“You have someone at home?”
“Shaun. The blonde you caught me with.” Richard didn’t seem very happy about him.
“That’s good. He can give you a hand cleaning those wounds up. I would imagine you will be glad of the company tonight.”
Richard nodded, but there was doubt on his face, and he was seemingly staring off into nothingness. Martin followed his gaze and found that he was actually staring at Ivory.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Richard waved away any concern. “I will be fine.”
Martin was sure that in a couple of days he would be healing nicely, many of his wounds were superficial scratches and grazes, he was more concerned what affect his latest involvement with Ivory had had on him.
Richard broke away from staring at Ivory and fumbled with his keys, then hesitated and before Martin could leave he caught his arm. “You didn’t answer my question back in the car.” Richard stated with a firm tone. “Will Jenny mind?”
Martin knew he could lie but he decided that honesty that appeared innocent would settle more comfortably between them. Better to appear naïve than show an understanding of where Richard was trying to lead him. “Jenny left me today.”
Richard visibly deflated and stared at Martin for some time, obviously concerned and trying to read his face for answers. “Martin… What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Why are you allowing yourself to be drawn into her life?”
“You called me!” Martin echoed Richard’s despair.
“I know I did,” he conceded softly. “But I didn’t realise you had allowed her to come between you and your family.”
“That’s assuming that Ivory is the cause,” Martin retorted indignantly.
Richard groaned and shrugged in a gesture of surrender. “Kid yourself if you like, but remember I know what it’s like to feel what you are feeling. I stopped myself just in time.”
“You take Ivory in then.” Martin suggested, knowing what Richard’s reaction would be.
“No. I can’t – and I won’t.” Richard snapped.
“You are scared!” Martin scoffed incredulously.
“Yes.” Richard admitted gravely. “And now I am scared for you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Martin turned the Focus’s engine off after allowing it to idle for sometime, ready to pull away should he need to. He kept his hand on the key in the ignition and surveyed the street again. The cooling engine ticked and became a metronome for his breathing, the slow pace became uncomfortable and he broke the pattern by taking some deep breaths against his anxiety. The daylight helped steady his nerves, and he hadn’t seen either vehicles that the Eastern European’s had used the previous night, but returning to Ivory’s Road still held an element of risk that he couldn’t ignore. Martin slid the key from the ignition and bunched them into his fist, but he still sat for a moment and had a quick look around. There was no apparent trap.
He got out of the car and cautiously checked both directions of the pavement. There was only an elderly woman walking an excitable Bichon Frise in his direction. Martin opened the gate to Ivory’s house and stalked purposefully up the gravel path to the door. There was no anxiety about calling on Ebony this time. He wasn’t calling in the hope of speaking to Ivory and he didn’t have to worry about getting past Ebony or seeking his permission to speak to her. The sky was clear, the sun was bright and the air was alive with a crisp cool clarity that complimented his elation. Martin was here to tell Ebony that Ivory was at his and that she was safe. He had the upper hand and there had been a buoyancy in his heart and his step since he had woken up beside Ivory that morning.
He rapped the tarnished knocker sharply. After a long wait the door opened and Ebony filled the doorway, his club-like staff brandished in one hand and the door held firm in the other, it was a strangely commanding and defensive position, but the confidence in his stern face was betrayed by the vacant stare of his blind eyes that settled over Martin’s shoulder.
“Who is there?”
“Martin… Martin Roberts. Ivory has been sitting for me. Remember?”
“I am not infirm of mind. Of course I remember. The man of virtuous intentions.” Ebony smirked on the tail of his drawl. Martin recognised his knowing look and tone now, and in previous encounters, as the same suspicion and doubt that had lingered behind Richard’s questions about Martin’s involvement with Ivory. They had both seen that Martin hadn’t been innocent in his pursuit of Ivory.
“Where is she?” Ebony asked bluntly, but with an edge of uncertainty beneath his demand.
