Maskerade

Henry kissed Granny's hand, and looked up at her with pleading in his eyes.

My word, thought Bucket, that look he's giving her… I wonder if they ever–

“Oh, uh, and this is Mr Salzella, our director of music,” he said, remembering himself.

“Honoured,” said Salzella, giving Granny a firm handshake and looking her squarely in the eye. She nodded.

“And what's the first thing you'd take out of a burning house, Mr Salzella?” she enquired.

He smiled politely. “What would you like me to take, madam?”

She nodded thoughtfully and let go of his hand.

“May I get you a drink? said Bucket.

“A small sherry,” said Granny.

Salzella sidled up to Bucket as he was pouring the drink. “Who the hell is she?”

“Apparently she's rolling in money,” whispered Bucket. “And very keen on opera.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Well, Senor Basilica has, and that's good enough for me. Make yourself pleasant to them, will you, while I try to sort out lunch.”

He pulled open the door and tripped over Nanny Ogg.

“Sorry!” said Nanny, standing up and giving him a cheerful grin. “These doorknobs are a bugger to polish, aren't they?”

“Er, Mrs—”

“Ogg.”

“—Ogg, could you run along to the kitchens and tell Mrs Clamp there will be another one for lunch, please.”

“Right you are.”

Nanny bustled away. Bucket nodded approvingly. What a reliable old lady, he thought.

It wasn't exactly a secret. When the room had been divided a space had been left between the walls. At the far end it opened on to a staircase, a perfectly ordinary staircase, which even had some grubby daylight via a dirt?encrusted window.

Agnes was vaguely disappointed. She had expected, well, a real secret passage, perhaps with a few torches flickering secretly in rather valuable secret wrought?iron holders. But the staircase had just been walled off from the rest of the place at some time. It wasn't secret — it had merely been forgotten.

There were cobwebs in the corners. The cocoons of extinct flies hung down from the ceiling. The air smelled of long?dead birds.

But there was a clear track through the dust. Someone had used the stairs several times.

She hesitated between up and down, and headed up. That was no great journey — after one more flight it ended at a trapdoor that wasn't even bolted.

She pushed at it, and then blinked in the unaccustomed light. Wind caught at her hair. A pigeon stared at her, and flew away as she poked her head into the fresh air.

The door had opened out on to the Opera House's roof, just one more item in a forest of skylights and airshafts.

She went back inside and headed downwards. And became aware, as she did so, of the voices…

The old stairs hadn't been totally forgotten. Someone had at least seen their usefulness as an airshaft. Voices filtered up. There were scales, distant music, snatches of conversation. As she went down she passed through layers of noise, like a very carefully made sundae of sound.

Greebo sat on top of the kitchen cupboard and watched the performance with interest.

“Use the ladle, why don't you?” said a scene?shifter.

“It won't reach! Walter!”

“Yes Mrs Clamp?”

“Give me that broom!”

“Yes Mrs Clamp!”

Greebo looked up at the high ceiling, to which was affixed a sort of thin, ten?pointed star.

In the middle of it was a pair of very frightened eyes.

“ ‘Plunge it into boiling water’,” said Mrs Clamp, “that's what it said in the cook?book. It never said ‘Watch out, it'll grip the sides of the pot and spring straight up in the air’—”

She flailed around with the broom?handle. The squid shrank back.

“And that pasta's all gone wrong,” she muttered. “I've had it grilling for hours and it's still hard as nails, the wretched stuff.”

“Coo?ee, it's only me,” said Nanny Ogg, poking her head around the door, and such was the allembracing nature of her personality that even those who didn't know who she was took this on trust. “Having a bit of trouble, are you?”

She surveyed the scene, including the ceiling. There was a smell of burning pasta in the air.

“Ah,” she said. “This'd be the special lunch for Senior Basilica, would it?”

“It was meant to be,” said the cook, still making ineffectual swipes. “Blasted thing won't come down, though.”

Other pots were simmering on the long iron range. Nanny nodded towards them. “What's everyone else having?” she said.

“Mutton and clootie dumplings, with slumpie,” said the cook.

“Ah. Good honest food,” said Nanny, speaking of wall?to-wall suet oiled with lard.

“And there's supposed to be Jammy Devils for pudding and I've been so tied up with this wretched thing I haven't even made a start!”

Nanny carefully took the broom out of the cook's hands. “Tell you what,” she said, “you make enough dumplings and slumpie for five people, and I'll help by knocking up a quick pudding, how about that?”

“Well, that's a very handsome offer, Mrs—”

“Ogg.”

“The jam's in the jar by—”

“Oh, I won't bother about jam,” said Nanny. She looked at the spice?rack, grinned, and then stepped behind a table for modesty.

?twingtwangtwongtwang

“Got any chocolate?” she said, producing a slim volume. “I've got a recipe right here that might be fun…”

She licked her thumb and opened the book at page 53. Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce.

Yes, thought Nanny, that would be fun.

If people wanted to go around teaching people lessons, other people should remember that those people knew a thing or two about people.

Scraps of conversation floated out of the walls as Agnes wound her secret way down the forgotten stairs.

It was… thrilling.

No one was saying anything important. There were no convenient guilty secrets. There were just the sounds of people getting through the day. But they were secret sounds.

It was wrong to listen, of course.

Agnes had been brought up in the knowledge that a lot of things were wrong. It was wrong to listen at doors, to look people directly in the eye, to talk out of turn, to answer back, to put yourself forward…

But behind the walls she could be the Perdita she'd always wanted to be. Perdita didn't care about anything.