That night, Mickey bounced me off the wall so hard I left an imprint in the plaster. Daymo, dragging potatoes from the ashes of the fire, snickered. Ma turned her face to the wall. The ladies moved to the other side of the city very soon after.
Now here I am, with Tina’s hand in mine. I’ve kissed her, and she has kissed me; a boy who could turn out to be my best friend is striding ahead of us, and it is the most included, the most loved, I have ever felt in my life.
But we are walking through a torment of light, towards a great black hole of nothing; I can barely look at the contents of the pram that Tina and I are pushing; the people who live here are no longer human, and I am empty. Inside my chest, I am empty – there is a small, suspended space where my heartbeat should be.
I need to get her out of here.
Harry marches straight past the frilled moon of that woman’s parasol and out onto the ice. He sheds clothes as he goes, a trail of small bundles, as if he hopes they will lead him back to shore.
The creature in the pram gurgles happily. When I look back up from its contented face, Harry has already disappeared, following that black man underwater.
The light is gushing overhead, pouring into the ice, where it disappears without return. Some of it comes and goes from Tina, bringing messages to the creature underground, but most of it, most of it, is sucked into the ice and dies there. I can see all this through Tina’s eyes. If she lets go of my hand, I will not see even a fraction of it.
The wheels of the pram whisper through frozen grass as we near the shore. The closer we get to the water, the stranger I feel.
The air is dead here. It pushes dead fingers into my eyes and ears and onto the top of my head, pressing me down. Surely I am sinking?
At my side, Tina takes a long breath and releases my hand. I turn to her in panic, feeling as if I am plummeting away from her. She smiles at me, the strain no longer evident in her face. Her voice comes from far away. ‘It’s much quieter down here, isn’t it, Joe? I think I can manage by myself down here.’
I release the pram and she pushes resolutely forward, heading for the water. I feel like I have sunk knee-deep into the yielding ground. But I take one step, then another, and I am moving and walking and following on behind.
We round the screen of the parasol, and a woman is standing there. At the sight of Tina’s stolen pram, she starts forward.
Tina says, ‘I wouldn’t look in here if I were you,’ and the woman stops.
‘Why not?’ she whispers. ‘You haven’t put a baby in there, have you?’
‘It’s not a baby,’ says Tina.
The woman relaxes. ‘Very wise, flor. Babies are messy and fragile. They break your heart. Only one in eight ever survives, you know, and even then he leaves without …’
She looks confused. She starts again.
‘I did not give you permission, though, flor. One should always ask before …’
Her eyes flick to me, and she stops talking. She seems struck dumb by me. Can she see I am sinking into the ground?
‘This is Mr Joe Gosling,’ says Tina. ‘Your friends stole him at the same time they stole me.’
‘But … but who is he for?’
Those little children are running towards us from the bridge, shouting. They are angry, and – something that at first is difficult for me to read – they are delighted to be so. The joy of it fizzes off them.
‘Mama!’ screeches the girl. ‘She has your things! How is she allowed? Who is that boy? What is he for?’
Her brother runs beside her, his face a savage twist of determination. Cornelius Wolcroft strides behind, his hair flying, his eyes fixed on the woman as if anxious for her.
She is looking me up and down. ‘What is wrong with you?’ she whispers. ‘You are so dark.’
Tina grabs my hand, and my mind is filled once more with the light gushing overhead. She pushes the pram through the rustling reeds, and I force my feet to follow as she leads me onto the lake. I feel the ice beneath my feet, and I am so heavy. I am lead.
Tina releases my hand and bends to retrieve the first of Harry’s discarded clothes. I am pressed down even as I feel like I am rising above myself. Heavy and light at the same time, I look into the sky, expecting to see the balloon of my thoughts float away. Darkness is seeping up from the ice, filling me from my feet to my empty head. I am falling. I am falling. The darkness has sucked the light from me.
I am dead.
There is a dull and distant thud as I hit the frozen surface of the lake. Tina’s face fills the clouded sky as she bends across me. I am gone.
