The Icicle Illuminarium

by N. J. Gemmell

  Her hair is coming loose, her dress gets ripped. She doesn’t care. We’re laughing with her astonishment. We’re all getting louder and louder, clapping and cheering and leaping on each other, faces red and sweaty and puffed. And every time a goal is scored we crash down the bed frames and whizz them in a thunderous roar of victory across the room – the scorer gets Bone’s charioteer’s spot and we make sure it’s Hebe, a lot.

  ‘Scruff, push me!’ She’s laughing and laughing so hard we think she’ll crack a rib from it. At her twelfth goal, Scruff lifts her up by the knees and spins her around. ‘Put me down!’ But he doesn’t, oh no, she’s slipping from him and he drops her, laughing, and she’s laughing too as they tumble to the ground. It’s an almighty crash of shouting and whooping and giggling.

  Hang on. What’s that?

  A thudding. Furiously. Up the stairs.

  ‘Hebe? Heeeeebeeeeeeee?’ The unmistakable voice. ‘If you’re in there …’

  Lady Adora. We all stop. Clomp clomp, stomp her roaring feet. Hebe cringes behind Scruff.

  And there she is, in the doorway. Standing there resplendent in her full-length tartan taffeta. Clutching the door frame, mopping the sweat from her upper lip. Not used to being dragged up here and not happy with it.

  ‘You’re in there.’

  Daughter glances at mother – a moment of frozen, cowering tension – then daughter ignores her, magnificently, and just keeps on playing, dragging Scruff up. It feels like a big moment for Hebe, like it’s the first time she’s ever disobeyed Lady Adora. I watch her closely. This plan has to work.

  ‘Pass!’ Hebe yells at Bert, who duly kicks the ball across to her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ screeches her mother and we momentarily stop, then, taking the cue from Hebe, play on: ‘H, H, pass!’

  ‘H? What?’ exclaims Lady Adora.

  ‘Let her win,’ I whisper to the rest. Because her mother has to see it. Scruff and Hebe are one team, Bert’s with Pin and I’m the ref. Hebe weaves between the lot of us and we fall like skittles in her wake.

  ‘Goal, Hebe, gooooooooal!’ The yell is sudden from behind me, from the door. ‘Come on. Elbows, girl, use them.’ Is it really her? No. Yes. Lady Adora, getting far too involved for her own good. Hebe scoots past Berti, Scruff gets up for another attempt at the ball.

  ‘Atta girl, you can do it. The bed, the bed!’ her mother shouts. ‘Come on, you big lump. Be a winner for once.’ Hebe stops, in despair, like she’s heard this a thousand times before and is absolutely clogged by it.

  ‘Show her what you’re made of, H,’ I urge her quiet, up close, ‘show her what you can do.’

  Hebe’s in the centre of the court, the goal a ridiculously long way away. She hesitates, loses confidence, slumps.

  ‘Just do it,’ I urge. ‘Don’t think about it. Just kick.’

  Hebe gathers herself, takes aim. The ball flies straight past Scruff, straight past Pin.

  ‘Goooooal!’ her mother screams, then looks around sheepishly. ‘Oh. Quite forgot myself there. Yah.’

  Hebe’s pink satin dress is now startlingly ripped, its matching ribbon halfway down her curls, most of her hair loose. Scruff lifts her in the air and spins her around, Bert too then all of us and then we tumble flat on our backs, in a ragged row, exhausted. Hebe sits up with her hands resting on knees, legs apart, most unladylike. Most Australian, actually, and I grin and raise a thumb at her and sit like it too, in solidarity.

  Hebe grins back. ‘I did it.’ Wondrous.

  Lady Adora comes to her senses, staring down at the ragtag jumble of us. ‘Downstairs. Immediately, young lady. Away from these … these … colonials. They’re a bad influence.’ Her face is screwed up in revulsion. ‘You have viola practice immediately. Twenty minutes ago, in fact. Then pianoforte.’

  ‘Can I stay? Five minutes.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Please, Mama.’

  ‘Forbidden. Their ways –’ Lady Adora looks at the four of us in distaste ‘– might rub off. Look at how you’re sitting for a start. You’ve never sat like that in your life.’

  Hebe snaps her legs shut. ‘Pretty please?’

