Wickedness (8 page)

We were not far from home, but I could not lift or carry her on my own. And though people passed by and
I cried out to them for help, fearing the plague, they covered their noses and mouths and hurried on.

I grew desperate. I ran about crying, “Pity. For God’s sake take pity on us.”

I was so distracted that I did not see that my prayer had been answered. Now there was someone at my mother’s side. He was bent down over her. What was it that he did?

In horror I saw who it was. I ran at him, raining a shower of blows down on his back with my fists. “Leave her alone. Leave her alone. Get away from her.” But he took no notice and lifted her up and started to walk away. I ran alongside him, grabbing at the tatters of his shirt in an effort to make him stop. My mother’s head lolled against his chest and she hung limp as a rag doll in his arms. By the time we were at the end of Carter Lane and I saw that he was carrying her home, his pale gold hair had turned dark with sweat and his strength had nearly ebbed away.
“Presque là.”
he gasped, staggering on.

“I thought you had left London.” I was struggling to keep up. “Now you risk everything to help me. Why, when I would not accept what you had told me?”

He said nothing. He did not need to. I believed he had done it to gain my trust.

I looked at him, his arms trembling under the strain of bearing my mother’s weight. He was thin and filthy from living, God knows how, on the streets.

I felt a spark of pity for him. He did not look in the least wicked or evil. I did not think he meant to abduct me or had the strength to do so. I reached out and touched his hand and for one brief moment, a spark of common humanity connected us. Then all was pandemonium and Nicholas was upon us, come out of nowhere.

I cannot be sure what happened then, but I saw Nicholas snatch at Christophe’s arm. As Christophe tried to shake himself free, my mother slid from his grasp and tumbled to the ground. There was the glint of a steel blade and Nicholas sprang back, clutching his arm. Blood seeped through his fingers. A knife fell to the ground between them and in that brief second, as Nicholas bent to pick it up, Christophe touched my hand and looked beseechingly at me. Then he turned and fled.

Nicholas, triumphant, took off his coat and, rolling up his shirtsleeve, showed me the knife wound. “It does not run deep. But see how dangerous he is, Margrat.”

Now I was confused, for I recognised the knife.
My father had used it for cutting papers. I had seen it only days before, on his desk. It was not Christophe’s knife. Hunched down in the dirt and cradling my mother’s head in my lap, I was forced to consider what this might mean. Nicholas had cut
himself…
and with my father’s knife.

The next morning as she staggered into the kitchen, still half asleep, Claire was met with an angry “I suppose you’re going to say you forgot?” There was her mum, standing, back to the sink, glaring at her.

“What? Forgot what?”

“That Robert called.”

“Oh.” She’d known that he
would
call. No point in pretending she’d forgotten. Better brazen it out. Go on the attack. “Mum, he’s a creep. A weirdo.”

“Don’t be so silly,” her mum snapped, pulling on rubber gloves and turning to start on the washing up. “He’s a well-respected antiques dealer. I’m not as stupid as you think, you know. I’ve checked him out. He is who he says he is.” Claire could see her mum’s shoulders tense up. There was a moment’s silence and then a rush of words, “He rang this morning, as it happens.”

“And?”

“And I told him we’d love to go for tea on Thursday.”

The day before her birthday, as if that made any difference to anything. But she’d promised herself she’d be kinder to her mum, more understanding, so she tried again. “Mum, listen. Please. There’s something not right about him. He wears weird clothes. He talks funny. He freaks…” But she never got to finish the sentence.

“We’re going and that’s that. He wants to buy that box. And he’s willing to pay shed loads of money for it.” And there was a dangerous edge to her mum’s voice, which Claire knew she shouldn’t ignore.

“I’m not going and I’m not going to let you sell the box either.” Claire twisted the ring round her finger. Round and round and round.

Her mum turned, a wine glass full of soap bubbles in one hand. “Don’t you dare tell me…” Anger made her squeeze the glass tight. Thin and delicate, it shattered into a cascade of tiny pieces; the noise of it, clear and bright, shocking them into silence.

They both looked down at the splinters of glass scattered everywhere.

“Oh damn,” her mum said. Then they both started to giggle. “That was Grandma’s favourite glass.” She was starting to peel off her rubber gloves, when Claire saw all the colour drain out of her face.

“Mum?”

An almost imperceptible shake of the head as the gloves fell to the floor and, whoosh, she was gone. Claire could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs and then a door slamming.

For a split-second Claire stood there, her stomach clenching into a knot at this latest inexplicable twist on the emotional roller coaster they were all riding now. She sighed, got out the dustpan and brush from the cupboard under the sink and started to sweep up the glass. But then she heard a horrible groaning, retching sound coming from upstairs. The sound of someone being sick.

Claire dropped the brush and ran. “Mum, MUM!” She pushed open the bathroom door and looked down at her mum, kneeling with her head over the toilet bowl. “Are you okay?” Claire knelt down beside her. Her mum reached back and fumbled for Claire’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

Later, when she’d stopped vomiting and looking
like death, she’d said, “It was just something I ate, that’s all.”

