The Haunting of Henry Twist

by Rebecca F. John

  If nothing else, Jack is sure of that. Henry does not know where to find him.

  A moon as big as a Ferris wheel greets him when he wakes again. It pushes its way through his window, then between his eyelids, and props them open: he sees for the first time in ages. The entire, tiny world is built from black shapes and shadows which shift riotously and giddy him. It’s the night after a party then, and he’s drunk the place all out of whisky, and that glaring moon is nothing more than a hanging ceiling light. Yes, that’s it. He’s flat on his back. Flat drunk. He must be. They’re leaving him to sleep it off, poor thing.

  But who are they, this they? He rummages around his woolly brain, searching the faces of those people he’s danced with, smiled with, toasted and flirted and played with. They must be stored in there, filed alongside so many snippets of easy childhood and torturous youth and beautiful, ugly adulthood. He finds a still amongst the rest – a man, a darky, bending back over a long note, dragging it up along the length of his spine like a weighty thing, his trumpet pointed straight up towards heaven, his cheeks bursting, his eyes shut tight and watering, pushing out the very last scraps of his endeavour.

  Gradually, Jack’s eyes drop again and, held now in the black behind his lids, the musician comes to life. He springs upright then dives forwards, threatening to plunge his trumpet straight through the floorboards but saving it with another upwards whip just in time. And as he bends and blows, blows and bends, so Jack sees the people around him, arms flung out like boat sails as they black-bottom across the foot-polished floor; so Jack smells the clog of too many cigarettes, smoked too quickly, caught on the air; so Jack hears, beyond the cry of the trumpet, chatter and laughter and, somewhere close by, a woman sobbing; so Jack feels, at his neck, lips whispering over his skin.

  ‘Henry,’ he says. ‘Henry?’

  But there is no one here, and that party was long ago, it must have been, and Henry cannot hear him. How could he? Jack’s voice, fluttery, is carried away on passing strokes of silence.

  It must be audible to someone, though. It must be, because he is being answered now.

  ‘Henry?’ someone is saying, as though the name is the punch line to a brilliant joke, and that someone is laughing hard.

  Jack peels back his eyelids, the movement so painful that it seems splintered glass has shattered through his mind, then, his vision only partly functional, he attempts to probe the darkness, sweeping his eyes back and forth like lighthouse lamps. A face quivers slowly into focus: a face held disembodied in a gap in the wall. It is some paces away, enjoying an elevated position, and it laughs and laughs; he laughs and laughs. His words swim towards Jack, losing their order in the course of the race, and Jack struggles to straighten them into their intended sequence.

  ‘Turner’s back with us, boys,’ the face says, and Jack realises then that he is not laughing but coughing. The face falls away, downwards, as the man hangs forward over his own knees to cough, protractedly, worryingly. He’s ill, then. He needs help. But Jack can’t think how best to offer his assistance, swaying here as he is, flat out on someone else’s bed. He is not a doctor. He is only a barman. A waiter. Of course – that’s him! He’s Roderick Miller. Roddy, to his friends, who can pour three Queen of Shebas in as many seconds, who can balance four Old Fashioneds along his forearm, who has been known on one occasion to successfully juggle a couple of brimming Mint Juleps. How could he have forgotten that? How could he have confused himself with a man called Fred Abbington?

  The face in the wall reappears and divides into two as Jack – Roddy – squints at him. He speaks softly, not wanting to be heard.

  ‘Didn’t think we’d see him take another breath.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought we might’ve gone too far there.’

  ‘Seems like he’s a tough one.’

  ‘Surprising.’

  Jack is only half listening to this exchange. Instead, he is rolling two names over and over in his mind, like two marbles held tight in the palm. Jack or Roddy? Jack and Roddy. He can choose the man he wants to be.

