"This is a serious matter. Do you understand? Not to be pa.s.sed on."
The boy hesitated for a moment. Then he turned to Aldebaran and said, "Yes, Uncle. I understand."
Anna was spinning in the middle of the empty hotel dining room, and her eyes were on the window where Ryan stood. From this distance she could not see that he was there. But the gla.s.s was catching the sunlight, and she fixed her gaze on it to stop herself from moving from the spot. "Will you come and help me with this ironing?" Monica called from the kitchen, but Anna did not hear.
It was only when Monica took hold of her arm that she started and turned, landing hard on the floorboards. "Will you come and help me?" Monica repeated. Anna followed her.
In the corridor, guests were pa.s.sing on their way out of the building. Daniel, the chef, was at the sink, washing the last saucepans from breakfast. "Is that where Ryan and his uncle live?" Anna asked. "That house you can just see on the edge of the lake."
"Yes, that"s Lakebank," said Monica. "It"s an old manor house. Here, take this. I"m trying to fix the kettle."
"A manor house?" said Anna, taking the iron from her. Monica examined the dismantled parts of the electric kettle strewn over the kitchen table. "Do you know them well?" said Anna.
"No one does. They keep to themselves. That"s landed gentry for you."
"Is that what they are?"
"Apparently. Mr. Field is a sort of recluse, I think. Why else would you live in a big house like that, with gates ten feet high and all the rest? I speak to Ryan, though, when he pa.s.ses. He"s a polite boy. The uncle is strict with him."
"He seems like a strange man," said Anna.
"He"s eccentric, but there is nothing wrong with him."
Daniel hung up his ap.r.o.n and picked up his car keys from the sideboard. "You will never fix that," he told Monica, leaning over her shoulder to look at the kettle. "You shouldn"t have taken it apart yourself. Buy a new one-that"s what I think. I"m going to Lowcastle; I will be back in a couple of hours." He turned and left the kitchen. Monica frowned after him, pushing her hair off her face. She had the same blond ringlets as Anna"s mother; they caught the light now as she shook her head impatiently.
"What were we talking about?" she said. "Oh yes-Mr. Field. There is not much more to tell you. He has lived here fifteen or twenty years, they say, and he is a stranger to everybody."
The Voice was telling me a story as I walked, in fragments and faint images that were hardly real. Perhaps I wanted so desperately to be somewhere else that my mind had conjured these things-the prince, the girl who was our English relative, Aldebaran as he appeared to a stranger. And after a while I grew too tired. All I could see now was what was there in front of me-the marsh and then the hills, deserted, with the wind sweeping over them. It was so bleak and empty that the tears ran down my face as I walked, and I thought of Stirling and no longer had the energy to stop myself. But I kept walking.
Eventually it grew so dark that I could not go on. I could see the lights in Kalitzstad, but I couldn"t see where I put my feet. I stumbled and fell. I did not get up after that. I lay down, with my head on a rock, to wait for sunrise. I could not understand why I hadn"t reached the city yet, but it was several miles away and I could go no farther.
It was eerie in the hills at night. I could hear slow footsteps on the gra.s.s, coming closer and then moving away again. And someone breathed. The darkness pressed in close, but I saw something glint in it. Perhaps someone was watching me, waiting for my eyes to close. Only I wasn"t quite sure if it was real, or if I imagined it all, or if I was dreaming.
This is what it"s like all the time for you now, Stirling, I thought. Lying alone in the dark, with only the dead for company. I couldn"t bear it. "Stirling"s in heaven now," said the Voice, sounding like Father Dunstan or Grandmother. "Now go to sleep." I shut my eyes.
Listening to the footsteps, I imagined it was the Voice, incarnated in the safety of the dark, where I could not see its form, padding gently around me like a guardian angel. As I drifted into sleep, I realized that the footsteps were only my own heartbeat.
And even in the wilderness, I dreamed. It was England again, and night there also, and over Aldebaran, the prince, and Anna, the same stars were shining.
"Anna, stop dancing now," Monica was calling. "It"s late; you will disturb the guests."
"I have to practice," said Anna.
"I know. But please-can"t you do it tomorrow? And dancing in those shoes will damage the floor."
"I didn"t have time to go up and get my ballet shoes or I would have done."
"Have you finished sweeping?"
"Yes. I put the broom away."
Anna stopped where she was and leaned against the stack of tables in the deserted dining room. Through the open doors she could see the constellations, patterns she knew well. Monica was walking about the kitchen putting things away, her heeled shoes echoing on the tiles. "Are you looking at the stars?" she said then. Anna nodded. "I remember when you were four years old and Mam bought you that astronomy book. You were so determined to learn them. Mich.e.l.le thought you were too young for a book on astronomy. But maybe she wasn"t the one who knew you best."
