Chapter 7

I woke again at first light. Judd and Yaani were having their breakfast, almost ready to set off to work. Yaana was sitting by the fire, sewing. Aila was still fast asleep.

Peyr and Grim were nowhere to be seen. I guessed that Grim had already left and that maybe Peyr was outside washing himself. I thought I’d wait until he came in before I went to wash, and just lay there quietly for a while, but Peyr seemed to be gone a long time. Maybe he’s not washing himself. Maybe he’s gone off somewhere already. I wonder where, and why?

I started to get up. Aila turned over and looked at me. “I was just about to get up. I was waiting for Dad to come up from the pump, but he seems to have been gone an awful long time. Mum, has Dad gone off somewhere?”

I laughed. “That’s what I was doing, too, Aila. I’d just decided he couldn’t possibly still be washing. I was just going to get washed.”

Yaani laughed too. “Your Dad was hoping to be back before you two woke up. Be nice to him – pretend to still be asleep!”

“I don’t think I could do that, Mum. Come on Owen, we’ll get washed quick. If he’s not back by the time we’re ready, we can pretend to be still asleep maybe.”

I felt a bit shy, washing alongside Aila, and I think she felt the same a bit too. I’d got used to washing with Judd or Grim in Laanoha, and it just seemed natural to wash with Peyr at the inns on the Briggi trip. I waited for Peyr to finish washing because I felt a bit shy to wash with him this morning. Apparently Aila did too; I wonder why.

As we came in at the back door, Peyr was just coming up the stairs from the street, and Yaani and Judd were just coming down from the room. We all met just inside the back door.

Peyr had his rucksack on. I wondered where he’d been and what he’d been doing. He kissed Yaani on her cheek and whispered something in her ear. I couldn’t make out what he said.

Yaani made a sad face, and Peyr laughed. Then Yaani laughed too, “You rotten tease!”, and slapped his face, but not hard. He rubbed his face where she’d slapped it, as though it had hurt.

“Look at you two!” Judd said, “Just like two blooming teenagers in love!”

Then we all laughed. Aila turned to me and said, “Race you up the stairs!” and set off, with me in hot pursuit.

Peyr called after us, “You be careful, you two! We don’t want any more accidents!” but Aila just laughed, and I called back, “Don’t worry! It’s not pitch dark, and it’s not slippery!” Luckily neither of us tripped, and no-one came out of any of the other rooms at the wrong moment.

Yaana looked up as we came in. “He’s not back yet. Are you going to pretend to be asleep?”

“Oh, bah,” Aila said. “If we’d thought about it, Owen, we could have arranged with Dad to pretend we’d not bumped into him, and teased Gran instead. Too late now. He’s just coming up the stairs, Gran.”

Peyr came in and dumped his rucksack down in the corner by the table. “That took longer than I expected. I’d hoped to get back before you two woke up.”

“Don’t worry Dad. We’ve still no idea what it is. Obviously we can guess it’s something to do with us, especially since you say you wanted to get it here without us knowing. But what? I can’t even begin to guess.”

“I’m not worrying, it’s not a big deal. But if you can’t guess, I shan’t enlighten you.” Big grin.

Probably it’s whatever it was that Peyr and Judd were plotting in the middle of the night. But I’ve no idea what, either.

Aila started heating up the frying pan. “I expect you ate hours ago, Gran. Did you eat before you went out, Dad?”

“We both had some bread and apples, sweetheart, but if you’re cooking something I’m sure your Dad wouldn’t mind a taste.”

“And neither would you, Gran! No arguments, now.

“Owen, could you slice some of the bread, thin slices? And Dad, you break half a dozen eggs into that bowl.”

I don’t remember there ever being eggs here before. When did they appear? Ah – they’re not hens’ eggs. I wonder what sort they are?

“I hope you’re not going to bully your man all his life, Aila!” But Peyr was laughing.

“What? Like Mum bullies you? No, I wouldn’t dream of it. Do you mind being organized, Owen?”

“Not as long as it’s reasonable, like now, of course not.”

What would I do if it wasn’t reasonable, though? Why am I so sure it will always be reasonable? Should I be so sure?

What will happen, will happen. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

A promise is a promise. I take my promises seriously. Does Aila take her promises seriously? Have we actually made any promises? “Okay, I’m certain.” Yes, that’s a promise. Okay. Does Aila think it’s a promise? Everyone’s behaving as though it is. Surely it is.

“Owen? Are you all right?”

“Oh, sorry, daydreaming again. I’ll get the bread done as quickly as I can.”

