The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street Part 19

One of the policemen knocked Mori on to his knees again, and there was shouting, and someone pulled out a truncheon.

'Williamson!'

He hadn't seen him, but a Clan na Gael bombmaker was an important arrest, and like he hoped, Williamson appeared behind his men. He had been sitting at the back of the room, only watching.

'Either,' Thaniel said to him, 'I am going to wire the Foreign Office and tell them that you're about to beat a false confession from a j.a.panese n.o.bleman with no motive and no evidence except a firework, and in view of your having not found the Yard bomb in time in the first place, you'll probably be sacked. Or, you can take your men away. And if you don't take your hand off that thing now, you'll have to fight someone your own size,' he added to the man with the truncheon.

Williamson was staring at him. 'You will keep your mouth shut or I shall arrest you too.'

'Then Francis Fanshaw will be asking after me tomorrow when I don't come to work, won't he, and it will all be the same but twelve hours delayed.'

'You ... idiot.'

Thaniel shook his head once and waited.

'Everyone! Clear out,' Williamson shouted, without looking away from him. 'Yes; now, come on, out.' To Thaniel, very quietly, 'And when we do prove him guilty, you'll d.a.m.n well go to Broadmoor as an accomplice, you stupid, stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Get out of my way.'

Thaniel moved, and stood by Mori to see them go. Once the last uniformed man was out of the workshop, he took Mori's hands and pulled him up. The people who had been watching were drifting off now. The Haverly boys on the wall looked disappointed that there had not been a real fight. Thaniel waited for a little while, watching, because he could not imagine that police were a common sight on Filigree Street, and he did not think well enough of London to be sure that everyone would put it down to a mistake. Some women were talking behind their fans as they walked, heads close together, looking back sometimes.

'Did you know that Gilbert and Sullivan are at the show village today?' Mori said, bringing him back.

'What? Why?'

'Research, for an operetta set in j.a.pan. The signs have been up all week.'

'Are you hurt?'

'No.'

Thaniel held his neck to move his head and see if any of the shadows on his face were bruises. One was. 'Liar. I should have stayed this morning. I'm sorry.'

Mori smiled, only with his eyes. 'I know you mean that well, but I have to say, I'm a bit offended that you think I couldn't live through some bruises and some shouting without a man who was born well after I was first on the wrong end of naval guns.'

'When were you?'

'When the British fired on Canton. I mean ... they weren't aiming at me personally, but I think it should still count.'

'Yes, it counts.' Thaniel coughed, because his throat had closed.

'Thank you,' Mori said, quietly. Thaniel let him lead him through everything across the floor, back to the front door.

At Osei's teashop, the air smelled of rice wine and orange blossom, from the incense frames that the women draped their kimono over after was.h.i.+ng them. There was so much pipe smoke in the air that it held the lamplight and turned amber. Whenever anyone moved through it, it was tugged after them, whorling where people went to and fro with drinks and money. Arthur Sullivan, in the flesh and looking younger than he did from the back of an operetta, was playing a jaunty piece on the old piano. He winced whenever he hit the middle C, which had become a horrible chlorine sharp. It was the note Mori had changed two weeks ago. Thaniel looked at him to ask why, but Mori ignored him and ordered some sake.

The s.p.a.ce around the piano had been cleared of tables and chairs, and some of the girls and the children danced while another man with a magnificent grey moustache struggled to explain a story to a group of young men. William Gilbert, he supposed, though he had never seen the man in person. Mori pulled him into the nearest seats as Osei glided by again, this time to set cups between them. Her hair was twisted up with flowers that matched the new sash on her dress, and made her look like summer. She smiled at Mori, who was reading the j.a.panese newspaper on the table and didn't notice, or chose not to. Thaniel crinkled the paper down with his fingertip once she had gone.

'What does that say?' he asked. He could read each character of the headline, but couldn't tell what they said put together.

'Government plans to destroy Crow Castle,' said Mori. He followed the characters with his knuckle. To order them in English, he had to skip about.

'Are you sure?'

Mori smiled. 'It's a modernist policy in j.a.pan. The castles represent the old shogunate, so they've been force-auctioned by the new government. Some were knocked down, most are re-garrisoned with imperial troops or sold. Crow Castle is Matsumoto Castle. It's black. They tried to take it down about ten years ago, but the locals protested.'

'Matsumoto. Did I meet someone called Matsumoto recently?'

Mori tipped his head and Thaniel saw him sift through memories. 'Akira?'

'No idea. Tall man, immaculate suit. Very dandy. He was with Grace. I mean Miss Carrow.'

'Yes. Same family, it's his father who owns the castle now.'

'Where do the knights who lived in the castles go?'

'Townhouses in Tokyo.'

'For G.o.d's sake, the closest I can get to medieval England is a Walter Scott novel. People shouldn't be throwing away their history when it's still doing archery practice forty miles up the road.'

