‘Loik me? Loik ME?’ Angus spat on the grass. He might have serviced the Amberville for a little over fifty years but he had always taken pride in his Irish ancestry. Not one drop of Ned blood in his whole family history. Vivian took a few steps back.
‘Yah wanna drag naggings of Filth in, is that it? Yer risking yer health and ours by bringin’ that Ghetto neara.’
But Vivian didn’t listen. She came from the Ghetto and had no reason to fear it.
‘The ghetto’s here already,’ she protested, baffled by his short-sightedness. ‘Didn’t you know Aniya’s first daughter died of Black Flu? It’s spreading as quickly as those Floods. Today on the doorstep, tomorrow in the house.’
‘Only Filth oi see in that house is you !’
‘Takes one to know one, Master Angus.’
And before he could work out her jest, she turned on her heel and broke into a wild run.
‘Oi! OI! GET BACK ‘ERE!’
Vivian never truly appreciated how vast the Amberville grounds were until she had to run a great length just to shake Angus off. The bag of gold combs rattled noisily at her side and she had to hold on to the only bit of money she had to make sure she didn’t lose it.
Climbing over the large and padlocked iron fence touring the domains proved to be a greater test of strength than she had expected. Luckily, the gardener was a lot older and less fit than she was. Moreover, he seemed to have misplaced his keys, which gave her sufficient time to make the climb, rush to Milton and disappear.
After buying a hundred quid worth of soap, shampoo and toothpaste, Vivian entered the Restrict, a large bag of goodies dragging at her heels.
How lonely sat the Restrict… and how unusually quiet. But for a blind dog barking hoarsely at the sky, the silence was enraging. Ambling down an abandoned path, turning left, and for a few miles the eye could rest on nothing but vast rows of cardboard shelters.
The Restrict hosted over a million dwellers. Their demographic increased a little every year as more and more working class citizens went out of business, rendered obsolete by the Madhad state, or brought down by larger, richer companies.
‘My goodness…’
A few miles along the way, Vivian found herself submerged headfirst in pestilential odours of bodily waste. Dirty infants dressed in rags proliferated along the sidewalk like after-rain mushrooms.
How can anyone live like this?
Every lightning revealed decoloured pennies concealed in their laps, hidden away from the tax collectors’ prying eye. No future awaited the people of Keynes; no fate but disease and starvation.
By the time Vivian had unpacked the free merchandise across an abandoned wooden stall, the sun had already set in Keynes. It drenched the derelict walls and cardboard dwellings of the Ghetto into a pale orange glow.
Vivian had been right in her belief that freebies would lure ghetto-dwellers out of their living holes. She felt sure her parents would be among them. Her dreams had shown her to their faces.
‘You must be hungry. I brought you these .’
Above everything she possessed, it was Benoît’s almond tarts that enticed them. Vivian handed her tarts only to the smallest, sickliest of children. They ate them all post-haste.
Not half an hour later, a mile-long queue had formed before her stall. It seemed amazing how many occupants had never seen a towel in their entire existence, let alone heard of toothpaste, and sanitary products alike. Hygiene was not one of their fortes—not that they had a choice, seeing that no doctor ever attended their sick. At every corner, filth and poverty invited ill health.
Other items, such as her collection of gold combs, she decided to sell. A quic per item; surely a bargain. The proceedings would go to buying more sanitary products.
‘I know little of trade, but look. They’re solid gold!’ she told a woman who looked reluctant to spare any money on Vivian’s combs. ‘You can buy food and medicine for a month.’
Yet not all were money-wise. Their subsistence relied entirely on trade. Since they never earned any, some had no concept of it. Vivian quickly ditched the quid rule and offered them as freebies, yet most refused the precious spoils and insisted in trading for the combs. And so was Vivian rewarded with handmade bracelets, clay-pots and garments, some of which of incredible craftsmanship.
By nightfall, Vivian had finished distributing her stock, yet still no sign of her parents, or anyone fitting the people in her dreams.
