The Toymakers

by Robert Dinsdale

  She left the insectarium by the back door and came, at last, to the carousel in the heart of the Emporium floor. The carousel itself had not turned since the night the Emporium closed its doors, and its painted horses, its unicorn and stag, now slept beneath blinkers and roughspun blankets. The depression in which they sat was surrounded by an avalanche of pillows, draped in the same dust sheets as everywhere else. Cathy remembered long winter nights when mothers and fathers had reclined on these hills and watched as their children were borne around by the carousel. Those slopes had always seemed so inviting; even now, hidden under thick sheets, they tempted her down.

  She made her way over and lowered herself in. No sooner had the land given way underneath her, moulding to the shape of her body, Sirius reappeared and wormed his way up on to her lap. Sandwiched between the pillows and the patchwork, it wasn’t long before Cathy’s eyes grew heavy. Fleetingly, she closed them, content to float, for a time, on a mountain of pillows through the Emporium dark.

  Noises woke her.

  It was still dark on the shopfloor. The first thing she noticed was the cold, for Sirius was no longer on her lap. With the clumsiness of the half-asleep, she stumbled to the bottom of the slope and got her bearings.

  She could see which way Sirius had gone for he had left marks in the dust now carpeting the Emporium floor, the tell-tale swishing of a hastily stitched tail. He had disappeared into the dark beyond the carousel, where the spiderweb of aisles had once housed all manner of delights. Panic gripped her. What if, somewhere down there, Sirius had lain down in the dust, his motors winding down? What, then, of the promise she had made to Kaspar?

  Cathy took off. Past the carousel, the darkness in the aisles was absolute. She fumbled on one of the empty shelves, groping blind beneath the dust sheets – and came back triumphant with a glass jar in her hand, a relic left behind after the Emporium was closed. Fortune favoured her. She screwed the lid tight and the crocheted fireflies inside turned incandescent. They buzzed against the edges of the glass – and suddenly the aisle was lit up, serpents and soldiers cavorting in shadow on the shelves.

  Cathy bore the light to the end of the aisle. She had not noticed this door before – but, then, there were so many doors in the Emporium, and the aisles constantly refracting or being rearranged. It was easy to get lost. And yet – there was something about this door that made her certain she would have remembered it. It was like the door to Papa Jack’s workshop in miniature, oak with rivets of grey-black steel. Judging by the claw marks low down, the patchwork dog had scrabbled inside – and not for the first time.

  She set down the lantern and opened it a crack.

  ‘Sirius, you rotten hound, where are you?’

  The door opened an inch, then an inch further. The first thing she saw was the dog. It was lying asleep, its feet twitching in whatever dreams creatures of cloth could have. Beyond where it lay, lit up by a string of firefly lanterns on a ledge beyond, Emil Godman sat hunched over a worktop. At his feet were piles of felt, rolls of wire and a bail of cotton wadding. Toolboxes were stacked against one wall, sandwiched between crates of toy soldiers ready for sale.

  Cathy had heard of Emil’s workshop but until now had not caught a glimpse. Sally-Anne said the Godman brothers used to share a workshop, high up alongside their father’s own – but here was Emil’s, hidden in plain sight among the Emporium aisles.

  She was whispering, trying to wake the patchwork dog, when Emil released a great cry of frustration and, whirling his arms like a toddler in the throes of some enormous tantrum, cast whatever he had been assembling from his worktop. A hail of wood and fabric arced over the workshop. What Cathy took for a pinewood hard-boiled egg landed square on Sirius’s nose, waking him with a whimper.

  ‘You wretched mutt, you’re no help either. Why don’t you go loping after Kaspar like you always do? Why do you have to bother me?’

  Sirius beat his tail, whether in taunt or delight Cathy could not say.

