by Sam Taylor
Curiously, my fear was not great. I fully expected to lose my employment, and thus I resigned myself quickly to this idea and, having done so, more or less dismissed it from my mind. The truth was I felt joyful. I was so utterly in love that all else seemed unreal, meaningless, laughable. My only fears, my only worries, my only sadnesses were at the thought of not seeing her again. And yet this, I knew, was impossible. I had to see her, and I would see her. Only death could have prevented me.
I wonder now if this was not perhaps the single happiest moment of my life. Sitting in that dim, dirty restaurant, my belly full of food and my body relaxed from the longest sleep I ever took, this side of the womb; the pale winter sunlight coming in through the window and warming my skin; the taste of ale and pewter still vivid on my tongue; all fears and hopes and uncertainties demolished; my whole life narrowed to a single path, every step upon which was an act of deepest devotion. If I did nothing else in my life, I swore, I would continue to watch over her, to keep her from harm, to guard her every night . . .
. . . it in a state of dishevelment and was amazed to see Dr Lanark standing there. As soon as he saw me, an expression of grave concern clouded his face. ‘My dear Thwaite, I had been afraid when you failed to turn up for work this morning that you must be ill, and I see now that you are indeed so. What is it that ails you, my young friend? A fever? Have you seen a doctor? I will send for one at once.’ All the time that he was speaking, he was ushering me, his arm around my waist, back to the bed from which I had just emerged. I seemed to swoon as he talked, and I realised, in the strangest possible way, that he was right; I truly was ill. I did have a fever. I was so grateful for his solicitude, having never expected to see him again, that I burst into tears and soon after fell into a slumber.
The doctor came that afternoon and assured my employer that I was suffering from nothing worse than a heavy cold and nervous exhaustion. He prescribed rest and regular meals, and Dr Lanark informed me that I was to take the next week off work and get myself well again. ‘You are not to leave your bed, Thwaite, do you hear me? I will send my eldest daughter round to nurse you. She is a good girl and a fair cook and will, I am sure, take the most wonderful care of you. Now I must leave you, for I am dealing with a most interesting case which will, if I am not mistaken, reach its bloody climax this evening. Therefore, adieu Thwaite - and remember my instructions!’
And with that he swept out of my humble room, his cape making a dramatic swirl of black, into the twilit streets to confront this latest villain. For a while I lay quietly in the fading light and daydreamed of Dr Lanark. Then I must have fallen asleep because the dream mutated so that he was mortally wounded and I, his faithful assistant, had to take over. I tracked the villains down to a small, dark, terraced house in an evil-looking district of London and smashed open the door with my shoulder. Then I saw them - the mute woman and the large man, holding a knife to the throat of Miss Vierge. ‘No!’ I cried, but with a horrible slow motion the woman drew the blade across my darling’s delicate white throat and the man, with appalling vigour, pulled her head clean off her . . .
... from Dr Lanark’s daughter, whose name was Sarah. I use the past tense, but I believe (and fervently hope) that she is still alive and well; I pray that she has recovered from the wounds I thoughtlessly inflicted upon her, and that, if she can never forgive me, she can at least forget me. She deserves better than to be haunted by the selfish follies of one such as I. She was seventeen years old then, and looked perhaps even younger. She had a fair, pleasant face - not beautiful, but full of goodness - and the calmest, gentlest manner. She touched my forehead with a cool damp cloth and whispered, ‘It’s all right, you were only dreaming.’ I surrendered myself to her care.
For the next week the pattern remained the same. During the days Sarah cooked me hot nutritious meals and prepared medicinal drinks; she washed me and read to me and soothed me when the nightmares came; she watched over me unceasingly and, at my request, told stories of her father and his adventures. It was clear she worshipped him. It ought also to have been clear that she was, in her innocence, falling in love with me. I blush to think that I failed to see this, but I was so preoccupied with my own obsession that I was totally blind to hers.
But anyway, as I say, the pattern did not vary: she nursed me in the daytime and, before taking her leave at sundown, pronounced me in much better health than I had been that morning, which was never anything less than the truth.