  Roddy Miller asked a woman to marry him once. He did not do it well. It was not planned. And, more importantly, he did not love her. It had happened on impulse, because Roddy knew she wanted him, and because in a way they were happy as they laughed their way home from a concert through spears of rain, and because she provided him with everything he needed. There was a house – a large house, big enough to hide from her in. And all the food he could crave. And all the attention he could want. There was a promise, too; a promise of forever; a promise that he wouldn’t have to struggle again. She was, in the worst possible way, irresistible. Roddy knew without the tiniest doubt that he would never love her.

  She knew it, too. That was why he had assumed she would answer his proposal with a resounding and emphatic ‘no’.

  They’d met at the bar, on a night made quiet by the volume of a storm. Outside, hailstones pelted the window-panes until they rattled; pigeons flapped around in search of safety and, finding it on sills, huddled down together to wait out the squall; umbrellas sprung inside out and forced their owners to do battle as they trotted through inch-deep puddles; kerbs turned to waterfalls; newspapers released themselves from rubbish bins and, having discovered the liberty of flight, soared away over the city. It was a night for listening to the wireless and drinking sweet tea, for wrapping yourself in two extra blankets, for making love. Roddy, wet from the walk to work, was not feeling particularly friendly. He wiped violently at the inside of already-clean tumblers and tried to persuade himself to take up a whistle. Whistling usually cheered him. Tonight, though, he could not settle on a tune.

  June was one of Roddy’s five lonely customers, and the only one sitting at the bar.

  ‘I thought barmen were supposed to always be happy,’ she said, by way of initiating a conversation. Roddy had been hoping she wouldn’t. She was, he imagined, about forty years old, crinkled at the edges. He had no intention of taking her home.

  ‘I thought girls only drank in pairs,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh,’ she smiled, ‘girls might. Women, on the other hand – women can usually be relied upon to do pretty much whatever pleases them, don’t you think?’

  It was a brave thing to say, in a bar containing no other females. It was interesting. Roddy couldn’t help but smile in return.

  ‘And what is it that pleases you, Mrs …?’

  ‘June will do,’ she answered quickly. ‘And, hmm, how to answer such a leading question …’ She tapped at the corner of her mouth with a manicured fingernail as she thought. ‘Music, funny men, and wine. In that order, too, I think. Yes.’

  ‘Three good choices.’

  ‘I agree. And what about your choices?’

  ‘A drink, a smoke, and a well-roasted chicken.’

  June laughed. ‘That is a terrible lie. Consider it properly.’

  ‘All right.’ Roddy set down the tumbler and leaned on the bar top. June’s face fell into sincerity. ‘Cold mornings … swimming … and … listening to people talk in foreign languages.’

  ‘Oh,’ June replied, ‘that’s a good one.’ Her brow furrowed as she thought about it. ‘But … why? If you can’t understand what they’re saying –’

  ‘That’s exactly why. Because I can’t understand what they’re saying. And if I can’t understand, then they could be saying anything. They’ll never disappoint me. I’ll always be able to decide for myself if they were discussing whether or not to return to their country, or declaring their love for each other, or just wondering whether to have another coffee.’ June was smirking at him. ‘For instance,’ he added, embarrassed.

  ‘Ah, don’t blush, son,’ she said. ‘Can’t you tell when a woman is hanging on your every word?’

  Roddy knew how to charm, of course. It was his job. He knew how to spin sentences that caught the imagination, how to exchange looks containing mostly false promises, how to draw people over his bar and into his bed. But somehow, June was managing to revers
e the roles and here he was, leaning close, falling for it, getting sucked in.

  ‘Yes I can,’ he said. ‘Yes.’ And that was the answer she’d been looking for.

  They spent six months together in the end, Roddy taking advantage of every comfort she offered him and providing her in return with almost every part of himself: every part but the truth. They squandered Saturday mornings tangled in her bed sheets, telling lies and hooting at their absurdity. They sauntered into cafés and restaurants and waited for the gossip to start, then substantiated it by linking fingers or feeding each other playful portions of their meals. They vowed they would never quarrel, and they kept that vow, because they did not want to quarrel, there was no need. They were fooling around with life, weren’t they? They were the ones in the know. They were having fun.