  ‘Downstairs now, or there’ll be no lunch. Or supper.’ It’s roared, we all jump. It’s just like Aunty Ethel used to shout, and Mum. It’s just like any mother at her wits’ end, in fact. I snap my own legs shut.

  Hebe looks at me, shrugs shoulders and reluctantly stands up. ‘Bye,’ she mouths. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Can we come for dinner?’ I ask Lady Adora, right out bold, because we have nothing to lose here and it’s the next stage of the plan – befriend, or make a run for it – but most of all get out of this room and work out how to contact Basti fast. We just need to get beyond that door, however we can. My fingers are crossed behind my back.

  ‘Oh yes, Mummy, dinner, yes!’ Hebe clasps her hands as if I’ve said the most magical thing in the world.

  ‘What?’ Lady Adora hisses. ‘The … the … impertinence.’

  ‘Yes, yes, what fun! Please, Mummy. Tonight! You’ve not told me why they’re here in the first place. Why are they here? For how long? Why can’t I play with them?’

  ‘Questions, questions.’ Lady Adora holds her hands at her head like she’s suddenly got the most enormous headache. ‘All in good time. They are friends of friends and they won’t be here long and there will be no playing, no dinners, and no uncouth manners rubbing off. No mixing. They are not people like us.’

  ‘But they’re my new friends. They’re kind to me, Mummy. They’ve been helping me. They make me feel good about myself.’

  Lady Adora looks at her daughter, struck, as if she’s learnt something extraordinary about her for the very first time. ‘But there’s no time for attachment,’ she says, bewildered. ‘They won’t be in your life for long.’

  I lick my lips, breathe shallow, fast.

  ‘Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaase.’

  Adora looks at us. Looks at her daughter. Back at us. Like she’s trapped.

  ‘I promise promise promise I’ll do my viola practice, for three hours today. Then pianoforte. Then watercolours. Then callisthenics. Solid work. Eight hours straight. No daydreaming, no shilly-shallying, every day until school starts. And I’ll be as good as Georgiana Coutts-Pagmore by the end of it. I’ll beat her, I’ll get the music prize this term, I promise. I won’t let you down, Mummy. If you just give me this dinner with them. Just one. How long are they here for? Why are they here?’

  Lady Adora holds out a hand to her daughter in a huge stop sign, as if she has no idea herself, no answers herself.

  I smile at Hebe, lips rolled in tight, raise my secret crossed-fingers sign to her. Lady Adora backs out as if it’s all too overwhelming, too much to think about. ‘No, no,’ she mutters.

  I glance at Bert. What’s the one thing she’d love more than anything here? That would get her going with interior decorating and designing and enchantment and magic; the biggest sisterly gift I could give her? ‘We could have a ball!’ I exclaim. It’s now or never and I’m going in big; nothing to lose. After all, Lady Adora is a woman who loves her dressing-up just as much as my sister, and she looks like she’s swanning around in readiness for a ball every day of her life. ‘You know, in that big ballroom. You could invite Mr Davenport. I bet he’d love to have a dance, he just seems like … the type. Bert here could decorate it. Real romantic. Candles, the lot. She’s a wiz at all that. We could all dress up. You must have something you could wear, Lady Adora …’

  ‘A ball?’ She sighs, lost in thought and shaking her head, wilting.

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ Hebe claps her hands, jumping with excitement.

  ‘We could have lanterns,’ Bert seizes her moment. ‘All over the room! I saw them on a library shelf. We’d just need a few hours to make it magical. Spectacular. There’s an old gramophone in the library. And records. I bet there’s the Charleston among them, the Pride of Erin. We could dance. The house could come alive again, just like it used to.’r />
  ‘Pllleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!’ Hebe’s eyes are scrunched tight like she’s going to explode.

  Without further ado Scruff bowls up to her and spins her around then plunges her down just like Dad used to do with Mum, on a Saturday night, when the wireless played the waltzes. He almost drops Hebe but she doesn’t notice, just giggles and whoops with excitement at the imminent thrill of it.

  ‘A ball, Mummy. I’ve never been to one.’ Her face is glowing.

  ‘Yes yes yes!’ we all exclaim, eyes shining. Because it’s our one big chance. The Escape and Evasion Unit is swinging into action here, Bone Boy, oh yes.

  Lady Adora sighs, throws up her hands. ‘Anything for some peace.’

  And to see her daughter’s smile again, I bet. The one where her whole face is lit up. Which, right at this moment, is aimed at the four of us. Someone else, entirely, oh yes.