Ebony and Richard had both been wrong. Yes, there had been lust last night, a passion he hadn’t known before, not even in his very first experiences. Perhaps Jenny had been a mistake, maybe that hadn’t been love, and that was why he had had to work at being a husband. “Ivory is with me. There was some trouble at Arven Road, and although I intervened we were followed back here and it wasn’t safe for her to return to you.”
“Trouble?”
“It would appear some people are trying to take over the area where Ivory works, and they saw her as somewhat of a prize.”
“As most men do.” The muscles of Ebony’s face flickered in consideration of something unseen, then his eyes narrowed. “So she told you she did not feel safe to return?”
“No, of course not,” Martin defended in an irritated bluster. “But, it was dangerous, she was attacked and then we were followed.”
“I prefer her to return to me,” there was a purring tone, but the pronunciation was precise and made his desire a demand.
“We did try, but as I said, we were followed by the men that attacked her at Arven Road.”
“Attacked by how many?”
“Two.”
“And she was overpowered by them?” Ebony asked with a curious disbelief that Martin didn’t understand. As if two was a trifling number for her to be attacked by.
Martin’s face burned and his breathing became humid and stifled, unsure of the direction of Ebony’s questioning. “Well, no. She fought off one of them, and I was helped by someone else to fend off the other one. I’m not sure that I know what you are getting at…”
“Ivory is quite capable of caring for herself, Mr Roberts.”
“I couldn’t just stand by and let her be endangered could I?”
“No,” he paused in consideration of Martin’s involvement and then spoke. “Of course you couldn’t,” he agreed softly but his blind eyes narrowed, then widened and his expression warmed and softened, Ebony stepped aside and took the door with him. “Please come in. How rude of me to interrogate you on the doorstep when you have shown such virtuous actions towards my ward, and consideration of my feelings in coming to assure me of her well-being.”
Martin hesitated, surprised by the sudden turn in his reception and deterred by the uninviting gloom of the hallway, made claustrophobic through the walls being used to prop towering piles of old and mouldering books and yellowing papers. Ebony closed the door behind him.
“Please, follow the hallway round to the door at the back. I believe I left it open. You can tell me how Ivory is and what time I can expect her to return.”
There was a presence in his tone, the ghost of mockery and insincerity. Martin picked his way through the hallway nonetheless, intrigued to see more of the house where Ivory lived, hoping to gain more insight into her life. He scanned the papers, pages and covers of books that faced him from the top of the piles around him. The papers held meticulous sketch-work studies similar to those in the Gray’s Anatomy he encouraged his students to study for life work. Most of the books were all leather bound and their titles engraved or embossed or worn away, he didn’t recognise any of them as English, several of Latin and German. The hallway was musty with old paper and dust.
In the space at the bottom of the stairs an old arcade machine stood incongruously among the books and papers. It was a large wo
oden box with glass windows in the front and sides, a life-size wooden torso dressed as a sultan sat within. The ventriloquist’s dummy’s head was topped with a faded gold turban and a stack of tarot Cards sat face down next to its upturned wooden paddle hand. Engraved on the cabinet in an excited font, with peeling gold paint filling the letters, were the words; “The GREAT MEPHISTO!”
Martin noticed that the light switch in the hall was a black bakelite toggle switch fixed on a mahogany mounting block, the wiring ran up the surface of the wall into the ceiling, suggesting that electricity had been added to the house as an afterthought, reinforcing his initial impression that this house was much older than the others in the street. Maybe the neighbourhood had grown up around this one house. Islington was relatively new; before 1830 the area had been commons, fields and market gardens.
The wallpaper of the lounge was as tired and faded as that in the hall, and in some places it was unable to keep on reaching to the ceiling and folded over on itself revealing bare plaster. Despite the room’s worn appearance a crisp light flooded through the French doors of the far wall and gave the room a freshness and sense of space that the seemingly subterranean dusty atmosphere of the hallway had lacked. Martin made his way to one of the two leather sofas, their stuffing punished from repeated use.
