The Memory Keepers (9 page)

22

What in heaven’s name was she doing! One minute she’d been looking at the polished white façade of her house, thinking about cages and walls and the taste of freedom she’d had that night, and the next her arms were looped round Seven’s neck, her senses filled with the sweet, minty smell lacing his skin and his hard body against her.

Never in her life had Alba been this close to a boy. Oh my word: she was
touching
him. No, not just touching, grasping,
embracing
him, their bodies pressed together, not an inch of space separating them. Alba couldn’t breathe. She could barely think –

Something moved near the house.

Footsteps.

Then a voice.

‘Pearson. What’s so important it couldn’t wait until morning?’

Alba jerked away from Seven, her eyes flashing wide. Seven was still frozen to the spot, arms hanging stiffly at his sides, but his eyes were wide too, and she saw the fear in them, the same fear that had suddenly clutched her own heart.

That voice.

It was her
father
.

Luckily they were still hidden in the deep shadows under the elm. Instinctively they shrank back, pressing against the thick trunk of the tree. Alba’s heart thudded. She craned her head to look out under the dancing leaves and saw the tall silhouette of her father crossing the lawn. There was someone with him: a stocky figure.

It was impossible to tell who it was in the moonless darkness of the night, but her father had called him Pearson. It must be Russmund Pearson, Head of the London Guard.

Her breath hitched in her throat. Her father and Russmund Pearson! Just metres away; the last two people in the world she’d want to come across Seven.

‘I won’t be long,’ said Pearson. ‘My driver is waiting round the front. But there is something we need to talk about, Alastair. Privately.’

Their two figures stopped just short of the elms.

‘You know my house is devoid of surveillance for this very purpose. What is it we need to discuss?’

‘TMK.’

The letters shivered in the air like spun silk. Alba bit her lip, her heart speeding up.

‘What happened?’ asked her father.

‘Two of our TMK Candidates died during Phase Nine training this week. Neuro-haemorrhages while surfing. That leaves us with just one Candidate in training.’

‘So the active TMK total is down to just three.’

‘Yes. And with a rate of fifteen surfs on average before neuro-haemorrhage, we need new Candidates within a month. Or else –’

‘I understand. Speak to Vallez – the current system is unsustainable. His Science team need to sort it out, and fast. In the meantime I will let Recruitment know we need a higher intake of Candidates.’

Pearson said, ‘It’s getting more and more difficult to keep this quiet, Alastair.’

‘Things will be even more difficult for us if we don’t.’

There was a long, tense pause. Then Pearson nodded, turning away, his footsteps muffled on the grass as he headed round towards the front of the house. Alba’s father followed him a few moments later.

When they’d been alone in the quiet grounds long enough to be sure both men were gone, Alba and Seven peeled away from the tree.

‘What the eff was
that
about?’ Seven whispered.

Alba shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, not adding what she was thinking –

But I don’t like the sound of it.

Not one bit.

23

‘What’re you looking so smug for?’

Seven scowled. ‘Always nice to see you too, Loe.’

He was slouched on the ground in a corner of the market, back resting against one of the wrought-iron pillars dotting the tall, arched hall. There had been a skid-thief crew leader’s arrest the day before: Murray, a tall, bony man with a shaven head Seven had never spoken to, who had been caught during a thieving job. Carpenter and the other remaining skid-thief crew leaders had decided to avoid Battersea Power Station in case its location had been compromised.

This week’s meeting was taking place instead in Borough Market, a domed glass and metal structure set on a busy South street near the river. It was open at both ends. Hawker stalls and market booths clustered amid rows of benches, everything painted an ugly shade of green.

By day, the market was one of the busiest in South, selling fresh meat, fish and vegetables, but it was also a hive of activity late into the night as a popular meeting place. By eleven this evening, the hall was packed. Over the chatter and raucous laughter, a Screen fixed high in the middle of the market blared its news, bathing the hall in a shifting sea of colours.

Seven had been watching the crowds for hours, lost in thoughts.

It had been six days since he’d taken Alba to his flat to skid-surf, though it felt more like six years
.
Time seemed to move even slower that week than it normally did, as though some laughing god above kept turning the world’s clock-hands back, just to watch Seven suffer. The worst part was, Carpenter hadn’t gotten in touch with any more thieving jobs, so there was nothing to distract Seven from thoughts of Alba (and there were a lot of those. An awful lot more than he’d like to admit).

He wondered whether she was also finding it hard to adjust to everyday life again after their secret meeting. Whether the magic of skid-surfing for the first time had changed
her
world too, the way it had for him.

And, of course, whether she was still wondering what the eff her father had been talking about with that man outside their house.

Nothing about Seven’s life had felt properly real since that night. Everything seemed a little faded, the colours not quite right. And at the same time it felt as though that night with Alba never happened. The world would make much more sense if it hadn’t. A criminal from South and a stuck-up North princess couldn’t ever be friends  … 

Could they?

‘You’re doing it again.’

