“I...” Maliha did not feel she could tell the truth but nor could she lie. Her voice trailed off. “...need a replacement.”
The woman looked as if she was going to argue but then relaxed. She peered at Maliha’s face then turned to a rack behind her. “You need something less heavily tinted,” she said. “Trouble with buying from the catalogue, you can’t have them properly fitted.” She pulled a pair of finished glasses from the rack. Maliha could see the blue was less intense and allowed in more light.
“Why do I need ones like that?”
“Your eyes are already very dark, sweetie. Being Indian you’re already used to sunlight—not like us pasty types, blue eyes, can’t take the sun. Leastways not in this place.”
“Oh.”
“Here, sit there while I fit them.” She indicated a chair in the corner. Maliha sat and the woman tried them on her. She tutted, took them off again, went into the back and returned with a pair of round-nosed pliers that she used to bend the end of the arms slightly more.
Maliha wondered about the time. It would not take Izak very long to find something to eat.
“Do you make the glass as well?” asked Maliha as the spectacles were once again placed on her nose. She could feel the arms gripping her ears a little tighter.
“My husband.”
“Can you do special commissions?” Maliha was staring ahead, looking out the door. The man who had been following her was looking at her in the reflection in the glass just outside the door. He did not seem to realise that if he could see her then she could see him. Still, he was definitely out of earshot.
“What sort of commission?”
“I am after something quite unusual, like Muller and Fick?”
“Can’t say I know them.”
“Your husband might.”
“He might,” she said and stood back. “There you go, those are properly fitted. If you look after them, and don’t break them, they’ll last just fine.”
Maliha got to her feet. “Thank you. How much do I owe you?”
“Two and ten, love.” The woman took the white fiver from Maliha and got her change from a drawer.
“A boy will come by in a minute,” said Maliha. “He’s got the details of what I want. If you can tell him whether you can do it and how long it will take? Or if you can’t do it,” she said. “But it’s very important and I’ll pay whatever you ask.”
The woman put her head on one side. “All right, dearie. Whatever you say.”
Maliha thanked her and headed out. She turned left, back the way she had come, just as if this had been her sole destination—which it had been—but her shadow was gone. She returned upstairs and waited.
iv
Izak handed her the second pie then offered her the change almost as an afterthought, but all she said was, “Keep it.”
She bit into the pie as they headed out. The rain had stopped, but the heat was still intense, with the water that had fallen now evaporating and saturating the air.
They took a cab. She gave the driver the address she recalled from the passenger and crew lists the captain had supplied.
“Did you deliver the letter?” she said between mouthfuls. The meat in the pie was unrecognisable.
“She said they would do it,” said Izak.
“By tomorrow?”
“Evening.”
“That’s good.”
A wave of sickness hit her like a wall and she barely managed to hold back her stomach’s contents. She almost threw the pie back to Izak and then she sat back in the seat, willing her body under control. She would not embarrass herself again by vomiting in a taxicab.
She closed her eyes. No, that was worse. She focused on the city passing by, watching buildings slowly moving in the distance. There was no question: Regina was significantly larger than official estimates back on Earth.
They passed the main business centre and moved out into an area filled with modest dwellings. Focusing on the details helped to distract from her rebellious innards. If there was one thing she noticed about the towns and cities of England, it was how crammed together everyone was.
They tended to repeat the same pattern wherever they went but not here. From the pictures she had seen of the United States, this place was more like that frontier land, where space was so plentiful that everything was spread out.
The people must have engaged in major deforestation to build these endless roads and walkways, not to mention the buildings themselves.
The cab pulled off the main road and down an incline to an area not unlike a railway platform. Maliha and Izak disembarked into the heat. The cab had used some cooling system for its interior. She paid the driver and found several unusual coins in the change, including a half-crown that should not exist. There was a picture of Edward VII on one side but on the obverse, instead of Britannia or St George, was a semblance of the goddess Venus in the Roman style.
She was not aware that Regina and the surrounding territories had been given permission to mint their own coins. It was possible it had not been reported in a newspaper she read, though that seemed unlikely.
However, there must be an ideal quantity of coins per citizen to allow a country to function. And if one had a higher population than expected, one might need more coins, and that might be noticeable.
Maliha wondered where to go next but saw there were clear signs indicating the various residential streets. The road they had come along ran parallel to a river cut deep into the rocks below them. After the rain, the water was plunging through it at a tremendous rate and was close to the top of its gorge.
Their walkway crossed it at a height of twenty feet and then descended by a series of wet steps to only five feet from the ground. Everywhere was the same dense covering of moss and grasses. Rivulets cut through it, joining and separating as they went tumbling to the edge of the gorge and over.
She caught a glimpse of a thin and sinewy skin winding through the water and plants, stopping and starting every now and then. Its body was wider than her hand with a length of at least ten feet. It had a mottled green and black skin. She shook her head. Snakes were common enough in India. When you found a cobra, you sent for the man to collect it and take it away.
