Sunlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 2)

by Fergus O'Connell

  ‘And so this young boy ––?’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Young man, boss.’

  ‘Young man.’

  ‘He was very attractive, boss. But I didn’t – ’ow you say – bugger him, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘But somebody said you did.’

  ‘Somebody said I did. I never found out who my accuser was or why. Who knows why people do these things?’

  ‘So you had to leave?’

  Roberto’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘I had to flee, boss,’ he corrected. ‘That is why I come to America.’

  ‘And you’re sure you weren’t guilty of anything?’ asked Gilbert.

  ‘Nothing, boss. Unless loving beauty is a crime.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  They were silent for a little while and Leonardo clip clopped along.

  ‘Are you shocked, boss?’

  Roberto looked sad, apologetic almost.

  ‘Shocked,’ said Gilbert, who was very shocked. ‘No, I’m not shocked. It’s just that … well, you’re the first person like … that, I’ve ever met.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’ asked Gilbert.

  ‘And now that I’m the first person like that you ever meet – what you think?’

  ‘You’re just like anyone else, really.’

  Gilbert narrowly avoided saying ‘just like normal people’.

  They went silent again.

  Then Gilbert said, ‘You don’t … er, you don’t …?’

  ‘Feel attracted to you, boss?’

  ‘Well … yes?’

  ‘No, I don’t, boss. You’re not my type.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Gilbert, feeling faintly insulted.

  Then it dawned on him. He pointed at Roberto.

  ‘It was you who sent Anna to me the other night.’

  Roberto smiled.

  ‘It was, boss. We men – men like me – sometimes we ’ave a good instinct about things like that.’

  Then Gilbert thought of something else.

  ‘And that night – when you told me about how you got the tip-off about the battle. From the guy in the telegraph office at the War Department. Was he ––?’

  ‘You don’ wanna ask, boss.’

  The pieces fell into place.

  ‘And your friend the banker – the one who told you about a third, a third, a third. Spend, invest, save.’

  ‘When you in a minority, you gotta stick together, boss. ’elp each other out.’

  ‘And that’s why you learned unarmed fighting,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Is good if you can take care of yourself, boss. Often even the police don’ wanna know. So that’s why I get so angry about injustice, boss. And that’s why I wanna live in America.

  “We ‘old these truths to be self-evident,” Roberto began to recite, “that all men are created equal and that they are endowed” – he said ‘endow-ed’ – by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of ’appiness.”

  That’s why I come to America, boss. Those words. Those are big words. Beautiful words.’

  ‘They are big words,’ said Gilbert. ‘Beautiful words.’

  ‘And then I come ’ere and I find people are fighting for these words. This is good, boss. Is very good. I wanna stay in America. White people, black people, men who like women, men who like men, women who like women – there’s gotta be a place for everybody. And this is it – ’ere in America. And that’s why we gotta take the pictures at Gettysburg – to show what some men are prepared to do for this great country.’

  ‘It was a very brave thing you did,’ said Gilbert. ‘That whole thing about freeing those blacks.’

  ‘It was all going hunky dory until that sheriff showed up,’ said Roberto.

  Where did he get these expressions from? Gilbert wondered.

  ‘Well, I can tell you it was lucky that he did.’

  Gilbert told Roberto what had transpired in the darkroom.

  ‘Without him it could have ended very differently,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘What a pity about those pictures,’ said Roberto.

  ‘They were really good pictures,’ said Gilbert. ‘You do nice work.’

  ‘Thank you, boss. And she was pretty, boss, wasn’t she – Clara, I mean?’

  ‘Very pretty,’ Gilbert agreed.

  ‘At first – when I get the tip-off from the guy in the telegraph office – I think what you think. I think that none of this is possible. I’m walkin’ home and I think – I have this great secret but I can’t do nothing with it. We ’ave no wagon, no ‘orse – all the things you say. But then I start to think – this is America – everything is possible. There’s gotta be a way. And that’s when I decide we gonna do this. We gonna go to Gettysburg.’

