Page 54 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

Although she had sturdy boots and two pairs of socks on, and thick trousers under the rough work dress, Takiko’s feet were numb by the time she reached the prison’s main doors. One stood propped open. Inside was a broad entrance space, and in the middle of it, boxed off to keep in the heat, was a tiny office. It was all wood, except for a small paper shutter, which was open.

‘Hello?’ she said, feeling like she was looking into a dolls’ house.

The guard hunched up at the kotatsu looked up from his newspaper. Despite the warmth inside, he had a scarf muffled up over his ears. She wasn’t surprised. He looked ill in an unspecific, long-running way; too stringy, too sore-eyed. ‘Who are you?’ he asked indignantly. He sounded like he had a cold.

‘I’m Mr Tsuru’s niece, the new cleaner.’

‘Oh!’ The guard looked startled, then laughed. ‘I was expecting an old lady.’ He stood up, and the little paper hatchway proved in fact to be a tiny door. The hatchway slid sideways and the lower part opened outward like a gate. He looked pleased to find he was a head taller than her. The smell of smoke had drifted out with him. She pined. ‘Right, come with me, Miss Tsuru. You’ll need to get started right away.’

TWENTY-THREE

Tokyo, 10th February 1889

The morning was cold and dim under gathering storm clouds, and the floating market on the Imperial Canal gave off such a beautiful glow from its red lamps that even people who had imagined they were in a hurry for work found themselves coming down from the bridges, onto the jetties cobbled together from apple crates and parts of old carts, and into the warmth under the bright canopies of the boats.Thaniel put Six in front of him on the way across to the first boat. The man who owned it was selling chicken skewers from a big open grill whose frame he’d hung about with paper lamps, the tops spotted with grease. Every boat in the market had red lamps, but all different sizes and all different shades of red, with black characters painted down the sides to say what the stalls were selling. Six shot across the gangplank and vanished out of sight. Thaniel had decided to stop worrying someone was going to steal her or that she would fall in the river. They came to the floating market every morning, and every morning she was fine. She had bitten people before, probably more often than she would have if he hadn’t given her a sugar-mouse every time she did.

The next boat sold fresh lobsters and the one after that had tea and stronger things. Five men were sitting along the tiny makeshift bar on stools of mismatched heights. Nothing was in a straight line and there was music somewhere, but it was too early for crowds. Snow feathered in and disappeared in the heat from the big grills and braziers. Thaniel walked over the gangways with his hands in his pockets, passing between clouds of lovely heat and gusts of river cold.

There was ice around the hulls of the boats, and a veneer just forming over the wider gaps. It was not the morning to fall in.

He found the chestnut boat a good way further downriver than usual. Six wasn’t there, but the chestnut man had just added a bag of new nuts to his grille, which was a caramelised, amber mess from the honey he put over everything. The hot smell of burnt sugar drifted between the boats.

‘Have you seen …?’

The man pointed next door. Thaniel leaned around the corner. It was a lamp shop, all kinds, but mainly paper with little designs, and a few fittings for gas outlets. Up high on one shelf, wrapped in cotton and paper and tied up with string, like bombs, were lightbulbs. The lamp-seller sat at the back with a newspaper. There was a sign up on a chalkboard on the counter, advertising a half-price sale for something called highly perfumed water, exclamation mark, which Thaniel mulled over for a while before he wondered if it meant kerosene.

‘Morning,’ he said.

‘Morning,’ said the lamp lady. She was in her eighties at least, bundled up so well that she was spherical. ‘Would you like some kerosene? Half price. Won’t be able to give it away if this keeps up.’

‘If what …? No, thank you. Have you seen a little girl?’

‘I’m here,’ Six said dutifully. She was looking at some tiny candles. There was a Catholic mission not far away and they were souvenir versions of gilded altar candles.

‘It really is very cheap for kerosene,’ the lamp lady added.

‘I know, but it’s all right, thank you.’ Thaniel glanced down at Six, who never asked for anything. ‘Do you have any lightbulbs?’

‘Lightbulbs! No, no, no, nasty silly things, you don’t need lightbulbs,’ the lamp lady said quickly.

‘She collects them,’ he explained.

‘No lightbulbs here.’

‘That box on the shelf behind you has “lightbulbs” written on it,’ he said after a moment.

‘No it hasn’t,’ she said. ‘Kerosene is much more useful, you know.’

‘Chestnuts,’ called the chestnut man.

‘See you,’ said the lamp lady, and nodded approvingly when Six bowed.

Thaniel went away none the wiser, which was how most conversations ended now. There was an English way of thinking and a Japanese one, and although he was fluent enough to step over the gap, he still fell into it quite a lot too.

He gave Six the chestnuts and helped rearrange her scarf once she had tucked them down her front for heat, then followed her back through the market and out into the sharp daylight. The sky was gunmetal and grainy with snow. The bell above the Dutch legation tolled eight. Six waited for him at the side gate to the British one.When he looked back the way they had come, the bridges over the canal – which was actually the moat around the Palace – were vivid with deep purple banners. The parades would be tomorrow; the Emperor was announcing the new Constitution. It was going to be huge. Everyone was getting a day off work. It was making Thaniel wish that people in England would see a way to caring so much about politics.

‘May I go over the snow?’ Six said, looking at the pristine white roll of the lawn.

‘Better had, or someone else will.’