Smoke

by Dan Vyleta

  “Beg pardon. Knocked till knuckles are raw. No answer. Message for Mast’r Foybles. Ur-jent, like. If yous please.”

  The person thus named is mortified.

  “Not now, you fool!” Foybles cries, running across the room and dragging the porter out by the arm. Their whispered exchange in the antechamber is loud enough to focus all attention on the pair.

  “You says, ‘At once,’ you did,” Cruikshank can be heard declaiming.

  “But to burst in like that,” Foybles berates him. “You fool, you fool.”

  All the same he seems elated when he closes the door on the porter and re-joins the company of his peers.

  “The delivery has arrived,” he declares, beaming, rubbing his hands in triumph before the room’s atmosphere recalls him to the events that have just transpired there. Rather crushed, he withdraws into a corner and buries his face in a handkerchief for the purpose of clearing out his nasal passages. Like a compass needle momentarily distracted by a magnet, everybody’s focus returns to Renfrew, who remains standing at the centre of the room. But the outrage at his announcement has spent itself, and Thomas’s mind is clear at last.

  He is lost.

  But he will be going to London.

  “There are objections?” Renfrew asks calmly.

  Swinburne glares at him, then turns his back and addresses the headmaster.

  “Master Trout. That boy is a sickness in our midst. He should be sent down at once.”

  Swinburne does not even condescend to point a finger at Thomas. But Trout shakes his head.

  “Impossible. He has a powerful sponsor. I will hear no more of it.”

  Swinburne makes to speak again, but Trout has heaved his heavy figure out of his armchair.

  “It is for the Master of Smoke and Ethics to determine the punishment. The government guidelines are quite clear. If Master Renfrew thinks these two boys will benefit from tomorrow’s outing, so be it. Beyond that—” He glances questioningly at Renfrew.

  “I will work with each of them upon our return, Headmaster. An intensive programme of reform.” Renfrew’s voice sounds notes of reconciliation. “And, if it will set your mind at rest, dear colleagues, I have a list of pages here from the Book of Smoke that I shall ask them to copy. From the third volume.” He glances at Swinburne. “Passages whose findings have been confirmed by the latest research. Which is more than we can say for much of the book.”

  He distributes copies of the list to Thomas and Julius, then lingers at the head boy’s side.

  “One more thing, Mr. Spencer. These midnight examinations. They will stop. I alone have the authority to examine the pupils at this school.”

  Swinburne is too outraged to swallow his anger. “The school has its traditions. Only a fool meddles with—”

  Renfrew cuts him off. His tone, now, is cold and brutal.

  “A new era is dawning, Master Swinburne. You’d better get used to it.”

  He gestures the two boys up and all but pushes them out the door. Outside, in the hallway, Thomas and Julius stop for a moment, dazed. For an instant something like companionship flickers between them, the sense that they have shared a danger, and survived. Then Julius straightens.

  “I hate you,” he says and walks away. Not the slightest trace of Smoke rises from his skin. It leaves Thomas wondering what it is about Julius’s hate that is sanctified, and what is so dirty about his own.

  ф

  “There you are! I’ve been looking all over.”

  Charlie corners him just before lights-out. That’s the thing about school: no matter how big it is, there is no place to hide. Each nook, each hour is supervised. Empty rooms are locked and the hallways swarm with boys; porters in the stairwells, and outside it’s too bloody cold.

  “They say there’s been a tribunal. In Trout’s office.”

  “Yes.”

  Charlie starts to say something, swallows it, looks him full in the face. His eyes are so full of care for him, it frightens Thomas.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Because how can Thomas tell him? That he’s infected. That there is an evil growing in him, so dark and ugly it frightens Renfrew. That one day he will wake up and do something unspeakable. That crime runs in his family.

  That he is a dangerous friend to have.

  So he says, “They are letting me join the Trip.” And also: “The delivery arrived. The thing they have been waiting for. Cruikshank came and told them.”

