‘Oh, I know how you must feel. Try this. It’s a guaranteed pick-me-up. My own special recipe.’
A crystal glass the same no-colour of the ocean, and as cold and salt and deep. But I really did feel better after it—or at least different. And I became conscious as I sat in the sun of a figure further off at the edge of the headland, walking at the lip of the waves. Grey knee-length shorts, a tucked-in white blouse, hands in pockets, long hair and bare calves. The bathers were still laughing, splashing, arguing over the rules of some complicated game. No one else had noticed Anna Winters. The heat shimmered, dissolving her for a moment like the wind puffing out a flame. I got up. Moving quickly across this dry white sand was like running in a dream. It took me an Age to reach her.
‘D’you know what all this stuff is made of, Robbie?’ she asked without turning her head, still gazing out at the sea. ‘Classroom chalk. All of it. Isn’t that strange?’
I looked down at the blurred sand as I caught my breath. It was obvious now that she’d said it. ‘Why,’ I gasped, ‘wouldn’t you talk to me last night?’
‘Aren’t we talking now?’
Shaking my head, I felt Sadie’s potion swimming within my skull. ‘But you seemed so annoyed that I’d come here. And that thing you did to me last night, with the vase, the drink …’
‘You think you need help to behave like a clumsy drunk!’
‘I’d thought we were friends.’
‘You mean like you are with Sadie, or with George?’
‘They’re just people I happen to have met.’ I waved my hands. ‘At the end of the day, the people here are just like people everywhere else. In fact, they’re much worse because they just live and eat and drink and do nothing. I know that now, Anna. It’s probably the only thing I do know about them.’
‘I do wish you hadn’t come, Robbie. But at least you’re calling me Anna.’
‘And you really want me to leave?’
‘No. Not now. You’re here, aren’t you? And perhaps I was too harsh on you yesterday …’
Annalise stuffed her hands deeper inside her pockets. Her hair slid over her shoulders, the sunlight chasing up and down it with the pulse of the waves. A larger wave came rolling in, clear as glass, changing the angle of her legs. I felt my trousers go sodden to my knees.
‘I know it’s not your fault,’ she said as she started walking away from the bathers and towards a turn in the headland, her lovely head stooped in that way of hers, her face in profile against the sparkling water. ‘I don’t blame you for what you’ve done—or for your life. It’s nothing to do with your being a radical and a mart and not some wealthy Northcentral guildsman, as I know you’re probably thinking. These people are no better than you are, Robbie. I understand that as well. But you shouldn’t imagine that they’re worse than you either.’
‘You know I saw Mistress Summerton?’
‘Of course I know.’
‘And you know what she told me?’
‘I can imagine. That tale of hers and all those terrible things back in Brownheath and the death of my poor mother and how Missy saved me and raised me and did everything and that it’s really her money that still keeps me going. It must have taken most of the day, until you got up in that box in the Opera House to gawk down at me.’
‘It’s been part of my life, too, Anna—the things that happened. My mother was a friend of your mother’s. She died as well. It just took longer.’
‘I’m sorry. I know all of these things. But they’re in the past, aren’t they? We’re adults. We’ve made our own choices. That’s why we’re walking here now.’
We walked on, in the bright sunlight, beside the waves. Not so long ago, Anna, I thought, I’d probably have agreed with every word you said about the past being gone and finished. But not now. ‘I can’t help feeling,’ I said carefully, ‘that, after all we’ve shared without even knowing, we might be able to help each other ..
Annalise blinked slowly. Her eyelashes were as blond as her hair.
‘You think you know what I am, don’t you? That’s the place from where your problem comes. It was a pity, really, that I let you find me at the fair. Yes, it was fun at the time, but it was also a mistake …’ She shot me a look colder than the waves. ‘And now you come trailing after me with half-understood secrets.’
‘You’re different, Anna. How can you deny that?’
‘I don’t. But everyone’s different in their own different way.’
