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Weaveworld
‘Shall we go back to the house?’
She stepped back and looked at him, seeming to study his face.
‘Is it all over; or just beginning?’ she asked.
He shook his head.
She made a tiny, sideways glance back at the river. But before its liquid life could claim her again he took hold of her hand and led her back towards the concrete and the brick.
II
WAKING IN THE DARK
The only token they had of their adventures to date was the carpet fragment, and it offered up no clues.
The exchange dwindled, half-finished sentences punctuated by longer and still longer silences.
Around eleven, Brendan came home, hailing Cal from below, then retired to bed. His arrival stirred Suzanna.
‘I should go,’ she said. ‘It’s late.’
The thought of the room without her made Cal’s heart sink.
‘Why not stay?’ he said.
‘It’s a small bed,’ she replied.
‘But it’s comfortable.’
She put her hand to his face, and brushed the bruised place around his mouth.
‘We’re not meant to be lovers,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re too much alike.’
It was bluntly put, and it hurt to have it said, but in the same moment as having any sexual ambition dampened he had a different, and finally more profound, hope confirmed. That they belonged together in this enterprise: she the child of the Fugue, he the innocent trespasser. Against the brief pleasure of making love to her he set the grander adventure, and he knew – despite the dissension from his cock – that he had the better of the deal.
‘Then we’ll sleep,’ he said. ‘If you want to stay.’
She smiled. ‘I want to stay,’ she said.
They stripped off their dirty clothing, and slipped beneath the covers. Sleep was upon them before the lamp had cooled.
It was not empty sleep; far from it. There were dreams. Or rather, a particular dream which filled both their heads.
They dreamt a noise. A planet of bees, all buzzing fit to burst their honeyed hearts; a rising swell that was summer’s music.
They dreamt smell. A confusion of scents; of streets after rain, and faded cologne, and wind out of a warm country.
But most of all, they dreamt sight.
It began with a pattern: a knotting and weaving of countless strands, dyed in a hundred colours, carrying a charge of energy which so dazzled the sleepers they had to shield their minds’ eyes.
And then, as if the pattern was becoming too ambitious to hold its present order, the knots began to slide and slip. The colours at each intersection bled into the air, until the vision was obscured in a soup of pigments through which the loosed strands described their liberty in line and comma and dot, like the brushstrokes of some master calligrapher. At first the marks seemed quite arbitrary – but as each trace drew colour to itself, and another stroke was laid upon it, and another upon that, it became apparent that forms were steadily emerging from the chaos.
Where, dream-moments ago, there’d been only warp and weft, there were now five distinct human forms appearing from the flux, the invisible artist adding detail to the portraits with insolent facility.
And now the voices of the bees rose, singing in the sleeper’s heads gave names to these strangers.
The first of the quintet to be called was a young woman in a long, dark dress, her small face pale, her closed eyes fringed with ginger lashes. This, the bees said, is Lilia Pellicia.
As if waking to her name, Lilia opened her eyes.
As she did so a rotund, bearded individual in his fifties, a coat draped over his shoulders and a brimmed hat on his head, stepped forward. Frederick Cammell the bees said, and the eyes behind the coin-sized lenses of his spectacles snapped open. His hand went to his hat immediately, and took it off, to reveal a head of immaculately coiffured hair, oiled to his scalp.
‘So …’ he said, and smiled.
Two more now. One, impatient to be free from this world of dyes, was also dressed as if for a wake. (What happened, the dreamers wondered, to the brilliance that the strands had first bled? Were those colours hidden somewhere beneath this funereal garb: in parrot-bright petticoats?) The dour face of this third visitor did not suggest a taste for such indulgence.
Apolline Dubois the bees announced, and the woman opened her eyes, the scowl that instantly came to her face displaying teeth the colour of old ivory.
The last members of this assembly arrived together. One, a negro whose fine face, even in repose, was shaped for melancholy. The other, the naked baby he held in his arms, drooling on his protector’s shirt.
Jerichau St Louis the bees said, and the negro opened his eyes. He immediately looked down at the child he held, who had begun to bawl even before his name was heard.
Nimrod the bees called, and though the baby was surely not yet a year old, he already knew the two syllables of his name. He raised his lids, to reveal eyes that had a distinctly golden cast to them.