Beloved
‘JOE?’ WHISPERED TINA. ‘Oh, Joe, don’t!’
Footsteps thudded dully on the ice, and the woman’s skirts came into view. The last of the light went from Joe’s eyes as she bent to look into them. ‘What ails him?’ she asked.
Tina snatched Joe’s arm and stood. He was unbelievably heavy – even accustomed as she was to hauling sacks and boxes at the market, she could barely move him.
The woman took his other arm. ‘Allow me,’ she said.
Shoving the pram with one hand, dragging Joe with the other, Tina made for shore. Suspended between her and the woman, Joe seemed to float on the green and blue billows of their skirts, his face turned peacefully upwards as if in sleep.
Those children were coming from shore now, pushing through the reeds. Light was sparking and wheeling from them – they were so wickedly alive. Lord Wolcroft followed them, his attention riveted on the woman, who was gazing down into Joe’s upturned face, rapt.
‘So young,’ she murmured.
Tina tightened her grip on his arm. ‘If those brats come near him, I’ll batter them.’
The woman lifted her dark eyes.
‘I’m not joking,’ said Tina. ‘You’d better keep them away from us.’
‘I would never allow the children to play with you.’
‘I’m not asking for your protection, missus. I’m telling you what’ll happen if they lay a finger on my friends.’
The woman grimaced at the contents of the pram. ‘You consider that a friend?’
Tina jarred to a halt. ‘I swear to Jesus, missus. You let them children near her and I will gouge out their eyes.’ She held the woman’s gaze for a fierce moment, then concentrated on getting to shore.
It was a hundred times easier to focus down here. Though the light still roared around and through her, her mind was her own.
She was fully aware of Joe as a dead weight on the end of her arm – Joe. Oh, Joe – and of the ice as a dead surface beneath her feet. Harry and the man named Vincent had faded as soon as they sank into the lake, dropping from her awareness into a nothingness of silence below. But she could still feel the Contagion, coiling in its sleep down there – tenuously contained by the last flickering remnants of the Angel’s strength.
Not for long though, Joe. Not if we can’t help him.
Joe did not reply. Tina lengthened her stride. She was frightened as to what would become of her back at the house. She did not want to feel her mind fracture again, she didn’t want to slip away. But she had to get Joe back there: back to the fragrance of roses, and the mist-softened warmth; away from this dead water.
The children were racing towards them, Wolcroft striding in their wake.
‘Cornelius,’ called the woman. ‘Best you keep them away!’
The little girl howled at that, and sped the last few yards, screaming and grasping for the pram. ‘Not fair! I never get to play with Mama’s things! Give that to me!’
Tina thrust the pram forward and the child bounced off it, tumbling to the ground in a flurry of ribbons and frills. Tina’s skirts swept over her where she lay. The woman glanced back, but did not stop.
The little boy halted, apparently stunned. ‘Wh … why did that girl not do as she was bid?’
‘Get out of the way,’ said Tina. ‘Or I’ll walk right over you.’
‘Pap!’ The boy turned to Wolcroft. ‘Why does
she not do as she is bid?’
Wolcroft, his eyes on Tina, gripped the boy’s shoulder. ‘Come away,’ he said.
The little girl, still tumbled on the ice, wailed. ‘She pushed me over!’ Tina was grimly satisfied to hear fear in her voice.
‘Find them something to do, Cornelius,’ murmured the woman, then she and Tina swept past, heading for the reed beds.
AT THE SHORELINE, Tina struggled to manage the pram one-handed. ‘Missus,’ she snapped. ‘Help me.’
After a pained hesitation, the woman averted her eyes from the contents, gripped her side of the pram handle, and pushed. Between them they manoeuvred it up onto the grass. Soon they were striding across the field of glittering frost, their skirts billowing, Joe dragging between them, lifeless as stone.
The woman spoke. As if responding to a question no one had asked, her words were sharp with exasperation: ‘Well, what would you have me do?’ she snapped. ‘Regardless of their impulses, they are still but children. One cannot very well drown them like unwanted puppies.’