Monica fell silent. Anna was thinking then of the clear nights that winter after her Nan had died, when she had propped the book on the radiator under her window and learned the patterns of the constellations. Monica, leaning against the kitchen doorway, was thinking of the same thing. In the darkness they could hear the waterfalls. They were close, somewhere out there beyond the open doors.
Monica was still standing there when Anna came back to the kitchen. She was looking at the line of photographs on the windowsill. "Do you know what is strange?" she said, turning.
Anna came to stand beside her. "What is?"
"We"re the only ones left-Mich.e.l.le, you, and me."
It was true. Half the people laughing so surely in the photographs were gone now. "That"s why I came here to help you," said Anna. "We"re still a family."
Monica turned to her and seemed about to speak, then put her hand on Anna"s shoulder for a moment. "I don"t know what that picture of Richard is doing still there," she said then. "I should take it down." She picked up the photograph of her former husband and brushed the dust off it, then put it back.
Anna thought of something then. "Monica, your father?" She glanced toward the photograph.
"Yes," said Monica, her voice changing. "What about him?"
"Was his surname Field?"
There was a silence. "That"s what Mam told us," said Monica then. "It made no difference anyway. Why do you want to know about him?"
Anna shook her head. "I don"t. Sorry."
"Go up to bed now, will you?" Monica said. "I want to start breakfast at quarter to six."
When Anna was almost at the door, Monica spoke again. "Listen, I will make sure you have time to dance tomorrow. I know this audition is important. All right?"
Anna nodded, then turned and trailed along the darkened corridor, rubbing the aching muscles in her arms. A car swung past on the road outside, the distant yellow of the headlights glittering faintly through the jewels of her necklace. She twisted her fingers through the chain absently as she climbed the stairs. It was the same necklace, the bird necklace with one jewel missing, that she had worn all her life.
Anna fell to sleep that night with the necklace in her hand. She dreamed she was dancing, years from now. In the dark beyond the stage were her family, all the people in Monica"s photographs and the photographs beside her bed, as though they had never been gone. And in the dream she could see her future family, a tall man and a child, gazing up at her with the light edging their faces, gazing up proudly with their faces turned to gold.
"I can tell what you are thinking," Aldebaran said.
"Uncle, I know you can," said Ryan, yawning. "Your greatest gift is prophecy."
Aldebaran laughed at his tone. "Do not be so disparaging. No one needs powers to tell what you are thinking, gazing over at the hotel like that."
"I was thinking that it is very clear on these summer nights," said Ryan. "You can hear the waterfalls. That was all."
They sat in silence for a moment listening. Then Aldebaran said, "Go over that again. The princ.i.p.al causes of the Alcyrian border war. I am not convinced that you have got it right."
Ryan yawned again. "It is late..."
"Ryan." Aldebaran pushed his chair back so that it sent a pile of books toppling. "You know that this is important. These are the princ.i.p.al causes of the war; they are also the princ.i.p.al failings of Lucien"s government. Do you know what he has done today? He has ordered cadets to the border-boys your age-and he has ordered the army to march on a Sunday. Monarchs have lost a country for less. So go over it again."
Across the lake, the church bell chimed twelve. Ryan began again.
Sometimes in dreams, or entering a bright room from the dark, I think for a second that Stirling is there. Even while I was writing this-while I was lost again in the days before he was gone and the days straight after-I would begin to think he was standing there, just out of my sight. Always, I start up and begin to speak to him. And then I remember. He"s the only one I speak to now, but he never does answer. And yet sometimes I am so sure.
I lean on the parapet and watch the lights of the carriages moving down the castle rock. Half the guests are leaving, but the music goes on, faintly. I listen in silence. I can see every place I tried to describe to you in this book-the fenced waste ground where my school used to be, Citadel Street, the graveyard. I tried to remember the places that once captivated me, but they seemed suddenly like ghost realms. Kalitzstad is a dead place. When Stirling"s spirit left, the life was sucked out of everything else too.
When I was a little boy, I used to believe my mother and father would come back. I fully believed it. I used to kneel beside my bed to say my prayers, and after that I would take my gold christening bracelet and turn it round three times and whisper a few words, and imagine that I was working a charm to bring them back to us. But time pa.s.sed, and they did not come. That kind of magic drifted away years ago, and I knew they never would. I didn"t have proof. I just knew. There are some things you know in your heart without proving them.
But there was another magic that I always took for granted. Before Stirling died, there was a kind of power that glittered behind everything and gave it life. Maybe it was its potential always to be greater, or better tomorrow. But Stirling can never be more than eight years, eight months, a week, and two days, and everything in this world has stuck too. Now I know there is no magic. There never was. All magic ended forever when Stirling died.
