The Song of the Underground

by Wendy Reakes

  Wendy Reakes

  The Song of the Underground

  For Valerie

  BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

  81675 Munich

  Prologue

  Pudding Lane

  1666

  It only took a spark to burn London to the ground.

  In the still of the early morning a hooded figure cast a burning torch through an open window of the bakery. No one saw him discard it amid bales of straw and bread baskets, and no one saw him take off again, in silence and in stealth, like a thief in the night.

  Thomas Farynor, the king’s baker, slept fitfully in the rooms above the shop on Pudding lane, where below in the darkened cellars, illuminated only by candlelight and the glow of the coal fired ovens, his workmen kneaded dough for Sunday’s supply of bread to the palace. Bread fit for royalty!

  Rising smoke crept through the cracks in the floor of the rooms above, until the household was awakened by the intensity of the choking fogginess burning the whites of their eyes. With rising panic, Thomas and his family escaped through a top floor window, and as the fumes chased them, desperate to consume them, they ran for their lives through London’s adjoining dry wood houses.

  All except one.

  Her name was Dove, a lone maid, asleep in the basement, in a room next to the burning kitchens where the fire began to rage over the wooden frame structure.

  With her eyes burning and no time to button the bodice of her black linen gown, the girl squeezed her small body through an unused window; hitching up her skirts and contorting her small frame as if she were a rag doll stuffed with old worn stockings.

  She fled down the tightly packed, rat infested streets towards London Bridge where the Thames beckoned with the promise of cooling water for every heated brow. Running and stumbling in her unlaced boots, she shouted upwards to the closed windows and to everyone she saw. “Fire, fire, fire...Run, run away.” And as the crowds went with her en-mass, chased by the smoke, they crossed the bridge to the other side, to safety and away from the scorching heat of the rapidly spreading fire.

  By dawn the flames had ensued and charred half the bridge, until it eventually surrendered its desire to consume everything in its wake. There at the breech of the structure connecting the south side to the cruel city in the north, the fire retreated and continued its destructive journey, back through the homes and businesses belonging to every man and woman who viewed the smouldering ruins from the south bank.

  Among thousands, Dove watched the City of London blaze red on the other side of the river as the fire, desecrating the filth and the disease on the normally overcrowded poverty stricken streets. There, as she silently watched and waited, she pondered a welcoming notion, London. Gone. Good riddance!

  From where the homeless collected on high ground, they witnessed the fire crawl westward, and by nightfall the next day it headed down Watling Lane, to St. Paul's Cathedral caged by wooden scaffolding.

  As the timber beams collapsed and the lead melted away from the roof, and as stones exploded from the building like small white cannonballs, the onlookers prayed hard when the poignancy of the blaze became clear to all who had sinned. God had unleashed His wrath and now they were all going to pay.

  In a matter of hours, the Cathedral was gone.

  All it had taken was a single spark.

  The following day, on the south bank, next to where Dove was huddled on the remains of the brown grass now flattened and withered from the searing heat, a man passed by. He was coughing black tar from his lungs as if he was charred from within.

  “Death will be with him before long,” Dove murmured to the young man sitting next to her on the grass. He was no more than fifteen. Just a boy really, but his lungs were fresher than the elders. “And most of the others too, even though they are without burns on their skin.”

  Dove and the boy watched the tired, desolate mothers with their children, grouped under trees that sheltered them when there was nothing else. They grouped together with black clothes and faces, looking like a charcoal painting artistically demonstrating misery. They watched the lodgings at the side of the road become crammed with anyone who could pay as the landlords rubbed their hands in glee and greed. And they watched and waited...praying for a miracle.

  On the fourth day, King Charles, along with illustrious members of the Royal Society, travelled to the south bank to address the thousands of homeless, sickening crowds. His attendance was inspirational, but the people listened gravely when he encouraged them all to travel out of the city to the outskirts; to emigrate from the devilish destruction until London was put back together again.

  To Dove and the rest of the poor who had nowhere to go, the King offered shelter. “There is a place underground,” the leaders told them. “...An expansive space, untouched by the fire, in the tunnels beneath the foundations of St Paul’s. It is free for you to use until London is put back together again.”

  After, as Christopher Wren re-built the church with the glass dome over their heads, the Great Fire of London survivors were sealed from the world above. And as they made their shelter underground; breeding and raising their young, cooking, crafting and creating; and where they instigated their own rules for expanding and surviving; where they elected a king, who married a girl named Dove, they prospered along lines of generations, building their own empire while developing their sweet sounding song, The Song of the Underground.

  Chapter 1

  Present day

  Autumn’s dusk filtered through London’s Highgate Cemetery, just as Mark Buzzard pushed open the old iron gates and stepped into the breach. The view in front of him was the epitome of a graveyard at nightfall, with its smoky crawling mist and the sound of owls hooting from a nearby tree. He wanted to laugh at the irony of his situation, but it wasn’t the place…or the time. Instead he closed the gates behind him and walked along the overgrown stone path, humming a tune with an image in his mind of Kate Bush crawling over a studio floor in a black lace dress. “Heathcliffe, it’s me, Buzzzy…” he sung with an ironic whisper.

