The Minivers
Page 9
The walls were yellow and pink, like sunshine and flowers. The curtains were covered with splashes of daisies and the ceiling was painted blue with white wispy clouds around the dangling light-fitting. Above the small oak bookcases filled with children’s books and diaries were paintings of gigantic roses. Livia had painted them herself, and she had embroidered the cushions that dotted the deep pink sofa. Livia hurried through the room on bare feet, and went down the back steps onto the thick coarse grass of her back lawn.
The sun was just showing over the screen of trees. Livia stood looking at the riot of orange nasturtiums, and the fat round pumpkins in her vegetable bed. Then her eyes fell on the clothes line. A blue dustcoat hung there, cold and damp with dew. Livia’s early morning happiness evaporated. In a little over an hour, she would have to put the dustcoat on, go into the archives, and leave everything beautiful she had created here behind.
Livia hated working at the archives. She was sure there must be something better she could do, like paint pictures, or write stories, or sew clothes to sell in the markets. But her mother had worked in the archives, and her grandfather had been City Archivist, so it had been difficult for her to say no to the job. The archive jobs were very well paid, and people who did not care about the darkness and the dust fought hard to get them. Livia did care. She craved sunshine and brightness, and she hated being shut up, which was why she slept outside every night. In fact, if it had not been for her cousin Karen needing her help, Livia was sure she would have given up long ago.
Poor Karen. Livia did not know her cousin well, but she could not believe she deserved to be so badly treated. As a little girl, Livia had thought it very exciting to have relatives who lived in the palace with Papa King. Then something had gone wrong, and Cousin Karen and her mother, Aunt Susan, had disappeared. Nobody had ever explained why, but Livia remembered how upset her grandfather had been, so upset, in fact, that he would never let anybody talk about it. It was Cousin Karen who had told Livia how Papa King had rejected her for Rosamund Miniver, and how the true story of what had happened was hidden in the Most Secret Room in the archives. Sometimes, Livia did not quite like the way her cousin talked about the Most Secret Room. She hated the way Karen kept hassling her about it, and it would have been easier to feel enthusiastic if her cousin had been a nicer person. On the other hand, she could not blame Cousin Karen for feeling hard done by. Livia only wished she could find what she was looking for, so that she could give up her job at the archives and never go back.
Reluctantly, Livia unpegged her dustcoat from the line, and went inside. She buttered some bread, put an egg on to boil, and made herself a pot of tea. On the kitchen table was her diary. Livia took it everywhere, and it was open at a drawing she had made at work the day before. The picture showed a man with a dark beard and long hair in a ponytail, a porter who had just started working at the archives. It was a good likeness, but there was something about the man’s expression that made Livia uncomfortable. He had, she thought, a face that was full of secrets, and not all of them were his own.
The eggtimer beeped. Livia propped the diary up against the teapot and cut her bread into dippers. While she ate her breakfast, she read through the entries for the last few days.
Monday, 11th October
Late for work because of a traffic jam. Measured the walls in rooms 8–4 and 8–5. They match the building plan exactly, so the most Secret Room is not there.
Saw that new porter, Gibraltar, on the lower levels again. I think he’s watching me.
Tuesday, 12th October
Two phone calls from Cousin Karen. Still no luck with the Most Secret Room.
Wednesday, 13th October
gibraltar in very early this morning with a big backpack. Spotted him searching cupboards on level seven.
Something about Gibraltar makes me uncomfortable. He’s always somewhere he shouldn’t be. I’m going to watch him carefully.
Thursday, 14th October
Cousin Karen keeps phoning. She’s very cross that I’m not getting anywhere.
Followed Gibraltar down to level seven. I stopped him outside one of the big cupboards nobody uses. He said he was getting something for the Deputy Archivist, but I know he was lying.
After he had gone, I saw something moving behind the stacks. It was too quick for me, but it was far too big to be a rat.