Mori looked doubtful. 'I lived in a castle. It was cold.'

'Philistine.'

'Call me Delilah,' he said, unmoved.

Thaniel touched their cups together.

Sitting down had taken them below the haze of pipe smoke. He was glad of it. It made an illusion of distance. Now that he was here, he wanted not to be. He had seen every Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, but it was different to see the composers close, unseparated from everyone else by the fourth wall of a stage or the slope of tiered seats. It was pulling at something that still stung.

'I say!' bellowed Gilbert, looking in their direction. It made him jump. 'You in the proper clothes, do you speak English?' He was aiming at Mori.

Mori nodded.

'Get over here and help.'

Mori looked at him, but Thaniel shook his head. 'No, I'd rather-'

'But he thinks that j.a.panese sounds like baby talk and he has a ridiculous moustache, and he's talking to those men of twenty and twenty-five thinking they're twelve. You're missing it.'

Thaniel laughed, a little and helplessly. 'You're ridiculous.'

They skirted around the girls, who were teaching each other to waltz, badly, because they didn't seem able to hear the rhythm well. Gilbert motioned them into seats close to him. He was smoking a pipe while he talked and there was already a volcanic cloud around him. As soon as they were sitting, he thrust at Mori a sheet of paper with the story written on it and told him to get on with it by himself. Thaniel frowned, but before he could tell him not to be rude, Mori touched his arm.

'Enough crusading for the one day,' he said. 'Pace yourself, before you're ransomed by irate Muslims.'

Thaniel kicked his ankle, but Mori paid no attention.

'Another Englishman, thank G.o.d,' Gilbert said, oblivious. 'You forget you're in London with this rabble, don't you? It's like Peking in here. What brings you here? Interested in music?'

'We saw the posters for the new show. The Mikado, is it?'

'That's right. Satire set in j.a.pan. Supposed to be for October, some foreign notable coming then. We want some real j.a.ps to come in and coach the actors, though none of them seem to speak English.'

'Most of them do,' Thaniel said. He had been to the village often enough now to know that almost all the smallest children had English nannies, and that not everyone was fresh from j.a.pan. Osei and her father had been in England for years. 'They've been told they should be as j.a.panese as possible around tourists.'

'Hah. Contracts.' Mr Gilbert blew out a lungful of smoke and then banged the bowl of his pipe against the edge of the table. 'I see. You're pretty knowledgeable. Speak j.a.panese, do you?'

'Only a bit. What's the story, of the operetta?'

'It's about a wandering minstrel, Nanky-Pu, who falls in love with an unsuitable girl called Yum-Yum and afoul of the tyrannical emperor. How's that?'

Thaniel was careful not to move his face much. 'Good. Not quite like real j.a.panese?'

Gilbert shrugged. 'No point. The safest way to success is to write according to the capacity of the stupidest member of the audience. If the actors say "ping" often enough, everyone will get the gist.'

Another tw.a.n.g came from the piano.

'Can't someone sort that b.l.o.o.d.y thing out?' Gilbert shouted across the room.

'I can, I can,' Thaniel murmured, having decided to go himself anyway the next time the bad note sounded. It was making his fingernails feel stretched.

He wound his way back across the room and tapped his knuckles against the top of the piano. 'Give me a second and I'll tune it properly.'

'Oh, would you?' Sullivan said. He had a very clipped voice, and his relief had to squeeze itself through the cracks without showing much. 'There never is a blind piano tuner about the place when one has need of such a person, is there? I take it you work with pianos?'

'I used to,' Thaniel said. He tilted open the piano top and leaned down to loosen the small key that held taut the faulty string. 'Try that.'

Sullivan smiled. 'You've got perfect pitch?'

Thaniel nodded.

'I'd be much obliged if you'd have a listen to this middle part, then. Come and sit down.' He moved up on the piano stool. He was plump, so there wasn't much s.p.a.ce, but Thaniel was slim enough to fit. 'So, it's for an operetta set in j.a.pan, and there's a little oriental part in semitones here, which melds into a jauntier theme here, but the bridge is rather clunky, like this, you see ... '

'I'm not qualified to tell you anything.'

'Yes, yes, but what do you think?'

'I ... think it's clunky.'

'Exactly. You look like you know this place, I don't suppose you know much about oriental music?'

Thaniel pinned his hands under his thighs, not wanting to touch the piano keys, but he described what he meant and Sullivan played it slowly once or twice before he understood and lit up.

'Not qualified my foot! Which theatre do you belong to, I didn't ask?'

Thaniel shook his head. 'I don't. I'm a clerk at the Foreign Office.'

'A clerk at the what a waste. Pianist, though?'

'Mm.'

'I don't suppose you'd feel like turning up at the Savoy for the Sunday rehearsals? I've been looking for a pianist for a while, I've been on the edge of writing out the part altogether. Can't play and conduct at once. There wouldn't be much money, but it would certainly be good to try you out. Will you come along?'

