He? Who is this pen pal, Mum?
A Kercheval. He must be a distant cousin on my mother’s side.
Oh no. Not another one.
Sorry about Clio.
Apology not accepted. Just . . . just be related to better people!
Well, Clio did marry in . . . Let’s give the one in England a try.
Family reunion time?
I think not. As far as this Aristide Kercheval is concerned, I’m just the mother of a Gingerbread Girl who tugged his heartstrings through a television screen. He said you spoke in English . . .
Oh no . . . that’s right, I did . . . I, er, Englished . . . but how did he see it . . . ?
He’s rich, Harriet. His satellite subscription includes every existing TV channel everywhere.
Well, what else did he say?
That you were pitiful.
Oh.
Don’t be embarrassed; it paid off. One thing I like about Parker’s Pigeon Post is that when using it, you have to come straight to the point. Aristide Kercheval wants to become your sponsor. Sounds fishy, I know, so I’m coming too.
Harriet looked over at Gretel, but Gretel had her head bent over her phone, texting somebody.
So this Kercheval becomes my sponsor. OK. And what do I have to do in return?
He says he has no expectations whatsoever, but I imagine he’d like to see some gratitude. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Can you put Dad on the phone?
Harriet’s pause here is so tremulous that it puts Perdita and the dolls on alert.
“What’s going on—about to make something up, are you?” asks the doll named Sago.
“Deciding whether or not to break a promise,” Harriet says.
She looks at her daughter for a while, and Perdita seems to want her to keep the promise, whatever it was. Harriet proceeds accordingly.
Harriet and her father didn’t talk for long, but conversation was halting and heavy in tone. They didn’t know when, or if, they would see or hear from each other again, and both sides were prepared to hear excuses or to make some. They were ready for vengeful utterances, maybe even a parting curse or two. Instead, one of them—either Harriet or her father—said: We’re very much alike, you know, you and me.
And the other—either Harriet or her father—said: I know.
It’s good that you know that.
But it isn’t enough—it doesn’t help—
I think it could. We’re so much alike that when you’re happy, I am too. And when you’re sad and cross, I am too. This can work at a distance.
So I should be happy if I want you to be happy? This doesn’t help either!
If you think about it little by little, over time you might see it another way.
And if you think about it little by little, over time you might not want to remember that this is all you had to say.
Can’t we make a deal?
Like what?
If this does turn out to be the last time we hear from each other, don’t think of what you remember saying and what you remember me saying. Don’t separate things out like that.
And you’ll do the same?
Of course.
“Sounds like you’ve finally found some shame after trying to force your father to be happy even as you abandoned him,” says the doll named Lollipop, and the doll named Sago says, “That’s a bit harsh . . . actually it sounds to me as if Mother-of-Perdita’s just keeping a promise,” and the doll named Bonnie says, “Or, how about this, guys: Thinking about it little by little, over time, it now seems to Mother-of-Perdita that almost exactly the same suggestion and rejection and deal would have been made regardless of the order in which father and daughter spoke. She was only saying what he would have said if she hadn’t got there first, and vice versa. That’s how alike those two really are.”
Harriet pulls tissue out of the pocket of her dressing gown, blows her nose, and says: “Did I mention that we won the lottery, Gretel and me?”
When they went to collect their winnings, the man behind the counter at the claims office handed them two laughably light envelopes. Harriet opened hers, closed it again, and steadied her nerves before showing Gretel the wooden ring inside.
Half a lifetime’s wealth, Gretel?
Gretel had slipped the ring onto her finger and had held up her hand, admiring it. A sheaf of wheat carved in such a way that it rippled around the finger.
To Harriet, Gretel said: Usually the top prize is cash. I’m guessing this happened because it’s you.
Margot was on her way to Druhá City, and, to Harriet’s great relief, told her exactly what to do, where to be, and even what she ought to be wearing by the time Margot arrived.
