The Haunting of Henry Twist

by Rebecca F. John

  But this is not a theatre show, and Henry does not eventually tire and fall exhausted into her, the woman he has just realised he adores. Panic keeps him running. And regret keeps her chasing him. And smog pools about them as they veer onto narrower streets, and steer around tighter corners, and stumble and rick their ankles, and soon, Matilda fancies, they are lost.

  Henry slows to a walk.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she manages to gasp out, but Henry does not answer. He stops and glances one way then the other along the street, he straightens his shirt, he fidgets with the waist of his trousers, he stoops to tie his shoelace, he wipes the sweat off his forehead and upper lip, he coughs. He does everything he can to avoid looking at Matilda.

  ‘To Sybil’s,’ he says.

  At the mention of a woman’s name, Matilda’s skin goes cold. It is her eighteenth birthday again, and she is watching her cousin Annabel sneak bare-footed into a large storage cupboard, her fingers jumbled in Elliot Condon’s – the first boy Matilda had decided to love.

  ‘Sybil’s?’ she asks, because she can’t not ask, and Henry nods. He paces back and forth, nodding. He pinches his lips between his thumb and his forefinger – the way he does when he feels he is not in control – nodding.

  And this, Matilda fathoms now, is exactly why she loves him. Not because he is handsome and brooding, though he is undeniably both of those things. Not because he can send a particular frown at a person which makes their heart start beating faster. But because she has found someone who holds inside himself the same levels of fear as she does. They live off it, she and Henry. Their blood runs with it. For that reason alone, she knows they could never be together. But then, she does not love him because he is good or clever or right, or because he would make her happy. She loves him because she loves him. It is as simple and as impossible as that. She loves him because she doesn’t know how not to.

  ‘Sybil will know,’ Henry says. ‘She’ll know for certain.’

  ‘Know what for certain?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he shouts. ‘Where Jack was taken. Where you had Jack taken.’

  In the stillness, Henry’s words snap and spit, and Matilda flinches as though an electric shock is passing through her. Perhaps it is painful for her, receiving his anger. Henry doesn’t care. She deserves every bit of it, and more, but he makes an effort to calm himself all the same. He can’t spare the time, even to hurt her. He has to speak to Sybil.

  A cat, blacker than this particular night, tiptoes along the pavement towards him and Henry pauses to watch it for long enough to realise that he does not know which building is hers. He can’t remember. And he can’t believe he can’t remember. It has been only months since he first sought her out. The door numbers must be there somewhere, buried in his mind, but no, he thinks as the cat draws level and hisses at him from the back of its throat, he can’t access them.

  Coming to Sybil’s is a long shot in any case, he knows that, but he can dredge up no better idea. And when Henry can think of nothing positive to do, he acts. That is his instinctive response – to do, good or bad.

  It had been the same when Bingley was killed. The boy was still spilling ropes of bloody intestine when Henry decided he had to find a woman that night. And it sounds callous, Christ it sounds callous, even in his own mind, but it’s true. Bingley was still breathing, battling when Henry started planning what he would do once the boy was dead. Even as he was encouraging Bingley to ‘Hang on in. Just hang on in for a few more minutes. Just until someone comes to help. Just until then,’ Henry was thinking that she must not look anything like his mother, this woman he would pour his guilt into; she must be small and shy and dark eyed, and nothing at all like his mother.

  Bingley had not attempted to speak at the end. But Henry, selfish Henry – unable to stand the deafening, gun-blasted silence – had pulled the words from him.

  ‘Tell me about Hawthorn Road,’ he coaxed. ‘Tell me about your sisters.’ Then, when eventually he felt Bingley go slack in his hands, ‘What’s your name, Bing? Your first name?’

  Bingley’s reply rattled up from his core. ‘Jack,’ he said.

