The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

by Natasha Pulley

  ‘I’m sorry that Mori didn’t come,’ Grace said.

  ‘Are you?’ said Thaniel. Since everyone was distracted, he had slipped a tiny packet of Lipton’s out of his pocket and into one of the white coffee cups. When she spoke, his mind was still taken up with the question of how to call for some hot water without alerting Lord Carrow. The champagne must have cost a fortune, but he hated champagne.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But he should have come. It’s your wedding.’

  ‘He should,’ he agreed quietly. He had thought that if he didn’t say anything, Mori would come and sit at the back of the church. He had known there was a chance he wouldn’t, but he hadn’t realised how bleak it would be without him.

  On Grace’s other side, Matsumoto leaned forward. ‘I don’t suppose I might see one of those birds?’ he said.

  Grateful for the interruption, Thaniel cupped his hands around the nearest and handed it over.

  ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but just now, you were talking about...’ Matsumoto hesitated. ‘It’s Keita Mori, isn’t it?’

  They both turned to him. ‘How do you know that?’ said Thaniel.

  ‘This is his clockwork.’ Matsumoto looked between them. For once, he didn’t smile. ‘How well do you know him?’

  ‘Well,’ said Thaniel.

  ‘Then you know the circumstances in which he left his home town?’

  ‘No, it’s never—’

  Matsumoto tucked his chin down in the most fractional nod. ‘No. Well, let me tell you. Keita Mori is the bastard son of old Lord Mori’s wife. His legitimate brothers were killed in the civil wars and so the familial castle went to his cousin, Takahiro. Takahiro was not an easy man, but not a bad one either. He was honourable: he believed in blood and nobility, so he never much liked Mori. Of course, Mori didn’t like him, either.’ His brown eyes caught briefly on Grace. ‘Then one day, they argued, and an hour later Takahiro was killed under an unstable section of the castle wall. I saw it happen. Coincidence indeed, but coincidences follow Keita Mori. I should think you’ve noticed.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thaniel. ‘But you don’t land a wall on someone’s head because you vaguely dislike him.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Grace. ‘Matsumoto, you said coincidences, not coincidence. Are you saying that there are others who have died?’

  Thaniel’s nephews crept up and tried to steal the other bird, which soared a little way along the table, then again when they chased it. When it flew, its metal wings beat so quickly that they hummed a clear, sunny yellow. It gave Thaniel the odd feeling of sitting in broad daylight, despite the candles and the dark winter afternoon. He shook his head, aware that Matsumoto had been talking.

  ‘—don’t know. I was only eight when Takahiro was killed. I think one would have to know Mori very well indeed before one could tell between a train derailing by chance and a train derailing because he distracted the engineer at the right moment.’

  ‘He doesn’t derail—’ Thaniel began.

  ‘Thaniel lives with him,’ Grace interrupted. ‘He doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Then I suggest you try for an embassy posting in Morocco,’ Matsumoto said to Thaniel. ‘Before she’s hit by an omnibus.’

  ‘For God’s sake, he won’t do that. He’s spent three months not hitting you with an omnibus, I really doubt he intends to begin now, don’t you?’ To ensure that neither of them could reply, Thaniel called to a waiter. Grace’s eyebrows rose slowly when he asked for hot water.

  ‘You’ve smuggled in your own tea.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t like champagne.’

  She kissed his temple. He caught a snatch of her summery perfume and its Italian spices, too strong today. Matsumoto stood suddenly and said that he would have to go if he was to catch his train, so they both saw him out into the snow and laughed when he put up his umbrella with an operatic flourish. Thaniel began to turn away, but Grace went with Matsumoto right to the door, her dress hissing as the hem spun. He had caught her arm.

  ‘You know,’ he said, pitching his voice softly, ‘Mori spent twenty years not landing a wall on Takahiro. If you’re going to stay here … well. You must know what you will do, if you think he’s on the edge of something unfortunate.’

