‘Two, no, three lemon cakes and a custard slice, please.’
He always says please, hopeful of supressing a racist remark.
‘Them’s the lot,’ she says. ‘We can’t keep ’em on the racks.’
‘And two teas with milk and sugar, please.’
‘For both?’
‘Yes, please.’
Jonesy waits patiently; she’s slow with the teas. Thank the goddesses there’s plenty of sugar and butter again. Thirteen years they suffered without enough of those comforts.
That first night at the bathhouse, when David stood close to him with his towel wrapped well below his taut waist, the mechanic’s greeting was, ‘I’m not queer.’
God, hadn’t he heard that before.
‘Do you know how ridiculous that sounds in a room full of us?’ Jonesy had walked away with every intention of avoiding heartache.
But here he is, two years later, buying cake, saturated in his desire for a barely literate man who insists he is going to ‘stop all of this’ as soon as he’s married.
Jonesy is not honest, either. He won’t tell David about his family, such as it is, and he certainly won’t reveal the dangerous secret that weighs on him.
‘You’re lookin’ real smart today, young man,’ the bakery girl says.
A reflex sends his hand to fiddle with his black roll-neck. He forgets that his body disguises his true age; blood always rushes to his face when he remembers.
‘Thank you.’
‘Look at your face! I didn’t know your kind could blush.’
What an idiot, he thinks. She’s a bottle blonde, always with a bit of gnawed pencil behind her ear, a huge gap between her front teeth – and she smells like over-baked sugar. He doesn’t want a fuss.
On his way out with his hands full, she runs around to open the door for him and thrusts her body forward a bit, brushing against him.
‘Nice coat. Where’d ya get it?’
Willa had pulled it out of one of her clothing chests. An authentic gem with engraved anchor buttons that make him nostalgic for his long-dead sailor. It’s also thanks to Willa that his grey trousers are just on the right side of tight. She could make alterations to a rag and the result would be unique and beautiful.
‘Friend gave it to me.’
‘That’s a friend you’ll want to keep.’
‘Yeah. See ya.’
‘See ya.’
His brown jodhpur boots slide past the girl and he’s on the street again. A light wind blows his chin-length hair into his eyes and he tucks it back behind his ears, balancing the cakes and teas in his hands. Just as he reaches the lodging house a man stops him to ask directions. Jonesy tries to help but doesn’t really know how to guide him. The exchange is short and pleasant. The shears on the window upstairs twitch a couple of times.
Back in the room, he places the cake and tea on the slim fireplace mantel and when he turns around David punches him in the stomach. The breath is knocked right out of him.
‘Flirting again?’
Another punch, this one to the ribs.
‘Directions …’ Jonesy tries to explain.
‘You’re disgusting.’
‘So are you.’ Jonesy is in a hell of a lot of pain, but he’s not afraid. It’s not like he’s going to die.
A fist lands on his face.
‘You’re going to make Tammy miserable,’ he whispers.
David grabs the soiled towel and twists it around Jonesy’s neck.
‘I’m not like you. I’m not queer. Say it. Say, “David you’re not queer”.’
He lets Jonesy breathe.
‘David, you are an invert, a queer, a poof, a sodomite …’
David grabs the Lusty chair and smacks it across Jonesy’s head. He goes down.
His rage spent, David sits on the bed and weeps.
Jonesy lies at his lover’s feet, his head rests in a small puddle of blood and he takes a few minutes to come to his knees. As he does so, there is a pounding on the door.
‘Raid! Move out!’ The landlady warns them.
‘What the bloody hell. It ain’t a Friday night up the West End, it’s bloody daylight in Pimlico,’ a man hisses out in the corridor.
David doesn’t hesitate. He hustles into his trousers, grabs his shirt and shoes, and after checking the corridor, he takes the rear set of steps that serve as a safeguard, the house popular for this reason. His lover of two years is not worth even a parting glance where he lies broken on the floor.
A few moments later a plain-clothes constable finds the door gaping.
‘Hey, hey, hey, wait a minute there.’
Jonesy writhes on the floor trying to get up. Slowly, he raises his head and tilts it to face the voice.
The constable drops his guard.
‘Holy fucking hell.’
Jonesy clenches the bed. Using the mattress, he labours first to one knee, then the other. His head has stopped bleeding. His jumper has soaked up much of the pool from the floor.
‘Your face.’
Jonesy’s hand goes to his jaw. Broken? He can barely make out the man in front of him. His age, he has no idea. His voice is kinder than that of his escaped lover, but he never trusts the police. The punches he can handle, but not the particular torture of the police. Not again.
Another constable pokes his head in.
‘Anything doing in here?’
This one, no, he’s not kind. Jonesy recognizes a hard-edged tone, holds his breath unconsciously and winces at what might be a broken rib. A hand tremor starts and in moments he’s a full shaking mess.
‘No, fine here. Check upstairs?’
‘Right.’
Jonesy suppresses a cry of relief.
‘Look. You’re fully dressed. There’s no one else here. Whoever made a dog’s dinner of your face has scarpered. I’m not going to arrest you. I’ll call an ambulance.’
‘No. Please, no hospital.’
