Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  Jem swayed a little on his feet. He did not release his hold on her. His eyes, light and clear as water, held hers for a long, smiling moment, then, ‘Christ!’ he said, with feeling, ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘The fireworks will be starting soon. Let’s find a table.’

  Seated and with welcome drinks to hand, they watched as the world perambulated past them. Both were still breathing heavily from their exertions on the dance floor. Catching each other’s eye, they burst into spontaneous laughter.

  ‘That was fun,’ Kitty said.

  ‘It sure was. Exhausting – but fun—’

  They giggled again. ‘Haven’t danced like that in a long, long time,’ he said, and as if some sudden memory had taken him by surprise Kitty saw a flash of such pain in his face that she flinched from it. He sat rigid for a moment, as if frozen, then he reached for his glass, drained it at a gulp and sat staring sightlessly at the empty glass, all laughter and all joy gone from him.

  ‘Jem! Jem – whatever’s the matter?’

  Painfully he dragged himself back to her, looked at her with blank eyes. She saw the almost physical effort with which he shook himself free. ‘It’s nothing.’

  She did not know what to say.

  He shook his head, buried his face in his hands for a second, elbows on the table. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said again, his voice muffled.

  Something about the slump of his shoulders, the almost childish vulnerability of the bared, bowed neck brought an aching lump of sympathy to Kitty’s throat. She reached to him, gently took his charcoal-stained hand in hers. ‘Funny kind of nothing,’ she said.

  He lifted his head. His hair was like a bird’s nest.

  ‘Might it not help to talk?’ she asked, softly.

  His eyes were fixed, blindly, upon their linked hands. She wondered what he was seeing.

  ‘Jem? Can’t you tell me? Is it – something to do with home?’

  The pale, blue-green eyes lifted to hers. ‘Home?’ he said, and shook his head. ‘My home, Kitty, had the misfortune to find itself slap in the middle of a battlefield. It doesn’t exist any more. Not one brick is standing on another.’

  ‘I’m – sorry—’ The words were hopelessly inadequate.

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t be. For even if it were still there, there’d be no place for me. Ever. I am my father’s only surviving son. And my father would burn the place down with his own hands before he’d let me pass the door. And I don’t blame him.’

  To her horror she saw the glint of sudden tears in the lantern light.

  ‘Jem – I didn’t mean to pry. If it upsets you too much—’

  He did not seem to hear her. He continued speaking in that clear monotone that was nothing like his usual speech. ‘My brothers are dead. My father is crippled. My mother’s heart is broken. And I broke it.’ He reached for the whisky bottle, poured a great tumblerful. Kitty made a half-hearted gesture, a small plea for restraint, then watched helplessly as he poured it down his throat. She was horrified at the bottomless chasm of tragedy that had yawned so suddenly at his bleak words.

  ‘My sister tells me all of this,’ he said after a moment, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and eyeing the bottle longingly. ‘She makes sure I know it. Because – understandably – she hates me.’

  ‘Oh – surely not!’ Kitty’s protest was half-hearted and she knew it.

  ‘Oh yes. And I don’t blame her. I don’t blame any of them for hating me. I pretty well hate myself sometimes.’ The liquor was getting to his tongue. He frowned a little.

  She could not sit silent. ‘But – none of it can have been your fault. It was the war, surely, that destroyed your home?’

  He lifted his head. ‘Ah yes, Songbird. The war destroyed my home. But I – I destroyed my family.’

  She sat in silence now, not knowing what to say or how to comfort. He reached for the bottle again, missed it and gave up. In the distance the martial strains of a brass band echoed. People hurried past, faces eager and expectant. ‘Here they come! Oh, don’t they look just fine!’

  ‘Slavery,’ Jem said, clearly, ‘is an abomination. I have always believed so. Even as a child I could not accept that the people who worked for me, waited upon me, cared for me, could be owned body and soul by a master who could buy and sell them like cattle, breed them like pigs, work them like oxen and flog them like dogs. Oh no’ – he had caught the startled look in Kitty’s eyes, ‘my father did none of those things. He was a kindly and civilized man. He loved his people, and treated them fairly. But he owned them. And I couldn’t stand that.’ The last, low words were threaded with such pain that Kitty touched his hand again, unable to find words. He looked at her with entreaty in his eyes. ‘How could I fight for that? How could I? How could I defend something that I knew to be wrong, that I’d always hated from the bottom of my heart?’

