Yuletide Miracle

  ***

  The rotor blades’ rapid chopping rhythm overhead accelerated to a steady whir as the aerogypsy lifted, a tad nose-heavy at first, into the frosty night. The force of the spinning blades tore up loose snow and ice from the tram lines, and flung it into its own localised hurricane. Edmond gripped the brass door handle on his left side, then let go in fear of it popping open. He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d suggested sneaking into the emporium—tomfoolery, perhaps even a little meddling with the steam-powered gadgets—but he could never have predicted this, actually getting to fly in one. The old soldier piloting the craft was like one of those daredevil adventurers in his halfpenny comics. He’d visited exotic places, fought in far-flung battles, and knew the ins-and-outs of every fantastic machine in existence.

  He was the opposite of Father, or rather he was the man Father might have been had he not chosen life in a laboratory over the real world. Mr. Mulqueen would make the most excellent grandfather ever. Just to hear the tales of his exploits abroad, why, every boy in England would be jealous.

  I should ask him if he wants to keep in touch. To have a real life war hero for a correspondent—better than a thousand made-up tales of the Amazon.

  “Sir, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, lad.”

  Smoke wavered up from chimneys and trended eastward toward the Thames in shreds of smog. The vague glow from streetlamps through the ground fog below teased like hordes of dragons’ gold on the bed of a misty lake. It was at once eerie and magical, and not at all like Christmas.

  “Where have you done? In the military, I mean. You said you were in the British Air Corps. Where’s the furthest you’ve been?”

  “Oh, France, Gibraltar, the Benguela Plateau in Angola, deep into the rainforests of Central Africa, even the far north of Europe, into the fjords at the top of Norway. I’ve been as far as man has travelled in every direction and lived to tell the tale. I met some of my greatest friends on those travels—scientists, lords, African aeronauts. Many are still alive somewhere out there, making new maps, fighting for good.” His face tightened, and he glanced at Edmond from the corner of his undamaged eye.

  “But I’ll tell you a secret, young Master Reardon. We were none of us happier than when we had families and loved ones to go home to. A man once told me, a true adventurer only ever leaves home for the joy of his return—the farther his journey takes him, the sweeter his homecoming. Someone who travels for travel’s sake is at heart not an adventurer but a nomad. He has no home to return to, so it doesn’t matter how far he travels, his roots are wherever he is. In my experience, most people stuck at home for long periods wish to see the world, while most who make epic journeys wish, above all, to see home again. It’s best to not get too carried away with adventures; their novelty is the fair-weather kind. A family is much more enduring.”

  Edmond wasn’t sure if the old man really meant all of that. For one thing, he’d been to the ends of the earth time and again, for long periods in the Air Corps. Not exactly the best one to give a cherish-thy-family pep talk.

  London was burnished in browns and golds and the red lantern glare of the setting sun. It was a fantasy realm that barely seemed to breathe. Spires here and there pierced the smog, while only three buildings were identifiable above it: the Westminster Observatory, with its brownish metal dome and giant, resting telescope; Big Ben, lording over the empty docking wharfs; and the colossus of London, the Leviacrum tower itself, whose copper and iron shell hid the secrets of an empire. Its uppermost beacon, a lighthouse for airships in bad weather, pulsed inside the gathering clouds, thousands of feet up.

  “And now I have a question for you.” Mr. Mulqueen banked the aerogypsy left, heading over what Edmond guessed was Pitcairn Park, going off the ring of dark clusters in the mist.

  “Yes?” What on earth can he want to know about me?

  “You seem to have a talent for getting into trouble. And I could tell in the way you scowled when Angharad asked you about school, you’re not entirely happy there. So what’s the matter, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Great. The one way to ruin my whole flight.

  But the old man did seem genuinely interested—unlike Father—and seeing as he’d shared some of his war stories, why shouldn’t Edmond? After all, Mr. Mulqueen might even have a solution to his problem. A problem that grew worse every day.

  “Um, no, it’s all right. I mean—you’ve been good and all, letting me fly like this.”

  “Let me guess. You’re in a boarding school? First, second year?”

  “Second. But how did you—”

  Mr. Mulqueen tapped his knuckles on his brass leg. “Experience, lad. Plus, I’m a pretty good guesser.”

  Very well. Here goes.

  Edmond took a deep, shuddery breath. “I got into a fight. Started off as nothing, ended up as—yeah, serious, and I never told Mother and Father about what happened, about what the school said afterwards.”

  “What was that?”