‘That’s just a riddle. You’re-’
‘What?’ She threw up her head, the sunlight thinning her limbs. ‘You mean, I’m like Missy? Or—who is that dreadful creature? Mister Snaith? Believe me, Robbie, you really don’t know! They’re not me!’ She waved her hands as if she was banishing something and the sea flashed dark through them. Then she stopped and turned. She held out her wrist. Of course, the Mark was there now. Its scab glinted on the pale inner curve of her wrist like a ruby.
‘This is me.’
I opened my mouth, but it filled only with the dull burrowing ache which I always felt in the presence of Anna, Annalise—whoever or whatever she wasn’t or was. That ache was growing even now as the wind picked up and drew a slash of hair across her face; it continued growing when I had thought it could grow no more and had already consumed me. But her lucent flesh; the very substance of Annalise. I could have studied it forever. Her veins were so fine I could see the living pulse within them like a darting blue fish. She let out a sigh and stamped her bare right foot in the waves and yanked her arm away from me.
‘You really are hopeless Robbie!’
‘But you could be so many things. You could have been anything! So why this?’
She turned and continued walking. Up ahead, the cliffs were divided by a steep vee. A pathway led up from the beach beside the stream which cascaded down from it, winding from side to side on neat little wooden bridges as we followed the ferny shadows. It was a chine, moist and cool and dark even on this hot morning.
‘Unlike you,’ she was saying as she walked briskly ahead and the water fell beneath us and pooled and fell again, ‘I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with simply being happy. And then in making happier the lives of the people who surround you. Your problem is that you imagine happiness is too easy, that it’s some cheap illusion to be scorned in favour of …’ Searching for the words, she glanced back at me. ‘Whatever it is that you want to bring down on us all, Robbie.’
Vegetation dripped. Mist rose. A rainbow hung in a shaft of sunlight. I half expected each turn to reveal the house of that imaginary aunt.
‘But it’s been a struggle sometimes, that I’ll have to admit. And I suppose I am different, or I could be if I let things get through to me. When I enter a room, I can feel people’s thoughts like the roar of this water. When I pass a haft, a building, a machine, I have to close my mind to it or else its spell comes tumbling into me. If I were to blur my eyes, if I were to open my ears and forget myself and let it all in, the whole world would overwhelm me. It’s like a madness. And I’m lost then. I’m like those poor creatures you hear about. The ones far worse than Missy whom they keep in St Blate’s. So why on earth should I want that? It’s a door which I’ve always striven to push shut.’
‘But you have power—’
‘—don’t talk to me about power!’ she snapped. ‘I want my life as it is. I still want to be Anna Winters. I want to be happy and ordinary …’ We had neared the top of the cliff. The path was levelling out. Ahead of us was a gate. Predictably, beyond that, and seeing as we’d walked less than a mile, lay some part of Walcote’s huge gardens. You could still see the house’s many rooftops from here, and the high white spire of the Turning Tower. ‘If you want power, Robbie,’ she muttered, ‘you should look over there.’
The stream which fed the chine fanned out. There were ponds and water-gardens. Huge fish, golden-armoured, ancient-eyed, nosed our reflections. With every new turn and surprise, I tried to imagine how this urn or archway
or that stretch of lawn might be put to better use in the coming New Age, but it was becoming difficult. This whole place had been designed to overwhelm.
‘And I’m still waiting for you to tell me,’ Anna opened the gate which led back down into the chine, ‘what’s wrong with being happy …’
‘Nothing. If that’s what you really are.’
We descended the winding paths back through the chine. The air down on the shore was midday hot. My feet dragged. My headache was returning.
‘Have you met Grandmaster and Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart?’ Anna shook her head. ‘Who are they?’
‘They’re here as guests. I thought they might—well, that doesn’t matter ..
We were drawing closer to the bathers again. They were still splashing, floating, playing.
Look! Is that Anna!
Yes, yes!
All the usual excited cries.
‘Everyone here seems to think the world of you,’ I said aimlessly.
Momentarily, Anna’s footsteps slowed and she nodded, seemingly pleased. If she has a weakness, I thought, it’s that she likes being liked. That’s why she puts up with me—that’s why she puts up with everything. Wet and ridiculous in their skimpy clothing, the bathers were rushing our way. I hung back and watched as they clustered around Anna, curious to see the exact nature of the trick she was performing. But in this different world she’d created, which was suddenly as real as the noontime heat, Anna radiated nothing more than happiness, and the guileless mystery of being what she was, which is something few of us can manage.