  She shook her head. ‘You couldn’t.’

  ‘But I should have done. I – should – have – done! I should have died with Baxter and Lee and Bobby-Joe at Gettysburg—’

  The band was closer, the steady, rhythmic beat of its drums pulsing like a heartbeat through the air, an occasional triumphant bugle note sounding distantly above the uproar.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Kitty said, as firmly as she could manage.

  ‘It may seem so. But it’s the simple truth.’ He was staring into some distance that bore no relationship to the time and the place that was now. ‘Yes, it was the war that destroyed my home. But I destroyed more than that when I marched to war on the wrong side. I was at Gettysburg too. Fighting against them. How do I know it wasn’t my bullet that shot away Baxter’s face? Or caught Lee in the belly so he took three days to die? Or – God help us all – lodged in my little brother’s throat so he choked on his own blood?’

  Struck with horror into silence she looked at him. The band crashed past them, brave and gaudy in the flickering flare of the lantern light, scarlet and gold and gleaming black, precision in movement, the pride of a nation. Neither of them tried to speak until the sound had died and the crowd had moved on. The respite gave Jem a chance to pull himself together. The colour, slowly, was returning to his face, the tension drained from him and he ran distracted fingers through his thick, straight hair that flopped over his eyes like a child’s. He poured a very small tot of whisky and sat looking at it, twirling the glass in his charcoal-grimed fingers.

  ‘What did you do?’ Kitty asked at last, very gently.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘You’re here,’ she said.

  He smiled, a small, downturned, bitter smile. ‘What do you think I did? What any right-minded, cowardly son-of-a-bitch would do. I ran away. I deserted. Left the ranks. Made of myself an outcast who can never go back. And my sister writes to me, and sends me the money that my mother cannot bear to send herself, and makes me pay for it by telling me – in detail – all the family news.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  He lifted eyes clear as rainwater and filled with pain. ‘I shall go to Paris,’ he said, and grinned, harshly. ‘And starve in a garret. What better do I deserve?’

  In helpless friendship she took his hand again. There was a sudden swishing noise and a great, gasping breath of awe from the watching crowd as a rocket rose and burst in the frost-clear sky above them, showering the night with fiery light.

  And that was the picture that remained with Kitty from that evening; Jem’s young face, bleached and sobered with pain in the multi-coloured, magical light of the fireworks that lit and patterned the sky with beauty – that and the sudden, adult understanding that she was not alone nor unique in misery and that, perhaps oddly, that thought was in itself some consolation.

  (ii)

  A month later he left. The city of which he had spoken of so often – Paris – his destination.

  ‘You will write?’ Kitty asked, sad to see her friend go.

  He kissed her lightly upon the cheek. ‘Of course I shall.’ And – just once – a couple of w
eeks later, he did, a hastily-scribbled stained note written upon some cafe table and containing an address in the Quartier Latin and the news that he was well and happy and at the time of writing three parts drunk.

  ‘Not much changes, does it?’ Pol asked, grinning at the thought. Then she sobered, and shivered. ‘Christ, what a night! It’s black as Newgate’s knocker out there, an’ thick as me Mum’s pea soup. No wonder the customers ain’t turning out. Not so sure I should ’a done meself.’ The Rooms were all but empty. A couple of drinkers stood by the bar, and a sailor snored, his head upon a table. A group of girls sprawled at a table near the bar, bored and restless. ‘Not worth openin’ ternight.’

  Midge thought the same. ‘You girls might as well get off. We’re doin’ nuthin’ ternight, an’ I ain’t payin’ you lot ter sit around on yer fat arses. Get off while you can still see where y’er goin’. See yer termorrer.’