  A chill ran up his back. He shook his shoulders and zipped up his leather jacket, pulling the collar up over his neck. An occasional light shone from somewhere inside the graveyard, and amid the woodland he could see old tombs and lifelike statues of gothic angels, crosses, and other dilapidated tombstone structures, some in danger of falling as the graves beneath them swelled and pushed out the earth that interred rotten coffins. And above the mounds, grass grew wild and reckless, like blankets of mottled green wool.

  Digging his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and wondering why he hadn’t instead boarded his plane, scheduled to ship him back to the States, he pulled out a roughly drawn map and tilted it towards a distant light. One of the other guests at his hotel had sketched it with a pencil. His name was Bernie and it was Bernie’s fault that Mark was there at that particular hour.

  Bernie had encouraged him to visit Karl Marx’s tomb before he flew back. “Anyone who comes to England to study history and architecture, and doesn’t visit Highgate should be shot, in my opinion.” That piece of advice was offered in the hotel bar, when Bernie and Mark kept each other company after midnight. A few chasers later, and after planning Mark’s pending sightseeing trip to the cemetery, Bernie took a pen from his top pocket and drew a micro-map on a folded paper napkin. “You can’t miss it,” he said. “It’s an enormous bust of Karl Marx’s bearded head looking decapitated on a plaque of marble.” Decapitated! It turned out Bernie was a writer in his spare time and his everyday speech, naturally leaned on the illustrative side.

  He offered a brief précis, despite the absence of a query from Mark’s lips. “The land of Highgate Cemetery was commissioned
in the 1800’s to house the ever-increasing population of London to provide them with a final resting place.” He chuckled as he ran a nicotine stained fingernail between his two front teeth. “The Victorians knew how to honour their dear departed. You’ll see a life-size piano made of stone, a sleeping cat on a lifelike cushion, a dog keeping watch over its owner long dead...and the place is full of gothic angels. There’s one asleep above a tomb with its wings folded at its side. It’s a veritable feast of graveyard Victoriana, and you’ll love it,” he finished.

  “You should write the book,” Mark Buzzard offered enthused.

  “I already have,” he replied, as he raised his finger to signal for another round.

  Mark pondered the notion of asking for a copy, but it was probably only available on kindle. “I’d love to go to Highgate Cemetery…really, but I don’t think I’ll have the time.”

  Bernie shrugged and pouted and scratched his nearly bald head. “Well if you want to miss a great opportunity…”

  That was the final nail in the proverbial coffin. With a few beers inside him, Bernie was the most persuasive of men.

  Now, alone in the cemetery, and after checking the route and holding the map in his hand like a lifesaver, Mark speed-walked past an avenue of elaborate doorways, where behind, stone tombs sheltered the dead. The curved structure that housed the collective doorways reminded him of Royal Crescent in Bath, where white town houses gently curved in front of a manicured lawn. He’d been there a week before. It was pristine and cared for, unlike the location he was pacing through now.

  On the other side of the avenue, he climbed old vine-clad steps to the top where he came upon a tomb with the sleeping angel. She was beautiful and life-like with fallen autumn leaves scattered over her like a rustling coverlet. She looked as if she would open her eyes at any moment, rising stretching to face another night of vigilance. Instead, she remained draped over the tomb, with her wings folded at her side and her perfectly carved hands closed around her body.

  Suddenly, Mark spun about as a flash of brown rushed past the corner of his eye. Ready to flee, with one bended foot in front of him, he could feel his pulse racing as he caught a glimpse of a figure darting between the shadows of the trees. Was it a ghost? Maybe it was a stone angel, now come alive to watch over the dead at night when no-one else was around. Like Toy Story!

  There it was again.

  Amid the greenery and the cold marble and stone Victoriana, he saw the girl racing from one tomb to another, like a scared rabbit searching for a hole in the ground. He reached out his hand as if he was directing traffic, and shouted, “Stop! You don’t have to be afraid.”

  She pinned herself behind a twisted oak, holding her back upright with her limbs rigid against the bark. She scowled at him before she stopped behind the tree. It was a pretty scowl, with a tilt of her head and a perplexed brow to match.

  “Are you lost?” He stepped aside a mother made of stone, watching over the grave of her baby long dead. The statue was taller than he and a lot more formidable. Mark thought about the girl behind the tree and wondered what she was doing in a cemetery at that time of the evening. It had been bad enough for him to muster enough courage to visit at that hour, but her…just a girl.