When she had gone, I got out of bed, dressed quickly, and walked to Mayfair as fast as my weak legs would carry me. And there I passed each night in that doorway, exposed to rain and sleet and icy winds, watching the blank façade of a sleeping house. Each morning when Sarah found me, she was shocked anew by the deterioration of my health. Surmising that I was suffering from insomnia, she procured me a sleeping draught. I did not swallow it, of course, but Sarah never guessed that, and consequently she became even more perturbed by the exhausted look in my eyes each morning. She even asked her father if she could remain with me at night to discover the cause of my affliction, but naturally Dr Lanark would never allow such a thing. Thus I was free to pursue my . . .
. . . past eleven when her light went out that night. I remember thinking that it was early for her; recently she had been reading (that, at least, is what I assumed she was doing - she might just as easily have been sewing or sketching) until long after midnight. Conscientiously I wrote this in my notebook. I had determined to take as many notes as I could in the event of a second abscondment; it had alarmed me, the realisation that the only proof I possessed of the previous sequence of events lay in my own memory and in the memories of two unknown criminals somewhere in south London - a type who would undoubtedly, instinctively have denied ever having seen me if asked by a policeman or a private detective.
At half-past one the front door opened and a figure in a cape and hood came out on to the street. This time, with the moonlight full upon her, I was in no doubt as to the figure’s identity. It was Angelina Vierge. I wrote down the time of her appearance and, heart aflame, began to follow, at a distance of about twenty paces. I did not look behind me. Some part of me must have been aware that I, her shadow, had a shadow of my own, following at a similar distance, but I don’t remember thinking or worrying about it.
As before, she walked through Mayfair to Piccadilly, crossed over to the Green Park, and cut through to Pall Mall. From there she traversed Charing Cross and Covent Garden and went down to the embankment. I tried to remain calm and open-minded as I followed, noting down the name of each street we took, but as the reader will surely imagine, it was hard to control the excited, horrified supposition that she was heading towards the same vile place as before. This in turn sparked off various contradictory emotions in me: fear of the mute woman and the large man (especially after the horrible events in my dream) and a shameful (and quickly suppressed) desire to find myself again in the small smoky room with her; to watch her, a glory in black lace, moving towards me; to feel her hair touch my skin, to see her soft-soled feet on the splintery floorboards, and this time not to say her name ... Perhaps I was distracted by these erotic imaginings, perhaps she had stopped or slowed down without my noticing - I do not recall - but the next thing I knew I was almost upon her - close enough to smell the . . .
CHAPTER 3
I woke up in a strange place. Through a window I could see daylight and rooftops, but the room itself was crepuscular. A small fire, burning in a hearth to my right, was the sole interior source of light. I was lying on a narrow bed, one side of which was pushed against the wall. I sat up slowly. My muscles ached; my skin was tender all over; even my bones seemed bruised. Vague memories of the fist-fight came back to me, the sharpest of which was the terrible visage of that rough-looking fellow wielding an iron bar. All in all, it seemed incredible to me that I was still alive and in one piece.
‘How are you feeling?’ said a voice behind me. I turned and, in some astonishment, beheld the face o
f Ivan Dawes. He smiled and his blue eyes pierced me. He was sitting in an old, patched-up armchair, drawn close to the bed. His legs were outstretched and crossed, so that one large black leather boot lay at an obscure angle across the other.
‘You!’ I said. ‘Where am I?’
He replied that I was in his apartment and had been for the past two days. While he talked me through the events that had led to me lying unconscious in his sitting room, I stared more often at his boots - the way the black shone in the light of the fire - than at his face. Something in those eyes of his seemed to undo me; some cool irony, some secret knowledge, that shone from them with the power to see through solid objects and lies and silences, as it is said the German scientists’ ‘X-rays’ do, penetrating countless layers of skin and flesh to the skeleton that, like truth, underpins all.
He had been talking for perhaps three or four minutes when the full horror of remembrance suddenly gripped me, tightening the bones around my chest, and I blurted out, ‘Where is she? Is she -?’
‘She is alive,’ he said . . .