'I don't know if I'd have the time,' he said slowly, feeling heavy.

Sullivan swept the air with his hand as if he could erase the words. 'It's not like a symphony orchestra; I don't rule the pit with an iron fist or shout at anyone who can't play the Bolero with his eyes shut. Short rehearsals. The show will be in October sometime. What do you say?'

Thaniel didn't know what he wanted to say. The idea of it made him afraid. He hadn't touched a piano in years; he couldn't tell if he would still be able to play well, or, come to that, if it would still have any of its old s.h.i.+ne now. He was on the edge of refusing when he saw Mori watching him and understood suddenly what it all was. Mori had changed the note, weeks ago. It was Mori's version of a present. A strange warm feeling p.r.i.c.kled down his arms.

'Yes, why not?'

'Excellent!' Sullivan wrung his hand. 'And thank you for your help today. It really would be a tragedy if you were never to do orchestral work. By G.o.d, I've contracted you to work for me without even asking your name, Mr ... '

'Steepleton.'

'Well then, Mr Steepleton, I must buy you a drink.'

The drink became five drinks and the hours melted, and it was evening when things began to break up at last. When he looked for Mori, he couldn't find him at first. In fact he was in plain view, in a far corner with some of the more austere-looking village men. He was listening much more than he was talking. From the way they were moving their hands, they were describing disputes and troubles. He excused himself as Thaniel started to make his way across and the men stood too and tipped deep bows.

'What was that?' Thaniel said as they met at the door. He opened it for him and they both went carefully down the steep step and into the cool evening. It wasn't dark yet, but the twilight was doing its trick of flattening everything, so that the way to the gates was harder to see than it would have been in full night and bright lamps. The air tasted clear after the smoke inside.

'Some of the boys have been going to nationalist meetings and bringing back Western friends lately. No one speaks enough English to explain to the owner.'

'Yes, probably best to stop that. Nationalist meetings are usually run by Clan na Gael.'

'People can be nationalists if they want,' Mori said. His eyes lifted upward as they pa.s.sed the shrine and its two pale trees. He wasn't devout, but for the sake of sightseeing he had shown Thaniel how to write a prayer card a few days ago, and it was still hanging up. There was only one priest, who could only go through so many each morning. 'Especially if it's the kind of nationalism where j.a.panese boys go to hear Irishmen speak in London and make friends to bring home.'

'Have you gone ... oh, I see what you mean. I still don't think-' He choked when Mori put his arm out across his chest to stop him walking on. Yuki, the angry boy from his first morning, was pointing a sword at them. Its tip was just in front of his face. Yuki inclined his head at them and moved it toward Mori instead. For what felt like a long time, nothing moved around them except the leaves and the prayer rope strung between the trees. The paper lamps outside Osei's shop swayed on their cord and moved the candlelight about in waves.

'You've seen the newspaper, then,' Mori said in j.a.panese.

Thaniel started forward in the hope of drawing Yuki's attention, but Mori's arm across him tightened.

'You could stop it,' Yuki said. Though his hand didn't flicker, there was a catch in his voice. 'You are a Mori. You are a knight. You could stop it. j.a.pan is falling down and you make watches!'

'I want to go home, it's getting cold. Let us by.'

When Yuki feinted, Mori only batted the sword away with the back of his hand. It looked easy, but there was a bang that was steel hitting bones. The impact went visibly up Yuki's arm. Mori caught him by his elbow and twisted until he dropped the sword. Because the lower part of the blade had no edge, he held it there and gave it to Thaniel hilt-first. It was very light, and too short for a white man.

'Come on. I'm taking you home.'

'Get off me, you-'

'Shut up,' Mori said.

Yuki walked with them unforced, but resentment steamed from him. Once, he tried to push Thaniel away, but Mori smacked him over the back of his head. He was calmer after that and Thaniel didn't understand, until he realised that it was something the boy understood, from an older world. He wanted samurai, not modern manners. It was what he had been saying all along.

The village occupied the south-west corner of Hyde Park, but one side of it was blocked off by a long building that Thaniel had vaguely in mind as having once been a hotel, five or six storeys tall. There were shop canopies outside now. Past it was the paG.o.da and the small lake, water black and orange by the paper lamps. They made fragile silhouettes of the bridges that looped between the two islands, and the prayer gate in the shallows. It would be a fine view during the day, but it was eerie in twilight. Stiffly, Yuki led the way into one of the middle shops.

The light was almost too dim to see by. Pegged high near the ceiling were miners' lamps, closed around low flames that only showed through slits. Despite the fresh air from the open door, the smell of saltpetre was strong. Crowding the banks of shelves were paper packets in bright colours, all different; some were ordinary squares and rectangles, but others were paper dragon heads or red cylinders painted with tiny, perfect pictures of knights or women with long hair. All of them had labels pasted on their sides somewhere, in big j.a.panese characters.