She capped her fountain pen with a snap and handed me the card, now covered with sloping black copperplate, written with the finest nib I’d ever seen.
‘Take a cab to Vauxhall Bridge and follow these directions,’ she said. Then she bent and, with surprising tenderness, kissed my cheek. ‘Goodbye, my dear. I am so very pleased you have found us. I only hope we can make a fresh start. Heaven knows I was not a perfect mother, but perhaps I can be a better grandmother.’
And then she was gone, leaving only a trace of a curiously bitter perfume, which hung like incense in the air, and the lipstick stain on her bone-china teacup.
For a moment I just stood, foolishly, and then I began to pick up my bags and find my way out. The mâitre d’hôtel approached me as I made my way through the tables and a sudden, dreadful thought struck me – Emmaline’s remark about being stuck with the bill rose up in my head and I had to repress the urge to giggle hysterically. What would I do? I had no money. I did have my cash card but would they let me out to go to an ATM?
‘I’m so sorry,’ I began nervously. ‘My grandmother just left and – you’ll think this is so silly – but I’ve just discovered I don’t have enough cash to pay the bill and—’
‘Please don’t concern yourself, Miss Winterson,’ the man interrupted. ‘It has been added to Mrs Rokewood’s account. I merely wished to enquire whether you would like to rest in the ladies’ lounge, or whether I can arrange for a taxi to take you anywhere. The expenses will be charged to your grandmother’s account, naturally,’ he added, as he saw me looking doubtful.
I was tempted, very tempted. I’d been walking round London all day and I was tired and footsore. But it seemed too strange to start spending my grandmother’s money and I shook my head.
‘No, no thank you. But if you could show me somewhere I could make a phone call …’
‘Certainly.’ He ushered me through a lobby and into a small drawing room, furnished with a desk, a fireplace and a row of bookshelves. ‘Please, remain here for as long as you need to. I will ensure you are not disturbed. The telephone is on the desk.’
He shut the door behind him. It closed with an expensive-sounding clunk and I was alone.
I looked at the phone – a faux-antique gold thing with a turn dial – but I wasn’t sure whether it would need a charge card, or how to get an outside line, and in the end I just pulled my mobile out of my pocket and dialled the house number.
It rang and rang, and I tapped my foot, waiting for Dad to hear the ringer and pick up. He was probably closeted in the kitchen cooking supper, but still … He often said he was going deaf in his old age. Maybe it was true. At last the answerphone kicked in.
‘Uh … Hi, Dad. Are you there? Pick up if you’re there. OK, well, I’m stopping in London for supper so don’t worry about cooking for me. I’ll catch the nine o’clock train so … well, don’t wait up. I’ll get a cab from the station, don’t worry.’
Then I tried his mobile in case he was out and about. It went straight to answerphone but that wasn’t surprising; there was no reception at the house. I left another message, just in case, and hung up. Then I went out into the cool London twilight, twinkling with the yellow lights of shops and cars.
When I got off the tube at Pimlico it was quite, quite dark. I clip-clopped my way down Vauxhall Bridge Road in the new pair of shoes I’d bought from Topshop in an effort to make my jeans look like something more than Saturday slob-wear. I couldn’t afford a whole new outfit, but the heels at least made me feel like I was smart from the ankles down. I’d have to change back into my walking boots on the train home though, or risk breaking a leg on the walk back.
At Vauxhall Bridge I stopped, fished in my pocket and found Elizabeth’s card. It was cold on the bridge, the winter wind howling along the Thames and straight through my thin anorak. My hair whipped around my face, obscuring my vision as I tried to read the spidery black writing on the little card.
