The Night Brother

by Rosie Garland

  I tug the peak of my cap and step away. Again, my way is blocked, but by a far more attractive impediment.

  ‘Mr Latchford,’ she says, laying a gloved hand on my forearm.

  I’m stabbed with lust, firm and fierce, as though her naked fingers reached inside my breeches and squeezed. Blood floods into my cheeks. She takes it for bashfulness.

  I cough. ‘Miss Hargreaves.’

  ‘You are wet through,’ she says. ‘Hurry and put that box under the groundsheet, do.’

  Another blasted order from the Kaiser, I think. ‘Yes, Miss Hargreaves,’ I say, steeling myself for calmness. She is touching me, and that is worth the long, enervating day and the soaking. Possibly.

  ‘You’ve not brought an overcoat, have you?’

  I glance at the other men, who are spiriting oilskins out of a sack I’d not noticed before.

  ‘I do not own such a garment, Miss Hargreaves,’ I say with pained dignity.

  ‘Then you must surely travel on the tram with us. We do not want to dampen your ardour for the cause.’

  I laugh bravely at her joke. I race to the cart and hurl the box on board, where it lands with a soggy thump. One of the fellows extends a paw to hoist me up.

  ‘Not me,’ I say with a wink. ‘I’ve got a far more comfortable berth awaiting my backside.’

  I can’t resist a swagger as I head to the tram, beckoning with light and warmth. I help every one of the wenches on board with a tip of my cap and a here you go, ma’am before hopping up after Miss Hargreaves. We take a seat together on the top of the car and suddenly the rain is of no consequence. With her at my side I’d endure the whole clattering journey in a typhoon. She produces an umbrella from God knows where, unfurls it and makes to hold it over both our heads. I shuffle to the far end of the bench, far too cunning to use it as an excuse to cuddle up.

  ‘You will get wet,’ she says.

  ‘That does not matter,’ I say brightly. ‘Spot of rain won’t hurt.’

  The drizzle soaks through my jacket and shirt. My shoulders are clammy.

  She sighs. ‘Come now.’

  ‘Really, it is quite all right.’

  ‘I disagree. You have worked hard. I shan’t stand by and watch you catch your death. You must sit close to me, or I shall have to come close to you.’

  I don’t stir and, sure enough, she slides in my direction until her thigh is pressed against mine. I draw my jacket over my lap and indulge the stirring of my flesh, my privates hidden safely beneath the press of my palm. I revel in the delicious knowledge that she is unaware of my arousal. Edie can wriggle all she wants. I’m not actually doing anything.

  See this, Edie? I have what will never be yours.

  I cram my head with filthy thoughts and it’s only when she stops yattering that I realise I’ve not been paying attention. I hope she doesn’t ask any awkward questions.

  ‘Mr Latchford: are you well?’

  ‘Most decidedly,’ I reply, and heave a romantic sigh.

  ‘Here I am, talking nineteen to the dozen. How fed up you must be at the sound of my voice. I fear I bore myself sometimes.’

  ‘I could listen to you for hours.’

  She gives me a look of genuine surprise. ‘Indeed? Then you are in a class of your own. Even my most intimate friends say that I talk too much.’

  ‘I hardly think they appreciate you.’

  ‘You flatter me again.’

  ‘I’m partial, I admit. But ask me to think of a more pleasurable mode of transport and I shall be unable to answer.’

  ‘Now, that must be flattery! Look at the weather!’

  The drizzle has thickened into a persistent downpour and despite the umbrella my trouser-bottoms are sodden.

  ‘I barely noticed it,’ I say gamely. My feet are wet through the boot-leather. It’ll take Mam an age to stuff them with newspaper and get them dried out right. ‘Let me take the umbrella, do.’

  She resists, but not with much fervour. I hoist it high and water trickles the length of my arm to the elbow. Despite the discomfort I smile like a true gent. By the time we get to the city, my hardness has wilted. It does not matter. I am getting my foot in the door. When we step down at Piccadilly Gardens I feign a doting look.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Latchford,’ she says, and walks away.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I say, scampering to keep up.

  ‘Home, of course.’

  ‘Then I shall accompany you.’

  ‘That is quite unnecessary.’

