Resonance (10 page)

Joe dropped his head back into his hands. ‘Course I have. Fran’ll lock her up in that sweet little gaff. Tina won’t be able to see me again.’

Harry stood up. ‘Joe,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve gotta be the stupidest human being I ever met.’

Joe straightened. ‘Hey,’ he said, genuinely hurt.

Harry fetched Tina’s basket from where she’d left it by the door and laid it on the ground by Joe’s feet.

Joe gazed at it, puzzled. ‘This is full of food.’

‘Of course it’s full of food, you
dumkop
! Tina brought it for you. She risked her
job
for you. She was willing to defy that terrifying Apples woman and spend the
night
here for you. Do you really think she’s gonna let a stupid nosebleed stand between you?’

‘It’s not just a nosebleed, Harry!’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Harry nudged the basket with his toe. ‘Come on, I’m starved. Open the darned thing while I make the tea.’

Joe rubbed his mouth with his hand and frowned down into the crammed basket. Tina had put his purse there, nestled among the brown-paper parcels of sandwiches and cake. Gently, almost reverently, Joe touched it with his fingertips. He stayed like that for a moment, bent over the
basket, his fingers resting on the purse, watching as Harry busied himself once again with the cups and kettle and tea.

Then he made up his mind.

‘I’m going to own me own cab, Harry.’ Harry looked around in surprise, and Joe felt himself blush, deep and hot and uncertain.

‘I … I haven’t told anyone that before. Not even Tina. The man I work for – Mr Trott – he’s up to his neck in gambling debts. He’s always behind on payments. They were going to burn his cab, as a lesson. But Saul knows the gougers who own the book, and he persuaded them that we can buy the cab. We’ve four months of saving left, and then I’ll own it. Saul’ll be me partner, but only a silent partner. I’ll be working for meself, Harry. I’ll
own the cab
.’

Harry just stared open-mouthed, until doubt and then horrible embarrassment flooded Joe’s chest. ‘Well …’ he mumbled, covering the purse and straightening. ‘I suppose that doesn’t seem like much when you’re going to be the greatest magician in the world.’

‘Why, Joe, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard!’

Joe squinted warily at him.

‘I mean it! You’re going to be an entrepreneur, Joe! Heck, you
are
an entrepreneur!’

Joe smiled, pleased. ‘Don’t be daft.’

Harry began to pace. ‘You’ll have to get signs made!’ He made a sweeping arc in the air. ‘Giant gold letters:
Gosling Cabs. Quality at your service
.’

Joe gazed at the empty space Harry had just filled with words. ‘Oh, I like that.
Gosling Cabs. Quality at your service …
’ He settled his head back onto the sofa, his eyes focused on that bright spot in the future. ‘Yeah, I like that …’

‘Tell you what,’ cried Harry, ‘I’ll only ever use Gosling cabs when I’m touring here. You can paste advertising posters on the doors’ – he made that sweeping movement again, conjuring words – ‘
The Great Houdini Uses Gosling Cabs. So Should YOU!’

‘The Great Houdini Uses Gosling Cabs
,’ murmured Joe. ‘
So Should
… Wait, the Great Houdini?’

‘Sure! That’s my stage name,’ said Harry. ‘
Houdini!
In honour of Robert-Houdin, the greatest magician to ever grace the stage. It means “like Houdin” in French. That’s what a pal of mine told me. If you add an “ee” sound to the end of a word, it means “like” in French.’ Harry puffed up his chest, clearly very pleased with himself and his faultless knowledge of the French language.

Joe thought deeply for a moment. ‘An “ee” sound. I suppose that makes sense.’

‘Sure it does,’ said Harry, turning to fetch the tea. ‘Orangey – like an orange. Floaty – like floating.’

Joe couldn’t bring himself to reply. His eyes had drifted shut, and he was suddenly very comfortable sitting there with his head laid back and his legs stretched out. Even his chest felt better.
Maybe Harry is right
, he thought.
Maybe everything is going to be ‘okay
’. He heard Harry shifting things about in the basket of food.