‘Go to the centre of the bridge,’ I read. ‘Stand above the second pier, downstream, statue of Fine Arts. When bridge …’
The last few words were in even smaller writing, cramped into the corner where she had run out of room. I couldn’t read it in the dim light, but there was a streetlamp halfway along the bridge so I began to make my way along until I stood by the second pier, under the lamp. I leant over the edge, trying to ignore the black water greasily swirling around the foot of the pier, and saw that I was standing above a black iron statue – of what, I couldn’t quite tell, but I was quite prepared to believe that it represented Fine Arts. I angled the card to the light again and the lamp flashed off the little embossed bird. Again it reminded me of something hovering just at the edge of my memory – but whatever it was eluded me and I peered instead at the narrow slanting letters cramped into the corner of the card. When bridge … empties? Yes, that looked right. The next word was even smaller, just three or four letters. When bridge empties, jump.
No, that couldn’t be right. I angled the card again and then had an idea and got my mobile out of my pocket. I turned on the screen and shone it at the card. The word leapt out, clear and bold and unmistakable. Jump.
What was this – some kind of joke? A test? What would I find down there? I looked down at the black waters, sucking and eddying at the grimy concrete, and shuddered. I was pretty sure what I’d find down there; used needles, condoms, shopping trolleys, various dysenteric bacterium. Yum.
I could turn back – I could go back to Winter and leave my grandmother waiting, and my questions unanswered, and my yearning for a family and a link with my mother unassuaged. Yes, I could turn back.
But that would make me a coward.
The parapet was curiously low, with no real safety barrier. There was even, improbably, a little ledge to help you climb up. I put one foot on the ledge and the other on the parapet, and looked up and down the bridge. It was empty of traffic, not a pedestrian in sight on this chilly winter’s night. The office windows reflected back at me blankly and the black waters swirled beneath.
I took a deep breath – and jumped.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I hit the river with a smack that knocked the breath out of me – and then the swirling grey-green waters closed over my head. The current seized me straight away, turning and buffeting and dragging me until I had no idea which way was up, whether I was swimming or falling, or drifting or diving, or whether I would ever surface again. My lungs protested and my eyes filled with scratching silt and murk – but just as I was beginning to wonder if this had all been a huge mistake, I saw concrete steps shimmer out of the murk and a steel door lit by a bare, unshaded lightbulb that swung in the current.
My feet in their stupid heels hit something hard and, as I stumbled, I was half aware of the swirling waters, but also of tumbling painfully down a short concrete staircase and hitting the floor at the bottom with a thump that ripped my jeans and took the skin off one knee.
I stood up painfully and looked about me. I was at the foot of a flight of concrete steps, in a subterranean corridor. It might have been the underground car park of an office block. There was a smell of damp and the sound of water dripping somewhere far off – but my clothes and hair were dry. The only sign of the river was a piece of weed stuck to my shoe.
I shook it off and turned to the door. There was no handle and no lock, only an intercom grille with a button. I glanced behind me, back up the stairs, but they disappeared into nothing – the way back cut off by a slab of concrete. There was nothing for it. I pressed the buzzer.
‘May I help you?’ The disembodied voice that came from the intercom was crisply polite.
‘Er, yes … um, Anna Winterson. I’m here to see Elizabeth Rokewood.’
‘Come in please, miss. Push the door when the buzzer sounds.’ There was a click and the intercom went silent. Then the buzzer sounded, horribly jarring in the silent corridor, and I pushed and entered.
I was in a softly lit entry hall, lined with walnut panels that r
eflected the lamps set in sconces around the walls. A tall, grave man dressed in an undertaker’s suit was standing behind a little desk and looked up as I entered.
‘Miss Winterson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sign in, please, and then take a seat.’ He pushed a huge leatherbound tome over the desk and a pen, and I signed my name in the column marked Name and wrote ‘Elizabeth Rokewood’ in the column headed Visiting.
The tall man showed me to a bench against the wall and I sat and waited, resisting the urge to bite my nails nervously and trying to ignore the pain in my skinned knee. The building was very hushed, but not quiet – people moved purposefully up and down the hallway, their feet whispering on the soft, thick carpet. Office doors opened and closed, punctuated by the occasional deferential knock. So far, it could have been just a particularly luxurious department of the Civil Service, but the longer I sat, the more I noticed the extravagant magic underpinning everything.
