What he wanted, most of all, above even beating Emil in the next round of the Long War, was to take a completed toybox down to Cathy and say, ‘Look! Look at this thing I have done! You think it’s only my papa who achieves the most vivid of Emporium magics – well, not any more …’
It was the girl. He realised, now, that he was doing it because of the girl.
By the time he careened across the shopfloor, he was more convinced than ever. Cathy had never made a toy in her life, but she had opened something inside him, some untrammelled desire. Kaspar had never lacked inspiration (no toymaker could have made his paper trees without it) but this was different. He had never lacked shop girls to tell outrageous stories to, nor even to get lost with in one of the Emporium’s many nooks, but this was different too. Being the best had always been important – but only to be the best. Being the best for somebody else, well, that was special …
He stopped as he hit the paper forest. His papa’s Magic Mirror was hanging here, showing some corner of the Emporium storerooms where its sister mirror hung. He stood in front of it, his reflection imposed upon that shuttered room full of boxes, crates, the ranks of twitching skeletons waiting to be draped in patchwork, wound up and released into the Emporium playrooms. He was not, he had to admit, the most handsome sight. He made some attempt to style his hair with the tips of his fingers, straightened his shirtsleeves and the velveteen waistcoat he always wore (it did not do to wear common plaid, not when his work was so important) and proceeded, pausing to pick paper wallflowers on the way.
Before he went into the Wendy House, he peered through the window. And there she was: Cathy Wray, perched on the end of her bed. Her belly looked markedly bigger than it did even three nights ago, but it was not there that Kaspar was looking. He was looking at her eyes.
Cathy startled when the door moved, both hearts inside her leaping in fright. Her heart only half stilled when she saw that it was Kaspar, for wasn’t there every chance Emil might come trotting behind? Kaspar looked more bedraggled than she’d seen him, yet still held himself with a peacock’s pride. Cathy marched past, slammed shut the door and wheeled around. ‘Where on earth were you?’ she demanded.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You used to come every night. And now—’
‘Am I to understand that you miss me, Miss Wray?’
It was a question Cathy was determined not to answer. And yet, ‘I do,’ she replied, angry with herself for admitting anything so foolish. The truth was hard to articulate: Emil was company enough, distraction from these Wendy House walls, but somehow it wasn’t the same; Emil brought his worries – but Kaspar brought his wonders.
‘It wouldn’t have taken ten minutes to come to the shopfloor, just to—’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve been selfish.’
‘I’ll say you have.’
‘Have you been … very bored?’
Yes, she thought, boredom had been a part of it. But there had been Emil and, now that she pictured him, she did not want to be unduly cruel. There was sweetness to Emil and she hardly begrudged his visits, even when he came to her like a little boy does his neglectful mother, to pull on her apron strings and ask have I been good? She even enjoyed his company. He had brought her books: The Compleat Confectioner, being a collection of recipes for children by the ‘Indomitable Mrs Eale’; The Nursemaid’s Oracle – with advice on rearing and disciplining unruly youngsters – by one William Boulle; a sketchbook Papa Jack had made of the workings of the human body (this had more to say about joints and motion than it did the processes of giving birth – for which, Emil declared, there was a copy of Gray’s Anatomy somewhere on a shelf, if only he could conquer his squeamishness enough to open the pages). Now that she thought about it, that was more than Kaspar had ever done. Kaspar was the one to bring her the reams of newspapers the Emporium collected for stuffing and packing, but leafing through them only reminded Cathy how close the walls of her Wendy House were – and what a world there was out there, if only she could reach it. London, which had once seemed so far away, sat denied on her doorstep. The front page of The Times showed the Royal procession moving along the Horse Guard’s Parade – to think, she might have seen Prince George himself; Lizzy would have died! – while, inside, announcements were made for summer theatre in Regent’s Park and an advertisement showed ladies in elegant tea gowns, walking through Kensington with the air of courtiers. There were only so many times she could read the list of debutantes being presented at court this season without screaming: I don’t care about coming out! All I want is to come outside …
‘I’ve been out of my mind.’