Livia pushed aside her empty plate and picked up a pencil. She sucked the end thoughtfully, then turned to the next page of the diary and wrote,
Friday 15th October
maybe Gibraltar is an enemy of Cousin Karen. One way or another, I’m going to find out what he’s up to.
Livia underlined the words with a determined flourish. Then she dropped her diary into her bag and her plate into the sink and, picking up her dustcoat, headed off to work.
‘I hate this bag,’ said Rosamund, in a muffled voice. ‘I still don’t see why you couldn’t leave me in the caravan.’
‘Because it’s not safe,’ said Gibraltar. ‘They’re widening their search and I don’t want to leave you on your own.’
His booted feet rang out on the metal staircase as he descended into the archive basements. For the last few days, Gibraltar had been going to work early, so Rosamund could be hidden safely before he started. So far, they had been lucky, but it was still dangerous. A sharp-eyed person would have noticed that the top flap on the canvas backpack slung over his shoulder hung much more heavily than it should have for its size, and from time to time it moved, as the tiny person inside shifted about and tried to see out.
Luckily, this morning they were almost alone in the building. On the fifth level down, Gibraltar turned into a dingily lit corridor. Its walls were lined with metal shelves, full of dusty cardboard boxes. The boxes were so old that several had fallen apart and dropped their contents onto the floor. Gibraltar walked past them, turned into a slip of a room and shut the door. He took a key out of his dustcoat pocket, locked them in, and slung the backpack onto the ground.
‘You can come out now.’
Rosamund pushed back the flap and emerged. If her fans could have seen her, they would have been shocked. Her glossy hair was dull from lack of washing and tied in a simple plait; her face was pale, and she was wearing an oversized T-shirt that made her look like a doll-sized scarecrow. The shirt was black to blend in with the shadows where she had to hide. Gibraltar had left Rosamund in a different hiding place every day: in cupboards, storerooms, and even, briefly, in a filing cabinet. This room had nothing in it but empty cardboard boxes, long since forgotten by whoever it was that had dumped them.
Gibraltar shrugged several times and rubbed his aching neck. ‘You know, you’re much heavier than you look,’ he said. ‘I think you must be starting to put on weight.’
‘I’m not a gram over fifteen kilos,’ retorted Rosamund. ‘My doctor tells me that’s exactly the right weight for my height. If there’s any Miniver who’s going to get fat, it’s Emily. She eats far more chocolate than is good for her.’ Her lip trembled at the mention of her sister’s name, and suddenly, as she had many times in the last few days, she started to cry.
Gibraltar crouched down so that he was at her level. He had guessed from the beginning that Rosamund had never been a particularly brave person. She had never needed to be, for she had always had other people to shield her from harm. Now those other people were gone or had betrayed her, and she had only a complete stranger to help her. Gibraltar did not blame her for wanting to burst into tears, but he did not encourage her either. At first, Rosamund had cried all the time, until she made herself sick. As the days went by, Gibraltar had noticed that her crying fits had become shorter, and that she had got better and better at controlling them. This time, after three or four minutes, Rosamund gulped, stopped, and blew her nose loudly on the hem of her T-shirt.
‘I just wish I knew what to do,’ she said. ‘Emily’s so little, and I can’t help thinking it’s all my fault. I’m so afraid she’s dead.’
‘I hope so,’ said Rosamund. ‘I think so, too, most of the time. If she were dead, I think I would know.’ She banged her hand against her chest. ‘Here. I would feel it. But then, I keep hearing in the news how they’re searching for her body and I can’t help wondering. I can’t be sure. That’s what’s so hard about this. All of it would be so much easier if we were just together.’
‘You shouldn’t believe what you hear on the radio and read in the papers,’ said Gibraltar sternly. ‘You of all people should know they’re full of lies. How many bad, or embarrassing stories did Papa King stop the papers from printing about you and your sister? Now someone else is controlling what they say, only the lies they tell are ones you do not want to hear. Do you really believe Millamant murdered your sister?’
‘Of course not!’ said Rosamund. ‘Millamant would never hurt us. But suppose somebody else did? Suppose Madame has murdered Emily? That’s what I’m really afraid of.’
