by Vanessa Tait
‘And good riddance!’
‘He will take his problems with him, wherever he goes.’
‘No self, but only problems. That sounds like a way to live!’
‘Only feelings. Only that.’ Gabe kissed her lightly. ‘I am glad he is going.’
‘He says he will leave as soon as he can book a passage. Imagine it, Gabe, I will be free of him at last!’
‘Yes, Rebe, it is the very best news!’ Gabe grinned and tapped her on the tip of her nose. And, silly as it was, it pierced her heart, something unchangeable in the human soul! Sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in disgrace and happy. Did the Stoics not speak of the same?
She moved her face towards his and kissed him. She had not really kissed him since the night in the hotel in Glasgow, and it took her a moment to get used to the feel of his lips again. But at the touch of his tongue a jolt ran through her, and she began to tremble, and now they were kissing as they had used to, until he too was shaking and she could feel his heart beating under his clothes.
At last they drew away. ‘Come now, we are in a shop,’ Gabe said. ‘A place of work.’
‘That is shut up for the night—’
‘And you are still married, to him,’ said Gabe, his cheeks flushed. ‘There will be a scandal if it gets out – that we are together.’
‘But do you know? I care not! I have fallen so far out of the way of any respectability, I care nothing, if you visit me here, or were to stay with me, here and there, say …’ She faltered and grew shy. ‘For a night or two. I care nothing for the looks cast at me on the street. I think there are looks cast at me anyway, with all the scandal I have had.’
‘Oh Rebe, how I have longed to hear you say that! Say it and mean it, as I think you do.’ He put his head to one side and grinned. ‘Here and there, you say?’
‘Here and there, or here and here, if you like …’
‘Here and here sounds better.’ Gabe raised his eyebrows.
‘No – I meant – not here! Albany Street is a big house to live in on my own. For I think the cook will leave when Alexander does, though I shall have to get a new one …’
‘Ah, Albany Street. What a fine address.’
‘I used to think so.’ She let her cheek rest on his shoulder. His hair had grown longer, now that he did not have to shave it for the tannery. ‘I should never have taken you for a dandy.’
‘And I should never have taken you – no, scrap that. I should always have taken you, wherever I went.’
The light was fading now but inside Rebecca and Gabriel stayed on. The pavement was busy with people walking home from work, and when there was a knock at the door they thought it was one of them, come to ask for something.
‘A customer most likely, with a migraine,’ said Rebecca, going to open it.
But it was not a customer – they could see that by his air of importance that was generated by his tailcoat and his whiskers.
‘Have you seen a man by the name of Badcock?’ said the man at once, his voice very nasal. ‘If he is in here I pray you, do not hide him. You are liable to go to court for it.’
‘Mr Badcock? No, he is not here. If he were I would gladly give him to you. What has he done?’
‘He is wanted for non-payment of debts. Are you sure he is not here?’ The man craned his bony neck to see over Rebecca’s shoulder.
‘No, I swear it! He would not hide here.’
‘I always catch up with people in the end,’ the man said, ‘no matter how they try to run. If you are a friend to him you may tell him I am on his tail. It is better to end the misery quicker than try to elude it.’ He pinched his nose. ‘Though many still try to flee, it always looks worse in the courts if they do. Tell him that, if you see him?’
Rebecca nodded, and smoothed her dress. ‘But I will not see him – I hope.’
‘He has probably tried to get away – but tell him, I say, that I am on his tail.’ He smiled. ‘Bailiffs will be along tomorrow, in any case, to collect the equipment. I understand there is a laboratory?’
‘Yes, upstairs—’
‘And anything else that belongs to Mr Badcock.’
‘This down here belongs to Mrs Palmer,’ cut in Gabe. ‘I have the receipts.’
‘Not all of it, I’ll wager. I expect there’ll be a few pots and pans, as I always say.’ He shut his eyes and pinched his nose again. ‘A few pots and pans as belongs to us! Good evening to you.’
‘How much is his, Rebe?’ Gabe asked, after the man had gone.
‘I do not know. Not much – we have sold any stock Mr Badcock bought for the shop long ago, and there is only the equipment, which I do not need. The newest stock is bought with your money and, oh Gabe, I ought not to be happy,’ she brought her fists up under her chin, ‘but Mr Badcock in a debtors’ prison! Nothing would please me more.’
‘No, Rebe, to be happy for another’s misfortune is a terrible sin.’
‘I know, Gabe, you were always better than me, and you are right—’
‘I jest! Do you think me such a stiff, even now? Mr Badcock is a horror, from everything you told me.’ He bent and touched her forehead with his own, and took her face in his hands. ‘But I am better than you, that part is true.’
‘Why you devil—’
He kissed her. ‘And if you do not mind ejecting one husband and getting another one soon after, I will gladly come to Albany Street. I cannot live with my parents for ever. And there is the small matter of never wanting to be apart from you again.’
‘And I you! But, Gabe – let us never marry.’
‘Not even if I stick a twig in my turban?’
‘Even that!’
‘But – what should we be to each other?’
‘I will be your wife-in-watercolours,’ said Rebecca.
‘And I – what do they call me?’ Gabe frowned.
‘There is no term for you, I think.’ She put her hand to his cheek.
‘But will you have me anyway?’
‘Oh yes, I will. Oh, I will!’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The setting for the novel is 1869. However, heroin was first synthesized by an English chemist, C. R. Alder Wright, in 1874; he was trying to find an antidote to the addictive properties of morphine. But it wasn’t until Bayer marketed heroin as an analgesic and a sedative for coughs in 1888 that its popularity really took off.
Whilst I have used this as an inspiration for the character of Alexander, obviously in no other way does C. R. Alder Wright compare to my anti-hero.