The Amber Shadows

by Lucy Ribchester

  She was shaking her head. Trembling so violently that her mother reached across and grabbed her. She could never return to the Park. Surely, surely they would know. Tiver knew about the Enemy Alien camp and he had deceived her. Now, she knew, he had deceived her to keep her obedience. It was an insult, to think that she would take vengeance on innocent people, punish the government for the sake of a man she had never met. But was it so foolish? For those brief moments when the amber had come from him, his presence had been so vivid to her that had he reached out, like the wings, like the feather of the firebird, she could have followed him across Europe to his exile, just to stand and face him, and try to see who he was.

  Her mother waited until she locked eyes with her. ‘There is a reason we gave you the name we did. Not the short version, Honey, but the real one. And it’s who you are.’

  Honey waited until she felt she could breathe again. Her eyes closed in a long blink. The tears, the worry, it was exhausting.

  ‘He’s not out there.’

  Martha shook her head sadly. ‘Honey. He died in the British prison camp.’

  ‘How do you know they didn’t make a mistake?’ Her voice grew thin – as if it was coming from inside the tinny gramophone.

  ‘They didn’t make a mistake.’

  ‘How did they know how to find him? If he had changed his name to Kitts?’

  At this Martha took hold of her daughter’s hand again, but tenderly this time like the stems of a bouquet of flowers in her long-fingered grasp. The other hand she put through her slick hair. She sighed, but this time it wasn’t theatrical. ‘The reason he was taken was that he wouldn’t change his name. He was dogged about that. He didn’t think it right that he had to. I changed yours because I couldn’t have children growing up in this country with a foreign name.’

  ‘But. . .’ Honey stammered, disbelieving. ‘Henry? Henri Deschamps. He has as foreign a name as can be.’

  ‘Yes, my darling, but the right sort of foreign.’

  Chapter 20

  Martha stood up and went over to a silver tray, where a bottle of something bronze stood next to a trio of glasses. She pointed the neck towards Honey but Honey shook her head.

  ‘If only you’d told me what happened to him,’ said Honey quietly, watching her mother pour herself a drink, and then the path of the short glass travelling to her large red mouth. ‘I think I had a picture of him in dribs and drabs and—’

  ‘Because no one ever says what they mean in Britain. How many children – how many people at the Park do you think know the real story of their parents? Oh, you might think you have an idea. An idea is enough, sometimes.’

  Honey watched her mother. For the first time, she thought she could see beyond the glamour and the drama. Martha had made herself in the image the world wanted to see: silk fabrics and a bellowing, haunting voice. And she stuck rigidly to her persona. There was no place in it for Ian Kurtz. But she had learned from the operas she sang too. She knew how to take the path of least pain.

  Martha picked up a side panel. ‘I don’t think this is real amber. The smell is too strong for starters, and . . .’ She grabbed the firebird. ‘This, on the other hand. This is . . . Look.’ She breezed into the bedroom. As she passed Honey, her trousers braced the air like ship’s sails. Honey heard fiddling sounds coming from the dressing table, a drawer being opened. Martha returned holding a velvet box.

  ‘Now this is amber. You can see the way the veins and bubbles work. They’re all different sizes.’ She held up a huge brooch set in grubby pewter. ‘It needs a clean of course, I never wear the damned thing, it belonged to an aunt of Henry’s. But do you see? There’s intricacy there, the way the resin has settled.’ She sat down next to Honey. ‘I know these panels are carved so you can’t see properly but. . .’ She picked up the bird again to compare. ‘This bird I think is real amber. But it’s as if whoever made it couldn’t afford, or didn’t have the materials, to make a whole whatever it is, clock, music box . . .’

  ‘Music box?’ Honey’s head snapped to her mother’s gaze. She grabbed the pieces and assembled them into their shape, slotting the side panels into their tracks, balancing the bird in front of the mechanics. But with the final piece missing it was impossible to turn the cogs. She looked at the piece of paper Piotr had written on, and read aloud the quote. ‘“To get mixed up in politics is ruination for art.” Who said that?’

  Martha’s head flicked up and though she composed herself almost instantly, Honey caught the dark quick lines on her face, before they vanished.