  They stopped at a tavern in Frederick City and had something to eat and drank a beer. Then they followed the road as it turned north heading towards the Pennsylvania border. At one point Roberto asked, ‘How you feeling now, boss?’

  ‘I’m actually feeling pretty good,’ said Gilbert. ‘I think the possibility that we might have been killed this morning might have had something to do with it. Makes you appreciate life that much more.’

  ‘That’s good, boss. Life is sweet.’

  Gilbert hadn’t thought about Sarah since they left Urbana. It was the first day this had happened to him for any significant length of time. He didn’t want to analyze it now. There would be time for that and so he was grateful when Roberto didn’t probe any more.

  34

  For nearly a month after the wedding, life was perfect. Gilbert moved his things into the house in Foggy Bottom and everything was harmonious. Then one Sunday in December, after they had spent the afternoon lovemaking, and dinner was roasting in the oven, he said he would just go out and get some air. Would she like to come? No, she smiled up at him. She was in her dressing gown and sitting on a cushion in front of a roaring fire. She was too cosy. She would stay put. He bent down and kissed her and then went to get his coat and hat from the hall.

  He was out for about half an hour. When he returned he found that he had forgotten to bring his key with him. He knocked on the door. It took several more knocks before it was opened, when it was he found himself confronted by one of the Furies – in her nightdress, her dressing gown shed, her face contorted with rage.

  He stepped past her into the house. She slammed the door shut, brushed past him without saying a word and went up the stairs. He heard the bedroom door slam.

  He’d had enough. Angrily, he bounded up the stairs two at a time and charged into the bedroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bed replenishing a wine glass from a bottle. He stopped at the door.

  ‘Why do you always have to ruin everything?’ he said. ‘We had been having ––’

  She looked at him with malevolent eyes.

  ‘Fuck off out of my house,’ she said.

  He was stunned. He had never heard her say this word before.

  ‘Call yourself a man, do you? Living in my house, eating my food. You’re just a leech. This house is mine. Get out of it. Go back to your attic. Go live on the streets. I don’t care.’

  Gilbert knew better than to argue. He closed the door again.

  It was a cold night. When he had been out he thought it had looked and smelt like snow. He decided he wouldn’t leave and go back to the studio. Instead he would make up a bed in the other room and wait for the storm of her anger to pass.

  Before he went to bed, he opened the door softly and looked in on her. She was asleep, the bottle empty on the floor beside her bed, the glass empty on the bedside table. It was a long time before he fell asleep himself. Instead he listened for sounds from her room. He hoped she might come to him, that her rage would have passed.

  Some time during the night he woke as the door of his room slammed open.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing in here?’ she seethed.

  He started to explain.

  �
�You’re my husband,’ she shouted. ‘We sleep together – whether you like it or not!’

  Gilbert shrugged and said, ‘Okay, whatever you say.’

  He got out of bed and began to walk in the direction of their bedroom. When he reached her she suddenly lashed out a fist and hit him on the cheek just below the eye.

  It wasn’t a hard blow but it stung. Now she began to rain more blows down on him. He tried to catch her wrists and eventually managed to do so.

  ‘Let go of me, you bastard!’ she shrieked.

  He held her wrists and more or less dragged her back to the bedroom. By then she had stopped trying to hit him and her shouting had become crying. She sat down on the bed. He risked letting go of her wrists but all the fight had gone out of her now. She sobbed with her face in her hands. Angrily, he left her there and went out, slamming the door behind him.

  Back in his own room he leant a chair against the door. He pushed the back of it under the doorknob so that hopefully it would hold the door shut. Then, unsure of whether that would be sufficient, he removed the chair and slid the heavy chest of drawers across and up against the door.