  Charlie hoots when he hears about the Trip, from relief and from happiness that they’ll be going together. It’s a joy so simple and pure, it makes Thomas ashamed before his friend. He might have apologised—confessed—had not Charlie put a hand on his arm and said, “Let’s go see him. Cruikshank. We have a few minutes.”

  He starts running, tugging Thomas along.

  “He likes me, Cruikshank does. I chat to him from time to time. He’ll tell me what it is.”

  And as they race down the stairs, their feet clattering, each matching the other’s stride, Thomas forgets, almost, that he is a sick boy, a walking blight, the son of a man who has killed.

  PORTER

  Two boys. They come to me with questions. One who strips the truth off things like he’s made of turpentine, and the other with eyes so frank, it inclines you to confession. I talk to the second, naturally, though I keep track of the first. He’s the type you don’t want sneaking up on you from behind.

  “The deliv’ry?” I ask, like I don’t quite recall. It’s how you survive in this world. Play dumb, thicken your accent. Makes you invisible: one look and they dismiss you from their minds. The powers that be. But not these boys. Smarter than their teachers, they are. They simply wait me out.

  “Oh, nothin’ special,” I say at last. “Sweets, you know. Tea. Biscuits. From someplace in London.”

  That’s all I give them, that and the name, to see how they react.

  “Nice big stamp on the crate. Beasley and Son. Impor’ and Expor’, Deliv’ries to the Crown.”

  They don’t bat an eyelid, not one of them. Innocents, then. Though the quiet one looks like he was born with a knife in his fist. Like he had to cut his way out, and didn’t much mind.

  “You goin’ on the Trip, t’morrow, lads?” I ask, though of course I already know.

  “Yes, Mr. Cruikshank. Will you be joining us?”

  Mr. Cruikshank my arse. Polite little bugger, laying it on nice and thick. Though he certainly looks like he means it. If he puts that sort of look on the right wench down in London, she’ll clean his piping free of charge.

  “Oh no. I daresen’t. Too scary for the likes of me. Wouldn’t for all the world. Rather fly to the moon. Safer that.”

  Like I haven’t been to London. It’s not fifty miles down the road. Two days’ walk, when I was young. Now all you needs to do is sit yourself on a train. Bring a little roast chicken along. Enjoy the ride.

  Still, it’s an odd venture, this Trip of theirs. Times are a-changing. Renfrew’s been receiving letters. Three or four a month. No name on the flap but I can tell it’s the ministry writing from the postal stamp. Richmond upon Thames. You get your map out, you’ll see what you find. New Westminster Palace. The centre of power. Though there’s talk of Parliament moving once again. Farther from London: the walls are already going grey. Trout gets post from the same little post office, but the hand that writes out the address is different, round and feminine, where Renfrew’s man writes like a spider dragging its black guts. Hold it up to the light and you will see the outlines of a rubber stamp. “Victoria Regina,” a fussy signature underneath. A civil servant’s, no doubt, acting for the Crown. Bureaucrats versus lawmakers then; different corridors of power. Makes you wonder what’s inside the letters. And whether Trout and Renfrew ever care to show and tell.

  I turn the boys away, in any case, ring the bell for lights-out. And in the morning the coaches a
rrive, all eleven of them, to carry fifty-eight upper-school boys to the train station. It’s snowed again and the horses are steaming, and don’t one of them shit just as old Swinburne goes walking past. Lovely smell that, fresh horse dung on snow. You want to bottle it and sell it to yer sweetheart.

  I watch them go, wrapped in my old blanket. One of the boys looks back at me all the way to the end of the driveway. He don’t wave.

  Neither do I.

  When they’re gone, I go inside, shovel some coals into the stove, put on a bone for soup. By the time it’s cooked they’ll be pulling in at Oxford.