I sat down on the sand. The game the bathers had long been trying to play took shape now that Anna was here to urge them on, quietly directing from the edge of the waves, although, like me, she didn’t swim. Her friends suddenly looked graceful as mermaids as they swam and dived and chased each other. Finally, the morning had to end and, wrapped in towels, dropping soggy bits of swimsuit which the stooping servants collected for them, they performed the extraordinary dance of getting changed. Sadie, ruffled and damp in an expensive daydress, sat down beside me.
‘Makes a difference, our Anna, doesn’t she? Always has.’
Anna was talking to Highermaster George now. She’d taken off her sandals, although she’d managed to walk with me beside the waves without getting them wet, and dangled them by their straps. When she bent down to put them back on, I saw George’s hand trace the line of her back. My heart dropped, and then started pounding, as I watched him and Anna head up the steps towards the house.
‘Hey, you all!’ A plumy-voiced shout. A young guildsman—one of last night’s gathering around the piano—was standing over a rockpool, water trickling from his hands. He was holding something tiny and alive. ‘Look what I’ve just found!’ He gave a barking laugh. ‘It’s another of Sadie’s discoveries!’
Throughout the rest of the day, Walcote House continued awakening. There was an archery competition. Folk dances were performed on the lawns by charmingly dressed children of the local guilds. There were raffles and treasure hunts. In a brass and leather library there were crisply ironed copies of today’s Guild Times, which was filled with more strikes and lockouts, although the Times called them insurrections and necessary precautions. But from here, with the smell of sunlight on old hide, none of it, not even London itself, seemed real.
Back in my room, I lay on my fourposter bed and stroked the fine wood and rubbed at the dragging pain in my temples. Framed on the wall was a list of the charities this shiftend was supposed to benefit. The Distressed Guildswoman’s Fund, The Society for the Restitution of Chimneysweeps, The Manx Home for Old Horses, Emily’s Waifs and Strays—even St Blate’s Hospice and Asylum; it covered every imaginable kind of misfortune. And out on the lawns, guests were buying raffle tickets, attempting impossible tasks for a wager or slipping rolled ten pound notes into silver boxes. After their efforts, it was hard to believe that anyone could ever suffer from poverty, disease …
I prowled the corridors. Lunch had passed without any clear signal for food, and the breakfast rooms were empty. There were wandering groups of guests on the lawns, playful or quiet or conspiratory. OneofSadiesdiscoveries. But I had no idea where Sadie was—or Highermaster George and Annalise, although it was hard for me now not to picture the two of them together. There were lakes beyond the lawns, glades, walks enough for a thousand lovers. And there was nothing in Westminster Great Park to compare to these trees. Fire aspen and perilinden. Sallow and cedarstone. Their leaves chimed and rustled above me, their shadows made tapestries, their scents and colours carried on a hectic breeze. But I was sick of wonders, and I felt nauseous and hungry. Eventually, I found some cakes to eat at a charity stall, although the woman who served me gave a disappointed chirp when I only paid the sixpence she asked for.
Evening came. The lawns quietened. It was the time for the guests to change. After my performance last night, the prospect of an even bigger occasion sounded ominous. I decided to ignore the trays of drinks. But what was I going as? I’d heard that question several times today, but I had no idea what it meant. Still nursing my headache as Walcote House grew louder and brighter, I headed towards the long shadows of the hedges.
‘All you ever do is bloody nag …’
‘You said I looked marvellous ten minutes ago.’
The voices came from beyond the hedge. Imagining they were alone in these gardens, Grandmaster and Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart had dropped all southern pretence from their vowels. I kept pace with them on the far side of the hedge. Like all long-married couples, the Bowdly-Smarts could keep an argument running indefinitely. I felt almost nostalgic—it had been a long time since I’d heard such phrases through the thin walls on Brickyard Row. I scurried ahead to a gap in the hedge and rounded it as the Bowdly-Smarts came into view, although they were still too deep in their argument to notice me. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that it was the Bowdly-Smarts—let alone the Stropcocks. The two figures walking the shadowed side of the path which lay between the trimmed hedges could have stepped out of the Age of Kings. He wore a crown, an ermine cloak. She had a wimple on her head, and was carrying the long train of a red dress. Only their tart, bitter voices remained.
