‘Ted,’ Sally-Anne interjected once more, ‘isn’t good enough at his job, you see.’
Ted looked as if he might summon up a spirited reply, but instead he slumped into a seat, pulled the stopper from a decanter of what Cathy took for brandy, and poured himself a generous measure. Moments later, as he stared into the fire, a bundle of velvet and rags unfolded itself from a basket and scrabbled to get into his lap. ‘And these cats aren’t up to much either!’
‘How are you finding our little Emporium, Cathy?’
‘Little?’ she exclaimed. Her eyes had already taken in the extent of the Palace; perhaps she was mistaken, but it seemed another trick of perspective, or whatever it was that opened up the Wendy House down in the paper trees. ‘Why, I don’t think I’ve seen a fraction of it …’
‘And you won’t,’ Ted chipped in, ‘not this season at any rate. Midwinter’s barely a week away and how long will we have after that?’
‘How long?’
‘Until the thaw,’ Sally-Anne explained.
‘Then it’s drawbridge up and us shop hands out on our ears.’
Cathy froze; even the baby had stopped tumbling inside her. ‘You don’t mean to say …’
‘What is it Papa Jack always says? A toy shop’s trade is in the dark winter months … Yes,’ Sally-Anne went on, ‘it’ll be back to the boring life soon. Reckon I’ll find myself cleaning dishes in Bethnal Green. Douglas Flood can go back to – what is it, Douglas? Understudying at the Old Vic?’
Up on the dais, the boy named Douglas set down his fiddle (though it played on without him) and said, ‘Vaudeville. I’ve a mind I’ll chance my arm in the music halls.’
‘Well you’d best be taking that fiddle with you. I’ve heard you try and play a—’ Sally-Anne stopped, for a shocking paleness had spread across Cathy’s face. ‘Cathy, are you … Is it the food?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘not the food,’ though the way her stomach was revolting made her certain she was going to be side. ‘If I may … Might I be excused?’
‘Excused?’ somebody baulked. ‘Lor’, girl, you’re not at mama’s table any more!’
Just as well, thought Cathy, and reeled as she got to her feet.
‘Oh Cathy, come on, you’ve hardly eaten …’
She was unsteady. She caught herself as she made for the wardrobe door. Sally-Anne was at her side, but Cathy pulled herself through alone. Halfway through the storerooms she stopped to catch her breath, looking back to see Sally-Anne standing, a question given form, in the wardrobe door.
Lives turn on an instant, just as they are made. There was no going back. There never had been, not since the moment she set foot out of the back door. But if there was no staying – if there was no long summer in the Emporium, no place for a mother and child, well, what then?
The approach of Christmas only intensified Cathy’s terror of what might happen when the Emporium closed, but the invitation that came on Midwinter’s Eve pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. It had been lying in an envelope slipped beneath the attic door when she returned at the end of the day, and Sally-Anne – who had followed her up from the Palace, soliloquising on the Herculean good looks of Jon Mosby, brought in this winter to wrangle the runnerless rocking horses – was already perched on the end of the bed, pontificating over its contents. There was so little privacy to the room that Cathy could not stop her from seeing. The envelope was sealed with scarlet wax, imprinted with the emblem of Papa Jack’s Emporium – a single tin soldier of unquantifiable rank – and inside was a piece of golden card:
~
An Invitation to a Midwinter’s Supper
Your confidant, Kaspar
9pm
~
Sally-Anne was either disgusted or beset with jealousy. Cathy could not tell which. She tossed her hair and leapt to her feet, brandishing one of those romantic penny novels she so loved. ‘He just wants to know what’s under your skirts.’ Well, thought Cathy, that was probably true – but not in the way Sally-Anne was thinking. And what was this about confidant? Cathy felt quite certain Kaspar Godman was not the kind of man who could keep any sort of secret, let alone one as revelatory as this.
The clock on the wall was inching towards eight. Cathy folded the invitation and slipped it beneath her pillow. Then, ‘Sally-Anne, have you any clothes I can borrow?’ she asked.
The Godmans had quarters on the highest gallery above the shopfloor, up a servants’ stair that spiralled out of their workshops. Winter staff only rarely ventured up here, no matter how long their standing, and, like so many corners of the Emporium, this was virgin ground to Cathy. As it was, the great oaken door that led to Papa Jack’s workshop was barricaded shut (Cathy had heard tales of one assistant who had gained a position here only so that he could deliver secrets back to his overseers at Hamley’s; the workshop had been a fortress ever since) but the stairs grew out of a narrow passageway just beyond. Cathy was halfway up before she saw the movement on the top step and watched as something unfolded, sniffed the air and stood up. The dog she had first seen among the paper trees lumbered forward on patchwork paws, its stuffing bulging where it had been pressed out of shape while it slept. Its fur was of velvet, cut up by seams as if somebody had taken it apart and stitched it back together. In patches it was grey, in others purple and blue. The insides of its ears were pieces of tartan, and the tongue that lolled from its snout had a heel in it, like a dangling sock. Its nose was nothing more than a crosshatch of black thread.
When it realised Cathy was near, it set up a bark. For a moment, Cathy was stilled. Then, judging that what teeth it had were only scraps of felt, she knelt down to pet it. Soon, the creature – if creature it could be called – rolled over, imploring her to knead it back into shape. Unable to refuse the doleful look in its black button eyes, Cathy sank to her haunches and began. Her fingers found the little wind-up mechanism buried in its tummy and she turned it once, giving the dog even more vigour. After that it lolled in ecstasy, its contented noises like the swishing of cotton against cotton.
Finally, Cathy gathered herself and knocked at the door.
She was expecting Kaspar, or Emil, or Papa Jack himself, but instead Mrs Hornung opened the door and battled back the patchwork dog with a broom. ‘Sirius!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve a set of shears in here just right for a pest like you …’
The dog’s whimper was the sound of wet laundry being slapped.
Mrs Hornung had never seemed as sour as she had on the night Cathy arrived at the Emporium doors. The way she looked now, Cathy might even describe her as genial. Her official position was Emporium Mistress, a title that made her seem more matronly than it ought. Sally-Anne said she used to be the nursemaid, a job that had predominantly comprised of tracking Kaspar and Emil down to whatever hiding place they had made on the Emporium floor and delivering a series of improbable punishments for their cheek. She had even been the one to teach them the King’s English, but whatever they had done had aged her prematurely; their misadventures could be read in the wrinkles latticing her face. Now that the Godman brothers were grown, her role had transformed: a better title might have been Emporium Housekeeper, responsible for making sure the shop assistants were watered and fed.
‘I’ll help you off with those. These carpets are a nightmare to clean.’