They’re not here , she thought. Why aren’t they here? The dream was pretty clear…
Had her parents lived in the Restrict, they would have come forth by now. Tears began rolling down Vivian’s polish-smeared cheeks. She had been so sure the dream was an omen.
The moon jumped from behind a dark cloud and Vivian’s eyes widened in horror. Whether by tiredness or a trick of the eye, the moonlight had brought the vision to life. There it spread, at the bottom of a forgotten plastic cup, a floating citadel of terrible beauty. Its turrets were high, massive and build in the colour of pearls.
Vivian picked up the cup, but the vision persisted. The white citadel looked to be built upon a great floating rock against an all-orange skyline.
It took Vivian three attempts at rubbing her eyes dry and double-checking for the vision to disappear from the cup. She could not tell what terrible illness had forced her to hallucinate it. Perhaps it had been at sea? Floating islands were a scientific impossibility.
Seconds after the vision dispersed, symptoms of anxiety hit her in full chest.
‘I… need air,’ she told the crowd.
When she could no longer fight the chocking sensation, she stood up, her hand clasping her chest and abandoned the stall. While looking for the quickest way out, her heart did another back-flip. Before her stood a pale young girl dressed in rags, whose small hands clasped a single English quid with a corroded rim.
‘A-are the combs all gone?’
It took Vivian a moment to call to memory the sea-green eyes, small upturned nose and mane of silver hair.
Hole-in-the-wall Kate stood now before her, filling up an outfit so ragged and dirty, it was impossible to tell its colour. Now deprived of her winning smile, the Kate she remembered was no more, but another nameless Ned. No pipe-dream ideals swum in Kate’s sea-green eyes, but a soul as colourless and faded as her ghetto attire.
The Face in the Shroud
‘Little miss, you can’t just take a homeless person in,’ said Miles.
‘Amberville Manor is no mercy house,’ said Angus.
‘Leave the kid be. She’s just grieving,’ said Benoît.
Later that evening, Vivian showing up with Kate had caused quite the ruckus. Miles had hurried to whip up a steaming cup of hot chocolate (which Kate drank in one gulp) and Chef Benoît put his best effort in treating Kate like a guest of honour and had served her a full course dinner. Despite their best behaviour, they couldn’t hide their shock and vastly attributed Vivian’s gesture as bereavement.
‘Lost ‘er marbles, bringin’ in a Ned.’
‘Is that what you told my parents too, Master Angus?’ Vivian snapped.
The gardener immediately fell silent, though he looked like he would have gladly spoken his mind had Miles not been present.
At that moment, Kate – who had been watching the servants tell off Vivian from across a gigantic dinner-table – put down her fork, wiped her mouth on the table-cloth and approached. Kate was two years older than Vivian, a foot taller but somewhat skinnier. Perhaps it was due to this reason that no one noticed Kate’s silent skid until she was at the door.
‘I meant no trouble,’ Kate told the room ‘Thank you so much for the meal.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous Kate, you
’re staying.’
‘She smells bad,’ said Ayesha, sniffing the air. She then doubtlessly realized how insulting she must have sounded, for she immediately turned to Kate and asked ‘would you like a bath?’ and before getting a response, took her hand and pulled Kate away.
“ Got a very fancy wear from mistress Vivian ”, “ I look dreadful in orange so it would match your skin better ” and “ is your hair naturally white? ” could be heard all the way down the hall. Vivian turned to the others.
‘Kate stays.’
Angus frowned. ‘The hell she does. Miles, wha’s dis nonsense?’
But the butler’s eyes seemed lost into Vivian’s. He had the look of a pitying man struggling with too large a thought.
‘My father left me a multi-million quid franchise and the Manor. Surely that much can feed one extra mouth.’
‘Little miss… I don’t know about this,’ Miles said, picking at the bald spot on his head. ‘The Madhad state is very strict. If you need company, I can always get Ayesha to move out of the Servants Chalet and into your wing.’
