The Maker of Swans

by Paraic O’Donnell

  She counts these seconds, though, and arrives at an average. In twenty minutes, if she encounters no unusual difficulties, she can complete two stones. Allowing five minutes each for crawling in and out gives a total of half an hour. Even if she is confident that Nazaire will be occupied for longer, half an hour is as long as she dares to stay hidden.

  It is maddening, this restriction. An entire day may pass between one opportunity and the next, and her progress seems absurdly slow. Still, she resists the urge to linger. She cannot allow her caution to lapse. If her secret labour is discovered, she will not have another chance. She knows enough of her captors now to be certain of this much. If they find her out in this, they will spare no cruelty. The next punishment will be worse.

  Nazaire coughs.

  At first, Clara pays no attention. She is standing at the window while he clears away the remains of her lunch. In the days since she first crept under the bed, the thaw has continued steadily. As she studies the emerging landscape, she touches her right arm. She has been free of the sling for only two days, and it feels no less lumpen and unfamiliar. It is her left hand still that she uses to work on the stones.

  He coughs again, and Clara looks around. He has set down his tray and raises his hand to cover his mouth. It occurs to her, though it seems preposterous, that he has never so much as cleared his throat within her hearing. He picks the tray up and returns his attention to the table, only to put it down again a moment later. He places his hand lightly against his abdomen. His expression is displeased, yet faintly curious.

  ‘Excuse me, little one. I feel unwell.’

  She watches closely as he moves towards the door. His movements are fluid, as always, but slightly hurried. It is out of the ordinary, as is the coughing, but by themselves these things may mean nothing. It is only after he closes the door that Clara notices the most unusual thing.

  The lunch tray is still on the table.

  Twenty-One

  Abel parked the Jaguar in a side street opposite Mrs Fraser’s house. The place he chose was in the shadow of a plane tree, and gave them an oblique view of the front steps, of the lighted windows of the salon.

  ‘Tell me again about this Gill.’

  ‘He is a magistrate’s son. His father, as far as I can see, has not troubled him with seeking any occupation of his own. He devotes himself, therefore, to his own pleasures.’

  ‘Likes his booze, you mean? And the ladies, obviously.’

  ‘Young women are among his pleasures. There is no liking in it.’

  ‘Yeah, you mentioned he weren’t exactly gentlemanly.’

  ‘I am not like some, Abel. I do not lightly excuse such things.’

  Abel looked away, and did not respond immediately. ‘We had a sister, me and John. I ever mention that?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Lily was only seventeen when she went. Threw herself under the Southend train.’

  Eustace looked at him, but said nothing.

  ‘Which, that was my old man’s train. He was the driver, I mean. Wasn’t until we found the note that we knew why. I did my first stretch for that, for what happened after.’

  Eustace waited, but Abel did not turn towards him. He kept his eyes on Mrs Fraser’s house. ‘I am sorry, Abel.’

  ‘I don’t lightly excuse such things neither, but we ain’t going in there to set the world to rights. You’re going to make things right with this Gill fucker, and you’re going to say please and thank you, even if he starts giving you lip. You’re going to take a moment with this bird you’re fond of, set your affairs in order or whatever, and then we’re coming out here and we’re getting back in the car. No complications, no loose ends. Agreed?’

  Eustace closed his eyes. He took a long breath. ‘I do not mean to confront him. That is not my plan.’

  ‘Worst comes to the worst,’ said Abel. ‘I’ll be maintaining a discreet presence, as your driver for the evening. I’ve got the equipment, so you can leave any unpleasantness to me.’

  ‘Abel,’ said Eustace. ‘Everything has been agreed.’

  Abel turned and studied his face for a moment, nodding slowly as he did so. ‘You coming back for her, this bird? When it’s all over, I mean? Is that what this is?’

  Eustace looked straight ahead, his arms resting in his lap.

  ‘Come,’ he said at last. ‘There is much to be done.’

  It was Mrs Fraser herself who greeted them at the front door.

