by Paul Butler
I knew that she must have heard something. And the fact I had gone downstairs in the dead hours of the morning would have been enough, perhaps, to stir her to jealousy. She was, after all, so wound up that she needed to constantly check that the music box was in working order. I had heard the first strains of All Things So Bright and Beautiful so often through the day that I was thoroughly sick of it.
It was all so distracting I hadn’t thought much about the stranger and our dawn conversation. It was as distant to me now as a half-remembered dream, and, like a dream, I remembered the whole episode through the coloured haze of the fantastically inappropriate. This rough and grimy man, I had found, had read some of the same books as me, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. His reactions were not dissimilar to mine, but he could describe them with more eloquence than I would have thought possible, and more than I could have mustered myself. It was a jolt to my conceit. Mark Twain, he had told me, had taken life’s outcasts and turned them into heroes. As I walked along the sleeping street, watching dark eaves take form like battlements against the dawn, I had experienced the most curious sensation. Like Huck and Jim, he and I were standing upon a floating raft heading into some unknown journey from which we might re-emerge as strangers to ourselves.
Suddenly I found my life story flowing from my lips. For the first time since I left them, my parents, Mary, the relatives back in Ireland all returned, my tongue weaving their very fabric and essence. I laughed when I told the stranger of Father’s tuneless military whistle while he shaved. My description had been so precise the stranger managed to imitate it until I stopped his mouth.
All the people who had been as grey as ghosts, locked within my distrust of sentiment, suddenly paraded under the tingling sunrise, their vivid colours making me smile. My thoughts entered places I had forbidden them, into Mary’s sulks and her accusations of desertion. With this odd, unkempt thief of a man it was all bearable. I had slipped out of the twilight city into a place of comfort.
I was wondering about this for the hundredth time since morning while I emptied the sink from supper. I listened to the low, rising gurgle of the drain. The spinning water near my fingers made me think of the river, of Huck and Jim and their drifting raft. I was standing with the stranger once more – “Tommy,” he insisted I call him – in the crisp morning air. “Are you satisfied now?” I asked him. “Now you can keep your promise and leave me alone.” And I had meant it. I did want him to leave me alone despite the warmth he had brought me. I wanted our walk to remain as it was, a bright star in a vague and uncertain night, the promise of an unexpected hope and pleasure in the midst of the great unknown.
The bell clanged and I jumped. Surely he’d have the sense not to come here again?
I dried my hands so quickly my knuckles chaffed against the towel and I sped out into the hallway, my apron still tied. Surely he’d have the sense, my phrase repeated mockingly in my ear. Like the sense not to steal a music box, or the sense not to turn up before dawn and beat against the door. It might be him, I realized. Joy mingled with anxiety as I caught sight of the dark shape against the glass.
I hesitated for a moment before opening the door. What could I say to this man? I needed him to leave me alone, yet not to cease returning. I was off again in six days. I could see him on Friday. But how could I communicate this to a stranger – especially such a stranger – without compromising myself?
I pulled the door open and took a step back. It wasn’t Tommy, the stranger. It was Dr. Glenwood. Two young men in work clothes stood behind him, an array of boxes and cases at their feet, a large tripod between them. Dr. Glenwood acknowledged me shyly, his pink face forming an uncertain smile.
“Shall we start?” he said with a swift furtive glance over his shoulder.
The flames from Dr. Glenwood’s gas lamps were dazzling. I could see nothing of Dr. Glenwood save one arm and one polished shoe. A rippling black curtain shielded the interior of the machine in which he hid. “One day, one day soon,” came his muffled voice, “all houses will be connected to the flow of electricity that runs to the city’s great public buildings and all these extra lamps will be quite unnecessary.”
“They’re very bright,” I said trying to keep impatience from my voice. It had been a warm day outside, and gas jets were not only hurting my eyes, they were also heating the room. I had been sitting still, at Dr. Glenwood’s request, for more than half an hour already and I was certain he had not yet started. Even so, he became agitated when I moved too much. He obviously could see me through the apparatus though I could not see him through the dark oblong lens he had asked me to watch.
