Smoke

by Dan Vyleta

  “I told Livia a long time ago. She says it is heresy, and my research an abomination.” She laughs, draws her dressing gown tight around her body, looks scrawny for a moment, diminished, old. “My daughter tells me that if the old books were burned then there was a good reason. That no plague comes amongst us unless God has sent it, and no dog rips out a badger’s throat without God holding the end of the leash.” Lady Naylor pauses, calms herself. “But she has not reported me yet.”

  She walks over to the desk, sits down, straightens papers.

  “My daughter,” she declares abruptly, “lives like she is a china doll. Holding very still. Listening into herself, stiffly, stuck in one posture. She’s waiting. Waiting for something to break, you see, and reveal a secret reservoir of Smoke: an impurity, deep in herself, that will mark her as a sinner. You saw how she was at dinner. She tried to laugh, once or twice. But she isn’t sure how. And whether it’s allowed.” Lady Naylor waves a hand, as though to dispel the thought like a bad smell. “Enough about Livia. She’s made her own bed. How about you? What will you do, now that you know?”

  Thomas feels his heart pound in his chest. The enormity of it all comes crashing down on him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He searches for something simple, some corner of it he can understand.

  “What did you do in London, Lady Naylor? What is it for, that woman’s Soot?”

  “Experiments.”

  “You are looking for a cure. For Smoke.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  She laughs. “How? That’s a very long story. Too much for one night.”

  Panic grabs Thomas. Panic that he will wake, and it will all have been a dream. “But you will tell me, won’t you? Everything!”

  “As much as I can. But not now. I need my sleep.” She looks in his face, finds a plea written there. “One more question then. Something quick.”

  Thomas chews his cheek, afraid to waste his question, like those people in fairy tales who part with their wishes like fools. Then he knows.

  “Sweets,” he says. “Beasley and Son. We ate some but nothing happened. What are they? How do they work?”

  ф

  When Charlie wakes from pleasant dreams in the early hours of the morning it is still quite dark outside. It takes him some minutes to realise he is alone. No sound issues from Thomas’s bed. Curious, he rolls off the mattress, tiptoes forward in the dark until his shin bumps into the other bed. He feels the pillow and finds it quite cold. As he stands, pondering this fact, a light passes the door. It slides through the crack like an inverted shadow, licks a yard of floorboard, and is gone.

  By the time Charlie has stepped out into the hallway, the light is seven or eight steps ahead. The figure that holds it is moving briskly. It blocks the bulk of the glow and hence is visible only in outline, a darkness traced in hues of gold. Fittingly enough, this halo is most radiant around the head.

  Charlie recognises her by her hair. As his eyes adjust, Livia gains solidity, transforms from lamp-sketched apparition into a more corporeal sort of ghost. If the previous day her dress was plain it is now austere: an apron worn over an ankle-length smock, both garments startlingly white. Her hair is honey-thick by gaslight. From her hand swings a porcelain jug.

  Charlie follows her without hesitation and has taken three steps before even being conscious of his decision. He does so neither furtively nor wilfully announcing his presence, but simply follows, his nightshirt fluttering as he rushes to keep step.

  She leads him to stairs: the main stairwell first, then—a long corridor later, lined with portraits, vases, animal heads—a narrower flight that leads them to a barren corridor under a slanting ceiling. The attic. It isn’t clear to Charlie whether Livia has noticed his pursuit. She has not slowed or turned but when she stops before a door ten steps ahead, it appears to him that she is tarrying just long enough to make sure he won’t mistake it for another. Then she disappears inside. A sound greets her, an animal braying, and slows Charlie’s step.

  It is the sound of a beast in pain.

  The room beyond the open door is dark, despite the gas lamp. At first Charlie thinks the walls are painted black. But when his hand brushes one side, the black smears and crumbles and leaves his fingers dark with Soot. The room is large and furnished only with some chairs, a table and dresser, and a large, iron-frame bed. On the bed lies a figure, manacled at wrists and ankles with wide leather straps. Again the strange braying sounds, filling the room. Charlie’s skin puckers when he realises it issues from this man, his arms and legs tugging at the leather binds.

