The Honours (7 page)

Pulling her legs up behind her, she remembered the tea trolley, shoved into a corner so she could reach the desk.

She remembered she had left the light on.

‘Come,' said Propp. If he was shocked to find his room lit up, it did not show in his voice. ‘Please excuse mess. I write book. I stay very, very late. Ho – so cold! You like calvados?' She heard the clank of the empty bottle. ‘Good for writing, good for dreams. Hmm.' He made a noise in the back of his throat. ‘When we live, it is best to be awake. But when we must sleep, it is best to dream.'

Delphine looked up. The flue was a black pillarbox, rising, rising towards a distant smudgy slit of light. It smelt like paint and liquorice. She could not see her hands, but when she smeared her thumb across her palm she felt a greasy layer of creosote.

Hugging her knees to her chest, she listened to Propp's heavy footsteps as he moved from rug to floorboards. What were all those wires connected to under the dust sheet? Why did he have a wardrobe half-full of clothes that would only fit a young boy?

‘I show you something.' A click. The squeal of hinges. The light in the hearth narrowed and flared as his shadow crossed it. ‘Eighteen years ago, in Kars, old woman sell me this book. You are artist. Look at pictures. Tell me what you think.'

Delphine held her breath and listened. She could hear the crackle of pages turning.

‘She was, uh, houselady? How to . . . She, uh, she rent rooms?'

‘Landlady?' said Daddy.

Delphine let out a small involuntary yelp then slapped a hand over her mouth. That was his voice! It was him! Daddy was here!

‘
Yes
,' Propp purred, rolling the syllable, giving no indication he had heard her, ‘landlady. Thank you. She find book in room.'

‘I, um . . . I'm afraid I can't value it.'

It was peculiar hearing Daddy's voice again. The chimney's acoustics gave it a dull, mechanical ring.

‘I'm not an antiques expert,' he said. ‘I'm a painter.'

‘Ah!' Propp's cry was so loud she shrank back from the opening. ‘But
this
is why I ask you! Book is pffft. Paper. Leather. Worthless. What do you
see
?'

Delphine could hear the slight squeak in Daddy's nostrils as he breathed. Mother said the war had ruined his sinuses. He was for ever getting nosebleeds. Daddy said the bleeding helped his headaches.

‘Well . . . they're perfectly nice woodcuts. Rather . . . conventional. I can't read the text but I presume this is a book of fairytales?'

‘Hmm.' Propp's shadow wavered in the fireplace. Delphine leant forward, waiting for him to speak. She ached to drop down into the hearth and surprise Daddy.

But no. If she just waited until they left again, she could get a look under that sheet . . .

‘Thank you, my dear friend,' said Propp. ‘Interesting. Very interesting.' His footsteps tramped back across the room. ‘It is just pastime of mine, collecting books. Now, I expect you curse my name – I
keep you from food!' Hinges shrieked. Something clicked. ‘Come, brother, let us go.'

She heard Daddy's lighter footsteps move towards the door and her chest near-burst with the need to follow him. She balled her hands into fists.

‘Wait,' said Daddy. ‘Mr Propp . . . I understand you are a, uh . . .
physician
, of sorts.'

‘I am dance teacher.'

‘But you . . . your
methods
. . . they can . . . ' Daddy stopped. ‘Sir, if I may be candid, lately I find I am . . . less than master of myself.'

‘Yet until he admits this, no man may be free.'

Daddy was quiet for a time. ‘Do you think you can help me?'

He had never sounded so frail.

She chewed on a knuckle.

Propp cleared his throat. ‘What do you fear, brother?'

‘I, uh . . . I suppose I fear illness and old age, and uh . . . some misfortune befalling my family, I fear failing in my duty as a – '

‘NO!' A great crash made Delphine bite down on her knuckle so hard she drew blood. ‘You lie!' Propp was yelling. ‘You stand in my room and you lie!' She listened to his heavy, angry breaths, the silence spreading behind them. When he spoke again, his voice was low, bristling with menace. ‘Do not ask me to shut your wounds if you cannot stand to be burned.'

Propp took a few steps. She heard the rustle and rip of paper.

‘Take. Write.'

