The Radical (Unity Vol.1) (8 page)

‘It’s a long story…’

I fell back on the sofa, trying to get comfortable.

‘Do I look like I’m going anywhere Camille?’

We still had hours before the funeral, time I didn’t really have spare. I was clock watching continually and the hands were ticking slower and slower.

‘Okay, I will tell you, but you must listen and not ask questions.’

‘I’m listening. Tell me e
verything.’

Camille paced while she told me her story and I shut my eyes to absorb her words, determined
to let them all sink in.

‘I
was raised in an orphanage on the outskirts of Paris after my parents died in 2023. Like you I have no brothers or sisters, so I became a creature of solitude, preferring not to entangle myself emotionally. What happened in 2023 was terrifying, but for the children, even more so. Some lost their siblings, some their parents, most their grandparents. I had not a single person left in the world. It seemed as if we had all been born merely to suffer and to try and survive as best we could with what we were left with.

‘
At the orphanage, I realized my forte for sewing and it’s something I went on to pursue. And so at age 18 I left the suburbs behind after winning a scholarship to attend the Parisian School of Art and Design, graduating in 2034. After that, I spent years traveling the world, making garments to sell on the streets, randomly moving from one place to another. I begged, borrowed and sometimes even stole to keep food in my stomach and clothes on my back. I fell in with a street gang in Budapest and we moved from one place to another together, doing whatever we needed to in order to overcome the noose Officium had hung around the world. For at least five years, I had no fixed address whatsoever. It didn’t bother me sleeping on the streets, or in alleyways, or on someone’s cold floor. I’d never known comfort, and so, it was normal. I woke every day knowing that the search for food came second to my need for excitement.

‘
I’d grown extremely tough and people back then knew me as something of a scrapper. I was just desperately seeking my place in the world. I always knew that there was only one person I could rely on and soon friendships broke down, loyalties became divided and I broke free. An attempt to spring a group of factory workers from their bonds went wrong and I decided it was time to put some distance between myself and Europe, taking myself off to the Orient.

‘
In Japan, I found my second home. There, I appreciated the culture, the society and their way of living. It was even more cramped than in Paris but that didn’t matter to me. Living in a pod was luxury compared to my previous habitations! Quite by chance, I developed a friendship with a sensei, after he bought up some of my silk dresses for his daughters. He was a tiny, unassuming man, devoted to his wife and family. His clan was brave enough to live in some abandoned farmland just outside Tokyo and one day he invited me to his humble abode for dinner. I was struck not only by his generous hospitality, but also by his family’s skills in Shotokan Karate. There were hundreds of trophies dotted around their shack, dating from as far back as the Seventies. He was the only person in the world to have reached his eleventh Dan, a grandmaster of unparalleled skill, agility, strength and speed – but something of a pariah. I asked one of his daughters to show me her skills and she nearly broke my back as she grappled me to the ground with one fell swoop. I was so impressed, I begged him to teach me everything he knew. He refused at first, but I was persistent. For weeks, I laboriously cycled from the city to his home every day, turning up with more gifts for his daughters. Each time he turned me away, I refused to be dissuaded. Then one day, he relented, and my tutelage began in the boggy rice fields at the back of his home.

‘
The fertile green surroundings and the prolonged and unforgiving rain became the backdrop and the dojo of my lessons – and my enemy. Barefoot and dressed sparingly, I took a lot of blows at the will of his hand. He nearly knocked the life out of me as my face was continually pushed into the cold, life-draining, damp mud. While the family ate their meals together inside, I was left out in the cold in my makeshift bamboo shelter to survive on decaying vegetables and dried fish. I nearly gave up so many times, but that would have been the easy way, and that had never been an option for me. I knew that as long as I had breath and strength left in me, I would never break.

‘
I still remember so clearly the relentless circuit training in the unforgiving earth of those fields, performing press-ups while he stood on my back taunting me with abuse, saying I was just another pathetic woman who would break against his will. Each taunt made me more determined, more resistant to failure, and I began to feel invincible. I rose above the idea of being weakened by my human form. After mastering the basics, I grew so physically and mentally strong that when it came to combat, the process wasn’t a conscious experience for me. My very first attempt to smash through a wooden plank was successful, easy even. Until you actually participate in the disciplines of martial arts with a humble approach, an open mind and a full heart, you can never understand the mentality it enables you to develop. Once the mind has been broken, and rebuilt, you can become whatever you want to be. If you will something to be so, it must be. My body became a highly-tuned force of rigidity and I was no longer a creature of reaction, more one of calm and serenity, allowing the world to wash over my being. The key was not to react, merely to retain strength. Unless it was really necessary to perform, only then would I execute myself, and if so, only absolute exhibition of one’s skills would suffice. Sensei Toshiro and I formed a bond that went beyond the one he shared with his family even. We were equal souls existing on a level plane, and even a whisper of breath from one of us revealed to the other what we were thinking or feeling; we were so in tune with one another.

