Devil Take the Hindmost

by Martin Cathcart Froden

  He stirs and looks around for something to drink. Then the pain whacks him over the head. Both a pounding headache and then a different kind of pain. Less sharp, but heavy; pulsating through him. Pushing in on him, like he was drowning in mud. He looks down under the covers. Sees a bruised torso under gauze. Runs a hand over his ribs and winces. He tries to sit up, but can’t. Tries to speak, smell, move his fingers, but can’t.

  Then he hears the door open and sees Miriam’s legs come towards him. That’s the last thing he remembers before he has to shut his eyes again.

  ***

  Over the next few days, Paul has only fragmentary glimpses of life. Of being fed soup. Of being washed, of his dressings being cut away from his body as caked blood and pus starts acting like glue. Of Miriam holding his head in her hands, of her trying to hold his gaze.

  He tries to speak, to look back at her for as long as possible. It’s all he wants but he can’t. His body only allows him to be awake for a minute here and a minute there.

  In the back of his mind he questions the reasons for him being nursed in Miriam’s hideout flat, the risk involved, the money he now owes Mr Morton, and the futility of trying to get better, trying to stay alive. Paul thinks about Silas and wonders where he is, and if Silas knows that he is being coerced back to life in a warm, red flat across town from Copenhagen Street. These thoughts, like martins in spring, dart in and out of him. Too quick to act on, or to voice.

  Silas visits and tells him that he’s told Mr Morton that Paul has vanished.

  ‘I told the old goat that you had another accident, a proper one this time, but that you escaped from the hospital.’

  ‘It’s partly true.’

  ‘And that’s the only way I got away with the lie. He’s good at spotting one, but what I told him is at least fifty-one percent true.’

  ‘Thanks Silas,’ Paul says. He sighs deeply. ‘We’re in trouble now, aren’t we?’

  ‘That’s just the half of it. Wait till I tell you the rest. I told him that the most likely place to find you would be Scotland, but that I wasn’t sure where you came from, Maybe Glasgow, is all I said.’

  ‘That’s just a little over a half-truth,’ Paul says, smiling despite the situation.

  ‘It gets worse,’ Silas says. ‘At first he was just sitting there, expressionless. Then he suddenly got up and started hissing “No one makes a fool of me Silas! No one!”’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘It was absurd. Mr Morton got more and more worked up, pacing the office. Punching the walls, and then, with a shriek he tore down the grizzly bear head from the wall. Destroyed it with kick after kick, until the floor was covered with splinters of wood, hair, glass eyes. Bear canines and incisors like a pick-a-stick. I’ve never seen him like that.’

  ‘He didn’t do anything to you did he?’

  ‘Not physically.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘He transferred the debt to me,’ Silas says, his voice flat. ‘Then explained that in the light of many years of good service I have a month to pay it off. I’m now being followed around the clock.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Getting rid of the people following me isn’t hard,’ Silas tells Paul, ‘but it is tedious.’

  Paul sips water from a glass.

  ‘You will understand that I do like my freedom,’ Silas says. ‘Now that’s being tampered with. As for the debt, it makes no difference. I’m already dead, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve been dead for years.’

  ‘Are you in danger?’

  ‘Let’s just say I’m keeping my razor sharp. Besides, he wants the money more than my life. The razor’s not for him. It’s for me.’

  ‘Please don’t, we’ll find a way out of this.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Silas says and stands up to leave. ‘Just remember to not leave the house Paul. You’re under siege and if you’re spotted Miriam would be in even more danger.’

  ‘When will I get out?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ***

  When Paul can think clearly, he fears he’ll never ride a bike again. He already misses the twice-weekly race rush. The steep walls. The sea of spectators flying by. Their shouts of encouragement, their jibes, their bellows of fear of him losing them money. The sounds that ring in his hears, ring in time with his racing pulse. The faint sickness he always feels before a race, and the way it eases off as soon as he’s underway. The loneliness in his individual sprint inside the orb of pain, the long hours spent in the saddle. Not glamorous or exciting, but something he’s gotten used to, something he has become good at.