  Emil rushed at him, dropped to his knees and flipped him over. Cathy was about to leap out when she saw that Emil was only rough-housing with him, scratching the fabric of his underbelly and exposing the mechanism dangling there. ‘Still ticking,’ he grumbled, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘And here am I, every night, just trying …’

  Emil rolled backwards, pulled one of the crates away from the wall and heaved out of it a bundle of rags and felt. At first Cathy took it for more spare parts, but when he set it down she realised it was a sheep, stitched together from old eiderdown and roughspun blankets. It was cruder than the patchwork cats and dogs that once populated the Emporium shelves, like a picture of a sheep a three-year-old child might have made. One of its black button eyes was lower than the other, its snout not nearly plump enough with stuffing.

  Emil reached into its belly, wound it up and sat back, teasing Sirius’s ears. In front of him, the sheep began to totter. It walked in a circle, emitted a pillowy bleat, bent to chew at some imaginary cud, and continued in that way until its motor had wound down.

  ‘Useless,’ Emil muttered. ‘It’s a toy, just a toy. There’s no magic in it. It’s just mechanics. Cam shafts and gears and four legs, up and down, up and down … What’s the difference between you and that? What is it, you silly mutt? Why can’t I …’ Emil grabbed the patchwork sheep by the hind legs, tossed it back into the crate and slumped once more. ‘At least I have my soldiers. Kaspar isn’t interested in soldiers, so at least they’re mine. And I’ve got something special, Sirius. Lined up and ready for next first frost …’

  Emil marched into an alcove on the furthest side of the workshop, disappearing into shadow. Moments later, Cathy heard a chorus of rattles and clicks – and Emil emerged, his arms full of soldiery to line up on the opposite side. Standing proudly among them was his Imperial Kapitan.

  Cathy watched as an army of wind-up soldiers marched out of the alcove, moving inexorably against an army on the opposite side. When they had crossed half the expanse, they stopped and lifted their rifles. Tiny pellets of wood exploded forth on strings, striking the advancing regiment just as they came within range. Under the hail of bullets the enemy fell; the only man who kept on marching was the Imperial Kapitan, impervious to the bullets.

  ‘See!’ Emil exclaimed. ‘Kaspar won’t know what’s hit him. My riflemen will scythe his down, and nothing will topple the Kapitan. The next battle of the Long War, Sirius, it’s going to be a massacre!’

  At his outburst, the patchwork dog leapt to its paws. It turned to see Emil but, as it did, its black button eyes landed on Cathy – and though nothing in them changed (they were only black buttons), somehow Cathy saw the hint of acknowledgement in the way the fabric creased across its snout.

  Its tail beat madly, and, as it did, Emil looked round.

  Cathy recoiled back into the darkness of the aisle. She had taken only three strides when her feet, such treacherous things, caught one another mid-flight, sending her sprawling into the Emporium floor. The shock echoed in her body but, all the same, she picked herself up. She could hear footsteps behind her now – but it was only Sirius, coming to shepherd her home. More troubling was the voice that harried her along the aisle. ‘Kaspar, you rotten spy, I know that’s you! It’s against the rules, Kaspar! Subterfuge and espionage, they’re against the rules!’

  Heart pounding, she found her way back to the paper trees and hurried through the Wendy House door. Only moments later she heard Sirius scrabbling to get in, and after that Emil’s voice halloing through the trees. However intricate this toy was, nobody had fine-tuned its loyalty; it had led him straight to her.

  She could hear the crunch of Emil’s footsteps coming over the picket fence. First, he was cajoling Sirius to get out of the way. Then he was calling out his brother’s name. Cathy looked around. In seconds, he was going to come through that door. And, no matter how vast this Wendy House was, it was still a finite space: four walls, no nooks and crannies, so very few places to hide.

  T
hat was when her eyes landed on the toybox, the dull thing of dovetailed wood that Kaspar had brought on his last visit.

  The idea occurred in the very same moment that Emil’s fingers landed on the door. Cathy threw herself across the Wendy House floor, heaved the toybox out and threw open its lid. Then, with one eye on the door, she stepped inside.

  The floor was not beneath her, not where it should have been. She held on to the edges and pushed herself over the precipice – and then, at last, she felt it, somewhere below. When she stood, the toybox swallowed her up to her waist. The Wendy House door had started to rattle, but quickly she sank down, curling herself into a ball so that only the tip of her head could be seen. Then, as Emil shouldered his way in, she slammed shut the lid.

