The Boy Who Flew

by Fleur Hitchcock

  I watch them talking, and I watch him listen. His eyes dance about, not missing a thing. His gaze rests on the things on the walls: framed maps, pictures. When he’s checked all of these he gets up and wanders about, peering under the couch and the sofa. No one else seems to notice, but he’s looking for something.

  And I know what it is.

  I force myself not to look towards the clock where I hid Mr Chen’s sphere. His cold blue eyes are on mine, a smile moving over his lips. So I study the tobacco box on the mantelpiece, and then Uncle’s fiddle case. Perhaps if I gaze hard enough at them, he’d think Mr Chen’s secret’s hidden there.

  “Ma, I think I’m gonna be ill, Ma.” Beatty’s voice sounds odd. “Athan, take me to bed.”

  She’s pale as death.

  I go over to her, and on the way I push the violin case under the sofa. Perhaps I’m overdoing it, but it’s worth a try. I pick up Beatty. “D’you want a bit of fresh air?”

  “I want to go to bed, Athan.”

  I carry her upstairs and lay her down. She grabs her rag doll and holds it close.

  “I didn’t say nothing about the ball, Athan.”

  “No, you didn’t.” I smile at her pale face peeking round the doll’s dress. “Thank you, Beatty.”

  “You don’t like him, do you, Athan?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t trust him.”

  “And what about the ribbon lady?”

  “I think she’s his friend. I don’t trust either of them.”

  “Why?” she asks, then screws up her face in pain.

  “Does it still hurt?” I ask.

  “It burns like hellfire, Athan. Is it a punishment for being sickly, for being a fairy baby?”

  “Course not,” I say, and take hold of her hand. “It’s just two daft old women.” I take the candle and look at her legs. The skin’s lifted, like it does on a baked apple, and beneath is angry shining flesh. It doesn’t look right and I begin to worry.

  “This woun’ a happened if Pappy was still here – he’d not have let them near me.”

  “Maybe,” I say. Although it was when Beatty was born that our father moved out and Grandma moved in, almost to the day. I remember Grandma stamping up the road with her boxes and moving into Polly’s room as if she owned it. Holding Beatty to her chest Ma had stood on the stairs her face all tear-stained, and collapsed.

  It all started to go wrong that day.

  I can’t help it. When I get back to the sitting room, I glance up at the clock. The sphere’s still there. I sneak a look at the Colonel, his eyes glistening in the lamplight. It flickers over his scars and picks out the gold of his tooth.

  Ma leaves the room to check on Beatty.

  I sit with Polly and the Colonel in the drawing room. The clock ticks loudly.

  A carriage rumbles down the street outside.

  Grandma clears her throat and falls back to snoring.

  The hair on the back of my neck prickles upright and although the room’s stuffy, I shiver.

  Ma comes back and settles herself by the fire, opposite the Colonel, like they make a pair.

  “What will you do tomorrow, sir?” asks Polly of the Colonel.

  He shakes his head idly and gazes up at the clock.

  I hold my breath.

  “The Baths; perhaps a soiree? There’s a game started at the assembly rooms.” He stares at me. “It might amuse me. Play a few cards.” He’s talking like a diamond but I know he’s a piece of coal.

  “Oh!” Polly mutters.

  The Colonel’s hands drum on the arm of the chair. He picks up a stick from the hearth and shreds it between his fingers, burning one strand at a time.

  “Anything in the paper, Poll?” I ask, filling the silence.

  “A man who says he can turn a wild dog into a calm dog by swapping over their blood, that’s on at the theatre – Cox’s Mechanical Marvels, up from London. Oh!” Polly goes white and flaps her hand at the paper. “Horrible Murder. This morning, Haddock the auctioneer was found viciously harmed unto death. His damaged corpse was left hanging from Mr Wood’s new crescent. His tongue… Oh! I can’t read that out,” she winces. “The town hall is mystified and asks for witnesses to come forward. Oh goodness – poor Mr Haddock. Poor Mrs Haddock!”

  I keep my face stony still.