“In a photograph, light and shade can only be achieved with an excess of the former. It is a curious thing,” he continued a little breathlessly, “and a paradox of sorts. Only in darkness can we create the illusion of light. Only strong light can create the effect of darkness.”
“Yes, I think I understand,” I said quietly but I wasn’t sure if he needed a response or not.
“The true father of night, they say, is the sun.” His voice became strained as he adjusted something. “The sun burns on the rim of the horizon and disappears, leaving its black-winged offspring to reign upon the earth until it returns . . . please keep your fingers still . . . So it is with photography.”
“Yes,” I said, wondering how much curiosity was acceptable on my part. “Are these photographs you’re taking of me now, Dr. Glenwood?”
“More than mere photographs, Kathleen,” he said. I was startled for a moment at the use of my name, especially as I could see so little of the speaker. “Photographs which will run together to create form and movement; the very substance of life. You are in a very privileged position, young woman.”
There was a clicking, whirring sound and the curtain fluttered rapidly. “Almost ready. Keep very still. Very still.” I stared straight ahead as he had instructed trying not to look distracted as Dr. Glenwood emerged, dishevelled, his face very pink and moist with sweat. He strode to the chair near the door, patting down the hair on the sides of his head as he did so. My eyes strayed from their focus long enough to see his Adam’s apple bobble, the stubble on his pink neck lifting and falling like flotsam on a distant wave.
I forced my eyes front once more. He picked up the red folded sheet from the chair. “Now, please Kathleen,” he said breathing rapidly. “This is the moment. Please don’t look at me or be alarmed by anything I might do. You are on stage, so to speak. The audience is directly in front of you.”
He came toward me on tiptoes; the delicate movements made the floorboards creak far more than would have been the case had he walked normally. He glanced at me for a moment then turned toward the machine which continued making rhythmic clicking sounds. He unfolded the sheet once, twice, three times, pausing each time like a stage magician performing under water. He lifted the sheet high between his hands, flapped once then spun it through the air. Before I realized what was happening, the sheet was descending upon me, rippling as it touched down upon my hair. It came to rest lightly on my forehead and nose. The fabric was real silk. It had a fresh lemon-like fragrance, and it was thin enough to allow a partial view of the room. I could tell the position of the fiery gas jets, and the fine red gauze made all other objects mysterious and exciting. I could just discern the outlines of Mrs. Stevens’s leaf-decorated mirrors, her ornate Turkish-style chair rests, the upright piano, the large cranking machine Dr. Glenwood had assembled in such a hurry before sending the two young men away, and the large black box Dr. Glenwood was yet to open. Something fluttered inside me like the faint ripple of the curtain before the opening act at a music hall. I heard him pace to his machine again and my throat constricted; I had a sudden, irrational fear of suffocation. It seemed a long time, though it may have only been seconds, before the clicking ceased. I made out his dark form loping toward me once more. The silk cover was taken from me. As it slipped
from my eyes I found myself staring up at Dr. Glenwood. There was an odd, flushed look on his face. He averted his eyes from me and wrapped the sheet around his hands as though they were silken cuffs.
“It’s done,” he said abruptly. “This part of it is done.”
I waited for him to say more. Somehow I felt more would be required of me. But he merely stood, waiting, running the fabric through his fingers, becoming impatient, it seemed.
I raised myself quickly from the chair, taking a step to the side so as not to stand too close to him.
“Will that be all, Dr. Glenwood?” I asked.
“Please,” he said. “Please.” His head tipped to the side as though in response to a blow. He didn’t meet my eyes.
I made my way to the door, opened it softly, aware of something wrong. A curious rapport between us had been unexpectedly severed by this silence. I couldn’t make out how it had happened. Glancing back as I closed the door after me, I saw he was motionless, his pink face tilted to the side, eyes blinking rapidly as he waited for me to leave.