‘I’ll make it up to you.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll think of something.’
‘How?’
Kaspar brightened. ‘You’re not denying my ability to think, are you, Miss Wray?’
‘Nothing of the sort,’ she snapped, ‘and do stop calling me Miss Wray. It’s almost the worst thing about it.’
‘The worst thing about what?’
‘About this,’ she said. ‘Kaspar, don’t you think … isn’t it possible I might have been better off if you’d just let me go and find a new home? Because if you’re just going to leave me here …’
At this, Sirius gave a solitary yap.
‘You’re upset,’ said Kaspar.
‘I am.’
‘Perhaps you’d like me to leave?’
Cathy ripped one of the pillows from the bed and hurled it in his direction. He took it to the face and did not flinch, the perfect imitation of a man. ‘I would not,’ she begrudgingly declared.
‘Cathy,’ he said, more sincerely now, ‘has something happened? Something untoward?’
‘More untoward than this?’ she said, as if to include the Wendy House, the patchwork dog, the Emporium itself. ‘No … not a thing.’
She had known, before Kaspar walked through the door, that she would not tell him about Emil. Either Emil would have confessed everything or he would have kept his silence – and she had always kept faith with the latter, because Emil had seemed so proud to have a secret of his own.
‘Well, go on,’ said Cathy, with something approaching a mild rebuke, ‘tell me what you’ve been doing that’s been so vitally important to the future of the Emporium that you couldn’t spare me a single hour?’
Now that he was (mildly) forgiven, Kaspar marched into the heart of the room. ‘It’s my toyboxes. I’ve stretched the space inside one so that it’s the size of a closet. I’m stretching it further, but something breaks inside, something breaks in me, and …’ He started gazing up, into the Wendy House rafters. Then his eyes dropped back to Cathy. ‘I’m still unsure how my papa made all the space inside here, but it’s near, I can feel that it’s near …’ He did not say every time I see you, it’s getting nearer, because how could she understand anything as ephemeral as that? The magic of toys was one thing; falling in love quite another. ‘Imagine,’ he said instead, ‘a toybox the size of a train carriage, with a switchback stair leading to the bottom. And then – another toybox inside that, and another inside that. A boy could own an infinite number of worlds, all locked inside each other, if only I can …’ Kaspar stopped. ‘You’re looking at me in that way again.’
‘I am?’
‘The way that says, if I wasn’t so charming, you’d have them drag me off to Bedlam.’
She gave him a pointed look and, in return, he roared in unadulterated delight.
Kaspar stayed until midnight, but Cathy had not yet fallen asleep when she heard a different tread approaching through the paper trees. Emil was more reticent than Kaspar; he knocked and waited to be invited within. Cathy rushed to the door and tried to bustle him through – but instead Emil stood, steadfast, on the step between the paper trees.
‘No, Cathy. I’ve come to take you out.’
Cathy looked up. Mottled silver rained through the paper branches from the skylights high above.
‘It’s … mid
night.’
‘Indeed!’ Emil declared. ‘A midnight … feast.’ And, on stepping aside, he revealed the picnic hamper he had been hiding. It sat squarely on the roots of a paper oak, opened up to reveal breads and preserves and all manner of other splendid concoctions.
Cathy needed no further temptation. She followed Emil through the trees and on to the shopfloor – but it was not until they came through the atrium at the Emporium’s entrance, past the knights errant and the rocking-horse corral, that she realised they were not really going out at all. Now that she thought of it, the very idea was preposterous. Emil outside these Emporium doors was more of a nonsense than Kaspar. He simply did not belong. Far better that she follow him through the insectarium, along an aisle where a patchwork menagerie waited, gathering dust, for next winter – and on into a depression of land where the aisles pivoted apart.
‘There used to be places like this all over the shopfloor,’ Emil explained, ‘but they get retired or they get moved around, and sometimes, if you don’t keep up, you get to forgetting where they are. They get trapped behind aisles, or somebody builds a bridge over them, or the toys are placed in such a way the eye rather glances over the spaces in between. Me and Kaspar, we used to call them the Sometime Dens, because they’re only ever there half of the time. But they’re perfect, don’t you see, for just not being seen …’
There was a picnic blanket already lain out, in red and white chequered squares. Emil led Cathy down, guiding her as if past imaginary holes in the earth, and invited her to sit.
