by C F Dunn
“Yes, yes, well, well – another time perhaps.” And he poddled off towards the elevator to the history section.
“Another time,” I said softly to his retreating back. Why, oh why did it feel like I was saying goodbye? I expected Madge to make some snide remark, and looked around, but she and her spleen had left without me noticing. She was one person I wouldn’t miss.
“Good afternoon, Professor,” a dry voice said beside me. The queue had moved on and the librarian held out her hand for my books.
“Hi,” I said, giving them to her and watching her scan them into the system, then as something to say, “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“It is not a day of celebration for my people. In fleeing their persecution, your people brought it to mine.” She said it without malice, but I felt the accusation all the same.
Taken aback I said, “They didn’t mean to. Men like Nathaniel Richardson wanted a new life free of the hate and fear they saw where they came from. They didn’t want to impose it on anyone else.”
“I don’t expect they did, Professor, but it followed just the same.”
I detected impatient rumblings in the queue behind me. “We all seek freedom from the things that haunt us, don’t we, whatever the source, but sometimes we can only find that freedom inside ourselves. Sometimes…” I stopped because in that moment the truth of it struck me.
“Professor?”
I canted my head to look at her thoughtfully. “We’re all pilgrims in some respect, aren’t we? We’re all searching for something, but sometimes it’s already found; we just don’t see it.”
“Emma, a moment, if you please.” Siggie caught up with me as I left the atrium and made my way towards the staff car park along the paths blown free of leaves by a chilly wind. In the distance, I could see Rosie kicking her way towards me through soggy piles of umber and gold and garnet, Matthew with Theo on his shoulders a little way behind. Siggie’s own colours fluctuated uncertainly, although she smiled brightly enough.
“I won’t keep you, my dear, I can see you are keen to go, but do you know why I might have received a phone call about your employment here?”
“From Cambridge? I thought all that was sorted out years ago.”
“No, from somewhere else; he didn’t say where, only his name – Kowalski – and he was more interested in how long you’ve known Matthew.”
My husband had swung Theo from his shoulders and was now encouraging him to take steps, but every now and again he shot a quick look in our direction. The breeze crept around my shoulders and found its way down my spine.
“Why on earth would anybody be interested in our relationship? How ridiculous! He could always have asked us,” I exclaimed, although it sounded hollow to my ears and probably to hers.
“That is what I said to this man, but he was unable to give me a satisfactory answer. Anyway, I wanted you to know, because I do not like questions being asked about my staff without proper authorization, which is what I told him.”
I tucked my blue scarf into my jacket and folded my arms in front of me, a defensive gesture which she probably noted. “What did he say?”
She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “He said he would get it.” In seeing Matthew and the children, and waving to them, she might have missed the colour flee my face. “Ah, what a delightful picture your family make. Living the American Dream, eh?”
She didn’t wait for Matthew, but waved again and returned the way she had come, escaping the cold.
“What did Siggie want?” Matthew asked when I joined him.
“Someone’s been asking questions about us.” Rosie was throwing leaves over Theo, who laughed and rolled in the heaps as he rapidly disappeared beneath them.
“I take it they didn’t give a name and designation?”
“A name – if it’s a real one: Kowalski.”
Matthew raised a sardonic brow. “I doubt it; Kowalski’s the Polish equivalent of Smith. Nonetheless, I’ll pass it to Joel to check out. Has anyone been following you?”
I now knew the telltale sign of surveillance. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, we have been followed. He’s by the cars pretending there’s something wrong with his engine. No, don’t look around.”
“You should offer to give him a hand, Matthew,” I said drily.
“As much as it would delight me to do so, he mustn’t know we’ve seen him. Joel was very specific – make no contact whatsoever. We’re just having a wonderful family time together, aren’t we?”
I took the hint and gathered a handful of leaves, throwing them into the air for Rosie to chase. She ran after them, then bounced back towards me. “Mummy, look what Daddy gave me!”