‘Write what?'

‘That which you cannot bear to say.'

‘I don't . . . I don't understand what you . . . '

‘When I clap hands, write. Not in usual, mechanical way. Do not think. Simply let pencil move. When I clap hands again, stop.'

‘But I . . . '

A clap.

What was Propp doing? Why was Daddy letting himself be spoken to like this?

Delphine curled her toes and waited. She felt lightheaded from breathing so shallowly – she was sure the noise would give her away.

A clap.

‘Now,' said Propp, ‘fold in half, and half again.' He exhaled – a long, wheezing note. ‘Please pass to me.' Footsteps. ‘Good.'

Propp's shadow filled the hearth. ‘This is what I teach. To choose. To wake. To dance.'

She tensed. Propp made a familiar grunt as he knelt. Delphine closed her eyes. She tipped her head back and prayed he would not hear her.

She heard the crumpling of more paper. In a suffocating rush, she realised what he was doing.

A scuff. The chimney came alive with light.

Propp blew. The light flared.

‘To warm room for my return,' he said, rising. She heard him unfold a fireguard and slide it into place. ‘Let us eat.' He walked away.

The door slammed.

Delphine shuffled to the edge of the smoke shelf that hung over the fire. Ash and dirt fell hissing into the hearth. The kindling had already caught – ginger-blue tongues flickered between the split logs. She dangled her legs over the lip of the smoke shelf and tried to kick a log out of the grate before it caught. The heat against the soles of her sandals rose from hot to stinging.

Her legs weren't long enough. She planted her palms on the cool brick and edged her backside forward, straining to reach the logs with her toe. The space left by the lintel was too narrow to jump down without landing in the fire.

Smoke was making her eyes water. She drew her foot away, wincing, tried with the other one. She clipped one of the logs; it slipped deeper into the grate. Flames lapped from the gaps it left – she felt a sharp pain and tugged her foot clear.

She slid back from the edge of the shelf and tried to catch her breath. She had to act. If she jumped now, before the logs caught, her feet and ankles would be badly blistered but she would survive.

The inside of the flue was lit up, flowing in the firelight. Thick deposits of creosote glistened, disappearing behind rising smoke.

She turned her head and coughed. She was sweating. A sick weight grew in her belly.

What would happen if she crawled into the chimney corner and lay down, her cardigan pulled over her head? Delphine tried turning her back on the flames and getting as low as she could. She blinked away tears. The air was thick with fumes. She experimented with sucking air in and out through the corner of her mouth. She felt lightheaded.

Propp said he wrote in long bouts. He might return and toss more logs into the grate. He might keep it going for hours.

Perhaps he had known she was hiding. Perhaps this was his way of getting rid of her.

Delphine felt a surge of panic. She cried out – she could not stop herself.

‘Help!' She beat on the greasy brick walls. ‘Help!'

She bent over to cough and breathe. She could barely see.

When she raised her head, she saw, high above, the faint crack of light where chimney opened onto sky.

It was too far. The chimney pot would be too small, probably covered with mesh to stop birds nesting.

But what about the first floor? There was a second fireplace not ten yards above her.

She would never make it. There were no handholds and . . .

She wiped sweat from her face with the sleeve of her cardigan, then took it off and bunched it over her mouth. She glanced up the chimney again.

She had done harder climbs. The cliffs on holiday last year. Onto the roof of the changing huts at St Eustace's. The oak tree in the meadow behind her house.

She should never have touched the key. She should have returned to her bedroom, washed her hands, then come down for lunch. She did not want to make this choice. She did not want this to be real.

She thumped the wall. The pain brought her round.

Mother's favourite phrase was ‘needs must when the devil drives'. It meant sometimes you just had to do things whether you wanted to or not. They were never pleasant things.

Delphine stood and pressed her back against the wall. The brickwork was sticky. She flattened her palms, then jumped and kicked out, digging her feet as high as she could into the opposite wall. Her heels skidded. She tensed her legs. Her heels stopped.

Smoke thickened. Flakes of black paper rose around her like snow in negative. Biting her lip, she relaxed her left foot and slid it a little higher up the wall. She did the same with her right elbow. Then she slid her right foot up a little. Finally, she slid her left elbow upwards. With all four limbs planted, she scraped her shoulders a few inches higher.