The buildings here were small—only a single storey, on piles to make them stand out from the water and with perhaps four or five rooms each—but, as she had noted before, each one was separate. A far cry from even the most opulent Georgian crescent back in England, where every house was attached to the one next to it.
She reached the number she remembered. The house of Ignatius Hammond, the recently deceased steward serving aboard the Atacama Sea.
The front door had two layers. There was an outer door frame covered with a thin gauzy material; it gave slightly when Maliha pressed her fingers against it and there were a couple of small insects caught in its weave. Behind it was the actual door.
There was a knocker made of wood to the side of the door. Maliha rapped it against the frame twice.
The trapped insects—similar to flies but with more pairs of wings—buzzed intermittently. Someone laughed in the distance and an unknown animal made a sound, somewhere between a dog’s bark and the caw of a crow. She turned and looked along the houses, which stood in two rows facing one another. The walkways ran in parallel in front of each row, with a crosswalk every third house. It was all very neat and ordered.
The unlatching of the door brought her back. She glanced at Izak, put her hand on his shoulder and leaned on her walking stick. Her new glasses hid her eyes.
“Yes?”
The speaker was a woman of about forty, the right age to be married to the murderer. Her face was slack, her hair greying from its original brown, and her eyes lacked interest.
“Mrs Hammond?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband is Ignatius Hammond?”
Interest appeared in the eyes and she stood a little straighter. “Who are you?”
Maliha toyed for a mom
ent with using her alias but decided against it. “Maliha Anderson.”
There was a flicker of recognition. “You and your boy better come in.”
She pulled the main door further open and unlatched the outer one. Maliha stood back as it swung outward, then stepped inside. She had to walk past Mrs Hammond, who shut the outer door after Izak had entered.
The room was sparse. There were basic furnishings: a table, chairs, shelves with a few books and ornaments. Most noticeable by their absence were any sort of soft furnishings; there were only a few cushions and no carpet or rugs. One might put this down to a lack funds for such luxuries, but Maliha suspected the climate of Venus was more likely the culprit. Soft products would rot quickly and provide places for plants and fungi to grow.
The native environment imposed itself on everything.
She could hear the regular thump of a small steam engine; she guessed it to be driving the fan that circulated air in the room. It was not as effective as a dehumidifier, but it was better than nothing and reminded Maliha of Barbara’s home in Ceylon, with the steam punkhawallah.
“I have been told my husband is dead,” said Mrs Hammond; the sheet had said her Christian name was Elise. She did not invite Maliha to sit, despite the fact she was leaning on her stick.
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“They didn’t say how he died. Do you know?”
“I was there.”
“Let me see your eyes.”
Maliha removed her glasses and the woman peered at her face. Then she looked away, glancing at a photograph on a shelf. The aggressive tension seemed to leave her and she deflated.
“You know he had black-eye then,” said Maliha. She felt awkward standing up, so, without being invited, she went to the table, pulled out a chair and sat. Elise Hammond followed suit, as if she had been waiting for permission.
“He wrote that he’d been infected,” she said. “How did he die?”
Maliha could have wrapped the truth in euphemisms, but it would have had less impact. “He shot himself.”
Maliha was surprised at the lack of shock Mrs Hammond expressed at the news. There was no reaction beyond a tensing of her muscles. Instead she said, “And had he done the job he was supposed to do?”
Maliha was not sure of the answer to that. He had murdered two people and almost killed another with torture. What would drive a man to do that?
“Did he?” She was almost frantic at Maliha’s delay in answering.
“Yes.” If his job was to attract my attention and then infect me with black-eye.
“You don’t look like you have it.”
“There probably hasn’t been time for it to show yet,” said Maliha. “I keep being sick, my clothes have become tighter and I have passed out more than once.” For some reason it seemed that her being infected affected the woman’s happiness: if Maliha was infected that was a good thing.
“All right,” said Elise Hammond. She stood up and went into what Maliha surmised to be the kitchen. The fact that the woman was satisfied Maliha had the disease from the description of her symptoms was worrying. Perhaps she had not been able to prevent infection from Hammond or she had picked it up from Lilith, who was at least as far gone as the man, if not further.
Elise Hammond returned, carrying an envelope. She handed it to Maliha. It was oily in texture to protect it from the damp and thin enough to only contain a single folded sheet. Maliha’s real name was written in traditional copperplate hand on the exterior.
Maliha sighed. Once more he was ahead of her, but if she had not turned up on the Hammonds’ doorstep then the letter would have remained undelivered and all else would be the same. It was not any form of prescience, it was simply preparing for all eventualities. Maliha tucked it into her reticule.
“What did they promise you?”
“That I could go home.”
“Earth?”
She nodded. Maliha found that unconvincing. Would a man commit murder, inflict torture and then commit suicide simply to allow his wife to go home? She said as much and Elise looked scared.
“They said you mustn’t tell me,” said Maliha.