  One morning he’s aware of Miriam sitting next to him as he wakes up. She holds up a mirror and he sees his face for the first time in almost a week. He looks like a panda. His broken nose has made his eye sockets go dark.

  He tries to get up on one elbow but she gently pushes him back down. He tries to speak, ask all the questions he has buzzing around, but she puts a cool, pine-scented hand on his cheek and an index finger on his lips. She leaves, and he tries to call her back, but can’t. She comes back with three big sofa cushions. She props him up and gets a copper bowl and razor out. Slowly shaves him and puts a soft lotion on his cheeks. The alcohol in his normal aftershave would have stung too much, she tells him. Once she’s happy with his face, she reaches for a book on the table. It’s a thin volume, not more than a pamphlet with a spine really.

  ‘I tidied up my handwriting and had my book bound,’ she says. ‘It cost a fortune, but I wanted to put a full stop to the thing.’ She smiles and says, ‘I’ve been staying in this week. Working hard. Looking after you. It dawned on me that I should probably clean up my family tree. Prune it a little. I did, and now I’ve printed four of these,’ here she holds the book up in the air and sort of shakes it, as if to dry the ink, ‘just for myself really. And if you wanted one.’

  Paul nods. Tries to smile even though it hurts.

  ‘There’s even a verse or two about you now.’

  ‘And you?’ he says, his voice breaking and hoarse from lack of use.

  ‘Not yet. I’m still struggling with the one about my mother.’

  He looks around him and she puts down the book. Lifts a glass of water from the floor. Puts a straw gently between his lips, and a hand on his forehead.

  ‘Will you read for me?’ he asks once he’s had as much water as he can stomach, which isn’t much.

  ‘No, no not today. I would have, but no.’ She looks embarrassed. Paul nods.

  ‘Some other day Paul. You need to rest now. I’ll leave the book here. You can read it yourself, maybe.’

  He nods and smiles. Then the dark blanket of exhaustion falls on him again and he allows himself to drift off.

  ***

  Six days later he sits in the little courtyard with Silas.

  ‘No one saw the last accident you had, the made-up one,’ Silas says. ‘This one on the other hand had thousands of witnesses. And the officials would be talking about it as well, as they were the casket bearers of your lifeless shape. You can’t pull off the same trick twice, but the next time isn’t the same, it won’t be a trick.’

  Paul nods and tries to thank Silas for everything he’s done.

  ‘I didn’t put you up here,’ Silas nods to the walls of the Baths. ‘That was her making. I thought you had died to be honest. On the night of the accident I was out trying to find money, drumming up support. Miriam moved you here.’

  ‘How are things at the Carousel?’

  ‘Has Miriam not told you? Mr Morton is haemorrhaging money, not just on you, and he’s furious about it as you can imagine.’

  ‘So he wants me to pay back Ilya’s debt and my own? As soon as I’m better I’ll race again. I’ll win again.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  Paul looks at the plumes of the peacock prancing in the courtyard. The tail of the male quivering in the morning cold.

  ‘Besides he won’t wait for you to get better.’


  ‘The doctor said I would be…’

  ‘Never mind the doctor. If Mr Morton finds out where you are you’ll need a coroner.’

  ‘I thought you said you found some money.’

  ‘I did, but this is mostly about his pride. And there’s something else too. For the first time in years, he is low on cash. Mr Morton is holding an auction, selling off some of his assets. Turns out he took a hit on the stock market earlier this month.’

  ‘Is the Carousel for sale?’ Paul asks, almost hopeful. If Mr Morton goes bankrupt maybe there’s a chance his – their – debt disappears.

  ‘No, he’ll keep that forever. And if he has to let it go, he’d set it on fire and claim insurance money. No it’s an auction for some of his personal estate, you know, furniture, bonds. Maybe that place out on Nine Elms Lane, a bit of the wine cellar.’ Silas looks up at Paul. Sits in silence for a minute. Then says, ‘This includes Miriam.’

