by Tim O'Rourke
“Every night,” he said, and then looked away as if in shame. “But what was I to do? I knew in my heart that you weren’t Frances – I had accepted that by night three, I think. I didn’t want to leave you there. It was like I owed it to Frances in some way not to leave you behind. To return to my home and its fineries would have driven me half mad. How could I have rested or settled knowing that someone, who so reminded me of the person I loved more than anything, was living such a pitiful existence? Was I to snatch you off the street? I was not prepared to commit a crime. Approach you, explain everything, and then ask you to come and live with me? You would have thought me mad. As I watched you rebuke those men who approached you, I knew how I could get you to leave London.”
“How?” Winnie asked him, sensing that she had now been manipulated in some way and feeling uncomfortable about it.
“I could see that you had your dignity – your pride,” he explained. “People like that don’t accept charity, and it was then the idea struck me. I would offer you a job. A job brings pride, a sense of worth – it has honesty about it. It was a deal that we could both benefit from.”
Staring at him wide-eyed, Winnie said, “The job, the wage, and a roof over my head is how I would benefit, but how would you?” she asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.
“I got to be reminded everyday of Frances,” he said, looking away again in shame as his true motives were revealed. Then, with his head still turned from her, he added, “I wouldn’t blame you for thinking me mad, even sinister perhaps, but there you have it – you have the truth.”
Winnie drew a deep breath, and although her suspicions had been proved right, it did nothing to silence the growing disquiet she felt inside her. “I don’t think you are mad or sinister,” she finally said. “But you are grieving, and perhaps you should go and talk to someone about it. What you’ve done, and what you are doing, by asking me to dress like your dead wife so you can remember her, isn’t exactly normal.”
“I’ve read many stories where those who have lost loved ones have never been able to throw away their clothes, possessions,” he said, as if trying to justify his actions. “Some people have even left their loved ones’ rooms exactly as they were on the day they died.”
“And those people, I guess, lead incredibly sad lives,” she said, the anger and frustration in her voice now gone. She found it hard to muster any anger towards Thaddeus as he sat opposite her with sadness in his eyes that she knew she had seen before. Ruby Little had often had such a haunted look when she returned from the alleyways – from being with those men. It was like a piece of her soul was missing. Just as those men had taken a little piece of Ruby’s soul, Frances had taken a piece of Thaddeus’s the day she died. “The people you describe, Thaddeus, never move on with their lives.”
“Run away, you mean?” he said looking up at her. “Because that’s what you do, Winnie. You don’t confront your problems, either.”
“Perhaps not,” she said thoughtfully.
“We are more alike than you think,” he said, putting out the cigarette which had now burnt down to the butt. “Maybe in a way I didn’t first consider, we could help each other.”
“I don’t think by parading around the house in your dead wife’s clothes are going to help either of us very much,” she said back.
“I’ll buy you some new clothes,” he said.
“But that’s the point,” she sighed. “I don’t want you to buy me new clothes. I want to be able to buy my own. Be my own person for once in my life, and not what everyone else expects me to be.”
“And you will be able to buy your own clothes with the wage I pay you,” he said. “It’s not charity, Winnie, it’s a job. You will work for your money. You will earn every penny.”
Winnie thought of the eight hundred pounds he had offered to pay her each month, and with no rent to pay, nor bills, she knew that it wouldn’t take her very long to be able to save enough money to be able to pay the deposit and the first month’s rent on a place of her own. Then she really would be free and would never have to run again. With her own address, she would be able to get a proper job and finally live like everyone else did.
“What do you say?” he half-smiled at her, but again she could see that desperation in his eyes. “I promise. No more dressing up, no more pretending you are Frances.”
“But why do you want me to stay, if the reason you brought me here was that I reminded you of...” Winnie stared.
“You will still remind me of her,” he confessed. “There is no denying that. Over the last few days since you came to stay here, I have realised grief isn’t the only thing eating a hole in me.”
“What do you mean?” Winnie asked.
“Loneliness,” he said. “I have enjoyed your company very much. You might look like Frances, but your personalities are very different. You have a feistiness about you, and although you have lead a difficult life, you have retained a naivety which I like very much. You are great company and I would hate to go back to wandering this vast house on my own. I have found a great comfort in knowing that you are around.”
Winnie listened to his gentle voice, and again she found herself being captivated by it, just like she had the night he had approached her on the Embankment. Then, thinking back to their first meeting, she thought of the life she had once led. It already seemed like a lifetime ago, and she didn’t want to go back to that any more than Thaddeus wanted to go back to being lonely.
Thaddeus watched her thoughtfully.
“Will you stay then?” he asked her. “Give me another chance now that I have been honest with you.”
Winnie drew a deep breath and said, “Okay, I will stay – for now. Although, I won’t be Frances’s ghost.”
“Understood,” he half-smiled at her. “We have a deal then?”
“I guess,” she whispered.
“Excellent,” he smiled. Then standing up, he looked at her and added, “If I remember rightly, I thought I said I was going to cook tonight.”