I will continue. There are many other things. This was my confession to you, and it is not finished. But I cannot read on yet. I stand here alone instead and let the book fall from my hand. The breeze is rising over the parapet and catching in the leaves of the trees below. I will go on. After a while, I will pick up the book and read again. Not yet. confession to you, and it is not finished. But I cannot read on yet. I stand here alone instead and let the book fall from my hand. The breeze is rising over the parapet and catching in the leaves of the trees below. I will go on. After a while, I will pick up the book and read again. Not yet.
I woke out in the hills, and I did not know why I was there. I was lying in the cold gra.s.s, with my head on a rock and my overcoat pulled up over me as a blanket. There was a layer of silver dew across it. I had been dreaming about Aldebaran. I stood up and stretched out my painful arms. Then I remembered what had happened the day before, and that Stirling was dead. I fell to my knees again and stayed there, unable to move. I think I was praying that I would wake up as someone else. But I had already woken as Leo, and the sickness and shock did not release me no matter how long I knelt there. woke out in the hills, and I did not know why I was there. I was lying in the cold gra.s.s, with my head on a rock and my overcoat pulled up over me as a blanket. There was a layer of silver dew across it. I had been dreaming about Aldebaran. I stood up and stretched out my painful arms. Then I remembered what had happened the day before, and that Stirling was dead. I fell to my knees again and stayed there, unable to move. I think I was praying that I would wake up as someone else. But I had already woken as Leo, and the sickness and shock did not release me no matter how long I knelt there.
"You can go quicker now that you have rested," said the Voice. And something made me stumble to my feet, pick up my coat, and start walking.
My legs were aching so that I could hardly lift them, and my head thudded sickeningly. I did not know where this tiredness came from, but it was real and it stopped me from thinking of anything except walking. I was glad at least of that. But I wondered if this was all my life would be from now on-violently doing something else so as not to remember Stirling was dead, and the sudden realization, which was worse than thinking of it all the time. I willed the Voice to tell me a story, as it had the day before, but no words came.
After I had been walking for several hours, I tripped at the summit of a hill and began to stumble down. I landed on my back in a shaded valley. Then I realized that I knew this place-it was the valley that I had told Stirling about. The valley we were going to when he was well. I walked down into the expanse of wildflowers. They were already dying, and that made me start to cry. Since Stirling had been gone, everything I touched had turned bitter.
When I stopped crying, the valley was in shadow, and birds were flitting across the fading sky. I stood up and hobbled down to the stream. I washed the tears from my face. "Get back to the city," said the Voice. "There are still a few hours of light. Get back to Kalitzstad and everything will be all right."
Perhaps I really believed that everything would be all right if I got back to the city. Anyway, I kept walking. As I staggered on, faintness would rise to my head; every few yards I had to sit down until it subsided. The hills were small, but they seemed like the largest mountains. I was sweating and shivering. I was not well. But I was getting there. I began to believe that the reason for everything-for my tiredness and faintness, and the miserable weight on my heart, and Stirling"s death even-was that I had not reached the city yet. As soon as I stepped through the gate, everything would be all right. I felt nothing anymore; I thought only of the city and the distance and the Voice.
Eventually the hills became flat ground. I walked through the overflow graves, scattered like knocked-out teeth, where the Unacceptables were buried. I crossed the Circle Road, swayed, staggered on, and reached the graveyard gate. There were soldiers on guard duty-cadets, by their look. Their shadows stretched out toward me, running long over grave and ground alike. It must have been about six o"clock. They shouted to me as though they thought they were important men, but I ignored them and walked on past.
I had not been in the graveyard since Stirling"s burial. I hadn"t thought of what I would do when I reached the city; now I found myself searching for his grave. I walked among the headstones. There was a thick light, like yellow dust hanging in the air; it irritated my eyes. I found the grave. It was in the shadow of the wall, and not quite where I had remembered it was. The ground had sunk where it had been mounded up, so that the turf sagged in the middle. There were flowers on the grave, and the wooden cross now had an inscription under Stirling"s name: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Grandmother had chosen that without me. Stirling would have liked it, anyway. Grandmother had chosen that without me. Stirling would have liked it, anyway.
Then I thought suddenly that he would not be able to read the words without someone to help him. Why did I think that? I had been imagining, just for a moment, Stirling looking down and struggling with the inscription on his own cross the same way he had spelled out Aldebaran"s name. Because I felt as if he could see me, when I stood there beside his grave. "Can you hear me, Stirling?" I asked, but only in my head. "Can you see me?" There was no answer. Perhaps he could not.
I fell to the ground there on the shaded grave, so that my head was at the cross and my feet stretched over onto the path. Stirling was a good two feet shorter than me. The flowers smelt sickening and dusty close to my face. I lay there, as if I was dead and this was my own grave, and thought of Stirling there-so close, under the earth. I wished that I could see his face again.
