The Explosionist Read online

  TWO

  SOPHIE GOT TO ASSEMBLY too late to join her classmates. She stood at the back of the auditorium and braced herself for the headmistress’s speech. Hardly a week of term had gone by without a bomb going off, and Sophie had become used to the sick feeling in her stomach and the awfulness of the special assemblies that followed.

  Miss Henchman stood on the low stage, her head bowed.

  “Girls!” one of the junior staff members called out, to no effect. “Girls, please, a little quiet!”

  As the room fell silent, Miss Henchman raised her head, cleared her throat loudly, and took a sip from the glass of water on the lectern.

  “Our city has just suffered another outrageous attack at the bloody hands of the Brothers of the Northern Liberties, those fiends without conscience,” she announced. “The explosion killed four people in a shopping arcade in the Canongate and grievously injured a score more.”

  A tumult of voices could be heard in response. Miss Henchman sniffed and pushed the gold pince-nez up her bony nose. The girls fell silent again.

  “Scotland will never give in to the demands of terrorists,” the headmistress said, her left hand going to her large bosom, “even if the price is further loss of life. The Secret Service will not relent until every last one of these ruthless murderers has been arrested and executed, in the name of justice and as a deterrent to the entire wicked cohort!”

  Cliché and bombast, thought Sophie. Fair enough to use the word murderers for the suicide bombers who strapped explosives onto themselves and went out into crowded shopping precincts, trams, and restaurants to blow people up. But how could killing the terrorists in turn set anything right again?

  Sophie didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until the girls nearby turned to stare.

  “What is it?” she asked the person next to her, a tall auburn-haired girl she knew only by sight.

  But Miss Henchman had already caught the whiff of something forbidden at the back of the hall. There was a strong antipathy between Sophie and Miss Henchman, like a cat and a dog that can’t be in the room together.

  “Sophie Hunter,” said Miss Henchman in her starchiest voice, “have you something to say to us all this morning? I didn’t quite catch your last remark.”

  “Just tell her you’re sorry,” hissed the red-haired girl. “Say you’ve got a cough and apologize for disrupting assembly.”

  “I don’t have a cough, though,” said Sophie. She caught Miss Henchman’s eye. The headmistress had begun to swell—literally, her face had gone all red and puffy—with irritation.

  “Sophie?” she said in a dangerous voice. “I’m still waiting.”

  As soon as Sophie opened her mouth to speak, she knew it was a mistake, but she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t bear it when people used language to falsify things. Justice, deterrence—these were the words people used to cover up the truth.

  “It’s wrong when terrorists kill people,” Sophie said, stumbling a little over the words. “Really wrong, I mean, not just illegal but immoral as well. But how can it be right for us to talk about killing them right back? If we justify killing them in the name of justice, then they can keep on killing us in the name of liberty. It might be necessary to execute them—I’m not arguing with that—but how is it any better than what they do?”

  Everyone was looking at Sophie and whispering. Would she be punished for her outburst? But Miss Henchman shook her head, with a sigh that said louder than any words that Sophie existed at a level altogether beneath the headmistress’s contempt.

  “I hope you will see fit to join with the rest of us,” she said, “in praying that the police may apprehend these criminals as soon as possible, and send them to their just deserts. Afterward, all girls will have a free period before lunch; you may spend the time in your rooms, or else in the school library, but any girl found loitering in the corridors will receive a demerit.”

  Miss Henchman could shift from death to school discipline in a single breath. Sophie said a few private words in her head for the departed and their families, but nothing about vengeance or just deserts or an eye for an eye.

  Afterward, Sophie saw Matron go up to the headmistress and speak a few sentences. Both women looked over at Sophie, and then Miss Henchman shook her head again in a maddeningly condescending way. As she swept out, the headmistress stopped for a moment and told Sophie that she must take good care of herself after having had such a nasty shock, and that she should ask Matron for an aspirin if she didn’t feel more the thing by lunchtime.