  ‘Who gave you these pieces?’

  ‘They came in the post.’

  ‘It’s impossible. Impossible.’

  Smudges of the things Dickie had told her, the wall of memories she had built around herself, that had dissolved a few minutes ago; she saw again little flecks of colour coming back into view.

  ‘That was what Ian said when they came for him. I still remember the bang, bang on the door. He said it to the agents who took him away. And then Dickie, at his tribunal . . . He said it at his CO tribunal when they asked why he was objecting. And I thought he said it deliberately, to spite me, to make me think of . . . It’s a quote by—’

  They said it together: ‘Stravinsky.’

  ‘Of course,’ murmured Honey.

  Dickie said, Dickie said . . . Dickie was a child. He always had been.

  Martha sat back on the chaise and began picking at the edges of the shawl, pulling one little thread free so the others bunched up around it. ‘Do you know it was me who met Stravinsky, not Ivan, Ian. Can you imagine that? It was in Paris, a couple of times actually. I didn’t like him very much, but then you know how I feel about composers. Of course it’s not enough, though, is it, to have your mother give you your identity, your talent, your heritage. Your mother can’t even give you your name, can she? It all has to come from the father, otherwise it’s not valid.’ The line of her mouth was bitter. ‘Stravinsky would have hated your father, you know, hated him to bits. Not because Ivan composed terrible music – though he did, he was one of those men who confuse nonsense with profundity. But because Stravinsky is a raging xenophobe – he hates Germans, isn’t that a bit ironic for you? He would have hated Dickie and you.’

  ‘Do you think Dickie sent these?’ Honey asked tentatively.

  ‘No,’ Martha said straight away.

  ‘But how can you tell? Who else . . .? He’s the only one who knows that story.’ Honey sat down on the hard wood of the floor. For the first time the amber slices looked malevolent, burnt, orange and false. It all came back to those three possibilities, now the first, the one she wanted to believe, had been shattered. So someone at Bletchley was trying to test her then, to see if she was trustworthy, and would disclose the secret of the gifts. If that were so she was balancing on a knife edge for she had told Tiver about the amber but not the ciphers.

  Or the third option. Now she began to picture in her mind Dickie; Dickie and his fairytales about the firebird and the prince and the shape-shifting wolves, sitting with the mirth barely contained in his body as he moulded, shaped and carved the amber and smeared on the wax. Perhaps it was true; perhaps it was a horrible coincidence that night; he had been murdered by thieves after all, his body dumped. What was the alternative?

  She saw the ritual of the patterned Easter eggs, their childhood ritual of making things for one another.

  She stood up and went over to the window. The light was gloomy but she could make out the barricaded beach below. The tide was far out. In the distance, a speck was moving at lightning pace, charging to and from the water. It took her a few seconds to realise it was an airborne dog. He ran so fast all four of his legs left the ground, splayed long in each fresh gallop, then tucked together under him. She saw the other speck then too, standing by, throwing a stone every now and then. The dog ran furiously. He doesn’t have a care in the world, she thought. He doesn’t know there is a war on. He doesn’t have to change his name if he fathers offspr
ing. No one will put him in a locked box for having the wrong name.

  The song on the gramophone stopped. After a beat of two seconds, it began again. Martha had a record player that jumped back to the start of the record when a song ended. Dickie had loved to hear things again and again too. She listened to a few seconds of the warble, up and down, then pulled the needle off abruptly.

  ‘Shall we walk on the beach?’ she said.

  ‘The beach? What beach? You mean venture beyond the sandbags? I don’t think so, it’s not very safe.’

  ‘The promenade then.’

  In their coats, with the wind on their faces, Honey felt a wakefulness that seemed to shift things into perspective. They could see the hulking forms of ships on the horizon, huge liners. The Arandora Star, that was what it had been called, the ship that had sunk into the sea two years ago, carrying ‘Enemy Aliens’ into exile. They were headed for prison camps in Canada. Italians too, this time round, were being taken away. Pianists, cafe owners, doctors. ‘ Collar the lot. ’ It was rumoured that when the ship started to sink, the British soldiers shot holes in the lifeboats.

