Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

She couldn’t bear another second of real life. She took Tattoo down from the mantelpiece. More of his stuffing was falling out. She lit candles all around the room, tall ones, stumps, white, blue, red, then turned the gas fire high, got the heavy eiderdown from off her bed next door and lay down under it on the sofa with Tattoo, needing that feeling, the stillness, the hiss of the fire, the colours in the dark inside her eyelids.

A phone rang downstairs, shrill and peremptory. Attend to me! Now!

No. Won’t. The world is not. Call up the deep woods. Walk in among the trees. In the heart of a letter on an illuminated manuscript made long ago, a mystical landscape, wildwood of hart and hound and hare and moon, where she could stay as long as she liked.

Deeper. Deeper.

She lay down there under a tree, fell asleep and dreamt she was in New York with Adam. She’d never been to New York in real life, but it was definitely New York. They were in a bar. They were whiling away the hours till it was time go to the airport to catch a plane back home. Next they were outside and it was raining and night-time, still New York, lights and cars, wet sidewalks. They’d lost all their money and their passports, everything, and they were just walking along in the rain. It was lovely. It’s real, isn’t it? Not a dream, she thought. But then it all started to break up. There was a moment, one fraction of a second when she thought that if she looked sideways — right or left, it didn’t matter — she’d see a new place. Like Narnia or something.

She’d been in this moment before, many times, and she always wanted to stay, turn her head and see that place. She never did though. Instead she woke up.

Poland, Czechoslovakia. Christmas in Budapest, beautiful city in the snow, lights hung in the trees, the fire in their hotel room banked up high and all the bells suddenly gloriously pealing on Christmas morning. Then the year gone, and another progressing. She turned twenty-five. Warsaw, Krakow, Brest. East, further and further, wide plains and lakes and vast forests, and the sense of excitement welling up all over again every day, something new, something more; more world, more life. They travelled in stages through a long white winter, bought furs in Minsk, stopped once in a village, where she heard from below in the inn where they stayed the sound of someone playing a zither, and at night the sound of wolves howling very far away in the woods. Money flowed. Nothing was out of reach. She still liked to sew now and then, but these days she could hire the best seamstresses available and give them precise instructions. Low-cut, skirts short, silks, ribbons. Theo grew his hair and whiskers and looked very distinguished.

‘You will slay them in Moscow,’ he said. ‘They can’t wait. How’s this for a name, Julia? Ilya Andreyevich Volkov. They all have three names. And they use them too.’

Ilya Andreyevich Volkov was the theatrical agent at whose house they were going to. Desperate he was, said Theo, desperate to host the marvellous ape-woman. Everyone wants you, you know. He’s got a big house right in the middle of Moscow.

‘Theo, you’ve been everywhere,’ she said.

‘Not quite.’ He smiled, took her hand and pulled it under his arm. They were travelling by night in a coach, through snow, blue under a high moon. From the window she could see a tall peaky castle high on a hill. She found the snow enchanting. It was like stepping into a picture in a book, a landscape she was dreaming. And Theo could even speak a fair amount of Russian. He was in a good mood, excited by his return to the east. It must have been twelve years, he thought.

‘So again,’ she said. ‘How do I say, “I’m very pleased to meet you”?’

‘I’ll write it all down for you.’

March was bitter cold in Moscow, snow hard-packed. A sledge pulled by two ill-matched black horses met them from the coach, and a tall big-boned young man came forward and introduced himself politely in French. His name was long and unpronounceable, instantly forgotten.

‘Ye gods, it’s cold,’ Theo said. ‘Yes, this is our trunk, and this bag here is ours. How far?’

‘Not very far. Please, this way.’ The boy was clumsy in his gestures. ‘We will be there in twenty minutes. Please sit here, Madame.’

Solicitously, smiling awkwardly, he spread a thick red blanket over Julia’s knees. Teeth chattering, nose turning red, Theo tucked it in. It was dark already, and starting to snow again. When she looked up it fell swirling black against the peculiar swollen sky.

‘It’s all right for you,’ Theo said, ‘you’ve got a fur coat,’ and laughed.

The veil kept the wind from her face, her eyes were wide but all she saw from the fast-moving sledge were huddled hurrying figures in wide dark streets, high buildings with many windows and steps, and the round-shouldered back of the tall young man, the cap pulled well down over his ears and a collar pulled up over a grey muffler.

‘You know, Julia,’ Theo said, ‘last time I was here it was spring. Lovely place. I don’t recognise a thing yet. Never mind, this surely can’t go on for too long.’ He raised his voice. ‘When does the weather pick up around here?’ But the boy didn’t hear.

Julia felt him quivering next to her as if a string inside had been tightened to the limit and was straining not to snap. She took her gloved hands out of her muff and put them over his. He was wearing a pair of gloves she’d bought him for Christmas in Budapest. She’d veiled up and they’d gone to a market, and she’d made him go and stand somewhere else so he wouldn’t see what she was getting him. The woman had looked at the veil as if it was a face she was trying to fathom. He’d been wearing the gloves ever since, they were good and warm, and she chafed them as if it could make a difference. He laughed and his breath was white fog. ‘Twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Twenty minutes. I’m timing it.’

It took twenty-three.

Volkov was at the door to greet them, wearing a professional smile. ‘At last, at last!’ he said, running down the steps, a handsome wizened little man with a look of premature age. ‘My good friend!’ He clapped Theo on the shoulder. ‘Madame! We will speak English. Yes?’

The house was a plush, overblown affair, full of gilt and fat pink satin. Volkov was rich.

‘Ilya Andreyevich Volkov,’ said Theo smoothly, ‘it has been a very long journey.’

‘And you are tired. Tolya!’ he shouted, to the boy who’d driven them in and was now bringing in their luggage. ‘Show Mr and Mrs Lent to their rooms.’

Theo hated that. Mr and Mrs Lent. Was there something in the way he said it? Behind the smile, the style, the smarm. They’re all the same, he thought. You can see the thoughts turning in their heads like cogs. They do it. What’s it like? And he’s not even seen her yet.

‘Shall I send up chocolate? Please, you must rest. And later, when you are rested…’

Yes, later, the revealing.

When the boy had left them alone, Julia lay down on the bed at once, scarcely taking time to look at the two large comfortable rooms they had been given. ‘I might sleep,’ she said.

Another revealing. One more. One more, one more, and one more and more and on through life.

‘I’m so tired.’

‘No rush,’ said Theo. ‘Let them wait. My God, look at this.’ He was fingering the curtains. ‘That’ll keep the cold out. You could wear that on the Steppe herding your goats or whatever it is they do. That must’ve cost.’

He sat down, pulling off his collar.

‘I’m not going down,’ she said.