Anna Smaill - The Chimes

‘But we should go back to the storehouse first,’ I say. ‘For supplies at least.’ I notice that my voice rises at the end.

‘No. We need to go now.’

‘And just leave the others?’ I put my hand to my upper arm, press the pain that’s still at the surface.

Lucien studies me, patient.

‘In a few days they will have forgotten us, Simon.’

And I know that he is right.

We are in the eaves of the entrance to the Five Rover amphitheatre. Lucien just inside the tunnelmouth. I am standing on the strand.

‘Camden first,’ I say. ‘Then Covent Garden. If she’s not there, I’ll go south to Barrow and then to Elephant and Castle.’ I sing Lucien the route I plan to take and he sings it back to me with a few changes.

‘Take the backstreets as much as possible. They’ll be looking for me foremost, but after the trade they may know what you look like too.’

I wrinkle my brow for a beat and wonder what my description might be. I have no clear idea of what I look like. I can’t remember the last day fine enough to catch a steady glimpse in the river. What I know is that I’m skinny, ragged. My clothes shout pactrunner. It is possible, when I think of it, that I have my mother’s brown hair. My father’s green eyes. But I think of myself as nondescript, ready to fade in anyone’s memory. Is this what Lucien sees?

‘OK,’ I say. I repeat the bass line of the route so Lucien knows that I’ve got it.

‘And then what?’ I ask. ‘How will we travel to Oxford?’

‘Just follow the tune,’ says Lucien. ‘We’ll answer the other questions as they come. And be careful.’

Netty is not at Camden market. I did not really expect it. I walk through the crowds that gather thick around the foodstalls. It’s mostly prentisses, because Camden’s streets are filled with music printers, all needful of quick fingers for their heavy presses. They produce the Order’s official publications — teaching materials, guildsong directories, primers for Onestory, special occasion Chimes and masses.

It’s a young crowd in the market, muscling and hooting, dressed in the bright uniform of their trade. They group around the vendors selling vegetables and rice, hot meat pancakes, thick cacao blended with spices that will give strength to bodymemory. Music printers are well paid, and the prentisses are all strong, and the instruments they carry are rich and ornate. I stand out in my ragged jeans, my face streaked with sleeplessness and mud. I listen for neeps and tatties, but the homely tune does not come.

From Camden to Covent Garden. When I arrive, I walk through once presto and from habit I watch for a disturbance in the fabric of the market’s music. I hear no pacts, no Lady, no trade. Just people buying food for their lunch, gossiping in duos and trios.

It is an older group of traders here. The clothiers of Jermyn Street. The prentisses of the instrument makers, who walk along in silence in their pale uniforms. I think for a moment of Johannes’s son, Charles, and wonder if I would know him if I saw him.

I hear oysters, and pasties. I hear melted four cheeses on granary loaf with pickle. I hear foxwhelp apples by the bag, cider by the gallon. And then under the tunes I hear, like I’ve willed it into being, a threaded humdrum melody, bubbling and impatient. Bangers and mash, neeps and tatties, bubbles and squeak .

It is Netty.

I walk down, not too quick, not too slow. I see the blue tarp awning, the red-painted stools, the sterno plate, all even smaller than I remember. I see an older woman with greyflecked hair, her back to me, the strings of an apron tied in an angry knot. She times her patter with the spoon’s stirring, the bubbling of the pan.

‘Netty,’ I say to the woman’s back. She turns and she sees me.

Her face when she turns is arranged in a calm mask, only the watchful hooded eyes showing through. For a short second when she sees me, the mask drops and her face grows old and fragile in one half-beat. Her eyes fill with fear. But then before I blink, the flat dead look has come back.

‘Who’s asking?’ she says, and turns back to the skillet.

I reach up and untie the tarp and let it drop behind me. I come in so close that I can feel the heat of the sterno raising the hairs on my bare arms.

‘It is Sarah Wythern’s son,’ I say. ‘But I am not asking.’

Netty turns lento and this time she lets herself stare. Her lips lift as if she might smile.

‘How?’ she asks, and the rest of her question is silence.

‘How did I remember?’ I say. I don’t bother keeping the anger out. She is looking at my chest, has seen the lack of guildsign there. ‘How is it I haven’t lost my memory yet? How did I know to come back? None of it thanks to you.’

She nods without speaking. She doesn’t take her eyes from me. I notice the slight tremor in her hands and feel a tinge of pity that she does not deserve.

‘I joined a pact,’ I say. ‘I found my way back to the memory of our meeting.’ I don’t mention Lucien. ‘You refused to help me. You knew who I was, but you let me go anyway, into the city. Though you knew it meant memoryloss for certain. You said you wanted a sign. Well, I’ve brought it with me now.’

She nods.

‘Was it the song you wanted?’

She nods again. ‘The song or the guildmedal.’

‘My mother never gave me a guildmedal, but she gave me the song.’ And I sing it.

Netty nods for the third time. Her old face with the hard eyes has crumpled, grown soft. The blankness has gone and in its place the weakness of an old hope allowed back in. But the hope has also strengthened the bitterness, like air feeding flame. It is a strange sight to see this story on her face. Neither expression wins.

‘You look like her,’ she says.

‘I looked like her back then as well,’ I say.

‘Perhaps I should have helped you.’

‘Perhaps you should have. But there’s no point arguing that. You’ll help me now.’

I will her to find some strength better than the brittle mask, better than bitterness. I sing the first two lines of the guildsong again, as if that might convince her.

‘Sssh,’ she says, and gestures in alarm to the world outside the tarp. ‘I’ll help. I’ll help, but you must be quiet.’

Netty goes to the awning, checks outside. She ties the tarp again tight to the door poles. Then she pulls the two stools close and swings the countertop over on its hinge so it lies between us like a table.

‘Sarah Wythern’s son. Do you have a name of your own?’ she asks.

‘Simon.’

‘Simon. Tell me, then, Simon.’ She takes a breath like she’s putting her shoulder to something. ‘What do you know of Ravensguild?’

I don’t look direct at her in case she changes her mind. I pull the memories in.

‘I know they oppose the Order. They want to keep wordmemory. They know it is Chimes sends memory away and gives the shaking sickness. Their sign is the raven, which is a bird, which is an animal that died because of Chimes. And it has the meaning of memory. I know they work to share and record memories. We need to know who they are.’

‘What was your mother’s role, do you remember?’

‘My mother had the gift of seeing others’ memories. People came to her and brought memories they would forget otherwise. It was her task to remind them, to keep their memories alive.’

‘Yes, admirable,’ says Netty. ‘But there was another task also, a different way she dealt in memory. Did she tell you of that?’

Something rankles in me. Netty talks as if all the fire is gone from the task and no heat even in the coal.