His waking brought the process to an end. The colours, the bees and the threads all retreated, their tide leaving the five strangers stranded in Cal’s room.
It was Apolline Dubois who spoke first.
‘This can’t be right,’ she said, making for the window and pulling back the curtains. ‘Where the Hell are we?’
‘And where are the others?’ said Frederick Cammell. His eyes had found the mirror on the wall, and he was scrutinizing himself in it. Tutting, he took a pair of scissors from his pocket and began to snip at some overlong hairs on his cheek.
‘That’s a point,’ said Jerichau. Then, to Apolline: ‘What does it look like out there?’
‘Deserted,’ said the woman. ‘It’s the middle of the night. And …’
‘What?’
‘Look for yourself,’ she said, sucking spit through her broken teeth, ‘there’s something amiss here.’ She turned from the window. ‘Things aren’t the way they were.’
It was Lilia Pellicia who took Apolline’s place at the sill. ‘She’s right,’ the girl said. ‘Things are different.’
‘And why’s it only us who are here?’ Frederick asked for the second time. ‘That’s the real point.’
‘Something’s happened,’ said Lilia, softly. ‘Something terrible.’
‘No doubt you feel it in your kidneys,’ Apolline remarked. ‘As usual.’
‘Let’s keep it civil. Miss Dubois,’ said Frederick, with the pained expression of a school master.
‘Don’t call me Miss,’ Apolline said. ‘I’m a married woman.’
Immersed in sleep, Cal and Suzanna listened to these exchanges, entertained by the nonsenses their imaginations had conjured up. Yet for all the oddity of these people – their antiquated clothes, their names, their absurd conversations – they were uncannily real; every detail perfectly realized. And as though to confuse the dreamers further, the man the bees had called Jerichau now looked towards the bed, and said:
‘Perhaps they can tell us something.’
Lilia turned her pale gaze towards the slumbering pair.
‘We should wake them,’ she said, and reached to shake the sleepers.
‘This is no dream,’ Suzanna realized, as she pictured Lilia’s hand approaching her shoulder. She felt herself rising from sleep; and as the girl’s fingers touched her, she opened her eyes.
The curtains had been pulled apart as she’d imagined they’d been. The street lamps cast their light into the little room. And there, standing watching the bed, were the five: her dream made flesh. She sat up. The sheet slipped, and the gaze of both Jerichau and the child Nimrod flitted to her breasts. She pulled the sheet over her and in so doing uncovered Cal. The chill stirred him. He peered at her through barely open eyes.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, his voice slurred by sleep.
‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘We’ve got visitors.’
‘I had this dream … he muttered. Then, ‘Visitors?’ He looked up at her, following her gaze into the room.
‘Oh sweet Jesus …’
The child was laughing in Jerichau’s arms, pointing a stubby finger at Cal’s piss-proud groin. He snatched up a pillow and concealed his enthusiasm.
‘Is this one of Shadwell’s tricks?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Suzanna.
‘Who’s Shadwell?’ Apolline wanted to know.
‘Another Cuckoo, no doubt,’ said Frederick, who had his scissors at the ready should either of these two prove belligerent.
At the word Cuckoo, Suzanna began to understand. Immacolata had first used the term, speaking of Humankind.
‘… the Fugue …’ she said.
Naming the place had every eye upon her, and Jerichau demanding:
‘What do you know about the Fugue?’
‘Not much,’ she replied.
‘You know where the others are?’ Frederick asked.
‘What others?’
‘And the land?’ said Lilia. ‘Where is it all?’
Cal had taken his eyes off the quintet and was looking at the table beside the bed, where he’d left the fragment of the Weave. It had gone.
‘They came from that piece of carpet,’ he said, not quite believing what he was saying.
‘That was what I dreamt.’
‘I dreamt it too,’ said Suzanna.
‘A piece of the carpet?’ said Frederick, aghast. ‘You mean we’re separated?’
‘Yes,’ Cal replied.
‘Where’s the rest?’ Apolline said. ‘Take us to it.’
‘We don’t know where it is,’ said Cal. ‘Shadwell’s got it.’
‘Damn Cuckoos!’ the woman erupted. ‘You can’t trust any of them. All twisters and cheats!’
‘He’s not alone,’ Suzanna replied. ‘His partner’s one of your breed.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Frederick.
‘It’s true. Immacolata.’
