Resonance (38 page)

‘They are Raquel’s. What would it have done to her to lose them, too?’ At the expression on Vincent’s face, Cornelius paused – then he told the truth, the
real
truth of it. ‘How could I get rid of them without admitting what they had done? What could I have—’

It was not really a noise that drew his attention, more a fluttering of the shadows within the hall. He thought he himself might have made a sound at the sight of her – a small, agonised groan – which caused Vincent to turn where he sat and stare helplessly up as she edged her way into the porch.

‘I sent the others ahead,’ she said. ‘I needed to bring my babies back inside. Out of the frost.’

‘Of course,’ whispered Vincent.

‘Are you taking a rest?’

‘A little one,
meu amor
.’

She nodded. ‘Well. I’d best return to my task. Good night, my friends. Good hunting.’

She gathered her skirts, her knife glinting in the moonlight and, with no further comment, made her way down the steps and around the far side of the house.

Vincent rose uncertainly to his feet as her footsteps faded into the night.

‘She didn’t hear us,’ whispered Cornelius. ‘She could not possibly have, and remained that calm.’

The look Vincent gave him was so replete with disgust that Cornelius could barely stand to register it. Vincent descended the steps, and Cornelius could only whisper, ‘Where are you going?’

Vincent gave no answer, and soon he too had gone, following Raquel around the house and out of sight.

The Girl Who Blazed

T
HE WELL WAS
down a flight of narrow stone steps by the sun terrace, not far from the house. Hemmed by dense woods, it was a cloistered area of ivy and moss, redolent of peace. Tina intruded on this in a torment of agony, one part of her battling the frenzy of the Angel, the other holding at bay Joe’s overwhelming sense of betrayal. She scraped and bumped the jar down each step and hauled it through clasping ivy to the coolness of the well mouth.

The creature within the jar cast a gentle glow, which illuminated the softly weeping stones of the well. This would not be difficult. Wolcroft had already pushed aside the wooden lid; all Tina had to do was lift the jar onto the wall. All she had to do was tip it over. Then the thing inside would slide out. It would fall away. It would be gone forever, and Joe would be safe.

She was trying very hard to hold on to everything: the glass curve of the jar’s rim beneath her grip; the solidity of the wall; the cool drip of the water. But it was a struggle to focus.

If only I had a stronger mind.

She’d said that to Joe once, after a seizure.
I should be able to stop myself from doing this
. She remembered clearly the look he’d given her.

Tina
, he’d said,
do you think Billy the stable boy grew up crooked because he didn’t work hard enough at not being a cripple?

That had been a shocking thing to say. Poor Billy, with his twisted legs.

Do you think if Saul just tried hard enough, he’d be able to see without his spectacles?

She had understood what he was saying. The expression on her face had made him squeeze her hand.
Stop being an eejit,
he’d said.
You are what you are.

Joe.

Tina knew she had been born rich. From the start, she’d had the Lady Nana and Fran the Apples. She’d had the life they’d given her. In a sea of women who were nothing but someone else’s shadow, they had taught her to be herself. Joe had understood that. Joe had loved it.

Without Joe, Tina knew her good, strong life would continue. She would be successful. She would be herself. But – and Tina knew this as certainly as if it were written in the Bible – she would be alone. Because Joe was her best friend: truly, honestly, deeply her best friend. He had added himself to the completeness of her life, and by doing so he had made that life bigger, made it brighter, made it stronger, just by being Joe.

How could she give that up?

Tina heaved the jar onto the rim of the well. The creature within stirred gracefully, its soft light radiating. It was such a gentle presence. While the Angel moaned and thrashed and tore within her brain, this creature simply tapped gentle
inquiries against the jar. Even just looking at it soothed her mind. They were like the disparate parts of a divided whole, this thing and the Angel – balance divided.

‘That is it exactly, isn’t it?’ whispered Tina. ‘You are the other half. You are Beloved. Without you, he is not complete.’ She ran her fingers against the round belly of the glass, and the creature followed with its own fingers of light.