‘I need Kate ,’ Vivian stressed out. ‘Kate saved my life, back at the children shelter.’
‘I understand, little miss, but we’ll have to think things through,’ Miles said calmly.
‘My parents died in this very house and you never told me!’ Vivian erupted in near-desperation. ‘I’m having a hard time forgiving you. A-all of you…’ tears began to trickle down her cheek, but she brushed them off impatiently. ‘The way I feel tonight, it wouldn’t take much to see the back of me.’
Angus Trimmings shrugged indifferently. ‘Then go. Go join yer homeless lot on da streets. Dunno wut’s keepin’ ya.’
‘If I leave, so does my parents’ fortune—’, Vivian folded her arms.
‘So?’
‘– my fortune,’ continued Vivian, her dark eyes now affixed on the gardener. ‘So, Master Angus, the Manor will be sold and you will have to find work elsewhere.’
The gardener’s eyes bulged, visibly alarmed. For a moment, Angus looked like he was about to strangle her, but the next second he merely took a small bow and left the sitting-room.
Vivian had long journeyed beyond the boundaries of normal conversation. Having spent half her life being locked up in a prison for children, and the other half being locked in the Manor, she understood her greatest weapon was a sharp tongue and the reluctance to take no for an answer.
She felt she deserved as much, after being dumped like litter in a shelter for strays. The tragedy of her adoptive parents made her realize something: the very system that very nearly killed her was now at her fingertips. In an ocean of poverty, she had inherited an impossible fortune. She didn’t have to put up with the likes of Angus, but she did need Miles.
‘Miles, you’re my legal guardian. The decision is yours alone,’ she looked into the great old face of Miles Fenn, feeling – believing – knowing – that she would make her case. ‘I haven’t gone through the Earmarking yet. If you want to be rid of me, now’s the perfect chance and no lingering grudges.’
Starting that night, Patricia Kate was allowed to stay at the Manor. In Vivian’s view, it was no more than repaying a debt, seeing as it was Kate who had first changed Vivian’s circumstances, and ultimately her fate. When she communicated this conclusion to her new friend, Vivian received the shock of her life – Kate no longer believed she could reshape reality.
‘I’m telling you, it’s true, Kate. You planted the seed. All I ever did was to believe in your powers.’
Kate unglued her sea-green eyes off the mirror. Vivian’s words had finally distracted her from admiring her freshly-pressed new outfit.
‘Powers? Humph, when I lost Lara, I lost faith in my so-called powers . All I ever wanted was to help her out of the Ghetto. She left alright – feet-forward she left.’
‘I’m really sorry you lost Lara, but that doesn’t mean—’
‘There are no powers !’ said Kate bitterly. ‘If it were in my power to save Lara, don’t you think I would’ve saved her? She was sick and frail and I wished for her to live, but she died anyway. Get serious, Viv. We have no control over our lives.’
‘Because you stopped believing you have control,’ Vivian suggested. ‘It’s what you told me yourself, all those years ago. Imagining is not enough. One needs to believe in it enough to see it happen. Lara died because you stopped believing she will live.’
‘She died because she was sick and there was no cure for her illness. Odds don’t bend and nor does reality. The only laws in this world are the Madhad. The others were right. You are grieving.’
Vivian flung herself on Kate’s new bed, looking morose.
‘You’re the one who’s wrong, Kate. It’s not random at all. People get lucky or unlucky, healthy or ill, hopeful or hopeless, rich or poor in agreement with what they imagine. With what they believe is possible.’
‘We were kids, Viv. How can you still believe all that?’
‘Because I’ve—‘ she extracted the many-faced plastic die from her pocket, ‘—because I’ve been doing it ever since I picked that lucky number.’
Kate puckered an albino brow. ‘Doing what, exactly?’
‘I’ll show you.’
Vivian’s fist enclosed around the plastic die, turned to Kate and asked. ‘Give me a number between one and twenty-four.’
Kate displayed a suspicious frown. ‘Why?’
‘Will you just do it, already?’