The name brought an exclamation of horror from both Frederick and Jerichau. Apolline, ever the lady, simply spat on the floor.
‘Have they not hanged that bitch yet?’ she said.
‘Twice to my certain knowledge,’ Jerichau replied.
‘She takes it as flattery,’ Lilia remarked.
Cal shuddered. He was cold and tired; he wanted dreams of sun-lit hills and bright rivers, not these mourners, their faces riddled with spite and suspicion. Ignoring their stares, he threw away the pillow, walked over to where his clothes lay on the floor and started to pull on his shirt and jeans.
‘And where are the Custodians?’ said Frederick, addressing the entire room. ‘Does anyone know that?’
‘My grandmother …’ said Suzanna. ‘… Mimi …’
‘Yes?’ said Frederick, homing in, ‘where’s she?’
‘Dead, I’m afraid.’
‘There were other Custodians,’ said Lilia, infected by Frederick’s urgency. ‘Where are they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You were right,’ said Jerichau, his expression almost tragic. ‘Something terrible has happened.’
Lilia returned to the window, and threw it open.
‘Can you sniff it out?’ Frederick asked her. ‘Is it nearby?’
Lilia shook her head. ‘The air stinks,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the old Kingdom. It’s cold. Cold and filthy.’
Cal, who’d dressed by now, pushed his way between Frederick and Apolline, and picked up the bottle of whisky.
‘Want a drink?’ he said to Suzanna.
She shook her head. He poured himself a generous measure, and drank.
‘We have to find this Shadwell of yours,’ Jerichau said to Suzanna, ‘and get the weave back.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ said Apolline, with a perverse nonchalance. She waddled over to Cal. ‘Mind if I partake?’ she said. Reluctantly, he handed her the bottle.
‘What do you mean: what’s the hurry?’ Frederick said. ‘We wake up in the middle of nowhere, alone –’
‘We’re not alone,’ said Apolline, swallowing a gulletful of whisky. ‘We’ve got our friends here.’ She cocked a lopsided smile at Cal. ‘What’s your name, sweet?’
‘Calhoun.’
‘And her?’
‘Suzanna.’
‘I’m Apolline. This is Freddy.’
Cammell made a small formal bow.
‘That’s Lilia Pellicia over there, and the brat is her brother, Nimrod –’
‘And I’m Jerichau.’
‘There,’ said Apolline. ‘Now we’re all friends, right? We don’t need the rest of them. Let ’em rot.’
‘They’re our people,’ Jerichau reminded her. ‘And they need our help.’
‘Is that why they left us in the Border?’ she retorted sourly, the whisky bottle hovering at her lips again. ‘No. They put us where we could get lost, and don’t try and make any better of it. We’re the dirt. Bandits and bawds and God knows what else.’ She looked at Cal. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘You’ve fallen amongst thieves. We were a shame to them. Every one of us.’ Then, to the others:
‘It’s better we’re separated. We get to have some wild times.’
As she spoke Cal seemed to see flashes of iridescence ignite in the folds of her widow’s weeds. ‘There’s a whole world out there,’ she said. ‘Ours to enjoy.’
‘Lost is still lost,’ said Jerichau.
Apolline’s reply was a bullish snort.
‘He’s right,’ said Freddy. ‘Without the weave, we’re refugees. You know how much the Cuckoos hate us. Always have. Always will.’
‘You’re damn fools,’ said Apolline, and returned to the window, taking the whisky with her.
‘We’re a little out of touch,’ Freddy said to Cal. ‘Maybe you could tell us what year this is? 1910? 1911?’
Cal laughed. ‘Give or take eighty years,’ he said.
The other man visibly paled, turning his face to the wall. Lilia let out a pained sound, as though she’d been stabbed. Shaking, she sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Eighty years …’ Jerichau murmured.
‘Why did they wait so long?’ Freddy asked of the hushed room. ‘What happened that they should wait so long?’
‘Please stop talking in riddles –’ Suzanna said, ‘– and explain.’
‘We can’t,’ said Freddy. ‘You’re not Seerkind.’
‘Oh don’t talk such drivel,’ Apolline snapped. ‘Where’s the harm?’
‘Tell them, Lilia,’ said Jerichau.
‘I protest,’ Freddy said.
