‘Sixteen years.’
‘Yes, that’s it. Sixteen years.’
‘I thought you were never coming back.’
He smiled. ‘Never is a long time. Still, with the political situation the way it is, no one knows how long they are staying. I am back for now.’ He drew up a chair and sat down.
‘How are you, Jared?’ she said. ‘Well?’
‘Very well. And you? Expecting a baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is the little girl your daughter?’
‘Jasmine. Yes.’
‘Jasmine? How exotic.’ Jared made to ruffle Jasmine’s hair as she ran past with the teacups, but she dodged out of his reach. ‘She is very like you,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said my mother, stroking Jasmine’s hair. ‘Yes, she is.’
The water boiled, and in silence my mother poured it out and set a cup on the table. Jared ran his finger round the rim of the cup. My mother stood beside the wall, one hand resting absently on her stomach, and watched him.
‘Tell me,’ said Jared. ‘You didn’t have the Imperial Order here last night, did you? Because I’m told they were everywhere.’
‘Yes, we did,’ I said. ‘What about them?’
‘They want to investigate the deaths of the war criminals; apparently there has not been a proper inquiry. It all seems very tedious to me.’ He yawned and stretched out his legs. ‘You know, it was quite by chance that I recognized Anselm,’ he said. ‘We met twice, and I could not place him the first time. It was only when he was standing there in the shop, in a certain light …’ He raised his hand as though he was a painter describing a sketch, then let it fall and laughed. ‘You know,’ he remarked. ‘The last time I saw you properly, Maria, was in Cliff House. Where the drawing room was the size of this whole shop, I dare say. How are your parents now?’
‘My father died a few years ago,’ she said. ‘My mother is well. She still goes out to work at the markets.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘She was a very fine lady once,’ he said.
We listened to him drink his tea. Outside the window, the light was already gone. Clouds were drifting slowly across the sky, throwing their shadows onto the city. ‘And where have you been since I saw you?’ said my mother.
‘All over the continent,’ said Jared. ‘I was in Alcyria for six years. And other places. Titanica. The Western Gulf Islands. Holy Island, too, briefly. There is a good deal of money to be made.’ He glanced about the shabby back room. ‘But you are married now, Maria? And the mother of a family.’
‘Not married,’ she said.
‘Ah?’ he said with a quick smile. ‘Very like you.’
‘Jared, I’m not sure what you are doing here.’
The pitch of the silence changed when she said that. Jared raised his hands and grinned more widely, but with less goodwill. ‘I came here out of courtesy,’ he said at last. ‘Merely that.’
‘It has been sixteen years. Maybe you should just—’
‘Go?’ he said. ‘Fine. Perhaps that is best, after all.’ He drained his teacup and nodded round at us all. ‘I am glad to see you well anyway. We are neighbours; I’m sure we will see each other again.’
My mother caught Jasmine’s hand as Jared got up to leave. We watched him throw his jacket around his shoulders and push back his chair. As he passed me at the door, he put a hand on my shoulder. ‘This boy will go far,’ he remarked. ‘He is a first-class trader.’
‘Is he?’ said my mother.
‘Yes.’ Jared gripped my shoulder tighter. ‘Yes. He’s a good boy. I recognized him at once, you know.’
Then he turned and was gone. I could still feel the weight of his hand as I watched him close the shop door and saunter past the front window. My mother turned away and began washing out the teacups, with her head bent low over the sink. ‘Anselm, Jasmine,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell Leo about that.’
‘Why not, Mama?’ said Jasmine.
‘Oh, you know how he gets. He will only worry.’
Jasmine nodded and disappeared under the table with Diamonn’s Complete Works. I began setting the table for dinner. My mother moved about the back room, putting things away. But in all the time she was doing it, she never once met my eyes.
On Sunday, new posters covered every wall of the city, with the government’s crest stamped in the corner. The king would be making a speech that afternoon, and all were invited to attend. A stage appeared in the square, guarded by police in red uniforms. Soldiers cordoned off the streets; the factory bands played their brassy patriotic tunes into the freezing air. We all went, except my grandmother, to stand among the crowds and listen.
