Yuletide Miracle

by Robert Appleton

Chapter Five

  When he returned to the dinner table, Red sensed the magic had already begun to wane. Like the photographer who tries to capture the joy of a moment but only really confines it to a still, lifeless image, he was over-thinking everything, not really experiencing it like he should. He was self-conscious, uptight. Perhaps he’d have been better not to come at all. As he ate his pork, stuffing, mashed and roast potatoes, mixed vegetables and gravy, the tension between his hosts burrowed into him, and he felt a queer splice taking place inside—moroseness with a kind of morbid curiosity. Then he watched while young Edmond picked at his food. The lad wore a vague, dreamy grin, seemed to be waiting, hoping for something...extraordinary.

  I don’t belong here. They’d be having a pleasant dinner without me. But—

  He cringed, then supped his wine.

  The boy and his mother wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t intervened.

  “So, Mr. Mulqueen, tell us of your plans after the holidays,” Mrs. Reardon said. “Will you be staying on at the emporium?”

  He considered the safest response. “Regretfully no, ma’am. My colleagues and I are only engaged for a brief term, then we must seek opportunity elsewhere. It is easier for some than for others. For instance, Desbrusleys, our Frenchman, is stone deaf and prone to lapses in concentration—he can only manage safe, undemanding work. Joe DiStepano, our fusilier, is seventy-five and has only one arm and sadly little formal education. Despite his enormous pride, Joe relies on charitable employers these days.”

  “I see. And yourself? You seem well-educated enough, and more, shall we say, independent than those you mention.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” A shiver of nostalgia tickled his fingertips as he held the stem of his glass. Forthrightness in a woman of class and beauty was something he hadn’t experienced since middle age, when his wife had assured him he was going to do extraordinary things in his lifetime. She’d meant every word, too, but little had she known how right she was, or that, alas, she would not live to see those extraordinary things come to pass.

  “And you’re remarkably spry for a fellow with a custom-made appendage.” Cecil held his glass up to the lamplight, then took a sip. “I dare say you’d have no trouble finding work in any number of professions. Pray tell, who designed that marvellous limb of yours?”

  “An ingenious fellow from Norway—met him after my release from—” No, don’t go there. Indeed, there was so much he couldn’t tell his hosts, navigating his way through even the most cordial conversation required a doctorate in diplomacy. “The design was experimental, funded by an organisation who specializes in...rare mechanics. Luckily for me, my injury coincided with their readiness to try a new procedure. The leg works well for the most part, but it freezes up something rotten if I stand in one spot for too long.”

  “I have to say, it’s the most impressive perambulatory limb I’ve seen, and I work in the Leviacrum. Brass legs are usually little more than ornate pegs for the filthy rich. But yours, sir—yes, quite novel.”

  “Indeed. You work in the Leviacrum. How...privileged.” Red tried his hardest to disguise his disdain, but this poor sap simply didn’t know who he was working for, the twisted ambition driving that monolithic monstrosity high above the people of Britain.

  He felt the burn from Edmond’s gaze. That’s right—the lad read Parnell’s pamphlet. He might be putting two and two together. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

  “Tell me, sir, what you think the ultimate goal of the Leviacrum Council is. Do you suppose they’ll ever be satisfied?” asked Red.

  Cecil set his knife and fork down, dabbed the corners of his mouth with his serviette. “I don’t much care for your accusatory tone, sir, but Europe does seem to be rank with these conspiracy theories of late. It’s nothing new. They’re recycled every few years or so—there were some real humdingers when I was Edmond’s age. It’s simple really: the unenlightened have always been suspicious of scientific progress. If there’s some new invention they can’t get a handle on—steam-powered travel, for instance, was resisted at first because it superseded horses—or a social reform that breaks from long-held tradition, people look for someone to blame for them being marginalized, for the world being changed without their say-so. They point fingers and invoke the dog-eared pages, but in the end, what are they really protesting? Progress? Technological advancements that actually reduce their workload and social reforms that give people more freedom?

  “They’re casting a pox on the Leviacrum now because they’re frightened the world will soon be unrecognisable as a result of science. And it will be—trust me, it will be—but they’re wrong to be frightened. Science’s only motive is the betterment of humanity, the pursuit of egalitarian prosperity. If people could only understand that, they would not want to burn us down.”