  She nodded once. ‘I’ve a vague idea.’

  ‘Not vague would be better.’

  ‘It wouldn’t. If I think, I’ll decide something, and he will know it the second I do. I’m trying to hold it in stasis.’

  Thaniel watched their voices change to the colour of the snow.

  Matsumoto looked worried. ‘Can you?’

  ‘You know when you’ve two big numbers to multiply, and you could do it in your own head if you made the effort, but you feel lazy and you hold them still until you can reach an abacus?’

  He glanced out into the snow. ‘Yes,’ he said after a small pause. ‘I see what you mean. You’re quite clever enough to puzzle it out if the time comes. Well. Best of luck. I had better go.’

  She put her hand out to shake his, but he stepped back from her and bowed at her instead, leaving her to clench her hand uncertainly in his wake.

  ‘Come back in,’ Thaniel said quietly. ‘He’ll be all right.’

  She rubbed her arms as she came back. ‘Of course he will. There’s an opera ballet in Paris.’

  With an air of great reluctance, Lord Carrow announced that he was needed at Horse Guards in half an hour. After that, the rest of Grace’s family left in slow twos and threes. Grace shepherded out the last of them while Thaniel waited for her at the foot of the hotel stairs. They had a suite for the night. When she came back, she caught up the hem of her skirt so that she could climb the stairs, awkwardly, because none of her usual dresses were so long. Thaniel went slowly to keep pace with her, close to the wall so that they wouldn’t knock elbows.

  ‘Thaniel!’ Annabel said.

  ‘I thought you’d gone? I’ll follow you,’ he added to Grace, and went back down.

  Annabel smiled and put her arms around him once she could reach. ‘Dear me,’ she murmured. ‘That was all a bit strange. Are you sure about her? She looks like a boy.’

  ‘I like her. Were you all right tonight?’

  ‘We had a lovely time, yes.’ She looked behind her, where her sons were waiting by the door, well away from them. ‘I’m sorry about the boys. I thought they remembered you more.’

  ‘They’re better than I was with uncles.’

  ‘All our uncles were fat anglers who smelled of fish,’ she pointed out. She sighed and pushed her hair from her eyes. It was a duller colour than it had been. The rest of her was dull too. He hadn’t recognised her when she had arrived on the sleeper from Edinburgh, and when he had, he had cried and pretended it was because he was happy. ‘There wasn’t another girl, was there? Poorer but better?’

  ‘No. Where do you think I’m meeting women? There aren’t the hours in the day. I go home from work, argue with my mad landlord about cats or suffragists and then I go to work again.’

  ‘Well. It’s a very smart match, then. Are you sure about sending the boys to school?’

  ‘For God’s sake, what am I for?’

  She looked relieved. ‘I’ll see you in the week, then.’

  ‘Is it Thursday, you’re going?’

  ‘Early, yes.’

  He saw them out to the cab and stood in the snow for a while, half to watch them go, half because a little dying hope at the back of his mind was waiting for Mori. The street was nearly empty. He turned back inside with snow on his sleeves.

  When he found it, the room, or rather rooms – there was a parlour – had the immensely clean hotel smell that comes of everything being boiled and ironed, and repainted, much more often than usual. There were deep carpets and chairs in different shades of blue and white, and on the low table by the fire was the remains of the wedding cake. The porters had brought it up ahead of them.

  ‘I’m changing,’ Grace called from behind a pair of closed doors. ‘Don
’t come in here for a moment. How is your sister? I didn’t speak to her.’

  ‘She’s well. She says you look like a boy.’

  She snorted. ‘The two of you are from the same mould, then.’

  ‘I get it from her,’ he said, taking off his tie and collar. The big windows looked out over the Thames and Waterloo Bridge, where the cabs crawled along with lit lamps. The river had frozen completely now, and there were lamps moving there too as pedestrians cut across to save climbing the bridge. The light sparkled where it caught on the frosted bulkheads of ships stranded in the ice. Snow was criss-crossing again. He thought that he could see the steeple of their church in Kensington. He counted sideways until he found a point of electric light that might have been Harrods. Filigree Street was somewhere behind it.

