The Toymakers(51)

An image, perfectly simple, seared on to the back of Kaspar Godman’s eyes: he and Cathy, as old as these two wrapped up together on the estuary’s edge, wandering the aisles of their Emporium, a threadbare Sirius still lolloping behind.

What if she had never fallen pregnant by some other man and been driven into his world? The baby he had helped birth might never be his, but he could love her all the same – for that, and everything else.

Kaspar took the motorcar back to the streets and stood outside Cathy’s house. The silhouette show against the curtains was like one of his father’s puppet theatres. He watched Cathy twirl. Figures stood and then sat down. He thought he heard laughter, and that was a beautiful thing – until he remembered that only happiness might make her stay, here where she surely did not belong. After that, fear was like a seed sprouting shoots in his belly. He went to the door, but checked himself; went to the door again and started at the voices within. A man his age hurried down the street, and the thought of him knocking at the door – for was this Cathy’s estuary boy, come back to be a father? – made all the jealousy he had not known that he had flower.

The door opened and, framed by the light, there stood Cathy.

Behind her hung figures Kaspar thought he would never see: her mother, her father, a sister taller than Cathy with striking blond hair. It was the sister who was holding Martha. Kaspar froze, allowing himself to breathe again only when Cathy took her daughter back into her arms. One by one, she embraced the family around her. They had not come to claim her back, he saw; they had come to see her off. Her mother was stiff as Cathy held her, but her father gave in. His fingers teased the fluff of Martha’s hair.

Cathy joined him at the motorcar and, in silence, allowed Kaspar to help her inside.

Some way along the estuary, with the lights of Leigh fading behind, he dared break the silence.

‘Are we going to be all right, Cathy?’

When he said we he might have meant Cathy and Martha, or he might have meant all three of them. She nodded but said not a word, for there were tears in her eyes and she did not know what they were for: what she had lost, or what she had gained.

‘You look like your daughter when you cry.’

‘Kaspar!’ she snorted, and dried her eyes on the hem of her skirt.

‘Well, it’s true.’

‘My father said that too. He said seeing her was like seeing me.’

‘You might have stayed.’

Cathy nodded, trying to make sense of it all. ‘After all of this, they would even have had me. A few lies here, a compromise there, we might have made it work …’

Into the silence that followed, Kaspar said, ‘There was a piece of me, a tiny corner, that thought you would. That your life might be here … where it started. And, while you were in there, that thought, it just kept on growing. I couldn’t stop it. I think that must be what … doubt feels like. Cathy, I hadn’t thought it until now, but the thought of you not there, in the Emporium, it …’

‘Hush, Kaspar,’ she said. ‘Take me home.’

The car drove on, back through the late summer night.

The Emporium was silent when they returned. Emil and Mrs Hornung had been busy replenishing some of the aisles, anticipating the first frost yet to come. Emil’s soldiers looked resplendent on the shelves.

In the Wendy House, Kaspar slid Martha into her crib, the only sound the suckling of her own thumb. Together, they watched her squirm against her blankets, undisturbed by the world.

‘Will you go back?’ Kaspar asked. He had crossed the room to hover in the Wendy House door, as if uncertain whether he should be in or out. It was such a nonsense to see him uncertain; it did not suit Kaspar Godman well, and the idea infuriated her.

‘Or they’ll come here. My sister Lizzy, she may even apply for one of your situations vacant …’

‘She would be in good company. But …’

Cathy rolled her eyes. She marched to meet him. ‘Kaspar, you fool. You keep asking yourself why I didn’t leave. What you might be asking is why I stayed. Who I stayed for.’

Kaspar was still. Then he raised his hands to hold her.

‘You’re saying …’

‘I’m saying I’m an Emporium girl, through and through.’

Then he was kissing her, and his hands were in her hair, and hers were in his – while, in the paper branches, a pipe-cleaner owl fluttered its wings and the thin rustle of confetti snow began to fall down.





MANY YEARS LATER …





THE HOME FIRES BURNING



PAPA JACK’S EMPORIUM, AUGUST–NOVEMBER 1914


The sun had never touched the aisles of Papa Jack’s Emporium, but this summer it was bleaching the London streets. The yard at Sir Josiah’s was white as chalk, the sky a vista of cerulean blue. Even the grief-stricken waters of the river Thames seemed to sparkle, reflecting back the purity of that sky; and if ever there was a reason to think this summer a dream, there it was – for Cathy had never known the river anything but turgid and grey.

The children had flocked out to watch the Emporium wagons on their way. Ruddy faces watched from the rails, holding to last Christmas’s treasures: backwards bears, Martian rockets, more wind-up soldiery than a boy could ever find uses for. In the street beyond, a motorcar drew around. Kaspar Godman, black hair rippling behind, rose to the tips of his toes, threw the boys a flurry of salutes, and drove on.