Elise nodded.
Maliha glanced at the photographs, which showed young men, women and children in stiff poses.
“They said they would kill your family.”
The woman’s eyes became wide with fear and she looked around as if someone were listening.
“What difference do you think it makes, me knowing this?” said Maliha. “The reason they forbade you to tell me was to demonstrate the power they have over people such as you.” She stood up. “Let me explain something: Mr Terence Timmons has gone to a great deal of trouble to prove that he has greater power than I do. I have been his nemesis since even before I knew I was. I have interfered with his plans and he finds that difficult to accept from a woman. To that end he has concocted a disgusting and murderous plan to show me that I do not have any power.”
She paused to take a deep breath.
“It is possible that he has successfully infected me with black-eye. It is entirely possible that I will die a painful death.” She leaned over the woman. “But I tell you now, Elise Hammond, that I will avenge the deaths of all those he has tortured and murdered. And that includes your husband.”
v
The light was failing as they reached the centre of the city once more. They had had to walk for some distance before reaching a small market area where they could order a taxicab to collect them.
Maliha found herself to be more tired than she expected and her corset, though not laced tight, still clenched her middle as if her waist was expanding. Hammond had mentioned his clothes being tight. As the fungus grew beneath the skin the body expanded. It had happened to Lilith.
All the while the letter waited in her reticule. She had resolved not to look at it until she had eaten and rested. She was looking forward to removing her boots, which were pinching around the ankles.
The taxicab came to a halt outside the hotel. Maliha paid the cabby and they made their way upstairs.
Maliha placed the letter on the occasional table near the door and went into her room, after directing Izak to remove his boots and clean his feet. The humidity in the room was at a comfortable level—she realised she was thinking of the weather in terms of humidity rather than temperature.
In her room she stripped off her clothes, glad to rid herself of the clinging and heavy fashions. Next to the wardrobe was an airing closet designed to dry clothes that had been worn during the day, should the occupant wish to wear them again.
She did not, but she hung up the clothes to dry anyway. She unlaced the tops of her high footwear and forced first one then the other from her feet. They sucked as they came free and she found it useful to push a finger into the ankle part to break the vacuum seal made by the Vaseline.
The greasy material was unpleasant, but her feet were as pristine as they had been when they went into the boots. She located a towel and wiped her feet clean of the gunk. Her encased feet had become very hot and it was pleasant to have the cooler air on them.
She threw herself back onto the bed, happy to just lie there. The day had been exhausting and her ankles throbbed having escaped their confinement. She closed her eyes.
* * *
Valentine leaned over her. She could feel his naked body. He pressed his lips against hers.
She jumped at the knocking on the door. “Goddess?”
Confusion filled her for a few seconds. A dream. A glance at the clock on the wall told her she been asleep for nearly an hour. The door handle turned and the door opened a short distance.
“It’s all right, Izak,” she said. “I’m fine, I fell asleep. Don’t come in!”
The door stopped.
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
The door shut.
Maliha sighed. Hammond had said something about headaches and bad dreams, but that had not been a bad dream, just one of longing.
&n
bsp; She dug out a nightdress and threw it on, then covered herself further with a dressing gown. Finally she untied her hair and let it hang loose so the air could get to her scalp.
In the sitting room, Izak was seated on the settee. He had a pencil and was scratching away in a notepad. The movement of his hand indicated he was shading.
“Are you drawing something?” asked Maliha as she picked up the letter from the table and crossed back to the armchair. Izak nodded. “Show me.”
With a touch of reluctance Izak slid from his place and brought the pad over to her. She took it gently and smiled at him.
“It is not a good picture, Goddess.”
She looked at what he had drawn. There was a flat horizon, the ground part shaded with tight strokes in the distance and much wider ones close up. A tree stood a little to the right. It resembled the banyan in the square in Johannesburg where they had first met.
The silhouette of a woman in what could have been a sari stood against the horizon. And, halfway to the horizon, there was a small figure also in silhouette. Maliha could not tell whether it was walking into the distance or approaching. Perhaps it did not matter.
“I like this very much, Izak,” she said. “You are very skilled. Can you tell me about it?”
“This is our tree,” he said, pointing, “and this is the goddess.”
Maliha pointed at the smaller figure. “And who is this?”
“Lilith.”
Maliha found she could not speak and was weeping once more. She sniffed and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes.
“Where is Izak?” she asked when she could finally get the words out.
He turned to look into her eyes. “I am drawing the picture, Mother.”
Maliha fell to her knees and flung her arms around him. She sobbed into his shoulder. After a few moments of holding himself stiffly, his arms went round her tentatively, and then in a sudden move he embraced her back. He clung to her and she heard him crying too. The first real emotion he had shown since his sister died.
After a time they both ceased crying. She held him as long as he needed to be held even though her knees and thigh ached at the strain. Finally he pulled away and she wiped the tears from his eyes with the cuff of the nightdress.
Under the Burning Clouds Page 21