CHAPTER XLIII: ONE SHOCK AFTER ANOTHER

   Dawn was a flame of hair let down that caressed the alders and the wind was a comb with teeth of wood that embellished and adorned it. Or maybe it was that once our love was consummated, Luke and I returned home without sleep and coherent words or not, embraced in the alder grove the day that began. And arriving at the camp Lucy showed us a second orange sunrise, a mixture of the shy yellow of the day with her reddish hair.

  When she saw us coming back, she asked us how we had spent the night and Luke was ahead of me and told her that we brought her some news. Then I spoke.

─ "Lucy, my heart, I fall defeated before you. If we are already a family, I am willing to be five. Today is 20 and it has to be the night of the third couple. If you agree, I will do anything so that we have a second child. But we must all work."

─ "Dear Nike – she told me with a smile that I understood bathed in wounded sun─. Today the day has dawned radiant, for three to be five. With Luke we conceived the first night; with you it must also be so. And if we are going to be five, I agree with you that we must all work. In the Village there are at least four hairdressers. Today I'll be looking for work. But you?"

─ "Now I have to talk to Richard and Samuel, but I think that both will accept that both of us work at the bar. Luke now; I at the end of my contract."

   We talked about more things on that bright morning of love and creation. But in the midst of them death awaited as grief. I came to the Thuban Star very early because I wanted to talk to Richard and I found an unexpected picture that there were people there, all whispering in circles. Samuel came toward me.

─ "They all have come because I have called them on the phone. I could not do it with you. Yes, this morning has died Norman Wrathfall. Let him rest in peace. The funeral will be tomorrow at 9 in the North Cemetery. We will all go, so tomorrow there will be no work and today, truth be said, I am afraid that very little"

   The first President of the Thuban Star had just died and I didn't know what to say, but I was able to remember that I should tell John about it, for he had also known him. It displeased me because I had two requests to Samuel and it was not the right day. Anyway I spoke to him.

─ "I feel sorry for what has happened, Samuel, and more because I wanted to ask you two things and I don't know if they will be now appropriate."

─"Let us have a coffee. It is not even the time to begin to work and it seems that we all will have two days of vacation."

   We sat down and I had to tell him my idea of working at the bar, insisting that that way I would be always near if they wanted to ask me something.

─ "I won't have to convince you then to follow here, and I had already imagined that we had lost you. It is a good solution. And as for Luke, you know that I appreciate him. I will hand him another key to the showers. I think that Richard Protch will agree. To make clear accounts, I think that he should begin on December 1 and that way he will have time to dress properly. You know that we have no uniform. And as to you, do you have anything to tell me?"

─ "A lot, Samuel. Remember that I have to make a second request. Last night I slept with Luke, and tonight with Lucy. And we are going to have two children. But for that we have to work. I also wanted to ask you for ten free days. I have not spoken about this with Lucy or Luke. It's a personal project, because I want to be like them."

  I told him and he understood me. We agreed that he would grant them to me and I would start working at the bar on July 10. I agreed, but I still had to talk to Richard, who found it perfect. Soon he would have Luke, and within a few months he would have me. There was even a chance for Lucy, if she could not find a job.

    Back home I had a tiny argument with Luke, who wanted to convince me to sleep a couple of hours, because that morning I had not had enough rest and I had to be wide awake for this night. What he told me made sense, but after the day of yesterday I would not leave my mate alone for nothing.

─ "And I won't be alone, Nike. Just a couple of hours. When you wake up, we will meet in the Basilica, where I'll be waiting for you. I can be without you for a while: our wife deserves it."

   At the end I realized that he was right. Lucy deserved all my lucidity and I would not abandon Luke. I nodded and set the alarm clock at 5. She had found a job, but she would tell me that night while she fixed my hair. I fell asleep happy in that which for the last time was going to be my tent, now our country house.

   I woke up and did not take long to meet him in the Basilica. We spent two hours talking about Lucy and the shiver it was that we would soon be five. We had a good day and returned very early. Lucy told me to go to the rock, for she was going to cut my hair. And just as she started, she said:

─ "My heart, Luke said you told him that he will start work on December 1, in reality on December 3, which will be Monday. Me too. Tomorrow we will go to James’ to get appropriate clothing. When we earn money, we shall return it. As for me today, I've had to explain it just in two hairdressers. In the first one I wasn’t lucky, but in the second one they decided to make me a test, to an elderly and somewhat impertinent lady who was there. I was told that they accepted me, because even that lady left quite satisfied. So I start on day 3 in Amanda, just opposite the RASH, in Calvary Road. Maybe you know it."

