The Toymakers(72)

‘Oh, come on then,’ she said with a dramatic roll of her eyes – and Sirius, so elated to be included, turned top over tail as she hauled him aboard. Now that they were ready, she threw the last of the sandbags to the Emporium floor, heaved up the tether, and clung on as the dirigible rocketed skywards.

Up they went, up and further up, up past the Wendy House roof, up past the paper branches – and, finally, through the canopy, into the Emporium dome. Martha had flown this route before, but now came the most perilous part. Timing was key. Above her, the cloud castle was hoving into view. When it was almost upon them, she reached out for the rope dangling from its drawbridge. By using her body as an anchor, she slowed the dirigible’s rise and heaved it to a mooring by the drawbridge winch. Then, with burning arms and pride in a job well done, she helped Sirius clamber over the side.

Down below, where the empty aisles were draped in dust sheets, the Emporium doors were opening up. The first figure who came through she knew to be her mother, both because of the ostentatiousness of her hat (Martha rolled her eyes) and the day bag hanging over her shoulder. That bag, she knew, had been a gift from her papa – the girl had hidden inside it once, just to see how deep down it could go. The figure who came next was hunched over, dwarfed by the grey greatcoat he wore. In one of his hands he held a cane, which he seemed to be using as a third leg, and he moved with mortifying slowness.

‘What do you think?’ Martha whispered. ‘Is it him?’

Sirius’s tail had exploded in delight.

‘It is!’ she exclaimed. ‘Papa! Papa, up here!’

It was her mother’s face that looked up. Her papa seemed not to have heard. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten the days and nights they’d camped up here, the stories he’d told her, the games they’d played across the cloud castle floor? It was here he’d told her about the birth of Sirius (or at least the first time he’d been wound up), the day he met her mother, the time he’d grown a labyrinth out of his paper trees and got trapped inside it for six days and seven nights, eating only papier maché fruit to survive. She had doubted the veracity of that last story, but she’d loved it all the same.

From this distance, it was difficult to tell – but it seemed that her mother was glaring. Possibly she was instructing her to stay away, but since she couldn’t be sure, she felt no great desire to obey. With one hand still restraining Sirius, she skirted around the castle walls to return to the dirigible. A few more sandbags heaved aboard would send her crashing back through the paper trees. Down, down, down they came. So filled by thoughts of reaching her papa was she, and so distracted by the delirious twirling of the patchwork dog, that she misjudged the landing. The dirigible came down hard, struck the roots of a paper oak, and listed wildly. By the time Martha had picked herself up and checked Sirius for tears to his fabric, the shopfloor was empty again.

Too late, her mother had taken her papa into the quarters above. Martha hesitated before following. All of her excitement had evaporated, and in its wake were only nerves. She stamped her foot. It was not fair. Nerves were what happened to other people.

‘Let’s make him a present!’ she declared. ‘Something to welcome him home. Something he can’t possibly ignore …’ Turning on her heel, she marched back into the aisles. ‘Well, are you coming?’

Behind her, Sirius looked suddenly downcast. Denied his master’s return, he hung his head and sloped after her, grovelling as he came. Human beings, he had decided, were the most inscrutable things.

‘Here we are,’ said Cathy. ‘Might I take your boots?’

Kaspar stopped in the bedroom doorway, tilting his ragged face up to take in the room. Cathy hoped it was stirring something in him, for what he saw was a snapshot of the day he had left the Emporium behind. In the three years since, she had not touched a thing, dusting carefully around each ornament, making certain every toy soldier would be standing to attention just as on the day he had left. If only to have something to say, she bade him sit at the end of the bed.

Levering off his boots was easy. He winced as the shock waves worked through his body, but his legs were weak and they slipped right off. So many parts of his body were unfamiliar. His left foot had only three toes and on the right the ends of each were worn down to stumps. Yet there was a silver lining in every black cloud; Kaspar was so detached that he did not see her recoil, nor how her left hand grappled her right to stop it from lifting to her mouth.

Did he need rest? Did he need air? Did he need company? She had no way of knowing – and so, falling back on the lessons they had learned together as they watched Martha grow, she promised to return with milk for his bedside and a hot water bottle for his bed.

By the time she came back, Kaspar was propped up in bed, an angular form beneath the blankets. In his lap the music box played its lament while the mice danced erratically on top. His head was hanging down, lost in the twirling of the mice, but all around him were splinters and shards of broken wood. Every toy soldier who had stood so proudly on the shelves, waiting for their general to return, was destroyed. All that was left were pieces of painted faces, peering expressionless out of the ruin.

That night, she crawled into bed beside her husband, not knowing if it was the right thing to do. The heat from his body had warmed the sheets and that was the most alien thing. His back was turned to her. She tried to hold him but it felt all wrong. She turned against him and that felt wrong as well. So instead she lay awake. Some time in the night, Kaspar must have woken too (or perhaps he never slept at all?), for she heard the lilting melody of the music box. Soon after that, he returned to his slumber, more peaceful than before. The melody did nothing for Cathy. In the morning she woke and went about her business, but Kaspar remained.