  ‘Oh, I adored him, Son,’ she said, holding her arms out like wings and spinning through the rain. She was talking about the pianist they’d seen. She had called Roddy ‘Son’ since their very first meeting. ‘It was like listening to God Himself, just sighing. Or it was like hearing what the stars would sound like. Or, I don’t know …’

  Roddy stood to attention and coughed into his hand. ‘The thrill of walking in the rain with a handsome man?’ he suggested, grinning.

  June did not grin back. Instead, she crept closer and, cupping his jaw, kissed him hard and swift, her eyes fixed on his. ‘You,’ she said, ‘are the most beautiful man I’ve ever known, Roddy Miller.’

  ‘Maybe you should marry me then,’ he returned.

  ‘Maybe I should,’ June answered. And she fully intended to. Surprisingly enough, Roddy fully intended to let her. Until he happened, one mist-strewn evening, across a younger, richer, sadder woman, and realised what it was that June had taught him to do.

  He did not stick with any one of them for long, after that. He tired of them so quickly. And new opportunities presented themselves almost every day – all he need do was check the obituaries. He tired, too, of the men he turned himself into. Thomas Grove had too traumatic an invented past: he would have to remain depressed for years. George Emmanuel took up with a woman who lived too far outside London and grew restless of the quiet life within weeks. Robert Charles claimed to be an accountant then had to make a swift getaway when he could not drag a particular estate out of its financial predicament. But he got better at it. He smoothed out the deception, with practice. And he has been good to the women, and the occasional men, he has cheated since. He has treated them well, right up to the moment when he has abandoned them, because he has appreciated what they have done for him, truly he has. He has not dwelt on it until now. Frightened of the shame, he has denied himself the occasion to. But he is thankful. He is. And he needs to tell Henry that, and that he is sorry, because he has behaved unforgivably. No wonder he has ended up this way – his brain shaken, his sense spilled onto a dirty floor – for a second time. He deserves to. And he needs to explain it all to Henry, because him he will not abandon.

  ‘Henry,’ he says again. But he does not murmur the word this time. He shouts it, as loud as he can. He needs Henry. Just that. Jack needs Henry, and he does not care who hears it, so long as Henry does.

  When the door is cracked open then slammed shut, it is as though an axe has been taken to the planet. The impact thunders through Jack’s brain, pounds along behind his eyeballs. He wakes to find himself wholly in the present. He knows now where he is, why he is here. He does not flinch when a plate of hacked bread slides across the floor and rattles to a stop against the far wall. He will not eat.

  Borrowed time – that’s what he’s been on for years. Borrowed time. He is not surprised that the police have caught up to him. Although, he suspects, they have had at least a little assistance. After all, he left no trail behind him. Of that much he is sure.

  Lifting only his head, Jack begins feeling his way up and down his body with gentle palms, like a man soothing a frightened animal. He is investigating the damage, and he is glad to find that there are no fractured bones this time. The pain sits at tissue level. It will heal well, given the chance. There is a tenderness in his bladder, though, which tells him that he needs to relieve himself. It has been hours, days even. He rises, cautious of the movements; cautious, too, of making any noise, though he is unsure why. None of the other prisoners are attempting to stay quiet: they aim kicks at the undentable steel of their cell doors; they bash their fists or feet or heads, Jack cannot tell which, against their lavatories; they moan and scream and thrash against their incarceration. And they are punished, no doubt. But what further punishment can there be, for a certain type of human being, than being trapped in a thirteen by seven foot hollow for a year, a decade, a lifetime?

  He manages to hold his balance long enough to take the three steps required to reach the lavatory then, one hand pressed to the brickwork and one swollen eye on the door which appears to have been wrought in hell itself, exposes his penis. Why he should feel ashamed to do this is unclear. The best postulation he can manage is that the threat of being watched, mocked, interrogated makes him feel powerless. And a powerless man must keep his back to the wall and his fists up. A powerless man must find a way to reclaim his agency. Jack looks down at the wretched dribble of urine he is issuing and considers that no man can reclaim anything resembling agency when he must drop his trousers for a potential audience.