Well then, I’ll leave you to it, Gretel said, but Harriet prevailed upon her to help navigate Druhá’s numerous boutiques; it transpired that Gretel could see the difference between black and certain shades of navy blue much better than Harriet could. She stayed a little longer, then a little longer still.
At sunset, outside the five-star hotel where Margot had said they should meet, Gretel tried again:
OK, off I go, leaving you to it.
They’re not going to let me check in. I’ll go in there and they’ll look at me and say, “Excuse me, but aren’t you just riff raff? Go back.”
Whatevs. You look like you could buy and sell this place and everyone in it. Your mum knows her stuff.
Can’t you come in with me?
Gretel handed Harriet the bag that held her Gingerbread Girl uniform and patchwork coat.
Another time. I’m already running late thanks to you, so let’s just say bye for now . . .
She pointed at the hotel’s revolving doors until Harriet went in. And it all went off without a hitch: smiling doormen, smiling porters, smiling receptionist. But what was it Gretel had claimed she was running late for? Harriet stood by her hotel-room window watching Gretel through the magnolia-scented lace curtains for a half hour. Gretel’s busy evening seemed to consist of standing out on the pavement trying to work out which of the windows belonged to Harriet’s hotel room. Then Harriet sent her a text message: Infiltration complete. Upon receipt of that message Gretel walked down the street toward the metro station, not hurrying or anything; plus she had time for five backward glances, so how busy was that girl really . . .
Harriet took a nap, thereby tackling the challenge of waiting for one person whilst trying to keep herself from making an overly needy phone call to another. But Margot still wasn’t there by the time Harriet woke up. So the overly needy phone call to Gretel had merely been postponed.
Hi, Gretel said. I’m at the Gingerbread House with your colleagues. And she passed the phone from girl to girl. They told Harriet that things were looking up now that Clio was doubling their pay . . . due to inflation, she said. They got Harriet to read out the room-service menu and told her what they’d order if they were her. Rosolio made Harriet run a hot bath—with LOTS of bubbles. And don’t just stand there; get in. This is the thing about boffins; they don’t understand the principles of enjoyment . . .
Dottie tried to make her promise to come back. Zu tried to make her promise not to. Harriet asked them to put Gretel on the line, but when the phone got back to Gretel, the line disconnected before Harriet could tell her off for never doing or saying any of the things a friend ought to do or say. Though of course now Harriet thinks about it, if Gretel hadn’t left her at the hotel, she wouldn’t have had that chance to talk with the other girls again, to hear their laughter and chatter and to remind them that she thought about them too.
* * *
—
ONCE MARGOT WAS SAFELY in the hotel room with Harriet, she took the identity papers she’d needed to get through the checkpoints between the farmstead and the city, and she took the papers Harriet would have needed to get through the checkpoints betw
een the city and the farmstead, and she tore up both sets of papers and flushed them down the toilet. If they’d had passports they could have traveled as people, but decades after a country’s borders close for good, passports tend to be done away with, so—
We’re going as cargo.
Sorry, we’re going as what?
Harriet. Sweetheart. There’s no time.
There never was any time to argue with Margot. And if you said no to her, she was sure to find somebody else who’d say yes. This was chief among Harriet’s fears—that her mother would find some accomplice who was more able but less fond. Still . . .
This is too reckless for me, Mum.
OK, Harriet. What should I tell you?
Where’s Dad?
Margot told her she was sure she could guess the answer to that. Simon Lee was with Gwen and Elsa Cook, drinking nettle soup. No more gnawing on gingerbread for him . . . he’d come to his senses. If Simon Lee had had his pick of the farmstead, Gwen Cook would probably be his fourth or fifth choice. Gwen, who didn’t even have enough imagination to let her daughter leave the farmstead. But Simon was sticking with Gwen out of satisfaction that he was her first choice. And not returning Gwen’s ardor now didn’t mean he never would. This was all up to Gwen and Simon, and Margot wouldn’t have had a word to say about any of it if Gwen’s discarded husband hadn’t started bothering her, knocking on the cottage door in the evening and asking if they might drink a little nettle soup together, he and Margot. Instead of using words, Margot had shaken a frying pan at the man until he went away.