  ‘My eye! I won’t hear of a young lady travelling unaccompanied.’

  She gives an unfeminine snort. ‘I hardly think Manchester is overrun with bandits.’

  ‘I insist. I would be remiss in my duties as a gentleman if I did not.’

  ‘You need feel no sense of duty, Mr Latchford.’

  ‘It is not duty. It is pleasure.’

  ‘Is there any point in my resisting?’

  I grin. ‘None.’

  At last I earn a bow of the head. I know that posh types are obliged to be wary, but this back and forth is taxing my sodden good humour. Besides, she quacks loud and long enough about being opposed to convention. It is quite hypocritical. Once again, I retain self-control and remind myself that she chose to sit beside me.

  ‘Why, there’s your tram,’ I say, pointing to the number 38.

  She gives me a queer look. ‘You are remarkably well informed about the direction of my residence.’

  I curse the slip, but effect a good save. ‘Dear Edie speaks of you so often!’ I say with strained tenderness.

  I help her clamber on to her tram and pay for us both; no, I won’t hear a word. A stiff breeze blows away the rain clouds; the air is crisp and sharp in my lungs. I am the soul of gallantry, fit to knock the shine off the stars: enthusing about the rally, the thrilling speech, the jolly company. I hold her in my spell all the way to her stop, through the maze of tree-clogged streets and to her gate. It occurs to me that, away from the baleful influence of her overseers, she behaves as befits a lady, quiet and attentive. In her heart of hearts she knows we are a match made in heaven. It’s as good as decided.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says rather wearily. ‘Your conscience can be clear, Mr Latchford. You have conveyed me to my threshold.’

  ‘Are we here?’ I say, pretending I’ve never set eyes on the place. I tip my cap. ‘I hope that I may offer similar service on a future occasion.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she says vaguely. She turns, but thinks better of it. ‘Perhaps you might accept an invitation to dine one evening,’ she adds more brightly.

  It’s all I can do to restrain myself from sweeping her down the street in a mazurka. ‘Marvellous!’

  ‘Next week, perhaps? An evening when you and Edie are both available?’

  My heart trips over its own feet. ‘Edie? Why would I want to drag her along?’

  ‘Now, Mr Latchford. We have spent an enjoyable day in each other’s company. Don’t spoil it by being ungenerous. I have to chide Edie for the same reason. I can hardly be an effective peacemaker if you do not—’

  ‘Peacemaker?’ I say. ‘Is that what this is?’

  ‘Is what …’ she begins, and then pauses. She regards me carefully. ‘Mr Latchford. May I speak frankly?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say cautiously.

  ‘Why are you like this?’

  ‘Like what?’

  She sighs. ‘You are so – formal.’

  I am thunderstruck and it shows. ‘Formal?’

  ‘Everything you say is so – clipped. You bow, snap your heels, hold yourself as stiffly as a Ruritanian grandee. Manners that seem borrowed from a melodrama. I wonder what lines you would speak if the script were taken from you.’

  My mind spins. I can turn this to my advantage. I muster affront.

  ‘Can’t a fellow be polite without having aspersions cast upon his good nature?’ I bluster. ‘I am wounded, Miss Hargreaves. Everywhere men are accused of brutish behaviour, yet when you are pres
ented with a chap who is all consideration, you criticise his conduct. If I may make so bold, Miss Hargreaves, I believe you are playing a game I cannot possibly win.’

  She draws her brows together. ‘Again with the charade. I have a conviction that I should enjoy your company more if you were yourself. You need play no part on my account.’

  ‘A part? This is insupportable. Do you detest me so much?’

  ‘Quite the opposite. I am drawn to you—’

  ‘You are?’ I gulp, wind taken out of my sails.

  ‘—without precisely knowing why. I am minded to like you. To count you as a friend. But my heart is vouchsafed elsewhere.’

  ‘Who is the lucky cove?’ I say bitterly.

  ‘Not a cove, Mr Latchford.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I should have thought it was self-evident. I have never hidden where my affections lie. Do you and Edie not speak to each other?’

  ‘Edie?’ I gasp.

  I’m all too aware of Edie’s infatuation with this princess, but never guessed it might be reciprocated. All of the vile, degenerate … No. I am the right one for her. It’s the way it should be. Man and woman.