‘
However, opponents soon became too easy and I tired of my life in Japan. I began to yearn for the streets of Paris back home and returned there in 2041 after several years of living from hand to mouth, from country to country.

‘
I maintain my discipline and still spar and meditate every day even now. It was something that I knew would never leave me. Many members of UNITY have been taught by me, and I’ve now reached my eighth Dan, which is simply a testament to all the wonders that martial arts have enabled me to enjoy – friendship, discipline and freedom from fear.

‘
After returning home from Japan, I got by selling millinery on the streets of Montmartre, until one day an elegant Englishwoman turned up and bought everything on my table. She noticed my shabby clothes and unwashed appearance, declaring, “How is someone of your talent doing this?”

‘
At first I was reluctant to latch on to her friendliness, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer when she insisted on buying me dinner that night. She offered me a job at the bridal house then and there, but I challenged her motives.

‘
She gave me that stern look of hers, and simply said, “Because I know a woman of your caliber will be indispensable and instrumental to my cause.” I was instantly intrigued and she began to explain how she’d heard from Sensei Toshiro that I’d left Japan and come back to Europe. He was part of the movement and had informed her of how good a combatant I had become.

‘
Then she had some revelations that I wasn’t expecting. She told me that my mother and father had been in the French Secret Service, a fact I knew nothing about until she disclosed it to me. She placed a file on the restaurant table and I looked it over with interest and horror. I began to get some sense of my identity and realized my similar pursuit of thrills and adventure was something I’d undoubtedly got from them. They were not killed by the flu, but by Officium, and I knew then that my lot was to join Eve’s efforts.

‘
I moved to York and settled for a quiet but purposeful life, helping her make this place more successful than either of us could have ever imagined. Many of our members met and married through the work they carried out for Eve – and the women became clients at the shop. However, don’t let that overshadow her success Seraph. She still had dozens and dozens of customers who came from the farthest corners of the globe to have their wedding dresses made by her. I suppose it was the romance of this building that drew them here, but also the relatively small fee she charged for them to have a gown made from scratch, and to their exact specifications. Her decision to remain open amidst a world of declining craftsmanship somehow paid dividends, and for once, refusing to follow a trend proved unbelievably canny. There were still a lot of people who had managed to find happy lives for themselves, but they were very few and far between after 2023.

‘
She was the bedrock of this place and it simply won’t be the same without her. I loved her dearly and never expected to feel so sad about her loss. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought anyone could be as good a friend to me as she was. I never thought such kindness existed in the world until I met her. She was the ultimate person, ultimate woman, ultimate warrior even.

‘
She never mentioned him by name but I knew she’d known great love during her lifetime. It was written all over her face sometimes. A woman who has been loved truly has a certain look about her, one of heightened knowledge and undeniable mystery. She lost that great love and it is that which made her what she was. But I cannot tell you anymore than that.’

When Camille finished her explanation, she sat on the coffee table in front of me. Her head bowed, she began to cry, sniffing and dripping with tears. I knelt and took her in my arms; we played mother and daughter.

My
mind turned to one thing – when had this love affair taken place and what happened to him? I didn’t want to launch a barrage of questions at Camille, who was obviously grieving and was just as forlorn as I over Eve’s passing. I decided I would find out for myself, even if it killed me, I would finally lay it all to rest.

I didn’t care what it took, I
would do it. It was time.

W
e spent some hours after that telling each other tales about Eve. We reminisced about jokes she told, mannerisms of hers that were funny without a tagline, hairstyles she tried but abandoned. Even though Eve was not in the room with us, what we three shared went beyond sisterhood. It was a shared, innate ability to find strength within. That made everything in the world seem ridiculous if we looked hard enough. We knew our hearts; we only needed gainful employment to be happy.

‘Did you leave anything in your hotel room?’

