The House of Storms (21 page)

‘You shouldn’t worry, darling. I know you have your father’s dark hair, but in almost every other respect, looks, mind and bearing, you’re far more like me than him. Everyone says so.’

Ralph returned to his food. Somehow, he believed her.

The day after, with his mother detained in London by phoneys and meetings about the trust fund and some odd new herb his guild was apparently developing, Ralph took the train back to the west alone—or at least unaccompanied, for every porter and steward and stationmaster seemed anxious to make an impression on him. It was evening by the time he reached Invercombe, and the house was coolly dark and knowing as it loomed in the twilight. Inside, it was entirely empty. Apparently Marion and most of the other maids were in Luttrell, celebrating some feastday of their guild. There was no sign of Cissy, either, this being the time of day which she spent privately with Weatherman Ayres.

Pricked by a long-delayed curiosity, and ignoring the continuing itchy and irritating sense that he wasn’t alone, Ralph headed down stairways and along storeroom corridors towards the cellar rooms. For the first time this year, he had to click on the recently renewed lights to find his way, and the old reckoning engine ticked to itself in its whitewashed bay, lazy relays flashing a corroded sea-green, seemingly dreaming not of Habitual Adaptation, but of messages unsent, cries unheard. Ralph, in a sheer animal instinct he’d heard of but had never previously experienced, felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise like a dog with its hackles. But he pushed on.

Beyond the last of the glowing lightbulbs, where the bricks gave out, the tunnel nevertheless continued, dipping down. Hands laid against the clammy rock, he ducked along the passage. The floor went down in dips and slants. His feet skidded, then encountered a step, studs of crumbling cement. The passage seemed entirely dark, but, as his eyes grew more accustomed, a faint light still glinted across the black, wet stone. He studied his hands. The black stuff, the slime, was almost certainty organic. Even down here there was life. He thought, as he moved on, of knotted tubercles which had grown and faded in the darkness of his own lungs. Then he tried not to think of anything at all. The salt air, the unmistakable boom and suck of the sea, drew and pushed at him, and Ralph felt as if he was on the lip of some new revelation when, beyond an angle of this cave or passage and in the very last of the light, his progress was blocked by a heavy iron gate. It creaked away from him, then held on a heavy chain. All he could see beyond was darkness. All he could feel, hear and smell was the living song of land against sea.

Sighing, frustrated and afraid, he ran and clambered back up the tunnel and followed the winding, widening stairs. The sun had set. Even in the main part of the house, he now had to turn on the lights to find his way. The place remained deserted, and his London luggage still lay where it had been left in the hall for the non-existent maids to put away, although he discovered that ghostly hands, most possibly Wilkins, had borne some kind of wooden crate up into his bedroom. Imagining yet another portion of his belongings had finally been spat out from the ruminations of the western postal system, he glanced at the tag. Invercombe’s address was written there in what he was sure was his father’s handwriting, and it was stamped on the day of his death.

Tearing off the seals and wrapping, all Ralph found inside was a heap of pebbles. His first thought was that his father had been behaving at least as oddly as several people had hinted before he died. His second was that he’d sent him these stones in a clumsy attempt to help him in his geological researches. He didn’t know which was more sad. They were flints of the sort which abounded on the blue-grey shingle beaches of the southeast, and he was wondering what to do with them, when, in the puzzled process of reaching deep into the box, his hand brushed against one.

Like putting a needle into the middle of a record, or the disorientating surge of a crossed line on the telephone, the sense was immediate. Information flooded into him, then, as he drew his hand back, it instantly stopped. It took a moment’s more rummaging to locate the stone. Balling it in a loose sheet of paper to avoid the rush of data, he bore it to the glow of the nearest lampshade. There were no signs, no seals, nor the characteristic hole in the middle, but this was nevertheless some kind of numberbead, and Ralph placed his hand upon the pebble more deliberately, and let the message from his dead father unfold.

T
HE WESTERN CHAMBERS
of the Ringwrights’ Guild lay in a narrow street in Bristol’s Old Town. Pillared buildings which had seen better days and endless generations of pigeons huddled around each other in cobbled courtyards, turning their backs away from the coralstone fantasies which had proliferated elsewhere. Ralph studied a browned brass plaque.