‘Then, bugger me if you don’t ..
I cleared my throat. They looked up, stiffened, headed on towards me in silence.
‘Charming weather, don’t you think?’ Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart’s other voice was back. They were planning to head straight past me until I got in their way.
‘I’m Master Robert.’ Between the crown and a small fake goatee beard, Grandmaster Bowdly-Smart still had that same hard, appraising look in his eyes as he studied my offered hand in the moment before he took it. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed to stare at you this morning,’ I said as his rings dug into me, ‘I thought I recognised you, but I was wrong. You know how it is sometimes.’
‘Bet you get to see a lot of faces in your line of work,’ he growled, wiping his hand on his ermine. ‘Whatever that is.’ He plainly recognised me as well, in the sense of knowing that I didn’t belong here.
I glanced at his wife. She was wearing an excited expression. ‘I know what it is …’ Her hand shot out to grab my wrist. ‘You were there, weren’t you? How silly of us both not to realise! That little gathering of seekers at Tamsen House.’
I gazed at her. ‘Tamsen House?’
‘Oh—you know! On Linden Avenue. With Mister Snaith!’
‘Ah … Yes, I was.’ After all, Grandmistress Sadie Passington had been there. So why not Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart as well?
She beamed at me. ‘My darling husband here, he doesn’t understand. Everything has to be business.’
‘I think we should get going,’ Grandmaster Bowdly-Smart put in through his wife’s twitterings.
‘You will accompany us, won’t you, Master Robert?’ Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart twittered. ‘I think it’s time for the wishfish.’
‘The … ?’
But the Bowdly-Smarts were already
striding off, he in his kingly cloak, she in her wimple. Was it possible to shift so completely from one identity to another? But in a white courtyard, beneath a pink evening sky, clusters of other guests at least as strangely dressed as the Bowdly-Smarts were now drifting. There were middle-aged pirates and angels, plump tropic savages, classical scholars with laurel leaves stuck on their balding heads. The centre of attention was circular marble fishpond beside which a tall guildsman was handing out crystal cups. Peering into the pond, I saw small fish darting. One of the guests, a red-faced demon, chased his cup through the waters, inspected its contents to be sure that it contained a fish, then gulped it down. A few moments later, one of the pirates did the same. The Bowdly-Smarts were next. In Bracebridge, this would have been a story too wild to be believed. But an odd thing happened as Master Bowdly-Smart worked his stringy throat. His beard somehow became less fake. The fine clothes and crown made a better fit on him. Even his features, although still noticeably ratlike, were indefinably changed. And his wife looked almost graceful too, in fact—yes—queenly now that she had drunk her wishfish as well. Even her accent had improved. One of the pirates was now performing a convincingly athletic jig as he left the courtyard to the tooting of his shipmate’s pipe. Dressed as I was in my scruffy black jacket, I decided to give this a try.
I slipped a cup beneath the chill surface of the water. The fish were translucent, but seemed eager to be caught. One was in my cup as I raised it; its tiny gills pumping, an aether-bright stripe along its back. The water had no scent, and no obvious taste. But I felt something slick and living slide over my tongue. I glanced around. The Bowdly-Smarts had drifted away and the pirates had been replaced by a troop of elderly ballerinas. Back outside in the grounds, tall mirrors within which the guests could inspect themselves dangled flashing from the trees. I saw a dark-suited form emerging from the twilight. But he seemed taller, older, far darker and more powerful than me. Something in my stomach jittered. It took an effort of will for me to approach the mirror. Not Robbie, no; nor Robert or Master Borrows, nor quite any of the other versions of me. The evening air stirred, turning the mirrors, silvering the trees. That dark jacket, the lean cut of my body, that gaze, which was somehow both merciless and knowing. My hands touched my sharp cuffs and brushed the planes of my face, which were smooth and warm as aethered metal, although it had been hours since I had shaved.
The Light Ages Page 26