‘If Madame had murdered Emily, she would not be searching for her so frantically,’ said Gibraltar. ‘That is the truth behind the news stories, and you have to hold onto it.’ He put his hand into his backpack and handed Rosamund a torch. ‘Take this. Stay in here and keep the door locked. I’ll be back as soon as I can get away, at morning tea.’
From the shadow of a concrete pillar, Livia watched Gibraltar come out of the room and walk away. She had seen him go in carrying his backpack and come out without it. Livia knew better than anyone that the archives were full of forgotten rooms and that Gibraltar had no reason to be leaving his things there.
Livia went to the door and gently touched the handle with her left hand. It was locked, but this time she had come prepared. Livia brought her right hand out from under her dustcoat. She put the jemmy she had been using in her searches for the Most Secret Room into the door jamb and leaned on it, sharply, with all her weight.
There was a crack of splintering wood and the door swung open. Livia could have sworn she saw a torch flick off inside. She felt anxiously for a light switch. There was one there, but the bulb must have been broken, for it snapped uselessly back and forth, and the room remained in darkness.
Livia took a torch out of her pocket. For a moment she waited in the doorway, jemmy in one hand, torch in the other, listening intently. She could almost hear her own heartbeat. Another moment passed, and she heard a tiny rustle and the sound of someone breathing, quick and light.
Livia’s courage almost failed her. Her hand sweated on the jemmy and it took all her willpower to turn on her torch and shine it into the room.
Gibraltar’s backpack sat in the middle of the floor. It was empty, though Livia knew it had been carried in full. There was nothing else in the room except piles of mouldering cardboard boxes, jumbled together in heaps against the walls. Livia swept her torch from corner to corner.
‘I know you’re in here.’ Her voice sounded high and wobbly. ‘You might as well come out. I can hear you breathing.’
There was no reply. The thin sound of breathing stopped, as if the fugitive had held their breath. Livia waited, silently counting while she shone her torchlight over the boxes. When she reached twenty, she stopped.
‘All right then. If you won’t come out, I’ll have to find you and force you out.’
Screwing up her courage, Livia advanced on the boxes. She kicked the first one out of the way, then started hooking them from the pile with the jemmy. As they flew into the corridor, she heard a gasp. There was a scrabbling sound, as the person who was hiding worked their way further back into the heap. Livia realised that whoever it was felt as frightened as she did. It gave her courage and she picked up speed.
At that instant, with a tremendous shriek, something small and dark shot out of the pile of boxes. Livia dropped her jemmy with a clang. She grabbed at the shape as it went past, fell over with a thud, then jumped up and ran after it into the corridor.
‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Stop!’
11
The Cardboard Box
‘Gibraltar! Gibraltar!’ shouted Rosamund. She picked up her T-shirt and raced away on bare feet down the corridor. ‘Where are you? Help me!’
Running footsteps sounded behind her. A woman’s voice shouted for her to stop. Rosamund glanced back over her shoulder. The woman in the blue dustcoat had emerged from the room with the cardboard boxes, and was in rapid and determined pursuit. Rosamund dodged around a corner into another corridor. At the end was a swing door and staircases leading to the other levels. With more instinct than thought, Rosamund burst through the door and jumped onto the metal handrail, like a cowboy into the saddle.
Down she slid, gathering speed, slipping further and further away from Gibraltar, help, and safety. She did not stop on the sixth level, but jumped straight onto the next rail and continued her downward slide. The woman in the dustcoat appeared on the landing two floors above. She shouted something Rosamund could not understand and started hurrying down two, three steps at a time until she stumbled and nearly pitched headlong. Ha! thought Rosamund. Her courage revived and she jumped off the second railing onto a landing labelled 7. Some inner warning system told her it would be best not to go further down, so she shoved open another door and ran through into a basement worse than any she had passed through yet.