Joe had ceased his panicked battering of the door. Even the Angel had paused, his presence a great bursting firework in her head, but standing still, as if a firework could hold its breath. She could feel Joe’s mind trying to figure out the change in her. She felt him reaching out, speaking to her as he had at Miss Price’s, just before he died all alone in that snowy street covered by a horse blanket like some piece of meaningless rubbish.

Tina?

She shook her head, not wanting to hear.

Tina. Nothing lasts forever.

Nothing lasts forever. That was a tune you didn’t have to play twice to a tenement-dweller. Didn’t every dawn bear witness to the last fluttering of another life: a loved baby, a smiling mother, a gentle dad? In the tenements, love was a paper shield against death; it meant nothing, and even a beloved life could be the briefest of candles.

Please leave
, whispered Joe.
I’m already gone.

She closed her eyes and gripped the jar.
I’m sorry
, she whispered. Down in the darkness of his prison, the Angel fell to his knees, not believing.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tina said aloud.

Without opening her eyes, she placed her hand into the warm water.
Come on. I’ll bring you to your friend.

The tentacles unfolded from the mouth of the jar and trembled for a moment in grace and beauty before spiralling shut on Tina’s arm. Her mind filled at once with order, a coolness of numbers tumbling down and clicking precisely into place. Two-dozen-apples-at-a-farthing-apiece-sold-for-a-moonbeam-a-pair. The-weight-of-depth-outside-space. When-a-clock-measures-distance-and-time-has-form.
There are no more apples until I and He are We because He is the belly and I am the mouth.
I understand.
I am the mind and he is the heart.
Yes. Truly. I understand.

A cascade of numbers, a gentleness of numbers, a soothing of numbers; this creature was calmness itself, and it took its time, now there was no poison to escape, it took its gentle time insinuating itself along her arm. And the light poured through it, oh, so beautiful, plummeting from the sky to converge in the curled body, roaring back out to return to the Angel, who wept in joy as he fed.

The mosaiced canopy of the sky. The living scent of the roses. The filigree of ivy over damp pillows of moss. All was a wonderment.

‘Everything is so good,’ murmured Tina. ‘Behold the glory of everything.’

Awe is nourishment. Glory is food. The resonance of being. We live. We feed
. Yes.

A familiar man broke through the shrubbery and, at the sight of Tina, jarred to a halt.

‘Mickey,’ she whispered.

Mickey’s remaining eye, glittering through stained bandages, dropped to the creature on her arm. He saw a lantern, nothing more. ‘Might have known you’d be here,
Miss Kelly
. Where’s Joe?’

Somewhere down in the human heart of her, Tina knew she should run. This was a terrible man. He would do terrible things. But the creature on her arm did not know how to fear, only how to marvel, and so Tina stayed.

Mickey closed the distance between them, his knife a vengeful slice of moonlight in the glory of his one good fist, and Tina found him beautiful.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘Joe didn’t do anything to you. It was that black fella.’

‘Don’t be annoying me. The little shit drowned Graham. He threw a bucket of coals in my face. I’m going to slit him from belly to throat.’ He squinted at her. ‘What the … Are your eyes
bleeding
?’

My eyes?
Tina lifted her free hand to check. Then another man tore from the trees in an explosion of leaves, and she was captivated once again as he barrelled into Mickey, almost knocking him over. She knew this man, too: a big, stupid gouger, another of Joe’s cousins. Daymo.

Mickey shoved him aside. ‘Quiet, you eejit! You’ll draw them buggers down on us.’ He glared at Tina. ‘Where’s Joe? He can’t hide behind that darkie’s coat-tails forever.’ But even as he spoke, his companion was dodging past, intent on escape. Mickey grabbed him. ‘The fuck you
running
for?’

Daymo groaned, an ecstasy of bewilderment on his face.

Mickey shook him. ‘Why are you
running
?’

‘They
told
me to.’ Daymo pointed across to the trees.

