as she had nurtured me.
How beautifully things had turned around!
Chapter Ten
Night has fallen on the city like black snow. I sit in the appointed place and wait for her. It doesn’t matter if she’s late. My patience knows no boundaries. In fact, I don’t even think of it as patience; I have no anxiety, no sense of time.
While I was on the phone to her, I came up with a plan. I’m going to forge papers that will give her the right to stay in the Red Quarter. Then no one will be able to harm her. She’ll be safe. That’s why I’ve decided to take the job Vishram offered me. It will make things easier. No, it will make things foolproof.
To live with her, that’s all that interests me. To live with her – and perhaps, after a while, to have a child. We would be undermining the system, of course – its ethos, its integrity … We’d be making a mockery of it. I don’t care, though, not any more. I owe the system nothing.
Imagine what Victor would say if he were still alive!
I tilt my head back until it’s on a level with the sky. Such clarity up there. The stars seem to echo the freckles on her face. Like one of those road signs in the country. I smile to myself and shake my head. In the faint stirring of the air I can feel her breath, her gift – her mystery.
The thought of her has me trembling, as if with cold.
I want to hear my name on her tongue. I want to feel her skin on mine, my body mingling illegally with hers. I want to learn her off by heart. You’re not going to forget me again, are you?
I’ll never turn my back on her. I promise.
The lake twitches below me, restless, like a dog dreaming. A broken branch floats on the water, its buds already open. In the east I hear the wind rise.
Now she’ll come.
And I’m standing in the truck again, with strangers all around me and a light rain falling, and I can see my mother and father on the road, and I call out to them.
It’s all right. I’m going to be all right.
Visit www.dividedkingdom.co.uk for an interview and video clip, the Divided Kingdom personality test, an interactive map, a readers’ guide to the book and many other extra features.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the British Library, the late Fred Clements, the staff at the Darlington Railway Museum, the staff at the Dorchester Hotel, Di Harrison, the staff at Lanercost Priory, the staff at the Museum of Mining in Wakefield, the late Professor Fred Norbury, John and Maria Norbury, Dr Emilie Savage-Smith, Rupert and Sophie Scott, Stephanie Stannier, the staff at Stump Cross Caverns, Jyoti Tamana, the staff at the Tourist Information Centres in Darlington and Lewes, Gray Watson, the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, and the Reverend John Wraithte. Particular thanks go to Dr Faye Getz for her help in guiding me through the intricacies of humoral theory.
I am indebted to Beatrice Monti della Corte for her kindness and inspiration at Santa Maddalena, where the process of editing Divided Kingdom began.
Finally, my immense gratitude goes to Liz Calder, Gary Fisketjon, Katharine Norbury, Alexandra Pringle, Peter Straus, Mary Tomlinson, and Binky Urban. All seven helped significantly, each in their own unique way. This book would not be what it is without their invaluable encouragement and their undoubted brilliance and skill.
The following books proved especially useful: Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty by Isaiah Berlin (2002), Galen on Bloodletting by Peter Brain (1986), The Druid Animal Oracle by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm (1996), A Generation Divided: German Children and the Berlin Wall by Thomas A. Davey (1987), Ley Lines by J. Havelock Fidler (1983), Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore by T. J. S. George (1973), Medicine in the English Middle Ages by Dr Faye Getz (1998), Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages edited by Mirko D. Grmek (1998), Handbook of Psychological Assessment by Gary Groth-Marnat (1997), Secret Teaching of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Cabbalistic, Hermetic and Rosicrucian Philosophy by Manly P. Hall (1999), Happiness through Tranquillity by Richard Hibler (1984), Nature of Man by Hippocrates, translated by W. H. S. Jones (1931), Saturn and Melancholy by Raymond Klibansky (1964), S,M,L,XL by Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau (1995), The Celtic Book of the Dead by Caitlin Matthews (1992), Narratives of Guilt and Compliance by Barbara Muller (1999), Paracelsus – An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine by Walter Pagel (1958), Iconology – A Collection of Emblematic Figures by George Richardson (1778), Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine by Nancy Siraisi (1990), The Hippocratic Tradition by W. D. Smith (1979), Scientific Tourist through England by Thomas Walford (1818), The Optick Glass of Humours by T. Walkington, Master of Artes (1631), The Ley Hunter’s Manual by Alfred Watkins (1983), and Amnesty International Report (Nov/Dec 1978).
A Note on the Author
RUPERT THOMSON is the author of eight highly acclaimed novels, of which Air and Fire and The Insult were shortlisted for the Writer’s Guild Fiction Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize respectively. His most recent novel, Death of a Murderer, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award.
His memoir This Party’s Got to Stop was published in 2010.
By the Same Author
Fiction
Dreams of Leaving
The Five Gates of Hell
Air and Fire
The Insult
Soft
The Book of Revelation
Death of a Murderer
Non-fiction
This Party’s Got to Stop
First published 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Rupert Thomson
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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eISBN: 978-1-4088-3313-1
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