And London…?
Christ, it was alive, expanding ever further and busier every time that I visited, bustling as much with death as with life, both cheek by jowl: a chimneysweep’s boy (younger than me), choking up blood as he staggered by us, black head to foot, a crawler in the shadow of a doorway, twitching under scarlet rags, nothing but a bag of bones, a blue-smocked butcher whistling, laden with a tray that groaned under fresh joints of lamb and an abandoned new-born, gray and alien.
Before papa and I would head back to the hiss and screech of the train, papa would take me to stand on the western parapet of London Bridge, amidst sailors in red and blue flannel shirts and the stink of smoke, to peer over at the tugboats, steamers, and paddleboats, which were sailing in and out on the silver tongue of the Thames.
Papa would point out which were for passengers and which cargo, listing — as if they were no different to the chemicals we experimented with — what were in their holds: spices, tea, sugar, indigo, rum, wool, French wine, or my beloved coffee.
Then I’d imagine the faraway lands that they’d come from (or were sailing to). And that I was traveling with them.
It burnt in my gut: this craving to escape…I didn’t know what…all right then, my own skin. It was too tight. Something in me wanted to blaze brighter.
The world was too large to leave it there in darkness.
One cold morning, I settled myself on the Oriental rug in front of the fire in our drawing room, whilst Nora and Polly played with their doll, which papa had made out of wood and wool. My sisters’ shrill voices were a starling-like chattering.
I lay on my elbows, flicking through the heavy account books, which I’d discovered at the back of the studio.
Papa never banned me from touching anything; he was eccentric like that. He’d say: the world’s for exploring because that’s when discoveries are made and rules crush natural curiosity.
I loved him for that.
You spoil that boy, mama was fond of warning but she didn’t stop papa, and I saw the way that her eyes danced.
I had papa’s books laid out in front of me like a precious find with this fast heartbeat because I loved the numbers, which were in neat rows in papa’s slanting handwriting: money in, money out, names and dates.
All right then, so there was another reason I spent every hour I could lurking at the back of the studio, sniffing the toxic chemicals, which papa mixed in our night-time experiments or listening to the gossip of the ladies and gentlemen, when they came to collect the finished product.
I was desperate to understand why my brain worked the way that it did.
If a perfect photograph was a scientific possibility through writing with light, then I wasn’t cursed, demon possessed, or set for Bedlam (and I’d lain trembling in bed terrified of all three possibilities). If there was a rational explanation for how an image could be caught like that, then I wasn’t a freak.
When I heard the door open, I glanced up.
It was a surprise to see papa frowning; he usually looked like an excited kid, or so deep in thought that he was wandering through another world. “Why are you reading those?”
I hesitated. “I like the numbers, sir.”
At last, papa smiled as he ruffled my hair. “Then read away.”
Papa collapsed into the upholstered armchair, dragging the broadsheet, with a crisp shake of the pages, in front of his nose.
I slammed the account book closed. “All finished.”
Papa peered at me over the top of the Times, as he reached for his clay pipe. “Finished, Thomas?”
“But…are the two columns not meant to balance? There’s a discrepancy of nine guineas on page five, no amount entered for Mrs Doubleday on page 14 and on page 27 a shortfall of 16 guineas and seven shillings…” Papa crumpled the Times into his lap and stared at me. Nora and Polly stopped playing at the sound, gazing over at us with their large eyes. When Papa held out his hand, I passed over the book to show him. “There are more…”
Christ, I’d done it now.
The camouflage had slipped; my true form was revealed. What would any of them do now that the freak within had been unmasked?
My pulse beat so hard that I thought my heart would explode.
Papa flicked through the pages, running his finger down the numbers to tote them up.
I watched each action closely, flinching at the bang, as finally papa shut the book and placed it down. He threw the Times aside. When papa pushed himself up, for the first time he felt like a towering god of justice, poised to give me a thrashing, rather than my fellow pioneer in this world.
I scrambled up, hanging my head and unable to meet his eye.
So, this was it then.
When papa’s hand touched my shoulder, I flinched. But his voice was soft. “You are a miracle. A human camera. My little Light.”
When I looked up into papa’s eyes, they were flaming with pride.
As if they’d sensed but not understood the tension and had now been jolted out of it, my sisters sprang up. They clasped hands and danced around, like they were playing “Ring a Ring o’Roses”, whilst they chanted little Light, little Light, little Light…
I collapsed in a giggling pile of relief.
Then papa was laughing too and the drawing room was filled with our hullabaloo. It felt like we could take on anything. Mama stuck her head around the door in astonishment at the uproar.
You don’t get many moments in life like that: pure and perfect joy. In my First Life that was my only one. Yet because I was a human camera, I captured it with perfect clarity. I could return to it many times over, which was a good thing.
Because I bloody needed to.
Six weeks after that, I was playing behind the house with Nora and Polly under the shade of the weeping willow because mama had told me to keep an eye on my sisters.
I positioned my sisters, like sentinels, whilst they clutched shining silver half-crowns, which I’d liberated from papa’s study for the experiment.