But if I stay in that place, Paul Cook will end up being your stepdad. Who are all these people who keep speaking to me when I’m trying to work . . . ? They come up to me and say, “Aren’t you lonely? You’re putting a brave face on, Margot Lee, but you do seem lonely . . . ,” or they’ll remind me that nobody can match Paul Cook’s mustache. Some of these people—Harriet, some of these people have come over from the neighboring farms to talk to me about Paul Cook’s mustache. It’s as if talking to me about his mustache is an additional job on top of all the other work they have to do . . . one last bout of industry before they go home for the night. Six months from now you’ll come home and Paul Cook will be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking piping-hot ditchwater out of a soup bowl, and I’ll put my hand on his shoulder and say, “Whatever was I thinking, turning this man away when I was so lonely and he has such a fine mustache?”
That seemed likely. One way or another, the numbers would stabilize so that Harriet and her farmstead friend had one of each parent: mother plus father plus Elsa Cook, mother plus father plus Harriet Lee.
And if I move here . . . well, it may take a while longer. A year. Give me a year in Druhá City and Clio Kercheval won’t have a patch on me.
That also seemed likely, and just as uncanny. Was there really no way out?
Sweetheart—can’t we just go and live with Aristide Kercheval? If it’s good enough for Maggie Parker’s pigeons, isn’t it good enough for us? Have some of this.
The gingerbread tasted stale, and Harriet thought that was the only catch until the mass in her gullet began to descend. The plunging weight of it—Harriet remembers trying to push her entire hand into her mouth, sticking her fingers down her throat, trying to drag the thing back up, this ever-thickening, slug-like mass. It turned her spinal cord into a bed of nails as it went down. Gasp by gasp.
Don’t look at me like that, Harriet, Margot managed to say, as all the breath in her own body condensed and then congealed. It’s really not what you think. See . . . you—soon.
“This is why I’m dead certain you’ve been talking to a Kercheval,” Harriet tells Perdita and the dolls. Only the Kerchevals know enough about Harriet and Margot’s departure from Druhástrana to be able to put a “follow the gingerbread road” spin on it.
Well, the Kerchevals, and the person or persons who must have come to Harriet and Margot’s hotel room after they’d blacked out. But perhaps all the removal team knew was that their evening schedule involved arranging two corpses into the yoga-like poses necessary for transportation in steamer trunks. This was done in the shortest time possible before the steamer trunks were dropped off at the nearest naval submarine base. That kind of professional doesn’t tend to be bothered about before-and-after scenarios.
A few hours later, when the steamer trunks were opened aboard a boat moored in Whitby Harbour, Margot and Harriet spilled out like “vats of custard.” Ari Kercheval opened the trunks himself. He still has nightmares about it. We thought your bones had melted or something. Margot said: Yes, so did we.
“Do I go on?” asks Harriet.
“YOU DO,” says Perdita and three of the dolls.
“I mean, you said Whitby Harbour. So why are we here in London? Why aren’t all six of us in Whitby right now . . . you tell us the reasons, and no funny business,” the doll named Sago says.
10
Harriet heard someone saying SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH so loudly and for so long that she felt she should check on the situation. Being unable to, she listened for a few more days and realized it was water falling down rocks. That was outside, beyond several walls. The nearest wall held a door or window that twisted around on itself like an hourglass—this acted as a light delivery service. The sun’s rays came and tickled her under the chin, but the waterfall never stopped saying, SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, this is no laughing matter, young lady, so she stayed straight-faced and giggle-free.