  Paul stares at Silas. Quiet. Then Silas says, ‘Seems like the trips to that brothel in Dublin have made him think.’

  Paul stares into thin air. Then he sniffles. Silas pats Paul on the knee and stands up. The peacock rustles its plumes and shuffles off. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ Silas says, ‘We can talk more then. I want us to think about the Good Friday race, it’s really the only one that generates enough interest and money for us to have a go at. It’s too close in time I realise, just six weeks away.’

  ‘I can’t Silas.’

  ‘I know. In the meantime I won’t tell anyone where you are. Just get better Paul, and let’s take it from there.’

  Silas doesn’t turn up the next day, or the one after that. Miriam, who hasn’t said anything about Mr Morton’s plans, comes home late, looking deathly tired. She tells Paul that Silas is being kept under close surveillance, but that he’s a slippery snake.

  She’s got food and clean new clothes for him, and Silas has given her some of Paul’s things from Copenhagen Street, as the room is now being rented out, the story being that Paul has escaped.

  Once she has unpacked, and changed into her normal clothes she comes and sits next to him on a cushion on the floor. ‘Paul. I know there’s a price for me,’ she says. ‘I know that people over in Dublin are bidding for me, and I know that you know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have said something.’

  ‘I knew before you did, and either way, I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Neither do I. I’m still hoping I will wake up from this nightmare.’

  ‘You won’t,’ she says and puts a hand on his hand.

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘You should get better. And then we might consider actually escaping. Either way, if they try to take me from you and send me over there they wouldn’t catch me alive. There’s a pearl-handled solution.’

  ‘Miriam, don’t say things like that,’ Paul says taking her face in both hands and trying, and not completely succeeding, to catch her eyes.

  ‘You don’t know him like I do,’ she says, voice steely.

  ‘I don’t, and that might be the only thing keeping me alive,’ he says.

  ***

  In his boredom and frustration at not being able to do anything about the situation, Paul composes a long letter to Jack Lauterwasse. It’s mostly numbers and angles. Manufacturer’s names and gratitude in a strange mix. After the crash Paul’s bike was nothing more than scrap metal. He knows the measurements of it. He knows which saddle, which bars, which wheels and tyres he prefers, so this he puts down on paper. Gearing, type of lugs, length of stem. Like a boy’s list of Christmas wishes he writes down everything he would like in a bike. Including colour and number of spokes.

  Miriam is so happy to see him up and about, even if he’s just limping down the stairs to the courtyard to sit all wrapped up in the weak rays of the spring sunshine, and sip tea. Miriam has even promised to buy him a bike. He’s ashamed of having to borrow even more money but as he writes the letter to Jack he realises how much he misses having a bike.

  Three days after the letter was delivered Miriam comes home and urges Paul to come downstairs. There’s a bike, not new, not pretty, not the canary-yellow he wished for, but the numbers are almost right. Jack must have asked around in lots of shops. The only thing different from his old bike is the seat tube. It is split in two, letting the rear wheel peek through, now visible straight under the saddle. This means the wheelbase is shorter, but that can only be for the better, Paul thinks, as it makes for a bike that takes up less space and can squeeze through smaller gaps.

  He asks Miriam to help him up on the bike. Then he just sits there, leaning against a wall, with one hand on her shoulder. She looks anxious at first, but when she sees how wide his smile is she can’t stop herself, and breaks out in a giggle. This in turn makes him laugh, and soon they are laughing and kissing and crying. The emotions pent up from before the crash, followed by him hiding and slowly recovering, and Miriam’s situation getting worse and worse by the day, come out and he climbs off the bike to hold her.

  The sun comes out and bathes them both for a moment. Then he asks her to help him upstairs and asks if she wants to join him in the bath. She can’t speak just yet, just nods.

  ***

  Over the next two days he fiddles with the bike whenever he’s not sleeping. Makes tiny adjustments, cycles slowly round the courtyard, and then makes even more adjustments. It takes his mind off things, momentarily at least.

