Voices in the Dark (10 page)

But he wasn’t going to do it, he realized. It had been an excuse to leave the country – that was all. He was going to take the money and run.

The boat jolted suddenly and ran aground on a gritty mudbank half covered in snow. ‘Come on,’ said Rigel, lifting Juliette out and taking back his overcoat.

‘Where are we?’ she said.

‘Check by the stars,’ said Rigel. He took a battered compass out of his pocket and handed it to her. Juliette rubbed the mist from the lens and bent close to it in the darkness. The needle was twisted and jammed, as though something had struck it violently. Juliette started to cry. ‘Come on, it’s all right,’ said Rigel. ‘I’ll carry you.’

They started up the bank. The darkness was thick around them, and every few yards, Rigel would stumble on a broken stick or a hidden line of wire and force back a curse. Stones clicked under his boots. The snow clouds were clearing now, and when they looked back, there was only black
mud and marshes and far away the definite line where the sea met the horizon.

‘What’s happened to the land?’ whispered Juliette.

‘It’s there,’ said Rigel. ‘You just can’t see it.’

They were walking beside a river now. Rigel kept his hand on the back of Juliette’s head, as if she were still a baby.

‘Talk to me, Papa,’ said Juliette. ‘I don’t like the silence.’

‘Well,’ said Rigel, ‘I’ll tell you about our new life. We are going to find a place here where we can live. You can go to school.’

‘Where will we live?’ said Juliette.

‘I’ll buy us a house. Do you know how much money we have here?’

Juliette shook her head.

‘Fifteen million English pounds,’ said Rigel. ‘It’s in the bank in my name and I can take it out tomorrow. Do you know how much that is?’

‘A lot.’

‘Yes. A lot. In this age it is. Our whole street back in Kalitzstad.’

‘Back where?’

‘Sorry – in Malonia City,’ said Rigel. But he was less certain of the name suddenly, as though they had left ten years ago and he’d forgotten the place. ‘Malonia City,’ he repeated. ‘Our street in Malonia City.’

‘What was it like?’ said Juliette.

‘You know our street. It’s on the east side of the city, and the houses face out across the city wall. You can see the eastern hills and the mountains beyond, and you can watch the sun rising over them if you wake early enough.’

‘Yes,’ said Juliette uncertainly. ‘I remember that.’

‘Well, you were very small. Anyway, we’ll have a big house here and servants.’

‘What’s the city’s name?’ said Juliette.

‘The City of Long Down,’ said Rigel. ‘At least that’s what we always used to call it, when we were in the resistance. But, no, that’s not quite right.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Juliette. ‘Going to a city when we don’t even know what its name is.’

They passed under a bridge that trembled and shuddered above them. Rigel knelt down in the darkness and clutched Juliette’s hand so tightly that she held her breath. ‘Papa, what was that?’ she whispered when the noise had faded.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just a carriage passing.’

He stood up, shaking, and watched the car’s tail-lights recede into the dark. ‘We will get used to this place,’ he said. ‘You will like it here. It’s a good place to live.’

Juliette did not answer. As they walked on, he could see the stars, and he tried to point them out to her.

‘Why are they so faint?’ Juliette murmured.

‘Because it’s nearly morning,’ said Rigel, which was not the truth. The stars were fainter here, but there was no reason for it that he could understand. Something about poisoned gases that came between the earth and the constellations. It struck him that he had never asked Aldebaran where the poisoned gases came from. Perhaps they were just one of the old man’s superstitions, like his belief that magic was stronger here. Perhaps he should not think about it, now that he and Juliette were alone in this country.

Rigel did not take out the compass, or the maps that were sewn into the lining of his overcoat. He could not shake
off the feeling that he had made this journey before, and a strange calm came over him. He had always believed that it was his powers that gave him this sense of returning. It was as though the whole of his life was there in the back of his mind, and all he had to do was follow a path already set out for him. That was how he had felt when Aldebaran agreed to let him set out on this mission. As though he had been prepared for it years ago. To find a place far away from insecurity and fighting. A place where Juliette could sleep in a cool white house with alarms on its walls, away from the criminals whose grudges made Rigel wake up shouting in the blackest hours of the night and who had taken her mother from him, a place where Juliette could grow up and be safe. Because there was nothing like having a child of your own to make you lose your courage.