Once she’d ceased being overwhelmed by the sound and feel of still being alive, Harriet was able to understand that there were people around her, talking. Not to her, but about her. The people were speaking in English. They sounded like doctors, and they were talking about her hair. They were saying it had gone gray all at once, as if all the pigment had spontaneously dimmed. They’d thought it was all over when this had happened, but in fact the graying had accompanied the restoration of vital functions and the return, the doctoral voices said, of the patient’s ability to lie there pretending not to be listening to them talking about her hair. Since the jig was up, Harriet opened her eyes, looked around at the people clustered around her bed, and dry-heaved on and off for the rest of the day. An old woman wearing what looked like a gray fright wig on the other side of the room did the same, but for longer. Upon closer inspection the old woman turned out to be Margot Lee.
I told you, Harriet . . . I told you everything would be all right . . .
This is your idea of all right, is it, Mum?
Well, have you got a better one?
Harriet couldn’t help mourning the loss of her hair color; she hadn’t known how much she’d enjoyed having black hair until it was gray. But whenever she felt the hair-color mourning become excessive, she emulated Gretel’s calm surprise (if there could be such a thing) upon realizing that she had four pupils instead of two. Huh, well, it’s a change. And slowly, names were put to the bedside visitors. Both of the doctoral voices belonged to Kerchevals. One voice was Tamar’s, and one was Kenzilea’s. Tamar Kercheval, MD, was round and soft and had a polished look to her. You could picture Tamar putting in stints as a cover model for medical journals. Her hands were cold, but her gaze was warm. Kenzilea Kercheval, MD, had a Romany’s working knowledge of many places in the world that are said not to exist. She was frizzy-haired and deeply agnostic in manner; her silences were an alternative to the skeptical repetition of other people’s statements.
Aristide, Harriet’s benefactor, was married to Tamar. At rest he might have been a classic silver fox. The wise-looking kind—King Balthazar graying at the temples after all those years of studying the stars. But Ari was never at rest. Everything about him was lean and tense and rectangular; he was tuned into conversational subtext at a frequency that caused him nervous headaches. He took ambiguity as a personal attack. If a summary wasn’t concise, he’d shout it down or walk away halfway through. Are you trying to be clever
with me . . . are you trying to be fucking clever with me? he’d roar.
So you’re the one who wants to grow up. That was the first thing Ari said to Harriet. Through gritted teeth, no less. It would’ve been easy to start off on the wrong foot with him by saying something like “M-me?” but the waterfall was Harriet Lee’s best adviser just then (SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH), so she just looked at Aristide Kercheval without saying anything. This must have put him into a peaceable mood, because after a couple of moments of looking back at her, he fluffed up her pillow, adjusted her blanket, and said, OK, OK. Welcome.
Aristide’s older brother, Ambrose, walked with the aid of a striped cane that looked like a peppermint stick, spoke without insistence, and gave no hard stares. There was a triplicate softness to the man, as if he were a combination of poet, invalid, and monk. This may have been due to constantly having to soothe people’s feelings in Ari’s wake . . .
Last of all were two boys; one was sixteen years of age and the other was seventeen. The younger boy was Aristide and Tamar’s son. His name was Gabriel, and the other, older boy was Ambrose and Kenzilea’s son, Rémy. When Harriet got a proper look at the cousins, she thought, Seriously? Do they seriously have to look like this? It was like looking at faces printed on banknotes—no, they were a pair of black pre-Raphaelite muses. Their features had the same sort of almost unacceptable clarity; the sort designed to appear in an idealized shepherd-boy scene, close-shaven curls and all. All each needed was a backdrop of moonlit cloud. Not that it was possible for them to inhabit the same canvas. Gabriel’s half-frown belonged to a dreamer who chased errant flocks in his sleep. His version of Endymion’s story would end with the young man telling Selene that she’s very pretty but he finds her advances inappropriate and has neither the time nor the resources to adequately pursue a romantic relationship. Rémy’s half-smile was more knowing, less chaste. This Endymion’s rational objections could be overcome. Yes, he was a shepherd and Selene was the moon, but really it all depended on how good they could make each other feel.
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