‘Tell them as much as they need to know,’ said Apolline. ‘If you tell it all we’re here ’til Doomsday.’
Lilia sighed. ‘Why me?’ she said, still shaking. ‘Why should I have to tell it?’
‘Because you’re the best liar,’ Jerichau replied, with a tight smile. ‘You can make it true.’
She threw him a baleful glance.
‘Very well,’ she said; and began to tell.
III
WHAT SHE TOLD
Two sentences in, and Apolline was interrupting.
‘That’s just a story,’ she informed Cal and Suzanna.
‘So let her tell it, damn you!’ Jerichau told her.
‘Believe nothing,’ Apolline advised. ‘This woman wouldn’t know the truth if it fucked her.’
In response, Lilia merely passed her tongue over her lips, and took up where she’d left off.
‘It was a garden,’ she said. ‘That’s where the Families began.’
‘What Families?’ said Cal.
‘The Four Roots of the Seerkind. The Lo; the Ye-me; the Aia and Babu. The Families from which we’re all descended. Some of us came by grubbier roads than others, of course –’ she said, casting a barbed glance at Apolline. ‘– but all of us can trace our line back to one of those four. Me and Nimrod; we’re Ye-me. It was our Root that wove the carpet.’
‘And look where it got us,’ Cammell growled. ‘Serves us right for trusting weavers. Clever fingers and dull minds. Now the Aia – that’s my Root – we have the craft and the grasp.’
‘And you?’ said Cal to Apolline, reaching over and retrieving his bottle. It had at best two swallows of spirits left in it.
‘Aia on my mother’s side,’ the woman replied. That’s what gave me my singing voice. And on my father’s, nobody’s really sure. He could dance a rapture, could my father –’
‘When he was sober,’ said Freddy.
‘What would you know?’ Apolline grimaced. ‘You never met my father.’
‘Once was enough for your mother,’ Freddy replied in an instant. The baby laughed uproariously at this, though the sense of it was well beyond his years.
‘Anyhow,’ said Apolline. ‘He could dance; which meant he had Lo blood in him somewhere.’
‘And Babu too, by the way you talk,’ said Lilia.
Here, Jerichau broke in. ‘I’m Babu,’ he said. ‘Take it from me, breath’s too precious to waste.’
Breath. Dancing. Music. Carpets. Cal tried to keep track of these skills and the Families who possessed them, but it was like trying to remember the Kellaway clan.
‘The point is,’ said Lilia, ‘all the Families had skills that Humankind don’t possess. Powers you’d call miraculous. To us they’re no more remarkable than the fact that bread rises. They’re just ways to delve and summon.’
‘Raptures?’ said Cal. ‘Is that what you called them?’
‘That’s right,’ said Lilia. ‘We had them from the beginning. Thought nothing of it. At least not until we came into the Kingdom. Then we realized that your kind like to make laws. Like to decree what’s what, and whether it’s good or not. And the world, being a loving thing, and not wishing to disappoint you or distress you, indulges you. Behaves as though your doctrines are in some way absolute.’
‘That’s arguable metaphysics,’ Freddy muttered.
‘The laws of the Kingdom are the Cuckoo’s laws,’ said Lilia. ‘That’s one of Capra’s Tenets.’
‘Then Capra was wrong,’ came Freddy’s reply.
‘Seldom,’ said Lilia. ‘And not about this. The world behaves the way the Cuckoos choose to describe it. Out of courtesy. That’s been proved. Until somebody comes up with a better idea –’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Suzanna. ‘Are you saying the earth somehow listens to us?’
‘That was Capra’s opinion.’
‘And who’s Capra?’
‘A great man –’
‘Or woman,’ said Apolline.
‘Who may or may not have lived,’ Freddy went on.
‘But, even if she didn’t –’ Apolline said, ‘– had a great deal to say for herself.’
‘Which answers nothing,’ said Suzanna.
‘That’s Capra for you,’ said Cammell.
‘Go on, Lilia,’ said Cal. ‘Tell the rest of the story.’
She began again:
‘So there’s you. Humankind, with all your laws and your perimeters and your bottomless envy; and there’s us, the Families of the Seerkind. As different from you as day from night.’
‘Not so different,’ said Jerichau. ‘We lived amongst them once, remember that.’
‘And we were treated like filth,’ said Lilia, with some feeling.
