Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Harry! Harry! You must wake up soon.

  Still I’m waiting for you to be me,

  for you to open your eyes and see,

  for you to open your mind.

  And Harry, if you don’t open your mind soon, I will open it for you.

  I, or maybe . . . maybe the war will,

  because more than one bomb falls on London tonight.

  Kilburn.

  It means Cold Water; cold water that springs from the earth. And beside this river an ancient trackway from ancient days, as men came with their cattle to London.

  Kilburn:

  Time passes; a metamorphosis occurs.

  The river returned underground and only the name remains to remind us of what was once here.

  Kilburn:

  Regular rows of handsome streets.

  Shops and houses and pubs.

  And here comes a bus, number 354.

  And Harry’s on board, right at the back, when out of the sky with a sickening smack, a rocket bomb drops,

  drops with brutal power.

  It lands at the spot where Cavendish Road meets Kilburn High — and the houses for a quarter mile around no longer exist.

  The bus rears into the air like a frightened horse, then collapses onto the tarmac on its side, as the powdered remains of Cavendish Road flow over it like a dirty river to nothing. The driver of the bus has disappeared. No one comes to help; this is a night of common destruction. No one stirs.

  The bus had been almost empty, save for the driver and . . .

  There.

  At the back, twisted under a seat.

  A man.

  Blood flowing

  over sharp metal

  sticking from the skull

  with no shame at all at what it’s done.

  Harry?

  Harry?

  Can you hear me at last,

  now there’s a hole in your head?

  Nothing made sense in the dark, nothing but a ringing void filling my head. I struggled up from the depths, seeing nothing, understanding nothing.

  Sheep’s wool!

  And then I was awake, something like awake at any rate, and I lay still for ages, regathering myself. Waiting. And now I’m trying to understand a new reality.

  So. I started with the immediate again. With senses. Smell came back first. Disinfectant stinging my nostrils, soap, a vague tinge of something burnt. Next, sounds: footsteps hurrying past, then gone, a drawn-out groan from much farther away. An owl! Then sensation returned: the ache, the ache in my head, throbbing away, drowning everything out for a long, long while. When at last I managed to open my eyes, it was to see a nurse hovering at the foot of my metal hospital bed, angel-like. She was no more than a silhouette on the darkened ward, her face a pale oval.

  You’re still with us, then, she whispered. Glad to see it!

  The first thing I said: Where’s my notebook?

  Don’t worry about that now. Just rest.

  I need it, I said. It’s important. What happened? Am I dead?

  A gentle shake of her head. Not yet! It was a V-2. You were lucky! Or unlucky . . . Your bus wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Rocket was a direct hit on a pub and the blast rolled your bus clean over.

  Which pub?

  No idea, she said. You’ll have to excuse me. Coming in thick and fast at the moment.

  And she hurried away. That was hours ago. I slept more, and now it’s morning and I feel like I can write a bit. Still that urge to record things even though my head feels so queer. I see my notebook beside my bed.

  The last thing I remember before the rocket strike is the fiddler at the Heurtebise factory. After that my notes have to fill in the gaps. No recall of the conversation with Ellis, which I read now as you would a novel, wondering what comes next. Good and bad, I see. No recall of boarding the bus. Or how we ended up back near the White Horse and —

  I’m getting muddled. She said a pub. She didn’t say the White Horse. There are more than one or two pubs in London, after all. And I was miles from there. I think. I think, but I can’t be sure. That’s scary, the gaps in my mind, in my memory. If you lose your memories, then what have you got left? What are you?

  Head hurts. Feels like something’s not working right in there. Too tired to write much more.

  Was the pub the White Horse? And was Ellis still there? Oh God. I felt as if I were in some race against time to put things right — now maybe I’m already too late. I’ll ask that nurse to try and find out for me.

  Someone is whistling. Same tune that the fiddler was playing? A janitor down the corridor. Why can’t I place it? Blurred sparrows (seven) puffed up against the cold on the windowsill in a line, opening their beaks as if joining in. And something else: a rumbling sound? A deep resonant hum, just at the threshold of hearing.

  I slipped back into sleep, or was unconscious again. I don’t know if I can tell the difference right now. But it felt very deep, timeless — and then I came rocketing up from the depths. In a panic. My first thought was for Ellis, of course, but almost immediately after that I thought of the eyeballs and had a sudden urge to check if I still had them. Groped blindly in the pocket of my jacket hanging beside the bed and felt huge relief to find them still clacking away there. Cool. Reassuring.

  Want to write more now, find out more, but not much strength. They wheeled a chap away from the next bed, covered over completely, gurney squeaking down the corridor to wherever it is you go when they cover your face. So much for living fully — maybe it’s just a matter of staying alive!

  The whistling janitor watched him pass, bowed his head, then said to me, Cheer up, mate. Might never happen.

  Me: I think it already has. Where are they taking that chap?

  Janitor, with finality: The basement.

  I nodded, asked him what tune he’d been whistling.

  Janitor: I heard some bloke playing it the other day. No idea. Lovely though, ain’t it?

  Me: Can you hear a kind of humming sound?

  Janitor: Yeah. The generators are on the blink.