  Silent Mountain. Half an hour later. Collecting us without a word.

  He just appears at the door, in silence. Stands there. We know instinctively to follow. He gives us nothing before turning his back then doesn’t turn again until we arrive at the ballroom. Then is gone without a word, melted into the very walls of the house – just like Bone.

  But we can’t hold in our glee. Out. The plan worked! We dash into the middle of the room and spin in the vastly empty space we’ve promised to magic up by tonight. Stop. Look around. Oh. Big task. What were we thinking? What was I thinking? How can we possibly win Adora and Darius around? Should we abandon this ball plan and make a dash for it? No, everyone’s far too excited by the prospect of what’s ahead. And if I can get Adora talking then maybe we’re a step closer to Mum; if I can just get her tipsy, happy, loosen her up, it could all work spectacularly and Basti will be saved and I’ll be the Commanding Officer of Company T – not Bone – and on my way to a Victoria Cross.

  But the room’s filthy. Falling apart. Needs cleaning. Hugely. Bird droppings are all over the floor and the frost has intruded through smashed windows that would have been flung wide onto a perfectly manicured lawn once. Rotted silk curtains lie like abandoned silver rivers along the parquet. Plus it’s freezing. Covered in ice. Great ropes of ivy cascade from the windows in frozen waterfalls of frost. An enormous chandelier has crashed onto the floor like a beached ship. Others have spilled from their protective cotton bags like dead octopuses from fishing sacks.

  Bert catches my look of hopelessness. ‘We’re from the bush, girl, we can do this.’ She smiles. ‘Come on. You, out of anyone, cannot give up. Mops. Buckets. We don’t need much else.’

  ‘Er, hired help?’

  At that moment Lady Adora clickety-clacks into the room in a great cloud of feather boa and perfume, glass in hand, as if she’s half dressed for the ball already; followed by Hebe clutching a viola and barely looking at us; followed by Mrs Squeedly, whose entire body is a squirm of disapproval at the new shenanigans in this place; as if she’s not enjoying one bit all the meddling with her housekeeping regime. Well, she’s got a wild ride ahead of her.

  ‘You’re not going to run off on me, are you, little mousies?’ Her Ladyship flings out her hand holding the glass and liquid shoots across the room like a golden whip. She bats away the mess. ‘Squeedly,’ she points dismissively, ‘mess, mess.’

  ‘Well, if we run away, Lady Adora, we’ll never find out what happened to our mum, will we?’ I respond sweetly. (Not adding that we know she’ll be alerting Darius quick-smart if we make a dash for it and then he’ll have time to execute the releasing of the snakes before we can get to Basti, because even if we could get to a phone, Basti never answers his because he’s afraid of it.) ‘So no, we’re not thinking of bolting on you. And besides, we’d never let Hebe down.’ I smile at the girl. She raises her viola back. ‘She’s our friend.’

  I like her. Despite what Bone says.

  ‘Splendid! You’re learning, little tiger mousie, aren’t you? Now where’s the one who’s going to transform the place. Dressed in black. Step forward, bat girl.’

  Bert leaps in front of Lady Adora. ‘Present and ready for action, Your Ladyship. Mrs Squeedly, if I may be so bold? We need mops. Buckets. Cloths.’

  ‘They’re quite a way away,’ Mrs Squeedly responds. ‘In the under parlour, by the kitchen. You’d need bicycles to get them.’

  ‘The clock room!’ Hebe exclaims. ‘There’s a whole stack left behind by the army.’ She throws her viola across to her mother, who doesn’t quite know what to do with it but too late, no time for bewilderment, we’re off; running behind Hebe to a room of a hundred clocks, all silent and broken except for one valiant, feeble tick that’s determined not to stop.

  I point to the sound. ‘That’s me,’ I whisper to Scruff.

  He laughs, adding, ‘You’ve always got Bert to wind you up.’ Delicious!

  We all grab a bike, Pin balancing on my handlebars, then the five of us weave through empty corridors and echoing rooms, squealing our delight; Bert’s feet barely touching the pedals but she manages it on tippy toes, just. We return to the ballroom, balancing tin buckets over handlebars, holding wire brushes and cleaning cloths. Lady Adora and Mrs Squeedly have left, off in the kitchen no doubt, working out the dinner menu. We scrub the room down, laughing and squealing and throwing sponges of warm water at each other then sliding through the soapy slops and swinging on great gathered ropes of the ivy like Tarzan, perfecting our jungle cries and beating our chests.