The girls were normally only permitted to learn music and art, like their wanker of a tutor insisted, and I wanted to share with them the wonders that I was discovering and yet they were barred from; if I wasn’t careful, they’d turn into right ninnies…unless they had my help.
My sisters held on dead tight to the half-crowns, grinning at being allowed in on such grownup science, until they got the angle right. Then the sun hit the half-crowns and reflected.
The light was so bright, it got Polly in the eyes first. When she hitched a sob, I dashed to her, before shushing her and shoving her across until — bam — the ray bounced between the coins and onto the trailing branches of the weeping willow, where it danced and flitted like a fairy.
Then my sisters gasped, laughing at the light.
That’s when mama stumbled into the garden, her face all screwed up.
I knew straightaway that something had happened to papa.
It’s like you hate yourself for knowing but a wolf awakes deep in your gut and growls at the danger, so you just know, all right?
Papa was dead — killed cold — struck down by a hansom cab, which had been transporting one of those posh gentlemen to Cassiobury House. It’d been driven by a drunken bastard, too soaked in gin to realize (or care), what he’d done.
The banks swooped in and took the studio. Because those numbers in the account books…? I’d been right: the two columns should’ve balanced.
Me? I was sent away to an orphan school in London. I never saw my mama or sisters again. Instead, I was worked like a bloody servant by the stuck-up boys, whose parents could afford to pay the fees, when I wasn’t getting a taste of the birch.
Suddenly, rules mattered. Everything was banned. And the world was no longer for exploring but a prison to be endured.
The light was dimmed.
I fagged for a sadistic bastard, who never let me forget that I was only there (and not in the workhouse), by the grace of charity. No one ever let me forget tha
t again.
Say thank you, Blickle… As I knelt at his feet… Say thank you, Blickle… As the cane swished down… Say thank you, Blickle… As he held me struggling under his brute weight and… Say… No, please, no… I said, say thank you, Blickle…
I learned to hide my memory and my mind.
I didn’t want to be seen as more of an outsider or exhibit to be sneered at than I already was. Any intellect that I did risk showing, the teachers sniffed at as low cunning. They were soon snarling that I was a reprobate, when I took to brawling as the only way to garner some scant regard amongst the other lads, as well as to feed the anger, which balled so tight in me some days that I was nothing but a blazing sun of rage.
What never went away, was one simple feeling: to lose everything in a moment. As well as to be utterly beholden: trapped at another’s mercy.
Powerless doesn’t even cover it, love.
It wasn’t until I was eighteen that my uncle belatedly remembered his duty and found a junior clerk position for me at Overend, Gurney and Company and well…you know how that ended.
There was one thing that I could hold onto through my First Life, death, and into my Blood Life.
You always asked why I was called Light — said my parents must be hippies?
All right then, so when you’re elected you get to choose a new name, like a christening. It’s the first initiation into Blood Life and the symbolic shedding of humanity, or that’s how some see it: the cleansing of their First Life and a bloody liberation.
But for me, my naming tied me closer to what had been important.
I’m not alone in that. We use it to bind ourselves to our First Lives, loves, and hurts, so that we’ll never forget what it was to be human. Because we’ll never be human again but we can remember the whispered specter of it. We can fight to hold onto the edges. The taste.
That once we loved and were loved.
I chose Light.
And I remembered.
DECEMBER 1968 YORKSHIRE
The black shadow of Ilkley Moor bled out of the weak evening light. The mists were thick around the hills, swallowing the road; the Mini Cooper’s lights blurred. Up ahead the whitewashed walls of your dad’s house rose up in the dark.
Now look, it hadn’t been my idea. In fact, I’d have taken you anywhere, rather than back to your dad. But you’d insisted because you still believed in family more than I did. At least, in times of need.
Of course, your family couldn’t be as psychotic or dysfunctional as my Blood Lifer one. Although from what I’d seen, yours wasn’t that far behind.
We’d hidden out on quiet country lanes, which had given me time to heal, blacking out the car’s windows with rugs, so that we could sleep in safety during the day and drive by night because you didn’t want to give your dad a heart attack when he saw me.
First, I’d forced you to take me back to London, although not without days of furious rowing. You were right but you still took me back: it was non-negotiable.
I had to snatch the Triton, you see. You get attached to things when you have so little. In a century of living, she was all that I had to show for my life. Without my Triton, I was no more than a shade.
When I’d slunk into Advance, it’d felt deserted. There was no noise, movement, and no pulsing thrum of my Author, muse, and liberator.
Settling back over the Triton, it’d been like having a part of myself back, which I’d only dully sensed had been missing.
You drove towards your dad’s house in the Mini Cooper, as I roared up on the Triton, weaving between the frozen ruts and fighting to retain control, when the bike skidded over the ice.
We swung onto the track, pulling up in front of a farmhouse, which was buried in the lower slopes of the moor.
As soon as you knocked on the door, I knew that something was wrong.
First, there was a shambling sound and then an unsteady wrenching, as bolts were dragged back. When the door was hauled open, and dim light puddled out, the hulking outline of your dad was silhouetted. But he was swaying, as if he was at sea: he was sodding drunk.