  INFECTION

  The country stretches before them, white and serene. The sun emerges, seeks out the snow, ignites it. Hedgerows stand out against the blaze, cut up the valleys into irregular parcels; shade trees rising black and crisp, mirroring their shadows: frost for foliage, bereft of birds. Charlie sits, his scarf tied around his ears, hanging out the window of the coach, glorying in the sights. He cannot remember another December this cold, this beautiful. A mile from Oxford one of the wheels gets stuck in a drift and the boys spill out to dig it free; throw snowballs, but make haste, too, afraid of missing the train.

  Oxford itself is a row of fairy castles embroidered by college crests. The streets are full of ladies and their attendants, making purchases. They halt at the station, a procession of coaches, and the whole street stops to watch them get out: young women in fur stoles and muffs pointing them out to one another. Nervously, but also with a sense of joy, Charlie tugs at the nicely tailored jacket of his school uniform and reties his white scarf. There is something very pleasing about walking into the station and tipping one’s hat to the gentlefolk waiting at the ticket counter and watching them respond in kind. School seems many miles away all of a sudden, a thing of the past. They have reentered society and are welcomed as equals, as adults. Charlie is not alone in his reaction. All around him he can see the boys walking taller, smoothing the hair down under their caps, and abandoning all horseplay; looking about themselves with a shy sort of pride. Only Thomas appears untouched by this feeling, walks gloomy, head bowed, forever apart. For a moment Charlie is angry with him, at his inability to enjoy the morning. Then a more generous feeling wins out. He walks over to him, attempts to draw him into conversation.

  “I wonder what platform it is, to London.”

  Thomas looks at him caustically. Don’t pity me, his look is saying. Don’t you dare pity me.

  “We are with the swine.”

  It takes Charlie a moment to understand the remark. Then he sees them, a mass of goats, sheep, and pigs, standing in the filth of their excretions. They are at the far end of the station, on a platform separated from the others by a barrier and a gatehouse, and are being herded onto a series of freight cars. Once the doors are shut on them, snouts appear at the breathing holes, pale, almost colourless nostrils sucking on air. Even from the distance, Charlie can sense their fear.

  “But that’s a freight train.”

  “Most of it is. Food for London. But look.”

  Thomas’s finger points at two passenger cars near the front of the train, recognisable by their rows of windows. Workers mill about on the platform, their chequered caps and waistcoats stained by old Soot. It is a shock to find children amongst them, some as young as nine. Puffs of Smoke trail them. One, a girl of twelve, thirteen years, is dressed only in vest and trousers, despite the cold. Her vest is so drenched in Soot, it hangs heavy off her narrow shoulders. She notices the schoolboys lining up near the barriers and flashes them a harelipped grimace, followed by a shout that’s lost in the distance.

  “What did she say?” he asks Thomas.

  Thomas looks at him, starts to speak, blushes. It is a startling moment, a first. Nothing else has ever made Thomas blush.

  “Better if you did not hear.”

  “A curse word?”

  “Yes. Anatomical. The kennelmaster was fond of it. Back home.”

  “Christ.”

  By now, Charlie realises, his classmates have cottoned on to the fact that they are heading to the far platform. The contrast between the station behind them and what lies beyond the barrier could not be starker. On one side gentlemen in frock coats are reading The Times. On the other—

  “It’s just working people,” Thomas says, as though he has read Charlie’s mind.

  “Yes, but the children…”

  “They ride the train, I suppose. To London and back.” Thomas shrugs. “Not everybody can be so fortunate as to be sent to our school.”

  It’s the first time all morning that Charlie sees him smile. Soon they are both laughing, laughing out loud, with the other boys looking at them like they are madmen.

  Renfrew has approached the little gatehouse. He produces a letter. Even the paper it’s on looks important; a red rubber stamp circles the signature. The stationmaster reads it carefully, then performs a head count. The boys have fallen silent by now. All boisterousness has left them. As they are finally waved through the barrier, a scream sounds, from somewhere deep in the train, an animal bleating out its distress. It sounds like the train itself is screaming. The workers withdraw as they see the schoolboys coming, watch them board from afar. Grains of Soot drift in the air. One such flake settles on the sleeve of a boy near Charlie; he wipes at it but only manages to smear it.

