Voices in the Dark (19 page)

‘What are all these newspapers doing stuck about the child’s room?’ my grandmother whispered, glancing about.

‘Just Jasmine’s cuttings,’ said my mother.

‘They are hardly edifying subjects for a young girl.’

I had never thought much about it. But my grand-mother’s disapproval made me see everything as she did. ‘At least she learns something from them,’ I said, but I sounded defensive, and my grandmother had the victory. She set her mouth firmly and closed Jasmine’s bedroom door with a snap.

‘You need to get this house in some kind of order,’ she remarked.

‘It is in some kind of order,’ said my mother.

‘Boxes and old furniture everywhere! Maria, you can hardly cross the floor.’

‘We like it like this.’

‘I’ve a mind to start sorting it out.’

‘Please don’t. Just sit down and rest.’

My mother sat on the sofa and started marking books.
My grandmother wandered about the room, picking up various objects and setting them down again. Then she began shifting the boxes around restlessly. ‘Anselm, help me lift this,’ she would remark at intervals, or ‘Turn over those cushions; they are full of dust. No, not like that!’

I was trying again to read that book,
The Darkness Has a Thousand Voices
, but with my grandmother’s fussing, I could not concentrate. My mother fell asleep on the sofa eventually, the half-marked schoolbooks sliding off her knee. I picked them up and piled them on the cushion beside her, then spread a blanket over her.

‘And another thing,’ said my grandmother. ‘That story you told Jasmine was hardly suitable, Anselm. I wonder at you sometimes.’

‘It’s her favourite,’ I said. ‘Uncle used to tell it to her; it was the story she asked me for.’

My grandmother gave a sniff. I tried to ignore her but could not quite manage it. ‘What’s unsuitable in it?’ I demanded.

‘All the characters were criminals, it seemed to me.’

It was a story about smugglers, and a cabinet with a secret compartment with a map hidden in it, and a band of robbers who sailed on the sea. Aldebaran had told us once that it was a story from England and that there had always been sea robbers there. In the old days, everyone used to hide their most valuable possessions in secret compartments in their cupboards and chests, because they had no bank vaults. I tried to explain that to my grandmother, but she only sniffed again, and I could tell she was not really listening.

The clocks chimed ten, and I wished Leo would come home.

* * *

I must have fallen asleep beside my mother, because when I opened my eyes, I was slumped on the sofa with
The Darkness Has a Thousand Voices
digging into my chest. My grandmother was in the doorway; she must have come up from the back room. She was not tidying now. She was just standing there watching me. She leaned against the door frame and sighed. The light was dim, and she must have thought I was still asleep. I lay and watched her. She made no move to advance further into the room but just sighed again. It was a sound like the heartless wind in the streets outside and did nothing to raise my spirits. I hesitated, then whispered, ‘What is it?’

‘Anselm!’ She put a hand on her heart. ‘I thought you were sleeping; you startled me.’

‘I just wondered what you were sighing about.’

‘It was nothing.’

‘What were you thinking?’

‘You have changed; that’s all I was thinking.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I only noticed it now, when I came in and saw you. You look less like Maria than you did when you were a little boy. That was all.’

I sat up. I could not have slept for more than half an hour, but it felt like coming back a long way. ‘Maybe it’s my hair,’ I said, still half asleep. ‘It’s turned redder since then, but my eyes are still like Mother’s. Is Papa back yet?’

Her mouth straightened. ‘No.’

I rubbed my aching neck. ‘What time is it? Eleven? Twelve?’

‘Almost half past eleven. I don’t know what Leonard is thinking, staying out so late.’

‘The auction rooms close at eleven,’ I said. She did not
answer. I got up and went to the window. A few tiny raindrops clung to the glass; the street outside was dead with sleep. ‘Where is he?’ I demanded.

‘Yes, where is Papa?’ said Jasmine from her bedroom doorway, and we both started at her voice.

‘You should be asleep,’ said my grandmother. ‘What are you doing up again?’

‘I can’t sleep when Papa isn’t back.’

‘Maybe I should go and look for him,’ I said.

‘Certainly not. You can’t go out at midnight, with the Imperial Order about and who knows what other vagabonds. Sit back down, Anselm.’