  They talked in small loaded bursts as they walked. They spoke about the funeral for Dickie, of the songs that would be played, of the importance of choosing the right casket because he had a fondness for elm, of the amount of work coffin makers must be landed with because of the war, of the gratitude that she, Martha, felt for at least having her son’s bones, and of his death being no less pointless than any other death at sea or on land. Martha was not angry. There was a quietness to her misery instead.

  They passed a photographer with a heavy flash lamp offering cut-price Christmas snaps for young couples. They passed the posters that had ‘Martha Deschamps’ crossed out. There was a baker’s shop with a ‘guess-the-weight’ competition for the Christmas cake in the window, advertised as ‘made with real eggs and marzipan’ and it made Honey think of the egg she had stolen for Dickie, and whether he had eaten it, and the cobnut saccharine experiment the Wrens had given her in the beer hut the day after she received the first amber.

  And where was the missing piece? The firebird still wouldn’t sit in its hole because of a piece that she now might never have.

  She looked up to see Felix on the other side of the sand-bags. They watched him pick up a stone, throw it for the dog, and begin to run at a clip, clumsy in his town shoes on the mucky shale.

  ‘Felix,’ Honey called. The wind must have carried her voice away for he didn’t turn. In fact he sped up, bolting along with the dog. Nijinsky leapt at him, spraying sea mud onto his coat. ‘Felix,’ she called again, louder.

  ‘Do you know that man?’

  ‘He works alongside me,’ she said. ‘Sort of, in another department. Felix!’ She turned back to her mother. ‘He drove me down in a borrowed truck with the dog.’ She stopped herself before saying, ‘He was the one who first gave me the amber,’ though she didn’t quite know why. ‘Hold on.’ Honey grabbed a fistful of her skirt and clambered over the sandbags, hearing her mother’s howls of disapproval.

  She lurched on her feet as she tried to find purchase on the stones, then, settling into a rhythm, jogged towards Felix. When he was close enough that there was no doubt he could hear her she called again. ‘Felix!’

  He stopped at once and brushed down his coat before he turned. He was panting. Salt wind had pushed the hair on his brow backwards and set a glimmer going in his eyes.

  ‘Were you shouting me for long?’ he called across the twilight, labouring his breaths. The dog still thought it was a game and leapt at him but now he pushed its muzzle away and began to walk towards Honey.

  ‘I’ll just go back to the truck and wait, shall I?’ he asked.

  ‘Come over and say hello to her at least.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s right.’

  ‘What on earth—’

  ‘It’s not appropriate, I mean.’

  But Martha Deschamps, having forgotten already her chastisements of her daughter, had rolled up the legs of her billowing trousers and was reconnecting with the tough mettle that had once seen her take a train to Paris with nothing but a suitcase. She climbed the sandbag wall and began to take the shale in huge strides.

  ‘Look, she’s coming over. I just want you to say hello.’

  Martha’s arm was outstretched when she was still five paces away, with that confidence she always had that the person she was greeting would want to touch her hand. She pasted on a large smile and jigged Felix’s palm tightly.

  ‘You drove my daughter down. Very kind of you.’

  Felix muttered an apology for the loss.

  Martha’s head was cocked to one side. ‘Do you know the way you walk, it’s so very like a boy I remember. One who used to do the stage sets at the Royal Opera House. Do you remember, Honey, Freddie Mox. God knows what age he’d be now. Same as Dickie I suppose, poor boy.’

  ‘His name is Plaidstow,’ Honey said.

  Felix and her mother were staring at one another, both frozen in curiosity.

  ‘Isn’t it, Felix?’ said Honey.

  He hesitated. ‘Plaidstow,’ he said. ‘That’s right. I don’t know anyone called Mox. I haven’t a brother either. Or a cousin of that name, for that matter.’

  ‘Yes, of course, it’s a funny thing when you think you recognise someone, especially now. This fellow, I remember him because he was a tremendous carpenter. He was only a boy, a few years older than Honey. Honey, you must remember Freddie Mox.’

  ‘I don’t remember ever visiting you at the theatre,’ Honey said.