Seven started, looking round to find Loe staring at him from beneath her choppy bob, a knowing glint in her eyes. She crouched beside him. She was wearing a tattered T-shirt and ripped black jeans, tight on her scrawny body.

‘Doing what?’

‘Smiling.’

Seven rolled his eyes. ‘Just because
you’re
angry all the time doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to be.’

‘Ooh!’ Loe smirked. ‘Someone’s on their period.’

Yeah – you
, he wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. You had to pick your fights with Loe (which basically meant don’t try and fight at all).

‘Where’s Mika?’ he asked instead. ‘I haven’t seen her yet.’

‘Carpenter’s teaching her how to steal properly. Said she’ll need to start now if she’s ever gonna be a skid-thief like us.’

Seven raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that what you want her to be?’

‘What d’you mean?’ Loe shot him a hard look. ‘What
else
is there for her?’

She was right, of course. What future was there for a young South orphan, and a female one at that? Seven knew Mika was lucky to have been taken in by Loe. There were worse things she could do to earn money than skid-thieving.

No one knew what had happened to Mika’s family. Why she’d been wandering the riverside streets near Loe’s place in Bankside two years ago, just a toddler, barely able to walk. Loe had never told anyone. She’d just turned up with the girl at the skid-market one day and glared at anyone who looked as though they were even thinking about asking.

‘Anyway.’ Loe elbowed Seven in the ribs. ‘What d’you think about the whole Murray business?’

‘Oh, just overjoyed, of course.’

‘Seriously, you idiot. Do you think Carpenter’ll be next?’

‘No way,’ Seven said quickly. ‘He’s smarter than the other crew leaders. He won’t let himself – or any of us – get caught.’

Loe looked away, tongue playing with the loop through her lip. Her guard had slipped for a moment, and Seven could see how worried she was. He felt a warm flash of affection for her, then inwardly grimaced.

His brain must be malfunctioning. First Alba, and now Loe? He was going soft.

‘You really think that?’ she asked quietly.

‘Yeah. When has Carpenter ever let us down?’

Before she could answer, a shrill voice danced towards them, bursting with excitement.

‘Loe! Loe! Loe! Seven! Seven! Seven!’

Loe rolled her eyes. ‘I swear, that girl has a tracker on me or something.’ But her face softened all the same as Mika ran into view, a bush of fuzzy black hair weaving in and out of legs and tables. Loe pushed off the floor and mussed Mika’s hair. ‘What
now
?’

Mika jiggled on the spot. ‘Carpenter wants you,’ she said to Seven. She giggled. ‘Maybe he wants to teach
you
how to steal, too.’

Loe sighed heavily. ‘What d’you think we all do for a living, Mika?’

‘I know what
you
do.’ Mika hid behind Loe’s legs. She pointed at Seven and sang gleefully, ‘Your job is fancying
him
–’

‘MIKA!’

Loe’s roar was so loud her voice cut through the noise of the market crowds, practically cleaving the air in two.

‘Oops!’ screeched Mika, and she threw her hands in the air and ran back into the crowds, her giggles floating around her like a cloud of technicolour bubbles.

There was a heartbeat of tense silence. Then, throwing Seven a thunderous look that practically hissed
Don’t you even
dare, Loe stormed off after Mika, her cheeks flushed so dark they were almost purple.

‘How was that
my
fault?’ he shouted after her.

In his head, he took back his earlier affection for Loe. He might be going mad, letting himself care about a stuck-up North girl like Alba, but to feel anything other than anger and annoyance towards Loe, Seven would have to go
completely
insane.

24

It had been the longest week of her life. Not even a million lessons with Professor Nightingale could have felt longer (not that she’d care to try it to find out). Alba spun through minutes like Alice floating down the rabbit hole – Carroll’s
Wonderland
books were her favourites – drifting in a current separate to the rest of the world, things slipping by, unable to touch her. And the worst part of it was, it wasn’t over yet.

One more day!

She didn’t know how she’d manage.

Whenever she thought of Seven, Alba saw him in the dusky, night-time places of last Saturday: walking towards her under the shadows of the elms in her garden, or a flame-lit figure ahead of her in that awful sewer tunnel, his outline yellow and glowing. How he’d frozen as she’d asked him if he’d take her surfing again and she’d thought for a split-second he was going to say no, and the fast, spiralling feeling that had wound through her chest then, a rush of emotions she couldn’t quite place.

Seven had only let her surf the one memory that night, worried about getting her back to North before it got light. One memory wasn’t nearly enough. Alba wanted more. Hundreds more. She wanted to surf his entire collection, and even then it wouldn’t be enough.

She’d been to a tropical rainforest, swam naked in the azure water of its pools, while her parents and Dolly and everyone else in her house had been here, just sleeping. They might have been dreaming, but dreaming was nothing like memory-surfing. Surfing was so much
more
. It was like living moments from the most beautiful, sparkling life.

And there was the problem. Now Alba had had a taste of freedom, she couldn’t bear the thought of it being taken away.

Dolly was getting Alba ready for bed when there was a knock on the door. It opened before they could answer, Oxana stepping into the room in a cloud of too-sweet perfume and bustling silks.

