The Eyeball Collector (6 page)

Eventually we had nothing left and the sale of our home and its contents was placed in the hands of the solicitors and debt-collectors Messrs Badlesmire and Leavelund. Like vultures descending on a carcass they arrived and all that horrible day I watched every single one of our possessions being removed. Father remained tight-lipped and stoical throughout until they came into his study and began to take his butterfly collection.

‘Now, then, Mr Fitzbaudly,’ I heard Badlesmire warn. ‘No need for a scene, my good man. No need at all.’

But before I could react Father had lunged at him to wrest a glass display case from his arms. As I tried to pull my father back, the case dropped and shattered. The colourful wings of the huge butterfly within, the one Father had shown me so happily only days before, tore against the sharp glass pieces and scattered, staining the carpet with their dust.

Later that night when the house was empty and the invaders had gone, I found Father in the stripped butterfly house, staring into space.

‘It’s Truepin that’s done this,’ I told him with venom. ‘We must find him and take him to the courts for his lies and blackmailing ways. We must have justice!’

‘He will be well gone from this city,’ said my father. ‘He got what he wanted.’ He turned around and I was shocked by his pallor, as if all life was draining from him.

‘Maybe the newspapers are right,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe I do deserve this.’

‘No one deserves this,’ I said hotly. ‘And who is Gulliver Truepin to sit in judgement on you anyway?’ I clenched my fist. ‘I swear if I ever find him . . .’

Father shook his head. ‘No, violence is not the answer.’ He put out his hand and leaned on the wall as if to steady himself. ‘To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I was almost shouting but couldn’t help myself. ‘Surely you don’t believe that Truepin should go unpunished?’

Suddenly Father moaned and clutched at his chest, then collapsed on to the stone floor. Instantly I dropped to my knees and took my father’s head in my lap. His eyes were wide and staring, his body was rigid and his breathing was harsh and irregular.

‘Hector,’ he gasped, ‘I always feared one day my secret would be discovered. I just didn’t realize how bad it would be. I’m so sorry – it was wrong of me.’

I held back tears as I shook my head and told him it didn’t matter. His skin had taken on a green hue by now and his lips were blue. He struggled to take my arm, drawing me even closer to hear what he had to say.

‘It’s too late for me, but it’s not too late for you,’ he whispered. ‘Take heed. I know you’re angry now, but remember: when you run with wolves you become a wolf. Is that what you want?’

‘I only want justice,’ I sobbed.

Father smiled up at me. ‘I know you will do the right thing,’ he breathed. Then his face contorted in a grimace. His grip tightened spasmodically on my arm. He emitted a long deep sigh, his fingers loosened and I knew he was dead.

In the tenebrous shadows of the butterfly house I gripped the black cocoon at my neck until my knuckles went white. ‘Not justice then,’ I whispered, ‘but revenge.’

Salve,

Your friend,

Hector

There were no mourners at Augustus Fitzbaudly’s burial other than Hector. The vicar, grimacing in the rain, read a short passage from the Bible and hurried away to the shelter of the church, his performance directly proportional to the paltry sum he had been paid. In the absence of any other help, the gravedigger struggled to push the coffin into the grave, all the time muttering under his breath, until eventually Hector stepped forward dazedly to help. The cheap wooden box, already splitting at the joins, sat just below the grave’s edges, no more than three feet under. Hector not having the money to pay for a single plot, his father had been buried on top of someone else. He walked away to the sound of soil landing on the coffin lid. He was deeply ashamed that his father was buried in a pauper’s grave and vowed to right that as soon as he had the chance, if he had to dig him up and move him himself.

Hector did not know where he was going and for the moment he didn’t care. On he went past the gin shops and the gin pipes, always wondering if they had ever been his father’s. He passed beneath ominous street names: Fetter’s Gate, Melancholy Lane, Old Goat’s Alley, names that were soon to become all too familiar. And in the crepuscular shadows he could see movement and bustle. But he did not feel excitement nor did he feel alive, only half dead and afraid.

Earlier that day he had left for the last time the wide, well-lit streets and the tended squares of the north. He had passed the lines of shining carriages waiting outside the theatres and restaurants (where once Fitzbaudly wines had been served nightly) to cross the Bridge once again.

And now, with his father dead and buried, he felt only disbelief and numbness.

Unhesitatingly he walked on through the misty rain. He heard not one of the cries for help from the wretches all around. He felt none of the grasping fingers that pulled at his coat. Even when a wild-eyed tramp stepped right in front of him, arms akimbo, he paid no heed. The tramp, seeing the desperate stare on his face, dropped his hands and let him be. Eventually Hector sank down on the steps of yet another soot-blackened and dilapidated building and put his head in his hands. He was exhausted. So lost was he in his thoughts that he did not hear the door open behind him. But he did feel the bony arms that wrapped themselves around him and quite literally dragged him inside. The door shut with a resounding bang and the gloom enveloped him.

‘Ah, has the good Lord Himself sent us another one?’ The cracked voice came from close to his head. ‘Don’t worry, dearie, we’ll look after yer here. Has yer been left out in the cold?’

Hector managed to extricate himself from the woman’s surprisingly strong grip (he thought it was a woman – from her voice he couldn’t be sure) and turned to take a look at his captor. He realized afterwards when he saw her in daylight that this gloom was in fact the kindest light in which to view her, but for now he could see enough only to make out a short, wizened little figure of the female persuasion.

