Mr. Timothy

by Louis Bayard

  George is standing a foot away. His revolver is pressed against my solar plexus. I can feel his breath condensing on my neck.

  —Come, now, Mr. Timothy. It won’t be for long.

  And I am thinking: Time. If nothing else, it will buy you time.

  I keep my eyes locked on him the whole way. For some reason, I want him to remember me as I am now, at the height of my awkwardness, reaching my arms back and dragging my legs over the side and squirming into this small, hot space. How ungainly I must look to him. How ungainly I feel.

  Then again, the coffin is at least a foot too short for me—I must draw my knees to my chest just to fit inside. In every other respect, though, it is adequate to its task. Every human effluvium is here—stubborn traces of shit and piss and sweat and saliva—and every girl who has dwelt here still dwells, a legacy of terror echoing in my ears, at such a volume that my own cry, now superfluous, dies in the birthing.

  —There’s a good fellow.

  George looks at me one last time—no pity now, only serene purposefulness. With a light, casual gesture, he tips the lid out of its axis and lowers it towards me.

  The very moment I had anticipated, and yet how inadequate is anticipation next to the shuddering reality. I cannot acquiesce. My head jerks up. My hand flies towards the coffin lid, presses it back. My lips part in protest….

  —No.

  But the weight of the wood and the weight of George’s body force the lid back down.

  —No!

  And the moment that lid settles into its groove—the moment the latch clicks into place—everything changes. The sound dies away, and the air curls into stillness, and the cellar’s blackness is transformed into a thicker, hotter, dryer blackness…clutching me fast, like a lover.

  No. No.

  My fingers fly towards the holes in the lid, but this only blocks the available light, and I need the light, don’t I? To study the lineaments of my condition.

  I see now that an entire history has been writ in this small box. The furiously scratched veneer on the underside of the lid. Blottings and blotches and divots. Swirls of dried blood. There, just above my left eye, a torn-off fingernail and—this is the sight that brings me up short—the chip of somebody’s incisor, wedged deep in the wood.

  She tried to chew her way through.

  How desperate she must have been, whoever she was. Whereas my desperation is only beginning. Oh, yes, my lungs have begun to contract, and my eyes are blinking away the sweat, and my heart is banging on my ribs…but even so, I have many hours to go yet before I reach quite that state of hysteria. Many hours of lying here in the hot black suffocating air, with the residues of human bodies dripping down…my own breath clouding my face…every tremor in my body producing a corresponding reverberation in the walls around me…oh, I can stay here for many hours, if I must.

  But then, in gradual stages, my condition begins to alter.

  The light is the first thing to go—dimmed and then expunged. Gasping, I try once more to worm my fingers through the holes in the lid, but the way is blocked this time by the tautened web of a flat cotton fabric.

  A bedsheet? A tarpaulin? There is no time to speculate, for now the air is leaving, too.

  How quickly it goes! My lungs, stung with fear, bear down like bellows. Noxious tendrils of vapour ride up my throat—a long, slow cortege, keening as it passes. These are the sounds that dismay the human soul: the involuntary products of our bodies’ own defenses.

  —George. George!

  But how can he hear me, when he is so busy making sounds of his own?

  A gurgle. A splash. The steady drip of solvent…oh, yes, I can smell it…naphtha or kerosene…sliding off the coffin’s sleek wood and pooling on the floor below.

  And finally: a match, scraping against flint.

  And just like that, the coffin fills with an ochre light. Bizarrely welcome, for it is instinct with intelligence—I might almost say, like my own. But before I can define the sensation, before I can pin it down, I am flattened by a wave of heat, bleeding through the wood and rolling up my frame and scalding my very breath.

  It scorches my feet, abrades my chest, sears my nostrils and lips. It is deeply personal, it gouges me all the way through, scrapes out my marrow and wraps round my fibres and sinews and drenches me in sweat—an ablution so complete that I have the sensation now of sliding out of myself, down a molten-white corridor that shrinks to accommodate me.