  ‘Who else? You must know, surely. You share the same roof, eat at the same board. It is not something that can be hidden.’

  My ire, suppressed so long, bursts free from its gaol.

  ‘Shut up!’ I cry. ‘Edie this, Edie that, on and on and on. I can’t tell you how sick I am of hearing that name. My mother, my grandmother and now you. You women …’

  ‘I beg your—!’ She straightens her hat and wrestles with the buttons of her jacket as though she dislikes them. ‘Mr Latchford. You will regret these words tomorrow. I can only surmise that you are fatigued.’

  ‘I assure you I am no such thing.’

  ‘You are most provoking. This conversation is over.’

  She bids me a brisk goodnight and sweeps up the gravelled path. You want the true Gnome? I think. You can have him, both barrels. I chase after her, seize her arm and push her against the garden wall, violently enough to elicit a groan. As she moans, so do I. There is a sudden buzzing between my ears, my skull full to bursting with wasps.

  ‘Let go of me,’ she says.

  I shake my head but cannot free myself from the hissing. ‘Don’t give me that,’ I grunt. ‘You’ve been flirting for weeks.’

  ‘I have done nothing of the sort,’ she blusters. ‘I thought to play peacemaker. That was arrogance on my part, and clearly an error if you’ve mistaken my behaviour for encouragement.’

  ‘Ballocks. You want this as much as I do.’

  She struggles to free herself. ‘I am going indoors.’

  ‘Oh no you’re not.’ The words do not come out as sarcastically as they ought. I drag my wits together. I’ll show her who’s in charge here. I’ll show Edie. I’ll show them all. ‘So, you think me too formal?’ Her jaw sets in a grim line. I give her elbow a twist, only to recoil as a stabbing pain jabs me in the ribs. ‘You want a man of flesh and blood?’ I wheeze, grappling for breath. ‘You want passion?’

  ‘These are rhetorical questions, Mr Latchford,’ she says with tight dignity. ‘You have clearly made up your mind.’

  ‘Too right I have,’ I leer. ‘I am going to hurt you.’

  This is the moment: her cheeks will grow pale and she will plead, wide-eyed with fright. Neither takes place.

  I lick my lips. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘No, I am not,’ she replies steadily.

  ‘You ought to be,’ I bleat. I turn it into a growl. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. ‘I’ll push some fear into you. All your words, your speeches. I’ll shove them right where they belong.’

  I grab the brim of her hat and tug hard. She winces, making a small sound like someone taking a sip of too-hot tea. As she does so, there’s an answering pain in my side that folds me in half. With a great deal of effort I manage to straighten up.

  ‘Did that hurt? Eh?’

  ‘Of course it did,’ she hisses, not so much in distress as irritated by such an idiotic question. ‘You mistake pain for fear.’

  ‘When I’m done you won’t be able to tell the difference.’

  ‘Get on with it, then.’

  The air stumbles between us.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Stop talking about how you’ll do this to me and that to me.’ Her eyes blaze. ‘I am up against a wall. Hurt me. Be done with it so I can go.’

  ‘You’re not listening!’ I squeak. ‘I will break you! I can!’

  I raise my fist and with every ounce of my being try to force it into her gob and knock each and every one of her teeth to kingdom come. I can’t move. My arm is frozen. All my life’s fury cannot budge it one inch closer.

  ‘You will not. I cannot be broken.’

  ‘All women can be broken,’ I wail.

  ‘Your experience of our sex is limited.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I moan. ‘Shut up.’

  I cling to her, stuck like a fly to flypaper. She ought to be terrified. Ought to burst into tears. Ought to hate me. I wish she would; then I’d know where I stood. I want to tear her in half, into quarters, smaller and smaller pieces. I want to rip myself to shreds, so small all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put me back together again. I inspect my hands: my flesh is on fire, yet unmarked. Sweat drips from the tip of my nose.

  I lunge forward and press my mouth upon hers.

  Edie twitches inside the sack of my skin. Close, so close. We are almost—

  Miss Hargreaves extricates herself from my grasp.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she says. ‘Mr Latchford. If you imagine for one moment that this display will turn my head you are grievously mistaken. Do not let your envy and anger spoil what affection exists between us. Goodnight.’

