The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  It was Tom, but Tom as she had never seen him before, and her mouth dried.

  He had a bloody lip and a bruise on his cheek, but his body was sleek and muscled and sheened with sweat. Where had the thin boy she used to play with gone? In his place was a man, a stranger. A stranger who set her heart slamming painfully against her ribs.

  Alice followed Nell’s gaze. ‘That’s never Tom?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nell said, but there didn’t seem to be enough breath in her lungs, and the word came out as little more than a wheeze.

  As if he had heard them, Tom’s gaze swung round, and when his eyes caught Nell’s, the triumph in his face faded with his smile, leaving an expression that Nell couldn’t identify but that made her heart clench in her chest. She wanted to look away but she couldn’t. She wanted to give him a casual wave, to turn to Alice, pretend she didn’t really care, but all she could do was look back at Tom through the crowd that was seething around them, eager for the next fight.

  Alice looked from Nell to Tom and then back to Nell again. She smiled knowingly. ‘Oho! So that’s how it is,’ she said with a wink.

  ‘What? No! How what is?’ Flustered, Nell wrenched her eyes from Tom’s but Alice only smirked.

  ‘I see William,’ she said, and pointed back at the churchyard. ‘I will wait for you by the stile there at seven of the Minster clock. We can go back to the house together.’ Reaching out, she straightened Nell’s hat. ‘Be good!’ she said.

  ‘Wait, Alice—’ Nell began, but Alice was already sauntering towards William Carter, and there seemed nothing to do but wait dumbly for Tom. He had grabbed his shirt and was dragging it over his head as he pushed his way towards her, accepting congratulatory pats on his shoulder on his way through. And suddenly there he was, standing right in front of her, dabbing at the blood on his split lip.

  ‘Nell,’ he said, and something inside her crumbled at the sound of her name in his mouth. She ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed the dryness in her throat.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, and then, realizing that no sound had come out, she cleared her throat and tried again. ‘Good day, Tom.’

  A new pair of wrestlers were taking a turn, to renewed whistles and catcalls from the crowd, but Nell hardly heard them. It was as if the raucous crowd had receded behind an invisible curtain, there but not really there, while she and Tom were isolated in a pool of sunlight where every sense was intensified. His hair was slick with sweat, his eyes dark with an expression that made her blood pound. She could smell the grass crushed beneath her feet, feel the tickle of the ruffled linen at her throat, the padded roll at her waist.

  Very carefully, she let out the breath she was holding and managed to look away from him.

  ‘Where did you learn to wrestle?’ she said at last.

  A smile cracked Tom’s face as he slapped his hat back on his head. ‘One of the sailors on the Little George from Hull taught me some tricks. He said I’d need it if I wanted to survive the ports, and he was right. They are no places for raw boys who can’t defend themselves.’

  ‘And it comes in useful now you are back in York too,’ she said, pleased to find that her breath was steadier now, her voice clearer. She nodded towards the ram that was tied up, glowering, as it waited to be awarded to the victor of the wrestling. ‘Will you stay and fight for the prize?’

  ‘What would I do with a ram?’

  ‘You could sell it.’

  ‘True, but where would I keep it until I had negotiated a good price for it? I am a merchant trained,’ he reminded her, his eyes laughing. ‘I cannot just give it away to the first who offers. I must make a good profit, and consider my costs in feeding it and housing it, and it is too nice a day to think about such things. Are you hungry?’

  ‘Hungry?’ Nell was thrown by the abrupt change of subject.

  ‘You used to be hungry all the time.’

  She put up her chin, stung by the idea that he thought of her as a child still. ‘Perhaps I have changed.’

  ‘You have,’ he agreed. ‘I have noticed.’

  She didn’t mean to, but somehow she was looking at him again, and the air evaporated around them as their gazes tangled once more, like sheep in a briar patch. Nell’s heart had stopped plunging and had settled instead to a slow, steady thud that made her ears bang like the waits’ drum. What started out as a little silence stretched, then yawned alarmingly.