‘Alright then... seventeen,’ said Kate. ‘What of it?’
Vivian closed her eyes and let her Kiscube roll onto the ground.
‘So? Big deal!’ Kate pouted, when she saw her number facing up. ‘You might’ve sanded it down. You might’ve learned a balance trick.’
‘No Kate, this is real. Whatever number I think about, I bring about, and that’s not all. I’ve been... I’ve been changing the course of certain events. It’s almost as if... as if I can make the least likely thing, likely .’
‘Like convincing your servants to take me in?’
‘My parents’ servants, not mine,’ Vivian said through a curtain of black velvet hair. ‘But yes. What happened back there proves it.’
‘Proves what?’ asked Kate. ‘The only power I see is that of your gob.’
‘Well... maybe it was, indeed, my choice of words. But you are here, are you not? And you are staying,’ Vivian smiled. ‘Something has changed in your future. You never have to worry about food or shelter again.’
Her words seemed to have visibly cheered Kate up.
‘Since you put it that way… Blimey, rags to riches, innit? With servants and all,’ Kate laughed. Vivian joined.
“ Will the little miss need more Charentais? ” held Kate, in a perfect imitation of Miles Fenn. “ Is the Scottish Scallop to your taste?” – that butler bloke now, honestly!’
Kate grabbed a handful of dress folds, violently cleared her throat and began mock-parading in front of the ornate mirror.
‘Her imperial Majesty, the Ladyship of Fancy, Kin to the fist-shaker,’ spoke Kate in the most posh accent she could muster, while Vivian rolled with laughter, ‘gladly accepts your humble offer of Scallop and hereby decrees the Spoiling Ceremony, open!’
Still fiercely laughing, Vivian wiped off a tear.
‘Speaking of spoiling, to think my idea of spoiled was getting hit by the smooth end of Old Lumbersides, instead of the boltsy bit. Oh, happy childhoods.’
‘Childhoods are brief spells,’ said a pensive Kate, her eyes once more upon her reflection. Her proportional countenance was beaming back at her from a large mahogany m
irror.
Patricia Kate had waist-long platinum hair and thin colourless eyebrows. Her large lips were symmetrically-aligned with an incredibly undersized nose; so small a nose one would have thought she needn’t breathe air at all. Her only possession was a thin charm-necklace which finished in an elaborate ‘K’ entirely made of little black serpents. Kate claimed to have owned the piece since early childhood, and that her wearing it had inspired Lara in naming her “Kate”.
When Kate finished fitting her new orange dress, she made a few pirouettes before asking in the same make-pretend imitation of a Nobleton.
‘How do I look, dear Madame de Pamperspoil?’
‘Oversized orange, in every respect,’ Vivian chuckled.
‘Good, good. My work here is done,’ said Kate, folding her arms.
That night, Vivian returned to her bedroom, happy about the outcome she had created. She was no longer alone and Kate was out of the Ghetto. With her as a friend, she felt safe in the knowledge her life was about to change. Problem was – the change came sooner than she thought.
When Vivian stepped into her bedroom, she knew something had changed. A single white rose stuck out of the wooden floor.
This wasn’t here this morning , thought Vivian. Ayesha probably left it here, to thank me for the clothes.
Except Ayesha couldn’t have left it there. No one could.
It looked like two distinct realities had merged into one. Vivian pushed herself on her stomach, her eyes levelled with the budding impossibility. The white rose seemed to have grown out of the floor itself. Its tall bud spread a diffuse light, its orange-glowing roots visibly embedded into the fabric of the wood. Without thinking, she plucked the rose, removing it from its wooden bed.
The room around her flickered and vanished.
Her bed had also vanished. In its place now stood a vast loom of interwoven, thin-as-a-hair threads, each casting a metallic gleam across the walls. Vivian rubbed her eyes raw, but the vision persisted. Loose metallic wires dangled from a ceiling as high as a cathedral. Sprinkled across the loom she spotted holes – some as small as an English penny, others as large as a car.
Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds Page 7
