Cuckoo Song

Chapter 30. WASTE, WITHER, WANT

As hoped, Jack agreed to let the three fugitives stay at his place, a dark-bricked terrace building in a set of ‘back-to-backs’ within reach of the river’s reek. As it turned out, ‘his’ house also contained his mother, his three sisters, his brother-in-law, his aunt and his older sister’s flock of children. His father was absent, and this had apparently been the case for years. His sisters, aged about fourteen, sixteen and twenty-six, were dark-eyed and angular, with broad grins and voices that bounced around the faded walls, bruising some life into them.

His mother did not seem particularly surprised to see him bringing home unannounced visitors.

‘I suppose they have something in their pockets?’ she asked. ‘Your sisters pay for their board – I told you, I won’t put up strangers for free.’ Violet placed money into her hand, and she counted it carefully, then nodded. ‘The attic room. No noise after ten o’clock.’ She looked Violet up and down, her expression carefully veiled. ‘I hear you were betrothed to one of Jack’s comrades?’

‘Yes,’ Violet’s expression was similarly mask-like. ‘He didn’t come home.’

‘He’s not the only one,’ said Jack’s mother flatly. Her gaze passed over her son smoothly and coolly, like fingers stroking the marble of a sepulchre.

The house was in the throes of washday, steam and the smell of suds emanating from the kitchen. The yard and stairs were a maze of washing lines.

The attic was reached by a ladder. It was musty and cool, its sloping walls slathered in whitewash. There were three mattresses covered in blankets and old coats.

‘We can’t stay too long,’ Violet said, once she was alone with Pen and Trista in the attic, ‘but we should be safe here for a day or two.’ She tossed Trista a much-patched dress in faded blue cotton. ‘I borrowed this from one of Jack’s nieces – it’s a family hand-me-down. If you wear it, you can keep Triss’s dress in a bundle, just in case you need to eat something. But… try to ration it, if you can.’

She sat down on one of the mattresses, and let out a long breath. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, as though thinking aloud. ‘Why would your father give Sebastian’s watch to the Architect? Where does that leave us? What do we do now?’

Trista and Pen exchanged glances.

‘We have a plan,’ said Trista. ‘And… I’m sorry, but we can’t tell you about it. We need to use a telephone.’

‘There’s one in the Eyelash Club,’ replied Violet doubtfully, ‘and the staff there know me well enough to let me use it. Who do you want to call?’

‘The Architect,’ answered Pen, with undue belligerence.

‘What?’

Violet’s brow wrinkled as she looked from one face to the other. ‘Is that safe? Can he… do anything to you through the telephone? Could he get his magic operator to trace where you are?’

‘I don’t know,’ Trista confessed. ‘It might be dangerous. But if we can talk to him, we might persuade him to give back Triss – maybe the service watch as well. And even if he won’t agree to that, we might find out something.’ As she spoke, Trista could not help wondering whether the Architect might also know some way to keep her alive. She felt a little thrill of hope at the idea.

‘Is there any way I can make the call, instead of either of you?’ Violet was clearly still wrestling with the idea.

‘No,’ Trista told, with a pang of sad gratitude. ‘You can’t even be there, or the magic promise will stop us talking. I’m sorry, but you don’t know the same secrets. It has to be us.’

A little before ten o’clock at night, three fugitives drew up in front of the Eyelash Club.

The club sounded and smelt as if it might be rather grand. Soft blue-tinted light seeped through its Venetian blinds into the darkness. The music from within was the polite, tamed jazz they had heard before, or ‘supper jazz’ as Violet contemptuously termed it. There was a handsome young doorman with gold buttons who winked at Violet when she asked to use the phone and ushered them in conspiratorially.

The telephone had its own little room, with a heavy wooden door to allow it privacy. The walls were covered in red baize, and the little table on which the phone stood was chrome and glass.

‘Don’t take too long,’ Violet said. ‘I’ll be outside. As soon as you’ve finished, run out and jump into the sidecar. If we drive away fast, then even if the Architect can trace the call, he’ll only know where you’ve been, not where you are.’

The door closed behind Violet with a firm but polite ‘whump’, crushing the sound from outside to a thin ribbon. Pen and Trista were alone with the telephone.

‘Are you ready?’ asked Trista. She could not help whispering, as if there was already a danger the Architect might overhear.

Pen nodded.

‘… not afraid of anything…’ she muttered under her breath, and reached for the phone. It looked so large in her hands, the fingers of her left scarcely big enough to curl around its black stem. As Pen held the conical earpiece to her ear, Trista realized that she was trembling.

‘Waste, wither, want.’ As Pen said the words, it seemed to Trista that the black phone in her small hands bristled briefly, like a dog cocking its head. There was a pause, and then Trista could just make out a faint whispery sound seeping from the earpiece like smoke.

‘Penelope Crescent to talk to the Architect, please!’ Pen’s tone was too loud, too determined, and came out sounding shrill. Only then did Trista realize quite how terrified the smaller girl was.

Pause. Pause. A faint buzz of a voice, too indistinct to make out.

‘That’s not fair!’ exploded Pen without warning. ‘You betrayed me ! You tricked me into going near the cinema screen! You wanted to trap me, just the way you trapped S—’

Trista gave Pen a nudge in the ribs, not a moment too soon.

‘… the way you trapped Triss,’ continued Pen without even a hiccup’s worth of a pause. ‘But… I… wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry I said I was going to tell everybody about our bargain. I… didn’t mean it. I want to make a new bargain now.’ Her eye slid towards Trista.

‘Pen!’ hissed Trista in alarm. There was an all too familiar combination of defiance and slyness in Pen’s eye. She was sliding off script again, and Trista had no idea in which direction.

‘I want you to make the new Triss stay alive,’ Pen declared, ignoring the nudges in her ribs. ‘And then I won’t chase you with cockerels, or tell the police.’

Pause. A thin trickle of distilled voice.

‘What do you mean, I’m not trustworthy?’ exclaimed Pen. Pause. ‘No, you won’t, because you don’t know where I am!’ Pause. ‘Well, if you find me, you’ll be sorry! I’m not afraid – I don’t care what you “do to traitors”, I…’

Pen trailed off. The tiny voice creeping from the earpiece went on and on, weaving a menacing ant-trail of sound. The colour drained from Pen’s face, taking her bravado with it. Her lower lip trembled, but she seemed to be transfixed, still gripping the telephone even as her hands shook. Her eyes became shiny, and suddenly she seemed very young.

Trista could not bear it. She pulled the phone from Pen’s hands and put one arm around her, pulling the littler girl into a hug. Pen buried her face in Trista’s dress, breathing in quick, frightened little huffs.

Trista was flooded with a feeling of pure, incandescent rage. And thus her mind was quite calm and unafraid when she lifted the telephone stand before her face and the earpiece to her ear.

There was quiet at the other end. A couple of clicks. A few sounds of movement, translated into an electronic rasp by the intervening machine.

‘Hello?’ came a response at last. ‘Are you still there, Miss Crescent?’ The voice was unmistakable.

‘No,’ Trista answered, ‘she’s gone now. It’s just me here.’

‘Ah.’ A soft exclamation with a hint of warmth. ‘My little Cuckoo.’