‘I’m Mrs Fitch,’ she said. ‘I knows what it’s like to be on the mean streets of Urbs Umida. I knows yer pain. But the Lord –’ here she quickly crossed herself – ‘He saved me from meself by the curious means of a tragic accident. I nearly committed a terrible crime but He showed me the way and allowed me to redeem meself. Don’t fink it has been easy, oh no, I am tested all the time. And up there –’ she glanced heavenward, though in fact her sights were somewhat lower – ‘is the greatest trial of ’em all. Poor Ned Upstairs, saved from one tragedy, gone straight into another. Stuck in a useless body.’

‘Where am I?’ asked Hector when Mrs Fitch stopped talking to take a rattling breath.

‘Why, you’re in the best place you could possibly be: Lottie Fitch’s home for Exposed Babies and Abandoned Boys.’

‘But I have not been abandoned,’ protested Hector. ‘My father has . . . died.’

‘Ah, such a tragedy for one so young,’ said Lottie, and she gave him another squeeze. ‘But don’t yer worry, we’ll look after yer. Follow me.’

Hector allowed Mrs Fitch to take him along the corridor. He followed her down the stairs into a large kitchen furnished with a long table and benches. All the while she continued to talk about the Lord and her good deeds with an occasional reference to ‘Poor Ned Upstairs’.

A girl was chopping vegetables at the far end of the table. She looked up at the sound of footsteps and smiled.

‘Ah, Polly,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘We have a newcomer. Hector. He needs somefink to eat and then perhaps you could find him a bed. But first let’s say a very quick prayer of fanks that he came to us and didn’t succumb to the evil streets of the City.’

Instantly Polly stopped chopping and put her hands together and closed her eyes, as did Mrs Fitch, and they both mumbled a quick prayer to the Almighty. Hector, although not strictly a religious child, knew enough to join his own hands and mumble along. Mrs Fitch seemed pleased. She handed him over to Polly and left.

Many abandoned boys had come and gone in the few years since Polly began work at the Home, and she had cared for them all equally, but this boy struck her immediately as different. His dark hair flopped over his face and the eyes that stared out from under the wet fringe were black as coal. Despite his bedraggled appearance he stood erect and looked around with an air of confident enquiry. He was not plump, but obviously well fed; and he was tall, nearly as tall as she was, despite the difference in age, which she judged to be five or six years. In a practised glance she noted that his cuffs reached his wrists (not a child here had a shirt that fitted any longer) and that his cloak was of a high quality and, despite the mud, she could tell that his boots had been recently polished. This Hector, she decided, had lived well until now. He could not have been more different from the other boys at the Home if he had tried.

‘Welcome to Lottie Fitch’s,’ Polly said kindly. ‘Would you like something to eat?’

‘Yes, please,’ replied Hector, realizing that despite his grief he was actually very hungry. He had hardly eaten since his father’s sudden death.

Polly brought over a plate of bread and ham and a big mug of milk and set it down in front of him. She continued to chop vegetables and tend to the fire while he ate and drank, but she was watching him. ‘You are not from the south, are you?’ she said eventually. It was more a statement than a question.

Hector shook his head. ‘No. And you sound as if you are from outside the City entirely.’

Polly nodded. ‘I come from a village in the Moiraean Mountains called Pagus Parvus. I came to Urbs Umida to find work but it was not as easy as I imagined. I was fortunate to meet Mrs Fitch.’

That makes two of us, thought Hector as he finished his bread. ‘Have you a napkin?’ he asked.

Polly laughed. ‘Use your sleeve. That’s what we do. Saves the laundry.’ With the side of the knife she pushed all the vegetables into a pot and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Let’s find you a bed,’ she said. ‘You look worn out.’

Polly took a candle for herself and one for Hector and led him up the stairs. It was dark and in her shadow difficult to see.

‘No gas lights?’ he asked.

Polly shook her head. ‘You might find things different here,’ she remarked as they reached the landing. ‘Don’t mind the noises from up there.’ She glanced in the direction of the attic. ‘It’s only Ned.’

‘You mean “Poor Ned Upstairs”?’

‘Yes, Mrs Fitch’s husband. He’s in the attic. He fell in the Foedus some years ago, in the middle of winter. They dragged him out but he never fully recovered. He was poisoned by the water and is now abed day and night. Mrs Fitch says that it is his punishment for their sins.’

‘What sins?’

Polly shrugged. ‘I think it is to do with her son, Ludlow. No one has seen him for years. Oddly enough, he lived in Pagus Parvus himself for a while when I was there. I suspect the Fitches treated him cruelly, but he never did tell me why he left Urbs Umida. Now Mrs Fitch has visions telling her that she must save the children. Every day nearly. Messages from Above, she says, guiding her.’

Polly lifted the latch on a small door to her right. It was only just as high as Hector. She would have to bend to enter, he thought.

‘The other rooms are full at the moment,’ she said almost apologetically. ‘Three to a bed. You’ll probably be more comfortable in here for the time being.’

Hector stepped into the darkness holding his candle before him. In the light of the fame he saw that the room was little more than a space under the stairs.

‘By Jove!’ he exclaimed before he could help himself (a favourite classical expression of his tutor). ‘It’s small.’

Polly raised her eyebrow sympathetically. ‘But it’s warm.’

Hector attempted a smile. Whatever the size, it had to be better than three in a bed. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m sure you’ll get used to it.’

I hope not to be here long enough to get used to it, he thought. Suddenly he felt an indescribably painful yearning for his own bedroom and for his father.