  He starts riding around the courtyard at night, first just once. The next day, twice, then in circles wider and wider. It’s not big, but within a few days he manages to cycle fast enough to get his heart pumping. He quickly gets used to the shorter bike, and everything else is just as he asked for. Now he knows all he has to do is eat lots, sleep lots, cycle as much as his body will let him. He asks Miriam to see if she can find the blocks that were built for his and Emrys’ Roman races. She brings a pair of them home and he installs it in the courtyard, and cycles at night, a belt around the rim of the rear wheel, a belt he tightens daily to increase the friction. Then he receives a message from Silas. It’s a skull and crossbones crudely sketched with coal on brown wrapping paper, underneath it: 1 April.

  The next day there’s a delivery of two large crates for Miriam. They’re both empty, but inside the second one is an envelope with a train ticket for Sheerness and the address of a B&B.

  The note is from Silas,

  P, you must be climbing the walls. Need to train. Need air. Man to pick up you and bike, concealed in containers, tomorrow at 4am. One week to get in shape.

  ***

  In Sheerness, he trains harder than ever. He wishes for the wind to be against him. To be in his face, so that he can really push himself. He goes scouting for hills. He cycles up and walks down, to strengthen his knees. He carries a backpack full of bricks. He fixes a parcel holder to the back and one to the front of the bike and attaches two seats. He’s the local free taxi, the boy who happily cycles people’s groceries home to them from the shop. He measures out a three-mile loop and times himself. Rages if the twelfth lap is slower than the eleventh, or the first.

  He runs in boggy fields, in water, in heavy boots. All to get as much resistance as possible. He sleeps deeply, eats well and tries not to think about the reprieve he’s been given. Or why a ruthless woman who could just skip out, as she’s facing being sold, stays. On her own she could possibly slip through the closing net.

  Instead, when he’s been ill, she has laid gentle hands on his aching thighs in the evenings. Despite the overshadowing threat, the time they have spent had an air of domestic bliss. Paradoxically it’s been the happiest and the most settled he’s been since moving to London. Or ever.

  One afternoon when he comes back from training, his landlady gives him a letter from Miriam. Harry Wylde has been taken to Saint James’s hospital.

  Paul immediately packs a bag and sets out on the bike. It’s a fifty-five-mile journey. He knows Miriam would stop him from coming t
o London. And that she’d be right to. Nevertheless it’s good training and it’s good to see something other than the routes he’s gotten used to around the little town on the Kentish coast.

  Despite everything it’s a lovely ride. He feels fine, maybe not as explosive as before the accident, but fine. He’s warm and convinced that the saddle needs to come up one inch, and backwards half an inch.

  Once at the hospital, a nurse tells him it’s something with Harry’s liver, ‘But don’t ask him about it, he flies into a rage if you tell him he’s ill,’ she continues. She shows Paul into a room full of beds. Harry looks old and worn out, birdlike on the pillow. After the usual small talk, and Harry asking four times if Paul has any booze with him, or if he would go and get some, they get onto the subject of Paul’s bruised face.

  Paul tells him about the fake injury, the bet and the fall. About the real injury, and hints at the real trouble. Paul gets the feeling that Harry isn’t listening. But it doesn’t matter.

  After a coughing attack, Harry says, ‘She’s one hell of a girl. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Mind, she’s only been to one or two races, but I still remember her.’

  Paul’s too shocked to say anything.

  ‘I know who she is. I know who her boss is, and Silas’ boss,’ Harry says smiling.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I might be a drunk, but I’m not thick. I just hope you’ve got a way out of this,’ Harry says. ‘I can’t be the only one who’s noticed.’

  Paul tells Harry he’s got a big race coming up. One that will make or break him. It’s the Good Friday meet that Harry’s raced many times. Paul tells him he’s more nervous than he’s ever been before. Harry gets something distant in his eye, and says, ‘Paul you know the track doesn’t go anywhere. And you know that’s one of the advantages. You don’t have to stare yourself blind on the vanishing point. There’s no disappearing horizon to aim for. There’s no just around the next bend, it’s all a bend, one long curve. There’s no over the next hill, the only hill is a meandering hill of death to your right.’