  “Um, it happened a few days before we broke up for the holidays, so when I arrived home early, I just told Mother and Father we’d been given an extra few days off, for Christmas. But I was really...expelled.” He drifted outside himself again, for shame. Expelled. The word that had weighed him down like a wet ballast bag ever since Principal Williams’s office. He’d had to drag that ballast behind him to the Winchester station and onto the train and off the train, all the way home, but now it vanished like a wisp into the wintry night. Yes, Mr. Mulqueen would know of a way out of this—he hoped.

  “I see. And the school didn’t try to telephone your parents? Send them a telegram?”

  “Our telephone line hadn’t been repaired, so I kept checking at the telegraph office. I intercepted two and never let on. Then I kept a lookout over the front path every morning, just in case the postman brought a letter. He did, the day before yesterday, so I intercepted that as well. I’ve hidden all three in my room.” He shifted in his seat, and was almost relieved when the harness tightened across his chest, keeping him in his place, in the cockpit, away from the horror forming again around thoughts of home.

  “You’re in a pickle, lad. No denying that.” The old soldier shook his head, without the amused expression adults tended to have when children told them their troubles. “But I tell you what—you explain to me exactly what you did to get expelled, and I’ll help make it right with your parents.”

  “Eh? How can you—”

  “Trust me. This is what I do—did—solve problems for a living. So go ahead, son, give me your story and I’ll give you an ending.”

  There’s no way on earth he can get me out of this. No way. Edmond’s stomach knotted. But his ending has to be better than mine. Maybe he can do something.

  “It will be my Christmas present to you, for helping me to see the world through young eyes again.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, sir.”

  Mr. Mulqueen laughed hard. Somehow, Edmond had known he would. It was almost impossible to be this loose, this natural around Father, let alone tell jokes like that, whereas with this man he’d only just met, who seemed from another world, a rapport had sprung up the likes of which he’d always hoped for at home. What he couldn’t tell Father in a million years, he wanted to share with this soldier with the clockwork leg. This was one weird Christmas Eve.

  “Actually, there’s not much to tell,” he said. “Snot-faced Jimmy Jones attacked me with a cricket bat for making fun of Wales, so I fought back and wrestled him into a headlock. The tricky part came when his friends tried to pry me loose. They punched me and kicked me, but I ended up squeezing so hard, Jimmy cried. The next thing I knew, someone even stronger yanked me off and twisted me ’round, nearly broke my shoulder—the bruise is still there—and thumped me on the side of my head. I didn’t know who it was, so I flung a fist, full power...” He demonstrated with a smack on his palm, “...and bust Mr. Jones’s nose. He was our geography teacher, and Jimmy’s fa
ther. A bit later, when Principal Williams tried to make me apologize, I said, ‘Only if Mr. Jones apologizes as well.’ I bust his nose, yeah, but that was an accident. He damn near ripped my shoulder out of its joint and punched me, and that weren’t an accident—he did out of revenge because I’d got the better of his son in self-defence. At least that’s how I saw it.”

  Edmond looked up, expecting either a wry smile or stony-faced concentration. What he saw haunted him all the way to Vincey Park, and instantly told him two things: Mr. Mulqueen would indeed follow through on his promise to help put things right, and something sad and tragic had happened somewhere in the old soldier’s past.

  It was the first time he’d ever seen a grown man cry.

  A German Shepherd poked its head through a back yard fence on the outskirts of the park and barked at the aerogypsy. A few neighbours peeked out from behind bedroom curtains. A sudden gust sent up a whirl of snow from a nearby verge. It went straight up Edmond’s nostrils, making him cough, but he still managed to steal away from Vincey Park unnoticed.

  Mr. Mulqueen had opted to stay in the park until dinner time, to let his young companion return home alone, thereby allaying any suspicion of Edmond’s detour, for which he would certainly feel the rap of a stiff belt if Father found out.

  It was freezing cold outside. Even the powdery top layer of snow had hardened enough to crunch under his steps—a guilty noise that preceded him past John’s house, then Saul’s. Lamp flames through their frosted windows were warm, steady. House after house looked safe, even dull after where he’d just been, what he’d seen, who he’d been with.

  When he arrived home, this time remembering to take his boots and socks off in the vestibule—Mrs. Simpkins would be all smiles for that—the lack of any sort of greeting disappointed him. They were all busy getting themselves ready for dinner and clearly couldn’t give two hoots about what he’d been up to.

  Then he grinned to himself and flew upstairs, two steps at a time. Better if they never find out. It can be our secret—mine and Mr. Mulqueen’s.

  Mother had laid his Sunday best shirt, waistcoat, tie and trousers with braces out on the bed. On his tallboy, the untidy stack of Horace Holly and Allan Quatermain adventure comics he’d read umpteen times since he was little. Perilous journeys into places that existed only his imagination...until tonight, that was. His breath caught when he realized...

