The Children's Book (25 page)

There was once a baby prince, much longed for and much loved, who, perhaps because he was so slow to arrive in the waiting palace, was believed by everyone to be flawlessly beautiful and wonderfully clever. He had a pleasant disposition, though he could easily have been spoiled, and was good at amusing himself when left alone, which of course was rare, except at night. There was a guard outside his night-nursery, for the usual malign fairy had said that something would be stolen from him. His name was Lancelin, Olive wrote, and crossed it out and wrote it again as she could not think of anything better, or different.

•  •  •

At night, Lancelin’s nursery transformed itself (as most nurseries do), into a cavern of shadows. Shadows are mysterious things. They are real and unreal, they have colour and no colour. When the moon shone in through the stone windows she lit up certain things, partially. Lancelin had a rattle in the form of a horned and bearded godling below whose waist a line of carved goatskin became a mother-of-pearl handle, which Lancelin clasped. The godling’s arms were outstretched and at his fingertips dangled strings of little bells—gold and silver like metal bubbles, and in the moonlight these became quite other metals, moonmetals, glinting and slaty. Lancelin liked to hold up the manikin and twist him to and fro in the cold light, and the little bells rang out, and Lancelin saw the shadow of his own arm, on the four walls, with the shadow of the toy in its insubstantial fingers. He would make this other self bigger and smaller, longer and shorter, against the white quilt, or wavering over the rails of his crib. He could make a thicker, darker figure, drawing all the dark into itself, squat on the counterpane. Or an elongated, ash-grey, gesticulating demon, holding the room in its arms. It was eyeless, mouthless, sliced into strips by the bars of the cot. He could multiply himself and wave his hands to his shadow hands, which waved back
.

There were other shadows in the night-nursery, with which the fearless baby often offered to play. Shadows lurking in dark hollows between pieces of furniture which could be imagined—if you twisted your head so the moonlight caught on a gilt drawer-knob—to have shining eyes in the dark. Or there were tall, still forms who stood in corners and could be seen, and seen through
.

You may think it is unusual for a boy not to be frightened of shadows. We all see dangerous faces in knots of wood in wardrobe doors, and witches in the shadows of branches on the ceiling, waving in the wind, stretching out long grasping fingers
.

But he was not frightened, which makes what occurred all the more shocking
.

Something moved in the dark of the corner of the room, by the skirting board. Lancelin watched it and laughed, but he could not change its shape by moving his head and after a bit it began to move forwards and he saw that the dark was solid. It was sleek and it was shining, it had colourless
dark fur that reflected the moonlight. It had small pale feet with sharp claws, and a quivering snout, with whiskers. And a long pale hairless tail, that thumped and slithered behind it. Its eyes had little crimson centres, that glowed
.

It came on, and on, and Lancelin prepared to welcome it. He liked new friends. It stood up on its haunches, and made a little leap between the bars of his crib, and squatted at his feet. Lancelin made a questioning noise. The creature opened its mouth, showing rows of needle-sharp yellow-white teeth. It lowered its head and began to bite and to rip. It was ripping away, not at the pretty white quilt with its embroidered flowers, but at the invisible seams where Lancelin’s shadow touched the soles of his feet, and the tips of his fingers. He could have touched the soft fur of its busy head, but he was afraid of the sharp teeth, and afraid of the scissoring sound they made. It paid no attention to Lancelin himself. When it had worked its way all round the shadow, it rolled it up, with little kneading and rolling movements of its paws, into a tiny bundle. Then it took up the bundle and jumped softly out of the crib and into the dark. Lancelin raised his arm in the moonlight. It cast no grey shape, anywhere. It was as though he himself was not there
.

•  •  •

Here Olive came to the point where she had stopped the last time, and could not think what might happen next. She needed neat narrative, as opposed to the endless flow of Tom’s underground river. The baby could not follow the rat into the dark. What would the king and queen and court make of a child without a shadow? She vaguely remembered that there were existing fairytales about lost shadows.
Why
was it frightening to have no second self, to cast no shade? She saw vaguely that she had made the baby so smiling and self-confident because that was an image of shadowless singularity. He might become one of those protected beings who weren’t allowed out because they were vulnerable—like Sleeping Beauty, who must not see spindles, like the Buddha, protected from disease and death. He lived in perpetual noonday, which was intolerable. He would
have
to go down the rathole, no two ways to it, he would have to go into the world of shadows and retrieve his own. She imagined a kingdom of rats with human shadows, mocking a questing infant. A Helper was needed—a dog, a cat, a worm
(no, though it was subtle and subterranean), a magic snake, maybe, snakes ate rats …

She could not think what to write next. And at that precise moment—a relief, and a terror to writers—she heard the wheels of the station-fly on the gravel. Humphry was back. She wrote a sentence

“At first the king, queen and courtiers noted only that Lancelin was even more beautiful, sunny and smiling than they remembered. And then this singularity of grace began to be alarming.”

Always leave writing
in medias res
was a rule she had learned. She put away her writing pad, and went downstairs to greet her errant husband. As often happened, Violet had got there first, was helping with his overcoat, had taken possession of his bookbag and umbrella. He kissed Olive, and made a joke about her girth, which did not please her.

He went into his own study, to look at his letters. There was a considerable heap of them, some a week or two old, some arrived yesterday. Olive sat in a rush-backed chair in the corner of his study. She was disinclined to go back to her interrupted work, and mildly resentful of the interruption.