  ‘Mr Eustace,’ she said. ‘I am delighted that you could join us. I was not aware, however, that you intended to introduce another gentleman. I prefer, as you know, to make certain inquiries before inviting new clients.’

  ‘Mr Crouch is my driver,’ said Eustace. ‘I have business elsewhere, and will be leaving for the country after this engagement. He will wait for me in the hall, if you have no objection.’

  She admitted them without further comment, though she subjected Abel to candid scrutiny as he took his place by the coat stand. ‘Mr Gill and the rest of the company have already gathered in the salon. The girls have begun to come down. We have lit the fire, you will be pleased to hear. I know how you feel the cold.’

  Mrs Fraser showed him in, not withdrawing as she usually did, but finding an unobtrusive place by the mantelpiece. Gill sprawled on a sofa that gave him a view of the door. Over his rolled-up shirtsleeves, he wore a garish waistcoat. He had seated one of the girls on his thigh and was inducing her, as Eustace entered, to hold a match to his out-thrust cigar.

  ‘Mr Eustace,’ he called out. ‘There you are now. We thought we might have to go out looking for you. I says to Michelle – what did I say, Michelle? I says, our Mr Eustace has got himself into a bit of bother. He’s got form, I says.’ Gill laughed forcefully, and was joined by the two men on the opposite sofa. They appeared younger than him by some years, and remained as yet unaccompanied. Like him, they had peeled their shirtsleeves from their forearms and splayed their legs as widely as the furniture would accommodate.

  ‘Mr Gill,’ said Eustace. ‘You are seated quite comfortably, I am relieved to see. I was concerned that some irreparable damage might have been done.’

  Gill plucked his cigar from his mouth and licked his lips. ‘Aren’t you going to have a seat yourself, Mr Eustace? You haven’t even taken your coat off.’

  ‘I regret that I cannot stay long. I have been called away on pressing business.’

  ‘This business of yours, Mr Eustace.’ Mrs Fraser took up a poker to agitate the fire’s meagre bank of coals. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen, for interrupting. Your business will not keep you from us for too long, I hope.’

  ‘His business is his business,’ said Gill. ‘He’s come to say his piece before he leaves, that’s the main thing. Let him have his say, Mrs Fraser.’

  She joined her hands across her hips and looked at Gill with her lips slightly askew. She turned to Eustace again. ‘Julie would be most upset, I’m sure, if you were not to return soon.’

  ‘It is hard to say,’ said Eustace. ‘It is a difficult business. It has occupied me, already, for quite some time.’

  ‘She will be joining us later, I’m sure,’ Mrs Fraser said. ‘Go and let her know Mr Eustace is here, Michelle. You need not rush. The gentlemen wish to discuss a private matter. You will excuse her a moment, Mr Gill?’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said Gill. ‘Gives Mr Eustace room, if he wants to have a seat. I haven’t seen him for a fortnight. We’ve got lots to talk about.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Eustace said. ‘I prefer to stand. And Julie will not be joining us.’ He crossed to the fireplace and stood opposite Mrs Fraser. She wore a suit of robust and autumnal tweed, and smoothed the trim of her jacket as she watched him.

  ‘Is that right?’ she said. ‘She did not think to inform me. But you will take a small drink, in any case? There is some of that single malt still. You have paid for the bottle, so you might as well have the benefit of it.’

  Eustace turned to the mantelpiece and reach
ed into an inner pocket. The envelope was heavy, bearing an elaborate seal. ‘I shall leave these documents with you,’ he said, ‘so that you may look them over at your leisure. They were prepared by the firm of Curzon and Howlett, which acts now for Julie.’

  Mrs Fraser glanced at the envelope. ‘Indeed?’ she said. ‘Has she such great affairs to manage?’

  ‘She has interests now that must be protected,’ Eustace said. ‘Your own affairs will not be greatly affected, if certain conditions are met. The firm will advise you further.’

  Gill pumped his thigh with impatience, flinging a moist scrag of cigar into the coals. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘That tart giving trouble, is she? I told you, a girl like that wants a firm hand.’

  Eustace turned to him. As he did so, he saw Abel, an attentive shadow encroaching on the doorway. ‘Your father, Mr Gill. He is a magistrate, is he not?’

