Later, says a voice in my head, there will snowmen and mittens and hot chocolate.
‘And your windows look fine to me,’ I say. ‘Are you the only children that live here?’
‘No,’ says Mary, ‘we have three sisters and one brother.’
‘And what are their names?’
‘Selina, Henrietta and Phoebe,’ says Mary. ‘And Charles.’
‘Are they here at home with you?’ I ask, and both girls solemnly nod their heads.
‘Our sisters are downstairs,’ says Lizzie. ‘Shall we go and see?’
The girls jump off the bed, both landing on the floor with louder thumps than I’d expect from five-year-olds.
I beat them to the door and out into the landing. As I expected, the stairs to the attic are separate from the main staircase and there are two more doors off the landing. I open the first to find another bedroom, and the second to a room decorated in yellow and cream with a wardrobe, washstand, vanity and a purple chaise longue that doesn’t match anything else.
‘What’s this?’ I ask the girls as they skip heavily towards me.
‘That’s Mama’s dressing room,’ says Mary.
‘So where does Charles live?’ I ask.
‘In the nursery,’ says Lizzie. ‘Upstairs.’
‘Why don’t we go visit?’ I say, and head back towards the attic stairs.
‘We have a parakeet in the drawing room,’ says Mary.
‘Yes, yes!’ cries Lizzie. ‘Come and see.’
Mary grabs my left hand and pulls me towards the main staircase. When I resist, Lizzie grabs my right hand. They pull me way too hard for a pair of small kids and I almost topple forward. I dig in my heels, but now the girls have both got their hands around my wrists and are pulling with their suddenly teenaged weight. Natali and her blonde friend are both bigger than me in real life, and I can actually feel the carpet rucking up under my heels. But you don’t grow up small, mouthy and mixed race in North London without picking up a few tricks. Like knowing when to stop pulling, turn into your oppo and stamp on their foot. Do it fast enough and you can get your licks in two, three times before they register that their foot ain’t working any more.
Natali and her blonde friend, now in their proper street clothes, let go and start shrieking. Natali gives me that weird look of betrayal bullies get when you have the temerity to give them a smack.
‘You bitch,’ she says.
‘It’s for your own good,’ I say, and make a dash for the attic stairs.
34
Our Lady of Shadows
The stairs to the attic are narrow and dimly lit. There’s no window to let in daylight and no lamps to provide light. There was once a cord dangling from the ceiling that’s now been tied off with a safety cap. This was probably where the electric light was, but this fades even as I look at it. Down the stairs comes a shadow shaped like a woman in a full-length skirt and puff sleeves. Behind the shadow is Nerd Boy in his latest role as Victorian patriarch. I retreat down the stairs and as I do, whiskers sprout from Nerd Boy’s cheeks until he looks like an extra from Planet of the Apes: The Musical.
The woman shadow stops and turns back to the serious-looking Victorian gent that Nerd Boy has become. She speaks in low serious tones so that the girls, giggling at the bottom of the stairs, can’t hear her. But I can.
‘Mr Brown, I’m afraid I can do little to alleviate your boy’s condition,’ she says. ‘I fear in this instance I can be no more use to you than a mundane doctor.’
‘Is nothing to be done?’ asks Mr Brown, his voice tight.
‘We are hampered by our lack of knowledge,’ she says. ‘It’s difficult to treat that which you do not fully understand. That is why our work at the Royal is so important.’
‘Work I am pleased to patronise,’ says Mr Brown. ‘And will continue to do so in earnest. Only could you not at least continue the treatment? It seems to buoy his spirits, if nothing else.’
The shadow lady sighs and puts an insubstantial hand on Mr Brown’s shoulder.
‘As you wish, John,’ she says. ‘But please, do not get your hopes up. The best you can do is to love him as strongly as you can, and to show him affection so that no matter what happens, he knows his family is with him.’
Mr Brown draws himself up.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘He shall want for nothing that is in our gift to give.’