‘I never leave a trail. Why?’

‘W
hy don’t you just stay here tonight? It’s homelier and safer.’

I
had a nervous disposition toward ghosts but realized Camille probably wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘That would be lovely.’

‘I’d better get back to my team, otherwise they may forget who’s in
charge. Make yourself at home, you know. Don’t feel you have to stand on ceremony. If I don’t see you later tonight, I’ll see you in the morning for the funeral.’

The mention of the f-wo
rd made me wince. A look of dread passed between us, because we both knew it wasn’t going to be an easy day.

‘Okay, I’ll see you later then.’

‘Oh by the way Seraph, she didn’t want anyone wearing black.’

Camille
seemed to be hinting at my perennial choice of clothing.

‘That sucks…
I don’t have anything that isn’t!’

‘If you look in Eve’s closets, I’m sure you’ll find something
colorful
.’

And with that, Camille left.

I threw
open the sliding oak wardrobes that stretched across the entire length of the room and eyed the huge closets. There was not one hint of black clothing in sight. Everything was vibrant, multicolored and patterned. There were various sizes of dresses, hats, shawls, scarves, skirts, sweaters, shoes, boots, vests, evening gowns, slippers, pajamas – everything you could possibly imagine. Some still had the labels on. I didn’t know where to start and decided the search would keep until the morning.

Instead, I
began to explore the rest of Eve’s flat. I assessed the thousands of thank-you cards in the desk and found there was nothing out of the ordinary there. The two bedrooms were impeccably tidy and didn’t reveal anything either. However, I had a thought as I noticed a loft cover in the hall. I pulled it and a set of stairs tumbled down.

Climbing the steps, I felt sure I
was on the right track. Turning on the attic light, however, I was disappointed to discover the loft contained only a few old boxes.
Still, there might be something interesting in these.
There were deeds to the shop, bank statements from decades ago, old employee records and receipts. It all seemed pretty mundane and tedious. However, there was a box pushed right to the back of the loft, draped in a blanket that had been perishing for years.

In there I
discovered pictures of Eve when she was young. I had never seen her like that before and I had to take a breath. She reminded me a little of a younger version of myself. She was different, though. I knew my look was boring classical, whereas Eve was a mixture of quirk and beauty. She had a plump mouth that was uneven but moved so gracefully and twitched easily with the tiniest amount of delight. She had such round cheekbones and freckles, lots of them in fact, whereas my skin was alabaster, and her red hair was much brighter than mine ‒ almost orange.

She must have been young in the phot
os, perhaps in her early 30s ‒ what sprang to mind was who took them. Photo after photo showed Eve happy and smiling, in different poses, but looking much the same in each of them. At the bottom of the pile was one of her with a man. It looked like he had taken the photo at arm’s length, because their faces filled the frame. He had dark hair, strangely handsome features and a gentle demeanor. The pair of them looked very much in love.

Sifting throu
gh box after box, I found no other evidence of Eve’s love interest. There were just boxes full of more business papers. Frustrated, I moved to the steps to descend back down.

When my
foot fell heavily on a floorboard at the bottom, I heard a creak and a crunch, before the floor seemed to cave in and my foot fell through the wood. A slat broke in two and I was forced to cling on to the ladders to prevent myself falling.

After I wiggled my foot free, I
took a step back and peered down at the floor. Dropping on one knee, I picked through the splintered shards and threw them to one side. There was a wad of papers hidden beneath, wrapped in a cardboard sleeve bound by an elastic band.

I
realized it probably contained documents I wasn’t meant to find. Testing its weight on my palm, I wondered whether I could handle anything more and contemplated calling Camille up to look over it with me. However, my curiosity was piqued and something told me to just get it over with.

I
moved back to the sitting room, slamming the pile on the solid coffee table. Sat on the Victorian sofa, I ripped off the elastic band and pulled open the file.

The first document
was a marriage certificate. As soon as I saw the words “
Eve Marie Maddon
”
in the first column of the document, shock flooded me. Eve had portrayed herself as the eternal singleton for a reason.
Camille was right, there was a man
.

I
eagerly examined the rest of the information and discovered Eve had married a Thomas David Bradbury at York Register Office in August, 2013. Eve was 30 years old and he was almost 33.

Shit. Oh god, what happened to him?

