I rolled my eyes dramatically. She ignored me and went on. 'Some people will tell you that we can never have true fairness, or justice, or happiness, or freedom from having to work. We are sinners and we deserve no better anyway. However, if we do as we're told, we may achieve perfect happiness for ever after our own death. That is one point of view. Another is that we may begin to attain all those goals in this world if we apply ourselves, even if the final fulfilment of those dreams will certainly take place after our own death.
'I prefer the second outlook, though I accept I could be wrong. But, Kathryn, in the meantime, you must understand that the world is not fair, that it does not owe you a living or even an apology, that you have no right to expect happiness, and that all too often the world can seem like a mad, bad place to be.
'When people behave rationally, kindly, generously and lovingly towards you or those you care about, be grateful; appreciate it and make the most of it at the time, because it is not necessarily the normal way of things at all. Reason, kindness, generosity and love can seem like very rare resources indeed, so make the most of them while they are around.'
'I just don't know why people have to be horrible to other people.'
'Kathryn, unless you are a saint, you must know.'
'But I don't!'
'You mean you've never been horrible to anyone? Never teased other girls, never been unkind, never been secretly delighted when something bad happened to somebody you don't like? Or are you going to tell me there's nobody you don't like?'
'But they were horrible to me first!'
'And they probably thought they had their reasons. You're very clever. Some people resent clever people; they think they're showing off.'
'What's wrong with being clever?' I asked indignantly.
'A lot, if you're not a very clever person yourself and you feel that a clever person is showing off or trying to make you look stupid. It's like a strong person showing off how strong they are.'
'But I don't care if people are strong! They can show off how strong they are as much as they like; I won't care.'
'Ah, yes, but then you're clever.'
'But that's not— !' I did not say the word 'fair'. I balled the handkerchief she had given me in my hand and thudded my head against her chest again. 'That's not right,' I said lamely.
'It's right to them.' She held me and patted me on the back. 'And that's all that matters. To themselves, people are usually right.'
I felt for the bedside table. I was in Thulahn, in Thuhn, in the royal palace. I found the little monkey and rubbed it between my fingers.
In my dream the old Queen had been a cross between one of the demon-warriors that guarded her bedchamber, and the netsuke monkey that guarded my bedside. There was some sort of fading thing about monkey guards my subconscious had probably filched from The Wizard of Oz, but it was all already pretty vague and strange and just not of this world. In my dream I had been trapped inside a dark, cold palace carved within a mountain. It was full of smoke and I had been stumbling around trying to find the Queen but then I'd been chased through the fume-filled halls by…something. Or a lot of somethings. I could hear them whispering but I couldn't make out what they were saying, because somebody had pulled out half their teeth. They kept the removed teeth in little pouches on their belts, where the teeth clicked and rattled in a jittery accompaniment to their lisping voices.
Whatever they were, I knew that if they touched me there was something in their touch, in their sweat, that would burn and burrow down to my bones and poison me and make me one of them; dark wraiths of pain consigned to wander the hollowed-out palace for ever.
They could run faster than me, but there was some sort of rule — or some sort of effect or gift that I had — that meant they couldn't bear the gaze of my eyes, and so I had to run backwards, keeping them always one corner or room or corridor or door behind, and running backwards had been slow and difficult and scary, because I couldn't be sure that there weren't any of them behind me too, lying in wait for me to run backwards into them, and so I had to keep glancing over my shoulder to make certain, and that gave the ones I was running away from in the first place a chance to catch up. All the time I kept shouting, 'It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair!' while my feet clattered in the silence of the shadowy halls.
The dream ended unresolved, before they could catch me or I could finally make my escape to the world outside. I awoke remembering my meeting with the Queen and the words of Mrs Telman, and needing to touch the little monkey, which was my guardian, just to know that it was what it was; something inanimate and fixed and incapable of malice or love, but, if anything, something on my side as well as by it, something made reassuring just by its familiarity, and talismanic by the illusory fidelity gained through the long continuity of its presence.
CHAPTER NINE
I'd shopped in the afternoon, picking up a trail of small pillow-children who'd seemed determined to follow me everywhere as soon as I'd stepped outside the palace gate. The last time I'd been here, shopping in Thulahn meant forgetting about credit cards and using cash. Luckily — I thought — I'd remembered this and brought vast amounts of US dollars from Karachi. Only to discover that some of the more up-to-date retailers in the capital did now take plastic. The main foreigners' outfitters in Thulahn was the Wildness Emporium, a huge stone barn of a place, which smelled of kerosene and was full of very expensive Western hiking and climbing gear. It was run by two turbaned Sikhs who'd looked like they were fed up explaining that, no, it wasn't meant to read the Wilderness Emporium.
I'd picked up a very thick and much-pocketed mountaineering jacket in yellow and black, a matching pair of insulated dungarees and another set of padded thermal trousers in vivid red. I'd also bought a pair of no-nonsense hiking boots that looked like old Timberlands but had less fiddly laces that went through hooks instead of eyes at the top, a complicated multi-coloured hat with ear flaps, velcro chin flaps and an adjustable peak, and a pair of stiff black ski-gloves with draw-strung gauntlet extensions that came up to my elbows. A fleece in aquamarine, a couple of pairs of thick socks and two sets of vests and long johns completed my new wardrobe. The two Sikhs — brothers as it turned out, once we'd got talking — had happily relieved me of a bothersomely bulky wad of bills and urged me to come again anytime.
I'd staggered into the street, wearing some of this gear and carrying the rest, and been mobbed by children once more. They'd insisted on helping me carry my stuff. Heading back up to the palace I'd taken a different route and discovered a shop that sold native Thulahnese gear, so we stopped off there and left with a gorgeous black fur hat I felt only a little guilty about buying, a matching hand muff, a pair of black hide boots with fur on the inside and fifty-millimetre-thick soles made from layers of auto tyres (which makes them sound horrible but actually they were beautifully stitched and finished), a little satin jacket with mandala designs, and a long red quilted jacket with matching trousers.
And all for not very much money at all, really. In fact, for so little that I'd tried to leave a tip, but the old Thulahnese couple who owned the place had just looked mystified. I'd felt so bad I'd taken another turn round the stock and come back to the counter with the most expensive-looking thing I could find (and, trust me, I'm good at spotting this sort of thing): a long, slim, silk and satin jacket, jet black with gold and red dragons sewn into it, delicately quilted and sparkling with gold thread.
Seeing what I'd selected, the old couple had made a show of having synchronised heart-attacks, puffing out their cheeks and shaking their heads and bustling amongst the racks to bring me much cheaper jackets that were almost as nice, but I'd clutched the one I'd chosen to my breast and refused to let it go regardless of all cajolings and remonstrations until, eventually, with much puffing and shaking and hand-waving, I'd been allowed to buy this beautiful, beautiful thing for, well, still not very much money.