“Please, take a seat. Can I get you a drink? A smoke?” Martin accepted the seat but declined the other offers.
“How is my Ivory?” Ebony sat, lit a cigarillo and took a long draw on it.
“She is well. She didn’t seem shaken by the experiences.” There were more books stacked around the room, but less of them and in a neater fashion, and appeared to be more modern publications with paper laminated covers in a variety of vibrant colours.
“How is your painting going?”
“It’s finished.”
Ebony paused and held a draw of breath, allowing blue tendrils of smoke to drift out of his mouth like the probing tentacles of a brooding octopus. He exhaled, shattering the illusion and ended the consideration that was behind his pause. “I am a keen artist also.”
“What medium?”
“Sketch, painting, sculpture – I like to create. I am limited to sculpture since my blindness.”
“Yes. Losing your sight must be difficult.”
“Small sacrifice.”
“Your sight?” Martin frowned at his flippancy.
Ebony fixed him in a sightless stare and shifted in his seat with a brief look of uncertainty poised on his face, as though Ebony considered he had said too much. The thought didn’t settle long and Ebony seemed to dismiss it and settled back down. “I mean the loss of being able to draw and paint – I find sculpture satisfying enough. Keeps me in cigarillo’s, brandy and books.” He waved his hand in the air, his cigarillo leaving a circular trail of smoke in the air. “Much of what you see around you, here and in the hall, is my work.”
“All the papers?”
“Much of it, yes.”
“It must be difficult with your blindness.”
“Art lives in the soul, not the eyes. A soul can guide hands if it is strong enough. The portrait is mine also. It is of my late wife.”
Martin glanced up to the chimney breast and the portrait of a woman in 18th century dress, the period costume and style of painting lent itself to being an antique. Martin amused himself with the idea that Ebony’s blindness had caused him to mistakenly hang the wrong portrait as his wife’s. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Martin was surprised to see Ebony’s hard face softened by a smile. “I met her in Germany. We loved each other very much, however my colour offended her family and they attempted to drive us apart. She left the comfort of her wealth to marry me and to start a family together.” His face began to set again. “She died in childbirth, along with my daughter. I lost them both. They were all that I held dear and all that I lived for. They were my life.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Ebony gave a curt nod of gratitude. “I’m sure your portrait of Ivory must also be beautiful.”
Martin felt his face flush. “I think so.”
“Yes.” Ebony sat within great animated art nouveau drifts of smoke that reduced him to a silhouette; a dragon brooding in its own smouldering power and knowledge. “I’m sure you will be glad to no longer have the expense of her sitting for you. Tell me; what is your next project now that your work with Ivory is finished?”
Martin searched the pattern of the threadbare Indian carpet for an answer, surprised by the question and frustrated by it. “I hadn’t given it much thought,” he admitted, as much to himself as to Ebony.
“Do you mean the next project? Or that you had finished with Ivory?” Ebony rested his hand on his knee, the tip of the cigarillo burning in Martin’s direction through the mist with the scrutiny of a demonic red eye.
“You have doubted my intentions towards her from the beginning haven’t you?” Martin growled angrily when he couldn’t find an adequate response.
Ebony threw his hands momentarily outwards in an open handed gesture of surrender. “Yes. But do not take that as a personal slur on your character, it is not intended as such. Many men have fallen for Ivory over the years.”
“Years? She must only be nineteen!” Martin snorted.
Ebony smirked cryptically. “Of course. My error, but my point remains the same.”
“I am not one of her… customers.” Martin snarled around the statement as if the taste was vile and the suggestion insulting.
“Anyone who pays for her presence has a choice of what to do with that time, but I respect that your purpose has been different to others that have paid for her services. Your relationship remains sitter and artist?” Ebony enquired, but Martin couldn’t answer him, knowing he was caught. “No. I sense from you that this is not so.”