‘And now,’ says the Shadow Lady with fake cheer, ‘I think I hear a trio of naughty mice hiding on the landing.’
She sweeps down the steps and I’m forced to book it down the stairs ahead of her. Out on to the hallway, where Natali and the blonde girl are bouncing up and down like a pair of excited five-year-olds again.
‘Magic, magic!’ they cry. ‘Aunty Isabella, do magic.’
‘Magic? Magic?’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘You must know, children, that there is no such thing.’ Then she looks at me – or rather, the shadowy oval that is her head turns in my direction. ‘Isn’t that so, little spirit?’
‘Please, oh, please,’ say the girls, while I shiver and press myself against the wall.
The Shadow Lady turns her shadow head back to the girls, who are now much shorter again and back in their pretty Victorian frocks.
‘Very well,’ says the Shadow Lady, and extends her hand in a very familiar gesture. I’ve seen Peter and Nightingale do this hundreds of times when they’re conjuring a magic light or levitating something.
The Shadow Lady is doing magic.
Only I don’t see anything – no light, no sparkle, no nothing.
The girls do and so does Mr Brown – judging by their wide eyes and the oohs and aahs.
And while they’re distracted I make a dash for the attic.
35
The Wooden Hill
I try creeping first but I’m only up the first couple of steps when I hear the Shadow Lady call behind me.
‘Little spirit, little spirit, where dost thou wander?’
Elder wrangling for fun and profit – approach number one – pretend you can’t hear them. I keep going and she calls again.
‘Little spirit?’ A sing-song voice like she’s telling a story. ‘Are you a mischievous spirit?’
Part of me is thinking, ignore and get up the fricking stairs, but another part is thinking, who is this shadow lady who can see me? She’s not being played by one of the teens, and however real the story gets, she stays a shadow.
A river goddess once told me that she could tell practitioners from ordinary people because learning how to use magic is like wrapping the power around you like a blanket. Maybe if you do that all your life, then your ghost will do the same thing – holding the power in so it isn’t wasted on keeping up appearances.
So is the Shadow Lady the ghost of a practitioner? I thought they were all men, all the portraits in the Folly are men – total trouser fest. Or is it like Miss Redmayne says about science and art and literature – did all the women get photoshopped into oblivion?
And is this something I should be worrying about right now?
‘Little spirit,’ she calls. ‘At least tell me your name.’
I turn and look – big mistake – she’s right behind me and like a flash she’s grabbed my shoulder.
Her face is still a solid shadow but now I can see smudges of less dark defining eyebrows, the line of her nose – the curve of her mouth as she smiles.
‘Aha,’ she says. ‘Quite solid after all.’
Elder wrangling – approach two – defy expectations.
‘I am,’ I say. ‘But you’re like well psychosomatic.’
‘That’s a long word for such a little spirit,’ she says. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means because my brain thinks you’re real then my body thinks you’re touching me,’ I say. ‘But you ain’t.’
> Although real thing here – I ain’t sure that’s strictly true.
‘Interesting,’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘From the Greek – psycho and . . . somatic? From the French somatique perhaps. Bad form there, mixing languages like that. Although one could argue, I suppose, that somatique is also derived from the Greek.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Haven’t done Greek yet.’
‘Oh, but you must study Greek,’ says the Shadow Lady, ‘Homer, Marcus Aurelius has some wonderful epigrams, and that’s not to mention Sappho, of course.’ There is a sudden pause and the Shadow Lady cocks her head to one side. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘Your non-existence,’ I say.
‘Alleged non-existence,’ she says, and gives my shoulder a gentle shake.
‘Are you a practitioner?’ I ask. ‘A wizard?’
‘Sorceress, my dear,’ she says. ‘Practitioner is how the gentlemen have styled themselves, as quacks now style themselves as physicians. How do you know these things, spirit?’
There are things I’m dying to ask but the clock is ticking.
