I hauled myself into a chair. My hands were shaking, and my left eyelid was twitching crazily, making it seem like the thick orange sunlight in the filthy windows was oscillating. Pressing my eyeball I stared at the door again—the chokey door with steel braces at either end and a heavy wood plank propped across. It had come back. I had spoken its name and conjured it, like a curse. I shut my other eye and ground the heels of my hands into the sockets, willing it to go away, feeling the chair suddenly tipping back, as if the whole room was off balance and on the brink of flipping—
And then I was stumping down the road. My stick rhythmically smacked the stones of the lane, and cool air was slipping into my collar. I touched my clammy face, my hat brim, blinking at the pitted brick house fronts bathed in peach haze, the row of black pigeons on a wire strung in between, the people ambling by. The deceptive casualness of everything. I was moving with purpose, hooking into a narrow lane, then turning again, until at last I found myself on a tumbledown byway, peering at a sign above a steep descent of steps. The painted lettering was illegible. It looked like people had been stabbing the wooden sign as they went down. I glanced behind me, then eased down the slippery steps to the open drain at the bottom and ducked into the pub.
Low and compressed, smelling of chamber pot. A few men sat on stools along the bar, and I shuffled behind them, brushing the brick cellar wall, until I came to an empty stool, which rocked to one side when I sat down. The bearded geezer behind the bar limped up, and I asked him cautiously for gin. He set before me a glass of clear stuff that smelt like whatever Mrs. Deaker used to clean.
I had been guided here, it seemed, to this vile nameless place. As if by some dark hand plunged into my brain, manipulating the impulses. Yes, something was undeniably infiltrating my life, like curlings of ink in water. I stared into my glass, chipped and clouded, and took a wincing sip. Then I glanced to my left, at the man who’d just brushed behind me. He stood at the bar pulling off his gloves, finger by finger.
The gloves he slung inside his topper, which he set upside down on a stool. He unbuttoned his overcoat and propped a fist against his hip as he leant at the bar, and the murky light caught the scaly emerald texture of his waistcoat.
I knew this man . . . but from where? He was compact, ruddy, with black muttonchops framing the mild, pleasant face. The barman had shambled over and the man was speaking to him, slipping two fingers into the iridescent emerald pocket of his waistcoat. A coin was extracted and snapped onto the bar. The old geezer moved away and then the man looked over at me. He dipped me a dubious nod.
Of course.
Auntie Gorgon’s girlie shop. Room three, the carved Christ crying out to His God. It was the very same man—in the very same emerald waistcoat. My scalp was shrinking over my skull. This could be no accident. No. The man was lifting a shot of whisky and tossing it back—and I recalled it exactly, that jaunty tip of his chin. He did not sit down; he just stood at the bar five paces away, his chest flashing like the puffed-up front of some exotic bird. He was speaking with the barman again, gesturing at the whisky bottle. The bearded geezer murmured some response, and the man pulled out another, larger coin that he set in the wrinkled palm. The whisky bottle was left on the bar, and the man poured himself another shot, lifted it leisurely to his lips.
Big night? I heard myself say.
I hardly recognised my own voice: it was choked, strained. The man drank and lowered his glass. Pardon? Big night, I said again, nodding at the bottle. He eyed me uncertainly, then shrugged and gazed away. The usual.
Yes, the usual. My ears were starting to ring, as if the bottles and glasses behind the bar were vibrating. I gripped my glass, in which gin was rippling with the same, minute tremour. A sharp pain was pressing into the back of my eyeball. I screwed the eye shut, resisting the urge to cover my ears with both hands as the ringing increased. What was I meant to do? Wasn’t this the very kind of man I was trying to protect my girls back at Ghyll against? The beast in his finery, whetting his appetite before the feast. He poured himself a third shot, knocked it back, and bunged the cork in the bottle. Right, then, he said to himself, taking up his topper. He grabbed the whisky bottle by the throat, smacked his gloves on the bar, and strolled off toward the back of the room, the exit in the rear.
