by Peter Bunzl
Something was going on and he had to know what it was. He grabbed his trousers from where they hung on the end of the bedstead; jumped into them and snapped the braces on over his nightshirt.
As he struggled into his winter coat, he took one last look out the window. Lucky he did, or he would’ve missed the fox.
It tottered along the lane, throwing nervous glances over its shoulder. When it reached the green it stopped and swayed, glancing about, and its eyes alighted on the line of shops under Robert’s window. Robert had the strangest feeling it was reading the sign for his da’s shop, but that couldn’t be, could it?
The fox nodded to itself and limped onwards. It passed the church and the walled graveyard beside the village green, then stumbled into Pincher’s Alley – a scrubby track that ran behind a row of terraced airstation workers’ cottages.
Robert waited for its shambling shape to emerge onto the bare field at the alley’s far end, but it did not appear. It must’ve hidden down the lane somewhere, in one of the cottages’ backyards. He decided to go look for it.
He threw on his socks and shoes and took the candle from his bedside, then he opened the door and crept along the hallway, treading softly so as not to wake his da in the next room.
At the base of the stairs he drew back the rag curtain and crept into the shop.
The familiar smell of beeswax furniture polish and the quiet ticking of the clocks made him linger as he crossed the floor. Each clock’s shape and sound was so ingrained in him they felt as comforting as old friends. On nights when he couldn’t sleep he often came down to watch the clocks and listen to their ticking; but not tonight. He put up a hand to silence the bell, opened the door, and stepped into the street.
A grey haze hung in the air, along with the pillowy silence of early morning. Far off, the barking of a dog echoed across the fields. He could’ve been the only human alive in the world.
First, he made his way over to the place where the fox had stopped and stared up at the shop. There, on the cold ground, among the patches of couch grass, he found a tiny cog.
It resembled those he was used to seeing in the carriage clocks his da let him repair, only this one was bent out of shape and covered in warm engine oil, viscous as drying blood. Robert knew it could mean only one thing: the fox was clockwork – a mechanimal.
He wiped the cog on his trousers and put it in his pocket, then he set off across the village, following the mech’s route.
He passed the church and was about to turn off behind the airstation workers’ cottages, down Pincher’s Alley, when he heard footsteps in the lane behind.
He turned to see a large leashed dog, an unusual breed, like an Alsatian but bigger. As it came closer he saw its skin was covered in rivets. A mech-dog, then. It was followed by four men in long overcoats, carrying steam-rifles and lanterns – like those he’d seen from his window.
He shuffled aside to let them pass but they gathered round, letting their mech-dog sniff at him. When it got a good noseful of the oily mark on his trouser leg, it let out a low growl.
“Shut it!” one of the men told the mechanimal.
“Seen anything go past?” another asked Robert.
“Anything unusual?” added a third.
The fourth man didn’t say anything, merely glared.
Robert decided not to answer their questions. He didn’t like the look of them.
A big fellow with ginger mutton-chop sideburns arrived, carrying a steam-rifle. His body looked lumpen, like a sack of rocks. He resembled a crusher, only without the policeman’s helmet; above his upturned collar his cheeks were as red as bulging blood sausages.
But what made Robert gulp was the pair of silver mirrors sewn into the raw sockets of the man’s eyes. Scars emanated from them, criss-crossing his cheeks, and running up under the brim of his hat.
“Who are you?” the man demanded, peering down a vein-blistered nose, until Robert’s face appeared, reflected, in his mirrored eyes.
Robert’s words dried in his throat. He took a deep breath. “I live here, Sir,” he finally managed to wheeze.
“My colleagues asked if you’d seen anything unusual go past.” The mutton-chopped man scratched at his eye socket, perilously close to his mirrored right eye.
“What kind of a thing?” Robert asked, his voice a strangled whisper.
“A fox.” The mutton-chopped man pressed his thick lips together tightly. It seemed as if he was about to reveal something more, but then he decided against it. “Never mind.” He jabbed a podgy finger at Robert. “Get back to your house.”