‘When were you born?’ I ask.
‘That’s a personal question.’
‘Can you remember your birthday?’
‘I am a child of May,’ says the Shadow Lady, and lets go of my shoulder. ‘The first of May in the Year of Our Lord 1782, to be exact. Now you?’
‘February,’ I say. ‘The year 2000.’
‘You jest,’ she says, and then hesitates. ‘No . . . I see that you do not.’ She holds up her hand as if to examine it. I wonder what she sees. ‘I am a ghost, am I not?’
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘I don’t know – it’s complicated.’
‘Damn and bother,’ she says. ‘I must think on this.’
And she’s gone.
Just when I was beginning to like her – oh well.
I go up the stairs like a kid, scrambling on hands and feet, and I’m two metres from the top and thinking I might make it when all the energy drains out of me. Suddenly my arms and legs are heavy – it’s bare effort to get my feet and hands on the next step. The steps are polished and slippery under my fingers, my neck won’t keep my head up, and I’m close to the top but I can’t make my right arm lift over the threshold. I slump down and my cheek rests on the smooth wood. I can’t remember why I’m supposed to be staying awake.
36
Bedfordshire
I am sitting up in bed next to Charles while Selina, Henrietta and Phoebe are putting on their version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which Mama says owes less to Shakespeare and much more to Thomas Bowdler. Phoebe is a delight as Puck and Selina stamps around in trousers, speaking in a low voice to be Bottom. Papa says that Selina would be happier if she could always wear trousers, but I do not think Mama approves. It’s certainly nothing like the play I read at school . . . only I’ve never been to school. Papa says I’m too sick to be sent away and I’ve always had tutors since I can remember.
*
Indiana keeps whining and Mama says that it is peculiar because normally she’s such a good little dog, but she keeps on jumping onto my knees and looking at me with big eyes that are slotted like a cat’s. That strikes me as curious and peculiar, but when I ask Papa he says that God has created animals in infinite variety, including dogs that have eyes like a cat. Charles says my brain is getting too hot. Any hotter, he says, and Nanny could put a kettle on my head for her morning tea. He reads me a story about a boy who lives in a tower with his family, but one day his family leave and he finds himself all alone. I ask him to stop reading because it’s such a sad story, but he says I should be patient because it has a happy ending. I snuggle down again and Indiana curls up against my side and Charles finishes the story. The boy, it seems, had a wonderful musical instrument that charmed anyone who heard it, and he took this instrument to the top of the tower and started to play. The music spread all the way to a nearby town, but it was too pure for fathers and mothers to hear – only children could listen. Many of the children were unhappy or dissatisfied, but when they heard the music their hearts were filled with joy. I ask what kind of musical instrument it is and Charles asks me what kind I think it is. Well, obviously, I say, it must be a flute like that of the Pied Piper. No, says Charles quickly, it’s a trumpet. It can’t be a flute because the sound wouldn’t carry all the way to the town. Which I’m not sure makes sense, but it’s just a story so I suppose it doesn’t have to. Charles says that the boy played his trumpet so sweetly that soon all the good-hearted children of the town had gathered in his tower and they all lived happily ever after – the end.
Is that it? Well, yes – don’t you like a happy ending? What did they live on? Pardon? If there wasn’t anybody to cook, then what did they have for tea? They had goblin servants who did all the fetching and carrying. And cooking. Yes, but where did the food come from? I think it’s time for you to go to sleep now.
*
‘Hello, little spirit,’ whispers a voice.
I’m lying in a soft, warm bed with an old-style quilt and blankets and a huge pillow that is leaking down out of its seams. It’s the biggest bed I’ve ever been in, I barely reach halfway to the end where the brass bedstead rises up like the bars of a cage. To my left a boy is sleeping far away on the other side of the bed – all I can see of him is a pink nightcap pulled down onto a shock of black hair.
