‘I’d get up as soon as you’ve finished. Apparently Mirabelle wants to show you the garden.’ She paused. ‘I would keep on her good side if I was you.’
Mirabelle was waiting for him in the conservatory, her raven hair gleaming from a monotony of brush strokes. Its length over her shoulders equalled that of her body, but both were exceeded by the splendour of the legs that emerged from her white and very short skirt. It took several seconds for Thomas to notice the black and white rat perched on her shoulder; its presence there seemed only incidental.
‘There’s one for you. Mummy bought two. But that’s for after we’ve seen the garden.’
To Thomas gardens were rectangular flat constructions with geometric subdivisions and grass tailored to resemble a carpet. Here, from the conservatory window, there was a dynamic, almost limitless, sweep of green, cupping all manner of vegetation quite unfamiliar to him. The ground shelved irregularly downwards until halted by the rampart-like bar of the old railway embankment. The warmth of Mirabelle’s hand in his set him forward towards it, and the gentle seductive pressure of her fingers controlled his steps. He felt like one of those radio controlled cars that his Uncle Ken sometimes let him play with: he was under the same irresistible control. At another level it seemed like drowning in a sea of the most fragrant ice-cream.
As they approached the bottom Mirabelle prised a path between the bushes. Thomas could hear the metallic tinkle of running water. Then he saw a stream that widened into a pool skimmed by blue dragonflies, and beyond that a gentle cascade where the water glistened over yellow sandstone rocks.
‘Perhaps I will let you fish after all,’ Mirabelle said. Thomas stared at her, wondering what condition might be implied by this change of manner.
‘You’d never guess that above us was the old railway. Daddy planted all those trees to hide it. Then they decided to close the line.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Thomas replied, with his mind on other matters. The black pinpoint eyes on Miranda’s shoulder were already accusing him, but not of indifference. He looked away. ‘That’s a fine rat you have,’ he said.
‘Rats are lovely,’ Mirabelle said. ‘They’re mysterious but can be quite evil. Except Horace. Mummy says he’s an aristocrat.’
‘Or an aristorat,’ Thomas said, but without sufficient conviction to make an impact.
‘That’s a stupid thing to say.’ She turned away from him, but not quite fast enough to deny Thomas a glimpse of her attempt to hide a smile.
He followed her doggedly along the path by the stream, his attention divided between the bright white folds of her skirt and the lapping water. Then, without warning, the stream seemed to disappear. He looked closely at where she was pointing, to an arch of red bricks, less than a metre high, almost obscured by hanging fronds of ivy. The gurgle of escaping water told of its function.
‘Aunt Esther said that when they built the railway the stream had to go underground to get to the other side.’
‘Have you been to the other side?’
‘Silly boy! It’s far too overgrown. All brambles and nettles.’ She paused. ‘We must go now. Horace is hungry and needs feeding. After that you may get some lunch, although I don’t think you’ve earned it.’
Thomas flushed red. ‘Why do you say that?’ he demanded.
‘Girls like me like to be… excited.’
‘Tell me what I should do then.’
‘For a start stop asking silly questions like that.’
She raced up the grass to the house. At the conservatory door the white flame of her skirt was extinguished like a snuffed candle.
Thomas realized it was pointless to follow. Idly he turned his attention to the black orifice of the tunnel. He stayed because the place had assumed a dark aura of fascination that was strangely and deliciously familiar. There was a riddle here that demanded resolution, expressed, for the moment, in starkly physical terms. He had felt the same when his neighbours in London had shown him a dark, forbidding passage leading from their cellar towards his own house, and again when he had cast a stone into the depths of his first well. From the path he was too high to see inside, even with his body flat on the ground. He tried to stand on the wet stones with his head held low, but succeeded only in slipping and getting water in his shoes. Then he found a fallen branch, which he placed across the water. With his toes on firm ground and grasping the wood with both hands he was able to bring his eyes level with the entrance. For a metre or so he could make out primordial stalactites at the apex of the glistening brickwork. Beyond that was nothing but blackness, and distant muted sounds that only imperfectly echoed his own movements.
After lunch the children sat at the kitchen table and played with the rats. Mirabelle presumed Horace to be a willing subject, having fed him copiously with chocolate drops. Horace’s less engorged companion was called Henry.
‘Henry is yours,’ Mirabelle said.
Thomas had never owned an animal before, but the bond between them, from the first touch of its twitching whiskers against his nose, was immediate and serious.
‘The game,’ Mirabelle said, ‘is to race them.’
Thomas now appreciated the purpose of the household objects littering the table top.
Contrary to expectation Henry negotiated the course rather well, of the two being the more eager to reach the promised reward of a chocolate drop. Horace managed the cornflakes packet but refused to enter the cardboard tube that had begun life in a roll of wallpaper.
‘He will go in,’ Mirabelle hissed, squeezing his tail.
‘You’re hurting him.’
‘Nonsense, he’s used to it,’ Mirabelle said, taking the animal in her hand and stuffing it into the tube.
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘No.’
‘Try to stop me.’
For the first time in their relationship Thomas took the initiative. He tried to wrest the tube from Mirabelle’s grasp. With the rat still inside, the tube executed spectacular aerobatics above the table top.
Whether by design or accident – Thomas was never able to tell which – Mirabelle let go. The tube swung backwards over Thomas’ shoulder, expelling the rat onto the floor. It looked up at them once with an expression of amused pity, then scampered behind the Aga. Attempts to locate it occupied the children for the next hour. It is sufficient to record that the animal was never seen again.
When Aunt Harriet appeared the children were again sitting at the table. Mirabelle, who was now stroking the surviving rat, was first to break the silence.
‘Mummy, Thomas has killed Henry.’
‘That’s a lie,’ Thomas said.
‘Mirabelle doesn’t lie, Thomas.’ She turned to Mirabelle. ‘Tell Thomas why you know that rat is Horace.’
‘From the markings. This rat is definitely Horace.’
‘It seems to me, Thomas, that you are being deceitful,’ Harriet said.
Thomas confronted the two pairs of eyes bearing upon his: Aunt Harriet’s possessive, protective and blind, Mirabelle’s beautiful, scheming, triumphant. He could see that neither would shift her position until he had capitulated. Hurt and confused, he fled the kitchen and for the next hour lay on his bed, trying to draw an arrow that had been tipped with the most intoxicating and seductive of poisons.
Later, in the bright evening sunlight, the children again found themselves at the place where the stream disappeared into the tunnel. Retrieving the branch he had used before, Thomas put his head inside. This time, in the far, far distance, he could make out the tiniest pinpoint of light. Mirabelle followed his example and stretched her lithe body along the length of the wood. But her objective was different and her efforts were not wasted. Thomas was not reluctant to accept her instruction to grasp her ankles to steady her. Neither was he aware of the water flowing over his feet as he helped raise her body from the log. Before they left he looked one more time into the tunnel, but a cloud was passing and there was only darkness.