  And Henry took off then. He left Bingley, Jack Bingley, there on the ground, his middle blown to bits, his eyes dulled by staring up towards hopes of heaven, his helmet removed to reveal his perfectly intact, smooth-skinned face, and he walked away. He walked until he was out of sight, and then he ran. He ran over other bodies, bodies that had not been his friends; he ran until the mud beneath his feet grew harder and he could move faster; he ran into a thicket of thorny bushes, which clawed at his hands and ripped free thin strings of flesh, but which led him towards trees, lots of them, and the opportunity to run harder; he ran through centuries-old tree trunks until his legs were burning and his eyes were streaming and his lungs were fit to explode, and then he kept going, he kept going, because he’d known that they’d stumbled into the path of mortar fire, he and Bingley, he’d sensed the descending whir of a shell, and he’d ducked, he had, he’d thrown himself flat to the ground, he’d saved himself, and though he could have given a warning shout as he dropped, or grabbed Bingley’s arm and dragged him down too, he hadn’t. He’d thought only of himself. He, Henry Twist, had killed Jack Bingley.

  In the early hours of that morning, Henry found his woman.

  He had travelled perhaps fifteen miles across a country he did not wish to know and discovered himself, moonlit, in a mostly abandoned village. He did not bother to attempt to hide, or to remove his uniform before stepping through the streets. If he got shot, well then, hadn’t he been expecting that bullet for two whole years now? Hadn’t he imagined the specific spot where it would enter his body, just below his ribcage, left side, obliterating his birthmark? But there was no one around. No one, it seemed, could find the energy for killing at this time of night.

  He did not have to search out a woman. He did not have to haunt hotels or pubs or walk his lady home pretending at innocent concern that she make it there safely. As he wandered along, the shutter of a house window opened and someone called to him with a ‘Pssst!’

  Henry spun around, seeking the sound.

  ‘Go out of the streets,’ a voice said. ‘You shouldn’t be in the streets.’ Then, when he did not move, ‘Wait. You wait.’

  Seconds later, a door opened.

  She was around thirty, he supposed. Older than he. She wore a loose cotton shirt and what appeared to be men’s trousers. She leant against the doorframe, one bare foot tucked around the opposite ankle, her head tilted to the wood, and gestured for him to come closer. Henry did not oblige. It was unrealistic to think this woman, with her meandering, thickvowelled accent, meant him anything but harm. He was in a foreign country. He was a soldier. He was ruining great long bands of her birthplace, churning up chunks of the land with boots and bullets and hatred. He had not washed in nearly a week. He was covered in other men’s blood.

  ‘It is dangerous,’ she said.

  ‘Then why did you open the door?’ Henry asked.

  In other circumstances – circumstances Henry could hardly recall – the encounter might have been considered flirtatious. They had turned to face each other. Their eyes were busy measuring the other’s body. There was a crackle, a pull in the air between them, drawing them towards each other, which they might yet decide to fight.

  ‘Because you are not the dangerous.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I see you.’

  Henry took a single step towards her. She answered it by dropping her gaze briefly, playfully.

  ‘What do you see?’

  She smiled, for the first time, and it was a brilliant thing to see. Her cheeks rose, her eyes crinkled at the corners, but what made Henry go inside was this: that smile undulated through her entire body. Her shoulders slumped, her chest fell, she dipped a couple of inches lower as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, and then she righted herself again, returned to her full height, showed him the w
oman she wanted to show to the world. Henry couldn’t remember the last time anyone had smiled so honestly at him.

  He stepped across the street and took one of her hands as she answered.

  ‘I see,’ she said, ‘a man sick with hurting. A man who wishes not to hurt any longer.’

  ‘Yes,’ Henry nodded.

  ‘A man who wants.’

  ‘Yes,’ Henry nodded again. And of course it was too easy. Afterwards, she would ask for money, her eyes filling with the regret which would persuade him that she hadn’t done this before the war; that she hadn’t been this before the war; that when he told her he didn’t have any money, and she held on to him anyway, pressing her head to the top of his so that her neck cradled his jaw, it was just because she wanted to.

  That night, with that woman, had been the saddest of Henry’s life. Until Ruby, of course. Until that. And he had promised himself he would tell Jack about it – Bingley’s loss, not the Frenchwoman – but he hasn’t yet. He hasn’t had the chance.

