A World Elsewhere

by Wayne Johnston

  “Mark me, Deacon,” he muttered. “I have with an angel been abed. That’s what man fun is.”

  “Dick and the happy couple?” Deacon said. He finished his lemonade.

  “That’s right. Just like I told you.”

  “Did you make a contribution?”

  Landish laughed.

  “You might bring another baby home,” Deacon said.

  “No,” Landish said.

  “Maybe a girl.”

  “NO.”

  Deacon started to cry. He said Landish was worse than Hogan, who was nothing but a lazy busybody, and so what that he was always in the kitchen when they were going up and down the stairs, he didn’t wake them up or beat on their door in the middle of the night. He said the Barnables on the first floor liked Hogan more than Landish because they were afraid of Landish. They hid because anyone with any sense would keep their distance from a Druken who was drunk. How would Landish like it if Hogan went out and came back singing songs? Landish didn’t care if Deacon stayed awake all night. He was worse than Captain Druken. Deacon went without his dinner because Landish couldn’t stand to go without a drink. What would his mother say if she could see him now, if she knew she’d left her boy with a sorry excuse?

  Landish, his head on the table, seemed to be asleep.

  Deacon did what Landish sometimes did when he was decks awash. He went downstairs and punched and kicked at Hogan’s door and said the whore who had him was ashamed to call him hers. He said it was high time he lugged his own business bucket out to Dark Marsh Road. He shouted, “Don’t complain to Mr. Nobleman if you know what’s good for you.”

  He kept hitting Hogan’s door until Landish came and carried him upstairs and drew the bolt.

  Landish told him not to follow his example. Then he went to the bedroom.

  Deacon took a swallow of grog. The bottle was almost full. The grog spilled down his chin onto his shirt. He coughed and spit. His throat felt like it did when he was sick. He smashed the bottle in the fireplace. The fire roared up and out into the room, almost reaching Deacon, who fell back just in time onto the floor. The fire sounded like the wind.

  Landish came out and looked at him. He said he could have burned himself. He could have burned the attic to the ground. The smoke might leave soot marks on the walls that he would have to pay for. He went back to the bedroom. He came out again and roared, “Farewell and adieu to ye mannish ladies.”

  “Are you listening, Hogan?” he shouted as he opened the door. “The boy told you what he thinks of you. And what he thinks of me.”

  “Oh, I see,” Deacon heard Hogan say. He heard the slamming of the downstairs door and then Landish slammed the attic door.

  “You should sit down,” Deacon said, getting up off the floor. “Here’s your grog. You drink your grog and we’ll sing songs.”

  Landish declined at first and went on about a girl, saying she was harder-looking than the witches from Macbeth. But he sat down and in silence finished all the grog while Deacon watched.

  “Go to bed,” Deacon said, knowing that if he cried, Landish would start up again.

  Landish went to bed and Deacon went in when he heard him snoring and lay down on the floor beside the bed. He held his pillow against his chest and fell asleep.

  In the morning, Deacon had a headache and his stomach hurt. He sat at the table and waited for Landish to join him. Landish came out.

  “I spent the rent,” he said. “Every cent of it. I’m sorry, Deacon. I was feeling bad and then I went and made things worse. I’ll work it out with the nobleman. I’ll pay him more than twice as much next month. Pay no attention to me when I’m decks awash. I don’t mean it when I say mean things. Did I say mean things last night?”

  Deacon shook his head.

  “I shouldn’t have gone out,” Landish said. “I’ll never leave you on your own again, I promise.”

  Deacon nodded.

  “That’s good. I don’t drink very often, do I?”

  “No.”

  “But when I do, I drink too much.”

  Two days later, two men showed up at the attic. Landish heard footsteps on the stairs and a knock at the door, on which no one but the nuns and the wealth inspector had knocked in all the time they lived there. They were big men, almost as big as Landish. They looked and smelled like they’d been drinking. He could see they didn’t like what they were doing but that they would see it through to whatever end he chose.