  The real stories are less than an hour away.

  Mrs. Simpkins set the crockery and had to brush past Edmond to retrieve the wine glasses from the drinks cabinet. He acted as a deliberate obstacle, and went a little dizzy when his blood fizzed to his head at her touch.

  One of Father’s most precious heirlooms, the second maritime chronometer invented by his ancestor John Harrison toward the end of the eighteenth century, ticked away in the display case on the wall, above the spinning globe-cum-drinks cabinet. Edmond had spent hours pouring over the far-flung countries on that spinning atlas, imagining the beasts, waterfalls, rainforests, and impenetrable mountains he might one day get to see—hmm, if Mr. Mulqueen was as good as his word on the small matter of the expulsion.

  “You look bonnie this evening, Master Edmond.” Mrs. Simpkins combed over his parting with her long nails. Embarrassed, he shot a breath up from the side of his mouth, into his eye, inadvertently messing up his fringe. It was the best he could come up with in reply. She tittered and recombed it for him, then cupped his molten face in her soft hands. “Merry Christmas.” Her brief kiss on his forehead resounded epically in his imagination. The bouncing rubber ball in his chest grew heavier, its bounce too quick to keep up with. As she left, the room melted away, and he felt like keeling over onto the Christmas tree.

  Oh my God.

  What had started out as a thoroughly wretched day was quickly becoming the one in his lifetime to beat.

  And it’s far from over yet.

  He bumped into Father on his way to the curtain, to see if a certain someone had arrived.

  “Easy, lad, easy. I say, you’re full of beans today. Not shook up at all by that narrow escape this morning, I see. You take after your mother—made of stern stuff, full of vim.”

  “And you, Father?”

  Father raised an eyebrow, then glanced down to finish buttoning his waistcoat. “Aye. Aye, we’ve all got a bit of that, haven’t we. Now that you mention it, none of us in this family are exactly pushovers. Speaks for good breeding, son. We’re from hardy stock.”

  “Have you ever been abroad, Father?”

  “What? Oh, yes, yes—once or twice to the continent. Leipzig was the farthest, where I first met Professor Sorensen.” He seemed only half-interested as usual, his gaze aimed more at the kitchen than at Edmond. But this was the longest conversation they’d had about Father’s past—at least, his unofficial past, the one he hadn’t already packaged for one of his Leviacrum gloats—in a long time. And Edmond wanted to hear extraordinary things tonight. This seemed as good a place as any to start.

  “You never wanted to go further, you know, like on big adventures? You always used to tell me about those faraway countries on the drinks globe. Did you ever—”

  “Yes, I suppose.” He looked away to the kitchen, then sneaked a glance at Edmond, as if he was totally unprepared for the question. “But starting a family is its own adventure. It can be every bit as exciting, and equally unpredictable.”

  Edmond pulled a face, which made Father snort a laugh.

  “You’ll understand when you’re older, son.”

  “Father, how stupid do I look?”

  “On a scale of one to ten? That face you just pulled...oh, I’d say a—”

  Edmond laughed—“Fa-ther!”—and gave his old man a light punch on the arm.

  “Ha, ha. You walked into that one, kid. But to answer your question, yes, I did want to go adventuring when I was your age. My biggest dream was to sail down the great Amazon from top to bottom.” He leaned in close. “Not that I’ve entirely given up hope of that, mind you.”

  There came a knock at the door, but Edmond couldn’t think who it might be—not when Father had just mentioned the A word with such sincerity in his voice. The idea of him one day giving up his boring work in the Leviacrum to go sailing where Holly and Bates and Pizarro himself had visited was, frankly, not Father.

  He opened the front door. “Mr. Mulqueen, how are you? I’m glad you could make it. Come in, sir.”

  “A merry Christmas to you, Professor Reardon. Your wife and son are well?”

  “Very well, thank you. Extraordinarily resilient by my reckoning—they bounced back like nobody’s business—but then they always do. English through and through, and Mrs. Reardon has already planned her next shopping outing down to the exact pace and pound. The stores ’ll never know what hit ’em.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “This way, sir. I believe dinner is almost ready. Mrs. Simpkins has exceeded herself, apparently. You know my son, Edmond?”

  The click-click of his clockwork stride sounded softer on the carpet. Otherwise, he looked scruffier than Edmond remembered, and, apart from the dignity his red tunic afforded him, not really clean enough to eat at their best-laid table. The rich lighting showed up every black smudge and smear on his white belt. Even his grey beard sparkled—the specks of ice fell to ground as he scratched his chin.