  Gill leaned back. ‘She told you, did she? I says to the boys when we heard you coming in, I says, I wonder how she put manners on him. What did I say, boys?’

  Eustace waited until their hilarity had abated. ‘You need not look far, then, to seek advice in regard to the offence of trespass.’

  ‘Trespass?’ Gill brought himself upright on the sofa. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, is that it? That’s what you came here for, Mr Eustace. You’re not forgetting your lines, are you?’

  Mrs Fraser took the envelope from the mantelpiece, patting at her clavicles for the chain on which her reading glasses were suspended. Putting them on, she broke the seal carefully and drew out the wad of documents. Abel was fully visible at the doorway now, alert to every current.

  ‘I have no training myself,’ Eustace continued, ‘but I am given to understand that ignorance of possession is no defence.’ He watched Mrs Fraser straighten quietly, fumbling with the chain of her spectacles as she took them off.

  Gill bunched his fingers on his thighs. ‘I hate to trouble you, Mrs Fraser, but is this what I was supposed to hear from this clown? Did we not have a little chat about your circumstances?’

  ‘Mrs Fraser’s circumstances are largely unchanged, as I mentioned,’ said Eustace. ‘The new proprietress, I gather, will seek no review of the terms of her tenancy. Your own circumstances, Mr Gill, are rather less certain. It is no defence, against a charge of trespass, for the tinker to say that he thought he had put his horse to graze on land that was in commons.’

  Gill stood, approaching Eustace with his paunch out-thrust, his arms spread. ‘I’m giving you a chance,’ he said. ‘You fucking get me, Jeeves? I’m giving you a chance.’

  Mrs Fraser spoke. ‘Go home, Mr Gill.’

  He looked from her to Eustace. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Or for the son of a magistrate to claim—’ Eustace paused. ‘Do you have any occupation of your own? I never thought to ask. The law, in any case, is clear. The son of a magistrate may not claim licence to occupy on the grounds that he has had his limp cock felt on the same premises for several years, and was unaware of any change of ownership.’

  ‘Eustace,’ said Abel from the door.

  ‘If a trespasser has been informed of his violation,’ Eustace said, ‘and does not vacate with reasonable haste, the rightful possessor is granted considerable freedoms by the applicable case law. Again, I speak as a layman. Your father, I am sure, could advise you more competently.’

  ‘Eustace,’ Abel repeated. He entered the room now, approaching the fireplace with a quiet tread.

  Gill took a step towards Eustace, leaned closer to his face. ‘You’re a whoremaster now, is that it? Your very own doll’s house, just like you always wanted?’

  ‘I am only a messenger,’ said Eustace. ‘The house belongs to Julie now, and you are no longer welcome here. Abel, would you be kind enough?’

  ‘Not that big a step for you, eh?’ Gill’s breath was moist and sour. Spittle had curdled at the cusp of his lips. ‘From them dressing up games you like. I heard you asked for—’ He twisted as the forearm wrapped itself around his neck, becoming still again as he recognised the pressure between his shoulder blades.

  ‘I heard about you too, big boy,’ Abel said. ‘I heard what you like doing. So now you and me, we’re going to play a little game of our own.’

  Twenty-Two

  Nazaire stumbles as he is leaving her room. He has caught himself when Clara turns from the window, but leans uneasily against the door frame. He clutches his abdomen and holds still, as if waiting for something to subside. She realises that she can hear his breathing. He begins coughing again – the sound is coarse and sodden – and it is some time before he can suppress it. When it eases, he takes his hand from his mouth and examines it.

  He pushes himself upright and turns to find her watching.

  ‘What do you find so interesting?’ he says. ‘Go back to your birds, little one.’

  He slams the door as he leaves the room. She shudders slightly. It is the loudest sound she has heard in all the time she has been kept here. And his face, his anger. It is something she has never seen in him. Even when the worst things happened, his actions were measured and exact. In all the time she has been here, he has done nothing that betrayed recognisable emotion. Not rage, not pity – not even irritation. Not until now.