Two small figures emerged from the darkness, the little boy a solemn watchfulness, the little girl all frills and smiles. She clapped her hands. ‘Oh! Now there are two!’

‘We would like you to run,’ said the boy.

‘But you must stay together,’ sang the girl, wagging her finger. ‘No fair splitting up.’

The two men hesitated, their eyes wide.

‘Run!’
roared the boy. And they did.

The little girl bent to retrieve Mickey’s fallen knife. Tina thought she and her brother were magnificent, the clarity of their evil as pure and bright as the tolling of a silver bell.

‘How lovely,’ she whispered.

‘Aren’t you pretty,’ sang the girl, twirling the knife in her fingers. ‘You’re all shiny like the moon.’

‘I like your tears,’ said the boy. ‘They look like blood.’

His sister tugged his sleeve. ‘Come along, brother. She’s Pap’s, remember. We can’t have what is Pap’s.’ They strolled away, arm in arm, following the trail of broken brush left by the fleeing men.

The creature resumed its slow, sweet crawl up Tina’s arm, and, as if in a dream, she brushed her free hand beneath her eyes. Her fingers came away scarlet.
Oh
, she thought.
You
are killing me
. But by then the creature’s tentacles had found their way into her hair, and it was much too late.

She blazed. Teeth clenched, arms spread, head back, she blazed in the dark.

Gently, the creature steered her onto the path and they began to follow the light.

The Heart That Pleased

H
ARRY THREW U
P
on the path, then stumbled on, his stomach in turmoil, his mind torn. Why was he so conflicted in his heart? Tina had asked, and he had obliged. It was
good
to please her. It was always good to please. It was Harry’s fondest wish that he could please everyone; that the whole world could look on in happiness as he went about his wonderful life, marvelling at him and applauding. He was a champion. He was …

Wait.

What?

Desperate to get his bearings, Harry tore the plugs from his ears. There were cobbles beneath his feet. Red brick walls surrounded him. He was in a stable yard. Yes! He had to take a horse and get away. Tina had said so. She would be proud of him then. He would be rich and famous then. She …

No. He had to get
two
horses. Joe had told him that. Two horses.

No! Where was his own mind? He had his own mind, didn’t he? He … he had to get a
carriage
. Yes. He had to
rig up the carriage. He wasn’t leaving alone. He wasn’t abandoning …

Harry staggered into the fragrant gloom of the carriage house. Horses whickered softly in the darkness and he felt his way towards them. How was he going to manage this? He’d never rigged up a carriage in his life. Joe was the one who should be doing this. Joe was the one who knew how. None of this made any sense, and yet Harry kept going, trying hard to finish a task the aim of which mostly eluded him.

His hands had just settled against the splintered boards of a stable gate, and the first curious huff of horse’s breath had taken him by surprise, when a sound in the courtyard sent him ducking. It was a familiar noise, reminiscent of Harry’s time in the boxing ring: the smack of flesh against flesh, the thump and scurry of big men fighting. Then over it came another sound, terrifying enough to send Harry cowering into an empty stall. Somewhere out there, a child was giggling.

The carriage house’s double doors slammed open, and the sounds of wordless fighting continued as the men rolled into the interior. Two small figures darted after them, and there were squeals of happiness from the dark.

‘Give them some light!’ cried the little girl. ‘I should very much like them to see each other.’

Harry groped fruitlessly in his pocket for the earplugs. He had dropped them onto the cobbles outside. There was the scrape and flare of a match being struck, and the girl squealed again as the far side of the barn was illuminated by candlelight.

‘We should give them
weapons
,’ she cheered.

‘No,’ said the boy. ‘I like this.’

‘Then … hit each other
harder
! Oh! Bite each other!’

There was grunting. The sharpness of flesh on flesh again. A man howled.

‘No noise!’ snapped the boy, and the struggle grew muffled again. There followed an avid, avaricious quiet as the men groaned and strove and tussled about on the floor.