The first snowflakes were falling now. They lodged in my mother’s and Jasmine’s hair and clung to Leo’s black coat. We were too far away to hear the king’s voice, but we could see him from where we stood. He walked up onto the platform heavily and spoke from between bodyguards. Watching him, I could not believe this was a man my mother and Leo’s age. He looked already old. ‘People of Malonia,’ went the mutters that ran back through the crowd. ‘We are currently under threat, and for this reason I have called you here to speak to you.’
Though the king went on, we missed the next part of the speech. ‘The Alcyrian government has asked,’ someone repeated then, a few yards away,‘that we repay all reparations in full by the end of this month. This is not possible, and I have to announce that it is likely …’ Here the king paused and turned over a paper in his hand. The crowd was silent now. I could hear a baby crying half a mile away. ‘It is likely,’ he went on,‘that the new government of Alcyria will invade our country.’
The king’s words were engulfed after that in the shouts of the crowd. ‘Shh! Shh!’ Jasmine was saying furiously and stamping her feet. Leo and my mother did not move. They stood there side by side, watching the king on his makeshift stage, as though their hearts had stopped beating. My mother had one hand against her cheek like a fine lady at some concert. Leo’s cigarette hung ridiculously from the corner of his mouth. I wished they would move. I thought that if they moved, this news might somehow stop being true. ‘I know,’ someone said near to us, ‘that you will face this threat with courage and determination. I am proud to stand here among you, my fellow citizens, knowing what we have achieved together, what is still to achieve. This cannot be taken from us. I pray you will stand beside me in the struggle.’
But whatever the king said next was lost in the shouting that ensued. People were pushing through the crowd, forcing us apart, men in blue uniforms with rifles on their shoulders. Someone fired a volley of shots into the air.
‘Jasmine!’ my mother shrieked. ‘Jasmine!’
‘All right, I’ve got her.’ Leo dragged Jasmine out of the crowd, wrenching her arm, and picked her up and began struggling towards the edge of the square, his other hand around my wrist. The crowds around us were surging and receding like the restless sea. A war veteran on two crutches, his medals jingling ridiculously, limped across our path at a run and fell to the ground. ‘Come on,’ said Leo. His fingers on my wrist were so tight that the pain was all I could think about. I stayed close behind them as Leo fought his way to the edge of the square and towards Trader’s Row.
Everyone was shouting, not only the Imperial Order. Traders we half knew from the markets had joined the stampeding crowd. And everywhere people were pulling out guns, in complete defiance of the king and all his laws. We struggled all the way to our door, then stumbled inside and slammed it behind us. Leo shot all the bolts home.
It was very quiet in the shop. My grandmother was pouring out tea in the back room. ‘Back so soon?’ she said. ‘I thought you would not stand this cold.’
Jasmine was crying, clinging to Leo’s jacket. ‘Are you all right?’ Leo said. ‘All of you? Are you hurt? Did I hurt your arm, Jasmine?’
She shook her head and went on crying.
‘What is all this fuss?’ said my grandmother.
‘There was trouble at the speech,’
my mother said. ‘The Imperial Order, rioting. And, Mother – there’s going to be an invasion. That’s how it looks.’
Nothing troubled my grandmother when you wanted her to be troubled. She made us sit down, and poured us out tea, and ignored the rioting outside. ‘You young people,’ she said, shaking her head at my mother’s and Leo’s stunned faces. ‘You think these things have never happened before.’
‘No,’ said my mother quietly. ‘No, I know that they have, and that’s why I’m frightened.’
‘We will weather this again, like we have in the past. That is life, Maria.’
‘We lost everything,’ said my mother, still in the same quiet voice. ‘We did not weather it so well, Mother, if you recall.’
My grandmother could not answer that. In her two-room apartment in Old College Lane was all the furniture she had managed to salvage from Cliff House. It stood there, out of place and self-conscious like the contents of Jared Wright’s shop, and the rest of their old life was history.