In the quiet, we could hear every clock ticking in the shop below. We sat and waited. Jasmine was half asleep, though she claimed not to be. I rocked her on my knee for a while, and she closed her eyes. My grandmother sat in the hard chair by the fire. ‘Anselm?’ she said then. ‘Do you think Maria looks thinner?’

I glanced up. My grandmother was studying my mother’s face in the dim light, her forehead creased in concern. I followed her glance. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but asleep my mother looked pale and not like herself. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Do you think so?’

‘She is not as well as she should be; I know that much. I worry about her. When I was expecting Maria I’m sure I never worked.’

‘Things are different now,’ I said. ‘I mean, with our family. You never worked then at all.’

‘Yes, I know that very well.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean anything.’

My grandmother set her mouth so sternly that her lips disappeared, and she poked the fire. Time passed.

* * *

I must have slept again, because the next thing I knew, Jasmine was shaking my shoulder and hissing, ‘Anselm. Wake up. Anselm!’

I sat up and heard it. Someone had closed the back door of the shop. My mother was still asleep on the sofa. My grandmother was in the chair beside the fire, sitting very stern and upright with her eyes closed. ‘Is she asleep?’ I whispered. Jasmine nodded. ‘Shh, then; don’t wake her. Let’s go downstairs.’

For some reason we went slowly, and Jasmine took my hand. The clock in the square was chiming twelve. ‘Is it Papa?’ she whispered.

‘It must be.’

‘Why isn’t he saying anything?’

‘It’s late – he doesn’t want to wake anyone.’

There was a thud somewhere below, and I started.

‘Anselm,’ she said as we turned the dark corner of the stairs. ‘What if it’s not Papa? What if it’s those men in blue and they’ve got him?’

‘Shh.’

There was another thud and a low scraping noise. It was not coming from the yard; it was coming from somewhere in the dark back room. ‘What is it?’ said Jasmine, her voice rising.

‘Stay here,’ I told her. I raised my hand to keep her back and crossed the back room. A dark figure was at the door, shooting the old bolts across. Those bolts had been rusted since we moved into the shop, and we never used them. I made out the figure’s gold hair and the lit cigarette in his mouth. I knew it was Leo, but he looked like a stranger. ‘Papa?’ I said.

He frowned for a moment, then seemed to recognize me.

‘Where have you been?’ I said. ‘And why are you bolting the door like that?’

‘He followed me back. I know he did. I could feel him there behind me in the street. I had to walk miles to get away from him.’

‘Who?’ I said.

He did not answer. His eyes were wild and restless and made my heart thud fast. I was shivering from waking so suddenly. ‘What on earth are you thinking?’ I said.

‘Shh,’ he said so fiercely we both started. ‘Shh. Stay there.’

The wind juddered around the side of the house, and over its noise I thought I heard something. In the cold dimness, I could barely see what Leo was doing. He went silently to the dresser in the corner and took something out.

‘Papa—’ Jasmine ventured.

‘Shh,’ said Leo again. Then everything happened all at once. Someone appeared outside the door and stumbled over a box in the yard, and Leo raised the thing in his hand and said, ‘Don’t move. Don’t come closer.’

In the moonlight, the thing in his hand glinted. He was holding our kitchen knife.

‘North?’ said the voice outside the door. ‘North, is that you?’

‘What do you want?’ said Leo.

The person outside stumbled over another box, and Leo breathed harder and steadied his grip on the knife. ‘If you come closer, I swear—’

‘North, I just came to check that you were home safe. I lost you at the corner of the road.’

‘It’s Mr Pascal, for heaven’s sake!’ I said.

Leo stared at the door for several long seconds, then dropped the knife and covered his face with his hands. Mr Pascal was trying to unbolt the door now, muttering, ‘North, what have you done to this door? Are you all right?’

‘He’s all right,’ I said.

Mr Pascal gave up his struggle. ‘I’ll leave you, then,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to check. It’s bitter cold out here, and I should get back.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Goodnight, Anselm.’

I tried to call goodnight, but my voice failed me. Leo was still leaning against the table with his head in his hands. I picked up the knife and put it back in the drawer. When I did it, I noticed how badly my own hands were shaking. ‘What were you thinking?’ I said.