    Certainly I had noticed it that night I spent with Luke in the homeless shelter. She would work for a woman named Amanda Cohen, now on probation, from 7 to 10, so our schedules were now: in the morning Luke and I on the Thuban and Lucy taking care of Paul. In the afternoon she would beg until 6, only on the Riverside District. She didn't want to scare away the customers. We, in the afternoon, both with Paul, and on alternate days either Luke alone or just me would go. We didn't want to differentiate ourselves from our fellow mates and we agreed that way to combine work and begging. I could no longer go with Luke, but he would be with me each morning in the bar. Perfectly done my hair, we met our fellow mates next to Olivia’s tent.

   We were just a while at the bonfire before entering my house, which had been Lucy and Luke’s home, for the first time to stay. I was taciturn and said that the next day I would have to go to Norman Wrathfall’s funeral. John declined. He had not had great appreciation for him and he didn't want to meet his Uncle Harold. But that comment would bring me a big surprise. Finally Luke was with Paul in the small tent and I finally went in with Lucy to complete our three and our five.


 

    Even experienced, they were beginners, because Nike had been with other women but it seemed his first time. Never had love flooded him that way, a flood of affection in a fruit source scented of moon. He knew well that Luke tasted like almonds; Lucy like apples. And The Daughter of the Sun could be also The Daughter of the Stars or of the Moon, because she, placed on the right, seemed bathed in her hair by the silken light of the ecliptic. Their tangled bodies were fruitful. They danced to the beat of the stars that were born. They learned the language of love with love poppies, reeds at the touch, melody in the ears. So much passion that five senses were not enough. And finally they decided to have an immaculate conception, as when two hearts love and surrender to give life to a child, a desired promise to transcend, where is the stain? At last they slept few hours in the febrile rest of the three and the five consummated.


 

   Still drowsy and somewhat uneasy by the intense night of love and the few hours of sleep, oblivious to almost everything, I sat down for coffee at the bonfire with Olivia, whom, knowing I was going to the North Cemetery, I made a promise. And shortly after I stood up. It took me less than an hour to arrive, since this cemetery is, as you know, north of Northchapel, this side of the highway and the bridge that crosses to the district of Downhills.

   There already was Anne-Marie and soon we met Harold Blessing. I had to tell him that his nephew had declined to come. He showed me a sneering face, but he made no comment. I told Anne-Marie I still had this type of social duties or else I would not have come. She did not feel like being there either and practically nodded to my words. I don't know if my dear Anne-Marie understood me at that moment, but I felt her support. I could always feel it when I spoke with her.

   Soon the place was open and everyone got in. Long streets of crosses and tombstones on the floor, and numerous sculptures of angels who seemed stunned and somehow with few clothes on, sculptures of Christ I do not know whether blessing mankind or scornful, pale saints with lost glances, long rows of despair and perhaps reproaches for the sins of men. But I knew what I was looking for and, indeed, there it was, on the right, the Rivers’ vault. Olivia came from time to time and filled it with flowers. Three names at the door: Gerald, Linda and Kirsten Rivers, my wife’s grandparents and aunt. I realized that, although they were now only dust, they were relatives for me now in my memories. I prayed for the three and spent a while memorizing old prayers and talking to Kirsten, spellbound and forgetting the cold of that morning. I dropped a few tears for her and thought that if I had a daughter, I should call her thus. Since my arrival in the city, I had never been inside a cemetery and I remembered I lived on the shores of St. Alban and I had not entered. I followed awhile in silent conversation with my second mother's sister - I never call her mother-in-law either; I cannot recognize my dear Olivia in that word─, trying to explain to her how much I revered her memory, and I met the others at last.

   The funeral was short and not many people attended: the members of the Thuban Star, Norman’s daughters who still lived - his eldest daughter and his wife had already died ─, and few more people. I was surprised at the disconsolate weeping of Walter Hope. I was meditating what it could mean when I thought I was having a vision. I even rubbed my eyes but there remained, seemingly praying, my fellow mate Bruce. I approached him.

─ "Bruce! -I greeted him with affection─, are you now coming to the north? But it is too early."

─ "I'm not begging, Nike. Last night, you spoke about Norman Wrathfall’s death. I was for several hours without sleep, considering what to do. But in the end I decided to come to my grandfather’s funeral."

─ Your... grandfather?" -the surprise had left me speechless. It is true that once, looking at Norman, I had found some similarity with someone I knew. Now that I looked at Bruce again I saw that it was true that they were much alike. But at that time we were interrupted by Mr. Weissmann. 

─ "This is my fellow mate and friend Bruce Scully, Samuel."

─ "Nice to meet another friend of Nike’s – And they shook hands─. I already know two of you. Greetings to Luke Prancitt. And by reference to the five missing me."

─ "It is an honor, Mr. Weissmann." - said Bruce, who did not know what to say.

   Samuel turned away and my fellow mate spoke to me. The five men were related to the Thuban Star. Miguel’s law firm used to have and continued to have business with the company. John and I had worked there and soon Luke would do it. And though I understood nothing, the first President of the company happened to be Bruce’s grandfather.