Rigel stopped on the muddy bank of the river and set Juliette down. Across the water, a single light was burning. Rigel took out the bundle of papers – all his books on magic and the papers he had used to communicate with Aldebaran. Then he threw them into the river. They sank out of sight, and the dark water covered them.

Around one o’clock, they stopped at a cold white building at the edge of a main road. Rigel hesitated outside the door. Through the glass, he could see a woman in a uniform. She stood at a metal box, counting out coins and sorting them into transparent bags. She gave him a quick smile as they entered, and glanced at his shabby overcoat. It was probably not quite right for this country, he thought. He took it off and folded it over his arm.

Rigel had practised this scene with Aldebaran, and it stabbed at his heart now. ‘A portion of chips, please,’ he
said, and counted out the few coins she asked for. He waited with his eyes on the tiles under his feet. They had some strange marbled pattern, but they were softer than marble. He wondered if he would one day be so used to this country that he could see tiles like this and not marvel at them.

‘Would your little girl like one?’ said the woman, holding out a tray of sweets.

Rigel started. ‘No,’ he said without thinking about it. ‘Thank you, but no.’

‘Yes, I would, Papa,’ said Juliette, and reached out for one. Her accent was stronger than his and made the woman smile.

‘Are you here on holiday, then?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Rigel.

‘Where from?’

‘Australasia,’ said Rigel.

‘Australia?’

He had mistaken the name. Still, they would be gone in a minute, and the worst thing was to appear uneasy. He nodded and smiled. ‘Must be warmer there this time of year,’ said the woman as she handed the package of food across the counter.

‘Yes, a good deal warmer,’ said Rigel, and picked up Juliette and turned to leave.

Outside, he was shaking, and he had to sit down on the edge of the pavement as soon as they were out of sight of the building. He sat there and ate pieces of fried potato out of greasy paper and did not let go of Juliette. She had drifted back to sleep in his arms. When she woke, he gave her the last few chips, then put the paper in his overcoat pocket and picked her up. They set out again across the dark countryside. Lights were winking all around them now,
the edges of the nearest towns and ahead, the vast city.

Rigel could not stop his heart from beating heavily. But Aldebaran has done this before me, he thought. I am only following in his footsteps. I am following in the footsteps of countless others, like a pilgrim. That’s all. These people who once belonged to our country, these people with powers I was supposed to find. They might have been weary of their old lives too. They might have been heartbroken and desperate to escape.

At last they came up over a low rise, and the city spread out before them. Rigel stopped and set Juliette down and straightened her overcoat. Behind him he could hear the occasional car passing, but he was already used to that sound. Ahead the city stretched so far that he could not see the end of it. A strange orange mist hung over the buildings in the last of the darkness, and lights winked here and there. ‘Juliette,’ he whispered. ‘Look ahead.’

‘What is it?’ said Juliette.

Rigel’s heart ached. It came from being glad and terrified in equal measure, and for a moment he could not speak. But then the name came back to him. ‘The city of London.’

By that part of the story, the weak sun was rising, and the guests in the inn were beginning to stir. I folded up the papers. Mr Hardy watched me thoughtfully for a moment, then got up and walked to the window and back again. ‘That story troubles me,’ he said. ‘It makes Rigel a traitor.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘That was what made me think it was just a story.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Mr Hardy. ‘That is what makes me think it is true.’

I watched him consider it, then turn and walk back to me and sit down heavily at the table. ‘Will you carry on telling me?’ he said. ‘Another evening.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All right.’

Soon after that, the innkeeper came down and gave us bread and water. We had hardly any money; it was an act of charity on his part. Then the coach driver sent for someone to mend the wheel, and before twelve o’clock, we set out again into the snow and the bleak moorland, leaving that village behind.