  I am not actually sliding, is that clear? I am absolutely still, laid out like Dido on her funeral bed. And I am, for the first time, understanding the nature of melodrama.

  Which is to say the truest, the deepest impulses of the human organism, raised to a transcendent pitch. I have never felt so alive. Every nerve in me jangles. Every muscle grips fast. I understand now, at a biological level, the impulse that makes sopranos shriek. I understand why girls chew their way through coffin lids. Everything is possible…the grandest follies…here, at the brink of negation.

  Outside, the fire crackles with a vengeance. Inside, there is only heat and light, and the heat builds and builds, and the light grows whiter and purer, until it seems to me my very skin is aflame, so brightly does it glow.

  And in my head—extraordinary, isn’t it?—I hear music. Songs I haven’t sung in a lifetime. Clanging eruptions…bassoons calling at the top of their register…violins sawing themselves into flames. Cymbals with human tongues, ululating at insane volumes and then bursting into atoms of speech that shoot across the sky, tracing the news by starlight….

  I am burning.

  —Help!

  The coffin walls resonate with my screams, but the heat wraps me in its woollen silence, and that silence is nothing but the final expression of my helplessness. It dissolves me into my components and carves deep channels through me, and down these channels the scalding lines of smoke pass, claiming new territory with each second, smothering my body’s every reflex….

  I am burning. I am burning.

  —Help me!

  And now…is it my imagination?…new sounds, barely discernible through the membrane of heat. Jawing and rasping. A fidgeting and a scuffling. A strange gargling.

  And just as it seems that the last drams of air are being siphoned from my chest, I feel a new weight on the coffin lid, much greater than anything yet laid upon it. I wince at the impact, half expecting the coffin to splinter in two, but the wooden frame holds fast, and the light round me softens and darkens, even as the heat rises to a new fever pitch.

  From without comes a fumbling of fingers…the rattling of a latch. I understand now that someone is trying to raise the lid. I understand, too, that it can’t be raised—not with that enormous meteorite-like weight on top. Clearing that obstacle will be the work of a thousand men, labouring a thousand days.

  How astonishing, then, to hear it give way so easily—a mere two or three seconds, that is all, and it is sliding to earth. I don’t even have time to grasp the miracle of it, for the moment the weight hits the ground, the lid swings open, and a light of near-celestial intensity blazes through.

  Shielding my eyes with one hand, I flail into the light, beating it before me. The darkness rushes back in, and as my eyes adjust to new shapes and timbres, the first object to which they adhere is the figure of George.

  Coughing as I am, drenched from head to toe, I yet have enough presence of mind to see that George is lying flat on his belly, that his back is a strange confluence of solid and liquid, that his revolver rests two feet from his inert hand.

  But in this moment of deliverance, I find myself fastening on known objects. Philomela, mysteriously returned, still wearing her tattered bridal raiment. And on the floor, Father’s comforter, charred and smoking.

  And Mary Catherine’s butcher knife, dyed from tip to bolster, and resting like a sculptor’s chisel in the gloved hand of Mrs. Ophelia Sharpe.

  Chapter 24

  GEORGE, in death, bears an unconscionable resemblance to Gully: the outst
retched arm, the sightless, forward-looking eye. That sense of being interrupted in an errand. One almost longs to complete it for him.

  On an impulse, I dip my finger into the platter of blood that has formed alongside him. Still warm, that’s the first shock. And skinning over, like a saucepan of milk taken off the flame.

  —I’m really quite strong, says Mrs. Sharpe.—For someone at my stage in life.

  Only now, perhaps, is the full recognition of her act filtering through. She does not gasp; she does not sink. She only relaxes her grip on the knife, which tumbles to the floor with an eerily abbreviated clatter.

  The coffin is virtually unrecognisable—oily and blackened and wreathed in smoke, its lid now held open by Philomela, who gazes mournfully into the empty space. Who is it, I wonder, she has just consigned to the afterlife?

  Mrs. Sharpe takes a step towards me.

  —George didn’t…?

  —What?

  —He didn’t hurt you, did he?

  —No, I’m quite well. Thank you for asking, Mrs. Sharpe.