“You really were daydreaming. Dad’s done it already!”

She was laughing, I wasn’t in trouble. I think that’s a good sign.

“That’s one good way not to get bullied, Owen!” Peyr was laughing, too.

“Dad! I don’t think he did it on purpose. No, I don’t mean that. I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose. He’s got a lot to think about just now.”

“So have you, but it doesn’t seem to stop you thinking about getting on with ordinary things at the same time.”

“Sure, but everything’s strange for you all the time here. Maybe it’s getting a bit familiar by now, but it’s still quite a mental load, I’m sure. I think you’re doing fantastically well. I’m proud of you!”

She’s very aware of how unfamiliar everything is for me, considering how little she knows about how different England is. How did she figure it out? It had never occurred to me that anywhere could possibly be so different from England, until I arrived here. I thought France and Germany were different from England until I came here. Looking back now they seem almost exactly like England.

I wonder how different things are in the house where she works, and how much she knew about that environment before she went there?

I’ve had an instinct she had a good brain since first I met her; I get more certain of it by the minute.

“You’re too kind, sweetheart!”

I hope that’s the right word – it’s what Yaana calls her, but I’ve heard Peyr use it for Yaani too, and the chap on the next floor down calls his lady that as well. If it’s wrong, I’ll get corrected!

“No, it’s just the truth. I know what it’s like being a fish out of water, and I’ve never been a fish out of water nearly as much as you are. It’s because you’re coping so well that I knew so quickly what a special man you are. There, I’ve said it. And I love the way you called me sweetheart, it’s very sweet.”

It’s almost as if she can read my thoughts.

Or is it partly that I mentally translate Laana into the same words in English that I’d just thought myself, so the thoughts only need to be a bit similar to come out as the same words?

Goodness me, no, I was thinking in Laana! Well, mixed up Laana and English, anyway. It’s just that my Laana vocabulary is still a bit limited, maybe, then.

Fish out of water is exactly the same as the English idiom – interesting.

I don’t know what to call the food Aila made. Parrapa, in Laana. Thin slices of bread soaked in beaten egg, made into a sandwich filled with thin slices of apple and fried. Tasty!

Things always taste better when you know they’re made with love. And a roughcast iron pan that remembers the spices of the last ten thousand meals probably helps, too. I wonder who got that pan new? Maybe Yaana, before Peyr was born? A lot more than ten thousand meals, if so. I wonder how long they’ve lived in this room, for that matter? I think that’s something I can ask.

“A thought just occurred to me. You don’t mind me asking, I hope. How long have you lived here?”

“In Laanoha? Apart from Gran, all our lives, all of us. Gran, you tell Owen how you came here!”

“I’d love to hear that story too, but I meant here in this room.”

“Oh, about ten years I think. We were on the ebi floor before that, the other side of the staircase at the back. Grandad was still alive then, it was very crowded. Grim was just a tiddly little boy when we moved up here.”

(I use the Laana word ebi because English is confused about this. Some people call it the first floor, others call it the second!)

“I hadn’t thought about that – of course, there are four rooms on each floor apart from up here at the top, I’ve seen the doors. I suppose that is the ebi floor, even though it’s ground level at the back.”

“Oh, it’s proper ebi floor. The shops have a cellar under there. Must be horribly wet though, the back room on the ebi floor is damp enough. But you’re right – further along the street the ebi floor is straight on the ground at the back. That must be horrible, but I don’t know any of the people there.”

“Do you ever get trouble with water coming in through the roof? At the school where I lived in England, the ground floor was dry enough, but we always had trouble with the roof.”

Peyr joined in again. “No, we don’t get roof trouble. Roofs are no trouble if you look after them properly – at least Laanoha roofs aren’t, I suppose some places where they don’t have good slates probably have problems. But there’s not a lot you can do about water at ground level if the original builders didn’t get the drainage right. The shop side is dry enough, but I don’t think they cared much about the back.”

After breakfast, Aila and I studied and Peyr and Yaana worked on the clothes. I say we studied, and we did a bit of study, but we talked about England and Baragi and Briggi and the future as much as we studied. Aila had no more idea than I had where I was likely to be based if Graamon gave me a job, and she didn’t know whether there was a school in Briggi or not.

“It might be better if there isn’t one there already. There are certainly people there with a bit of money, and they must have children. I could start one! Getting a job in one that’s already established might be harder there – it can’t be like Laanoha or Meyroha, with big schools where there must often be vacancies.”

Then Aila made lunch. I helped with peeling and cutting vegetables.