At the back door, a set of steps ascended to an alleyway rigged with high washing lines. Sheets like sails, dyed by the apricot sunset. The man was gazing up, swigging from his bottle. As he lowered the whisky, he turned. A fawning smile of fear lit up his face. I had the sense it was not me he saw but something behind me, something that moved through me and punched him in the solar plexus. He went down to his knees and retched. My palm swung across his cheek with a meaty crack. I could hardly feel the sting of contact. Only the spike of pain in my eyeball. The man sprawled on his side on the stones, coughing. I took the gurgling bottle from his fingers. Open up, I heard myself say as my boot rolled the man onto his back. A splash of whisky spattered his face. He spluttered, gasping. Get undressed.
I stood in Ghyll’s hall, dazed, entranced by a last lozenge of orange melting on the floor. I could hear voices and a clattering of plates from the kitchen, down the corridor. I shook my head, touched my left cheek. The pain was gone. The ringing in my ears had stopped. Bile burned at the back of my throat. I climbed to my bedroom and shut the door.
I shed my coat and took a breath, then stepped into the giant frame of the mirror. The emerald waistcoat fit me snug as a corset. It flashed and shimmered as I turned my torso, transfixed. The face staring back at me was not quite my own. The eyes had an alien, darkened luster. My hands stank of whisky. The waistcoat was soaked in it. Yet through the booze, I could smell the sharp whiff of shit from my thumb, which I held splayed from the other four fingers. Drink up! I heard the choking voice roar. Drink up, boy!
I shuddered, fumbled with the waistcoat buttons and ripped it off. Wiping and twisting my thumb in the fabric, I stuffed the thing in the bottom drawer of my wardrobe. From the bottle on the sideboard I splashed gin onto my hands and scrubbed them together. Panting, I listened into the depths of the house and gradually discerned the muted sounds of dinner all the way downstairs.
I did not want to be alone.
They had started without me. Edging into my seat, I took elaborate care scraping into the right position, looking pointedly away from the sink and the chokey door below it. I held my breath and looked up at Mrs. Deaker, chewing quietly, who gave me a polite, inscrutable smile. I slid my glance to Dorie, glaring at me with chill marble eyes, like a cat harbouring thoughts of revenge. What had I done? Found out her hiding place? Jeannie meanwhile had taken my empty plate and now set it down before me, loaded with food: lamb chops, potatoes, peas, some kind of gloopy pudding. I blinked at the inedible mess, heart in my stomach. Then I looked at her. Her crimson hair was frazzled, as if from steam, and her complexion flushed. She took me in, her brow furrowed, inquiring. Then she reached out and touched my hand, limp on the table edge.
By reflex I almost jerked back at the sweet, unexpected contact. But I held my hand there as she slid her fingers under my palm and then squeezed, and a rush of heat flowed up my arm. All at once I felt like weeping—like slumping to the floor and burying myself in her lap to muffle my gulping cries. Instead I looked away, at the sink and the white door underneath. Just a drain-cupboard door, I told myself. Just a white wooden door with a harmless black knob. The chokey was not here. It was hundreds of miles north in a dead, abandoned house, boarded up for good.
The next morning at breakfast I had my appetite back. I speared one banger after another, devouring them off the end of my fork, juice bursting into my mouth. Curiously, the meat itself had no flavour, and the coffee was just scalding black water, but I chewed and slurped away, actively avoiding little Dorie’s eyes to my right. She was acting peculiar still, fussing with her food, fixing me with frosty, vengeful glares. But I was determined to behave as if unfazed. At last the little girl shoved her plate aside
and crossed her arms. We never do anything fun, she said. We want to do something fun.
Mrs. Deaker watched me with a forked slice of sausage poised in the air. I speared another—the last—from the oily platter, though the grease was congealing in my throat. I took a bite, and with the tasteless wad in my cheek I met the girl’s accusatory glower. What’s your idea of fun, then?