Oh God, who is it?
thought Harry.
Who is it?
He crawled to the edge of the stall, dreading the sight of Joe in mortal combat with some poor tramp, or two members of the theatre group maybe. Fear would not allow him to look around the corner. He could distinctly hear one of the men weeping as he fought.

What are you going to do, Harry? Sit here and listen as someone is tortured? Just be strong in your mind! Be strong in your mind! There’s no such thing as mesmerism.

He stood up in the darkness, his whole body screaming at him to stay down. He forced himself around the corner and stepped into the light.

The little girl was perched on the edge of a neglected work table, swinging her feet. Her brother was leaning casually beside her, his little legs crossed. On the ground, a couple of big men were mutually strangling each other.

The girl pouted. ‘It’ll be over too soon if they do that.’

The boy, his face impassively absorbed, leaned forward and said, ‘No more strangling.’

The men released each other’s throats with gasps and sobs of confusion.

The boy said, ‘More biting.’

The smaller man sank his teeth into the filthy cheek of his opponent. There was a flurry of desperate violence, and the two men struggled their way across the floor until they smacked against the stable wall.

‘You’re going to be in terrible trouble,’ said Harry.

The children looked across with simultaneous surprise.

‘Those men work for your pap,’ said Harry. ‘You’ll be in terrible trouble if you hurt them.’

The little girl slid from the table to land lightly by her brother’s side. ‘Stick-man!’ she cried.

Before Harry could stop himself, he stepped back.

Control yourself!
he thought.
These are just kids!

Somewhere inside him there was a core, a centre, an absolute understanding of who he was. Harry knew he had to find that part of himself. He had to grab it. He had to hold on tight, and keep it.

There were gnawing sounds coming from the men now. One of them was sobbing. The children’s eyes flicked to them. The little girl smiled.

‘Your pap is already angry that you tried to kill his dogs,’ cried Harry.

There was a palpable hesitation. The little boy looked hurt.

‘But we told him we were sorry,’ he said.

‘We were just playing,’ pouted the girl. ‘We didn’t mean any harm.’

There was a long, wet tearing noise from the men, and a squeal of hopeless agony.

‘You need to let them go,’ cried Harry. ‘They’re your
pap’s men
.’

The little boy shook his head. ‘No, they’re not.’

‘Yes, they are! They
are
!’

‘Oh my,’ said the little girl. ‘He is telling such big lies.’

‘Lies are very
bad
,’ said the boy. ‘We should wash his mouth out.’

The little girl seemed to have a seriously wonderful idea then; it lit her up with delight. ‘Stick-man,’ she cried. ‘Have a nice drink of lamp oil.’

Harry moaned and bent double, and tried to turn away. Suddenly, all he had ever wanted was to know what kerosene tasted like; all he had ever wanted in his
whole damn life
was to unscrew the lid of a kerosene lamp and drink its contents down.

‘No …’ he whispered. ‘Don’t …’

The little girl was by his side now. Oh, she was very sweet, really, this close: her smile so wide, her eyes so very clear and blue. She took his hand.

The part of Harry that was completely himself screamed and raged. It clawed and struggled. But it was a very small part, really – very tiny – and his desire to please this little girl – this charming little girl, who held his hand and looked up at him with such admiration – was quite overwhelming.

‘Come on,’ she sang. ‘Come on, stick-man. Come over here.’ She led him to the work table.

‘I’m your pap’s,’ he whispered. ‘I’m your pap’s.’

‘Oh, you know, I don’t think Pap likes you all that much. But I do.’ She hopped up and sat on the edge of the table again. ‘I enjoyed your magic trick.’

‘Oh yes,’ remembered the boy. ‘That was good.’

The part of Harry that was absolutely Harry stopped struggling and smiled.

It was good, wasn’t it. Simple but good. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that work the best.

‘You’re a very entertaining fellow.’

I am indeed.

‘Here you go.’ The girl nudged a battered can towards him. It was covered in cobwebs and had ‘Paraffin’ stencilled on it. ‘Drink lots and lots now. It’ll be delicious.’