  ‘Henry?’ Matilda says again, and Henry wonders how many times she has spoken his name; how many times she has uttered it to herself. She voices it like a prayer.

  ‘Yes?’ He studies the cat, which, having had a complete change of heart, is orbiting his ankles now, releasing its mechanical little purr. A madman, he supposes, might see his lost wife even here, in the bony body of a straying cat. Is it any more rational, then, to see her in a man? Perhaps not. But either way, he cannot be without that man. He cannot. He has never known it so clearly as he does now.

  He turns to Matilda, who has not yet responded, and forces himself for once to look straight into her eyes. She withers a tad. Henry knows he could have her any time he wanted. He also knows that that time will never come.

  ‘I need to get him out,’ he says.

  ‘I know.’

  He pinches his top lip between thumb and forefinger as he speaks, as though the words need the support. ‘Then help me.’

  ‘I don’t know how. Truly, Henry darling, I don’t.’

  Turning, Henry looks both ways along the street, deciding on a direction. In the distance, a clinch of party-goers stumble over the pavement. To Henry, they are five shadows, two taller and broader than the others: two men, three women. One of the men sings loudly, carelessly, his arms flung out into the shape of a crucifix. One of the women hangs around the singer’s waist, laughing at his atonal performance. And for a moment, Henry envies them, this easy couple, on their way to or from a party. Later, they will make love and forget all about the rest of the ugly world.

  He waits for them to vanish into the night then steps carefully over the cat and, as the animal slinks away, begins walking, then marching, away from Matilda. Then back towards her. Then away again.

  ‘Sybil,’ he calls. ‘Sybil!’

  His shouts and his footsteps beat a desperate rhythm. He wheels around and re-treads the same path, calling over and over. Matilda stands and watches, biting at the inside of her cheek in an attempt to stem her escaping tears. Sybil’s name clogs up the air like chimney smoke.

  ‘Sybil!’

  Soon, Henry’s voice is growing stringy, strained, but he does not stop, and then, abruptly, there she is – Sybil Brown – standing before him, her hair shining its way right down to the ground.

  ‘Is she right?’ Henry demands, pointing at Matilda. ‘Did they take him?’

  Sybil nods.

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘As I can be.’

  ‘Then where? Do you know where?’

  ‘Pentonville.’

  The word winds Henry and he staggers backwards slightly, as though he has taken a blow to the stomach. He wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t ready to believe it.

  ‘Thank you, Sybil,’ he says slowly. ‘Thank you.’ He moves forward to clasp her shoulders, to kiss her cheek, but Sybil shakes him off.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she says. ‘Go and find him.’

  Matilda waits until Henry has receded into miniature before acknowledging Sybil. The woman wants to speak to her, Matilda can feel it. It is as palpable as the pulsing and wheeling of birds overhead, or the cling and drag of water around your feet. Matilda is sure she does not want to hear what Sybil has to say. She does not want to hear what anyone has to say. But Sybil speaks anyway, her voice soft as daydreams.

  ‘I understand why you would love him.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ Matilda answers. ‘Not really. How could you?’

  Sybil does not argue against Matilda’s snappy answer. She only puts her hand to Matilda’s shoulder, smiles, and continues.

  ‘And I think he must be a very difficult man to love. You have my sympathies.’

  ‘I do?’

  When she had last been offered anyone’s sympathies, Matilda cannot recall. She has been fighting, it seems, for so long. Even when she had gone to bed with Grayson, she had been fighting, hadn’t she? Fighting to remind him. Fighting to keep him. Her every touch, however affectionate, had been a battle strike. And so had his. She sees that now.

  ‘Why would you be so kind to –’

  Matilda is about to say ‘me’ – that tiny, massive word. But when she looks to the place where Sybil was standing, the psychic is gone. There is still a warmth at Matilda’s shoulder, though: an unmistakeable warmth, on the spot where Sybil laid her palm. Matilda presses her own palm to it.