  But that wasn’t what I could hear, I’m sure. Maybe the explosion from the rocket’s done something to my ears. Need to find someone who can go and check about the pub. About Ellis.

  Feeling a bit more alert now — and at least I know where I am. And what day it is. Another deep sleep, and then a harried-looking doctor did a thorough examination and shone lights in my eyes until I saw bright suns, and made me do some sums that were easy enough, and they redid the dressing on my head. The doctor gave me a reassuring smile — might just have been habit.

  Strange though: when he asked me my full name, I stumbled for a moment. It was on the very tip of my tongue, but then something else nearly came out. I had to fish around for the word “Harry” like you would for something dropped down the back of a closet. Daft. They gave me some more morphine and a couple of pills. Pain seems to have eased but it feels really odd, as if there’s a space in there. A big space.

  A fragment of the bus ride came back, though: I was on the 354, the driver a silent silhouette wrestling with his huge wheel, and I said, Where the hell are we going? And he said, Just back to the blooming beginning again, mate.

  The blooming beginning. Can’t think straight.

  It was the White Horse.

  Annihilated, the nurse just told me. Annihilated. Sounded wrong coming from her mouth, I thought, and, at the same moment, Oh God, my brother’s dead.

  But I don’t actually know that. They’re still digging, apparently; and anyway, he might have left by the time the rocket hit. I asked the nurse if she could find out more, and she patted my hand and said she would do her best.

  God, I wish I knew.

  Feel I was ages and ages on the bus; Ellis and that Wren would have hopped it by then, surely? War hurries us all up. Worried sick about him, but nobody’s got time to check it out for me. Wounded coming in like the clappers from all over town.

  Going to do a memory drawing of the bu
s driver in the hope it jogs more. And to try and put my fears to one side. That night ride through the darkened ruins felt like a part of the story I’ll tell in Warriors. Something very old, something mythic almost. The driver must have been blundering around, trying to find a road that wasn’t blocked or punched through, but how strange that we ended up back where we started, just in time to meet that V-2. Well, like my teacher said, if you want to make sense of the world, damn well draw it. Things always feel better when I can get hold of them with pencil and ink. So:

  Desperate for news from the bomb site. Need to know about E. The rocket would have obliterated the pub and everyone in it. That’s your V-2 for you: sudden, total, absolute.

  The friendly nurse came back, said she could spare me a few minutes. I’d like to draw her, stop me thinking about Ellis. But don’t think I could do her justice. Plain face, but in a good way, and a dimple that would normally lift my spirits. Told me what she had found out, and my worst fears were realized. I knew when she smiled that it wasn’t good; it was the smile Father gave us when he told us about Mutti. Then a cough, a long pause, and the words: Ah. Look, boys, about your mother . . . I need you to be strong. Something died in him after that — and we were left to deal with it all ourselves.

  If Ellis was still in the pub, then he’s dead, the nurse whispered. Totally destroyed in a direct hit; they pulled out only one survivor, an old man, and the rest were killed on the spot, they reckon. Forty-three bodies so far and they’re still digging, but no hope of finding anyone else they say.

  She put her cool hand on mine again. Maybe he left before it hit, she said. A lot of confusion after these things.

  I’m beside myself, I said. I need to get out of here and take a look.

  She shook her head. Not a chance. Doctors are rather worried about you, you see. Your head took an awful bang.

  She looked at my drawing of the bus driver.

  You an artist, then?

  Trying to be. What’s your name?

  Eunice.

  Well, Eunice, thing is I’m more worried about Ellis than I am about myself right now.

  I know, she said, and smoothed the back of my hand, wiping tension away there — as if she knew a secret that lay just beyond me (a secret, I feel, everyone else knows) — and then walked off down the sun-blinded corridor.

  Now through the windows I can see the bright cold morning. Smoke lifting in twenty different tones of charcoal and gray into clear blue air. The barrage balloons are shining silver, like they’re pinned to the sky. Astonishingly beautiful really. And those sparrows whirring away on the ledge. And the worry and that blessed hum rumbling away nonstop in my ears.

  Don’t feel physically too bad. Just worried sick.

  Think I’ll go and take a look at the bomb site. Ask around and see if anyone saw Ellis leave. Don’t even know where he’s been staying these last few weeks since they let him out of the hospital, but someone might be able to tell me something. Can’t stick around here, waiting.

  I vowed to live, and you can’t live fully lying around waiting for some doctor to tell you that you can go and look for your brother.

  Some escape bid! Didn’t get far before I was apprehended; and now I’m back in bed feeling foolish — and as woozy as anything. Clock on the wall is a bit of a blur when I try to look that far.

  I’d only reached the back stairs when the world started turning around me faster and faster. Reached for the handrail for something steady and heard my name being called. The same flustered doctor took my arm and chivvied me back to bed with all kinds of dire warnings about hemorrhages and such and then sent Eunice to read me — with that dimpled smile — a version of the riot act.

  To be honest, I didn’t feel that well as soon as I stood up on my legs. Felt like it does when you use your left hand for something you normally do with your right. Like I’m not myself somehow.

  But I had an interesting encounter on the way, before they caught me — and it felt moving, important.