  That’s when I begin to laugh. Not the easy, rolling laugh that gladdens a listener’s heart, but a series of hard, visceral eruptions with dying falls. If I were to change their inflection by just a hair, they would be sobs.

  Feeling wobbly, I sit on one of the trestles, and I seek out the roaming figure of Mrs. Sharpe, moving in triangular patterns now—labouriously, like a pack animal—rubbing her hands along her flanks and chattering half to herself.

  From my trestle perch, I call to her.

  —You knew, Mrs. Sharpe.

  She wheels towards me. The cloud over her faculties blows off. A new relation lies stamped on her features.

  —Oh, Tim.

  She wipes her face and averts her head.

  —Some of them died in those boxes. Did you know that, Mrs. Sharpe?

  —No.

  —Still clawing at the lids.

  —No.

  —They had the brands. On their upper arms.

  I see her flinch slightly, I see her mouth reformulate the words. And then she turns away, her hands fluttering towards the ceiling.

  —Things happen, Tim. Accidents…mischances…

  Not her words. Surely not her words.

  —The funny bit, Mrs. Sharpe. Have I told you the funny bit? When I came down here, I thought I was helping you. I told myself—it’s really very funny—I told myself I was saving you. And all along, it was I who needed to be saved. From you.

  Perhaps it really is my intention to provoke her. Perhaps I really do want her to whirl about in a swish of corded silk and cry:

  —Saved from me?

  And now, whatever instincts of caution and self-preservation still slumber inside her, these are swept aside in the rush of choler.

  —You think you’d bloody well be walking now, if it wasn’t for me? You think—oh, you damned fool, you think they’d have went to all that trouble, called in that hussy and trumped up those charges and…and clamped you in gaol, if I hadn’t put my oar in? It’d been a good deal simpler to have your throat cut, if you must know. It’s what everyone else wanted, I was the only one who said else. You owe your fucking life to me, Tim, twice over. Don’t you forget it.

  Her passion at this moment has a meteorological force. It blows me back a step, presses my head down.

  —Very well, then, Mrs. Sharpe. I owe you my life. Perhaps you will tell me why you have spared it.

  Of all the things she might have been asked to account for, surely this was the last on her list. Her face collapses into a mask of bafflement. She mutters:

  —I don’t…I don’t…

  And then the sluice gates are thrown open, and for the next few seconds, there is nothing but a flood of protestation—convulsive fragments torn from her most private recesses.

  —Oh, Lord, Tim! It’s…you’ve done so much…really, it’s…more than anyone’s ever done…so much….

  So very much, apparently, that she can hardly bring herself to articulate it. Her face is cauterised with shame, and I feel my own tincture of shame at having elicited it.

  —You mean…you’re not referring to our lessons, Mrs. Sharpe?

  —What else?

  —But I have…I have had compensation enough. Room and board….

  —Oh, room and board! What’s that next to words? An entire language, Tim. A world. How could I ever repay that? Except with blood.

  She draws nearer and cups my chin in her hand, and even as I recoil from her touch, her face—importunate, trembling—presses closer.

  —My boy Tim, listen to me. It’s not too late. We can salvage this, can’t we? George there…no one need know about that. Iris won’t tell, she knows better.

  And now, for the first time, she awakens to the presence of others. Her eyes widen to encompass Philomela, stationed by the coffin…and Inge, bobbing her head on the stone floor.

  —Well, that’s…that’s all right, Tim. They won’t tell, neither. How can they if no one asks ’em?

  Oh, I could very well pity her.

  —We’ll get rid of the body, Tim, it’s easily done! People disappear every day from London, and no one’s ever the wiser. Christ, you don’t think anyone round here will weep about it, do you?

  She flings a look at George’s body, as though expecting him to rise up and corroborate.

  —And really, the way things have turned out…weren’t you always saying you wanted to handle the accounts? Well, now there’s no one to stop you. And we can go on with the reading, Tim. Just the two of us, every day at three-thirty. And once Crusoe is done with, we’ll find more books. I’ve got a whole list drawn up, you know, I’m ready to read everything.

