Cuckoo Song (36 page)

‘You
cursed
!’ A sleepy, querulous-looking Pen was sitting up in her bed.

‘Right after breakfast, I need to go out,’ declared Violet. ‘I’ll head to Plotmore Hill – that was where you lost track of the midnight ride, wasn’t it,
Trista? You two will have to stay here.’

Both girls started to protest.

‘No arguments,’ Violet told them flatly, with a concerned glance at Trista.

Breakfast was chaotic and sparse. Jack was apparently still asleep. His aunt and brother-in-law had already left for work, and his two teenage sisters were just hurrying out to
their jobs at the laundry. His mother and eldest sister were getting ready to go to the market, so making breakfast was left to Jack’s eight-year-old niece, who took care of it with the
briskness of practice, pausing to wipe the faces of the younger children like a miniature mother.

Everybody’s fingers were numb with cold, but the cover remained in place over the hearth. The tea tasted like puddle water. Breakfast was a slice of bread with margarine. Violet devoured
hers in seconds and then fidgeted, waiting for everyone else.

‘But I’m still hungry!’ protested Pen. ‘Why are
they
getting more?’ The younger children in Jack’s family were being handed a second slice of bread
and margarine, wrapped in paper.

‘That’s their lunch, Pen,’ muttered Violet with a wince. ‘They’re taking it to school.’

Whenever she got the chance, Trista tried to make eye contact with Violet, willing her to hear her mute appeal.
Please don’t leave me behind with Pen! I don’t know if she’s
safe with me!
But Violet seemed stubbornly determined to avoid her eye, and kept following Jack’s mother and sister with her gaze.

Trista barely noticed the front door slam, but was slightly surprised when Jack’s oldest sister came back into the kitchen, removing the hat and coat she had just donned.

‘Mum’s just gone to buy some bread and eggs,’ she said brightly, ‘so you can have a breakfast that’s closer to what you’re used to. I’m to stay and make
you more tea. Wait there and make yourselves comfortable.’ She ran up the stairs, presumably to put away her hat and coat.

Instantly Violet rose from her chair, taking care not to let the feet scrape.

‘We’re leaving,’ she said softly. ‘Quickly and quietly. Now.’

When the trio were back on the street, Pen stared back incredulously at the house. ‘Why did we leave? They were going to make us more breakfast!’

‘We’re in the newspapers,’ Violet said in a low tone. ‘I’ll bet my hide on it. The paper arrived while we were eating. Jack’s mother and sister read it, then
went to whisper in the hall. Then Jack’s sister came back to keep us here. Jack’s mother must have gone to the police. There’s probably a reward.’

‘She betrayed us for
money
?’ Pen exclaimed in disbelief. ‘I’m going back to break her windows!’

‘Don’t you dare!’ snapped Violet, then sighed and gave Pen a gentle exasperated look. ‘Pen . . . money only seems like a mean reason if you’ve never had to think
about it. Most people have to think about it all the time. Money doesn’t mean cake and diamonds; it means finally paying off what you owe to the landlord, the baker and the tally man. It
means having coins for the gas meter, so you don’t have to chop up your shelves for firewood. It means keeping the wolf from the door for a while.

‘She didn’t owe us a thing, Pen, and if she doesn’t fight for her family, no one else will.’

The wolf from the door
. Hunger
was
like a wolf, Trista reflected. She had felt its teeth savaging her innards many times now. She had been caught up in her own self-absorbed,
frantic battle with it, and had never considered that many people might go through their whole lives with the wolf trotting a pace behind them. Perhaps she had still been trapped in Triss’s
conviction that the world revolved around her own needs and suffering. Her own story now seemed very small.

Then her personal terror consumed her again, and she snatched at Violet’s sleeve.

‘Violet! I left Triss’s dress behind in the attic room!’

‘Oh
hell
!’ Violet looked back the way they had come, clearly conflicted. ‘Trista . . . I’m sorry. We can’t go back. It’s just too dangerous. Let me
know if you start to get hungry and . . . I’ll think of something.’

‘So . . . are we going to meet racketeers?’ asked Pen when they had parked the motorbike on Plotmore Hill. ‘Will they have guns? Are you their
moll
?’