  Lisa reached across and clasped her husband’s hand. Her tight, crooked smile strained to burst open with pride. Red’s heart swelled for her, and it stopped him from launching an impulsive, likely dinner-ending broadside at his host’s pious ideology—a dangerously naive outlook on a world run not by equal opportunity but by power and greed and the packaging of the truth.

  Yes, he’d been that naive once. But maybe, just maybe with his help, others might awaken to the truth before the shock of war touched these shores.

  “Bravo, sir!” he said. “I believe you have put science’s case forward definitively. And if politics or corruption has poisoned the Council, it is through no fault of the scientists. I have always thought the purest science was done at home, though, in sheds and workshops and basements, where it is just a man alone with a problem to solve, with little invested apart from his time and his utmost determination. That is when small miracles happen. The more resources at his disposal, the more people looking over his shoulder, the less hungry he becomes, whereas the personal struggle begets the personal victory.”

  “You’re a darned interesting fellow, Mulqueen, I’ll give you that. Something of an engineer yourself, or at least a tinkerer, I’ll wager? I have to admit, some of my most notable breakthroughs have occurred downstairs in my workshop, the smell of fresh-cut wood and the taste of metal spurring me on.”

  “I am sure of it.” And oddly jealous. “Your good health, sir, and may you continue toward the betterment of humanity.”

  “Thank you kindly.” Cecil surveyed the room, looking chuffed with himself.

  After dessert, a deliciously sweet apple crumble and custard, Cecil asked him if he’d like to take a look at his workshop. But Edmond had already beaten his father to the punch, recruiting Red for a guided tour of his bedroom, where the youngster wanted to show off his peerless collection of adventure comics.

  “By all means, and when you’re done, come join me for a brandy beside the tree—I’ll rearrange the furniture.” Cecil looked to his wife, who seemed to be egging him on. “And I believe Mrs. Reardon has something she wishes to say later.”

  Red swallowed—whatever could she want to single him out for, besides more thanks—and gave a polite nod. “Love to. And thank you for a splendid dinner. It turned back the clock to happier times, and marvellous food. I shall never forget it as long as I live.”

  “Ahem.” Edmond’s interruption amused them, and suddenly, this evening Red had kept at arm’s length was tame and dear. He followed the lad upstairs with rekindled enthusiasm, as though he was twelve years old again, skinless in a lucid Christmas dream.

  A typical boy’s bedroom, with sky blue wallpaper, a navy blue carpet, oak shelves overflowing with adventure novels and the sentimental toys and knickknacks left from his formative years, a cedar armoire with the doors left half-agape, and towers of cheap comics stacked on an old, expensive tallboy.

  “In my day, we read pirate tales and the stories of Francis Drake. Quatermain and Holly were still at school.”

  “I know. That’s what Father always says, as if he’s somehow above reading real fiction.” The oxymoron was sweet, and it chimed in Red’s subconscious.
“But I can’t imagine a world without ’em,” Edmond said, quite grown-up.

  Red lowered his voice. “I think you’d better show me what you really brought me up to see, while there’s time.”

  The lad frowned, made straight for the back of the tallboy, where he retrieved a white envelope. He’d scribbled out the addressee’s name and the sender’s details, so that a cursory glance, should the letter be found, would not clock its illicit nature. “Here they are. But I still don’t know what you can really do with ’em. It’s all official and everything. It’d take a miracle to put things right.” He puffed his cheeks, sank backward onto the bed. “Bloody ’ell, I reckon. If I’d have only apologized like they wanted, none of this would’ve happened. None.”

  Red didn’t even look at its contents, instead placed the envelope inside his empty belt pouch. “Christmas is the time for miracles, lad. You just leave it to—” His knee joint buckled and collapsed him against the bed. His ribs hit the wooden bed frame. He winced out loud. Edmond sprang up to help him, but stopped short.

  “What’s this?” The boy picked something up from the carpet, and in a moment of panic Red checked the four smaller side pouches on his belt. Christ, if he’s got hold of—

  God Almighty! He has!