‘I suppose this is where we decide not to go in.’

‘But it would be a shame to have come this far,’ Marion said, and he had to agree.

Inside, and up creaking stairs, they entered an office set with long cases of ancient-looking files. A tuning fork stood on a desk. Ralph gave it a ping.

‘Yes?’ A small, stooped man emerged and peered at them through wire-framed glasses. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m Master Ringwright John Turner. This is my wife, Mistress Eliza. We’ve just arrived in Bristol this morning from Kent.’

‘Looking for work, I’d guess?’

‘We’d like to get our bearings—’

‘Most wise. I’m Master McCall of the Second Harmonic’ He offered a hand. Ralph took it, wondering if he’d missed some essential curl of the index finger in his researches into the life of this guildsman his father had given him.

‘I’m afraid my, ah, guildcard was stolen.’

‘Some light-fingered bastard in the east, eh? Over there, I hear that it happens all the time. No problem. Now, if you’ll just permit me …’

The most extraordinary moment came when Master McCall unfurled a long printout. Running down columns of names, humming Ss and Ts, Master McCall’s browned finger finally alighted on M
SR
J T
URNER
(E:
SPSE
) I
DCT
K
NT
GH. O
TVE
1
^ST
, then the same long unique number Ralph had carefully memorised from his father’s numberbead.

‘Here’s a temporary pass. Valid for six months. Get your photo retaken sometime and bring it back in and we’ll turn it into a real one, but there’s no hurry. Lost your tools as well, did you?’

‘Some … We’ve left all our luggage back at Templemeads.’

Master McCall heaved shut his ledgers. Unhooking his glasses, he polished them.
This is when it comes,
Ralph thought. Some obvious bit of protocol he’d missed. ‘Problem is,’ he said, ‘you can take as long as you like to settle here, but I can’t promise you’ll find any work. It’s as hard here as it probably is in Kent. Not that I don’t think you’ve done the right thing, moving west, but you’re the third chimer I’ve had here this last shifterm. Quite a lot are just passing through, mind. There’s better work to be had out in the colonies. Thule, the Fortunate Isles, maybe even Africa. That’s where I’d be putting my money …’ He chuckled. ‘If I had any.’

Ralph nodded. He glanced at Marion.
Chimer,
he supposed, was a play on the name and function of this guild.

‘Places to stay—I’d recommend Sunshine Lodge if you want something cheap and not too scummy. Maybe the Las-come, if you’re really stumped for cash. And stay clear of the east side of Redcliff at night…’ Master McCall gave the temporary guild-card a thudding stamp and waved it towards Ralph. And welcome to Bristol.’

They took late breakfast in a nearby chophouse, calling each other Master John and Mistress Eliza in loud voices now just for die fun of it. He was dressed in a leather-patched jacket and a pair of trousers he’d borrowed from Wilkins. Marion wore a loose homespun shawl and a long tweed skirt. As far as it was possible for him to judge, the couple he’d glimpsed in the plate glass windows of the shops they passed on their way from Templemeads Station fitted in with the morning crowds. Not that anyone seemed to notice, in this smoky racket. Marion had taken the full day’s leave she’d accumulated in her work as a maid. Only yesterday, Ralph had been endorsing more of the papers which his mother regularly sent down for him. Was endorsing different to signing? He didn’t care. It was just so marvellous to get away from everything—even Invercombe, and the stress of trying to make sense of all they knew about Habitual Adaptation. He loved this stale bread and chewy meat. He felt, genuinely, like a different person—and as if a huge burden had been lifted. For these moments alone, to be drinking warm beer in a Bristol chophouse with Mistress Eliza who was also Marion, he was eternally grateful to this father.

They tumbled out, nearer than ever to shouting, laughing, or waltzing with the barrow-pushing old ladies who were heading towards Upmeet Market. They counted out what change they had left, which was mainly Marion’s. Ralph was unused to money, and he felt far more nervous entering the pillared blue ceilings of Martin’s Bank than he had at the Ringwrights’ Chambers. Here there was the busy sense of purpose and wealth and mystery. An army of clerks peered like hermit crabs from glassed alcoves before which many Bristolians were queuing.