After lunch, Peyr suggested that Aila and I should go out for a walk again. Aila started to protest that we should study a bit more, but Peyr gave her a look that said, “Please go for a walk, Aila”, and we did.

Aila picked a bag off the hook by the door and slung it over her shoulder as we went out.

She must have some plan in mind. That’s good, better than wondering where to go.

She didn’t even ask where I wanted to go, she just set off with me in tow. We went down to the railway again, but headed towards the docks rather than back to the river this time, before crossing over and slipping through a different alleyway onto the same street as the day before, but further along in the opposite direction. We followed the street for quite a way.

The street started to descend, and at the bottom of the hill I could see where the road passed through an archway under a very imposing stone building. “That’s the gate to the dockyards,” Aila said. “We’ll go down there one day, when you’ve got papers.”

We took a left turn, and were soon in a maze of narrow streets, little more than alleyways really, with smaller shops and the buildings more higgledy-piggledy than in the other streets. There were a lot more people on the street here, and the shopkeepers were calling out their wares, which was something I’d not heard in our part of town.

“I’ve not been down here before!”

“Gran didn’t bring you here? She comes shopping here herself, I’m sure. That’s Gran for you. Wanted to give you a more genteel impression of Laanoha!”

That didn’t match up to my understanding of Yaana’s personality, and I said so.

“You’re right, of course, I was joking. I suspect she just didn’t want to risk anyone asking awkward questions. People just don’t do that sort of thing in our part of town, but it’s different here. But you’re much more familiar with Laana and how to behave now, and anyway, people can see that we’re together in a very different way from you and Gran out shopping!”

That was true. We were holding hands, a fact I’d not really been aware of until that moment. She was dragging me along a bit at times, but that probably fitted the image she thought we were projecting too.

Then we were descending a steep little alleyway between tiny terraced houses. Most of them had two storeys, but the upper floor was in the roof, with little dormer windows that must have been almost at floor level upstairs. I’d have had to duck to get through the front doors, and I don’t think the ceilings downstairs can have been much higher, or there’d have been no room upstairs at all. Several houses had open front doors, and through some of them I could see tiny children playing.

The alleyway ended at a beach of large pebbles, with a high tide mark of dry seaweed only a metre or so below the floor level of the lowest houses.

“Those houses aren’t as old as they look. The bottom of that street would have been awash at high tide fifty years ago.”

“Is the sea going down as fast as that? But you’re right, I remember them building the bottom few houses round here when I was a little girl. But they already look as though they just grew out of the ground!”

A broad expanse of mud stretched from the foot of the beach to the sea, which was a long way out. Far out near the water I could see people working, probably collecting shellfish. We headed left along the top of the beach, away from the docks.

“With all that mud, they must have quite a job dredging a channel to the docks.”

“The docks here are very old. They’re planning to move them further out, onto the far side of the breakwater, and build a new breakwater further out. Already they can’t bring in ships as big as they used to. They’re down to solid rock in the bottom of the docks now, so there’s nothing they can do about it.”

There were several more alleys coming down the hill on our left, each steeper than the one before, with longer flights of stairs and shorter slopes between them. The last row of houses really did seem to grow out of the ground. The houses were two low storeys high at the front, but the eaves at the back were less than a metre above the hillside, which must have been dug away to make space for the rooms in the houses.

The path continued between the beach on our right, and a steep grassy slope up to the foot of a cliff on our left. Aila pointed up to the summit of the cliff. “That’s where we were yesterday!”

“Yes, I know.”

The path curved gently to the left, the grassy slope up to the cliff foot getting narrower and narrower, until eventually the path ran right along the foot of the cliff. At the same time, the expanse of mud on our right became narrower and narrower. Finally, the mud ended in a line of rocky reefs running out from the foot of the cliff, and the path ended in a scramble up onto the rocks. We were right at the end of the point, and I could see round to the distant coast beyond the mouth of the Aaha river.

A few metres further on, I could see far enough up the estuary to see the far end of the railway bridge over the river, but I couldn’t make out anything I could recognize as Kromaan on the far bank.

“Look! There’s a train on the bridge!”

There was. The train itself was barely visible, but the steam from it was easy to make out, and the sound of its whistle announcing its imminent arrival in Laanoha was audible above the crashing of the waves on the rocks.

“That’s today’s first passenger train from Meyroha.”

“You’ve got better eyes than I have!”

“No, silly, I can’t see it that well. I know by the whistle.”

“Ah, okay. I’d have known it wasn’t your Dad’s whistle, but nothing more than that.”

