Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

‘No, no, I’m happy where I am.’ She managed to quell the jubilation in her voice, but it seeped out onto her face, tugging at the corners of her mouth, mottling her skin. ‘This is going to make all the difference to my work, sir — I can’t tell you. It won’t be long before I’ve finished it.’

‘I have no doubt you’ll use the time productively.’ The provost reached for his pocket watch, shielding it as he flicked it open. ‘You haven’t said anything, Knell. I thought you’d be grateful for a bit of good news today.’

After the pitiless way he had dispatched Fullerton, I could only feel sceptical. It seemed that this sudden backpedalling was intended to placate us — to quiet any impulsions we might have had to scream the boy’s name from the mansion roof, or, in Mac’s case, to confess what she had witnessed to her friends back on the mainland. ‘I’m pleased Mac gets to stay,’ I said. ‘If that’s what you need to hear.’

‘She’s a bit exhausted,’ MacKinney said contritely. ‘I ought to take her back now.’

‘Yes, she does look quite run down.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. She tried to walk me forwards, but I resisted. There was plenty enough strength in me yet. ‘I’m sure their sudden change of heart has nothing to do with dumping the boy out there.’

‘ Knell ,’ Mac said.

A wen of rain dripped from the provost’s brow. ‘The trustees aren’t infallible. They’ve acknowledged their mistake, and I don’t think we should be asking questions if the outcome is the right one in the end, do you?’

I felt Mac pulling at my elbow again.

The provost turned his back on us, resting his cane upon his shoulder. ‘I suggest you try to get some rest now, both of you,’ he called, treading the path. ‘Provost’s orders.’

There was little sense in sleeping. But, with everyone convening in the mess hall under the pretence of mourning, I did not want to be around the mansion until lights-out. So I took a shower and changed my clothes again (everything I wore seemed to be possessed by memories) and then I cleared my studio, washed up my equipment and organised my materials. Afterwards, I made a cup of tea and sat down on the couch to take the weight off, and I must have leaned my head back a degree too far, because I woke up in lamplight with the teacup full and cold. I was out of kindling for the stove and could not light it. There was plenty in the mansion stores, I knew, and Ender would replenish my stocks come morning. But the rain had left the evening damp and rheumy on the lungs; I needed to stay warm.

Ender had a room on the ground floor — not much more than a storage space with a single bed and bathroom fixtures screened off behind muslin. His door was closed when I got there, and he did not respond when I knocked. Upstairs, there was movement on the landing, and I went up to see if he was in the mess hall or the kitchen. But there was only Lindo, the Spaniard, and a few of his short-term friends. They were playing shove ha’penny on our table and making quite a din. When Lindo spotted me, he gestured for the group to quieten. ‘Is everything OK?’ he asked. The other heads turned. I barely recognised their faces: gormless, spongy, self-amused.

‘Looking for Ender,’ I said. ‘What are you doing on our table?’

The Spaniard shrugged. ‘The game requires it.’ He held my gaze, unflinching. ‘Ender is not here. We have not seen him. Should I tell him you were looking?’

The serving pass was shuttered and the kitchen door was closed. ‘No, that’s all right,’ I said. Lindo nodded and returned to his shove ha’penny. For a short while, I dawdled on the landing, expecting Ender to emerge from a stairwell or a corridor, but he did not. In fact, the mansion was curiously still, as though Gülcan’s special supper had left everyone so sedated they had all retired to bed.

Quickman’s room was at the near end of the hallway, separated from MacKinney’s by the landing and the library. I rarely disturbed him in his own space. Of the four of us, he was the most guarded about his lodging and it was simpler just to wait for his appearance every mealtime than try to lure him out — if he was absent at lunch or dinner, we assumed that he was in a solitary mood. But I was feeling less in thrall to Quickman’s need for privacy than usual. I went to knock for him.

It took no time at all for him to answer. My knuckles were hardly off the wood. He peeked out through the gap, lifting his chin at me. ‘Thought it might be you,’ he said, and let the door hang open. His room had changed since my last visit: generally less cluttered, but something else, too. Quickman must have sensed me trying to work it out, because he thumbed towards his desk and said, ‘Used to be under the window, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

‘Tired of the scenery already?’ I said.

‘It helps to change your view every now and again, I’ve found.’ He went to sit down in his swivel-chair, a high-backed rosewood thing with metal casters and a few turned spindles missing (his hands reached back into the space where they should have been). ‘And I get distracted by the birds. If you stare at them for long enough, they develop personalities. Now I can’t look up in case I see myself in the mirror. One glimpse of this face is like a dose of salts.’

‘Yes, I’ve often thought so.’

He almost smiled. There was subdued light about the place, like some rare-book shop. A lamp was poised over the empty surface of his desk. ‘You’re not working?’ I asked.

‘I never write and entertain at once,’ he said. ‘I’m not Gertrude bloody Stein.’

The last time I had ventured into Quickman’s room, seasons before, I had seen a stack of pages on his bedside cabinet: handwritten, curling, weighed down by some dull brass ornament. The stack had been thick as a breezeblock. The same papers were still there, except the ream was just a quarter of the size, and a pot of ayran rested on it with its cap peeled back. ‘I was trying to find Ender,’ I said. ‘Didn’t want to interrupt you.’

‘Well, I don’t know where the old man is, but I’m glad you stopped by.’ Using his heels, he swung the chair round and shuffled to a set of drawers. From the topmost, he pulled out a bundle of cloth. ‘I’ve not been able to concentrate all day. I tried to sleep but I don’t think I’ve been this restless since the war.’

‘You were in the war?’ It surprised me that Q had volunteered this information, though I had always assumed he would have served in some capacity. There was a forlorn silence that belonged to men his age, in which you could detect reverberations of experiences too bewildering to relay.

He inhaled, nodding. ‘I was indeed. The Sappers. Saw a bit of action out in Nijmegen, and then got shot in the foot. Shot myself in the foot, quite literally. So don’t be staring at me all misty-eyed or anything. I’m no war hero.’ Wheeling himself back to the desk, he set the bundle down and unfolded the fabric. It was a T-shirt, pale blue, with crusted marks about the armpits. And, inside it, were the boy’s index cards. The entire block of them, jointed with tape. Some of the ink was smudged here and there, but the Japanese was still legible.

‘Where’d you get those?’ I said, stepping forward.

Quickman stared down at them. ‘I took them from his table before you brought the provost.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve been wondering that myself. A sense of duty, I suppose. Even though—’ He broke off, drawing his pipe out of his pocket, biting on it. ‘Even though I hardly knew the lad. But, God, I don’t know, Knell. Once you’ve held somebody in your arms like that, someone as young as him, so dead, you just — it does things to you. I had this awful feeling, as if I’d failed him somehow. And then I saw the cards and, that was it. I took them.’