‘No, Pen!’ Violet rolled her eyes. ‘Guns only happen in movies and America. And I’m not a moll, for crying out loud! Most of the time I just deliver things. That’s
why I have the sidecar, so I can load it up with anything or anyone that needs to get somewhere fast. And I’m a good mechanic who doesn’t ask questions – even if the car I’m
fixing is full of black-market tinned cheese.’

‘A mechanic?’ Pen seemed uncertain whether to be scandalized or disappointed.

‘Yes,’ Violet grimaced. ‘One of the things I learned during the War. Strange – the War was probably the best schooling I ever had. I signed up to help with the War
effort, and first they sent me to work in one of those munitions factories. I made a lot of friends there – mostly other munitionettes – and it certainly knocked the corners off me.
Many of the male workers didn’t really want us there, you see, and there was a lot of bullying and name-calling. One girl even had her tool drawer nailed shut when she was out of the
room.

‘Then I was reassigned and found myself driving this clapped-out ambulance. I
had
to learn my way around an engine, just to keep the darn thing on the move. I didn’t expect
I would need the knowledge again after the War ended, but –’ she shrugged – ‘what else can I do? Even if I could find a job where I didn’t need to stay in one place
more than three hours at a time, why would anyone give it to me when they can pay half as much to some fourteen-year-old fresh out of school?’

‘Violet.’ Pen’s brow was creased. ‘If lots of people don’t have any money or work, why don’t any of them want to be our kitchen maid? Mother says it’s
impossible to find
anyone
.’

Violet walked on for a little while before answering.

‘I’m sorry, Pen,’ she said at last, ‘but your mother has a reputation. She fires her servants at the drop of a hat, and doesn’t give references, which means they
can’t get another job. Clara Bassett says that most servants in Ellchester have been warned about your family.’

‘Clara Bassett?’ Pen looked incredulous. ‘Do you mean
Cook
?’

Violet nodded. ‘I still talk to her now and then. Every time your mother hires a new maid or governess, Mrs Bassett tries to take them under her wing. Apparently she always warns them to
avoid you and Triss as much as possible – particularly Triss.’

‘Why?’ asked Pen. Violet did not respond, but Trista thought she knew the answer.

Trista thought of Celeste jealously patrolling her children, unable to bear Triss showing fondness for anybody else. Cook had survived by remaining stubbornly and stoicially invisible in her
basement. Discovering that Cook had opinions about the Crescents was rather like finding that a familiar wardrobe opened on to an entirely new house. Violet halted outside a shop, which the striped
pole proclaimed to be a barber’s. The bell tinkled as she entered, Trista and Pen a step behind.

Two young men with hair oiled to blackbird sleekness were attending to customers, one trimming a moustache and another brushing hair cuttings from a portly neck. Neither exactly smiled to see
Violet, but neither looked unfriendly. One gave a small nod in the direction of a door further in the shop. Violet returned the nod, and strode through the second door.

The room at the back was scruffy but practical. A broad-set man with coppery hair was seated at a desk, scanning sports pages and marking results in pen.

‘Frosty!’ he said as Violet entered the room. ‘Always a pleasure to see you.’

‘Bill,’ Violet said without preamble, ‘I need to ask you something downright peculiar. I know you had some boys . . . working late here last night. Did any of them happen to
hear anything odd go by at about midnight?’

‘Midnight?’ Bill narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you mean the geese?’

‘Geese?’ asked Violet.

‘Great big flock of geese,’ replied Bill. ‘We heard ’em go over just after midnight. That’s the fourth night in a row that it’s happened too.’

‘Did you see where they went?’ Violet asked promptly.

‘They swooped over, then curved about and headed back towards the centre of the city.’ Bill looked at Violet narrowly. ‘Why are you interested?’

Trista felt a sting of relief. The overheard ‘geese’ could only be the Architect’s midnight riders, and if he had headed back to the centre then at least he had probably not
taken Triss out of Ellchester.

‘You wouldn’t believe me.’ Violet grimaced.

‘I ask, because I’m rather interested myself,’ continued Bill. ‘Geese don’t just circle like that for no reason. I think something’s been frightening them
into the sky each night. As you know, I got some runners placed down in the Old Docks – they tell me that about four days ago strange boats started turning up. Small, old-fashioned craft.
They draw up at the quays in the afternoon and evening and let off passengers. By dawn they’re gone again. Something’s happening down there. I’d like to know what it
is.’