  Polly goes on reading. “It says here, ‘His wife and son’… I didn’t know he had a son – poor little thing.” Polly sighs and hands the paper to Ma.

  “My!” The Colonel raises an eyebrow. “That sounds most unpleasant – who was this Haddock then?”

  Polly explains about the Haddock family, but I don’t really hear what she says.

  Haddock and Uncle, and Mr Chen?

  I look up at the Colonel.

  There he is, sitting in our drawing room, with me, and the sphere, and my sister. Outside in the yard all the pieces of the flying machine.

  He isn’t listening to Polly. He’s laughing, sharing a joke with himself, and his eyes are on mine, and stare back for the longest time, until, in the end, smiling, he looks away.

  Slipping down into the basement, I open the back door and hide in the yard, talking to the hens. I listen to their comforting little cheeps. The squeaks and pecks, and feather rustling. I pick up Big Hen. She lies passive and half sleeping against my belly, warm and comforting. Under the feathers she’s lean and bony, but she’s stronger than she feels; she’s escaped firebombs and foxes and laid an egg every day for three years.

  “What’s he doing here then?” I ask her.

  She answers by gently pecking at my wrist and I slip her back into the topmost port box.

  A horrible image of Colonel Blade sneaking through Mr Chen’s house, bloody dagger in hand, fills my head and I have to calm myself by checking up on all the pieces of the machine, pulling the oil cloth tight over them, keeping them safe.

  Shivering, not just from the cold, I wait outside in gently falling snow until I’m sure he’s gone and decide that when the house is quiet I’ll get the handcart out and take everything I can down to Tod’s. Plans and all.

  Back in the kitchen, I damp down the stove and duck upstairs to the shop to pull down the shutters and bolt the door. Turning to run back to the warmth of the parlour I see him, standing in the shadows of the shop. His hand on the shoulder of a mannequin, as if he owned the place.

  “Ah,” he says. His mouth opens blackly. “I wondered where you’d got to.” His voice is soft and black. “I’ve been talking with your ma, but time to lay me head down now, get a bit of sleep. I’ve got what I came for. I know what I’m doing next. Time to take stock.” He wanders idly to the door.

  “Oh,” I say, keeping my back to the basement stairs.

  “Delicate little flower, in’t she, your sister? Glad no harm’s come.” He speaks almost gently.

  I nod.

  “You’d better watch out for her, being her older brother and that.” His voice is barely above a whisper.

  I stay silent.

  “Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bogeyman bite.” He laughs, pulls back the bolts and heads off into the snow.

  I run to check but the sphere’s still hidden behind the clock. He hasn’t taken it.

  Chapter 16

  Polly and I sit on either side of Beatty’s bed, far into the night.

  “Have you found work?” Polly whispers.

  I shake my head. “No, but I will.”

  “She’s sending Beatty away.” The words are very quiet in the dark room, and I look at Polly to see if she really said it.

  Her eyes are damp. “The Colonel says he can take Beatty to a charity hospital in London where they can look after her and cure her legs.”

  “But, Poll, she can’t!”

  “I don’t see how we can stop it. We––” Polly goes quiet.

  Ma stands in the doorway, her face stretched into a wide smile. “I’ll take over now, Poll. You get some sleep.” But I can see she’s been crying.

  We sit on eith
er side of Beatty’s bed until the city goes silent.

  “She’s peaceful now,” whispers Ma. “But I’ll stay till light.”

  I lean back on my chair and watch them.

  Hen and chick.

  “What a day!” She smiles. “What a lovely man. Paid the doctor’s bill for your uncle, no questions asked.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a nice man.” Ma strokes Beatty’s cheek. “He can change all our lives, a man like that.”

  I say nothing.

  “Such a fine upstanding man. Broad shouldered. Kind. I never would have thought—”

  I have to say something.

  “Ma, you don’t know anything about him.”

  “I do. He’s told me lots. All very impressive.”

  “I…” I can’t say it. “You can’t send Beatty away. It’s not right.”

  She looks up at me, her face red and wet. “I don’t want to, boy, but I don’t have a choice. This’ll give Beatty the chance of a better life.”