“You said you were going to teach me how to cook,” she reminded him as she stood up. “You didn’t like the fish fingers, remember?”
“Let’s get started then,” he smiled at her.
Then, before leaving the lounge, he went to the window where Winnie had been sitting. He closed the curtains and switched out the lamp, throwing the room into darkness.
Chapter Nineteen
In the kitchen, Winnie filled the kettle with water and switched it on, then started to prepare two mugs of coffee.
“I think tonight calls for something a little stronger than coffee,” Thaddeus said, switching off the kettle. He went to the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine. There was silence between them as he poured them both a glass. He handed one to her, and smiling he said, “A new beginning for both of us.”
Winnie smiled then took a sip from her glass. She watched Thaddeus go back to the fridge and sort through the groceries she had bought earlier that day. As the light from the fridge fell upon his face, Winnie couldn’t help but think, that, while he looked no older than twenty-five, he had a way about him – a maturity – which gave her the impression he was older. She continued to sip her wine and watch him as he took out some chicken breasts and a tub of plain yogurt and placed them on the table. Her eyes never left him as he crossed to one of the cupboards above the worktop and retrieved a cooking apple, an onion, and a clove of garlic, then placed them alongside the chicken and yogurt. He then turned to the spice rack and plucked four little bottles from it. He placed these on the table along with a cube of chicken stock and a bottle of cooking oil.
As Winnie stood and slowly drank the wine, she wondered how Thaddeus knew how to cook so well. She guessed that most guys his age would struggle to cook a pizza without burning it, yet here he was, busying himself in the kitchen and putting together all the ingredients for what she knew would be something far grander than the fish fingers she had served up.
With a smile
tugging at the corner of his full lips, and with what looked like a flicker of excitement in his eyes, he said, "Winnie, tonight I’m going to teach you to cook one of my favourite dishes, Bramley Turkey Korma."
"I didn't buy any turkey,” she said.
"Not to worry," he assured her. "Chicken is just as good."
He turned, drew a large slender knife from a rack on the work surface. He unwrapped the chicken breasts, and like a surgeon, he quickly sliced the meat into thin slivers. He spoke to her as he worked and said, "Get a pan from the cupboard over there and heat some oil"
Winnie did as he asked, placing a pan on the stove and pouring in some of the cooking oil. She found herself beginning to enjoy working alongside Thaddeus. She had never done anything like this with anyone before. He stood close to her, and placing the slivers of chicken into the hot pan, he said, "We have to sauté the chicken first.”
“Sauté?” she frowned, enjoying being taught by him.
He smiled at her and she could tell he was enjoying himself, too, and she now hoped the misunderstandings between them could be put behind them.
"We need to seal all the juices and flavour of the chicken into the meat,” he explained.
Thaddeus took a plate out of a cupboard and placed it on the work surface beside the oven. "Can you get me a fork out of the drawer, please, Winnie?"
She found one and handed it to him. Thaddeus plucked the meat from the pan with the fork and placed it on the plate. Winnie watched him carefully. He crossed back to the table, and tossing her the onion, he said, "Peel and slice that." Winnie set about the task, cutting the onion in half.
With a sideways glance, he looked at her, and with a smile, he said, “Are you crying?”
“It’s this onion,” she smiled and sniffed.
Then standing before her, Thaddeus wiped the tears from her face with his thumb. Winnie felt awkward and turned her face away. “It’s okay, I can do it,” she said.
“Sorry,” Thaddeus smiled, looking embarrassed. “I could just see that you had your hands full so I thought I would...”
“No, it’s okay, honest,” Winnie blushed and went back to slicing the onion.
When Winnie was done, Thaddeus added the onion to the pan, leaving it to simmer. Winnie sat at the table and sipped her wine as Thaddeus began to boil some rice. As he worked, Winnie told him about her trip into town and her visit to the bookshop. With his back to her, Thaddeus listened to her story. After she had finished, he picked up his glass of wine, drank a mouthful and said, “You wouldn't find any poetry books by a poet named Thaddeus Blake. The old woman in the shop was right. He doesn't exist.”
With a frown, Winnie said, "But you told me you were a poet and that's what you did as a job."
Thaddeus plucked the bottled spices from the table and tipped a little of each into the simmering pan. He then began to cut the clove of garlic into paper-thin slices.
"It’s not how I make a living,” he said. Then just as Winnie had suspected, he added, “The money that I have has all been inherited. It’s more of a hobby, really, but I write under a pseudonym."
"A pseudonym?"
"Yes. It’s a fancy word for a pen name."
"Why would you want to do that?” she asked him.
"For two reasons,” he said, adding the garlic to the pan. “Firstly, there is a far better poet than myself named Blake, albeit his first name was William, and secondly, I’d like to keep my identity a secret. I don't write for the money, I have inherited enough. I don't write to collect adoring fans, and I definitely don't write for fame."
"Why do it then?" Winnie asked, and then drank the last of the wine in her glass.
Leaving the pan to simmer, Thaddeus refilled Winnie’s glass and sat at the table.