I had become accustomed to crying now. I cried for myself, because I was hot and tired and sick, and it was still a long way home, and because I could never be happy again. I was tired with being unhappy. Whenever I thought of Stirling now, I was unhappy. When I thought of him before, when he was alive, I would recall some funny thing he had said or the last conversation we"d had, or I would think about what he was doing at that moment. Now I only thought of his illness and his death. And everything reminded me. My life seemed interminable, stretching out into a dark, blurred mist as far as I could see. "Help me, Stirling," I said in my head. "Help me, Stirling. I can"t go on."
I was dreaming again. They were becoming more and more real, more and more haunting. The girl was taking down washing in a gray side yard, with tears in her eyes. I could see her as I imagine spirits looking down on Malonia from somewhere above it. And the boy was approaching across the lawn, but she could not see him. was dreaming again. They were becoming more and more real, more and more haunting. The girl was taking down washing in a gray side yard, with tears in her eyes. I could see her as I imagine spirits looking down on Malonia from somewhere above it. And the boy was approaching across the lawn, but she could not see him.
"Anna," said Ryan. She started and looked up. He smiled at her. Overhead, clouds were gathering. A few raindrops crackled against the sheets on the line. "Let me help you with that," he said.
"I"m fine. Don"t worry."
Then the sky split with thunder and the rain came down, clattering on the roofs of the cars and making the trees shudder on the hillside. Ryan pulled down the last of the washing and ran after her toward the hotel door.
In the kitchen, he put the washing on the table and laughed, running his hand through his already wet hair. "Thank you," said Anna.
"I had better go," he said. "I see you are working." She shook her head. "Then perhaps I will wait until the rain stops."
"Shall I make some tea?" she said.
He nodded. "Thank you. I am glad to be stranded here, to tell you the truth. My uncle woke me up at six to go over some point of history he thought I got wrong yesterday, and he has been like that all day. I sometimes wonder if he is entirely sane." Then he laughed edgily, as though Arthur Field might hear him. "Still, you must get used to this in my occupation. That is, in the occupation I will take up."
"What"s that?" said Anna, trying to light the broken gas ring with Daniel"s cigarette lighter.
Ryan shook his head. "Nothing of consequence. But tell me, Anna-I have been meaning to ask you-when I came past here yesterday, and the day before-"
"When I talked to you?"
"No, other times. I saw you dancing, and I wondered what it is you are practicing for."
"An audition for dance school." She said it without turning.
"Are you serious?" Ryan raised his eyebrows, with a faint smile. She set a pan of water on the gas ring. "No wonder you are so good!"
"I"m not really good," said Anna. "You have to work hard at something. Everyone does."
"You must be good to get the chance to audition."
"It"s luck. All of it. Everything is."
"Is that what you really believe? You can dance like that-you must have trained for years-and you believe that everything is luck?"
Anna shook her head. She had been thinking just now of the day when she was five years old and her Nan took her to Graysands Beach. They had run over the sand for miles, filling Emilie"s leather handbag with sh.e.l.ls and stones. Then the sunlight started to fade, and Emilie said, "Time to go home, Anna angel." Anna wanted one more sh.e.l.l, and then another one. Emilie laughed and did not mind. And then, suddenly, Anna decided they had enough. They turned and started back, hand in hand. It was late by then and they were caught in heavy traffic. If Anna had collected one less sh.e.l.l, or one more, what happened next would never have happened.
"Everything is luck," she said again. "Whether you become a dancer or whether you don"t-that"s luck."
"How did you get the chance to audition for dance school, then? Was that luck?"
He was grinning, but she answered seriously. "The princ.i.p.al of Clara Nichols Performing Arts School toured in Russia with my dance teacher. It"s a personal favor to him. A scholarship place came free at the last minute, just a couple of weeks ago, and my teacher asked if I could audition for it before they give it to one of the people who came close in the auditions in the spring."
Ryan laughed, and she smiled, but reluctantly. She turned back to the pan of water and watched the bubbles rising in it. "This seems to be what you English do," said Ryan. "You have your dreams. And it is a good thing. You will dance professionally one day; I know it."
"Monica offered me a job yesterday," she said. "For when I leave school. What do you think?"
Ryan started to his feet, and she turned. "You should go to dance school," he said. "You should do anything rather than give up on it, if it"s what you want to do. If you ask me, you should not even be here helping her now if you have to practice for an audition. You should let your family take care of their own affairs."
"I had to come up here," said Anna. "Monica couldn"t run a business like this without family to help her. You can do whatever you want, Ryan; you don"t have to earn your living."
He did not reply for a moment. Instead, he sat down again at the table. She poured out the tea and set a cup in front of him. "If I had been an English boy, I would have wanted to be an artist," he said. "But my ambitions are taken out of my hands."