_____
When I brought in the tea tray, Mrs. Stevens and Louisa were at the dining room table playing patience. Though it was not yet dark outside, a gas lamp burned on the table, so my eyes, scorched by the recent memory of so much light, went into watery rebellion. Squinting through a blur of tears, I lay the clattering tray on the table. Mrs. Stevens was too intent upon her cards to look up, though Louisa gave me a rather suspicious glance.
Dr. Glenwood and his helpers were packing up in the living room now. Half an hour after I had left him, he had gone into the street and called for the young men to return. Muffled noises of shifting boxes, metal objects being screwed or unscrewed, had emanated from the living room since that time and I wondered at my private, often haughty, employer allowing such frantic activity in her finest room.
I had to make an effort not to spill the tea as I poured from the steaming pot. I was in a hurry, and wanted to slip back into the scullery before Dr. Glenwood took his leave. I felt implicated somehow. I felt as though some inappropriate action of mine had contributed to his strange behaviour.
“How was the work with Dr. Glenwood, Kathleen?” Mrs. Stevens asked as I moved the strainer to Louisa’s cup, my fingers trembling, not so much with nerves but with a vague discomfort brought on by the lamp and the soreness in my eyes. “You haven’t told us.”
This wasn’t the first time Mrs. Stevens had gently reprimanded me for not volunteering information about myself. In the first week of my employ I had taken one of these mild reproofs seriously, and had made light conversation the next time I had served at Mrs. Stevens’s table. This, as it turned out, was a mistake too, as my words were greeted with a long silence and a “that will be all Kathleen.”
I poured Louisa’s tea.
“It seems to be a very interesting experiment, Mrs. Stevens.”
She raised her eyebrows as she picked up a card.
“Indeed? An experiment.” I lifted the strainer from Louisa’s cup and laid it in the stainless steel cup on the tray.
“To do with light and photography, ma’am.”
I took a step backward, preparing to take my leave.
“Fascinating!” she said with a sudden rush of admiration and a faraway look through the window. “And what manner of aid were you able to give Dr. Glenwood?” she asked with a smile.
“I sat in a chair, ma’am, and Dr. Glenwood aimed a photographic machine at me.”
“He aimed it at you?” Louisa broke in accusingly.
“No doubt,” Mrs. Stevens addressed her daughter in a tone of mild chastisement, “he needed a model before he could find a more suitable subject.”
I backed off another pace and watched for some sign that I might leave, but I could hear from the sound of the living room door opening and the accelerated scuffing noises from the corridor that it was too late.
There was a cough outside and Dr. Glenwood entered. “I must thank you, my dear cousin,” he announced from the doorway.
I slunk away to the sideboard.
“I have made excellent use of your room, and of your maid.” I caught a nod in my direction. It seemed that whatever had come over him before was now quite forgotten. “You can rest assured that posterity will single out this home as the place where a breakthrough was made.”
“How thrilling!” Mrs. Stevens said almost bouncing with excitement, though a card was still in her hand. “When may we witness your breakthrough?”
“Tomorrow night if my experiment proves to be a complete success.” He took a deep breath. “I plan to work through the night and will know by morning. I will send word. All being well we will witness something remarkable together tomorrow night.”
Mrs. Stevens gazed after her cousin as he nodded, turned and exited the house through the hallway. She gave a contented sigh and reached for her teacup. Louisa pushed back her chair, rose from the table with a timid, “excuse me, mother,” and throwing me another angry look, left the room. I heard her stomp upstairs once more.
I listened for the music box.
Six
Kathleen
The cloth curtains in my bedroom were too small to flutter; they waved and flapped as the breeze tugged at them. I lay, weaving in and out of sleep, listening to the rhythms of the breeze beyond the window – silence, gush, scatter, suck, silence; silence, gush, scatter, suck, silence – waiting for the music-box tune to begin again.
And then as a fresh gust of breeze tugged my sad little curtain once more, it came . . . All things bright and beautiful . . . The curtain attempted a little dance this time, like a child’s ballet skirt creased and stiffened with time.