It smelled. The fifth level had been dim and dusty, but the seventh was dank, as if the damp from the river was seeping through its concrete walls. Rosamund, who was fast becoming breathless from so much running, turned into a side corridor and slowed to a walk. A stitch was starting up in her side and she realised she must find somewhere to hide before she was discovered and caught.
There was a door ahead, hanging on broken hinges. Rosamund squeezed around the jamb into a room so dark she could barely see. Almost immediately she crashed into something and yelped a word of which Millamant would certainly not have approved. Fortunately, her eyes were already adjusting to the poor light. After a moment Rosamund was able to see that she had walked into a huge chunk of cement, which had fallen out of the crumbling ceiling onto the floor.
She was in what seemed to be a storeroom for everything that was broken and unwanted. Drawerless filing cabinets jumbled with mountains of office chairs and rusted metal shelves. Some shelves contained boxes and papers, but they were mostly empty and festooned with dirt. Rosamund limped a few paces through what felt like a mass of slightly wet, fallen leaves. It was several moments before she realised she was actually walking through a litter of chewed and shredded paper, spotted with tiny dark marks that she recognised to her horror as droppings.
‘Ugh!’ Rosamund recoiled. She banged into a teetering set of shelves and a heavy box of papers, glued together from the damp, fell with an explosive thud at her feet. The shelves rocked dangerously and began to topple; Rosamund wrapped her arms around her head and screamed. There was no time to get out of the way. With an enormous crash, the shelves fell forward and slammed into the set in front of them.
If Rosamund had been only a few inches taller, the shelves would have crushed her skull. Instead, they showered her with years of dirt and accumulated mouse droppings and left her standing, blinded and cringing, in a stinking cloud of dust. Rosamund cried out, swallowed an involuntary lungful, and began coughing as she had never coughed before. She was still choking for breath, trying helplessly to stop, when the broken door grated open. A torch shone painfully in her streaming eyes. Rosamund blinked up at the woman in the dustcoat. The fight went out of her and she surrendered without another word.
The cardboard box sat on the Toy Department floor. It was not particularly big, though it was the largest of several awaiting collection that morning. It might have held a doll’s house, a giant teddy bear, or a jumbo-sized box of building blocks. An Eastman’s delivery docket had been stuck on the top, and was addressed in a small but firm black hand to:
THE MINIVE FAN CLUB (H
Q)
46 BERRY STREET
ARTEMISIA EAST
ATTENTION: WAREHOUSE
On the box itself was written in the same small hand URGENT DELIVERY – FRIDAY.
Not far away in Children’s Wear, two uniformed women were going over a rack of T-shirts. They were too busy to notice the pile of boxes, let alone the unusual address label on the biggest carton. One woman had a big chain of keys hanging from her belt. The other was dressed in a blue skirt and jacket, with a red M monogrammed on the pocket. She wore a plastic apron and gloves, and was carefully brushing sooty black powder over the rail and several coathangers. It was Primrose, from the Miniver House security team.
‘Well, I think that’s pretty definite.’ Primrose straightened up and dusted the fingerprint powder from her hands. ‘I’ll have to get a match for the prints. We’ve already confirmed the set in your Book Department and when you check the rest of the security tapes …’
‘I’ve got two staff working on them right now,’ said the other woman, who was Eastman’s Security Manager. ‘I’m sorry we’ve been so slow to pick up on this. After-hours intruders normally get caught quite quickly here. She shouldn’t have been able to leave the building.’
‘No matter. The Miniver won’t get very far on those little legs,’ said Primrose. She thought of the bonus that awaited whoever tracked down Emily and Rosamund: a whole year’s salary payable as a lump sum, without tax. All the members of the Minivers Security Force were desperate to earn it, though not all of them knew what would happen to the Miniver sisters when they were found. Primrose did know. But then, she did not like Rosamund and Emily Miniver, and did not particularly care what became of them.
A workman came into the department and started loading the cardboard boxes onto a trolley. Primrose thought of what she would do with the money when she got it. She was still deciding which tropical island to visit when the workman put the last and biggest box onto his trolley and wheeled it away.