“I saw your fox run that way,” Robert blurted, pointing down the street that led out of town.
“You’re certain?” The mutton-chopped man’s mirrors betrayed nothing, but he didn’t seem convinced. He glanced down at the dog straining on its leash; pulling towards the alley.
“Oh yes,” Robert answered. “I watched it from my window.”
“Which window?”
“One over there.” He waved at the row of shops on the other side of the village, keeping it vague, in case the men were thinking of returning.
The mutton-chopped man nodded. “Thanks, lad. We’ll be getting along, and you should too. A young boy like you oughtn’t to be out on a cold November morning when there’s danger about.” He turned to go, and the others and the dog followed.
Robert dawdled on his way home, watching them, making sure they took the path he’d suggested. They hurried through the village, but when they reached the last house on the left they stopped, confused. The dog seemed to have lost the scent and wandered about aimlessly, trying to pick it up.
For a moment it seemed they would come back, but then the animal pulled them onwards. When they passed the last fence of the village, a black steam-wagon appeared at the edge of the woods, smoke puffing from its chimney stack. The mutton-chopped man pointed towards it, giving instructions, and the group split, the other four men making off down the road with their dog, while he walked back into town.
Robert decided to make himself scarce. He’d go look for the fox later when the mutton-chopped fellow was gone. Besides, he had chores to do before opening time. Better to get on.
As he trudged back to the clockmaker’s shop, the low morning sun shone against its frontage, burning off the last of the mist and making the clocks in the window gleam.
Robert’s family had owned Townsend’s Horologist’s for five generations. Its plain facade and classic sign did nothing to suggest the shrine of timepieces inside. Carriage clocks, pendulum clocks, cuckoo clocks and barometers covered every inch of wall, and at the back stood an old grandfather clock with a gold pendulum which had once belonged to Robert’s grandfather. Front and centre was a panelled counter with a heavy silver till, behind which Robert spent most of his days.
When the sun shone, as it did this morning, the glass-covered clocks threw patterns of light around the walls, and every day, irrespective of weather, they filled the shop with their ticking, their different timbres giving the place a percussive music all of its own.
Robert’s da, Thaddeus Townsend, moved in time to this beat while he worked. A short man with delicate features, his watery blue eyes were enlarged by the thick magnifying glasses he wore to adjust the timepieces.
People came to Thaddeus with all kinds of odd repairs. Not only watches and clocks, but other devices too: barometers, chronometers, musical snuff boxes, sometimes even simple mechanicals; and Thaddeus would take these things apart and attempt to fix them.
If a machine intrigued him, he often took on the work for cost. A skilled mechanist and engraver, and a dab hand at touching up miniatures, he enjoyed telling people how there was as much art in clockwork as in a beautiful sculpture or painting. His customers liked him because he cared. They came from all over the county to take advantage of his abilities and never paid what the labour was worth.
His da had so much talent, Robert wished he’d shut up shop and move them somewhere where peopl
e would pay fairly for their work. Or, he’d have dearly loved it if they could fix engines at the airstation, or restore old mechanimals, but Thaddeus preferred the quiet life of Townsend’s Horologist’s.
As things stood, Robert felt destined to be a clockmaker’s apprentice for ever, which was a shame because he was simply no good at it.
A bumbler – all thumbs and fingers: that was how he thought of himself. He was thirteen now and, no matter how hard he worked, he could never manage the delicacy required for repairing the miniature mechanisms – or for dealing with the customers, come to that.
It hadn’t always been so. As a child he’d been an enthusiastic pupil, nimble and quick, always wanting to learn things, but in recent years, he found he’d grown clumsy. Constantly misplacing tools, or dropping important cogs down the cracks in the floorboards.
