effectively as it obscured the streets.
She walked up the steps and joined me.
‘Not German,’ she repeated. ‘Aryan. Pure Boreal stock.’ She stooped, opened the carpetbag that lay at my feet, and then took out a cigarette and a box of matches. Straightening herself, she put the cigarette between her bright red lips and proceeded to light up. ‘Luv-erly,’ she said, exhaling a long, grey-blue plume. I’d never seen her smoke before, and wondered if she were engaged in yet another futile attempt to impress me, or whether she shared my apprehension and was trying to calm her nerves.
‘Aryan?’ I queried.
‘What’s it matter?’ She smiled. ‘A masher’s what ’e is, doncha fink? A real masher. Not that you’d know it, the way ’e ’as to sometimes dress. But when ’e’s done up proper, I tell you’—she fixed me with wide, mock-ingenuous eyes and chucked me playfully under the chin—"e’s almost as ’andsome as you.’ She laughed, and then began to sing:
‘My girl’s an out-and-outer,
That is she’s not a muff,
There’s no two ways about ’er,
She’s a proper bit o’ stuff.
When on Sunday dress’d all in ’er best,
She’s flash but she’s discreet,
She’s as straight as any sausage,
And a dozen times more sweet.’
‘Shh!’ I said. A little way off, in the desolate wasteland of the church grounds, men lay asleep: drunks, fakirs, loafers, and sturdy beggars. Men whose wretchedness precluded the niceties due two unchaperoned maidens found wandering the streets on a foggy night.
I walked to the edge of the steps and looked up towards the sky. Hidden behind the dirty pall of the pea-souper was the dread constellation of the Bull. And as I continued to look, I felt Aldebaran, the bull’s red eye, staring back at me, unseen but all- seeing, like the eye of an invisible, vengeful God. ‘Sumi-Er,’ I mused, a little more confidently. If those sleeping rough were too deep in drunken torpor to be roused by the constant biting of vermin or the chill depredations of the night, then they would hardly be stirred by the prattle of two young girls.
‘Sumi-what?’ said Cliticia.
‘That’s the name of their planet,’ I said, still gazing skyward into the impenetrable canopy of fog, ‘sixty-eight light years from Earth.’
She walked to my side. ‘You believe all that?’
I looked at her. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’
Cliticia blew out her cheeks and expelled another long plume of smoke.
‘I know that they want to enslave us,’ she said. ‘And I know that there ain’t much we can do about it.’ She took a longer, more thoughtful drag on her cigarette. ‘Except submit.’ I turned to look her in the face. ‘What more is there to know?’ she concluded. If I wondered at her boldness, I wondered still more at her sincerity. She gazed back at me, made a big oval of her lips, and then, tipping her chin to the stars, blew a smoke ring into the air. For a moment it hovered above her head, a nicotine halo that seemed a symbol of how artlessness and vulgarity could, in her, so sweetly combine. Then it dissolved into the night. ‘Bloody ’ell, Maddy, you’re so serious.’ But to go by the expression on her face she might have been rebuking herself. ‘Life’s more than book- learning. Ain’t you ever thought of ’aving a bit of fun?’
Above us, the church bells rang out, tolling the hour.
I heard the clip-clop of hoofs. A hansom cab materialized out of the fog, pulled up to the kerb and then, like an apparition, as quickly departed, to be once more subsumed by the dark.
Two men emerged from the gloom and walked up the steps.
One of them was Mr Kirchner. The other was an older man carrying a little black bag who dressed like Mr Kirchner spoke.
‘That’s right,’ whispered Cliticia, quickly interpreting the look I had bestowed upon him. ‘Got up like a real lord, ain’t ’e?’ The collar and cuffs of his long, black coat were trimmed with
She walked up the steps and joined me.
‘Not German,’ she repeated. ‘Aryan. Pure Boreal stock.’ She stooped, opened the carpetbag that lay at my feet, and then took out a cigarette and a box of matches. Straightening herself, she put the cigarette between her bright red lips and proceeded to light up. ‘Luv-erly,’ she said, exhaling a long, grey-blue plume. I’d never seen her smoke before, and wondered if she were engaged in yet another futile attempt to impress me, or whether she shared my apprehension and was trying to calm her nerves.
‘Aryan?’ I queried.
‘What’s it matter?’ She smiled. ‘A masher’s what ’e is, doncha fink? A real masher. Not that you’d know it, the way ’e ’as to sometimes dress. But when ’e’s done up proper, I tell you’—she fixed me with wide, mock-ingenuous eyes and chucked me playfully under the chin—"e’s almost as ’andsome as you.’ She laughed, and then began to sing:
‘My girl’s an out-and-outer,
That is she’s not a muff,
There’s no two ways about ’er,
She’s a proper bit o’ stuff.
When on Sunday dress’d all in ’er best,
She’s flash but she’s discreet,
She’s as straight as any sausage,
And a dozen times more sweet.’
‘Shh!’ I said. A little way off, in the desolate wasteland of the church grounds, men lay asleep: drunks, fakirs, loafers, and sturdy beggars. Men whose wretchedness precluded the niceties due two unchaperoned maidens found wandering the streets on a foggy night.
I walked to the edge of the steps and looked up towards the sky. Hidden behind the dirty pall of the pea-souper was the dread constellation of the Bull. And as I continued to look, I felt Aldebaran, the bull’s red eye, staring back at me, unseen but all- seeing, like the eye of an invisible, vengeful God. ‘Sumi-Er,’ I mused, a little more confidently. If those sleeping rough were too deep in drunken torpor to be roused by the constant biting of vermin or the chill depredations of the night, then they would hardly be stirred by the prattle of two young girls.
‘Sumi-what?’ said Cliticia.
‘That’s the name of their planet,’ I said, still gazing skyward into the impenetrable canopy of fog, ‘sixty-eight light years from Earth.’
She walked to my side. ‘You believe all that?’
I looked at her. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’
Cliticia blew out her cheeks and expelled another long plume of smoke.
‘I know that they want to enslave us,’ she said. ‘And I know that there ain’t much we can do about it.’ She took a longer, more thoughtful drag on her cigarette. ‘Except submit.’ I turned to look her in the face. ‘What more is there to know?’ she concluded. If I wondered at her boldness, I wondered still more at her sincerity. She gazed back at me, made a big oval of her lips, and then, tipping her chin to the stars, blew a smoke ring into the air. For a moment it hovered above her head, a nicotine halo that seemed a symbol of how artlessness and vulgarity could, in her, so sweetly combine. Then it dissolved into the night. ‘Bloody ’ell, Maddy, you’re so serious.’ But to go by the expression on her face she might have been rebuking herself. ‘Life’s more than book- learning. Ain’t you ever thought of ’aving a bit of fun?’
Above us, the church bells rang out, tolling the hour.
I heard the clip-clop of hoofs. A hansom cab materialized out of the fog, pulled up to the kerb and then, like an apparition, as quickly departed, to be once more subsumed by the dark.
Two men emerged from the gloom and walked up the steps.
One of them was Mr Kirchner. The other was an older man carrying a little black bag who dressed like Mr Kirchner spoke.
‘That’s right,’ whispered Cliticia, quickly interpreting the look I had bestowed upon him. ‘Got up like a real lord, ain’t ’e?’ The collar and cuffs of his long, black coat were trimmed with
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