“I didn’t pay for her attention.” Except this morning when Ivory had gestured a goodbye, and through a series of questions met with nods and shakes of her head, Martin had determined that Ivory had wanted to return to Ebony with her money from the previous night, that she wanted to return to Arven Road to earn more and was unconcerned with the danger she might be in. Martin had paid her the money she had wanted to earn on the street so she didn’t have to leave, paid her so that he could keep her safe. “I haven’t paid her for anything like that.”
“Such relationships have a different value and meaning to Ivory. Remember her lifestyle; passion and lust is part of her daily life.”
“That’s different.”
“You may believe so, but she will not stay with you, she will always come back to me.”
Martin considered what Ebony said, and remembered guiltily that he had deadlocked the front door that morning, as was his habit when he left the house, he realised instantly that he had locked Ivory in the house and there had been a moment of indecision, but the anguish had not been strong enough for him to walk back down the path to unlock it. “Why does she always come back to you?”
“She is my ward. I gave her everything she has and she has been a good companion to me. We care deeply for each other.”
“But the work that she does?”
“Pains me deeply, but she has a choice in all that she does. She has a future through me, Mr Roberts.”
“But, what kind of future does she have?”
“It is very noble of you to believe that you can be her saviour, but you can not rescue someone that does not need to be saved. It is however, insulting that you believe she needs to be saved from a lifestyle that is her choice.”
Martin bowed his head, he had no reason to assume she was enslaved to prostitution, and he had seen how Ivory could handle herself with King and in the attack the previous night, part of him doubted she would have needed Richard or himself. “My intention is not Pygmalion.”
“When she no longer needs to do what she does, she will leave that life behind her. I have a second home in the countryside that she has always enjoyed staying in, and she w
ill live there with a companion. Someone that is her missing half, someone that will complete her and give her everything she needs.”
“It sounds fancifully perfect.” Ebony did not elaborate. “She already has someone?” Martin asked soberly.
“Not yet, but she will.”
“Plans change. She can’t live her life in waiting. How do you know that she won’t find happiness with me? She might not need the dream you are offering her.”
“It is her future Mr Roberts. She has a destiny, something your love will not stop. Even gods tremble in the wake of fate.”
“I don’t much believe in destiny.”
“I sense as much, for you have a dark future that you do not seem aware of.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A warning: the passion Ivory awakens in men leads to lust. Corruption. Death.”
“Pathetic! You sound like a Victorian moralist. I can admit that I have let my marital relationship fall apart because of my interest in Ivory. Call that corruption if you like, but Ivory was a catalyst for a general dissatisfaction that I had with my wife and the life I was leading. Meeting Ivory has simply spurred on changes that have been inevitable.”
“Inevitable? Is that not another word for fate?” Sensing Martin’s flare of anger, and hearing him rise to his feet, Ebony left his seat and flagged the air before him to placate him. “I bear you no malice Mr Roberts. The warning is intended as just that. Your actions will determine the consequence. I do not know where you live, so I am not in the position to bring Ivory back to me, but you are not in the position to stop Ivory returning. Let us watch what unfolds.”
“Like you say, it is Ivory’s choice. I am just trying to keep her safe.” Martin nodded curtly, not considering or caring that the gesture was wasted on Ebony, and announced he was leaving as he had to get to work. He stalked out of the lounge and down the hall and then hesitated at the front door. The Great Mephisto’s flat hand, which Martin was sure had been empty on the way in, had one of the tarot cards laid on top of it. The card slid from the hand into a shoot and appeared in a tarnished scoop screwed to the front of the machine. Bewildered by the action of the dead machine, Martin briefly studied the glossy angular face of the wooden magician, half expecting one of its bulbous cartoon eyes to wink at him. Glancing around to ensure that Ebony was unaware of what had just happened, he snatched the card from the scoop and hurried out, with a sense that the balance of power had somehow shifted back to Ebony.
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