I turned over the document and looked at what was underneath. There was a birth certificate, but it was only Eve’s, revealing she was born in York, January 20, 1983. Her parents were Valerie and Frank, 23 and 35 at the time. Quite a large age gap, but then I remembered that Frank had been married before he met Valerie. That previous marriage had produced Harry, my grandfather and Eve’s half-brother.

The next item I
arrived at was a photograph. It was Eve and Tom on their wedding day, stood outside an ordinary brick building I presumed was the register office. They were both tall and slim and he held her hand against his chest while they laughed in the direction of the camera. He wore a grey suit with a red tie and a matching rose buttonhole. He sported dark-brown hair, dark eyes and an extremely proud grin. Meanwhile Eve cut a most magical figure. Her hair was pulled up into a beehive and delicate strands framed her face. Her huge smile revealed large white teeth and she wore blood-red lipstick, but her other make-up was understated. Her dress was a short, Sixties-style pinafore in white, worn with matching laced-up platform shoes. She held a small bouquet of pink carnations wrapped with white ribbon.

My heart beat wildly in my
chest. The photograph spoke volumes. It showed that Eve had truly loved somebody, and that for them to have been separated, something terrible must have happened.
How could Eve have kept so much from me?
I stared at the photograph and my heart broke at the scene of happiness. I searched the other documents for more photos, but there were none. This was the only one picturing them together.

Tears
welled in my eyes but something else drew my attention. Amongst the items was a small, fragile envelope with the words, “
To my darling Eve
”
written on the front. I picked some thin pages out of the envelope and held the letter in both hands, trying to steady myself as I realized this would prove to be a sacred window into Eve’s secretive life.

My lovely, sweet, girl…

I am so lost
without you, we both are. Imogen and I miss you so much. I love you more each day, even after all these years. I can barely breathe without you. I count the hours and the days until we might see you again. This thing that has ruined our peaceful existence is intolerable, unfair, unjustified. Some days the bitterness grips me so badly that hate wrenches my heart. Imogen sees it but she tries not to show it. Like you, she knows a kiss or a hug is enough to soothe me back to sense.

I fear for you each day you remain in
York. I know you will never abandon your work but if I could ask you to leave, I would. I might implore you to seek safety with us if I knew you might be swayed. However, I know you won’t be able to leave your post. Part of me loves you more for braving that foul regime while a corner of me aches and yearns for the life we once shared to return. I miss the love we were able to give freely, before that dreadful disease ravaged our world and everything we held dear.

How confident we were for ever believing our world was safe, secure and everlasting. I suppose all I can take comfort in is knowing you are alive. That alone is enough for me some days. I k
now you, my clever girl, will keep yourself safe. I know that.

B
ut sweetness, I crave the day I feel you in my arms again. Surely it will be safe enough soon for you to travel? I write though this might never reach you by post, so I shall save it for when we do see one another again, and you will see then, I never stopped thinking about you.

Tom x

It was dark outside the bridal shop when Camille rushed up the stairs like a bat out of hell and found me in a crumpled mess on the sofa.

‘Seraph!
I thought something terrible had happened to you when you said come quickly! Where’s the fire?’

I struggled to get my words out, ‘Look. At. This. Stuff
.’

Camille seated herself and
saw the wedding photo first.

‘
Mon dieu, mon dieu!
Look at her. Wasn’t she beautiful?’

‘I know,’ I
spluttered.

I felt like a god, damn, wreck, sniveling over some old photos. Truth was, Eve had known real love. That was clear, to me, from having read the letter. I felt thankful for that. At least she died having known love.

I was left with so many questions.

‘My dear, I thought you were tougher than this.’

‘I thought so too, but look how beautiful she was. Look how happy they were. I just don’t understand why she didn’t tell me about him!’

Camille took my
hand and looked over some of the other things in the folder, realizing there was little else of note.

‘Come here,’ Camille pulled me into her arms and we rested back against the sofa
.

‘What I can’t ge
t over is that she wasn’t the person I thought she was. I always used to view her as this untouchable being – the one person out there in the world untarnished by desire, or greed, or want. For me, that kept me going. I aspired to be like her and knew that even if I was just a little bit like her, I would be okay.’

‘She
was
real, Seraph, just like you or I. We look to our elders for support and succor, but at the end of the day, we’re all just human. We all have foibles, issues, troubles, pasts and quirks of our own.’

‘I thought I was stronger t
han this but I’m a total fuckin’ mess. What’s wrong with me?’