  Nell swallowed and fiddled with the purse hanging from her girdle. This was silly. It was just Tom.

  ‘But it is a long time since I have eaten,’ she offered. ‘I am quite hungry.’

  ‘Then I will buy you a pie,’ said Tom. ‘Come.’ He touched her arm to steer her away, and she felt his fingers burn through her worsted sleeve, through her Holland smock, and onto her bare skin.

  The pie seller lifted the tray from his head as he saw them approach and hung it around his neck so that they could choose. Nell could smell browned butter and gravy. ‘Fresh from the oven,’ the pie man promised and indeed the pies were hot. Nell and Tom had to juggle them between their fingers to cool them down before they could eat them.

  Nell bit into the pastry at last, careless of the crumbs falling on her bodice, only to realize that the inside was still hot enough to burn her tongue. ‘Ah . . . ah . . . hot!’ she gasped, laughing, and it helped to break the tension between them.

  ‘Serves you right for being greedy,’ said Tom, smiling.

  ‘Good, though,’ she mumbled through her mouthful.

  ‘Come on, let’s get away from the crowds.’

  Eating their pies, they wandered up Monkgate towards the bridge. The calsey was broad and dusty between the posts and rails outside the houses there. A pig ambled along the gutter, snouting through the refuse. The dung hill outside Mr May’s tenements stank in the warmth, but Nell hardly noticed. The stench was cancelled out by the freshness of the grass, the lush green growth along the roadside, the smell of orchards and gardens. The thorn trees were heavy with blossom. They looked as if a white cloth had been thrown over them to dry in the sun.

  At last, Nell thought, she and Tom could talk easily again. It was better now that they were walking side by side, and had their pies to occupy them. ‘Is it like this in Hamburg?’ she asked him.

  A smile creased his eyes. ‘York is just a country town compared to the Hansa towns,’ he said.

  He told her about his life there, about the things he had seen and the things he had learnt. When he talked about the journey, the snap and crack of the sails filling with wind, the creaking of the timbers and the groan of the ropes, his face lit up. Some men clutched their stomachs the moment they set foot on a ship, but Tom was born, it seemed, to brace his feet against the swell of the ocean and feel the deck roll beneath his feet.

  ‘I wish I could see the sea,’ Nell sighed as they stopped on the bridge and looked down into the Foss. She dropped the last bit of pastry into the river and the swans below set up a clamour as they squabbled over the crumbs.

  The Foss was not a pretty river. The water was goose-turd green and sluggish, the banks overgrown with bushes, but Nell had always had a fondness for it. She still remembered the hideaway she and Tom had built on the riverbank when they were children. It was little more than a few branches piled together, but it had been their very own. Those days were gone, Nell reminded herself. The hideaway had long rotted. Tom had followed the river down to Hull, across the sea, leaving her alone.

  But now he had returned, and they were together once more. Just the two of them.

  Chapter Five

  They had left the crowds behind. In the distance, the jeers and cheers could be heard faintly, but the busy cheeping of the birds was louder. Nell looked at the river, so sleepy and still. So different from the sea Tom had crossed. ‘York must seem tame to you now,’ she said.

  Tom looked around him as he brushed the crumbs from his fingers, then allowed his gaze to settle on Nell’s profile. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘But it is home. And you are he
re.’

  Warmth trembled in her stomach. ‘I did not think you had noticed me,’ she confessed.

  ‘I was shy,’ he said. ‘You have grown up, Nell. I hardly recognized you when I came back.’

  A little huff of relief escaped her. ‘That is what I thought about you.’

  They smiled at each other, and happiness rose in Nell’s chest, a rolling swell that pushed almost painfully against her ribs and into her throat so that for a moment she could not speak with it. ‘Come on,’ said Tom, taking her hand just as he used to do when they were small. ‘Let’s go and find our old place.’

  They followed the riverbank as it meandered up towards the mill. Their shelter had long gone, of course, but that meant they could argue about exactly where it had been. In the end they settled on a little clearing where the grass was long and sweet, and dappled in the shade of the elders that crowded the bank. It felt natural to throw themselves down there, to pull off their shoes and stockings so they could dangle their feet in the water. Nell pulled up her skirts and wriggled her toes in the cool river.

