Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

‘We still have a day,’ Violet answered doggedly.

‘What time is it?’ asked Trista.

Violet strode to the skylight, peered out and gave vent to a not-in-front-of-children word. Tiptoeing to her side over the chill floor, Trista could see at a glance why Violet had sworn.

The window was covered in a delicate lacework of frost, and through it Trista could just make out a faint sugaring on the nearby roofs and some gleaming thread-like icicles drooping from the guttering opposite. The sky was an uneasy grey, tinged with sepia. Storm yellow. The heavy yellow of a sky full of snow.

Violet’s face was mask-like, but in her clenched jaw and the movement of her eyes Trista detected panic and a deep-seated dread. With a shock she realized how much she had asked of Violet the night before. For Trista’s sake, she had stayed in one place for hours. Now Winter, which had been stalking Violet in vain all these years, was settling upon Ellchester with unseasonable speed.

‘You cursed !’ A sleepy, querulous-looking Pen was sitting up in her bed.

‘Right after breakfast, I need to go out,’ declared Violet. ‘I’ll head to Plotmore Hill – that was where you lost track of the midnight ride, wasn’t it, Trista? You two will have to stay here.’

Both girls started to protest.

‘No arguments,’ Violet told them flatly, with a concerned glance at Trista.

Breakfast was chaotic and sparse. Jack was apparently still asleep. His aunt and brother-in-law had already left for work, and his two teenage sisters were just hurrying out to their jobs at the laundry. His mother and eldest sister were getting ready to go to the market, so making breakfast was left to Jack’s eight-year-old niece, who took care of it with the briskness of practice, pausing to wipe the faces of the younger children like a miniature mother.

Everybody’s fingers were numb with cold, but the cover remained in place over the hearth. The tea tasted like puddle water. Breakfast was a slice of bread with margarine. Violet devoured hers in seconds and then fidgeted, waiting for everyone else.

‘But I’m still hungry!’ protested Pen. ‘Why are they getting more?’ The younger children in Jack’s family were being handed a second slice of bread and margarine, wrapped in paper.

‘That’s their lunch, Pen,’ muttered Violet with a wince. ‘They’re taking it to school.’

Whenever she got the chance, Trista tried to make eye contact with Violet, willing her to hear her mute appeal. Please don’t leave me behind with Pen! I don’t know if she’s safe with me! But Violet seemed stubbornly determined to avoid her eye, and kept following Jack’s mother and sister with her gaze.

Trista barely noticed the front door slam, but was slightly surprised when Jack’s oldest sister came back into the kitchen, removing the hat and coat she had just donned.

‘Mum’s just gone to buy some bread and eggs,’ she said brightly, ‘so you can have a breakfast that’s closer to what you’re used to. I’m to stay and make you more tea. Wait there and make yourselves comfortable.’ She ran up the stairs, presumably to put away her hat and coat.

Instantly Violet rose from her chair, taking care not to let the feet scrape.

‘We’re leaving,’ she said softly. ‘Quickly and quietly. Now.’

When the trio were back on the street, Pen stared back incredulously at the house. ‘Why did we leave? They were going to make us more breakfast!’

‘We’re in the newspapers,’ Violet said in a low tone. ‘I’ll bet my hide on it. The paper arrived while we were eating. Jack’s mother and sister read it, then went to whisper in the hall. Then Jack’s sister came back to keep us here. Jack’s mother must have gone to the police. There’s probably a reward.’

‘She betrayed us for money ?’ Pen exclaimed in disbelief. ‘I’m going back to break her windows!’

‘Don’t you dare!’ snapped Violet, then sighed and gave Pen a gentle exasperated look. ‘Pen… money only seems like a mean reason if you’ve never had to think about it. Most people have to think about it all the time. Money doesn’t mean cake and diamonds; it means finally paying off what you owe to the landlord, the baker and the tally man. It means having coins for the gas meter, so you don’t have to chop up your shelves for firewood. It means keeping the wolf from the door for a while.

‘She didn’t owe us a thing, Pen, and if she doesn’t fight for her family, no one else will.’

The wolf from the door . Hunger was like a wolf, Trista reflected. She had felt its teeth savaging her innards many times now. She had been caught up in her own self-absorbed, frantic battle with it, and had never considered that many people might go through their whole lives with the wolf trotting a pace behind them. Perhaps she had still been trapped in Triss’s conviction that the world revolved around her own needs and suffering. Her own story now seemed very small.

Then her personal terror consumed her again, and she snatched at Violet’s sleeve.

‘Violet! I left Triss’s dress behind in the attic room!’

‘Oh hell !’ Violet looked back the way they had come, clearly conflicted. ‘Trista… I’m sorry. We can’t go back. It’s just too dangerous. Let me know if you start to get hungry and… I’ll think of something.’

‘So… are we going to meet racketeers?’ asked Pen when they had parked the motorbike on Plotmore Hill. ‘Will they have guns? Are you their moll ?’

‘No, Pen!’ Violet rolled her eyes. ‘Guns only happen in movies and America. And I’m not a moll, for crying out loud! Most of the time I just deliver things. That’s why I have the sidecar, so I can load it up with anything or anyone that needs to get somewhere fast. And I’m a good mechanic who doesn’t ask questions – even if the car I’m fixing is full of black-market tinned cheese.’

‘A mechanic?’ Pen seemed uncertain whether to be scandalized or disappointed.

‘Yes,’ Violet grimaced. ‘One of the things I learned during the War. Strange – the War was probably the best schooling I ever had. I signed up to help with the War effort, and first they sent me to work in one of those munitions factories. I made a lot of friends there – mostly other munitionettes – and it certainly knocked the corners off me. Many of the male workers didn’t really want us there, you see, and there was a lot of bullying and name-calling. One girl even had her tool drawer nailed shut when she was out of the room.

‘Then I was reassigned and found myself driving this clapped-out ambulance. I had to learn my way around an engine, just to keep the darn thing on the move. I didn’t expect I would need the knowledge again after the War ended, but –’ she shrugged – ‘what else can I do? Even if I could find a job where I didn’t need to stay in one place more than three hours at a time, why would anyone give it to me when they can pay half as much to some fourteen-year-old fresh out of school?’

‘Violet.’ Pen’s brow was creased. ‘If lots of people don’t have any money or work, why don’t any of them want to be our kitchen maid? Mother says it’s impossible to find anyone .’

Violet walked on for a little while before answering.

‘I’m sorry, Pen,’ she said at last, ‘but your mother has a reputation. She fires her servants at the drop of a hat, and doesn’t give references, which means they can’t get another job. Clara Bassett says that most servants in Ellchester have been warned about your family.’

‘Clara Bassett?’ Pen looked incredulous. ‘Do you mean Cook ?’

Violet nodded. ‘I still talk to her now and then. Every time your mother hires a new maid or governess, Mrs Bassett tries to take them under her wing. Apparently she always warns them to avoid you and Triss as much as possible – particularly Triss.’