  She peered out from behind the tree. Her burnt copper coloured hair hung over her milky white shoulders like a shimmering curtain of threads. Her complexion was pale and flawless and her body looked soft and curvaceous, busty and round. She nearly offered a glimmer of a smile, as her lips flickered at the side of her mouth. And just as he wondered if she would come out to speak to him, he held his breath when she stepped forward with one cautious tiny foot.

  He stretched out his arms and opened his hands. “It’s okay. I’m just an ordinary guy.” He didn’t even know what he meant by that. He elaborated,“Yes, okay, some ordinary guys can’t be trusted, but it just so happens I’m a guy who’s frightened of his mom. Really! I would never cross her.”

  Mark guessed she was about twenty, maybe younger. Maybe too young for him. Her petite frame was in perfect proportion with her height and her wild hair draped unfettered over shoulders of the milkiest white skin he had ever seen. But, as he only briefly wondered about her lack of rosy tint, it was her eyes that made him catch his breath. They were as green as a lagoon of fresh water and they showed fear like a cat about to become prey.

  In her strange attire, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a Catherine Cookson novel. She was wearing a dark brown linen dress that fell to her ankles, with a bodice cutting her across her rising and falling bosom. The bodice tapered to such a minute waist that Mark wondered if she was corseted beneath, and the sleeves of her dress revealed slender arms, with cream coloured lace frills peeping out from brown velvet trim. Her hands were like delicate ivory, not unlike the perfectly chiseled hands of the statues watching them now. “Who are you?” He could hear his voice echoing in his head…who are you, who are you?

  “Wren.” She was softly spoken, like a little girl.

  “Wren? That’s an unusual name. Wren what?” A nervous smile became fixed on his lips. He must have looked a classic dork!

  She shook her head.

  “Surely, you have a second name.”

  She raked her fingers through the ends of her hair. “No. It’s just Wren.”

  “Hey, second names are completely over-rated in my opinion.”

  She looked to the grass beneath her feet, as if she wanted to cover her response by the shade of her eyes.

  “My name is Mark.”

  “Mark what?” she teased.

  Hey! He hadn’t expected humour from her. He didn’t know why. “Ah, yes. I fear I am the traditional sort. Buzzard is the name.”

  “It is a bird, like mine!”

  “Yeah, but it’s not a pretty bird like you.” Why did he say that? He really was a dork! He changed the subject. It was his only saving grace. “Sowhat are you here at this hour? Are you lost?” The mist had cleared in the area where they stood, as if the connection between them had dissolved it.

  “I have come to visit my mother’s grave,” she said without reservation.

  “I’m Sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” She tilted her head and puckered her rose coloured lips.

  Mark shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “About your mother…Dying.”

  She shrugged her perfect shoulders. “It has been many years. I did not know her.”

  Mark took his eyes from her to glance around the area of the cemetery where they were standing. There were no new graves. The ones in that part of the cemetery were all ancient. “Where is she buried?”

  She pointed a finger towards the tomb of the sleeping angel.

  She must be mistaken. “But that’s impossible. That tomb is old as…”

  Suddenly her mood changed as quickly as a flock of birds taking flight from a tree. “I must leave now,” she called as she prepared to dart away.

  He moved as if to pursue her. “Can I see you again?” Where did that come from? His words were not his own. She had bewitched him. He could tell by her expression she was wondering if she could trust him…He shouldn’t have asked, but if he hadn’t, he may never see her again.

  “Tomorrow,” she answered simply.

  He was supposed to be flying back to the States in the morning. “Where?”

  “Here.”

  Where else? “What time will you come?”

  She turned to leave, but faltered as she offered him the final word. “Dusk.”

  “Can I walk you to the gates?”

  She offered no response, because she had already fled.

  He watched her run, leaping on graves and jumping to the next, as if the crumbling slabs were boulders in a shallow river of dark green water. She lifted her skirts as she climbed the grass mounds and she dodged the ancient trees as if she knew by memory exactly where they stood.

  Coming to a halt at the top of the hill, she turned about and raised her face to look a
t him and the landscape she had just left. He saw a breeze catch her skirts, making them whip about her ankles, and her hair fluttered behind her head like a wave rushing onto a beach. The hazy light of the dying day caught her features as if she had been sculpted from pure white marble, and just before she disappeared over the brow, he saw her expression, as she offered a self-satisfied smile on her lovely pale lips.

  “Wren!” Mark whispered as he was left once more alone in the dark.

  Chapter 2

  Ben Mason watched the Prime Minster standing behind her enormous, antique, clutter-free desk. She was leaning on her hands, putting all her weight on them, thrusting her shoulders forward, like a panther ready to pounce. “Gentlemen, we have a situation.”

  What the hell did that mean? He’d received the invitation to number ten only an hour ago. There was no indication what the meeting was about and now she was announcing a situation! The most alarming prospect was the fact that Colonel Geoffrey Barnes was standing next to him; the two of them, at the other side of the Prime Minister’s desk.