  ‘I haven’t done this for a long time.’ She looked at Tom who was leaning back on his hands, watching her. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said.

  ‘And I you,’ he said, and the air between them sang with the truth of it, with the sudden, sharp knowledge of what was between them and what could be said at last.

  There was a silence, but it was not an uncomfortable one. It shimmered with promise. No longer did Nell’s gaze have to slide away from Tom’s face. Instead she could look into his blue, bright eyes and let anticipation flutter in her belly.

  ‘When I was on the ship or at the markets, I thought of you and how much you would enjoy it,’ Tom went on after a moment, easy now. ‘You would like the feel of the salt spray stinging your cheeks and the sound of the waves against the hull. I know you would. You would have liked the quaysides at Hamburg. You might hear men talk in every language there.’

  ‘What do they talk of?’ Nell asked, not because she really cared, just to hear Tom’s voice, just to know that he was there, that he had missed her.

  ‘The merchants boast of their deals and the mariners boast of the voyages they have made. They say they have felt wind hot enough to melt men’s bones and seen many marvels. They say they have been to the lands where peppers and cloves grow, far to the east, and that they have been west too, to the New World. Oh, they are full of it! I dare say not a twentieth man among them has actually been, but they have such stories, and every time I listened, I thought of how much you would have liked to listen to them too.

  ‘And I would have liked it more if you had been with me,’ he added and his voice deepened until it was like a caress on Nell’s skin.

  A water boatman paused as if listening, leaving tiny indents on the still water.

  ‘I thought about you,’ said Tom. ‘I bought you a gift.’

  ‘A gift?’ Nell sat up straighter. ‘For me?’

  ‘For you.’ He shifted onto one hip so that he could dig in the purse at his belt, and he drew out a plain gold ring set with a garnet that flashed a deep, dark red in the dappled light.

  Nell drew a long breath as she took it from him and slid it onto her finger, tipping her hand from side to side so that she could admire it while a feeling like sunshine on a May morning spilled through her.

  ‘Like it?’ he asked, carefully casual.

  ‘Oh, Tom . . .’ Her voice had a catch in it. ‘I will wear it always,’ she vowed. ‘I promise.’ She raised her eyes to his. ‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ she admitted.

  ‘Forget you? How could I? There is nobody like you, Nell.’

  He smiled but the easy familiarity was leaking out of the air between them and she struggled to claw it back. ‘What, no Easterling girls with green eyes?’

  ‘Some,’ he said, ‘but none as green as yours.’ He plucked a blade of grass and tickled her nose with it, making her laugh in spite of herself. ‘Your eyes are as green as this grass, as green as the sea, as green . . . as green as emeralds!’

  ‘And I dare say they had beautiful brown hair like mine, instead of being fair and lovely?’

  ‘Your hair isn’t brown.’ Somehow he was unpinning her cap, unpinning her hair so that the plaits tumbled down her back, and she was doing nothing to stop him. He fingered them and the bindings unravelled so that he could spread her hair over her shoulders and still she made no protest. She just sat, mouse still, and watched him.

  ‘It’s not brown,’ he said again. ‘It is the colour of nuts and the colour of honey. I see gold and bronze and copper here. I see the corn ripened by the sun. I see flames, hot and red. I see no brown.’ He lifted a lock so that he could breathe in the scent of her. ‘I smell gillyflowers.’

  Nell swallowed. ‘You have become a poet.’

  ‘I would that I could find the words for how you make me feel, Nell,’ he said in a low voice as he smoothed her hair back into place. ‘I didn’t think of you before. You were always there. You were just Nell. But when I came back and saw you, I felt as if I had taken a blow to my stomach. You were the same, but not the same. I thought I had changed, but I hadn’t expected you to change too.’

  ‘You ignored me.’ A sliver of remembered hurt speared the tremble of happiness.

  ‘I was angry with you for changing,’ Tom said.