‘Sneaky,’ he murmured without opening his eyes. ‘Like a sneak.’

‘Smelly,’ Harry retorted. ‘Like a smell.’

Joe smiled.

Friendly
, he thought, as he drifted downwards.
Like a friend
.

A Matter of Persuasion

H
ARRY STARTLED AWAKE
, sending sandwich wrappings and crumbs tumbling to the floor. Sheesh, when had he fallen asleep? The sofa beside him was empty, Joe nowhere to be seen.

Out in the dark corridor Harry found that the door to the alley had been left open. Maybe Joe had gone for a piss? The night outside was still. Snow drifted downwards, reflecting the gaslight of the nearby streets.

‘Joe?’

A muffled shout dragged Harry’s attention to a stark rectangle of light at the far end of the alley. The side door of the depot was open. Another shout came from there, and Harry ran towards the sound. He had no thought of what he expected to find, but as he slid in through the depot door and saw Joe felled by a punch to the belly, Harry’s vision filled with red.

He roared and leapt, knocking Joe’s attacker sideways with one blow. A shape moved behind him, and he had to duck as something whistled above his head – a staff or a walking stick, swung hard enough to kill. Harry spun.
Something slammed hard across his shoulders, and he went down. The cobbles impacted his face. Horse piss and stale water stole his breath.

A man roared, ‘Who the fuck’s this bugger?’

Another answered, ‘Divil knows.’

‘Mickey?’ asked someone. ‘Do you know
this
shleeveen?’

Joe’s voice answered, breathless and thin. ‘He’s the theatre watchman’s pal – you’d better let him go. He’ll be missed.’

He was crouched in the dirty hay of the stall, his face the colour of chalk, glaring up at the broad, bull-necked man Harry recognised as Mickey the Wrench. ‘I’m telling you,’ he gasped, ‘you can let that lad go. He won’t say anything.’ He looked to Harry. ‘Sure you won’t? If they let you go, you’ll go right back in to the watchman and have your cup of cocoa, and you won’t say anything.’

Harry climbed slowly to his feet. Mickey the Wrench looked him up and down, a flat, dead expression in his eyes. He bounced a thick, black wooden staff in his hand.

Harry glanced sideways at the man who’d beaten him to the ground: Daymo, one of Joe’s other cousins. He held a similar heavy stick. The man Harry had punched was retrieving his own staff from where it had been flung from his hand. A fourth man, no doubt Joe’s cousin Graham, shuffled about behind Harry’s back.

Harry spat blood onto the cobbles. ‘Oh, you’re a real tough bunch, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Four of you, armed with bludgeons, to take on one man.’

‘Jesus, Harry,’ groaned Joe. ‘Just go.’

Without changing his expression at all, Mickey the Wrench raised himself onto his tiptoes, swung his staff up
and over, and brought it down full force on Joe’s back. Joe collapsed into the hay with hardly a sound and lay there gaping like a fish.

‘Shut up, Joe,’ murmured Mickey the Wrench.

Harry roared, and flew for Mickey’s throat. He was brought down with a numbing blow to the backs of his legs. The air was pressed from his lungs as someone knelt their full weight on him, and he was pinned, helpless. Mickey didn’t pay this so much as a moment’s attention. He just crouched by Joe and watched him struggle for breath in the hay. ‘Now, Joe,’ he said. ‘What’s this about money?’

Joe’s mouth opened and closed, his face turning scarlet as he tried to get his shocked lungs to work. Mickey regarded him with detached patience. After a moment, he tapped Joe lightly on the forehead with his staff. ‘Joe. Money, please.’

‘You
bastard
!’ wheezed Harry. ‘Leave him alone!’

‘Now, now,’ murmured a voice just above Harry’s head. ‘Show a bit of respect.’ Then this same person ground the butt of their staff hard into the hollow behind Harry’s ear.