I turned on the bed and swung my feet over the side without quite knowing why; I was hardly even awake. Mary had come into my thoughts again – angry little Mary who’d accused me of breaking up our family. In the numbing zone between thought and dream, Mary and Louisa merged and divided like dancing spirits. I could not distinguish one from the other. Suddenly the idea of the girl downstairs playing the music box to herself, believing it meant something special, was too sad to endure. I dropped to the floor and went to fetch my dressing gown just as I had the night before. Within a few moments I was creaking down the stairs, sliding my hand carefully along the banister to steady myself in the darkness. Reaching the landing, I stepped up to the door and quietly turned the handle.
“Louisa,” I whispered into the darkness as I opened the door.
There was a rustle of sheets from the bed. The tune had ceased, at least for the moment.
“What?” the answer came, also in a whisper. From the tone she didn’t seem particularly surprised. Making my way to her bed, I caught her fixed, too-blank expression in the shifting bars of moonlight; thin, waving branches outside the window sent dancing shadows over her. Then, as I sat down on the edge of her mattress, the wounded look returned in a downward curl of the lip and a flicker of the eyes. She was holding the music box to her chest, caressing its metal surface with her fingers.
I found myself smiling at her. She turned to the side, her face sinking into the pillow.
“It’s all I have left,” she said. “Are you going to take that from me as well?”
“As well’?” I repeated.
She sighed, one hand leaving the box and tracing a pattern on her pillow. I could see her frown deepen.
“Nothing ever happens to me,” she said quite suddenly. “I may as well be living in the wilderness.”
“What would you like to happen?”
She turned and stared at me, her expression a curious mix of accusation and longing.
“Who were you talking to last night?”
I turned to the window and thought for a moment.
“Late last night. You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I
sighed. “I know what you mean.”
I turned toward Louisa, reached out and touched the fingers that still gripped the music box. I knew I’d have to tell her everything. “It’s nothing to envy, believe me. I was with someone like me,” I paused, almost laughing at my choice of words, at the fact that this was true. “A man; no one really, a bit wild, but not dangerous. We talked, walked around for a bit. Then I came back here. That’s all.”
“It all sounds very strange to me,” she said quietly, but somehow without resentment.
“I suppose it does.”
“You must have known him,” she said.
“I come across him in a shop and he followed me home, I suppose. When I came downstairs last night, to see you, he was beating against the glass in the door. I asked him to leave, and he wouldn’t. He wanted me to take a walk with him. So I did.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Louisa said, suddenly concerned, shedding the foolish child as if it were an extra blanket. “He might have done anything to you.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied softly.
“How could you know?” she asked sitting up in bed. “You’d met him only once.”
The furrows in her forehead and the moisture in her eyes made her seem suddenly old; it was a look I recognized from somewhere else, and I realized with a jolt that this was very like my mother’s expression when she was worried.
I smiled at her and let my gaze slip to the bedsheets and the dancing shadows. At night, it seemed, everything spilled over. Shapes changed and altered form. The young became old, the innocent, wise. Trepidation became fondness and trust.
My openness with the stranger last night was part of this process. In the darkness Tommy Fitzpatrick came to dwell in the same murky-sweet region of my heart as my own father. It wasn’t only the night that brought about this strange reversal. There was another connection between our two worlds. I had heard the story of Tommy Fitzpatrick long before I met him. I had encountered the bleary-eyed stranger, the smell of liquor, the pleas, the helplessness, the persistence. I had experienced the slow transformation from fear to pity. I had learned that the feral creature might be tamed, that with the care and attention of a good woman, he might learn to walk upright like a man. I had heard all these details in my mother’s cradle song. This was how she had been wooed. And now I was becoming her. Had I not laughed with something like exhilaration last night when Tommy had imitated my father’s whistling? And had I not when I woke up this morning imagined Tommy Fitzpatrick whistling while he shaved, winking at some unseen child?