  Need to put it down as I have a growing fear that the void in my head will enlarge and start to snuff out thoughts and memories, or muddle them up, so I need to get the important things down in this book. If I start forgetting, then this book can be my memory, a portable memory. It’s a comforting idea.

  The encounter: I lost my way trying to find the stairs and ended up in a gloomy back corridor, the wards half empty and quiet. Went through a door clearly labeled EXIT and along another even quieter corridor, as if that part of the hospital has been closed off. Thought I could hear that humming more distinctly there, easier to pick out in this silence, like it was coming up through the bones of the building, as if I were hearing it with my feet like ants do. Some of the windows were broken, and cold clear air streamed in — and then I heard a young girl’s voice singing. I recognized that melody at once, and the words. A German nursery rhyme: “Hoppe, hoppe Reiter.” Mutti used to sing it to us when we were little (which, can you believe it now, Father loved hearing), and I felt happy and sad all at once, astonished to hear it in this place, and followed it round the corner to a four-bed ward to find the girl half propped up on her pillows, singing away and staring at a photo in her hand. Tangled dark hair, pale skin, her face the shape of an apple pip. A long, slim hand reached out from under the covers gripping the photograph. No one else there. As I drew closer, I saw her fingers were trembling slightly.

  She broke off the rhyme and looked up at me.

  Hello, I said. Are you all right? Aren’t you cold in here?

  She shook her head. I told them I wanted some peace and some quiet, she replied in slow, careful English. I am warm enough. Thank you for asking me.

  German? I asked. Ich kann Deutsch sprechen. Sort of.

  I do not want to speak German now, thank you, she said, emphatically, and lay back on the pillows, the hand and the photo she was holding dropping to the covers.

  Are you in here for long? I asked. Can I fetch you anything?

  Not so long, she said. I want to get out and go and look for my parents. I’m worried.

  Where are they?

  Not far away. But I am worried about them.

  Do they live close by?

  She shrugged and then said this: How to explain? You go right and left and then straight on. And then there is no direction anymore.

  I struggled to understand. Do you mean Hackney?

  Ich weiss nicht. Then she scowled at herself for using German.

  You’re sure I can’t fetch anyone? Anything?

  She shook her head and then turned to me again and gave me a look of such earnest intensity that it shook me to the core. Like she was reaching out and grabbing my hand tightly.

  Will you leave soon? she asked.

  I hope so, I said, dragging a smile to my lips. I’m looking for someone myself.

  Who?

  My brother.

  What has happened to him? Is he in trouble?

  I don’t know. I think so.

  She sat up a bit again, that beseeching look back on her face. When you go, you must take me with you. Do you promise? I want to go.

  I told her I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

  But you must, she said urgently. It is important! Sehr wichtig.

  Again she scowled. I didn’t know what to say. Then footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, and I knew I needed to get a move on. My head was swirling, the dizziness already gathering.

  You must take me with you, she repeated. I am ready. I am fine.

  What’s your name? I asked.

  Agatha, she said. What’s yours?

  And it was the queerest thing. I couldn’t bring my own name out straightaway. Again that gap in my head as I fumbled around for it. Again that feeling of wrong-handedness, and I found a short stream of syllables tumbling from my mouth.

  Orpheus, I said.

  And then corrected myself, stumbling, blushing even. No, I’m Harry. Harry Black, National Fire Service — and she laughed at the flicker of bafflement
that must have crossed my face.

  Her look said: Are you quite sure?

  Quite sure, I said, tapping my head lightly. I’ve had a bash, I explained. Things getting muddled up.

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  I pulled myself together, wanting to help her, to lift her spirits. Asked her if she’d like me to keep an eye on her. And gave her one of my looted blue eyeballs, and she took it quietly and closed her long fingers around it without another word. She understood that it didn’t need to make sense. The way children do. The way adults sometimes don’t, if they’ve forgotten the direct business of early childhood. Storytelling.

  An eye, she said, with a half smile. Keep an eye. I like it. Danke.

  I asked her how old she was. Fourteen, she said. How about you, Harry?

  Not much older, I said.

  I keep seeing her face as I lie here now. I’d like to draw her. Apparently they need to knock me out again and take a look at the wound. But as soon as that’s done, I’m off. Why the hell did I say Orpheus? Must be some memory of Ellis’s poetry surfacing. I never told him just how great those poems of his really are. I wish I had.

  Daft, like I said before. Morphine maybe, scrambling me up like an egg.

  If only we had real eggs instead of the powdered stuff.

  Inky depths. No dreams. Nothing. Maybe some of that sheep’s wool fog. I get the feeling for a while I wasn’t anywhere at all. Just drifting.

  Remember the orderlies coming to fetch me, and we were on the way to the operating room.

  In the corridor we passed that girl — Agatha — and I said, Ah, you’re up and about, then; and she said, I told you: I’m fine now. I’m ready to go; I’m just waiting for someone. That photo was still in her hand, I noticed.

  Wish me luck, I said.

  You do not need luck, she replied, fired me a quick smile, and then turned to the window, the barrage balloons, the bright winter day.

  I told her I’d come to visit as soon as I’d had my head looked at.