  “This is from Mr. Nobleman,” one of them said, handing him an unsealed envelope. Landish read the note inside.

  “Evicted as of five o’clock?” he said. “Three hours from now?”

  “Mr. Nobleman says he owns everything here except your clothes. He says pack up and go. The sheriff will be here at five o’clock.”

  Deacon stood beside Landish and looked up at the men who acted as if he wasn’t there.

  “The boy,” Landish said.

  “Mr. Nobleman says you can stay for a year in exchange for the hat. No rent for a year. In exchange for the hat.”

  Landish put his hand on Deacon’s head as Deacon hugged his leg.

  “I have a contract here that you can sign. Or you can leave today.”

  He heard the boy say, “No, Landish.”

  “We always knew we would have to sell the hat,” he said.

  Landish wasn’t sure what the hat was worth. As much as someone was willing to pay for it. If he had time to make it known it was for sale, he might get more, maybe a lot more, than one year in the attic. Three hours. Any buyer would see how desperate he was. He might get less than the nobleman was offering. He could hold out past three hours, survive eviction from the attic, but the boy—where would they stay, what would he do with Deacon, until the hat was sold? Winter wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be warm enough to sleep outside until July or later. There were places you could go, but Landish vowed that Deacon would never know what they were like. And what if no one wanted the hat at any price, the hat that Captain Druken bought with blood?

  “Let me see the contract,” Landish said. The man reached inside the pocket of his coat, took out a single sheet of paper and handed it to him.

  “ ‘Should there be further instances of noise-making and misbehaviour after hours,’ ” Landish read aloud, “ ‘the tenants will be evicted and the proprietor shall retain ownership of the hat.’ ” If he gave the nobleman the hat, they might be evicted anyway, a day, a week, a month from now. He was betting that Landish would be unable to hold out for a year without a drink.

  “I’ll get the hat,” Landish said. “Don’t set foot inside this room.”

  “No, Landish,” Deacon said.

  Landish went to the bedroom, took the hat box from the closet shelf and went back to the kitchen, where Deacon was now sitting at the table, still looking at the men who were staring awkwardly at the floor.

  Landish looked at the man who’d given him the contract. “This is theft, pure and simple. Your boss as good as broke into my home and stole this straight out of my bedroom closet. Feel free to tell him I said so.” Laying it on the hat box, he signed the contract. He handed over both.

  He slammed the door, went back to the bedroom and lay down. “No rent for a year, Deacon,” Landish said. “We’ll save most of what I make and maybe this time next year we’ll have enough to go away.”

  Six days later, Landish received in the mail from Van two first-class tickets from St. John’s to New York, two first-class train tickets to Ashton, North Carolina, the nearest town to Vanderland, and a small amount of money for expenses. There was no note from Van, none of any kind from anyone.

  “He has answered me at last,” Landish said. “For all he knows, we no longer need his help. He doesn’t know for certain that we are still alive. How strange, after all this time. Tickets, instead of money to buy tickets that he thinks I would have spent on something else. The whole thing a booze ruse for all he knows.”

  Landish told the nuns who were nurses too that he
and Deacon would be leaving for the mainland soon. He showed them the tickets but said nothing about the money, having told Deacon not to mention it to anyone, especially the wealth inspector, who might have to count it as an asset and withhold its worth in vouchers.

  “So you’re leaving,” Nun One said. Deacon nodded. “We’ll remember you in our prayers. Will you be so kind as to remember us in yours?” Deacon nodded again.

  “Many have left,” she said, and for a moment touched his cheek. “But few have ever felt at home again. You will miss this place no matter if your fortunes rise. Do you believe me?”

  Deacon nodded.

  She smiled and made no attempt to stop a tear from trailing down her cheek.