Harry almost screamed. He’d never felt anything so painful in his life. At some point, the man’s weight lifted from his back and the staff stopped crushing his skull, and Harry was able to scramble to all fours. But the pain still splintered his brain, and it took a while before he registered the series of strange wracking barks tearing the air behind him. He turned and peered through watering eyes to where the four men were standing staring down at Joe with similar expressions of uncertainty.

‘Stop that,’ ordered Mickey.

But Joe just hacked another series of brutal coughs and
then arched his back. The air whooped in a strange way as it entered his lungs. Harry climbed to his feet, terrified by the bloody spit on Joe’s lips, the glassy terror in his eyes. To his horror, Mickey the Wrench raised his stick again, snarling furiously at Joe: ‘
Stop that messing!
’

Harry launched himself between them. Quick as a snake-strike, Mickey butted him between his eyes. Harry was down in the hay before he could even think. He rolled to his back. The other men closed in on him and Joe, and with a sudden spear of despair Harry realised he wasn’t going to win this battle.

How had Joe ever survived these men?

Mickey grinned and raised his arm high. But before he could bring the staff slamming down to brain Harry, a rich, deep voice spoke from the far end of the depot. ‘You shall leave those boys alone.’

All the men except Mickey obediently lowered their weapons. Oddly passive, they turned towards the voice. Mickey simply rested his weapon across his wide shoulders and, without taking his eyes from Harry, said, ‘Hello, darkie. Come to fetch your master’s carriage?’

The carriage driver stepped into the light. His dark eyes moved from man to man, before settling on Mickey the Wrench. ‘You shall leave now,’ he said.

To Harry’s amazement, Mickey’s three henchmen nodded and made to go. Mickey, however, just chuckled – a low and dangerous sound. ‘We’ll leave when we’re good and ready,’ he said.

His voice seemed to snag something in his companions, and they paused, their faces creased in frowning puzzlement, as if torn between his command and the driver’s.

‘We’ve harnessed up your master’s carriage,’ said Mickey. ‘And all his pretty packages are stowed like he wanted, so you can just haul your inky-black arse up into that box, drive out that arch, and bugger off down to the bog-hole of nowhere you came from.
This
’ – he indicated Harry and Joe – ‘is no concern of yours.’

The carriage driver’s expression changed from distaste to fascination, and he regarded Mickey as if he were some strange new species of creature. ‘Such independence. Is this due to the Bright Man’s recent lack of power, perhaps? Or are you some anomaly in and of yourself?’

A fleeting moment of doubt showed in Mickey’s face. The carriage driver laughed softly at his confusion, then glanced at Harry and Joe. Harry saw his eyes widen as he recognised the young man gasping for air on the ground at Mickey’s feet. ‘Matthew!’ he cried, striding forward.

‘Hey!’ bellowed Mickey. ‘Did you hear what I said? This isn’t your business!’

At his voice, the men accompanying him jerked to life, raising their staffs. The carriage driver simply motioned his hand –
move aside
– and they subsided. Mickey could only stare as the man strode past and into the stable where Joe lay.

The driver crouched beside Harry, and between them, they heaved Joe onto his back. At the rough movement, Joe grabbed a panicked hold of Harry’s jacket. He was panting short desperate hacks of air, his lips and nostrils tinted pink with blood.

‘He can’t breathe!’ cried Harry.

‘What is the matter?’ asked the driver. ‘Is it the consumption? Has he succumbed to an attack?’

Consumption
. Harry’s mind recoiled from the dreaded word. ‘No.’ He jabbed a finger at Mickey. ‘It was
him
. He hit Joe on the back – hard. He hurt him. Hurt his lungs somehow.’ He grabbed the carriage driver’s hand and pressed it to Joe’s side. The man’s expression fell, his face reflecting Harry’s own horror at the lopsided feel of Joe’s breathing – at how only one side of Joe’s chest was expanding with each breath.

The driver’s carriage cloak fluttered about him as he surged to his feet.

Mickey took a step back, his black wooden staff clenched in his hand. ‘Don’t even think it, darkie. Me and my boys will break you like a twig.’

