Resonance (12 page)

He thought,
These people have changed, Cornelius
.

Some of them. They are more difficult to persuade.

They feel like … Do you recall the feel of the old aristocracy?

Inside his head, Vincent heard Cornelius’ bitter laugh.
So this is what the new age brings, Captain? A multitude of little kings, each ruler of their own small world
. With a huff, Cornelius brushed past the old women and into the hall.

Vincent smiled. If there was one thing Cornelius knew, it was how to outmanoeuvre the aristocracy. Shooing the
actress ahead of him, Vincent stepped inside, closed the door and looked around. It was a dismal place, the narrow hall a strange tangle of baby-carriages and stacks of boards.

‘Oh,’ said the actress, eyeing the battered prams. ‘Are you fruit dealers?’

The landlady proudly drew herself up. ‘All my ladies are women of business.’

Vincent went to the base of the stairs and peered up into the dim reaches of the narrow house. Light filtered from a distant skylight, casting wan illumination on well scrubbed steps, damp-stained walls, chipped and flaking plaster.

‘Where is everyone?’

The landlady tutted. ‘Early mass. It’s the new priest’s first service. Everyone wants a look at him.’

‘All of them?’

‘Whole damned church-ridden street. Bloody fools.’

Cornelius met Vincent’s eye again. An empty house on a street of empty houses – what luck.

The actress, who had been gazing about in awe, laid her hand on the landlady’s arm. ‘You
own
this entire house?’ she asked.

‘Every nail and board.’

‘To own one’s own home,’ murmured Ursula Lyndon. ‘How wonderful.’

‘Every woman needs property of her own. Otherwise she’s little more than property herself.’

‘I have my career,’ said the actress. ‘I am no one’s property.’

The women squinted keenly at each other, as if suddenly aware of some secret kinship. From over Vincent’s shoulder, Cornelius spoke softly – almost inaudibly. ‘We should like
to see the seamstress now, please.’ The women gave no indication of having heard him, but the landlady began leading the way upstairs, speaking to the actress as she went.

‘My father left me this house,’ she said. ‘It caused ructions in his family.
Ructions
. They were determined no fallen woman’s bastard brat would lay its grimy paws on their property. For three years Mama languished in an institution as they tried to prove her insane …’

‘An institution!’ The actress paused, her eyes wide, then she hurried to catch up as the landlady disappeared onto the first landing. Quietly, Vincent and Cornelius followed on behind.

A dog began barking as they climbed through the house: the angry territorial yap of a terrier. The landlady grimaced. ‘You’ll need to watch your ankles in here,’ she said as they mounted the last of the narrowing stairs. She put the key in the lock of the door behind which the creature was barking, but then she frowned, staring at it.

‘Wait. What am I …’ She looked up at the door, then turned to stare at the two men who stood on the steps below her. By her side, the actress fidgeted, puzzled and unhappy. Behind the door, the dog barked and barked and barked.

Cornelius groaned,
I am weary, Captain. They are old and brittle. Let us just push them aside
.

As if in response to this, the lock clicked and the door opened. The seamstress emerged, her hair a dark cloud around her pale face, her dark eyes wary. She was barefoot, her nightdress white as snow. She was like a flower that had blossomed since Vincent had last seen her. Still the same girl, to all intents and purposes, but … brighter, somehow.
Shining. It was as if a light had been switched on inside her. The two old women seemed suspended in confusion, all skirts and ribbons, bonnets and frowns. The girl stepped between them, her little dog in her arms, her eyes on Vincent.

‘Where are you taking him?’ she asked.

Where was he taking whom? Surely she did not mean the dog?

Joe
, she clarified.
Where are you taking Joe?
Vincent jolted as he realised she’d spoken inside his head. He slipped a glance at Cornelius.
I’m not talking to
him,
mister. He’s not the one who took Joe.

Sure enough, Cornelius gave no indication that he had heard the girl’s voice. He was sagged against the banister, at the end of his energy after the stairs, the entirety of his attention expended on the growling dog. Vincent turned back to the seamstress.

You have Joe outside, she said. He’s frightened.

He is ill. I am taking him home.

Joe doesn’t have a home
.

Cornelius pushed himself from the banister and laboured up the last of the steps to proffer his hand to the dog. The little brute responded with another frenzy of noise.

The seamstress kept her eyes on Vincent.
Where are you taking Joe?
she demanded again.

Come with me and see for yourself.