  She strides up the path, hammers her fist against one of the glass panels in the front door. I leg it down the driveway before the master of the house can emerge with a shotgun to defend his daughter’s virtue. I take a wrong turn straightaway.

  I traipse beneath the electric lights, wondering how on earth I am going to find my way home. The street eventually turns me out alongside Alexandra Park. I glare through the iron palings at the rhododendrons and spindly new trees. Broad paths stretch in regimented lines, pale under the moonlight.

  Miss Abigail Bloody Hargreaves. She should fall at my feet, fall into my arms. One of the two, I care not which. Blast it, a woman should play by the rules. I am everything she needs and have chosen her, despite the great impediment of her being a suffragette. Most men wouldn’t touch her. How dare she turn her nose up at me? She should sing grateful praises that a red-blooded fellow such as myself deigns to set his cap at her. Yet she won’t. It should not irk me so much. None of it should. The stiff-necked, dried-up—

  The realisation hits me with the force of the Manchester to Liverpool express. I hang on to the bars while I catch my breath. I have fallen for the damned woman. All my denials shrivel like paper in a furnace. It’s not a game. It never was. I shake the railings. They are mortared deep, their very solidity intensifying my rage.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had planned to peck away at her resistance till I hollowed out a hole to fill with myself. And when I’d won her ear I would plant poison therein, sit back and savour the entertainment of Edie lost and alone. All my talk of toying with her, discarding her. It’s all hot air. I love her and I want her to love me back. I need it.

  I climb the fence, as if it might help me escape these loathsome feelings. I stagger through the bushes, drawn towards the shimmer of a pond at the end of one of the avenues. The surface dazzles with reflected light. I flounder into it, kicking the stars to pieces, and am up to my shins before the chill communicates itself through my britches. I shudder to a halt: breath rasping, heart pumping.

  ‘I don’t want to love her!’

  I look down. My reflection wobbles, lips move.

  You knew where this w
ould lead, I say to myself. You’ve always known.

  ‘No!’ I scream. I lift my foot and stamp myself into pieces. I don’t love anyone. It’s the last thing on my mind. I freeze, one boot up and one boot down.

  That’s right. This isn’t what I want. This is Edie’s fault, Edie’s feeling. Her love – the word makes me sick to my stomach – has dug in its claws and dragged me in its wake. I don’t feel a single twinge of affection for Miss Hargreaves. I don’t, I don’t – it is all Edie. I’m bound to her as helplessly as a galley slave chained to his oar. We are one in emotion as well as body, like Siamese twins. It is filthy. She makes me sick. They both make me sick.

  I fall to my knees. The water barely reaches my hips. I pound the surface as if I might drown out Miss Hargreaves – the taste, the feel, the smell of her – but it is impossible. I don’t want to feel this fire, this ants-under-my-skin fury. It is not mine. I don’t want any part of it.

  Squatting on the opposite bank is a pavilion. I imagine the denizens of this neighbourhood reclining in its shelter, sipping tea in flowered cups, sticking out their little fingers. I slosh towards it, teeth rattling like clogs. If I can’t win this game, I shan’t let anyone else win, either.

  The park-keeper is long gone, having locked up at sundown to keep out the dangerous likes of me. One hefty kick and the door bursts open. I blunder amongst the stacked tables, hurling them aside; hoist a chair and whack it against the floor until its legs splinter.

  Not enough. I trip over a pile of tins and give them a mighty punt as well. Glistening muck sprawls across the floor and the air blooms with the scent of paint. I lug one of the cans outside. In vast, uneven letters I slather Votes For Women across the flagstones.

  Not enough. My mind itches. Even an idiot could start a conflagration with all this rubbish. I scout about and find a bottle of thinners, a heap of rags and a box of lucifers. I watch my hands fumble, breaking the first, the second. If I do this I’m signing my own death warrant.

  Don’t do this.

  It sounds like me. It can’t be.

  I can’t help myself. It’s too late anyway. I’ve ruined what little chance I had with Miss Hargreaves. I may as well destroy everything else while I’m at it. I’m Gnome, aren’t I? Destruction is all I’ve ever been good for.