Your dad’s trousers were stained. His braces hung loose and his shirtsleeves were rolled back. He squinted out at us. “Kathy?”
You barged past your dad into the sitting room, where brass horseshoes hung from the walls above the two frayed armchairs, whilst a wood fire spat embers. When I sloped after you, your dad twisted and blocked the doorway, trapping us inside. His bleary eyes darted from you to me and then back again.
“What’s,” your dad tossed his head at me, “he doing here?”
“He’s with me.”
“Aye?”
Your dad stared at you; you fidgeted.
You clenched your fists. “We need… Can we stay here? Just for…a bit.”
Your dad snorted. “What do you reckon?”
I could’ve wrung your dad’s wrinkled old neck. I hurled myself down into his armchair, allowing the warmth of the burning logs to thaw me, as I stared up boldly at him. I raised my eyebrow in challenge.
Your dad merely glared at me but didn’t move.
“I reckon,” Kathy took one step towards her dad, “that after everything mother and me—”
“Don’t talk to me about thine mother—”
“Why not?” A flash of rage; you flamed with it. “Nothing wrong with our family was there? Nothing wrong with you?”
My breath hitched; I dug my nails into the arms of the chair to keep myself seated.
Your dad’s cheeks reddened with fury. “Thee’ll get a right belt in a—”
“Why hide anymore?” You spun in a circle. “We’re all unmasked here.”
Your dad stumbled towards you. I didn’t stop him. You didn’t need rescuing. If anything, he did. “Are thee touched lass?”
When you laughed, it was like something had been knocked loose. I’d never heard you sound like that before: it was haunting.
And it was all my fault.
Buggering hell, I’d broken you.
Was this why we kept the existence of Blood Lifers secret, except to the elect? Because First Lifers couldn’t cope with the shock of such knowledge?
You shoved closer to your dad. Your hand pressed hard to his chest, where his heart would be pumping the blood pounding through him. “I want to see the monster. You’re no man, are you?”
I flung myself out of the chair. I grasped your arm, hauling you away from your dad. “Time to go, love?”
Coming here had been a mistake. Why had I let you persuade me? Yet when have I ever been able to convince you out of anything?
Your dad, however, drunk and confused as he was, had now worked out your insult. His face had deepened to a mottled purple, as he stomped nearer, forcing our backs to the fire and roasting our arses on the flames. “Thee are nothing but a whore. Just like thine mother—”
That’s when you cracked him. I hadn’t even seen the brass poker in your hand.
Then your dad fell.
Interesting how the giant of a bloke only took one hit to kill, like smashing an egg.
Your dad sprawled on the floor with his skull caved in; scarlet seeped onto the stone flags.
In my hunger, all I could think about was the waste, not of life but of sodding blood. If you hadn’t been in the room, I’d have scrabbled on all fours licking it up. The hunger was now at such a pitch, it was like I’d shrapnel in my guts.
You didn’t scream, cry, or even blink. You simply stood there, hand flexing around the poker. Then you said, in a strange, flat voice, “We need a spade.”
You’ve always been practical like that.
At last, something I could do for you, which few other blokes would’ve understood or had the balls to stand shoulder by shoulder with you on.
Finally, you needed me.
In this new world, I’d botched every attempt to demonstrate my love, whether with jewelery or words. But this? Burying the father, who you’d murdered, in order to save you the pain of doing it your
self?
That was right down my alley.
I waited until night was darkest, before carrying your dad’s heavy weight out onto the moors, through the fluffy tufts of cotton grasses, to damper ground. I buried him deep, where the bogs sucked him deeper, and he’d never be found. One less nightmare to haunt you. Or so I’d thought. Now, however, when I see you rocking and wailing at things, which aren’t there…?
Maybe nothing can be buried that easily.
Bleeding frozen, I darted back through the bracken and patches of bramble, which tore at me in the black. Heart thundering, I tore across the moor, not bothering how scratched I became. I was more rent inside, not knowing what I’d find when I got back to you. Because to a First Lifer killing…? It’s no predatory necessity (like it is to us Blood Lifers), as natural as breathing.
I remembered the taste of enough humanity to know that it wasn’t all right to murder your dad. Dealing with the corpse was only the business end.
When I climbed the stairs of the farmhouse, however, I found you unpacking your suitcase in what must’ve been your old room: I could tell by the glamorous posters of The Shirelles, who glimmered in mauve gowns. Dresses, boots, bags, make-up and false hair were spread out like a shop, whilst you were humming, cross-legged in the midst of it all, as you dragged out another piece of your life.
You grinned at me.
I so hadn’t bloody expected it, that I stopped short.
“All right?” You asked.
I nodded. “Sorted.”
You jumped up, pulling me further into the room.
I’d done something right at last; it burnt me hot inside.
I’ll tell you now, I’d never have guessed that First Lifers courted today with killing.
I don’t reckon you’d ever have been content with another First Lifer. You were always too close to Blood Life, even though you never knew it.
“Look what I found.” You pushed me towards a dusty Dansette record player, which was buried under a pile of old records. “It was my mother’s. We’d listen to…everything. You left something at mine. I packed it because…”
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 22