‘Stop it!’ he yelled. ‘That’s not fair!’
Lye’s mouth moved, and he heard her cry. ‘We’re sick of it! Sick of you!’
But the cry was in Riff’s voice, not Lye’s. Then Riff’s mouth moved, echoing the same words. ‘Sick of it! Sick of you!’
Now it was Lye’s voice coming from Riff. They shared everything, interchangeably!
‘Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick of you!’
He woke up suddenly and gasped at the pain in his chest. It was sharp like a cut and dull like a bruise.
Only a dream, he told himself. It’ll pass, it’ll pass.
Yet it was a dream that had gone right through him and changed the colour of his thoughts. He couldn’t help thinking it had stripped away the illusions and revealed the true situation. Lye had triumphed, and Riff was lost.
A wave of bitterness washed over him. He lay on his mattress and stared up into the darkness – at the shadowy ceiling, at the dim bookshelves towering up on either side. He just wished they would collapse and crush him.
He hadn’t known about the Changing Room, and when he did find out, he’d turned against his own class and fought for the revolution. He could have been Supreme Commander of this juggernaut, he could have had everyone looking up to him and obeying his every command. Instead, he’d given it all away for Riff. What had she given away for him?
She was more concerned about power and position than he’d ever been. They’d ended up meeting only in secret because she was afraid of what the Filthies would think of their relationship. And had she even cared very deeply about their secret meetings? Those few hours a week, so infinitely precious . . . No, if he was honest with himself, they’d never mattered as much to her as they mattered to him.
The thought twisted inside him like a worm. The feelings were all one way, from him to her.
He came to a resolution then: the relationship was over. He declared it dead. If she could forget everything they’d shared in the past, then he could too. No more wishing and hoping, no more humiliations, no more useless hankering, no more stupid ups and downs. Let Lye have her.
‘It’s over,’ he whispered aloud in the darkness. He felt numb, and somehow heavy and empty at the same time. ‘Over. Over. Over. Over.’
‘Colbert? There’s something very interesting. Do you want to come and see?’
Col looked up at his father standing at the foot of his mattress. An unusual excitement animated Orris’s lugubrious features.
Col felt so low he could have happily stayed sleeping the whole day. But he roused and followed his father.
Orris led the way round into another aisle between bookcases. Everywhere they stumbled over bags and boxes, pillows and blankets, piles of clothing and assorted personal possessions.
The ‘something very interesting’ turned out to be Murgatrude with Col’s baby brother. Mr Gibber’s pet had hunkered down on Antrobus’s mattress, while Antrobus sat facing him, cross-legged. They were absorbed in silent com- munion. Murgatrude seemed almost as good at silent communion as Antrobus.
Quinnea stood on the other side of the mattress, hands clasped to her chest as she looked on. ‘Aren’t they amazing?’ she murmured.
Col shrugged. ‘I saw them like that when Murgatrude came to the library a week ago.’
Then he realised what his mother meant. It wasn’t the same as a week ago because Antrobus kept moving his lips as if forming silent syllables. Murgatrude might have been lip-reading, the way his amber-coloured eyes were fixed upon that tiny mouth.
‘We think Antrobus is trying to talk,’ said Orris.
‘Imagine!’ gushed Quinnea. ‘His first words!’
‘Keep trying, Antrobus.’
‘Go on, my little baby.’
‘You can do it, son.’
‘Just make the sounds.’
‘Speak to your mother,’ Orris urged. ‘Your first words should be to your mother.’
Not first words at all, thought Col. Antrobus had spoken to him and Riff at the time of Sir Mormus’s suicide from the platform above the Bridge. But he held back from saying so.
In any case, Antrobus didn’t appear inclined to speak right now. As he went on mouthing word-shapes to Murgatrude, Quinnea’s excitement faded. Col frowned at his baby brother’s inexplicable perversity.
Suddenly another voice cut in. ‘Murgy! Murgy! Murgy! Murgy!’
It was Mr Gibber searching for his pet. He appeared at the other end of the aisle carrying Murgatrude’s wastepaper basket. Then he caught sight of Murgatrude over Quinnea’s shoulder.