  Hebe too. In fact, er, Hebe the most. ‘We’re turning my house into a huge adventure park!’ she cries gleefully.

  ‘As we should,’ Scruff grins.

  ‘Do you steal teddies?’ Pin suddenly asks.

  ‘What?’ Hebe stops. Looks at me.

  ‘Ignore him,’ I jump in, not wanting him launching into a conversation about Bone; we need to keep those two worlds separate. Plus we don’t need anything scuppering this ballroom mission right now, there’s too much at stake.

  ‘Any other places around here ripe for a Caddy conversion?’ Scruff asks fast, getting it.

  Hebe chatters on about an abandoned village, adjoining the estate. How the army took it over in 1942, for target practice, and forced all the villagers out. They were never allowed back and it’s been completely empty ever since. ‘It’s all mine now.’ Her face glows with the secret.

  ‘You’ve got to take us,’ Scruff exclaims.

  ‘If you’re nice to me,’ Hebe grins.

  Scruff flashes his V for Victory sign and she shoots one back.

  I tell the lovebirds it’ll be our very next mission, but first this room needs a scrub-up. The space is brittle and bare with forgotten-ness. The cold of the dark is already slipping in and we’ll need to wrap up warm tonight, plus light the place up.

  Bert is straight onto it. She ties the windows’ ivy back with army sheets torn into strips (Mrs Squeedly handed Bert a ‘trusty’ pair of scissors. Trusts her. It’s a good sign). Bert demands candles throughout the room, her hands like a camera’s viewfinder as she surveys the space. ‘Dear Mrs Squeedly, we need some candles here. Can you possibly help?’

  ‘Possibly,’ she sighs upon return, as close to warmth as she’ll get. She leads us to a locked room nearby. The space is crammed with dozens of gilt candelabras like mannequins abandoned in a shop.

  ‘No!’ Bert exclaims. ‘This could not be better.’ We set them up by the windows, along the walls. Dot some kerosene lamps on the floor; we find a whole storeroom of them. Drag a mahogany table as long as a cricket pitch into the centre of the space. It takes six of us, with towels under its fourteen legs and Pin lying luxuriously on his back, arms behind his head, on top of it. Like Cleopatra on her barge and, good grief, everyone wants to be him in this place.

  Lady Adora flurries back, checks out the preparations. ‘Darius won’t believe it.’ She raises her glass in admiration. ‘Daddy, too. He’ll be here in ghostly form. Full evening dress.’

  Mad, mad, yes.

  ‘Will Mr Davenport be coming?’ I ask.
r />   ‘I requested and he accepted. It’s been a long time since this house has seen a ball and we’re all curious. Besides, it’s the depth of winter – we need some sparkle in this house.’

  Bert wails, tragically, that we have absolutely nothing to wear. Says if only she had a needle and thread she’d have me in a ballgown yet, imagine, what a sight. I recoil in horror. Hebe tells us excitedly that there’s a fur room downstairs, near the cellars, and it’s full of mink coats and hats and we’ll so need them tonight. Bert squeals, quite recovered. ‘We could have a Russian theme! In our frost room!’

  ‘Oh all right,’ Lady Adora sighs, as if she’s entirely surrendered to the idea of bringing her beloved house alive again and glowing her daughter up. ‘Fur hats! Balalaikas! Dancing bears!’ She sings loudly, ‘Bring it forth. Sparkle, sparkle!’

  Hebe looks at me and scrunches up her face in apology; her mother’s always erratic and crazy and all over the place, she’s resigned to it, and we must be too. ‘It’s fine,’ I mouth to her.

  Because the trap is progressing very nicely here. The worming into Adora’s world – to unlock the secrets of Mum and turn Basti’s nightmare around, to stop Darius inheriting our uncle’s estate and handing it to Her Ladyship – is proceeding to plan. Mum said to me once that if someone is being mean to you, just try connecting, with niceness, because it can shock them into change; it’s always worth a try. I stand here now, looking at Hebe putting her arm gently around her mother and giggling in excitement as she points out the sweep of the candelabras, and I smile at the thought of my own mum, of my arm around her, too. Of all her life lessons flooding back.