  Sophie was dismayed to find herself in the grip of feelings so strong she had to run a finger along her lower eyelid to catch the tears. Sophie’s friends were nowhere in sight—they must have gone back to their room already—and her tears were witnessed only by the awful Harriet Jeffries. Everything about Harriet drove Sophie wild with irritation, from her pink hair ribbons and slight lisp to the namby-pamby way she kept her elbows tucked modestly at her side.

  “That’s treason, you know,” Harriet said, sounding absolutely delighted. “You can’t go around saying things like that.”

  “I can say what I like,” Sophie said. The sight of Harriet’s smug little face filled her with rage. “It’s a free country, isn’t it? And if it’s not, maybe the Brothers of the Northern Liberties are more right than we know.”

  Harriet opened her mouth in a comically exaggerated expression of delighted shock. “My father says that people who talk like you ought to be put up against a wall and shot,” she said.

  She was gone before Sophie could catch her breath.

  In the dormitory upstairs, Sophie found Nan rifling through the locker beside the corner bed. Nan was a big athletic girl, second captain of the hockey eleven and endlessly hopeful (despite a vast preponderance of evidence to the contrary) that Sophie would somehow turn out to be good at sports after all.

  “Whatever got into you just now, Sophie?” she asked.

  Sophie didn’t answer, just threw herself down on the bed by the window. With four beds, the room was rather cramped, but the girls had an adjoining study as well. The other three boarded full-time, as did virtually all the school’s pupils, but Sophie’s great-aunt had wangled a more frugal arrangement whereby Sophie spent weekends at her house in Heriot Row.

  “You’ll have to make that bed again if you lie on it, you know,” Nan told Sophie.

  Sophie only grunted and rolled over onto her stomach. As head girl of the form, Nan’s job was to enforce the rules; there was no point holding it against her.

  Sophie couldn’t understand how the others were so little affected by the morning’s violence. Across the room, Priscilla was demonstrating a new hairstyle to Jean, whose mop of curls limited her to admiring rather than emulating Priscilla’s sleek hairstyles. Priscilla was fair-haired and conceited and extremely pretty, but Sophie secretly thought Jean’s brown eyes and pale skin and cloud of dark hair made her more striking than Priscilla, who looked too much like the girl twirling the umbrella in the chocolate advertisement.

  Meanwhile Nan had retrieved a picture postcard, a seaside scene sent by her oldest brother from his posting on the Caspian, from the locker and propped it up on the mantel above the fireplace. She took up her brush, slid the elastic band off her chestnut-shiny hair, and gave it a few brisk strokes, then divided it into three thick strands, which she plaited into a tight fat braid.

  “Seriously, Sophie,” Nan said as she fixed the tail of her plait with the elastic and tossed the rope of hair back over her shoulder, “you mustn’t make such a spectacle of yourself! You were lucky Miss Henchman didn’t send you home just now.”

  Why had she been so insubordinate? Sophie couldn’t even explain it to herself, let alone to the others. She prided herself on being steady, calm, and rational. If only feelings could be completely eradicated! For the past few months it seemed as though the least little thing was enough to set off a cascade of powerful emotions in Sophie.

  “Miss Henchman is a poison
ous lunatic,” she said finally. “I don’t see how you can listen to her without thinking someone should lock her up and throw away the key.”

  Nan just rolled her eyes, but Jean and Priscilla looked quite shocked.

  “I thought the Henchman was rather wonderful this morning,” said Priscilla, her eyes wide.

  “You would,” said Sophie, groaning and covering her head with a pillow. If she was going to cry, she didn’t want to do it in front of the others.

  Priscilla made a huffy noise.

  “Don’t mind Sophie,” Jean said to Priscilla. “You know she’s got an irrational hatred for Miss Henchman, just as she has an irrational passion for Mr. Petersen.”

  “I don’t—,” Sophie started to say.

  “Sophie,” Nan interrupted to keep the peace. “What did Mr. Petersen want with you at the end of class this morning?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophie muttered from beneath the pillow. “The bomb went off before he could say anything.”

  Nan reached over to Sophie and seized the pillow. Sophie felt quite naked without it. She blinked a few times and hoped the puffy redness about her eyes would look more like hay fever than crying.