  The glittering eye, the smacking lips—I feel quite churlish raising an objection.

  —What of Lord Griffyn?

  She looks at me.

  —Oh, Christ, Tim. You don’t think you’re the one to take him on? We’re none of us big enough for that job.

  —I mean to try, at any rate.

  And with that simple avowal, I render her, for the first time in our acquaintance, mute. Her mouth wrenches downwards, and her hands drop to her sides as I step round her and make straight for the girl on the floor.

  —Inge. Is that your name?

  Her face, rising to greet mine, is wiped clean of feeling and thought. The very countenance that Philomela has presented to me any number of times. It holds almost a charm for me now.

  —Would you like to come with me, Inge?

  I am fully prepared to use persuasion on her, but the coffin has already worked its dark magic. She jumps to her feet and gazes up at me, plastic and obedient.

  —We’ll find a nice bed for you, shall we? Would you like that?

  I take one of her arms, and I signal to Philomela to take the other. Together we walk the girl towards the stairs. And because her legs are still recovering their identity, we end up having to lift her from step to step, and in this slow, halting way, we ascend.

  —You make me laugh, d’you know that?

  That’s Mrs. Sharpe, calling from below. The voice is higher now—a raucous cawing—and even easier to ignore. Our backs become a kind of fortress against it, and the sight of us must provoke her beyond imagining, for she cries, at the top of her lungs:

  —You won’t fucking catch him, you know!

  I don’t turn round. I don’t raise my voice. My only concession is to inquire, in the softest possible tone:

  —Why is that, Mrs. Sharpe?

  —Coz he’s leaving the country, isn’t he?

  An unmistakable note of triumph, but the voice lacks foundation, and in the very next second, it comes crashing down into a low, trailing moan. And when at last I do turn round, I find that Mrs. Sharpe has herself collapsed into a great flamboyant heap on the stone floor—her crinoline billowing up round her, nearly swallowing her whole. Only her head rises clear.

  —May I never see his wretched face again!

  I come down two steps. I c
all out to her, gently.

  —Tell me what you know, Mrs. Sharpe.

  And now her whole body is seized with a palsy. Everything vibrates, down to the lowliest petticoat. The very threads of the fabrics quake.

  —Please. Please tell me.

  She passes a hand across her face. She says:

  —It’s a shipment.

  —You mean, more girls?

  —It’s a shipment. Antique pedestals. From Ostend.

  Her head rocks back until she is staring at the ceiling.

  —He always likes to be there, you see. To check the merchandise. Only this time…

  A final sob shakes out of her chest. Her voice goes on, listless.

  —This time round he means to leave it all with what’s-his-name…

  —Rebbeck.

  —Leave it all and slip downriver. Till everything blows over.

  She lowers her head until it is once again facing mine.

  —It will blow over, Tim. I’m sorry, it will.

  No crowing now. Just a blue, mournful tone.

  —Where is the shipment landing, Mrs. Sharpe?

  She doesn’t answer, and so I repeat myself, with an asperity that surprises me.

  —Where is it landing?

  —Bermondsey. By St. Saviour’s Dock.

  What an effort those words have cost her. Her head sinks from view, and now it appears, the crinoline really has sucked her into its maw, without eliciting from her even the faintest murmur of regret.

  —Thank you, Mrs. Sharpe.

  She calls out to me a few seconds later.

  —Tim.

  —Yes?

  —What happens to Mr. Crusoe?

  In the receding light of our lantern, the insults to her person shine out for all to see. The henna wig, slightly askew on her head. The smear of rouge between her mouth and nose. And the blood, of course, spattering her glove, forming a chocolatey crust along her muslin undersleeve.

  —I’m afraid you’ll have to finish it on your own, Mrs. Sharpe.

  By this time, we have reached the top of the stairs, and Philomela is pushing through the open door, and the three of us scurry past the bald parrot, squinting our way into the grey, twilit hallway, breathing with a special luxuriance the sweet heavy smoky aroma of upstairs.