The Toymakers(60)
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Godman,’ she said, straightening herself up. ‘You must think me frightful. And I have been, ever since that telegram arrived. My mother and father, they don’t know I’m here, you see. But I had to come. To honour Robert. To remember.’
By now Sally-Anne and the rest had reached the heart of the shopfloor. Over the aisles, Cathy could hear her dividing them into parties, assigning roles, assigning tasks. But Frances Kesey’s words had given Cathy a chill for which she was not prepared.
‘You’d better run along, before they get ahead of us.’
Composing herself, Frances Kesey took off up the aisle.
‘We’ll look after you here,’ Cathy called. Frances Kesey looked back and allowed herself a wan, half smile. Perhaps Cathy’s words had brought her comfort (perhaps this winter was everything the girl needed, for all she would have to do was touch one of Papa Jack’s toys and be spirited back to the childhood games she and Robert once shared), but her own words had opened up a chasm in Cathy. Robert Kesey dead. Dozens of letters from Kaspar and he hadn’t said a thing.
Martha had hardly slept the night before, dreaming of the magics of opening night. In their quarters, where Mr Atlee diligently tried to instruct her in the basic structures of Latin, or the secret meanings hidden inside her mother’s old edition of Gulliver’s Travels, her excitement could barely be contained, manifesting itself (as it often did) in lack of interest, contrary questions and downright insolence. Mr Atlee – who would, if you had badgered him, have admitted to a tingle of excitement himself – was ready to accept defeat and would have done so right then, if only he hadn’t heard Martha’s mother marching past the study door.
Bracing herself, Cathy strode into the bedroom. Kaspar’s letters were kept in a bundle in the bedside dresser. She lifted them out and spread them on the eiderdown.
My own Cathy, read the first letter. My only Cathy, read the second. She read about his basic training and his journey across the water. She read about the barracks in which the Artisans Rifles spent their nights, the scent of wildflowers in a Flanders meadow. She read about the card games they played after dark and the wagers they made. It was only when she went looking for it that she noticed: a month ago, all remarks about Robert Kesey had evaporated from Kaspar’s letters. He still spoke fondly of Andrew Dunmore, of John Horwood and Douglas Flood, but Robert Kesey was dead and it hadn’t merited a mention.
A lie of omission was still a lie. She sat for long hours, reading the letters over and over and only now did she see: these letters were about nothing at all. They were bedtime stories, things he had contrived from the banal moments of his days, letters designed to protect her and nothing else. To protect her from knowing. To protect her from the truth.
She was trembling (this was fury like she had never felt) when there came a tentative tapping at the door. By the time she turned around, Emil was already nosing his way in. Cathy thought: Get out! Get out now! But Emil was wearing that same anxious look he had on the eve of every opening night, and something in it made the anger bleed out of her.
‘Cathy, it’s time.’
Her eyes shot to the window. The afternoon darkness was hardening to night. Her entire afternoon, wasted in these letters, while a fresh band of shop hands were tasked with preparing the Emporium for its biggest night of the year. She felt the shame of it, hot and urgent.
Martha appeared beside Emil, Mr Atlee hovering behind.
‘Mama,’ she grinned, ‘come on! We mustn’t miss it!’
Cathy gathered the letters together, not caring when they crumpled in her hands. As she crossed the room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror, still in her day dress with the dust of forgotten aisles up and down her arms. Her hair was a mess, her fury had deepened the creases in her cheeks, but this would have to do. A gong was sounding on the shopfloor. The seconds were counting down.
As they reached the shopfloor, Cathy’s shame turned to relief. What magics they had worked while her head was buried in those letters! Around her, every aisle was garlanded with lights. High above, the Emporium dome was swirling with pinpoints of white, like a constantly falling snow. The arches that opened each aisle were wreathed in holly leaves of crêpe paper and card; plump red berries of papier maché hung from every leaf. Pipe-cleaner owls stood in the boughs of the paper trees, the carousel turned and sang, and the vaults above the aisles were a circus show of dragon longships, patchwork pegasi, and a white lace wyvern whose body was wrapped around the turrets of Emil’s cloud castle.
The shop hands were all flocking in the same direction. The aisles had separated and moved while Cathy had been up above, and now they all led into a single great boulevard, charting the length of the Emporium floor. Where there had once been polished floorboards, now there were the cobbles of an open-air market, and it was here that the confetti fountain constantly burst forth, painting the air with images of horses mid-canter, great dragons and knights. She and Martha joined the procession and stopped where the crowd was gathered in the half-moon hall. Here, through frosted glass, she could see Iron Duke Mews thronged with mothers and their excited broods.
The bells stopped pealing. All was silent on the Emporium floor. From the forested alcoves to the cloud castle halls, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Then, without being touched, the doors opened. Winter rushed in with its perfect icy breath, and on it came a tide of shoppers.