‘You look bad.’
‘Please.’
‘Is there someone I can call? Where do you live?’
Jonesy’s tries to remember if he has enough money to take a taxi home and then is sure he doesn’t, it’s too far.
‘Do you have a phone?’
They do, but he won’t enlighten the police.
‘Phone box.’
‘Do you know the number?’
‘BER 2334,’ he slurs.
‘Bermondsey. What’s your name?’
‘Edward. Edward Moon.’
‘Who do I ask for?’
‘Edward Moon.’ Their emergency code.
‘You’re not making any sense.’
‘Please, just ask … Edward Moon.’
His split lip bleeds again.
‘Jesus. Okay, okay.’
Jonesy rests his head back; the vision of the constable fades and all he wants now is sleep.
‘Hey, hey, Mr Moon.’
‘Who is Mr. Moon?’
‘You said you were. I’m going downstairs now to phone. You have to stay awake.’
‘I’m not going to die.’
‘Seriously, don’t go to sleep.’
Jonesy fully expects the constable to return and blacken his other eye, or break one of his bones, some mark of violence to show that he does his job well.
He waits in the fading light, still on the floor, leaning against the bed. It isn’t as dangerous as it used to be. They can’t hang him. He has no reputation to ruin. But they can arrest him, lock him up, and then they will have their fun with him. He never again wants to be in a locked cell at the mercy of a policeman in denial of his own love for cock.
The constable is back. Jonesy can smell something on his clothing, a mix of tobacco and musk. The next moment he is being lifted with some difficulty onto the bed. He struggles to open his eye; the other is swollen shut. But when his good eye meets the constable’s gaze his breath quickens, causing pain at his ribs. He’s one of us. I can tell just by looking a man in his eyes. He has a thimble
of hope that he will be left in peace to be collected, that the constable wasn’t lying and will not arrest him.
‘Why do you do this job?’ Jonesy asks.
The constable switches on the lamp with the frayed shade. The commotion in the corridors and stairs has calmed.
‘I have to go. You should at least go to the doctor.’ He turns to leave.
‘Constable. Thank you.’
‘Stay out of trouble.’
An hour later, when every part of him is throbbing and the pain sends him near delirium, he can’t tell whether Finn and Rafe are standing at the foot of the bed, or whether he is dreaming it.
‘Who did this to you?’ Rafe asks.
‘Later,’ Finn says. ‘Let’s get him home.’
They negotiate the stairs where, at the landing, the landlady asks for compensation. ‘For my trouble.’ Finn throws notes on the reception table and they carry Jonesy to the Hillman and ease him in with as little torture as possible, laying him across the rear seat.
Jonesy passes in and out of consciousness according to the health of the roads and the glare from the streetlights that land directly on his face. After they roll over the tram tracks of Vauxhall Bridge a new anxiety sets in.
‘Is she very angry?’ he asks.
Rafe looks at Finn who keeps his eyes on the road.
‘Finn?’ Jonesy persists.
‘She’s quiet. Relax.’
‘That’s not reassuring,’ he says, before he passes out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Clovis sits at the glass armonica, her tight, pencil skirt hugging her hips. When she hears the car pull up, her feet search for the high heels she’d kicked off by a table leg. She closes the top of the armonica and waits.
Finn and Rafe bring Jonesy into the house with his arms draped around their necks. Pausing at the door of the lounge, they wait for Clovis to acknowledge him. As she walks towards them, Jonesy lifts his pounding head an inch. Clovis closes the door, shutting him out, shutting them all out.
Willa stands at the kitchen door with her hand over her mouth, silencing a cry when Jonesy raises his head again.
‘Take him up. I’ll be there shortly,’ she whispers.
Rafe tries to make Jonesy as comfortable as a beaten man can be, then sits beside the bed. After a few moments of silence, Jonesy reaches for Rafe’s hand. His fingers lightly touch the bruise on the back of it.
‘You’ve been to Mockett’s again. Blood?’ Jonesy asks, his speech as swollen as his face.
Rafe nods.
‘Give me your other hand.’
He does.
‘You painted today. Good. Red. Gold. Yellow. The same?’
‘Don’t try to talk. Yes, the same.’
Rafe adjusts Jonesy’s pillow.
‘Here’s Willa. She’s going to see to you.’
Willa cleans Jonesy’s face with a gentle hand.
‘You both think I’m foolish.’
‘No. Not at all,’ they say.
‘But you are a hell of a magnet for the bad ones,’ Rafe says. ‘That has to change.’
‘He’s only been trying to change that for the last one hundred and twenty-five years,’ Willa says.
Rafe and Willa share a soft trickle of irony-laced laughter, but their attempt to lighten the atmosphere leaves Jonesy quiet.
‘Rest now,’ she orders.
She turns the radiator up a notch before they close the door.
David invades his thoughts and keeps sleep away. Jonesy’s body will heal from the welts, but the sickness that nests in his gut from such a cruel abandonment … He’s not certain of a recovery.
Perched side by side on shelving, his puppets stare at him and tonight seem grotesque. Astonishingly to him, they’re collectables, coveted by the rich. As their creator, Jonesy remains anonymous, which makes them even more desirable and valuable.
