The Firebird (2 page)

He passed it to me and I took it, not thinking, forgetting my mind had already been breached once this morning. It wasn’t until I was holding it, light in my hands, that I realised I’d made a mistake.

Instantly I felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the carving itself. I closed my eyes to try to stop the vision, but that only made it worse. I saw a slanting fall of light, with fine dust dancing through it. Two women, one ageing but lovely, with heavy black eyebrows; the other respectfully bent, perhaps kneeling, her young face upturned in uncertainty. ‘My darling Anna,’ the first woman said to the other in elegant Russian, and smiled. ‘You were never a nobody.’

I opened my eyes quickly, maybe a little too quickly, but to my relief no one seemed to have noticed. ‘I really don’t know,’ I said, giving the small carved bird back to Sebastian.

He looked at it with a commendable blend of admiration and regret.

‘The trouble is,’ he told our would-be client, ‘it’s so difficult to date this sort of thing with any certainty. If it
is
Russian, it was very likely peasant-made; there is no maker’s mark or factory stamp to go by, and without any documentation …’ He raised one shoulder slightly in a shrug that seemed to speak to the unfairness of it all. ‘If she had brought you back an icon, now, this ancestor of yours, or some small piece of jewellery –
that
I might have helped you with.’

‘I understand,’ said Margaret Ross. Her tone was bleak.

Sebastian turned the little carving over in his hands one final time, and I knew he was searching for some small thing to praise, to let this woman down as gently as he could. ‘Certainly it’s very old,’ was what he ended up with, ‘and I’m sure it’s had a few adventures.’

Margaret Ross wasn’t sure about that. ‘It’s been sitting there under that glass for as long as I’ve known it, and likely it sat there a good while before that.’

The twist of her faint smile held sympathy, as though she knew how that felt, to be there on the mantelpiece watching the bright world pass by, and I saw the small sag of defeat in her shoulders as, accepting Sebastian’s return of the carved bird, she started to carefully wrap it back up in its layers of yellowed, creased tissue.

Impulse drove me to ask aloud, ‘What was her name?’

She looked up. ‘Sorry?’

‘Your ancestor. The one who brought your Firebird back from Russia.’

‘Anna. That’s all we know of her, really, we don’t know her surname. It was her daughter married into the Ross family, that’s how the Firebird came down to us.’

Anna.
Something tingled warmly up my arm.
My darling Anna …

‘Because maybe,’ I suggested, ‘you could try a bit of research, to establish some connection between her and Empress Catherine.’

From Sebastian’s glance I couldn’t tell if he was grateful or annoyed, but he chimed in with, ‘Yes, if you were able to find proof of any kind, that would be useful.’

Again that faint twist of a smile that spoke volumes about how much hope she held now of discovering that. She admitted, ‘My granny tried once, so she said, but no joy. Common people, they don’t make the history books. And, on our side of the family, there’s nobody famous.’

I saw the warm smile in my mind. Heard the voice.
You were never a nobody.

‘Well,’ said Sebastian, beginning to stand, ‘I am sorry we couldn’t be more of a help to you. But if you’ll leave us your address, we’ll keep it in mind, and if ever a client requests something like it …’

I felt like a traitor as Margaret Ross stood too, and shook both our hands. The feeling held as we escorted her back out into reception, and Sebastian, with full chivalry and charm, gave her his card and wished her well and said goodbye, and as the lift doors closed he turned to me and, reading the expression in my eyes, said, ‘Yes, I know.’

Except he didn’t.

There was no way that he could have known. In all the time I’d worked for him I’d never told him anything about what I could do, and even if I’d told him, he’d have rubbished the idea. ‘Woo-woo stuff’, he would have called it, as he’d done the day our previous receptionist had told us she was visiting a psychic.

‘No,’ she’d said, ‘she really sees things. It’s this gift she has – she holds a thing you’ve owned, see, like a necklace, or a ring, and she can tell you things about yourself. It’s called psychometry.’ She’d said the term with confident authority.

Sebastian, with a sidelong look, had said, ‘It’s called a scam. There is no way that anyone can be a psychic. It’s not possible.’