─ "I want to tell you some family secrets that only Mistress Oakes knows, as soon you will understand, very interested in my family. But I also want to tell a friend such as Nike and give vent to many things. I'd like to invite you to a cup of coffee. There is very near here a bar with great views."

   I said goodbye to everyone with reluctance and stopped one second in the Rivers’ vault.

─ "My dear Olivia comes by here at least once a month to visit her sister and I also come frequently. And sometimes she has even crossed to Downhills to see Hunter’s Arrows, her former home. It still belongs to the Rivers. Olivia's brother sold it to a cousin named Raymond. She often comes to evoke old times, but does not come into the house."

   He took me to a bar called Burnt Hills, like the low mountains we could see beyond the highway. The bar, on this shore, allowed you to see a beautiful panorama. We sat on a wide table with good light and Bruce began to talk to me stuttering, but with a clear direction.

─ "My father, Joe Scully, was a compulsive womanizer. He didn’t love my mother, but he learned to like her and respect her. I cannot say that my childhood was hard despite their frequent crises. He had a single love in life and after a long illness, before his death, delirious he screamed: Maddie! i.e., Nike, and do not shudder, Madeleine Oakes, our fellow mate."

─ "I remember you told me in summer that Mistress Oakes could have been your mother, but I didn't understand the enigma, and out of respect, I didn't ask anything."

─ "But my father was an ambitious man and that was his ruin. I know all these secrets because he unveiled them before he died, when I was fifteen years old. He was attractive for women and tricked them easily. He always wanted to meet a rich woman and one day, being at the cinema, he met a lady, the eldest daughter of old Norman, Beatrice Wrathfall, my mother. She fell madly in love with him. They saw each other frequently and were married. But the story went wrong for my father. The old Norman, then an ogre with a difficult character, took it so bad that my mother had married the first poor wanting her money that they had a strong argument. At the end he gave her a pension once a month, but she had been his right darling and they never spoke again. He never wanted to recognize me. We have never seen each other, but as they have told me his character has changed over the years."

─ "It is true that your grandfather was a different man as years passed. When I came to this city, he was no longer presiding over the Thuban, but I still saw him forceful and haughty. But I can tell you, Bruce, in his last days he has been good with me, a beggar."

─ "In those days, he must have known he had a grandchild in the street. I always knew about him, and now you will understand why I always avoid Avalon Road. I didn't want to run into my grandfather, and someone else, because there is a second part that will also surprise you. Norman was not the only relative I had there."

─ "Holy Heaven, Bruce! Coming here and finding John’s uncle, Olivia’s family, and now your family. It seems that I'm home."

─ "But I have decided that you must know, because you're my friend and you work with them. I will tell you the second part, because although I know that you will be surprised, they work with you, and I know that when you know all of my family, I'll have your respect - I nodded. If ever a coffee moved me, it was that morning─. I already told you that old Norman did not see his daughter again, but her sisters did. They met Joe and my father seduced her sister Claire. They had a son. My grandfather didn't want to lose another daughter and he must have been weaker. His only concern was that he was not called Scully and he invented the existence of one such Ian Hope, who had died in battle, as the father of the child. They wanted that child to be their hope. And being an arrogant young man, but trained for the job, finally my grandfather, his grandfather, set him up in the Thuban Star. My mother died already, but I met my aunts, who continued visiting me until I went to the street. My aunt Claire wanted his son and me, brothers, sons of the same father, to meet. But Walter Hope has never wanted to know anything of me and, honestly, I haven’t either. He knows that I exist, and I know his face, but little else. No wonder that he cried for our grandfather, whom he is so obliged. He wants to know nothing about beggars, but it is ironic: from the Thuban there came two beggars: John and you. This morning, when I greeted my aunts, including my aunt Claire, he must have found out, if he didn't know it beforehand, who I was. I respect him, but don't love him much, Nike."

─ "I'm not surprised, Bruce. Norman had millions and now I understand that you could have had a different life. Your brother and I do not get along very well, but I will try to come to him, for you. Now I respect you more, Bruce, and you don't know how much I appreciate that you’ve told me all this."

─ "We're friends, Nike. And you should know it. Come on, stand up. Lucy told me that today she was coming to Northchapel. As today you don’t work, we could beg all three together. And it is not necessary that you keep my secret and much less with your wife. I will end up telling them all. But I am glad that you already know it."