  ‘Mingy bitch.’ Lettie Robson, a newcomer to the Rooms, gestured, wickedly obscene, at Midge’s departing back, turned to her friend Rosy, who Kitty suspected to be Matt’s latest light o’ love. ‘Comin’ up Blackfriars, Rose? Never know, we might strike lucky – make ourselves a bob or two—’

  Pol watched them go. ‘Rather them than me in this lot. I dunno about you, but this weather gives me the devil’s creeps. Come on – I’ll walk part the way with yer—’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘Would you mind if I waited a bit? I wouldn’t mind running through a couple of new songs while I’ve got the place to myself. Give the customers a treat—’ She nodded, grinning, at the snoring sailor.

  ‘Suit yerself. See yer tomorrer then.’

  In fact, over an hour later, Kitty rather regretted her refusal of company. Wrapping her shawl about her head and shoulders she said goodnight to Bobs and his companion, who were settling down to a game of cards as they took up their guard duty for the night, and stepped into the lane. Pol had been right. The fog that crept in dense, poisonous billows from the river and blanketed the streets and lanes of Stepney was of exactly the colour and consistency of pea soup. Nothing in the cold, swirling mists of the Suffolk and Essex coasts had prepared her for a London fog. A little taken aback, she stood for a moment by the door, clutching the shawl tighter, straining her eyes into the disorientating foggy darkness. The corner of the lane had disappeared entirely, as had the glimmer of water at the canal dead-end of the road. A single gaslight hung, disembodied, above her head and cast distorted shadows upon the soot-laden wall of dripping fog. It was very cold. For one moment she considered staying where she was, and utilizing for the first time the doubtful comforts of one of Midge’s upstairs rooms. Then, from behind her she heard the murmur of gruff voices and a sharp burst of laughter, and that idea dismissed itself out of hand. She was safer in the fog. Clutching her shawl tightly to her throat, she stepped warily into the darkness.

  It was a nightmare. As the choking yellow stuff closed claustrophobically about her she found that her sense of distance and of direction had entirely deserted her. She groped for the wall. Surely – surely? – the corner that led into the main street must be here somewhere? She took a few more uncertain steps forward, stumbled on the slick, filthy cobbles. Behind her the lamp that had marked the doorway of the Rooms had disappeared, extinguished entirely by the smothering fog. She stood still for a moment, fighting a losing battle with her nerves. Where in God’s name was the corner? It surely shouldn’t have been this far? She groped into darkness again, and felt nothing where she had been certain there should have been a wall. Paralyzed, she stopped. In which direction was she facing? Remembering the stagnant, stinking waters of the canal she did not know if she should go back or forwards. She stood fighting the rise of panic. When a small dark figure scuttled from the gloom and touched her arm it was all she could do to prevent herself from shrieking aloud.

  ‘S’all right, Guv’nor. It’s the gel. Kitty.’

  She recognized, with a surge of relief she had never thought to experience at the sight of that particular, walnut-wrinkled face, the child-sized figure of Spider Murphy. A week before, visiting her brother, she had found Spider sprawled, dead drunk, upon her brother’s bed. Wearily, she had taken Matt to task. Matt had shrugged good naturedly. ‘Leave him. He’s got nowhere else to go. The Guv’nor’d half kill him if he caught him in this condition. He has to go on a binge every now and again, that’s all. He’ll be all right in an hour or two.’ The incident had done nothing to endear the little man to her. She jerked her arm from his hand, turned as a taller shape loomed beside her.

  ‘Well, well.’ There was the inevitable amusement, laced with surprise and – she thought – the faintest thread of exasperation in Luke Peveral’s voice. ‘I thought all the birds had sensibly flown? What’s the Songbird doing still here?’

  ‘I stayed behind,’ she said tartly, resenting his assumption that she should explain herself to him, ‘to try out a couple of songs.’

  ‘Very creditable.’ He had lifted his head, like an animal, scenting the air, listening. His voice was abstracted. Somewhere in the darkness something clicked and clattered. Spider faded into the fog. There was a spiteful shriek and a giant cat sprang past them into the darkness. Luke relaxed a little, regarded her with an expression of faint exasperation. ‘But not a good night for it,’ he added, mildly.

  She did not feel that called for an answer. She made to turn from him.

