Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online

Marie?’
    â€˜We get on really well’.
    â€˜No sign of melancholy?’ Miss Groves said casually.
    I shook my head.
    â€˜No hints of phlegm or choler?’
    â€˜No.’
    Her short pale fingers began to peck viciously at the keys on her computer like a flock of blind hens eating grain. From time to time she glanced up at me suspiciously, as though she expected to catch me in the middle of an indiscretion.
    At last she closed the file and sat back. ‘Do you remember our final lesson together,’ she said, ‘when I read to you about the sanguine temperament?’
    â€˜â€œThe paragon of complections,” ’ I said. ‘ “The prince of all temperatures.” ’
    â€˜Very good.’ Miss Groves’s eyes glowed, just as they had glowed in the ballroom at Thorpe Hall, with the chandeliers trembling above our heads and the men in armour watching us sidelong, across their cheeks. ‘And to the best of your knowledge, Thomas,’ she said, ‘is that what you see around you?’
    For some reason I thought of Mr Page just then, conjuring him up so vividly that I even caught a whiff of perchloroethylene.
    â€˜Yes, Miss Groves,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I see.’
    I would have been roughly eleven when Victor took me on my first field trip. As we climbed into his clapped-out four-door saloon that morning I thought once again what an unconventionalcar it was – unconventional for the Red Quarter, that is, sanguine people having little or no attachment to decay – though, knowing Victor, he would probably have argued that the old banger was proof of his optimistic nature, since he firmly believed that it was going to last for ever. I remember asking him if he was taking me to the office. The office? he said. No, not today. He grinned at me across one shoulder. Knowing better than to press him on the subject, I settled back and watched as we reversed past a wall smothered in convolvulus, the limp white bells brushing against the side of the car. In the end, I was happy just to be going somewhere with him.
    We didn’t talk much during the journey. We never had talked much. I often felt the pressure of his curiosity, though, especially since I received my first summons to the Ministry. There had been other interviews, of course – like visits to the dentist, they occurred at regular intervals and filled me with a sense of trepidation – and I had stuck to my theme, embroidering a little when I thought it appropriate – how grateful I was to have been placed with such a wonderfully sanguine family, how lucky I had been, and so on – but I had never mentioned the content of these interviews to Victor, nor had he asked. His was a silent insistence. It was as though he was trying to get me to own up to something, but without compromising himself, without committing himself in any way. At the same time there was the feeling that if nothing was said then everything must be all right and we could go on as we were.
    After driving for an hour, we turned along a one-lane road that led to a modest red-brick railway station.
    â€˜It’s derelict,’ Victor said, ‘but not for much longer, I hope.’
    We stepped out of the car into hazy sunlight.
    The line used to serve an area of the country that was now the Blue Quarter, Victor told me, but as a result of the Rearrangement it had been suspended and the station had become irrelevant. In his opinion, though, it could be resurrected. With a bit of imagination and some capital investment, it could be turned into a junction station for the Red Quarter’s new southwestern network.
    Ignoring the danger signs with their jagged lightning bolts and hollow skulls, we struck out across the tracks, the silver of the rails concealed by rust. We climbed down into a urine-stained underpass, our feet crunching on broken glass. We stood thoughtfully on silent platforms. Weeds flowered