  Clara clenches her left hand and turns back to the garden.

  That night, she is woken by dim noises in the lower parts of the house. At first, she fails to recognise them. They are sounds she has heard before only by day. She sits on the edge of the bed, tense and unmoving, straining to catch the slightest disturbance. For a long time, there is silence. She is on the point of going back to sleep when she hears it – the muted scrape and snick of an outer door.

  He has left the house. Clara gets up and crosses to the mantelpiece to check the time. A quarter past two in the morning. She cannot think what might have called him out so late, and she has no idea how long he might be gone. For a long time, she stands and claws at her palms, unable to bring herself to move. It is not a risk she would usually take, and yet it can hardly be a brief errand if it takes him out at such an hour.

  She takes the tiepin from its hiding place.

  It is cold under the bed, and she is wearing only her nightgown. The floorboards gnaw at her bare knees and a splinter pierces her palm. It is so dark, when she has dragged herself into place, that she can barely see the surface of the stone, much less the signs she scratches on it. Still, she perseveres, using her right hand to guide the movements of her left. She writes for the allotted time as always, completing her tally of four hundred characters and finding that she has reached the edge of the stone.

  Clara pauses. She has been consumed by the thing she must write. It has been days since she thought of her progress, of how much remained to be done. She allows herself a minute or two longer to count the remaining stones. She has worked methodically, beginning at the foot of the bed and continuing towards the corner, working her way across the shorter span of wall before returning to the beginning and starting on the next course of stones.

  She has reached the head of the bed again, and is nearing the rightmost stones of the lowest course. She feels in the dark for those that remain, stroking their surfaces lightly to assure herself that they are unmarked. When she reaches the end, she repeats the count, then shunts herself hurriedly back out from under the bed. She restores the tiepin to its hiding place, glancing once more at the clock before returning to bed.

  She lies awake and allows herself to think of it. Six stones. There are six stones left. Twelve hundred letters. She makes the calculations, counting out the opportunities she will need. She wonders if she might relax her own strictness even slightly, if she might allow herself a few more letters on each occasion. Even if she does not, even if she continues just as she has, the task that remains seems small enough now that she almost savours it.

  She is nearing the end.

  He comes and goes without ceremony. Though he maintains his regime as before, bringing her meals and co
nducting his inspections at predictable hours, nothing is quite as it was. The food he offers her now is simple and crudely served. In the mornings, he may bring only porridge and a glass of milk, at lunchtime nothing more than bread and cheese. He no longer makes his meticulous inventories of cutlery and crockery. Often, there is only a single cup and plate to clear away.

  His rituals are abbreviated now. He does not stay as long as before, and makes only brief circuits of the room before leaving. There are changes in him too, though it is some days before she is sure she has not imagined them. He is slower now, and his gait is disturbed by hesitations. His skin has grown pale and oddly glazed. His breathing is almost always audible.

  Clara tries to ensure that her own habits seem unchanged, that she is at the window when he comes in, occupied by some inconsequential novelty in the garden. She makes her observations as inconspicuously as she can. In the evenings, she can watch his reflection without turning around. Once, she sees him lower himself into one of the armchairs, his forearm clamped across his belly. She listens closely, conscious of the effort he is making to keep silent. When a weak groan slips from him at last, she turns to face him. She is careful to reveal nothing in her expression.

  He looks up. ‘I see you, little one. Do not think I do not see you watching. It is a small ailment, and it will pass. Do not hope for too much.’

  Clara feels an urge in the fingers of her left hand. She clamps it with her right, joining them in front of her.

  ‘I have sent for someone,’ Nazaire says. ‘You think, perhaps, that you will find me senseless one morning, that you will step over me and be free. Yes, I see what you are thinking. I have sent for someone. Soon, all will be as before.’

  He leaves the house again that night. Clara works for ten minutes and returns to bed. She lies awake for an hour, and still she hears nothing. Before she can stop herself, she has crept back under the bed. When she lies down again, it is nine in the morning. She is exhausted, taut with panic and elation. Nazaire has not returned.