His most prized creation and the puppet he will never sell is Marshal Yin, the God of Time, with its three heads of flaming red hair. It sits next to The Cruel Female, dressed in black robes and with a menacing painted brow that arches over one eye. He has carved angry creases into her forehead. She’s a bestseller.
The door cracks and he is pulled out of his fevered musing by the leathery scent of her brutal perfume. Her presence vexes him. He shifts. Clovis sits, crosses her legs, and as always he is struck by her beauty, as stunning and youthful as it was the first day he was tossed into her life.
‘I’d give anything for morphine right now,’ he whispers.
‘You know you can’t have any drugs. They make us sick.’
‘I know.’ He pauses. ‘I’d just like a little relief. Just for a while.’
‘I think the kind of relief you want is not from physical pain.’
He turns quiet.
‘Because it’s always going to be this way. Isn’t it, Jonesy? Always placing us in danger. Bringing law enforcement, the vice squad, ever nearer to our door.’
She lets that sink in.
‘What you are – I don’t have any problem with it. I don’t care who you fuck. But the law does – and that won’t change. Ever.’
He turns his head away from her and stares at the wall.
‘Your love for Rafe and Willa … and Finn. Is it so frail that you are careless enough to take risks in broad daylight?’
Her voice remains as soft as the fur on the street cat she reminds him of, the black one with white feet. He waits for her to show her claws.
‘I don’t know, maybe you like the thrill of risk-taking.’
‘No.’
‘Well, Jonesy, your words tell me one thing and your actions another. Every time you walk out of the door, you leave behind people who worry until you come home safely. We despair that you’ll leave a trail for the police. Little crumbs from your love nests to our home. You are the only one amongst us who consistently throws caution to the wind.’
‘I am careful. I’m not like many who … I’m looking to settle down.’
‘Listen to yourself.’ She points her words like tiny arrows. ‘No one wants to settle down with you. It hasn’t happened yet, has it? And you’ve prowled the streets for how many years?’
He’s offended by ‘prowled’.
‘And what would you do if your prince did come along? Watch him grow older each year? Tell him that you are Dorian Gray come to life?’
He hasn’t noticed that her hand has been loosely clenched in a fist.
‘Dorian Gray? Is he one of us?’
‘Christ. No. I only wish he were real, then he could be your companion.’
There’s a knock on the door.
‘What is it?’ Clovis is sharp.
‘Is Jonesy hungry? I have broth.’
‘No, he’s not. He’s going to rest,’ she answers.
She waits to hear the footsteps fade.
‘How many more times will Finn be called to a police station? What will happen to you in prison? It won’t be like Millbank, with all the privileges I worked so hard for there. Do you remember when you were arrested in ’23? When you almost fell into the long sleep before we got you out? They will not be so gullible now.’
Clovis opens her palm. She holds a phial full of the green liquid. She stands, moves the chair closer to his bed, and places the phial on the seat within his reach.
He winces when he turns his head to face the phial and its damnable fluorescent sheen. Though his vision of her is hampered, there is no mistaking what sails between them.
‘Good night, Jonesy.’
She throws a parting glance at the phial.
Clovis was wrong about one thing. Someone did want to settle down with him once. One of the thousands who live in secrecy with success: Stanley. So ordinary and forgettable, but he was the most adoring and kindest man to ever cross Jonesy’s path. They had saved their pennies to rent a flat, a permanent love nest to use upon his return, even though Stanley knew he would die when he was called up and almost chopped off his leg to avoid it. He was f
ound washed up on a Danish beach. Jonesy eventually learned the where and when of Jutland.
‘I am not completely tragic, Clovis. My kind is not all doomed.’ He speaks only to her fragrant vestige.
Jonesy rolls the phial on the seat of the wooden chair with his carving, calloused fingers.
He loves them all. Even his wicked mistress, he still loves her – and hates her. But he cannot change who he is. So he will never be able to keep his family safe. Everything else she said is true. The law won’t change. Neither will the potency of the hate and the violence.
The room is still full of Clovis, her essence, her last glance so pointed with meaning as she turned and left him alone to make a decision.
Jonesy clasps the phial. Thinking of his grandmother now, he lifts the top. The dragon chases the flaming pearl of wisdom and truth – one of the Eight Treasures. ‘To be peaceful within oneself, Yun, is the flaming pearl.’
Jonesy drinks the liquid. His hair fans on his pillow like a raven’s wing and he waits for peace. His body convulses for several seconds. He is gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Willa stands in Jonesy’s empty room, where his odour lingers, or is it just the memory of his scent. She is unsure. There, the vacant spot where his funny sandals should be. And there, scratch marks from his wooden box, when he scraped it across the floorboards’ patina.
She imagines him sitting here shortly after they moved to Bermondsey, when he whispered a confidence. At the time she thought how burdened he must be, carrying his weighty secret. His eyebrows had arched with relief when he searched her large eyes and found them smiling with acceptance. She was embarrassed that she hadn’t figured it out sooner. His painfully polite refusals of her timid touches were finally explained. She too felt relief when she stopped blaming herself for not being desirable enough for his libido.
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