Humphry read the letters, smiling to himself. He put them back in the envelopes—except the bills. Then he came to one, out of which a press cutting fell. Humphry read, and was frozen. Olive asked what was the matter, and Humphry handed her the cutting.

“Slit throat at train terminus. Financier found dead.” For a moment, Olive thought Basil had killed himself—Humphry’s violent reaction suggested something as grave as that. It was not Basil—it was “Frederick Oliver Heath (38) a member of the Stock Exchange who had been unable to sleep for the past 3 weeks owing to trouble caused by heavy monetary losses” …

Olive said “Did you know him?”

“No, but I know he was in trouble with Kaffirs. I know several things that most people don’t yet know. I am sure—I have always been sure—that Basil is too deep in Barnato’s muck except that ‘muck’ is too solid a word, it’s
murk
, a murky cloud of obfuscation and prestidigitation and
rope tricks and promises never meant to be kept. Basil won’t have sold, partly because he won’t want to admit I might have been right—I
know
Basil. I must telegraph him. I’ll take the pony-trap. Forgive me, my dear, when I’ve only just come in …”

Humphry was both genuinely distressed, and taking energy and pleasure from the drama. He strode out, calling to Violet to get the man to harness the pony, to fetch his coat…

Olive sat in Humphry’s study, and pondered the useful words, muck and murk. Rats were mucky and murky. Briefly her mind revisited, and shied away from, Peter’s and Petey’s tales of rats in mines, eating candles, and the men’s snap. She began to tidy Humphry’s papers, and cast an eye over the letter he had been smiling to himself over. It began

“My Very Dear.”

She looked at the signature. “Your (no longer a maid!) Marian.” I am not a fool, Olive said to herself. It is
much more
sensible not to read this, which is not addressed to me. She read it.

Olive refolded this document, and said Damn, several times. This was bad, very bad. This was a woman who was somebody, not a frivolous bit of skirt. This was a person not unlike Olive, to whom Humphry was real, and who was, as she said,
at ease
with him, which must mean that he, in turn, was
at ease
with her. Some sort of teacher, who had heard him talk on Shakespeare. Someone to whom he indubitably owed something, despite her disclaimers and his financial position. “Damn,” said Olive again, beginning to be angry, stoking an inner flame. “Damn and damn.” She was quite sincerely worried about the predicament in which this strange woman found herself. Humphry must
of course
offer help, it was his duty. She knew only too well the special feeling he gave of being comfortable and at ease with women—it was what she loved in him, herself. She thought it went with one kind of promiscuous love-making, rarer than the Don Juan with his sequential conquests, the man who found women truly interesting. If Humphry had come home at that moment, she would have embraced him, perhaps, and smiled ruefully, and made sure of her own charm and her own central place in his affections—which she had never, really, had cause to doubt. But Humphry did not come home, and Olive’s mood veered into grievance. She began, almost vindictively, to read the other letters on the desk, and discovered two rejected articles. “A very clever analysis, but so opinionated that I can’t quite see it as an expression of the beliefs of our journal.” “Very interesting, as always, but I am afraid we have no room for articles of such limited appeal to the general public.” Olive felt threatened—she should be
earning money
with her little prince and her sinister fat rat, not standing here waiting to discuss peccadilloes, or worse. Todefright was threatened. Olive said Damn.

•  •  •

By the time Humphry came in, she was like a humming top, spinning with wrath. He was followed by Violet, gathering up his coat and hat.

“I have sent a telegram,” he said. “I think I must go and see Basil, I am absolutely certain I know dangerous things he does not know. I’ll wait for an answer to my telegram and then set off. This will have far-reaching and terrible consequences, if Barnato’s nets are unravelling—and I know it is not
if
, it is
when—”

“You can go and see Marian,” said Olive.

“Don’t be silly, she’s in Manchester,” said Humphry, preoccupied with gold mines and brothers.

He saw what he had been led to betray, and took in his wife, and the dissipated heap of letters. He smiled his foxy, intent smile,
interested
in Olive’s reaction.

“Touché,”
he said. “You of all women should know better than to read private papers. It’s not serious, you know that. Nothing to do with you and me, which is why you shouldn’t stoop to reading private papers.”

He put out a hand to caress her, and Olive slapped it down.

“It is to do with me, it is
deeply
to do with me, we shall lose Todefright unless we earn some money, and don’t do things which create more dependent mouths. I work and work, I have to keep Todefright going
by myself
, and I am sick and anxious and should be resting—”

“Money,” said Humphry. “Money, or sex relations, which comes first, which is more certain to cause arguments and harm marriages? An interesting problem.”

“It isn’t an interesting problem, it’s
my life
—” cried Olive. Up to that point, it had not been clear to either of them whether a monstrous row was going to happen, or could be avoided. Now it was clear that it was to happen, it had to be gone through with. Olive clasped her hands round the unborn infant, and began to shout, like an operatic fishwife. Humphry could have tried to calm, or apologise—in any case he had to abandon his attitude of detached amusement and calm certainty. He was never defensive. When threatened, he attacked. “Listen to yourself,” he said. “How can a grown-up woman make such a racket? I thought you had become a civilised being, but no such thing, you rant like a skivvy, like a washerwoman—”