Something golden dangled on a stout chain around her neck. “A nutmeg, Rosie?”
“Daddy’s nutmeg.” She giggled. “Daddy says it’ll be safer around my neck than in my hands. And look, it’s in a little cage all of its own.” She held it on its chain for me to see – the gilded nutmeg rattled in an intricate cage of gold imitating blades of mace.
“It’s very pretty,” I said, somewhat puzzled.
“Daddy says I’m carrying hope around my neck.” She twirled around, scooping an armful of leaves and throwing them above her, and then pounced on her brother.
“I think we’ve given our shadows enough of a show today, don’t you?” Matthew slid his arm around my waist while keeping one eye on the figure in the car park as he kissed my ear. “Time we went home. We have more DIY to do.”
The small device in Matthew’s hands remained mute as he moved steadily around the dim kitchen. Finally, he switched it off and placed it on the table. I eyed it. “What does it do?”
“It detects multi-frequency signals from surveillance devices. We’re clear for the moment at least.” He looked around the room. “We’d better get the shutters closed.”
“But it’s still light,” I protested. “Don’t shut out the light.”
“It’ll be dark within the hour. Let’s stick to our normal routines. Anyway, I have some tasks that need doing for which I don’t want an audience.”
I hugged my arms around myself wondering who might be out there watching, and how long we could maintain this façade of normality when inside I felt myself crumbling a little more each day.
“I’m going to phone home.”
“You are home, Emma,” Matthew said quietly. “This is our home.”
“It doesn’t feel like it sometimes,” I said, more to myself than to him. He began to close the shutters, double-checking that the bars sat securely in the sockets.
“Careful what you say on the phone,” he called after me. “Keep it…”
“Normal. Yes, I know.”
“Is everything all right, Em?”
“Yes, of course it is, Dad. Why shouldn’t it be?” I bit my tongue hearing the prickly tone in my voice. Dad heard it too, but chose not to rise to it.
“It is nearly midnight, or had you forgotten the time difference?”
“I counted backwards instead of forwards – again. Sorry.” Idiot.
“Maths was never your strong point, was it, Em? Your headmaster never did understand how someone so bright could fail to master basic mathematics.”
“No.”
“But then, nor did I.” He paused, and down the echoing phone line I heard the long case clock in the hall strike. “I gave you a pretty hard time over it, if I remember correctly. I am sorry, Emma. I’m sorry for all I put you through.” He waited for my response and I had to breathe deeply to control the tremor in my voice, but it still came out in a squeak.
“That’s OK, Dad.”
“It’s in the past, hey, Em? It’s history.”
“Yes, Dad, it’s in the past.”
We went on to brighter memories, but all the time in the back of my mind came Ellen’s warning that a time would come when the only contact with my family would be by telephone as Matthew could no longer disguise his lack of aging, and tha
t which had been so distant a prospect now became a creeping reality.
“And how is Rosie getting on at school?” he asked.
“Ah, well, um, she isn’t at school. She’s at home.”
“Not very well, is she? Poor little lass.”
“No, I mean we’ve taken her out of school, Dad. She wasn’t, er, ready.”
“Oh?” I heard his disappointment and the effort he made to disguise it. “Well, children develop at different rates, don’t they?” he said, in an attempt to be positive. “I’m sure she’ll come to it in time.” He cleared his throat. “We haven’t seen you for quite a while now. Your mother was wondering about this visit you mentioned? The twins are growing like Topsy, and Archie’s been at school for a couple of years already – not that it matters, of course. Rosie is that much younger and she’s bound to catch up.”
“Yes, she will.”
“So, a visit is on the cards then, Em? For Theo’s christening?”
A visit home? If only things were that simple. And now that the prospect of seeing my family seemed beyond reach – at least for the time being – I felt their absence keenly.
“I think we’ve left it a bit late to book the church so close to Christmas, but I’ll see what I can do,” I promised vaguely.