Then Aila led me out along the reef. At first there was mud on each side, then shallow water just ebbing and flowing gently over the mud. Far ahead of us the waves were crashing on the rocks.

Aila bent down over a pool among the rocks of the reef, pulled a snail shell off the rock, and showed it to me. “Do you know these? Ekraahi. Really good to eat. Let’s see how many we can get before the tide sends us home.”

“I don’t know these ones, no. They might be winkles, I’m not sure. I’ve never seen winkles, only heard about them. Further back, there were people out on the mud. They were collecting a different sort, I think. Those might be a kind we get in the market in England, maybe. Do you really know the tides so well that you knew it would be low tide before we’d even left the room?”

“No, not really. But I saw where the tide was yesterday, and it’s just under an hour later every day.”

Between us, we filled Aila’s bag in about twenty minutes. Then she took off her shoes and socks and gave them and the bag to me. She tucked her skirt up into her knickers and headed out towards the waves again. “Don’t you come! I won’t be a minute!”

I saw her bending down right where the waves were breaking on the rocks. She must be getting quite wet from the spray, I thought. I hope she’s really sure footed on those rocks!

She was. I didn’t have anything to worry about on that score. She was back with me after a few moments, with several long strips of what looked like shiny greeny-brown leather. I’d never seen anything like it.

“Seaweed. The best sort. You can get this sort without a boat at the very bottom of the tide. We were lucky to be here at just the right moment.”

“You use it as a vegetable?”

“Sort of. You use more than you’d use of spices, but you not as much as a vegetable. We might use half of this tonight. Dad’ll hang the rest up from the rafters to dry. We used always to have some hanging up there, but since I left home Grim doesn’t bother. We used to come down here together. Before that I used to come down with Gran, but she’s not steady enough on her feet any more. Hasn’t been for years.”

“I’m surprised there’s any left, so close to Laanoha.”

“How many people did you see out on the point? There’s only a handful of families in Laanoha who bother with it, there’s nearly always plenty here. Plenty of ekraahi, too, even though they’re easier to get, you don’t have to catch the tide so accurately. But people don’t bother.”

I’m glad I’ve ended up in a family that does bother. I suppose it’s all part of the same thing that made Peyr stop the train for me in the first place. Lucky me!

We went back the way we’d come. We didn’t want to risk meeting guards on the quayside along the river. They probably wouldn’t ask for our papers, but there was no point taking a chance. “Another time,” Aila said. I wondered when that would be.

As we climbed the stairs, we could hear laughter and voices. I guessed it was coming from our room. The other occupants of the building seemed to be very quiet folks. We met them occasionally on the stairs, and they greeted us politely enough, but they definitely seemed to want to keep themselves to themselves.

But then, our family is usually pretty quiet, too.

The door to our room was open, and I was right. Grim spotted us coming up the stairs, and turned back into the room and shouted, “They’re here!”

The laughter and voices stopped instantly. Then some kind of harplike instrument started playing, and a moment later we were greeted at the door with boisterous singing – a song Aila evidently knew, but whose words escaped me entirely.

“Oh, you absolute beasts!” she said, but she was smiling broadly. She turned to me, put her arms around my neck, pulled my face down to hers, and kissed me firmly on the mouth.

Everybody clapped, and Aila let go of me and turned to face everyone. I looked up and took in the scene properly for the first time.

The whole room was decorated with bits of coloured cloth tied on string strung across the beams. There were a dozen oil lamps, which must have been borrowed from somewhere. I’d only ever seen two before.

In the middle of the table, there was a cake – the first one I’d seen since leaving England. On the top were two figures, holding hands and clearly intended to look like Aila and me. What they were made out of, I’d no idea. I’d no idea who’d made them in such short order either.

Grim, Judd and Yaani were home already, a couple of hours earlier than usual. In addition to the usual household, there were three other people whom I didn’t know. But I guessed immediately who two of them were: they looked just like younger versions of Faahiha. They jumped up and came over to Aila and me.

Aila introduced us. “Owen, this is Jinni, and this is Berraami. And this is Owen, obviously.”

“I guessed as soon as I saw you! Nice to meet you at last.”

Should I have said that I guessed? They’re smiling, so I guess it must have been okay.

The third stranger just sat with his instrument across his knees. He was an old man. He had two sticks leaning against his chair, which wasn’t one that was normally in the room. I wondered where it had come from.