  But there was also something magical about him, glowing, a dear emotion Edmond sensed he was too young to grasp. But he was old enough to recognise its warmth.

  “Hello again, Master Edmond.” The old soldier shook his hand.

  “Good evening, sir. I don’t believe I thanked you properly for earlier.” For the last part, in particular.

  Mr. Mulqueen winked. “Think nothing of it, lad. Anyone in my position would have done the same.” The way he scanned the living room, taking his time over seemingly every trinket on the mantel, every pattern on the Anaglypta wallpaper, every bauble on the tree, reminded Edmond their old guest probably hadn’t
been inside a home like this for a long time. What he’d said during the flight about true adventurers only setting out to experience the joy of returning home—what happened when they were homeless? Was this the face of a true adventurer come home too late? The face of regret, of envy, or of happy memories?

  Dinner started ten minutes later than expected because Mrs. Simpkins had “underestimated the stubbornness of the pork.”

  Mr. Mulqueen laughed and gave the edge of the table a tap with his knuckles when he heard that. “Resisting a redhead with a carving knife in her hand and a murderous look in her eye—that’s some impressive pork. But I’m sure it succumbed readily in the end, ma’am.”

  “Well, we’ll soon find out.” Father affixed his napkin. “Lisa, dear, you seem distracted. Anything the matter?”

  Sure enough, Mother had been studying Mr. Mulqueen ever since she’d taken her seat opposite him. “Hmm?” She sipped her wine, her gaze still fixed on him.

  “Darling? A penny for your thoughts? Sixpence? A doubloon?” He cleared his throat. “Mr. Mulqueen, I must apologize for my wife’s—”

  “A penny?” Mother asked.

  Mr. Mulqueen’s glance skimmed around the table, rested first on Mother and then on Edmond. “Christmas is a-coming. The geese are getting fat. Please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do. If you haven’t got a ha’penny then God bless you.”

  Edmond smiled dutifully at the old folksy rhyme, but he couldn’t understand this sudden queer atmosphere at the table. At least the rhyme had snapped Mother out of her odd trance. “Yes, I’m sorry. I was just trying to figure out where I’d seen you before, Mr. Mulqueen,” she said. “It nagged me after the crash this morning, but I put it out of my mind. Now that we’re face to face and at leisure, I feel it even stronger. You haven’t been in the papers at all, by chance?”

  “Not to my knowledge, ma’am.” The old soldier shifted in his seat, clanked his limb against the table leg.

  “Cecil? What about you?”

  Father’s appallingly brief glance would have struggled to tell snakes from ladders two inches away. “What can I say?” He shrugged, then leaned across to their guest. “She always says I’m the least observant pleb since the Trojan who saw the wooden horse urinate...and fetched a bucket.”

  “Cecil. Not at the table.”

  “Yes, um, sorry.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you must have me confused with someone else, ma’am,” said Mr. Mulqueen. “I’ve scarcely been back in England a fortnight, and before that, the last time I set foot on these shores I was middle-aged—not much older than Mr. Reardon here. Not much opportunity to make the papers, at least not personally. And I can’t recall ever having a photograph—” He broke his explanation with a quick, forced sniffle, as though he was conscious of over-explaining himself. When Mrs. Simpkins arrived with the main course, he struggled to his feet, tinkered with his clockwork knee joint and said, “Might I ask the way to the water closet?”

  “Of course, of course.” Father directed him to the downstairs W.C. which extended from the kitchen. As soon as the old man had left, Father threw his napkin onto the table and glared at Mother. “Saints alive, Lisa! You invite him here out of gratitude and then you prod ’n’ poke him like a red hot cinder—poor chap must think he’s next for the rack.”

  “Nonsense. He likes the attention. Did you see him light up when we all took our places. He’s a lonely man, full of memories but has no one to share them with. A little prodding ought to be on the menu, don’t you think? I want him to leave here with his heart aglow.”

  “Just make sure it isn’t in ashes.”

  “Oh, do shut up, Cecil. You can be an incorrigible bore sometimes.”

  “No, it was you that—”

  “And another thing: stop with the pally-pally freshman fraternity act. It’s faker than a Tory’s charity, and makes you sound sozzled.”

  He almost choked on his wine. “Hey, since when did I become the villain in this little inquisition?”

  “Since you forgot to button your fly.”

  Father opened his mouth to speak, then looked down, saw that she was right. His slow nod and resigned smirk aimed in her direction was a familiar sight at the Reardon dinner table, one that Edmond waited for and loved to see whenever his parents argued.

  Mother raised her eyebrows at Father. “A doubloon for your thoughts, dear.”