There seemed to be no electricity, for instance. Heat came from fireplaces in every room, yet the flickering light in the sconces around the walls was not electric light or candlelight, but a white witchlight that burnt with a perpetual, smokeless flame. When an office junior dropped a cup of coffee with an exclamation of annoyance, the stain simply vanished into the thick carpet, which moments later was just as clean and dry as before.
The more I looked, the more I saw. Trolleys moving silently under their own steam, tropical plants thriving in a sunless room. A panelled door which opened once, to reveal a small coat closet, and then a second time, to show a glimpse of endless rows of books shimmering into darkness. I thought of Maya and how disgusted she would be at this profligate waste of magic – part of me was shocked myself, but I was impressed too, at the huge pulsing flow of power running so quietly around us.
I was so caught up that I jumped when a woman in a smart grey suit halted in front of me, smiling.
‘Anna?’
‘Yes.’ My voice was croaky with nerves and I coughed and repeated, ‘Yes.’
‘I’m Miss Vane. Your grandmother has been slightly delayed. She’s asked me to show you to her office while you wait – I expect you’d like to wash and change your clothes if you’ve been travelling all day.’ I stood up, wondering how to mention that changing my clothes wasn’t exactly an option – unless she meant putting my walking boots back on. But she was already starting down the corridor and I had to trot to keep up.
‘Library,’ she announced crisply as we passed a set of tall double doors. ‘Dining room … conservatory … speaker’s chamber … and here is your grandmother’s office.’ She knocked perfunctorily and then opened the door to a comfortable room furnished with an oak desk and a selection of chairs. There was a Chesterfield sofa in front of a low fire, and Persian rugs on the floor. The walls were hung with delicate watercolours of landscapes and flowers, except for one painting in oils above the desk. It showed a man I’d never seen with a hawklike nose and a shock of dark hair. Henry Rokewood read the plaque beneath. Well, well. Hi, Grandad.
To my surprise, a pile of clothes lay spread out on the coffee table in front of the fire. They looked quite out of place and I was just wondering what they were doing there when Miss Vane picked up a hanger and held it up appraisingly.
‘Your grandmother of course realized that you weren’t prepared for formal dining when you came up to London, so she asked me to pick up some suitable clothes. I had to guess your size – and your taste, of course – but I hope you’ll find something that suits, and please feel free to discard any that don’t appeal. I’ll leave you to change,’ she added, and slipped out of the door, closing it with a click behind her.
After she was gone I stared around the office for a moment and then shook myself and began to leaf through the pile of clothes. They were all labels I recognized – the Winter newsagent stocked Vogue just to mock us – but I’d never imagined wearing any of them. I had a horrible feeling that each garment probably cost more than the entirety of my wardrobe.
The idea of taking off my clothes in this plushy office was frankly weird, but I shoved a chair under the door handle and peeled off my jeans and Seth’s shirt as quickly and modestly as possible. The first dress I tried on was a sooty cashmere sheath that made me look like an extra from a Bond movie and the next was a slinky rose satin number that displayed an alarming amount of my non-existent cleavage.
Then I found a grey silk shift dress, cut on the bias. It was incredibly simple – just a tunic really – but it gave me curves I’d never seen before and the fabric flowed seductively over my hips like cool water. It was utterly, utterly lovely. I loosed my hair and let it fall around my shoulders, and wished that Seth could see me – in this dress I could almost do him justice.
A sudden knock at the door made me jump and I pulled away the chair and opened it to find Miss Vane outside.
‘Are you ready, Anna?’
I stuffed my clothes into the Topshop bag and left it in the corner of the sofa, then picked up my handbag.
‘Yes, quite ready, thank you.’
My grandmother was waiting in the dining room when we entered and she stood up from her seat with a smile.
‘Anna, dear. You look lovely. Thank you, Miss Vane, that will be all tonight.’
‘Goodnight then, ma’am.’ Miss Vane inclined her head, not quite a curtsey but not far off. ‘Anna.’
I sat nervously in the chair that my grandmother indicated and spread a napkin on my immaculate grey silk lap. The room was filled with small tables of twos and threes, eating and drinking and talking in low voices. A waiter came up and my grandmother glanced at a small card on the table.