   But first I had to go back to the cemetery. Bruce waited for me at the gate: he did not want to meet again his aunts and his brother. They were still all there. The funeral had already finished, but they were talking to Norman’s daughters. I was very bad to offer my condolences but I went to Sonia, the eldest daughter then and as I could I got out of that difficulty. I was tempted to also talk to Walter Hope, but I contained myself: Bruce’s brother should not know that I knew it. Once that painful difficulty was over, I approached Samuel and asked him if that day any work would be done. Even I protested claiming that he had granted me ten days and that this would mean many days without work. But he told me that the Thuban would not be opened that day, they would not even be there Richard or the people in the bar and that all businesses would be postponed. I could go wherever I wanted to, he said without naming me the streets, but knowing well that I would go there. He just added that he felt now the desire to know Bruce and everyone else better, mainly my wife and that, with my permission, the time was approaching to meet them all.

   So out we went Bruce and me with intention of wandering Heathwood. But in America Street we met my wife. Never before had I gone to the street with two people. That morning we were alternating houses. I've never been a jealous man, and you see that Luke had not been or was, because Lucy was with her first love and the third and that night she would be with Luke, the second man of her life, again.

− "Lucy, my heart, tonight I must also speak with our husband, but you can know it now. You can sleep eleven nights with him and our son in the middle, because I'll be away until December 1. Then we will return to the accounts every three days. I have ten days off and I'll return to my country, because I need to see the Siddeley for the last time and say goodbye to them. Also my dearest cousin, Edmund – I lied─ is a bit ill. Believe me: they will be only ten days. I'll be back."

− "I know, Nike. I have spoken with Mistress Oakes and she believes that we won’t lose you anymore"

   Mistress Oakes. I remember the day that she prophesied me that I would be in the 60 and the 3. I forgot to tell you that on 7 November we celebrated her birthday in our outskirt, next to the outcasts, and I was still wondering if the three she had predicted was the three I had already formed. 60, of course, was the number of days in which I was exiled.

   You'll be in the 60 and the 3. Now I accepted it. It was necessary to interpret her predictions, but she was always right. And it wasn't the only one. Suddenly I faltered when I remembered another one of her sentences; "And it will be Wisdom, Beauty, and Commotion that will give life to creation." Wisdom, Beauty, and Commotion... i.e., Lucy, Luke and I.

   By one of the corners of Heathwood, Lucy told me:

− "In just three days we have been with our Three, I have noticed that they look at me with certain envy, as if I were the luckiest woman in the world, because I have two husbands. I don't know, my heart, what you might think."

   I noticed she was reluctant to assume that she could be the happiest one of the three, so I spoke:

− "And what could be said of Luke and me, my heart? Both of us have a husband and a wife, what, for many humans, would be the ideal of happiness. Everything is fine as it is. All three of us are just as fortunate."

   Seeing that one of her husbands thought so, she felt better and did not talk about it again. Moreover, the morning was being good, as it was usual with Bruce. He hardly spoke, leaving diplomatically the third couple alone to talk.

    The afternoon with Luke was also good. I didn't speak about Bruce’s secret, but told him how respectfully I had stopped in the Rivers’ vault. I told him that I was going away for ten days, mentioning the same excuse as Lucy.

   Already in the fire I looked at them all thinking that now I couldn’t be weak and that this time I would return sooner, although I did not know whether I would not be going to a second exile.

   On the flight back to my country, I was comparing those days of absence with those of August and September at Deanforest. Then I had no hopes to see them again. They would now be only ten days. But I feared succumbing to temptation. I was returning to Gloucestershire, where I had spent my childhood and early youth, educated to be one of the kings of the shire, increasing the incomes of my lineage covered with gold. I even imagined myself living there with Lucy, with Luke, with Paul, with a second child; in the prosperity of the textile company Siddeley which never declined. But what about the other five? Could a strong temptation make me forget them? Now I thought I was flying over the forest of Dean. Among those vegetation patches must be Siddeley Priory. We would not take long to reach Gloucester and land.

   In Gloucester I overcame the first temptation, that of catching a taxi to Siddeley Priory and I went by bus. It stopped for me at the crossroads to Siddeley Priory. I knew that I should walk now about two kilometers to my former home. There I was, with the unmistakable appearance of a beggar, walking without any luggage, feeling the smell of the forest, drowning in memories and the nostalgic taste of my childhood with my grandparents, the advices of my grandmother when we entered the forest against the child Nicholas, a great hunter of lizards, or the memory of Grandpa taking me to the River Wye so I could learn to swim. The never happy faces of my grandparents Sheringham, who barely managed to overcome the loss of their daughter Alma, my mother, but that concealed their pain before me and filled my head with stories in which the main characters always reached happiness after having suffered harsh tests.