  ‘Me,’ she says finally, releasing a small laugh into the tacky air. ‘Of course, me.’

  JACK

  It seems to him that this must be the state people enter into immediately before they die.

  He can conjure no other explanation for his feeling at once heavy and light, for his being capable of seeing both everything and nothing, for his being able to hear the smallest sounds whilst the loudest blur and get lost. Beneath him, he feels black water tilting and overbalancing, falling gently about on itself, but he knows he is nowhere near the docks. No salt wind touches his skin. No rats scuttle away from the seesawing tide. He is inside. He is surrounded by four brick walls, which hold him in darkness, but he cannot lift himself to the task of seeking an escape. He cannot find the strength. His body is broken. They were not careful when they threw him in here. They were anything but careful. Jack flops around on the edges of sleep or unconsciousness, aware always of the pain in his neck, his stomach, his jawbone, his fingers; aware always of an anger within him.

  But somewhere above this, more acutely felt, is another, surging sort of pain. When Jack Turner cries out, the sound low but unstoppable, it is not because he is bruised and bleeding; it is because the person he needs is not there.

  Now and then, night sounds jolt him into proper sentience. The small window above him is barred, but bars cannot keep out the crunching and tittering of prostitutes stumbling into nearby disused buildings, or the scratching of city foxes sniffing out scraps, or the clatter of motorcar wheels over the road outside. Though his has been suspended, life continues, and it drags open his eyelids. But it is not long before he sinks back into his hallucinations. And there he meets the woman from his dream. And a hell of a woman she was, too; a hell of a woman. But she was not his. Not really. She was Fred’s.

  He sees her always in the same place, on a long wedge of garden which slopes up towards a turreted, ivy-clad house. On the grass, two small boys play, knuckling each other’s heads or shooting each other with invisible weaponry. Through the windows of the house, nothing much is detectable: there is no lonely housemaid peering out from behind the glass, no arrogant butler guarding the threshold, no sounds of scurrying or squabbling staff leaking out of the front door. There is only her, standing at the doorstep, her hands on her hips, half a smile telling him that she has been waiting for him, only for him, and the knowledge fills him with a certain unpleasant sort of pride. He should not be proud of what he does, and yet, there is satisfaction to be found in a job well done.

  ‘Freddy Boy,’ she will call him later, into his ear, to tease him. The certainty of it does not
make him want it any less, because Fred Abbington really does have it all this time. This woman, this widow, is still young enough, still attractive enough, still rich enough to keep him for many years. He might just be Fred, Freddy Boy, for the rest of his life. She whispers plans to him which make him think this is an option. ‘We’ll have children of our own one day, Freddy Boy,’ she says when they lie next to each other in bed, limbs thrown out like starfish. ‘We’ll marry, you and I, and I’ll make you take me away from London so that we can grow old in the countryside.’ She has presented him with all manner of promises, in those gluey minutes when she is partway into sleep, when it is near impossible to conceal your deepest truths.

  And in return, Fred has told her his secrets. Or so it would seem. In reality, what he tells her is exactly what she needs to hear. Fred has no past to share. He has been in existence for only three months.

  But these are memories within a memory, or imaginings within an imagining. Because it is in that garden that he sees her still, her hands on her hips, half a smile reminding him of how beautiful and spiky and wilful she is. And she was all those things, despite being a mark. But haven’t they argued? Didn’t they argue the last time they spoke? Didn’t somebody discover that there are always secrets to be told?

  A pendulous movement brings him back to himself. As far back as he can manage to get, in any case. His prison is swaying, he thinks, until he remembers that the motion must be originating from within him and not without. He is not at the docks any more. He attempts and fails to open his eyes. The effort makes the swaying worse, and he starts to move with it, shifting back and forth as if he were standing on board a ship, though he is lying, as he has been for hours, horizontally. Left and right. Left and right. Forever and no time at all – that’s how long he has been here. And for all he knows he could be here forever more, because Henry does not know where to find him.