  In the toybox there was only darkness. She could feel the walls closing in on her, the air growing warm and moist with her own breath. Yet, somehow it was holding her; somehow these four slats of wood had cocooned her in their heart: one pocket universe inside another, just like the child still kicking inside her.

  ‘I know you’re in here,’ came Emil’s voice, muted by the wood. ‘Kaspar, don’t be such a fool. There isn’t any other way out.’ For the first time, his voice faltered. ‘Kaspar?’

  She heard his footsteps prowling the edges of the room, heard him stop at the foot of the bed as if to check nobody was hiding underneath. By now he would have seen the nursery, the rocking horse and crib. By now he would have seen the collection of Emporium adverts lying strewn across the sheets.

  The air in here was close; she felt it hardening in the back of her throat.

  She was cramming her hand into her mouth, if only to keep herself from coughing, when she heard Emil’s footsteps moving back in the direction of the door. She breathed out – but the relief was short-lived, for no sooner had Emil passed the toybox, than Sirius sent up a familiar howl. She contorted to look upwards, where a tiny sliver of light ran around the toybox lid. Now, it was marred by a patch of shadow: Sirius was looming above it, giving her away.

  Emil’s footsteps grew louder as he moved in her direction. Then his hands were on the toybox lid, drawing it up – and, from the incalculable depths below, Cathy peered up into his startled eyes.

  ‘You,’ he whispered, and fainted clean away.

  It took some effort to heave herself out of the toybox. By the time she reached him, Sirius was lapping at his face with its darned-sock tongue, making the most dejected of noises with whatever motors lived in its throat. Cathy knelt beside him, peeled back his eyes. They were still flickering – and, no sooner had she closed them, than they opened again. As if startled for a second time, Emil scrabbled backwards. Cathy darted around to put herself between him and the door.

  ‘Emil. Please. Listen. It isn’t what you think …’

  ‘What do I think?’ he breathed, clambering to his feet.

  ‘You think I’m one of those confidence girls, come to steal secrets. That I’m selling secrets to Hamley’s, or that shop on the Portobello Road …’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, look at me, Emil! Just look!’

  She had almost shrieked it, for Emil’s eyes were darting into every corner, searching out the secrets he was sure she had ferreted away.

  ‘Emil, I have nowhere else. We have nowhere else …’

  His eyes landed on her belly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, berating himself by smashing bunched fists into his sides. ‘I didn’t think. I thought you’d go home. Why ever you ran away, I thought you’d go back and have your baby there and … and then I’d forget about you and you wouldn’t be back and—’

  ‘I couldn’t go home. I just couldn’t.’

  ‘So you hid here, on the day the snowdrops flowered. You’ve been hiding here ever since.’

  It had been on the tip of her tongue to beg him not to blame Kaspar, to tell him none of this was Kaspar’s fault, but somehow Emil seemed to be making the leaps of imagination for her, the story spinning of its own volition.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. Cathy, sit down. Please. Let me … I should never have let you go. I almost didn’t. I was going to tell Mrs Hornung but I knew there had to be a reason you’d kept it a secret and … I’m sorry, Cathy. You believe it, don’t you? Why, if I’d have had the idea, I’d have hidden you here myself …’

  He didn’t know what to do, so instead he began pacing in circles, urging her to take the foot of the bed. When she did, he rushed to close the Wendy House door, lest anyone be spying from the paper trees. ‘Mrs Hornung does her rounds. And Kaspar … sometimes Kaspar creeps around here, concocting whatever he’s concocting. You must be careful, Cathy. More careful than you’ve been tonight.’ He stopped his pacing and Sirius, who had been mirroring him at his heel, promptly sat at his feet. ‘How long will it be?’

  ‘You mean my baby.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Soon,’ she whispered.

  ‘My mama was alone when I was born. Only her and Kaspar, but he was hardly a year old. Our house wasn’t any bigger than this. Two rooms and a yard house and hens in the hut. And … you did the right thing to stay here, Cathy. You mustn’t do it alone. And I can—’

  ‘You won’t tell Papa Jack, will you?’