“Right-o,” my father replied, with forced jollity. “Love to all.” The line went dead except for the persistent whine like the top note of a scent – barely discernible from the background noise of nothing – and then a tiny click and the noise ceased. I replaced the handset, fighting the temptation to yell at whoever had been listening, and went to find Matthew.
He read my expression as I went back into the kitchen, and simply nodded. He spun Rosie into his arms. “Hey, kids, shall we play a game?”
“Horses!” Rosie shouted.
“How about hide-and-seek?” His eyes slid to the pantry, and he quirked one brow.
“All right,” I said, taking the hint and capturing Theo as he crawled under the table. “The three of us will hide and we’ll see if Daddy can find us.”
“Daddy must hide his eyes,” Rosie demanded, covering her own. He did as bidden, and we skipped out of the kitchen and into the hall, stifling laughter. Rosie headed for the stairs, but I pulled her back, shaking my head and indicating the dining room door. We sidled into the darkened room and waited.
“Coming, ready or not!” Matthew called. “Where are you?”
Rosie opened her mouth, but I issued her with a warning look and she promptly shut it. We heard the kitchen door swing open, footsteps in the hall. Taking Rosie’s hand, I tiptoed across the dining room to the door to the kitchen, cautiously opening it and, seeing the room empty, made for the pantry.
“But, Mummy…” she whispered.
I held a finger to my lips and, opening the pantry door, we slipped into the space lit only by the light from the kitchen. She began to slide the door to the Stables open, but instead I pointed to the floor. At the far edge of the great stone slab, I pressed down hard with my foot. Rosie’s mouth opened in surprised delight as the cantilevered slab tipped open, revealing the steps.
“Where are you?” we heard Matthew call from the hall, and without hesitation, Rosie hopped down the steps into the dark void under the floor. I followed with Theo clinging to me, just as we heard Matthew come back into the kitchen making loud stamping noises with his feet.
“Mummy, why…?”
I whipped a hand over her mouth and kissed her head. “Not. A. Word,” I breathed. Above us came the sound of doors opening and closing, chairs moving, a loudly muttered, “Now where are they?” Quiet until that moment, Theo suddenly found his voice. He babbled his excitement.
“No, Theo, he’ll find us,” Rosie moaned softly as we heard footsteps above us, and then the slab opened, letting in the light and Matthew’s cheerful greeting.
“Ah, there you are! I thought I heard you.”
“The-o!” Rosie protested. “You gave us away.” She pushed past me and stumped up the steps to her father, pouting.
“But I didn’t hear you, Rosie-posy; you were as quiet as a snowflake. I do believe you would have won the game.”
“But we didn’t, Daddy. You caught us like… like mice in a trap.”
“Matthew, how can I keep Theo quiet if I have to? He doesn’t understand what’s at stake, and the more I try, the louder he gets.” To illustrate my point, from his cot on the other side of our bedroom Theo danced up and down in his baby suit, waving Bear and singing his “da-da-da” song and blowing bubbles.
Matthew sighed as he rose from our bed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get to the stage where we have a need for silence.” He went across to the cot and picked Theo up. Father and son regarded each other, each holding the other’s gaze, each so alike. Matthew smoothed Theo’s pale sand hair and the baby put his hand to his father’s mouth, wrinkling his nose and smiling. “Da-da-da,” he patted. “Da-da.” Wordlessly, Matthew kissed the pudgy fist and laid Theo down, tucking him in with the cot blanket Pat had made for Rosie. From where I was lying, the hand he briefly laid on his son’s head made it look as if he was bestowing a blessing, and he murmured something too quiet for me to hear.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered, when he slid back into bed beside me, pulling my blue cashmere rug over my shoulders to keep out the November chill. “I don’t think I can stand this game we’re playing for much longer. It was easier with Guy, and even with Staahl, because I could put names and faces to them. But these… people – whoever they are – are nameless and faceless, Matthew. We don’t know who they are or what they represent except that they are ‘the enemy’. They won’t just go away, will they? They’ve never been this close before.”