   When I looked again at Siddeley Priory, my eyes thought for me and were in the stables and my happiness to meet Simon Bonner, the years of friendship with him. And I remembered the bitter separation one afternoon in late May when my grandfather Thomas announced he had fired him. I also stopped to watch the pompous lines and somewhat ghostly contour of the old priory which had been for centuries the main home of the Siddeley family. Inside there were many rooms, as many as 52, so that Grandma used to say sarcastically that a guest could sleep in a different room every week of the year. Ochre that magnificent façade, ochre the color of my whole life, ocher Deanforest and the earth and clay of the Outskirt of the Torn Hand. I was now in the garden; I saw again the statues of Minerva and Apollo, the defender god of flocks and herds; and Minerva, representing wisdom so no doubt she would lead our cattle well. Many times, as a child, I had been terrified at their stone faces, until already the teenage Nike, I laughed about my old terrors. Minerva... but wasn't Lucy my
Wisdom? She was also the goddess who built the ship of the Argonauts. And Apollo, among other things, God of healing, but had Luke not healed my life with a tale? No doubt my gods were not there, but those statues invited me to stay, to recover my childhood. There sounded background music. It must be cousin Edmund, a great lover of music, who must be playing the piano. When I heard it, a soft and delicate cadence, I was still recalling the smell of the trees, the gaze of my grandparents, the dreams I had cherished as a child. With my face bathed in tears, I knew that anyway I would have to enter and I rang the bell.

   I was received by a well-known face, that of old Leo, wrinkled and decrepit, near 70 now, who cousin Edmund had kept. When she saw me, she reacted as you, Protch, a few days ago. She did not recognize me. Beggars should not haunt around the bordering forest manors, and her face showed annoyance and desires to get rid of me.

− "What do you want?" - She asked me clearly wanting to slam the door at my face.

− "You are Leona Merrydale - I told her, and her face began to look at me inquisitively─. You are theoretically still at my service. I'm Nicholas Siddeley."

    Her countenance quickly adapted to the new situation, and at the time she asked forgiveness, she was clement.

− "Mr. Siddeley!" – She welcomed me restless.

− "I am pleased to see you well and still here, Leona. Announce me to cousin Edmund and tell him what looks I had when you saw me. I don't want any more surprises."

   To Edmund Siddeley, who then stood up from the piano, I had to say.

− "I am what I look like, cousin. I need to talk to you."

   Edmund had phoned me on August 8 saying that he had been for several days calling me and he had found it impossible to locate me. He wanted to invite me to his wedding with Virginia Beads on August 20, but I declined. In those days, I didn't feel like meeting the Siddeley. And something I told him about what had just happened to me: the basic facts: the bite of a snake and how I had spent eleven days cared for by seven beggars. But I had to make him see that I was not being eccentric.

− "I have much to tell you, Edmund, on those days and my subsequent months. But let me tell you two things: I live in the street and I have a family."

    I was going to start my story when I saw that Virginia Siddeley was coming down. Virginia, formerly Virginia Beads, one of the Beads in Castlehawk. If you don’t remember it, 2 kilometers away from Siddeley Priory. She and I had spent our childhood getting filled with earth or mud, and she had learned to swim almost at the same time as me. I had never found her an attractive woman, short and brown-haired, but I remembered that Edmund had always been somewhat in love with her and finally he had her. It was clear that she had married pregnant and it might still be five or six months more of gestation. I asked Edmund how his parents and his brothers Michael and Lydia were. They all had good health, but he was telling me that her sister was now Mistress Owen. She had married Benjamin Owen, but I didn't know well who he was. I stop at these small details, because I guess that these images from the past will interest you.

− "Yes, Nike, try to remember. You defeated him a couple of times in swimming tournaments."

-"That does not make it easy for me. I didn’t like losing and always prepared thoroughly to win - but suddenly I saw it─ Wait. Is he not a beardless guy from Cheltenham from a good family, quite pale and thin?"

   He confirmed that it was him but now he was somewhat fatter. Edmund had given me no nephews at the moment. He was going to tell me about how his father Clarence, my father’s only brother, and he, took care of the business in my absence, but I interrupted him.

− "In fact I am here to make you see all that does no longer interest me. Sit down. I have a long story to tell you."

   They carefully listened for about five hours, the time it took me to summarize them all, from the basilisk to the great temptation of November 19 with its Horror and how I had a wife, a husband and a son and possibly another child soon. Edmund’s face had gone through all stages, sometimes moved, so I wanted to think that perhaps he would understand me. Curiously, Virginia’s face showed respect and approval.

− "Nike, there are things that are difficult for me to understand, and not that you have fallen in love with a man, because though I would have never expected it from you, there are cases in our family. And you have also fallen in love with a woman. But accept prostitution... living on the street... It’s hard for me to understand, and not because you are a Siddeley..."

− "I don't have the Siddeley blood – Virginia suddenly said─ and that’s why perhaps I can understand you better looking only at the consequences and these are that you have gone away from a too-heavy inheritance that one day you showed you didn't want going to work to the Thuban Star. None of your ancestors of your Siddeley line of succession had any need to work, and there you showed your personality. And now the consequences are that you have given up alcohol, you love and you're loved, not only in your outskirt, and you have made your own family."