  Emil puffed out his chest. ‘I’ve never lied to my papa before, but I’ll lie this time.’

  ‘And … Kaspar?’

  On this, he seemed to ruminate for the longest time. ‘Kaspar would know what to do. He always does. After our mama passed on, before our papa came back … well, it was Kaspar who used to catch rabbits for our pot. Kaspar who taught me how to dig for mushrooms. It was Kaspar who told me we had a papa, and that one day he was coming home. Oh, he didn’t believe it himself, but he still told me it, every night. And now …’ Emil came to sit beside her on the bed. Folding his hand over hers, he said, ‘Mrs Hornung has some books. I’ve seen them on a shelf. And Papa has his taxonomies, the anatomies he uses for building his dolls. There must be something in there. And … perhaps it’s best, after all, if Kaspar doesn’t know? Two can keep a secret, Cathy. But three …’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say: you already told him I was pregnant. But then he would know, know that Kaspar had told her, know that it was Kaspar who brought her back here. That did not seem fair. All Emil wanted, all Emil had ever wanted, was something of his own, something he could stand alongside and say: look, this was mine, and I did as good a job as any. So, instead, Cathy squeezed his hand, rested her head on his shoulder and whispered her thanks – while, inwardly, she cursed her lack of courage. Why had her bravery abandoned her tonight? Even the baby, that half-formed thing inside her, was wiser than this.

  Before he left that night, Emil gave her a pipe-cleaner bird – the closest he’d ever got, he confessed, to the magics of his father. It fluttered around the Wendy House rafters until all its energy was gone; then it dropped to the floor, where Sirius gnawed on it with relish. Afterwards, she picked up what was left and hid it underneath the mattress. Secrets and lies, she thought. She had thought she was skilled in both, but in truth she was a dilettante; she was going to have to do a lot better.

  THE BROTHERS GODMAN

  PAPA JACK’S EMPORIUM, 1907

  Consider Kaspar Godman. Tonight, if you were the kind of Emporium obsessive who collects a catalogue each year, whose home is infested with silver satin mice, who has saved and saved your pennies in the hope of one day taking a runnerless rocking horse of your own back home, you would have found him in his workshop, unwashed and unkempt as only a man in the throes of passion can be. Only, you would not have found Kaspar Godman locked up with an admirer; you would have found him in a storm of balsam and metal rivets, of paints and lacquers and varnish. Around him would be a half-dozen incomplete boxes, one upended inside another. One would be overfilled with patchwork animals, wound down and piled high. Another would have half a bedstead poking out. Yet another would be splayed open around Kaspar Godman’s w
aist, as if trying to devour him whole.

  The peripheries of the room were couched in the patchwork animals he had tried to make. A mermaid, meant for a good girl’s bathtub, lay half-beached on a shore of wound-down patchwork bears. Kaspar had thought he would devote his summer to making patchwork so lifelike there was not a difference between his and his father’s own, but there was a higher calling and he slaved for it now. He pressed his hands against the innards of the box in which he was standing, thinking he might shift its edges back just one more inch – but the wood began to buckle, the slats came apart, and instead of standing inside his own cavernous vault he stood in a disaster of splinters and jagged shards. Still, he did not abandon his calling, nor lament the world that was doing him wrong. He sat for a while, in the middle of the destruction, and gaped. Even in failure, what a life this was! He picked up one of his joists, slotted the broken shards back together and laughed. What a blissful way to spend your hours, your days and nights, making things up because nothing else mattered!

  He was about to take another turn, but something stopped him. At first, he thought it was his hands. They were too tired. His whole body was spent. Then he realised it wasn’t his hands at all. It was his head. What inspiration he had to achieve this, the thing that had first driven him to cobble the slats together and start teasing out the space inside … it was the girl. Down there in the Wendy House, waiting for him to come back; the smile she had given when he stepped into his toybox, the way her face had crinkled, trying to resist her astonishment – and yet, and yet …