I’ll scream. If you try and take Joe. I’ll scream. People will come. They’ll make you let him go
.

Vincent sighed.
No one will come. You know this. And even if they did …

He gestured to the dog in her arms. It had stopped
barking and was stretching towards Cornelius’ hand, sniffing curiously. ‘That’s the boy,’ whispered Cornelius as the dog snuffed, then nuzzled, then licked his shaking fingers. ‘See?’ he smiled. ‘I’m not so bad.’

Wide-eyed, the girl looked from her suddenly docile guardian back to Vincent.

You are quite alone
, he said.

I … I’ll stop you myself
.

Vincent found himself abruptly irritated with this stubborn child. Perhaps it was her unexpected intrusion into his head. Perhaps it was simply that he’d had enough defiance for one day. Without giving it any thought at all, he pushed at the girl’s resistance in a way he had never done before – using his mind, instead of his voice.

You
shall
come with
us, he commanded.
And you
shall
be quiet.

He felt a shock of impact between them, as solid as if they’d hit each other square in the face. The girl’s head snapped back, her eyelids fluttered, and a thin line of blood trickled, bright and sudden, from her nose. All internal communication with her went silent.

Cornelius laughed, delighted, as her battle-scarred little dog leapt straight into his arms.

At the sight of the blood, the actress came to life. ‘Oh, my dear,’ she cried, pressing a lace handkerchief to the girl’s nose. ‘Oh, it’s the excitement. Perhaps your landlady should put a key down the back of your shirt?’

Vincent, feeling dazed, steadied himself against the wall. ‘Take … take her inside and dress her,’ he said. The girl did not protest as the older women guided her into the room. But until the very last moment, her eyes remained locked with
his, and deep within them he saw a furious struggle as she tried to fathom what she was doing and why.

‘Dress her warmly,’ he said. ‘It is snowing.’

C
ORNELIUS INSISTED ON
carrying the dog downstairs. Somehow he managed the cane, the creature, the winding shadows and his own addled condition, and reached the ground hall without accident. The two old women followed, chattering birdlike as they supported the seamstress,
snow-pale
and dazed, between them.

When Vincent opened the front door and cold light washed the hall, the shock seemed to clear the girl’s mind somewhat. She hesitated, pulling the women to a halt. The sight of Cornelius leaning at the bottom of the stairs murmuring into the adoring face of her dog appeared to upset her.

It is all right
, thought Vincent, laying his hand on her arm.
See how content the little fellow is?

The girl looked to the actress. ‘Miss U?’

The woman nodded happily. ‘We’re off on business, my dear. You’re to be my companion.’

The girl’s eyes drifted to the carriage, and to the blanket that lay bundled on the driver’s seat.

‘Joe,’ she whispered.

The actress tutted as she and the landlady led the girl down the steps. ‘Joe!’ she said. ‘You girls and your boys! Absence makes the heart grow fonder, m’dear.
Joe
won’t die for a few days’ want of your company.’

The women’s skirts swept a clear path through the accumulating snow. The girl’s bright tartan coat was a brief
and glorious splash of colour against the glossy black of the carriage; then she and the actress were inside.

As the landlady came scurrying back up the steps, shivering in her nightgown and wrap, Vincent surveyed the street. The snow was all sullied with footprints. They seemed fresh. It would be best to go.

Cornelius seemed intent on taking the dog, and Vincent had to gently prise it from him.

‘Come now, cully. You do not want this poor thing subjected to the children’s games.’

Once out of Cornelius’ arms, the animal struggled free and ran upstairs. Vincent listened to the skitter of its nails as it searched the flights above. The landlady was watching him closely, her small hands knotted, her expression eloquent of the struggle for clarity within her.

‘The seamstress has gone on respectable business,’ he told her.

The old woman’s face cleared. ‘Miss Kelly is
very
respectable,’ she agreed. ‘And honest. A most useful girl.’

‘Useful,’ said Vincent. ‘Indeed.’

Taking the old woman by her shoulders, he guided her to the door of her room and waited until she had gone inside. As he was leaving, the skitter of nails on wood signalled the return of the little dog. It came to a halt on the landing, its head cocked as it scanned the now empty hall. Vincent kept his eye on it as he closed the front door. It watched him, its expression questioning. Only after he had shut the door did it finally, belatedly, begin to bark.

