The Toymakers(73)

Sometimes he could be seen in the workshop. He took out tools he had not touched in years and tinkered with the music box, then retreated with it to his room, or some unseen cranny of the Emporium floor. The shopfloor itself had changed since he had been gone; Cathy was afraid he’d get lost, but Sirius took to following him at a distance, always ready to lead him back. In the evenings, Mrs Hornung brought him food. At first the plates came back untouched, but soon she understood that he had reverted to the dishes of his boyhood, that he found comfort in those old textures and tastes. After that she made only his vareniki and kasha broths. Sometimes Papa Jack sat with him as he ate. Other times Emil came. He was desperate to introduce Kaspar to his wife, to fill Kaspar’s head with the stories of the seasons he had missed, but Cathy pleaded with him not to. Kaspar took it all in but said nothing, returning each time to the music box in his hands. Whether it was day or dead of night, his fingers were never more than a whisper away from it. Even when Martha stole through to sit at the end of his bed, he would not acknowledge her. He wound and rewound the music box and lay back, stupefied.

‘He doesn’t want to be back, does he, Mama?’ Martha sobbed as Cathy put her to bed at night.

‘Your papa is very unwell, Martha. But one day …’

‘It’s the music box. Why does he always listen to the music box?’

Cathy did not know, but she resolved to find out. That night, when he slept, she teased it out of his hands. Without its touch, his sleeping grew fitful. She took care not to wake him and sat at his bedside, her fingers trembling over the crank. Why she hesitated, she did not know, and yet it took some courage before she began to play it. The contraption turned at her command, the mice began to dance, and the music drifted up to bewitch her.

It was a sensation like so many other Emporium toys. The sounds were so perfect, the dance so particular, that she no longer felt like Catherine Godman, twenty-seven-year-old mother and stalwart of Papa Jack’s Emporium; the toy had touched her, somewhere deep inside, and now she was Cathy Wray, five or six or seven years old. The edges of the bedroom she shared with Kaspar seemed to evaporate, and out of the haze appeared the furniture and fittings of that little room she and Lizzy used to share, in an age that seemed so long ago. The longer the music played, the more real things seemed, the richer the colours, the deeper the textures. On the bedside sat the copy of Gulliver’s Travels; on the shelf, the wooden rabbit. She had felt this way once before, that moment many years ago when Papa Jack gave her one of his pinecone ballerinas, and soon the only reason she knew it was not real was because, when she looked down, it was the hand of an adult still turning the handle of the music box.

The music soared and, suddenly, she could perceive the Emporium no longer. Whatever spell the toy was weaving, her childhood had grown solid, undeniable around her. There was movement in the corner of her eye and, when she looked up, the door opened to reveal Lizzy, five years old. By instinct, Cathy opened one arm to receive her. It was then that she saw: she no longer had the arm of an adult. It was a child’s arm that reached out to Lizzy. She was wearing the white pinafore dress that her mother kept for Sunday best. Lizzy nestled into her shoulder and Cathy gave in, returning the embrace. ‘Let’s play, dear Cathy!’ Lizzy cried (and the voice, so familiar, echoed in her body). ‘Do you remember Polly?’ Cathy did; it was the name of a game of skipping they used to play, up and down the estuary sands. She found herself saying, ‘But I can’t, dear Lizzy.’ And, ‘Why ever not?’ asked her sister. ‘Don’t you see?’ said Cathy. ‘I’m not really here. I have to keep winding. If I don’t keep winding, none of this exists …’

Her sister looked at her quizzically. ‘Winding what, dear Cathy?’

Cathy looked down. By some miracle, both her hands were free. The music still played, but it was distant now, a solemn song at the back of her head – and of the music box, she could see no sign.

‘Where is it?’ Cathy cried. She leapt to her feet. In her panic she did not see that her arm was adult again. Something in her frenzy had brought it back. She whirled around, spied the music box sitting on the bed and snatched it up. The crank handle had been turning of its own accord. She seized it, stopped it from moving. The mice resisted, determined to dance on, but she held it fast and watched, with relief, as the old bedroom fragmented around her. The last thing she saw was Lizzy’s plaintive face, calling out. ‘Come back, Cathy. Cathy, come back. Don’t you want to play?’

The music stopped. Cathy cast the music box down and, when she looked up, she was in the gloom of the Emporium again. Kaspar whimpered in his sleep, words without form – though their meaning was clear. In his dreams he was three hundred miles away, trapped in a foxhole in the French earth.

She slid back into bed beside him. Now, at least, she knew where Kaspar was whenever he went away. He was twenty years away, in a world without Cathy and Martha, a world without death, a world in which the only wars were waged across the Emporium carpets – back when he and Emil were brothers-in-arms, and if he wanted to stay there, thought Cathy, and live those moments again–well, who was she to say otherwise?

As she lay down, Kaspar called out. He cried for his mama, and somehow his sleeping fingers found the music box where it had landed. Cathy heard that haunting melody again and wished him well on his way.

Stay away from him, Martha, her mother had said. Give him his peace. Lord knows, he’s earned it. Well, what about her? What had she earned across all those years? Three Christmases without a father. Three birthdays. One thousand nights of going to bed and folding her hands and saying her prayers. Sometimes she had dreamed about him. She’d written little notes, tied them to the leg of a pipe-cleaner bird and hoped it might somehow flutter all the way to France. All that had to count for something, or what was everything for?