‘Hmm … Let me see, Wilson. I think we’ll have watercress soup, followed by the lemon sole. With … pommes boulangères and wilted cavolo nero. Does that sound all right, Anna dear?’
I nodded, too overawed to speak.
‘And a half bottle of the Gosset Grand Reserve. Do you like champagne, Anna?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I murmured.
‘Very good, ma’am.’ The waiter gave a half-bow and retreated and my grandmother put her chin in her hands and looked at me over the flickering candle between us.
‘Oh, my dear … you look astonishingly like your mother in this light. Her eyes were just as beautiful. How old are you?’
‘Seventeen,’ I said automatically, and then realized that wasn’t true. It seemed too complicated to explain.
‘I bitterly reproach myself for all the years you were lost to me, to us. I was wrong, I realize that now, in my approach. But I never guessed how mortally offended Isabella would be, the lengths she would go to.’ She sighed and I fought the urge to reach across the table and touch her gnarled, bejewelled hand.
‘Well, we can’t undo the past, heaven knows.’ She seemed to shake herself out of her introspection. ‘Tell me about yourself, Anna. What are your interests?’
‘Well, I like reading,’ I said nervously. ‘Um, I’m hoping to go to university and study English. I’m doing English, Maths, French and Classics for A level. Er, that’s kind of it really. I’m not very sporty – I don’t do much in the way of extra-curricular stuff.’
‘That’s very nice,’ my grandmother said, and I saw that she was suppressing a smile. ‘But I meant magically. What are your strengths?’
‘Oh! I have no idea.’
‘No idea? You mean, you’re not studying?’
‘No.’ I shook my head.
‘But that’s abominable! I can see from a glance the power you have! Show me something – something simple. Let me see … This glass of water.’ She held up a crystal glass. ‘Can you turn it to ice?’
‘What – here?’ I looked around the crowded room in shock. Again her lips thinned in a smile.
‘My dear, we are all the same here. You need not hide your power among friends.’
‘Oh!’ Of course. It was obvious when you thought of it. But still, I was reluctant.
‘I don’t know �
�� I’m not very … very practised.’
‘Please.’ She tapped the glass with a finger, her ring making it chime like a bell. ‘Please try. For me.’
I bit my lip, but there was no way out without seeming rude – and a part of me did want to show her that I had some power. And here, at least, I would be safe. I could let my magic bubble out, unworried about exposing myself or hurting passing outwith. ‘Oh … all right,’ I said at last. ‘I’ll try.’
I set the glass on the table and let my power flow out towards it, thinking of cold, of ice, of snow and hail and winter and …
It was coming – it was coming too fast, too forcefully. I tried to pull back, but too late – the glass shattered with a noise like a gunshot, shards of crystal splintering away from the frozen chunk of water. There were echoing cracks and crashes all around the room. Cries of alarm, shouts of pain – plates shattering, glasses cracking, as the cold flowed unstoppably out, turning everything to ice: the wine in the glasses, the vases of flowers on the mantle, the huge tureen of soup on the sideboard. I whimpered and strove to control it. I had it reined in within seconds, but seconds was all it had taken to devastate the room.
‘Stop! Stop!’ My grandmother cried.
‘I’m so sorry!’ I cowered in my chair, holding myself as if to stop the power escaping any further. ‘I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean … It’s all my fault. I can’t …’ I wanted to sink through the floor with shame and horror. What had I done?
‘Goodness me!’ My grandmother brushed shattered glass off her lap. ‘Well, you can’t say I didn’t ask for that.’
I couldn’t meet her eyes, but when she said, ‘Darling, look at me when I’m speaking to you,’ I could hardly refuse. And when I looked up, her face was unconcerned, even amused.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered.
‘Don’t be silly, Anna.’ Her voice was crisp. ‘It was my fault for not realizing quite how strong you evidently are. And, possibly, for choosing a less-than-wise test of your powers.’
A Witch in Love Page 14