  “Beatty’s almost never been out of the house. You can’t send her to live in some hospital.” I try to sound calm. “She’ll be miserable.”

  I imagine Beatty carted off in a wagon, the Colonel smiling alongside her.

  “You only met him this morning.”

  “He’s a bit rough about the edges, I grant you, but solid underneath.” She picks a curl from Beatty’s forehead and pushes it to the side. “He’ll look after her.”

  “Ma, listen. You can’t trust him! You don’t know him!”

  “I do – I can. You’ll work for the nightmen and Beatty’ll be safe in a hospital, it’s the way—”

  “Ma! Stop! Think what you’re doing to the family.”

  “Off you go, boy – go to sleep now.”

  She waves me away and I rise from the bedside.

  “Don’t trust him – he’s—”

  But she pushes me out through the door and leaves me standing on the landing in the dark.

  Chapter 17

  In the morning, before the light’s up properly, I go up to check on Beatty. She’s asleep. Pale on her pillow, her legs uncovered. Raw.

  I run into Grandma on the stairs, carrying her chamber pot down to the yard.

  “Evil witch,” I mutter.

  “What’s that?” she says, her hand cupped against her ear.

  “Nothing, Grandma,” I say, whipping past her to the shop, where I throw up the blinds and light the lanterns with a flint.

  I kindle a fire in the grate and turn the sign so that people know we’re open.

  Mr Katz is our first customer and I welcome him in, offering him coffee and stale cake and hollering for Polly to measure him for a waistcoat.

  “And how are you, young Mr Wilde? Have you found work yet?” he says, taking off his jacket and handing it to me. I drape it over the back of a chair.

  “No, sir, I haven’t, but I’ve hopes.”

  “I may have a little more for you in a day or so. Let me think on it.”

  “Light the range, Athan.” Polly sends me downstairs while she gets busy with a tape measure.

  I slip down to the kitchen and shake the stove to life, rattling the ashes out from last night. And then I go out to check on the hens.

  I know something’s wrong.

  The yard’s too quiet. Too still.

  I stop outside the kitchen door and listen.

  There is no sound at all from the makeshift henhouse.

  I look down at the snow. No fox prints. No cat prints.

  No blood.

  But there are boot prints.

  Slowly, I lift the flap on the front of the wine boxes and reach inside.

  Their bodies are still warm. Eyes open.

  Necks broken.

  All eight hens, together.

  Dead.

  I carry the brass engine down to Tod’s.

  “You mean he sneaked in your yard and wrung their necks?”

  “Yup,” I say, resting the engine on the floor of the loft.

  A shadow crosses Tod’s face.

  “I know,” I say, biting back the tears.

  “And you left the house?”

  I try to sound as if I’m not worried. “Ma and Poll are there this morning. Mr Katz was upstairs having a fitting. They’re safe, for now,” I say, wishing I believed myself.

  “God, Athan – don’t you think you should be careful?”

  “I am being careful!” I snap.

  “But he knows, doesn’t he?” says Tod, rubbing a cloth over the brass.

  I shake my head. “I think he knows there are plans. I think that’s what he’s looking for – but he’s not a scientist, he’s just a soldier. He might be able to kill a man, but he doesn’t know what the flying machine looks like.”

  “Oh.” Tod looks at the tangle of sticks and silk and the engine. “That’s all right then,” he says, half grinning.

  I walk back, and with every step my anger grows.

  My beautiful hens.

  My precious hens.

  I’m punching walls by the time I get back but Polly heads me off. “Take this up to Alfred Street, will you, Athan?” She hands me a parcel.

  “If I do, will you stay here, Poll?” I ask.

  “Yes – why?”

  “I don’t want to leave Beatty or Ma on their own.”

  She looks at me. “Because?”

  “Just because, and can you dress me neatly – do my hair in a plait?”

  “Of course, why?”

  “So that I can get work,” I lie.

  We do it in Beatty’s room. My new jacket, my father’s shoes, a waistcoat meant for another man, the breeches – cleaned – new stockings and a cravat.

