The Linnet Bird: A Novel (7 page)

R
AM HAD HIRED A CART
and we jerked along the streets, rising higher above Liverpool’s maze of lanes and alleys and courts that led up from the waterfront. Eventually I saw St. Andrew’s, the Scotch kirk, and knew we were in Mount Pleasant. And then there we were, on the grand street where I had spent so many Sunday afternoons. Rodney Street. We stopped in front of one of the brightly lit Georgian houses with a door wide enough to admit our whole cart and Ram walked me to it, tucking my hand into his arm as if he were a proud father walking his daughter down the aisle. I knew the exteriors of these houses well from my Sunday visits but had never expected to step inside one.

The door was opened by a butler, a middle-age man in velvet breeches whose closed face didn’t ask any questions. With no flicker of emotion he simply stepped aside, and as I pulled my arm from Ram’s and hesitantly crossed the threshold, the butler abruptly closed the door in Ram’s face. But Ram pushed it open before the latch could catch.

“I’m to be paid before I leave,” he said. “Payment upon delivery. That was the deal struck between me and the gentleman.”

I lowered my head and studied the tips of my shoes. Brown and scuffed, they were incongruous with the airiness of the green dress. I looked up to see the butler also staring at the embarrassing fact of my boots, a giveaway that no fine dress could disguise.

“One moment,” he said, his voice not bothering to disguise his distaste, although his face remained impassive. He attempted to close the door again, but this time Ram pushed it harder, stepping into the foyer beside me.

“I’ll be waiting right here,” he said.

The butler turned, his back stiff, and went up the stairs, disappearing around a bend in the hall. We stood silently under a chandelier dancing with the light of at least thirty candles. A parlormaid walked past the entrance hall, carrying a large urn of dying flowers—they were tall and red, spiky, with similar sharp-looking greenery. I knew they must be something exotic, brought up from London, as I’d never seen the likes of them before.

The parlormaid glanced at us; her face, like the butler’s, showed no interest or curiosity. From somewhere in the house there was a steady rhythmic beat.

Within moments the butler reappeared. He descended the stairs at a studied pace.

Ram couldn’t wait for the feel of the coins in his hand. He hurried over to the butler, meeting him at the bottom step. The butler handed him something; from my position behind him I couldn’t see what it was. Ram momentarily studied what had been handed to him and then he was brushing past me, his eyes bright and a tight smile turning up his lips. Without even a good-bye he left, leaving the door open in his excitement.

I closed it and turned to face the butler.

He looked at me—from my unpinned hair to my hated boots—and as he held out his hand for my wrap I saw something shift, almost imperceptibly, some softening that disturbed me more than his imperious manner had. He took my shawl, holding it gingerly between his thumb and first finger as if it were lousy. The parlormaid appeared and took it from him, her nose tilted in a way that indicated just how far beneath her I was.

The butler started up the stairs, and I followed. I’d never been in so magnificent a house. I put my hand on the smooth polished wood of the banister, enjoying the feel of it.

By the time we reached the top of the curved stairway, the muffled, rhythmic sound I had heard from the foyer was louder and more distinct. I could also hear an underlying sound, like someone singing. The beat stopped and the voice called out, then laughed. The laughter verged on hysteria. The butler stopped in front of a set of double doors painted a gleaming vermilion. A brass handle in the shape of intertwined snakes graced each door. He nodded once at the doors and then left.

Unsure of what was expected, I knocked. I knocked again and then, realizing it was pointless, put my hand on one of the snake handles. It was warm to the touch, as if responding to the pulse on the other side of the door. Before I had a chance to turn it, the door was opened from the other side. Hot air, scented with perfume and smoke—smoke that was dark and sweet—rushed out at me. I stepped back.

“Oh, look,” cried the boy who had opened the door. “Look, Pompey. It’s a baby girl. And I believe she’s the one.” I took him to be a few years older than me, although it was difficult to be sure.

He had brightly painted lips and spots of rouge on his cheeks, and on his head was a tiara of glass beads with a drooping ostrich feather, discolored and ratty. A gown of flowered, diaphanous material floated around him. He put his hands on my shoulders and drew me into the room. “Do you see, Pompey?”

The gaslights on the walls were set low, creating flickering shadows. Large pieces of furniture filled every corner of the room; dressers and wardrobes and sofas and chairs sat like hulking dark animals. Out of one corner came a very large man. As my eyes adjusted I saw that his skin was very black and he wore only the smallest of loincloths and a white lamé turban. He held a small drum under one arm; as he walked in my direction, he beat it with his palm, a dull, solemn beat.

I looked at the boy.

“Don’t be frightened, baby girl,” he said, recognizing what must have been on my face. His pupils were huge. He waved one hand at the black man, who immediately lowered the drum in front of him so that it covered his groin.

The boy laughed, and I recognized the note of hysteria I had heard moments earlier, assuming it, at the time, to be the voice of a woman.

The unfamiliar, slightly nutty odor filled my nostrils, so strong now that, combined with the wavering shadows in the room, I was suddenly giddy. There was something wrong here, something unknown that frightened me.

“I’m Clancy,” the boy said. “Now, come with me. We’ve been waiting.” He picked up my hand.

“I don’t think—” I started, trying to pull my hand from his grasp, but Clancy, so willowy and slight, tightened his grip with surprising strength, squeezing my fingers until they ached.

