In the Wendy House, Kaspar slid Martha into her crib, the only sound the suckling of her own thumb. Together, they watched her squirm against her blankets, undisturbed by the world.
‘Will you go back?’ Kaspar asked. He had crossed the room to hover in the Wendy House door, as if uncertain whether he should be in or out. It was such a nonsense to see him uncertain; it did not suit Kaspar Godman well, and the idea infuriated her.
‘Or they’ll come here. My sister Lizzy, she may even apply for one of your situations vacant …’
‘She would be in good company. But …’
Cathy rolled her eyes. She marched to meet him. ‘Kaspar, you fool. You keep asking yourself why I didn’t leave. What you might be asking is why I stayed. Who I stayed for.’
Kaspar was still. Then he raised his hands to hold her.
‘You’re saying …’
‘I’m saying I’m an Emporium girl, through and through.’
Then he was kissing her, and his hands were in her hair, and hers were in his – while, in the paper branches, a pipe-cleaner owl fluttered its wings and the thin rustle of confetti snow began to fall down.
MANY YEARS LATER …
THE HOME FIRES BURNING
PAPA JACK’S EMPORIUM, AUGUST–NOVEMBER 1914
The sun had never touched the aisles of Papa Jack’s Emporium, but this summer it was bleaching the London streets. The yard at Sir Josiah’s was white as chalk, the sky a vista of cerulean blue. Even the grief-stricken waters of the river Thames seemed to sparkle, reflecting back the purity of that sky; and if ever there was a reason to think this summer a dream, there it was – for Cathy had never known the river anything but turgid and grey.
The children had flocked out to watch the Emporium wagons on their way. Ruddy faces watched from the rails, holding to last Christmas’s treasures: backwards bears, Martian rockets, more wind-up soldiery than a boy could ever find uses for. In the street beyond, a motorcar drew around. Kaspar Godman, black hair rippling behind, rose to the tips of his toes, threw the boys a flurry of salutes, and drove on.
Trips out of the Emporium were few and far between, but Cathy relished each one. Winters had always passed in the same controlled chaos she had known since she arrived at the Emporium, but summers could be stultifying. Too much time in the shadowed aisles was not good for the soul, no matter what Emil said; a turn through the summer sun was the restorative Cathy needed, and a trip to Sir Josiah’s always renewed her faith in what the Emporium was for.
Kaspar was about to steer into the controlled pandemonium of Regent Street when Cathy clasped his arm, directing his gaze at the girl sitting beside her. Eight years old and the mirror image of her mother, small and dark with darting green eyes, Martha was peering over the side of the motorcar, gawking at the great billboards of the Piccadilly Circus as if it was these things, not the wonders of Papa Jack’s Emporium, that defied all reason. She wore the same look every time they emerged from the Emporium, constantly finding adventure in the ordinary.
‘Do we have to go back quite yet?’
‘What was I thinking?’ Kaspar gasped, in mock surprise. Martha beamed up at him. ‘A change of heart never hurt a soul,’ he declared and, bellowing at a horse and trap about to cross their way, he arced the motorcar around and sped off along the broad way.
The afternoon was growing old, Hyde Park in full blossom. He drove them up and down the Rotten Row, turned dramatic circles around the Apsley Gate, and finally – when it was growing dark – plunged headlong into the grand parades of Belgravia, where men in tall frock coats (didn’t these people know it was summer, and a twentieth-century summer at that?) looked aghast at these deplorables come to ruin the afternoon. One man barked at them to show some respect, and this was a thing that delighted Kaspar and Cathy both. They turned to blow kisses – and would have followed through with dainty little waves if only the air had not been suddenly filled with invective, the hollering of a brawl and, next moment, the sound of shattering glass.
Belgrave Square, an explosion of green among the grand terraces, was drawing people to it like ants to spilled sugar. As it met the crowd, the motorcar had to slow to a crawl. Two tradesmen crossed their path with impunity, barely flinching when Kaspar ordered them out of his way. One of the men clasped a rock in his fist. Brazenly, he tossed it from one hand to another, then brought his arm back and let it fly. Over heads and the crowns of treetops it flew. It fell short of the house behind the black railings, but the second and third were better thrown. Glass shattered. Somebody sounded an alarm.
‘Head down, Martha.’
‘But Mother—’
‘Head down, please.’
From Martha’s lap, a patchwork face picked itself up. Sirius had grown a little more ragged with the years. His black button eyes had been ripped off by over-eager hands, stitched on and restitched again; his patches were thicker where they had been replaced, and what mechanisms still drove him purred a little more incessantly every time he moved his limbs. Martha held on to him, her face screwed up in a scowl. This was the problem with living in the Emporium, thought Cathy. You did not develop an instinct for the real world when all you knew was toys. Martha had no reason to fear for she had never seen anything like this – but then, so Cathy supposed, neither had she. Two men were scrambling into the boughs of one of the trees, the better to observe the carnage.
‘It isn’t safe,’ she whispered. ‘Kaspar, what do you think it is?’
‘It’s … the embassy.’
Sirius was up on his haunches, hackles raised as if to protect Martha. A man crashed alongside the car, brought his arm back and let fly with another rock. More glass shattered in the face of the building above, the volley followed by a dozen and more.
By now the motorcar had ground to a halt, an island in the sea of men. Kaspar tried to hallo one of them, but to no avail. Instead, he reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
‘What’s happening here?’
‘See for yourself, mister,’ a voice barked back, and soon Kaspar found an afternoon edition pressed into his hands.
Kaspar unfurled the rag while another stream of men, bank clerks and bricklayers, buffeted the wagon to join the crowds on the other side. With a flick of his wrist it rolled down his arm. Three striking words leapt out of the print:
HIS MAJESTY DEFIED!
Kaspar dropped the newspaper into Cathy’s lap, where she read on: war begun without formal declaration, a dreadnought sunk by German privateers in the northern sea, heroes recalled from summer holidays in far-flung climes. And there, underneath it all: YOUR COUNTRY UNDER ATTACK.
‘Can I read, Mama?’
In silence, Cathy folded the newspaper and placed it underneath her seat.
‘Perhaps we should return home, Mrs Godman?’
Mrs Godman. Even now it was a novelty to hear it, in the same taunting tone he used to say Miss Wray.