‘True,’ said Jerichau.
‘The skills we had,’ she went on. ‘you Cuckoos called magic. Some of them wanted it for themselves. Some were afraid of it. But few loved us for it. Cities were small then, you must understand. It was difficult to hide in them. So we retreated. Into the forests and the hills, where we thought we’d be safe.’
‘There were many of us who’d never ventured amongst the Cuckoos in the first place,’ said Freddy. ‘Especially the Aia. Nothing to sell, you see; no use suffering the Cuckoos if you had nothing to sell. Better be out in the great green.’
‘That’s pretension,’ said Jerichau. ‘You love cities as much as any of us.’
‘True,’ said Freddy. ‘I like bricks and mortar. But I envy the shepherd –’
‘His solitude or his sheep?’
‘His pastoral pleasures, you cretin!’ Freddy said. Then, to Suzanna: ‘Mistress, you must understand that I do not belong with these people. Truly I don’t. He –’ (here he stabbed a finger in Jerichau’s direction) ‘– is a convicted thief. She –’ (now Apolline) ‘– ran a bordello. And this one –’ (Lilia now) ‘– she and her little brother there have so much grief on their hands –’
‘A child?’ said Lilia, looking at the baby. ‘How could you accuse an innocent –’
‘Please spare us the histrionics,’ said Freddy. ‘Your brother may look like a babe in arms, but we know better. Masquers, both of you. Or else why were you in the Border?’
‘I might ask you the same question.’ Lilia retorted.
‘I was conspired against,’ he protested. ‘My hands are clean.’
‘Never did trust a man with clean hands,’ Apolline muttered.
‘Whore!’ said Freddy.
‘Barber!’ said the other, which brought the outburst to a halt.
Cal exchanged a disbelieving look with Suzanna. There was no love lost between these people, that much was apparent.
‘So …’ said Suzanna. ‘You were telling us about hiding in the hills.’
‘We weren’t hiding,’ said Jerichau. ‘We just weren’t visible.’
‘There’s a difference?’ said Cal.
‘Oh certainly. There are places sacred to us which most Cuckoos could stand a yard from and not see –’
‘And we had raptures,’ said Lilia, ‘to cover our tracks, if Humankind came too close.’
‘Which they did, on occasion.’ Jerichau said. ‘Some got curious. Started to poke around in the forests, looking for trace of us.’
‘They knew what you were then?’ said Suzanna.
‘No,’ said Apolline. She’d thrown a pile of clothes off one of the chairs and was straddling it. ‘No, all they knew was rumour and hearsay. Called us all kinds of names. Shades and faeries. All manner of shite. Only a few got really close, though. And that was only because we let them.’
‘Besides, there weren’t that many of us,’ said Lilia. ‘We’ve never been very fertile. Never had much of a taste for copulation.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Apolline, and winked at Cal.
‘The point is, we were mostly ignored, and – like Apolline said – when we did make contact it was for our own reasons. Perhaps one of your Kind had some skill we could profit by. Horse-breeders, wine-merchants … but the fact is as the centuries went by you became a lethal breed.’
‘True,’ said Jerichau.
‘What little contact we had with you dwindled to almost nothing. We left you to your bloodbaths, and your envy –’
‘Why do you keep harking on envy?’ said Cal.
‘It’s what your Kind’s notorious for,’ said Freddy. ‘Always after what isn’t yours, just for the having.’
‘You’re a perfect bloody species, are you?’ said Cal. He’d tired of the endless remarks about Cuckoos.
‘If we were perfect,’ said Jerichau, ‘we’d be invisible, wouldn’t we?’ The response fazed Cal utterly. ‘No. We’re flesh and blood like you,’ he went on, ‘so of course we’re imperfect. But we don’t make such a song and dance about it. You people … you have to feel there’s some tragedy in your condition, or you think you’re only half alive.’
‘So why trust my grandmother to look after the carpet?’ said Suzanna. ‘She was a Cuckoo, wasn’t she?’
‘Don’t use that word,’ said Cal. ‘She was human.’
‘She was of mixed blood.’ Apolline corrected him. ‘Seerkind on her mother’s side and Cuckoo on her father’s. I talked with her on two or three occasions. We had something in common you see. Both had mixed marriages. Her first husband was Seerkind, and my husbands were all Cuckoos.’