Regrets

T
IME TURNED TO
water for Joe once the driver pulled the cover over him. He wanted air. He wanted so badly to bare his heated face to the falling snow. But his body seemed to have given up, and it just lay there, docile beneath the blanket, while the carriage jolted through the streets.

I’m dying
, he thought.

After a stifling eternity, a familiar light had begun growing in the dimness of his mind: a candle coming towards him in the dark. Joe had smiled. The coarse fabric snagged his dry lips as he spoke her name. He barely noticed coming to a halt, nor the creak and shift of the passengers disembarking. He was just so happy to have that light in his mind – the comfort and the joy of her presence.

Joe
, she said.
What have they done to you?

He reached out and clung to her, for once in his life open and unguarded. She reached out, too, and for the first time held him in the fullness of her embrace.

I’m scared, Tina. I’m so scared.

Where are you, Joe?

Joe listened, trying to focus his swimming concentration on his surroundings. There were voices, dully muffled: a conversation of some kind, then angry banging, someone hammering wood. Silence followed – a protracted length of quiet in which Joe floated.

Tina said,
There are men coming for me
, and Joe’s eyes snapped open as he realised where he must be. There came a furtive scratching. The carriage swayed as someone shifted about. The blanket was snatched back, and Joe found himself gazing up at dark-blue eyes, an angry halo of hair, the
dove-grey
sky filtering snow all around.

Harry.

Over his friend’s shoulder, Joe recognised the familiar, beloved façade of Tina’s home.

‘Can you walk, Joe?’

Joe jerked in a weak lungful of air, but it was impossible to make a sound.

Harry shoved an arm under his shoulders. ‘Come on, I don’t think we’ve much time.’ He tried to lift him. Pain flared. Joe made a desperate sound, and Harry stopped. ‘Joe, you gotta try, pal. I can’t lift you down unless you try.’

Joe glanced desperately over Harry’s shoulder.
Look. Look!

Puzzled, Harry followed his gaze. It took a moment – perhaps because it was daytime now, and snowing – but in the end he recognised it.

‘Oh no,’ he whispered. ‘No. Not here …’

H
ARRY WENT RUNNING
from door to door, trying to find help. Joe lay like a corpse, staring up into the disintegrating
sky, and spoke to Tina in a way that had never been possible before: not just her words in his head, but his in hers, a conversation. And all the time she burned bright in his mind, like a lighthouse, like a beacon; as if something within her had been set on fire.

When she understood how beaten he was, she responded with horror, with rage, and with that core of steel he’d always adored. There was a terrifying sense of her stepping forward, of her crossing a threshold; of her looking up at some great, unvanquishable foe. Then there was nothing. She was gone.

Harry scrambled back onto the seat. ‘There’s no one around, Joe!’ Their eyes met, the hopelessness of the situation clear to both of them.

Joe hissed one word: ‘
Run
.’

‘I
can’t
, Joe. I can’t leave you. I don’t know where they’re going!’

There was no more air.
Run
, thought Joe.

Harry took his hand. ‘Joe, I gotta cover you up again.’ Joe moaned in horror. ‘Sorry, pal. I’m so sorry. But they can’t know I was here.’ He reached for the blanket, still holding Joe’s hand. As he covered Joe’s face, he whispered, ‘I’m sticking with you, Joe. You hear me? I’m sticking with you, and as soon as I’m able, I’ll get some help.’ For a brief moment, their hands clamped tight; then Harry pulled away, scrambling across the seat, and Joe was alone.

Tina?
he thought.
Are you there?

He thought of the contents of that cracked purse and all the days they could have had together with it. He thought of all the times she’d offered to take him out – to the theatre or the races – and the pride that had made him refuse.
We 
should have gone to Bray
, he told her.
We should have taken the train to Kingstown.

Useless, useless regrets – as useless as the crumbled wads of filthy money he’d crammed away all these years.

But I had me plan
, he thought.
Surely that was worth something
?

He shut his eyes, and closed his hand around the memory of hers.

I wish I’d kissed you sooner, Tina. I wish I’d told you it all
.

Everything was floating away, all the sounds, all the feelings, everything dim and feathered all around with black. A door opened somewhere far off. Women chattered, their words indistinct. The carriage swayed and juddered as people climbed aboard.

Joe barely heard the driver’s gate latch click, nor registered the heavy movements as someone settled down beside him.

The driver’s voice came from far, far away. ‘Let us go home,’ he said. The carriage lurched to life with a slap of the reins, they jolted forward, and after that there was nothing.