  Very firmly he gripped her elbow. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’ His voice was quiet, and pleasant.

  She stopped. She was in no position to argue. They stood, dark statues in the swirling fog. The man was watching her, and there was no doubt now as to the clear exasperation in the line of the straight, hard mouth. Annoyance stiffened her back. ‘If you could just show me the way to the corner—?’

  He regarded her for a long moment, still in silence. Then, ‘The corner,’ he said regretfully, ‘may not be a good idea.’

  She was aware that a very uncomfortable sensation was making itself felt in the pit of her stomach. A strange tension emanated from the man, an aura of danger and of violence that had nothing to do with the eerie, smothered silence of the dripping night. She suddenly discovered that she was very frightened. ‘What do you mean?’ She had lowered her voice, but it was still too loud. Instinctively she knew it, and instinct was confirmed by the warning, spasmed grip of his hand upon her elbow and the quick glance that he flicked into the darkness. His face was shadowed, beads of moisture hung about his dark, bare head like glittering gems. ‘I just want to go home,’ she said, and succeeded – just – in keeping the tremor from her voice.

  From somewhere to the right of them came the single, clear sound of a footfall, then silence. Luke’s hand dropped from her arm and he stepped back, his head tilted again in that animal-like, watchful stance. Spider scuttled silently from the gloom, whispered something and was gone. Luke turned as if to follow him, then stopped, took a swift step back to where she stood. ‘For once in your life,’ he said, agreeably, close to her ear, ‘do as you’re damned well told without arguing. Come.’

  She came. She could not, in reason, see anything else to be done. As if some sixth sense were guiding him he led her swiftly into the fog. They passed the light that guarded the door of the Rooms. Remembering the threat of the rank waters of the canal she hung back. Unceremoniously he pulled her after him, jerking her almost from her feet. They reached the canal which cut across the lane and ran on through a dark canyon of walls that channelled the foul-smelling fog as a gulley might channel filthy water. A small, sloping, perilously muddy path led through the mass of decayed vegetation that clogged the steep bank.

  ‘Mind where you’re putting your feet.’

  The quiet warning was entirely unnecessary. The footing was treacherous in the extreme, the way narrow. Brambles scratched and tugged at her skirt, the black, fog-wreathed, disease-ridden waters waited. She watched where she was putting her feet. And baulked when she found herself with one of them upon a slender, muddy
, bouncing plank that precariously spanned the water and led into deep and fog-blanketed darkness.

  ‘I’m not going over that.’ Oddly, she could not bring herself to speak in a normal tone of voice, but found herself whispering absurdly, like a conspirator over a keg of dynamite.

  ‘I’m afraid you are.’

  ‘No.’

  A small, impatient silence. ‘You aren’t going to have hysterics, are you?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ she snapped. ‘And neither am I going to drown. In fact I’m not moving another damned step until you tell me what’s going on!’

  ‘Here and now?’

  ‘Here and now.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Is it stupid to want to know where I am – where you’re taking me—?’ The hissed words were furious. ‘To want to know what this ridiculous charade is all about? I tell you I won’t move another step until you’ve explained!’

  ‘Please yourself.’ In the short breath it took to speak the brusque words he released her hand and melted like a wraith into the fog. Silence closed about her. Anger, so often the cause of her downfall, this time came to her aid. Almost too furious to be frightened, she gathered her muddy skirts to her knees and turned in preparation to make her way back along the bank.

  In a small flurry of movement he materialized beside her again. Something slid into the water almost at their feet, and ripples glimmered. She thought of rats, and shuddered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  She waited.

  ‘It’s hardly the time to tell you the story of my misspent life—’

  ‘Just this bit,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Won’t you just trust me?’

  ‘A strange word to use.’

  She caught a reflexive glimmer of amusement on his face at that. ‘Kitty – truly—’ The amusement was gone and the words were deadly earnest. ‘I can’t explain because I’m not certain myself. We may be playing cat and mouse with shadows. But there’s mischief abroad tonight. Bad mischief. And I don’t want you caught in it. I’ve had word someone’s looking for me. An old – acquaintance—’