  ‘Oh, you did. Not as much as Dickie. He was in the junior ballet. Golly, I suppose this war is so unsettling you start thinking you’re seeing people you know everywhere. Do you ever find that? You think you see someone you know. Or you see someone you think you know.’

  Felix was smiling. ‘I can’t say I know the feeling. I . . . I was at Cambridge when the war broke out.’

  The air seemed to have staled. Felix was looking over towards the horizon. ‘We both have shifts at midnight. I know it’s a terrible thing to have to drag you away from your mother, Honey, but . . .’

  Martha broke her gaze off him then and looked at her daughter.

  She reached across, ran her hand down the strap of the gas mask box and patted the surface. ‘Forget about all . . . this,’ she said, tapping the box with a red nail. ‘There are more important things. You are flesh and blood, Honey. You are not made of stories.’

  When they hugged, her mother smelled of the same perfume, unchanged since the day she was born.

  Chapter 21

  The sun had disappeared by the time the truck wove up into the heights of the cliff tops, climbing from the khaki sea until they were close to the clouds. A three-quarter moon was in the sky and the temperature had plummeted to a biting chill. Honey pulled the dozing greyhound’s head across her knee, feeling the warmth spread into her legs, and stroked its ears.

  They had said little since they had left Hastings. Honey sensed not only politeness in Felix’s reserve but something else. He had not been hostile to her mother, but there had been something in the way he had deflected her. She remembered herself how little she liked to be mistaken for someone she was not. ‘You were the girl in the choir. You were the girl in the ballet, weren’t you? You were in the hut with Dilly Knox? You were the one who won the mathematics prize at Durham?’

  But then Martha’s memory was sharp. It was how she kept all those warbling operas safe in her head.

  Felix began slowing the truck. They were swaying higher across the crumbling earth, flanked by rabbit dugouts, that barely made a road. On the side away from the sea the trees had petered out and bushes turned to scrub, almost moorland. They were approaching the single-lane bend, the one that on the way there Honey felt she might lean out and fall from. This time the drop was on the driver’s side. She looked across at Felix.

  His face, in profile, was more angular. He had neat features, perfect and keen, al
ways smaller than she expected them to be when she looked at him afresh. He was dainty, the way he took care of himself; everything well-scrubbed, his lips soft, his nose and eye sockets hard. For a second she thought she might kiss him, just lightly, along the line of his jaw.

  He dropped a gear and the truck began to crawl round the edge of the cliff. Honey peered past his ears towards the sea, tucked beneath a thousand-foot drop, stretching beyond the coast’s grottoes and nooks to infinity; a blank space on a map. Looking at it spread out into nothing made her mind spin. The dizziness and the heaviness of the day pushed her thoughts upside down. How much could one brain take? And her mother, her mother had not accused him of being someone else, no, she had not done that, but he, on the other hand, had not wanted to say hello to her.

  The thought floated like a little ribbon, trailing just north of her eyeline. Who was Freddie Mox? What if the amber was some sinister hoax? And what, if that were the case, would she do about it? All along she had thought that whatever was happening she was Joan Fontaine in this mystery, fighting to protect herself from danger. But how far would that protection have to go? How far could suspicion take you? What if destiny had driven her here, lifted her high, circling into the clouds, with only the gulls as witnesses, to take her chance and fight before danger unmasked itself; what if this was the Park’s challenge? What if it were not the Park, but the war itself challenging her? Would she be able to do it?

  She had thought that Cary Grant must have murdered Joan Fontaine after all – after the film ended. But perhaps there was a third kind of ending. Perhaps after the credits had flashed on screen, after Cary Grant and Fontaine had driven back down the cliff-top road, it would be Fontaine who would put the poison in his coffee, she who would open the car door, to protect herself; and in trying to protect herself it would be she who would turn murderess. Honey could feel it; possibility seemed everywhere – it was frightening how close the horror of possibility could loom when the air was turned by a single thought. Everywhere, on land and at sea, boys who had dreamt of being train drivers and clerks facing off against mirrors of themselves with guns. And the thing that was more terrifying even than becoming the victim was that you could end up being the villain instead.