“We’ll never get through this thing. I thought you said it was short?”
“So it’s like this…”
“But then again, I guess in a state like mine, I should be grateful for anyone willing to uplift my last days even in the slightest.”
“ ‘The man seemed young — almost a boy —’ ”
“What I really should do is thank you, Mr Austen, for your attention. God knows my son is off who-knows-where with who-knows-whom. And me with a coma coming on. Have you met that Martino boy? They always seem to be in some kind of strange trouble together.”
Mr Austen raised his voice a little, “ ‘…but you know with them it’s hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede’s ship’s biscuits I had in my pocket.’ See, here we have the Swede again. Many pages later, suddenly the Swede appears again. I do think I’m onto something here. ‘The fingers closed slowly on it and held.’ ”
“I wouldn’t mind a biscuit.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Sorry?”
“That Swede sure seems to like biscuits.”
“But this is the first time the biscuits are mentioned. You have no way to support your argument.”
“But think of it Mr Austen. Out there in Africa, so far away from home, and with a nice tin of biscuits. A man must surely love his sweets to make that kind of effort.”
“But you have misunderstood the whole point.”
“I bet that’s the answer to the mystery. The biscuits. It’s what you called, when we were reading The Last of the Mohicans, an ‘incongruent element’ if I remember rightly. Something that doesn’t fit, that sticks out. So it has to be a clue.”
“That’s preposterous. Heart of Darkness does not have ‘clues.’ And who ever heard of a detective novel based on a tin of biscuits? There were countless items of Western European origin in Africa at the time. The explorers practically brought the whole lot of Selfridges with them.”
“Just keep your eyes on those biscuits. You’ll see.”
“Fine. We’ll keep our eyes on the biscuits then. But listen up, and I think you’ll see my point: ‘The fingers closed slowly on it and held — there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck.’ Why? Where did he get the worsted rope? Was it a badge, an ornament, a charm, a propitiatory act? Was there any idea connected with it at all? ‘It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas.’ ”
“Biscuits,” said Mrs Purcell in a giggle. Mr Austen caught the laughter too.
“I think you might be right after all, Mrs Purcell,” he said, heading to the hospital kitchen to see what he could round up. “Biscuits. I’ll definitely have to take them into consideration.”
PINKER WAS BUSY extracting a favour, so Henry had to drag Uncle Toby’s body all by himself. He tried not to imagine the gruesome difficulties the family had in bringing Uncle Toby to the door. Henry had to drag Uncle Toby by his feet, climb up onto the empty body cart, and then heave the body on top. The woman he had met earlier that day held the house door open all the while.
Her name was Cathleen and she and Henry broke the rules of quarantine three days later. In fact, Henry and Cathleen broke the rules not only by leaving the confines of Cathleen’s house (which was twice forbidden because of the recent death of her uncle, which had reset the quarantine clocks back to zero for the whole family), but also by leaving the street and nearly the town proper. Cathleen knew a place where they could have had a swim if it had been warmer. It seemed like as good of a place as any to go since Henry knew of little more than his three streets, the food station and the new graveyard. But Cathleen knew all the nice spots around town, and her first choice was the swimming pond out near Bonbay Null. It was there she had shared her first kisses with a farmer’s son, and she entertained the sad belief that it was perhaps the spot more than herself that was the cause of her first romantic engagement. Even if she did smile at herself for the silliness of the thought, she would rather not upset the stars in any way by bringing Henry to untested ground. Despite the grave situation of the town in general, and her family in particular, Cathleen even started to quietly sing to herself on the way.
Sneaking away from house and street was relatively easy since there was no one about except for Henry and Pinker, and Henry knew Pinker’s routine and was able to guide them clear. Henry, upon taking Cathleen’s arm once they were out of sight of her home, jokingly called out to the absent Syndic to arrest them both for breaking quarantine, a joke which got him at first a stern look at such disruptive behaviour but then not only a squeeze from the crook of Cathleen’s arm, but direct and warm eye contact as well.