She stopped to catch her breath. Perspiration glued her vest to her skin. Her eyes stung; she had to keep them shut.

She had climbed barely four inches, and she felt exhausted.

Needs must
, she told herself, and slid her left foot a little higher.

Scrape, tense, breathe. She could hardly catch her breath. The flue tapered as she climbed, letting her bend her knees a little.

Whenever she had read about Victorian orphans working as sweeps, the chimneys were always cramped, hellish crawlways, wretched urchins scrabbling with fingertips and knees to reach the top. She had the opposite problem – the bottom of the flue was so wide she had to keep her legs extended to hold herself in place.

Her left heel slipped. She felt the drop in her stomach. She kicked out, slammed her elbows into the brickwork.

For a moment, the house was spinning round her.

She was not falling. Her feet were splayed but secure. She could feel her heart thudding against her chin. Her skinned elbows throbbed.

Don't look down. Needs must
.

Scrape, tense, breathe.

She was sure the bricks felt different beneath her soles. Slightly hollow. Blinking away tears, Delphine opened her eyes.

She could just make out an opening above her toes, cut into the side of the flue. It was a few feet wide, just large enough to squeeze through – if only she could reach it. She ground her elbows into the brickwork behind her and squinted at the gap. Her arms were
shaking; tremors spread through her back, into her legs. If she slid her feet in first, she'd fall backwards down the chimney. Just imagining it made her woozy.

Gingerly, she lifted her left elbow and reached for the lip of the opening. Her outstretched fingers clutched at air, a clear six inches shy. She replanted her elbow, trying to ignore the pain in her calves. The only way she could think to do it was to push off from the wall behind her and grab the opening with both hands. Then she could scramble through head-first.

It would mean a dizzying instant of holding on to nothing. If she missed her handhold, she would die.

The longer she waited, the weaker she would be. Delphine shifted her weight from her heels to her toes. She coughed, spat. She sucked in a last breath.

Three . . .

The trick with a countdown was to fool yourself. To go before you were ready. Before your body tried to stop you.

Two . . .

Delphine slapped her palms against the tacky wall behind her and shoved. She tucked her legs and swung her arms forward. She felt her toes drop. She was falling.

Her fingers grasped the lip of the opening. Pain slammed through her wrists. Her toes scrunched to a halt. Her sweaty right hand slipped, then found purchase.

She breathed out.

A chunk of wall came away in her fist. Her body swung out in a cascade of mortar; her feet skidded, lost their grip. She saw the black brick vanish, heard it pulverise against the bottom of the flue.

She was hanging by the fingertips of one hand.

Her legs dangled helplessly beneath her. She clawed with her free hand; soot and mortar showered her eyes. She could not see. She was coughing, gasping.

Her fingers found the jagged edge where part of the wall had come away. The back of the fireplace was just a single layer of bricks – it was never built to hold a person's weight. She felt it shudder as she strained to drag herself upwards, her feet scrabbling for toeholds. She had to
pull herself into the hole. Her arms were about to give out completely.

She could not breathe. She dry-gagged. Her ears rung. She was blacking out.

Her fingers slipped.

Cold fingers gripped her wrist.

A jolt of shock and revulsion energised her. She pedalled her legs. She scrambled and scraped and kicked and screamed and dragged herself hand over hand up into the gap. She wriggled through the slot between the back of the fireplace and the lintel, emerging in an unlit room.

Delphine crawled out of the hearth and rolled onto her back. She lay there, hacking, breathing. The floorboards felt so good against her head and spine.

But who had grabbed her?

She glanced around. Dust sheets formed a grey mountainscape. A dim, buttery glow leaked from the edges of a door.

She looked at her hands. They were thick with soot and creosote. Blood shone on her fingertips.

Perhaps the lack of air had made her hallucinate.

When she was finally able to stand, Delphine dragged a dust sheet off what turned out to be a stack of wicker lawn chairs. She wrapped it round her filthy clothes and pulled it over her head to hide her hair and face. It dragged behind her as she crossed the room.