  “Master!” he calls, tears in his voice if not on his face; afraid of being punished.

  Renfrew turns briefly, pushes him along.

  “It does not matter,” he says.

  The statement unsettles Charlie. They are entering a realm with an unknown set of rules.

  They reach the train, walk alongside, towards the front. For a moment it seems to him that it has been painted a matte black. Then he realises it is literally encased in Soot. He reaches out a finger, touches it, recoils.

  “Soot is inert,” Thomas mutters quietly.

  Charlie is not sure what it means.

  Inside, the train is freshly cleaned, cozy. They are travelling in an open passenger coach, in shape and dimensions not unlike the inside of the horse omnibuses he saw in Bath the previous summer. Sitting on the hard benches it is almost possible to pretend one is in school.

  ф

  It takes about a half hour until the landscape starts to change. Then the perfect blanket of white begins to give way to dark blotches of grass more black than green; puddles of meltwater reflect a murky version of the sky. Within two miles the snow stops altogether. Winter oats stand low in the fields, flanked by leafless sycamores and oaks. Everything has a stunted, sickly appearance.

  “Has the weather changed?” Charlie wonders aloud.

  “I doubt it,” says Thomas.

  “Then London is hotter than Oxford?” Charlie chews on the idea. “All the people. And all the factories, I suppose, running their engines.”

  “That. And the Smoke.”

  Thomas points, and as Charlie follows his finger he sees for the first time a smear of grey in the air up ahead. Not the dark plume of a fire, nor the clean contours of a storm cloud, but more like a fog, rising out of the ground, wet and stubborn, resistant to the winds. Within a minute, the landscape around them begins to be covered by a film of dark scum. Ahead lies the city: a hazy, dark sprawl from which grow the slender spires of factory smokestacks, their outlines cleaner, sharper than anything closer to the ground. After another minute the first houses start, grime-covered brick and narrow courtyards, washing lines full of linen more grey than white. Soon the Smoke outside the window becomes impossible to ignore: it tints their vision and saps the strength out of the sun. The train has slowed to walking pace and London seems everywhere, boxing them in in the narrow chasm of its streets. Something takes hold of Charlie, an emotion halfway between fear and spite. He wants to return to Oxford. And also: put the match to this city, see it burn. He is about to tell Thomas when Renfrew gets up, walks to the front of the carriage in his deliberate step. The air above his head is oddly hazy. The Smoke has long
come inside, Charlie realises, has sniffed out cracks in the windows and doors and risen through the undercarriage, seeped into their clothes, their skin, their lungs.

  “Some of you can feel it already,” Renfrew begins. “The Smoke. It’s making you feel—unusual. Afraid. Aggressive. Frivolous. Vain. Your thinking is beginning to be clouded; you dwell on things. The outside world is no longer separate from you but is beginning to insinuate itself into your being. You’re feeling small, insignificant, malleable, but are ready to fight anyone who dares to say so; your little store of prudence is eaten away as though by rats. Temptation presses herself on you—to steal, to cheat, to run away. All we have taught you—all—is put under pressure. It is as though someone has run off with your coat. You stand in your shirtsleeves, and the day is cold. And this is here, in a closed train compartment, a mile yet to the station. Outside, in the centre, amongst the people of London, it will be a hundred times more intense. Some of you may feel like you must succumb. I have one word for you.”

  He pauses, fixes on their faces.

  “Don’t.”

  The word comes down like a blade. Even the other teachers seem startled.

  “Smoke is infectious. It begets itself. People are to it nothing but carriers. There is a greater density of people in London than anywhere else on these, our isles. Here Smoke rules, runs rampant, fans theft, adultery, murder. It feeds on the alcoholic, the vagrant, the prostitute; coats the very city in its Soot. Pity those you meet as you pity the sick. But as for yourselves. One word.”

  He looks around for a boy who can say it with conviction. Julius obliges him. He is sitting at the front, looking pious, calm, in control of himself.