‘There you are!’ He came forward, grinning apologetically as he squeezed past Quinnea. ‘You bad pet! Leaving your wastepaper basket! Leaving your kind master! Murgy?’
Not a twitch of a whisker from Murgatrude. Mr Gibber got down on his knees at the end of the mattress. He looked round at his audience and pulled his rubbery face into a huge smile.
‘Here’s what I do,’ he announced. ‘You have to understand how the animal mind works. This always does the trick.’
He tilted the basket in Murgatrude’s direction and scratched in the bottom with his fingertips. Murgatrude continued to look at Antrobus.
‘Murgy, Murgy.’ Mr Gibber sighed. ‘Stop being such a show-off. You’re making an exhibition of yourself in front of all these people.’ He spoke in an aside to his human audience. ‘This is where I use a little psychology. He can’t resist this.’
He placed the wastepaper basket on the floor in front of him, then folded his arms, leaned forward and rested his elbows in the bottom of the basket.
‘How comfy and cosy!’ he exclaimed. ‘I think I’ll just curl up and go to sleep in this nice basket.’
Murgatrude remained completely indifferent. Mr Gibber grimaced and rolled his eyes.
‘He’s being a real performer today,’ he said. ‘All for effect, you know. He’ll do anything to get himself noticed.’ He switched back to his pet. ‘Very well, Murgatrude. You’re the centre of attention. We’re all watching you. And now I’m going to steal your basket. Look!’
Mr Gibber rose, then lowered himself into a squatting position and plumped his posterior down into the wastepaper basket, as far as it would go.
‘Look, Murgy!’
He sat there with his knees up to his chin and waited for a reaction. He waved his arms and waddled the basket about on the floor. None of it made any difference to Murgatrude.
‘Attention-seeker!’ he cried. ‘You’re overdoing it, Murgatrude! No one’s impressed any more! We’re all getting very bored with you! Enough of the stunts! Playing to the gallery, Murgatrude!’
Still sitting in the wastepaper basket, he reached forward and gave Murgatrude’s tail a tweak. The tail flicked aside and a deep-throated growl filled the air.
‘Rrrrrr-ow-rrrr! ’
Mr Gibber drew back his hand in a hurry. ‘All right. You’ve embarrassed me now, Murgatrude. So be it. Stay with this . . . this babe in arms.’ For the first time, he deigned to recognise the presence of Antrobus. ‘This whippersnapper. I’m disappointed in you, Murgatrude. I thought you were more mature.’
He struggled to his feet, but the wastepaper basket had locked onto his posterior. He tugged and heaved and eventually hauled it off. Red in the face, he stood up straight and shouted at his pet.
‘You disloyal creature! I abandon you! Do you hear? I abandon you!’ When Murgatrude still didn’t twitch a whisker, he turned to his human audience. ‘I abandon him,’ he explained.
He pushed past Quinnea and stomped off. They heard the sound of his footsteps heading towards the library door. A moment later, there was a loud slam.
‘I think he’s gone out,’ said Orris, shaking his head.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Col. ‘He’ll be back.’
Still th
e refugees continued to arrive. The next day it was a group from a small ghetto on Thirty-Seventh Deck: a silversmith, a notary, and their wives and children. One of their group had been mysteriously abducted in the middle of the night, and they had decided to seek safety in numbers.
Their arrival jolted Col out of his dark mood over Riff, and started him thinking about Victoria, Albert and their attendants. They constituted an even smaller ghetto, just four of them on their own. Someone ought to encourage them to move to the relative safety of the Norfolk Library.
He set off at once for the Imperial Chapel. What if something bad had happened to them already?
He need not have troubled himself; they were still all there. A warm, loving atmosphere pervaded their makeshift residence, with Victoria’s pregnancy the centre of everyone’s attention.
When Col explained the increasing danger, the old major-domo puffed out his chest and stepped forward. ‘They’d better not try any of that here. I’ll deal with them.’