  “He gets agitated in the mornings.”

  Livia’s voice is calm, matter-of-fact. She stands at the table between bed and window, pours water into a washbasin. Already her apron is stained with Soot. When she bends down to run a wetted washcloth over the man’s forehead, he cries again and his body exhales a dark-green burp of Smoke. Slack-mouthed, leering, he wears a mask rather than a face. Whatever features he might call his own are cancelled out by his condition.

  “Mother thinks we must keep it a secret,” Livia goes on, still in the same nonchalant tone. Her eyes are on her work. All the same Charlie has the sensation of being closely watched by her, his every move registered, analysed, judged. “But I say we must accept Providence humbly, without shame.”

  It is only now, as she says it, that Charlie understands.

  “Baron Naylor,” it tumbles out of him. And is followed, with an alacrity that clearly pleases her, for Livia’s eyes light up within her small, finely drawn face: “How can I help?”

  “We must wash and feed him.”

  It proves an awkward, difficult procedure, in part because it necessitates the removal of the leather restraints. Baron Naylor fights them. He is not a young man, perhaps as much as twenty years older than his wife (though it is possible, too, that his illness has aged him, for he is thin and dishevelled, and his molars are dark within his mouth, there at the back where they are hard to clean). For all that he is as strong as an ox and the presence of a stranger appears to upset him. No sooner have they freed his right hand than he snakes it around Charlie’s wrist. Again the baron brays and thick, viscous Smoke crawls out of his skin and works its way up Charlie’s arm. A moment later it is in his nose, his lungs. He begins to struggle with the man, begins to loathe him; disgust floods Charlie and when the madman’s hand reaches up, searching for his throat, Charlie slaps it away with coarse brutality. It is only then, spitting out his anger, that Charlie realises he, too, is smoking.

  Shame cuts through him, winds him, stoppers his Smoke. He backs away, to the wall, where the man’s infection does not reach; stands panting, pressing his back into the wall like a burglar caught red-handed; looks over at Livia and hangs his head.

  “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough.”

  Livia returns his look. Her hands remain upon her father’s body, she is buried to her elbows in the old man’s Smoke, but her head turns and he can see how difficult it is for her, how magnificent her self-control. Her own Smoke is minimal, fine white wisps that escape her lips and colour them grey. It is as though she’s been spoon-fed ashes. Her gown is white, Charlie realises, because she wishes to test herself. Nothing must be hidden. It makes him marvel at her: a feeling not unlike fear. She, for her part, does not hide her disappointment in him; lets go of her father’s limbs and reaches over to the table where she finds a tin box and throws it across to Charlie with a quick, disdainful flick.

  “Here. Mother uses them when she is up here. Take one.”

  Charlie opens the tin and finds a dozen sweets inside. Clear, knuckle-sized, stamped with the familiar symbol: B&S underneath a three-pronged crown. He fishes one out, shakes his head.

  “What do I do? I’ve tried one before but nothing happened. All it did was taste of soap.”

  She does not turn with her answer.

  “Put one in your mouth. Don’t chew it. It’ll pull the Smoke out of your breath and blood, and bi
nd it, long before you show. Before it can infest your mind.”

  Charlie does as instructed, then gingerly, not quite trusting himself, steps up to the bed. Livia has her hands full: her father is fighting her every movement, is spitting, biting, kicking. But this time Charlie’s blood remains cool and his mind clear, almost detached. He takes hold of Baron Naylor’s arms and pins them very gently, speaks to him in low, soothing words, much as one would speak to a frightened pet or an infant; takes the cloth from Livia and cleans his face, his neck and ears. Within minutes the old man calms down, becomes pliable and almost childlike, his features composed. The face that emerges is not unlike Livia’s, fine-boned, heart-shaped, and noble, if old.

  “What now?” Charlie asks.

  “We need to take off his nightshirt, wash his legs and—the rest of him.”

  Livia blushes, points to her father’s midriff. It alerts Charlie to the whole sadness of a situation in which a mother and a daughter have become nurses to their husband and father.

  “I will do it,” he says. “You take a rest.”