Aila led me to where he was sitting. He started to rise from his chair as I approached, but Aila gestured to him to remain seated, and he did. He offered his hand, and then spoke in a hoarse whisper, in English. “I’m Birgom. I’m delighted to meet you, young man. You’ve made a very good choice. You’ll make a lovely couple, and no doubt you’ll raise a lovely family. I’m only sad that I won’t live to see them grow up. And that I can’t stay for the festivities tonight. My grandson has to take out the first train for Briggi in the morning, so he’s coming before long to take me and my chair and my mizma home, he can’t stay up late. But let me play a tune for you and your lovely lady before I go.”

He lifted one knee to angle the instrument towards himself a little, and began to play. It was a very different tune from the boisterous one he’d played to accompany the singing. It started as a soft, gentle, slow, almost sad piece that moved up and down the scales in modest steps; then gradually accelerated and became louder and more lively, jumping up and down in larger and larger intervals; and finally slowed and softened and returned to its gentle form before fading so gently into silence that it was hard to be sure exactly when the last note was played.

Aila clapped softly, and thanked him. “I’ve not heard that one for years,” she said.

“I know,” he replied, “I’ve not played it for years. But I remember how it used to be your favourite when you were a little girl. I remember how you used to tell me to play it again. And again. And again. Until everyone else was fed up with it.”

“Play it again, Uncle!”

“For you, on your special day, I will, too,” and he did.

“That’s beautiful,” I said, and I meant it. It was.

As he finished, a young man appeared at the door. He seemed a little shy to just walk in, but Aila called him over. “Viilam, come and meet Owen before you take your grandad away. Wait, I’ll get you a drink. Owen, you haven’t had a drink yet, either!”

“You’ve not had one yet, either, Sis. I’ll get them.” Grim fetched four drinks, and then went back to helping his mother with something at the table.

“I’ve had one,” said Birgom in his hoarse whisper, “but I’ll not refuse another.”

It was keroo again.

Viilam and Birgom finished their drinks much more quickly than was normal in Laanoha, and excused themselves. Viilam carried the chair and the mizma, and Birgom walked very carefully with his two sticks as far as the top of the stairs. Then Viilam took the sticks and went down very slowly, followed by Birgom with his hands on his grandson’s shoulders. This was obviously a well established procedure!

“He’s not really my uncle, but we all call him Uncle. He’s uncle to everyone who works on the railway, and all their families. As far as I know, Viilam’s the only one who’s actually related to him. Was that English he was talking with you? I’ve no idea how he knows English!”

“It was. He’s only the third person I’ve met here who knows any English at all, and the first one who knows it anything like as well as that. His English is very good, you’d almost think he was a native English speaker. I wish I’d had a chance to find out more about him.”

“I don’t know much about him myself, other than that he’s been an old man around the place playing his mizma for everyone as long as I can remember. He used to have a wonderful, rich voice too, but you can hear what’s happened to that – very sad. And of course that he’s Viilam’s grandfather, although I’m not sure even that is really true. Neither of them has any other family here. I’m not sure whether Birgom might have adopted him. I don’t think anyone really knows.”

“Dad! I don’t know what you’re doing for supper, but we’ve got a bag full of ekraahi and some seaweed. I’m sure it’ll go well with it, whatever it is!”

“Ah, that’s where you went. Did you take the bag on the off chance, or did you know the tide?”

“We saw it from the top yesterday, so I knew more or less. Realized just as we were going out today. Then it was right at the bottom while we were there, just perfect timing. Lucky.”

Jinni grabbed Aila’s bag. “Give us those, Aila, we’ll scald them and shell them. Your Dad’s busy.” Jinni and Berraami were soon hard at work.

Aila and I didn’t have a chance to do any more study, but we weren’t worried. If this is a betrothal party – I suppose that is what it is – what on earth is a wedding like?

It was a magnificent feast. The ekraahi were a bit sandy – but very tasty. There was fresh meat – the first I’d seen in Laanoha. I asked Aila what it was, and she said she’d tell me later, which left me somewhat puzzled. Why didn’t she want to tell me there and then? But I didn’t think it right to press the question. And lots of fruit. Someone must have spent a lot buying oranges – I’d heard the prices being shouted out in the market.

Laughing and joking and singing and telling stories continued well into the night. Peyr’s train, with both Aila and me on board, was due out at eight, but neither he nor Aila seemed to be worried.

Jinni and Berraami both stayed the night. “They’d be welcome here any time, of course, but the railway pays for them to stay in an inn, food and all, so that’s what they normally do.”

“Your Gran would be here on her own to clear up tomorrow if we weren’t here,” Berraami said, “Jinni’s not due out until one, and I don’t go until the day after.”

“Thanks very much for that,” Yaana said, “it’s really appreciated.”