  Polly pins a brooch at my neck. “Keep still. I can’t help you if you keep bobbing about.”

  “You look like a prince, Athan. If I kiss you, will I have new legs?” Beatty asks.

  “Maybe,” I answer.

  “Shh now,” mutters Polly. “Don’t give her hopes.” She stuffs something clammy and itchy on to my scalp, then wrenches it off and shakes powder all over it. She jams it back on my head.

  “I’m not wearing that!” I pull the mangy second-hand wig off my head. “Just do me a queue, Poll – go on,” I say.

  “I still think you’ll need the wig,” she says, wrenching my hair back to plait it.

  Beatty puts down the bird she’s folding, crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue. “Where you going dressed like a butterfly?” she asks.

  “The assembly rooms, where all the people go to dance and that.”

  “Can I come?” she says.

  “Not this time, little bird,” I say, and I kiss her on the top of her head. “I’m trying to find a job. I’ll be back before bedtime.”

  “Promise?” asks Beatty.

  “Promise,” I say. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Chapter 18

  I’ve left home without much of a plan.

  Except that right now I want to break his neck.

  I drop off the parcel and I’m approaching the assembly rooms when I hear her.

  “Athan.” I turn. “You look smart.” It’s Mary, from Mr Katz’s. The blush rises from my neck to my nose and for a moment all I do is stand there with my mouth hanging open.

  “Yes,” I say in the end. And then I ask, “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Mr Katz left his fiddle bow behind last night, I’ve come to look for it – you can help. Unless you’re doing something else?”

  “Looking for a job.” I smile. Mary looks confused, and I see that she takes a moment to work out what I’ve said.

  “Oh,” she nods. “Good luck. Watch out though, there are some who never pay their bills. You don’t want to find yourself working for them.”

  I follow her through the doors. We’re noticed but ignored. She marches up to a man in a full frogged suit, busting with buttons and embroidery. “Mr Katz’s bow, left here last night – where might I find it? And have y
ou got any jobs going for him?” She tilts her head in my direction. I puff out my chest and point my toes and generally look as dandy as I can.

  The man indicates a little door to the side of the stairs. “Try the cupboard.” He stares at me, weighing me up as if I was a horse. “Perhaps,” he says, before screwing his face into a cascade of welcoming smiles and turning towards an overblown woman and her giggling daughter gliding across the tiles. “Welcome, ladies, welcome.” He glances back at me. “Ask me again in a while. If my doorman doesn’t turn up in the next ten minutes, you can have his job.”

  Cheered, I arrange to meet Mary in half an hour and enter the main rooms.

  I’ve been here before, but always when it was empty of visitors. Pa took me when he reupholstered the chairs. I notice that they’re still here, dusty and a little faded, but still recognisably the same. Around them, the place is busting with skirts, and shining buttons, and people with crutches. Swarms rush this way and that, clanking tea cups and showing off their fancy clothes.

  I look around for the Colonel.

  I can’t roll up my sleeves and punch him here, but perhaps I can arrange to meet him, and I can jump him outside. But for the time being I need to look like someone wanting work or I’ll get thrown out.

  An elderly couple are standing alone on one side of the room and the woman is struggling to hold a walking stick, a bag, and a cup and saucer. I swoop up alongside them. “Can I help?” I say.

  “Oh, yes, if you’d just take this,” says the woman, rattling the cup at me. I grab it and her elbow, and help her to a chair.

  “Athan Wilde at your service,” I say, smiling.

  The man slips me a penny and turns his back, dismissing me.

  Walking away, I turn the penny in my pocket and try to think of a better way of loitering in here – when I spot the Colonel. He’s standing with his back to me in the main hallway talking to someone. I hide behind a pillar to eavesdrop.

  “Colonel Blade, dear fellow, join us in a game?” says a voice. “Stakes are high, we’ve a rich idiot to fleece, join me for the kill?” It’s a posh voice. I poke my head around to see the Colonel swept down the hall and into an eight-sided room by a man with shining shoes and a very well-tailored jacket.