“This is it,” she said, as they came out of a thicket of oak trees to a rather small but clean pond hidden both from the road and from the Bridewell. “It’s small but private, a place where I must admit I have visited previously, but, I also must tell you with what you might perceive as a sparkle in my eye, I am also privy to the fact that this place contains the charm of fairies, at least as far as two newly christened lovers are concerned.”
“You work fast,” said Henry.
“There’s a plague,” said Cathleen.
“Oh, really?” said Henry, immediately regretting his tone as Cathleen, pretending not to notice, and seemingly not giving a care for the pale-green dress she had on, sat down on the ground just beneath her. Because of the unexpected hardness of a stone covered in moss, this quick movement squeezed a very feminine “Humph” from the top of her throat. She smiled into her bosom.
“Sorry,” said Henry. “It’s just that…”
“It’s just that you spend your days feeding people who might make you sick just by their sight? That you spend your nights carting away the dead, realizing that you will have to touch them, your healthy skin against their sick, so that there is nothing for you to do but muster a kind of bravado so that if you do not make it through this trial, and it is a temporary trial for you Henry, I know it is, then you will be remembered as brave, and if you can’t muster the courage, you will at least be remembered as kind, or at worst foolish, maybe even reckless, which is pretty close to brave? You might just as well be a knight. Anyway all that is better than being cowardly, which you are not, let me tell you.”
“You might be right,” Henry smiled.
“So this bravado must invariably lead to a kind of uncouthness. Which, I must say, is not particularly attractive. Although much the same goes on in all the homes of this town, including my own. However, being uncouth might not be the best path to follow if you are at the side of a secluded lake to which a young woman has brought you. If that happens to be the case, then I would recommend that you change your tactic, so that you do not lose sight of the lovely wench before your cups are filled.”
“I would indeed be foolish to throw away such freely given advice. In fact, Cathleen, may I call you Cathleen?”
“You may.”
Henry sighed. “Then Cathleen, what I would like to do is to take your advice.”
“So be it,” she said, “now you just listen to me, and take my hand,” which Henry did.
“I REALLY THINK you should go with her. I mean really go with her, she sounds perfect for you, Henry. Just your type. And she sings for you? Good God! What else do you want? You know that a woman who sings for you will do just about anything, you know what I mean? All those things you can’t even talk to that Martino friend of yours about.
“I really think you should go after her. After quarantine I mean, of course. Assuming she makes it and all. And I’m sure she will, for your sake. Even considering the rest of the family’s dropping like flies. You said you carted away poor old Toby? It might just be her and her half-wit brother left then. Maybe a distant cousin. But she seems to be doing alright. Probably eats a lot. How much are you giving her anyway? Started sneaking her extra portions yet? If not, you should. I mean, it�
��s love, so don’t hold back.
“And then for the wedding I think you should keep it small. Just friends and family. And she should wear white. She’s been engaged before, you know. Yes, to a farmer’s boy. He sung too, but not in the choir, like you. In the shop he apprenticed at. The butcher’s. He had as little to do with his land as he could. Went up to London and wasn’t expected to come back to his business. In meat I mean. But he did come back. Never told anyone why. He came back and worked for his butcher but seemed to have lost interest. Would sing in his office above the shop, though. That’s how they met. She heard him and stopped outside to listen. Then joined him she did, at least that’s how they told it. Then he died two months before you arrived. Can only whistle to the worms now.
“She must be pretty enough for you too, I think. Pretty enough for just about anyone from these parts. And with that nose of yours you can’t really be all that picky, now can you?”
“Yes, but…” Henry was cut off by a knock at the door. They were in the food pallet storage shed, just inside Bear’s Gate, which was the main entrance to the town. It was a knock which turned into Evelyn entering with a minimum of entourage.
Dismissing an introduction to Pinker, Evelyn took Henry aside and semi-officiously whispered in his ear: “I come here on the express will of Captain Cooke himself, to check on your moral improvement. I hear you have gotten to know the local customs quite intimately.”