We all stood at the upstairs window and watched the crowds run unchecked through the streets. They did not stop until long after dark, and even then they would not be quieted.
‘Listen,’ said Jasmine when we were all sitting around the fire. ‘I’m going to draw a magic circle around us, and then no one can do us any harm.’
My grandmother frowned. ‘No, Jasmine,’ she said. ‘It’s wicked to play these games on a Sunday.’
‘Not games,’ said Jasmine. ‘It’s real. Look.’ She circled us slowly. ‘This line is magic, and no one can cross it. Uncle showed me.’
‘Does it work?’ said Leo.
‘If you believe in it,’ said Jasmine.
She completed the circle and sat down on the sofa beside my mother, one hand on her shoulder. My mother gave a quick start.
‘What is it?’ said Leo.
‘Nothing,’ said my mother. ‘Just the baby waking up.’
‘When he’s born,’ said Jasmine, ‘I’ll teach him too.’
‘Good heavens,’ said my grandmother. ‘If the child has powers, it will be more than a God-fearing person can stand.’
My mother sat up and stared into the fire. ‘What are you thinking?’ said Leo. But she would not answer.
And I know it was my imagination; I know no real great one can draw a magic circle. But after that moment, the crowds seemed more distant and their voices less hostile. And after that moment, the night began to grow calm.
The next night, just after darkness had fallen, Leo put on his coat and scarf and announced that he was going to the markets. ‘Can I come with you?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Leo. ‘Stay here.’
‘I don’t mind. You might need help carrying the things back.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ said Leo.
I was about to go down to the shop; he had just come up. Something about his voice made me uneasy, and I lingered at the top of the stairs.
‘It’s so cold,’ said my mother, getting up to kiss him. ‘Don’t be long, Leo.’
‘I won’t.’
She had been marking books on the sofa, and she still had Juliana’s arithmetic in her hand. Leo took it silently, placed it on the sofa, and closed his fingers on hers. Then he kissed her and said, ‘I’ll be back soon,’ and kissed her again, and once more. There was something about the way he did it that was not right. It was too fierce, and I could tell she noticed it too, because she watched us go down the stairs, a faint frown troubling her eyes and the arithmetic book left forgotten on the sofa.
‘Papa, will you be home in time for dinner?’ said Jasmine as he left.
‘I don’t know,’ said Leo.
‘I’m learning my play well now; I almost know it.’
‘Good,’ he said, and kissed her forehead. ‘That’s good.’
He turned and looked at me as though he was about to say something. Several times he almost did. Then he shook his head, and the next minute he was outside. The darkness took him quickly from our sight.
Jasmine glanced up at me, suddenly close to tears. ‘Something is wrong with Papa,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it?’
Fear gripped me. The way he had left was so strange that I could not dismiss it. ‘Shall I ask Mama about it?’ said Jasmine, halfway up the stairs already.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, don’t, Jas. Don’t worry her.’
‘Then what are we going to do? Anselm, I’m scared.’
‘I’ll go after him,’ I said. ‘I’ll just follow him and make sure that he’s all right.’
I threw on my jacket, and Jasmine ran to fetch my boots, as if it was urgent that I leave at once. I tied the laces hastily and half ran out of the door.
‘Anselm,’ she said as I left. ‘Be very careful.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said.
The cold showed no sign of relenting as I stepped out into the street. The very darkness seemed charged with ice. Leo had already disappeared round the corner. Mr Pascal appeared at the door of his shop, wanting to tell me the story of some solid silver lamp he had bought for almost nothing from a market trader with a wooden leg, but I made my excuses and left him. I ran for several yards, then caught sight of Leo and slowed. He was walking without urgency, both hands in his overcoat pockets and his head bowed against the wind. The cigarette in his mouth kept dying in the rising breeze.
It was strange to see him like that, when he did not know that I was walking after him and thought himself completely alone. He looked very young, in spite of his greying hair, and without any defence. Every few yards he would pause to light his cigarette again. I wanted to call his name, but I knew he would send me back at once. So I followed him in silence, under the streetlamps and back out again into the dark, along alleyways and across boarded yards and along the sides of inns where music played and people stamped their feet. I pulled the collar of my coat up high so that only my eyes could feel the cold. The streets were worse than freezing at nights. Leo was not walking towards the markets, I realized. He was heading towards Citadel Street.