But Claire thought she still seemed worried and distracted and not as full of life as she had been.
Maybe it’s the heat,
she thought. It was sapping the life out of all of them. It hung like a pall over the city, making everything shimmer and blur. There was no relief from the soaring temperature… not even early in the morning or late at night. Claire couldn’t sleep and she felt tired all the time. Even Micky had black circles under her eyes and lolled around as if all her bones had turned to liquid jelly. Claire didn’t even have the energy to argue about the visit. Or say ‘no’ when her mum said Robert would be coming to pick them up; save them from travelling on the underground in all that heat. She’d be 14 in a few days’ time, but it still seemed that she had no control over anything about her life. Not even the little things.

I have to get out
, she thought. There’d been talk on the television about banning events where lots of people would be crowded in together. But it hadn’t happened yet and the circus was on tomorrow and she would go and not tell her mum.
Well, she was nearly 14. So she said she was going to see Jade, which was, strictly speaking, the truth. And she asked if Jade could come back and sleep over. That way she wouldn’t have to travel home late at night, on her own. Then she sent Jade a text and arranged a time to meet outside the circus.

The circus was in Jubilee Gardens on the Embankment. She’d been there before with her mum, dad and Micky for the Festival of the Thames. So she knew exactly where she was going and as soon as she was out of the tube and in sight of the gardens, she could see the circus tent. It was massive. Red-and-white striped, like a giant piece of sugar candy.

She was standing around outside, feeling hot and sticky, waiting for Jade and idly reading the blurb about the forthcoming circus stunt that would see two young French wire-walkers cross the Thames on a wire strung 45 metres above the river. Then her phone rang. “Oh, no! Okay. Yeah, I know you’re sorry. Hope it’s not flu. Hope she feels better soon.” It was Jade, saying her mum had rung her to say she felt suddenly ill and needed Jade to turn round and go straight home to
look after her baby brother. That meant Claire would have to go in on her own, or go home, too. And she definitely
wasn’t
going to do that.

Inside the circus tent it was stiflingly hot and airless. There was the smell of trodden, bruised grass. Acrid fumes, making her eyes sting, drifting in from the generators outside. And something else, something comforting and familiar, a sharp chalky sourness, a sweaty trainer smell that made her think of school.

Tiers of wooden benches rose up around the circus ring, which was empty except for three jugglers practising with lit torches. She could hear the swish and faint roar of the flame as they whirled them through the air. See the traces of light left behind like a phosphorescence.

Something caught her eye. She looked up. High on a wire, a figure in a white singlet and dark sweatpants was carefully, meticulously, practising somersaults. Like a wheel turning. Slowly. Slowly. There was no safety net. Claire frowned. Something seemed familiar. What? Then she remembered. The boy in her dream, dancing on the wire and beckoning to her. A feeling as she watched, mesmerised, willing the figure to stay
safe, that another piece of the puzzle was about to fall into place.

“Hey!”

Claire snapped round. A young woman… 19, maybe 20, but smaller even than Claire, and with a halo of red-gold hair, (and a perfectly straight nose. How annoying was that!) was placing a hand on Claire’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Flustered, Claire bent down and hurriedly scrabbled in her backpack for the tickets. Held one out to the young woman, who said, sharply, “You are early. We are not starting yet.
Rentrez plus tard
.”

Come back later. She would have snatched the ticket out of Claire’s right hand, but Claire held on to it tightly and could feel the tension rising. Could see the tendons in the young woman’s neck stand out and her jaw clench in irritation. Her grey eyes turning dark and two high spots of colour appearing suddenly on her cheeks. Claire registered her single earring, a tiny gold ‘ankh’… the Egyptian symbol of life.

Then in a flash she was all smiles, “But that’s okay. It’s good you are here. People are not coming because of the flu. You can stay and watch if you
like.
Pas de problème
. My name is Jacalyn by the way. Oh and I love your ring. Where did you get it?” Her voice suddenly light and bubbling. Happy.

Claire instinctively covered the ring with her other hand. There was a second’s pause and then when Claire didn’t answer the question, Jacalyn, tilting her head in the direction of the high wire, said, “Okay. I’m going up. Of course I am not as
casse-cou
, as dare-devil as my twin brother Zacharie. Now he is something else…” And an expression, a startling mixture of love but also contempt, flickered across Jacalyn’s face. “But I promise you would be safe with me!”

Claire must have looked horrified, because the young woman laughed and said, “It’s okay. I am joking. Only Zacharie would risk taking a complete novice up on the wire. You can just watch from down here!”

So Claire did. Saw Jacalyn clamber swiftly up. Saw Zacharie stop, then walk effortlessly along the wire towards his sister, exchange words and touch hands in passing. And as Zacharie took a first step on the ladder, he turned his head and looked straight at Claire. A shiver ran up her spine and she felt her pulse racing.

She watched him climbing down, until she was distracted by a troupe of tumblers who’d appeared in the ring and had started somersaulting and leaping over each other.