‘May I?’ Emil began.
Cathy nodded.
Emil opened up the hamper so that the moonlit picnic could begin. After the plates, knives and silver spoons, he produced a pair of chicken legs, roasted to perfection, a loaf of golden bread, a slab of butter that positively gleamed. There were bunches of grapes and quarters of cheese, an apple tart hidden beneath a lattice of shortcrust pastry. The sardines in the glass jar looked the most delectable of all, but it wasn’t until Emil produced the jug of lemonade that Cathy realised none of it was real.
Her eyes caught Emil’s. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Just play …’
She picked up a bunch of painted grapes. They seemed almost good enough to eat. The adult part of her knew they were only orbs of wood, but another part could smell the crisp sweetness of the vineyard. The longer she held on to it, the more the feelings intensified. Just to test it further, she picked up a tiny teapot and pretended to pour a cup. The aisles that surrounded them fell away, she heard the tinkling of teaspoons, the drone of a dragonfly in the pristine parkland that now seemed to exist on the very edges of her vision. She could smell cake, buttery and rich with vanilla, though the only things beneath her fingers were paper and painted wood.
She put the grapes and teapot down and the parkland evaporated. Suddenly she was back on the dusty shopfloor. ‘It’s … incredible, Emil. Did you make all of this?’
She looked up. While she had been engrossed, Emil had got to his feet. A few scant minutes ago his face had been open with pleasure; now he prowled the edge of the picnic blanket like a scalded dog.
If she had expected Emil to be heartened by her words, she was sorely disappointed. He simply picked up the cake, looked at it with disgust, and tossed it into the empty hamper.
‘I’m sorry, Cathy. I so wanted to give you a good day out. But … play a little longer, you’ll find ants in the sandwiches. Storms in the sky.’
She ventured a grin, hoping it would dispel some of this madness. ‘Then you’ve captured the experience of almost every English picnic there’s ever been …’
If Emil appreciated the joke, he did nothing to show it. He began to pack the hamper away, hands shaking in fury at the uselessness of a pinewood boiled egg. ‘It isn’t real. The feeling isn’t right. Every cut I make, every little polish, it just slips further away. It starts out sunny and ends up with a storm. Why is that always the way?’
‘You’re too cruel to yourself, Emil. I could taste the cake.’
Emil lost himself in the mania of packing his creation away. ‘I’m working so hard, Cathy. But Kaspar …’
‘What of him?’
‘It’s those toyboxes of his. Why couldn’t I …? Why didn’t I …? If he perfects it by winter, Papa will be so proud.’
Cathy sighed, trying hard not to let her exasperation show. ‘Does it matter?’
‘You don’t understand. Papa, he’s … not a young man. Sometimes it seems like he never was. But he won’t make toys for ever. And when he stops … well, the Emporium, it has to belong, doesn’t it? There has to be a Papa Jack. What if …’ Emil lost his words; perhaps this was a fear to which he had never given voice. ‘What if he decided that, because Kaspar’s toys …’
‘Emil, this is your home. He’s your papa too.’