That evening found me in a sprung velvet seat in a grandly shabby theatre watching sweaty pirates dance across the garish stage. Mrs. Deaker sat next to me jerking in her seat and patting the armrests to the music. As we walked home afterward the girls ran ahead down the busy lane, chasing each other and swashbuckling, and Mrs. Deaker slipped her arm inside mine. Master, with your permission, I was thinking we might move the armoire from the parlour up to the girls’ room. Or a chest, at the very least. They have nowhere for their clothes.
I was only half listening. I was scanning the street and the faces of passers-by, expectant, but of what precisely, I did not know. How many clothes do they have? I asked absently. Yes, said Mrs. Deaker, well, they will need more clothes. Her arm tightened around mine, and I reluctantly turned to her grimly rigid profile. Not for the first time I wondered where Mr. Deaker was. What had happened to him?
So we just keep them? Is that the idea?
You have other plans for them?
There was a bitter, cryptic implication to her tone I did not like or understand. She stared sternly ahead as we strolled along. I clucked irritably and looked off down the lane, after the girls, who had disappeared from view. Shops were still open, and the evening sky overhead was deep blue, and the Soho locals were ambling about, lovers arm in arm, flashy swells in rowdy packs. I felt a surge of vexation for the bony arm hooked through mine like a shackle, binding me. What was I even doing, talking about wardrobes, playing the family man? And what did she mean, other plans? I craned my neck, searching through the gaps of bobbing hats and shoulders. Then Cornelius Luce passed across the lane, just ten paces ahead.
An alleyway intersected our lane and he was crossing that intersection. Recognition instantaneous: the gleam of immaculate moustache, the placid mien beneath the black bowler. My heart hitched and Luce strolled on and vanished into the other side of his alleyway.
I hurried to the corner, hauling along Mrs. Deaker, who would not let go of me. The alley was tall and narrow, and Luce picked his way down, tails of his charcoal coat flapping. I could almost feel the wake of possibility he’d left behind him. This was what I’d been waiting for. This was no coincidence, no more than finding that man in the emerald waistcoat was. No, they were being placed in my path. I could not simply ignore it. I was straining toward the alleyway as if sucked in by the undertow, yet something was holding me back. I looked down at Mrs. Deaker’s clasping hands curled around my forearm, digging into the tender vein at the cleft, and with a snarl I ripped my arm free. She gawked at me, elbow lifted, as if I’d made to swat her. I stepped back; then the alleyway sucked me in and I stumbled down its lopsided stones after Luce.
At the next intersection Luce turned onto a wider lane, and I slipped through the rambling crowds with his rounded bowler bouncing in sight. I had left my stick behind tonight and felt empty-handed, defenceless, as I swiveled and dove between the oncoming walkers—once getting stuck in that absurd pedestrian dance with some idiot who mirrored my attempts to get past him until I shoved him from my path. Several blocks later Luce came to the Black Shop Pub, and I followed him inside. Irish bar, crowded and loud, fogged in smoke. I lost sight of Luce at once in the crush of big milling bodies. I threw myself into the current and was carried to the bar, where the barman slopped a black foaming beer before me. I fought with it against the tide until I spied an opening, a wooden railing, and hauled myself free.
The bar area was lifted a few feet above the main room and corralled by the wooden banister to which I was now pinned from behind. But I had an excellent view of the floor below. Booths on both ends, high chairs and tables in the centre, and darts in the back. Sipping my sludge, I searched the room for Luce. Quickly I picked him out. He had removed his bowler, and his slick hair shone in the overhead light as he stood at a high table speaking to a man who was seated with his back to me. The man wore a blue checkered jacket and a tall black topper.
My position at the railing was far too exposed; any moment Luce might look up and see me. But I could not seem to move—the herd of bodies weighed me in place. And that blue checkered jacket, that tall stovepipe hat. Had I seen this outfit somewhere before? Luce took off his own charcoal coat, which he slung on the back of a chair, and then dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief, eyes swinging around the room. Turn! I told myself. Hide! But there was nowhere to turn or hide. I gripped the banister as Luce’s gaze passed over me, sucking in my breath as if to make myself unnoticeable. I saw his shaded eyes falter, then flick back to mine. His white silk handkerchief was still lifted toward his brow, a sham truce, as we stared fast at each other from across the floor. Then a pair of men blundered between us, and when they’d passed, I saw that Luce was leaning over the seated man, speaking hurriedly. As the man began to turn his shoulders, a white tail of tied hair slipped out from his collar. I knew whose face it would be beneath the black brim. Though I strained to wrench away from the rail, my body was riveted to it. The sharp cheekbone came around and the crystal eyes found me. All sound evaporated.