“Evelyn, what a load of crock,” said Henry. He was thinking of Cathleen, William and the others. Pinker started at the familiar address.
Evelyn smiled briefly and led Henry out of the shed with a firm hand. Pinker tried to make eye contact with her entourage as they turned around to leave but he did not stand a chance.
“LISTEN, A WHOLE WORLD is tied up in that sentence. A whole mystery, the solution to a problem. It could be the last sentence of a detective novel,” Mr Austen said. He was sitting with Henry on the stairs outside the hospital, waiting for Mrs Purcell to come out. “Your mother doesn’t understand a thing.” Henry played with the sole of his sandal that was beginning to peel away, aggravating it further. “Listen to this, I have it right here,” he said, taking the book out of his back pocket. There was now a thick crease in the spine, along page 67. “ ‘He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck’, can you believe it? An African, way out there in the jungle, having this piece around his neck. Do you know what worsted means? Worsted: closely twisted yarn, very thin. You might not know that word. It’s pretty advanced.”
“I know ‘worsted’. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Yes son, but please don’t feel the need to lie just now. It’s ok not to know everything. That’s something a man has to come to grips with at some point in his life, you know. That he doesn’t know everything. Because he looks like a fool lying.”
“But I know ‘worsted’.”
“And how do you know it, pray tell?”
“I know lots of things you think I don’t: Like the capital of Spain and where the first summer Olympics were held, and I know the country where Joseph Conrad was born. Lots. Mom says you over-teach.”
“Over-teach? That sounds pretty dramatic now, doesn’t it? Now what do you think this word, ‘over-teach’ means?”
“That you tell people things they already know. Then they think you’re foolish because of it.”
“I see. Did your mother provide you with that definition or did it come out of your sweet, curly, blonde mop all by itself?” Mr Austen took a breath, wiped the sweat from the back of his neck and said, “Ok then, you seem to know just about everything there is to know. So what do you know about this?” He took out a postcard that was wedged between the last page and the back cover of the book.
Henry took the postcard with both hands, as if it were made of tissue paper. As if he knew what was on it already. It was a black-and-white photo. It looked like from before the turn of the century. It was of a woman riding a horse. But the woman was naked, and the horse had no saddle. And the woman was leaning forward, or, as Henry saw as he examined the postcard more closely, she was pulling herself forward by holding on tightly to the horse’s mane. Her hair was parted in the middle, blonde, and curly. Some strands from the right side of her part came over her front shoulder but did not block the viewer from seeing her breasts. The left part presumably tumbled down her back. The woman was looking out from between the part in her hair, which separated just above her eyes. She was looking right into the camera. The horse pointed toward the edge of the frame.
“What do you know about that?” Mr Austen asked again. The postcard was becoming damp under Henry’s taut fingers. “Or, maybe a more accurate question, one that could tease out some more juicy information than a simple sardonic ‘nothing,’ would be what do you think she is doing?”
Henry did not look up from the postcard. Mrs Purcell came out of the hospital and up to the set of stairs where Henry and Mr Austen sat. She stood behind Mr Austen, who was sitting on the top step going down from the entrance. Henry was on the bottom step. She could not see the postcard because Henry had stuck it into his shirt pocket. Then Meredith came up from the direction of the beach, wrapped tightly in a towel that was pulled up to her neck, thus exposing her upper thighs. She saw the postcard right away, showing through the thin fabric of Henry’s shirt, although what was on it was not clear. She jokingly tugged it out, looked at it, dropped it to the ground, and thought of slapping Henry’s right cheek. Mrs Purcell stood up, slowly walked down the steps while staring at the distressed look on Meredith’s face. She picked up the postcard, looked at Henry, and then at Mr Austen. Mrs Purcell returned the postcard to its rightful owner amidst a number of protestations about research. This was a few weeks before Mr Austen was found murdered on the beach.