  There was a pause. Nell felt her hair soft against her neck. In the dappled sunlight it was very quiet. ‘We haven’t changed that much, have we?’ she said.

  Tom’s smile was twisted as he lifted a lock of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. ‘I fear we have, Nell. We are not the boy and girl we were.’

  Darkness swept over her face. ‘I don’t want things to change,’ she said and his smile twisted tighter.

  ‘I do,’ he said and he leant closer. Very carefully, he licked his finger and pressed it against the swell of her breast where a pastry crumb clung to the edge of her shift. Nell sucked in an unsteady breath, her eyes darkening.

  Tom leant closer still, until his mouth was almost on hers. ‘There is no going back now,’ he said and then she felt his lips touch hers. It was startling, this feeling of being at once gripped by an entirely new sensation and the certainty that she was made for this moment.

  No shyness now, no hesitation. If they fumbled, it was with eagerness and inexperience, but Tom’s fingers were as deft as ever, unlacing her bodice, unwinding and unravelling her until there was nothing but the shock of flesh against flesh. Their bodies fitted together so naturally. It was as if his hands had skimmed her many times; as if she already knew the texture of his skin, the bone-melting delight of losing herself in the insistent slide of flesh and muscle, of hardness and heat and hunger. Nell had often wondered how it would feel. She hadn’t wanted to ask just how it would work, although she was certain Alice would have been able to tell her. And now she knew. In spite of their lack of experience, it all made perfect sense.

  And afterwards, there was no shame – only breathless, incredulous laughter that it was so easy.

  And so good.

  There was a ringing in her head. On and on it went, pulling her up and out of sleep, until she groped for the alarm. She didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to stay with Tom in the sweet grass, their limbs tangled, her hand on his belly, feeling the rise and fall of his breath while her body hummed with pleasure.

  She didn’t want it to be a dream.

  Her flailing hand hit a mug, knocked it over. Cold coffee pooled on the desk as she straightened groggily. She blinked at the mug on its side, at the puddle of liquid, not understanding. Everything looked profoundly alien. The metal boxes with their uncannily shifting patterns. The piles of glaring white paper. The unnaturally regular shapes. She picked up a strange, slender object.

  Pen. The word materialized in her brain, but it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like any pen she had ever seen. There was a wrongness to it that made her drop it back onto the table with a shudder.

  He
r eyes skittered from side to side. She was frightened. This wasn’t right. She’d thought she was waking from a dream, but she didn’t recognize anything. Instinctively, she reached for Tom’s hand, but Tom wasn’t there, and desolation tore through her.

  Tom had gone.

  A monstrous headache was pressing behind her eyes. Tess put her head between her hands.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she whispered. She could hear the ringing again. Was it real or in her mind?

  Phone. Like pen, the word formed itself unbidden, but this time it made sense. Fumbling, she found the phone on the desk and somehow managed to press the right button.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice wavered horribly. She had remembered where she was, who she was, but the transition from dream to wakefulness had left her feeling sick and shaken, and still uncertain as to what was reality.

  ‘Hello,’ she said again, but there was no reply. There was a deadened quality to the silence at the end of the line. ‘Who is this?’ she said more sharply, but the only response was the muffled click as the phone at the other end was put down.

  Martin?

  Tess dropped the phone back onto the desk as if it had bitten her, and slumped back in the chair. She felt boneless, fuzzy, on the brink of tears. The endlessly circling screensavers blurred before her eyes. She didn’t want to be there. She wanted to be back in the dream, with Tom beside her. She was still tingling and throbbing in the aftermath of making love but at the same time there was a hollowness inside her, an aching void of loss. She felt wretched. Perhaps she was coming down with something? That would explain her pounding head and the lingering, faintly feverish feeling of frustration, of something lost and nearly found.

  And the hallucination.

  Tess struggled to her feet and went to find a cloth to mop up the mess on her desk.

  It had to be a hallucination. What else could it be?

  Somehow she had taken last night’s dream and the names in the records and woven them together into a story in her mind.