  Now I began to understand what my first cousin had seen in her. A face and a body is not everything, and I began to see Virginia as a very attractive woman. Edmund was convinced by these arguments of his wife and he showed me respect. Prior to interest me in other members of the family, I had to say what had taken me there.

− "I have always believed, cousin, that my father, his brother Clarence and his son, have a more respectful blood and so I thought one day that you were the best of the Siddeley and I left you in charge of the family mansion and the textile industry. But I have not come here to tell you only my story. In my circumstances they not only are a heavy burden at all desired, but all that inheritance separates me of those I love and I want to get rid of it. I want, Edmund, to definitely leave you Siddeley Priory and that all the Siddeley industry is at your name and your father’s. And that the houses of Gloucester and Cheltenham belong to your brother and sister. As your sister and her husband live in Cheltenham, for them could be this city’s house and for Michael that of Gloucester."

− "I assure you, cousin, that we don't want anything. We already have quite a few properties. All this is yours, and if you leave it, you will regret. I can continue to be in charge if you wish, but to leave all this..."

− "Edmund, what am I going to regret? Still I am the owner of a home in Hazington and I have so much money that I could easily buy any home, even the equivalent to another Siddeley Priory. I am not going to throw away my money, that I can assure you, but now I do not want it. Being here again, sitting in this hall, and now sleeping in my old room, make me again have temptations. But with all these properties I would lose the most valuable thing: the people I love, my family, and I would live just the overwhelming gold of loneliness. I grew up inheriting an oppressive tradition, carrying the weight of having to beget Martin Thomas, whether I wanted to beget him or not. Now the line of succession would pass to you. I know that formerly you were not allowed, but now both of you could even beget him."

− "I like the name of Martin Thomas, if it is a male - said Virginia─. If it is a girl, she will be given my name, but if it is a boy... we still had not thought. My husband only wants he does not have his name."


 

−Finally I guess you already know that it was a boy and little Martin Thomas Siddeley came to life.

-By the end of May - said Maudie─, as we wanted to know about you, we wrote to Siddeley Priory believing you were there. Your cousin Edmund answered our letter and invited us to spend a few days with them. Martin Thomas is a beautiful child, and although I didn't see your birth, I found even some resemblance to that little Nicholas that we cared and loved.

−Edmund did not lie to us - said Protch─, but did not tell us the whole truth. He told us that you had bequeathed them Siddeley Priory, that you got rid of the Siddeley industries, of the houses in Gloucester and Cheltenham; they told us you had been there, but you had not given them further explanations except that you were now a happy man and devoid of ambition, but for all they knew, you could be in America, or as a missionary in the third world as your cousin Nicole.

-They were well educated. Even the servants. I had to bribe them and promise them that if they didn’t say anything to the Protch, who could come one day, they would get even more money. And from your cousin Richard I knew that you had been in Siddeley Priory and that you came back with more questions than answers, unaware of what had happened to me.

-Anyway it was a pleasure - spoke Maudie─ to see old Leona and the other servants, who were virtually the same, and also to greet our dear Ingrid.

−Edmund retained all my servants. Finally... I saw it clearly I was going to help people that were part of my past and had loved me, and also, as cousins of Richard, of my present. Forgive me for doing that so many people who knew about me had to lie to you.


 

   I went back to sleep in the comfortable room in which I had spent my childhood and I was overwhelmed to see my swimming trophies again. All my clothes continued filling closets, my pants and jackets and even my old swimming trunks. And I even found among them a former cuddly toy, a frog which in my helplessness as a child became my imaginary friend and which I called Alma, as a mother I had had and from whom I knew nothing. I started to look through one of the three balconies. I realized then that my childhood room looked east. I could still see Aldebaran, Castor and Pollux, and if I waited a few more hours, I could see Regulus and my whole family. I spent several days of fierce temptation, my mind divided between what I used to have and what I had now. But I missed Mistress Oakes, and wanted to know her story; Olivia, an old reader. Also in my old room you could find Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass. Bruce, Miguel and John in the skies and Siddeley Priory which had no meaning without Lucy, without Luke, without Paul... They were difficult days that I had strong temptations, while at the same time I evoked the lake swimming with Bruce and Luke. With Lucy, I would wait till it was good weather again. Going with all three to the street, finding one day Mistress Oakes and Olivia, in the camp thinking of tales to tell one day to him who was now my son. They were days of a dead end until I was saved recalling one night a few words from Richard: "You are now capable of overcoming any challenge you find" and I calmed down and I could find myself again and assume that I no longer could afford losing all I had already built. And one afternoon I had to tell Edmund:

− "Imagine, cousin, that one day I get rid of everything. I know how you are and I know that my wife, my husband, my child or my children and I would have a room in this house and that you would allow us to stay here as long as we are looking for a job and some money to find a home."