  When he has finished and righted himself, he turns to the window and, climbing up onto the corner of the bed, peers out. He is angled towards another block – identical, he presumes, to this – which is one, two, three, four, five storeys high and long as a steamship. Its exterior is the colour of dry earth on a summer’s day. Its roof is a shallow black peak: above which, stealing low along its apex, Jack can just pick out the first grey fronds of morning. Another day. His second or his third? He does not know. Only now is he grasping the circular order of time again. Only now is his brain beginning to repair itself. And he marvels at that.

  The last beating, the one that had brought him to Henry, had been worse. It had muddled his mind for a longer spell. Oh, he had recovered his senses before he appeared at Henry’s flat – he cannot pretend he happened there by accident. But he was still shaking off the hiding Fred Abbington had so narrowly survived the day he hobbled along Oxford Street and heard a double decker scream to a stop, the moment he felt that bristling horror run through the crowds, the minute he stopped to watch as swarms of shoppers rushed forward to gawp or cry or help the young woman who was so evidently dying right there on the road.

  ‘Not much use looking out,’ a voice says, and Jack steps down off the bed and turns to view his warder through the opened hatch.

  ‘Maybe not,’ he replies. ‘But it’s never very pleasant looking in.’

  The warder, the one who coughs so badly, lifts his chin and turns down his lips, considering this. He is large and wrinkled, but the dome of his head is stone-smooth. He has the appearance of an ageing bulldog.

  ‘You might have a point there, lad. Now pass me your plate.’

  Jack bends to retrieve the item, moving swiftly: he will not reveal that he is in pain. The warder, clocking this, nods his approval. And Jack, so accustomed to affecting some scheme or other, immediately starts thinking of how he might forge a friendship with the man. He is going to need allies here.

  ‘You ought to eat it, you know,’ the warder says, holding the plate still momentarily to allow Jack to take the bread. ‘You’ll be given work soon enough.’

  Jack shakes his head. ‘I don’t need it,’ he says.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, to be honest, the furnishings aren’t the most comfortable, and the service leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t think I’ll be staying long.’

  Despite himself, the warder smiles. ‘Don’t push it, Turner,’ he warns.

  In return, Jack winks. ‘I fully intend to,’ he says.

  Because this is what Jack does when he is scared: he talks, he performs. Really, he should have been an acto
r. That way, he might have hurt a lot less people. But how could a boy like Roddy Miller have ever clawed his way into the theatre? That was a richer child’s dream. Roddy had learnt, by the time he turned fifteen and set out on his own, that his dreams had to be smaller, more immediate than other people’s. He had been taught that in the cruellest possible way.

  Still, all that fear, all that pretending, had secured him a position in a butcher’s shop, and then in a kitchen; and that had led him to the bar, and June, and his most successful career yet; and so it had continued. He’d kept on and on, pretending. And that’s how it had been with Henry. Or at least, that’s how it had begun. Henry though, Jack is starting to realise, has dragged what was hidden out of him and dotted it all around the flat, about Monty’s garden, across perhaps the whole rowdy mess of London.

  The last time they had gone to bed together, it was Henry, strangely, who had fallen first into sleep. Ordinarily, Jack slumped into that heavy state long before Henry had managed to slow the churning of his mind, and Jack, unused to the silence of the sleeping flat and rendered fully awake by it, had risen and snuck towards the window seat to watch the city spinning chaotically into the next day. Across the street, the park was empty and ominous as a night spent alone. The hopeful hours were far off yet. These smallest hours Jack knew to be the bad ones. He’d endured them unaccompanied many times before. But there, with Henry’s snoring slotting into a steady rhythm behind him, and Libby’s cotton-breath warming the cool air, he had not been afraid. In place of the worst things, he had remembered that earliest night when he and Henry had slunk over to the park together and joked their way through the darkness; and the party they had attended, at Monty’s, when Henry had been brave enough to claim Jack as his own; and the way, during those thumping, surging minutes when the strike had grown truly dangerous, Henry had fitted his hand into Jack’s and pressed reassurance to the sweat there.