The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (14 page)

Chris found his face… incredibly familiar. The nose, the chin, the slate grey eyes. Things that had nothing in common with Will. He narrowed his eyes, studying the face. The man in the painting blinked, and Chris found himself certain that he’d seen him before. “This is
your
father?” he asked.

“… yes,” William said. Chris could hear something like hope in his voice. Was this the connection between the two of them? This man? “Doctor Graham Cartwright. Researcher, scientist, Lowry graduate…”

“Graham,” Chris tried the name on his tongue, but it didn’t seem familiar. Try as he may, he couldn’t place it. Something William had said came back to mind. Chris hummed. “What happened to him?” He realized that he knew next to nothing about Will beyond his impressive job and regrettable personality. What sort of friend was he, really? William, conversely, had the misfortune of being regaled with most thoughts that crossed Chris’s mind. Was that fair?

William scoffed disdainfully, as if responding to Chris’s own thoughts. Chris tore his eyes from the painting and focused on his friend. William crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “Do you really not know?” he said, his voice somewhere between wonder and disgust.

“I―” Chris said, determined to try, but William’s patience did not run especially deep.

“What happened to yours?” he asked.

Chris gasped and his eyes flew back to the portrait. “Lowry graduate,” William had said. Doctor Cartwright’s well-tailored coat, the band of pure gold on his ring finger, his fine hat―not to mention the expense of the painting he was pictured in. The Cartwright family had clearly been one of quality, and that meant… Chris breathed. “He was at the Floating Castle.”

“No invitation for my mother, even then,” William said, sighing. “She was hardly appropriate for their evening of standing about and patting one another on the back. I was furious, at the time. Y―” He gave Chris a long, searching look, and then sighed again. This time, he sounded sad and resigned. “But in the end, I suppose there are worse things than having one parent left after all. Even if she couldn’t care for you and you end up living on Black Canning Street, barely scraping by.”

“What’s her categorization?” Chris asked. From the kitchen, Missus Cartwright began to sing a tune Chris had never heard before.
Fly with me, hey darling, fly with me.
Her voice was lovely.

“Memoryspinner,” William said and shook his head. “But you won’t find her putting on shows for the idle wealthy. She can’t spin more than a thread. She’s never been able to find work, even before the recession really started.”

Chris tried to find his voice. Tried to put it delicately. “Has she always been… troubled?”

Will’s full lips thinned into a line. “Nothing like she is, now.” He looked up at his father’s portrait again. “They were childhood sweethearts. Father was heartbroken after seeing what she became. It was―after she was categorized. She couldn’t… handle it. Father…” And Will stopped talking. “That’s why I couldn’t leave tonight. She wasn’t well.”

“Should she really have a pistol?” Chris asked without thinking.

William’s face hardened. “I don’t really think that’s any of your sodding business, Christopher,” he snapped sharply.

It was a good thing William had declined to answer his unthinking question, because at that moment, Missus Cartwright bustled into the room with a full tray of tea. There was a beautiful pot, decorated with roses and verdant green vines, matching cups, a plate of little cucumber sandwiches and shortbread biscuits. “I was going to fix you ham,” she said, setting the tray on the table. “But we didn’t have any ham.” She looked up at Chris, her eyes narrowing. “Who is this, William?” Her hand fell once again to the pistol tucked into her belt. Chris’s heart skipped a beat.

“This is Christopher, Mother,” William said.

Missus Cartwright broke into a smile. Her hand fell from the pistol. “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “Christopher Buckley, Julia’s boy. I remember. Goodness, how big you’ve gotten!” Chris stared at her, amazed, but he didn’t know what to say.
Julia’s boy.
“William always brings the handsomest young men here,” Missus Cartwright continued. “He has such handsome friends. Are you staying the night, Christopher?”

“Mother.” William’s voice was like a whip crack.

Missus Cartwright blinked, as if forgetting where she was. She blinked again, and her smile was back. She moved to the corner and began to fiddle with a machine that looked very much like the bell end of a trombone attached to a shoebox. It glowed a faint yellow, the sign of a cloudling bound to it. “You must hear this,” she said. “You really must hear this.”

There was a scratching noise. Some static. And then… music.

Sound spilled into the parlour. A snare drum and a cymbal played in bouncing six-eight time. A kettle drum joined the set. A piano, brassy trumpets, and then, pure bass sounds that no instrument made, which could only come from a hymnshaper. A cello picking out low notes. A set of horns. A woman’s voice, clear and pure emitted forth from the bell end of the trombone. “
Fly with me, hey darling, fly with me!”
she sang. Missus Cartwright swayed from one foot to the other, her whole body undulating back and forth like seaweed. The room filled with the bombastic rhythms of swing music, a style that had fallen out of favour after the Floating Castle had turned Tarland much less carefree. And the machine…

“A gramophone?” Chris asked William, shocked. They were notoriously difficult to acquire, requiring a gearsetter with the sort of skill that didn’t often present itself anymore. They’d fallen out of favour after the Floating Castle, too, and had been expensive even then. No gearsetter of skill would be caught making one, now. They were considered frivolous wastes of talent that could be keeping basic functions of the city together.