− "Thanks, Nike, because you think right of me. I could even visit one day the Outskirt of the Torn Hand in Hazington to see how you are and if you want to recover what was yours, it would be yours again. I promise you."

− "I would love to see Virginia and you in Hazington. But I don't want to have things back which I am looking forward to get rid of."

− "Virginia and I have not followed the social patterns either and she was pregnant when she got married. Turn your life into any life you want to have, you will always count on me. I only ask you, as long as you are here, to think twice about everything."

   So as not to exhaust you with this part of the story I will say that I put everything in the hands of the Siddeley family’s attorney, a still young man, who also tried to convince me that I shouldn’t be mad and should think about everything twice. It was difficult to oppose Mr. Hume’s arguments, but I was adamant. It was just a few days to put the house from Gloucester on behalf of Michael Siddeley, that from Cheltenham with the name of Mr. Benjamin and Lydia Owen and Siddeley Priory to Edmund and Virginia Siddeley. It took me some more time to bequeath the Siddeley Co. to Clarence and Edmund, but it was finally done. In case they wanted to locate me, I gave them three phone numbers: those of the Thuban star, Anne-Marie Beaulière’s and James Prancitt’s, and on the very November 29 I took a flight back to my homeland. I finally had not needed two days.

   I arrived very early to our outskirt, so I only found Luke there taking care of our son. A cascade of memories filled my eyes with crystals when I saw them again. He was moved when he hugged me and handed my son again to my arms and so I was playing with him until Lucy came back. Meanwhile I told him very little of my trip, things that did not have to do with money, as that cousin Edmund was better of his false disease, his sister had married and little else.

   When Lucy arrived, everything was again a torrent of bliss. I told her the same things I had told our husband and he and I walked again northward through the Village. As I said, December 1 was a Saturday, so both he and I would start working on Monday 3. Now I knew on even days it was my turn to go alone, in odd days my mate. But we still had Saturdays and Sundays, one with her; one with him. Luke spoke to me about how we should calculate now, because I was back two days before it was foreseen.

− "Luke, since tonight was scheduled for Lucy and you, it should continue to be that way. Tomorrow Friday we could sleep all three together taking care of Paul. And in December we would calculate anew. It's easy: 1 the first couple, 2 the second and 3 the third."

  He said it was ok. Later, the day was not good for us, but good for the others and we ate enough. What bliss that after eight days we were all so well together around a bonfire that could not be defeated by a winter that had come so early. My first winter in the street was hard.

   On day 30 in the Thuban I came across Samuel before entering my office. We talked enough so he knew that the great goal I had had been achieved.

   Sometimes we had to work on Saturdays and he told me that the next day also Harold and Thaddeus would come, for we would get a new shipment of steel from St Eustace and I should come too. I accepted. I had to inform Lucy that day I could only accompany her half of the day. Anyway, it was already so, because in the morning it was Luke on the street and she was taking care of Paul and in the evenings, it was she and I on the streets and Luke was taking care of our son.

   Already in my office, without knowing why, I felt some apprehension to the change of month. In the transition from July to August I had been bitten. Starting August, my son was born. In September I stayed alone in Deanforest. In early October, I went to the street. A month later, I began to accept my family. And now what? It might be stupid but that discomfort would become obsession the next day.

   That was a sad day, because I had to say goodbye to going with my mate during the week, although we had however already managed to go on Fridays on a regular basis. But the farewell had a sweet taste. We arrived with enough food and they all ate from us.

   Warm was the night in which the warmth of our three bodies was stronger than the cold from the outside. This time, in chronological order, Lucy in the middle. We decided that if we wanted to repeat, next time Luke would sleep in the middle and on the third occasion it would be me. We haven’t slept all three together many times, because we soon saw that our son seemed to oppose the fact that there was nobody sleeping alone with him and often woke up. Anyway, what beauty that of three hearts releasing tenderness and love to the rhythm of the same heartbeat. What beauty, being three, we were only one, and no icy blast was able to extinguish the fire of our love.

   December started and it found me early in the Thuban Star. The iron mine of St Eustace was especially productive and I had to assess the quality of shipped steel, the amount and have stocktaking between what we paid and an estimate of the benefit that it was going to cause, which was a task for me. It would then be sent to the blast furnace in Arcade.

   It wasn't too much work and I did not have many tasks which could take my mind off the great concern that began to invade me, a restlessness that grew and which I failed to erase. Mistress Oakes believed that my mind was able to see many things. Well, I didn't know what to think. I told you the first day I'm not clairvoyant, Protch, because I don’t believe it at all. But I happen to be right from time to time. Something was happening or was going to happen in our outskirt. That day Richard was also at the bar and I started to talk to him increasingly restless. And there was a time when my anxiety was so great that I dared to go up to Samuel’s office to talk to him. That day precisely I should not be there. It was enough for him to look into my eyes to know that something extraordinary was happening to me.