Tina’s attention was riveted on the seething tangle of light at the house. ‘I don’t care what you do with your brats, missus. As long as you keep them away from me and Joseph.’
‘Joseph,’ said the woman, as if tasting the name. ‘He is your beau? Is that why Cornelius brought him here?’
My beau, thought Tina, my beau. All the things she had ever wanted for Joe and from Joe rose up like pain. The plans she’d had: the sewing machine she’d been saving for, the seamstresses she’d been gathering, the workshop she’d been planning to rent – a cooperative workshop, a manufactory. My factory, she thought. And then … and then … She thought the word together, tightened her grip on Joe and began running towards the house.
They crossed the threshold of frost back onto soft grass, and once again the light pressed in, seething and chaotic when compared to the orderly rush of the frozen places. Tina hunched her shoulders, anticipating a renewed assault of the Angel’s thoughts. But as she passed into the radius of his influence, there was no pain – just an increased thickness of the air and the familiar, probing inquisition of the light.
It was as if the Angel’s face were turned away for the moment, his urgency and grief laid aside as he sought to understand what was happening beyond the confines of his prison. Tina could sense him crouched below ground, his head angled close to the reflections of a glimmering pool. He had his beloved wrapped around his neck, and he clung to it, wishing it would translate for him, as it had always done; wishing to see again, and hear again, to feed properly again – wishing to be We again, instead of this blind and crippled, solitary, lopsided I.
He was listening to messages from the water. It told him that something was happening – some tiny movement where previously there had been none, a ripple of life newly intruded on centuries of slow decay.
Harry, thought Tina. And that man.
The Angel was tracing their descent to the bottom of the lake: two tiny insignificances pulling themselves down through a well shaft of pollution that oozed from … from what? The Ship? The Friend? The Burden? Tina could not untangle the feelings the Angel had towards this vast dying thing. The closer Harry and Vincent came to it, the better the Angel could feel them, and he waited, dreading and hoping at once, for the moment when they would touch its flesh.
The woman asked, ‘What do you see?’ and Tina realised she was standing on the edge of the driveway, her mouth hanging open, her eyes hot from not blinking.
‘They …’ she said, ‘they’re nearing the bottom of the lake. Something is down there. Like a ship. It belongs to the Angel.’
The woman seemed to search an internal landscape. ‘I sense no such thing.’
‘The Angel’s ship can feel them. And because of that, so can the Angel.’
The woman regarded her resentfully. ‘And therefore, so can you.’
‘And therefore so can I.’
The woman helped her force the pram out onto the gravel and over to the house. They laid Joe in the shelter of the porch, where Tina knelt at his side.
She tapped his dead cheek. ‘Joe?’ she whispered. ‘Please, Joe.’
Absorbed, the woman knelt, watching as if they were an exhibit. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘You are in love.’
Tina shook Joe gently. ‘Wake up …’
‘I know what love is,’ confided the woman. ‘Vicente thinks I have forgot, but how could I forget? Looking up from the accounts and seeing him for the first time, all business and smelling of the sea, ready to speak to my husband of taxes and excise duties and dues.’
She hugged her knees.
‘O pirata negro – my husband used to call him that. As if Vicente were incapable of being anything else. As if legitimate business were beyond a man like him. How could I not love him? So sure and calm. So undeniably himself in the face of the world.’ Her face fell. ‘You can imagine my husband’s rage, when he finally realised my feelings.’ She shuddered. ‘Such rage.’
Tina closed her fists in Joe’s waistcoat. He was lifeless and cold beneath her hands. ‘Oh, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘What about our plans?’
The woman chuckled softly. ‘Plans,’ she said. ‘But of course. Because you are pretty, and because you are in love – you still believe those things are an armour against the world.’
‘Be quiet,’ cried Tina. ‘Stop talking!’
The woman glanced wryly at her, then turned her attention to the lake. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Cornelius will save you.’
At that moment, Joe’s body jerked. He made a startled noise, his hands fluttering, and the woman smiled. ‘There,’ she said. ‘See? He returns.’