Between us lies an enormous fox, making strange giggling noises in its sleep.
‘Little spirit,’ hisses the voice. ‘Awake now.’
The Shadow Lady is standing at the end of the bed but I don’t want to talk to her. I’m warm and comfortable and want to be sleeping. But this isn’t my bed and the white boy in the pink nightcap is not my idea of a good time. The fox? Yeah, well, I was getting used to the foxes.
‘This is not your sleep,’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘This dream belongs to somebody else.’
That wakes me up a bit – enough anyway to remember who I am, but not enough to sit up. I’m still comfortably snug and drowsy.
‘It is not the most agreeable of revelations to discover that one has already passed over into the afterlife without realising it,’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘Even worse is the realisation that one is not even a spirit, but instead a poor shadow of oneself.’
‘An echo,’ I say.
‘Precisely,’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘And I do not intend to continue in this state for very much longer.’
‘What convinced you?’ I say, and struggle up until I am half sitting.
‘I looked out of the window,’ she says. ‘Such marvels. I only wish I could partake in them myself but . . .’ She opens the fingers of her shadow hand as if letting something go. ‘But before I shuffle off, I would like you to satisfy my curiosity in the matter of women.’
My mind is wavy as shit but I see a chance.
‘You have to answer my question first,’ I say.
‘Equitable,’ she says. ‘Ask your question.’
‘You treated Charles,’ I say. ‘What was wrong with him and what did you do?’
The Shadow Lady sighs.
‘The white plague ailed him,’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘Consumption, that is. As to my treatment – there is a conjecture that the disease is caused by tiny animals, smaller even than a flea, that infest and breed inside the body. Some have speculated that by infusing a patient with magic, one might strengthen the body’s resistance to these animalcula and encourage a recovery.’
‘How did you infuse the magic?’
‘I poured it into this bed,’ she said. ‘I saw no evidence as to its efficacy.’
No, I think, but now we know the spark around which the house grew. Which means I should get out of the bed, but I’m still sleepy and Indiana the dog yawns and snuffles and the pillow is so soft.
‘Little spirit,’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘We had a bargain.’
‘Yeah, question,’ I say.
‘If you are truly from the future, pray tell – what is the condition of women?’
‘Better,’ I say, and wonder why she won’t leave me alone.
‘Better in what way?’
Why do people always want to ask you questions when you’re tired? I try to remember what Miss Redmayne taught and what they said on that episode of Horrible Histories.
‘Own property, can vote, get condoms, get paid, same-sex marriage – next year.’
My eyes keep closing, but it seems to me that the Shadow Lady has bowed her head and her shoulders are shaking as if she’s crying, but I can’t tell why.
I’m tired, the bed is warm. I close my eyes.
*
The girl stands upon a fantastical flying machine made of balsa wood, brass and gutta-percha. She is dressed in a severe grey skirt, a scarlet riding jacket and a top hat with goggles. She has a pistol in her belt, a dagger in her boot and holds a brass telescope to her eye to see the way forward.
Her name is Abigail the Adventuress, the treasure hunter . . .
No.
Abigail the Ghost Hunter, then. Flying to darkest Africa . . .
No. I’ve been there. Sierra Leone, anyway. Met about a million relatives and only got to go to the beach twice, which was an outrage.
To Paris then . . .
School trip.
The girl stands on the poop deck of a pirate ship, the wind bellying the canvas as her men hoist the Jolly Roger.
Dysentery and anaesthetic-free dentistry – no thanks.
The girl stands on a high branch in the forest, clad in a leopard skin, a longbow across her back and a quiver of arrows at her hip. In the tree next to hers she can see the nest of the legendary phoenix. Within the nest is a clutch of eggs, just one of which will bring her fame and fortune beyond her wildest dreams. All she needs do is jump the piddling gap between the branch on one tree and one on the next. A matter of a few feet . . . One could almost step across it.
What Abigail Did Tha Summer Page 13