“My father’s last gift to her,” William murmured. Missus Cartwright raised her voice to sing with the vocalist, harmonizing effortlessly.

“If you’d sold that, you could have…” Chris shook his head. Certainly avoided Black Canning Street.

William watched his mother. His usually hard expression softened. “She loves music,” he murmured.

“So darling, darling, kiss that moon with me!”
Missus Cartwright and her accompaniment sang. She twirled, facing them, smiling beatifically. Her eyes were closed, and she may as well have been flying herself.

Will looked across at Chris. “Welcome to my daily life,” he said morosely, and Chris couldn’t help but laugh at his hangdog expression.

“I suppose it turns out,” he said, ruefully, “that we’ve both been taking care of the women in our lives since that night…”

Will blinked, and then smiled. The rare sweet smile that made his pouty, pretty face light up and shine. The music leapt into a passionate swinging bridge, horns and bass tones and snare drum all supporting the wild abandon that the trumpets threw into their music, and Missus Cartwright’s eyes flew open. “Will!” she cried, and then she was hauling her son to his feet. “Will, dance with me!”

William complied without complaint. He fell into the beat almost immediately, twirling his mother. She laughed, hips snapping and swaying. Will spun her out and her hair fell from its perfect arrangement to tumble around her shoulders. She spun back, coming in close. Their feet moved in perfect time with the quick staccato beats, almost too fast for Chris to process. Will spun her again, and she leapt up into his arms. He caught her, held her, her head fell back, they twirled, and Missus Cartwright laughed and laughed and laughed.

Sometime much later, Chris ate the last shortbread cookie and washed it down with his fifth tumbler of scotch. He chuckled at nothing at all. Across the way, William was lying on his back on the couch, his tie loose, his hair messy around his face, and his cheeks bright red. The gramophone was playing “Fly With Me” for what had to be the thirtieth time, and Will swung a finger in time with the beat.

“You should teach me to dance,” Chris blurted.

“What?” Will slurred.

“I don’t know how to dance. Blimey, William, you sure can dance. I didn’t know you could dance like that. It was bloody something.”

“I couldn’t. No.” William laughed. “Maiden and Youth, not a chance, not with you. Are you mad? It would be far too…” William shook his head, laughing. “Not a chance,” he repeated.

The song finished. William sat up, leaned over the arm of the couch, and reset the needle on the recording cylinder. Static, buzzing, and then the snare drum was back.

“Why did we stop listening to swing?” Chris mused. “I loved swing. I wanted to learn to play it.” The piano started up. “Like that bloke.” He sighed. “My mother said it wasn’t dignified. I would learn to play classically. I love this song.”

“This song,” William said. His voice was very slurred. “Did you know? This song was written for the Floating Castle.”

“Hmm?” Chris asked, blinking. The words swirled about in his mind. Missus Cartwright had retired hours ago. She’d suddenly lost her sunny, joyful demeanor and left, stumbling off, patting her pistol as if it was a comfort. Chris had told William about the current case. William had poured a scotch. Chris had told him more about the case, including names and details and all those things Maris had reminded Olivia ten times to be extremely discreet about. He’d talked about Georgie. How could it really be Georgie? They had poured more scotch. Chris had wanted to hear “Fly With Me” again. All those events flashed across his eyes and he realized why he’d been so taken with the song. It did remind him of the Floating Castle. The Castle that his mother had been so excited for, the one she’d promised to take him up to his for his next birthday. Not the one that had plummeted to the ground and killed a thousand people. They seemed like entirely different entities.

“My mother knew Lila Gladstone. She sang this. She gave her the cylinder recording before the evening, since Mother couldn’t attend. It’s the only recording that hasn’t been destroyed in embarrassment, I think…” William sighed. “Bloody sad, isn’t it?”

“I love this song,” Chris repeated, agreeing.

They sat in silence again, listening to Lila Gladstone’s flawless voice. And Chris remembered why he’d come here in the first place.

“Hell, William,” he murmured. A lump appeared in his throat as if from thin air. Fernand had hated swing music. Why did that seem so endearing, now? “Hell. I was an ass and then some to you. I was. You were right, you know. About every single thing. I didn’t want to know about Fernand. It was better when I didn’t. I could just believe… just believe what was easier, instead of knowing something so damn
hard.
”

“Chris…” William murmured.

“I hate knowing the truth. I hate knowing―he left me. He just up and left, Will, knowing that I still needed him. If not for Olivia, if she hadn’t―Rosemary would be with Albany or Combs now and we’d be just… because he left. He just left us both.” Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Everyone I’ve ever needed has
left
me.”

Will didn’t seem to have an answer to that. The needle fell off the cylinder and static played, surrounding them.

“I miss him,” Chris breathed into the eerie silence that followed when neither of them moved to put the cylinder back on. They lay there, needle scratching, and then Chris blinked, opened his eyes, and it was morning.