The ex-Queen smiled. ‘No, Beddle, you can’t fight them. You can barely tie your own shoelaces in the morning.’ From anyone else it might have sounded sharp, but not from Victoria. She turned to Albert. ‘What do you think, my dear?’
‘Hmm . . .’
She nodded towards Col. ‘I’m sure he has our best interests at heart.’
‘No doubt, no doubt of it. And we have to think of little Henrietta.’
‘Or little Henry.’
‘Henrietta.’
‘Henry.’
Albert took Victoria’s hand. ‘We’ll see.’
‘We will, we will.’ Victoria’s smile lit up her whole face.
They were so tender to each other that Col thought of Riff and felt a sudden pang. The dark mood rushed back over him and the world seemed to go into a blur. He looked down at his feet, trying to hide the wetness in his eyes.
Victoria noticed and empathised – or thought she did. ‘He’s remembering his own Sephaltina,’ she whispered to Albert.
‘Is he?’ Whispering was outside Albert’s vocal range. ‘The wife who . . . ?’
‘Abandoned him, yes.’
‘Bad show, bad show. She should have stayed.’
‘Shush.’
Col pulled himself together and returned to the present. ‘So will you come to the Norfolk Library?’ he asked.
‘I think . . .’ Albert twiddled a non-existent moustache. ‘I believe . . . yes.’
Victoria nodded and turned to her major-domo and lady-in-waiting. ‘You’ll come with us, won’t you?’
‘We will, Your Majesty,’ said Morkins at once.
‘Of course, Your Majesty.’ Beddle bristled up as though he would engage in fisticuffs with anyone who tried to stop them.
Col explained that they should bring only essential personal items, which troubled Victoria and Albert much less than it troubled Beddle and Morkins. For half an hour, everyone bustled around except Victoria.
Col still couldn’t wipe Riff from his mind. Somehow, he’d been stronger and more determined yesterday. Declaring the relationship dead seemed to be growing harder rather than easier.
Back in the library, Gillabeth shifted a bookcase to open up a new space for the ex-royal couple near the door. Col helped, although he found it difficult to concentrate. He moved around in a kind of cloud, which only Gillabeth’s sharpest commands could penetrate.
All afternoon and evening, the dark mood returned again and again. Any tiny thing could bring it on. Be sensible, he kept telling himself. There’s nothing to be done. Accept it. He forced himself to recall the look of non-recognition in Riff’s eyes, but even that seemed less effective than before.
At night, he lay curled up on his mattress, clenched in misery. He twisted and turned, he pressed with both hands to stop it spreading. How could it be so physical?
He had never guessed it could hurt so much.
Mr Gibber made his return the following morning. He had overcome his pique and decided to forgive and forget. He stood in the doorway and announced that he was ready to reconcile with Murgatrude.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Gillabeth.
‘In depths of woe and realms of despair!’ Mr Gibber groaned and flung out his arms. ‘Oh Murgy!’
As it happened, Murgatrude had been on the prowl for scraps of unguarded food. When Mr Gibber caught sight of him, he was licking a plate that one of the silversmith’s children had left lying on the floor.
Mr Gibber bounded across. ‘Murgy, my Murgy!’
Col, like everyone else, stopped what he was doing and turned to watch. Mr Gibber didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he redoubled his dramatics.
‘How could we be apart? How could we let pride stand in the way? What’s pride, compared to all we’ve been through?’
Murgatrude finished licking and directed an inscrutable amber gaze upon his master.
‘Ah, you and I, old pet.’ Mr Gibber sidled closer, half-stooping at the knees. ‘You mangy old bag of bones. Arthritis in your joints and moths in your fur. A carcass on four legs is all you are. But still the best pet in the world to me.’
He held out a hand, but Murgatrude merely looked at it. Mr Gibber put on his most cajoling voice.
‘So tatty and decrepit. You call that fur? You call that a tail? But, Murgy, we were made for each other. You’re what I deserve. I’m nothing and you’re nothing. Come here and be patted.’
He moved his hand a little closer, and Murgatrude swatted it with his paw.