Joe came alive in an abrupt series of jumps and shudders, and suddenly Tina found herself looking down into widely alert eyes. They regarded each other for a moment, a tragedy of understanding passing between them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last.
‘You only fainted.’
‘Ah, Tina.’ He struggled to sit.
‘You only fainted. You wouldn’t eat your dinner, so you fainted.’
He pulled her into an embrace. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
She squeezed her eyes tight against knowing what he was apologising for. She could feel that new, strange calmness emanating from him. His mind was cool water, the circle of his arms a still, dark cave. Tina tightened her hold on him, rested her forehead on his shoulder, and refused to admit that this was the stillness of death.
‘You didn’t eat your dinner,’ she whispered. ‘I told you to eat your dinner.’
‘I’m dead, Tina.’
‘You’re not! You’re not! Sure, amn’t I holding your hands, Joe?’ She grabbed his hands, the fine lace cuffs falling back as she dragged his fingers to her lips. ‘Amn’t I kissing you?’
She pressed her lips to his, to the softness of them and the warmth, to the taste of him, which had surprised her by being like apples, only sweeter – peaches maybe, or how she imagined peaches might taste. ‘How could I be doing these things, holding you so close, and kissing you at last? How could I be loving you this much if you were dead, Joe? It wouldn’t be fair.’
And they were clutching each other again, her fists in his shirt, as she whispered, ‘You’re alive, Joe. You’re alive. I won’t let you be anything but alive.’
Something rested lightly on her back, hot and dry and intrusive. The woman’s hand. She was leaning close, regarding them with an intense fascination.
Tina shrugged her off with almost thankful anger. ‘Stop it! Stop watching us!’
The woman tried to gently brush the hair from Tina’s face. Joe slapped her hand away. ‘Get your own life,’ he hissed. ‘Stop pawing at ours.’
The woman smiled. ‘So tender.’
Someone rushed up the steps, startling them. Wolcroft.
‘Raquel?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Are you well?’
She turned to him with a decisive gesture. ‘Cornelius, I would very much like to keep these children.’
‘Keep? But …’
Wolcroft sank to his haunches on the step at the woman’s feet. He tentatively took her hands. His eyes flicked to Joe’s borrowed clothes and jerked away again, as if afraid to draw attention to them.
‘Raquel, does that boy not … does that boy not disturb you?’
The woman shrugged. ‘I had hoped the girl might give you joy, Cornelius, and I admit the boy quite stymies that plan. Nevertheless, they make a tender little couple. I want you to rescue them for me.’
Wolcroft’s expression drew down, and his grip on the woman’s hands tightened. ‘The boy’s clothes, Raquel. Do his clothes not disturb you?’
The woman turned to Joe as if inspecting his clothing for the very first time. She laughed in amusement. ‘Cornelius,’ she said, ‘I think even I can withstand the youthful impropriety of a shirt worn without cravat and jacket. Besides’ – she playfully tapped Wolcroft’s stained waistcoat – ‘you are hardly in a position to judge.’
Wolcroft drew back, his expression tragic, and she smiled at him in puzzled concern. ‘Why, meu caro, what has upset you?’
‘There is not one item of his which I would not know on sight,’ he said. ‘I remember every button, Raquel. I remember every thread. Surely as his mother you should …’
Wolcroft bit his lips, as if to kill his words, and abruptly turned his back to sit at Raquel’s feet. Raquel immediately leaned on his shoulder, gazing down to where Luke and the children were playing on the ice. At her touch, Wolcroft clenched his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.
Raquel seemed to have no reaction at all to his obvious distress, and Tina began to suspect that this woman saw only what she wanted to see, understood only what she wanted to understand – everything else was just so much mist to her, so much meaningless birdsong.
Wolcroft, however, was aswarm with darkness. Dense and heavy, and sickly sweet as if compressed by aeons underground, his emotions rose through the surrounding ropes of energy. Tina knew this was how her own feelings must look as they travelled to the Angel – sorrow so intense it darkened the light.
Resonance Page 27