  Nun Too Soon, who had come with her usual bag of clothes, gave him two shirts and two pairs of trousers. “They’ll fit,” she said. “I know your size now. Just as you’re leaving.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  “America?” the wealth inspector said. “I have a sister in Boston. She left when I was Deacon’s age. I don’t remember her. I have nieces and nephews that I’ve never seen. Don’t even know their names. I haven’t heard from her in years.”

  He told Landish that he knew about “the business with the hat.”

  “Just six days ago. I think I can get it back.”

  “Even if you don’t, it’s not nearly as dear a price as some have paid to make the rent.”

  He gave them two dilapidated carpet bags. Landish packed them with their few clothes and put the sketch of Gen of Eve in one of them on top of a selection of Deacon’s favourite books from the Smokestack. He wasn’t sure that Deacon understood what going away meant. He showed him on the map.

  “What will we do there?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think we’ll live someplace nicer than the attic.”

  “Your friend picked us,” Deacon said.

  “Yes.”

  “How many people did my mother write to?”

  “I don’t know. Just me. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Deacon said.

  “You won’t go unless you want to.”

  “Unless I want to?”

  “Right.”

  He climbed the steps of the nobleman’s house, the steps he had climbed countless times when he lived there and the house was still his father’s. He rang the doorbell, but no one came. He knocked on the middle panel of the door, which was made of frosted glass. The lace curtains of the downstairs rooms were drawn and the lights were off. He went down the steps and surveyed the upper storey. The curtains on the windows of what used to be his room swayed from side to side.

  “Mr. Nobleman,” he roared. He roared it three more times. The casement windows of his room opened outward.

  “What do you want, Mr. Druken?” a voice shouted back. Landish couldn’t see him.

  “A word with you.”

  “Concerning what?”

  “Unexpected developments. If I’d known, I would have kept the hat.” Landish waited. “The boy and I will be leaving soon. We’re booked on a ship that leaves for the mainland in a month. I can pay you for that month and the past week and then you can rent our rooms to someone else. Then we would be square if you gave me back my father’s hat.”

  “It’s my hat, Mr. Druken. I have a contract that says so.”

  “But it’s only been a week,” Landish said. “If I’d known. I received a letter from a friend six days after I gave you the hat. A man named Vanderluyden. I believe you know the name. Everything is different now.”

  “Except that I still own the hat. I’ve been more than fair to you, Mr. Druken. Other landlords would have evicted you long ago. You are not required by our contract to occupy the premises. Vacate them if you want. I will make arrangements with other tenants. You will have no legal claim on what they pay me if you forfeit.”

  Landish strode up the steps and pounded on the door. “It wouldn’t take me long to convince you I’m right. And I’m as sober as a judge.”

  “As sober as the judge you’ll have to face if you lay a hand on me. We have a contract, Mr. Druken. One that will stand up in court. If you force your way onto these premises and lay a finger on me or my wife, I will have you arrested.”

  “Your contract might stand up in court, but you won’t,” Landish shouted up. “You’ll be on your back in bed when you appear before the judge.”

  He walked down the steps, by which time many of the people who had once been his neighbours were gaping at him from their windows.

  From inside what had been his father’s house, the disembodied voice of a man to whom he had been paying money for six years for the right to occupy an attic on Dark Marsh Road had told him that the manner in which his father’s hat, his entire inheritance, had been taken from him had been fair and legal. Perhaps it was. Legal at least. It was not just losing the hat but how he had lost it and to whom that played on his mind. Landish couldn’t help feeling that the loss of the hat bore out some prediction of his father, that Captain Druken had given him the hat in the expectation that he would prove to be unworthy of it.

  So when he and Deacon went out walking, Landish made a point of going close enough to his old street to see his house, but he didn’t walk along that street or go so close to it as to risk being seen by the nobleman or his neighbours.

  “Why do we always stop here?” Deacon asked.

  “It’s a good place to rest,” Landish said. “There’s a good view from here.”