I fell behind. He had a way of half glancing over his shoulder that made me constantly think he would discover me. Citadel Street was deserted anyway; I could not lose sight of him here. It was a dismal place tonight. The homeless and the dispossessed had set up camps in the empty houses. In one of them, a brazier was burning and twenty people or more stood huddled around it. A blackened painting still hung over the mantelpiece on the exposed back wall. Leo stopped in front of our old building and glanced up at the boarded windows. Then he tried the door. He went around to the side and struggled with that one too. He struggled for a long time, then gave up and rested his head against the red cross on the wood.
When he set out again, his steps were more definite, and I had to jog to keep up with him. The waste ground that surrounded Citadel Street was unlit and treacherous. We came out at last in an alleyway beside an inn. Leo shrank away from the lights of the windows and paused for a moment to light a cigarette.
In that moment, I heard someone else move. I did not dare to turn. But I suddenly knew that I was not the only one following Leo. Carefully, I edged into the doorway of the inn and pretended to be struggling with the buttons of my coat, as though to fasten it more tightly against the cold. In the corner of my vision, I could see a man in blue. He had not seen me. He was beside the nearest wall, with a gun raised in his hand.
I moved before I knew what was happening. I caught hold of Leo and pulled him through the doorway of the inn at the same moment the man in blue fired.
People shrieked and turned over their chairs as we fell into the inn. And then something happened that I swear saved both our lives. A group of men in red uniforms, sitting smoking in the back corner of the inn, got to their feet. ‘What’s going on?’ said the tallest, taking out a pistol.
‘It’s the Imperial Order,’ I said. ‘The man out there had a gun—’
The police picked up their rifles and stormed out into the street. Leo just lay where he was, staring at
the false chandeliers that hung from the beams. ‘Papa?’ I said. ‘Are you hurt?’
He turned over and saw me properly. He said nothing, just breathed fast and coughed and searched about him for a cigarette. Then he said, ‘Anselm, in God’s name, I told you not to come with me.’
‘He’s vanished,’ said the tall officer, appearing at the door again. ‘Do you have any idea who that man was?’
‘Someone from the Imperial Order,’ I said. ‘He had the uniform.’
‘Did you recognize him?’
‘I didn’t see his face.’
‘Please raise your hands,’ said another officer, training his rifle on us and squinting through his gold spectacles as though to intimidate us more completely. The inn had emptied by the other door; it was remarkable how quickly everyone had fled the scene. Even the barman had shut himself up in the back room. ‘Please raise your hands,’ the officer said again. ‘Let me see your papers.’
We had papers, but we never carried them. ‘We don’t have them with us,’ I said. ‘They are back at the shop.’
‘Names, then,’ said the officer with the spectacles.
Leo raised his hand to stop me from speaking and got slowly to his feet. ‘He had nothing to do with it,’ he said. ‘And I’m Leonard North.’
‘Leonard North of the North family?’ said the officer. ‘Aldebaran’s relative?’
‘Yes,’ said Leo.
‘Then we need to talk to you. You are supposed to have signed up for National Service. If you don’t come quietly now, you risk prosecution.’
‘But there are hundreds of other people—’ I began.
‘Shh,’ said Leo. ‘It’s fine; I’ll come. But one thing – you have to promise me.’
‘What is it?’ said the officer wearily. He was glancing at his unfinished glass of spirits on the table.
‘It has to be far away,’ said Leo. ‘Do you understand? And they can’t know. The Imperial Order can’t know. They are following me and threatening my family, and I’m afraid they are going to try something. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said the officer. They were putting on their jackets now and hastily finishing their abandoned drinks. ‘We will escort you to your house,’ said the officer. ‘You can collect a few things and leave by the next ship west, to the munitions factory on Holy Island. We will ensure the matter of the Imperial Order is looked into.’
Voices in the Dark Page 20