... is reconstructed. As I did not take notes, I have no way of knowing whether these were the actual words spoken by myself and Ivan. I cannot even be sure whether we discussed all this in the same conversation; I was still groggy and in shock when I regained consciousness - it is possible that I learned the truth slowly, over a number of days and conversations. Indeed, the more I try to remember what has happened to me, the less sure I feel about the whole process of remembering. We see, it is said, through a glass, darkly. The past is an ever-fading vision; something glimpsed in a dream. I hardly dare trust myself with this burden of remembrance. Perhaps Angelina or Ivan would tell the story differently if they . . . But it is too late for what-ifs. I am the only one now in possession of the truth; and if at times it seems less an object, solid and graspable, than some kind of cascading liquid or wind-blown vapour, then that is all the more reason for me to strain my mind, searching for clues in the shadows. The past is all in here now, inside this skull, and the only way I can resummon it is through this nib, in the movements of this hand. Without doubt the story I tell will be a poor substitute for the truth, but the truth itself is already gone. It has vanished, reader, and all I can endeavour to do is draw its image from memory, however partial or warped or glass-darkened that image may be.
I stayed in Ivan’s flat for another several weeks. This was due not merely to my injuries, but to a range of symptoms - nausea, nightmares, cramps, fatigue- that the doctor said were all attributable to the events of that unfortunate night. Exactly what Ivan said to Dr Lanark - how he accounted for my presence as a detective on a night when I was meant to be at home asleep - I do not know. But clearly it was nothing to my detriment, because Dr Lanark arranged for me to be paid my full wages for as long as it took me to recover. Remarking this, my suspicions about Ivan’s motives in keeping me in his flat began to evaporate. Either he was playing an extraordinarily subtle and long-term game, I thought, or he really was a good friend. Slowly, like a long-beaten dog with a new, kind master, I began to trust him . . .
. . . unpalatable as this story was to me, it did at least fit with my own experience of the lady in question. It made sense both of her apparent innocence and the smouldering carnality which her body had exuded that night in the brothel. What the story inspired in me, more than anything, however, was a profound pity. What a life she had led, poor Angelina; my own early years seemed banal and eventless next to hers. The ability to be bored by the ordinariness of the passing days was, I saw, a kind of privilege. And, though Ivan’s descriptions of her abasements and her instability did not lessen the love that I felt for her, they did make me feel out of my depth. What possible use could I be to her? How could I ever protect her?
I repeat that I did not stop loving her. I did not stop thinking of her, dreaming of her, desiring her and fearing for her. And yet, while it is true that absence can in some senses increase the fondness one feels for someone, it also subtly reduces that someone. They become less real, more ghostly, more fictional. They become an idea. I was utterly in love with the idea of Angelina, completely devoted to it, as some widows are to the memory of their dead husbands. But at the same time I did not fight against the reality that she was gone from my life. I had no thought of pursuing her, of continuing to spy on her. True, she was now in Kent, not in London; but Kent was not so many miles away. The actuality of following her was not impossible; it merely seemed so to me.
Things became easier when I returned to work. Dr Lanark had been to see me every week during my convalescence, and he seemed to take a personal pride in my recovery. He greeted me joyfully whenever he saw me and asked how the job was going. And, after a few weeks of deaduns, I was finally assigned an interesting case - a respectable man who led a double life - and became immersed once again in the alluring mystery of detective work. To some extent, I suppose, I became the job; but I did not treat it as personally, as obsessively as I had before. I saw the folly of that now, and . . .
. . . huge fireplace. We would drink beer and laugh about our targets, the secretaries, the other detectives. Sometimes we would sit in silence, enjoying the taste of the beer and listening to the echoing conversations around us. Often he told me about his latest conquest - he got through girls like he smoked cigarettes - and I told him about Sarah.
I started seeing her regularly in early spring. We met by accident one afternoon at the office. As it was getting dark and we were both leaving, she asked whether I would walk her home. Of course I assented. When we reached her parents’ house - a soot-darkened townhouse in Montagu Square - we fell into conversation about our plans for the weekend, and at length it was arranged that we should meet in Regent’s Park and go walking. I don’t remember who made the suggestion - it seemed to crop up naturally - but I am fairly sure that, prior to that afternoon, the thought of courting Sarah had never occurred to me.