  ф

  Washing a man’s legs and body proves surprisingly straightforward once Charlie gets past the simple fact of his nudity. It is, in the end, rather like cleaning yourself. Baron Naylor is so calm now, he even lets Charlie shave him, very slowly and carefully, until five or so years of premature age have been scraped off his chin. Afterwards, the baron dressed in fresh clothes, his bedsheets changed, Charlie joins Livia by the window. Dawn is breaking, the lawn still grey with shadow, the nearby wood a black square framed by lighter fields.

  “Can you see a woman out there, walking out of the woods?” Livia asks in a whisper, then carries on, not expecting an answer. “The servants, the old ones, they have a story about a woman wandering the woods. Lost, they say, living on the edge of them, half in darkness, half in light. They say she is father’s lost soul. His sanity.” She smiles sadly at the windowpane. “But I’ve never seen her, not in a thousand mornings of looking.”

  She turns to Charlie then, studies him, frankly and systematically.

  “You are shocked, aren’t you? Shocked and disgusted. I can see it here.” She points to where his eyebrows have knitted over the bridge of his nose.

  Charlie is silent for a moment, gauging her expression. He knows it is important to give an honest answer.

  “No, I am not,” he says at last. “I have been thinking. It came to me just now, looking out the window with you. This is what Smoke is, isn’t it? Smoke is madness. It’s as simple as that.”

  When she answers, there is a catch of excitement in her voice. It is as though Charlie has just spelled out a long-cherished thought.

  “Plato writes that evil is having a disordered soul.”

  She is about to go on, but breaks off instead. She does not trust him yet.

  “We never read any Plato,” Charlie tells her. “We only learned his dates.”

  Livia chews her lip.

  “Father has his books downstairs, in the library. In Greek. He translated some of them. When he was a professor, at Cambridge. I found his notes.”

  Livia looks over at the man in his bed, shackled again, placid and vacant. Her eyes fall on the razor on the little table. Charlie has washed and wiped it, and left it open to dry. She walks over, folds it, weighs it in her hands.

  “You shaved him,” she says suddenly, as though she has only just discovered the fact. In her head it’s connected, somehow, to Plato, and madness, and sin. He does not quite fathom how. “You have good hands, Charlie Cooper.”

  He masks his embarrassment by shaking his head.

  “Only because of this,” he says, picking the candy from out under his tongue. It has diminished in size and turned dark, almost black, and looks for all the world like a rotten tooth.

  She stares at it in distaste.

  “Throw it. It won’t hold any more Smoke.”

  He nods, closes his fist on the candy.

  “Where do you have it from?”

  “Mother. The government produces it, or rather there’s a special factory that has a government contract. It used to be that it was a big secret. Only very few people were issued them, people in certain positions. Churchmen, for one. Government officials.”

  “Teachers.”

  “Yes. For emergencies; and to ward off infection when they are dealing with common folk. But Mother says that this is changing. Beasley and Son sold the monopoly, and the new owners, they are selling sweets, secretly of course, to whoever can pay. A black market. Mother says they even sell to commoners. Soon, I suppose, greengrocers will sell it, along with tea and soap.”

  Charlie whistles. It sounds brighter than he means it to. “Or along with their liquorice and nuts! But this is good, isn’t it? It means people can fight their Smoke. Suppress it.”

  She grows angry, fierce, her eyebrows knotting.

  “It’s a sin, is what it is. A crime.”

  She stares at him as though she holds him guilty too. In his fist the spent sweet lies sticky against his skin.

  “I better go.”

  Livia does not stop him. All she says, as he walks through the door, is “Merry Christmas.”

  He turns.

  “Already? I lost track of time.”

  “Christmas Eve at any rate. Mother grew up abroad. She keeps to Continental traditions. We’ll have a formal dinner, followed by carols at the tree.”

  “I have no present for you.”

  “It isn’t expected.”

  Her voice, when she says it, is cold and distant. It is as though the morning never happened.

  ф

  “Smoke is madness,” Charlie repeats to himself on the way down the stairs. “That’s why she is how she is. She is her father’s daughter. He lost his reason. So she is afraid.”