  “You were still in the classroom when it went off? The rest of us were all in the corridor by that time. No wonder you’re in such a state! That wall of windows was directly exposed to the blast. Are you all right? Is that a cut on your forehead?”

  Nan meant well, but Sophie knocked her hand away before she could touch the sticking plaster on Sophie’s forehead. She thought she would die if she found herself right now at the receiving end of someone’s affectionate caress. She liked the other girls, and they had all chosen to live together, but she felt the pressure of their constant presence like a deep-sea diver too many fathoms down felt the pressure of the water above. She scowled and clamped the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger to hold back the tears.

  “Anyway,” said Jean, still smarting at Sophie’s having spoken rudely to Priscilla, “blast or no blast, it’s no excuse for making that sort of reflection on your friends!”

  “Sophie can make any reflections she likes,” Priscilla said, “so long as she helps me write up my chemistry notes before class on Monday. I simply cannot follow a word that awful man says.”

  “Mr. Petersen isn’t awful,” Sophie said, sitting up. The others began laughing. Sophie’s fixation on Mr. Petersen was old news; when he had first arrived in March to replace their former teacher, who had left to be married, lots of the girls decided they were in love with him, but they stopped liking him (all but Sophie) because of chemistry being so boring.

  “Look around you in class on Monday morning,” Priscilla advised. “Everyone just sits there staring into space. He’s the most boring man alive! Besides, Sophie, you can’t seriously be in love with a man whose name’s Arnold….”

  “Mr. Petersen’s not awful,” Sophie said again. “He’s a slightly awful teacher, it’s true, but he’s not an awful person.”

  Priscilla didn’t seem to be listening. “There’s something terribly odd about Mr. Petersen,” she mused, examining her face in a silver compact and licking one finger to smooth down an eyebrow.

  Something in the sound of Priscilla’s voice made Sophie suspicious. She tensed up in anticipation of one of the personal digs that were Priscilla’s specialty.

  “He’s got a morbid preoccupation with explosives, hasn’t he?” Priscilla continued.

  “Yes,” Jean chimed in, “he’s got a bee in his bonnet about bombs.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” Priscilla drawled, “if he knew more about the terrorist bombings than he’s letting on!”

  “That’s preposterous,” said Sophie. “He was standing right there in front of me when the bomb went off. He couldn’t have had anything to do with it!”

  “Yes,” Jean said, taking her lead from Priscilla, “but he could still be the criminal mastermind running the terrorist cells, couldn’t he? Being in class is an awfully good alibi!”

  “In a Sherlock Holmes story,” Priscilla added, turning her wide blue eyes toward Sophie, “he would have specially timed it so as to avoid suspicion.”

  “Don’t tease Sophie,” Nan begged. “You know she hates being teased….”

  But Nan’s well-meant intervention tipped Sophie over the precipice into absolute fury. She stood up and shouted, an all-out bloodcurdling cry of unhappiness and rage. She didn’t think she could stand another minute—another second—of this. Then she dragged the small valise from under her bed and began to throw things into it, first her toilet bag and bedroom slippers, then her pajamas.

  “What are you doing?” Priscilla asked, rather apprehensive now.

  “Sophie?” said Jean.

  “I’m leaving!” Sophie said. She stomped into the study for the rest of her schoolbooks and a half-written English essay, which she crammed into her leather satchel. There was something undignified about packing rather than simply storming out, but she retained just enough self-command to know that it would be a disaster to leave without her homework.

  “You can’t go!” Nan said. “We’ve still got spiritualist instruction and maths after lunch.”

  “I don’t care,” Sophie said. “If anyone asks, tell them I had a headache and went home early for the weekend.”

  Nan looked horrified.

  “It’s only the truth, strictly speaking,” Sophie added. “Matron will back me up.”

  “Sophie, are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Jean.

  “I don’t give a damn if it’s a good idea or not,” Sophie said, fastening the clasp on the valise and throwing her satchel over her shoulder.

  Jean groaned and Nan covered her ears. Even Sophie was a bit shocked at herself for having used a swearword.