− "Samuel, is it really necessary my presence today here? I know I abuse your patience, after several days off to ask you this. One other day I can do overtime, but could I go today now? All the important work has been done."

   He saw me so worried that he asked me.

− "Of course, Nike. In addition, you know that on Saturday we end at about 12 and it is just after 11. You can go now, but what’s the matter?"

− "I have a strange omen. Something is happening at home and I should be with them."

   He was sympathetic and let me out, asking only for me to call him later telling him what happened. I had transmitted my uneasiness to him and he wanted to make sure that nothing happened.

   I went back madly running to the outskirt, almost flying, and it was half past eleven when I reached Millers' Lane and I came across David Fieldman of The Last Road outside his bar and wanting to talk to me.

− "Nike – It was long now since I knew him and he dared to call me by my name─, I've been awhile in the door of the bar. I don't know what happens up there, but if I were you, I would rush to find out."

  I went up the hill with a growing fear that something happened and I found an unexpected picture. Nine young men were there with clear signs of drunkenness. I sensed that they had spent the night out and still remained in it, wishing to continue the fun violently with the first beggars they found. The jerseys of the brat boys made up all colours of the rainbow. They had no weapons but looked robust. We, fortunately, were all there, now that I had reached the outskirt. The six were armed with the last logs from the bonfire of the night before. Luke was the first to see me coming, and he spoke.

− "Nike, you should not be here. If something happens to us, someone must take care of our son. "

− "Nothing is going to happen, Luke, but if it is dying, I come to die. I am one of you, and I'm not going to turn away from your fate. I couldn’t live knowing that, like a coward, I've ignored you."

   He did not reply. I knew he understood me. I quickly went to the remains of the bonfire and got a log so heavy that no one had caught it. Be that as it may, I took out strength and could hold it. If things went wrong, I was willing to do much damage with it.

   Despite having no weapons, they emboldened and the fight began. Mistakenly Olivia’s log struck on John’s chest, and for a few seconds he was K.O. Then I remembered something that apparently no one had. I whistled a long whistle, clear and distressing. Soon later the Outcasts appeared, all 6, at the same time a couple of faces were visible up the slope. David Fieldman came too, accompanied by a young, bald man who we did not know. We were now fifteen-to-nine. One of the dudes said:

− "Let’s go, Evan."

   They were aware of their inferiority and left and the fifteen of us sat awhile on the floor. We thanked the Outcasts for the help they had given us, and we also thanked David Fieldman and the unknown man who had come with him, who introduced himself as I saw that John was recovered and Bruce panted. You could see the tension he had over those intense ten minutes.

− "My name is Brandon Jones – he said─. You don't know me, but I have heard of you. I came to visit my sister, Mistress Matts. She and her husband live just on the floor over The Last Road. I had a beer first at the bar. David wanted me to remain inside taking care, but I preferred to come with him. In fact, we have something in common: two cats, Telemachus and Achilles. But they spend little time at home. They prefer to wander here or hunting rats in the landfill. I know that you care for them well and I had to help you. I don't know what fun these stupid dudes may have. They don’t look like skinheads."

− "They are not skinheads - said Luke, who considered his duty to keep us informed of whatever happened with the bald men─. Now there is only a group led by Dominic Charlton. About my old group, what can I say? Sebastian Fraser is still in prison. Gareth Gains seems to have dissipated into thin air. Perhaps he is exiled in another city because he doesn’t want to see them again. But Brian, Bart and Bill Dempsey joined them. And perhaps because we went together to school, I am even a friend of Brian Philisey’s and I still talk to him because I want to keep informed. The Torn Hand is immune now; it seems, but not the rest of beggars or other social groups."

   While Luke was talking, I realized that something anomalous happened to Bruce and I could not help but ask him:

− "What’s the matter, Bruce?"

   But he was unable to speak and with a disfigured face, he repeatedly pointed at his chest. We were all immediately worried.

− "I have my Chevrolet parked here, with a full tank. Let’s take him to hospital urgently. But there will not be room for all."

− "Nike – Luke told me─, John and I will walk. Take the three women with you."

  Thus it was done. Thank God, my Chevrolet started and soon we were on the Seductress’ Outskirt and the walls of Wall Street. Philip Rage Hospital was within reach. Carried on the shoulders of four people, Bruce hardly complained. He survived. In the hospital I had to speak again.

− "His name is Bruce Scully. We believe that he has a heart attack. All costs will be for me. My name is Nicholas Siddeley. Come on. There's no time to lose."

  When John and Luke arrived we assured them it was a heart attack and that he was being operated and it was a matter of life or death. Six startled faces began to shed bitter tears, which were painful in the case of Mistress Oakes, who wished to bang her head against the wall. She wanted to be the one to blame: the prophecy seemed to start being fulfilled.