‘What did the passengers look like?’ Pen asked impulsively.

‘That’s the rum part.’ Bill scratched his head. ‘Nobody could describe them, not even how many there were, or whether they were dressed shabby or ritzy. But they agreed
on one thing: none of the passengers had any luggage.’

Things half seen and half heard. People hard to describe. In between and misty, dancing flea-footed across the numb places in people’s minds. And these strange boats had started turning up
at about the same time the Architect began riding over the city.

Trista made eye contact with Violet.
Besiders
, she mouthed.

At this point, one of the barbers from the shop slipped into the back room and cleared his throat.

‘Mr Siskin,’ he said to Bill, ‘there’s a hare coursing that I thought might interest you, sir.’ He took up the paper on the desk, turned back some pages, then
handed it to Bill with a meaningful look.

After the barber had left, Bill looked at the paper in his hands for a long moment. Then he sniffed and spread it out on the desk, beckoning Violet over.

‘I’ve seen better likenesses,’ he said.

The photograph of Violet showed her as a sweet-faced girl in her late teens, with a lustrous flood of ringlets. Nobody glancing at that picture would have guessed how a few years could have
pulled that face taut, giving it anger and angles.

The other picture was a photograph that had been taken of the Crescent family less than a year before. It was the standard family pose that photographers loved, mother seated, children arranged
ornamentally on either side, and father resting a proprietorial hand on the back of her chair. Through Triss’s memories, Trista could even remember posing for the photograph, having to hold
still for what seemed an age while the image seared its way slowly into the film.

Pen had not held perfectly still, of course, so there was a slight ghostly smudge of movement to one side of her face, but she was still recognizable. Triss’s purse-mouthed countenance, on
the other hand, had a frozen clarity beneath its floppy white ribbon.

‘C
RESCENT
D
AUGHTERS
K
IDNAPPED
’ thundered the headline. Trista’s eye tumbled helplessly down the columns of inky lettering.
Violet Parish sought in connection with the
disappearance . . . no ransom demand as yet received . . . rumoured to be retaliation after a financial dispute . . .

‘We’re not kidnapped!’ protested Trista.

‘It’s all full of made-up stories!’ stormed Pen.

‘I’m good at softening the police,’ Bill murmured, ‘but I’m not
that
good. What is all this about, Violet?’

‘Sorry, Bill,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a mess. But it’s not a kidnapping.’

‘Well . . . that’s a shame.’ Bill sighed and tutted under his breath. ‘It’s a crying shame I didn’t read this until an hour after you’d left. I could
have used that reward.’ He gave Violet a small twinkle, then frowned slightly. ‘You know where all my out-of-town friends are if you need a place to hide?’

‘I know – thanks, Bill.’ Violet gave him a small but genuine smile. She stood to leave, then hesitated. ‘Bill . . . do you mind if I take that paper?’

As they took to the street again, Violet handed Trista the paper.

‘It’s a picture of Triss,’ she whispered. ‘Could you eat that, if you start feeling hungry again?’

At the very thought, Trista’s appetite rose like a shark to a smell of blood.
It’s all right,
she told herself.
I know what this is. I can handle it.
She braced
herself for the wave of hunger, and felt it sweep over her, but this time it continued to increase, consuming her. She was shaking uncontrollably. This was new. This was worse. She snatched the
paper from Violet, her hands crushing it into a ball, and began to cram it into her mouth.

‘Holy Moses! Not in the street!’ hissed Violet. She grabbed Trista by the arm and quickly drew her into an alley. ‘I’ll stand out here and keep watch until you’ve
finished.’

As Trista staggered towards the back of the alley her vision darkened and speckled. Something inside her was gaping wider and ever wider. As it did so, everything distorted, as if through a
fisheye lens. Everything became smaller, small enough to push into her mouth without trying. In fact, she would have to try hard not to.

She gobbled the paper, and for a second could taste the photograph, but its Trissness was thin as gruel. For a moment her hunger dipped and waned, like a flame in a draught, but the next instant
it surged into life once more. It was not enough. She needed more.

She had to eat. She
had
to eat. There had to be something she could eat.