  The thought is still with him when he enters the guest room and finds Thomas straddling the threshold of the open veranda door, looking gaunt and sickly in the early-morning light. Rain has soaked one sleeve of his nightshirt and glued it to his arm.

  Charlie closes the door behind himself before he speaks.

  “I know what sweets are. And I understand Smoke.”

  Thomas looks over, water streaming down his face.

  “I know more than that, Charlie. I’ve read the Bible.”

  They sit down on the floor shoulder to shoulder, and explain.

  LIVIA

  We spend Christmas with our guests. Mother, in keeping with the customs of her family, serves carp in black plum sauce and buttered potatoes. She roundly ignores my objection that dressing fish with fruit turns a dish that should at least remind us of a fast into something sweet and gluttonous. We have guests, she says, we can eat convent food when they are gone. The evening is further spoilt when Lizzy, the kitchen maid, is caught attempting to steal a present from under the tree. It is I who have the misfortune to catch her. The silly goose of a girl gets tangled in a crude lie, then immediately bursts into Smoke. Mother has little choice but to dismiss her, and we all watch as she runs off, her thick shoes making a racket on the floor and her skirt riding very indecently up the back of her calves.

  Despite this, a certain solemnity prevails throughout the holiday. I am delighted to discover that Mr. Cooper—Charlie, as he insists I must call him—has a lovely voice for carols. He is a well-mannered, even charming guest. On the morning of Christmas he surprises me by waiting outside my father’s room when I arrive. He does not explain but blushes rather becomingly, takes the jug and the washcloth out of my hands, and sets to helping me. I like him for that blush. He insists on not taking a sweet this time and humbly steps outside when the Smoke overwhelms him, until he has reclaimed his calm. Father has taken a shine to him and can be heard humming a nonsense melody as we leave. Mr. Cooper falls in with it and starts skipping down the corridor like a fool.

  Mr. Argyle is a different matter. He humiliates me. There is something to his gaze, something forceful and insolent and searching that makes me aware o
f the plainness of my dress and hairstyle, the scuffed old shoes I wear around the house. It is not that I wish to appear prettier for him—God knows I would rather be spared his stares—and yet I have found myself donning the odd piece of jewellery for dinner and have slipped into the silk gown Mother gave me for my birthday, just to put him in his place. Not that I see much of this dark cousin of mine. Mr. Argyle spends his afternoons shut up with Mother, who is filling him with her theories. It is hard to tell whether or not he believes her: she, too, is subject to his gaze. Its force is such that it leaves his own face inscrutable. He must be a most unpopular boy at school.

  However, perhaps I should be grateful for his presence. It helps me guard against complacency. Each evening I sit down after my prayers and examine my feelings. The visitors—Charlie Cooper; his presence at my father’s bedside—have enriched my life and I find myself, for once, content. But I am pleased to report that there is no joy in me when I rise in the morning to attend to my work. Joy is not a sin. But it is always better to act from duty. What one does from inclination one may do thoughtlessly. Inclination is fickle. More than that: it may lead you astray. One day, you might find yourself smoking, thinking you are doing good.

  Mother says that I am obsessed; that far from dismissing Smoke, I have made it my idol. Indeed I am grateful for the Smoke. It tells us when we err. Imagine a world in which we err and nobody notices. Not even oneself. Until one goes to seed by increments and slides into the madness of villainy. Smoke eats our reason with a charcoal spoon. We measure our humanity against its darkness. It is good it leaves a mark.

  On the second day of Christmas, Mother sits up late with our guests, lecturing on history. The day the Smoke came. She has sent the servants to bed. Her heresy is not for them.

  Smoke, I remind her, comes from God.

  So, she says, does cancer.

  There is a lesson, I say, in cancer, too, and Mr. Argyle glares at me with such an intensity of anger that it makes me want to quit the room. I had forgotten his mother succumbed to that disease. Once again it is Mr. Cooper who saves the evening by suggesting a game of whist. During the game, he draws out Mother into telling stories from her time in Paris and Vienna. It is years since I have heard a laugh and, against my better judgement, I am happy.