We did not travel far that day. The snow was banked high on the sides of the road, and no one came out to clear it. After darkness fell, the coach driver began looking for another place to stop – another bleak inn in an unknown village somewhere. I slept with my head on my rolled-up jacket on the table in the front room. When I woke, I was confused. It was just past midnight, and the
stars were shining outside over a landscape I did not know. It took me several seconds to remember where I was.

Mr Hardy was sitting with his arms folded, gazing out into the dark. ‘Anselm,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

I got up and went to the window. Drifts of snow like mist were crossing the dark moor. The whole thing made my heart turn cold.

‘Come and sit here,’ said Mr Hardy. He had been saying his rosary, but he put it away now and drew out a chair for me.

I sat opposite him. ‘Thank you,’ I said. I did not know why my heart was still so heavy and why I still had not written one word of the account I had planned.

Mr Hardy was evidently thinking of the same thing, because he said, ‘How is your story progressing?’

‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘Not really. I don’t know how to tell it.’

‘How you told me,’ he said. ‘Just write it down.’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘Go on telling me, if you like,’ he said. ‘I would rather listen to that than sit here in the dark.’

I still had a wish, however childish, to explain myself. I wanted someone to tell me it would be all right. ‘Can I go on?’ I said. ‘Don’t you mind it?’

He shook his head. ‘Where did you get to?’ he said. ‘Ah, yes. Your friend was about to leave the city.’

It all came back to me, as though it had never been gone, and I started to tell him.

On Michael’s last night in the city, we went out after dinner and walked through the streets. The night was starlit. There had been no riots in the past days, and the city had begun to come alive again. Wealthy people were gathering around the theatres and bars. We wandered through the markets. I did not know what to say to him; now that the Barones’ shop was packed up and Michael was really going, there seemed to be no words between us any more.

We passed a gold and silver stall where the traders crowded so thickly that they shoved each other into the road. Michael slowed to look. A well-dressed man with greased black hair was shouting loudest and banging down crown notes on the stall. He had a suitcase in his hand and a necktie slung casually around his collar, as though it would have fatigued him too much to tie it properly. His accent was something like Alcyrian. I knew half the traders in the city by sight, but not this man. ‘Look at him,’ I said. Michael nodded with a kind of awe.

‘You are robbing me,’ the man was saying, holding a gold medallion to the light. ‘This is not real gold—’

‘Yes, sir, I assure you,’ a voice interjected.

The man bit the medallion. Half his own teeth were gold. ‘Ten crowns,’ he said. ‘It’s gold plating, for God’s sake.
And throw in those four rings for me as recompense for being so dishonest.’

An argument broke out. But he must have succeeded in his bargain, because the next moment he was shoving the jewellery into his jacket pocket and turning to leave. He picked up the suitcase and strode off down a side street.

‘Who was that man?’ said Michael. ‘Have you seen him before?’

‘No, I never have.’

We watched him until he was out of sight. ‘I wonder what he meant by “gold plating”,’ I said.

‘It’s something they have invented in Alcyria,’ said Michael. ‘They pass a lightning current through water, and the gold sticks to the surface of the metal and covers it. Then you can pretend it’s real gold, and people who don’t know will buy it. Mr Pascal told me.’

‘Does that work?’

‘Oh, you know Mr Pascal’s stories.’

‘And where do they get the lightning from? Do they draw it down out of the sky?’

Michael laughed. ‘Probably.’

But his laugh faded quickly as we turned away from the markets and wandered on listlessly. ‘I don’t want to go home until late,’ Michael said. ‘I will only argue with my father again.’ We stopped at the Five Stars Inn, halfway to the Royal Gardens, and Michael ordered spirits. His drinking troubled me sometimes. He did it so blindly, as though he was already desperate. When we left to go on, we could see the guards changing posts on the castle road and troops moving slowly down. ‘Going to the borders,’ said Michael.