Quickly they formed a trembling pyramid of bodies, three tumblers at the bottom, then two and one at the very top who caught her eye. Once he knew she was watching, the top tumbler started to wobble exaggeratedly, pretending he was going to fall, all the while blowing her kisses and making rude gestures with his hands.

And then the other tumblers were shouting angrily, telling him to stop. But it was too late, because the pyramid was tottering and swaying wildly and the tumblers were staggering towards her. She knew with absolute certainty what would happen. The pyramid would collapse, crushing her. “
Schoolgirl, 14, takes fatal tumble with six acrobats!
” She would have smiled, but her lips, her feet, her brain, her
whole body
seemed totally frozen.

But she did hear the shout. “
Imbéciles! Idiots!
” Felt an arm around her shoulders. Registered a warm, musky smell, as she was scooped out of the way of the collapsing pyramid.

“Merde!”

Then a face, close to hers, its hair, the same pale gold as Jacalyn’s, but fine and straight, brushing her cheek. Its grey eyes wide with concern. Its beautifully shaped mouth that made her want to reach up and trace its outline with her finger. Now the mouth was smiling and she could see the teeth, small and white like a child’s, making the face look oddly vulnerable. Though it was not at all the face of a little boy. And the white singlet he wore showed the clear definition of every muscle.

This was the closest she’d ever been to someone quite so beautiful and it was making her feel
light-headed
.

“Oh… okay. You need to sit down.
Vite!
”

He steered her towards the first tier of seats and sat with her, his arm heavy around her shoulders. Claire pressed a hand against her mouth. All of a sudden, she felt horribly sick. Looked up at him. “Sorry. Sorry. It must be the shock.”

“No problem.” And he tucked her hair back behind her ear, his touch unexpectedly soft and gentle. And it was then that she noticed it. On the
third finger of his right hand. A ring. An exact copy of hers. She held her hand out towards him, fingers splayed. “It’s the same ring. Yours and mine.” She felt a flutter of excitement in her throat.

“Oh,
mon dieu
! You are right! That is so bizarre.” (Pronouncing it bee-zarrr. Cute!) “And I have never seen one like it ever before, have you?”

She shook her head. “Where did you get yours?” Maybe he’d be able to tell her something about it. Where it came from.

“It was my father’s. But he died when I was just a little boy.”

“Oh,” Claire’s hand reached out and touched his, “I didn’t mean…”

“That’s okay. And it was my mother who gave me the ring, told me I must wear it. I said, ‘
Non!
’ I really didn’t want to. I felt like a freak… a small boy wearing a ring, it is, you know…”

“Bee-zarr…” Claire couldn’t help herself. It just popped out. Shit. But he seemed to think it was funny.

“Yes. Bee-zarr! And I got teased a lot about the ring, too. My twin sister, Jacalyn, said she would wear it instead. But my mother said that it had to be me, because I was a boy. That made Jacalyn
so cross. She said that was rubbish… that of course a girl could wear it too and besides, I was too irresponsible, too wild and worse even than that… I didn’t believe the
histoire
, the stories about a prophecy and our family being guardians of a great secret. Jacalyn of course believes every word of it. Circus people… so superstitious. But it is weird though, because however much I grow, the ring still fits my finger. That is amazing. Like magic! Oh and sorry. I talk too much. I have a big mouth.”

But beautiful. Very, very beautiful!

“What about you?” His eyes held hers and his hand, broad and hard and strong, reached across and touched her cheek, just long enough to send a shock wave running through her, making her catch her breath. “Where did you get your ring? Maybe someone in your family ran away to join the circus?”

“I wish!”

“You wouldn’t like it… believe me.” His face looked suddenly troubled. Serious. “Up on the high wire. The excitement. The adrenaline rush. All that is brilliant. I love it. But the circus
family
. Pah! So many people knowing everything about you. No room to breathe. No escape. My sister always
there
… always messing in my life as if being
my twin gives her the right. I would do
anything
to get away…” But then he was suddenly smiling again, saying, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say all that… but somehow I feel I can tell you anything. Maybe the rings bind us together! Maybe we have… how do you say… telepathic communication? Let me see.” He closed his eyes and frowned… pretending to read her mind. “Your mad, bad great uncle left the ring to you in his will… on condition you wire-walk across Niagara Falls… Don’t worry, I can teach you!”

“No! Silly. My grandma died and left it to me. And when I put it on it fitted perfectly! Just like yours. And mine won’t come off either. I’ve tried everything. Look!” Claire was pulling and pulling at the ring.

“
Je sais
. I tried too. Believe me. I’d give Jacalyn the ring just to shut her up! But now I’ve met you, well I am beginning to wonder, are the stories true?” He looked as if he meant every word of what he was saying and Claire felt a great wave of relief and excitement break over her. She wasn’t going mad. Zacharie’s ring behaved in the same way as hers. And now there was someone she could talk to about it who
wouldn’t
think she was insane.