  Meanwhile, he heard noises from outside. She went downstairs and returned a while later. He wondered if she was getting more wine. But he no longer cared. He just wanted to get some sleep and go to work in the morning – experience a bit of normal life.

  He had only just gone to sleep when he was woken again. She was pounding on the door with her fists and kicking it.

  ‘Open the fucking door, you bastard,’ she shrieked. ‘This is my house. You have no right to do this in my house!’

  ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Go away and leave me alone.’

  It was a long time before she tired of it but eventually she did. He heard her return to her own room, there were some more indistinct sounds and then sleep claimed him.

  In the morning, while it was still dark, he pulled the chest of drawers away from the door and looked out. Her door was shut and there was no sign of her. Quietly he opened the door and crept into the bedroom. She lay asleep in the bed breathing heavily. In the dark, he took some clothes from the wardrobe, all the while watching in case she woke up. But she seemed to be out cold. Back out on the landing, he threw the clothes in a bag. Then he crept downstairs before putting his shoes on, and left the house.

  He stayed away for four and a half weeks. She made contact within a week, but he told her he wasn’t coming back. She said she couldn’t remember any of this. He told her that didn’t matter now. He was going to see about a divorce. He couldn’t go on like this. He had given her everything she wanted – hadn’t she told him that he had made all her dreams come true – yet this was how she repaid him. She went from pleading to haughtiness until she eventually said, ‘Okay, if that’s how you feel,’ and stormed out.

  He made an appointment to see a lawyer. He had figured out what he was going to do. He would buy a house near her. That way he could keep an eye on her, mind her, make sure nothing happened to her. He didn’t want her to be friendless. He would be her friend – if that was what she wanted.

  He contacted her. He wanted to tell her all of this. They arranged to meet at Willard’s and had tea. She was happy and funny and beautiful. They ordered more tea and some sandwiches and pastries. They laughed and talked about the future. Yes, of course they would be friends. Hadn’t they been through too much together for anything else?

  ‘It’s so nice being like this,’ he said. ‘When we’re like this I don’t want to leave.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘We could book a room.’

  Which was what they did. It was the only time they ever stayed in a hotel together. They made love and after she climaxed, she began to cry. He held her as close as he could and soothed her.

  ‘I’m so sorry about the way I’ve treated you,’ she sobbed. ‘This thing – whatever it is – it just seems to take me over. Even now, when we’re like this and it’s all perfect, I feel that it’s searching for me. I’ve escaped and it just hasn’t managed to find me yet. But when it does …’

  She trailed off. Then she pulled back from him a little so that she could see his face.

  ‘I’m frightened, Gilbert. When it finds me it will take me over. And I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you.’

  ‘You really don’t remember what you said? What you did?’

  ‘No, that’s just the thing. You told me but I have no memory of it. What if it happens again? What if I really hurt you next time? I adore you, Gilbert. If I hurt you I couldn’t live with myself.’

  He suggested going back to Doctor Scott.

  ‘I can,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think it will do any good. I feel like I’m lost and I’ll never get back to the ordinary world.’

  ‘What can I do?’ he asked, feeling helpless, impotent.

  ‘Just love me,’ she said. ‘When this happens know that it’s not me.’

  ‘Your drinking probably doesn’t help,’ he ventured, knowing that it could bring down a storm.

  ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But it eases the pain.’

  ‘But what if you hurt yourself when you’re drinking? Supposing you fall again like you did the last time? I can’t be with you all the time to keep an eye on you, to mind you.’

  She smiled and stroked his face.

  ‘Oh Gilbert,’ she said. ‘Dear, sweet, gentle Gilbert. Just love me. And know that it will pass and everything will be okay again.’

  He canceled the appointment with the lawyer.

  35

  Towards evening Gilbert and Roberto came to Emmitsburg. A couple more hours would have seen them to Gettysburg, but they were sweaty, dusty and bone tired. As well as that the going was slow. The road was deeply rutted and it was clear that large numbers of men, horses and vehicles had passed this way. Roadside fences had been dismantled where men had taken the timber for their cooking fires. The destruction seemed out of place in the pastoral landscape.