“No, not for a long time.”
“So…?”
“So I want you to be ready to leave in the first week of December. Pack the barest minimum for you and the children. Everything else can follow at a later date – it’s how we’ve done it before. I have passports and identity documents in the leather case in the wall safe – you know how to access it.”
“You make it sound as if you won’t be there.”
“I’ll be there, but you must know what to do in case I’m not. We go about our daily business as usual – I’ll work at the lab, you in your tutor room, but we take it in turns to be at home so the house is never empty. One of us must be able to get to the safe. Keep our cell phones on at all times and we can have a call signal if anything happens. In that way, we will have an exit strategy, and I can get back to you.” I shuddered and he drew me close to him, absorbing my fear. “It’s only a week until we leave and nothing is likely to happen in that time. The main thing is to make them think we suspect nothing.”
“I’ll make a hair appointment for Christmas, book Theo in for the jabs he doesn’t need…”
“That’s it – nothing’s changed. Meanwhile, the family will join us for Thanksgiving in a few days and we can alert them to our plans. It’s not safe to say anything except face-to-face; our calls are being monitored and our internet accounts will have been hacked.” He grunted a laugh. “Now that is something that’s changed in the last couple of decades.”
“And where will we go?” I barely dared ask, whispering now that Theo had dropped into sleep.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Is that even possible in this day and age?”
“Anything’s possible, my love. All things are possible.”
There was comfort in certainty, that sense of relief that, no matter how much you feared the future, your path was known even if the outcome was not. Like getting the dentist’s verdict after weeks of toothache. As much as you dreaded the operation, it was so much better than the not knowing. We would leave this life and embark on a new one. It had been inevitable, one way or another. Our home was where we were, wherever that might be.
“Will you tell me what you have planned?”
“It’s better you don’t know.”
“You don’t
trust me?” I said, my voice rising, indignant and ready to argue.
He cradled my face between his hands and burrowed into my eyes, his own flickering with their tiny flames. “I trust you with my life, Emma – my life.” His voice dropped, soothing, mesmerizing, until I felt beguiled by its warmth and melted by its honey tones. “Emma…” he murmured. “‘Lie with me and be my love, and I forever thine…’” He kissed my eyes, my lips, his mouth curving at my response.
“… then tell me…” I urged before I forgot what it was I had been cross about, but his lips found the contours of my neck and my fingers his hair, until my fear faded, ready to go wherever he led.
CHAPTER
17
Army of Ghosts
There’s only so much you can do, so many preparations you can make, to sever the ties that bind you to your present life. Over the following days I found myself spending time among the things to which I had grown accustomed – running my fingers over the bronze statue of the horse, listening to the delicate tick of the clock, nudging my children’s cradle and watching it swing back and forth in ever decreasing arcs until it came to a gentle halt. On the odd sunny day, I muffled myself against the cold and sat under the bared limbs of my orchard and listened to the wind singing in the branches. But now, with three small bags lined up on my bed, I wrapped my triptych in the children’s christening robe and placed it with Matthew’s translation of the Italian treatise at the bottom of my flight bag. In a silver box in which I kept locks of baby hair and Rosie’s milk teeth, I put the sapphire earrings and two rings Matthew had bought me at the birth of each child, and the little pebble from New Zealand. I wore only my Nanna’s old pearl earrings and the plain cross my father had bought me, and kept the jade necklace Mrs Seaton had given me, on which Theo liked to chew to cool his sore gums. It seemed fitting, somehow, to leave the States as I had entered it. I crammed my blue rug on top of the few travelling clothes, but everything else would have to wait until the house was packed up and the contents moved to storage once we had disappeared. One day – when the hunt died down and the trail ran cold – Matthew said that a removals firm would turn up at the warehouse, empty the containers, and the contents would vanish like the owners had done before. Perhaps then, Matthew would be reunited with the tokens of his past, wherever we were living, whenever that might be.