"I write because I love words. The pictures, the images you can create with them. Poetry gives me a chance to play with words, sculpt them into something beautiful,” he tried to explain to her.
"But I don't understand. If you have something to say, why not say it instead of using posh, fancy words?" she asked.
A touch of a smile played out across his lips. "Winnie, stand up,” he said.
She continued to sit for a moment, a little unsure of herself as he watched her.
“Go on,” he said.
Slowly she got up and stood before him. She felt uncomfortable, as if she was on show somehow.
"Now, Winnie, what are you wearing?" he asked her.
She frowned, and then said, "Clothes?"
He smiled as he sat back in his seat, his eyes never leaving hers. "What is their purpose?"
"To cover my body? To keep me warm?" she said, feeling kind of dumb.
“Exactly,” Thaddeus beamed. “So if those clothes are made to cover your body and keep you warm, why do they have such beautiful colours, designs, and fastenings? Wouldn't they serve their purpose just as well without all of the added extras?"
"Yeah, but they look prettier like this. They'd be boring and dull otherwise,” she said.
Thaddeus clapped his hands together. "And it would be the same with words, Winnie.” Then standing up, and looking at her, he said, “Why just write, ‘the woman was beautiful.’ Why was she beautiful? Is it the colour of her hair, her eyes? Is it her complexion?” he asked, as if studying her. “I use words to create pictures in another’s mind. I want words to work magic.”
"I never thought about words like that before,” she said, looking back at him.
Then turning his back on her, Thaddeus picked up the yogurt pot and poured its contents into the pan. He mixed it in with a wooden spoon. While stirring, he turned to face her as she sat back down at the table.
Winnie took another sip of the wine, then said, "Thaddeus, can you show me one of your books? I'd love to see one."
Thaddeus knew he had caught her imagination, and she was relaxing with the aid of the wine. He didn’t want Winnie to put up her guard again. So smiling at her, he said, “If you serve up dinner, I’ll go and see if I can’t find a copy of one of my books.”
Thaddeus left the kitchen, and Winnie placed the plates of steaming food on the table with a set of knives and forks for the both of them. She looked up to see Thaddeus standing in the doorway. In his hand he was holding a book. He passed it to her and sat down at the table.
Winnie turned the book over in her hands and read the front: Frances by Jonathan Whitby. She opened the book and thumbed delicately through the pages. She gazed over the neat rows of printed text. She looked across at Thaddeus, who was eating the food they had cooked together.
"Read me one of your poems,” she said.
“Why?” he smiled, and now he looked a little embarrassed.
Winnie didn’t feel comfortable telling him that he had a voice like silk, so she simply said, “Why not?”
Laying his knife and fork beside his plate, Thaddeus reached across and took the book of poems from her hands. He flicked through the pages with his long fingers, stopped, cleared his throat, and began to read to her.
The heart beats like Indian calls and castanets
Upon the first time our touch first met
Strange creatures danced with costumes fair
As we shook the dreams from our hair
Our laughter cast ripples into the dawn
As we smiled away our final yawn
Floating on a breeze of bliss
We stole just one last kiss
Come into these arms again
And cry a gentle sigh
Eyelashes of pure lace
Pulling cobwebs from the eye
Peeling off skins from the past
Glorifying a new self
Saddened creases about my smiles
Trying to hide myself
With the sound of Thaddeus’s voice almost seeming to float about the room, and the wine she had drank, Winnie's head began to swim.
She sat captivated by him as he continued.
Angels know your secrets
In which you trust
in me
You know from where I came
As they fly from you to me
Playing with impassioned words
On a bed of rust
Swathed in your dying blankets
I've found a love to trust
Listen to the words
I write, plant, and sew
With eyes of wonder we sit and watch
As they flower so
At night we cower beneath the ancient moon
And you fear what will happen
If they come to soon
Such peace I have found inside your love
This time seems too insane
But love is like sweet mistletoe
With its beauty and its pain
Thaddeus slowly closed the book and set it down beside him. Without looking at Winnie, he picked up his knife and fork and started to eat.
Winnie felt as if she had been put under a spell. After some time, she didn’t how long, she said, “Thaddeus, that was the most beautiful poem. I’m not sure exactly what it all meant, but you were writing about how much you loved Frances.”
He looked up from his meal and met her gaze. Although he was smiling, Winnie could see his eyes had grown dull and were full of sadness.
"You must have loved Frances so much,” she whispered, and wondered if anyone would ever write a poem about her.
"Yes, I did. I was captivated by her from the very first moment I saw her. It was like I had loved her always, since time began.”
"The oil painting hanging in the hall, the one facing you, is that Frances?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, just above a whisper.
"And the others?"
Thaddeus straightened in his seat a little, his eyes growing brighter now. "The paintings of the men are my forefathers, and the women are their wives."
"The women all look very much the same. Auburn hair, green eyes, and pale skin,” she said.
A smile lingered across his lips, and he said, "All of the men in my family have been able to recognise a beautiful woman when they saw one. Besides, we are all related. It’s common for men from the same bloodline to find similar looking women attractive.”