“It’s nothing, Gran. We’ve had a wonderful evening.”

Yaana wasn’t their Gran any more than Birgom was Aila’s uncle.

If I dreamed that night, I don’t remember it. I didn’t wake up until Aila shook me awake. “Time to get up, sleepy head! Dad’s gone already, I’ve got some breakfast packed up for you to eat in the train. I’m afraid you don’t even have time for a proper wash, but you’ll be getting filthy under the floor soon anyway!” Laughter.

Yaana came down to the railway with us, and we were actually there in plenty of time.

Peyr’s train appeared in the distance, and suddenly Yaana stiffened. “Quick – Owen, you and I must disappear!”

Yaana dragged me back into the alleyway, and Aila threw the package she’d been carrying to me.

“We’ll see each other as soon as possible,” Aila called. “Get Judd to sort something out, Gran!”

Then Yaana was dragging me round the corner out of sight of the railway. I heard the train pass, slowly.

“Aila will have caught the train, Owen. We’d better go back to the room.”

“What happened? There was someone on the train who mustn’t see me? How did Aila know?”

“Peyr doesn’t need to vent steam like that when he’s only just got going. If he does it, it’s our private signal that we’ve got to get the clothes packages out of sight quickly because he’s got a guard on board, or someone else we don’t want to see them. Getting caught smuggling you would be even worse.”

“No-one minds Aila riding with him, though?”

“No, why would they? She’s got papers.”

“Does that mean I won’t be able to get to Briggi for another week?”

“I’m not sure. Aila seemed to think Judd might be able to get you away sooner than that somehow. You or I can’t go down to the workshops to talk to him, but Jinni or Berraami can. You could go on their trains, but they don’t have anywhere for you to hide, as far as I know. We’ll be able to talk to them in a minute, anyway.”

Jinni met us at the top of the stairs. “Oh no! I wonder who that was? That’s really sad, cutting off your last couple of hours with Aila!”

“It’s true there were one or two things I’d have liked to have talked to her about. But what happened, happened. She said I should ask Judd to help sort something out, but I won’t be able to see him until tonight, of course.”

“No, but we can. As long as there’s no-one awkward in the workshops, he’ll be able to make you a place on my engine – or on Berraami’s, if he can’t get mine done in time.

“I’ll dash down there now, and talk to him. Give Yaana and Berraami a hand tidying up, Owen, and don’t worry. We’ll get you away today, or tomorrow at the worst. And Peyr will tell Graamon what’s happened.”

Jinni was as good as her word. She was back in under an hour. “Judd says no problem, nobody awkward around at all. He’s putting boards across the chassis under the cab on both our engines. Then all being well, you’ll be on my train at one o’clock, and if the worst comes to the worst and there’s another damned guard, you can catch Berraami in the morning. It’d be incredibly unlucky for it to happen three times in a row. But you must be sure you know how to tell if we’re venting steam.”

“I think so. I didn’t notice this morning, but I wasn’t watching out for it. Just as well Yaana was!”

“Oh, she always watches for it, I’m sure. There’s no point having a private signal if you don’t watch for it. It’s a good signal, guards or officials would never realize you couldn’t possibly need to vent steam so soon after lighting up. They wouldn’t even know that’s what you were doing.

“Actually, I’m surprised you understood so quickly. Were you around trains in England?”

“Not much, and they’re very different there anyway. But I’ve got a technical background, and I’ve ridden with Peyr all the way to Briggi and back and taken an interest in what’s going on. It’d have been nice to have a chance to observe a steam venting before having to look out for one, but I’ll manage. Whereabouts is the vent?”

“I’m sure he uses the one on the left cylinder. He wouldn’t want to use to the top one, it’d be too obvious to anyone in the cab, and the left will be easier for you to see than the right, since you’ll be on the left of the line. Don’t confuse it with the regular exhaust from the cylinder, that’s all!”

“That’s okay, the regular exhaust comes out in spurts, I’ll know all right.”

“Oh, and don’t worry about venting up the chimney. We’re very likely to be doing that, to draw air through the fire. We have to do that a lot when we’re only just getting going.”

Yaana made an early lunch and we all ate with Jinni, then she set off for the yard. “I’ll go a little bit early and make sure I know how to get the floor open and shut quickly before I bring the engine out.”

Yaana came to the line side with me again, “Just to make sure you don’t miss it if Jinni vents.” I said I was confident, but Yaana wasn’t having it. “No sense taking unnecessary risks!”