“But of
course
you mustn’t think. Thinking is such a bore,” he said then. “You must only feel.” And then he gave a fierce tug, and I was jerked along. Following, I saw that he had nothing on under the gown. He led me along the periphery of the room; as we walked, stepping around ottomans and low tables, I was thinking of how I could escape. It would seem that I could turn and run but for Clancy’s iron grip on my hand. And for the fact that the black man—who must be Pompey—had started his sonorous drumming once more and was now close on my heels.

“Now,” Clancy said, “we’re here.” He pulled aside a heavy brocade curtain. Behind it was another door, plain wood, incongruous with the rest of the ornate room. There was a brass key in the lock. “Go on. It’s unlocked. He’s waiting for you.”

“Who is he?” I asked, an unknown panic making me pull back again.

But Clancy only gave me a look that was suddenly intent, and the silly smile that had been on his lips from the moment I’d first seen him now fell away, replaced by something uncertain. His expression was eerily like the one I’d seen on the butler’s face less than five minutes earlier.

I also realized Clancy was much younger than I had first thought; maybe he and I were the same age after all.

He turned the knob and pushed me through the open doorway.

H
ERE THE PECULIAR
sugary smell of smoke was stronger still and there was something else, another smell just under the sweetness. It was as if something was slowly, delicately rotting, taking its time, enjoying the journey. As the door behind me closed, the room fell into complete darkness.

“Hello?” I called. It was wrong, so wrong. I wanted nothing more than to flee.

“Come in, come in,” a voice answered. It was a soft, tremulous voice, marred by some affliction.

“Is there no light, sir?” I asked, suddenly even more fearful. The voice had not been reassuring. “For I can’t see a thing.” I had entered so many rooms, had heard so many men’s voices. Always I had been able to see what was in front of me; although there had been too many unpleasant surprises to count, never had I had to stand in the dark, afraid of who or what might make itself known to me.

There was the long slow sound of sucking and I saw a tiny red glow of light from the bowl of a pipe. Then there was the sighing release of air and a rustle of movement. The sharp rasp of a flint was followed by a sudden flare of light, and I saw a figure crouched in front of the marble fireplace. As the kindling caught and the fire grew, the figure moved away with a shuffling, uncoordinated gait, sinking, with a shallow sigh, into a deep winged chair positioned to one side of the fireplace. The shadows of the wings hid his features.

“Now you must step into the light,” the man said. “And we’ll see if you’re what I’ve been hoping for. It’s so difficult to get what one asks for these days. I’ve been quite disappointed in the selection here in Liverpool. Quite disappointed,” he repeated.

I walked to the fireplace and stood in front of it.

“Turn your head; I want to see your hair.”

I looked to the left, then to the right, feeling the heat of the fire behind me.

“All right, all right.” The man’s voice had risen a tone, as if excited.
What’s wrong with the way he speaks?
I wondered again. “Come here now. We’ll have a lovely drink together, shall we?”

I went toward the outline of the chair. “I’d rather not, sir. What is it you wish me to do?” I asked, feeling my nose wrinkling slightly at the sour odor that grew stronger as I neared the chair. I’d heard all the usual requests; none surprised me now, but apart from the hooded customer, I’d never known this particular threatened sensation.

“What is your name, dear?”

“Linny.”

“Would you spell that, please?”

“As it sounds, sir. L-i-n-n-y.”

“Is that your true Christian name?”

“No. It’s Linnet, like the bird.”

“Ah. The little linnet bird. Do you sing sweetly as well, child?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “And yet I think I prefer Linny. Linny from Liverpool. I will remember that. Now. I want to touch it,” he went on. “Your hair.”

I knelt in front of him, and from my lowered position I could see him in the light from the fire as it danced across his features. It was hard to tell how old he was, for his face was dissipated, the eyelids heavy over the slightly protruding, crusty eyes. They were unfocused, as if he had just awoken; his nose was veined and his lips too wet, too red. His tongue, surprisingly small and pink, darted in and out of his mouth in an uncontrollable flicker.

“I shall pour you a drink, shall I?” His fingers strayed to a large brown bottle on a table beside his chair. “Have you ever been to France, my dear?”

I shook my head, trying not to watch his tongue; there was something obscene in its frenzied dance, which tripped each word. I put my hand under my hair and held it toward him. “It’s free of nits, you’ll find, sir, as I—” I began, but without warning the man’s feet, in their dark blue prunella slippers, flew into the air, wheeling furiously. A heel caught me in the face, sending me flying onto my side. Holding my cheek, I sat up and stared in shock. The man was slipping down in the chair, on his back now and groaning, his legs working as fast as the knife sharpener who pedaled his wheel over on Seel Street. His hands gripped the armrests to keep from propelling off the chair and he cried out in short, jerky bursts of sound.

The door opened and the black man stepped into the room, bowing his head so that his high turban didn’t touch the lintel. He looked down at me, then walked to the chair. As he passed, the tiny loincloth swaying, I saw that his bare foot was more than three times the length of my hand.

“It’s . . . he’s . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

Pompey picked up the man, whose legs were slowing now, and held him against his bare chest as easily as if he were a child.

“Pompey. Pompey,” the man cried. “Make it leave; make the pain leave me. Give me my chloral. Hurry. It’s crushing my ribs.”

Gently lowering him back onto the seat, Pompey picked up the brown bottle. He poured liquid into a small glass, then held the man’s quivering mouth, tucking the tongue in with his long-nailed index finger as he poured the liquid down his throat. “Soon, soon, master. It is almost over,” he murmured. His voice was deep and heavily accented.