The bronze clock on the old Town Hall struck seven. All over Oxford, men, women and children were making their way through the busy streets back to their homes. Stallholders in the market packed away their unsold goods, scholars from the colleges closed their leather-bound books, urchins from the claybeds washed their grimy hands and went to bed.
In the shabbiest part of the city, Limehouse, a small boy trudged along Falkeshall Street, his scrawny cat-daemon scampering beside him, in the gutter. As he walked, he hummed a tune to himself; 'Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Tony...' he broke off and sighed. Today he was nine years old, but no one had remembered. Being terrified of the other town children, he had never been to school, so he had no school-friends to congratulate him on surviving another year in the slums. His mother, he reflected, would probably not remember his birthday even if she were sober.
Tony was not an orphan, but he was close to it. The identity of his father was not known, although it could have been one of his mother's customers when she used to sell herself on the streets before he was born. Grace had named her son 'Makarios' because his fine features and jet black hair looked vaguely Greek; but he had inherited his mother's Skraeling grey eyes and simple smile. The smile, however, did not often surface; Grace had never recovered from her twin sister's suicide when she was only eighteen, and she tried to forget her sorrows in a brantwijn- and vodkov-induced haze.
This evening, as Tony let himself into the house through the unlocked door of the cramped house, the haunting sound of passionate sobbing met his ears. The saddest thing to watch was his reaction; years of living with his mother had hardened him against such displays; whereas most children would have panicked and wailed with fright, he wandered into the kitchen, where he found his mother lying on the floor with an empty bottle of Skraeling brantwijn beside her. He clumsily put his arms around her and looked down at her tearstained face; 'Don't worry, Ma, I'm here. It's OK. You're alright.' Whatever Grace had been crying about, he was indisposed to find out; it was probably some memory from the previously-forgotten past, and Tony's limited knowledge of his mother's past already left him feeling uncomfortable.
Tony had had to grow up startlingly quickly; even at the tender age
of nine, he could not only practically look after himself; the burden of
his poor mother weighed heavily upon his mind. The suffering and dark mysteries
of Grace's life had been harshly revealed to him; the knowledge of the
unfair ways of the world was as physical pain, sometimes causing him to
weep and say to Ratter, 'Why is everyone like that? Why can't we all stay
children? The other kids round here are happy.'