‘Mistress White!’ Dolly gave a polite bow, still holding the brush she’d been using to comb through Alba’s hair.

Alba pulled her silk dressing gown tighter around her, face paling. Even though it had been a week since the night her mother had hit her, the memory of it still felt fresh. Raw. She had spent the week avoiding looking into her mother’s eyes because every time she did, there it was again: the snap of her wrist; coldness of the marble floor against her cheek; wine on her mother’s breath; the ugly look on her face as she’d said,
I’m done with you
.

For the past few days, it’d seemed Oxana was keeping to her words. Apart from dinner every night and their weekly Sunday church visit, Alba hadn’t seen her mother, and even when they were together her mother hadn’t pressed her to talk.

Now she was here in her bedroom, and there was nowhere Alba could escape to.

‘Dolly,’ Oxana said, smiling, clasping her hands in front of her. She was still wearing her dinner outfit from earlier. The long green dress skated over her curves like a dark emerald waterfall, picking out the colour of her eyes. Her blonde hair was slicked back in a sleek ponytail. ‘May I have a few moments alone with my daughter?’

‘Of course, Mistress White.’ Giving Alba an encouraging smile, Dolly squeezed her shoulder and left the room.

Alba stared down at her lap, fiddling with the tie of her dressing gown. Her stomach flipped dizzily. For one terrible moment she could barely breathe, because she truly thought her mother was about to tell her she knew what had happened last week.

That she knew about Seven.

It was strange, but the two nights Alba had shared with that weird, awkward boy from South seemed more binding than if they’d grown up together, spending years in each other’s company. She felt as though they were tethered together now. Tethered by their shared secrets, yes, and what they’d overheard between her father and Pearson, but also bound by the gift that Seven had given her.

Because that’s what it felt like to Alba; a gift. And she had no idea what she’d done to deserve it.

Then her mother said in a gentle voice, ‘I want to apologise for the other night, my darling,’ and all Alba’s fears suddenly spun away.

She jerked her head up. Before she could say anything, her mother walked over and took her hands, leading her from the dressing table to the bed.

Oxana let out a slow huff of breath as they sat on the edge of the mattress. ‘I’m so sorry for what happened, my darling. I really am. It was abhorrent of me. I never should have said those things, or acted the way I did.’ She stopped, mouth tightening, and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Alba’s ear. ‘I have felt horrible about it all week,’ she went on. ‘But your father and I – we need you to understand the truth about South. It is a dark place, Little Alba. Darker than you can imagine.’

Alba swallowed, looking away. She thought of Seven, how he’d told her not to worry when she’d admitted she was nervous before memory-surfing, and the soft look then in his eyes.

‘No,’ she said.

Her mother’s hand stiffened in hers. There was a long, heavy pause.

‘What do you mean, my darling?’ Oxana asked eventually, a hard thread running under her words.

Alba took a deep breath. ‘I mean no.’ All of a sudden, her words fell out in a rush. ‘I know what you’re trying to tell me, Mother. What you and Father were saying the other night. But it’s not right. It’s not fair. Even if South
is
dark, that doesn’t mean all the people who live there are too. We shouldn’t judge them that way, when we don’t know anything about their lives or what they think and feel –’

Alba bit her lip, falling abruptly silent. She’d been so close to mentioning Seven then. How she knew what he did was wrong, but he did it because he had no choice. Because memories were the only thing that made him feel free (they were the only thing that had ever made
her
feel free, too).

Her mother let go of her hands. ‘But we
do
know,’ she said quietly, though her voice was icy. ‘Southers are dangerous.’

‘And Northers aren’t?’

It came out sharper than Alba had meant it to. She saw her mother’s eyes click to her left wrist. It wasn’t in a bandage any more, and the pain had subsided, but there was a ring of purple bruising across the skin where the sprain had been. She knew her mother was thinking of the night when she’d hit her.

Alba felt a surge of guilt, even though, as always, she knew she’d done nothing to deserve it. ‘I – I didn’t mean  … ’

Oxana clicked her tongue. She waved a hand, not quite meeting Alba’s eyes, and just like that Alba felt herself dismissed, and her mother hardening again.

‘It’s getting late. I should let you get to bed.’

Standing, her mother smoothed down her dress. For a moment she watched Alba, some unreadable emotion passing across her face. Then she looked away.

‘We are trying to teach you about the world,’ Oxana said coolly. ‘So you don’t have to learn for yourself, the hard way. It is important you understand your place – and everyone else’s – in this society.’ She moved to leave the room, then paused at the door, turning back to Alba. ‘One day, my darling, if things go as planned, the world will look to you for guidance and wisdom. And you must be ready to show them the right path.’

It was only after the door clicked shut that Alba took in her mother’s parting words. Her mind was spinning. What on earth was her mother talking about?

‘One day the whole world will look to
me
for guidance and wisdom?’ she murmured to herself. It sounded so ridiculous, but a shudder ran down her spine.

Just
who
did her mother think she would become?