  ‘We should stop,’ said Gilbert. ‘If what you say is true then we’re a day ahead of Gardner or anybody else. We should find a decent place to stay, have some good food, a soft bed.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Roberto.

  On the left they saw a place with a sign that said ‘The Farmers’ Inn and Hotel’. It was a fine two storey building, three, if you counted the line of dormer windows set into the roof. The second storey had a nice, south-facing veranda and the whole building was a pleasing study in red brick and recently painted white. Roberto pulled the wagon into the drive of the hotel. Again, the way had been churned up by many hooves and wheels. There was a head-high wall at the back of the hotel enclosing a yard and a stable.

  Roberto drove the wagon in through the stout looking gate. In the yard another wagon was in the process of reversing up to a small door. A fat man, the lower half of his body obscured by the wagon, stood in the doorway, guiding the wagon with his hand. Finally, he held up an index finger to indicate ‘stop’. A young blonde woman, dressed in a black skirt and blouse, watched the wagon’s progress. She held a small blonde girl in her arms and a little furry dog with unruly black hair stood beside her watching the proceedings closely. As the wagon stopped the dog sat down, continuing to study the scene intently. It looked as though it was trying to learn everything it could about reversing wagons.

  The fat man stepped out from the small doorway. He wore a cook’s apron and was on crutches. He had one leg. Nimbly he propelled himself along to where the driver of the wagon had hopped down and they began to talk. The blonde woman turned towards Gilbert and Roberto.

  ‘Good evenin’, gentlemen, she smiled.

  She had a strikingly beautiful face with blue eyes and high cheekbones. She was very thin.

  ‘Evening, ma’am,’ said Gilbert. ‘We were wondering if you’d have a couple of rooms for the night.’

  ‘Sure. You can have your pick,’ she said. Not too many people on the road at the moment – apart from soldiers. And they left a few days ago.�
��

  She lowered the little girl to the ground and took her hand.

  ‘And you’ll be pleased to know we now have some food. That there wagon’ – she nodded to where the driver of the wagon had begun to unload it – ‘went down to Frederick City and brought some back. Soldiers cleaned us out they did. Union soldiers weren’t too bad – they paid proper dollars. But all we have to show for the Rebels is a fistful of their worthless money.’

  ‘Have you heard anything about the fighting, ma’am – at Gettysburg, I mean?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘Don’t think anybody can get in or out of that place at the moment. Anyway, stables are over there, gentlemen. I’ll lock the gate as soon as James’s supply wagon is gone, so that that strange looking contraption of yours’ll be perfectly safe. Come inside when you’re ready and I’ll get you settled.’

  They untackled Leonardo and gave him feed and water. Then they went round to the front of the hotel and into the reception area. They signed the register and were given south-facing rooms on the second floor. Between their rooms was a door that led out onto the balcony. Once he had washed, Gilbert went out to find Roberto already there. They leant on the rail in the warm air and looked across the peaceful countryside. It was beautiful. It was how Gilbert imagined England to be.

  But there was a sense that something wasn’t quite right about it. The missing fence rails, the trampled crops, the churned up road and burnt patches of grass where there had been camp fires gave it a troubled air. Gilbert was reminded of those lands in fairy stories where giants or dragons lived, terrorizing the population. The sky was still cloudless and behind them, beyond the roof of The Farmers’ Inn, the sun was settling in the west. There was the sound of birdsong.

  ‘It was a good day, boss,’ said Roberto.

  ‘It was a good day,’ said Gilbert, turning to look at Roberto. ‘That cockamamie idea of yours. Free the slaves indeed.’

  Gilbert slapped Roberto on the arm.

  ‘I should call you Abe instead of Roberto. Could have gotten us both killed. Very nearly did.’

  ‘It was the right thing to do, boss.’