Page 14 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

The Haverlys lived next door at number twenty-nine, and they had six children, who were all terrible, and so getting a doctor’s opinion was really only a matter of leaning over the fence in the back garden and tapping on their kitchen window. Given the children, Dr Haverly didn’t charge.

When Thaniel stepped into the garden, where the silver birches were mainly invisible under the chemical haze, Katsu hurried out ahead of him with a piece of toast. It was for the birds, although less out of octopussy good feeling for his fellow fauna than to catch one. He hadn’t managed to pin one down yet, but Thaniel doubted that he would do anything with it when he had. It was more a prestige thing for Katsu to hold over the Haverly cat.

Thaniel blinked slowly as he reached over the fence to tap next door’s kitchen window. Now that he was up and moving about, he felt sluggish. Dr Haverly came out, sneaking, with a lit cigar.

‘Pretend to be more ill than you are so I can smoke this,’ he said hopefully.

‘I might have malaria,’ said Thaniel.

‘Good man, good man.’

‘But as well as the malaria, I’ve got a cough, which is – not an emergency, but you haven’t got anything for it, have you?’

‘Oh, I expect so,’ Haverly said, glancing back into his own house, gloomily. It was cacophonous. The children were fighting about something.

‘No rush. Don’t put that out,’ Thaniel added when Haverly moved to stub out the cigar on the fence post. Thaniel had never smoked, but he could recognise a good cigar; the Foreign Minister smoked so much he was volcanic. He had to turn away and cough. His hands had begun to shake.

Haverly was frowning. ‘Hold on. Come here, I want to listen to that. Just to the fence. Pardon me.’ He leaned down and set his ear to Thaniel’s chest. ‘Breathe in. And again.’ When he stood back, he had swept his expression neutral. ‘How long have you been coughing like that?’

‘Oh. A few weeks I suppose. Same every year though.’

‘I think you arrived in London, didn’t you, with some damage to your lungs? Cotton factory, was it?’

‘Engine factory.’

‘And your father had similar problems, didn’t he, despite always working outdoors in the countryside?’

Thaniel nodded. ‘He was always bad in winter.’

‘Yes. I’m afraid you’re on the sticky end of both the environmental and inherited sticks,’ Dr Haverly said carefully. ‘Unavoidable in London. In your case, I suspect that actually it would have been unavoidable unless we’d put you in a specially oxygenated box on the Isle of Skye. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before. Better get yourself off to the seaside. Brighton’s a favourite, for this sort of thing. I should give it five or six months at least.’

‘What?’ Thaniel said, after a second in which he was too confused to speak. He had thought Haverly would say a week, or just to stay out of the fog. He glanced back at his own kitchen window. Mori was there but facing away, the small of his back against the edge of the range. He was talking to Six, his arms folded. ‘Are you sure? I feel all right, couldn’t it just …’

‘Certain, I’m afraid. Your lungs are struggling much more than they should. I think when you say you feel all right, you mean you feel normal, but normal for you is getting dangerous. You’ve always taken colds harshly, but this fog – well. Strong people can recover with the right air.’ Haverly’s eyes slipped away before he dragged them back. ‘But it’s very easy to contract something like phthisis once you’re already in this condition.’

‘What’s – no. I see,’ said Thaniel, but too late.

‘Tuberculosis.’

‘Right.’ He closed his teeth. ‘You mean it’s going to kill me, don’t you?’

Haverly sighed. ‘Impossible to say. If you keep very well, you could stave it off for twenty years. I mean, you’re terribly fit; you walk everywhere, and you box, don’t you? But London will kill you by summer. You’re breathing poison here.’

‘Right. Thank you.’

‘I am sorry,’ Haverly said.

‘Um … no. Actually we’re going to Tokyo on Thursday,’ Thaniel said gradually. ‘It’s by the sea. Probably a lot nicer than Brighton. Big parks, that kind of thing.’

Haverly cheered up. ‘Oh, well, in that case! What good timing, hey?’

‘Extremely,’ said Thaniel, looking back through the window of number twenty-seven again. He tipped sideways to catch Mori’s eye. Mori saluted, looking awkward to have been found out.

SEVEN

Yokohama, 10th December 1888

The scientists at Aokigahara sent a list of specifications. Kuroda took it to Yoruji on a lowering grey morning with so much static electricity in the air that it dragged at his teeth. Tanaka and his men came too, to scout the place. Kuroda did not envy them the task of learning the corridors in the week it would be before Mori arrived.