Even after Carew turned back to the table, still I could not move, clutching the rail and my pint glass. I felt as if I’d glimpsed into some blinding heart of truth in which everything momentarily melded and made sense. Of course Luce had led me to him. Luce had taken his coat and bowler and was pushing through the crowd toward the door—but Carew remained in the high chair with his checkered back to me, that white tail curling over his collar. The roaring of the bar was dimmed in my ears beneath the dark gongs of blood. Carew now reached to lift off his topper, and as if he could feel my eyes, he ran a hand through his hair and pulled the tail loose. He stepped down from the chair and, holding his topper by the brim, began to make his way across the floor in my direction. His eyes were down on the obstacles in his path. I strained at the body, gritting my teeth, but it would not budge. A lock of silver-white hair swung before his face as he manoeuvred between the chairs and he tucked it behind his ear and at the same moment looked up and sank his gaze into me like a sabre. I could not even blink.
A second or two later he turned away, and my heart kicked back into gear with a double whump. The pint glass slipped from my grip to the floor, and the clunk released me from paralysis. I unpeeled my blanched fingers from the banister. Carew was heading for the door. His checkered shoulder disappeared between incoming bodies. I turned and elbowed my way after him, pawing through Irishmen, dragged along by the body’s reins as it lunged ahead. I staggered outside into drizzling rain.
The Black Shop occupied a corner, and I looked wildly around before sighting Carew, striding up the lane twisting north. It rose between grey tenements, dripping sporadic from the eaves. The left side was darker and I hugged the rough wall, while Carew marched sure-footed up the slippery centre, hands in his overcoat pockets. Up ahead the lane climbed to a set of crooked steps and pipe railing outlined against a streetlamp’s greenish nimbus in the mist. Carew ascended and I saw him emerge in silhouette, the outlandish topper first, then the rest. Near the top he paused, and I pressed myself to the wall. He stood listening before turning around to survey the sloping lane below. A lean black figurine, a chess piece. He took in a great breath and then shouted in triumph, Mr. Hyde!
I almost cried out.
Carew remained motionless, framed against the green evil mist. I could see his fuming breath. He drew in and shouted again, Mr. Hyde! Shivering on the wall, I clamped a hand to my mouth, fighting the awful, swelling impulse to yell back. The eaves above spattered. He waited. I shut my eyes. When I opened them, I was alone.
Alone? No, I wasn’t alone. As I tromped home through the rain, I could feel J
ekyll’s imprint on my brainstem, where he had gripped me. I had not stood rigid at that banister for Carew’s perusal, I had not followed him up that lane and then tried to cry out some reply! It could only have been Jekyll. There was no denying it anymore. His control was evolving. He could influence me—reach into the body, or into my mind—and move me. I did not like this. Why would he want Carew to see me—why pursue him? What did it mean that Carew knew my name?
Up in my room at Ghyll I stripped off my sopping clothes and shivered into my dressing gown. I climbed into a tattered armchair in the corner, feeling strangely suspicious of my bed, as if I might be hacked to pieces in my sleep if I slumbered there. Paranoid, yes. But I could not shake Carew’s triumphant echo from my head, as if he had been seeking me for a long while and then found me, hiding, at last. Yet how could that be? Even if Luce had told him my name—what could he possibly want with me? And what did Jekyll want with him in return? My mind felt pregnant with obscure motivations moving behind the membrane. From a rip in the armchair, the stuffing was bulging out, and my fingers tugged at the white hairy tufts, rolling it into tiny wads. My nose was running; absently I wiped it with the back of my hand and was startled by the warm, silky slime smeared across my wrist. My wrist? My room? Was any of this actually mine?
Hyde Page 13