Leo was still breathing fast. He turned and tried to light the lamp, but his hand on the match was unsteady. Jasmine lit it for him. He took a few steps towards us, swayed, and caught hold of the table.

‘Papa, are you ill?’ I said.

He swayed again and collapsed into the nearest chair. I was close enough now to smell the spirits in the air about him. They were hanging round his head like an air of guilt. ‘Are you drunk?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘You are,’ I said.

‘No, I swear I’m not. I only had a couple of …’ His voice slurred and became incomprehensible.

‘You are drunk. How could you be so bloody stupid? Don’t you know how worried we’ve all been?’

‘Shh, shh,’ he said, raising his hands and trying to fix his eyes on me. ‘Is Maria asleep?’

‘Yes, finally. She was worried enough about you.’

‘Don’t wake her. Anselm, I’m sorry.’

His voice faltered, and I thought he was going to cry. I had taken Michael home countless times when he got like this, and the crying state was always the worst. ‘I’m taking you up to bed,’ I said. ‘If Mother finds out about this, you know what she will say.’

‘I’m sorry. It was all a mistake.’

‘I know. Come on.’

I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him up the stairs. ‘It was all a mistake,’ he kept telling me at intervals, already sobbing.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Shut your mouth now or you’ll wake Mother.’

‘I’m sorry, Anselm. I’m a terrible father to you.’

I steered him across the living room and into the bedroom, took off his boots and threw the covers over him, all the time divided between concern and anger. ‘It’s cold as hell,’ he said, shivering now. ‘Will you turn over the fire? Please, Anselm?’

‘Turn over your own bloody fire,’ I told him, and blew out the lamp and left him. My mother was still asleep on the sofa, one hand resting on her stomach where the baby must be kicking. I took the blanket from my room and covered her with it before turning down the light. Jasmine went back to bed, and I told her stories until she fell asleep.

Leo was coughing worse than ever. That coughing echoed hollowly through the house, and the sound of it made me more angry. I sat at my desk and looked down at the dark and frosted street and hated Leo for his coughing
and his drunkenness. It was easier to be angry than to worry about him. I wished Michael was here. I tried to summon him out of the darkness, to imagine he was at his window and we were talking like we used to do. ‘It’s out of character,’ I would say. ‘That’s what worries me. When people act out of character, they are usually desperate. There is usually something badly wrong.’

‘Not always,’ Michael would say. ‘Sometimes they are just sick of being treated the same day after day. Every few months, my father goes out walking all day without telling us, just to prove he still can.’

‘Not with Leo,’ I would say. ‘Leo isn’t like that.’

And then Michael would say …

But it was no good. I was making his replies out of fragments of our old conversations, and here the words ran out. I wondered if this was how Harold North felt, or the great Diamonn, when his words ran dry. I turned up the lamp and read
The Darkness Has a Thousand Voices
instead, until I felt myself falling to sleep, with my head on the desk and Leo still coughing and the light just starting beyond the window. And in the street, a man was watching the house. I was too far gone into sleep to wake myself and go down and check. But he haunted all my dreams, and I was certain that I had seen him there.

‘How did you go so long without finding out about your real father?’ said Mr Hardy. ‘You must be … how old?’

‘Sixteen,’ I said.

‘I would have wanted to know,’ he said.

‘I did,’ I said. ‘I did, but I never asked.’

I could not explain it. Leo had won my absolute loyalty when I was still too young to realize it, and my mother’s dismal moods at every mention of those days were terrible, because they were so rare and unnatural. I loved Leo and my mother so fiercely that I knew their weaknesses – or perhaps I loved them because I knew their weaknesses. I always knew I had to make things right for them, because they were not so far from despair as they appeared to be.

‘I was worried about hurting them,’ I said eventually. ‘They had been hurt too much already by the time I was born, and I didn’t want to hurt them any more.’

‘Very admirable in a young boy,’ said Mr Hardy, and smiled.

‘Not really,’ I said.

‘You don’t think very highly of yourself,’ Mr Hardy remarked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t either, if you knew.’

He did not ask me to tell him. He knew by now that it was useless to ask me to go on with the story when I couldn’t. I had told him all last night, and this night, too, and then had run out of words again. ‘After that,’ I said, ‘after Leo got drunk that night, I did think about my real father. More and more.’