Babies squalled. Grandmistresses cooed to extraordinary dogs cradled in their arms. Businessmen in bright cravats frowned and studied their watches. Ralph looked around for other common guildspeople like John and Eliza Turner. There were enough here for them not to stand out, but not very many. He tried to imagine what his father had left here. Surely people like ringwrights used savings clubs or tea-caddies. More likely, perhaps, than money was a deposit box and a note which would make sense of this whole masquerade.

‘My name’s John Turner. This is my wife Eliza. We’ve just arrived this morning from Sevenoaks …’ He was sweating, and he knew he was saying too much, but where did you start when you had no idea what you wanted?

‘You have an account?’ the blond-haired clerk in high collar and long cuffs drawled.

‘I have my guildcard if you need proof of identity, and I was wondering—’

‘You want to make a withdrawal?’ His pink eyes unfocused, the clerk was already punching figures into the till-like device beside him. ‘How much?’

Ralph had no idea. He looked at Marion.

‘I think we could do with three pounds and ten shillings,’ she said, then to Ralph: ‘After all, we’ve got our room at Sunshine Lodge to pay for.*

‘In that case, if you’ll…’ The clerk was reaching for a withdrawal slip when he noticed the till’s display. His expression changed. He glanced at Marion. He looked Ralph up and down. This was already taking longer than any of the other transactions, and the queue behind them was getting restless.

‘You
did
say
three
pounds and
ten
shillings?’

‘It might be useful,’ Marion leaned towards the window past Ralph, ‘if you let us know the state of our account.’

‘I’ll write it down.’ Even this simple process took longer than Ralph, or the people waiting behind them, might reasonably have expected. When the note was passed through to him, he understood why.

Marion was the first to gain her composure. ‘I think in that case we might as well round that withdrawal up to five pounds, don’t you, dear?’

It was merely necessary for Ralph to duplicate the signature he’d seen recorded in numberbead on the withdrawal slip to take the money, and then they were outside. The day had gathered an impetus of its own. After all, why not really have a room at Sunshine Lodge, now that they had the money? The place lay behind the sugar factories where the air was smoky and sweet. Asking for directions, they were sent along a wide, litter-strewn street. Spars and funnels rose at the far end. Other couples were also wandering, some trailing children or dragging luggage, others arm in arm and mismatched in age and dress for reasons which Ralph was slow to guess. Sunshine Lodge had little to distinguish it from many other optimistically entitled boarding establishments.

‘I wonder what Lascome’s like,’ Marion murmured, struggling to open the window after they’d been shown up to room 12A by a woman in a hairnet. Ralph laughed. He jumped on the bed, which shuddered alarmingly. There were voices from other rooms, people coughing, and a greasy, indefinable feel to the air. By rights, it should have been a dreadful place, but it was theirs. Giving up with the window, Marion came over to him. He undid the knot of her homespun shawl. He touched her hair.

‘Well, Mistress Eliza?’

She leaned down to kiss him. Soon, their hands were greedily on each other and the moment was as sweet as it had ever been as they rocked and gasped and the bed rocked and gasped with them. They were alone and they were together, experiencing for the first time the pure recklessness of being in a big city where no one knew them and no one cared. Back at Invercombe, these needy times now came most often as they were outside in some quiet spot in the gardens attempting to make sense of all their data, or down in the reckoning engine’s cool darkness where Ralph grew distracted by the inner vein of her arm or the pulse in the hollow of her throat, and their love-making seemed stolen from that bigger purpose. But here everything was different, and Ralph was sure he heard other cries through the yellowed walls. The sounds of love were the spells of a guild which all humanity could share, and Marion was so, so lovely, and her flesh was an endless territory. Her nipples had grown broader and darker, he was sure, and she gasped and almost pushed him back as he took one in his mouth and felt it harden. Women, in their passions, were as changeable as this late summer weather beyond Invercombe, and it was a stormy Marion who pushed back avidly and almost angrily against him; who bared her teeth and looked at him, in the very instant when she should have been closest, from far, far away.

They lay back, gazing up at the ceiling’s blotched, intricate stains.

‘Just how much is four thousand five hundred pounds really worth?’ he asked eventually.