‘Ow! Yow! Ow! You scratched!’ Mr Gibber held up the hand so that everyone could see a red line across the knuckles. ‘He scratched me!’
‘Oh, be quiet, you silly man,’ Gillabeth snorted.
‘Silly? Silly? She thinks I’m silly!’ Mr Gibber danced about, flapping his hand. ‘Perhaps I am. My loving heart makes me do silly things.’ He stopped and eyed Murgatrude severely. ‘My rejected loving heart.’
‘You make too much fuss,’ said Gillabeth. ‘It’s only a . . . a . . .’ Like everyone else, she wasn’t sure whether Murgatrude was more of a cat or more of a dog. ‘A whatever-it-is animal.’
‘The bond between animal and human can be as strong as any bond,’ said Mr Gibber sententiously, and laid a hand – the unscratched one – across his breast. ‘Never underestimate the power of that bond. Or the pain and jealousy when it’s betrayed. When one is left for another.’
‘You mean Antrobus?’ Gillabeth looked around, but Antro- bus was nowhere to be seen. ‘So Murgatrude likes Antrobus better than you. So what? Antrobus likes Murgatrude better than me.’
‘It’s not the same. I’ve done everything for Murgatrude. I’ve been his sole carer and provider.’ He glared at his pet. ‘After all I’ve done for you.’
Gillabeth shrugged, and seemed about to dismiss the whole discussion. But instead she said, ‘You think I haven’t done everything for Antrobus?’
‘Well, you don’t understand about love, then.’
‘I understand enough to know it’s a waste of time.’
‘I love even the mangiest tip of his mangiest paw,’ Mr Gibber declared. ‘I love each and every one of his whiskers. The ones he’s got left.’
‘Stupid.’ Gillabeth stamped her foot with impatience. ‘You just do what you have to do. You shouldn’t expect a return for it. You shouldn’t make yourself unhappy over it.’
It had become a private conversation between the two of them. Col wasn’t sure whether his sister was talking more about Mr Gibber and Murgatrude or herself and Antrobus.
‘Perhaps you’re not very lovable.’ Mr Gibber pulled one of his grimacing smiles.
‘No, I’m not. I don’t expect to be. And nor are you, by the look of it.’
‘I can hope.’
‘Yes, and I can do something useful wit
h my life, instead of deluding myself and carrying on like an idiot. At least I’ll do what I do with dignity.’
Murgatrude chose that particular moment to yawn, stretch and stalk off. Mr Gibber let out a cry and jumped across to stand in his way. Murgatrude merely detoured around his legs.
‘Very well. I stand aside and let you go.’ Belatedly, Mr Gibber stepped aside. ‘I have my dignity too. Go, Murgatrude.’
Murgatrude went – towards the aisle between the bookcases where Antrobus had his mattress.
‘Go!’ Mr Gibber called out after him. ‘Go to your new carer and provider! Go to your whippersnapper! I won’t stop you!’
Gillabeth clicked her tongue and walked away. She looked a little red in the face, as if embarrassed by the conversation she’d fallen into.
Col heard it all as a reflection on his own circumstances. I can do something useful with my life. He would make Gillabeth’s phrase his own motto from now on. Better not to be deluded, better not to carry on like an idiot.
At the same time, he couldn’t help feeling a little sad and sorry for his sister.
While Murgatrude slept curled up on the end of Antrobus’s mattress, Mr Gibber remained in the library talking to anyone who would listen. In his time away, he had heard more rumours about the Council. Apparently, Riff now kept to her room, so neither she nor Dunga were present at meetings. With no opposition, the radical faction of Lye and Shiv refused to run from the approaching juggernauts, and called anyone who thought otherwise a craven coward. Liberator would continue to load coal until every bunker was full, they said.
The juggernaut was becoming an increasingly dangerous place as tensions rose. Listening to the fearful tales told by refugees from other ghettoes, Col and his family and friends counted themselves lucky.
But even the Norfolk Library was no longer a safe haven. That night, everything changed.
It began with a knock on the door. Col was restless and brooding, and remained awake long after everyone else had gone to sleep. He decided to act as doorman.
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