This very morning, a mere hour after all the excitement with the men and the fox, he had broken a valuable carriage clock. Overwound it while he daydreamed about the mechanimal and the airship, and when he looked up he found the clock’s teeth had sheered into the barrel mechanism.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Thaddeus asked (for what at Robert’s count was the hundred-and-thirteenth time). “It’s seven-and-a-half turns – one wind is seven-and-a-half-turns.” His da never usually raised his voice, but he did on this occasion. “Now I’ll have to strip down the barrel and overhaul it. Why, the new parts alone will cost me more than my fee.”
“I’m sorry,” Robert mumbled, “I must’ve miscounted.”
Thaddeus took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Few things in life are as fragile as clockwork, Robert. Learn to be more careful.”
Robert sighed and Thaddeus squeezed his shoulder. “Never mind, we’ll make a clockmaker of you yet. But perhaps you’d better work behind the counter today, for a while, until you get your confidence back.”
Robert did as he was told, but a while turned into two long hours, then nearly three, and the whole time the fox and the airship and the mutton-chopped man with the mirrored eyeballs whirred around his mind like clockwork.
Finally, after work, when he had a few spare minutes to himself, Robert put on his thick coat and cap and scarf, and set out across the village.
He passed the walled graveyard and chapel and the terraced airstation cottages on their cobbled street, before arriving at Pincher’s Alley once more.
He cut down along the scrubby track without a second thought. The rear windows of the cottages were dark. Robert glanced along the line of high back walls, looking for a place where he thought an injured fox might hide. Halfway up the lane, he noticed a gate ajar.
Behind the gate was an old wooden shed, whose roof poked up over the line of walls. In there would be just the spot for a frightened fox. Robert stepped through the gate and crossed the yard, squeezing past a pile of rusted farm equipment to approach the shed.
The lock had been broken off; recently, by the look of it, for the hasp hung loose by a couple of screws and the patch of wood above the doorknob was gnawed with toothmarks and freshly exposed. Robert opened the door and, taking care to cover his mouth against the dust, crept inside.
Oddments of wood leaned against walls covered in peeling paint. Piles of newspapers lined a row of shelves, and the floor was strewn with packing cases. On an old table in the centre of the space, bottles clustered in glassy gangs, and above them cobwebs thick as knitting hung like hammocks in the dark apex of the roof.
Robert looked around for the fox and saw its threadbare tail sticking out from behind a stack of boxes.
He stepped round an old steamer trunk and caught sight of the rest of the animal curled up on the corner of a faded water-stained mattress. It was a scruffy-looking beast with glassy eyes and careworn fur that looked like it was moulting in patches. A pouch, and the mechanimal’s unique winding key were hung around its neck. Robert crept towards it, but it didn’t move a twitch. It was frozen still. Unwound.
The coal bunker was freezing. Lily rubbed her goosefleshed arms. Gradually, as her eyes adjusted further, she began to see more clearly. The space was not pitch black after all; in fact a dim light came in through a mesh-covered ceiling vent.
The arm, sticking out from the pile of coal, glinted in the soft glow. It was not human, as Lily had first supposed, but an old broken mech limb. It must’ve belonged to some poor servant who’d got the chop. How horrible!
Though it said one thing: no matter how bad life got, mechanicals had it worse. Lily stared at a cluster of dusty handprints on the concrete wall beside her: evidence of the bunker’s past prisoners – miscreants all!
She’d never fit in at this hateful school. Whenever she did something exuberant she was punished for it. Admittedly punching Alice had been a step too far – the other girls were sure to have it in for her now. But she needn’t worry, she only had to survive a few more weeks, and then, at the end of term, Papa would come to collect her.
Time drifted by, the light fading. Lily became vaguely aware of the crunch of footsteps coming closer. Yellow light slivered through the door slats, and when she heard a key turn in the lock she lifted her chin from her knees.
The door creaked open to reveal not the Kraken, whom she was expecting, but Gemma Ruddle – one of her annoying classmates – carrying a tallow candle.
Lily shaded her eyes and stared at Gemma, who giggled with embarrassment.