Part Two
HENRY’S FIRST PUNCH landed square on William’s left eye, scrunching the pupil and bruising the cheek. Then he pushed William back with his chest, deep into the backstage curtains, dark purple and made especially for the theatre by M. Chandelle, from Reims. In short, Henry bashed the lights out of William. This was on his first night back in London, just hours after his arrival, since Evelyn took Henry straight to the Chapel upon getting into town. The fight took place backstage, right before stepping out for the first practice for the Christmas concert. This concert was the reason Henry had been brought back from Excester, and William had been made first chair cornet when Henry left. Upon first seeing Henry, William offered a warm welcome home, as did the few other boys who were around. It was the warmth of the welcome that unhinged Henry. If he had been greeted coldly, competitively, or not at all, he could have managed. But, upon being received as a friend, as second chair in fact, Henry was unable to control his temper and lashed out. As the fight played on the interest of the boys turned to the stage curtain parting. The most eager of the choirboys decided to slip through, more interested in catching the Captain’s attention than watching a scrap. They were dying to get into the first and most visible row of the choir on the first day of practice, when the Captain assigned the places for the concert. Plus they wanted to get away from the fight in case anyone was to be sent to the now more extensive “service.” Henry obviously did not give a damn as he continued whacking William. Most of the other boys made their way on stage.
Martino got between Henry and William. He had put himself there purposefully to avoid elongating what he thought had been a prolonged absence of his best friend, whom he was now seeing for the first time since his return.
“Let’s take it easy now, Henry. I don’t care what is going on between you and William, but I don’t want to see you back in the green room again, alright?” said Martino, holding back William’s attempt at repartee.
“Go to hell, you idiot!” screamed Henry, “The both of you!”
BESIDES WILLIAM’S PROMOTION, Henry was worried because Cathleen had promised to come up to London for the Christmas concert to see him. Syndic Pinker was supposed to bring her. There was
no telling what would happen when she entered his choir-boy world. She had no idea about Evelyn, although Evelyn knew all about her even before she arrived in the country. It did not bother Evelyn one bit, and she encouraged the continuation of the country romance while he prepared to return to the city. Now there were two weeks left before the concert, and hence Cathleen’s impending arrival. Henry was afraid that Evelyn was not really as calm about everything as she seemed. She had more than enough time to plan what she would do when Cathleen showed up.
EVELYN AND CATHLEEN first met outside of Evelyn’s chambers. Cathleen had been asking the Captain about how best to reach Henry amid the cavernous halls that made up the Chapel. Evelyn had been in the chambers at the time, but exited a back way, only to circle around and meet up with Cathleen as she exited Evelyn’s own apartments.
“It’s you,” said Evelyn.
“I have a name, you know. It’s Cathleen, Cathleen Numm.”
“Then I shall call you… the Hussy. How does that sound to you? Your own personal big-city nickname. The Hussy.”
“I would prefer Miss Numm, or Cathleen if you must, or Cathy like my Uncle Toby called me. Actually, no. That wouldn’t be acceptable, just Miss Numm, please.”
“And why has Miss Numm travelled so far to grace our small choir with her presence? Perhaps she has her eyes on a man, and which one might that be? Someone in the choir, since you were behind my husband’s door? Unless it is him that you seek. In that case, you may have him. However, maybe it is someone else? If it is a man, I have probably had some dealings with him. And there is quite a list. Let us see, is it Ralph? No, Jasper? He’s left for the country. Maybe someone a bit closer to the choir… William? I do not have much interest in him any longer… Or maybe it is Henry, Henry Purcell, son of Thomas and our pride and joy. Henry who went off to Excester in your disgusting little Devonshire and came back with a thing he calls a ‘music piece’ about a lovely wench he insists is me, but who is just too sweet for me to believe it. However, the Captain has ordered the ‘piece’ to be performed and there is little I can do except set the stage on fire. And I do mean that literally, as an actual possibility. But that just would not do, for someone could get hurt, not you I mean, but Henry, or Ralph. Ralph has such a weak complexion, I do not know how he would survive a fire and still be fit for the sheets.”
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