  The fire snapped and sent a flight of sparks up the chimney, although for all its determination it was not giving out much heat. He clasped his hands, feeling the cold. He never would have before, but Mori’s expectations of temperature had spoiled him. He had looked up Japan on the map a while ago. The south shared a latitude with Morocco. He went to the hearth to put in another log and then edged the chairs closer. Grace came back in a dressing gown too white for her colouring.

  ‘I think I might turn in,’ she said. ‘Or, cake first, then bed. I’m exhausted. That was an awful lot of standing up and putting up with my parents.’

  ‘I’ll just steal a pillow and a few blankets to bring out here, then.’

  ‘Oh, you can … I don’t mean for you to sleep out here,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all right.’ He went through and opened cupboards until he found extra bedding. Grace’s wedding dress was draped over the end of the four-poster bed. He rescued it gently and put it on a hanger, then turned to find her by his elbow.

  ‘I mean to say I should rather you stay,’ she said. She winced as if it had come out badly and curled her fingers around her sleeves. ‘It is our wedding night, after all. You mustn’t spend it on a couch.’

  ‘I’d never be able to sleep on a feather bed, I’d only keep you awake.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. Hers were colder than his, and so was her silk sleeve. He caught her perfume again, strong because it was in her hair, which had been set into as much of a curl as it would hold. ‘You deserve a proper bed after all that.’

  ‘I know it sounds as though I was brought up down a mine, but I’d really prefer the couch,’ he said, easing his hand away so that he could go back to the fire. While he moved the cushions from the long couch, which creaked quietly with horsehair, she cut some cake and held out a plate. He took it, though he was starting to feel tight, as if he were getting a cold and the muscles across his chest were stiffening. It hurt when he pressed his fingertips under his collarbone. She was right; there had been too much standing up.

  ‘Well, good night,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘Night.’

  She kissed him too lightly, so that it was only a cold brush of damp and the chalk smell of her powder. He flinched and pushed his hand over his mouth before he could stop himself.

  ‘Sorry – I’m getting a cold. I don’t want to give you—’

  ‘Oh. Yes; you don’t look very sparkling. Sleep well, anyway.’

  He nodded and turned out the lights once the space under the bedroom door turned dark, but didn’t lie down or undress. He waited until he stopped hearing her turn the pages of her book, then stood up, quietly. It was too dark to find his coat, so he left without it.

  The lights were on at home. When he let himself into the workshop, heat furled out to meet him. The brazier was on as always, but Mori was using a soldering iron too, the pen-fine tip of it glowing red as he traced steaming lines along something inside a watch. It was how he etched the cogs. The thing was so hot that he did it standing, so that he could step back in time to save his hands if he dropped it. He had pushed his chair off to the left. Katsu was draped over it, basking.

  ‘Is it warm enough for you yet?’ Thaniel said, trying to sound offhand.

  ‘Nearly.’ He had taken off his tie, which was looped under the left strap on his braces so that it hung against his hip like a jockey sash. He set the iron down on its own flint bowl of hot coals carefully. There was a dew of sweat between his collarbones. ‘Did everything go off well, then?’ he said.

  ‘Yes – it was lovely.’

  Mori poured his teacup over the coals, then leaned back when they hissed and steamed. ‘Good. I thought you were staying at the hotel?’

  ‘I am, I am. I’ll go back later. Grace is … her family are still there. You should have come,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He gave Thaniel a pensive look and began to turn away. ‘It’s late for tea, but there’s some wine, or—’

  ‘Mori, wait.’

  When he stopped, Thaniel went round the desk to catch him and pressed his cheek against Mori’s darkening hair. His clothes smelled of steam and lemon soap. Through them, he was solid. He held Thaniel tightly for a while before tilting him back. He had an ego-saving trick of not looking over-concerned, only curious.