  It was out of the question to break in while the house was occupied. He vowed that he would do no one any harm. He would not so much as startle someone. He would only enter an empty house and therefore had to know for certain when it would be empty.

  After four weeks spent watching the house, Landish noticed that the nobleman and his wife, who had no servants, went out about seven every Tuesday. They walked down the hill to the stable where they boarded their horse and carriage, then drove on from there to Water Street where, turning left, they passed from sight. At what time they were in the habit of returning home he didn’t know, never having seen them return despite having several times risked drawing attention to himself and watched the house for half an hour after they left. So he should have at least that long.

  He would only be taking as much from the nobleman as the nobleman had taken from him and Deacon. In fact the nobleman had taken what they could not afford to do without, their fallback. So he had taken much more than Landish would take back, infinitely more.

  At night, in the attic, he tried to think it through. Landish still had the set of keys that his father had forgotten to ask for when he banned him from the house. He didn’t know if the nobleman had changed the locks. Whether he used the keys to enter the house and to lock it behind him when he left or whether he broke in through a pane of glass in the back door, he would be the first person the nobleman would suspect. But they wouldn’t find the keys on his person or property, wouldn’t find them at all, because he would dispose of them on his way back to the attic, throw them in one of the sinkholes on the edge of Dark Marsh Road.

  He would search the house, put the hat in a potato sack and leave without so much as looking at anything else.

  Leaving the attic, he would have to get past Hogan, and again on the way back in.

  If he was lucky, the Tuesday he chose would be a windy one and whatever sounds he made would be masked by those of the wind and the trees.

  Landish had a hunch about where in the house the hat was located. He doubted the nobleman would keep it in the attic, which was full of dust and mould. There was no basement or cellar. The problem was that if the nobleman had put it inside a lockable piece of furniture such as a sideboard or a wardrobe or a study desk, it might take hours to find. Landish knew that he could smash his way into almost anything, but the noise he made might be overheard by neighbours or passersby, or drown out any sound of the nobleman coming up the steps.

  He went to bed but didn’t clos
e his eyes. Deacon said he couldn’t sleep until Landish closed his eyes, so Landish turned and faced the wall. He thought of the box, its inner walls upholstered like a casket’s. What would he do with the box from the time he took it to the time the ship departed?

  If he was caught, caught in the act while still in the house, or caught in possession of the hat, he would go to prison for a term that he would likely not survive. He would never see the boy again. The boy would go to Cluding Deacon and never leave alive. But though he dwelt for hours every day on the folly of stealing from the nobleman, he dwelt as much or more on the unfairness of having to forsake the hat to such a man, to leave Newfoundland without it and never set eyes on it again, leave it in the house and hands of a man who would never have to answer for the crime of getting rich by extorting money from the poor.

  His father had done worse things to get the hat than the nobleman had. In which case, why not renounce the hat, be satisfied that it had found just the home and owner it deserved? But even as he thought these and many other things, he went on devising plans.

  “Where are you going, Landish?” Deacon said.

  Landish said there were still a few more arrangements that needed to be made before they left. “I just want to say goodbye to some grown-ups you don’t know.”

  “Fair ladies.”

  “No. Just some men I haven’t seen since my last trip on the Gilbert. No more questions, now, all right?”

  Deacon stared at him. He thought Landish wasn’t going to the taverns. But he was making things up. He looked as scared as he had the day he nearly drowned. Landish knelt in front of him and hugged him until Deacon’s feet came off the floor. Deacon thought about not hugging back, just hanging there. But he hugged him and Landish kissed his neck.

  Landish stood up. “I won’t be long,” he said. “Lock the bolt this time.” Landish closed the door behind him. It sounded like he ran downstairs. Deacon wondered if Hogan would have time to reach the kitchen first. Then he heard Landish say, “I don’t want to see you in this kitchen when I get back tonight or when we come and go tomorrow. If you know what’s good for you, this will be the last time I ever see your face.” Deacon slid the bolt closed.