Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

As I stepped by his ankles, Ardak paused and stared down at me.

‘What happened here?’ I asked, expecting he would not understand.

‘Pssshhh,’ he said, and mimed the smash of glass. He pointed to the topmost window panel and I saw that the pane had been replaced; the putty was still damp in the frame.

‘Lucky we have you to fix these things, eh?’

He gave a vacant nod.

Coming upstairs, I found MacKinney at our regular table in the mess hall, breakfasting alone. She was a fastidious eater on account of an old bowel complaint, and could often be found this way, finishing her muesli long after the kitchen had closed. In fact, we counted on Mac to save our places every morning. The head of the table by the window was known to belong to us; it afforded the best view of the grounds. If we ever encountered other people in our spot, Tif or Q would shoo them away with a few stern words. Sometimes, we really were no different from school bullies, but we had spent so long at Portmantle that we had become protective of the smallest comforts.

I called to MacKinney through the doorway: ‘Who broke the window?’

She gestured to the far side of the room. ‘He was trying to kill a moth, supposedly.’ By the serving pass, Fullerton was standing in an apron and rubber gloves, wiping food-scraps into a dustbin. ‘He’s been doing chores with Ender all morning to make up for it.’ The old man was going from table to table, collecting cutlery and dishes, and he did not seem especially glad of the boy’s help.

I sat down with Mac and she slid something towards me. ‘That’s what did the damage, if you’re interested.’ It was a jeton —a dull brass token with a groove along its middle. ‘Ardak found it in the garden. No sign of the moth, by the way. Perhaps it was obliterated.’ She did not move her gaze from Fullerton, who was now stacking all the empty dishes in the way Ender disliked, so that the undersides became coated with the grease of eggs and sucuk and required extra rinsing. ‘Think it’s probably best you speak to him. He doesn’t seem to like me very much.’

I slipped the jeton into my skirt pocket. ‘You take some getting used to.’

A forlorn expression came over Mac then, the milk quivering on the spoon as she lifted it to her mouth. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking a lot more about my own two since he’s been here, that’s for sure,’ she said. ‘Not that they’re even kids any more. But still. . It’s hard to watch him. How he stands, how he acts. Makes me feel old.’

‘We are old.’

‘Oh, please. I’ve got decades on you.’ Mac prodded at her muesli. ‘Think about it — he’s basically a schoolboy and he’s already jaded enough to need a place like this. What hope does that give the rest of us?’

‘Everyone’s problems are their own, Mac.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But mine don’t seem to be improving. I’ve forgotten what the point of it was, anyway.’

‘The point of what?’

‘This. Being here.’ She was going to say more, but there was an almighty clatter of dishes. A stack of plates had toppled from Ender’s serving trolley. The old man was standing in the middle of the mess hall, peering down at the debris, as though confounded by the physics of it.

The boy rushed over to help. ‘Let me sort that out for you.’ He bent to pick up the fragments. ‘Do you have a brush?’

‘Go!’ Ender said. ‘This is not your job. I will sweep for myself.’

‘I don’t mind. Honest.’

‘ Çik! Git burdan! ’

There was a very long silence.

Fullerton stood up, wrenching off his gloves, ducking out of his apron. He returned them to the old man with a sarcastic bow. Noticing me at the table, he traipsed over, looking stung and apologetic, but all he said was, ‘What’s his problem? I didn’t even do anything.’ He reached for the milk jug in front of Mac and drank straight out of it. The rolling lump in his throat was oddly prominent. He had not shaved and there was a faint moustache above his lip, a dandelion fuzz about his cheeks that I could not help but think a tad pathetic. As he drank, his fringe fell back, revealing a streak of raw pink acne at his hairline. It was possible that he had been awake all night. He seemed fragile, twitchy.

‘Didn’t you sleep?’ I asked.

He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. It was baggy and bee-striped. ‘Couldn’t keep my eyes open,’ he said.

‘Well, sorry if we kept you up too late. Quickman gets a bit combative.’

‘You didn’t.’ The boy sniffed. He set the jug down so briskly on the table that it wobbled like a bar-skittle. ‘It’s going to take me all day just to clear my head again now. Sleep is not my friend.’

‘Come off it,’ said Mac. There was a mound of raisins left in her bowl, which she had managed to sieve out, and now she was swirling them with one finger. ‘Try staring at the ceiling every night of your life, then tell me sleep isn’t good for you. I’ll swap places with you any time.’

‘No, trust me,’ the boy replied in a heavy voice, ‘you wouldn’t want dreams like mine.’ With this, he angled his head until the neck-joints clicked on both sides. His sweatshirt lifted, revealing the waistband of his boxer shorts and the neat balloon-knot of his bellybutton. Then he said evenly, ‘Will Quickman be around later, do you reckon?’

Mac glanced at me. As though to give the boy a lesson in patience, she removed her glasses and wiped the lenses. Her whole face took on a sallow hue. ‘Quickman, let’s see. . He can be quite hard to predict.’

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure he won’t miss lunch.’

‘Well, if you see him, tell him I was looking for him.’

‘Happy to,’ said Mac, slotting her glasses back into place.

The boy gave a lethargic two-fingered wave, as though consenting to a yea-vote at the end of a tedious meeting. ‘Bye then,’ he said, and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

The weather had been so severe that we had not paid a visit to the mansion roof all winter, knowing the frost and snow would make it perilous. But I could see no other way of consoling MacKinney that afternoon. I insisted that she follow me up the attic stairs, into the rafters, where a bolted hatchway opened to a ledge just wide enough for two or three people to stand on. She was doubtful about the conditions still, but I promised her that we would be safe. ‘It’s a little wet, that’s all,’ I said, climbing out onto the shingle. ‘There’s plenty of grip.

Mac lumbered out of the hatch and patted the cobwebs from her knees. She took one glimpse of the view and exhaled. She was soothed by it, I thought — restored. For a long moment she stayed quiet, her eyes absorbing the scenery.

There was a brilliant, flooding sunshine. On all sides, ferries were traversing the inky water in slow motion, oblivious to everything except their course between the islands. Most of the snow-scabbed houses and apartment blocks of Heybeliada stood dormant, just a few curls of smoke from a few stubby chimneys far away. At the Naval Academy, the parade ground was vacant of marching cadets, and the restaurants on the promenade had nobody to serve. We could see the clock tower of the Greek Orthodox church from where we were, too, and the outlines of horses in the paddock across the bay; the old theological school, high on its northern summit, was framed by a narrow arc of sunlight that seemed to angle from the clouds like a projector beam. I expected this would remind MacKinney of how privileged we were to be at Portmantle, hovering above the world, subtracted from it. It usually did us good to remember that the clockwork of the world never stopped, that history was already forgetting us. But MacKinney crossed her arms and said, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.’