For a time, Emil remained silent. He toyed with a humble pork pie (balsawood, cork and pine) and seemed lost in his imaginings of it – and only when he reared up did Cathy understand he’d been trembling all along, desperate to say something but uncertain if he dared say it. ‘It wasn’t always like this. When we were boys, those first years when Papa showed us how, I’d make good things, things every bit as good as Kaspar’s – better even – and if you don’t believe it, all you have to do is look at the pictures. Just ask my papa. When we were in our tenement, I made a sledge for the other boys to ride down Whitechapel Hill. It was so good those street boys stole it in the end. They said they could feel the snow around them, even in summer. And there was my kite. It burst into flight like a Chinese dragon, so light and strong it couldn’t come down – and it just flew there, in the skies above Weavers Fields, until finally some men came up from the docks in St Katharine’s and set light to its tether. And then it just flew away, burning as it climbed into the sun. Or there were the first years we were here, in the Emporium, and Papa gave us a workshop and said: do your best, boys … And we did! All of my marching knights and pinwheels. My princesses in their towers! Oh, I wish I had one now, Cathy, and then you’d see – then you’d see it wasn’t always Kaspar …’ He had to stop, but only for want of breath. ‘Then there was that summer. You know how it happens. Kaspar grew six inches in a night. And his voice was different and he was growing his beard – and that was the summer, Cathy, that was the summer when …’
‘Emil, you don’t have to say all this. Nobody’s—’
‘One morning, I woke up – and there he was, sitting at the end of my bed. I could tell he’d been up all night, because he had that bedraggled look about him. That elated look in his eyes. He had it every time he’d made a new toy he wanted me to try out. Well, I was still weary – but nothing woke me up, back then, like the idea of a new toy. So Kaspar put a pop-up book in my hands and, when I opened it, it just kept on opening – and suddenly, there I was, inside a jungle lair, with creepers and vines and monkeys swinging in the trees, and a little motor started spinning and a crackling voice came out. “What do you think of this, Emil? What do you think of this?” It was Kaspar’s voice, and Kaspar’s toy – and that, Cathy, that was when I knew. I spent the rest of that summer trying to make a book just like his, but I never could do it. And it’s been the same ever since. No,’ he went on, before she could console him any further, ‘don’t try and persuade me. A toybox like Kaspar’s, it’s worth as much as the whole of the Emporium. A hamper like mine, it might fill a few shelves, but will they talk about it on Speakers’ Corner? Will children be jealous if their neighbour has one on Christmas morning?’
‘Tell me something, Emil. Why don’t you … why don’t you do what you’re good at? Not what Kaspar’s good at, not what your papa’s good at … what about you? What about your soldiers?’
‘Yes,’ Emil said, ‘I’ll always have my soldiers, won’t I?’
‘And you said it yourself – they come to the Emporium to see wonders, and maybe they even buy those wonders too, but not like they buy your soldiers. How many toyboxes can Kaspar possibly make? Ten? Twelve, i
f he doesn’t sleep until first frost? Well, that’s twelve customers at most. Twelve times the bell rings with a sale. Now, just imagine how many of your soldiers are going to fly out of the door this Christmas. I saw the things you’ve been working on, remember? Imagine how excited boys are going to be this Christmas, to play battles with soldiers who can rally and shoot …’
The transformation in Emil was almost physical. He grew bigger, stood taller. ‘Do you really think?’
‘Treat yourself more kindly, Emil. That’s an order.’
Emil nodded. Yes, Cathy thought, he likes being ordered around. And perhaps he would have marched away there and then, back to his workshop lathe and the hundreds more soldiers he might create before dawn, if only his eyes had not caught her hand hovering over her bump. ‘I tried to talk to Mrs Hornung. But … she hasn’t had babies of her own. And I … don’t know where else to look. Mrs Hornung said the body takes care of its own. And I suppose there must be something in that, because …’ He stopped, because he was blathering now. ‘Are you afraid?’
‘A little more each day.’
‘It’s no good me telling you not to be afraid. It isn’t me who has to do it. I suppose you think I’m awfully selfish, coming to you with my toys, worrying about who’ll own the Emporium when—’
‘No, Emil.’ She crossed the expanse and pressed her fingers to the back of his hand. ‘I don’t.’
It was the first time he had smiled all night. ‘I’d like to help you, when it happens. You mustn’t be alone.’
In her mind’s eye, she saw Kaspar: Kaspar stroking the hair out of her eyes; Kaspar clutching her hand. The image was fleeting, but enough to make her snatch her own hand away. ‘I won’t be …’
Somewhere high above, a light exploded on one of the galleries circling the Emporium dome. Together they looked up. A figure had emerged. Even at this distance, there was no mistaking Papa Jack. He moved with the slowness of glaciers. He crossed from one gallery to the next and there he stopped, propped up on the balcony rail to look over the shopfloor.
The Toymakers Page 11