“Why, Lily, you look dirty as a duster.”
“Is my punishment over?” Lily asked. Cold and grim, she was in no mood for such teasing.
“I don’t know about that,” Gemma said. “All I know is Miss Scrimshaw requests your presence in her study right away. I’m to take you to her.”
“What does she want, I wonder?”
Gemma smirked. “Gracious, I’ve no idea. Would you like me to go back and ask her?” Then, without waiting for a reply, she trundled off down the narrow alley, back towards the school. Lily ducked through the doorway, pondering this worrying new revelation as she followed the candlelight and the smokey scent of burning pig fat that trailed behind Gemma.
They walked up the entrance steps and into the main corridor of the school, where Gemma blew out her candle, for the space was well lit with wall-mounted gas lamps.
Passing beneath one, Lily noticed her hands were flecked with coal dust; she looked around for a curtain or some chintzy upholstery to wipe them on, but there was nothing and Gemma kept marching on. In the end she decided to settle for the underside of her pinny and hoped Miss Scrimshaw would not inspect her appearance too closely, which was something the eagle-eyed headmistress was often wont to do.
“Here we are.” Gemma ushered Lily to a bench outside Miss Scrimshaw’s office. “You’re to wait here until she calls you,” she said primly, and before Lily could reply she sloped off, smirking.
Lily was about to sit down when she noticed the soles of her boots had left dusty marks along the hall carpet. She quickly scuffed them away with her toe, then took her seat and waited to be called.
Fifteen minutes passed with not a peep from the study. What was taking them so long? Were they trying to conceive of some terrible new chastisement? A cold thought struck her: maybe they were planning her murder, then they’d sell her organs to the bodysnatchers – just like the ones in her penny dreadfuls! Or perhaps they planned a fate worse than death? Perhaps she was to be finally expelled.
She edged towards the door and pressed her ear to the panelling, trying to hear what was being said inside. It was hard to make out because the thick oak surface muffled the sounds of the room.
“It’s a terrible state of affairs, I must concur,” Miss Scrimshaw was saying, “but the truth is I’ll be glad to get her off our hands – she’s been quite difficult of late.”
“She’s been difficult since she got here,” the Kraken replied.
And then Lily heard another woman’s voice – a singsong foreign accent she couldn’t quite place. “She always was an
unruly child,” the voice said. “Some might say understandably, considering her past. She’s been hidden and forced to live a lie – her name, you understand. Professor Hartman’s wishes, of course. I’m not so sure myself – there are always these excuses, n’est-ce pas? She’s bound to be worse, maintenant, with this terrible new turn of events. So, I thought it best to take her out of the school, until things are settled.”
What things? What turn of events? Who was this person who knew her real name? Lily pressed her ear harder against the wood, but the voices had dipped to a hushed tone.
She had to hear more; if only there was a glass or something to put against the panel. She took a step back and, glancing round the lobby, spotted a vase filled with dried flowers, which stood on a side table. That would do.
She tipped the flowers onto the table and was about to put the rim of the vase to the door, when, at that very moment, it opened and the Kraken appeared.
Her bulging eyes took in what Lily was up to. But, instead of telling her off, she merely took the vase and, offering the briefest of sympathetic smiles, ushered her into the headmistress’s office, closing the door behind her.
Miss Scrimshaw was sitting at her mahogany desk consulting a letter. Her hair was scraped into its customary bell-jar shape and she wore a black dress with a dark blue ribboned collar. She glanced nervously at Lily, before her eyes darted away. “Miss Grantham – or Hartman, should I say. Thank you for coming. Kindly take a seat.”
Lily walked across the expansive room towards the two high-backed chairs facing the desk. A woman in a voluminous black dress occupied one, her bony hands clasped in her lap. Though her face was obscured by the chair’s headrest, her unctuous perfume filled the room with its sharp overripe scent. Lily knew at once who she was.
“Madame Verdigris, what are you doing here?”