Berraami saw us off at the front door, “Good luck! See you in Briggi the day after tomorrow!” Then she went back inside to finish the tidying up. It was amazing how much mess we’d all made.

Then I remembered parties back in England. At least here no-one had got drunk, nothing got broken, and no-one had been sick all over the place.

Yaana had a bag over her shoulder. She’d had it in the morning too, as well as the clothes packages, which she didn’t bring this time – no sense sending them with me, customers wouldn’t be expecting them on Jinni’s train.

Jinni didn’t have to vent, and I climbed aboard no problem. Yaana walked alongside for a little way, then fished a package out of her bag and passed it up to me. “Look after her,” she said. It was the little Aila that had been on top of the cake.

Yaana stood by the side of the line and waved for a while, then disappeared into the alleyway.

“You’d better get under the floor quick,” Jinni said, and I did. She shut me in.

With no packages, there was plenty of room for me, but the boards weren’t as neat as the ones on Peyr’s train. There were gaps through which I could see the sleepers and ballast gliding past. The wood was rough, and it stuck into me in places. But it did the job, Judd had got it together in double quick time, it was only going to be used once, and I wasn’t packages of cloth or clothes that needed to be kept neat and tidy.

I heard the clatter of the bridge. Looking straight down I saw the mudflats by the river through the latticework of the bridge. Then we were over the river itself, and Jinni was opening the floor panel and letting me out.

“We should remove those boards and use them in the fire – Judd got them off the firewood pile. We’ll wait until we’re stopped to get them out, I don’t fancy doing it on the move. I’ll have to be careful burning them. They’re a bit long, and we’ve no means of cutting them.”

“Don’t you want to just leave them there? They could be quite useful, surely?”

“It’d be a bit of a risk. Peyr’s look like they’re part of the engine. They’re neatly cut, and so filthy that from the underneath you can’t really tell they’re wooden. Nobody in the inspection pit would think twice about them. But scruffy old bits of firewood jammed across the chassis? That looks a bit odd! But of course nobody can see it except from the inspection pit, or if the floor panel’s up.”

“Or looking up through the bridge. But I can’t imagine anyone doing that in the normal way of things, and you’d need pretty sharp eyes at that distance.”

Jinni laughed. “Looking up at trains from underneath latticework bridges would be a pretty silly thing to do. You’d get all sorts of muck in your eye!

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Aila’s got permission to come and meet the train, in the hope that you’ll be on it. I won’t go through Baragi at full speed the way I usually do!”

She was there, and she had two little children with her, a girl I guessed was about eight, and a little boy of about six. They all waved at us, and we waved back, and as we passed them, she shouted, “I love you!” At least, I heard enough of her shout to be pretty sure that’s what she said.

We waved to each other until they disappeared round the curve in the track. Then we were on the bridge, and I could see where we’d been standing when she showed me the view the very first time I met her. It wasn’t so long ago.

“I bet she was telling those two kids, ‘that’s the man I’m going to marry’, really proudly. If she’d been on her own, she’d have met us right at the beginning of the village, and come on board as far as the bridge. She knew I’d come through slowly if I had you on board. But they must have been relying on her to look after those two.”

Jinni worked the fire up again and opened the regulator, and we put on speed. It began to rain.

We were due to stay the first night at Veglid. It had been dark for some while before we got there, and it was raining quite hard by this time. From a distance, I could see a light on the platform, and as we approached, I could see that there was a teenage boy with a large umbrella, holding a hurricane lamp.

Jinni’s control was as good as Peyr’s. We stopped with the cab precisely beside the boy, with barely a touch on the brakes. Jinni had already shut the fire down, leaving just enough draught to keep it smouldering until the morning.

The boy handed the umbrella to Jinni. “Hold onto this a moment while I light the other lamp.” He lit another lamp, then opened another umbrella, and gave one of the lamps to her. “Two of you? Good job they’re both big umbrellas! See you in a bit.”

He stayed on the platform as Jinni led me down a well-worn path away from the railway. “He’ll follow us down to Veglid with Preysh when he arrives. Miserable night to be hanging around waiting for trains!”

“He has to meet the trains every night? Couldn’t you carry lamps on the trains?”

“We could, I suppose. And umbrellas, and waterproofs for days when it’s windy as well as raining. But all the wagons are locked, and there’s not a lot of room for extra clobber on the engines – the designers never thought of making space for us to carry anything much! And every engine would have to have everything, instead of just two sets here at Veglid. You don’t need it anywhere else.”

“Or it could be kept in a box on the platform.”