The carriage driver shook his head. ‘A pack animal. Like most cowards. I have always wondered, coward, does your kind even exist when you are alone?’

Mickey looked to his companions. The carriage driver glanced their way. Quick as lightening, Mickey jerked back his staff, intending to jab the man’s temple. Before Harry could even yell a warning to the driver, he had whipped out a hand, caught Mickey’s wrist on the downward arc, and twisted. The staff flew from Mickey’s fingers.

The driver, side-stepping in a flare of cloak, spun, twisting Mickey’s arm behind his back. He was magnificent – a blur of stunning grace. He grabbed the back of Mickey’s
bull-neck
with his free hand and pressed down, forcing Mickey to his knees.

Terrified, Mickey cried out, ‘Lads! Help me!’

The driver tutted, looking up at the conflicted men. ‘Oh, but look at their faces,’ he crooned. ‘So dirty. Their mothers would be appalled.’ The men, ashamed and uncomfortable,
began rubbing at their cheeks with childish concentration. ‘You shall wash yourselves,’ decided the driver. ‘In the trough.’

To Mickey’s horror and the driver’s chuckling delight, the three men made a dive for the horse trough. There, they dropped to their knees and began a hectic sluicing and scrubbing at their faces.

The driver hauled Mickey to his feet. ‘Let us see, animal, how well you survive without a pack of dogs at your heels.’ He began herding Mickey across the depot floor, to get a better look at his companions.

‘Harry,’ Joe hissed, scrabbling for Harry’s attention. ‘Can’t … breathe …’

Harry helped him sit a little higher. Together they watched in horror and fascination as the men splashed and gasped and strove with the water in the trough.

‘Mesmerism,’ whispered Harry. ‘But how? I’ve never seen anything like it …’

Joe said nothing. His attention was fixed on Mickey. Mickey, who Harry guessed had dominated most of Joe’s life with violence and terror; who must never have seemed anything other than indomitable. Mickey, who now crouched, hunched and helpless within the carriage driver’s grip, watching as his thugs made fools of themselves in the filthy water of a horse’s trough.

‘Not enough,’ the carriage driver told the splashing men. ‘You need to soak the dirt off.’ The dripping men paused, gazing up at him. ‘You shall
soak
the dirt off,’ he said.

Mickey’s eyes widened in understanding. ‘No, lads!’ he cried. But his men had already plunged their heads deep into the horse trough. ‘You’re killing them!’

‘Tut,’ said the driver. ‘Haven’t you ever drowned unwanted pups? It ain’t a bad way to go, all told. I’ve inflicted far worse. As, no doubt, have you.’

‘Let them go,’ gasped Joe. His words were barely a hiss, but the carriage driver glared across at him, as if Joe had yelled. There was a sudden dark rage in that glare, utterly shocking in contrast to his previous chuckling good humour. ‘They’ll drown,’ gasped Joe.

‘They will indeed,’ snapped the driver, and Harry realised with a jolt that he meant to carry this strange game through to its bitterest end. He fully intended killing these men.

With no more effort than if he were lifting a child, the driver hauled Mickey to his feet. ‘Come along to the fire, friend!’ he cried. ‘You are cold. I shall heat you up!’

At the brazier, he rubbed Mickey’s shoulder and murmured soothingly in his ear until Mickey, his expression a horrified mingling of desire and fear, at last seemed to succumb to his suggestion and lowered his face towards the flames.

Desperate, Joe yelled, ‘Let them GO!’ The effort wrung him out, his breath reduced to a wheeze.

The driver turned from Mickey. ‘Let them go?’ he said.

At the trough, Daymo’s toes began drumming the cobbles. His knuckles went white against the rim. Still he didn’t lift his head. Beside him, quietly and with no effort to remove his head from the water, the nameless man pissed himself.

‘I’ll tip it over!’ yelled Harry. He scrambled around to the trough and began heaving. It was a big trough, full to the brim, and he felt the tendons standing out on his neck as he strained into the lift.