Nevertheless, the walk in Regent’s Park was pleasant, and we arranged to repeat it the following Saturday. Thereafter our excursions became a fixed, weekly affair. We were shy with each other initially, but it helped that we had interests in common - literature and detective work - and thus we spent a great deal of time talking about books and criminals. I remember us laughing at the ridiculous depiction of her father’s (and my) profession in Conan Doyle’s stories, and also a long conversation about Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which I admired greatly, but which Sarah had found so deeply disturbing that it had given her nightmares. However, I never felt quite as relaxed with Sarah as I did with Ivan. I always had the nagging impression that she was waiting for me to do or say something; that our meetings must have had some secret purpose which I had not yet fathomed. I mentioned this to Ivan and he cleared up the mystery in his usual blunt way. ‘She wants you to kiss her, you dolt.’
That Saturday, eager to relieve the odd tension between us, I pressed my lips to hers quite suddenly while we hesitated before a fork in the path. She sighed and her body melted into mine. I knew then I had done something I would not be able . . .
... drinking, and dreaming wildly of escape. But I was like a beast in a trap: the more I struggled against my bonds, the more tightly they gripped me. Then, after one brief, thin-lipped conversation with Dr Lanark at the office, the last Friday before Christmas, I understood the situation all too clearly. Either I married his daughter and became a junior partner in the firm, or I forfeited everything: employment, reputation, his fatherly love and regard. I spent one dark weekend alone in my room, agonising over my choice. I suppose, when it came down to it, I felt I had too much to lose. And too little to gain. After all, what was freedom? You could not buy bread with it, or burn it on cold nights, or drink it to dull the pain of existence. Freedom, I told myself, was no friend of mine. I decided to turn my back on it; to put it from my mind as I had put her from my mind. To be reasonable. To move on. To forget.
I spent Christmas Eve with the Lanarks. It wa
s a large gathering: the house was full with uncles and nieces, friends and neighbours, detectives and secretaries. I remember the vast, blazing fire, the magnificent fir tree decorated with shining baubles, the steamed-up window-panes, the perilous trays of glasses filled to the brim with champagne . . . the nausea in my gut when I saw Sarah, arm in arm with her father, and the look of expectation on both their faces. Midway through the evening, sharing a joke with Ivan, I felt a hand on my elbow and looked around to see Dr Lanark. ‘A word, my boy, if I may,’ he whispered. Ivan raised his eyebrows. I followed my employer into the corridor. It was much colder there, and gloomier, and there was the scurry of servants all around us. He said, in a low voice, ‘I take it your presence here indicates you have at least made a decision.’ I nodded. ‘Would you mind letting me know what you have decided?’ Automatically, staring at the strange, swirling pattern on the carpet, I recited the fateful words. ‘Sir, I would like to ask your permission for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’ When I looked up again, I saw a grin on Dr Lanark’s face; of what nature that grin was, I cannot say for sure. Relief ? Joy? Perhaps. But it seemed to me then that his expression was one of triumph. And mine - of defeat. Within seconds he had disappeared back into the living room and I heard his voice, strained loud above the babbling mass, declare . . .
. . . was divided between work and wedding preparations. I still met up with Ivan at The Polar Bear, but we rarely managed more than one night a week now, and sometimes even that had to be sacrificed to the busy routine of our lives.
All of this changed - came to a sudden, thunderous halt - one sunny Saturday in June. I was walking through Regent’s Park on my way to Dr Lanark’s house. It was one of those perfect London afternoons: the air warm; the sky a rare, high blue; and the panorama aswirl with bright parasols and flowers and black-painted shadows. I could not help but feel optimistic on a day like that. I remember I was deep in my own thoughts as I passed the lake, and that the woman in white coming towards me was, at first, nothing more than a particularly vivid shape on the horizon. As she drew nearer, my eyes focused on her and I felt my chest constrict a little. A dog barked from somewhere and I looked away. When my eyes returned to their previous position, the woman was much closer. I looked at her face and . . . those eyes, those lips! She was wearing a hat and her hairstyle had changed, but the resemblance was so absolute that I couldn’t breathe. I stopped dead and stared at her. I could hear nothing now but the roar of my own blood. And then, something amazing happened.