The boy snickered. Harry unscrewed the lid. His audience of two concentrated only on him, and he revelled in their fascination. In the adjacent booths there was some frantic pugilism going on, but it didn’t seem to distract them. In Harry’s mind a calliope began to jangle.

Roll up, ladieees and gennnntlemen. See the wonderful Houdiiini – watch him drink from the poison cup!

The candle flame glimmered like gaslight in his eyes as he flourished the can first one way and then the other, showing it off.

The audience burst into applause. ‘Hurrah!’

Harry put the can to his nose and made a show of inhaling deeply. Fumes rose thick and sweet to snag his breath –
yum, yum, yum
.

Grinning, he turned to bask in the audience’s delight. Their lack of attention hit him like a slap. They weren’t even looking his way! They were, in fact, frowning off into the distance, utterly distracted.

Oh no. He’d lost them!

‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he cried. ‘If you’ll direct your attention to this can. I am about to drink a gallon of flammable oil.’ (
Wait. What?
What was the act here? What was the pay-off?)

He sloshed the contents enticingly, but the delightful children in the front row remained captivated by some different sound. (Was it those fighters in the corner? Damn them! Hadn’t Harry told Dash to position the curtains so no one could see the other acts?)

He glared across at the pugilists. Thankfully the match seemed almost at an end, one combatant merely hunched over the other, now, gnawing.

The charming little girl jumped to the floor. Seemingly delighted and surprised by something Harry could not see, she clapped her hands. ‘Oh, Mama,’ she breathed. ‘I would very
much
like that. Thank you!’

‘Hey,’ cried Harry. ‘No talking in the audience.’

The girl’s brother caught her by the hand, and with a surge of anguish Harry realised they were about to leave. No! The calliope music swelled, loud and insistent and
off-key
.

‘With one swallow,’ he cried desperately, raising the can, ‘I shall empty this can!’ (What was the pay-off to this act?)

‘We’re coming, Mama!’ cried the boy. ‘Don’t start without us!’

‘Wait!’ cried Harry. ‘Behold!’

The children were already out the door. Harry lifted the can to his lips, and paraffin filled his mouth. The heavy, roiling fumes clawed at his eyes and his nose, burned cold in his mouth, and the pay-off rose in his mind, as bright and clear as the calliope jangle. It was the easiest, the most effective, and the most beloved act in the world. No lowly fire-eater he: Harry Houdini would breathe fire!

Bending forward at the hip and flinging his arm out behind him, Harry sprayed a long jet of paraffin onto the candle. A magnificent plume of flame roared out to illuminate the dark. Bright and fierce, it seared the shadows from the air. The sights and sounds of the penny museum exploded into flakes of rusted metal, and the calliope deflated in a hiss of steam. Harry tumbled forward into hay and ancient
cobwebs, gagging on the taste of kerosene, fully aware again, of the night and the nightmare world.

Oh God oh God oh God what did I almost do?

The sound of whimpering filtered through the panic in his brain. The men by the wall had separated now. One was sprawled motionless and silent. The other, huddled in a ball beside him, was weeping. Harry stumbled across to them, carrying the misshapen stub of the candle, huge shadows trembling in his path.

‘It’s okay,’ he rasped, crouching by the weeping man. ‘They’re gone.’

The man shrank back against the wall, and Harry recoiled in recognition of Joe’s cousin, Daymo. His face was bearded in blood. Thoroughly unravelled, he bared his scarlet teeth. ‘I ate his face,’ he whispered. ‘Jesus help me. I ate his face.’

Harry reluctantly raised the candle to illuminate their motionless companion. A featureless glistening mess greeted him. Daymo reached a fever pitch of hysteria at the sight. The barn spun as Harry heaved himself to his feet. He felt as if he was dying. He really did. It felt like he was going to die.

‘Get up,’ he groaned, staggering from the sobbing man. ‘Get up. Get over to those horses. Show me how to rig a carriage.’