I’d offered him no argument, although I could have told him he was wrong. I could have told him
I
was psychic, and had been for as long as I remembered. Could have told him that I, too, saw detailed visions, if I concentrated on an object someone else had held. And sometimes, like today, I saw the visions even when I didn’t try, or concentrate, although that happened very, very rarely now.

The flashes of unwanted visions had been more a feature of my childhood, and I had to close my eyes and truly focus now to use my ‘gift’ – my curse, I would have called it. I had chosen not to use it now for years.

Two years, to be exact.

I’d chosen to be normal, and I meant to go on being normal, having the respect of those I worked with, not their nudges or their stares. So there was no good reason why, when I sat down at the computer in my office, I ignored the string of waiting emails and began an image search instead.

I found three portraits, different in their poses and the sitter’s age, but in all three I recognised the woman easily because of her black hair, her heavy arching eyebrows, and her warm brown eyes. The same eyes that had smiled this morning in the brief flash of a vision I had viewed when I had held the wooden Firebird.

There could be no mistaking her – the first Empress Catherine, the widow of Peter the Great.

‘Damn,’ I whispered. And meant it.

Sebastian had noticed. ‘You’re not even listening.’

Bringing my thoughts back to where they belonged, I gave him my attention. ‘Sorry. You were saying?’

‘I’ve forgotten now myself.’

It was later on that afternoon, and he and I were clearing up before the workday’s end. I found it calming, the routine of putting everything in order, going over both our schedules for the next day, sharing any needed details.

After frowning for a moment at his mobile, his face cleared. ‘Oh, right. Next weekend. Thursday week till Sunday. Have you any plans?’

‘I don’t, no. But I’m sure you have some for me, since you’re asking.’

‘Well, I rather thought I’d send you to St Petersburg.’

He had my full attention now. ‘St Petersburg? What for?’

‘To view an exhibition.’

I could tell, from how he watched me while I counted forward silently to figure out the dates, that he was waiting to see how long it would take me to put two and two together.

Thursday week would be 2nd September. ‘What, the Wanderers exhibit, do you mean? The one that’s coming from America?’

The Wanderers, or
Peredvizhniki
, had been a group of Russian realist painters whose liberal political views set them at odds with the Academy of Arts, so in protest of what they deemed the uselessness of ‘art for art’s sake’ they’d broken free of the Academy and formed their own group aimed at properly reflecting the society around them, warts and all. True to their name, they’d taken their exhibits on the road, across the country, through the end of the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth, and it only seemed appropriate that now their works had ended up in far-flung places, from the Netherlands to Tokyo. The exhibit had been in the pipeline for a few years, ambitiously gathering paintings on loan from museums and private collectors and galleries, and more ambitiously making arrangements to tour it from New York to Paris to Sydney. But first, it would have its grand opening months in St Petersburg.

‘Got it in one,’ said Sebastian. ‘Yuri’s one of the curators. You remember Yuri? And he tells me Wendy Van Hoek will be there for the opening.’

I waited for the rest of it. ‘Yes?’

‘And I’d like you to do a deal with her.’

‘I’ve never met Wendy Van Hoek,’ I reminded him.

Sebastian counted that as a point in my favour. ‘She’s rather …’ He paused as though searching for a way to put it politely, finally settling on, ‘Formidable. But then I’d imagine one can’t be a Van Hoek without having that attitude. God knows her father was even more frightening to deal with.’

Her father, I knew, had been one of the greatest private collectors in Amsterdam. I’d never met
him
, either.

I told Sebastian, ‘Surely you should be the one to do the deal. She knows you.’

‘She thinks she does, yes. But unfortunately, what she thinks she knows, she doesn’t like,’ he said. ‘We don’t get on.’ He paused at the expression on my face, and asked me, ‘What?’

Dryly, I remarked, ‘I didn’t know that any woman could resist your charms.’

‘She isn’t any woman.’

I had never seen Sebastian frown like that about a woman. It intrigued me. ‘So, what is this deal you’re wanting me to do with her?’

‘She has a Surikov. I want to buy it. It’s in the exhibit, you’ll see it.’

‘And who is it for?’

He said, ‘Vasily. He’s set his heart on it, and you know Vasily.’