  ‘It was—’ Thaniel began.

  ‘Don’t tell me, just intend to. And then I’ll forget, if you change your mind.’

  Thaniel nodded once and saw him listen to what he could have said while the filaments of the light bulbs made fireflies of themselves in his eyes. Annabel, Matsumoto, Grace. When he ran out of thoughts, he looked down and brushed the loop of the silk tie where it hung over Mori’s hip while he let other things rise to the edge of speaking. Mori held his elbows, watching him straighten the knot. He drew him closer by them and then held his arm out to the door. The lights switched off and hid them from the dark street. The fading orange in the filaments showed clear in his eyes, then disappeared when Thaniel kissed him. His shoulders came forward and Thaniel breathed him in, the lemon soap on his skin, and the water vapour and the charcoal. Though he had shaved that morning, his cheek was rough.

  ‘Where did you go this morning?’ Thaniel said quietly, against his temple. ‘You didn’t walk back this way. I saw you from the church tower.’

  ‘I went to see Six.’

  ‘The little girl from the workhouse?’

  ‘Mm. We went to see the vivarium in Hyde Park. I’ve been going on Saturdays, when you go to Kensington.’

  ‘Good … that’s good,’ Thaniel said. Whenever he went to see Grace, he imagined that Mori’s clockwork stopped and that he only sat in the workshop, waiting for someone to wind him up again. It was odd to think he kept himself wound up and went off to visit orphans while nobody was watching. He felt left behind, hypocritically.

  Mori stepped back and let his arm drop again, and the light bulbs hummed bright. ‘Mrs Steepleton is on her way to fetch you back now.’

  ‘Would you mind if I stayed here until the first morning train?’

  ‘No,’ Mori said, frowning. ‘But that’s a waste of a night in a hotel. This place has been here since the thirteen hundreds, it will still be here tomorrow.’

  ‘But I’m not going to come back much. Am I?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t—’

  ‘That music box in your desk. Is it for Six?’

  Mori was still. ‘No.’

  ‘No, I didn’t think so.’

  ‘I’d better light the fires upstairs, then.’ He paused, looking at the street lamps outside. ‘The wood’s damp, so it will take me a while.’

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ Thaniel said. He sat down to wait, absently teasing Katsu while he watched the snow fall past the reflection of the workshop.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Grace pushed open the workshop door. Thaniel was waiting inside, by himself, close to the charcoal embers in the small lock of a soldering iron on the desk. She had heard him leave the hotel, but it had taken her a while to dress, and she had not managed to catch the same train. When she had reached the curve of Filigree Street, she had thought nobody was awake, but then t
he workshop lights had come on, and they had already been inside. She had stopped still for a second, because they hadn’t looked as if they had just walked in. They had been there together in the dark. Her stomach twisted nastily. Everybody had their bad habits but she had wanted not to know Thaniel’s, not until they were used to each other and they could laugh instead of flinch. Thankfully Mori had taken himself off elsewhere now. It was hot inside.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter? I heard you go.’

  He didn’t look surprised to see her. He was sitting very still, and although he usually smiled when he saw her, he only glowed dully.

  ‘Nothing. I just came for a cup of tea. I thought you were asleep or I would have said.’

  ‘Well, come back with me, or you’ll miss the last train.’

  ‘I can come on the early train, it’s all right.’

  ‘Rather a long cup of tea.’

  ‘I was going to do some sleeping as well,’ he said, not quite laughing. ‘Why does it matter where I am?’

  ‘Because you’ve been skittish about the Kensington house for months, and you plainly don’t want to leave Filigree Street, and I think that wherever you are tonight will be where you stay. This is … if you were going to regret things and go back on it all, it was always going to be today.’

  He frowned. ‘Grace. I’ll come back in the morning. I’m not going back on anything.’

  ‘I know I sound strange. But will you humour me?’