  “You know I should report you,” Nan said.

  “Don’t worry,” Sophie said, relenting at the sight of their worried faces. “I doubt Miss Henchman will expel me.” As the words left her mouth, she was overcome with panic. “There’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind about leaving.”

  “If you’re going, then,” Priscilla said, after a long pause, “best do it now, while the hall monitors are still in their rooms.”

  Avoiding the main hallway, Sophie made it out through the delivery entrance without a hitch. Closing the door behind her, she heaved an enormous sigh of relief. She still felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment, but at least she was out of range of anyone she actually knew.

  The tram stop was almost deserted. Was it because she was so much earlier than usual? No: surely it was due to the morning’s attack that the streets were so empty. She shivered in spite of the warmth of the day.

  When something moved suddenly behind her, she whirled around to face it, clutching her satchel in front of her chest as if it would shield her from danger. She relaxed when she saw it was only the old man she privately called the Veteran. He had lost both legs in one of the colonial wars and wheeled himself and his belongings around the neighborhood on a little platform on casters. From a distance he could easily have been mistaken for a bundle of old rags.

  “Didn’t mean to frighten ye, miss,” he said, leering at Sophie. “Have ye a penny for a poor wretched beggar, then?”

  There was something almost comforting in the familiar small pressure of his extortion. Sophie dug around in her pocket for a coin and gave him sixpence.

  He winked at her. “Early you are today?” he said, the rise at the end making it a question.

  “That’s right,” said Sophie, though it was strange and a bit frightening to think of him keeping close enough tabs on her to notice a departure from the routine.

  The tram pulled up and she got on in a rush, showing the conductor her student identity card and moving to an empty seat in the middle of the car. She looked back once and saw the Veteran’s gaze still fixed on her as the vehicle turned the corner into the next road. Then she scrunched her eyes tightly shut and buried her
face in her hands.

  THREE

  SOPHIE LET HERSELF in at the front door and crept upstairs to her room on the top floor. Bedroom door safely closed behind her, she reached up and pulled the sticking plaster off her forehead, absently rolling it between her fingers as she put away her school things, kicked off her shoes, and threw herself down on the bed. After a minute she crawled under the duvet (Great-aunt Tabitha believed eider-down quilts made central heating completely unnecessary), pulling it up around her shoulders and tucking the edges underneath to seal herself in a tight bundle.

  Great-aunt Tabitha served two masters, and neither one was Sophie. Her deepest affections were reserved for the Scottish nation and the spirit world, though she had taken Sophie in when she was a baby, which was very good of her, or so Sophie was informed at regular intervals. Great-aunt Tabitha’s rare bedtime stories, for instance, concerned Michael Faraday’s death-bed revelation about the unity of electromagnetism and spiritualism or the rationalist peer Lord Kelvin’s conversion, following his daughter’s death, by a spiritualist medium who put him in touch with the little girl.

  Sophie woke late in the afternoon with the buttons of her blouse pressing deep into her skin and the pillow beneath her face damp where she had dribbled onto it. Only hunger made her finally drag herself out of bed.

  Crossing to the washstand, where her comb and brush sat beside the porcelain basin, she stumbled and stopped short. The temperature of the air had dropped twenty degrees or more.

  An icy feeling crept down from her face to her hands and feet. She clenched her fists, breathing fast. What if she tried to move and found she was really and truly frozen to the spot? She took a step forward, and the coldness of the floorboards almost burned the soles of her feet.

  She told herself not to be ridiculous. This couldn’t be a ghost or anything like that. The newspapers had been saying it was the coldest summer in Scotland since they began keeping records, that was all.

  Something itched in her nose and Sophie sneezed, the sound breaking the spell. The cold melted away and she moved cautiously to the washstand. But when she leaned up on the tips of her toes to brush her hair in the small smoky mirror over the washstand—a mirror placed too high for comfort, so as to promote tidiness without vanity—her own face was nowhere to be seen. Instead she saw the head and shoulders of a very pretty young lady, her hair up in a style that was at once flattering and out-of-date, a gaudy necklace clasped around her neck.