I did. A lovely man, with quiet charm that masked a fierce tenacity, he was, hands down, my favourite of our clients. He’d suffered, as his parents had, under the Soviet regime, and had been tortured in the Lubiyanka prison, though he rarely ever spoke of that. Instead he seemed determined now to focus on the beauty in the world, and not its ugliness. It made a difference, knowing I’d be doing this for Vasily.

Besides, I liked St Petersburg. I’d done a term of study there, at the St Petersburg State University, and knew the city well.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll do my best.’ I made another mental calculation of the time remaining and the things I’d need to do. ‘I’ll have to get myself another suitcase, though. My old one’s broken. And I ought to go and have a chat with Vasily, beforehand.’

‘Go tomorrow, if you like. In fact, why don’t you take the day?’ he offered. ‘It’s Friday, you could start your weekend early. Get some rest.’

The way he said that made me raise my eyebrows. ‘Do I look as though I need rest?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked me over and pronounced, ‘You’re not yourself.’ And then he said, ‘Oh, hell, is that the time? I’m late for drinks.’

‘With whom?’

‘Penelope.’ He stopped and stood a moment near his desk, expectant. ‘Jacket, or no jacket?’

‘For drinks with Penelope? Jacket.’

‘I thought as much. Damn. Where’s my tie? Is that it on the chair, just behind you?’

I crossed the few steps to look. ‘No, that’s a scarf.’

‘A scarf?’ He frowned. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’ A woman’s scarf, in shades of blue, the colours of the tie that I caught sight of now, coiled tidily at one end of the bookshelf. ‘There it is.’

He looked where I was pointing. ‘Thanks.’ He threaded it into his collar, flipped it round and over in a Windsor knot. ‘How’s that?’

‘It’s crooked.’

‘Could you … ?’ Standing with his chin angled slightly to the ceiling, he glanced sideways at the blue silk scarf still hanging on the chair. ‘It must be hers,’ he said. ‘The Scottish woman from this morning. Margaret …’

‘Ross.’ I fixed his tie as I had done a hundred times before this. I had a brother. I was good with ties. ‘I don’t remember her wearing a scarf.’

‘Well, that’s where she was sitting. And apart from yourself, she’s the only woman who’s been in here today.’

‘She left her address, didn’t she? I’ll put it in the post to her.’

As I stepped back his hand came up to smooth the finished tie with satisfaction. ‘Thanks. You’re all right locking up, then?’

I assured him that I was. Alone, when he had gone, I took the blue scarf from the chair and brought it out to the reception desk, to put it in an envelope for posting.

It was, I thought, the least that I could do. No matter what my day had been like, I knew Margaret Ross’s had been worse. She must have been so hopeful when she’d woken up this morning, still believing that her carving could be traded for the means to buy a little bit of happiness, a little bit of life. And we had killed that dream and stomped on it, and that seemed inexcusable.

The scarf was a designer one. My fingers touched the label. Hermès. Not an inexpensive, everyday thing, but a rare indulgence – something that the woman I had met today could ill afford to lose.

I found the address she had left Sebastian, and I copied it with care onto the envelope. And then I took the scarf and started folding it.

I shouldn’t have.

My visions, when I concentrated, started out more cleanly. Though I didn’t ever fall into a trance in the accepted way, the concentration brought a sense of calm – a peaceful, deep awareness not unlike the way I sometimes felt relaxing in the bath. Then gradually, against the void, I saw a small parade of moving images, projected like a filmstrip running past until one image grew to blot out all the others, and I viewed it much as I would view a film at the cinema, observing what was going on.

This vision wasn’t clean, like that. It came on as a random flash, the same as I had felt when I had held the wooden Firebird, the same as I’d so often felt in childhood, but the end result was much the same: I saw a glimpse of Margaret Ross’s life.

I saw loneliness, drawn in her silent and dreary surroundings, a chair by a window that looked on a small narrow garden with walls, and a clock ticking somewhere, relentlessly counting the slow-passing minutes. In all that drab room I could only see one bit of colour – a travel brochure from a cruise line, the white ship enticingly set on an ocean so brilliantly blue that it dazzled the eyes.

And then that scene grew smaller as another rose to take its place: a window and a desk … a doctor’s surgery, I thought. And Margaret Ross herself, much as she’d been this morning, sitting in a chair, her shoulders sagging with dejection. I could hear the doctor speaking, and I caught my breath because it seemed so cruel, and so unfair.