“It used to be. But the lamps and umbrellas got stolen a couple of times, so they started doing it this way. It’s not a big deal really anyway. It’s only needed on moonless winter evenings, or wet ones.”

“I’ve not actually met Preysh. We passed him without stopping. He and Peyr congratulated each other on a perfect passing. I remember that well.”

The path became a stone staircase down the side of a steep little valley, and I could see the lighted windows of several buildings at the bottom. The stone gave way to wood as the staircase angled left down the face of what was virtually a cliff, then doubled back on itself the other way across the face, ending in an alleyway between two buildings.

A road, paved with deeply rutted flagstones and crowded with parked carts laden with firewood, was dimly illuminated by lamplight spilling from windows. We crossed the road and went into a handsome stone-built inn. There was a fire blazing, and we went and sat in front of it.

“Is that the old coaching road, with the wheel-ruts?”

“Yes. Nowadays the only traffic on it is those firewood carts supplying the railway and a few local villages. The wood carts have to go all the way round by the road to get to the station, which is much further than the way we just came. But of course that’s nothing compared to the drive in from the forest before they even get to Veglid.”

The innkeeper brought us our supper without a word, but with a big grin on his face. After he’d gone, Jinni turned to me. “I’d love to wipe that grin off that man’s face. He thinks you’re my boyfriend!”

“Tell him I’m Aila’s betrothed.”

“No, none of us tell him anything. He doesn’t even know Peyr’s got a daughter, much less what her name is.”

“At least the food’s good.”

“Thank his wife for that. I’d worry what he might put in it if it wasn’t for the fact the railway could take his living away overnight if he put a foot wrong.”

“Is the railway really that important to him? Two drivers for supper, bed and breakfast every day?”

“Not even that many drivers. It’s only three in two nights, the passenger trains don’t stay here. But half the railway’s woodcutters do. That’s his main income. And there are two other inns here that would love to get more of that trade.”

“Was that their son up at the station?”

“I think so, but I’ve never enquired too closely. I think he’s okay, just not very talkative. Probably used to not saying too much anywhere near his dad.”

I wondered whether Jinni actually knew anything against the innkeeper, or whether it was just an instinct, but I didn’t ask. Maybe I’ll ask Peyr when I see him.

The atmosphere in the inn certainly wasn’t as congenial as the atmosphere at Briggi, Belgaam or Tambuk. In fact it was positively creepy. Whether I’d have had that feeling if Jinni hadn’t said anything, I don’t know – but certainly there wasn’t the same cheerful chattering going on. People were talking quietly in small groups in corners.

The boy arrived with another driver. I assumed he must be Preysh. He joined Jinni and me. The innkeeper brought him his food as wordlessly as he’d brought ours. Jinni waited until he’d gone before introducing us. “Preysh, this is Owen. Owen, this is Preysh.”

“I guessed that. Peyr said he thought you’d probably be on Jinni’s train. Congratulations! You’ve caught a real prize there, Aila’s a lovely girl. Look after her well!”

“You didn’t pass Peyr without stopping just now, then.”

“No, and I’m sorry we did that last time round. Peyr told me I’d missed meeting you at Embrouha. But there’s rarely a perfect passing at Elbrouha, the down train nearly always has to wait for the up. The up train doesn’t usually stop, because you don’t want to lose momentum on the climb, but Graamon told me I ought to have a chat with Peyr this time. That’s why I’m a bit late here. Doesn’t matter on the last leg of the day, not holding anyone up.”

Jinni raised an objection to that. “Apart from the innkeeper’s lad, hanging about on the station in the rain.”

“Oh, I don’t think he minds a bit. It’s a good excuse to get away from the inn for a while. Imagine what it’s like actually living here.”

So it’s not just Jinni who has that feeling about this place, then.

I woke several times in the night.

The ceiling was just rough beams and the floorboards of the rooms above. Often there seemed to be someone moving about upstairs, the floorboards creaking as they moved and every now and then the glow of an oil lamp here and there through cracks between the boards.

When I did sleep, I had troubled dreams, haunted by a monstrous caricature of the innkeeper.

At one point he was chasing Jinni with a butcher’s cleaver, and I was trying to protect her. Then Jinni became Aila, and I held her close and was about to kiss her when suddenly she was Jinni again, pushing me away and scolding me, but the innkeeper was behind her pushing her towards me.

Another time he was chasing me along an unfamiliar stony path in the dark and the rain. We reached a rickety wooden staircase down the steep side of a ravine. I could see the lights of a village ahead, but the innkeeper was close behind me, laughing horribly, and my feet kept slipping on the wet wooden steps.

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