‘My little girl.’
‘I’m so glad you found us. Lemuel’s been berating me all morning for not sending a taxicab – but then, he doesn’t know you like I do. I told him: she’s my mother, and she doesn’t need a fuss. She’d find her way through the Arctic.’
Figures had appeared in the hall behind Martha: three little ones, all lined up, and behind them the beanpole that was Martha’s husband. Cathy had seen him so rarely, the rocketeer who had met Martha at the Washington embassy where she worked and allowed himself to be swept off his feet. He had the same figure as Kaspar once had, his hair swept back in the same lovingly bedraggled manner.
‘Mrs Godman, it’s my pleasure to see you again.’ His accent had hardly softened since the last time they met; he still spoke as if he was up on the silver screen. In time, she would learn it was an affectation, meant solely to delight his children; now, it took her by surprise. ‘Why, Mrs Godman – is that all you’ve brought?’
Cathy lifted the day bag on her wrist and nodded. ‘I have need for so little, Lemuel.’
‘And yet – only this, for an entire life?’
Cathy stepped inside. The house – her new home, she reminded herself – smelled faintly of gingerbread and peppermints. A little bowl on a sideboard was filled with bonbons. ‘I should enjoy a pot of tea, Martha dear. It already feels like the longest day.’
It was to get longer. Martha had laid on a spread – with apologies for the haste, for the family had only days before returned from Washington to make their new life – and over sandwiches Cathy was reintroduced to her grandchildren. Bethany was nine and her rose gold hair was either a throwback to some former generation or the inheritance of her father. Lucas (who excavated his nose at the dinner table, despite dire predictions of brain damage from his father) was eight. Cathy had met both when the family made their whirlwind tours of the capital, but for Esther – who, at three years old, had come later into Martha’s life than any had expected – it was the very first time. Cathy fed her corners of cake and saw in her a Martha in miniature. Something in this dulled the ache which she had been feeling all day.
The excitement helped too.
‘What is it?’ Lucas shrieked.
‘It’s coming to get you!’ Bethany cried.
Esther just squalled, but when Lemuel took her in his arms she was the first to touch the new interloper – for Sirius had appeared in the dining-room door, his threadbare tail swishing as he came to meet his new hosts.
‘It isn’t just a toy,’ Bethany insisted. ‘It can’t be.’
Across the table, Cathy caught Martha’s eye. ‘Why,’ she said and, opening her arms, drew her grandchildren near, as if taking them into a conspiracy, ‘there isn’t such a thing as just a toy. The stories I’m going to tell you, the things you wouldn’t believe! Your mother and I grew up in a toyshop, you know, where the most wonderful things happened every day …’
‘But toys are just toys,’ grunted Lucas, who had had quite enough of this nonsense.
‘Sometimes,’ whispered Cathy, and thought: yes, I can see how this might work. Perhaps there is a place for me here after all.
Cathy’s quarters were on the second storey. They were modest in size, but there were two, one for a bedroom and one for a parlour, and from the parlour there was a balcony on which one might take the sun during summer. As she waited for her dinner-time summons, she set about ordering her new world. She had already arranged all of the trinkets from her bag when she heard the tread on the stairs. The door opened and in crashed the two older children, Esther toddling behind.
They had been coming with shortbread and tea but, now that they saw the room, they were struck dumb. ‘Where did it all come from?’ Bethany asked, in wide-eyed wonder. For somehow the room had been filled with more items than their grandmother could possibly have carried with her. There were potted plants and bookshelves, a woven sampler on the wall, new bedclothes and blankets. The mantel of the old fireplace was decorated with wedding portraits in grainy black and white.
‘Oh,’ said Cathy, ‘it all came with me, I promise.’
‘In that little bag?’ Lucas demanded, insisting on an inspection.
‘Don’t trip now,’ grinned Cathy, handing it over. ‘You might have a nasty accident.’
‘Who’s that?’ Bethany asked.
She was pointing at the portraits, so Cathy set about explaining: this is me when I was a much younger lady; and this is your mother, hardly as old as your baby sister is now; and this, this is your grandfather. His name was Kaspar, and he was the greatest man I knew.
She was telling them the story when another figure appeared in the door. Lemuel had evidently been hunting his children all over the household, while Martha reacquainted herself with Sirius downstairs.
‘Are these monsters hassling you, Mrs Godman?’
‘Not for a second,’ she said, grappling out to catch Lucas, who was half swallowed inside her bag and threatening to topple further. ‘And please, call me Cathy. Or … Nanny. I should like that. Well …’ With the deepest grimace, she heaved Lucas up and out of the bag, ‘… I’m to be the children’s nanny, aren’t I?’
Lucas crashed backwards, landing in the hearth, with a look of such uncertainty: the bewilderment of a baby at being born.
‘There are things inside. You haven’t emptied your bag.’
Cathy flushed red. ‘I dare say I’m not the first lady not to have emptied her handbag in half her life.’
‘I want to see!’ Bethany exclaimed. In a second, Lucas was back on his feet. Esther, prompted by the sound of her siblings’ excitement, was shuffling over, determined to join in.
Lemuel swept her up. ‘I imagine you’re not used to this chaos.’
‘Oh, there was chaos, once upon a time.’
Lemuel crossed the room, hovering at the mantel where Kaspar’s face peered out.
‘This is the man, is it? Martha’s father.’ Cathy nodded. ‘He was a daring fellow, Martha says. I’ve seen some of the things he made. We never had a place like yours in New York. You must miss home sorely.’
The details of a life, Cathy thought, were too vast to be covered in small talk. But then, she had had her fill of silences too.
‘For twenty-nine years … and yet every day.’
‘Did they …’ Lemuel stopped himself, as if what he was about to say had already been outlawed by Martha – but Cathy did not seem as troubled. ‘Did they ever find out what happened to him?’ ‘No,’ she went on, ‘but, then, a great many men went missing in those days. One among many was hardly enough to stop the world turning. Only in our little Emporium …’
Sleep did not come easily tonight. First nights, she remembered, were always the worst, but she had been almost fifty years beneath the same roof and the change was going to take some getting used to. For the moment, she was glad of the comforts she had brought with her. Cedar and star anise were Emporium smells, and the fragrance had flurried up all evening from the candles on the ledge, Sirius curled up at the foot of the bed.
Midnight came. Then one o’clock. Then two. At three Esther awoke and an instinct buried for more than forty years drove Cathy up, into her slippers, and out into the hall – but Martha was already at the girl’s bedside, shushing her back to sleep. So Cathy sat, instead, on the end of her bed, mindlessly winding Sirius and trying to keep away that inevitable thought: how did the long road of a life come to this?